Alright Sega, now this is what we like to see. Cut out the Sonic crap and pick up more like this and Valkyria Chronicles please. Seeing as I picked this up about 3 weeks ago and am currently about 20 hours in I figured I'd try to drum up a bit more interest in this title, as it seems to have been forgotten in the wake of Final Fantasy XIII.
I see this as almost the anti-thesis of Final Fantasy XIII, while XIII streamlines, automates and nurses you into it; Resonance of Fate pushes you straight into the deep end, cement shoes first and tells you to swim. Sure, there's a brief [optional] tutorial at the combat arena but beside telling you what you need to accomplish in order to pass the tutorial the game offers next to no advice on it's combat system; and boy, what a combat system. I'm still learning the intricacies 20 hours in, for example I only yesterday realised that: total level = Σ all weapon levels, I'd been keeping each character exclusively using a single type of weapon trying to min/max their effectiveness with minimum grinding but in the process had been losing out on weight capacity and health.
I won't even attempt to describe the combat system here, as it starts complex and shoots up to obscenely complex about 6 chapters in when the only way to effectively harm enemies requires 10+ bars of charged machine-gun fire. I recommend checking out a couple of gameplay videos to see how it works, though playing it for myself was the only way I really understood what was going on further than "cool gun-kata moves are awesome"; if your curious about a specific element however, feel free to ask away.
The only real complaint I have against the game is that the environments can get a little bland. While the dying, steam-punk-esque Victorian tower of Basel is an interesting place and the characters play off each other nicely [Nolan North does an excellent job voicing Vashyron, though that's no surprise for those familiar with the guy] with plenty of seriously funny scenes the battle environments lack visual variety; with the exception of a short icy dungeon in Chapter 6 so far I've seen brown wastelands, black wastelands, brown factories and a 'forest' of brown statues.
A word of warning however: this game is hard. Really hard. One misplaced move or one ill timed Hero movement and you'll end up having to restart the battle over. The difficulty doesn't curve so much as plateau, spike and plateau again every few chapters. This gets pretty frustrating, especially considering save points are few and far between meaning hat if you want to rage-quit a boss battle after losing a couple dozen times be prepared to kiss an hour of wasted time goodbye.
That said, if your looking for a different kind of RPG and you don't mind spending a few hours learning the combat system you'll find a seriously good RPG here. Send a positive message to Sega and pick this up if your interested; I can see this being difficult to find in a couple years.
A couple videos to hopefully wet your appetite, I suppose mild spoilers on the last 3 but nothing crucial to the plot:
Guys, I'm WitchHunter_Z and I have a confession to make: I've never played a Baldur's Gate game in my life.
I've heard so much about the legendary status of these games that it feels embarrassing to admit in any nerd circle that I've never touched these; never gone through that coming of age ceremony of completing one. That all ends today. While browsing Amazon I came across a deal far to good to pass up: both games with expansions on DVD for only £15. Needless to say I picked that up right away.
If anyone has recently replayed any of these I was wondering how the combat holds up? As much as I loved Planescape: Torment I almost felt it would be better with 90% of the combat removed. Does the combat in these suffer from the same clunkiness that plagued PST?
I've been craving some more SMT after finishing up Persona 3, even though I've got Devil Survivor on the backburner [I play SRPGs very, very slowly] and so to mark the end of the ER I figured I'd take the plunge and import [oh, the woes of having an NTSC PS2 in a PAL zone, $50 inc international shipping so at least it didn't hurt my pocket too much] something that I'd had my eye on for a while: Digital Devil Saga.
I've heard very good things about the games, however only from critics, nothing first hand. Those of you who have played it, what are your thoughts on it?
I also intend to purchase SMT III: Nocturne after I've completed these, perhaps partially because of it's reputation as one of the hardest RPGs available and I just have to have those bragging rights.
NB: Two SMT related blogs in a row... oh dear, I'm not becoming some sort of... fanboy am I?
After finishing Persona 3, a few minutes ago I figured I'd come and do the predictable thing: offer my musings on it in blog form.
*Here be spoilers, ye be warned*
First, a few stats:
Play time: 56 hours 48 minutes Difficulty: Normal End level: 96 Party: Yukari, Akihiko, Mitsuru Maxed S.Links: Magician, Lovers, Sun, Star, Devil, Emperor, Hermit, Fool, Judgement, Death Favourite Personas: Lucifer, Surt Least Favourite Persona: Messiah [such a let down... who would know that the ultimate Persona would learn bugger all useful] Nyx Avatar Finishing Blow: Armageddon [for dramatic effect, killed it at about 1/10th hp left]
I bought Persona 3 a couple months ago, after I'd been looking for a while I finally found an NTSC copy selling for dirt cheap on Ebay located in London, and damn, am i now glad that guy was selling it; otherwise I'd likely not have bothered importing it and would have missed out on this masterpiece.
Overall, I was a little let down by the length, as after watching the Endurance Run, and from what i've read online I was expecting this to take me about 80/90 hours to complete [it's worth noting that I have vanilla P3, not FES, so this isn't including The Answer, which may be why I finished faster than I expected.], however I suppose it says wonders for the game if after almost 57 hours I'm still craving more, can't say I've ever experienced that before.
I can honestly say the only reason I'm not posting this blog two weeks ago is because, well, I didn't want to finish the game. I had to almost force myself to sit down and load up my save that had been sitting at 30th January 2010 for half a month. I simply didn't want the game to end, and so I artifically lengthened it by allowing it to sit in limbo, my characters forever hyping themselves up for a battle they might never get to fight; but eventually I told myself enough was enough and sat down to finish it.
The final few battles were rather awesome, Nyx Avatar especially, although a complete pushover. It may have been my level at the time, but Jin and Takaya were both God Handed, critted and killed by the rush in my first action... rather anti-climatic for a group who could talk so much trash. The Nyx Avatar was similarly easy, although it took significantly longer [mostly because of the awesome journey through a humans life, as told through the Tarot arcanas], it still didn't pose a threat, with Almighty Attack only dealing 100 or so damage and it's strange habit of spamming either Agi or Bufu at the MC. Lack of difficulty aside, I felt that it was a suitable send off to an astounding journey.
The actual finale was perfect, from the 'battle' with Nyx; to playing two last days of school; to the final, beautiful scene between Aigis and the MC. Then there was Kimi No Kikou... ahh... Kimi No Kikou...
I'll leave you with my favourite piece of music from the game [and that's saying a lot, from this soundtrack], I love how this manages to incorperate multiple tracks from the score, and merge them into one epic piece that forces you to reminisce on the journey that you undertook to finally face Nyx.
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