RPG Progress Report

[noiseredux]

last month I popped Shining Wisdom in to make sure it worked. And then I ended up sitting there playing for two hours. Because my Saturn's battery was dead, I attemped to save to my (3rd party) backup cart. Bad move. It froze the game up. Apparently most Saturn backup carts that are not the official one don't allow for saving directly to the cart in game. Instead you're supposed to save to the Saturn and then move your save to the cart. Which doesn't work if your battery is dead.

Pissed off that I had lost two hours of progress, I went out and got a new battery for my Saturn the following Saturday. And then my Saturn died.

With new Saturn and fresh battery now in possession, I put about an hour and a half into Shining Wisdom last night. It's kind of a drag to have to replay these parts again, but oh well...

PROGRESS: I've just now beaten the first real dungeon -- the one that has an actual boss fight -- which takes place within a crypt.

[Ack]

What team are you using anyhow? I was a traditionalist and stuck with Mario, Toadstool & Bowser. I thought the other two characters sucked.

Actually I have Mario, Geno, and Bowser as my main party. I like Geno's speed and high attack power. But I tend to focus heavily on more physically-oriented parties in RPGs. So far I haven't needed a healer, and every boss has been beaten by having Mario doing the heavy hitting while Bowser and Geno serve as additional combat or item support as needed. And since their speeds vary so much, I can frame the fight around who needs what when. I may switch out one of them for Toadstool if I need a dedicated healer, but her stats are pretty poor in comparison, and she's a couple of levels lower than I would like.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Apparently most Saturn backup carts that are not the official one don't allow for saving directly to the cart in game. Instead you're supposed to save to the Saturn and then move your save to the cart. Which doesn't work if your battery is dead.

Haha yeah... I think I did this once while playing Panzer Dragoon. I have an Action Replay.

How is Shining Wisdom, anyway? My Shining collection is painfully small, which is strange because I love the series.

I picked up Brain Lord the other week on SNES. Played a little bit the other night; just to get a feel for the game I opened the previous owner's save file instead of starting my own. I'm really digging the gameplay and art style - it reminds me a lot of The 7th Saga (which had the same developer, Produce). I'll definitely play through this game sometime in the coming months.

[noiseredux]

Haha yeah... I think I did this once while playing Panzer Dragoon. I have an Action Replay.

How is Shining Wisdom, anyway? My Shining collection is painfully small, which is strange because I love the series.

yeah I have a Memory Card Plus.

Shining Wisdom is pretty damn awesome. Granted, I've only seen 2 or so hours of it. But it's a pretty Link to the Past-ish ARPG. I kind of like that the Shining series has different kinds of RPG's within it. I loved Shining Force so much when we played it for TR. I'm definitely a big SRPG fan. At any rate, my only complaint thus far with Wisdom is that switching weapons is a pain. Meaning, you have to switch between your sword and a secondary weapon (Button C), which is stupid. So like in the first dungeon you get these boots that can stomp heavy blocks out of the way or break through cracks in floors to get to the level below. You actually have to unequip your sword to put on the boots. Totally stupid. So you can't really attack if you're using a secondary weapon... but I mean boots. Why are boots a weapon? And what makes this so dumb is that Button A is used for things like healing herbs, etc. Why not just let you equip anything you want to A and just always have the sword on C? But that said. I like the game a lot.

[Ziggy]

Man, I probably shouldn't post in this thread. There's so many great RPGs that I haven't finished, put down for so long that I have to start them over. RPGs that I own that I haven't started yet. Others that I've read about and want to eventually buy and play. Reading about new RPGs in this thread is the last thing I need! Or even remembering games that I own and still haven't played (Shining Wisdom is one of them).

But I can't help myself, I finally started Xenoblade Chronicles and all I can say is WOW. I bought this game on it's release day and kept it sealed until about a week ago. I finally decided I should open it and give it a shot. I read a lot about it, including the thread here when it was first released (in the USA). I also got the GameStop art book, and it just made the game look amazing to me.

Anyways, WOW, this game has such beautiful scenery. Most of the landscapes are just breathtaking. Even with the Wii's limited graphical ability, this is one of the best looking games I've ever seen. This might be my favorite aspect of the game.

