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Time and Eternity |OT| RyougaSaotome's GOTY Two Years in a Row!

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
It's nice to know that I wasn't just losing my mind in regards to Koshiro's work here. He's a legend and the OSTs he's worked on are almost all uniformly amazing, but even his best work in T&E is simply ok.

The rest of it is just bad and feels like he phoned it in for a quick paycheck.
I'm still very astounded that it seems like Koshiro (and the other composer who did four tracks) phoned it home with this soundtrack. Like everything else, tracks get recycled, so you hear them ad nauseam to the point of growing very weary of them. Typically, when you see Koshiro headlining a soundtrack, you know it's going to be amazing. But this is so off-the-mark, and it dismays me to have to label a Koshiro soundtrack very by-the-numbers with little standouts. Even moreso because he's my favourite composer of all time.

The problem is that it's so typical RPG fare when it comes to music. You have orchestral themes because there's supposed to be orchestral themes somewhere, you have a prissy tea time theme, a horrible comedy theme, sad themes that are predictably played on a piano, heroic themes for heroic stuff, canyon themes that are canyon themes... nothing really stand out. Everything just seems so unoriginal. So unbecoming of Koshiro, who seems to make everything his own, despite the nature of the game he's composing for.

I honestly can't seem to remember a lot of the themes on the soundtrack! I can't remember most of the cutscene music because most of it was so bland. Not even the final boss music because the music cut out for me during the battle and almost froze the game (so djplaeskool wasn't the only one who that happened to--it seemed to work fine for my Towa ending stream, though). Now going back to listening to what the final boss theme is, it's the most by-the-numbers final boss theme you can get with any other RPG with a choral background, synth backing, some weird samples here and there, etc. Very little progression in the theme, too.

It's a huge shame that I simply felt that there were maybe 4-5 tracks overall on this 29-track soundtrack that I actually liked. Part of the problem may have been complete and utter repetition for theme use, but the other part of the problem was that there was little that stood out on this soundtrack that made me say, "yes, this is a Koshiro soundtrack and I will give all of my cash to this man yet again!"

Towa's battle theme is probably the best theme on the soundtrack, and that isn't saying much. I'm very underwhelmed by the soundtrack, period.

Cross Edge.
Ohhhh yeeeeaaaahhh. I forgot they'd published that game. Oh, NISA...
 
Another NISA apology incoming? I swear NISA has a knack for picking up the worst games. They published at least three of the worst RPGs of this generation.



That's a sentence I thought I'd never see.
Something last rebellion does better than other games? Apart from making you want to stop playing and run away (thus exercising yourself) ?
Colour me surprised
 
Ah Ah Ah Ah

i just finished chapter 2 .

This game story is comedy gold.

This is a parody of jrpg stories , right ?

I decided to not take this game seriously ever since i received the schooking news of the assasin guild fan club .
But seriously this game is magnificent.

Everything in this game was made that way on purpose there is no other explanation.
From the plot , to the npc names this is not what it seems but a carefully crafted parody on jrpgs.

I have now high hopes for chapter 3.
 
All your complains about the game are legit.

Only some tunes of the music hold value, but mostly they work well.
The dongeon design are a total mess and the battle system is painfully exploitable and easy.
The dongeon are also too long.

However , i'm honnestly convinced that the only way to enjoy this game plot is to not take it seriously at all. I mean , the character themselves are not taking it seriously ( did you see how the battle at the end of chapter 2 was solved ?? ) ..the npcs are just ...

From ricardo to makimona all of them are not taking the thing seriously at all.

Thissun & thatsun ? really ?

I mean when i look at the package , from the plot to the characters i just don't see how i can not think of this game as anything except a parody.

There are also a lot of pacing problems. ( and lol at the asset reuse ) all the forests in chapter 2 lol.

But at least the game is not a buggy mess , is not even serious and while repetitive , the sprites are damn fine.

So far my problem with the game are :

-loadings & maps
-dongeons/area lenghts
-assets reuse.
-quests from the npcs are painfully easy.( not a real problem ) because i'm skipping them ( or a i skip the dialog ) most of the time.

And chapter 3 continue with the total plot nonsense !!
I just can't avoid laughing.
 
So i've finished this game.

So i've done :
-Both endings
-all the sidequests
-all the romantics events with toki & towa
-all the scenes in the house.

So Aside from the true end i've seen everything.

My review for this game.
( nobody will be reading this but i don't mind )

GRAPHICS
The good
Without a doubt time & eternity has very good 2d work and animation .. all the animations are fluid and they even took time to put some subtle touches between the 2 heroines. i'm glad they did that.The 2D transistions are well done and this was probably the hardest part to do right.
Animation and attack effects are also well done.
The Bad
There is not enough 2D animations. What you see is good but there aren't enough animations to see. It's really reused too much , much like if you're reading a VN, except that the view the player has doesn't fit. as a result you're bored because the result feel artificial.
The 3D is barely average with so much recycled assets.It's not ugly , it's just there and aside a few places where it 's alright it barely works.


