well the story is really cheese from what i can tell
my main character got a criminal trial yesterday that he barely won due to the help of a greedy count that sees that the main character has mystic powers. suddenly the count makes the main character into a knight and says he can marry his niece if he succeeds in defeating the enemy. of course the niece of this count who happens to be pretty lovey dovey with my main character suddenly got issues and does not want to see the main character ever again.
lol can you get anymore cheesy then this ?
that said i really like the side characters more and more
yuris the mage always pretends like he is the real shit. but in a haunted mansion he screamed like a child every time a ghost appeared. it was hilarious
quark is a real bro. i really like the voice actor as he really succeeds in making him look like a dependable figure
seiren is just funny. she is always drunk and makes snide comments. hilarious imo.
The only reason I replayed him is because my girlfriend told me you can get his
Zan Lance if you beat him with it. Zangurg in particular was so easy that made me cry. Wait for his attack animation to start, evade and attack him 1-4 times, then wait for the next animation to start and attack him again. Was a peace of cake (sadly).
A flaw of the main storyline seems to be that a 3-4 story points circle completely around to enable the game scenarios to play out as intended. That's what I can gather just watching the characters mime around, the inflections of the voice acting, and the occasional "Arigato Elza!".
RK13 online now! Battle mode is pretty fun! Especially team battles. Every time I do it I get a new item, too =) anyone here know how many items battle mode yields in total? I think I've gotten three weapons from it so far, with the rest being colors or something.
Getting near the end of the game now... have loved the last few hours. No complaints really except for the framerate dropping when they have too much stuff on the screen.
Some late game but not end game spoilers:
The fight in Chapter 38 with Jill is just epic. Kinda makes me said he doesn't have a bigger role in the game once he turns into psycho LeChuck.
The big battle with him is a one on one duel on what's basically a pirate ship... purple night sky. Uematsu's battle track is just perfect and he's laughing like a maniac and screaming at you while you're fighting him. It's really got an atmosphere straight out of No More Heroes, but with better gameplay.
Also enjoyed taking down the dragons bombing the City with my exploding arrows.
The voice acting is fine, but it's just the lines are fairly generic animu stuff so it comes across that way. They also picked all the standard anime voice actors for the roles so that also adds to that.
. I have to off them by myself, but I wonder what level I should be at? anyone do this yet?
There was an earlier chapter -- the one featuring Manamia when you go to some island where there were more of these abominations that I guess you are not supposed to be able to win in that specific chapter unless it's in NG+.
Sakaguchi also tweeted the following
"Ummm, all players are so good. Should we make Artal more difficult to defeat?! ^ ^ (H. Sakaguchi)"
For those who don't know, artal is the hardest boss in raid mode -- his level is 99. Would he actually be able to do that though ? Make one of the bosses online harder to defeat even though the game is already out? Or is he referring to the localized version (assuming there is one)? I'm fine with either option to be honest. I just want the raids to be even more difficult for more fun!
Got my copy today and have played the first 5 chapters. Having watched so many streams of this since it came out, it was pretty easy to get an idea of what I needed to do (the boss
you need to lure to the bridge was a major example)
but I'm still really enjoying it.
The battle system is great and I'm finding it quite addictive. After a couple of chapters with little to no combat, I'm looking forward to some more.
How is it possible that no one in this thread has yet complained about the endgame?
Unforgiveably, atrociously long.
Good FUCKING lord I have never been so frustrated at a game in my life simply due to the length of the fucking endgame.
When you're at the last boss, seriously prepare for another 5 hours of waiting until you can see that credit roll.
The last dungeon is already dragged out, with recycled bosses, and then there's like 3 forms of the last boss.
Would have been fine if the game had the decency to END there.
It definitely doesn't. It tortures you with the most inane cutscenes ever for a solid 4 hours.
Partially this was due to my expectation that there were
36
chapters in the game, no there's
44
.
The ending NEVER ends!
A normal fucking game has the decency to keep its story sequences at the hour mark or so, this shit was MGS4 long. And I had stuff to do yesterday!
