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STRANGER OF SWORD CITY |OT| - "We're going to need another Timmy"
- Thread starter Parakeetman
- Start date
autoduelist
Member
First off -- the reports on the changes made in the new demo sound fantastic.
Second -- got my plat last night. I got 2 of the rares in my first two tries, but the third took forever (like 10 trips through the first floor of the palace).
Overall thoughts:
-My favorite Vita DRPG by far. They [generally] nailed lewt and between that and the class change system I felt a really nice sense of 'progression' in my characters, which is the main 'feel' I play DRPGs for. Just when I felt like a character had been stuck with a weapon for too long, I'd find something nice and powerful to upgrade them with.
-Dungeons felt good, though were not complex enough for me. There was very little verticality or true devious design... they felt like easy Demon Gaze maps, not difficult [even with automap] like, say, Dungeon Travellers 2 or even Operation Abyss. I want to struggle with exploration, but these all felt very linear.
-Quick fighting and auto-moving via mini map are very, very appreciated.
-Divinities added a fantastic layer of meta-strategy to the game. I think i would choose different ones on a future playthrough [better ones, that is], but the ones I picked [charge x] really made me have to shuffle and choose at times, and could mean the difference between victory and team wipe.
-My biggest complaint is that the game was 'too short', and by that, I mean that just when my team finally gelled together into what I was aiming for the game was over. Specifically, by the time I class changed and geared up nicely with some S ranks, I felt like I could already have beaten the game. I realize there is post-game... I guess I would have liked more dungeon content like DT2 had postgame, with maybe a trophy attached to keep me going. Part of this issue relates to trophy psychology though; I feel compelled to get the plat, and i feel 'done' when I get it, regardless of amount of content. The game was clearly built with ng+ in mind, and I wish there were trophies to go along with it.
-I appreciated the non-anime aesthetic a lot. I like my crawlers 'medieval themed', not high school themed, and I thought this found a nice balance between the two since i know i'm not going to get a pure western wizardry. I'd still rather more traditional gear slots like 'gauntlet's rather than 'underwear' but whatever.
-I conceptually love the idea of life points, but in practice it turns out I'm incapable of letting a teammate die/recover. I had 2 lp characters, which was an absolute waste early on [i'd restart] though came in handy endgame once I had a handful of life point recovery items. I do -like- the idea of managing multiple teams, though... and I think a DRPG could be very successful at this if they approach this in a different way.
Some ideas:
a) rather than life points, some sort of 'exhaustion' system that forces you to send teams to base for a bit and change things up. Having it be an unavoidable exhaustion would accomplish the goal in a way that wouldn't make me feel like I made a mistake [death in combat] and since it would be a natural exhaustion over time 'restarting' an old save wouldn't accomplish anything. The Life Point system just makes me want to restart instead of building two teams, and I think a slightly different approach would avoid that.
b) perhaps in combination with A, have 'multi-team goals'. Basically, think of the teams as asynchronous -- you might need to pull two levers at the same time, so need to get each team to different points at the same time, etc.
-Some MP balancing is maybe needed? It was always feast or famine -- either I felt like I should never cast spells and would leave dungeons w/full MP, or later, it was easy to farm my mp back to full so i could cast with abandon. That's always an issue though. I do like the old school dnd / Operation Abyss style of having a set number of times you can cast each spell, although i know that's not everyone's thing. It does solve the 'mp' issue well, though.
-A lot of the issues people had [criticals, etc] didn't really bother me. I felt like there were adequate methods to avoid all major issues. I did feel like it was in place to 'kill' characters to get you to use multiple teams, but unfortunately that didn't work out since i think most people simply reloaded (which is why i made one of my previous points).
-I'd do multi-classing slightly differently if I was designing the game, but I didn't design this game, and what we got worked well enough. It's miles better than no class changing, that's for sure.
-stat rolling at the beginning HAS to go. F'ing awful.
-Imo, 'fortunate' with +3 stats is by far the only worthwhile one. Identifying items while in dungeon is absolutely unimportant. There are a couple other mechanics like this that I felt needing fleshing out to be more 'important'.
