The first part of this review will be an overall grading and spoiler-free. The game will be judged in the weighted categories of
Graphics(10),
Gameplay (30),
Plot(30) and
Presentation(30). Audio will not be judged because I can't hear any of it (not an issue with the game) q_q. The second part is intended mainly for the developer and will be spoileriffic. It is a collection of the notes I took during my 7 hour journey through the game: My reactions to gameplay/story, my strategies, misgivings, musings, etc.
PART I
Graphics: I put this first because visuals are the first thing one sees in a game. However, I'm not going to deduct points for things like 'not being 3D' or 'not custom.' So long as the graphics do not disrupt the gameplay, story or presentation while also helping to set the correct atmosphere, they're doing their job.
That said, graphically, Loyalty does well. It's mostly RTP, which makes that fairly simple, but the maps are also laid out with purpose rather than at random. This may be because some of them are at least partially stock, but I don't mind developers choosing to use someone else's maps if they can't do better themselves.
There are a few buildings that seem impossible to get into
(-1: Immersion breaking), though, and when moving through castles one often finds that you've gone down a flight of stairs and ended up in a room ten meters away on the same floor
(-2: Immersion breaking). These same rooms tend to look impossible to get into until you find you've inexplicably entered.
Total: 7/10
Gameplay: This is the second thing a person notices, since plot necessarily needs time to establish itself. That said, gameplay must be judged somewhat in tandem with story, as the two need to have a beautiful relationship to make a proper game.
Loyalty starts us off with all of the skill's we'll ever know, which is fine. There's rather little progression, and all of that is in the small stat increases from leveling up. The difference in power, however, is palpable. This also makes lots of sense since the characters are all supposed to be great at their jobs, not small-town scrubs. I would have preferred if the characters had started above level one to reinforce that point, but that's more of a presentation thing.
The combat system gives you two skills to start with which cost 10 SP and give you 10 Aggression. You regenerate 10 SP a turn, so you can use these indefinitely. Next, you have two skills that use 20 Aggression and cost 15 SP, then some tertiary skills that use 40 Aggression and cost 25 SP. It's a fairly interesting model, though the SP part feels unnecessary.
SP regenerates outside of combat, and you'll almost never run low on it outside of boss fights. If you do, running in circles for a bit will remedy it. In order to regenerate your SP, you need to use basic attacks, but those do little to no damage, so your only real choice is to use an SP restorative item. The end result is that for the majority of the game, SP does absolutely nothing. There's no managing it because you can't do anything without it, and there's no utilizing natural regen as you'll just get torn to shreds in the meantime. Normal enemies will die before you run out of it, and when it comes into play against bosses, it's a purely negative experience. You're grinding out the fight when, suddenly, you're forced to drink an SP potion and then continue the grind.
If we discount normal attacks, which is not unreasonable, SP functions much like the traditional mana. However, since it's not a 'be awesome with mana, manage your awesomeness to conserve mana' and instead a 'be normal with mana and have no options without,' it feels poor. Fortunately, since it only pops up in boss fights and then only briefly, it does not have a ruinous effect on the game.
(-2: Annoying mechanic)(-5: Poorly implemented mechanic)
Julius Logan, the first character, is molded as a leader. It makes lots of sense given his role in the world. For the most part, he works, but it often feels like his two basic aura abilities are the right choice no matter what. Besides them, he has rather binary skills. He has a 100% stun, which is dubious, but obviously reliable. He can remove buffs from enemies, which is useful only at times when it is absolutely required. He can raise his threat rate so that enemies target him more for a while, which is useful, but doesn't present much in the way of choices. Finally, he can crush a single enemy's defense, which is probably not as useful as raising the whole team's attack save for a few solo enemy situations. The end result is that there is often a clear optimal choice, and when there isn't, the difference between choices is minimal. This means that it's a matter of 'how well do you stay on the path' instead of any meaningful choice.
(+Presentation: Character matches skills)(-2: Golden path design)
Sarah Hawke, the second character, is a sniper. She has one of the two spike heals in the game and hers is the more powerful. She also has a plethora of status effects, one on four out of her 5 non-heal skills. The player often has to decide between healing an ally (though potions are generally better), laying down a status effect, or doing damage. There are many ways forward, and none rises clearly above the others.
