I posted one up for Hajimari last year, which was fun, so I figure why not do so again? As usual, spoiler tag progress!
Too early to really say much about the battle system. The action stuff is serviceable thus far, but I do find myself leaning more on the old AT style. Maybe as things open up, I'll be using it more. We'll see.
As expected, they're definitely saving the nicer animated stuff for key moments and everything else is the more standard fare I've come to expect. Not really a complaint, but I'm looking forward to a more kinetic action scene to see how they've upped their game. Based on previews, there's some good stuff in store!
One thing that's rather taken me aback is how few NPCs there are to talk to. You have the non-interactable ones making the areas feel a bit more poplated, but in the handful of areas I've been in, there really haven't been too many you can actually talk to. Maybe more will show up with time, and it could be that there are a ton of districts, so they've spread them out more. It'll certainly make NPC sweeps a much quicker affair if they really have cut down on them, but I know some people may not be pleased with the change.
I've juuust started Chapter 1 myself, so spoilers up to about an hour into that.
- Oh, another minor gripe and one I hope is just being saved for a later patch: No more detailed enemy descriptions. I thought maybe it was something you'd unlock by fighting enough enemies but the (presumably one-off) boss fights from the Prologue don't have them. Those were fun bits of flavor and I miss them.
- The story throws you into things fast. Aside from the intro starting out with some action (and not involving the protagonists for once) it took less than two hours for Falcom to pull the surprise with Jacomo at you. The intro where the Almata members non-lethally shoot some of the punks who stole the orbment lulls you into thinking it's business as usual, then Jacomo gets an intro with his name/VA credit and... less than an hour later he's very dead. That's about as solid a statement of intent as I think we can get that Kuro is gonna be darker in tone.
- On that note, the whole 'protagonist gets arrested and interrogated by the police who don't like them' is straight out of something hard-boiled or Noir and I love it.
- Grendel showed up earlier than I was expecting and we get just a hint of whatever Van means by his ten year nightmare, with flashback shots that are deliberately blurred so we can't see the details. And Agnes' orbment starts out damned suspicious with its attracting spirits, glowing red briefly and probably being the reason the higher elements were active in the area. And speaking of which, Van, why are you able to sense that?
- Anyone who guessed that Agnes Claudel has some connection to C. Epstein, collect your winnings now. She's his great-granddaughter and we (finally!) learn that his first name is Claude. Oh, and there are eight of these Genesis orbments, and Epstein seems to have possessed some line on the future and that last line in his journal isn't ominous at all. The question is: Was he aware of the Nothingness and that's what these are part of, or is this the Appetizer Apocalypse and Ouroboros is getting ready for the Main Course? The way the last number in the entry is obscured, it could be 1208 or it could be 1209 when our cosmic deadline is supposed to arrive.
- Chapter 1 starts with a bang too, literally. We get the jaeger group that Feri's profile mentions and the mother of all brick jokes as the female Zephyr member from Fie's CS1 flashbacks does indeed appear. xD
- Did the first quest and I love how you can choose how to resolve it, with the obvious goody-two-shoes answer or the alternative approach that's not strictly illegal but is skirting the edge of it. Which I picked, because it just seemed like the Jotaro Kujo Van Arkride Way.
Yeah, definitely disappointed that enemy descriptions are gone and the turn order layout is certainly an odd choice.
Quick clarification about the new orbment system: Do quartz just grant you shard skills and the usual character enhancements, while your choice of Arts Driver is what gives you arts? Seems like you're somewhat limited in what you can do as far building out your arts loadout as you like. The plug-in lets you pick and choose a bit, but that's only two. If nothing else, maybe the rigidity will crack down somewhat on the broken strats, although I'm sure people will find something!
With the orbments being called Genesis, I'm wondering if they're the original models that Epstein made, or maybe what he based orbments on. I'm fuzzy on that history that we've had revealed thus far, but checking the wiki now seems like flirting with disaster.
Quick clarification about the new orbment system: Do quartz just grant you shard skills and the usual character enhancements, while your choice of Arts Driver is what gives you arts? Seems like you're somewhat limited in what you can do as far building out your arts loadout as you like. The plug-in lets you pick and choose a bit, but that's only two. If nothing else, maybe the rigidity will crack down somewhat on the broken strats, although I'm sure people will find something!
So far as I can tell, yeah, you're limited to whatever Arts your equipped Arts Driver gives you plus the two slots you can fill with the Plugins. It's possible that later Drivers will give more Arts, as the ones we've seen so far have been described in terms of giving 'basic' Arts, and one from early footage talked about mid-level Arts. Maybe endgame ones could give more.
And yeah, Quartz provide whatever their own abilities are plus unlocking Shard Skills but have no bearing on your Arts.
