Xenoblade

[Steven Pendleton]

3 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Vesperia just felt like going through the motions

This is probably the best way of describing this game that I've ever seen. Just something about it always felt off to me. I played the PS3 version first and never got far because I didn't really like it much at all. Then I got a 360 and the US 360 version and didn't even make it as far as I did in the PS3 version.

 

I do have the Switch version, and I got to the point where the battle music switches for the first time and dropped it. This was unfortunately the point when the whole series' quality became greatly less than what it used to be.

 

Still, it's way better than the worst Tales game that I have, which is Tales of VS. Man, that game is super terrible and extremely disappointing. It starts out fine, but then after a while you realize the game is just plain bad. This makes me sad because with even a few changes the game would be really fun, and with a complete overhaul/remake/sequel, the game would be just as fun as Super Smash Bros, if not better. The mechanics in place are interesting, but the game is ruined by the cheap AI that spams overlimit, making combos totally useless, and the strict time limit that it's not possible to get rid of.

 

VS could have been an awesome game, but sadly, it just was designed wrong. I'd be interested in buying a sequel or a complete remake, though, if they redesigned it completely but kept the same general concept, which is absolutely solid.

[Tanooki]

14 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

This is probably the best way of describing this game that I've ever seen. Just something about it always felt off to me. I played the PS3 version first and never got far because I didn't really like it much at all. Then I got a 360 and the US 360 version and didn't even make it as far as I did in the PS3 version.

 

I do have the Switch version, and I got to the point where the battle music switches for the first time and dropped it. This was unfortunately the point when the whole series' quality became greatly less than what it used to be.

 

Still, it's way better than the worst Tales game that I have, which is Tales of VS. Man, that game is super terrible and extremely disappointing. It starts out fine, but then after a while you realize the game is just plain bad. This makes me sad because with even a few changes the game would be really fun, and with a complete overhaul/remake/sequel, the game would be just as fun as Super Smash Bros, if not better. The mechanics in place are interesting, but the game is ruined by the cheap AI that spams overlimit, making combos totally useless, and the strict time limit that it's not possible to get rid of.

 

VS could have been an awesome game, but sadly, it just was designed wrong. I'd be interested in buying a sequel or a complete remake, though, if they redesigned it completely but kept the same general concept, which is absolutely solid.

Would you feel the same about Graces, Xillia 1/2, Zestiria, Berseria that are all over on Steam?  Something about the franchise just hasn't clicked with me like the earlier stuff I mentioned almost like Namco was dialing it in, but those were just impressions seeing the extended clips online, comments from buyers who are critical, etc.  I've had a few of them in my wishlist space on there but pass each time they come up on discount.

[Tempest]

20 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Would you feel the same about Graces, Xillia 1/2, Zestiria, Berseria that are all over on Steam?  Something about the franchise just hasn't clicked with me like the earlier stuff I mentioned almost like Namco was dialing it in, but those were just impressions seeing the extended clips online, comments from buyers who are critical, etc.  I've had a few of them in my wishlist space on there but pass each time they come up on discount.

Xillia 1 was actually pretty good as was Graces.  Zestiria was bad and Berseria was so-so (didn't care for the mechanics).  Xillia 2 just didn't need to be made although it was alright in the end.

[Steven Pendleton]

6 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Would you feel the same about Graces, Xillia 1/2, Zestiria, Berseria that are all over on Steam?  Something about the franchise just hasn't clicked with me like the earlier stuff I mentioned almost like Namco was dialing it in, but those were just impressions seeing the extended clips online, comments from buyers who are critical, etc.  I've had a few of them in my wishlist space on there but pass each time they come up on discount.

I forgot about Graces f! Graces f is awesome. At least, the battle system is, and I'm pretty sure the music is good, too. The story... yeah, it's very poorly written, but both my sister and I thought it was one of those things that's so bad that it's funny, so I guess even that isn't so bad if you look at it from that perspective. Both the main game and the f arc are also extremely short for an RPG. I actually have been stuck on the last boss of the f arc for about 10 years for some odd reason. I only do like double digit damage for some strange reason, even on the lowest difficulty, after having no trouble with the entire rest of the game on hard.

