Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sengoku Strider »

TransatlanticFoe wrote:Congrats on
Spoiler
getting into bed with Putin
:P
LOL. I didn't make that association, but it fits. I saw Aesfrost's hollow talk of freedom as a general critique of libertarianism & its concomitant social Darwinism. I read it as referencing the current gulf of wealth inequality in the US, but the analog does fit with a lot of societies I guess.
I like how the endings turn out. The entire game gets fairly bleak in places and a stream of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" choices fits with the narrative. Some of the party members natural alignments don't always match what the options entail but I found on the whole it was an interesting mechanic, to not necessarily being able to choose the path you want. It seems like the game was a success so perhaps it'll be refined in future.

I went with
Spoiler
running away to the promised land. I naturally did a lot of the pro-Roselle options and felt the chance to escape inevitable war, not to ally either faction, was the right choice out of those presented. However I'd rather making a last stand and going out defending your principles should have been an option. Dying for a cause and eventually spawning a resistence movement or something in a "you die but you win" ending. Running away rather than fighting, even knowing you'll lose, for what's right felt wrong against your house's background. No way was I siding with the lot that barged in and murdered half the royal family. And Hyzante were just the worst. I liked how those two options were presented though, Roland being a mix of duty and revenge while Benedict ultimately only cares about the house's standing (hinted at earlier with some of his questionable tactics)
In the ending I got, it's revealed that Benedict
Spoiler
...didn't really care about House Wolffort or Glenbrook, and was driven by resentment of Lord Symon & King Regna over how they had treated Serenoa's commoner mother. He obviously had it bad for her, and wanted to honour her by using Serenoa to prove them inferior to the son the king had discarded.
As for the choices, I didn't have a problem with them all being bad much of the time, realpolitik is all about compromise. It was really just when the bad choices made no sense. Like with the one you mentioned,
Spoiler
...if you believed the Roselle legends had been proven true by the salt crystal, it would make sense to have Anna or someone lead a scouting expedition to see if they could locate something concrete pointing to the promised land. But abandoning the lands you've spent the whole game swearing to die defending the moment it looks like you're in an unwinnable situation just felt jarring and out of left field.
I also really wish
Spoiler
Maxwell's return was written into the main story rather than being an optional character who just turns up and no-one really notices. He was a big deal early on and it makes no sense that him being alive isn't a rallying moment
I never even saw him again on my path. It was kinda weird.
Sima Tuna wrote:Hearing from people in this thread that the game is rough but ambitious is a better recommendation than any 10/10 IGN shill review. I tend to love those games whose reach exceeds their grasp. Even when they fall on their ass, the result is usually more entertaining than the typical boring sludge the mainstream pumps out.
After playing through it, that kind of sums up how I feel about it. I don't think this would have been a better game with a megabudget and a boilerplate anime setting. It must have been a tough game to pitch in the first place. "Okay, just hear me out here. Final Fantasy Tactics, except it's 60 hours of arguments about a fictional medieval salt trade."
That said, I really wish we could get more sarpigs that put full control into the player's hands. Here's my laundry list of what I would want from an ideal sarpig:

1) Lots of character classes and generics I can name or build any way I want
2) Weapon disciplines but no weapon triangle
3) Forced to commit to your builds for them to be effective aka no jack of all trades
4) Difficult battles that rely on strategy rather than the AI cheating or stat-hacking
5) no overpowered boss characters-all bosses should be drawn from the same well of classes and weapons you have access to
6) terrain should be essential to combat and height/stamina should play a huge role in your tactics
7) at the same time, turtling must be punished somehow (otherwise archers/ranged units become too overpowered)
8 ) I wouldn't say no to horses, as cavalry are rarely implemented well in sarpigs
9) polearms and spears should reflect their real-world dominance in military conflict, but not be required if the player prefers not to use them
10) I wouldn't say no to some type of formation bonuses
11) the player should be in control of which missions to take and (ideally) which factions to piss off

The closest a recent game has come to my ideal sarpig is Battle Brothers, but it's not japanese. :lol:
Triangle would give you some of that, choosing your battles and who to piss off is at the heart of the game.

