JRPGs that Aren't Final Fantasy Catch-All 2.0

ccesarano wrote:

Anywho, trailer for Monark dropped. It looks neat. They mentioned in their press release that English-language will be added as free DLC later down the line. Gematsu suspects this means they've already secured a Western publisher, but it makes me wonder if they've just hired for localization but not licensed for distribution and will rely on export sales via Play Asia or similar websites. That's what happened with the latest Super Robot Wars and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 3, after all.

I believe Super Robot Wars does that to avoid licensing/copyright/trademark/etc issues.

Dead or Alive likely does that to avoid censorship cries and any negative press from it.

This here has the feeling of maybe it costing too much for a new dev house and Furyu is hedging their bets? Also, censorship cries, probably.

All I care about for Monark is: how different from Persona is this? Because it better be super different to keep me interested. From what I can see it's using the school settings, but possibly not quite the same tick/tock formula of a Persona game. But perhaps I'm projecting my desires onto it.

garion333 wrote:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not paying too much attention to all the rumors and who is or isn't on top, but Grubb has a good track record with Xbox AFAIK.

Maybe not! Bandai Namco says it's not Game Pass. Of course, they could be just saying that ("no plans at this time") but I'm getting the feeling Grubb's just saying stuff these days.

Rune Factory 5 delayed to early 2022 in the West it seems. According to Gematsu at least. I can't find confirmation of a delay in the linked E3 line-up page, though.

ccesarano wrote:

Rune Factory 5 delayed to early 2022 in the West it seems. According to Gematsu at least. I can't find confirmation of a delay in the linked E3 line-up page, though.

Gah. That was one I was looking forward to. Seems like next year is going to have some heavy hitters, at least.

Sundown wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Rune Factory 5 delayed to early 2022 in the West it seems. According to Gematsu at least. I can't find confirmation of a delay in the linked E3 line-up page, though.

Gah. That was one I was looking forward to. Seems like next year is going to have some heavy hitters, at least.

I'm saddened, but considering Story of Seasons just dropped it's giving them breathing room to get it right at launch.

garion333 wrote:
Sundown wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Rune Factory 5 delayed to early 2022 in the West it seems. According to Gematsu at least. I can't find confirmation of a delay in the linked E3 line-up page, though.

Gah. That was one I was looking forward to. Seems like next year is going to have some heavy hitters, at least.

I'm saddened, but considering Story of Seasons just dropped it's giving them breathing room to get it right at launch.

And as with any delay, it gives more more time to play the games that I already own that I want to get to. Not the end of the world. But considering RF5 is already out in Japan, I guess I always underestimate the difficulty and time needed for localizing a game and releasing it worldwide.

Speaking of playing other games I already have, I finished the (very long) chapter two of Trails to Azure, plus got through the interlude afterwards. Putting various musings on both in separate spoilers.

Also, it occurred to me that I should grab the voice files for this game, so I got those in place for the interlude. Presumably there is plenty more game to go, so I'll get to enjoy them for awhile.

Ch.2

Spoiler:

So after day 1 was a ridiculously long cutscene (meeting with the Bracers, then meeting with the red heads, THEN meeting all the leaders of countries, THEN the tower unveiling. And also a bunch of pieces were put into motion for the rest of the chapter, and probably the rest of the game.

The musician search cracked me up. I wasn’t tracking to the subject when we accepted it, but then we met with who was obviously it was Mueller, and the second he said musician I knew what the mission was going to be.

Loved the end of the chapter with the assassination attempts and the chase afterwards. High stakes? Check. Politics and grandstanding? Check. Several amazing music tracks, including one that overrides all the battle themes? Check.

I’m also happy to see a bunch of little payoffs, like Klaudia meeting with Lechter again after Trails 3rd, or Nial being send off to Calvard to presumably show up in a later game, or generally just seeing parts of the old crew back. Kind of weird to see Klaudia and Olivert on such good terms considering who they represent, but they were close during the Sky games, and I think they were theoretically supposed to be engaged at some point (I think I remember this from the end of SC).

