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Topic Started: 11 Sep 2011, 07:21 PM (5,063 Views)
Padraic
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No. Eternal Sonata is bad, if anything, it's a rental/10-20 dollar game
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Paw
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I've heard the opposite from almost everyone xD

However, based on the demo and various things I know about it, I'm not sure how much I'd like it. What do you not like about it?

(Also, must add Ni no Kuni to the 'to buy' list) JRPG mood has put it at very high priority >=3
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Padraic
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The gameplay is hard to adjust to, the characters are a little weird, the gameplay, did I mention the gameplay?
The gameplay is interesting, but just not all that fun.
The story is interesting, but some mechanics get in the way of it being better.
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Seffoo
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As some may know, I've been playing The Lord of the Rings: The War in the North recently, because Sony was giving out free 1-month PS+ subs and it was one of the selected games. I am now approximately 70% through my second playthrough so I think now's the time to post a decent evaluation.

It's movie-verse, but most of the places you visit are not in the movies. That said, they do a fairly decent job with the locations. In order:
Bree;
Fornost;
Sarn Ford;
The Barrow-Downs;
Rivendell;
The Ettenmoors;
Nordinbad (a dwarf settlement that I'm sure was made up for the game; it's a fortress in the Misties)
Mount Gundabad;
Mirkwood;
and Carn Dum.

There are also two challenge maps which are basically wave after wave of foe with rewards based on your effort. Those are in Lothlorien and Osgiliath. Additionally, if you zoom out on the map a whole host of locations show up. Practically all of the ones from The Hobbit and LotR, but you can only visit the ones listed above.
The art style is... okay. It definitely has the Middle-earth feel to it, realistic fantasy more or less. It reminds me of Dragon Age: Origins, actually. Visually. The enviroments are far smaller and usually linear, but there are often alternate routes that lead to the same spot anyway.
There's a LOT of loot and the game randomizes loot depending on difficulty, where you are in the story, and your level and class (for the most part).

The Barrow-Downs are creepy and actually are a LOT like the Barrow-Downs in LotRO. Stormy, dark, unsettling music, weird fog, etc. Mirkwood is closer to how it is in DoS than in LotRO. It's lush and thick and colourful, yet dark. Fornost is surrounded by regular forest but is overrun with orcs and is this beautiful old ruin. It reminds me a great deal of the Brecillian Wilds at the beginning of Origins.
Rivendell looks almost exactly as it does in the movies. It's probably where most of the effort went into the design of the game. The character likenesses are by no means perfect but are likely better than in the other movieverse games. Hell I think Elrond has an American accent. Gandalf's VA is okay however.

The characters, the trio, are Andriel, an elf lore-master from Rivendell, Eradan, a ranger of the north, and Farin, a dwarf from Erebor. In order, mage/healer, rogue, and tank. They're okay characters. They could certainly have done with a bit more personality though.
You also meet four great eagles in the game. One of them is Belaram who's with you for most of the game, and the other three are two that join him at one point, and the last is Gwaihir. He has his golden collar as is described in the Hobbit. The way the eagles talk is kind of creepy but they're probably the best-animated characters in the entire game otherwise. There's also a dragon, Urgost (what what) who looks weird. Not just when he talks. Here he is in the ending cinematic. After you kill Agandaur, the main bad guy of the game, at Carn Dum, Urgost sets up there instead.

A bunch of movie characters have a cameo as well. Aragorn, Gandalf, Arwen, Gimli, Bilbo, Frodo, Legolas, and Elrond. We also meet Elladan and Elrohir (who actually seem to have been designed to look like Elrond), Radagast (who is surprisingly similar to Hobbit movie Radagast), and Gloin (who has a big white beard and is at Rivendell with Gimli).

The game tends to respect the lore for the most part but it can deviate in weird ways at times. However you can ask about obscure lore things through dialogue and some surprising stuff is mentioned, like Ungoliant and Ancalagon the Black. Bilbo will also talk about his adventures if you ask him, and E2 will talk about Celebrian a bit.

From the time I started the game, I was getting this constant Dragon Age vibe from it. I couldn't figure out why. I knew the music had something to do with it, but it wasn't until I looked up the game on Wikipedia until I realized. The game has the same composer, Inon Zur, as DA: O and DA2, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and Baldur's Gate 2. I have to admit, that was a positive tick on the game for me.

