Btw, do you like this kind of music? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIuXjHraRlg
Well I don't intend to deep dive into the series anytime soon - I do want to eventually but it's not a priority - though Nocturne and the Persona 2 duology are the ones that I'm most interested in. Outside of SMT, I also do want to finish NieR:Automata which I stalled after route A, and of course Ys Chronicles and Origin. I'd also like to play the Mana series though I sadly don't own a Switch for the collection, as well as some of the Suikoden games. Oh and I have an itch to replay just about all of my favorite games which I've only begun to scratch with FFX and .hack//G.U. now so that's a running project as well.
Yeah, I actually enjoy playing 9old school games for that reason to be honest. You have to be a bit more on top of things instead of flying by the seat of your pants. Papers Please is a little stressful but still really fun. I have a soft spot for Cold War era style films and media so the game is scratching an itch I didn't realize I had since MGS3. For SMT, I still need to tackle Digital Devil Saga 2, Devil Summoner Raidou 2, Persona Q, and SMTIV:Apocalypse. I need to finish Soul Hackers and the first Raidou Devil Summoner game, as well as SMT 1 where I'm on the last quest before the final dungeon which I am not looking forward to because that place is a labyrinth and I'm on the Neutral route meaning I have to explore all of it. Which ones do you still need to finish/play?
Decided to give Ys VI a whirl for a change of pace, damn those old games can be so punishing. Though I had a good chuckle when I entered a boss fight and due to me not being strong enough and damage dealt being pretty much literally (your attack stat - enemy defense stat) I did 0 damage with every attack, forcing me to reset. Fun times. Was easily rectified by getting a sword upgrade though. Backlog hell indeed >.< well no rush, not sure how the PS2 version stacks up to the rerelease anyways, but it is a game I like a great deal. Papers Please sounds interesting but both physically and mentally stressful as all hell O_o what SMT games do you still have to go through btw?
I feel Sakaguchi's greatest contribution to the games he works on is adding a real sense of charm and humor to his titles. I feel you can always tell which entries he personally had a hand in cause they tend to have more humorous moments or characters. Characters like Edge, Sabin, Yuffie, and Quina can all easily be stereotyped as comic relief characters when you think about it. He likes womanizers and old guys too, so they tend to pop up more often as well. Glad yo hear you're still churning along with .Hack//G.U. I still need to play through it properly. Papers Please doesn't have a whole lot going for it graphically, so I can see how screenshots don;t really do justice to it. Its really more about dealing with the moral dilemma of helping strangers who have it much worse than you, or simply sticking to protocol no matter how heartless in order to protect your family. The game is pretty challenging though as you really need to have both a good eye for detail and the ability to process information quickly. I'm a little too slow at the moment so I never get as much done in the time frame as a I would like and I ended up with the ending where I went into debt and had to go to prison. I have Odin Sphere, but it is unfortunately in my PS2 backlog hell along with a Lupin III game, a few SMT games, Metal Saga, and Yakuza. I meant to play it awhile back but got caught up with new shiny objects instead, which is my usual problem. I just picked up Tactics Ogre again since I'm practically at the game's end.
I see, maybe I'm romanticizing Sakaguchi a bit much in my mind ^^ I do miss Ito's hand in things more than anyone's I feel. Every time I read about his contributions to the games he worked on it blows my mind how much from that alone it feels like he just "gets" how player engagement and enjoyment works. Sounds about right in terms of difficulty lol. 4x Cut is so incredibly powerful. Though Ruby can get pretty tedious because it both has such absurdly high defense and yet can hardly really touch you if you got a Ziedrich. Hope you had fun still. I'm still on .hack//G.U. myself, just about finishing up the second part of the trilogy after about 45 hours playtime total, but it'll probably be another five or ten before I start the third to finish up at least some of the grindy sidequests. Didn't do it for the first volume, but they're a lot more rewarding this time. Heard a lot of good about Papers Please although I have a hard time picturing what the game is actually like to play, and all I've seen of it is making calls on whether or not to approve people's visas or permits of stay or whatever, but there seems to be a lot more to it. Curious, have you ever played Odin Sphere?
They really don't even need Sakaguchi to be honest, they really only need Kato and Mitsuda if you ask me. Cross changed so much that if Sakaguchi, Hori, and Toriyama did work on a new entry, they would likely make Cross non-canon by going in a very different direction closer to the original. On the other hand, Kato has worked on all of the Chrono titles, and even wrote the new content for the DS port, so I feel he would be more important honestly since Chrono is really more his series by this point. He just needs a better battle designer and perhaps a co-director (either Ito or Tokito) to keep him from going a little too crazy. Yeah, I finished VII earlier last week. Beat the hell out of WEAPONs and then crushed Sephy like a bug. I didn't get everyone to Lv. 99 because I was getting bored grinding levels, but I wooped his ass and he only got Supernova off once. I didn't even use KotR or high level spells. I had basically grinded out two 4X Cut materia so Cloud and Tifa wrecked him. Now I'm debating about going back to Kingdom Hearts, starting something new like maybe rehooking up my PS2 to play DDS2 or Unlimited SaGa, or maybe tackle some of the game son my PC. I did just start Papers Please, and had a lot of fun with it despite being terrible at it.
Ah I see... well I guess Sakaguchi being gone would also definitely have a big effect on any future entries, not to mention Ito's mysterious absence. I also heard there was supposed to be a third game called Chrono Break which got cancelled, or is that just an urban legend? Also curious, have you finished FF VII by now?
Mostly because the "band" broke up. The original three creators of CT were Sakaguchi, Hori and Toriyama who was working freelance with both. Sakaguchi was basically exiled within his company and eventually left after the FF Movie fiasco, Horii has outright stated he never wanted to work on a sequel ever, and Toriyama went back to his manga career. The few remaining people went on to make Radical Dreamers and eventually Chrono Cross. It did well, but again, most of the talent left with Kato the main writer and director leaving SE to go freelance. Yasunori Mitsuda was already going freelance himself but opted t o join the Xeno team who left the company to become Monolith Soft. Likewise, a few of the background game developers for Cross also left Square for Monolith Soft. The last person at SE who was pushing for a Chrono sequel was Hiromichi Tanaka who ended up resigning over the complete failure of Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 which he was overseeing. As far as my little research can tell, Cross did fairly well, not FF good, but great enough to become a Greatest Hits title for PlayStation. Sakaguchi mentioned that he pushed for a third game after Cross but due to just a lot of stuff going on at the time at Square, nothing substantial materialized that could be greenlight for development, then as I said, it seems like everyone who cared left. Whenever higher ups like Kitase are asked about the potential for a sequel, he kind of deflects the conversation by saying that in order to do it right, they would need to work out some issues with the key developers, signifying that a sequel would probably involve more of the CT team than just the CC one.
Oh man that really is a damn shame. Is it because Cross didn't match up to expectations or just... no apparent reason?