--I don't think I used any items in dungeons, ever, because I'm a digital hoarder. I think this is on me, though... but I never felt the need to.
All in all, great game. Surprisingly easy plat. I probably put 100 hours into it, but I took my time and class/gear grinded at some points and could easily have beaten it much faster. It did give me a great sense of progression unmatched by any other vita drpg.
Heh. Yeah, I can see why that would have been ridiculously annoying if you didn't know about it. Once it takes affect you'll need to reapply it but it certainly stops boss battles from becoming endless circles.
Second -- got my plat last night. I got 2 of the rares in my first two tries, but the third took forever (like 10 trips through the first floor of the palace).
Overall thoughts:
-My favorite Vita DRPG by far. They [generally] nailed lewt and between that and the class change system I felt a really nice sense of 'progression' in my characters, which is the main 'feel' I play DRPGs for. Just when I felt like a character had been stuck with a weapon for too long, I'd find something nice and powerful to upgrade them with.
-Dungeons felt good, though were not complex enough for me. There was very little verticality or true devious design... they felt like easy Demon Gaze maps, not difficult [even with automap] like, say, Dungeon Travellers 2 or even Operation Abyss. I want to struggle with exploration, but these all felt very linear.
-Quick fighting and auto-moving via mini map are very, very appreciated.
-Divinities added a fantastic layer of meta-strategy to the game. I think i would choose different ones on a future playthrough [better ones, that is], but the ones I picked [charge x] really made me have to shuffle and choose at times, and could mean the difference between victory and team wipe.
-My biggest complaint is that the game was 'too short', and by that, I mean that just when my team finally gelled together into what I was aiming for the game was over. Specifically, by the time I class changed and geared up nicely with some S ranks, I felt like I could already have beaten the game. I realize there is post-game... I guess I would have liked more dungeon content like DT2 had postgame, with maybe a trophy attached to keep me going. Part of this issue relates to trophy psychology though; I feel compelled to get the plat, and i feel 'done' when I get it, regardless of amount of content. The game was clearly built with ng+ in mind, and I wish there were trophies to go along with it.
-I appreciated the non-anime aesthetic a lot. I like my crawlers 'medieval themed', not high school themed, and I thought this found a nice balance between the two since i know i'm not going to get a pure western wizardry. I'd still rather more traditional gear slots like 'gauntlet's rather than 'underwear' but whatever.
-I conceptually love the idea of life points, but in practice it turns out I'm incapable of letting a teammate die/recover. I had 2 lp characters, which was an absolute waste early on [i'd restart] though came in handy endgame once I had a handful of life point recovery items. I do -like- the idea of managing multiple teams, though... and I think a DRPG could be very successful at this if they approach this in a different way.
Some ideas:
a) rather than life points, some sort of 'exhaustion' system that forces you to send teams to base for a bit and change things up. Having it be an unavoidable exhaustion would accomplish the goal in a way that wouldn't make me feel like I made a mistake [death in combat] and since it would be a natural exhaustion over time 'restarting' an old save wouldn't accomplish anything. The Life Point system just makes me want to restart instead of building two teams, and I think a slightly different approach would avoid that.
b) perhaps in combination with A, have 'multi-team goals'. Basically, think of the teams as asynchronous -- you might need to pull two levers at the same time, so need to get each team to different points at the same time, etc.
-Some MP balancing is maybe needed? It was always feast or famine -- either I felt like I should never cast spells and would leave dungeons w/full MP, or later, it was easy to farm my mp back to full so i could cast with abandon. That's always an issue though. I do like the old school dnd / Operation Abyss style of having a set number of times you can cast each spell, although i know that's not everyone's thing. It does solve the 'mp' issue well, though.
-A lot of the issues people had [criticals, etc] didn't really bother me. I felt like there were adequate methods to avoid all major issues. I did feel like it was in place to 'kill' characters to get you to use multiple teams, but unfortunately that didn't work out since i think most people simply reloaded (which is why i made one of my previous points).
-I'd do multi-classing slightly differently if I was designing the game, but I didn't design this game, and what we got worked well enough. It's miles better than no class changing, that's for sure.
-stat rolling at the beginning HAS to go. F'ing awful.
