Well, things are finally coming to a close in Dragon Quest VIII. One last dungeon and what may or may not be a bullcrap fetch quest is about all that remains.
It's been a fun ride, though it have some serious pacing issues going. The story itself and going from point A to point B is just fine, but there is one glaring problem that really slows things down and turns this game from a nice RPG romp to a numbing exercise in grinding and cash farming. That problem is the Alchemy Pot. It really isn't a bad concept; you toss two or three items in the pot, go about your business until it cooks, and ding! out comes a new goodie for you to enjoy. The problem stems from the fact that the 'cooking' time can be very long (it seems to be longer the more powerful/valuable the end result), you can't access the pot if you're in a dungeon so if it finishes you have to evac if you want the item and/or keep making things, and the pot's cooking pace is accelerated while running around outside of towns and dungeons. The end result is that you wind up wandering around some place or other for protracted periods farming mooks and waiting for the pot to ding. I'm grateful that they eliminated the cooking time in the remake.
On the flipside, every cloud has a silver lining and in this case, the silver lining is Metal Slimes, lots and lots of Metal Slimes. To wit: Metal Slimes are Dragon's Quest's traditional experience piñatas. They're extremely tough, extremely evasive, are immune to straight magic spells, and flee combat at the drop of a hat. But if you can manage to kill one of these boogers, you get loads of EXP, moreso if you kill the Liquid Metal Slime and the elusive Metal King Slime. Fortunately, an endgame area is just crawling with Smiles, including all three Metal variants. So while the Alchemy Pot is taking its sweet time giving me endgame equipment, I've been tearing through King Slimes and their gooey vassals on a cartoony regicide rampage. It's awesome, rewarding, and oddly cathartic.
The storyline is wrapping up fairly well, I just through beating the crap out of a possessed bigass demon dog with wings. That was the most tragic and hardcore game of fetch the stick ever. Then my party winds up in the local Pit of Despair while the one competent not-quite-evil guy turns into a megalomaniac Pope. Seriously, its like Caesar Borgia by way of Sephiroth here. You give him what for, but then the local Evil Deity of Evil manages to break out anyway, and doom is upon us all. You know, the usual. The Harvest Never Rests!
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Exit Light, Enter Night
Well, Dragon Quest VIII finally managed to surprise me today. It took some doing but I got my butt in gear and started playing this beast again. After beating the hell out of Evil Jessica (read, Frieza with a rack) and going through Dr. Zhivago Dragon Quest Edition, I managed to find a nifty little dungeon full of aquatic freaks and Aquaman-wannabes.
It all wound up being very enjoyable, and fairly profitable in-game. It was capped off wonderfully with a fight against a boisterous ghost pirate that obviously had a complete blast fighting my party. Then I wound up setting said to an obstensibly unreachable island chock full of palm trees, friendly natives, and more absurdly cheerful monsters to mulch.
Then some mystical shenanigans ensued, and wound up in this parallel plane where just about everything is black-and-white. Imagine a greyscale version of just about anything, then take that image and ramp up the contrast like crazy. That's how dark everything is here; the places, the things, the monsters, even the people look like they're made out of living ink. Contrast this with some things (mostly water features, torch flames, and treasure chests) still in their original vibrant hues, and it's actually pretty unsettling. Some of the monsters actually look scary when rendered this way. It actually works really well overall, and is a wonderful touch of eldritch weirdness to things.
On top of this, I've found some really fun and useful 'gimmick' skills and weapons. In most RPGs, trying to do anything except straight up lots of damage is usually impractical or outright suicidal. In others, breaking out the status effects and debuffs is the only way to survive. DQ8 seems to have found a happy medium, with things that give extra effects that prove useful here and there. They tend to be more of a happy bonus then a dramatic game-changer, but they're nice. Small stuff like a sword that returns a small amount of dealt damage as health (and skills using the sword keep this effect) that you can upgrade using the craft system to near-endgame stats, plus unlike most effects like that, undead don't reverse the drain (which is why Final Fantasy's Blood Sword usually sucks). Or a passive charm effect that actually goes off frequently, even on very dangerous mooks (but no bosses), or mass debuffs and insta-kill moves that are both economical and functional.
