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Post by Sarge on Nov 15, 2018 14:29:20 GMT -5
Those are legitimate criticisms of AtLII. I was reticent to mention them, but I definitely remember those little flaws. They didn't impact my enjoyment severely, though. Kind of like I still don't care for the run through the prehistoric castle in Chrono Trigger, or my annoyance with several forced encounters in other areas. I liked AtLIII as well, honestly. It feels a bit different, with the shift to the mission structure and the relative ease of the combat, but the localization is still top-notch. And those "side quests" provide a lot of insight into the characters on your team, so they feel worthwhile. Plus, as mentioned, they're breezy enough that you can blow through them pretty easily overall. If memory serves, it's not even a grid in TotS; it unchains you from a grid entirely, and you end up with radial ranges and whatnot. I know there's another game that handled things similarly, but I'll be darned if I can remember it right now. I like Urushihara's style on the more mature guy characters. Stuff like this is pretty cool:
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Post by toei on Nov 15, 2018 14:55:02 GMT -5
Oh yeah, the older guys are cool, and the girls are pretty. Some of the younger guys look like pretty girls, though, which isn't really my favorite style. The character design is good overall, though, don't get me wrong.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 15, 2018 16:10:39 GMT -5
Oh yeah, the older guys are cool, and the girls are pretty. Some of the younger guys look like pretty girls, though, which isn't really my favorite style. The character design is good overall, though, don't get me wrong. Yeah. I get exactly what you're saying. I don't care for effeminate-looking guys, although they tend to be a JRPG staple. I've gotten used to it over the years.
I am reminded, though, of a line from the defunct X-Play talking about Magna Carta: Tears of Blood: "The guys look like girls, and the girls look like porn stars." Pretty accurate, honestly. (That's in line with Hyung-Tae Kim's style, of course.)
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 15, 2018 18:15:23 GMT -5
Urushihara drew dudes too? Never noticed I guess.
I'm excited to hit up Twilight of the Spirits eventually but seriously yeah, pretty much never knew it existed until rarely seeing it name dropped around here and whatnot. toei put it best in that Arc the Lad 1 is just a straight up prologue to the second game, which is about 5x times longer and bigger in scope. It's also one of the rare SRPG's that lets you walk around in towns, dungeons, etc, which is a game changer to me. This genre can get pretty boring when you're just navigating menus and grids forever. The entire cast from the first game eventually joins up with 2's cast, to really sum up how much bigger it is. Arc the Lad 1 is like Shining Force in its simplicity, even moreso in ways... but then 2 is like if Matsuno got his hands on the series and they had a way bigger budget. I also love its mesh of Western/contemporary/sci-fi settings.
Count me in for one that disliked Arc 3 though. Hated the graphical style change, the boring mission/job based structure of the story, etc. Honestly looking back I'd hardly call it "bad", but I didn't like it nearly as much as the first two and never finished it.
My head space isn't in the boards or normal this last week or so but I love topics like this so I'll have to try and think of some stuff, other than my typical call for wishing Breath of Fire 4 got more love. Didn't care for the first three at all, they were some of the most cliche' boring JRPG's I've ever played but for whatever reason get all the attention when the blissful BoF4 never does and I'll never know why. This was peak Capcom JRPG surpassing even some of Square Soft's stuff.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 15, 2018 19:19:55 GMT -5
Oh, man, Breath of Fire IV was so good. I don't really understand why BoFIII seems to be the better-regarded game in the series when it's not even the best on PSX. In my opinion, anyway.
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Post by anayo on Nov 15, 2018 19:48:05 GMT -5
Oh man, pool combined with overly dramatic anime is just deliciously wacky.
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Post by Ex on Nov 15, 2018 21:40:13 GMT -5
Didn't care for the first three at all, they were some of the most cliche' boring JRPG's I've ever played Oh, man, Breath of Fire IV was so good. I don't really understand why BoFIII seems to be the better-regarded game in the series when it's not even the best on PSX. I enjoyed the first BoF, but that was back in 1998. Today I doubt I'd have the patience for it. I tried playing BoF2 in the early '00s, but didn't finish the game, I thought its plot and scenario designs were pure trash. I beat BoF3 in 2009, but overall I thought it wasn't very good. BoF3 had an excellent OST, and great graphics... but again, bad plot and haphazard scenario design.
