Who has played ______ and can give me a recommendation?

[Beowulf]

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is in the Humble Store for $10 or at the $12 tier of the latest Humble Bundle. I really liked the Final Fantasy Tactics series of games but I've bounced off of Tactics Ogre; I loved Sayuki: Journey West but thought Wild ARMS XF was terrible. Basically, I want lighthearted fantasy and magic in my story, a manageable difficulty level, and no "puzzle" levels where only a certain specific class combination will work. Should I buy this game?

 

[Mogri]

Fell Seal has customizable difficulty. I thought it started out fairly challenging but leveled out fairly quickly; fortunately, you can change difficulty on the fly if you hit a roadblock.

It's definitely worth the $12 you'd pay for it in the bundle. I might pass on the DLC at the $18 level. I don't know that much about it, but it seems focused on monster training: the base game already has a single, unique unit that is essentially every monster in the game, so I have a hard time imagining adding actual monsters to your party would be especially valuable.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I bought Fell Seal at on Switch, and scant days later, it went on sale for half price, and I did not mind, because the game is that good; definitely worth it.

 

[Torzelbaum]

It's definitely worth the $12 you'd pay for it in the bundle. I might pass on the DLC at the $18 level. I don't know that much about it, but it seems focused on monster training: the base game already has a single, unique unit that is essentially every monster in the game, so I have a hard time imagining adding actual monsters to your party would be especially valuable.

The DLC has more content then that (I have included my take on some of the content in parentheses):

• 3 new human classes
• New equipment and crafting recipes
• 5 new locations
• New encounters
• Upgrade "Arbiter's Guilds" to [get stuff] (Seems like a base / town building system.)
• Send characters on missions to get new rewards & unlock new content (These seem like the FFT bar propositions but with better payouts.)
• New music
• New achievements

The location and new encounters seem to be more for extended end game or just as an additional challenge.

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - Missions and Monsters on Steam

Missions and Monsters is the first expansion to Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark and brings several new additions to enrich the gameplay.

store.steampowered.com

I bought Fell Seal at on Switch, and scant days later, it went on sale for half price, and I did not mind, because the game is that good; definitely worth it.

Now that's a ringing endorsement. When did you buy it? I wonder if I can thank you for getting it on sale on Steam. (I think I paid more than $18 for the game & the DLC. I haven't played the game yet so I can't provide any more feedback right now.)

 

[Octopus Prime]

It was a few months ago, but I will take full credit for the coincidental sale, if you’re offering it

 

[lincolnic]

How's Guacamelee 2? I liked the first one, and I'm considering picking up the sequel while it's on sale via PSN.

 

[Exposition Owl]

How's Guacamelee 2? I liked the first one, and I'm considering picking up the sequel while it's on sale via PSN.

I liked it just as much as the original.

 

[lincolnic]

I liked it just as much as the original.

And that's all I need. Thanks!

 

[Vidfamne]

c/t Knights of the Chalice.

Background: Played the demo and liked it, but I also only used 2 cleric spells not named "Cure ___ Wounds" : Bless and (once) Remove Paralysis. Seemed rather bleak to play, if not for positioning itself being fun with clerics. Knights and mages are fun, though. The troll cavern battle was kind of a gimmick (just move your cleric to the one square not affected by the shaman's Silence), but the preceding "boss" fight against mage, troll, 2 clerics and 3 warriors was great fun, spells flying all over the place while trying to rein in the troll (Daze Monster, Web and Blindness seemed to work best), charge at clerics, and spread out enough not to get screwed by Web because you need both castings of lv3 spells for Fireball rather than Dispel, yet stay close enough together that the cleric can keep up with everyone... good times! Ready Versus and counterspells also much appreciated (on both sides). Never clicked grapple, though. Or Bull Rush.

The computer fights with unusual intelligence. In contrast to braindead Civ6, it's almost "too much", skeletons and such gang up on the mage every time, they know the meta.

Also gave up on the optional lich battle, because Empowered Ice Storm wipes my mage/cleric with 36 dmg to the face every time before I can input anything (skeletal hooligans ensure the chip); unless I was meant to take crafting feats and make cold-resistant armor, I don't know what I could have done :/

Or recommend me any other turn-based RPG with good tactical combat (except ToEE, I love ToEE but that's the single one where you're not telling me anything new). No console here, only PC

 

[Torzelbaum]

Or recommend me any other turn-based RPG with good tactical combat (except ToEE, I love ToEE but that's the single one where you're not telling me anything new). No console here, only PC

Are you looking for something with a deep story? Also, since you mentioned Knights of the Chalice am I correct in assuming that you don't really care if the game has cutting edge graphics?

