PS2 Backlog Committee

Phaseknox wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 10:56 am

argyle wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 7:35 pmPhase, you are the human equivalent of a bucket of cold water.

I’m sorry.

Don't be, I was joking - it's all good.

crimson_tide wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 8:03 pm

isthatallyougot wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 12:12 pm I cannot imagine the hell that is your life crim. (to me and my nature, I mean ) Strength to you my man!

Bruh, there are THREE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS CALLED STARS THAT DO DIFFERENT THINGS! It should literally just be ONE thing. And the kicker, they have the elaborate system called Automate The Schools or ATS for short. This one is a command prompt system. I wish I were joking. It's just DOS. I...bruh, I am traumatized after last month. The hell is this nonsense. argyle...DOS. This is the foundation for the school system. Seriously fam. How? I figured you might understand some level of this ridiculous nonsense .

I wish I didn't - the tech that our college system uses is janky as all get-out. One of my duties is to help field student tech issues, and the screwy system they use causes a good chunk of our tickets. The thing just flat-out won't work sometimes for no reason whatsoever until you clear your browser cache. Just gives one of those cryptic long error messages that no one understands until you do. It's the only website I've come across that does that consistently, just baffling. Not being an instructor I avoid a lot of the programs and accompanying paperwork they deal with, but I see enough of it to know I don't want any part of it. I feel for you!

OK, so two things. First, I finished Star Ocean: Second Story R the other night. I've had to process what to say about it. On the one hand, it's a ton of fun to play. The battle system is simple and breezy, button-mashy but in a fun way and fights are over quickly. Most of the heavy lifting strategy-wise just comes from setting up your party's special moves & abilities and the skill system. The skill system is really the "meat" of the game, it's very deep and a lot of fun to dig into and mess around with, and I was still coming to grips with aspects of it at the end (34 hours on the clock post-credits btw, and I did a little grinding). Putting points into skills to not only buff stats but to also unlock abilities for crafting, for earning xp and leveling faster, heck even for traveling over the world map faster - there's a lot to it. The individual characters are also nice, and I was invested in their stories to a point...more on that in a minute. They pulled the English voice acting from the PSP remake of the game, while the Japanese got options for the PSP voices or newly recorded ones. I wish they had re-done the English voices, because they are bad. I guess to a point it adds to the old-school PS1 RPG jank throwback feel, but they are just plain off putting at times. There's a ton of line reading where the inflections just don't match the dialog - almost as if they were given random lines to read with absolutely no context for them (which may be what happened, I don't know). I tried switching to Japanese briefly which sounds better to my ignorant ears, but I was missing a few random dialog snippets - mainly in combat - that weren't subtitled.

But the only real issue I had with the game is the overarching story, which is just flat-out terrible compared to other PS1 RPGs. I'm not going to go into it too much, but they introduce a group of 10 main bad guys about halfway-ish through the story called the Ten Wise Men. They don't bother even telling you the names of most of these guys until literally the final dungeon of the game, right before you fight them. And all of their personalities consist of "we are evil and powerful and want to take over the universe, and you can't stop us". It also does a similar thing to what Star Ocean 3 does where about half-way through the game a major event occurs that makes most everything you've been working towards & the story that's been building in the world up to that point completely irrelevant. Is that a Star Ocean trope? If so, it's a stupid one. The second half of the game is reduced to chasing macguffins, exposition dumps that either don't explain anything or give you interesting reveals that the game never really addresses again, and occasionally running into these generic villains to be reminded that you don't yet have the right macguffin to be able to hurt them. If anyone is interested I'll go into detail in a crim-style rant covering the plot. I mean, I don't want to spoil it for anyone if anyone here cares, but at the same time...what's to spoil? It's mostly nonsense, and definitely brings the whole game down. In the end, I enjoyed the gameplay and characters enough to get me through the short run time, but if it had been much longer I'm not sure I would have been able to keep dealing with the story.

