JRPG General - Video games were never meant to be shorter than 50 hours.

[Fcret]

Okay after taking a break to ruin my life by getting back into FFXIV, I've come back and finished the main story of .hack//GU Vol 3 Redemption. Some thoughts:

Spoiler

1) I know endings are hard but it feels like GU has the same sort of issue as IMOQ in that the ending just feels incredibly unsatisfying. I guess there's a whole new extra volume in last recode but I don't know how they can really tie it up to make things good.
2) The pacing of the third volume is absolutely atrocious. You spend like half the game dealing with Sakaki's moustache-twirling antics (despite having a big final showdown with him in the previous volume) and it just feels like a slog. Then you almost immediately get thrown into the confrontation with Ovan, beat him, and then the final part of the game is suddenly upon you. Hell, there's all this hype about Haseo's final form and you basically get like five hours to actually use it with no real meaningful weapon upgrades or progression.
3) Haseo's character transformation feels incredibly rushed. Obviously he grows up a lot in vol 1 and 2 but vol 3 is him going full LE GOOD GUY GREG and it just doesn't feel organic at all. I feel like his acerbicness and aloofness just got completely deleted in a way that kills his character.

I have to say, after finishing Tales of Vesperia, I really don't see why so many hailed it as a classic. I think a large part of it in the west was the fact it was an Xbox exclusive, because it sure wasn't anything special in most respects, and was quite annoying and obtuse in others and lacked a lot of key quality-of-life stuff, like marking locations on the world map.

Vesperia was special because it was the first HD game and it was really the culmination of the 3D Tales formula that had started in Symphonia and then continued advancing in Abyss. Vesperia is also special because it was one of the few big budget JRPGs made in an era when everyone was abandoning the genre.

I think it's also important to keep in mind that it was the point where Namco stopped dicking around and finally committed to taking the franchise seriously in the west. Symphonia's localization has a ton of problems (not simply translation errors but outright scripting and voice errors) whereas Vesperia is substantially more polished.

 

[Grub]

I think it's also important to keep in mind that it was the point where Namco stopped dicking around and finally committed to taking the franchise seriously in the west. Symphonia's localization has a ton of problems (not simply translation errors but outright scripting and voice errors) whereas Vesperia is substantially more polished.

I had Tales of Symphonia but I could never really get into it and never finished it. I'd played the dejap fan translation of Tales of Phantasia before that and it's still the only other Tales game I've played but I liked Phantasia a lot more than Symphonia. I don't know what the stories of the other Tales games are like but the story and characters felt weaker in Symphonia than in Phantasia and I don't even remember the battle system in Symphonia so it couldn't have been that great compared to ToP's which I vividly remember.

 

[Fcret]

I'd played the dejap fan translation of Tales of Phantasia before that and it's still the only other Tales game I've played but I liked Phantasia a lot more than Symphonia. I don't know what the stories of the other Tales games are like but the story and characters felt weaker in Symphonia than in Phantasia

DeJap took a lot of liberties in punching up the script to Phantasia, but you are correct that Phantasia's story is a lot more intricate than pretty much every other entry. Phantasia was written as a proper fantasy epic - you have to contend with a dying world and struggle against fate itself. After Phantasia, most of the team was dissolved and Tales morphed into having more conventional shounen storytelling carry it.

In a lot of ways, I don't even really consider Phantasia to be part of the same series because it's so different narratively.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

What were the Symphonia errors?
NB has to have some shit planned for the year because we know that Abyss, Destiny, and Xillia 2 are on the way.

Now, with Sega I would die for a Sakura Wars collection.....could they even be able to port that properly?

 

[Fcret]

What were the Symphonia errors?

Go look them up, they're all over the place. A lot of places where the spoken dialogue differs from what's written, characters attributed to lines spoken by other characters, and straight up dialogue being out of sync.

It's extra bad on the remasters because they reverted to the Japanese text box count but the voices don't match at all in several scenes (leading to dialogue straight up being deleted). Most notable point of issue in all versions is the first meeting with Remiel.

Now, with Sega I would die for a Sakura Wars collection.....could they even be able to port that properly?

They definitely could. Hell, the Cotton collection on Switch is just running the games in a Sega Saturn emulator. They could just literally translate them, ship them with a Saturn emulator, and call it a day.

