StardusterEX

@DeclanS98 if it’s like the mobile version, it’s for season passes that unlock the ability to buy extra clothes and expressions during whatever event is going on that the time (they last several weeks). You can still buy other outfits and stuff for the season, you just don’t have access to everything... And if you just want to wait, those items eventually loop around and are made available again later for non-seasonal currency. It’s really just a way to support the developers/get some cosmetic items faster.

Edit: your comment above the one I replied to makes me think maybe you’ve already played, but I’ll leave this up anyway in case anyone else is wondering.

@SigmaNoire Eh... It really, really depends on what your tastes are. Some people really like it. The update to the makes certainly helps, though I still think it feels like it’s trying too hard to be Stardew and... just not doing it nearly as well. Which isn’t to say I’m not having fun. It’s a good game, but I personally feel that it’s not a good BokuMono game. ...Does that make sense? I’m not sure I’m explaining it well...

@SilentHunter382 Good news, the part of the expansion pass with Iris dropped yesterday.

Hit-Point’s games are usually pretty good and have interesting ideas. It’s... kind of a shame they got stuck with using Kemco as a publisher for so long. ...More-so their later stuff though after they got a better translator, I can’t really recommend Bonds of the Skies.

Of the games here, Dragon Sinker is the best. Reminds me a bit of old dragon quest. It’s also actually hard if you turn up the difficulty. Especially right at the beginning- you’ve got some freedom as to which direction to go in, and you can get curb-stomped by tough enemies if you go the wrong way. I kinda miss when that was more common...But maybe I just like to suffer.

XSEED isn’t that big of a company, about 160 people iirc. They’ve had a hand in localizing or publishing ~28 different projects other than RF5 since then, not including rereleases or older games, ports of FoMT or RF4S soon coming to other systems, or DLC or patches of recent games (looking at you, PoOT). Not to mention, they’re having to translate RF5 into several different languages, and if it’s anything like RF4, it’s a massive amount of dialogue to handle. Be gentle and patient. We’ll get the game eventually.

Hey, um... it’s not a criticism, I guess it’s more like trivia... But the proper capitalization would be FOGU. It’s an acronym, and stands for Federation of Golden Underwear. The site-owner Cherubae is also a Ninja Turtles fan!

@Aurumonado I think SE and AWL handled it better with every chapter only taking one year. Made it drag out a lot less towards the middle sections.

ramble incoming

Sunshine Islands for me! It’s the only one where I’ve taken the time to marry every candidate at least once. I love hunting down the sunstones and deciding what order to raise the islands in, and I really appreciate how the dialogue differs slightly for pretty much everyone in every location depending on which protag you choose to play as. I also liked being able to customize the way tools functioned with the wonderful stones (a watering can that never runs out and gives me money every time I use it? Yes, please!) and I liked the extra challenge the Sun/Water points and hunger meter added in. But I also enjoy Nuzlockes, so I might be a touch masochistic, lol. I loved the music, too! I feel like they really put a lot of effort into the music of the DS titles, since they didn’t really have graphics going for them, lol. Although I actually really like the pseudo-3D style of the DS titles...

It might also be oddly specific, but I also loved the Harvest Sprites in this one. I liked befriending them and seeing how each sprite developed as you raised their affection. Every one from every team had a different personality. I remember there was one that would go from being too scared and unable to talk to you to being able to say, “I love you.”

I also liked the insight you’d get into the other characters by having the Indigo sprite team enchant people’s houses and seeing what they had to say. I remember it got kind of dark at one point though, if you married Vaughn and had them enchant your house one of them would say something along the lines of: “Vaughn is living only for your sake, <player name>!” And it was Natsume translating at the time so I’m sure they didn’t mean it to sound the way it came off as, but...

I think the only downside for me was that Alyssa was courtable but not actually a marriage candidate. And that when she was made a candidate in ToTT, she had her personality removed, was made prohibitively difficult to marry, and you couldn’t have a child together....

Oooh! I’m definitely going to look into hacking this. This game is like... playing the fun part of monopoly? It’s chaotic and a lot of fun.

3 was my favorite, specifically the GBC version for the medals and extra dungeons and game tracks. I liked the sense of adventure that came with being given a quest but zero actual direct help or guidance, having to go around and figure out what to do by talking to NPCs in towns, finding secrets like the extra dragon boss... Nothing else has managed to quite capture the same feeling for me.

@Phostachio I know, it hurts. Similar, but different... I lost my grandpa recently. Dementia, not covid, though I know the isolation in this last year didn’t help at all. And it might be presumptuous on my part, but whether we’re right or we’re wrong in the end, I don’t feel like the people we’ve lost would want us arguing with people and feeling miserable afterwards. 😢 They’d just want us living our best lives with the time we’ve got left.

