Support NeoGAF

[duckroll]

Not exactly sure yet...I just mash the button for now to make sure I don`t miss some but yeah,sometimes only 2 do an attack,not all 3 so i`m missing something still...

The charge meter isn't the only thing you have to pay attention to. There are other things which can stop a character from participating in the tri-attack, or being unable to hit an enemy. Positioning and route is a major issue. Just because you can pull off a tri-attack doesn't mean you always should. If a character is blocked behind a wall or too far away from an enemy, it becomes a total waste. Also you have to judge when you might need to jump when it moves from character to character, especially if a big enemy might be in the way. A character who is too far away from the target will also charge too slowly to participate in the attack in any meaningful way.

 

[Mudkips]

But which segment of the split charge gauge corresponds to which character?

Knowing this would make it so much easier to juggle and get bonus hits, or to target specific body parts. (By telling certain characters to skip their attack and keep charging, then switching control to them and initiating an attack when they have more charges.)

 

[Error]

you can connect terminals between levels? like connecting a terminal in level 4 to the level elevator in level 5?

 

[duckroll]

you can connect terminals between levels? like connecting a terminal in level 4 to the level elevator in level 5?

Yes. If the colored hex is on the elevator (or just next to it? not sure) you can then place that colored hex on the elevator on the corresponding level and the effect(s) all carry over to the other level. You cannot connect between core lifts though, so you can only spread terminal effects across each major sections of Basel.

 

[Error]

oh shi... that's pretty cool.

going to connect all the terminals in level 3 with those in the floor with the forest of idols

:arr

 

[duckroll]

oh shi... that's pretty cool.

going to connect all the terminals in level 3 with those in the floor with the forest of idols

:arr

Errr.... you mean level 4? Level 3 upwards is Chandelier... it doesn't have a normal elevator.

 

[Skerj]

oh shi... that's pretty cool.

going to connect all the terminals in level 3 with those in the floor with the forest of idols

:arr

Be mindful though, each time you add a terminal on the grid it increases the amount of hex energy required to keep all terminals active simultaneously. You can place neutral hexes in front of terminals to "cut the line" so to speak if you find out you're running out of colored hexes for energy and really need a specific terminal to be active. Also, enemies can use your terminal effects as well.


Man there's something really satisfying and awesome about pulling off a tri attack on a boss and having it juggled between all 3 chars plus the ground and air for crazy smackdowns. This is pretty much my favorite RPG battle system since Xenogears and Vagrant Story although VP2's and Valkyria Chronicle's was nothing to sneeze at either.

 

[Error]

Let me get this right... Danger Zones don't disappear when you clear a chapter? This level 44 monster is impossible for me right now.

 

[mjemirzian]

Let me get this right... Danger Zones don't disappear when you clear a chapter? This level 44 monster is impossible for me right now.

Danger Zones don't disappear.. but it is possible to kill that guy as low as lv 9. There's a way to clear every danger zone encounter as soon as they appear, even if you aren't grinding for levels/gear/parts.

 

[DarknessTear]

So, I'm thinking about getting this game, I have a few questions to people who have been playing it:

1. Is the story at least decent/bearable?
2. How is the gameplay? Is it SMT-level challenging? Or is it the fun kind of challenging?

Bonus question: Is the music awesome?

 

[Yoshichan]

I'm definitely buying this next month and I'm wondering:

Is this the JRPG that will satisfy my needs? All I want from it is that you can actually feel the accomplishment when winning a boss battle or anything like that. I've really missed that feeling (ugh, WKC...). So basically, is it hard enough to actually go "Phew, fuck that was an awesome battle" after the fight?

 

[mjemirzian]

I'm definitely buying this next month and I'm wondering:

Is this the JRPG that will satisfy my needs? All I want from it is that you can actually feel the accomplishment when winning a boss battle or anything like that. I've really missed that feeling (ugh, WKC...). So basically, is it hard enough to actually go "Phew, fuck that was an awesome battle" after the fight?

Yes some of the bosses and danger zones will leave you feeling that way, assuming you don't overlevel. And if it's not hard enough just replay it until the enemies have 5x hp/dmg.

I'd say it's a pretty fair level of difficulty.

 

[indigo-cyclops]

I'm really just about to buy this tomorrow...please make the push easier and convince me to.

 

[Dresden]

I'm really just about to buy this tomorrow...please make the push easier and convince me to.

If all the positive impressions in the last few pages has yet to convince you, I dunno what you think anyone else can do that will.

 

[indigo-cyclops]

If all the positive impressions in the last few pages has yet to convince you, I dunno what you think anyone else can do that will.

Fair enough! That's exactly it really. It really has caught my attention and I'm in the mood for a great jRPG.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

I'm really just about to buy this tomorrow...please make the push easier and convince me to.

