#Star Ocean: The Second Story

2634 messages · Page 3 of 3 (latest)

blazing meteor
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I didn’t get enough instruments till post game

nimble swan
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Lol now every time I attempt it I get a ?WEAPON that I have to identify, only for it to still be a DULL BLADE

unborn bear
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I feel like all ?items through crafting are just trash items like that. I never once got anything else from identifying them

nimble swan
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I've spent so much time and skill points on this stupid thing that was supposed to just work according to the guide I was following. It should have only required getting Customization up high enough but I don't think that's right

unborn bear
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You honestly probably don't need it, I just maxed Effort and Determination skills as soon as possible on everyone and ran with Train and Enlightenment on at all times except bosses and I was constantly getting skill points

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My main party was around level 80 at the end and all had about 2/3 or more skills fully maxed out

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I also used Writing to train some of my party members biology and other high-cost skills up to level 5, because Penmanship skill is super cheap to max out and pens become abundant and cheap

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I didn't really start going heavy into the combat skills until the last 1/4 of the game, I prioritized stat-ups first, not sure if that's actually the best though, but no combats were hard for me until one of the boss fights in the final dungeon

inner tendon
unborn bear
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I got some that were actual items through exploring, just never any that were a product of item creation

nimble swan
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I was able to get it to work with the magical rasp

unborn bear
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Good Deal!

nimble swan
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So if I'm at the point ||on nede, and just got the Psynard, will I be able to finish in time?||

unborn bear
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Definitely

nimble swan
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Hell yeah

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I should be able to log a lot of hours over the next 2 days

unborn bear
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Just a few small dungeons and story scenes, then the final dungeon/boss gauntlet

ebon mural
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All right, I'm on ||Energy Nede|| and need to deal with some PAs and crush out a few remaining dungeons

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I've got a party that works for me now and I'm not sure I have any real reason to change it (Precis, Opera, Celine, Rena)

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||I kind of wanted to ship Rena and Precis but oh god is that "maybe I can be your big sister" PA just obnoxiously cute||

ebon mural
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it's not quite up there with rushing Train/Enlightenment but it fits very well with that formula

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The game really enables you, too, because rushing all this nonsense will unlock a shitload of challenge mission completions, which will give you a giant pile of funds for more fountain pens and shit

night umbra
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The ||Scummy Ranger|| PA was great

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Damn there's a lot of PAs in ||Fun City||

ebon mural
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but from everything I've heard, that particular area sounds kind of like the "this is where they dug in more into character interactions" zone

jovial forge
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I have hit so many walls in this game and I am up against the final "wall" with ||Gabriel||. Getting my ass kicked

night umbra
soft thorn
jovial forge
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I've been mostly playing blind. Game became much more manageable once I started taking advantage of all of the crafting and bonuses

jovial forge
soft thorn
soft thorn
ebon mural
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observation: for a seemingly minor character, Ernest is really chatty compared to the rest of the group

unborn bear
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Both||Lucifer and Gabriel|| were laughably easy to me, I first tried them both after having to try ||Michael and Hinael|| multiple times as the only real challenging boss fight that I had to change up my equipment for. ||Lucifer|| never hit me once, he was just bodied by Claude and Dias with no chance to cast spells, ||Gabriel|| was pretty similar, he just took a longer time and I had Rena ready to do big heals any time he did his AOE's

ebon mural
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So, on the giant pile of PAs ||on Nede, and particularly in Fun City|| that aren't marked with a time-limited icon

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Should I take it to mean these will still be available in the post-game? Because I think I've got the ending relationships lined up that I want for my first clear, and then I can come back and do these (some of them are changing the ending I'll get due to the priority order for characters with max hearts)

blazing meteor
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26 completions! We did it peeps

ebon mural
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No one told me that Ernest rips shields apart like tissue paper

blazing meteor
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Because he's mid af

ebon mural
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I'm going to guess that's based on his special attacks and not the monstrous amount of raw attack power + # attacks he can get, as well as his shield damage output

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I suppose he does have a shit crit rate, but I'm not sure who really has a good crit rate aside from, like, Welch and Chisato (who are crit machines)

ebon mural
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All right. For now I'm pausing at ||L'Aqua right before the second assault on Phynal, after the Fun City massacre.|| I'm working this weekend but worst-case scenario there's no reason I shouldn't be able to at least get my clear by Sunday. I can clean up missing PAs after that

blazing meteor
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You got it in the bag

ebon mural
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I will say, tho

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while I've been having a reasonably good time and all, I gotta agree with the guy who gave it a 7/10

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it's in that space where there's good stuff in it but a lot of it doesn't feel super-well-executed. The Gemdrops remake job is very good but there's only so much you can do while being faithful to the original, and all that

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And taste matters a lot. Like if you're the kind of person who can get into Claude and Rena's love story that they've got going on, you might find the story more satisfying, but otherwise it is kind of a hot mess with a few good moments sprinkled in it

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And I'mma be blunt, it's pretty obvious that's what's going on, and that the different endings thing is a little bit of a gimmick stapled onto that

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Claude and Rena are pretty clearly the intended couple

inner tendon
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The way Claude acted whenever Dias gets brought up, even way early in the story just made me roll my eyes. Their love story felt forced af.

ebon mural
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Honestly? a bit yeah

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there is some pretty clear Teenage Hormones Bullshit going on

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Claude is only 19 and all that

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To us adults? Kinda ridiculous behavior, but maybe it's different when you're younger and don't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex and haven't developed a sepia tone over all your emotions

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At some point their attachment does start to make more sense, but Claude is being pretty dumb at the start

nimble swan
# ebon mural while I've been having a reasonably good time and all, I gotta agree with the gu...

