About the save system… So, how long does a dungeon run take? And if I have to stop in the middle of a run, will I have to start over?
Not sure about the later dungeons.
So far the moment i decide to return, it’ll only take a few minutes to take the long route back through the auto movement. (around 2-3 mins even if I meet random encounters, i’ll just use my divinity to escape and continue)
There are
- butterfly nests in dungeons that can telepprt home
- warp stones in dungeons that can teleport home
- consumable butterflies that can teleport home (limited in number)
- auto-walk on map to bring you home (click destination, click ok)
Well, this is 60% off on PSN this weekend for those who’d like to know.
This popped up on my Steam wishlist at 40% off today due to the sale. That puts it low enough to consider taking a chance on it. The recent reviews on it are negative but I think that may be because the Win10 creator update broke the game and they haven’t fixed it. I have Win7 so probably not an issue for me at least.
Has anyone continued to play this and if so, would you recommend it?
I finished it. It was an enjoyable ride if you like jrpg. Grinding is required for post game bosses.
The mechanics are interesting enough, with Wizardy style multiclassing.
I have completed the post game bosses but have yet to start on NG+. I prefer this a lot more compared to StarCrawlers.
Edit: In fact the gameplay mechanics is like Demon Gaze.
I like dungeon crawlers a lot. Jprgs are a bit more iffy. I didn’t really like Eliminage Gothic much (mostly because of the stupid map mechanics) but I did like the original Etrian Odyssey. I really haven’t tried any others. I liked Starcrawlers well enough until they ruined it with patches and I know we share similar views on that so I may just pick this up. Thanks.
The automapping on Stranger is great with auto travel.
But there is no save within dungeons. So it may piss off a lot of people.
Hope you get to enjoy this as much as I did!
I did pick it up this morning and have been figuring out character creation and the starting area. Controls are kind of clunky and you can’t remap them but I’ll get used to it. Had a problem with the audio control sliders not working but finally fixed it by changing my speakers config.
So far I just have my main character rolled and made it to the base. He’s a 62 year old Samurai. Next I need to roll more characters, Any starting tips for the beginning?
If you’re playing on PC, you can remap the controls. You have to scroll left and right in the options menu. This game is a trainwreck on a lot of levels though, I just returned it due to multiple crashing/config problems.
I’ve been playing all day and haven’t seen any technical issues like that. I do have Win7 though. Win10 has had crash/load issues since the last big Win10 update. The devs posted a fix for that issue today in the beta branch, though.
Got my party to level 2 and am exploring the mausoleum area.
When I was a beginner, there were 2 key things that were most mystifying to me.
- Equipment
- Character Stats
- Money
In relation to the power and damage that can be dealt by my team.
- Equipment
Forget about buying things in the Store. As you will find all consumables in dungeons. Since the Store do not restock (major story advancement will add things for sale) the store only serve as the most basic of starting needs. Keep a dungeon escape item handy as it’ll save you from a party wipe.
Equipment’s major purpose in this game is
a) To enhance defences
b) To enhance a spell caster’s power minimally
c) To enhance a melee character’s power/damage in a major way
In other words, weapons determine for most part the damage you inflict. A high strength character with a weak weapon will cause a LOT LESS damage compared to a low strength (but with enough) character wielding a strong weapon.
All powerful weapons have a class and stats/attributes requirements. They tend not to be too high. I think a strength of 20 will allow a warrior to carry almost all weapons.
Some fantastic weapons have a Piety requirement as well.
Monsters have the Immortal and the Elemental(? I think, I cant recall off the top of my head now) trait. Those traits gives immunity to weapons that do not carry those traits. Typically, the Wizard and the Priest will have skills that grant those enchantments to your team weapons. But they will take 1 round to cast. So I tend to favour weapons that provide those traits in midgame. That allows you to handle trash mobs without using spells.
All consumables can be “farmed” at the Spirit (fireflies) ambush spots. But good weapons and armours can be “farmed” at the ambush spots.
Using the ambush spots as you travel in the dungeon is the key to level up your equipment as you perform quests. Repeated ambushes at the same spot increases the costs required for it (paid via divinity points(?), Again I cannot remember the term used.) but you can move to a new spot in the same dungeon and repeat the same step.
The dungeons level determine the level and class of the equipment you get from ambushes. So a few ambushes should get you what you need.
