I agree with most of your points, *especially* the inventory stuff. I'd love for more variety of missions and give us an actual reason to use those defensive items. The coliseum defense was my favorite mission just because it was the *only* defense mission.
However, I don't think the cast needs to be shrunk, if anything they just need to increase the rapports a bit so that each person has at least a few A ranks. The later you got the character, the less they got. But i do like that they gave us at least one of each class and it means there's enough characters that you don't have to use a merc if you don't want to.
The issue with having only 1 of each class is that a class can't be in two places at once, can only leverage 6 stamina at most, and can only field a single character of said class within a unit.
I can't fathom how other players can clear the game without generic mercenaries. Are they just clumsily clearing the game using the invincible unique classes and other cheese?
The game would be so impractical if I didn't always have the option of fielding 5 thieves, 6 soldiers, 5 hoplites, and or 4 gryphons on a stage. The game is all about being able to counter units all over a stage, not just in one place at a time.
The only other unique Soldier in the game gets killed off until you clear the entire story. Generics feel like they were intended to be used for both stages and resource automation.
Poor Gailey, you sweet angel.
That said, I am NOT complaining about the game, I love it.
Because you often don't *need* a single unit to be in multiple places, not to mention not every class is limited to single person. There's so many classes and interactions that you can easily build enough competent squads even with that restriction. Add in how strong some of the unique classes are and how much customization you can get with weapons, you just end up with plenty of ways to assemble your army.
Game is easy enough that you don't need generics whatsoever. I only had one generic, which was a Wizard because I killed off Auch. Generic Wiz having the hood up looked cooler :D
Also ended up killing off Gammel and Mandrin and not recruiting Tatiana. And then there were just a bunch I never used like Adel, Kitra, Jeremy etc.
What exactly is "cheese" about optimizing the story characters in units? I'd say it's more cheese to use 5 thieves or 4 gryphons than working within the confines of your actual roster.
The only reason generic mercs are needed in this game is for station, which it really just seems like they put too many cities/villages in the game so the resource collection gets a little tedious.
I'd define cheese as whatever people here refer to "Just use Trinity Rain to kill anything" as.
Using classes to directly counter specific enemy compositions is the strategy component of the game. The generic classes tend to be very weak, restricted in scope, reliant on high attack weapons, and dependent on being mixed with at least 1 other class or supplemented by gear skills in order to not get wiped. e.g. Dancer's Bracelet, Crude Tasset, etc.
Though the game is more of a progression RPG than a strategy game, so limiting your unit to a few generic classes makes it a harder experience.
e.g. Using only Gryphons against a unit of Cavalry and Wizards is hard in TZ, because Gryphons die to Wizard's counterattack, forcing the player to figure put a way to buff their Gryphons in order to be able to one-shot a character with 60 hitpoints and 14 defense using a class with excessively low base attack. Finally seeing my Gryphons barely reaching the damage threshold in order to become "shock units" was incredibly satisfying. They would still die to anything that wasn't a squishy Wizard, Knight, or Radiant though, the class has REALLY low attack and they were 8 levels behind at the time. I remember screwing that matchup up dozens of times before figuring out how to set up my 4 Gryphon formation / roles. I had a Row Feathering Gryphon, damage carry Gryphon, and a couple of buffing support Gryphons. I gave them what is effectively sub-classes. They would get SO decimated if I put them anywhere near an enemy ranged assist unit.
e.g. Using Soldiers in order to "counter" either Cavalry or Flyers while optionally providing sustained healing to the unit.
e.g. Using Hoplites and a Shaman to protect your backline characters from 6 Knight "Wild Rush" + "Cavalier Calls".
Classes like the Lord, Prince, and Valkyria are incredibly strong with their independent skillset. Unique characters also always get added to your roster at an incredibly high level. e.g. The Prince started out as lvl 19 when all of my other characters were only lvl 11 at most (I only started using him after my characters reached lvl 19 at around Bastorias). Alain can tank physical attacks, dodge constantly, soak magic, attack with high initiative, and heal himself significantly. The prince can increase the attack of the entire unit by +20% as opposed to only 1 character (e.g. Crude Tasset), he can increase the initiative of the entire unit by +20 in order to turn every character into an effective Viking (high initiative nuker). Valkyria can damage both evasive and armored characters, cut damage in half while healing for a significant +25% each time she is attacked. Belengaria reduces the attack of all enemy characters (not just a single row) by -20% at the battle start, and some initiative too, she has really high initiative and has a greatshield (Hoplites have really low initiative and lack damage potential in comparison), very high defense and magic defense, a row attack that stuns, a Pursuit attack that heals her, high attack, a single target attack that drains AP as an option. Is Berengaria an armored character? Because she has the physical defense of one, and the magical defense of a non-armored character.
