JRPG Catch-All

Ferret wrote:

The sequel (Ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto versus King Abaddon) is a fairly massive improvement on the first one IMHO. If the first one was doing anything at all for you, might be worth checking out the second one.

Thanks for the tip! The sequel never came out on PS2 here, unfortunately, but I'll check it out if it makes it to PSN.

PeterS wrote:
Ferret wrote:

The sequel (Ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto versus King Abaddon) is a fairly massive improvement on the first one IMHO. If the first one was doing anything at all for you, might be worth checking out the second one.

Thanks for the tip! The sequel never came out on PS2 here, unfortunately, but I'll check it out if it makes it to PSN.

Sadly there seems to be a strong pattern where games that weren't originally released in a region don't get released for the first time on PSN. There are some exceptions to this but it seems to be the usual pattern for Australia, and I think explains why lots of the PS1 NTSC exclusive games still haven't been released on the Au/Eu PSN.

Maybe publishers can rely on existing game classifications if they've been released previously but can't justify the cost of doing it otherwise?

Damn you, Min. Damn you. Muddy clear.

Had that one on the wishlist for a long time (wasn't it delayed like a year?). Thanks for the info.

I have now put ~6 hours into NISA's new action-JRPG, The Witch and the Hundred Knight. I'm not really ready to give a review yet, but I can play 20 questions:

1. Is this game better than the reviews would suggest? Oh, absolutely 100%.

2. Is this a good game? It's a bit to early for me to say definitively, but so far I really like what I see. It is definitely interesting, and I like interesting.

3. If you could describe this game in one phrase, what would it be? "Black-humored risk/reward."

4. Is the traditional NIS grind necessary? So far, emphatically no.

5. How does it play? Roguelike-ish. You wander around big outdoor-based "dungeons", exploring the map, killing mobs in expedient fashion, and racking up phat lootz. Of course, everything you do consumes gigacalories (gcals)…

6. Gcals? What is this, Sweatin' to the Oldies? Not exactly, but that's where the aforementioned "risk/reward" comes in. You, the Hundred Knight, has been summoned by the witch Metallia. You are bound to her, and if you are away for too long your flame burns out and really bad things happen. This is denoted by your gcals, which start at 100.00 in an area and gradually decrease.

7. Okay, but how is that risk/reward? Well, everything you do consumes gcals. Attacking, dodging, and sprinting around the map all consume stamina, which replenishes quickly but burns gcals to do so. Exploring the fog of war is aided by your flame, but naturally consumes gcals. Healing up doesn't require items but (you guessed it) consumes mad gcals. Also, if you really want to go on a rampage, you can turn on what amounts to "beast mode" that doubles (or nearly doubles) your attack, defense, and speed, but burns through gcals like crazy. And, uh, can't be turned off until you go back to Metallia. Great for finishing off bosses, but still risky.

8. Again, that just sounds like risk. Where's the reward? Well, you'll find treasure and weapons from exporing; and obviously, the longer you explore, the more you find. Additionally, you'll earn bonuses over time, mostly from executing combat well. This is a linear progression from bonus level 1 to 10, and while the rewards are random each time, in general there's some crummy consumables at the bottom and some mega sooper weaponz at the top. But it requires careful balancing and management of resources to stay alive and gcal-safe long enough to earn those top-tier bonuses.

9. Is there a way to restore gcals? Well, yes. You'll earn "rank ups" through combat and other exploration, and these can be spent at each pillar (basically checkpoints from which you will respawn) on various things, like temporary (meaning until you exit the level) attack, defense, HP increases, etc. You can also burn your ranks to restore gcals, at the rate of 10% per point. If you want to explore an entire level and earn that 10th-tier bonus, expect to put basically all of your ranks into gcal restoration, making combat more difficult by default. There are also items that restore gcals, but they are unsurprisingly the rarest and most expensive items in the game. Also also, you can knock an enemy's health down to about 10%, stop hitting it, and "consume it" (yum) for an up to 20% gcal boost, but that will fill your stomach with garbage.

10. Wait, your stomach? Yeah. When you earn an item on the field, either through exploration or battle, you don't get to use it right away. You store it in your stomach, which has very limited slots (15 to start). You don't get to use it until you've extracted back to Metallia's. Eating an enemy and filling 7 or your precious 15 stomach slots with garbage will kill your phat lootz collection abilities, obviously. It's a good way to keep consumption as a last resort option.

11. So you can't use stuff until you're back at base? Yes. In fact, this is one of the main points of the game. Although there's a lot of ways to affect things while on the field, the main meat of the strategy happens at Metallia's shack. It is only at her shack that you can make all the main adjustments to the Hundred Knight, including what Facets you use (think of these like classes, e.g. mage, knight, etc.), what tochkas you have equipped (special attacks), and weapon upgrading, equipping, etc.

