The GWJ JRPG Club / CRPG Club / Strategy Gaming Group Cross-Play Extravaganza - Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark (Q3 2022)

I haven’t even tried the Plague Doctor yet! What’s it good at?

The most recent thing I unlocked, and am itching to try, is the Scoundrel’s sneak attack (forget if it’s called that). I noticed it has a range of “weapon,” rather than 1, so I’m going to see if Reiner can do some massive damage with a crossbow.

I haven't got a copy of the game yet but of this doesn't get GOTY this year I will be shocked.

Maybe worth noting it's free with Amazon Prime until end of July!

Finally got the drop for one of the final two badge classes tonight. Have to make a decision now between Lord/Princess which one first. Not sure any of my characters are ready to convert yet. Hm.

I guess we could call the later story characters by their class names to avoid spoilers? The 5th character is a bounty hunter...

And so this bounty hunter has quickly become my favorite in just 6 or 7 missions. They have dual wield, and initiative, and I equipped them with guns, longest attack range. So a couple of missions lately they get 4 attacks in before any of the enemies get a turn!! Reiner I think has more speed so he sometimes gets a turn in-between theirs. It's wild to start with such an alpha strike. Still don't have double guns on him yet though, or it could be 6 attacks to open before the enemy gets a turn.

Haven't lost anyone to injury in 3 or 4 battles tonight. Seems like I'm rolling. And I still haven't done any of the min/max combos yet. I'm guessing it's not really needed to win the game, but I just wanted to try some things out on the way.

LastSurprise wrote:

I haven’t even tried the Plague Doctor yet! What’s it good at?

The most recent thing I unlocked, and am itching to try, is the Scoundrel’s sneak attack (forget if it’s called that). I noticed it has a range of “weapon,” rather than 1, so I’m going to see if Reiner can do some massive damage with a crossbow.

So far, some Mass Slow and Mass Thorn abilities come to mind (there are a couple more that I can't recall at this time), while also using poison and having a versatile set of equipment affinities.

Stele wrote:

I guess we could call the later story characters by their class names to avoid spoilers? The 5th character is a bounty hunter...

Sounds good to me!

That bounty hunter sounds pretty badass. Looking forward to trying them out.

Wow, I was thinking to play a half hour but ended up playing 3+ hours. This was fun, things seem to unlock and advance at a brisk but reasonable pace. I took my time moving forward and ended up doing a bunch of patrols and recruiting lots of characters. No idea if this is a good strategy or not.

I just unlocked missions, and filled them up before stopping for the night.

Got a bit confused about what to spend IP on, lots of options there all at once.

Fun times! Definitely looking forward to playing more. Great choice, everyone, and it was my last vote in the ranked choice voting round.

I'm nearing the end of chapter 1 (I avoid story spoilers but referenced a guide to get a sense of the general game progression) and these last couple missions so far have noticeably amped up the challenge. Maybe I'm a bit too obsessive about it, but I reload anytime I lose a character in a mission and as a consequence I've had to replay the last couple missions multiple times -- especially the most recent one, where you meet up with

Spoiler:

Bzaro

I'm hopeful that this is just an early-game difficulty hump due to having characters that aren't particularly specialized or robust yet, and not an indication of the overall difficulty progression the game is going to follow. I suppose I'm just not very good at strategy JRPG's even though I very much love more tactical games like this usually.

Made it to Centina last night and unlocked the guild buildings and missions. I am still playing with all my characters in base classes since I like to master a class before moving on. Not sure if that is the right call here, but so far I have been able to keep injuries pretty low. I think I have only had two or three in total so far and haven't gotten one for the last four fights or so.

I am liking having six characters, it feels a little more open than FFT's five but not overwhelming like Tactics Ogre's 10. When I tried to play TO with the club, the battles seemed to drag on for quite awhile just because there were so many units to move around and do something with.

Missions seem like a good add to the game to help keep your B team caught up with your primary fighters. I spent all my IP on making buildings before quitting last night so I was only able to send my guys on a single mission to gather some more IP, but I currently only have two units that aren't in my regular rotation so that worked out fine.

I am playing on Steam if anyone wants to friend me up. Name is Malkroth and I use the same profile picture as here so should be easy to find. I believe it is also linked in my signature.

