Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
you do not carry over the region map (or the time vessel, or the stuff out of King Sei's tomb, or the Rune Stone items, or backpacks).
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SaGa Frontier Remastered
- Thread starter YangusKhan
- Start date
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- Tags
- kawazu saga square square enix
I still think it's a fish wrapped in a tuba tbh.
I don't know whether you can keep the item, but you wouldn't be able to use it regardless; it requires you to have the otherwise-useless "Gate" spell that Blue starts with. Even if you got it in NG+, if you don't have Blue with that spell, it won't do anything for you. That's my understanding, anyway.
Still in Mu's Tomb. Just exploring. Decided to try training up a B Team to diversify and give my squad a chance to recover before trying for the boss again. (learned this in a faq bc Red's prologue was Too Hard for me without doing this) Unfortunately this is difficult because I keep defaulting to just using the Red Team and you can't move the main character around.
Found two Conspicuous Chests. Smaller one of course had a trio of monsters who quickly killed my dudes. Second chest had one enemy who seemed a little easier but it's hard to tell bc Liza (?) sparked several skills including one successful instant death one. Maybe it will work on those monsters... who can say.
I am going to try not to be invested either way but will the people who've been in my party the entire time I'm doing the rune quest get the gift even if they don't have magic yet? I gave some rune spells to Red and Rouge just to be safe. All the other humans (no mystics yet) would have been too expensive.
Found two Conspicuous Chests. Smaller one of course had a trio of monsters who quickly killed my dudes. Second chest had one enemy who seemed a little easier but it's hard to tell bc Liza (?) sparked several skills including one successful instant death one. Maybe it will work on those monsters... who can say.
I am going to try not to be invested either way but will the people who've been in my party the entire time I'm doing the rune quest get the gift even if they don't have magic yet? I gave some rune spells to Red and Rouge just to be safe. All the other humans (no mystics yet) would have been too expensive.
i was also thinking the other day about the way that other games, especially multiplayer ones (whether co-op or not) certainly lack this stigma, and often have the opposite expectation. obviously this isn't to say that it's good that a subset of ffxiv or wow players get mad at people who don't do research and practice for how to maximize their play, just that it's interesting the degree to which the entire concept is reversed.
but i also think it's a kind of personal preference-some people will look up anything and everything, given, y'know, gamefaqs, and other people stubbornly want to find their own path to the end. i definitely think it's a bit of a bummer that people in the latter category have often written off games as incomprehensible or unknowable when that kind of approach doesn't prove very easy to finish a game by, but i can't really change their minds.
of course, on top of that, saga generally has an element of not being overtly deterministic-you can't necessarily "copy" what someone else did and expect to get the same result. (ironically, i think unlimited might be one of the most "solvable" games for relatively casual playthroughs...you can savescum a few very powerful things and it feels very easy to manipulate many other rng elements, in part because there aren't that many outcomes in total and some of them are outrageously rare.) i've even had this experience with things i thought i'd personally learned or figured out, that they turned out to be much harder to replicate or make happen than i expected!
certainly, to me, i'm not inclined to view the game as mess, though in general i think the most interesting games (and a lot of art in general) certainly have that feeling that they're at least on the verge of being a disaster. rough edges and maybe that little bit of frustration (or at least the feeling that i had to invest myself in some way) are what make things memorable and captivating to me, not annoying and off-putting. obviously...lots of people feel differently.
As long as they've been in your party for all four Runes you acquired and don't have any Arcane magic/the gift for Arcane, they will acquire Rune magic.
P.S. Don't bother doing Rune in Riki's quest. He goes to Tanzer and Despair for different reasons and can't get the runes there.
That was nicely put spines. I especially resonated with this part
I agree that the feeling the game is on the brink of workability is a big part of the experience, and gives the game a texture or richness. It also invites us in, we become curious to how this strange thing is wheeling along without falling to pieces and peaking inside when find all the depth and pleasure of the systems, which for the most part are working invisibly. Looking at it this way we can imagine how the "jankiness" of the series might be considered an aspect of game design.
