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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.

I forgot you could even do that.
Gonna gets me a dragon. Rarr!

Must say, Disgaea has probably raised more smiles than every other game put together. Sublime. And proof than Americans can do good voice-acting if they really want to.

I'd suggest getting a dragon at this stage of the game. If i remember correctly you can find one in the Episode 6 third battle or something like that on his own. In the forest stages anyway. You'll have one level 60 dragon to contend with so knock his health down as far as you can get it without killing him (and try and get him to use his SP as much as possible as well) then chuck him into the base panel with as many as your strong characters in there as possible and hope that you capture him. Will make battles quite easier.

Just make sure you save before attempting it :-D

Ah good old Laharl, fire mage, ronin and flamey owned everything

You should enjoy Episode 9 though, it's hilarious with the introduction of 3 characters

Breezed through episode 7 ... then got decimated on the first of 8. When they all start with Boost x3, and even if you get rid of that, there's two fat basts with stupidly high stats.

Back to training ...

Yea was going to suggest if it was that one to throw them together as that's what i did and easily got through it.

Quite a good tactic actually for all those mobs that use status attacks like Sleep or silence. Throw them and combine them with a brawler and then it should be far easier

Yar, I just pwned it easily - throw them all together, have a nice little Giga Fire barbeque - and straight through most of Episode 7.

Hmmmm is that the one in Episode 6?

Kawada wrote:
> Foresty one? Is that the last battle with Jaoquin with all the blue
> squares giving something like Enemy Boost x6? I remember that being
> tough the first time i went there and i lost. Just went to the item
> world for a couple of hours, went back and owned the hell out of him
> :-D

Nah, I don't think I'm that far yet.
Not very far at all, in fact, considering I've had the game for about a year.

It's one against Mid-Boss, and at the start there's about 10 monsters who put everyone to sleep, which is extremely annoying.

Yeah, that's one thing that has put my off ... never being able to revive a dead character. Yeah, it's more realistic, but I don't really care.
I suppose it will make things a bit more tense and exciting, but sometimes allowing someone to basically be a shield, or deflect fire until they die is a worthwhile tactic - not so here, obviously.

Yea they used that system back on Cannon Fodder back in the day. I personally liked it as it made you feel attached to your team and wanted to keep them alive rather than thinking *ah well they can die and they'll be back for the next battle*

the fire emblem battle system is absolutely amazing, with its combination of strategy and fast paced gameplay. the storyline in those games so absorbing too, i can't wait for the GC version. also i need to get the new GBA game. some people don't like the fact that when ur party members die, they don't come back though. i personally think it works well though. u spend all that time training em up, and when they die u do actually feel almost sad for them. i always restart if one of my fave characters die =D a lot of people find that frustrating though.