Edit: Some early story thoughts:

Spoiler:

I like that we are playing a character/team that is "good" in that they are enforcing the law and trying to keep order even when others are exploiting their position and power, but they know the law so well they can use it to go after those supposedly "untouchables" when they flaunt their status. Really liking Kyrie and her team so far.

Farscry wrote:

I'm nearing the end of chapter 1 (I avoid story spoilers but referenced a guide to get a sense of the general game progression) and these last couple missions so far have noticeably amped up the challenge. Maybe I'm a bit too obsessive about it, but I reload anytime I lose a character in a mission and as a consequence I've had to replay the last couple missions multiple times -- especially the most recent one, where you meet up with

Spoiler:

Bzaro

I'm hopeful that this is just an early-game difficulty hump due to having characters that aren't particularly specialized or robust yet, and not an indication of the overall difficulty progression the game is going to follow. I suppose I'm just not very good at strategy JRPG's even though I very much love more tactical games like this usually.

Interesting. I've lost multiple characters in most fights, and one where I lost everyone except for my main character.

Am I missing something by playing this way? I know they have to sit out the next fight, but I've been building two teams of characters, so it seems to be working out okay. I've let to lose a fight, but yeah, most fights have casualties.

I've been able to keep my in-battle casualties to one or two at the most, depending on the fight. For example, with the first real boss of the game (meaning a battle where you fight a single big-bad), I had two fallen units. Even in some of the patrols I've done to rake up a little AP, I've had one unit fall depending on whether they end up drawing aggro inadvertently despite my putting said units farther - I tend to do that with the least physically robust ones.

Farscry wrote:

I'm nearing the end of chapter 1 (I avoid story spoilers but referenced a guide to get a sense of the general game progression) and these last couple missions so far have noticeably amped up the challenge. Maybe I'm a bit too obsessive about it, but I reload anytime I lose a character in a mission and as a consequence I've had to replay the last couple missions multiple times -- especially the most recent one, where you meet up with

Spoiler:

Bzaro

I'm hopeful that this is just an early-game difficulty hump due to having characters that aren't particularly specialized or robust yet, and not an indication of the overall difficulty progression the game is going to follow. I suppose I'm just not very good at strategy JRPG's even though I very much love more tactical games like this usually.

I really don't think you need to do this.

I don't say this to tell you how to play your game -- do reload, if you prefer it! -- but because I can see myself in this comment, being a little bit too perfectionist in a way that actually undermines my enjoyment of the thing. Like sometimes I have to tell myself to ignore achievements or side quests and just move on with the part of the game I enjoy.

There's very little negative consequence for "losing" a unit in battle. They just get an injury that hurts their stats until they sit out a fight. If you have a bench of extra people, which you will need anyway to do the side missions (assuming you want to do the side missions), you can rotate people in and out. In fact, I think the game expects you to do this. Your guys who ride the bench, including your injured guys, will still get ability points for the classes of the units that participate, plus vicarious ability points, so they'll still be making progress.

Zilla Blitz wrote:

Interesting. I've lost multiple characters in most fights, and one where I lost everyone except for my main character.

Am I missing something by playing this way? I know they have to sit out the next fight, but I've been building two teams of characters, so it seems to be working out okay. I've let to lose a fight, but yeah, most fights have casualties.

Same here.

The side missions are only available with the DLC. But yeah at least the AP builds up characters on your bench. So when you do bring them in they have some decent skills. And then old patrols can get them XP to catch up to the main party. Or rotating in and out during story if you keep up with it.

I keep finding favorites and sticking with them though, so some of my bench is a full 10 levels behind now, as Kyrie hit 31 last night.

LastSurprise wrote:
Zilla Blitz wrote:

Interesting. I've lost multiple characters in most fights, and one where I lost everyone except for my main character.

Am I missing something by playing this way? I know they have to sit out the next fight, but I've been building two teams of characters, so it seems to be working out okay. I've let to lose a fight, but yeah, most fights have casualties.

Same here.

I think this is fine. Remember the game has 20 classes, plus 6 badge ones (for generics only). Plus 6 story characters, and 1 optional story character, and they can mix with any of the standard 20 but not the badge ones. And 3 DLC classes, plus monsters if you buy that. So that's still a hell of a lot of combinations even with the base game, and way more with the DLC.

