7th Saga Remix Thoughts
Sep. 14th, 2009 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroI lost track of whether I'd finished my thoughts on The difficulty patch for 7th Saga. Even with the Japanese difficulty restored, the game is still really, really hard. The experience curve still doesn't move fast enough, so you still have to grind between dungeons (or cheat with game genie codes, which I did when it became clear this was necessary).
I played the "wizard" version of the patch, and played as Lejes the demon...but apparently that patch's adjustments were aimed at Valsu and Esuna, not at him. Kamil, my second character, gained stats significantly faster than the normal game, and the one-on-one fight against Valsu was impossible without cheating, because he was so souped-up. So that was annoying, but probably would have been great if I played as Valsu. The difficulty spike upon reaching the past was far less evident, which I'll give the patch credit for, and the game itself--from the last continent on--is a bit less frustrating when you realize that you can stock up on the item that blocks instant-death spells.
All in all, though, the game doesn't hold up well, which shouldn't surprise anyone. The translation is minimalist and kinda crappy, the characterization is minimal, and the combat system has some glaring flaws even without the difficulty issues. (You can only cast 2-3 high level spells before you run out of MP, and only carry 9 MP-restoring items, which means the very existance of a kill-everything spell is questionable. You can't afford to cast it on the monsters; and it's no fun when they use it on you.)
Someday I'll probably be inspired by hazy memories of this game to "do it right" as a tabletop RPG. We'll see when I get that far.
I played the "wizard" version of the patch, and played as Lejes the demon...but apparently that patch's adjustments were aimed at Valsu and Esuna, not at him. Kamil, my second character, gained stats significantly faster than the normal game, and the one-on-one fight against Valsu was impossible without cheating, because he was so souped-up. So that was annoying, but probably would have been great if I played as Valsu. The difficulty spike upon reaching the past was far less evident, which I'll give the patch credit for, and the game itself--from the last continent on--is a bit less frustrating when you realize that you can stock up on the item that blocks instant-death spells.
All in all, though, the game doesn't hold up well, which shouldn't surprise anyone. The translation is minimalist and kinda crappy, the characterization is minimal, and the combat system has some glaring flaws even without the difficulty issues. (You can only cast 2-3 high level spells before you run out of MP, and only carry 9 MP-restoring items, which means the very existance of a kill-everything spell is questionable. You can't afford to cast it on the monsters; and it's no fun when they use it on you.)
Someday I'll probably be inspired by hazy memories of this game to "do it right" as a tabletop RPG. We'll see when I get that far.