But it's not just the music and parts of the visuals. The game plays a hell of a lot like Dragon Age II. Different, but very very similar. Take the UI for instance.
Couple of screencaps.


The top one is War in the North. The bottom one is Dragon Age II. These have some noticable similarities right at the first glance. On the left you have a crossbar with commands mapped to Circle, Cross, Square and Triangle. In WitN you can't change what these are mapped to, but you get four triggers worth of commands that all show up on that one part of the interface depending on what trigger you're holding down. DA2 also only has 3 per 'side' of the interface.
Both games show an on-screen level progress bar -- under the hotkeys in DA2 and under the status bars on WitN.

In War in the North, you only see one set of bars and not that of your entire party. See those icons above the HP bar? Those are for your companions. One for each of the other two, and in open areas an eagle icon appears so you know you can call him in for help if you desire. These flash (e.g if grappling with a troll) and glow red (if they're k.o'd) if your companions are in trouble but that's it. This is because of the way is built but I'll get to that in a minute.

The gameplay itself is as much like Dragon Age II as it looks in the screencaps. You have no command wheel and you can't jump, but you can run at a normal (rather slow jog) speed as well as hold down a button to sprint. You can also dodge roll but it took me AGES to figure that out. It's very useful, considering the fact that I play as the semi-squishy loremaster.
Levelling up is like Dragon Age II, as well. The level up screen is very similar. Assign three attribute and one skill point per level, and you can hold off levelling and they'll stack. Each character has unique skill trees.

It's... kind of button mashy. It's certainly an action RPG. HOWEVER, it is not as mashy as Dragon Age II. There is certainly a deal of strategy involved. For example, I as the mage can erect a dome which increases attack power and gives a small regen if standing inside. Its main function is to block enemy projectiles, though -- which is good because you can get kind of overwhelmed with them flying at you sometimes.
As the mage I also get some pretty powerful AoE attacks which serve to pull aggro off the archer and some of the heat from the tank if he's getting swamped. Which is often because the AI can be kind of lacking. Again, I'll get to that in a minute.

It's slower and more tactical than Dragon Age II. You can pick the skills to use that best fit your situation, but the penalty isn't too bad for getting it wrong. However if you make a bunch of bad decisions in a row a tough fight can go to crap pretty quickly and before you know it you're dead. And it literally just says "You are dead".

Now, to the bit I was going to get to. The game is obviously built for three-person multiplayer. It's fine if you go it alone, and I haven't tried it with other players, but after a while you can tell the game was built with a trio in mind. When a party member goes down, they're not out for the battle. They crawl around for help until you or the other party member left standing comes and revives them (it's like TLoU multi -- hold x, bar fills, revived). This includes you. In single player.
However you get a penalty if you're dumb enough to let yourself get k.o'd, in the form of some pretty severe damage against your gear. Your gear degrades and has health like in Oblivion. I find that I go through an entire area (e.g the entirety of the Moors) and by the time I'm out I either need repairs or are very close to needing some.

Now, from near the end of my first playthrough onward I kept finding features I didn't know about (because it has no manual due to the fact that I got it free on the PS+ trial). Most recently I found out that in addition to pressing left and right arrows to use health or mana potions, you can also press the up arrow to tell your AI companions to act aggressively or down arrow to drop into a defensive stance. That makes a huge difference.
Another major thing I only realized on my second playthrough is the skill trees. I previously thought each character only had one skill tree. No. They have three each, right next to and completely independant of each other. The mage has one for close AoE attacks, one for her shield, and one for base staff damage and attacks.
I had no idea. I don't have the slightest clue how I missed the other two trees, but it might've been because skills are dark until they're lit up by their prereqs being selected. The other two trees were completely dark because I hadn't put a starting point in.
The skill trees also have ranks for most of the skills. E.g increasing rank on an AoE skill increases its range.

WitN is actually kind of difficult, certainly moreso than I went in expecting. I died a lot more than I thought I would. Now I'm playing on Heroic (hard) mode, and next Legendary (extra hard), I find the difficulty is actually bumped up. They didn't just slap extra stats on regular enemies. Enemies that were higher-rank in normal mode are now showing up as regulars in hard mode.

