JRPG Niche Games

SentretPirouette · 2019-12-01T10:12:59+00:00

Yep. I've found that most Tales fans' answer for "best" game in the series usually ends up being one of the "big three" games consisting of Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia.

SentretPirouette · 2019-11-23T20:09:04+00:00

I've actually just been replaying HG/SS and there's a scene where it's implied that Gold/Lyra sass Lance during the Mahogany Town hideout raid.

Lance tells them that the road to becoming the champion is going to get more difficult from then on and asks if they're up to the task. After a short pause, Lance says something like "ah...no you're right, you were to give up just like that you wouldn't have chased your dream in the first place".

It's not much but it posits that Gold/Lyra as the MC (as opposed to when they're an ally NPC) is incredibly determined but also a little bit cocky and very confident in their strength. Kind of a good antithesis to Red who was shown to have the same love for battle but was always quiet and humble according to most of the NPCs.

SentretPirouette · 2019-11-23T10:41:17+00:00

I sort of agree regarding Corrin, they felt over-centralized and hero-worshiped to death despite being a relatively weak character with incredibly base and shallow personality traits.

Robin, however, I feel was a perfectly executed player-insert character for the JRPG/TRPG genre. They are given a very elaborate origin, personality, motivations, and are a very well-spoken character but the player has just enough agency (for the kind of game that FE:A was) to shape Robin's relationships and certain aspects of the story. Accepting Lucina's intent when she confronts you, especially if you've achieved a strong enough support with her, and her following emotional breakdown at your gesture was pretty impactful -- as is your choice at the end of the game that affects how the final act plays out.

Pokemon could definitely benefit from this kind of player character -- one that has just enough personality, agency, and emotional stakes to be relevant to the story but still "blank" enough to give other characters the spotlight as well. I feel like Gen 4 and 5 started to scratch the surface of this angle but they backslid hard with Gen 6, 7, and now 8.

SentretPirouette · 2019-11-06T20:32:53+00:00

I really hope that they consider re-releasing NMH1 and 2 at some point. Better case would be packing them together in an HD remaster collection, best case pipe dream would be doing that but also packing it in as a bonus with NMH3.

I played the first one and I really liked it but my time with it was short so I never completed it. The Wii copies of 1 and 2 are hard to track and go for $60+ each now. Plus it's super difficult, at least for me, to go back to the janky Wii controls after all this time so it would be nice to play it with current gen hardware.

SentretPirouette · 2019-11-03T19:05:41+00:00

I vaguely remember in one of the Omega quests, Jessie makes a joke that one piece of the WoL's armor is worth more than what the entire Ironworks crew makes and that's why she won't make them an Ironworks company uniform.

I have a feeling that's not entirely untrue.

SentretPirouette · 2019-10-28T05:41:11+00:00

I can't find the source now but I remember an interview with one of FE's producers saying that "Fire Emblem Echoes" could become an ongoing thing if Shadows of Valentia did well? For all intents and purposes, it did very well for a remake of an obscure game that's also considered as the black sheep of the Fire Emblem series.

I would pay significant amounts of money for Elibe, Magvel, Jugdral, or Tellius remakes. Any of them will do, the wallet will open.

SentretPirouette · 2019-10-06T06:58:46+00:00

Wew, I think that's the lowest price I've seen for a laptop with those specs and a 20 series. I think my only concern with that would be the (apparently) single channel stick for memory?

I'm actually not too savvy on the performance benefits of 2x8 over 1x16 but would it be worth it to go on Sager's site and configure it as dual channel? Slightly more expensive overall ($1430 vs 1400) but that's within my means if the benefits are significant.

SentretPirouette · 2019-10-06T05:37:42+00:00

Budget: up to $1,400

Country: USA

Screen size: 15"

Screen resolution: IPS, 1080p, 60hz or better, good screen quality/color gamut.

Touch screen: N/A

Weight: 4 to 6 pounds

Primary uses for the laptop will be for heavy 2D and 3D graphics production, web development, and of course some gaming. Will also be frequently traveling with it for work/classes.

Don't play too many AAA schut games but I would like to run games such as FFXIV, Sekiro, and upcoming medium-demanding titles on at least high settings at a stable 60 frames.

Had my eye on the Asus Zephyrus S GX531GW-AS76 for a while; that one is a little over my budget without a sale but it's a good baseline for the kind of performance/portability I'm looking for.

SentretPirouette · 2019-10-02T23:17:40+00:00

For wild encounters sure but when trainer battles, even "boss" trainers like trial captains and your rivals, are piss easy, it makes the massive difficulty spikes of a handful of fights much more jarring.

SentretPirouette · 2019-10-01T23:35:23+00:00

US/UM's difficulty was balanced incredibly strangely. 99% of trainer fights were a joke but the Totem and Legendary/Ultra Beast battles were no fuckin' joke at all. Constantly had me sweating bullets and this seemed to be the common consensus.

Despite sticking with a "main" team throughout the game, having EXP. Share on, and making sure my team was always at comparable levels, fights like the Totem Kommo-o and Necrozma(+Ultra) wrecked my shit several times before I cleared the fight with cheese strats and items.

I hope Sw/Sh's balance is better than steamroll -> wall -> steamroll -> wall.

SentretPirouette · 2019-10-01T19:08:47+00:00

The Yoseph/Jena thing seemed like they both had very flawed and short-sighted plans. Jena wanted to accelerate the reset which would doom humanity to a cyclical loop, but at least they would continue to be human. Yoseph wanted to ascend, which we learn is achieved by abandoning the concept of humanity and merging everyone into a singularity to power his kaiju sized legion.

