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Lover of all things RPG that i am (apart from anything with Final Fantasy X or X-2 in the title) i thought i'd bring to your attention a couple of more great RPG titles in the wings that will hopefully reach the shores of Europe (if not ah well i'll have them anyway :-D)
First on the list is Radiata Stories done by the folks at Tri-Ace who did the great Star Ocean 3. It keeps the same battle system from SO3 and you can see the enemies before they attack so you can decide whether to charge in or save your energy and give them a miss.
It apparantly has a playable cast of characters of around 150 characters although whether it'll be like Suikoden 3 where quite a few of them were only support characters and not actually fighters remains to be seen.
Speaking of which it does seem to have quite a similar graphical feel to Suikoden so should be quite impressive visually if that sort of stuff determines whether you buy a game or not.
Release date is January in Japan so probably be waiting a while for that one :-D
and next to bring your attention to is the successor to the great Shining Force series on the Megadrive - Shining Tears.
First off graphics zealots (damn censors) may as well go now as you won't be getting ultra realistic 3D graphics with this one, instead you get the far better cartoony style graphics which are very crisp and smooth (i prefer this and sprites to the FFX style graphics anyway)
Big selling point i think of this is the co-op 2 player mode, so if you and a mate have about 40-50 free hours you can give it a blast :-D
One thing putting me off slightly is that they've done away with the strategy elements of the previous games and gone for a more action orientated style of fighting, but then i liked it in SO3 so maybe i'll like it in this.
Release date is March 2005 for America so at least there'll be a english version sooner then Radiata
and lastly the grand daddy - Dragon Quest VIII (Dragon Warrior in the west)
again using cartoony, cel shaded graphics my favourite RPG series finally comes onto the little black box. Still has pretty much the same battle system as old so basically it's good old turn based combat with random encounters although larger more powerful enemies appear on the screen (kind of like Ruby weapon in FF7 in a way) follows the traditional RPG mantra of head into town, talk to people and buy stuff, leave town, beat up monsters until you get to another town. Lovely :-D
big improvement though over the old games which may seem small and quite a weird thing to mention in this day and age is the fact you can now speak to characters with a press of a button instead of having to go to the menu and selecting 'Talk' very glad they've added that in, it was the only thing i hated in the previous games.
January/Feb American release date for this me thinks. Again can't wait.
First on the list is Radiata Stories done by the folks at Tri-Ace who did the great Star Ocean 3. It keeps the same battle system from SO3 and you can see the enemies before they attack so you can decide whether to charge in or save your energy and give them a miss.
It apparantly has a playable cast of characters of around 150 characters although whether it'll be like Suikoden 3 where quite a few of them were only support characters and not actually fighters remains to be seen.
Speaking of which it does seem to have quite a similar graphical feel to Suikoden so should be quite impressive visually if that sort of stuff determines whether you buy a game or not.
Release date is January in Japan so probably be waiting a while for that one :-D
and next to bring your attention to is the successor to the great Shining Force series on the Megadrive - Shining Tears.
First off graphics zealots (damn censors) may as well go now as you won't be getting ultra realistic 3D graphics with this one, instead you get the far better cartoony style graphics which are very crisp and smooth (i prefer this and sprites to the FFX style graphics anyway)
Big selling point i think of this is the co-op 2 player mode, so if you and a mate have about 40-50 free hours you can give it a blast :-D
One thing putting me off slightly is that they've done away with the strategy elements of the previous games and gone for a more action orientated style of fighting, but then i liked it in SO3 so maybe i'll like it in this.
Release date is March 2005 for America so at least there'll be a english version sooner then Radiata
and lastly the grand daddy - Dragon Quest VIII (Dragon Warrior in the west)
again using cartoony, cel shaded graphics my favourite RPG series finally comes onto the little black box. Still has pretty much the same battle system as old so basically it's good old turn based combat with random encounters although larger more powerful enemies appear on the screen (kind of like Ruby weapon in FF7 in a way) follows the traditional RPG mantra of head into town, talk to people and buy stuff, leave town, beat up monsters until you get to another town. Lovely :-D
big improvement though over the old games which may seem small and quite a weird thing to mention in this day and age is the fact you can now speak to characters with a press of a button instead of having to go to the menu and selecting 'Talk' very glad they've added that in, it was the only thing i hated in the previous games.
