Hello lovely Hiveans !
Map Overview
The world map and their features are held in a very simple fashion. Nevertheless, they feature all the necessary information that one could actually wish for. In this aspect, I have to say, that they did a nice job. Side stories are indicated by a green Exclamation Mark, and Main Stories are indicated by a red one. If the player goes to the marks, a short introduction of what is to be expected is shown in the upper left corner. As already seen in the review for the storytelling, the occasion and the coat of arms is also shown in the lower left corner.
If one of the available points features a fight, an additional sign is shown that indicates an awaiting battle and the recommended level of the characters for the awaiting fight.
The menu can be selected from this map screen. It is also held in a quite simple way and features 5 runners. Under rooster, the whole team, their equipment, kills and their stats (I will skip this part for now and explain it later on in more detail with my bigger 6 member team).
The encampment is a place that can be visited for several purposes. So far it holds only one provisioner merchant, but more will follow where the player can buy and sell various goods, such as consumable items, accessories, equipment, and more. I am not sure what will follow up in the later game. I actually like how this encampment. As you will travel a lot during this game, a tent seems appropriate, but why did they not create a whole campsite instead ? Sure, it fits to the simple style that the game is holding on to, but a whole camp side would have been awesome !
The inventory holds place and lists all your consumables, equipment and crafting goods. It always shows a short description on the items too and, again, is held relatively simple and self explanatory.
The war chronic runner is basically for re-reading the story so far and for remembering what happened so far. I probably won't need it too much, but it's great that they thought about it too.
Saving is only possible in this world map view, and therefore a total of 10 slots were created. There is an additional auto-saving slot, that can be seen by clicking on load. This can be used at any time during a combat. But during combats, the autosave slot is additionally refreshed at regular interval too. I like that they have this many save slots and the active autosave. I still remember old games where I desperately wished for an autosave and nearly cried every time when after an hour of battle a character died due to a mistake, or the game just crashed, or the battery was empty, or as most often, I had something else to attend to quickly and it took to long.
Overall, the map view and the attached menu is held in a very simple way and concentrates on the important things. Nevertheless, everything that someone could wish for is present, such as the short overview on the expecting missions, battle indicators with recommended levels, a well written autosave function, a war chronic and more. If you like it simple, but don't want to miss out important features, this game is doing it exactly the right way. I only would have wished for a bit more features in the encampment. Also, it fits to the simple style, this would not have hurt and was implemented already in many ways in other modern JRPGs
Fighting Mechanics
There is quite a much to say about the fighting mechanics. Let's start with the movement system. Basically, each character has a certain amount of tiles that he is able to move. Common movement size is 5 tiles, but it can range depending on the class and mounted state of the character. When a character is selected, its turn has three steps. The first one is the actual movement. Thereby, the whole rage of available movement is displayed by colored tiles. There are two colors to be seen, blue and purple. If a color changes from blue to purple, this means that the character is in attack range by a foe. In addition, a red line appears that indicates the foes, or foes, who are able to attack the character in their turn.
The second step is the attack. Depending on the chosen skill (melee attack, ranged attack, magic attack or buff), the character is able to attack foes' next to him, up to a certain distance for a single or multiple tiles range. The last step is the standing direction of the character. It can be freely chosen and will have an impact in the future battle, as will be explained next. The attacked foe keeps his standing direction after the attack.
The positioning is actually very important in this game. Attacks from the back guarantee a critical hit. In addition, if two of your characters are positioned on opposite sides of the foe, they execute a combined attack and attack together. So basically, if your first character attacks from the back and then the next character approaches from the front, this results in 3 hits, one critical at first and then one normal plus one critical in the second attack.
It is also important if a character is positioned higher thane the foe, as these grands some bonuses regarding attack and defense. Some attacks can even change a foe positioning in a certain way. So positioning and proper use of the terrain is the key in the battles of this game. But there is another factor to be considered, the turn order. Depending on their speed, each character on the battlefield has a place in the turn order. Some attacks, may delay the foes, so there is a certain amount of strategy in this regard too.
Combining turn order with positioning is the main aspect in the strategic fights and probably the main focus of the player. Even the final outcome of the game is determined by how good a player used his skills in this regard.
I actually played this fight twice and tried to adapt what I learned so far. On my second play through I earned more Kudos, and Serenoas convictions has been strengthened (I will come to convictions later on too)
I also want to mention, that during the whole fight, the camera is movable in any direction and position as wished too. Either free, or in steps of 45 degrees. Again, they grand the player free customisability, as already talked about in the presentation of the storyline, which is great to have. It's all this little details that show experience in the field from years of JRPG playing. These details don't look like much, but are highly appreciated, and I love that they thought about so many of them beforehand.
Other Mechanics
There is something else that I spotted during my first time in the game, it's a mechanic that's called Convictions. During the story and also the combat scenes, there are several answer choices that Serenoa can choose from. Depending on the once he chooses, three invisible parameters are triggered that accumulate throughout the game. This has several consequences later on, as it defines, which characters will join your party and how the story may twist throughout its development. So far I found the answers not to be indicating any certain direction, so I am going to choose the once that I personally would choose in the first play through. I am very excited what consequences may arise through choosing the different choices. I hope that these are big ones, as it would be a pity if they only determine little things in the end, but we will see.
My Verdict
I really like the fighting mechanics of the game. Overall, they are really classic and stereotypic again, as the storytelling was too. The many possibilities in camera movement and well indicated tile colors, as well as attacking lines, are well done. The sceneries are really beautiful drawn and show many nice details and as I saw it already in the intro, there is a vast rage of different settings and scenarios to be discovered in this regard.
Throughout every aspect of the game, the producers implemented the simplest mechanics in all aspects, storytelling, presentation and fighting mechanics. I have no problem with that, as they did it in an excellent way and though about every detail while doing so, and I expect highly strategic and complex fighting in the later game nevertheless, with an implemented conviction system to determine several story related outcomes .. But still I actually hoped, that they had a bit more brave and confident, to try out a bit more out-of-the-box thinking .. So, will their keep-it-simple approach be fruiting and satisfying? I hope so and think that it will be in the end. I play on hard anyway (I already explained the difficulty setting in the prior post), so I expect some mayor challenges here and am already super exited.
My Verdict: 7.5 out of 10 Points 👍
Next Times Topic
Unfortunately, I again wrote too much already, so there will be another part from me after completing chapter 2. I already covered two parts now (Setting and Storytelling & Fighting and Other Mechanics). Next time I will be telling how the story and politics of the nations and around Serenoa and his new wife Frederica evolves, present my first rooster of a total of 8 characters in more detail and tell you if my expectation came true, my worries were reasonable or not, and if the keep-it-simple approach turned out as an excellent choice for this tile and turned based strategy JRPG ^^
All pictures were taken by myself, ©
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