From what I've read, the game can take a long time to finish. Especially with side quests. Usually this tends to scare me away, but Xenoblade seems to do a good job putting my mind at ease. Things like being able to save anywhere, set the in game time, and warp at will really makes it easy to play.

Another complaint that I always have with games (some of you know this from my MGS thread) is cut scenes. I can't stand long, drawn out cut scenes. Especially when they happen frequently. It's why I can't stand to play FFX. Xenoblade's story is interesting to me (probably because of the constant mystery surrounding the Monado) so I don't find myself bored with the cut scenes. The cut scenes aren't too long anyway, and they don't happen frequently. But even still, there's an aspect that I think EVERY game should have. You can pause and skip any cut scene. Why doesn't every game let you do this? If I'm playing an RPG with an epic story and the phone rings I'm screwed. Video games are suppose to be fun, dammit! You should always be able to pause cut scenes!

I also love how much depth the game has while still seeming pretty straight forward. There's a LOT in that game, but it never seems overwhelming. I could probably go on and on about what I love about this game, so I'll just stop now LOL.

Anyways, I'm up to the Makna Forest right now. I forget how many hours I have in so far, but I think it's between 20 and 30. I've done maybe half of the side quests that I come upon. I keep meaning to stop and go back to do earlier side quests, but I end up pushing forward more. Maybe because I find the atmosphere so enchanting, I find myself exploring areas like I have never done in a game before. Areas like Bionis' Leg and wide open areas like that are just amazing. You can get lost doing nothing in that game and still have a blast doing it! You also gain EXP for finding new location, including secret areas, so it's like incentive to just explore everywhere.

So like I said, usually when a game can take many hours it kinda scares me off. But I'm having so much fun with Xenoblade right now, I almost hope it never ends!

[Xeogred]

Yeah, the Makna Forest isn't even really halfway yet... lol.

My thoughts:
- Best OST I've heard in ages and one that'll stick with me for life. Fact.
- Art direction and graphics (for the Wii) were indeed mindblowing. Just wait until later, it pulls some fascinating tricks and other cool stuff. Got chills during some of the final moments.
- Story gets more intense as you go, further and further in. And the scope of the levels and the world presented makes it feel like such a huge journey. From a boy tinkering with machines, to ... yeah. I love when simple stories pull off such a vibe, with little story and don't feed you too much. Kind of like Secret of Mana or the old Zelda's, etc. Pick up a sword, and bam. It's a huge adventure with so much to traverse.
- Ignore the sidequests after awhile, if you feel bogged down by it. I did a little for a long time, but then just didn't even really focus on them at all and enjoyed the game a bit more.

Take a break if you have to, a big one at that maybe. I took a month or two off from it, but it was very easy to pick up again and damn, the second half is so amazing and the final stretch was so worth it. Clocked in 80-90 hours or something. I can already see myself replaying it someday, trying out new party combinations, and things like that.

You do eventually hit a wall midgame, where you stop getting new attacks, skills, and all that sort of stuff. You can apparently unlock more skill trees by doing specific sidequests, I never did but yeah. I'd say if you start to feel the gameplay burn you out, start switching up your party. That kind of kept it fresh and interesting for me throughout.

The story was top notch and I loved all the characters. Boils my piss something like FFXIII can exist with a maximized budget when this is on the Wii and all, and doesn't sell nearly as much. But oh well. The story isn't even a fraction of what's in Xenogears or Xenosaga, but the parallels are still there, lots of comparisons to make later on and things like that that I thought was cool, as a big fan of every Xeno game. So I liked Xenoblade for its simplicity and by the end of it, the story is pretty standard and common, but its execution was so great with a fun cast of characters. It was a great experience.

The cutscenes get longer as you go, but I don't think you'll be bothered by it as the story just gets cooler and weirder. Xenoblade is still like 80% gameplay and 20% story (when you can switch those numbers around for Xenosaga, haha), and the game breaks up the time between the cutscenes just perfectly. I never once felt like I was just aimlessly wandering around for 10+ hours at a time like in say... FFXII, waiting for something to happen. In Xenoblade, huge environments or not, it's still kind of linear so you keep chugging along to chip away at the story. So I thought the pacing was really good, if that all makes sense.

