A.k.a. the run that blew me out of
the water and proved further that good candidates for Pokemon solo runs
come in all shapes and sizes—and types.
My expectations regarding a Rockruff solo run were the lowest of the low: my
sole reason to attempt such a solo run were the rocky canine's looks, which I
deemed irresistible despite not exactly digging dogs. So far, this is the first
time ever I love all of a 'Mon's forms equally. There is usually always
a crappy form nested somewhere in the evolution process, but not so with
Rockruff: his pup form is too adorable to handle and his vulpine form oozes
haughtiness and poise. On top of that, his overall design is a perfect mix of
animal shape and natural elements tapping into his typing, which should be the
blueprint for all Pokemon designs. But when it comes to the gorgeous canine's
fighting performances, I expected to have a pretty hard ride and to be forced
to keep my Rockruff permanently high on Battle Items in order to progress.
After all, we're talking about a 'Mon with five weaknesses, no immunities
whatsoever and only four resistances, which is probably as lousy as it gets
when it comes to Type effectiveness.
The reality couldn't have been more removed from that vision of doom. Not only
was my Rockruff solo run considerably more pleasant than I had expected, but it
was also much smoother and easier than my Litten and Rowlet solo runs. I
got a really sleek ride this time around, and this can be attributed to three
factors:
- Rockruff naturally levels up much faster than his fellow starters and can thus tower over opponents much more effortlessly.
- Rockruff and his evolution Lycanroc (midday form) have stellar Attack and Speed stats, which is a blessing in a solo run.
- Rockruff learns powerful moves much earlier than his fellow starters. Let's take the example of a move of any Type with power ranging between 55 and 65: Litten and Dartrix learn such a move at lv. 15 (respectively Fire Fang and Razor leaf), but Rockruff learns such a move at lv. 7 (Bite). And believe me when I say that this makes all the difference in the world. When I recruited my Rockruff at Ten Carat Hill, he was already wielding Bite and could wreak serious havoc on Alola's fauna.
That being said, Rockruff still has some massive deficiencies that needed to be handled properly. The most blatant one is obviously his wide array of Type weaknesses, which didn't bode well for upcoming Trials. I was especially fidgety and anxious about the Water Trial, for very obvious reasons: we're talking about the game's second Trial only, which means that I couldn't rely on overlevelling to punch my way through. Fortunately for me, the Totem Pokemon was dumb enough to use a move that transformed my Rockruff into a Water-type 'Mon right on the very first turn—needless to say, this took care of matters. I powered through the Grass and Ground Trials with a couple of Battle Items; and by the time I reached the Elite Four and got to face Hala, my Rockruff was ovelevelled enough to take down his Fighting 'Mons without breaking a sweat. And while I'm mentioning the Elite Four, my Rockruff was around lv. 75 when we finally reached Mount Lanakila's summit, i.e. a good twenty levels above his opponents. Easy-peasy! Now this is the kind of edge I want for my Elite Four showdowns, not this paltry ten level-lead I had to endure with Incineroar and Decidueye.
Rockruff's other main shortcoming is his abysmal Special Attack stat, which could have put me in a bind; fortunately, the game took care of that issue itself. All the offensive moves Rockruff and Lycanroc learn by leveling-up are Physical moves, as well as most of their TM/HM moves. Out of a total of 13 offensive moves, only four are Special moves, which gives more than enough leeway to operate without ever worrying about Rockruff and Lycanroc's crappy Sp. Attack stat. I mentioned in my Rowlet run report that I was not sure I would ever need to take Move Categories into account again, and I'm quite glad my Rockruff solo run gave me the opportunity to do so. My Pokemon solo runs are getting deeper by the game, and I'm lapping it up.
Rockruff's move pool was not exceptional, I must admit: when it comes to offensive moves, the rocky canine can solely learn Normal, Rock, Dark and Fighting moves. However, this tiny variety of moves is more than compensated by the sheer power that all these moves pack. I spend the second half of the game cruising around with four powerful moves—one of each kind: Rock Slide (Rock), Crunch (Dark), Brick Break (Fighting) and Rock Climb (Normal). Combined with the corresponding Z-Crystals, these moves allowed me to tackle all situations and blaze through Alola, leaving a trail of fainted 'Mons and crying Trainers in my wake.
