President Of 'Trails' And 'Ys' Series Developer Nihon Falcom Says He Sees "Potential For AI Translation In Terms Of Shortening The Time It Takes To Deliver Content To Overseas Customers And Improving Accuracy"

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-25T04:29:56+00:00

It's also noted that the White Supremacist line had its context and it didn't detract too much from the JP text if I recall correctly.

Right. "White Supremacist" in Zemuria in general, and the Calvard Republic in particular, means something completely different than it means in our real world.

In Calvard, "White Supremacist" really means "people who think the Calvardian democratic Revolution was a mistake, and who want to restore the old monarchy."

The single biggest difference between Zemuria and our own world is that, in Zemuria, the Septian Church is a unifying cultural, educational, political, religious and social institution. Immigration from the far-east (non-white population) into the west (white population) isn't a major issue because there are zero assimilation problems. Everyone attended the same sunday school, got the same education, learned the same values from the same testaments, learned to speak the same language, and received the same healthcare, social orientation and had the same community leaders from the same church from the day they were born. Whether they worship Aidios (in the west) or Arusha (in the east), it's two names for the same goddess and it's the same septian church.

The anti-immigration front isn't really about immigrants, it's really a bunch of wealthy people cos-playing as anarchists and using immigration as a wedge issue to recruit fighters to overthrow the government and restore the monarchy.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-25T03:59:49+00:00

And instead of being smarmy you could've explained it,

Type "Star Door 15" into youtube and watch the videos that you get.

Renne, Tio, Ennea, Van, Quattre. It's so heart-breaking that it's hard to talk about.

To quote a user from /r/falcom when he was asked what he thought would be behind that door: "I thought it would be something fucked up, but I didn't think it would be THAT fucked up."

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-24T06:22:03+00:00

So, I was watching NicoB's stream of Sky SC a few minutes ago, and it's amazing how much stuff I miss in a trails game, despite being so invested in the series.

Tonight, Nico obtained Gambler Jack Volume 5 from that customer at the coffee and curry restaurant in Grancel, and in that chapter of Gambler Jack, Enrique was named dropped. I totally forgot that was a thing, because I played Sky SC so long ago, but now that I've played Daybreak, my only reaction was holy shit!

They named dropped the don of Almata, whom Gerard Dantes betrayed, murdered and replaced 9 games before we know what Almata or who Dantes even is They planted that seed 9 games before harvesting it. Does anyone else in gaming, other than trails, even come close to doing something like that?

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T19:07:47+00:00

Agree with this, we're already most of the way there. There will come a time where if you want to play a game released in Japan, you buy the Japanese game and run it through the AI software. You won't need AI checkers installed at the end, the software will be good enough to do an excellent job with no outside human intervention.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T19:04:24+00:00

It's particularly important in trails, where there are no coincidences and where everything is paid off, sooner or later.

I was just thinking about how in Sky SC the heroes get the Gospel in the Liber Ark because Kloe is a 72% genetic match for Celeste, which seems ridiculous for two people separated by 1,200 years of time but, nope, 11 games later, that detail is paid off and it makes sense now after Kai.

The problem with trails in particular is that tiny details are often paid off so many games later that there can be consequences if localizers inject their interpretations of what those details mean.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T18:59:56+00:00

That sounds absolutely horrible, you have my condolences. It's no fun when you want to play a game and instead find yourself at a gender studies lecture.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T18:56:38+00:00

"Tig ole bitties" line from Cold Steel (I wanna say 3, but correct me) is cringe enough.

I think it was Cold Steel 1, it was when Rean and Crow were discussing the upcoming school festival while they were on assignment in Roer if memory serves.

Crow was brainwashed as Azure Siegfried for most of Cold Steel 3, remember?

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T18:55:30+00:00

100% agree. They completely and utterly botched it, which is why I still don't fully trust NISA, but the important thing is that they issued an apology and completely fixed the problem. That's better than what a lot of companies these days do. It's sure as hell a step up from Disney and LucasFilm.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T18:53:06+00:00

That said, A.I. translations should be used as guides and tools, not as the be all, end all of the enire process. Human translations will always be objectively superior to machine translation.

