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everygame · 2 years ago

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Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux (Nintendo 3DS)

Developed/Published by: Atlus, Lancarse / Atlus Released: 15/05/2018 Completed: 13/09/2022 Completion: Finished it with the new chaos ending. Did barely any of the side quests, admittedly. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Hmm. Might sound surprising, but Strange Journey has always been the Shin Megami Tensei game I’ve been the most interested in. Something about the setting–a scientific team investigating a world-threatening anomaly at the south pole–really intrigued me.

(I tend to wonder if it also really intrigued Jeff VanderMeer, considering Annihilation is pretty similar, if not actionably so, and the book came out about four years after this.)

After playing Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, I have to admit I was pretty jazzed to finally play this! And you know what–when it started, I was having a pretty good time! The setting was what I hoped, the first few levels were entertaining first person dungeon fun… but then the problems started to mount up. And quickly.

First things first: the whole demon fusion system in this game is completely wack. Now, I know that I played a remaster of Nocturne, so it was definitely made a bit easier to cook up exactly what you’d like, but Strange Journey saddles the players with demons who don’t learn anything when levelling up, and who instead give you their “demon source” after a few battles with them. This source, which is extremely hard to collect more than once per demon, is the only way to get to choose what skills a demon inherits, by which I mean “you can give it the skills attached to the source.” (Meaning that if you’ve got two low-level demons with great skills who turn into a much higher-level demon with crappy skills, uh… you’re stuck. Hope the source you use has good skills.)

You might think this doesn’t sound totally ruinous, but it all incentivises which is what I would call “completely the wrong way to play the game.”

What it means is that as any time spent with a demon that has given you its source feels like wasted time, you’ll be fusing them at an absolutely insane pace. And, because you’re using demons for, like, five to ten battles, it feels like a waste to use your sources on them, especially when you can’t guarantee that a future demon will inherit those skills without you pouring over online fusion tools to try and get the best outcome (on a demon you’ll use for twenty minutes.)

It creates a pretty tedious cycle, which is made even worse by the fact that the game doesn’t use the Press Turn system in a real “let’s re-invent the wheel” move, and instead gives you free almighty damage follow-up attacks from team members with the same alignment. Considering you’re (probably) cycling demons like a maniac, this can be insanely annoying to sort out and is.. only mildly rewarding.

So if I’m going to advise anyone on playing this, I’d say “don’t be trying to fill out your demon list and/or collect all the sources.” Instead, just try and sort out a team in each new dungeon that’s your alignment, give them the needed elemental attacks etc. via sources (just use ‘em up, you’ll get more) and only fiddle about in the periphery with fusion when it’s going to pay off or it’s demons you’ll never use. You will have a much better time.

But I think this problem fades into insignificance, honestly, compared to problem number one. The dungeons. Now, I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. It’s not like Strange Journey is Wizardry IV or anything. But it does, very quickly, reveal itself to be for CRPG experts… by which I mean insane masochists. The game might auto map, it’s true, and they can’t get away with the old trick of spinners as a result, but every other dirty trick in the book is used here. You’ve got warp mazes, invisible walls, hidden paths, dungeons layered on top of dungeons that you need to switch between to navigate… oh, did I mention that the warp dungeons sometimes need you to do the warps in specific orders? And they never label which warp takes you where on the automap?

It is… miserable. There are huge segments of this game that are tedious beyond belief I think unless you absolutely adore this kind of dungeon design. I’m the kind of guy who just wants to walk down corridors and punch things, filling out a map. This game’s maps turned me off from that so much that by the end I was literally just looking up the maps online and going the fastest way from point A to B not even filling in all the squares of rooms I was going in. That’s completely contrary to my beliefs!!!

SEVENTY SEVEN HOURS. Seventy seven hours is how long I spent playing this even resorting to such cheap tricks and avoiding most of the side quests!

And three hours of those seventy seven were just trying to beat the final boss!

Let’s talk that final boss. It’s probably the hardest boss in any video game I’ve ever played–certainly any RPG that I’ve committed to finishing. Fair play to it for being thematically appropriate, I guess, but it’s designed in a couple of ways: one, it reaches a point where you can only damage it through same-alignment follow-up attacks. Two, it casts a spell reflecting all damage from the predominant alignment in your party for several turns.

Can you work out why that’s unbelievably cruel? Yes, because if any player hasn’t made sure to have literally three, top-level demons that aren’t of their alignment available, they’re fully fucked. Meaning that advice I gave you about using up your sources on same-alignment demons actually means you might not be able to finish the game without some insane grinding.

Here’s the weird thing though… it was a bit exhilarating, though, beating this boss. I’d probably have snapped my 3DS completely in half if I had died in my final run considering it alone took about an hour, but if you can survive the first time it reflects an entire alignment, you can swap your “good” demons out and put them back in once she sets up the wrong alignment protection.

I literally had to set up my party with sources to make sure I had three demons with the ability to resurrect and most of them offering healing and I barely survived it, with my MC dying at least six or seven times (including one particularly hairy moment when only one demon was alive and in the party.)

Once I’d won… I dunno if I felt anything but relief, to be honest, but it was definitely one of those moments you only get from video games.

But right, uh, do I recommend this or not? I think you can have a lot more fun with this if you let yourself get more attached to your party of demons than collecting sources, but you really need to love just the most horrible dungeon design to bear this at all, and an enjoyably brutal final boss doesn’t pay it back at all. I can’t say I regret playing this–it’s on 3DS, you pick it up and play it when you’ve got some downtime, there’s telly on in the background, you’re on a plane, etc.--but I don’t think I would knowing what I know now.

Will I ever play it again? It’s absolutely wild to me that these games track which endings you’ve got like you’re going to play them from scratch every time to see them all. Who on earth has time for that? Six endings in a game you could maybe speedrun in… 20 hours if you knew it inside out (yes, speedrun.com has several at about half that, but those are serious outliers.) Anyway, no.

Final Thought: However, speaking of endings, I will say that I appreciated that this game pushed me into a position that I didn’t expect, which was choosing to go Chaos. Without going into too much of spoiler territory, I think this manages to nail the ol’ “maybe man is the real monster” trope and offer the player the choice of forgiveness (or not). I took not, saw it through to the end, and really did feel like I got the best, most fitting ending. Thankfully. Did I mention I played this for seventy seven bloody hours???

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#video games #games #gaming #shin megami tensei #shin megami tensei: strange journey redux #text #txt #review #3ds #nintendo 3ds #2018

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curious-minx · 4 years ago

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Notable 2020 Video Game Soundtracks That Can Be Enjoyed As Standalone Experiences

Video Game Music is gaining recognition, with many soundtracks receiving vinyl pressings, orchestral concert reviews, and an increasing presence on music streaming platforms such as bandcamp and Spotify. We’re also witnessing the uprise of indie video game development teams where games are being made by the sort of passionate type of game designer that takes soundtracks seriously. Soundtracks by small teams of developers such as Celeste, Undertale, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, RuneScape, and Lisa: The Joyful are titles with soundtracks that easily stand up against the likes of bigger budget productions made by reliable sources of video game music like Square-Enix and Nintendo.

2020 is no exception in terms of having one of the biggest budget soundtracks around with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which builds upon a legacy of industry-standard-creating soundtrack work. Taken as a whole, Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s soundtrack is clocking in at over 8 and half hours of music. The soundtrack has three composers with the Beethoven of video game music, Nobuo Uematsu, most notably coming out of retirement to get the job done. Here are some other amazing 2020 video game soundtracks more conducive for standalone background listening:

TETRIS EFFECT by HYDELIC

Genres: EDM, Ambient Pop and straight up Ambient

Describing this album makes me feel like I’m some sort of burnt out fanciful raver, head permanently lodged in the clouds. The level of giddy technicolor enthusiasm rivals that of Icelandic Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi, but if he wanted to keep his post-rock firmly planted in the outdoor music festival on Mars territory. Despite the album’s notable two hours runtime, each and every song feels like its own uniquely crafted composition, no repetitive motifs or nostalgia-baiting.

There is unfortunately still a Tetris movie in some sort of shaggy state of development in Hollywood right now. The movie is being billed as a dull biopic about the creator of the Tetris game. Whereas listening to Tetris Effect you imagine a Tetris movie directed by someone more fitting like the Wakowskis. Tetris Effect’s opening song “Connected (Yours Forever)” is a bonafide vocal pop song, like a more sugary CVRCHES-style cooing of the lyrics:

“I’m Yours Forever

There is No End in Sights For Us,

Nothing Can Measure the Kind of Strength Inside Our Hearts,

It’s all connected we’re all together in this life, don’t you forget it

We’re all connected in this”

Try your best not to imagine a cast of Hollywood’s most beautiful plucky orphan mutant misfit youths using the power of Tetris to heal a broken and dying planet!

Notable Track: Next Chapter

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HADES by DARREN KORB

Genres: Progressive Metal, Folktronica, Folk Metal, Dimotika, Greek Folk Music

Darren Korb has become one of the most notable video game composers of the past decade. Korb, an integral member of the Supergiant family, continues to outdo himself with each and every soundtrack. Bastion and Transistor originally found Korb creating a niche for himself with downtempo folk-infused electronic soundscapes and even some vocal pop with collaborator Ashley Barrett. Hades is an altogether different beast for Korb, who much like the developers of Hades, have found themselves at the height of their powers.

Korb also contributes vocals on this album, and I can say without hesitation that these are some of the nicest vocals I’ve ever heard from a video game music designer, because video game musicians are bonafide musicians.The album clocks in at two and half hours and separate from its game is still an absolute thrill ride.

Notable Track: In The Blood

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DEFECTIVE HOLIDAY by MECHATOK

Genres: Ambient Trance, Balearic Beat, Progressive Electronic, Nature Recordings, Spoken Word, New Age

One glance at the album artwork is all it took for me to know that I must listen to this album. Defective Holiday is an indie walking simulator that is explicit about its intentions: a lightly interactive one hour experience. This soundtrack clocks in at only 31 minutes and it is purely the most conventional album in terms of length.

Last week in late November, Mechatok announced a collaboration with one of the leading zoomer Swedish cloud rap mavericks Bladee, the cofounder of the Drain Gang. Last month gives a pretty clear picture of what kind of circles Mechatok is floating in on. Highly online gonzo vaporwave maestro James Ferraro is another apparent influence on this soundtrack, especially regarding the way the sinister mundane dialogue is woven into the soundscape. There’s one particular track on the Defective Holiday OST, “Rescue Shot Buibo”, that is adorned with standard trap-style drum fills that give the album a shot of energy before wandering back off into the haze. This soundtrack and video game is all about the pure vibe and aesthetic nature that are currently trending in these extremely stressful times. In a time where all of our holidays were defective from the very start, I think the casual walking simulator will remain a genre high in demand. I have a feeling we’re going to hear a lot more from this empathetic young German.

Notable Track: Valley

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Last of Us II by Gustavo Santaolalla, Mac Quayle (and Ashley Johnson)

Genres: Ambient, Cinematic Classical, Dark Ambient, Spanish Folk Music

The Last Of Us is a horror game where the music itself is arguably playing a critical character role, which can only be expected billing two titans of audio visual soundtracks. Of course Academy Award winner Santaolalla knows his way around a soundtrack. Wielding a resume of astonishing versatility in various TV and film projects, he might have found his higher calling in not only video games but in the horror music canon. Last of Us is an extremely emotional series, and with the wrong soundtrack, the experience could become insufferably bleak. The occasional splashes of color and light are what make this soundtrack so unsettling and eerie. Not since Silent Hill 2’s Akira Yamaoka has there been such an effective standalone horror video game soundtrack experience. No wonder Gustavo Santaolalla is one of the only video game composers integral enough to the game to warrant a cameo banjo-playing character model based off of him.

As if having one major composer from prestigious TV and movies wasn’t enough, Mac Quayle, composer of the whole Mr. Robot series, contrasts against Santaolalla’s acoustic contributions. The soundtrack itself is sequenced in a way that switches between the two composers. “The Cycle of Violence” composed by Quayle, a track that more than lives up to its name, is immediately followed by Santaolalla’s somber “Reclaimed Memories.” This dance between violence and heart is what the Last of Us excels at as a franchise, and that is why this soundtrack is an effective stand-alone experience.

The only disappointing part of the soundtrack is that Ashley Johnson, voice actor of Ellie’ three songs, is not included in the game’s official tracklist. Ellie’s “Take On Me” a-ha and “Future Days” Pearl Jam covers have made a little history by being the most powerful songs sung by a video game character. When Ellie sings and plays on her guitar they aren’t some little Easter egg idling moments to provide levity for this heavy revenge horror story. These songs are used to make some of the strongest character development choices made by a video game character seen in recent years. Ellie is joining a small club of singing video game characters alongside Parapa the Rapper and maybe the cast of obscure Atlus title Rhapsody: Musical Adventure.