I agree that the feeling the game is on the brink of workability is a big part of the experience, and gives the game a texture or richness. It also invites us in, we become curious to how this strange thing is wheeling along without falling to pieces and peaking inside when find all the depth and pleasure of the systems, which for the most part are working invisibly. Looking at it this way we can imagine how the "jankiness" of the series might be considered an aspect of game design.
Seems like a simple question, but can you do both the rune and arcane quests to get some party members with one gift and some with the other?
Yes. My understanding (from MetManMas's post and vague osmosis...) is to get the gift, they have to be with you the entire quest and not have magic of the opposing school. So characters you recruit during a quest can't get the gift. (but could get the opposing gift) If you want characters not to get the gift, make sure they have opposing magic.
B Team Monster (Thunder) turned into a triceratops after his first battle which seemed stronger than the wyvern (?) thing Cotton is most of the time, but then immediately transformed back into his default form next battle as his skill set filled out... I like monsters even though they are apparently the weakest team members. At a great point where I don't really understand what's useful and am not really trying to beat even one single boss. Just chilling for twenty minutes after work, seeing the sights...
Finished this is in all the ways that I care to: all character stories cleared alongside Fuse's ongoing supplementary misadventures. There's a big, increasingly challenging boss gauntlet of all the respective final bosses one can embark on from the finale of any of his chapters at the IRPO waiting room where the protagonists gather, but seeing as Fuse's story already involves fighting those bosses for a reprise... I think I'm good. Should one triumph there, there's an even more powerful superboss waiting in the remaster developers' room, an unassuming but ludicrous lone ninja.
It was a superb remaster of one of the best games ever made; I truly didn't think I was going to commit to it on release since my playthrough was rather recent in late 2018, but the inherently compelling aspects just shine ever on the second time around. I'm especially impressed with the New Game+ function as it feels like a feature that always should've been there, and marks the first time I've enjoyed the concept in a video game. In most other cases, the premise of playing a game all over again with some variables holds no appeal for me, and if and when I return to said game, I don't want to interact with it in the context of circumventing its standard design curve with powered-up characters and the like. But because Frontier is fundamentally an anthology jam zine of a video game, the prospect of carrying over select aspects (and it's all customizable so you can gauge the degree of the carryover) from one story to the next does nothing but enrichen the play experience that otherwise would be marked by longer-than-desired power-up periods in repeat circumstances. I could focus almost entirely on the things that appeal to me about the game without compromising its structure at all with these modifiers available, so it's a complete success as far as meaningfully adding to the original without altering its character.
My play order fell along similar lines as the first time, going from Asellus to Riki to Emilia to T260G to Blue to Red to Lute, and while I don't dislike any character or their story in this game, that's about the order of relative preference I have for them. They all have something unique tonally, structurally and thematically to offer, which makes this entire game so special in how capable it is about repurposing and recontextualizing shared material across the players, and forming a convincing whole through that shared perspective that's built up across playthroughs. Even if you didn't hold such a view before, the new Fuse chapters only make that impression clearer, so they're very much recommended for those invested in the game's world and storytelling.
It was a superb remaster of one of the best games ever made; I truly didn't think I was going to commit to it on release since my playthrough was rather recent in late 2018, but the inherently compelling aspects just shine ever on the second time around. I'm especially impressed with the New Game+ function as it feels like a feature that always should've been there, and marks the first time I've enjoyed the concept in a video game. In most other cases, the premise of playing a game all over again with some variables holds no appeal for me, and if and when I return to said game, I don't want to interact with it in the context of circumventing its standard design curve with powered-up characters and the like. But because Frontier is fundamentally an anthology jam zine of a video game, the prospect of carrying over select aspects (and it's all customizable so you can gauge the degree of the carryover) from one story to the next does nothing but enrichen the play experience that otherwise would be marked by longer-than-desired power-up periods in repeat circumstances. I could focus almost entirely on the things that appeal to me about the game without compromising its structure at all with these modifiers available, so it's a complete success as far as meaningfully adding to the original without altering its character.