After successfully beating the crap out of the Elite Four and Professor Kukui, I started exploring postgame territory and went much further than usual. I captured the quartet of Guardian Deities as well as all the Extra Beasts on the loose, collected the missing Z-Crystals and gained a couple of extra levels before finally giving up after beating Blue in front of the Battle Tree. I wanted to climb that monument of grinding with my lv. 85 Lycanroc, but the rules implied that levels would be lowered to 50 upon entering the Tree, which was not to my liking at all. Like, do you want me to actually play fair and come up with strategies and well-balanced teams instead of one-shooting my way to the top? No way, game. Keep your stingy and illiberal Battle Tree; as for me, I'm off to new and exciting solo runs.
It's worth noting that I played the french translation for a change; and oh boy, is it a million times better than the english one. Not only is the text brimming with jokes, witty comments and puns on 'Mons names, but the characters are also considerably more fleshed-out. For instance, Captain Ilima's snotty nature and obsession with his looks come across much more blatantly: I roared with laughter when Team Skull Grunts claimed that they didn't want his 'Mons because they "reeked of conditioner", or when Ilima himself told me he hoped my Island Challenge would bring me "plenty of good things—like, a better haircut or fancier clothes". There were also minor story elements that were not mentioned in the english translation and helped clarify a couple of things. Cherry on the cake, discovering a whole new body of text made me feel like I was playing a totally new game.
I have nothing more to add, apart from the obvious: Rockruff is a perfect solo run candidate in Sun and Moon. He's not afflicted with the slowness that seems to plague most native Alolan 'Mons, he packs an awful lot of punch and his weaknesses can easily be managed. I would have loved to indulge in a Rockruff solo run of Moon; but unfortunately, Lycanroc's midnight form looks so goofy and dumb that I simply cannot imagine myself cruising Alola with that bipedal canine by my side. I've had my share of anthropomorphic 'Mons that look like they're lifted straight out of a saturday morning cartoon, thank you very much; and thus will my Rockruff solo run remain a Sun exclusive. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
28 comments:
I still haven't played either Sun or
Moon but the Rockruff/Licanroc (midday) evolution line has already catch my
heart. Everything about both's designs are really pleasant to look at. It's not
exactly very Pokémon-esque but they're some pretty damn nice designs. In
contrast with the midnight form's design, which it's just plain bad.
By the way Isleif, I know it's everywhere on the internet if I search but I
rather have an opinion directly from you. Tell me; just how bad Sun/Moon runs
on an old 3DS system? I'm thinking in jumping in but I'm not too keen on buying
an entire new portable just for one game.
Isleif28 January 2017 at 07:41
Overall, I really love Alolan
Pokemons. Heck, that's the first time ever I wanted to play equally with all
three starters; and many of the resident 'Mons make me want to indulge in solo
runs with them.
"Just how bad Sun/Moon runs on an old 3DS system?": HORRIBLY bad.
Like, shamefully, soul-crushingly bad. Battles are already painful slow on the
New 3DS, but they drag on forever on the regular model. Like, it takes
literally three to five seconds to exit EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. It was actually so
unbearable that I switched to my New 3DS after playing a mere couple of
battles. I strongly recommend NOT playing Sun and Moon on a regular 3DS unless
you have a treasure trove of patience or a secret fetish for loading times.
I don't really like any of the
starters this time to be honest. The grass one looks alright but the rest are
kinda meh (plus the fact that they all have horrendous Speed). There's tons of
regular Pokémons that look damn good though. By the way, will you ever try out
a Nuzlocke Challenge?
>"HORRIBLY bad. Like, shamefully, soul-crushingly bad"
THAT bad? Welp, guess I'll postpone my trip through Aloha for another time. I'll probably start Pokémon OmegaRuby then.
Kumiko28 January 2017 at 14:12
Is it truly that horrible? Gesh,
glad I decided to wait for Pokemon Stars then. I do not have a new 3DS and
there's no way in hell I'm buying one just for on game. For shame GF, this is
not how a game should be released.
I just have one thing to ask, why did you pick Rock Climb as its normal attack?
Can Rockruff not learn return? Because if he can, there's no better move for a
normal type. At max affection the move has 120 attack power, and your Rockruff
would get STAB bonus too.
Unfortunately, it's probably
Nintendo's last attempt at making people caving in and buying the N3DS before
Switch shows up.
But isn't Rockruff/Licanroc pure Rock type? And is Return really that poweful?
I thought Return's power would cap at 100 before STAB, which is also really
respectable.
