Modamy

Are we advance wars again?

Just starting my lunch, I’ll be able to watch the whole thing!

Well there's only one obvious way to answer this question. Another KH series marathon playthrough.

I guess that means it'll be amazing. Also I didn't see Pirates coming back for KH3, but boy am I hyped for it and I might be remembering wrong, but I thought Repliku was with Eraqus in the "straight up dead" club of characters in Kingdom Hearts.

I recently decided to start messing around with Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions again after several failed attempts to play the game and I'm having an easier time. I've got a better grasp on the mechanics, but not entirely and the clunky and kind of slow feeling of this game constantly annoys me. I want to finish this game since people call it one of the best JRPGs. I'd like to know how you guys feel about it and maybe hear some advise from those who played it.

Sothe ends up being the very definition of a Jagen not by his growth rates, but by his class. The combination of his class caps and weapon type make it guaranteed that while Sothe is amazing when he first shows up he will be outperformed by most other units. It's pretty ingenious to make your Jagen a thief, a class not really suited to combat just guarantee that fact. The problem comes in part 4 endgame when he is force deployed during a part of the game when a thief doesn't help you that much. As a unit Sothe is fantastic in part 1 and can pretty much solo maps and feed kills to weaker units because of his weaker weapons holding back his kill potential. In part 3 the enemies pick up and Sothe starts to struggle, but if you managed to get him a beastkiller he'll easily hold out as long as he's not left open to too many tigers. Even with a forced promotion in part 4 Sothe's combat will only be passable as it starts to become really apparent that he shouldn't be a combat unit. Sothe forced deployment and death being a fail condition for every map he is available until part 4's endgame makes it impossible to lose him. Sothe's forced deployment and poor class for combat make the other units in his class line irrelevant so he has no real competition unless you just need to have Heather or Volke in your endgame team. While Sothe falls off no one can ignore his amazing job in the early game as a Jagen so from me, he get's a 9/10.

Maybe a cool down for skills like in Heroes, but you can use it when you want by choosing the command in the menu.

It’s more that I hate control being taken away from me period. If I’m too far away from an enemy and hit the attack button I’d prefer to just whiff as opposed to my character starting to run over and attacking automatically. It’s part of the reason why I find the first two star ocean games pretty boring to play even though I do like the many optional recruitable party members in the game.

I’ve always despised the semi auto mode of all the tales games and turn it off the first moment I’m able. Phantasmagoric and Destiny were special in the series for the fact that they didn’t let you turn it off right away. You had to find a freaking manual item to turn it off. In Destiny it was a key item, but in Phantasia it was something you had to equip on the character you were playing as. And don’t even get me started on the fact I’m the gba game it was only obtainable from only side quest in the game just before the final dungeon. Seriously all the work to unlock that side quest just to unlock a basic gameplay mechanic.

At this rate I'm thinking of just nagging my supervisor into sending me to lunch when the presentation is supposed to start.

Phantasia X is the definitive version with a much updated battle system, but there is only an english menu patch. It seems like most fan translators of the Japanese only Tales games called it quits.

Yeah, Vesperia used the linear motion battle system, but you could free run and considering Zestiria allowed the player to make free run the default I wouldn't be surprised if the remaster added that as well. Vesperia just feels smoother than Abyss with a lot more combo potential, although your mileage may vary depending on which characters your playing as. Several of Vesperia's characters use two different weapon types and their attack speed and damage and I believe some of their artes change depending on the weapon. Also if Phantasia is your only experience with fully 2D games in the series I would recomend trying Tales of Eternia (or Tales of Destiny 2 stateside (even though there is an actual Destiny 2)). While I think the cast in Eternia is the weakest in the series, the gameplay is really fast paced and evident that the 2D games after Phantasia and Destiny 1 just got way better.

It's been a while since I played Vesperia, but I remember the gameplay being really solid and not too bloated by mechanics like some Action RPGs can be. It might not be your thing since you didn't like Abyss, but Vesperia is basically a more polished version of Abyss' gameplay without the elemental circles.

Well since Microsoft's got there hands on the series it's only a matter of time until a pc release. It'll probably just come after the console versions.

According to Tryhard's post there will be a pc release.

Thank Christ I didn't want to shell for a new console to play one of my favorite games of all time. But I'd still do it. and it's on the switch, awesome.

Also surprised to find Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition during this conference. They didn't say it was an exclusive, but does anyone think this means no PS4 but an XBONE and Steam release?

Well the only thing left in E3 I'm looking forward to is the Nintendo presentation for FE.