 

Xillia is okay. Never finished it so I never played Xillia 2. Zesteria = avoid since it's a technical disaster. Nothing like getting into battle in a narrow alley and the camera gets stuck on the damn walls. Yep, it's one of those games where the camera gets stuck on walls and stuff. I think I once got into a battle when the camera was stuck looking up at my feet through the floor. Game is a mess. Never played Berseria, but my sister did and she said it was good.

[Tanooki]

I prefer short in an RPG, like 40hours or less, closer to 20 and have been ever since I got out of school ages ago.  Time far more limited to mostly evenings now with a kid, so big games are an instant put off unless they stay consistently entertaining, not a bunch of hot spots and lame drags between or I quit.

 

Seems Namco gave up caring about quality if all I'm seeing here is like 3 turds for 1 good one basically.  Probably for me, best to write the series off because if the few solid ones left are long it's pointless.  Good to know.

[Steven Pendleton]

13 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I prefer short in an RPG, like 40hours or less, closer to 20 and have been ever since I got out of school ages ago.  Time far more limited to mostly evenings now with a kid, so big games are an instant put off unless they stay consistently entertaining, not a bunch of hot spots and lame drags between or I quit.

 

Seems Namco gave up caring about quality if all I'm seeing here is like 3 turds for 1 good one basically.  Probably for me, best to write the series off because if the few solid ones left are long it's pointless.  Good to know.

Phantasia is like 35~40 hours maximum, and it's one of the best games in the series. It's one of those series that hit a plateau with Destiny Director's Cut and then wasn't able to consistently keep the quality up.

 

It should be noted, however, that the series producer during the era of disappointing games, Baba, is now gone, so things may change. He did work on some excellent games, like Destiny Director's Cut, but for the most part, I feel that the series started to decline greatly after he took over the whole series.

 

However, it should be noted that it is almost entirely because of Baba that the series started actually getting regularly released outside Japan, so non-Japanese speakers all owe him a lot.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Steven Pendleton]

Get!!

[Tanooki]

I know Phantasia, roms n stuff then went in on it with the GBA release, but the only one I own anymore is GC Symphonia which was a favorite.  Yeah I guess Baba should be loved for getting Namco's head out of its ass on non-Japanese only releases, but it basically stops there I imagine given the downturn of quality and entertainment value.  Either way, this is about Xenoblade, hope it ends up solid.

[Steven Pendleton]

3 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I know Phantasia, roms n stuff then went in on it with the GBA release, but the only one I own anymore is GC Symphonia which was a favorite.  Yeah I guess Baba should be loved for getting Namco's head out of its ass on non-Japanese only releases, but it basically stops there I imagine given the downturn of quality and entertainment value.  Either way, this is about Xenoblade, hope it ends up solid.

Yeah, maybe I'll make a Tales thread over in the Classic Gaming General section.

 

Anyway, just got the game and there is a patch, even though the cart comes with version 1.1.0 already on it. Disappointing, but oh well.

[Steven Pendleton]

So I've played for a while and I've been running around in Gaur Plain for like an hour or so just finding stuff. Yes, Juju is technically being attacked by wild animals at this point, but I think he can wait a few more in-game days while I go explore the place.

 

The arranged soundtrack is generally very good. You can customize the music to play the original music or the new music and it lets you set the field music and battle music separately. Unfortunately, you can't change the individual tracks. I (and everyone else, it seems) prefer the original You Will Know Our Names, but overall I think I actually like the arranged music more than the original music. The original music is really good, so that says something.

 

I mentioned before that I hate side quests. I still hate side quests, but for this version of the game, it seems that they put a giant red ! over everything that relates to completing quests, both when you are running around and when you are looking at the map. Not sure how I feel about this since it trivializes side quests almost completely since you don't have to look for anything, but since I hate side quests anyway, I guess this is a huge upgrade for me personally. Strangely, it does not seem possible to disable this. There are also huge markers on the map/when running around telling you where to go to complete the story. The minimap has a line on it that shows you where to go. You can turn off the line (and I did), but you can't turn off the markers. I am not sure how I feel about this, either, but there's nothing I can do about the huge markers that I have seen.

