Benzychenz
Member
So I beat this a couple nights ago and have been working on the post game and platinum trophy. Felt like discussing it a bit and sharing my thoughts.
It actually wasn't until the final boss that I realised just how bad the combat is. I'd had gripes up until that point (some major ones too), but it was all pretty manageable. Nothing demanded too much from the player.
But my god, that final boss.
Gripe #1: Casting any spell that initiates a 'cutscene' completely resets any action.
You can literally be 99% through casting a heal when an enemy will use a spell, and afterwards you'll be standing there like you weren't doing anything.
This doesn't even just reset spells, but items too. Multiple times during this fight I'd use a resurrection item, the healing animation was playing out, the enemy used a spell, and then afterwards the teammate is still dead and the item is back in my inventory.
Gripe #2: Telling your teammates to 'defend' is near useless.
The enemy starts casting a big attack, I cancel my attack, move the cursor over to hit defend, then give the 'all-out defense' command to my teammates. So Esther has the bright idea to change to her healing familiar and try to heal someone on 75%+ HP, takes a 200+ HP hit and dies. This also happened multiple times during the fight.
Gripe #3: Enemy spells come out too fast to even react.
The last point covered what happens when you do react in time, but that isn't always even possible. When you cast your own spell you're locked in to it for multiple seconds, and enemy spells can start and finish casting before you can even react, or if you do have a little bit of time you often have to choose between guarding yourself or giving the command to your teammates, because you simply don't have time for both.
Gripe #4: Enemies attack multiple times in succession.
This combined with the previous gripes is rage inducing. You eat a big hit, try to heal up, and then the boss uses another spell and completely cancels your heal. It isn't usually two big attacks in a row, but losing precious seconds of your heal animation is frustrating when everyone is on low health.
Gripe #5: Familiars pathing is bonkers.
You give an attack command and your familiar gets stuck behind shit, other enemies, your own teammates, or even just nothing in particular. So you cancel the attack, move into position, and then have to wait because for whatever reason the basic 'attack' command has a cooldown.
There's probably more so I'll leave it at that for now. Most of this was fairly minor for 99% of the game, but fuck me it all got incredibly frustrating at the end there.
Anyway, now for the good stuff!
I fucking adore this world!
All the locations are fantastic and varied, tons of great little towns, cool dungeons etc. The NPC's are really likable and fun, and the designs are incredible. The friendly characters, the boss fights, and all the little familiars along the way. Fantastic. Really like the fairies in particular, their town is such a charming place.
The story was really neat too. Exploring the world with your pals, getting stronger, making new friends, trying to save youer Mam,
Wasn't a big fan of the 'White Witch' stuff at the end though, felt really tacked on and useless. Afaik that whole plot was new in the PS3 version and Shadar was the main villain in the DS game? So that makes sense I suppose.
Music was really ace too and always boosted the game up.
Overall really great, 7-8/10 and I'll be buying the sequel day 1.
It actually wasn't until the final boss that I realised just how bad the combat is. I'd had gripes up until that point (some major ones too), but it was all pretty manageable. Nothing demanded too much from the player.
But my god, that final boss.
Gripe #1: Casting any spell that initiates a 'cutscene' completely resets any action.
You can literally be 99% through casting a heal when an enemy will use a spell, and afterwards you'll be standing there like you weren't doing anything.
This doesn't even just reset spells, but items too. Multiple times during this fight I'd use a resurrection item, the healing animation was playing out, the enemy used a spell, and then afterwards the teammate is still dead and the item is back in my inventory.
Gripe #2: Telling your teammates to 'defend' is near useless.
The enemy starts casting a big attack, I cancel my attack, move the cursor over to hit defend, then give the 'all-out defense' command to my teammates. So Esther has the bright idea to change to her healing familiar and try to heal someone on 75%+ HP, takes a 200+ HP hit and dies. This also happened multiple times during the fight.
Gripe #3: Enemy spells come out too fast to even react.
The last point covered what happens when you do react in time, but that isn't always even possible. When you cast your own spell you're locked in to it for multiple seconds, and enemy spells can start and finish casting before you can even react, or if you do have a little bit of time you often have to choose between guarding yourself or giving the command to your teammates, because you simply don't have time for both.
Gripe #4: Enemies attack multiple times in succession.
This combined with the previous gripes is rage inducing. You eat a big hit, try to heal up, and then the boss uses another spell and completely cancels your heal. It isn't usually two big attacks in a row, but losing precious seconds of your heal animation is frustrating when everyone is on low health.
Gripe #5: Familiars pathing is bonkers.
You give an attack command and your familiar gets stuck behind shit, other enemies, your own teammates, or even just nothing in particular. So you cancel the attack, move into position, and then have to wait because for whatever reason the basic 'attack' command has a cooldown.
There's probably more so I'll leave it at that for now. Most of this was fairly minor for 99% of the game, but fuck me it all got incredibly frustrating at the end there.
Anyway, now for the good stuff!
I fucking adore this world!
All the locations are fantastic and varied, tons of great little towns, cool dungeons etc. The NPC's are really likable and fun, and the designs are incredible. The friendly characters, the boss fights, and all the little familiars along the way. Fantastic. Really like the fairies in particular, their town is such a charming place.
The story was really neat too. Exploring the world with your pals, getting stronger, making new friends, trying to save youer Mam,
learning she was dead the whole time and taking comfort in knowing it wasn't all for nothing and you helped lots of people along the way.
Music was really ace too and always boosted the game up.
Overall really great, 7-8/10 and I'll be buying the sequel day 1.