Kumiko28 January 2017 at 15:44
Ugh, I can see Nintendo doing that
horrible thing, but seriously, why the hell didn't they advertise how horribly
it ran on old 3DS's or release the game as a N3DS exclusive? This way, people
who can't upgrade to a N3DS but still buy the game are screwed. But then again,
it's Nintendo...they have zero respect for their loyal fanbase. My desire to
buy the switch keeps lowering.
Darn, I thought Rockruff was also normal type. Must be because all previous
dogs were at least partly normal type. Since I probably won't be playing the
game until the switch version comes out (and I actually get around to buying
the thing), I have not memorized all the pokemon yet. Having a look through the
alola dex, normal types are shockingly rare.
And you're correct, without the normal STAB boost, return does cap out at 102.
But it's still better than rock climb, since that one has 90 power, not to
mention it has 85 accuracy while return has 100. It's pretty
much a normal type earthquake.
Kumiko28 January 2017 at 15:53
Gah, what I am saying, Poochyena and Houndour are also non normal type dogs. I have no excuse.
Modern Nintendo isn't exactly known
for being, well, informative. Or doing good business decisions for that matter.
They basically did the same for that Legend of Zelda musou game which also runs
terribly on the O3DS.
It's so damn refreshing seeing so little normal types in a region. And Rockruff
being Normal/Rock would make him 4x weak to Fighting types. Ouch. And we need
more pure Rock types to be honest. Actually, we need more speedy Rock types.
Not speaking for Isleif, but if I was doing a solo run, having a move that can
cause confuse like Rock Climb to make the opponent waste one or more turns
would be a godsent. In terms of raw power though, I fully agree, Return seems
like a better option.
Kumiko28 January 2017 at 20:16
Oh yeah, I forgot about Hyrule
Warriors on the 3DS. I was going to get it, being a Koei Tecmo fan and all, but
all the DLC put me off. Boy was I glad about that when I read about how it
performed on O3DS. And it's not like I enjoy the Zelda theme anyways, I prefer
the regular settings of Dynasty/Samurai Warriors. Speaking of that, I don't
have a lot of interest in the FE Warriors game either. A pokemon warriors game
would be awesome, but FE? Meh. It seems like Nintendo is drowning us in FE
lately, let the franchise breathe a little. I am happy that we are going to get
another 3DS FE game though.
I agree that confusion is a good boost to rock climb, or at least it was before
Sun and Moon. Confusion has been nerfed in gen 7, now there's only a 33% chance
of the opponent hitting itself (it was 50% before). So that plus the lower
accuracy make rock climb less attractive than return IMO.
I also agree that a speedy pure rock type is good. I personally don't use rock
types much but Rockruff seems like a good pokemon to try. But I had assumed
that midnight Lycanroc and daylight Lycanroc would be dual types with a
differing sub type (dark for midnight, normal for daylight). Turns out they're
both pure rock and midnight is overall worse than its daylight form. Yeah, it
has more HP/Def/S.Def, but at the cost of a considerable amount of speed. And
in the land of the fatties (Alola), a speed boost is even more of a boon than
usual.
I suppose Vitalguard is better than SandRush, and the dark Stab is nice, but
eh...I agree with Isleif when he says the midnight form is uglier too. The
bloodshot eyes do not fit the design well IMO. Overall it feels like Rockruff's
gimmick is a bit of a waste. It would have been a perfectly fine pokemon with
only its daylight form.
Isleif28 January 2017 at 20:39
"Will you ever try out a
Nuzlocke Challenge?": Now you're giving me ideas, Sieg. I would certainly
never attempt a classic Nuzlocke with a team, because there's no way I'm going
back to the hassle of Type matching and micromanaging several Mons after having
basked for so long in the smoothness and glorious easiness of Pokemon solo
runs. But I could very well try to tweak Nuzlocke rules in order to make them
work for a solo run.
"Why did you pick Rock Climb as its normal attack? Can Rockruff not learn
return?": Yes he can, and the only reason I didn't have my Rockruff learn
Return is that it didn't come to my mind. Like, I got the move from the Daycare
Center and then totally forgot about it. But that's pretty typical of my way of
playing Pokemon games: my runs are usually vastly unsophisticated affairs in
which I rely solely on overlevelling to progress. I mean, I'm only just
starting to ponder Mons' Nature and Move Categories at that point. ^___^
The lack of communication regarding the O3DS' poor performance when it comes to
running Sun and Moon is so darn irritating. The game DOES run on the O3DS, so
it cannot technically be classified as a New 3DS exclusive; but in practice, it
runs so poorly that in SHOULD have been released as a New 3DS exclusive. Sure,
such a decision would have generated fan outrage; but was it really better to
release the game on the whole 3DS lineup and force a nearly broken gaming
experience on players?
