FFTA vs. Onimusha Tactics, does it even matter anymore?
- Thread starter kumanoki
- Start date
I've never understood the praise LUCT gets... sure it's campaign was harder than KoL (but still not difficult), but that is the only thing it has over it. I still think KoL is simply more fun to play. I especially liked KoL's 5v5 bonus battles. Trying to take those on with under leveled people was more challenge and more fun than anything in LUCT.
Diomedeskun
Member
FFTA was too easy, but I liked it for two reasons: the story was different from the sterotypical SRPG story, and the sniper/assasin Viera classes which let me send concealed warriors into the middle of the enemy where they could unleash Stop Breath.
TO: KOL was somewhat fun, as it is much more accessible than the original, but its lack of challenge made it more of a chore to play in order to see a bland story.
Fire Emblem is probably the best game I played all 2003 for any console, any genre.
TO: KOL was somewhat fun, as it is much more accessible than the original, but its lack of challenge made it more of a chore to play in order to see a bland story.
Fire Emblem is probably the best game I played all 2003 for any console, any genre.
slayn said:
There are many differences in LUCT and KoL, some of which relate to the challenge and some of which isn't.
The big thing for me is the WT system. LUCT utilizes an agility system where those who are more "agile" are able to have more turns than those who are less agile. More than just that, you are able to have some control over that because you basically get two moves per turn. If you forfeit one of those moves, you will have to wait less time for your next turn. If you forfeit both, then the wait is even less.
That element alone adds an incredible depth of strategy because of the timing options it gives you.
What I -hate- about TO:KoL is that it reduces the game entirely to a surround-and-pound strategy. Your entire force moves at once, so it's extremely easy to gang up on one or two of the enemies and take them out on your turn. Not only does it make the game easier, but it kills the variety of choices in the game. Basically what you see is what you get on your turn. It may be fine for some, but I find it horribly simplistic. "Look for open man, and kill him." and you have 8? chances to do it. It's simple and dull.
Another big thing is just stage design. Archers on high ground are a huge part of TO:LUCT and really emphasize the effects of terrain on offense/defense. This required actual strategy to get your troops to victory. Almost every battle in KoL was so straight-forward there was no thinking at all.
Finally, death in LUCT is severe.. to the point where you have to plan and play very carefully. Many battles I had to redo over and over again in order to get my party out 100% intact. KoL has no penalties at all for death and makes an already easy game even easier.
I mean, yeah, a lot of what I mentioned has to do with difficulty. But it's more than just the difficulty. It's how you play the game due to the difficulty. TO:LUCT is a game you have to learn. Every map is like a puzzle that you use past experience to try to solve. And sometimes, it forces you to try something entirely different to solve it. KoL is as basic as it comes, and for people who don't want to think much I suppose it's alright. But I would rather not waste my time on something that doesn't try to engage the player.
Gah. I forgot entirely about LotR The Third Age. Horrendous, and indeed worse than Onimusha Tactics.
As for the Shining Force remake, it was a good remake of a very shallow game. Fun, happy, great music, lovely graphics. But shallow, easy, and rather uninspired when compared to most other SRPGs. IMHO, of course.
As for the Shining Force remake, it was a good remake of a very shallow game. Fun, happy, great music, lovely graphics. But shallow, easy, and rather uninspired when compared to most other SRPGs. IMHO, of course.
Tsubaki said:
agility systems are better than turn based, I agree, but don't feel as strongly about it as you. And really, if you can gangbang an emeny on our turn it means they can also do it to you. But I prefer the smaller battles in KoL anyway. I said my favorite parts were the 5v5.
As for death... I completely disagree. Sever death penalties is my single greatest complaint of the entire genre. I despise permanent death and I consider it Fire Emblem's largest flaw. It severely limits what you can do because you can no longer sacrifice a unit to achieve a greater good. It means you can't just 'barely win' a battle. You either have to completely cominate them or restart the battle. The best battles, imo, are ones in which you and your opponent would start with 5-6 people on the field each, and you end the battle with only 1 person barely hanging on to life as he delivers a killing blow to the final enemy. The situation is so much more intense than, "oh, I accidentally moved that guy 1 square too many and now he died. Time to start over *sigh*"
That isn't to say I want the game to be easy. Its a way to increase difficulty, but a pretty shitty one and one of the last that should be utilized. I want the battles to be so hard that it is not possible to have your entire team survive to the end and thus, you should not be heavily penalized for the losses along the way.
