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dlamp-dictator · 6 years

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Allen’s Rambling: My First (Person) Experience (Mary Skelter: Nightmares)

Sorry this took so long folks, Blazblue Cross Tag Battle has been taking over my life recently and I also got back into the grind-fest that is Disgaea 5 again, not to mention a personal project of mine for this month has been happening, so needless to say I’ve been both busy and distracted lately. But moving on, I’m finally making another opinion piece, this time on Mary Skelter Nightmares, a first-person dungeon crawler that I was a bit hesitant to buy at first due to my distaste for the genre. However, the character designs of the cute girls, hearing a bit of the OST, and knowing that voice actresses like Cristina Vee and Kira Buckland were taking the lead roles got me interested. So I caved and bought the game, praying that I’d get my money’s worth. After about 30 hours of play time I think I can safely say that this game was worth the purchase but allow me to go on in more detail about this.

But first, that plot synopsis:

The game is set in the underground prison known as "the Jail". Monstrous creatures called Marchen act as the wardens of the Jail, capturing humans and bringing them inside to perform various tortures.

The story's protagonist is Jack, a boy who is imprisoned in the Jail with his childhood friend Alice. The two cling to each other for stability in this hell, trying to survive for that one opportunity to escape. Until finally, a mysterious girl appears wielding an absurdly large pair of scissors. Destroying the cells that hold the prisoners, she introduces herself as Red Riding Hood. And so begins Jack's journey.…

That’s the basic premise copied straight from the wiki, but the story expands from there, going into more about the world-building and culture of the Jail. But anyway, as I tend to do in these Ramblings, let me address the elephant in the room… the gameplay one specifically…

First-Person Dungeon Crawler

I’ll be upfront about this, I don’t like first-person dungeon crawlers, I never have. I find them restrictive, I find them as a lazy way to save on doing character models, and I find the overall design to be either insultingly simple, or annoyingly complicated. However, after playing this game for about 30 hours I’m slowly warming up to this style of game. Let me just go over some of the good points of this game.

Immersion

This kind of perspective makes the game very immersive. Actually walking through these dungeons, actually running away from the Nightmares, actually pushing all the buttons and pulling all the switches. This kind of stuff is where the first person view shines, especially with some of the sound design. You can hear traps springing in the distance, the utterly bone-chilling growls and laughs of the Nightmares as they close in, the fact that you can hear each footstep you take, the atmosphere is done very well in my opinion, and I highly recommend playing with headphones for maximum immersion.

The Monster Designs

Another aspect of first-person dungeon crawlers that can be compelling are the monster designs. If I can’t look at cute girls then you better have some interesting monsters to look at. And thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on your view) Mary Skelter delivers on that. Some of these monsters look down right disturbing. I have to praise the designers for these creatures because damn do they look disturbing. Especially the Nightmares.

And these guys only get freakier as you take apart their armor.

However… those design tend to wear out their welcome when you see recolored versions on the first damn chapter.

This is honestly something I just can’t let go of. When I was seeing reskins of the enemies on the second floor of the first level I had to put down the game for a moment. I decided to just shrug it off and continued playing regardless, and then proceeded to lose my mind screaming on the second chapter when I was seeing reskins of the enemies of the first dungeon in the new Graveyard area. To be fair to the game, these reskins are likely to keep every zone with the same theme of enemy types, but this really made me shake my head when I saw them. I just… can’t let go of this.

The Puzzles

Now this is where I think the first-person really shined. When you lose your ability to reliably see from a top-down perspective or in third person it can do wonders for puzzles. I think all the puzzles I’ve played so far were done well. I loved the puzzle in the Temple where you had to shoot a flaming arrow through flammable walls to proceed, pushing blocks through the path of your arrow that would change its trajectory. Some of the switch puzzles were interesting as well to turn off certain traps, if a bit tedious. I’m only on chapter 6 as of writing this, so I’m hoping to see so more interesting puzzles.

And since I’m talking about the puzzles, I’ll move onto…

The Actual Gameplay

So, the game is turn-based, much like Final Fantasy and Persona. There’s not much more to say there. The main issue I have with the game is the difficulty. Some enemies can two-shot you in the first and second chapter, and while Mary Skelter thankfully has something of a quick save option, getting use to that difficulty and high damage isn’t exactly a fun time when you’re constantly dying from a surprise attack or just when you’re on enemy phase. This isn’t like Epic Battle Fantasy 4 or Persona 5 where it’s a matter of having proper buffs and equipment, these enemies can just annihilate you for existing. I’d say this game was almost as annoying as Fate/Extra in that regard if not for the ability to lower difficulties mid-game. This game has it out for you. There’s not a lot of room for trial and error here unless the trial and error comes from you constantly dying and losing party members mid-battle. This and a few other issues I had with this game’s difficulty made me go straight to easy mode after Chapter 2. Doing this lowers the amount of EXP I get which makes grinding a pain, but honestly… I know I’m not the only one that did this, so it might be worth the price.

But moving on from that, something I found interesting was the class system. Every character has about 6 different classes they can go into. Certain characters have a specific class type such as Physical DPS, Magical DPS, Ranged Attackers, Support, and All-Rounders, but those types have different classes. Physical DPS classes can become tanks or berserkers, Magical DPS classes can focus on element damage or healing. Support units can become Mimics/Blue Mages or Item Classes, the All-Rounders can slightly specialize themselves for different tasks, the list goes on. And each class changes comes with a cute new outfit for the character as well. I was honestly tempted to keep Alice in her Marshal class solely for how cute she looked until I got Cinderella what came equip with the Marshal class, but then I realized the Marshal class grants reliable first-turn advantage and just kept her there, with Cinderella being use to experience with the classes of that type.

If there’s one major piece of advice I can give for this game it’s to focus on getting AoE skills that attack/debuff every enemy at once or buff/heal every party member, and leveling those skills up. You constantly get attack in mobs, and bosses have several parts to target until their second phase. Just save yourself the trouble and get AoE skills to make those random encounters a bit less of a pain. Seriously, even on easy mode this enemies pack a punch and can three-shot you. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but remember that I said these guys attack in mobs that range from 4 to 6 enemies.

But moving on, another interesting aspect of this game is Massacre Mode and Blood Skelter. Much like in Senran Kagura Deep Crimson’s Frantic Mode, by bathing yourself in the blood of your enemies you gain power. When enough blood is on you it triggers Massacre Mode, a powered-up mode that transforms your Blood Maiden. They have higher stats and access to game-breaking Massacre Skills that do heavy damage for minimal SP. However, this is a double edged sword. If you take heavy damage that blood will become corrupted, and you have a chance of going into Blood Skelter Mode the more corrupted that blood gets. This mode jacks up your character’s stats through the roof, but they also make you unable to command them and they attack both enemies and allies. You can purify the corrupt blood and even get them out of Blood Skelter mid-battle thanks to Jack, but this is why I recommend Easy Mode. When the enemies can one or two-shot you and corrupt that blood often, and this game gets frustrating.

Ah, speaking of Jack, he has a place in the party too. While the girls are all fighting Jack is in the back managing the girls’ corruption and healing them with items, as he’s the only one that can use items outside of a specific item class. He can also get girls out of Blood Skelter too, but doing these things usually cost him blood, and if he loses consciousness if he loses too much. He’s able to do other things like take a single hit for one of the Blood Maidens, or heal their SP as well, but as of the point I’m at in the game that’s really it for Jack as a function.

Another issue I have with this game is how tedious it is to get better weapons and armor. You either do this by random drops, or more likely through the wandering merchant you’ll see through the dungeons. He shows up randomly (of course), but his prices are… well, what you’d expect from a random shop in a dungeon, expensive. Again, this game is frustrating, and I don’t know if it should be. Some other tedious parts of the game can honestly be traveling through the gargantuan dungeons. There may be a map, but that means jack when it takes forever to get to the next floor, and even then you might have to search through all of a floor just to find a key item.

On a lighter note, the side quests in this game, much like in Fairy Fencer are honest to god side quest that are optional. And you can take on as many as you want. The rewards are nice, but nothing feels mandatory, which is how I like it.

Another nice touch I like are the Nightmares. These bastards can randomly show up at certain points in a Dungeon. They’re basically like the Reaper in the Persona series, but when they show up you lose map visibility (on normal mode or higher anyway), the ability to even pause the game, and they can only be stunned in combat so you can run away, at least until you get to the end of the dungeon and destroy that dungeon’s core.

Again, these guys look terrifying, and for damn good reason. You want to run away from these things, and beating them at the end of each chapter is very satisfying from both a story and gameplay perspective, as these are the only challenges when playing on easy mode.

So… now that I’ve given my opinion on the gameplay, let’s talk about…

Idea Factory/Compile Heart Games

So what I said about the gameplay might sound a little familiar to you guys if you’ve read my last Rambling talking about Idea Factory and Compile Heart. Just to recap on my opinion:

“…Both these companies tend to make the focus on grinding a bit too much for my liking. Well, a better way of putting it is that Compile Heart/Idea Factory games really depend on your numbers being bigger than your enemies. A lot of JRPGs do this, but even in Disgaea, the game that parodies this concept, can still be won with proper strategy if done right. Compile Heart/Idea Factory games… they don’t really give you that chance, you just need higher levels or you’re screw or need to play on easy mode, something I have little shame in doing at times… The long and short of it is that a lot of Compile Heart/Idea Factory games don’t know how to properly scale enemies and characters with their leveling systems.”

