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

hbi2k wrote:

Rolled credits on the game. This was a fun one, and I'm glad I took part.

I’ve just realised you’ve done this for the cRPG club too. I'll get you ranked up.

Sorbicol wrote:

I had a creature that could fly but they couldn’t reach it? Maybe it has to be a named person or something. You probably need to be able to move far enough too.

If you had an animal that can fly (rather than the character I used): they can't open chests or interact with objects unless you take a certain passive. I think it's in the "deft" tree.

I'm having a very "It's so simple. The files are in the computer" Zoolander moment with trying to access that chest.

Just cleared the third temple. I probably overleveled a bit from patrols/hunts. Anadine is the MVP of nearly every battle she's in because of Cleave. Kyrie is a mini-Anadine/dark+holy damage warmage. Reiner is a ranged crit build with Sniper Shot dealing 300+ when it's available. Yates is a buffer/healer. I don't use Bzaro. The starting two generic recruits (now a beastly sorceror and healer) round out my A Team.

I don't find the story thus far to be anything special. It does give nice justifications for changing terrain/enemies, though.

Yeah, I never quite figured out what to do with Bizarro. He was okay as a secondary healer. He could get a couple different ways to apply haste, but they were too MP intensive to use early in the fight, and in later stages of a given fight I usually wanted my guys spread out to avoid AOE attacks so he seldom managed to buff more than himself and one other character which hardly seemed worth it. Later on he unlocked cleave, which is amazing on Anadine, but he didn't really have many strong attack moves to deal the killing blow and proc it. Wound up falling into the jack of all trades master of none trap.

Well, after 7 attempts I eventually beat the 4th temple battle after

Spoiler:

Kiting Kyrie around so that
Clyde/Raife couldn't just one-shot her has he did the previous 6 times. Cheesy, made taking everyone else out a lot harder as I couldn't use her to leave her exposed, but I got there in the end

I had an inkling about the sorts of enemies I'd be facing so went with plenty of people who could counter

Spoiler:

lots of Holy Smite!

but no matter how many I took down, if a certain character got exposed it would be all over.

This is not a good game. It really should be, but the developers very clearly think that putting you into impossible situations that require precise builds, with specific equipment and pre-warned (or "failed repeatedly") knowledge is "fun". Frankly at this point it's wasting my time. It takes a long time to play out of a lot of these battles (lets not even talk about the "hunt" missions in the DLC) and I don't have the patience to play them out just to have a single point of failure. It does not know how to be challenging without making the players time distinctly unfun. That's a critical failure in any game, and this one dishes it up in spades as you progress.

There are plenty of games out there that know how to do that, some of which you can see shades of here - I hate to say this given it's a turn based tactical game, but the Firaxis XCOM games knew exactly how to be challenging without ever leaving the player like they had no control over the outcome. Sure there was a learning curve to that, but it was a fun learning curve.

I'm surprised I've put as much time into this game as I have, and I suspect - because I'm a stubborn bastard - I'll do my best to see it through. Turning down the difficulty is probably a moot point though - without at least some challenge you suspect this game will get very dull very fast, and the story isn't enough to play on just to see it conclude. Having said that I'm definitely turning off the ability of enemies to respawn dead colleagues. Time is too short to have to kill each enemy multiple times per battle.

I actually found myself not having fun pretty soon after the 2nd temple. Sure, I like playing around with job combos and such, but I am far, far from the kind of player that these enemies and scenarios were built to challenge.

And yes, I did turn down the difficulty. Made it slightly less onerous, but not really more fun.

Ten or twenty years ago I'd have stuck it out, but anymore I have way more games I want to play than sufficient time to dedicate to them all, so Fell Seal simply didn't make the cut for me in the end. I did find a fair bit of enjoyment earlier in the game (it peaked for me in chapter two between starting to run into a lot of interesting upgrades and class unlocks, plus scenarios getting a bit more enemy variety and I had fun playing around with some tamed monsters) but once it lost its luster for me, it lost it fast.

I am glad so many people do enjoy it. There's a lot to like about the game, and I quite enjoyed the personality and the environmental and monster art design put into it. No regrets on picking it up and giving it what time I did.