No DLC here, but I'm up to 14 characters right now into chapter 4 with 5 story 1 optional, and 8 created ones. And still I've only used 2 of the badge classes, but I have access to a couple more now. And I have only unlocked 19 of the 20 base classes, very close to the last one. Probably could have done it sooner if I'd focused my bench AP better.

Malkroth wrote:

Made it to Centina last night and unlocked the guild buildings and missions. I am still playing with all my characters in base classes since I like to master a class before moving on. Not sure if that is the right call here, but so far I have been able to keep injuries pretty low.

Maybe? The stat bonus for finishing a class is nice. And some of the starting classes are good. But there's benefit to unlocking new classes, some of which have better stat growths. So you might, for instance, want to get your starting wizard into druid where he gets better speed growths. And that unlocks sorcerer, where he gets really good mind growths. And some impressive skills. So yeah finishing wizard is nice. But you could keep it as secondary to druid as soon as druid is unlocked and you'll still finish it eventually.

Zilla Blitz wrote:
Farscry wrote:

I'm nearing the end of chapter 1 (I avoid story spoilers but referenced a guide to get a sense of the general game progression) and these last couple missions so far have noticeably amped up the challenge. Maybe I'm a bit too obsessive about it, but I reload anytime I lose a character in a mission and as a consequence I've had to replay the last couple missions multiple times -- especially the most recent one, where you meet up with

Spoiler:

Bzaro

I'm hopeful that this is just an early-game difficulty hump due to having characters that aren't particularly specialized or robust yet, and not an indication of the overall difficulty progression the game is going to follow. I suppose I'm just not very good at strategy JRPG's even though I very much love more tactical games like this usually.

Interesting. I've lost multiple characters in most fights, and one where I lost everyone except for my main character.

Am I missing something by playing this way? I know they have to sit out the next fight, but I've been building two teams of characters, so it seems to be working out okay. I've let to lose a fight, but yeah, most fights have casualties.

As others have said, this is probably the way the developers thought you would play the game. You may have to run a few extra patrols if you start to fall behind in levels compared to the story progress, but that's not really a problem.

Personally, I am not certain about how many extra generic characters to recruit. Part of me wants to recruit more to tackle more than a single mission at a time (DLC required), and get an early start on the benched/vicarious AP, but since you can recruit fresh-faces at any level, it feels somewhat wasteful to recruit a bunch of level 1 people.

Malkroth wrote:

Personally, I am not certain about how many extra generic characters to recruit. Part of me wants to recruit more to tackle more than a single mission at a time (DLC required), and get an early start on the benched/vicarious AP, but since you can recruit fresh-faces at any level, it feels somewhat wasteful to recruit a bunch of level 1 people.

In my case, I figured I wanted to unlock as many classes early and have good alternates in case I had to bench any of my main units. I don't have the DLC, but between the all the AP sharing mechanics and some patrols, I've really opened up the selection early on. Currently, I have 11 total units, which I surmise isn't a lot, but it's enough for versatility all around.

I think I have 11, too. This feels like a good number: if I have 1 or 2 injuries from the last battle, I can send 2-3 out on a mission and still have 6 or 7 for whatever map I'm about to tackle.

I was looking for patrols today and stumbled into a side mission so that was neat. Rescued a NPC and got an achievement and everything. Fun stuff.

So I’m about 5 battles in, have had minimal injuries (playing veteran). I have I think 4 recruits so far, which I bought after losing 2 characters in one battle. Switched Reiner to crossbow not sure if that’s better yet.

I played 25 hours years ago, restarted now and don’t remember too much so that’s great! I loved FFT and T:O and this scratches that itch nicely.

Thinking of grabbing the DLC, it’s on sale 75% off for 13 more hours. Silly question maybe but can I install the DLC in my current save?

Malkroth wrote:

Personally, I am not certain about how many extra generic characters to recruit. Part of me wants to recruit more to tackle more than a single mission at a time (DLC required), and get an early start on the benched/vicarious AP, but since you can recruit fresh-faces at any level, it feels somewhat wasteful to recruit a bunch of level 1 people.

