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Post by Sarge on Apr 2, 2020 0:03:10 GMT -5
Yeah, I played through Daikatana back in 2017. Apparently gave it a 6.5 at the time. It's a lot better than you'd expect, given the platform and its namesake.
I've always wondered if Gulliver Boy was worth playing. I know that the series had games on other platforms as well.
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Post by Ex on Apr 2, 2020 1:04:31 GMT -5
I finished the Cancer King Ruins in Rogue Galaxy tonight. For a taste of that area here's a video I did not record: (This is from the PS4 PSN port, but the original PS2 version I'm playing looks practically identical, honestly. Just a slightly less crisp resolution.)In my game, my sidekicks are Kisala and Lilika. This particular dungeon reminded me of the Garamsythe Waterway area of FFXII. Anyway clearing these ruins finishes up chapter 8 for me. Got five more chapters to go in this artificially bloated - yet ever so barely appealing enough to continue - pretty mess of a JRPG. So far this game has been an absolute cakewalk in general. For every normal encounter, I just have Jaster (main character) use his Desert Wind V2 ability to kill all enemies instantly, worst case just cast it twice. For bosses, I have a character do a party attack buff, another character do an anti-status effect party buff, then have Jaster cast Illusion Sword (makes his sword a ranged weapon). Bosses drop like flies against that battle setup.
The one thing that saves this game is its graphics. They are cel shaded correctly, and have aged very well as a result. Rogue Galaxy originally released in 2005 in Japan, and for a 2005 PS2 release these graphics are really incredible. But the gameplay itself is just vapid, and the story is lame and boring. I'm not emotionally or cerebrally invested in these characters or their plight at all. But I know if quit playing now I'll just be mad at myself later. Might as well finish the damn thing. When I first started playing this game two months or so ago, I was impressed for the first ten hours or so. But that initial impression has worn down to a ho-hum experience. Right now I'd give Rogue Galaxy a 7/10 at most. Who knows... maybe the final third will dramatically improve things once more. Come on let's get it together Akihiro Hino.
Edit:
To add some positivity here, the part of Rogue Galaxy I have enjoyed the most so far was the planet Alistia. This is a sidequest scenario that wasn't even in the original Japanese release, it was added to the western versions of the game. Alistia is a tropical ocean planet, and I enjoyed this area a whole lot. Here's a video of that part of the game:
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Post by Sarge on Apr 2, 2020 13:58:50 GMT -5
Honestly, this was part and parcel of what Level-5 often did with their games. This really cemented the era of "pad those hours out!" I still really enjoyed Rogue Galaxy, but you're not wrong, there was a lot of extra stuff I had no interest in pursuing heavily in there.
Anyway, I stayed up way too late last night playing Rolan's Curse II. I've knocked out 5/8 bosses. Interestingly (and thankfully!) you can reacquire helpers you leave behind, with their levels intact.
Leveling is done quite differently in this game as well. Much like Legend of the Ghost Lion, you have to explore and find upgrades in treasure chests. If you find a chest and it has a small healing item, then you'll know that was intended for a party member you don't have yet, and the chest will reappear when you come back. Otherwise, it will upgrade whoever's face is on the icon a level and disappear for good.
Your party members get upgrades after you finish each quest in their particular area. So far, my members have been an elf (upgrades primary from throwing daggers to a boomerang), a cleric (upgrades a shield spell to a healing spell, yay!), a zombie (gets a thunder rod to use for his MP attack), a magician (wider range default attack), and a martial artist (who shares my name, and also my MC's name, heh). I haven't gotten his upgrade yet, so that's the next item of business.
The hero also finds his sword upgrades significantly - it gets a crazy amount of range, both in the forward direction as well as adding side-to-side width. His power-ups seem a bit harder to track down, which I assume is because he's the one character always with you.
EDIT: Rolan's Curse II down for the count. I tried all the members. The next one I got was a "cupid", an angel girl who shot arrows and once her wings are healed, she can teleport you to any major area for a set MP cost. This is awfully useful if you want to scour previous areas for more power-ups, or swap out a party member! However... I gave up potentially the most powerful character to do that, Lane, my healer. Her heal spell heals everyone, so in boss battles, you can tank the mess out of them, swapping to her last, then using her healing to get everyone back up to snuff to do it again. It's even better if you have some MP restoratives on hand (and you should be stocking the big ones for the final battle). Then I got the Black Knight, Zold. Super duper powerful, and his sword upgrades to shoot a long beam shot. Narrow range, though, so he's not as versatile as the hero even if he's more powerful. Heck, his attack power starts higher than the hero's!
Regardless, I didn't spend time moving through previous areas to try to beef him up more. However, working through the remaining bits, I managed to get all my other members (Kyle the zombie, Lane, hero) up to the max level, 16. (I'm assuming this because the hero's HP also becomes 255.) I then proceeded to go in and tank the mess out of the final boss, not even caring about dodging. He takes a ton of hits, so this is the fastest way to take him down.
Graphically, the game actually has some really nice spritework. Areas tend to be quite varied in how they look - graveyards, ruins, forests, it's all quite nice. The gameplay is a bit stiff, though - JRPG movement here, and you'll stick on the edges of objects often because you need to be aligned correctly to move through. Once the hero gets upgraded a bit, combat gets easier, since you can stay out of harm's way by attacking at offsets from the enemies. Some of the music tracks are nice, some less so, but overall they get the job done.
