I've done a little bit of playing recently and have maxxed out one of my 4 monsters at tier 13. There are tier 14 monsters but the only way to get to them is to eat the meat from some of the final bosses so for all intents and purposes that character is done getting better. He can still eat meat and if he transforms he's guaranteed to stay at tier 13 so he can't really get worse, either. Presumably the abilities at tier 13 are different and powerful so figuring out which tier 13 monsters to use will be a thing but by and large that character is simply done getting better. I found some non-random encounters (talk to a guard and get an instant fight) which spawn monsters frequently used to get to tier 13 so the remaining 3 characters will likely get maxxed out in an hour or two whenever I get around to putting that time in.
And then? There will be no possible way to get better. It will be a matter of muddling my way through the 'plot' until I either beat the game or reach a point where I need to find the right mix of top tier monsters to beat a hard fight. Money has practically no use to me either (I can pay to stay at an inn but since I can just eat practically any meat for full health and abilities I'm not sure that's going to matter) so there's really going to be no reason at all to fight. Running from fights can fail so I guess just holding down the attack button might well be faster in the long run. At this point I'm either going to win, or not, and there's not a lot I can do about it. (And since other people have won with 4 monsters I have to believe I'll be able to do it, too.)
Working out how the mechanic worked was interesting and fun. Writing the Java program was fun. Even wandering around and figuring out the path to tier 13 was fun. But I'm really dreading actually playing the game now. Part of the reason RPGs are so compelling to me is the ability to make numbers get bigger. Another is the story/cutscenes. A third is to get challenged. I'm pretty much done the first part and really don't have high hopes for story or cutscenes. Since there's no way to really get better challenge is pretty much out the window too at this point. I win or I don't. I'm going to plow my way through this, honest, but I don't know that I'm going to enjoy it much...
Is the problem with monsters themselves, or with a party of all monsters, or just with the way I've approached it? Maybe a party with a single monster could be interesting since you could still level up the other characters in more standard ways and just feed the monster when it made sense to do so. But then it feels like either you make a plan for the monster and probably make him awesome compared to your party for most of the game or you don't make a plan and he constantly languishes at low tier since there are way more transitions backwards down the chain than there are ones forward.
It's a little like the Dynasty Hockey Facebook game. It was fun while doing random matches was actually progressing my team, but I reached the point where I had to do a bunch of trivial matches for basically no reward except paying the upkeep on my buffs. Grinding out stuff when I can make progress is fun. Grinding out stuff for no reason is just tedious. I stopped playing that game as a result and have pretty much lost interesting in playing The Final Fantasy Legend in the same way. But maybe the plot will get better after I rebuild the statue...
I actually really like the intensely bizarre plots of the FFL series (FFL 1 and 2 have nearly identical plots, but still). The idea that there is a giant tower in the middle of the world that connects to other worlds above is just the kind of weirdness I love.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, monsters seem really terrible. Back when the game came out and you had to do everything by trial and error monsters almost always useless until you got to rank 14. When you play FFL2, I'd recommend trying a balanced party (that is, I'd recommend resisting the temptation to make four robots).