SpoilerWith the orbments being called Genesis, I'm wondering if they're the original models that Epstein made, or maybe what he based orbments on. I'm fuzzy on that history that we've had revealed thus far, but checking the wiki now seems like flirting with disaster.
It might be the former.
I'll have to go back to that conversation later, there's some stuff I didn't quite have time to parse out as I was on a deadline when I played the end of the Prologue.
Forgot to mention something that came up earlier
🤔 🤔 🤔
Remind me what happened to the last guy who could say the same.
Ok ok, it seems unlikely that Van would get a power ranger suit and a stigma, I suppose, but it's a little suspect.
Yes, yes he did and I had a minor freak-out when I realized it. Even if we don't know why yet, the fact he can is... interesting. floofy reacted the exact same way when she saw that line. xD
The conclusion we both came to is that however Van was able to sense the higher elements, Agnes' orbment was the cause of them being active.
Quick thing about the Calvard map shown in Chapter 1
Quick thing about the Calvard map shown in Chapter 1
SpoilerIt looked like both Remiferia and Ored are within Calvard's borders? Now either Gramhart's been on an annexation spree, or I read that completely wrong.
Ahhhh, just get to Creil did you?
The map also shows a whole bunch of locations that weren't revealed pre-release and several of them have been referenced by NPCs already (Oracion and Messeldam in particular) so I expect that we'll be visiting them in the sequel.
Since I've finished Chapter 1 and started on 2, might as well put down some thoughts.
- Okay, I probably wasn't supposed to find it so funny but the shot of Walter bench-pressing Van's car (shortly before using it as an impromptu weapon) made me laugh way harder than I think Falcom intended; I think it was Van's anger about the car that was supposed to be the funniest part but the image just had me rolling.
- Falcom pulls the old 'I know that you know' trick with Melchior's intro, since we already saw him being sus a short while earlier on the bus and know he's up to no good from the OP, even if you never see the pre-release material that says he's with Almata. It works well though, as you know he's up to something but aren't sure what.
- It seems Falcom developed a taste for horror elements with Ys IX and decided to keep the ball rolling on that, with undead hounds with creepy red eyes... and then the Eisenschild members show up with the same condition.
- That battle was annoying; doing my usual 'fight everything in the area on the first run through' routine put me at the fight at Lv. 13 all around and I got my ass handed to me several times. Wound up resetting the enemies and going back to the start, then resetting and going back to the jaeger's camp to get another two and it was still a challenge, but at least a manageable one. Clearly the difference in EXP rewards from doing some fights in Field and some in Command modes is gonna take some accounting for.
- Anyone who thought the sentai villain trio from the OP were the Almata leaders can now put that one to rest because lolnope, it was an unholy amalgamation of the Eisenschild members with Aida as its core. That was all kinds of disturbing.
- Thank you Walter for showing up to briefly lighten the mood a bit. I also noted with some amusement that the boss borrows one move each from Leo and Xeno. If she had anything from Rutger I didn't see it. Also in retrospect, when those two talked in Jingo's Episode about "losing her to the 'shield'" it turns out that they were indeed talking about Aida.
- The ending is an absolute gut-punch as you figure things can't end well, but we have a funky orbment with artifact-level powers so maybe it can do something. And hey, Aida's back to herself and she's missing the wounds we saw before! Oh wait, no, she's still dying, dammit Falcom! I swear that they're consciously messing with anyone who complained that the series didn't take death seriously enough, with two named characters dying in as many chapters and the ending where Feri has to kill Aida (and then Van steps in so she doesn't have to) which is about as clear as you can get that the tone of this game is gonna be very different.
- And then we end with some more mood whiplash as Van and Agnes discuss the recovered Genesis, then Feri shows up needing somewhere to stay since she got booted out of the clan, Agnes immediately agrees on Van's behalf and then we get that letter from Hassan with Van's reaction at the end to bring the chapter to a close on a light note after that depressing fight.
Ahhhh, just get to Creil did you?
Yep, I see we're sticking with the traditional "sleepy rural village is your first port of call" but this was certainly a more eventful first chapter than any other game in the series, I'd wager.
Is there any way to pull up that map of Calvard again? Even though we knew they were taking inspiration from France, I wasn't quite prepared for just how much French there was on that map! That said, the sight of English bobbies as their police wasn't something I was expecting. Gendarme, these are not.
Speaking of tradition, it seems that fishing's gone as well as a collectible book series? Fishing I could take or leave, but no book is a pity. So far it looks like the book tab is for newspapers and nothing else. In fact there don't appear to be any minigames at all, but maybe we'll hit up a casion at some point.
Oh, was the job Van and Walter went on anything to do with the activities we heard about in CS3 or 4? Something about Walter's blockade.
