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Kinu Nishimura posts the theme song of everyone's favorite hero:Kinu Nishimura posted:Blazing GEORGE! (TV Size) GiantRockFromSpace describes VFD's endgame in one image: BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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May 17, 2022 14:50
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Update I - Featuring: An unrepentant mooch (and also no dragons) Music: A Tale of Men and Dragons (code:VFD Ver.)  Welcome to VFD! Leave your common sense at the door, you won't be needing it where we're going.  Having data from the demo gives you some small goodies.  It isn't much, but every little bit helps.  Don't be fooled, both of these difficulties are Easy Mode. You'll learn why, in time. Music: None  We start with a blurry image of some ruins, which is absolutely covered in flowers. This stuff is Bloom, which dragons love to spread around wherever they go and does unpleasant things to an unprepared person.  Survey Member: Traces of the 1st True Dragon Iod have been discovered at Survey Point Delta 5.23.18. All survey members will henceforth transfer to Operation IOD to collect specimens. I repeat- Before starting this, I was unaware that VFD uses a 3DS system font. Not having it causes Citra to use a worse fallback font. This has since been fixed on my end, but things will look a bit off for now. Anyways, True Dragons. They're... a thing I'll have to get into later. Just keep in mind that True Dragons are the biggest, baddest type of Dragon around.  We then cut to whoever is watching this transmission.  Which consists of a man, a woman, and a... doll?  Yep, the doll is alive. It hasn't even been five minutes since we started the game and we have a shadowy group that has a sapient doll in its ranks. Welcome to VFD.  I hope so. This investigation has cost us three subsidiaries, you know? However, we did get our hands on the first key. Well then, boss... what's our next move? But hard to tell thanks to the fallback font, but the woman is finishing her sentance with a star.  Eeheehee... Don't worry. The bait is already set. That's why we've come to this island country. Yes, thanks for that★ Be sure not to let ISDF find out about our activity here. We'll have to negotiate with them eventually, but I'd like to wait until we have our pawns ready. Pawns, hm? I don't think finding them'll be as easy as you think it will. We'll be fine★ I can sense the presence of adequate subjects in this country. That sense is all we have to go on... I guess we don't have much choice but to follow it, though. The woman steps forward.   And on that incredibly ominous note...  System Message: One who fights in the transcendent battle between human and dragon... Their name is... Music: The Final Chronicle Begins  Character creation! Just one person, mind, you have to wait a bit to make your full party.  Hitting X changes between two models for each person. Character portaits are also completely unchained from the class they're designed for. Anyone can be used for any class. There are also a bunch of blacked out characters to the left, but we'll be unlocking those as we go through the game.  This dapper fellow will be our protagonist for this update!  Each portrait also comes with three colors to pick from.  Up next is our character's class. Unlike 7th Dragon 1 or the 2020 games, VFD starts you off with just four classes, and unlocks more as the game goes on. Our starting set consists of Samurai...  Agent...  God Hand...  And Duelist. One of these classes is not like the others.  After that is voice selection. VFD has a lot of choices on who you can pick.  And I do mean a lot.  You can even display their names to help you decide!  A quick naming later, and we're done!  Music: The Daily Grind  ...it has been nearly 80 years since the last game. How the hell are there still ruining buildings! And don't give me any of that 'oh the world almost got destroyed, cut them some slack,' BS, because you know what is all nice and pretty?  This loving place! You know what they make? Video games. They're sci-fi Nintendo and they have the fanciest building in the country.   The camera pans over to this '7th Encount' thing.   There's Temp now! You know, for the one update he gets to exist before the actual party gets made.  Jealous Man: Dammittt! I wanna play! Excited Man: A ticket to this place is the most prized thing in Tokyo! No way you'd be lucky enough to get one! Jealous Man: What did you just say, you bastard!?  And now we can finally run around!  The touch screen is used as our minimap while we're in the field.  