Yeah I've been playing the PSP version and I was thinking 6/10. Idk if I could have played it without fast forward. The dialogue is slow and the constant "..." After every single line is infuriating. The fights for the most part aren't much fun, just something to have to buttonmash through over and over again until the rare boss which actually requires you to pay attention. I agree with the story things, kinda goofy. Rena is likeable but she acts like a kid just like Claude. Maybe it's something I'm not used to and it's common in JRPGs because I haven't played many.

The skill system is pretty cool and interesting but it's totally unintuitive without using a guide.

inner tendon
ebon mural
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Oh, sorry. Let me tack on a "present company excepted"

ebon mural
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Like I have found basically no use for cooking. I have an inventory full of food and nothing to do with it because stamina and leveling up take care of most of my healing needs

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That said, part of that might be the remake giving you more control over when you get into random battles. This would have been really fucking tedious if I were constantly getting random battles over and over again

nimble swan
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Wish I could romance Chisato, clumsy queen

ebon mural
inner tendon
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I almost never ate food. Did save points heal in the previous versions?

ebon mural
nimble swan
ebon mural
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It's been... fuck it's been well over 20 years now

nimble swan
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Yeah food isn't very useful with Rena being so good at healing

ebon mural
# nimble swan Wish I could romance Chisato, clumsy queen

I feel you. I've been lowkey shipping Rena and Precis for silly reasons but the game is not really indulging me much on that front, despite them being lined up for an ending ||and also getting the pre-Phynal beach night talk together||

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I did abuse publishing to test out the different ||pre-endgame beach talks|| and it plays into my assessment that this game is kinda-sorta a love story about Claude and Rena, because their scene there is definitely more developed

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I liked Chisato's quite a bit, though. That one was reasonably solid

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also Ernest ||is a fucking cradle robber||

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But yeah I have bitched before about how I went in for a Ladies' Night theme this playthrough (which will probably be my only one tbh; I don't regret playing it but the game is not sufficiently to my taste to do it again) and got a bunch of straight chicks who bitch about boys a lot (can't relate)

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but it's OK, I'll detox with some yuri garbage once I'm done here

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I got Samurai Maiden and Little Goody Two-Shoes lined up. One of those should scratch the itch

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(though I must clarify Little Goody Two-Shoes is not garbage. Samurai Maiden is tho)

inner tendon
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I wanted Celine but I think I messed it up by maxing Rena too.

ebon mural
inner tendon
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😳 can I do the same for Ashton?

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And by that I mean ||creepy and weepy||

unborn bear
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My Rena actually ended up with Dias without me actively trying for it, kind of a bummer also for how little that relationship got development compared to Claude to give it an ending. Claude ended up being a treasure hunter with Celine, which also was weird. I feel like I got all the weirdest most anti-climactic endings.

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Welch became Opera's sister and Ernest just up and left his Opera again to go ruins digging

ebon mural
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I'm starting to think they're not boyfriend and girlfriend and Opera is just his weird stalker

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Like girl he is not into you let him dig in his dusty old ruins in peace

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also he's too old for you let it go

unborn bear
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Opera talks about bringing Welch to balls and dances to introduce her to her family and society. So maybe they're like nobles that are politically engaged and Ernest is just like yeah I don't give a shit whatever

ebon mural
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Maybe, maybe

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But anyway, you bring up the weak relationship development and like

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that is definitely one of the things that feels 90s about it

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Like it feels like a kind of immature exploration of the whole "let's have multiple, variable character relationships and endings" thing

blazing meteor
inner tendon
ebon mural
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A game that tried that today would probably feel obligated to have more character development for the different relationships if they were going to try that. of course this game would also be a lot longer if they were blasting you with three or four times as many PAs and shit

blazing meteor
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Well it is. ‘99 game

ebon mural
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Yes, exactly

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It is a product of its time in ways that Gemdrops can't fix no matter how good they are at mopping up QoL stuff

inner tendon
ebon mural
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no clue

unborn bear
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I kind of feel like Tri-Ace might be bad at character development, they just like to try weird oddball crunchy mechanics

inner tendon
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If they spend months on their journey I could see love blooming.

ebon mural
blazing meteor
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There’s a manga if you want more character development as well

blazing meteor
ebon mural
ebon mural
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Like if you want to make the ship-your-own thing work you gotta give us something to work with

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But this is not the first game I've seen with a half-assed ship-your-own and it won't be the last

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Anyway Gemdrops is good, they did a good job. But for their next it would really help to get the old devs on the horn and make them flesh out stuff like the character development, which they could do without going full-bore Final Fantasy 7 remake

unborn bear
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Yeah, so many characters joined and then just didn't really factor into the story as much as I felt they should. I liked Precis a lot, but she kinda just fell to the wayside in the back third. Why did Ernest and Opera even have any motivation to stay with the party. They're just like ok I guess I'm bored right now even though my arc is done.

ebon mural
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Honestly? ||Because Opera and Ernest are aliens on a strange planet where they don't know anybody, don't have an obvious way to get off, and Opera has been fighting alongside you for a while and knows what you're doing is presumably pretty bloody important. She could go but it makes sense that she'd stay if you ask||

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'Cause like, yeah. They literally have nothing better to do

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||and they're stuck on this planet that's going to shit and, yanno, are in a position to do something about that||

blazing meteor
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Could of made a traveling freak show circus

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I assume that’s why he uses a whip

ebon mural
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I assume it's an Indiana Jones reference

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But yeah, like. you get far enough with one party slot still open and we're gonna go fight these demigods and shit but sure we'll let this fucking reporter embed with us because we have one last seat in the van, why not

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I'm not sure whether the reporter actually kicking ass makes this funnier or not

blazing meteor
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And idk about the going back and fleshing out characters of old ass games

