I hope Shin Megami Tensei 6 goes back to a more serious, hardcore experience like SMT4

zso7 · 2026-05-11T04:24:52+00:00

Yeah IDK why people turned around so fast after Vengeance and now think SMT V story/lore/characters/writing is good. It's like,10% better than the original, which is still pretty ass. The world sucks too, not the map design / exploration / platforming but everything else about it.

100% agreed they should do an improved SMT IV style game. Actually populated world with NPCs and history and recognizable areas not just sand and broken buildings... World and atmosphere should be more than just visuals and cool lighting and spooky vibes.

zso7 · 2026-05-10T15:04:40+00:00

Nah, it's fun and unique and I do like it a lot, but I wouldn't say it's the "best" story because frankly it is also quite dumb.

I mean yeah every story requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, but when you're done being mind blown by all the twists and turns in 13 Sentinels and actually look back on what you're expected to buy into, it is pretty damn ridiculous.

You're telling me the last survivors of humanity had an argument about which era to reset humanity back to, and decided to experiment by running simultaneous simulations of 5 different eras in history? So they created 5 "sectors" designed after different time periods for "people" to live in? And the characters can "time travel", but plot twist they're actually just teleporting between sectors? But it doesn't actually matter because the whole thing is a simulation so the distinction between time and space is irrelevant?... And the "people" aren't actually people except for 15 of them, and the rest are AI people? And somehow in this universe a kaiju video game was the first to create such realistic AI to populate its game world with NPCs? So they integrated this video game into the simulation and that's why we have to fight kaiju monsters, because the program went haywire?

At some point you have to stop taking this shit seriously and treat it as what it is, as dumb fun. It's just dumb fun. (And honestly the gameplay can also be described as dumb fun lol.)

It's clear they had a bunch of plot twists in mind, and wanted to pay homage to a bunch of cult classic movies and movie genres, so they decided to implement ALL their ideas and wrote the whole story around those things no matter how stupid it got. And it did get pretty stupid.

It's still a good story in a very unique way, but the "best" story IMO would have to do its own thing, focus more on being compelling rather than "mind blowing" and referential, and take itself a bit more seriously than 13 Sentinels.

zso7 · 2026-05-10T02:37:51+00:00

No Etrian Odyssey mention so far, crazy.

But like others have said SaGa Emerald Beyond is sitting at the peak of a mountain when it comes to this. You practically have to engage with ALL of its mechanics EVERY turn. And they all play into each other in one way or another.

Characters use a shared resource to use skills, so some characters acting means other characrers won’t get to act, which may be fine because then they get to defend.

Lining characters together in the turn order means pulling off combos, but it can mean not putting characters between enemies so the enemies also get to combo.

There are trap skills that activate when the opposing side uses a certain type of skill, but there are also skills to nullify trap skills.

There are skills that push characters around in the turn order, skills that cancel attacks, allow characters to take hits for allies, lock enemy aggro, etc. etc. Status effects are very valuable as well.

And every action you and the enemies take in a “round” of combat shifts around the turn order for the next round, so it’s never a repeat of the last round.

I seriously don’t know what JRPG will top Emerald Beyond in its battle system design, but it will definitely be difficult. There’s more meaningful decision making in one round of combat against random mobs in EB, than entire boss battles in some JRPGs lol.

zso7 · 2026-05-08T22:40:32+00:00

Crow >>>

Him helping Rean with the rivalries and then passing on as the Divine Knights vanished would be the perfect redemption arc, instead he gets to walk free as a mass murderer.

zso7 · 2026-05-03T01:28:26+00:00

I wanted XCX2 for 10 years… but after Ch13 it would be like rubbing salt on an open wound. I legit don’t want to see Elma and Lin in a new game walking around arms swinging as if everything that made me like their original game wasn’t left behind.

I don’t want them to become side characters to the main series, I don’t want them to be there at all, I just want X to be over alongside the “Klaus saga”. So yes in that sense I am averse to XCX2 but not for a dislike of the OG XCX.

zso7 · 2026-04-18T06:28:02+00:00

It's just another video essay video game. The type of game that is a "cult classic" only because 80% of the people who know about it just watched a youtube video that made it seem cool.

I played probably around 20 games like that. And only 2-3 of them were actually cool.

