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What are you playing?
Topic Started: Feb 20 2011, 11:04 PM (24,721 Views)
Romanticide
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Some Fire Emblem Heroes thoughts, I suppose. I've beaten the main story on normal, so I think I've played enough to have an idea of what the game is like.

It seemed obvious from the get-go that this would be a gacha game. Fire Emblem has soooooooo many characters over 14 games (15 if we count Tokyo Mirage Sessions - don't rule out a banner/event for this game) that it would be impossible to represent them in any other type of game. That and you can't make money if you include every character in the base download, especially in a space where people value microtransactions over buying full games. Much easier to make money if you sell people chances to pull their favorite characters. Shit works. Really well. In Japan, most of the dominant games that I know of follow this model. However, it's essentially gambling and is regulated as such in Japan. Not so much in the US, so thank RNGesus that we all get the same game.

So how are the rates? I think they're decent-ish. They could be better than 6% for a 5*, but Nintendo wants us to spend money, and I don't doubt that at some point they'll raise the rates permanently or have banners with something like double rates. There's also a pity meter, so every time you *don't* pull a 5* on a given banner, your chances of getting one go up. Naturally, this resets once you pull one.

I re-rolled for Camilla/another 5*. I would have preferred Hinoka or Lyn over who I got, Roy, but Roy has acquitted himself better than Camilla tbh. Getting this pull took me 4.5 hours, but rerolling is not for the faint of heart. Pulled Lucina on my second pull, and she's a ridiculous unit. As it is, I plan to save orbs for the next banner, where I'll try at least one pull to round out my squad a bit more (could use a better spear user than Est), and then I'll save orbs for Mia/Nephenee/whoever breaks the game wide open. One could argue Takumi already does that, and I saw him in a few rolls, but I don't value him as much as waifus because I am weeb trash.


As for the gameplay itself, it's smol Fire Emblem. This makes mobility *more* important, not less. Any map with multiple horse-based units is annoying, because afaik all of these classes have 3 Mov and will probably be on top of you next turn. Paladins might not, I guess. Boots would most likely be broken in this game, and even in Fates where they got nerfed to +1 Mov, they are easily the best not-Seal item. Most units have only 2 Mov, which kind of sucks. Any unit with 1 Mov feels slower than me, but luckily I don't have/use many of these units. These units would be incredibly useful on defend maps because they tend to have high Def (if not Res), but every map in the game is lol rout. As we saw in Awakening, this leads to fairly boring gameplay. Fire Emblem games are at their best when maps have a variety of objectives: Rout, defend, seize, etc.

Biggest change would be that mages can attack only from 2 spaces away. This is almost certainly for balance reasons, mage classes would be OP if they attacked as in regular FE titles. Even if they have little to no defense, being able to counterattack a fairly large portion of the map would be broke.

Map design is alright. It's not just a series of wide open fields, which is one of Awakening's biggest flaws. I won't claim "every map feels unique" or some nonsense, but the maps allow for gameplay that's about as tactical as it's going to be on these tiny fields of play.

No perma-death was always going to be a thing. Nobody wants to lose units they possibly paid real money for. It's basically like they made casual mode from 13/14 mandatory, but that's alright: The maps can be deceptively hard. As I played through story mode, later chapters had some pretty tough enemies, even for my 5* cast (and Clarine I guess, but even da gawds need healing) and even on Normal. Weapon triangle probably matters more in this game than in any FE game yet, because if you're at a disadvantage, you'll be plinking the enemies for maybe 5 damage and they may well KO you.

Don't know how I feel about the Arena. I feel like Fire Emblem would HUGELY benefit from actual PvP. Playing even a mediocre Fire Emblem player would require more strategy than a lot of maps in the series. However, this game mode is just playing against a CPU controlling player-built teams, kind of like how it was implemented in Fates with My Castle. At least you have incentive to fight in this game. When the optimal move was to arrange your map so it can be seized turn one, which allowed players to maximize point gain and get bonus items faster, you dun fucked up. As it is, you have to play Arena because it's the only way to get Hero Feathers. Speaking of which...

The worst design choice so far would be the implementation of Hero Feathers. Why? You need not one thousand, not two thousand, not three thousan- *shot*, but TWENTY THOUSAND to transform a 4* character into their 5* equivalent. So far I've earned 3,400 from the Arena, but at this rate it'll take me six weeks to make my Gwendolyn 5*, and I'd have to dedicate all of my feathers to her. That's some bullshit. The number needed should be cut by 5x, at least, or they should be more easily farmable. Maybe a daily event that guarantees 1k would do the trick. Combined with Arena, you should be able to awaken a character every two weeks, which would still force non-whale players to prioritize their best (or favorite) units but it wouldn't be complete and utter bollocks.

