I played through the demo of the game with mouse/kb, but when i bought the full version, i used a controller.
It has interesting and unique combat mechanics and a decent story that becomes interesting after a while (although i haven’t seen how it ends yet). Character development is also pretty nice, kind of like if fable hadn’t failed.
oh i forgot to mention that you should try the demo first. Some people won’t like the method of combat control since you don’t directly control people, you control parties/squads.
I just recently reviewed the Xbox 360 version on my site because I feel that a lot of people pass on this game without even understanding many of its benefits (which is Square’s fault, not theirs).
The level of depth beyond the story campaign is downright incredible. Side quests don’t just open up a side dungeon or two. They open up whole storylines, other characters (that you can recruit), entire towns that you won’t otherwise see… the world suddenly becomes a satisfying and fantastic place. There’s a whole series of underground tunnels, secret towers… drool
There were technical issues with the Xbox 360 version that I wished they would have fixed, and the game really can drain a person’s time, but overall it’s a fantastic JRPG and even though I’ve played a lot of those I can’t say that anything quite matches it. I whole-heartedly recommend it at $10.
Ok just one more question and I’ll bite. It was said in the other thread that in order to be able to finish the game, you need to carefully manage your encounters early on. Am I going to need to constantly consult a walk through to get to the end?
Don’t play the demo first. It’s an awful introduction to the game. It makes no effort to teach you how to play and if you don’t understand any of the systems it’s an exercise in frustration. The game proper slowly inducts you into the combat systems so you aren’t completely lost.
In any case, I think the game does some interesting stuff, but it’s a mess technically. The Unreal engine was not used well. There are long, frequent load times, the performance isn’t very good for the visuals and there are some really stupid things like you have to confirm twice before it will actually load a savegame, even though at the second button press there is literally nothing you can do to cancel or back out, but it won’t load until you confirm with another button press.
But the game gets props for good support of game controllers. That’s the way to play it, don’t even try with a mouse and keyboard.
How early on? And how carefully? I don’t think it’s meaningfully true… but I haven’t played TLR in a while and I haven’t gotten to the end. Point us to somebody saying this, because I’m curious about the precise claims.
Supposedly, with all the changes to the PC version, this effect is much less pronounced. The PC version of the game is better in lots of ways. Here’s a list. Included: “Linking additional enemies together does not increase your Battle Rank further than having fought them separately.”
My 2 cents: This game is terrible. I thoroughly hated it, and I can stomach a lot from a jrpg. I truly hated the battle system and the character progression system. At $10 though it’s worth the gamble; some people like it.
Playing on the PC, I haven’t had that problem, and I’ve played some Disc 2. There have been some tough encounters, and there are a couple that I’m pretty sure are side stuff that’s supposed to be too hard now so that I have to go adventure and come back later, but the story fights have been beatable. I’ll keep an eye out for this shit when I start playing again, though. I’ve killed a LOT of wuss monsters just by trying to discover the special rare bosses for the guild quests.
Playing this game currently on the 360… wow, the critics were really harsh. I wonder if a lot of that had to do more with the technical performance of the game - this was released BEFORE MS made it possible to install games to the HD, right?
Because playing on the HD, loading screens though frequent are actually very short and there is some slow-down in battles but it’s not horrible and in any case just feels like they’re fighting in slo-mo Matrix style (especially with all the damn camera panning!).
But that aside, the game is actually pretty good. I think I just had to let it sink in a bit that this wasn’t a typical JRPG. The overall game structure and mechanics are different but once I got over that, I started enjoying the game.
The combat system is fun (though could have been a bit more flexible) and battles are challenging, the art design is good as are the graphics (the walking animations are another thing entirely), side quests are well done and I like the way they become available, and the music is very good. Not so sure about the story yet - I’ve put in at least 8 hours so far but don’t think it’s advanced too far… probably due to the amount of time spent in combat (not a bad thing so far).
Anyway, so far it’s definitely not a great game but it’s far from the abomination the reviewers seem to make it out to be.
You know what? SE can’t make a fucking PC version that works to save their life. I the game is supposed to support the 360 controller but I still can’t get it to work right in this game. The Controller works perfect in every other game but for whatever fucking reason this game just does not see it. Fucking SE.
So I’ve played around for several hours with this game since I picked it up on the cheap. I think I understand the mechanics of the game but either:
There really isn’t much to do regarding combat - picking attack, mystic arts, heal, etc isn’t all that interesting. Also the system is pretty opaque as far as what works against particular creatures, what some of the attributes do, etc. That being said I have pretty much walked through all the combats without any trouble so far. I just feel like a monkey could press the keys and have the same success.
I’m missing something.
I know more features open up later in the game, like putting together your own unions. That really doesn’t seem all that interesting either. For those who have played this if I’m not liking it a couple hours in is there any point to continue? I just can’t see how this will actually get interesting.
It’s all about putting together your unions. Different unit combinations and formations can be the difference between victory and massive defeat. I love it but if that sort of gameplay doesn’t tickle your fancy, you might as well put it aside.
Will there be more to it than say, I want to group those with a strong mystic arts skill so when I attack with mystic arts they do more damage? Or include a person with mystec arts so they can heal the group? Or is that about the extent of it?
With the numbers flying by during combat, it doesn’t really seem like you can evaluate performance very easily.
For example, some characters have special unique abilities if made leader of a union, there’s a weapon upgrading system for party members, formations affect union efficiency against specific types of monsters, there’s summons, whether you defend or attack right off the bat affects the outcome of fights, size of unions is important as well as sometimes attacking with more unions composed of fewer units can also be the difference between victory and defeat.
Thanks gmonkey.
One more question for you. Other than just losing a battle, does the game provide any feedback so you can make those decisions you mention based on information instead of just guessing? I am easily winning the battles so far, but I really don’t know why.
I am pretty early in. My main concern though is that the game doesn’t present enough info so the player can intelligently decide what the best actions are. I don’t want to randomly try things to see what works, but figure out what should work based on the info. Does the game do this?
