I'd have to see the specific wording of tip, but if it still works more or less like Scarlet Grace both things can basically be true. New encounters increase battle rank much more than repeated encounters, but repeated encounters will still increase it a little bit. Basically, it's a soft cap rather than a hard ceiling, or at least it was in Scarlet Grace.
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SaGa Emerald Beyond
- Thread starter Peklo
- Start date
I'd have to see the specific wording of tip, but if it still works more or less like Scarlet Grace both things can basically be true. New encounters increase battle rank much more than repeated encounters, but repeated encounters will still increase it a little bit. Basically, it's a soft cap rather than a hard ceiling, or at least it was in Scarlet Grace.
Ah I see, that's the missing bit I didn't know about I think.
I hope Kawazu or the Localization Director will comment on the Switch performance because it would be reassuring to know if they are gonna try to address or not.
I hope Kawazu or the Localization Director will comment on the Switch performance because it would be reassuring to know if they are gonna try to address or not.
I made some more progress in Diva's demo last night and ran into a Hard encounter against an Earth Dragon early on. I couldn't have asked for a better showcase of the battle system... it was so exhilarating. I didn't end up winning, and I didn't re-attempt but I would have if this weren't a demo, but like... it came down to the wire of 1v1 with my last surviving character having ~50 HP. The turn before I lost, I tried my damndest to make sure he was getting a Showstopper that turn, and he put out so much damage he almost killed the dragon that turn. And then the next turn I made a mistake and let the dragon get a Showstopper instead, though it's doubtful I would've survived against a normal turn anyway. And all that came after several new glimmers and rank ups and everything else.
I do enjoy how diverse Diva No. 5's retinue is. I was confused at first by Wednesday being able to use regular techs and monster techs until I went back to the Tips and refreshed my memory about relic items. This game is also one of the only times in the series where I've felt particularly excited to use Monsters and Mechs, and it seems they've even added some synergy between those 2 species here where Mechs can use both the Mech-specific tech and the Monster-absorbed tech of an equipped relic item.
I also clocked some useful early game gains: getting Deflect and Parry to rank II reduces their BP cost to 2 instead of 3. I'm speculating that skill ranks here will go up to 5 this time in comparison to 3 in Scarlet Grace; techs were certainly a lot quicker to start gaining ranks in comparison, but it also seems they've changed the balance such that gaining ranks no longer has a fairly universal impact on all skills.
I might be done with the demos for now, even though I didn't finish Diva's segment, but I did want to go check and compare some minutia between my completed Ameya demo and my completed Tsunanori demo. I think I've got a good handle on how the early game progression will work in the full game: the worlds you can visit after doing the "first thing" depend on your chosen character. But, there's going to be overlap between everyone and where they can go. Each world has an event sequence, and (sometimes?) you can choose to participate in it or not. Each world also has a "partner" character as part of the event, and after completing it, you could be able to get them in your party. There's already wrinkles in that speculation though because when I did the Grelon world with Ameya, the partner kid didn't join me, and the game kinda implied that something might happen in that world later. I hope so, because it's where the "final emperor" lives and I would love to see how that's gonna develop. I'm sure there's going to be all kinds of exceptions to this.
I wouldn't bet on the Switch release improving. The Switch is really old and Scarlet Grace wasn't very optimized either. Scarlet Grace definitely ran better on Switch than it did on its original very load time heavy Vita release, but even then it struggled from time to time. And now, for Emerald Beyond, the Switch is the weakest piece of hardware it's being released on, instead of being a hardware upgrade from the Vita.
I've heard it runs great on the Steam Deck.
I've heard it runs great on the Steam Deck.
Okay so, I have some overlapping Concepts between these saves, but both characters also have Concepts the other does not. I'm sure the worlds you choose to visit and complete events in reward a specific Concept, but... this is gonna end up being guide bait, isn't it? Hmmmm, or maybe it's entirely determined by your protagonist?
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The game unlocked tonight at 10 PM ET. Switch performance doesn't seem any different from the demo, unfortunately.
I decided to re-start as Ameya. I think there's some kind of interaction between her spell affinity levels and BP cost because her spells are getting -1 BP without any kind of formation bonus. And equipping all the Cat gear puts her nearly level 20 in some elements right away. I'll have to check if I can get to cast Vermillion Sands for 1 BP with the right formation...