Is it mentioned if the stone monument was similar to the ones near Elmo and in the Nord Highlands? In so far as how old they are, if nothing else. It looks too similar to be a coincidence.
Were Aida and the others turned into pseudo-vampires? I think there was a mention about being unable to go out in the day, right?
I was kind of impressed that Falcom actually had Van finish off Aida like that. I'd never have dreamed they'd show one of the protags (bar Kevin) actually killing someone, even if it was more of a sending you on your way kind of deal, rather than out and out murder.
I find the idea that each chapter's set up being Van taking the kids out on field trips around Calvard to be quite amusing. I can just imagine Aaron and Feri or someone arguing in the backseat and Van threatening to turn the car around.
Hi all, long time no see.
I am still in the middle of chapter 2 and have been posting on my twitter about it mostly since I wanted to get further in the game and have better grounding for my remarks. There are some pretty major reservations I have and it makes me wonder what Falcom was thinking. I've been afraid to bring it up in public but... I imagine the localization staff are tearing their hair out right about now.
I like the game mostly. But the dissonance in tone created by Falcom trying to have their cake and deconstruct it too is going to hamper its reception significantly. It certainly is for me.
I'm almost at the end of Chapter 2 now, gonna save the commentary for when I'm done but I'm definitely worried about what the next hour or so might have in store...
That said, having seen a few more Hollow Cores and liking to guess this kind of thing, I'm gonna toss out some predictions now for the remaining party members and see how close or far away I was later:
Quatre: Vapula or Allocer
Risette: Gremory or Seere
Judith: Flauros or Amdusias
Barkhorn: Sabnock or Valefor and more likely the former
Is there any way to pull up that map of Calvard again? Even though we knew they were taking inspiration from France, I wasn't quite prepared for just how much French there was on that map!
Unless there's some kind of open travel in the endgame, my guess is no. Which is annoying because the map of the country is clearly sitting there in our inventory.
And yeah, that is a lot of French, with some dashes of other languages thrown in for flavor. The only name I've seen so far that I can't figure out the origin for is Messeldam.
Speaking of tradition, it seems that fishing's gone as well as a collectible book series? Fishing I could take or leave, but no book is a pity. So far it looks like the book tab is for newspapers and nothing else. In fact there don't appear to be any minigames at all, but maybe we'll hit up a casion at some point.
Not so far, but I'm willing to bet that they're saving those for the next game in the same way that we didn't get to play around in Ruan's casino until SC or the ones in Crossbell/Raquel until CS4. And yeah, so far I've seen no signs of a novel either, which is another weird omission especially since so many characters have mentioned previous books. It's at least possible that they're saving this for an update, like we didn't get a collectable novel in Hajimari before the big update and then it was retroactively added for new playthroughs via NPCs as an alternative to getting it from Corridor chests. I sure hope so because I'm missing that almost as much as I'm missing the enemy flavor text right now.
On the Chapter 1 ending stuff:
- The one near Elmo isn't mentioned but it is directly compared to the one in Nord and both are believed to date back to the pre-ancient Zemurian civilizaiton, so it's the oldest of the old stuff that we've seen.
- It's a different tradition but a similar general idea, they're referred to as Ghouls so they're drawing on an Arabian tradition rather than a European one, and Aida gets really creepy when she talks about how delicious Feri looks. It's possible there's a similar underlying mechanic for why the noctfamilia and ghouls act the way they do, or it could be that Falcom just used two different legends that happen to play on the same fears.
- I can totally see Van pulling a 'kids, stop that or I'm turning this car around' routine at some point.
Hi all, long time no see.
SpoilerRegarding booksWhen you watch a movie in the evening you have the option of buying a pamphlet for the movie you watched. I saw the Other Side movie in chapter 2 and am not sure if all the movies are available in every single chapter.
Heya Narukami!
I have no idea, not being beyond Chapter 2 yet myself. That said, one thing about that deal caught my eye:
I am still in the middle of chapter 2 and have been posting on my twitter about it mostly since I wanted to get further in the game and have better grounding for my remarks. There are some pretty major reservations I have and it makes me wonder what Falcom was thinking. I've been afraid to bring it up in public but... I imagine the localization staff are tearing their hair out right about now.
SpoilerReservationsI don't want to trigger a fandom meltdown, but I think it's going to happen eventually, and I can't honestly talk about the game without mentioning it. The amount of sexual content, sexual harassment, and male gaze in this game is a major increase over any previous installment and I honestly think there's going to be a kerfuffle when it's released in English. Agnes' first meeting with Van? He makes a sexual remark. Talking to random NPCs? They hit on the girls. A serious action scene? The camera is square on Agnes' breasts. It's all over the game and it's frankly shocking even having played Sen and Hajimari. It's depressing because I do enjoy the game otherwise and Falcom's effort at making a more serious story than Sen - but the effect on the atmosphere is as if every scene with Weissman had him dressed like Speedy Gonzalez and dancing with maracas. You want to listen to what he's saying, but you can't help being distracted by the delivery.