@Phostachio Yeah, I get that. I’ve seen what it can do to people in my life first-hand. No one’s died from it, thankfully, but I know people who have been left with long-term, if not permanent, damage from it.
On one hand, after seeing that, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that people not getting it are selfish and unwilling to protect others. But it’s important to understand what they’re going through, too. These are scary times for everyone. We just don’t currently know what long-term side-effects could come up later down the road. If people who don’t/can’t get the vaccine (and people who do, when appropriate!) continue to take precautions in public and around people at greater risk, I think we’ll come out okay in the end overall.

People on both sides of the vaccine and political spectrum need to respect the other. It’s easy to call someone from either side an extremist, but I think the majority are closer to the middle and genuinely make their choices from positions of what they view as love and caring. Maybe sometimes fear and self-preservation as well. But name-calling and getting defensive isn’t going to sway anyone towards any kind of viewpoint.

@Menardi hehe, thanks. I’ve majored in journalism and I think that’s really helped. Trying to understand situations from all sides. Getting viewpoints from all kinds of people. And I’ve just generally found in life that a bit of understanding and compassion for other people tends to go a lot farther than being argumentative. At least then even if you don’t come out agreeing, you won’t come miserable and unhappy with each other, either.

I was waiting on this so I could grab a unicorn mount and finally choose a pet!

Out of these, Crystareino is probably the most interesting. You get to build your own party once you’ve unlocked enough characters, and get different endings based on who’s in your party/who you’ve made friends with... There’s at least one character you have to really work for. It’s not going to blow anyone away, but it feels like more effort went here. Not surprising since it’s from Hit Point... and it looks like they’ve even moved on from Kemco and been acquired by a non-Kemco company. Good for them!

@kkslider5552000 If you like that, check out the Ar tonelico soundtracks. They’re also Gust games, and they have some of my favorite music of all time.

@tseliot The first two games (Sophie, Firis) are in Japanese by default, but you can switch them to English in the settings. Lydie and Suelle is when they stopped also doing English dubs, so that one only has Japanese as an option.

@Expa0 The Mana Khemia/Iris games were kind of the black sheep of the series (Iris in particular). The games that game before and after it are much more representative of the series as a whole. It’s never been about being a traditional JRPG. It’s been about the cutesy slice of life stuff, girls (and once in a while guys) solving relatively small-scale problems and having fun with their friends. :> I like it ‘cause it’s pretty unique in that aspect.

Ooh, I remember this one was really heavy on bonus content if you started a new game+, so there was actually a reason to replay. New story scenes, stat carryover, a bunch of optional hard dungeons, true ending routes, bonus arena, a super-boss for testing your skills and unlocking the best armor...

Oooh, I remember how highly anticipated Ravensword: The Fallen King was at its initial time of release. It was one of the biggest mobile RPGs at the time, iirc. I never did play Shadowlands, and I doubt it’s held up that well, but I’ll give it a play. It’s got me feeling nostalgic.

Since this is doing so well... Would it be too much to ask for the modern ports of Surge Concerto in English, too?

@matdub If you’re looking for a serious answer, the Shepherd’s Crossing games allow you to slaughter your animals for food.

@Eel I’m glad to see someone else having fun. Yeah, I’ve been a part of it for... 10 years now, come December. I had to go back and look at my account for that, I didn’t know it had been that long lol.

It’s hard for me to put into words... I want to start out by saying NintendoLife isn’t a part of this problem at all, and I don’t have a problem with people expressing different opinions from me... I love fogu, but it would be nice to be able to go on bigger places sometimes like Twitter or Reddit and be able to voice that I’m having a good time without being called a bot or a Natsume alt.

I feel like I’m alone in saying that I’ve really been enjoying my time with it. ;w;

@Tarolusa No, different teams. New director. His only other previous BokuMono was the FoMT remake. Iirc the old director is the one heading up (or at least helping to work on) the new RF.

@MisterUnicorn Eh, I’m having a good time so far. It’s not going to blow you out of the water, but it’s fun. I just made it to the beach village where I was immediately offered fruit and colorful mushrooms. 😆

@SoulSurvivor The original creator hasn’t been involved with Marvelous or BokuMono since like... 2010? Marvelous wasn’t involved with BokuMono until 2003, when they acquired the company that was originally developing them. I’m not saying Natsume’s games are the greatest, but neither of your points have anything to do with either series being good or bad.

@ClassicJetterz Marvelous aren’t the original developers of BokuMono, either. Up until the split, Natsume had technically had a longer history with the series than Marvelous had, since they’d been localizing it since the beginning. Could Natsume have done more to make the split between them and Marvelous clear? Perhaps. But as far as I could piece together, Marvelous didn’t want the HM name and didn’t fight Natsume for it. And if Marvelous didn’t want it, I’d kind of rather have Natsume utilizing it and making improvements however slowly than imagining some third-party snapping it up and turning it into a gatcha nightmare or something.

