This game looks so fucking good, but it's made by the literaly worst company ever. T__T

I don't know if they're the worst, but they definitely haven't had the most stellar track record. I love games like Disgaea, so I thought I'd like Agarest War, but that game is pretty bad. I haven't played any of their more standard RPGs, so I don't know firsthand how they were, but I heard mediocre things.

I'll give it a try. I liked Cross Edge despite it's outdated 2D graphics, Hyperdimension Neptunia was ok, never played Agarest though.

But I love the Disgaea franchise and Mugen Souls seems to go into that direction.

It turns out there are some similarities to Disgaea after all. Combat itself can be pretty complex, and there is an area called Mugen Field similar to the Item/Class World of Disgaea, as well as Peon Fuse, which can be compared to reincarnation.

Im in chapter 3 right now, can't say too much about the game yet, but it's pretty fun so far :)

So, this game´s styled like Disgaea, but maybe not THAT insane with the systems on top of systems inside of systems? Seems like it could be interesting.

Looks interesting indeed. Would love to hear some inpressions if any of you buy the game.

@NorseDudeTR said:

So, this game´s styled like Disgaea, but maybe not THAT insane with the systems on top of systems inside of systems? Seems like it could be interesting.

Not that insane, but the level cap is 9999 as well. But you have to pay Mugen points in order to raise your cap (by 100 lvls each time), so you'll be spending a lot of time on the Mugen Field, which is like the item/class world and House of Ordeals of Disgaea combined. You can also unlock different job classes that way, similar to the different character tiers in Disgaea.

I payed my copy off today, so I'll be picking it up as soon as it comes in. It's supposed to release officially on Thursday, but GameStop is just going to sell it once it comes in, which could be as early as today, so I might be getting it then.

I'm hearing a ton of negative stuff about it, but most of those complaints appear to be that it just has too much going on for those people, and that it's all pretty overly complicated. So maybe to someone who has to review games in a timely manner, a game filled with tons of crazy mechanics isn't great, but I have tons of free time and I'm pretty good at figuring out systems, so I'm not putting too much weight in the mainstream press' (AKA IGN). I'll buy it and play through just out of sheer desperation for a JRPG.

Although I am really curious about the humor, some people said they were laughing regularly, as where others didn't even chuckle. How does the humor seem to you, Morrow? Will it hinge mostly on your familiarity with Japanese humor, or is it more accessible?

Regardless of all I've heard about the game, I'm excited to dig in.

@HansKisaragi said:

people who complain dont like these kind of games.

That's pretty much what I assume when I read negative reviews of JRPGs, I know in some cases the games are just bad, but most of the time I end up disagreeing with reviews of these games. Especially from places like Gamespot and IGN. I guess their reviews are for the every-man who might think about buying this game, and the hardcore JRPG fans will just buy it anyway.

So pretty much everyone is getting serviced.

@Aarownd: Well, it's the typically overdone japanese slapstick humor. I don't care much for it to be honest, I play such games mostly for the gameplay.

Yeah, but when rpgamer says it's awful. That does not bode well at all.

Picked my copy up today, Gamestop didn't even bother to have the one copy they ordered ready for the one person who pre-ordered it, so I had to wait like twenty minutes while they tried to find it. But I've played the game for about four hours now, and I'm very much enjoying it. The combat is more involved than most standard JRPG systems, and requires/rewards less mashing X. The systems aren't nearly as complicated as people are making them out to be. Which was a huge part of the IGN review. The guy would not stop complaining about how he couldn't remember any of the specifics of the mechanics, and that they were needlessly convoluted. Which has not been my experience remotely. He specifically brought up the system of turning enemies into Peons, and how he couldn't remember any of the names, or what to say to each type. Which shouldn't be a problem if you have some basic knowledge of Anime archetypes. Since it takes about two seconds to realize that "Bipolar" is just the Americanization of "Tsundere". So then you just have to be inconsistent in your word choices. Super fucking simple and I'm completely dumbfounded how he played through the entire game and was unable to figure it out.

