Random Thoughts BG&E, Warcraft III, and Lunar Legend

[Julius Seeker]

I finished Lunat Legend, finally. I will say this, for those of you who have not played Lunar SSS Complete Edition, or are not fans of that version of the game; you will probably enjoy this version better than that one. The game is a lot easier to move through, battles do not take as long as they do in the other game, plus it is very easy to run, and it is also very easy to use certain items to avoid battle. You probably will not get to the point where you want to do that though.

Anyways, the graphics have been improved from SSS in a number of areas; the sprites resemble something more along the lines of Chrono Trigger instead of the blocky sprites they used to have.

Characters: I found Luna's character to be much more interesting in this one somehow, mainly because she actually becomes a member of your party in this version. Overall, I would give this game high grades, it is certainly in my top 5 RPG's for GBA.


Beyond Good and Evil: It is an interesting game, I will have to admit I haven't moved very far through it yet. The game is loosly based on the Prince of Persia Engine, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, it seems like an inferior version of that game. Though it does have stronger role playing elements in the game than Prince of Persia does, those who strongly prefer role playing games will like this one better, everyone else would like Prince of Persia better. The cutscenes are quite impressive, and the gameplay is unique. A lot has already been said on this game, I will say more when I am finished.


War Craft III - Reign of Chaos - I am finished this one; I think I already reviewed it a while back so I won't do it again. I am currently playing the Frozen Throne bonus quest featuring Thrall building his new nation of Durotar, it is really amazing what they have done with this expansion; it goes above and beyond what they did with Brood War to Starcraft. This scenario is the best scenario I have ever played in a Blizzard game, I am enjoying it quite a bit. The whole thing is like an RPG, it makes me want to get World of Warcraft just to play in that world within an RPG-type setting. Anyways, once I finish this bonus campaign, I am going to go onto the main campaign. Anyways, on the difficulty of the game, it is a MUCH easier game than Tides of Darkness, Tides of Darkness and Starcraft had some levels that were incredibly difficult and often required as many as 10-15 attempts to work out a good strategy for the level; in this game at most you will make 2 attempts, but I think any veteran of the series will never lose a battle. I have yet to see what Frozen Throne's main quest is like.

Oh yeah, on the identity of the Prophet, somehow it seemed very obvious who it was even when he wasonly making his appearance in previews of the game. Did anyone not guess who he was at a very early time?

[Eric]

Best Scene in WarCraft: Arthas outside of Stratholme. "This Entire City Must be Purged...."

Best Campaign: TFT Undead Campaign. Illidan vs Arthas @ Ice Crown

[Julius Seeker]

Frozen Throne seems to be fairly fun so far. I am currently on the fourth chapter of the Night Elf campaign (inside the Tomb of Sergeras). I think the plot is about to pick up =)

My favourite campaign was probably the Orc campaign from Reign of Chaos, my next favourite was probably the humans. Overall though, I think the race I enjoyed playing the most was the Undead. Though the Night Elves did remind me a lot of the Zerg from Starcraft.

Night Elf Heroes were overpowered. I remember using the Heal Spell and the Star Storm (or whatever) at the battle of Mt Hyjal and probably did a hell of a lot better than I was supposed to. I held the human base for about 15 minutes using those spells along with a few defender trees, and then fell back to the Orc base where I had about 40-50 defender trees along with the Orc Heroes (who were a lot better than the human heroes). My strategy was to wait until the enemy forces reached the base then I would run out into the middle of them and unleash the star storm spell and healing spell right in the middle of their catapults. The Orc Heroes handled the ground forces. I think what eventually happened was they overpowered us, killed the Orc Heroes and then had enough to kill my two heroes on the next wave; It still took them a while to destroy all my trees, and by that time the Orc Heroes had returned and managed to defeat them. Unfortunately there was no way that I could help them out now, I had expended too many resources building up my own bases defense. Luckily there was only 6 minutes left whent he Or base finally fell (we held out nearly half an hour, like 25 minutes). I think the defense of that Orc base was among the most intense battles I ever fought in an RTS. Up at my base I had a good 20 or so defender trees (maybe more, it might have been about 40 as well, it was a lot though).

The Undead didn't attack in full force at us, I think when a base is defeated they reset their pattern. Anyways, they managed to get a few waves off, but none of them were very successful, the ancient defenders (or whatever) were enough to crush everything sent at us in seconds.

[Eric]

I think the UD are alot more similar to Zerg then Night Elf is. Although I think NE & UD are the best in the game.

[Julius Seeker]

The Night Elves have that whole living base idea down. They are both similar to the Zerg in several ways. The Huntresses remind me a lot of walking Megalisks (is that what they're called? I forget now) and the Archers remind me of Hydras. Whereas the Undead have something similar to Zerglings.

