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Post by Ex on May 31, 2019 16:23:22 GMT -5
7/10 seems fair for what I played of it, Ex . And wow, 23 hours? Apparently I'm not as close to the end as I thought. Chapter 18, I think I said, at 10.5 hours. A lot of those later battles must take quite a while. My time got inflated by three or so hours due to having to grind against chapter 14. I later realized the primary reason I was having such a hard time against 14, is because I didn't know you could resurrect defeated units in battle. I was so used to playing hardcore SRPGs, that thought didn't even cross my mind. So when I realized that you could use special items, as well as revival spells, to bring back defeated units while in battle - that made all the difference in the world. If I'd known that, I never would have had to grind against chapter 14 to begin with. I assure you Luminous Arc is a very easy and relatively short SRPG. I'd wager you could finish the game in 17-20 hours if you knew what you were doing (i.e. knowing you can revive units).
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Post by Sarge on May 31, 2019 16:54:06 GMT -5
Interesting, good to know! Might give it a shot if I'm feeling froggy.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2019 17:23:04 GMT -5
It's not high priority, but I'll consider giving Luminous Arc another chance for when I'm feeling like playing some chill SRPG. Some of those witches look pretty witchin'.
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Post by Ex on May 31, 2019 17:52:14 GMT -5
Some of those witches look pretty witchin'. Honestly other than the good OST, the witches are the selling point. Although you rarely get to see them in their full entirety in-game, to do that you'll need to look up the character concept art. A few examples: Overall LA1 wasn't too bad, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Hopefully LA2 manages to have a better plot, more varied mission objectives, and is actually challenging.
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Post by Sarge on May 31, 2019 22:07:58 GMT -5
Funnily enough, I don't even own Luminous Arc legitimately, but I have its sequel, with all the attendant goodies that came with the release (i.e. the cardboard box and soundtrack sampler).
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Post by toei on Jun 1, 2019 9:53:33 GMT -5
So I checked out a Stella Deus FAQ's index just to see how much longer it would be and apparently I've got 6 battles left (plus a bunch of side-quests that I'm not high-level enough to do - I suspect most of them are either meant to be done right before the end or maybe even after). While on GameFAQs, I made the mistake of skimming through some reviews. I guess I'd forgotten how dumb the average GameFAQs review was (I know some of you write GF reviews, but you probably know exactly what I'm talking about). And every negative review claims that you have to do a ton of level-grinding in the Catacombs, while simultaneously complaining that the game is too easy or too simple. Clearly, though, it's not so simple that they figured out how to play it, because you never have to grind. It literally doesn't make sense to, since the game heavily scales experience so that you're always within a level or two of the enemies'. There are some tough battles early on where you have to hang on and do everything you can and occasionally some your characters might die (which doesn't matter), but eventually you gain access to skills that make things a lot easier.
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Post by Ex on Jun 1, 2019 10:26:17 GMT -5
I'd forgotten how dumb the average GameFAQs review was You are correct. It is very rare that I find GameFAQs reviews that I agree with, especially concerning RPGs. Although to be honest, even "professional" reviews are usually pretty dumb... just slightly better written.
I know this sounds elitist; but grinding in RPGs is something that less intelligent people seek to do, in order to overcome a lack of personal tactical ability. That's why I get super pissed when RPGs suddenly throw disingenuous difficulty roadblocks at the player, which are specifically designed to force the player to grind.
I thought that was what happened in chapter 14 of LA, but it ended up being I didn't know you could revive. However I remember in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together on PSP (as an example), I kicked that game's ass sideways until I got to the very end; the Hanging Gardens section. All of a sudden enemies were like 10-15 levels higher than my units, and we could barely even dent them. So yeah, I had to go mindlessly grind for a long time, just so my unit statistics could overcome their numerical algorithms allowing for actual damage. I've seen this sort of thing in other RPGs as well, it always irks the piss outta me.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2019 12:55:00 GMT -5
And every negative review claims that you have to do a ton of level-grinding in the Catacombs, while simultaneously complaining that the game is too easy or too simple. Yeah, all the fuss about the Catacombs grinding on GameFAQs is what scared me away from the game. Good to know that's not the case. By the same token, now I'm starting to question whether grinding truly is a requirement in Hoshigami as well.