Notable Track: Unbroken

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Persona 5 Royal Straight Flush Edition by Shoji Meguro

Genre: Acid Jazz, Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal, Lounge, Jazz-Funk

This is one of those soundtracks that, much like Nobuo Uematsu’s work in Final Fantasy, is really the heart and soul of the entire Persona franchise (and his work in the adjacent Shin Megami Tensei universe is equally as noteworthy). Persona 5 Royal finds Meguro making his most complete, funky, and otherworldly opus that sounds like no one else in the biz.

You will find many people online scouring message boards, subreddits, bandcamp features, and Yahoo Answers looking for more music like Persona 5. Outside of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, how many other games are packed to the brim with truly foxy songs!? Persona 5 could not predict how badly the title “Throw Away Your Mask” would age, despite the game being more than ahead of its time with the majority of NPCs wearing PPE. Be a good Joker, put on your mask and keep chasing Meguro’s acid jazz-infused dragon through many more semesters to come.

Notable Track: I Imagine

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Streets of Rage 4 by Olivier Deriviere & Various

Genres: Electro House, Nu Jazz, Synth Funk, Acid House

Composer Olivier Deriviere is a living definition of a video game soundtrack journeyman. He has a career stretching back to the early 2000s working on notable big budget titles like the divisive 2008 Atari fifth Alone in the Dark installment and Remember Me, an unsung buried gem from the PS3/360 era Capcom title. Remember Me is where Deriviere’s electronic leanings started becoming especially prominent in his sound. On the Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack Deriviere has completely come into his own element, developing a whole new sense of campy playfulness.

Electronic French House music can be a divisive genre. For every Daft Punk commercial success there is a band that ruffles feathers like Justice. I sense a strong presence of late departed French House titan Philippe Zdar of Cassius as well. If you’d played this soundtrack for me out of context, I would have guessed an obscure voguing tape from the 80s or a really talented mysterious DJ set. Instead, this is a sequel to a classic beat em up franchise that left a portion of players disappointed by the game’s four hour playtime. The soundtrack is over an hour and fifty minutes long of high octane House music bliss. Much like the Tetris Effect soundtrack, it is truly impressive how much depth these tracks have when they could have easily been nostalgic recycled beats. Sometimes a game’s soundtrack can offer more post game enjoyment than an actual game.

Notable Track: Chill Or Don’t

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Hylics 2 by Chuck Salamone & Mason Lindroth

Genres: Experimental Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Hypagogic Pop, Stoner Rock, Jazz-Rock

A soundtrack that comes closest to capturing the experience of hearing the Earthbound or Katamari Damacy soundtracks for the first time. The Hylic indie RPG series is a wonderful and strange beast that is ready to frolic and show its playful side. Hylics is a part of a recent uprising of indie games being developed on the RPG Maker software. 2020 year has left us all with variations of the same stressed out adjectives: Weird. Messed Up. Surreal.

Why not listen to an album from a game that is the perfect embodiment of that surreal mantra? Step away from your computer, draw a bath, and put this album on. Thank me later!

Notable track: Xeno Arcadia

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Ultrakill: Infinite Hyperdeath (Act I Soundtrack) by Heaven Pierce Her aka game developer Arsi “Hakita” Patala

Genres: Drum and Bass, Industrial Metal, Ambient, Progressive Metal, Acidcore

Nothing says “modern indie game development” more than a game built completely from the ground up by one person. Ultrakill’s developer “Hakita” is one of those kindly folkloric DIY figures that make video games such an extensive art form. The game is a painstaking gloriously bloody ode to Dooms of yesteryear but with plenty of its own fine tuned style. The perfect soundtrack for when you’re painting your personal Hell a darker shade of gore, but also would really like to kick your ass into shape if you need an adrenaline boost to your Quarantine blues.

Notable Track: Panic Betrayer

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Risk of Rain 2 by Chris Christodoulou

Genres: Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Space Ambient, Post-Rock

Something about the country of Greece brings the best kind of futurism out of the country’s composers. Christodoulou’s Risk of Rain 2 soundtrack is no Bladerunner knock off. This soundtrack for the colorful sci-fi indie rougelike is punchier and less nocturnal than your typical synth-heavy sci-fi soundtrack. Risk of Rain is one of the more successful Kickstarter series around and has the best quality an indie game can have: it feels like a labor of love on all fronts. There’s no reason a rougelike like Rain of Ruin or Hades needs a soundtrack this good, but Christodoulou casts a spell with his electronic-driven prog rock that makes you want to keep respawning. A huge missed opportunity if Christodoulou does not get to soundtrack an earnest sci-fi action-adventure for even big screens. Oh! This soundtrack also features some spoken word segments from Werner Herzog; what more do you need to know?

Notable Track: The Rain Formerly Known As Purple

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Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus by Guillaume David

A big debut project from an up-and-coming composer Guillaume David. Prior to the making of this soundtrack, David was a video game voice actor who worked on a Resident Evil Devil May Cry crossover voicing the character of “Hunk.” Warhammer 40K might become a franchise that more people will care about solely based on the quality of this installment’s soundtrack. When you see the title Warhammer 40,000, what sort of sounds come to mind? If you guessed “Neo gothic cyber Gregorian chants that seamlessly melds the ancient and futuristic”, you would be correct. A turn-based action game could possibly fall into dull territory, but with a visual identity as strong as Warhammer 40K melded with a suitable musical atmosphere, the action and world becomes irresistible. This soundtrack is a brisk 56 minutes and the other soundtrack on this list with a more conventional runtime. Not a second is wasted on this dynamic and fantastical soundtrack. Prior to hearing this soundtrack I had no intention of ever looking into playing a game based off of something as convoluted as Warhammer 40K, but now I very much want to know what these robot priests are about. That’s the magic of a quality soundtrack.

Notable track: Millenial Rage

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Honorable Mentions:

Happy Listening!

#Video Games #Video Game Music #Soundtracks #Top 10 #Video Games 2020 #Final Fantasy 7 #Persona 5 #Streets of Rage #Hylic #Utrakill #Risk of Rain #indie games #Square Enix #Warhammer 40k #last of us #Last of us 2

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gingermintpepper · 4 years ago

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After thinking it over for a bit, I've decided that I might as well do a proper underrated 3DS game rec list. I'm a bit of an ATLUS junkie and that's gonna be pretty disgustingly apparent in this list, but it's not my fault that they released hit after hit and all of them were duly ignored.

Due to tumblr's 10 image limit (and my struggle to keep motivated to do one thing for more than three hours) I'm definitely gonna have to break this up into parts and I'm fairly certain one of these lists is just gonna be MegaTen games lmao but I'd like to let people know about these excellent titles and see if I can't at least get people interested in them so they can get more traction.

So, without further ado:

Some 3DS Games that were criminally slept on (part 1)

Monster Hunter Stories

God, where do I begin with this game. Well, the basics: It's a JRPG spinoff title of the now widely successful and popular Monster Hunter series featuring a different take on interacting with the varied and intricate monsters populating the world: Riders.

Yep, instead of hunting the beasties, you play as a young rider who's completed their intiation ritual and can now bond with 'Monsties' as they've cutely labelled the usually ferocious monsters of the wilds. The great thing is that you still fight Monsters--tons of them in fact but this isn't a paid review and in my humble opinion, the most impressive thing about this game is the visual style. The landscapes, the armour, the way they redesigned and 3DS-ified the classically hyper realistic and monstrous beasts to not only be absolutely adorable but still capable of being intimidating when the time calls for it, the stellar animation of special moves and combination attacks--it's delicious, nutritious, stupendous, I can and will consume it like it's part of my recommended caloric intake.

It's very akin to Pokemon in the way its basic gameplay premise is set up, however, instead of catching--or even indeed befriending--the Monsties in the game, you rummage through their nests and steal their eggs, later hatching them and getting yourself a brand new lightly kidnapped monster pal!

Other general things about the game:

Pros:

The armour and weapon sets for both male and female characters slap along with the general character customisation options. They're incredibly diverse (though limited in body type) and you can switch around traits and features whenever you want from your house.

The POGS--these porkers are everywhere and they serve as tiny little achievements for exploring every odd and end of the world. Also they have little outfits. They're so cute. 🥺🥺

You can actually ride the Monsties. All of em. Or, at least the ones that you have available to be your buddies. They all have exploration skills and traits that not only make exploring much more interesting but encourage you to swap out your active Monstie and play around with your options a bit.

Y'all breeding Monsties is complicated and I live for just how intense and ridiculous you can get with optimal builds for these things.

The story is really competently put together! The characters, character designs and even the internal conflict with your starting trio of characters is really compelling along with the mystery of the blight that's infecting Monsters across the world. It's not anything worth awards but it's compelling and it makes you care about the characters if that's what you're in the market for.

Amazing sound design, expansive world, everything about the presentation of this game oozes that Monster Hunter charm even if the art is cutesier than usual. You'll never get bored of its stellar visual presentation!

Available for around twenty quid on the Google Play store, so if you want, you could actually get the full game on your smartphone or tablet. Note though that it would be a battery nuker.

Cons:

If you're on a regular 3DS, frame rate drops are a given. This game kinda pushes the visual capabilities of the 3DS to its absolute limit--a lot like Okamiden did back on the DS.

One save file :( It's pretty much for the same reason as above but still.

If you're playing as the girl, you can't get male armour and vice versa. Since there's only one save file, you'll never be able to have all of the armour sets in a single playthrough and that's criminal because both of the sets for the genders are absolutely breath-taking, thank you.

I 👏can't 👏make👏my👏 own 👏Palico👏

Multi-player for this game is pretty dead seeing as it's almost five years old by now and never got much press or traction. Usually this wouldn't be an issue - this game is 99% singleplayer and you don't really need to fuss about with multi-player to have fun, but if you want to collect all the Monsties, you'll need it since the only way to get Glavenus is through pvp achievements. :/

Final thoughts: Play it if you find yourself getting tired or disappointed with 3DS Pokemon games but still want something that feels as fantastical as Pokemon. It outshines the 3DS Pokemon games at every turn and I will never be over just how thoughtfully put together and fully realised these games are. Of course, if you've ever played Monster Hunter, then you know just how intensive these games are with the lore, biology, cultures and world of their Monsters but seeing that translated into JRPG format was just very sobering and it's a game that, to this day, continues to awe me with just how much love and attention went into it.

Last note: If you're still unsure about it, there's a demo available on the e-shop of the 3DS that allows you to play through the entire initial area of the game. Your data does carry through to the full release and to give you an idea of how much I've been able to squeeze out of it - my playtime for that demo is currently sitting at 22 hours. Make sure to get a hold of that Cyan-Kut-Ku!

7th Dragon III Code: VFD

The title may sound intimidating but the premise is not! A mysterious disease called Dragon Sickness spread by the Dragonsbane flowers that have cropped up all around the world. You and your team are recruited by the Nodens game company after you display extraordinary prowess in their hit virtual reality game 7th Encount. As you go through the adventure, you are tasked with finding out the truth behind the Dragon Sickness and asked to stop both it and the Dragons that are destroying the world.

This game is fun. It's another turn-based JRPG however, in this game you create all of your characters yourself from the myriad of classes available to you from the jump. Different classes of course have very different specialisations - Samurai focus on high powered cutting damage with their swords, Duelists are summoners who can influence the element of the battlefield as well as summon monsters from each element, Agents can hack into your enemies and inflict a barrage of nasty ailments, just to name a few - and you are given three teams of three characters each to experiment with different team comps and find the balance that works for you. There's also a wide variety of Dragons to hunt and kill in the game, which directly affects how infected your world is with the Dragon Sickness causing Dragonsbane. Along the way you will also come into contact with many interesting characters, concepts and confrontations that will make the task of saving the world all the more imperative.

Pros

1. The character creator and differing classes give way for tons of experimenting and playing around with your own unique approach to combat and carrying out your missions. Granted, 'character creation' is generous, it's little more than palatte swaps but the classes are really where VFD shines. Eight main classes may not sound like a lot, but the expaniveness of the character skills, their synergy with their fellow classes and the uniqueness of some of the classes in and of itself allows for so much flexibility and creativity in approaches to even tougher bosses. It also encourages the switching about of your party members to really finagle with the options available to you.

2. God this game is pretty. The locations, the character art, the creature design - all of it is gorgeous and this game capitalises on every bit of the 3DS's presentation limitations as it can.

3. You can romance anything and everyone - yes, you can even be gay/lesbian/poly in this game. In fact, one of the main characters - Julietta - is gnc and he's a constant source of joy as well one of my personal favourite characters, right behind Yuma.

4. Exploration is very very forgiving as the game has healing spots and teleport nodes all over the world to allow for quick, seamless travel between quest points without feeling like anything is too much of a hassle. There are also special enemies that allow for quick grinding as well as quick farming of money. In general, the game does a really good job of making sure that the grind is never unbearable or inconsiderate of your time.

Cons:

1. This is the fourth game in a series the West has never seen any other title for, and from the looks of it, will probably never see any other titles for. Because of that, there are some elements that may seem confusing or revelations in the plot that may seem to come out of nowhere.