The strangest loving thing about VFD (techwise, mind you, oh my lord we haven't even started on anything else yet) is that there's this... hang(?) for the barest fraction of a second whenever you talk to an NPC. It isn't even as you talk to them either, if you talk to them from behind they have to turn to face you before the text box can come up. As I'll be talking to NPCs hundreds of times over the course of the game, this will become... aggravating.   It ain't a JRPG without a bunch of people standing around for you to talk to.   Homeless Old Man: Although... the quality is impressive. It makes me sad to think about the past... ...It does feel a bit tasteless to make a video game about the time where humanity was almost driven to extinction, yes.  Pale Young Man: But as long as I'm here, I can forget about all that depressing stuff. And it looks like the dragons have left their mark, even after all this time.  7th Encount is very clearly where we need to go, so let's not just yet.  Talkative Young Man: *sigh* The 2000s were such a prime era for anime... I'm so jealous of them... The 2000s??? Is this dude just straight up watching century old stuff? This would be like if I called Steamboat Willie the peak of western animation. Chelsea is also the canon name for 2020's F-Hacker, by the way, but no clue if there's any relation here.  We're also allowed into Nodens proper.    Just not, you know, much of it.   Job Seeker: D-Don't worry! I'm not trying to be sketchy or anything! I just want to be involved with 7th Encount... That's all.  Aaron: Don't worry, I'll do everything later. I can work very quickly when I need to.  Iori: What am I doing here? Why, I'm on my break, of course.    We're also not allowed to leave.  Alright, there's no one else to talk to. Time to go hit up the arcade. Music: A Place to Come Home  ...Is that the doll from before?       Those who wish to enter must show their tickets to proceed.This doll is... weird. By which I mean that it has shown up in a prior game already, namely:  The doll being held by 2020's F-Hacker. Why this doll, 80 years after 2020? Who decided to make it capable of speech? ...poo poo, maybe Magical Chelsea really is F-Hacker.  Ah... I can't let you in without a ticket. Please come back once you get one~!Temp doesn't have a ticket, so why did he come here to begin with? This clearly isn't the kind of place that allows walk-ins.    ...Did Temp come here entirely to try and get someone else to let him tag along? Like, I want to take a moment to highlight the differences in how the 7D1, 2020, and VFD protagonists got involved with things: The 7D1 team went out to create their own adventurer team. Standard fantasy fare, sure, but at least it means everyone has proper combat training. The 2020 team got their start going to an S-Class exam held by Murakumo, so they're already pretty badass. In VFD? You're a loser who bums around the arcade all day hoping someone takes pity on you.   I was wondering... Do you think maybe you'd like to... join me? Would that be OK with you? Both choices here give the same result. Of course! *sigh* I'm so relieved...Music: The Daily Grind  Oh drat this place is stylish.   And no wonder 7th Encount is so hard to get into, only 9 people can play at a time!  Oh! I forgot to introduce myself!  Temp is one of those 'never speaks out loud, but everyone acts like they do' silent protagonists.   Oh no, our new friend has the Anime Disease. I'm sorry! I'm alright, I promise. This happens to me all the time!  Should we play the game together? Really!? I'm glad you asked... Thanks, Temp!~ Do you have a cold? No... It's nothing. Thank you, though, Temp.   Bartender: I pray my encounters here at 7th Encount will be the former. Wait a minute... Literally 30 seconds ago posted:The bartender was a different person before! What possible reason made the devs do this!?  Envious Woman: I've heard rumors that the best players are chosen to gain access to the main office... *sigh* I wish they'd choose me...  Skilled Man: Go over to the receptionist and learn the basics of dragon hunting, then we can talk.  A cutscene starts when we walk up the stairs. So this is 7th Encount... Oh, there's even a navigation mode... I think I can handle that.  Do you want to play? M-Mhm! Am I that easy to read...? How embarrassing...~ Are you hungry? Oh yeah, I haven't eaten anything since— W-Wait, no! I was thinking about playing the game!~~ How about you take care of the offense while I navigate? Sounds like fun! Really? Yay! I'll be the best navigator you've ever had!~ Will you be OK? Mhm, it doesn't look like I'll have to move! Ehehe, I'll be the best navigator you've ever had!~~   Receptionist: 7th Encount can be played with a team of up to four: three party members, and one navigator.   Our prospective party members must have had tickets in order to get in, therefore they are actually cooler than our mooch of a protagonist.  Hyper Man: I wonder if there's a secret dungeon at the end! I'm totally gonna solve this mystery! We can make a party in a minute, there are a few more people to talk to.  