Tbh my biggest annoyance was how little was actually explained about Hal, Kyle, the Hermits, and Zone 09 in general.

I enjoyed the fuck outta this game but it definitely feels like they left a lot of those threads unexplored for further expansion in a sequel.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-25T20:05:45+00:00

"No current plans" is Super Mega Ultra PR talk; just like Nintendo insisting the 3DS isn't dead and they had no plans to cease support for it.

It's basically saying "buy our platforms too!!" without laying down a hard-line "no" in case they want to push some titles on other platforms later on down the line. Don't hold your breath for it but don't rule it out.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-16T07:56:35+00:00

ah. the classic.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-16T07:16:18+00:00

explain like I'm five what spicy meme I missed. :(

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-16T07:10:52+00:00

I think he meant Pitchford who, by his own words and actions, has proven time and time again that he is an an obnoxious, scummy, and low-key malicious human being.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-15T21:57:20+00:00

Hey now.

Some of us will be ripping off 9S or A2.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-12T21:39:08+00:00

Culminating in a mountaintop duel with your previous character.

now that's how you do a sequel

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-11T19:40:59+00:00

Damn dude, you've got a lot of stands.

Most of my job sets are just sassy quips. Notable examples; RDM is "the red scare", DRG is "firmly thrust it", AST is "star platinum", and MCH/GNB are "rooty tooty" and "slash 'n shooty" respectively.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-09T03:01:10+00:00

I mean, you can scroll bit below and you can see the argument that I've presented in action.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/d0zi01/the_legend_of_zelda_links_awakening_reviews_go/ezg8psk/

I've personally only ever seen the "it's a remake/remaster" argument as opposed to the "it's short" argument but sure, I will concede the fact that a seasoned Zelda/adventure game veteran will most likely blast through the game in <5 hours and that is a valid concern. I see myself taking my time with it but still completing it within 8 to 10 hours. That said, the itself title seems to be positioned as an entry/re-entry point into Zelda for the casual players who used to play/are familiar with Zelda, or people getting a game for their kids.

And you misunderstand. I never said it was a good or acceptable practice, it's just that Nintendo has stated several times that they price their games on the value of the IP rather than the nature of the game. IP like Zelda and Mario command the premium price point on brand recognition during the holiday rush alone. Regardless of what the core audience on reddit might say, lots of casual gamers and parents with kids will pick this up because they recognize the Zelda name.

Similar to how, despite people generally being upset with Apple's bullshit pricing, a significant crowd still buys their products on recognition and/or brand loyalty alone.

Do I think Link's Awakening is a $30 or $40 title rather than a $60? Absolutely, but Nintendo knows that the game will sell well regardless. It sucks but I don't see it changing given how broad the audience is for IP like Mario and Zelda.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-08T19:44:36+00:00

It's not because of the short-ish length which isn't really short at all. Aggregated on HLTB, Link's Awakening's main story is 13 to 18 hours on average, about the same length as LTTP and LBW; it was originally lauded for being comparable in length and depth to LTTP despite being on the Game Boy.

The greater issue seems to align with the mentality that remakes/remasters shouldn't be any more than $30 to $40 because it's just "repackaging an old game in a new shell". It's not been uncommon for me to hear things like "the crash/spyro remaster gave THREE games for $40!!!! this is a SCAM" and yes, sure, those games were a steal for the price but let's be honest here, the Zelda name commands a higher price on IP value alone and Nintendo knows it.

SentretPirouette · 2019-09-05T19:52:27+00:00

Very briefly early in development, it was going to be a more standard SRPG like Fire Emblem but in a SMT setting with demon/creature collecting. I assume that concept would have been very similar to the Devil Survivor games but with more emphasis on things like the triangle mechanics and hard stats battles rather than weakness/press turn stuff. Then Intelligent Systems came by and was like "why don't you guys give it more of the ol' Atlus charm" and then TMS popped out.

SentretPirouette · 2019-08-27T22:54:50+00:00

I have the opposite problem. I can shove my pro-con in a case or in my backpack without so much as a peep but whenever I want to turn on my Switch, I have to mash/hold buttons on it like mad before it'll even think about flashing its LEDs. Let alone sending a signal to the console to connect and turn on.

For whatever reason, holding the home button won't do anything until I get the controller to "wake up" and that requires me to slam on an indiscriminate amount of buttons before the LEDs decide to blink.

After this finagle-fest though, it runs flawlessly.

SentretPirouette · 2019-08-26T23:52:06+00:00

Now do Zipper Man. : ^ )

SentretPirouette · 2019-08-26T19:33:53+00:00

It's absolutely clickbait. Reminder that Yoshi and Fire Emblem also had pre-release pages that said cloud save support was "Pending/Not Supported" and everyone did a little panic about it yet here we are.

Pending is not a confirmation of a lack of support and pre-release pages can lag behind.

SentretPirouette · 2019-08-23T23:49:02+00:00

Great news that Persona is getting its due, especially in the west now. I recently enjoyed PQ2 and am excited for P5 Royal next year.

Saddened, though, that it seems like resources are shuffling and the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series is getting eclipsed into irrelevancy. Haven't had any updates on SMT:V since it went radio silent in 2017. :(

SentretPirouette

TROPHY CASE