VPDS: Beat A Route. Entire game until the final dungeon was, essentially, "Get past turn 1 without fighting getting out of control!" Generally, if you do that, enemies will be positioned such that you can take down one or two right there, and you won't be in a disadvantageous position on the following turn. The only "hard" ones were stupid rescue missions for reasons half the time beyond your control.
Talk about bad polish; this is shit I expect of an SNES/early PSX era game, NOT a modern gen game. I thought creators were smart enough to realize that game difficulty has evolved beyond bullshit luck shots like this...
The final boss was a stupid fight in general. The Crystals on their first assault GMed me, and then when I tried some strategies, they'd GM me and...yeah, I thought you couldn't do shit like Reflect Sorcery or anything since they just cheese around it. Turns out they only do it rarely and its utterly random, unless they're fighting in groups. Also turns out I had an assload of anti-magic skills on my main team that I was never making use of so that was all I needed!
Final Boss itself cost me a reset...before the 2nd half. Why? MT COUNTERS OUT OF NOWHERE THIS IS FUN RIGHT?! Seriously, in a team oriented game, ok, MT counters aren't too bad...but don't pull them out of nowhere in a Point of No Return fight with no means to anticipate them. You can't plan around shit you can't check. It'd be one thing if you saw enemies do this once or twice before; then you could go "Maybe it has MT counters, so I should be wary?" but...yeah.
That first attack on her cost me a reset cause, well, 3/4ths of my team was near dead and they all converged. There was also no way of knowing that the fight chains into another without you actually winning, ubt you can still die and get a game over...real fight wasn't too bad cause I just played cautiously.
I plan on doing B and C routes, eventually, but...mrf. Game has potential, it realizes so very little of it though, and has poor execution. I acknowledge all the VP1 throwbacks at least, in the sense of music, visuals, etc, even if its selection of music was odd in a few areas ("Why is A Mighty Blow, a battle theme of ISERIA, let alone one that originated from SO2, a STANDARD BOSS THEME?") Its heart was in the right place, but its mind was not. Game stands at...5/10? It wasn't too offensive outside of the final boss nonsense, but it is kind of bland despite a good core idea...
Really, this game helps prove that execution is a far more important factor than concept. You can have a brilliant idea conceptually, but crap execution will make it worthless. Flipside, even horrible concepts can be made fun with good execution (heck, the FE series thrives on this!)
