This game is a flop?

[Nirwanda]

Saw it commented on the trading card thread but didn't want to derail the discussion....
Really? I thijnk so far this game is great, though. The characters are less cliched, the gameplay is more nuanced, the art is great. I really don't get it.

[CLG]

The game has a central mechanic that upset a lot of potential buyers and didn't touch it on principle alone. It's not so much the time limit itself but the reason behind the time limit. A very easy way to alienate your fanbase is to include dark themes like that.

Also the combat and story pacing are both pretty terrible. The game starts out great with the world building but it just falls apart later. I feel bad for whoever wrote the original script because it's obvious they put a lot of heart into the plot, but translating it into a game didn't work out at all. It honestly feels like this game is just a very poor adaptation of the original script. There's a lot of plot points that are brought up then either ignored or just solved with no real meaning or weight behind any of it. Things just happen and everybody accepts it and the pacing of events is just terrible.

[Ogami]

It massively flopped in Japan, yes. Worst selling If/CH game in a LONG time. Sold only 8k copies in its first week on PS4.
Does not look much better in the west.

Originally posted by Nirwanda:

Really? I thijnk so far this game is great, though. The characters are less cliched, the gameplay is more nuanced, the art is great. I really don't get it.

I thought the same, for the first 2-3 chapters. And then it nosedived.
HARD.
The art is great though, i give it that, the OST is also very good.
The rest.... not so much.

[Nino Nakano]

Originally posted by Ogami:

It massively flopped in Japan, yes. Worst selling If/CH game in a LONG time. Sold only 8k copies in its first week on PS4.
Does not look much better in the west.

Originally posted by Nirwanda:

Really? I thijnk so far this game is great, though. The characters are less cliched, the gameplay is more nuanced, the art is great. I really don't get it.

I thought the same, for the first 2-3 chapters. And then it nosedived.
HARD.
The art is great though, i give it that, the OST is also very good.
The rest.... not so much.

No dude. This is not the worst selling IF/CH game. Arc of Alchemist was.

And yeah, it quickly devolves into cutscenes, dungeon opens, beat the boss, more cutscenes, chapter over. Rinse and repeat.

It's not helping that we're STILL recycling assets from Neptunia/FFF/DERQ. The dungeon mechanics are the same, the town menus are the same, the battle/victory animations are basically the same, and even the way the title screen is presented is the same.

Oh, and the engine is the same too from VIIR and DERQ.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

No dude. This is not the worst selling IF/CH game. Arc of Alchemist was.

Well it was the worst selling at THAT point. Arc of Alchemist just stole the title again a few months later. :P
Maybe people finally waking up and having enough of this endless parade of samey games with reused assets and stories that go nowhere in the end.

[CLG]

Yeah arc of alchemist somehow did worse at like 3000 sales during the first week I think. It looks pretty interesting with some city building elements but It's not hard to imagine that CH managed to ruin something with the game.

It's only getting digital releases here in the west when it comes so they don't seem to have much hope with the game.

[Nino Nakano]

I just wish that CH would either go back to making mainline Neptunia games, stop blatantly recycling or rebranding assets/mechanics*, or at least put more effort into it like they did with DERQ.

I appreciate their desire to make a diversity of JRPGs besides just Neptunia, but in recent years it's been very hit or miss. Excluding Neptunia, DERQ, MS2 (from the looks of it) and DAL are all hits IMO, while this and AoA are hard misses.

*That reminds me. HDD, Fury Form and Glitch Mode's justifications are all explained in their respective games' plot, despite them being mechanically the same thing. Dragon Awakening though? THERE IS NO PLOT REASON FOR IT! You NEVER see Dragon Awakening forms in cutscenes, whereas with the others, you do.

[Sleeper]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Originally posted by Ogami:

It massively flopped in Japan, yes. Worst selling If/CH game in a LONG time. Sold only 8k copies in its first week on PS4.
Does not look much better in the west.



I thought the same, for the first 2-3 chapters. And then it nosedived.
HARD.
The art is great though, i give it that, the OST is also very good.
The rest.... not so much.

No dude. This is not the worst selling IF/CH game. Arc of Alchemist was.

And yeah, it quickly devolves into cutscenes, dungeon opens, beat the boss, more cutscenes, chapter over. Rinse and repeat.

It's not helping that we're STILL recycling assets from Neptunia/FFF/DERQ. The dungeon mechanics are the same, the town menus are the same, the battle/victory animations are basically the same, and even the way the title screen is presented is the same.

Oh, and the engine is the same too from VIIR and DERQ.