(+Well designed skillset)
Erik Wilder is a hunter. He has the other spike heal which has the added benefit of curing status effects and boosting immunity to the above. With enough time to build up, he can hit very hard, but he needs a great deal of aggression to do so. By the time he's ready to really let loose, the fight is generally over. This is not a detriment, though. Quite the opposite in that the player has to decide 'do I do average damage from the start' or 'do I buckle down and really rip them apart.' There is the issue of his silence, though, which is again either totally useless or hilariously useful. There is some middle ground where he uses it and the enemies use a turn on an item to get rid of it, though.
(+Big picture player choice)(-0.5: Questionably handled status)
Lize Baroque is an assassin. Her skillset reflects that very, very well. It's not a run-of-the-mill assassin set either; more of a 'yeah, she could kill me with that.' She's somewhat lacking in single-target damage as compared to her AoE, but has the skills to completely destroy any melee target. In fact, one might say she is too effective against melee...if you can kill the mages , of which there is never more than one, Lize becomes effectively invincible. Not surprisingly, most bosses in the game (and all of the later bosses) consist of a powerful mage protected by minions or a powerful mage that is also a demon.
(+Original skillset)(-1 Absurdly powerful ability)
The mapping generally allows for a well-paced experience. While it does sometimes violate physics, it is never in the way or unduly confusing.
The item system is odd in that there's never any headgear for any characters ever. Nonetheless, they all have a headgear slot. There are several items dropped that forego raw power in favor of other bonuses, but these seem largely not worthwhile.
(-1: Under-developed items.)
Enemies are appropriately difficult, though they often feel like they take too long to defeat. No matter how weak the opponents are, the characters need to build aggression before they can really claim victory. This isn't a huge issue since the player doesn't really need to backtrack through weaker areas, but it re-appears in same-level encounters too. Even if the enemy poses no threat whatsoever, it will still take 3+ rounds of focus fire to take them down. More if you just used all of your aggression on some other enemy. This is after some power leveling, too.
(-3: Battles go on too long)
On the bright side, the enemies are pretty varied outside of bosses, so if you run straight through the game, you probably won't get tired of any of them.
Bosses, however, run the gamut from a good time to frustrating. They generally have some signature attack to work around, though too often this signature attack involves them becoming essentially untargetable for one reason or the other. One gains evasion, another absorbs damage and returns it and several have minions covering them. The early bosses (including the one with evasion) feel ok. The minion bosses have rather limited possible strategies to employ against them since the minions provide cover; You either kill the minions first or use Logan's 'remove cover' ability. Of course, the minions restore cover quite quickly, but even barring that it's generally a better idea just to pummel them into the ground and chip away at the summoner via AoE abilities. Finally, the signature attacks often happen with notification, but after there's any chance for the player to react, if there ever was. This is remedied in later fights, or rather, in the last fight. It often feels like the bosses were meant to be beaten on the second try rather than the player having a fair shake on the first, but if you're not on legendary difficulty, you'll be fine with adjusting on the fly.
(-4: Overly restricting boss tactics)
The optional boss, however, basically wrote the book on frustrating, though. He has an ability that makes attacking him suicide that remains up periodically for most of the fight. It's effective enough that a single round of high damage skills will cause him to ohko your entire party. In the brief intervals where you can safely attack him, you also have to deal with his 4-8 attacks per round, half of which inflict poison/bleed. That, in and of itself, is frustrating, but then he also has an extra action every round that drains life from every party member and heals him. This means that he's healing even when he can't be attacked, and healing enough that even if you develop a winning strategy, it will still take you forever to kill him. I personally opted out of the fight after ~15 minutes of waiting, attacking, waiting, waiting, waiting, attacking. It is optional, though, I can't imagine anyone would willing subject themselves to that.
(-2: Super frustrating optional boss.)
Total: 12.5/30
Plot: This is a game that would make an interesting short story as well. There are no deadly leaps in logic, nor is there any unbearable downtime.
I can't go into detail without spoilers, but I do touch on my dissatisfaction with the ending in part II of this review. In short, the game had a chance for a perfect ending, but then went on for another few minutes, effectively soiling the opportunity. The events that took place could still take place. But they'd need to happen before the perfect ending opportunity. Nevertheless, it is a rather well-done take on an under-used story archetype.
