Been playing this for the last week or so. Currently nearing the end of my second playthrough, with a self-inforced 'no resurrect' rule that I wish the game wouldn't counteract by making story characters effectively invincible.
It's a good game, solid through and through, and I can see myself replaying it quite a few times, going for different challenges. Also I'm looking forward to a second entry to the series which is apparently already in the works or at least in the devs' thoughts.
I only have one true gripe, of a technical nature: at least on my end, playing fullscreen, the edge panning is absolutely dreadful. The game doesn't wait for the mouse cursor to be against the screen's edge to pan. Instead, the screen moves as soon as the cursor gets to about 5cm near the lateral edges and 8cm near the upper and lower edges of my screen. Meaning that if I want to select a character who is situated within that margin on the edge, the whole screen will invariably pan before I can select my character. Tiny thing, but man is it annoying!
Light infantry isn't really worth investing in. They make for great shock troops against armies with spellcasters in the back row, but light infantry units are glass cannons and can't take a return attack. If you want to wreck havoc, go with having some heavy defenders in the front row and archers behind them. Stefan and his light infantry troops have been struggling throughout the entire game, but Julian and his army of archers have been having a grand time. [...]
In your whole post, that's the only thing with which I disagree. The problem is that light infantry is much less straightforward than other options. During my first playthrough they seemed lackluster, enough so that I all but stopped using them some short way into the game, but now I've had resounding success with Rangers and Swordmasters.
– They have high Skill, meaning amongst other things high Evasion. And since they all have the trait Guerilla, said Evasion can easily become huge when taking the offense or when fighting in the appropriate terrain: woods, townships, swamps, hills, and I think shadows too for some interior maps. Sometimes, it means taking a step back into favorable terrain, to make the heavy enemy infantry trudge where they shouldn't.
Considering that, I also add artifacts like Shinobi Gi (+12 Skill, +3% Evasion), Puffin Feather Amulet (+8 Skill, +7% Evasion), Kesh's Daikatana (+5% Evasion), Trueshot Bow (+15 Skill) and Saint Teresa's Tiara (+20 Skill, every point of Magic gets converted to Strength then Magic set to 0). Affinity is set to Lightning as soon as possible, or at least Fire or Dark.
And with that I've now had the pleasure of many fights against hard-hitting squads—like those with 3 to 5 Champions—during which my light squads dodged
every single hit coming their way. I don't even feel the need to have them accompanied by healers anymore. I just send Stefan, Raskuja, and Narima on their dogged way, and they do more than fine.
– Also dependant on positioning is triggering an Ambush. Two turns before the enemy can react only once is almost broken in how good it is, as most enemies will be dead by then. I kinda want for the devs to give a defending team one chance at reacting to an Ambush, perhaps based on Skill or Morale.
And an Ambush against an enemy squad comprising an Apprentice or Mage means said caster won't even get to use a spell—even if he somehow survives—since he needs two turns to cast once. At some point late in the game the enemies get their equivalent to your Magician's Initiative, which lets them cast on their first round; but for the first ~80% of the game it's not a concern.
– High Skill also means Rangers and Swordmasters rarely miss, and have high crit chance. As much as I can, I give them the traits Assassin's Heart (crit damage increased by 50%) or preferably Precision (crits ignore 100% armor). I'm fuzzy on how Lithe Assault (bonuses to hit chance give up to +15% bonus crit chance) works exactly, but from some personal tests it seems to react positively to +hit chance coming from artifacts, and with that my light squads have become veritable crit machines.
– The Disarm trait is fantastic. Can't recommend it enough. If you can't kill an enemy, it doesn't matter: he won't be able to counterattack. It brings the whole guerilla aspect to another level.
– The Steelshatter artifact (attacks ignore 20% armor) can also be a worthwhile consideration.
In the end, I now realise light squads require more planning and tinkering, but the end result can be absolutely excellent. Pump that Skill; dominate woods, swamps, towns, hills, and shadows; wreck shit and don't even get hit.
Waifus. The game has some nice eye candy, especially if you like warrior women.
I'm really curious to know what was your reaction when Diana's sprite morphed to that of a Titan? Personally, I don't mind the exaggerate 'death by snu-snu' fantasy, don't mind it at all, but I really liked her Exemplar sprite so was bummed to see it gone.
One potentially devastating, but bold move that I didn't go for would also be to create a purely offensive unit made entirely of cannons, if you think you can use your other units to protect it. Again, there are plenty of options but I would recommend settling on a theme for each unit.
I made one full gunpowder squad. With a unique Dragoon mercenary named Lieutenant Archibald as leader with the Shock And Awe trait; 2 other Dragoons; a unique mercenary Warbow named Deadeye Domak whom I converted into a Siege Cannon; and 5 other Siege Cannons.
While playing I had lucked out and amassed enough books to give everyone in this squad the Executioner trait (chance for extra action depending on enemy units having less than 25% health remaining at the end of combat) and the Smite trait (+50% damage to rogues, magicians, and assassins). As for the artifacts, I only used the Boots Of Tyranny (lower starting morale but +2 movement points).
