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Post by psybuster on Oct 3, 2008 9:27:45 GMT -5
You can eat food through the item inventory menu instead of the quickbar, and it's all kept there even if the quickbar doesn't show it, so there's no need for a safe. It's kind of annoying to have to go in there just to see the tier 2+ food because the bar automatically puts the lowest stuff you have in there retroactively (well, I guess this is useful for eating the weakest stuff you have first if you need some HP...). Three slots seem to be reserved for bombs, the super healing potion, and whatever other special consumable is there that I don't have yet.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 3, 2008 9:47:11 GMT -5
You can arrange the item slot belt to put the beefy food first~! :O!
In the Option menu, it's the second option under the Control section. The default is wimpy food => tools (or whatever those kanji are). There are three more options to cycle through but the second one will be the beefy food => tools. ^-^
Also, since I have to heal a lot, I rely on the function keys to eat on the fly. I used to use the R2 -- er, using PS2 Dualshock 2 controller -- + select item to use bit but I found that I had a nasty habit of somehow consuming more than one of an item that way. X_X I wasted bombs like that. >_>
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Post by BlackBean on Oct 3, 2008 15:10:56 GMT -5
A better Hunter's Rank (which I assume better medals will give you more points) gets you some freebies from the guild, but so far I've only gotten food (and cash from turning in treasures) - I doubt there's anything better that's given out. You are given very useful and rare accessories depending on your hunter rank. In the beginning of the game, Caldina tells you that you need to accumulate certain amount of hunter points to improve your hunter title. Platinum: 10 points Gold: 9 points Silver: 8 points Bronze: 7 points I pretty much found everything in the game, so if anyone is unsure of something, you can ask me.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 3, 2008 16:03:48 GMT -5
Bird of cuteness. TT~ ca.youtube.com/watch?v=IA2K7Y1om-wWish it didn't poop out bombs though. I can never take advantage of them. XD I suppose I could move the bomb around but my reflexes are horrible. :P You know what would be an awesome pet? 8-bit Dogi. (Why 8-bit? Cuz 8-bit is cute.)He'd smash through all those damn walls and stone chests with lightning speed! Guess he'd clothes line and body slam enemies too. Dunno why but I can imagine him with wrestling moves. Maybe he gets more moves as he levels up? :O
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Majuunun
Wilewarer
Pixel Lady
Posts: 434
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Post by Majuunun on Oct 4, 2008 2:21:01 GMT -5
Hmmm.
I've been a bit disappointed with the last few Falcom games I got but I'm definitely curious about this one! If it isn't getting much attention, maybe it'll appear on the Falcom Special Offer list. I nabbed Xanadu Next special edition that way after a month or so from launch.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 4, 2008 10:38:04 GMT -5
Okei, so I've raked in about 8 hours of the game and gone through 2 boss fights and currently on the third dungeon. In actuality, you can probably get through more in 8 hours but I oh so grinded the hell out of enemies in the first 2 dungeons for money and food. :P Anyway, I guess I am now qualified to do a super mini, probably not very well thought-out review of Zwei 2! What works: - It's a Falcom game.
- The colourful, pretty graphics.
- Fun gameplay.
I can't say much about characters since I don't really know what they're talking about to make any judgements on personalities and such. What doesn't really work: - Some anti-aliasing would have been nice for the characters. If playing on a lower display resolution (such as 800x600), the polys start looking crappy even on the maxed out with bells and whistles setting.
- Lack of voice acting. I mean, Falcom, you hired some great talent but all you let them do is speak little snippets or make sounds???
- The dungeons are sort of weak compared to Zwei!! and Gurumin in terms of traps and level design.
- Pet getting fixated on picking up coins, food, items, etc. behind fences or doors which means it ends up ignoring everything else around it unti it can get to it or the stuff disappear.
- The amount of gadgets. In a way, I would have liked it more if they could be incorporated into the bottom of the screen (like line them up horizontally) or maybe for things like the enemy name and HP to have that information appear over the heads of enemies and stuff. Instead, you have stuff running down the left and right of the screen. Things kind of look messy, if you ask me. You can, however, disable whatever you don't want to see though.
- Maybe my memory is horrible but the tunes so far don't even get replayed in my mind when I'm not playing the game. :/ Usually, if I find myself humming or singing or wishing my mind would STOP playing a tune, that's a sign that there's something catchy and/or good about the OST. Unfortunately, nothing in Zwei 2 is that memorable just yet. And considering that I was grinding like mad in water shrine and the mine, you'd figure that I'd recall those BGMs. :P
Other minor annoyances~ Well, this is what happens when you've played zwei!! first. :B - Pets at their early levels aren't really useful as attackers.
