I do that. The game also specifically says that if the number on the material is higher than in the recipe, it's okay.

No. It's slowdown. I can tell because it also affects the interface. Which you can't bring up when you're getting knocked back anyway.

What's the knockdown attack anyway?

More specifically, why do any enemy attacks cause me to get knocked down, where as  only my combo finishers knock enemies down? that seems a bit unbalanced.



I've been having trouble with alchemy. Namely, if I use a material that has a higher number than needed, for some reason, it DOESN'T work, and instead, mixing it with the proper mandragora just raises the number again. What am I missing?



Are there any other viable strategies than downing painkillers? I don't have any.

there were things wrong with them, for one thing, although things that could be fixed without radically changing the series' direction, but that's not the point. Sword of mana played VERY similarly to SD2, and from my understanding, random dungeons aside, Children was also supposed to have played really similarly to SD2. They're not radical departures. Why are they inferior?

Really? I get noticable slowdown any time I get more than four enemies onscreen at once and start doing combos against them. Which is, er, remarkably frequent.

Even if I ignore everything else, I still feel that it's way to difficult -- not because of genuine difficulty, but because I find the play control to be really bad, and the slowdown moments make it... well, hard to do anything  during them. And, as I said, the big sprites and everything happening ofscreen make it difficult to maneuver

But are the controls actually that sluggish -- are the large sprites really that problematic -- or am I just bad at this game? Tell me. Please.

One of the things that I thought was really cool about Breath of Fire 4 was the camping screen. You could bring it up, walk around camp, and talk to people about current plot developments. See also the face chat in Tales of Symphonia (did that survive in the other post-symphonia Tales Games)? More games, I think, need to let you actually interact withyour party memebers, even if it is little conversations that come up every so often. You need to have the illusion that you're actually travelling with them, and not just hauling around battles sprites.

I like the Cloud/Aeris romance in FFVII because (do I seriously need to still be tagging this?)



Nifty!

Anyway, I was thinking about some of the Morrowind romance mods that exist and was wondering if I should put those in with nerdy teenage wankfest girlfriend sims, or something more like, uh, The Sims. They're not sex mods of course. Some let you actually uh... raise families. Weird phenomenon.

Love subplots exist sort of in the same region. It's a delicate line between fan service and character development.

FFXII's soundtrack is also really inappropriate. I mean, in one part, you're walking through some sort of gigantic, crumbling oil rig. HOW does that call for, uh... I'm guessing some sort of orchestral sort-of-ambient neo-classical thing, but I can't even recall FFXII having music.

For that matter, I also haven't really noticed the music in Odin Sphere.

Anyway, did Nomura draw the in-game portraits for FFXII? THOSE look like his style.

Yes, but I don't see how that matters. Saying that your own product deserves to be canonized is just completely wrong, no matter what medium. It's arrogant and it's just not how it works.

---edit---

Anyway, further impressions. After about four hours in, I read the IGN review, noted that the main characters name was Gwendolyn, and realized I had absolutely no idea that this was in fact her name.

The writing's pretty bad. Extremely cheesy. Sentences seem to but up against eachother without actually connecting and flowing together into coherent thoughts. Dialogue is beyond stilted. It's completely humorless and devoid of personality.

I'm finding it quite difficult. The AI's practically non-existant and almost entirely pattern driven. And while the patterns are predictable enough, I'm having a rather difficult time actually doding stuff. I don't know if it's the gigantic sprites, the slowdown, or the really sluggish controls. Maybe I'm just retarded and terrible at action games now. I don't know.

It's got an 87 on metacritic. What the hell am I missing here?

Okay, I got this thing in Gettysburg yesterday and I feel like commenting on the box blurbs.

"Sprites that almost breathe of the screen and monster than span well beyond it."

The sprites are indeed large and a lot of the monsters end up existing offscreen as a result. Subsequently, you spend more time looking at the minimap than anything else just so you can see where stuff actually is.

"The kind of visual experience that every gamer dreams possible, but rarely plays."

The animation consists largely of motion tweens and shape tweens, with the actual hand-animated stuff being relatively standard, so, uh, no, this isn't something that rarely played.

"Lose yourself in an intricately spun tale worthy of a place in the canon of classic literature."

This is just fucking retarded and I have no idea why they'd even say that.

Well, that DOES explain a lot.

Yeah, I love classic SD games. Dodgy hit detection, sprite flicker, and bad AI for the win!

