End of Eternity/Resonance of Fate

[Darkside55]

Upcoming RPG from tri-ACE, directed by Takayuki Suguro, the man and the team behind Valkyrie Profile 2 (which is an awesome game if you've never played it). Published by Sega.

This game looks absolutely beautiful. It takes place in a gigantic, atmosphere-reaching machine city called Bazel, where inhabitants are separated on different levels by their social class.

The combat uses a semi-realtime battle system called tri-Attack-Battle, where you can move your characters around a hex field and switch weapons until time runs out, or you attack. Depending on how you move and attack, you can activate flashy invincible attacks that look like a steroid-induced John Woo gun sequence.

Check out these trailers--the first one has some story sequences and the gunplay, and the second shows the characters running around an area of Bazel. Listen to that beautiful music in the second trailer, too; the composers for the game are Kohei Tanaka and Motoi Sakuraba.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQyuq2w7NTE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57jkGg4pnUU

The game is going to release in NA and the UK simultaneously in 2010 as Resonance of Fate (EoE is the Japanese name); there's going to be a partial English track with text sections, and the full Japanese track. According to Sega:

We will have English American voices. Unfortunately, just to squeeze it in, because we wanted to keep the gap small, some things will be text. But we know that a lot of JRPG fans just play with the Japanese voice overs on with the subtitles anyway.

Would've been nice to have a full English track, but this is good news for people who like the original language with subs.

 

[jet_porkins]

I stopped as soon as I saw cloud city.

Edit: bah fine, I'll watch.

 

[Krynn72]

What the hell? The combat actually looks entertaining. In a JRPG? UNBELIEVABLE.

Unless, its still a "go through a menu, select attack, watch mini cutscene of character performing said attack, repeat" and they just didnt show the boring part.

So is it?

 

[Sedako]

Curiosity piqued. You know what that first vid reminded me of? The very first Final Fantasy 7 screenshots of Midgar from EGM. It has a very similar atmosphere. The combat does look awesome though. Emphasis on "look" however, because as Krynn said, it may be all automated.

 

[Darkside55]

Unless, its still a "go through a menu, select attack, watch mini cutscene of character performing said attack, repeat" and they just didnt show the boring part.

So is it?

Possibly. Not sure. Apparently those moves are activated if you follow a certain path to the enemy, so they might just be like battle cutscenes. Still LOOKS cool.

 

[VirusType2]

SEGA and Tri-Ace!

Some of the game mechanics are very similar to the last few Phantasy Star Games from SEGA.

Keep in mind that the following is almost all speculation and observation:

I believe you are completely free to move around as you wish, though if it's like Phantasy Star, you often become locked in a room by triggered doors until the fight is over. You don't always need to kill everything to release the doors.

There were traps, all kinds of rare items, weapons and armor, challenging mazes to navigate, doors to unlock, etc. If it has that kind of thing, I'll be hooked.

You do have lock on aim, but there are multiple targets to lock to, and multiple moves, attacks options, and distances to attack from. There are also weapon stats like accuracy and obviously other weapon characteristics that come into play. Doing chain attacks with weapons actually requires really good timing, not just pressing the button repeatedly. Actually controlling the character to dodge attacks makes this quite fun.

This should be a very good game. I'll bet that SEGA will bring this to the PC eventually as well.

One question I have is whether it is on/offline or both. In PSO you can choose from different characters to play as (and customize their look to an extent), and you level up with them as you play the game.

Anyway, the second video looks amazing.


An example of Phantasy Star Universe gameplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR2LzVb7NAE

There are also ranger characters you can choose who only use projectile weapons.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Sorry for this huge bump but I just got to playing this game.

It's great. A wonderful switch up of the usual shitty jrpg mechanics. The writing is snarky, if sometimes a bit bland. Combat is fun and challenging, plus looks ****ing cool as shit.

 

[GreatEmperor]

I came in here thinking they renamed that Dark Corners of the Earth sequel, and leave unimpressed