What RPG are you playing right now?

[pierrot]

Lunar: The Silver Star.

Sega CD version is way better than SSS, no?

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yes, more appealing aesthetics, less fluff and padding. Just a smoother experience overall.

[AznKhmerBoi]

Romance of the three kingdom 7 on ps2. Time flies by playing this game.
So far I control about 5 provinces and still many more to go.

[Exhuminator]

Xenoblade Chronicles
I remember when XC released in the USA back in 2012, lots of gamers were praising it to the rafters. "The savior of the JRPG genre." Well I bought a copy of XC back in 2012, but it wasn't until 2017 that I finally started playing it. (I have far too busy of a real life to be able to beat every new RPG that comes along during its actual release window.) So yeah I started playing XC back in 2017, put 35 hours in it, and then dropped it for six months. Recently I picked it back up again, and am just trying to finish the damn thing. Now I'm at 60 hours in. I have to say ever since I reached Mechonis, the fun factor has really tanked. Three big areas in a row; Mechonis Field, Central Factory, and Agniratha, have been an absolute grindy boring slog. All of those areas are about fixing elevators (over and over) while killing the same 3 or 4 palette swapped Mechons a hundred times. This late game ass-trash is ostensibly padding, as well as a trolling difficulty buffer. I've considered dropping XC because of how lame the Mechonis portion has been. BUT I do want to finish this JRPG after having already sunken 60 hours in it (sunk cost fallacy yep). I can't help but wonder how all those XC lovin' folks weren't bothered by the disingenuous design foibles of Mechonis, when they played through XC five or six years ago. Am I the only one who thinks this part of XC sucks? Please tell me it gets better after Agniratha.

[Xeogred]

That's when it got better and hooked me by the balls.

You're done with the major sci-fi stretch after those and at least like 75% in. There's one level towards the end that I thought was a huge slog and just obvious padding* and the last area was kind of weird to me. The finale was incredible and the last boss was really challenging, but was it worth the 80+ hour journey? That's up to you...

You take issue with the mecha designs, which I can completely get behind. But these towering sci-fi settings don't do much for you either? I really dug the art direction of the settings and environments. As a long time Xeno fan, I was certainly disappointed that controllable mecha was nowhere in sight in this game and like you're getting at, I too wasn't a huge fan of the designs outside of one of the main bosses, some giant gold thing in the center of Mechonis or something.

I still haven't played XBX and while I could talk a bit about how I think XBC2 fixed all the gameplay issues I have with the first, I don't think this series is for you so this should maybe be your last stop with them. I changed up which characters I controlled in XBC1 to keep it interesting, but all your updates have been a slog dude, just sayin'... doesn't sound like you're having fun.

I don't know if you need the blunt or obvious answer, but NOTHING is going to change in this game from the point where you're at. You just have 20-30 more hours to go probably. You've seen what it is and if there's nothing really driving you forward, yeah not sure what else to say.

Maybe someday, if you try FFXV you might look back on XBC1 and appreciate some of it in comparison?





*Bionis' Interior, even the music was like left over junk

[Segata]

Because I'm such a fanboy of Xenoblade and don't have a fanboy brain aneurysm I'm not going to say anything because I'm just too bias for that series.


I'm a few hours into CyberSleuth Hackers Memory. I will reiterate I never played Pokemon or before the Cyber Sleuth games never played Digmon either. I only play and enjoy the Cyber Sleuth games because they feel like a Cross between Persona and SMT. I know that kinda contradicts since Persona is a spinoff but as we know SMT has a very dark tone. Persona is more focused on teens and kinda has a lighter tone...sorta. I like the idea of Persona/Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Cyber Sleuth using modern Japan as the hub and running around it in a colorful cel-shaded world. I'm just really drawn to it. I also normally not into the idea of Pokemon but SMT and Cyber Sleuth are exceptions. I do like Cyber Sleuth art design is by former SMT artists and it shows in character and enemy designs (that are not strictly Digimon) in this series. I get people will write them off because Digimon but I encourage anyone who is a Persona and/or SMT fan should play these.

[Exhuminator]

You take issue with the mecha designs

I don't particularly like the Mechon designs, no. I can appreciate they are unique looking, but they're not aesthetically pleasing to me in general.

But these towering sci-fi settings don't do much for you either?

I like towering sci-fi settings just fine, but there's just not enough variety in the Mechonis areas' versions. The same limited art assets and simplistic meme are used over and over to generate one Mechonis area. There's nothing on Mechonis thus far matching the visual grandeur and sheer splendorous scale of Gaur Plain, Makna Forest, or Eryth Sea.

I still haven't played XBX / I don't think this series is for you so this should maybe be your last stop with them.

I already bought XBX a while ago. Why? Because I've read it doubles-down on the exploration aspect - which is my favorite part of XC.

I changed up which characters I controlled in XBC1 to keep it interesting, but all your updates have been a slog dude, just sayin'... doesn't sound like you're having fun.

I wouldn't say I'm not having fun. Sometimes I do have fun with XC.