2. While the visuals are great, the OST of this one is pretty short making for a lot of reused soundtracks that can get really annoying if you're like me and need your audio to be interesting or consistent so it doesn't distract you too much.

3. This one isn't really a con but it is divisive: This game gets pretty difficult at times. A few of the main dragon enemies including and especially the final boss can give you a serious run for your money in the annoy-o-meter in terms of the kind of absolute JRPG fuckery they can pull out of their magic bag of bullshit movesets and while I generally enjoy that kind of thing, I know it's not for everyone. Most regular combat shouldn't be too tricky once you have a team comp that works well together but you also need to pay attention since the same team that carries you to victory one time might be worth beans against another dragon.

Final thoughts: This is... a really good game. Interesting story, really interesting characters, pretty world and a battle system that really makes you sit down and think. There's also a demo for this available in the e-shop and while your data doesn't carry over - you do receive multiple perks for carrying over your demo data including some exclusive items that, while not game breaking, do help a ton in the early stages of the game.

This isn't a final list by any stretch of the word; I only have the energy to do these two right now, but the next games up for coverage are Ever Oasis and Stella Glow! If you're interested in my full plan of games I want to cover here then my current lineup includes: Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Project Mirai: Deluxe, Culdecept Revolt, Alliance Alive, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Etrian Odyssey V, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.

Finally, if anyone has played any of the games I mention, cover or plan to cover PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME, I AM SO LONELY IN MY FORTRESS OF SAND. On a serious note, I'd love to hear what other people who've played these games think!

Thanks for reading,

-Ginger

PS: @feralpeacock Because a million years ago, on my first underrated games post, you asked that I remember you. :D

#ginger rambles #ginger talks about video games #monster hunter stories #monster hunter #code dragon iii vfd #video games #3ds #underrated games #These take so much energy to make holy shit #There are so many more amazing 3ds games I could talk about #But I legit just don't have the braincells for #Also I know Apocalypse probably has the biggest audience that played it out of all the games listed #But it's criminally underrated because it was different #So it's probably going to get it's own little review thing #Yeehaw

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kob131 · 4 years ago

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Oh and his ending, which is suppose to wrap all this up?

A. “They have the lamp that attracts Grimm, that won’t be masked by the Grimm! They’re so stupid!”

Fun Fact-When Ren and Jaune do their trick-It’s a split second so they can get in front of the Leviathan and Ruby can blast with her Silver Eyes.

“A pair of Manta aircraft are seen firing shots at the Leviathan. Suddenly, the Leviathan unleashes an energy beam attack from its mouth. It shifts the beam over to one of the poles powering the hard-light Dust barrier, destroying it. The Leviathan roars.

Ruby and her friends watch in horror from their aircraft.

Oscar: It tore straight through...!

Air Control: All squadrons, fall back to evacuation procedures. Disengage Leviathan! I repeat, disengage! Over!

Ruby: No, wait!Ruby runs up to the radio.

Qrow: Ruby!

Ruby: We can stop it!

Air Control: Who is this? Identify yourself!

Ruby: I'm a Huntress. My team and I are heading to the Leviathan and can weaken it for you to attack!

Everyone looks at Ruby in shock.

Jaune: We can?

Ruby: I can.

Maria: Ruby, when I said "trial by fire"--

Ruby: I did it at Beacon and at the farm.

Weiss: You really think you can do it now?

Ruby: I don't have a choice.

Air Control: Manta 5-1, your ship is currently flagged as hostile. You will receive no support, over.

Ruby: (picking up radio) Fine, we'll do it alone if we have to.

From her mech, Cordovin overhears Ruby's radio chatter.

Ruby: We can hit it while it's stopped at the next barrier. Ren, you're up!

Ren and Jaune proceed to combine their Semblances, masking the airship as it weaves between the air battles between Grimm and Atlas forces. The Leviathan makes its way to the next barrier and charges its energy breath again.

Qrow: We're too late! Pull up!

The Manta aircraft pulls up out of the way as the Leviathan fires its breath, destroying the next barrier and toppling a cupola off one of the buildings in Argus. Ren and Jaune collapse as their Auras are drained.’

The lamp wouldn’t matter. And it didn’t.

B. ‘Why is everyone shocked to hear Ruby suggesting to help? It’s sooo dumb!”

Wanna know why I gave so much context above? Because above- you see what FMF is referring to. ... Yeah, the shock wasn’t from deciding to help- It was from Ruby saying they can stall the Grimm.

So FMF just lied. Again. And used the commentary while misrepresenting the scene. Again.

C. ‘That’s what the Writers decide to remember? They talk as though the scenes Ruby referenced never happened!’

Yeah, remember what I said about FMF lying? Well, the commentary here isn’t edited over a scene from the show and look at the lines he choose-

‘I’m curious what the idea was, this is a pretty bold move right?’

“It came down to, they had to try.’

Doesn’t really should like they’re referring what was said right? And Kerry’s voice sounds different from how the other guy’s voice sounds like (as in, it’s as if Kerry’s voice doesn’t follow directly from what the other guy said). Considering that FMF has already lied in this segment- why should I trust that he didn’t just take a piece of the commentary out of context and sell it to an audience that buys outright lies?

Edit: Fun fact, I actually asked for a transcription of this part of the RWBY Volume 6 commentary and a user by the name of Changyuraptor did it for me.

Wanna see what was actually said here?

“Chris: "I'm curious what the idea was, like this is a pretty bold move right, like she had just not even 5 or 6 chapters ago talked to Maria about the concept of just using her silver eyes to begin with and she's looking at this massive Grimm."

Kerry: "It came back down to- there's actually some slightly different earlier versions of the speech that was a little bit different, but Miles was like (I think he's saying Miles' name here, not 100% sure) 'they have to try" you know, it doesn't look like anything else is working, if she can at least try and it works to any degree it's something you know, I think what was a bigger part of this message too is I think a lot of people probably would have told her not to do it but she needs to follow what she thinks is best."

They weren’t talking about Ruby’s idea specifically, nor is anything said here indicating they forgot anything.

In fact, he cuts off most of what was said (even cutting stuff said INBETWEEN what he used) JUST to make that point.

So yeah- definitive proof he lies using the commentary.

D. ‘Oh Atlas doesn’t want help after asking for help! How stupid!’

“Air Control: Who is this? Identify yourself!

Ruby: I'm a Huntress. My team and I are heading to the Leviathan and can weaken it for you to attack!

Air Control: Manta 5-1, your ship is currently flagged as hostile. You will receive no support, over.

Ruby: (picking up radio) Fine, we'll do it alone if we have to.”

Not what they said FMF.

Also he tries saying the group was surprised when Ruby said they helped when that’s NOT what she said. Again. So he made the same lie TWICE.

Also also, he misspelled Atlas as ‘Atlus’. As in, the SMT/Persona company. It would have even registered as an incorrect spelling when he made the spelling. This was a video in production over a YEAR.

E. ‘Atlas hates the idea of Huntsmen!’

*Shows Ironwood giving a bunch of teams the option to walk away from the Fall of Beacon*

That’s not even connected to anything here...well, here as in the review because this does reinforce the thematic idea the show presents that you should stand and fight.

... Did FMF just support Team RWBY’s stance in Volume 7?

F. ‘NO body would tell a Huntress to not save a town full of people!’

*looks over at the people calling Team RWBY stupid for trying to save all of Mantle in Volume 7*

Cool, now even his laziness is biting him in the ass.

G. “THIS FICTIONAL PERSON WANTED A HUNTRESS SO THE REAL PEOPLE WHO THE COMMENTARY IS REFERRING TO DON’T EXIST!”

Fuck, how does anyone take him seriously?

H. ‘DUr Atlas man being stupid!’

Oh so not backing up the STOLEN SHIP that was JUST IN A FIGHT WITH THEIR COMMANDER and NOT KNOWING THE PEOPLE ON BOARD PERSONALLY is stupid huh? He should just risk his men’s lives for an enemy that SAYS they can help but they don’t KNOW that.

Gee, what were you saying about logic again?

I. ‘Maria flies into a dangerous spot, so stupid!’

Gee, not like point blank range would be a good idea or that they were already on that course but that’d require FMF to not edit a scene to suit himself and we all know intellectual integrity is toxic to his very existence./s

J. ‘How do the shield generators get hit if the shields are up?’

*Shown: the shield generators NOT BEING BEHIND THE SHIELDS*

K. ‘Hey, why try to get it’s attention when you have lamp!’

*Episode 1: shows that a bunch of panicking people would attract the Grimm over the lamp*

L. ‘DUR, REN’S SEMBLANCE!’

*Shown: Ren’s AURA AKA SEMBLANCE FUEL SOURCE BREAKING*

M. ‘Ruby takes lamp despite distraction!’

Hm, gee, almost like her plan was to FREEZE the damn thing and it didn’t notice her even while flying around with the lamp.

N. ‘THEY FORGET LAMP WAS DANGEROUS BUT REMEMBER IT STOP TIME!’

*points above*

O. ‘DUR< MECH FIGHT ONLY STOPPED FINAL BATTLE FOR LESS TWO MINUTES!’

You know...and taking out the weapon made to kill the Grimm for a long period of time...and Cordovon’s actions SUMMONED the Grimm...and all the shields were down and the breath attack that could level half the city in one shot takes about five seconds to charge up.

Gosh, it’s almost like he relies on his audience not knowing any better...

P, ‘SALEM THINKS HER PROBLEM SOLVED WITH FLYING MONKEY WHICH COULD HAPPEN IN EPISODE 2!’

1. You cut out the WHOLE REST OF THE ARMY.

2. ‘Hazel: There's an old saying.

he two notice Hazel Rainart enter the room and stand next to them.

Hazel: If you want something done right... do it yourself.

Salem looks up to the army of Grimm she has gathered, before turning around and using her magic on the black pools again, engulfing the entire scene...’

3. Salem’s problem is the news Ozpin lived...delievered to her in Episode 4. Not Episode 2.

Q. ‘THEY GO TO ATLAS LIKE BAD MAN OZPIN SAY THEY DO! THEY NO QUESTION ANYTHING!’

Question.

What the fuck are they suppose to do?

Can’t wait anywhere, you yourself admitted that they showed the lamp attracted Grimm AND you never stopped bitching about Volume 5.

Vale is out.

Mistral is out, no Raven.

Vacuo is clear across the other side of Remnant.

Can’t even talk it out because people wouldn’t stop bitching about the talking in Volume 5.

You act like there’s any OTHER logical choice, FMF. Or that Ozpin’s lies would change ANYTHING about his decision about going to Atlas being bad.

But then again, that’d require your brain to function in regard to RWBY.

Then he goes on to say some shit about how everyone is just back to the way they are and how the Volume was pointless. I’d discuss that...but I want you to look at everything he said here. All the lying he did. All the suspect shit he pulled. All the crap he ignored. All the positions he abandoned in Volume 5 to bitch about here.

All the piss he spewed for nothing.

Look at this and think to yourself: Even if I saw the whole thing and heard his reasonings-

Would you believe a word he says?

I had to stop myself from wheezing I laughed at him so hard. This is the video equivalent of that drowning meme

He CREATED every single bit of his situation. He CHOSE to see things this way even after it took mental gynmastics to see it so.

It’s hilarious he acts like he’s in so much pain that HE INFLICTED TO HIMSELF.

I gave FMF a chance. His first point and his last point to impress me even a little. What did I get?

An ironic comedy routine that makes Beavis and Butt Head look like Steven Hawking.

#rwby #fatmanfalling

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slumberinglabyrinth · 5 years ago

Photo

I've already spoiled the punchline to this post, but the extra boss of Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a joke. A sick joke.

I'm writing this primarily from the perspective of Vanilla and not Encore, but I'll bring up Encore's relevant changes (that I know of) when they come up.

I think that part of the fun of the extra boss, M-DEUS, is finding your own solution to beating him, so I'll be putting how to deal with him at the end if you want to avoid it.

---

M-DEUS is based off of the second phase of the final boss, Medeus; he's physically identical and mechanically just. Harder.

Much harder.

Before I get into the boss itself, some background info for the uninitiated:

Your main cast is the characters in battle, your subcast is the playable characters not in battle, and your supporting cast are NPCs who get skills that have passive effects. By endgame, your main cast has 3 people, your subcast has 4, and your supporting cast has 3. In Encore, characters in the supporting cast can also learn a session skill.

The main gimmick in TMS is Sessions; if you strike an enemy's weakness and an ally has a session skill that corresponds to the element you used (which contrary to what the term ‘element’ usually invokes, includes sword/lance/axe/bow), they'll follow up with an elemental attack of their own and start a session. Each team member except for any that perform the initial attack that starts the session can then perform a follow up attack of their own, until either everyone who can act has or an enemy nulls/reflects/drains a session attack.

Some things to note

The game optimizes the session order to maximize damage, so it's possible that the session you perform will not be the longest session possible.

Session skills only go up to medium strength (the highest normal command skills are Heavy strength, but there are a few (like. 4) Severe skills that certain characters can learn), limiting their damage output compared to regular command skills

In addition to that, characters not in the main cast deal half damage.

