ENKER'S PROFILE

I've just purchased a DS this week (late I know, but I got there) so I've cleared Final Fantasy 3, Chocobo Tales and Magical Starsign and am about to start Pokemon Pearl.

I find that more often than not, when looking through the options a character has to attack (spells, abilities, physical, etc) most people will try out a status effect once and then not use it again. Some of the positives get a lot of attention, especially in boss battles where their duration lasts longer and benefits are more obvious, but casting mini, berserk, etc tends to be a turn wasted for many regular encounters and a draw on mp that could be used for vital healing later.

The Final Fantasy series has made good productive use of their effects for the most part. In particular the FF6 trick of casting a high level spell on your party when shielded by reflect and seeing multiple spells hitting a boss or enemy for lots of damage. Sleep was also a particularly powerful move in FF8 where it allowed you to draw indeffinatly and not wake up the monster in question.

However in games where characters have their powers pre-assigned then it is normally the status mage that looses out. Healers normally recieve the regen and barrier casting skills and sometimes hastening and attack charging as well, meaning that some poor sod gets lumbered with all of the others. A good example of this would be FF4's Edward (the spoony bard), who few players would relish having in their party despite the likability of his character in-game. Status inducing characters are a tough thing to balance.

Odd but true fact - I was the first person in the UK to own a copy of Yellow - a full year before the official release, by pure fluke. I am however going to go with Blue as my fave (till Crystal came along!) it had a nice balance of in-game pokemon.

Have you noticed how the balance for pokemon in the later games seems to have gone a tad wrong? Look at Pearl for example, only two fire pokemon to choose from till after the elite four, and one of those is a starter.

Appologies for being away so long - I've been ill and just gotten better ;)

sounds pretty sweet to me!