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Squareenix tried that with strangers of paradise

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And it was mid

ebon mural
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In fairness, that was Final Fantasy 1

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Like the characters were not even remotely the point of that game

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There was nothing to flesh out

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I feel like Star Ocean 2 would be in a position more like Final Fantasy 7, where there actually is something to flesh out (though FF7 had a better base to work from)

blazing meteor
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Same thing. I’d rather them spend resources on making new ips and such than flesh out some dated characters

ebon mural
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I mean, that's fair. But as long as they're remaking the old game to begin with

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Like that would have significantly elevated this game. Like a fucking lot.

unborn bear
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FF7 remake is an anomaly of Nomura's brand of excess. Most remakes don't want to spend the time to do that, they just want to make it prettier to give some excuse to put it back up to be bought again on the market

blazing meteor
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Squares money maker

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Tri-ace doesn’t get any budget

unborn bear
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Tri-Ace gets thrown Square's scraps

ebon mural
blazing meteor
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Happy with it but yeah a wishlist of stuff could of been added

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But

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We also just got an update to it

ebon mural
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like it helps if they're not pissing money down a well on absurd graphics, but if budgets and deadlines are so tight that they can't get some extra writing and editing in, well, shit

blazing meteor
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With more QoL stuff

unborn bear
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FFXIII-2 is actually kind of fun, but no one cared after FFXIII's backlash

ebon mural
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QoL stuff, yeah. Which works for people more into, like, the postgame and gameplay, but I find it's really held back by the storytelling tbh

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anyway I need a fucking nap. I'm up way past my bedtime and have work tonight

ebon mural
# unborn bear FF7 remake is an anomaly of Nomura's brand of excess. Most remakes don't want to...

Honestly this is frustrating because, yeah, Squeenix just takes everything to fucking excess these days, and I actually found myself thinking that it'd be really nice to get more stuff that does the "let's flesh out the writing and characters" part without the whole "we are going to spend a bajillion kajillion dollars on the most cutting-edge graphics imaginable and also stuffing the game full of bloat"

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Though allegedly the bloat is actually pretty good bloat

blazing meteor
ebon mural
unborn bear
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Oof don't remind me lol

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Also Square fucked over Deus Ex, I'll never forgive them lol

blazing meteor
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And mankind divided ended on such a cliffhanger

ebon mural
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But seriously, I'm saddened because games with less ridiculous graphics budgets are, like, a prime opportunity to throw a bone to the writing department

blazing meteor
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That’s not what sells though

ebon mural
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especially with a game like Star Ocean 2, which actually tried to be a more character-driven thing in a half-assed kind of way but actually did have something to build upon and the opportunity was not taken

blazing meteor
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Ask a normie and it’s all graphics

leaden latch
ebon mural
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Is it really? Graphics have been a solved problem for like 20 years

blazing meteor
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Go ask your friends that just play CoD or NFL

ebon mural
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"Ask a normie and it's all graphics" does not explain the incredible success of the Nintendo Switch

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or anything Nintendo does in general, as an example

ebon mural
blazing meteor
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Go make friends

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Or go take a nap

ebon mural
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I have friends, just not ones that boring

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also that's not the audience that's going to be picking up a JRPG in any particular case

blazing meteor
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Was implied I was referring ton NFL madden friends

ebon mural
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people who play JRPGs are typically open to more story-oriented shit

blazing meteor
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True

ebon mural
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but yes. nap. need nap

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thank you for reminding me

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goodnight

blazing meteor
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Night

night umbra
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Alright, all the fields are done. Home stretch!

serene jetty
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You got this.

tribal violet
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Where can I get fireproof armor/gear?

unborn bear
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Idk where to get exactly, but a Ruby halves fire damage, the ruby ring and another ruby accessory(I forget which one) completely nullify fire damage. The boss fight I think you're at, I had 2 nullify fire accessories and a bunch of rubies but I had to read closely to notice the 2 nullifying accessories. I hadn't done any crafting, crafting might be able to make some of those nullifying accessories? I don't believe any armor gives that resistance, only accessories

tribal violet
unborn bear
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Was the hardest boss fight for me

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For me the two bosses after were very easy

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Mirror Blade on Claude for me was crucial to win the fight. I also had two anti-petrification accessories I put on my two melee fighters, my healer was usually always out of the way of any of the petrifying attacks

tribal violet
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Thanks for this - I just reconfigured my loadout and am gonna try again

blazing meteor
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Yeah such a short cd on that fire spell the boss has

tribal violet
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BINGO - that did the trick! Thanks @unborn bear !

tribal violet
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What sort of protection should I be wearing to the ||final boss battle? This dude has multiple hit-all spells that he can cast in VERY quick succession that immediately wipe my party... This seems like such a crap shoot||

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Difficulty spike at the end of this game is obnoxious... and with two days left to finish I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it. I keep getting insta-wiped by this ||absolute piece of shit||

blazing meteor
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You can try bloody armor route

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Also party wide healing items or resurrection items are a must

tribal violet
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Is there any easy way to restock from the save point I'm at without ||running down the nine floors of this dungeon to exit||?

blazing meteor
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You can use animal familiar skill

tribal violet
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FINALLY! Sheesh - that really escalated near the end there

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Thanks @blazing meteor , that made all the difference

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I wanted to take my time more with this game, but I'm glad I didn't since I was cutting it so close anyway. Lots of side quests, party members, and pickpocketing loot left to get. Maybe I'll save a more reserved playthrough for the remake.

blazing meteor
unborn bear
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Glad you got it done!

tribal violet
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I appreciate all of your help!

honest field
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Sooooo... What's Ashton's deal with ||barrels||? Was this explained anywhere?

strong hawk
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Aficionado.

