/vr/ - Retro Games

Does anyone else keep thinking the thread's picture is of Cloud from FF7 laying on a beach?

I don't have anything to contribute because I already play every game like this no matter how bad of an idea it is, but I'd be interested in the suggestions.

>>2112958
Pretty sure he has exactly one, with Pahn... yeah, just checked. It's not anything special, but it's there.

It does everything right for a JRPG except the difficulty. Late in the game I was beating bosses without them ever getting a turn.

If you care about that, get the difficulty mod. Otherwise, it's a great adventure story.

Save at the beginning of the race and don't worry about winning. Just familiarize yourself with the right rhythm and really pay attention to your fingers.

It's not a huge deal. I skipped it on like half my playthroughs.

It's my most effective way of easing the stress of adult responsibilities and social expectations. Silly analogy, but when I'm playing my old video games, I feel like I'm in the hyperbolic time chamber. I don't think about my job status or the new taillights I need or the credit company I need to call. I don't really talk to anyone in-depth during this time.

It took me a long time to be able to balance this hobby with other aspects of my life, so that it doesn't interfere with my ability to support myself or devote appropriate levels of time to my fiancee. But a few friendships have suffered. A lot of things just don't amuse me at this point in my life, except music, and to a lesser extent reading or serial dramas. Video games are just ingrained into my existence.

Almost every name in FFVII is a pun. These were lost in the subpar localization or were just not feasible in our language.

If you wanted to write the English word "earth" in katakana, you would probably write エアリス. Lo and behold, this is what her name was in the Japanese game.

Aerith returns to the planet after she dies. She lives on in the earth. Her limit breaks, which include "Breath of the Earth", deal with the earthen/heavenly dichotomy.

While it doesn't perfectly convey the meaning, "Aerith" more closely resembles what the name is intended to evoke.

>>2109337
Well, you did go down a viable path. It's not as if the game broke and the character disappeared. For completion's sake, you experienced one of the game's outcomes.

Gex and Tomba. I've heard Klonoa is good, but I've only played it briefly.

Also, the Jak games, though those are all beyond retro.

>>2107249
that first paragraph was supposed to end with "If he's cutting through your fighters like butter, you probably just need better armor and the like."

Sarevok himself doesn't require a ton of strategy. He's just beefy. With enough buffs and magical equipment, you can protect yourself from his allies and chip away at them while keeping Sarevok at bay. If he's cutting through your fighters like butter.

I mean, six level eights taking shots at him is going to bring him down. You just need to know how to protect yourself. Fireballs? Protection from Fire. Getting charmed? Chaotic Commands. Cloudkill? If you're playing with BG2's spells, Zone of Sweet Air. Otherwise, you can just walk out of it. Web? Free Action.

Using summons isn't cheesy. If you have the resources, why not use it? You wouldn't hold back an army platoon because you're afraid of overwhelming the enemy.

So, I don't know anything about displays, but it looks like something about your setup is made to only display primary/secondary colors. Do other games appear normal when you pop them in?

>think about looking up a level chart just for reference
>realize I can probably name every level in order on my own

Jungle Hijinx and Ropey Rampage for atmosphere.

The Temple and Treetop levels. The latter especially; I love that art.

The outdoor snow levels, more on atmosphere than challenge.

Most of the last world, except Tanked Up Trouble.

>>2089280
Although sometimes if you wait to get a mage, they'll start with different, possibly more powerful spells.

>>2088145
They're not awful, there's just nothing spectacular about them. Montaron's Fighter/Thief combo is unique to the game, I think. Most BG1 characters are serviceable, aside from like, Quayle or Tiax. Others have interesting unique items or abnormal stats. I don't think anyone in your projected party has any of that (though that doesn't necessarily make them better or worse).

>>2088130
You can only take 6, unless EE changed this. I'm also not sure if you still need to take Dynaheir with Minsc, which would sort of break your party unless you just murder Dynaheir after completing their quest.

>>2088072
There's that CON belt in BG2, though. It jumps you up to 18 for 8 hours.

Long swords I guess, since this is being considered in the scope of both games. Long swords and short swords have the widest range of choices in BG2.

I mean, you can put Carsomyr on Keldorn instead, who's worth taking if you can fix his Dex score. But you don't really need the super weapons to beat the game on Core Rules difficulty. It'll make Throne of Bhaal easier, though, since you can further upgrade those weapons.

>>2087963
Well, you fight the important ones. Hammer, Miang, Grahf, and uh, you get to watch Elly fight those two flunkies who are fused with their gears. The rest are just Wels, and you get to fight plenty of those.

I thought the Zeboim sidequest was satisfying, though more of those picture slides and information blurbs would have been nice. What we -really- needed was the Zeboim game (part 3 I think?).

>>2087931
The events of the second disc are those which evoke the strongest emotions within me, and it's difficult to say whether that would have happened if it was presented in the same way as the first disc.

Something that just occurred to me is that on the second disc, the only real enemies left are the remnants of Solaris, Wels, Krelian's forces, and the Angels, and in fact they are all adequately represented in the playable parts of the disc (plus you get your fill of fighting Solaris and the Wels on the first disc anyway). The one truly interesting Disc 2 dungeon would have been the Eldridge, though that's arguably already accomplished by the Babel dungeon. After all, one of the greatest criticisms of the game is all the time you spend fighting random encounters and navigating shitty jumps, and Disc 2 cuts down on these things.

also that art is amazing

>>2087936
Sort of like the idea of a beauty mark.

>>2087906
This might sound like a reach, but I think if the game was completed and fully self-sufficient, it might not be as remembered or discussed as it is today.

Amazingly, the Chu-Chu backstory kind of legitimizes the character. Too bad xenoverse.xenotensei.com died.

>>2087886
There's a boss on the second disc that locks up the game whenever it uses a particular attack. The only workaround is to save state every turn and load if it uses it. It doesn't really screw up the challenge because it's a gimmick boss anyway.

Other than that, there's like two points in the game where parts of the screen show up black, but you can easily fix this, I just don't remember how at the moment. Even if you don't, it doesn't break the game; one is a cutscene and the other is a short dungeon.

It's an amazing game that could be made a lot more palatable by today's standards if there was a bad enough dude to clean up the translation and rebalance the combat.

If you like JRPG stories from that era, Xenogears is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest. You sort of need cursory knowledge of the Holy Bible and Gnostic texts to fully grasp the parallels, but it's still enjoyable on its own.

Is it worth playing on a tight schedule? Sure, considering you'll have save states. If you get stuck in a text dump and need to go, you'll be all set. There is also actually a Gameshark code that speeds up the text, though I've never tried it.

As for the random encounters, yeah, it's bad. You can cut down on them if you save state past the awkward platforming segments.

I've played through the entire 50 hour game at least ten times; it's my favorite game, so I'm an extreme case, yet I can't help but strongly recommend it despite its flaws.

OK, so I need Chunky to open this door, and I need to come back with Diddy at some point to get those banana bunches. But I guess since I'm Lanky at the moment, I might as well follow this trail of blue bananas. It leads to a doorway, guess I'll head in. Wait, now I need Tiny? But blue bananas led into this room. Oh well, I guess I'll go back out to the switch barrel and get this out of the way. Let's shoot the feather switches... now twenty feet down the tunnel I need Chunky to lift this rock? But there's a yellow balloon and yellow coins here.