Second worst is 50 stamina. Unless you require <4 hours of sleep a night, you're wasting stamina no matter what you do. People have to sleep, and it's also kind of hard to stop working/living life just so you're not wasting stamina regen time in a fucking mobile game. I get that Nintendo wants people to play in spurts unless they're willing to use orbs, and that Nintendo, more than many companies, wants its players to be on equal footing, but 50 stamina just doesn't make sense. Much easier to set it to 100 stamina so people can play a bit more/not worry so much about wasting the potential regen time. I have full stamina a lot of the time because I'd rather not play anything every four fucking hours, no matter how fun the game is. It would quickly feel like a chore. I feel 8-10 hours for stamina to refill is the ideal. It's not too long, it allows for people to not waste time because sleep/work, and it allows for a decent gameplay session in a game that's balanced worth a fuck.

Also hope stat-up items (Seraph Robes, etc) are introduced soon-ish. This game already has a lot of RNG. It's random whether or not you even get good characters to begin with, and on top of that, growths are not fixed as they are in some FE games on certain difficulties/options. You might have pulled a bitchin' character, but it's still at least somewhat possible that RNGesus fucked them over with bad growths. I don't know how you would implement this so it's balanced, but I'd guess stamina cost would be high, you'd be limited to a certain number of runs a day, or both.

I like the idea of free, farmable characters, but it's too early in the game's lifespan to know if any of them are *good*. They haven't even all debuted yet, because they're on a two week rotation. Today is Donnel, so he'll be back in two weeks. If they turn out to be almost as viable as gacha five stars, even if it takes a bit more work, that would make the game a fairly friendly F2P title. I don't expect F2P options to be optimal, or even great for that matter because no developer would ever want freebies to outshine potentially paid characters, but if they're usable in most content, that's good enough.


All things considered, this is probably Nintendo's best mobile entry yet. It's perfectly playable, and dare I say fun at times, but there's a lot of room for improvement on every front. It's good enough for me to stick with for the time being. Who knows if/when I'll spend money though.
Edited by Romanticide, Feb 7 2017, 06:26 AM.
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BigMac
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I got Pokemon Moon last week, I'm a bit of a ways into it. I really enjoy it, it's very fun and, even though I didn't play the last 2 gens, feels very fresh and updated. It is a bit weird to me that only 2 of my Pokemon in my party are Alolan (Trumbeak and Dartrix) while the others are all Kanto or Johto (not sure how Alolan Raichu counts). It's not that I don't like the new Pokemon (I really like like most of the new ones) its just I haven't encountered the ones I really wanted yet.

My only issue so far is how, when I'm trying to catch a new Pokemon and I get it down to red, it calls for help, and then I get into a loop of trying to weaken one while killing the other and eventually I go through like 6 or 7 waves before I can finally throw a damn Ball.
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Olinea
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Yeah, I found myself not really wanting to use many of the Gen 7 pokemon, but eventually found a team I could get behind. I feel that the main difference between this game and its predecessors is the difficulty curve, partly because of difficult fights (Grass trial is awful ) and the Gen 7 pokemon are on the slower, more defensive side. I basically binge-played through it (game released Friday, I beat the game Sunday) and the postgame has been nice but I'm burned out on IV breeding/Masuda method from doing so damn much of it in X/Y that I don't touch the game much anymore. Slowly building up the empire again, just takes time.

What's your team like so far?
Edited by Olinea, Feb 18 2017, 07:51 PM.
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Granskjegg
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I've been playing a fair bit of For Honor this past week. I didn't really give it much thought before I played the open beta, although I thought it looked pretty cool during E3. After playing the beta I knew I had to get it. The combat is actually quite complex and has a lot of layers. It might look pretty simple, but there are loads of combos and just mind games to take into consideration. You can launch a barrage of attacks on your opponent and hope it will confuse and overwhelm them, but this can quickly backfire if you run out of stamina. Combat is mostly quite slow with two players trying to read each other and figure out what kind of playstyle they're going for. 1v1 fights are just really fucking great and definitely my favoruite part of the game. Once you get double teamed or even four banged, you're pretty much fucked unless you somehow manage to throw someone off a ledge :P

I haven't tried the single player yet (apparently it's like a big tutorial?) with a friend (woo co-op) so that's probably going to be pretty fun.
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Romanticide
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Because there's no better fitting thread and I don't want to make one, (mostly) 3D indie recommendations for CAL. Most of these are short games, so I recommend waiting for sales. Paying $15-20 for a 3-5 hour experience is not efficient. Just isn't, no matter how good the game is.