Eh, I don't think the translation staff has a clue yet but I imagine they will be once they've worked through the backlog to the point that they're ready to start going through Kuro's script. Separately, I'm hoping they go full hardboiled with Van's diction because damned if he's not doing everything in his power to sound like the Continental Op.
I do expect that we're either gonna get a quest in the future (or just a story development) with that once NPC in Edith who's constantly complaining about her boss sexually harassing her. It seems like the sort of thing Falcom would do with that NPC plot thread.
I assume Messeldam is intended to be Dutch (like Amsterdam, Rotterdam). With French names like Creuil, English names like Anchorville, Swiss names like Basel, and the reference to an autobahn, Falcom put all of western Europe plus the US into the blender for Calvard.
Sadly it doesn't seem they looked up the rules for how French works with names like Provence De Le May (there are multiple errors here lol).
Anyway I don't mean to sidetrack the thread. I do like some of the other things the game is doing, and I'm only in chapter 2.
I didn't realise we had a map in the inventory. Wow, that's doubly mean, considering they must know how we've been dying to see a map of the place for years now. For shame.
I was pondering, in the tradition of Kiseki protags, who Van was going to adopt, but silly me, he already has a kid: his car! I'm surprised Mr. Speed Racer still has his arm attached after he dared laying hands on it.
Is there any explanation given as to who's rewarding Van whenever he levels his Spriggan rank up? The previous games mostly make sense, but considering he's self-employed, is he just rewarding himself? Or is it strictly gameplay and we should just hand wave it.
Finished Chapter 2 late last night so I'm gonna put my thoughts on that one in order for a bit, but I'm generally loving it and oh boy, are they throwing you right into things with this game while also doing the usual 'set up the characters and setting for future entries' as is typical of the first game in an arc.
I assume Messeldam is intended to be Dutch (like Amsterdam, Rotterdam). With French names like Creuil, English names like Anchorville, Swiss names like Basel, and the reference to an autobahn, Falcom put all of western Europe plus the US into the blender for Calvard.
Sadly it doesn't seem they looked up the rules for how French works with names like Provence De Le May (there are multiple errors here lol).
<snip>
Anyway I don't mean to sidetrack the thread. I do like some of the other things the game is doing, and I'm only in chapter 2.
I for one do not mind nerdy linguistic digressions one bit. xD And since this is the 'I'm playing Kuro, here's what I think' topic, it's a good place for reactions to how things are presented too, so feel free.
Also, I'm kicking myself for not thinking of places like Amsterdam.
SpoilerMid chapter 2Can't say I was expecting the sudden shift into Initial D. That was great! All I could think of was this for the whole sequence. Someone really needs to do an edit of that scene with Eurobeat. I think I may have messed up the second decision point, though...I was pondering, in the tradition of Kiseki protags, who Van was going to adopt, but silly me, he already has a kid: his car! I'm surprised Mr. Speed Racer still has his arm attached after he dared laying hands on it.
Is there any explanation given as to who's rewarding Van whenever he levels his Spriggan rank up? The previous games mostly make sense, but considering he's self-employed, is he just rewarding himself? Or is it strictly gameplay and we should just hand wave it.
Ahhh, Initial D had such good music.
If you look closely at the rank screen you can see how Falcom did it and it's pretty clever; While Van is self-employed as a Spriggan, he's also performing field testing for MTSC (it's where he got both Mare and his stun caliber) and they're the ones giving you shiny things based on your performance. You can see their logo on the second sheet of paper where your Rank is listed.
Related to that, I'm loving the way they present things in this game as being in-universe documents, like the quest/rank reporting, the character 'recruitment' and the end of Chapter results.
Yeah, now that I look at it after finishing Chapter 2, I see what you mean. Clever way to do it.
I continue to be surprised at how much more high stakes this game feels at so early a point in the game and for being the first game in an arc. All that stuff with Aaron feels like a mystery that would've been answered in game 2, or much later in this, at least. Is it mentioned whether or not this Taikun(sp?) is a devil or something else? I doubt they'd be getting into Outside stuff already, but it certainly seems fairly not of this world. Also, I'm pretty sure Aaron must have some kind of death wish, since I can't imagine there are too many people who'd take a chance at calling Elaine obahan...
Feri continues to be a treasure.
One thing about the turn based combat I wish was different was camera control, or the lack thereof. When you're selecting your craft and trying to target someone, having the right stick bound to changing targets can make getting a good view of the field a pain. I kind of wish you were unable to move when you're in craft targeting mode, which would free up the left stick for targeting and let you move the camera more freely with the right.
