JRPGs

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    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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Hitoshi Sakimoto (hope I'm remembering it right) is also pretty incredible, the guy who did the soundtracks for Vagrant Story / Final Fantasy Tactics. He also did FF12 but it's a fairly forgettable soundtrack in comparison to the others.

Personally my totally un-controversial list is:
1. Yasunori Mitsuda
2. Hitoshi Sakimoto
3. Nobuo Uematsu
HM: Junya Nakano (Tobal No 1 and a few other things)

Uematsu wins on sheer output over time but I never got awe-inspired goosebumps from his music like I did from the other two above. Junya Nakano did some tremendous music but not too much so I can't really rank him on there.
if we're talking xenoblade, i'd say yoko shimomura, and you can hear the differences between xc1 vs xc2/xc3, as someone that has gone to 5 final fantasy concerts and has had eyes on me and zandarkand as wedding theme music, i'd say i enjoy xc1 ost more than the entirety of uematsu's discography

i mean she wrote america's second national anthem
 
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Rajaah

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Don't be forgetting Keiichi Okabe, who did the Nier games.





Yeah I'd also rank these soundtracks pretty high. They're kind of similar to Yasunori Mitsuda's work, just with a lot more vocals.
 
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Rajaah

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Has anyone played Live-a-Live on Switch yet? That's my next game after I finish Ys VIII, probably starting it within another week or two.
 

Vorph

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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FYI for anyone playing Soul Hackers 2 -- I'd strongly recommend changing Gameplay settings to this:

sh2_gameplay.png


Fixes the retarded camera placement/movement, and hiding load screen tips reduces load times from 10+ seconds to practically instant on both PC and Xbox (the game is cross-buy and cross-save if you get it digital on either platform, just like Yakuza 7 last year). Also, if you have ultrawide on PC, you have to play in borderless windowed mode to prevent the window from stretching. The PC version is a pretty lazy port, but it's handy to load it up there when I'm fusing demons rather than try to navigate the calculator on a laptop or tablet.

Speaking of fusing demons, I'm pretty sure they balanced the game around using the cash payoffs from their item DLC because the cost of everything is goddamn insane. I'm still being stubborn, but I'm getting close to saying fuck it and just turning it on.
 
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Daezuel

Potato del Grande
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Finally finished Torna. What a great DLC. It makes the base game's story better, has new combat mechanics, and is just generally great. Makes me want to play through Xenoblade 2 again honestly.

Really want to dive into X3 now but I think I'm going to play Astral Chain first and wait for a Black Friday sale or something.
 
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Malakriss

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Xenoblade 3 got its first update. Gogol Vuaga now exists and drops in Lower Wildwood, and all of the food that was broken now works properly including +CP%. Helpful if you haven't finished all of your classes yet.
 

Zindan

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Valkyrie Elysium will be released next week, 9/26 for pre order and 9/29 for normal (both PS5). Will be released 11/11 on Steam. Has a demo out on PS4/PS5 which consists of a tutorial, then the entire first mission + 2 subquests, pretty lengthy demo. I found it to be pretty fun, and thankfully, you don't control a party of characters, just the MC. My only worry is that the game could be fairly short, and there doesn't appear to be any cosmetics for the MC (so kinda boring in that sense).

Release trailer, shows a lot:
 

Vorph

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Valkyrie Elysium demo was pretty weird. They give you the ghost dudes for the tutorial but then take them away for the first mission (and you don't get either one back yet as part of that mission). Hopefully there's a lot more depth to the game than what was shown in the tutorial too; my first impression of it was that it's just a watered down, less interesting, and uglier version of Scarlet Nexus.

Really wanted to preorder it for the early access and get the deluxe edition for Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth remaster, but I think I'll wait for reviews of both games. Especially since they've said nothing about the Lenneth remaster besides that it exists and will release on 9/29. If it's a PS4/5 port of the mobile port it could be decent, but I can't even find a screenshot of it (or who the developer handling the port is) now.

Wo Long demo was pretty disappointing too. Hopefully Star Ocean surprises in the opposite way, since my expectations couldn't possibly be lower after the Intergrity & Faithlessness shitshow. Actually downloading the demo was a pain in the ass--you have to search for Star Ocean on PS5 and then go to the ... menu and change to Demo before the download button will show up. Sony needs to start hiring some UI/UX people who know the meaning of the word "intuitive".
 
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Droigan

Trakanon Raider
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Valkyrie Elysium demo was pretty weird. They give you the ghost dudes for the tutorial but then take them away for the first mission (and you don't get either one back yet as part of that mission). Hopefully there's a lot more depth to the game than what was shown in the tutorial too; my first impression of it was that it's just a watered down, less interesting, and uglier version of Scarlet Nexus.

Really wanted to preorder it for the early access and get the deluxe edition for Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth remaster, but I think I'll wait for reviews of both games. Especially since they've said nothing about the Lenneth remaster besides that it exists and will release on 9/29. If it's a PS4/5 port of the mobile port it could be decent, but I can't even find a screenshot of it (or who the developer handling the port is) now.

Wo Long demo was pretty disappointing too. Hopefully Star Ocean surprises in the opposite way, since my expectations couldn't possibly be lower after the Intergrity & Faithlessness shitshow. Actually downloading the demo was a pain in the ass--you have to search for Star Ocean on PS5 and then go to the ... menu and change to Demo before the download button will show up. Sony needs to start hiring some UI/UX people who know the meaning of the word "intuitive".

