Various JRPG stuff not deserving its own thread

[Val the Moofia Boss]

"HD 2D" is a really ugly art style and I dislike octopath for helping popularize it.

It can look great when done well, like with Reverse 1999. Octopath's visual problem is that they are clinging to SNES pixelart sprites.

[Valter]

The Octopath devs switched from turn-based to action for their next game. Demo available now and release on June 18th


turn-based bros I don't feel so good...

Octopath is not great. There is also no reason why devs can't take a break from pumping out franchise games and make one offs. Nihon Falcom did not stop producing Trails games when they detoured to make Tokyo Xanadu. Atlus didn't stop producing SMT and Persona games when they deteoured to make Metaphor ReFantazio. Gust did not stop producing Atelier games when they deteoured to make Blue Reflection. And so on. And we still have (actually good) turn based JRPGs still coming out like Trails, HSR, Reverse 1999, etc. Utawarerumono #5 just came out last week.

No one's saying they'll full stop making turn-based games, but like with the SMT and Persona case, if the one-off becomes more successful, that's where they're gonna start focusing their resources. Production rate on the less profitable franchise can very well slow down. Now the question is whether this game will be more successful, which I doubt anyway. The artstyle is repellant to casual gamers, might as well have kept the turn-based combat anyway.

[Acrux]

The Octopath devs switched from turn-based to action for their next game. Demo available now and release on June 18th


turn-based bros I don't feel so good...

The Adventures of Billy Elliot

[methoxetamine]

"HD 2D" is a really ugly art style and I dislike octopath for helping popularize it.

Gay opinion. Octopath looks great

I guess I should specify 2 since it's the only one I played

[Rand]

The Adventures of Billy Elliot

Oh. I thought it was about Ellen Page's cosplay as a soy manlet.

[Killagain665]

https://dokapon.fandom.com/wiki/Dokapon_Kingdom

This was back when Atlus was still fun and would produce random things that would have marginal success and wasn't just the next SMT/Persona (or clone there of looking at you Refantasio). Dokapon was fun to play with friends even if a bit quirky

[rusty_shackleford]

This was back when Atlus was still fun and would produce random things that would have marginal success and wasn't just the next SMT/Persona (or clone there of looking at you Refantasio).

This goes for basically every developer now, devs used to make a bunch of different games to see what sold

They can't do it anymore because devs are gay ******** and/or foids, microsoft and embracer both tried it and it sucked

[Tangerine]

They will not do anything if it hasn't been done by a big name title in the last 10 years or if a feature, in any way, could be seen as possibly inconveniencing the player.

[Valter]

[Valter]

son of a hog

This Echoes of Aincrad demo was surprisingly long, I clocked in 6 hours. And even though difficulty was capped to Normal, I still had a lot of fun and look forward to playing it on Very Hard on release. To think I curiously booted up this demo in hopes to seeing the world of Sword Art Online with modern, vibrant graphics, only to end up enjoying the adventuring and combat far more than the writing.

The gameplay felt like a mix of Fromsoft and Monster Hunter systems, using the former's familiar combat mechanics and sadly simplistic equipment upgrading framework with the latter's typical team dynamics of adequately splitting the boss' attention among your party members. The NPCs who accompany you have commands that let you signal when to go full damage or when to play defensively and draw attention. There was a surprising variety both in terms of monster types and boss movesets, definitely one of the highlights in this demo.

Another aspect that reminded me of MH is the preparation before embarking on a quest. Quests are chosen from a list on the town square and when you start them, you are teleported to the quest's instanced area with only what you brought in your very limited inventory. Potions, bombs, mines, and scarce quantities at that.
But this possibly engaging resource management facet is, at least in Normal difficulty, sabotaged of its purpose due to the presence of resting areas that fully recover your HP and replenish 3 HP potions, plenty to deal with any boss imo.



The weapon choice is limited to melee which is kind of a shame, nor was there much variety in armor. Wonder if this is just a demo thing, but it was definitely one of the most disappointing parts about it.



While the game feels like it was built with multiplayer in mind and it is tagged as such on Steam, there's no confirmation on the description. It would honestly be a waste not to implement it, but time will tell.

There are notable technical issues that make cutscenes suffer from voice delay and objects spawning late, which makes it really awkward to listen to a guy rave about how beautiful and realistic the world is. And while I did like the quest areas with all the nature that made the limited exploration (finding hidden treasures and lore notes), the town suffers from cookie cutter bug-eyed NPCs that once again really hamper the supposedly immersive experience.

I get that not much is expected in the writing department of an Sword Art Online game, but I didn't expect for virtually nothing of interest to happen in the story so far. Not to mention they went with a bizarre decision to implement a mute protagonist in a game where everyone else is constantly talking.

Well, the demo takes place before The Big Event that kickstarts SAO, so maybe it'll pick up the pace when that comes around.

