/v/ - Video Games

>>14717254

>Its a shame (((collectors))) are starting to get hard into gamecube games as it means it wont stay affordable for too much longer

True, but Crystal Chronicles hasn't been one of those games that got hit hard in my experiences, be it just the sheer availability in the west, or the facet of co-op requiring GBAs and GBA-to-Gamecube link cables reducing interest, at least from people actually looking to play games as intended and not just decorate shelves with them. It's stayed pretty cheap where I am. Even Tales of Symphonia (using this for comparison as both had co-op and got Player's Choice prints) is usually more expensive, and that game has a PS3 compilation port eating into demand somewhat these days.

I'd look into Crystal Chronicles myself, but I'm not sure how enjoyable it is to play without a full co-op party, let alone solo. Same with the DS entries.

>>14717281

the gamecube one is fine because solo the game has mechanics for it. A moogle carries the chalice for you and you get different ways to combine spells. The DS ones are kind of trash arpgs solo.

Yes, I always thought the same, the story of the game was very interesting, and they way the handle it was kind of novel and unique. You may say it made it feel kind of disjoint at times what with dividing it in cutscenes that happen at X year in Y localization, yet I think one of the games strenght actually relied on this very fact. The story isn't nothing incredibly amazing, but the whole package, the music, the fact that you had to travel the world and interact with characters to understand what was going on with the world, the many encounters you have and the great world building really engrossed the player. I'll say that, even if the execution could improve, it made one thing very right in the storytelling department, and it was integrating gameplay mechanics with its story and to encourage exploration by rewarding the player with more insight into the game's setting.

OP explanation is very good so nothing to add there. What I do would like to add is the fantastic manner in that the game handled its main theme: the memories we create while traveling. Things like the diary that record all your encounters, to the many main characters which suffers from the lose of their memories, and the fact that if you speak with NPCs as the years go by, more and more characters are starting to forget things. Even the letters you receive, which you can read at any point in the game, it all builds around this idea of traveling and making memories. Hell, the whole final boss and the little quiz before further reinforce the themes of the games. For this reason the game produce a strong emotional involvement in the players, as their adventure and personal tales are recorded beautifully, and nothing gives me more pleasure than, after playing through many in-game years, to sit and read the diary. Not only that, but playing with friends just make it betters, as you see how you share the trip, and all the hardships and fun times you had. You can see their letters and their little own personal tale, and the focus in teamwork, what with the chalice and the limited skills you can use, plus the specialization of the different races, just add to this feeling of companionship.

This game is a fucking unpolished gem. I want a sequel that follows in the step of the Gamecube game, improving its flaws and expanding its world and gameplay. Yet I'm not sure if such a thing would be possible or even good. Regardless if one like the game or not, it is fairly unique in what it does, and it possess of a quality I cannot exactly put into words that makes the game pretty dear to me. If I try to critic it "objectively" (as objective an opinion may be), the game probably would be like a 7, a 8 at most. Yet somehow to sum of its part elevated it more. I hesitate to say personally I'll give it a 10, for it is far from perfect. Yet I really haven't seem another game that achieved the same thing FF CC does. For those who want to play the game in multiplayer now, I'll recommend using Dolphin and Visual Boy Link. They made it work pretty fucking well, and you can play in high resolution with controllers in your PC. Plus, if you have a second screen, you can connect it to your PC and put the GBA screens there, so you can use the menus in a very comfortable way.

>>14717428

i would love another but the trouble is how do you do it without invalidating the first? just 'it happened….again?' which sucks or like the DS games throw the core of it out the window?

It is a rough game thats almost a classic but everything that makes it that makes it impossible to make a satisfying sequel without -ironically- pulling a final fantasy and doing it on a seperate world.

>In some ways its comparable to the first dark souls but hidden under a FFIX art style.

Even if this is true, hearing this fucking comparison pisses me off. I wish you made a different comparison. At the rate this is going, Dark Souls will become the Harry Potter of ARPGs (and arguably vidya as a whole with this sheer retardation virus spreading like wildfire)

Please fucking come up with a different comparison other than fucking Dark Souls unless its actually fucking apt. Is it in a grimdark, hopeless-seeming and half-dead world? Does it involve deities, guardians and world-building along with a strong focus on power and autonomy of an entity, and the impact of decisions and the consequences and results of said decisions? Does it involve the willpower, drive and determination of human beings and what that context means in a near-dead world where every action can set off a butterfly effect.