You might realize that quote fits for Mary Skelter as well given what I’ve said about the gameplay. As I’ve said before, these kinds of games are only really fun if you can break them or have the option of breaking them. I say this because trying to play a game likes this seriously only to be rewarded with enemies that one-shot you doesn’t feel fun, and winning doesn’t feel rewarding, it feels like a lucky break before you have to go through the nightmare again. Now, that might just be the point of Mary Skelter specifically, as the atmosphere and story are very oppressive, but I honestly don’t feel that the gameplay compliments the story in this regard. But anyway, breaking these kinds of games feels rewarding, a sort of “Hah! I don’t have to trudge through this difficult game anymore because I found a loophole!” way. The ability to breeze through the later half of a game after suffering through the difficult early game is something of a right of passage.

Just to say this now, You can break Mary Skelter to an extent, but not in the way you’re thinking. You see, much like in Trillion, Mary Skelter has its character come with an affection level. You raise this by giving each girl gifts that suit their taste. The better/more tailored the gift, the more their affection goes up. When you increase it enough you’ll trigger events that’ll advance their social and grant them a new Massacre Skill. Like I said before, these skills can one-shot enemies on mass if you have the right one, so it’s only a matter of finding the right gift to spam and waiting for the events to happen. The only issue with this is that some events are tied to story progression, so even if you’ve maxed out affection by chapter 2, the girls won’t go through their events until the beginning of chapter 5, which can be annoying at times.

Continuing with the Trillion comparisons, let’s talk about Jack for a bit. He’s no Takt (thank God), but he’s a far cry from Zeabolos. Jack was made to be something of a self-insert character, he’s light on personality, and the only thing separating him from the player is his obliviousness to the girls’ feelings about him (something that I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes at as I am), but he’s got a good heart, wants to protect the Blood Maidens, and wants to be useful. He’s someone I can root, but he does lack the maturity and charisma of Zeabolos, making his moments with the Blood Maidens feel less impactful and more… pandering, especially when those harem elements come up, but more on that late.

There’s also more voice acting than in Trillion. Something I always wanted in Trillion was for the events that followed CG images to at least be voice, and Mary Skelter delivered on that point. However… the game’s writing has one too many harem elements in it for me to say I appreciate it. Don’t get my wrong, I love the fact that Alice is voiced by Cristina Vee. In fact, the whole cast is notable for those familiar with English voice acting. Cristina Vee, Kira Buckland, Sarah Williams, Casandra Lee, Christine Marie Cabanos, this is quite the cast. However, when I have to deal with Jack “accidentally” seeing characters in a state of undress I’m rolling my eyes.

But while we’re on story, let’s talk about that for a bit. I’d say this game is very similar to Tales of Berseria in a way, where there’s a pretty good mix of character development and world building. You slowly learn more and more about The Jail and The Tower, learn about each character and their motives, about society within The Jail and The Dawn, the resistance group that rescues Jack and Alice. These are all good things. In fact, the limited edition version of the game came with a novel about the world of this game. I’m going to read it once I finish the game as it has spoiler content in it, but something I’ve always appreciated about Idea Factory/Compile Heart games is how much they love the worlds they create and how much they want to explore them. From this game, to Trillion, to Omega Quintet, each game has a well thought-out world and characters that really explore. The only exception to this being Fairy Fencer, but I hear the updated re-release has some more content in that regard.

And just mention it, I love a lot of these characters. Alice, Red Riding Hood, and Gretel are my favorites so far. I like them a bunch. I wish I could go into detail about them, but it’d lead to some heavy spoilers I’d rather not give.

Something I will admit about the story is that I don’t think the writing is as strong as in Trillion. The character events play more to a harem anime than the more down-to-earth and almost melancholic tones in Trillion. That might just be because this game is more light-hearted by comparison and less character-focused since all of the cast is alive throughout the game, but that’s just my opinion.

I’ll also add that the music is fantastic. I didn’t know you could shred on a violin until I heard some of these tunes. And I’ll also give props to the open, as I think it’s a bit better than Trillion’s.

So... I think I got everything out the way that I wanted to talk about, so I’ll move onto...

The Conclusion

Overall, while I think Mary Skelter has its issues, it has a lot of good points too. The girls are nicely designed and decently written, the voice acting is solid and more plentiful, the story holds up so far, and for as apathetic I am to the gameplay it isn’t boring... at least during the boss fights. The only real issues I have are the size of dungeons, the difficulty in gaining resources like weapons and armor, and the enemy damage scaling. I think I’m going to try and get through the rest of this game on normal difficulty and see if my opinion changes… if I can avoid getting two-shot-ed anyway…

#mary skelter #mary skelter: nightmares #your dictator is speaking

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 6 years

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What's your favorite and least favorite persona battle theme?

Only including Mainline Persona games and their remakes and PQ. Not including Fighting/Dance games, the anime/movies, or P5′s DLC (I’ll have you know that I have the dancing one equip tho, both cause I like Anne and MC’s costumes and cause I like the song, even if that version of the song is slow to the hook).

Side note: these are listed mostly in order of series rather than which I like most of the favs, cause it really depends on the mood a lot of the songs are really good but have their own feel so depending on the situation I might want to listen to one instead of the other.

Regular battle theme:

Fav: Mass Destruction (any ver), Wiping All Out, and Reach Out To The Truth (I like how both P3′s are just “we’re gonna annihilate them” and we do and fits the mood of exploring a kill or be killed dungeon, and I like how P4 sticks to its theme)

Least Fav: Time to Make History.....sigh.....do I really have to explain it?

Side note: Both ver Light the Fire Up in the Night get honorable mention (I prefer the female singer on the P4 ver and the rapping on the P3 ver tho). I like Last Surprise a lot, but the hook comes in too late for me. And not a fan of Life Will Change, well like...I’m not a fan of how it overrides LS or any DLC song, LWC gets you pumped but....eh.....only really pumps me up for some of the bosses (1, 6, and maybe 7) the rest I feel like I’m going through the motions and rather have a different song.

Boss Battle (regular/bonus/special bosses) Theme:

Fav: Knights of the Holy Lance (any ver), Additional Boss Battle (P2EP PSP), Danger Zone, I’ll Face Myself, Disturbances - The One Called from Beyond

Least Fav: Will Power and Blooming Villain

Side note: “what no rivers in the desert?!” I do like that one, but tbh it feels like they overused it....esp since it was supposed to be a one boss battle song?? AND NOT the final boss????(kinda restarting each phase with Shido, and then again for the Holy Grail....like? Really? Couldn’t give the Holy Grail it’s own theme? Well I shouldn’t be surprised since you shoved Beneath the Mask down my throat with it’s overplay so whatever >.>)

Final Boss battle Theme:

Fav: Burn My Dread -last battle-, The Genesis, The Infinite. (BMD-lb- is a great call back to the OP, Genesis has the despair that wears you down and then that uplifting melody with the orchestra oh my god so beautiful, and then Infinite iirc had a nice melody that rang a similar tune to P3 and P4).

Least Fav: Both phases of Jaldabaoth, yes even the uplifting phase 2 portion, (never liked P5′s melody, at least I think that’s what it was in phase 2, cause tbh....it’s....not the most consistent melody nor is it very good imo). But I like the 2nd phase more than the 1st.

I just.....really hate P5′s OST ok? I hate it’s melody (tbh I feel like it has like.....more than one melody, but they’re pretty forgettable regardless), all the slow acid jazz all sounds the same, even some of the rock boss battles do too. P5 has the most tracks to work with, it has twice or three times as P3/4 had, and yet it still sounds like they’re only using 2/3 songs all the time. And I know all those tracks didn’t go to the dungeons, and it’s not like they’re all really good on their own (Sae’s is the only one that really stands out and felt like there was effort put into it, the rest feel like general dungeon music), and this also doesn’t include Mementos (which is a whole other just....god what were they thinking). Say what you want about Tartarus and the TV World. Sure they might not have all been amazing, but Tartarus at least slowly evolved as you went up (and if you didn’t care then ask Fuuka to change the tunes then), and the TV World were all different from each other, might’ve only been one song but they were all different and all planted themselves firmly into my brain. Yeah Palaces were all different from each other, but tbh I barely recall when they changed songs within the dungeon, and the Mementos had one freaking song and didn’t even evolve like Tartarus did (Mementos is a poor man’s Tartarus fight me).