- Character stats
The stats of the characters affect combat in an strange way.
a) Piety and Intelligence affects the power of the spells cast in a major way. A high Int character will ALWAYS cast more damaging spells compared to a lower Int character. So to build an effective wizard, a high Int is mandatory. Same with Piety.
b) Strength on the other hand, affects the damage output not as much as the weapon wielded itself. So I tend to build the melee characters’ Str with what weapon I want to wield in mind. Note that it determines the damage on melee AND Ranged combat. I tend to keep this low at the beginning. Say 14+ for a starting melee/ranger character and then incrementing it when I get good weapons.
c) Vitality on the other hand impacts the HP we get on each levelup. So it pays to have a decent amount of Vitality. In the beginning to midpoint levels, lacking Vitality is a major pain as a few random hits on a low HP character will take him/her out of action. I would try to have 16 as a bare minimum.
d) Agility on the other hand is an attribute that I do not skim on. It determines both the TO-HIT and Dodge on your characters. Which is a must for melee based characters. Prioritize this over Strength for your melee characters and you’ll never regret it.
A 12-str, 20-agi character will ALWAYS outperform a 12-agi, 20-str character. So build with this in mind, no matter what the class. You be cursing at the misses you’ll get with a low dex character.
e) Luck is a must for chance based skills. So the ninja and sumarai insta-kill skills are dependent on them. Hiding and then assasinating skills of the ninja relies on it. So it’s a good stat to have on the Ninja.
- Money in this game have 1 and 1 purpose only. To resurrect characters and cut down the healing and resurrection time. Once you get the idea, everything starts to make sense. So hoard this because you’ll need the money when one of you highly valued characters dies.
General Stuff
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It’s good to fill up all the character slots with people. As they gain level even if they are in the base. Their XP progress more slowly compared to your adventuring team. But it’s good to have them ready to fill in the gap in case one of your teammates needs resurrection and healing.
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Plan it so that your main character DO NOT change class for a long time. As the cleric have the most awesome skill Holy Soul at level 26 that gives you total immunity to negative and 1-hit kills and stuns, it is actually good to have a starting Cleric. And since you will stick with him/her at least until level 26. That’ll mean that you’ll have a very high level character for most of the game.
A high level main means that your multi-classing is much more effective. When you switch class, you lose 1/2 your levels. So a level 26 character changes class into a level 13 character in the new class. This means that you get a whole tons of skills of the new class the moment you change!
- Class change.
Multi-classing is one of the funner mechanics of the game. Having great passive abilities that can mix in well with offensive abilities of another class is a great thing for all the characters. Keep in mind that spell casters need to have high INT/PIE to be effective. So defensive skills of the melee characters should be kept in mind when building your characters. E.g. The knight provides passive HP and defencing enhancing skills for your spell casters so that they can withstand stray attacks.
I tend to build the characters with the END class in mind. In a first (non-NG+) play through, you’re allowed 4 class changes (you can have 5 classes), so it is essential that you pick stats and skills with the END class (the last class) in mind if you intend to exploit the class change mechanics to the max.
That’ll mean that even if I start with a Knight, I’ll be concentrating on the PIE/INT stats if I intend to have a Wizard or Cleric as my last class. That’ll make the character weak throughout most of the time he/she is leveling so it’s not advisable until you get access to later areas of the game where leveling is much much easier.
- Rely on the Divinities.
Divinities are powers that are obtained by exchanging the soul crystals you obtain from defeating bosses. They play a huge part in how you can defeat powerful bosses or even hard than usual monsters. So learn to play with that.
I’ve typed more than I intended.
The UI is a bit odd because it’s meant to be played on the console. I think you can play with a twinstick controller. But once you get the control scheme, the mouse/keyboard is entirely servicable.
Edit: I would recommend the starting character as a Cleric -> multiclass -> Wizard
As the INT and PIE stats investment into such a character will not gimp your main character. If any of your other characters are badly built, you can always replace them. But you cant replace your main character, if you had badly built the main character, you’ll need to play NG+ to rebuild the stats distribution.
The mechanics is such that you only gain stats when you gain levels HIGHER than the HIGHEST level class your character has. I.E. A level 26 character who changes class into a level 13 character will ONLY gain stats if the new class reaches level 27.
