Shenmue Dojo

Posted: **Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:07 pm**

AnimeGamer183 wrote:after 3 different tries I gave up and said ill come back in few levels in which I know I will slaughter him easily cause thats just how the game has worked so far.

That's its biggest gameplay issue and even the extremely favourable RPGamer review points this out as a major flaw, especially for RPG veterans. The battle system is extremely unbalanced and it all boils down to upping levels. Once you get on the right level, the game plays by itself. If you want to play it underleveled, then you must artificially raise agility as if you were on a high level because otherwise the game won't allow you to hit enemies at all.

Overall, the battles in Xenoblade are OKish for casual sittings, but the more experienced jRPG players will be disappointed by a total lack of challenge. There are no hardcore strategic battles to be found here despite all the promising tutorials the game throws at you at the beginning. It seems extremely deep at first, only to turn into a picnic.

Posted: **Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:35 pm**

There might be some truth to some of that, the battle system has a few issues, but I think the strategy mainly comes down to how you move your character during battle, running away from the enemy once hes targeted you with a monado vision and the bar starts going down will actually make the enemy target someone else once you are far enough away, its a gamble though because sometimes he will still hit you half way across the map if you didnt make it "far enough" and you will die and your other parties memebers can take too long to run over to you and revive you and thus you lose the battle anyway because they are still taking damage. Also it would be REALLY nice to be able to switch between character mid battle, that would significantly remedy many issues, like say the way Star Ocean 3 did it, how they didnt think to add that in I am not sure. Still the battle system has enough going on to be very enjoyable. But imagine if it had a mixture of its battle system with the gambit system from FFXII =P~

edit - As a side note, here is something else I cant seem to figure out. When Shulk dies in battle (or whatever character you are controlling), sometimes it ends the battle/game session and takes you to the last load point, and sometimes it gives the opportunity for your team mates to come revive you, then sometimes it gives them a little time, but then eventually reloads everything anyway, and I cant seem to figure out what makes it do this, sometimes I can survive dying like 4 or 5 times in one battle and can still win and sometimes it reloads on me after one death.

Posted: **Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:42 pm**

AnimeGamer183 wrote: There might be some truth to some of that, the battle system has a few issues, but I think the strategy mainly comes down to how you move your character during battle, running away from the enemy once hes targeted you with a monado vision and the bar starts going down will actually make the enemy target someone else once you are far enough away, its a gamble though because sometimes he will still hit you half way across the map if you didnt make it "far enough" and you will die and your other parties memebers can take too long to run over to you and revive you and thus you lose the battle anyway because they are still taking damage. Also it would be REALLY nice to be able to switch between character mid battle, that would significantly remedy many issues, like say the way Star Ocean 3 did it, how they didnt think to add that in I am not sure. Still the battle system has enough going on to be very enjoyable. But imagine if it had a mixture of its battle system with the gambit system from FFXII

edit - As a side note, here is something else I cant seem to figure out. When Shulk dies in battle (or whatever character you are controlling), sometimes it ends the battle/game session and takes you to the last load point, and sometimes it gives the opportunity for your team mates to come revive you, then sometimes it gives them a little time, but then eventually reloads everything anyway, and I cant seem to figure out what makes it do this, sometimes I cant survive dying like 4 or 5 times in one battle and can still win and sometimes it reloads on me after one death.

You mean the gauge? If it fills up you can revive so many times. If not you die.

Posted: **Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:45 pm**

AnimeGamer183 wrote: There might be some truth to some of that, the battle system has a few issues, but I think the strategy mainly comes down to how you move your character during battle, running away from the enemy once hes targeted you with a monado vision and the bar starts going down will actually make the enemy target someone else once you are far enough away, its a gamble though because sometimes he will still hit you half way across the map if you didnt make it "far enough" and you will die and your other parties memebers can take too long to run over to you and revive you and thus you lose the battle anyway because they are still taking damage. Also it would be REALLY nice to be able to switch between character mid battle, that would significantly remedy many issues, like say the way Star Ocean 3 did it, how they didnt think to add that in I am not sure. Still the battle system has enough going on to be very enjoyable. But imagine if it had a mixture of its battle system with the gambit system from FFXII

You play Xenoblade that way? It's unnecessary if you play it with the right skills and gems. One would need to "run" like that only if he fucked everything up and allowed the game to totally get out of his control. It has nothing to do with 'strategic' planning. It's fooling the AI more than anything because running can lock it in a loop of charging and breaking of the turn gauge. Xenoblade's battle system was the weakest part of the game for me. Even the various graphical effects aren't eye-candies by any means, which is typically the case with jRPGs. But Monolith Soft never shined with their battle systems. They do them in a very generic manner.

After getting every tophy in the game, I have to say that there's nothing hard about it, like I said before. It's time-consuming as hell, though. I guess you can stretch that to being 'hardcore'.

edit - As a side note, here is something else I cant seem to figure out. When Shulk dies in battle (or whatever character you are controlling), sometimes it ends the battle/game session and takes you to the last load point, and sometimes it gives the opportunity for your team mates to come revive you, then sometimes it gives them a little time, but then eventually reloads everything anyway, and I cant seem to figure out what makes it do this, sometimes I can survive dying like 4 or 5 times in one battle and can still win and sometimes it reloads on me after one death.