No? Then reconsider that its "comparable" to Dark Souls, because the biggest thing I fucking see is that "it doesn't tell the story to you directly and has a lot of hidden lore xD" which is such a vague and stupid and very common in plenty of vidya.

Anyways, your post seems intriguing. I'd want to play this game, but a turn-based game with friends sounds unfeasible. Real-time games are usually 10x more fun compared to turn-based games, and stories usually lose a lot of impact with friends, similar to watching movies. Its hard not to laugh or crack jokes and whatnot when you're with someone you're comfortable with; even if you manage to remain serious, its just not as strong of a feeling as you would feel if you were experiencing such a story alone.

Is it even possible to play alone? I know pretty much nothing about this game, but four swords required at least one other person didn't it?

>>14717480

I know dark souls is often used as a meme game but this is a case of "world where people are losing their memories over time and degradation is the major theme" and behind all the armchair lorefags, difficulty meme queens and general mainstream pushing Dark Souls as a game in a vaccum is about entropy and a world on a inevitable decline. So is crystal chronicles. Miasma and Hollowing are effectively the same thing.

Its a strange situation where a game has been so often the go to for the wrong reasons it offends people when its used for the right context for once.

>>14717447

Normalfags and journos, but if a game has a good story to compliment the gameplay it is worth appreciating and adds to the experience.

>>14717461

Yeah, that seems to be the problem. The only solutions I see are either make a prequel, which would probably suck, or a remake, improving graphics, expanding the world of the game and the gameplay and fixing things that could be improved. But, I think it would also be very interesting to make a sequel in a world without miasma, or one were miasma is disappearing. When tailoring a new story, I'll say they should do the same the did with FFCC and choose a main theme, but this time a new one, one that would logically follow the last one. If the theme of the first game was memories, the next one could be facing the uncertainty of the future. This would fit the narrative of the game, as the radical change that is the fading of the mist would bring both hope and uncertainty. Technology may start progressing, the necessity to gather around crystals would fade, and the crystal caravans would become things of the past, having to reinvent itself. Certain political struggle and conflict may arise, when stronger nations don't find themselves preoccupied with the mist anymore, and can focus their endeavors to other goals. More importantly, now without mist, people can travel to further lands and discover new places, which in turn contain new threats and dangers, which cause unrest and fear. The gameplay should go hand in hand with this, maybe with a bigger focus in exploration, now without the limits of the chalice. Make use of online and lan multiplayers to design big and complex levels with many paths that encourage the players to explore and search. Make cooperation necessary, not only for combat but for travel too. Lilthies could move heavy objects, Selkies could jump higher, Yukos could activate unique magic switches and the like.

The theme of the game could also be linked to the theme of the first, by focusing on letting go of the past and face the uncertain future, yet lost sight of your memories and experiences learn. There can be many possibilities to make the story harmonize with the gameplay and offer a product that, if not superior to the original, can be considered a worthy sequel.

>>14717480

But anon Dark Souls was the first video game with a well-developed world and a plot tied to its history.

>>14717480

>>14717499

I'll say that the comparison to Dark Souls is more apt if we compare them in the basis that both try to give you their story in a minimalistic way, with emphasis on the gameplay and the experience of the player, instead of just going the "cinematic experience" route and dump you exposition and cutscene after cutscene while the gameplay is completelly separated from the story. Dark Souls is just a very famous modern example and overused, specially by fucking normalfags, even if the comparison may be valid. I'll say other good example is Super Metroid, which tells its story without dialogue and makes the gameplay and story fuse seemingly.

Also polite sage for double posting.

>>14717520

So basically ending D of Nier in the grand scheme of things.

>>14717542

Yeah, could be. The fact is that the ending is open enough to create new stories.

>>14717461

I'll also add that Crystal Bearears already fucked the lore with its strange decisions, so at this point we cannot do much worse.