It's still mixed-unit battles with you controlling single characters on fairly tight maps, so you won't see proper cavalry charges or spear phalanxes or anything. Mounted units get more movement and a lance that can attack 2-3 spaces, but otherwise they're pretty much like any other melee unit. Characters are locked into 3 tiers of set upgrades. Battles are typically set up so that turtling isn't an option, the enemy is on you and trying to flank your leader or unprotected healers from turn 1. Terrain/height matters, and pleasantly a higher elevation will increase your archers' range. Stamina is somewhat reflected in ability points which refresh at a set rate but that's it...characters usually only get 4-5 turns over the course of a battle anyway (these are like 10 vs 15 unit battles so it'd take too long otherwise). Bosses are kind of in-line with your units, the toughest I encountered had about 2x the HP of my main character. Sometimes this is rationalized in-story as you facing generals with exceptional ability, but when your feared and battle-hardened squad is struggling against the weaselly head of a merchant consortium it makes less sense.

The thing that annoys me with these games is when they clearly had people on staff who had read a lot of real medieval history, but your courageous leader is like "Lo, 'tis I the kingprince, brave and courageous leader of this band of heroes! I, funder of this army who must survive at all costs to quell the evil which besets our land! What's that, a horse you say? Bow? Halberd? No thanks, those are supporting character weapons. I think me & my sword will just hoof it the whole game. Surely, combining a lack of reach with a lack of height or mobility is key to defeating the Dark Lord, Darkklorrd. Now my brave soldiers, onward through the Desert of Death, from which none ever return! No Cedric the Sturdy, 57 year-old loyal retainer to my house who served my father before me, you may not take off your 60 lbs of plate armour. Ever. For any reason. Even just like, sitting around the house. And widen those shoulder plates for goddess' sake, you look like you could still fit through a doorway."
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Mischief Maker »

Sima Tuna wrote:Hearing from people in this thread that the game is rough but ambitious is a better recommendation than any 10/10 IGN shill review. I tend to love those games whose reach exceeds their grasp. Even when they fall on their ass, the result is usually more entertaining than the typical boring sludge the mainstream pumps out.

That said, I really wish we could get more sarpigs that put full control into the player's hands. Here's my laundry list of what I would want from an ideal sarpig:

1) Lots of character classes and generics I can name or build any way I want
2) Weapon disciplines but no weapon triangle
3) Forced to commit to your builds for them to be effective aka no jack of all trades
4) Difficult battles that rely on strategy rather than the AI cheating or stat-hacking
5) no overpowered boss characters-all bosses should be drawn from the same well of classes and weapons you have access to
6) terrain should be essential to combat and height/stamina should play a huge role in your tactics
7) at the same time, turtling must be punished somehow (otherwise archers/ranged units become too overpowered)
8 ) I wouldn't say no to horses, as cavalry are rarely implemented well in sarpigs
9) polearms and spears should reflect their real-world dominance in military conflict, but not be required if the player prefers not to use them
10) I wouldn't say no to some type of formation bonuses
11) the player should be in control of which missions to take and (ideally) which factions to piss off

The closest a recent game has come to my ideal sarpig is Battle Brothers, but it's not japanese. :lol:
Maybe try Urtuk the Desolation?
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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BryanM
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by BryanM »

Squaresoft is so odd. They obviously have some people who still care; that quirky FMV detective game they released last year sure shows that, as does the retro pixel art games they've managed to convince the suits to give a shot.

But on the other hand they're quite content to churn out lots of shovelware. Their mobile division has been putting out stunning striker after stunning striker, showing full well the absolute garbage you can create that barely can be called a game. Or even a mobile game, post 2011 standards. While even many proper console games that theoretically have actual time and budget put into them like Final Fantasy Explorers are on the stinky side too.

You know who else didn't care? The Majin Tensei 1 team. I'll be making the blog post on that in the Megami thread, but it's a tacticsy grid game. In theory.
polearms and spears should reflect their real-world dominance in military conflict, but not be required if the player prefers not to use them
In the brawling scraps most of these games use as a theme, they should be pretty awful actually. It's a formation weapon, where the wall of spears can actually be a wall.

