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"More RPG goodness"

Lover of all things RPG that i am (apart from anything with Final Fantasy X or X-2 in the title) i thought i'd bring to your attention a couple of more great RPG titles in the wings that will hopefully reach the shores of Europe (if not ah well i'll have them anyway :-D)

First on the list is Radiata Stories done by the folks at Tri-Ace who did the great Star Ocean 3. It keeps the same battle system from SO3 and you can see the enemies before they attack so you can decide whether to charge in or save your energy and give them a miss.

It apparantly has a playable cast of characters of around 150 characters although whether it'll be like Suikoden 3 where quite a few of them were only support characters and not actually fighters remains to be seen.

Speaking of which it does seem to have quite a similar graphical feel to Suikoden so should be quite impressive visually if that sort of stuff determines whether you buy a game or not.

Release date is January in Japan so probably be waiting a while for that one :-D



and next to bring your attention to is the successor to the great Shining Force series on the Megadrive - Shining Tears.

First off graphics zealots (damn censors) may as well go now as you won't be getting ultra realistic 3D graphics with this one, instead you get the far better cartoony style graphics which are very crisp and smooth (i prefer this and sprites to the FFX style graphics anyway)

Big selling point i think of this is the co-op 2 player mode, so if you and a mate have about 40-50 free hours you can give it a blast :-D

One thing putting me off slightly is that they've done away with the strategy elements of the previous games and gone for a more action orientated style of fighting, but then i liked it in SO3 so maybe i'll like it in this.

Release date is March 2005 for America so at least there'll be a english version sooner then Radiata


and lastly the grand daddy - Dragon Quest VIII (Dragon Warrior in the west)

again using cartoony, cel shaded graphics my favourite RPG series finally comes onto the little black box. Still has pretty much the same battle system as old so basically it's good old turn based combat with random encounters although larger more powerful enemies appear on the screen (kind of like Ruby weapon in FF7 in a way) follows the traditional RPG mantra of head into town, talk to people and buy stuff, leave town, beat up monsters until you get to another town. Lovely :-D

big improvement though over the old games which may seem small and quite a weird thing to mention in this day and age is the fact you can now speak to characters with a press of a button instead of having to go to the menu and selecting 'Talk' very glad they've added that in, it was the only thing i hated in the previous games.

January/Feb American release date for this me thinks. Again can't wait.

a wise choice

next GAD i win im going for disgaea =)

I did it after i had completed the game when i began to concentrate on levelling up to be able to complete the hidden maps and gain the secret characters.

Onto chapter 12 now - the end of 11 was a bit of a beast, got mullered once, trained a bit and just scraped through.

When about is a good time for transmigrationing?

FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> Ineedsleep wrote:
> So not only did I miss the nuance of throwing enemies into to base
> panel I also completely missed the levelling up you can do by
> combining them. I think I went through the tutorial too fast.
>
> I just forgot after not playing for months. Throwing them together
> isn't that good anyway, just for levelling up a bit better.

Plus you lower the number of enemies you have to face and also get rid of those who can put status effects on you



> I've also created a load of characters that I don't really use but
> oddly enough I have no 'monsters' in my party.


I've got about 4, Laharl, my red mage and my 2 divine maijins. Then they're backed up by an above average Ronin and thief. Then with the 2 secret characters that's all i really need


> Quick question (properably a stupid one too). Why do I keep
> transmigrating Laharl?

But from what I've heard,
> when you transmigrate someone, you get more stat bonus thingies - so
> by the time you level back up to where you were, you'll be much
> stronger than before.


Yup that's it. So say you have 30 bonus stats the first time you transmigrate with the second one you'll get say 35 bonus stats to add onto your character gradually making them stronger and stronger

Ineedsleep wrote:
> I've been eyewagging on this conversation and also picked up the
> dragon only to learn that he's not going to be much use to me now as
> I'm already half way through chapter 11.

He's still pretty cool, though.
Roar!

> So not only did I miss the nuance of throwing enemies into to base
> panel I also completely missed the levelling up you can do by
> combining them. I think I went through the tutorial too fast.

I just forgot after not playing for months. Throwing them together isn't that good anyway, just for levelling up a bit better.

> I've also created a load of characters that I don't really use but
> oddly enough I have no 'monsters' in my party.

I've got no monsters except my dragon. They're just not as good, really.
No surpluss humans though, either. I've just got a solid group of 10 characters all about that same level who rule.

> Quick question (properably a stupid one too). Why do I keep
> transmigrating Laharl?

Because you find it hugely amusing for some reason?

I dunno ... haven't done it at all yet, I was told it's not worth it until you get to level 100 or something. But from what I've heard, when you transmigrate someone, you get more stat bonus thingies - so by the time you level back up to where you were, you'll be much stronger than before.

I've been eyewagging on this conversation and also picked up the dragon only to learn that he's not going to be much use to me now as I'm already half way through chapter 11.

So not only did I miss the nuance of throwing enemies into to base panel I also completely missed the levelling up you can do by combining them. I think I went through the tutorial too fast.

I've also created a load of characters that I don't really use but oddly enough I have no 'monsters' in my party.

Quick question (properably a stupid one too). Why do I keep transmigrating Laharl?

Don't know, when i began to start concentrating on levelling her up i bought Warcraft and haven't gone back to it since what with that, MVP Baseball 2005 and Phantom Kingdom taking up all my gaming time.

Doubt she'll be better than a created mage though i was just levelling her for novelty purposes

Aye, same here. Although I've held onto Etna for some reason ... probably just because I feel I should.

Is Flonne any good levelled up? I haven't ever bothered with her - in fact, the only reason I ever use her is for bait to get enemies nearer the base panel so I can jump everyone else out and slaughter them.

Not really only times i use him is for throwing as he has quite a long range. 8 squares i think it is

Only ever used Laharl from the main cast of characters although i've started levelling up Flonne