It's a Tri-Ace game with adequate writing. How often does something like that happen?

DO EEEEEEEEEEEEET!

 

[Defuser]

Chapter 6 was challenging with just 2 chars,wouldn't beat the boss if i didn' equip vashyron with dual pistols and damn they're godly.Save my ass too on dakota vein against 2 sledgehammers barely and now I have dual MG for zeph. The game is fuck awesome.

 

[ZephyrFate]

I'm just happy a main character is named after my favorite Greek God.

I'll probably get this when it goes down in price. Just Cause 2, Heavy Rain, and FFXIII are eating up too much of my time.

 

[chicken_ramen]

I'm really just about to buy this tomorrow...please make the push easier and convince me to.

Tri-Ace usually produces only one game a generation worth a damn. This is the first time that game hasn't had VP in the title.

 

[Error]

I love the song that plays in Forest of Idols. It's not often you hear a bluesy song in a videogame, let alone an rpg.

 

[TEJ]

I need help finding the hex that will let me go to cranktown.....which enemy drops it and where can I get it?

thanks.

 

[Dead Prince]

I need help finding the hex that will let me go to cranktown.....which enemy drops it and where can I get it?

thanks.

the chapter boss. are you talking about the piece to get to Core Lift 2?

 

[TEJ]

fuck, I had it in my inventory this whole time.

 

[Alex]

This is the best title Tri-Ace has ever made, IMO, I am REALLY enjoying this.

Even more than the Valkyrie Profile duo, which for me is really saying something big. Everything from the map to the customization to the combat to the characters and dialogue is just really, really fun. I'm coming up with little to bitch about other than the fact that I'm kind of sucking it up thus far. Usually I'm a fast learner but man I'm taking my lumps here.

The extremely cool cast is what took me off guard most, I went in expecting somewhat obnoxious JRPG shells as per usual but they're really funny and really charming. I'm pretty taken aback by it. I'm sure the story probably goes nowhere, and that's fine, despite what anyone says it rarely ever does in anything. The cast and the dialogue is what needs the most attention for a video game, not trying to make a quest to do cliched or mundane events as overwrought as possible.

 

[Dresden]

I wish I had more time to play.

Just got to the Forest of Idols, chapter 3. My guys are levels 13/11/12 (Zephyr hasn't had a chance to level up grenades yet), was that around what you guys had?

 

[Cep]

It's a Tri-Ace game with adequate writing. How often does something like that happen?

*Thinks*

Man, It has been a long time. By most definitions, it has been since SO2.

Personally, I think it has been since VP

 

[Alex]

Valkyrie Profile had some little issues and was saturated in some goofy melodrama, but it was really well presented, pretty interesting and downright fun to be involved in

It completely threw the actual story to the wind to take up it's reins as a video game and just focused on some interesting cast members and backstories, and I greatly appreciated that

So is this basically the same team for both VPs and Resonance? Because I would hardly be surprised considering the parralels and consistency compared to the other titles from the studio.

 

[Dresden]

*Thinks*

Man, It has been a long time. By most definitions, it has been since SO2.

Personally, I think it has been since VP

Probably. I'm hesitant to actually say so, since I've yet to play VP2.

 

[mjemirzian]

I liked VP: Covenant of the Plume better than this game. I'm more of an SRPG than RPG player, but since there haven't been any decent SRPGs out recently..

 

[duckroll]

So is this basically the same team for both VPs and Resonance? Because I would hardly be surprised considering the parralels and consistency compared to the other titles from the studio.

Not really. When VP was made, tri-Ace was pretty small, and the same team made ToP, SO, SO2, VP, and SO3. tri-Ace has grown a lot recently though. Radiata Stories was the first tri-Ace game to be developed by a "B" team in the company I believe, and many of those planners went on to work on Infinite Undiscovery. The director of RS has never worked on another tri-Ace game, while the director of IU is a long time Wolf Team veteran who also worked extensively on VP and SO3.

VP2 was the first tri-Ace game designed and programmed by the core team, to be led by a new director. Suguro was previously from Squaresoft, and worked under Matsuno as a battle planner in both FFT and VS. He moved to tri-Ace and directed VP2, and now RoF. After VP2, the two main programmers split into two projects, with Ueki leading SO4 and Kitao leading RoF.

Both IU and SO4 were heavily outsourced in many areas: art assets, modeling, programming, etc. The lead planners and director for SO4 seem to be mostly new people, while RoF is made up of mostly people from the VP2 team, and is the more "consistent" staff lineage out of all their games this generation.

VP DS was developed by more new tri-Ace staffers, VP2's menu programmer, and some ex-Quest planners from Square Enix who moved to tri-Ace.