Lonely Girl: He's always trying to tell me what to do. I can think for myself, y'know!  And finally...  The receptionist gives a more in-depth explanation about our starting classes. Receptionist: Samurais are agile standard units. They're not overly strong. but they have few weaknesses. What makes them distinct is their two fighting styles based on weapon: Sword, and Dual Blade. For the sword, Sheathed skills grant strength vs. single enemies, while Unsheathed damage all foes. On the other hand, the Dual Blade method has a greater number and wider range of available skills. Picking up where Rogue/Fighter in 7D1 and Trickster in 7D2020 left off, Samurai is this game's weapon choice class. Both weapons do different things, but you can only use one of them at a time in a fight, so you have to choose between picking one and sticking to it or swapping between fights and having to split your resources. Past that, they're fairly unchanged compared to their 2020 counterparts.  Receptionist: Agents are the covert battlefield operatives who use double pistols as their weapon of choice. While Hiding, they can toy with enemies using long-range attacks, status ailments, or traps. Furthermore, they can Hack enemies and even force them to attack each other. Agents can be best described as, 'what if you combined 2020's Hacker and Trickster's Gun skill tree.' They can hack enemies to shut them down, or put on the hurt by just shooting them a bunch. It isn't all guns and roses, however, as they lost Hacker's numerous buffs in the process.  Receptionist: God Hands truly live up to their names, using fists of steel to attack enemies and heal allies. They also inflict God Depth on enemies, letting them use even stronger attacks on those enemies. Furthermore, they can use chiropracty to restore LIFE, cure ailments, or raise stats. As attackers, God Hands are just... Destroyers. They punch things, they counter things. But they've also picked up some hefty support options! Heals, cures, buffs, revives, a God Hand can do it all and follow up with a nice pot of tea.  Receptionist: Duelists fight by entrusting their fate to the card decks they carry. They employ great intelligence to determine the best strategy for any given hand of cards. Duelist attacks can range from laying traps to summoning powerful monsters. With proper strategy, their attacks can even overlap and obliterate enemies in one hit. Duelists are... arguably one of the most interesting class designs in RPGs in general. Every turn they draw a Fire, Ice, or Lightning card, and can then expend a combination of those for various skills. The Duelist has summons, traps, field spells, Pot of Greed, even Exodia. The Duelist can do a lot, but the very nature of card games means they live or die based on what cards they pull and when. Next time: Party creation! BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Jun 12, 2023 |
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May 17, 2022 14:50
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Bonus: Character Creation So, now you know what we have for classes, but what do we have for looks? Well... Samurai A    Samurai B    Agent A    Agent B    God Hand A    God Hand B    Duelist A    Duelist B    As for voices, guys get: Mamoru Miyano Takuma Terashima Tomokazu Sugita Daisuke Namikawa Ryota Osaka Kazuya Nakai Nobunaga Shimazaki Hiroshi Kamiya Keiji Fujiwara Yuichi Nakamura Yuki Kaji Takahiro Sakurai Daisuke Ono Akira Ishida Akio Ootsuka Kouki Uchiyama Daiki Yamashita Ryota Takeuchi Kaito Ishikawa Nobuhiko Okamoto While the girls get: Asami Seto Rina Sato Yuuko Kaida Minako Kotobuki Hisako Kanemoto Miyuki Sawashiro Aoi Yuuki Nana Mizuki Marina Inoue Nao Toyama Yuko Hikasa Yui Horie Mitsuki Saiga Saori Hayami Ai Kayano Aki Toyosaki Yukari Tamura Maaya Uchida Kanae Ito ...okay, how the hell did they get this many VAs in on this??? They got Light Yagami to do a voice here! Anyways, pick a portrait, a name, a voice, and a class. Remember, you can use any portrait with any class! And two notes: First, only three characters will be chosen here. Due to some mechanics that come into play later on, it'll be much easier to just take three now and grab the leftover class at a later point. Every class will get a time to shine, so don't worry about that, but you'll just have to be patient. Second, and more importantly, this will not be a narrative LP. VFD's plot, especially by the end of the game, ranges from 'nonsensical' at best to 'absolutely batshit' at worst, and trying to weave in a custom narrative alongside that would A) take focus away from the madness and B) prooooooooobably give me a brain aneurysm or something by the time we reach the final boss. So you don't have to worry about making a backstory for your character or anything, as it would never get used.
