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On the other hand, the EU PSN page for the game has two things. But it used to have all those other bits and bobs. They seem to be trying to pretend this game doesn't exist. Probably a good policy. 
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Jan 18, 2014 12:51
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Lunethex posted:Zodiac Spear I love FF12, it's a fantastic game. So long as you don't give a poo poo about getting everything. gently caress getting 100% in this monster.
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Jan 18, 2014 17:39
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NGDBSS posted:Now I'm wondering if it was as bad as SMT: Imagine. (I never played that MMO but I recall hearing about it having similar pay-to-play bullshit.) Imagine was worse. Imagine (ha), if you would, a game where essentially all of the good gear is cash shop gear. And that every so often they would release gear that more or less totally obsoleted the earlier gear that you paid for, so get ready to pay again. Already sounds bad, right? Oh, I haven't gotten to the good part. The good gear was sometimes the rarest stuff in a random lottery system. You bought a lottery ticket for a CHANCE of getting what you actually want, and of course the random table is full of junk. There was a story of a Japanese man who bought 700 US dollars equivalent of cash shop tickets and had nothing to show for it. Did I also mention that to reforge your gear with better stats carried with it a risk of destroying the item, but you could prevent this by paying real money for an item whose sole purpose was to prevent this catastrophic break, whose odds of happening became higher and higher as you went? Basically, the stuff you guys are describing in WKC is tame compared to the lows companies are willing to sink, and also the lows that humans are willing to sink to be cool in an online video game. Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 18:01
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Tallgeese posted:Did I also mention that to reforge your gear with better stats carried with it a risk of destroying the item, but you could prevent this by paying real money for an item whose sole purpose was to prevent this catastrophic break, whose odds of happening became higher and higher as you went? This has been standard ever since Nexon was spawned. If you can believe it, people actually defend having your hard won and randomly earned item destroyed by RNG because, and I quote, "you're greedy for power so you should have that risk." In other words, you should have the risk of losing all your progression because you're trying to get it in the first place. In almost every instance, this kind of progression is very important and if you don't do it you're going to be unprepared. With that said, it shouldn't come as a surprise why progression is also behind a paywall. When asked why his carefully built and well-managed character was doing so poorly, Dirk Strongjaw soon responded.  Well I was greedy for power and lost all the items I beat hour long dungeons for. I deserved it and hope everyone learns from this.It really just boils down to stringing people along in MMOs these days for lack of good development, but in some cases the games these systems are used in are actually quite good games...just ruined by aspects like these.
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Jan 18, 2014 19:27
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You know, I'm sad that Sarvain is so obviously villainous, because like Crow said his actual display of competency in this last scene really makes me sympathetic to him. Whatever he has in store, I kind of want him to win.
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Jan 18, 2014 21:46
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Lotish posted:You know, I'm sad that Sarvain is so obviously villainous, because like Crow said his actual display of competency in this last scene really makes me sympathetic to him. Whatever he has in store, I kind of want him to win. Then you're in for a real treat. 
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 21:52
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I'd like to state that I absolutely revile White Knight Chronicles to such extent that it's the only game I've ever sold back to Gamestop in order to be rid of it, so I'm pleased that this LP is giving it the proper drubbing it deserves. Carry on my wayward son, there'll be rest when you are done.
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Jan 18, 2014 21:59
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So do you think the troubled production is why there are so many bad elements in the games, or are we seeing the polished improved version and whatever they had originally meant to be a PS3 title is just too awful of a game to comprehend?
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Jan 18, 2014 22:09
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Bricoleur posted:So do you think the troubled production is why there are so many bad elements in the games, or are we seeing the polished improved version and whatever they had originally meant to be a PS3 title is just too awful of a game to comprehend? I can't honestly say. The TGS bullshot video still showed essentially all the elements that made it into the final product, so all the crippling flaws with it it were there from the word go, it just did a better job at presenting them. The finished game was more-or-less that, only stripped of the things that Level-5 couldn't actually manage to produce like HDR lighting, animated menu portraits, fully mo-capped battle animations and seemingly intelligent AI mechanics. The troubled production was merely a result of Level-5 being a lovely, incompetent studio without second-party supervision.
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Jan 18, 2014 22:16
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This game. I ended up getting it when it came out. A friend of mine was suckered by the hype, and sold me on it before they actually played the game at all. I managed to get about 1/2 an hour past where the LP is now. I figured once I got through the bad cut scenes, I'd at least get to play a game. I did, it just wasn't a very good game. I want to be angry about it, but it was the game that finally convinced me that I just don't like JRPGs, anymore, saving me from spending future time and money on things I just didn't enjoy that much. So $60 well spent, I guess?
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Jan 18, 2014 23:00
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Bricoleur posted:So do you think the troubled production is why there are so many bad elements in the games, or are we seeing the polished improved version and whatever they had originally meant to be a PS3 title is just too awful of a game to comprehend? I suppose you could blame some of the failures on troubled production. For example, the poor combat could be a result of Level-5 losing to much time on problems and therefore running out of time before they could implement things like competent AI. However, the story can not be explained by anything else than sheer incompetence. It contain elements that the writers didn't understand, but used because other stories contains them. It has the (unintentionally one-sided) Leonard/Cisna love, but the writers failed to even provide an opportunity for Leonard to so much as getting smitten by Cisna. They made Cisna mute, but then had her cured before it had any chance to have an impact on the story. There's the mysterious stranger, but Eldore doesn't take advantage of that status and inserts himself into the party by going "I'm not particularly qualified to rescue Cisna, yet for some reason I expect you to bring me along." I could go on. The writers just had no idea what they were doing. Chance is Level-5 had no idea when it came to anything else either.
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Jan 19, 2014 10:44
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Looking at Leonard and Cisna, I feel like this is some kind of backhand to fans who wished for something romantic between Max and Monica in Dark Cloud 2. Even some of the characters remind me of those two; Monica has a roughly similar backstory to Cisna, and Max is what Leonard would be if he was old money and got his head out of his rectum. While I can see the appeal of the two, the writing of that game worries me to the point that they may be ancestor and descendant. Dark Cloud 2 kinda throws its hands up in the air about their feelings for one another, and now it seems like Level 5's either trying to make things clear to us in the bluntest way possible, or they despise the idea as much as we do in this game... I may be giving Level 5 too much credit on the latter.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:40
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 It’s like this these know what I’m talking about or something. I honestly don’t know how they get up there. Someone help me!  CUTSCENE: Setting Out After the Princess So we start things off the morning after in Balandor. You know, for a place that got its rear end kicked by the Magi a day-and-a-half ago, Balandor has really put itself back together in a hurry. But hey, what are you honestly expecting? Presentation value? Those things take time and effort, and as we’ve already hashed out it took Level-5 three years of missed launch windows just to get this far.  In the early morning, the party gathers in front of the main gate to the city.  And also a bird. A plot bird.  The Plot Bird flutters down to the party and lands on Eldore’s arm.     Eldore: I’ve sent out one of these Bigelows to follow the Princess. As we journey it will keep us informed of exactly where she is. Always.See, it’s a Plot Bird.   Leonard: The bird will find the Princess for us?  Yulie: Two birds, Leonard. A pair of Bigelows can communicate speech and images over long distances. Eldore scratches it under its beak. Awww.   Leonard: That’s some trick! Orren: Yeah, it’s all freakin’ amazing until one of the little bastards gets clever and starts broadcasting images of you in the shower or something.Like the chapter title implies, Bigelows are walking plot contrivances, simultaneously creative and stupid workarounds to let Cisna play a semi-active role in the game’s plot despite her not actually being anywhere near the  Eldore: It appears that the Princess has been taken east, towards the Nordia Tunnels. We must follow her there. Orren: So why did you take us to the southern entrance to the city?No, seriously. Eldore led them to the wrong exit. Go back to the OP and check the map. Where they’re at right now is the way that leads to Balastor Plain. They need to be at Greydall Plain exit if they plan to head for Nordia. Again, the game is prepping you for Eldore’s lovely leadership/mentorship with subtle things like this.  