In my opinion, Game Freak should have developed and released Pokemon Z on all
3DS models instead of Sun and Moon, and they should have kept that pair for the
Switch, along with a late exclusive New 3DS release. Such a move would have put
an end to years of speculation about a third entry in the 6th generation and
encouraged Pokefans to move on to the Switch or to upgrade to a New 3DS at a
point where prices for the system would have been quite acceptable. Sure, it
would have been a bit stinging to have only one pair (or trio) of exclusive
instalments on the 3DS after getting two on the DS, but Game freak could have
compensated by packing Pokemon Z with tons of exclusive content. Sheesh, what a
missed opportunity.
And since I'm mentioning Pokemon Z, it probably won't ever come to life after
all. I guess that Nintendo solely registered the name in order to be able to
sue fans producing homebrew versions of Pokemon Z into oblivion. Typical
Nintendo, not giving fans what they want but not letting them create it
themselves either.
Isleif28 January 2017 at 20:49
"Overall it feels like
Rockruff's gimmick is a bit of a waste": from what I've seen so far, many
of the Alolan Mons' gimmicks are a bit of a waste and/or underexploited. That's
a shame, especially considering that these Mons have such great designs
overall.
As for Lycanroc, it seems that his dual form has been created for the sole
purpose of Pokemon Trade. And I really don't see the point of tweaking his
stats, especially when it comes off worse for one of the two forms. Identical
stats combined with a dual Typing would definitely have been a more fruitful
design choice.
Kumiko28 January 2017 at 22:04
If Sun and Moon's performance on
O3DS' is as bad as you say it is, then Nintendo should be ashamed of itself.
It's no better than the games that come out so broken that they need to be
patched weeks later to even be played. Wait, it's even worse because they can't
3DS games that way. Either buy a N3DS or get screwed. And yet, there's not
really a huge outrage over it like there was with games like Arkham Knight.
Nintendo can get away with anything it seems...
I agree that going with Pokemon Z and leaving Sun and Moon to the switch would
have been a better choice. Besides, the GBA also only had a trio of games
exclusive to it (at the time anyways), so I don't think the fans would have had
much of an issue with that. But nope. Speaking of them registering the name
anyways, that's another really shitty thing Nintendo does. Everyone defends
them because of copyright and blah blah blah, but they forget that Sega not
only leaves the free sonic fangames alone, they hire the people who worked on
the good fangames to port their games or even to work in Sonic Mania. But nah,
let's just crap on the people who spent years working on a free game out of
love because OMG, how could GF ever sell pokemon games if there are fan games
available to the PC? It's not like they have a huge loyal fanbase that would
keep buying mainline pokemon games, even if they are inferior to free fangames,
just because they want to keep franchise going.
Man, I keep disliking Nintendo more and more, I don't even know how that's
possible. I know Sony also does terrible things and I know Sony has a ton of
fanboys defending every single thing they do too, but it feels like Nintendo is
even more heavily defended and they never seem to suffer any consequences. Sony
at least suffers from some of their mistakes. The Vita's failure kicked them
out of the handheld market, the PS3 lost it generation bigtime, the move (and
most likely VR in the future) cost them tons of money. But nothing ever seems
to faze Nintendo and they keep doing the same thing over and over. They might
have lost money with the Wii U, but it clearly didn't hurt them that much if
they not only seem to be keeping a lot of its faults in the switch, but they
are also so confident in their consoles that they are seemingly dropping their
reliable handheld line in favor of a weak hybrid that is "a home console
first". WTH Nintendo?
And yet I'm going to give them more money eventually for the switch. *sigh*
Isleif29 January 2017 at 14:26
It seems that there's a lot of
damage control going on regarding the O3DS' performance running Sun and Moon.
I've read articles claiming that the framerate drops are not that noticeable
and that slowdowns are also present when playing the game on the New 3DS, which
is totally true. But honestly, framerate drops are not even the biggest problem
there: the biggest problem are the horrendous load times, which are
significantly longer when playing Sun and Moon on an O3DS. Just imagine having
to look at a black screen for three to five seconds while the music is playing
at the end of EVERY SINGLE BATTLE, and then imagine doing that during a whole
playthrough. That's just intolerable in such a grindy game. And there's
probably also the battery issue to take into account: Sun and Moon are
demanding games that suck the battery dry much faster than other games on the
New 3DS, and they probably do so even more on the O3DS.