There's this sense of polish, and well, craftsmanship to just about everything. They've taken the basic JRPG formula that the original Dragon Quest pioneered and just kept adding new layers. It's still an old-school style grindfest right out the Nintendo days, but with Playstation 2-era production values and sensibilities layered on, making this game very much a happy marriage of both. Even better, since Dragon Quest has a major sense of tradition, Square Enix didn't try to reinvent the wheel like just about any other RPG franchise from the PS1 forward. It makes for a really fun ride for the old-school RPG fan. The Harvest Never Rests, after all.
It all wound up being very enjoyable, and fairly profitable in-game. It was capped off wonderfully with a fight against a boisterous ghost pirate that obviously had a complete blast fighting my party. Then I wound up setting said to an obstensibly unreachable island chock full of palm trees, friendly natives, and more absurdly cheerful monsters to mulch.
Then some mystical shenanigans ensued, and wound up in this parallel plane where just about everything is black-and-white. Imagine a greyscale version of just about anything, then take that image and ramp up the contrast like crazy. That's how dark everything is here; the places, the things, the monsters, even the people look like they're made out of living ink. Contrast this with some things (mostly water features, torch flames, and treasure chests) still in their original vibrant hues, and it's actually pretty unsettling. Some of the monsters actually look scary when rendered this way. It actually works really well overall, and is a wonderful touch of eldritch weirdness to things.
On top of this, I've found some really fun and useful 'gimmick' skills and weapons. In most RPGs, trying to do anything except straight up lots of damage is usually impractical or outright suicidal. In others, breaking out the status effects and debuffs is the only way to survive. DQ8 seems to have found a happy medium, with things that give extra effects that prove useful here and there. They tend to be more of a happy bonus then a dramatic game-changer, but they're nice. Small stuff like a sword that returns a small amount of dealt damage as health (and skills using the sword keep this effect) that you can upgrade using the craft system to near-endgame stats, plus unlike most effects like that, undead don't reverse the drain (which is why Final Fantasy's Blood Sword usually sucks). Or a passive charm effect that actually goes off frequently, even on very dangerous mooks (but no bosses), or mass debuffs and insta-kill moves that are both economical and functional.
There's this sense of polish, and well, craftsmanship to just about everything. They've taken the basic JRPG formula that the original Dragon Quest pioneered and just kept adding new layers. It's still an old-school style grindfest right out the Nintendo days, but with Playstation 2-era production values and sensibilities layered on, making this game very much a happy marriage of both. Even better, since Dragon Quest has a major sense of tradition, Square Enix didn't try to reinvent the wheel like just about any other RPG franchise from the PS1 forward. It makes for a really fun ride for the old-school RPG fan. The Harvest Never Rests, after all.
Friday, July 7, 2017
Nineties Metal Roosters
Well, things really have been cooking along rather well with Dragon Quest VIII. I've actually managed to take out the ostensible big boss of the game, and surprise surprise, he was being controlled by the real big bad boss of the game. To be fair, he still put up quite a fight, even managed my only party wipe thus far.
I must say, DQ8 is still coming across more like something from the 16-bit era; I'm still a bit on the fence about whether or not that's a good thing. It's slow-paced and very grind-y, but the exploration and combat is actually very fine-tuned and enjoyable. I can say that so far, I've been having a lot of fun, and it actually feels like I'm going through a vast land on a big adventure.
My characters have progressed well enough along to be a competent and deadly team. Even the moves and spells most RPGs like this would consider pedestrian have a flair, flash, and practicality to them that shows that the traditional turn-based formula still belongs with the big boys. I do have something of a heads-up on how to build everybody (forewarned is forearmed, and the skill system in place can leave you gimped in a hurry), but even so there's still a bit of discovery to be had for the experienced player. Even the 'joke' moves can be worthwhile; watching a grim-looking bandit like Yangus hop around and dance using boxer shorts like pompoms is something to see, freaking out the baddos and shocking them into paralysis just makes it better.