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May 17, 2022 14:50
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How about… Class: Duelist Portrait: Samurai FA3 Name: Yuno Voice: Kanae Ito AweStriker fucked around with this message at 19:05 on May 17, 2022 |
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May 17, 2022 16:12
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This game is an absolute trip and I cannot wait to see the reactions to it  Class: Samurai Portrait: Agent MA2 Name: Francis☆ Voice: Ryota Takeuchi
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May 17, 2022 17:46
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Well, if we're going to be getting into some real nonsense, let's embrace the spirit of it by doing something irresponsible, like giving a hyperactive anime child a gun  Class: Agent Portrait: Duelist MB1 Name: Hikaru Voice: Daiki Yamashita
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May 17, 2022 17:57
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This looks like some fun. Here's my suggestion. Class: God Hand Portrait: God Hand FB2 Name: Opal Voice: Nao Toyama
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May 17, 2022 20:40
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Summon up the power of the God Hand. Your call on everything else.
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May 17, 2022 21:23
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BraveLittleToaster posted:This looks like some fun. Here's my suggestion. Same, but God Hand FB1.
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May 17, 2022 21:40
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Quackles posted:Same, but God Hand FB1. Seconding this
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May 18, 2022 00:08
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Fun fact: the one treated as the main character is not the character you create at the start of the game. It's whoever is at the front of the party. This makes a lot of scenes make absolutely no sense if you like shuffling your party around, yes. Also, seconding this one. Duelists are the best. AweStriker posted:How about…
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May 18, 2022 00:31
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Hey, on reflection: I remember playing the demo of this from the 3DS eShop! The strange doll turned me off it after the first play sequence and I put it down, never to pick it up again.
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May 18, 2022 01:52
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Quackles posted:Hey, on reflection: I remember playing the demo of this from the 3DS eShop! I also played the demo, it was P OK. Atlus put the game on sale a couple of times recently but I never pulled the trigger because I have enough junk to play on that thing already, maybe I'll just follow this LP instead?
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May 18, 2022 03:18
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Same. I'm actually interested in where the story is going (but I'm ready to change my mind if it gets as weird as you say).BisbyWorl posted:...okay, how the hell did they get this many VAs in on this??? They got Light Yagami to do a voice here! Maybe that's where most of the budget went.
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May 18, 2022 08:36
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this game is an actual tragedy and it's also really funny
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May 18, 2022 10:22
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Kinu Nishimura posted:this game is an actual tragedy and it's also really funny It's a fun RPG and a blast to play just for the nonsense you can get away with. But yeah from what I've seen of 2020, VFD is a 7th dragon game in name only.
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May 18, 2022 11:19
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Zyxyz posted:Well, if we're going to be getting into some real nonsense, let's embrace the spirit of it by doing something irresponsible, like giving a hyperactive anime child a gun Gonna second this one. As someone who discovered the 7th Dragon games through this, I can't bring myself to hate it. I just... can't.
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May 18, 2022 13:39
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VFD is a fine enough JRPG on its own, but it's very much an actual outlier in the 7th Dragon series. If you're trying to get a sense of what the entire series is like, this particular entry is extremely not representative of the series. Even DS for all its faults and sheer differences is more in line with the other games. Not sure if I would describe DS as a related fledgling kitten though, because the future games basically abandoned quite a lot of the gameplay aspects of the original. It's a very different game from the 2020s. Omobono posted:It's a fun RPG and a blast to play just for the nonsense you can get away with. But yeah from what I've seen of 2020, VFD is a 7th dragon game in name only. It's pretty much more of a standard JRPG than 7th Dragon, which is saying something considering what the series has done in comparison.
