Pier Solar - New SEGA Genesis game

[the.golden.ax]

I do admit though that the high price of limited edition games like Total Carnage on the Jaguar have kept me away from those titles, despite the arguably understandable pricing...

I was thinking more along the lines of the stuff being produced currently, not necessarily Songbird's stuff. You know... Mad Bodies and the like.

 

 

I get it totally. For $80 you should get some stickers and a CD etc etc... make people feel like they are opening a gift bag!

 

AX

[+save2600]

I get it totally. For $80 you should get some stickers and a CD etc etc... make people feel like they are opening a gift bag!

 

AX

Not to mention, a quality game! And that's really the point here. Seems like a lot more effort went into making Pier Solar @ $35, then what we typically see in other homebrew markets.

 

-edit-

 

That's it AX! For an extra $5, I too would like the handjob.

Edited January 1, 2011 by save2600

[the.golden.ax]

I get it totally. For $80 you should get some stickers and a CD etc etc... make people feel like they are opening a gift bag!

 

AX

Not to mention, a quality game! And that's really the point here. Seems like a lot more effort went into making Pier Solar @ $35, then what we typically see in other homebrew markets.

 

 

[chrisbid]

mine arrived today in ohio

 

285/800

[Chris Leach]

I get it totally. For $80 you should get some stickers and a CD etc etc... make people feel like they are opening a gift bag!

 

AX

Not to mention, a quality game! And that's really the point here. Seems like a lot more effort went into making Pier Solar @ $35, then what we typically see in other homebrew markets.

 

 

 

 

 

You stole my pic! GOOD WORK DETECTIVE!

 

 

 

[Nikdog]

What is the flyer of Thunder Driver III about? From looking closely, it seems like a brand new 32x game to be released in 2011? Never heard of it till now.

April Fools Joke.

[rpgcollector]

Got mine yesterday. Worth the wait!!

[Great Hierophant]

There is an interesting review for the game here : http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9068543

 

It seems it may be overhyped, as the gameplay seems to touch upon those aspects of 16-bit RPGs that have not aged well (tedious random battles, slow leveling up and wealth accumulation, poor writing).

[Reaperman]

It seems it may be overhyped, as the gameplay seems to touch upon those aspects of 16-bit RPGs that have not aged well.

I suppose that's all true, but I'd imagine that the target audience may see many of those gameplay elements as positives(?)

 

As for the hype factor, anything with such high production values is going to attract that. This game is physically larger than any of its competition and is the first sega genesis game to take advantage of the CD in what I'd consider the 'ideal' way. Not to mention the fairly lengthy dev cycle for everybody to hype themselves up.

 

That said, I'm really not in the previously mentioned target audience. I gave up on both lunar games after less than a day, 4 phantasy star games not even that long, and after numerous attempts I had to *force* myself to play chrono trigger until it finally got entertaining (even then I wanted my characters to just give up and die right up to the end). Same deal with Pier Solar. I'll go back and finish it, but I'm going to have to increase my constitution a bit first.

 

It surely is polished to a high gloss, though--higher than many of the era's large-budget commercial games which it's currently being compared to. It takes a lot for a tiny game like Pier Solar to be mentioned in sentences with them, but that's exactly what has happened.

Edited January 14, 2011 by Reaperman

[the.golden.ax]

I love todays hard-ass gamer. With phrases like "repetitive" and "too easy" often being thrown around. Not everyone wants to play Ninja Gaiden Black (or can!).

 

AX

[4Ks]

After reading that review, I don't think I'll be buying this. I hate games that make you grind for hours just to level up enough for the next area/boss (there's a reason I hate Final Fantasy IV so much).

[+Random Terrain]

OK, so Pier Solar isn't a guy on Conan's show?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw9hNZ3WWB0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw9hNZ3WWB0&rel=0&fmt=35&showinfo=0&start=36

[Great Hierophant]

OK, so Pier Solar isn't a guy on Conan's show?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw9hNZ3WWB0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw9hNZ3WWB0&rel=0&fmt=35&showinfo=0&start=36

 

Actually, I thought that FF2/4 was much, much better than my previous experiences with DW1 and FF1. I liken the necessary leveling up to an hour for FF2/4 vs. a day for DW1/FF1.

 

I utterly despise people who are buying this to hoard and resell.

[PsychoKittyNet]

Yea, did you see whT one guy was selling some for? 300 bucks, and someone bought one. Me, I ordered a reprint for myself.

[bluespeed]

After reading that review, I don't think I'll be buying this. I hate games that make you grind for hours just to level up enough for the next area/boss (there's a reason I hate Final Fantasy IV so much).

