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So the session skills are... a way of mechanically presenting your party as a a J-Pop Idol group? That's clever, I like it. RandallODim posted:Just, uh, leave your expectations for a hard-hitting examination of the Japanese entertainment industry at the door. It's a bold direction, because as everyone doubtless knows, anime about idol singers are traditionally stealth critiques of regulatory capture in the Japanese health care system.
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# ? Jun 17, 2024 21:23 |
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The worst that Atlus has said about the idol industry is basically the first half of Rise's social link in p4 and that's about it?
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Tae posted:The worst that Atlus has said about the idol industry is basically the first half of Rise's social link in p4 and that's about it? So did you just not play the entirety of Dancing All Night because uh...
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Rangpur posted:No no, see, the demons represent the entertainment industry or possibly the Yakuza sucking the Performa (represents youthful energy and passion) out of their performers, leaving them broken husks (aka NPCs). Your only way of safeguarding against this is bonding with a powerful spirit (talent agent), represented by characters from a separate video game series because that sort of concern for the performer's well-being is foreign to the industry as a whole. I mean yeah I came to that as a potential reading too, but the counterpart is that it paints this as an unnatural outsider intervening in the industry instead of a foundational part of what created it in the first place, as your Unity Spirits are just 'purified' versions of the demons themselves, placing them and their influence as also external, which is possibly worse for eliding the ways that that exploitation is inherent to the systems. Of course, I haven't finished the game myself so maybe it goes harder for that down the line, but I'm more inclined to just approach it as a story about the redemptive and generative potential of sincere artistic passion and expression, versus the pursuit of advancement, prestige or material accumulation, rather than as a broad-reaching industry critique. Apologies if this is excessive talk about larger game ideas for being in the tutorial; I'll delete it right away if it's too much. RandallODim fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Feb 7, 2017 |
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It's a game about jpop, actually
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GeneX posted:It's a game about jpop, actually what about touma akagi, cool stage actor man, huh
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:So are skills like "Lance-Slash" both lance- and sword-elemental, or is it only sword-elemental and the "Lance" part is just saying what triggers it? Yep, and it goes in a chain. So say you have Ikutsuki do a sword attack, Tsubasa would then do sword-lunge. A hypothetical third party member would then pull from a session skill that is triggered by lance attacks, so they would do lance-fire or something to that effect, instead of one triggered by the initial sword attack. So it basically looks like Cleave -->Sword-Lunge--> Lunge-Fire, and so forth.
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So are these chain skills exclusively damage skills, or are there any support/healing chains? Or is that a question better left for later?
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You can't session off support skills, no.
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YggiDee posted:So are these chain skills exclusively damage skills, or are there any support/healing chains? Or is that a question better left for later? The actual links in the chain are always damage skills, but there are a few wrinkles that will be introduced later on that allow for a bit more flexibility. For now, they're purely for the sake of dealing damage.
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Silver Falcon posted:Hey, Chrom is fine. He is far from the worst lord in a series where Roy and Leif exist. Yeah, he's a straight man, but crazy people need a straight man to bounce off. I like Chrom; he's good. He's thoroughly outclassed by his daughter in every respect, but that's not his fault.
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The game seems pretty cool, but (and forgive me if this was covered in the thread already) are there demon conversations as an option? That was always one of my favorite things from SMT games, and especially Nocturne.
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Seeing as how this seems more a Persona game than an SMT game, there's probably going to be social links, and maybe chatting up your Ghost Swords, but not demon conversations.
