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Post by toei on Feb 26, 2019 2:59:31 GMT -5
Ex I know! Part of the reason why I wanted to try it now was because of that post. Ten hits for a slime seemed insane. Turns out it's four when you start out - the bigger issue is that it's really hard to actually hit them, so a lot of the time your sword is just swinging through it. I don't doubt you had to swing at it about 10 times to kill it. Thing is, the PCE-CD version of the first two games seems really good (cue bonesnapdeez saying it is), and I could deal with the X68000 version, too, but in English we have the choice between an extremely choppy MSX2 version with a so-so translation and this SNES port. So I was hoping it'd be at least decent. I wish all the PCE-CD versions of the series were translated. Xak 1 & 2, Xak 3 with subbed cutscenes (the Nightwolve patch doesn't touch those), Fray Gaiden.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Feb 26, 2019 10:09:27 GMT -5
Broken record here, but SNES Xak gets way better once it gets rolling. Only that first overworld segment feels really tedious.
Not only is Xak I + II on PCE a great collection of enhanced ports, I'd consider one of the best games ever, period. And it boasts a top 5 all-time soundtrack.
Here's what the combat on PCE looks like, by the way.
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Post by Ex on Feb 26, 2019 10:34:07 GMT -5
Ten hits for a slime seemed insane. Turns out it's four when you start out - the bigger issue is that it's really hard to actually hit them, so a lot of the time your sword is just swinging through it. I don't doubt you had to swing at it about 10 times to kill it. The game's lack of visceral feedback made it seem like I hit the slime, even when I didn't. I guess because the slime's actual hit box is so tiny, even when your sword swings into its sprite, it's not necessarily hitting the tiny hit box. Which is just dumb, honestly. But still, even four hits on a beginning-of-the-game- slime is way too tedious. Not only is Xak I + II on PCE a great collection of enhanced ports, I'd consider one of the best games ever, period. I'd totally be down to play this - if it were available in English. Trying to play through an RPG where I can't read any of the text, yeah that definitely impacts the experience negatively for me. I understand the core gameplay is still there, and you can still enjoy the graphics and music. But not knowing what NPCs are saying, or being unable to read cutscene narrative - that's a big deal for me with this genre. Here's hoping we start seeing more PCE/PCE-CD English fan trans in the future.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 26, 2019 11:04:51 GMT -5
That's what is becoming abundantly clear for me with many RPGs. Now, I could probably stomach it a bit more with ARPGs that play well, but turn-based JRPGs with no language understanding? I just don't see the point. I mean, the plot has been "eh" for Mystic Ark, so even though that game is mechanically solid enough, it's not really pulling me in. I very much plan on finishing it up this week if possible. But that holds true for games that are story-based for the most part anyway, which fits with Ex's thread on good writing in games.
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Post by Ex on Feb 26, 2019 11:22:22 GMT -5
With Japanese-only action-RPGs, I'll concede that they're playable enough with a walkthrough - preferably if the walkthrough translates NPC and narrative dialogue. But I still don't find playing a video game, while cross-referencing a document in tandem, to be ideal. Breaking away from the game to read the documentation diminishes the immersive factor.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 26, 2019 11:42:32 GMT -5
Yeah, that's the only reason I haven't played through Princess Crown that way. Just too distracting.
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Post by toei on Feb 27, 2019 2:44:04 GMT -5
Despite what I said earlier, I continued playing SNES Xak. I'm about 2/3rds through the game, but I'm seriously considering dropping it. I'll be straightforward: this is probably the worst action RPG I've ever played, and definitely the worst action RPG on the SNES. This is not hyperbole. It's broken. The battle system is absolute trash, it's super grindy, it's terribly balanced - enemies either kill you in two hits or can't damage you at all -, and there's a ton of backtracking. The majority of the game consists of fighting; contrary to a lot of ARPGs, there are no real puzzles, and as the game was originally released in 1988, there isn't a lot of story, either, so considering that's what you do 90% of the time, it sucking so much is unforgivable. As I've explained before, your sword is too short, hit detection is weird, and enemy behavior is super annoying. When you get close, they all just rush at you, and hitting them doesn't push them back; instead, it makes them temporarily invincible, as does bumping into you. So the normal way to fight is to hit an enemy, take a couple steps back, hit it again, and so on, until it's dead. Alternatively, you can hit them on one side, then get around them and hit them from another. Either way, you have to do this thousands of times, because there are a ton of enemies. Progress is painfully slow. The game takes after the first two Ys games in every way; you tend to spend a lot of time in each dungeon, as they feature NPCs and subquests, and enemies become stronger every few floors, so you constantly have to grind to stay up in levels or be able to buy all the stuff you need. It's never as grindy as it is in the beginning, where you have to spend almost an hour grinding before you can do anything, but it never really stops, either. Walking speed is nice and fast in town, but as soon as there are a few enemies around, the game suffers from severe slow downs. I don't know if I should blame the SNES's CPU or Sunsoft; SNES games don't usually feature that many enemies on-screen, but I'm sure it could have been programmed better, regardless.