Bane skills (which cover Wyvern/Dragon, Armor, and Cavalry enemy types but *not* Fliers), always start a session against the relevant enemy type and pierce elemental resistance (including Reflect, Null, and Drain) for both the initial attack and it's entire session.

there is a random chance that during a session you will be granted the opportunity to choose between performing one of two random Duo Arts, which will occur after the session ends. Duo Arts are attacks involving two characters (they have to be alive, but don't need to be in your main cast) and have bonus effects ranging from healing to status ailments to SP generation. Duo Art also have the piercing effects that Bane skills have, and will, most importantly, start another session with everyone who hadn't taken part in the Duo Art. Duo Arts can appear up to twice per Command Skill use.

In Encore, the session skill learned by each supporting cast member (Maiko, Tiki, and B****) performs a follow-up attack based off of if the skill before was a weapon skill or a magic skill (it doesn't include almighty element attacks, which is only relevant in one specific instance). This means you can perform up to 9 follow-up attacks during a regular session and, unlike in Vanilla, start a session from a Body/Spirit-element skill.

Enemies can also perform sessions, under the same rules as you

In addition to regular command skills (which cost EP), you have Special Performances, which cost SP and are stronger across the board than any equivalent command skill (either through flat DPS or the effects they grant). Think of them as something like a meter-based super in a fighting game

SP is generated by performing actions (any skill, a session, using an item, etc.) and taking damage; a gauge fills up as these things happen, and once it's full, you gain a point of SP

you can store up to 3 SP at a time

some skills cost 1 SP, but stronger ones cost 2 (none cost 3)

In addition to their other effects, Special Performances will pierce resistances and always start a session if there's a skill that can follow up on it

When you use a damage-dealing command skill of a specific element, that character may instead do an Ad-Lib attack if they've learned one. Ad-Libs:

behave like Duo Arts/Special Performances (starts sessions, pierces elemental resistances)

are stronger

usually also become aoe

sometimes have a bonus effect (often a status)

there's no real downside, but they’re entirely random

While in dungeons, certain enemy spawns can end up as either 1) Rare or 2) Savage

Rare enemies run away after a few turns but give items used to craft weapons that give off-element skills or have atypical weaknesses and resistances for that particular character.

the level of Savage enemies are scaled based off of your own level, and are always meant to be A Challenge. They are the only renewable source of Detritus, an item you trade for incenses (which give +3 to a specific stat) with an NPC in the arena. You get 2-3 Detritus from each Savage enemy encounter in the main game, and incenses cost 9 each (there's no upper limit on the number you can obtain or use beyond being able to hold up to 99 at once and the hard stat cap (which you don't need to get near for ANY content in the game))

By endgame you'll have a field skill that increases the rate both rare enemies and savage enemies appear at. Farming them isn’t really hard once you get to the point where you’d want to.

One of the dlc maps in Vanilla is literally just "every enemy is Savage and every item on the ground is detritus"; you get 9-12 detritus from each encounter instead of just 2-3, and you can grab another 18 from items laying around on the map. This map is included in the base game of Encore

-----

okey

Like most megaten extra/'ultimate' bosses, you need to be on NG+ to fight M-DEUS. To unlock his fight, you must trade for incenses with Nieg (who is located in the arena and involved in a seperate sidequest) 36 times. This translates to a minimum of 27 Savage Enemy fights and a max of 36 fights if you use the DLC map, and a minimum of 108 and a max of 162 without DLC, minus a couple fights from the handful of chests with Detritus in them scattered throughout the game and a couple other sources like the Arena itself.

When you hit the level cap these fights become relatively consistently in your favor if you're prepared for them even if you don't abuse Elenora's AoE Special Perfomance which has a sizable chance to proc an instakill on any nonboss enemy (remember that), so this step isn't difficult as much as it is tedious (as is reaching the level cap if you don't use DLC lmao).

This is unfortunately also a megaten tradition.

Because M-DEUS is based off of Medeus, his general pattern is relatively simple:

He takes two actions per turn, like all other bosses after the Prologue

This may sound cheap but... it’s better (for the player) for bosses to take two actions than for them to take one really strong action based off of how atlus makes their games

the alternative is like, stuff like disaster cycle or literally anything mem aleph does

"i don’t know what that is” try to keep it that way

Counts as a dragon for skill interactions

Interestingly, the only boss (alongside medeus) with a unique class that has an effective-weakness

Every few turns, or after he's taken a certain amount of damage, he summons two additional enemies (this does not use up an action and occurs at the end of/”between” turns).

if you let any of the adds live for 2-3 turns, they will use an AOE almighty (untyped and unblockable) attack that kills them and deals a bunch of damage to you and will probably kill you if they haven't already

this isn’t a problem with medeus because he’s like. a normal boss

The enemies will probably kill you if you don't kill them first

His attacks include

Single Target Sword that pierces repel/absorb/null (it doesn't auto-start a session)

AOE Almighty ("Dies Irae", he uses this every 3 turns, this might inflict Seal)

Single Target Elec

Single Target untyped physical ("beast"/"monster") attack (might be the attack that inflicts Seal instead)

As his HP drops, he gains access to a few more attacks that get added to the "things he can do" pool

Maragidyne (AOE Fire)

Energy Drain. Deals damage and steals your HP and EP. (he uses this infrequently, but it doesn't seem to be scripted)

Dark Breath. debuffs all stats (also used infrequently, is probably scripted)

But! There's more:

If there are no adds on the field, he repels every element.

remember how he’s the only boss that has a bane weakness? yeah. that’s why

If there are adds on the field, he's weak to whatever they are and repels everything else

Because of how the rest of the fight goes, you're not going to want to try to take advantage of this.

Damage dealt to him is capped at 499 per attack

literally the only instance of a damage cap in the game

on top of the damage cap, his stats (and the stats of the adds) are inflated quite a bit

Before incenses, I was dealing like. 300 damage while in the main cast at level 99 and half that for the subcast (so a full session of 1500 instead the max of 2495)

The adds are noticably more squishy and DON’T have a hardcoded damage cap, but they pack enough firepower to make up for it.

If a party member dies, his attack increases for the rest of the fight

This is outside of the buff/debuff system, so it can't be dispelled and is effectively permanent.

He has 65534 hp, which equates to a 'soft' minimum of 19 turns for most team comps, assuming no Duo Arts

Encore can cut off a turn or two since it can have 3 extra attacks per session

the adds all suck

By default he only summons two Mercenaries, then at 75% HP he can summon two Axe Generals, then at 50% he can summon two (Lance) Wyvern Riders, and then once he's at 25% he starts summoning two Clerics. the percents are approximate.

The Mercenaries

are weak to Lance and I think Electric

kinda a pushover. mid-line bulk, but dangerous if left along

not immune to elenora's instakill

will use concentrate before their self-destruct which boosts it by 2.5x so you're just gonna mcfukin die

are summoned less often as the battle goes on

The Axe Armors

Weak to Sword, Ice, Wind. Maybe more

deals respectable damage

has like max defense and next to no resistance. physical attacks deal single digit damage and magic damage easily enters four digits.

has high hp (maybe 10,000?)

also not immune to elenora's instakill

The Wyvern Riders

Weak to Axe, Bow, Wind. Maybe more

counts as a dragon for bane skills

deals LOTS of damage

has an aoe fire attack that also poisons you

these guys suck

low res and medium def

still not immune to elenora's instakill *or* Itsuki's sword Ad-Lib (which will instakill any non-boss dragons; there's no luck involved in the instakill once it activates, and even though getting the Ad-Lib itself to activate is luck based if you happen to be using a sword attack from him on that turn there’s always a chance that it’ll come out)

The Clerics

weak to sword/lance/axe. maybe more. probably more.

have 3000 hp and barely any defense

guess what! not immune to instakills

cast mediarahan and nothing else worth mentioning

yes

the aoe full heal skill

extra bosses in a couple other games involve diarahan/mediarahan (like Margeret and Demi-Fiend) but they only use it once, use it around 50% hp (and certainly not when the boss is in the red!) and have their next hp thresholds close enough for you to be able to reach them before they cast their full heal, making it a once-off dpt check that punishes you by effectively just making their HP 1.5x higher instead of a recurring dpt check that punishes you by making his hp nearly twice as high (or three times, or four times...)

this is unscripted and will happen as many times as you let it

the hp thresholds don't reset so he keeps summoning clerics and using all the skills he gained during the fight despite now being at full HP

fuck you atlus

can you believe people thought the worst part about this game was idols?

----

Okay, so how do you fight this?

You could just grind until you take like no damage but uh. that's going to be mind-numbingly exhausting and kinda defeats the point of actually fighting the boss. So don't do that. You're going to have to grind incenses no matter what, but it's the difference between being at it for a few days or being at it for a full month.

My general game plan was tailored to

be consistent

reduce the amount of time I had to spend preparing (be it grinding for incenses or materials for weapons or whatever else i needed)

beat the boss in as few turns as possible, mainly to give it fewer chances to make choices that kill you and to make sure you don’t turn it into a battle of attrition (which you’ll lose).

This ultimately means 1) start at least one session against m-deus each turn 2) have everyone hit the damage cap against him and 3) have a person with a dragonbane skill in your main cast (sp consumption is too high to rely on special performances every turn)

be able to kill the adds before they can act because if you can’t do that at the very least for the clerics, you lose.

Some specific points that need to be addressed if we assume you're not spending 100 hours grinding incenses:

The immediate concern is making sure nobody dies. Ever. Medeus already will deal a lot of damage, and he can and will pierce tetrakarn/makarakarn (at bare minimum Dies Irae is almighty and its damage can’t be nullified, only dodged), and if he can ramp that up, you're not going to stand a chance.

He has access to an AOE fire attack and so does one of his sets of adds. Itsuki (who cannot be removed from the party in Vanilla) is by default weak to fire with nearly every weapon of his (including his ultimate weapon), and Mamori, who is your party's dedicated tank, is also weak to fire on most of her weapons. getting hit by something you're weak to will cause any adds to session and you'll die, so you want to avoid being weak to fire.

nobody in the fight has dekaja or dekunda or any buffs, so buffs and debuffs remain effective

Dark Breath will set you back, but if you keep your buffs *up* it'll just negate Dark Breath instead of Dark Breath sticking around for three turns, no matter how many turns they had remaining

The adds will cause problems. just in general. they can kill you or at the very least set medeus up to finish you off, since they tend to go earlier in the turn than him.

going before all of them is a priority, as is killing them before they act (especially the clerics)

Medeus has a damage cap. once you consistently hit 499 with all of your party members in a session, there's not much point to trying to boost your damage output

this also means you have a point where you can skip using charge or concentrate (x2.5 damage to phys or magic skills and phys or magic attacks in their sessions sessions) on anybody starts a session off of M-DEUS, since hitting the cap through stats and passive skills alone will allow you to save an action during the fight

Itsuki cannot be removed from the party in Vanilla which is both a blessing and a curse because

outside of his two rare weapons, every weapon of his including his ultimate weapon is weak to fire (bad, because this usually means more damage sustained)

has a heavy dragonbane skill (good)

He doesn’t need Adds or SP to session off of M-DEUS

itsuki's entire niche in endgame is using bane skills

he has two passives that each boost Wyrmicide by 1.5x (1.55x when fully upgraded) because it's a sword element bane skill. they stack.

this means less grinding for str for him, saving time

One thing to note is that Kiria is the only other character who has access to a dragonbane skill, Naga, but the problems with that are

Naga is Spirit element, which has no corresponding sessions in Vanilla. You should not use her as your damage against M-DEUS in Vanilla at all because you just can’t.