GAMEPLAY
The good
The battle system is a good idea, i'm glad they went for the action route.
The numerous hints and visual clues ( even on the map ) for treasures, quests & events.
Not having to guess even 1 second where i should go is nice ( it's optional and can be hidden)
The Bad
The loading times.
They aren't long , but there are frequent , especially if you're doing sidequests.Being in a town, load the area of town , finissh the quest and then load to get back to the map ? why ? The frames per second also drop in the celestial garden for no good reason.
The battle system is broken. it's very easy because you can have quickly many tools to use , especially chemisty. You can destroy the final boss and it won't have the time to attack. As a result , once you've broken the battle system it can be repetitive.
the game is much better if you don't try to break it.

LEVEL DESIGN
The good
Teleport points to travel quickly make questing easier.
The Bad
The level design is not good.
The plains are too big , for no good reason but the real problem are the forest levels.
It's horrible , not good , too big , boring .Thank god for the teleporters.
the rest of the dongeons are fine, those 2 above are clearly big because they thought it would be a way to slow things up..they made it boring instead.

SOUND DESIGN
The good
No real problem with sound design
The Bad
......
MUSIC
The good
The music is not bad... it's not a memorable set of tracks , there is no orchestra and the tune is "there" not bad but not great
The Bad
The silly music track is horrible. they all are but this one deserve a mention. The house ( i'm home ) music track will be stuck in your head for a long time.
STORY/PLOT/CHARACTERS
The good
This story is NOT serious.... seriously .. there is nothing serious in time & eternity plot or characters. this was made on purpose. It can be boring for some , but for me as long as i realised i shouldNOT take things seriously i enjoyed the ride. every plot twist can be seen miles ahead , except the more crazy ones. I especially enjoyed part 4 quests because it shed light on all the nonsense that was going on.

and i liked that i was responsible for all that nonsense in the end

The game is aware of all of his plot problems and doesn't even try to hide them.
The Bad
The straight jokes don't work...maybe they were bad on purpose??? ricardo proposals was used too much and even some of makimona stuff was used too many times, this is here it's hard to care when the animation doesn't help the joke.

ENJOYMENT
In the end, i liked all the characters because they were "different" and while,at first glance felt generic , there was some good moments.
Toki & towa were nice characters & drake , while perverted did his job as a "tsukomi" while the others were the "boke"
The game is bug-free, this is nice to mention and isn't that long.
i enjoyed it as long as i wasn't in a forest field.

NOTE
With that said above , time & eternity is a rpg that has nothing remotely memorable in it. But it's certainly not bad or that bad. it feel like a bunch of idea that didn't went all the way , leaving the players with many things that doesn't do what they should.
But with a dialog so stupid i had a hard time disliking this game. So in the end it's a 6/10

Ps: I liked the tea parties because there was plenty of nice stupid dialog in it.
 
I haven't played the game, so I wouldn't know, but I still don't understand how you can see this as "good".

That sentence was plot related.
as i said above the game plot and character don't even try to be serious...it's a stupid plot and drake doesn't hesitate to show it the player whenever something stupid happens.

This isn't a bad thing for me.. Even the serious scenes when one character is talking to her dead mother to find out what is really in her heart ..those kind of scenes are played for the joke and even the name of the quest/sub-chapter is silly.

For me , the worst would have been that the tone of the game would have been serious and failed.

But anyway , as i said above the game is flawed in many ways , the story is done that way on purpose , some are areas are too big , but there are teleport crystals to ease backtracking. Overall it is a failed experiment... but damn if the sheer stupidness of the plot did ease my pain.
....except in the forest levels , those are horrible.
Given how easy the game is, i really can't say that it's a bad game or the worst ever like some publications out there and maybe 6/10 is too generous but that's how i feel
Time & eternity is not a great or good game, it's nothing but a failed experiment but can be enjoyed as after snack rpg.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Plot aside, because I'm beginning to see that this is a matter of taste, despite me feeling that the plot and characters as a whole are incredibly repugnant and irritating as hell even if the game isn't meant to be taken seriously, but...

(Honestly, and another thing---they beat the same jokes into the ground again and again to the point of the player sighing with fatigue whenever you see it... it just gets tiresome for me)

The battle system is broken. it's very easy because you can have quickly many tools to use , especially chemisty. You can destroy the final boss and it won't have the time to attack. As a result , once you've broken the battle system it can be repetitive.
the game is much better if you don't try to break it.
This bit doesn't make sense to me (it's broken, but the battle system is better if you don't try to break the thing that's already broken by using the tools that they give you in order to progress). You're playing the game as it's intended when you use magic in the first place, so you're not trying to break something because it's already broken and trivialized. When you learn an enemy's pattern, you realize you either have to run up to it, or stay in place... otherwise if you get it wrong, the enemy will be stuck in a loop and you'll be pressing L/R on your analog stick until you get a lucky break in or if you use Time Magic (as you are intended to) in order to stop the enemy from attacking you constantly.