It's actually rather rare these games even give your lieutenants mooks. Langrisser and Dragon Force come to mind, but by and large they prefer to have jRPG characters on a grid.

Starcraft gave me a lesson on range and how matchups can have shifting context: a single zergling will slaughter a single marine, easily. But fifty marines will slaughter fifty zerglings. Constantly shifting context is really really good for games, since it makes it much more difficult to assess how something will go and asks players to rub some neurons together, rather than lazily take some particular adage as something carved in stone.
Last edited by BryanM on Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Steven
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

I have not yet played Majin Tensei yet, but I do see copies of it all the time in local game stores. Is it really that bad? That's disappointing if so.

I can definitely recommend another game to avoid, though: Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord.

List of things that are good about Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord: the music (I'd actually consider buying the OST if they ever release it, but only if it has the vocal tracks)

List of things that are bad about Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord: literally everything that isn't the music is completely terrible
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by BryanM »

I really dig the art, but yeah it's inspired by Fire Emblem and Famicom Wars, but a very very poor execution that doesn't seem to understand either. I would say that it fails the most fundamental thing everyone wants from these games: the fun of commanding an entire army of dudes. From simple fun fluff like Shining Force to the stuff you actually have to think about how to play a turn, all of them would never punish you for wanting to use more than two units.

Majin Tensei punishes you for using demons. In a game that should be all about having an army of demons. That goes beyond one's subjective taste or mood - it's a failure at a basic craftsmanship level.

I hear the sequel is better, and from the five seconds of the intro looks to be much less bare-bones.



.... I'm not sure if I trust that impression, entirely. Since I've seen footage of the sequel's sequel and well... I'm sure you understand...
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

lol yeah, the sequel's sequel is its own mess, sadly!

That does seem pretty disappointing, though. You'd think it would be comparatively easy to make a nice Megami Tensei strategy game, but here we are. At least we have 2 really excellent ones. I'd really like to see a nice strategy RPG that strongly resembles the 世界観 (yeah, it doesn't have a true English equivalent, sadly; you can translate it, and you'll get worldview or something similar, but it doesn't actually convey the way it is used or what it means in Japanese game design philosophy) of SMT IV and stuff. That would be really great.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by BryanM »

It's completely baffling to me. I know it's literally a high school student's third or fourth game, but even then. The more I think about the game, the more complaints I have. It makes me sound like Mr.Plinkett in my brain.

Things're dire when I'd recommend Another Bible more highly. Sure it looks way shittier, but it plays a bit better?

---




(.... did Squeenix really sell off Tomb Raider to make some NFT games this year..?)
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

Megami Tensei has always been super inconsistent, so I am not entirely surprised. I guess that's what happens when you have so many damn spinoff titles that you need a massive spreadsheet to keep track of them all.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sengoku Strider »

I read a review saying that the new Fire Emblem is only 30 hours long? Not that that isn't long enough for a game, but it's just weird because if accurate, it's like 1/10th as long as 3 Houses was for me. The first time through.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Volteccer_Jack »

Monastery stuff made up the overwhelming majority of playtime in 3H. Engage drops that and goes back to the home base being a minor component like in past games, and it has a pretty typical length for an FE game.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Volteccer_Jack wrote:Monastery stuff made up the overwhelming majority of playtime in 3H. Engage drops that and goes back to the home base being a minor component like in past games, and it has a pretty typical length for an FE game.
It makes me wonder though, 3H was a major hit and while hardcore fans will always debate this stuff, I don't think it's that controversial to say it was the best FE game. Nintendo have certainly been pushing it in various ways, with Smash & the recent Warriors game, and the first dlc for Engage is the three main house leaders from 3H.

So for them to put out what sounds like something that had a smaller budget or shorter dev cycle makes me wonder if it was impacted by hardware timelines. We're 2 months away from entering year 6 for the Switch after all. Like they needed to get this out the door to capitalize on the franchise demand on the Switch, but also needed to put the A-team at IS on a different project as soon as they could. Different because it's on another hardware baseline?