I actually can't watch the presentation live unless I get really lucky and my break at work lines up at just the right time. I actually feel bad that I'll be missing the initial hype/rage with you guys.

Laura She's a walking heal staff. Laura is your only healer in part 1 aside from Micaiah using Sacrifice. She is not a combat unit so the fact that almost every enemy destroys her doesn't really matter and if she is left open and attacked it's your own fault. Laura has pretty impressive growths and would become a better Micaiah if it weren't for her exp gain being abysmally slow. You could get her to promotion with bonus exp, but there are so many other more worthwhile units who could use it that are already making contributions that the only units Laura takes priority over are the absolute bottom of the barrel (Fiona and Meg even Leonardo beats her out). This means she basically has no hope of even reaching level 10 to use a master seal before part 1 is over unless you play pretty slowly. In Part 3 Micaiah who gains c rank staves on promotion becomes your primary healer and does a better job than Laura. If you did manage to promote Laura she starts off with E rank light magic and considering her less than spectacular bulk you aren't going to leave her exposed to the multiple enemies on enemy phase to raise it. There are also units with a much higher claim to the arms scrolls in the game due to magic being pretty underwhelming in Endgame anyway. Laura is nothing more than a heal staff. Her endgame potential puts her above Rhys, but Rhys requires much less work to do the same job. Micaiah instantly becomes better than her in part 3. Despite all this Laura is not a bad unit, she uses staves and supports the frontline units and that is always appreciated she's just not particularly better at it than anybody else. Since she does her job as a staff bot and nothing else she gets a 6/10.

When I found out about Rowan and Lianna's characters the first thing I thought was "why aren't these just Ephraim and Eirika then"? The two just feel like discount knockoffs of two characters that aren't even that particularly great to begin with. It's also made worse by the fact that they were made less unique by the development staff by making them clones of one another and giving them swords instead of an axe and lance like originally planned. Also I hate when people say that an all lords roster would have been boring. There is plenty about each of the lords to give them completely unique movesets and attributes. From magic swords, to elements that they're associated with, to being mounted, and their legendary weapons. The only things that would have needed to be done was dump the weapon triangle because of the lack of other weapon types and be creative with everyone movesets.

Nolan He's got really solid bulk for the early game to withstand several rounds of combat before needing to be healed as well as enough speed to at least not get doubled.His growths gear him towards being fast with middling strength. Despite his head start Nolan is still a growth unit and can be screwed over by his growths not giving him enough strength to stay relevant damage wise. In part 3 he obtains Tarvos as a personal weapon which buffs his def by 4, which further cements his role as a tank. Even if he lacks the ability to kill reliably he can take enough hits and allow someone else to finish the job. In hard mode he's easily one of the most reliable of the Dawn Brigade members. I actually prefer Boyd as my Reaver of choice, but I don't bench Nolan on the Dawn Brigade's maps as he's able to remain relevant for all of part 3. He gets a 8/10 for his amazing early game, decent mid game, but shaky late game due to his lower strength growth.

It seems like there is so little information on Maiden of Darkness that its hard to tell. Also I think some of the concepts from this scrapped game were put into the Tellius games, although I could be wrong.

Super late on this one. Sorry Leonardo Part 1 - He's an archer. He does chip. There's not much more to say. He possesses the cancel skill which is situational at best to keep on him. Leonardo will have his moments if he's on top of a ledge so he's one of my preferred units to take care of the reinforcements that come from the bottom of the endgame map. He's unlikely to get hit unless biorhythm works against him and he can get a decent number of kills on enemies completely defenseless against him. Part 3/4 - He, like many other units, can make use of the beastfoe skill once promoted to pretty much oneshot laguz enemies. Although this is better used on a frontline unit like Aran, Nolan, Jill, Zihark, a trained Edward, just anybody else really. He does obtain the Lughnasadh, which is a fantastic bow that gives a +5 to his speed and can even work his mediocre speed up to the point that he can double. He also has the highest potential res out of each potential marksman so he could do well against the magical enemies of endgame. In Summary Leonardo is a mediocre at best unit with tough competition from other archers for the SS rank bow and within the Dawn Brigade he's competing with much more solid units at base and the king of growth units; Edward for the limited experience going around. He's the only dedicated ranged fighter left on the Dawn Brigade in part 3, for what that's worth. I'll field him to do okay chip on enemies or plug a ledge opening, but he's just not impressive. He gets a 3/10 from me.

I'm kind of in between excitement and "not excitement" I guess. I'm just anxious to get some information on the direction the series takes for the Switch.