In Encore, Tiki's session can start off of Spirit

Itsuki kinda sucks at support, but Kiria doesn’t, so if you were to hypothetically have both on field, he’d be the one attacking M-DEUS

he doesn't get endgame buff or debuff skills, and doesn't get diarahan/mediarahan, and so on

less of problem when you can remove him from your party in Encore

Kiria's bulk and defenses are the worst in the game, which means more grinding for incenses in order to prevent her from dying

all of Kiria's weapons are weak to sword, which means you can't ensure her weakness is never struck because M-DEUS will, from turn 1, use a piercing sword-element skill

Kiria's main niche is using ice skills, so while she gets a 1.5 multiplier to Naga from True Casting (1.5x to all magic), she doesn't get a second bonus which means more grinding for incenses compared to Itsuki

None of the adds are immune to instakills. this includes both Mass Desturction (Elenora's AoE special performance) and Firm Resolve (Itsuki's anti-wyvern sword Ad-lib)

Regarding Elenora:

Even if Mass Destruction's instakill doesn't proc, she'll still start a session because it's a special performance

One of two characters with access to Debilitate, which applies all three debuffs and saves you at least one action compared to other characters with debuffs, if not two actions (the other character is Touma)

Debilitate is on her ultimate weapon, so while it's a pain to max the skill (which just makes its EP cost lower and is arguably not worth the time), you'll be getting 6 out of 7 of them anyway (for reasons I'll explain in a bit)

also has access to Fog Breath, which debuffs Atk and Hit/Evade but not Defense; this means that in a pinch (ie. energy drain took too much EP), you can apply the debuffs that will help you survive because that's more important than ending the fight faster

her ultimate weapon is only weak to Axe (which should die before her) and wind (which nobody in the fight uses); while she's squishy, you don't need to worry about sessions against her and won't need as much def/res incenses, saving time

Elenora naturally deals very respectable damage in and out of sessions because she has incredibly high Skill and reasonably high Str

Skill increases crit rate

You'll already be boosting her Skill to get Mass Destruction's instakill to proc more consistently, this means less Str incenses

In addition, she has passives that

greatly increases crit rate

increases crit damage

greatly increases dodge rate

applies a 1.5x damage boost to bow skills (incuding Mass Destruction)

that gives her a high chance to act first in the round (ie. before any adds that’ll ruin your day)

increases hit rate

gives all her attacks a high chance to make any enemy hit move to the end of the turn order during the current turn (or the next turn if they've already acted)

makes her less likely to be targeted (not as much of a concern because a lot of things in this fight are AoE and you'll mostly be using AoE healing, but still a plus)

has Radiant skills (seperate passives that don't take up a skill slot) that

make crits deal more damage

increases evade against phys attacks

boosts ailment success rates from any party member as long as she's in the main cast (not something that’ll be relied on much, but if it helps it helps)

While Elenora's instakill is reliant on luck, you can get it to proc reasonably consistently and even if it's just on one and not both of the adds, that gives you a session's worth of damage on the other add, some chip damage on M-DEUS, and one less thing that could wipe the floor with you.

She's not absolutely nessacary, but using her cuts out *a lot* of grinding and even without the instakill the access to both a high crit/evade rate and access to debilitate makes her a very strong choice for one of the characters you'll use alongside Itsuki. If you’re not trying to tank everything (which is... dumb), she’s basically the best choice for debuffs and offensive support

Because we'll be using a 2 SP special performance relatively frequently, it's vital that we increase SP generation as much as possible. In addition to stuff you’d have anyway (ie. Radiant Skills):

Everybody's ultimate weapon gives a passive boost to sp generated from their own attacks

this is why everyone except for Itsuki will have theirs equipped

Itsuki will instead have his lategame rare enemy weapon, which removes his fire weakness and isn't a significant drop in atk

you can kinda. cheese the enemy spawning system in certain parts to just give you rare enemy after rare enemy so once you figure out *where* to do it, you can max that rare weapon’s atk pretty quickly so compared to the amount of time you save over trying to max his ultimate weapon you're really just missing the sp generation

it also gives a passive chance to cause seal but since M-DEUS seems to be immune to it that doesn't really help you directly (niche use if he sessions

In a pinch, you can use Clap Tracks, an item that give you 1 SP but cannot be bought (try to carry as many over through NG+ as possible)

I found that I wasn't really needing to use Clap Tracks much, but, y'know. better to be overprepared than underprepared

Mamori and Tiki also have a Duo Art that grants half a point of SP; unless someone’s about to die and you have a healing Duo Art as your other option, you should always pick it

Okay so we have Elenora and Itsuki, but who else can we use to round off the main cast?

What we still potentially need:

Buffs

Healing

Tanking and/or Dodgetanking (including through buffs)

a source of magic damage (Itsuki has Ziodyne/Thoron, but he'll be busy)

One thing unique about TMS relative to other megatens is that there are no normal skills that apply multiple buffs, only three special performances, which will save you at least one action per turn

Debut Smile (Tsubasa, 1 SP) - Provides a medium heal and raises Def and Hit/Evade

Raindrop Memories (Mamori, 1 SP) - Prevents ailments for 3 turns and raises Atk and Def

Wild Charge (Touma, 2 SP) - Gain Charge (phys attacks and phys attacks in their sessions deal 2.5x damage) for the next two turns and raise Atk and Hit/Evade

Both Tsubasa's and Mamori's have defense, which is good, but hit/evade is more important than raising attack with regard to both surviving long enough to kill M-DEUS and saving time while grinding incenses (hit is Skill based and Evade is Speed, so you have to boost two stats instead of one to make up not getting that buff). The ailment thing is nice but uhhh I’ll get to why that’s not important if you go with Tsubasa in a moment

Touma's costs too much and doesn't raise defense and doesn't have a secondary effect that's particularly useful in this fight. :shrug:

Mamori also has a few problems of her own

No EP-based AoE heal

does get diarahan though

she has a 1 SP AoE full heal which then allows her to take another action (which could be using a clap track. or a sukukaja stone for max buffs, but you can't carry enough to make them last through the entire battle for this method, and it’ll kinda negate the benefits of her buff skill being )

her hitrate is bad.

like. really bad

she has a passive that boosts it, but it 1) comes on her when you get her and 2) isn't on any of her weapons and 3) is the earlygame iteration of the passive despite her coming after the halfway point in the game

she also has no other direct benefits from boosting Skill, unlike Elenora

she also doesn't have access to Sukukaja (unlike Tsubasa, who gets the buff skill that covers the one her SP buff doesn’t apply (tarukaja))

she is not fast and has no way to move herself up the turn order

her main role is also a tank, which could be helpful, but there's some problems with that for her with this fight in particular

she's weak to fire, which Medeus uses

she's weak to sword, which Medeus uses from turn 1

she tanks by drawing aggro and taking blows in place of an ally

she can only negate attacks if she takes that attack in place of an ally

redirecting the attack is random

negating the attack is random

if she's weak to the attack a session will still start

you don't redirect the attack on AOE attacks

the aoe attacks are the main danger in the fight. Dies Irae hurts. Maragidyne hurts. Corrupting Flare hurts.

itai desu

Tsubasa

is weak to axe and wind on her ultimate weapon (and bow, but that's not used in the fight)

can learn absorb wind, covering one of her weaknesses completely

allows you to freely use mazandyne and also heal off of it if it's reflected

two add sets are weak to wind

this is very good

has access to magic damage spells to deal with any axe generals that survive Mass Destruction

the only other characters with magic spells are Itsuki and Kiria

does almost everything

not an exaggeration

only person who learns either mediarahan or its ailment-clearing upgrade, Prayer (the only aoe ailment clear in the game outside of Duo Arts)

learns every buff skill (only needs tarukaja if you use Debut Smile, though having rakukaja or sukukaja helps conserve SP when possible)

learns Fog Breath (useful if elenora needs to do something else that turn)

has a massive EP pool and learns Mana Gain which makes it even larger

her skills are expensive but she can go longer than itsuki and elenora without having to restore EP

can learn Sexy Dance which is AoE charm

Charm is usable in this fight as like. a last resort but it will prevent any adds that it procs on to at the very least eat up their next turn if not the one after and is by and large one of the most useful skills when grinding outside of full on instakills because It's Just That Strong

charm can make them attack another enemy or use a healing item on you which is also good, but it. usually doesn't. they just do nothing

Regarding passives

learns null seal

has a passive that grants 1.5x to wind skills

has two hitrate boosting passives, one of which also boosts her evade rate

has a passive that greatly boosts the amount her skills heal

not relevant for mediarahan/prayer, but it does boost Debut Smile which makes using it over mediarahan so you can refresh your buffs noticably safer

Personally didn't use this one but depending on how many mag/def/res incenses you decide to get it might be needed

has radiant skills that:

boost charm success rate (stacks with elenora's boost to every ailment which really puts the sexy into sexy dance)

let her session off of any charmed enemy with a lance skill

useful if you ever have to resort to sexy dance or, god forbid, Dream Catcher (a Duo Art that does almighty damage -which means it can't extend a session- that offsets *that* by also fully healing your party and inflicting charm on your foes) and she doesn't have to heal the next turn

increase her hitrate

gives her a chance of ignoring turn order calculation and act first during each turn

all and all, pretty good stuff

To give everyone else a fair evaluation:

Yasuhiro's main role is damage mitigation through dodgetanking and he's good at it. In addition

has access to Wallbreaker, which pierces null and repel (not absorb)

this is kinda useless, even outside this fight

you can't session with it unless they're weak to swords, which means it's only useful against enemies under the effect of tetraguard/tetrakarn (which nobody in this fight uses and nearly nobody in the entire game uses)

like yeah he can hit medeus but it's for a max of 499 a turn

can use tarukaja and sukukaja

takes two actions to set this up, and doesn't have rakukaja or *any* debuffs

can use Counter (and Counter EX) to ensure he dodges all single-target physical attacks that attack him until his next action, and then delivers a counter attack. Also draws aggro

only works on physical attacks, not magic attacks

only works on single target attacks, not AoE

most of the skills enemies use in this fight are AoE magic

Sound familiar? yeah tanks kinda suck in this fight

has access to passive skills that

greatly boost crit rate

greatly boost dodge rate

increases his chance of being targeted

pierces null

has access to radiant skills that

boosts evade against magic attacks

make counterattacks always crit

doesn't have elenora's "boost crit damage" skill :(

increase damage from counterattacks and repel effects while he is in the main cast

not really useful but. it’s better than nothing

Overall rating: Not a bad character, but bad for this specific fight. His damage mitigation (through drawing aggro and dodging) focuses on single target attacks, which random encounters have plenty of, but this fight relies too much on AoE and he kinda just. doesn't help there. Elenora has better and more consistent damage output and has debilitate, Tsubasa is the game's best healer, can do AoE magic, and has a slew of buffs and debuffs including damage mitigation through Rakukaja/Debut Smile's defense buff, and Itsuki can start a session off of Medeus.

Touma

has Debilitate!

no buffs though

has a passive that has a high chance of making his target(s) go last

has a passive that greatly boosts crit rate

has a passive that has a chance to make him act first each turn

has a passive that boosts his hitrate

has passives that grant 1.5x damage to each of his main elements (lance and fire)

elenora also has all of those

relatively durable

weak to axe and ice

nobody in this fight uses ice

only person who has luna

helps with the generals if it activates

its random and might not even activate

it can also activate off of sessions

only person who has penetrate, which is an upgrade to pierce (phys attacks ignore resist/null, ellie and yasuhiro also have that) that also ignores drain

penetrate doesn't ignore reflect, which isn't the end of the world since it's not like he could session off of M-Deus anyway

helps him not prematurely end a session against the adds by having his attack be nullified (i think the generals null lance and the wyverns might too)

has a passive that boosts his attack the higher % hp he's at

has a radiant skill that increases his crit rate when performing a followup attack in a session

when he's in the main cast, using an item has a chance to not consume it

useful because the game doesn't let you carry more than 10 of most of the items you'll need to use in this fight

All of that makes him a very good character for this fight, but he doesn't have elenora's instakill :( Unfortunately she does everything he wants to do in this fight *at least* as good as he can, or better :( But! He shines in the subcast for this fight and just in general. his damage output and hitrate and crit rate are all very good, and he needs probably the fewest incenses overall to reach M-DEUS' cap

Kiria

Learns naga

not useful in vanilla

arguably not worth using in encore either

learns both the single target and AoE heavy spells for Fire, Ice, and Wind

also learns the only Severe-tier Ice spell, Fimbulvetr

great utility against the adds

has a passive that gives a 1.5x boost to all magic attacks and one that gives a 1.5x boost to ice spells

these stack

only character with two 1.5 boosts that stack that has them stack on a severe tier spell

knock knock it's fimbulvetr

weak to electricity, which nobody in this fight uses, and swords, which M-Deus uses from turn 1

only healing skills of note that she learns are mediarama (medium HP AoE restore) and amrita (heal all on a single ally, kinda useless in this fight)

doesn't learn mediarahan or prayer

Learns tarunda and sukunda

doesn't learn rakunda, doesn't learn any dual debuffs or debilitate

no buffs either

has other passives that

increases resistance to all ailments

not super useful in this fight

greatly increases EP

has radiant skills that

reduce EP cost of offensive magic

further reduce EP cost of AoE offensive magic

even further reduce EP cost of Ice magic

knock knock it's mabufudyne

increase evade against phys attacks

Kiria is very good at killing things but that's really all she does and M-DEUS needs people to do more. In theory she could replace Itsuki, but her weakness to Swords, which -again- M-DEUS uses for the entire fight, can't be avoided and her HP is so low that you can't even hope that she'll just tank the hit unless you chug 100+ def incenses on top of all the other incenses that you'll be using. You could use her to fill his role, but it's going to be so incredibly inefficent that I think you should do literally anything else.

Okay.