When you see a save point in the ENDING of the game, you know you're in for some shit.
Dear lord, never again. I am never playing another JRPG, I am fucking through. I have shit to do in my life that is not watching inane characters I have no connection with prattle on for hours. Sakaguchi is obviously so long-winded with Last Story because he believed the plot had meaning and relevance for the people watching. He thought they wanted to watch a maestro at work. The problem is it's like watching a world-class ice sculpturer: after awhile you realize you don't give a fuck about ice sculpting.
By the end I was fast forwarding through the ending.
The plot is actually pretty decent up until 80% through the game, where you start to realize that neither the kingdom you fight for nor the villains have anything near compelling motives. Then things start to fall apart with recycled sets and enemies and the feeling that the game is just trying to pump up the play clock.
What really killed the game's story for me was that I felt Quark was a completely empty character, and yet the story essentially revolved around he and Elza's relationship. You get no insight into their past, and Quark only ever talks to you about job offers, so there's no substance to it at all. Thus the twist at the end is completely without any kind of impact.
My review: 6
+
1. Fun battle system.
2. Stylistic visuals all around, very classy.
3. Characterization is in general GOOD, I especially liked the drunk girl who was like the game's Snooki
4. Serious efforts to get over all the faults of the JRPG genre. Notable exception: the storytelling.
-
1. Embarassingly easy difficulty level basically destroys the strategic elements of the game they obviously spent time on.
2. Plot is just vapid and empty, despite the insane grandeur that is poured all over it. Really surprisingly bad. I read a Halo novel recently and that was more interesting.
3. Nightmarishly long ending
Conclusion:
Selling it off tomorrow.
Amir0x should not be let near this game. Men would die.
haha, I didn't think the endgame was that bad. In fact I liked it because the visual design got interesting and the fights got a little more challenging. But yeah, the final boss is pretty ridiculous. Reminded me of the end boss of BD (don't even remember what the LO end boss was like). Sakaguchi looooves his 30 min multi-form overly ridiculous final bosses.
Everyone seems to like the drunk girl. She was the perfect example of why I didn't like the characters! All she had was "hey look she is drunk and whiny". That's like every character in the game. They have no depth at all. Just one-joke gimmicks. Blah, in my rpgs I want well-developed casts of interesting characters
What's so bad about having extra stuff after the "last boss" anyway? I actually like it. In fact, I want MORE games to be like this. Same thing with anime and TV dramas. Main antagonist is defeated and/or main problem is solved in the last episode and then there's barely anytime for a proper ending. Now that is truly bad storytelling.
I love Sakaguchi for his creative game design and his 90s throwback style, and it pains me to say it, but the man can't write, at least not anymore.
I also feel this hurts TLS a little more than LO though because TLS
It's only in the parts where the game stops and tries to add real emotion to the paper-thin characters and falls totally flat, that you kind of wish Sakaguchi would just let someone else write his stories.
Basically just Sakaguchi saying his original plan was rejected, it was really dark. He changed it to be a really simple fantasy setting and story so he could highlight the characters more, the fantasy setting brings out a realness in them.
From the impressions I've been reading here, I can gather that Xenoblade is the better of the two RPG giants. Is there anyone who disagrees with this and, if so, why?
The game opens back up and you can run around and do whatever you want after you beat the final boss. There's also what essentially amounts to an optional few more dungeons to do according to the a Japanese wiki on the game.
I fail to see how this is a bad feature. I need to try it out, but my understanding is you can go straight to the real ending if you talk to the right person in the town during the epilogue. I've certainly heard some people complaining about the plot but not about the endgame.
I think you also have to admit that the difficulty of the game picks up about halfway through and it isn't pathetically easy after that point. I had trouble with the final boss and had to grind a few levels after I died a few times on it.
What did you think of the multiplayer? That's a pretty large component of the game and really fun in my humble opinion.
I think you also have to admit that the difficulty of the game picks up about halfway through and it isn't pathetically easy after that point. I had trouble with the final boss and had to grind a few levels after I died a few times on it.
