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Crimson Shroud |OT| Matsuno fails saving throw, relegated to eShop release
- Thread starter duckroll
- Start date
No. I'm still in Chapter 3. The encounter starts spawning once you get the key to open the Dungeon in Chapter 3.
Ah, good to know. That said, get ready for
the NG+ Witch Kings, they dish out the pain like there's no tomorrow.
Fuck, yeah! This is one of my favorite battle tracks in the game too. Parts of it sounds like Phon Coast from FFXII, actually.
I Think It's Angry is my favorite battle/boss theme in the game. So good.
Yeah, that track does a lot for me too. It's probably my second favorite non-battle, scene track in the game. The soundtrack is just so fucking good in this game.
How Many Times blew my mind the first time I heard it. I stopped fighting for 10 minutes or so to listen to the music.
Fair enough.
The actual gear you end up with is powerful, yes, but the process of crafting even the base materials needed to make the weapons is tedious and boring. There is no "balance" by annoying the player. Good design would have been to make the materials themselves scarce and hard to obtain, so what you can make with them is limited and you have to choose carefully. What is not that great design is when the process of crafting is just annoying. Having to pick the same menu selections over and over just to repeatedly make materials which are then required to make an item isn't "balance", it's bad UI design.
Basileus777
Member
It's incredibly slow with awful menus and is designed in a way that encourages incessant save/reloading. The items are useful, but that doesn't excuse how poor the TO's crafting system is.
NG+ really doesn't feel like an afterthought and that's just from playing a few rooms of the first chapter. Lots of new loot, harder encounters, haven't been able to bag every item available from an encounter. Feels reallly good. Also I just realized the game is WYSIWYG and that's always cool.
NG+ isn't an afterthought because it's basically a Master Quest. I think Matsuno tends to give thought to replayability for his games. In Vagrant Story you also unlock new areas in NG+, but they're more of an extra challenge and not related to the story. In Tactics Ogre PSP, there is tons of post-game content, which you don't need to start a "new game" to see. They are a mix of pure challenge and also extra story event stuff. Crimson Shroud is just continuing this tradition, where for a small mini-campaign, he uses the same base assets to make the game worth playing twice to get the true ending.
Oi, I hit that point in chapter 2 for the first time in NG+ (in my NG I got the key directly, I was lucky I suppose).
Now I see why people were complaining. This is awesome lol
It's hilarious.
They are extra challenges but the reason you are able to access these areas is directly related to the story.
Now I see why people were complaining. This is awesome lol
It's hilarious.
They are extra challenges but the reason you are able to access these areas is directly related to the story.
Wait, that's the track that I really like, lol! Holy shit, it's so fucking amazing sounding! This soundtrack!!! =D
Mr. Wonderful
Member
For the record, I was hopelessly addicted to crafting and grinding for crafting in Tactics Ogre. Like, I would play 2-3 hours at a time doing nothing more than crafting and then think to myself, "Maybe I should play a battle now..."
Gosh, I love that game.
Gosh, I love that game.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
That part I'll agree to. Bulk is good!
Save scumming always exists in single-player games unless there's an autosave function along with crafting.
Basileus777
Member
That's why good single player crafting systems aren't designed so that you can fail at crafting and lose the components, and they certainly don't waste the player's time by making it incredibly time consuming to actually go through the menus to craft the components needed.
Speaking of failing at crafting, I think this would be a good time to bring the discussion on topic again on this note. In the original retail Guild01 version of Crimson Shroud, apparently the crafting was MUCH more "challenging". Any crafting attempt would result in a dice roll, and if you failed the roll the Azorth is wasted on the attempt. It seems the dice rolls got harder and harder with each increment of +[x] equipment.
Does anyone think this was a good idea? Should it have to kept that way in the eShop version? Is the current version of crafting too easy? Personally I think it would be interesting to have a dice element, but at the same time, getting equipment materials to craft is already enough of a hassle in the game as it is, I'm not sure if there's a need to further punish players.
