[DS] Itsuwari no Rondo

[icycalm]

Tactics game by Success set in a world modeled after medieval Europe, in the style of the Fire Emblem games.



http://www.success-corp.co.jp/software/ds/ituwari/

http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/2007 ... 8,0,0.html

[Fei_Yen_Kn]

Looks pretty good to me. Now I can upgrade to a DS... One of the few games I'd tackle with a stylus.

[alpha5099]

Hmm, looks interesting. Seems like lots of tactics games are coming to the DS. Good for me, I suppose; it's a genre I've always been interested in but haven't really played much of.

Although, the sprite artwork leaves me a little cool. Doesn't quite appeal to me. But there are obviously more important things than silly looking little men, such as that dreaded word that must not be said around these parts.

[Molloy]

Last tactics game I bought was Final Fantasy Tactics on the GBA. I thought it was absolutely horrid. The battles were really easy and there was a stupid gimmick where you have to go into a load of different menus to find out what two attacks you were required to use in each battle. And the menus were really clunky.

The last tactics game I played properly was Shining Force 2, which was brilliant.

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/ds/itsuwarinorondo/

[icycalm]

I am currectly playing through the US version of the game, and getting close to finishing it (when I wrote the review I had played perhaps three quarters of the way through the Japanese version...)

When I am done with it I plan to update the review accordingly, as I understand the game much better now. In addition, I've also in the meantime played a number of other SRPGs, so I will be able to make more appropriate connections between them. There are also some minor changes between the Japanese and US versions, which I will comment on at the end of the review.

In the meantime, here are some interesting comments by a guy on the TNL forums to chew on:

This game has been out for about two weeks, and I'm really digging it. To describe Fun Unit's take on the genre without getting into too much detail, they've married the basic SRPG functions "Move" and "Attack" into a single action; if a character passes an opposing unit at any time in his stylus-drawn path of movement, he will automatically lay an attack on them. Passing an ally en-route can grant a character-specific boost, such as an attack increase or partial HP restoration. Efficient use of this feature, called RMS (Route Maneuver System), enables a single unit to attack multiple members of the opposition and receive stat boosts in a single turn.

To compensate for the player's ability to potentially cut down half a dozen enemies in at once, the majority of the maps that I've cleared so far have thrown five or six enemies at me for every one unit I control (30 on 6), most of which are capable of the same manner of attacking. That means troop placement -- get ready -- actually fucking matters. The cookie cutter SRPG strategies of Tanks In The Front, Mages In The Back and Surround A Single Unit And Gangbang From All Sides are suicide in Rondo, which bears a lot responsibility for the game's mediocre marks and nearly ubiquitous "OMFG 2 HARD" criticism. Some people got it, while others completely missed the point.

SRPG's with awesome gimmicks are rare. SRPG's that emphasize and reward forethought and meticulous troop positioning more than raw time investment and grinding -- games that are more S than RPG -- are even harder to come by. SRPG's with both? There have been three in the last ten years, and Rondo of Swords is the only one that doesn't begin with Dynasty Tactics.

Plus, Cotton and Izuna are hidden characters desu ne ^_^

Yes! I forgot to mention that Rondo implies some MMORPG-style "hate" management in the form of the Momentum Counter stat. The more enemies a character attacks, the higher his Momentum Counter climbs, and the more likely he is to be targetted by the opposition. Once it gets as high as 70 or so, enemies will often completely ignore an opportunity to take out multiple units in favor of laying just one attack on a high MC character. Keep in mind that there are a lot of enemies per map, all of which do a ton of damage -- hate management is something you have to be mindful of at all times.

On paper, this sounds like a lot of intentional pulling of the reigns on your strongest characters and bullshit turtling out of fear of attracting too much attention, but it's actually more empowering than it is hindering. Aside from the obvious tactical advantages associated with knowing to where and whom the enemies are going to gravitate towards, the MC also acts as an EXP multiplier and grants stat boosts if you can really crank it up. Through calculated implication of the Route Maneuver System coupled with strategic use of MC-manipulating skills and items, you can essentially draw enemies wherever you want them.

Fuck, this game is brilliant.

Multiple endings and branching storylines, too. It has so much love to give that I fear for the tensile strength of the tiny, plastic casing that encapsulates its heart. It's just going to explode mid-game sooner or later.

Nope, it caps at 6 per battle. It sounds limiting at first, but you'll likely end up falling into a rotation of sorts after a while. Characters that die in battle inherit "Hurt" status for the next fight, meaning their defense basically bottoms out. For melee characters, it's better to bench for a round while Hurt to let them recover. But Hurt characters can't shop or quest, so there's a nice metastrategy going on with all of the out-of-battle stuff.

As far as the randomized item purchasing, I actually kind of like it. Characters have shopping affinity stats as well -- buy rate, sell rate, and general success rate. It forces you to adapt rather than of grinding to obtain weapons of your choosing.

It might come off as daunting, but it's actually quite intuitive. Far less intimidating than the SRPG's with a fuckton of classes/jobs and ridiculous, FAQ-necessitating prerequisites to unlocking them, anyway.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/show ... hp?t=50633