Axersia

The game doesn't get hard, bro. Considering there's nothing else worth spending money on, you might as well just stock up on 99 of each healing item. Sure, there's a limit to how many you can take into battle, but it's enough to brute force you way through any combat situation. Not to mention you can also escape from battle, and if you do it a lot, be sure to go into the Tactics Tweaker and max out the escape speed. I think this'll make for a good RPG speedrun seeing as it's definitely a sub-5 hour game.

That said, if you do wanna grind, grind on tainted monsters. Anything else isn't worth your time.

So I just beat the game at 29 hours, and that was definitely pushing it with over 70 out of the 155 quests available to me done (there's 20 more in post). And these aren't good sidequests. They're MMO-style filler. "Bring me these 3 items," "Talk to these 3 people," "Explore this dungeon with the exact same layout as all the other dungeons in the game, and fight the monster/get the item at the end."

At 29 hours, more than half the game was spent doing sidequests and kingdom management (I know, because I went on several multi-hour quest hunts), and it's all been completely unnecessary as the story bosses were complete pushovers. Not to mention that even with this much side content completed, I was still considered underleveled by the game, and I never equipped any of my quest rewards.

I stand by what I said earlier. It's not a great game. Extremely thin on story, and the extracurricular stuff is too bland to compensate for it. Not a game I'd recommend to the casual JRPG fan looking to get their fix. On the other hand, it's so short that it might just be what they're looking for.

I'm about 16 hours in on chapter 6, which is over halfway, and I'm not really feeling it. It's kind of low-budget. Nothing happens in it, voice acting is almost non-existent, combat is as simple as it gets, and the game is heavily padded with sidequests and potentially grinding (the game's easy enough that it doesn't matter, but it feels like I'm constantly playing catch-up with story quests 10 levels higher than my party).

Story wise it tries to do the Dragon Quest thing of having you solve each town's dilemma, only it's not nearly as effective at it (not to mention there's only like what, 4 cities in the game?)

Again, there just isn't much substance to it, and it feels like a little side project for Level-5 that Bandai Namco co-funded, while their main focus is on raking in the big bucks with Yo-kai Watch and the like. It's nowhere near the level of Xenoblade 2 and Dragon Quest XI.

I'd say, skip this and get FF12 or Ys VIII instead.

Right, that too.

Eh, you're not missing much. I may have already mentioned this in this thread months back (too lazy to scroll back), but the world feels too large in the 16bit version. Proportionally it just doesn't make sense. It's also the reason they had to decrease the world size in the polygonal version to keep it 1:1, as it would've been even worse otherwise. The end result is a a severely gimped version of the game, and completely unnecessary considering the 3DS also runs DQ8 and Xenoblade. Not that it's bad, but it's clearly not the original vision of the game (they even said as much -- the 3DS version started development much later).

Square Enix finally breaks the silence.

- PS4 version still releasing this year, on September 4th
- PC version announced, also to be released on September 4th
- 3DS version canned
- Switch version to be released 2019 at the earliest

- Voiced dialog
- Addition of Hard Mode
- Overhauled menu interface
- Faster walking speed
- First person camera option

- No mention of an orchestral score

Source

Pretty much what I was expecting, though I did think they were aiming for a simultaneous release on Switch. Guess they just couldn't pull it off.

So I just ordered a power bank since it was on sale again on GearBest for 60 bucks. It's the ZMI (Xiaomi) 20.000 mAh, one of only a couple of power banks in existence (and certainly the cheapest) to support the 15v2.6a Power Delivery profile, thus being able to fully power the dock and HDMI out and charge the Switch at max speed. Might be overkill for some people, but I kinda like the idea of being able to hook it up anywhere without needing a power outlet. Should be able to charge the Switch roughly 2.5 times.

So I finally caved and grabbed myself a pro controller after Amazon UK dropped the Xenoblade 2 edition to 50 GBP. Probably the most comfortable controller ever made. Glad I got one in time for Bayonetta.

So that just leaves a decent power bank and some charge straps for my second set of Joy-Cons, though I probably won't using those anymore now that I've got a Pro Controller.

The power bank ain't gonna be cheap. You're looking for a premium device with 20k+ mAh, USB-C and USB-PD support, otherwise you might as well not bother.

The Switch is kind of a messy system, and one of the most expensive consoles ever made when you factor in all the hidden costs required for the full experience.

@genericbrotagonist: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Though I do think that by the time it's out, this'll be the game that has a lot of lapsed fans and new people come out of the woodwork to see what this new 12-year-wait KH game is all about.

@thechris: Tangled was the first new world they revealed many years ago now. It's also included in these trailers. You can see Sora, Donald and Goofy fight alongside Flynn and Rapunzel in a 5-person party.

I don't believe Frozen was ever a rumor. Co-director Tai Yasue was once asked what worlds he'd like to see in the game, and he said Frozen while explicitly stating that's his own opinion and that it doesn't mean anything. Naturally some outlets passed it off as fact anyway, and it landed him in some hot water with Nomura.

That said, do I think Frozen will be in there? Absolutely. You don't have Rapunzel, Big Hero 6, and Pixar stuff, but somehow neglect to include Frozen. That'll be the big reveal this E3, I'll bet.

Unfortunately they've already stated there won't be as many worlds in this as previous games but that they'd be bigger, and they're focusing on newer movies. So that's probably the full list right there.

@mesklinite: Right, that's another option as well. Unfortunately there's no way to know how much they'll refund you beforehand.

Last year I received a PS4 game with the case completely shattered, so I emailed customer support asking for a new case, or 5 bucks in Amazon credit so I could order a new one. Instead they gave me 12 bucks, which covered 40% of the cost of the game.

So if you're unhappy with your purchase, always speak up, no matter how minor the issue. But when it comes to actual hardware... Eh, I'd just send it back, honestly.

Really depends on the type of traveler you are. On my first trip in 2011 I definitely grabbed myself a JR Rail Pass and traveled all way to Kyushu, visiting all the major cities along the way for 2 days at a time.

But these days domestic flights are dirt cheap, so if you're OK with traveling at awkward times like 6 in the morning, you could easily make your way to Okinawa for like 3000 yen (or Hong Kong, for that matter. Some of those deals are incredible).

I do agree with dstopia that the GB crew aren't exactly the best people to go to for Japan advice. They never made it out of Tokyo, are just there for business, and it's been a full DECADE since they last went.

Friend of the show Dave Lang, on the other hand, aside from clearly being a guy with more money to spend than the average person, has done some pretty informative Japan travel episodes on his Team GFB Radio podcast. But I'm too lazy to look those up, sorry.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of going where the wind takes you, but you do need quite a bit of free time to make that work. If you wanna get the most out of your trip, just look up what the major cities are (if you don't know already), and do a lot of reading on Wikitravel. Then figure out whether the JR Rail Pass or domestic flight approach is best for you.

Also, be sure to grab yourself a 4G data sim at the airport.