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Post by Ex on Jan 9, 2024 1:28:11 GMT -5
Not sure what counts as "beaten" in Ski or Die, but I just ran all the events. I'm definitely going to play this one, and yeah, as far as "beaten" goes... who knows? The HLTB completions I see say stuff like "completed all the events". I guess ultimately it's a "beat your own high score" kind of game. - I did play more Lost Planet tonight, finished stages 5 and 6. Stage 5 was pretty easy, and its boss was even reasonable. Stage 6 was considerably more difficult, but you do end up finally getting a decent VS (mechas are called VS or Vital Suit in this game). The VS you get in stage 6, instead of being made out of tissue paper, it's made out of cardboard at least. And it can hover for about 5 seconds instead of 2. Stage 6's boss was "Green Eye" and quite challenging, but I took it down eventually. I'm still not sure what I think of this one. Every time I start to have fun with it, LP goes and does dumb stuff that ruins my enjoyment. Just stupid little stuff like if you are running on foot, and you decide to change your weapon (you carry up to 2 weapons), your character completely stops running and holds still while he changes weapons. This of course leaves you wide open to being attacked from whatever you were running from at the time. Any other third person shooter would let you change weapons WHILE you are running, but no not Lost Planet with its artificial-difficulty-contrivance Monster Hunter DNA. Like you have no recovery period when you get knocked down either. Whether on foot or in a VS, if you get blown up and knocked to the ground, you sit there struggling to get back on your feet, meanwhile can't see shit because the screen is covered in opaque smoke, and finally just when you're standing again, about to try to jump or "roll" away, because you know the enemy is still attacking, BAM! you get hit with another missile you couldn't see or avoid, and you're back on the ground once again. The grappling hook is cool in theory, but arbitrary when it works or not. It's suppose to turn the reticle green when you can hook shot to an object, but there's been many times the reticle was green, but I couldn't grapple with the hook shot. It's random in its execution. Eh this frickin' game... I don't know. Lost Planet is just barely good enough to keep playing... but not so good I look forward to doing so. The main draw is the challenging boss fights. But unlike Monster Hunter, where you can have other people help you take down bosses, in Lost Planet you are fighting bosses alone. But the designers still hobble the player with Monster Hunter-style inconveniences, without taking into account you don't have other players to come to your aid. So the balance is totally off there. I hate to piss on games that other members enjoy, but I'm struggling to understand what makes Lost Planet so great for you Xeogred. I'd love for toei to play up to the point I am now, and have his informed opinion. Maybe I'm the odd man out with this one.
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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2024 2:18:13 GMT -5
It sounds like I won't like it the way you describe it, but I still hope I do since I bought the game and all.
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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2024 6:30:17 GMT -5
I beat The 3rd Birthday. I can talk about it here because it begins on Christmas Eve and takes place throughout the winter, though there's only a bit of snow in the game. New York in December isn't necessarily that cold or snowy, after all.
So, first, if you just want a score... I'll give it a solid ****+. If I had finished it in 2023, it would've been one of my games of the year. I liked it as much as Parasite Eve II, I'd say, though for different reasons. It is a very different game, and even more different from the first, but the story does tie into them, in a crazy-ass way.
The premise is this: humanity is at war against the Twisted, creatures of unknown origins who had been sighted here and there in the previous two years. And the Twisted are winning, growing in numbers at an incredible rate and attacking more and more countries. Millions have died, and humanity's complete annihilation is expected. Aya Brea, who remembers nothing of her past, is at the center of a special organization under the FBI which aims to exploit her newly-discovered ability to travel in the near past to change the outcome of major battles against the Twisted to turn the tide of the war. Each major battle or incident is an Episode, of which there are 6 (or 7 counting the Tutorial, though the final Episode if just a big multi-part boss battle basically), and after each episode, you return to the little hub, where you can talk to a few of your colleagues who guide you during your missions, customize your guns and so on, and, very importantly, access reports about the various characters and the timeline of the war up to now. You will need to read those files if you aim to make any sense of the confusing story, and since each episode has an impact on the present, they will change gradually as well.
