Segue Episode #2 – Over and Over and Over Again (RPG Roundup Episode 36)

Segue Episode #2 – Over and Over and Over Again (RPG Roundup Episode 36)

"Over and Over and Over Again" (RPG Roundup Episode 36). So what have we been playing? Lots of stuff! Today’s episode laments some of the more repetitive elements of Bravely Default and also questions some of the -um- wardrobe decisions of the denizens of Star Ocean 5. We also discuss Final Fantasy II, King’s Quest: Episode 1, and our progress in Dragon Warrior! Some FFXIV, FFXI, and Shining Force 2 also sprinkled in.

Episode 35: Persona 4 Golden—You are Yu!

Episode 35: Persona 4 Golden—You are Yu!

Platform: PS Vita

Release Date:  JP: June 14, 2012, NA: November 20, 2012, AU: February 21, 2013, EU: February 22, 2013

Difficulty: Medium

Pricing: $19.99

Podcast: Download, iTunes, PodOmatic

[He was so sad, he couldn't make a bear pun.]

The Good

• Teenaged characters that feel like real teenagers instead of adults in high school.
• Randomly generated dungeons that aren’t a cakewalk, but also don’t drag on forever.
• A good balance between the dungeons and the social aspects of the game. Need a break from dungeons? Do some socializing. Sick of Yosuke and Teddie’s perverted antics? Run some dungeons. Without them in the party.
• You have to do some planning when it comes to deciding how to spend your time. There are a lot of options—social links, making lunches, studying, working part-times jobs, and oh, yeah, rescuing people from the dungeons before the fog comes. There won’t be the opportunity to do absolutely everything.

The Bad

• Nothing, this game is perfect.
• Or almost perfect. Teddie could have been less annoying and less obsessed with finding out what a hot stud is.
• Getting the good ending involves a lot of places where it’s easy to misstep and make the wrong choice.

The Ugly

• The quality of education these kids are getting. There’s the teacher who uses sock puppets, the one who thinks she’s an ancient Egyptian, the one who’s more concerned with how sexy she is…And the exams that test you on things that are random trivia, like Napoleon inventing glass jars, or things you would hope a high schooler already knows, like what an atlas is.

• This thing:

[Not even the most disturbing Persona you'll get.]

The Lowdown: This is easily one of the best RPGS I’ve played. I love the characters (expect for Teddie and the murderer), I love the storyline, I love knocking the enemies out with an elemental weakness and the skull of dust that appears as the party members pile on to kick ass.

  

Music Credits

RPG Roundup Theme Song: “Video Game Theme,” J. Arthur Keenes Band. Creative Commons Attribution License.

Persona 4 Golden OST

Episode 34: Segue Episode #1 – Oh Where Have the JRPGs Gone?

Episode 34: Segue Episode #1 – Oh Where Have the JRPGs Gone? 

Download, iTunes, PodOmatic

We're now splitting up our What We've Been Playing and review episodes – have no fear, Persona 4 Golden should be out in about a month! Today we talk about Persona 5, Shining Force 2, and South Park: the Stick of Truth, among other games, and also about this year’s rather disappointing E3, although a few games piqued our interests. And what’s this terrible game called Magikarp Jump that we’ve been playing? Find out if you dare!

Episode 33: Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance – the Eyeliner of Evil Returns

Episode 33: Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance – the Eyeliner of Evil Returns

Platform: Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch

Release Date: 

PS4: JP March 25, 2015. NA October 6, 2015. EU October 16, 2017.

Switch: JP March 3, 2017. NA: May 23, 2017. PAL: May 26, 2017.

Difficulty: Easy at baseline, but the difficulty level is adjustable

Pricing: $49.99  

Podcast: Download, iTunes, PodOmatic

Review

[The Lost join Team Rocket]

The Good

• It’s a Disgaea game! Turn based, tactical combat! Zany hijinks! RED MAGNUS! RED MAGNUS getting shot by Seraphina! SARDINES—wait, no, wrong Disgaea game.
• The characters are really what make the game. The storyline itself is fairly straightforward—Stop Void Dark from taking over/destroying all the Netherworlds while also finding out why Killia hates him!—the characters are what bring the game to life. I was skeptical of Killia at first. He can come off as boring and bland at the beginning of the game, but he grew on me. His being a calmer character helps balance out the over the top party members like RED MAGNUS.
• Lightning disagrees with me, but I’m glad that the developers simplified some of the mechanics, like the mana shop. Disgaea 4 got a little overwhelming with everything that the game had and everything that you had to do to get new skills and boost your character’s existing ones.
• But I’m not always against new systems! I really like the Netherworld exploration that Disgaea 5 added, giving players the ability to choose characters to blast off into netherspace and investigate different netherworlds. It’s a good way to use some of the millions of extra characters you can end up having in these games.