-Imo, 'fortunate' with +3 stats is by far the only worthwhile one. Identifying items while in dungeon is absolutely unimportant. There are a couple other mechanics like this that I felt needing fleshing out to be more 'important'.
--I don't think I used any items in dungeons, ever, because I'm a digital hoarder. I think this is on me, though... but I never felt the need to.
All in all, great game. Surprisingly easy plat. I probably put 100 hours into it, but I took my time and class/gear grinded at some points and could easily have beaten it much faster. It did give me a great sense of progression unmatched by any other vita drpg.
Heh. Yeah, I can see why that would have been ridiculously annoying if you didn't know about it. Once it takes affect you'll need to reapply it but it certainly stops boss battles from becoming endless circles.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Yeah much more reason to use $$$ now. And its a lot easier to get $$$ this time around too.
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
$24 and change for Prime Day right now. Think I might pick this up.
Debating this currently. I feel like I should buy it.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Shit I missed that. More like missed most of the deals for prime day. D:
Been puttering away at this game during my daily commutes since late April-ish and finally managed to snag the platinum last week. Never got too far in Demon Gaze or played my copy of Tokyo Abyss or whatever. But I think I'll have to give on or the other a(nother) shot. Is one clearly better than the other?
Some fucked up translation issues caused me some extra difficulties (no light/black veil for me), but that's NOTHING a spot of overleveling (mostly for farming those special katana trophies and hitting level 30 on all of my multi-classing) couldn't help overcome.
Some fucked up translation issues caused me some extra difficulties (no light/black veil for me), but that's NOTHING a spot of overleveling (mostly for farming those special katana trophies and hitting level 30 on all of my multi-classing) couldn't help overcome.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
All 3 of the other games have slight differences with mechanics and such. But for the most part how the classes work and whatnots are the same.
Demon Gaze is most likely the most narrative oriented one out of the 3 I think. Abyss folks didnt seem to like as much since they didnt change up a lot of the older design mechanics as that game was a remake of their first title they had produced as Experience Inc. Though other folks did like Abyss for being set in modern times and things like how the crafting and breaking down items for components worked. Game though really doesnt explain a lot of stuff so there is a good amount of trial by fire with it.
If you dont mind some fan service in it try check out Demon Gaze. If you liked how the combat and such was in Stranger you should have a good time with Demon Gaze. Though with DG you wont have a full party at start. Since you will need to save up cash to rent more rooms which allows you to add more characters to your party.
loganclaws
Plane Escape Torment
IS the new version coming to PC?
BlackLagoon
Member
I think Demon Gaze is more polished and balanced. Abyss is full of obtuse, poorly explained mechanics you'll have to figure out to do well. Though it also gets rather easy when you figure stuff out - between Brainspire and Range Break a high level Academic more or less breaks the game. In the end I really enjoyed both though.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
In a roll you mean? If so 30.
For characters its base stats plus 20 on a first playthrough.
autoduelist
Member
Yea, I loved OA. It's got better dungeon design, and some cool [though unexplained] mechanics. DG is easier, almost too easy.
You can get a ton, but the odds decrease dramatically really quickly. +4 is about where i'd say 'good enough'. i have a post earlier in the thread where i detail approximate odds of each (+0, +1, +2, etc) based on my limited testing.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Also taken from the first page post #12
Some other useful info.
Max Stats = Starting racial stats value + 20 for 1st Playthrough
Max Stats = Starting racial stats value + 30 for 2nd Playthrough.
Should save you the time of not having to look up what each race was for their base starting stats so you can calculate in your head what their point cap will be for a first playthrough.
DG you can auto battle through pretty much the whole game except for bosses, was always my big complaint with it
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Yeah in DG for the most part outside of the irritating toads trash mobs were hilarious easy. First wall any player might hit is with the
Mimic
I had a wizard die last night... and I kept her dead because it was during a long dungeon trek that ended with a boss kill. RIP Muffin. You will be missed.
Really loving this game, and I feel it's so underappreciated. It's such a "Vita game" if you know what I mean, and that's a good thing.