I'm up to 14 or so characters at the moment, I recruit a character when a new class becomes available, and I have doubles of most of the early ones. No idea if this is too many, but I can't resist the shiny things to see how they fight.

I'm starting to get fewer casualties now, but there seems to be a fairly wide margin of difficulty in the patrols.

Main character is Level 9, most others are scattered about the 3-7 range, with a couple of newbs at Level 1.

Hardek wrote:

Thinking of grabbing the DLC, it’s on sale 75% off for 13 more hours. Silly question maybe but can I install the DLC in my current save?

Looks like it does add to an existing game, although apparently there's a recommendation to start a new run. I think if you're passed Centina already it might be weird not opening it up in the flow of story. At least one negative review says they are glad they used it in an existing game instead of starting over because it would have been even more grind then, heh. Not a fan apparently. But does confirm that it can be added to existing save.

I don't have it and I'm still overwhelmed with classes, so don't feel I need it right now.

And I’m off! I’m playing on Veteran, with all the default settings. The first thing I’m noticing is the controls are a bit clunky on the Switch, but I’m also just coming off of Triangle Strategy which was made for the Switch so maybe it’s not a good comparison. I’ll probably settle into using the directional buttons for pointing my units in the right direction.

There are some qualify of life things I am missing (like fast forward during combat and auto-playing dialogue) that Triangle Strategy had that this doesn’t, so I’m adjusting to this as well.

I’m several battles in now, just about to get to Centina. I’ve kind of settled into a pattern where I have the two mercenaries, the thief, the healer, one mage, and then switch up between a second mage or a knight with a spear, depending on what the enemies are. I’ve unlocked Ranger and Plague Doctor as well, and I may pick up Ranger to replace the Thief, but the healer class seems so darn good I’m hesitant to move away from it. And the passive 25% health ability that mercenaries get is so useful for the frontline units.

And I also sprung for the DLC, since it’s half off for a few more hours for the Switch. The reviews I saw out there is that it is pretty good if you're starting out or maybe mid game, but isn't necessarily worth a replay for if you've already beaten the game. Since I'm at the beginning and absolutely intend to finish it, no reason to not go ahead and get the most benefit from it.

Stele wrote:
Hardek wrote:

Thinking of grabbing the DLC, it’s on sale 75% off for 13 more hours. Silly question maybe but can I install the DLC in my current save?

Looks like it does add to an existing game, although apparently there's a recommendation to start a new run. I think if you're passed Centina already it might be weird not opening it up in the flow of story. At least one negative review says they are glad they used it in an existing game instead of starting over because it would have been even more grind then, heh. Not a fan apparently. But does confirm that it can be added to existing save.

I don't have it and I'm still overwhelmed with classes, so don't feel I need it right now.

From what I read earlier this year, the DLC can be installed at any time but works best if you do a fresh start (or at least very early). The missions become available once you hit Centina, so if you install it after then you will be missing out a bit on completing missions unless you backtrack. Not sure how it alters the guild stuff in town, but if it existed and the mission related buildings didn't exist before, you may want/need to rebuild the guilds in each town to accommodate the new stuff.

LastSurprise wrote:

I'm a few battles in now, too. Definitely enjoying this. It immediately invites comparisons to Final Fantasy Tactics, which I always wanted to play but bounced off pretty hard each time I tried. So far I like this job class system, and this system of buying promotions, much better than FFT -- and I see that Fell Seal eliminates FFT's temptation to save up for the one class ability that renders others obsolete. The menus also feel easier to navigate. Every time I played FFT, it felt like each decision I wanted to make involved 1 or 2 too many layers of menu.

I've tried many times to play FFT, but I also have bounced off of it. I've played many of these types of games in the past, and very few have stuck with me.

However...

Picked by both clubs? Super cheap on the Switch?

Ok, I'm giving it a try.

Pushed on with the story a bit more tonight...

Spoiler:

We just defeated Alphonse. Made it through with no casualties, even though I had one less fighter than available spots. (Everyone else was on a mission.) I think grinding a half dozen patrols as I've been playing forward helped a lot.