In a unlikelly situation a true sequel would be made, we probably should accept that it probably wouldn't surpass the first game in every aspect. but I'll say it is worth it because the gameplay was actually pretty good and fun, and have many ideas that could be expanded upon as .>>14717447 so eloquently puts, gameplay come first, and I would be happy with a ok story that is worse than the first game but with much better gameplay than a excellent sequel storywise but with the same or worse gameplay.

>>14717567

As long as its still comfy. Riding the caravan with friends was as close as man can come to becoming a gondola.

>>14717542

>>14717567

The ending is vague and really shit, I played that game for over a year single-player since I had nothing else to fucking play for the shitcube as a kid and all you do is go through the same goddamn dungeons trying to figure out what the fuck to do to continue the story, and there wasn't any since it's a bad Diablo lite clone with a forced "buy more gbas" gimmick produced by a small team they were using to absorb the remains of Taito. Stop using Nier and Dark Souls for game comparisons you goddamn underage fucking retards.

>>14717594

>the ending is vague and really shit

confirmed for never doing the carbuncle subquests

>>14717607

You got a game, commercialized for kids to sell GBAs and GBA link cables since there's no fucking multiplayer rpgs to play on the Gamecube beyond Gauntlet, with obscure fucking retarded sidequests where you have to do stupid obscure riddle shit you probably looked up in a faq to get any semblance of story out of a game, with constant looping dungeons that become available after you beat them in a few years without any hints as to what to do, I know there's no way in hell you grew up with the damn game as a kid.

>>14717619

>its for kids

>but its puzzles are too hard

>but you didnt play it because you were a kid

>this game wasnt for kids

Thanks for reminding me that some anons are mentally ill and you never can tell.

>>14717648

You mean a fucking port and a bad Tales of game praised since there no fucking JRPGs for the shitcube beyond Dreamcast ports?

>>14717594

As said before, the game is far from perfect, yet it has many unique qualities. Combat is simple but more action oriented than D2, being able to dodge and block attacks if you are fast enough. Combining spells, the different charge attacks and spells system was cooI, but if you didn't try the multiplayer I can see why you May not like it. I algo understand the problem with the storytelling you have, cause the game does not tell you shit about how to procede. But I think there its some charm to it, as discovering the secret of the desert reales feels like having make a discovery, and not just following the plot along (even if is just what the player is doing). The real strengh of the plot lies more in the way it present itself to the player, in me opinion, as many characters and events are seen and affected depending on where the player travels and when. The ending being vague is kind of lame, but it does open the possibilities for a sequel that improves in what I consider are some good foundations and idea for gameplay.

>>14717655

The combat is braindead, you hold a button, a circle pops up, you target an enemy, it gets hit, depending on how accurate you are it does more damage. You collect spells by dungeon drops, you don't learn them or anything, they're just dungeon drops you constantly lose when you enter a new dungeon, I always thought it was fucking lame. Then you have the stupid synthing since equipment drops do not exist. Its tedium to draw out a game that doesn't have much of any content in the first place beyond vague ponderous bullshit.

>>14717645

>crashes in the first cutscene during emulation

>have a working n64 but there is no way i could find a copy in my country

>>14717683

>crashes in the first cutscene during emulation

I emulated it well into chapter 3 before dropping. P64 2.0 and beyond should be capable of doing the trick.

>>14717822

I got some memory corruption in Project 64 1.6 back when I played it as a kid and it completely fucked my save.

>>14717254

You're half right.

The miasma does hurt you (as it hurts the player), but even outside the miasma there's this sort of "dementia radiation". For example if you keep sending bad messages to your family, they will forget who you are- despite never being in miasma.

The crystals slow it down, but they won't last forever.

Chronicles was a lovely world with a great artstyle and music. I wish we'd have gotten more from it (FF Tactics for example).

I'm still fucking pissed that this game will never get a port without its fucking gimmick 'GBA link required for multiplayer' crap. And the worst part is that they had the perfect fucking opportunity to port it to the WiiU when that console was alive.

>>14717967

could do it on the switch with a joycon per player.

>>14717967

If someone could do it that'd at least make the game fun.

>>14717683

Works fine in Mupen64plus, I just played through it again last week.

>>14717965

>embed

my nigger, but I'm disappointed that no one posted the best boss theme yet. On a related note:

Time for a little poll

Favorite…

Tribe?

