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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: October 17, 2024, 10:07:02 am »

I never played Vanguard Bandits but always wanted to; I'm pretty sure it was a Working Designs game.

Yup! I recall my copy came with a demo of LUNAR: Eternal Blue.

And yes, it came with all the humor. A specific branch (since you can take multiple paths) was probably one of the funniest experiences I've ever had in a video game (though I admit I am perpetually 12).

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: June 26, 2024, 12:20:32 pm »

Oh yeah, from what I remember, DBD is probably only good with friends, lol. Fewer weirdos doing weird things.

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: June 19, 2024, 12:38:26 am »

How's Eiyuden Chronicle? Does it in any way live up to Suikoden? I've been wanting to check it out along with Sea of Stars kinda like throwback-style RPG games on a modern console.

There's a lot to love about it IMO, but honestly, I'd tell anyone to wait a couple months while the developers work out the bugs. Or at least wait until it's on sale.

It feels like a Suikoden, if a lower stakes one. Aside from a couple of weird difficulty spikes, I enjoy the gameplay. The war battles are entertaining to watch (and amusing at times, in the case of the 'live feed'). I love the mini-games (to my surprise, I ended up liking the card game more than the beigoma/spinning tops). Not a fan of the racing game, but then, I usually don't like racing games.

My two complaints are the crashing/freezing rate (which honestly, should be fixable), and the  requirements for recruiting one of the characters (which involves beating many beigoma games... and that's fine... but there's that 'difficulty spike' with one of the matches and it relies mostly on chance. Which is fine for higher level games, but as a requirement for recruiting a character? Ridiculous, and I honestly hope they fix that).

Despite that last paragraph, I played the game long enough that several songs are living in my head rent free (music's fantastic too). I did mess up and made the game harder for myself by not exploring a specific area lol (hint: not all fishing areas are marked by docks!). Basically, I needed to recruit someone, and their absence was blocking a lot of castle growth. I still managed, but having that person earlier would've been nice.

I liked all the throwbacks to Suikoden and Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising. Not sure what the future of the series is though, with Murayama gone, but I would have loved to see another tale told in this world, but with the emotional impact that S1, S2, and S5 (and parts of Tactics and Tierkreis) had. Eiyuden definitely has its moments but it's not quite up to that level yet.

So yeah... if you get it, it's got Suikoden elements but definitely don't expect a clone.

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: June 13, 2024, 09:40:45 pm »

A bit of poor scheduling on my part had me bouncing between The Thaumaturge and Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. I beat the latter, and I should return to the former, but now I'm back on Another Eden catching up on the main story since Xianhua effing breaks everything that doesn't absorb her attacks (okay, properly set up, so can others with a Starchart). I have a basic understanding of the Stellar system but I need to figure out how to acquire starcharts/points for those who can use it.

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: August 15, 2022, 12:41:57 am »

Currently playing through Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (I suspect I am either at the end dungeon or the dungeon before the end dungeon, but at this point, I'm doing so many hero/side quests and exploring that I can't really tell). I know spoilers might be hard to avoid, but if you're interested in playing anytime soon, I would greatly recommend avoiding the hell out of spoilers.

All I can say is that I appreciate the sheer amount of work that has obviously gone into this game. I haven't enjoyed a JRPG this thoroughly since maybe Xenosaga Episode 3 (and not just because it has "Xeno" in the title). It has consumed every minute of my free time these last couple of weeks, and will until I've beaten the game, and I am good with that.

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: July 01, 2022, 04:03:54 pm »

Finished Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (aka a spiritual successor to the Genso Suikoden series). It's a short-to-medium length prequel game to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, which is coming out next year. I wasn't a fan of the combat system at first (I am not so good with the in-real-time combat and the fast reflexes) but I think it's starting to grow on me. Which probably doesn't mean much since it looks like the combat system will be different in Hundred Heroes.

The story works for a prequel, nothing too deep, a nice preview of what is to come. I enjoyed the characters and their interactions. The soundtrack is wonderful of course. The quests... well, I'm mixed on them. I'm just tired of way too many quests in games in general. On the one hand, some of the quests can get repetitive, but on the other hand, the quests do stop after a while AND there is a way to make them go faster: Hit Start to access your quest, mark it as active, then go to the location. Once you're at the location, hit Start to access your map. If the quest is active, it'll show where you actually need to go. (The only exception is if you're gathering generic materials like lumber or ore, since those are scattered across dungeons.)

Forgot to mention I also finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and its prequel game Torna ahead of Xenoblade 3. The blade system was interesting, but I wish they didn't make certain access points dependable on the blades you rolled for. And I know some people like Tiger Tiger but that was a hard pass from me. The combat system was mostly the same in Torna with the exception of switching between blade and driver, but I liked it better in Torna. I did enjoy the story in both games. I know we know what happens between Torna and the main game, but I do wish we had gotten to see a little more post-battle with the, ah, blade eater and random ambushes I will not mention.