(-5: Ending)
The writing is, over all, pretty good. It too often opts for over-used phrases though, robbing key moments of the intended and proper weight. There are no exposition dumps, thankfully, and it steers clear of heart tugs before properly affixing characters to your heart.
(-3: Several moments lack proper weight.)
Julius Logan is not a new character by any means, but he is a well-executed trope. We get a feel for him from the people surrounding him, but also by the decisions he makes, rather than from him confessing to us.
(+Well executed character.)
Sarah Hawke is a handful of tropes, but a well-handled handful. You won't find anything new with her, but she will make you wonder why you put up with less artful use of her tropes.
(+Well handled character.)
Erik Wilder is, again, trope-ish. However, he's even better handled than the rest. Not only is he written well, but the devices used to establish his character are well chosen and well delivered. He's the best of a good crop of characters.
(+Well handled character.)
Lize Baroque is unfortunately fumbled. While all of the characters feel like their traits were chosen via a roll of the dice, her particular particulars come across as choppy and heavy-handed. She is potentially interesting in much the same way as a large fan can potentially cool your face. Get to close to the fan, however, and you won't be able to breath. Lize's delivery feels much the same way, as it's difficult to get into the story with her often ham-fisted representation.
(-3 Fumbled characterization)
The world is built up enough for the purposes of the game; enough to be an asset. At the same time, there were no moments of over eager dispensing of information.
Total: 19/30
Presentation: Generally, the game comes across well. It includes a handful of camping scenes with optional characterization and boasts very interactive NPCs. Everyone you talk to will have some personality, even the innkeepers. There are cutscenes, when appropriate, and brief conversation scenes used to ample effect.
There are, however, a handful of scenes that use only emote bubbles for communication. I, for one, had very little idea of what was happening during these. It would have been best to have actual dialouge, but even total silence would probably have communicated more effectively by letting simple character movements tell the story. Thankfully, there were only a couple of those.
(-3: Incomprehensible cutscene)
Total: 27/30
Adjustment: +3 (Because sometimes, a game is more or less than the sum of its parts.)
Game Total: 70/100 (Some problems, but still a solid play. I do not suggest playing on the legendary difficulty, but the lower two are worth doing for a well-done story. Combat is fun, though the novelty wears thin over the course of the game, it should hold up long enough to complete it...just skip the optional boss.)
PART II
-Right from the start, when choosing difficulties, the game tells me about how unfair it is and how it introduced two lower difficulties besides the intended one because it was so unfair. After choosing the 'hard but more fair' route, it lets me know that "three of the most unfair boss attacks have been slightly nerfed to be a bit more fair." Let's just say that I am very afraid. Any design philosophy where fair is optional or unfair is intended gives me the willies.
Next, it says that I'll need to be on the lookout for hints for dealing with the bosses. This is not what I wanted to hear after being told the game isn't fair.
-In the first battle, which should be super easy, my team hits the enemies for 50% of their hp while they hit me for 5% of mine. Mission accomplished, albeit, maybe too far?
More importantly, my GOLEMS gain aggression. The robot apocalypse is nigh q_q
-After the GOLEMS are sent off, presumably to began planning their takeover, I get a party of three FLESHMEN. Right now, I'm wondering why I would want to ever use the attack option for these other two as building aggression is so key to the combat. This isn't bad, per se, as it almost always means more engaging combat.
UPDATE: The attack option is used to allow SP to build back up. Only becomes an issue in boss fights, really, at which point it's really annoying. The boss fight is not the time where I want to be using the relatively weak attacks. SP restore items may become indispensable, then, but I'm not sure the double limiter (aggression and SP, one short term and one long) is really needed.
UPDATE: The attack option seems to do little to no damage to stock enemies...not satisfying at all since it's not really optional.
-Rebel B is hero without equal! He's taken like 3x the punishment of any of the other identical rebels I've faced thus far. A different pallette or some sort of cue would have been nice.
-I don't have a numpad and ESC isn't bringing up the menu, so I don't know if I can save...
Seems that saving in the intro isn't allowed, menu works fine later.
-There's some hullabaloo going on that I thought was the main quest, so I skipped it to do some exploring first...but instead I found the main quest and now I'm not allowed to go back to check it out for some reason?