I really think it's a better game without the DLC. And it seems several people are coming to that conclusion.

Which is odd to me because I had more fun messing around with the DLC content included than I would have without it.

hbi2k wrote:

Yeah, I never quite figured out what to do with Bizarro. He was okay as a secondary healer. He could get a couple different ways to apply haste, but they were too MP intensive to use early in the fight, and in later stages of a given fight I usually wanted my guys spread out to avoid AOE attacks so he seldom managed to buff more than himself and one other character which hardly seemed worth it. Later on he unlocked cleave, which is amazing on Anadine, but he didn't really have many strong attack moves to deal the killing blow and proc it. Wound up falling into the jack of all trades master of none trap.

I think there are a couple areas where I see potential in Bzaro, but that the game does not really explain well. Both have to do with him picking up characteristics of the monsters he imitates. hbi2k, you might have spotted this, but offering the explanation for anyone who hasn't.

First, he picks up their movement characteristics. So if the monster that serves as his primary class can fly, so can he. If that monster can float, then so can he.

The other thing -- which the game did not explain at all -- is that he does not gain stats as he levels in the traditional way. Rather, whenever you switch him to a new monster class, his stats change as if he gained all of his levels in that class. So he can instantly have the stats of a powerful magic user, a tank, a glass cannon, etc.

I guess in theory that makes him very versatile. Like you, I've found him far less useful than Kyrie, Reiner, and Anadine, but I'm hoping that changes as he gains some skills.

I've found Yates to be more useful as I've abandoned his Anatomist skill tree entirely and just made him into a buffer / healer. My party always needs one of those, and giving him some extra damage abilities weren't really making anything better.

I'm on scene 47, which is clearly in the endgame given story beats. I thought I'd go ahead and post the builds of my main crew of seven (plus one extra), since they're largely static at this point and I'm just blasting through to the end now. I'll put them in spoilers in for length and in case anyone wants to come up with their own, but there's nothing spoilerly about any of it, and tbh I've largely stolen stuff from stuff in the thread or out on the internet.

Spoiler:

Kyrie
Main - Marked
Secondary - Warmage
Passives - Elemental Mastery, Know Weakness, Counterattack

Kyrie is the only unit who uses both physical and special attacks, which makes her not too powerful on either side. On the other hand, if I can find an enemy with a weakness to a specific element, then Infused Edge absolutely blows them out of the water. I gave her a rod that is 80 ATK/84 MND to make her more useful from both sides, but in general she's a bit of a weak link.

Anadine
Main - Demon Knight
Secondary - Assassin
Passives - Boon, Bloodlust, Counterattack

You know what this is. She kills stuff dead, then gets Cleave and Boon for a second turn with a free critical hit. But this goes two ways - either she nukes half the enemy forces, or she dies ignominiously by spending all her HP on attacks. She was the midgame MVP.

Reiner
Main - Gunner
Secondary - Knight
Passives - Attack Expert, Dual Wield, Countershot

My late game MVP. Puts 100+ damage on anyone from anywhere on the map, and with All For One can add 100+ damage onto any enemy I attack with someone else, turning damage into kills. Totally invaluable.

Lana (female generic, one of the two you start with)
Main - Princess
Secondary - Mender
Passives - Blessed One, Mana Font, Magic

My healer through the whole game, and I put a phoenix band on her to keep her extra alive. I just now have started working on Princess with her since I got a second crest, so that's the only one that's a bit undercooked. But all she has to do is heal, so it's fine.

Pete Lafarciola (male generic)
Main - Lord
Secondary - Duelist
Passives - Attack Expert, Leech Life, Counterattack

He took a weird path through life. He was the product of Mission grinding, and went from Knight > Templar > Reaver early on, then picked up Lord and Duelist much later. But now he's my physical attacking specialist, and even is more reliable (and survivable) then Anadine is. Duelist is doing the heavy lifting here, but Lord has better growths. I also gave him a +48 ATK equip for more damage.