@ClassicJetterz The feedback for PoOT from Japanese players was so poor, the dev team had to issue a statement saying they’d be working on fixes for the load times, lag, inconveniences, lack of dialogue/immersion, etc, and it may have also contributed to the game director’s apparent breakdown. At this point I wouldn’t count on it being a standout experience, tbh.

I’m having a good time so far. I like how open it is once you finish the tutorial area. I like having the choice of moving around to a new area right away or staying and working on mutations from that climate. There’s also something like 230 crops/mutations to hunt down. I wish time stopped in barns, though.

@Mr_Persona ...Or the person primarily speaks French. There was nothing particularly hidden or secret here. Not in that sense, anyway.

@DarthFoxMcCloud There was a Tamagotchi Nano x Eevee crossover, but it never made it overseas. I think that’s the closest they’ve gotten...

Top three? Umm...
1. Oddish 2. Dragonite 3. Cubone

@Broforce Can you elaborate on why? I’m trying to understand that logic, but I’m just not getting it.

@Moroboshi876 No, your file will update. The only thing you’d have to start over for would be the new farm layout.

It’s okay, but I’d still rather have the Aerial Style jump lol. That felt a lot more fluid to me. But maybe I’ll like it more after playing around with it in the actual game once that comes out...

@stevep Firis is the only one out of this trilogy that has a time limit, and it goes away after you beat the main story. You can play however long you want afterward.

@thehoppypoppy About 25-35 hours on the first play through, depending on the game. If you want to go back through on a NG+ or are trying for a different ending, about 15-25 hours. Ryza 1/2 and Sophie have only one ending each while the others have more, if that makes a difference.

@HeadPirate Lol. I don’t know if you were keeping up with the absolute storm of tweets from Japanese players, but they were way harsher towards Gamefreak than anything I’ve seen from anyone in NA. Don’t imagine dissatisfaction with the state of these incomplete games is limited to one territory.

@TDRsuperstar2 I’ve played 1, and am currently playing 2. 2 seems to do a fine job of catching you up on the events of 1 from what I’ve seen so far, if you just want to jump into 2. The first game was fun, but I think the second one has more polish. It feels like Gust listened to the community feedback, and made a lot of improvements based on that.

@TDRsuperstar2 yes, it was.

@JasmineDragon Lydie & Suelle was poorly optimized on Switch. I like the combat, but it’s still one of my two least favorite Atelier games...

@Anguspuss $40. Not... awful, but nothing in it’s really necessary either.

I’m not unhappy about the lack of English dub. They always cut out like 3/4 of the voiced lines in the English versions to save time, so you end up reading almost as much that way...

@AstroTheGamosian It’s implied (at least in the English version, dunno about the Japanese version) that Lumina was barely pubescent. :x they changed her age from 14 in the original version to 18 in that one without making any real changes to her events, model, personality, etc. SE should have started her out with her model from Chapter 2 onwards.

@Eel 41, iirc. Griffin’s a little older, 46-47. Also Griffin was probably the sweetest base marriage candidate in the game. Having someone who could speak to you directly about their feelings in their orange-red heart levels was nice. u.u

@Gamerdudesteel Different spelling, but vapourware is still correct. It’s the British English version.

@nessisonett It’ll likely be changed in the English translation, it was in the new MT game. I don’t think same sex marriage is recognized in Japan still, so that’s most likely why it’s still being called that in the Japanese release.

Honestly... Natsume’s marriage candidates are more appealing visually, and it feels strange to say that. At least there I already know who my husband’s gonna be, everyone here just looks boring lol. Maybe the events and characterization will make up for it, but this art style isn’t meshing well with a lack of character portraits. It’s not like the previous console games like AWL/AP where they could get away with it since the models were so detailed.

Even as a fan of AT I can see this DLC is clearly cursed, but I still feel sad seeing so many people say this cheapens the game... I guess they never got past the surreal storylines and janky animation of season 1.

Natsume’s games might not always be the greatest but considering that Marvelous didn’t acquire the original BokuMono developer- Victor Interactive Software- until 2003, Natsume technically had the longer history with the series pre-split. >.>

And being in the same genre doesn’t make it a rip-off. Marvelous didn’t want the name after the split, so Natsume kept it. What were they supposed to do- sell it off to someone without a history with the games who would likely still use it to make farming games? Let it shrivel and die and not use it to make money to support the company? I won’t argue that Natsume’s games are amazing or anything (though I did enjoy Skytree, and I love the mutation mechanics), but they’re completely within their rights to continue using the name.

Asdivine Hearts was fun enough to put 30 hours into completing. Decent twist involving one of the characters towards the middle. Not the most amazing thing ever, but it was a good enough time to keep me playing. Fernz Gate has a fun battle system. Monochrome order had interesting ideas, I just wish some of the smaller choices had a bigger impact on the story.

No problems with that here. I’d prefer not to have AC events spoiled ahead of time, especially the month-long ones. I work second shift and don’t always have time to play, especially during the day, so it’s nice that I can still turn time back if I miss out on something, though.