distantmantra
Member
Bebpo said:
I have Alpha Gaiden for the PS1. Haven't played it yet, though. Maybe I'll get around to it this summer.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Super Robot Wars OG Saga - Masou Kishin The Lord of Elemental (DS) - May 27th
- Thread starter duckroll
- Start date
I have Alpha Gaiden for the PS1. Haven't played it yet, though. Maybe I'll get around to it this summer.
So I started chapter 2 and it answers a lot of questions about how this fits in. Chapter 2 starts with an hour long recap of missing games that take place between the end of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. I'm guessing in the original there was this same recap and it involved scenes from SRW2-4. Here it goes by OGs
I'll do a quick rundown:
And that's where chapter 2 starts. :lol
That's a lot of stuff happening offscreen!! I wanted to play that story! But I guess I can by playing the other OG games, haha. So yeah, having not played the original Masoukishin I'm not sure how much is the same or different, but that's how they fit the game into the OG timeline.
I'll do a quick rundown:
-Masaki went back to the surface world and chased Shu down to a base in Antarctica where he had just betrayed the Federation army that he was working under and destroyed the base. Ryuusei is there and beat up from Granzon, Masaki runs off chasing Shu. (aka this map from OG1)
-At some point Masaki joins the Hagane and Hiryuu and becomes part of the Divine Crusaders (OG1). They kill the doctor Zoldac(?). Ryuune appears and wants revenge for her dad Zoldac, but Masaki convinces her to join them and she does.
-Events of OG1/2/Gaiden occur. Masaki/Ryuune/OG crew fight off Invaders, Inspectors, Eigeist, Shuura, etc... I'm sure I'm spelling most of these wrong lol
-Masaki fights Shu who is in Neo Granzon, kills him. Shu reveals that he was under the mind control of the demon lord and is glad to finally be free in the end. (I think this is the end of OG Gaiden)
-Meanwhile back in the inner world, the prince Phil and the army general whose name I don't remember (bearded man) cause some sort of "surface people summoning incident" where they summon them in mass to the inner world in order to get strong pilots to help them rule the world and bring peace. The masoukishin oppose world domination so they fight and kill prince Phil. Then the general goes and makes a deal with the demon lord and they fight and kill him. The general's son (saash?) joins them sometime prior to this and fights with them against his dad.
-Then the demon lord worshipers who have been trying to resurrect him bring Shu back to life and kidnap the princess to use as a sacrifice to resurrect the god. Shu at the last minute betrays them because it turns out that when he was resurrected, the part of his memory that had made a pact with the demon lord had been wiped out and he was just pretending to follow them (since resurrection) so he can get revenge. He resurrects the demon god only to then immediately destroy it with the help of Amuhamod, the prince of Detrious?, and Saphne who choose him over continuing to be a demon worshipper. They all come back to the kingdom in the inner world and be friends with Masaki and the other Masoukishin.
-The world is at peace
-At some point Masaki joins the Hagane and Hiryuu and becomes part of the Divine Crusaders (OG1). They kill the doctor Zoldac(?). Ryuune appears and wants revenge for her dad Zoldac, but Masaki convinces her to join them and she does.
-Events of OG1/2/Gaiden occur. Masaki/Ryuune/OG crew fight off Invaders, Inspectors, Eigeist, Shuura, etc... I'm sure I'm spelling most of these wrong lol
-Masaki fights Shu who is in Neo Granzon, kills him. Shu reveals that he was under the mind control of the demon lord and is glad to finally be free in the end. (I think this is the end of OG Gaiden)
-Meanwhile back in the inner world, the prince Phil and the army general whose name I don't remember (bearded man) cause some sort of "surface people summoning incident" where they summon them in mass to the inner world in order to get strong pilots to help them rule the world and bring peace. The masoukishin oppose world domination so they fight and kill prince Phil. Then the general goes and makes a deal with the demon lord and they fight and kill him. The general's son (saash?) joins them sometime prior to this and fights with them against his dad.
-Then the demon lord worshipers who have been trying to resurrect him bring Shu back to life and kidnap the princess to use as a sacrifice to resurrect the god. Shu at the last minute betrays them because it turns out that when he was resurrected, the part of his memory that had made a pact with the demon lord had been wiped out and he was just pretending to follow them (since resurrection) so he can get revenge. He resurrects the demon god only to then immediately destroy it with the help of Amuhamod, the prince of Detrious?, and Saphne who choose him over continuing to be a demon worshipper. They all come back to the kingdom in the inner world and be friends with Masaki and the other Masoukishin.