Does anyone think this was a good idea? Should it have to kept that way in the eShop version? Is the current version of crafting too easy? Personally I think it would be interesting to have a dice element, but at the same time, getting equipment materials to craft is already enough of a hassle in the game as it is, I'm not sure if there's a need to further punish players.
Basileus777
Member
Making it a visible and player controlled dice-roll makes it somewhat interesting, as it becomes a sort of "gameplay" and not some invisible thing screwing you over. Though it still has the same problems where if it's too punishing players are just going to save/reload and the whole system just becomes a way to waste time and frustrate you.
They could have added an optional step that allowed you to use the battle dice to improve the item one level further, and if losing the dice is not hardcore enough, maybe make it so that you can only meld an item x amount of times and you have to roll the dice to get to max level. Although I guess this could be abused by stuff like Meditate, but I'm seemingly not as good at throwing the dice out of the board as some people seem to be, haha.
perfect free
Member
Did it allow the player to save beforehand and reload on failure? As already mentioned, I would automatically look at a system like that and think, "Well, guess I'm expected to save before every crafting attempt." There would be no "challenge" imparted by such a system, only additional busy work for the player when she fails a dice roll and has to reload. The same system without save scumming would make the player weigh how much azoth he's willing to potentially lose to get his favorite weapon up to +8 or +9 or whatever, which is more interesting from a resource management perspective.
I might regret saying this but does the game get a little more challenging later on?...I only fought up to the Minotaur though so I am still very early but I thought he would be my first test to see if I understood everything right,but he was easy....still not sure on the roll dice thing...can I get a success with a 4 let's say and that would still be better then a fail at 25?...what determines a successful or failed roll...? just pure randomness?
SatelliteOfLove
Member
The game doesn't rigidly require constant upgrading of an item of gear (the game has new tiers of upgrades at a rapid clip), but then this puts it right back into that save-scumming angle.
That, and that system sounds like Aion's, (where socketing gear with the good stones would increase the chance of breakage of all stones socketed if failed with each new stone socketed), where you'd see raid-geared dudes with one good stone and the rest base stones (as the base stones were guarenteed success), as the raids were generally easy from a tuning angle. It kinda renders much of the deeper use of it moot.
I will say I ended up with two dozen Pure Azoth when I beat it, so that also isn't a factor.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Well, I think is a good idea that they made it simple. Azorth could be easily depleted with dice rolls and in the first time normally most weapons aren't worth upgrading since high tier weapons (and armor) if often better (and normally providing best spells/attacks).
Actually, it would have been interesting, though keep the original method in NG+.
I think that would be interesting but every player would save just before and reset if it fails, so whatever...
The current crafting system isn't bad but it's the only thing I would criticize in the game because it's too easy and it's lacking some atmosphere. If it's done in a workshop with a good materials sound effect and good music, that alone would make it much more effective. Some graphics effects would be great as well.
TurnipFritters
Member
Whenever you roll, it should tell you what number you need to succeed.
Anyone give me a hand? Where is this key I need for a gate in ch2?
Enjoying the game. A bit too simple I think on the presentation side but the music and writing rock so far. I love the little touches like the level 5 symbol being on the bottom of the figurines.
Do you ever get to make some big choices later on? I hope you do; could be neat.
Enjoying the game. A bit too simple I think on the presentation side but the music and writing rock so far. I love the little touches like the level 5 symbol being on the bottom of the figurines.
Do you ever get to make some big choices later on? I hope you do; could be neat.
That one is actually a pain to obtain. In fact, you must battle Skeletons in one of the room of the subterran (the Northest one), and hope that they will drop the Rare item necessary to open the door in question.
Yup, this is poor game design (this is just my opinion, of course).
And if there's one thing which is indeniably good about this game, it's indeed the music. The game could have been a little more polished and the adventure could have been longer, but it definitly offers some wonderful musics and atmosphere.
Oh well, I'm enjoying the New Game + right now.
KillerTravis
Banned
I'm glad people are giving attention to this game, I thought no one was going to give it a chance.