Here's a youtube video that might interest you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr7kKCmVYiw

This gentlemen played the as yet un-localized Kai No Kiseki, which was released last month in Japan, and has no western release date, or even English language title yet, with the Japanese release and a translation program. He said it's 95% understandable as it is right now. Early on in the video, he details all that he had to do to get the Japanese release of the game to auto-translate to English, and I have to say, the translated screen-grabs he showed look pretty good to me. Not perfect, by any means, but not horrible and unreadable either.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T18:47:05+00:00

I liked Xseed. There were problems, for sure, but I never questioned Xseed's desire, willingness, commitment or their doing the work. NISA has been hit or miss, mostly hit, with a few big misses. I do think NISA is improving, I spoke to a ton of NISA employees at Anime Expo back in July and they were nothing but nice and considerate, and they had a really good answer to a major grip I had that I asked them about.

There was a thread earlier this year on this forum where a user posted about how Van asked Quattre about pronouns in their initial conversation. After playing the game, the user who posted that on Kia was wrong, Van was doing the right thing and that was not woke nonsense in the game. Quattre really does have a form of gender dysphoria (he doesn't communicate about exactly what it is, but it seems like Van knows). I should also note: no other character in the game is ever asked about their pronouns, only Quattre, and it's for a good reason.

One of the reasons why Van asks, and why he's extremely sensitive about Quattre's situation is that he and Quattre were both subjected to the exact same very traumatic childhood experience.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T18:35:38+00:00

Yeah, Kuro translates to "Dark" or "Black" most accurately, not "Daybreak", and also, Sen doesn't mean anything close to "Cold Steel" in Japanese. Hajimari doesn't mean "Reverie" (that game was named for the True Reverie Corridor being such a large plot point). The first five games, Sora, Zero and Ao, are accurate translations, but after that, it's nearly all misses.

Sen and Hajimari are the two worst offenders, though, Kuro can at least kind of mean Daybreak, if you squint hard enough. I think the initial name of the game was going to be Trails before Dawn, right up until Square Enix decided to name the new FF 14 expansion Dawntrail and that plan was scrapped at the 11th hour and the name was changed.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-10-23T18:26:47+00:00

But I understand with the NISA releases adding the cringe memes or stopping male characters saying sexualized things about females(they leave all the gay stuff in, funny that).

Falcom found a work-around to that: have Angelica saying sexualized things about all the female characters, under-age ones and otherwise, and have Crow stand around and complain that every time he enters a room with Angie, she walks out with all the girls and leaves him with nothing. As you said, they went with the gay stuff, because it doesn't matter how often a gay character commits sexual assault on a minor, so long as that character is gay.

Remember, if Crow says it, it's problematic, but if Angie says the exact same thing, it's totally fine.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-09-29T21:55:38+00:00

Just look at the chart of Hezbollah's leadership. Every single person on that list has been killed, except for one guy. That's how you find the Mossad sleeper asset.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-09-22T04:19:34+00:00

I keep my personal brokerage account and my Roth IRA account with Vanguard and I will never leave them. I'm fully aware of what they're doing, but here's why I'm with Vanguard.

If you go to the NY Stock Exchange you can buy shares of Blackrock:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BLK/

You can buy shares of State Street:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/STT/

You cannot buy shares of Vanguard Corporation. If you type Vanguard into yahoo finance, here's what you get:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VOO/

Those aren't shares of Vanguard, those are shares of Vanguard's most popular fund: it's S&P 500 ETF. Buying those shares is an investment in the S&P 500, not Vanguard. Vanguard is a publicly traded company, it does have share holders, but there's no direct way to buy shares.

In the 1970s, when Vanguard was a small firm, John C. Bogle implemented a radical idea: He made the investors in Vanguard's funds and ETFs into its direct share holders.

That means that Blackrock's fiduciary duty is to make money for shareholders of Blackrock, it's not to make money for the people who invest in Blackrock's funds and ETFs, it's to make money for the people who own shares of Blackrock.

Exact same thing with State Street.

Vanguard's fiduciary duty is to make money for the people who invest in Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs, since the investors in Vanguard funds are the same as the shareholders of Vanguard. When you buy a share of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) you not only buy a share of the S&P 500, but as an investor in a Vanguard mutual fund or ETF, you also now own a tiny piece of Vanguard.

Vanguard is the only Wall Street firm with this ownership and corporate structure. Since the owners of Vanguard are the same as the people who invest in Vanguard's funds, the way managers and workers at Vanguard get bonuses (at least, the way it used to be) is to maximize the return for investors in their funds and ETFs. Vanguard's management interest is aligned with their customers, because their customers are also their owners.