-The world is at peace
And that's where chapter 2 starts. :lol
That's a lot of stuff happening offscreen!! I wanted to play that story! But I guess I can by playing the other OG games, haha. So yeah, having not played the original Masoukishin I'm not sure how much is the same or different, but that's how they fit the game into the OG timeline.
Bebpo said:
The basic thing is, Terada wanted the remake of Masoukishin out there, so that it can bring newbies up to speed with the Masoukishin storyline. But if OG3 shapes up to be as was rumored, it will likely be a super-sized remake of "SRW EX", which, in the original continuity,
was the first time that your dudes came down to Masaki's side of the 'hood, and Shuu was resurrected, among other things.
As for Alpha Gaiden? Masoukishin-story wise, it's basically a hodge-podge of the same events I just talked about.
You get the dudes eventually coming down to La Gias, after spending some time in a distant future where you get to fool around with Turn A and others. Then you have to deal with Shuu and kill him in a similar fashion that you saw in SRW3 and OGG.
Any way, it's nice to hear about these lil changes. Keep going, Bebpo!
Zengar said:
Ohhhh, ok. It's been years since I played @2 and I just figured Shuu had been in it since I think Masaki was?
That makes a lot more sense now. So @1+@G covered the Masaki/Shuu story and then @2/@3 Masaki was just a bonus unit.
And in the OG-verse, OG1/OG2/OGG cover the Masaki/Shuu story up to about that same point but potentially OG3 will cover it further post-resurrection?
Bebpo said:
Again, OG3 has to at least SRWEX type material, first. Everything that you saw in that "Interlude" for LOTE is something that will likely be at least one of the centerpieces of OG3.
After that, though, skies the limit, since LOTE is technically the "end" of the storyline. It would be interesting to FINALLY see Banpresto do more with the series, since we've been getting repeats of the Masaki/Shuu conflict for basically 2 decades now. I would like to see a future game where Masaki and Shuu start out on the same side, and Masaki finally gets a real update to Cybuster.
He's only been the first SRW original, and yet, he's been passed up for an update of any sort, while the likes of Ryuusei and Kyosuke have both seen at least one or two, depending on the continuity you follow. Equal time, finally? :lol
I'm about halfway through the 2nd scenario and I'm actually getting useful teammates which is making me really happy. I have about 4-5 A-tier power attackers right now that do almost as much damage as Masaki and some have pretty good DEF (mainly the yellow Zamzeed; that unit is becoming GOD TIER, boost knuckle only cost 10MG and does fantastic damage) and their pilots have good skills.
This is very nice because the first 60% of the game was Cybuster = God Tier, everyone else = lol and it was a very non-srw experience where you basically went around taking out everyone with just Cybuster.
But now I have teams of like 10 people on the map, and almost everyone is useful! 4-6 power attackers, usually 2 horribly shitty mechs/pilots that have GREAT healing and refueling so as long as they stay far away from enemies that are a great support crew, and then 1-2 less useful B-tier characters who attack and heal. The characters have lots of seishin spells now, and a good amount of attacks, and now it feels like a REAL modern srw game with a great party vs. tons of decently strong enemies and HARD bosses which you destroy in 1-2 turns because your team is just THAT AWESOME
Really great game so far.
This is very nice because the first 60% of the game was Cybuster = God Tier, everyone else = lol and it was a very non-srw experience where you basically went around taking out everyone with just Cybuster.
But now I have teams of like 10 people on the map, and almost everyone is useful! 4-6 power attackers, usually 2 horribly shitty mechs/pilots that have GREAT healing and refueling so as long as they stay far away from enemies that are a great support crew, and then 1-2 less useful B-tier characters who attack and heal. The characters have lots of seishin spells now, and a good amount of attacks, and now it feels like a REAL modern srw game with a great party vs. tons of decently strong enemies and HARD bosses which you destroy in 1-2 turns because your team is just THAT AWESOME
Really great game so far.
Ok, finished this.
Weird ass game.
The first story/season/chapter was a great "hero origin story" of how Masaki became a maokishin pilot, who the other pilots were, the world politics of La Gran, the introduction of Shuu. It was good stuff! And then it built up to a big event and ended
Ok.