Okay it's probably about time to finish this. It's getting kind of long. To summarize, War in the North is kind of like Dragon Age II. I went in with rather low expectations for the game, expecting something average at best, and I have to admit I've been surprised. It's actually quite better than I thought it would be. However, it's clear that if Snowblind were a more experienced studio (WitN is something like their 8th title ever), or had more time, it could have been truly brilliant. That's another thing that makes it like DA2. It's good. Not awful, not great, but on the high end of good. If I had to score it I'd give it a 6.5 or a 7, so, somewhat above average as I just said.

The game takes about 20 hours to get through. It doesn't give you a playtime counter, though, so I can't give an exact. It also depends if you want to grind or breeze through.
Edited by Seffoo, 14 Jul 2013, 02:35 AM.
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Paw
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Well the list of games I'm still in the middle of is longer than I feel like giving right now, so I'll just focus on games I'm playing or have played recently.

Assassin's Creed 4...
Well, I love it. A lot. Satisfied my inner pirate for the time being enough for me to wait patiently for Hollywood to get its act together and bring pirates back in a not-idiotic fashion.
Unfortunately, my HD TV is broken, so I had to play it on an old boxy TV and it looked kinda crap...but beautiful crap. Can't wait to play it on a proper screen. Until then, I have trouble ranking it against previous games (not because graphics, just immersion. It was different.) For the record, though, I think I've played more AC4 than I have played other AC games (not counting the many times I've replayed).

Lightning Returns...just kidding. I only watched the ending. Good laugh from that.

Got back to playing some RDR with Drake. I missed it. Haven't in a few days, because...

Fallout 3! Holy crap, I love it. It might be one of my favorite games. It just clicks with me. To be honest, there's always been something about Elder Scrolls games that bothers me, but I can't place a finger on it. Whatever it is, it's not there in FO3 though it plays very similarly to an Elder Scrolls game. I think I'm still pretty early in it, but I've made it to the mall in D.C. (finally a real life location that I actually know pretty well). Just so it can be known, the mall is a lot bigger than the game's. I was looking for a museum there that I like, but it just wasn't. There was no place for it xD. Just got to Rivet City last time I played...hee.

And Fallout 3 has gotten me back into Skyrim and I'm enjoying it more now than I ever have. Maybe Fallout 3 has finally made it click. Still at the very beginning, not even past where I was in my old save that I accidentally murdered, but I might actually get somewhere this time! For now, I have an angry dragon skeleton that likes to follow me around - kinda unnerving.
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Drake
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^Yes, Assassin's Creed IV is AMAZING. Different yes, but great. I too have spent the most time playing on this one than any of the others. There's just so much to do. The graphics were also very nice. I was quite impressed with the sea animals too. (especially after seeing how crappy the sharks looked in the trailers- they must've redone them because I thought they looked really nice while playing the game.) The underwater shipwreck places were fun to explore (and a bit scary- I came so close to dying multiple times- mostly due to needing air, and sharks swimming everywhere. it's a nice challenge.) I think my favorite thing in those areas was seeing the sperm whale. I just floated around for about 20-30 minutes just watching it swim. it was beautiful.
Everything above water is amazing too. I love how they did the ocean, the movement of the waves and the way the ships move on them is very realistic, most realistic I've seen in a game, I must say. (they did it very nicely in ACIII as well) Attacking and boarding ships is very fun- in fact I never got bored doing it x3 Not to mention discovering and exploring islands. Such a fun game.
The characters were also great. I really like Edward, too. (Though I think Connor is still my favorite assassin x3)

After playing that I picked up RDR again- as Paw said, we played together in MP for a little while. It was fun. We helped each other out doing challenges, then randomly turned on each other having fist and knife fights. x3
After Paw stopped playing I continued on single player- I finished the story last night. it was great playing the game over again after so long. also being able to do challenges/get trophies all over again was fun. It was like playing the game for the first time again. x3 (as some of you know I made my new PSN account, so yes I get to get all those trophies and stuff from every game all over again.) and I was reminded just how beautiful the game is. definitely one of, if not the most realistic game I've played.