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ChaosArgate posted:Another point against Roy's favor is how goddamn late his promotion comes, so he's just kind of dead weight once promoted enemies start showing up and he's still a level 20 Lord. Yeah, but that is partially the games fault. Like, at least once he does promote if you take some time to level him he actually does become pretty good thanks to him having possibly the most broken FE main weapon. Basically Ike's Ragnell is a bad Sword of Seals to put this in perspective (SoS has 20 uses, 18 might, 95% hit, 10% crit, 1-2 range, 8 weight, gives +5 to defense and resistance, is effective against Manakete's and can be used as an item to heal for 30). Also you can't say Roy is the worst when Leif exists. Leif's special thing is that he always has pretty garbage stat growths but when promoted has a skill that makes stat up items more effective. So basically he is either bad or, if you save all your stat up items for him, average. Oh, and Roy is one of the top 5 most popular FE characters judging from the FE Heroes poll, so that has to count for something, right? Now on the topic of the actual game at hand. My favorite touch in the character profiles is the characters signature. For some reason that is something that really helps sell the whole performer side of this game to me. The session system is pretty much one of the things that really pulls the combat together in the same way that the Persona One More's and push turn did, but I honestly kinda prefer it because of how it is something you build and customize your party around instead of extra turns. Artix posted:It means he was in Smash brothers, yes. You know who else is at the top of the popularity polls? Ike, Marth, Lucina, and Lyn. Ringing any bells? Marth was actually 6th in the poll on the males side, behind Chrom and Hector (and buff Ike). Also Tharja was above him as well, at 3rd on the female side. Really the placement of everyone aside from Marth (who usually ranks way higher) and Roy (who usually ranks lower) is pretty consistent with general series rankings in Japan what with Ike being the most popular male character (usually by far) and Lucina and Lyn being the most female characters, so I doubt that everyone there is just because of Smash. But yeah I will concede that pretty much all of Roy's popularity comes from his Smash appearances. Black Mage Knight fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Feb 7, 2017 |
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Black Mage Knight posted:Oh, and Roy is one of the top 5 most popular FE characters judging from the FE Heroes poll, so that has to count for something, right? It means he was in Smash brothers, yes. You know who else is at the top of the popularity polls? Ike, Marth, Lucina, and Lyn. Ringing any bells? The only Roy the english speaking world has ever seen is a 7 year old kid at the end of Blazing Sword, and the few who have played his game consider it to be largely mediocre and Roy himself quite bland and forgettable.
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PotatoManJack posted:The game seems pretty cool, but (and forgive me if this was covered in the thread already) are there demon conversations as an option? That was always one of my favorite things from SMT games, and especially Nocturne.
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Sessions look like they could get pretty crazy with a big party.
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Glazius posted:Sessions look like they could get pretty crazy with a big party.
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I'm looking forward to seeing this. I have a wiiu, and wanted to play this, but I have kids who make it difficult to play the wiiu, and who have a tendency to delete saves. Not lying, the whole "idol" thing really put me off too, but so far, not terrible
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This game seems like the inverse of Color Splash to me since the combat looks really good and well thought out, but everything around it seems annoying. I was pretty mad at this game when it was announced as an SMT fan and a Fire Emblem one, but after the Switch presentation there's no longer much need for that.
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FractalSandwich posted:If Itsuki were a woman with Lucina as her Persona, I would be out the door on my way to buy a Wii U faster than you could blink. I hadn't even considered this and now you're making me wish it were a thing, drat you!
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Artix, I know a website that has a list of all the possible skills for every character, as well as every Carnage. Should I link it to you so you can use it to give, like, character analysis or something?
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I'm gonna assume that the forms all come with costumes of their own. The Fire Emblem influence coming in as random stat level-ups feels like some sort of Monkey's paw influenece though.
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What's with the luck stat on the stat screen?
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BrightWing posted:What's with the luck stat on the stat screen? luck in SMT games controls critical hit chance and evading statuses usually, i assume it's similar here
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![]() Boss time. Let's rock and roll. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ???: Itsuki! You okay!? ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Music: End of Chapter Boss ![]() Well, that's certain a bo- ![]() NO! No no no, you hit the spunky teenagers, not... Ugh, okay, whatever. ![]() ![]() At least someone here knows how to make an entrance. (seriously go watch the boss video) ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() So we'll talk about Gojuin in just a second, but first he comes with a pair of Caspars. You'd think that maybe they've been improved a bit for being with the boss, but they still go down to a single Zio session. ![]() Touma's a little more interesting. Again, we'll go into detail with him later, but the short version is Fire and Lances. We've already seen Skewer with Tsubasa, but Fire Strike is the physical equivalent of Agi. ![]() Anyway, it's time to talk about some actual Fire Emblem mechanics. It may be hard to believe, but that huge chunk of metal Gojuin is using is actually considered a sword (and if that wasn't obvious from looks, the game classifies him as a Myrmidon-type enemy, see the little symbol right above his name). In Fire Emblem, there's a concept called the weapon triangle - Axes beat Lances, Lances beat Swords, and Swords beat Axes - and Atlus has very faithfully recreated