So the game engine needs to be changed with every game now? You people are always showing up with these absurd comments complaining about nothing.

The cutscenes, dungeon opens, beat the boss etc is the standard format for any rpg. You should go complain on the other games discussion board made in the west about that too. Prove their recycling assets from neptunia/fff/Derq when this game is far different from the afforementioned.

[Sleeper]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

I just wish that CH would either go back to making mainline Neptunia games, stop blatantly recycling or rebranding assets/mechanics*, or at least put more effort into it like they did with DERQ.

I appreciate their desire to make a diversity of JRPGs besides just Neptunia, but in recent years it's been very hit or miss. Excluding Neptunia, DERQ, MS2 (from the looks of it) and DAL are all hits IMO, while this and AoA are hard misses.

*That reminds me. HDD, Fury Form and Glitch Mode's justifications are all explained in their respective games' plot, despite them being mechanically the same thing. Dragon Awakening though? THERE IS NO PLOT REASON FOR IT! You NEVER see Dragon Awakening forms in cutscenes, whereas with the others, you do.

Game companies always have hit, or miss with their games. See the transition from DAO to DA2 for that one.

Why does the transformation need to be justified in a cutscene, or plot for it to be in the combat mechanics?

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Nirwanda:

Saw it commented on the trading card thread but didn't want to derail the discussion....
Really? I thijnk so far this game is great, though. The characters are less cliched, the gameplay is more nuanced, the art is great. I really don't get it.

The game isn't without its flaws:

-Not enough gameplay content. (Death End had this issue too) The game is fairly short as a result. Death End had some padding to make it last longer like dungeons being mandatory to walk all the paths, and the Death Ends themselves also made the game last longer if you collected them.

-Story is relatively short as well, so it can sometimes feel like the plot is rushed through a bit.

-Skill equipment system is not balanced. Only 20 points for each category, yet magic has damage+healing+buffing, whereas physical only has damage for 90% of the game.
For devour you won't really need the points since the 20%/30%, multi hit and aoe are all thats needed; and you don't even get all those untill the last chapter. Passives theres some good amount of customizability at first, but it will soon cap and your just spending time trying to figure out how to min max the cap instead of making actual stats choices.

-Cores are nice, but on the other hand a lot of vital skills are locked behind random cores and each character has to get them on their own. While bosses possess a lot too, its typically only the
highest value ones, and due to the skill equipment points cap you need most of them or you can't
min/max.

*They could have improved these 2 a lot by removing the cap. It seems very pointless considering you already only have 5 slot to use. Actually I'd also seperate Magic into buff/heal and damage. or Give a few more slots because 5 is too little, and so is 20 points.

-The little sisters system isn't well received. I think they could have balanced it better. Slower build up, but requires more food to bring it down. So it takes a while to rise but takes serious effort to drop down.

That said I think its worth noting that I've never come back to them having more then yellow. So take this with a pinch of salt. There are 2 dungeons out there that are quite huge, but expecting to fully clear these in one run and the sisters being fine after is just ignoring the mechanic.

My little sisters bars were something like 70% by the time I went into chapter 11, and I've done ful clears of all dungeons (the bigger 2 even twice orso, since I backtracked a lot).

The biggest issue with this one is that a lot of people (myself as well, at first) expected ''to do it all the right way the first time'', and that's a player issue not an issue with the game itself.

Leaving aside the tech issues like the audio balance being messed up;



This game is pretty enjoyable for me. The characters and dialogue are very good, the art is quite nice. 3D isn't amazing, and the character models look pretty ''flat'' but it works as well enough. The EX attack cut ins are amazing, but IF has always been able to do that. And they aren't unique with that either.

Story is...now that I'm in chapter 11 I can finally say: its not bad. Not the best story ever, but it has some interesting twists and developments. They subvert a bunch of tropes and not everything goes the way you'd expect it to.

IE: you dont fight absolutely everyone just because you can. Not everything ends with a fight.
and some characters that feel important die ''offscreen'' MC isn't part of every screen either, which is refreshing.


tl;dr: game has its flaws, but overall its a very enjoyable game for me. Aside from some legit issues with some of its design/flaws, to me it seems the people that strongly dislike the game do so for personal reasons of 'hating'.

[khermerker]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Originally posted by Nirwanda:

Saw it commented on the trading card thread but didn't want to derail the discussion....
Really? I thijnk so far this game is great, though. The characters are less cliched, the gameplay is more nuanced, the art is great. I really don't get it.