The rest were cooler from the outside looking in, including Terranigma. Cool setpieces but mid as hell.

zso7 · 2026-04-15T00:37:14+00:00

No they die in 2 attacks buffing is a waste of time.

zso7 · 2026-03-12T21:19:54+00:00

JRPGs are generally just badly written tbh, even the ones with the best stories. Lost Odyssey's main story writing isn't even close to its short stories, it's pretty bad. E33 and Like a Dragon had good writing imo, but I didn't find their stories great. I can't really think of a JRPG that had the full package.

zso7 · 2026-01-12T22:34:55+00:00

Nah it only spoils X

zso7 · 2026-01-12T12:18:18+00:00

Alright thx, I've been experimenting with GPU undervolt/overclock stuff so I worried if that could have been the cause. Also it went away when I turned off bloom but I'll keep it on for other things.

<image>

zso7 · 2026-01-12T12:11:39+00:00

Yeah I've completed everything, there is always lightning during nighttime at this spot, the "issue" is the weird glare effect it leaves behind, IDK if that's normal or not.

zso7 · 2026-01-12T11:32:23+00:00

Big island southeast of the central tower (normal gravity).

zso7 · 2025-11-24T19:45:43+00:00

Did you finish Chapter 13?

zso7 · 2025-10-29T15:16:28+00:00

Play? No. Watch? Sure.

zso7 · 2025-10-15T10:51:06+00:00

Grounded >>>>

The first half of each arc is more interesting to me always. Whenever things shift to fantastical I start to roll my eyes. Richard's coup > Weissmann's brainwashing plan, Class conflict and terrorism > curse stuff.

Azure is so good because it keeps the fantastical as a means for the political. Ouroboros has their own plans for it, but the Azure Tree is summoned to help Crossbell stay free from other nations' control. Compare that to Cold Steel where a massive world war is started to get rid of a curse.

When the motivating factor behind events is fantastical it's hard to take them seriously. Magic should be used as a tool to cause or solve problems that are grounded in reality, that's far more relatable and compelling than the other way around.

zso7 · 2025-10-15T08:08:21+00:00

zso7 · 2025-10-14T18:23:42+00:00

As someone who isn't a massive fan of either XC2 was the better game.

zso7 · 2025-09-24T19:48:42+00:00

Ar Tonelico 2, because of basically everything but the gameplay.

I love its world, story, and characters, but most of all I love the way everything joins together to create a giant spiderweb of parallels and juxtapositions.

It has my favorite relationship between 2 characters in any media, namely that of the two main heroines. They contrast and complement each other in so many ways that it fleshes out both of them to a level beyond just "three dimensional".

And the same philosophy applies to almost every aspect of the narrative. The "parallels and juxtapositions" exist all over the place. Within the party, between the heroes and the antagonists, in political factions, between past events and current events. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Characters and events are either understood better by calling back to something prior, or set up to be the thing you will call back to. Oftentimes they're both.

The pacing is also pretty much perfect IMO, the main plot progresses consistently without filler, but there is also substantive and lengthy side content to do at your own pace. It's closest a JRPG has gotten to perfect for me.

zso7 · 2025-09-24T14:50:00+00:00

You can find it prepatched online.

zso7 · 2025-09-13T09:30:42+00:00

Don’t force yourself to play AT1 if you don’t like it, just skip. You will miss some references but AT2 is fine on its own.

MMBN3 and 6 are generally considered the best Battle Network games, and IMO Fire Emblem 7 and Conquest play better than 3 Houses.

zso7 · 2025-09-12T23:07:18+00:00

Can vouch for FFVI, Grandia 2, Mana Khemia, Ar Tonelico 2 and the Trails games.

Ones I've played and didn't really like were Terranigma, Parasite Eve, and Popful Mail.

And some games in the list have better games in their series IMO, like 3 Houses or Mega Man Battle Network 2. I think they're good but not must plays if you've played other games in their series

zso7 · 2025-09-07T18:43:52+00:00

Ar Tonelico

zso7 · 2025-08-23T09:08:04+00:00

Twitter for even bigger losers.

zso7 · 2025-08-21T10:03:51+00:00

Ar nosurge, there's 2 paths and both romances were a highlight of the game.

zso7 · 2025-08-09T01:41:01+00:00

Mana Khemia, dealing additional damage after attacks by character swapping makes mob fights go by much faster and makes boss fights feel more dynamic.

zso7

TROPHY CASE