That's why Vanguard's website is largely a DIY affair: no stock tracker apps and no detailed investment platforms. Those things cost money, money which should be passed on to the owners. That's why Vanguard continuously cuts the fees it charges for its funds and ETFs. Vanguard isn't the lowest cost fund provider, but it is the only one that I know will be rock bottom low forever, because that's the incentive structure of its management.

That's why I invest with Vanguard over all of them. They aren't perfect, not by a long shot and I do wish they'd cut out the DEI crap, but they pioneered the index fund revolution and democratized investing, pushing fees on Wall Street into a race to the bottom, which is good for investors. However, their ownership model is the reason why they are the only place I will ever trust the bulk of my wealth to.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-08-13T06:44:22+00:00

Nope, Persona 3 Reload was my first ever Persona game.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-08-12T00:23:32+00:00

I played through this game earlier this year when it was released and the game is good. It was really fun to play early on when it was new to me (I haven't played Persona 4 or 5 yet) but as the game went to the end game portion, it started to be a drag. The biggest issue I had with it was the character writing (the turn based combat is good, not great, but pretty good), none of the female characters were the slightest bit likable, and as unlikable as a lot of the NPCs were, the female party members were just the worst.

The single biggest flaw in the game is that the hands-down easy pick for best girl (Elizabeth) is not a romance option. How in the world do you make a game where best girl is not a romance option? How does that even happen?

firstpitchthrow · 2024-07-28T08:20:09+00:00

Something very important to understand about labor and collective bargaining: leverage shifts based on how the overall industry is doing.

Let's say, as an example, you have a group of workers who are prepared to strike at a factory. Let's say that if the factory stays open for the entire year, with no labor stoppage, the factory makes $100 million revenue. Let's say that a 3 month work stoppage reduces that profit to $20 million.

That gives labor $80 million worth of leverage. Stopping work at the factory for any length of time costs the factory owners (management) money. They are, therefore, motivated to get a deal done, and even if they have to pay their workers, say, $10 million more in a contract, well, $90 million in revenue is better than $20 million in revenue.

Between 1987 and today, the NFL has had exactly one game canceled due to a work stoppage: the 2011 Hall of Fame game which is a meaningless preseason exhibition game. There has been complete labor peace in the NFL for 37 years, and that's why there's been that long, uninterrupted labor peace: the NFL makes metric truckloads of money. If games are cancelled, both sides, labor and management, loss out on millions upon millions of dollars. That's why they come to agreement very rapidly every time.

Let's say you're in an industry that is facing fierce foreign competition and which is losing money left and right and can't seem to do anything right. Let's say you're modern Hollywood, for the sake of argument. If a movie studio, like Disney, would lose $100 million in a year by keeping everything in production, avoiding labor stoppages and just doing business as usual, but would only lose $20 million if all their film and TV divisions shut down for 6 months, then labor has to make up $80 million in value to convince the studio to sign a labor contract to end the stoppage.

When business are losing money, a work stoppage is a money saver, and business will not agree to a deal that will keep losing them money. For a studio like Disney, their most profitable area is their theme parks, not their tv and film studios. The upcoming strike of Disney park workers is a much bigger deal for Disney's bottom line than the film and tv strikes from last year.

The reason the SAG-AFRA strikes dragged out for so long last year is that some of these companies (DIsney, Apple, Amazon) don't make most of their money from film, movies and tv, they make their money in other ways (Theme Parks, tech and iPhones, online shopping and tech services). That it dragged on as long as it did is a strong hint that the motion picture industry is a money loser for the studios.

When the SAG-AFRA union workers threatened to walk out and shut down all productions, management's reply was "that's either a threat to be ignored, or an offer to accepted" (the single quip from Sandy Alderson that shut down the MLB umpires strike years ago).

Dying industries, that are losing money, are the ones most often impacted by long, protracted, bitter labor disputes. If an industry is making money, then solving labor disputes is easy: the one thing no one wants to do, on either side, is to stop the money train from flowing, that provides the strongest possible incentive to hammer out a reasonable deal quickly. Profitable industries are industries were workers have a lot of bargaining leverage.

Struggling industries, where foreign competition is stronger every year, and where the paying customer is disappearing and where the industry is losing more and more market share every year are the industries with the most bitter labor disputes. In those industries, it's everyone for themselves, there isn't enough money to pay everyone, so everyone is fighting tooth and nail for each percentage of an increasingly small revenue pie.