 

[Vidfamne]

Also, since you mentioned Knights of the Chalice am I correct in assuming that you don't really care if the game has cutting edge graphics?

Yeah, cutting-edge graphics would, if anything, be a hindrance.

Deep stories seem as utterly rare as deep combat, if not more so. I'm not sure I can name a single game that I think has one, at least not without feeling the need to write 10,000 words of justification and balancing. Even RPGs such as SMT1 or 7th Saga, which have impressed me deeply with their art (not just graphics, of course) certainly didn't do so with their stories.
In short, I don't expect any story at all here.

 

[Octopus Prime]

How's Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair?

While I wasn't able to in the end, I *really* wanted to like Yooka Laylee, and I'm told that the sequel is much more enjoyable, but I don't know if I've been told this by dirty rotten scoundrels.

 

[Lokii]

I haven't played it myself but I've heard its an excellent DKC'em up with loads of secrets, level variations based on manipulating the map screen (something like that I'm not clear on the details), and quite a bit of challenge.

 

[MJG]

The game has a small, Zelda-style overworld to it where you move around to find the entrances to levels. Each level has a default version that you can access once you meet whatever the minimum requirements for accessing it are, and variant that you can access via some sort of environmental manipulation in the overworld. Some a simple, some are a little puzzle, some are hidden out of the way. I think the overworld and the platforming are both decent on their own, but in an ActRaiser-esque way, the two parts work well together and elevate the overall package.

For what it's worth, I think Banjo Kazooie is very good and Yooka-Laylee is mediocre, while Donkey Kong Country is mediocre and Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair is very good. I don't know if that conveys anything beyond that I think the game in question is very good.

 

[MetManMas]

There are things I like about Banjo-Kazooie, but personally I feel like nostalgia has a big part to play in why people tend to like it more than Yooka-Laylee. Not gonna deny the Y-L levels are too bloated and the game would've benefited from in-stage fast travel and smaller worlds, but I found the new duo far more fun to mess around with abilities-wise and while I might not be thrilled about turning into a flower I like that the transformations are something other than "can walk on a more different surface."

That said, I feel like the appeal of games made by Rare and Rare-kin is more in the cheesy humor and settings than the actual platforming so YMMV.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Yeah, cutting-edge graphics would, if anything, be a hindrance.

Deep stories seem as utterly rare as deep combat, if not more so. I'm not sure I can name a single game that I think has one, at least not without feeling the need to write 10,000 words of justification and balancing. Even RPGs such as SMT1 or 7th Saga, which have impressed me deeply with their art (not just graphics, of course) certainly didn't do so with their stories.
In short, I don't expect any story at all here.

Have I ever suggested Monsters' Den: Godfall to you before (on the previous forum vesion)? If not then I do now. The game is finished but the developer did just release an update with some new content.

Unfortunately, I think the game is only on Steam. I thought it was available somewhere else but I can't find it in any other store.

 

[Vidfamne]

I think you haven't, the only TT game recommendations to me that I remember are Uplink, Scarlet Grace and (obliquely) Dream Quest. I'll look into it, thanks. (On that note, I should probably play Dream Quest, too.)

 

[Octopus Prime]

How’s Oninaki? It’s half price on the eShop and while neither I Am Setsuna nor Lost Sphear quite nailed the games they were trying to invoke, Ys/Mana is a lower bar to clear, so maybe the third times the charm!

 

[MetManMas]

I didn't care much for the demo when I tried it.

 

[Zef]

Fist Of The North Star: Lost Paradise is $10 on PSN. I've heard great things about it, especially that it doesn't take itself too seriously. How is it?

Also, if I've never played any SaGa game, how are Romancing Saga 2 and 3 on Switch?

 

[Octopus Prime]

Well, they're certainly... esoteric, I'll say that much for 'em; with the sole exception of Final Fantasy Legend 3, none of the SaGa games play anywhere near as conventionally as they look; there's an underlying logic behind everything that happens in the game, but the way everything is presented makes it feel pretty arbitrary until you get a grasp on things. They're great, but they also ask a lot of you.

Of those two, 3 is the less daunting; but just int he sense that climbing a tall mountain is less daunting than diving to the bottom of the sea.

 

[Vidfamne]

I like RS2 (though only got about 10 hours in) and I can understand anyone who thinks yet more highly of it. RS3, by contrast, I found to be one of the most banal and disaffecting games I've played in the last six years, being both unpolished and directionless, when usually games compensate for one of these qualities with the other.

The only way to compare playing RS3 to climbing a tall mountain is if said mountain was situated in the Netherlands and you were going by cable-car. I felt like I had to think about strategy (beyond grinding for 5 minutes to pick up an obvious counter-skill from random encounters in the boss area, i.e. Gaze/Net/Hypnosis) exactly once, vs. the first Sinistral, in all the 40 hours of trudging through that game. To be fair, I lucked out by making Rukh learn wind magic early. Still, there were countless other means to win almost every random battle before the enemy could even act; neither tactics nor resource management were remotely a concern through the vast majority of time I spent.