Second thing, I booted Like A Dragon back up last night. A combination of cane playing it and the new game releasing inspired me (I'm hearing that playing through the first LAD as well as LAD Gaiden are practically requirements before tackling the new game). I read the summary up to where I was and while I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, I honestly think I was fuzzy on most of those same details back when I was playing it before - Yakuza plots are dense and hard for me to follow sometimes, especially since I have a block when it comes to English names, let along Japanese names that really run together for me. But I get the gist, so it's all good. I had stopped at the end of Chapter 9, right before the last boss fight of that chapter, so getting reacquainted with the combat was a little trial-by-fire, but after one retry I was back in the swing of things. I pulled up the videos crim mentioned to cane (thanks for recommending those to me back when I was playing, btw... ) so I'm going to head to the job office & swap some jobs around as soon as the game lets me. It was late, and there's a big exposition dump at the beginning of Chapter 10 that I think I stopped half-way through.

Anyway, I think I'm going to let this be my game for now, so I can stick with it until I finish it this time. I love the game, I was sidetracked before by...something (Elden Ring? Can't remember). And I'm not saying I want to rush it either. So I've decided to hold off on Granblue for now - as much as I'm looking forward to it, I want to play this & make my way to Infinite Wealth just as much. Probably going to import a physical copy of The Man Who Erased His Name soon - it's relatively short, right?

jfissel wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 7:22 pm

Yeah, that's it, thanks. The idea of that is really tempting. I wonder how it will turn out in terms of layout and writing quality. I'll keep it on my radar.

crimson_tide wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 8:03 pm
Bruh, there are THREE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS CALLED STARS THAT DO DIFFERENT THINGS! It should literally just be ONE thing. And the kicker, they have the elaborate system called Automate The Schools or ATS for short. This one is a command prompt system. I wish I were joking. It's just DOS. I...bruh, I am traumatized after last month. The hell is this nonsense. argyle...DOS. This is the foundation for the school system. Seriously fam. How? I figured you might understand some level of this ridiculous nonsense .

I'm continuing to enjoy Boku no Natsuyasumi. Such a charming game. It does a great job of being light-hearted and whimsical with an undercurrent of darkness from (adult) characters clearly dealing with their own demons. It's not in your face and constant, but it's surely there and does a great job of balancing flavors and highlighting the viewpoint of a child who is unaware of the issues and struggles that are part and parcel of adulthood. And it accentuates the feeling of innocence for the protagonist who is still free from such troubles, and adds to the overall charm. Really unique experience.

argyle wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 8:22 amProbably going to import a physical copy of The Man Who Erased His Name soon

I want to import a physical copy of it as well since I have physical copies of all of the other games in the series. I don’t know why they didn’t release it physically in the US.

crimson_tide wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 8:03 pm Infinite Wealth is slowly chugging along. I don't know how j is on chapter 3, I am still on 1. Unlike The Man Who Erased His Name, this is just taking it's sweet ass time. It's been all good thus far though! I'm a little bummed the discourse has been about Kiryu's voice actor (who is awful but just play it in Japanese with subtitles) and the new game plus paywall stuff. It's been a really strong opening and I feel really good about the pacing. I'm just going to avoid the negativity and play my game. Can't wait to get to Hawaii!

I wandered the city for the first 2 chapters doing a little side stuff, but there isn't much available. Hawaii though...oh boy, are you in for a treat. Love new cities in Yakuza games!

isthatallyougot wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 9:24 am

jfissel wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 7:22 pm

Yeah, that's it, thanks. The idea of that is really tempting. I wonder how it will turn out in terms of layout and writing quality. I'll keep it on my radar.

I decided to back it, was $184 after shipping so I hope it holds up. Unsure if it'll be purchasable after the next 4 days are up. They have made other books before and you can look at those for examples of how it should be structured.

