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Coming very soon: Wiz-clones "Operation Abyss" and "Operation Babel".

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Well it's out and D1P'd. Not too sure if I'll be diving right in as getting proper into a playthrough of Vagrant Story at the minute. Will update with first impressions when I've had a good sit down with it later on in the week, but I'm interested as I remember my playthrough of the fan translated version pretty well.
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Wow, how did I miss that? And Abyss is out now?
Gotta buy...
 

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Ok, played a few hours and although some notable things are different, it's very much the same dungeon layouts and tiles as Code Hazard. That's not a bad thing, I found the dungeon design 10X better than Stranger of Sword City personally and probably the best part of the game.

So what's different? Well, as we already know the artwork is changed for the NPC's and they now have voices that you can thankfully turn off. The original character design for player created chars is selectable, but not original NPC's. The new artwork is ok imo, although some of the chars are a bit more fanservice-style than before but not too bad. Nono was always a breast monster, but now she's an attractive breast monster.

The start is a bit different, they introduced a new NPC but he's vanished again for now. Sure he'll pop up again. They also got rid of the need for ropes to go up and down the floors in the Morimoto High Rise, which I suppose is decline, but not that they added much to the game anyway. Now you go up and down 'spatial rifts' that you discover with searching.

There's a 'Basic' and 'Classic' character mode, I read it as 'simpleton' and 'monocled' so of course I selected Classic, not sure what Basic changes but I can't imagine it's going to be better. Class creation on Classic is the same as I remember, with all the same Blood codes as before. Autists can still spend hours pressing the 'Gamble' button to try and get extra bonus points but I just rolled until I got 7 or higher and was happy with that.

What has changed, and for the better imo, is the crafting. It still seems the same 'under the hood', but now if you select the basic material it will tell you what you need to craft the item, what that items stats are and if you have the mats, auto craft it. Although I haven't got the mats yet, it still looks like you can create the same OP +10 basic armour with minimal fuss. I always quite liked the crafting element in this and Class of Heroes, (yeah yeah, I'm a special snowflake I know), so the fact the busywork has been reduced but the crafting is intact is a plus. Let's face it, everyone just used bloody guides for crafting anyway so it's no decline.

Game seems stable enough, no crashes so far and although I'm playing with a gamepad I've seen the option to rebind keys. The absence, (or if it's there I haven't found it), of a fast forward button for combat is a bit annoying, but I'm just holding down the A button to do the same job.

One potential dark cloud though, and I know it's early days as I haven't done the second run through of the Morimoto building, but it seems a lot easier than I remembered. I've not lost a single character yet and frankly not got anywhere near it. Most enemies hit my 50HP+ chars for a few HP if they hit at all and go down in a couple of hits themselves. Perhaps it's just the start or me being more familiar with the systems, but I remember the original being a bit more tricky early on.

Worth it at the very reasonable price they're asking imo.
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
There's a 'Basic' and 'Classic' character mode, I read it as 'simpleton' and 'monocled' so of course I selected Classic, not sure what Basic changes but I can't imagine it's going to be better.
From the Vita version, I think it changes nothing but how your characters look. So with Classic you get to change the faces and see the equipment and what-not but with Basic you get some fancy static character images.
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Eh, Basic and Classic appears to be purely the choice between:
Use great looking premade character silhouettes in dynamic poses AND nice portraits in horizontal slices OR play with dolls and choose eyes, hair, body type, etc. and dress up nerdy looking stiff, static paperdolls with dorky square portraits.
Stat- and class- selection wise both seem the same.

Edit: Ah, so you get to see the equipped items in the (classic) doll-mode? That's kinda neat.
 

Zetor

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One potential dark cloud though, and I know it's early days as I haven't done the second run through of the Morimoto building, but it seems a lot easier than I remembered. I've not lost a single character yet and frankly not got anywhere near it. Most enemies hit my 50HP+ chars for a few HP if they hit at all and go down in a couple of hits themselves. Perhaps it's just the start or me being more familiar with the systems, but I remember the original being a bit more tricky early on.
Yeah, this was my main problem with the Vita remake too, besides the massive dumbing down of the character system. There's massive inflation of player stats all around (hp, damage, even spell slots) that remove a lot of tension, hard decisions and resource management that made the original a really tight experience.

