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16 of 19 found the following review helpful:
A must haveApr 18, 2008
By The Girl Next Door
"Look not unto others..."
Before you play the game, I suggest everyone does a run through the tutorial available from the start menu. There are ten lessons in all, each that will teach you how to play the game, otherwise you might find yourself frustrated when the enemy owns you in two seconds flat.
I'm not far into the game yet, but the battle system is interesting. Instead of moving to the side, front, or behind the enemy you have to drag your character through the enemy otherwise no damage will be done. Unfortunately there are times where you cannot attack an enemy with this strategy because of the ZOC.
With the battle system aside, I'm really happy with this game. The story progresses pretty fast, and so far the only draw back is the lack of free roaming. I'm hoping that once I get a little further into the game I can go to different locations to level up, without furthering the story line.
The art is beautiful, and the background music is pleasing to the ears. I highly recommend this to any fan of RPGs and strategy games.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Almost, but not quite.Oct 20, 2008
By M. Mayne
"Nerd, Gamer, & Obsessionist"
I am a long time follower of Atlus releases, one might even call me a fanatic about it ;) But this game falls short of the usual greatness that I expect from Atlus, though it just barely misses the mark.
By barely missing the mark I mean, this game, with a few very minor tweaks, would indeed be what I expected from an "epic" Atlus title.
Gameplay in Rondo of Swords moves from map to map without ever letting you have a break. Battle, after battle, after battle. Yes, this adds to the stategy - IE, making sure that you keep your people alive, so that they can fight in the next battle, etc. However, the other RPG elements such as shopping, outfitting your people, sidequests, etc. while present require you to sacrifice those people from the next battle, and there's never a time to do anything but battle. No equipping your people. No random battles or training area in which to lvl up under levelled and/or new people. Etc. etc. Granted, this is part of what makes the game difficult (IE impossible without a walkthrough or several restarts), but it also makes it not-so-fun.
Also, if you are just playing along, going with the flow, its very easy to miss the ability to recruit key characters and very easy to get to the 10th, or 11th stage, and be UNABLE to continue since you don't have enough people to put on the battlefield and complete the other objectives. If you play with a walkthrough, it becomes somewhat bearable.
The combat system? New, unique, refreshing, different, cool.
Skill customization on characters? Very good.
But this game needs to give you a break. An essential element of any RPG is the ability to stop, go back, do something other than the main storyline arc to beef up your people if you're having trouble. If you have trouble in this game? All you can do is start the entire game over and try something different. Which after the 3rd or so time, gets frustrating.
I know what you're thinking ~ but seriously, I'm a veteran gamer, have been playing RPGS and now tactical RPGs for over 20 years, this isn't "the game's too hard for me" - I'm an Atlus fan, I expect it to be difficult, in fact the challenge level in most Atlus games is what keeps me coming back for more. But more than challenging, this game is Punishing, and its very easy to get yourself into a position where continuing is impossible.
14 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Rondo of DifficultyApr 24, 2008
By Hongster As the title of my review suggests, this game is not easy. Those with experience playing strategy and tactics games will find this game playable. Those who have no experience should avoid this game, unless you are willing to learn and experience the difficultly that this game has to offer. Well unto the review!
The game is pretty much a tactics game where you move units and you gain exp points by either hitting your enemy or defeating them. Unlike most tactics games you do not move in front of them and choose an option to hit rather you go through them and that means you can hit multiple times all in one turn. Of course there are skills to prevent this as those with a special skill will prevent anyone from passing through them and only allowing one hit instead of multiple hits. Those who possess range attacks (bows, magic) you can attack from a distance, though you must be in range to attack and cannot attack after you move your unit (this does not apply to bow users as you can attack after you move, just remember to choose the bow option to attack). And like many tactics games the terrain affects your movement. Also, if your main character is defeated the game is over.
The game offers new additions to a traditional tactics game and those are all welcome but a few of those additions are not. Passing through enemies and hitting multiple times is a welcome to the series as most tactics games are pretty slow due to the one hit rule. In addition, there is a skill that you can build up called "OB" which is a special skill you can use that is very powerful depending on which character is using it. In addition once your character levels up you obtain skill points that you use to build up skills that will benefit your character. Another good feature is the ability to restart the stage (this cannot be done on the opponent's turn). This is useful since you get to keep all the exp points and levels you gained during the time you fought prior to choosing to restart the stage (this is probably your only option to gain levels for low level characters). Not everything found in the game is a welcome and here are the many gripes of the game.
Smart AI is a welcome for any game as it adds challenge to the game but not when the AI is too good or should I say cheesy. There are times when you will consider restarting a stage because you will need to outsmart your opponent otherwise be prepared for the enemy onslaught. When you restart a stage certain enemy units will gain new skills that they did not have when you first started the stage thereby giving the advantage to the AI. Also, unlike other tactics games where you can purchase items by going to a general store, in this game you send a group to buy items and they can either succeed, end up using all your money or fail. This is by the worst thing to ever happen in a tactics game where all your hard earned money can be blown by a single item purchase.
