Together RPG - SRPG - Ogre Battle MotBQ - 1/11/14 -> 3/11/14

[Jmustang1968]

Recruited Saradin and promptly made him a lich. Then proceeded to destroy the upstart Albeleo in one encounter. Saradin lich is OP.

I did a quick run of Muspelm to follow. Mostly high aligned enemies, so I wiped them up with my low aligned guys. Slust is now on board and I picked my 3rd ring and 1st crown. I made Norn a princess.
Organa and Fenril are next up.

[Ack]

I have taken the Ryhan Sea and cast out the fake High Monk Randals. I have also acquired the Tablet and sought out the 12 zodiac stones. Up next is Fort Shulamana. I'm worried that I will miss things if I bum rush these stages and will be too weak to take on the final battle. Plus, there are a couple of tarot cards I don't currently have up my sleeve that I may need, like a couple World or Fool cards.

5 stages to go...

[MrPopo]

Jokers are dirt cheap and you can use those to get whatever Tarots you need. In terms of being worried about being underleveled, there are some powerful bosses in the last few levels but you can match that with a superunit of your own (collect your princess, liches, and front liners together).

[pierrot]

I started playing the Saturn version last night, and was playing the Pogram Forest tonight; I just— I don't think I can do it. I've been really wanting to play this game for a long time now, and I'm sure I'm doing everything wrong (which is obvious, as my rep is in the toilet, haven't been able to gain any troops other than Canopus, and my hero gets left in the stables every stage) but there are just too many variables, and not nearly enough control over battle for me to really enjoy this. The game seriously stresses me out. (Especially the never ending train of enemies in Pogram.)

I know it was recommended early on in this thread to use a walkthrough, but I just don't like doing that. I may be robbing myself of a good game, but I just don't think enjoyment of a video game should be dependent on hand-holding from sources outside of the context of the game. I did look up some ideal party setups, but it still didn't really help that much. The gameplay just feels too inconsistent to me, and there's probably a pretty good story down the line, but at the moment, it's not very engaging. Neither is anything else in this game so far, though, really. Just not right now, anyway.

I'm hanging it up. I don't think Ogre Battle is the game for me. (Sure does look and sound nice, though—)

[Jmustang1968]

Just read some of the pointers we gave. Once you know the system, you have really full control over what your characters do. The manual should give some info as well if you read that. I wouldn't say a walkthrough is hand holding here, or even a strategy guide to give you pointers. I only ever use it to find all the hidden treasures and some of the secret characters.

[Ivo]

Pierrot, as someone that was pretty overwhelmed when I started I can tell you that the learning curve is not as overwhelming as it may appear.

I'll sum it up for you, and this is stuff that you could figure out for yourself if you wanted to spend some extra time playing around and observing. You wouldn't need a guide, just to be observant and have more free time.

1. After you get Warren, you get a load of units. It is ok to use them as they come until you get more used to it and want to micro manage more.

2. The movement of the unit can be influenced in many cases by a single character - namely the 2 Gryphons you get can make the whole unit fly which is really handy.

3. Hidden cities and temples are often in relatively obvious places - pay heed to roads leading nowhere. But you don't really need to find the hidden ones to do well enough.

4. If you want to recruit most helpers, you just need to visit most/all cities and liberate them while having a high reputation (your leader's alignment does matter for some of them).

5. Reputation depends only on a few things, namely liberating cities with units with overall high alignment (I think it is the average of the characters inside the unit), drawing the right tarot cards in a liberation (and there are more positive ones than negatives, so I always draw).

6. Alignment is roughly as follows: goes up when a character kills an enemy character of lower level, and down when a character kills an enemy of much lower level (difference of 2 or 3 levels). Characters with Ali > 50 more easily go up than down, and vice-versa (so once you get to the extremes it is much harder to reverse). Killing enemy characters of high or low alignment also matters to the alignment adjustment, for this reason it is very easy to gain alignment by killing undead characters.

If you want more characters, you can either use some of your Unit leaders in towns to "buy" some (in which case they recruit related characters types) or wander around the terrain and get random encounters. If the later happens you can try to persuade them to join (instead of killing them).

If you have more specific questions people here will be glad to help.

[BoneSnapDeez]

@pierrot

The game can be rough, but is a lot easier if you don't care about how "good" your ending is.

