End game party dream team? (Spoilers) and my nightmare.

So at the end, you're greeted at the spaceport by your colleagues whho are keen to join the fight. but there's only 1 extra guardian ring. who to take?

me personally. i dont take any of them, and limit my team to 4 people. if rolf can do it, chaz can too. plus as stressed before, the less party members, the more exp to go around=which leads to stronger party members. i'd get rid of everyone if i could.

i'd rather have a very strong rika and chaz than have a mediocre rika and chaz, all just because hahn, kyra, raja, etc are slowing the party, eating precious exp and resources. "Great, Rune can cast Legion again or Chaz can deliver another crossscut, but, darn it, hahn or demi need to be healed or revived." and its at those moments that the enemy takes chaz rika or rune out because instead of attacking, theyre babysitting.

rune gets a free pass as a physical weakling, because once he is hgh enough leveled, he has like over 25 efess' and other killer skills, and a butt load of tp.

for those same reasons too, gryz, while strong, is limited to only strength and no techs for healing, defense, or elemental weaknesses of enemies. and face it, the skill CRASH never works and we still dont know what "BROWSE" even does. ( i do, but still) having 10 crashes and as many browse isnt helping algol at the end of the game; lets face it.

Also: PS4 is so easy to beat that you could replace this whole setup with a narcoleptic gerbil and still win.


Seriously, joking aside, I never understood this need for one or two uber-characters some RPGers seem to feel. The game was designed for 4+1 char so why not do it? As I said above, PS4 is a joke in terms of difficulty and the PD is such a pushover that it doesn't matter who you bring.

Do it for the story, pretend that the person you chose really mattered. I always pick Hahn just because I like the guy and for the combos he can do with some of the others. I make a nice list of macros and I rotate "Shooting Star" and "Grand cross" and "Paladin blow" and what have you. Mind you, considering the damage output or regular attacks VS special combos, it's not at all more efficient than putting everyone on "Attack" but it makes for a good light show and it really gives people the impression that I know what I'm doing.

Aeroprism wrote:

Also: PS4 is so easy to beat that you could replace this whole setup with a narcoleptic gerbil and still win.

yes, especially with macros and a turbo controller.
I think Grand Cross is probably the only combo I was entertained by, especially when it was the finishing blow.

you do bring up interesting points of "liking" the characters you place on your team. my younger brother and i had this discussion once. he will put chars on the team if they look or act cool, neat moves, funny, etc, regardless of any real use.
so i asked him why, honestly perplexed and not patronizing, and he said "because i like them." i replied, "What does that have to do with anything?" and then awkward silence. oh well...

Parma Ham wrote:

And now that you guys mention it, it is strange that PS4 gives you more EXP if you have fewer living party members. It's like they're encouraging you to kill your characters off, but what's the advantage in that? Strange.

PSII is also a game that rewards the few and the proud. Once rolf gets to Dezo, you can make him a one man army. Or two, if you want Kain to have strong physical attacks and strong magic with uber high TP, since his anti-mecha techs affectboth machines and "dark" creatures like those found in the evil dungeons (evil indeed; guaron was a morgue!) and on Noah.

Dude, don't dismiss your brother, he is wise beyond his years.

Characters are there to be used and people use them because they like them, not because they top-score on the min-maxer scale. How would you feel if your girlfriend, your friends or your employer chose you only because you're the best at something and not because they liked you as a whole? Pressure much?

Let's see.

Shining Force 2: Peter the Phoenix is worth 10 of the other characters, he flies, moves fast and he can destroy everything with 1-2 attacks. I never used him because his attitude annoyed me to no end.

Final Fantasy 6: Edgar has fun tools but once you hit the higher levels, unless you artificially modified him to become a war machine, his tools were useless yet, he never, ever left my active party.

The list goes on and on and on...


Also: regarding the profound darkness, all its forms except the last are on a timer. It doesn't matter if you inflict 2000 damage each turn of if you just block and wait, in X turn, it will change shape.

The battle is a lie.

I -might- confuse it with another boss battle that had multiple forms but I'm pretty sure it auto-changes after 3-4 rounds. I will also try it tonight on emu.

Aeroprism wrote:

Final Fantasy 6: Edgar has fun tools but once you hit the higher levels, unless you artificially modified him to become a war machine, his tools were useless yet, he never, ever left my active party.

Quoted for truth! Sometimes you gotta reward characters just for how awesome they are, even if it's only purely for their character or only during one part of the game.

Tested, my bad: confused it with another boss from another game, you do need to damage it for it to change form. However, I stand by my idea that it is the lamest end boss ever. I just stood there with Deban/Barrier/Blessing up and hitting away with only Chaz using normal attacks. Took me 5-6 turns to change shape and while I did that, mr PD threatened me with his huge 5-6 damage point, single target attacks.

Also: did I ever say how anticlimatic and lame the last PS4 dungeon is? It's a short, 5 mins prowl through mescaline land, no items, no puzzles, no chests, not even the chance of getting lost. Blah.

Aeroprism wrote:

Shining Force 2: Peter the Phoenix is worth 10 of the other characters, he flies, moves fast and he can destroy everything with 1-2 attacks. I never used him because his attitude annoyed me to no end.

Peter is a monster. I recall i used to, again, work with the minimally numbered team of the few, get Peter, Bowie, Slade, Baron Jaha, and every female MasterMonk (who are the true brutes of strength)--I'd level them up to 40, then promote them, then start back from level 1. A mean lean team of level 1 chars. But alas what makes Peter a god--or demigod, is the massive movement range he has. He is attacking Zeonbefore the battle even begins. (and he is another who gets critical attacks with great frequency, along with counter and second attacks.) A real challenge is trying to fight thatSonic the Hedgehog ruins secret battle with such a small force.

Same with Max in Shining Force 1. Pretty much he stands out. Promote him at level 20, and he becomes capable of defeating Darksol in 2 hits---and usually every attack Hero Max makes is not only a critical hit, but also he gets second attacks and counter attacks with great frequency.


Games like Shining Force have too many people to even think about caring for. ---by design.

Parma Ham wrote:

I liked "The Edge" as a kid. I also liked that it was straightforward and easy. Now I think it's perhaps the product of a time crunch the game developers were under. "Okay, get this last dungeon finished NOW, we've gotta start burning ROM chips!" Something like that. Or maybe the PS3 dungeon designer(s) got their paws on the level editor just then.

I too enjoyed The Edge. I used to hunt for Prophallus' and such. ad pretty much hevery enemy dies with 1 hit by elsydeon, shadowsaber, diem or negatis, or that one claw Rika got from Air Castle.
I recently painted 'The Edge' as a quick work one day. It was fun blending colors; no rules.