There certainly are a lot of skills and abilities and classes. I feel like I'm learning them faster than I can figure out how to use them, but it's been a fun game so far. That "one more battle" feel is strong.

Aristophan wrote:
LastSurprise wrote:

I'm a few battles in now, too. Definitely enjoying this. It immediately invites comparisons to Final Fantasy Tactics, which I always wanted to play but bounced off pretty hard each time I tried. So far I like this job class system, and this system of buying promotions, much better than FFT -- and I see that Fell Seal eliminates FFT's temptation to save up for the one class ability that renders others obsolete. The menus also feel easier to navigate. Every time I played FFT, it felt like each decision I wanted to make involved 1 or 2 too many layers of menu.

I've tried many times to play FFT, but I also have bounced off of it. I've played many of these types of games in the past, and very few have stuck with me.

However...

Picked by both clubs? Super cheap on the Switch?

Ok, I'm giving it a try.

Three clubs (JRPG, CRPG, Strategy). It's three GWJ meta-levels for the price of one game!

I've also tried FFT many times in the past and it just hasn't stuck. The thing that's an immediate buzz-kill for FFT (and some other tactics games) is when I take my move action and then realize that I'm one tile short of landing an attack - but also in range of the enemy on their next turn - and I can't undo my move order. Thankfully within the first two missions of Fell Seal that I played last night, I discovered that undoing the move order is allowed, and there's even a helpful button that shows all of the enemy danger-range tiles.

I'm playing on Beginner difficulty, but I might tweak that down to Ultra-Baby. The second mission was an uncomfortably-close victory, and by that I mean one of my characters got down into single-digit HP. I'm not looking for a challenge with this; I just want to have some fun and pretend that I know how to play tactics-style games.

Btw, in the opener mission, one of the enemies ran into an alley between two buildings, making it impossible to see him. I was literally fighting blind, based on the camera angle. Is there any way to rotate the map, hide terrain, etc, to solve this?

Yeah undo move was always in Disgaea, which was my introduction to these type of games, and then Fire Emblem right after. Don't know if undo move was always in FE but it if I remember right it was from GBA onward which is when I started playing. Important QoL piece for sure.

The thing Disgaea has that I miss here is showing enemy move range in one color and attack range outside that in another color. Was easier to move your tanky character into a baiting position.

Sorry no help for the camera. Seems to be one knock against this game, no rotation or overhead view (Disgaea on DS) to help you see partially hidden things. At least they seem to put all the chests in visible spots

Ironically that same moment happened to me in the first battle where the guy ducks into a blind alley and I'm like, "man, this SUCKS, I don't know if I can keep playing this game if it's going to be like this."

But ever since then it's been really pretty good about designing maps such that the one camera angle is enough and things like that don't really happen.

There is one map that's a little annoying because it has this tall grass that enemies can kind of disappear in. I think it's intentional, the idea being that the player might forget they're there and get ambushed, but the thing is, you can still find the enemy in the UI if you put your cursor over them. If they wanted an ambush mechanic, I wish they had actually made it a thing, the way certain units can cloak in XCom. As it is, the feeling I got as a player was less "oh no this is a perfect spot for an ambush is something going to jump out and get me?" and more "ah jeez, got to sweep through this spot with my cursor again, where was that f*cker?"

And of course L2/R2 cycles through enemies. So you can't really lose them

Stele wrote:

And of course L2/R2 cycles through enemies. So you can't really lose them

Yeah. It feels like they got halfway to a stealth mechanic and stopped.

Stele wrote:

Sorry no help for the camera. Seems to be one knock against this game, no rotation or overhead view (Disgaea on DS) to help you see partially hidden things. At least they seem to put all the chests in visible spots

Except in the Azure Plains, that map has a bunch of tall grass and there are three chests hidden in it.

You can also hold the "details" button (square on ps4 controller) to see every health bar and turn percentage. Unfortunately that does not help with chests or interactables.

Edit: Decided I wanted to try leveling my B squad a bit, so took a group of 5-6s to the map that caps out at 7. Every enemy was level 7 with multiple classes and gear you can't get until quite a bit after the node exists. I couldn't get any damage to stick because their defenses were so high and half their team had Mender or Plague Doctor equipped. So I had to quit to menu and go grind the level 1-4 node instead.