Originally posted by Quantum Leap
If you've played Disgaea and La Pucelle, well, frankly you can chuck any tactics you used for those games out the window, as the battle engine works in a completely different way. Gone are the moving your troops give them orders to execute in a sequence and apply.
Character turns are based on their speed - it's similar to the way character turns are done in Final Fantasy, but without the timer. A list of the characters is show on the right side of the screen in the order that they will be able to move. Characters perform actions one at a time in accordance to the order of that list, so now we have to plan actions with that in mind.
Also gone is any idea of grid based movement. It's a free move map with the limits of your characters ranged displayed via a circle. It really does take some getting use to. Direction and height doesn't seem to have much baring on attack effectiveness, though this is difficult to judge with such low level characters at the moment.
Right, now we have your team. This doesn't work in the same way as Disgaea or La Pucelle (you might be noticing a pattern here). At least so far, all team members are phantoms, i.e., they're not physical entities, so you must confine them to objects on the map be they rocks, flowers etc. Only then can your phantoms attack things. But: phantoms can only stay confined to items for so many combat turns, run out and that phantom cannot be assigned again for the duration of the battle.
The items you confine your characters to affect their stats. Rocks mean slower, shorter movement, but higher defence. Flowers higher magic ability. Did I mention this is complex?
Sometimes equipment appears on the map that you can pick up and use - the items you pick up affect the sort of attacks you can do against the enemy. You can buy equipment and use it, this part of the game seems a little fuzzy so far.
One last game concept before I get back to it, that of protection. If you've played the previous games you'll know that there are status effects that can be a boon or not to your character. Here protection is assigned via map objects to enemies, to remove the protection you have to destroy the obects. Protection has a source and target object, if you confine a phantom to the the target object of protection, it'll yield the benefits.
So then, it's complex. The question you may be asking is: Is it good? Well first impressions are very possitive, although the story so far seems a little bland (fair dues it's only an hour in and may well pick up). It's not a game for those new to TRPGs though.
I'll post more as I progress further into the game.
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