You didn't notice it yet? They can revive you only if there's at least one segment of the Party Gauge filled up (unless you're using a special linked skill that's attainable late in the game).

Posted: **Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:51 pm**

oh yeah, the talent gauge, of course, I forgot about that. Speaking of that I have had some epic combination hits when they blue line of epicness turns on.

My general strategy is to have shulk break, reyn topple, then sharla daze the enemy and then if I get a second round (btw the b button timing mechanic is fucking spiratic and even now its hard to get right, which is good i guess it adds some challenge, it always seems like its experiencing slow down during certain battles so it makes it harder to pull off) and shulk has his monado arts open I can deal some 60,000 damage in one hit which is pretty awesome.

Posted: **Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:52 pm**

AnimeGamer183 wrote: oh yeah, the talent gauge, of course, I forgot about that.

The blue one in the upper left corner is called Party Gauge, not Talent Gauge.

The chain attacks you speak of are overpowered. I could easily deal sick amounts of damage by creating ridiculously long chains of physical attacks.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot - Resonance of Fate is my favourite jRPG this gen. I see a ton of issues with RoF, but its characters and atmosphere are one of a kind and I love them to death. Too bad it will never get a sequel. Ironically, tri-Ace was forced to help with FFXIII-2 because of financial troubles... Fuck this reality.

Posted: **Sat Sep 08, 2012 8:30 pm**

I wouldnt go as far as to say fuck this reality just because of that but... yeah.

Ok here is another thing I am trying to figure out, when I am in the chain attack sometimes the b prompt button mash pops up, and sometimes it doesnt, I THINK the more the party gauge is filled after you initiate the chain (sometimes you can build it back up a little during the actual chain itself?), the higher chance of the b button to start flashing so you can continue the chain. I just have no idea what actually causes the gauge to fill during the chain itself.

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 3:12 am**

Dorian wrote:Ironically, tri-Ace was forced to help with FFXIII-2 because of financial troubles.

Knowing things like this keeps me up at night.

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:58 am**

AnimeGamer183 wrote:Ok here is another thing I am trying to figure out, when I am in the chain attack sometimes the b prompt button mash pops up, and sometimes it doesnt, I THINK the more the party gauge is filled after you initiate the chain (sometimes you can build it back up a little during the actual chain itself?), the higher chance of the b button to start flashing so you can continue the chain. I just have no idea what actually causes the gauge to fill during the chain itself.

It depends on how precise your button press is, on what attack you're performing, on the skills you have linked between your party members, on the affinity between the characters in a chain and on plain old luck (the real one, not a STAT).

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:04 pm**

So Segata, what's this whole thing about Lost Odyssey you are going on about?

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:08 pm**

Spokane wrote: So Segata, what's this whole thing about Lost Odyssey you are going on about?

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:56 pm**

Well Lost Odyssey was the first RPG to use the Unreal Engine 3.

To back up, the engine is great and bad all at once. It allows for a lot of really great effects like multilayered particles and textures and a bunch of other effects and even a ton of AI related options. The biggest problem though is that performance isn't the focus, because of this UE3 (and any game made using a UE) will have framerate and buffering issues.

Using UE was kind of a mixed bag, on the one hand the game was going to take a hit in its speed, and was prone to errors and bugs. The pros did outweigh the cons though, making the game would be faster and cheaper and the cinematics would be woven into the game more efficiently.

RPGs always had their cinematic moments, but this was different. instead of setting down the controller and watching a cutscene play out that had visuals that drastically differed from the main game, Mistwalker could create animations that flowed directly into gameplay, and experiment more with the angles and filters in a real time environment.

To put it bluntly, Lost Odyssey used an engine that was never meant for its playstyle and despite it's rough edges was able to prove that companies that made RPGs could build large AAA engines. Square-Enix tried this approach and after releasing The Last Remnant began work on what was then called the white engine. Tri-Ace created the Undiscovery Engine.

Sadly it seems like most studios are missing the point. Packing the disk full with more CG, placing the camera too close or too far to action, and spending too much time on refining the engine then actually using it to create games. Lost Odyssey still introduced a great idea to gaming that could one day help RPGs return to a golden age.

Posted: **Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:01 am**

How does that answer about tilt shift angles?

Posted: **Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:09 am**

Bluecast wrote: How does that answer about tilt shift angles?

Because it was basically impossible before then. The Last Remnant has a ton of the same kinds of shots from LO. for exmple theres a point where the antagonist grabs the protagonist by the neck and tosses him. During the toss the camera is zoomed out but when the protagonist crashes and chaos starts to take over the battlefield the game is in a 3/4 dutch even when gameplay starts because the protagonist is still f'ed up.

So the reason you see it a lot in mistwalker games is twofold, first they introduced the idea when it comes to modern RPGs so its a bit more obvious because for the past decade cutscenes haven't been able to have such a dynamic camera, and second I think they just plain like it, since its in LO and TLS.

Posted: **Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:03 pm**

http://kotaku.com/5944788/kingdom-heart ... or-the-ps3

You've gotta be fucking kidding me. They're releasing 1, a retelling of 1 and a game that wastetime til 2, but not 2....betcha they do a 2.5 that has birth by sleep and 3D

Shenmue Dojo

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