FALCOM Thread

[soprano1]

Ys VIII also coming to GOG

Great news.
EDIT:WTF, 30gigs?

[Mischief Maker]

WTF, 30gigs?

Yeah, that puts me in an awkward position. On my SSD I would have to erase Dragon's Dogma to make room for VIII.

Anyone with VIII experience, would that be a fair trade? As much as I loved Oath, getting rid of an open world Devil May Cry is a hell of an ask.

[soprano1]

I have enough space, but the size seems exaggerated for this game. Maybe it's just me, but...

[Obiwanshinobi]

What does "Boss Inner Bump Mapping" (official English version's config menu) in Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim do? I think I played the other 3D Ys games with it enabled, but now I see in the current Steam version it's disabled by each and every one of preset configurations. Was it glitchy on so many computers that the publisher decided not to suggest using it at all?

I thought it's for extra bump maps on vector (polygonal) bosses, missing in PSP ports, and as such, I would prefer to keep it on.

Beat Wandering Calamity on Hard (regular, NOT Catastrophe, for I wanna learn about the gameplay evolution of 3D Ys), can't say I could tell much difference between with and without "Boss Inner Bump Mapping", though. Two curios:

a) with v-sync on, the framerate is capped at 50 fps (at least on my system in its current state), which is perfectly playable of course, but doesn't look smooth in the majority of refresh rates supported by your average monitor. If its by game designer's choice rather than some quirk of my setup, then it's a peculiar one. Without v-sync, even in 75 Hz it doesn't tear terribly and the framerate practically never drops below 80 fps (not where it counts anyway), HOWEVER

b) forced heavy anti-aliasing makes for an odd framerate drop during Wandering Calamity's certain attack (as low as 12 fps in 1152x864). My PC is pretty old, but seeing an even older game laying such stress on its GPU is always remarkable.

Beat it with neither v-sync nor AA by the way, gonna keep playing without either.

[Obscura]

Not catastrophe... ouch. I get wanting to see history unfold, but man that healing system is so clunky. "Go to inventory, pop healing item, pick up enemy drop" every 30 seconds or so is just a horrible flow breaker, at least IMO.

VI is kinda janky in a lot of regards anyways, though. Easily the worst "modern" Ys, at least of the ones I've played.

Anyways, just beat Ys Seven PC version last night. Not much to say -- I've beaten it before on emulated PSP, and it's mostly the same game on PC. There's a few minor differences (bugs?) -- it's harder to shake out of petrify/freeze/stagger effects (if you get hit by the Coliseum boss's "stamp the ground and lay mines" attack, there's a chance that he'll combo you to death, since you can't shake out in time for his next attack if he chooses to do it again), and the "grab your idiot teammate and hold on to them constantly damaging them while healing" boss attacks hit/heal faster than they do in the PSP version -- but it's pretty much the same decent game it's always been, and the mandatory "grind rare drops for the endgame gear for all seven characters or you can't damage the last boss" grind is still as obnoxious and stupid as it's ever been.

[KAI]

Trails in the Sky series currently on sale at GOG!
https://www.gog.com/game/the_legend_of_ ... in_the_sky
https://www.gog.com/game/legend_of_hero ... sky_sc_the
https://www.gog.com/game/legend_of_hero ... he_3rd_the

[Sumez]

Pretty meager price cut though. I'm really wondering if I should just snatch up 3rd now, or wait until I've played SC hoping for a better offer at the time.

I'm still holding on for a sale on SC on PSN, as it really helps me playing these games on a portable system. I've also heard of the PC versions crashing, which is a scary thought.

[Blinge]

How does the Ps2 version of Ys III compare to the others?

Is it worth trying?

[Squire Grooktook]

Just play Oath in Felghana already, Blinge.

[CIT]

How does the Ps2 version of Ys III compare to the others?

Is it worth trying?

It has rather beautiful highres 2D graphics (although oddly many sections don't scroll but move from screen to screen) and the controls are improved, but it still has the same structure and stage layout as the original Ys IIIs and I don't think its version of OST is that good.

It's worth picking up if you're a big Ys fan, but if you don't really like Ys III that much to begin with you can skip it. If you're just looking for the best version of Wanderers of Ys to play, I'd say any one apart from the SNES is fine, as they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

[FinalBaton]

Just play Oath in Felghana already, Blinge.

lol

[soprano1]

lol, Comrade C looks like a sentai villain so much it hurts.

[Mischief Maker]

Well now that we know Ys VIII is selling for $60 full AAA price... how is it?

[Chaos Phoenixma]

No idea. I've been staying away from possible spoilers since it'll be a while until I can actually play it, and anyone who is currently in the PC beta test is currently under NDA. But hopefully PC will work well.

[Sumez]

Japanese reception was extremely positive.
I've been avoiding too much exposure to the game too, but everything I've seen looked really nice, and the soundtrack is IMO the best since... I dunno, many years for sure.

[FinalBaton]

I insist on owning a physical copy so I won't play the game until I receive it in the mail >_<

[Obscura]

It's worth picking up if you're a big Ys fan, but if you don't really like Ys III that much to begin with you can skip it. If you're just looking for the best version of Wanderers of Ys to play, I'd say any one apart from the SNES is fine, as they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with SNES version compared to the others? I've only ever played the SNES version (had it as a kid), and had always heard that the MD/TGFX16/SNES versions were all nearly identical.

[CIT]

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with SNES version compared to the others? I've only ever played the SNES version (had it as a kid), and had always heard that the MD/TGFX16/SNES versions were all nearly identical.

There's not a huge difference, but the PCE version has the best sound and presentation (although the scrolling is a tad choppy), whereas the Mega Drive version has the tightest controls while also sounding quite good (very similar to the PC88 original). The SNES version doesn't really do anything particularly well, and I think sounds quite bad in comparison.

