I think one problem is that FF tactics... isn't that good.
I'm not saying it's bad, but it has this reputation as the apex of tactical RPGs, and I'm playing it in the post A2, post Fire Emblem, post XCOM era, and you know what? It's not winning that showdown. There's good stuff, don't get me wrong. But it's usually surrounded by bullshit that (thankfully) most games have moved past, and that really hurts it.
Sadly there aren't many games like FFT being made these days.
A2 is close, but lacks the writing and aesthetic.
Fire Emblem is similar, but lacks the depths of attack options - it's more about positioning
XCOM is more about guns and cover, I can't get past the mechanics (see also: Massive Chalice) and the core concept does nothing for me.
Jeanne d'Arc was pretty good, but somewhat hampered by low difficulty and some really generic design choices.
Honestly I think that Tactics Ogre: LUCT has been the best SRPG in years, but that was 6 years ago and it's still a remake of a game 15 years old (at the time). There's a glut of watered down mobile games that claim a tactical lineage, but I have yet to find one that isn't utter trash.
We keep coming back to FFT because it embodies a genre that probably isn't very profitable anymore. I mean, Matsuno's working on Terra Battle these days. I loved Terra Battle for a while, but it's still a gacha-based mobile game with only the barest threads of a story.
Disgaea.
Yes, yes. Plot isn't the same at all, and movement is team based as opposed to unit (which is pretty much better all around) but it's still a strategy RPG primarily based on overpowered attack options. The genre is thriving. There's more successful tactics games with RPG elements then ever. They're just not doing what you want.
Which is fine! People are allowed to miss whatever the hell it is FFT is doing gameplaywise. I mean, there's a lot of complaints about shooters going more CODlike, after all. It's just that the genre isn't the problem. It's the implementation.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
The game made by the disgaea people where you have to defeat the generals of the evil god to save the land from destruction is a pretty damn amazing SRPG that doesn't get near enough credit.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Done with Poeskas Lake! I'm finally caught up to the current week again. I feel like I have a better handle on the story than I did a while ago, I think it's because I've been playing through these maps right after the other recently. I feel like this game is best played on a grind/advance cycle, kind of like bulking/cutting for bodybuilding. You grind for a while, then advance through a bunch of plot all at once.
edit:: limberry castle, 'Damn, it's a trap!' Yeah, it's a trap, ALL YOU DO IS WALK INTO TRAPS. THEY ARE ALL TRAPS.
SageinaRage on
0
Options
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
The game made by the disgaea people where you have to defeat the generals of the evil god to save the land from destruction is a pretty damn amazing SRPG that doesn't get near enough credit.
disgaea always tricks me into buying it thinking "it looks like it will scratch the fft itch" and then it never does, it's a way different feeling game.
I think one problem is that FF tactics... isn't that good.
I'm not saying it's bad, but it has this reputation as the apex of tactical RPGs, and I'm playing it in the post A2, post Fire Emblem, post XCOM era, and you know what? It's not winning that showdown. There's good stuff, don't get me wrong. But it's usually surrounded by bullshit that (thankfully) most games have moved past, and that really hurts it.
Sadly there aren't many games like FFT being made these days.
A2 is close, but lacks the writing and aesthetic.
Fire Emblem is similar, but lacks the depths of attack options - it's more about positioning
XCOM is more about guns and cover, I can't get past the mechanics (see also: Massive Chalice) and the core concept does nothing for me.
Jeanne d'Arc was pretty good, but somewhat hampered by low difficulty and some really generic design choices.
Honestly I think that Tactics Ogre: LUCT has been the best SRPG in years, but that was 6 years ago and it's still a remake of a game 15 years old (at the time). There's a glut of watered down mobile games that claim a tactical lineage, but I have yet to find one that isn't utter trash.
We keep coming back to FFT because it embodies a genre that probably isn't very profitable anymore. I mean, Matsuno's working on Terra Battle these days. I loved Terra Battle for a while, but it's still a gacha-based mobile game with only the barest threads of a story.
