Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Freelancin': JRPGs I Could Never Finish - Radiant Historia, The World Ends With You, and Xenogears

Sorry this is a day late, the Internet died on me last night, meaning I couldn't get the images required to make the video.  (Not that its really necessary, but I like to at least try to justify uploading this on Youtube.)


These are three JRPGs I could never finish for whatever reason.  I'm sure you'll enjoy finally seeing me talk about TWEWY, but since I hated playing that game, you might not like what you find.

CORRECTION:  "White Knight Chronicles", "Dragon Quest IX", and "Ni No Kuni" were actually Level-5 games, not Atlus.   Sorry about that.

14 comments:

  1. Always good to hear you freelance. A shame you couldn't finish some of those games, the problem with JRPGs is that they take too long and get too repetitive too soon.
    Are you aware that "The Boondocks" are f*cking back?! How awesome is that? Too bad that this will be the last season, and that the strip creator bailed because of "creative differences" with the producers. Will you make a post about it? Anyways, great video...errr, recording.

    Signed, Arxelon.

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  2. Well this was interesting , I have two thoughts though.
    One is that when you mentioned this feature I was really hoping you would talk about Xenoblade chronicles. I know I have harped on you to finish it so many times. But its easily in my top 5 rpgs, top 5 Wii games and top 10 games overall probably. I just feel depressed that you never got to see it through to the end, along with the amazing ending. Ah well, that's life I guess.

    And as for the Last Story, I think you should try giving it another chance sometime, as while the gameplay takes a bit use to. With a classic controller its a ball and while the story is pretty clichéd the characters make it a lot of fun.

    Have fun at theaters, cant want to hear your thoughts on transhumanism.

    Sword Of Primus

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  3. I love TWEWY to bits, but to each his own. I will say that I do have a love hate relationship with the controls. I played it on my 3DS, and the circle pad doesnt work the top screen at all (you have to hold it for it to recognize presses >.> ), which means I had to hold in with one had propping the 3DS up, and holding the pen, and my other hand clinging desperately to the bottom of the thing to use the D-Pad. Im looking foreward to what you have to say about Dark Souls 2 :D

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  4. If you thought Tidus was bad in FFX wait till you find out what they've done to him in the FFX "2.5" novel.

    *Shudder*

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  5. Radiant Historia: Understandable. I don't know where everyone got the "it's the new Chrono Trigger" from, but I had fun and I LOVED the battle system and the challenge it gave. It's one of the main reason I still work on my RPG maker projects.

    TWEWY - Semi-Understandable. The battle system does take some getting use to, but it's understandable if you didn;t get into it. From you're other non rpg posts it sound like you're pretty bad at action games. Although I don't know where people say that they had trouble with the pins. Just have one of each different touch pins. It wasn't that hard. Storyline: *Sigh* I get it if you don't get the story. The story goes deeper then doing meaningless tasks. They were there so you could interact with you're partner and other Players of the Game. I can understand why you didn't enjoy this game. If you're a 20 something playing this game, the characters are going to to be whiney little emo gits. But it goes deeper then that. As Neku progresses through the game he changes from a little douche to a decent human being. I know I sound like a butthurt fanboy, but hell that's what I am right now. And I know it has flaws. Again if you're a 20 something adult, this isn't going to appeal to you. But as a teenage emo git with some pretty dark things going on at the time, I am not ashame to say this game saved my life. I know that sounds stupid, but at the time I was in a dark place and there were things happening that I couldn't stop or control. I freely admit I was a little emo bitch (complete with failed suicide scars and fallout boy swag) and I was probably exaggerating a lot of my problems, but never the less they were present and they had a effect. I was at low point when I first played the game and from the moment I picked up my system, I barely put it down. For that week I felt myself growing and changing with the cast and by the end I felt genuine happiness that I hadn't felt in a long time. There was new hope and I felt my dark thoughts lift away and I had a new prospective on life. I know I sound like a crazy person, but it hurt a little when you said those things.

    Xenogears- COMPLETELY understandable. Yeah Xenogears is the most hardcore of RPG nerds. It's pretty much 95% story and hard to understand at points. Especially when you start to figure out it's one giant physiological game of soggy biscuit.

    The Last story- Meh. Just.......meh. Although I will give credit in that I liked the relationship with the characters. Except what's his face. The main character's best friend. That guy was an ass from beginning to end. No they never come back. Even Lucca from Crono Trigger dies. Yes she is in this game and in the attacked village.