Chemstry is certainly part of the game's battle system, where you are encouraged to cast spells consecutively to a) chain and stun, and b) use a status effect. Even the Chapter 3 boss/first Chapter 4 boss's design basically emphasized that to you (cast these two spells so you can silence the boss and do whatever you need to do). Even then, you're still going to have the Time Spells in your inventory to either Freeze or slow down time in order to do double the damage you can at that time than you would if time goes normally.

If you were to the play the game without any spells at all, it would be the most tedious thing with you opting for the weapon of choice that the girls are good at (ex: Towa's quicker knife combos and knife special attacks, and Toki's quicker rifle firing and rifle attacks). This causes fights to go slower because the enemies basically seem to emphasize magic use with a) weaknesses, b) wow, why do they have so much HP and their other stats (outside of the zombie and wizard enemies) seem to not really matter, c) some enemies seem to guard so much that guard breaking with some combos isn't always the best strategy and Toki's not as great with fluid knife combo attacks, and d) it would get even more repetitive than it would with magic use.

You don't need to "try" to break the game's battle system. As you'd previously said, the system is already broken by being horribly unbalanced in the player's favour. Especially since the palette swaps can sometimes have the same attack patterns, attacks are easy to dodge and you can come out of most battles unscathed, and your attacks are overpowered, even without buffing. This system, because everything's unbalanced, lacks the depth that was probably intended for it. There is little to no strategy involved outside of chemstry and just holding the L-stick right whenever an enemy is up close / casting a spell for you to dodge every single attack they make. Or even then, your cast time is remarkably shorter than the enemy's is most of the time, so you can even cancel their attacks if you wanted to because of that.

The one time my chat said that the game's battle system looked remotely interesting was during the boss fights where you fight bigger enemies. You can move around, and you had to time your attacks otherwise you'd be blown away. It's a shame that you're moving as slow as molasses, your attack queue is limited (ie: you have two moves and they have two moves and it's lol), and some of your cast times can be long. Because even if it looks stupid as hell in execution (pull the camera back in the future), fix it up, and it might be more engaging than the nonsense they have for regular battles.
 
The reason is said that is because i unlocked some gifts very late and as a result i tooktime in some fights were i could easily have stormed some fights because of the new skills.

As soon as i unlocked those skills the game lost all the appeal the dodge the attack mecanics that i used previously.
Now as i type this i realise that this is silly since some monsters are justimpossible to deal with with the old skills.
 

Begaria

Member
I forgot I had subbed to this thread for the lols. Anyways, I watched half of DJ's LP of the game. Yeaaaah, I don't get the game either. However, on another forum I frequent of an LP'r, there is this guy just absolutely obsessed with this game. He played and completed everything within about 50 hours, and has called it one of his favourite RPGs of all time.

Here's his review:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VISJuDVO3yjR3yaVuFLEd0Rci-Hle1o9D427DaJCN54/edit?pli=1

"What perplexes me is that my experience with Time and Eternity directly contradicts what everyone else says about the game. For others, Time and Eternity is one of the worst JRPGs ever made, but to me it is one of the best and I simply cannot grasp what the other side is thinking."

"To say that Time and Eternity is an emotionally powerful game would be an understatement. Throughout my experience with this game, I have felt a very large variety of emotions that most games never even come close to invoking. This game combines both comedic and tear jerking elements so seamlessly that you may actually laugh and cry at the same time."

"The reason for this is simply that Time and Eternity’s narrative is so emotionally charged that you would need to be heartless to not sympathize with our main character’s strife."

"There are also a few reused enemy models, but the same can be said of most JRPGs, and a lot of them have their attack patterns changed up and are not just earlier enemies with higher stats. There have also been some complaints that the anime art style clashes with the design of the fields. While that is technically correct, this is actually a good thing considering that the contrast between the two naturally draws more attention to the animation of Toki and Towa and gives the player a better appreciation for the art direction."

"If I listened to all those who said that this was a terrible game then I would have missed out on a near flawless masterpiece, so I highly suggest that you disregard the negative reception as well. At the absolute worst, you will get a decently entertaining game that is not nearly as bad as the haters make it out to be. At its best you get one of the greatest games of all time. Time and Eternity is indeed a timeless masterpiece that easily lives up to its name."

Yeaaaah. No. I don't think so. I mean, Jesus. This guy brings up Time and Eternity almost every opportunity he can. He's even gotten in some pissy fights over it.
 
Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I bought this during the Golden Week sale despite the horrible reviews and negative feedback from GAF. I went in expecting the worst JRPG I would ever play based on what I've read.

I liked it. I genuinely enjoyed my time with Time and Eternity. There are massive flaws, no doubt, but I actually had a lot of fun. My only problems with the game? The animated was stiff and lacking proper frames (I could only imagine if everything was fluid) and the combat system by the halfway point basically boiled down to me using Time Surge and spamming magic as fast as possible.

I've played much worse when it comes to JRPGs. The trainwreck hype let me down.
 
The game is not that bad . It has issues but it's not the worst rpg i've played ..hack i've DONE 2 endings and i only have the true end to get.

Chemistry break this game , HARD...
The mecanics are poorly explained , the dongeons needed more work , 2 tracks in this games are HORRIBLE ...
but the rest is fine.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I've made my points loud and clear already in the thread.

Not the worst game I've played by a longshot, but everything about it is so terribly subpar and everything about the script/dialogue/voicework make my brain melt.
 

Soulflarz

Banned
Like hell I'm actually going to write an LTTP for this game, so I'll just bump the glorious OT. I actually started it.

Hell, I'm now more than 10 hours in. Someone stop me. Why did I pay $5 for this. You all warned me.

Coming right off of Lightning Returns, I can't tell if I like bad mechanics or no mechanics better.

Seriously, I don't understand this combat system. The game recommends I should be level 35ish, and I'm only a 17...and having no real issues? Most devs balance this out by only putting levels on gear when you have to be a certain level to use this, but this game just doesn't seem to care? As such, I feel no real difficulty at half the recommended level? I also find that in half of scenarios holding/tapping O over and over and then using a spell works and then holding dodge down whenever the enemy isn't standing 100% still. To be honest, the combat reminds me of FMVs with QTEs except it's anime.

Sidequests feel like a complete waste of time. As such, I've ignored them for the most part to enjoy this epic engrossing groundbreaking passable story. This story isn't doing anything for me. I'm ashamed to say I could find people who enjoyed this when I looked around for a little.

And why is the game obsessed with nearly giving me a panty shot every few seconds, but not actually doing it?

So far, this game has felt uninspired in every way and the ways in which it is unique are the ways in which it manages to be worse than your average game.

And yes, I am only playing this due to people hating it and me having a morbid curiosity towards it.

Better Business Bureau scene WHAT IS THIS GAME
 
Ah Ah Ah i'm probably one of the very few people here who didn't hate this game and i've finished it Twice i need to finish it a third time for the secret ending.

Levels are meaningless once you know how to chemistry , with it , you can beat anyone in the game without a sweat ..it's broken beyond repair... the levels are too big and every damn forest aside from teh first one is a pain.

The story is nonsense to the higest order , yet i had an easier time with this game than when i tried to play lightning returns ( that i couldn't finish )

i can't hate this game.
 

Soulflarz

Banned
Ah Ah Ah i'm probably one of the very few people here who didn't hate this game and i've finished it Twice i need to finish it a third time for the secret ending.

Levels are meaningless once you know how to chemistry , with it , you can beat anyone in the game without a sweat ..it's broken beyond repair... the levels are too big and every damn forest aside from teh first one is a pain.

The story is nonsense to the higest order , yet i had an easier time with this game than when i tried to play lightning returns ( that i couldn't finish )

i can't hate this game.

B-b-but this game is boring as hell! At least Lightning Returns had me rolling on the floor in the ending, and wasn't broken at ALL times >.>

Okay, did all of chapter 2 today. Going to work on 3. Levels still don't mean anything.
 
B-b-but this game is boring as hell! At least Lightning Returns had me rolling on the floor in the ending, and wasn't broken at ALL times >.>

Okay, did all of chapter 2 today. Going to work on 3. Levels still don't mean anything.

Well that why i have trouble to find the motivation to play it again.

And i've said it again , level don't mean a thing once you know how to chemistry.

The most annoying ennemy in the game is probably the vampires

i don't imagine what this game would be if you don't do the sidequests... maybe even more boring than usual , lol ?
 

Soulflarz

Banned
Well that why i have trouble to find the motivation to play it again.

And i've said it again , level don't mean a thing once you know how to chemistry.

The most annoying ennemy in the game is probably the vampires

i don't imagine what this game would be if you don't do the sidequests... maybe even more boring than usual , lol ?

YES.
And weirdly playing off sexualization and such at random points. I'm unsure if it's for a running joke or something, but the Olden Gardens giving me quiz questions of a weird nature has no real purpose, and I'm unsure why it's in this game.

edit: was going to ask what you meant by chem

got chem for inew
GET WRECKED INEW

broken game is broken \o/ playing till I pass out or finish, hopefully it ends soon.
 
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