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May 18, 2022 14:29
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For the record, when I played this game I made my MC, a Dual Blade Samurai, the Male Samurai B1, because he looked like Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia following COVID protocol (or at least he does now, I had no idea the pandemic would happen at the time).
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May 18, 2022 15:29
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Go full on with the weird here Dualist Dualist B1, male Dealer's choice on name and voice
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May 18, 2022 20:47
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Class: Godhand (punching things to death is a staple of JRPGS and i will not be denied it) Portrait: Godhand A1 (when in doubt, always be a maid!) Name: [no opinion] Voice Actress: Aoi Yuuki (its the only name I recognize off the top of my head)
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May 19, 2022 06:55
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Class: Duelist Portrait: Agent A2, male Name: Yusuke Voice: No preference
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May 19, 2022 09:12
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So far our party lineup is looking like: God Hand: 5 Duelist: 4 Agent: 2 Samurai: 1 I'll keep things open until tomorrow morning, then get started.
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May 19, 2022 17:39
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Let's have another Samurai then. Portrait: Samurai FB1 Name: Inoue
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May 19, 2022 22:36
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I'm feeling like we should go with a Samurai Art: FB1 Name: Whatever feels good to you. Good luck I'm looking forward to this
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May 20, 2022 02:36
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Since it's VFD... Class: God Hand Portrait: God Hand A1M Name: Count Olaf
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May 20, 2022 03:14
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If you keep this up we might ask you to LP all of Image Epoch's gems. Also started playing Extra alongside you this month, bout halfway caught up, see you in that thread eventually and I guess I'll actually get around to reading the other 7th Dragon LPs since I somehow skipped these games.
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May 20, 2022 04:36
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Alright, calling it here. We're gonna have a girl's night out with... Opal, the God Hand,  Yuno, the  Inoue, the Samurai. Updates will start next Tuesday!
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May 20, 2022 09:49
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Oh nice, wasn't expecting to see an LP of this pop up. This one was my first exposure to the series until I read the 2020 LP thread. It's a game I really enjoy, even if well... the difficulty knob might be broken in the wrong direction from what I can only assume the devs were aiming for.
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May 20, 2022 12:25
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This game looks like an absolute trainwreck, and I can't wait to see how it goes As an aside, when viewing the thread on my ipad, most of the images won't load. Anyone else experience something like that?
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May 20, 2022 12:58
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inscrutable horse posted:This game looks like an absolute trainwreck, and I can't wait to see how it goes That's because all my update images (aside from character mugshots) are in .webp. Significantly smaller filesize, but older hardware can't really work with it. (I had to buy a cheap chromebook because my work PC is on XP, and shelling out the money was the only way I could keep writing updates while at work)
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May 20, 2022 13:53
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Ahhh, I see. That makes sense, and it's nice to know my hardware isn't suffering from some mysterious cyber-illness. Not that it matters much for me, since I mostly read SSLPs on my desktop 
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May 20, 2022 20:09
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Update II - Featuring: Video games in my video games (and still no dragons) Doesn't the font look so much better now?  The mysterious shadow lady agrees with me!  God Hand got the most votes, so Opal shall be our new protagonist.  Temp had an unfortunate mishap with a time machine and ended up killing his own grandfather, annihilating him from the timeline.   We're now fully caught up, but first...  I forgot to talk to these people outside. Careful Gamer: My stats are kinda low... I should learn some kind of defensive skill and approach it more carefully... ~ Confident Gamer: Make sure you heal yourself if you get hurt! You gotta go for the offensive strategy! You're using attack skills, right? ~ Annoyed Passerby: *sigh* Why is it always someone else who wins things? Why didn't I win one of those tickets? I guess it's all about connections... Man... I'd love to get a chance to go in there...  I can't talk to the doll, however.  But it turns to face you when you get close. ...  