Disgaea.
Yes, yes. Plot isn't the same at all, and movement is team based as opposed to unit (which is pretty much better all around) but it's still a strategy RPG primarily based on overpowered attack options. The genre is thriving. There's more successful tactics games with RPG elements then ever. They're just not doing what you want.
Which is fine! People are allowed to miss whatever the hell it is FFT is doing gameplaywise. I mean, there's a lot of complaints about shooters going more CODlike, after all. It's just that the genre isn't the problem. It's the implementation.
(And cripes, FFT's implementation is rubbish.)
That's the thing though, a big part of why I keep going back to FF tactics games and got tired of Disgaea is the pacing of battles in the two series are totally different, and it's mainly due to the bolded. In FFT, since I'm just moving one person at a time, it's a lot easier and faster to decide which move looks best, and the alternation between individual allies and enemies makes the battle feel a lot more dynamic.
On the other hand Disgaea-style team based turns make me spend a lot longer pondering optimal tactics, which is mentally exhausting.
Yeah ok sure. 100% chance of stop, 100% chance of death. Great. Thanks assassin twins. Oh sure, you can teleport 9 straight squares Elmdor. Go for it.
Guess I'm going back to my old save just to go back and buy some more protective gear, and probably leveling for a while again. Or something.
edit:: WOW, ok, ended up not having to restart yet??? I thought I was a goner with 3 people down and one more blood sucked, but apparently Elmdor didn't realize he shouldn't blood suck the hasted one? Two more attacks from her on Elmdor and he teleports away! I didn't even have to do anything. OK THEN.
SageinaRage on
0
Options
robotbeeDrop any other moon on his face-Jupiter has so many it won't even careRegistered Userregular
The game made by the disgaea people where you have to defeat the generals of the evil god to save the land from destruction is a pretty damn amazing SRPG that doesn't get near enough credit.
Soul Nomad And The World Eaters?
Whom the fly chicks tagged Lenore, nameless here forevermore.
Yeah ok sure. 100% chance of stop, 100% chance of death. Great. Thanks assassin twins. Oh sure, you can teleport 9 straight squares Elmdor. Go for it.
Guess I'm going back to my old save just to go back and buy some more protective gear, and probably leveling for a while again. Or something.
edit:: WOW, ok, ended up not having to restart yet??? I thought I was a goner with 3 people down and one more blood sucked, but apparently Elmdor didn't realize he shouldn't blood suck the hasted one? Two more attacks from her on Elmdor and he teleports away! I didn't even have to do anything. OK THEN.
sometimes the AI will goof up. but I recommend you buy some 108 gems and jade armlet accessories to stop some of those status effects going forward
Yeah, I managed to squeeze through Limberry castle, and I then went and bought at least 2 of every status effect accessories.
spoilered for limberry castle strategery
For those who haven't gone through Limberry yet, if you're not actually in the castle yet, get some of the defense armlets (the ones that stop sleep/death sentence) and the last fight will be much easier.
The hard fight is the second one (that I lucked out on), and I'm not really sure what advice to give other than to really focus on Elmdor. He doesn't have a second form like the assassins do, so you the way to go seems to be rushing him. And I guess get stop protection from the one assassin - the other one just gives you death, and I'm not really sure what to do about it other than hope for the best.
edit:: I think I'm going to spend some time grinding up orlandu and meliadoul. The magic sword attacks seem to be the best attack types in the game, they have range, strong power, no charge time, and no risk of countering, at least usually.
I think I'm going to spend some time grinding up orlandu
If you feel your ears popping, that's you riding the difficulty curve down into the ground. There's a reason most people on their third playthrough or so stop using him.
