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Best PS2 RPG right here. Looking forward to seeing your treatment of it.
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Mar 29, 2017 07:43
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FredMSloniker posted:Does how to play the game properly count as a spoiler? This game, from what I've read, was like Dead Rising in that you were expected to die and restart repeatedly. In fact, certain plot points don't appear on your 'first' playthrough. I also seem to recall that one of the reasons the game did poorly was because players weren't absorbing this wisdom or thought it was a pity mechanic or something and just thought the game was too hard. That mechanic (don't think anything you mentioned counts as a spoiler since it's all listed in the manual) was ported wholesale into Dead Rising, where people actually praised it, saying that, even if you died, it never really felt like you 'lost progress'. As for the way the game gives you more story on successive game overs, I was never sure about that. It's an interesting mechanic, to be sure, but I could never figure out if it was a good one.
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Mar 29, 2017 08:19
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FredMSloniker posted:Does how to play the game properly count as a spoiler? This game, from what I've read, was like Dead Rising in that you were expected to die and restart repeatedly. In fact, certain plot points don't appear on your 'first' playthrough. I also seem to recall that one of the reasons the game did poorly was because players weren't absorbing this wisdom or thought it was a pity mechanic or something and just thought the game was too hard. Yeah, I knew about the multiple runs mechanic, and had even ground up a bunch of buffs for Ryu. I'm just terrible at anything TBS.
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Mar 29, 2017 08:38
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I'll be saying a bit about the Scenario Overlay stuff in the next update. The game itself doesn't really do a good job of communicating what it is to the player, which is a shame because at the time it was a really interesting and unique mechanic.
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Mar 29, 2017 08:53
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There's also the problem of difficulty. I didn't find it too hard, being a bit of a grinder to begin with, and thus, I only died for the first time right before the final dungeon. Which is an awfully late time to be introducing this mechanic through play. They explain it once in the beginning, and then it's never mentioned again. It explains why the plot was so confusing to me, though.
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Mar 29, 2017 12:13
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For my part, regarding this game, I didn't mind the SOL stuff, it was the other main mechanic of the game that put me off it. I'll probably end up typing out a big spiel about it at the time. But I like the rest of the game, even if it wasn't the grand scale RPG like IV that I was expecting way back when. I've always had a fondness for World Map screens and the like. I know they're outdated now, but it's almost a shame.
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Mar 29, 2017 12:59
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Ah, dragon quarter. Such an interesting departure from the norm of the series. Originally got this game close after release, but the system was such a shell shock to me I couldn't get very far in. Dying is progression? What madness is this! Ended up retrying it years later and enjoying it a heck of a lot once I invested the time to understand the system better. Not my favourite BoF game, but definitely in my top 3 (after 4 and 3 respectively). Never got into the real game breaking stuff, as third world countries had terrible Internet access back then and I couldn't find out stuff from online. Anyway, looking forward to the LP showing me some new stuff. Who knows, if the bug bites I might even start a game myself.
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Mar 29, 2017 14:14
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MythosDragon posted:and no matter what type of story an RPG has, short is never a positive. A short, concise story without padding is usually best. I'm really looking forward to this. I mostly experience jRPGs through LPs so that I don't have to bother with the grinding and sidequests and I've heard so much about this one that I'm eager to see what they do with it. It's always fascinating to watch when a company takes a few risks.
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Mar 29, 2017 15:08
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Nice to finally see an LP of this, played a ton of it back in the day. As for certain mechanics, I never used them; good use of the resources you're given is more than enough to finish the game on.
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Mar 29, 2017 15:11
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Dragon Quarter is honestly my favorite of the series and it's a shame it didn't do so well. I really appreciate how compact it is and the sense of consequence it manages to convey with the mechanics. I feel like if it came out just a little bit later it would have found more success.