I swear to god if that thing turns out to be the soul of Chucky's childhood rabbit or something I am canceling my Nodens Online subscription. Music: UE77 In Ariake  Anyways! New party members!  We got ourselves a Samurai.  And a Duelist. Sorry Agent, you're just a few thousand years too early to join this party!  The Party menu in the Terminal lets you shuffle your people around. The fact that we have a 1st Team implies that we'll be getting more teams down the line.  You can also change who your Leader is. Story-wise, whoever you have set as Leader is considered to have always been the Leader. If Inoue's the Leader, then Inoue retroactively becomes the one to have met Mio. This will get exactly as confusing as it sounds if you like to swap your Leader role around. I'll just keep Opal as the Leader for now.  The Manage menu lets you mess with things.  Status gives the same screen you can get in the normal menu.  While Change is a bit awkwardly worded.  It lets you redo a character's look, voice, and name whenever you want, but they'll stay as whatever class they were made as originally.  Class is the actual respec, but requires a few levels under your belt before you can use it. It also gives a stat boost based on what class you're leaving. Delete is self-explanitory.  The gang's all here!  Time to play some video games.    Music: UE77 In Ariake   For the first dungeon, we're going back to the previous game. Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals  As a nice little touch, every time you change zones while in 7th Encount it'll throw up this screen filter for a second.  Alright, leave the navigation to me. I skimmed through the manual, so I should be OK! Um... Our mission is: “Defeat the looming monsters and liberate the Skytower!” A battle will start once you encounter a monster, so be careful. There are two colors of light: blue and green. The blue one only saves, while green also heals. Hm... I think that just about covers it. Let's take a look at the map and head up the tower! We then get a quick minimap tutorial.  Repetitive Man: Apparently you subconsciously start throwing them away if you try and pick up more than 15... You can put an item back if you get it from a chest, but you can't give a gift back to a person!  Wise Gamer: Each one has a different set of skills, so be mindful of which weapon type you choose. You might already have both types if you have a Samurai on your team. Check your inventory! ~ Sophisticated Gamer: I watched as an inferior player got a game over earlier. He didn't know the difference between Swords and Dual Blades, and that ignorance ended him. I suppose you could say he learned the importance of weapon choice firsthand. You be careful.  Annoyingly, VFD only allows for three save slots.  The floating green diamond is an exit spot.  Like in 2020-II, we start the game with the Enemy Radar in the top left, albeit slimmed down to make up for the smaller screen size of the 3DS.  And dungeon maps still need to be filled in by hand.  But first, let's check what everyone can do.  For Opal, Jab is a weak but instant move that inflicts God Depth, setting up her better moves. Front Punch needs 1 Depth and hits harder. Quartetto needs at least 2 Depth, gets a damage bonus with 3, and clears all G-Depth on the target after attacking. Chiropractic is a single target heal, and Detox currently cures Poison, Burn, and Paralysis. An important thing to note is that all of the God Hand's healing moves are exclusively single target, making items a more reliable choice for party aid. I actually find it an interesting design decision. The actual dedicated healer class is unlocked late in the game, so instead some classes can do some healing work, but nothing on the level of 7D1's Healer or 2020s Psychic. A God Hand has their heals, but those can't help the party, plus a turn spent healing is a turn spent not exploiting any G-Depth you've inflicted. Agent also starts with Trickster's Trick Hand to boost item effectiveness for the entire party, so unless you intentionally double up on classes you'll always have some way to boost your healing early on.  Inoue, uh, hits things. The single sword skill hits random enemies, the dual sword skill deals effective damage vs fliers, and she can heal herself in a pinch. That's it. Since you can't swap weapons mid-fight, she effectively has just 2 skills starting out.  Meanwhile Yuno is... yeah. Three monsters, two traps, a draw, and a continuous spell all from the word go. And while Agent got the short straw and won't be joining us today, I still want to point out their starting skills:  Because I consider their initial skills to be a shining example of the powercreep we'll be seeing. Like, Hack in the 2020s? Was a Tier 2 skill, so you had to go the first dungeon or two before you could actually hack stuff. You start with it in VFD. Hack as an actual skill in the 2020s? Single target, and the multi-target Hack All caps out at half the proc chance. Hack as a skill in VFD?  Hits everything, with the exact same proc chance of the original Hack! And that scapegoat.exe?  In the 2020s this was called noiztank.exe, and was a Tier 2 skill in 2020-II and a Tier 3 in 2020! Here you just get it instantly! But wait, it gets worse! code:code:And again, Agent starts with this! The 2020s were incredibly stingy with easy sources of Mana healing and VFD just gives it to you with no fuss! This is just the beginning. We haven't even scratched the surface of the powercreep.  Moving on, Samurai get to start with a free sword of each type, like the gamers outside said.  