Some dudes like trains, some like cars

Ashton just really likes ||barrels||

blazing meteor
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In a late game PA with the team, Ashton gets relegated to ||the janitor job|| He just getting experience finding the perfect || bulging cylindrical containers ||

night umbra
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That PA was adorable ||with the whole team and all||

blazing meteor
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Yeah I wish there were more

honest field
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Finally done and with a lot of time to spare.

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Missed probably many PAs since I figured that I would go do them a bit later and then stumbled over some points of no return.

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Also ||RIP my boy Ronyx. May you prolong battles with your ridiculously long attack animations in heaven.||

inner tendon
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I missed out on a lot of the late PAs because I didn't recruit Welch

night umbra
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Done! Man, what an absolutely stellar remake.

nimble swan
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What type of damage does the final boss do in Second Evolution? I'm having trouble with him spamming attacks that wipe the entire party at once

inner tendon
nimble swan
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What a dickhead

blazing meteor
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Just cause you are wise doesn’t mean you aren’t a major dick

nimble swan
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I can get him to the second stage but then he just constantly spams party wiping moves and heals himself

strong hawk
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Have you got any fire null gear?

nimble swan
strong hawk
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He does but he really likes Star Flare

blazing meteor
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Noah, get the boat

nimble swan
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I got him, put sacrificial dolls on the whole team

ebon mural
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||Six out of ten bastards down and I've got a few hours tonight and tomorrow. If I had to get all my PAs and stuff out of the way first I'd worry, but I can just rush down the end guy at this point and I don't expect to have much difficulty. I somehow ended up with Rena 90+ (unfortunately Chisato is only in the 70s) because the training weights never come off||

nimble swan
ebon mural
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I lied, training weights did come off for that last fight and I completely punked them because I am overleveled to shit

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Remake makes it really easy to just blow through levels to the point that they replaced actually eating food in dungeons

nimble swan
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About to have 5 different new games to play by Monday, crazy

oblique seal
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24ish hours to go

nimble swan
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I ran SO2 at 1.75x speed for most of the game, 5x for some parts as well lol

ebon mural
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Hmm. Maybe it's time for me to switch Chisato from the Gigawatt Stunner (+2 attacks) to the Variable Volt (no +attacks but over 1000 extra attack in comparison)

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I have the Ring of Lightspeed on her and so she'd only be getting 5 attacks as opposed to 3, not 4 as opposed to 2

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and that's a lot of extra attack that's going to be powering killer moves and also, like, overpowering defense

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oh huh, Gigawatt Stunner is also giving me a shitload of extra crit

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OK this is probably a stupid question but can non-spellcasters use Concentrate to avoid getting their killer moves interrupted? Because I keep getting my moves canceled by enemy attacks

unborn bear
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Just did a brief google trip and seems that concentration is completely useless for non-spellcaster even in R

ebon mural
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sucks. getting canceled out of my killer moves is the bane of my existence

ebon mural
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all right, got a bit of time in tonight. parked before the door of what I presume is the ||9th wise douche on Phynal 7F||. Just making sure my save downloads to my Deck and then I'm getting my ass to work

blazing meteor
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DING DING DING We hit 30 completions!!!

ebon mural
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You're gonna hit 31 real shortly

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I'm in late Phynal already and have about 16 hours yet

oblique seal
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Just got my psynard. How much more do I have to go?

ebon mural
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I could see doing it in 8 if you push as fast as you can and put off any PAs that don't have an hourglass icon

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Also

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(Rena and Precis ending)

SPOILER_PXL_20240331_091813202.jpg
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me in real time

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||Was not expecting the game to be this brutal to my alphabet soup||

strong hawk
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Drag that ship to the finish line. The endings are only 1 possibility of many

oblique seal
ebon mural
strong hawk
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Doable in 6

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If you like slipping dialogue

placid arch
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I got to the ||10 Wise Men and am having trouble with the second one. The robot one. He does his “ultimate” and just kills me.|| Im level 67. Any tips?

nimble swan
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It says PSP but it's for PS1, all the names of the items and characters are PS1 names

strong hawk
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bjut honestly, maybe under leveled? I was 110 at that point and just ended up pushing his shit in

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Vigor check

unborn bear
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I was low 70's around the start of the 10 Wise Men and ended the game around the low 80's. I also kinda gamed skills hard in the beginning so I still ended up with most skills maxed in my main 4 person party

strong hawk
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As much as I love this game, its got a bit of a problem of being "Won in the menus" in that your in battle movements don't have much bearing on your success other than cancelling your basic attacks with Arts and using the appropriate art to break shields first then spamming HP moves.

unborn bear
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stunlocking manually with your fighters can be really powerful on individual bosses

blazing meteor
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Yeah I don’t think I dodge/blocked ever

blazing meteor
strong hawk
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Your fights are mostly won by having the right gear for the right fight and absuing crafting

blazing meteor
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That’s what makes it star ocean

strong hawk
unborn bear
strong hawk
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like, for raids, the strat is "Get into fight, see what fight ending status they have, equip gear that nulls that status, Win"

blazing meteor
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Yeah the raid post game battles are definitely an equipment check

unborn bear
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Paralysis and Petrification were the 2 to be worried about, I never even noticed poison doing anything

blazing meteor
strong hawk
oblique seal
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Going to skip most of these PM. Most I don’t care for. On to the field of might. Wish me luck. Might be a little OP at level 80-75 on my main party

unborn bear
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I think if you push through, ignoring PA's and trying to blaze through the story scenes as fast as possible, you can get it done. You're almost at the level I ended the game at, so probably shouldn't have much trouble with any of the bosses to come.

oblique seal
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Yeah I not have much trouble if I do I have the game breaking sword also

ebon mural
unborn bear
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It is weird how horny most of the woman party members are for the guys, and most of the guys are oblivious and won't give the women the time of day basically

ebon mural
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With the big exception being Claude glomming onto Rena immediately

