Originally posted by Benkei Kuruma:

This game is awesome if you just give it a chance. It really does grow on you if you're into these types of games.

I 100%'d it a few days after I made the post so I gave it a pretty nice chance, after doing so I made a review, and while I do think it has some great merits (lots of variety in equipment, and a ton of upgrade mechanics) a lot of it is obscured by the old feel it has, learning that it is a re-release of an older game made the whole thing less acceptable to me, I'm sure I would have taken it better if I had played the original, considering I even enjoyed games like Shin Megami Tensei I and II (have not finished them, hoping for a steam re-release).

When it comes to other games by this company, Stranger of Sword City (although I haven't completed it yet) feels a lot more modern, and I wish more mechanics from that game, which was 3 years old when Operation Abyss came out, had been implemented into this re-release (and some maybe taken out of it like the equipment level up system which is extremely flawed, the level IV materials for high level equipment, ridiculous, at least the game can be beaten without those).

By the end of the game my complaints still stood, I do not understand mechanically why some enemies hit for about double damage when compared to others of the exact same level, even when equipped with a full set of affixed armor (also, for example the K class can be resistant to every "race" easily because of shields and also have magic defense, but the damage they take will barely change when compared to the rest of the team other than the damage from basic attacks which is notably reduced), so while a lot of mechanics existed it didn't ever feel like I was able to make use of them at all.

I'm excited to get into the sequel soon, because the reviews hint towards a more understandable and mechanically sound entry, and were part of the reason I managed to beat this game at all (along with the awesome online message system).

Thanks for the response, I'm sure it will be helpful to newer players, because IIRC those abilities are not enabled from the start, so knowing they exist may help some avoid being turned off.

Originally posted by Benkei Kuruma:

Completely agree with you about Stranger of Sword City. And shoot, I haven't even 100%'d this game yet. You're a beast. =)

For me, my favorite game by Experience so far is Undernauts. I haven't gotten too deep into it, but good lord, the art direction, the "mood", the music, the mechanics... it's really like they learned so much from their mistakes with these older games. I can't wait to dig into it more, but first I have to actually beat these older ones first. =)

I played a bit of Undernauts (maybe 30-60 minutes, not legally), but I dropped it because it felt way too easy, playing through Operation Abyss made me realize that perhaps Experience doesn't know how to properly balance the early game and that maybe the rest of the game has a more enjoyable difficulty, so I'm also interested in playing that game at some point, it's just a bit too expensive in my region for now, so I will probably grab it on sale in the future though to give it another chance. So for now I'm probably going to be alternating the Trails in the Sky series with Operation Babyl + Stranger of Sword City until I finish both.

If you ever wanna 100% this game, you should know that running from battles DOES count for the 3000 required, and you can, at max unity, get 35 escapes in just under 2 minutes by going back through doors over and over again in the sewers with Neo Chain. It's probably the single least enjoyable achievement I've gone for in a while but it was the last one so I just dealt with it, also chained battles count as a single battle so it's better to keep the Danger meter at level 0 while you recharge your Unity, or alternatively you can do it at Abyss C24 to get a REAL 100% savefile (with all equipment recipes registered), but that would probably take more than a hundred hours of just grinding and seems extremely unfun.

Did you try the playstation vita version? I feel it's the most complete and patched/full game, what it wanted to be. It's not flawless but I enjoy it the best on vita. I feel that's the definitive ed.

Originally posted by BoxingBud:

Did you try the playstation vita version? I feel it's the most complete and patched/full game, what it wanted to be. It's not flawless but I enjoy it the best on vita. I feel that's the definitive ed.

I didn't, I don't have any consoles. Pretty silly how they gave PC users an outdated version.

Oh, yay! There's new posts. I just came back to this game. I'm up to the graveyard.

I bought Undernauts the other day... yeah, that game definitely wants to be easy mode, though I don't mind the fact that the earliest enemies take such a big bite out of my characters. I definitely agree this game is part of the producer's learning curve. 7+ bonus points at the start is very overpowered.

Anything with a multi-hit seems to ignore all defenses, hitting the tankiest of characters for hundreds of damage at a time,Anything with a multi-hit seems to ignore all defenses, hitting the tankiest of characters for hundreds of damage at a time,

I've only ever felt overpowered by the Mystery enemies, very large numbers of mid-game+ enemies, and the occasional underestimated high-class Fauna. Everything else has paper defenses and misses often. However there are times the game assumes you are ranking up your armor.

I do not understand mechanically why some enemies hit for about double damage when compared to others of the exact same level

In Class of Heroes mobs have all their stats randomized--including Attack power. And some enemies grow in attack power ridiculously fast. The Bestary tells you that. This game uses an extremely similar system, but doesn't give you enemy stats in its Bestary.

I play on the Vita version, too.