Class of Heroes Anniversary Edition beaten in almost exactly 40 hours. The main game, anyway. There's some post-game stuff, I'll probably peek into it but not sure if I want to finish that as well.
My party was Samurai/Lord/Valkyrie on the front row, and Thief/Bishop/Mage at the back. I'm pretty sure I made bad decisions when it came to their races though, as my Lord was a Celestial, and he's unable to equip any good weapons and armor. But once the Cover skill was unlocked, he started pulling his weight nicely, he'd just fly around to take hits for other party members and evade most of them. Not sure how that works logically, but I'll take it. My Thief ended up being my most effective damage-dealer since I found a weapon for him (Full Moon) that has a long reach, seemed to always hit and do good damage, and was almost always the first action in a combat round. But the Samurai and Valkyrie weren't too far behind.
As a sidenote, I hate coming up with names for characters, so I paid some respect to Wizardry and named all of these ones just SAM-1, MAG-1, etc. And that doubly appropriate because the game is Wizardry as hell. Take a Wizardry game, change its theme to anime school and that's Class of Heroes.
Sima Tuna already covered the crafting in the sequel, it's the same in the first game. Could do with a lot of quality of life improvements.
What really threw me for a loop at the start is the map system. On the world map, there are several locations. But those are safe areas, the actual dungeon crawling happens in the paths between them. And they're not static. Instead, each path draws from a pool of maps that might get used there when you enter, with the center of each path always being the same. So you go on a path, and it might use maps 12, 16, and 38. Then the next time you go into the same path, it might have maps 10, 16, and 19. And different paths can use the same maps, so even when going into a completely new path, you might end up on a map you've already fully explored. And your exploration per map is retained no matter where it's used, so you can just use the shortcut to get to the exit. The map just has a different skin based on the path, so it's a cave in that path, a forest in that path, or ruins in some other path.
The map layouts themselves are good. Though especially later there are lots of spinners and dark areas, often combined, so you're just constantly taking the map out. And that's another odd thing. There's three ways of viewing a map. There's a spell for bringing out a minimap. Or you can just hit Select to do the same thing. Or you can hit Y (on Switch controller) to take out a detailed map that shows exactly what square is, what effects it has, and you can autowalk from there. So what's even the point of the spell? I believe using the detailed map requires having found or purchased that path's map, but the spell still feels completely unnecessary. Especially since I found an item very early on that apparently contains the maps (you still have to explore them, the item just allows you to record your exploration progress) for all maps in the game, so I didn't need to get any new ones after that.
The bosses were...weird. At some point I just couldn't fight them normally at all, they just kept evading all physical attacks, take almost no damage from magic, and hit like a truck trying to isekai the characters into a proper Wizardry game. Sometimes they even hit all characters with a single attack and party wipe you in a single turn. The only way I could beat them was to use Party Attacks, the availability of which depends on that kind of characters are in your party. One of these makes all characters do a melee attack with a guaranteed hit, with a chance of stunning. Two of those killed the final boss. So that felt horribly unbalanced and pretty un-fun to me.
Overall though, I do like the game. It's very, very old-school in its mechanics, the map system is weird, the crafting is clunky...but it was still pretty fun. Whether it's because of the old-school mechanics or because of them depends on the player, I think.
Dungeon crawler recomendations
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I've been getting Legends of Amberland on a quite deep sale on the eshop for less than 3 bucks.
The game has retro, almost DOS style, graphics. If you can get past that, I'd say it is pretty fun and well built.
Please note that I am not a modern dungeon crawler expert by any means, but I find this game is entertaining and does a lot of things right : subtility in character party creation (but not so much to get overwhelmed at the beginning), simple and fast yet tactical combat system, exploration leading to new zomes with seemingly lots of things to do, diversity in mobs you fight, automapping, easy fast travel to areas you've already discovered.
The game has an overworld map and dungeons to explore. You move in classic dungeon crawler style in both, but the overworld map gives a nice sense of freedom compared to the dungeons with them infinite corridors.
Not sure how long the game is, but I guess it is recommended if you need a quick fix of classical dungeon crawl without the overcomplex systems maybe found in other games.
The game has retro, almost DOS style, graphics. If you can get past that, I'd say it is pretty fun and well built.
Please note that I am not a modern dungeon crawler expert by any means, but I find this game is entertaining and does a lot of things right : subtility in character party creation (but not so much to get overwhelmed at the beginning), simple and fast yet tactical combat system, exploration leading to new zomes with seemingly lots of things to do, diversity in mobs you fight, automapping, easy fast travel to areas you've already discovered.
The game has an overworld map and dungeons to explore. You move in classic dungeon crawler style in both, but the overworld map gives a nice sense of freedom compared to the dungeons with them infinite corridors.