My play order fell along similar lines as the first time, going from Asellus to Riki to Emilia to T260G to Blue to Red to Lute, and while I don't dislike any character or their story in this game, that's about the order of relative preference I have for them. They all have something unique tonally, structurally and thematically to offer, which makes this entire game so special in how capable it is about repurposing and recontextualizing shared material across the players, and forming a convincing whole through that shared perspective that's built up across playthroughs. Even if you didn't hold such a view before, the new Fuse chapters only make that impression clearer, so they're very much recommended for those invested in the game's world and storytelling.
Okay, beat Bone. I'm thrilled to say Cotton absorbed Skulldrake (?) and became Butch, which looks like Cotton's default form with a darker palette. Not sure how the stats compare; don't care. Just hope this is sustainable given I will still be accepting skills from all monsters with only the haziest idea of whether or not my monster will shapeshift.
Reading this thread is *really* making it clear what I need to do with my Mystics — I picked them up in a quest that otherwise doesn't feature them, and so now I suddenly understand why one isn't doing great damage. Really the whole absorb mechanic was not explained at all.
In other news, the final boss of the quest I'm on continues to wreck me. Going to keep grinding and see what happens — I still have a few Sanctuary Stones, so I will be fully healed when I do fight the boss "for real." Glanced at a FAQ; apparently this is one of the harder final bosses. The FAQ speaks a lot about shields, and I have a few characters with them, but maybe I need more? Or perhaps I should equip them with more healing items?
Still trying to spark the last martial arts move I need for one character.
Continuing to love this weird messy game. It's a lot less stressful than it used to be too, since I can have as many saves as I want.
In other news, the final boss of the quest I'm on continues to wreck me. Going to keep grinding and see what happens — I still have a few Sanctuary Stones, so I will be fully healed when I do fight the boss "for real." Glanced at a FAQ; apparently this is one of the harder final bosses. The FAQ speaks a lot about shields, and I have a few characters with them, but maybe I need more? Or perhaps I should equip them with more healing items?
Still trying to spark the last martial arts move I need for one character.
Continuing to love this weird messy game. It's a lot less stressful than it used to be too, since I can have as many saves as I want.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I took all your advice to heart and played a bit more last night, but I'm just not in a place for a game that requires this much attention right now. It's frustrating to die in one-shot from an enemy seconds after beating a group of enemies in one-shot. I hate that I just got plopped down into things, the reason I started it right before bed was I figured I'd watch some opening conversations and have my starting town and tutorial dungeon and learn about the world. But I've played three hours and still have no idea why I want to kill my brother, why these random people are teleporting me to random places, what triggers learning new techniques or why some weapons absorb enemies(?). It's clear from all your posts the stories fill in and work together to build the world and I'm excited for that, but right now just following an FAQ line by line and not getting any feedback as to what is happening is not what I want to do.
In October we're (pending Covid) taking an overnight train trip and I think that would be a good time for this game. I definitely will eventually be putting a couple hours into each of the characterss to really try out this game and understand it, but I can tell that if I try to force myself to play this right now I'll hate it.
In October we're (pending Covid) taking an overnight train trip and I think that would be a good time for this game. I definitely will eventually be putting a couple hours into each of the characterss to really try out this game and understand it, but I can tell that if I try to force myself to play this right now I'll hate it.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Thanks, I definitely have hope that I'll like one of the other characters better, but I'm worried there's a general lack of cohesive difficulty level or motivation/story across the game based on everyone's posts. The first time I heard about this game was when I mentioned liking Legend of Mana, and someone said "oh, if you don't mind the non-linear story in that game you should try Saga Frontier", and I think that messed with my expectations of what this would be. But again, going to try the other characters.
@Violentvixen Generally if you're having a lot of trouble with one character's campaign I'd recommend trying another's. T260G is a good starter, robots can be boosted as simply as equipping whatever junk you have on 'em and you get a really powerful human ally near the start and not too much later a few others who cover different niches.
That said, if you're not enjoying the game right now, definitely don't force yourself to try and enjoy it! Take a break and come back when you're more up to taking the game on its own terms.
Mystics can't glimmer moves with weapons or get weapon/magic mastery, they have only four customizable skill slots (the other three being occupied by their Mystic gear), and much like how mechs have stuff that can't be removed one of their equipment slots is permanently occupied. But they can also use their Faeblade, Mystic Gloves, and Mystic Boots to absorb monsters killed by them to get a new ability and stat boosts related to the currently absorbed monster. And there's some accessories that give Mystics abilities as well.