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Mar 30, 2017 09:41
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Update 02: Freight Welcome back. Last time we started the game off and explored Ranger HQ and LowSector. Now it’s time to strike out into the depths of Sheldar until we reach the cargo we’ve been assigned to guard.  As mentioned in the previous update, we can switch the party leader fairly easily. Simply press R1, and…  Presto, Ryu’s our man again.   Music: Lift  Walking through the tunnel leads us into the game’s first dungeon, the freight line to BioCorp. Since we’re about to encounter some enemies it’s probably a good idea to check out Ryu and Bosch’s status screens.  The party screen can be accessed from the main menu and displays our current party. It tells us some basic stuff like current HP, total AP and how much Party XP we have stored up.  Selecting a character gives us a more in-depth look at their stats and skills. The numbers in brackets in the status box are the character’s base stats without taking equipment into account. A lot of armours and shields apply penalties to speed, so that’s why those numbers have higher bases. Ryu is fairly average in terms of stats. He’s got good HP, Attack and Defence, with decent Movement but fairly low Speed and Magic.  Bosch on the other hand is an absolute beast. He’s got more than twice as much HP as Ryu, and all his other stats bar Magic are vastly higher. I guess this is what they mean when the other Rangers say he’s headed for the top.  With that explanation out of the way we’re free to move on, but…these boxes look a little suspect, don’t they?  In dungeons, pressing the ‘X’ button will cause the current party leader to attack, which in Ryu’s case is a sword swing. This can be used not only to score pre-emptive strikes on monsters, but also to break destructible aspects of the environment such as these boxes.  Doing so is highly recommended since they often contain items, money and other goodies.  Bosch also has an attack, although in his case it’s a kick. There are three crates in this hall, containing two Fresh Meats and 20 zenny.   After moving through the door we get a brief tutorial on pre-emptive attacks and bait, just in case you missed the conversations about them in Ranger HQ.  If you look at the map in the lower right of the screen you’ll notice that there’s a fork in the road here. We need to go left to continue, but there’s something down the path straight ahead that we’ll definitely want to grab before we go that way.   In a little side room next to a blocked off doorway we find our first gold crate. Gold crates always contain better loot than regular crates, so it’s usually worth going after them.   In this case we get some Party XP. Party XP is experience that can be manually assigned to any character from the party screen. Note that loot in both types of crate are randomised.  Anyway, back to the fork. You may notice a glowing pair of eyes peering out of the darkness ahead.  They belong to the first enemy in the game, a weird man-pig genic called a Duke.  It is promptly kicked in the face. This initiates combat and sends us into the battle screen. Music: Going Out To See The Sky  Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter’s battle system was fairly unusual at the time of its release, in that combat takes place in the field rather than an abstract battlefield. There’s a brief transition, and the perspective and dimensions of the area are wonked a little bit, but for the most part the field is replicated faithfully. Anyway, let’s talk combat. Bosch’s kick scored a pre-emptive strike, which means we get a bonus round called an EX Turn to deal some damage before the regular flow of battle begins. This bonus round only applies to the character that attacked in the field, so only Bosch can get his licks in.  Pressing the ‘Circle’ button brings up our selection of Lv. 1 Attacks. Bosch has two Lv. 1 Attacks, Thrust and Snakebite.   Selecting either one will bring up a screen explaining their effects so you can more effectively plan your attack. We can use this to find out that Thrust is a weak attack that ignores enemy defence, while Snakebite has a chance to poison the target.  Snakebite is effective and even poisons the Duke, but we’re not done yet.  The attack menu remains in the lower right even as the attack goes off. This enables us to chain our attacks into combos. We can use Snakebite again, but that would be wasteful seeing as how the target is already poisoned.  Pressing R2 on the other hand will bring up more options, allowing us to use either Thrust or Lion Smash, one of Bosch’s Lv. 2 Attacks.  Lion Smash is a single attack that lowers an enemy's defence. However, using Snakebite beforehand turns it into Twin Wake, a special combo that adds a finishing thrust for extra damage at the end.  Since Bosch doesn’t have any Lv. 3 Attacks his combo ends here. Note how Bosch’s AP bar has decreased since the battle began. Attacking and moving around in battle costs AP, and when the bar completely empties that character’s turn is effectively over. Bosch still has 35 AP remaining, so he can still act.   Chaining attacks together like this is the key to winning battles, particularly since every new attack in the chain adds a 10% damage boost to the attacks that follow, up to a maximum of +80%.  The party gains direct experience from winning, along with a very small amount of Party XP. How well you fight has some bearing on how much experience you get. Getting EX Turns, killing enemies quickly and / or dispatching multiple foes at once will grant more experience.  Defeated enemies also drop items or money, which you have to pick up after the battle.   We’ve seen what Bosch is capable of, now it’s time to have a look at Ryu.  The Duke at the end of the hall spots us before we can close with it. If it manages to charge us it might get an EX Turn, and we don’t want that.   