The Bad

• The mini scenes immediately before and after a battle had a tendency to drag on. Especially once you have you have all of your party members and they all have to get in a line supporting/agreeing with the others
• The Killia versus evil Killia talks got a little old and repetitive, but did pay off.
• Getting the DLC characters right away broke the early parts of the games, since they were way stronger than any of the characters—including your main ones.
• The toning down of the early item world levels. If I’m going to the item world, I’m expecting a challenge, not a bunch of levels I can clear in one go while only getting one character out of the base panel.
• I miss the giant geoblocks the last game had. Throwing them at each other and watching a whole chain of them explode was deeply satisfying.

The Ugly

• What Red Magnus does to the toilets of Gorgeous.
• Void Dark’s obsession with his sister.

[Who wouldn't love Red Magnus?]

The Lowdown: If you like strategy games and wacky humor the Disgaea series is for you! Disgaea 5 is also a pretty good entry point to the series. You don’t need any knowledge of the past games for this one’s storyline to make sense and the developers have simplified some systems that were getting pretty bloated in Disgaea 3 & 4. The downside to this simplification is that the early item world levels are pretty boring. This game—and the Disgaea series in general—is especially recommended to people who enjoy grinding their characters to absurd levels of power. 

  

Music Credits

RPG Roundup Theme Song: “Video Game Theme,” J. Arthur Keenes Band. Creative Commons Attribution License.

Disgaea 5 OST

Episode 32: Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars—The One With The Boobs

Episode 32:  Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars—The One With The Boobs

Platform: PS Vita, 3DS

Release Date:  Japan: August 22, 2013. North America: April 15, 2014. EU: May, 14, 2014

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: $34.99 (Vita), 19.59 (3DS, on sale). Don’t pay $34.99 for this game.

Podcast: Download, iTunes, PodOmatic

[Triche know what his priories are.]

The Good

• Granted, I had very low expectations, but Conception 2 wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. 
• The main storyline did actually keep my attention and I wanted to keep going with it to find out what happened next. The individual storylines for the heroines were more hit or miss, with some of them being well done, like Fuuko and Serina’s, and others, like Feene and Torri’s, seeing like there was very little thought put into their plots. Ellie’s storyline, about hunting down Heretics, could easily be the base for a pretty interesting game premise.
• Although the Heroines fit pretty easily into set archetypes—Fuuko is The Girl Next Door, Narika is The Shy One, Ellie is The Little Sister, Chloe is The Big Sister, etc—I did like all of them and enjoyed the character scenes with them. I also appreciated that the Heroines were all friends with each other instead of the game being one big jealous catfight over the main character.

The Bad

• If the Hero dies, it’s game over, which is the most annoying game mechanic every invented.
• The dungeons were So. Boring. They were far too long with far too many monsters. It was a mind numbing grind, running through identical corridors and square rooms to fight palette swapped monsters. I took forever to finish this game because the dungeons kept making me want to doze off. The actual battle system isn’t all that interesting either, even with your parties of various Star Children.
• The game introduces potentially interesting systems, but doesn’t follow through with them. For example, near the beginning of the game, you’re warned to talk to the NPC characters to open up options. This matters once, with getting Fuuko into the Aquatics Club, and it never happens again. Conception also could have done more with the touch event system it advertised but rarely used. 
• This is a weird criticism, but I actually wish the game has been more perverted? Despite the premise, the game was kind of tame. You’re calling yourself Conception, you’re rated Mature, and the battle system revolves around pseudo-teen pregnancy. You may as well go all out at that point instead of limiting yourself to glowy naked bodies during classmating sessions and touch events that don’t go beyond holding hands. 

The Ugly

[Chlotz REALLY likes going to bathrooms with other guys]

The Lowdown: If you have insomnia, this game is a great sleep aid. The storyline sections were interesting enough, but the dungeons were incredibly dull. And there’s a lot more dungeon crawling than there is storyline. If you really want to play this game, buy it used and try to break up your times in the dungeons with time doing character storylines. I tended to burn through all the character storyline sections—because I actually enjoyed those—and then I would go on to the storyline dungeon. I think the game would have been more enjoyable if I had used the character storylines to break up the tedium of the dungeons. Especially since there’s no consequences for leaving and re-entering the dungeons or progressing to the next day in game.

  

Music Credits

1. RPG Roundup Theme Song: "Video Game Theme," J. Arthur Keenes Band. Creative Commons Attribution License.
2. Conception OST

Episode 31: Dragon Age: Inquisition: Part 2—The Trouble With Lord Woolsley

Episode 31:  Dragon Age: Inquisition: Part 2—The Trouble With Lord Woolsley

Platform: PS3/4, Xbox 360/One, PC

Release Date:  NA 11/18/2014, AUS 11/20/14, 11/21/14

Difficulty: Technically you can pick your difficulty level. We found normal mode pretty easy

Pricing: $39.90 for the Game of the Year edition

Podcast: Download, iTunes, PodOmatic

Find Part 1 at our website: talrpg.com!