Not sure how long the game is, but I guess it is recommended if you need a quick fix of classical dungeon crawl without the overcomplex systems maybe found in other games.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Yep, I bought it on the same deep sale and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. I'm playing on Hard because I remember hearing from PC players that the game is kind of easy by default. Hard has been a stiff, yet enjoyable challenge.
The best way I can describe Amberland is "imagine if World of Xeen was much shorter, made by an indie team and had no voice acting or cool rotoscoped real people."
The best way I can describe Amberland is "imagine if World of Xeen was much shorter, made by an indie team and had no voice acting or cool rotoscoped real people."
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Doublepost for Legend of Amberland:
Finished the game! I enjoyed this one way more than I expected to. So much that I found myself rushing to complete absolutely every scrap of content I could find and to completely wipe the map of enemies. This is a fairly short game. I did everything, including killing the Black Dragon, and ended at around 14-15 hours. The end of this game feels like part 1 of a multi-part game. It has an episodic nature.
I think the game is just overall super solid. I loved the way the equipment worked. The game seems simplistic at first, and it kind of is, but very few pieces of gear ever become obsolete as a result of that. I guess the only point of criticism I had was you couldn't really "build" characters. My mages started with a 30% arcane bonus staff, and that bonus was larger than any other arcane piece of gear in the game. So they kept their tier 1 wizard items the entire game. Again, in a episodic game, that kind of makes sense to me. This is the "low level adventure" equivalent. I ended the game around level 50, but these aren't DnD levels. Levels in this game don't proffer a massive power advantage.
Spells are also basic. More non-damage spells would have been nice. The game has a lot of status effects in it, but you can't inflict any of them on enemies. Status effects are something you protect yourself from. I know for a fact that Amberland 2 added bows and a bunch of other things, so that people say it pretty much invalidates Amberland 1. But I had a blast playing Amberland 1 regardless. The simplistic nature of this game works in its favor, because combat is extremely snappy and it's easy to get in a rhythm of plowing through dungeons, resting, returning to town for resupply/training and rushing back to combat. The system feeds into itself nicely.
The encumbrance system is genius. Infinite holding space for random inventory junk, but limited and precious holding space for items worn on your person. This means that weaker characters naturally can't wear heavy armor, but it's not as limiting as 2E-style class item restrictions. I eventually found a "feather weight helmet" and was able to pop that onto my mage. So armor doesn't inhibit casting, you just can't wear it if you are too scrawny. Balancing your encumbrance has a lot of the flavor of RE4 Attache Case Simulator, or dressing up the paperdolls in Baldur's Gate. You want to get all your spiffy new items placed just so on the party members best equipped to use them. Accessories are free slots btw, so this means you aren't punished for not knowing an enemy was going to cast AoE petrification. Accessories do a lot of heavy lifting on status immunities.
My party was a Human Champion (Fighter,) Dwarf Knight (Fighter,) Half-Elf Ranger, Half-Elf Bard, Human Healer (Cleric,) Elf Sage and Elf Wizard. Bard and Wizard buffs are extremely powerful. I played on Hard, and the Death's Door buff the Bard can cast was vital for certain boss fights, including the Black Dragon at the end.
I hope Amberland goes on to become a series of games. Due to the asset reuse, I could see this as a game series that costs comparatively little to make but which could sustain a profitable future. All the pieces are in place and very solid. For the price, this game was a steal. But even at full price, I got 15 very fun hours of it.
Oh and the game runs flawlessly on Switch. Zero crashes, bugs or performance issues.
Finished the game! I enjoyed this one way more than I expected to. So much that I found myself rushing to complete absolutely every scrap of content I could find and to completely wipe the map of enemies. This is a fairly short game. I did everything, including killing the Black Dragon, and ended at around 14-15 hours. The end of this game feels like part 1 of a multi-part game. It has an episodic nature.
I think the game is just overall super solid. I loved the way the equipment worked. The game seems simplistic at first, and it kind of is, but very few pieces of gear ever become obsolete as a result of that. I guess the only point of criticism I had was you couldn't really "build" characters. My mages started with a 30% arcane bonus staff, and that bonus was larger than any other arcane piece of gear in the game. So they kept their tier 1 wizard items the entire game. Again, in a episodic game, that kind of makes sense to me. This is the "low level adventure" equivalent. I ended the game around level 50, but these aren't DnD levels. Levels in this game don't proffer a massive power advantage.
Spells are also basic. More non-damage spells would have been nice. The game has a lot of status effects in it, but you can't inflict any of them on enemies. Status effects are something you protect yourself from. I know for a fact that Amberland 2 added bows and a bunch of other things, so that people say it pretty much invalidates Amberland 1. But I had a blast playing Amberland 1 regardless. The simplistic nature of this game works in its favor, because combat is extremely snappy and it's easy to get in a rhythm of plowing through dungeons, resting, returning to town for resupply/training and rushing back to combat. The system feeds into itself nicely.