One solution is to use bait. Pressing the ‘Square’ button causes Ryu to throw whichever trap item he has equipped, which in this case is a hunk of Fresh Meat. The Duke immediately forgets about us and lunges for the meat, giving us a chance to attack.   We enter the battle screen and two things become clear. The first is that the bait we threw down hasn’t vanished and has in fact been transported into combat with us. All placeable items act like this, and this allows the player to set up some fairly intricate traps later in the game. The second is that, while Ryu’s sword slash has better range than Bosch’s kick, it also inflicts greater knockback, to the point where it’s knocked the Duke out of range of our attacks.  We expend 19 AP in order to move into range. The green circle represents Ryu’s maximum movement potential.  Ryu only has one Lv. 1 Attack, Slice, which is an absolutely mundane attack without any bonuses, penalties or status effects.  It’s…not particularly impressive.  Ryu’s single Lv. 2 Attack, Vert Slash, is more impressive, trading a -20% in accuracy for 130% base power.  Unfortunately, while Ryu does have a Lv. 3 Attack, he doesn’t have the 30 AP required to use it. I manually end his turn by Pressing R2 and choosing ‘End Move’ from the menu.   The EX Turn ends and the normal battle order reasserts itself. I could easily finish off the Duke with Bosch and move on, but I really want to show off Ryu’s Lv. 3 Attack, so I have Bosch pass his turn.  Unfortunately, the Duke turns out to be faster than Ryu, so he gets his turn next.  Ouch. Ogre Slice is a risky skill - it has -50% accuracy, but if it lands it has a 75% chance of being a critical hit. If you’re not lucky it can take off half of Ryu’s HP, as demonstrated here.    With enough AP stored up we can perform Deathbringer at the end of our combo. Deathbringer has a base attack power of 125% and, if it connects, will always score a critical hit. It’s a powerful skill, but Ryu isn’t too strong just yet so it only deals middling damage.  It falls to Bosch to finish the Duke off. Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that Bosch’s AP bar has turned green, and that he appears to have twice as many AP as he did last turn. This is because unused AP carries over into the next turn. This is very useful when you need to deal lots of damage very quickly, but right now it’s just a nice bonus.    Here are Bosch’s other two skills, Thrust and Fang. Fang is similar to Thrust in that it ignores defence, but has a beefier attack power of 40%.  The battle ends, and Ryu gains enough experience to level up! Even so, he's still much weaker than Bosch.  With the battle over we’re free to pick up the Fresh Meat again. Enemies will eat bait items if you don’t interrupt their feeding, so attacking them quickly and then picking the bait up again afterwards is a good way to save some money.  Ryu isn’t that great in combat yet, so I’m putting Bosch back in the lead for now.   Moving through the door brings up a hint screen about enemies showing up on the map and using AP in battle.  These strange little critters are called Nuggets.  Nuggets aren’t too tough. They have less HP than Dukes and only attack for around 15 - 30 damage.  Bosch can kill one in a single combo and still have AP to spare.  I notice Ryu’s HP is getting a bit low, so use a Heal Kit on him. Items cost no AP to use, which is great since as I mentioned previously items are pretty much the only way to recover HP in this game.  Bosch levels up at the end of the battle, although his gains aren’t as impressive as Ryu’s. Not that it really matters considering how powerful he is already.  A mysterious item called a ‘Treasure Key’ materialises after the battle. I’d explain what it does, but the game is about to do that for me.  Keep an eye out for a treasure chest, got it.    Well, that didn’t take long!    The chest contains very first new skill. As the hint screen says, using this item will allow us to equip the Steal skill onto our shields.   Steal is an awesome skill, even if equipping it does lower our precious maximum AP by 5. As the text indicates, Steal is a passive skill that activates whenever a character is attacked and may result in them stealing an enemy's held item.   We encounter two Dukes and a more powerful Duke Leader up ahead, although one of the Dukes is slightly too far away to be brought into the battle screen.  Here we see the main utility of the Steal skill - it doesn’t just let you pilfer random consumables, but Skill Items as well. It’s a shame that you have to be attacked in order for it to activate, but hey, Ryu can now learn Ogre Slice.  Duke Leaders are tough, but cowardly. Once all the other enemies die they’ll get scared and run away.   Of course, they’ll still attack if there’s anyone near them. It’s not all bad though, since this earns us the Wild Swing skill.  Ryu levels up again after the battle.  The sole remaining Duke goes down without much of a fight and leaves behind our first unidentified item. We know from the icon that it’s some kind of armour, but that’s about it.  The crates to the north contain mostly money, but one contains a handy Escape item. As the name implies, this lets you flee from any non-mandatory battle with no fuss.   Before we move on there’s a little side area we can visit.    Over the bridge and through this door is a gold box containing a Save Token.  Before we head through the door to the next area it’s probably a good idea to equip those skills we picked up.  Equipping skills is fairly simple. Our current sword, Ranger’s Edge, has two free slots we can thread skills into, one for Lv. 1 Attacks and another for Lv. 2 Attacks. The three skills that are already threaded to the weapon are its default skills and cannot be removed, as symbolised by the padlock icons. Slots marked ‘UNAVAILABLE’ can never have skills threaded to them. Some weapons have more free skill slots than others, and some may have different default skills attached.  