And now I realize I have a lot of indie games that I really should play. Quite a number are short, too; I'm just really lazy. (I also waste too much time reading about... lots of things, but mostly politics because of the times.)

ANYWAY. My list.


-To the Moon. Why? It's To the Moon. Just play it; you will not be disappointed even if it's 2D. Be prepared though, and have some tissues on hand.


-Ori and the Blind Forest. Might be published by MS but otherwise indie. It's the shit, mayne. Probably the game in this post that asks the most of your computer, but even then it's not too much. But yeah, if you can run it it's an obligatory game. It is so. damn. good. Every time I see something about it, I feel tempted to do another run, and I don't feel that about a lot anymore because I have so much backlog.

Looking at this post, I didn't say much about the game, but it's a Metroidvania, so you'll start out weak and powerless but eventually turn into a badass who's able to traverse the world and wreck enemies with ease. The music and artstyle are just glorious. I love them so much. The soundtrack is worth your extra cash; pick that shit up.

I thought of this game later in the post but moved it up near the top to emphasize that it's the shit.


-Bastion. Yeah, published by Warn a Brotha, who we all know does bad PC ports, but the unique storytelling style and the aesthetics (both artistically and musically) are enough to give this game indie cred in my eyes. Every major studio has a few games that would otherwise be indie and I'm okay with calling them such, if only because it makes them easier to categorize. They aren't AAA games, but what else would you call them if not indie?


-Transistor. Same guys behind Bastion. Bastion was good, but Transistor is brilliant, and for the same reasons as Bastion. Basically, if you like Bastion, you'll love Transistor.


-The Stanley Parable. Takes gaming conventions and doesn't subvert them; it straight up breaks them. You're not supposed to listen to the narrator. If you do that, you'll miss much of what makes the game so good. Going off the beaten path results in hilarious dialogue, and going still further off the beaten path results in the narrator having a breakdown. It's wonderful. I have The Beginner's Guide, which is made by the same person, but it's a story focused more on the travails of making art and I haven't played it besides. It's supposed to be really good though.


-Life is Strange. I mean, I wrote enough on this. It's basically Telltale but better. Course, I don't like most of the IPs Telltale uses, so an original story is almost certainly going to be more up my alley. Regardless, this is a damn good game with an incredible cast, choices that allow you to play Max as a lesbian, and a final episode that's a total mindfuck. Squeenix might have published, but it's indie enough for me.


-Gone Home. It's obligatory. It's probably the most "walking simulator" of any game in this post, but it's an interesting look into the life of a family in the 1990s Pacific Northwest. You eventually find out why Sam, the main character's younger sister left home, and you find out that she was involved in a romance with another girl named Lonnie. There are a few other loose ends that I would have liked explained, but this relationship is the meat of the game. Worth your two hours, I'd say. There's a reason Laddie and I can't wait for Tacoma, which is this dev's next game. This is it.


-Undertale. You couldn't go anywhere on the gaming internet in late 2015 without running into five fanboys extolling its virtues or spamming memes. While the fanbase is off-putting, as all rabid fanbases are, the game itself is damn good if not a bit difficult once you try Genocide. The music is worth playing for alone tbh, but the rest is great too. Missed the $5 price point, but eh, it'll hit $5 again.


-Thomas Was Alone. A nice little shape-driven (all the characters are shapes) platformer with a storytelling style in the same vein as Bastion. I don't think it's as good a story, but it's more charming and the gameplay itself is alright. It's not sadistically difficult, but you'll need a few tries on some levels and that makes the challenge level good enough for me.


-Journey. You'll need a PS3 for this one (don't know if you have one?), but it's definitely worth experiencing. Tells a better, more meaningful story than most games with dialogue. Admittedly, the bar isn't high, but still.