Perhaps there should be a temporary penalty. Like if someone becomes critically injured (dies) in a battle, they have to sit out the next battle to recover. I think this would be a far better situation because its not some stupid way of making you replay levels to perfect them, and it would also force you to use more of your army rather than your main 8 or so favorites.
As for the games themselves, I don't think KoL is quite as simple minded as you make it out to be, and I certainly don't think LUCT is anywhere near as deep as you claim it to be. but there is no real way to argue that, its just my opinion based on my own experiance with the games.
That was something I actually liked about KoL. I'm not a big fan of agile-based systems, because then you can pump up everyone's stats and get an unfair advantage over the enemy. By having both sides take their turns, you force a chess-like element to the gameplay, causing you to rely more on strategy.
The "gang-banging" strategy works well, until you realize that the enemy can do it to you too!
Well obviously we'll have to agree to disagree here, but for me and the majority of SRPG fans, permanent death allows for more intense and difficult gameplay, and for more reliance on strategy.
Take a look at the flipside of non-permanent death: in Shining Force, you can kill a tough enemy or boss simply by 'whittling' away at it with all of your units until it dies. That automatically renders strategy useless, and is one of the reasons that Shining Force, while fun, isn't highly regarded among SRPG enthusiasts.
Permanent death can cause endless frustration, but in the long run, the greater sense of accomplishment and the superior strategy scenarios more than make up for it. I don't feel any accomplishment in throwing all my units against a big bad boss, but I do if after several replays of a chapter, I figure out how to conquer it without losing anyone. And that's one of the reasons why Fire Emblem is so great.
Pellham said:
the difference probably comes from the fact that I don't like bosses in my SRPGs much either. I prefer battles where the enemies number of units is equal to yours, and their individual units are different but equal in strength (or stronger) and equal in number of options to yours. Combine that with giving the enemy the advantage in terrain, and you have no other option but to outplay the computer and, unless the AI blows, couldn't possibly make it to the end without losing anyone.
Thus you couldn't just throw units away to whittle away at their guys because losing even one of your guys to only just kill an enemy would not put you into an advantageous situation at all.
for example, has anyone played tactics arena online? http://www.digisonline.com/tactics/play/
it sucks that you are extremely limited in what you can do with a free account but I think the very core gameplay is the absolute best amongst SRPGS.
you tweak your army and then play another human online who has done the same for theirs. Its turn based in that first your opponent goes, then you go etc. When its your 'turn' you get to move and attack with exactly one of your units. Depending on what that unit is and the cooldown of its attack, you will have to wait a certain amount of your turns to go by before you can use that same unit again.
Because there is no campaign and no story, just the one battle, death doesn't matter. All the matters is killing all of your opponents units without losing all of yours. You start with somethign like 10 units and battles against an equal army that eventually get down to a 3v3 battle are just so immensely intense. I stopped playing a while ago, but when I was really into it some of my best battles were far better than anything offered in a normal srpg.
while playing against a human player is a large part of that, I think it was also immensely helped both by the fact that the two armies are equal except for tweaking and the fact that you can create traps and such where you use a unit as a diversion to eventually sacrifice in order to gain the upper hand. Or if you see an opening, using a kamikze attack to kill one of your units to big damage.
This gets coupled with the fact that because units are dying on both sides, the stratedgy involved has to be continually changing. You might have started out with a strat tha depended on your archer, but what if the enemy sneaks an assassin by and kills your archer? In a permanent death srpg you have to start over at this point. In this though you have to adapt, to repair the damage done to you and get even to try and take back the advantage.
edit:
basically I think perma death limits the amount of stratedgy because it forces you to be defensive and protective of your units, rather than looking at the overlal picture of winning. The easiest way to say it is I wish more SRPG's played more like a chess match. Whereas perma death would be like somehow trying to play chess without losing a single pawn.
it sucks that you are extremely limited in what you can do with a free account but I think the very core gameplay is the absolute best amongst SRPGS.
you tweak your army and then play another human online who has done the same for theirs. Its turn based in that first your opponent goes, then you go etc. When its your 'turn' you get to move and attack with exactly one of your units. Depending on what that unit is and the cooldown of its attack, you will have to wait a certain amount of your turns to go by before you can use that same unit again.
