Sea of Stars is meant to be a cross between SMRPG and Chrono Trigger.
The problem is, Chrono Trigger had fun characters. Sea of Stars does not outside of the pirate captain who happened to be some kind of wormhole assassin.
I would have given the party members points for saying they knew who said assassin was all along, except they even pretended they didn't know in private conversations between each other.
The problem is, Chrono Trigger had fun characters. Sea of Stars does not outside of the pirate captain who happened to be some kind of wormhole assassin.
One thing that was kind of funny was the pirate that told tall tales taken from old jRPGs and presented them as situations she had been in. As a player you only heard(read) a small snippet while interrupting the groups conversation but it was moderately funny.
Chrono Trigger was also pretty snappy when it came to combat. It could be a bit urgh when a roly rider jumped out of a bush but that was quickly dealt with using normal attacks. In SoS using normal attacks against normal enemies takes too many turns and they will have opportunities to hit at least one or two characters and take away ~20-40% of their HP. "Too many turns" using normal attacks means maybe 3, not that much, encounters would be pretty quick but mooneranging(hits everyone) the shit out of them eats up a lot of time. All three characters could have have performed normal attacks in the same or less amount of time. Then poison darting them(hits everyone) eats up the same amount of time. After that normal attacks is used to finish them off and regain some MP. Technically they are defeated in 1½ turns but it takes way longer than that. It's similar to the problems with summons in FF7.
Another thing that bothers me is that if someone is knocked down in a fight they will wake up after a couple of actions and have 50% health, but if you finish the fight they wake up with 1HP. Is the idea to stall?
Chrono Trigger was also pretty snappy when it came to combat. It could be a bit urgh when a roly rider jumped out of a bush but that was quickly dealt with using normal attacks.
A lot of turn based RPGs fuck themselves out trying to make things too dynamic when you actually want them to be snappy, specially depending on the encounter rate. If I'm going to be dealing with constant random encounters, I want to be able to proceed past them at a rapid rate even if it requires me expending resources, but if everything becomes a mini game to get me "engaged" it suddenly becomes an issue after doing it the first 10 times, much less 50. Basically if the game wants me to play Dance Dance Revolution, than combat should be sparse and impactful, as in 3 DDR sessions should nuke the boss, not 30.
An example of a good game that I think fucked up the "normal fight" balance is Radiant Historia. The game is fantastic and combat is strategic enough that you can't just plow through it, but this also requires using all your mechanics and eating MP like candy against normal enemies, so combat suddenly becomes very time consuming since just doing normal attacks takes ages and doing stuff properly, though quicker (though not by much), will consume a lot of MP, and at least at the point where I dropped it off, money is kind of scarce. The real killer is that you can swap to an easy mode, but can't swap back and in said easy mode you stab something in the overworld and it just explodes, no combat is triggered at all, so their solution to "combat with mobs drags out too much" was to just remove it. I still have to get the desire to get back to it, but it's always stuck to me as how an ambitious and dynamic battle system can work against you.
And well, pretty much any game that copies SMRPG tends to fall on that pitfall it seems for the most part.
Glad Bug Fables was brought up. I enjoyed my playthrough of it. My only real criticism, and it's pretty mild, is that it's not exactly innovative. It's basically just Paper Mario with bugs, and you technically have 3 "Marios" to put badges on.
No wokeshit either, despite what online weirdos say, missing the point of why one of your party members goes by "they".
Leif was in fact a man who had a wife and family. He died in Snakemouth long before the story begins. The Leif you play as is basically a bundle of cordyceps that thinks it's Leif. He's almost a gestalt entity.
Glad Bug Fables was brought up. I enjoyed my playthrough of it. My only real criticism, and it's pretty mild, is that it's not exactly innovative. It's basically just Paper Mario with bugs, and you technically have 3 "Marios" to put badges on.
No wokeshit either, despite what online weirdos say, missing the point of why one of your party members goes by "they".
Leif was in fact a man who had a wife and family. He died in Snakemouth long before the story begins. The Leif you play as is basically a bundle of cordyceps that thinks it's Leif. He's almost a gestalt entity.
I dunno, I think having 3 Marios that can all be customized with badges is innovative enough for me. I'd rather they play it mostly safe and do it well (which they did) than try to be too "unique" and end up being shit.
Man, Bug Fables is just real fucking good. I should play through it again. I was doing a run with all of the bonus options enabled (Hardest Mode, Ruiji Challenge, Frame-Perfect Guards, Badge Rando, can't remember what else) and was actually making pretty decent progress. I managed to beat the Mecha Bee boss only because I stumbled onto some quirk with its AI. Wish I could transfer my save from my Switch to my PC though, I barely touch the thing anymore.
EDIT: Checked my save and I made it all the way to the Rubber Prison, damn.
You're going to have to source me up with that one, big guy. Played the game twice and the only thing that could have conceivably been wokeshit is the unnamed lesbugs in one side-quest. Even then, you'd only know they were lesbos if you knew what species they were and how males and females are colored.
You're also going to have to specify which "main character" you're talking about, although I presume you mean Kabbu. I can't think of any point in the game where he's given any sort of romantic feelings for anyone, except maybe his Power Rangers doll. Though according to the wiki, he does like to crochet, which is pretty gay.
You're going to have to source me up with that one, big guy. Played the game twice and the only thing that could have conceivably been wokeshit is the unnamed lesbugs in one side-quest. Even then, you'd only know they were lesbos if you knew what species they were and how males and females are colored.
You're also going to have to specify which "main character" you're talking about, although I presume you mean Kabbu. I can't think of any point in the game where he's given any sort of romantic feelings for anyone, except maybe his Power Rangers doll. Though according to the wiki, he does like to crochet, which is pretty gay.
