Review NaN of 55
Summary:
I can describe this game in 5 letters- S-W-E-E-T. I am basically going to tell what the entire setup of the gameplay is like in this review, so read it if you're interested. By the way, I know everybody gave this game an awesome rating, but believe me we mean it. This game is AWESOME. It is the perfect mix of rpg and strategy. I loved the game even though I'm not so big on rpg's- even my psOne/ps2 friends simply CANNOT stop playing this game, even though they've been playing it whenever they could for a long time now. I also have been playing this game for a long time but I'm not even finished yet.
Also, here I'd like to discuss saving. You get two blocks on the cartridge, plus one game "suspended" in battle. That means that it's during a mission, and once you load it the data is erased so you can't restart and come back to it if you screw up. If you want more than 2 games, you can keep as many as you want on memory cards (although they take up a ton of memory), but you have to save a game to your memory card, delete it on the cartridge, then load up a game from the card if you want to play a game that's on the card.
One more thing. This game is very hard. If you do not have the time to play a lot, or you are not very good at strategy or rpg, you might find this game frustrating.
Gameplay (I had to put it here because it's more than 3000 characters):
Gameplay is what makes this game so great, even though it is VERY difficult to learn. Even after 10 hours, you still might not have assimilated everything. But also, it is VERY cool once you learn it. I'll try to explain as best I can. Okay, here goes:
Basically, you have very little control over your units once you've sent them into battle. But let me start with pre-battle. This is perhaps the most crucial part of having a successful mission. You have 3 types of soldiers in your battalion. These are Soldiers, who are basically weak and their strength depends on the Characters in the unit they're in and become an Intermediate Human Class once they've fought enough. Then you have Human class characters. They are divided in two ways. One is Intermediate, Advanced, Master and Centurion classes. The other is Male and Female. The leader of each unit must be an Advanced or higher Human Class Character. There are two intermediate classes (one male and on female), a whole bunch (upwards of 30) of Advanced and Master classes (a bit more male classes than female). Also, there is a Centurion class for each gender (simply called Centurion for both) that can lead a Legion (a group of Units). Also there are a bunch of Non-human categories (Dragon, Golem, Monster, Hawkman and more) each with a bunch of classes of its own. You can get non-human classes either by starting with them at the very beginning of the game or entering random battles on the battlefield where you can capture them for your own battallion. Human classes can change to a better class when they have the right stat ratio (i. e. strength to vitality) and alignment (basically good to evil, which changes based on the units you fight). Non-human classes change spontaneously to a better class when they level up on the battlefield (stone golem to iron golem). Please let me add that you do not get Master or Centurion classes until later, so it might take you a while before you're able to form a Legion.
Next, I'll explain Units and Unit options. Units are what move around on the battlefield and enter battles. Each unit consists of a Leader (and Advanced, Master or Centurion human class) and up to 4 other characters or soldiers. Unit formation is ABSOLUTELY critical to success during missions. For example, most units are more powerful either at the front or back of the 3 by 3 grid on which you face your forces in each unit. Also, you will want to keep your archers protected at the back with hand-to-hand fighters along the same vertical line, except at the front of your formation. The same applies to the leader of the unit. If you or an enemy unit loses its leader, it will become uncontrollable and go in random directions (normally you can tell your units where to go) while trying to get away from the enemy with no sort of greater purpose directing it. Units can also carry items that do things from healing characters to changing the gender of soldiers that are changing classes (soldiers in units with a male leader become fighters, soldiers in units with a female leader become amazons). Another important aspect of units is their Battle Strategy. There are 4 different settings: Attack Strongest, Attack Leader, Attack weakest, Autonomous, which are pretty self-explanatory. You can form new units by dismissing an Advanced Human Class Character (perhaps after it's become Advanced, so that you may replace with a soldier from your reserves to increase the size of your battalion), appointing it to be Leader, then joining that force with up to 4 other characters or soldiers that are currently not a part of your fighting force. Also, some non-human classes (monster classes, for example) take up the space of 2 human characters, so that you can only have 4 people in that particular unit. The final piece of pre-battle preparation is equipment. You equip each individual character (you cannot change the equipment for soldiers) based on the required equipment for that class, as well as giving special equipment to that particular character (such as giving a Book of Fire to a wizard whose element is fire as opposed to leaving him with the required Spell Book equipment). Some equipment may change the attack that a character uses, or it may not be as good as the required equipment in some ways, so be careful!