-Bruce just blew up his allies? But why? He couldn't have asked them to move? And, did that explosion even slow his pursuers down? Maybe he was blowing up the GOLEMS, but I didn't see them and there was no GOLEMSPEAK so I dunno. It's really hard to swallow a character that frags his teammates in his introduction for dubious reasons.
-Bruce threatens to throw an explosive mid battle and I'm given some dialouge queues on what to do about it. However, due to agility and the explosive being lobbed literally the next round, one of the queues is impossible to follow up on (Logan is too slow, even if you happen to have 40 AGR already). Hawke had the AGR to lower the guys accuracy, thankfully, though this was less than foolproof. It would have been nice to have a little more time to deal with it, but ultimately the damage wasn't so high that it felt unfair.
-After the fight, the whole scene goes sepia like a flashback and there's a cutscene with only emotion bubbles. I don't really know what happened or who the new person who walks up is or anything....it was just kind of strange...It moves on to a cutscene where one character is talking and the other is only using bubbles, but he must be saying stuff because the first character responds. Hearing one side of the conversation while seeing both players...I just don't really get what was supposed to be felt here.
-The Queen says she can't trust Julius, then gives him a mission of critical importance for him to prove himself on...? It kind of makes sense because it's a suicide mission almost, but it he was a rebel in disguise, then she basically just sealed the fate of her country.
-I like the character summaries in the guise of a report on the table. Not totally sure why he'd write a report on that while drunk last night (presumably), but it's helpful.
-Lots of stuff to interact with. Logan appears to talk to himself, but that's fine as it's a convention. I'd rather have the character building than a strict no one-man convo rule.
-Julius is a LEVEL ONE VETERAN. And a scarred one at that. Probably fine in terms of gameplay but it's a bit of a tug on the storytelling.
-I get a list saying where my teammates are, which is nice.
-Found a report talking about Wyverns and the best approach to fighting them. I am now waiting for the WYVERNS to swoop out of the rafters and attack me, hopefully before I forget about this little tidbit.
-LIZE's intro convo is done pretty well. The dialouge is very good, though a little short of great. Her gambling debt motivation is handled very well as we learn about it via believable speech between the characters, though her observation that the queen would intervene upon her refusal could have felt less exposition-y if worded differently.
-The one-man convos get a little wierd when I walk into Hawke's room and muse to myself about all of her stuff, even mentioning that I'm going to have to talk to her when we get back, all while she's sitting at the table.
-There are a few rooms that seem to be totally walled in...there's a curtain that signifies that there may be an entrance there, but...unless there are stairs in the walls...?
-The GOLEMs are still pretending to be subservient. My HACKLES are raised. The locals seem to be blithely unaware of the pending threat. At least one already professes to want FLESHMEN to be harmed before GOLEMS.
-Wilder and Sally's intro in the castle is FLAWLESS. Personality is conveyed by creeping through their room first if you want, but even without that everything happens just right. Unfortunately, Wilder is a GREAT DAD and therefore he probably isn't going to survive.
-There's a WORLD MAP which is nice. I head WEST for the ENEMY LAND but there's a city so I stop and check it out. The GOLEMs are watching this town as well. I stop by the church to beg mercy for their souls and hear more about WYVERNs. The world is a scary place. In the pub, an OLD GUY echoes my concern about the golems.
-Some of the NPCs engage in conversation with Logan, though others just kind of talk at him. Of note, there are no throw-away filler lines there. Everything gives me more info on the world, mostly.
-PRETTY VANGUARD LADY in the pub gives me a hint that I'll need medicine for an upcoming fight. I ignore her. I want to see if it's still possible just by believing in myself.
-The pub is mapped with HUGE tables, making it a bit cumbersome to navigate.
-It seems the town was just there for NPC convos and a place to buy medicine for the upcoming fight. I'm guessing it comes into play later in the game.
-I swear Wilder said the trail was southEAST, when it is in fact southWEST.
-LIZE objects to operation CRAZY but is talked down because if word gets out about the operation, the country is doomed. Maybe she was more afraid of Logan killing her to prevent that? Throughout this convo, LIZE's dialouge is pretty stiff, though Wilder and Hawke come across alright. Logan is also stiff and oddly emotionless, but that might be intended?
-Battles come in the form of on-map enemies. They're difficult enough that I have to keep my mind running, which is good.
-A WYVERN appeared. I remembered all the tips, but, there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it taking off. So it was nice to know and all, but ultimately there was no opportunity for added gameplay.
