Very limited activity on Lemmy right now.
I think I’m past having time for an RPG like Trails, but I might watch someone stream it one day.
Probably applies to me as well (my backlog is getting absurd), but I simply can’t resist certain series. 😆
This year is going to be rough on my free time, we’re getting 3 Trails games (Daybreak 2, Horizon, Sky FC Remake), a Xenoblade and an Atelier.
That game is pure crack.
Managing to assemble a deck broken enough to get past Ante 12 was one of the most satisfying gaming moments in recent years.
The main issue with playing these games out of order is that you get some spoilers from previous arcs. As an example, there’s a character storyline from the Sky trilogy that is finished in Zero.
But if you’re OK with that I’d say “go for it”. I played the games up to CS3 out of order (Sky 1/2 -> CS 1/2/3 -> Sky 3 -> Zero/Azure) and I don’t think it hurt my enjoyment of the series.
Just keep in mind that the later games in CS storyline (3/4/Reverie) ramp up the connections to Zero/Azure, which is why I paused after CS3 to go back and catch up on the older games.
Finished Trails Through Daybreak II!
JRPGs usually end with an epic struggle and tons of battles, but this game does something different for its final chapter - you solve a few cases, enjoy bonding moments with your party, then go through a short dungeon with only two boss battles to close the last unsolved mystery in the game.
It’s very subdued for a finale but I loved it. The last battle was particularly awesome, and the ending had some good emotional moments bringing closure to events from Daybreak 1.
I complained a lot about this game’s poor usage of the time travel gimmick, but the way you jump through time mid-battle to the an earlier confrontation with Grendel Zolga, then jump again for a quick rematch with some of Daybreak 1’s bosses was really cool.
The boss being able to “break” the turn-based battle system and force you into action combat for a short time was also a neat touch, it gives it a strong sense of power as this is something no enemy did before.
Overall, I’ll stick by what I said last week - this one goes on the lower tier of games in this series, but I still had a ton of fun. As a final note, Trails Beyond the Horizon just got announced today, so we’re finally catching up to the japanese releases!
Playing Tevi!
Rabi-Ribi was an incredibly pleasant surprise, so I decided to play this “spiritual sucessor” from the same developer.
They clearly had a much bigger budget with this one. Visuals and animations are much more detailed, there’s a proper story, plenty of fully-voiced segments including famous japanese VAs, and a more in-depth and customizable combat system.
It’s more linear than Rabi-Ribi, but the same applies to pretty much every game in this genre. 😅 The only real complain I have so far is the relatively low number of saving points, I tend to play these games in short bursts and sometimes I have to keep going for longer thay I’d like before I find a proper place to stop.
I have been interested in SMT V, but am afraid of the difficulty, I am not very good at these games.
Should not be too much of a problem.
I didn’t find the Normal setting too hard, but if you struggle with it there’s an Easy difficulty and IIRC you can change it at almost any time. And there’s even a Free DLC adding a Super Easy “Safety” mode.
With trails game, I guess they can reuse assets from one game to next
Yup, there’s a ton of time saving there since most of the games in the series are part of a “duology” that takes place in the same country, with the same characters and so on. Which is also good for players since waiting only one year makes it less painful when a game ends up in massive cliffhanger. 😆
Though I just double checked and Reverie -> Daybreak -> Daybreak 2 were all one year after the other which is highly unusual, even more because Reverie -> Daybreak not only takes place in a different setting but also marks a change of the in-game engines.
As for Trails Through Daybreak 2, they seem to have annualized the series. This one was released just an year after the first game. They should probably start taking some time.
Trails games are usually released in pairs, then there’s a break before the next one. The developer works on a “one game per year” schedule, so they rotate between Trails, Ys, and sometimes a new/different game like the recently announced Tokyo Xanadu sequel.
The reason we’ve been getting so many of them in the west is because we were far behind on releases, Daybreak 2 has been out since 2022 in Japan! From what I heard NISA is very happy with the sales of the series, so they’ve been been rushing to localize the remaining ones.
