c/nintendos's Official Head of VNs
It's not really necessary to keep everyone at the same level in these games, I just prefer to rotate characters for fun.
But catching up in levels is extremely easy in SRT games - XP gain is proportional to level difference, so if there's someone underleveled you can just use other units to weaken a couple regular enemies for it to finish, use the "double XP" spell and get multiple levels per enemy. Heck, you can do this with a boss unit and sometimes get as many as 8-10 levels at once.
Still going slow, but I'm feeling a lot better since yesterday so I might pick up the pace during the weekend.
Playing Super Robot Taisen Y!
Finished Chapter 4, got the upgraded Lunedrache and I'm loving it - I think it's my favorite main character upgrade since the Vangnex/Grandvang from SRTV, and Forte's new theme song is also great.
Did a lot of side-missions including all the puzzle-like "Relic" quests that were available. Since these missions only use 3 units and had high level opponents the characters I was using for them are now very overleveled, Forte reached 70 while most of the group was still on the 45-50 range! But there's plenty of units to play, so I'll just let her sit on the bench for a while so others can catch up.
Stressed and having a hard time focusing, so not playing much. 🙁
Playing Super Robot Taisen Y!
This week I finished the (very long) Chapter 3 and got a new cool attack for the A.Advent ("Dominion Obliterator").
Chapter 4 is much shorter according to the Akurasu Wiki, so hopefully I can finish it over the weekend and get the upgraded Lunedrache.
According to a japanese guide there's 7, but the number of stages in each chapter varies a LOT.
Playing Super Robot Taisen Y!
Finished Chapter 2. There's some side missions "locked" behind requirements like "Character X has 50+ kills" and right now I'm focused on unlocking those.
When I need a break from the grind I go for the "Relic" missions which are nice and short puzzle stages where you have 3 turns and a small number of units (usually 3) to achive a goal.
No progress on Witch on the Holy Night this week, had very limited time for playing and SRTY fits my current mood better.
If you enjoy SNES/PS1-era RPGs I'd say yes. It's been a while since I last played OG Sky 1-2, but I first played Sky 3 during the COVID days, then followed it with Zero and Azure which are all games from the same era and had a great time.
Highly recommend you go with the PC version so you have access to QOL features like turbo mode. There's also mods to add the voice acting from the Vita version if you're interested.
Any recommendations for Mecha anime? 😀
Plenty. Some interesting recommendations among series featured in SRTY:
- Gundam: Witch from Mercury: A recent, self-contained Gundam series that is making its SRT debut.
- G Gundam: The strangest Gundam series, I joke it's "DBZ with Mechs". It's often silly and campy, but really fun.
- Code Geass: While I think this series is overhyped it's still a good watch. It's also extremely popular, and due to that its world and plot is used a LOT in recent SRT games. In fact, the first scene of SRTY is based on the ending of the TV series and will contain massive spoilers if you haven't watched this. 😀
Other suggestions from my favorites:
- Gurren Lagann: I think you mentioned having already seen this.
- GaoGaiGar: Starts as a fun, old-school "monster of the week" series... then gets a more consistent plot running midway and turns into non-stop hype.
- Gunbuster: A very influencial short series (6 episodes). Despite its length it ramps up incredibly, starting as "high school for pilots" and going into epic battles against alien hordes. Episode 5 has favorite battle in this entire genre. NSFW warning for classic 80's Gainax fanservice.
Why is your version of Super Robot Wars Y named different?
Out of habit! "Super Robot Taisen" is how it's called in japanese, and I've been playing them for so long that I got used to that name.
Super Robot Wars Y is on my wishlist and will be my first game in the series.
Make sure to try the demo first, it carries into the game, and you even get some bonuses from having a completed demo save.
As much as I love the franchise the gameplay can get somewhat repetitive and won't be for everybody's tastes. It helps a lot if you're a fan of mecha anime like me. :D
Finished CrossCode!
I think this is one of those "good game, but not for me". I loved the puzzles (even though they can get crazy hard), but didn't care about exploration or combat. I ended up lowering difficulty and rushing through the last 30% or so of the game.
Combat felt way too chaotic, and tracking what's going on became a frustrating exercise for me. Exploration simply wasn't rewarding, as you would often spend time figuring out a complex plataforming puzzle to get to a chest and earn... crafting material you could farm somewhere else.
Playing Witch on the Holy Night!
Not as focused on this as originally planned but I still got decent progress and reached Chapter 4.
Aoko continues to be the highlight of the game, she's such a fun character. Sojiro is also getting a lot more attention now, and I suspect the two will share the "main character" spot. Very curious about his past, I think the game is hinting there's something important hidden there.