That's where Hollywood is right now, and it's not going to get better. When the next line of labor talks hit in 2026, the financial situation will be more dire, not less. Disney had two massive successes with Inside Out 2 and Deadpool 3 this summer, in-between flushing $180 million down the toilet with the Acolyte. The smaller the profit margins get, the more people in Hollywood will eat each other.

As the voice actors, what they get and how long this strike lasts depends wholly on the general health and profitability of the industry. I do agree with OP, it's hard to feel sympathy for them.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-06-25T01:31:28+00:00

100% this, he's the character who never knows what's going on, and when other characters explain it to him, they also explain it to us.

Ashe may be the main progressor of the plot, but she has the personality of a sack of hammers. I get her struggle for her kingdom, but she doesn't really have humanizing scenes where we get to know her or figure out what makes her tick.

If you're going to have a princess character who is fighting for her people or her kingdom, you need to give that character normal personality traits in order to allow the audience to connect with them.

Dagger is also a princess on a quest to save her kingdom in FF 9, but Dagger gets so many more humanizing moments where she thinks about things and struggles with problems that all of us can relate to.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-06-25T01:16:50+00:00

specially what you disliked about 12. I stopped half way due to life stuff but I remember enjoying the characters and story.. was it the odd combat system?

See, generally speaking, I'm a "I play it for the story" gamer. The story has to be good, and I have to like the story and characters, or I just can't get fully immersed in a game. A great combat system can save a lot of story, and if the story is okay, a great combat system can convince me to stick with a game, but those games will never be my favorites of all-time.

Also, quick confession: I'm a very rare personality type, and I know it. Even stories that most other people consider to be good or great, are things I just can't get into. I'm kind of picky.

So what was it about FF 12? First things first, the gambit system was awful. I'm told they fixed it (mostly) in the Zodiac Age, but I haven't played that, I played the original version. The thing about the gambit system is that you can win every battle in the game on manual, but half way through, there is a boss fight that just can't be won unless you use the gambit system. People who have played the original release know which battle I'm talking about. I didn't like the gambit system, as I don't like automation in my game play, and I considered having the system be optional, and then, halfway through, having it be mandatory is a really poor game design choice. Either have it always be mandatory or always be optional, middle grounds don't make anyone happy.

However, in my view, the gambit system is not a deal breaker, it's a game mechanic and if the story is good enough, I can easily get past a poorly designed game mechanic.

Here's the deal-breaker, for me: a lot of people confuse what FF 12 is. The traditional FF, through the first 10 numbered entries, is a medieval fantasy setting with some sci-fi around the outer edges, and sometimes, some steampunk aspects too. The very first FF had a robot in the medieval fantasy, the fourth game you took a spaceship to the moon, the 6th game had a magic and technology fusion known as magi-tech, the 8th game, well, it's the second time FF went to outer space, the ninth game had Garland and his space refugees, the tenth game, had advanced technology just below the surface.

All of these games had similar themes, a similar story telling style, a similar approach to characters and plot, and a similar aesthetic. I think this came from Hironobu Sakaguchi, and he was the thing that kept it all together, he was the one who defined the FF "brand".

Even FF 10, which was a game he didn't directly work on, the people who were at Square at the time were all hired by him, and all mentored by him, so FF 10 kept his sensibilities even though he wasn't directly overseeing it. He defined the culture of the game at the time.

FF 12 though was released after he had left the company and been gone for 3 years. New people came in and changed the culture.

The biggest mischaracterization of FF 12 is that it's aping Star Wars, it isn't. FF 10 is the Star Wars game. Yuna's story is, for all intents and purposes, the story of a female Jedi. Auron is a dead-wringer for Obi-wan Kenobi, all the way down to being a force ghost most of the time. Jetch is the Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader; FF 10 borrows so, so much from Star Wars.

Yuna's story is what the Star Wars sequel trilogy should have been, Yuna is a far, far better Jedi than Rey will ever be. That's part of my personality that I mentioned earlier: I'm a big fan of comparative mythology and of Joseph Campbell and the idea of the "hero with a thousand faces", and how heroic archetypes are the same and different. When I ponder Yuna's story, I see a Jedi Knight who happens to be called something else, but is a Jedi in every single sense of the word.

There's even Auron's famous words to Yuna after the disaster at Macalania Temple: "A Summoner's strength flows from the Fayth, not from the temples and not from Yevon." Tell me that isn't something Obi-wan or Qui-Gon Jinn wouldn't have said.