I am playing the rat games and yeah I can sense the politics of the dev are retarded.
Everyone is queer.
The fach are anti gay, music and liberty.
You can kill the fach
Actually let's count the queers..
The bard in a lucha libre mask is gay with a fat hamster
The dragoon lab mouse is bi and wants to fuck the stoat.
The stoat is gay deep down inside her.
The plaguemaster is non-binary and so clever that XER is above the concept of gender.
lol the lab mouse ask mouse guts if he likes boys or girls and he says he does not know.
For now it's still okay.
My main problem with the game is with the gameplay. You have so much ways to synergise and hit hard.
Like you can destroy nearly every foe in one round even bosses.
There's no stone strong enough to resist the party
Here's Rainshade, a game being made by Taxiderby, known for Undertale RED, working on Deltarune, and trying to make a Klonoa-style 2.5D platformer that never got off the ground.
I think he trooned out, but I can't remember. Definitely has traces of "Undertale" quirkiness, what with the game's reliance of furry characters and having someone who texts you Twitter-level quips.
The game does not really know where to go. You end up killing everyone like pure murder hobos and the protag just fucks off to "think"
My main problem is still with the gameplay.
You have so many tools to do ccrazy damage to the point where nearly every foe get wiped out in 2 round even the final boss.
One party member can rage which double his attack and has skills that make him attack 5 times.
You can spec him so he does more damage and does an extra hit and does 50% more damage to a type of boss
One character can refresh him so he acts again, some items can refresh him and another party member can debuff the boss.
In less than one turn you cna one shot nearly everthing.
It's not really satisfaying because the set up is so easy and op. You can just nuke everything with ease so defense and long term planning does not exist. A faillure gameplay wise imo.
The pixel art is good tho. The dev can make some nice pixel art cities, characters and animation.
I saw a mice today irl too. Little bugger was cute.
I have finished rat rpg in almost 8 years a few days ago but couldnt post back then, either way the game truly is at it's cringiest during the tree arc. One of the fascists literally starts talking like a "rational centrist" strawman and saying you have no logical arguments, your violence drove people to lock you and "so much for the tolerant ones huh?". After you down the fascist the gay squirrel literally paints everything in rainbows cause he's gay.
I feel the entire game is about hating authority and living your own life but it kinda goes too hard and fast, to the point it doesnt mesh with the quirky humour attempts. One rat king is just exploiting the city. The squirrel king is a fascist. The mole queen is old fashioned and would rather die than change her ways. The literal slave/gladiator master never had anyone oppose him. The lab rabbit is a blind devout to humans who raised him. All nobles use the excuse that there is no other option and get away because common folk being too retarded to know any better, with the only mayor being shocked at the idea of workers owning their own business. I dont understand how the rabbit gets the most sympathy (prob cause he's only trying to protect people) while having obviously transphobic undertones while the worried mole mother doesnt.
We also have the main character guts rat get CHEST BANDAGES post time skip which makes no fucking sense to me since he was only injured in his eye.
You can also literally interrogate "The final boss of nazism" who will stand till the end that YOU are the real fascist, except the dev actually tried sooo hard to make him sound pseudo intellectual they accidentally made the nazi sound legit intelligent and kinda based.
And while it was already mentioned, i cant explain enough how unbalanced the combat is. Other than maybe avoiding sidequests completely and the bonus lab boss, there is no challenge and every fight is the same flowchart. I only struggled on the bonus secret boss and even then no one died. You have essentially 3 cracked damage dealers (bleed + dmg + debuff at once / charge into AoE burst / charge into multi hit 2x dmg) and 1 guy who group heals and lets someone attack twice. Some stuff on the skill tree was never even fucking used like the late game skill that gives extra dmg against machines (there is like 3 machine enemies who are joke bosses) and i dont remember ever seeing the tipsy status effect. At least that makes the battles fast enough to not be totally annoying but still, what a waste. There is like ONE genuinely good boss fight at the tree where the boss changes form and gets covered in blood and it's totally edgy yes but i like it cause it was hype, but sadly everything later is tame.
I'll have a busy week but i'll try (read pirate) that In Stars and Time rpg game too and post first impressions here.
You get it if ou drink alcool and the bard has a skill making him hit 5 times harder if he's drunk.
There's 0 occasion to use it because you're better of letting the mage and the warrior just wipe the floor with everyone. The worst skill might be the last one the bard gets letting him do different things depending on the melody.
You get at the very end game. Like 3 fights left type of end game so you don't have the time nor reason to experiment.
And even if you wanted to use it it's useless because you can kill most foes before it's even it's turn.
You can also literally interrogate "The final boss of nazism" who will stand till the end that YOU are the real fascist, except the dev actually tried sooo hard to make him sound pseudo intellectual they accidentally made the nazi sound legit intelligent and kinda based.
Ah yes, it's "red skulls presidential speech" all over again. These retards are so detached that they don't understand how rat furers points hit a lot closer to reality than they can ever process. I'd love to see one of these faggots bring order in a post Sadam Irak.
Holy hell. Those are some impressively unappealing characters. It's almost as bad as that bastard from MediaMolecule who did the new Monkey Island.
It's even worse in motion. Something is very unsettling about it. Like watching millipede legs.
Some of the 3D looking tiles are jarringly pretty good but I'm starting to wonder if that's because they're just 3D models or not...
Also, that area with the brick walls and the fleur de lis in the background is trying soooo hard to be The Ruins from UNDERTALE. That sketchy world map of the castle is also suspiciously DELTARUNE-y.