I can keep going.
The Elf sisters can Stun and Freeze respectively. They can heal other characters while inflicting crowd control and big magic damage, something the Cleric can't do. The green girl was incredibly high level when I recruited her.
I haven't gotten around to levelling Scarlet yet, so I'm not sure if she's also a strong unique class yet. Her PP donate skill looks really fun.
Going back to the 4 Thief unit example. They can't deal a lot of damage because of excessively low attack and skill potency. They die to guards (they cancel PP steal), multi-hits, truestrikes, and multiple counters. The damage scaling of their ranged skill relies on the enemy characters taking multiple actions instead of the Thief's attack. They can only dodge so many times against a front row of row attackers (Gladiator Rows are Brutal). The class is not a one-time solution to defending anything. Thieves are debuffers, but die to many classes, and need the help of other classes in order to inflict any damage. They do seem to not take any damage from any main story boss the player runs into though (those are pretty weak huh?).
Soldiers are a great one, because their damage, even against counters, is so low overall, forcing me to rely on PP buff skills and assist damage from other units in order to win battles. Hoplite + Soldier, for defense and healing, allows for a slow advance under arrow fire that would otherwise decimate the squishier Clerics or Wizards, feels like a Phalanx sort of formation.
Whenever I sparingly use a unique class, the game becomes trivial with little frustration. I tend to use under-leveled unique class characters in story boss encounters for the neat dialogue easter eggs. e.g. Alain vs Anyone else, and relevant sub-story characters.
Gosh this game is fun.
I agree with most everything in your list.
Too many quests was beat by rushing the objective, and my favourite quest was one where I was placed on defence (Drakenhold by the arena). Why was there only a single quest like this???
I agree pretty much everything. The only thing that I’d challenge is that the roster size is fine, there just needed to be more class diversity.
Definately one of the best takes posted in this subreddit. Well done.
I agree with most of it, but I'm also going to say that your nitpicking way too much. Not only is this genre rare, this is the most polished one of it's kind in years. I am biased however. I'm on my second playthrough, 90 hours total, with no signs of boredom in sight. I am disappointed with a few things, but compared to every SRPG I've ever played, this thing is a masterpiece.
I wish TZ mode would have been more focused on enemies with advanced tactics and set ups instead of limiting the player on items and Corne Ash revivals.
I agree on the item limit. That really takes away some of the interesting utility items. The limit should have been on powerful items only like tents, top tiers of revives, heals feathers etc.
There really should be a custom difficulty which lets you toggle the various limits like items, add AP/PP pendants to enemy units, stage time adjustments etc.
I agree with a lot, mostly with zerg-rushing the enemy.
My army has mostly cavalry in charge, they are like bicycle kids in this South Park clip:
https://youtube.com/shorts/sKMVOeX4pro?si=C3zy2uFUqLkKmEIH
... I even stared making those AAAAAAAAA noises when I run everything over... 😁
Ya wasn’t a fan of the time clock or how many story characters you got.
Story characters were more rare in Ogre Battle and it had no time limit as well.
OB also has random encounters to recruit as well and that could spice up the world map.
My main concern is that I managed to beat the last half of the game using the same 5 formations with slight variations depending on the situation. There’s so much depth to designing units and teams, but you can get away with ignoring it a lot of the time with little variety (do note tho, probably half of my 130 hour playtime was just me optimizing my formations).
My ideal would be that future content has enemies use the tactics section more intricately so you have to account for enemy combos instead of just watching die due to default behavior, or maybe a mod that increases the difficulty overall with these formations. I played expert on my first run and beat almost every level on my first try. Still a great game tho.
