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The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki II (JP/CN/KR) |OT| The Empire's New Groove
- Thread starter RyougaSaotome
- Start date
distantmantra
Member
Yeah, I'm on normal. I don't have a ton of time for gaming anymore so I tend not to make things tougher than they need to.
Have you checked any of the Japanese wikis? I linked them earlier in this thread.
Good luck!
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Huh, didn't think you'd want to play on Hard, Aeana. After starting on Hard with Ao Evo and Zero Evo then resetting to start on Normal, I felt like I'd learned my lesson and played on Normal instead. It gets boring since all they do is inflate some stats. Not as fun as Ys games on harder difficulties!
Anyway, I'm glad this isn't much like Sen I. I know some liked the change of pace and all, but it never clicked for me and it ended up being one of my least faves in the series. Just finished Sen II's intro chapter and I'm kinda digging it. The music's better than Sen 1's early stuff, too.
Anyway, I'm glad this isn't much like Sen I. I know some liked the change of pace and all, but it never clicked for me and it ended up being one of my least faves in the series. Just finished Sen II's intro chapter and I'm kinda digging it. The music's better than Sen 1's early stuff, too.
I usually play normal, but I found Sen boringly easy on normal, so I thought I'd try hard. I'm not really seeing a lot of value in it here, so I don't think I'd ever do it again. It doesn't feel harder, stuff just takes longer. That said, I don't find it to be too obnoxious in this game compared to, say, Ys 7.
Shouta
Member
The HP inflation on Hard doesn't seem too bad in Sen II thankfully, aside from the Eidolon/Dimensional Beast thingies. It's actually offset if you're into tweaking and powering your chars because Sen II has that in spades and you can customize some really powerful characters as a result.
Considering later in the game the bosses in particular just turn into S-Craft spamming sessions, it probably won't make much difference in the long run. They really did a bad job of balancing them this time. Occasionally you'll get an irritating boss that loves to heal and buff itself, but most of them go down pretty quickly if you bombard them with S-Crafts. I went for hard instead of nightmare this time for fear there'd be any more Kishin fights like Ordine, but I almost wish I hadn't.
I just got to the part in chapter 2 where
, and I feel like this is probably the most overt reference to another arc a Kiseki game has had. Not just a mention, but a visual too. I find it really interesting that Falcom apparently decided that the Sen games were a good jumping-on point (by doing official translations in Chinese and Korean) when the story references the past arc directly like that, but I'm sure that my perspective of having played Zero and Ao is interfering at least partially here.
you can see the blue tree from Ao
It's hard to say with confidence consider I'm up to date on the series too, but I get the impression they were trying to make it like that either way, with the two arcs interwining and spoiling you partially on the other regardless of which you chose to start with. Start with Sen and you'll get stuff like that and references to what's going on in Crossbell here and there, but start with Zero and you get that huge spoiler dump at the end of Ao which basically tells you a bunch of major developments in the Erebonia arc. Haven't spoken to anyone who's tried it, but I'm betting someone who went Sen 1 -> Sen 2 -> Zero -> Ao would be surprised at how much it gives away.
RyougaSaotome
Member
I'm wondering it it might actually be pretty rad to start with Zero, then go Sen + Sen II, then Ao? Or maybe sneak Ao in before Sen II?
Could be a lot of interesting ways to potentially play these four games for a unique perspective on events.
Could be a lot of interesting ways to potentially play these four games for a unique perspective on events.
Shouta
Member
I'm almost certain they wanted to keep it like that in Sen II. The reference is overt if you have played the games but it's totally "wtf is going on over there" to users that aren't familiar with it. Sen I did similar things with their take and references to certain events too. You play it and think "whoa, what's going on over there!?" and you find out that it's in Zero/Ao and that makes you want to go play it.
I definitely think there is no right order to playing these 4 games but if we were going timeline and least impactful, I'd definitely go with what Ryouga says Zero -> Sen -> Sen II -> Ao for maximum effectiveness.
I definitely think there is no right order to playing these 4 games but if we were going timeline and least impactful, I'd definitely go with what Ryouga says Zero -> Sen -> Sen II -> Ao for maximum effectiveness.
RyougaSaotome
Member
Yeah. I think Ao (and Ao's credits) provide the most closure to the overall saga, while Sen II does a good job of answering the questions raised by the final act of Ao.
It is VERY cool though how the four games kinda play with one another. Not a type of storytelling possible with most game series.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
I went Zero Evo > Sen 1 > Ao Evo > Sen II, so that should be kind of interesting. And it kind of was. Going back to Zero/Ao, you're like, "ohhh, that stuff was referenced in [game x] or [game y]" and it really is more overt than some of the connections you could make between the Sora games and Zero/Ao.
I would definitely agree that Ao's credits are more appropriate for an ending to the whole thing, but I'm still in Chapter 1, sooooo... we'll see if I still feel the same towards the end. I hope there are more references thrown Ao's way as the game progresses.
Kinda wish I'd saved Ao Evo to last based on what you all are saying, though. But I just couldn't wait.
distantmantra
Member
RyougaSaotome
Member
HUZZZZZAHHHHH|
And now I finished the gaiden and epilogue. Also checked out the bonus stuff from the new game+. Lawd.
But really, I think I was just as excited as everyone else to
There's lots of things I still don't get, like how Rean went from all of that crazy stuff going down with Gilias and the ironbreed to helping them out. That just doesn't sit right with me. Especially because of what happened to Crow and how upset Rean was about that. How can they go from that to Rean driving off Calvard troops at the border and then running an errand for Lecter?
But really, I think I was just as excited as everyone else to
see Crossbell in 3D with full proportions, and I'd love to go back there like that someday.
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Banned
I think after the conclusion of the Civil War Rean's thought process goes something like "if war is unavoidable I want it to be over as fast and painless as possible". It's kind of a weird ending in general because Rean is the only one who doesn't get proper closure.
装甲悪鬼村正;145320427 said:
Yeah, that's pretty much my take, I guess. On the other hand,
Gilias being his father doesn't even come up again except in a sideways reference in the epilogue
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Banned
The epilogue was laser focused on the party coping with Crow's death, so even wtf revelations with big implications for the rest of the series were seemingly put to the side for that final part.
If the next game just starts another story arc in Calvard or something, things are going to be real awkward.
RyougaSaotome
Member
As a lot of us were discussing, Rean's story seems like it's faaaar from reaching any kind of real closure.
There's gotta be another Erebonia game (what about the entire western portion of the nation? We only saw half!), or he's going to be the focus of another entry going forward. Either way, you can tell he's not done yet.
Shouta
Member
装甲悪鬼村正;145320427 said:
It's pretty much this. Everything else was more or less info overload for him and in addition, they were exhausted after the multiple fights towards the end. They also reached their goal and there was no reason to continue.
Defeating Testarossa, in effect, defeated the Aristocrats meaning they did their jobs by ending the conflict and saving the prince. They didn't have a reason to further fight Gilneas at the time since he wasn't doing anything that had crossed their moral event horizon. He was pulling the strings behind the scenes but what did his faction do wrong? Not much as far as I can tell. Him being Rean's father is hard for Rean to comprehend at the time since he barely remember what happened and he has an adoptive father anyway.
That said, it's definitely going to be dealt with down the line. i think Rean's story will take center stage in the next game again or the one after if they decide to skip him one. His abilities and the fact he's a Riser seems to mean big things for the last half of the plot.
That said, it's definitely going to be dealt with down the line. i think Rean's story will take center stage in the next game again or the one after if they decide to skip him one. His abilities and the fact he's a Riser seems to mean big things for the last half of the plot.