The result, well... it was quite frankly ridiculous. Even Sentinels were getting shredded like wet rice paper caught in a F5 tornado. Shock and awe indeed.
+ I also enjoyed the use of artifacts, which can help your army to various degrees. I was constantly purchasing these items, equipping them to my armies, then making adjustments a few chapters later. There was also some customization options with traits that could be learned from books, so you could have a cavalry unit benefit from a commander with traits associated with that combat type. Or someone with traits attuned to archers leading an archery unit. Again, going with a theme for a unit and sticking with it allowed for powerful combinations.
Same here. Every chapter I was—and still am—fiddling with this unit, this squad, this artifact, this idea, etc etc... There's a deceptively deep level of customisation available.
+ You have a series of skill trees that helps you progress through the game. I maxed out the section that allowed me to have flying dragon units, but I never did max out the section that improved my cannons.
That's interesting, as I did almost the opposite. I delayed filling the left section that lead to flying dragons as it was a long, long time before I found a second one. Did you see a dragon proposed as mercenary between chapters or in bazaars? Because I found the first baby dragon early on with Abigayle, then long after another one in the gaiden chapters, but did not see a single one for sale before I was done with 90% of the story.
I also constantly had to worry about spending too much money and I never felt too rich. Often, most of my money was spent purchasing heroes or stat improvement items in the market. This is a good thing, as it means that I had to make some tough choices towards the game's end.
Fully agree. During my first playthrough I was never flush with cash, at least not before the last couple of chapters. Whenever I thought "Oh ok now I'm starting to get more money," bam! there came available for sale an artifact and/or a mercenary that would drain my funds.
Now in my second playthrough I'm more efficient with everything, so I'm floating a bit more money, but I started buying mercenaries like Valkyrie and Champions around chapter 10 so every bit of money is needed.
Resources like Pyrocite, Obsidian, and Sunstone also seem well balanced, leaning on the rarer side of things until late in the game. Sunstones in particular are quite rare until you get to Sayunaa.
+/- The game has a ton of side content that it encourages you to delve into, but completion of all of them can make your armies too overpowered. I never did any of the platinum arena missions since I felt my characters were already too powerful by the end, but if I had I'm sure the final battle would have went from fairly manageable to a complete cakewalk.
Same here, I didn't grind at all, and was glad for it. I had a squad of 1 Templar + 8 Champions with massive tankiness and damage that almost solo'd the last chapter. In the last 5 chapters or so the power of my units snowballed pretty hard as every squad became 9-units, fully upgraded monsters, and I can imagine it would have been even worse if I had used the arena more than once for the novelty.
- The plot hurts the brain. It's a typical JRPG affair where you start off fighting rebels and bandits, then become accepted into the wider world of kingdom politics, then takes a zigzag into a secret church conspiracy, and eventually ends with you fighting a god/demon king. Evil characters are shown to be just angsty and misunderstood young adults with the looks of magazine models, and there is a whole ton of plot twists, betrayals, and side switching going on. With the stilted dialogue I thought this was a foreign game, but it looks like it was made by a team out of goold old USA.
Which makes me wonder if the story and dialogue wasn't meant to be a homage bordering on parody.
This game was a
for me, but again I am a fan of this subgenre. I suggest doing the chapter 20 side quests for the story and bonuses they provide, but throttle back on the arena battles unless you need the money and experience to advance.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks that! The way the main character speaks seemed notably funny to me, alternating between a somewhat serious manner of speech and casually throwing phrases like "Let's see how it shakes out." Cassamir also, in his penultimate moment in the story, has a couple of very angsty lines not at all fitting the cunning, scheming, ruthless man he supposedly is.
Still, all in all, I actually enjoyed the story and its style; it's not good, but it's not
too bad either, and importantly there's a palpable wholesomeness and enthusiasm to the way it's made.
This game was a
for me, but again I am a fan of this subgenre. I suggest doing the chapter 20 side quests for the story and bonuses they provide, but throttle back on the arena battles unless you need the money and experience to advance.
I didn't do any of the arena stuff or if there were other optional areas that spawned from inventory consumables and still found the game ridiculously easy even on the hardest difficulty.
Still, this was a good overall review and I had a reasonably good time with the game even though I find it forgettable. I think an actually challenging difficulty and addressing this "The plot hurts the brain." would go a long way to moving this game from being good for what it is to actually good.
I had a few guys and gals die now and then, especially somewhere between chapters 8 and 12. Mostly fragile mages or gunners; mostly to nasty crits by two or three arrows. And once I had an entire squad wiped all clean and proper—by Beatrix, who really was
way more meteor-crashy than I had expected.
But aside from that one big snafu on my part, unfortunately the game really is quite easy, even on Warlord difficulty with permadeath. But apparently there's added difficulty and game modes and NG+ in the works. Given how solid the base game is, I have good hope the devs will deliver an even better product.