Most episodes take around an hour and a half, with a few safe spots between sections where you can save and restock on ammo and grenades. The 3rd Birthday is, of course, a third-person cover shooter, however it's not stealthy at all; instead, it's as intense as the best arcade games, though not in a mindless way. There isn't a ton of walking around between battles; when you're in the field, so to speak, the action almost never lets up. One of the main concepts is that you can "overdive" into the bodies of various soldiers (and more rarely, civilians) during battle, though once inside, they're always visually represented as Aya; each has their own health bar and their own weapon you can use along with the three you have equipped. This means you can switch to a different body if you're about to die, or if you're running low on ammo, but there's a lot more to it; in some battles, certain soldiers will have special weapons that you need to use, for example, and there are strategic reasons to do it that I won't get into. If you shoot a monster continuously, particularly with a weapon with high-impact bullets (you can customize them to a degree), a big yellow triangle appears on them and you can them overdive into them for a lot of damage. Finishing a monster that way nets you DNA chips, which you can arrange on a board to gain various passive bonuses in battle. You can also trigger this by hitting an enemy's weak point with a sniper rifle, or, often, by throwing a grenade. There's a few more things, but that's the gist of it. It's challenging but also forgiving in ways, so while I died several times, it never really felt unfair to me.
The ambiance is especially successful at making you feel like you're in the middle of this chaotic war against otherworldy forces, with the soldiers screaming around you as gunshots ring everywhere. I particularly liked the battles where you can control a tank's cannon, destroying these large beasts that are usually so much trouble in seconds. There's even a brief airplane section. As this is a Square game, it has a flair for the epic, and several sections feel larger than life, with a surreal feel due to the nature of the enemy. It feels like the inevitable section late into Final Fantasies when everything is falling apart as the world is ending, except the entire time.
As for the story, I'll say it wasn't as bad as I feared. I love the premise and the setting - modern-day New York during a world-ending supernatural war. A lot of the story ideas are interesting. The cutscenes are usually brief and spectacular. They look great. But damn is it confusingly told at times. So much of it, especially towards the end, is obtuse in a way that has to be deliberate. By being as attentive as I could, reading the computer files, stopping to think about some of the things being said, and with what I remembered of the past two games, I was able to make sense of most of it, but the ending is completely on crack and I still don't get how half the things that happen during that long, final cutscene are supposed to make any sense. It's both super convoluted and extremely poorly explained. It's probably hard-to-impossible to find a crack rock to smoke in Japan, so I'd guess all of the developers were high on shabu, which I think is the main hard drug over there (it's methamphetamine). I'd guess the average player would understand even less. I don't know for sure if he's responsible, but I tend to blame director Hajime Tabata, because it seems to be a feature of his games; I remember hearing people complaining about how you had to watch an actual movie to understand FFXV's story, and supposedly the events of FF Type-0 completely stop making sense in the last few chapters, unless you read the (supposedly novel-length) lore book in the game and maybe play FFXIII first, as it's actually part of the XIII series. So maybe dude thinks the players can just read his writers' minds, or he just doesn't care.
That one complaint aside, if I didn't have so many other games I want to play, I'd do a new game + on Hard right now with the new weapons and gear you get access to. I did replay part of Episode 1 that way just to see what it's like, it's just a fun-ass game. Has to be my favorite PSP game, along with Growlanser IV (which is an enhanced port and not an exclusive, but it is exclusive in English). It deserves so much better than its poor reputation.