Yulie waves goodbye to the Plot Bird. Because Yulie is just sometimes. Eldore: But first we should avail ourselves of the town’s shops and prepare for the journey. It’s going to be a long one… Orren: You just HAD to remind me, didn’t you, old man?Orren looks legitimately pissed in this image. I swear I didn’t doctor this screenshot at all. I’m not that good with Photoshop. It was just a happenstance of the game’s weird facial animation system. Also this looks like a really bad album cover with all four of them looking determined and stuff. Or in Leonard’s case, trying to mimic the angry looks everyone’s got on their faces, as he doesn’t really understand what’s going on because this has been his train of thought over the last 72 hours:  Leonard: CISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNA CISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNACISNA Orren: You dumb son of a bitch. AREA MUSIC: “Balandor Castlestown” (Disc 1, Track 4) So because Eldore can’t remember what entrance leads where, we’ve got to turn around and run all the way through town to the Greydall Plain exit. Technically you could just walk out the Balador Plain exit, or hop onto the world map from a Logic Stone, but I’m going to play the hand the game has dealt me, because it makes Eldore look like an idiot. And if there’s one thing I’m good it in this LP, it’s making people in this game look like idiots. Leonard: Bigelows must be useful, huh? Yulie: Welcome to the world, Leonard. Eldore: What a curious lad…Say it with me, folks: “Leonard is dumb.” You just learned about Bigelows because the game just decided to tell you about them. Leonard just learned about them because he’s an insular twit. Also: online direct or private messages between players were carried through a service called b-mail or Bigelow mail, implying that Bigelows also function as standard carrier pigeons in the world of White Knight Chronicles. The more you know…  Yulie: Yeeeah, I'm not such a big Magi fan right now. Orren: Who the hell would be? Eldore: So… It has begun. Yulie: Leonard… A Knight? Leonard: I can't believe any of this.But first, let’s stop in and say goodbye to Rapacci, since the last time he saw Leonard was two days ago when he sent him out to Parma with Orren.  Poor Rapacci; between Yulie, Orren, and the collection of thoughts about Cisna’s vagina heretofore known as Leonard, he has just lost his entire staff to this insane quest. I hope Sarvain is compensating him somehow, but then again knowing Sarvain, he’s probably too busying having small children brought up to the throneroom so he can kick them down the master staircase for his own enjoyment.  I’m not doing this idly, the game actually demands that you visit Rapacci before you leave, as indicated by the blinking objective marker star inside Rapacci Wines.   AREA MUSIC: “Rapacci Wine Company” (Disc 1, Track 3) Oh thank god I don’t gotta caption these ones. See what I mean. The Magi attack on Balandor Castle was day 1, and their meeting with Sarvain took place the night of day 2… I’m assuming at least, because I don’t think they expect anyone to believe they got all those fires put out, repaired the throneroom, and managed to set up a pair of flag-draped coffins for Valtos and Dalam in the span of an hour or two after Cisna’s kidnapping. Either way, the game is straining credulity to an extent worthy of an Olympic medal, because either Balandor’s functionary apparatus was on its goddamn A-game immediately after the attack, or this is the first time Leonard bothered to pop in and tell what for all intents and purposes is his father that he was still alive in two days. Leonard is… just… gently caress. Also, yeah, whenever you visit Rapacci Wines, the flute and lute ditty from the start of the game overrides Balandor’s nromal background music.  You’re taking this remarkably well. Then again, after 18 years of trying to raise Leonard, Rapacci has probably become numb to the idea of Leonard walking out the door and never coming back because he’s probably had so many ‘Leonard got hurt/is missing/might be dead’ scares between then again now that’s a non-issue now.  Leonard: Actually yeah. I transformed into a huge suit of armor. And I fought a fire beast and I broke most of the castle trying to save everyone, but it was TOTALLY COOL! I really helped out last night. Rapacci: You drank all my loving wine last night, didn’t you you dipshit? That was for the PARTY! Yulie: No, Rapacci, he’s actually telling the truth. …Sort of. He’s just being modest. Inside he’s celebrating because he never thought he’d live to see the day when Leonard got the gently caress out of his life. Now he can afford to hire actual competent staff members.   And by ‘handy’ you mean ±90% of the people playing this game will never use it. Rapacci gives us the Crystal Camera. It’s the game’s onboard screenshot camera that’s pretty useless because you can’t share screenshots anywhere but on GeoNet and even then the shots its takes are kind of lovely quality. It’s a novelty for the few people who bothered with the online portion of the game. I’ll cover this in the Gameplay update at the end of this chapter. Thanks, White Knight Chronicles for this pointless enforced detour.   Thank you for that image, Rapacci. You rear end in a top hat.   Quick, delete its memory card, or whatever. I don’t want to the take the chance of stumbling across any of Rapacci’s shirtless selfies.  This is an interesting little feature which only appears in the game 1 remake. The dummy will reset your characters’ skills allowing you to start over again and rework your characters’ skills for free. But, like everything related to this game, there’s a catch…  If you’re level 35 and higher, then you’re screwed and your skills are stuck that way and there’s no way to change them barring plunking down $10 for a total makeover ticket from the PlayStation Store, which only resets the Avatar’s skills. Because, gently caress you, give us money.  Oh that’s so cute. Rapacci has faith in them.  Leonard: Sorry, Rapacci. I’ll come back as soon as I can. Rapacci: Take yer time, kid. I mean it. Okay, back on the road.  Eldore: So they wanted the Knight's Ark… Leonard: Please Cisna, be safe. Yulie: Glad you're worried about our safety too, Leonard. Orren: I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know one of of us exists. I'll let you guess which one. Eldore: Come, time is short. CUTSCENE: Puppets in the Hands of an Idle God As the party heads toward Greydall Plain, the scene shifts to the Magi’s monoship.   I have no idea what this logo is supposed to signify, because the Magi adopt an actual logo later on, and it isn’t this thing.    CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Recollection” (Disc 1, Track 14) Cisna’s been moping about in her cell since she was absconded with, no doubt thinking of all the various ways she’s going to have Belcitane and Dragias executed… somehow. Also they managed to find her a new outfit too, for… reasons. It’s funny that they’d give her not just such a stylish outfit but an outfit so agreeable to her tastes. Why not just hand her a burlap sack to wear or dress her in one of your drab Magi uniforms. …Unless she just so happened to be wearing this getup under her ball gown or something, PLOT CONTRIVANCE! Also, you might be thinking to yourself, “hmmm, that looks suspiciously like Player Character clothes. Is Cisna actually going to join the party eventually?” And the answer to that is: gently caress NO, WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID? Cisna is this game’s designated victim and there is not a force in the universe capable of moving her out of her victim position. …Besides herself, anyway, but we’ll get to that.  She flashes back to her father’s murder, sobbing all the while.  Oh he’s not dead, he’s just sleeping.   Flashback Leonard: Your Kingdom loves and needs you.  Cisna: Melvin-2… I mean— Cisna: Leonard…I’m legitimately impressed she remembers his name at this point.  She looks out the window longingly.  Cisna: Dumb son of a bitch. I should have grabbed that Ark instead of him. What’s this? It looks like someone is spying on our fair Empress of All Creation, Long May She Reign.  Oh it’s these two pricks. What do you guys want? Killed any good puppies lately?  Oh, hey. Shapur’s there too. Where the gently caress have you been, patchy?  Belcitane: I find it hard to believe this girl truly possesses any power. Belcitane: Her constant impotent threats notwithstanding. Belcitane: She seems utterly fragile.  Dragias: You saw what she did, Belcitane.Ya know, Dragias’s voice is so drat deep I feel like I need to transcribe his dialog with the capslock on and bracketed by bold style tags. Anyway… Dragias: It took us two whole years to break the enchantment that kept the Knight’s power sealed… Dragias: And yet she was able to shatter the same magic in a mere instant. It could only have been the power of the Athwani.Wait, the what? Are you gonna bother explaining any of this? No? gently caress you.  Belcitane: “When eternal ages have passed...” Belcitane: “And ancient scars emerge at last...”  Belcitane: “The earth will cry out for a blade long unseen...” Belcitane: “To honour the reborn soul of the Queen.” Belcitane: Was this too foretold in the prophecies? Dragias: Shouldn’t you know if it is or not? Belcitane: What? Dragias: You’re bankrolling this cult, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you know what’s in your own version of Dianetics or whatever? Belcitane: Oh, THAT? Eh. I just made it up on the spot. I’m putting out a book of poetry next year. What do you think? Don’t miss Puppets in the Hands of an Idle God and Other Poems, by Belictane. Available from HaperCollins, Summer 2015. Check your local booksellers or Amazon.com Dragias: (Oh where’s that’s loving duck picture gone?) Belcitane: Hmm? General? Dragias: Much better. Dragias: Porphecies? Nonsense! Dragias: I’m not some puppet acting according to some idle god’s script. Dragias: I am ALDUIN! Firstborn of Akatosh!…If you don’t get that, look at Daniel Riordan’s IMDB page. You’re welcome.    OVERWORLD MUSIC: “The Content of Nadias” (Disc 1, Track 15) And on General Dragais’s “no kings or gods, only man” proclamation, we shift scenes back to our  CUTSCENE: Greydall Plain CUTSCENE / AREA MUSIC: “Greydall Plain” (Disc 1, Track 19)     Eldore comes to a sudden stop for no good reason, and because Leonard isn’t paying attention, he walks right into his shoulder.   Leonard is dumb.  Also, I have no idea why Orren is making that face. I think the game likes to purposefully gently caress with you by having the Avatar assume random facial expressions from time to time. Either that or it’s a rare moment of alignment between the game and the LP wherein the Avatar is just as gobsmacked by Leonard’s moment of stupidity as Orren is in-universe. Eldore: The Nordia Tunnels lie eastward beyond this plain.  Leonard: Princess Cisna. We have to save her. We have to.I’d like to imagine Orren just leaning forward and smacking him in the back of the head after saying this. He’s not experiencing any sort of grief or guilt that he let her get kidnapped, he’s just that much in lust with her that it physically hurts him every moment they’re apart.  