And of course, there is always the moment of truth: the time where all of the equipment, training and preparation you have put into your characters, units and possibly legions comes to the test. Here's how it works: the first thing you will want to do is pause immediately and dispatch all of your units; there is no point in holding back anything. The first command you will want to give your units is a Move command. There are 3 types of Move commands: Move to Location, Move to Unit and Move to Stronghold. Move to Location is a basic command where you can specify the destination your unit should reach along with any waypoints you might want. Your units do not always move in a straight path: a road is faster than a mountain or forest. Also, different units may have different terrain types that they move faster in. In a Move to Unit command, your unit will follow an enemy or friendly unit. Again, it might not move in a straight line, and the only difference from Move to location besides that your target is probably in motion is that you can't set waypoints. Move to Stronghold is exactly like Move to Location except you target a specific stronghold. The only random things that happen while your unit is moving is that it might find an item or it might get into a random battle with a non-human creature. Also, while your unit is in motion it accumulates fatigue. Fatigue reduces your units' defence, offence and makes them less susceptible to guard attacks and more likely that their attacks will miss or be guarded against. Once your fatigue meter is all the way up, your unit automatically camps. Camping out in the open is dangerous, because enemy units cannot be seen by that particular unit, and if a camping unit is attacked, the characters and soldiers will be asleep and will take some time to wake up. If possible, avoid having to camp by staying at strongholds, where fatigue and damage is automatically reduced, and your unit remains fully alert the entire time. You can also camp whenever you feel like there are no enemies around and you want your unit to be at full strength, even though it does not yet have maximum fatigue. The third type of battlefield commands are called Stronghold Commands. Obviously, you can use these at strongholds. They include Enter Stronghold, Shop and Witch Den. You can Enter Stronghold wherever you go, but not all strongholds allow to Shop or go to the Witch Den. Entering the stronghold means talking to one of the people in that stronghold. Sometimes, you will get valuable advice for your campaign. Very rarely (although it does happen) a new character will offer to join your battallion. Typically, the character is powerful and is best used as a leader. Do not rely on strongholds as your main source of new leaders, however. It is better to fight with your soldiers who will advance to Intermediate so that those characters can then advance to Advanced and become leaders or simply characters in a unit. Shopping is not as useful at the beginning of the game except for healing items, but later you can shop for rare equipment which will make your characters more powerful. The Witch Den will bring characters that have been killed back from the dead (soldiers cannot be revived). Characters will become undead characters if you finish a mission with some dead characters (undead characters are usually not as powerful). The witch working there may give you a high price to deal with, but it is better than wasting your rare reviving items that can sometimes (only sometimes) be found if you can afford it. Now, for that all important aspect of every rpg game, the battle system. It's not simultaneous like unit movement on the field, but rather turn-based. Characters or soldiers from the two opposing units will attack based on speed. If your unit is experienced enough, some of its members may attack together to form a combined attack much more powerful than each unit's own individual attack (this usually does not happen until later in the game, though). Attacks might be guarded, the might miss, they might do a lot of extra damage or they might be very weak based on chance and a few factors. One, as I mentioned earlier, is fatigue. But other factors include respective levels, equipment and defensive ability. The battle is over after a certain amount of time, and the unit that took the most damage will lose and will be "bumped" far back on the field. If no units on the enemy team were killed, each unit on the winning team will get one experience point (it takes 100 to level up). Also, alignment will change in the opposite direction from the foe that was recently defeated. You get more experience points for killing more enemies. As I said earlier, a unit whose leader was lost in combat will become uncontrollable. The unit will still be represented in a sprite the image of its former leader, though. Once one of your units (or an enemy unit, for that matter) comes in contact with an unprotected enemy stronghold, that stronghold will be "liberated" and the amount of Goth (currency), soldiers and value of the treasure you receive for winning the battle will depend partly on how many strongholds you liberated.
That about sums it up. The game is divided into scenes and chapters, with 35 scenes each consisting of a battle and 3 chapters and a prologue organizing the scenes. Excellent gameplay variety. The possibilities for how you want your batallion to fight are endless, and imagination is rewarded. The storyline is very deep (much deeper than your typical strategy game), and I haven't even discussed any of the rpg elements. There are a ton of ways you can end the game, and it will keep you coming back for more. If you own an N64, and you're interested in a title that will keep you busy, I suggest OgreBattle 64.
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