One notable part about it is how well they incorporated this demo with the overall story. The plot is that a VR MMORPG just started its Beta testing, and the length of this Beta is the exact timeframe the Demo encapsulates, ending with a farewell that leaves both the player and the characters looking forward to the full release of the respective games. It was a nice touch.

All in all, this demo successfully made me enjoy going out on quests with my ******** teammates who kept stealing my kills like assholes and saving me from boss grabs like guardian angels. Locking the difficulty to Normal was a **** decision that probably robbed me of having a much better time with this demo, but I guess that's another thing to look forward to in the full release.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The boss seems to move VERY fast with almost no delay in their animations to give you time to react.

[Valter]

The boss seems to move VERY fast with almost no delay in their animations to give you time to react.

Yeah he's definitely on the faster side, but I feel like it's still reactable. Not that I tried it tho because you can only parry with a shield and I had my hands full with an omega greataxe of doom Blocking did most of the job, but some attacks are unblockable so I definitely got killed more than I should due to relying on blocking when I shoulda dodged.

Thing is with those kind of fast bosses I feel like you're better off timing his attack rather than reacting to it. Like when he lies down he's clearly gonna spin his tail, so you see that move once or twice from afar or while blocking it, and you get a good notion of his timing so you can try to dodge or parry next time. This in theory, since this was on Normal the fight was over before I needed to properly learn to dodge him.

What's that ice sabertooth monster in Monster Hunter? Isn't that one obscenely fast too? How did you deal with that?

There's also slower bosses, these were the most memorable ones:

This one killed me the most merely due to me not having upgraded my gear before embarking on this quest, so he was burying me in 2-3 hits

These two are tutorial bosses so they're not replayable in the demo, but they were cool too.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You can cut limbs off too?

[Valter]

You can cut limbs off too?

Yeah on bosses often depleting their first HP bar lets you break off a part or cut off a limb of theirs, leading into the next phase of the fight. Not every boss is like that tho, around 50% or so of them I'd say.

Some regular enemies also have limb loss, particularly if they have shields and you break it, off goes the arm along with it. But that's rare tbh, for the most part regular mobs don't live long enough for limb loss or part breakage.

Edit: But I should clarify that regarding limb loss on bosses specifically, I think that tutorial one's the only case so far. It looked really cool tho, I'd hope there's more like it in the full game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Granblue Fantasy Relink: Endless Ragnarok

Interview

Josh Torres: You’ve mentioned that in order to start the Endless Ragnarok expansion, players need to have beaten The Tale of Bahamut’s Rage to start it. There are people who stopped playing after finishing that quest, but there are also people who continued playing and kept getting stronger to beat the final quest that was added to the game post-launch, Zero.

There is a vast difference in power between those who have beaten both of these quests. How did you tackle Endless Ragnarok’s design with this power gap disparity in mind?


Tetsuya Fukuhara: Lucilius’ Zero battle was added as a special update to Relink that marked the end of that game’s content, which means it’s a bit of a special battle. If we made that a necessary requirement for Endless Ragnarok, almost no one would be able to get to play it.

There are probably no battles in Endless Ragnarok that are the exact same difficulty as Zero. Instead, we are adding new challenges through adding new mechanics. Obviously, any players who managed to complete Zero are incredibly powerful. Therefore, they’ll be able to clear Endless Ragnarok’s early content quite easily.

Looks like there will not be a new ultimate challenge to aspire to.

[methoxetamine]

Granblue Fantasy Relink: Endless Ragnarok

Interview

Josh Torres: You’ve mentioned that in order to start the Endless Ragnarok expansion, players need to have beaten The Tale of Bahamut’s Rage to start it. There are people who stopped playing after finishing that quest, but there are also people who continued playing and kept getting stronger to beat the final quest that was added to the game post-launch, Zero.

There is a vast difference in power between those who have beaten both of these quests. How did you tackle Endless Ragnarok’s design with this power gap disparity in mind?


Tetsuya Fukuhara: Lucilius’ Zero battle was added as a special update to Relink that marked the end of that game’s content, which means it’s a bit of a special battle. If we made that a necessary requirement for Endless Ragnarok, almost no one would be able to get to play it.

There are probably no battles in Endless Ragnarok that are the exact same difficulty as Zero. Instead, we are adding new challenges through adding new mechanics. Obviously, any players who managed to complete Zero are incredibly powerful. Therefore, they’ll be able to clear Endless Ragnarok’s early content quite easily.

Looks like there will not be a new ultimate challenge to aspire to.

That sucks but it works out in my favor I guess since I didn't play the updates

[rusty_shackleford]

This & its sequel look interesting if you want a mashup of Wizardry & Final Fantasy. Like a Wizardry game in a Final Fantasy coat of paint.