- Pets don't show up anywhere except in dungeons. Why?
- Graphic glitches like flickering underlayers (but might be a driver problem for my card???). This happens rarely though.
- Pockle and Pipiro don't look as cute as they used to. ;o;
- Lack of control over Item Slot belt. This can get mildly irritating if you're using Fraps to record video and the F9 key is Record/Stop button. I suppose I can remap it though. Still I liked being able to decide which foods and items I wanted in which slot and all that. The issue isn't really that big of a deal cuz you can easily go into the menu to pick and choose what to eat and use. However, that breaks the flow of the game as action is paused when you do this.
- Non-active character does not attack. (Lazy bum.)
I think my main issue if that the game is giving me more of the "been there, done that. *Yawn*" feeling than the "familiar but still refreshing" feeling. I was never hyped about playing this game or going into it with high expectations. It's fun but nothing to write home about. :|
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Post by BlackBean on Oct 4, 2008 12:18:48 GMT -5
[/li][li]Lack of voice acting. I mean, Falcom, you hired some great talent but all you let them do is speak little snippets or make sounds??? [/quote] This takes too much time and I'm really sure Falcom has other projects in the works. Frankly, I'm good without voice acting. It's supposed to be a video game, not a movie. [/li][li]Lack of control over Item Slot belt. This can get mildly irritating if you're using Fraps to record video and the F9 key is Record/Stop button. I suppose I can remap it though. Still I liked being able to decide which foods and items I wanted in which slot and all that. The issue isn't really that big of a deal cuz you can easily go into the menu to pick and choose what to eat and use. However, that breaks the flow of the game as action is paused when you do this. [/quote] When using the keyboard, I just hold the "S" button and then quickly select any food using the arrow keys. This method looks pretty quick to me (takes less than 2-3 seconds). [/li][li]Like its predecessor, dungeon areas are governed by levels so if your characters are not at the level indicated by the plate on the ground in front of a dungeon doorway, you won't be able to enter. In this sense, anyone wanting to be underlevelled in this game is sort of out of luck. :P[/quote] I was able to enter dungeons at a low level, but not that low. i.e. my characters were level 13, but I was able to enter the level 17 dungeons. There is an item that will make all enemies stronger (Level 30 stats) in dungeons.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 4, 2008 15:25:30 GMT -5
This takes too much time and I'm really sure Falcom has other projects in the works. Frankly, I'm good without voice acting. It's supposed to be a video game, not a movie. ^^~ Well, I don't want them to start going Broadway on me and acting out every line either but I thought that maybe some of the key cutscenes would be voiced like in Gurumin. :/ I must try this! :D DX!! I guess the plates are more like recommended levels this time then! Hirm! Or maybe it was always like that even in Zwei!!? I just played as an obedient player and just levelled up to whatever the number was on the plates. ^^;;;
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Post by Musa-Revived on Oct 4, 2008 20:43:51 GMT -5
Huh. At least reviews from the Japanese fans are good. And I think the game is awesome. The music's pretty cute too, and I seldom care about music.
As for lack of voice segments, I wonder how is it any different from LoH6 3rd? I was instead surprised by Gurumin's abundance of voice.
And what are you guys using to play the game? Keyboard+mouse combo or a gamepad? Using the left and right triggers of my logitech rumblepad allows me to access the weapon/magic and food bar with ease.
I've never played a single Falcom game with a K/M combo ever since they implemented the pad option.
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Post by markmack on Oct 4, 2008 21:09:34 GMT -5
I've gone to pretty much every dungeon 1 or 2 levels lower than the tile outside states. So I think it's the recommended level rather than the required level.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 5, 2008 4:42:05 GMT -5
Yeah, it's always gamepad all the way. That's the ONLY way to play. (: I used to do keyboard and mouse. Actually, no. It was mostly keyboard. XD I think I only stopped around Ys VI PC when I got the Radioshack PS2 to USB adapter. I don't do it for the reason I get hit a lot to begin with. I m not going to deliberately give myself a hard time by going into higher level dungeons so I can get hit for 20 - 30 HP of damage. :P But I guess that would give me an excuse to eat lots of fooooooood!!! If it were like Gurumin and there was the dodge/roll command then maybe I would wander into a dungeon full of beefy enemies~!
