RPG Thread: SaGa Emeril Beyond

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Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

I always liked the variety of musical motifs in the Atelier games.

Lydie&Suelle had the time-bending world of Etel Ntepica, with a beautiful somber clockwork soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jhJXptZIjQ
And the Starlight Plain, "Starry Night" style painting where shooting stars cross a night sky like jewels on dark velvet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sEjefoMtq8

Ayesha has some of my favorite tracks, such as its beautiful final boss theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVcc16o0SaY. That theme is also a musical callback, to an earlier piece, Guidance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plMAgGe85Bk, a beautiful, relaxing track.
There's the (funnily-named if you're british) battle track "Slag Dance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuzCyTZJUbE . And Ayesha's atelier theme, Dream Weaving House, always makes feel great synthesizing. Especially with the synthesis woosh at 3m 30s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRp8SesrLHE

Atelier Sophie has great tracks for the town, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGrAEtGhSc. Doesn't that make you want to sip a lovely hot cup of tea, gather your notes, and make some more medicine/bombs/weird alchemy things, to help out the townsfolk?

Ryza 2 has one of my favorite random battle themes. Their topic for the Ryza trilogy was "summer memories" and just the guitar line in the track makes me feel like I'm strolling in the blazing sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euRc88f1ybU

The spinoff, Mana Khemia 2, also had some :black101:

rock boss themes, which have been ported into future games.
Give a listen to Nefertiti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNywPvGlQPA
and Namenloses Licht: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pozPUIwI5VI
This tradition carries forward into Atelier Sophie's final boss theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmJ-e3hA7bA

# ¿ Apr 15, 2021 10:52

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 05:26

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Every RPG where touching an enemy transports you to the Own Zone � should have a ability to instantly skip the fight if you're significantly higher-levelled than the enemy, or at least an option to skip trashmobs
Every RPG should steal that thing from The World Ends With You where you can decrease your own level deliberately, in order to up your drop rate. It makes grinding go faster and rewards challenge.

These have been my favourite RPG mechanics, thank you.

# ¿ May 11, 2021 16:09

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Wait, the re-re-rereleased TWEWY for the Switch? Between that and the RF4 port, I feel like I ought to stock up (before Rune Factory 5 finally comes out later this year. It's been... wow, nine years.)

# ¿ May 14, 2021 09:49

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Endorph posted:

https://twitter.com/ozenswife/status/1395078026581393411/photo/1

also no gay marriage, rip

dangit, I was really looking forward to RF5. Now I'm no longer sure.

# ¿ May 20, 2021 13:10

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Thuryl posted:

I wish Ryza didn't have real-time combat that seems to want me to pay attention to about 3 times as many different things as I can actually focus on

So far it's easy enough that I can just mash A though

If you go insane like I did, you can synthesis chain so many bonuses from mass-produced materials onto weapons and armor, their bonuses are higher than their stats.

Since recipe morph resets how many items you can add, making items from the first weapon /armor in a chain lets you dump more and more materials in. To focus on quality, you can use item rebuild afterwards to increase traits or activate nodes.
Thus:

Lunar Suite fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Jun 13, 2021

# ¿ Jun 13, 2021 08:41

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Rune Factory 4 still rules as the Switch's Special Edition, some its menu design choices are still questionable.
When I press A at the diary, I want to save my game, not go to a yes/no choice whether I want to save my game. I can still quit out of the save screen with B anyway, RF4.

When I go to my cooking tools / forge / chemistry set, I want to craft, not pick them up or (heavens) break them, RF4. Maybe use holding the R button to access the "picking up furniture" menu, which I assume most people do once and then never again?

When I go to my forge, why do I need to select what type of item I want to make, and am then locked in? Either use tabs, like you do for flicking between backback/fridge/storage box, to turn between types of recipe, or give me a button to press that lets me filter. Filters like "is a sword" or "can currently make".

Very minor bits of jank, but they do add up over a playthrough. Here's hoping RF5 will have streamlined the UI a little.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2021 11:34

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Mysticblade posted:

NEO TWEWY on Switch has notable load times before battles and I've seen the occasional frame rate drop in the overworld but that's about it. It runs decently enough for me in docked.