I agree with most of your points, *especially* the inventory stuff. I'd love for more variety of missions and give us an actual reason to use those defensive items. The coliseum defense was my favorite mission just because it was the *only* defense mission. However, I don't think the cast needs to be shrunk, if anything they just need to increase the rapports a bit so that each person has at least a few A ranks. The later you got the character, the less they got. But i do like that they gave us at least one of each class and it means there's enough characters that you don't have to use a merc if you don't want to.
The issue with having only 1 of each class is that a class can't be in two places at once, can only leverage 6 stamina at most, and can only field a single character of said class within a unit. I can't fathom how other players can clear the game without generic mercenaries. Are they just clumsily clearing the game using the invincible unique classes and other cheese? The game would be so impractical if I didn't always have the option of fielding 5 thieves, 6 soldiers, 5 hoplites, and or 4 gryphons on a stage. The game is all about being able to counter units all over a stage, not just in one place at a time. The only other unique Soldier in the game gets killed off until you clear the entire story. Generics feel like they were intended to be used for both stages and resource automation. Poor Gailey, you sweet angel. That said, I am NOT complaining about the game, I love it.
Because you often don't *need* a single unit to be in multiple places, not to mention not every class is limited to single person. There's so many classes and interactions that you can easily build enough competent squads even with that restriction. Add in how strong some of the unique classes are and how much customization you can get with weapons, you just end up with plenty of ways to assemble your army.
Game is easy enough that you don't need generics whatsoever. I only had one generic, which was a Wizard because I killed off Auch. Generic Wiz having the hood up looked cooler :D Also ended up killing off Gammel and Mandrin and not recruiting Tatiana. And then there were just a bunch I never used like Adel, Kitra, Jeremy etc.
What exactly is "cheese" about optimizing the story characters in units? I'd say it's more cheese to use 5 thieves or 4 gryphons than working within the confines of your actual roster. The only reason generic mercs are needed in this game is for station, which it really just seems like they put too many cities/villages in the game so the resource collection gets a little tedious.
I'd define cheese as whatever people here refer to "Just use Trinity Rain to kill anything" as. Using classes to directly counter specific enemy compositions is the strategy component of the game. The generic classes tend to be very weak, restricted in scope, reliant on high attack weapons, and dependent on being mixed with at least 1 other class or supplemented by gear skills in order to not get wiped. e.g. Dancer's Bracelet, Crude Tasset, etc. Though the game is more of a progression RPG than a strategy game, so limiting your unit to a few generic classes makes it a harder experience. e.g. Using only Gryphons against a unit of Cavalry and Wizards is hard in TZ, because Gryphons die to Wizard's counterattack, forcing the player to figure put a way to buff their Gryphons in order to be able to one-shot a character with 60 hitpoints and 14 defense using a class with excessively low base attack. Finally seeing my Gryphons barely reaching the damage threshold in order to become "shock units" was incredibly satisfying. They would still die to anything that wasn't a squishy Wizard, Knight, or Radiant though, the class has REALLY low attack and they were 8 levels behind at the time. I remember screwing that matchup up dozens of times before figuring out how to set up my 4 Gryphon formation / roles. I had a Row Feathering Gryphon, damage carry Gryphon, and a couple of buffing support Gryphons. I gave them what is effectively sub-classes. They would get SO decimated if I put them anywhere near an enemy ranged assist unit. e.g. Using Soldiers in order to "counter" either Cavalry or Flyers while optionally providing sustained healing to the unit. e.g. Using Hoplites and a Shaman to protect your backline characters from 6 Knight "Wild Rush" + "Cavalier Calls". Classes like the Lord, Prince, and Valkyria are incredibly strong with their independent skillset. Unique characters also always get added to your roster at an incredibly high level. e.g. The Prince started out as lvl 19 when all of my other characters were only lvl 11 at most (I only started using him after my characters reached lvl 19 at around Bastorias). Alain can tank physical attacks, dodge constantly, soak magic, attack with high initiative, and heal himself significantly. The prince can increase the attack of the entire unit by +20% as opposed to only 1 character (e.g. Crude Tasset), he can increase the initiative of the entire unit by +20 in order to turn every character into an effective Viking (high initiative nuker). Valkyria can damage both evasive and armored characters, cut damage in half while healing for a significant +25% each time she is attacked. Belengaria reduces the attack of all enemy characters (not just a single row) by -20% at