El Pit wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 05:19:

DarkCntry wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 04:02:

VaranDragon wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 03:37:
Oh great, another Souls-Like.....

It's not really anything close to a souls-like except that it uses a bonfire-like system.

The dodging and parrying systems sound VERY souls-like to me, too. Unforgiving and based on perfect timing or start again.

The window for dodging is so massive that you'd have to be actively trying to screw up to fail it. Parrying's window is far less forgiving because it acts as an extra attack.

On the easiest of difficulties, only the hardest of optional bosses will give you trouble with either.

The whole fight mechanic is more turn-based rhythm game than souls-like as it has sound cues you can use to help get timing down after you understand enemy moves.

As for the QTE'S, those can be effectively turned off on any difficulty.

This comment was edited on Apr 28, 2025, 16:29.

Lost Odyssey --- oh man what a masterpiece. I'd LOVE a remaster of that for modern systems. I never did finish it because life got in the way (I think I was just starting a job or something) so it'd be wonderful to finish such a wonderful game nowadays.

For this game, I did try it but quickly refunded it because I RAGEHATELOATHE qte nonsense in my "turn based" games. Good for those who enjoy it, but absolutely not for me.

El Pit wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 05:19:

DarkCntry wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 04:02:

VaranDragon wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 03:37:
Oh great, another Souls-Like.....

It's not really anything close to a souls-like except that it uses a bonfire-like system.

The dodging and parrying systems sound VERY souls-like to me, too. Unforgiving and based on perfect timing or start again.

From watching the videos, the extra button press for more effective attacks, and button presses on dodge or parry looks more like The Legend of Dragoon not Souls. I don't expect many know what that is though from the PS1 days.

This comment was edited on Apr 28, 2025, 12:09.

Wow they knocked it out of the park with their debut game. It looks very unique, love the look to the turn based encounters.

RogueSix wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 05:27:
Dude, I hate Souls-likes like the plague but this luckily only has Souls-like-like mechanics on the surface .

To add to everything RogueSix said, the game also saves every time you pick up an item. I’ve never had far to go to get back to a fight that I lost, and I’ve never had to wade through other enemies I previously defeated to do so.

Dodging is easier than parrying, and I am not good yet with either.

There isn’t any penalty for dying, so that makes it far less annoying than souls-likes.

VaranDragon wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 03:37:
Oh great, another Souls-Like.....

Dude, I hate Souls-likes like the plague but this luckily only has Souls-like-like mechanics on the surface .

For example, while you have the bonfires flags to rest and reset the levels, you can easily trigger a "manual" save by changing a character's outfit so you can effectively freely save everywhere which is a huge plus compared to true Souls-likes.

Also, you have three difficulty levels. Story, normal and expert. As I said, the game is only initially hard on 'normal' and it quickly gets much easier. You can pump up your stats (vitality + defense) until it doesn't really matter (too much) anymore whether you successfully parry and/or dodge.
If you are struggling with getting your parries in (like me) then just focus on dodging which is considerably easier to pull off once you get the hang of an enemy's attack pattern. You won't get the bonus counterattack damage from parrying but so what...

The optional battles are tough but easy to identify. They are all called 'Chromatic'-something bosses and there is also more than the one (optional) Mime in the prologue (Lumiere). You can fast travel back to locations. Just leave the optional bosses for later (or never). The story path plus some side exploration is very doable on normal difficulty even for a Souls-like hater like me.

When in doubt with a new enemy type just trigger an autosave by changing the costume of one of your characters. The flags aren't that far apart though and the game autosaves quite a lot in the background. It's all very fair and not like the time-wasting super-bullshit in Souls-like games.

Finally, if all else fails, I haven't tried it myself, but according to reports it seems to work as intended, one can always drop to Story difficulty which is supposed to make the game a cakewalk. There are no difficulty-related achievements if anyone cares about that aspect so you're not even screwing yourself out of anything on that end. You can drop it to 'Story' and just enjoy the game.

DarkCntry wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 04:02:

VaranDragon wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 03:37:
Oh great, another Souls-Like.....