It's actually pretty easy to get a lategame Mystic up to par with the rest of the team 'cuz it's just a matter of Mega Manning the right monsters and there aren't random factors in play like with monsters.
* Asellus has some unique mechanics due to being Half-Mystic. Mechanically she can do everything a human can do (glimmering, eight custom slots, mastery, no locked gear or skills) and gets the accessory ability perks for having the Mystic Gloves and/or Mystic Boots like a Mystic, but she can't use her proper Mystic abilities or stat boosts until she first attacks with one of her pieces of Mystic equipment to morph (or is in one of her scripted boss fights).
That said, if you're not enjoying the game right now, definitely don't force yourself to try and enjoy it! Take a break and come back when you're more up to taking the game on its own terms.
The biggest lesson to learn with Mystics is that, no matter what Asellus* may lead you to believe, they do not work like humans. They can equip the same stuff humans can, gain stats after battle, and learn magic and acquire new spells with the gift for the appropriate schools, but that's where the similarities end.
Mystics can't glimmer moves with weapons or get weapon/magic mastery, they have only four customizable skill slots (the other three being occupied by their Mystic gear), and much like how mechs have stuff that can't be removed one of their equipment slots is permanently occupied. But they can also use their Faeblade, Mystic Gloves, and Mystic Boots to absorb monsters killed by them to get a new ability and stat boosts related to the currently absorbed monster. And there's some accessories that give Mystics abilities as well.
It's actually pretty easy to get a lategame Mystic up to par with the rest of the team 'cuz it's just a matter of Mega Manning the right monsters and there aren't random factors in play like with monsters.
* Asellus has some unique mechanics due to being Half-Mystic. Mechanically she can do everything a human can do (glimmering, eight custom slots, mastery, no locked gear or skills) and gets the accessory ability perks for having the Mystic Gloves and/or Mystic Boots like a Mystic, but she can't use her proper Mystic abilities or stat boosts until she first attacks with one of her pieces of Mystic equipment to morph (or is in one of her scripted boss fights).
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finished all of blue last night, only getting especially stuck on timelord, who strangely didn't give me much trouble the first time. (if anything, i think some of this comes down to the fact that i remembered what i did against some of the others, while i just remember getting some huge combo that did enough of his life in a couple of rounds to basically handle the battle.) at least now i'm sure the game isn't just that much easier, since a lot of medium-difficulty bosses and easy enemies were exploding so much more than i felt like i remembered. so then i hit up the associated fuse episode in like 20 minutes tonight. i have to say this is the one i was most curious what they'd do with, because obvious gags like having more dialogue and exposition in lute's than his own story did seem like a given.
wasn't disappointed. a reference to the original ending, and then the most inane, cliched, heroic, happy ending possible? like, to me this rules because it's so stupid, and therefore perfectly in line with the nature of his character and what i understand out of his storylines here, and yet...i think of the people who actually asked if the blue ending was really what it was supposed to be like or if they'd planned more, and maybe some of those people are genuinely, truly pumped about the explanations and resolution given? more power to them. "what can you add to this game?", i wondered, and that the answer is counterpoints to all of the existing stories that either contextualize or muddle everything in the original work further-depending on your point of view-is so perfect i can hardly believe they've pulled it off. it's saga frontier, baby. everything is real. nothing is real.
i want to say that i probably won't keep posting for each one now, but...that's almost certainly not true. t260g next! since virtually all of the remaining characters (except the one i'm going to do last and plan to grind a bunch in anyway) can use her, it seems like a good time to position her as another carry option for my ng+ teams from here on out. and it's my favorite story, so i'm ready to see it again and whatever they've added as the followup.
wasn't disappointed. a reference to the original ending, and then the most inane, cliched, heroic, happy ending possible? like, to me this rules because it's so stupid, and therefore perfectly in line with the nature of his character and what i understand out of his storylines here, and yet...i think of the people who actually asked if the blue ending was really what it was supposed to be like or if they'd planned more, and maybe some of those people are genuinely, truly pumped about the explanations and resolution given? more power to them. "what can you add to this game?", i wondered, and that the answer is counterpoints to all of the existing stories that either contextualize or muddle everything in the original work further-depending on your point of view-is so perfect i can hardly believe they've pulled it off. it's saga frontier, baby. everything is real. nothing is real.