The starter twin blades are stronger, and they have a better skill, so Inoue will be use them for now.  Mana Water heals 15 Mana, as the name suggests. Now, those of you familiar with the older games might find this layout a bit familar, and there's a good reason for that!  That's because this is pretty much entirely reused from 2020-II! Like, I want to make this perfectly clear: The very first dungeon in VFD is asset reuse. We're not even 10 minutes into the game yet. Music: Battlefield - UE77  Anyways, fight time!  Our first victims are a Rabi and a Blue Grass. The Rabi hits things and the Blue Grass can go for paralysis. You can also see Yuno's starting hand. A Duelist starts with two cards, going up to four by leveling Draw Bonus, but doesn't draw a card on turn one. If she draws a card while at her hand cap of six, the leftmost card is automatically discarded to make room.  Opal jabs.  Inoue swings.  While Yuno's locked out of most of her moves. Her Summons only need one card of their matching type, while the Traps need two different cards. In the event she gets a dead hand, she can use   Effective damage is strong. Music: Finish Them Off  ...how are we getting paid in a video game? Mio, did you get us into a play-to-earn game? Are we on the blockchain, Mio? Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals  On we go!  I swear they boosted the encounter rate since 2020.  Yuno gets to try something now!  In the 2020s, Freeze cut enemy Speed by around 10% on top of the DoT it inflicts, which was kinda eh compared to cutting damage dealt and boosting damage taken with Burn. Freeze got a bit of a buff in VFD. By which I mean it now cuts Speed by 90%. If Freeze lands on someone, they're going last for the next several turns, end of discussion.  It was at this point I remembered those demo data accessories. The Nagamimi Charm is a nice bit of starter gear. It makes you a bit stronger, a bit faster, and a bit more evasive.  Nothing in 7th Encount gives SP, but I give the SP Upper to Inoue in advance. She'll need the SP to fuel both her skill trees.  And Yuno gets what's left. Also, despite not having the other four classes unlocked yet, their icons still show up in the gear menu.  Medi I heals a single target for 40 HP.   Yuno has a lot of stuff to show off!  Burn in VFD also got a buff since the 2020s, but theirs is a bit more intricate. Back then, Burn directly modified the final damage going in or out. Now, Burn directly cuts ATK, MAT, DEF, and MDF by 10%. As it takes place earlier in the damage calculations, it has a bigger impact on the final result.  Everyone gets their first level. Leveling gives a full HP/MN heal, which goes a long way in dungeon crawls.  The place is extremely messed up, as you'd expect from a dragon's nest.  And yes, we will be taking all these items into the real world with us. Don't question it. Escape Kits let us instantly flee the dungeon we're in.  And that's the first floor cleared!   Heal Aloes are party heals. In the other games they were called Heal Aeros, as in aerosol, but I guess we're just lugging around a family-sized bottle of aloe vera with us now.  Music: Battlefield - UE77  Oh hey, three enemies and a hand full of Fire cards!  I have just the thing!  At first  But at the end of the turn, all enemies take a small hit of fire damage. One of the changes made to VFD is that all skills can now crit without needing it as an explicit property, which gets a bit funny with AOE attacks. It only rolls the crit once, so every enemy gets crit at the same time.  Now, that barely tickled, but if I follow up by spending a Fire card...  Then the free hit is now much stronger, even without a crit. Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals  Also, if you're wondering why I haven't shown the last summon yet.  Yuno has refused to draw a Lightning card for multiple battles, and fights this early on won't last long enough to last multiple turns. Anyways, a heal point means something has to be up ahead.  I was right!  Pay attention to how much stamina you have left and fight carefully!Hey look,  Music: Battlefield - UE77  As you might expect from a flaming ghost named Hell Cloud that a Duelist can summon for fire damage, it resists fire. You may have also noticed that Yuno only has Fire cards in her starting hand. Welcome to Duelist.  Thankfully, I have a solution for that.  Despite Mio's warnings, the Hell Cloud is only slightly stronger than the mobs we've faced so far.  Although it does have the same attack it uses when summoned! Granted, the Hell Cloud's attack hits everyone instead of one target like ours, but still.  ...son of a bitch did you draw another Fire card!?  And then another one next turn!?  I don't even care that you haven't used the Lightning summon yet, Opal is getting the kill for that.  Music: None  ???: Is her prediction already coming true...? Hmph... Not bad. Time to give them a real test. They'd better not let me down!  Well that wasn't ominous at a-  Why are there suddenly robots??? Next time: Have you ever seen The Last Starfighter? BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Jun 12, 2023 |
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May 24, 2022 03:43
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Duelist is the best Yu Gi Ho simulator short of actually implementing Duel Monsters. It perfectly nails the feel of being Yugi. Specifically, it also perfectly encapsulates how Atem's horrible unoptimized deck would play without a free demonic tutor every single loving draw you get.