RS3 also ultimately fails at telling (or making you tell) a compelling story -- even obliquely via its world -- despite that its backstory and the web of relations between the initial party members provide an intriguing setup. RS2 doesn't seem to start out all that special, but its overarching motivation (and the both mechanically and aesthetically brilliant theme of time-skipping, which fully justifies the title of "saga") gradually made me invested.

In general, I picture that RS2 is kin with 7th Saga, another game that isn't so much truly difficult as beautifully stubborn and -- because I cannot say it better -- otherworldly right because it sticks to "conventions" that it presents with a strange almost-understanding. I didn't find that in the sprawling, cosmopolitan and quite cartoonish RS3. Of course, 7th Saga isn't nearly as much of an "open world" RPG as RS2/3.

tldr: anything RS3 does, RS2 does better. RS2 isn't a great game, but an interesting one that deserves its reputation of unconventionality. RS3 only seems to be unconventional, but in effect, it plays the same as RPG shovelware anyway and, beyond mechanics, I was unmoved by most of its artistry.

Btw, both games pay smart homage to FF2 ambush closets, which I think is mighty impressive.

 

[Peklo]

Every SaGa is distinct in how they go about it but it's among my favourite series because every game that's part of it lives and breathes mythic storytelling and fragmentary, liminal perspectives on their shared worlds depending on whose role you embody, where you go, and what you choose to do along the way. There's no telling which incarnation of those elements gels with you, or if all or none of them do, so a general recommendation goes for all of them on a tentative basis as far as I'm concerned. As extant, available versions of the originals, both RS2 and RS3's modern versions are competent and satisfying releases of the material; another thing the series is, or should be known for, is the high level of quality afforded to its remakes and ports, which I think still applies here in these relatively more lowkey updates compared to the complete overhauls.

 

[ghosttaster]

Although I ardently loved both RS2 and 3 I gotta say I agree with Vidfamne's assessments.

The anonymity of RS2's cast and empty, vague story make it much easier to "roleplay" and project your imagination onto the game. RS3 has actual characters, but they don't amount to much (though the designs, IMO, are quite cool, especially compared to RS2's generic classes).

However, I think RS2's enemy behavior is brutal and annoying. You're constantly swarmed by mobs on the overworld. RS3 is much more amenable in this regard. I've replayed RS2 several times and have never felt compelled to get deep into a replay of RS3, even though I found it much less frustrating

 

[Kishi]

RS3 was the first SaGa I played. I love it for all its out-there scenarios, including investigating a masked vigilante hero and his bumbling copycat, exterminating a horde of vermin led by a "genius rat" named Algernon, recruiting a runaway who introduces herself with a different name in each town, an optional approach to fighting one of the Four Noble Devils that sees your party leader team up with an flying dragon in a thrilling two-on-one battle in the air, and a mad scientist woman who introduces herself with a cabaret act and needs you to go have a high-speed chase to wrangle the out-of-control demon car she built. It's also one of the most beautiful Super Famicom games, up there with Chrono Trigger and Seiken Densetsu 3, although that impression might get lost in the remake.

 

[Zef]

It's also one of the most beautiful Super Famicom games, up there with Chrono Trigger and Seiken Densetsu 3, although that impression might get lost in the remake.

IIRC the version on the Switch is just a port of the original? I don't know if those two games have been "enhanced" like the Final Fantasy ports have been, on other platforms.

Incidentally that description of events basically sold me on RS3.

 

[Octopus Prime]

They're gussied up, and improved in a variety of ways, but I'm not familiar enough with them to specify in what way; beyond bosses being animated.

 

[Peklo]

The character and enemy spritework is preserved from the Super Famicom originals (and sometimes embellished with new animation cycles during battles), but everything else is new assets, redrawn from environments to U.I elements. While not exceedingly exciting visually by comparison sometimes, it's a notch above the slapdash tiling mismatches and incongruous resolution clashes of the mobile FF releases; the execution and evident care on display speak to a more mindful approach to the material than in the sibling series and its modern re-releases. All of them have roots as mobile remasters in addition to having ended up on console and PC platforms, and the SaGas bridge that transition in terms of interface design less painfully as well, I think, making them easier to recommend.

 

[Zef]

Still weighing my options on those SaGas, but in the meantime: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. How's it? It's $30 on PSN until Wednesday.

 

[Adrenaline]

It's a fun game with metroidvania-style exploration and Souls/Sekiro-lite combat.