 

Still, a very good game overall, just like it always was, and it's interesting and refreshing to see a game done entirely with UK English instead of US English.

 

One last thing to note is that the game is pretty quiet by default, so you may want to turn up the volume in the options. I think the default cutscene volume is pretty good, but the non-cutscene volume is too quiet.

 

Okay, I lied. THIS is the last thing to note for now: by default, the controls are displayed on the screen. If you turn this off, it also stops showing the orders you can give in battle, so I hope you remember which button gives each order if you do decide to turn off the control display.

Edited May 30, 2020 by Steven Pendleton
spelling

[Steven Pendleton]

So this just happened

 

 

[Austin]

16 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

So this just happened

Wow.. I hope they fix that in a future update. Pretty sure that *never* happens in the original game.

[Steven Pendleton]

1 hour ago, Austin said:

Wow.. I hope they fix that in a future update. Pretty sure that *never* happens in the original game.

Yeah, I don't think I ever had anything like this happen on 3DS, either. I think it might actually be those specific enemies. I saved the game right next to that spot so I could turn the system off to pull the SD card out to upload the footage. When I started the game again, I was right next to where I killed all of those enemies, and they faded into existence again and attacked me just like in the footage. Ran away that time, though, just to save time.

 

Edit; I had to go get some stuff at Gaur Plain just now, so I stopped by this location and exactly what happened in my video happened again. It's definitely these specific enemies. I wonder if this happens on Wii and/or 3DS with these same enemies.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[digdugnate]

it's interesting reading the thread so far.    Still a Fall purchase for me since I'm banging through Witcher 3, Minecraft Dungeons, and the three Borderlands games.

[Tempest]

3 minutes ago, digdugnate said:

 and the three Borderlands games.

Not to derail this thread, but how are those?  I've considered getting them but I'm not sure if I'd like them as a single player game.

[digdugnate]

16 hours ago, Tempest said:

Not to derail this thread, but how are those?  I've considered getting them but I'm not sure if I'd like them as a single player game.

I'll reply then we'll get it back to Xenoblade.    Borderlands 2 is the de facto game in the series, I think, as far as ease of play and mechanics. 

 

The games are first-person loot-and-shooter RPGs at their finest, in my opinion.

[Steven Pendleton]

Well, I've been playing for 21 hours and 6 minutes. Honestly, it's been kind of annoying to do all of this stuff that I've already done. I imagine my opinion would be different if I had actually completed the 3DS version, but the game is still fun.

 

It does have a few annoying parts, though, like the fight immediately after you learn Purge, where it's possible to not even be able to damage the enemy depending on if you have bad luck with when you need to use Purge. I got stuck in that fight for almost 24 minutes not being able to do anything. You need to use Purge to damage the enemies, but you can't use Purge without a full meter, but you can't fill the meter without damaging enemies. Great game design. I guess I could have just killed myself to recharge my meter on regular enemies, but I decided to be stubborn and not do it. I managed, somehow.

[Steven Pendleton]

Turns out that I had not played for 21 hours and 6 minutes. That was actually the time that I made my save file. I'm actually at 19 hours and some minutes that I forgot. Anyway, my old friends the Defensive Kromars are still as annoying as ever, and still the hardest fight in the first 20 hours. My old trick to kill them that I used on the 3DS version still works, though.

[Steven Pendleton]

It seems not a whole lot of people here care about Xenoblade. Oh well. Maybe I'll just let this thread die, but we'll see.

 

Anyway, today I got past where I was stuck on the 3DS version. I'd actually been putting it off for a while since I got very frustrated the last time I was at this point because of the level difference between my party and the boss, so none of my attacks even hit the boss and sidequests are an annoying chore so I didn't feel like doing them to get more EXP. That bad experience from a few years ago, combined with the arrival of the (mostly excellent) Langrisser remakes a few days ago and my failure to resist the extremely strong desire to start replaying Mary Skelter 2 caused me to put off playing Xenoblade for a few days, and I've put about 10~15 hours into each of those games over the past few days instead of Xenoblade.

