Pier Solar and the Great Architects - WaterMelon

[mmartino]

There is a contest to win a copy of Pier Solar over at Ouyabrew!

http://ouyabrew.com/pier-solar-giveaway/

[Bucckets81]

I've played it for about five hours, and I have made progress, but (I'm about to say something that my 16 year old self would hate me for), it's too damn hard to be any fun for me. The "puzzles" in the game rely on obfuscation rather than logic and I find that incredibly frustrating. The spacing between inns and item shops are also both pretty maddening, but not poor design decisions like I feel the puzzles are.

It's really a shame, because you can tell that a lot of time, love, hard work and talent went into making this game. The graphics are beautiful. The story is big studio quality. A lot of aspects of the game are really well thought out. I'm going to keep playing it and try to make it to the ending, because I am really intrigued by the story and the graphics, but I'm going to have to rely on GameFaqs to get it done, and that's a huge shame. This game has all the makings of an all-time classic JRPG, but the fact that it's hard because you literally can't see what you're supposed to do really strips away a lot of that potential.

[flamepanther]

I've played it for about five hours, and I have made progress, but (I'm about to say something that my 16 year old self would hate me for), it's too damn hard to be any fun for me. The "puzzles" in the game rely on obfuscation rather than logic and I find that incredibly frustrating. The spacing between inns and item shops are also both pretty maddening, but not poor design decisions like I feel the puzzles are.

It's really a shame, because you can tell that a lot of time, love, hard work and talent went into making this game. The graphics are beautiful. The story is big studio quality. A lot of aspects of the game are really well thought out. I'm going to keep playing it and try to make it to the ending, because I am really intrigued by the story and the graphics, but I'm going to have to rely on GameFaqs to get it done, and that's a huge shame. This game has all the makings of an all-time classic JRPG, but the fact that it's hard because you literally can't see what you're supposed to do really strips away a lot of that potential.

I had some trouble inside the ruined city at first, but whenever it seems like you're stuck, the answer is usually in the same room. Check behind pillars. Follow any moving platforms that don't appear to land anywhere. That'll usually solve it. Maybe not exactly the best kind of dungeon puzzle, but I'll take that over the classic "find exactly the right combination of switches that each affect multiple doors/platforms" dungeon puzzle some other 16-bit RPGs liked to use.

[Bucckets81]

I just barely got past that dungeon before I quit. I kept getting poisoned by those stupid snakes and I was out of supplies. Luckily (I guess) I had spent a few hours lost before I finally went to GameFaqs and figured out what the hell I was supposed to do, so my characters were at level 10 and the boss went down easily. Like I said, this game has a lot of really nice ingredients, and was obviously a labor of love made by some really talented people. The level design, however, has been atrocious (in my opinion, at least) up to this point.

[Hugo]

I just barely got past that dungeon before I quit. I kept getting poisoned by those stupid snakes and I was out of supplies. Luckily (I guess) I had spent a few hours lost before I finally went to GameFaqs and figured out what the hell I was supposed to do, so my characters were at level 10 and the boss went down easily. Like I said, this game has a lot of really nice ingredients, and was obviously a labor of love made by some really talented people. The level design, however, has been atrocious (in my opinion, at least) up to this point.

I've had little difficulty, and I haven't had to grind as of yet. The only challenge that I've faced so far is killing the Ruins boss and then the follow-up fight at the Goaman hut, as I walked into it blind without having healed (my fault, as the game gives you fair RPG-style warning that something is about to go down and I didn't give the fair clue adequate respect,) and everyone was at low health, dry on mana, and low on supplies. Still managed to scrape by with some micromanagement. I've found that the game really penalizes the "Keep mashing Attack during every fight" mentality that this current generation of RPGs has forced. Even random battles leading up to bosses have to be calculated to ensure that you don't run out of resources at the end. Grab every chest that you can along the way, keep your gear and items in top shape, and don't underestimate Edessot's ability to throw items for damage.

RPGs have always been my thing, so maybe that's why I haven't struggled with it. This game taught me very early on not to underestimate any single fight.

[flamepanther]

I kept getting poisoned by those stupid snakes and I was out of supplies.

Those things were royally kicking my ass until I adjusted my tactics. I had been treating the combat like a classic Final Fantasy game up to that point, but once the enemies get tough, it basically forces you to start paying attention to the Gather system. By having some of your characters sacrifice a turn or two, you can do considerably more damage. More importantly your healing spells will restore several hundred HP for no increased cost in MP. It really puts a ripple in the conventional JRPG tactics. After I got a good sense for it, I was able to restart the dungeon and get through it using only a couple of consumable items.

The level design does have some rough spots, but I think it's about par for a 16-bit RPG that isn't from the top teams at Square or Enix. I remember some Lufia maps really pissing me off back in the day.

[Rhellik]

At the very beginning where you have to find the robot in the forest I had to switch to 16-bit mode to find out where to go, since the beautiful grapchis were very dark (even playing at night) and more obfuscating than the 16bit pixels.
That was the only point till now though where I felt the map design to be a problem. Oh and the map doesnt really show where you can go and where not. Dont know what it shows besides chests.

Still it's probably one of the biggest and best RPGs from the "16bit era" and Im gonna play it through.

[mmartino]

Great game so far. Loving every bit of it. Couple issues I have found though is if I open the system menu to try and rate the game it crashes back to the Ouya menu. Also if I tap the shoulder button in game it sometimes freezes and I have to randomly hit the shoulder buttons again to get it going again.Otherwise great game well worth $15 and more. Can't wait for my Genesis cart to arrive now

[TulioAdriano]

Figthing battles requires strategy in Pier Solar, for example, you can set your strongest character in front and and move the weaker back, that way even if someone gets poisoned you can heal with them from the back because they get less hits.

Also, watch out for accessories, some accessories reduce dramatically damages from certain elementals and most time, all enemies in a group are from same element. It follows logic: on teh forest, earth enemies, desert fire enemies, mangrove water enemies... etc...

Remember:
Feather reduces Earth damage
Dragon Tooth reduces Fire damage
Towel reduces Water damage
Small Weight reduces Wind damage

If you find these accessories for sale in towns, try to purchase at least some for the characters that stay in front of the battle field (and those without move to the back)

Some places you can buy accessories:
Reja: Feather
Zohonka: Dragon Tooth, Feather, Towel
Verahansha: Dragon Tooth, Feather, Towel and Small weight.

Also they can be found in chests around... There's one in reja forest (feather) one in the sanctuary (dragon tooth) and one in the mangrove (towel), at least.

We're updating the game, it should fix some issues such as the game quit when invoking Ouya menu.

Regarding the darkness, it varies from monitor to monitor. It's been okay on the TVs I have here and they're set for 50% brightness, you can always switch to 16 bit graphics which doesn't implement the light effects. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thank you all.

[Bucckets81]

To be clear, I wasn't running out of supplies because I couldn't figure out the battle system. That's one of the many parts of the game I really think works well. I ran out of supplies because I literally couldn't figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next and I stubbornly spent hours wandering around in that godforsaken dungeon before I looked it up online. JRPGs were my favorite genre throughout my teens and most of my twenties. I have played through probably hundreds of them. This is the first time I can remember being stumped by level design.

Meh, I am supposed to go out of town this weekend, but if those plans fall through, I will probably end up playing a lot of Pier Solar. I just won't be to stubborn to use a FAQ if I get stuck again.