"It feels like Nintendo is even more heavily defended and they never seem
to suffer any consequences": You know, I'm starting to have these vicious
feelings about Nintendo since the Switch presentation. Like, I'm starting to
genuinely want them to fail. I feel like they basically don't deserve success
anymore after all the mistakes and poor decisions of these last years; and most
importantly, it doesn't look that they even want to thrive and sell their
products. What they deserve at that point is a good karmic spanking that would
make them get their act together.
"And yet I'm going to give them more money eventually for the
switch": Me to... Or will I? So far, the game lineup doesn't look all that
promising. Will our favourite franchises jump over to the Switch after all? That remains to be seen...
Kumiko29 January 2017 at 14:54
I don't blame you for having such
vicious feelings. I started having them myself after I heard the "home
console first" line. I mean, what a way to tell their handheld fans to go
die in a pit.
It's only all the more sour once you consider that their handhelds kept them
alive for the past two generations....at this point I feel like Nintendo has
downright contempt for their customers. Kinda like when microsoft tried to pull
the "always online or you can't play any of your games" crap with the
Xbone, completely disregarding their many fans that don't have reliable
internet. Only at that time, it didn't personally affect me. Microsoft's
consoles never offer any niche experiences that Sony or Nintendo don't have.
But Nintendo? As much as I despise them and don't care for their main IPs, they
have pokemon, they have kirby, they have FE, they have Story of Seasons, they
have SMT. But at this point, part of me wants them to fail so those franchises
just move over already. I'd love to see what a pokemon game that's not
restricted to the weaker Nintendo consoles would look like, for example. At
this point I think Nintendo franchises suffer from being restricted to be
Nintendo only.
Eh, maybe the switch will fail. At this point, none of my franchises have been
confirmed to move over besides pokemon. As we saw with scalebound, a game can
be cancelled at any time, so none of those in development games are a sure
thing. Or even confirmed exclusives. Ports are getting easier and more common
by the day. If the switch has a weak launch, I can see most 3rd party
developers dropping support, or at least making ports of their games.
Isleif29 January 2017 at 16:36
"Part of me wants them to fail
so those franchises just move over already": Heck, if the half-broken
Sonic franchise could move over to the systems of the console manufacturer that
basically used to be their greatest enemy, then any franchise can move to any
system. I have faith in all these great franchises and I don't doubt one second
that they could survive and even thrive on Sony and Microsoft home consoles,
even if that involves me never playing them again after they move over.
I mean, such moves are happening already: Digimon is slowly but surely becoming
a PS4 exclusive, and I'm sure other franchises will follow suit. Maybe some of
them won't even wait to see if the Switch is a success and jump ship à la
Squaresoft back in the N64 days.
Isleif29 January 2017 at 19:55
Oh crap, I erased your comment
again, Elisa. o'_'o But here it is, only without your name on top:
Oh yeah, it's almost hard to remember that Square used to Nintendo exclusive
back in the old days. Atlus almost became Sony exclusive in the PS2 days too,
but weirdly enough they moved back over to Nintendo and only the Persona series
remains exclusive to Sony. Story of Seasons also used to do some releases with
Sony, and with the success of Stardew Valley on the PS4, I find it really odd
they seem to remain exclusive to Nintendo. Especially now that the switch will
ramp up production costs and graphics expectations, which were the only reasons
I think those franchises were Nintendo handheld exclusives to begin with. Indie
tittles on the PS4 have lowered a lot of people's expectations of graphics
anyways. I remain hopeful for the future of those franchises. Atlus got burned
really badly by Nintendo with Tokyo Mirage FE, I hope they remember that.
But anyways, yeah, Digimon is a great example. Let's be real, Sun and Moon
would have not lagged as much on the Vita, I could bet my life on it. And maybe
by now we could have pokemon that follow you, like we have in every digimon
game. I am never letting that die. Pokken would have sold really well on the
PS4 too. Bandai Namco also got the short end of the stick on that one.
Hey, maybe if those franchises started moving over to Sony if the switch died,
Sony would go back into the handheld market. Part of me is a little hopeful
that Sony jumps back into handhelds after the VR thing cools down anyways. If
Nintendo doesn't do a true 3DS successor, there will be a big hole open in the
market that the switch will most likely not fill. As long as they don't do the
memory card thing again, an improved Vita 2.0 could be a success in a world
with no Nintendo handheld. Wild dreams maybe, but come on Sony. Nintendo needs
some damn competition.
