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  #3136  
Old 6th January 2020, 04:51 AM
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Solid Snix Solid Snix is offline
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Xenosaga II has become way harder to write about. I've learned a bit about its development that... changes my perception. I'm still processing that information. I'll start by giving my initial impressions beforehand.

The greater emphasis on mechs, I like. They were a big part of Gears, so it was disappointing to see them as an afterthought in Saga I.

There's also a greater sense in Matrix-ass action scenes, which is kind of weird. Outside of those scenes, the game feels way cheaper. Character models are less animated, less detailed. It all just feels kind of stiff.

Music continues to be bomb. The gameplay? Xenosaga I is slow. Xenosaga II is molasses. The game is reliant on stocking turns, which where you spend a turn doing nothing to get an additional attack later.

Now, that's very similar to the AP system from Xenogears and Xenosaga I., But you had options with stocking in those games. Each turn, you'd gain 2 AP. Guarding uses no AP, and each attack uses 1. That plays into some light decision making.

In Xenosaga II, you need full AP to get through basic encounters. You need it to deal significant damage, take advantage of boosts, follow up on status effects. So fights just have the flow of:
>Start Battle
>Stock
>Stock
>Stock
>Attack everything with everyone
>Repeat from step 2 until victory.

Uh, I had some more thoughts about Xenosaga II originally, but the context I have for this title has changed significantly.


It's no secret the Xenosaga series faced development difficulties. A series of six chapters had to be reduced to three. Xenosaga II had been received as rushed, criticized for barely pushing the story forward. Xenosaga III crammed a ton of stuff in just to get the series finished.

For context, Xenogears was the brainchild of a husband and wife team, Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga. Soraya also served as a character designer for the series.

One of the first things you'll notice jumping from Xenosaga I to II is that the characters now have a different art style. And the reason that is might be because, during the development of Xenosaga II, Namco decided to remove Soraya from the project. At least, I'm assuming it's Namco.

Much of the story ended up having elements removed or rewritten. Soraya would go on to post about it on her blog.

Quote:
A couple of years ago, the new team had decided to refresh the series. Simply I was one of the unneeded things.
Quote:
No offense to anyone or anything. But you would know how it depresses your feeling, if you lost an egg you've been hatching for so many years. I had been really looking forward to see a flight of our dreams.
She received a lot of angry mail from people accusing her of abandoning the project. She also recieved a lot of death threats. Some of her blog posts got really dark. I'm going to spoil this next quote because it mentions the topic of suicide:

Quote:
Spoiler: (highlight to view)
A perfect world

The world without me will be beautiful.
These days I feel that way. Like my brother did.

Actually, I tried to hang myself in November 2003. (Not literarily but literally.) Unfortunately, it failed. I only bled from the nose and left eye. People asked me "What happened? Your eye is so red!". I said "Uh, it's...an accident."

In the past couple of months, I've been said as if I'm a traitor, a deserter, and a lame duck. A deserter? You can call me a garbage rather than a deserter. Please be patient awhile till a stain (=me) will be removed from the world.
I should clarify that the post I just quoted isn't necessarily a response to the incident involving Xenosaga. She had been posting about uselessness and self-loathing for a while. It isn't fair for me to say how much of an influence the whole debacle had on her wellbeing.

Either way, Soraya was in a bad place during the mid-2000's. And either way, the internet shamed her for it. You can find some 2005-era posts where some people call her an attention whore.

The whole situation is painful to read. Xenosaga II now isn't just, a weird, janky half-hearted follow-up to a super ambitious title. It's also emblematic of a lot of suffering.

I'm still processing all that right now. I think I'll be able to return to the game, but not tonight.
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Last edited by Solid Snix; 6th January 2020 at 05:15 AM.
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  #3137  
Old 11th January 2020, 12:41 AM
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Zondekel Zondekel is offline
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I play the Mario Kart Tour mobile game off and on, mainly on my breaks at work. It's not amazing, but for a free game it's not too bad. It looks pretty for a mobile game, playing old courses in reverse / with trick ramps is neat, and the new courses tend to have Pretty. Good. Music.

During the Halloween update you could roll for Rosalina in a witch outfit, and despite my best efforts I was cursed with bad luck. How frustrating!! After that, I decided that I'd save my in-game currency for awhile until another good spotlight character showed up.