Because there is no campaign and no story, just the one battle, death doesn't matter. All the matters is killing all of your opponents units without losing all of yours. You start with somethign like 10 units and battles against an equal army that eventually get down to a 3v3 battle are just so immensely intense. I stopped playing a while ago, but when I was really into it some of my best battles were far better than anything offered in a normal srpg.
while playing against a human player is a large part of that, I think it was also immensely helped both by the fact that the two armies are equal except for tweaking and the fact that you can create traps and such where you use a unit as a diversion to eventually sacrifice in order to gain the upper hand. Or if you see an opening, using a kamikze attack to kill one of your units to big damage.
This gets coupled with the fact that because units are dying on both sides, the stratedgy involved has to be continually changing. You might have started out with a strat tha depended on your archer, but what if the enemy sneaks an assassin by and kills your archer? In a permanent death srpg you have to start over at this point. In this though you have to adapt, to repair the damage done to you and get even to try and take back the advantage.
edit:
basically I think perma death limits the amount of stratedgy because it forces you to be defensive and protective of your units, rather than looking at the overlal picture of winning. The easiest way to say it is I wish more SRPG's played more like a chess match. Whereas perma death would be like somehow trying to play chess without losing a single pawn.
Shouta
Member
I've always found permanent death to be a bit of an easier route to challenge players in a SRPG. From a scenario design point, you can be less thorough with each scenario because permanent deaths for mistakes are a large penalty and you don't necessarily need to create elaborate scenarios that test the mettle of the player. Games without permanent death need to create scenarios that really test the player for them to be good and when it occurs (which is fairly rare) it's a very satisfying experience, even if you never permanently lose characters.
slayn said:
I think what I really enjoy about the way LUCT did it, was that you had an option of not taking your turn, or not taking your full-turn. And it gave you a reward for doing so. So it's not just the agility system, but the way you could manipulate it with some tradeoffs.
My personal feelings are mixed about the idea. I would say that the reason I curse TO:LUCT out of frustration is the same reason I praise it. And that's the unrelenting difficulty in all aspects, not the least of which is the death penalty.
I think there's somewhat of a consensus of the positives and negatives of perma-death. Advantages: Forces you to truly seek out better strategies. Disadvantages: Makes the game unforgiving where you must play and replay battles over and over.
The hardcore gamer inside of me says that the disadvantage is also a great thing. My only complaint about TO:LUCT is the fact that they have consecutive battles where you cannot save at all. I think that crosses the line of fair play. Because not only do you have to get out of a battle alive with all members. You have to do it with two, sometimes more battles in a row without any mishaps or you will have wasted your 1-2 hrs of playing. I felt that this one thing made the game unreasonable.
An addition I would have liked is for a quick and easy way to redo the map via Pause -> Restart, like some action games do. I think it's silly that if a game is designed for redoing a stage over and over to get it right, that you have to more or less reset the game to redo it.
Well, you're right. We're arguing a lot about intangibles, but I think that there are some fundamental ideas of how each game was designed, and those are the things I'm addressing. But ultimately, I was not challenged in the very least in KoL and LUCT, I've been stuck on a battle toward the end of the game for many months now. LUCT might be a chore to play through because it requires patience and persistence... KoL is an absolute bore to play through, and I have nothing positive to say about it.
except if you read my previous posts, thats not what I think about perma death at all.
I think perma death removes stratedgy when compared to a game without it assuming in the game without it it is as difficult to win the battles with anyone left alive as it is to win a perma death battle without losing anyone.
I think perma death is a cop out lazy implementation of the developer because they don't have the intelligence to come up with a game system that is equally difficult without it.
I don't mind replaying battles over and over. I expect it in a good stratedgy game.
