BEREGON'S PROFILE

author=boos405

author=Beregon
Pretty much every boss (except the General and he was so easy it didn't matter) had minions that had nasty attacks and had to be dealt with before you could actually damage the real boss. Hence Stun/Mass Stun being so great here. Stun and Mass Stun also inflicted the Distract status, so even if the bosses were immune to stunning, they still got 1000+ Backstab crits per round. Double it by 2 if the princess is a Rogue. The Rogues also had that Multiattack skill that melted random encounters.

The Mage is also pretty boring, most of its spells were basically the same, exccept with a minor effect thrown on top. And no idea why that level 2 skill even exists. The Worst designed class is probably the Warlock, whose playstyle doesn't work due to weak (and maybe bugged?) skills and wouldn't fit into the game with that boss debuff even if it was. But Warlock is actually very capable of surviving Boss Encounters due to a very large amount of HPO, so I still put them above Mage. But seriously, an AoE skill that does little damage to the enemy, but nearly wipes your whole party is worse than useless and I think that was one of the Warlock's high level skills. Even Mage doesn't have a skill as terrible as that.

Yeah, once you find the dream team, there's actually little reason to switch. I agree about the story reasons behind keeping the main character in the party, but along with the gameplay encounraging you to switch characters and making over half the classes actually very situational, it seriously detracts from the gameplay. That plugin you speak of could've worked well here, though not sure if it was around when the game was released. Class change could work wonders for this game.

I agree about the Main Character's scenes with the Rogue. Along with the Paladin, they were the best parts of the whole story. It's just that the main character seemed too passive. Her scenes with the Paladin and Rogue felt like they would lead to some character development, but the rushed ending kinda prevented any satisfying payoff.

Oh, I do agree that the developer was definitely on the right track and made a lot of good things here. Hence my high rating.

No problem :)

Yes, I actually forgot that Backstab did criticals but remember it did huge damage and helped KO stuff super fast (but forgot that was because of Stun). I agree with everything you are saying, I don't remember anything about the Mage, I must've used it a bit but can't remember anything. Did the Warlock class have HP Drain? Yes, I think Warlock class was meant to feel it had sacrifice skills. That particular useless skill would've worked a lot better if it was HP Cost on Warlock alone VS everything, and less damage to the Warlock than the enemy. With more damage the lower the Warlock HP was as well.

I think my end team was Rouge, Rouge, Paladin, Warrior or Ranger. I remember I choice to take Bard out. I liked her action turn buff and other buffs but something made me take her out of the party. Think that was a mistake reading this and I remember she did have a super helpful skill that increase action turn. That was funny on a Rouge that hits twice.

Yes I thought it was a really fun game even though some stuff was OP, but overall I'd describe my ending and overall whole experience as slightly above average, and I think now it might be that passive main character issue you mention that made me think that and lower my overall experience a little.

I see what you mean about the main character now, she was passive a lot I think she did have some action and "took the lead" sometimes but it felt passive because any other character would do more action than her in most scenes, so at the end almost each character had there turn to take over the action (and that would rotate between those characters and be 2-3 of them in a single scene sometimes) and it was way more than her overall. She sort of followed around during the first half of the game as well.

But I still enjoyed her relationship with the Rouge and those scenes a lot, and I agree the Paladin ones I thought were good too.

Bard was indeed super op! 2 actions per turn of the whole party lasting 5 turns made so much more possible. Not to mention that "everyone also guards this turn" ability. Even better w+hen you got that special dagger for her from the bonus dungeon. It raised Agility so much that she always went first. Made her a great support. :) I don't remember if Warlock had a HPO drain spell now, but the skills it was using didn't really do much more damage no matter the Warlock's HP. And their AoE skill didn't belong in a game where enemies have much higher HP and defenses than your party.

Hello, glad you liked my review! I made it sort of a "stream of conciousness" style since I was writing it more for you as the developer than for prospective players. Sorry for the terrible attempts at humor :D

- The world map speed comment wasn't meant as something that neccessarily needs to be changed, it was meant to get across my feelings of frustration when playing the game. If the game had a reasonable encounter rate, I wouldn't mention it, but along with fights every 5 steps, it only increased my frustrations.

-I know I was probably on the right level curve, but that was with me fighting literaly every random encounter on the way and backtracking several times (and thus fighting even more random encounters). I mean, battles every 5 steps or so are bad enough, but when you can't even skip any of them without being underleveled for the boss, it makes it really annoying.

-The gold issue, I couldn't buy any consumables, because I had no money after buying weapons for Eldric, Xavier and maybe Mythia. I made do with what I got from treasure chests, which seems to be just enough to get by, but giving the player a bit more income would be appreciated. You could say it's my fault for buying the weapons, but I imagine the game would get even more slowpaced that way.