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It feels a bit like it was written by someone who struggles a bit to come up with what girls would talk about aside from boys

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Like there are moments where they don't do that but it's a really strong recurring theme

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Meanwhile neither Welch nor Precis would have a goddamn clue what to do with a man if they had one

blazing meteor
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Leon is all for them girls

unborn bear
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The 13 year old

blazing meteor
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Seems accurate enough

ebon mural
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Leon definitely would have no clue what to do with a woman if he had one

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Also yeah I was pretty thirsty when I was Leon's age too tbh

blazing meteor
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Ernest has a woman and doesn’t even know what to do

strong hawk
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Ernest has a stalker. His real wife is the archaeology she follows him to constantly

ebon mural
blazing meteor
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Even in Blue Sphere he’s like idk where she is but look at this civilization

ebon mural
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Also Ernest what in the fuck is wrong with you

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You know what, Ernest and Opera are perfect for each other

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She's a stalker and he's a cradle robber

blazing meteor
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Should check the manga

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Maybe something happened

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Oh and all Blue Sphere adds to the story really is that Bowman ||is a horrible father and husband||

ebon mural
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I didn't know Bowman had kids

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Ernest you are going straight to hell when you die

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Rena and Welch ending ||this actually does have alphabet potential if you squint holy shit||

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||absolutely none of Welch's shit about finding a man and she and Rena are living together happily||

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||yeah I'm calling it, that one is the Secret Hush Hush Just Gals Being Pals Living Domestic Life Together pairing||

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New ship unlocked

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||Welch don't need a man, she just needs Rena||

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||and unlike a man she knows exactly what she'd do with her: make her cook||

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||Welch done got herself a wife||

placid arch
oblique seal
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Might and Wisdom done. Moving at a steady pace

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Chaude ||has some serious daddy issue. Like get over it. Man’s gotta work|| also || sounds like his mother was putting ideas in his head. She probably was cheating the whole time, while Ronyx is out saving the fucking planet. Ungrateful little shit|| rant over.

inner tendon
blazing meteor
oblique seal
#

||Are you surprised to see this guy again? BK is. This fight is a copy and paste of the "Fields of Might"|| THOUGHTS on field of courage.

ebon mural
#

Claude and Precis ||OK, the 4.5+ hearts one was pretty great? "Dr. Neumann." I'm about it. Also Claude/Precis not confirmed in either of their endings 😂||

oblique seal
#

The writing is worse.
|| # FUCK||

ebon mural
#

Sorry for chatting about ending spoilers in here

oblique seal
#

It’s fine. What it’s made for.

#

My response wasn’t to you about the writing. Just how I am see my play through

ebon mural
#

All right that's 43 endings

unborn bear
#

Claude actually is my least favorite of the characters. He's whiny, jealous, and insecure even though everyone treats him like a king and savior

blazing meteor
#

Just blonde things

oblique seal
#

Claude is LeBron James?

half coyote
#

Claude is the LeBron of the game because he's always scoring

#

Easy harem always

ebon mural
#

Is he really?

#

||four out of six girls no ship confirmed, and not even confirmed in two of the Rena endings. Opera is all about that Earthling D tho||

half coyote
#

Precis, Rena and Welch all || immediately fall for him out of the gate, while Opera can fall for him pretty easily for someone in a committed relationship (one sided as it is) ||

unborn bear
#

Celine also

half coyote
#

And he's not even trying for any

half coyote
ebon mural
#

||Fair point concerning what goes on outside of the endings, but it seems like it didn't necessarily end up going anywhere||

unborn bear
#

||My ending was him with Celine being adventurers together, which I didn't even try for||

half coyote
#

That may have more to do with Claude not being that interested in most of the girls

oblique seal
#

What the fuck. ||We have a special shield thing that goes through time because of a field|| they kind were like what the fuck should we do. Got it ||pile on more BS ||

ebon mural
#

||I didn't notice Celine having any interest in him, but I played Rena so it might have been in Claude PAs||

ebon mural
half coyote
#

There's some hidden lore which makes the story make some slight more sense

#

But it's very irritating to find without a guide

ebon mural
#

Where do we look?

unborn bear
#

I played Rena too, and looked at certain PA stats, it's pretty easy to get ||Celine and Claude together||

half coyote
ebon mural
#

I could look again

#

Also, I did some thinking about what I saw in the game before the ||Rena and Welch ending||

#

And I had an "aha" moment

oblique seal
#

Increased output

ebon mural
#

||If you have Welch in your party when you recruit Opera, Welch says she's very up for having more pretty girls in the party. This despite the possibility that they might be competition for Hot Guys||

#

||And there's an interaction between Rena and Celine where Celine is being chased through town by a crowd of dudes and a woman all proclaiming their love. Rena goes to help her, Celine pulls her aside and explains she experimented with smearing a charisma potion on her skin and it turned out to be an aphrodisiac, and that's about when Rena turns beet red and starts going on about I've had my eyes on you since I've met you. You're my favorite big sister and "big sister" feels very euphemistic here||

#

||of note is that I talked to NPCs in that scene and there were women who were not affected standing next to men who were||

oblique seal
#

Claude, ||not daddy issues now, because daddy is dead||

ebon mural
#

||so yes, Plausibly Deniable alphabet precedence for both Welch and Rena, and then they have that ending. Also I won't lie, their first meeting on the bridge did feel slightly like Welch was Denying a bit (it's so romantic. just not this time because I fell into a girl's arms)||

