04-10-2013, 07:26 AM
Another game I've been playing (or working) lately, also a NES title.
STED is a futuristic RPG of some sorts, grab Final Fantasy and replace all magic and fantasy with lasers and robots. Great, isn't it? Yeah, I thought I'd have a fun time with it, despite me hating RPGs in general. After all, I'm a fan of unorthodox stuff (Cotton 2, Pocky & Rocky, Earthbound).
But the game is a massive grindfest. So much it hurts you physically. You start with a handful of money and get 4 members relatively early in the game, but then the sadistic elements start to appear:
1-Your friend's weapon needs battery to work. Batteries cost like, 100 gold and it takes hours of enemy beating and hotel resting to get that amount of money. If your weapon run out of batteries (there is no visible meter for it), you are unable to attack.
2-The fourth member (the robot) is completely useless without a BattleChip and some other upgrades. They cost a whopping 500 gold in total if I recall correctly. Also, THE ROBOT DOES NOT RECEIVE ANY EXP POINTS. You level him up by (guess what) buying level chips.
3-Hotels do not recover your health completely. You are forced to stay a couple of nights to fully recover your party, spending more and more money as you do. Also, the robot does not recover HP from this.
4-Like old NES games, items do not have any description whatever. Therefore you need to do a shitload of guesswork to know what does what. Also, HP recovering items DO NOT recover the robot's health.
5-The battle is clumsy. If you assign two members to attack the same enemy, and it dies in the first hit, the second member will get a 100% miss rate, and lose that turn. So you need to even out the targets so you don't lose turns. Actually this adds strategy to the game, so that's not completely bad, just takes time to get used to it.
6-Defeating weaker enemies you've battled before gives you... 0 EXP. That's right, once you're deemed strong enough by the game programming, you get no EXP from weak enemies. Enemies are all ranked in tiers and it lowers when you get stronger. But that also means making levelling harder in a game that is already sadistically hard.
7-You do not get any new ability, like magic spells, by levelling. Yup, you need to goddamn buy them in the skills shop. It's ridiculous how everything in that game is money centered, and how hard it is to get it. And the buff/debuff skills never connected for me. The enemies don't sleep, get poisoned, or even lose attack or defense points. Your success depends in the amount you have in the wallet. Ridiculous.
(also did I say the Robot can't get spell attacks)
And why I'm playing it, you say? For the music. Someone requested me to do some music from it, and I thought it sounded interesting. I tried the game out of curiosity to see if the songs fit with the game. I'm seriously thinking that if STED was released as a music-only cartridge, it would be better.
STED is a futuristic RPG of some sorts, grab Final Fantasy and replace all magic and fantasy with lasers and robots. Great, isn't it? Yeah, I thought I'd have a fun time with it, despite me hating RPGs in general. After all, I'm a fan of unorthodox stuff (Cotton 2, Pocky & Rocky, Earthbound).
But the game is a massive grindfest. So much it hurts you physically. You start with a handful of money and get 4 members relatively early in the game, but then the sadistic elements start to appear:
1-Your friend's weapon needs battery to work. Batteries cost like, 100 gold and it takes hours of enemy beating and hotel resting to get that amount of money. If your weapon run out of batteries (there is no visible meter for it), you are unable to attack.
2-The fourth member (the robot) is completely useless without a BattleChip and some other upgrades. They cost a whopping 500 gold in total if I recall correctly. Also, THE ROBOT DOES NOT RECEIVE ANY EXP POINTS. You level him up by (guess what) buying level chips.
3-Hotels do not recover your health completely. You are forced to stay a couple of nights to fully recover your party, spending more and more money as you do. Also, the robot does not recover HP from this.
4-Like old NES games, items do not have any description whatever. Therefore you need to do a shitload of guesswork to know what does what. Also, HP recovering items DO NOT recover the robot's health.
5-The battle is clumsy. If you assign two members to attack the same enemy, and it dies in the first hit, the second member will get a 100% miss rate, and lose that turn. So you need to even out the targets so you don't lose turns. Actually this adds strategy to the game, so that's not completely bad, just takes time to get used to it.
6-Defeating weaker enemies you've battled before gives you... 0 EXP. That's right, once you're deemed strong enough by the game programming, you get no EXP from weak enemies. Enemies are all ranked in tiers and it lowers when you get stronger. But that also means making levelling harder in a game that is already sadistically hard.
7-You do not get any new ability, like magic spells, by levelling. Yup, you need to goddamn buy them in the skills shop. It's ridiculous how everything in that game is money centered, and how hard it is to get it. And the buff/debuff skills never connected for me. The enemies don't sleep, get poisoned, or even lose attack or defense points. Your success depends in the amount you have in the wallet. Ridiculous.
(also did I say the Robot can't get spell attacks)
And why I'm playing it, you say? For the music. Someone requested me to do some music from it, and I thought it sounded interesting. I tried the game out of curiosity to see if the songs fit with the game. I'm seriously thinking that if STED was released as a music-only cartridge, it would be better.