There's one pretty obvious oversight in just deciding 'we'll use these three characters and nobody else in the fight': TMS lets you swap party members in and out (exclusing Itsuki in Vanilla), and it doesn't use up that party member's turn

This has some bonuses...

this means you can swap to people on the fly if you need, say, Kiria to deal with

this means you can adjust to party members who have

you can adjust to basically any situation

...and some drawbacks

swapping party members dispells any active buffs/debuffs/effects (charge, etc.) on that party member and the new one comes in with no buffs on them

in order for the act of swapping itself to be safe, they need higher def/res than what they otherwise would have, which means more grinding incenses

swapping party members means you need those new party members to also get their def/res increased from incenses, which means more grinding

if they stay in the subcast they aren't in danger of dying, so you don't need them to have anything other than their str (or mag, for Kiria) boosted

and the big one:

nobody really does what Elenora and Tsubasa do better than they do, so there isn't really a point in switching to another party member to begin with. during the main game? sure, everyone has their own role to play and you could use whoever you want because you don't have the chance to optimize everything and grind for incenses and the game certainly never asks you to do that outside of M-DEUS, but against M-DEUS you need to bring the best the game lets you make

unless, of course, you grind incenses like no tomorrow

And I don't want to undersell the amount of incenses I felt were necessary because hoo boy i looked at my playtime before and after I started my journey to defeat M-DEUS and it sure Took A Long Time, but using my team the only relevant stats were:

Either Str or Mag on Everyone (based off of the type of the session skill that they use when Itsuki uses Wyrmicide, and only up to the point where they consistently hit M-DEUS' damage cap; subcast needs more because they'll be dealing half damage)

Skill on Elenora (with buffs hitrates become a nonconcern so you're only doing this to get the instakills. more crits are a side bonus)

A Little Speed on Itsuki, Tsubasa, and Elenora (enough so they consistently go first)

Def/Res on Itsuki, Tsubasa, and Elenora (so they don't die)

a Luck incense for Elenora (Luck doesn't work like a typical stat and it's not important for me to explain it outside of the vague idea that it’s like a ‘personal’ stat where people have a different base level (elenora’s is the worst lol) that can be temporarily boosted using an incense or a specific drink from a vending machine, but it'll increase her proc rate)

the general game plan was to have Itsuki use Wyrmicide every turn. Killing Medeus faster gives him and his adds fewer chances to kill someone (or use Mediarahan), which increases your chances of success. I never had Itsuki use anything other than Wyrmicide unless M-DEUS drained all his EP with Energy Drain (he'd use a chakra drop to restore it in that case), but if you need him to kill an add or two it shouldn't significantly extend the length of the fight and will also stop that add from killing you. Generally speaking, you want him to go after Tsubasa and Elenora, but before M-DEUS, so that'll determine how many speed incenses you give him

Tsubasa's main concern was making sure everybody was as close to full health as possible before M-DEUS attacked each turn (and switching to Prayer if he ever procs seal), but having enough def/res across your party to make throwing Debut Smile into the mix safe to keep the buffs up is also key. She's not a bad dps unit either, so because of this you want her to be after Elenora in the turn order so you can adjust to who the instakill fails to proc on.

Elenora's main job outside of add management is casting Debilitate within three turns of the last time she used it, which means you kinda need to anticipate when adds are coming so she can use Mass Destruction to deal with them and use Debilitate on turns you won't need to deal with adds.

This rotation gives you a free action roughly every three turns for Elenora, and whenever you get lucky with dodges or damage rolls for Tsubasa. As for how you use those actions, it depends on the situation, but...

Having a full set of buffs up when Dark Breath comes is important so your damage isn't brought down (and it takes longer to win the fight), so throw in a Tarukaja from Tsubasa or a Tarukaja Stone from Elenora. You can also use these openings to refresh the Def and Hit/Evade buffs prematurely with their skill version or their item version. There's a really low cap to the number of Buff Stones you can bring into a fight, so if its at all possible default to

Making sure you're at 2 SP whenever Elenora has her action and the adds are up is VITAL, especially once the Clerics start being summoned. Use Clap Tracks if you feel like your SP isn't going to be where you need it to be, and try to only use Debut Smile when you don't have any buffs up or when both Defense and Hit/Evade are about to run out (they run out *on* tsubasa's action and not once that turn starts, which is incredibly convenient).

Maintining EP is also somewhat important, but should only be done when close to empty because Energy Drain will empty all of a character's EP and it'd be a waste of an item (though since it deals so little damage, it *could* be a turn where you don't need to heal).

#tmsfe #sharpfe #Tokyo mirage sessions fe #megaten #there's a lot of mechanical depth to this stupid fight #so while it's stupid #it's mostly dumb because of the stat grinding not because of what it does #aside from #y'know #(pic related)#Wrote this a while back because a friend asked me something which i forget what it was #i think like #my discord status was complaining about part of the grind #and it just took me 5 months to do that 10 minutes it took to do the formatting in this post #long post

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jikanet-tanaka · 7 years ago

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Whoaaa, I can’t believe I actually finished RH:PC. All in all, I had some great fun, I mean it was like meeting up with an old friend to chat over a warm cuppa tea…

Here are a shitload of some thoughts I had while playing the game, embellished with dumb gifs because I have the maturity and attention span of a fifth-grader.

FYI, the original ending is like, one of my favourite ending in all the history of jRPGs. Yeah, no kidding. I love the bittersweet feel to it, how it shows Stocke’s growth as a character and how heartbroken his friends are over him having to die for their sake. Most of all, I love that the source of the problem is not addressed (because it just can’t be addressed), but that everything ends up going in the right direction anyway because of SCIENCE! and because the right people are finally in the right places, just as that kind of situation would go in real life. And, uh, confession time, but the final bit between Heiss and Stocke made me bawl like a baby… I mean, the former shot up to become my thrash son problematic fave solely by the strength of that scene. It made me write a fanfic that’s about the length of the sixth Harry Potter book, y’all. That’s some serious shit, I still can’t quite believe it.

So, as you can all probably tell, the thought of them changing that ending… yeahhh, not gonna lie, that was me:

I knew they could not make me like the ending more, because it was already perfect in my humble opinion. So with that in mind, I made the deliberate choice to go in with lowered expectations and in a way, it… worked? I didn’t get that salty about any of the new stuff, mostly because I felt the extended ending and the parts with Nemesia couldn’t ruin anything for me since the core of the game - the heart of what made the DS version works so well - was still there, just a bit more gussied up by those gameplay tweaks and that fancy voiced script. Even when there was something I found dumb or badly executed, I didn’t get annoyed, I just went ‘oh, okay, whatev’ and continued to play. Because I still loved those characters and that ‘verse and it made me happy to be able to experience it again.

(Wait, no, I’m lying, there’s actually one thing that made my blood boil. The fanservicey bits are garbage, and I’ll be glad when the sort of creepy-ass mentality that gets us that moe crap will finally be gone. There, it’s off my chest now.)

I mean, even the art style grew on me, eventually (except for a few select female characters who looked like they were zapped by a moe ray… *beleaguered sigh* oh my poor Valkyrie, what have they done to you?) And in the cases of Marco and Heiss, I actually like their new portraits better! PC!Marco’s got some really cute expressions and PC!Heiss… well, PC!Heiss seems less like the kind of guy who drowns kittens as a hobby. I can almost buy that Raynie trusted him at some point in her life (…almost).

The voice work was quite solid too and that, uh, surprised me?? I even like the English dub better than the Japanese version! Rosch, Stocke and Heiss’ VAs did great jobs imho and I developed a sort of fondness for Gafka and Raul’s voices as well. Raul really sounded like the kind of guy who needs ALL THE CAFFEINE to deal with the sheer amount of shit going on around him, and that made me feel for the guy. You and me both, Lieutenant General… you and me both…

Other than that, here are a few things that made me lol/sigh/feel the feels in no particular order:

- Raynie’s got a new sidequest and it doesn’t have anything to do with her (still kinda badly-written) crush on Stocke?! A sidequest that actually addresses her PTSD??! Atlus, you blew my itty-bitty tiny mind here, you managed to remember that she had a life beyond being Stocke’s love interest!

- At the same time, why is Marco’s possible history about Mimel again? Why couldn’t it be about, oh I don’t know, his past, of which we still know nothing about?? Also, Sonja’s quest could have been about her brobro, you know, what we got instead was a bit… cringeworthy, what with those Stay-in-the-Kitchen overtones. C’mon, Atlus, plz.

- Everybody seems to hate the bad end where Fennel explodes because Stocke gave him a whack, but I love it. It was so, so dumb. It wasn’t as beautiful in its sheer wtf factor as Simmering End, but it was trying, definitely.

- Speaking of Simmering Fury… I’m just gonna leave this here:

Yeah, that speaks for itself, I think.

- Finally, we get the opportunity to beat the crap outta Dias and Selvan! …while they’re riding… giant… mechas??? This should not work, but it did for me (...why???). Also, Noah’s Pope mecha, lord, Noah’s Pope mecha, with his silly little Pope hat! I guess someone on the development team felt the original game needed more mechas.

- In general, Dias and Selvan’s heel-face-turn is the only one I can buy out of all of the new redemption arcs we’ve gotten. Since it’s shown even in the original game that they were acting out of a real desire to make their country better (well, all according to their own definition of better, which is not, uh, everybody’s definition of better), I can get that once confronted with the evidence that they’ve played right into the hand of some homicidal nutso, they’d change their tune. They’ve actually managed to put all the pieces together and find out Heiss’ real identity! ...it didn’t save them in the end, but I’m still proud of my boys.

- Protea willingly turning away from a life of sin, on the other end…

I get that they were trying to give more nuance to an admittedly thin character, but, uh, could they have found a more efficient (read: less OOC) way to make her more sympathetic? Her change of heart comes a little… too abruptly, in my taste. If it had been a gradual thing, I think it would have gone better. Hell, if they wanted us to feel sorry for her, they could have pulled a Cersei Lannister and shown us the less rosy side of marrying a royal for the power it brings you. Sure, money and prestige are all fine and dandy, but is it worth the cost of losing your agency to an asshole husband with control issues? Ask Cersei how it went for her…

- On Hugo’s side of things, myeahhh, I understand what they were going for, but again, it came a little fast? At least this time there was a little foreshadowing and some foundation for his heel-face-turn… still, the fact that his faith in Noah was genuine is nice and all, but, uh, I dunno, I feel like he was too far gone off the deep end at that point for a complete change in attitude? Dude went on fire and smiled.

- …but I like what they did with him in that possible history, where he mended his ways because he caused Noah’s death by being his usual asshole self. It could have been a good way to build up some sympathy for him if we could compare and contrast this ending with the one he originally got… that way, we could be sad seeing how that he did have the potential to be a good person but chose instead to chase after the trappings of power, discarding what made him a precious disciple in Noah’s eyes…

- Speaking about Noah, I think his whole arc had some good ideas, but I would preferred it if they added a little more build-up leading up to the reveal that he’s extended his lifespan with Thaumatech? Maybe have Stocke wonder why this Noah looks like he’s so young while his Noah is an old man? Have a few citizens comment on how surely, their prophet must have been blessed by a divine power since he’s aged so little over the years? I dunno, really… Still, I like the idea that he’s gotten tired of the way his people depend on him without ever trying to stand on their own. No wonder he’s all, ‘peace, homies, Noah out’ when you save him in the main timeline. It fits in nicely with the general theme we had in the original game of Alistel having to grow as a country by stopping using their faith as a crutch.

- As for Heiss’ ending, well, it does make me lol that’s it’s all about him being:

More seriously, I’m kinda worried for Stocke’s sake? Poor boy is never going to have a moment of peace, is he? Then again, this new-and-improved Heiss seems oddly… cheerful? And… happy?? You guys, he nearly apologized to Stocke for messing with his memory!!! …well, nearly, he’s not ready for such deep self-reflection, y’all. And now I’m wondering how the rest of the party felt about him still being around. I’m almost surprised Raynie didn’t try throwing him off Nemesia’s boat in the last chapter. I would have cheered for her.

…man, I almost feel a plotbunny coming on, hmm.

Anyway, I feel like they meant for his survival to be heartwarming, but I’m, uh, just freaked out on Stocke’s behalf, tbh. Heiss really needs to give Precious Nephew some space. Somehow, though, I don’t think this will be the case… as Gravity Falls would put it, Stocke’s life is Heiss’ soap opera, after all.

…poor, poor Stocke…

...

also totally I pwned Master Vainqueur, booyah.

#Radiant Historia #I just realized I forgot to talk about Nemesia and the new stuff about the empire #oh well that will be for another stupidly long post I guess

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chargers-rp-things · 10 months ago

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It's a war out there everyday You can't hide from it You gotta play by the rules Play it cool Gotta laugh in the face Of the sad disgrace When your friends and foes look alike

On the face of it They missed their history! But they fight Over a place in it

Yeah they fight Over a place in it

#roleplay musings #rp musings #source: atlus sound team #source: shihoko hirata #game: persona 4 #game: persona 4 golden #persona 4 #persona 4 golden

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satoshi-mochida · 1 year ago

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Persona 3 Reload launches February 2, 2024

Gematsu Source

Persona 3 Reload will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store on February 2, 2024 worldwide, ATLUS announced. It will also be available via Xbox Game Pass. Digital pre-orders are available now.