#

So yeah, I'm calling this ship

half coyote
#

The ending for || Welch and Rena is that they become "roommates", take that how you will ||

ebon mural
#

||it feels more grounded than some of the endings Claude gets with some of the female characters tbh||

oblique seal
#

deaths

half coyote
oblique seal
ebon mural
#

||Welch does sometimes feel like she's overcompensating just a tiny bit||

#

||Like I don't think you need to be wearing super-thick yuri goggles for this one||

half coyote
#

Keep in mind that || Welch is a semi-joke mascot for the Star Ocean series, no idea at all what she is canonically||

ebon mural
#

||But at the same time it's the only ending between two girls that gave me those vibes, unless you want to squint really hard at some of Opera's endings and even then it feels like a lot more of a stretch||

oblique seal
#

She is the same as the character from FF that is in all of them

#

Scary symbols. Lol 😂 this game

ebon mural
#

But yeah I finally have my ship for this game, even though it's a pretty minor thing

#

I don't crack ship. I ship what floats, and that floats

oblique seal
#

What is the ||10 men purpose in the game? Besides being a means to end the plot?||

ebon mural
half coyote
#

You just don't learn that till the end

#

Don't love them in all honesty, probably my least favorite part of the game

inner tendon
#

They're a bunch of bad, bad men

oblique seal
#

Just LAZY

ebon mural
#

Anyway Nate I know you love this game, and I don't regret playing this game, and I don't hate this game, and I've played far worse than this game

#

And Gemdrops did excellent work

#

But the game they were remaking was kinda mid

#

Not awful. Just mid

half coyote
#

I'll never be offended by someone not loving a game I like

ebon mural
#

||Rena and Welch ending up in domestic bliss together was a cute way to cap it off tho||

inner tendon
#

I definitely enjoyed my time with this game and was tickled that I could play the whole remake on my Odin 2. It may have overstretched its story beats and I was glad when it was over.

half coyote
#

(Except Ace Attorney, I'm never forgiving Milkwalker)

ebon mural
#

||Do you know if there are more Rena and Welch PAs I can farm? Because they don't get, like, a lot together||

half coyote
#

There aren't a ton of PAs in the game, I wish there were more

ebon mural
half coyote
#

I agree that the game pushes Claude/Rena hard and doesn't put enough into the rest of the characters

#

Love what you get though

ebon mural
#

Star Ocean 2 is kind of an immature attempt to make a normally very plot-driven genre more character-driven

inner tendon
#

It would be nice if they had the little side drama stuff between characters like in the Tales games

#

That helped show that your party had stuff going on between visiting towns.

ebon mural
#

The FF7 remake demonstrated that a remake doesn't have to be just mechanics and graphics; it can also be an opportunity to revisit the writing

half coyote
ebon mural
#

That was not done here

half coyote
#

FF7 remake is a different game

ebon mural
#

I mean, that's fair

inner tendon
#

I hope the FF9 remake isn't as extensive

half coyote
#

It's a really good game from what I've heard, but it's a different type of "remake"

inner tendon
#

I really do just want a semi modern update of my childhood games.

oblique seal
#

So far it falling short on what it’s trying with world building and character building. Not doing either one good.

inner tendon
#

The retconning in Crisis Core kinda sucked imo

ebon mural
#

But even keeping it a faithful remake, it was an opportunity to flesh characters out more that didn't really get taken

#

I understand if they, like, couldn't get the original writers/directors on the horn and didn't want to risk changing their characters too much

half coyote
#

Rereleases have minimal to no changes on a different platform, remasters usually include upgrades to graphics and some gameplay tweaks, remakes are like Star Ocean 2, where the game is overhauled and remade as the same game with a modern trapping, and then there's the FF7 Rebirths that are just mostly inspired by or take the basic idea of the old game for something else

ebon mural
#

Idk, I feel like SO2R is almost a QoL remaster ("upgrades to graphics and some gameplay tweaks")

half coyote
half coyote
ebon mural
#

As for FF7R, I sort of got the vibe that it's a "what we would have done if we were making the game today" kind of thing

half coyote
#

I think games like the new RE4 toe that line between remaster and FF7 Rebirth

oblique seal
ebon mural
#

And Square today, even the same people, are very different than they were 20-30 years ago

half coyote
#

First game story has some tighter writing

half coyote
oblique seal
#

SNES

ebon mural
#

Seriously tho, without more breathing room for the characters, the ship-your-own ending gimmick feels like that: a gimmick

half coyote
#

Even the combat there?

oblique seal
#

I don’t like the way the psp games look at all

ebon mural
#

But this isn't the first game I've played with a questionably executed ship-your-own gimmick and it won't be the last

half coyote
#

I'm partial to them

half coyote
#

Time and technical limitations played a big part in that

ebon mural
#

Ship your own but out of 99 endings exactly 1 homo

#

(I'm talking out my ass I haven't done a sausage fest playthrough to check that side)

half coyote
#

No actual romances between the men afaik

#

Again, very typical of the time

#

Heck, it's pretty typical in modern games overall

ebon mural
#

Sad. Claude and Dias's conflicted bromance had potential

half coyote
#

Claude and Dias is my One True Ship

#

/s(maybe)

inner tendon
half coyote
ebon mural
#

OK yeah this sounds extremely gay

#

Like 1979 Gundam gay

oblique seal
#

It’s just poor writing

blazing meteor
#

OoT is the same. Link gets a harem going

#

But still doesn’t kiss Darunia

ebon mural
blazing meteor
#

Thankfully the new games have Prince Sidon

#

Until they give him someone in totk

#

But if you are just shipping then the source doesn’t matter

oblique seal
#

I am at the lab and I starting to hate this game. The climatic ending is destroying the whole game to me

ebon mural
#

Shipping is the real endgame

oblique seal
#

I have no idea what shipping is

ebon mural
#

I don't know where the name comes from honestly

half coyote
#

Probably Tumblr

oblique seal
#

What does it mean?

ebon mural
#

It's basically a fandom hobby about, like, what is your favorite couple in this work of fiction (this couple does not have to be remotely canon, but if it's completely contrary to canon it might be called a "crack ship")

#

It is enormously popular for something so silly

#

Sorry, #JustPhoneKeyboardThings

oblique seal
#

Making up a story to fix the bad writing of the media

ebon mural
#

Sometimes yes, but not necessarily?