i want to say that i probably won't keep posting for each one now, but...that's almost certainly not true. t260g next! since virtually all of the remaining characters (except the one i'm going to do last and plan to grind a bunch in anyway) can use her, it seems like a good time to position her as another carry option for my ng+ teams from here on out. and it's my favorite story, so i'm ready to see it again and whatever they've added as the followup.
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Sprite
(He/Him/His)
I’m not sure what you mean, unless this is specifically an MMORPG thing. The major reason why people have trouble getting into fighting games and such is the inscrutability of getting started and getting good. Interacting with a community will always be necessary, yes, because the devs can’t account for all things, but I can’t think of an example where it’s good if a multiplayer game lacked documentation, or bad if it included documentation. Typically the games that try to onboard players get praised for it, however difficult that is with competitive games.
I adore SaGa, and Frontier in particular, but they have a unique combination of inscrutability, lack of documentation, and lack of feedback that can make them very frustrating to play. Combine that with the fact that the game will punish you unexpectedly for not not understanding it with out-of-depth bosses and I have no problem calling it a mess, if a beautiful mess.
I get that inscrutability is going to be a side effect of a lot of experimental games, but it’s still a flaw imo, and why SaGa games tend to really come into their own after a second coat of paint. The Remaster is great for a lot of reasons but biggest for me is the added documentation, and this game is definitely an example where more documentation like a bestiary would make it better, not worse. The monster and mystic systems especially would be a lot more fun if it had an in-game way to track what monsters gave what moves.
Speaking as someone who only really got into SaGa maybe around 2016--just to emphasize that me loving the series isn't an opinion internalized across decades of conditioning--I think internal documentation for these games is always welcome simply because it's fun to read about (and if you'd like that approach, please play Scarlet Grace) but I think it's also important to recognize how practically optimized the design language and ethos is for playing these games completely on your own without such resources to lean on. The strength of the series as I've found it is in deliberately withholding non-essential information from the player, not because it's a mean thing to do or an attempt at artificial challenge, but for the sake of pruning and streamlining the play experience to benefit the overall rhythm of play. When you get down to it, SaGa mechanics are extremely self-balancing and mediating, from the way higher risks lead to higher glimmer potential, how resource management is either downplayed or totally eliminated from the games, how the very foundation of the learn-by-doing character growth mechanics directly reflect what you want and have characters do.
Understanding "how to play SaGa" to me has consistently been intuitive in a way not very many games accomplish, because the restraint to keep the hardcore number-crunching in the background has always been with the series, and the front-facing dramatics via glimmered battle arts is what's tactile and within reach to interact with as a player, and ultimately in the games that use these systems that's all you really need to do well in them. The moment-to-moment play is sometimes criticized for being about just "spamming your strongest skills" and while that doesn't cover all of the nuances (and an outlier like Scarlet Grace completely reinventing the baseline, besides) it also isn't untrue, and I've always found that focus in what you can actually do in an RPG battle system that's centered around flashy final techniques to cut out a lot of the supposed strategy that isn't all that interesting to begin with. Scarlet Grace gives me the battle mechanics I never grow weary of interacting with, while most of the rest of the series occupies a space opposite to that but equally as compelling, in genuinely simplifying these play systems to mostly manage themselves according to general player guidance over time that you don't have to think about actively very often--they just shape themselves. That's certainly Frontier's strength, where almost every minor and major battle plays the same, plays "mindlessly," and also remains engaging just because of how lively and dramatic the presentation of battles is.