It's not really anything close to a souls-like except that it uses a bonfire-like system.

The dodging and parrying systems sound VERY souls-like to me, too. Unforgiving and based on perfect timing or start again.

VaranDragon wrote on Apr 28, 2025, 03:37:
Oh great, another Souls-Like.....

It's not really anything close to a souls-like except that it uses a bonfire-like system.

Oh great, another Souls-Like.....

Ah man I loved Lost Odyssey... what a great and underappreciated game that was. It deserves the remaster/remake treatment.

I really want to play E33, but I'm already in too deep on the Oblivion remaster. Between those two and Hundred Line, I'm gonna be busy for a while...

Really enjoying it. Combat is just different enough to make the turn based stuff feel good without going full FF7 Rebirth.

Biggest thing I love is the narrative. Refreshing to be playing a game that focuses on a bunch of 30yo characters and not getting bogged down in coming of age or daddy/mommy issues. I love myself a good JRPG where a group of best friends get together to go kill god, but it is nice for them not to be all teenagers. There is a single teenager and she is actually quite endearing, themed more as a daughter figure, and not annoying.

Reminds me a bit of what I liked so much about Lost Odyssey.

I'm glad. The game is damn good, and I feared it might get ignored due to being released adjacent to the Oblivion re-release.

RogueSix wrote on Apr 27, 2025, 14:48:
(or the game is not even registering input sometimes... not sure what it is but Steam forums are on fire because of the parrying/dodging mechanic).

Thought it was only me (I usually don't check steam forums). It's driving me crazy after plowing through extremely responsive Khazan 4 times in a row.

I am one of those sales and I almost never buy games full price.

I’ve only gone through the prologue so far and enjoyed my time with it. I will get back to it later tonight.

This is what I imagine a modern Final Fantasy 33 looks and feels like

It's actually units sold and shipped, including some copies sent to retailers that customers have not purchased yet. But yeah, not counting GamePass downloads.

Regarding the game, I quite like it at ~10 hours in. The only (optional) encounters with brutal difficulty (parry/dodging) are for some weird reason in the prologue. The Mime and Maelle take a bit of practice but it's definitely doable after a few tries (normal difficulty).

It becomes much easier after that with the exception of the optional bosses that are usually called something "Chromatic". I have mostly resorted to dodging as the time window is more generous than for parry which is incredibly hard to time right (or the game is not even registering input sometimes... not sure what it is but Steam forums are on fire because of the parrying/dodging mechanic).

You can also make it easier by pumping your vitality and defense. I have almost exclusively put two points in VIT and one in DEF and that gives you a ton of survivability. The game also has Souls-like (yuck) mechanics so you can use bonfires flags to rest at and that will heal your party and respawn all enemies. It may be a bit boring and grindy but you can easily level up quite fast by repeating a few fights in some areas which makes it much easier as well.

It's a great and unique game in terms of the art style, story and presentation but the gameplay is already getting slightly repetitive. I'm hoping for more variety but so far it's still fun. Not sure I'd agree with the gushing reviews. It's an 8-ish out of 10 for me so far.

Jim wrote on Apr 27, 2025, 14:05:
IF they say sells, I'd assume that means actual sales. Same for Oblivion.

Nope. The official Oblivion statement specifically stated "IV million players" so they definitely didn't sell 4 million copies and not even IV million.

Clair Obscur devs specifically said copies sold so we can safely assume 1 million actual sales. Clair has gotten a huge boost after the initial launch player numbers. It now stands at over 121K peak players on Steam. Oblivion now has an all-time peak of 208K.

Extrapolating from Clair, Oblivion Remastered sales could be in the 1.7 million range or thereabouts.

This comment was edited on Apr 27, 2025, 14:50.

IF they say sells, I'd assume that means actual sales. Same for Oblivion. It is available on gamepass, sure, but that does not mean they have direct access to view how many people are playing it on gamepass, whereas the data on Steam and other platforms will be accessible.

Excluding game pass gamers?