I do think perma-death is unfair. Asking me to replay a level because at one point 2 hours into the battle because the enemy got a critical hit off of a 1% crit chance and was able to 1 hit KO a unit they otherwise would not have been able to kill and I would have won the battle without losing anyone for a crushing victory is idiotic at best. It adds difficulty in the same way that say, in GT4 if there was a rule that at any given time for no reason your engine can explode and you lose the race. Thats not added difficulty, thats added fuckbaggery. But that is not my main reason for hating perma death. I hate perma death because I think it is lazy development that dumbs down the core gameplay.
If you're not a stranger to the genre, just pass over Onimusha Tactics. If you're new, its about as straight forward, streamlined introduction to the genre as you'll ever get. The item synthesis was cool and while the story sucked, at least the characters were stupid enough to make it amusing. No job class progression at all, big minus points there.
Dunno what inhalents some of these guys are taking, cuz FFTA and TO were both fine games and thank GOD SE spared me the melodramatic bullshit of FFT in FFTA. No oppressive cutscenes, just a mild narritive with loads of gameplay. TO is guilty of oppressive cutscenes, but satisfying enough in the long run.
Fire Emblem is just king of the hill on GBA. Equal portions of story and gameplay and depth to go with its simplicity. And I never have to bother saving the game, its done automatically. Advance Wars 2 is a close second.
Dunno what inhalents some of these guys are taking, cuz FFTA and TO were both fine games and thank GOD SE spared me the melodramatic bullshit of FFT in FFTA. No oppressive cutscenes, just a mild narritive with loads of gameplay. TO is guilty of oppressive cutscenes, but satisfying enough in the long run.
Fire Emblem is just king of the hill on GBA. Equal portions of story and gameplay and depth to go with its simplicity. And I never have to bother saving the game, its done automatically. Advance Wars 2 is a close second.
So Growlanser is the ONLY example of an SRPG without permanent death that is good? I know we're not considering Shining Force for now, because I think most people can agree that Shining Force is "fun" but not "excellent", it certainly feels more like an RPG than an SRPG anyway (at least numbers II and III do).
I haven't played Growlanser yet, I was just curious. I'm still waiting for my older brother to buy it for me since he promised to.
So in other words, your whole point is that you think sacrifice should be a heavily strategy element in SRPGs, which is pretty much the same as 'whittling away' at enemies until they die. I've never played a single SRPG where this element actually benefited the gameplay, i.e. making the scenarios more complex or difficult, and I can name many many SRPGs that are shit because of it (Vandal Hearts immediately comes to mind).
The real workaround is to have a SRPG where you don't have unique units, where most of your units are randomly generated, or where you can buy units, that way you're not emotionally attached to them, and wouldn't care if they died. But you should still suffer a penalty if they did die.
An SRPG that penalizes you with a 1% crit attack is probably a design flaw. The best SRPGs such as Fire Emblem can be played without ever encountering such a cheap situation. And if you find yourself in a situation where you move a unit into a certain area and it suddenly gets whacked by many enemy units, it forces you to restart the scenario and rethink your original strategy. If there was no permanent death, you would continue playing until either your hero died or all your units died. I cannot honestly fathom how that would be more strategic than the first scenario w/ permanent death.
Shouta
Member
Growlanser is a good example like Tsubaki points out. While it's not overly difficult most of the time, the scenarios are fairly challenging even without permanent death and even more brutal if it did have it (although the type of game it is, permanent death isn't really an option because everyone is a story character). Growlanser I&II do scenarios very well and III has some good ones but has the poorest scenario design of those 3 games. I have Growlanser IV but I haven't had a chance to play it yet. Also like Tsubaki points out, not sure if you can really class Growlanser as a SRPG or SLG but it's pretty darn close heh.
Disgaea/La Pucelle doesn't have perma-death but shows some interesting scenario design as well that can be somewhat challenging as long as you don't overlevel (yes yes, NIS games are munchkin heaven but the storyline battles are pretty challenging if you don't overlevel).
It's pretty rare to see a game without permanent death and have scenarios that are well designed though (as I pointed out in my previous post).