The humor so far has been pretty good, I hate to keep harping on the IGN review, but in the review that guy said that he doesn't like or watch anime, but got every joke in the game. Which I think might be absolutely impossible. There are fucking references to specific Hentai Doujins in there. You would have had to have read a lot of Hentai in order to get those jokes...Which is not to say that I read or have read any pornographic Japanese comic books...I kind of have.

But overall the jokes are pretty solid, and are at the very least are enjoyable. I may have laughed once or twice to some very obscure references, but I enjoy the humor more than I find it legitimately funny. If that makes sense.

This is pretty much what I expected, it's a fun, goofy, overly ridiculous JRPG. If you like JRPGs, you'll probably like this game, because they make fucking sure that you know it is one of those games!

@Aarownd: So, you didn't like Agarest War but are enjoying this? I am somewhat interested in this game but I am extremely wary due to the other Compile Heart games I've played being complete garbage. Is the gameplay solid with the story consistently present throughout or is it just a completely undisguised grind with a basically nonexistent story like the aforementioned Agarest War? Or somewhere in-between? If I thought Disgaea was too grindy would I think the same of this?

@Aarownd said:

Which shouldn't be a problem if you have some basic knowledge of Anime archetypes. Since it takes about two seconds to realize that "Bipolar" is just the Americanization of "Tsundere". So then you just have to be inconsistent in your word choices. Super fucking simple and I'm completely dumbfounded how he played through the entire game and was unable to figure it out.

I wouldn't blame someone if they don't know what a Tsundere is and bipolar is not a good description of one. They aren't the same things. I even have friends who enjoy anime and wouldn't know what a Tsundere is.

You are probably right to not trust a review from someone who isn't in to anime if you are 'cause -for me at least- the anime and anime humor is all these compile hearts' games have going for them.

As for the game, the characters look good and I am interested in seeing what it is like. Though I can't waste the money on something that'll probably turn out bad as I have yet to enjoy a compile heart game.

@RWBladewing:

My main problem with Agarest war is that it had a similar playstyle to Disgaea, but it was all on a square map, so the strategy was extremely hard when enemies would just run away forever. It also just had a ton of issues aside from playing poorly.

But the story in this game is better than the gameplay, so a lot of why I enjoy this game comes from the story, but the gameplay is pretty solid. It's nothing particularly special, but it's a JRPG battle system that works as such. But little story segments are pretty much your goals in each area, so you won't go without some fun dialogue for long. Which helps keep you rom getting bored of the combat.

So far the game hasn't been too grindy, except in a couple situations where you have to seduce islands, but those are also some of my favorite portions since they use the Moe Kill systems to their max.

@SuperWristBands:

I agree that it's a bad word for Tsundere, but if you're familiar with the archetype, it isn't hard to figure out. The only reason I'm confused is because the guy claimed to be familiar enough with anime to get the jokes and references, which should imply that he has knowledge of the archetypes.

Yeah, the humor is extremely anime, and keeps reminding you that anime is super formulaic. It's self aware of what it is, and does what it goes for well. But you'll need to be pretty familiar with the culture to get a lot of these jokes and themes. Like the idea of Loli's is pretty horrible in the eyes of Americans, but over there is pretty accepted/ignored. So I'm pretty surprised that this game made it over here, especially with a T rating, since this game has several explicit references to people being into little girls, and wanting to get with them.

The characters are all pretty likable and well designed, and overall help make the game more enjoyable, since they could have easily messed them up that way Compile Hearts has in pretty much every game before this. But if you're not dying for a JRPG, then you probably don't need to buy it at full price, but know that you'll probably have to get it off Amazon if you eventually want it, since nobody is stocking this game anywhere. My Gamestop almost didn't even order a copy.

I found myself skipping through most of the story, but the gameplay is pretty fun, at least if you generally like JRPGs.

The Peon Ball is like a deus ex machina. Can't count how many times it saved my ass by one-hit-killing enemies...