Isleif29 January 2017 at 19:58
And now for my answer:
I sometimes think that Nintendo are embroiled in a karmic backlash and that
they are still paying for their appalling treatment of third-party developers
in the NES era. And when you think of it, third-party developers are the only
ones who called Nintendo on their bullshit: Squaresoft jumped ship when
Nintendo stubbornly decided to stick to cartridge format for the N64 and most
powerhouses have purely and simply abandoned Nintendo consoles in the last
fifteen years. Too bad Nintendo fans don't have the same reactivity and keep
supporting Ninty against all odds, thus allowing them to keep doing shit. And
yes, I'm including myself in that pack. It's so damn hard to give up on a
company whose products enthralled you back in the days, because you keep hoping
that they will get their act together and sweep you off your feet again. But
hey, one can only hope for so long.
I sure hope that a Vita 2.0 will see the light of day; that would be a dream
come true. And I also hope that Sony will keep "supporting" the Vita
for as long as possible, if only by not announcing the end of production and by
letting developers release niches games on it for as long as they please. We
niche games aficionados saved the Vita from a failure of Virtual Boy magnitude,
and that's the least Sony can do to thank us. Let us enjoy our niche stuff for
as long as we can, please!
Kumiko29 January 2017 at 21:53
Nintendo really hasn't done anything
to court back the 3rd party developers anyways. I remember western developers
complaining about how Nintendo didn't care one bit for their input when they
were developing the Wii U. Their attitude, to paraphrase one developer, was
"we do what we want and you just have to develop games for it". We
all see how well that one turned out. You can see that attitude with the 3DS
too. Who the hell even cared for the 3D crap? If their handhelds weren't so
accessible in price and the graphics expectations on them weren't lower than
the competitors consoles, I doubt the DS and 3DS would have done so well. And I
love the DS, but it's the truth. The PSP was the superior machine in terms of
hardware.
On the bright side, there's still a good future for the vita. We have lots of
games for this year announced already, and few I'm sure we'll get later. Demon
Gaze 2 anyone? Speaking of experience inc, have you seen their new game Death
Mark? It may not be a dungeon crawler, but I love horror and I have faith in
them. I can't wait until NISA brings over that one (most likely after Demon
Gaze 2). Or maybe Pqube or Aksys.
Heck, not even digimon is out of the picture yet. The whole thing with Next
Order was just a sad mess, but there's a reason Bandai Namco, who has been a
huge supporter of the vita in the west, will not bring it over and there's also
a reason Japan is also getting a PS4 version (whereas with Cyber Sleuth, it
remained a Vita exclusive there). Feel free to skip to the end if you don't
care about the story of it, but it's because the game was done by a different
director, and that director made a lot of poor decisions. The game being
pathetically easy and the crappy digimon selection were big ones, but the worse
one was the engine the game was developed in: Unity. It's an engine that runs
absolutely horribly on the Vita, and even with the graphics looking much worse
than Cyber Sleuth (almost worse than the PSP Digimon game even!), the game
still ran like crap.
Fans were disappointed, and the director of Cyber Sleuth (and many other
digimon games), was brought back to try and fix the mess before the game was
brought over to the west. He did the best he could, re-did a lot of the
graphics, added difficulty modes, some new digimon and 30 new events to the
story. Unfortunately, the game already ran very poorly on the vita, and they
simply could not make it run on it with all the updates. So only the PS4
version gets brought west, because the original Vita version was too crappy.
Crappier than the Vita version of Nights of Azure, and there was a reason KT
didn't bring that over either.
So that game was a very sad circumstance. Good news is, the director of Cyber
Sleuth is here to stay for the time being, and he's confirmed to be working on
the next story tittle. In his capable hands, I'm sure that game will be as good
as Cyber Sleuth. And in that case, if that game has a Vita version in Japan,
then I'm pretty damn sure the west will get it too. Cyber Sleuth looked
fantastic on the Vita and it ran beautifully. And it sold pretty damn well.
Much better than other Bandai Namco vita titles *cough*academy wars*cough*.
There's few reasons for them not to bring it over.
TL:DR I still think the Vita has a bright future. With the 3DS being put down
for good and the Switch being "a home console first", who knows how
long our little underdog will stay. Sony has an okay history with keeping up
console production even years after a console is "dead"; I think
we'll be fine.
Isleif30 January 2017 at 12:46
I'm not into horror games at all,
but I would be ready to purchase Death Mark just to support Experience Inc. and
allow them to produce more amazing first-person dungeon crawlers.