I was thinking of trying the FF7 remake next, or at least the part that's available now. (I do have other games in the backlog, but when has that ever stopped me?  )

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: April 06, 2022, 10:13:55 am »

Truth be told, I've never played the original The Silver Star! I went straight into SSSC and it's been my default version of the game, although I've played both Lunar Legend and Silver Star Harmony.

SSSC is my first exposure to the series as well; I did see a 9 hour playthrough of the original Sega CD version. It was interesting, but SSSC holds a special place in my heart.

I actually really liked Harmony -- there's a cool prologue where you play as the Four Heroes during their final battle, and it actually fleshes out who they were truly fighting and why. I can't remember if any of that is covered in Eternal Blue at all, but it's at least new content for Silver Star Story. I played it when it was first released, so it's been about twelve years or so. I can't remember any other additional content. One thing I did miss was an explorable world map - you can't walk on the map and instead it was just point and click for each location. Booooooo...

I'd heard about that prologue. Would love to see an entire prequel game with those four, to be honest.

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Chrono News / Re: Chrono Cross Remaster and Radical Dreamers Localization Announced!

« on: March 26, 2022, 10:21:15 pm »

Oh, those are nice!

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Chrono News / Re: Chrono Cross Remaster and Radical Dreamers Localization Announced!

« on: February 16, 2022, 01:25:10 am »

https://store.na.square-enix-games.com/en_US/product/719830/chrono-cross-music-box-chrono-cross-scars-of-time

Oh, hell yes. I have always wanted a music box related to the Chrono series. Though tbh I kind of wish it were CT. $18 doesn't seem like a bad price. Maybe I'll check out those other music boxes as well.

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Chrono News / Re: Another Eden x Chrono Cross Collaboration

« on: December 04, 2021, 06:22:12 pm »

Just found an Easter Egg. If you click the pocket watch on the announcement page, it takes you to a retro version of the page, as it might have looked back in 2000:

https://en.another-eden.jp/~chrono-cross/

That is amazing. And frighteningly accurate. I don't remember the last time I saw a Guestbook or site counter! 

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: September 27, 2021, 09:31:17 am »

Pretty much gave up on Another Eden (I quit logging in a while back). Tired of having no way to advance, of not having the proper resources no matter how much grinding I do, of never rolling people I need, of never coming up with a good enough strategy for basically anything.

Played the new chapter of Deltarune (full of laughs though I'm just not quite used to that gameplay anymore). Since the Hearth & Home update finally dropped in Valheim, I've been back on that too.

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: July 18, 2021, 11:16:44 am »

Congrats on Suikoden 2. Great game, recently watched a friend stream it and got hit with all the feels. Just a damn good storyline with great characters.

I know I should be concentrating on RPGs I haven't beaten at all but I really want to 100% complete some games that are just sitting around.

Damn, that hits hard. I just finished a replay of Xenosaga 3, despite the Xenoblades asking me why I haven't finished/played them yet.

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: July 09, 2021, 10:00:03 am »

Well, been doing more progress in AE. By this I'm done with Ogre Wars as a whole, did Azure Rebel, and I'm just about done with IDA Part 3.

But man... this last one... 

The bosses were such a pain. The fight against Mother Brain was quite brutal. Took me several tries. I was quite stubborn in wanting to deal with it now, but I managed. Thankfully, I had a zone setter in order to weaken her attacks. Combined with the episode's own free character having a skill that further diminishes the Intelligence stat, plus a Regen skill, I managed to live long enough to whittle down her HP. The invincibility unless beating one of the accompanying bits that regenerate in two turns was... also a pain. Despite having an almost full party already at level 80 or almost there and with Lv60 equipment. Thankfully most were Slash users and the Zone Setter was also Slash. So it helped me to at least fill up the Another Force gauge. Then wiped both bits to unleash her frenzy attack pattern but remove the HP stoppers, and then just AF to victory.

But well, that's that. I need to farm Treatises soon enough, as it is. Not enough Five-star characters... Also do the Chance Encounters to unlock some of those boards. And unlock Garulea. But well, that's all for some other day, haha.

I feel that, except for me it's the 2nd part of the Garulea story, and not being able to pass the boss in the 5th or 6th part of Mythos. Just frustrating. Went back to the fishing game, but at level 27, it's just incredibly boring.

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: May 07, 2021, 10:51:19 am »

Yeah, as much grinding as there was, it was still less of a pain the ass as the undersea palace one. (Though in my case, it absolutely refused to let me have Nagi. I kept putting it off, hoping I'd roll for her. Nope. So I finally finished it, and a few months later, wouldn't you know it... Nagi.)

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General Discussion / Re: What Are You Currently Playing? (Do NOT Just Make a List)

« on: April 29, 2021, 01:32:20 am »

Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean what I said to come off like I had thought compared to other RPGs that Suikoden was in any way generic or bland. I just seem to recall that it deals with the topic of friendship a lot, not saying that those themes are not complex or anything. Whenever I look back on it, I always see Suikoden as being very fun to play and I guess - just very comforting to play for me I guess. ^^;

Oh, no offense taken or anything. Actually, I've been watching someone stream the Suikoden games and even though they're fun, I'd forgotten about several dark or heartfelt moments. And then, there they are.