Then basically all the awesome stuff and the end to everything built up in the first half of the game happens offscreen during the intermission. So in story talk, it's like:
First half of awesome robot show (ends in cliffhanger) -> 2nd half of awesome robot show (ends in conclusion) except the entire 2nd half is missing from the game and you just get a brief summary of it.
Then the 2nd story/season/chapter, instead of being that 2nd half. Takes place months/years after the conclusion of the previous story and is basically a phoned in sequel anime that has little to do with the original is just exists to make money. Season 2 has NO PLOT. At first it's like "hey, we're gathering back the old crew and seeing what's different", ok. And then it's like a couple of episodic 1-2 map arc stories as they go from one thing to another. And then suddenly it's like "hey look THIS BADGUY STILL EXISTS" and suddenly he's introduced and you fight him and kill him and he's out of the story and this entire arc takes place in 1-2 maps. Then you do it again for another badguy in 1 map, out the next map. Then at the end
It's really, realllllly bad. I basically feel after finishing it the same way I felt after finishing watching Seed Destiny: unsatisfied. I liked the characters and I liked the mechs, but the actual game you get to play is "the first half of a real story" and "awful pointless sequel with no story". The real satisfying meat of the plot is ...missing ^^; I understand this is all because the major events took place during other games, but it really does make this feel weird and empty.
It's even weirder because the 2nd story sequel to it all assumes you saw the ENTIRE ORIGINAL STORY (aka you played the games described in the intermission). Because you'll meet characters you've never seen before and Masaki will go "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE ALIVE" and the bad guy will go "yessss, that time when blah blah blah happened I secretly escaped and ended up over here" and it's not just the bad guys. You'll have the mechs from the first story join up again and sometimes they'll have a totally different pilot and you will never be told what happened to the old one [here's looking at the Diablo pilot >.>]. And character development-wise everyone EXCEPT YOU THE PLAYER as experienced all the events in the intermission and act appropriately in dialogues between each other. If you haven't played these games (at least recently) it just comes off as you having watched the first 13eps and then last 13eps of a 52ep series. It's weird and unsatisfying.
Honestly I'm hoping/thinking that OG3 will be able to fix this like how Z made Destiny's plot a lot better. The characters/mechs are good. What they need is a real plot to be part of with actual antagonist development and a natural progression and build up of events. Hopefully by mixing the La Gran plot in with the OG plot they can use the characters/mechs in a good story.
So that's the plot stuff.
Now in terms of the gameplay.
balance
omg
you exist no more
Cybuster is the most broken SRW UNIT EVER MADE (welllllll besides Neo Granzon but you
). At endgame, Cybuster could move 14 panels while your other units maxed could move 8 or 9. Cybuster is also the first to get "2 turns per round" (which later on all the major units get). This means in 1 round he can fly across the entire map and since he's also the strongest and has the best armor, if you want he can literally start the map, fly across to the enemies, do a map attack, do a map attack again, and then kill all of the remaining ones when them when they attack him at the end of the round.
If you actually want your other members to LEVEL UP (which is kind of important) you have to hold back on your cybuster and let your other party members advance and fight and Cybuster just pops in to weaken enemies or get people out of a bind. You basically have to NOT USE HIM if you want your other characters to get stronger because he is too strong.
On top of that. He can kill any final boss in a single turn besides the one on the last map. You go up to them, use hot blood + akashic buster -> does 30k+ damage on a 40-50k hp final boss. Then you get to ACT AGAIN and you do another and boss is dead.
And then
So basically if you use the broken units the game is broken beyond belief and impossible to lose. Everything, including bosses die in 1 turn against them.
But if you're using your other units, it's a moderate challenge. It's definitely harder than W or MX by a good margin, but it's still much, much easier than OGs or Z or @.
And then there's one map which is gimmicky difficult for no reason at all besides that you have 1 unit vs 1 boss with 50k life, and heals 25% HP per round and this is before Cybuster gets hot blooded or 2 turns. So you have to build up ki over like 10 turns and hope you don't die and then kill him quick with your strongest attacks.
Also interesting is that even though EN (here MG) and refueling is in the game. I never had to refuel once so it seemed kind of pointless. The only mech with refueling was awful anyhow, so I never used her. You basically just need to heal (and "love/ai" that gives full HP to all your mechs is really cheap in this game) and the main mechs in your party have HP regen automatically (as do the bosses, which especially early on forces you to gang up and take them out in one turn or two).
