The Legend of Heroes Series - Possibly The Most Underrated JRPG Series

Filler was probably the wrong choice of word
It's clearly a budget game that reussed assets like mad. But the narrative is very much not filler. It also plays so different to the rest that it's no surprise you were underwhelmed. I love it and Kevin is up there with Estelle as my fav main character, but it's an odd duck. Music I think is also some of the best in the whole series.
I just didn't really get on with how the game was structured. Exploring mostly the same areas for a third time and having the character stories being given (what felt like) randomly through the doors.
The format was kind of jank, though it was a great way to tell sidestories not focused on a main narrative. The days of Cloe at School or Agate headbutting with Tita's mother as well as all the setup with Olivier. And more neat stuff like the 3 hoodlums becoming bracers or the baby dragon faffing about which would be cliffnotes at best in a more linear game.
16 playable characters was also too many, and having to level and equip them all for the final dungeon was a bit of a drag.
Oh you sweet summer child... yes, 16 is too many, no, that's not the highest it will go.
Do I even want to know why you're laughing at me? How bad does it get?
Stupidly, as un more than double what you had to manage. Thankfully you can kind of bench most and trudge along and the games are very sensible with xp compensation. But equipment and specially orbment management is always a pain, I ended up just putting whatever on whoever wasn't my main posse of 4-8.

But don't worry, that won't be a problem till Cold Steel. Focus on Zero and Azure which I think are the best in the series and enjoy the ride.

As for Kuro No Kiseki I think I'm in endgame. The much smaller roster has been a godsend. But the power scales are really colliding with party composition. I of course allied with Ouroboros, no way in hell I'm passing on the option of hanging out with them (sad Renne didn't join the wild ride, wanted to see her banter with Walter), but you cannot make me believe for a second that Zin, Elaine and Fie can give any sort of problem to my team of 8 (yes, I imagine Agnes and Quatro would be deadweight in a non rpg context, but Van ain't no pussy, Barkhorn is supposedly a motherfucking beast) plus the Direwolf, whi is supposedly tied with Zin and the Golden Butterfly, who supposedly required the whole party except for Barkhorn to handle. I also get the impression that I'm barely learning anything. No idea why Quattro is acting like a boy and supposedly it's for a legitimate reason. Still no idea of how Risette ended in her robotic state, no real details on how Barkhorn survived and if it's related to the Reverie. Haven't seen or met Grimcatz senio and very senior. No real idea of what Van's deal is.

Also, Ouroboros have not felt like villians for ages, show me why they are dangerous raving lunatics, not tell me they had some booboos once. The Oathbreaker has a lot to do to get me respecting him like the other Anguis.

The ending is coming kind of out of nowhere where it just felt like the studio ran out of time and a climax was needed. Dingo dying (and I hope he truly is dead) did finally put some stakes on the table, but I think it needed some more time to let it breathe. And the death game with the nuke sounds pretty retarded though I'll give the game the benefit of the doubt about what the hell dies Almata really want.

Combat mostly devolves into spamming scrafts, not really liking the drive system, miss the old orbment closer to materia system.

I'm enjoying the game, but I think the formula is finally wearing it's welcome with me. Appreciate the reset, and Van is so much better than Rean though.
 
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Also, Ouroboros have not felt like villians for ages, show me why they are dangerous raving lunatics, not tell me they had some booboos once. The Oathbreaker has a lot to do to get me respecting him like the other Anguis.

Ouroboros have not felt like villains because I don't think they're the villains. The games have quite clearly made them out to be "for the greater good, by all means necessary" kind of deal, they're not "nice" people, but I don't think what they're trying to accomplish is necessarily evil. Weissmann was an outlier, guy was just nuts.

Also, judging from what you posted, you're not going to like Kuro 2, lmao. It's such a waste of time.
 
Weissmann was an outlier, guy was just nuts.
Novartis is basically a Mengelle type and the Oathbreaker "seems" like he would be another dangerous motherfucker. Half the enforcers are also supposedly bloodthirsty psychos. But then you see what they do and it's like... when was the last time Walter killed anyone? I can buy the Grandmaster being pure "greater good" but having a bunch of rabid dogs and strong personalities under you should be asking for trouble. I also think a lot of their edge has been removed purely because people like the characters so they aren't shown doing the blatantly evil shit we are told they do.
Also, judging from what you posted, you're not going to like Kuro 2, lmao. It's such a waste of time.
I've heard the stories... because it wanted to do something kind of like Reverie, right? So an excuse to put a ton of characters that have no narrative reason to be together in that point in time and also heard it barely advances the plot... definitely will let the series rest for a year before I go into that one.
 
