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[Itsuki]

Sora no Kiseki SC talk:

Spoiler

So, another 6 hours, chapter 4 down in Rolent with the fog. Now there's a dragon, but at the same time chapter 5 promises another "experiment" which makes me go "" and feel like the game is going to take another 6 more hours before anything actually happens.

This is the problem with SC. For 30 hours so far, every chapter is:

-Go to region you've been to in FC
-Do a bunch of mundane tasks while investigating some weird occurrence (that as the player you figure out hours before the cast members)
-In the end find out it was an experiment using the Gospel and you fight an AGENT and they say hello and then leave
-Then you do more boring quests
-Then you get on an airplane and head to the next region
-Repeat 4 times for 30 hours so far!

I actually think at this point SC is worse than FC. At least FC was an adventure where every chapter you were exploring a new region, meeting new people, going through new dungeons. Plus the arcs were a little more unique. Every arc being EXPERIMENT -> AGENT INTRO -> NOTHING ACCOMPLISHED/NOTHING LEARNED is a pretty awful formula. Add in almost no new locations so far and quests all being basically re-running through old FC dungeons and world map paths and you would think this is kind of a bad rpg? Yet somehow I'm still enjoying it because I like the characters and the music and the battle system (oh and the battles haven't evolved much at all; mostly the same arts and enemies, and even the new crafts just add a "II" at the end and they look and act the same but are slightly more damaging). But still, SC just seems weakly designed for what's been hyped up as this GREAT EPIC RPG.

Man, when the game actually gets a plot and gets going in a few more hours it better be pretty damn good until the finish to live up to any of this hype.


Also just as an aside I was trying to figure out why the Ouroboros scenes with the agents hanging out at the start of each chapter are boring when they should be gripping exciting teases like in most forms of entertainment when you get to see the MYSTERIOUS BADDY GROUP chatting briefly. And I realized it's because there's no real mystery or lore. Yeah they're doing something towards some plan, ok so what. Falcom hasn't really done a good job making any sort of gripping story filled with lots of hooks. Hopefully they improve on this as the series goes on!

One of the things that I always say is that you have to ignore being on the same areas as FC, focus on the story and do quests. Yeah, the story can get a bit boring sometimes but it gets better and better when you keep playing. For me, the quests makes the Kiseki games more realistic because you have to work to obtain money (like in real life).
SC is my favourite Kiseki game despide being so repetitive with the areas. I think that you might like Zero and Ao.

 

[Itsuki]

Finally finished Sen chapter 4 and it's getting more interesting. I don't think that this is spoilers but just in case:

Spoiler

The terrorist group is introduced. I'm so stupid that I didn't noticed that Gideon's flaute was an artifact. C is like an evil guy from a Kamen Rider serie.
Am I the only one that thinks that Vulcan is the evil twin brother of Dogi?. Sara was a Bracer.... Everyone hates Osborne (I also hate him).
It was good to see Olivier again and his brothers are also fabulous. Alfin is the female version of Olivier. Elliot and Fie pasts are very dramatic.
And I'm starting to think that this Kiseki is about familly problems.

Also, about chapter 5:

Spoiler

Crow and Millium joined class VII, it's good to seee new members, especially Crow. Crow must be hiding something, I suspect that he's C. Crow is one of my favourite Sen characters.

 

[Bebpo]

More SC stuff:

Spoiler

Finished Chapter 5. The first half was super pointless with weak pacing and you just walk in every direction to every end of the available map to kill 3 wanted monsters with no plot at all guiding it and sidequests.

Then dragon shows up and you're like "cool! Stuff will happen now!" but then Falcom takes you through like 30 mins+ of cutscenes where Agate is chasing the dragon, and Agate tries to fight Rave (this one scene was actually pretty good), and then army chases dragon with big army plan into lake and then it gets away and then you finally get control again and you realize you just sat through 30+ mins of story and NOTHING HAPPENED AT ALL. It wasn't even exciting because what would've been exciting as a 5-10 min scene was stretched out and just totally boring to watch lol Falcom at this time in their career apparently does not know pacing.

