Conception II Catch-All

It's a JRPG! About making babies!

That should scare off most of you.

Carrying over from the JRPG thread:

Minarchist wrote:

There seems to be both a short-term and long-term relationship indication. The face itself seems to be a short-term indicator, moving better or worse over single conversations, whereas the bars around the outside are a slow build to purple.

The face represents their mood and, as near as I can tell, is meant to give the player feedback on how well they did answering questions in the last event. I think it might also give a hit to stats during classmating if you make them mad.

The gauge around the face is, essentially, an XP bar. It fills with teal as you successfully complete events and turns purple when you level up. The scene where you level up is usually longer and more involved than other ones. Leveling up also unlocks new classes, gives you a new story scene the next time you classmate, and changes the classmate animation.

IMAGE(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/e1/e13af5179b2d338915560c03271b40a9b334242ea79886f773ec6c1562329497.jpg)

That's helpful information, actually.

Yeah, that was my experience with Narika. I just unlocked the second tier for her and it finally changed the conversation I was having.

Can't wait to talk boobs with her. Since that seems a great point of conversation around her and everyone else.

The auto battle is great for running through the sun dungeons

Fastmav347 wrote:

The auto battle is great for running through the sun dungeons

I use auto battle a lot. It's smart about the choices it makes, and being able to switch tactics quickly and easily is great. I also like that you can automate the Star Children but maintain control over the MC.

Really, the automation and assists in this game in general are really nice and helpful. Min mentioned the team equip and team building, both of which I like, too. I also like trading in equipment as a shortcut for buying new equipment and selling the old stuff.

Yeah just from the demo the menus and options seemed to have many helpful things in them. A lot of things that make me want to play this.

Tagging, yeah, I finished the demo.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Fastmav347 wrote:

The auto battle is great for running through the sun dungeons

I use auto battle a lot. It's smart about the choices it makes, and being able to switch tactics quickly and easily is great. I also like that you can automate the Star Children but maintain control over the MC.

Oh, I didn't know you could set it so that auto battle only automates the Star Children but lets you keep control of the main team. What's the setting for that Clock?

I got to stop talking to mostly just my 3 favourite girls, as some classes of Star Children are clearly more suited to be from different mothers.

I'm not sure which platform you're on, but on the 3DS, when you're in battle you can press the X button to start automated commands. It should say "Full Auto Battle" in the upper left hand corner. If you hit X again, the text will change to just "Auto Battle", and that'll let you retain control of your main character team.

Also, holding the L button in combat brings up the quick menu for switching auto battle tactics. Just use the d-pad to pick the setting you want.

This gameplay feedback loop is dangerously addictive.

I polished off the 2nd main dungeon and have all heroines (save Ellie, whom I am currently leveling) to 17 or above. The town is also at 17, which has given me a nice BP boost at the church (I think my cap is 420 now).

The skits are getting hilariously weird. I had a couple tonight with Fuuko and Serrina, respectively, that made me chuckle. It's nice that each character is opening up, though. The "main" plot continues to get more predictable, as a counterpoint.

Does anyone else get just a little weirded out by their star children? Running around a dungeon in typical JRPG fashion but occasionally seeing "Wait for me, Dad!" or "Dad loves me best!" "No, me!" is a tad unsettling. At least for me, who has two kids who say these sorts of things.

Minarchist wrote:

Does anyone else get just a little weirded out by their star children? Running around a dungeon in typical JRPG fashion but occasionally seeing "Wait for me, Dad!" or "Dad loves me best!" "No, me!" is a tad unsettling. At least for me, who has two kids who say these sorts of things.

Yes the whole dad thing is a bit weird even to me....

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm not sure which platform you're on, but on the 3DS, when you're in battle you can press the X button to start automated commands. It should say "Full Auto Battle" in the upper left hand corner. If you hit X again, the text will change to just "Auto Battle", and that'll let you retain control of your main character team.

Also, holding the L button in combat brings up the quick menu for switching auto battle tactics. Just use the d-pad to pick the setting you want.

Thanks Clock! Didn't realise there was two different Auto Battle modes. And didn't know about the L button bringing up the team tactics.

Minarchist wrote:

Does anyone else get just a little weirded out by their star children? Running around a dungeon in typical JRPG fashion but occasionally seeing "Wait for me, Dad!" or "Dad loves me best!" "No, me!" is a tad unsettling. At least for me, who has two kids who say these sorts of things.

Yeah, I think it's supposed to be unsettling. The worse one I've seen was my lvl 8 Archer saying "I wanna take a nap with Daddy!".

Equally bad was my first reaction: "Not till you get along with Mikey over there and hit an Arrowstorm, young lady!...I don't care that you both have different Moms, work together!"

Minarchist wrote:

The skits are getting hilariously weird.

They're only now getting weird? Pretty sure all of the skits started off that way. On a scale from 1 to 100Knight, what is the weird rating for you here?

Minarchist wrote:

Does anyone else get just a little weirded out by their star children? Running around a dungeon in typical JRPG fashion but occasionally seeing "Wait for me, Dad!" or "Dad loves me best!" "No, me!" is a tad unsettling. At least for me, who has two kids who say these sorts of things.

Yeah, you're definitely not alone in that--this whole game is pretty freaking weird.

Minarchist wrote:

This gameplay feedback loop is dangerously addictive.

I polished off the 2nd main dungeon and have all heroines (save Ellie, whom I am currently leveling) to 17 or above. The town is also at 17, which has given me a nice BP boost at the church (I think my cap is 420 now).

Just so that I have an idea, by polishing off the 2nd dungeon, you mean

Spoiler:

You took out Belezebub, or is there another boss?