Neither Ogre Slice nor Wild Swing are particularly good skills. Both rely a bit too much on luck, but they’re all we’ve got right now so we might as well equip them.   The next room contains a lift to the next floor, as well as this nameless ventriloquist / tutorial girl.  : Hi there! Pleased to meet you! For the most part her advice is stuff we already know. ‘Combat tips’ is just a reminder about EX Turns and attacking in the field, while ‘I can’t win’ is about distracting enemies with bait. ‘Giving up?’ is new, however.  : When you feel like there’s no way out, don’t hesitate to open the menu and select ‘Give Up’. The game will start over from the beginning, but your equipment, skills and Party XP will carry over. What Trilo is describing here is one facet of the Scenario Overlay System, Dragon Quarter’s primary gimmick.   Opening the menu and pressing L2 allows you to access the ‘Give Up’ option. The game asks you if you really want to continue, and the screen turns red just so you know how serious it is.  Confirming grants the player two options, SOL: Restart and SOL: Restore. SOL: Restart is the more serious of the two options. Picking this option will prompt the player to create a new save, then kick them back to the main menu. Loading said save will start the player right back at the beginning of the game. SOL: Restore by contrast only sends you back to your last save point. In both cases the things you can take back with you are: -Party XP -Money (Unless you have less than 300 Zenny, in which case the game will raise it to that amount) -Anything Ryu or other characters have equipped. -Any skills Ryu or other characters have learned. -The contents of the Item and Weapon Lockers. -The game timer. Things you don’t get to keep are: -Regular character experience and stat changes. In other words, any levels you gained normally will be reset. In the case of SOL: Restart, you’re going right the way back down to Level 1. -Inventory Items, including Key Items. Anything not stored in the Item or Weapon Lockers is wiped from existence and replaced with the defaults, which are 5 Heal Kits, 1 Tonic and either 1 or 9 Save Tokens depending on whether you’re playing the NTSC or PAL version of the game. In mechanical terms the SOL System is essentially a save-scumming mechanic. Clever use of it can yield some very nice rewards such as item duplication and Party XP loops. Given how the game is designed it’s clear these are intentional features rather than exploits. There’s a bit more to the system than that, but we won’t be exploring its true potential for some time.     Taking the elevator down we come to an area with several dead Dukes. Ominous!  Yeesh, guess we know what killed them! Luckily it’s under a raised lip so it can’t get to us yet.  This big beastie is a Death Cow. It’s one of two possible enemies that can spawn here, the other being the far less threatening Goo Element. It’s a very tough and strong enemy and we’d be perfectly justified in running from it, but…it has the Treasure Key for this floor.  The best way to fight it is to use bait to get a first strike.   As its size indicates, the Death Cow has plenty of HP. Even Bosch has trouble putting more than a dent in it.  It also has a pretty hefty attack stat, along with the ability to push party members around the field.   A good strategy is to poison it and let Bosch soak up its attacks with his huge HP pool.  Ryu can join in, but it’s a good idea to wait until the Death Cow is nearly dead first. It's still not a hundred percent safe though because...  …the Death Cow is also a spellcaster and will break out an area-of-effect Frost spell once its health gets low. You’ll notice that Steal also activated and we snagged another copy of Wild Swing. We already have the skill, but we can sell the Skill Item for a small amount of money.    It’s a tough battle, but the Death Cow isn’t invincible and eventually keels over dead, allowing us to grab the Treasure Key and unlock the chest behind it.  We also receive a HP Plus for our troubles. As the name suggests, this item increases a character’s maximum HP by a small amount.   The chest contains Side Slash, a reasonably useful skill despite its accuracy rating of -20%. Its main utility comes from the fact that it targets a cluster of foes rather than a single enemy.     At the end of the next walkway we find Trilo waiting for us. How did she manage to get ahead of us? Is she secretly a ninja? She doesn’t have much to say this time, just tips on how to equip new skills.  In the next hallway we find the first offensive trap item in the game, a stick of Dynamite. Like Fresh Meat these can be thrown and will explode on contact with an enemy, dealing fire damage.  The boxes at the end contain a Heal Kit and some money.    The boxes here contain a small amount of Party XP and some more Dynamite.  The next room contains an elevator down to the next level, which seems like a good place to end the update. See you guys next time. -- Bonus Art: Bosch 
Scintilla fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Jul 8, 2018 |
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Mar 30, 2017 20:21
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Do we get any skills from leveling up or is it solely from stealing them from enemies?
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Mar 30, 2017 21:32
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SSNeoman posted:Do we get any skills from leveling up or is it solely from stealing them from enemies? You don't gain any skills by leveling up in this game. You have to steal / find / buy them all.
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Mar 30, 2017 21:56
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Of all the things to forget in this game, I forgot that Crazy Tutorial Marionette Girl from IV was here!