-The SPIDER attacks and it seems that the antidotes aren't do or die, assuming this is the boss that PRETY VANGUARD was talking about. It is a long fight, though. Probably standard, but I can't say I enjoy the repeated actions and the slow approach of an SP crisis. Also, most of the damage in boss fights ends up coming from the BLEED debuff. It's not like there's some option; either they're bleeding or you're screwing up. Not terrible, but a golden path is never pretty.
The fight gives less exp than the stock fights, too, though way more GOLD.
-Hawke hates spiders. She can probably be trusted in the upcoming GOLEM COUP.
-It seems like my SP was randomly regenerated? Does it recover outside of battle?
-There's a guy offering to play cards that leads to more stilted dialouge between LIZE and LOGAN. Thankfully, WILDER has a delightful NPC tidbit at the same place, so balance is preserved.
-Rather annoying to have an NPC trigger a convo between two NPCs, then have the second one trigger the same convo. Curiousity is going to kill me too.
-An old lady witnessed NECROMANCY and asks a guard to investigate, but he's too scared that no one comes out of that place alive. But. The OLD LADY seems to have been just fine, so I think he's a wuss.
-The EXPERT'S MANUAL seems like the best choice for everything as a level up will give similar stats to the increase from a new weapon (a bit less), and more than just that one stat. Also, gold spent on leveling up is always there, whereas buying a weapon means you'll be replacing it down the road, making the gold purchase temporary. However, I do not like electronic BOOKS so I'm buying ARMOR.
Also, I have Logan constantly using non-attack skills or attacking solely for the status effect, so I don't care about his attack. WILDER would benefit, but I doubt he would scale as well as HAWKE, who I buy a weapon for. LIZE's damage is mostly from her bleed on hard enemies, which is %hp damage, making her atk irrelevant except in stock fights where her high base is ample. Since I can only afford one weapon, it goes to HAWKE.
-Yeah, there seems to be 0 reason to ever attack instead of using an SP restore item. It just doesn't deliver. Also, the enemies in the Forest of DOOM hit like pansies compared to the earlier crowd.
-And yeah, SP regenerates outside of battle, making it officially a non-issue outside of boss fights. Even if I somehow blow through it all without killing everything, I can just walk back and forth until it comes back since there are no random encounters and no respawns. That said, it doesn't enhance the boss battles at all, just makes them frustrating. It's not even real difficulty, just a 'oh yeah, every now and then you'll have to use an item instead." Not big enough of a burden to warrant a change in strategy and certainly not big enough to avoid using SP since the normal attack is so terrible...thus, it adds nothing positive to the gameplay.
-The ZOMBIES Robed Man summons appear A, C, B rather than in order.
-Also, after OLD MAN told me about two different tactics to take on enemies like ROBED MAN, it'd be nice if both were legit. Focusing the target seems like a poor idea, though, since he has a 2 -> 5 hp leech ratio from his minions. He's going to live long enough that focusing solely on him won't result in having to kill any less hp, and you'll have a constant pounding from the zombies to deal with. Also, it's once again a repeated dance. Just keep doing the same thing over and over. I'd prefer to have the fight end once my strategy hits it's peak, rather than having to run the cycle with little difference over and over.
That said, the zombie thing is REALLY COOL. Just, it gets tiresome. It'd be better if there was some indication that the zombies aren't infinite, which I know only from reading a different review where I first learned about the game. Like, maybe if the OLD MAN said that instead.
Also, simply by employing WILDER's silence, the fight goes from really hard to laughably easy. As in, the Robed Man just sits there and takes hits. Like beating a log.
-HAWKE gets the option of a weapon that is weaker but shoots twice. This seems silly, since only her abilities actually do any damage. It might mean that she gets two actions, but I doubt I could take a battle with her weakened so oh well.
UPDATE: Tested it, it's a double normal attack. Sadly, 0 x 2 is still unimpressively low.
-I meet an injured soldier and LIZE immediately votes to leave him for dead because he's wearing the colors of the neutral country we're invading with the intent of killing their queen. Her characterization is still painfully stiff, for some reason, even as HAWKE and WILDER are being developed so well.
-New town, another convo where one side speaks only in bubbles. More good NPC world building as well, but also some filler. A man at the inn is interesting in how GOLEMs work. They will likely come for him soon.
