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[Semjaza Azazel]

I'm not sure who might have seen these yet. They're honestly new to me and I figured people might want to check them out. Some of them are kind of spoilerish (I've been trying to avoid any story information on this game beyond the basics), so I just stuck with the ones labelled "battle" or "hallway".

The videos show off a few aspects of the battles... namely how surprisingly fast paced it is and a better idea of the "press button" system (which is slightly explained in the PDF sample of the DoubleJump guide at www.shinmegamitensei.com).

I'm also quite happy to see the load times are rather speedy. I noticed a few areas where text seemed a bit messed up, but I can only assume it has been cleaned up since then. I hope so anyway.

The link is here: http://files.worthplaying.com/files/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=993

It's a ZIP file containing 13 short videos. There's more on the official game site as well, but I've not gotten around to watching them yet.

 

[Dujour]

This will be my first rpg in a while that I actually want to finish. When's the release date, btw?

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

September 28th.

 

[ferricide]

if you use auto, the battles are stupid fucking speedy. like phantasy star II/IV speedy. of course, it's hard to maximize your press turns if you do that, but even if you go full manual they're nice and quick.

 

[Brandon F]

Oh dear, would there happen to be an automap feature buried somewhere by chance? The repeating wallpaper and multiple forked paths stirred a sense of dread in me as I watched a few of those videos.

Toss in the random encounter rate and "uh oh"....just what are we to expect here fellas?

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

As far as I know, you can just press a button and access a map of the area you're in. It maps itself as you make progess through the area. All the SMT games feature dungeons of this sort.

 

[Alex]

The guide got delayed by a week apparently! Argh, I say! I was actually pretty interested in nabbing it on my trip down there today.

"Oh dear, would there happen to be an automap feature buried somewhere by chance? The repeating wallpaper and multiple forked paths stirred a sense of dread in me as I watched a few of those videos."

The auto-mapping makes it sound fine to me, I'd prefer a change of pace in old-school mazes rather than the nerve wracking "puzzles" Japanese RPG's and adventure games alike are getting plagued with.

Used to be I far prefered puzzley dungeons, but nowadays... Ugh, I swear Japan as a whole has teamed up and created a generator for this shit, people need to be slapped with Lufia 2 carts in great mass.

Just gimmie a maze with hard enemies, lots of loot, and perhaps a few switches with an angry boss at the end.

"if you use auto, the battles are stupid fucking speedy. like phantasy star II/IV speedy. of course, it's hard to maximize your press turns if you do that, but even if you go full manual they're nice and quick."

Unless the engine is completely dreary and boring to play (Wild Arms 3 comes to mind here), I don't see myself using auto much, I've just never been that kind of player. How much did you use it, Ferricide?

 

[Brandon F]

Yea, knowing there is an automap of sorts cushions the blow. But boy that repeating wall texture dizzied me just watching the video. One of the doors was practically camouflaged with the wallpaper.

Star Ocean 3 struck a very nice balance with its dungeons. They were meaty and LARGE and only occasionnally stuck a wrench in the gears with the occasional brain-scratching puzzle. And when I say puzzle I don't necessarily mean the fisher price 'square-block in square-hole' stuff you find in ToS et al. No, some of them can be very tricky mindbenders, though a few are irritating fetch quests of sorts with vague clue setups...those weren't very neat.

I'm currently plowing through the bonus dungeons unlocked when beating the game, snagging uber loot in preparation for Freya/Lenneth.

 

[Alex]

You and your crazy Star Ocean. I'll eventually try it. But not until it's cheap enough where I can risk not getting the same burn I felt droping $50 on Symphonia.

Took so much effort to finish that (did you ever?), looking back I much prefered Eternia, and shit, probably even Destiny. Despite being a sizeable degression in areas most important to me, but I don't wanna get into all that again.

I hope we can have a solid "official" topic for Nocturne, when's the last time an RPG I was really interested in had some good on-going discussion, VP? I kept trying to make topics for poor Dragon Quarter.