that in this game. As far as I'm aware, any enemy type that uses an actual weapon is always weak to its corresponding weapon triangle disadvantage, so even though we don't technically know anything about Gojuin here, we know he uses a sword, so... ![]() Bingo. And of course, once we hit a weakness we start going crazy with sessions, so that makes the fight go by even faster. ![]() As far as Gojuin himself, he's mostly content to throw out Cleaves at the party. Both Touma and Tsubasa can take 3 or 4 hits before they bite it (since they use lances, which resist swords), but Itsuki needs to be a little more careful. If you're feeling saucy, you can always toss out a Rakukaja to be a little safer. ![]() ![]() ![]() Somewhere around the 1/2 - 1/3 health mark, Gojuin busts out this little gem. ![]() ![]() Gojuin disappears, and spawns three slimes in his place. Hit the wrong one, and you get hit with a fairly powerful counterattack. But you all are smart boys and girls, and I doubt I need to explain how to tell which one is the right one. ![]() ![]() Just kill the blob that has the dark energy in it, and you'll drag Gojuin's fat rear end back on stage. ![]() That said, note that the other slimes don't go away just because you kill the right one. They're not much of a threat (and they'll disappear when you kill Gojuin), but you should still be aware of them in case you're low on health. ![]() And on that note, let's put this big boy to bed. ![]() A neat little touch is that the game does a pause and instant replay on whatever attack causes the killing blow. You even get a couple different angles on it. ![]() ![]() Nothing too special with Tsubasa or Itsuki here. Since level ups really aren't that important, I'll be skipping them except after bosses or other notable encounters. ![]() Touma is a little more interesting. He is our Cavalier, a generally well-balanced but unexceptional physical unit. The bulk of his skills are in Fire and Lances, and he skews heavily toward physicals over magic. While he's serviceable on defense (honestly, he's probably our hardiest character right now), Touma's gimmick is all about offense and hitting the enemy as hard as possible with a fire stick. Not mentioned here is the fact that he's weak to skills that target cavalry (like Horseslayer), but those are pretty rare out in the wild, and it's probably the easiest special weakness to manage. ![]() ![]() And to round things out, we pick up Tarukaja and Poison Skewer. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() quote:
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() We're given control again, but let's chat with Touma one more time before we head out. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Oh Itsuki, you dense motherfucker. Strap in folks, because they've got a bit with Itsuki and by god they're sticking to it. Anyway, next time it's the end of the prologue. See you then!
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Touma is the best character in this game, because he went whole hog on being a superhero, right down to the secret identity, before the game even began. Also,Touma posted:in situations like this, it's all about the showmanship, know what I mean? He understands that at the end of the day, it's all about looking cool.
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Did you record the actual boss fight? I actually like watching those for SMT games cause they're usually pretty flashy. I imagine in a game like this it would be even more so once people start throwing out medigagalons or what have you.
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Personally I'm hoping to see some Fires of Sinai action eventually. ![]()
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Touma is rad. I wish they gave him Kent instead of Cain, because Kent is a pretty good straightman and it would mean we'd be assured of Sain's presence. And Sain is the best.
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Sadly all of the mirages in this game are from the first Fire Emblem or Awakening (which share a universe I think?) Also I must have gotten lucky with my Touma because he is a loving monster in my playthrough.
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This is an Archanea only safe space thank you. No GBA FE units allowed.
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Kurieg posted:Did you record the actual boss fight? I actually like watching those for SMT games cause they're usually pretty flashy. I imagine in a game like this it would be even more so once people start throwing out medigagalons or what have you. At the time I didn't make a video of it and I was too lazy to go back and do it just for this update. ![]()
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RandallODim posted:Touma is the best character in this game, because he went whole hog on being a superhero, right down to the secret identity, before the game even began. Also, ![]()
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SC Bracer posted:This is an Archanea only safe space thank you. No GBA FE units allowed. Or any home console capable of 3D graphics, for that matter.
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I'm just going to pretend his FireEmblemsona is really Kieran.
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Honestly, Cain is kinda bland in this game, too. Atlus might have been given carte blanche, but they didn't actually do much with it. As far as I am in the game, he's only shown an actual personality like once or twice. Touma is pretty great though. hopeandjoy posted:Or any home console capable of 3D graphics, for that matter.
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Artix posted:At the time I didn't make a video of it and I was too lazy to go back and do it just for this update. It's appreciated, thank you. The game looks absolutely bonkers, particularly them representing a cavalier by a guy riding in on a tokatsu motorcycle for some reason.
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Oh yes, it's all about looking cool. For a second there I thought Touma's mirage was Ryoma. I can't wait to meet the rest of our team. Does this means our villains have performa too?
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# ? Jun 17, 2024 21:23 |
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Technically, everyone has Performa. It's defined in-game as a sort of creative energy that Mirages feed on, and everyone has at least a little bit of it. The crowd in the intro before the first dungeon turned gray and listless because their Performa had been drained by the cloaked Mirages. Performers and entertainers just tend to have a lot more than the average Joe Schmo.
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