Aedras (female generic)
Main - Princess
Secondary - Vessel
Passives - Economy, Mind Expert, Renew

She was the first unit I recruited to be an additional mage, but was always on the fragile side. Fast forward, and now she's my premier MND attacker, and can hit with Holy and Elemental spells and do a bit of healing on the side. Very useful all around, and is high-key really good. Holy Locus kills stuff dead, especially all the monsters that are weak to it.

Svidrigailov (monster puppy, the first you get)
Main - Alpha
Variant - Pack Leader
Variant - Divine Inspiration
Passive - Evade Attack

Moves fast and hits hard, and with Snapback has the last counter-bypassing attack I have. Divine Inspiration is probably the most used subclass, since those holy attacks are useful against monsters. But this guy has been rotating subclasses literally the whole game, so nothing is really settled for him.

Honorary Mention

Virgil (male generic, the other one you start with besides Lana)
Main - Lich
Secondary - Mender
Passives - Mind Expert, Double Cast, Mystic Shield

I thought blood magic would be cool, and it sort of is, but it just takes a lot of healing support, so he's kind of dropped out of the rotation. That, and in one particular battle in the volcano, he did an all-enemies attack, that drew bleed, slow, poison, and two pounces (so dudes jumped on him from the opposite side of the map and did damage), that rendered him useless for the rest of the battle. A sorcery/blood magic build is supposed to be good, but it's mostly caused me headaches, and frankly isn't all that fun. So he's here, just dragging behind. Also he can't get princess, and princess is a really good class.

And yes, this means the other story characters like Yates have pretty much fallen from the rotation at this point.

Wait do we all start with Virgil and Lana? I thought we all got the same 2 generic classes but not the same names.

My Virgil was pretty solid around temples 3-4 once he got those full map spells and enough MP to use them on turn 2. I thought about the same path you tried but sounded like too much work to me haha.

If I'd known from the start about Lord and Princess I'd have switched classes immediately after getting him to prepare. Oh well.

Sounds like a pretty solid team you got there.

I am coming into the end game it looks like but I think I am going to hold off on the last few maps and grind out a few more classes and achievements. I am also working on maxing out the Soul Eater and Soul Armor.

I think I've totally missed Reiner's unique class. I look it up yesterday and the process for getting it feels pretty obtuse:

Spoiler:

To even start the quest, you need to take note of a Zombie on a specific map that's carrying an item, then use the Ranger's Collect Pelt move to kill the Zombie, so you get a specific collectible when it dies.

How you would know to do this, I have no idea. I think the game drew my attention to the Zombie. But you don't generally kill undead to get animal parts, and it would make sense that the Zombie would drop the letter (if the letter matters) when it dies. But the letter isn't what matters, it's a locket or something; the letter's just a clue that the Zombie has the locket. Why would Collect Pelt yield the locket, vs. just killing the Zombie normally?

I dislike this kind of thing generally, and especially when it appears that access to the special item is lost forever.

Yeah when I looked up the Reiner thing I was like WTF. But when you go to do it your team comments at the start of the battle on the zombie. And if you do it again I think it even changes and

Spoiler:

specifically mentions killing it so it won't revive and Reiner skill might be the only one that does that at that point.

So the game helps you, if you happen to pick the right patrol to do.

Arkon wrote:

I am coming into the end game it looks like but I think I am going to hold off on the last few maps and grind out a few more classes and achievements. I am also working on maxing out the Soul Eater and Soul Armor.

Yeah I had that sword on Kyrie for a while but just picked up the armor late. Need to make it worth wearing.

Stele wrote:

Yeah when I looked up the Reiner thing I was like WTF. But when you go to do it your team comments at the start of the battle on the zombie. And if you do it again I think it even changes and

Spoiler:

specifically mentions killing it so it won't revive and Reiner skill might be the only one that does that at that point.

So the game helps you, if you happen to pick the right patrol to do.

Just completed this chain myself. I agree that the very first step (the zombie) is counterintuitive, but the remainder is pretty smooth... as long as you realize that events can trigger at locations even without the "!" event icon!

Other examples of this I've come across:

Spoiler:

Returning to the second temple yields a brief cutscene and some loot.

You get a "rescue" mission for the kawa Somier in the desert once he's left his first location.