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Post by BlackBean on Oct 5, 2008 5:17:42 GMT -5
If anyone can confirm, it would be appreciated. I would, but... erm... I still haven't started Zwei 2 yet! I am 100% addicted to Opoona right now. -Tom Yeh, I really did enter the dungeons at low levels. I didn't have problems killing the bosses. I can say for sure there is no level restrictions. The plates represent the recommended levels. It is certainly possible to beat the monsters at a low level...although there is no point really.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 5, 2008 10:13:25 GMT -5
In the first Zwei!!, as I said, I beat a level 20 dungeon segment while I was level 10. The enemies were literally so strong that they could easily one-shot me, but I stealthed around, and was able to kill them before they had a chance to hit me. Metal Gear'd! :O!!!!
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Post by Varion on Oct 6, 2008 5:08:43 GMT -5
Huh. At least reviews from the Japanese fans are good. And I think the game is awesome. The music's pretty cute too, and I seldom care about music. It's okay, you're not the only one around here who likes it. Got interrupted for a few days so I'm only up to the final dungeon, but I really enjoyed the game on the whole. Let's see... Pro: - Excellent soundtrack. While not every track was memorable the majority of them were, from the more adrenaline oriented tracks like Driven by Passion to beautifully soothing tracks like The Witch La Layla and Crystal Valley, and various other generally awesome ones like The Mechanical Girl and The Worst Possible Situation. Definitely another worthy Falcom soundtrack here. - The bosses. While the first few were a little disappointing, and the first boss music one of the weaker tracks in the game, as soon as the game hit the fourth boss the majority of boss battles became pretty spectacular. I won't list specifics to avoid spoilers, but there were some really awesome fights in there that wouldn't be out of place in a Ys game. - The artstyle - colourful, attractive and generally really nice to look at. - The food system - I wasn't sure about it initially, but it kind of grew on me as I went on. - Story wasn't bad either - certainly better than I was expecting from the introduction. - Characters were on the whole all likeable. Except Monblanc, who needs to die slowly and painfully while being covered in burning oil. Arwen was probably my favourite, followed by Gallandu, of course. - Hidden treasure, ranks and the like add a decent incentive for replay. Collecting all the figures seems a little excessive but well, it's there if people want it. Con: - Poorly optimised game engine. I haven't tried the patch yet, but there were a few parts of the game that ground my laptop into single digit frames per second, which it really shouldn't have. - First few bosses and first boss music disappointing... yeah, covered that already. - Very limited use of voices. Yes, I know it's little different than Sora. But for a game that is in a way following on from Gurumin I was expecting that amount of voice acting. Oh yeah, and wyrdy: Steel Tower over pylon, pylon makes me think of those things in the street that carry electricity, which this is not. I'd go for True Ancestor over True Father. Other than that, no complaints ;p
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Post by psybuster on Oct 6, 2008 15:15:02 GMT -5
Kind of lost now, if anyone can provide some help Just beat the third boss and talked to La Layla, but I don't know how to continue up Auron's castle. Do I need a key or something, and if so, from who/where?
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Post by markmack on Oct 6, 2008 15:44:28 GMT -5
Kind of lost now, if anyone can provide some help Just beat the third boss and talked to La Layla, but I don't know how to continue up Auron's castle. Do I need a key or something, and if so, from who/where? Did you get the tornado magic? If so, that could be useful to solve a couple of puzzles.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 7, 2008 17:12:51 GMT -5
Is there any way to choose the foods you WANT to trade in? Seriously, there are times when I want to keep foods that I have a lot of due to an upcoming boss fight or something. :/
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Post by BlackBean on Oct 7, 2008 17:28:39 GMT -5
Not really. Just choose no when you don't want to trade certain foods.
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 7, 2008 17:46:09 GMT -5
Not really. Just choose no when you don't want to trade certain foods. :((((((((((((((( NooOoOo. But I want to trade in the many candies and make them into chocolates! Unfortunately, some other food are in the way. ;__; *weeps*
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Post by Incog Neato on Oct 7, 2008 18:12:32 GMT -5
IIRC, in Zwei 1, if you didn't want to trade in a certain type of food, you could just answer "no" when it asked, and it would move on to the next type of food. Is that not the case in Zwei 2? ... I'll have to get back to you on that but I do believe that's what BlackBean meant. >_>; (If that's the case, I feel dumb cuz in Zwei!!, I kept running back to the safe, dumping food I didn't want exchanged and stuffing the inventory with stuff I wanted to trade in.)
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