As for the characters... Shulk is just banal and boring. He reminds of an even less charismatic Vaan. The only characters I really like are Fiora and Sharla. The rest of the cast are forgettable. Reyn and especially Riki are just annoying. Really who in the world could like Riki?

Maybe someday, if you try FFXV you might look back on XBC1 and appreciate some of it in comparison?

I was the guy who warned you not to play FFXV in the first place, remember? ;P

As for FF.... I will say that FFXII is quite similar to XC (albeit predates XC by years), yet I absolutely adored FFXII. I don't mind the pseudo-MMOJRPG stuff going on here. In general I'm okay with modern JRPGs taking that approach. Monolith Soft did much the same thing with Soma Bringer, which was a JRPG of theirs I actually loved. (Honestly Soma Bringer is VERY similar to XC in its base design, lots of similarities.)

My biggest problems with XC then? A bloated, yet unengaging plot, full of animu characters I feel nothing for. The combat system pretty much sucks ass (and the brain-dead friendly AI doesn't help). The difficulty balancing is a joke (it's all about your level, skill be damned). The menus are rather clunky and unintuitive. The load times are not ideal if you play the disc game legitimately on Wii. However the graphics are great, the music is excellent, and the sense of exploration is often wonderful and rewarding. There are plenty of beautiful vistas to see, I love that stuff. Unfortunately the Mechonis portion has not been fun to explore thus far, hence my boredom at killing relentless robot fodder, while roleplaying as an elevator repairman.

Look I'm not saying, nor have I ever intentionally implied, that Xenoblade Chronicles is a bad game. Right now after 60 hours I'd give it a solid 7.5/10. Which in my book is not too shabby. However I can't help but feel disappointed that XC hasn't blown me away, like it did quite a few other gamers I know. We all have our own tastes, sure. Stuff that drives one gamer nuts might not bother the other. Stuff that greatly excites one gamer might be a "meh" thing for another. Is what it is.

[PartridgeSenpai]

You seem to have a LOT of the same issues with XBC that I did, Ex.
- I really didn't care for the characters. I didn't hate any of them, but there weren't any I was particularly attached to one way or the other.
- I felt like I'd wasted a lot of time on sidequests, but it still felt like I could only /survive/ if I had some very specific party loadouts that involved the main healer.
- I didn't really like how the narrative was portrayed. It felt very drawn out in presentation, with meaningful plot developments being separated by huge expanses of gameplay. There are TONS of asides to "what the bad guys are doing," but they very rarely do anything more than navel-gazing foreshadowing. That isn't exactly different from how most anime use those kinds of things, but it was still just annoying to see yet another scene with characters I don't know talking about things I hadn't had explained yet.

It's not a bad game, but I picked up the 3DS port a few months back and I want to try going through it again someday. I think being able to just drop in and out on my 3DS would make me more likely to finish it than having to sit down and focus on it on a console. I also think that I'd try doing few or no side quests, because doing far too many for not much reward is what I mostly blame for burning me out so bad XP

[Exhuminator]

I felt like I'd wasted a lot of time on sidequests

That's something I haven't bothered with at all. Sometimes I complete sidequests, but entirely coincidentally. There are TONS of padding filler sidequests in this game. Yet they're almost exclusively "collect X amount of X" or "kill X amount of X". And that's... unimaginative and boring. I'm sure there's special gear and hidden skills you can only access by doing two hundred sidequests or whatever, but nah. I make up for that by crafting powerful Materia I mean Gems and being strategic with their application. Not that it really matters. Xenoblade Chronicles' difficulty is wholly based on your level. Fighting a difficult level 65 boss? Just grind your party to level 66 and you'll win easy-peasy. No skillful strategy needed.

[Xeogred]

I hope you two played with Japanese audio? The English dub sounded atrocious, wouldn't help anybody's experience.

Anyways yeah, FFXII is always my go to comparison as well. But all I can really add to that is that I beat Xenoblade, didn't beat FFXII. They both have their pros and cons, the combat was more interesting in FFXII along with the Gambit system, but 10+ hour stretches of literally no plot progression whatsoever killed it for me. Xenoblade made up for its subpar gameplay with the plot and world for me. Usually I favor gameplay the most in a JRPG, but everything else pulled me in enough to keep me going. Personally I found its structure to be very comparable to FFVI. The game was ultimately very linear, just with huge maps and some branching paths. As someone that almost hates open world design at this point, even back then when I played Xenoblade years ago, I really appreciated that it had a different flow. You get literal visual progression when you step foot into those awesome huge new areas.

X sounds true open world, so yeah not excited for that at all. Apparently takes 30 hours to get the mechs too and there's no plot until the end.

I'm excited to give FFXII another shot when I get the HD version someday. And I blasted through Xenoblade 2 in a month, unlike Xenoblade 1 where I took a summer off in between haha. But yeah these MMO influences will never be my preference. Something more real time action based would be ideal... like Nier Automata. If Monolith-Soft's new IP they've teased is more like Nier/Zelda-ish, I think that'll be for the better.