But they also seem to have given up on Sakura Wars.

 

[Maniacal Foreigner]

DeJap took a lot of liberties in punching up the script to Phantasia, but you are correct that Phantasia's story is a lot more intricate than pretty much every other entry. Phantasia was written as a proper fantasy epic - you have to contend with a dying world and struggle against fate itself. After Phantasia, most of the team was dissolved and Tales morphed into having more conventional shounen storytelling carry it.

In a lot of ways, I don't even really consider Phantasia to be part of the same series because it's so different narratively.

The writer and lead programmer on Tales of Phantasia - Yoshiharu Gotanda - went on to found tri-Ace, taking most of Wolf Team's staff along with him and creating the Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile series.

 

[Grub]

DeJap took a lot of liberties in punching up the script to Phantasia,

Yeah. I remember trying the GBA version at one point and being thoroughly disappointed Arche no longer fucked like a tiger. That was how I learned fan translations can be pretty bad.

After Phantasia, most of the team was dissolved and Tales morphed into having more conventional shounen storytelling carry it.

I never realized that. I guess that makes sense. I've thought about trying some of the other Tales games but they always seemed too animeish to me.

 

[Bolsak]

Back from limbo, i finally finished hackers memory (i get the title now). Even tho that game is shorter than cyber sleuth i somehow manage to spend more hours in it. Overall it has better peacing than cs but near late game it still kinda drags and things are happening just cuz.

And i hate this stupid femboy, holy fuck.

I aso didnt expect low key dark/sad ending in digimon game. Expesly not after being spoonfeed for 100H+ with "le happy animu friendship dumb" plot

Even tho that overall i would call this game kinda average i dump 120 hours of my life into it and now i i have this weird void in my soul after credits rolled.

 

[Another Random]

Mana games are now on the PC.

I recently saw someone describe the 3d Trials of Mana remake as being more similar to Kingdom Hearts than the original game but I haven't played it so I have no idea if that's true.

It ends up being similar because now there's a jump button and you have some platforming options, but it's not majorly different from the original - the biggest [and best] change is that you DON'T get insta-hit by spells when they are cast. I'd also say it does special moves better since you don't get restricted to contextual limits and, because they actually bothered to keep towns, you get a lot more civilization than you'll get in most Kingdom Hearts games where towns are basically a nothingburger and shops are Moogles.

I mean, I 'unno, I just like SD3 being old-style in good ways even in this remake. It could have gone the Bravely Default route of removing the insides of buildings after all.

 

[Grub]

Mana games are now on the PC.
I mean, I 'unno, I just like SD3 being old-style in good ways even in this remake. It could have gone the Bravely Default route of removing the insides of buildings after all.

I haven't played the original for a long time. I downloaded the remake a while back and briefly started it but ended up playing something else instead and deleted it to make space. I came across this multi patched hacked version of I guess the officially translated version of the game. I didn't even realize it had been officially localized. The only version I knew of was the fan translation. This version has all these patches I guess. It's made me tempted to give it a replay. I don't think I ever actually finished the original game. I was more interested in it when I was playing it two player and I think I got kind of bored of it eventually playing solo.

• #1 BUGFIX 1.10_compat_with_ToM.ips (by eltipope)
• #2 Hues of Mana - Complete v1.1.ips (by Red Soul)
• #3 Running_in_battle_ToM.ips (by GoodLuckTrying)
• #4 Expanded_tech_usage_ToM_or_SD3.ips (by eltiopepe)
• #5 Better Monsters and Maps 2.7.ips (by hmsong)
• #6 Better Starting Stats 1.7.ips (by hmsong)
• #7 BlackRabite 1.5 - respawn.ips + No Skill Counter (by hmsong)
• #8 Class Balance 3.6 - Bundle + No Skill Counter.ips (by hmsong)
• #9 Item Shop Changes 2.8 - full grail.ips (by hmsong)
• #10 Less Grinding 1.8.ips (by hmsong)
• #11 Menu Freeze Fix 1.0.ips (by hmsong)
• #12 More Evade Changes 1.2.ips (by hmsong)

Less Grinding 1.8.ips (by hmsong)

 

[HexFag]

Dragon Quest 12 has seemingly gone through re-development and has gone from "The Flames of Fate" to "Beyond Dreams". They have apparently had to restart development from the beginning so it's going to be many many more years before we finally get DQ12.