Well, SD3 lost the sprite flicker and improved on the AI, but it still had REALLY SLOW MENUES and a complete lack of a story after the half-way point when you're just rushing bosses. Non-dodgable magic attacks are also awesome.

Toriyama's art is really good when it's not dragonball.



Sweete Jesus eggnog, YES. That fucking song.

Anyway, I don't have any issue with the designs in FFXII. Other than Vaan -- who doesn't count because he is retarded and can't dress himself in context of the storyline anyway -- everyone dresses sensibly. Maybe Ashe's miniskirt is a little odd, but it's still a normal miniskirt. Balthier's vest is a tad frilly, but again, relatively normal leather vest with cute leatherworking.

Anyway, at least the outfits are actually symetrical. And look like clothes.

FFX is sort of the 'WTF are you thinking?' nadir as far as weird clothing styles go. Auron wasn't bad, but everyone else was just sort of wut.

FF/Grandia style combat fits into realtime/hybrid. I have no idea what you're getting at.

Very partial list of western PC RPGs which aren't realtime:

ADOM, Akalabeth, Albion, Aleshar: World of Ice, Amberstar, Angband, Arcanum (Turn-based mode. Real time mode isn't really playable, though), Avernum, Avernum 2, Avernum 3, The Bard's Tale, The Bard's Tale 2, The Bard's Tale 3, BAT, BAT 2: The Koshan Conspiracy, Betrayal at Krondor, Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed, Castle of the Winds, Champions of Krynne, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Dark Queen of Krynn, Darklands (Real time combat; turn based everything else), Deathknights of Krynne, Dragon Wars, Fallout, Fallout 2, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Genforge, Genforge 2, Genforge 3, Genforge 4, Jagged Alliance 2,
Lords of Midnight, Lords of Midnight 2: Doomdark's Revenge
Megatraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy, MegaTraveller 2: Quest for The Ancients
Might and Magic, Might and Magic 2, Might and Magic 3, Might and Magic 4, Might and Magic 5, Might and Magic 6 and 7 have the option to be played in real-time, but this mode isn't even remotely playable.
Nethack, Nethergate, Pool of Radiance, Pools of Darkness
Ragnarok, Realms of Arkania: The Blade of Destiny, Realms of, Arkania: Startrail, Realms of Arkania: Shadows Over Riva
Reaping the Dungeon, Secret of the Silver Blades
Space Rangers 2 (Though, it has an arcade mini-game thing, and some optional RTS mini-game. Primary game is turn-based, completely)
The Spirit Engine, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Ultima 1, Ultima 3, Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima: The Savage Empire, Ultima: Martian Dreams, The UnReal World, Wasteland
Whale's Voyage (I think. This might actually be phased real-time)
Wizardry, Wizardry 2, Wizardry 3, Wizardry 4, Wizardry 5, Wizardry 6, Wizardry 7, Wizardry 8*

I can think of a few more that are real-time but not even remotely twitched based -- Eye of the Beholder, Alternate Reality, Bioware's various Infinity Engine games (which mostly consist of pausing, giving orders, and letting it run for a bit. Practically turn-based in execution), Dungeon Hack. Also, I mostly constucted this based on whatever I had Dosbox configs for and whatever I could find on home of the underdogs. This would explain why I don't have as many recent games listed, although I'm quite sure they still make turn-based PC RPGs.  

Anyway, more abstract real-time battle systems like ATB are a purely JRPG invention. So are things like having to press X/O/Triangle when the blow actually connects with the enemy, battle wheels (Shadow Hearts, usaga, something else I'm forgetting), whatever it is FFXII does.

Anyway, there are a few PC action-RPGs that are more similar to something like Secret of Mana or Zelda. Gothic, despite being stat heavy and having large conversation trees, reminds me of Ocarina of Time a little.

While there are quite a few lite action-RPGs for the PC, like Diablo or Nox, most aren't. Even then, I'd say the biggest actionRPG section of... PC RPGs would be stuff like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, or Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Stuff where it's, uh... first-person shooter interface/combat, with heavy RPG elements. Deus Ex and VtMB both have very complex character interaction and dialogues and things, and all three of the previously mentioned have very detailed character growth/creation.

* About the list. I don't care that much, honestly. But saying that all PC RPGs is a blanket statement and immensely wrong. It's the same as saying that all console RPGs are shallow and have stupid anime plotlines. Thta's not true either.