The crafting system is finally coming into its own. The one big negative (at least for me) so far for DQ8 is that it's pretty stingy with the gold drops, and the item drops tend to be very hit-and-miss. The upside is that when the RNG decides to be in a good mood, you can gets lots of materials to make fairly expensive goodies for resale, and the game has no qualms letting you buy lots of cheap curatives to make better ones, either for your own needs or to fatten your wallet. It has worked out pretty well so far, but even with this in your favor we have a pretty big case of RPG Economy Type 1 on our hands (Type 1--formerly known as Capcom RPG Economy Syndrome, is characterized by leaving a party impoverished after purchasing two-thirds or less of a given towns equipment upgrades without excessive grinding). On the other hand, the crafting system can give you great upgrades without loads of cash farming.
And the monsters are still loads of fun. Aside from the dinosaur lumberjacks of doom, we've got killer Zeus statues, freaky dog samurai that kill you with chain-chakram things, metal head roosters, evil beetle Mighty Mouse wannabes, and crazy Muppet marauders. And their miss animations can be hilarious. Watching some monstrosity slip and fall right on their butt is great for morale.
Well, I must be wandering off. The Harvest Never Rests!
I must say, DQ8 is still coming across more like something from the 16-bit era; I'm still a bit on the fence about whether or not that's a good thing. It's slow-paced and very grind-y, but the exploration and combat is actually very fine-tuned and enjoyable. I can say that so far, I've been having a lot of fun, and it actually feels like I'm going through a vast land on a big adventure.
My characters have progressed well enough along to be a competent and deadly team. Even the moves and spells most RPGs like this would consider pedestrian have a flair, flash, and practicality to them that shows that the traditional turn-based formula still belongs with the big boys. I do have something of a heads-up on how to build everybody (forewarned is forearmed, and the skill system in place can leave you gimped in a hurry), but even so there's still a bit of discovery to be had for the experienced player. Even the 'joke' moves can be worthwhile; watching a grim-looking bandit like Yangus hop around and dance using boxer shorts like pompoms is something to see, freaking out the baddos and shocking them into paralysis just makes it better.
The crafting system is finally coming into its own. The one big negative (at least for me) so far for DQ8 is that it's pretty stingy with the gold drops, and the item drops tend to be very hit-and-miss. The upside is that when the RNG decides to be in a good mood, you can gets lots of materials to make fairly expensive goodies for resale, and the game has no qualms letting you buy lots of cheap curatives to make better ones, either for your own needs or to fatten your wallet. It has worked out pretty well so far, but even with this in your favor we have a pretty big case of RPG Economy Type 1 on our hands (Type 1--formerly known as Capcom RPG Economy Syndrome, is characterized by leaving a party impoverished after purchasing two-thirds or less of a given towns equipment upgrades without excessive grinding). On the other hand, the crafting system can give you great upgrades without loads of cash farming.
And the monsters are still loads of fun. Aside from the dinosaur lumberjacks of doom, we've got killer Zeus statues, freaky dog samurai that kill you with chain-chakram things, metal head roosters, evil beetle Mighty Mouse wannabes, and crazy Muppet marauders. And their miss animations can be hilarious. Watching some monstrosity slip and fall right on their butt is great for morale.
Well, I must be wandering off. The Harvest Never Rests!
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Dinosaur Lumberjacks
Well, the Dork Side has led me onto a new and interesting path. For once I followed through on my gaming schedule, and after beating Tales of Vesperia again I went ahead and popped in Dragon Quest VIII for the Playstation 2.
Hoo boy; I've heard it said a few times that the PS2 is the JRPG console, and they weren't kidding. I've tried out Dragon Quest I, II, and VI at random, and never really got hooked. A guide for VII appeared in a lot I acquired a year or so ago, but I can't make myself get the game itself for some reason. Then I stumbled upon VIII during a traipse through TV Tropes. I tell you, it does not disappoint.
I should hate the thing, it's a grindfest with only four playable characters (yes there's six the remake), a fairly linear storyline, combat is pretty by-the-book turn-based fare, saving your game requires going to a chapel or abbey, attrition can wreck your party in a hurry, it goes on. And it's awesome. It's like Squeenix just grabbed an 8- or 16-bit from their archive, and just updated the hell out of it without using the pervasive modern trends. No freaky emo-warriors. The world does not suck to live in. The tragic backstories are tastefully understated and don't overshadow the narrative. Nobody's dressed like they went the Carousel Boutique while the proprietor was watching J-Pop videos and guzzling Nyquil.