I decided to re-start as Ameya. I think there's some kind of interaction between her spell affinity levels and BP cost because her spells are getting -1 BP without any kind of formation bonus. And equipping all the Cat gear puts her nearly level 20 in some elements right away. I'll have to check if I can get to cast Vermillion Sands for 1 BP with the right formation...
FYI it's not unlocked on Steam until later, if anyone's wondering.
i actually think the ritgrams are pretty funny after i did the water world where all the patterns i built were boats. though they're not, like amazing. just funny.
i've done a couple of full worlds with bonnie and formina and at this point, after all the other saga games i've played...it's very clear to me how little i know so far. i'm having a great time, this game's as funny as they've ever been. their map theme is ridiculously good. of course, i'm going to feel like i know nothing about this game till i make it to the last boss in a couple different stories. it's so hard to have any idea what to take away from most saga games the first time, especially these last two, where so many things mechanically take a long time to absorb and you only get one angle on any of the pieces of the story per playthrough. sometimes less than that.
there are some structural changes like the guiding and battle challenges that seem like they must have come out of things people said after playing scarlet grace (i think they're good changes to those things, but i also didn't mind them in the first place as much as i imagine most people did). and some others (especially upgrading items) probably more related to the fact that this game doesn't have the same kinds of backtracking and stuff as scarlet grace. i really can't guess which one i'll prefer at this point, and that's great. in my book, scarlet grace is basically an immaculate game, so it'd be easy to fall behind quickly...
i've done a couple of full worlds with bonnie and formina and at this point, after all the other saga games i've played...it's very clear to me how little i know so far. i'm having a great time, this game's as funny as they've ever been. their map theme is ridiculously good. of course, i'm going to feel like i know nothing about this game till i make it to the last boss in a couple different stories. it's so hard to have any idea what to take away from most saga games the first time, especially these last two, where so many things mechanically take a long time to absorb and you only get one angle on any of the pieces of the story per playthrough. sometimes less than that.
there are some structural changes like the guiding and battle challenges that seem like they must have come out of things people said after playing scarlet grace (i think they're good changes to those things, but i also didn't mind them in the first place as much as i imagine most people did). and some others (especially upgrading items) probably more related to the fact that this game doesn't have the same kinds of backtracking and stuff as scarlet grace. i really can't guess which one i'll prefer at this point, and that's great. in my book, scarlet grace is basically an immaculate game, so it'd be easy to fall behind quickly...
This game is certified cuckoo bananas. I kept going with Ameya yesterday and (ending spoilers?) I reached an ending for her story without fighting a final boss, after about 7 hours of play time. It was relatively abrupt, and while I do have a guess of why it happened, it's also not very obvious at all.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
Yeah, this happened to me too. The dialogue seemed to heavily imply I didn't pick up enough cats. While I enjoyed the structure of her story, it was pretty annoying that the only world I got to fully visit was my least favorite one I visited in Tsunanori's route.
By all accounts, this happens to everyone who starts with her. I'm doing a NG+ file with her and my first world choices were already very different from the initial playthrough. I am trying to be methodical about not picking up any cats that aren't required, but the game is actually pretty weird about it; there's something like 8 "blue door" cats at the beginning, but only 4 of them are "optional" in the sense it won't spawn the exit door until you pick up a certain number.
I just got back to Miyako last night after clearing my first world, and the cats I left there are still around too. So I'm still not clear how this works, but it's the only clue the game really provides for her so it's gotta be it.
I'm not very far in yet so not reading any of that, but based on interviews pre-release I think "how many times have you cleared the game and with what characters" will have a major effect on how a scenario plays out. I wouldn't think too hard about why you get an unexpected result, because there's a good chance it was out of your control. This seems to be following in the path of Scarlet Grace, which is a game about supplying a wide range of choices and outcomes, but not really about player agency to shape outcomes.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
Siugnas's story, if I can do everything it looks like it wants me to do, is gonna be pretty lengthy compared to Tsunanori and Ameya, though I imagine I'll probably end up limited to maybe half the options I was initially presented with. It was nice to see actual party members speak up during events, kinda wish Lita had had some flavor text in Tsunanori's route!
I just unlocked his Protagonist Gimmick last night but I was too tired to actually try it out, so looking forward to diving into that.
I think this made actual sense in the context of what was going on, as opposed to the other ones I had encountered.
