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Post by Sarge on Sept 19, 2021 22:54:21 GMT -5
I really enjoyed it, even if it was just a dungeon crawler. My Nemissa had a 35 magic stat by the end, and I went with the fire family of spells. There was only one boss that really gave me trouble, because it was strong to her spells. I pretty much decimated everything else in my path.
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Post by toei on Sept 26, 2021 13:19:15 GMT -5
I played nearly 3 hours of ...iru! today, a recently-fan translated PSX horror game. Unfortunately, and although I'm pretty far into it, I think I'll drop it. The game takes place during the span of one evening in a Japanese high school on a small island. A few students and staff who stayed after class to set up a festival taking place the next day find themselves locked in the school, as demons start appearing, etc. etc. This isn't an action-adventure game like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, as there is no combat or action; there are a few times where you have to hide, Clock Tower-style, but it's quite basic and easy to do so. While the premise and story is pretty much lifted directly from Eko Eko Azarak, a '70s horror manga that was turned into a series of live-action films and a tv series starting in 1995 (just a few years before this game), there's a certain charm to it, especially if you enjoy '90s 3D like I do, and it may have turned out decent if the gameplay didn't consist of running around endlesslym trying to trigger flags to make the game advance. This is a common complaint with Japanese adventure games, but I've never seen one where it was that bad. In the beginning you only have access to one floor, so things flow relatively well. Once you gain access to the other two floors, though, it becomes extremely tedious. You go around three floors, entering and leaving all these different room, trying to trigger a scene or find something new that might have appeared, only to trigger some 30-second event and have to do it all again and again. At some point I found myself referring to the walkthrough that came with the translation patch because I couldn't bear it, and this made it feel as if I wasn't really playing the game at all anymore... so I may just drop it. It was developed by Softmachine, who also made two 3d beat-'em-ups for the PSX, Crisis Beat (which is like a low-rent Die Hard Arcade) and Lucifer Ring (fantasy setting with weapons, better overall). Crisis Beat also felt like it could have been good, and Lucifer Ring like it could have been better; Softmachine's PSX games aren't terrible, but there's something lacking with them. Maybe all they needed was a good director. Oh, and trivia for Ex : the character designer later worked on Armored Core 2 & 3. EDIT: A comment under that video: "This is the ultimate "Where the fuck do i Go" game. I thought the game just kills your friends, Then locks up. I had no idea a human being could sit through this shit."
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 26, 2021 14:53:44 GMT -5
Looks a lot like Echo Night, maybe darker/scarier though. I skimmed around to a part of the player in a library and you could see some demon eating a body around the corner of a bookshelf, haha.
I think I fell off Echo Night for similar reasons though. The trial and error got a little taxing after a few hours.
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Post by Ex on Sept 27, 2021 11:53:37 GMT -5
I've got about 17 hours in Digital Devil Saga now. Based on checking the table of contents from a walkthrough, I judge my progress to be about halfway finished at this point. When contrasting DDS1 versus my memories of SMT3, I contend that DDS1 has more difficult random battles, but SMT3 has more difficult bosses. I've had far more party wipes in DDS1 than I ever did in SMT3. I'm finding the random battles frequency isn't annoying me as much, now that I've gotten more deeply into the level up systems, because I want that sweet XP and macca for doing as such. The environs and atmosphere are still top notch too. But I should also say, this game is a dungeon crawler first and foremost. There really isn't much in the way of exposition insofar as non-dungeon world exploration or extracurricular activities. 99% dungeons and fighting is what you get.
Also DDS1 has the best game over screen ever:
FROM DOOM TO ETERNITY
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 27, 2021 12:05:24 GMT -5
SMT3 did have some nasty mobs along the way, but I agree the bosses were generally much harder than normal battles. That's an interesting difference here for sure. In SMT3 it generally felt like bad luck when normal enemies wiped me. Maybe some jerk cast Expel/Death, or in some events my whole party might have been infected with status effects then another group of enemies comes in at the end when you were hoping to be done. Or if you were deep into a dungeon and HP/MP management starts to get tricky, that gets intense. But yeah, the bosses were the real difficulty spikes. Looks like you might finish it around the 30 hour mark which correlates with HLTB's numbers. I'm still super tempted to hit this up now, but I think I could use a breather to prepare to play both games back to back.
I might be tempted into the hype around SMT5 later this year though, haha. I might get some birthday cash to spend, even though I have better things to use money on right now. Though I'll say Metroid Dread is the highest priority for new games coming.
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Post by Ex on Sept 27, 2021 12:30:58 GMT -5
DDS1 often has enemy mobs carefully assembled so as to strategically chain-react from their buffs/debuffs. They work in tandem to systematically weaken and destroy your party. SMT3's enemy mob configurations seemed more random, with its demons doing their own thing in the battles. Basically DDS1 enemy mobs more often work as a team to destroy your party, whereas SMT3's enemies were independent anarchists.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 27, 2021 13:14:18 GMT -5
Yeah, I suspect that much of DDS was further building/balancing what was done with SMT3, since that game was the first with the Press Turn system.
Plus, being a spinoff meant they could experiment a bit without using the main series to mess around with the core experience.
You know, it's actually kinda bonkers just how many spinoffs the series has. There are way more spinoffs than the main series... and some of them are really good, even!
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Post by toei on Sept 27, 2021 15:27:48 GMT -5
Yeah, I suspect that much of DDS was further building/balancing what was done with SMT3, since that game was the first with the Press Turn system. Plus, being a spinoff meant they could experiment a bit without using the main series to mess around with the core experience. You know, it's actually kinda bonkers just how many spinoffs the series has. There are way more spinoffs than the main series... and some of them are really good, even! The MegaTen universe is built of almost nothing but spin-offs. Some of its spin-offs have spin-offs! Another Bible, for example, is a Last Bible spin-off.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 27, 2021 15:53:34 GMT -5
It's true! You start looking around, and it's like, "Good grief, is it all spin-offs?" Guess that's why each release in the main series is such a big deal. Expectations are going to be sky-high for SMT5, I know.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 27, 2021 17:56:00 GMT -5
Is this the biggest Western marketing push any of them have ever had? Nintendo really backing it probably helps. Maybe I had blinders on, but I feel like SMT has been very niche' throughout the years for the ones that got localized. I'm guessing Persona taking off is making Atlus try a little harder with SMT now too.
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