The load times do bother me. I really do wish a decent PC version had dropped, I'd have considered dropping my demo progress and switching to it if it had.

Isn't there an EGS release planned? Still not great, but if it plays badly on switch - which is kinda weird, you'd think they'd quality control that - PC version may be better.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2021 10:33

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Tae posted:

The switch version runs badly because the switch is legit not powerful at all.

I guess I got bamboozled - I played Paper Mario and the Origami King (where series director Naohiko Aoyama continues to piss on RPG mechanics, up to and including giving you a pseudo-partner, then kill them in front of you whilst making you watch) and the water effects in it looked like they just put actual water in the game. It was pretty darn amazing.

e: broken tag

# ¿ Jul 29, 2021 14:55

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Levantine posted:

Onto Ryza! Any tips for that game or is it pretty straight forward?

I posted a little bit about it in the "Before I Play" thread -

Lunar Suite posted:

As with older Atelier games, item quality does affect damage/healing/other. Get quality as high as possible.

The secret to getting quality as high as possible is to stack quality / quality + / quality++ traits and find a synthesis loop. I don�t recall the loops for the first game, but there should be a way to e.g. turn neutraliser into water, and use the water to make neutraliser. By going through this loop you should be able to stack Quality-increasing traits all the way to 999 if needed (or other traits).

Eventually, you�ll be able to make seeds. Materials spawned from seeds have quality of up to 100% the quality of the seed, e.g. you can get 999 quality materials from growing them yourself. This makes getting max quality a lot easier.

The series older system of merging traits has been abandoned in favour of trait levels, e.g. you no longer combine `quality` and `quality +` into `well made`; instead, you stack `quality+` until the number goes high enough. Higher-rank Traits have higher max levels.

Every time you recipe morph, the number of items you can add to the cauldron resets. You can abuse this e.g. by making your weapon from the basic recipe and morphing multiple times. The + Gear Atk effect from each ingot stacks across morphs, and you can add many more ingots than you would by making the item directly.

Speaking of recipe morph, a lot of amazing synthesis helpers with high element values, or even values that spread to neighboring nodes, are discovered through recipe morph. Things like Melting Oil, Amberlite, or later-game synthesis intermediaries like the Spirit Bottle are hidden in there - get them as soon as you can!

You can charge your gathering tools (hold the button) to get all resources from nodes that can take more than one hit (some trees and crystals) at once.

Item duplication comes quite late in this game, abuse Item Rework until then. You can rework items until their level equals your alchemy level, so the more you synth, the more you can update your gear by dropping more materials in, or replace traits with bigger ones.

You can hit select with your cursor over a node or a material to quickly open a reference menu. There, you can see e.g. where to gather materials you lack, or to check whether the trait you�re looking at can actually be used on weapons / armour / healing items.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2021 09:48

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Levantine posted:

Thanks for this. I keep forgetting I can rebuild items. I did make 999 Fibers/Cloth/Supplements but I think I'll wait til I get duplication to really go wild. Another question - what's a good way to make money? And is the best way to fulfil that quest to sell 4000 cole worth or items just to make something with Finest and Expensive and all those traits?

With Ryza switching to ~~luxury gay alchemy communism~~ Cole-independent Item Duplication, I honestly never really used money. You can grow or find better materials than any shop sells; what I tended to do was gather a ton of stuff, sort my inventory first by Quality, then by Quantity (grouping items together in descending quality), and selling anything after the first 10. You'll get 4k faster than you'd think.

e: And you have a little something to look forward to in Ryza 2; you get some truly insane synthesis chains in there.

e2: regarding Item Rebuild, you can activate nodes but can't change Quality any longer. So what I often did was use a bunch of high-quality items (or 999 Quality items) to activate as many nodes as a I could, hit synth, then use lower-quality but Spread Effect or such ingredients to fill in the other nodes and get the effects I want. Very high Quality ingredients you grow from seeds can also get Effects like Spread Effect.

