GS4 Possible Characters

[Aile~♥]

I say we stick with twelve characters max, but if you did that it'd have to be a hundred hours long with a LOT less repetitiveness to get the characterization in there. Tales of Symphonia managed to pull off a large number of playable characters, but ONLY because it was very long and had voice acting, mid-battle chatter, and forty hours worth of sidequests.

[Rolina]

After DD, I don't think that having that large a cast is a good thing in Camelot's hands, not yet at least.  Maybe later, but at the moment...

Would you really want 4 people in each team who does... exactly the same thing?  Until we get completely unique classes between teams, and crazy long stories to allow for characterization, I'm gonna pass on the whole 12-16 characters.  4 is Ideal to me, 8 is pushing it unless the latter four are already developed.

[Salanewt]

Er, the 16 character thing was actually more of a jab than anything else - obviously, in a game that only needs 4-8 characters, I wouldn't be surprised if they were to have 16.

But still, I'm hoping for the best. I've already blocked out most memories of Dark Dawn, I don't want to have to do that again.

[Rolina]

Oh, okay, you scared me for a second there.

Of course, the sad thing... it took Dark Dawn to get me to change my mind... beforehand, I'd have been fine with 12... but afterwards, I cut down to 4, even changing how one of my hack ideas was going to be done in accordance with my new views.

[Kioll]

I don't know why everyone seems to hate Dark Dawn so much.  Okay, sure, they could've done a little better on the personalities and background stories for some of the characters.  But they did a bunch of wonderful new twists...  Every djinn looks unique, I'd say that's a step up.  New utility psynergies...  Mind Read and Reveal being redistributed was a bit weird...  And they didn't really need Insight...  But if you relax, stop worrying about the shortcomings it has, the game is fun, and that's what matters...  Or am I weird for not caring?

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Or am I weird for not caring?

No, that you are not. Everyone else is weird for only accentuating the negative, that they are.

Sure, the plot was a piss pie (please do not ask me what a piss pie is, I just made it up, that I did.), and the bosses fought like retarded Chocobos, that they did. But it had cool music, weapon mastery, Crystalux, some new classes, and @#$%& slapping a bird god, that it did. 

[Salanewt]

Even then, some of the pros that you listed help contribute to the cons.

New utilities - Some of them are just combined versions of those that we already had, and others are replacements. I guess Slap and Grip were okay, and Crush was a cool way of combining Burst and Pound. However, I didn't find most of them to be very memorable for some reason.
New summon - Is this the only one that we can have? I mean, a new summon would nice, but it was just a crappy chandelier from a television commercial.
Classes - I guess so, but weren't these ones exclusive to the new characters? The ones that I mostly kept in the back until they reached level 99, haha...
Djinn - Agreed, actually. That one was a nice little addition. They could have done a bit better with some of the designs, but that is just an opinionated statement.
Music - I might be the odd one in this case, but I thought that about 96% of the new audio was terrible. Keeping in mind, of course, that it takes a lot for me to actually like game audio to begin with. I tried, I turned the volume up sometimes... But no. It isn't enough for me, sadly.
Weapon mastery - Wow, I totally forgot about that! To be honest, I never even noticed it during the two times that I played the game. I mean, I vaguely understood that weapons got better the more you used them, but its not like the monsters were harder before the weapons were maxed out.

All in all, the game was actually kind of fun. There were plenty of new additions that were unique in a way. However, the bad things would be able to crush the good things to death because of how major they were in the game.


... And we are pretty far off the topic, oops. However, with all of the bad or poorly implemented things in this game in mind, my point still stands that it wouldn't be surprising if they were to have 16 characters or more join your party, but have roughly six of them of them join shortly before you fight the final boss. They might even have a usable Kraden. I hope I'm wrong though, because I still actually like the series despite all of the flaws of the third game. I am just trying to say that it might be best to keep our hopes down for GS4's roster.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

New summon - Is this the only one that we can have? I mean, a new summon would nice, but it was just a crappy chandelier from a television commercial.

No, he's a crappy dragon made from an even crappier chandelier, that he is!

They might even have a usable Kraden.

Or, Kraden might actually be the man behind it all, and not Alex, that he may. I'd love to see a plot twist like that, where someone two generations of heroes have trusted thoughout three games turns out to be the real Big Bad, that I would.

And Alex is just a really manipulative Guile Hero, that he is.

Keeping in mind, of course, that it takes a lot for me to actually like game audio to begin with.

Aww, that's a shame, that it is. You not liking game music.

[Rolina]

You guys may not have had to deal with it, but for us, we spent seven years wanting a new Golden Sun game.  When it was announced, we were excited as freaking hell.  When it came out... it couldn't hold a candle to the originals, and not out of nostalgia either (a large portion of us played the first two games right before we played DD).  While DD did somethings right, it did a lot of them wrong.