Really loving this game, and I feel it's so underappreciated. It's such a "Vita game" if you know what I mean, and that's a good thing.
Phoenix944
Member
Hey! So I've started this game yesterday, and I've recruited a samurai but he can't attack (the option "fight" is never available to select). What's the problem ? 
Hey! So I've started this game yesterday, and I've recruited a samurai but he can't attack (the option "fight" is never available to select). What's the problem ?
Which side is he on? Left or right?
Phoenix944
Member
Oooh I get it... He was on the right side so that means he's with the casters right ?
Thanks
Oooh I get it... He was on the right side so that means he's with the casters right ?
Thanks
Yeah, it's a good idea to get dancer level 6 as it gets you an infinity range ability that you can then use on other classes including melee, Weapon Trick.
Phoenix944
Member
Oh, I replaced the dancer with a ranger :/
I just have 1hour of play time so I can still change my team composition though.
I have : Fighter, Samurai, Tank, Clerc, Wizard and Ranger.
You will be able to change classes so don't worry about it. Weapon trick is more for cross class ability loads.
Some caveats on class changing though (stolen from gamefaq)
Phoenix944
Member
Alright thanks. I'll keep that team for now, but I might change the samurai because he doesn't do a lot of damage.
Samurai are nice though because they'll soon get a skill called "slash" that lets them attack an entire row. Then they get "Carnage" or something like that which attacks repeatedly until the enemy counters them. You can score 3 or even 4 attacks in a single turn, but then they'll get countered to stop it so you gotta be ready to heal them as it always takes quite a bit of their health.
I'm at the Mausoleum of Flames now and I've made it to the floor where the majority of the tiles burn you. Is there a way to stop that or some kind of item I've missed? It's getting tough down there taking all that damage. I've killed both the Legion lineages and fought Charon's pet so now I'm sort of wondering what else there is to do here.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
There isnt something that outright stops the damage, the best you can do is slightly counteract it with the +HP per step items. Though that doesnt heal much either. You are better off just bringing a bunch of items that can heal (till they become cursed) and keep burning through those instead of using spells to conserve MP.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
I beat this a while back; I picked
ending.
+ Good music
- The 1-10 buttons are silly
+ great art
- no automatic actions. my poor thumb!
- needs damage numbers to flow upwards and be in front of enemies; often it was hidden behind other enemies; thank god for the log.
+ the combat both obscures its fairness and complexity, yet also leaves it sitting out in the open; there's a ton of *ku-CHUNK* where the complexity, breadth, depth, and difficulty jump upwards
+ Divinities added a fantastic layer of meta-strategy to the game
- deja vu hazard design in the end dungeon
But it's really really good! I'm glad I went the whole way with it.
Get Avoid up to 99 with some of that ACC debuff Ranger skill on the boss and ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA with a sword for vicoly!
_______Riu's
+ Good music
- The 1-10 buttons are silly
+ great art
- no automatic actions. my poor thumb!
- needs damage numbers to flow upwards and be in front of enemies; often it was hidden behind other enemies; thank god for the log.
+ the combat both obscures its fairness and complexity, yet also leaves it sitting out in the open; there's a ton of *ku-CHUNK* where the complexity, breadth, depth, and difficulty jump upwards
+ Divinities added a fantastic layer of meta-strategy to the game
- deja vu hazard design in the end dungeon
But it's really really good! I'm glad I went the whole way with it.
Get Avoid up to 99 with some of that ACC debuff Ranger skill on the boss and ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA with a sword for vicoly!
Not sure what you mean by no automatic actions. You could automate combat (and walking at double speed). Well, you can execute the same commands as you last used. Really helps speed things up.
Anyway, love the game, about 45 hours in, need to finish it up. Got distracted.
Hit triangle and then fast apply to repeat the last action you did. Makes the battles very fast.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
No, I did that, I mean the battle automatically plays out when I hit "GO!" like all round turn-based battle systems. You either hit the (what I had) space bar or hold it down or it would sit on the results of that action.