Lunar Suite fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Sep 1, 2021

# ¿ Sep 1, 2021 13:16

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Levantine posted:

I dug into Ryza 2 after beating the first and it's overall such an improvement on the first it's hard to believe it came out as quickly as it did. There were times I thought "this could be better/improved" while playing the first game and the second one immediately answers like, all of them. You get to your first battle so quickly (I guess) in an effort to show off how much smoother and better integrated all your skills are into the flow of it. I always felt like an auto-attack bot in the first game just beelining to Tactics Lv 5. Ryza 2 wants you to use your skills right away to build up CC to use items. It even has a timed guard mechanic which I dig. I almost immediately changed to Hard though, since the early enemies melt so fast you really never get a chance to get your tools out otherwise.

Alchemy feels better too. Quality seems purely additive now? If you add a low quality item to a high quality total, it just adds that to the total rather than averaging it like every other game in the series. Still figuring out the unlock system but with the return of bounties or whatever it seems like SP is pouring in to do so. Feels like it's going to take some time to unfold the alchemy tricks but it feels really user friendly up front.

The main city being a big metropolis style hub is an interesting change too. Kurken Island felt really remote and now even moreso given how busy the capital is. It looks really amazing after it rains on the PS5. The water reflections are kind of amazing in this game.

Ryza 2's brick loft homebase produces a kinda magitech aesthetic that's just the perfect vibe to me.
Just alchemy things - sipping tea with my besties, petting my mysterious hellbeast, going out shopping, and then warping the laws of nature in my big pot until I produce a staff that trivialises the final boss in a couple bonks.

My only complaint: the field in Ryza 2 is a couple taps away, whereas in Ryza 1 in was right outside.
...Ryza 3 better give her a greenhouse! Sipping tea in my greenhouse, surrounded by glowing flowers and living crystals I've cultivated from my adventures across the world, would be the ultimate alchemy aesthetic.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2021 11:36

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Levantine posted:

Speaking of trivializing bosses, Ryza 2 feels like the easiest entry to do so. I had 999 items with Element Spread +3 after the fire dungeon and was able to make really high stat gear up to Goldterion that made me unstoppable, even on Hard. The game feels built around convenience, which is nice. I keep farming those same 5 trees in the Water dungeon for gems and duplicating those crystal elements and experimenting with how far I can push crafting. I'm already growing S rank 999 seeds and I haven't even progressed to the next ruin.

Yeah the upper floor of the water dungeon had the largest number of harvest nodes over the smallest space. Later dungeons don�t ever give higher gems per item iirc.
I went back to the final boss on the highest difficulty and still barely struggled because I made truly insane weapons and armour (and this time you can duplicate armour and accessories, which earlier games didn�t allow.)

# ¿ Sep 10, 2021 18:29

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Levantine posted:

I found a trick with Poison cubes and Taboo Drops. Basically I made Poison Cube with +3 Quantity and Crystal Elements with +3 Spread Effect. I make Taboo Drops using one black water, one crystal and shove the rest of the cubes into it until it's done. It makes 26 drops which you can disassemble for about 120k gems each go round. Duping cubes is only 2500 each so you can easily max out your count and do a few rounds for half a million gems in about a minute.

I love finding ways to break the game.

What do you recommend on weapons and armor btw? I haven't really messed with traits for any reason yet because I haven't had to.

I used that Special Essence that gives you +1 item to add each time you recipe morph, I believe, then repeated my strategy from Ryza 1: Start from the most basic base version, and shove in as many +ATK ingots as possible.
I ended up with very, very broken weapons - the Bonuses from Ingots were, I believe, higher than the actual attack value of the weapon. For traits, I think I stuck with basic +ATK + SPD - the high +ATK traits, and the +ATK +SPD trait, I believe. I'll boot it up when I'm home and check.
I think there's an equivalent to Avidya Attack in this game? But tbh I've never really mucked about with those special traits, even back in Sophie.

Also, prediction: Atelier Ryza 3 is Ryza going into the Underworld to revitalise it and/or find Fi.

