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chuckroFeudal Lord of the Sky Island has a mission for the six warriors who can magically throw their weapons: Defend us against invaders and monsters! Equip your assortment of weapons, then stand on the bow of an airship and throw them at enemies.
As I talked about in my capsule review, you fling weapons at enemies and they throw things back at you. Weapons with the same arc (daggers, swords and axes) will collide, with the stronger one continuing. Weapons have a recharge time before you can throw them again; and you have a “BP” meter that controls the total number of weapons you can throw, which recharges over time as well. There’s a fun bit of strategy to when you throw and what you throw to try to knock out enemy weapons before they hit you while still doing damage.
This is also done in a retro-pixilated art style which I generally like. I had originally thought this was by the same team as Inflation RPG, but it appears that this team “borrowed” (and it’s unclear whether they got permission) all of their art assets from a selection of other places.
The text was obviously written by a non-fluent English speaker—I’m pretty sure it’s actually bad, not parody bad—but it isn’t that critical, you can figure everything out.
The biggest irritation is that it’s a “limited stamina recharges over time or by paying money” game, which means the number of stages you can play without waiting an hour drops sharply as the game progresses—though to be fair, your stamina rises as you gain levels, so you can go back and replay lower levels for a lot longer once you’ve leveled up a bit.
The “real money” currency, the red gems, is actually pleasantly easy to come by in the game if you’re sensible and moderately patient. You win the gems randomly, get 3 for the first time you beat each level, and ten for beating an entire stage. You can purchase the extra weapon and accessory slots and the accessory that makes you immune to status effects basically by just reaching the end of the game, and those are all you really need. Also, in the post-game, you can actually purchase gems with your then-useless-but-abundant gold, which is a nice feature.
While the early game encourages you to pick one class you like and stick with it for the bonuses, mastering classes is the key to the mid- and late-game. A mastered class passes on all of its benefits to the other classes, which includes stat ups, after-battle recovery, and (most importantly) half damage from magic. That last ability is pretty much required for the arena battles from #6 onwards.
I’m in what I’m calling the “postgame” segment: You can beat the game (in the sense of beating Stage 5-5 and the secret boss of the Arena) below Level 100; but that unlocks Stage 6, where the gloves come off and you need to grind to get strong enough to beat each stage. This is where it becomes critical that you master all six classes (which is pretty straightforward while you’re grinding levels) and max out your weapon levels. The first part of the game takes about a week, or a few hours of actual play. The postgame can take several times that.
In terms of strategy, you want to have one weapon of each type as soon as possible, and swords that can do the “double star / triple star” hidden abilities are particularly useful. In the late game, the best setup seems to be two daggers, two swords, and one axe; and I’ve found that having a dagger with “double throw / triple throw” (such as the scramasax) and one with “Blade of the single blow” (such as the gladius) is ideal. That latter power and a bunch of luck has gotten me through some levels I probably couldn’t have beaten otherwise.
Hidden items: I found at least four sets of armor not sold in the store: dragon, Genji, dark, and holy. The thing is, they’re all weaker than the Fluted Armor you can buy in Stage 6, and I only won them after I started grinding in Stage 6. There appear to be +40% versions of the stat-up items; I only started finding those in stage 6-5 and later. Bosses each use unique weapons, but I have yet to have any of them drop, and I wonder if I’ve just been unlucky or I’m missing something. This game doesn’t seem to have an active FAQ, walkthrough or Wiki, so I’ll just note down everything I’ve found and see if anyone wanders by.
Edit: Carla, the final boss of 6-4 (level 3) can drop the Axe of Strong Beast, her special weapon, which is better than the Destroyer. You can get the Treasure Sword Mag Mell as a rare drop from the boss of stage 6-2, Level 3. (It’s a crazy-powerful dagger.) A message board comment I saw seems to indicate the Level 3 bosses of 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 and 6-5 can all drop their special weapons; and it stands to reason that the bosses of 6-6 and 6-7 might as well...but I can’t beat them on level 3, yet.
I did my grinding for these weapons in the Adventurer class (which has the highest Fortune stat naturally) with Fortune-increasing items equipped, and with every class mastered. It still took me a ton of tries to get each of them. Reycled in 6-3 kept dropping his common item, a Laevatein; the Cursed Sword Zothique is his frustratingly-rare drop.
Further Edit: Sora, the boss of 6-5 (Level 3) does eventually drop the divine sword Vanaheimr, but I got so many suits of fluted armor trying for it, it was really ridiculous. Also, in that process, as rare drops from the enemies in 6-5, I picked up a bunch of Platinum Bangles (+40% HP), Aegis Shields (+40% defense), and a Godssword Glove (+40% power). I also got really lucky and got a Harpy Feather (+50% Fortune) early on, but I don’t recall exactly where.
Ex-Feudal Lord in 6-6 (level 3) can, in fact, drop the master axe Yusdaril as his rare item. There is Master Armor; it’s called exactly that and has a defense of 180, significantly better than Fluted Armor. Ex-Feudal Lord drops it as his common drop. Reports of the Goddess of Dawn dropping anything (her “fastest dagger”, maybe?) are still unconfirmed.