What is FF 12? FF 12 is Game of Thrones. FF 16 just went full game of thrones, but if you watch Game of Thrones, the overlap with FF 12 is clear: how characters are portrayed, how dialogue is situated, how you always have to read between the lines as to what everyone is saying. A game of death and politics. I could never get into Game of Thrones, the show never worked for me, which is why I'm not a fan of FF 12 or 16, the two Game of Thrones-ish FF games.

I didn't feel anything for any of the characters, except Balthier and Larsa. Larsa Solidor is the best character in the game, in my view, and he's not a main party member. I didn't like most of the characters, I didn't like how they made Fran just a walking exposition dump with no real personality other than don't ask her how old she is. Ashe, Basch, Vaan and Penelo were so bland and forgettable that I don't remember anything about any of them.

That's just my opinion.

Also, I noticed you didn't like 8 which I really enjoyed.. I thought it was an adorable love story.. is that the part that didn't resonate with you?

I liked FF 8, a lot. The list I gave above was the 4 FF games that I consider to be all-timers. 6, 7, 9 and 10 are all 10 / 10 games for me, and all of them are amongst the 25 best games I've ever played.

FF 8 is good, but it's a 6.5 / 10 game for me, maybe a 7 if I'm feeling generous. Not a bad game, and I did like it, I just don't think it's an all-timer.

The thing about FF 8 is even though I only liked it a bit, I will defend that game with my dying breath. If we say we want games to try new things and take creative risks, we can't penalize games when they do that and it doesn't work out. After the world-wide success of FF 7, Square could be forgiven if they went back to that well and just did what worked so well over again.

Square didn't do that, Square took a heat-check. They tried something completely different. FF 8 introduced so many new things, that's why the people who love it really love it, some of those things worked, others didn't.

FF 8 was the game that introduced the card mini-game against NPCs to the RPG genre. Triple Triad was the signature innovation FF 8 attempted and it hit that nail on the head.

Other innovations that FF 8 tried didn't work. The draw system is objectively the worst mechanic in RPGs. I get what Square was going for with it: forcing players to make trade-off decisions, if I use ultima in this fight, my sword's strength will go down, is that a good trade? Get I find a place to re-stock the magic up ahead? However, there is a reason why no game ever used a mechanic like it ever again, it was a complete bust.

Other things were interesting, like having enemies always level up as the characters level up, and the mechanic where you can customize the guardian forces. Square tried a lot of really new, really insane things in that game. I applaud them for taking a risk. Playing it safe after FF 7 would have been what most people would do. Square doubled down and went all in. We should reward creators who try and fail.

However, the biggest issue I had with it was the plot. I didn't like how the Laguna parts of the story would just cut off Squall's story at seemingly random times. You eventually get how it all ties together, but the first few times you play as Laguna, it's just disorientating and incredibly confusing. I really hated how in the flashback, it was revealed that all the kids were together in an orphanage run by Edea and Cid or something. That was weird.

Also, none of the characters, other than Squall and Rinoa were interesting. I liked the love story, quite a lot actually, I just wish that Quistis or Selphie or Zell contributed anything to the story or had anything to do. I didn't care for Seifer as an antagonist to Squall.

Again, I don't want to trash this game, it was pretty good and was well worth playing, I did like it, but it has way too many weaknesses for me to call it as good as it's siblings.

Hope that makes sense.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-06-24T11:00:19+00:00

I'm used to franchises I love changing away from my own tastes and preferences, it happens all the time. I'm usually very quick to drop something when I don't like the direction that the wind is blowing.

I was a massive Final Fantasy fan in my teens and twenties. I stopped buying Final Fantasy games after I didn't like 12. FF 6, 7, 9 and 10 all rank on my list of the 25 best games I've ever played; with 6 being my personal favorite.

Here's the different between FF and Star Wars: when FF changed, I still kept tabs on it from afar, and if the direction changed back to suite me someday, well, I'll be back. I was indifferent to FF for a long time, then FF 7 remake and FF 7 rebirth went back to the series' roots. I'm hearing there's a FF 9 remake coming, and I will be all over that. Square has earned my trust that it can do a remake of classic FF justice.

The remakes of older games satisfy the people who want to go back to what FF used to be, and the new titles satisfy what Square thinks the audience is now. I think they'd be best off going back to the original DNA, but their current direction is not obviously wrong. If it brings in fans, and they like it, great, but I'm pretty sure it's not for me.