The game isn't without its flaws:

-Not enough gameplay content. (Death End had this issue too) The game is fairly short as a result. Death End had some padding to make it last longer like dungeons being mandatory to walk all the paths, and the Death Ends themselves also made the game last longer if you collected them.

-Story is relatively short as well, so it can sometimes feel like the plot is rushed through a bit.

-Skill equipment system is not balanced. Only 20 points for each category, yet magic has damage+healing+buffing, whereas physical only has damage for 90% of the game.
For devour you won't really need the points since the 20%/30%, multi hit and aoe are all thats needed; and you don't even get all those untill the last chapter. Passives theres some good amount of customizability at first, but it will soon cap and your just spending time trying to figure out how to min max the cap instead of making actual stats choices.

-Cores are nice, but on the other hand a lot of vital skills are locked behind random cores and each character has to get them on their own. While bosses possess a lot too, its typically only the
highest value ones, and due to the skill equipment points cap you need most of them or you can't
min/max.

*They could have improved these 2 a lot by removing the cap. It seems very pointless considering you already only have 5 slot to use. Actually I'd also seperate Magic into buff/heal and damage. or Give a few more slots because 5 is too little, and so is 20 points.

-The little sisters system isn't well received. I think they could have balanced it better. Slower build up, but requires more food to bring it down. So it takes a while to rise but takes serious effort to drop down.

That said I think its worth noting that I've never come back to them having more then yellow. So take this with a pinch of salt. There are 2 dungeons out there that are quite huge, but expecting to fully clear these in one run and the sisters being fine after is just ignoring the mechanic.

My little sisters bars were something like 70% by the time I went into chapter 11, and I've done ful clears of all dungeons (the bigger 2 even twice orso, since I backtracked a lot).

The biggest issue with this one is that a lot of people (myself as well, at first) expected ''to do it all the right way the first time'', and that's a player issue not an issue with the game itself.

Leaving aside the tech issues like the audio balance being messed up;



This game is pretty enjoyable for me. The characters and dialogue are very good, the art is quite nice. 3D isn't amazing, and the character models look pretty ''flat'' but it works as well enough. The EX attack cut ins are amazing, but IF has always been able to do that. And they aren't unique with that either.

Story is...now that I'm in chapter 11 I can finally say: its not bad. Not the best story ever, but it has some interesting twists and developments. They subvert a bunch of tropes and not everything goes the way you'd expect it to.

IE: you dont fight absolutely everyone just because you can. Not everything ends with a fight.
and some characters that feel important die ''offscreen'' MC isn't part of every screen either, which is refreshing.


tl;dr: game has its flaws, but overall its a very enjoyable game for me. Aside from some legit issues with some of its design/flaws, to me it seems the people that strongly dislike the game do so for personal reasons of 'hating'.

mmm pretty long don't know if resond each or give my opinion....well i will try give my opinion and that cover all.. beware spoilers .. but probably a lot of people already now them.. still the one that make the other can read it cause Im in same part so I can't spoil anything to him.

This game got me as a refresh of what is a RPG and not the casual thing had become, i had got all chest in all dungeons kill a lot of creatures and do all in very hard and never make the little sister pass yellow, sure i go back when i notice that dungeon was big but THAT IS THE POINT OF THE SYSTEM, people that say that is bad desing i feel they are thinking in new rpgs where you can overpower all and got all in first run.... really the player community become trash.. also i will get true ending on last chapter...

I had to reload game 3 times and only in last i think was bad luck... not like omega quintet that was bad designed a lot .. this was good designed.. sadly if all chars get confuse or stun you are kinda death.... and i will be honest... part is my fault so i will not take it on my review about that. I had kill all in hard way below level and low farm (cause of the little sister) and kill creatueres that should be later like the level 100 dragon with my lvl 58 chars. Actually i like the point of 20 points 5 skills, that means you can't overpower your win but plan it. Right now i use my combination for elemental damage cause well i have to agree after sometime you feel physical attacks are bad.. except for devour mechanics...

I did not farm all, game expect not farm all.. actually when i go back to do a quest of a rare monster notice that only eat too few creatures of map cause few have the skills/stats.. is not neccesary all the stats or skills. The game even expect you get better and make a good strategy not overpower your win.

Finally the story... well not sure if is short or no cause game have 3 endings.... and I'm on true route... but i notice that some parts only have sense if a little sister is alive, i will have to do new game + and in chapter 4 make little sister go dragon by overfeeding them to know how story change, this is the part that feels as a visual novels. IN visual novels your elections change the story and in this game i feel it too.. they do desing all changes in the story based in little sister alive? if they did this game could have over 30 hours in see all the possible stories.. right now too soon for me to say if story is short or not.. but story is based on your actions.