Yulie: Eldore… you don’t think they would have attacked the village, do you?Yeah, because there’s something worth wasting an army’s precious resources on: murdering a town full of vintners. Still, good on Yulie for having the presence of mind to be concerned about other people besides herself and Cisna. Once again, she comes out head-and-shoulders ahead of Leonard in terms of likeability.  Eldore: Who knows. Whatever the case, we have to press on. Orren: You are just a beacon of optimism, aren’t you? I’m sure Parma’s just fine, Yulie.Nobody cares enough to bother attacking Parma. Ever.  And so Eldore ‘leads’ them onward, much in the same way one herds stray cats, I’d imagine.  Greydall Plain is by an large a giant samey plain with a path and a river running through it. It’s drat near indistinguishable from Balastor Plain at times.  Yulie: Hey, have you heard of the great beasts of Greydall? Leonard: The great WHAT?! You’re kidding. Eldore: Well, let’s not start jumping at legends. Orren: Knowing Leonard, one of them’s gonna try and kill us in short order. Eldore: What makes you say that? Orren: Recent history. Eldore: Oh my. So there’s a big lake and a river running through Graydall Plain out to the ocean on the western edge of the map. There’s also a boat dock here with a boat. You can’t get in the boat or use it to travel around anywhere and explore any other part of the map or whatever. Because that’s creative and inventive and shows signs of effort, and we can’t have that in White Knight Chronicles.  Leonard: The tunnels sure are a long way off. Eldore: Hmm. drat, we’ll have to go around. Yulie: I hear you can’t even take walks here because of the monsters.And of course, the change in aspect ratio means we’ve made it to the next cutscene. Yay.  CUTSCENE: The Lord of Greydall Plain Leonard comes to a random halt, for reasons.      Orren: You hear that noise, old man? Eldore: What is it, Niles? Orren: The other shoe dropping. Eldore: I don’t— Rubble starts falling from the top of a nearby bluff.  Yulie: Look! Yulie: Something’s moving over there! Oh great, it’s a giant hamster.  Leonard: So they’re trying to stall us. Eldore: No, that’s a wild beast, the servant of no man. That is the lord of Greydall Plain. Orren: Don’t go ‘jumping at legends’, huh? Eldore: Shut it, Niles. Orren: WOULD YOU STOP CALLING ME THA— Orren: Holy poo poo. Look at the teeth on that thing. Yulie: …Well I don’t like the way he’s looking back!  This thing looks and sounds ridiculous, but then again more people are killed each year in Africa by Hippos than by Lions, so I’m gonna grant it it’s due deference (while laughing at it from afar).  But Leonard isn’t as smart as me…    Look at him trying to be dramatic.  The kid thinks that because he’s got that Knight he’s an action hero all of the sudden.  He’s playing with powers that are beyond him. Unfortunately, the game never bothers to explore this angle.  This is played 100% straight. We’re supposed to think Leonard is being a badass hero in this moment. He’s challenging a giant cotton swab with tusks to a fight.  Leonard: Somehow, I don’t think it wants a belly rub.…You’re a tool. Tidus is more badass than you are.   Tidus: Sit down, kid. Let me show you how to play REAL Blitzball, like they do in Zanarkand! Orren: I distinctly recall telling you to gently caress off. Go kick a landmine and die… again.     I swear to god, the teeth on this thing… Between this and Pyredaemos, this game has a disquieting oral fixation.  BOSS FIGHT: Ahwahnee (with commentary by nine-gear crow and Blind Sally). So here we go, this is one of these plot battles, only without the plot. At times, certain characters need to be in certain boss fights, so the game will handily pause the action and let you swap out characters 2 and 3 before the fight actually begins in earnest. It’s about the only example of the game taking it easy on the player.  In this case, Leonard has to be in the party for this fight because the game is trying to coerce you into using the White Knight against Ahwahnee.  So why no indulge it. Leonard: O Wizel, white warrior, wielder of the ancient sword, grant me your power… Leonard: Verto!  Now it’s Knight-on-…whatever the hell this thing is actually supposed to be.  Ahwahnee is vulnerable to slashing attacks and fire-elemental attacks. So now you know the only skill you need to spam between now and the victory cutscene.  White Knight Chronicles! Innovative gameplay at its finest.  I do kind of like that the Knight will leap into the air to add more momentum to its slash attacks, but it’s really just window dressing. You press button, character does animation, numbers appear on screen. A drinking bird positioned over the X button on the DualShock3 and a Roomba with a knife taped to it could beat White Knight Chronicles given enough time for level grinding.  Slash slash slash. Down it goes.    CUTSCENE: The Lord of Greydall Plain (continued)    Leonard: Got ‘em!  And of course he runs up to proudly admire his kill and see the awesome power of the Knight’s handiwork up close.  Leonard: What a brute. Yulie: I’ll say. Orren: What? Compared to Pyredaemos? Really? Eldore: Indeed. But these beasts do not attack humans without provocation.  Eldore: Though I don’t like to think it, maybe they’re responding to the Knight’s awakening. Orren: You son of a bitch. Your EXISTENCE angers nature. How did you manage THAT?! Yulie: So what are you saying? The Knight’s power makes them go on the rampage? Eldore: It could be. Suddenly poo poo-for-brains isn’t feeling too proud about felling the Lord of Greydall plain. Leonard: Then… this fella wasn’t really a bad guy? This plot point will never be touched on again.  In stronger works of fiction, this would be a teachable, character-shaping moment. Leonard just learned a harsh truth about the nature and price of his new powers. What he thought was a great victory has been subverted into a shameful defeat with a simple revelation. In a better-crafted story, Leonard would carry the weight of Ahwahnee with him for a long time and maybe go out of his way to avoid areas with giant monsters so as not to let the Knight’s power provoke any more otherwise innocent creatures into attacking him and forcing him to put them down in self-defence. In White Knight Chronicles, Leonard will come back here and murder like 50 Ahwahnees between now and the end of the game for extra EXP. The revelation is meaningless, the lesson unlearnt. Leonard’s character trajectory remains unchanged even after a gut-rending trauma like this. Also, if Eldore knew this was a possibility, why not mention it ahead of time instead of letting Leonard walk into this emotional trap and then spring it on him after the fact so he feels like poo poo when it happens. If Eldore had said something ahead of time, maybe Leonard would have been better prepared to deal with it and it wouldn’t have been such a shock to his system. Leonard is dumb, but Eldore’s also kind of a thoughtless rube. A modern Epimetheus, folks. Cultural gloss: Epimetheus was the twin brother of the titan Prometheus in Greek mythology. He was notable for being exceptionally dumb, as his name literally means “after-thought”. Prometheus, meanwhile was exceptionally clever, as his name meant “fore-through”. And while I know it’s easy and funny to get angry at Leonard as a character for doing stupid things, really, the guy I’m actually mad at is Akihiro Hino and his writing staff. Hino-san, you suck at writing. It’s time to put the keyboard down, buddy. Or maybe try and talk Hayao Miazaki into giving you some screenwriting lessons before he retires… again.  Leonard: I’m sorry…  Leonard: I won’t forget you, Ahwahne… Orren: Should I start a countdown or something? Yulie: Five… Four… Three… Leonard: Don't worry, Cisna! I’m coming to rescue you! Because I love you! Eldore: God. drat…
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2014 11:06
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 And we’re back on the road. Notice Leonard’s MP bar is at 0 after a round of combat as the White Knight.  Leonard: Maybe I should have left the Ark alone...Okay, I lied, the kid has one moment of introspection. But that's it.  CUTSCENE: Contacting the Princess Oh thank god, a creepy old tunnel.   Leonard: This must be the way in. Look how big!Leonard: Master of the Obvious. Yulie: People whisper about the Nordia Tunnels. But I’m about to walk through them. Leonard: Come on. Let’s go! Yulie nods in agreement.   Eldore: Wait! Before we go in, we should set up camp here and rest out bones a while.Oh, you rear end, it’s barely midday yet and you’re already tired? This is what you idiots get for acquiescing to be led around by a sexagenarian.  Leonard: I don’t need any rest. Come on!You know who Leonard really reminds me of as a character? Eragon from the Inheritance  ) their brainless, gung-ho stupidity.Eldore is even shaping up to be a perfect Brom analog, being a mentor who doesn’t teach his student anything, keeps mission-critical details a secret from everyone, and is generally mysterious for the sake of being mysterious. And also being old, but not too old. They’re even both portrayed by two spectacularly capable British actors who should be doing better things with their time: Charles Shaughnessy and Jeremy Irons, respectively. And while we’re at it, Cisna is Arya: a distant and detached princess whom Leonard/Eragon falls in love with at first glance but never gets anywhere closer to halfway to first base with. poo poo, we’ve even got a Murtaugh analog coming up soon: a darkhorse fan-favourite badass who just gets poo poo on by fate non-stop. Anyway…  Eldore: Don’t be a fool. When I’m tired, my magic grows weak. You think we can get through this without my spells?Um, are we talking in-game magic, or Plot magic, Maxwell? Because in-game, you have the access to the same spells as the rest of the party does at this point: a piddly few first-tier elemental spells. If we’re talking Plot magic, then what spells? The only magic we’ve seen you preform is mind raping an undeserving guard so you didn’t have to be bothered by a random security sweep. Now, as someone who’s been pulled aside by border security and gone through a full baggage search for a bullshit reason just trying to get back into his home country, I agree that’s a handy power to have. But we’re not clearing customs, mate, we’re on a fate-of-the-world adventure. So if you’ve got anything stronger than that in your bag of tricks, by all means, start whipping them out because the hapless twit you’re babysitting on this quest needs them. Eldore does not perform any more feats of magic barring maybe one or two minor things for the rest of the duology. He’s just making up excuses because he’s old and tried. Also, one last point about Eldore and ‘spells’. Guess who has the weakest base magic attack and defense stats of the party thus far? If you said any other name than “Eldore,” punch yourself in the face. Leonard has a stronger magical potential than Obi-Wrong Kenobi here. At times the game is practically begging me to point out its incongruities.  