The encumbrance system is genius. Infinite holding space for random inventory junk, but limited and precious holding space for items worn on your person. This means that weaker characters naturally can't wear heavy armor, but it's not as limiting as 2E-style class item restrictions. I eventually found a "feather weight helmet" and was able to pop that onto my mage. So armor doesn't inhibit casting, you just can't wear it if you are too scrawny. Balancing your encumbrance has a lot of the flavor of RE4 Attache Case Simulator, or dressing up the paperdolls in Baldur's Gate. You want to get all your spiffy new items placed just so on the party members best equipped to use them. Accessories are free slots btw, so this means you aren't punished for not knowing an enemy was going to cast AoE petrification. Accessories do a lot of heavy lifting on status immunities.
My party was a Human Champion (Fighter,) Dwarf Knight (Fighter,) Half-Elf Ranger, Half-Elf Bard, Human Healer (Cleric,) Elf Sage and Elf Wizard. Bard and Wizard buffs are extremely powerful. I played on Hard, and the Death's Door buff the Bard can cast was vital for certain boss fights, including the Black Dragon at the end.
I hope Amberland goes on to become a series of games. Due to the asset reuse, I could see this as a game series that costs comparatively little to make but which could sustain a profitable future. All the pieces are in place and very solid. For the price, this game was a steal. But even at full price, I got 15 very fun hours of it.
Oh and the game runs flawlessly on Switch. Zero crashes, bugs or performance issues.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Funny how SIma and I happened to clear Legends of Amberland at exactly the same time !
Opinions on the game are exaclty the same with extremely snappy and satisfying combats, strategy needed to progress, not much chit-chat involved.
I would ad as cons :
* no zooming possibilities on the map, sometimes I dont know where I am.
* no respawning foes. Once they're all dead, they're all dead, and I cant try my new powerful spells on anything !
My party was much more straightforward as I played Healer-Warrior-Knight-Knight-Warrior-Wizard-Wizard. I tried a first run with more hybrid class like Bard, but did not know what to do with it in the beginning. In the few dungeon crawlers I played I tend to prefer a full damage party to kill everything as it comes.
This worked pretty well for this run as much late-game ennemies did not survive the 1st Wizard ; but I played Normal difficulty. I guess this could also work on Hard but would require a bit more carefulness in the beginning. When reading difficulty description I did not see the point of playing harder than normal since you get no benefit at all from this (some games give you more XP/gold for playing harder ; here it is just less everything).
In the end I guess I did 100% the game, but not pretty sure about this. I only have the "find forgotten crown" quest left, did all other quests I found and cleared all visible locations on the map. However there are at least 2 NPC whose dialog look like they can go further :
* lady near lake who wants the fisherman to fall in love with her ; she asks you for a love potion ?
* angry man in hut near Dark Castle (Gravenholm battle location) is upset because foes took his castle ; I cleared the foes but he is still angry ?
Opinions on the game are exaclty the same with extremely snappy and satisfying combats, strategy needed to progress, not much chit-chat involved.
I would ad as cons :
* no zooming possibilities on the map, sometimes I dont know where I am.
* no respawning foes. Once they're all dead, they're all dead, and I cant try my new powerful spells on anything !
My party was much more straightforward as I played Healer-Warrior-Knight-Knight-Warrior-Wizard-Wizard. I tried a first run with more hybrid class like Bard, but did not know what to do with it in the beginning. In the few dungeon crawlers I played I tend to prefer a full damage party to kill everything as it comes.
This worked pretty well for this run as much late-game ennemies did not survive the 1st Wizard ; but I played Normal difficulty. I guess this could also work on Hard but would require a bit more carefulness in the beginning. When reading difficulty description I did not see the point of playing harder than normal since you get no benefit at all from this (some games give you more XP/gold for playing harder ; here it is just less everything).
In the end I guess I did 100% the game, but not pretty sure about this. I only have the "find forgotten crown" quest left, did all other quests I found and cleared all visible locations on the map. However there are at least 2 NPC whose dialog look like they can go further :
* lady near lake who wants the fisherman to fall in love with her ; she asks you for a love potion ?
* angry man in hut near Dark Castle (Gravenholm battle location) is upset because foes took his castle ; I cleared the foes but he is still angry ?
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I didn't find any way to make the pissed off angry wizard less angry, or discover any love potions. I think maybe they're just supposed to be flavor text. I cleared every dungeon including the Beholders one.guigui wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 11:56 am Funny how SIma and I happened to clear Legends of Amberland at exactly the same time !
Opinions on the game are exaclty the same with extremely snappy and satisfying combats, strategy needed to progress, not much chit-chat involved.