And the monsters are fun, too! They're mostly cartoony, goofy critters, like a bunch of background Muppets decided to get together and become medieval marauders. And they're still pretty badass. We've got stuff like angry anthro roosters that can slice the crap out of you, Jawa archers that can rain pointy doom, and freakin' firebreathing dinosaur lumberjacks! FIREBREATHING DINOSAUR LUMBERJACKS! And to sweeten the deal, you can recruit certain monsters for kickass arena battles. And you can eventually let them loose to assist you in unleashing doom upon the forces of badness.
Throw in a nifty, understated crafting system, fun party members (all hail Yangus and his best frienemy King Trode), and a magic/skill system that actually makes you think tactically, and it's no surprise. The Harvest Never Rests!
Hoo boy; I've heard it said a few times that the PS2 is the JRPG console, and they weren't kidding. I've tried out Dragon Quest I, II, and VI at random, and never really got hooked. A guide for VII appeared in a lot I acquired a year or so ago, but I can't make myself get the game itself for some reason. Then I stumbled upon VIII during a traipse through TV Tropes. I tell you, it does not disappoint.
I should hate the thing, it's a grindfest with only four playable characters (yes there's six the remake), a fairly linear storyline, combat is pretty by-the-book turn-based fare, saving your game requires going to a chapel or abbey, attrition can wreck your party in a hurry, it goes on. And it's awesome. It's like Squeenix just grabbed an 8- or 16-bit from their archive, and just updated the hell out of it without using the pervasive modern trends. No freaky emo-warriors. The world does not suck to live in. The tragic backstories are tastefully understated and don't overshadow the narrative. Nobody's dressed like they went the Carousel Boutique while the proprietor was watching J-Pop videos and guzzling Nyquil.
And the monsters are fun, too! They're mostly cartoony, goofy critters, like a bunch of background Muppets decided to get together and become medieval marauders. And they're still pretty badass. We've got stuff like angry anthro roosters that can slice the crap out of you, Jawa archers that can rain pointy doom, and freakin' firebreathing dinosaur lumberjacks! FIREBREATHING DINOSAUR LUMBERJACKS! And to sweeten the deal, you can recruit certain monsters for kickass arena battles. And you can eventually let them loose to assist you in unleashing doom upon the forces of badness.
Throw in a nifty, understated crafting system, fun party members (all hail Yangus and his best frienemy King Trode), and a magic/skill system that actually makes you think tactically, and it's no surprise. The Harvest Never Rests!
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Second Star To The Right
And don't bother about morning.
Things have been going along rather well with Tales of Vesperia. I've actually gotten to the point where I can actually do some dedicated material farming without tearing my hair out over leaving the plot dangling.
Vesperia is a bit odd; the whole 'sandbox' gets thrown at you fairly quickly, but the sand doesn't really fill in until something like 30 hours in, maybe 20 if you're good and rushing through the storyline. The game's airship is actually pretty awesome, being a an actual sea vessel hooked up to a big flying magic whale/Esper, with the addition benefit of water landings and takeoffs. With some minimal sidequesting, you can land just about anywhere that's even remotely flat. The odd part is that there is a constantly shifting day/night and weather cycle, which affect monster encounters and town/dungeon condition (and encounters in those dungeons). It sounds fairly standard, but there's lots of RNG shenanigans involved.
I remember being very irritated in my first run-through, but I believe that my judgment was really clouded at the time, with personal problems leaving me really sour about nearly everything. I'm actually relishing wandering over certain regions at nighttime and jumping out to slaughter giant killer ladybugs for glowing rocks and other monstrous ridiculousness. Tales has a glorious tradition of having goofy monsters to beat on, (even sobersides Abyss threw angry tuning forks and knights with trumpet-bazookas at you) and Vesperia proudly carries it on. I haven't encountered the glorious wackiness of gigantic demon canopy beds or fortress turtles, but there's a much better variety over all. How about monsters like birds with actual bugle beaks or paper fan wings, bush-tortoise things trample you with fruit, bees with gun stingers (yes Sonic did it first, but these are organic gun bees), and starfish that attack you on land and sound like Teletubbies when you shank 'em? That's just a sample of the crazy bestiary. And they all drop worthwhile goodies, including materials to make awesome loot with.