I don't know if mechanically this would actually deserve a 7/10. There's a lot to like here, but there are games I rate at that level that are clearly better. But it's also better than average, so I'll bring it down a notch and say a 6.5/10 at the top end. Also, I don't know who put that HLTB time in, because I know it took me a lot longer than 2.5 hours to finish. Probably four or five. In fact, given how much I explored, yeah, I'd say five. No in-game timer for me to be sure, though.
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Post by Ex on Apr 2, 2020 20:27:20 GMT -5
Honestly, this was part and parcel of what Level-5 often did with their games. I've played and finished a handful of Level-5's JRPGs so far. With the exception of Dragon Quest VIII, L5 seem to excel at making gorgeous vapid busy work. Now maybe they got better at RPG design over the years, but I don't know yet. Rogue Galaxy is like dating a beautiful ditz. She's fun to look at but can't hold a deep conversation. Pretty cool your first beat for this month was a Game Boy title. I've got one I'm looking at as well, if I get around to it in time. I have to ask, have you already beaten the original Rolan's Curse?
Also RC2 has one of the best Game Boy covers ever, ya gotta show it off man:
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Post by toei on Apr 2, 2020 20:55:56 GMT -5
Ex Dragon Quest VIII was great because Yuji Horii was still the main game designer and scenario writer, and Toriyama and Sugiyama were still doing their thing. Level-5 supplied everything else, including that clean, clean cel-shading, but they didn't have to supply the substance. Dark Cloud is okay if you want a straight up, dungeon-focused action RPG with a light Soul Blazer-style world rebuilding gimmick and little story. It's not particularly long or bloated either. I remember you enjoyed Children of Mana, so it's kind of in the same vein.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 2, 2020 21:00:01 GMT -5
I really enjoyed Dark Cloud back in the day. I'm not sure how I would take it to now though since I'm not big on randomized/rogue elements. But that was kind of a unique experience to me at the time. I never got around to the sequel though, which sounds even more systems heavy with some weird mechanics.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 2, 2020 21:04:01 GMT -5
Ex: No, I haven't finished the original. Honestly, I wanted to show my EverDrive GB some more love, but was suckered by that "two hours" time on HLTB. Psh, right. If you use a walkthrough and just blaze through the game. If you're thorough, double that. And yeah, that is a pretty cool cover. I should have posted more pics, because it really does look nice. I'm impressed by what some devs were able to do with that humble hardware and four colors.
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Post by Ex on Apr 2, 2020 21:32:16 GMT -5
Level-5 supplied everything else, including that clean, clean cel-shading, but they didn't have to supply the substance. Very good point. "Okay" is about right. I beat it back in 2013. These were my thoughts seven years ago: "Well Level 5 had to start somewhere. So they gave us this... a blend of a roguelike dungeon crawler and Soul Blazer town rejuvenating. This game has its charms, and in the beginning is actually kind of fun. Crafting your own weapons and designing the town layouts are the strongest highlights. However, about midway through the charm wears off, and the formula becomes all too tedious. Basically Level 5 took what should be a 12 hour game and used time wasting methods to stretch that out to 30 hours. To see things through to the end, you'll need a mountain of patience and a bit of a masochistic streak (especially for the last boss). Supposedly Dark Cloud 2 (AKA Dark Chronicle) fixes all the problems this game has. So I would suggest skipping this one and going straight to its sequel instead. 7/10"I own a real copy of, but have still not yet played, the sequel. Of Level-5's RPG output, I've beaten Crimson Shroud, Dark Cloud, Dragon Quest VIII, Dragon Quest IX, and I'm close to beating Rogue Galaxy. Of all those, I'd only give high marks to CS and DQ8. Matsuno saved CS from being vapid junk. But there was still some artificial longevity nonsense in it that I'm sure was NOT his doing. was suckered by that "two hours" time on HLTB. Psh, right I just checked and as I guessed, it's a red time. Distrust that particular hue. Only blue times on HLTB are genuinely in the ballpark!
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Post by Sarge on Apr 2, 2020 23:00:34 GMT -5
Well, it depends, but you're right, that's a warning. I've had some red times be pretty spot-on. My guess is that some folks just didn't estimate their time well. Either that, or I'm doing a poor job of it, but I absolutely know I was over two hours.
Dark Cloud 2 is a lot more fun mechanically, but I'd almost call the experience a bit... rogue-like? Dungeon floors and treasure are randomly generated.
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Post by Ex on Apr 2, 2020 23:08:01 GMT -5
Well tonight I put another 30 minutes into Rogue Galaxy. This time the game decided throw me into a one on one boss battle. Forcing me to use a party character I never use versus a difficult boss. Well since the character I never use is under-leveled and under-equipped, he got his ass handed to him. The battle is quite the brickwall as a result. Why not punish the player for ignoring an optional party member? Hyuk hyuk. I now have two choices: 1) Spend hours leveling up the stats of the required character, while grinding up better gear for him, and collecting crafting ingredients to unlock his extra combat abilities. A three to five hours investment.
2) Put this gold plated turd out of my misery.I'm choosing option #2. I've been struggling for a while now to make myself keep playing Rogue Galaxy, and I've had quite enough of it. I promised myself last year I would no longer force myself to finish mediocre or outright bad games, and it's time to uphold that promise. 36 hours of my life wasted on this game, oh well. I now know why no one ever talks about Rogue Galaxy. It deserves to be forgotten. Akihiro Hino is a good business man. He is not a good game director, nor a good game writer.
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I will start playing Seiken Densetsu 3 tomorrow.
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