Leonard: Huh?!Look at that shocked expression. This is probably the first time in his life that he’s given a thought to anyone outside of himself. Again, not because he’s arrogant or self-absorbed, but because he’s so dumb that the possibility of other consciousnesses existing outside his own is inconceivable. It’s said that philosopher Georg W.F. Hagel’s last words were “he didn’t understand me.” As it turns out, he was talking about Leonard.  Yulie: The man’s got a point, Leonard.  Leonard: Fine.He then went and pouted about it behind the Logic Stone for four hours while Yulie and Orren set up camp.   LATER THAT NIGHT! …Also, I love how the Avatar doesn’t even get a rock to sit on. They’re get to sit in the dirt like they’re a second-class citizen. Orren: Nah, it’s cool. I get to stretch out and look all badass.…You’re barely in this scene. Orren: gently caress! Eldore rises to his feet, aaaaand….  INCOMING PLOT BIRD!  The way things are going, this thing is going to take a dump on Orren’s head before it lands.      Eldore: It seems we have established a connection with Princess Cisna. Eldore: Foz, show us.  The Plot Bird flutters over to a nearby rock.  Aaaaand…  … … … BAH-HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!  Oh god, as if I had hard enough time taking this thing seriously already, now it’s projecting frickin holograms out of its eyes. How does this even work? And more importantly, why am I suddenly reminded of—oh god noooooooALLGLORYTOTHEHYPNOBIRD!  CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Melody of Light” (Disc 1, Track 20) So the Plot Bird spits out an image of Princess Cisna by way of a lovely knock off of Star Wars hologram technology. Which means, hey, I’ve found another use for the hologram Photoshop style I threw together for the Shadows of the Empire LP.  Leonard: Princess!Take a shot. Oh yeah, I’ve officially instituted an intra-LP drinking game. Basically, anytime Leonard says a sentence consisting solely of the words “Princess” and/or “Cinsa”, take a shot of your preferred brand of liquor. The same rules apply whenever Cisna uses a sentence comprised solely of the word “Leonard”. To paraphrase Tracy Morgan as Uncle Jemima, “you’ll get bent just as fast as possible!”    Hologram Cisna: Hello? Hologram Cisna: A Bigelow! Then someone out there must be able to see me.Apparently Bigelows have latency issues just like any other form of communications ‘technology’.  Hologram Cisna: Oh gods, please let it be someone other than— Leonard: You’re safe! Hologram Cisna: Aw poo poo. It is. Okay, try to act happy. Hologram Cisna: Leonard! Is that you?She has forgotten what Leonard looks like apparently. Lucky her.  Hologram Cisna: Yes. Yes, I’m safe. They have me locked in this room, but other than that… Please, tell me, how are my people? Hologram Cisna: Are they still lamenting my kidnapping? They better be, so help me— Eldore: They are in good hands. Everyone is preparing for Your Highness’ return. Yulie: Pfft. Yeah, if you can call Sarvain and Cyrus ‘good hands.’ Hologram Cisna: Wait, who are you again? Orren: We haven’t even figured that out, Your Grace. Hologram Cisna: Well, at least one of you remembered my proper style now. Eldore: We have been sent ahead to rescue you. Worry not. Hologram Cisna: Whatever. It can’t get any worse, right? It’s not Game of Thrones; they’re not gonna rape me or anything. …I hope.Let’s be honest with ourselves here, Belcitane is the kind of character who would be a straight-up rapist if this game had any balls. Luckily for everyone though, it doesn’t so instead he’s just a comically evil creep instead of a midget version of Jabba the Hutt.  Hologram Cisna: I see.I have no explanation for Leonard’s Suspicious Fry look there other than bad screenshot timing. Personally I’d like to imagine he’s trying to figure out who this “We” person Eldore mentioned is and HOW DARE HE TRY TO RESCUE CISNA BEFORE HIM  ! Leonard: Princess, where are you? Can you tell us about your surroundings?Oh hey, look at that, some actual forethought from Leonard. That’s new.  Hologram Cisna: I see sand. Endless golden sand. I think we must be flying over a desert. Eldore: The desert? Eldore: …The Lagnish Desert?  Cisna suddenly gasps and looks over her shoulder.  Hologram Cisna: Someone’s coming! So she puts them on hold.  Ah, here’s something that gonna become a recurring event in this game: Leonard getting strung along by Cisna and then left hanging like the desperate rube he is.  Leonard: Wait! Princess…Take a shot.   And of course he’s crushed now that Cisna has vanished again from his life. This makes a total of 20 minutes he has known and spoken to her now over the course of his entire life.   CUTSCENE: The Power of the Athwani So Cisna’s apparently got some visitors. I wonder who it could be.   Oh who the gently caress the else did you think it was gonna be. It’s Belcy and Dragias. What, were thinking it was gonna be Shapur? Please, the game is not that creative.  Of course, Cisna’s got her own Plot Bird following the monoship.  And of course, it’s pink. Because Cisna’s a girl.      Dragias: And how are we today, dear Princess? She shoots Dragias a look of utter hatred.  Completely warranted, of course, since he, you know, murdered her father and helped kidnap her.   Cisna: You monster! Murderer! I swear, you will pay! Cisna: I am going to make sure you both die screaming my name. Belcitane: Hah hah hah hah hah! Belcitane: She certainly is a feisty one, our little guest is. Belcitane: But really, now. Belcitane: You’re in no position to be issuing threats. Belcitane: Hah hah hah. Cisna: I don’t do threats. They’re promises. Cisna: Grgh. More mustache-twirling awesomeness.  Belcitane: In fact, my dear, you’re going to be assisting us in our little project. CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Recollection” Cisna: Me? Help you? I don’t think so. Cisna: Not unless you reverse those positions. Then we might have something. Dragias: Oh, yes. Dragias: Truth be told, you’ve already been of great assistance to us.  Dragias: You see, it was you who unleashed the power of the Knight. Cisna: ’gently caress you say? Dragias: Ah, but don’t you remember? Dragias: When you were down in the treasure vault and surrounded by dangers… Dragias: A spell came to your lips, unbidden. Out of instinct. That sacred royal incantation broke the Knight’s seal. Ring any bells, Princess?  Dragias may be a regicidal murderer and a water carrier for a crazy cult, but he’s not a liar.  Dragias: That’s right. To save your own life, you unleashed the power of the ancient civilization of Yshrenia.Well, at least these guys have a proper name now, so we can stop calling them the ‘Ancients’. Glad that trope lasted all of a chapter. If you’re wondering how to pronounce that word, either listen to the good general pronounce it in the video, or just add an ‘I’ between the Y and S at the start. “Yish-ren-ee-ah.” Yeah, I know it’s dumb, but you’re gonna hear that name a bajillion times between then and the end of game 2, so you’d best get used to it.  Cisna: Eh. Totally worth it. Dragias: The Knight is free, and now it is just a matter of time before its power falls into wiser hands. I love it when the game does my job for me.  Dragias: …If our scriptwriting god wills it, that is. Orren: Oh poo poo, they’re on to me! Cisna: No. That’s impossible!You’re saying that to a guy who looks like Darth Vader. You’re not even trying to beat back the Star Wars comparisons any more, are you White Knight Chronicles?  Cisna: I don’t know what you’re talking about! Dragias: Perhaps you don’t. But the memories of the Athwani are in your very flesh. Dragias: Like it or not, Princess, you are the key to gaining control of our world… Dragias: And you belong to us. Cisna: gently caress my life. We return to camp Durr immediately thereafter.  Wow, Orren’s rear end has had a more prominent role in this chapter than Orren himself has. He’s like this game’s Zelas Metallium. That’s a Slayers joke, you uncultured rubes.  Eldore gathers the group around a barrel that is suddenly there, for reasons. Maybe he’s like Mary Poppins or something and just pulled it out a travel bag. I dunno. I just have this image that Eldore actually packed all the provisions in this barrel and then forced Orren to carry it for them on his shoulders. Because the Avatar is this game’s bitch.  Eldore: Alright. If they’re in the desert, there’s only one place they could be heading: the town of Albana. Eldore: Right here. Orren: Oh gods, not the toads. Anything but the toads! Eldore: I’ve heard that the Cataclysm unearthed some ancient ruins near there. Perhaps that’s what they’re after? Yulie: If we’re going to Albana then we’ll have to pass through the Nordia Tunnels, and cross the Lagnish Desert. Of course we already know this, but once again she’s repeating the obvious because Leonard has forgotten about it. Because Leonard is of inadequate intelligence.  Eldore: Indeed, but tonight we sleep. We’ll enter the tunnels first thing tomorrow. Good night. Everyone nods and heads off to bed.      Everyone except for Leonard. Leonard: Cisna…Take a shot.  Leonard: Be safe.Not much she can really do about that one, buddy.   And so we close this chapter on a shot of the starry sky above. So let’s recap Leonard’s acts of ‘heroism’ so far, shall we? In 6 LP chapters and 4 gameplay hours he has: ● Failed to make an otherwise routine wine delivery on time. ● Failed to corral one drunk wagoneer into the driver’s seat of said wagon in under 4 hours. ● Had to kill a troll unnecessarily because he took too long delivering the wine and inadvertently lured said troll right to the wine wagon. ● Snuck into the royal birthday party for no reason and then spent the rest of the event stalking Cisna. ● Failed to intervene in time to save King Valtos from assassination. ● Led Cisna into a dead-end vault as a ‘rescue,’ instead of to safety outside the castle. ● Assumed control over the White Knight and did more damage to Balandor Castle trying to save it than Pyredaemos itself did trying to destroy it. ● Failed to protect Princess Cisna from kidnapping when she was like ten meters behind him. ● Failed to rescue Princess Cisna from the Magi immediately by forgetting how to transform into the White Knight and just watching them fly off with her instead. ● Drove an otherwise innocent creature insane with rage simply by being in its presence and then murdered it in a flash of misguided bravado. And we haven’t even hit the point in the game where I honestly started to hate Leonard as a character the first time I played through it. It gets worse.  So the kid was a walking deathtrap, what else was new? I honestly felt kind of sorry for him after that whole Ahwahnee thing, but when I asked him about the next morning he honestly did not know what I was talking about. So I hit him and headed down into the tunnels after Eldore and Yulie, thinking how appropriate a metaphor for my life this was: a descent into a dark, frigid hole filled with spiders. 