I personally have no inhibitions about consulting a walkthrough for a given game if I'm in the mood to--I like reading about the material I'm already interacting with as sort of a complementary parallel narrative as much I like to learn things that might've escaped me on my own--but that's also something that kind of breaks down with most games in this series as the linear, constructed narrative of a walkthrough can't exist in games structured like SaGa. That's part of why documentation prompted and maintained by fans has historically been so inconsistent, marked by personal preferences and biases, and "inaccuracies" as far as objective data goes as the games don't naturally lend themselves to pooling of information in such a way without extreme dedication in parsing it out and organizing it, and there is no simple way to allow someone else to shape the way you play these games either. They're most in need of, not at all requiring and completely over and underserved by such external resources, all at the same time.
Again I think the series's foundational design does the best in addressing all of this even as players are wont to be rendered anxious for it: because there are always mutually exclusive play experiences mandated by where you go, how long you tarry, what decisions you make, who you ally with, the stress of "perfect" or 100% play ceases to matter, since no such thing exists anywhere in SaGa. The games are built for bumbling through them in ways that don't strike me as an inability to prepare the player for their challenges but encourage nominal failure in only just getting by to amplify the stakes and tension in every battle, and the actual punitive nature of the mechanics is always lesser than imagined for how resources are treated as a rule. SaGa is something that makes you feel like you don't understand it at all and gradually through just hanging on the dynamic eventually shifts in your favour, almost invisibly. And for how the games operate and what they share of themselves, that newfound understanding necessary to reach the end of whatever scenario might still be a layered one by the end, with many aspects hazy and unclear, but also not a requirement of enjoying the games to their fullest in what they have to offer. That's also something supported by the design of the series on the large scale, in how replayability is a consistent virtue not just for the different character perspectives and what choices you make, but how far you can actually take your own personal insight of the inner workings.
I dunno! I don't begrudge anyone for not immediately understanding how any SaGa works and being turned off because of that steep threshold, but that sense of unfamiliarity and unpredictability inherent to the games even as they share so much design language between them is something I really cherish about them, and is something that comes off to me as much more deliberate and considered than sometimes portrayed.
Understanding "how to play SaGa" to me has consistently been intuitive in a way not very many games accomplish, because the restraint to keep the hardcore number-crunching in the background has always been with the series, and the front-facing dramatics via glimmered battle arts is what's tactile and within reach to interact with as a player, and ultimately in the games that use these systems that's all you really need to do well in them. The moment-to-moment play is sometimes criticized for being about just "spamming your strongest skills" and while that doesn't cover all of the nuances (and an outlier like Scarlet Grace completely reinventing the baseline, besides) it also isn't untrue, and I've always found that focus in what you can actually do in an RPG battle system that's centered around flashy final techniques to cut out a lot of the supposed strategy that isn't all that interesting to begin with. Scarlet Grace gives me the battle mechanics I never grow weary of interacting with, while most of the rest of the series occupies a space opposite to that but equally as compelling, in genuinely simplifying these play systems to mostly manage themselves according to general player guidance over time that you don't have to think about actively very often--they just shape themselves. That's certainly Frontier's strength, where almost every minor and major battle plays the same, plays "mindlessly," and also remains engaging just because of how lively and dramatic the presentation of battles is.
I personally have no inhibitions about consulting a walkthrough for a given game if I'm in the mood to--I like reading about the material I'm already interacting with as sort of a complementary parallel narrative as much I like to learn things that might've escaped me on my own--but that's also something that kind of breaks down with most games in this series as the linear, constructed narrative of a walkthrough can't exist in games structured like SaGa. That's part of why documentation prompted and maintained by fans has historically been so inconsistent, marked by personal preferences and biases, and "inaccuracies" as far as objective data goes as the games don't naturally lend themselves to pooling of information in such a way without extreme dedication in parsing it out and organizing it, and there is no simple way to allow someone else to shape the way you play these games either. They're most in need of, not at all requiring and completely over and underserved by such external resources, all at the same time.