 

This time I was only 3 levels lower than the boss, so my attacks actually landed this time and I won... even if I did die and have to restart the fight 4 times.

[digdugnate]

it's not that i don't care- i'm still checking out the thread from time to time.   likely i'll end up necroing the thread when i eventually pick the game up.   

[Steven Pendleton]

Well, in that case, I guess I'll stop by sometimes.

 

I've made a little bit of progress, but I'm stuck on an annoying unique enemy that I really want to kill. It's only 3~4 levels higher than me, so I think it should be able to kill it, but after I get its HP down to about 50%~60%, the game usually decides to make all of my attacks start to miss for some reason. Maybe I'm supposed to use the Monado to do something about that, but haven't checked since I was trying to kill it without using my brain too much. Maybe I'll try using my brain next time instead.

 

I could avoid this enemy, but I'd rather not, especially since it's kind of in my way and there is a quest to kill it, so I figure I might as well do it.

[Ninjabba]

I actually walked into a store to buy this game a week ago, but then noticed that Outer Worlds was released on the switch and decided to take that instead. Not sure if that was the wisest decision, Outer Worlds looks horrific in the graphics department but does offer the full gameplay of the original.

 

Having played Xenoblade on the 3DS, I'm curious about the extra content they put in there. I read something about a prelude that was included?

[Steven Pendleton]

On 6/16/2020 at 7:24 PM, Ninjabba said:

I actually walked into a store to buy this game a week ago, but then noticed that Outer Worlds was released on the switch and decided to take that instead. Not sure if that was the wisest decision, Outer Worlds looks horrific in the graphics department but does offer the full gameplay of the original.

 

Having played Xenoblade on the 3DS, I'm curious about the extra content they put in there. I read something about a prelude that was included?

There's a new epilogue. It's separate from the rest of the game and you can access it from the main menu at any time.

[Razzie.P]

On 6/3/2020 at 8:22 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

It does have a few annoying parts, though, like the fight immediately after you learn Purge, where it's possible to not even be able to damage the enemy depending on if you have bad luck with when you need to use Purge. I got stuck in that fight for almost 24 minutes not being able to do anything. You need to use Purge to damage the enemies, but you can't use Purge without a full meter, but you can't fill the meter without damaging enemies. Great game design. I guess I could have just killed myself to recharge my meter on regular enemies, but I decided to be stubborn and not do it. I managed, somehow.

 

That part was a big "oh jeez, this f'n game" moment for me as well.    Luckily, I don't think that ever happens again.  I'm in the final moments of the game, I think, and to the best of my knowledge, the purge thing (squiggly lines on the enemies life bar indicating you should use it) pops up on enemies at times, but it's seems completely pointless, since my team is still doing damage and can defeat them.  

[Steven Pendleton]

On 6/21/2020 at 4:28 AM, Razzie.P said:

 

That part was a big "oh jeez, this f'n game" moment for me as well.    Luckily, I don't think that ever happens again.  I'm in the final moments of the game, I think, and to the best of my knowledge, the purge thing (squiggly lines on the enemies life bar indicating you should use it) pops up on enemies at times, but it's seems completely pointless, since my team is still doing damage and can defeat them.  

Yeah, that part is horrible, and so are those few bosses/enemies around 20 hours in that Shulk can only do 1 damage per hit to. If you didn't know about those specific enemies in advance (so you can remove Shulk and use someone else, basically) and you're using Shulk, you are basically playing with 90% of one character missing. Shulk can still inflict break/defense down, heal, and distract enemies, though, which is why he's 90% useless instead of completely useless for those fights. One of the times that I gave up on the 3DS version and restarted it is because of the first of those instances.

 

I guess you could just let yourself die and swap Shulk for someone else after you respawn, but if you're like me and don't know how the other characters work, it's super awkward.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Steven Pendleton