I was actually surprised how badly things went for our heroes. We won the battle but lost the war, with the Red Constellation swooping in and stealing the kill and proving the Chancellor’s point that we couldn’t handle a crisis on our own. I almost have to wonder if the terrorists we baited out specifically for this conference, or if the Republic and the Chancellor had people on the inside of the terrorists to push the attack so that their people could stop it to prove their point. But presumably the terrorists are getting help from Ouroboros, so I have no idea who knows what at this point. No way of knowing how deep the conspiracy goes, but considering the big twists in Sky FC, I’m ready for anything.

And at the end, Heiyue and the Red Constellation meet, chat, and walk off like it’s no big deal. Just another job to them. If the goal is to remind us we are small fish in a huge pond, they’ve done it.

Also, I'm largely just using the same team from Zero in this, since I like the way they work together. Lloyd is the all rounder, Randy is max offense and delaying enemis with his crafts, Tio is the mage and sometimes healer, and Elie is the healer and sometimes mage. Noel had the AoE damage, but that's not super useful for bosses, and Wazy doesn't hit hard enough to replace Randy. I might be missing something, but on normal difficulty maybe it doesn't matter too much.

And for the interlude.

Spoiler:

And then it was time for the beach episode, because of course. It didn’t seem to bad, as far as anime beach episodes can go.

Anyway, the second we saw Wazy in the two piece swimsuit, I thought “he’s got some tattoos or something he’s trying to hide. Maybe scars. And then Randy immediately called it out too. Plus, he kind of looked nervous when we first saw the catalog of swimsuits.

For being in Mishyland, I had Rixia go with me to the fortune teller since she had suspicions about it; took Noel to the Horror Coaster since I figured she would handle it better than Elie, plus shooting seemed up her alley; took Elie to the Castle of Mirrors; I had Tio join me for the hide and seek game with Mishette; I took Elie to the Ferris Wheel and then the Fortune teller. I guess Elie is my target this game.

Also, both the Castle of Mirrors and the Fortune Teller both had the Stargazers tower music or whatever, and the Castle of Mirrors had that orb in the middle like the Tower did. This might mean something. As a side note, the annex on the side and the mirror at the top looked like they were right out of Ys Origins. I wonder if they reused some assets?

I’m like a quarter interested in going back and trying out other combinations to the events just to see how the dialogue changes, but that sounds like a time investment I’m not going to do right now. I did try out the different fortunes for different characters in the party, though, just to see what would happen and what sort of hints we got about the future. Randy was funny.

And at the end, Campanella shows up and taunts us to make this chapter plot relevant, and Bell says something super suspicious to KeA. And presumably when we get back, the next storm starts brewing.

So with the confirmation that the terrorists were just pawns for the Society, I’m trying to figure out what is going on here. So Ouroborus is clearly interested in Crossbell, and are trying to do something. And so they sent the terrorists out, but not really caring if they succeeded in the assassination. So maybe the goal was just destabilization. And both the Erebonia and Calvard were prepared for it happening, so they really might have known it was coming. I don’t think the Society is specifically working with Erebonia or Calvard, but probably fed information to them, because they want the destabilization. But beyond that, it’s sort of just wilder speculation. Anyway, waiting for the shoes to drop.

I keep forgetting this was part of the Switch Direct. It looks very much like a Vanillaware title.

EDIT. Would the latest RPG maker be good for a FFT style game?

From my understanding, not without heavy scripting/modification.

I guess my amateur dev dreams are on hold.

Q: What platforms will Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes release on Day 1?

A: As originally pledged to the backers the game will be released on Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, Epic Games Store, and Nintendo's Next Generation Hardware.

Eiyuden Chronicles' KS posted a mini-FAQ that again talks about Nintendo's next gen hardware.

Part of me struggles to confirm that as proof positive since I think anyone might expect new Nintendo hardware by 2023, but... I mean, if anyone would know, it'd be a game developer, right?

Anywho, some Japanese publications got some hands-on with Tales of Arise and are posting some gameplay previews. The combat is largely looking pretty easy, but flashy enough to be satisfying. I'm looking forward to it.

Field Exploration stuff as well, but that's far less exciting to watch.

Exploration doesn't seem to be much different from what we have seen in Tales of Zestiria and Tales of Berseria: the fields aren't particularly interactive, but they do feel more lively

Dammit. Come on, Tales, give me a reason to be excited!