#

It's a very common foundation for fanfic tho

blazing meteor
#

Like twilight

#

Being fanfic for Harry Potter

oblique seal
#

Rena is fucking old

#

Fan fiction king of

ebon mural
#

Depending on who you ask, an actually canon couple may or may not qualify as a "ship," but I generally would just because, uh

blazing meteor
ebon mural
#

||Bumblebee, among other things||

blazing meteor
#

@ebon mural The transformer?

ebon mural
unborn bear
#

||700 million years made me laugh out loud, it's too unbelievably large of a number||

ebon mural
blazing meteor
ebon mural
unborn bear
ebon mural
#

||this takes complete lack of sense of time scale in sci-fi to all-new heights||

#

||this is, like, what the kids filling out the Pokedex would use to describe "a long time ago"||

oblique seal
#

This is getting worse. ||he wants to impress his dad the whole game. Now he is dead and he like fuck it. I am over it. With little reasons why besides his dad worked a lot. So did his cheating ass mom. || I am just skipping the rest of this.

ebon mural
#

Is there any evidence his mom is a cheater or is that just, like, a Vibe

oblique seal
oblique seal
unborn bear
#

Yeah I did not play EGG, and probably glad, people here didn't seem to like it much other than maybe the art

oblique seal
ebon mural
#

Oh. I didn't play the Claude route

oblique seal
#

At lease I have a new password for everything.

#

Yeah, Rena gets different beats. Hers is probably better.

#

As I been playing. This non stop since Friday. Played a little in the beginning of the month but not much

unborn bear
#

I definitely just glazed over generally on the story stuff by the end

inner tendon
#

Jaylash is out here redpillin'

blazing meteor
#

Gotta keep that rank 1

oblique seal
#

I thought it come together better. Yeah got the card to get into the cave.

oblique seal
ebon mural
#

It's Premarin. It's fucking conjugated equine estrogens.

oblique seal
#

After an hour of “story” I am at the end cave.

ebon mural
#

End cave? Do you mean ||for the LEA metal||?

oblique seal
#

Yeah

ebon mural
#

Jay don't click. ||Who's gonna break it to him. He's gonna be so disappointed||

oblique seal
#

I know it’s not the end of the game

ebon mural
#

OK good

oblique seal
#

Game has said like 29 times what ends to be done

#

That boss was dumb beat him with 1 HP left

#

I don’t think fun city is going to be fun.

#

Fucking VR

#

Mirage is the best written character

#

Robot cop with a shield

oblique seal
#

4.5 hours left for this push

#

Wish, I could have Mirage in my party

#

I don’t care who you are.

#

6 down

oblique seal
#

Two more.

oblique seal
#

SMT bosses at the end.

#

One more!!

unborn bear
#

You got this

oblique seal
#

Really ||you better be more careful. Is what he says at the end boss. || lame

oblique seal
#

Got the || hybrid alien baby|| ending

oblique seal
unborn bear
#

Yep, way too padded at the end

oblique seal
#

Over all I give it a 7/10.

unborn bear
#

Same lol

#

Keep the mechanical systems and pair them with a team that can't create a better plot and use the character more effectively

oblique seal
#

Some things I dislike don’t make a bad game.

serene jetty
#

Just play Tales

oblique seal
#

Would of liked some space travel. Will start the GBC when Stubbs does.

unborn bear
#

It's barely sci-fi

oblique seal
unborn bear
#

The Nedians are basically just the old ancient civilization trope in most fantasy

oblique seal
unborn bear
#

Phantasy Star is dope

#

It's dated though and IV is probably the only one that could be justified here

#

Phantasy Star did the FF7 Aeris thing twice before FF7

oblique seal
#

The first one is still good. But, four is the best. Of the mainline games. Never played the online games

unborn bear
#

I've never touched the online ones either. They seem like completely different games, just attaching an established IP to possibly boost sales

oblique seal
#

So RE4 and GOW 2018. Lol 😂

unborn bear
#

Basically

#

Looks like PSO was Sonic Team and is set in a different setting than original Phantasy Star. The people that made Phantasy Star og seem to have moved on to making Skies of Arcadia

oblique seal
#

I still need to tackle that game. Some people say it doesn’t live up to the hype.

unborn bear
#

Same, it definitely looks interesting and probably got shafted popularity-wise by the Dreamcast's fall, even though it got a Gamecube port

oblique seal
#

I read the GC game has bad audio

unborn bear
#

Good to know!

ebon mural
#

@unborn bear @oblique seal So it didn't stop at just PSO, actually.