Like....P3/4 had a lot of variety in their OSTs, to say one is only j-rap and the other is only j-pop is doing both P3/4 a disservice. Both have pop, both have rock, P4′s rocking that violin, P3′s I think rocking a synthesizer and rap, both have sad tracks that make you feel sad in different ways (P3′s “Living with Determination” is sad but is still oddly hopeful it’s almost bittersweet....it really feels like someone who is experiencing something bad and is willing to keep going with their sheer determination, while P4′s “Reverie” not only lives up to it’s musical piece’s name’s definition, being dreamlike, it also sounds like the embodiment of it’s other definition which is someone who is lost in thought/daydream....a really sad daydream but it just hits you, it feels like someone who experiencing depression and is trying to remember the happy times before breaking down. P5′s alleycat tho? Sounds like someone who is just licking their wounds, not in a sad sense, just “wow this is pitiful” on top of the fact it kinda sounds like a P4 reject song....I feel no sadness or sympathy when I hear Alleycat). Both had ominous songs for their own game. P4 also actually sounded like a detective show.

The only thing I could think about for P3/4 is that, sometimes they didn’t.....really fit the scene (mostly happened with P3 from what I remember). Like sometimes Living with Determination is great for a lot of the sad scenes, but sometimes Reverie would’ve fit better (or vice versa). Or like iirc P3′s one scene with Star the MC gets a phone call with Mamoru saying “Yo man my mom collapsed” or something, and the happy event song is still....just playing, instead of a an intense or worried or sad song (which P4 would do). XP Or like when you max out your female love interests on the male side of P3, the dorm or hangout song is playing instead of a.....more tender song choice (and I checked Tender Feelings isn’t on the male side in P3P). I mean, FeMC only changed 6-8 songs from Minato (like 2 battle songs, and 4 after school songs, with maybe 2 more school related songs), the rest of her OST is exactly the same as Minato’s....with the exception of one song. They ADDED one more song to her list and it was Tender Feelings and, it was used for....you know....tender moments, and boy did it help with the atmosphere. Just one song helped P3. And so....P3/4′s issue isn’t that it doesn’t have variety, it HAS variety, but a few extra alt songs would still work/help it out but they do pretty good for having less. P5 however, has so many songs but even less variety which....boggles my mind.

Another thing, not a point against P5 just....something I find that’s really strong in P3/4, is that P3/4′s melodies are so iconic and.....memorable, and they way they’re used.....I just find P3/4 are the kings of nostalgia. There’s just something about their songs that invoke nostalgia even if it’s not one that has one of those melody influences. Their call back game is amazing.

(Also I know Iwai and Tae’s store songs are pretty good and different but they’re wasted as store songs in all honesty, and Encounter Lovers is great but it’s used like once which is a shame....and ngl it Encounter song like if P4′s Corner of Memories, P3′s Because I will Protect you, and Catherine’s OST had a baby....which I’m fine with).

Sorry for the rant, felt like I needed to explain at least partially why I didn’t like P5′s OST. It’s not that “I don’t like Jazz” I do, but I don’t like how P5 songs like only one half-hearted Jazz song (and the other time a rock song). P3/4 have had jazz or jazz influences in their OST, and I do like Jazz in general....but P5 doesn’t sound like it’s playing Jazz, it’s just one song over and over for me.

I know I talked about P3-5, but what about P1/2 (I know I did mention a few in the boss battle portion)? I either like it or I’m neutral. A lot of songs I’m neutral on tbh, they fit but they aren’t earworms to me (a lot of P3/4′s special boss themes are like this for me). Only P5 do I get annoyed tbh.

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bahamutgames · 3 years

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Afterthoughts S: Definitive Edition

Game: DRAGON QUEST XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition (September 27, 2019)

Console: Xbox One (Via Xbox Game Pass)

Hey, it’s me again! It feels like it’s been forever since I last beat a big game with a lot of stuff to talk about. But the last time was actually only a month ago with New Super Lucky’s Tale. In the mean time I’ve been playing a couple of smaller games, tiny indie titles, a few fighting games. But nothing that I couldn’t summarize in a small twitter thread (which you can follow my twitter here if you want to see my art or just support me shilling my other accounts.)

Anyway! Just got done with another major RPG! After Nier Automata, I knew this was a game I really wanted to play before my Game Pass subscription expired. And after toiling away at it for the past month, I’m finally ready to give you all my thoughts on Dragon Quest 11! As always, this isn’t meant to be review. But just a general throw up of my thoughts and feelings after beating the game, because I love talking so much. As such, this shouldn’t be taken as a serious critique of the game, and shouldn’t be expected to be well written or thought out. Please do check out the game if it interests you at all!

SPOIL WARNING FOR DRAGON QUEST 11 AHEAD! GONNA TALK ABOUT THE WHOLE PACKAGE HERE, AS A FAIR WARNING

Opening

Prior to this, the only Dragon Quest game I had played was DQ 8: Journey of the Cursed King on Nintendo 3DS. I liked it, and thought it was pretty good. But wasn’t perfect and felt a little unnecessarily tedious to get through. But when 11 came out, I saw a ton of people saying it was an amazing RPG. People I followed who weren’t really into RPGs (as far as I knew) were raving about it. So I was really interested to give it a shot myself, but didn’t have the chance until I got game pass.

Stuff I liked

Where to begin? This is a 60 hour game so there’s a lot to talk about. I think first and foremost I just wanna gush about how pretty this game is! The graphics are amazing, I love how the environments are realistic but super brightly colored and saturated, making for ton of gorgeous areas that I couldn’t stop myself from taking pictures of. And Akira Toriyama’s just being placed in these beautiful worlds look so good and amazing. Without a doubt, especially considering its more on the realistic side, this is one of the nicest looking RPGs I’ve played.

Speaking of which, I really loved the character designs. Toriyama does fantastic work that I really like with pretty much everything, but his work on RPGs always tend to be my favorites. The designs for all the main teammates looked super good and all the monsters were really cool looking too. He really knows how to design cool looking dragons, this guy just gets it. On the same not of characters, the characters are fantastic. I really love everyone on the main team (my favorite was probably Serena.) They’re all super fun and I love the way they interact and really seem like a group of good friends. It was great to see how they all interact and work together. A scene that particularly sticks out is when they all forge a new sword of light together, which was fantastic.

I also thought the story and world was cool. Similar to my thoughts on DQ8, the story is pretty simple and easy to follow, but that doesn’t take away from it. It kind of feels like a fairy tale told on a grand scale. I love the idea of the Luminary, and Serenica being reborn into twins is awesome, Erdwin’s Lantern was a cool idea. And of course, Yggdrasil being a huge ass tree flying in the sky is absolutely the best thing ever, that’s so cool. ALSO, I have to give special shoutouts to Mordegon’s Sword of Darkness, coolest thing on the entire planet, I love swords with freaky giant eyes frantically looking around on them.

Lastly, I really liked the gameplay and combat of this game. I thought the way battles are set up as still being traditional turnbased combat but with the ability to freely walk around the field and look at the arenas was awesome. And getting to walk up to teammates to see their thoughts mid battle is super cool. Of course I loved all the different spells you can learn, and all the abilities you get through level ups. A new feature in this one (at least it’s new to me) is the Pep Up state, which is also cool. Particularly because it allows for Crossover Attacks between teammates, which is always the best thing an RPG can include, but most RPGs just choose not to. But DQ11 has it in spades and it ROCKS, there’s so much cool and genuinely useful crossover moves I didn’t even get to see all of them. And a final cool piece of the battle system was the ability to actually change equipment and teammates mid battle. I’m unsure if I’ve ever played a game that allowed for this (though I know they exist) but I thought it really made it feel like you could make use of your whole team and all your equipment. Being able to change teammates and what weapons they use for appropriate strategies was super fun.

Stuff I didn’t like

And, I did really like DQ11. I think I might even like it more than 8. There’s a ton of improvements. I feel like it’s less stingy with EXP, I feel like it was all around just easier to navigate and handle. But I still had a fair amount of issues with the game. Particularly in the- say it with me if you know what’s coming- post Yggdrasil content!! Prior to Yggdrasil, the game was buttery smooth. I flew through the whole thing and loved every second of it with minimal roadblocks (as opposed to DQ8 which roadblocked me at every boss.) And by the time I reached Yggdrasil, I realized I had been playing for 30 hours and didn’t even realize it! That’s awesome and pretty impressive considering I’ve played shorter games that felt like double that.

So, the game starts to crawl a little bit before Yggdrasil in my opinion. Once you have to start looking for the orbs, the game just kinda teeters for a bit there randomly. Like, the orbs are meant to be kind of a big deal, and yet the purple and whichever one you find in the bird dungeon thing (lol) basically get no fanfare. It felt like they were forgotten about and just had to be thrown in at the last second. Now, you could argue that the whole mural thing and the bird boss were those orbs’ fanfare. But it still felt so odd to me. Then, Yggdrasil falls.

I liked the post Yggdrasil stuff, I really did. I thought it was all pretty great from a story and character point of view. And getting to see the world that was so beautiful be corrupted and filled with powerful monsters was neat. I loved Sylvando’s whole parade thing, and every one else’s was cool too. But that’s kinda it. The whole section just drags along as you play with most of your team just gone and it goes so slow. And a lot of it really felt like it could have been condensed down a bit, I mean they don’t even show you what happened to Serena. Which I guess was because of what happened to Veronica but, still?