Basically the game has no balance at all. But maybe that's what happens when you're playing a 15 year old game that hasn't been rebalanced(?)
So that sounds kind of negative, but overall I enjoyed the game and would put it above the handheld SRW games I've played. It does a lot of postive things:
-The height & direction positioning combined with real SRPG maps made it play closer to a mix of Final Fantasy Tactics meets SRW, which was a lot of fun. As long as you didn't abuse your use of Cybuster, the game was moderately challenging and made you make use of the map layouts, which provided for fun maps. Honestly it's a real shame SRW moved away from map layouts mattering much. Maybe they'll bring back real maps for OG3
-The lack of dialogue is actually a big plus here. I like the story stuff in SRW games. The character interactions and development is usually pretty good. But I feel like it's really gotten out of control and before a map you'll read through 20-30 mins of text and then after a map there will be another 5-20 mins of text. It feels like for every one hour of playing the game there's one hour of reading. I think this is overkill. In Lord of Elemental there's like 2-4 mins of dialogue before a map and 1-3 mins of dialogue after. That gives enough time to develop the main characters, have them interact with each other, and advance the plot. And the lack of plot in the 2nd story of Lord of Elemental is not because of the shorter dialogues as the 1st story had plenty of story and was the same lenght ones. But yeah, I wish modern SRW would learn from this that sometimes "less is more".
-Upgrading is satisfying since A) your attacks visually change when you max them and B) since you have such a small cast (about 12 mechs total, only 7 you actually use) you pretty much max them entirely by the end of the game and they're all badass with great animations and great hp/armor attack power.
-The first story is good. Masaki is cool. The rest of the pilots are likable. Good mech designs. Definitely want to see these guys in OG3.
I guess that's about it. But at the end of the day it was a fun and addicting SRW story with likable characters and a small group of cool mechs and fun maps. Unfortunately it's broken as hell and the plot is a weird mish mash that results in some good stuff but overall a weak resolution. Normally SRW games end like a good SR anime with getting you all pumped up and shouting the lines as you do the Goldeon Hammer on the final boss and shatter him, but this just ends on "wait, what? That was the last map? Uh ok I guess it's over now".
I'd recommend the game for fans of SRW gameplay because it's a fun SRW game, for OG fans because seeing Misaki's origin story is nice. But just expect Cybuster to end up beyond god tier and don't expect much out of the 2nd scenario.
Also I think one of the problems with the weird story development and lack of antagonists/antagonist development is the way it branches. Normally you have a unified intro so you get the strong startup development, then branching middle and then a unified endgame so you get a strong finale. The first scenario in the DS game follows that structure. The 2nd scenario otoh, straight off the start branches into 3 COMPLETELY SEPARATE SCENARIOS. Here's a branch chart of the last group of maps:
http://masoukisin.srw-wiki.com/map/map2-3.htm
I got what I assume is the best/good scenario with the good ending (left column). But I also got fewer maps than the other two scenarios. I have to wonder if a lot of the offscreen events that were supposed to develop the 2nd story happened during the other branches. If that's the case and when you play the 2nd story THREE TIMES you get a good story...well :lol sorry that's a pretty shitty way to tell a story! I mean branching is normal in SRW and usually fills in gaps offscreen, but you still get an enjoyable story the first time through and it doesn't feel like all the development is totally missing.
Weird ass game.
The first story/season/chapter was a great "hero origin story" of how Masaki became a maokishin pilot, who the other pilots were, the world politics of La Gran, the introduction of Shuu. It was good stuff! And then it built up to a big event and ended
without a final boss fightmasaki shows up for the big climax and is late and it's already happened and everyone is dead/gone and masaki leaves in pursuit of Shuu in the real world and it ends on a cliffhanger.
Ok.
Then basically all the awesome stuff and the end to everything built up in the first half of the game happens offscreen during the intermission. So in story talk, it's like:
First half of awesome robot show (ends in cliffhanger) -> 2nd half of awesome robot show (ends in conclusion) except the entire 2nd half is missing from the game and you just get a brief summary of it.