#

There was an "episode 3" of PSO on the GameCube that was an entirely different game in the same setting. It was a deck building RPG instead

#

Then there was Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst on the PC which was the original PSO plus a new Episode 4, but it didn't include Episode 3 because that was that other thing entirely

#

Then there was Phantasy Star Universe which was mid let's be real even though I played the shit out of it

#

Phantasy Star Universe got followed up by the Phantasy Star Portable games on PSP that were built on its skeleton and had the same character creator and setting and everything, but with a new story and mechanics

#

Oh, and the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion to the PC PSU

inner tendon
#

I loved the phantasy star game on 360

ebon mural
#

Then there was Phantasy Star Zero on the DS, which tried to hew a bit more to PSO's formula but was also its own game. Finally added a HUmarl (female human melee) which for some reason the original PSO didn't have what the fuck

#

And then there was Phantasy Star Online 2 which supposedly wasn't horrible but took forever to come to the US, and then got supplanted by Phantasy Star 2 New Genesis which is supposedly ass

#

I mained a FOmarl (female human caster, very red mage-y) in PSO and a HUmarl in PS Zero

#

Still miss my FOmarl lifestyle tbh

#

Everything since seems to have made a hard turn towards hyperspecialized playstyles and roles with no more room for the red mage types

inner tendon
#

The OST for the PSO games is goated

unborn bear
#

Very informative, thank you!

half coyote
#

As the month wraps up I want to thank everyone in this thread for playing along this month! Had a great time, awesome to see everyone's reactions and critiques, really happy this got the win.

inner tendon
#

I honestly don't know when I would have gotten around to this one if it weren't gotm

ebon mural
ebon mural
digital panther
#

I'll definitely be finishing this up in the future, give me an excuse to play the switch. Shame I got sick, so much for 3x12 champ status bowsercry

strong hawk
stone ridge
#

it was an honor guys. of course i didnt finished on time. but ill see you in the #841376562779258901 🫡

ebon mural
#

I thought that Eternal status just required getting at least one game per month but I could be wrong obviously

digital panther
#

Pretty sure it does, was just a little personal goal for myself

ebon mural
#

Ah, fair enough. I'm sorry

blazing meteor
#

Now come play Blue Sphere

ebon mural
#

All right all right

blazing meteor
#

Look its all pretty

blazing meteor
half coyote
#

No more Star Ocean shilling sadly, we're done with the series in GOTM

ebon mural
#

Wait

half coyote
#

Wait, I'm wrong

tender furnaceBOT
#

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere was nominated for GotM in December 2022, but didn't win.

half coyote
#

SO3 is PS2, we've still got another to go

ebon mural
#

Wait. "Blue Sphere." Does it take the SO2 cast to Earth?

blazing meteor
#

Nope, to a planet called Edifice

ebon mural
#

Does it just pull the entire gang together including the mutually exclusive ones, or is there some other recruitment mechanic?

blazing meteor
#

8 to choose from start, then story stuff to unlock the last 4

#

But its all 12 of the cast

ebon mural
#

Does it have SO2's weird ship-your-own mechanic?

strong hawk
strong hawk
blazing meteor
#

Game has a new power couple of Ashton x Precis though

ebon mural
strong hawk
#

It's ambitious enough for the GBC without it

ebon mural
#

Do you still pick your main character between Claude and Rena?

blazing meteor
#

Nope

#

Like I said before 8 at the start

#

Then 4 later

#

Is a three man team game

strong hawk
#

You constantly switch between your team members for field navigation

ebon mural
#

Oh, does it not have a "main character" in the same way that SO2 had Claude and Rena as the mains?

strong hawk
#

Correct

ebon mural
#

Huh

strong hawk
#

Whoever you're controlling at the time is your "Leader"

blazing meteor
#

Plus you can change your server nickname to “85th Westerner “ @ebon mural when you beat it

ebon mural
#

Oh right, I need to change that back

#

I don't get the joke tho

strong hawk
#

Very Few Westerners have Finished Blue Sphere. There are very very little English resources for this game.

blazing meteor
#

But we are making them

strong hawk
#

Where the hell are you hosting them?

blazing meteor
strong hawk
#

We are the western nexus

#

Fear us

unborn bear
blazing meteor
#

Patreon

#

I’ll make a thread in game backlog as well when I finish the character guides

#

2/12 rn but 2 of them are going to take awhile

strong hawk
#

Rena + Celine mariodead

unborn bear
#

Coolcoolcool thanks!

blazing meteor
#

Sneak peek

Precis_Character_Sheet.png
unborn bear
#

Very clean, it looks good!

blazing meteor
#

I’m a nurse not a graphic design but it’s better than what we got right now

ebon mural
#

...looks like it has one unfinished translation patch and then an addendum translation patch to be applied to a ROM that already had the unfinished translation patch applied to it doggylol

#

wait, no

#

it's supposed to be applied to the V1 version of that other patch, and that version is not available

#

what the fuck

#

is there just no currently available actual translation patch for it

stone ridge
ebon mural
unborn bear
#

Precis definitely is the most fun

strong hawk
ebon mural
#

Y'all all right

oblique seal
ebon mural
oblique seal
#

The reporter and the wild life activist

ebon mural
#

I had Celine, Precis, Welch, Opera, Ernest, and Chisato

#

starting as Rena

oblique seal
#

Noel and Chisato where my last two.

#

Celine, opera, Ern and Leo for the rest. Celine really save my ass in the last battle

ebon mural
oblique seal
#

She was just wasn't getting wiped out after the Noah spell.

ebon mural
#

Ahh

#

Yeah the constant endless flurry of spells was a bitch

#

It eased up very slightly when I remembered to cast Reflection. It might have been the placebo effect

oblique seal
#

It fet that way where spell on top of spell

#

I got killed my first attempt. Second time was the charm. I just quit trying to break his shields and attacked. Had Rena heal. Opera would just die constantly. She kind of sucks. But her character is great out of battle

ebon mural
#

Opera is sometimes better as a healer than Rena in my experience

#

She doesn't have the built-in status cure or raise dead, but Healing Star has a relatively low startup time IIRC

#

Whereas Faerie Light takes significant time to cast

devout mulch
#

Thinking I'll jump into this next

atomic dirge
#

Bruh

solemn thorn
devout mulch
#

Oh are we supposed to go to game of the month flashback? Haha, sorry all

#

Forgive me, I'm ill. I saw the last comment and thought it was last month not last year