 GREYDALL PLAIN 
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2014 11:06
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 Oh my god, we still have more bloody gameplay to cover? I thought I said the game was “complete?” Christ.  Welcome to Greydall Plain, my lovelies. Just like Balastor Plain, it’s dull and samey. All you need to do for this part is run from one end of the map to the other to get to the boss fight with Ahwahnee and the Nordia Tunnels. As you’ll see on the map, Greydall Plain is a somewhat open area, so we’re back to ripping off Final Fantasy XII rather than Final Fantasy XIII.  The big change to things however (aside from having the White Knight at our disposal) is that we’ve got a new party member: Eldore.  You can also see that the third option in the Combat Setup sub-menu, which used to be ? ? ?, has been replaced with ‘Equip Incorruptus.’ It’s grayed out for everyone but Leonard, for obvious reasons, he’s the only one with a Knight.  So here’s Eldore’s equipment loadout. Again, I’m playing him as close to ‘canon’ as I can, so he’s got the outfit he entered the Plot with equipped and a two-handed longsword, because that’s what he has equipped if you start the second game fresh. Plus I love the fact that, 1) the middle-aged man wields the giant zweihänder, and 2) the sword clips right through his cape. …It’s almost like Level-5 either just didn’t care or were too incompetent to find a workaround or something. Zounds!  Case in point. Stay gold Level-5. Also note how Eldore’s cloak looks like it has a hood on it. For all the boundless equipment choices (or illusions of choices if you can’t be asked to put the time in to grind away at unlocking everything) you don’t get the option of hoods for you characters, which I find kind of sad. One last thing: this was the outfit—cloak and all—that Eldore was wearing under his suspicious old man robe, which also had a hood on it. Yo dawg…  The other addition to our party, in a manner of speaking, is the White Knight itself. The ‘Equip Incorruptus’ option, molded here by Leonard, is only available in towns, on the World Map, or at Logic Stones.  Clicking it opens up this screen where we get to see the White Knight’s equipment options are sort of like we can see on the human characters’ equipment page. But Knight equipment is somewhat different from human equipment. For starters, a Knight must always have a weapon equipped. Whereas you can de-equip a character’s weaponry and have them just be absolutely useless in battle because of all the things Level-5 ripped off from other JRPG developers, they didn’t rip off the ‘barefisted monk’ trope. The White Knight, for example has two weapon slots, one for a sword and the other for a shield. It also has room for a potential 8 additional pieces of equipment: a defense-boosting ‘armor’ called Relic Arts, and any combination of various other stat-augmenting accessories. Some of these things you will stumble across in the game, the rest you will need to bind at an Incorruptus Workshop. More on that coming soon.  Clicking on each slot opens up a sub-menu that shows off all the equipable parts for this section of the Incorruptus. The middle right panel that appears shows off the abilities of each different Incorruptus weapon. The key stats to pay attention to are in the upper left hand corner: Core Level and Artifact Points. Core Level is essentially how strong the Knight is, while Artifact Points or AP limit what you can equip on the Knight, as every weapon, Relic Arts, and accessory has a certain AP value attached to it. Whitesteel, for instance, has 1 AP, so it takes up 1 of the White Knight’s available 5 AP, meaning we’ve got 4 AP of wiggle room to equip any combination of other accessories so long as they add up to or are under 4 AP. The Core Level and AP’s stat growth are linked together and can only be raised at an Incorruptus Workshop. And as you can imagine, boosting the Core Level raises the Knight’s stats, and gaining more AP gives you more space to equip more and stronger accessories. Also note those status ailment defence stats: Incorrupti can’t be poisoned, paralyzed, put to sleep or silenced.  So speaking of the Incorruptus Workshop, hey, Harvey’s finally open for business now. How convenient now that we suddenly have an Incorruptus for him to do some work on. Fun fact: Incorruptus Workshops doesn't exist in the original version of the first game. The shopkeeper characters like Harvey simply do not exist period in the original version. Also note the maps on the table and hanging from the ceiling. The bottom one shows the entire map of Nadias which, not even the full World Map screen shows off, and the top one was the scrapped pre-production world map.  How the even gently caress? This is what I was hinting at earlier. How the hell does this even exist? Incorrupti were all but a rumour until the other night. The White Knight was a Balandor state secret. Sarvain explicitly said the best and brightest minds from all over Balandor wasted an entire decade reverse engineering it and they weren’t able to learn anything more about it than what was already written about it in some random old book. …And yet this guy is running a ‘state-of-the-art’ Incorruptus maintenance facility. HOW?! What’s more, we walked in here and saw him setting up shop before the Magi attack. He was anticipating there being a market for Incorruptus repairpeople in the near future. And what’s more, he’s not the only person who does this in the game. There’s a whole goddamn guild of them, at least one in every town save for Parma because Parma’s a backwater shithole, but the point remains. I mean, urgh. You couldn’t have come up with a better way to handwave a key aspect of gameplay, Level-5? This game makes my critical thinking skills hurt.  Anyway, gently caress it. Let’s explore the Incorruptus Workshop. We’ve got two options available to us: Bind Artifact and Enhance Core Unit. The two grayed out ? ? ? options pertain to the Arc Knight, which we don’t get until the end of game 2.  So in the binding screen you’ve got In fact we shouldn’t even be able to bind Knight weaponry yet, but again that’s all DLC so it gets blurred. Sorry if it’s obnoxious. Only the Relic Arts is actually available for binding at this point in the game. Everything else is DLC Arc Knight armor pieces. Yes, I was one of those desperate rubes I mocked in my ‘Level-5 is a scummy, soulless whore of a company’ rant.  No blurring on this page at least. Also you can see above the item requirements needed to create each individual item. The item requirements for most Knight items go from infuriatingly ridiculous to pants-on-head insane in terms of what you need to do to get them, the higher up the hierarchy we go.  So the other option we have is the Enhance Core Unit option. You can see the AP growth for the White Knight just going from Level 1 to 2.  And just like everything else in this game there are stupid requirements preventing you from leveling up right away. To go from lv. 1 to 2 you need two Chromium Pearl lv. 2s and two Guardian Pearl lv. 2s in addition to 2000 gold. And the difficulty spikes like mad after you clear the first little bit. Okay, back to the actual combat.  For the sake of showing more stuff off in this post, I’m putting Eldore in the driver’s seat… because he’s a marginally better leader than Leonard.  So here’s what combat as a longsword wielder looks like. As you can see, it looks more-or-less like EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS GAME! I did some ‘power levelling’ to so we have some more skills than normal. Longswords have fire and ice attribute physical attacks.  This is Icy Fang, for instance.  As you can tell by the icon and the name, it’s a slash attack with an ice elemental attribute.  So of course, I use it on a Kibble, which is weak against neither slash attacks nor ice attacks. Brilliant, crow, absolutely brilliant. Also note how the longsword is slower than the short sword, but has a faster cooldown time than the axe/hammer.  In addition to the Polkans, Kibbles, and Vespids we’ve already seen, Greydall Plain has four new enemy types (technically three, honestly), and you can see one-and-a-half of them in this picture. This one is the Fatal Flower. They’re plants that shuffle around and spit stuff at you, occasionally inflicting status effects. They’re weak against slashing attacks. The other enemy you can see off to the side is our old friend the troll. More on those in a moment.  Here’s a better shot of both of them. So like I said in a few chapters ago, from now on we’ll be encountering giant sized enemies in fields. Giant enemies can mostly optional. If you know their weaknesses and have everyone set to Heal First, you can easily take down giant enemies after some attrition… early on. Again though, like I said, the game has a horrific difficulty curve so giant enemies get insanely hard to beat the further into the game you go. You can, however, outrun them rather easily. They’re incredibly aggressive, but not particularly persistent.  So having giant enemies on the field now lets me show off how Knight combat plays in the game… even you already saw everything in the Pyredaemos boss fight. That strange circle in the bottom left corner over the Command Bar that was previously blank now, for Leonard at least, has the Yshrenian seal in the middle of it, as well as the Triangle bottom command ‘Transform.’ Transforming into a Knight requires 7 AC, so you need to wail on enemies and take damage until you accumulate enough AC to transform.  When you make it to 7 AC, the seal lights up teal and the Transform command also lights up, letting you know you can transform into the Knight at your leisure. Later in the game as the characters gain more AC, you’ll unlock various transformation levels. Level 2 is 10 AC, and the seal turns green, and level 3 is the full 15 AC you eventually gain and the seal turns orange. If you take the time to build up your AC and transform at levels 2 or 3, supposedly the Knight receives some sort of stat boost for the duration of the battle. I never honestly noticed one way or another, so again, great job on that one Level-5.  Here's another "OG game 1" fun fact: in the original version of the game, Knight power levels actually matter. You can see in this version of the White Knight's various skills that certain skills are colour coded to the three Knight power levels. The more AC you transform with in the original version of game 1, the more attacks the Knights can use in combat. But because the enhanced remake of game 1 on the White Knight Chronicles II disc has more than three Knight swords for you to use with a wider array of abilities, it kind of renders the power level attack unlock mechanic utterly useless. So Level-5 just left it in there as a vaguely functional vestige rather than just dummy it out of the remake. Because, “eh, gently caress it  ,” that's why. So you’ve got two options for transforming into the Knight. Either press the Triangle hot key, or scroll through the command bar to get down to the special Transform option on line 4. Hmmm, press one button instantly. Or take 10 seconds to press multiple buttons. Choices. The Triangle shortcut was added to the remake in the name of speeding combat up a little more. The original version of game 1 only had the transform command on the fourth rung of the command bar. After selecting Transform, a bunch of blue rings and sparkly energy flow around Leonard (which also doesn't appear in the original version of the game) as he recites the White Knight’s transformation incantation, “O Wizel, white warrior, wielder of the ancient sword, grant me your power…” And just like preforming magic in this game, Leonard has to come to a complete stop to do the transformation sequence. That means he can’t move, can’t cancel the sequence on his own, and can’t attack or defend while he pauses for 20 seconds and says the words. He can also be damaged and killed during this period until the incantation is complete. Giant enemies or enemies with attacks the game deems ‘powerful’ can also knock Leonard off balance and interrupt the transformation, costing you your AC in addition to severely weakening you. And if you think that’s kind of lovely of it, then gird yourselves, because the game is just beginning to unveil its seething contempt for you, the player.  After running through the whole verse, eventually you get a quick cutscene of Leonard shouting “VERTO!”  Unlike the first time, however, you don’t get the elaborate Sailor Moon/Kamen Raider/Digimon Frontier/[Your Favourite Henshin Hero Show Here]-style transformation sequence. Leonard does a thing and the Knight appears behind him doing the thing in unison, and the game cuts back to the battlefield with the Knight in Leonard’s place now. …If you have the transformation cutscene on, that is. You can turn it off in the settings, and instead when Leonard says ‘Verto,’ he’s engulfed in a pillar of light and replaced by the Knight instantly. This is also how Knight transformation works online with the Arc Knight, or rather how it worked when GeoNet was still online. The Arc Knight has its own quasi-transformation sequence though, but we’ll cover that in due time.   