But then when you get control of the game again and you go to the new dungeon climbing the mountain (although it just looks the same as all the other dungeons. When are they going to let you map out dungeons?) and then super easy dragon fight and then DRAGON TALKING and suddenly the story is moving! A little bit at a time! But it's moving! Then Rave visits the grave with Agate and General dude and they talk about Hamel and then the chapter ends and chapter 6 starts with Joshua saying his goodbyes to underdeveloped relationship with pirate crew and jumping onto bad guy ship and story is moving!

So yeah, the last couple of hours of Chapter 5 were pretty good and I feel like THIRTY EIGHT HOURS INTO THE RPG (if you add in FC time that's like 78 hours!) the story is finally JUST BEGINNING TO START MOVING. The experiments are done, Joshua is doing something, it sounds like the army is about to pinpoint the bad guy base and you'll go attack them and HOPEFULLY THINGS HAPPEN.

Also Joshua sucks so bad in this game. In FC he was an enjoyable character but in SC for 38 hours so far he just shows up for 5 mins every 5 hours and does his best Rei Ayanami impression of being a total robot emotionless unlikeable asshole and you're like screw him! for not giving a shit about Estelle and crew and trying to be all "I'm gonna suicide solo mission because I'm stupid like that"

And one thing that is annoying about this game is that for such a story based game, they treat the audience like 3 year olds. The audience always has figured out what's going on in the plot for the next 5 hours ahead of the characters they are controlling and it's frustrating watching the characters who are supposed to be intelligent adults be so dumb about everything. Oh hey, so there was this town in Erebonia Empire called Hamel that got its name wiped off the map a few years before the 10 year war and for some reason the army generals and the queen know about it but no one wants to talk about it because it could be a international problem. Yet everyone just accepts it and is like "oh well, I wonder what that's all about dum dee dum" instead of putting the pieces together and go INVESTIGATE FOR YOURSELVES, PARTY. >____<


Anyhow fun game, but my god the pacing is still terrible in this game and since from what I hear the game is only 50-60 hours long and I'm like 38 in, with 3 chapters left, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to have a great fantastic story to come in out of nowhere, be super exciting and then resolve satisfactorily. It'd be one thing if I knew that 3rd was actually part 3 of this story and SC just getting going is fine because the story's kicking in now and it'll use the next 3 chapters to build up an big exciting plot that 3rd will resolve...but since I know 3rd is standalone extra character/world lore development and SC ends this Sora no Kiseki story....yeah I am setting expectations at ULTRA LOW for a great story coming up.

I think I just have high expectations from the hype and the fact that the series is so story based (almost like a visual novel at times) that I expect it to have a great story like the best Suikoden stories or FF stories or Xenogears/Saga etc...etc...; about the only thing that stands above say Ys story-telling so far in FC/SC is the character development, which is very good. But it feels more like a slice of life anime where there's not much of a plot and it's just about well developed characters hanging out and being themselves, which while it's nice to get good character development, I do play rpgs for interesting plots & good battles and I want my good plot!

I think the biggest problem of SC's pacing is just that it's so routine. Take the plane segments for instance, the first time you're on the plane flying from one place to another and you have to go talk to all your party members to trigger the plane landing it's neat! Something a little different. But then when you do it EVERY CHAPTER it gets to the point where you're like "ok, where are you party members I just want to find you asap and get your stupid talk done so I can get this plane scene over and move on to the next scene already". The first 5 chapters and their copy & paste setup over and over again feel like Monster of the Week episodic TV series. In those, there's a monster! He's causing problems! There's a dilemma! The Good Guy's figure out a solution and beat him! The good guys drink beer and volleyball! Tune in next week for the exact same thing. I can't watch monster of the week TV shows, I find them pointless and really boring because nothing ever progresses. It's probably why SC's story structure is so grating on me. Looking forward to getting further into the Kiseki games where hopefully the story structure is more narrative focused. Probably going to play Nayuta after 3rd and before Zero for something different.

/rant over

 

[HouseofGlass]

I'm about halfway through SC, a little bit behind him, and I agree with almost everything Bebpo says.

