Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

Holy crap, that Necromancer you fight in Chapter One of Tactics Ogre is an absurd difficulty spike. I've been playing for hours since and nothing has come nearly as close to how hard that was. Really odd design.

That aside, this game is addictive as hell. It does a really bad job at tutorialising anything, but it also becomes half the fun when you finally figure out what something does by accident. I also love the option to add AI profiles to your units. I wish they offered more granular options for how they behave, but for the most part it works really well. The game has a lot of classes, and it isn't always clear what a unit's role or kit is, so I just let the CPU make use of them on the battlefield and when I see how they use them, I can make more informed choices with them.

I'm still not really sure I am gearing anyone correctly, I'll get units with say a sword and like 9 out of their stats would be buffed if they used a bow instead, but all their skills are built around a sword, so I guess they are designed to use a sword? But then why does a bow make their stats better? No idea! But I'm quite enjoying bumbling myself through to see what happens when we get into a battle.

I’m probably going to end up buying Pokémon Scarlet or Violet at some point this week. I know it has its issues, but there’s something about the Pokémon setting that really appeals to me.

I finally finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3 over the weekend! 4 months and 120 hours that took me. It’s certainly not the longest game I have played, but I am really struggling to think of a single player game that I played over such a long period. XBC2, for example, I played over 200 hours in 1-2 months. Pillars of Eternity 2 and Divinity OS1, both around 100 hours in 1 month.

I’m really not sure why it took me so long. The story didn’t grab me immediately, but I really enjoyed exploring. I tried to avoid fast travel as often as was realistically possible, so often I’d jump on for an hours play and basically just get distracted looking at the gorgeous environments, fighting a few monsters and enjoying the soundtrack, while making no actual story progress. I also have had a pretty difficult few months in some ways so it has been a welcome escape that I have not wanted to rush to the end of.

The story really gripped me after about 60-70 hours, and stayed interesting to the end. In the end though, I was worried I would lose interest so called it quits with the side content and pushed through to the conclusion. I have to say I enjoyed the ending a lot, despite not getting closure on a few things. And it also doesn’t help that playing it over 4 months I was literally forgetting entire characters and plot points from earlier in the game, so overall I’d say there are quite a few plot points that just didn’t make sense to me… but it doesn’t really matter.

Now I have seen the credits, I have gone back to exploring the map and dealing with the optional content, of which I have loads left. Really, this is how I enjoy the game the most, so I plan to keep playing it like this for a while with the pressure to see the ending entirely off.

Excellent game, overall better than XBC2 and up there with my favourite Final Fantasy game. It really pushes the Switch, too.

Very keen to see what they do with the story DLC, and what the developers do next.

@kyleforrester87 XC3 is destined to be a bit controversial, I think, due to the way the game is structured and paced. I wasn't sure how to describe it at first, but I watched a film recently about a couple of cannibals who fall in love while driving across America, and I realized that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is very much the JRPG equivalent of a road movie. The eventual destination of the plot is less important than the journey there; self-discovery and experiencing the world trumps a focus on setting up elaborate series of crazy plot twists. Thus, I believe, the laser focus on fleshing out in-group dynamics, the far more meaningful and elaborate side-quest writing, the fixation on existentialist themes about finding meaning where none exists, the transitory nature of life, showing how various groups of people adapt to similarly bleak social circumstances, etc.

That's... unusual for a JRPG, though, and particularly for a Xenoblade Chronicles game, where the plot is usually the end-all, be-all aspect of the experience, and all of its build up is in service of the almighty Plot Twist. The game does do a bit of that near the end (especially that long stretch of cutscenes and boss fights between chapters five and six), but even the fighting God moment with the final boss, which I'm beginning to suspect is a contractually obligated aspect of this genre, works far better thematically than it does as the capstone to the story.

By the way, I hope you hadn't already been spoiled on the reveal that Rex went Full Chad as an adult. It's SUCH a funny little detail that it didn't take long for people to start spamming it all over the internet.

If XC2's expansion is anything to go by, the expansion might end up rivaling or exceeding the quality of the main game itself. I'm very excited to see how the story DLC pans out.

@Bentleyma It's a fun game. Go in expecting jank and you'll be able to laugh about the performance stutters, the terrifying NPC faces, the numerous visual glitches, etc. It's broadly worth it to play another Pokemon game where you're left alone to do as you please most of the time.

@Ralizah Make sure to put your thoughts on Bones and All in the movie thread, I love Luca Guadagnino but the premise alone makes me not want to watch it at all so I’d appreciate your input!

@Ralizah lol I didn’t quite know what to make of the photo of him with the women and the babies, but having looked into it, that’s pretty funny. Fair play to him, his life must have been pure hell frankly but he seemed to take it all on the chin during the game! I am assuming Nia is Mio’s mum, though not sure how all that was supposed to play out frankly. Maybe I’ll find out more as I carry on with the Hero Quests. Enjoying having her back in the party as a Hero, though.

New Pokemon S/V update is apparently already smoothing out some of the game's rougher patches in terms of performance. The issues in these games usually go unresolved, so it's promising to see improvements happening so soon.

@Ralizah I have a feeling that my sister might be getting me Violet for Christmas so hopefully it’s got a little less giant terrifying humans and awooga eyes by then 😂

@nessisonett

Haven't run into any of the hilarious looking bugs in this game yet.

Plenty of terrifying looking NPCs, though

20 hours into Pokémon Violet now and my first major criticism is the lack of level scaling. At first I thought there was level scaling in the game because as I progressed, the areas and gyms were very close around my level. But when I got to the east side of the map as I was going around it clockwise, the Pokémon started appearing 10 levels lower than my team. Then I realised the more south I went, the more lower-leveled the Pokémon would become, as would the gyms. This really sucks as I thought the game would adjust accordingly but it doesn't.