Okay, let’s (try to) kick some rear end. Also of note: the White Knight’s theme overrides the standard battle music for as long as the Knight is on the battlefield, so you get to feel all badass and heroic while doing relatively nothing of the sort.  So this is it. This right here is the game’s alleged selling point: the ability to confront giant enemies and then level the playing field on them by whipping out a similarly sized Knight and going to town on them while the rest of your party acts all tiny and pathetic and poo poo. Unfortunately the Knight doesn’t play with kind of weight and gravity you would expect a 20 foot tall walking suit of magical armor with astounding physical power to have. It’s also hemmed in by the same invisible walls as the human characters are in when really all barriers should be broken at this point because you’re controlling an indestructible flying brick of force, mass, and acceleration. But again, incompetent gameplay design wins the day here.  You can see here just for size comparison, the tiny specs that are Yulie and Eldore there in the background on the bridge compared to the Knight and the troll. We can also now attack the troll’s upper body now that we’re on an even footing with it. Standard fare for giant enemies and Knight combat is the higher up their body you target, the more damage your attacks do. For instance, belly blows do more damage than leg blows, and head shots do nearly 1.5x the damage of belly shots. So to beat a troll using the White Knight, Leonard will stab it repeatedly right in its face. Because Leonard is a ‘hero.’  Here’s that principle in action. Leonard plows Whitesteel clean through the troll’s torso for 56 damage…  And then drills it through the troll’s head for 64 damage. I should also point out that the MP bar that’s replace the AC bar over the Command Bar. The MP bar will slowly and constantly diminish in any battle that isn’t a plot boss battle. It’s a countdown timer for how long you have left in Knight mode and will diminish even if you just stand there and do nothing. Standard attacks like Slash and Thrust don’t use MP per se, but in the time it takes you to complete them you will guaranteed lose at least two or three MP anyway. Stronger attacks like Sonic Blade or magical abilities like Healer’s Soul take up more MP. So there is some strategy involved in Knight combat where you have to manage doing more damage per turn or even healing at times vs. just staying in the fight for as long as possible. The upshot to this is that regular items and skills work just as well on the Knight as they do human characters, so you can buff it with support spells, clear status ailments from it, and heal it with Divine Magic skills or healing items, and even replenish its MP with Mana Potions to keep it in the fight for longer... although we don’t have steady access to Mana Potions at this point in the game, so you’re limited to what you’ve got in the here and now. One last thing of import in the above image: the troll is on its knees right now because in the time between these attacks, I Turn Broke it and then Yulie broke its leg with a well-placed arrow shot in what I can only imagine was some kind of lucky fluke because I refuse to believe the AI is smart enough to properly capitalize on an enemy weakness like that. The AI just doesn’t do that. At all.  And to prove that, I’m going to hop into control over Eldore right now to get some outside perspective on Knight combat.  Again, credit where it’s due, the game does scale very well. We’re still trying to get believability out of beta though. Eldore barely comes up to either of these titans’ knees, and yet he’s in the fray mixing it up and in serious danger of being crushed to death in the melee between them… or he would be if this game had even a modicum of realism to it.  And behold, the game’s dumb AI in action. The troll is weak to stabbing attacks. It always has been weak to stabbing attacks. It always will be weak to stabbing attacks. I’ve been using stabbing attacks on it while controlling Leonard for the whole fight. So what does the AI start using the second I relinquish control over Leonard? Slashing attacks. Which the troll is strong against and do nearly a quarter the damage. And it keeps using slashing attacks for the rest of the battle. To call this game’s AI stupid is an insult to legitimately unintelligent people.  So with the troll defeated (by Eldore now that AI-Leonard went all derpy), the White Knight crouches down and dissipates into that funky orange energy we saw in Chapter IV.  Leonard is left in its place with 0 MP now.  The upshot is that when you’re not in combat, your HP and MP will steadily replenish themselves, albeit slowly. You can speed it along, however by making use to two particular emotes…  If you select the ‘Pray’ option…  Your party leader will knee down and start miming like they’re praying. And notice from the previous image Leonard’s MP spiked from 6 to 12 the second he knelt down. Praying causes your entire party’s MP to recharge stupid fast. The other useful emote option is ‘Sit.’ Sitting works the same way but for HP instead of MP. If you sit down for like 10 or 20 seconds, your party’s HP will recharge super fast allowing you to get back up and at ‘em without using healing items or MP for healing spells. Just two little nifty things aspects that the game doesn’t even bother explaining or pointing out to you. I discovered them on my own back when the multiplayer was still online by observing other players. Leave it to Level-5 to bury the lead on actual useful gameplay elements in an adventure game.  So skipping ahead some, these are one of the other new enemy types we’ll be encountering from here out in the game: boars. These are the third shittiest common enemies in the game after Vespids and the drat fish that start showing up in the second game. They’re not particularly strong, but they are annoying. They’re incredibly aggressive, fast and have a wide field of view, so they will pursue you if you choose to run from one that’s tweaked on to you, but unlike the Vespids, they can eventually be outran. They’re weak to slashing attacks. The only other notable thing about them is that the different types of boars we’ll be encountering in various areas are more than just pallet swaps like most of the other enemies are. There are some actual design variations between different species while still maintaining the same body type and strengths/weaknesses. Only two other enemy types do that: spiders and elementals. Hey, Level-5 had to hit that button eventually, right? The last new enemy we encounter is the Treant, aka the Dungeons & Dragons public domain version of Ents. These guys are walking trees held together by some sort of blue gelatinous material in their joints. Kind of cool, all told.  Being made of wood, they’re weak against fire and slashing attacks, so Leonard’s Flame Slash is the perfect attack for whittling these guys down. Hah. Whittling.   Here’s a better shot of the whole thing, including its creepy Heart Tree face.  One last thing about treants: they, as well as golems turn yellow when get become enraged as opposed to red like every other giant enemy. I have no idea why, because at times they also turn red. I don’t know what the significance of the yellow is, nor do I honestly care.  Also, for whatever reason, treants have penis-beards. More unintended sexual imagery from a game that doesn’t even have kissing in it. Sorry if I ruined Leonard and Cisna’s non-relationship for anyone.  And now a derail about the Crystal Camera we had to go out of our way to pick up this chapter. Because I guess this is technically still a thing in this game. Pressing the Select button on the DualShock3 opens up the submenu, and you can see now that the Crystal Camera option has been shoehorned into the panel we originally saw in the Chapter II gameplay update.  Selecting it brings up the camera reticule. Whichever character you were playing as at that moment disappears and the camera starts off pointing in whatever direction the in-game camera was pointing.  You can allegedly take screen shots of the game using the Crystal Camera. Though you were often very limited with the angles you could get on things. Here, for example is a very Level-5 appropriate -y angle on Yulie and Eldore. Eldore: Niles, what the bloody hell are you doing? Orren: Ya ever hear of Instagram, old fart? Yulie: Ooo! Use the sepia filter! Pressing the R1 button snaps the picture and you get this camera iris effect for a second.  You're also permitted the briefest glimpse at what the "finished" photo looks like before the Camera UI reappears on screen.  Pressing the Triangle button brings up the catalog of every photo you've taken with the Crystal Camera on that particular save file. And you can't view them in any size larger than what they appear at in the preview window. So there's that. From this screen you could (in theory) share your photos with your guild or your online mode friends list or whatever. It literally was a low-effort in-game Instagram. It really, REALLY kind of sucked.  Pressing the R3 button flips the camera around to the selfie angle. The interesting thing with this mechanic was that the character you’d be using the camera with would suddenly be pointed in whatever direction the camera viewfinder was facing when you made the transition, rather than the original direction they were facing when you first entered the camera mode. Because , that’s why. Pressing the Select button a second time in Crystal Camera mode opens up the Emotes submenu.  This would allow you to pose your characters in various ways to try and make screenshots more interesting. Basically, everything extra-canonical I have done or will do for this LP was almost entirely done in-engine with the Crystal Camera (and a bit of Photoshop  ).It's actually easier to get screenshots for the game without using the camera, or at least without using it as it’s intended to be used, anyway. If you press the Triangle button and bring up the photo album screen and then rapidly close it, you’ve got about a 1 second window where you’ll have a more-or-less clean screen to grab an image off of. Combining this with in-engine animations gets a little tricky some times, but it works rather decently for grabbing headshots of characters who don’t otherwise get decent angles in cutscenes to use instead.  Leonard: Hey, Orren, can I gave it a try now? Orren: Sure, I’d love to see what Rapacci does to you when you break it. Knock yourself out… literally. Orren: Okay, this is boring, let’s do something else. Also, because screw transitions, the Adventurer’s Guild is open now too.  There are four options to the AG menu: Buy, Hunt Bounties, Dahlia Exchange and Sell.  In terms of Buy, the only things you can buy from the Guild is quest contracts. Quests are timed missions done with the Avatar as the party leader which comprised the online section of the game. I’ll be posting a video of the quest highlighted here, Brave Litton’s Plight. I dare you to sit through the whole thing. In this instance, Brave Litton’s Plight is grayed out because I’d already bought it by this point in the footage capture process.  The Hunt Bounties option allows you to pick up contracts to hunt down and kill specific enemies for various loot and monetary rewards. Again, if you’ve played Final Fantasy XII for more than two hours, you should know what this is all about.  Selecting a contract opens up this screen telling you all you need to know about each particular mark and what you’ll get from clearing it.    The last option of note is the Dahlia Exchange.  Dahlia is the special currency you earn from completing quests. You can exchange it here for specific special items like powerful items ahead of where you normally get them in-game and unique weapons, armor and accessories.    Ta da. By and large, the Dahlia Exchange is analogous to an arcade or carnival prize exchange booth. The amount of Dahlia you earn per quest is often piddly, like 5 or 10 D per half-hour quest and as you can see, a lot of stuff here (particularly the useful or interesting looking stuff) is in the hundred or thousand or even ten thousand Dahlia range at the upper extremes. It’s just another example of how the game is structurally designed to suck your life away from you through its failed MMORPG element.  But enough about World of FailCraft, let’s go out there and track down those bounties we picked up.  