I'm actually quite glad to learn about the reason we're not getting Next Order
on the Vita. I was a trifle salty about the PS4 getting it as an exclusive, but
knowing the story behind this release soothes my wound a bit. But does that
mean then that the Vita version of Next Order is a broken, unplayable mess? I'd
like to know for future reference, in case I fall in love with the franchise
when I finally decide to play it and the idea of purchasing a Japanese physical
copy of Next Order crosses my mind.
Kumiko30 January 2017 at 17:19
No, the Vita version is not
unplayable, just very annoying at times. From what I've seen on youtube, the
biggest problem is that it lags when battles begin. But I don't think it's to
the point of being broken though, I compared it to videos of Pokemon Sun/Moon
on O3DS and it's miles better (also, you were right about the lag on that
game...). The game also does a lot of things to mitigate that problem. You
enter and leave battles smoothly for example, no fade to black screens like in
pokemon. You also don't need to fight a bazillion battles to get stronger like
in pokemon, you mostly get stronger by training at a gym (like, a real gym, not
a battle gym). Personally, the way I always played these games is to train a
lot at the the gym and avoid random battles, and I've never had any issues.
I can see why nowadays those things are inexcusable though and the graphics are
really weak compared to Cyber Sleuth. It speaks miles that Bamco won't release
this game but GF will release the much worse Sun/Moon....
But a lot of the reasons the game was so maligned probably won't bother you.
That is, the extremely disappointing digimon selection and easy default
difficulty. It's also a bit shorter than the previous entry in the series, so
you can see why fans were disappointed. But for someone who isn't a long time
digimon fan and has never played the previous World games, those issues might
not affect you (the difficulty thing might even help you out). And the game
brought a lot of improvements to help newcomers, so it's not all bad.
Really, and I admit I'm being biased here, if there's absolutely no chance of
you getting a PS4 (since you have a Vita you could just use remote play) I'd
say give it a go sometime. Maybe in one or two years when the 3DS is totally
gone, but you still don't have a switch so you have a little more money in your
pocket...get this game. Despite the problems, it's a completely unique
experience. The way this game combines RPG elements, monster raising and city
building is something you won't find in any other game, trust me. The first
game on the PS1 was even more difficult and broken, but it's an experience me
and many others wouldn't trade for anything. Everything you do affects your
digimon, it's not just "fight 2 billion battles and they evolve" like
in other monster raising games. In fact you can completely ignore battles for
some digivolution lines. Getting the complicated system down to T is soooo
satisfying.
I could go into a fangirl rant here about how awesome the game is, but I'll
contain myself. I also won't excuse the mess the previous director did, and I
truly hope this current director keeps releasing the next entries on the Vita.
But if there's never another world game on the Vita...this is at least a laggy
game like no other, in a good way.
But don't take my word for it, check out some videos. There's a lot of people
on youtube playing the "translated" version on hacked vitas. And the
gameplay is unique for a reason, it's not for everyone, despite it totally
being my thing.
Kumiko30 January 2017 at 17:55
Here is a video
that represents the problems I'm talking about. You can see it performs well
when you're just walking around or going through menus and that it takes about
3 seconds to load each new area. At 2:02 and 3:15 you can see how it performs
in 2 different battles. See how it lags in the start, but it exits smoothly? At
7:14 we have the worst lag: 6 seconds to load a cut scene. However there are
other cut-scenes that take only 3 seconds to load, but the black screen makes
it worse. This is the worst lag I've seen in all of the playthroughs. And you
can see the graphics yourself.
So, I can see why they didn't release it over here. But is it unplayable? Given
that cut scenes don't occur all the time and that battles aren't as numerous as
they are in pokemon, I'd say no. The PS4 version being remote played on a vita
would obviously be better though.
Isleif31 January 2017 at 09:06
You know, I actually seriously
pondered getting a PS4 to stream games on my Vita; because at that point, there
is a good number of PS4 exclusives I would love to play. However, the catch is
that you need a TV to set up the system at first, and I don't own one. Combined
with the costs and the fact that I already have hundreds of games to play on
five systems, this hassle made me give up on the idea altogether. Heck, I think
I can live without playing PS4 exclusives after all.
Regarding the Vita version of Next Order, the loading times and lags are really
not that horrendous. It's certainly not worse than Sun and Moon's performance
on the O3DS, at any rate. To be honest, I don't think I would have noticed
anything if I hadn't known beforehand that the game was supposed to be lagging.
So, yes... Maybe a future purchase!