So I've decided to "temporarily start over" by choosing a new team of low-leveled Pokémon and go east from Mesagoza this time. There are multiple new Pokémon I've wanted to train anyway so this works out perfectly. It also means that all the challenges on the right side of the map won't be pushovers due to me having a high-leveled team. So I guess the fact that there is no level scaling can be seen as something negative but also positive. But obviously, you shouldn't have to do something like this in order to have a balanced experience. So I still stand by that this is probably the biggest flaw of these games.

@LtSarge level scaling sucks though, what’s the point in making your party stronger if everything just gets stronger with you..?

I do get it can feel frustrating steam rolling some enemies and bosses, but the way I see it you’ve earned that luxury and as long as there are other same level/higher level encounters available elsewhere I am good with it.

@LtSarge I'm actually having less of an issue with the lack of level scaling than I thought I would. Mostly because the flow of how the open world is laid out invisibly guided me to areas that were around my level.

There were a couple of gyms I was wildly overleveled for, a few that I was underleveled for, and the others were around where I should have been at the time.

As such, the difficulty has been more satisfying as well. Some of these base raids and titans have actually provided a bit of a challenge! Not enough to kill me, but enough that I had to use potions, revival items, and come up with strategies to keep from dying, which is all I want in one of these games, tbh.

Approaching the end of the game now, since I've apparently reached the endpoints for all three story paths.

@kyleforrester87 I mean, enemies generally grow stronger in games as you progress anyway. Level scaling just ensures you can experience the game at an optimal level of challenge at all times. Also, leveling up Pokemon allows them to learn better skills, and progressing through the game gives you access to more mons.

@kyleforrester87 Because half of the game you'll have a normal experience while the other half you'll be overpowered. The further you progress north in the game, the harder the areas/gyms become. Which means if you go around in a circle (as you do in this game), you'll go from easy to hard to easy again. This is the issue of having an open world RPG with no level scaling.

@Ralizah I just can't imagine challenging the grass-type gym that will probably be between level 10-20 with my team of level 40s. It's not just fun. But the thing is that I've always rotated out my Pokémon in the previous games, so this isn't something new for me. But it's still weird that it's structured like this. It doesn't feel like a true open world because some areas have high-leveled Pokémon and some have low-leveled Pokémon. I want to feel like I can go wherever I want and still encounter the same level of challenge but I'm not getting that feeling in Violet. It still feels like I need to follow a certain path, just like the previous games.

@LtSarge @Ralizah but why have levels at all then in an openworld Pokémon? I see what you’re saying and it’s arguably a problem but it’s also maybe a lazy solution too

@kyleforrester87 You learn new moves. Pokemon evolve. It provides a sense of progression.

In a well-balanced linear RPG, you don't need to level grind anyway, so it amounts to the same thing.

I guess the flipside is that it does feel great being able to tackle higher level challenges early on. I'm fighting for my life in some of these endgame challenges in Scarlet, and that's largely because I'm a tad underleveled. For the second time in a year, a Pokemon game is kicking my teeth in. And I didn't need to handicap myself: I just didn't go out of the way to grind or anything.

Maybe the solution is to have partial level scaling. No scaling for wild Pokemon, but bosses have to be at least as high level as your weakest Pokemon if that's higher than the bosses' default level?

Something to avoid situations where you can just roll up to an early gym you missed and steamroll Pokemon 20 levels below you.

This has always been an issue with RPGs with any level of openness, IMO. It makes returning to early game areas a real drag.

But as I said, it's less of an issue than I expected. GF did a great job balancing XP gain and how tough enemies are allowed to be near the end.

@Ralizah Xenoblade Chronicles - it can be a bit strange going back to areas with level 3 enemies when you’re pushing 90, but also in those games they throw enemies of various levels into different parts of the same areas so when you go back there are pockets of challenges in the earlier areas. Then of course you get a few super bosses scattered throughout that you could bump into early game but have no chance of beating until you’re at a high level. That’s not perfect, but ultimately more interesting to me than just everything being a similar level to me at all times.

(I do understand what you mean though, if level scaling just makes easier enemies harder what is the problem with a level 3 enemy getting stronger to maintain the challenge. But I like to feel like I am getting stronger and eventually overpowered, going back and fighting starter monsters on the same footing after 50 hours would just feel silly to me. Back to XBC, systems like bonus XP and the ability to level down once you’ve completed the game all give helpful options for people to overcome this problem/“problem”)

@Ralizah without re-reading what I was saying last night, I hope it made sense - I had 4 hours sleep the night before followed by an 80 mile bike ride and then 10 more hours of being awake and working my way through a litre of Baileys with my girlfriend 🤷‍♂️ was pretty proud of myself still being conscious by 11pm to be fair. I even watched Eraserhead in the afternoon!

@kyleforrester87 No worries. I thought your posts were perfectly coherent and well thought out.

Try the same thing, but end the evening with Lynch's marathon 3 hour swan song "Inland Empire" instead. It's feels like a never-ending fever dream.

@Ralizah thanks man 😂 all a blur!!

The lack of level scaling isn't an issue I think. Plenty of games don't have it. The problem is the world lay out. I've looked up the "intended" route, based on gym/titan levels, and you have to run from left to right constantly if you want to beat the game that way. In some areas there are level 20 Pokemon, you cross a bridge over a little stream and suddenly they're level 50. It does mean that wherever you are, there are strong Pokemon for you to find, but it also guarantees you will be overleveled for parts of the game.