-The Ys series. It's an action RPG series that's more on the challenging side, but not so difficult that you'll be yanking your hair out. Really I'd recommend anything from The Oath in Felghana on; they should all be serviceable enough games. As far as I know, Memories of Celceta is Vita-exclusive (will probably buy the next time I see it ~$10), but most of the others are on PC. I need to get to more of these games, myself, but there's a reason the series is a cult classic. The first two games had high production values for the time (voice acting in the 80s!), but felt archaic to play and I'm not sure how the more modern versions play, so yeah.


-Recettear. Capitalism, ho! The game is so cute and sweet you'll probably develop a case of the diabeetus, and the game itself flips the usual RPG setup on its head. Instead of SAVING TEH WURLDZ, you'll be running an item shop to escape debt. There's a dungeon diving aspect too, but you don't have to touch it if you don't want to. Pretty sure I beat it with minimal trips into the dungeons lol.


-VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action. Or, Valhalla for short because fuck typing that. It's baaaaaasically a visual novel, the only gameplay being mixing drinks, which is *really* just testing how well you follow instructions. That doesn't make it sound very appealing, but the cast is awesome. I love my cinnamon bun Jill and if you talk shit about her, I will fucking murder you. Dorothy is probably the next best character, because she embraces who she is despite preconceptions that a player might come into the game with. But really, the entire cast is excellent and contributes *something* to the game world; it wouldn't be the same without someone. Even the assholes. The game is steeped in anime, internet, and wrestling references, but you don't need to understand them to get the humor; it's just referential humor that would still be funny without the references. Game is unexpectedly political, too, and while that doesn't really factor much into the "story", if you can call it that, it's a great bit of worldbuilding.

I don't know when I'll do the other routes, but I most certainly will. Got other things on my plate before Nier/Persona 5, so probably not for a couple months unless I carve out a night or two idk.

Man I typed a lot about this one, but I haven't posted about it yet, so this also serves as a general recommendation.
Edited by Romanticide, Feb 23 2017, 06:50 AM.
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BigMac
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Feb 18 2017, 07:50 PM
Yeah, I found myself not really wanting to use many of the Gen 7 pokemon, but eventually found a team I could get behind. I feel that the main difference between this game and its predecessors is the difficulty curve, partly because of difficult fights (Grass trial is awful ) and the Gen 7 pokemon are on the slower, more defensive side. I basically binge-played through it (game released Friday, I beat the game Sunday) and the postgame has been nice but I'm burned out on IV breeding/Masuda method from doing so damn much of it in X/Y that I don't touch the game much anymore. Slowly building up the empire again, just takes time.

What's your team like so far?
I think I've finalized my team into Decidueye, Toucannon, Golisopod, Alolan Raichu, Alolan Diglett, and Arcanine. I'm happy with it, though there are some others that I wish I could incorporate into my team (Bewear, Oranguru, Zygarde). I think I'm about maybe halfway though the game, maybe a little more? I just got to Po Town for the first time. It's much more enjoyable now that I'm past all the intro stuff and can just explore.
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Romanticide
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I feel like I should say something about Nier: Automata since I got ending E (still need to get Y/plat the game, which will probably take at least another night or two) but I don't know what, really? I guess the tl;dr would be "I want to plat this fucking game", which I don't want to do for most games because ain't nobody got time for that shit. Should speak volumes about how great this game is.

PC port is alright. Yeah, it has some frustrating issues, like rendering at 900p in fullscreen, which is the biggest flaw, but one that's been unofficially fixed now, and adds borderless support to boot. Thank the gods. I expect borderless in 2017. I didn't buy two monitors to alt-tab out of my games, y'know. I'd also recommend turning the lighting down to at least high, if not medium for those of you not on 1070s and the like, with this fix. Texture pop-in is noticeable but it's not as bad as Xenoblade Chronicles X was.

But yeah, the fix, because things get lost in Discord:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/60yzvg/nierautomata_on_pc_now_has_a_beta_release_of/

The worst thing about the game, if you can call anything "the worst", would be the artstyle. It's not inspired by any means because it's very rare that any post-apocalyptic world *is* (Gran Pulse in FFXIII is still the only one I truly like), but it works to convey what type of world this is and it's thematically fitting. Even in this hellscape, there are still a number of beautiful vistas. The amusement park is just glorious and I won't say any more about that because you need to experience it for yourself.

If you've played one of Platinum's hack and slash titles, you know how this plays. It's basically a far easier Bayonetta to me, gameplay-wise, which works quite well. Unlike with Bayonetta, I actually *am* here for the story/characters and don't mind not having to try bosses ten or more times. Still, on normal, it does feel quite easy. If I replay this any time soon (doubtful, ofc), I'd probably bump it up to hard for a bit more of a challenge. Very hard will forever and always be beyond me. But yeah, game is fun and feels satisfying to play, even if it is fairly easy.