So Popo and Toto were on Balastor Plain. Going to the World Map and opening up Balastor Plain’s page brings up this list options now. You can either go right into Balastor plain proper or you can select one of the quests that take place in Balastor Plain (that you have access to, remember). Quests with big red !s in front of them are new or not-yet-attempted quests. Quests with yellow-ish orbs in front of their names are regular quests. Most areas come with at least one default quest for you to play through without having to buy a contract for, such as Boot Camp for Balastor Plain and Boot Camp II, which is a more-or-less identical quest only with stronger monsters/bosses, the occasional additional completion requirement, and a beefed up reward. Quests with blue orbs in front of their name such as King of the Polkans there are DLC quests. Unlike about 99.9% of the other DLC for this game, when D3 put out the 1.01 patch for White Knight Chronicles II, it included a whole swath of additional quests which were actually proven to be unlocks for on-disc DLC they didn’t get around to completing before going to print with the game. Because not even the people who localized it gave a poo poo about it by the time they were done with it.  So here’s an example of a quest page. It show’s you a synopsis of either what the quest wants you to do or some background on the situation pertaining to the quest, what you need to do to complete it, how much time you have to complete it, any restrictions that are on the quest, and of course, ways to fail at completing the quest. Thanks for reinforcing my thesis, White Knight Chronicles!  The second page gives you additional info like the size of an online party you can bring with you and whether or not you can use the Arc Knight in the quest, and stats for the quest once you’ve completed it. You could only use the Arc Knight in quests from White Knight Chronicles II, FYI. Anyway…  If you open the map on whatever field your marks are in and scroll through it, you’ll eventually find a big red circled exclamation point somewhere on the map. Run there and kill whatever you find.  Again, credit where it’s due. Bounty enemies are usually unique versions of enemies encounter at various points in the game. Popo and Toto here are a unique Polkan and Kibble, respectively.  When you kill both of them, an update appears on the Live Log proclaiming the bounty is complete. And no, I did not whip out the White Knight to kill a goddamn palletswapped Polkan, there was a Treant just off camera behind me in the previous screenshot so I used the Knight to kill it, then wasted Toto and Popo. And then I lured a Vespid into following me across Balastor Plain so I could keep the White Knight active and then ran back to Balandor Castletown gate using the Knight to cover the distance in like 20 seconds as opposed to 3 minutes on foot. Like a boss.  …The only problem is the camera is locked onto the Vespid the whole time with no way to change it, so you’re essentially running blind with the camera stuck looking backwards and tend to run into an invisible wall every ten steps.  This also presents another oprotunity to point out where the game is inferior to Xenoblade Chronicles in terms of similar gameplay mechanics which play vastly different. In Xenoblade often times the second you completed an errand for someone out on the field or killed a bounty monster or fulfilled a quest, it was wrapped up right then and there with you getting your reward instantly. In White Knight Chronicles you have to hoof it back to the nearest Adventurer’s Guild and manual report the bounty completed before you get your reward and you’re free pick up another bounty contract. And here’s no fast-travel system in this game like in Xenoblade. The closes you get it maybe going to a Logic Stone and exiting to the World Map and then entering a town and then running whatever distance it takes to get to the Adventurer’s Guild.  It’s goddamn tedious.    So reporting the bounty complete gets us 10 Heal Potions and 5 Mana Potions as well as 150G and 250 EXP. We also get something called Guild Points which correspond to that little GR 1 up in the upper right, but I will cover the whole Guild Rank thing later on.  Yay, results screens.   Completed bounties are denoted by a red stamp mark next to them. Unlike Quests they cannot be repeated once they are closed out, so you can’t farm them for EXP or money. Not that you would honestly care to, anyway…  Aaaaaand in the interest of full disclosure: the first time I took on Ahwahnee, it completely ruined me. I got a little arrogant and was appropriately humiliated by dying to essentially a giant albino Chu-Chu with dental problems. gently caress you, White Knight Chronicles.  So here’s what the game over screen looks like.  If you die, the game lets you return to the nearest Logic Stone to where you died after taking a hit to your EXP. You can actually lose whole levels through this if you die and restart enough times. gently caress this game.  But that’s a rather dour note to end this part on. So here’s a precious moment between Leonard and a Kibble. It’s cute because they’re on roughly the same intellectual level as living beings.  INFOGRAPHICS! Chapter 4 leftovers       Chapter 6                      
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2014 11:07
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nine-gear crow posted:Praying causes your entire party’s MP to recharge stupid fast. what God drat it, I went through these games using nothing but normal attacks and the odd combo, for fear I'd use up too much of my MP and be screwed for healing. Especially when the dungeons started getting to be way too long.
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Jan 29, 2014 12:58
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I'm not going to say anything, and it's ONMI drat IT! If you're going to be mad at least get my name right... I was just going to say I think the Crystal Camera is a throwback to Dark Cloud 2, where you used it to snap pictures of enemies and bosses and I believe environment and then you could use those to craft new items and such. AKA actually fulfilling a gameplay purpose and giving you a fun thing to do like try to capture different attacks and such. Also I swear they added the transform-with-triangle AND the Incorruptus shop in WKC2, because I have the base game, and I swear to god neither of those existed in the base game! Also Pray/Sit restores HP/MP... I just... I... The gently caress?! Last thing, I'm fairly certain Eldore's constant stoppage is because he's an "Elder" so it's an old pun, and it makes me want to shoot myself. Also yeah, gently caress the frogs.
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Jan 29, 2014 13:39
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Onmi posted:I'm not going to say anything, and it's ONMI drat IT! If you're going to be mad at least get my name right... Huh, so it is. To be honest, I've been reading your name as "Omni" too. The "n" and the "m" keep getting mixed up in my head, methinks. On another note, the areas in the game thusfar have made me pine for the level design of Xenoblade Chronicles. With names like Balandor and Greydall (BLAND-or and Grey'n'dull), it's not surprising that the content is mostly empty and lifeless. Thusfar, we haven't had any breathtaking sights, such as those in Xenoblade's Valak Mountains and Sartorl Swamps. The exploration videos should help make that fact apparent. And I'm sorry if I keep bringing up other games to compare WKC against, but it's the sort of game that invites such comparisons thanks to the many similarities it shares with other, better games.
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Jan 29, 2014 18:39
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Blind Sally posted:Huh, so it is. To be honest, I've been reading your name as "Omni" too. The "n" and the "m" keep getting mixed up in my head, methinks. Oh it doesn't bug me that much, it's my fault for choosing a nonsense word for a name when it's literally a letter swap from an actual word. And yeah I wouldn't even call the environments in this game "Bad" because I've seen bad environments they're just... Dull? Lifeless? Like there's nothing wrong with them technically at the same time there's nothing right with them. I could not honestly recall any except the Leonard Solo part and... That One Dungeon.
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Jan 29, 2014 18:46
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I want to know the logic behind "EXP loss as punishment for death in MMOs" The man who thought it up, and it is almost certainly a man, has a cold, black heart.
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Jan 29, 2014 20:06
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Onmi posted:Like there's nothing wrong with them technically at the same time there's nothing right with them. Ha, this is the most succinct and best description of the environments I've seen yet.
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Jan 29, 2014 20:09
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Onmi posted:Also I swear they added the transform-with-triangle AND the Incorruptus shop in WKC2, because I have the base game, and I swear to god neither of those existed in the base game! Also Pray/Sit restores HP/MP... I just... I... The gently caress?! I'm going to be honest, I only played up to the title screen of game 1, so I can't really recall how it plays compared to game 2's enhanced remake. I traded game 1 in to get like $5 off game 2 and just played through that back-to-front. Still, good on Level-5 for implementing a marginal improvement between games.
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Jan 29, 2014 21:44
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Woah, I just learned all sorts of new things. Pray/Sit heal you faster? Ugh why don't they mention this anywhere? Would have been nice to know before I quit playing this horrible game. Never realized you could "upgrade" you knight as well. I think I got about halfway through the game and never once used that option. Maybe that's why the game got so difficult? And I'm laughing at your hatred for the main character. While at this point in my playthrough I was still naively enjoying the game and "trying" to ignore the giant plotholes and character stupidity. It just gets so terrible later in the game that I totally understand why you feel that way. Hurry up and update more so I can start seeing some new stuff.
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Jan 29, 2014 22:07
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Hey, I liked the frog dudes, what's the matter with them? Mind you, it's been a long timw since I played this, perhaps there's something obnoxious I'm forgetting. Forgot about those Bigelows. Of course when they mentioned they worked in pairs I remembered that the other one was pink. They must say "Yshrenia" a lot in this and the sequel, as soon as I saw it I remembered the pronunciation.The main advantage of the Knight really seems to be being able to reach high up bits so you can hit the enemy in the head or more bizarre vital organs. May as well go running around with a load of ladders, you'd get the same effect pretty much. Also this cave sucks. Or maybe it's another cave. gently caress, all the caves in this game are terrible. Oh, there's so many of them now I think about it.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:32
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fullTimeLurker posted:And I'm laughing at your hatred for the main character. While at this point in my playthrough I was still naively enjoying the game and "trying" to ignore the giant plotholes and character stupidity. It just gets so terrible later in the game that I totally understand why you feel that way. Hurry up and update more so I can start seeing some new stuff. I'm laughing too. I think it's hilarious. I'll also never tire of pointing out that this will be the third time Crow has played this game front-to-back. Willingly, that is. He's not under duress. That is a free choice that he has made.
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Jan 30, 2014 00:31
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Blind Sally posted:I'm laughing too. I think it's hilarious. I'll also never tire of pointing out that this will be the third time Crow has played this game front-to-back. Willingly, that is. He's not under duress. That is a free choice that he has made. Are you sure it's not out of some twisted desire to get all his money's worth from all that DLC he apparently bought? Seems to me that someone spend a lot of money and they're trying to convince themselves it was well worth it! 
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Jan 30, 2014 02:47
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Well, the knight customization certainly opened up in 2. In 1 you got, aside from default equipment, a total of like 10 pieces of equipment through the entire game that came in knight size, and that's including a couple pieces of plot equipment. 6 of those were accesory analogues that all had their own individual slots, and there was no point in ever removing them since there were no alternates. Also, IIRC, quests were Avatar only, offline or online, so hope you didn't want to use your (possibly static statwise) knights outside the story.