(I may be totally wrong and just read a lazy review that missed a bunch of content, or the multiple dlc waves are Nintendo thinking of the game as a mini-platform?)
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sir Ilpalazzo »

Three Houses' length is abnormal for the series. I'd also say it's not really up to the series' best (or even its typically high standard) unless you're really, really into its social features or its story and characters. It's certainly the most successful FE, but at one point Awakening was, too, and certainly that game was subpar for the series (though still solid overall).
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sima Tuna »

The best FE imo is either FE7 (original opinion, I know) or Shadow Dragon. Shadow Dragon is pure, unadulterated tactical bliss. 30 hours is more than long enough if a game is full of compelling strategic battles rather than support convos and monastery faffing about.
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Sir Ilpalazzo
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sir Ilpalazzo »

Shadow Dragon kicks ass; it's one of my favorites in the series, too. I think New Mystery of the Emblem is even stronger though - it patches up SD's balance issues (the extreme power and prevalence of warping in that game is a bit much - though I'm not complaining too much, it's fun to use), and it does even more to improve on the already-solid stage design of FE3 than SD did on FE1. Total masterpiece and must-play for anyone interested in the series.

FE7 is a pretty strong entry but it doesn't click with me as much. Its maps are solid, but even on its harder modes, its difficulty is way too low; its enemies have such low stats that they can hardly really threaten you.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

20~30 hours is normal for Fire Emblem. Three Houses is also like 3 separate games in one, as well; most of the time you get one story which consists of like 2~10 lines of dialog between each battle that does little more than give you a vague excuse to fight things and that's about it. Three Houses is an outlier.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by BryanM »

Sengoku Strider wrote:So for them to put out what sounds like something that had a smaller budget or shorter dev cycle makes me wonder if it was impacted by hardware timelines. We're 2 months away from entering year 6 for the Switch after all. Like they needed to get this out the door to capitalize on the franchise demand on the Switch, but also needed to put the A-team at IS on a different project as soon as they could. Different because it's on another hardware baseline?
It does remind me of the run-down ghost castle in Mother 3, yeah. The party was so boppin' when it was fresh and new, and now it's just a few people left. Like the guy who just won't leave, still spilling drinks on the carpet.

Sequels that see massive diminishing returns have a soft spot for me. Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2, Devil Survivor 2, Persona Q 2, Mario Galaxy 2.... all of these were ok to actually really good, but most of them are treated like a disease by their publishers. Customers just didn't feel like they needed more that soon. A console only needs one Mario Kart or Smash, right?

The Persona-esque dating elements are obviously necessary if they want big fat sells and think they could make them. I'd agree they probably lowered their expectations based on how sequels do, especially late in a console's life cycle.

... Etrian Odyssey skipping the Switch is a gaping hole, though.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Volteccer_Jack »

Sengoku Strider wrote:I don't think it's that controversial to say it was the best FE game.
Absolutely not. Three Houses is mid tier at best.
So for them to put out what sounds like something that had a smaller budget or shorter dev cycle makes me wonder if it was impacted by hardware timelines. We're 2 months away from entering year 6 for the Switch after all. Like they needed to get this out the door to capitalize on the franchise demand on the Switch, but also needed to put the A-team at IS on a different project as soon as they could.
Depending on your choice of route, Three Houses consists of 23 main story battles or less, making it one of the shortest games in the series. FE1 had 25, FE2 had something like 40 depending on what you count, FE3 had only 22 but also included a 20-chapter remake of FE1 on the same cart, FE4 had only 12 maps but each was so large as to be comparable to about 3-5 maps in a typical FE game, FE5 had 25, FE6 had 25, FE7 had 33, FE8 had 21, FE9 had 29, FE10 had a whopping 42, Awakening had 26, Fates had 28, and Engage has 26. For reference, FE8 was developed in 1 year as a stopgap while people waited for FE9, and even FE8 had an alternate route and a lengthy post-game. The overwhelming majority of 3H playtime consists not of combat but of: eating lunch, walking around the monastery, playing the fishing minigame, reading supports, playing the lecture minigame, and playing the arena minigame.