Pellham said:
sacrifice was merely an example. The way I think it benefits the gameplay is that it forces you to be adaptive. When something doesn't go as planned, or the comp outsmarts you, or you make a silly mistake thats it, restart and probably use your exact same stratedgy but with a minor tweak to avoid the previous problem. If you don't have perma death though, it just means you have to start thinking harder than and there. Your at the dissadvantage and now whatever stratedgy you were following probably isn't going to work unless that units death was part of your plans.
It makes it easy for the circumstances to change forcing you to completely rethink the situation.
Right. I should have specified that you were the only one that has responded that perma-death = less strategy.
I mean, I really do understand some of your complaints. Permanent death should not be the one factor that changes a game from pushover to hard game. I would under most circumstances agree that it is the lazy man's way of dealing with strategy.
But while I do like the idea of sacrificing units as part of the overall strategy, in many SRPGs, the execution of which equals an easy game. I believe that in execution, strategy is lost. That is why most people here seem to believe that w/o perma-death, SRPGs tend to be too easy, and take the thinking part of the game out.
Now, I prefer if SRPGs adopted a rock-paper-scissors approach like Advance Wars. You can stick infantry in front of a tank to stop their progress. But you risk losing the entire unit to one attack. But it may be part of your overall strategy. Stop the enemy tank, and sacrifice your infantry to do so. A few SRPGs have this kind of system, like Langrisser, and I like it a lot.
The nice thing about AW is that your units are disposable, and like you say, it adds to the overall strategy. This is one example where your thought of design excels. It's difficult, yet encompasses a lot of strategy and does not use permadeath to do it.
But for a SRPG, that's a little harder to do because they are guided by a story. And it's disconcerting to me for when a character dies in battle, they remain in the story. RPGs do it all the time, I guess. But at least there are easy revive mechanisms in those which make it a little more plausible. So while I enjoy the AW approach, I'm not entirely convinced it works 100% in SRPGs. Tactics Ogre LUCT for instance has the story develop due to who lives and who dies. I like that continuity. Perhaps its fault is that the revive spell doesn't come in until 2/3 through the game.
I'm curious as to the opinions of you SRPG masters on both the original Playstation Final Fantasy Tactics and the Saturn version of Tactics Ogre? I still have my seven-year old save games of FFT stowed away on a memory card. Loved that game. Best music, ever. It's what inspired me to buy my first game soundtrack.
Well this really depends on the SRPG. In some SRPGs, there is enough random seed generation, that even if you follow the exact same strategy that you did in a previous play, the computer may try something different, so replaying with a minor tweak will not always work. You still have to adjust for the situation depending upon what the computer does, and this is what makes SRPGs like Fire Emblem "chess-like". However, in poorly designed SRPGs, the AI will always do the exact same thing depending on what you do.
Without permanent death, the only difference is that I wouldn't restart until I felt the situation was hopeless (i.e. I was down to my hero and I still had 50 enemies on the screen).
The only thing no permanent death accomplishes is that players rarely reset their game. As Shouta mentioned Disgaea earlier, I've never actually had to reset my save in that game. It's certainly a fun game, but I guess my desire to have strong units blinded me from any excellent designs in the scenarios.
Pellham said:
Hello, Advance Wars.
Pellham said:
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but if it's what I think you mean (that a game that has a 1% chance of killing you outright with a critical hit) then Fire Emblem on GBA does exactly that. The critical hits are horribly overpowered in that game, and combined with the perma-death feature it can make the game infuriating. A perfect run through a level can be ruined by a character being killed in a single blow by someone who should hardly have been able to damage them.
Pellham said:
Perhaps some people have enough sense to see a losing battle, and either make use of it to try out a partial strategy or just quit and restart themselves.
Actually what I'd find genuinely more interesting would be an SRPG where missions didn't have a binary success/failure level, and where failing to achieve the mission goal didn't normally cause the game to end, but branched the story instead, setting you up for different challenges. I realise some games do this to a certain extent already (Growlanser springs to mind again) but I'd like to see a more in-depth implementation of it.
Dragona Akehi
Retired
iapetus said:Hello, Advance Wars.
Sorry Mr Moon, WARS is a Strategy game not an SRPG.