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May 24, 2022 04:00
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BisbyWorl posted:Next time: Have you ever seen The Last Starfighter? Called it. Well, not really, but I was thinking it loudly.
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May 24, 2022 05:42
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Man, somebody should complain to Nodens, I've seen gachas with less powercreep than this. ...like, for real, if the starting classes start as busted in comparison to the other games like this I don't wanna imagine what the future classes are unless they're like Ronin/Hexer in EO1 and suck.
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May 24, 2022 08:40
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Duelist is my favorite class in this game, and my second-favorite in the whole series (my favorite is Idol from 2020-2 (i'll get to it)). It's fun, flexible, and goofy and gimmicky without sacrificing skill in using it. You do have to try to set up the combos inherent, and there's a lot of different ways you can build about it, but it's also a class with an obvious downside that you need to work around. It's incredibly powerful if you use it right. Duelist is the worst class in this game because it's the only class that needs to expend a modicum of effort to utterly crumple every enemy in its path. That's VFD, babyyyyy
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May 24, 2022 10:59
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Duelist is nuts. The later stuff isn't really implemented (Dunno how it even work. Even Synchros seems like it would be a nightmare to get working in this game), but it gets across the spirit of the class quite well. Been helping out with the technical backend of things by datamining a ton of poo poo, and holy moly some of the stuff in this game is absolutely ridiculous. Power creep doesn't even begin to cover some of the batshit buffs and new mechanics it added in. Kinu Nishimura posted:Duelist is my favorite class in this game, and my second-favorite in the whole series (my favorite is Idol from 2020-2 (i'll get to it)). It's fun, flexible, and goofy and gimmicky without sacrificing skill in using it. You do have to try to set up the combos inherent, and there's a lot of different ways you can build about it, but it's also a class with an obvious downside that you need to work around. It's incredibly powerful if you use it right. Duelist is really bonkers, and true to their real life counterpart, they can end fights pretty quickly. If you know how to use them right, you can end big fights in around 5 turns, 3 to 4 if you get lucky. If you plop this class into the PSP games, they'd shatter it to pieces. Classes in the 2020s can only dream of ending fights that fast. Of course this is VFD. Somehow that's considered slow by VFD's standards. The fact that there are far more straightforward ways to demolish everything in your path even faster than what I've said really did not make people warm up to them.
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May 24, 2022 15:23
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I'll admit I've played VFD a lot more than is probably healthy, and I think only on my very first playthrough did I try to use a Duelist right at the start. I restarted the save because I thought the draw cards to do anything mechanic was annoying, and replaced them with a Samurai. And this was BEFORE I knew how wild the power curve is. Of the starting classes though, God Hand is my stand out favorite. Probably because I like the idea behind it - it's got good damage and can help pull you out of a tight spot with support skills like the heal. This is still VFD though so the definition of 'tight spot' is highly subjective, but the intent is there and I appreciate it.
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May 26, 2022 07:49
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