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Post by toei on Jun 1, 2019 17:07:19 GMT -5
And every negative review claims that you have to do a ton of level-grinding in the Catacombs, while simultaneously complaining that the game is too easy or too simple. Yeah, all the fuss about the Catacombs grinding on GameFAQs is what scared me away from the game. Good to know that's not the case. By the same token, now I'm starting to question whether grinding truly is a requirement in Hoshigami as well. I think I actually found the answer to that question regarding Hoshigami. One of the reviews stated that its balance heavily favors magic at the expense of melee fighting, so in order to do well you have to focus character growth on attack magic. If you do that, you apparently don't need to grind. With Stella Deus, you also get some freedom as to how your characters develop in the sense that you get to pick which skills you want among those available for each character and there are a lot of different possible combinations of equipment, including up to four accessories at once per character which can affect things in a variety of ways, and some of which need to be obtained through fusing other items. So about half the strategy is in the preparation outside of battle - it becomes very important as the game progresses to understand what the different stats and skills and effects do and to rearrange things regularly to improve weaknesses as they become apparent. The balance fluctuates a lot throughout the game - early on, magic is super powerful, but MP is low. Then you gain access to a skill that lets you regain MP in battle, but melee becomes more important. Then enemies have higher evasion rates, so you need to find a solution to boost your accuracy. Whenever things get difficult, you need to identify what the problem is, then work towards fixing it so that it's not a problem again in the future. Grinding is just the lazy way out. It doesn't require that you look closely at the game and learn how it works as you play (and there are tons of optional tutorials if you need them) or that you think at all. But of course, it's also the boring, tedious, time-consuming solution. You should do the side-quests when you come across them (though sometimes they'll become available before you're strong enough, so it's better to just leave them for later when that happens), but actual grinding in the Catacombs is entirely unnecessary. Also, and this is especially true early on, you should never abandon a battle, even if characters die, even if it seems like the boss has too much HP left. As long as your main character is alive, you should keep going. I won at least 4 or 5 major battles, if not more, in those exact conditions. A lot of bosses are recurring characters, too, so they actually retreat when you get their HP down to a certain level the first time you fight them; you're not actually supposed to get it down to 0. And this isn't Fire Emblem, either. Losing a character only reduces their Luck stat by a few points, which isn't important. Each of them can afford to die a bunch of times if necessary. And the game becomes way easier about midway through.
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Post by Xeogred on Jun 2, 2019 16:29:27 GMT -5
Powered through the rest of the UCS campaign today on Front Mission DS. Last save was 8:27.
For the overall better plot, I still might give it to the main scenario and original game. That's mainly because it's 2-3x times longer though and covers more ground. However character/writing wise the new UCS scenario is much better and more detailed. I liked how you can talk to each member of your squad in between missions as well. This scenario fills in a few gaps from the main game and it's cool to see what was going on at the other side for a few key missions, but this almost feels like this is a large and elaborate prelude for even more things to come later in the series. There was a lot of setup and hinting at near the end. While it was satisfyingly concluded as well. So I wonder how tightly knit together all the games are story wise and if some characters cross over here and there. Chances are, maybe this set things up for FM2 which we didn't get... so that would be a waste. lol, who knows. I'll find out when I play FM3 someday.
Gameplay wise, this scenario was a cake walk for me. I knew exactly how to handle the game and build my units this time. Most missions were a little smaller in scale too, in the end you only command a total of 7 units in this scenario. I'll admit I referenced a guide at times to find the special mobile units, which are hidden on random spots sometimes, not sure how one would legitimately ever "accidentally" find any of these. Think I got ~2-4 of them and used a few after awhile. But even then, there were times I didn't even bother buying new parts in between some missions because I was blasting through it so easily. It was cool how this scenario had some new enemy types like normal tanks, helicopters, etc, new maps and graphics, character avatars, etc.
FM1 and Gun Hazard knocked out, definitely loving this series so far. Looking forward to the others eventually.
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