I've hardly had this problem on the GBA FE games. In fact, unless the enemy in question is equipped with a Killer (insert weapon here) Criticals are hardly a factor for the opposing side. And even then, a Killer equipped enemy should be taken out either from a) a distance, b) character that can kill them with one hit. When I start a new FE map I always look to see whom is equipped with what and then plan accordingly.
If you want to argue about cheapness in Fire Emblem, a better target is the SFC games. The GBA games are way too lenient.
Well speaking of non permanent death SRPGs, you could say Arc the Lad. However, Arc II was the zenith of that series and sadly, it hasn't recovered from III. (And III isn't bad Shouta, it was just the decline that led the the fall of the series.)
That would be an interesting thing to see indeed. I imagine that'd come more from a PC Strat game rather than a Japanese SRPG unfortunately... :|
There may be situations like that in the GBA Fire Emblem game, but I'm not one to praise that particular entry in the series anyway. For the SNES games, situations like this rarely exist without reason. In Thracia 776 (the 5th game in the series), there are plenty of enemies that can do criticals, but they're placed there deliberately so that you'd choose the correct units to go up against them. There are skills that will negate criticals, for instance, and there are units with high enough LUK that they can never be crit'd against. So in other words, if you did suffer from a critical attack, it was because you didn't plan well.
And I don't think it's "1% chance to kill you outright", I think a critical is just extra damage (I don't remember the exact formula), and often times, a character with low LUK that suffers from a crit tends to have high HP, so that he'd survive the attack.
That's something I've thought about, and I do hope an SRPG will come out that implements it to some degree. That's one of the reasons I want to see more SRPGs with generic units. If you can imagine an SRPG where you control more than one army, and say one of your forts is attacked by an enemy kingdom and that particular army wiped out, you could have branching story scenarios that way. It'd be totally awesome, but nobody has come up with the idea yet (although I think games like Brigandine and Langrisser are close, but they don't emphasis story branching, and are mostly mindless simulation games).
Dragona Akehi said:Sorry Mr Moon, WARS is a Strategy game not an SRPG.
Pedant. How about Kartia, then?
Dragona Akehi said:
Likewise. I don't mind the killer-equipped enemies (except in cases where you don't know where they are until after they've killed you) but I've had the problem with other enemies (particularly bosses, but sometimes just grunts).
Dragona Akehi said:
I don't see why it would necessary be something that doesn't come from a Japanese SRPG. Like I said, some of it's already there in some games. Growlanser II has a number of missions that have varied criteria for game over, mission failed, mission clear and mission complete, which can have story effects.
One of these days I'll have time enough to get back into coding for personal enjoyment and I'll write an SRPG that does that.
Pellham said:
IIRC, GBA FE (FE7) simply tripled damage when a critical hit was rolled. If an attack dinks out with a 'No Damage', then that attack's critical form will still inflict no damage.
I've also been hit by a critical that only did 3 damage, when that enemy could only ever inflict 1 damage against me normally.
Personally, I always loved this form of critical hitting. It somehow feels more realistic. I always liked how the majority of non-special units (good or bad) would go down after 1 - 3 hits from a comparable opponent, and it makes sense that should such a somewhat equal match occur, the number of hits required to take one of 'em out should drop to 1.
Edit - However, don't assassins have 2 forms of critical hitting? One that follows the standard triple damage formula, and one that ends in an instant kill regardless?
Pellham said:
It's 3x damage, IIRC, which is quite often enough to kill weak units outright, and even stronger units if you've allowed their health to wear down to what appears to be a safe level.
Pellham said:
Of course the downside of story branching is that you end up with a vast number of different branches the user can take with a small number of battles. It would take quite some planning out to get right.
Baron said:
TO: LUCT is generally revered among strategy nuts, while FFT is more liked by the overall public. I am playing the SS version of TO: LUCT so all my positive feedback on the game stems from my experience with that version. I don't know what the original music sounds like, but I like the rearranged music in the Saturn + voices.
In strategy titles you are always scored of the effective use of troops and resources. So whether its Advance Wars of Tactics Ogre, you're being monitored for efficiency.
