Is it just me, or is this past couple of years been the best time for rpgs since the heydey of the SNES?
I just got Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. It took me a while since I'd seen a lot of negative user reviews for it, but after playing it for a while, I've come to the conclusion that they are just a bunch of pussies. Ohhh it's too hard. Oohhh I can't save it every 5 minutes. Ooohh no the enemies are very difficult and there are few healing potions.
As for myself, the extreme difficulty is a huge turn-on. I absolutely love it. There is only one way to heal yourself: healing potions. No spells. No inns. Only potions. And they are expensive as well at $60 and the average enemy drops $10-$30 and hits you about half of a healing potions worth (50 hp). You can only use temporary saves that are deleted when you load them except at save points which are not that common and you have to use a Save Token to use them which are even more rare (2+ hours into the game I've only found 1 plus the 1 I started with) (I've seen 4 save points so far). The first real boss I made it too killed me almost immediately as my character had around 140 hp and he hits for 50-60 with each hit and if he gets too close he can hit twice in a row. Which brings me to the best thing about the game, the extremely awesome combat system. It's turn based... but it's not that static stand in one place and wait your turn like Final Fantasy and that ilk. You can move around to the extent of your AP which is used up by moving and by attacking. So you could move back a bit, wait your turn (which saves up AP) and then use your saved up + new AP to attack the now closer enemy and then retreat to a safe distance. There are so many new tactics opened up by this addition that it's crazy, which is augmented by a deep and diverse combo system which uses up AP as well. Not only that, but a few hours into the game you get a D-counter which steadily progresses to 100% at which point your character loses his humanity and the game ends. It's a good thing you can restart the game with your Party XP (XP that you can save up), money, and equipment or this game would be next to impossible. The average gamer will probably need to restart at least 4 times to beat the game, and you need to keep playing it to open new story segments and dungeons that aren't available the first time through.
So yeah, it's amazingly hard and it will take over 60 hours to see everything, most likely. But you CAN beat it in under 8 hours (and you have to to get the best D-Ratio). Thank god there's finally a hard rpg... I was about to flip out over the increasing ease factor of games these days.
That said, I still need to get these rpgs:
Xenosaga
.hack/ parts 1 and 2
Wild Arms 3
Suikoden 3
Skies of Arcadia Legends
and the new Arc the Lad
I take donations.
I just got Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. It took me a while since I'd seen a lot of negative user reviews for it, but after playing it for a while, I've come to the conclusion that they are just a bunch of pussies. Ohhh it's too hard. Oohhh I can't save it every 5 minutes. Ooohh no the enemies are very difficult and there are few healing potions.
As for myself, the extreme difficulty is a huge turn-on. I absolutely love it. There is only one way to heal yourself: healing potions. No spells. No inns. Only potions. And they are expensive as well at $60 and the average enemy drops $10-$30 and hits you about half of a healing potions worth (50 hp). You can only use temporary saves that are deleted when you load them except at save points which are not that common and you have to use a Save Token to use them which are even more rare (2+ hours into the game I've only found 1 plus the 1 I started with) (I've seen 4 save points so far). The first real boss I made it too killed me almost immediately as my character had around 140 hp and he hits for 50-60 with each hit and if he gets too close he can hit twice in a row. Which brings me to the best thing about the game, the extremely awesome combat system. It's turn based... but it's not that static stand in one place and wait your turn like Final Fantasy and that ilk. You can move around to the extent of your AP which is used up by moving and by attacking. So you could move back a bit, wait your turn (which saves up AP) and then use your saved up + new AP to attack the now closer enemy and then retreat to a safe distance. There are so many new tactics opened up by this addition that it's crazy, which is augmented by a deep and diverse combo system which uses up AP as well. Not only that, but a few hours into the game you get a D-counter which steadily progresses to 100% at which point your character loses his humanity and the game ends. It's a good thing you can restart the game with your Party XP (XP that you can save up), money, and equipment or this game would be next to impossible. The average gamer will probably need to restart at least 4 times to beat the game, and you need to keep playing it to open new story segments and dungeons that aren't available the first time through.
So yeah, it's amazingly hard and it will take over 60 hours to see everything, most likely. But you CAN beat it in under 8 hours (and you have to to get the best D-Ratio). Thank god there's finally a hard rpg... I was about to flip out over the increasing ease factor of games these days.
That said, I still need to get these rpgs:
Xenosaga
.hack/ parts 1 and 2
Wild Arms 3
Suikoden 3
Skies of Arcadia Legends
and the new Arc the Lad
I take donations.