-In the castle now, being attacked by SHIELDMAIDEN and 'SOLIDER.' Probably a typo?
-Found a room of BOOKS that seem to hint at a BOSS.
-I actually feel pretty bad killing these guys q_q
-Just found a DAGGER, but it has the same attack as the dagger I bought/found earlier and far less agility. The flavor text might mean there's some non-stat bonus, maybe? Not risking it...silly AIRSHARD...
-LIZE's Malevolent Riposte is incredibly powerful. Unless there's a mage, she gives the whole group effective invincibility for several rounds. By the time it wears off, she has the AGR to do it again. Not to mention, since she's counterattacking, she can just chill in between casts to keep her SP up or use items or w/e.
Like, seriously...100% counter attack rate?
UPDATE: One attack got through, so it's not 100%...but still absurdly high as I've gone through the last two fights with just LIZE nd JULIAN.
-The inside of the castle betrays all of the laws of physics. I go up or down stairs, but instead end up in the room just on the other side of the wall or such. Had the rooms been separated so that I couldn't see everything else, it wouldn't be so jarring.
-Not sure if I missed all the headgear, or if it just doesn't exist.
-Shining Fist says that LIZE will be able to sometimes counterattack. The battles are too hard for me to sacrifice attack on it unless the counter rate is high, but I am remiss to try to test this. Would be nice if it just gave me a number.
-This painspawn starts gathering pain at the start of the round, meaning I have no time whatsoever to react. Then, it bounces said pain back at me, OHKOing my entire party. As in, an AoE attack dealing 150% of the party's max hp. Basically, unless I had fought it before and died to that attack, I wouldn't know that I should hold off attacking it in the first round.
That's not 'difficulty,' that's flat out unfair. I shudder to think what would have happened had I actually been on the LEGEND difficulty.
-Worse yet, if I want to fight it again, I have to watch that whole cut scene again.
-Roud two, it uses some lethal claws attack that hits 5 or 6 times and applies two statuses. I was in full defensive mode and got lucky, so it wasn't devastating, but that seems kind of impossible to deal with...Am I underleveled? Despite fighting more than I needed too? Everyone is lvl 11/12, but it feels like I'd have to grind considerably before having a fighting chance. Forced grinding is...well, combat is fairly interesting, but not so much that I'd do combat for the fun of it.
-I wait out the pain absorbtion and am satisfied to see it hit me for 0 this time rather than ~650. However, I then have two turns in which I can deal damage before he starts absorbing pain again. I also have to deal this damage while dealing with his 6 x ~80 damage swipes that inflict poison and bleed at a high rate. Then, once he starts absorbing pain again, I must watch as he heals away a significant chunk of my damage.
UPDATE: It seems the PAINSPAWN attacks twice, which made it seem like more swipes. Sometimes, it opts for a few swipes and a few of some other attack that doesn't hurt as much and doesn't apply statuses.
Of interest, though, LIZE's bleed damage is identical to his heal, so it can be cancelled out.
The expelled pain seems to be close to 100% of the damage he took, if not more. It also hits before Logan's AURA abilities, meaning I can't go defensive perhaps make it worthwhile. In other words, the only right choice is not to hit him; there are not many, if any, useful trade-offs.
I want to check if Logan can dispel the gathering pain bit, will do so if I survive.
UPDATE: Did not survive. No desire to try that fight again without getting stronger first. Even if that strategy works, I'll probably still be fighting the thing for 20 minutes.
-Shortly after the PAINSPAWN, party is given the ability to leave dungeon and return directly instead of walking all the way back in. This is greatly APPRECIATED.
-Of note, the innkeeper has quite a bit of personality. LOVE it.
-OPERATION POWER LEVEL has begun. The guards take a long time to kill and are sort of a pain. The monsters in the forest give comparable crowns, though (70 compared to 80) and about 2/3 of the exp. Since the gold, when translated into EXPERT MANUALS, beats the pants off of actual exp, I think I'll hang out here instead.
-Got everyone to lvl 15. Returned to the castle to find that the knights no longer posed a challenge. Commenced grinding on them instead. Eventually going to return to Robin Pass to farm out more Ambush Orders since it seems to be the best ACC by far, at least for non-boss battles.