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Mar 30, 2017 22:16
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And right out of the gate the game shows exactly how much weaker Ryu is compared to Bosch, backing up the idea that the 1/xxxx has an effect on talent and/or potential. Never did love the change in the graphical style from the previous games, but the gameplay itself gets good once things pick up.
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Mar 30, 2017 22:19
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Night10194 posted:A short, concise story without padding is usually best. I dont completely disagree, depending on the definition of padding. But atleast as far I know as its never been done in an RPG. The moment someone hears you can beat it in 20 hours without rushing they automatically give it a low rating, and I dont really disagree. The closest we really have are text limited games from the old days, and depending on how you look at it, those games are actually really long because of that, like Dragon Quest 5's 30 year plot. Also I'm honestly surprised, that looks like pretty fun gameplay, I've seen all the elements in other games I enjoy. I dont think it matches especially well with a 3DRPG though. Also I laughed at SOL because I read it as poo poo Out of Luck. The character art bothers me , its really skinny and the part where Ryu is shirtless at the start felt really uncomfortable with his complete lack of organs. You can take skills off without repercussions, right? I wouldnt put it past a DRPG to say screw you.
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Mar 30, 2017 22:24
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Did undertale take you 30 hours
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Mar 30, 2017 22:38
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Being bothered by how scrawny and spindly the art style is can be understandable, but I kinda like how it suggests and enforces the fact that this is an underground dystopia where food is hard to come by. Everyone's thin as sticks because just about everyone is malnourished to some degree or another. It's kinda neat how the choice of artstyle reinforces the feel the developers were going for in terms of the civilization they're trying to present.
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Mar 30, 2017 22:42
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Black_Oni 165 posted:And right out of the gate the game shows exactly how much weaker Ryu is compared to Bosch, backing up the idea that the 1/xxxx has an effect on talent and/or potential. But Ryu's level ups are better! Bosch and his Beast Blade gave me a very misleading idea of how this game would play my first time through.
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Mar 30, 2017 23:17
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I don't have any art issue re: noodlemen, but so far every environment looks like a first person shooter from 1998.
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Mar 31, 2017 00:45
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Wow. Bosch is a meatwall. He deserves to get punched by much more powerful monsters.
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Mar 31, 2017 01:51
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MythosDragon posted:You can take skills off without repercussions, right? I wouldnt put it past a DRPG to say screw you. Once you've learned a skill you can switch them around and remove them without penalties. Of course, that only applies to skills you've learned. If you find a weapon with a really cool skill padlocked to it but you haven't learned it permanently via skill item you won't be able to thread it to other weapons.
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Mar 31, 2017 06:37
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Explosions posted:I don't have any art issue re: noodlemen, but so far every environment looks like a first person shooter from 1998. Sadly, "fallout bunker a thousand meters underground" does not lend to the diverse, vibrant visuals you'd expect out of, well, any RPG in that era. A lot of Dragon Quarter is very industrial and/or sterile. That's not to say it's all like this, but you'll probably need to get used to very dark, gloomy locales. The person who compared this to Dark Souls was definitely on point when it comes to aesthetics. The noodlebodies aren't really noticable yet; there's exactly one character where I personally feel the art design is wince-worthy on, but I'll point that out when the LP gets there.
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Mar 31, 2017 10:37
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This game is one of the most underrated games of all times, I'm really glad it's getting a proper LP. I sometimes feel that it might have been better off if it was released as part of a different franchise though -- if you were a fan of BoF this game was such a radical departure from the series in story, design, and gameplay it turned a lot of fans off. If you weren't a BoF fan or a fan of RPGs in general, why would you give this game a second look just based on the title alone? I feel like if it was released in a climate like today where people could evangelize games it would have done much better. It just had so much going against it out of the gate to find the correct audience. Kaboom Dragoon posted:That mechanic (don't think anything you mentioned counts as a spoiler since it's all listed in the manual) was ported wholesale into Dead Rising, where people actually praised it, saying that, even if you died, it never really felt like you 'lost progress'. As for the way the game gives you more story on successive game overs, I was never sure about that. It's an interesting mechanic, to be sure, but I could never figure out if it was a good one. Unfortunately this game is so hard that it really always feels like losing a lot of progress. I think the real problem with the mechanic is what someone else mentioned -- the game really needed to find some way to get it in your head that this is a core mechanic, and it failed miserably at that. It's just so counter to how jRPGs and Strategy RPGs operate that you really need your hand held here.
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Mar 31, 2017 11:28
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I have only ever heard hatred about this game, but the gameplay so far looks super fun? I like how it shows its depth even in the first battles - bait, sneak attacks, combo attacks - and doesn't make you wait a billion years to unlock even the most basic of systems (I'm looking at you, FF13). Would have followed the thread regardless clicking every music link because this really wows me, the beat, the instrumentation, it's just an amazing piece and I'd love to explore the main base talking to NPCs while this is on. But it's nice that the game also seems cool  .