Then the 2nd story/season/chapter, instead of being that 2nd half. Takes place months/years after the conclusion of the previous story and is basically a phoned in sequel anime that has little to do with the original is just exists to make money. Season 2 has NO PLOT. At first it's like "hey, we're gathering back the old crew and seeing what's different", ok. And then it's like a couple of episodic 1-2 map arc stories as they go from one thing to another. And then suddenly it's like "hey look THIS BADGUY STILL EXISTS" and suddenly he's introduced and you fight him and kill him and he's out of the story and this entire arc takes place in 1-2 maps. Then you do it again for another badguy in 1 map, out the next map. Then at the end
Shuu shows up on the 2nd to last map and is like "hey remember the bad guy in the first story? Well he's back and I know where he is so let's go kill him again" and the last map is you pop up at the badguy's place and he goes "I'm gonna kill ya!" and you beat him and Shuu and Masaki pose and the game ends".
It's even weirder because the 2nd story sequel to it all assumes you saw the ENTIRE ORIGINAL STORY (aka you played the games described in the intermission). Because you'll meet characters you've never seen before and Masaki will go "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE ALIVE" and the bad guy will go "yessss, that time when blah blah blah happened I secretly escaped and ended up over here" and it's not just the bad guys. You'll have the mechs from the first story join up again and sometimes they'll have a totally different pilot and you will never be told what happened to the old one [here's looking at the Diablo pilot >.>]. And character development-wise everyone EXCEPT YOU THE PLAYER as experienced all the events in the intermission and act appropriately in dialogues between each other. If you haven't played these games (at least recently) it just comes off as you having watched the first 13eps and then last 13eps of a 52ep series. It's weird and unsatisfying.
Honestly I'm hoping/thinking that OG3 will be able to fix this like how Z made Destiny's plot a lot better. The characters/mechs are good. What they need is a real plot to be part of with actual antagonist development and a natural progression and build up of events. Hopefully by mixing the La Gran plot in with the OG plot they can use the characters/mechs in a good story.
So that's the plot stuff.
Now in terms of the gameplay.
balance
omg
you exist no more
Cybuster is the most broken SRW UNIT EVER MADE (welllllll besides Neo Granzon but you
only get that for the last two maps
If you actually want your other members to LEVEL UP (which is kind of important) you have to hold back on your cybuster and let your other party members advance and fight and Cybuster just pops in to weaken enemies or get people out of a bind. You basically have to NOT USE HIM if you want your other characters to get stronger because he is too strong.
On top of that. He can kill any final boss in a single turn besides the one on the last map. You go up to them, use hot blood + akashic buster -> does 30k+ damage on a 40-50k hp final boss. Then you get to ACT AGAIN and you do another and boss is dead.
And then
Neo Granzon. Ok, wtf. He has 30k HP, takes 10 damage from even the final boss attacks. Has 20 ammo each of his two strongest attacks (which are like the two strongest attacks in the game and have a range the size of half the map) and he gets 2 turns per round. So even against the final final boss, it's a joke because neo granzon is invincible and can almost destroy him in a round (almost because the first attack takes down the boss' shields and only does 10 damage). But then your other characters clean up and finish the final boss in 1 turn.
So basically if you use the broken units the game is broken beyond belief and impossible to lose. Everything, including bosses die in 1 turn against them.
But if you're using your other units, it's a moderate challenge. It's definitely harder than W or MX by a good margin, but it's still much, much easier than OGs or Z or @.
And then there's one map which is gimmicky difficult for no reason at all besides that you have 1 unit vs 1 boss with 50k life, and heals 25% HP per round and this is before Cybuster gets hot blooded or 2 turns. So you have to build up ki over like 10 turns and hope you don't die and then kill him quick with your strongest attacks.
Also interesting is that even though EN (here MG) and refueling is in the game. I never had to refuel once so it seemed kind of pointless. The only mech with refueling was awful anyhow, so I never used her. You basically just need to heal (and "love/ai" that gives full HP to all your mechs is really cheap in this game) and the main mechs in your party have HP regen automatically (as do the bosses, which especially early on forces you to gang up and take them out in one turn or two).
Basically the game has no balance at all. But maybe that's what happens when you're playing a 15 year old game that hasn't been rebalanced(?)