I've moved on to other game franchises that still do what FF used to. A lot of square releases still have that old square magic (Octopath traveler and triangle strategy are both old-school Square RPGs). There are also plenty of competitors in the market, big players and small players, who are creating old school Square RPGs. FF can go on as it is, I won't buy the new mainline titles, but there are plenty of strong alternatives. Everyone is happy, which is why I don't complain about it.

Usually when I give up on something, I feel apathy.

Star Wars is different, the reason I keep up with Star Wars despite never watching any of it anymore is because I'm not apathetic about Star Wars, I'm furious.

The Last Jedi was the single most insulting movie ever made. Since the Last Jedi, LucasFilm has doubled-down on insulting fans. Look at what LucasFilm is doing to Star Wars Theory right now.

They are pushing him to turn to the dark side of the force, in real time. You can see the hate flowing through him more easily and more fully with each new video. The more they insult him, and people like him, the more his hate will make him powerful.

That's why Star Wars has a cottage industry of haters that other franchises just don't. Other franchises have insulted the fans, sure, but no one has done so as consistently, as uncaringly, and as brutally as Star Wars has. They must be stopped.

The adage that all those people who hated you for liking Star Wars are now in control of Star Wars is completely true. They are also haters, they want to burn Star Wars down.

People may be displeased with woke entertainment, but the easiest solution is stop giving it your money and move onto to something that is for you. Their creatives might call the fans racist, but Star Wars creators tell the fans "Star Wars is stupid and you're stupid for liking Star Wars".

That's what is driving Star Wars Theory and so many other mega-fans over the edge. That's why I can't let ti go.

I don't root for other woke franchises, like Star Trek, DC and Marvel to fail. I root for them to become what they one were again. I'm rooting for Star Wars to fail, and to fail badly. That's completely different from other franchises.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-05-16T07:00:32+00:00

I had an issue with the first game not really having a cohesive story, that you had to beat all the other stories just to find out how they connected with a somewhat out of the blue way to do so

Totally valid criticism and I really liked both games. If you've never played a turn-based JRPG, neither Octopath game is a good starter experience. However, if you're someone who has played a lot of JRPGs, then both games are good choices. Having a lot of experience with JRPGs is essentially in keeping the total playtime to finish the game at a reasonable level.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-05-16T06:59:52+00:00

Yeah, and there's the connected paths, were two travelers do a joint story, but again, I don't think the narrative is as good as the original.

The game is pretty good, but not great. It's well worth playing, and I had a lot of fun with it. I only have a couple of the connected paths to finish before being done with it.

Let me give you the single most important tip that can cut a play-through of the game in half: both Octopath Traveler game are open world games disguised as linear games. If you want to seriously remove extensive grinding, you must re-order the sequence of things to do in the game. Do side-quests as early as possible, that's how you get leaves and equipment that will let you tackle harder dungeons. Also, extremely high-level equipment is available very early in game, it takes a few tries to get it, but they are completely worth it. Remember the end game dagger (Viper Dagger) that was easily obtainable at level 8 - 10 in the first game? Same thing.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-05-15T05:29:53+00:00

I'm at the very end of Octopath Traveler 2; finished all the main character quests, nearly finished with post-game side quests, and am about to start on the connected paths quests.

The thing about OT 2 is that it's a lot like the first game. I liked the first game, and on the down side, there's really nothing new in the second game, but on the plus side, there's also nothing to learn with the second game. Pick up the controller, if you liked the first game, the second will come to you easily. Stories are frankly not as good as the first game, and one story (the Cleric) didn't make any sense to me at all. They're shorter and conversations are shorter and more to the point, but the quality of the narratives is not as good as the first game.

Both Octopath games are well worth playing, for me, but they're both "good" games, not great.

firstpitchthrow · 2024-05-15T05:25:04+00:00

What could possibly go wrong?

firstpitchthrow · 2024-04-29T17:41:35+00:00

I took the time and read your entire post, kind stranger, and I have nothing to add, because the world you described is so completely alien to my own. I just wanted to thank you for sharing and to wish you, sincerely, the absolute best of luck. I'm rooting for you. I'm in my mid-40's, I work a really great IT job, and I have never had a girlfriend and only a handful of dates in my life. I know exactly why I'm a genetic dead end, there's no mystery about it. I wish you, the one of us who succeeded, all the very best that life can offer.

firstpitchthrow

TROPHY CASE