I'm still not sure this game needed to be open world, but it works well enough. Once you unlock the transport option at terminals, you'll probably use that a fair bit because traversing this world gets boring. It's a small open world compared to nearly every other open world title out there, but it has a surprising amount of #content for a landscape you can traverse on foot in about 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't have guessed there were 60 side quests, even if most of them are short. Still, they do add a good amount of characterization and worldbuilding, and a lot of them can be done before the shit gets real in playthrough 3. I'm okay with it, the game doesn't overstay its welcome with tons and tons of fluff.

Story is good. I don't know what to say about it, but I like the plot itself less than I like the philosophy behind the game. It's essentially an examination of what it means to be human, and it doesn't feel as hackneyed as a lot of philosophy in games does. There are still things that I wish were explained, but I'm not going into that because spoilers, and maybe I did somehow miss explanations for those things. Eh, whatever, the important plot threads were all tied up.

The characters... Oh man. I love them. The internet is obsessed with 2B, for obvious reasons. Her design is top-notch. Beyond that, her character is pretty damn good. That might be an understatement; I love the woman. Not a fan of most stoic types, but she makes it work? Probably her personality/interactions with Nines that make it work for me. 9S might seem like your archetypal support character at the start of the game, but his character is developed in each playthrough and it gets better with each one. I'd say I like him about as much as 2B; he really is a good character and a lot of this game just wouldn't *work* if he weren't. A2 starts off as a bitch, but she gets better. It feels like a sudden 180 in character, going from hyper bitch to caring about the machines/softening up a bit in general, but it somehow works. Maybe that's just some sort of personal bias talking, I don't know. As for NPCs, I like Pascal more than I'd have thought. Pascal is probably the one good and pure thing in this world, which might be it. Also dat voice, maybe it's just because Pascal is the robotic equivalent of a trap idk.

But yeah. Every emotional moment concerning these characters hits pretty damn hard, because they're well-written and I like them.

And of course the music is god tier. Is there a single bad song in this game? Hell, is there a single "meh" song? I don't think there is lol. Everything is at least good, and a lot of the tracks are incredible. If it's at a pivotal moment of the story, it's probably closer to "omg fukkin incredible" than to "it's good". I'm of the school of thought that a good OST can make a merely good game into a great game. I'm not sure the OST does all the heavy lifting here because it gets a fair bit of help from a strong playable cast, but it puts in work. It's one of the major highlights of the game; it puts most game OSTs to shame. It's already up there with my favorites and I hope I can get it for less than like $50 lol. Like 80% of the reason I plan to buy Nier is for more of dat Keiichi Okabe goodness.

I don't know why I wrote any of this when the closing line of Jim Fucking Sterling, Son's review perfectly describes how I feel. Oh well.

Also lol at the people complaining about PC Gamer's 79. I disagree with that score (I'd prolly go 9+, if not 9.5, but whatever), but it's their review and their score. We're spoiled for choice with Zelda, Horizon, Nier, Andromeda, and soon to be Persona 5, yet all some gamers can do is complain that an arbitrary number isn't high enough/higher than some game they dislike. Also something something SJWs. ffs people.
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DucksFAN93
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Let it be heard: Breath of the Wild's weapon degradation system is AWFUL. That is all.
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Romanticide
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I think I've said plenty on Fire Emblem Echoes in the Discord anyway, but a post just because.

This game benefits a lot from having a smaller cast than other recent FE entries. I'm way too lazy to count how many characters Awakening and Fates had, but I think it's something like 60 each, and that's not including Streetpass and whatnot. It's impossible to develop casts this big to any worthwhile degree. The support conversations are not enough, and maybe 15-20 characters have any plot relevance to speak of, so the remaining 40-45 feel like cardboard cutouts and meh. Almost any development the kids got was locked to DLC and lol. My favorite character in Fates (Camilla ofc) isn't my favorite because she has a sterling personality, y'know. I don't really have a favorite Awakening character, even though Thotja is obvious waifu bait. If I were pressed I might say Olivia, Cherche, or Cynthia, but none of them engenders enough passion for me to die on that hill lol.