Again, it’s good story content and I don’t necessarily want any of it removed. But damn man, it really grinds to halt. And I also felt like it got really brutal during this part for no reason, kind of out of nowhere. The skeleton spectral sentinel, Gloomivore, and Booga were MASSIVE hurdles for me to get over randomly. And it got so bad I genuinely considered dropping the game because I just didn’t have the patience. It felt like an NES game again out of nowhere. Now, I do want to blame this on maybe not use the character builder right, or something. But still it was just so annoying out of nowhere. Thankfully I found the perfect strategy of Oomphle on Hendrick, Sap on the enemy, then have Hendrick spam Unbridled Blade, which was foolproof and beat every boss after that.

Thankfully once Serena joins your team again, and everyone is there (minus one aha) the game really picks up steam again. Everything after that was a breeze and went by without any issues. I think I hit one roadblock afterwards and it was pretty easy to just grind past. So I don’t know what happened there. The only other part I have a problem with is I do feel like the game ends rather abruptly. Like, not majorly. But I wouldn’t have minded seeing more about what happens between Eleven and Gemma or something. But that’s what the post game content is for I guess!

Some other nitpicks are that, I didn’t care about the music again. I think I liked more music in this one than DQ8, but still I’d be hard pressed to actually remember any songs from this game. I’m listening to the OST as we speak and other than the battle theme, I feel like I don’t remember what they sound like at all. And that’s probably cause I hate the composer but hey what can you do? I also wish it was easier to find Metal Slimes. I know they’re meant to be rare but I would’ve appreciated some appearing in the overworld just anywhere outside of the dragon chase scene? Weird to me you have randomly encounter them on the side of other enemeis.

Outside of that, uh. I think the Tockles were SUPER tick-tocked onto the game? It seemed like they were going to be massively important, but they just weren’t? I felt like you could’ve removed them and it would have made no change. I also thought there was gonna be WAY more time travel stuff. The scenes where you see the past are some of the best imo. Meeting Chalky from the past, playing as Rab in his kingdom, helping Eleven’s dad pass on. But these don’t feel enough to name the game “Echoes of an Illusive Age” if that makes sense? It just felt like there was supposed to be way more stuff with the Tockles and Time Travel stuff that just didn’t happen.

Now that I’m remembering it, it felt like there was TONS of stuff built up that just didn’t really go anywhere. Another big one is the whole deal with Erdwin’s lanter? Who was the guy who cut it in half? What was the deal with the lantern? Why did it fall? What was up with the dark Tockle? Wanna give any information on that? No? Okay. But if I had to guess, these all are explored heavily in the post game content, which is cool but sadly I did not have the time to play it. Maybe one day I’ll pick up a copy of the game and play through it fully.

Final Thoughts

Yeah it was good.

I am a huge fan of RPGs, but Dragon Quest just hadn’t fully clicked with me. I played 8 and liked it, but wasn’t blown away. I wouldn’t say I was blown away by this one either, but I am certainly very impressed and am eagerly anticipating whatever Dragon Quest 12 ends up being. This series is super founded in tradition (even if that tradition is detrimental to the gameplay imo?) but this game felt like a true evolution of that tradition while still holding onto it in the right ways. Are there ways to improve the game? Oh yeah, tons! But this is already a good step in the right direction. I will certainly be visiting the series more eventually (particularly 3, 4, and 5 are ones I’m curious about.) But I will probably emulate them to cheat when I run into roadblocks again.

After playing this, I also went back to play as Hero in Smash. They are still one of the best, if not my favorite character in the game. I think they are so fun and I love the randomness element that comes with them. Their stage is great too!

Also, seeing this gorgeous RPG with Akira Toriyama art in it made me REALLY want a new Blue Dragon. Like, REALLY bad. Please Microsoft if you’re listening PLEASE give us a new Blue Dragon. I don’t care what genre of RPG it is just give us a new one please I’m begging. Make it look like DQ11 and it will be the best game of all time.

Okay but enough of that. Thanks for skimming through or just letting me talk for a bit. For some reason the longer I held this one off, the less and less I felt like talking about it? Which is strange cause it’s a big game and I felt like I had tons to say during it. The only reason I even finished this and decided to post it was cause I already started it. Basically what I’m saying is that don’t be surprised if I just start making REALLY teeny tiny posts here instead of big rambles like this one.

But until then, I have work to do. I played through the Ty 2 HD remake on Switch recently and loved it all over again. I will maybe talk about that later. At the moment I’m playing Tales of Vesperia. Thanks again for putting up with me ramble about games, see you next time! Play something you love that puts you in an adventurous mood!

#2021 #Thoughts

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skyppai · 7 years

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Mobius FF “It’s been 2 years! Everyone assemble! Mobius Final Fantasy 2nd anniversary live broadcast” 28th edition

Host Sanshi, who's in charge of the international release of the game, producer Kitase and project leader Hamaguchi.

The presentation was broadcast from the Theater Cafe & Dining STORIA before a live audience.

22nd large update: What's new in May

1. Update info

2. About Chapter 8

3. New contents

4. Jobs and spirits

5. Announcement

Update on May 30th

Deck copy paste feature, to easily fill other character slots with cards you prefer to use.

Check other weapons even while all slots have stat upgrades in process. Sort features added. Higher stat cap (each raised by two), lower stamina consumption when shortening the upgrade time.

Notification icon when a new summon gacha has become available

Requirement for card augments are lowered. Having the necessary materials is now enough (like in the Western version). Expand skills will unlock even faster.

New options for auto battle. Choose not use the rental card, choose conditions if and when ultimate should be used.

Retired cards are added to the revival store (similar now to the Western ability card store)

Hamaguchi explains his new role at the FFVII remake team and how it will affect his role in Mobius. He will stay with Mobius but wants to support FFVII Remake with the same effort he put into Mobius for the last three years. Since there is a limit to how hard one can work he will focus his energy on FFVII. He asks for the fans' understanding.

They're showing concept art for chapter 8, due in mid of June.

Also how they adapted it to 3d, paying attention to the details.

And a very early sneak peek of a cutscene that is still work in progress: https://youtu.be/ZqyXu0SKpcM?t=26m51s

For the 2nd anniversary, there will be special cards commemorating scenes from the first two years. They showed 6 cards from the first batch, which mostly show scenes from side stories.

Kitase asks Sanshi which is her favorite. Since she heads the international release the Alien invasion is still fairly recent for her and since it also was the first event that's the one she fondly remembers.

Sexy cards for both Wol and Echo.

On the week end of June 3rd/4th, there will be the chance to draw one free great summon, with a guaranteed 5 star card.

And a campaign with daily login bonuses. Lots of free magicite, 14 summon tickets and 2 grow stars.

And a free one card summon for 30 days all throughout June.

The new job quests for June cover the Dissidia Legend jobs. Job quests are maps where you have to use a certain job to clear dungeons with certain conditions. If you can clear them, you get ability panels that can greatly enhance that job and bring it up to speed with the current jobs, statwise.

Like last year, they will also have gachas for previous legend jobs during the anniversary period, so people that didn't get them the first time can try again.

There will be a collaboration with FFXIV:

Ultima Weapon can be fought in multiplayer.

Its drop items can be exchanged for powerful equipment:

The Ultima Edge for ranger jobs.

Ultima Mace for mages.

Ultima Wing for Meia.

Hamaguchi battles Ultima Weapon: https://youtu.be/ZqyXu0SKpcM?t=48m30s

The new jobs in June are FFXIV themed:

Knight of Eorzea.

Ya Shtra will be the first mage ultimate hero job.

Ultimate hero jobs are different from legend jobs. Legend jobs have Wol and Meia basically cosplay Tidus, Aerith, Squall and so on. Whereas the ultimate hero jobs really give them the appearance of Cloud or Sephiroth (warrior jobs), Lightning (ranger job) and now Ya Shtra (mage job).

This will make a job look and sound like those characters and also change their ultimate. Stats and elements are those of a different job that has to be chosen together with the ultimate hero one.

For Ya Shtra, both Wol mage jobs and Meia can be combined. But since Meia's weapons don't fit Ya Shtra's design, she will use her default weapon in that case.

Hamaguchi demonstrates the new jobs in action, including their ultimates: https://youtu.be/ZqyXu0SKpcM?t=1h23s

New spirits for June:

Hamaguchi shows them in game: https://youtu.be/ZqyXu0SKpcM?t=1h8m39s

Composer Mitsuto Suzuki announces the release of the second OST:

It releases on August 2nd, available on the Squenix eStore and other official shops. 3200 yen plus tax, covers chapters 4 to 8. Pre-orders open on May 27th.

Wol's voice actor Nobunaga Shimazaki is the first special guest.

It's his second time on the broadcast since the very first one 2 years ago. Kitase suggests that they use a more familiar way of addressing each other, maybe using nicknames. He asks Shimazaki if he has any.