When looking purely at the tactical combat portions of each game, Three Houses is the one that appears to have had a short dev cycle. Shorter story than normal, and even within that shorter story there are reused maps. There are alternate routes but these have way too much overlap and repeated maps across them, Church route in particular is just Golden Deer route with less content. As opposed to something like FE6 or 8, where the alternate routes have completely different gameplay. There's also a number of bizarre decisions about the mechanics. For example, Female units have a Lance-wielding Pegasus class from level 10-20 and from level 30+, but between levels 20-30 there is no Flying Lance class so they are forced to train some other skill totally unrelated to their desired build just to stay relevant. In reality you just don't bother and make them a Wyvern instead LOL. Speaking of, the best class in the game by far, Wyvern, is also the one with the easiest qualification exams. Mages have no reason to training Riding skill at all for 90% of the game, but are suddenly assumed to have mastered the skill at level 30 in order to get their next promotion. There's an optional "Dark Mage" class, but only 1 character in the entire game benefits from it, and even for him it isn't worth the trouble. It all just feels like a half-baked game that should've stayed in development for another year or two.

Even going back to the plot and writing, which is 3H's "strength", it is like 1 route's worth of writing spread way too thin across 4 different stories. Large vital story threads go entirely unaddressed depending on your route. The most hilarious of these to me is the fact that Edelgard suffered unimaginable pain at the hands of a certain enemy, and this is the crux of her entire character and motivation, but AT NO POINT IN HER STORY does she battle that enemy or settle that plotline; the only way to confront that enemy is to play on one of the non-Edelgard routes, in which Edelgard's backstory isn't even mentioned by anyone least of all Edelgard herself. When you play on Golden Deer route, Dimitri is a throwaway joke boss who only gets like 2 lines of dialogue and ZERO explanation, putting him on par with the likes of Batta the Beast from FE7's fucking tutorial. The whole game frankly comes across as very rushed and incomplete, and while I am the number 1 hater of FE3H, I'm FAR from the only person who thinks it is an unfinished game.

As for an "A-team" Three Houses devteam was composed primarily of Koei-Tecmo folks, with Intelligent Systems taking more of a support/supervisor role. The design lead for FE Engage is Yuya Ishii, who previously worked on FE Echoes, Awakening, Heroes, and Codename STEAM. The design lead for FE Three Houses was Naoko Horie, who previously worked on the Samurai Warriors series. Decide for yourself which one of those is the B team.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

Yeah, Three Houses has some serious game design flaws for sure, especially with class balance being mostly an afterthought because there really isn't much of a point in using anything but Wyvern, with the only real disadvantage of putting everyone/almost everyone/at least all of your non-magic people in that class being that there are only a limited amount of flying battalions. I still like the game, though it is definitely kind of extremely fucked in a few critical ways.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sima Tuna »

BryanM wrote:Devil Survivor 2

... Etrian Odyssey skipping the Switch is a gaping hole, though.
Preach!

One amazing game (not as good as Overclocked but still great) and one fantastic series.

Etrian isn't on modern consoles at all. It's an injustice. I suppose that discussion is better left for the dungeon crawler thread, but have you seen the physical prices for Etrian games? When the eshop finally closes all loopholes to purchase, some of those games will become unobtainable outside of emulation or exorbitant prices.
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Post by BryanM »

A few days ago Yuzo let it drop on his tweeter that he hasn't been invited to do the soundtrack yet, so by this time most of us are beginning to assume it just isn't gonna happen. At best maybe a Persona 5/Twilight Princess situation, where the game drops on two separate boxes at the same time.

I try to never think about used game prices, my old copies of Ogre Battle and Chrono Trigger are a sore spot. CT especially.

At least 3DS emulation is splendid. Orphan'd Playstation 3 and Vita games were the worst. Think about the kind of hell we'd be living in if we were the kind of people who were really really into visual novels.

Things like BS Fire Emblem are a trip these days; to think they'd put that kinda effort into such a brief fleeting work.
Last edited by BryanM on Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

Speaking of Etrian Odyssey, I started this year by buying 3DS games, and I'm going to continue doing that for a while until I have finished replacing most of my US copies of Japanese games with the actual Japanese versions and the Japanese DLC while I still can. Fortunately Japanese Etrian Odyssey isn't that expensive, except for the ones that are, at least for now.