Maybe I feel this way because the first (well, second, but the first wasn't localized) Utawarerumono game also had a small cast and was far more story and character-oriented than any Fire Emblem game ever has been. Not coincidentally, both the story and characters in Utawarerumono outshine those in any Fire Emblem game, and that includes Radiant Dawn. Unfortunately for Utawarerumono, the gameplay isn't half as good as in the better Fire Emblem titles. The potential is there, but the tutorials aren't great and you're expected to use a timing-based system in a genre that normally isn't about twitch reflexes. I don't think it would have lost a whole lot if it were just a VN with some animated fight scenes. But yeah, I feel like a fun Fire Emblem with Utawarerumono's quality of writing would be a damn near-perfect SRPG experience.

Most characters in Echoes feel like they have *some* degree of relevance. Not very much outside of Alm/Celica and their crews, but at least they matter more than random recruitable #21489234 in the aforementioned FE games. I'll probably at least remember who most of them are and what they did, in large part because they felt like they were a natural part of the world/they mattered and you can't boil them down to one character trait in most cases.

I say the casts should be small, but my favorite FE has 80+ characters. Thinking on it, part of that is because first Fire Emblem and I should do a run again, but the bigger part is probably how that game's story is *told*. Your entire cast is never together, so the game isn't struggling to make a cast of 80+ feel relevant in terms of story or useful in terms of gameplay. Each group (Ike's, Micaiah's, Elincia's, the other ragtag crews) gets some time to shine. Well, for the most part. You're never gonna make the likes of Meg, Fiona, or Lethe shine, at least not without giving them valuable BEXP that could go to useful chars who need it to get going, like Jill. Both Awakening and Fates throw every character into the same army and naturally you'll start making cuts based on who's kicking ass and/or who you like since you can't take everyone into every map.

Character designs are all great. Loved them all, even the males. Celica's is naturally the best and there's a reason I tried so hard to pull her in FEH. She's so gorgeous mayne. Now I need to train her. But I digress. Character designs are good and aren't pandering to the waifu crowd.

I loved the idea of raising your own little army at the start of the game. It's nice to be able to give them roles you think might be fitting, and it's a way to forge a bond between the player and the cast. I don't think it was perfectly executed, if only because they all easily promoted by the time you made it to the first shrine and that was all of two maps plus a dungeon, but it's a good idea. I wouldn't mind seeing future FEs borrow it. Playing with Villagers generally isn't fun (see: babying Donnel in Awakening - #worth though), so it probably shouldn't be more than five maps, but whatever.

Recruitment sucks and there's a reason this series went to talking to characters. Who woulda gathered that recruitable characters run away if you leave them with little HP? I only got Delthea because the game might as well have put up a neon sign saying "DO NOT KILL DELTHEA PLZTHX".

The story was good. Obv not a masterpiece that revolutionizes video game writing or anything like that, but it was perfectly serviceable and avoided falling into the trap of making the antagonist's nation out to be pure evil. You know, kind of what Fates was going for but failed at. Basically it was kinda morally grey! I never got the impression that Rigel was blatantly evil. Hell, the game tried to say otherwise much of the time, especially towards the end of Alm's route in Act 4. When the final battle of that act drew near, I was flat-out questioning "are we the good guys here?" Of course, because this is an FE and it always becomes about SAVING TEH WURLD, you *are*, but that answer only becomes clear in Act 5.

Gameplay was... Less good. Don't get me wrong: It was still perfectly playable. However, the game was full of more cheese than the stands at Lambeau Field. The most unforgivable instance of cheese would be Teleportation. In a game that is predicated on knowing exactly what the enemy range is, Teleportation avoids all of this and allows Witches to teleport near a party member. In the early game, this is tempting death because 13-14 Atk is nothing to sneeze at when it's hitting the weaker Res stat/when chars have maybe 25-30 HP. The game doesn't even tell you how it works, what its range is (if any), what triggers it, or really anything you'd need to know to come up with some sort of counterplay. It just expects you to, I don't know, abuse Mila's Turnwheel if the game decides "lol fuck your slow, low-Res unit, dead". Later on it's just an annoyance and picking Witches off is super easy, but it's still bullshit.