Now why didn't I ever want to play this again? Well, even in angst The Harvest Never Rests!
Things have been going along rather well with Tales of Vesperia. I've actually gotten to the point where I can actually do some dedicated material farming without tearing my hair out over leaving the plot dangling.
Vesperia is a bit odd; the whole 'sandbox' gets thrown at you fairly quickly, but the sand doesn't really fill in until something like 30 hours in, maybe 20 if you're good and rushing through the storyline. The game's airship is actually pretty awesome, being a an actual sea vessel hooked up to a big flying magic whale/Esper, with the addition benefit of water landings and takeoffs. With some minimal sidequesting, you can land just about anywhere that's even remotely flat. The odd part is that there is a constantly shifting day/night and weather cycle, which affect monster encounters and town/dungeon condition (and encounters in those dungeons). It sounds fairly standard, but there's lots of RNG shenanigans involved.
I remember being very irritated in my first run-through, but I believe that my judgment was really clouded at the time, with personal problems leaving me really sour about nearly everything. I'm actually relishing wandering over certain regions at nighttime and jumping out to slaughter giant killer ladybugs for glowing rocks and other monstrous ridiculousness. Tales has a glorious tradition of having goofy monsters to beat on, (even sobersides Abyss threw angry tuning forks and knights with trumpet-bazookas at you) and Vesperia proudly carries it on. I haven't encountered the glorious wackiness of gigantic demon canopy beds or fortress turtles, but there's a much better variety over all. How about monsters like birds with actual bugle beaks or paper fan wings, bush-tortoise things trample you with fruit, bees with gun stingers (yes Sonic did it first, but these are organic gun bees), and starfish that attack you on land and sound like Teletubbies when you shank 'em? That's just a sample of the crazy bestiary. And they all drop worthwhile goodies, including materials to make awesome loot with.
Now why didn't I ever want to play this again? Well, even in angst The Harvest Never Rests!
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Devil's Lab
Yeah, seriously. Those dudes that wandering up and down the internet saying Tales of Vesperia is inspired by Final Fantasy VII are idiots. It's clearly inspired by Final Fantasy VI. So there!
Anyway, I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. The Vesperia campaign is still going along pretty well, helped by the fact that I'm not a angry little ball of angst this go-around. Sometimes even escapism doesn't help you escape things. I'm noticing a few more little details and nuances, and with the help of a decent FAQ or two I've figured out some the sidequests and extra events without having to save scum and tear my hair out. Tales-style sidequesting can be mean.
I've finally have some semblance of aptitude for the combat system, thought I doubt I'll have anything like actual mastery. Watching my main character zip around and unleash the turbo ginsu upon freakish hordes is pretty rewarding, and not whiffing every other attack makes things even sweeter. Throwing in the mage-support that every good RPG should do and things start turning into a symphony of flashy doom. The wonders of Tales-style New Game plus allowing for characters to retain the high-end skills and spells just amplifies things.
Repede the Ninja Dog of awesomeness is still very much a favorite for me, helping fetch all sorts of shinies--especially the much-needing crafting materials--with grace, aplomb, and without my supervision. Vesperia has far and away the best stealing system in the series that I've encountered, with just about everything having something for Repede to grab, reasonable chances for the grab to work, and little worry about not grabbing that super-unique item or it's lost forever bullshit (I'm looking at you Tales of the Abyss); plus it's automated, so I don't have to sit there and manually spam a command instead of unleashing the Harvest properly.
About the closest thing to a major gripe I have so far...well it's an odd thing to say, but there's not the sense of otherworldly grandeur that I got from Legendia. The graphics and sounds and overall tone is very, very good and a vast improvement over the dust-bowl depression of Abyss (especially in the graphics department) and there's some the same sense of discovery, mystery and plain fun going on. I think that Legendia is really in a class of it's own there. At least the monsters are fun too look at and more fun to fight. We've got stuff like giant wasp-things with gun-stingers, 'mermen' that are really weresharks that beat you with boat anchors, and some other fun stuff.
Unfortunately, it's time to wander off, but The Harvest Never Rests!