I'm getting close to the third temple now (into the caverns). I still haven't turned down the difficulty from Veteran. I'm getting through most maps on the first or second try, but I'm losing steam. I agree with several of the other posts that it takes so damn long to clear some of those maps that any failure—and so many failures are just the game throwing entirely new and unforeseeable challenges that are increasingly hard to just react to without restarting the battle—just feels like wasted time. Like, if you were going to demand This Specific Thing, you might've given me some hint of that in advance so I didn't just waste an hour on a battle I never had any chance of winning to begin with.

And yet, for all the stuff I find annoying in the game, it still has this hook in me. The class variety. The interplays of systems. There is some very cool stuff in this that makes me want to continue even as I'm not especially into the moment-to-moment experience of actually playing. When I am getting into a little bit of flow with tactics in a map, or when I find a really satisfying combination of class skills and passives/counters... it has its moments.

I increasingly think it just comes down to the accessibility of information. I still have Old World on the brain, because I think it's amazing. But it's also a game with a lot of intricate systems that can be super confusing. But the game's design prioritizes transparency at every turn. Doesn't mean it's never confounding, but when you go looking to understand something in that game, you rarely have to go far to find what you're looking for. It's sneaky elegant in that way. This is like the opposite of that. It's constantly opaque and only rarely seems to have anything in its design to help you manage/understand its core systems (the interplay of classes).

I see it as a very try and fail and try and fail and try again kind of design, which doesn't have to be a deal-breaker until you consider just how much time you have to spend playing only to find that if the game had more transparency at the outset around, say, stat progression within classes, you'd of made entirely different choices. In a way, it feels like a Souls game, where the design gives you breadcrumbs but ultimately wants you to fail and fail and fail and learn from repeated failure rather than disclose anything that would let you make informed decisions in advance. It's a valid approach, but unless you just have endless time to throw at this, I don't think it works here the way it works for Souls games.

Made it to Gogombob City last night and they dropped a pretty significant story detail there.

Spoiler:

Looks like my earlier suppositions were correct that the ancient evil "The Maw" that the Immortals defeated was not actually killed, but sealed within the relics. So my guess is The Maw was weakened, imprisoned, and claimed slain. Over the centuries, it has regained power and started corrupting The Council since it appears the mark on them and the Marked is related to the Relics, and thus The Maw. I assume the Relics themselves are somehow tied to the lives of the Council, and draining the relics will either kill the Immortals, or they are going to be the final "seal" preventing The Maws return.

It's amusing to me that in JRPGs the bad guys somehow always manage to stay just one step ahead of the heroes. On that aqueduct bridge area, we get stopped and attacked by another Marked. Where was he when Raife came by? Shouldn't he had delayed Raife and not us? Like at one point we were close enough to stop him killing Katja, but then he's suddenly like a day ahead of us?

I think I am over-leveled for the story quests, since I am a few levels above the cap on them. Not really sure how that happened since I rarely do patrols with my "main" squad, must have been the couple of hunts, arena, and mass battle I did that put me quite a ways ahead of the level curve. I did have trouble with one of the maps last night, but that was because the game cheated and my mage kept stepping on traps that no one had placed, so there was no way for me to know they even existed on the map. They did make quite effective use of One For All on a ranger that almost killed Kyrie and Anadine, but I managed to get them out of harms way after they were sub 50 hp each.

Found another hidden chest and inside I found... HOVER BOOTS! I no longer have to rely on Bzarro or a Pektite to get those water chests. I also realized I had been undervaluing the assassin's Sabotage skill after I put the Hover Boots on someone with it then walked over bad terrain and just swapped an enemy into it, instantly killing them.

I was curious so I checked all the non-Badge classes, and found that all of the classes capable of wearing heavy armor except the samurai have less than 1.0 speed growth. I always hate when games make heavy armor slow, especially when there's not a trade-off for the armor being slow. And there is no trade-off here. Heavy armor doesn't have vastly improved defensive capabilities to light armor of robes, it's only marginally better. And light armor usually comes with atk or spd stats tacked on which make it better anyway. So not only do heavy armor classes suffer from reduced speed, they don't gain any benefit for that speed reduction. And from what I have experienced of the samurai, they just feel really weak. Most of their attacks are under .5 atk modifier and apply debuffs to yourself, not the enemy, so there does not appear to be a huge benefit to the low damage.

