Together Retro: Shining Force

[Ivo]

The story is not bad, it is just rather basic and fairly standard fare. The story of Shining Force is rather poor compared with say Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis (maybe also fairly standard, but IMO rather well executed) or Fire Emblem I think. I still have to say the story does pick up near the end, at the start it is extremely predictive.

As for the main character yeah I don't know what happened with yours but mine (named the default Max) was sturdy and really dishing it out. During many battles I could throw him out there and he took just 1 dmg from the attackers (including against the Steel Claws of Chapter 8!), and even on battles with Blue Dragons and Chimeras (chapter 8, anyone?) he could take 3 hits of Chimeras or 2 of Blue Dragons. Perfect bait as well, enemies flock to him (then I heal and pile on the enemies). As one of the few units that develop high Magic Res % and high HP - and the top priority for enemies - he was also extremely valuable. Against spell casting bosses lure those strong AoE spells by putting him relatively isolated on one side of the spell caster and dish out the damage with everyone else on the other side.

So you should really level up your main. I promoted him at 20, and after gaining some 5 levels post-promotion he often got massive stats up at leveling up (not unusual to have total of 8 or 10 points across the board like +4 attack +2 defense +4 HP +2 MP or stuff like that).

Ivo.

[Xeogred]

Sounds worth getting him to 20 then and promoting.

Have you played Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Ivo? That one is even way better than KOL, although to be fair I only got 20 or so hours into KOL, I still want to get back to it sometime. That game was about 10x more easier than LUCT too, lol. Not that I'm complaining though, KOL was still tons of fun from what I played and the story seemed great. Comparing FFTA to that is definitely a joke.

[Jmustang1968]

Sounds worth getting him to 20 then and promoting.

Have you played Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Ivo? That one is even way better than KOL, although to be fair I only got 20 or so hours into KOL, I still want to get back to it sometime. That game was about 10x more easier than LUCT too, lol. Not that I'm complaining though, KOL was still tons of fun from what I played and the story seemed great. Comparing FFTA to that is definitely a joke.

Ya I enjoy both, but LUCT is definitely better. Have you played the PSP version yet?

Yes and Max goes to beast mode, especially when he gets a certain sword...

[Xeogred]

My friend let me play a match once, it seemed decent enough. The PSP version is probably different enough that I'd say both versions are worth checking out. I think I would favor the SNES/PSX version though, some of the changes I heard about with the leveling/skill system don't sound all that great, but I'll have to really play it someday to see for myself.

[Jmustang1968]

My friend let me play a match once, it seemed decent enough. The PSP version is probably different enough that I'd say both versions are worth checking out. I think I would favor the SNES/PSX version though, some of the changes I heard about with the leveling/skill system don't sound all that great, but I'll have to really play it someday to see for myself.

I love the original, but I would say I prefer the PSP version now. Skills are def better, before many classes didnt really have any skills. Leveling is different, you level up per class but not per character. I didnt think I liked it at first, but in practice it works well...

The translation is better, and there is more extra stuff and characters. A generally more polished game.

[Xeogred]

I'll take your word for it over reviews I've read, heh. I'll definitely check it out sometime when I can. I still want to play the PSP version of FFT as well for the better translation and stuff, just sad to hear it's got some lag with magic attacks or something (which is on the PSN release as well from what I've heard).

[Ivo]

SRPGs are quite clearly one of my favorite genres. I like stuff like Advance Wars as well, but I like the more pronounced RPG elements. And between the Fire Emblem and the FFT / Tactics Ogre style, I favor Tactics Ogre.

Knight of Lodis was amazing and I found it so much better than FFTA (I also liked FFTA though, I know some people really dislike the laws and so on though). I played KoL twice back to back, to check out the 2nd storyline. So worth it.

So about the original... It is probably the pinnacle of SRPGs for me given that I preferred KoL over Fire Emblem. I've been wanting to play it. I have this sort of issue in this kind of situation, I am a bit afraid I might not like it, and I am also a bit afraid I will like it a lot and then there aren't more Tactics Ogre games. Perhaps I should play the original and then I still have the PSP remake.

Also loved X-Com, although that has so much more than just the great tactical RPG battles. I would really like to see a refined X-Com battle system in a game focusing just on that. They could put a re-telling of the UFO story with well designed missions and have the equipment improve in a fixed "Chapter" progression. They naturally could implement different classes with the psi abilities being sort of equivalent to Magic and so on. I think it would work really well provided it was developed properly. But there isn't a big fan base for this kind of game, sadly.

Ivo.

[noiseredux]

honestly I could care less about the story. I just love playing SRPG's because I love the battles. I love the strategy. If an SRPG was nothing but battles with shops and between them and no story at all, I'd still be happy.

[dsheinem]

[noiseredux]

awesome, D.

Thoughts on the Darksol battle(s)?