Other completely unfun bullshit includes: Gold Knights who can cross water, on open field maps with only one obvious chokepoint and few trees to hide your doods in. Horse Archers, because 8 mov plus 4 attack range is fun and not at all bullshit. The eye enemies being able to randomly split up into however many more eye enemies they want. They're easy enough to deal with because 3 mov, but still, fuck that lol. Jedah. Just... Jedah. The whole 4/8/12 thing is fucking stupid even if justified by plot because IT'S NOT FUN TO PLAY AGAINST. I probably only survived him (and beat the game) because MVP Mage Ring Delthea critted for 112 damage lol. Maps that were mostly comprised of swamps were just tedious to play on. I get that having to slog through to the boss is part of the challenge, but... I dunno. It's not fun when certain maps are mostly swamp lol. The final map's right side is almost entirely swamp, and guess where the boss/his most powerful minions are.

I expected encountering Cantors to suck. Yeah, it kinda does, mostly in the early game as always, but most things they summon are just nuisances as the game goes on. The stats get buffed a bit but by that point, they're nothing unmanageable. Gargoyles and Deathgoyles are probably the most annoying, if only because they have high mov, high speed, and can fly. Even then they're still tolerable. Seeing Dread Fighters also kinda sucks but for the most part I just baited them with Knights/Barons and killed them next turn with whatever I had at hand. Magic damage might be halved but Ragnarok is still really good chip damage.

Dungeons were alright. I like the idea, not sure I like fatigue. Being reduced to 15 MAX HP because a character gets tired is lame. I only had it happen once because the game throws food at you, but still. It would have made more sense if the non-HP stats were, I dunno, halved or something. I kinda do get the frustration with the endgame dungeons though; there are a lot of fairly difficult battles all in a row and little to no chance to save afterwards. I'm surprised I made it out of at least one or two of them with everyone alive.

tl;dr is basically this is a perfectly playable game, but it shines on the story and character fronts. It still plays well enough, but I don't think it's as fun or rewarding to play as other FE titles. /shrug
Edited by Romanticide, Jun 22 2017, 05:06 AM.
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It's amazing how FEH has dealt with many of the problems I had with it in its launch window.

Feathers? Arena gives them out every week even if you barely try, Gauntlets are a glorified popularity contest that exists as an excuse to give them away, you get 500 feathers per 500 Hero Merit... They aren't super scarce, but they are still scarce enough to where promoting a hero to 5* is a real investment, whether that's to use a hero or for the skill. I'd say the rate of acquisition is just about right, and I hope that IS (well, DeNA, but I really doubt Ninty/IS would let them do *anything* without approval) never sells them for real money.

50 stamina? We now have 99, so you aren't wasting stamina while you sleep/work.

Lack of objectives? We now have turn limit maps and defend maps, which is something. I'd still like to see seize/kill the boss, but not sure how that would affect game balance. Seize maps especially could be one turned by taking advantage of something like Wings of Mercy, or even Drag Back/Lunge. (I imagine bosses would be immune to the latter two for this reason - just slap a new enemy-exclusive seal on them lol)

There's not a lot of farm, outside of farming SP for skill inheritance. You don't need to win a fight 800 times to awaken a unit, you don't need to farm for bullshit rare drops, etc. Many heroes are usable with a little time and effort, but the real farm comes when trying to reach peak performance. One could argue farming Shards and such is a grind and I wouldn't argue that much against it, but I find them easy enough to get.

FEH even solves problems I didn't know I had. One free summon per banner from now on is legit. You probably won't pull a 5*, but it's always possible, and at the least you can collect heroes you want/heroes for skill fodder, so it's something. One free 5* with the new CYL banner makes this one of the most F2P friendly games out there. These aren't old and outdated 5* units; these are brand new and very splashable 5* units. I'm taking Ike because he's Ike. Him being a giant "fuck you" to the Horse/Flier meta is just a bonus. It's very tempting to pull for Hector so I can get Distant Counter, but my luck has been tapped out, I think. Also don't have many orbs and am unwilling to buy for units until Tellius/another good seasonal banner.

Still not a huge fan of orb prices and the fact that they never go on sale, but this is a gacha game and this is how IS makes money. If they ever do go on sale, it would probably be during a major event, like an anniversary.

At this moment, my biggest problem with the game is that it's defined by buffing characters to absurd levels. Horse Emblem dominates the meta because 3 mov and possibly 2 range is nuts on 6x8 maps, but Flier Emblem has unparalleled movement and positioning ability, along with two of the most broken seasonal units out there. IS has started to realize "hey, infantry has been left behind", but I'm not sure buffs to infantry alone will solve the problem. CYL Lyn has a weapon that nullifies magic buffs, and CYL Ike has a skill that nullifies horse/flier buffs, which are both great starts. They're not inheritable, probably in large part because we can all own one of these units.