Hit fast apply and it won't
Phoenix944
Member
I feel like I'm missing something... I'm at the beginning (when you have multiple dungeons available for the first time) and I'm getting my ass kicked a lot :/
Am I suppose to farm little mobs to get enough xp for the bosses or am I doing something wrong ? I can just attack and cure, my tank is useless and my samurai does shitty damage (despite having a fairly good sword for that level).
I often reload my save because I don't want to loose my units but it's getting a bit annoying now...
If I remember correctly it was the same situation with Demon Gaze. Horrible first 5/10 hours but once I had more option it became a lot more enjoyable.
Am I suppose to farm little mobs to get enough xp for the bosses or am I doing something wrong ? I can just attack and cure, my tank is useless and my samurai does shitty damage (despite having a fairly good sword for that level).
I often reload my save because I don't want to loose my units but it's getting a bit annoying now...
If I remember correctly it was the same situation with Demon Gaze. Horrible first 5/10 hours but once I had more option it became a lot more enjoyable.
Go through a dungeon until it starts to get too hard then go to a different one etc. By the time you to that point in the third go back to the first and you should be able to advance more there. Just keep switching.
The only bad part in the game was getting used to certain enemies oneshotting you. What are your stats and what's your party like?
Phoenix944
Member
Ok I'll do that. Xp seems kinda hard to get this early, especially when I have reload to save life points :/
Yea the oneshots are getting annoying to say the least. That's why I need a good tank to taunt enemies.
My party is like that:
Fighter 5
Fighter 5
Samurai 4
Knight 5
Wizard 5
Cleric 5
I wanted to put a ranger but he keeps dying all the time
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Ok I'll do that. Xp seems kinda hard to get this early, especially when I have reload to save life points :/
Yea the oneshots are getting annoying to say the least. That's why I need a good tank to taunt enemies.
My party is like that:
Fighter 5
Fighter 5
Samurai 4
Knight 5
Wizard 5
Cleric 5
I wanted to put a ranger but he keeps dying all the time
Easiest thing to do is just keep hitting the ambush points and going out selling or equipping new loot and repeat. This is one game that rushing through usually bad things happen since it has a lot more emphasis on your characters level and gear than previous titles.
Also try to pay attention to the enemy level. There are some types that are just balance oddly which will outright destroy you if you try to fight them from the get go. Such as the Skeletons with the axe in the head or the giant flying insect that looks like its breathing fire. Also the other flying insect type that looks like a larger version of the tiny ones that you fight normally. It should be fairly obvious when you see those, so using the 100% escape divinity is your best option.
For enemies that actually have the 1HK ability, the higher their level is vs your own characters increases the chance of the 1HK to proc. Luck plays a part in this too.
Phoenix944
Member
Yea I've noticed some enemies are more powerful than the others even in the same areas. I'll keep farming xp for now until I hit lvl 8/9 and see how it goes from there.
Thanks for the tips
Ok I'll do that. Xp seems kinda hard to get this early, especially when I have reload to save life points :/
Yea the oneshots are getting annoying to say the least. That's why I need a good tank to taunt enemies.
My party is like that:
Fighter 5
Fighter 5
Samurai 4
Knight 5
Wizard 5
Cleric 5
I wanted to put a ranger but he keeps dying all the time
Having more than one ranged character would be good. When your knight gets the skill needed to tank you can class change/swap out one of your fighters for a ranger.
The beginning will also be easier if you have 2 LP characters (and 1LP main character) than if you have 3 LP.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
The ranger is also fairly useful due to that pin down skill which drops a single targets Hit & Evade if the attack connects. It deals lower damage than a normal attack but quite useful to have.
It just takes a bit of time till you find a decent bow.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
No, that's repeating an action, not standard.
Fast apply is available while doing standard actions too
Phoenix944
Member
Is there a way to counter the unit swap where my units order is all messed up ? I'm having a hard time because of this on a boss
(ninja in the slum)
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Whistle Balls. Forget if the shops stock on those is limited or not.
You can use those also before a battle which will prevent 1 row swap.
Phoenix944
Member
Nice, thanks!
Now I think about it... There was something similar in Demon Gaze no ? Completely forgot about this, I'm ashamed :x
Now I think about it... There was something similar in Demon Gaze no ? Completely forgot about this, I'm ashamed :x