If so, then how much time are you spending on just leveling up heroines? I just did the same and the highest level I have is 11, with the lowest being Ellie at 6.

I'm actually starting to get a little bored at this point. There doesn't seem to be much incentive to prioritizing interactions with some Heroines over others since you can just rest at the dorm to reset the interactions. I've also gone through every labyrinth on full auto every time without losing anyone, and that is including boss fights.

I just feel like I'm missing something I should be focusing on, or that the game should be harder than it is. Or something, I can't quite put my finger on it yet. I'll keep up with it for a bit, but this one may be a game that I shelve before I actually get distracted by a different game.

CptDomano wrote:

I'm actually starting to get a little bored at this point. There doesn't seem to be much incentive to prioritizing interactions with some Heroines over others since you can just rest at the dorm to reset the interactions. I've also gone through every labyrinth on full auto every time without losing anyone, and that is including boss fights.

I just feel like I'm missing something I should be focusing on, or that the game should be harder than it is. Or something, I can't quite put my finger on it yet. I'll keep up with it for a bit, but this one may be a game that I shelve before I actually get distracted by a different game.

Yeah, I think there are some fair criticisms in there. The dungeon crawling combat is rather easy, although I don't think I'd call it simplistic. At the bottom of the third dungeon (specifically floor 8, the final floor) the difficulty has seemed to pick up quite a bit. I finally found mimics — y'know, the reason they warn you when you open every purple chest. Seems like from this point on they may be an almost 50% encounter rate. That's fine, since they give like 8x experience of most mobs down there.

I don't know if the difficulty will continue to spike up until it's really challenging like 100 Knight did. I rather doubt it. But, for me, the girls' stories are all opening up in really unexpected ways (just had a very intriguing vignette with Ellie), and the story is ratcheting up for a Persona-style corporation craziness, and that's all fun. (Really, it kinda seems like Persona 3's story except that you're coming in during the experiments, not afterwards to clean up the mess.) I'm spending far more time socializing and messing around town than I am dungeon crawling, which is probably why I'm enjoying it so much. I think the whole of the Greed dungeon took me maybe an hour, and that was only auto-battling for the top few floors. (I finish battles in fewer turns when not auto-battling, though, so maybe it's a wash between using it or not.)

Anyway, there are a lot of different stories and characters going on here, and they seem to be interleaving pretty well. I'm 99% sure I'll finish this to completion solely on the back of the story/characters, if nothing else. They really ratchet up the candy trail starting in Greed. It's worth it just for the

Spoiler:

"Classmanting"

bit, and everyone's reactions the next time you talk to them.

I'm at a similar place with this as CptD. The structure of the game is engaging, and I like the combat system quite a bit, but the level of difficulty just isn't there yet. Even the challenge dungeons in the training room are pretty easy.

But we'll see. This has the potential to be great if it just gets a bit more challenging. There's still plenty of time for that.

I'm more with Minarchist on this, I do agree that dungeons AND combat is bland so far, and I'm running on 100% auto through all of em while watching tv etc, but the individual story lines for the heroines is what keeps it interesting for me. I can't wait to unlock the next sector so I can find out where it goes

I'm just curious, but how far are you both in the Heroine's individual stories? So far I've maxed out the second levels on every Heroine (5 so far, two levels each), and I haven't seen anything too terribly compelling.

Spoiler:

Chloe is busy teaching, Naraki is scared of public speaking, Fuuko joined the swim team, Ellie is late for classes because she has some hidden agenda with the church, and Serina is tiny but is going you use Milk Power ™ to grow 9 feet tall.

Maybe getting to the 3rd S.Rank with the Heroines is where it starts to get interesting, or maybe I'm just messing something up with the interactions?

Most of my heroines have 4 sectors maxed out and I'm working on the next dungeon to open up the next sector. My highest is 22 and lowest is 9 in terms of levels. City is at level 20.

I'm not going to spoil anything but stuff starts to open up really soon I think. Torri is the only one that is not that interesting to me so far.

CptDomano wrote:

Maybe getting to the 3rd S.Rank with the Heroines is where it starts to get interesting

Yeah, if you're maxed out at 2, you are literally one interaction away from most of them getting interesting. Well, one interaction and a dungeon boss, most likely.

Ah okay, I was hoping that was the case. My eyebrow was beginning to raise incredulously at the talk of the stories being really interesting. :). I'll keep at it.

Just to give you a little idea, in case you don't mind being spoiled a tad:

Spoiler:

As a for instance, Fuuko is occasionally possessed by a flirty ghost, Ellie has a tragic past (involving GG, even) and is working for the Spanish Inquisition, Chloe has become an Idol and is mobbed by fans everywhere she goes, and Serina sometimes uses a magic spell to make her taller and, in her words, "bouncier".

Has anyone encountered locked trap chests? I found a couple in 4th dungeon

Edit: Just had a key drop from.one of mobs, unfortunately its one key per chest

Fastmav347 wrote:

Has anyone encountered locked trap chests? I found a couple in 4th dungeon

Edit: Just had a key drop from.one of mobs, unfortunately its one key per chest

Yes, I've encountered a dozen or so. But my thief has a skill called "lockpick" that can open them for 120 MP, no key required. Not sure what skill she learned it at, but I'd guess the low teens.

Ahh that makes sense, Im currently lacking a thief in my group

Umm wow talk about fan service at the end of chapter 4 .....

You mean there hasn't been enough before then?

It wouldn't be in the style of a visual novel if there wasn't at least one pool party.

I can't manage to get Fuuko up to the second relationship level. She's been sitting for days with that second block filled with teal, but it never turns purple. Every event is the same event, over and over, and her mood is always good, but it's just not cutting it.