Maybe I just grinded too much (which only takes 5-10 minutes anyway to reach your current level up cap) but the whole game was easy. A few annoying points where I raged because of stupid party AI but other than that it was a joke...
I've been putting a lot more time into this over the past few days and am now at Chapter 21. Still enjoying it as much, if not more, than my initial impressions. I'm sure most of this has been covered by others but my thoughts right now are:
- Yeah, it's definitely as easy as people have been saying. I've had two or three game overs and most of those were when fighting the boss
on the boat. Its paralysis attack was annoying until I just brute-forced my way through him
. The boss
in the haunted house was interesting in that it changed up the normal way I was fighting and forced me to use my bow gun.
I'm sure the difficulty will pick up later in the game but right now it's not something I'm too concerned about.
- There's not much to the combat aside from a couple of special attacks, but I'm finding it enjoyable nonetheless.
- Everything feels so streamlined. No need for potions or magic, no random battles, no grinding, no traversing a world map and so on. It's nice that things are so instant, but at the minute this feels a little like Final Fantasy XIII with an element of Final Fantasy XII's battle system.
As I said, these things may change later in the game but, right now, I'm having a great time with this.
I think you also have to admit that the difficulty of the game picks up about halfway through and it isn't pathetically easy after that point. I had trouble with the final boss and had to grind a few levels after I died a few times on it.
Maybe I just grinded too much (which only takes 5-10 minutes anyway to reach your current level up cap) but the whole game was easy. A few annoying points where I raged because of stupid party AI but other than that it was a joke...
Yeah, that was completely unneccesary on your part. The only time I would recommend grinding is the last summon point before the final boss (and not to the cap then, but only level 60-62).
How is it possible that no one in this thread has yet complained about the endgame?
Unforgiveably, atrociously long.
Good FUCKING lord I have never been so frustrated at a game in my life simply due to the length of the fucking endgame.
When you're at the last boss, seriously prepare for another 5 hours of waiting until you can see that credit roll.
The last dungeon is already dragged out, with recycled bosses, and then there's like 3 forms of the last boss.
Would have been fine if the game had the decency to END there.
It definitely doesn't. It tortures you with the most inane cutscenes ever for a solid 4 hours.
Partially this was due to my expectation that there were
36
chapters in the game, no there's
44
.
The ending NEVER ends!
A normal fucking game has the decency to keep its story sequences at the hour mark or so, this shit was MGS4 long. And I had stuff to do yesterday!
When you see a save point in the ENDING of the game, you know you're in for some shit.
Dear lord, never again. I am never playing another JRPG, I am fucking through. I have shit to do in my life that is not watching inane characters I have no connection with prattle on for hours. Sakaguchi is obviously so long-winded with Last Story because he believed the plot had meaning and relevance for the people watching. He thought they wanted to watch a maestro at work. The problem is it's like watching a world-class ice sculpturer: after awhile you realize you don't give a fuck about ice sculpting.
By the end I was fast forwarding through the ending.
The plot is actually pretty decent up until 80% through the game, where you start to realize that neither the kingdom you fight for nor the villains have anything near compelling motives. Then things start to fall apart with recycled sets and enemies and the feeling that the game is just trying to pump up the play clock.
What really killed the game's story for me was that I felt Quark was a completely empty character, and yet the story essentially revolved around he and Elza's relationship. You get no insight into their past, and Quark only ever talks to you about job offers, so there's no substance to it at all. Thus the twist at the end is completely without any kind of impact.
My review: 6
+
1. Fun battle system.
2. Stylistic visuals all around, very classy.
3. Characterization is in general GOOD, I especially liked the drunk girl who was like the game's Snooki
4. Serious efforts to get over all the faults of the JRPG genre. Notable exception: the storytelling.
-
1. Embarassingly easy difficulty level basically destroys the strategic elements of the game they obviously spent time on.
2. Plot is just vapid and empty, despite the insane grandeur that is poured all over it. Really surprisingly bad. I read a Halo novel recently and that was more interesting.