    Also I think you sound great. It's like a one man BT podcast. But without cheese.

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  6. The Radiant Hystoria and Chrono Trigger connection comes from the time travel, the fixed class system, it being a refining of the wheel instead of an attempt at reinvention. Even though the battle system was a bit unorthodox, it has more reasonable difficulty than the games in Atlus's own Shin Megami Tensei franchise. It has a comparatively good combat to plot and exploration ballance those grindier games lack.

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  7. Hey, may I recommend a fanfic for you to review/promo? It's an interesting one.

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    1. Hell, I take back my request of you doing a review of it. I do request that you check it out, though!
      https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9913706/1/Ice-on-the-Rhine
      It's this 100+ chapter fic of an alternate history of 1800s Europe with a bunch of Disney characters.

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    2. I am really not interested in reviewing fanfics. Also I'm pretty liberal about comment sections, but I would like for them to at least be VAGUELY related to the topic at hand.

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    3. Haha, sorry, my internet at home is terrible so I could not watch the video until now, and I had no other way of contacting you.

      Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Books are so great, I remember reading two where in one you had to travel back to Medieval times to discover what a an Order's motto meant, and another where you were discovered by spacemen, and could potentially save the universe from an evil empire. So fun!

      I could not get into TWEWY at all, and I didn't even get to the gameplay. The main character has a really abrasive attitude, and I can't get behind that.

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  8. Um Dragon Quest IX was made by Atlus? Pretty sure that's a Square Enix game, ha ha.

    In The Last Story did you change the combat settings to 'Manual'? If you do that you can have your character attack when you press 'A' rather than automatic, which makes the game feel more action-oriented. I found it made the gameplay a lot more fun. I will agree with you that it is confusing though. I actually quite liked the game once I figured out the battle mechanics (bar some bizzare fights half-way through the game against undead enemies which can't be attacked until you get a very un-co-operative team mate to cast magic on them). I found the story fun but it's not anything special.

    Not surprised the combat difficulty in Radiant Historia ramped up. Atlus are infamous for making difficult games. Shin Megami Tensei III is apparently nightmarishly hard. I've got Radiant Historia but I haven't started it yet.

    Awwww, how could you not like TWEWY? The combat does take a bit of getting used to but when you figure out what pins you're good at it becomes easier. You complain that the main character is just a cosmic plaything, but that's kind of the point of the story ha ha. There's some really good twists later on surrounding the mystery of Neku's death. I understand finding the game world closed though. You don't really get full freedom until you unlock the extra episode post-game.

    I may read a Let's Play of Xenogears as the story sounds fun but I have no interest in playing the actual thing. Plus it's not available on my region's PSN so I'd have to go through all the hassle of emulating it.

    I really want to recommend Persona 4 for you as I think it's either on or coming to the American PSN really soon. It's a huge improvement over Persona 3, but there's also like double the reading in it. It takes about 2 and a half hours before the gameplay actually starts.

    You ever heard of the Devil Survivor games for the DS? They're a pair of strategy games which have really good storylines with multiple endings. They're quite difficult I guess but seeing as you're a Fire Emblem veteran you shouldn't have too many problems.

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  9. Oh geez. If that's what you thought of TWEWY, I don't think I would want to see you review Kid Icarus: Uprising now. I mean, even though that's one of my favorite games of all time, even I have to admit the controls take quite a bit of getting used to.

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    1. Believe it or not, cramping my fingers up on TWEWY helped me adjust to KIU's controls after 3 or 4 levels or so. In fact, I had way more beef with the needless convolutions on weapon fusion than those because of how pointlessly randomized and grindy they were.

      Anyways of all those games listed TWEWY is the only one I played. Early on the game advises you not to have two pins using the same command unless you lock them with the trigger buttons so you can switch between them, which limita you but also makes the controls less of a hassle. Joshua is easily the biggest prick in the game but I was invested enough in the rest of the cast to get 100% back in high school, even if the plot is needlessly convoluted and drops a plot thread with limitless potential at the very end after using it only once. That and it's also an angst train the whole way through.... still, I get where you're coming from, so to each his own. Reminds me, I still am curious to try Xenogears and have it saved on my PSN, even if the gameplay is as bad as you say it is.

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