The game will be available in the following editions:

Physical Editions

-Standard Edition ($69.99)

Base Game

-Aigis Edition

Base game

Collector’s box

Art book

Two-disc soundtrack CD

Aigis figure

Downloadable Content Pack – Includes all purchasable additional content for the game. (“Persona 5 Royal Phantom Thieves Costume Set,” “Persona 5 Royal Shujin Academy Costume Set,” “Persona 5 Royal Persona Set 1,” “Persona 5 Royal Persona Set 2,” “Persona 5 Royal Background Music Set,” “Persona 4 Golden Yasogami High Costume Set,” “Persona 4 Golden Persona Set”).

Digital Editions

-Standard Edition ($69.99)

Base game

-Digital Deluxe Edition ($79.99)

Base game

Digital art book – Filled with 64 pages of character art, concept art, backgrounds and other illustrations from the game.

Digital soundtrack – Listen to newly arranged tracks from the original Persona 3 plus all new tracks from Persona 3 Reload, presented by the ATLUS Sound Team for a total of 60 new songs.

-Digital Premium Edition ($99.99)

Base game

Digital art book

Digital soundtrack

Downloadable Content Pack

Users who pre-order any version of the game will receive the “Persona 4 Background Music Set,” which features the following additional tracks:

“A New World Fool”

“I’ll Face Myself -Battle-“

“The Fog”

“Reach Out to the Truth”

“Results”

“Time To Make History”

Get the latest details below.

■ Characters

Koromaru (voiced by Shinya Takahashi in Japanese)

A dog who awakens to the power of Persona after a tragic event. Since his original owner—the priest of the dorm’s neighboring Naganaki Shrine—had passed away, the protagonist and friends take him in as a full-fledged member of S.E.E.S. Clever, loyal, and friendly, he quickly becomes a beloved member of the group. He seems especially close to Aigis—who translates his barks—and Ken Amada, the elementary school student. In battle, he wields a knife in his mouth. His unique Persona is Cerberus, specializing in dark skills.

Aigis (voiced by Dawn M. Bennett in English, Maaya Sakamoto in Japanese)

A man-made Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon, 7th Generation. She joins S.E.E.S. as an android with a humanlike heart, granting her the power of Persona. She harbors a mysterious attachment to the Protagonist from the first day they meet. Initially coming across as cold and robotic, she begins to discover more human emotions through her experiences with the group. In battle, she fires off an arsenal of weapons built into her mechanical body. Her unique Persona is Palladion, specializing in physical and support skills.

Ken Amada (voiced by Justine Lee in English, Megumi Ogata in Japanese)

The youngest member of S.E.E.S.—a 5th grader at Gekkoukan Elementary. After losing his mother in an accident, he comes to live at the Iwatodai Dorm. After awakening to his Persona abilities, he joins S.E.E.S. of his own accord. While he strives to act mature with his mannerisms, deep down he is still a child with a passion for superhero TV shows. In battle, he holds a long spear in contrast to his short stature. His unique Persona is Nemesis, specializing in light skills.

Shinjiro Aragaki (voiced by Justice Slocum in English, Kazuya Nakai in Japanese)

A third-year at Gekkoukan High, though he can rarely be seen at school. He was a founding member of SEES alongside Mitsuru and Akihiko. After distancing himself for about two years, a certain turn of events convinces him to rejoin the group. While unapproachable at first glance, beneath the gruff exterior is a gentle heart and a knack for cooking. He even has a soft spot for animals, doting on Koromaru when no one is looking. In battle, he bludgeons with weapons like axes. His unique Persona is Castor, specializing in hard-hitting physical attacks.

■ Key Art and Protagonist’s Battle Uniform Revealed

In Persona 3 Reload, all members of the Special Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.) now don new battle uniforms when taking on Tartarus.

Persona-3-Reload_2023_08-23-23_030.jpg (3456×4320) (gematsu.com)

The newly revealed key art depicts the protagonist in his new outfit alongside his Persona, Thanatos. The iconic S.E.E.S armbands have also been redesigned to match the updated battle uniform.

Persona-3-Reload_2023_08-23-23_031.png (3051×4320) (gematsu.com)

Watch a new set of trailers below. View a new set of screenshots at the gallery.

Meet The S.E.E.S. Trailer

English

youtube

Japanese

youtube

New Battle Theme Video: "It's Going Down Now"

English

youtube

Japanese

youtube

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#Persona 3 Reload #Persona 3 Remake #Persona 3 #Persona Series #Atlus #Gematsu #Youtube #long post

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4colorrebellion · 7 years ago

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4cr Plays: Dragon Crown Pro

Atlus has always been one of the most unique developers and publishers around, and like Atlus, Vanillaware has been a consistent source of games that feature unique gameplay and design. It’s unfortunate that Vanillaware’s crowning achievements tended to come so late in the lifecycle of both the PS2 and PS3. While I played both Odin Sphere (PS2) and Dragon’s Crown (PS3) on their original consoles they always fell just short of being the classic titles I wanted them to be. In each instance you had a studio that obviously knew how to wring every last bit of power from a system working at their peak but ultimately being just a bit hamstrung by the technical limitations inherent of a console at the end of its lifecycle. A situation that has been remedied with the rerelease of Dragon’s Crown Pro on the PS4.

In a market where companies are quick to turn out HD remakes and rehashes of old titles it’s the rare game that actually benefits from the treatment. Often these games are upscaled and pushed out the door, banking the ruby tinted glasses of nostalgia to forgive and less than stellar production issues. This is decidedly not the case with Dragon’s Crown Pro. The title has received a full remaster of graphics with sprites and background upgraded to modern display standards. The music also has been fully reworked with a beautiful orchestral score. the narration, while not new, has also been remastered and sounds fantastic and modern.

One thing I didn’t expect from Dragon’s Crown Pro was that the character designs would age so well. At first glance, and at lower resolution, the characters always seemed like super buff or well endowed anime representations that always left me feeling kind of gross. However with higher resolution the intent of these characters truly comes into focus (pun intended). Dragon’s Crown takes super-deformed art to its logical end, with both female and male characters getting a treatment that goes so far beyond lurid titillation that it becomes downright grotesque. Everyone from staid templars to desiccated beggars are rendered with a disturbing attention to detail, with muscles and tendons nearly bursting though skin or armor. For female characters who are clothed in typically problematic fantasy fashion, the same rules apply. Angular features, and downright ridiculous anatomy are the choice made at a very granular level, ultimately making each character look like they were generated using a creation tool with its anatomy and feature sliders locked only at the most extreme options. It is a horror show, and is even more obvious when you realize that every background character in the game is utterly mundane. The game also never overtly sexualizes characters or interactions though quests or dialog. The characters are who they are and are accepted within the context of the game and not used for cheap sexual jokes. It was a strange choice when the original Dragon’s Crown was made, and it honestly holds up even better now that the industry is actually paying attention to these kinds of tropes in gaming.

From a gameplay perspective, there haven’t been many updates and Dragon’s Crown Pro remains one of the best side scrolling brawlers of the modern era. The RPG elements are light enough to not bog down what is essentially a button mashing dungeon crawling game but still offer up customization options that give enough flexibility to keep things interesting. Dragon’s Crown Pro also keeps the resurrection mechanic present in the original that was and still is fairly unique. In a nod to classic RPG resurrection mechanics, you can retrieve the corpses of fallen adventures from dungeons and either bury them or return them to life. If you choose to revive these wayward souls they’ll join you to take the place of missing human controlled characters. The level scaling of these characters and variety of equipment and classes they support gives you a lot of flexibility when you go to form a team before setting out and adds a bit more depth to what could have been a fairly shallow game.

Overall, if you played and liked the original Dragon’s Crown, it’s worth taking a look Dragon’s Crown Pro because the updates and enhancements truly bring it up to modern standards. If you missed out on the original it’s definitely worth picking up. Dragon’s Crown Pro one of the strangest, most satisfying brawlers available today.

This review based on a copy of the game provided by Atlus

#PS4 #Dragon's Crown Pro #4cr plays #4cr #review #video games #gaming #Atlus #Vanillaware

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operationrainfall · 5 years ago

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Title Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Developer Atlus, Nintendo Publisher Nintendo Release Date January 17th, 2020 Genre RPG Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating T for Teen – Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol Official Website

Let me just get this out of the way – I was a big fan of the original Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. I’m well aware of the so called controversy of the original game, and it in no way impacted my enjoyment. So when I saw the original game was getting an upgraded port in Encore, I knew I had to play it. Not only did it feature a revamped build of the original Wii U exclusive, it came packaged with the optional DLC as well as some entirely new content in the EX Story. Thanks to the kind folks at Nintendo providing us the opportunity to review the game, I buckled down and got through as fast as possible. Four years later, am I still a fan of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, or did this Encore fall flat?

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The first thing you should all know about Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is that it’s a game all about the theme of spreading happiness and creativity through art. In the game proper, that art is predominantly split between musical performances and stage acting. It embraces Japanese culture and all its many quirks, while showcasing the glamour of the entertainment industry. Besides that, the game is also a hybrid of two rather different series – Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem. You wouldn’t be faulted for wondering how easily those mesh together, but I can assure you it works shockingly well. Not only does Encore have key elements of both series, such as various character classes, a weapon triangle, exploiting enemy weaknesses and crazed extra-dimensional dungeons, it manages to also stand on its own two feet while inheriting the best aspects of both source materials. That said, for the majority of game, you’re going to see more SMT influence than FE, but once the credits roll, I felt both were well represented. This is also a game that benefits from being a JRPG, for one simple reason – this game’s strong suit isn’t the plot. That’s not to say the story isn’t interesting or entertaining, but after playing it a second time, I couldn’t help but notice several things the plot doesn’t adequately address. Thankfully, the genre is also known for having captivating personalities, and Encore has that in spades. You’ll really grow to love every character in the story, from the main cast to the supporting characters. They’ll all grow and become more fully realized as you play, and if you devote yourself to all the Side Story content (which I highly recommend), you’ll really get rewarded with some touching and hilarious moments.

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While the story (split into several chapters broken up with Intermissions) isn’t the tightest or most complex, it does provide a good structure for how things progress. Tokyo is under assault by invisible forces called Mirages. They are after the distilled creative essence of humanity, called Performa. It’s found in crowds that are inspired by music or theater, so every time some big event happens, Mirages strike. They drain our Performa until we’re just empty husks, and it provides a powerful boost of strength to these Mirages. You’re probably wondering how you fight back against such a threat, at least if you haven’t played a Persona or SMT game before. If you have, you know that it takes fire to fight fire. A small percentage of humans can see Mirages, and by joining forces with heroic ones, they become Mirage Masters. These humans are empowered by their Mirage, granted powerful armor as the Mirage itself turns into their primary weapon, called Carnage. Thus equipped, you and your band of heroes fights back, repelling these otherworldly invaders (portrayed on the map as floating red wraiths) and returning things to normal. Just be wary, since some evil Mirages have possessed prominent humans to do their bidding. There’s other parts to the story, such as the mystery of Tiki’s lost memories and an incident a few years back where a group of people vanished, including Tsubasa’s sister, but I’ll leave those portions for you to discover.

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Speaking of characters, let’s spend some time discussing the main ones. You play as Itsuki Aoi. He’s a mild mannered boy known as the Prince of Denseness, yet his support helps all his friends grow and reach their ultimate potential. He’s not quite an avatar, but he’s also the least fleshed out character in the game. Then there’s Itsuki’s childhood friend, Tsubasa. She suffered some serious trauma as a child, yet has still managed to grow into a loving and strong person. She’s also a ridiculous fangirl, and often gets so perplexed she walks into walls and gets tongue tied, inverting word order. Or take Touma, a hot headed action hero in training that uses confidence to hide his insecurity. There’s the old pro Kiria, entertainer extraordinaire and literal ice queen, at least until you reveal her soft and fluffy side. Then there’s Ellie, a girl of mixed ethnicity with a sharp tongue who has aspirations of Hollywood fame. For those who prefer innocence, there’s the sweet and demure Mamori, a young actress with her own popular cooking show that wants to protect those she loves. Finally, there’s the cold and brutally honest Yashiro. He starts out as a bitter rival to your team, but eventually you convince him to look past his misconceptions and discover the pain he’s hiding.

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But that’s just the main characters. There’s three other important supporting characters, and they’re all tremendous as well. Your boss is the busty and flirtatious Maiko, a one time model that runs the Fortuna agency with iron determination. There’s nothing she won’t do to help her stable of artists prosper, and that especially includes getting completely drunk while making connections. Or there’s Tiki, an ethereal green haired maiden whose name may sound familiar to Fire Emblem fans. Devoid of any physical form, Tiki only exists in the Bloom Palace, a extra-dimensional realm accessible from the Fortuna office. Though she has no memories, that doesn’t prevent her from showing off her loving and helpful side, always willing to help out her Big Brother! And finally there’s my favorite, Barry Goodman. A former metal rocker and Mirage Master, Barry has seen better days, but he’s always willing to train new talent. He’s also a worse fanboy than Tsubasa, and his brash and quirky personality provided some of my biggest laughs.