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Mar 31, 2017 12:28
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Simply Simon posted:I have only ever heard hatred about this game, but the gameplay so far looks super fun? I like how it shows its depth even in the first battles - bait, sneak attacks, combo attacks - and doesn't make you wait a billion years to unlock even the most basic of systems (I'm looking at you, FF13). Chuu called it one of the most underrated games of all time, and I kinda agree. It is a game with some serious flaws, the biggest might be it's failure to really explain its systems and the fact that (outside of roguelikes and mystery dungeons) it really doesn't work like other games. There are not really trash mobs in the sense that any encounter has the potential to cause a wipe if you get careless. I can't think of another game other than possibly Dark Souls or Silent hill 2 where the atmosphere, plot, and game systems all work together to feel continuously oppressive. It great and really one of a kind. I was a massive BoF fan way back in the day, and beat all of them when they first came out. I liked DQ at the time, even if it was a departure. A couple years back I tried to play through the whole series again, and was surprised how poorly 1-3 held up. 4 and DQ both held up really well and I was instead surprised at them being even better than I remembered.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:03
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The game is pretty hard and the SOL mechanic is rather stingy. When I first tried the game I hated it. Plus, Bosch's kick sucks.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:20
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Dragon Quarter is certainly a divisive game. Personally, I can forgive a lot of what it did even though I'm not fond of roguelikes and a lot of other design decisions they went with, but the one thing I absolutely cannot forgive is how they chose to handle the dragon transformations. Edit: I'll go into more detail as to why once we actually reach the point where it's a bit more relevant.
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Apr 1, 2017 06:27
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My main problem with the game is that there's too many little life of quality things it lacks that it adds up to me not worth it.
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Apr 1, 2017 06:30
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This is a good game, which I would've played more of BUT THEY TOOK OUT THE SOFT SAVES. Were the other four languages really that space demanding? Why didn't you excise the parts of the manual that talked about the really useful mechanic that you cut out? Also, when you're talking about SOL not being taught to the player enough, I walked past another major mechanic in it's entirety the first few loops I tried, so I think that trumps the 'Did not signpost enough for the player' competition. It's the fairy village
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Apr 1, 2017 08:58
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It's not exactly a feature that stands out. The whole way to get it is frankly bizarre.
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Apr 1, 2017 17:15
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Another person tries to break The Curse of the Un-LPable Game.  Seriously it's been seven years since I did my BoF 4 LP and I think there's been three or four attempts, and they all slammed face-first into the reason I wrote off doing it shortly after BoF4: it's a nightmare of a game to show off in its entirety. Well, that, and on my old laptop I couldn't get the drat thing to emulate properly and I'm still too cheap for a capture card. I eagerly look forward to discussing the game in depth once we really get into its more divisive mechanics, because I find it a fascinating experiment with a few fatal flaws that had the misfortune of being crammed under a franchise label that didn't really fit it at all.
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Apr 1, 2017 20:02
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Since the SOL system has been brought up and how it should have been more emphasized as a mechanic, I'll also throw in that while it's a pretty ok idea on the surface it, in my mind, seems to be at odds in a story-driven game as an RPG. I mean, why would you restart the game to see story you've already seen nevermind I'm perfectly capable and willing of doing that on my own when replaying other games 
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Apr 1, 2017 22:59
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Does SOL mean poo poo Outta Luck? As in that's when you need to restart?
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Apr 2, 2017 09:48
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EponymousMrYar posted:Since the SOL system has been brought up and how it should have been more emphasized as a mechanic, I'll also throw in that while it's a pretty ok idea on the surface it, in my mind, seems to be at odds in a story-driven game as an RPG. You kind of have two parallel stories; the story that centers on the party's journey and the story of how the world ended up like it is. Almost all of the secondary story focuses on the latter so a lot of it feels like a bonus; plus it's something that actively rewards you for using the SOL system as intended. God help you if you're a completionist though.
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Apr 2, 2017 10:29
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The Lone Badger posted:Does SOL mean poo poo Outta Luck? As in that's when you need to restart? Pretty much. A game mechanic that hasn't been introduced yet makes it possible for the player to accidentally screw themselves to the point that the game becomes unwinnable. The SOL system mitigates that, and while it's definitely clunky and not explained very well it at least succeeds in ensuring that a player can never completely screw themselves.