Lunar Suite fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Sep 14, 2021

# ¿ Sep 14, 2021 12:23

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

Levantine posted:

I did play with the Evolution effects on accessories and weapons and you can create some cool stuff there. A Goddess Cup on a weapon will give you lifesteal, for example. An Elixir will boost item damage. I really appreciate the game gives you so many easy ways to experiment with this stuff. Once you can create some good Neutralizers you can create some good Crystal Elements and Arc en Ciels. And don't get me started on the 10 element Ancient Philosophers stones that do element spread +4 and hit 3 of 4 element types (you can just make the other element type too if you want).

Ooh, I never really did that - I should boot up Ryza 2 and break it harder with those Evolution effects.

And yeah, good call with Skill Charge++. I think it was one of the Dusk games where your regular attack counted as a skill? But then, you barely use regular attacks, so Skill Charge ++ is definitely the way to go.

e: Agreed on the story. Over the course of both Ryza 1 and Ryza 2, we see the characters mature. Part of that is to head out and explore, gaining new experiences - rather than just doing it to ditch work, Ryza becomes genuinely interested in the history of alchemy; rather than merely excited because she finally has a skill of her own that sets her apart and gives her an identity, she wants to make sure she doesn't use it carelessly (she should make some alchemy gadgets to help out with the farm, though).
I like that the characters understand that sometimes you need to make your own experiences, and trust each other to still have a bond even if they're apart. It's a much better take than the usual "and then the magic goes away and you become a salaryman/worker" that a lot of japanese stories have, presumably to stop people from becoming a communist when they realise that work sucks.

Lunar Suite fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Sep 15, 2021

# ¿ Sep 15, 2021 14:55

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

TheMightyBoops posted:

I should really go back and start Atelier Ayesha, I picked it up forever ago and then just didn�t want to read through the dialogue in the beginning before the game starts.

The calendar is a lot less tight in Ayesha; it's the start of the change to New Atelier where you move at your own pace, I believe. I hope you have fun! I enjoyed the story and characters, and the music is really great too. MARIA is one of my dearest OST tracks.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2021 21:35

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

I dunno if I just don't have the best traits or something, but I'm struggling to make a "To Whom It May Concern" item more powerful that just a Rose Bomb:

The most stylish and gayest way of sterilising an entire postcode. And it's level 1, so anyone can equip it. NG+ somehow carries over armor for everyone, but weapons only for Ryza, so she one-shots everything whilst everyone else does piss poor damage...

I did have a lot of fun with Ryza's equipment, though, and this isn't even particularly broken, iirc:

# ¿ Sep 18, 2021 18:47

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

I'm really looking forward to the new Atelier Sophie. I wonder how they're gonna mix up the Synthesis system this time - will they stick with the more Ryza-like Nodes-And-Points system, or remix the Mysterious Trilogy's Alchemy Tetris?

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 10:13

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

loquacius posted:

Atelier is fun

I just invented a combination compass slash magnifying glass and am thrilled to have it

it's almost as cool as my combination fishing rod slash bug net

e: and as soon as I track down a couple more ingredients I'm gonna make a hammer that can also blow things up and hoo boy am I gonna have a great time then

How are your running shoes, whistle, and spiderman grappling hook?

# ¿ Oct 29, 2021 14:50

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

The animations in Ryza 1 and 2 just seem brief to me - like, I'm yeeting my 999 quality super bomb at people, I was expecting a little more anime. Maybe toggle to fast animations when people are in auto-battle mode.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2021 16:27

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

The Colonel posted:

it was funny having the period of everyone being convinced story of seasons would never do it and going full doomer when rune factory 5 didnt launch with it and then xseed upon announcing it for the english release were like "yeah when we asked the devs about it they said they totally agreed and the only reason it wasnt in from the start was because they received the greenlight too late into production to dedicate time to it"

I mean... is this harder than "remove PC.Gender != NPC.Gender check"?

# ¿ Oct 17, 2023 15:22

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 05:26

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

ImpAtom posted:

Yes, unless you want your husband calling you his wife.

Destroy all gender imo
But point taken

# ¿ Oct 18, 2023 10:55

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