Might as well take the topic back on course and remind everyone that Stella Glow exists. It's not like super perfect or anything, and it has some of the worst/weakest 3D I've seen on the 3DS, but it's still a pretty nice game and I'm still really disappointed that it never got a soundtrack due to Imageepoch dying. Used Japanese copies are unfortunately already a bit expensive, and I don't even want to know how much the physical NA version goes for now.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Volteccer_Jack »

OK got a good amount of time sunk into Engage now. I have pretty mixed feelings.

The quality of life improvements are out of this world. You can now at the press of a button check any stat you want for all units on the map at once. Emblems provide super powerful and fun abilities like straight-up teleporting across the map. Classes have built-in traits that give each one unique functionality. Axe fighters can perform Fates-style assist attacks, Mages can negate enemy terrain bonus, and Armor knights aren't effected by the new Break mechanic, making them better tanks than ever. The Con/Bld stat, which affects attack speed with heavy weapons, has finally returned, and it's the only game other than Thracia 776 (hallowed by thy name) where Bld has a growth rate.

So what's the problem? Well movement rates have been homogenized. Units across the board have 4 move, and cavalry classes have 5. 4 move in FE is just really gross, it severely limits your tactical options and draws out maps unnecessarily. I appreciate the desire to make mounted units less dominant, but this is a terrible way to go about it. I don't think map design does much to exonerate it on this count either; while they're not bad, none of the maps so far have been good enough to offset the limitations of 4 move. Just a few sentences ago I praised the classes having unique abilities, but to be honest it feels like too much. The Axe Fighter character feels like delivering assist attacks is his only defining feature. I don't think this is necessarily bad design for a tactics game, but in Fire Emblem it very much rubs me the wrong way. And that's how I end up feeling about Engage. On paper it's a good game, but it's drifted far enough away from what I like about Fire Emblem that it doesn't hook me anymore. I'd rather just play any of the pile of great non-FE games that I haven't gotten around to.

And on that note, has anyone played Tactics Ogre Reborn? I've been meaning to try out Tactics Ogre and that fancy new remake looks purty, but TO is one of those games that has like 5 remakes and as a newcomer I dunno which one to go for.
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sima Tuna »

4 movement is Haram in the extreme. 3-4 movement is Knight movement. And not even, because other Fire Emblem games had mounted knights who could move much further. Horses only receiving +5 movement also sounds disgusting. I would think such a tiny buff would dramatically nerf their effectiveness. What's the point of cavalry if they can't move much further than a foot slogger?

Most of the games with the "tactics ogre" monicker are just remakes of the original tactics ogre. This new remake is just a remake of the psp remake of the original tactics ogre. It's the same story.

Tactics Ogre is a very good tactics rpg. I personally prefer FFT more in some ways and TO in others. TO has more strongly-defined classes and doesn't allow for as much class mixing and customization as FFT. The PSP version is what I played and I found aspects of that remake heavily flawed, from game balance (archers OP) to game speed (too slow) and crafting (awful.) My understanding is the newest remake fixed most of the complaints people have about the PSP version. I haven't played it though, mostly because it's a $50 hd re-release of a game I already own on PSP. Same reason I didn't buy the Front Mission HD re-release (although that version also uses fugly 3d graphics instead of sweet pixels.)
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by BryanM »

There are enormous mechanical changes in the PSP version. And enormous mechanical changes in the new version. "Remake" or "enhanced port" don't quite cut it, they were overhauled.

I disliked the PSP changes on the whole: they added a ton of finicky 'skills' and special attacks and juiced up HP and added two more unit slots. It took what was already a fairly slow game, and bogged it down much much more. It's similar to how I dislike 3rd edition DnD to 2nd - enormous amount of min/maxing munchkinry for very little returns. Wish they had a little more faith in the original core game.

