Did Square Enix it again?

[nosisab]

That game is something new in the good old Final Fantasy style game. Seeing it's reviews shows the game being underrated, I fear it may end like Planescape Torment, an excellent game being dusted for the mediocrity sake.

 

It's like a movie you can interact, yet it's not you can change the forthcoming, it's like you may have fun doing yourself the battles in the while. And when I say it's like a movie I mean it, one may be attempted to go god mode, one hit kill, just to enjoy it's evolving.

 

Now, the combat animations are a show in itself and the combat system... that is something that must be seen to understand.

The combat system gathers several elements from several systems and do it with a master's touch. First you will be in control of several unions. You can think an union as a combat squad where you can place your units, and they will be commanded as a whole, and give one command from a set that depends on the formation and not seldom on the enemy kind and position in the battlefield. Each union have a leader and a max of 4 followers (the number of unions and the total max unities will increase through the game) and several 'formations' will be unlocked through the main quest and subquests (as possibles 'generals' too). There is more about unions, but this is enough for now.

 

Once you have commanded each action for all unions the combat begins, and more surprises: there is a complex interactions set of engagement rules. If you union runs directly on the targeted enemy they engages in deadlock, this mean their attention are one over the other, and when the turn resolves, another union may attack the deadlocked in a free flank attack and obviously any union that have spent it's turn action will be vulnerable to free attack. Things complicates yet more when the attacking union gets intercepted by an enemy while attempting to get to it's target. That interception works for the two sides and the intercepting union have a slight advantage in the turn. And again there is much more about these rules.

 

Another interesting fact is the damage is spread across the union and not over the unity you really see engaged in the combat. So at first is strange you seems to be attacking one unity and the whole enemy union falls at once (or yours by the same). So at first I didn't perceived the real difference among a targeted and area effect attack, but this soon became clear. the area effect does the integral damage to each unity instead spreading it across the union (and may indeed affect nearby enemy unions by overkill spreading). Another command I didn't understood at first was the "go for the leader" like, this until I learned the concept of botch. If the leader on an union falls in some way, the whole union is unable to accept orders or engage in combat for itself (although will defend itself if directly attacked). So if the attack is target directly over the leader it may be enough to do enough damage to kill it and turn the union disabled.

 

Enough about combat, for this small description of it's complexity is enough to show than strategical and tactical engaging may be the difference between life and game over. At this point just two other 'important' concepts need be presented:

 

1 - Morale. That is an enormous blue/red bar over the battle screen it changes with the relative forces in combat, but mainly by the way each union is engaged, high morale means increased attack and defenses and low moral means one will take heavy damage and do less (strangely, going into a combat with lowered morale may be a 'strategy' to achieve easier attributes enhancements and skill learning. This may be accomplished letting the foe forcing the combat).

 

2 - Healing. Well, this is by far the most important thing in almost all RPGs (and almost everything else). Unlike many others RPGs, all unions will be completely replenished after the combat, it's enough one union survives it (though fallen union will not receive enhancements) and all unions will emerge anew and fresh from the KO state, even if the one 'you, I mean Rush Sykes' falls (with rare exceptions). Though having at least one unity able to perform some kind of healing at each union will help, later in the game may be better have one that will be there practically just for it, they will be put in a 'standby' mode and will not engage directly in combat, although they may be perfectly able to defend itself or even actively goes into combat if the enemy is easy enough and can be put out quickly. in that 'standby' mode they will hurry to any union that need healing, ill stats cleansing or bring back from KO.

 

Subquests and revisiting already done locations is something that's almost a forced thing. If not for mere 'leveling' purposes it's because crafting is a must do in this game. every city will have several specialized merchants, among they the crafting ones. They will enhance your weapons and since this game is not for armors is that weapon and 2 accessory slots the way to go for attack and defense. Yes, the weapons (and/or shield) is what will provide this main defensive bonus. Albeit you will find some good weapons through the game the best ones will be from crafting, and to it you'll need the required components and 'money', lots of money. Sometimes in the combats you have the chance to obtain an 'intact' creature, that you can keep to sell for proportional good prices or split for components, that decision is your's. You will see beforehand into what they can be split, if it includes a rare component go for it, else may be better keeping it for selling. Sometimes you may have two or more creatures and the first have not good components but you wish to split it because the next may have what you want.

 

The leveling itself is not what we are used too, it includes several details like common attributes enhancing, skills learnings, enhanced weapons and finally the Battle Rank. About the weapons, in the vanilla game you have no access to your's followers equipment but they will ask you for components so to better their weapons, something not to be confused with the weapon getting +1, +2... in it, the later is from the natural use. They will do it by clamming the components from what you get from loot or digging (don't ask about this) or will indeed verbally ask you for some specific component, sometimes, when you go world map. This is a clue you should do some more trips to 'level', too.

 

This post is already longer I did intend to make it when began to write, so the last comment: the animations in the combat is something worth the game by itself, varying from the amazing to the hilarious (like a goblinoid having it's physical attack dodged and literally splatting the ground is something to see :) ). Not to mention dozens of unities engaging in dogfight at each turn.

 

With all this I haven't even scratched the game's conceptual deepness, it's the type of thing I expected from Square and Enix joined forces.

[dthumb]

This post is already longer I did intend to make it when began to write, so the last comment: the animations in the combat is something worth the game by itself, varying from the amazing to the hilarious (like a goblinoid having it's physical attack dodged and literally splatting the ground is something to see smile.gif ). Not to mention dozens of unities engaging in dogfight at each turn.

 

You described it much better than I did. lol Oh, you forgot to mention... dual wielding goodness, and four armed cat people. But they did forget to add Archery Class Weaponry.

 

I mentioned awhile ago that the game has a free demo on the Games' Site, so do try it out.