I have never played BoF4. It is installed on my PSP though. What makes it so much better than the first three BoFs? What changed? Oh man, pool combined with overly dramatic anime is just deliciously wacky. Wacky indeed. Although this game holds considerable sentimental value for me. I wrote a piece about why four years ago: ardentexhuminator.blogspot.com/2014/09/dont-scratch-on-story.html
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Post by Sarge on Nov 15, 2018 22:35:26 GMT -5
I enjoyed the first BoF, but that was back in 1998. Today I doubt I'd have the patience for it. I tried playing BoF2 in the early '00s, but didn't finish the game, I thought its plot and scenario designs were pure trash. I beat BoF3 in 2009, but overall I thought it wasn't very good. BoF3 had an excellent OST, and great graphics... but again, bad plot and haphazard scenario design. I have never played BoF4. It is installed on my PSP though. What makes it so much better than the first three BoFs? What changed? So, I actually like BoFII a lot. Less from a plot standpoint; the localization was notoriously trash, which certainly didn't do it any favors. I still want to play through the retranslation one day. Mechanically, though, I really dig it. I think the first game is quite solid as well, although it really ends up being a gussied-up Dragon Quest clone in some ways. Still, I think it was a solid game and worth playing over some of its contemporaries. It's a "safe" game. Now, BoFIV just has a lot more polish than BoFIII. The art style is much better in my opinion, the pacing is better, the text speed doesn't crawl, and I don't remember there being massive difficulty spikes like those that afflicted the third game. And honestly, I thought the plot was a lot better, too. I don't want to really spoil it, but at any rate, seeing the protagonist and antagonist and being able to control both was pretty fascinating. Sure, it's been a long time since I played through it, but I still like it when I boot it up every now and then.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 15, 2018 22:42:33 GMT -5
Everything. Breath of Fire IV feels like it's a completely different series outside of its name and the usual Ryu protagonist who can transform into dragons. I think Nina is a recurring character "name" too. If I remember right, there was some story arc in the first or second game about a giant frog or cockroach... that is the extent of what I remember about those games. I got 10 hours into BoF3 and Ryu was still a kid, maybe it gets better after a time leap but I wasn't interested enough to stick around. The only thing I recall about the OST's for 1-3 is that 3's Forest Theme COMPLETELY RIPS OFF CHRONO TRIGGER. I'm sure I don't even need to link the CT trick for comparison. I've only played and beaten BoF4 once so far (shocking!?) but it has one of the best and most nostalgic inducing OST's on the PSX to me. (find me a BoF1-3 track this epic)
Graphically, it's everything I wish Xenogears was. It has a similar style with some sprites layered on 3D stuff, but unlike Xenogears' free roaming camera that can make much of it look nasty, BoF4 has fixed isometric camera angles you can rotate through, so it keeps some sense of symmetry and is always easy on the eyes. The gameplay is amazing and it predates FFX or whatever in allowing you to cycle through your characters in battle. Bad ass. The difficulty is pretty solid too from what I remember, I recall the final dungeon especially being no pushover. The bad ending is still probably the most evil ending I've seen in a JRPG. A key standout feature of the game is frequently being able to play through the eyes of the main antagonist. He is something of an immortal, awakened from a deep slumber, reborn to retake his Imperial throne while they and the current Emperor opposes his return to power. There are moments when you see some humanity and layers in him, like a portion early on when he's knocked out and some couple in a small hut care for him. So it's a journey on both sides. Also, the game is divided into two continents with two different battle themes per the two areas (and a slew of awesome boss themes). It's always awesome when JRPG's go an extra mile there. Beyond this, the story and characters are all awesome along with it being quite serious and dark at times. I recall it really feeling like an epic 90's anime/JRPG adventure with the greatest vibes.
It's a masterful product of all the best elements taken from 16/32bit JRPG's jam packed into the ultimate package. I won't say I'm an expert on Capcom RPG's but I don't know if I'll ever play anything they did in the genre this good ever again. And since Capcom aren't really renown for their RPG's or anything that's not to sell it short, for me BoF4 is among the best on the PSX and outclasses some of Square's titles.
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Post by toei on Nov 16, 2018 2:13:30 GMT -5
I like BoF, LOVE BoF2 - top ten RPG ever made, amazing story, memorable cast, I don't know what the hell you're all talking about - and liked BoF3 almost as much. I never understood why people knock the giant cockroach subquest in 2, which, by the way, takes up about 10-15 minutes of the entire game. It's a clever and amusing moment. You encounter a poor man whose house is infested by roaches, and, as a favor, walk in and beat up the giant cockroach boss. This could have happened in Earthbound and no one would bat an eye. There's a strain of quirkiness running through the game - you also enter an obese queen's body as one point and beat up all her fat cells to make her slimmer. Despite this, the core story is still dramatic, with one of the best set-ups I've seen - you go for a nap outside as a child, and when you get back to town, no one, not even your family, remembers you or knows you ever existed. You flee the village, and years pass. The characters are badasses - Bow, Katt, Sten, Bleu, and especially my armadillo bro Rand. Rei from BoF3 is also a boss, and it had seamless battles like Chrono Trigger's, except random (but with no screen transition). These games are not generic at all. They have a ton of heart and charm. Even gameplay-wise, apart from the fact that it popularized the isometric combat view reprised by Suikoden, you've got the character transformations, the fusions, and field abilities (for example Sten's long arms allows you to grab onto poles like a hook and access certain areas, etc.) BoF4 still had some BoF elements (same basic battle system, Ryu and Nina looking about the same as ever), but it was such a huge step down. Even the towns were frequently stupidly designed - the streets and alleys were so narrow that, combined with the isometric view, you could barely see your characters and NPCs between the walls and roofs. What kind of RPG makes it hard to navigate towns? There was no more overworld. They just removed exploration out of the equation for no reason. I remember liking the parts where you played as the demon-type guy, but Twilight of the Spirits did that better. I struggled to even finish it. Capcom's characters designers are some of the best.
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