Community > General chatter

All-in-one Review thread

<< < (12/14) > >>

Kyo:
Deal with it.

Anyhow, a quick review of Valkyria Chronicles 2 from me. Keep in mind that I've never actually played the first game.

Graphics: Quite good, especially the character portraits. One minor fault which I find weird though, is how all the characters have identical models for their bodies with just a head model swap. It makes them look as if they're all the same height even though their profiles say otherwise.

Gameplay: I found it surprisingly addictive and a lot of fun. A great thing is how there are different classes for your soldiers to choose, as well as having their personalities factor into your strategy (Damn you Chloe and your moodiness).

I just finished the March story mission, took 10 tries to beat that SOB.

Sound: The music is fantastic and fits the mood of the battles. Character voices are okay, considering that not all of the lines are voiced. Avan, however, has this irritating laugh that gets on your nerves after a while.

Story: I'm just a little way into the game, but so far the story isn't that bad. I just wished that the school events could be a little more "meaty" and fleshed-out, because some of them are really quite funny to watch.

Overall, I'm glad I purchased this.

Score: 8/10

From Scotty: I wish I had money to buy the first one for you. You would love it forever.

Edit: In that case, you can buy me a PS3 too thx

Cael K.:
Copy-paste from my blog.

So, I beat Last Ranker today. How'd I feel about it? Excellent game. Really good.

As far as plot goes... think movie plot. Light, not deep at all, coupled with the fact that there are a few restraints: you can never stop needing to increase your rank (you raise it by fighting a higher-ranked Ranker and taking his), and there always has to be a reason you fight alone. These two gameplay elements combine to weaken this part of the game, and the last parts of the game feel kinda jumbled together. Dragon Quarter, which I think should be looked at in a similar vein (don't expect anything deep), probably was more coherent. You advance at first by undertaking trials (quests), but these are structured in a way that you have to finish them in a certain order (with a few exceptions). Mostly a linear game, then, and let me make this clear: this is not what you play the game for.

The game portion is where LR really shines. Kazuya Niinou made it, and it shows: much of the game is you trying to figure out the best way to put skills together with your styles. There are many strategies you can employ, from countering and waiting, to in-your-face beatdown, and you learn them by beating other Rankers in fighting-game-meets-RPG style. Most Rankers will give you a skill (some won't), some have Ultimate Attacks that you can learn if you beat them (you can't learn everyone's Ultimate Attacks, though).

Just to give an example, healing in the game can be simple, or complex. There's the skill Healing, which gives you back 50% of your HP. On the complete opposite side, Kura-fu Ken (Gluttony Fist) gives you back HP when you use a fist attack, which you can only do in Break Style. Thing is, only two fist skills do a lot of damage (the style attack doesn't do much), one of which is a counter. This means the enemy has to come to you for you to regain HP, and you still have to time the counter (the return is damage prevention, awesome damage to your opponent and what is probably half your HP). The other has long startup, and you're liable to get knocked out of it... unless you guard break your opponent. If you manage to pull one off in time and you've got Kura-fu Ken up, well... say hello to all your HP again. No joke, it does that much damage, and thankfully Break Style is the style that focuses on guard breaks.

There are a lot of skills in the game, and just about all of them have some use. Mixing, matching, and experimenting with these skills is the game. You can have four per style, and two styles per battle, so you can pick skills to focus on a certain strategy or playstyle... and there's quite a few of them. Of course, Attack Style/Break Style skill spam always works too, for those of you who just want to get to the game.

The music in the game... is epic. I can't remember the last time I heard music this good in a game. If I haven't convinced you to get this game when (if?) it comes out in the US, then take a look at (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7IE7IiZLfU&feature=related) and (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYDooWXw-o&feature=related) to sample it. If I have convinced you already, I mean it when I say it: don't sample it. Hearing each of the battle themes for the first time in game as a fight starts is something to be experienced. That being said, the battle music is pretty much the highlight, and most other pieces aren't nearly as impressive.

The game is voiced by some fairly prolific voice actors. If anything stops a localization, it'll be this. The script isn't that hard a translate, and most the menus (even all but one of the songs with lyrics) are in native English, though item and location names are in Japanese (you do get to see location names in English when you first enter an area, though). Ranker tag lines generally are as well, with some exceptions that usually pop up around halfway through.