Right now there’s only one left until we’re finally caught up (Kai no Kiseki, released in Japan last September), then we’re probably waiting a couple years for the next one.
Finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations
Glad you liked it! I think it’s still one of the best games in the series to this day, with only two others (Investigations 2 and Great 2) being contenders for the top spot.
Next in the series is Apollo Justice. Not going to get it right away, but will probably get it later this year.
AJ is unique because it’s fairly ambitions and tries to make major shifts in direction in the series. It doesn’t succeed (a VNDB review calls it a “beaultiful failure”), but the fact that it tried to be different still makes it an interesting experience.
Started Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition ! my first impression is that the game mechanics in start are more overwhelming, at least when compared to XC 3, but it is an older game.
I’ve always felt that overwhelming the player with mechanics is part of the “Xenoblade experience”. 😆
But yeah, I agree XCX goes a lot higher in complexity than other games. Been a while since I played it in the WiiU but I’m pretty sure I beat the game without completely figuring out some of the mechanics.
I always have FOMO when leaving out my party members
That was a major pain point on the original WiiU version as people outside your party didn’t get any experience, making it much harder to swap team members an get affinity to unlock their storyline. Thankfully it looks like this was fixed in the Switch version.
Playing Trails Through Daybreak II!
Reached the Final Chapter. It’s a good game and I’m having fun, but it’s definitely in the lower tier of games in the Trails series.
Story is weak, relying too much on certain (annoying) tropes that Falcom loves to use. It’s also lacking the higher stakes and more adult themes that I praised the first game for, and feels like it was rushed and needed a bit more development time.
Played the Atelier Yumia Demo!
One thing I respect about Gust is how they are always experimenting and trying new things with the Atelier series. Yumia feels very different from recent entries, more serious and story-focused instead of slice-of-life.
Exploration is open world, even more than Ryza 3. Combat is similar to the Ryza series being an ATB variant, but adds a bit more action elements like movement and dodging. Alchemy is a bit simpler (at least at first glance) but comes with some interesting QOL features like the ability to synthesize common items while exploring the world.
My initial impression is that I’m going to enjoy this game, but it probably won’t make my list of “Favorite Atelier games”. Let’s see if the full game changes my mind.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations
About your spoiler: We all do.
Playing Trails Through Daybreak II!
Almost done with the “Fragments” Chapter which was quite good. At the start it just looks like an intermission/relax/beach episode, but then things get way more serious, we finally get Quatre’s backstory and also more information about the D∴G Cult.
I also really like how it fixes one of my complaints from last week.
I mentioned last week that I wanted the “Dead Ends” to be avoidable with good choices, and this chapter did that. I didn’t even realize I had dodged some deaths until I reached a mandatory “Dead End” much later and saw the timeline chart.
I played the first one a while back and really liked, was considering going back to play the others so a bundle like this is very convenient. And it looks like it’ll even have a physical version.
Comments from Google accounts on Twitter and Reddit say they are working on a fix.
Hey there, we’re aware of an emerging issue impacting Chromecast 2nd gen and Chromecast Audio devices and are working on a fix. Do not factory reset your device - we will keep you all updated when the fix rolls out. If you have already factory reset your device, we will provide instructions to set your device back up as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
Playing Trails Through Daybreak II!
Currently on Chapter 2-A.
Enjoying the game, but not as much as the previous one. It’s partially because it’s not as “fresh” due to it reusing the same cast and locations, but there’s also issues with the main plot that so far feels too much like “filler”. The usage of the main gimmick has been underwhelming too.
The idea that you can get “Dead Ends” where your party dies and time is rewound is cool, but asides from the first “oh crap” moment in the prologue it’s not been very well used. As an example we had Chapter 1-B which made you go through the same dungeon twice (thankfully with a shortcut), and fight the same boss thrice with different party configurations which was just boring.
I also dislike that the the “Dead Ends” are mandatory, I feel they would be way more interesting if you could avoid them with good choices.
I really like the expanded cast, finally getting more time with Elaine is great and Swim and Nadia have a fun dynamic with the rest of the group. I’m also enjoying the approch of having “sub-chapters” with different teams, it’s a good way to use such a large number of characters while giving them all some time in the spotlight.
