I haven't read the thread to avoid spoilers.
I've tried this game (up to the mission with Ryu Ryusomething in the docks) and have some mixed feelings. Can anyone enlighten me without going into spoilers that much?
1. IIRC I'm playing on medium / default difficulty. Will the game become more difficult later? So far that Ryu guy is the only somewhat challenging moment. I'll probably have to replay the mission.
2. Will the game become more tacticool later?
So far I've had few possibilities and/or zero incentive to:
- create combos (like water + lightning (no water skills yet) or bleed+debuff (no point); no +time stunlocks were needed or available yet, though mechanics seem to be there);
- play with level geometry - fog grenade walls or traps or something aren't present, choosing positions almost doesn't matter as well, since neither you nor enemies can't move-shoot-hide;
- do any class play - very few characters as of yet, no point to make formations;
- do any respeccing or specializing - I gave everyone counterattack and that's about it, since it alone clears most enemies "for free"; otherwise my meeples have more or less random skills;
- almost no target management is required - since enemy stats don't depend on remained hp, you're killing the hardest hitters as fast as possible and then move to the others. That's it.
Some points trouble me.
- There doesn't seem to be an option for inventory loadout management, since items have Diablo-like random mechanics instead of predetermined stats (x-com, like).
- JRPG-like number bloat is retarded. I don't care whether my peeps have 912 or 925 hp, really. It's one- or two-shot any way. But RPG systems seems pretty weak.
- Money and gear aren't scarce. There's no point saving money for the base (no base to improve) or gear (it's LVL locked). There's no point hoarding crafting materials (item drops from levels are good enough).
3. Will the plot become interesting? So far it looks like pretty generic anime "ordinary schoolboy was a best outcome of some supapower experiment and now the sentient AI/mutated monstrosity of a godmother "aunt" is his only relative" as well as "the Troubleshooter is notClaymore" with lolis and stuff. Only sprinkles of Russian give the world some uniqueness.
tl;dr I've played for about 10-12 hours, I guess. I've expected more tacticool out of this thing. Is it there?
It's somewhat more of a buildfag game (as it progresses) than a tacticool game, but it gets tacticool enough as your build gets better, as you start exploiting synergies between masteries and mastery sets, and have more options, or a more focused build (you can do either). Crank it up too, it's definitely more rewarding, as the enemies don't use all their tricks below a certain level of difficulty (I think it's "challenging" in the main difficulty options? the second highest, at any rate, IIRC, but you might need to check this - the optional super-hard difficulty levels elsewhere in the menus are more for a bit later, when you've got a really solid build).
Remember the balance is "proper" in that the enemies have the same hp/capabilities as you, so what happens is that as the game progresses more dangerous new enemies with new tricks appear, you think "wtf was that?" and then you get those tricks as masteries, and you get masteries to counter those tricks, and you incorporate them into your build.
It does take a wee while to get going, but most people who give it a chance love it. I played it to death for a good few months.
The abilities/powers themselves, what you have to look out for is synergies with masteries (e.g. masteries that cut down the recharge on some of the longer abilities, that kind of thing), and some are more useful in some builds than others. (Make sure you rank up the "Basic" version of the build to the max before you rank up either of the two variant build types, and do rank up both alt build types, as they often have special abilities that you can sometimes use in any build.)
It's worth doing a bit of farming, but you don't need to start that too early - about 2/3 of the way through the game.
The story actually has a bit of depth to it, and it's well told in the form of flashbacks to various things, so you only really start to piece it together after about half-way through the game (asynchronous or nonlinear storytelling, there's a word for it I forget, but this does it). You also start to appreciate the story art - it's not hyper-exaggerated and it's quite nicely done.
(Also note that you can build up masteries from other lower level or junk masteries (and/or ones you don't need right now, like pet masteries) - but a rule of thumb is that if you start finding you have to use other "expensive" masteries or masteries you think you might need later or for other builds, stop and wait till you get more low level masteries to use.)
