ScrewAttack can Screw Themselves - Free Riders SAGY '10

[George]

If users wanted to play an SRPG, they would play a good one like Valkyria Chronicles.. just saying.

[SOUP]

Edit: I went reading some impressions around the net after writing this post. I might give the game a chance. Is it true you get more control when you progres??

It's like -nSega54- said. The game actually requires you to be very fast, and smart with your party shifts. Later on in the game, you're basically changing your party's job classes on the fly. You've got to be very tactical, and very fast as far as what configurations you switch to. A lot of time goes into setting up the optimal decks (you can only have 6 combinations set at once), for any given situation.
A big focus is in the risk/reward of racing to build up that combo meter every enemy has.  You don't really do significant damage to anything until you stagger it by maxing that gauge out.  Attack spells will make the gauge go up quickly, but it will also go back down quickly unless you throw some physical attacks in there.  Meanwhile, you've got to periodically switch to defensive setups, or cast buffs/debuffs. Sentinels (tanks) are also really important as the game goes on.
The long setup makes you try out paradigms that you wouldn't normally think of, so that by the time you can pick all your own party members, you know the battle system inside and out, and can just have fun with it.
The retry option is also a godsend. Some of the boss fights are insane. If it weren't for the auto option to select individual spells, you'd be dead in seconds.

I think 1up's review did a pretty good job of describing everything.

And yeah, Valkyria Chronicles is amazing :D.

[Ben]

If users wanted to play an SRPG, they would play a good one like Valkyria Chronicles.. just saying.

Well it's not actually a full-on SRPG but it definitely has SRPG aspects to its battle system. The game's director previously made Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, which is apparently a pretty decent RTS for the Nintendo DS.

[Autosaver]

The reliance on Metacritic is also another thing I think is wrong with the game community.

This isn't like the old games before the internet where you didn't know if a game was shit.

With metacritic, you can a bunch of views on the game by professional reviewers. Thus, making games a lot more easier to get passed the crap pile and into the good pile. 60 dollars is a lot to spend on a game and you do not want to get something crap.
"Well, play it for yourself!"
Give me 60 dollars and will do.

[CosmicCastaway]

The reliance on Metacritic is also another thing I think is wrong with the game community.

This isn't like the old games before the internet where you didn't know if a game was shit.

With metacritic, you can a bunch of views on the game by professional reviewers. Thus, making games a lot more easier to get passed the crap pile and into the good pile. 60 dollars is a lot to spend on a game and you do not want to get something crap.
"Well, play it for yourself!"
Give me 60 dollars and will do.

I'm not saying you should preorder every game under the sun. Most of the games I buy are in the $20-40 range, I'll preorder games everyone once in a while but I usually buy them once the price has lowered. I've just found it much better to get what games I take interest in instead of just following critic's scores. There are some games that I really love that I would've never played if I just followed the critics because most of them didn't like the games.

[Autosaver]

Yeah, I can agree with you there.
And sorry for my previous post which I did not double check for errors.

[max_cady]

Well, this is indeed a curious trend...

That is not to say that both companies haven't had their blunders, because they did.

However, if this is indeed one company who has considerably dropped the ball on this has to be SquareEnix, they have yet to develop anything remotely engaging.

I should know, I bought Project Sylpheed, one of Squenix's first 360 games and I got so very dissapointed. I also got Infinite Undiscovery, which was so bad, I literally quit the game in the first 5 hours of gameplay and sold it online.

From what I read, including accounts from people I know that are great Final Fantasy fans, one of them, a close friend of mine who's played every single FF since the first one, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

They've even run the Dragon Quest series into the ground with a few DS titles.

And how's buying Eidos working out for them?

However, nobody starts online riots over any of this...

But if Sega does something... well you know what happens...

[Barry the Nomad]

Only game with "SquareEnix" on the cover that I've bought in the past ten years was Just Cause 2. Damn good game, though Square had nothing to do with the development. Just publishing.