I just unlocked his Protagonist Gimmick last night but I was too tired to actually try it out, so looking forward to diving into that.
I think this made actual sense in the context of what was going on, as opposed to the other ones I had encountered.
finished the first time. game difficulty rose very quickly near the end, as the fights at the end of vermiglio were about the first time i died more than once in a row and after just one more world the only things i could do were fight enemies (and do things like trading/upgrading) in the junction or go to the final boss
which was...very difficult, it's up there with rs3 for ones that took me a lot of time and effort. i kinda figured out how my party could do it fairly early on, but there were a tremendous number of ways for things to go wrong in the first 3-5 turns and i still needed some major things to happen near the end, and even after gaining some hp and another magic crystal it took a lot of effort. and luck. and there's a harder version i could easily activate where the boss gains a couple of strong buffs at the start of the battle before using an instant ko move, and in the easier version i got a supporting ally who did a little bit of damage every once in a while, though i got close to defeating it a couple times as well so i think it's only a little harder overall but definitely way more random since the earlier turns are that much harder (which is one of the worst parts).
the new game plus defaults to carrying over everything except battle rank...that's not how a lot of the others have worked so it's hard for me not to wonder what that means. i'm kinda terrified because even if this is one of those scarlet grace situations where i triggered one of the harder versions available...well, i don't feel like the firebringer ever got that much easier in the way that the final bosses in frontier and unlimited generally would. though a big thing on the whole is that carrying over items means you actually have magic crystals at the start of the next round and can get much stronger weapons going (the only one i got before the prep screen for phase 2 of the final boss was from a mr. s trial at rank 4...)
then i started as tsunanori but my controller ran out of batteries so i took a break
which was...very difficult, it's up there with rs3 for ones that took me a lot of time and effort. i kinda figured out how my party could do it fairly early on, but there were a tremendous number of ways for things to go wrong in the first 3-5 turns and i still needed some major things to happen near the end, and even after gaining some hp and another magic crystal it took a lot of effort. and luck. and there's a harder version i could easily activate where the boss gains a couple of strong buffs at the start of the battle before using an instant ko move, and in the easier version i got a supporting ally who did a little bit of damage every once in a while, though i got close to defeating it a couple times as well so i think it's only a little harder overall but definitely way more random since the earlier turns are that much harder (which is one of the worst parts).
the new game plus defaults to carrying over everything except battle rank...that's not how a lot of the others have worked so it's hard for me not to wonder what that means. i'm kinda terrified because even if this is one of those scarlet grace situations where i triggered one of the harder versions available...well, i don't feel like the firebringer ever got that much easier in the way that the final bosses in frontier and unlimited generally would. though a big thing on the whole is that carrying over items means you actually have magic crystals at the start of the next round and can get much stronger weapons going (the only one i got before the prep screen for phase 2 of the final boss was from a mr. s trial at rank 4...)
then i started as tsunanori but my controller ran out of batteries so i took a break
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Ameya's story is indeed more involved than the first time through.
I am making lots of headway with understanding how her structure works. It's so far not really complicated but it is unintuitive imo. I'm on my 3rd world now, but before I left Miyako City I could trigger her normal early ending if I just gathered all the cats available.
The trick for her is to only collect the cats that you need to reach the next green door. If you do this from the start, then you should get more world choices right off the bat (unless that was just a consequence of this being NG+ for me). Every time you come back after a new world, the cats you left are still there and the game forces you to pick up another 2 cats to spawn the next Green door in Miyako. And then after doing the Green events in the city, it makes you pick up 2 more cats before you can leave again.
My party makeup has not really changed with her though and I'm a little over it, tbh. I just wish I knew where to find a couple more Monster relics so LoLo could have a little bit more to do. I am not confident my party can take on anything approaching a SaGa Final Boss.
I am making lots of headway with understanding how her structure works. It's so far not really complicated but it is unintuitive imo. I'm on my 3rd world now, but before I left Miyako City I could trigger her normal early ending if I just gathered all the cats available.
The trick for her is to only collect the cats that you need to reach the next green door. If you do this from the start, then you should get more world choices right off the bat (unless that was just a consequence of this being NG+ for me). Every time you come back after a new world, the cats you left are still there and the game forces you to pick up another 2 cats to spawn the next Green door in Miyako. And then after doing the Green events in the city, it makes you pick up 2 more cats before you can leave again.