I cannot stress enough that if you have the DLC, do not do the hunts, especially late game.

You will face massively overpowered enemies that can heal themselves from scratch, resurrect and dish out hundreds of points of damage without breaking a sweat while, if you are lucky, you might be able to dishout double digit damage. They'll also have the "speedy" trait and get 3 turns to every one of yours. Yeah. No.

I have never played a game more unfun when it is doing that. It does the same in the second tourney too - creatures you have no hope of countering quick enough unless you're knowledge of the game is encyclopedic, and you've min-maxed your builds to within an inch of your life your entire why through the game.

f*cking hell I am ready for this to be over. I though it would be when you go back to Illuster, but no. It looks like it's going to drag everything our for everything it's worth.

I have never played a game - a game that really should be ticking all my boxes for being something I'd really enjoy and readily play again - instead push every button I have and make me actively loathe it.

I'm seriously questioning my sanity pushing through and finishing it for the various clubs. There's a level of Sado-Masochism going on here I'm becoming quite uncomfortable with.

Credits have rolled.

Thank f*cking god that's over. For a minute there I thought we were into full Lord of the Rings territory, but no it does eventually get to an ending.

I've said enough about my feelings for this game, but this will now be uninstalled and never darken my hard-drive again.

And done! I cleared the final mission last night, with pretty much my regular party that I mentioned in a prior post. I grinded a bit so that everyone was level 44-48, and went in. Dual wielding gunner Reiner is still the overall MVP of this thing, since that bonus damage is wonderful for chipping things down. The final fight was also not as hard as I thought it would be, but having the right spell casters plus Reiner helped a lot.

I didn’t run into too many really annoying walls or battles, so I had a pretty good time with Fell Seal overall. I think this has all the imbalances of an SRPG with the many classes, but the randomness or getting hit by unknown garbage turns out to be a bit more annoying than fun as compared to an FFT or Troubleshooters. I think I’m settled in that the tightness of Triangle Strategy is superior to the flexibility of Felll Seal as far as GOTY things are concerned.

On one hand, I’m really glad I got the DLC since the missions system really helps with building the characters quickly by getting lots of free AP. On the other hand, any time you are happy you are skipping part of the game (in this case the fights), is that ever really a good thing?

I also don’t know if the injury system added much. On one hand, it could force you out of your regular crew and make you mix things up, which could be good. On the other hand, since grinding could be annoying, you probably aren’t going to have two full teams to shuffle around by the mid to end game (I ended with about seven total units on my final roster, so if one was gone is could be a significant impact to my normal strategy). Instead, it just turned into busy work as I would farm the patrol in that first section to win a battle as fast as possible to get the injured person back. The injury system was an interesting idea, but I don’t know if there was enough depth there to ultimately make it anything more than inconvenient. It at least is more merciful than permadeath.

Now for the ending.

Spoiler:

There is both a normal/bad ending, and a good ending. I got the normal one first since it was fairly easy. Then I went back and did the good ending immediately thereafter, which was a bit more annoying to trigger (especially stealing the component from the boss), but at least the game sort of told you what you needed to do there. I had seen the criteria for the good ending, and did all that as part of my playthough. I’m glad I did so, and I can see people finding out about it only after the game is done getting mad at all the silly little side quests they didn’t interact with.

Still, the whole gathering pieces to unlock a character from the studio’s other game in order to be able to get the true ending is one of those ‘not really interesting’ side quests they have you do. The normal ending is kind of hilariously grim, and in may ways seems more in line with the tone of the game overall. (like seriously, one party member turned the wife of another into a zombie, and the bleed and arterial cut animations are pretty gnarly). The good ending is definitely better for our heroes than the normal one, and sets up a sequel that I don’t know is coming. I’d probably check it out on sale if it ever does, but I’d like to see a bit more polish on this for the sequel as well.

