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@“treefroggy”#p135113 but if you’re not like me, the type of person who must play games in order
Unfortunately I am this person 😭
I am more willing to start at Force in lieu of it being a different kind of RPG and for the spirit of this thread... It is stupid, but it is My Brain.
@“◉◉maru”#p135115 the darker music was less of a bother than just how much is sounded like straight up Star Wars. And the brisk pacing was great and something I appreciated about it, but that town theme was just so juvenile and saccharin-sounding. It was a good use of the soundchip but the melody was somewhat grating and the way it got reused for everything… well it’s not bad
@“treefroggy”#p135128 I am not gonna spam music tracks here just yet, to let people discover them in situ as they progress through the game but the soundtrack of Shining Force II by Takeonuchi Motoaki is truly banger after banger, and the symphonic version of his soundtrack is for my money the best arranged soundtrack of the Mega Drive era (unless you count Dream Come True’s albums, I guess). Another aspect of the game which I find wildly underrated among Sega fans.
i only owned a Genesis very briefly. within a year of getting it for Christmas our house was robbed. thankfully we had insurance but i used the money to get a Super Nintendo bc it was lonely being the only Sega kid in school.
i only owned two games. Sonic 2 and Shining Force 2. i played this game obsessively and im excited to go back after all this time.
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Something I noticed already that I really like is that even more Golden Sun-y things were introduced in SFII, like the animations on sprites for talking and nodding of heads, the manner I. Which they shake and vibrate is identical to the Camelot sports games for GBC/GBA as well as golden sun, and distinctly different from the way square soft chose to express body language in their games at the time.
The music is already so much better. Feels much more like a 10/10 rpg experience compared to SF1’s soundtrack. Yeah, this one’s the real deal.
I died on the first battle lol, and on the normal difficulty, because I played it like a tutorial battle and not a real battle. Once I treated it seriously, it was no problem. But that was a good tone setter. This ain‘t baby’s first.
I will dip my toe into this one but probably won't make to far as I am juggling a lot of games right now.
Made it to the jail cell with Slade where Sarah shoves that poor rat around.
Small nitpick: If all the party character names were gonna be all caps why did it let me use lower-case letters when naming the main character? Now his name looks all weird next to everyone else's in the menus.
This part made me LOL. The king has a rude ass advisor.
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I wasn‘t sure if I had played Shining Force 1, 2, or both but I’m thinking both because I remember the green hair centaur and Slade the Rat. I‘m pretty sure I also got through 1 with the woodchuck with a helmet or whatever. I had a good time with both back in the heyday of emulating 16-bit games for me in high school/college. I’d love to revisit if I can this month.
I‘m five minutes in and I’ve already drank soapy water from a wash basin. This is not boding well.
@“Coffinwarehouses”#p135164 reminds me of how Fire Emblem fans refer to units as “Jagen Units” when they are like Jagen: old, powerful characters you get at the start, but don‘t have much growth, so if they die it’s fine.
How do counterattacks work? It seems like they happen sometimes, but not most of the time. I can't tell why.
Edit: also what's up with double attacks?
@“Mnemogenic”#p135234 based on character's stats, sometimes especially swift characters will double attack or counterattack, kind of like getting a critical hit.
I‘ve had COVID the last week (I’m fine, but using it as an excuse to take time off work) so I made some pretty good progress on Shining Force 2. Just got a Wolfman who feels he is not “hirsute” enough (did not understand this joke as a child).
I can't remember if there's friendly fire with spells or not. I feel like I remember that there is, but I don't know for sure. I guess I could have looked it up, but Kazin has been a real albatross the last few battles b/c of my fears of Blaze-ing my own troops. Level 1 Blaze goes from ridiculously OP to basically useless pretty quick. (Fake Edit: I wrote this and forgot to post it and went ahead and tested and friendly fire does not exist! Good to know!)
I forgot what Cheerful Bread does and that giving it to the Tortoise was my favorite thing to do to boost his HP so that spellcasters don't one-shot him every time. I wasted it on some other character. Oops!
My most-frequent character deaths so far are Slade, Tortoise, and Chester. I think those are the only three who have died, but they have each died multiple times.
@“Mnemogenic”#p135234 @“treefroggy”#p135254 Just nitpicking but I believe the double attack ratio/RNG is determined by the character class, not their stats. Same for criticals and counters.
I really enjoy this big crew of weirdos I‘m assembling. Slade, Kiwi, Peter, and May are big favorites right now. Kiwi seems like he’s really bad but I'm not going to hold that against him. The Force needs a mascot.
So I‘ve played a bit further and enjoy the speed of combat but at times it does sort of feel like I’m playing a fog of war game even though I can clearly see all the enemies on screen. Having only a moment or so to glean the enemy‘s movement range has made encounters a bit frustrating, unless I’m missing some crucial gameplay element that provides that info. On the upside I found a turtle. I named it Pickles.
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@“Toph”#p135279 Having only a moment or so to glean the enemy’s movement range has made encounters a bit frustrating, unless I’m missing some crucial gameplay element that provides that info.
You cannot display the enemy range at all times like in modern Fire Emblem games. What you can do is check the enemy stats. When it’s your turn to play, press B to unselect your character, go over the enemy you want to get information about, and press A (not C). This will display the character’s stats. It also works for your allies.
What your are looking for (in the English version) is the MOV stat, which is pretty straightforward. If it says 5, the character can move 5 squares on normal terrain. If it says 7, the character can move 7 squares on normal terrain. Etc.