That said, y'know that Elmdor fight? He has an entire set of unique equipment you can steal. It's not really worth the effort, especially on a first playthrough, but by god it's the kind of thing that would be an achievement if cheevos existed at the time. I raised a female of the appropriate zodiac from level 1 just for the extra few percent success rate on steal when I decided to do it.
I think I'm going to spend some time grinding up orlandu
If you feel your ears popping, that's you riding the difficulty curve down into the ground. There's a reason most people on their third playthrough or so stop using him.
That said, y'know that Elmdor fight? He has an entire set of unique equipment you can steal. It's not really worth the effort, especially on a first playthrough, but by god it's the kind of thing that would be an achievement if cheevos existed at the time. I raised a female of the appropriate zodiac from level 1 just for the extra few percent success rate on steal when I decided to do it.
That's a stripped down Elmdor. Note his speed, which is basically the only way to make it feasible.
Blade Grasp also reduces chance to Steal. Bring Beowulf with Chicken Sword and put his Bravery down to 1. It won't stop him from attacking, but you will be able to hit him.
0
Options
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
The game made by the disgaea people where you have to defeat the generals of the evil god to save the land from destruction is a pretty damn amazing SRPG that doesn't get near enough credit.
Soul Nomad And The World Eaters?
DING DING DING SOMEONE GET THIS MAN A COOKIE
It is the sole reason I kept my PS2 hooked up at my apartment. Just to play that fucking game. So fucking good. It's the closest game I have ever seen to Ogre Battle.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I think I'm going to spend some time grinding up orlandu
If you feel your ears popping, that's you riding the difficulty curve down into the ground. There's a reason most people on their third playthrough or so stop using him.
Yeah you weren't kidding, Orlandu with dark sword seems like easy mode. I'm completely ok with easy mode at this point though! So I'm going to use him. I think I'm just going to grind Ramza up enough to get Mime, and then head on into the end game.
Do you know how mime works? It's not like a 'freelancer' class that just has access to everything. It literally does anything another unit does. So if you cast a spell at an enemy three tiles forward and two tiles left, the mime will cast that same spell three forward two left from where it's currently facing.
This makes it useful for repeating targetless abilities and if you're clever it's worthwhile for melee attacks, but I've found it less than useful for things like sword skills or spells. Often times you'll end up sacrificing the mimicked unit's turn by casting on an empty tile just so the mime hits something, which is a net loss.
Also (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), for things like Sword Skills, you still need the appropriate gear equipped.
Ramza as a black mage with calculator as a subclass or some other high magic attack high speed character with Calculator and lots of spells learned is pretty strong if you want to completely break things. Orlandu is the most broken that ever broked, but Beowulf is pretty good as well.
Ramza as a black mage with calculator as a subclass or some other high magic attack high speed character with Calculator and lots of spells learned is pretty strong if you want to completely break things. Orlandu is the most broken that ever broked, but Beowulf is pretty good as well.
End spoilers:
Beowulf was actually my number one damage when I killed the final boss, because Drain Sword did % based damage, and the final boss had ??? hit points.
Ramza as a black mage with calculator as a subclass or some other high magic attack high speed character with Calculator and lots of spells learned is pretty strong if you want to completely break things. Orlandu is the most broken that ever broked, but Beowulf is pretty good as well.
Don't even need a lot of spells. If you fully master calculator with Ramza, then teach him Holy and give him Excalibur, the end credits might as well start rolling.
+1
Options
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Ramza as a black mage with calculator as a subclass or some other high magic attack high speed character with Calculator and lots of spells learned is pretty strong if you want to completely break things. Orlandu is the most broken that ever broked, but Beowulf is pretty good as well.
End spoilers:
Beowulf was actually my number one damage when I killed the final boss, because Drain Sword did % based damage, and the final boss had ??? hit points.
The final boss is much stronger in the PSP remake. You can one shot the boss easy in the playstation version, notsomuch in the PSP version.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Beowulf's partner is also really strong if the enemy has equipment. She isn't as powerful if they lack it.
