Senaste recensioner av Ryu Makkuro

This game is a... peculiar one. It's definitely a rather unconventional game but then again what else one would expect from a jRPG ? ;)
More to the point, game features a turn based combat but... everything else is different. Battles happen on a different screen and you have a tactical view of the field. You command units which can hold up to 5 characters (maximum amount of characters you can have is 18) each and order them which enemy unit they have to attack. Depending on the "formation" your unit has and the speed of the characters in that unit, how fast the unit moves on the battle field changes, therefore you have to be mindful about that, since if your unit attacks an enemy unit that was targeting different one they get a bonus to damage and morale boost as well. And yes, there's a morale gauge. They more in your favour, the more damage you do. The more in the favour of the enemy... the more damage you take. The actions which your characters will perform depend on... few factors. First is what arts they can use and have enabled, second which enemy they are targeting (you get different set of commands for different enemy units), third is the morale situation and there's also the class of your unit leader. Oh and lastly there's a bit of RNG involved. Yes, this means you can't directly tell each character what action to perform but at the same time, it does make the command selection faster and forces you to be more flexible with your tactics. It can screw you up if you happen to have bad luck, but that's rather rare. When the untis are performing the commands, you can have a "critical offense" (or defense when they are recipients of an attack) which requires you to press a button at a certain moment. The game will choose between one of two buttons, and those depend on the weapon the character uses. When you perform it successfuly the next ally is automatically boosted in the turn order to perform their action. If there are at least two critical offense before the last character acts and both are successful you get a big damage boost to an art or a free one if one wasn't selected... along with the boost of course :D

Now, when units engage with each other, you have what is called a deadlock. If another unit engages a unit while that is already in a deadlock, you'll engage in a Flank, which boosts the morale and gives a further boost to damage. If you manage to perfom another flank in the same turn, it will change into rear assault, which deals even more damage and grants a bigger boost to morale. And if you do it with yet another unit, you get a massive assault, which is even stronger. However some enemies can deadlock few units at once, so you rarely ever see anything more than a flank. I am yet to see a massive assault performed by my units, although my units having massive assault on them isn't that rare xD

With basics explained, let's move onto the character development... which doesn't exist... on the first glance. You don't have an exp gauge or ability to directly affect the character stats, nor to even change their equipment, but... you can help them decide what to focus on (balance, mystic or combat) which affects what equipment they want to get. That in turn affects what arts they can use in battle, which you can enable or disable if you don't particularly like them. Characters gain stat points from fights (duh!), the longer the fight (aka more turns) the higher chance they gain those and not just one. There's a limit to the turns, so don't go doing 900 turn fights, because it will result in the same gain as from a 30 turn fight :P Also fighting enemies of a higher battle rank than you helps with getting higher stats... and developing the arts faster.
Ahh yes, the arts. Probably the best thing about the game... IMO. The combat arts are purely dependent on the weapon you're using AND how you're holding the weapon. Therefore you have one handed arts, power grip (aka holding one handed weapon with two arms) arts, two-handed arts (weapons that can be held with two hands), dual wield (two weapons) arts, quad wield (yes, 4 weapons) arts, dual power grip arts and... yes you guessed it, dual two handed. The basic ones are very simple, like a quick lunge or a swipe, but the more advanced ones... wheee, now those are some cool looking ones. And then come the weapon arts and special arts, which are basically your "limit breaks" from the Final Fantasy games so to speak. I suppose I should mention the mystic arts, but those are not as complicated as the combat ones. You simply have different categories and using them unlocks more from a given category. Most characters have around 1-2 different mystic categories, mages naturally have 3 or 4. There are also item based arts that revolve around... yes, items. This includes healing, damage dealing, status afflicting and combination of the latter two. Lastly there are summons, which basically add a unit to the field comprised of a single... being.

There's a lot more to explain but I'm just gonna make a short list of the rest:
- You have a world map in the style of FF X, aka literal map on which you point where you want to go.
- Your main character is the only one you have full control over equipment and is the only character that can learn all the arts in the game (apart from some weapon arts).
- Story is half decent, it isn't groundbreaking in any way shape or form, but it's enough to keep you interested playing the game... at least in my case.
- If you like to get everything as soon as possible... prepare for the game to be harder. As funny as it is, the game becomes harder the higher your battle rank is and that rises with the amount of defeated enemies. Your stats on the other hand don't.
- There's a plethora of sidequests to keep you occupied. And there's a New Game + as well, which let's you play in Hard mode and keep all your components along with a lot of money that depends on how many guild quests you did.


That's pretty much it tbh. This is definitely not a game for people who want to be taken by hand with everything or expect an "industry standard" turn battle system. This game is as peculiar as it gets and if you don't want something that doesn't work like any other game out there... don't buy it. But if you're open to such new experiences... you'll definitely like the game... and then hate that you can't choose those damn commands yourself xD


TL;DR;
- incredibly peculiar game with a turn battle system unlike any other game, only for the most open minded people out there
- combat arts look cool
- the game is incredibly simple, yet with a lot of depth to it as well
- the grind and superboss battles can be insane for the completionist types out there
- story is average but enough to keep you in
- New Game + exists... yay \o/
- Hard mode exists... yay?
- critical offense/defense keeps you occupied even when you don't select the orders, makes the game faster paced than it actually is