This is why I hate that JRPG's aren't king of the market though, with games like this and a few others (hell, I'll give FFXIII a little point here), I completely love when these games just have these MASSIVE environments and enormous backdrops, in HD and all, it's just breathtaking stuff. I never feel this kind of emphasis on the scope of huge areas in a lot of modern games, as I do some random newer JRPG's. And yeah, it's ironic Xenoblade is hands down one of the prettiest games this gen, being on the weakest hardware by far.

Monolith-Soft is hard at work on a Wii U game now, and Tetsuya Takahashi (the big Xeno-man behind them all) always suggests Xenoblade was like a test run for ideas they have for the future. I'm so stoked for what they'll do next. But hopefully NOA gives it to us. I'm so pissed we will never get Soma Bringer, which looks like a handheld Xenoblade spinoff or something.

It's time for Uematsu and others to step aside, I hope ACE+ is the future for big time Japanese games composers. They brought in an army for Xenoblade's music (130 tracks or something?), but the ACE+ group probably did 70% of the OST and all their tracks are completely insane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88VUuHcts8Y

[Ziggy]

Yeah, I love how linear it actually is. It ends up not feeling linear at all, probably because of how massive the areas are. But I've never had to run around for hours wondering what I was suppose to be doing.

And yeah, the music is awesome! I love how each major area has it's own theme. And not only that, there's a daytime and nighttime version of each theme.

I never played any of the Xeno games until now, though I own Xenosaga 1 and 2 (if cut scenes are really that brutal, I might not ever play them). If we get a Xenoblade 2 (or some kind of spiritual successor) on the WiiU I'll be absolutely ecstatic. I'm in love with Xenoblade right now. I've played some games the past few years that I really really liked, but I don't remember the last time I really got into a game like this.

I really only got interested in Xenoblade, initially, because of Operation Rainfall. Since Xenoblade turned out to be such an awesome game, it makes me wonder if The Last Story and Pandora's Tower are on the same level of awesomeness.

[Xeogred]

Last Story feels like a joke in comparison, from the little I've played.

Really wished we got Pandora's Tower though, that one looks really good to me.

I wish I were joking about those numbers for Xenosaga... III finally perfects everything and is my favorite by far, with great pacing, lots of gameplay, and everything. But yeah, if you're not into MGS/etc or whatnot, as much as I love the series I doubt it'd be for you. Xenogears is amazing as well, but definitely has a few novels worth of text within.

So yeah it can't be stressed enough how different Xenoblade is from the other Xeno's.

[Ack]

Well, still playing Super Mario RPG, though I haven't been able to consistently sit down and play. That said, I have made great progress. I've reached the final dungeon! Levels range from Mario and Mallow at 27 to Toadstool at 25. I've got all the best weapons in the game, including the lazy shell and the frying pan. I have the best armor I can buy in stores, and again, the lazy shell, but my best for the Super Jumps is only 14. Beyond that, I've got the ?Sheep Attack, the best cards from both the music thing and that juggling game, and Culex is dead. I think I may just go polish this off, as I have so much great equipment and my character levels are almost maxed out.

My party is still primarily composed of Mario, Bowser, and Geno. I used Toadstool instead of Geno for the Culex fight, but that was pretty much useless, as both Toadstool and Bower died early on. Mario, on the other hand...none of the crystals could do more than 1 damage to him at any time, and Culex's magic did a total of 1, with one exception: Culex could deal damage with Dark Star, but between that and his physical attack, that was it. So from there it became a war of attrition, and I had enough Max Mushrooms to easily keep pace until the crystals and Culex all ran out of FP, which limited him solely to a physical attack he rarely used. At that point, the fight was a cakewalk, and I didn't even bother reviving the other party members as Mario went for the gold.

So yeah, hardest boss in the game is down. Smithy, I'm coming for you!

[MrPopo]

Ahh, so you have the Lazy Shell Armor on Mario. I always put it on Toadstool since her heals aren't affected by the offense lowering power of the armor.