Do you mean Meliadoul? Or Reis?
I was referring to Meliadoul, but if I remember correctly Reis is a beast statwise. I remember destroying things with her dragon abilities, but you had to do some non-obvious secondary skill builds to maximize her.
Edit: Looking it up, her class has the best stat growth and it has innate two-weapons ability. Give her the equip Sword ability and she carves things up.
Beowulf's partner is also really strong if the enemy has equipment. She isn't as powerful if they lack it.
Do you mean Meliadoul? Or Reis?
I was referring to Meliadoul, but if I remember correctly Reis is a beast statwise. I remember destroying things with her dragon abilities, but you had to do some non-obvious secondary skill builds to maximize her.
Edit: Looking it up, her class has the best stat growth and it has innate two-weapons ability. Give her the equip Sword ability and she carves things up.
Reis is his wife, not Meliadoul, which is why I was confused.
neat. I always thought she was a cool character with a worthless gimmick, I guess she's actually a cool character with a worthless gimmick who's really strong anyway.
You'll notice that if you try to auto-equip her she will equip 2 bags. Bags are not the best weapons (there's a couple of exceptions), but if you give her the Use Swords ability she will dual wield swords or whatever weapon you give her the use-weapon type skill for. If you play games with level/deleveling for stat growth she can get close to capping out her stats. The Bracelet abilities are a good compliment to the holy/dark sword users and the skills around boosting dragons are a useless set of abilities that get used on a rare occasion.
0
Options
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Reis's bracelet attacks. Man, the PSX FFT had memorable lines, but it sure had some head-shaking stupid translations too.
Reis's bracelet attacks. Man, the PSX FFT had memorable lines, but it sure had some head-shaking stupid translations too.
With the bracelet thing, it amusingly shows up in one other place that really should have clued them in - Celia and Lede have an instant-kill skill called "Stop Bracelet".
I hadn't gotten a chance to play this for 3-4 weeks due to holiday business, so I'm going to start catching up tonight. I think I was on week 6.
0
Options
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Okay, halfway caught up now, just got Cid. Should be smooth sailing from here out.
Honestly, it's been smooth sailing for a while now, mostly. The biggest hurdle was the mission with nothing but Chocobos.
Red Chocobos are bullshit. Saying it right now.
More importantly, though, what the hell is with the 16 unit limit? The game throws special units at you like it's going out of style, but only gives you a handful of slots, then tries to guilt you when you give someone the boot. Look, they're at least a level better than common mercenaries. They'll be fine.
Posts
Every time my mage talks it makes me feel like I should double check I'm not on the evil team.
Disgaea.
Yes, yes. Plot isn't the same at all, and movement is team based as opposed to unit (which is pretty much better all around) but it's still a strategy RPG primarily based on overpowered attack options. The genre is thriving. There's more successful tactics games with RPG elements then ever. They're just not doing what you want.
Which is fine! People are allowed to miss whatever the hell it is FFT is doing gameplaywise. I mean, there's a lot of complaints about shooters going more CODlike, after all. It's just that the genre isn't the problem. It's the implementation.
(And cripes, FFT's implementation is rubbish.)
Why I fear the ocean.
edit:: limberry castle, 'Damn, it's a trap!' Yeah, it's a trap, ALL YOU DO IS WALK INTO TRAPS. THEY ARE ALL TRAPS.
La Pucelle Tactics?
That's the thing though, a big part of why I keep going back to FF tactics games and got tired of Disgaea is the pacing of battles in the two series are totally different, and it's mainly due to the bolded. In FFT, since I'm just moving one person at a time, it's a lot easier and faster to decide which move looks best, and the alternation between individual allies and enemies makes the battle feel a lot more dynamic.
On the other hand Disgaea-style team based turns make me spend a lot longer pondering optimal tactics, which is mentally exhausting.
