Lost Eidolons

Los Eidolons is an entertained game that captures the essence of Fire Emblem-style gameplay. The characters are well-developed and Eden's journey is interesting to follow, it has a very good length took me 60 hours to finish it. I definitely plan to replay it in the future to get another ending. .

I love Turn Based Map Grid Combat! Have since I began playing Shining Force on the SEGA Genesis in the early 90's. In addition to the Turn Based Map Grid Combat, there is some degree of a Rock/Paper/Scissors element regarding weapon types versus armor types. A few other tactical applications work in combat also, Examples include: 1-Stratergizing to provoke or prevent counter attacks 2-Targeting weak spots on monsters(but not on humans) 3-Terrain features can cause attack/defense modifiers 4-Different spells can cause status effects and/or be empowered or hindered by prior spell effects of terrain modifiers I have played a few hours and finished multiple battles when I wrote this review. I am thoroughly pleased with the purchase and look forward to playing more. One word of caution, the first fight in the game is not the beginning of the story. The first fight starts you off with characters around level 25 and good gear against similar opponents. I think it is to give players a chance to see what their characters can become with different skills as they evolve through the game. Not sure that was the best idea, I see the value in doing so but it makes the learning curve a little steep in the first fight compared to starting people off at a low level and learning bits and pieces at a time. None the less, I'm still delighted I purchased this.

Billed as a Fire Emblem when I spoke to the developers at PAX West but several of the levels are completely unbalanced and designed to kill your team members without you having perfect play and getting lucky with blocks and criticals. The developers introduced an undo function to "alleviate" the problem but all it functionally does for the most part is pad out the gameplay as you try to find the exact right unit placement while determining which units need to attack or defend. Essentially, do things our way or fail. Things are made worse by turn limits for battles. I don't understand why tactical game developers think adding artificial time limits to tactical games is good. It results in making decisions in antithesis of several playstyles or risk losing due to the turn limit. It is normal for tactical games to field more units than the player. When done correctly, being outnumbered is not an issue because the enemy comes at you in reasonable waves. This is not always the case in Eidolons because, on multiple maps where you are overwhelmed with enemies, they all charge you at the same time. Having to face 30 or more units at the same time is unbalanced even if all of your 10 units are "superior". They are not nearly "superior" enough to handle the 3 to 1 odds while dealing with hero unit enemies. The developers must have realized what they did because they added options to remove permadeth and turn limits. This sounds good in theory but the main problems still exist. Specific missions require you to do exactly what the developers want regardless of your play style. If you don't have your 10 units set up as specific classes, using specific skills, and using the "correct" tactics you lose. The developers seemed to have failed to realize there should be more than one way to skin a cat in tactical games. They designed some stages to destroy you if you don't follow the developers ideal playstyle instead of letting the player forge their own path to victory.

I'd like it to be a 3.5 star instead of 3, because 4 seems a bit more than accurate; but perhaps I am being too harsh? I dunno. It's not a bad game. But it does need some work, in regards to things like finishing the voice acting up properly so it doesn't feel like a good portion of the dialogue is left in the lurch without voices. You literally get to listen to grunts and uhmhms and such sometimes where any other time there would be voice acting. That's probably the most glaring thing for me, seeing as how the game tries to really bring home the idea that it is a tactical game with a 'deep' story, that deeply resembles the tried and true Fire Emblem formula of sorts. Ultimately, as I said before, it's not a bad game. The battles play out smoothly enough once you get used to the small quirks. I'm playing on the immediately available hardest difficulty (if there is an unlockable harder diff, I don't know of it yet.) and it's proving to be a decent enough challenge. I picked hardest, maniac, and off, for the settings for diff, whether npc's experience permadeth (yes) and turn limit is off to give a person breathing room at least. I'm cutting through their enemies without much issue, until the first siege you get into. This one is proving to be a bit troublesome. Not enough heals for my first attempt. Second will probably include pulling the enemies a bit more carefully this time. As you can see, it's not a bad game. I'm still intending to continue to play despite my issues with it so far. One thing that would have been nice, is perhaps a couple more slots for items. Like 2 for utility like fire nades, and then the 3 included already for heals. That would be a nice change based on the play session I've had so far. As it is, you have to choose between 3 slots for heals and utility. (hence my lack of heals issue, I brought a bit more utility than needed.) So that's also my fault. Just would be nice.

The story and voice acting in this game are fantastic. There are lots of recruitable characters, and you can customise their equipment, skills, etc. to ultimately build up a 10-strong party to field in combat. However, be warned that combat is very difficult (I had to dial it down to the lowest level just to get through). However, this game does reward perseverence and is well worth seeing through to the end.