13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, the Atlus port we really wanted

This might end up just being the Balla and Mas thread, as I think both of us are picking it up on Switch. I would guess Balla reason is Switch his only machine and my reason I was getting it on VITA

Some of ya may have already played on PS4, just you know this Switch port reviewing very well (some saying Switch version is better as it has a few changes) as it is the highest game of 2022 (This year's Fata Morgana?) on Switch & 23rd overall on Meta that maybe some of you also have your eyes on it as well now.

Or like I said ends up being the Bas thread.

masofdas wrote:

Or like I said ends up being the Bas thread.

I prefer masofdeer. That would be your tabloid celebrity couple name.

I don't know if I'll pick this up. I really can't tell if I'd get on with it and I have loads of other stuff to be getting on with. But I'm also very easily led.

I love 13 Sentinels, but I played it a year ago, so y'know... play it...

Well Andy (I knew someone had played it) says play it Rum

For some more in depth thoughts, it does a real good job of doing a 999/VLR style time jumpy plot. The graphics are beautiful, the story very compelling, unfortunately you then have to spend an hour doing a bad tower defence/RTS game to unlock the next bit of story, but only like 4-5 times, so it's not the end of the world.

Think some of the reviews say the RTS bits been improved in Switch version but I can still imagine Balla playing reviewing and going urghh RTS sections lets the game down.

I'd be curious to see those as I can't see any evidence of any improvements. I mean it's passable, it's just not good.

I think it looks kind of ugly, not a fan of the art style at all

Really that's one of biggest draws the vanillaware artstyle.

I'll let you know soon Andy as my 13S been dispatched.

The characters all look like creepy dolls, which isn't helped by the animation (especially the idles), and I don't like the exaggerated lighting on seemingly every background - or just the lighting in general I guess.

masofdas wrote:

Think some of the reviews say the RTS bits been improved in Switch version but I can still imagine Balla playing reviewing and going urghh RTS sections lets the game down.

This is what I'm worried I would do!

Rum wrote:

masofdas wrote:

Or like I said ends up being the Bas thread.

I prefer masofdeer. That would be your tabloid celebrity couple name.

That sounds like a car pile-up that's hit a herd, leaving bits of slightly pulpy stag and doe all over the shop. Meanwhile Bas is an Egyptian deity of some kind.

As Mas notes, I'm on board for this. It's actually the The Back Page Discord that convinced me to get it, eulogising about it - that and the last VanillaWare game I've played still makes my top 25 to this day. (That one looked prettier IMO.)

As for RTS bits... eh, I'll try it. Then maybe I'll go full walkthrough.

You won't even need a walkthrough, it's so braindead that it's just an annoying hurdle.

I've played a couple of hours of this. First thoughts, then - and sadly, they're not all good.

I'll get the RTS stuff out of the way first: there's a lot of it near the beginning huh? It is unsurprising, given the above and my own tastes, that I haven't enjoyed it much. I'm not sure I'll find it 'braindead' because my strategy brain was dead to begin with, but 'full walkthrough' is becoming more and more likely.

Onto the meat of the game, though, and what I've heard hasn't filled me with joy. OR and Buska and I were talking about elements of writing recently, and I said that essentially I didn't care much about plot so long as characters were good and writing was entertaining. What I'm now hearing from a variety of sources is that the plot is amazing, a piece of non-linear ( ) brilliance; and the characters are a bunch of anime tropes. It's too early for me to judge whether that's accurate or not, but it's ominous. The two I do like so far are Space Athletics Girl and Gang Leader Girl. I outright laughed when a girl was late for school and running in with toast in her mouth.

Andy: a question about the VN interface. Is there any point to being able to walk around scenes? Does that ever allow you to do anything that 'press A to advance plot' couldn't accomplish? e.g. can you go find secrets at any point?

Finally, there's some slightly dubious material. We've had the traditional VanillaWare woman with planet-sized breasts, some pointless in-mech nudity, a Japanese WW2 soldier presented in an uncritical light, and what I would charitably describe as a clumsy implementation of a non-binary character. None of it's game-ruining, but it's there.

So... yeah. Plenty of time for the game to pick itself up, and fingers crossed it does, but I must admit to being a bit sceptical at this early stage. A shame, I was quite excited for it.

I'm yet to play mine as busy in work, also close to end of Star Wars but some of the things like the anime tropes I knew before hand.

I think you can pet a cat whilst walking about.

I've actually answered my own question to be fair. This is an area where I think the opening maybe does the game a disservice: get through that and how you navigate through the scenes causes the game paths to branch à la yer 999s and that but seemingly much more complex.

Can you find secrets in the same way though? This is what I want to know.

I don't think there's much in the way of secrets, it's much more the determining which route and adding that bit more interactivity into the game. I think that interactivity helped me a lot, it's probably the reason I've finished it, compared to most other VN games that fall by the wayside because they don't really fit into my life in the way I'd like them to. I was able to take this on as my game of the moment, but VNs tend to leave me unsatisified in the game playing dept.

I like to play VN on a handheld but often short ones, but stuff like 13S being longer will play mostly on TV that interactive will help. Why also put off Fata Morgana being 30+ hrs, as that's long for VN on a TV, could play handheld but think get distracted over that amount of time.

Started this tonight and done the prologue to where it opens up to the three game modes.

Have to say, really liked those 3ish hours so far that I have played. Don't have much of an issue with the RTS mode, but is the story mode that I want to see more off. Did play a wee bit on the OLED and darn it's stunning.

It is nice-looking, besides the bits that made me go 'Oh VanillaWare ', which - well par for the course really. That aside, I'm finding progressing the story relatively tedious. I seem to be making progress by brute-forcing my way through relatively dull stories, with shonen boy and obviously-the-heroine sampled so far. I'm yet to get to the fun bit of this, sadly.

I'm now close to over 20hrs, and it's been utterly fantastic.

I've got a bit further into the game, unlocked a few more characters. The threads are starting to link up a little now: always nice when that happens. No idea what's going on with the bigger story, natch.

I don't hate the strategy as much as everybody else seems to - I just don't like it much. It probably helps that it's easy. I'm very bad at RTS gameplay.

You've only got to do like 30 RTS battles and most are quick.