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Sands of Destruction - A shitty RPG from a bunch of nobodies.
Shadowfire
Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
Sands of Destruction... epic title. The forums haven't even mentioned this game. Obviously, no one around here cares, so I guess we can just move on. I mean, Masato Kato and Yasunori Mitsuda are amateurs at best, right?
Oh what? We're interested now? Yea, me too...
So yes, this is an RPG for the DS, brought to us by some of the fine folks behind Xenogears and Chrono Cross. In 1Up's words:
I'm not super sold on the character designs (typical anime ridiculousness), but the battle system looks like it's straight out of Xenogears.
Some screenies (apologies for the small size):
Battle system:
World map and in town:
Trailer with battle footage
Oh, and this comes out next Tuesday (or Wednesday). How did this fly under our radar, exactly?
Oh what? We're interested now? Yea, me too...
So yes, this is an RPG for the DS, brought to us by some of the fine folks behind Xenogears and Chrono Cross. In 1Up's words:
The first thing we thought when we tried a demo of Sands of Destruction was, "Huh, this is pretty much Xenogears." Same visual style of sprites on isometric polygons, same tiered multi-button combat system, same general storyline of a young man who inexplicably discovers he possesses tremendous destructive power beyond his ken. And little wonder! Sands was created by many of the same people behind Square's cult RPG classic. So, it should automatically be of interest to fans of Xenogears... and maybe it'll win over the hearts and minds of people who weren't so crazy about the older game, too.
I'm not super sold on the character designs (typical anime ridiculousness), but the battle system looks like it's straight out of Xenogears.
Some screenies (apologies for the small size):
Battle system:
World map and in town:
Trailer with battle footage
Oh, and this comes out next Tuesday (or Wednesday). How did this fly under our radar, exactly?
PSN: Bradcopter | Steam: Shadowfire
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Apparently its somewhere around average.
Anyways, good work with the title as it is, above all else, a Sega game.
I'll take average considering the gameplay looks like fun times. The last DS RPG I played was Suikoden Tierkreis, so I'm looking forward to another one.
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BUYING DAY ONE
You'd have to look up AND down to keep track of the action.
I'm fucking excited for this on Wednesday. :P
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No, no, no. He hasn't done an amazing score since Chrono Cross. Since then they've just been good.
The battle system is completely turn-based. There's no Mario RPG style interactions during attacks. Attack animations are pretty slow too.
I played it in Japanese and didn't like it. There is not much strategy in combat, you can just grind if you can't get past a boss. Sometimes you will be doing decent damage to a boss, then he casts a defence buff and then you're doing single-digit damage. You can get around this by debuffing him or buffing your attack, but if you don't have a party member with the appropriate skill or an item that can do so (those items are pretty rare) you've got to wait it out. The converse is also true. Despite this the damage done (both by you and enemies) can be very variable.
Normally you can do 2 or 3 attacks in a single turn. If you score a critical attack, or for every 10 hits you do in a single turn, you gain an additional attack. If you managed to build up to 6 attacks you can do a super attack. The problem with the system is even if you've only spent 3 out of your 6 attacks, you can't use the other 3, you must use the super attack. Which as mentioned above is long and unskippable.
Enemies can get multiple attacks in a row for seemingly no reason, especially bosses. This is especially aggravating as the turn order indicator at the bottom of the screen is not reflective of what's actually going to happen. Special attack animations are long, unskippable, and strangely, you don't see the targets being hit.
The prison dungeon about 5 hours into the game is a huge pain in the ass.
The easiest way to get powerful is to
To the game's credit I liked the characters, but that's about it.
My DS has been collecting dust lately, so I'll have to get her out and give her a good polish before I pop this in.
I wish that this generation of RPGs wasn't so dominated by the DS. I miss the days of console JRPGs on the PSX.
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
I'm pretty sure it has to do with the "Defiance" ability most of them have, but NOTHING in this game is documented so I can't be certain.
Loving the chained attacks, though. Nothing like a 10-hit combo from one button press. Earning x2 CP on Kylie is crazy good.
I've played Nostalgia a little, and I've just started on this. For Nostalgia I can say that it hits every cliche
that you can think of. You have your sword wielding fighter, your thief, a black mage, and a white mage(although, they're not called that in the game, that's what they are). The airship battles are pretty lackluster, and tend to rape you until you manage to get to a new town and buy new airship parts(and even then the upgraded airship weapons and armour don't seem to make a difference in the amount of damage you're taking or dishing out). Not that it's a bad game, but it's a very average game. I can't really compare it to Sands of Destruction yet, as I've only just started that, so I'm currently stuck bouncing from cut-scene to cut-scene. Perhaps someone else can give a better answer.
Get Sands. Nostalgia's a fine game and all, but to the best of my knowledge Sands doesn't potentially have a bug that can render the game unwinnable.
Christ, i'd stay away from The World Ends With You if I were you. Unless you enjoy the sensation of your liquefied brain dribbling out of your ears.
A bit of advice for you... Don't ever attempt Knights in the Nightmare.
PSN: Dyvion -- Eternal: Dyvion+9393 -- Genshin Impact: Dyvion
Which frankly is a far, far better title.
My problem with Morte isn't so much her annoyingness (although there is that), but the fact that for a "beastslayer" she isn't really much of a combat-valuable character like the combo-crazy guys (Kyrie, Taupy, and Agam; I don't have the final two yet). If SP wasn't such a precious resource I'd use her area-affect skills more, but going combo-crazy is just so much more efficient.
Although I will say this in Morte's defense. Her "It must be my lucky day" quip fired after I beat one of the beastlords while Agam was wearing his x2 Gold turban. I earned over 50K on that fight (which I promptly wasted at the smithy).
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Unskippable and poorly paced voice acting being the number one annoyance. I shouldn't have to wait 2-3 seconds after a character stops talking before the next dialogue starts. It's probably a localization issue, but it's annoying none the less and would have been fine if I could just press A to continue to the next sequence.
That said, I really like how you have control over building your character. It's a novel concept.
How do you use followup attacks? I see them in the customization menu, but I have yet to see one work for Kyrie. I think that Taupe did one once.
I'm one move away form having Kyrie completely maxed out (at level 8), thanks to the "Secret Recipe" item he's been wearing since the prison. About to take on the second Primal.
You can turn it off... but in the sequences where there is dialogue, you CANNOT skip through it. You have to wait for the line to be said, then wait a couple seconds more for the dialogue to continue. It's fucking shitty.
I don't understand what you mean by "max out" the combat gauge. I've gotten really high combos, but those abilities only seem to activate at random.
Secret Recipe? I don't recall finding any item like that in the prison sequence and I searched that place thoroughly.
Upon researching, I don't think you meant the early prison sequence :P
I meant the one about five hours in. It's one of the rewards for ferrying notes/packages/letters between prisoners.
To max out your BP gague:
Base: 2
Have high morale (equipped
First Critical hit: +1
Every 10 hits in a combo: +1 each
So with high morale and a critical hit, you need a 20-hit combo to enable the Special Attacks/Abilities.
EDIT: Also, stunning an enemy (KOs, Tossing) usually gives you the extra BP to enable a follow-up attack. I've converted that into a Special a few times too.
EDIT: well may be 2 turns