Games you are playing

[Riseatrance]

[Midrange]

[ZetaBladeX13]

Hey, I found a way to actually make me give a shit about Left 4 Dead:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Twat]

The best thing to come from that game is .

[Rodger]

Between NISA's list of titles and Pokemon G/S getting remakes, you'd almost swear E3 happened already. Makes me wonder what will come up at E3, especially since Atlus will be there. Atlus seems to be pretty coy about E3, and haven't announced many post-June titles. They definitely have something planned...

In other news, Duke Nukem Forever's confirmed to never be getting done now it seems. 3D realms = dead. Apogee is still making their Duke Nukem trilogy in spite of this though.

And, Trance? You want to talk heretical views? I consider G/S to be the worst in the series. I don't hate them, they certainly had redeeming qualities, but overall they seem very "quanity over quality" approach to actual features. G/S just seemed very unpolished to me, and many of the quests/sidequests ranged from annoying to rage inducing. Not to mention Kanto, one of the things its praised for, was incredibly bland and entirely devoid of any actual purpose other than lengthening the non-existant plot of the game. Once you beat the Elite Four you're supposed to be done and finally actually playing the damn game for what it is...

Mind you, I'm not taking spinoffs into consideration. Not a fan of roguelikes (though can certainly see why the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series would be enjoyable if you do) and don't get why people like Pokemon Ranger at all. And then there's Pokemon Channel for the GameCube...

[Twat]

Masahiro Sakurai got his own office with Nintendo support yet again, for a 2011 game release that will appeal to core gamers. It's asking for WAY too much but I'd like at least a hint or concept memo at e3. It'd be way too soon to have any idea of what it is, as I doubt even Sakurai himself knows. I'd just like to know how they plan to do something new that won't cause headdesks around the globe.

[Kinokokao]

Oo, G/S remakes? I never played those, so that might be fun. (I skipped straight from Red to Pearl)

For my birthday, my fiance gave me Wii points card (YAY!) I still had some left on my account, so even after selecting the one game I really wanted I still have 2100 points. Suggestions on what to spend it on? I'm thinking about Harvest Moon, but I played the hell out of that game already and with RF2 still left to beat I'm not sure how much I'd really want to play it.

Anyway, the game I really wanted? Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen!!!

Blararghg so exciting!! I played it ALL DAY yesterday. Reached Deneb's Garden, but had to go to bed. I'm aiming for the best ending, so I won't be forgiving her like I usually do. I got a Crown in the Pogrom Forest, so I have a Princess named Stacy! YES. Princess is so fucking broken as a class but I love her. She'll probably get overpowered and turn evil >__> Oh well. I have a ton of high-alignment Cleric-led parties to liberate towns with.

I'm trying to have a high-alignment/reputation in general, though. We'll see how that lasts.

^__^ so happy with my birthday present <3 Love this game!

[Paranoia]

Hey Kino, whats the learning curve for that game?

[Twat]

I have a gut feeling we'll see Kid Icarus Wii this e3. It was supposed to be there last year. ^-^

That's really all I'm interested in.

[Kinokokao]

[Twat]

More MOTHER fan girl tears. Happy tears, though. Maybe I'll pick up a gamepad and play MOTHER 3 again.

[Kinokokao]

[Maxine MagicFox]

Kino, this is the Ogre Battle that is offered on VC on the Wii? ... You have my interest piqued. Maybe I should purchase it? I've never played - never even seen images.

[Kinokokao]

Yeah, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen for the SNES is the one on the VC.

It's definitely it's own thing. So far as I know there aren't many other games that play like it.




So this is what the world map looks like. You move your units around, liberating the various cities. You have a base, and at the opposite end of the map your enemy has a base. Enemy units move from their base to your base. You move your units to intercept. When two units get close enough, they fight. The loser is repulsed back a distance, so if you're defending a city and lose, it's a scramble to recover ground before the enemy takes the city. There's a finite number of enemies on each level, plus the boss. You lose if your base is taken, or if your Lord dies, and winning requires that you defeat the boss/capture the enemy base.



Liberating cities gives you a place to garrison units -- they'll recover HP, so they make ideal defense locations. You also gain tribute, paid out at noon, and some cities are shops where you can purchase items. Additionally there are temples that can revive fallen troops. Liberating cities also gives you a chance to draw a Tarot card. These affect your units either in a good or bad way, depending on the card, and also function as spells that you can cast during battle. Chariot, for example, gives the liberating unit's characters STR+1, and when used during battle is a powerful attack spell.


Drawing a Tarot Card.

In the top-right corner of the screen is the reputation meter. Your reputation influences the story and the game's ending. Your reputation is increased by liberating cities with high-alignment units, choices that you make, and Tarot cards. Alignment refers to the individual characters. A high-alignment character will be stronger during the day and have powerful white-magic attacks; the opposite is true for a low-alignment character. Alignment is affected by killing; a low-level character killing a high-level character receives an alignment boost. Furthermore, killing low-alignment characters increases your alignment. So a level 6 cleric killing a level 9 ghost, for example, gains a huge alignment boost.



This is what battle looks like. As you can see, you are a mere observer. Your units will attack based on their position and class. In the above example, the two dragons will each attack twice with a basic Bite attack. The enemy's front-row knights will attack twice each with a slash attack -- the back-row knight, however, will only attack once. The ninjas, if they were in the front, would attack with 3 shuriken moves. However, since they are in the back, each will attack with 3 ninjitsu (magic) attacks. Characters' attack order is based on AGI.



The units will trade attacks until everyone's done, and, unless one side completely destroys the other, the winner will be determined by the damage done. (ie; total HP damage each side deals). At any time you can interrupt to change tactics, use a Tarot card, or order the retreat. You have four tactics to choose from: Best, Leader, Strong, Weak. I usually play with Best, which means is pretty much just the default.

Your Lord is the main character, chosen by the wizard Warren to lead the Rebel army against Empress Endora if the Zenobian Empire, a corrupt regime. Along the way you are able to recruit special characters -- Warren, Lans, Gilbert, Aisha, etc. These characters influence the story and help determine the ending you get. Some will only join if you have a high alignment/reputation, or if you chose to recruit other characters. The story is quite non-linear... there's over a dozen possible endings.


Forgiving Deneb means you can recruit her later, but you'll lose a huge chunks of your reputation.

Character classes are pretty varied... there's like 100 or something ridiculous. You have your basic human class families, the Fighter (male) and Amazon (female). Fighters can become Knights, Ninja, Samurai, Dollmages, Beastmen, etc. They can switch between classes provided they have the right alignment/stats needed. Amazons become Clerics, Valkyries or Witches. Clerics become Shamans, then Monks, etc. There are so many classes beyond the human ones, like Hawkmen, Angels, Dragons, Mermaids, etc etc. Only certain classes can be leaders of units. You can have 10 units out in the field at a time, and each unit has a deployment cost. At noon, when tribute from liberated cities is collected, you also have to pay the deployment cost for all units in the field.

o_o And, uh, yeah. That's about it. I love this game!

[scy]

Just for the record, the Ogre Battle combat isn't unique. Romance of the Three Kingdoms (all 342805295 of them) use the same thing, more or less, though with more city management ... okay, it's pretty much "different" yet "similar." Anyway, it was just how some old school SRPGs worked (and the Turn-based Strategy games of the era).

There's a few games that took that and expanded upon it with a more varied (read: less stale) combat system. Dragon Force (Saturn) and Soul Nomad (PS2 ... though it's really the same combat~) come to mind right now.

I'd have more but I'm tired.