Played a bit of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter!
This game is a delight. It's completed redone in terms of gameplay and QOL with all the good features from recent games, while also keeping the mood and charm of the original.
Even though I only played part of the Prologue I'm almost certain I will have high praise when I come back to play it properly.
Playing Super Robot Taisen Y!
Right after starting Trails in the Sky I got a package from Play-Asia that I wasn't expecting for a couple more weeks, so I decided to change plans and go for this game since I think it'll work better with my current mood.
Considering I've beaten 38 games from this series (some of them multiple times) it's safe to say I'm a big fan. It's probably the biggest gaming "comfort food" out there for me, and I'm very happy to have a new game to play after 4 years.
That being said, it's clear this one had to work with significant budget constraints. Reuse of animation is common in this series, but it's really glaring here since the many of the new additions use a more "plastic/toy-like" artstyle with sharper lines and shinier sprites, where the reused ones look softer, more "anime-like".
I'm liking the original units a lot more than the ones from the previous game (SRT30). I chose the female protagonist (Forte) who uses the Lunedrache II, a good take on the "Ninja Mech" concept. And I'm surprised by how much I'm liking the main battleship despite its strange design - the A.Advent being a flying city is a cool concept that I think it's underused.
No, didn't do a lot of gaming this week and wanted to focus on finishing CrossCode. But I just beat it during lunch break, so I'll resume that one now.
Playing CrossCode!
On the last stretch, was trying to finish it yesterday but I reached a fairly long and complex puzzle and decided I'd rather stop for the night. 😄 But will almost certainly finish this during the weekend.
I turned combat difficulty all the way down using the sliders in the assists options, which is a fantastic feature I wish was included in all harder games. I don't think that combat in the game is that hard, but I was underleved due to rushing and there's some fairly obvious "stat/gear check" moments I was struggling to get past before I did that.
Harvestella is a very flawed game, but I enjoyed my time with it. You're right that the farming aspects are not as big as people would expect from the way it was marketed, they only takes a few minutes of the daily loop.
The biggest draw of the game is the worldbuilding and story, while gameplay and technical aspects are definitely mid.
~48h including a lot of exploration. There's certainly things I missed, but I don't think there's any "obvious" unexplored spots left in the map.
Finished Hollow Knight: Silksong!
Only got the "regular" ending, but it's good enough for me - the game was already getting frustrating and I don't think I'd have much fun if I tried to go to the "true" ending.
I don't think I have much to add to what I said about the game last week. It's a fantastic game, but also one that requires a high tolerance for difficulty and punishing design. Highly recommend anyone interested in the game to play it on PC so you have access to mods in case you need the lower the difficulty or tweak some of the game's annoyances.
Playing CrossCode!
Resumed this one yesterday and I'm currently in the "lighning" temple. I did lower the enemy damage in the options to make the game a bit more enjoyable to me (in particular after almost getting burned ou by the difficulty in Silksong), I'm using 60% but will tweak this depending on how the battles feel.
The temples are some of the most fun parts of this game, and I'm pleased to know that I have do finish two of these to proceed. I'm also in Chapter 8 (out of 10 according to some Googling), so probably not that much left to finish the game.
No progress on Witch on the Holy Night this week since I was focused on finishing Silksong.
That's my undestanding at least.
I do the same "stocking" of games for the backlog, and at least for me it has a lot to do with wanting the physical version (which can get hard to find later), or getting a really good deal in a digital version.
Most of the game is amazing, but there's also incredibly frustrating decisions and moments that can drain all the fun you were having. Its design is very uncompromising - "this is going to be crazy hard and punishing, and I don't care if you're not having fun with this".
Too many things feel overtuned for extra challenge, getting stronger (more life, more damage) is a slow and difficult process, so sometimes you get in a situation where there's no good option except "suck it up and get good". But the game makes even that annoying! If you're stuck you want to experiment with different subweapon/equipment configurations, but if you keep dying you quickly run out of shards to rebuild the tools and have stop and go farm weak enemies to refill.
If you're still interested in this game I'd highly recommend going for PC, as there's already a bunch of mods to make it more accessible.
Bold to release Mario Galaxy 1+2 on Switch when they already released Galaxy 1 as part of a three pack for the 35th anniversary. I won’t be buying Galaxy 1 again just for some extra story book pages.
Good news: It looks like you can also buy them individually:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/super-mario-galaxy-plus-super-mario-galaxy-2-switch/
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/super-mario-galaxy-switch/
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/super-mario-galaxy-2-switch/
I think Harvestella has a ton of flaws, but I had a good time with that game. The worldbuilding was particularly impressive, I really want more games in that setting,