Spoiler

I'd just also like to add that it's insane just how afraid this game seems to be to get any blood on its hands. Evil Organization releases a gigantic dragon and I chase it down along its wake of terrifying destruction to find...it has burned down an orchard and now they won't be able to sell fruit this year. That's almost as bad as the time an earthquake made things shake a little! Or people went to sleep for a while and had pleasant dreams! It's sort of hard for me to take this organization, or this game, seriously if the consequences for everything are so silly and miniscule that the characters can joke and laugh on the airship rides about the funny ghost they saw or the time they saw Flashback Mom inside their heads. Unless I'm forgetting something, not one single person has died in the entirety of FC and what I've played of SC outside of a flashback. To me, that combines with the glacial pacing to make it really hard to feel riveted by this game.

I'm not asking to wade through blood. I'm just asking to feel like there's some sort of consequences to the actions the characters in this game take. It just feels to me, similar to what Bebpo is saying, that the game just wants to waste my time with "slice of life" crap. This organization is mysterious but it's also completely non-threatening because they're doing such silly shit that I can't imagine their primary motivation being the least bit interesting or menacing or in any way worth the hours of trouble I've gone through.

That all being said, the characters are keeping me in the game, and the battle system isn't amazing but it's decent enough. It's not a bad game. But it's a game that seems determined to waste my time.

 

[Itsuki]

Need help on chapter 6:

Spoiler

After I defeat Evil Dogi, C appears and defeats my party. I already tried the strategy from the Dengeki Sen guide but it doesn't work.
Any tips of how to beat him?. My team is Rean, Elliot, Angelica and Fie. I already tried without Fie and with Alisa but I can't beat him. I'm playing on hard mode.

 

[Bebpo]

Is someone going to make a Kiseki community OT? I would make one after I finish SC but I feel like I'm not knowledgeable enough about the series to talk about all the entries in the OP!

The only thing I think a community thread should have is that all story discussion should be spoiler text with the name of the game at the top of the post since this is such a story-heavy franchise and people are at different parts in the series (especially new comers)


Also is Ys vs. SnK worth getting? Basically...is it fun enough to be worth the import price or should I just stick to the soundtrack?

 

[Itsuki]

Is someone going to make a Kiseki community OT? I would make one after I finish SC but I feel like I'm not knowledgeable enough about the series to talk about all the entries in the OP!

The only thing I think a community thread should have is that all story discussion should be spoiler text with the name of the game at the top of the post since this is such a story-heavy franchise and people are at different parts in the series (especially new comers)


Also is Ys vs. SnK worth getting? Basically...is it fun enough to be worth the import price or should I just stick to the soundtrack?

Yes, Ys vs SnK is worth getting.

 

[Bebpo]

SC end of Chapter 6

Spoiler

Ok, *huuuuuuugggs* scene at sunset with good music was nice. Not worth the build up of the whole game for, but still nice. As is the Rave/Joshua brother-like thing.

Still don't see how they're going to develop all the underdeveloped/non-developed Ouroboros agents in the next 2 chapters before you fight them all and finish the game. Seems like SC's story is mainly focusing on Wiseman as the main bad with Rave as the only antagonist who gets character development. The rest of the group just seem like pointless boss filler so far. I mean they have connections to the main cast but they're all so underdeveloped, they better get a lot of development to make those connections have impact in the end.

Also, I started off playing this on the PSP but changed to PS3 halfway and damn, the PS3 version is so much nicer. The biggest improvement is simply zero load times at all. Makes the game feel so smooth with no waiting ever. Double dipped on 3rd PS3 for when I play it. I hope the Vita Evolution games likewise don't have loadtimes.

 

[Ratrat]

Well a little while ago I got ps+ in japan and started playing Sore no Kiseki SC(without my save for FC) and it's kicking my ass even on normal during the prologue. I don't remember the previous game being this hard or requiring grinding so early on, maybe I just suck. Any advice?

It's been like 3 years since I played FC.

Edit: probably just the prologue cause everything feels easy now...