 

[Error]

I liked VP: Covenant of the Plume better than this game. I'm more of an SRPG than RPG player, but since there haven't been any decent SRPGs out recently..

really? I thought it was one of tri-Ace worst games, along with IU.

 

[mjemirzian]

really? I thought it was one of tri-Ace worst games, along with IU.

Well you can read my review of VP: Covenant of the Flame and see if you agree with it or not. I thought it was a great SRPG, and I've played many of them over the years (including lots of import titles).

Thanks for the history lesson duckroll very interesting.

 

[duckroll]

I didn't play VP DS, so I can't really comment on the quality. I want to try it one day though... maybe one day I'll see that and TWEWY for cheap and pick them up. I feel kinda biased against VP DS though. I'm a huge fan of how they came up with the name of the series (you play as a Valkyrie, and the game is in profile view), and VP DS threw all that away. Should've been called Mortal Isometric. :/

 

[zlatko]

So I have 52 hours of playtime and I'm still in Chapter 6. The game has so much to keep you busy with. I finally caught up on all my Arena ranks, unlocked all 12 levels of Basel, and managed to get everything but floor 12 covered in full hexes.(Minus a few spots you need specific color hexes like brown and forest green for)

Now I can wrap Chapter 6 up. All my characters are over level 50 and the game really hasn't been hard since maybe the first dungeon for me and even that was only slightly hard just because I didn't approach the boss there correctly. I also managed to do all the side dungeons you can as well along with every side mission that has popped up since the start of the game.

As far as content goes this game packs a LOT of it.

 

[Alex]

Thanks for the info, Duck.

Covenant of the Plume was a wash, in my opinion, and I still fail to see why it even exists in the form that it does. I didn't really find it to be even very special as an SRPG especially with some of the other choices you can make on that platform for that genre. It's not a terrible game or anything it's just... there, not being Valkyrie Profile.

Also, I'm a little sad to hear that IU spawned from the team behind Radiata. I really found very little to like in IU whereas Radiata was a pretty charming, interesting experiment... with an absolutely terrible battle engine. I'd really like to see another stab taken at that game, but I'm sure it's probably laid to rest.

 

[zlatko]

I found this online.

http://www.justpushstart.com/2010/03/27/resonance-of-fate-secret-costumes-code/

It lets you unlock extra secret clothes for Leanne Chapter 7 and further.

 

[Defuser]

Anybody got tips on where to farm some colour hex? Place and enemy.

 

[zlatko]

Anybody got tips on where to farm some colour hex? Place and enemy.

Check your bestiary. (Found at the hunters guild side missions at Ebel City or your house)

You'll see what monsters drop what hexes and where they can be found.

 

[Heidalloon]

I really botched that chapter 1 boss :/. Still haven't completely gotten the hang of the battle system.

Game is fun though!

 

[Datschge]

When VP was made, tri-Ace was pretty small, and the same team made ToP, SO, SO2, VP, and SO3.

Slight correction: The clean break was already between VP and SO:BS. Up to VP tri-Ace consisted of plenty 2D artists from Wolfteam days, those mostly left afterward while the amount of employees grew from ~50 in 1999, ~80 in 2001 to (long intermission of no website updates) ~120 in 2005 and finally ~150 now. (Recently there were some reports of union members against lay offs at tri-Ace on 2ch. No idea if that was real though.)
Another huge change was the way they work from PS2 to current gen, last gen the only sizable external company was tri-Crescendo (with staff originating from tri-Ace anyway) which did everything sound related and most everything else was done internally. Now sound direction is done internally while there are no areas anymore which aren't co-developed with external companies.

 

[duckroll]

Slight correction: The clean break was already between VP and SO:BS. Up to VP tri-Ace consisted of plenty 2D artists from Wolfteam days, those mostly left afterward while the amount of employees grew from ~50 in 1999, ~80 in 2001 to (long intermission of no website updates) ~120 in 2005 and finally ~150 now. (Recently there were some reports of union members against lay offs at tri-Ace on 2ch. No idea if that was real though.)
Another huge change was the way they work from PS2 to current gen, last gen the only sizable external company was tri-Crescendo (with staff originating from tri-Ace anyway) which did everything sound related and most everything else was done internally. Now sound direction is done internally while there are no areas anymore which aren't co-developed with external companies.

Oh, I actually completely forgot about SO:BS. Yeah, that's definitely a good point. The 2D to 3D clean break is another reason why we can't really consider older tri-Ace games to be the same "team" as the current ones. Unlike what happened at Square, where the 2D artists from the old days simply stepped up and became art directors, character designers or directors, for tri-Ace it seems most of them just left.