Ending stuff:

Spoiler:

Didn't realize there were multiple endings. Assuming I got the "normal" one. Kyrie goes off to be an Immortal, I chuckle "called it" because pages ago I made a crack about how obviously the system is fine, we just need the right group of all-powerful oligarchs beholden to no one but themselves, but then Anadine joins the resistance against the Immortals, which is pretty all right as far as sequel hooks / not-entirely-triumphant endings go.

hbi2k wrote:

Ending stuff:

Spoiler:

Didn't realize there were multiple endings. Assuming I got the "normal" one. Kyrie goes off to be an Immortal, I chuckle "called it" because pages ago I made a crack about how obviously the system is fine, we just need the right group of all-powerful oligarchs beholden to no one but themselves, but then Anadine joins the resistance against the Immortals, which is pretty all right as far as sequel hooks / not-entirely-triumphant endings go.

Spoiler:

Yeah, you got the normal ending. The good ending is one where everyone lives, The Maw is killed for real in it's home dimension, and with it's death go all the Marked/Immortal powers, and now the system of government is in flux. The two remaining Immortals (Kyrie is not one in this ending) are trying to figure out a way to stabilize things before other countries see things as chaotic and ripe for the pickings (setting up a sequel hook). No word on how much longer they will live for since they are no longer immortal.

Oh, and Yates now wants to use the essence of The Maw to make everyone long lived. Or something.

I played a few more maps -- 1 story, 2 hunts -- and picked up a sword called Forlorn Hope! Shame that our fellow gamer, ForlornHope, is sitting out this round.

I completed the 4th Temple tonight, and had quite a bit of fun using Sabotage + Hover Boots to remove enemies from the fight instantly. Had to restart a map initially because I forgot some monsters have the ability to knock your characters back and they insta-killed Anadine on turn 1. So I restarted and used Sabotage to instantly kill that monster instead. I intended to repeat the strategy with some tough enemies in the next map only to start the map and see that 3 of the 6 enemies had hover boots equipped and a fourth one just natually floated. So that made me a little sad. Still managed to beat the fights without taking injuring, although it was really close, with both my healers (Anatomist and my Princess) dropping critical and being berserked at one point. Luckily an enemy killed the Anatomist which procced his rebirth, clearing the berserk status, which he then used Panacea to clear it off my Princess.

As for the story, it kicks into high gear right at this point.

Spoiler:

We get to see the true enemy on the Council at this point. Primus blasts the shield around the Temple away so he can come and claim the energy Raife collected from the relic. As he is the one who started the whole Marked quest, he's looking real suspicious currently. My feelings align more with Kyrie though, that not all is as it seems to be. Primus is most certainly looking like he is trying to claim the power of The Maw for himself or something, but the rest of the Council also didn't really choose great Marked candidates. Also we were attacked directly by Septimus on the way to the fourth temple. I am guessing we are going to see several factions among the Council, and they are going to fail to stop Primus, who will release The Maw, and we will have to truly kill it this time.

Sad to see some people really struggling with the game. I have really enjoyed all the classes and fights so far, learning how to break them to the best of my ability. It definitely benefits from some foreknowledge of what the classes are, what they do, and how to unlock them. The fact that there are really strong hybrid classes means you want to get those kind of early, otherwise as you try to use them later, you will be missing a stat to make the most of their abilities (fighters with not enough mind or casters with wimpy attack). I have not done a hunt in awhile though, as those definitely seem to be tougher content, which makes sense as it is part of the DLC and was most likely something the devs wanted to give to the players who had a played a lot. The missions are much more useful for first-timers than the hunts or monster classes are I think.

I do wonder if the monsters always had the ability to select three "classes" and six passives or if that is something that was added with the DLC. I actually fear fighting monsters a lot more than humans just because they have so many niche abilities or just stacked passives. They also tend to have better mobility tools than humans, with either floating, flying, or burrowing letting them ignore a lot of terrain.

Edit: For those with the DLC, check out any recruits you get from the missions. They can come with some seriously busted equipment. I just recently got a Kawa who had a Corrupted Amethyst equipped, which makes you immune to every debuff except berserk. Before that I had gotten a different monster that had Ruby Earrings, which make you immune to mute, sleep, cripple, berserk, and charm. One of the human recruits I got was a mercenary with the Princess, Vessel, and Lich classes unlocked already (no badges needed).