-I did use stat buffs, yes. How do you think I got through the Wyvern boss? :) I literally had to stack every stat buff skill over and over again to get through. On every boss beforehand, I always used both the damage buff and defense debuff skills on the bosses beforehand and I made sure to get the best weapon available for everyone but the healer (I managed by ignoring armor). It still took way too long.

- The limit skills do more single target damage than normal ones, but it's not by much. Glad to see they get more as they level up.

- The battle music was really awesome.

- The random battles seemed very well balanced when you were actually fighting.

- The battles themselves were pretty fun. I wouldve's enjoyed them more if they weren't so frequent though.

- The story is actually pretty good for a first draft.

Also, I figured I was probably at the end, since the playtime was close to those 3 hours, glad I didn't miss much. Hope you finish this :)

author=boos405
Wow what a good analytical look and thorough summary of the whole game.

I remember playing this a while back and enjoying it a lot. I think the writing was one of the stronger points and the gameplay felt good, above average but overall the experience for me still felt slightly above average.

Rouge was always the best class because it could hit twice and KO stuff quicker I think from memory. I felt some classes like that were waay better but had no idea how bad mages were. I also remember I really like the Paladin because it did good healing, but I really can't remember more then that.

Anyway nice clear explanation on what class is better in this game and why. : )

To add something I forgot to put into the review, Rogue was the best class for main character also because you could just use Distract/Stun/Mass Stun on the boss/minions with one and then instantly Backstab for massive damage with the other (since Distract/Stun status boosts the damage of that skill massively). Thus having more than one Rogue makes them even more powerful. Two Rangers wouldn't scale nearly as good.

Part of the reason why I wrote this review was the frustration of trying to beat the bonus boss with a Mage class on the main character. That was truly a testament to how I made the worst possible starting choice :D That No Healing/Mana Recovery debuff in boss fights was probably the second part. It really caused most of the problems in the game that could have been avoided. Also, in a game built entirely on switching your party on the fly, making the main character unable to be switched out feels like a pretty big design flaw.

Story was fine, very good at various points actually, but the main character was seriously the weakest part of it. Well, that and the final part of the game (after you return to the capital city onwards). I think the author just wanted to get this finished and thus rushed the ending a lot. Also, that final boss battle definitely came out of nowhere. Would've been better if there wasn't one at all.

Thanks for your comment :)

Mild Spoilers:

In case anyone wants to access the bonus dungeon (the tower that needs those 4 orbs inserted), then here are the orb locations:

- Red orb is located in one of the chests in Darmton. It's in one of the abandoned buildings on the first map I think.

- Blue orb is located in a chest on the southern side of the bridge located on the world map that bridges the river between Arafel and the Capital City. Approaching the bridge from the northern side teleports you to the northern part of the bridge map and vice-versa. Near the end of the game, the soldiers blocking the passage of the bridge disappear, allowing you to open the chest without approaching the bridge from the Arafel side.

- Green Orb is located in Barran Residental District, but it's only obtainable near the end of the game. After unlocking access to the Northern Pass, you can talk to a woman located in the house directly south of the one where the Rogue companion lives. Talk to the woman inside and she will give you the orb.

- White Orb is located in the North Pass map, but to access it, you need to pass a sidequest of sorts. In one of the chests in Darmton, you can find a Locket item. After acquiring this item, talk to one of the women located in the first floor of the inn in Benel and give her the Locket, she will give you Lute in exchange. Afterwards, go to Arafel, there's a fancy-dressed man walking around the town who happens to be a virtuoso. Give him the lute and he will give you Virtuoso's Autograph. With the autograph, go to Barran, the Exotic Armor shop there (the one with the red roof) has an NPC inside that will exchange the autograph for a Mining Pick. Now that you have the Mining Pick, you can destroy the stones blocking the way to treasures in the North Pass map. The White Orb is in one of the treasure chests blocked by a stone you can destroy with the mining pick.

After you have all the orbs, simply go to the tower near Barran at the world map and insert all the orbs and the gate will be opened.

Didn't play this very long. To say that the encounter rate is very high would be a bit of an understatement, as something happened every 1-2 steps. Mostly random battles against up to five goblins/constantly guarding slimes. I also had the event with a random Cat talking about how Shruriken are useless three times in a row, presumably in case I didn't get that using attack all over again was the best option at that point. I stopped playing after I reached Erast and entered a location there named Old Home. After leaving that location, I got teleported all the way back to the starting town instead of in front of Erast.

I like the board game aspect, but I'm not sure just how playable this is.