Overall: This is moderately addictive and surprisingly fun given the simple concept. I think the difficulty curve falls apart a little in the postgame, but that’s no excuse not to try it out. And hey, it’s free.
As I talked about in my capsule review, you fling weapons at enemies and they throw things back at you. Weapons with the same arc (daggers, swords and axes) will collide, with the stronger one continuing. Weapons have a recharge time before you can throw them again; and you have a “BP” meter that controls the total number of weapons you can throw, which recharges over time as well. There’s a fun bit of strategy to when you throw and what you throw to try to knock out enemy weapons before they hit you while still doing damage.
This is also done in a retro-pixilated art style which I generally like. I had originally thought this was by the same team as Inflation RPG, but it appears that this team “borrowed” (and it’s unclear whether they got permission) all of their art assets from a selection of other places.
The text was obviously written by a non-fluent English speaker—I’m pretty sure it’s actually bad, not parody bad—but it isn’t that critical, you can figure everything out.
The biggest irritation is that it’s a “limited stamina recharges over time or by paying money” game, which means the number of stages you can play without waiting an hour drops sharply as the game progresses—though to be fair, your stamina rises as you gain levels, so you can go back and replay lower levels for a lot longer once you’ve leveled up a bit.
The “real money” currency, the red gems, is actually pleasantly easy to come by in the game if you’re sensible and moderately patient. You win the gems randomly, get 3 for the first time you beat each level, and ten for beating an entire stage. You can purchase the extra weapon and accessory slots and the accessory that makes you immune to status effects basically by just reaching the end of the game, and those are all you really need. Also, in the post-game, you can actually purchase gems with your then-useless-but-abundant gold, which is a nice feature.
While the early game encourages you to pick one class you like and stick with it for the bonuses, mastering classes is the key to the mid- and late-game. A mastered class passes on all of its benefits to the other classes, which includes stat ups, after-battle recovery, and (most importantly) half damage from magic. That last ability is pretty much required for the arena battles from #6 onwards.
I’m in what I’m calling the “postgame” segment: You can beat the game (in the sense of beating Stage 5-5 and the secret boss of the Arena) below Level 100; but that unlocks Stage 6, where the gloves come off and you need to grind to get strong enough to beat each stage. This is where it becomes critical that you master all six classes (which is pretty straightforward while you’re grinding levels) and max out your weapon levels. The first part of the game takes about a week, or a few hours of actual play. The postgame can take several times that.
In terms of strategy, you want to have one weapon of each type as soon as possible, and swords that can do the “double star / triple star” hidden abilities are particularly useful. In the late game, the best setup seems to be two daggers, two swords, and one axe; and I’ve found that having a dagger with “double throw / triple throw” (such as the scramasax) and one with “Blade of the single blow” (such as the gladius) is ideal. That latter power and a bunch of luck has gotten me through some levels I probably couldn’t have beaten otherwise.
Hidden items: I found at least four sets of armor not sold in the store: dragon, Genji, dark, and holy. The thing is, they’re all weaker than the Fluted Armor you can buy in Stage 6, and I only won them after I started grinding in Stage 6. There appear to be +40% versions of the stat-up items; I only started finding those in stage 6-5 and later. Bosses each use unique weapons, but I have yet to have any of them drop, and I wonder if I’ve just been unlucky or I’m missing something. This game doesn’t seem to have an active FAQ, walkthrough or Wiki, so I’ll just note down everything I’ve found and see if anyone wanders by.
Edit: Carla, the final boss of 6-4 (level 3) can drop the Axe of Strong Beast, her special weapon, which is better than the Destroyer. You can get the Treasure Sword Mag Mell as a rare drop from the boss of stage 6-2, Level 3. (It’s a crazy-powerful dagger.) A message board comment I saw seems to indicate the Level 3 bosses of 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 and 6-5 can all drop their special weapons; and it stands to reason that the bosses of 6-6 and 6-7 might as well...but I can’t beat them on level 3, yet.
I did my grinding for these weapons in the Adventurer class (which has the highest Fortune stat naturally) with Fortune-increasing items equipped, and with every class mastered. It still took me a ton of tries to get each of them. Reycled in 6-3 kept dropping his common item, a Laevatein; the Cursed Sword Zothique is his frustratingly-rare drop.
Further Edit: Sora, the boss of 6-5 (Level 3) does eventually drop the divine sword Vanaheimr, but I got so many suits of fluted armor trying for it, it was really ridiculous. Also, in that process, as rare drops from the enemies in 6-5, I picked up a bunch of Platinum Bangles (+40% HP), Aegis Shields (+40% defense), and a Godssword Glove (+40% power). I also got really lucky and got a Harpy Feather (+50% Fortune) early on, but I don’t recall exactly where.
Ex-Feudal Lord in 6-6 (level 3) can, in fact, drop the master axe Yusdaril as his rare item. There is Master Armor; it’s called exactly that and has a defense of 180, significantly better than Fluted Armor. Ex-Feudal Lord drops it as his common drop. Reports of the Goddess of Dawn dropping anything (her “fastest dagger”, maybe?) are still unconfirmed.
Overall: This is moderately addictive and surprisingly fun given the simple concept. I think the difficulty curve falls apart a little in the postgame, but that’s no excuse not to try it out. And hey, it’s free.