Congrats to the finishers!

Didn't have much bandwidth to play this weekend, but I finally went ahead and knocked down the difficulty (no resurrections, etc.), and it's made the game much less of a chore to play. I haven't had to redo a map since changing, which includes finishing out the last 4 maps of chapter 3 and a couple of patrols. I get an injury here and there, but the effect is that I no longer feel the need to keep an entire second squad leveled up, which means I can focus on keeping and tweaking a roster of just 7-8 characters, which means I'm spending much less time micromanaging. It does make the tactics game a little more boring, but as a total experience, I find it much more fun to play (so far).

ubrakto wrote:

Congrats to the finishers!

Didn't have much bandwidth to play this weekend, but I finally went ahead and knocked down the difficulty (no resurrections, etc.), and it's made the game much less of a chore to play. I haven't had to redo a map since changing, which includes finishing out the last 4 maps of chapter 3 and a couple of patrols. I get an injury here and there, but the effect is that I no longer feel the need to keep an entire second squad leveled up, which means I can focus on keeping and tweaking a roster of just 7-8 characters, which means I'm spending much less time micromanaging. It does make the tactics game a little more boring, but as a total experience, I find it much more fun to play (so far).

I had a lot of companions I never really used who were stuck around level 20, while my core team of about 10 were all about level 50 at the end. To be honest I don't really know why I kept them around - I didn't use them mostly because I didn't like their abilities or builds, especially those DLC related. In fact that was really the only time I did use them, for completing DLC missions - maybe they should be able to rank up doing those! Nor did I like the time needed to put into the creature builds to fully unlock all the useful talents. I did make quite a good Jellymancer/holy beast Bizaro though, he could more than hold his own with magic and self heal when he needed too. A late game good backup to my warmage.

Of the "Special" builds I unlocked the Princess fairly early on - she played practically every battle and was my most leveled character, even more so that Kyrie. She was a healing behemoth by the end. I didn't unlock a Lord until quite late into the game, so I didn't really get full use out of that character. I think I would have made a lot more use out of Yates if I could have made him a Liche. I misused Anadine early on and she fell quite a way behind, mostly because the game doesn't really explain her special abilities very well. I did rebuilt her a little after seeing some comments in this thread though, and then she was my frontline hitter alongside my Kyrie build (Marked and Fellblade). Cleave was a game changer once I could get it into play. She ended up as a demonknight / samurai, and she did a lot of damage. I also had a Vessel as a back up healer who did quite well, but rarely had enough MP to really use the high end Vessel abilities. Too busy healing by the time you unlock that badge.

The werewolf & Vampire I wasn't that impressed with, and the assassin / hunter lady

Spoiler:

you recruit from the rebels

was made out of wet tissue paper - I don't know her deal was but she was a one shot death whenever I tried to play her. If your first and every subsequent move wasn't mirage or shadowstrike, she'd die.

Point of all that was I think it's very easy to get a roster that's seriously over-bloated and just not useful to you long before the end. There were a few builds I would have liked to have tried more (a dual wield gunner with the knight's all for one ability for example) but not that many.

I know I've been very harsh on this game, and I did finish it which speaks enough to say that I was enjoying the core questline enough to keep going. The fact I got the "middling" ending I actually thought was a better ending than "hero saves the world", and I'm glad in some ways that the "good" ending clearly involves a lot of work to get to. However my issues with the game were mostly with going off the main questline and attempting to do some of the side quests - they took far too long and the battles were deeply unfun at times, be it the RNG way debuffs landed (Seriously, if you have a creature with the ability to put everyone to sleep then make damn sure the game makes this very clear before you start. Or have 900 hp enemies able to fully heal all the time is not fun - especially when your characters can't really do the same - or at least, only once per battle) I had a couple of hunt missions like that where I only had one creature left to defeat but it would suddenly self heal, knockout half my squad and win in one or two rounds. It's the gaming equivalent of playing with that kid who's losing, who then decides to change all the rules so they can win.