12-kun looks pretty fucking chopped too but the rest of the game looks fine, I guess. I'm glad the game isn't seemingly dead in the water and they're still using Sugiyama and Toriyama's designs but man it hurts that it's going to be a long while before the next new DQ game.


Trailer:

0:35

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Paper Mario recompilation.

 

[Penguin Sandwich]

Trailer:
L56ElQTXPVxV57rZ.mp4

>That sword stance
>Female mechanic who also might be a princess
>Robot sidekick
>A reptilian knight
>Medieval setting
>Futuristic looking hoverbike and airship
>Possible time travel??

 

[Samuel Fuller]

What were the Symphonia errors?
NB has to have some shit planned for the year because we know that Abyss, Destiny, and Xillia 2 are on the way.

Now, with Sega I would die for a Sakura Wars collection.....could they even be able to port that properly?

Considering the remake completely jettisoned the original gameplay style, I would not bet on it.


I am doing the SP grind in Blue Dragon now, in the Laser Field. It is oddly not as boring as I expected, there is something fun about just running around an area and using the shield to jettison monsters into the beyond for hours.

Back from limbo, i finally finished hackers memory (i get the title now). Even tho that game is shorter than cyber sleuth i somehow manage to spend more hours in it. Overall it has better peacing than cs but near late game it still kinda drags and things are happening just cuz.

And i hate this stupid femboy, holy fuck.

I aso didnt expect low key dark/sad ending in digimon game. Expesly not after being spoonfeed for 100H+ with "le happy animu friendship dumb" plot

Even tho that overall i would call this game kinda average i dump 120 hours of my life into it and now i i have this weird void in my soul after credits rolled.

The Cybersleuth duology is more like Shin Megami Tensei with cuddly creatures than Pokemon, that is for sure.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

New Utawarerumono game out on Steam, at least the devs realized they should name it so people now it's part of the universe. First game was kino and got me to tear up at the end, hope the sequel continues to be as good.

What alack of sleep does to a motherfucker.

 

[Banana Hammock]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cMsDUh2XU8QPaper Mario recompilation.

Good timing. I'm just about finished with the Twilight Princess recompilation.

Edit: Looks like it was vibe-coded, so I'm wondering how good it actually is.

 

[Fcret]

After falling off Tales of Berseria a few years back about an hour or so in, I've come back and made it significantly farther. It's holding me a bit better now but I find this nu-Tales gameplay extremely basic and boring. I hate the "wait for the gauge to fill so you can actually do anything" combat and the complete gutting of resource management is more slopualization for the goycattle to lap up.

Same issue I had with Arise and I imagine it'll be the same way whenever I decide to play Zestiria.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

Decided to replay Tales of Graces. I forgot how much the child section sucks and how much a little shit child Asbel was. Once i got that out of the way, i start to remember how much i liked the gameplay.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Finished the new Uta, 9/10 the game had me in tears a few times with the music and voice acting really making up for subpar graphics. It is very dependent on playing the entire series up to this point (not too bad since all the games are good).

I like the battle system, you have a consistent 4 person party and no class system, which actually makes combat a lot more fun as you need to engage with all the systems rather than the usual issue of only picking specific characters/classes that are straightforward to use and powerful. Also gives every character a lot more time to shine.

It has one specific fight that the devs went all in for, and admittedly it's one of the game's hype moment.

 

[00R-Gundam]

After falling off Tales of Berseria a few years back about an hour or so in, I've come back and made it significantly farther. It's holding me a bit better now but I find this nu-Tales gameplay extremely basic and boring. I hate the "wait for the gauge to fill so you can actually do anything" combat and the complete gutting of resource management is more slopualization for the goycattle to lap up.

Same issue I had with Arise and I imagine it'll be the same way whenever I decide to play Zestiria.

Recently i decided to play Berseria on the side because i felt nostalgic. Although Velvet is my favorite tales mc, Berseria combat for me is kinda meh and repetitive, but the character interactions especially with Velvet and our autistic Magilou were priceless.