One thing I’m definitely disappointed is the Marchen Garden. I enjoyed the Reverie Corridor a lot and was expecting something similar, but this was a big downgrade. The dungeons are boring and long with crappy rewards, it doesn’t have the fun character interactions that Reverie had, very few options for minigames and no story-related content like the Daydreams.
Going to be interesting to see how this runs on the Nintendo platforms.
I got interested in their previous game (Aetherna Noctis) due to how much praise it gets from metroidvania fans, but from what I could find out even after 2 years the Switch port was still very buggy and crash-prone.
At least they’re still trying to fix it, I saw they released a patch earlier this week. But no idea if it’s finally in good shape or not.
Edit:
It was updated today and it’s even worse…it’s crashed on me 5+ times today
Found a this comment on reddit, so it doesn’t look very promising.
I wasn’t planning to post here… was just checking the formatting and accidentally posted it instead. :D
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations
It’s almost universally considered one of the best in the series, and one my favorites to this day. Hope you enjoy it!
Alan Wake Remastered
Played this back in when it was released for the 360 and loved it. Like you said is less horror and more of a thriller, clearly inspired by shows in the vein of The Twilight Zone.
Playing Rabi-Ribi post-game!
… and it’s absolutely crazy.
It starts with you going through a huge area where old bosses show up as regular enemies (at least you are not required to fight them), folllowed by a puzzle-like boss who mimics your equipments so you have to figure out what is worth equipping and what buffs the boss too much, continuing with a 19 boss rush without saves (thankfully they are scaled down and there’s a few checkpoints in the middle), and finally a boss who not only is fairly hard but also has 5 life bars. And that’s only Chapter 6!
But honestly? It was quite fun. Really challenging and made me sweat a lot, but never felt insurmountable.
Chapter 7 was relatively tame compared to the previous one, just a big area with a ton of plataforming challenges. And now I reached Chapter 8 which finally lets me go to the Library area… let’s see what awaits me there.
Playing Trails Through Daybreak II!
Finished the Prologue and Overture chapters and the plot throws has some interesting early-game twists.
Looks like the main gimmick this time will be time travelling and alternate timelines? It was a cool to see the heroes initially lose in the prologue and having to redo the timeline to succeed.
Loved that we get Elaine right on the prologue (hoping she sticks around as a regular party member this time) and that also see the return of two members of the “Imperial Picnicking Front” from Reverie.
On the negative side, the visual quality on the Switch version is a much worse than recent Falcom games and it’s bad enough to become distracting at times. A shame considering both Daybreak 1 and Ys X looked and ran reasonably well on the platform.
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Can I ask what’s the deal with Persona 3 or 5 having multiple titles (Royal, Strikers, Tactica) under the same number (P5)? Are those relating stories, while the new numbering means a separate story / world?
Atlus has a habit of releasing “upgraded/improved” versions of their games:
The “upgraded” version effectively obsoletes the original version as they include expanded storylines, improved QOL and so on.
Other games like P5 Strikers or P5 Tactica use the same cast but with a different gameplay style. They’re usually meant to be played after the original game and should be treated as as spin-offs or sequels.
Glad you liked my recommendations!
Feel free to ping me for more suggestions, I’m a massive JRPG fan and have played a ridiculous amount of games in this genre.
Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal both are available on Switch
Reload is not available on the Switch. 🙁 But since it’s available on the XSX OP can still get it.
I’m seconding most of your recommendations, except I’d recommend Atelier Sophie 2 instead of Ryza mainly because it’s a more traditional turn-based battle system instead of the action/turn-based hybrid Ryza uses.
I think Lilies has a better mood/setting than its sequel, but Magnolia is absolutely fantastic and improves on almost everything else - and Lilies was already a damn good game. I finished it earlier this year and left a spoiler-free mini-review in one of these threads.
One thing worth mentioning if you’re coming from Lilies is that Magnolia is significantly easier on “Normal” difficulty, so if you prefer more challenging games you’ll probably want to up the difficulty.