 

[ferricide]

Unless the engine is completely dreary and boring to play (Wild Arms 3 comes to mind here), I don't see myself using auto much, I've just never been that kind of player. How much did you use it, Ferricide?

well, the auto is handled very differently in SMT than it is in other games. i used it constantly, but rarely for an entire battle. you toggle it on and off with the triangle button at any time, so when i just wanted to smack some enemies around i'd toggle it on, and then cancel it to select my attacks. plus you can configure it to be repeating your selections or just generic "attack" (although i think they should have had both, on seperate buttons.)

anyway, it works well, and the battles aren't boring. you need to be on top of your shit if you want to play efficiently. and you need to do so.

the dungeons are actually fairly puzzly (neither really in the lufia II or the TOS sort of way). it's a matter of figuring out where to go in terms of navigation, unlocking stuff (not really switch flippy, but revealing pathways, etc) and stuff like that. they get pretty hardcore.

in general, my recommendation is: buy the guide. don't use it slavishly, but have it around for reference.

 

[Alex]

I'd buy guides more often, simply for reference, charts, etc. if the majority of them weren't such utter ass and provided little more than a walkthrough with holes in it.

Thankfully Double Jump seems to have carved out a little niche for themselves with the hardcore groupies. I'll be snagging it.

 

[Tabris]

Trying to pre-order this game is impossible.

Tried at EB Games and they couldn't for the life of them find it in the system.

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

I had the guide pre-ordered and I was hoping to get it in yesterday... but it's not coming till next week as mentioned. Lame.

Oh well. I'll be in Florida when it all arrives. Something good to come back to lol.

As for an official thread, I expect it... there seems to be a a decent amount of fans of the series here and some people seem very interested in the game.

For EB, tell them to look under "Nocturne"

 

[Brandon F]

Never did finish ToS off, and I am so close. Eternia is definately the superior game.

I liked SO3 quite a bit though, but it's a hard sell given the likely superior competition pouring in. It has issues that one can easilly overlook, but the more fickle gamers may have a rough ride. I dumped 80 hours into it before the conclusion, and found teh fun; particularly became hooked on crafting and synthesizing, to the point of breaking the game, but that is the nature of the beast afterall.

SMT should likely get mad discussion. Demon contracts and moral decisions should make for interesting forum commentary.

 

[ferricide]

Trying to pre-order this game is impossible.

if you want it, you should preorder it. EBs are going to get like 1 copy beyond preorder or something because it's teh obscure.

or preorder it online.

 

[djtiesto]

I think I might get this eventually, I put Shadow Hearts 2 on reserve, instead... I mean, this game sounds good and all, but I can't get into the art style. I hope it won't really be so hard to get a few months down the line... but then again, a game like this will never sell where I'm from.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Gamespot just put up a new preview for the game:

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/shinmegamitenseinocture/preview_6107534.html

 

[Brofist]

There's actually a brilliant faq at gamefaqs on the Japanese version..I used it a bit to go though that version.

I didn't find the battles in SMT3 be redundant, since your party is always changing and therefore skills change quite a bit. I used auto quite frequently...in most areas there are many throwaway battles against low level chumps...it's so nice to auto those battles in like 3 seconds.

The atmosphere of the game is great, one of the only games in recent times that pulled me in in such a way. The music, artwork, and story brings it all together nicely.

The only complaints I could think of are high number of random battle encounters (although it makes leveling quick), and not enough skill slots for the main character (you have to choose which skills to keep wisely, the faqs on gamefaqs helps alot with that). There is plenty meat to the game, and a lot of side quests to keep you busy. Boss battles are challenging, but usually it takes finding the one glaring weakness to turn the tables on em. Nice game overall, I might even check the US version to see how the translation ended up.

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/547/547460p1.html

IGN is finally writing something more about this game outside of their "Oops, we totally ignored this at E3, so here's a video they gave us!" update.

 

[Alex]

A video preview (and a write up also I believe) went up at Game Spot as well. Nothing you haven't heard 10 times before, but the footage is nice.