Shimazaki says some of his friends used to call him Lord (because of the historical Oda Nobunaga) and when the manga A Chef of Nobunaga became popular, some even called him Chef. But most people call him Nobu, which is short for Nobunaga. So they settle for Nobu. Shimazaki says he's fine with anything, Lord, Chef, or even Devil, whatever the setting requires.

Now Nobu wants to know everyone else's nickname. Hamaguchi is an obvious case, his should revolve around the Hama part of his name. Hamaguchi confirms that's what his nicknames usually come from. Nobu comes up with an alternative: Animal. He can be like the mascot character.

Sanshi says that's her real name when read in Japanese (she's from Taiwan). But she'd like a nickname. To suit her radiant personality Nobu suggests Sunshine. She says she'll try to live up to the name.

Nobu heard stories about Kitase, being a Warunori rather than his actual name Yoshinori (yoshi can mean good, waru means bad). Apparently Kitase is a bit of a prankster in office. So today Kitase will be a character of darkness, like Voice (Vox in English).

Now that everyone has a nickname, Sunshine moves on to the next topic. The STORIA cafe prepared some Mobius themed meals and beverages just for this occasion:

Echo's fickle blueberry frozen yoghurt

Meia's azure tonic water

Mog's kupo kupo strawberry milk (the only hot beverage of the menu)

The meal comes as a set and is "really something like an onion".

The drinks have nice details like the wings for the Echo's yoghurt and the cherry on the spoon of the strawbery milk. Sunshine guesses the cherry is supposed to be the crystal over Mog's head. She assures everyone that no moogle was killed to prepare the drink.

Kitase has Nobu read a piece of paper out loud, in his Wol voice. He announces the next TVCM campaign:

They show one of the new commercials: https://youtu.be/ZqyXu0SKpcM?t=1h30m6s

In the commercial the Ultima Weapon (FFXIV collaboration) is mentioned, as well as the Warrior of Light part of the story nearing its climax.

Hamaguchi reads a letter from Mogy-Announce* to Shimazaki out loud (*Mogy-Announce is a handle used on the Mobius twitter to tweet news in Mogy's moogle speech pattern):

"Dear Master*, kupo! Your performance at the commercial recording was flawless and left no room for criticism. We recorded a few more takes just to be sure but they were all high quality and demonstrated your skills as a professional, kupo. The staff from the recording studio also said that Shimazaki-san is so amazing. The recording didn't even take 20 minutes and was over much sooner than anticipated. Thanks to that I could take some free time at a cafe before returning to office. The Caramel Latte Macchiato I had that day was the most delicious thing ever. All thanks to you, kupo. Yours, Mogy-Announce." (*onjin-san/life-savior in Japanese, as the moogles call Wol)

Nobu is amused and says it's not part of his job to enable Mogy-Announce to drink Latte Macchiato. But he had a good time himself recording the commercial.

Kitase asks Shimazaki about the two years he has been acting Wol. Shimazaki explains that contrary to the work for anime he usually does, which only requires around three months per project, he has had steady recordings for Mobius almost on a monthly basis. So that makes it rare among his work.

When he started out, he didn't want to give Wol too much individuality, him being the protagonist of a social game. He kept him neutral so anyone could identify. But over time Wol became more defined and Shimazaki very attached to the character, even developing a liking for Echo. He also identified more and more with Wol, reacting to characters in the story, like getting angry when Vox would make an appearance. The relationship with Echo is somewhat nasty but without being spiteful. He didn't trust Meia at all at first, then getting closer only to be shocked sometimes but understanding it was Palamicia that must have made her like that.

He had a lot of fun developing Wol's character. Now he hasn't read the script for the final chapter yet, he says, correcting himself, for the next chapter. So he's hanging on the cliff with which chapter 7 ended. But the recording for the next chapter should be soon.

Kitase asks him about what scenes impressed him the most. Shimazaki reiterates how much he likes Echo and raises a scene in chapter 5, when Echo gets scared. He felt Wol was very kind to her in that. A major plot point is that Palamicia as a system cannot be trusted. He mentions a spoiler for chapter 7. Echo seems to be also of this very system but Shimazaki really wants to believe that the Echo that traveled with Wol, his very own Echo among the many that exist, is better than that. But he suspects the next chapter will prove him wrong.

Of course he also mentions Mog. He constantly made him aware of the whole prophecy business and he still doesn't know what the purpose of Mog's part in the prophecy was. But same as Echo, even though there might be many Mogs, the time they spent together, both the warmth and the suffering, made Mog the one Mog for him. That might have been the salvation offered by Mog's fate. Also when he gets angry at Vox, Mog is like an anchor that enables Wol to calm himself.

Kitase and Hamaguchi suggest that the scenario writer might change the story according to what Shimazaki might want. Shimazaki says it's probably already written. But he really doesn't want Echo to turn out bad.

Sanshi asks about the process of the recordings. Do the actors get to record the scenes together? Shimazaki confirms what Mao told them at TGS 2016, as opposed to anime recordings they do their takes separately. But he listened to their lines so it almost feels like he had spoken to them.

Next they have a game of guessing missing lines of famous cutscenes, Hamaguchi versus Shimazaki. Depending on who will win, the players get different prizes:

An elixir if Hamaguchi wins, or 10 Expalights and 3 summon tickets if Shimazaki wins. Both remembering the correct line and interpreting it in the voice of the character factor into scoring.

If you completed the first two chapters and the third ranking tower, it's safe to watch this: https://youtu.be/ZqyXu0SKpcM?t=1h46m33s

Shimazaki wins, so unfortunately no elixir for the players, Kitase jokes.

Next up is drawing contest:

They all have one minute to draw Mog. The drawings will be given as a present to fans afterwards.

Kitase's Mog.

Sanshi's Mog.

Hamaguchi's Mog.

Shimazaki's Mog. He's quite embarrassed by his lack of drawing skills.

When they show what Mog is supposed to look like, Shimazaki says he couldn't draw him even he were looking at this sample.

To have a shot at winning one of the drawings, fans need to tweet one of their favorite memories from Mobius FF, using the hashtag #mebiusFF_2shuunen.

This concludes Shimazaki's segment.

They then take a ten minute break before the last segment featuring the other two guests, director Motomu Toriyama and scenario writer Kazushige Nojima.

The last segment is moderated by Kitase.

Nojima's slide lists that he's from Hokkaido, that he likes Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden etc., dreams of being a guitar hero) and a selection of games he worked on:

Jake Hunter series, script (1988~)

Bahamut Lagoon, director (1996)

FFVII, story, event planner (1997)

FFVIII, scenario (1999)

Kingdom hearts, scenario (2002)

Super Smash Bros. Brawl, part of the scenario (2008)

When Kitase asks Nojima to introduce himself, he comments the slide as follows: During the bubble economy he managed to slip into Data East and wrote the lines for a caddie in a golf game. People liked his work on that game and entrusted him with writing for the Jake Hunter series. And that's basically the pattern that continued throughout his career. Around 10 years later he aplied for a job at Square and then after another 10 years at Square he quit and has since then written for different games among them Smash Bros. He enjoys being free lance now.

Toriyama's slide lists that he's from Shizuoka and a huge fan of the Otoko wa tsurai yo movie series. His selection of games list:

Bahamut Lagoon, story event planner (1996)

FFVII, event planner (1997)

FFX, event director (2001)*

FFX-2, director (2003)

FFXII Revenant Wings, director (2007)

FFXIII, director (2009)*

[*Some years are wrong on the original slide. I corrected them.]

He explains that he first got a job at Square and started out working with Nojima on Bahamut Lagoon. Then he worked with Kitase and Nojima on FF starting with VII. With X, he started doing directing work. On DS he directed Revenant Wings and then FFXIII. He's been directing Mobius alongside Hamaguchi from the start.

Kitase points out that including the year they spent developing and preparing before they launched that is three years they have been working on Mobius. He then asks about Toriyama being a fan of Otoko wa tsurai yo. He says when he applied at Square, he told Sakaguchi that he wants to turn FF into a series that has over 40 installments like that movie series.

Kitase keeps asking about him being a fan of that series. Apparently, during his college days Toriyama participated on a quiz show on TV where fans can win by being knowledgable about their fandom. Toriyama aced the show.

Since the two of them are the core of development of Mobius, Kitase wants to do a Q&A.

Q: How did the story of Mobius FF come into being? (What process and ideas lead to its development?)

Toriyama says that around the time they started working on Mobius, smartphone games were becoming increasingly popular. Toriyama wanted to do a proper FF on smartphones, with the same quality as on consoles. That's when he started consulting Nojima about the story, roughly 3 years ago.

Nojima says it originally was supposed to be a small scale story. But when he wrote a plot of collecting items to become the warrior of light, Toriyama said, are you kidding me? So it gradually went up in scale and Nojima was wondering how far Toriyama would take it. And to his surprise, they really did go through with the project.

Kitase nods saying that at the time it certainly was their goal to go big with a smartphone game, and they communicated it like that to the press but of course it was still up in the air how it would materialize in the end.