Dungeon?

Boss?

Song?

For me I gotta go with either Lilties or Yukes. Veo lu Sluice has the best song, but I really like River Belle Path because it makes such a great intro level. Jack and Maggie Moschet are definitely my favorite boss. For the song, it's either Promised Grace or Sound of the Wind.

>>14719859

>Tribe?

Yukes and Clavats

>Dungeon

That's a hard one.

Probably Rebena Te Ra.

>Boss

Either Moschet or Raem

>Song

Embed related if we're talking in-game.

If all song's apply, it'd be a tough choice between it and Kaze No Ne both japanese and english version.

FFCC would be a perfect 10/10 god game if only it wasn't gimped by the GBA kikery. Even as one of the rich kids who got to enjoy and play it with 4 bros (and boy did we play the FUCK out of it), it's still a horrendous blight upon an otherwise superb experience.

It kills me inside that the fuckheads at Nintendo will never re-release the game, free from the GBA shackles once and for all.

>>14719903

>No gameplay element feels unneccesary

Except for the whole "play the same fucking game 5 times" thing.

>>14719859

Selkie women were extremely lewd, loved the lost town dungeon ending in the armstrong house with the sad irish lady intro, boss by itself id say i love the behemoth duke and his lamia wife, mio raem but also a mention for zombie dragon you can kill with cure spam.

and song has to be the opening movie theme.

>>14719903

>4th one makes up for it and is the all around best character

>Final character is still kinda weak

I don't really agree with those

4th one is like an higher skill cap allrounder, and if you're not really good it's probably the 2nd worst char to adapt to because he's short range mostly even if extremely mobile and all his projectiles attack aren't spammable.

5th one has the strongest moveset of the game and really not the hardest one to use at all, especially the spam magic which plays off most of the passive skills and is in itself very powerful (AoE + pushes enemy + hitsun + DoT) and cost the least amount of PP in the game.

>>14720047

Well, probably understated 5th character's spamability, but I guess I just played a more hands-on approach with chaining combos right into enemy faces rather than projectiling from afar (apart from obvious shooty character).

As soon as I got the counter skill with Oswald, I'd just stay in that closest range, spamming hits, combo skill, counter when neccessary, beserk skill, while recharging actual berserk, and even more berserk spamming hits. Makes egg-on-toast of every boss.

>>14717254

I mostly had the assumption that the game was a low effort title given to Nintendo to smooth over their past fighting. I was right.

>>14719859

>Tribe?

Whether it's visually, thematically, or gameplay, Selkies are the best.

>Dungeon?

It's been a long time so I don't remember them clearly, but I think I'd go with Rebena Te Ra. Maybe Moschet Manor.

>Boss?

Raem or Memiroa. For normal bosses, probably the zombie dragon.

>Song?

I don't remember the music at all, aside from a vague impression that it was good.

Even playing exclusively solo (my little brother and I played it together once in a while, but most of the time I didn't have anyone to play multiplayer with) it was a great game. It might have been the first game I ever played that had random events such that you would never encounter everything in a single playthrough. That plus the non-obvious sidequests with no explicit tracking system (I finished the game twice before finding Fiona) and the very different experience based on your race and your family's profession gave it a lot of replayability.

I like games where you don't have complete control over your build, and beyond random gear drops that's hard to find outside of tabletop RPGs. Here the spells you have access to depend partially on luck and vary by stage, and most of your stats come from semi-random dungeon rewards, and unless you're going for 100% completion there's very little grinding despite the randomness.

If it wasn't for the GBA cashgrab stuff I probably would have counted it as one of the best games of all time. If it was re-released today with online multiplayer, I'd play the hell out of it.

My biggest complaint with the game aside from the GBA requirement is that trimming Mog's fur was a pain in the ass and took way too long.

>>14717254

I enjoyed the game and would have legit loved playing it with three other friends. The problem is most people's taste is shit, and it's hard to find three other people who both are worth friending not casual sheeple swallowing whatever bullshit the established media networks feed them as entertainment or information and with decent taste in vidya. I still have my copy as well as a GBA and a link cable for the day I might find at least one other person to play with.