12. That sounds horribly limiting. Can you state that in the form of a question?

13. Isn't that horribly limiting? You would think so, but I think it serves the theme of the game well, and feels more like a roguelike because of the fact that you can mostly only tinker with things at home base. It is one of the main ways in which most reviewers have misunderstood the game, IMO.

14. So can you not change anything in the field at all? You can still change your equipment around in the field, and you can select among the currently-equipped tochkas and facets, but it's limited and (I believe) intentionally cumbersome. See, most enemies will resist 2 of the 3 damage types and only be weak to one, so the real trick is finding a weapon setup that will work for everyone without switching constantly. If you could hot-swap weapon sets, then it would become just another game of enemy weakness memorization, which to me is very boring. Finding a weapon combo that works for everything is far more interesting.

15. There are weapon combos? The way weapons work is that you can have five weapons equipped at a time. There are five different types: swords, spears, lances, hammers, and wands. Each of these will do one of three different types of damage: slash, blunt, magic. Although most hammers are blunt, for instance, there are some of each weapon type that do the less common types of damage. Each weapon type has a different style of attack: lances are strong but only thrust forward, whereas swords arc but do less damage. Wands alone have three different styles of attack. Additionally, each weapon's attack differs depending on where it is in the 5-weapon chain. A spear swing at 1st position is just a swing, whereas a spear swing at 5th position is this crazy whirlwind dash thing.

16. Is that all? No, actually. Each weapon is one of four rarities — common, rare, epic, and legendary — which affects both the base damage and (more importantly) how many levels that weapon can gain through normal combat. Common can only gain 10, whereas legendary can gain a whopping 99 levels. Also, each weapon has a "die number" associated with it, from one pip to five. Setting these up in proper ascending order (5 wraps back to 1, in case you want to start with a 3) will double the speed or damage bonus of each successive weapon's attack (not sure which yet). Normally slot 1 is 1.0, then 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.5 for slot 5. Chaining pips correctly increases that to 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, and 2.0x bonuses. It's worth slotting a slightly weaker weapon in just to keep the bonus, it seems, and means that hard-hitting items like hammers are crazy powerful at the end of a weapon combo.

17. Is that all now? For weapons, yes, but combat still has more to it. You can dodge, of course, and if you time it just right you get the bullet-time dodge bonus that is becoming common in this type of game. If you attack mid-dodge (bullet-time or not), you can do a dash-attack that does double damage. Of course, dodging burns a lot of stamina, and you may not have enough left to pull off a full attack at that point. Have I mentioned that if your stamina bar depletes that you fall down, stunned, until it's full again? More risk/reward.

One last thing is that if you're hit with a stunning or knock-down attack, you have a small window with which to hit X to recover and not get knocked over. If you immediately guard after doing that (which burns stamina, natch) you can basically avoid major attack damage. Apparently there's also a way to do a super powerful attack out of a recovery move if timed correctly, but I've not been able to pull this off.

18. Is there a tutorial? There is a laughably hand-holdy tutorial for about the first 20 minutes, which is stuff like "here's how you move the camera," but once that's over they throw you to the wolves. Or witches, in this case. There are a lot of systems that are discovery-based. Like that whole pip weapon bonus thing? Not explained. If you're the type of person who likes to discover things, you'll love this. If you like hand-holding…go play an American RPG.

19. Are you surprised this game got a "T" rating? Actually, yes. It makes me think that the ESRB just played the game and skipped the cut-scenes or something. I'll be curious to see where they take the plot, because it is definitely NOT your standard plot, but I can't say much more about right now.

20. Any final thoughts? If you go into this game expecting something that it isn't — like, say, a Disgaea game or a standard action-RPG — you will likely be disappointed. But if you approach it with an open mind, I think you might really like it. I'd compare it to the board game Archipelago: it looks messy at first, because there are a lot of seemingly unrelated systems. However, if you take the time to dive into them, you'll find they interconnect in subtle and unique ways.

There are things I didn't touch on here, like the plot, the towns that you can raid and dominate for phat lootz (of course, if you do it enough they start to attack you on sight), some of the bonus systems, but that's because I myself am still trying to wrap my head around all of it.

Thanks for the write-up on The Witch and the Hundred Knight. My copy is arriving today from a pre-order deal at Target. I have read a number of reviews that don't say many flattering things. The main witch Metallia didn't sound like a very nice person. Since I got such a great deal on it ($20 pre-order glitch), I was debating trading it in for Bravely Default at Gamestop but this sounds interesting so I'll give it a shot at least.

