I think I'm most of the way through and feel this game has tons of content. I must have gotten to what I thought was the last fight five times now and the game keeps going, evolving the story and presenting amazing new graphics and backgrounds each time. The storytelling and art are first rate and the game is epic along with great game play. I'm enjoying this more than the original - no regrets.
Just curious, are there any new characters, maps, genes, weapons, items, or enemies from the first one?
Most of the content is recycled material (environments, spells/skills, items, gene plates, and monsters). I mean its still on the Ark Arena after all. However, they have added new content: new characters, new enemies, new genes, new environments, etc. And that doesn't really bother me like I thought it would because where the game shines is not as obvious - the story and the game is more difficult than the first CR. It more or less reminds me of how a lot of the same "content" is recycled in the Final Fantasy games - the monsters you fight, the spells/skills you can learn, the character classes/jobs, etc. Even the weapons. But there are differences between the FF games (story, different tweaks, etc) that it doesn't seem to matter. Some people have said that Chaos Rings: Omega is simply one additional couple's story from CR and that it sould have been just an expansion. I disagree - I swear there is much more story content, accompanying character animations and conversations, etc than a single "couple" from Chaos Rings. The content alone in CR: Omega in my mind is easily equal to at least half of the original Chaos Rings. And when I look at the percentage complete of my game thus far it is only 65%. And there's an "extra" mode as well. And the characterizations and the story is so much deeper and more rewarding than the original CR to me. The first CR was good but I'm having a much better time playing CR: Omega - it just seems so much more of a deeper and a rewarding experience. Before deleting the first CR several months ago after completing it to 108% (meaning I won with all four couples and got through all of the "real" final bosses with them) I took screenshots. My total playtime is 42 hours and 20 minutes for all four couples combined. That means playing through their "scenarios" and leveling them all up to 100 and completing all bonus content. Looking at my game in CR:Omega so far, I still am in the story with 65% complete at a total playtime so far of 11 hours, 17 minutes. And I'm not done with the game yet. I won't be surprised that including the upcoming boss fights that I may still have another couple of hours at least of content still coming - perhaps as many as 4 more hours. And its not like I've been grinding a huge amount (perhaps in total about an hour) or retrying a lot of difficult fights. I think that says something about the length of the story as compared to each couple's story in CR. Chaos Rings: Omega is NOT "just another couple's story" from CR - its deeper and has more content than that. Bottom line is that if you hated CR then you will not like CR: Omega. If you loved CR then you will probably like CR: Omega even more - just be prepared for a lot of recycled material but with tweaks, some additions, and a much more involving story. EDIT: I'm probably going on and on about this game in these forums but I honestly do think it was well done, recycled material and all. It really is better than I had expected and feels more like a complete RPG than the first CR was. The boss fights can be tough as well! CR: Omega sure doesn't baby the player like the first CR did in my opinion. I really hope they model CR2 off of the superior CR: Omega instead of just the original CR.
I love CRO. It's interesting that they came out with this after CR since it truly is a prequel. I've heard people say that you should play CR first, but I'm not so sure of that. I think that what happens in CR would have even more impact after playing CRO. I'm personally thrilled that we have an exclusive Squeenix series for iOS. I really feel like this can stand next to their other titles in quality of storytelling. On a portable platform like this, I feel like it's pretty stellar. I'm also apparently in the minority about appreciating the added voices. Granted, it added a lot of filesize, but for immersion purposes, it's a huge bonus. I just finished Omega yesterday, and am going to play CR again from the beginning to see what it's like with voices.
So I got through the game (not the "extra" content though) and it took about 13 and a half hours. Didn't grind all that much either - perhaps at most an hour or so of pure grinding just to give my characters a little extra health for the end game boss fights. Seemed to have been somewhat unnecessary as I had forgotten that I could just get to them with turning off the random encounters. The random encounters in that last dungeon *hurt*. Anyway - overall this is how I would compare both games (keeping in mind I have not played through more than just an hour of the extra content): CR and CR:O both have decent stories but CR:O felt more like an actual RPG to me. The story was more focused in CR:O, had more difficulty, and I felt more attached to the characters in CR:O. CR was good for giving the back story so you understood how the basic game mechanics worked and is a longer game (the story part though) but CR does that mostly by "cheating" because to get through all of the story content you have to play through all four pairs of characters. In CR:O you only do that with one character pair. I'm glad I got to play both but I was more impressed with CR:O overall. I have no idea what someone would make of the story in CR:O without having played through CR first so I can't really suggest that someone pick CR:O over CR as there are elements of the background story (and what happens after CR:O) that are obviously not going to be included in CR:O but I still say that the primary game of CR:O I think is superior to CR.
I agree with most people here but I still do wish there was a bit more new stuff. I feel like it would have been easy for them to add a couple more new maps but nonetheless, the story was great. My biggest gripe however is not letting us use the other characters. In particular, I wanted to use the new girl Cyllis. Not only is she hot but her stance, personality, and battle animations are way cool. Plus her partner is really "powerful". I was super bummed after I beat the game when it wouldn't let me touch them =\
The September update's here: Level cap increased to 130; Added hidden boss; Added two Piu-Piu collections; Added treasure chests to dungeons. Although, of course, you'll need to get the Japanese voices along with it if you've so far resisted...
Might be to do with filesize. I myself don't update Chaos Rings since the filesize just went through the roof for a 'feature' I don't want. We should've been able to opt out of the japanese voice... At least compress it better. Or let us upload the save data to a server / our computer ala Broken Sword / Real Racing so we won't have to keep it once we finish it, but can come back anytime without losing the progress.
It's terrible having to update an 1 GB file over and over again for features that I don't want. Why did that update with the voice-overs freaking triple the file size?..sucks. Going to try to finish the game with one team one of these days, and get it off my iPod.
Man I LOVE voices but omg.. it's way to huge. I agree with the others.. I don't want anymore updates. I wish it was better compressed by there might be nothing you can do about it. Also it's annoying to have to have the size of the full game free on your ipod to update.. often meaning deleting a gig of stuff
I'm sorry, but when do these updates stop? I'm getting tired of downloading another 800 MB file every few weeks for the same game just because they added the same thing again for the 10th time.
Is this a turn based RPG? I can't tell from that video at the beginning. Also is it just a series of battles, or is there more to it? I'm confused. Trying to decide if I should buy it while on sale. I haven't played the original either. This one is cheaper. Not sure why.
If I could only have one (and I am fortunate to have played both), I would choose Omega. That it is cheaper makes it an easier choice.
