Rondo of Swords (NDS) - Path A Stage 38 - Sky of Lightning (Boss Ernest)
49A recording from a nintendo DS RPG that I've been playing lately. RoS is a really fun tactical RPG that has often been compared to Fire Emblem, its unique feature being the route manoeuvre system, with which you mainly attack enemies by passing through them. This doesn't applies to magic users (who have to remain stationary on the turn they cast a spell) and archers/ninjas (who can both move around and then use a single target attack on the same turn). The game offers a great deal of customisation, a New Game Plus option and seems to have good replay value to those who enjoy playing this kind of thing. There are two paths to take, path A and path B, plus several endings depending on the choices made in some of the battles. The cast is quite substantial too, allowing you to try out all sorts of things on subsequent playthroughs.
In this video I show myself beating the penultimate mission of the game. The goal is to defeat Ernest, the Thunder Emperor, but reaching him is quite hard - you need to move about quite a lot to reach there and navigation is made terribly difficult due to there being thunder mages with spells up to 10 squares in range (some mages with diagonal area targeting spells get up to 14 squares, but they're easier to avoid thanks to character placing).
My team in the video is an almost failproof one for beating the game because every character shown kicks ass, perhaps besides Altrius, the protagonist who frankly is mainly a support unit in path A.
Ansom is the only archer character you get in path A and he's almost essential sometimes. If you let him warm the bench for 6 missions throughout the game so that he can do some card quests, his ranged attacks will deal double damage, allowing him to one-shot many of the game's enemies, and seriously injure the more defensive armoured foes out there. The main benefit of training an Archer is the ability to move and then attack, giving him spectacular range. Once he promotes to his third class his range can be increased even further, but promoting on a fresh file is very hard due to there being a glaring lack of promotion items. He works fine in his second class, though. Ansom should stay away from mages' range because some spells destroy him too easily (poor magic stat).
Cotton is another key "broken" character, a cameo appearance from a shmup game. She's a mage with an unusually high movement stat, something the other mages lack. Her only downside is poor range (she can only target units 5 squares away at most, which is half of the maximum possibility compared to some other mage characters); however, she excels in everything else. She tanks other magicians' assault with no problem, attacks back with destructive spells of her own and can sustain her HP and MP infinitely, as her overbreak (which fills up when she gets kills) allows her to never run out of magic if used correctly. She can't take physical attacks at all though.
Marie is the main healer available to path A players, and her main strengths are her ability to restore most of allies' HP (only one at a time though) or teleport another character close to herself (saving them when they get too close to other enemies' range). As you can see, teleportation is the key to beating Ernest in this battle.
Two other great units are Alhambra and Alberich, due to their high movement (the Sprint skill provides a +3 boost to movement, allowing them to travel around the field with ease and get to distant places or hit numerous enemies on one turn easily) and offensive capabilities. Alhambra also does double damage, like Ansom, when sent to six card quests, and unlike him, she can take a few hits when necessary and counter-attack back. Their roles are very different though, but both make the game very easy and are convenient to learn and use successfully.
You can see that the main intricacy of the game is learning how to move around, attacking enemies, avoiding danger and receiving boosts to different stats while passing through specific allies who haven't moved yet. This is why characters with high movement stats are some of the most useful, but it depends on the map. This is a map filled with fragile mages with distant-hitting magic, so fast and ranged attackers are most effective. In other maps, heavy hitters and tanks like Izuna and Margus tend to prove to be efficient.
Some characters are more advanced than others. Ansom and Cotton are pretty much foolproof, whereas ones like Igraine and Shino require a greater level of skill to use correctly and have more situational use.
I'm having a lot of fun with this game, and I highly recommend it.
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