Mr. Wonderful
Member
Ugh. Was looking forward to plowing through this on my 10 days off work at my parents, but I forgot my headphones at home.
Koroviev
Member
Pick up a cheap pair of headphones?
I can't believe I'm getting my ass kicked by the Chapter 3 boss in NG+. I've died twice now. Each time, the battle goes well at first, and I can get the boss down maybe 500 HP or so, at least that's when my Reveal gets debuffed. Then somehow it always goes south very quickly. What usually happens is that I feel really comfortable because Lippi's regular attack tends to inflict Silence, but then for one reason or another he doesn't attack for one turn because he has to use an item or something, and then Silence wears off on the next turn and the boss does 150 damage to everyone, usually killing Frea at this point, and then it's all downhill. Once the attack also petrified everyone who survived the attack. That was even worse! >_<
Reveal is for suckers, use that half turn to do something that's worth the MPs 
Seriously, I'm not there yet. Knee deep in the new content right after the fight against
I found that challenging enough . Also from the ennemy icons you see in the equipment stats I'm guessing there's going to be an
down the line in NG+.
This game only confirms Matsuno needs to work on a full fledged JRPG again.
Seriously, I'm not there yet. Knee deep in the new content right after the fight against
the zombie dragon and his two lich buddies
angel-type ennemy
This game only confirms Matsuno needs to work on a full fledged JRPG again.
Reveal is for suckers, use that half turn to do something that's worth the MPs
I used to think that too, but it actually does have its uses in a right situations. If you don't have anything better to use on that half-turn, for example if your attack if going to do like 5 damage anyway because you're waiting for the next guy to debuff, throwing on a Reveal can help make decisions based on the enemy's HP and MP. It helps to anticipate when it can use a stronger attack, and it can also help make a judgement call on whether to finish the enemy off or to be more defensive if the enemy isn't close to death yet.
Are you sure that's not an elemental icon instead?
In that case prefer not doing anything and your next turn will come faster.
You're right but I always end up having something else to do that feels more useful than reveal and getting rid of an ennemy always feels worth of blowing some hit points on an ennemy anyway.
Yup different icons, you can see it in the stats when equipping stuff. Last one before the wind symbols it's
a blonde head with an halo over it
grimshawish
Banned
Its kind of amazing how tense this game can get, most RPGs these days don't have that affect on me any more; but this game does feel like a slip up will be my end.
Wrestlemania
Banned
Which spells are skeletons weak against?
No idea, but seems the Japanese version was already translated into English. Not sure if it's the same script.
There is actually a point to Reveal for the post-game:
. But I agree with duckroll that it's effective for strategizing as well, at the very least to know what you're up against.
Alexander O. Smith. Vagrant Story is also another fantastic translation by him.
The recent download version is, but the Guild01 retail cart wasn't.
I think light?
EDIT: Oh, I didn't know Joseph Reeder worked on this too. I still say The War of the Lions is great even if the purple prose does go a bit overboard at times.
a battle where you have to kill the enemies at the same time or it won't end
Alexander O. Smith. Vagrant Story is also another fantastic translation by him.
The recent download version is, but the Guild01 retail cart wasn't.
I think light?
EDIT: Oh, I didn't know Joseph Reeder worked on this too. I still say The War of the Lions is great even if the purple prose does go a bit overboard at times.
Wrestlemania
Banned
Nope, not light. Fuck this bit. I'm honestly close to just giving up, who thought this would be a good idea? Awful decision.
Shiiiit...
Hopefully we get another game outta this dream team soon. What was the last one, Tactics Ogre?
I think we can more or less be certain that unless something goes wrong, Alexander O Smith will always try to make himself available to work on a Matsuno game. So whatever game Matsuno works on next, there's a good chance he'll be involved too.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Same as Basiscape; Sakimoto has basically said as much in interviews.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
The music in the trailer alone made this a guaranteed purchase. Will buy soon.
Absoludacrous
Member
Was finally able to pick it up. God, that intro movie, with that music, it's like I'm playing FFT/Vagrant Story all over again.
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