Even with all the short comings, I found the game to be enjoyable and playable (unlike Age of Empires where I am stuck forever on Jerusalem). As I stated before, I only recommend this game for those with experience playing strategy games (such as Age of Empires, Shining Force, Fire Emblem, Starcraft, Civilization, Ogre Battle, Final Fantasy Tactics just to name a few). Those with no experience will have a very difficult time playing through this game though if you can overcome the difficultly of this game then by all means buy this game. Recommended for fans of strategy/tactics games.
25 of 34 found the following review helpful:
Rondo of Swords, Elegy of Good Game PlayMay 27, 2008
By L. J Lewis
"Miss Amii"
Have you ever played a game that you could swear hated you personally? That's how I feel about Rondo of Swords, a game that seems to have been designed with the expressed purpose of being as unfair as possible.
I won't go into the story because there is nothing to talk about here. There is barely a storyline and what little there is serves merely to shoe string the tactical battles together. Between each mission there is a little bit of scrolling text that tells you where your army traveled to and what new disaster befell them. Then the action switches to the battlefield where the units will chew the fat for a bit, one of the bad guys will spring up and laugh maniacally, and then they get down to the business of tactical combat.
With a story line this thin, Rondo of Swords is left to live and die by its combat system. The basic idea of the combat system is unique. Basically, units have a set number of squares they can move through. You draw a route on the touch screen for the unit to follow and any enemy character you pass through will be attacked and any unused ally character you pass through can give you some kind of status boost like healing or increased chance of hitting the target. On paper it sounds like a pretty good idea, but RoS has designed it so the system works against you.
Let us count the ways RoS fudges its game play:
1) Worthless mages- In RoS, there are two types of long range fighters: archers and mages. Archers can move around the field and then attack. Mages can only move or attack. It's either one or the other. So the choice often comes down to if the mage will attack the enemy baring down on it or flee to safety. To add to their worthlessness, mages can't take a hit and will almost always die with one attack. If you are lucky enough to get the enemy positioned so the mage can fight, magic points are so stingy that you will be lucky if you can cast more than two spells in a battle. The kicker is that, by the time I gave up at the 15th battle or so, half of my units were mages.
2)Worthless Shopping- Like most RPGs, RoS lets you buy stuff to upgrade fighters and give you an edge on the battle field. Unlike most RPGs, RoS gives you no control over what you buy. During battles, you can send unused units to pick up some stuff for you. You have no control over what the unit purchases and there is a chance the unit will loose all your money and come back empty handed. Also, some units are better at shopping than others and it seemed that the more invaluable the unit was on the battlefield, the better it was at shopping and vice versa. As a result, I rarely used the feature because the unit would come back with junk.
3) The Zone of Control- As if to make up for having units that are easy to kill and throwing tons of enemies at you, you have the route system that allows you to attack multiple enemies. But then RoS goes and turns it against you with a lovely skill called the ZoC or Zone of Control. Basically, this skill will stop a unit's charge dead in its tracks and prevent it from attacking or moving any more. You tend to face big clusters of enemies with this skill while you only have one unit that can do this, and the enemy ZoC seems to activate almost all the time while yours doesn't. This creates a situation where the enemy is free to hammer at your entire army while you struggle to wear down one of their units.
4) Unbalanced game play- I should think that most games should shoot for a kind of natural progression of difficulty. RoS has a feature were you can restart the current battle and keep all the experience earned during the aborted battle and regain all defeated units and used items. I imagine this is so you can level up units that have been inactive for a while and perfect your battlefield strategy, but what makes it so cheap is that you are practically forced to use it. On some maps, the only conceivable way to win is to basically restart the battle over and over until you have beefed up your very best fighters to have way more levels than the enemy.
And you must do this for hours sometimes. To give you an example, it took me nine hours to reach the 14th or so battle. I bought this game used and the previous owner had a game save that indicated it took him seven hours to reach the fifth battle.
This isn't to say that RoS is completely impossible. For every battle designed for maximum forehead vein popping, there is one that is actually quite nicely balanced. Challenging but a workable challenge. It's during these that you can see what a great game RoS could have been. But still, RoS is like a plate with half fillet mignon and half regurgitated cheeseburger and I wouldn't call that edible.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
A Challenging New Take on the GenreMay 21, 2008
By J. Andrews Yes, Rondo of Swords is not an easy game. It forces players to unlearn what they have learned about SRPGS. Your 200 hours of Disgaea or your total domination of FFT will not help you here. The mechanic is drastically different, and it requires a new kind of strategy to conquer.
Here's where I had the most fun; learning the new wrinkles in the gameplay system, using the environment and positioning to my advantage and actually playing a game where a character mobility is as important as their relative strength. RoS is an odd bird in the RPG world, but the innovation is worth the frustration.
Now even with all the challenging fun, this game is nowhere near perfect. The documentation is terrible, along with the in-game tutorial. The larger metagame is never really explored (errands) and mistakes can be made without any chance to go back and fix them. For this part of the game gamefaqs.com is your friend. Along with lack luster unit/environmental art, uninteresting/sometimes repetitive music, and other strange design choices this game loses a star from me.
All that being said, for fans of SRPGS Rondo is a real gem. Playing it is like nothing you have ever tried before. Winning battles, even after a few tries, carries an extra sense of accomplishment because of the actual tactical thinking needed to overcome the foes. Unfortunately, non genre-stalwarts should probably find another game.
based on 14 reviews
( 14 customer reviews )