 

 

The guy that wrote the review responded on the official Pier Solar forums

 

[qoute name =Mr. Neil]Yeah, I wasn't really saying it was hard. Just rather challenging until you get the hang of it. I actually got a game over a couple times in the very early part of the game. That doesn't happen a lot. I must say that the game over screen has a charm to it.

 

Calling it challenging is not a bad thing. A lot of old school RPG fans are going to be very happy once they figure out what this game is about.

 

The game definitely picks up after the first few hours. The most aggravating parts, as I eluded to, are mostly toward the beginning.

 

 

Here's what I think about the game, I've actually beat it.

 

You don't have to grind with Pier Solar, if you don't want to. You won't be able to buy everything if you don't grind but you should be able to beat the game.

 

The difficulty curve is like this

 

1st BOSS area

Challenging but manageable at the level you start at

 

2nd BOSS area

HOLY FUCK THIS GAME IS HARD

 

After that the difficulty curve is much more manageable

 

If you play RPGs like this

 

get to a new town

grind to buy the best weapons and armor

move on

get to a new town

grind to buy the best weapons and armor

move on

REPEAT

 

Yeah, Pier Solar will probably be hard for you.

 

Pier Solar will force you to learn it's battle strategy.

Most of the time, the right accessories are probably more important than the best armor and weapons

I personally spent more of my money on accessories, and healing items.... because you usually could find a lot of weapons and armor in the next dungeon for free.

 

This thread on the official forums also has impressions from people that beat the game

http://www.piersolar.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1568

^HAS SPOILERS

[chrisbid]

watermelon announced today that the reprints have sold out

[4Ks]

After reading that review, I don't think I'll be buying this. I hate games that make you grind for hours just to level up enough for the next area/boss (there's a reason I hate Final Fantasy IV so much).

You don't have to grind with Pier Solar, if you don't want to. You won't be able to buy everything if you don't grind but you should be able to beat the game.

 

Oh. The way the 1Up guy worded it, it sounded like Pier Solar is one of those games that gives you such a tiny amount of experience for every fight, that you end up having to grind for hours to get past every area/boss you find. As long as it's not like that, I'll buy it for sure.

[akator]

I don't have a copy of Pier Solar. I would love to play it... but the problem is, I can already get what feels like a million RPGs for old platforms. I can't even keep up with all of the new RPGs released for current platforms. I am not currently, nor have I ever been, starved for Genesis/Mega Drive RPG options.

 

I would love it if there was something with the same level of detail but applied to other genres. I'm not sure what I'm "hoping for," but I wish there was something else new for the G/MD that wasn't an RPG...

[malducci]

The popularity of this homebrew game is just amazing. And it gets mentioned with the likes of other great top tier commercial RPG titles of the past. I don't see anyone homebrew teaming passing the hype and popularity of this title any time soon. Coding is one thing, game design for something this large, is something else entirely (the impressive graphics and music are definitely worth mentioning too). I'm happy for the team for getting the game out and can only imagine the pride they must feel right now. I only regret not sparing the cash to buy the game when preorder was open. If there's more print runs, I'll definitely be picking this up (would be the first homebrew title I have bought).

Edited January 17, 2011 by malducci

[bluespeed]

I only regret not sparing the cash to buy the game when preorder was open. If there's more print runs, I'll definitely be picking this up (would be the first homebrew title I have bought).

After the pre-orders they did make a reprint. The reprint went onsale new years eve, it sold out in like 2 weeks.

 

But on twitter they said they'll make more.

Pier Solar twitter

[Reaperman]

The difficulty curve is like this

 

1st BOSS area

Challenging but manageable at the level you start at

 

2nd BOSS area

HOLY FUCK THIS GAME IS HARD

 

After that the difficulty curve is much more manageable

 

I think I just cleared that second boss area you mentioned. Tricky puzzles followed by 2 boss fights in a row, and a 'supposed to lose' after that, all with my item stockpile on empty. Sounds exactly like your description. At least the character that I didn't like is now dead. This is good, because I couldn't figure out a reasonable motivation for me helping him anyway, and he refused to let me just go back home.

 

Now the plot seems to be picking up a bit with some new characters introduced.

Edited January 17, 2011 by Reaperman

[otaku]

can't wait for my copy to show up seeing as I just acquired another genesis to play with

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Got mine in this moment! It´s looking G*R*E*A*T!!!!!!!!

[the.golden.ax]

Still hoping that someone can find it in their hear to either make an ISO of the music or WM will include the CD with the standard re-release when delivered, even if a CDR.

 

AX

[Reaperman]

Still hoping that someone can find it in their hear to either make an ISO of the music or WM will include the CD with the standard re-release when delivered, even if a CDR.

 

AX

There's been an ISO posted on their forum.

Few people could play the stock CD that came with it in their sega cd units, so a slightly stripped version was provided over there that works much better.

Edited January 21, 2011 by Reaperman