Nojima adds that when the project started he and Toriyama hadn't met in like 10 years. Toriyama nods, saying they probably hadn't met since they originally started working on the story for XIII.

Q: What meaning does the term möbius encompass for the game?

Toriyama says it literally refers to the game being endless. The numbered installments he had worked on were establishing a connection to the player each time a new one released but this one should be an ongoing story, with monthly, never ceasing updates. For that reason, they called it Mobius.

Nojima says he still is used to writing stories with a proper ending. The first sequel he wrote was probably X-2 and Mobius is the first time since then he worked on a series. So he was nervous if he could actually turn the story into a proper möbius string.

Kitase takes him up on that saying so it might not turn out like the title. Shimazaki also felt anxious about what might happen to Wol. Toriyama nods, saying that the final chapter of the warrior of light story arc is coming up.

Q: What is the process you create the story for Mobius FF?

Toriyama says he delivers his ideas of what the story should be like to Nojima. He never writes it the way it was originally intended but what he comes up with is always interesting.

Nojima says at the time there were plenty of RPGs for smartphones and when he saw the ads for them on TV, they all said they were grand epics. His reaction was, what are they even talking about? He wanted to do something different.

Toriyama elaborates that they went for something more mature. People in their 30ies or 40ies, if they game they usually do it on smart devices. So they went for that adult audience. But then they wondered, what would be a suitable story for those adult players.

Nojima says, he feels they strayed far from the original question. As Kitase insists, he explains he wanted to pass the ball into other directions. He and Toriyama meet, like once every two weeks. And he made multiple suggestions on those occasions. Toriyama nods saying that he and Daisuke Watanabe, a scenario writer at Squenix, met with Nojima every two weeks.

Kitase wants to know about those changes Nojima suggested. What was something he wanted to get rid of? Nojima contemplates the question, then says he didn't like that their weren't any female characters.

Toriyama admits in the beginning there was only Wol, before they came up with Echo and Meia. About Echo's first appearance, they used the scene as Nojima had written it and it was Kitase who asked, will we be okay with female character like that?

Hamaguchi chimes in and says, they did show the game to target groups before release and those also felt there was a lack of female characters, back when they only had Wol.

Q: Why are Echo's hands always hidden?

Toriyama says there wasn't any special reason for that from their side. It was the character designer Itahana who wanted to give Echo some mysterious feature. Echo tends to wear pretty revealing outfits but her hands, they never show. Itahana insisted on that but Toriyama tends to forget about it. In fact, for one of the anniversary cards they showed earlier on the broadcast, the illustrator did originally draw her hands. When they noticed, they had to ask him to change it.

Q: What kind of life does Wol lead on his journey? (Does he sleep outside? Does he eat with Echo? Does Echo even eat?)

Nojima says, they did consider showing Wol eat. But then there would have been other things they'd need to show as well. They didn't want to open that can of worms.

Toriyama says, although the graphics look so real, there still is a lot left to players' imagination. If you tap a location, Wol automatically starts walking there. So he wanted to come up with interesting location names that would draw up feelings, like "this place sounds scary". He thought the details would be best left to the player's imagination as well.

Kitase interprets that so in between locations at some time Wol is eating. Hamaguchi jokes, he could be gobbling up some food in between battles.

Q: Are there any episodes they ended up not using?

Toriyama says it might be surprising but there actually aren't any. He says that that's due to them having to release new content every month so they couldn't afford not to use some of what they came up with. They really felt the pressure and had to use all ideas they had.

Kitase comments that it's certainly different from their other projects. Even if you stock up on ideas, you run out of that stock quite fast. Hamaguchi nods, saying they spent half a year of preparing content, intending to add more on the way but they ran out of stock much too soon.

Nojima says, once everyone finished their drafts, those all came to his place for rewrites and he had to spend more and more time on Mobius to keep up. For that reason he also didn't have to change any lines that usually would be subject to editing, if he didn't want to change them.

Hamaguchi says, before launch many voices on the team wanted to delay the launch to have more time for preparation.

Q: For collaborations like the FFVII one, characters like Cloud make appearances. When you write stories that are entangled in past work, what do you pay special attention to?

Nojima says that during the collaboration Cloud really overused his signature line "not interested". It was his job to cut down on the number of times of him saying that. He feels such a line should be used just once, for best effect.

Toriyama says that since their team consists of some of the same staff that also worked on VII and XIII, they could write those as side story extensions of their previous work. As for Cloud, they wanted him to be the Cloud from early in the game when they were blowing up Mako reactors, as opposed to the Cloud from after the end of FFVII that appeared in the sequels.

He adds that they wanted to ensure that the new stories would be faithful to the originals as not to betray the expectations of the fans.

Kitase comments that the FFVII collaboration went on for quite a while. Hamaguchi explains that it was because VII is so popular. Toriyama says they had to do ending staff roll for the VII collaboration or it might never have ended.

A: Mushroom Hills or Bamboo Villages, which do you like better?

Kitase explains that they asked Meia's actress Mao this very same question during the TGS2016 special broadcast.

Nojima says since he doesn't like snacks he doesn't have any preference. He probably hasn't even eaten either of them. If he has he probably didn't pay attention to what shape they had.

Toriyama says he also doesn't have a strong preference for either of those two. But he mentions a different kind of snack called Curl that will be discontinued soon. He quite liked those as they were popular among his generation. He'd like to do a collaboration with them before they're discontinued.

Q: Why did you want to work in the games industry?

Toriyama says he wanted to do a long running series like Otoko wa tsurai yo as a story game format. Square was a big game company specializing in RPGs at the time so he applied for a job there.

Nojima was told by his parents to go find a job. It was the days of the bubble economy and you could easily make 10000 yen a day by doing a part time job. There were a lot of part time jobs for boys at the time. He had a lot of fun doing part time but his parents nagged him to get a job already and a friend of his had just started a job at Data East. So he tried out for a job there.

Kitase asks, and then you just kept with it? Nojima says he's surprised himself that he kept with games so long. Upon question, Nojima says one of the part time jobs he liked was at a Namco arcade.

Kitase also asks Hamaguchi the same question. He says he was really impressed by FFVI back in the day, how you could tell a touching story within the game medium. That made him want to enter the game industry. And he's glad he could work alongside Kitase who directed FFVI.

Then Nojima asks Kitase. Kitase says after he quit the job he had before Square because it was too stressful he hadn't really done anything for half a year until he saw an application ad by Square in Famitsu while browsing it in a book store. His previous work wasn't game related but he did want to work in games for the story telling aspect. When he entered Square Final Fantasy still was at its 3rd installment.

Q: In your years creating FF, what memories and anecdotes of stressful periods come to mind?

Nojima asks if it's okay to not hold back on this one. Kitase says to feel free to criticize him, if he wants to. Nojima says he has no reason to do that. But during the many years working on FF there was really a lot of stress involved. For example, you'd never know when you should come in for work. He worked flextime and would show up at 1 p.m. but no one else would be there yet. Toriyama says it's different now. Nojima says as he comes to think of it, there were too many bad episodes to count. Like when the commercials started airing but the game still wasn't finished yet. The production style was different then, not as properly organized as it is today.

For Toriyama, waiting is the hardest. He had to wait 2~3 hours for this broadcast as well but one time he had to fly to the US for a Microsoft presentation, to show off FFXIII. There was a Beatles themed game so Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney were there as well. The Japanese devs and the Western ones all had to attend from early in the morning and were shut in a small room for hours, like half a day. That was the worst time for him.

Q: As the Warrior of Light story arc of Mobius FF approaches its climax, can you tell us about what will happen after? (Within what you can tell currently.)

Nojima comments it's not easy to judge what can and what cannot be said at this point.

Toriyama says the final chapter was finished at last and they started recording the dialog this week. The chapter will conclude the first section of the overall story, which dealt with the warrior of light. Of course the story will continue and they already started work on the second section.

Kitase notes, so even though te warrior of light part is concluded, that doesn't mean the story ends. He asks what Toriyama can tell them about what will happen in the next section.

Toriyama says that the warrior of light section will be followed by... he pauses and looks at Nojima. He continues: followed by the warrior of ruin, the warrior of destruction? He looks at Nojima for confirmation. Then he says that Nojima and he have worked out the plot for the next section together.

Nojima comments he managed to pass the ball into quite a different direction with this one.

Toriyama continues and says Warrior of Ruin will be the subtitle of this next section. He expresses embarrassment about how to communicate this to players. So far you were the warriors of light (he covers his mouth as if to conceal the following words) but starting next year you will be the warriors of ruin.

Kitase mentions new characters for the new chapter. Toriyama presents artworks for two new characters.

All Nojima can say at this point is that he is strong. Toriyama points out that his name is written on this artwork as well. He's called Graf. The name has a certain meaning but they won't reveal it at this point.

They have one more:

It's the new female protagonist Sofi. Wol will still be in this one but Sofi is another playable character. Kitase comments she looks like an active/lively character. Nojima says she somehow turned out like that. He adds that he suggested this character right when they started with the new section and was very detemermined to include her.