Guess I'm going back to my old save just to go back and buy some more protective gear, and probably leveling for a while again. Or something.
edit:: WOW, ok, ended up not having to restart yet??? I thought I was a goner with 3 people down and one more blood sucked, but apparently Elmdor didn't realize he shouldn't blood suck the hasted one? Two more attacks from her on Elmdor and he teleports away! I didn't even have to do anything. OK THEN.
Soul Nomad And The World Eaters?
sometimes the AI will goof up. but I recommend you buy some 108 gems and jade armlet accessories to stop some of those status effects going forward
spoilered for limberry castle strategery
The hard fight is the second one (that I lucked out on), and I'm not really sure what advice to give other than to really focus on Elmdor. He doesn't have a second form like the assassins do, so you the way to go seems to be rushing him. And I guess get stop protection from the one assassin - the other one just gives you death, and I'm not really sure what to do about it other than hope for the best.
edit:: I think I'm going to spend some time grinding up orlandu and meliadoul. The magic sword attacks seem to be the best attack types in the game, they have range, strong power, no charge time, and no risk of countering, at least usually.
If you feel your ears popping, that's you riding the difficulty curve down into the ground. There's a reason most people on their third playthrough or so stop using him.
That said, y'know that Elmdor fight? He has an entire set of unique equipment you can steal. It's not really worth the effort, especially on a first playthrough, but by god it's the kind of thing that would be an achievement if cheevos existed at the time. I raised a female of the appropriate zodiac from level 1 just for the extra few percent success rate on steal when I decided to do it.
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/33912165/#Comment_33912165
That's a stripped down Elmdor. Note his speed, which is basically the only way to make it feasible.
Sucks because you can't steal from him in the PSP version since he has maintenance. That does mean you just beat him down though.
Blade Grasp also reduces chance to Steal. Bring Beowulf with Chicken Sword and put his Bravery down to 1. It won't stop him from attacking, but you will be able to hit him.
DING DING DING SOMEONE GET THIS MAN A COOKIE
It is the sole reason I kept my PS2 hooked up at my apartment. Just to play that fucking game. So fucking good. It's the closest game I have ever seen to Ogre Battle.
Yeah you weren't kidding, Orlandu with dark sword seems like easy mode. I'm completely ok with easy mode at this point though! So I'm going to use him. I think I'm just going to grind Ramza up enough to get Mime, and then head on into the end game.
This makes it useful for repeating targetless abilities and if you're clever it's worthwhile for melee attacks, but I've found it less than useful for things like sword skills or spells. Often times you'll end up sacrificing the mimicked unit's turn by casting on an empty tile just so the mime hits something, which is a net loss.
Also (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), for things like Sword Skills, you still need the appropriate gear equipped.
End spoilers:
Do you mean Meliadoul? Or Reis?
Don't even need a lot of spells. If you fully master calculator with Ramza, then teach him Holy and give him Excalibur, the end credits might as well start rolling.
I was referring to Meliadoul, but if I remember correctly Reis is a beast statwise. I remember destroying things with her dragon abilities, but you had to do some non-obvious secondary skill builds to maximize her.
Edit: Looking it up, her class has the best stat growth and it has innate two-weapons ability. Give her the equip Sword ability and she carves things up.
Reis is his wife, not Meliadoul, which is why I was confused.
Reis is a human? Her default class lets her use dragons' monster skills though.
With the bracelet thing, it amusingly shows up in one other place that really should have clued them in - Celia and Lede have an instant-kill skill called "Stop Bracelet".
Yeah lots of bad translation
Honestly, it's been smooth sailing for a while now, mostly. The biggest hurdle was the mission with nothing but Chocobos.
Red Chocobos are bullshit. Saying it right now.
More importantly, though, what the hell is with the 16 unit limit? The game throws special units at you like it's going out of style, but only gives you a handful of slots, then tries to guilt you when you give someone the boot. Look, they're at least a level better than common mercenaries. They'll be fine.
Why I fear the ocean.