[soprano1]

the Mega Drive version has the tightest controls while also sounding quite good (very similar to the PC88 original).

Best western cover art, too:

Spoiler

Even Falcom liked it, and made it a joke in Falcom Gakuen:

Spoiler

[wgogh]

Is THAT Adol? Well, cover arts..

[soprano1]

Is THAT Adol? Well, cover arts..

Yes. I hope for a third season of Falcom Gakuen, funny as hell anime.

[Sumez]

Honestly, the SNES version of Ys 3 was the first Ys game I ever played, and it's the one that made me fall in love with the series. Ys 3 might be the "black sheep" of the series on any platform, but it still absolutely reeks of that classic Ys charm, and the soundtrack is outstanding! I don't think the SNES version suffers at all in that aspect anyway.

That said, the PC Engine soundtrack for Ys 3 is phenomenal, and much better than the remade versions for Oath in Felghana too. If you have free pick of any version of Ys 3, go with PC Engine (preferably the English "Turbo CD" version I guess), but I don't think there's really a "wrong choice"... well except from MSX and probably Famicom.

[FinalBaton]

Can't wait to hear Ys 8 music in-game! (I don't want to won't spoil it till then).

In the meantime, I'll be listening to my fave tracks from Memories of Celceta (and I highly encourage you to give them a spin as well! especially if you've never heard 'em)

Just listen to that completely SICK power metal. just LISTEN to it. gawd dammmmn...
Burning Sword https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ValMIEtUG8
Gust of Wind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5gGjnKSfnY

And that one is different, kinda celtic-dance or something. but I legit got shivers when it blared outta my speakers when I first entered the ruins in my playthrough
Ancient Land https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ux3xl6Zdv4

[Obiwanshinobi]

Not catastrophe... ouch. I get wanting to see history unfold, but man that healing system is so clunky. "Go to inventory, pop healing item, pick up enemy drop" every 30 seconds or so is just a horrible flow breaker, at least IMO.

If you must replenish health this frequently, I wonder where do you get enough healing items from. Camp menu doesn't even seem to be accessible during boss fights anyway, thus you're only allowed to use one sort of item per each (mapped onto a single "item" button, so it doesn't require opening any menu when selected).
Why the camp menu takes so long to load is a mystery to me, but I doubt you're even supposed to get hit as frequently as at least once every 30 seconds.

[ED-057]

Has anyone figured out what format the Xanadu Next OST is? There are a bunch of files with the extension .DEC which actually have a .WAV header. However the audio format TwoCC specifies 1 (uncompressed PCM) but the data does not decode properly as such. I thought it might be Vorbis ACM but that didn't work either.

One post on a 日本語 message board mentioned a program called DEC_CONV.EXE however there is no working link to the program. Another post mentioned something called falcnvrt but I downloaded three different versions of it and none of them work (upon attempting to open files, either nothing happens or instant crash).

So, analog hole it is...

[ED-057]

I did eventually get around to playing Trails SC, and was happy to see the completion of the story. I found it to be less annoying than the first game, although I have to admit part of my problem with the first game was that I played through the entire thing without using S-Breaks. When I first started playing it and setup my controls in Joy2Key I didn't know what button was used for an S-Break so I didn't assign one, and then I just forgot that it was even a thing. (I guess it was possible to trigger it through the UI without a particular key for the purpose, but the method was non-obvious and I only did it once, unintentionally, on the final boss)

Is it true that "the 3rd" is centered around Kevin Graham? I thought he was the least interesting character. Is there anything to get excited about in this game?

[Sumez]

For anyone who doesn't worry too much about spoiling the music for themselves, here's a couple of the better Ys 8 tracks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRpYFwMzHw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-cjk-MTTFQ

Whether you like it or not is a fair question of taste (I always found the Ys music more *charming* than objectively good), but holy shit does it sound completely like Ys! Much more so than Celceta did, IMO. It just takes me straight back to the PC Engine.

[KAI]

Is it true that "the 3rd" is centered around Kevin Graham? I thought he was the least interesting character. Is there anything to get excited about in this game?

It is, but don't worry, you will love him and his companion as soon as you start the game (I also thought he was the most boring character on SC).
In The 3rd you get to know the backstory of every single character from the previous games, and also learn more about the world setting of Zemuria and it's previous, current and future politicial conflicts. The game is a must play if you enjoyed FC and SC, and serves as a perfect epilogue for them.

[Obscura]

Not catastrophe... ouch. I get wanting to see history unfold, but man that healing system is so clunky. "Go to inventory, pop healing item, pick up enemy drop" every 30 seconds or so is just a horrible flow breaker, at least IMO.

If you must replenish health this frequently, I wonder where do you get enough healing items from. Camp menu doesn't even seem to be accessible during boss fights anyway, thus you're only allowed to use one sort of item per each (mapped onto a single "item" button, so it doesn't require opening any menu when selected).
Why the camp menu takes so long to load is a mystery to me, but I doubt you're even supposed to get hit as frequently as at least once every 30 seconds.

It's not that I "had to" replenish health constantly; it's that I was constantly walking around with max of every healing item (because enemies drop them so absurdly often), so regardless of my health, I was incentivized to go to my menu and use one every time an enemy dropped one so that I'd have room in my inventory to pick up the one that was just dropped.

EDIT: Also, just finished my first ever Nightmare run of Ys Origin last night, with Yunica. Good lord, those last two bosses are tough on Nightmare...

[Mischief Maker]

If it's of any interest to anyone, my review of Oath in Felghana was just published on Caltrops:

http://www.caltrops.com/2017/09/08/ys-t ... lghana-pc/