Kitase asks when the new section will start. Toriyama says the 8th chapter will finish in June or July. They will then need some more time to prepare the next section. It should be fall or winter until it releases. There might be more collaboration(s) in the meantime.

Sanshi returns and thanks the guests for their time. They have the usual after broadcast login present:

Former project assistant and host Asuna is back to congratulate them on their 2 year anniversary. She brought a flower arranged Mog made by her older brother:

#mobius ff #mobius final fantasy

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sebastiankerben-blog · 7 years

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Persona 5 - Review

This review was originally published on Artsygamer on August 18th 2017

Back in the old SNES days, JRPGs were one of my favourite genres. After all, Secret of Mana was the game that brought me to game development in general and spawned my interest in programming. You could say my whole “career” started with the words “DARKNESS SWEEPS THE TROUBLED LAND, …”. But later on, I lost interest in most of them. Among the JRPGs I started but never finished were Final Fantasy X, Lost Odyseey, Blue Dragon, Tales of Symphonia, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XV and even the wonderful Ni No Kuni. But I kept coming back to Persona 5 even after weeks of not playing it due to shortages of free time and the thought of not finishing it never crossed my mind once which is partly due to the fact that the art style of this game fulfills a very important function that most JRPGs lack: it makes the menus and the way the game is to be played easy to remember. That is the first of many strengths of the game and I can’t stress enough how important this is. Regardless how little I remembered about my last steps in the game after a longer period of time, the menu navigation was always an anchor point that I could use to get back into the game and in this regard Persona 5 really changed my perception of UI design. I knew before that P5 would be a very stylish game thanks to all the trailers, but I didn’t expect to learn so much about a topic that before was merely an afterthought I wanted to minimize as much as possible in my own designs.

The style of the game also helps disguising the game’s PS3 origin although its technical simplicity becomes obvious if you look close enough. Thankfully this never became a concern and it speaks volumes about P5‘s ability to be regarded as a timeless classic that the overall style negates its technical debility already. The next thing I need to praise in volumes is its soundtrack which is absolutely stunning. The last time I was blown away by a game soundtrack was probably when Bayonetta got released but P5 easily tops it. Sometimes I would just lay the gamepad aside to listen for a very specific song. Overall the audiovisual design fascinated me so much that I’m using a Persona 5 style theme on my smartphone and every alarm sound is a song from the OST. And it’s great that the design is so good because otherwise the fights would probably get tiresome very quickly despite the fighting system being the best shot at turn based battle systems that I have seen so far. Now I know people might disagree on that and would prefer a more time based approach but I love the fact that I can really take my time in battles if I want to without pressure (well, most of the time; there are one or two exceptions to this in the whole game).

The overarching narrative of Persona 5 is that of a pupil being sued by someone for essentially stopping an imminent rape. The protagonist gets transferred to a different school for rehabilitation and this is when things slowly start to get weird as the protagonist awakes to the power of his Persona and starts changing the hearts of bad people. The game doesn’t start with that though; it actually starts at the last quarter of the game, the protagonist gets captured and interrogated and the interrogation itself is what the player experiences and plays through up until past and present sync back and the endgame starts. The structure of Persona 5‘s storytelling – at least as far as the main story is concerned – is to get a new “big” target. Those persons’ twisted desires have created palaces in the metaverse that the player needs to infiltrate, steal the treasure of the target and change the target’s heart by doing so. If this sounds complicated, let me break it down for you: you need to play through a dungeon and defeat the dungeons boss. The thing about those dungeons is that they must be completed until a certain deadline. Within this timeframe, you are pretty much free to spent your time as you want to. Don’t want to proceed the palace but instead go learning at the diner on a rainy day? Do it. Time management is one of the mechanics that I first thought would really annoy me; but I quickly figured out that it solves a problem for me that I often have with open world games or other games with loads of side activities: it keeps my focus in check. Most side activities cause one half of the day to pass, so you could fill one day with two side activities. Exploring a dungeon however will cause the whole day to pass. So if – for example – you want to go fishing at night (because it’s cheaper) you can’t go to the dungeon that day. The time management only gets more complex as you gather more and more confidants (more on that in a moment) that you want to build a relationship with in addition to the protagonist’s own skills that you want to enhance by taking part in certain activities. You can even lend DVDs to watch at home that you need to return within two weeks. That all might sound annoying but it really isn’t; it actually helps the player prioritizing instead of getting lost in all the possible activities.

It’s worth pointing out that the topics that Persona 5 attends to are often heavy. The game – as lighthearted as it can be at times – deals with sexual harassment, physical and psychological abuse, horrible working conditions, drugs, blackmailing and even rabble-rousing and murder. Games are often a way to escape reality and the problems we face in real life for a bit, but while many games chose to offer a more abstract or even ridiculous way of relieving stress (sometimes even by building a different type of stress) Persona 5 lets the player stand against those real life problems, solving them with supernatural powers and even explains that bad people are not born bad but fall victim to their own desires which are often created by defining experiences in their past. It’s unusual to find this in a game and even though monologues and dialogues are mostly delivered in a very anime, over-the-top style, I feel like Persona 5 never falls flat on the severity of its topics.

Of course the protagonist doesn’t fight alone. You will meet a certain number of confidants – supporters if you will – that can roughly be seperated into two types: party members and supporting characters. Party members will fight with you, you can change their equipment, chose skills of their Persona when they level up and even tell them what to do in rush mode – some sort of fast forward for easy fights. Supporting characters will sell you stuff or help you enhance your skills and while party members are not missable and tied to the main story, supporting characters can be missed. I know for a fact that I didn’t forge a bond with at least one confidant and another one I didn’t get until the last story dungeon (which means I played through the game without the ability to change fighting party members in-fight; yes, those kind of abilities can come with confidants). You can strengthen your bond with every confidant by spending time with them and with some you can even enter a love relationship (you can even have more than one love relationship at the same time) but it’s not always as easy as approaching a confidant and pressing a button. Sometimes they don’t have time for you, sometimes you need to reach a certain level with a skill (Angelic Kindness is till haunting me) which means you’ll first need to spend your time on activities increasing your skills like watching movies, reading books, caring about your plant or eating fast food (sic!). With all of that the game develops a totally different kind of dynamic compared to other JRPGs and it’s this dynamic that helps countering the problem of pacing that many games in the genre often have. It creates a nice back and forth between engaging exploration with frantic fighting and interesting interaction with NPCs and more mundane activities and although the beginning of the game is very slow, this slowness is what helps emphasise the drama once shit hits the fan and the wheels start to spin faster.

I already wrote that to me P5‘s fighting is the best iteration of turn based JRPG combat so far and that has a lot to do with the way Personas work. While other party members stick to one specific Persona, the protagonist can hold more than one and Personas are acquired by negotiating with enemy Personas, trying to recruit them. You will also learn the skill to fuse two (and later more) Personas into one new Persona and it’s this variety and freedom that truly brings Persona 5′s fighting mechanics to life especially since the combinations of elemental strengths and weaknesses, passive skills, buffs and debuffs and other special abilities like drain and reflect create a complexity that I would consider good complexity. Many games introduce complexity to their mechanics just for the sake of having said complexity but in P5 this complexity is often an optional toolset that evolves naturally but can also be largely ignored if the player wants to pull through the game by brute force. It’s another way of keeping the fights interesting throughout the game.

All of this doesn’t mean P5 is a perfect game however. I already wrote how the game is technically a PS3 game but it doesn’t ran smoothly on my PS4 Pro all the time either. Hickups were rare but they did occur which seems strange. Also the game takes a bit to get up to speed and the beginning hours can feel sluggish. Probably my biggest point of criticism is the way the camera behaves when using the stealth mechanic. Being a phantom thief means you will sneak through the palaces and try to ambush enemies to get an advantage in combat. This advantage combined with clever execution on the enemies’ weaknesses is what enables the player to overcome enemies that are much stronger which feels great and empowering no matter how often you do it. On the other side, being ambushed by lower level enemies can quickly result in a game over if the weaknesses of your party are exploited. This happened to me 2 times in my whole playthrough but every time it made me stop playing the game. Not because I had lost but because the ambush was only possible due to the way the games’ stealth mechanic work. As long as you’re not detected by an enemy, you can go into stealth mode at specific points in the environment and you can also swiftly jump to new cover positions without being seen and also ambush enemies that come within reach. However, the camera tries to avoid solid obstacles, forcing you to try and get an enemy into your viewport and then hitting “X” to ambush. However, if the enemy turns in the meantime or the distance changes slightly you will ambush into the empty space right beneath the enemy and if you’re seen the enemy will likely ambush you faster than you can react. It’s weird because every other aspect of the game is so well polished.

I really had a hard time coming up with a score for Persona 5. I didn’t expect to play a game like Breath of the Wild that feels genre defining to me again so soon. And I certainly don’t want to be part of the score inflation of the recent decades although my review is merely an amateur one. But every time I picked up the gamepad to lead the Phantom Thieves to their next target, every time I chose to go learning at the diner for upcoming exams, every time I had to decide between multiple confidants asking for my time to discuss topics or simply spend time together I overdrew my videogame time limit; hard. I also know there are multiple positive points I wanted to address when I started writing this review but forgot by now; but it doesn’t matter. Persona 5 is the type of game you can enjoy on a hot summer evening with a cold Gin & Tonic as well as on a cold winter day with a cup of hot chocolate. It stole my heart, how could I not give it the best possible score?