Again I think the series's foundational design does the best in addressing all of this even as players are wont to be rendered anxious for it: because there are always mutually exclusive play experiences mandated by where you go, how long you tarry, what decisions you make, who you ally with, the stress of "perfect" or 100% play ceases to matter, since no such thing exists anywhere in SaGa. The games are built for bumbling through them in ways that don't strike me as an inability to prepare the player for their challenges but encourage nominal failure in only just getting by to amplify the stakes and tension in every battle, and the actual punitive nature of the mechanics is always lesser than imagined for how resources are treated as a rule. SaGa is something that makes you feel like you don't understand it at all and gradually through just hanging on the dynamic eventually shifts in your favour, almost invisibly. And for how the games operate and what they share of themselves, that newfound understanding necessary to reach the end of whatever scenario might still be a layered one by the end, with many aspects hazy and unclear, but also not a requirement of enjoying the games to their fullest in what they have to offer. That's also something supported by the design of the series on the large scale, in how replayability is a consistent virtue not just for the different character perspectives and what choices you make, but how far you can actually take your own personal insight of the inner workings.
I dunno! I don't begrudge anyone for not immediately understanding how any SaGa works and being turned off because of that steep threshold, but that sense of unfamiliarity and unpredictability inherent to the games even as they share so much design language between them is something I really cherish about them, and is something that comes off to me as much more deliberate and considered than sometimes portrayed.
jpfriction
(He, Him)
I’m struggling a bit with the final boss of Blue’s scenario myself.
Timelord was easy enough to cheese with psychic prison and Rogue barely put up a fight but the end boss keeps wiping me out immediately with a couple seven swords in a row. Even if I overdrive him and pile on 20,000 damage it just knocks him into a form change and I just get wiped the next time he switches back. A bit frustrating but that’s Saga.
Timelord was easy enough to cheese with psychic prison and Rogue barely put up a fight but the end boss keeps wiping me out immediately with a couple seven swords in a row. Even if I overdrive him and pile on 20,000 damage it just knocks him into a form change and I just get wiped the next time he switches back. A bit frustrating but that’s Saga.
i guess maybe i wasn't clear enough, because i wasn't really talking about the design of games there i think, more that i would say that opposition to looking things up externally regardless of how much information is in the game is much less prominent in other genres, and i have to admit i sincerely wonder if it's because so many people who play jrpgs are just kind of old now and remember a time when you couldn't even do that. but i certainly have thoughts about this idea as well, and mmos were definitely first in my mind...but as someone who's spent most of my adult life surrounded by friends who i endlessly feel terrible at fighting games next to i would have to say that:
1) i wasn't talking about what the games themselves do (to return to an example i already alluded to, comparing "early wow" to later wow and ffxiv, the former resembles fighting games in that information was poorly presented if at all and the developers did not have a full conception of how the mechanics would actually play out in the final game, while between them the latter two are much more tightly and specifically designed and freely offer most of the information i think would be considered central to the playing experience within the game, even if in some cases it's not entirely trivial to access; this doesn't change the fact that people, including myself, have looked up stuff all the time.) i agree that there are certain fundamental pieces of information fighting games are generally astonishingly poor at conveying when they should be considered central. like, you get hit by something while blocking and learn very little about how to not get hit by it. blazblue added little icons for when you didn't block an overhead although that game also doesn't have many weird overheads compared to guilty gear or anything, and stuff showing what's unblockable is a little more common, though still absent in some games with extremely powerful ones (there was...a big controversy in mortal kombat lately over this). a game like guilty gear that could obviously use this just doesn't for reasons of legacy or whatever i guess. as far as things that can be objectively established, the genre is slowly coming around to more information about frame data in a game, better cues for certain things, teaching modes with more relevant information, but,
2) objective data and specific knowledge in a fighting game...are just not that useful. a beginner's not going to win because they memorized some combos and numbers. some expert players have comical gaps in their knowledge of things that would affect them! people share those things eagerly as they learn them, and there are places to find and learn them. but they can only do so much. when i'm watching a match in most games i understand what's going on, what the two players are trying to do, and i may even figure out what's going to happen next. but when i'm playing so much of that goes out the window. knowing and practicing the right thing isn't enough to make it work out when you're actually in the game. and of course, on top of that, if you go from losing to one specific tactic to figuring out how to deal with it...your opponent can just respond to that and start trying to beat that solution, just stop doing it entirely, or any number of other things. and in the end, in a game where there's always one person who wins and one person who (even if they're usually the best person in the building!) doesn't, you obviously can't treat winning as the end-all-be-all of playing the game.
i do quite strongly agree with peklo's post, which i think puts a lot of things i think i'd say into a very clear and succinct form, and while i don't want to make it sound like this is a severe problem with the medium or any given person, i do think that many people are not equipped to approach a game in this way. to me it's very intuitive because the way i approach things is just to try stuff over and over and work out the problems as they arise, and something like...i dunno, ff5/tactics? doesn't come easily to me because the long-term planning/preparation and ability to set up meticulous power combos really contradicts that impulse for me.