While some changes introduced in combat, like the lack of a guard button, the low number of assignable Artes per character (3 ground Artes and 3 aerial Artes), and the complete removal of the post-battle screen will likely take some time to get used it

Well, sounding better.

From here.

But my meters!

Nintendo has historically been on a 5-6 year cycle for their consoles so I don't think it's unrealistic to expect either an improvement on the switch or maybe something entirely new. Switch came out in 2017, so 2023 would be roughly 6 years out. Likely they're just hedging their bets.

Figured this might interest folks because it's being published by Spike Chunsoft and is called an action turn-based game so I'm thinking Valkyria Chronicles.

Spike Chunsoft has my interest because of their visual novels but that looks horribly janky.

It looks pretty horrible but I will keep an eye on reviews.

Just got the Hack trilogy and two SAO games. Been wanting to play hack since it came out on PS2? or maybe it was another console.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Just got the Hack trilogy and two SAO games. Been wanting to play hack since it came out on PS2? or maybe it was another console.

Good luck with those Sword Art Online games. The creep factor in Hollow Realization was enough to make me quit with the forced scenes in baths and beaches for no real reason - right in a row, too. I was also not a fan of the dating sim thing they put in there, and the combat was not worth pushing through, either.

I played through the Scarlet Nexus demo a few times, and I think I enjoyed it. The world design reminds me of Gravity Rush and chucking things at enemies reminds me of Control. The pastiche speaks to me.

Knights in the Nightmare is getting a 2021 release on Switch and mobile in Japan. No info yet on a potential Western release. It's one of those really interesting games I played but never got around to finishing, as I ended up on a map I just could not beat. Still, I'd probably buy it again just because it was such a neat execution of an idea.

That game is awesome. Obtuse to the nth degree, but wholly unique.

I have it for the DS (or maybe the PSP?), but I gave after having no idea what I was doing. I'm looking forward to frying my brain again.

Hopefully this sells well and we get the other Dept. Heaven games. Riviera would be a good fit for the Switch.

I saw that Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is 30% off on Steam for the next two weeks. I remember hearing Lara Crigger talk about it on the podcast at one point, and it sounded pretty good. Anyone played it?

It was my #5 game of the year last year. I really dug it, and plan to go back and replay it at some point with better farming decisions. It definitely left me pleasantly surprised in just how good it was.

The worst boss fight in a Trails games, so far, goes to this boss in Trails to Azure (chapter 2, day 2):

Spoiler:

My party got surprise attacked by eight birds that can (and will) cause freeze close to 100% of the time for 3 turns. Of course, I did not put any freeze protection against my characters, so all I could do was watch them get attacked repeatedly, with their HP going down and down, until I got a party wipe before I could do anything.

Classy. Hopefully I have some accessories to protect against that, because otherwise it means I have to go back out, buy some, and then redo the dungeon. Luckily it's not that long.

Okay, I had written Babylon's Fall off as a live service, BUT Platinum doing a live service could be fun. I'm getting Astral Chain vibes with the weapons and the wires thing, but also a mild Tales vibe where there's a focus on moves/builds.

Too bad it isn't on Xbox also. S-E did well with Outriders on Gamepass, this could too.

It being a live service explains some of the less than amazing faces/hair in the trailer.

I'm willing to give it a fair shake, particularly since I actually liked the boss fights in the TMNT Platinum game even if the rest of it was garbage. This game at least looks better than that had. It's also possible this is just a badly cut trailer since the special effects are kind of everywhere, the archer looks like a really boring class to play as yet they keep showing off, and combat is effectively not all that clear.

I also think Square Enix just handled the reveal of this game all wrong. 2019's gameplay looked like typical single-player character action fun, which is what players expect of Platinum. They always had the four different characters in some of the promotional art, but very small and towards the bottom. It was easily ignored or forgotten. If they had made it clear that it was a "live-service" (though they honestly should have said "a loot-driven hack-and-slash" and tried to steer it towards Platinum's take on Diablo) after that 2019 gameplay reveal, or just much, much earlier, then this wouldn't be so bad.

It also does look like it received some kind of graphical downgrade from the 2019 trailer.

I signed up for the Closed Beta, but honestly, I'm not sure I'll be buying it anymore. Not on Day One, at least.