Twist on 24/3/2017 at 19:20
Wow. That sucks. Are you sure you didn't wait too long? Your body also disappears if you wait too long to return to it or you let yourself get involved in other tasks before reclaiming your body. If you really went straight back to it and it wasn't there... yikes. Given the time I've put into experimenting with different chipset configurations, I can imagine how frustrating it would be to lose it all. Sorry. :( In case this is really a bug, I'm moving to alternating between multiple save slots on the same playthrough.
Also, regarding the diamond items: As I understand it, using one diamond-level chip to fuse doesn't guarantee you'll have the lowest storage level for the next chip level. You still have to use a lower storage second chip (though you don't need another diamond-level chip), and the calculation also depends on whether the chip is currently at an even or odd numbered level. It's a pretty bizarre system.
I love the game, though. I know nothing about Nier, Drakengard or Platinum Games, but the effective and seamless mashup of genres is nothing like anything I've played before. Having never played a Platinum game, for me the combat felt a little too much like manic flailing at first, but as I practiced it grew more deliberate and graceful.
For anyone trying it out, I recommend sticking with it beyond the first few hours. The story and characters develop in much more interesting ways than you might imagine from the first couple of hours of the game. And on the normal difficulty, I found the combat more forgiving and open to early experimentation than Dark Souls. By that I mean you can experiment with different combos and movesets in the middle of the fight without the game punishing you to the degree Dark Souls might.
There's something about the flavor and atmosphere of this game that helps it stand out, but I have hard time describing it.
Malf on 25/3/2017 at 02:53
I've since figured out what happened, I think.
Because I died in a place a lot of other people have died in, there were lots of other players' bodies there, so mine wasn't visible.
I've since played (and died) in that area a few times more, and when you get back there, there is no blue icon for your corpse, and it's not where you died. But there may be 2-3 other players' corpses in the same area. It looks like these stop your corpse from appearing; I'm guessing there's a limit to how many can appear in an area at any one time. Collect these and eventually your corpse should appear, but it still won't have the blue icon on the minimap.
Thankfully, I also found a pretty quick way of grinding out some new chips. Drop-rate chips drop from the robots that attack you on the rollercoaster. Repeat this ride a few times, equipping drop-rate chips after every run to exponentially improve your chances, and you'll quite quickly get to the 90% drop-rate cap.
Then just go kill robots everywhere else to re-acquire the rest of your chips. Still a pain in the ass, but not quite as severe.
And you're right about diamond or "Black Box" chips Twist.
If you have a diamond chip with a cost of five, you should be improving it with a normal chip with the same bonus at a cost of six maximum. This ensures that the resulting chip will be a 6 and retain the diamond status.
Malf on 27/3/2017 at 10:34
So, I "completed" the game with 2B over the weekend.
While it's enjoyable enough, I think it's been over-hyped by fans of the original, the creator and the composer.
The combat, while functional, isn't a patch on either Revengeance, Bayonetta or Vanquish. It's incredibly simplified with none of the awesome gimmicks that those games relied upon (well, second play-through gets more interesting in that respect).
The story, which I'd seen numerous people lauding, does some interesting things, but had virtually no emotional impact on me whatsoever. Again, maybe that improves on further replays.
The difficulty spikes wildly, with some side quests while playing as 2B being impossible without an insane amount of grind, yet story missions being simplistic to the point of insulting. That's playing on Normal. I've heard that playing on hard is the polar opposite, with virtually everything being able to one-shot you.
And the open-world is a massive step back, being simplistic, small, lacking variety and full of... nothing. As well as being graphically spartan, there are invisible barriers all over the place. It's telling that one of the most interesting areas to explore is a barren desert.
It also commits the sin of rail-roading you later on in the story. The last 4 or 5 missions don't allow you to go off-piste and complete side quests, and even prevent you from going to certain places.
And enemy variety? there's basically none, just re-skinned versions of the same 6 or so "machines" depending on what area you're in.
Overall, I'd advise against buying this full price and wait for a sale.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, solidly a "7/10", but I don't understand the universal adoration it's getting.
Sulphur on 27/3/2017 at 10:39
I believe the key is in the replays, Malf. Apparently quite a few things change up in NG+, with the story coming to a head in route 'C', so the first playthrough is, from what I've heard, more of a context-setter.
Malf on 27/3/2017 at 10:54
Yeah, I can see that, but the game's asking a lot of the player to repeat all of that content with the only real change being the character you're playing with.
9S's hacking is the twist I was referring to above, but that gets tedious after a while, and if you want a break from the barely-varied hacking minigame, you have to fall back on one-button combat.
In all honesty, it makes the game even easier, with even previously challenging enemies just requiring 2-3 repeats of the minigame.
Maybe the story will open up, but I'm pretty sure I know where it'll go. It's not very subtle about it even during the first play-through.
Thirith on 27/3/2017 at 12:14
Yeah, I think that what I've heard about the need to replay this at least 2-3 times to get the most out of the story puts me off the game. I like story-heavy games *a lot*, but I dislike having to replay almost identical passages for hours in order to get there. (I'm near the end of Night in the Woods, and I could imagine replaying that one soon, but there at least it's easy to get through the bits I've already seen relatively quickly.)
Sulphur on 27/3/2017 at 12:18
Same here - I'm not a fan of replaying content unless there's a way to blitz through the old stuff at speed, or there's a decent bunch of changes to the experience (Alpha Protocol remains the unlikely benchmark for this, good god how I adore it). I guess I'm not far enough in to make any qualifications to assessments of the game, though. Someone get Jesh to spill the beans for the time being. :p
Thirith on 27/3/2017 at 13:01
Funnily enough, I enjoy replaying certain games that offer little to no changes in the story at all, but that's for very different reasons; it's basically the same for me as rereading a novel or watching a favourite film again.
Malf on 27/3/2017 at 13:56
Which reminds me, have you watched Speed Racer yet Thirith?
Thirith on 27/3/2017 at 14:00
I have. I'm afraid I didn't like it, though; the mix of childlike sincerity and high artifice/camp didn't work for me, and I could've happily watched Spritely and the chimp put on a rocket and blasted right into the sun. They do some intriguing things visually, but I wasn't able to just enjoy the visuals.
Still, £5. I've paid more to see worse films.