.... which involved a lot of letting your guys auto-battle each other for EXP in "training" mode so they wouldn't be brittle eggs.... I certainly understand why they felt it needed an overhaul. They just went off the mark a bit imo. Reborn is maybe the best way to play it.

..Ah, hell I'll endorse it. You don't have to dick around with SP points and the skill menu, you just unlock skills as you level up and can equip them immediately. It's way more smooth than the timesink the PSP version asks for.
game balance (archers OP)
Ranged units are extremely strong in the original game. That's just how it is in games with automatic counter-attacks: you're either harder than the unit you're hitting and crush them, or you get crushed in return. Eggs vs rocks. Melee units are much better in Tactics Ogre after you make a lot of levels in a heavy class, like Terror Knight. (Their debuff aura in the original game really helped to make sure they were the rock in those exchanges.) They still can't sweep the entire damn map with broken postgame dragon magic, though.

In the meantime spears are the ultimate melee weapon: avoid getting countered and they can hit up to two targets at the same time. And they felt they needed to add weapon skills to the game despite that..

Majin Tensei in particular suffers tremendously for using a automatic countering battle system. Even crazy crazy pants-on-the-head Disgaea has enough sense to cap the number of counters a unit can do, including their regular attack action in that count.
Steven
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

Fire Emblem Engage is getting very mixed reviews on Amazon Japan. I was thinking about getting it, but this makes me kind of hesitant. Maybe I'll just get some M2 ShotTriggers stuff instead.
Steven
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

A few weeks ago I went to my local Book Off and I saw a game that I didn't know existed: Senjou no Valkyria 3 Extra Edition, which is apparently the best game in that series or something. I do have the original version, but I have not played it yet, but seeing an Extra Edition for this game that I didn't know existed made me decide to play that one instead.

Today I went back to buy it, and I did (along with a few other games that are not SRPGs), but on the way out I found Fire Emblem if, a game I definitely want to get now while the DLC is still available because fuck putting the complete game on both the physical AND the digital version, apparently, and without enough money to buy both, I went to the convenience store to get more cash.Upon returning, I was about to buy it when I noticed another game directly above it: Devil Survivor 2 Break Record. Both are the same price, 4510 yen, tax included.

Heart says buy Fire Emblem because you've been looking for it for a while now, there is no complete physical Japanese version of the game, and the DLC is going away soon.

Brain says fuck Fire Emblem because Devil Survivor 2 is a way better game and it's complete on the cartridge.

Naturally, logic prevailed and I got Devil Survivor 2, but I have a feeling I will be back there tomorrow to get Fire Emblem if. Given a choice, which would you have gotten?

Either way, get your 3DS SRPGs, and everything else for that matter, now while you still can and before the prices go up in less than 2 months, and fuck, I just realized I forgot to look for Stella Glow. Looks like I am going back tomorrow.
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Sima Tuna
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sima Tuna »

Devil Survivor 2. Better game and who knows if/when we'll ever see the DS/3DS megami tensei games ported to modern consoles. Let alone a spinoff like Devil Survivors which has a relatively small fanbase (of which I am one.)

The number of ports that Atlus would probably end up moving over before they got to Devil Survivors 2 is so long you may as well abandon all hope of seeing it on Switch or PS4.

Fire Emblem games I would just emulate tbh.
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Sir Ilpalazzo
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Sir Ilpalazzo »

I will say Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is one of the best games in its series. I can't say whether I'd recommend it over DS2 (which I haven't played and need to, it sounds excellent) but it's certainly a brilliant game.
Steven
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Steven »

Yeah, it was Anya Oukoku, which is the one that was released as Conquest internationally, which is part of why I was thinking about buying it; if you can only have one version of Fire Emblem if, that's the one you want.