OH! One of the cool things I forgot to mention: the boss battles continue the risk/reward thing. In addition to the boss's HP meter, there's also a guard meter. Attacking a boss when their guard meter is high is basically ineffective. The only time to do serious damage is when their guard meter drops to near zero.

But guess what? That only happens when they're gearing up for (or are in the middle of) a big attack. So much of the boss battle is figuring out what their attacks will be and positioning yourself (or sooper dodging) so that you can do damage during it. It's a really fun mechanic, and keeps the boss battles from being boring attrition-based affairs.

http://www.siliconera.com/2014/03/31/bravely-defaults-success-west-making-square-enix-rethink-jrpgs/

This article gave me some hope for the future. While I haven't played Bravely Default yet, it sounds like it fits nicely into the JRPG wheelhouse that I miss. Another game along the lines of FF IX, X or XII? Yes, please.

*chocobo-ausered*

Sounds like Square is refocusing on the hardcore JRPG market a bit more after the success of Bravely Default.

"For the new games we'll be developing from this point on, while this may sound a bit extreme, we’ve been talking about making them as heavy JRPGs. I believe that way, we can better focus on our target, which will also bring better results."

and on the western side...

"The development team for Hitman: Absolution really struggled in this regard. They implemented a vast amount of 'elements for the mass' instead of for the core fans, as a way to try getting as many new players possible. It was a strategy to gain mass appeal. However, what makes the Hitman series good is its appeal to core gamers, and many fans felt the lack of focus in that regard, which ended up making it struggle in sales.

"So, as for the AAA titles we’re currently developing for series, we basically want to go back to their roots and focus on the core audience, while working hard on content that can have fans say things like ‘this is the Hitman, we know’. I believe that is the best way for our development studios to display their strengths."

*nods cautiously, yet approvingly*

Looks like they finally figured out people have been trying to say to the Japanese publishers during the last few years: quit trying so hard to please everyone.

Capcom evidently halfed their profit forecasts and have faced a major restructuring, though not enough info has come out to determine if they've learned the same lesson. Fingers crossed!

shoptroll wrote:

Looks like they finally figured out people have been trying to say to the Japanese publishers during the last few years: quit trying so hard to please everyone.

My concern with the success of Bravely Default is that, more than anything else, Square-Enix will see it as a green light not to "quit trying so hard to please everyone" but to make more heavily nostalgic, borderline pandering games that are minor iterations on ideas popularized in the early '90s.

Exactly. Instead of borderline brilliant, innovative games like Nier and FF13.

Better more nostalgia games like Bravely Default and less remakes of old Final Fantasies.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Looks like they finally figured out people have been trying to say to the Japanese publishers during the last few years: quit trying so hard to please everyone.

My concern with the success of Bravely Default is that, more than anything else, Square-Enix will see it as a green light not to "quit trying so hard to please everyone" but to make more heavily nostalgic, borderline pandering games that are minor iterations on ideas popularized in the early '90s.

That seems to be working fine for Atlus and Nintendo

I kid I kid! I think that's a legitimate concern, and I really hope they're able to strike a balance between what they know will sell and riskier ventures. I would be delighted to see the Square-Enix of the SNES/PS1 era back where they had safe, familiar blockbusters co-existing with riskier mid-tier titles.

Actually I kinda hope that's true of the rest if the industry as a whole.

shoptroll wrote:

I would be delighted to see the Square-Enix of the SNES/PS1 era back where they had safe, familiar blockbusters co-existing with riskier mid-tier titles.

This is what I'd really like to see them do, rather than teeter back from the "try to pander to everyone and/or make crazy games" extreme over to the "only make nostalgia-driven old-style games" extreme.

shoptroll wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Looks like they finally figured out people have been trying to say to the Japanese publishers during the last few years: quit trying so hard to please everyone.

My concern with the success of Bravely Default is that, more than anything else, Square-Enix will see it as a green light not to "quit trying so hard to please everyone" but to make more heavily nostalgic, borderline pandering games that are minor iterations on ideas popularized in the early '90s.

That seems to be working fine for Atlus and Nintendo

I kid I kid!

Funny, my coworker immediately brought up Nintendo when I mentioned this article to him.

Minarchist wrote:

dam you and I thought I'd be able to skip it.

Just getting into Tales of Xillia myself. Really enjoying the characters so far. Wish I had more time to spend in front of the TV.

Out of curiosity, in what ways is Square-Enix perceived to have been pursuing the masses at the expense of genre fans?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Out of curiosity, in what ways is Square-Enix perceived to have been pursuing the masses at the expense of genre fans?

The Siliconera article specifically mentions Hitman (and judging by fan response I think Thief belongs in there as well). I'm not totally sure about the JRPG side of the company.