Had the same thoughts about Valkyrie, it felt somewhat shallow. Just picking up gems to level up a very baseline skill tree set or skills. Not getting the ghost guy was weird, he was a reward for the last mission, but you can't get him in the demo I think since after the main mission you can't do anything except take the two side quests. I found two, not sure if there is more, if so you'd have to replay the entire first mission to get it I think. And in the mission there was at least one spot where you needed the ghost guy to open up a secret, but since you can't get him, you're locked out from it. The side missions are like small Nioh side quests in a locked up portion of the main mission area, I think one of the missions would let you get to the secret, but you didn't have him there either. If in the full game you can talk to Odin to unlock the ghost guy before you actually do the side missions, then its bad demo design to make you complete them beforehand since it carries over.

It's a wait and see game for me.

Star Ocean was .... not the best impression. Even at prioritize framerate, it had FPS drops like mad when you get to the zone before the first town. From 60 to 20. Lip synch isn't a thing, it's like they just made their mouths move up and down when speaking. Combat wasn't bad though, and liked the verticality. But again, felt like it was just zooming around to pick up gems.

Wish modern games would push more towards the RPG side of ARPGs instead of just ACTIONrpg

Neither of the two impressed me.

That the PSN store doesn't have a separate demo tag section is just strange. I had to google how to find demos the first time. Didn't occur to me to find the game, then select the dots and activate the demo. Demos don't show up when searching for "Demo" either.
 

AladainAF

Best Rabbit
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And now another demo is released: Star Ocean 6 on PS4/PS5.


I had made a thread for this one.


Music seems to be top notch though (Timestamped in below video to my fav released song so far)

 

Rajaah

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Valkyrie Elysium demo was pretty weird. They give you the ghost dudes for the tutorial but then take them away for the first mission (and you don't get either one back yet as part of that mission). Hopefully there's a lot more depth to the game than what was shown in the tutorial too; my first impression of it was that it's just a watered down, less interesting, and uglier version of Scarlet Nexus.

Really wanted to preorder it for the early access and get the deluxe edition for Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth remaster, but I think I'll wait for reviews of both games. Especially since they've said nothing about the Lenneth remaster besides that it exists and will release on 9/29. If it's a PS4/5 port of the mobile port it could be decent, but I can't even find a screenshot of it (or who the developer handling the port is) now.

Wo Long demo was pretty disappointing too. Hopefully Star Ocean surprises in the opposite way, since my expectations couldn't possibly be lower after the Intergrity & Faithlessness shitshow. Actually downloading the demo was a pain in the ass--you have to search for Star Ocean on PS5 and then go to the ... menu and change to Demo before the download button will show up. Sony needs to start hiring some UI/UX people who know the meaning of the word "intuitive".

Is that Valkyrie Profile game on 9/29 a remaster of the original one on PS1?

I always wanted to play it back in the day but never got a chance to and never looked into what kinds of remakes are available.

I suppose now it'd be easy enough to get ahold of the original in some form, but, you know, PS1 visuals are rough.
 

Vorph

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Harvestella looks great to me.
I got as far as character creation:
20220913-205502.jpg


Silly me for thinking that the Type A / Type B faggotry was as retarded as it was going to get.

Is that Valkyrie Profile game on 9/29 a remaster of the original one on PS1?
Not exactly. Valkyrie Profile 1 for PS1 was remastered as VP: Lenneth for PSP, which was remastered again for mobile a couple years ago. The PS4/5 version is probably a remaster of the mobile version.
 
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Vorph

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Fire Emblem Engage - Divine Edition preorders went up today. Still available at Gamestop for anyone who's interested. $100 for a Steelbook, art cards, art book, and poster seems steep to me. Doesn't even include the (so far unannounced, but inevitable) season pass.
 

Rajaah

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I got as far as character creation:
View attachment 434229

Silly me for thinking that the Type A / Type B faggotry was as retarded as it was going to get.


Not exactly. Valkyrie Profile 1 for PS1 was remastered as VP: Lenneth for PSP, which was remastered again for mobile a couple years ago. The PS4/5 version is probably a remaster of the mobile version.

Sounds like this new game is indeed the original Valkyrie Profile, just re re re remade. If it's comparable in look and sound (the things I liked about the original) it might be worth a run for me. I've already got a game traffic jam at the moment though so it'll have to be real close to the original.

I'm Fire Emblem'd out personally, feels like every 6 months there's another one and I haven't particularly liked them since the Game Cube era (3DS had a couple good ones too IIRC).

As for that Star Ocean demo...there might be a silver lining here. Maybe the "non-binary" means they can keep the androgynous zero-sex-appeal #Human design relegated to that category and make the female characters actually look feminine and the males actually look masculine, rather than the usual "make everyone borderline androgynous" that so many games do now. So it could be a silver lining, maybe check out what the other character models look like. Or I could be totally wrong and they're all soy AF. It's a Japanese game though so there's hope.

I'm playing Resident Evil 2 Remake right now and I'm consistently impressed by how goddamn hot Claire is for a modern game. A female character who wears sexy, tight jeans instead of androgynous boy-jeans like all the women in TLOU2.