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Post by Ex on Jan 9, 2024 10:39:16 GMT -5
Congrats, I'm impressed given your relative inexperience with 3D cover shooters. Of all the cover shooters I've beaten, I'd put this one in the "above average" difficulty tier for the genre. >You will need to read those files if you aim to make any sense of the confusing story Explains why I didn't understand the story then. >One of the main concepts is that you can "overdive" into the bodies of various soldiers I thought this was a cool concept to put into a cover shooter. Though, I had played previous action games where you could take over the bodies of your enemies in real time. Just pointing out HexaDrive didn't come up with the concept. >supposedly the events of FF Type-0 completely stop making sense in the last few chapters I can confirm that's true. Though that game doesn't make much sense to start with. You have to consult the lore book just to make sense of the endless nonsense words the game throws at you. >it's just a fun-ass game Glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you play more cover shooters in the future. Though I can tell you in my experience, Vanquish is the apex of the genre.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 9, 2024 17:25:14 GMT -5
Very cool, toei, and glad you found a winner. I enjoyed The 3rd Birthday a lot myself, and yeah, its reputation is completely undeserved - I bet most of the folks saying it sucks or "killed the series" haven't even played it.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 9, 2024 18:41:53 GMT -5
Square was miles deep up their own butt in the 2010's. I always wish I could rediscover some particular FF13 music trailer/video they made where they were talking like they had created God himself. No surprise to see 3rd Birthday's story is convoluted as crap and that's another red flag for me and Hajime Tabata. Not a fan. I've heard enough about Type-0 that it doesn't interest me at all anymore. I'll check out the 3rd Birthday again someday though. Speaking of 3rd, beat the stage 3 boss on my first try in Lost Planet easily. I'll just wager these smoke bombs must tank the performance on the old 360 version and that's why Ex keeps complaining about it. Also not sure if he noted the thermal energy is your life bar too and almost makes you feel invincible. It's so easy to have thousands worth. So sure you get knocked around a bit but is there much tension when you have so much HP? I don't recall the thermal gimmick ever being an issue aside from maybe one survival like stage and that could have already been the Tremors big worm territory of stage 3. I think the mecha are fine and there's always like more than one around an area if you need to use multiple. And the aiming is great to me. Lock on would probably make this real boring.
I remembered one area of stage 2 was a really cool multiplayer map. The big base area before the train tunnel section.
Yeah it's not blowing me away or anything but it still seems like a fine game to me. I'll just leave it at that and keep playing. Probably won't take long to beat.
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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2024 19:24:43 GMT -5
Ex To clarify, HexaDrive were the main programmers of the game, but it was fully designed by Square. I believe the mixed (at best) response and their own dissatisfaction with their earlier attempt at a third-person shooter a few years before (Dirge of Cerberus) is why they hired outside programmers. Of course the concept of transferring into your enemies (though you're transferring into your allies here) isn't new - Maken X did that on the Dreamcast, you could even do in the only Technos beat-'em-up that isn't good (Shadow Force I think?) back in the mid-90's - but it plays out differently in The 3rd Birthday. In fact it almost plays out like a team sports game at times. When you're facing bigger threats it's often best to dive into someone behind the enemy just to attract their attention and get them to move to the other end of the area, for example, just so you can go back into whoever has that special weapon that works best against that monster and have time to use it without getting torn apart. A lot of the strategies for the bosses and tougher battles in general are basically team plays. But then in more "regular" battles you're essentially soloing it and you only dive if you messed up and you're near death, or if your ammo is getting low. Sarge I believe so too, and I also believe it's the old Squaresoft problem that comes up whenever they don't make a RPG - a lot of Square fans just don't play action games, and a lot of action game fans just don't play Square games, so it didn't end up in front of the right audience. Add to that the whole "the sequel isn't like the prequels so it sucks" factor, and you have a terrible reaction to a very good game. What was that FF game that came out last year with a battle system designed by the Devil May Cry 5 guy? From what I heard, that system is actually fantastic, but just because they included a simplified version for non action gamers, they basically got a dishonest hate campaign claiming that it's just "press A to win" or whatever the meme is. They just can't win. They literally hired the number one character action guy out there and it's still not enough. And this is something they've always done. With Tobal, they helped set up Dream Factory, a subsidiary (initially) literally headed by the Tekken creator and Virtua Fighter number two man, and staffed with members of both teams, yet it was still dismissed as "those FFVII RPG guys trying to make a fighter" by many. Yet Tobal no. 1 is good (better than the first Tekken - all fighters seem to need at least two entries to start reaching their potential), and 2 is one of the best 3D fighters of its generation, hands down. Bushido Blade was so unique that it got a better reception - Lightweight was also headed by a former member of the Virtua Fighter and Tekken teams (a character designer, actually!). Even Parasite Eve II, which was criticized for going full survival horror back in the day and ignored by many, was helmed by the first Resident Evil's main writer. Square will actively go and get the guys who know their stuff when they step outside their main genre. Xeogred A more positive thing Hajime Tabata's games have in common is fun action gameplay. Crisis Core, Type-0, FFXIII - they all get praise for their battle systems. I do intend to give Crisis Core a real shot at least, and like Ex always mentions, probably just ignore the busywork sidequests.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 9, 2024 19:45:54 GMT -5
I don't think Tabata was involved on FF13. Guess I just brought it up because it too has a horrendously bad story and characters that made no sense whatsoever. So much happens in this text database thing that updates throughout the game, kind of like having to dig around and read in 3rd Birthday as well to get some necessary context.