I didn't go back because I was lazy, though I have to stop by my office in about an hour for a short while to take care of some stuff even though I am technically off today. I'll go to Book Off on the way back since it's next to the station. Not sure if I will actually buy it, assuming it's still there (it probably will be), but I'll think about it.
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Volteccer_Jack
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Re: Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

Post by Volteccer_Jack »

Tactics Ogre Reborn is sooooooo good. Only finished the first chapter, but it's already above and beyond any expectations I had. On track to be like top 5 in the genre. Really digging the class variety, lots of games try to do the "you can build whatever party you want" thing but this is one of the very few that pulls it off IMO. It is a little on the easy side, no doubt in part due to changes in Reborn like the very relaxed levelling system. But it's hard enough that sleeping at the wheel brings disaster quickly, and like I said I'm still in the early stages.
The PSP version is what I played and I found aspects of that remake heavily flawed, from game balance (archers OP) to game speed (too slow) and crafting (awful.) My understanding is the newest remake fixed most of the complaints people have about the PSP version.
Well there's a fast mode, which is slower than some people will like but fast enough for me. Crafting is funny because it's insanely complicated but almost entirely automated. To make 1 Steel Ingot, I can:
-craft 1 inferior ore into graphite, craft 6 other inferior ore into 6 iron ores, craft the 6 iron ore into 2 iron ingots, then craft the graphite and 2 iron ingots into 1 steel ingot
OR
-pick the option to craft 1 Steel Ingot, which will perform the whole process instantly and even auto-purchase any materials you don't have on-hand (and show the total price beforehand)

I'm not sure how to feel about archers in Reborn. They are great for sniping soft targets thanks to the gigantic range bows have, but so far they really struggle to deal worthwhile damage to melee tanks. They're good enough that I have 2 dedicated archers plus a shortbow on Canopus, but I do wonder if the 2-handed bows are gonna be worth it in the long run compared to just giving a shortbow to a Rune Fencer or Warrior.
Sima Tuna wrote:4 movement is Haram in the extreme. 3-4 movement is Knight movement. And not even, because other Fire Emblem games had mounted knights who could move much further. Horses only receiving +5 movement also sounds disgusting. I would think such a tiny buff would dramatically nerf their effectiveness. What's the point of cavalry if they can't move much further than a foot slogger?
So, update, there is no point. Cavalry sucks in Engage. The Chain Attack mechanic is extremely dominant, even moreso than cavalry/Canto were in past games, and you want all of your sword/lance/axe/bow users to be in classes that can Chain Attack. This is because Chain Attack completely ignores enemy evasion and deals damage equal to 10% of the target's max life, meaning it also ignores Def/Res/HP stats. If 4 capable units attack the same enemy, that will produce a minimum of 6 Chain Attacks, dealing 60% life on top of whatever damage they do with their regular attacks. A boss with 3 health bars can be reliably killed in one turn thanks to Chain Attacks, which is why most of the mid and lategame stages have multiple bosses each with multiple health bars. Mounted classes don't get Chain Attack, so mounts suck. Physical-weapon fliers suck too, but there's a flying mage class and you get 2 of them for free.

Tome and Knife users don't have access to Chain Attack classes, but are both insanely strong to compensate. They have the same or less weight compared to other weapons, but higher damage output and natural 1-2 range. Knives apply a stacking, permanent debuff that makes the victim take increased damage from all attacks. The only promoted class that can use Knives is a cavalry class, and because of that it's also the only worthwhile cavalry class. Tomes meanwhile have Thunder, a common weapon with 1-3 range which can further gain the Brave effect with a certain bond ring. Every magic user can get Staves after promotion, and Staves are very strong in Engage. Tome/Knife users are the best candidates for the Lucina ring, which grants Chain Attacks regardless of class.
Steven wrote:Fire Emblem Engage is getting very mixed reviews on Amazon Japan. I was thinking about getting it, but this makes me kind of hesitant. Maybe I'll just get some M2 ShotTriggers stuff instead.
For anyone on the fence, Engage is more similar to Fates than any other FE game. Broadly, the 3H fans don't like Engage because it is light on story and has less unit customization, while the Fates/New Mystery fans are calling Engage the best game in the franchise or close to it. I've seen a quite a few people saying that Conquest/New Mystery/Engage are their top 3 FE games. I love Fates but I hate New Mystery, which may be why I have mixed feelings about Engage. Ultimately I think it is "Fates with better story but worse gameplay". TBH I think it has the best story in an FE game this side of Tellius, lol.
"Don't worry about quality. I've got quantity!"
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