But I hear ya - it is stressful. I'm having a hard time just getting started again. It's quite the commitment.

[Ack]

Jokers are dirt cheap and you can use those to get whatever Tarots you need. In terms of being worried about being underleveled, there are some powerful bosses in the last few levels but you can match that with a superunit of your own (collect your princess, liches, and front liners together).

Yeah, I may do that. I have a couple of jokers, and my princess/lich/dragoon/wyvern boss-killer squads(I have 2) are already prepped with two other squads backing them up(made up of generals, seraphim, and cockatrice. One has a doll master, the other has a lich to round them out) and Canopus/Fogel picking off the stragglers. I guess I'll just use the Jokers for the cards and beat the next few levels quickly.

[pierrot]

Snippy snip

I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, because I do appreciate the time that went into making this post in an effort to help me. I'm not offended at all, either, I just had gleaned all of this information beforehand from this thread, or FAQs. Although I hadn't thought to decline drawing the tarot cards. (It seems like I get almost as many "bad rep" cards as good ones.) Once I even drew a card that I was certain was a "good" card, but it gave me negative rep.

I guess one major question I have is:

Was I supposed to somehow not kill what's-his-face in chapter three, after getting Canopus? I took Canopus' unit to fight him, and he just died; and that was that—. Off of that question, was I also supposed to be able to recruit the Bandit boss-man in chapter 2?

The trouble I have is that I feel like the time invested isn't really rewarded with anything. I spend upwards of 2 hours on a single board, only to become frustrated by an endless train of enemies, that I apparently need to shuffle around my troops to fight; or just flat out loosing to the chapter boss because I didn't realize at first that if my main character dies, it's an instant game over. (Happened to me in chapter 2, and I almost did not come back to the game after that. I haven't encountered any random, recruitable enemies since then, either.) If I'm victorious, it just starts all over again. Different chapter, same basic scenario: scour the map for hidden towns, items, and encounters, then try to take out the boss.

I wish I could succinctly put to words the issues I have with the minimal influence over unit actions in combat, but there are just too many variables to influence outcomes without having direct control over character actions. I've never really played a game where I thought I might have a panic attack, but sitting in front of the enemy castle in Pogram, with two of my overpowered units, just watching their Ali and Cha drop as they whaled away on a constant barrage of standard enemies, trying to defeat the boss, only to be met with a sense of futility, and anguish as he constantly regenerated in between encounters because of the flood of enemy units. Once I hit the tipping point, I just went numb, and let the things have at me. Didn't care anymore. Didn't have the fortitude to try it again.

So far, this game has affected me in a way I don't really want to admit, because it sounds like overreaction, but I'm just not sure I can really play it and keep my sanity. It's sitting on my entertainment system, and I keep thinking I might just throw it in, but I immediately start to feel that stress and tension again.

I'll probably do a bit more studying, I might even pop the game in again, at some point, I just don't think I'll be doing it along with you guys, sadly.

[Jmustang1968]

You cant recruit the 2nd boss. You should be able to recruit Gilbert if you have Canopus on the map and I think if you encounter him with Canopus.

As far as attacking the boss, I usually kill all the enemy units before going for the boss. They aren't random, but a set amount of certain unit configurations will be deployed each map. It is a real time strategy and rpg mix. So you basically take over towns, defend them until you kill the enemy force, then go after the boss. You have to wipe out the enemy force. If you just kill the leader, they will retreat back to the base and revive and come back.

This game kind of requires micro-management if you want to control your alignments and reputation. The units you want to get low alignment, should fight a lot early to get their levels up, while your high alignment units fight sparingly.

You can recruit characters by going to town and hiring them. Who you can hire changes on the unit leader, but there has to be an open spot. To get random encounters, you have to be walking over a certain terrain per each map. Each map has 3 different types of possible random encounters. Typically these occur in mountains or water.

If you dont like the strategy element and micro managing the alignments and such, this might not be a game for you.

Your reputation is mostly affected by town liberation. If you liberate a bunch of towns with low aligned units, it will plummet. The tarot cards have an effect, but it is typically minimal. The fortune tarot card will randomly effect your rep between -3 and +3, so you probably pulled that one and werent lucky.