Digging V13 a lot, but...

[Lucimus Ace]

Some decisions sure are dragging the game down to me.

First I got pissed at the back-to-back fight in Wispy Tower, but sure, I've gone through way worse in Reborn.

Then I got pissed at the second Nim battle since there's no PC anywhere close, so I had to return to Goldenleaf multiple times to rethink my strategy.  It's specially frustrating since she wants to fight you just before entering a new city, where I could use a PC. I miss my repels...

And now there's Madelis fight at Blackstepple Castle where I'm locked without even getting access to a PC. It's not that hard of a fight honestly, but goddamit why would anyone do that? Why would the game force me to reload a save backup just so I could change my setup? There's no way this is my fault since I don't know beforehand what pokemon I'm gonna face.

Last I played was in V9 where I had a great time and to be completely honest I don't remember much if these problems were already there, but I'm 90% they weren't and in any case it's no excuse to bad design anyway. I just feel like V13 is trying too hard to frustrate me and disrespect my time, even if it's not intentional (but it probably is). At least the early grinding was fixed because that was frustrating me too, although I still don't dig some poke being moved waaaaay later into the game or the lack of Exp All.

Anyway, again, I'm loving V13 really, been waiting for this for a very long time, but man these issues do pile up and frustrate me.

EDIT: After further inspection, I noticed there are 2 healing devices, 1 in a room before the fight, and 1 in the same room of the fight. I'm thinking that second healing device should actually have been a PC device.

[antharios]

That Madelis fight was something else, since you can't access a pc after that fight ether,

so I had to fight Neved and Madam X with the same team.

 

Neved was easier than I thought thou, but for Madam X you need a very Gimmicky team

and there is no way I could even theoreticly win against her with this team.

[FerrousOxide]

If by back to back fight in whispy tower as having to fight Eli and Sharon and then fight Geara right after, that isnt exactly a back to back fight as you have a chance to go and heal after Eli and Sharon before fighting Geara. If you mean fighting Geara then fighting Giratina right after, yes it was done that way originally.


I do agree about the fight vs Nim, I was even actively complaining about it to my friends that I was streaming for at the time saying things like 'this game has a custom checkpoint system with their little yellow whatevers that is supposed to heal you, and the red things that let you use the PC, they are normally so good at putting these before major fights so you dont have to do a huge amount of walking, why isn't there one here, why do I have to get sent all the way back to fucking goldenleaf every time I lose'
So basically put a yellow and red checkpoint somewhere near the Nim fight.


I didn't notice any problem with the Madelis into Neved fight myself since I was able to beat them first try, ya your complains there sound pretty valid. Blacksteeple is all around pretty broken in terms of programming, being the buggiest location so far, and how fights are set up so hopefully this is something they can fix there as well. Again, they have those custom checkpoints, developers should utilize them before major fights to prevent this kind of frustration.

[Brauvo]

Yeah, since Route 4 is some kind of wild area now, it would be good to have a way to heal and access a PC somewhere on that route. Even if it isn't directly before the Nim fight, it'd be good just for gameplay.

 

The most egregious thing to me is how you don't get access to a PC from Madelis to Madame X. Am I mistaken about this? It seems pretty intentional, too, as once you and your mom team up, your allies are blocking the way to anywhere other than Nevad. I tried backtracking to the area with Pianolady - a buggy experience that lead to my character walking through the part Emma travels to open the cart tracks and turning into Emma at times - to no avail. I got lucky in that some of my bugged adventures set the castle back to pre-chaos mode. I then just walked to my cell,  then as I went to where Nevad was (it wouldn't let me go because it thought I was Emma), and after I backtracked more and the castle turned back into chaos. That helped me get my talonflames to beat Madame X. 

 

I don't think I mind the game not letting me adjust my party before every single important battle, but it does seem like the game limits us enough in other ways for difficulty. Like, it's clear that the party we'd use to beat Madame X is not the party we would choose to fight Madelis with if we thought we'd be able to adjust. Maybe the game's goals aren't being translated to us well, as beating Madame X seems like something we're supposed to try to do for hidden morality points reasons. I do appreciate the Nevad fight being 2v1 though. That feels fair for what's being asked of us. 

[Lucimus Ace]

At the time I didn't know I had to also beat Neved and try to beat Madame X with the same party, and damn that was rough. I completely gave up on Madame X, and my team was definitely not well suited for Neved, but I made it after ~40min or so.

For Madelis, I really think the lack of a PC device is a bug because of the healing device in the same room. It doesn't excuse the lack of one for Neved and Madame X, although I really appreciate the 12x6 there.

About Geara and Giratina, iirc it wasn't a fight back to back, but Giratina was his sixth pokemon (I'm not 100% sure about that, it was 4 years ago). I don't enjoy much redoing bosses and I don't think it's a good design anyway, but I'll take that anyday over that infamous 3 back to back fight in Reborn.

I'm loving V13, specially the story and pacing changes. There are some replaced OSTs that I like it less than before, but they are still good. I'm just most disappointed in some things that were clearly designed to not respect my time.  I'm hoping the developers will take note of those issues and fix it in later patches soon, seeing that they are easily fixable, unless it's really their intention for the game to be that way, which then would be just objectively bad design.