Spark_Heal
Dandy Guy, in Space
Still slowly making my way through Persona 3 Reload. At about 40 hours in and it feels like the story is 60%-65% complete. I definitely missed a Social Link by ignoring the art club for too long but getting eveerything in one playthrough wasn’t the goal. Bumping up the difficulty was a wise choice because it's forced me to use every tool the game provides to win, using skills I'd normally avoid because now they have a lot of value and also getting really invested in fusion. It’s time for a break though because fatigue is starting to settle in.
In the meantime I played through Caladrius Blaze again. Finally beating the whole game without needing to Continue at any point. Which feels like enough of an accomplishment to say that I have actually 'beaten' the game. Caladrius is a vertical arcade Shoot 'em up that I have spontaneously booted up several times a year since I brought it. Which has lead me to trying several different Shoot 'em ups but I still haven't found one I like as much as this.
Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition - Masato Kato’s passion project and incredibly decisive sequel to seminal RPG classic Chrono Trigger. This PS4 port was incredibly shoddy at launch and has since been been patched up, so the game runs incredibly well now. Chrono Cross is infamous for having over 40 possible party members and being designed to ensure you can’t see everything in a single playthrough. In 5 hours I've already accidentally gotten one party member and missed out on another. The story has stressed it is about choice and rippling unforeseen consequences so this feels appropriate even if it understandably annoys people.
The combat is different from what I expected. Firstly Chrono Cross doesn't have a normal levelling system. You gain a level after every boss fight and minus some possible bonuses that's it. So the party has fixed strength and victory comes down to equipment and correctly using your abilities. You have a few basic options: attack, element and defend. You use attack to hit the enemies and build up points to spend on elements. Elements are (confusingly) both magic spells and items. Attacking and using Elements drains a stamina bar. If you run out of stamina completely through relentless offence then it recovers slowly as other character act. You can recover stamina completely by defending, which also means you will take less damage from the enemy’s attacks. Honestly the game has been bad at explaining its systems and I am still waiting for it to open up for more options. It's unfortunately, hovering in this middle ground where I could end up dropping it if it doesn't pick up or being really positive on it after a few more hours.
In the meantime I played through Caladrius Blaze again. Finally beating the whole game without needing to Continue at any point. Which feels like enough of an accomplishment to say that I have actually 'beaten' the game. Caladrius is a vertical arcade Shoot 'em up that I have spontaneously booted up several times a year since I brought it. Which has lead me to trying several different Shoot 'em ups but I still haven't found one I like as much as this.
Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition - Masato Kato’s passion project and incredibly decisive sequel to seminal RPG classic Chrono Trigger. This PS4 port was incredibly shoddy at launch and has since been been patched up, so the game runs incredibly well now. Chrono Cross is infamous for having over 40 possible party members and being designed to ensure you can’t see everything in a single playthrough. In 5 hours I've already accidentally gotten one party member and missed out on another. The story has stressed it is about choice and rippling unforeseen consequences so this feels appropriate even if it understandably annoys people.
The combat is different from what I expected. Firstly Chrono Cross doesn't have a normal levelling system. You gain a level after every boss fight and minus some possible bonuses that's it. So the party has fixed strength and victory comes down to equipment and correctly using your abilities. You have a few basic options: attack, element and defend. You use attack to hit the enemies and build up points to spend on elements. Elements are (confusingly) both magic spells and items. Attacking and using Elements drains a stamina bar. If you run out of stamina completely through relentless offence then it recovers slowly as other character act. You can recover stamina completely by defending, which also means you will take less damage from the enemy’s attacks. Honestly the game has been bad at explaining its systems and I am still waiting for it to open up for more options. It's unfortunately, hovering in this middle ground where I could end up dropping it if it doesn't pick up or being really positive on it after a few more hours.