It's still a servicable blobber in the end - and some of the new features like the FOEs are pretty neat - but it could've been much more...
 

Dorarnae

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the only thing I miss from the original is the boob spider in the beginning.
 

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Bit further in now and getting into it more. It's no Elminage but I do think it's better than the original Code Hazard. The difficulty is getting to the level I remember, I'm running into the odd mob group a few levels above me that potentially could do some real damage and I'm having to think on occasion.

The 'Wanted Variant' missions add something to the game and I'm still really digging the crafting improvements.

However.... which bright spark thought it would be a good idea to make moving with 'Enfloat' on accompanied by a loud booming sound rather than just silence?! It's so goddamn annoying! I'm SURE that wasn't in the original and that sure as hell isn't /incline. Wonder if digging into the sound files would reap any reward?
 
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aweigh

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Shackleton

oh yeah the Enfloat sound FX is there in PC version of Code Hazard.

BWAAHM BWAAHM BWWAAHM BWAAHM

i gave up on re-playing code hazard via operation abyss, as i wanted to play through the content of chapter 2 (code breaker), but them taking away multi-classing coupled with the decreased difficulty plus the maps being being the same just wasn't enough to motivate me to play through the code hazard content.

however after reading about the additions to code realize (operation babel, now) i understand why they split the 3rd chapter off into its own seperate new game.

chapters 1 adn 2 (hazard and breaker) are really just 1 single long scenario split into two, but the 3rd chapter comes with a bunch of additions and (from what I understand) multi-classing is back in via blood codes, so my interest is definitely piqued.
 

duanth123

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Game is not bad so far. They fixed the godawfully slow combat speed. The anime is strong in this one and the gameplay is clearly proto-SoSC, but I can't complain. The summoner class is an interesting twist, as before

Shackleton, aweigh, they added this system where progressive fights in a dungeon lead to more difficult encounters. Haven't seen much of it in action but it may address some diff. Complaints
 

Dorarnae

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Shackleton

oh yeah the Enfloat sound FX is there in PC version of Code Hazard.

BWAAHM BWAAHM BWWAAHM BWAAHM

i gave up on re-playing code hazard via operation abyss, as i wanted to play through the content of chapter 2 (code breaker), but them taking away multi-classing coupled with the decreased difficulty plus the maps being being the same just wasn't enough to motivate me to play through the code hazard content.

however after reading about the additions to code realize (operation babel, now) i understand why they split the 3rd chapter off into its own seperate new game.

chapters 1 adn 2 (hazard and breaker) are really just 1 single long scenario split into two, but the 3rd chapter comes with a bunch of additions and (from what I understand) multi-classing is back in via blood codes, so my interest is definitely piqued.


there is no point in multiclassing, even in the original game(game aren't that long anyway). I think the lvl cap in code breaker is 40 but you finish the game at like lvl 25-30. then on the third game you restart with a new party, so no point in doing multi class, it's a waste of time.
the third game has Sub class. so you choose your main class and a sub. the main class lvl up faster than the sub.
 
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aweigh

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to get more spell schools into 1 single character. i realize these games aren't hard enough to warrant this but that's not the point. i enjoy multi-classing characters in a wiz-clone and optimizing characters.

since you literally can't do that in the code hazard/code breaker remakes i lost interest in playing them, plus what you mention that they aren't very long either.

whether you need to do that to beat them is not the concern. chapter 3 (code realize / operation babel) starts you off with a fresh a party and has more content than chapters 1 and 2 (which are really just 1 scenario) and has multi-classing built-in along with sub-classing, hence my piqued interest in chapter 3.

edit: also i never ever import characters from scenarios. i hate that. i prefer always rolling new chars and grinding them up and multi-classing them. it is literally what i enjoy most about wiz-clones.
 

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Yeah, I saw this was out but tbh I wasn't rushing to get it. Playing through Prey now and enjoying it a lot, that should take me up to 29th and the release of Grimoire. :ibelieveincleve:

Like you aweigh, I lost interest in the first one. That end of year phase where you're all at max level and they want you to run around doing boring unchallenging quests, it killed me. I'll pick this up, but really, I don't have a massive inclination to play these competent, but rather dull crawlers at the moment.