I went and played the PC Engine CD version for a while, just so I could compare. First impressions: the CD music is top notch, and the visual style much more appealing, with more realistically-proportioned characters and a Ys feel to the interface (the characters in the SNES remake have small bodies and heads that seem huge and weirdly round even by SD standards; they look like Cabbage Patch Kids). There are beautiful anime cutscenes, courtesy of Production I.G., a renowned animation studio. The walking speed is about twice as fast, and it never slows down. The battles play out like old-school Ys, except you have to hold a button to keep your sword drawn. They're extremely fast - running through weaker enemies in a fraction of a second and pushing stronger ones against trees, mountains or walls until they die feels like Half-Minute Hero or Ys IV: Dawn of Ys. The period of level grinding at the beginning, which took 45 minutes to an hour on the SNES, took me 12 minutes. Considering you level up much faster in the dungeons, it's reasonable to assume that there's no real grinding for the rest of the game. More importantly, speed is fun; fumbling around clumsily trying to hit things is not. Even when it comes to backtracking, walking twice as fast and not having to stop to tediously fight groups of monsters blocking your way every few steps would naturally make all the difference. Another mechanic taken from Ys is that you can regain your health if you stand still for a moment. This is extremely slow on the SNES; you can lose 90% of it in literally a second (two hits or so when you get to a new area, most of the time), but you have to stand still for a full two minutes or so to regain it. Not so on the PCE-CD, where it starts to refill at a rapid pace the moment you stop walking.
Conclusion: I'd still love to play a translated version of Xak I & II on PC Engine CD, I'm sure it's good, but the SNES port is straight-up irredeemable trash.
Meanwhile, if you want to play a Xak game in English, your only legitimate option is Xak III, which is absolutely solid, though as with Dawn of Ys, you'll have to follow along with a transcript for the anime cutscenes, which weren't subbed (there aren't that many of these, though). Or I guess the MSX games, if you don't mind incredibly choppy scrolling and animations and terrible english translations.
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Post by Ex on Feb 27, 2019 9:16:44 GMT -5
Well toei , what you're describing sounds exactly like what I expected the game to be, hence I dropped it. I just don't have the patience for that level of grind anymore. It reads like SFC Xak is a short game, so the developers tried to artificially pad the length by making the grind so heavy. Aside from the grind, the combat mechanics are just awful in SFC Xak. Conclusion: I'd still love to play a translated version of Xak I & II on PC Engine CD, I'm sure it's good, but the SNES port is straight-up irredeemable trash. I too would enjoy trying Xak I + II on PCE-CD. Not looking gift horses in the mouth and all that; but I do wish the fan translation community would give other platforms as much love as the FC and SFC get. There are so many other RPGs on other platforms (especially disc based), and all the big hitters on FC/SFC have already been translated at this point.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 27, 2019 10:58:27 GMT -5
I'm on the end run in Mystic Ark, y'all. Beat "Darkness" last night, I have a side quest I'm going to finish off in the fairy tale world, then I'm off to make the run to the last boss. Not sure if I'm leveled enough, but so far I haven't hit anything too difficult. Swapping Lux out for Meisia has been the smartest thing I've done, just for the healing. The first-order effect is obvious: you keep your team alive. The second-order effect, though, is that keeping up your HP allows you to use Powerwave on your other two fighters, which relies on HP for how powerful it is. You can deal some pretty significant damage this way.
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Post by Ex on Feb 27, 2019 11:25:31 GMT -5
The first-order effect is obvious: you keep your team alive. The second-order effect, though, is that keeping up your HP allows you to use Powerwave on your other two fighters, which relies on HP for how powerful it is. You can deal some pretty significant damage this way. This flow process, and boosting effect by cross party member coupling, reminds me of Etrian Odyssey style mechanics. Anyway, you're on the home stretch now man, you can do it!
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