I would ad as cons :
* no zooming possibilities on the map, sometimes I dont know where I am.
* no respawning foes. Once they're all dead, they're all dead, and I cant try my new powerful spells on anything !
My party was much more straightforward as I played Healer-Warrior-Knight-Knight-Warrior-Wizard-Wizard. I tried a first run with more hybrid class like Bard, but did not know what to do with it in the beginning. In the few dungeon crawlers I played I tend to prefer a full damage party to kill everything as it comes.
This worked pretty well for this run as much late-game ennemies did not survive the 1st Wizard ; but I played Normal difficulty. I guess this could also work on Hard but would require a bit more carefulness in the beginning. When reading difficulty description I did not see the point of playing harder than normal since you get no benefit at all from this (some games give you more XP/gold for playing harder ; here it is just less everything).
In the end I guess I did 100% the game, but not pretty sure about this. I only have the "find forgotten crown" quest left, did all other quests I found and cleared all visible locations on the map. However there are at least 2 NPC whose dialog look like they can go further :
* lady near lake who wants the fisherman to fall in love with her ; she asks you for a love potion ?
* angry man in hut near Dark Castle (Gravenholm battle location) is upset because foes took his castle ; I cleared the foes but he is still angry ?
I agree about the lack of map zoom. It would have been nice to zoom the map out for fast travel. Near the end of my playthrough, I was zipping all over the world to find quest triggers. I'm not sure how to feel about lack of respawning enemies. I'm usually in favor of RPGs with a finite amount of in-game XP, since it limits powergaming and enforces some small amount of strategy. For example: The red scorpions in the desert were way too strong for me at first. I had to seek out multiple optional dungeons and still resorted to sneaking past a lot of the fuckers. Going back to wipe them all out was very satisfying. I don't think I'd like it very much if the scorpions always respawned or the goblins in the beginning town zone respawned to pester you even at level 50.
But I know Amberland II does have some enemy respawns. Not sure how it works exactly.
Sage is functionally just Wizard with Mass Power Heal. In practice, my three front melee dealt damage with Slaying weapons while the back line slung primarily Lightning magic (because it had the highest damage range per cost.)
Some of the Hybrid classes are pretty ass. Ranger gets some basic spells but none of them are worth using. You sacrifice a ton of encumbrance for that, and the only spell I did use was Elven Song, her racial spell. Should have gone Knight or Warrior with her. Gear is just so powerful that I think if I were to run again, I'd prioritize the classes with either max damage potential or max encumbrance, with a couple exceptions like Bard who genuinely bring something unique (extremely good buffs.)
Edit: Oh yeah and Mithril gear was crazy useful in the early and midgame.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I did not see all those subtle things you mention about Sage, Bards, mithril stuff. Just use lots of slaying weapons, lots of fire and lightning spells, lots of healing when needed. So yeah, harder difficulty is definitely recommended if one wants to explore more things about gameplay.
Also, what did you do with your Cristals ? Seeing how the resource seemed very limited in the game, I saved them for when I'd need ... and ended up not spending them at all.
Now I can buy those crunchy +12 strength gauntlets, but have no ennemies to defeat left ! So my 170ish cristals sits there doing nothing. By the way, 170 is indeed limited in a game where the most expensive object costs 120.
About foes respawning, I'd say the now overused New Game + system could have been fit here. I'd love to restart the game in harder difficulty with my current team. Not sure about starting from scratch though.
Also, what did you do with your Cristals ? Seeing how the resource seemed very limited in the game, I saved them for when I'd need ... and ended up not spending them at all.
Now I can buy those crunchy +12 strength gauntlets, but have no ennemies to defeat left ! So my 170ish cristals sits there doing nothing. By the way, 170 is indeed limited in a game where the most expensive object costs 120.
About foes respawning, I'd say the now overused New Game + system could have been fit here. I'd love to restart the game in harder difficulty with my current team. Not sure about starting from scratch though.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I think I spent them on displacement capes and vials. I figured the extra stats right now + displacement on my front row would be more valuable than some theoretical mega item.guigui wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 7:13 pm I did not see all those subtle things you mention about Sage, Bards, mithril stuff. Just use lots of slaying weapons, lots of fire and lightning spells, lots of healing when needed. So yeah, harder difficulty is definitely recommended if one wants to explore more things about gameplay.
Also, what did you do with your Cristals ? Seeing how the resource seemed very limited in the game, I saved them for when I'd need ... and ended up not spending them at all.
Now I can buy those crunchy +12 strength gauntlets, but have no ennemies to defeat left ! So my 170ish cristals sits there doing nothing. By the way, 170 is indeed limited in a game where the most expensive object costs 120.
About foes respawning, I'd say the now overused New Game + system could have been fit here. I'd love to restart the game in harder difficulty with my current team. Not sure about starting from scratch though.