-Picked up more EXPERT MANUALS after training to lvl 16 the old fashioned way. Gave all 8 of them to LIZE since her AoE opener (made possible by ambush orders) will likely ohko or nearly ohko all enemies now, making for quick golds.
-Returned to ROBIN PASS and got another AMBUSH PLAN. Now everyone except Julius has one.
-In the FOREST, I'm tempted to avoid enemies as the way they patrol allows it. It feels nice to do so, but it's kind of odd because later in the game I have to grind on enemies anyway.
-Fighting the PAINSPAWN again. It seems the second time it expels pain, I take damage even if I haven't damaged it? Or perhaps it counts the bleed damage in the absorbtion.
UPDATE: Yeah, it was the bleed damage.
-The PAINSPAWN, which I have been fighting for 10 minutes now, is not so much a difficult fight as a LONG one. Once the party reaches a point where it doesn't get more or less auto-killed, it's just a matter of wittling its hp down super slowly, made worse by its constant healing. I think I shall leave it be, as rather than feeling like a challenge to overcome, it feels like a huge waste of time. For reference, party levels are 16/16/16/24.
-Fighting in the throne room. Becoming more and more obvious how long the enemy's turn takes, what with all the status things and what not.
-The Archmage is more interesting to fight than the PAINSPAWN, though the use of cover again is kind of annoying. Once the cover goes up, my options shrink to A: Remove the Cover or B: Focus the Minotaur. The former is very binary and the latter is a bit of a false choice as the Minotaur gets resurrected shortly after death. While I have plenty of skills, there's only one real path to victory and my success depends on how well I follow it. At the least, the Minotaur should stay dead longer.
-LIZE just betrayed the party? Well, now I feel silly for pouring all my resources into her.
-LOGAN orders WILDER not to die. It's a bit overdone to evoke the intended feels with such a stock delivery, though. Also, the line 'come at me' was never intended to be a serious dramatic tool.
-ROBIN'S pass entrance is in the tile above it actually looks like it is.
-HAWKE SUCKS at jumping.
-The GOLEMS have usurped command. Oddly enough, while my party is not with me, I still get notifications that they have ambushed the enemy.
-Also, since I have no team, LOGAN can't build AGGRESSION via abilities without basically wasting a turn.
-The parallel cutscene with the ghost of his brother is pretty cool.
-Should be noted that the fully interactive ending is very nice.
-The COWARD's ending is...really not satisfying. If it had ended after the PARALLEL cutscene, it would have been a top-notch ending. Watching everyone die, though, instead of implied deaths...that's just pain without meaning.
-The other choice is...all of the same issues, but now with more story. The story itself is fitting and good, though the writing that conveys it is riddled with overdone speech. It fails to come off as climactic drama.
-Tragedies are fine. They are also fickle, though, and one would be very ill-advised to stray from the greek model. Basically, it's fine to kill people, even fine to kill everyone, but there must be a solid reason for each death and it must not be contrived. The deaths should be directly and obviously linked to punishment for some character's action. Also, the goal of the tragedy must be to impart some moral, and the tragic fates must converge around reinforcing that moral.
For that reason, the PARALLEL scene ending was great. Everything, all the assumed deaths, reinforced the moral of 'Unwavering loyalty is bad.' We were shown a full circle and all the necessary conventions were flipped on their heads.
Then, with the actual ending, we see WILDER die in the forest, his own domain. It was foreshadowed by his discomfort with giant flora/fauna earlier, but still seems wrong. Second, his death is all tragedy, no moral. We've already had the FULL CIRCLE closed, so this just feels like getting kicked while down.
HAWKE gets killed by a wolf, as foreshadowed by her fear of wolves. However, with her being a SNIPER and being billed as having a QUICK DRAW, it feels wrong for her to not be able to shoot a wolf that runs in a straight line. The death feels contrived, tragic and lacking in the needed moral implications. Again, it happens outside of the CIRCLE.
LIZE seems to be doing well, which is a bit of a subversion as she deserved punishment more than anyone, but that's not a damaging choice for the story.
-If you want to keep the deaths, you should move them to directly after the characters are left behind. That way, the deaths happen WITHIN the circle. The tragic peak is raised and the PARALLEL scene grows in power. Also, while WILDER's death is ironic but not contrived, HAWKE'S death needs some indication that she's run out of bullets or some such thing.
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