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Apr 2, 2017 13:48
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Update 03: Odjn Welcome back. Last time we got into a few fights, picked up some skills and talked a little bit about the Scenario Overlay System. Today we’re going to finish the Freight to BioCorp level and hopefully advance the plot a bit. Music: Lift    Stepping out of the lift and into the next area gives us another hint screen whose contents we have already discussed.  There’s a dead Duke on the platform, but he’s not the focus of this image. The darkness makes them hard to see, but there’s a swarm of reddish-coloured bats flitting around to the right.   These guys are Lil’ Lantern Bats, and they simply aren’t worth fighting. They’re fast, extremely numerous, have fairly decent HP despite their fragile appearance and have the ability to cast fire magic. They don’t have anything worth stealing either, so it’s best to simply throw down some bait and run past.    The next hallway contains three boxes, one of which contains a Protein. Protein increases Defence by 1, a small but welcome boost.   Through the door we come to another fork in the path. Going left will take us where we need to go, but there’s something interesting if we take the path straight ahead.  It’s a Mama Nugget!  A Mama Nugget with babies!   A Mama Nugget with babies that Bosch promptly blows up with Dynamite!  Twice!  Then kicks in the face!  Man, Bosch sure is a dick, isn’t he? Still, it’s for the best since Mama Nuggets are very tough cookies. They have a lot of HP and a very nasty magic attack.  That attack being Lightning, an area-of-effect spell that can easily two-shot Ryu and takes a decent chunk out of Bosch’s HP.  Once the Mama Nugget is dead the rest go down quickly. Here’s a quick screencap showing the area of effect for Ryu’s Side Slash skill.  Of course, Ryu proceeds to embarrass himself by missing two out of the three. Perhaps he feels bad that their mother was just blown up and stabbed to death.  Bosch has no such compunctions and slaughters them all, resulting in both party members levelling up.  The Mama Nugget drops another unidentified item.   The real prize is this golden crate. This time the randomised loot is 300 Party XP, which gives us a grand total of 596 extra experience points. I think it’s high time we put some of that stored experience to use.   I pump every single drop of the stuff into Ryu, boosting him all the way up to Lv. 9. There will come a time when we’ll need to be careful how we spend our Party XP, but right now we can afford to do things like this.  Back at the fork, you may notice some objects clinging to the ceiling in the next tunnel over.  These guys are Hychees, incredibly weak maggot-like enemies. They like to try and fall on you, but other than that they aren’t even remotely a threat. Once they’re on the ground they become immobile and won’t even chase you.  Simply attacking them on the field is enough to kill them. You get a small amount of Party XP for doing so, and each Hychee will always drop a Heal Kit. This might not make much sense at first until you recall that one of the NPCs in LowSector mentions that Hychees are edible. Mmmm, maggot chowder…     The next room has another split path, and once again taking the furthest one leads to treasure, in this case a gold crate containing an unidentified weapon.    The next room seems normal at first, but then… Music: Imminent Crisis  The music shifts, and we receive a warning that we have entered the game’s first Danger Room. As the text above describes, Danger Rooms lock you in until you deal with all the enemies inside, which can be a pain depending on which and how many of them the game decides to spawn.  In this case the Danger Room is full of various kinds of Duke.  In this encounter we have a regular Duke, a Duke leader and two of a new kind of Duke, the Duke Hunter.   Of the three, Duke Hunters are the most dangerous. Their weapons are makeshift guns that deal heavy damage along with hefty knockback, meaning you have to use up precious AP to get back into melee with them. They also have more HP than regular Dukes, so they’re sure to get at least one shot off.  The only good thing about them is that you can steal Dynamite from them.  Many Heal Kits later the foursome finally die and we’re free to pick up the loot.  Unfortunately we don’t have room for it all.   We begin the game with only ten slots in our inventory. We will eventually be able to expand our capacity, but for now space is extremely limited.  I wind up throwing away the two Skill Items we snagged in previous fights. Ryu already knows both of them, and identified equipment tends to sell for more money so it’s not a big loss.     Another large group of Dukes are lurking in the adjacent corridor. This time I manage to spread them out so only one of the Duke Hunters gets drawn in, making the fight much easier.  Music: Lift  The Treasure Key appears once all the Dukes are dead.   Kick is an incredibly useful skill.  The damage isn’t too impressive, but its ability to knock enemies back is tactically significant. It lets you kick enemies into traps and forces enemy melee attackers to waste AP getting back into position.    Through the next door and, hey, it’s the ventriloquist again! How does she keep getting ahead of us?  : If not, feel free to go to ‘Options’ in the Main Menu and change the controls to your liking. If you set the ‘X’ button as ‘attack’, you can avoid accidentally picking up items when you wanted to attack! Experiment and find the layout that best suits you!Thanks, but I like the default controls just fine.  