argyle wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 8:22 am OK, so two things. First, I finished Star Ocean: Second Story R the other night. I've had to process what to say about it. On the one hand, it's a ton of fun to play. The battle system is simple and breezy, button-mashy but in a fun way and fights are over quickly. Most of the heavy lifting strategy-wise just comes from setting up your party's special moves & abilities and the skill system. The skill system is really the "meat" of the game, it's very deep and a lot of fun to dig into and mess around with, and I was still coming to grips with aspects of it at the end (34 hours on the clock post-credits btw, and I did a little grinding). Putting points into skills to not only buff stats but to also unlock abilities for crafting, for earning xp and leveling faster, heck even for traveling over the world map faster - there's a lot to it. The individual characters are also nice, and I was invested in their stories to a point...more on that in a minute. They pulled the English voice acting from the PSP remake of the game, while the Japanese got options for the PSP voices or newly recorded ones. I wish they had re-done the English voices, because they are bad. I guess to a point it adds to the old-school PS1 RPG jank throwback feel, but they are just plain off putting at times. There's a ton of line reading where the inflections just don't match the dialog - almost as if they were given random lines to read with absolutely no context for them (which may be what happened, I don't know). I tried switching to Japanese briefly which sounds better to my ignorant ears, but I was missing a few random dialog snippets - mainly in combat - that weren't subtitled.

But the only real issue I had with the game is the overarching story, which is just flat-out terrible compared to other PS1 RPGs. I'm not going to go into it too much, but they introduce a group of 10 main bad guys about halfway-ish through the story called the Ten Wise Men. They don't bother even telling you the names of most of these guys until literally the final dungeon of the game, right before you fight them. And all of their personalities consist of "we are evil and powerful and want to take over the universe, and you can't stop us". It also does a similar thing to what Star Ocean 3 does where about half-way through the game a major event occurs that makes most everything you've been working towards & the story that's been building in the world up to that point completely irrelevant. Is that a Star Ocean trope? If so, it's a stupid one. The second half of the game is reduced to chasing macguffins, exposition dumps that either don't explain anything or give you interesting reveals that the game never really addresses again, and occasionally running into these generic villains to be reminded that you don't yet have the right macguffin to be able to hurt them. If anyone is interested I'll go into detail in a crim-style rant covering the plot. I mean, I don't want to spoil it for anyone if anyone here cares, but at the same time...what's to spoil? It's mostly nonsense, and definitely brings the whole game down. In the end, I enjoyed the gameplay and characters enough to get me through the short run time, but if it had been much longer I'm not sure I would have been able to keep dealing with the story.

Wow, haha... I usually don't ask too much from a JRPG story. Simple DQ stuff is A-OK. That sounds infuriating.

argyle wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 8:22 am Second thing, I booted Like A Dragon back up last night. A combination of cane playing it and the new game releasing inspired me (I'm hearing that playing through the first LAD as well as LAD Gaiden are practically requirements before tackling the new game). I read the summary up to where I was and while I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, I honestly think I was fuzzy on most of those same details back when I was playing it before - Yakuza plots are dense and hard for me to follow sometimes, especially since I have a block when it comes to English names, let along Japanese names that really run together for me. But I get the gist, so it's all good. I had stopped at the end of Chapter 9, right before the last boss fight of that chapter, so getting reacquainted with the combat was a little trial-by-fire, but after one retry I was back in the swing of things. I pulled up the videos crim mentioned to cane (thanks for recommending those to me back when I was playing, btw... ) so I'm going to head to the job office & swap some jobs around as soon as the game lets me. It was late, and there's a big exposition dump at the beginning of Chapter 10 that I think I stopped half-way through.

All right!

One thing I recommend is you do as many side stories as possible and then use those characters in battle via Poundmates. Those cutscenes are some A+ entertainment. Nancy

jfissel wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 3:51 pm I decided to back it, was $184 after shipping so I hope it holds up. Unsure if it'll be purchasable after the next 4 days are up. They have made other books before and you can look at those for examples of how it should be structured.

Well, let us know how it turns out when it arrives. I'm tempted, but I really just want an e-book version. I'll probably end up regretting not picking it up, though. My kind of anthology.

WHOA!

Played some more LAD last night - chapter 10 is front-loaded with a ton of exposition, but it did to help get me caught back up so it's all good. Then I accidentally started a dungeon and got stuck in looking for a save. Ended up fighting a freakin' , which was awesome, but still no save. Next was the boss fight w/ Mabuchi and OH MY GOD THAT MUSIC ABSOLUTELY SLAPS!





So yeah, I'm digging LAD quite a bit.

argyle wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2024 12:12 pm OH MY GOD THAT MUSIC ABSOLUTELY SLAPS!

Yeah it does!

Friggin Mabuchi