Storywise, they use permadeath/injury to emphasize the tragedy of war, especially in TO. A loss of units is a lack of efficiency in command and you are thus scored down in gameplay. In Front Mission, no one dies, but the spoils of victory are lessened when you spend lots of money on wanzer repairs or just lose them, Advance Wars is very much the same way.
Fire Emblem basically punishes stupidity and ignorance, your life is on the line with every move that is made. That's war for you. It is kinda lame that its just permanent injury in FE7 as opposed to death, but the emphasis is there nonetheless and the story can move forward without complication.
Permadeath exists to make you chose your tactics more carefully. FE7 gives you all the tools you need to know exactly what you're getting into and how to prepare, so if you disregard the recon and rush the field, you'll get what's coming to you. I don't find its use to be cheap or unbalanced in any strategy title.
Storywise, they use permadeath/injury to emphasize the tragedy of war, especially in TO. A loss of units is a lack of efficiency in command and you are thus scored down in gameplay. In Front Mission, no one dies, but the spoils of victory are lessened when you spend lots of money on wanzer repairs or just lose them, Advance Wars is very much the same way.
Fire Emblem basically punishes stupidity and ignorance, your life is on the line with every move that is made. That's war for you. It is kinda lame that its just permanent injury in FE7 as opposed to death, but the emphasis is there nonetheless and the story can move forward without complication.
Permadeath exists to make you chose your tactics more carefully. FE7 gives you all the tools you need to know exactly what you're getting into and how to prepare, so if you disregard the recon and rush the field, you'll get what's coming to you. I don't find its use to be cheap or unbalanced in any strategy title.
Dragona Akehi
Retired
iapetus said:
Well I don't really consider Kartia much of an SRPG either to be honest. But I've had very limited exposure to the game ... As for WARS, it's a strat game pure and simple. No character classes ever level up nor do their stats change. If it wasn't turn based, it'd be more like an RTS instead of being compared to an SRPG
Well, er, you can check enemy stats by placing the cursor over them and pressing R. If you're scrolling through their entire fighting army, and you see something of interest (say, a Killer Bow) and you cancel out of that, the cursor automatically selects that character, so you can determine where they are. In fog of war cases this is much more of a bitch, but that's another story. As for Bosses, well they are Bosses. Always use your best units for the job. I just never had that problem of being killed by a critical EVER in the GBA games.
Especially by grunts. Most enemy units have something like 3% as their HIGHEST critical. Even for promoted classes. So that's just CRAZY in my eyes.
I don't see why it would necessary be something that doesn't come from a Japanese SRPG. Like I said, some of it's already there in some games. Growlanser II has a number of missions that have varied criteria for game over, mission failed, mission clear and mission complete, which can have story effects.
One of these days I'll have time enough to get back into coding for personal enjoyment and I'll write an SRPG that does that.
You and me both.
Mejilan said:
Yes Criticals in the GBA games are 3X damage.
Now:
Mejilan said:
That's their SKILL: "Death Blow". Any assassin that gets a critical hit regardless of damage will destroy the target. This is only in Seima no Kouseki (The Sacred Stones) so far. Also, you don't fight any enemy Assassins (at least I haven't run into any) so you don't have to worry about that. Obviously you want high Luck, so you should prolly turn Marieka into the Assassin when you get the game.
Skills rock. I'm so glad they're back, it just sucks they're in a limited capacity. Since it looks like the GC game Souen no Kiseki is bringing back single Elements, I'm hoping some more of the old FE gameplay is making it back in such as MORE skills, dismounting and other things.
Also Pellham: Are the Great Knights in Seima no Kouseki the same as the ones from FE:Gaiden? I can't remember, and this has been bothering me, because I know there's a "Great Knight" class in FE: Gaiden that's mounted and uses axes, but I can't remember the graphic for it.
As per Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, I've only played the PSX and SFC games. I preferred the music overall in the SFC one (sometimes the PSX version sounds "off") and the loading times on the PSX version drove me absolutely bonkers. I should pick up the Saturn version when I can find it though...
Shining Force has super-distinctive characters, which has always made it feel less like a stat-crunching exercise than any of these games except Fire Emblem.
Oh yeah, Advance Wars is better than FFTA / OT / TO too.
