Blarg-a-rant! I live!
Finally have a bit of a breather for a couple of days. Things are going mostly ok, but springtime at work is somewhere between a riot and a Cub Scout meeting.
In the nerdy front, I'm going to put my playthrough of Shining Force EXA on ice for a while. It's not bad, really, but it's getting really bland and same-y. I have some thoughts on the game to share, in no real order.
The Good
The combat is ok, but one thing I really did like was the defensive battles concept. While tearing about, your home base gets attacked by a semi-random pack of mooks and a boss. The fun part is that you have to defend a big shiny generator from big-ass swarms of nasties, and not only do you get good rewards for beating the baddies, you seem to get a boosted drop rate for cash and gear.
Another nice thing is that you actually can call in support fire from your base (which is pretty much looks what would happen if Aztecs got their hands on a Death Star). Canonizing freaks doesn't get much cooler than this.
One really cool thing is the base itself. You get to upgrade its capabilities, with nifty stuff like blowing more stuff up harder, robot buddies for defensive battles, radar abilities for shiny hunting, and an randomized dungeon you can tear around and plunder in.
The Bad
Could be the hardware, could be somebody at Sega just not thinking things through, but getting a certain threshold of enemies on the screen starts some serious slowdown. Unfortunately, this is a hack-and-slash style RPG, with extra emphasis on reflexes and mobility, so things can get really crappy really quickly.
One major flaw in the game is that combat overall just doesn't really evolve for your characters. Toma the warrior is your archetypical beatstick with two similar styles. One handed weapons which hit faster and allow for shields and more mobility, and two handers which...don't. Cyrille the Sorceress gets spellbooks which allow for you to cast spells of various kinds and smack fools with a big-ass book. She also gets crossbows, which tend to be suited for particular enemies. None of these are crap in and of themselves, but in a genre where one expects at least some game-changers over time, in the from of special loot or level unlocks, this stuff gets monotonous quickly.
The difficulty comes in two flavors, and unfortunately is almost exclusively determined by the character chosen at any particular time. Toma is simply much beefier and more nimble than Cyrille. He's far from invincible, but he has a much easier time with both big bosses and swarms. Cyrille is powerful, escpecially when you can exploit elemental weaknesses, but one unlucky hit and it's game over. For me, this had the bizarre effect of primarily using Cyrille in the field, since Toma is much more viable in defensive battles, which are all about big swarms and being able to tank some hits to get going. The end result is that I have to save every five minutes now, since any time I confident, Cyrille dies. Fricking Horrible.
The Shiny
The loot drops in this game are your standard gold and gear. Gear is randomly generated, with up to two special properties (usually along the lines of stat boosts, hits a mook type harder, elemental properties, though sometimes a special move comes along). An interesting twist is that you get "Secret Arts" which act as a third special property and have specific bonuses. These are earned though various challenges throughout the game like fighting supersized enemies or arena battles. Another interesting twist is Mythril (not mithril!), which you collect like a second currency, and can spend on "Power Arts" which are basically stat boosts. Mythril is harvested from big crystals out in the field, can be extracted from gear with special properties (vanilla gear has to be sold or discarded), and dropped by monsters (boosted by a special Change Mythril trait), and also is gained in large quantities from denfensive battles. Get all the Mythril you can.
On a final note, natural Mythril Crystals look an awful lot like the mineral crystals from StarCraft. If I get enough Mythril, can I build a Goliath or Siege Tank? That would be the shit, man.
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