My party makeup has not really changed with her though and I'm a little over it, tbh. I just wish I knew where to find a couple more Monster relics so LoLo could have a little bit more to do. I am not confident my party can take on anything approaching a SaGa Final Boss.
I just finished with Tsunanori, and even though I don't think I did anything particularly right (picked some of the explicitly marked as easier options early on when I was getting a feel for the game and only ended up recruiting two additional party members over the whole run), I ended up with a more or less straightforwardly happy ending and an extremely easy version of the Final Boss, way easier than any time I ever had with Firebringer in Scarlet Grace, even though the difficulty bumped up from Hard to Brutal while I was clearing a few one time only training challenges before giving up a fully developed endgame party with lots of options for starting with a new group. I wonder if Tsunanori's final boss is set to be easier because it was what the team was recommending for a first playthrough, or maybe you just really did stumble into an ultimate form of it. Or maybe different characters just have different final bosses this time around? Lots of fun to speculate at this stage before people have found the triggers for everything...
After one time through, I think this game is distinct enough from Scarlet Grace that there are definitely things I prefer about SG over EB. At the same time, that's a good thing because SG already exists, and EB definitely has its own unique identity with things I prefer about it, too. However, it definitely has the same juice, because it also tricks me into spending an hour to figure out how to beat an optional battle I'm pretty sure I can just barely squeak by if I play perfectly and also get a little lucky.
The maximimalist design is overwhelming, but not necessarily in a bad way. Mostly I just mean that one playthrough feels like barely scratching the surce. For example, even though Tsunanori's whole scenario is designed around having a party of puppets, I'm still honestly not sure whether or not I totally understand how puppets work now that I've gone though it and used Tsunanori plus his puppets as my party for all but a handful of encounters. You could definitely imagine a whole game just built around party members that work like puppets do here, but in EB it's just one type of party member that's apparently only prominent (or exists at all?) in one of five scenarios.
oh, i was playing bonnie and formina on the first lap, i picked tsunanori to go through for a first-time after that and, having just finished that cycle, had a similar experience with him (though i gained one character in each world i got a spirit in). though tsunanori's structure was mostly similar, just a lot shorter and with a much easier final boss. i'm really intrigued by the prospect of things changing majorly (in particular, playing through Mare Nostrum with the cops, sigurd, who'd i'd seen allusions to a couple times, suddenly appeared and said he was going to become the main character next time, which sounds like something that'll happen on a new game +), but i really want to get a taste of all the characters and stories first...
I had to check my expectations a bit after getting into this game for a few hours. I was definitely expecting another Scarlet Grace campaign, and I was starting to feel down on the game, but then I've just tried to shift my mindset towards the game and pay more attention to what it is.
My 2nd file is taking quite a bit longer. The game clock says 18 hours but I know there's been more real time than that due to resets and testing decisions. I've actually been trying to take notes in a notebook the whole time, so it's slower going than if I just played normally.
i feel like a playthrough of SG is such an intimidating task for me even now (and i really like the game...there's just always other stuff i've never played before i want to see), so for the most part that i'm feeling pretty happy so far that this game seems to have a bit more direction with the variation of stories alongside having some shorter runs going on. though honestly even without a battle speedup unlocking (yet? i certainly could imagine you have to do much more than 1 or 2 simple clears for it) the game does also just move faster since there's quite a bit less of...checking every event in the area to figure out if any of them do anything, and then if they do, doing it again the next time.
I'm playing the scenarios going from what I'm least interested in to what I'm most interested in, and Siugnas is already such a huge improvement for me over Mido.
I like the way that game is balanced around upgrade materials being rare enough that you're probably not upgrading one of every time of weapon over the course of one playthrough. You really have to pick and choose what to prioritize and what to leave for a future run.
I like the way that game is balanced around upgrade materials being rare enough that you're probably not upgrading one of every time of weapon over the course of one playthrough. You really have to pick and choose what to prioritize and what to leave for a future run.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
Siugnas's route gave me the chance to actually encounter the final boss, something I didn't get to do in Tsunanori* and Ameya. It wasn't as bad as I had heard, but Siugnas's party/character gimmick can really cut down on what the final boss can actually do to you.
I got to visit a lot of new Worlds this go around, there's some fun ideas here but the execution is lacking. In particular, Fantasy London is such a cool idea but the the menus being just a mite too sluggish makes navigating the board game less appealing than it should have been.