Also I've continued LotRO. It's nice playing again after so long, though I miss having you guys around in there.
I've mostly just been questing/grinding. I got Tav to level 70. (sorry IBeat, I know we were having him and Ano quest/level up together ^^; though I'm stopping there with him until you return- I haven't continued in Mirkwood where we left off, so I could continue with you there if you want. also I haven't entered Rohan/got him his warsteed yet, don't worry x3) might bring Deo's level up now too, if I'm up to repeating quests.
I've taken care of the kinship house- the next payment isn't until May 15th. Don't know when the payments are due on your houses, hopefully not any time soon. Though I suggest that when you both return that we all give each other maintenance permissions for each others' houses, so someone else can pay for a house if they want when the other can't get on.
(Also the yule festival is coming up soon... not so sure I feel up to it, though I still want to get that warsteed armour set I missed out on last year. if they have any new cosmetics/something else that looks good that you guys might want, I'll see what I can do about getting them for you. x3)
(also, I probably should've posted this bit in the LotRO thread instead. oh well.)
Edited by Drake, 10 Dec 2013, 09:50 PM.
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Paw
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nah, I think the lotro topic can be kinda reserved for talking about updates and expansions and things and expressing excitement or whatever. Currently playing kinda satisfies the "what I did" announcement. Or not. Post whatever wherever you like. Not like I'd ban you. x3

As for LotRO, I think my house is good for a couple months. Which is good because my computer is broken. Since my mac is dying I think I'm gonna be getting a computer for christmas and by now it's known that I want a windows. So if that's happening, I'll be able to play that soon (figures I'm finally in the mood again when I CAN'T play) (also, reason for not getting it for my current computer even though it was released for macs is because this computer is old and temperamental now and sometimes has trouble if you click between tabs too fast - lotro would just kill it)

As for houses, I think opening payment permissions with each other is a fine idea. We can keep track somewhere on this site how much we owe each other so there are no misunderstandings.
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Quark
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I'm currently playing Tales of Graces F. And it's pretty awesome! It's very complex, so you're always discovering new things about the system as you go along. Story's great, voice acting's great, music's great, gameplay is engaging.
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Paw
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Battle for Middle-earth and its sequel.

Ahhhh, nostalgia
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Seffoo
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Over the last few days, I've both started playing Final Fantasy VIII and ACIV's multiplayer (but not the singleplayer, mind you, since I haven't got III yet).

The controls of Black Flag aren't as different as I thought they'd be. I didn't actually have any big adaption issues and, to my great surprise, I never got rusty. Well, a little. This is the first time I've played AC mp when the game was in its prime (I got to Brotherhood and Revs late) and it's glorious. I'm currently in the top 20% on the leaderboards, position.... 27,000 or so? out of ~600,000.
Already picking favourite characters. Lady Black, the Firebrand, and the male character that looks like Cidolfus from FFXII, and the Jaguar who I don't have (dlc).

As for FFVIII, when I first started I kept laughing at everything. I'm not 100% sure why, it likely had a lot to do with my tiredness at the time, but I just found a lot amusing. I've calmed down now, lol.
I'm getting really into it, faster than I thought I might -- but the battle system's still confusing me a bit. I feel like I'm missing something with Junctioning (I'll learn in time) and only had one card battle, floundered around in it and lost my Ifrit card (oops).
I'm currently up to the second dream (I got a bit far into it but the powerboard freaked out and I have to do it again).
So far, Seifer's a really annoying ass. Lol. Selphie's annoying too, but not by much, and Zell seems to overreact to everything. I really quite like Quistis but I thought she was older until the scene in the 'secret area' where she mentions her age. I've seen people describe Squall as a jark or hostile or whatever over the years but so far he comes off as introverted and/or shy to me, which suits me just fine for a protagonist.
Biggs and Wedge though. Oh dear.

Speaking of character assumptions, from the little about Laguna that I've seen/head over the years, I assumed that wherever he showed up in the game, party member or elsewhere, he'd be the serious, kind of depressing letdown character that SE always includes. I... couldn't have been more wrong, oh my god. <3 XD
It took me a little bit to figure out that the thought bubbles in the first dream were from both Squall and Laguna, but I have my suspicions that these 'dreams' are set in the past, since as far as I know VIII has a bit of time-related stuff in its theme.
Another character I thought was on the more serious side but turned out to be a little derpy is Rinoa! She's... way more excitable than I thought. Also she appears to fire beyblades off her arm thing as an attack. ???

I keep getting lost in the Garden. Heh. Haven't been to the infirmary or food court yet. Also everyone has reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally long legs. And the game's kind of widescreeny, which I assume is part of the ps3 version fitting it to the screen, but at the same time I doubt that because VII is in a perfect 4:3 ratio, so, VIII is made that way maybe?
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