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Now, none of the plot or character would much matter if the game wasn’t fun, but Encore is a delight. In large part, that’s due to the complex and kinetic combat. You fight with a team of 3, and your goal is to attack the enemy to pinpoint their weaknesses. Once you’ve done that, by using a Skill that exploits it, you’ll initiate the titular Sessions. Essentially, this is a giant chain of attacks that proceeds from a single one, ignoring enemy defenses. Initially this only involves your current team, but eventually you’ll acquire the ability to include your sub cast of characters, leading to massive combos. When you have one foe left, you’ll deal Overkill damage, providing great rewards of cash and Performa. As you level up, your Carnage learn new Skills, and you get to choose which you keep and which you toss. Additionally, you can change out any member of your team whenever you want, other than Itsuki. This allows you to bring in the right character for the task at hand, and manipulate the field of battle to your advantage. Just keep in mind, only the characters in combat level up their Carnage, while everybody levels up their character level regardless.

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You also have at your disposal powerful Special and Ad-lib Performances. Special Performances use energy you’ve filled up in your meter by attacking, and has some tremendously powerful effects. Some of my favorite examples are temporarily increasing enemy weaknesses, healing your entire team, fatally killing enemies and much more. Ad-lib are also quite powerful, but only activate randomly when characters use Skills with the corresponding attack type. For example, if Ellie uses a Bow attack, she may use One-Sided Love, which damages all your foes and charms them to boot. If instead you use a Lightning Skill like Maziodyne with Itsuki, you might activate Back Chorus, zapping the entire field. Last of all are Duo Arts. You won’t have access to these until the latter portion of the game, but once you do, they make a big difference. They often trigger during long Sessions, and have two of your teammates join together for tremendous and powerful attacks. A great example is The Tunnel Home, where Barry, dressed like a giant dog, races to catch Mamori’s axe, and then charges the foe headfirst with it, ripping them to shreds. Keep in mind that while both Ad-lib Performances and Duo Arts are random, having a higher Luck stat seems to trigger them more often, since Ellie, who has very high luck, seemed to trigger these types of attack the most.

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Like any good RPG, you can upgrade your gear, crafting more powerful weapons. This process is called Unity, and it’s done at the Bloom Palace with Performa dropped by defeated foes. When you gather enough, you can have Tiki conduct a Carnage Unity, making a new weapon with enhanced stats and differing weaknesses by fusing the gathered Performa with your Mirage. Eventually you can craft +1 or higher versions of the same Carnage, which is useful when you can’t find the right Performa to make a new weapon. Also, whenever you make a new one, you have a chance to learn a new Special Performance, meaning it’s in your best interest to keep on fighting so you can make stronger weapons and learn more abilities. For the most part, I felt this loop worked very well, and only hit a wall that forced me to grind for parts a couple of times in my near 50 hour experience. Another type of Unity is Radiant Unity, where you use special Performa found only in the many Side Stories to learn new abilities that you don’t have to equip and which are constantly in use. A good example is Open Audition, which lets your sub cast of characters jump into Sessions. An integral one is learned by Itsuki, called Director Itsuki, which lets you switch foes after you kill one and keep the Session going. Finally, like any good Fire Emblem, you can change your class. You do this with (you guessed it) Master Seals, which are either mission rewards or found in hard to reach corners of dungeons. This lets you further customize your experience and changes the look of your Mirage, though I admit I found the starting forms preferable to many of the downright strange looking upgraded classes. But that’s just a matter of personal preference, you might find that you love the look of these new forms.

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Although the plot isn’t Encore’s strong suit, that isn’t the same as saying the writing falls flat. I found most of the dialogue very funny and revealing, whether it be conveyed in some grand speech or in digital messages called Topics. In the original Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Topics were relegated to the Gamepad, and notified you when one of your characters had something to say, or when you could start a new Side Story. Though Topics are alive and well here, instead they’re relegated to the + button. This wasn’t problematic per se, but oftentimes I would open up the main menu, which is separate from the Topic menu. This only cost me a few seconds to close it out and open the right one, but it was far less intuitive than originally on the Wii U. That said, the Topics are often hilarious, showing banter between Itsuki and his friends. The Topic menu also helps keep track of which Side Stories are in progress, and is where you’ll find the dungeon maps. I loved the Side Stories in the game, since not only did they showcase more of the cast’s personalities, but they provided powerful upgrades and Backup Skills for the sub characters. My only issue was when it wasn’t clear how to progress certain missions, such as when Tsubasa is on the hunt for a stray cat, and the clues you’re given are entirely open ended and unnecessarily vague. The missions that involved combat or just progressed like a Visual Novel were much more to my liking, since I get frustrated whenever I get stuck. That said, it occurred to me as I played that if there’s ever a VN made of Encore, it would most definitely be a Harem VN. Itsuki becomes the love interest of ALL the female characters, even though he’s too dense to realize it. Even the men all respect and admire him. In other words, there’s a universe in which Itsuki finally learns the full extent of Maiko’s many charms, and that’s a tale I would definitely read.

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The dungeons in Encore play out very much like a Persona game. Enemies will appear and chase you, though most can be stunned with Itsuki’s sword to gain First Strike during battle. There’s also terrifying Savage enemies, black wraiths that can’t be knocked down and which generally are 10+ levels higher than your team. Though dungeons aren’t littered with traps and false floors, they each have a unique gimmick that makes traversal a challenge. While the very first one is incredibly basic, the one immediately after that is a giant step up in terms of complexity and difficulty. It has you manipulate empty mannequins, raising or lowering their arms, then progressing through the cuffs to reach new areas. There’s another that is full of devious cameras that take your picture and return you to the very beginning, not unlike the Wallmasters in Zelda. Pretty much each dungeon is distinct looking and offers a robust challenge, and none other than the first can be breezed through. Most took me more than 2 hours, and the final one easily took 8 or more. Thankfully, early on Tsubasa acquires the Traport skill, which lets you transport yourself back to Fortuna HQ, where you can heal your team with a soda. Depending on the type of can, you will also increase the luck of certain characters temporarily. I had no issue with this, other than my confusion about the very first dungeon having a heal spot, and none of the others. But so long as you don’t mind a little back and forth teleportation, you shouldn’t have any problems getting through these dungeons. Just put on your thinking cap and get ready to fight back hordes of Mirages.

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It wouldn’t be a satisfying RPG without tough bosses, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore delivers. Every time I thought I was getting overpowered in the game, the next boss would prove me wrong. None of the bosses here are easy, at least on the Normal difficulty I chose. Most of them can wipe you out in a couple turns, especially if your team is weak to any of their attacks. Each boss usually has a posse of minor foes, and while that might seem unfair, since they can summon more, they’re there for a reason. Namely, so you can defeat the minor foes to build up your Session meter and then unleash powerful attacks on the bosses. I enjoyed the challenge provided by these fights, and only found a handful to be a pain. One was a doppleganger of Yashiro that could split himself into clones, and which would go into a counter stance to parry any physical attacks. Another was Excellus, a floating mechanical mage that changed his resistances during the fight, and which could hit my team with unrelenting magical attacks. There’s a couple others, but overall I wasn’t upset with the more difficult bosses. They just required I be willing to grind up my levels and equipment a bit, a skill I gathered recently thanks to games like Persona Q.

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Now, it wouldn’t be fair to talk about Encore without touching upon the new content. First of all, you have a rather silly (yet awesome) ability at the start to choose whether or not Tsubasa wears glasses in the game. As a fan of the sexy librarian trope, I opted for it. Besides that, the DLC which was previously only available to those that paid for it is part of the main package now. It’s essentially free, since this version of the game costs as much as the base version of the original, $59.99. The DLC, which opens up a couple dungeons into the game, includes 3 areas you can tackle. One is full of Savage enemies that reward you with Tomes which help level up faster; another area gives you Skill Books, for learning new Skills much faster; and lastly one has Detritus, which can be traded for stat boosting Incense. While I’m fine with these options, I didn’t use them much. Mostly cause there was no story there, you can’t save in these areas, and frankly Savage foes are a giant pain in the ass. What I would have preferred was an area full of Rare Mirages, which often drop hard to find Performa necessary for powerful Carnage Unity. In my entire playthrough, I maybe encountered 10 of these Mirages, and what’s worse, they aren’t tied to any specific area. That wasn’t a huge problem til later in the game, but it is worth mention.

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However, the real draw for Encore is the EX Story. It all takes place in a new dungeon called the Area of Aspiration, where supposedly your dreams are brought into physical form. I admit I was tentatively very excited about the EX Story, as I hoped it would provide an excuse to spend more time with this world. Unfortunately, I have to confirm it’s rather short and insubstantial. The story tied to the Area of Aspiration only involves Itsuki, Tsubasa and Kiria, and none of the others. While it’s cool you can find new costumes there, and I appreciated unlocking the use of Tiki, Maiko and Barry in Sessions, that’s also not the same as them being playable characters. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for tiny green dragons, busty ninjas and knights clad in dog-armor, but I also don’t feel like the process of unlocking them was fulfilling. In the main story, you progress in Side Stories and learn more about your teammates, and then those revelations empower them. Here, you just open a chest and get new features. Plus, I’m still not clear how Maiko and Barry, who lack Mirages, magically get the ability to fight Mirages, which the game states over and over again is the sole province of a Mirage Master. And though you can’t get through the Area of Aspiration all at once, since parts of it are gated behind other content, it’s still over way too soon. It only has 3 chapters and one boss. I was really hoping for a meaty dungeon to spend hours and hours in after I beat the final boss. Instead, I got maybe a couple hours of extra content that left me wanting more than the one new song, “She Is”, rewarded to you at the very end of the experience. Which isn’t to say I hated the EX Story, I didn’t. I just feel a game of this caliber deserved better.

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As for how the game game looks and plays, both are fantastic. Even though the original Tokyo Mirage Sessions was on the Wii U, and while the limitations of that console are still apparent (reused enemy models, limited draw distance, a seemingly sprawling map that’s only composed of a few areas), it in no way prevents this from being a beautiful game. I love how random passerby are rainbow colored, or how the Fortuna office gets decorated after various performances with posters, or even the neon portraits of your team during battle. Hell, even though they reuse enemy models with a new coat of paint, there’s a good variety of foes, from giant clown heads to winged raiders to hideous giants and top-hat wearing ghosts. Of special note are the game’s bosses, which each are stunning looking and showcase a distinct aesthetic style. And each of the characters’ different Mirages are all full of personality that is matched by their design. Musically, I love the game equally. While the main combat and exploration themes are somewhat laid back, I live for when the music of performances enters the fray of battle. I still tap my feet to the Duo Arts “Dream Catcher” and “Give Me”, and am always impressed by the Kiria’s bad ass tunes, such as her Ad-lib Performance “The Labyrinth.” There’s tons of rocking tunes in Encore, from a wide range of genres. I never thought I liked J-pop, but Tokyo Mirage Sessions may have proven me wrong. Oh and though I am not fluent in Japanese in the slightest, I loved the personality and pop provided by the vocal cast, in and out of combat.

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Now, while I like almost everything about Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, reviewing games for this many years has trained me to view things critically. As such, the following are minor frustrations that dragged the experience down a bit. One are the bestiary’s enemy locations. These can be viewed from your main menu, and are integral when you need to farm the right Performa for weapons and skills. Unfortunately, the enemy locations found here don’t correspond to the actual area map. Another issue is that I wish that once you see a scene, you can skip it entirely the next time. Often right before a boss fight there’s a ton of dialogue, and while you can speed through it, you can’t skip it, and you definitely can’t skip Topic notifications that are story related. This made the final boss fight all the harder, since there’s a massive scene right before it, and it takes a good minute and a half to speed through it. I also kind of wish the map wasn’t on the Topic menu, but the other huge main menu, since it can be time consuming transitioning between them. It’s also a bit irritating that you’ll get notifications of a side story about to open up, then have to wait til it’s triggered. This is after you level up your Stage Rank, which is in itself a nebulous process, since there’s no counter that tells you when it’s full, unlike character and Carnage level. And one last thing that really irritated me was that I always had tons of money in-game, literally millions, but not enough things to spend it on. The Carabia boutique has a very limited supply of equipment, and none that is really game changing. Even buying all the costumes from Harajuka left me millions in the bank. I almost wish this game took mechanics from a game like Persona Q, letting you farm materials that you trade in to create new equipment regularly. Other than these, I very much enjoyed the game.

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All in all, I’m still very much a fan of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE after beating Encore. It’s basically the same game, just with a bit of extra content thrown in and some minor quality of life improvements such as the Quick Session option and faster load times. While I was ultimately unimpressed with the EX Story, I still appreciate being able to play one of my favorite Wii U exclusives on my Switch portably. If you’re a fan of Japanese culture and love crazy RPGs full of heart, you owe it to yourself to play Encore. Now I just have to cross my fingers and pray we get a true sequel that improves on this already fantastic experience.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″]

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REVIEW: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Title Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore

#EX Story #oprainfall #Remake #Review #RPG #Switch #Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE Encore #Wii U

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