Not sure why I've decide to write war and peace there, but I'm a bit calmer tonight and - I think - being a little more rational! I'm glad I finished it though if nothing else.

Went and cleaned up a bunch of old hunts today, got some unique gear that is sadly outdated at this point. Final one I did gave me a new hat and gun that are actually more powerful than what I can currently get, so that's nice. But these hunts are fairly difficult or at least tedious. There was a cool one where I fought inside the guild hall, so some of them have unique maps which is cool. But I am really over these monsters that have 3 variants, 8 passives, and super inflated stats. It definitely seems like the hunts were designed for their super dedicated players who wanted a tougher challenge (especially since most hunts limit you to 4-5 characters).

I have one sidequest that I also accidentally opened up today, will probably go and see what that is before I continue the main story. Also realized I missed a whole bunch of obelisks, so will have to go on patrols to get those at some point too.

I am enjoying the class system and trying to pick cool passives and secondary actions to make versatile and fun characters. I think my biggest complaint at this point is there are too many classes with lower than 1.0 speed growth. I had an idea about making a healer that could cast any spell and be insanely tough to kill.

Spoiler:

Not sure if this is actually good, but a combination of the Blessed One and Blood Magic passives with the Mystic Shield counter ability. They use their HP to cast spells, but heal themselves when healing others, and their MP has to be dry before enemies can hit their HP. Sounds nifty, but not sure how good it would actually be.

Since the last time I posted, I've probably cleared 8-10 maps, including some story missions and some side stuff. I just hit Gogombob City, so I'm closing in on the 4th temple. I did end up getting Reiner's unique class -- glad that was not lost forever, and thanks to Stele and Math for the tips! It was huge to realize that events can trigger even where the game doesn't show a "!"

I also got the new, bonus story character, who I am very excited to use:

Spoiler:

The Exile, and I wonder if he will have something to do with the big bad trapped in the relics? He has a neat ability that I haven't yet unlocked which appears to let him teleport any distance across the map to a target. The text on this ability suggests it does not always work, but then this game doesn't feature line-of-sight obstructions so who knows. When I unlock the ability, I'm going to try pairing it with the passive ability that boosts damage for each square that you travel.

Now a few other, random thoughts:

  • This might be an unpopular take but I'm going to move Reiner away from dual-wielding guns. It appears to only boost damage on his basic attacks, not his skills. And there are a lot of skills that I use on the regular, so I think a shield or another accessory will be more useful. And I think the Fellblade passive, which allows skills to crit, will be very helpful for him.
  • In that very first map, in the chest blocked by fencing and water, I found a cursed shield (-150 to fire, water, thunder, and earth resistance). Kyrie's carrying it around now, we'll see if I can get it to lose the curse.
  • I thought I saw someone saying they didn't find the Samurai class very useful. I've liked it a lot, and now Kyrie and Anadine have maxed it. But it is kind of a weird class. Seems to me that the self-inflicted debuffs are meant to pair with Meditate, which purges debuffs and heals per debuff removed. I also find Spirit Bow to be very helpful (-Def, -Res), and love Razor Wind, the ability that lets you give any attack a range of four tiles.
  • On some of the later maps I found Flippers to be necessary so my units would not die if dropped into the water. As soon as I put on Flippers, the enemy stopped trying to knock me into the water. I wonder if the AI is programmed to do this only if fatal.
  • I had a bunch of rounds in which the enemy could have KO'ed Anadine, but chose not to target her. But she was wearing the Ancient Locket, which prevents injuries. Same thought here: maybe the enemy AI is programmed to try to cause injuries when it kills? That would remind me of Fire Emblem, when the enemy prioritizes attacks on units that it can (permanently) kill.
  • And, I've really liked some of these later maps. There was a series of 3 that I found to be especially fun and creative:
    Spoiler:

    The fight against another marked (+that vampire samurai!), where you get to see your high-level abilities on others, the "get to the elevators map" where enemies spawn out of the trapdoors, and the map where the leader summons two high-level demons that function as artillery.

Also, congrats to Sundown and Sorbicol! I've leveled you both over in the JRPG Club thread.