They've definitely toned down the pyschoticness of characters like Walter and Shirley, to the point where I almost say they're character assassinated.
Ellroy is definitely a very welcome addition to the cast, but even given what happens in Kai, I still say Falcom are holding back with making him super irredeemably evil.
It just feels like really don't like making bad guys who are just bad guys; pretty much 95% of the villains we face throughout the series are either redeemed, or had some super, secret noble goal they were hiding behind their on-surface evil actions.

I've heard the stories... because it wanted to do something kind of like Reverie, right?

Time travel bullshit is involved. There are a lot of "dead ends" in the game where the characters die, and time is reset so you can pick different paths. It's so hilarious that the series finally kills characters only when time-travel fuckery is around to undo it. And character act like complete and total retards so that some of those deaths even happen in the first place. It's insanely nonsensical and asspully.
 
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Time travel bullshit is involved.
Yep, it's resting for a year if not 2... on a separate note, did you play it with the fanpatch? Does it have everything? I'm the type of autist that talks to every npc after each story beat.
 
Nah, played the Japanese version since I'm fluent enough to understand it.
 
Nah, played the Japanese version since I'm fluent enough to understand it.
Nice, I'm too much of a lazy fuck to get with the program.

On the Ouroboros front, I'm waiting for Stroganoff the Jaywalker to be introduced as a new Anguis, who doesn't respect traffic law if there is a kitten in danger. And Liederhosen the Litterer, his favored enforcer hyping him up about how much of a "bad hombre" he his.
 
Is there much in the way of woke stuff in these games?
No paradise.jpg
 
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He treated staff terribly and screwed over music department but technically he did create Falcom. A complicated legacy. But they will be able to manage without him.
 
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Is there much in the way of woke stuff in these games?
Recent ones reportedly have some significant localization issues, but from what I can tell there's a bit of it seeping into the original material too. I haven't played them but pay some attention to localization hijinks in general.

They just announced that the founder and chairman of the company Masayuki Kato died over the weekend. This is massive and could RADICALLY change every facet of the company and how they operate. Kato was very conservative with budgets, hiring, general risk taking, etc.

View attachment 6761113
That sucks, RIP.
 
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Is there much in the way of woke stuff in these games?
It's anime as fuck and gets more anime the farther you go. Woke stuff as such, I'd say no, but that doesn't mean there isn't overlap to culture war faggotry. You will see a shit ton of stupidly overpowered women but they are not girlbosses or what have you, you will see effeminate men or women acting like men, but they are not trannies or certainly not how it's understood in the west.

So expect the usual anime tropes, some harem shenanigans later down the line and a lot of power of the heart/friendship. It's also a very saccharine setting, specially the more you go forward. Some really fucked up shit happens here and there, but for the most part, everybody is tremendously polite and lots of "maybe the villain ain't so bad" sprinkled around. Its very pro "lets be friends and work together from all lines of life!" which is standard shounen, though one could argue that's globohomo doing it's thing for multiple decades in Japan after the nukes.

This is specially jarring in the latest game where there is a multiethnic nation that's telling me that there are lots of racial tensions, but outside of some old blood nobles complaining about it, I haven't seen shit about these tensions and the game clearly is not prepared or capable of tackling the topic, so I file it as "yes, their version of sandniggers are actually polite people that integrate while keeping their quirks". But it really takes you out when something like that is mentioned. You can't tell me about racial tensions without showing me ethnic gangs, aloha snackbars or some lynchings is all I'm saying. And the game clearly wants you to stand with "we should all be friends!"

Basically, I'm 10 games in, 12 have been released. The best is definitely the first 5 games. The rest takes a dive due to a Gary Stu main character that reeks of Chuuni writer, but never to a point where I just decide to drop it. Also, they are very slow burn games. Lots of "nothing" will happen while setting stuff up and getting you to care about the setting till things eventually go off the rails. Though 10 games in, the formula is showing it's age a bit.
 
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