Note: The passionate love bit is a lyric from the CM opening song "Jounetsu Setsuna" (Passionate Moment)
Whee~ So I finally got my copy yesterday, after waiting for a week for it to ship from Hong Kong XD Having already clocked about 10 hours since last night, it's been total addiction! Quite simply loved how Kitabayashi went about battles, I can see why he was so proud about it in the interviews.
Also, as I noted in the IGN thread, damn does his team know how to do an opening sequence. (Previous work being BoFV: DQ, X7) Although the song used doesn't compare to X7's "Code Crush", the style of the video itself is brilliant! (Just like the commercials) Anyway, enough of the little fancy bits, let's get into the usual catagories!
Story: Typical stuff for X in the beginning. An uprising by the Liberion army has occured at Gigantis Island, and the Irregular(Maverick in english) Hunters are dispatched to stop them. There's a bit more plot development as you meet the 4 new characters, but don't expect it to answer much about the X series in general :/
Presentation/exclusives: About the same content on both consoles supposedly, except that PS2 has an X8 demo, while GC gives you access to the treasure navi VIA GBA connectivity. Someone also claimed that GC runs at full 60 FPS while PS2 is only 30 FPS. ?_?
Graphics: A good improvement over X7's, but overall nothing really fancy. (I somehow think this game was coded from ground up on GC first though, then to PS2) You'll be mainly in indoor areas, so its all just the usual advanced tech. complexes.
Gameplay: Ah, what's we're all here for! Basically, you'll go through a main quest of 10 scenarios. (estimated 20-25 hours) All mainly dungeon crawling, no real over world exploration aside from your headquarters.(Central Tower) Infact, you won't even have that much freedom until a later scenario. Now, the dungeons themselves are pretty linear in terms of getting to your goal, no real hard puzzles either with what I've played. The treasure/item? crystals you find are open via dashing into them. You also need to use dash to avoid enemy detection or getting over traps. Puzzles are the usual stuff like: finding ID cards from an NPC, hitting a switch in a far room, or activate panels in a certain order. But the fun thing about these dungeons/areas are that there are locked doors you won't be able to access until later. (Like after beating the game or getting the key from a later source) You can also go back to previous areas for said lock doors, treasure coins (GC only?), secrets or leveling purposes. Some other things you can do would be collecting figurines, force metal creation or dispatching mechanoilds you captured into old areas to find items you couldn't get to, hidden items, and extras. (like wallpapers and song tracks) Part of accessing the locked doors is via the dispatching actually. I think that covers the main bits..
edit: Force Metals are basically accessories you can equip that can raise stat, help resistance, or other bonuses. You can only equip a certain amount depending on char. I'm not sure what happens when you break the hazard zone.
Now for battle! Command Mission mainly consists of random battles, and battles with onscreen enemy/trap encounter. (To note the encounter rate is pretty random, sometimes you'll run into a battle 2 steps from the last one, and sometimes you don't for awhile at all. Almost made me think it had a real high encounter rate at first, but hey it's actually random! )
Battle controls consist of *GC version:
A: Attack/Final Strike
B: Menu/Cancel
Y: Sub weapon |
------------------------ (Sub weapons have different cost in WE)
X: Sub weapon |
Start: Pause/confirm
R: Action trigger (requires 50%+ WE to use)
L: Rotation (char change)
Z: Shortcut button
Within the menu: Sub-tank, Items, Defend, Hyper mode, Run (Which can be mapped to Z)
You'll be turning turns at the enemy in a system called "Cross Order", while managing your WE (Weapon Energy) so you can pull off action triggers and sub weapons. (Turns can be skip or moved ahead depending on your/enemy actions) Typically at the beginning of each turn, you'll gain 25% WE then you're left with the choice of attack with both subs then the main weapon or you could pull off an action trigger.
Action triggers:
X: Hold A to charge up your WE to use as a charged blast or charge colider as X fire
Zero: Enter/confirm different commands within the alotted time and pull off a massive damaging saber combo
Spider: Play draw poker! The hand you get determines what special attack Spider uses
Massimo: Mash corressponding buttons to fill up meters to deal great damage with a laser
Marino: Slot machine! What slot you ends up with determines her attack.
Cinnamon: Twirl the Cstick to fill up hearts that will heal you and your allies
Axl: *don't have him yet. Enter DNA as button combinations to use transformations of previous Irregulars
You can also go into Hyper mode that enables you to do different and damging things with the chars. (access via menu) You can only use Hyper mode for a certain amount of turns depending on the char's Hyper capacity. (this applies overall, not just that battle. you can refill via rest or items) There are also more hyper modes to unlock from secrets.
X: X fire, more HP, damage reduction, and use of charge collider
Zero: Black Zero, does tons of damage with normal attack
Spider: Trickster, goes invisible, cannot be hurt or healed, and also deals more damage
Massimo: Demonian, more hp, deals massive damage?