Anyway, I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. The Vesperia campaign is still going along pretty well, helped by the fact that I'm not a angry little ball of angst this go-around. Sometimes even escapism doesn't help you escape things. I'm noticing a few more little details and nuances, and with the help of a decent FAQ or two I've figured out some the sidequests and extra events without having to save scum and tear my hair out. Tales-style sidequesting can be mean.
I've finally have some semblance of aptitude for the combat system, thought I doubt I'll have anything like actual mastery. Watching my main character zip around and unleash the turbo ginsu upon freakish hordes is pretty rewarding, and not whiffing every other attack makes things even sweeter. Throwing in the mage-support that every good RPG should do and things start turning into a symphony of flashy doom. The wonders of Tales-style New Game plus allowing for characters to retain the high-end skills and spells just amplifies things.
Repede the Ninja Dog of awesomeness is still very much a favorite for me, helping fetch all sorts of shinies--especially the much-needing crafting materials--with grace, aplomb, and without my supervision. Vesperia has far and away the best stealing system in the series that I've encountered, with just about everything having something for Repede to grab, reasonable chances for the grab to work, and little worry about not grabbing that super-unique item or it's lost forever bullshit (I'm looking at you Tales of the Abyss); plus it's automated, so I don't have to sit there and manually spam a command instead of unleashing the Harvest properly.
About the closest thing to a major gripe I have so far...well it's an odd thing to say, but there's not the sense of otherworldly grandeur that I got from Legendia. The graphics and sounds and overall tone is very, very good and a vast improvement over the dust-bowl depression of Abyss (especially in the graphics department) and there's some the same sense of discovery, mystery and plain fun going on. I think that Legendia is really in a class of it's own there. At least the monsters are fun too look at and more fun to fight. We've got stuff like giant wasp-things with gun-stingers, 'mermen' that are really weresharks that beat you with boat anchors, and some other fun stuff.
Unfortunately, it's time to wander off, but The Harvest Never Rests!
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Brightest Star in The Sky
Well, after a bit of dithering, I went ahead and shelved Dragon Age: Origins for a bit. It's almost funny, how it demands that you play for something like half a day to accomplish anything. It's not particularly difficult, especially after adapting to the game's quirks and almost old-school challenge level, just very time-consuming now; it has gone to the point where I have to put it down until I have some more dedicated free time for it.
I knuckled down a bit and put Tales of Vesperia in for a second playthrough. It's amazing just one set of New Game Plus bonuses can do for a Tales series game; I managed to retain everybody's skills and artes (Tales-speak for spells and special moves), and enabled a boost to item drop rates. Those two alone have given me the needed boost to actually go forth and unleash the Harvest that this game needed really badly. Add the fact that most dungeons are fairly short and we have a recipe for all sorts of JRPG goodness.
The story is still a bit on the meh side (especially for a Tales game), but the characters and setting help to make up a great deal. There's lots of little sidequests and mini-events floating around here (the official guide covers maybe a third to just short of half of them, a shame after the Abyss guide) that help flesh the world out and keep you interested.
The crafting is still fun and rewarding, and thanks to the aforementioned drop boost things are getting even better. Anything that cuts down on forced farming is a definite plus. I haven't managed anything game-breaking yet, but I never found much of a reason to do so yet.
Oh, and Repede is still the best dog in video games so far, though DA:O's Dog is a close second.
I knuckled down a bit and put Tales of Vesperia in for a second playthrough. It's amazing just one set of New Game Plus bonuses can do for a Tales series game; I managed to retain everybody's skills and artes (Tales-speak for spells and special moves), and enabled a boost to item drop rates. Those two alone have given me the needed boost to actually go forth and unleash the Harvest that this game needed really badly. Add the fact that most dungeons are fairly short and we have a recipe for all sorts of JRPG goodness.
The story is still a bit on the meh side (especially for a Tales game), but the characters and setting help to make up a great deal. There's lots of little sidequests and mini-events floating around here (the official guide covers maybe a third to just short of half of them, a shame after the Abyss guide) that help flesh the world out and keep you interested.
The crafting is still fun and rewarding, and thanks to the aforementioned drop boost things are getting even better. Anything that cuts down on forced farming is a definite plus. I haven't managed anything game-breaking yet, but I never found much of a reason to do so yet.
Oh, and Repede is still the best dog in video games so far, though DA:O's Dog is a close second.
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