As incredibly fascinating as London Bus Driver Waluigi is (and I do love it), I held off for something potentially better. As it happened, to kick off the new year, they brought back the previous spotlight characters for another chance to get one of them (I was looking at the listed odds- once you get one, such as our above mentioned bus driver friend, it removes the rest from the pool).







She has different animations from standard Rosalina and they're wonderful. Too bad they'll likely never bring these alt costumes to an eventual Mario Kart 9!!
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  #3138  
Old 15th January 2020, 07:41 AM
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Removed Death Stranding from my current rotation after realizing it was just too mellow for me right now, and replaced it with Rayman 2. I think all I want to do is play Platformers anyway, so I should go with it.
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  #3139  
Old 15th January 2020, 02:18 PM
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Rayman 2 is on uplay apparently. I wonder if it’s a good port.
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  #3140  
Old 15th January 2020, 04:10 PM
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Mr. Airplane Mr. Airplane is offline
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I grabbed the one on GOG because I figure that's as good as I'm gonna get
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  #3141  
Old 15th January 2020, 06:39 PM
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Can you actually not play Rayman 2, considered a classic of the platformer genre, on anything newer than a PS Vita?

At least I can play Rayman 3 on my 360 AND my NGage
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Last edited by Mr. Airplane; 15th January 2020 at 06:54 PM.
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  #3142  
Old 15th January 2020, 09:35 PM
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You can play an early version of Rayman Arena on PS2. And then the race potion of the game ported to ps1 in the form of Rayman Rush, released a year later. And then the finished version of Rayman Arena, released on GameCube and Xbox, also a year after the ps2 release.
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  #3143  
Old 15th January 2020, 10:51 PM
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I bought Rayman Arena on Gamecube as a teen because it was dirt cheap at the FYE. I think I bought it again in my current collection but I don't remember.
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  #3144  
Old 16th January 2020, 06:31 AM
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I ended up having to use Xmapper to use a controller with Rayman 2, but it's still pretty good I think.
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  #3145  
Old 17th January 2020, 07:55 PM
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I've become addicted to the Final Fantasy Tactics SaltyBet

It's currently in beta. You place bets on teams of AI fighters who compete in the game's unused 2 player battle mode.
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  #3146  
Old 18th January 2020, 01:21 AM
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Tokyo Mirage Sessions on switch asks if you want Tsubasa to be with or without glasses before you start a new game
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  #3147  
Old 18th January 2020, 04:00 PM
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Solid Snix Solid Snix is offline
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Tokyo Mirage Sessions is fun, but I'd like to see more elements from Fire Emblem applied to a JRPG.

TMS is pretty close to a lighter version of Persona, which is a lighter version of Shin Megami Tensei. You hit weaknesses, win fight. In TMS, you forge weapons which then unlock skills that you equip.

Fire Emblem is all about promoting your units to different classes and making a team. Different classes unlock different skills, and you can equip five skills at a time. It's like a standard job system.

Eventually in TMS, you characters' Mirages -- which are, well, Personas -- can promote to one of two classes. Outside of that, there isn't really a job system or anything in the game. And like Persona, your main characters more or less do different flavors of the same thing.

I would have liked to see a job system implemented in TMS that drastically changes the roll each character plays in the party. I like a good weakness system as much as the next guy, but I feel like those are kind of cheap and easy. It's much more interesting to build your RPG with a stronger focus on team composition and build-crafting, at least in my opinion.

I would have also liked to have seen some of those skills from Fire Emblem applied to this format of combat. Skills like vantage, which is a counter that activates when your health goes below a certain threshold. Or Astra, which triggers four consecutive attacks at reduced damage. Astra goes great with skills that increase your critical rate or have a chance of repeating your last attack.
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Last edited by Solid Snix; 18th January 2020 at 04:03 PM.
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  #3148  
Old 18th January 2020, 04:22 PM
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Really, when SMTxFE was announced, I was hoping for a SMT tactics game
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  #3149  
Old 18th January 2020, 05:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by @ View Post
Really, when SMTxFE was announced, I was hoping for a SMT tactics game
you should give the devil survivor series a shot.
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  #3150  
Old 18th January 2020, 06:17 PM
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Maybe I will

I have a sprained ankle today, somehow, so I'm going to finish Chameleon Twist and try to figure out if I'm actually enjoying Rayman 2

One annoying thing I've noticed about Chameleon Twist is that there's no coyote time, which I'm extremely used to in modern games.
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Last edited by Mr. Airplane; 18th January 2020 at 06:57 PM.
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