For the record I saw the FF15 movie AND the anime OVA. Still didn't help anything there. That game is a masterful 10 year long product of too many cooks in the kitchen. But Tabata is my main punching bag on it. lol
Crisis Core... I liked it about as much as Ex likes Lost Planet. The remaster looks extensive and maybe makes it more fun. If I see it on like a 80-90% discount on Steam someday maybe I'll try it again.
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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2024 20:24:04 GMT -5
I don't think Tabata was involved on FF13. Guess I just brought it up because it too has a horrendously bad story and characters that made no sense whatsoever. So much happens in this text database thing that updates throughout the game, kind of like having to dig around and read in 3rd Birthday as well to get some necessary context.
For the record I saw the FF15 movie AND the anime OVA. Still didn't help anything there. That game is a masterful 10 year long product of too many cooks in the kitchen. But Tabata is my main punching bag on it. lol
Crisis Core... I liked it about as much as Ex likes Lost Planet. The remaster looks extensive and maybe makes it more fun. If I see it on like a 80-90% discount on Steam someday maybe I'll try it again. My bad, I meant XV. But as you implied it probably wasn't just Tabata so much as Square in general who just couldn't keep their writing cohesive anymore or didn't care to from about FFXIII until recently (if that's no longer the case?). I could already see that tendency going back to their SNES days - there were moments where it was clear that several different writers were responsible for different parts and plot points didn't fully make sense or were glossed over in weird ways in favor of big explosions and a little bit of corny drama. But it wasn't as much of a problem at the time, probably because the games were much smaller overall. By the late '00s it sounds like they finally took that mentality too far and ended up with this strange method of storytelling where the cutscenes and important conversations are almost completely dedicated to the EPIC and EMOTIONAL moments and all the important plot points you need to understand what any of it means are relegated to optional lore books or easy-to-miss asides from NPCs, because they still want to have a complex/convoluted story even if they're going to present it like dead simple Hollywood pap.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 9, 2024 20:42:33 GMT -5
That is indeed pretty on the nose I'd say haha. Japanese gaming certainly had its struggles in the later 2000's and some identity crisis. Square were still swinging hard but were missing a lot...
Having just finished another replay of FF7 Remake, I'm still kind of blown away by how good the characters are. If you ever look into the staff someday, it has most of the key legacy staff of the original involved. So almost like they got a second chance to do anything and everything they meant to do with the first release. Then, the remake clearly has a lot of younger talent as well - probably a lot of fans of FF7 growing up who now get to work on the remake and know so much of what made it special to them and some out there. It's true with a lot of the English voice actors, they did such a stellar performance (rare I go for English instead of Japanese). Feels like a perfect storm and a real interesting study on some veteran staff mixing in with new blood really well. I've been a little anxious about this being a drawn out trilogy because I hope the synergy is consistent through all three games. Nomura isn't the main director for the next game but he clearly wasn't the single only main director on the last, so I'm not worried. I kind of suspect Kitase is the one really guiding the project.
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