Abilities remained broken, some got even worse.  Some djinn were just... Chain?  REALLY?

Classes didn't really get expanded at all.  We've played those classes for 7 years!  We really wanted new ones to play with... we got like, five.  And a remix of a couple others.

Music... it just plain wasn't as good as the originals.  The originals were mostly good, but in DD, it was hit and miss.  Just didn't have the same quality, you know?

And then there's the big problem - they made this a fanservice game, rather than taking the direction they needed.  Instead of expanding and refining the mechanics, they threw in a bunch of things to "appease" the fans... And it became a jumbled mess because of it.  Hell, Eoleo fans have a right to be pissed - they get teased, then he joins at the end of the game... and is basically Tyrell with less equipment options.  Himi... that was just a slap in the face!

And did you remember the particle and sound effects?  No?  Exactly.  Part of what made TLA so great was the sheer impact you felt in battle!  That was like... totally gone.  While attacks were never actually weaker than in previous games, they sure felt weaker.

The thing is, while yes they tried to do a good job, they shouldn't have tried to "appeal to fans" so much as worked on making a good game.  They dropped the ball, and people called them on it.

The biggest crime in many fans eyes, though, was introducing Light and Darkness as a thing.  For seven years, they had been symbolic... and now suddenly they're a thing.... All the claims of "there's only four elements", of "light and dark psynergy doesn't exist, they fall under the thematics of other elements", etc just went moot.  Some attacks and djinn now really don't make any sense being elemental since we have Light and Dark - they scream that they should be fundamental instead!  It pretty much made a big mess over what had been established canon for years.


Now, some things they did right.  Multiple unleashes per weapon, for example, helped to nerf the 99% unleash strategy.  I liked how you didn't just get four people to fill out your eight, but rather it happened gradually (still, that could have been handled far better than it was).  They also tried to be more efficient with psynergy - while the effort was good, the execution left much to be wanted, though.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Himi... that was just a slap in the face!

Or, a kick between the knees, that it felt to me.

Classes didn't really get expanded at all.  We've played those classes for 7 years!  We really wanted new ones to play with... we got like, five.  And a remix of a couple others.

Yeah, that was kind of dumb, that it was.

Part of what made TLA so great was the sheer impact you felt in battle!

Sheer Impact? Is that the tier 3 version of Impact? LOL JK. I saw an opporunity for a pun, and I took it, that I did.

[Rolina]

No, that's the alt-tier2 version, where it boosts one character by 50%, instead of all characters by 12.5%. Branching spell paths for the win! :awesomesmiley:

[Aile~♥]

Agreed on Psynergy effects. The little distort in the air before Starburst looked great, but the explosion(s) looked really bad. I loved the unleashes and other physical strikes, though. Most of them, anyway. Except for Thunderhead, Hurricane, Carpet Bomb, Odyssey, Undead Might, and Reigning Dragon.

[Rolina]

Light Surge used to be one of my favorite unleashes...  Now not only does it not make sense as a Jupiter attack anymore (now that Sol is a thing. >_>), but it's just soooooooo lame...

Also, what they did to the Plasma line was unforgivable. D:<

[Aile~♥]

I think the plasma line still coulda looked cool if they put the flinch effects in the right place.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Though they did make Thor look even more badarse, that they did.

But, if they screw the pooch with Goldensun 4 like they did with Goldensun 3, then I'll quit being a Goldensun fan, that I will.

That's how I stopped being a Sonic fan, that it was. Well, that and the other fans.

[Rolina]

It was the lack of impact for me.  Now, imagine this re-work of the new plasma...

It has the pulsing ball thing that Plasma does in DD... but that ball condenses, then unleashes bolts in the area, having an almost rapid-fire impact sound as it explodes into electrical energy.  Still has the same basis, but is more than just a pulsating... thing.

@Tetsuya:  Agree, Thor looked badass.  Most of the summons seemed to get upgrades, honestly.

[Aile~♥]

Judgment would've been better with a 3-D world model below, rather than a 2-D cloud wall. Or if the explosion actually occurred below the cloud wall, so that the explosion looked more realistic, that would've worked too. And MEGIDDO NEEDED A UNIQUE ANIMATION WITH LESS FAKING.

And yeah, Plasma needed to actually explode outward, with a flinch from both the lightning impact and the lightning explosion.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

It has the pulsing ball thing that Plasma does in DD... but that ball condenses, then unleashes bolts in the area, having an almost rapid-fire impact sound as it explodes into electrical energy.  Still has the same basis, but is more than just a pulsating... thing.

So, it'll be more like an Electropulse spell line, then?

So, something like this? Electropulse > Electrowave > Electroblast?

[Rolina]

No.  That's a version of DD's plasma line that actually has impact to it.  Did you even read my post?

[Aile~♥]

Evidently, he did not. Way to derail the conversation, Tetsuya.