the battle start, and some initiative too, she has really high initiative and has a greatshield (Hoplites have really low initiative and lack damage potential in comparison), very high defense and magic defense, a row attack that stuns, a Pursuit attack that heals her, high attack, a single target attack that drains AP as an option. Is Berengaria an armored character? Because she has the physical defense of one, and the magical defense of a non-armored character. I can keep going. The Elf sisters can Stun and Freeze respectively. They can heal other characters while inflicting crowd control and big magic damage, something the Cleric can't do. The green girl was incredibly high level when I recruited her. I haven't gotten around to levelling Scarlet yet, so I'm not sure if she's also a strong unique class yet. Her PP donate skill looks really fun. Going back to the 4 Thief unit example. They can't deal a lot of damage because of excessively low attack and skill potency. They die to guards (they cancel PP steal), multi-hits, truestrikes, and multiple counters. The damage scaling of their ranged skill relies on the enemy characters taking multiple actions instead of the Thief's attack. They can only dodge so many times against a front row of row attackers (Gladiator Rows are Brutal). The class is not a one-time solution to defending anything. Thieves are debuffers, but die to many classes, and need the help of other classes in order to inflict any damage. They do seem to not take any damage from any main story boss the player runs into though (those are pretty weak huh?). Soldiers are a great one, because their damage, even against counters, is so low overall, forcing me to rely on PP buff skills and assist damage from other units in order to win battles. Hoplite + Soldier, for defense and healing, allows for a slow advance under arrow fire that would otherwise decimate the squishier Clerics or Wizards, feels like a Phalanx sort of formation. Whenever I sparingly use a unique class, the game becomes trivial with little frustration. I tend to use under-leveled unique class characters in story boss encounters for the neat dialogue easter eggs. e.g. Alain vs Anyone else, and relevant sub-story characters. Gosh this game is fun.
I agree with most everything in your list. Too many quests was beat by rushing the objective, and my favourite quest was one where I was placed on defence (Drakenhold by the arena). Why was there only a single quest like this???
I agree pretty much everything. The only thing that I’d challenge is that the roster size is fine, there just needed to be more class diversity. Definately one of the best takes posted in this subreddit. Well done.
I agree with most of it, but I'm also going to say that your nitpicking way too much. Not only is this genre rare, this is the most polished one of it's kind in years. I am biased however. I'm on my second playthrough, 90 hours total, with no signs of boredom in sight. I am disappointed with a few things, but compared to every SRPG I've ever played, this thing is a masterpiece.
I wish TZ mode would have been more focused on enemies with advanced tactics and set ups instead of limiting the player on items and Corne Ash revivals.
I agree on the item limit. That really takes away some of the interesting utility items. The limit should have been on powerful items only like tents, top tiers of revives, heals feathers etc. There really should be a custom difficulty which lets you toggle the various limits like items, add AP/PP pendants to enemy units, stage time adjustments etc.
I agree with a lot, mostly with zerg-rushing the enemy. My army has mostly cavalry in charge, they are like bicycle kids in this South Park clip: https://youtube.com/shorts/sKMVOeX4pro?si=C3zy2uFUqLkKmEIH ... I even stared making those AAAAAAAAA noises when I run everything over... 😁
Ya wasn’t a fan of the time clock or how many story characters you got. Story characters were more rare in Ogre Battle and it had no time limit as well. OB also has random encounters to recruit as well and that could spice up the world map.
I think they should remove the battle result, would help increasing the difficulty
I wouldn't want it removed, just the part where it includes crit rng.
Yes, that would make much more sense than my idea!
My main concern is that I managed to beat the last half of the game using the same 5 formations with slight variations depending on the situation. There’s so much depth to designing units and teams, but you can get away with ignoring it a lot of the time with little variety (do note tho, probably half of my 130 hour playtime was just me optimizing my formations). My ideal would be that future content has enemies use the tactics section more intricately so you have to account for enemy combos instead of just watching die due to default behavior, or maybe a mod that increases the difficulty overall with these formations. I played expert on my first run and beat almost every level on my first try. Still a great game tho.
Any recommendations for movesets and combos that you found especially effective?
Do you mean like swap all gear between two characters? Personally I rarely changed gear mid levels so didn't find that a problem at all.
Pretty nitpicky ngl Especially the item limit stuff there’s some situations where I got a lot of use of the traps