On the outside chance, and I know it's a very remote possibility, that Grimoire doesn't release on the 29th, then I might move onto this but...meh.
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Looking forward to play this once I have some spare time. Guess I'll start with Abyss though. Not that big on multiclassing in those games. It really broke SoSC plus it promotes grinding.
I hear there's a Summoner/Conjurer class here. So how does it work? Is it any good? How are new summons recruited?
And the biggest question: play "Classic" mode or with the pregenerated silhouettes/portraits? The pregenerated ones look much better, including the always visible portraits, but seeing equipment on paperdolls is also tempting.
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I've tried to like Operation Abyss, I really did. I suffered trough the first semester and even did a little of the second one. But in the end I think I'll give up.
It seemed to be a game I would love. It's a crawler with nice graphics, hell you can even see equipment on the paperdolls in the Classic mode. Although the poses/weapon handling are retarded. The dungeon design seemed very good at first, but eventually I've grown very tired of it. And the repetitive, mindless encounters.

The dungeon design is much more complex and (initially) interesting then in Stranger of Sword City for example, from the same devs.
But the dungeons grow more and more bloated and you're forced to traverse acres of land forth and back to activate switch contraptions spread across many map sections. Tons of backtracking. Switches often must be activated in the correct order (=more backtracking/repetition) and often it is very unclear what you actually need to do. With meaningless, mindless random encounters every few steps. Just pointless busywork.

Plus the classes are rather shallow, especially coming from SoSC, MMX or Elminage Gothic.

So yeah, I quit. Probably won't be buying Operation Babel either, as while the multiclassing sounds like a nice addition, my understanding is that dungeon design... philosophy is similar.

Operation Abyss just made me appreciate Elminage Gothic more. While it is a huge game on it's own and has it's share of complex dungeons, at least it has challenging encounters and far less repetition and backtracking. Well, at least before the ultimate 20-floor tower (which has an elevator at least). Perhaps I need to get back to it and finish climbing that tower...
 
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Where expecting basics is considered perfectionism
But the dungeons grow more and more bloated and you're forced to traverse acres of land forth and back to activate switch contraptions spread across many map sections. Tons of backtracking. Switches often must be activated in the correct order (=more backtracking/repetition) and often it is very unclear what you actually need to do. With meaningless, mindless random encounters every few steps. Just pointless busywork.

If anything, i think the *lack* of need for backtracking is the problem here that makes the dungeon crawling a little too easy, since you can always use Return Gate and Call Portal(which is a very cheap item that makes you able to teleport to anywhere on the map.)
 

turkishronin

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Finally reached the final battle of Operation Abyss
The best thing about the game is the crafting system, it doesn't need that much grinding to find items and it's overall rewarding.
Out of the two unlockable classes, I found the Monk to be really useful.(class changed my fighter into one and he became my main tank) but the Conjurer is rather weak, your Academic and Mage spells outperform them so their only use is to capture enemy units temporarily, which is only based on luck.
I don't usually care about the story in this type of game but OA has a simple yet intriguing story that doesn't make the dungeon-crawling feel like a chore.
 

Suicidal

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Abyss is 8 euro on steam right now. Game seems to have mixed opinions about it both here and on steam. Would you guys recommend it?

Also how's the combat? Spam attack/healing and win? Or do you need to use your brain? I see this is from the same devs who made Stranger of Sword City. For the record I found SoSC's combat mediocre and too easy (but I liked the game overall).
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Abyss is even more repeatable and easier...

Maps are a drag.. way large spaces you have to repeatably walk trough.
 

Ysaye

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Abyss is 8 euro on steam right now. Game seems to have mixed opinions about it both here and on steam. Would you guys recommend it?

Also how's the combat? Spam attack/healing and win? Or do you need to use your brain? I see this is from the same devs who made Stranger of Sword City. For the record I found SoSC's combat mediocre and too easy (but I liked the game overall).

It's a while ago now but I liked the exploration in Abyss (I think it is better from a game perspective to have to repeatedly walkthrough rather than teleport to a point like in SoSC). The battles can become a bit of a "spam an attack pattern" but actually I didn't find it to be as spammy as SoSC; but maybe that is because it was the first Experience game I was playing and I didn't realise just how overpowered Samurais and Ninjas are in their games (particularly in non-boss fights).
 

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