Marino: Quicksilver, raises her speed immensely. (the next few turns will all be hers basically, allowing for you to bumrush the enemy)
Cinnamon: Iron maiden, more hp/defense? more healing.
Axl: Stealth mode, ?
Healing Life Energy in battle is done with Cinnamon's AT or with subtanks (heal out of battle with subtanks) Subtanks have a set % capacity and you use a certain % to heal. (IE 33% will heal a single person for 50% LE) You start off with around 200% total early on, I'm currently at 500% capacity myself. Subtanks are refilled by tank energy thats found from enemies or crystals. (I think theres items for it too, but haven't messed around with that) Usual status ailments also have remedy items for recovery as well.
Now finally, we have the "Final Strike. When you have 3 party members with no status ailments, and have dealt 75% of damage to it's current HP in the current turn, you'll be given the option to Final Strike. When you active it, you'll be mashing A/B/Y within the alotted time to deal a fatal blow. It's basically a flashy way of finishing off the enemy and also gaining extra Force Metal Energy. (Examples of Final Strike fun would be around 60 hit and dealing 12000 damage. I also must note that some FM recipes demand something like 100 hits or dealing 100k-200k-300k damage. Seems crazy to me..)
Sound: Not too bad, typical Rockman techno, though some of the boss themes are pretty engaging. There's lots of voice acting as well, compared to previous X games anyway. Also, it's presented in Dolby Pro Logic II for both GC/PS2.
Well that's that! I've currently cleared 4 scenarios so far, and now have been backtracking with the treasure navi while leveling up Cinnamon. (They gave me her at lvl1) I really can't wait to unlock some of the doors and do more of the unlimited forest. The posts I've heard about the hidden bosses are pretty exciting, not to mention I felt first hand at unlimited forest at how nasty the battles can get. (Like I was facing this SOB that was counting down from 3 and commited suicide, thus dealing 9999 damage to all my chars. I only survived thanks to Spider's Hyper mode, then afterwards I get my ass totally handed to me by the X1/X7 Hornet copter/walkers. My first gameover :cries: ) There's also some really neat hyper modes to unlock as I've noted previously
So even though it's only a 20-25 hourish romp, the sidequests should keep me busy for bit. (And are actually fun, unlike XenoSaga2's BS G2 campaigns) Anyway, got any questions, feel free to ask!
KITABAYASHI IS THE MAN!
Whee~ So I finally got my copy yesterday, after waiting for a week for it to ship from Hong Kong XD Having already clocked about 10 hours since last night, it's been total addiction! Quite simply loved how Kitabayashi went about battles, I can see why he was so proud about it in the interviews.
Also, as I noted in the IGN thread, damn does his team know how to do an opening sequence. (Previous work being BoFV: DQ, X7) Although the song used doesn't compare to X7's "Code Crush", the style of the video itself is brilliant! (Just like the commercials) Anyway, enough of the little fancy bits, let's get into the usual catagories!
Story: Typical stuff for X in the beginning. An uprising by the Liberion army has occured at Gigantis Island, and the Irregular(Maverick in english) Hunters are dispatched to stop them. There's a bit more plot development as you meet the 4 new characters, but don't expect it to answer much about the X series in general :/
Presentation/exclusives: About the same content on both consoles supposedly, except that PS2 has an X8 demo, while GC gives you access to the treasure navi VIA GBA connectivity. Someone also claimed that GC runs at full 60 FPS while PS2 is only 30 FPS. ?_?
Graphics: A good improvement over X7's, but overall nothing really fancy. (I somehow think this game was coded from ground up on GC first though, then to PS2) You'll be mainly in indoor areas, so its all just the usual advanced tech. complexes.
Gameplay: Ah, what's we're all here for! Basically, you'll go through a main quest of 10 scenarios. (estimated 20-25 hours) All mainly dungeon crawling, no real over world exploration aside from your headquarters.(Central Tower) Infact, you won't even have that much freedom until a later scenario. Now, the dungeons themselves are pretty linear in terms of getting to your goal, no real hard puzzles either with what I've played. The treasure/item? crystals you find are open via dashing into them. You also need to use dash to avoid enemy detection or getting over traps. Puzzles are the usual stuff like: finding ID cards from an NPC, hitting a switch in a far room, or activate panels in a certain order. But the fun thing about these dungeons/areas are that there are locked doors you won't be able to access until later. (Like after beating the game or getting the key from a later source) You can also go back to previous areas for said lock doors, treasure coins (GC only?), secrets or leveling purposes. Some other things you can do would be collecting figurines, force metal creation or dispatching mechanoilds you captured into old areas to find items you couldn't get to, hidden items, and extras. (like wallpapers and song tracks) Part of accessing the locked doors is via the dispatching actually. I think that covers the main bits..
edit: Force Metals are basically accessories you can equip that can raise stat, help resistance, or other bonuses. You can only equip a certain amount depending on char. I'm not sure what happens when you break the hazard zone.
