8/13/2013 LFT Update!
Posted by Laggy on August 14, 2013LFT has been updated with a few quality of life changes and minor balance tweaks. The major changes to note are:
- Random encounters now only occur when you deliberately select to move to the map location with the random encounter (i.e. you will never get random encounters while transitioning over a spot). The direction of your approach still matters for which encounters you can get.
- Starting generics now have preset Br and Fa values. Squires have 70/60, Chemists have 70/70. They also start at JLV2 for their respective jobs. You can rename them at the Soldier Office if you wish.
- Added no-music versions of the patch (in-game music disabled).
You can see the full changelog post here and discuss on the thread.
Finding a Stranger in the Alps
Posted by Grefter on February 14, 2012I game in Australia on the off chance that anyone that reads this site doesn’t already know. I want to have a little rant that is fairly common to hear from Australians on this here Blagosphere. Here is a brief dummy spit on the price of games and an example of a once abusive relationship turned boring and now only abusive out of habit.
Disclaimer: Post contains words you would not take home to mother ranted by some kind of bad man. Read at your own discretion.
An analysis of Breath of Fire 1 bosses.
Posted by Grefter on February 14, 2012In my campaign to write with some frequency on the forums I have been taking topics on from people in our IRC channel by demanding it from someone when they say something at an inopportune moment because I like to just be demanding for not particularly good reason. This is the results of one such scenario suggest out of left field by someone else. Beaten at my own game there I suppose.
Disclaimer: Post contains words of a vulgar and disgraceful nature by some kind of filthy swearmonger. Read at your own discretion.
Thematics: Suikoden
Posted by CmdrKing on October 31, 2011Even among RPGs, a misnomer genre descended from dice-aided storytelling guided by dense tomes of lore differentiated by setting, games that truly put a well-developed setting first and focus on how the player characters work in the world around them are vanishingly rare. Whether because the usual tropes are shoved into the framework of an existing setting, or because elements of the setting are simply afterthoughts, it’s exceptional to find a case where the setting and story work symbiotically. The biggest and most consistent of these exceptions is Suikoden, Konami’s long-running and distressingly ignored RPG series. Taking elements from a classical Chinese folk story, each game takes place in a small region of a larger world, following the tale of a hero’s encounter with the True Runes, and subsequently the story of how they are swept into gathering the 108 Stars of Destiny and changing the fate of their nation.
Top 10 Unbalanced RPG Characters (Who Break the Game in Half)
Posted by CmdrKing on September 28, 2011Usually when we talk about a character being unbalanced, we mean that it makes the game less fun. Fox makes Smash Bros. Melee less fun; you either have to play Fox, play one of his counters, or get your ass handed to you by an experienced player. He’s flatly better than the rest of the cast and it makes the one of the big draws the the game, playing as your favorite Nintendo characters, less viable.
RPGs are different. Unlike the fighting game or the RTS, RPGs are and have always been a single player experience. So when a character is unbalanced in an RPG, and leaves the rest of the cast in the dust, all that means is the game just got easier. And while having one character take the challenge out of a game might be frustrating, all of us have days where we say to ourselves “I want to snap something like a twig. Do things so unholy the world itself shall tremble!”
And some great characters for doing just that might be…
Thematics: L.A. Noire
Posted by CmdrKing on August 15, 2011It’s common in video games to wear themes on the sleeve. Whether because the writers are less experienced, or because it’s meant to be accessible to a wide range of ages and backgrounds, or because there’s something about the format which makes the lessons and ideas of a game’s story pop out a little more, who can say. Once in a while though you find a game with layers, themes upon themes, that examine the interplay between multiple core concepts rather than building a single central theme into a particular experience. Such a case, I think, is L.A. Noire, the game of corruption and deception.
Read the rest of this entry »
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Review
Posted by CmdrKing on August 9, 2011Platform: Playstation Portable
Developer: Nihon Falcom Corporation
Publisher: XSeed Games
Release Date: March 29, 2011
Back when the PSP was young, earlier games in the Legend of Heroes series were released for it. They looked like drab, boring little games, and it wasn’t until several years later that I bothered with the system. But now, in what we should really think of as coming from beyond the grave, a new Legend of Heroes game quite unlike the others has arrived. For starters this is an XSeed release, and I’ve learned that XSeed doesn’t give us a game if they’re not willing to stand by it and play it themselves. But more than that, just looking at the game reminds me a great deal of Skies of Arcadia, and I know that sort of high-flying, never say die spirit is something I really miss in my RPGs in recent days. Of course, that’s just looking at a box. How fair a judgment can be made from this cover? Read on.
LFT+Complete Update
Posted by Laggy on August 9, 2011After months of dawdling, the LFT+Complete patch (essentially LFT with most of the elements of the PSP translation incorporated) has been updated to the latest and tentatively final version.
Massive, massive thanks to the Vice President of the Great United States of America for his hard patriotic work in making this possible, and his help with the project in general.
The patch can be downloaded straight from here. For more information and/or patching instructions, just check out LFT’s main page.
Xeroma’s XBLA/PSN Reviews #2: Shadow Complex
Posted by Xeroma on August 8, 2011First off, I’d like to apologize for this review being over a week late. A few things came up that prevented me from writing the review as well as I wanted, including needing to play through the game again and watching EVO. My next review should be out of the door a bit faster than this one, and I don’t intend on making these delays a habit. And with that out of the way, let’s take a look at the next game, Shadow Complex.