[SineSwiper]

I finished Lunat Legend, finally. I will say this, for those of you who have not played Lunar SSS Complete Edition, or are not fans of that version of the game; you will probably enjoy this version better than that one. The game is a lot easier to move through, battles do not take as long as they do in the other game, plus it is very easy to run, and it is also very easy to use certain items to avoid battle. You probably will not get to the point where you want to do that though.

Anyways, the graphics have been improved from SSS in a number of areas; the sprites resemble something more along the lines of Chrono Trigger instead of the blocky sprites they used to have.

It would take me a lot to actually buy another Lunar game again. The gameplay and story was so fucking boring in SSS that I stopped playing after about 3-4 hours.

Beyond Good and Evil: It is an interesting game, I will have to admit I haven't moved very far through it yet. The game is loosly based on the Prince of Persia Engine, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, it seems like an inferior version of that game. Though it does have stronger role playing elements in the game than Prince of Persia does, those who strongly prefer role playing games will like this one better, everyone else would like Prince of Persia better. The cutscenes are quite impressive, and the gameplay is unique. A lot has already been said on this game, I will say more when I am finished.

Seeker, why are you comparing the two? It's like comparing a $20 T-Bone Steak to a $5 Big Mac meal. Sure, both are good, but one is better than the other, and we know this already.

War Craft III - Reign of Chaos

Blah, the only Blizzard game with a good plot was StarCraft. I get really sick of standard medieval/fantasy plot lines.

[Julius Seeker]

There is no comparisson between Starcraft and Warcraft III. Warcraft III makes every detail of Starcraft look primitive; I agree with Eric on this one now. Especially with the addition of Frozen Throne, just when I thought Reign of Chaos was unbelievably good, Blizzard makes Frozen Throne that much better. It does more than just add a few new units and campaign missions (like Brood War).

As far as plot goes, Starcraft barely has a plot to it when compared to Warcraft III.

Speaking of Starcraft, I tried playing it again yesterday, now I know why Eric bailed on me on the battlenet that time. I agree, the game is unplayable once you're spoiled with Warcraft III. It's like hard cold rice after a wonderful feast =)

[Don]

W3 was pretty standard stuff in terms of story. "An epic battle of love and betrayal" like you can find on the back of every RPG and some non RPGs. As for details, I'm guessing they're doing something similar to MGS's real time cutscenes except it looks about 1/10th as good. Not that the Starcraft CGs were ever any good to begin with, but it's a good idea to pick something that at least looks kind of impressive as opposed to not at all.

[Julius Seeker]

Warcraft III has both real time and Full motion cutscenes at various intervals throughout the game. Starcraft just used text and voice acting instead of the real time cutscenes.

[Zeus]

Are you any further along in BG&E? It's only about 5-8 hours long total, but trust me, it's great

[Julius Seeker]

If that's the case, I'll be finished it within a month.

[SineSwiper]

I wouldn't say 8 hours total. It's a short RPG, but not that short.

[Zeus]

I beat it in about 7 hours. It was a great 7 hours though, had more in it than a lot of 20 hour games (and 40 hour RPGs...)

[Julius Seeker]

It's an RPG? Right now it seems very much like an action adventure.

[SineSwiper]

A little bit of both.

[Julius Seeker]

Categorization is a hard thing to do. The only pure RPG that I have ever played is Animal Crossing.

Final Fantasy is called an RPG but in reality it is more of a turn based epic adventure. In fact, it was a while before the term RPG was applied to games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy here in North America; they used to be called Epic Adventures by all the magazines (look back at old Nintendo Power and Gamepro).

The term Action RPG has had several different definitions, first for games that used an ATB like FF2, then for games like Tales of Phantasia, and then someone started calling Zelda and Terranigma action RPG's.

Then there are Strategy/tactical RPG's, but they only call them that because of similar elements; in reality, I would just call the Strategy Simulation Adventure titles. There are a lot of strategy games that do not have a story but still have experience and simulation points similar to "strategy RPGs" but they are called War Simulations, generally.

[Zeus]

It's an RPG? Right now it seems very much like an action adventure.

No, it's action/adventure all the way. But it has more in it story- and gameplay-wise than a lot of LONG RPGs.

I've never been one for length. I think an ideal RPG is 20-30 hours in length, not this 120+ crap (Star Ocean: Til the End of Time; which, incidentally, is how long it will take you to finish the game)

[Eric]

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, wasn't 120 hours....but I did enjoy every minute of it, it's a great game, fun battle engine, enjoyable characters, nice story.