prfsnl_gmr wrote:So far, I am enjoying Shining Force II, the next game on my list. I am playing it on "normal" difficulty, however, and it is really, really easy. The battles, while fun, do not seem to require a tremendous amount of strategy. (In other words, it isn't Nectaris: Military Madness.) I am sure the difficulty picks up towards the end - right? - and since I have never played a SRPG before, I am fine taking it a bit easy. (If I enjoy the game, I will turn up the difficulty the next time I play it or another SRPG.)
Yeah it gets harder later on, but Shining Force I & II are among the easiest SRPGs out there. My playthroughs are always even easier because I grind.
MrPopo wrote:Shining Force II is definitely on the easy end of the scale, though the difficulty goes up once the computer gets magic users. Additionally, many of the later maps like to do things with choke points and flying units that can make it hard to keep your squishier units protected.
Good to hear. I was anticipating more of a challenge from this genre; so, I am glad to hear that it gets a bit harder.
prfsnl_gmr wrote:So far, I am enjoying Shining Force II, the next game on my list. I am playing it on "normal" difficulty, however, and it is really, really easy. The battles, while fun, do not seem to require a tremendous amount of strategy. (In other words, it isn't Nectaris: Military Madness.) I am sure the difficulty picks up towards the end - right? - and since I have never played a SRPG before, I am fine taking it a bit easy. (If I enjoy the game, I will turn up the difficulty the next time I play it or another SRPG.)
Yeah it gets harder later on, but Shining Force I & II are among the easiest SRPGs out there. My playthroughs are always even easier because I grind.
Is it easier than Final Fantasy Tactics? Because FFT is really easy to break...
I'm not very good at FFT and have yet to "break" it.
But in regards to SFII, eventually you'll gain more characters than your party can support. So you'll have to prioritize and decide who's best.
Also, once you have a huge party you'll have to make sure everyone gets some hits/spells in per battle, lest they not gain experience and level. This can be tricky with some of the slower and weaker characters. Try to get them to deal the finishing blow. It's tempting to just ignore them or let them flounder, but that will catch up with you.
Lastly, you will have an option to promote characters later on. The methods in which you do this can make the game much easier or more difficult.
And I'm sure you've realized you can spam heal spells, even when unnecessary, to level up . It's easy to turn Sarah into a beast early on.
BoneSnapDeez wrote:And I'm sure you've realized you can spam heal spells, even when unnecessary, to level up . It's easy to turn Sarah into a beast early on.
I have not been spamming spells, but I am going to start doing that since my Sarah is currently a bit under-leveled.
Then later you get Karna who has the Boost spell which gives tons of experience per. It's not very difficult to cap her levels and turn her into a god of death.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
In any event, it seems apparent that Shining Force is very much about upgrading your characters and managing your inventory and party members. To me, it seems the game is defined more by its RPG elements than by its strategy elements. The last strategy game I played relied much more on a complicated battle system, and it did not have any RPG elements at all. I probably should not have gone in expecting such a complex battle system from Shining Force, but when I first started playing, it felt strange not having it there.
MrPopo wrote:Nope. But what you can do is use your leader's "return to base" skill to reset the battle and grind that way.
Got it. Is grinding really necessary in this game? If not, I may not do it so that I can: (1) get through the game faster; and (2) get more of a challenge out of the later battles.
Last edited by prfsnl_gmr on Tue May 19, 2015 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