Shortcomings... well, I explained the plot shortcomings earlier. Other than that, and the fact that dungeons are painfully simple, there aren't enough Ranker fights (against humans, and there are fights against monsters to clarify), and you can't call for them when you want them. Once you beat a Ranker, he won't fight you again. This, of course, means you can't experiment with that battle plan you had in mind if you've torn up all the other Rankers you can beat at your level. Also, enemies don't work like you do: they attack on intervals, in a certain rhythm, and don't use SP like you do. This means that you can eat five counters in a row whereas you can't throw out more than like... two in a row. Guarding will slow you down, but they won't attack any slower if they guard your attacks. They also have infinite skill usage, whereas you don't. Also, Ultimate Attacks. Certain enemies will use their Ultimate Attack on you once you take them down to 0 HP. You avoid it with timed button presses or button mashing - the game will tell you which, and you have to react to it. Thankfully, they gave me enough time that I got all of them, but I assume it's insta-death if you miss them. Also thankfully, you can retry a battle immediately if you lose it, and can even go back in to the menu to rearrange skills and heal back up before you do in case you walked into the fight at low HP. I suppose there's really no good way to stuff Ultimate Attacks otherwise, but still... insta-death is not something I'm fond of. It never was an issue for me, really, but the possibility was still there. And also... when you use Ultimate Attacks, all your skills become unusable, no matter how many uses of each skill you had left, though most will have some secondary effect (Attack Up, every status ailment you can inflict on the enemy, and others). I never really used Ultimate Attacks because of this, and I usually wasn't pushed far enough into a corner that they were the only thing left I could do.

But that's the game in a nutshell. It does something unique (Ranker fights and the battle system), makes it fun, and because it does it so well, it has hit my list of favorite games of all time. My suggestion: get it for the fights, or for the music. The more you put into the game, the more you'll get out of it... and if you're the type that likes to squeeze the system dry of every possible thing you can do with it, you'll love it. It's not SaGa hard to do it, though, but it takes a bit of brainpower.

For the record, my favorite setup. Note the lack of Hagane Soul.
(Main) Shoot Style (Light Guns): Healing, Power Edge, Charge-EB, Sny-PNG (Skill Use +), S. Colors
(Sub) Break Style: Kura-fu Ken, Renjyu-Gouken (Skill Use +), Fukkoushou, Tomoe-Uke, Grand Task

Also, things that I think would help game balance more.

Shoot Style needs another style-exclusive skill. Giving it Atk Down and/or Def Down would help. Moving Attack Kill and Defend Kill to Shoot Style would make it immediately worthwhile.
A support skill that decreases the amount of startup skills have might be nice, but it might be game breaking.
Double Edge is grossly overpowered. Spinage IV and Air Raide II are underpowered. Hel-FIRE might be slightly underpowered.  Adjusting damage and/or number of uses might help. Bomber Run might be slightly overpowered, but I think Attack Style needs something like it more than Guard Style does.Headbutt might need to be faster.
There should be some incentive to use Ultimate Attacks. Maybe they could halve the number of skills left for you to use, not deplete them thoroughly. Or perhaps they could stay the same but also be used automatically when you hit 0 HP, saving you from a game over (with proper button presses/mashing for this use) and giving a grip of HP back as well. As it stands, they're only stylish finishes that are mostly too risky to pull off.

Cael K.:
General copy-paste from my blog. Parts removed for brevity, if you're interested about reading about Final Fantasy Tactics A2, which came out like three years ago.

Finally beat this game, after 271 quests and... what is probably 149 hours and 40 minutes. Yes, this means I'm going to blow off steam. Hard mode made dispatching a pain, so I never really dispatched any quests. There's two quests you have to dispatch, but your level has to be so high for those, it's just stupid.

All in all a great, creative game that's generally fun to play. Tweaking your characters to be how you want them to be is all kinds of fun, and the quests are varied and bring something new to the genre. There's the standard defeat all enemies you see in other games, sure, but there're other things like set off all traps, or talk to all NPCs on the map and figure out the most common thing they want for New Year's.

Breaking the law wouldn't be bad if the bonus from AP Up 3 wasn't that great. Seriously, they have a fantastic thing called Clan Abilities, then introduce an element that pretty much makes you look stupid for picking anything other than AP Up 3. The simple solution is to increase the number of AP you get from quests, and decrease the amount of AP the ability gives you. Maybe if that were done (like, 70 AP from the quest, 20 from AP Up 3), I wouldn't mind breaking the law, and might even use other abilities. As it stands, I think I'd rather gain the bonus AP and bail my guy out of Prison, even if he loses out on it, rather than to have the entire clan lose the AP.

Alternatively, the law system is restrictive by nature and only hinders the game (in fact, it's like the system tries really hard to make the game suck), so taking it out would've made me enjoy the game so much more. I ranted three paragraphs about it (in my blog) and could've gone on much longer. That should tell you how I feel.

The final verdict: It's standard FFT fare, which is great, but keep in mind the mistakes of its predecessor still cling together (haha) with this one.

For the record, my Ruso: (Parivir) Flair, High Magic, Counter, Geomancy

altuixde:
Pixelmator

This is going to be a short and incomplete review, because I just purchased this app yesterday.

* This app can do layers and layer masks.
* Easier to use than GIMP (though probably not as powerful), and much less expensive than Photoshop.
* Pixelmator can render many transition effects (in real time, even) but cannot export movies or animated GIFs.
* Its interface is the most striking of any image editor I've ever used.
* After playing with Pixelmator for a while, then quitting it, it frees up a lot of RAM.  However, I didn't notice any slowdowns due to this (I have 4GB of RAM).

Elixir:
I review mostly games on my blog: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/elixir68k/searchdiary?word=%2A%5BReview%5D

A little too detailed to post here though.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page