So that sounds kind of negative, but overall I enjoyed the game and would put it above the handheld SRW games I've played. It does a lot of postive things:
-The height & direction positioning combined with real SRPG maps made it play closer to a mix of Final Fantasy Tactics meets SRW, which was a lot of fun. As long as you didn't abuse your use of Cybuster, the game was moderately challenging and made you make use of the map layouts, which provided for fun maps. Honestly it's a real shame SRW moved away from map layouts mattering much. Maybe they'll bring back real maps for OG3
-The lack of dialogue is actually a big plus here. I like the story stuff in SRW games. The character interactions and development is usually pretty good. But I feel like it's really gotten out of control and before a map you'll read through 20-30 mins of text and then after a map there will be another 5-20 mins of text. It feels like for every one hour of playing the game there's one hour of reading. I think this is overkill. In Lord of Elemental there's like 2-4 mins of dialogue before a map and 1-3 mins of dialogue after. That gives enough time to develop the main characters, have them interact with each other, and advance the plot. And the lack of plot in the 2nd story of Lord of Elemental is not because of the shorter dialogues as the 1st story had plenty of story and was the same lenght ones. But yeah, I wish modern SRW would learn from this that sometimes "less is more".
-Upgrading is satisfying since A) your attacks visually change when you max them and B) since you have such a small cast (about 12 mechs total, only 7 you actually use) you pretty much max them entirely by the end of the game and they're all badass with great animations and great hp/armor attack power.
-The first story is good. Masaki is cool. The rest of the pilots are likable. Good mech designs. Definitely want to see these guys in OG3.
I guess that's about it. But at the end of the day it was a fun and addicting SRW story with likable characters and a small group of cool mechs and fun maps. Unfortunately it's broken as hell and the plot is a weird mish mash that results in some good stuff but overall a weak resolution. Normally SRW games end like a good SR anime with getting you all pumped up and shouting the lines as you do the Goldeon Hammer on the final boss and shatter him, but this just ends on "wait, what? That was the last map? Uh ok I guess it's over now".
I'd recommend the game for fans of SRW gameplay because it's a fun SRW game, for OG fans because seeing Misaki's origin story is nice. But just expect Cybuster to end up beyond god tier and don't expect much out of the 2nd scenario.
Also I think one of the problems with the weird story development and lack of antagonists/antagonist development is the way it branches. Normally you have a unified intro so you get the strong startup development, then branching middle and then a unified endgame so you get a strong finale. The first scenario in the DS game follows that structure. The 2nd scenario otoh, straight off the start branches into 3 COMPLETELY SEPARATE SCENARIOS. Here's a branch chart of the last group of maps:
http://masoukisin.srw-wiki.com/map/map2-3.htm
I got what I assume is the best/good scenario with the good ending (left column). But I also got fewer maps than the other two scenarios. I have to wonder if a lot of the offscreen events that were supposed to develop the 2nd story happened during the other branches. If that's the case and when you play the 2nd story THREE TIMES you get a good story...well :lol sorry that's a pretty shitty way to tell a story! I mean branching is normal in SRW and usually fills in gaps offscreen, but you still get an enjoyable story the first time through and it doesn't feel like all the development is totally missing.
The reason why things may feel "missing" by part 2 of the game, is that LOTE, much like its remake, pretty much relies on you having played the other games in the early SRW series. Especially EX and your choice of 4 or F/F-Final.
Because the OG series has yet to account for those stories within the Masoukishin storyline (and the Alphas certainly didn't either)...yeah, you're going to be left with a lot of WTF. It's perhaps the one instance where I wonder why they didn't "break up" this game into two, if only for the sake of how Part 2 won't make sense for many newcomers. :lol
Because the OG series has yet to account for those stories within the Masoukishin storyline (and the Alphas certainly didn't either)...yeah, you're going to be left with a lot of WTF. It's perhaps the one instance where I wonder why they didn't "break up" this game into two, if only for the sake of how Part 2 won't make sense for many newcomers. :lol
Yeah I get that. But since this is OG universe and like you said some of that stuff hasn't been accounted for it's just...weird.
What they really should have done is strayed away from a straight remake and instead do an expanded remake. Maybe break it into two games like you said, but expand them by doubling the maps and filling in new/extra plot that relates to the OG universe.
I think a lot of the games flaws come from that it's a 15 year old+ game that doesn't hold up perfectly today. Not changing things like the map count/units/attacks/combat seems like it was done because A) too lazy to put effort into adding new content or B) afraid fanbase would get pissed off if they changed anything.
What they really should have done is strayed away from a straight remake and instead do an expanded remake. Maybe break it into two games like you said, but expand them by doubling the maps and filling in new/extra plot that relates to the OG universe.
I think a lot of the games flaws come from that it's a 15 year old+ game that doesn't hold up perfectly today. Not changing things like the map count/units/attacks/combat seems like it was done because A) too lazy to put effort into adding new content or B) afraid fanbase would get pissed off if they changed anything.