Going through the door nearby leads to a long corridor with many automatic gates that open as you get close to them.  One of the gates has a Nugget behind it.  Bosch kicks it in the face, because he is a dick.  Hilariously, he even levels up from it.  Going through the final door leads to another elevator, but this one goes up instead of down. Are we finally about to get out of these dark and unpleasant tunnels?  Music: BioCorp  Finally, we arrive in BioCorp.  There aren’t any truly serious enemy encounters for a while, so I switch Ryu back to the party leader for a bit.   Entering the Genic Processor triggers a cutscene. Music: Origin  A heartbeat sound echoes every time words flash across the screen.   The scene switches to the inside of the processor, where we see a monstrous corpse pinned to the wall.    No, not a corpse - the thing is still moving, despite the missing flesh and massive spikes driven into it.         The music fades away as the scene ends. Then…     : Wha…?!  : Hey, you okay? You keeled over all of a sudden.: I…fell over? Music: BioCorp  So, Ryu is collapsing and having visions now. That certainly bodes well for the future.  Let’s try that one again.   The inside of the processor looks like a battlefield, with broken girders and skeletons scattered amongst the rubble. When we approach the huge creature we get a brief in-game scene.  : What’s that?! : Maybe it’s some kind of experiment? :…: What, you scared, Ryu? It’s already dead. It won’t bite. : Or else we’ll face the wrath…of Captain Zeno! Hah hah.    The scene ends, we gain control, and…hey. What’s that weird glowing blue cube in the top right of the screen? That wasn’t there before.  Whatever it is it’s not doing anything right now. Let’s follow Bosch’s advice and get a move on.   Okay, this girl is definitely a ninja. : Hey, how’re ya doin’? If you think you’re in trouble during a battle, retreat! Use ‘Escape’ or choose ‘Retreat’ from the ‘L2’ button menu in front of the door you came through. You won’t get penalized if you run this way. : Press the Start Button and choose ‘Penalty Retreat’. You’ll lose some money this way, but it’s better than dying!This is actually some pretty good advice. Battles in Dragon Quarter can get very dicey, and running away is a valid tactic if things start to go south.     One of the first things we see when we reach the upper levels of BioCorp is a much-needed save point.     After several screens of sterile green and white hallways we reach the actual labs and holding areas for BioCorp’s creations.  Here we see some genics in cages, along with a few Hychees clinging to the ceiling.   A preview of enemies to come? We’ll have to wait and see.    HP Plus and Dynamite are always nice.   The next room is full of Nuggets, some of which have managed to escape. They aren’t too tough to deal with, especially now that Ryu is catching up to Bosch in terms of strength.  The Mama Nugget drops a Juju, an item that raises Magic. Neither Bosch nor Ryu really use their Magic stats a lot, so it’s best to hold onto it for the time being.   After dealing with the Nuggets we can access a gold crate containing a Trauma Kit, an upper tier healing item.  In the next hallway we find Jaju! Is she a ninja too?   :…to do some business! Hee hee! Well, whatever the case may be I’m glad she’s here because it means we can finally identify some of this junk.    Our haul consists of an upgraded sword for Ryu that is most certainly not the property of one Cloud Strife, a set of armour that resists electricity and two sets of armour that prevent the Bind status.  We can equip these right now in Ryu’s backup equipment slots. These handy slots let us change Ryu’s equipment on the fly and let us adapt to new circumstances. You can switch out weapons and armour either in the field or in battle via the menu screen. Of course, being the idiot I am I totally forget to equip the Buster Sword, so we’ll have to wait a bit to see what skills it has.  Lastly, I also drop off the Juju we just picked up in the Item Locker.   Stepping through the door results in another cutscene.    : The lift’s about to leave! Hurry, Ryu!  Ryu takes a moment to sort out the paperwork with the stationmaster.    Both characters just barely make it on board before the lift hurtles off towards its destination. -- Bonus Art: Dragon Corpse 
Scintilla fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Jul 8, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2017 14:37
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this was my first breath of fire game and I found it quite fun and I liked the Dragon mechanic. Also here is some facts about Odjn that I don't remember being in the game Odjn is a D-construct based on the dragons who destroyed the surface. His D-ratio like all D-constructs is 1/2 while the actual dragons are D-ratio 1/1
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Apr 3, 2017 18:10
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Ah, those Bat Lanterns. They were the indirect cause of my first use of the Scenario Overlay system. Them and the Mama Nugget. Afterwards I always made sure to have a few damaging traps for this area, just to get a kill with minimal expenditures of HP or healing items. Also, has anyone else actually gotten into a fight with Hychees? Because it's kinda hilarious.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:17
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yes though it has been a while since my copy of the game doesn't work anymore and agreed it is hilarious
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Apr 3, 2017 18:25
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