Eternal Poison, Thage(Gothloli) path: Okay, yeah, so I picked this up because I wanted a SRPG that wasn't a FE game.
So far, Thage and Ranunculus are damn good in the earlygame, it seems. Or the enemies are just pathetic. Either way, Thage already has Lv2 offensive spells, and Ranunculus is doing sickening damage (having two kinds of infinite-use damage in EP is big. As is his raw power), on top of having solid durability and gamebest movement. He 4HKOs the first boss alone, as does Thage with Pyro II.
Thage is good because like every enemy is weak to either fire or dark. And she's also immune to magic. having multiple infinite-use weapons isn't that big of a deal because everyone can equip three. >.> But Raki's are crazy high on attack power so it's all good.
...said boss who I set up an Overkill combo on and captured. So now I have a boss with 400 HP (where Ranunculus and one of my mercs have the next best at mid-200s) who was OHKOing/near-OHKOing party members. God knows that either this was still an easy earlygame, or I've just further broken the game, even if this bastard does take up two slots.
Haven't tried using that guy in battle. Actually planning on not using any Majin, but capturing it to get a skill/cash is still nice anyways.
Seems like a fun game so far. I'll probably need to level up some of the captured demons and mercenaries before seriously considering going further in. ...okay, maybe not the demons. Being able to make other party members take half-actions is fun (though they should have told me that you can initiate combos without having the main be part of it).
I don't think you can level up anywhere, actually. If you find out how, let me know. >.> Actually, do Majin even level up? I assumed they couldn't.
Half actions are quite useful in many cases. For example, it lets you keep a weak PC behind until closer to their turn, have them move, and then move+act on the next turn so they don't get left behind. Or if someone can't act and an enemy moves in range before the leader's turn, you can have them attack then. Or delay healing a bit. It's pretty awesome.
Combos just need people who haven't acted and are next to an enemy, yeah. Doesn't have to be the leader (I didn't find this out until the first boss either). Thank goodness because Thage's BOOK WHACKS OF DOOM aren't actually so doomy.
Also, requesting rights to stat-topic this game once I start hitting plot-significant bosses.
I was already planning on stat topicing PCs, actually. >.> I have no plans for bosses so if you want to grab those you'll get absolutely no objections from me. Hmm, not sure if I was going to bother doing Majin either.
Granted, from the looks of it, the bosses are going to be sick Godlikes. Immuning all damage except for one element until being hit by that element is insane in the DL. And if you just fought Moon Belator, you have a plot-important boss coming up, but I'm assuming he has multiple forms.
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Eternal POIZN - Yeah, playing this too, obviously. It's actually quite interesting. Up to... map 5 of Thage's story. So far, Thage and Raki own face, while everyone else is varying shades of meh and YAY HEALING and fail. Interesting to note is that every enemy and every PC has different elemental weaknesses and resistances, which are important to keep track of (the game tells you all of them). Otherwise you might put a PC by some guys who hit its weakness and gets 2HKOd in the process. No permadeath, but no revival, so losing a PC sets you back for the rest of the battle. The game's not all that hard though, but that might change.
Capturing Majin is a neat idea. You can capture them by overkilling them by a certain amount of HP (which the game tells you). Unfortunately, the game doesn't tell you how much damage you will do on an attack, but it's easy to figure out and there's no variance at all. After capturing majin, you have may options: Use them in battle (consumes PP/turn), sacrifice them for PP, sacrifice them for a skill, or sell them. Skills you get from sacrificing Majin can be put on equipment for use in battle. They range from things like Pyro I (fire spell) to Prc Dodge (15% evasion to pierce attacks) to Ph resist I (+20 to physical resistances) so far. Needless to say, some of these can be quite useful. Selling Majin not only gets you money, but unlocks items in the shop, so you can buy them. Not a big deal, but getting that + getting extra money is good. Also, the amount of PP/cash you get from sacrificing/selling Majin seems to be twice as much as you get from killing them normally. Nice.
Battles are normal CTB SRPG. If a character only Moves or Acts, then they can do the other half of that on the leader's turn, which means you can delay parts of your turn if it's more effective, or if you can't attack anything on your turn, wait until the leader goes and maybe you can attack then. If multiple people don't act and can attack the same enemy when the leader goes, you can do a combo attack. This isn't very useful most of time, but it has advantages. It can't be evaded or countered, for one, and since Majin capturing is determined by overkill damage, having two people attack at once makes that easier (I think their damage is just added together, so no extra net damage).
Other than equipment skills, characters also learn skills by levelling up (original, I know). So there is an element of uniqueness here as well as customizability. Characters also have class changes at certain levels, and there's a choice between two classes.
Overall, it's been pretty fun so far. Much better than I was expecting, at least.
