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« on: August 04, 2010, 08:03:03 PM »
So, after over a week of near-solid gameplay, I've finished LFT up to endgame (no aftergame yet).
I've only played 2 rpgs before all the way to the end, and never any tactics-style games, and I can confidently say that LFT very much is doable and is set up well/good for new players, as I really had no idea what I was doing at the start, but nothing ever felt impossible or out of my range.
If I had to try summing up the difficulty in one sentence, I would say it felt as if I had all the tools I needed, but had to respect and out-think the enemy each time. Lack of thought or respect would lead to getting my ass kicked, I couldn't just "do stuff and win", but always had to play smarter rather than play harder.
The only small criticism I have here is that before I started the game I got a lot of information from a helpful friend on all the battle mechanics and party setup, on the different stats and the zodiac system, the classes and what they did (but no advice on how/what to actually use in battle, of course). If I didn't have this advice about the game mechanics, or had to rely on the in-game tutorial (which I honestly would have given up on because of engrish) then I probably would have spent a lot of time flailing around between classes and ended up with a much much less optimal party, I don't know if the game would have gone so well for me then. Equally, some of the abilities have unclear descriptions in the game itself, and I needed to ask what does this really do/how does this work. Now, I had people to ask, but an isolated player just grabbing LFT for the first time might be left feeling more lost. The reference documents for LFT don't seem to go into enough detail about game mechanics there, and I humbly suggest adding some kind of basic manual or something.
For me, gameplay and difficulty is a highly narrative experience, and the way LFT was balanced pulled this off better than any other videogame I have ever played, hands-down, especially in relation to important or dramatic story battles. Gaffy was scary, difficult, reflected his placement in the story even though it was early on. Queklain battle and Velius battles were balanced just right, along with a load of other battles that went right down to the wire, only one or two party members left standing and just managing to scrape though through luck and sound tactical decisions. That kind of gameplay feels intensely right for this sort of game, doable but very challenging, always having to pay attention and outthink the game. It makes the gameplay itself exciting, the foes scary and victories meaningful.
Lots of random thoughts on difficulty in general so I'm just going to bullet point it all
- Randoms are great, I find myself constantly wanting to go fight monsters since they do unexpected things and often provide as much challenge as story fights.
- Most feared move: Death Sentence. Over and over, rocking out in more battles than I can count and sometimes ensuring a wipe.
- Once I got Dragon Spirit I put it on everyone, all the time. Raise seems very very important, and I always made sure I was running at least two characters with raise of some kind, in addition to Ramza's Wish skill.
- Lancer = best class. Loads of HP, Jump allows spell dodging, and by Chapter 4 two-handed spear was godlike, shank shank shank.
- I used Agrias as in the 5th character slot for battles, and to be honest she was rather crap while actually in Holy Knight, which had tiny PA and barely chipped away at enemies. She only became genuinely useful when moved out of Holy Knight, and frankly if I had known it would take so long to get all those sword powers, I probably would have given up and focused on making her a two-handed Lancer like my other PA-based characters.
- First wipe was in the last battle of Chapter 1, and wipes in general didn't tend to happen more than once or twice on a battle (after seeing what was going on and being able to react to it from the start of the battle), with a couple of notable exceptions. The hardest battles in the game were Weigraf assassination at Orbonne, which took a dozen or so resets but was very very fast, relying on avoiding those 25% status effects and rushing him down once I got set-up right, and ... Balk 2, which was hands-down the hardest part of the game and the only moment I seriously doubted my ability to pull it off. The Hydras were incredible, near unbeatable, and I had to rely on making everyone Lancer for the HP + hiding in Jump, and pray that mathskilled confusion went off on monsters as much as possible.
- Favourite thing: mathskill. Mathskill so hard, all day every day, confusion, cure, fire, often pulled off battles for me, and CT5Cure2 just ploughs right through undead.
That's all I can think of now! Feel free to ask questions and stuff, as I haven't played the original there's probably loads of stuff I don't consciously realise or take for granted.
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