Caught Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Valkyrie Elysium on discount. Starting with Star Ocean. Digging it so far. If you've played SO before you know exactly what to expect. Voice acting is a tad whack but that's par for the genre at this point. Pretty game with some good world design thus far. Think a more grounded in reality version of xenoblade environs. Combat is fast and furious with the new traversal mechanic at play which borrows heavily from the warp function of FF15, but the battles feel kinda uneven. One minute you are wrecking things, the next you've been inexplicably wiped by someone else. Boss battles being the main offender there because they'll drag you face first through hellfire and brimstone not 10 seconds after you one shot the most powerful mob in the dungeon. The bosses would be perfectly acceptable as is honestly; it's the mobs that need to be bumped up a bit.
Also there is a minigame called E'sowa that has some serious promise. Its like a weird combination of chess and triple triad almost. It seems kinda simple at first, and the difficulty on the early opponents is fair. When you beat someone you get a new piece though and you'll quickly notice those new pieces allow you to absolutely crush the early competition. You'll be rolling over everyone like half way through the master ranks. Then you get to that second half of the master ranks (btw master isn't the top, there are at least 2-3 more ranks) and suddenly you'll get destroyed outta nowhere. Somewhere around the first level 5 master probably. They start getting stacked decks as well and a lot of really useful pieces that will tear you apart if you don't plan for them in advance. Really like this little game, nice diversion.
Last edited by Sepholio; 04-16-2023 at 08:44 PM.
|