Fyonn
did their best!
Yeah, I definitely get the feeling that lots of SaGa games are games that will "take care of you" so long as you don't go out of your way to make obviously suboptimal choices like not putting armor on people or splitting your focus too wide between multiple skill sets.
SaGa Frontier just activates a part of my brain that most SaGa games don't where I absolutely want to know how everything about the game because all of it is just so interesting from a design perspective.
I don't know how you would start to surface the depths of the monster system to make players 100% confident in manipulating it without outside help, but it is hands-down the coolest character development concept I've seen in a JRPG.
SaGa Frontier just activates a part of my brain that most SaGa games don't where I absolutely want to know how everything about the game because all of it is just so interesting from a design perspective.
I don't know how you would start to surface the depths of the monster system to make players 100% confident in manipulating it without outside help, but it is hands-down the coolest character development concept I've seen in a JRPG.
This is exactly why I didn't carry over Battle Rank when I went New Game+ for Asellus and also why I won't be doing it when I play Red.
Also I am making a habit of doing the Arcane quest to pick up Fuse 'cuz I know his campaigns are on the more challenging side and any training he can get in before then is good.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
honestly kind of wish the new asellus content had been mandatory, but i guess i can see why they'd be hesitant to force the player to visit the research lab
Finished up Riki's story today, along with Fuse's Riki chapter.
I thought I'd be ready for a break after two scenarios, but then I turned the game on again tonight intending to just test something quickly and ended up starting Asellus' scenario and playing for over an hour. What a game!
Mei-ling joins right before the final boss, and then is immediately removed from the party once the boss fight starts. Hilarious!
I thought I'd be ready for a break after two scenarios, but then I turned the game on again tonight intending to just test something quickly and ended up starting Asellus' scenario and playing for over an hour. What a game!
Working my way through Blue; just beat Timelord and took down Rouge. First attempt against Timelord put me on the ropes so I went and grinded for a bit and came back and was able to put him away; mainly having the defenses and HP to survive and come back against his time overdrive was the big deal.
Rouge was a neat fight; it was cool how it felt pretty mirrored. Psychic Prison did a lot of work (shit I should've used that against Timelord too), until at some point it stopped doing significant damage? At one point, though, I hit the Time magic zone and Time Eclipse started doing 700-800 damage a pop instead of 130 or so. This of course one-shot him. Each time I did this, I had my JP restored and the magic-scape was reset to... Time again. The last 4-5 life points were just a series of Rouge getting one-shot by ridiculously strong Time Eclipses. Well, alright then!
Question - if a fighter has 0 JP, can you buy them 6+ spells to get them mastery and have them start casting 0 JP spells to build some up? I was thinking about the Light sword spell but Annie is about as magical as T260G. I'll probably not do this until a later run, but I'm definitely wanting to.
Rouge was a neat fight; it was cool how it felt pretty mirrored. Psychic Prison did a lot of work (shit I should've used that against Timelord too), until at some point it stopped doing significant damage? At one point, though, I hit the Time magic zone and Time Eclipse started doing 700-800 damage a pop instead of 130 or so. This of course one-shot him. Each time I did this, I had my JP restored and the magic-scape was reset to... Time again. The last 4-5 life points were just a series of Rouge getting one-shot by ridiculously strong Time Eclipses. Well, alright then!
Question - if a fighter has 0 JP, can you buy them 6+ spells to get them mastery and have them start casting 0 JP spells to build some up? I was thinking about the Light sword spell but Annie is about as magical as T260G. I'll probably not do this until a later run, but I'm definitely wanting to.
A character with 0 JP will get a small amount as soon as they buy a spell. 10, I think? If you're trying to seriously build them up as a magic user, buying enough to get a crown is a good idea, though.