Sorry, I skipped the last four pages of inanity that suddenly appeared out of nowhere while I was gone from the Codex for a few hours ---
--- ah yes, 1eyedking ---
-- but to answer Renegen's question:
Renegen said:
Can you describe to us in words what actually makes this such a good game?
Like, does it have 50 hours of mercyless grinding, or actually interesting character development, skills, tactics and monsters?
I know I already said that in my OP, and Black Cat said that, too, but still. This game does not require grinding
at all, if you're grinding you're doing it wrong. What it requires is combat strategy, such as mastering the use of skills and affinities, of which there are a lot and which are all useful in different situations, mastering the enemies' and player character's strengths and weaknesses, which are really vital in different ways for different combat situations -- you are assembling
a team, a party after all, and you must have a well-developed character for every combat role you might need -- developing each character in a way you think useful, managing your equipment and resources such as TP, fine-tuning your team with the character switching mechanics, popping them out of combat when needed for a couple of turns, then popping them in again for them to deliver an attack and be switched out again to avoid dying, all the while keeping track of their HP, SP and TP, as well as the elemental affinities and defense stats. In fact, you can defeat the bosses
underleveled with a correct use of tactics, which excludes the grind. And if you can't do that, well, you suck.
Monsters also have very different sets of skills, affinities and attributes, always keeping things fresh. Also, you must fight the characters you want to recruit first, and they are using the same skills they'll have when recruited, which lets you see those in action first and, as the skills are very diverse, makes you devise new tactics and think hard about the composition of your party in order to deal with them.
tl; dr No grinfest at all, no, just pure strategy and mastering the system.
Kawaii Theurgist said:
In any case, you don't really need to grind. I did get up to Rin Kaenbyou when I did play it and I never really had to grind. Instead, I had to study each character's strenghts and weaknesses, plan their levels up, and then plan how to line them up and switch them during the battle so certain characters would benefit from certain buffs, combine during certain attacks, etc.
However the tactics, while deep, and the combat, while hard, are blobber tactics and combat. There is no exploiting the enemy AI, no taking advantage of positioning or movement rules. It is about who uses the best skills, lines up the best resistances, plays the enemy weakness against her, etc. Also, the combat and tactics are one hundred percent gamist. If you enjoy the kind of combat in, say, Generation XTH or Strange Journey you will love this. If you don't, well, you will not.
And the game is brutally challenging, as it is obligatory on a Touhou related game. That makes finally understanding how to defeat a given enemy without grinding rewarding, given all boss battles are uphill ones. Grinding will not take you anywhere, the dungeons are so big you will get all the XP you need just by exploring all the tiles.
Character development is simple and to the point. Each character has a growth rate and a set of skills, and there's no changing that. You can't turn Patchouli into a tank, no matter what. You can't turn Chen into a heavy hitter, again no matter what. You must study their skills, resistances, weaknesses and then develop them on the way you believe more convenient to exploit those strenghts and cover those weaknesses, while straying out of this plan only every now and then. They aren't your characters, and you don't build them. That's why you have so many to choose from: You must pick and match them to the challenge you are facing and the monsters you risk encountering.
Well, that and because the fans would riot if their favorite one wasn't there.
The skills are, again, quite varied, and the formulas are quite transparent, which makes picking which spell to use for each situation and what stats to develop for every character a matter of planning and number crunching goodness, as you know what you are gaining and what you are sacrificing at every level up and every training session.
Finally, you also have to plan your expeditions to the dungeon. You only find terminals every so many levels, so you must balance who fights when and in which area to make sure you can explore longer, first, and then to reach the encounters you need to reach with the right characters fresh and ready. If you just run into the dungeon you will do badly, always.
Quoted for those who don't feel like reading through the entire thread.
The only thing I disagree with is that positioning doesn't matter. It matters, and a lot, at least for a blobber. You must always keep track of your team's positioning as not only do the front-row characters take the most physical damage, so you must build them accordingly, but bosses have different attacks and patterns of attacks, some of which target
only the back row characters at certain in-battle moments, making it necessary to cleverly switch in and switch out your back row characters. In fact, at some moments you will want to not have any back-row characters at all (!), which is always a possibility, only to switch them in a moment later to deliver a mighty counterattack.
KT said:
number crunching goodness
This, so much this. It's all about managing numbers in a complex way, not grinding. This isn't a JRPG strictly speaking as it allows for A LOT of customization. In fact, it's all about it.