10 / 10

#games #review #persona 5

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dillatont · 7 years

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Soundtrack Review: Arms

On June 16, Nintendo released its' newest IP, Arms, for the Nintendo Switch. It looks like an enjoyable game: a Nintendo take on the fighting game experience, with all characters equipped with springs instead of actual arms, which can be used in an arena-style battle mode between two players (or two teams). As always, though, I'm not looking at the game. Nor am I even looking at how the soundtrack fits in within the context of the game. I'm looking simply at how the soundtrack holds up as a listening experience.

How does the music for the game, created by composers Atsuko Asahi and Yasuaki Iwaha, hold up?

Well, to be honest, it falls pretty flat. Let's dig in to why that's the case.

To be clear...I want this to be good. I do. And, honestly, it should be. The composers used many compositional techniques and ideas that I find to be really effective within video game soundtracks. And yet, they don't work here. It's frustrating. First off, it should be noted that the music for this game is something of a departure from your standard Nintendo game, which is fine. Nintendo has a sort of feel and aesthetic unique to its' games, and this soundtrack doesn't match that aesthetic. It sounds more a higher-quality version of a Sega Dreamcast-style game, to be honest. And that's really not an issue. I like the attempt to change up the aesthetic a bit.

Everything about the actual production of the music is good, too. Every instrument is clearly heard, and the productions are polished, with clear attention paid to the smaller details in the music. So, again, no issues there. It's also noted that the composers did everything they could to take their main themes and infuse them into each piece of music throughout the game. I like that technique, generally speaking. Super Mario World, among many other games, did that repeatedly, and I find that I really enjoyed that particular soundtrack. The composers, let's be clear, also surely understood that the function of music in a fighting game is different than in other games. I'm not expecting to here sweeping, epic themes a la an RPG, and that's not what they deliver. This music certainly feels like it should go with fighting sequence- upbeat, driving forward, and using lots of pop instrumentation and ideas. Every song here also clearly serves a distinct purpose- the soundtrack (which comes in at under an hour)isn't any longer than it needs to be. Further, each character theme does feel like it's identifying an aspect of that character's personality, which is what you would hope that the game would do. All in all, it feels like the compositional has done what they should do to make a soundtrack of this nature work well.

And it just doesn't. So, then, where is the problem here?

Well, for one thing, when you listen to it on its' own, the soundtrack is repetitive. Like, WAY too repetitive. I feel like I'm listening to the same song again and again with only minor changes to it. That's not exactly the case, of course. Many things do change from song to song, but there are a lot of FAR too common elements. Tempo, for one, is an issue. Most of the songs feel like they're approximately the same tempo as each other, with only a few changes. Key signature is another MAJOR issue here. I feel like most songs are in the same key signature (at least, it comes across that way to the ear), and that gets annoying after a while. The drum tracks have the same problem- they are almost too consistent. I feel like I'm hearing the SAME drumset in the background of everything, usually heavy in the Toms with minimal action in the cymbals. There's brass in the soundtrack, which is great, but again, it feels like it's the same playing style each and every time it comes in. Almost nothing that I heard felt like it was "new" once I had heard the main theme. I'm not sure how that should even be possible, but again, I think that some of the unifying elements were actually taken TOO far. Every song just feels like a slightly modified extension of the previous ones.

It's like hearing a pop album where the artist stuck to the same beats and lyrical ideas and background instruments for the entire album. It just gets....boring after a while. Judging by the overall trend of album sales in the US, it would seem that many consumers long felt the same way, buying CDs and Albums for only a few songs, rather than an overarching musical statement. Now, with iTunes in place, singles can rule again like they once did. The analogy here: this game OST is a collection of singles, not an album. It just isn't.

I don't think that this is a bias towards the type of game on my part, either. (I'm not much into fighting games, to be honest.) The way the soundtrack is written seems to be somewhat similar in nature to how the soundtrack for something like Mario Kart 8 was written- distinct themes, in a fairly popular style, using live instruments, and without any overarching emotional elements, because the game is designed as simple fun in its' purest form. Why do I bring that up? Because I loved Mario Kart 8's soundtrack. In fact, both composers of this soundtrack worked on the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack. But I find that soundtrack to have much more personality and variety than what I'm seeing here. There's a vibrance to those atmospheres, and the melodies of the tracks are charming and enjoyable to listen to on their own, regardless of whether one has played the game (which, to be clear, I have not for either Arms or Mario Kart 8). Now, it's entirely possible that the soundtrack functions wonderfully within the game. After all, the purpose of the music is to set up the atmosphere, but as I just mentioned, that doesn't have to be at a loss of actual musical content that is enjoyable to listen to on its' own. It should have been possible to establish the main theme, make it enjoyable to listen to, and then build individual game settings off of that main theme in a highly pleasant musical fashion. That's not what happened here.

Speaking of the main theme? That's the dirty little secret here. It's actually the problem. The main theme itself is supremely catchy, the kind of earworm that people will still be singing months from now. The kind of theme that fans of the game will look back upon years from now with fond memories. How, then, is that possibly the problem?

Well, here's the thing. It isn't much of a theme. It's catchy, yes, but so are many terrible pop songs on the radio. The ability for the song to "stick" in your ear doesn't automatically make it "good". In the case of Arms, the main theme certainly isn't terrible, but it is absolutely underdeveloped. When I say it's not much of a theme, I mean that I relies primarily on three vocal motifs, all of which are short. On first listen, there's little wrong with them- they are interesting, but again, short.

Here, then is the problem. It is those three short motifs that the ENTIRE SOUNDTRACK is built around. You will hear them again and again and again and again, usually with very little change made to them. They are incredibly recognizable as the "Arms" themes, but they are not fully developed themes....they're too short, almost like a radio jingle. And they are everywhere in the soundtrack to this game. It would be as if Halo had tried to work the famous Gregorian chant into every single track in the game in an obvious manner.

When a game re-uses a theme repeatedly, there needs to be something substantial to the theme for the game to work with and transform in interesting ways. That Super Mario World Theme I mentioned earlier? It's a long theme, with a lot of material. That allowed the composers of that game to change it many different ways, including time signatures (not attempted here in Arms), modality (some of that, but not much), and most importantly, sticking fragments of the theme into the game's compositions (which can't be easily done here, because each of the motifs is too short.)

So, really, the composers did right in trying to make the game's music feel consistent, and they did right by trying to incorporate some main themes....but they missed by providing TOO much consistency and by employing theme material that was too short and lacking in material to build off of. It should have worked, and in different situations, it would have....but here, it just didn't. ********************* Top Tracks in the Game:

Character Select (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSWWI85L7xQ&list=PLFwObPlg7Y1p-7C6LTTfiJMIvNJ2y-h0A&index=19) Ninja College (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GEgQgxuLFQ&index=7&list=PLFwObPlg7Y1p-7C6LTTfiJMIvNJ2y-h0A)

The best tracks, in my mind, are the ones that most depart from the rest of the game. Character Select includes the familiar vocal motif, but also a unique guitar/bari sax duet that stands apart from what we've heard in the other sections of the soundtrack. Meanwhile, Ninja College is probably the most unique of the 10 character themes, with a more upbeat tempo and some unique instrumentation and instrumental effects included.

Weakest Tracks in the Game: Main Theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcARVtUmiu8&list=PLFwObPlg7Y1p-7C6LTTfiJMIvNJ2y-h0A&index=1) Spring Stadium (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1W3eY2RNpI&list=PLFwObPlg7Y1p-7C6LTTfiJMIvNJ2y-h0A&index=2 Replay Mode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwy27qAn_7s&index=16&list=PLFwObPlg7Y1p-7C6LTTfiJMIvNJ2y-h0A Scrapyard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJu1naHk1bg&list=PLFwObPlg7Y1p-7C6LTTfiJMIvNJ2y-h0A&index=10)

The main theme has already been detailed, and all you need to know about Spring Stadium and Replay Mode is that they sound very similar to it. Springyard, meanwhile, tries to be unique at least, but the whole robotic voice (it's GLaDOS) feels like I've heard it somewhere before (it's GLaDOS), and because of that, loses it's uniqueness and originally. (Because it's GLaDOS!)

OVERALL: 6.2/10 Yes, the soundtrack is catchy, but to me, that's not a redeeming enough quality for me to enjoy listening to it repeatedly. It doesn't have enough weight to it to hold interest over time. It's going music for movement (which, again, explains why it's probably good in the game), but it doesn't hold up well as a listening experience. If you're like me and listening to video game music on its' own, I can't say that I especially recommend the Arms soundtrack. It will get very repetititve and very tiring very quickly. Here's hoping they make some improvements for the inevitable Arms 2 when it comes out.

#VideogameMusic #review #arms video game

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