TL;DR Game is not perfect, but those points for me were not negative points were more casual critics for a good balance game. Also the genre is a visual novel/dungeon crawler for be exact probably you only notice true ending but as a visual novel is up to you to changes of story based in the little sister.

[Nino Nakano]

Originally posted by Sleeper:

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

No dude. This is not the worst selling IF/CH game. Arc of Alchemist was.

And yeah, it quickly devolves into cutscenes, dungeon opens, beat the boss, more cutscenes, chapter over. Rinse and repeat.

It's not helping that we're STILL recycling assets from Neptunia/FFF/DERQ. The dungeon mechanics are the same, the town menus are the same, the battle/victory animations are basically the same, and even the way the title screen is presented is the same.

Oh, and the engine is the same too from VIIR and DERQ.

So the game engine needs to be changed with every game now? You people are always showing up with these absurd comments complaining about nothing.

The cutscenes, dungeon opens, beat the boss etc is the standard format for any rpg. You should go complain on the other games discussion board made in the west about that too. Prove their recycling assets from neptunia/fff/Derq when this game is far different from the afforementioned.

Honestly it sounds to me like you haven't played pretty much every post-Neptunia CH game ever like some of us have, otherwise it would be blantantly obvious that some of underlying mechanics, and even the dungeons, play pretty much the same, as do does some of the camera work in battle, and the ability to hold a button to skip all the animations. It's kind of a pattern. with their JRPG games.

Basically a lot of little things that those that only play a few of their games wouldn't notice.

And if you want proof, go play all the Neptunia Re;birth games, VII, VIIR, Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force, AND DERQ, then come back and tell me that they don't recycle their basic game design and dungeon mechanics. Playing a game is different than watching a video of it.

Edit: Welp. Seems to me you've played enough Neptunia games to know what I'm getting at or you either don't see it, are ignoring it, or just don't care.

Originally posted by Sleeper:

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

No dude. This is not the worst selling IF/CH game. Arc of Alchemist was.

And yeah, it quickly devolves into cutscenes, dungeon opens, beat the boss, more cutscenes, chapter over. Rinse and repeat.

It's not helping that we're STILL recycling assets from Neptunia/FFF/DERQ. The dungeon mechanics are the same, the town menus are the same, the battle/victory animations are basically the same, and even the way the title screen is presented is the same.

Oh, and the engine is the same too from VIIR and DERQ.

So the game engine needs to be changed with every game now? You people are always showing up with these absurd comments complaining about nothing.

The cutscenes, dungeon opens, beat the boss etc is the standard format for any rpg. You should go complain on the other games discussion board made in the west about that too. Prove their recycling assets from neptunia/fff/Derq when this game is far different from the afforementioned.

No. But IMO they do need to stop recycling some of their game design elements, as well as assets.

And what we're getting at is that it makes the game narrative feel rushed. With other JRPGs there's often times a lot more cutscenes and multiple bosses in a given chapter. Not here, where there's basically only one boss per chapter.

Originally posted by Sleeper:

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

I just wish that CH would either go back to making mainline Neptunia games, stop blatantly recycling or rebranding assets/mechanics*, or at least put more effort into it like they did with DERQ.

I appreciate their desire to make a diversity of JRPGs besides just Neptunia, but in recent years it's been very hit or miss. Excluding Neptunia, DERQ, MS2 (from the looks of it) and DAL are all hits IMO, while this and AoA are hard misses.

*That reminds me. HDD, Fury Form and Glitch Mode's justifications are all explained in their respective games' plot, despite them being mechanically the same thing. Dragon Awakening though? THERE IS NO PLOT REASON FOR IT! You NEVER see Dragon Awakening forms in cutscenes, whereas with the others, you do.

Game companies always have hit, or miss with their games. See the transition from DAO to DA2 for that one.

Why does the transformation need to be justified in a cutscene, or plot for it to be in the combat mechanics?

Um.....because all those other games I mentioned did it?

[Tiasmoon]

They weren't justified, just explained. Which I agree should happen, however all of them were transformations that had no real lore tie-in.

[Yaya]

CH still making the same shovelware reskinned Neptunia game. I honestly felt sick after 30 minutes.

[Sleeper]

Then don't play them problem solved. Also get a life and stop going out of your way to bash games others enjoy.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Octave:

CH still making the same shovelware reskinned Neptunia game. I honestly felt sick after 30 minutes.

Might just be you feeling your own toxicity.