Generation 1's Collaboration system

For those of you who have played Generation 1, what do you think of the Collaboration system introduced in that game?

If you haven't played that game, the system works like this. There's a shop in Camineet that sells crystals. Two crystals can be equipped to each character's weapon. The crystals are mostly elemental aligned (fire, ice, wind, etc) and allow the character to cast a spell through use of them. Some combinations of crystals allow the casting of special spells that are similar to PSIV's combination attacks (but with just one character). The crystals can break, which may be related to the character's natural spell casting ability, as I noticed the break more with Odin than Noah.

Sounds like a poor step child of combos. I haven't played it, but is it really useful? I was reading about it somewhere and saw that the crystal things cost a huge amount of money. It's no good if you get a crystal, it breaks, and then you can't afford new ones.

I would think it would be useless then, costing so much. The time you get enough money to buy one your characters should be strong enough to handle it shouldn't they?

Yeah, they do cost a lot. Especially when you factor in other high price items that might be more useful, like the light pendant.

There's one crystal that is definitely worth the cost; the HP crystal restores some health to a character after the character's turn in battles when equipped. It can make some fights a lot easier.

The main use of the crystals is when you have two that can combine to make a super attack that you can't get from normal spells. I haven't experimented with that much so I'm really not sure how useful it is, but they look pretty impressive.

Eh, I used them a couple of times (namely on the Golden Drake), but...yeah. They didn't impress me. I was kinda sad they didn't just use the combo system from PSIV, since they already had hi-jacked the "Talk" function ;p

-Corey

Combos would have been a lot more fun to play with, too. They borrowed so much from PSIV that it's surprising they didn't lift that too.

Agreed. And was I the only one disappointed with the vehicles? The Ice-Digger and Land Rover just kinda slid across the map. I don't think they were even animated.

-Corey

I haven't seen them just yet. I still have a way to go before finishing the game. I think getting the Land Rover is the next thing I have to do when I pick it up again.

Maybe if the prices of the crystals are lower and they can make combos with other characters crystals, they can be a great help

Thoul wrote:

There's one crystal that is definitely worth the cost; the HP crystal restores some health to a character after the character's turn in battles when equipped. It can make some fights a lot easier.

That's awesome, I definately have to try that out. I may end up equipping all of my characters with one. Honestly the crystals aren't that expensive. They are when they first appear, but you will get the money to buy one in a just a few battles, and you have nothing left to spend your money on anyway. I just wish I could find a complete list of the combo attacks.