Edit: Okay, I would really appreciate some advice or help on how to deal with the Grass Yeti mobs for the quest in chapter 8. I've cleared everything else now and it's the only thing stopping me from progressing. I just did a ton of Arena stuff, and bought some Anti-Toxic. Not sure if that'll help much since I've never used these Anti items before. I also bought a new gun, the one from the Ebel store, and it's pretty solid after I customized it. Really digging the freedom of progression in the game honestly. There's just so much gameplay to discover even when you're not doing the story or quests.

 

[Melville]

I can't find the demo on the japanese PSN... Was it removed? I really want to try out this game before buying it T_T

 

[RS4-]

Uhhh, I can't find the statue at Forest of Idols, the chap 5 mission that requires you to take pictures. I went through both forests and whatever that dungeon that involved escorting the statue.

Wtf am I doing wrong :lol

 

[duckroll]

Uhhh, I can't find the statue at Forest of Idols, the chap 5 mission that requires you to take pictures. I went through both forests and whatever that dungeon that involved escorting the statue.

Wtf am I doing wrong :lol

He wants pictures of idols. They're the huge religious statues like the one you see at the end of chapter 1's dungeon. If you talk to this woman in Ebel, she will mention that there's one in Lucia (that's the one I mentioned), after you go there and take a photo of that, she'll tell you where you might find the next one.

Solution:

Spoiler

There's one in Lucia, one in the Crank Seminary, and the last photo is either of the idols at the front of Jean-Paulet's mansion.

 

[RS4-]

Ah thanks, was missing the one in the mansion.

 

[Error]

Well you can read my review of VP: Covenant of the Flame and see if you agree with it or not. I thought it was a great SRPG, and I've played many of them over the years (including lots of import titles).

Thanks for the history lesson duckroll very interesting.

don't get me wrong I love srpgs, but VP DS was lacking in a lot of areas. the graphics are mediocre, the music is all recycled, (I know the jp version had voice...) voice was cut from the US version.

None of the gameplay mechanics were interesting to me, having to maintain a quota of Karma or whatever was more of a burden, specially considering the isometric view during combats makes it a complete mess to pull out combos. why they didn't go for a traditional side view for combat I will never understand. The stage design never got interesting, you could get into higher areas but it didn't seem to affect anything, so I don't really understand what was the point. I did like the fact that you could sacrifice party members, but that's about the only cool thing about the game to me.

The disappointment was too big, IMO. specially if you played the other VP games. VP games have excellent level design, whereas VP DS was a mediocre srpg that doesn't really push the series in any direction.

 

[mjemirzian]

having to maintain a quota of Karma or whatever was more of a burden, specially considering the isometric view during combats makes it a complete mess to pull out combos. why they didn't go for a traditional side view for combat I will never understand. The stage design never got interesting, you could get into higher areas but it didn't seem to affect anything, so I don't really understand what was the point. I did like the fact that you could sacrifice party members, but that's about the only cool thing about the game to me.

You can ignore the sin quota and sacrificing if you like/don't like them, that's one of the good parts of the game - it can be difficult or easy depending on your choices. I'm not sure why you found the isometric view confusing, it doesn't seem any better or worse than a side view. I thought the level design was pretty well done for the most part, although there were a few too many flat bridge maps.

I did a no sin quota/no plume playthrough and I enjoyed killing all the realmstalkers along the way. One of the reasons I liked it so much was that it offered a difficult, fun, and strategic challenge to those looking for one. Also there's no save/reload abuse and you can't grind, which makes the challenge more legitimate.

edit: It's not a self imposed challenge. The game responds to you ignoring the sin quota by putting realmstalkers on the map, which is a developer provided challenge. The game also responds to your plume usage by determining which route you end up on.

 

[Error]

I don't really care about self imposed challenges, I care about gameplay mechanics with depth. VP DS didn't give me that, nor did IU and to a lesser extent SO4 failed in this too.

RoF has flaws, but to me if I start pointing out flaws I'd be nitpicking. This the best battle engine tri-Ace has done, you could think of battles as your own playground. there are a lot of ways to approach a single combat scenario, lots of stuff to try, and that fixes one of the big problems with the VP games. in VP games once you found a decent combo that worked for 70% of the enemies you were good to go for pretty much the rest of the game, making battles a bit repetitive. Here the game throws you a lot more of variety in battle design, much better enemy design and of course the battle stages are constantly changing, forcing you to think of new strategies.

I know opinions are like arseholes, but I just don't see how VP DS is better.

 

[Dresden]

Oh, man. Destroyed the ch.3 boss, barely took any damage. Seems like bosses are the only places my guys actually level up. They're all up to level 14 now.

I wonder if I should buy the handgun at the store, I have enough cash.

 

[Tailzo]

I've played the game for all day, and all yesterday too. As you might suspect, I have a lot of fun with this game. I hope this thread will make more people know about it.