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Jan 30, 2014 03:02
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quote:Does this thing remind anyone else of really racist Asian caricatures? I'm thinking things like Danger Mouse in China or anti-Japanese propaganda. It's the weirdly toothy grin, the really thin eyes, and the black whiskers, I think. They just look so much like  that it's all I can think of when I see them. I mean, even the nose is uncanny. Which makes me wonder why they designed it that way. Was it just a coincidence? I'm not giving the writing any credit here, because as crow pointed out this encounter is basically meaningless, but it struck me while I was playing the first time and struck me again here, so...what the hell?
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Jan 30, 2014 05:19
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Oh, no. How could they get the camera so right in Dark Cloud 2 but utterly drop the ball with it in this game? I got excited seeing the Crystal Camera, but it sounds like this thing's going to be more useless than the camera in Eternal Sonata. At least the camera in ES was a fountain of easy cash despite being pointless in every other aspect. I'm reminded more and more of Eragon too. This weird obsession with a Princess the guy has barely/never interacted with. At least in Star Wars, which both have apparently ripped off now, Luke had excuses. He was already on the run from the Empire, he wasn't aware of where Princess Leia was until he was trapped in the Death Star, and there were important battle plans to deliver. In Eragon I think the guy started having visions of the princess being held in a fortress and decided to rescue her willy-nilly despite he and his dragon being far, far more important. In White Knight this guy's obsessing over the girl who smiled at him once ten years ago and hasn't spoken to him since. Yes she's the kingdom princess but this is coming off as rather stalkerish. I won't be surprised if he gets Eldore killing while doing some boneheaded attempt to rescue her. And what is up with the palace sending Leonard to rescue their princess but utterly failing in equipping him? Typically stories in games have some excuse: the party isn't associated with the royalty, the party is a bunch of criminals, etc. But here this is it, this is the main mission but oh we're not going to give you any good gear we're just going to wish you luck. I do like Plot Bird's design, I'm a sucker for nifty critters. But the hologram eyeballs are too much. Akihiro Hino sounds like he desperately needs an editor. There are so many things in this story that need to be tweaked or changed completely. It's like he took the worst elements of several hero fantasy stories and blarfed them into one manuscript.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:31
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Lotish posted:Does this thing remind anyone else of really racist Asian caricatures? I'm thinking things like Danger Mouse in China or anti-Japanese propaganda. It's the weirdly toothy grin, the really thin eyes, and the black whiskers, I think. They just look so much like If that's the case, then this is mindboggling because it's a Japanese game. I will admit I see something grossly anthropomorphic and charicaturized, but I can't really pin down what is being charicaturized.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:32
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nine-gear crow posted:If that's the case, then this is mindboggling because it's a Japanese game. I will admit I see something grossly anthropomorphic and charicaturized, but I can't really pin down what is being charicaturized. Evil clowns? EDIT: Also yeah, in the vanilla WKC 1 you could only do the quests online or Solo. That was as horrific as it sounds, especially as some of these could go up to 20 minutes long.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:38
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Bricoleur posted:And what is up with the palace sending Leonard to rescue their princess but utterly failing in equipping him? Typically stories in games have some excuse: the party isn't associated with the royalty, the party is a bunch of criminals, etc. But here this is it, this is the main mission but oh we're not going to give you any good gear we're just going to wish you luck. In all fairness, dropping this massive quest pertaining to Balandor's survival as a nationstate in Leonard's lap and then kicking him out the door without so much as a "best of luck, dumbass" is perfectly in character for Sarvain. And you are 100% right on all the points you mentioned. There is a perfectly serviceable story and cast of characters at the core of WKC, it's just mishandled to a crippling degree by Hino and his writing staff. Hell, even Leonard, starting from the exact same position he is in at the start of the game has all the potential to be a great heroic character... But he never learns anything, never changes, and never grows. The five most well-rounded characters we encounter by the end of the second game are Yulie, Cisna, and three others who we meet later on (one not until game 2). Leonard is not one of them. He's not even in the top 20. loving Shapur is a more interesting character overall, and all he's done so far is lean against a goddamn wall.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:59
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Hino? Oh... Oh I know who wrote this now. He did direct the Dark Cloud games, which I can only assume means he went loving crazy later. Hino is mostly known to me because of Gundam Age, and if you think White Knight Chronicles has problems HOO BOY. You've never seen or played Gundam Age.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:06
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Onmi posted:Hino? Oh... Oh I know who wrote this now. He did direct the Dark Cloud games, which I can only assume means he went loving crazy later. Hino is mostly known to me because of Gundam Age, and if you think White Knight Chronicles has problems HOO BOY. You've never seen or played Gundam Age. Ah, I love it when a picture of failure and ineptitude comes together. I just googled Gundam AGE, and what do you know, all the criticisms levelled against WKC come up in reviews of GAGE: it's it's got terribly rushed pacing for a 49 episode anime, was ineptly and obtusely written, and had an interesting premise that it failed to actually do anything interesting with, and certain parts of it made one reviewer want to rage quit watching it, even for review purposes. Holy poo poo.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:20
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Blind Sally posted:On another note, the areas in the game thusfar have made me pine for the level design of Xenoblade Chronicles. With names like Balandor and Greydall (BLAND-or and Grey'n'dull), it's not surprising that the content is mostly empty and lifeless. Thusfar, we haven't had any breathtaking sights, such as those in Xenoblade's Valak Mountains and Sartorl Swamps. The exploration videos should help make that fact apparent. One of my major complaints about this game is that you could improve it by cutting most areas in half (which was also true of parts of Rogue Galaxy). They just don't have anything interesting going on to justify the size, it all feels like padding, especially since the combat also often feels samey/repetitive. In Xenoblade areas sometimes are a bit too large to actually explore, but: 1) There is actually different stuff to be found if you do explore, like beautiful secret areas with notable scenery, different minibosses, etc. 2) The large maps actually help with the sense of scale, since you often have high overlooks that let you see all the area... WKC's maps are just all very flat... Like sometimes you have multiple floors, but there really isn't any interesting terrain going on.
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Jan 30, 2014 07:29
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I'm coming in fresh into all of this and honestly, I'm more disappointed with Eldore than Leonard right now. I mean so far Leonard doesn't seem too different from any other reckless, jump before you look, dense JRPG hero like Lloyd Irving and whatnot. Sure he's being a hormonal idiot regarding Cisna, but waaayyyy too many things use "love at first sight" for me to get too worked up over it anymore. Meanwhile the older wiser dude doesn't take the small little detail of warning everyone about the fact that this new mysterious power will cause large angry animals to attack wherever they go. Seriously? That's kinda a big thing to just forget about.
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Jan 30, 2014 08:48
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Arbitrary Coin posted:I'm coming in fresh into all of this and honestly, I'm more disappointed with Eldore than Leonard right now. I mean so far Leonard doesn't seem too different from any other reckless, jump before you look, dense JRPG hero like Lloyd Irving and whatnot. Sure he's being a hormonal idiot regarding Cisna, but waaayyyy too many things use "love at first sight" for me to get too worked up over it anymore. This will not be the last nor by any stretch the biggest "oh, by the way..." moment Eldore gets over the course of these two games. Like I said, the man is Epimetheus Unbound.
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Jan 30, 2014 09:04
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Holy poo poo this game has some painful rear end dialog. They also seem to have given up on foreshadowing and are just blurting out details that will be relevant to the plot later but mean nothing to us now. The scene where Belcitane just starts saying things about what the Princess has done and the resurrection stuff screams "TAKE NOTES IF YOU WANT THINGS TO MAKE SENSE LATER!"
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Jan 30, 2014 15:22
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I played this game to the second to last area before i rage quit for reasons but i never noticed the adventures quests or got to level 35 some how did i do every thing wrong or just some things
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Jan 30, 2014 16:38
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 17:00 |
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nine-gear crow posted:Ah, I love it when a picture of failure and ineptitude comes together. I just googled Gundam AGE, and what do you know, all the criticisms levelled against WKC come up in reviews of GAGE: it's it's got terribly rushed pacing for a 49 episode anime, was ineptly and obtusely written, and had an interesting premise that it failed to actually do anything interesting with, and certain parts of it made one reviewer want to rage quit watching it, even for review purposes. Don't forget that Hino promised the world to Bandai (I think it was like... 5 million copies or something) that the Gundam Age video game would do extremely well if they gave him an Anime. If anything, it was worse than the anime. letmun posted:I played this game to the second to last area before i rage quit for reasons but i never noticed the adventures quests or got to level 35 some how did i do every thing wrong or just some things Which version of the game? I swear that in the vanilla game things like being able to re-spec before level 35 and being able to do quests with your party were not actually included. Ontop of that the game doesn't go out of its way to tell you these quests exist, it just sort of... sits back and assumes that you'll bother exploring the town and finding the guild etc. I don't think the game even tells you about the guild, since that was more tied into GeoNet. Not that these quests are worth doing anyway. You know how in FFXII what was required of a Hunt was taking the contract and then killing the monster, usually by finding them very quickly and then murdering them brutally. Then returning for a reward? Right well unless things changed in WKC2 version of the game, quests are timed (sometimes even an hour minutes, which means they expect you to take that long) where you run back and forth in a field at the SLOWEST PACE POSSIBLE and eventually finally complete the quest. Whereupon you get a mediocre reward. by the way, has it been mentioned how big the loving fields in this game are? because they are HUGE. And not in the FFXII "Hey there's a purpose and sense of exploration and all those other nice things" way. In the "There is a fat load of nothing, have fun trudging through this place." Actually a game I can call a direct antithesis is The Last Remnant, which I would plug shamelessly but this is not the time or place to do so, unless Crow would like a much better game used to draw comparison to WKCs failings. Lazyfire posted:"TAKE NOTES IF YOU WANT THINGS TO MAKE SENSE LATER!" Wishful thinking much? Onmi fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 16:52
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