Not for the GBA, but I loved Warsong:
It's probably incredibly rudimentary these days, but I'd love to see an update (isn't it an ongoing series in Japan?)
Oh yeah, Advance Wars is better than FFTA / OT / TO too.
Not for the GBA, but I loved Warsong:
It's probably incredibly rudimentary these days, but I'd love to see an update (isn't it an ongoing series in Japan?)
I'm not an expert on FE:Gaiden, but I think you're correct, these units are closer to the ones in FE:Gaiden than the great knights in Seisen or Thracia. They're more like armour knights on horseback than simply upgraded axe knights.
Seima has some serious balance issues, but oh well, it's still fun.
stat-crunching exercises are a GOOD thing. But anyway, that element of Shining Force makes it feel more RPGish than simulation/strategyish, but oh well. That's probably the main appeal of that particular series anyway.
No idea, I haven't played any of the Growlansers.Unison said:
Here's some Langrisser and Growlanser lists though. I do what I can.
-Langrisser (MegaDrive) NCS 1991
-WarSong (Sega Genesis) Rennovation Software 1992
-Langrisser: Hikari no Matsuei (PC Engine Super CD) NCS 1993
-Langrisser II (MegaDrive) NCS 1994
-Der Langrisser (Super Famicom) NCS 1995
-Der Langrisser FX (PC-FX) NEC Interchannel 1996
-Langrisser III (Sega Saturn) NCS 1996
-Langrisser IV (Sega Saturn) NCS 1997
-Langrisser I & II (PlayStation) NCS 1997
-Langrisser: Dramatic Edition (Sega Saturn) NCS 1998
-Langrisser V: The End of Legend (Sega Saturn) NCS 1998
-Langrisser Tribute (Sega Saturn) NCS 1998
-Langrisser IV & V Final Edition (PlayStation) NCS 1999
-Langrisser Millineum (Dreamcast) NCS 1999
-Langrisser Millineum WS: The Last Century (Wonderswan Color) Bandai 2000
-Growlanser (PlayStation) Atlus 1999
-Growlanser II (PlayStation 2) Atlus 2001
-Growlanser III (PlayStation 2) Atlus 2001
-Growlanser IV: Wayfarer of Time (PlayStation 2) Atlus 2003
-Growlanser Generations (PlayStation 2) Working Designs 2004
Dragona Akehi
Retired
Pellham said:
Yeah, it's really bothering me. If I had the cart I'd check it out but I don't so... The GBA graphic is very familiar looking though.
ALL of the GBA FE games have had serious balance issues, and unfortunately towards the player all the time. But yeah fun. Can't wait for Souen no Kiseki. I really think that IS finally hit a gameplay "balance" between "hardcore Fire Emblem fanatics" like us and the "average gamer" (especially westerners new to the series) that they're happy with.
April cannot come soon enough...!
Shouta
Member
Growlanser doesn't play anything like Langrisser. You know where Phantom Brave got the idea for its battle system? It was from Growlanser =P.
The problem with permanent death can be that it becomes a crutch for some games and that it can significantly change the difficulty and way you play the game. This is the way I feel about the FE games. I think that the difficulty in those games is not from the scenarios and system itself but from the fact I lose characters permanently if they're killed (even then, I haven't had a huge issue with the difficulty).
The problem with permanent death can be that it becomes a crutch for some games and that it can significantly change the difficulty and way you play the game. This is the way I feel about the FE games. I think that the difficulty in those games is not from the scenarios and system itself but from the fact I lose characters permanently if they're killed (even then, I haven't had a huge issue with the difficulty).
You say this, yet you admit earlier that there aren't any SRPGs that have difficulty without permanent death. Disgaea was mentioned, but it is a fairly easy game, especially with the many opportunities (some even required and encouraged) that leave you with an overpowered army. With permanent death, Disgaea would be extremely and immensely more difficult.
The bottomline is that it's not a problem, it's just the standard way of enforcing scenario play that requires you to 'master' the game, rather than just play blindly, throwing your best units at enemies, leveling up, etc. Really, the only reason why people rally against permanent death is because they don't like being frustrated by their SRPGs.