Thanks a lot for taking the time to fill me in on that topic and making the
effort of digging up a video. ^___^ A bit unrelated, but have you never thought
of having a gaming blog? Given your obvious passion for gaming and your
tendency to write long and informed comments, I'm sure you would produce highly
interesting posts. And I would obviously be on board as a reader. ^^
Kumiko31 January 2017 at 12:42
Oh, I don't have a TV either, I just
hook my ps4 to my monitor's HDMI output and it works just fine. I haven't
watched TV in years myself.
The lag in Digimon is even more benign if you compare the "battle
start" screen with the PS4 version; they both take just as long, the
digimon just move to their positions more smoothly in the PS4 version.
I have been thinking of creating a gaming blog lately, but the biggest
obstacles so far are: getting screenshots of the game and setting up blogger
itself. The first one is my biggest hurdle, I just don't know how to get
screenshots of my handhelds. I can only do it with PSP games thanks to a
plugin. I'm sure my posts would be very wordy and I think screenshots are a
must to breakup the monotony; I'd also like to use screenshots to illustrate
some of my points, so using screenshots from the game's advertising wouldn't
suffice. As for setting up blogger, it's just due to inexperience; I have never
done anything similar nor have I ever messed with themes and HTLM's on other
sites. But that is something I could learn, it's the screens that are holding
me back.
Isleif31 January 2017 at 13:09
On the Vita, you can get screen
shots of all games by pressing the Playstation button and the Start button
simultaneously. That's an absolute blessing.
Which plugin do you use for PSP? I'd like to get my paws on one.
As for the 3DS and DS, there are unfortunately no options whatsoever to take
screenshots. I've resorted to using a good ol' digital camera; and oh boy, is
it a hassle to transfer and resize pictures for posts. But I grind and bear it
for the sake of enlivening my posts.
Blogger is as simple as it gets, because they do everything for you. You don't
have to bother with HTLM and the like, just boot up the thing and write your
stuff. The interface is clear and unfussy; and from what I know, you can even
use your own domain name. It's so damn comfortable that it's actually holding
me back in making the jump to my own website. I've been plotting that move for
months, but I've grown lazy because of Blogger's delightful user-friendliness
and the though of learning to master the necessary tools to maintain my own
website is as unexciting as it gets. But I'll man up and make the move one day.
I guess.
Actually, the 3DS does have a
built-in screenshot functionality. You just need to press the Home button and
then "share" in Miiverse or something. To download the screenshot to
your PC just log in through your browser and save the pics. It's a very
cumbersome way, but it does exist. This only works for the 3DS games though.
And Isleif, for the PSP the PRXshot plugin is the best.
And Elisa, you can hook up your PS4 to a PC's HDMI? Why didn't I ever thought
about that? Do you know if it works with a PS3 as well? I'd love to take some
screenshots of games I've played before.
Kumiko1 February 2017 at 16:10
Isleif: Sorry for the late reply,
like Sieg said, PRXshot is the best plugin for the PSP, I've used it to great
success myself.
I sadly don't have a digital camera and my cellphone is very old, so its camera
is crap. I think I'll hold off on the blog until I can purchase a digital
camera to work around the problem.
Sieg: What I meant was hooking the PS3/PS4 to a PC monitor, and use that as the
console's display instead of a TV. That works perfectly. But what you want is
to connect the console to the PC itself through the PC's tower own HDMI, right?
That I don't know anything about, but I'd assume no.
That way of taking a screenshot with a 3DS sounds so cumbersome. I've never
even used Miiverse in the first place. Plus, it's not a reliable way, what if
Nintendo shuts down Miiverse? Not so unlikely now that the 3DS is going to
die...
Isleif2 February 2017 at 16:40
Jeez, it seems that the universe really doesn't want me to play PS4 games... Hooking up the PS4 to a PC monitor is a great solution, but guess what? I only own a laptop. For when one pours hundreds of euros in collecting endeavours, one has to cut corners on something else. But hey, I guess it's my destiny not to play PS4 games. They would probably have been too huge and open-worldly for me anyway, like freakin' Xenoblade Chronicles.
Kinda late reply but gonna make a
small correction on what I said about the 3DS screenshoting function.
You just need to:
>press Home button while playing a 3DS game
>toggle the Internet on
>press the little green Miiverse icon
>simply save the top, bottom or both screens on a screenshot folder
You don't need to post or anything. You can save them on the account's folder
and then log in and download through a PC.
No comments:
Post a Comment