Review

The Inquisitor is coming for you, Corypheus.

The Good

• The graphics are beautiful and there are a lot more character customization options than the past two Dragon Age games. Inquisition also expands which races you can play as. At last, you be a Qunari!
• The plot and characters are solid. It’s nice seeing some familiar characters—Leliana, Varric, Cassandra, Cullen, and even Morrigan—return and see what they’re now up to. The new characters are memorable and stand on their own instead of feeling like variations on what we’ve seen in past Dragon Age games.  It’s also exciting to watch as the Inquisition grows from a rag tag group of misfits to a formidable and influential organization.
• Inquisition also does a good job with creating side characters I care about. I’d love to see more of Scout Harding and Krem in future Dragon Age games.
• I enjoyed the world building in the two DLCs, The Jaws of Hakkon and the Descent, especially Jaws of Hakkon. Hakkon added more information about the Tribes of the Avvar and knew ways of looking at interactions with spirits—ways that probably won’t lead to demonic possession.

The Bad

• While still engaging, the storyline seems thinner than the past two Dragon Age games. The plot of the story seems to go from a big event to big event, without much connection or build up. There’s also less character development and less interaction with the party members. Additionally, there’s some important information that
• I was hoping for a more in depth exploration of Orlais. In Dragon Age Origins, the player really gets to know Ferelden, In Dragon Age 2, you get to know Kirkwall. In Inquitision…there’s not really any depth added to Orlais. They’re fantasyland France, they wear masks, they’re all obsessed with gaining political power and the Great Game. We already knew this. 
• The developers overcompensated for the complaints about DAII’s lack of exploration and repeated environments. A good chunk of the game is wandering around large areas or areas that give the illusion of space by having maps that don’t clearly show paths. The areas with the illusion of space are the most annoying, since you should be two steps away from what you need, but find that, actually, you have to circle a mountain to get where you need to go. There are still limited paths that you can take, they’re just better disguised.
• Dead enemies that you can loot or plants you can harvest don’t sparkle anymore. I miss the sparkles. L

The Ugly

• Corypheus’ face.
• 

You can never escape Varric's chest hair.

The Lowdown: Although Dragon Age: Inquisition is the weakest of the three Dragon Age games, it’s still an enjoyable game and a solid entry into the series. It expands the world in intriguing ways and the ending of Trespasser has me looking forward to the inevitable Dragon Age 4. Play this game, especially if you’re already a fan of the series, but move with the storyline faster than we did instead of spending all of your time in the side areas.

  

Music Credits

RPG Roundup Theme Song: “Video Game Theme,” J. Arthur Keenes Band. Creative Commons Attribution License.

Dragon Age Inquisition OST

Episode 30: Chrono Trigger: Part 2 – To Faraway Times

Episode 30: Chrono Trigger: Part 2 – To Faraway Times
Platform: SNES
Release Date: Japan 3/11/1995, NA 8/22/1995
Difficulty: Easy
Pricing: 9.99 on Wii Virtual Console

Podcast: Download, iTunes, PodOmatic

Terra’s Review

       Wait until you hear his rendition        of "My Heart Will Go On"

The Good

• This game knows how to handle time travel without making it confusing or giving people Star Trek level headaches. Chrono Trigger doesn’t get all philosophical about time travel or spend a bunch of time worrying about possibly changing the future. Changing the future is the point!
• Time travel also isn’t a quick fix. There’s no going back in time over and over again for a redo. Lucca gets one chance to save her mom. Yes, you can use time travel to save one character’s life, but even that isn’t as easy as just hopping into the Epoch and travelling back to when it happened.
• The storyline keeps a good balance between taking the threat from Lavos seriously and still staying light and entertaining instead of wallowing in super grimness.
• The characters are memorable and all get their own focus and time to shine.
• Recruit Magus and watch him kill everything.

The Bad

• Death Peak and stupid hiding behind the trees before the wind blows you back to the start. The game controls (at least in PS1 and Wii version) just aren’t precise enough.
• Magus’ boy band moves when he does a magic attack. J/k, those are amazing.
• The 2300 AD dungeons get pretty boring and repetitive. And let’s not talk about the race with Johnny. Or trying to catch that $%^*(& rat.

The Ugly

• Ozzie and his weird pants and his goddamned traps.
• Dalton
• This thing: 
  

       Everyone else uses a version of this image        to illustrate the game, why shouldn't we?

The Lowdown: This game is considered a classic for a reason. Chrono Trigger is a solid adventure story with engaging characters and time travel that actually works. The game has it’s serious moments, but doesn’t get bogged down in them, and is just plain fun to play.

Music Credits
RPG Roundup Theme Song: “Video Game Theme,” J. Arthur Keenes Band. Creative Commons Attribution License.
Chrono Trigger OST