 

[Itsuki]

Just finished Sen:

Spoiler

WTF. THIS IS WORSE THAN SORA FC. SO EVERYONE FROM CLASS VII DIES EXCEPT REAN AND CROW?. I choosed Crow on the dance event so this is worse for Rean because before asking him why, there's a flashback of when they were talking on the dance. I didn't expected that Sharon was an Ouroboros member AND MISTY, I DIDN'T THOUGHT THAT SHE WAS JUST LIKE EMMA but in the end she's evil.
So Rean is now with Cybuster and Kuro out there and we don't know nothing about what happens to the people of Trista and if Shu really kills class VII members.
Personally, I liked Sen but until the terrorist group appears on chapter 4, it's was little borring for me.
Can't wait for the next Kiseki game. Also, the game was easy. I played on hard but if it was somehow easy for me on hard, then normal is easy. I hope that they fix that on Sen SC. I'm going to try to get the platinum of the game.
I had too many bugs when I fought Erebonius. The game freezes when I used an S-Craft or when I used an art. For example: Jusis uses an art, sudently dies and I can use him, I select to attack and the game freezes. I almost decided to stop playing Sen because of that.

 

[Eusis]

OST's up on iTunes and Amazon now. Think this is actually simultaneous with the Japanese CD release for once?

 

[Aveyn Knight]

Couldn't find the news, but just came here to express my joy at the recent announcement of the Chinese version of Sen no Kiseki.

That's not all, the Chinese version of the sequel will be released at the same time as in Japan.

Obviously, this sadly means very little for the English speaking audience, but it must be massive news for the Chinese fans.

(Still need to get around to playing Ao no Kiseki. Maybe I'll start it next month...)

 

[Bebpo]

fyi, posted a general Kiseki OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=763697

It's pretty barebones since I've only played FC/SC, but I can add stuff into the OP if anyone wants more there. Mainly just posted it so I could rant (and rave a little!) about SC after finishing it

 

[GamingBird]

Hmm... this game has social links - you mean similar to Persona? Having stronger links mean better combat mechanics via the link tactic system?

Social links as in just battle improvement mechanic - or like slightly romancey?

 

[Aeana]

It's not like Persona. There's no romance. The bond events are just for a little extra character development and extending the link abilities for battle.

 

[GamingBird]

It's not like Persona. There's no romance. The bond events are just for a little extra character development and extending the link abilities for battle.

Right... the way you put it, "no" romance - seems like this game is 100% friend-zone and 0% romancey? Not even hints of attraction between Rean and any of the party members?

Spoiler

That dance with Laura seems quite romantic though.

 

[Aeana]

Sorry.

 

[GamingBird]

Sorry.

ok I get you, no romance, zilch, none, [that dance totally unromantic!... ?]

 

[distantmantra]

Finally started the game this morning. Really early on, but this is the console turn-based JRPG I've wanted the entire generation.

 

[distantmantra]

Got to the Nord Highlands last night. Not the most high end graphics, but it's still beautiful.

 

[Dreamgazer]

Is it me or there's relatively no controller rumble?

(option turned on in the menu, but I don't recall rumble ever happening.)

 

[distantmantra]

I'm sure people have already noticed this, but in Elliot's house in Heimdall, there is a book titled "Christ, Who's gonna die first?" on the family bookshelf. Two copies, actually.

 

[distantmantra]

Just finished Sen and went back and read everyone's comments.

 

[hongcha]

PSA: The Vita download version is on sale for 2800 yen on PSN, and it is just 1960 yen if you have Japanese PS+. Sale price expires September 17. I decided to get it even though I have the PS3 version, as I haven't finished it yet and cross-saves are supported. Maybe being able to play it on the go will get me to finish it before part II hits.

EDIT: PS3 version is also available for the same price, until September 17.

 

[distantmantra]

Is there going to be a thread for SnKII? Finally got around to preordering last week.

 

[Quocia]

I discovered the Legend of Heroes a few days ago with the demo of Sora no Kiseki on Vita. I really loved it, and I was glad to learn that a new version was out in a few weeks.

It's hard to resist, but I guess I will stick with the right order.
It seems they are making many remakes so I'm just wondering ; is there a chance of getting a Evolution version of Sora no kiseki II and III as well ? Since I never payed the first versions, I don't feel that bad about the new artworks and all.

Oops, sorry, I thought it was the Sora no kiseki thread