Great tips @cicobuff, thanks. I think morale is the thing you have to get enough of during combat to allow you hide and ambush. I’ve been doing some of that. I got some good equipment ambushing but nothing anyone in my party can use yet.
Great tips! I started playing this on the Vita a few weeks ago, doesn’t seem like mechanics are explained all that well from the little I played.
I reinstalled the game on a new Windows 10 installation. And was unable to launch.
Double clicking on the game launcher directly showed that directx 9 was missing on windows 10.
So I proceed to install directx 9 (from MS site) and it was able to launch after that.
Pity that the devs were so lazy to trouble shoot this. Could have saved themselves A LOT of negative reviews if they just repackaged their installers to include the d3dx9 redistributables.
What’s with the harpies? I ran into them in the forest and they are impossible to beat as far as I can tell. Any tips? They just slaughter me so I’ve been running from them.
I’m in the shadow palace now at around level 13 for my group. I’m really enjoying everything about the game except for the dialog and cutscenes which seem to have been written by a drunken 6 year old. Maybe it’s the crappy translation but the dialog is just so terrible. And the cutesy stuff reminds me of why I avoid Japanese games for the most part. Other than that, loving it.
My memory is hazy. I do remember that my damage to the harpies were very low and I kept missing, making them difficult to defeat. Additionally, the enemies started having immunities.
When facing enemies like that I’ll get the Wizard to use the Enchant Weapon skills. (Holy Weapons by the Cleric if they have the Immortal Trait). Then, use the Wizard to cast the stackable “Multi-Slow” and the Cleric to cast “Multi-Avoid” (or “Multi-Hit” if I still misses).
When your Wizard reaches Level 14, with the High Cast (2x spell in 1 go), the Multi-Slow will be even more effective, making hard-to-hit enemies easy targets.
It is one of the key reason why AGL on the melee heroes are important. Later dungeons have enemies which are hard to hit.
I dont remember if the Harpies have Insta-Kill. If they do, you’re out of option but may have to level up some more, a level 13 group does not have much defence against Insta-Kill. But I dont think this is the case. The Harpies is just probably the first group with very high avoid that you are facing. Multi-Slow and Multi-Hit will help much.
And yea, the dialog is quite typical of JRPG. Hope it grows on you =). I found my self wanting to find out about what the other endings are even after experiencing some of the more irritating story. It does gets better after the midway point after the super annoying people stop annoying you.
Well, now I’m completely stuck and can’t find any information on what to do.
I’m on the “Dimension Gate” quest which has me go to the Shadow Palace which I’ve now explored. I’m supposed to give 3 blood crystals to Riu to advance the quest so I killed some linages and gave her 3 crystals which unlocked Sword Bond. As soon as I did that she gave a speech about going off somewhere and everyone meeting me there and then left. The other 2 (Alm, Marilith) also left and I have no idea where everyone is. It’s kind of like the first quest where everyone goes off to the leader meeting at the Palace but the quest text on that one said where to go. The Dimension Gate quest still just says collect blood crystals for Riu. But she’s nowhere to be found.
Any memory of this? I checked everywhere I can go to in the game. I tried opening the locked door in the Shadow Palace that says you need the talisman to open but it still won’t open. Do you remember what you did to get all the folks that disappeared back so I can give them blood crystals again?
If I recall correctly, there is a path to the North of the Forest area. I think there is a hidden passage that goes all the way north. 2 hidden passages in fact. So if you find the first one, just keep going, even if it seems like a dead end.
Then you’ll get to a screen where it seems like a high tower in the distance. Just head towards that. I think all of them are gathered there. There’ll be a fight (as always after turning in the soul stones to progress the story line).
Edit: It’s beyond the gate guarded by the ogres (orcs?), you’ll need to finish that subquest for the chief to open up the gate.
Hope I didn’t get this one wrong. My memory is very hazy on the quest order.
I’m surprised you seem to have progressed quite a bit. What are your levels now?
Yes!! Thanks so much for the help, that was driving me crazy. I’d already finished that whole zone and killed all the lineages there too so I didn’t even think to look at the monolith even though I think she’d said to meet at a monolith. After a long cutscene there they sent me off to the Slums next. So, I’m back on track now.
I’m up to level 14. I’ve finished the metal mausoleum, the forest and the shadow palace so far. Slums/ruins is the next quest area, I guess. I’d killed one lineage there already so time to explore it more.