EDIT: I think this is really a lesson the rest of the industry needs to take to heart though. A lot of the complaints around Resident Evil 6 was that in the pursuit of the masses/dudebros they made a generic shooter that was out of touch with the core of the franchise. So they ended up with a shooter no one cared about and a bad Resident Evil game which alienated the fanbase.

The only thing I can think of with JRPGs is the often heard complaint about too much in the way of hand-holding at the start which tends to put off genre fans.

Super hand holding tutorial in FFXIII. Mobile games? Not releasing a TWEWY 2.

Really, I think it's more about their fiddling with their 3rd party properties like Thief and Hitman.

garion333 wrote:

Not releasing a TWEWY 2.

TWEWY 2 should be the first bullet point on whatever plan they have after Bravely Default's Western sales finally hit the management team with a clue-by-four.

Well that and localizing Dragon Quest VII 3DS which seems to be something people want even while others natter on about fearing more throwback games

They've also had trouble developing titles like FFXV and Agito. It's possible that their 'mass market' approach influenced those productions.

Pure speculation.

Umm, FFXIII was probably meant to blow up the world like FFVII, but didn't. I mean, Leona Lewis. Umm, okay.

garion333 wrote:

They've also had trouble developing titles like FFXV and Agito. It's possible that their 'mass market' approach influenced those productions.

Pure speculation.

I think both of those boiled down to technology or production pipeline issues and not necessarily mass market appeal. At least Agito eventually came out on PSP even though we never got it here (which was probably more due to the PSP dying very fast after KH Birth By Sleep was released and possibly a size limit on PSN games).

Don't disagree that they were aiming to hit it big with XIII, even going so far as to style Lightning as a "female Cloud". But when you had a game stuck in development hell and also burned through a lot of R&D budget on the engine alone (which they only used on XIII, XIII-2, XIII-3, and My Life as a King) you'd be swinging for the fences too.

So, did some digging and came across a lot of ... meh. Horrible writing is everywhere. Anyone can start a game site, apparently.

Anyway, almost everything focuses on the fact that FFXIII didn't win over critics and sales followed, but rarely give reasons why. I did see an interesting thing that speaks to their focus more on the mass market and not the "core" or more niche markets: Front Mission 5. We never got FM5 and the next major FM release we got was Front Mission Evolved, which was Western developed and flopped. Hard.

Clearly my answer to Square Enix's question is this: more mechs, turn based style.

shoptroll wrote:

A lot of the complaints around Resident Evil 6 was that in the pursuit of the masses/dudebros they made a generic shooter that was out of touch with the core of the franchise.

I know this is me just nit-picking something that is not really core to the topic and other such nonsense, but I would hardly call Resident Evil 6 "generic" in its execution. It was definitely flawed, over-ambitious, clunky, and a host of other issues, but I'll definitely say that the game was unique.

But unique is not synonymous with "good".

garion333 wrote:

So, did some digging and came across a lot of ... meh. Horrible writing is everywhere. Anyone can start a game site, apparently.

Anyway, almost everything focuses on the fact that FFXIII didn't win over critics and sales followed, but rarely give reasons why. I did see an interesting thing that speaks to their focus more on the mass market and not the "core" or more niche markets: Front Mission 5. We never got FM5 and the next major FM release we got was Front Mission Evolved, which was Western developed and flopped. Hard.

Clearly my answer to Square Enix's question is this: more mechs, turn based style.

I'm in!

garion333 wrote:

I did see an interesting thing that speaks to their focus more on the mass market and not the "core" or more niche markets: Front Mission 5. We never got FM5 and the next major FM release we got was Front Mission Evolved, which was Western developed and flopped. Hard.

And now that developer is owned by Amazon! I think FM5's lack of release was due to FM4 having a poor reception here, and it had the unfortunate release timing of coming out in Japan the year before the PS3's global launch. Based on the development history of Square-Enix back in the SNES era, getting released in Japan within a year of a new console release is a guaranteed way of not getting a localization.

garion333 wrote:

So, did some digging and came across a lot of ... meh. Horrible writing is everywhere. Anyone can start a game site, apparently.

Anyway, almost everything focuses on the fact that FFXIII didn't win over critics and sales followed, but rarely give reasons why. I did see an interesting thing that speaks to their focus more on the mass market and not the "core" or more niche markets: Front Mission 5. We never got FM5 and the next major FM release we got was Front Mission Evolved, which was Western developed and flopped. Hard.

Clearly my answer to Square Enix's question is this: more mechs, turn based style.

*Cough* There is a fan translation of 5 *Cough* Excuse me. Plus it is a reasonable price to buy the non greatest hit version and import it/patch it.