Now for battle! Command Mission mainly consists of random battles, and battles with onscreen enemy/trap encounter. (To note the encounter rate is pretty random, sometimes you'll run into a battle 2 steps from the last one, and sometimes you don't for awhile at all. Almost made me think it had a real high encounter rate at first, but hey it's actually random! )
Battle controls consist of *GC version:
A: Attack/Final Strike
B: Menu/Cancel
Y: Sub weapon |
------------------------ (Sub weapons have different cost in WE)
X: Sub weapon |
Start: Pause/confirm
R: Action trigger (requires 50%+ WE to use)
L: Rotation (char change)
Z: Shortcut button
Within the menu: Sub-tank, Items, Defend, Hyper mode, Run (Which can be mapped to Z)
You'll be turning turns at the enemy in a system called "Cross Order", while managing your WE (Weapon Energy) so you can pull off action triggers and sub weapons. (Turns can be skip or moved ahead depending on your/enemy actions) Typically at the beginning of each turn, you'll gain 25% WE then you're left with the choice of attack with both subs then the main weapon or you could pull off an action trigger.
Action triggers:
X: Hold A to charge up your WE to use as a charged blast or charge colider as X fire
Zero: Enter/confirm different commands within the alotted time and pull off a massive damaging saber combo
Spider: Play draw poker! The hand you get determines what special attack Spider uses
Massimo: Mash corressponding buttons to fill up meters to deal great damage with a laser
Marino: Slot machine! What slot you ends up with determines her attack.
Cinnamon: Twirl the Cstick to fill up hearts that will heal you and your allies
Axl: *don't have him yet. Enter DNA as button combinations to use transformations of previous Irregulars
You can also go into Hyper mode that enables you to do different and damging things with the chars. (access via menu) You can only use Hyper mode for a certain amount of turns depending on the char's Hyper capacity. (this applies overall, not just that battle. you can refill via rest or items) There are also more hyper modes to unlock from secrets.
X: X fire, more HP, damage reduction, and use of charge collider
Zero: Black Zero, does tons of damage with normal attack
Spider: Trickster, goes invisible, cannot be hurt or healed, and also deals more damage
Massimo: Demonian, more hp, deals massive damage?
Marino: Quicksilver, raises her speed immensely. (the next few turns will all be hers basically, allowing for you to bumrush the enemy)
Cinnamon: Iron maiden, more hp/defense? more healing.
Axl: Stealth mode, ?
Healing Life Energy in battle is done with Cinnamon's AT or with subtanks (heal out of battle with subtanks) Subtanks have a set % capacity and you use a certain % to heal. (IE 33% will heal a single person for 50% LE) You start off with around 200% total early on, I'm currently at 500% capacity myself. Subtanks are refilled by tank energy thats found from enemies or crystals. (I think theres items for it too, but haven't messed around with that) Usual status ailments also have remedy items for recovery as well.
Now finally, we have the "Final Strike. When you have 3 party members with no status ailments, and have dealt 75% of damage to it's current HP in the current turn, you'll be given the option to Final Strike. When you active it, you'll be mashing A/B/Y within the alotted time to deal a fatal blow. It's basically a flashy way of finishing off the enemy and also gaining extra Force Metal Energy. (Examples of Final Strike fun would be around 60 hit and dealing 12000 damage. I also must note that some FM recipes demand something like 100 hits or dealing 100k-200k-300k damage. Seems crazy to me..)
Sound: Not too bad, typical Rockman techno, though some of the boss themes are pretty engaging. There's lots of voice acting as well, compared to previous X games anyway. Also, it's presented in Dolby Pro Logic II for both GC/PS2.
Well that's that! I've currently cleared 4 scenarios so far, and now have been backtracking with the treasure navi while leveling up Cinnamon. (They gave me her at lvl1) I really can't wait to unlock some of the doors and do more of the unlimited forest. The posts I've heard about the hidden bosses are pretty exciting, not to mention I felt first hand at unlimited forest at how nasty the battles can get. (Like I was facing this SOB that was counting down from 3 and commited suicide, thus dealing 9999 damage to all my chars. I only survived thanks to Spider's Hyper mode, then afterwards I get my ass totally handed to me by the X1/X7 Hornet copter/walkers. My first gameover :cries: ) There's also some really neat hyper modes to unlock as I've noted previously
So even though it's only a 20-25 hourish romp, the sidequests should keep me busy for bit. (And are actually fun, unlike XenoSaga2's BS G2 campaigns) Anyway, got any questions, feel free to ask! KITABAYASHI IS THE MAN!