Bonnie and Formina are up next, probably. It's gonna be rough losing all my powerful characters and having to work with monsters even if they are big kitty cats. After them I think I'll take a break and move on to Eiyuden, especially if their campaign last as long as Siugnas's did.
*Japanese wikis suggest Tsunanori's route has at least 7 finale variations, btw.
I got to visit a lot of new Worlds this go around, there's some fun ideas here but the execution is lacking. In particular, Fantasy London is such a cool idea but the the menus being just a mite too sluggish makes navigating the board game less appealing than it should have been.
Bonnie and Formina are up next, probably. It's gonna be rough losing all my powerful characters and having to work with monsters even if they are big kitty cats. After them I think I'll take a break and move on to Eiyuden, especially if their campaign last as long as Siugnas's did.
*Japanese wikis suggest Tsunanori's route has at least 7 finale variations, btw.
I finished a 2nd run with Ameya last night. Her thing is pretty weird and unintuitive! I've been visiting the SaGa fan Discord server, and no one in there has figured out yet how to reach a final boss with her. Someone even has beaten every other character's file once, and then completed 4 runs with Ameya and still nothing for a final boss.
I am ready to pick another character now, but I've been mulling over if I'm going to carry over items or not; I wish there was a little bit more granularity for carrying items over mostly because I wouldn't mind saving materials and concepts, but I don't necessarily need all my gear. However, it feels like I don't really have amazing gear yet anyway, and I think I would be okay limiting myself to weaker stuff if it came to that, so I'm leaning towards carrying over items. So that'll be everything except battle rank, stats, and skill levels.
I am ready to pick another character now, but I've been mulling over if I'm going to carry over items or not; I wish there was a little bit more granularity for carrying items over mostly because I wouldn't mind saving materials and concepts, but I don't necessarily need all my gear. However, it feels like I don't really have amazing gear yet anyway, and I think I would be okay limiting myself to weaker stuff if it came to that, so I'm leaning towards carrying over items. So that'll be everything except battle rank, stats, and skill levels.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
Official guidebook comes out at the end of this month (in Japan), so presumably we'll have some concrete answers wrt what's going on with Ameya then.
Aw, I liked this place the one time I went there. Menus being sluggish is just a reality I've had to accept playing on Switch, so I'm mostly used to it now (ask me about the trading menus after every fight lol).
Avalon was (basically?) the first world i got with bonnie and formina, and it went by really quick without battles or anything so i wasn't really sure what was happening yet. now that i think of it, i guess it's probably got a major impact on which worlds you get as the game goes on...
been playing ameya slowly this week (and it sounds like i might be near the end lol), tonight i actually could've done avalon again but i decided to go to a different world, which was kosmos, my first trip there. it had a couple fun bits that play with the map interactions of the game, but was also basically the most heavily telegraphed quest story i've seen in either of these games with no real twist or payoff after the first half. i mean...there's usually been more than one path for the story so there could certainly be something totally different in the future. though i'm trying not to think too hard about what it might be since the last thing i want is to think "oh wow it was so obvious again!!"
it is kinda funny the other one i got so far was grelon, since it feels like both worlds i've been to have these kind of darker elements compared to some of the others but she comes off as kind of flippant about things
been playing ameya slowly this week (and it sounds like i might be near the end lol), tonight i actually could've done avalon again but i decided to go to a different world, which was kosmos, my first trip there. it had a couple fun bits that play with the map interactions of the game, but was also basically the most heavily telegraphed quest story i've seen in either of these games with no real twist or payoff after the first half. i mean...there's usually been more than one path for the story so there could certainly be something totally different in the future. though i'm trying not to think too hard about what it might be since the last thing i want is to think "oh wow it was so obvious again!!"
it is kinda funny the other one i got so far was grelon, since it feels like both worlds i've been to have these kind of darker elements compared to some of the others but she comes off as kind of flippant about things
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
I thought Kosmos was cute personally. It was short, navigation wasn't annoying, the story was fun and didn't over stay its welcome. A nice reprieve from some of the other more chunky bites.
Avalon is really different in other character paths. Some of the events are the same, but there was an actual mechanic to it in Siugnas's route.
Avalon is really different in other character paths. Some of the events are the same, but there was an actual mechanic to it in Siugnas's route.
Interesting. That was my first time there, and I figured you'd do that every time.