3. Nightmarishly long ending
Conclusion:
Selling it off tomorrow.
Amir0x should not be let near this game. Men would die.
i would give this game something between 8 and 9. im at chapter 25 so i need to see the ending to make up my mind but 6... wow you must really not like what the game offered
(i can see the complaints about the story though.. i think zangeki no reginleiv has a better story which im currently playing alongside)
Yeah, that was completely unneccesary on your part. The only time I would recommend grinding is the last summon point before the final boss (and not to the cap then, but only level 60-62).
Sorry, I know you like the game a lot but please stop trying to pretend this game is hard. Your post reads like "Don't level up above 60-62, OTHERWISE the game will be too easy". If you're purposely try to play the game in "hard" mode then do as you please but a standard gamer will probably use a summon circle a few times too get some money (if needed) or some items for equipment or equipment itself. When you spend 5-15min at a summoning circle, which isn't exactly long, you will most likely have reached your level cap already.
Which means that most people won't have problems with the difficulty (as it's absent...), and that's what you gonna read quite often, be prepared to read this a million times when it comes out outside of Japan (if they don't change it) ...
the game's not hard but it's not like you'll never die. I got game over a few times. Most recently at the Kraken, who is a joke online, and prior to that, with three Cave Cougars -- I still have yet to beat these bastards.
I didn't grind at all and the only time I died was from a boss where my AI was glitching and then once on the 2nd to last boss because I was too greedy and attacked when it wasn't safe.
Again, I do think the difficulty jumps closer to normal in the final chapter, but up until then I still thought it was hard to die. Especially if you're upgrading your equip as you go.
Woo hoo! I finally beat those three Cave Cougars (lvl 40) at level 37. I was hardly doing any damage to them too. I lured and trap one in the water and can cornered one and kept slashing while the other was stuck between some rocks and a chest or something. Took 5 mins of constant slashing to kill one! Then for the other I held it off at bay using the rocks around the area and shot it to death with arrow (+24 strength). The one in the water I shot with my arrows from above but this took like 10 or more minutes because it was harder to hit!
I got rewarded with a rare weapon =)
Bebpo said:
I didn't grind at all and the only time I died was from a boss where my AI was glitching and then once on the 2nd to last boss because I was too greedy and attacked when it wasn't safe.
Again, I do think the difficulty jumps closer to normal in the final chapter, but up until then I still thought it was hard to die. Especially if you're upgrading your equip as you go.
I died in the chase sequence, the MGS sequence when I got caught on accident, the Kraken, and in chapter 19 where you fight this giant skeleton that tosses other skeletons at you, the cave cougars in Manamia's chapter, and the three Cave Cougars in the city.
those sphere thingies were a pain in the butt before i realized i could do that burst thing. used it for the first time in that battle now im constantly using it.
You have to use silence on him thats pretty much it
he will come down from the skies once you cast silence (manamiya needs to use the green spell and elza needs to spread the green magic circle that appears)
use gathering. Mitra has a count-down attack where he shoots a bunch of beams at you... if you block them about a half second before they reach you you'll parry the attack back at him and knock him out of the sky.
use gathering. Mitra has a count-down attack where he shoots a bunch of beams at you... if you block them about a half second before they reach you you'll parry the attack back at him and knock him out of the sky.
finished the game yesterday.
the game is hard only if you don't know japanese, if you know japanese the exact instruction on how to do everything is laid out to you during combat in dialogs. def an awesome game though
So finally beat the game. I believe its the first JRPG in ages i actually beat. I would give the game something like 9 out of 10 and here is why.
1. Battle System : I already expressed my love to the TLS Battle system a several times in this thread and it stayed this way for the whole game. I also did not think it was too easy (I did not grind that much in the summoning circles mind you) or way too hard. You are basically the tanker and need to protect the damage dealers (magicians) and your focus ability (enemies only focus on you) helps this task a lot. But thats not everything the magicians will not only attack but will leave a magic circle that you can use in various ways to help you in battle (this was already explained a lot). In the later chapters you also gain tension skills which can be described as sort of super moves and can be very useful in bossfights.
