Whoo boy this game was a doozy. The difficulty level was so high and the information provided was so low that I had to kill the last boss ten times or so before she would die. This is because, apparently, without any explanation or warning, the only way to defeat the last boss is if you randomly happen to attack her last health bar with Ike. If anyone else delivers the final blow she revives at full health again. Mechanics like these, which are littered all across the game, make this game absolutely horrid.
The art is great, the plot is great, I like most of the characters, the music is okay, but the gameplay. Oh God the gameplay. This isn't a game you play, it's a game you torturously crawl over and through like Hell Week to become a Navy Seal or Army Ranger or something.
It took me multiple losing attempts before I realized the white dragons were using a magic attack that tested your resistance while the red dragons were using a physical attack that tested your defense. Again, no information pertaining to that was provided, on the menu they were both generic breath attacks that could be seen as magic or physical and you'd never know. Due to that I lost over and over dying to dragons who seemed to randomly do lots of damage or little using the same attack. There were also two dragon bosses with much higher stats and skills that shared the exact same generic look as the other red and white dragons, so if you sent in a troop or groups of soldiers to attack them expecting the same result as all the other dragons you had fought these secret bosses would ambush and destroy you.
All across the game, throughout, there were cheap ways to ruin your life like that. There must have been eight stages fought in total darkness, where you can't see who's about to ambush you, so you can only learn by experience where to place your troops so that they aren't killed by invisible enemies the next turn. Then there were formations of troops that were within range of your troops but wouldn't move, so eventually you considered them 'safe' to ignore because they may as well have been statues. But then when you put a vulnerable, low defense unit next to those very same troops, like a mage or a priest, suddenly those immobile troops would spring into action and run over and kill them. No rhyme or reason to it, they just defy the rules of behavior all previous experience had revealed.
I realize this is an old game and maybe the developers were still learning how to make a good game, but this was 'normal' difficulty mode. Not even the 'difficult' mode you can pick to have a real challenge. If this is 'normal' then I guess arm wrestling Hercules is 'easy' mode. And like usual, there are no take-backs, so if you make a single mistake anywhere in an hour long stage you have to restart from the beginning. Even if you don't make a mistake, if a unit you were counting on to hit, with say an 80% hit probability, misses, you're done. And if an enemy with a 6% chance to crit you crits you, well, sucks to be you, time to restart the stage from the beginning.
I really, truly, dearly hope Fire Emblem: Engage has a divine pulse mechanic so I never have to experience this hell again.
In other news, Love Live! Superstar! is getting a third season. That makes sense, given that the plot hasn't actually been resolved within the first two seasons. I was wondering what they were going to do about that. It's also great news because the Superstar girls are above average even compared to other Love Live! casts. The future of anime is bright, so long as the Earth gets to have a future.
No comments:
Post a Comment