Ready to give a verdict on Gungnir

[SCO]

(didn't finish yet)

This is a very strange game, with innovative rules and a horrible interface.
Basically, it is a srpg with only one turn for the player for N turns for the enemy team. The one turn to the player means that you need to choose the team member to use. You'd think this would mean that only one would be regularly used, however the game separates your team members 'delay' (which on summation of all the team members delay affects when your turn comes up) from their 'wait time', influenced by equipment weight, which affects when they're 'ready' to act. Units used when not 'ready' on the players turn lose a percentage of max HP during the battle. Moreover, there is the encouragement to use a high hp unit mostly as a meat shield since there is a mechanic called 'beat' that functions as a combination attack. So ideally you want your HP block funnels and your low WT units to do ranged attacks to perform combination beats.
The game then encourages you to take the least time you can to complete objectives by giving you a ranking at the end of the map, which then affects the number of chests in the next map, which then makes the next map harder to get max rank if you go for them... yeah. It also makes the enemies steadily accumulate HP and attack power if you keep doing well, in the 'advanced' difficulty.
There also another stat/mechanic called tactics which accumulates during movement, and is used as a resource for beats and special attacks, and many more small mechanics including elemental weakness/resistances but this the most important.

The interface for all of this is fucking horrible - there is no way to see combined 'delay' of a prospective team, WT/singular delay is hidden behind two menus, enemies elemental resistances are only color coded that i can see. Nonetheless, it's not a slow system, which is the cardinal sin in TB.

Difficulty wise, it is extremely hard because there is no grinding (except a 'exploit' on maps you're supposed to lose that have infinite enemies... good luck with that). It really demands a equip build in mind for your units.
Oh, yeah, art is fucking horrible weebooism.

 

[SCO]

Finished it. It became a bit too easy partway through eh (especially if you don't care about rankings or most items). Also, the game has a major flaw in it's 'alchemy' system, which uses a resource to enchant weapons with very low probability of success during a time where you can save freely, encouraging terrible save scum.
One type of character is curiously overpowered but at the same time becomes terribly underlevelled. It has a low dmg attack on a tier 1 weapon that prevents all kinds of enemies from moving.... forever (and it too of course, freeing the enemy if it moves or either are attacked). This means that it will probably level very slowly, since exp is directly proportional to dmg, i put it as a reserve to call when the boss is near.

 

[DragoFireheart]

When you ignore 80+ people, you're sending the message that this forum is now your blog.

 

[felicity]

there is no way to see combined 'delay' of a prospective team

It has been a while but I remember there is. This game is far from easy - it is only easy if you don't care about ranking but the ranking system is there to dynamically adjust the difficulty for both casual and hardcore players. Try Advance mode all 3 Stars if you want a challenge. The battle system is really clever too bad the game is way too short. Btw you know the tactics points are not just for beats right? You can use them for reducing delay as well.

 

[SCO]

Yeah, i never used that, scramble right? I never found it until very late, behind two button presses at unlikely times. Game obviously is setup for a sequel, even if i doubt there is going to be one (or at least one that uses the same combat type). Fuck bullet hell, fuck cards (yddgra union also has even worse art wtf).
A pity the game is also relatively unambitious on the character building front, something like FFT jobs to transfer attacks from other weapons/armor/items would be nice. Although i'm glad that they removed the rest of the Dtp Heaven series habit of having weapon durability, i'd gladly exchange that for something like this.

One thing i liked about the game is that level is relatively unimportant (because basic attk damage is only one of 4 possibilities of upgrade every 10 levels or so and the rest is weapon mastery) and that weapons have very limited dmg improvement potential. I tried newgame+ and even 4 star weapons like the Rosier+9 don't kill first level mooks in one hit.

 

[Krraloth]

It reminds me of Yggdra Union to be honest.
I played some maps

Spoiler

stopped right after you get the lance

and it's definitely interesting, but I don't know.
It gets somewhat boring for me, I am not sure why.

 

[SCO]

It will get slightly harder pretty soon.

 

[felicity]

Yeah, i never used that, scramble right? I never found it until very late, behind two button presses at unlikely times. Game obviously is setup for a sequel, even if i doubt there is going to be one (or at least one that uses the same combat type). Fuck bullet hell, fuck cards (yddgra union also has even worse art wtf).
A pity the game is also relatively unambitious on the character building front, something like FFT jobs to transfer attacks from other weapons/armor/items would be nice. Although i'm glad that they removed the rest of the Dtp Heaven series habit of having weapon durability, i'd gladly exchange that for something like this.

One thing i liked about the game is that level is relatively unimportant (because basic attk damage is only one of 4 possibilities of upgrade every 10 levels or so and the rest is weapon mastery) and that weapons have very limited dmg improvement potential. I tried newgame+ and even 4 star weapons like the Rosier+9 don't kill first level mooks in one hit.

Yeah Scramble. It's pretty cool it makes it easier to organize attack where in other tick-based systems it is a mess to figure out the action sequence. I like levels being unimportant but it'd be better if you didn't have to train with each weapon to unlock skills. I had tons of weapons that I never bothered to use because the first skill on that weapon sucks. Fortunately you don't have to train armor and accessories. Since characters are largely defined by their equipments, it is definitely not a build-your-characters type SRPG like FFT. They gave a lot of depth to the battle system, perhaps too much for their own good but it is definitely one of the better SRPG in recent years.