The Bosses also deserve some attention. There are 43 Chapters in the game and almost every chapter has a Boss. And wow the Bosses are really good. Most of them cant be just beaten down to death as they have some sort of barrier or are immune to some attacks etc. Also here is where the whole in Battle Chat comes into play as the Characters talk about how to defeat the said boss. The sheer variety of bosses and the general difficulty hike in bossfights (many bosses can one or two shot you with their attacks) makes the game even more interesting and enjoyable.
2. Story and Characters : The Story is pretty cheesy. This didnt change at all from start to finish. But that doesnt necessarily mean the Story is bad. It is a fantasy story that you probably have seen or read a thousand times (Young Boy becomes a Hero). It did manage to sneak in some twists and surprises though. Especially near the End the Story becomes really interesting.
(Yes you probably can see the Betrayal from miles away. But man i would have never thought that he would be the final boss and not zangurg)
I also liked how the Story did not end immidiately after the Last Boss was killed but carried on a bit
(To depict how the crew dealt with the death and betrayal of their leader quark)
Overall id say the story was typical oldschool JRPG stuff nothing all to quirky or overly abstract like the stories of some of the newschool JRPGs.
The Characters on the other Hand are generally awesome. The two main Characters Elza and Kanaan are a bore. But Seiren, the drunken lady, Jackal, the clown, Quark, the bro, Yuris, the silent type
who is actually scared of ghosts
, Manamiya, the kind type, Jill, the envious bastard, Trista, the Teacher, Tasha, the ideal knight as well as Earl Alghanan are pretty well developed and interesting characters.
I also liked the storytelling. The game utilizes the in battles dialogue a lot. Its not only that you get hints how to defeat a certain boss. No the characters chat about their present feeling and issues too. The Story moves along with the in battles dialogues even if the more important parts of story progression are handeled in typical cutscenes.
For example, Seiren and Jackal display their affection to each other through in battles dialogue for quite some time. Only near the end the game shows some cutscenes were their feelings become clear
Overall id say that they probably could have done a lot more with the characters and storytelling. The main Plot itself is so predictable and cheesy that it somewhat hurts the potential the game had. Nevertheless it is enjoyable due to the fact that the characters are interesting and the presentation is good.
3. Graphics : I think the graphics of this game are definately some of the best graphics Ive ever seen on Wii. The Character modells are very detailed, the animations are very smooth, the environments look beautiful. I experienced some framedrops as my 4 mages constantly used magic on the enemy, but man that was a lot of AOE the Wii had to deal with.
4. Exploration : The Game only has one town and one castle. That doesnt mean that you dont have explorationt hough. The Town is almost as big as a city in assassins creed and it really feels that way when you walk through it. There are hidden items all over the place. They are usually not in treasure chests but you have to go into first person mode to find a blinking object. If you aim correctly youll find the item. It is kinda random but i believe its a better way then having you find all the chests in the city and after youve done that the down is empty and boring.
The townsfolk are pretty weird as well.
There are kids that demand you to find hidden medals. There is a women that constantly talks about how you love her (err.. i dont). There is a clumsy girl that accidentaly slips and looses all her oranges (Which makes you slip if you walk over the oranges).
Just to name some examples
Oh also this is probably the first time i actually beat a JRPG in japanese. I beat Zelda Wind Waker in Japanese back in 2002 but that was not really a JRPG so. (Oh wait i beat Pokemon Pearl in japanese)
Ok, I just beat the game. I say it's about an 8.7 out of 10. I spent 38 hours on the main game, pretty much doing nearly everything and I spent about 33 hours online! Of course I still have New Game plus to do, but I think I'll wait for the North american release instead of replaying this one. The reason why the score isn't higher is because there are quite a few recycled environments and bosses and the story is pretty much just average, though the characters are good. There are still some secrets in the game though, like the third floor of the prison area and how to obtain Kannon's third outfit (someone was using it online!) that haven't been figured out yet.
But yes, this game was well worth the money. I plan to buy the U.S. release when it happens.