Second biggest problem is that gauntlets suck. Due to bonus points triggering if the deficit is above 10%, you have to be on at 2-3 am when a new round starts or your rank in the army is fucked. This matters less if it's a total stomp, like, say, Summer Corrin versus anyone in the last gauntlet, but in closer (well, "closer") matches it's agonizing to see a 1 billion point deficit isn't enough to trigger any sort of bonus. A bonus is needed for those who are constantly participating in the gauntlet; it rewards people for playing more as opposed to simply being able to wake up at the right time. I'd also change the trigger for bonuses to "10% or one billion points, whichever is lesser".

All things considered, this is one of the best times to start FEH. You probably would have been better off starting when we got either Hero Fest banner because 5% base rates for a 5* focus unit is great, but starting with one 5* guaranteed on Thursday is great too. As it is, you have a free 5*, three banners featuring top tier units (Ike/Hector, Lucina/Lyn, all the CYL units on Thursday), arguably a 4th in Nohrian Summer if only for Summer Corrin... I wouldn't accept an account with any less than two 5* units: The free CYL unit and one you roll, preferably a top tier unit. This can easily be done in an hour or two with an emulator; there's no excuse not to give yourself the best start you can.


That was a lot longer than I thought, and I haven't even said anything about the game I actually wanted to post about.

I finished reading Muv-Luv Alternative late last night. Without spoiling anything for those of you who might want to read it, I can say this: It was worth the $80 I spent backing this trilogy, by itself. I see why it's #1 on VNDB, even if I don't think I could ever place anything above Clannad. It's that fucking good. It more than makes up for the problems I had with Unlimited, namely the feeling that the individual character arcs didn't go anywhere. However, they're all finally resolved in this game and the team becomes an actual team. Having only one ending with a few different "testimonial" scenes eliminates my other major problem with Unlimited, that being all the endings (except for ending 11, with a certain someone) were exactly the same, just with a different character. I'm 99% sure these testimonial scenes are my last four achievements to obtain in this game/this series, and I'll do that sometime soon.

I would have been tempted to say "Extra is optional", but Alternative ties all three games together masterfully. Lines that feel like throwaways turn out to be anything but throwaways. I need to re-read the main route of Extra to see how much I missed. The experiences that Takeru has in Extra are all canon due to the nature of the story, and it's best if you read every route. Some characters aren't even introduced unless you go down a specific route. The leader of the rebellion in Alternative will feel completely random if you don't read Kei's route in Extra, for example. If you must read only one route in Extra, idk why other than time/backlog concerns, I'd make it Sumika/Meiya's.

Sumika's VA is crazy good. Normally I don't think voice acting adds much to a game, or subtracts much unless it's laughably bad, but I can't imagine Sumika being such a compelling character if anyone else played her. The VA's voice was *perfect* for the character, as was her performance. Her character is all over the place emotionally, and the voice acting always captures precisely how she feels. Nobody is bad, but Sumika's performance stands head and shoulders above all of them.

I got fucking Madoka'd not once, but twice. I mean, I knew this game was gonna fuck me up, but damn those scenes really got to me.

If there were any ruler in this world anything like Yuuhi, I'd die for them with a smile on my face. Alas, there isn't. Her character is present for one episode (and the epilogue, which is lols), but she's one of the best new characters in the game and I love everything about her. Speaking of the new characters, one of the few complaints I could lodge is that they don't feel as developed as the old cast, but that's natural. No matter how much development they get, the rest of the cast was in the two previous games and the new characters would never have enough time to catch up. They were all developed enough to feel something when the game wants you to feel something for them, which is good enough.

Production values are clearly above Extra and Unlimited. This isn't an overly important point given that you're playing VNs for the story/characters, but the CGs are a cut above those in the last two games, and the videos are pretty damn good for a 2006 game as well. I'm not keen on the battle animations, but that might be in part because a lot of them are recycled in chapters 9/10 (to cut costs, which is understandable) and because they just feel disjointed. I get that animating actual battles would take a lot more effort, but these just feel blah.

Girl power rankings:
1) Sumika
2) Kei
3) Misae (she's totally pan btdubs)
4) Yuuhi
5) Meiya
6) Haruka Suzumiya
7) Marimo
8) I'm too lazy, everyone else
last) Chizuru (tsunderes will always be the worst - she gets better, though)

I guess it's time to break out the spoiler tags.


Alternative
Edited by Romanticide, Aug 29 2017, 12:17 AM.
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