January/Feb American release date for this me thinks. Again can't wait.
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Indeed there is you keep everything apart from the characters you get in story mode however when they do join back up with you they'll be back to the same level you finished the game as but they'll just be normal level when you fight them. So Flonne will join up with you in episode 2 at whatever level you finished her as but when you fight her she'll only be level 20 or whatever it was.
Go team.
Hey ... is there a New Game+ kind of thing so you don't lose all your hard work. It would be a bit mean otherwise, what wih the multiple endings and everything.
Say yes.
Hey ... is there a New Game+ kind of thing so you don't lose all your hard work. It would be a bit mean otherwise, what wih the multiple endings and everything.
Say yes.
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> Good good. I was kinda wondering what the point of them was ... seeing
> as by the time you unlock better classes, your original guy's going
> to be better than them. Although they do gain more stats with each
> level up.
>
> And we're aiming at level ... what until we transmigrate?
> 1000?
Well your first transmigration you want to do around level 100 so you move up to the better character in whatever class character it is and also move to genius then after that yup about level 1000-1500, i was doing it in 1000 blocks but i found it quite annoying having to do the 3 promotion exams each time to transmigrate so i do it at level 1500 now
> Good good. I was kinda wondering what the point of them was ... seeing
> as by the time you unlock better classes, your original guy's going
> to be better than them. Although they do gain more stats with each
> level up.
>
> And we're aiming at level ... what until we transmigrate?
> 1000?
Well your first transmigration you want to do around level 100 so you move up to the better character in whatever class character it is and also move to genius then after that yup about level 1000-1500, i was doing it in 1000 blocks but i found it quite annoying having to do the 3 promotion exams each time to transmigrate so i do it at level 1500 now
Good good. I was kinda wondering what the point of them was ... seeing as by the time you unlock better classes, your original guy's going to be better than them. Although they do gain more stats with each level up.
And we're aiming at level ... what until we transmigrate?
1000?
And we're aiming at level ... what until we transmigrate?
1000?
Long as you've gone up enough levels yup
You get to move up classes when you transmigrate someone, right?
Actually yea that's true they're also useful for unlocking the EDF Soldier class. Plus Dark Cannon is kind of cool
They're good with guns as well, which is nice.
I love using Dark Cannon.
I love using Dark Cannon.
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> Yeah, a Scout. I must have used it ... I just must have lapsed into a
> strange little coma or something, because there's no way I did it on
> purpose.
yea Scouts are really only useful if there's a enemy that is too far away to be reached by throwing and there's no warp tiles on the map. Even then you have to hope that with the Geo Change you get warp tiles to be able to reach the enemy
> Yeah, a Scout. I must have used it ... I just must have lapsed into a
> strange little coma or something, because there's no way I did it on
> purpose.
yea Scouts are really only useful if there's a enemy that is too far away to be reached by throwing and there's no warp tiles on the map. Even then you have to hope that with the Geo Change you get warp tiles to be able to reach the enemy
Kawada wrote:
> You must have a scout if you're changing the geo panels. Unless you
> just mean you've lifted one geo panel and threw it somewhere.
Yeah, a Scout. I must have used it ... I just must have lapsed into a strange little coma or something, because there's no way I did it on purpose.
But for later if you're going to get
> into the power levelling game make sure the characters are skilled in
> swords because with Winged Slayer you can wipe out all the enemies on
> CoO3 in one hit if you have enough attack power and is THE method for
> power levelling
mexcellent
> You must have a scout if you're changing the geo panels. Unless you
> just mean you've lifted one geo panel and threw it somewhere.
Yeah, a Scout. I must have used it ... I just must have lapsed into a strange little coma or something, because there's no way I did it on purpose.
But for later if you're going to get
> into the power levelling game make sure the characters are skilled in
> swords because with Winged Slayer you can wipe out all the enemies on
> CoO3 in one hit if you have enough attack power and is THE method for
> power levelling
mexcellent
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