Re: Lightning Warrior Raidy III
Having slept on my thoughts with the game, I've come up with the following;
The game itself has it's priorities for gear all wrong. Like, when you beat the first boss and come back to town to get equipment upgrades, your first upgrades will be the following; Long Sword, Small Shield, Leather Armor. Note the second two. Those are gear you already started with. So the only actual upgrade you get is the Long Sword, which is still nothing compared to the monster weapons, like the Wolf Whip. It wasn't until I got the third floor's Bastard Sword that the Wolf Whip was no longer an upgrade, as it had high hit rate, but low damage. And no matter how much I've fought on the third floor, I just cannot get the shield upgrade, though I did get the Chain Mail, which helps a ton.
Secondly, I'd like to talk about the forms system really quickly. Having to go back to town to change forms is very annoying. At first, it didn't bother me since the boss wasn't too far into the dungeon, but at the third floor of the first dungeon, it's sufficient distance to start getting annoying. Having to go back and forth, losing against every boss for every CG, once in every form, then having to win once in every form... They should have given you a system which allowed you to switch on the fly. Then I could just save before the boss, switch between forms as I liked, get all the CGs, and move on.
Third, the materials system. I will agree that being unable to see what materials I have is very annoying. Moreover, being unable to see what I can make is even worse. Take a game that uses the same system, like Etrian Odyssey IV for the 3DS. Not only can I keep track of all my materials, but I can see what materials I've sold to the shop and what parts I need to unlock the next tier of equipment. But moreover, if I get a bunch of materials for specific items, I don't need to use them immediately. I can choose to wait and just stock up the shop on parts so I can buy what I need as I need it. There's no reason for me to be picking up more Antidotes when I already have 99 of them. At this point, a storage system would have been a welcome addition to the game, to hold my surplus of additional potions. But I really wish the game would have told me what parts I need to make new gear.
Fourth, the CG Room. I realize you just need to beat the game to unlock the scene viewer, but when I'm trying for 100% CGs, it gets really hard to keep up and remember what forms I've lost with, which I've won with, etc when I don't have a checklist. If I could just pop into the CG Room to look over which I've unlocked and which I haven't, it would help out a lot.
Finally, I want to talk about Vilan. God, this guy is probably the most pathetic villain in a game. I can't even begin to describe my disappointment with the scene where he takes over the Thieves' Guild. Where all he does is brings a bunch of random thugs and just conquers it like that. No guards, no fights, no nothing. The other side doesn't even raise a token defense, it's just going to lead to a series of rape scenes where I have to save the other members of the Thieves' Guild. Seriously, where are the guards? When I goto the Guild Dungeon to change forms, the flavor text of the game mentions that there's guards. Also, Vilan is an idiot, as it took him forever to realize who the guild master was when I figured it out within minutes of meeting "him".
I will say, though, that I look forward to beating the shit out of him.
And while this game definately has problems, I'm not going to stop playing because of them. The game still features the same gameplay I loved in Raidy 1 and 2, with the same emphasis on leveling up, getting new gear, and delving further into every dungeon. It features a colorful cast, though some of the girls (Namely Folles) start to annoy me with how one-dimensional they are, especially during the post-boss scenes. At least Fonfon gave me some variety with the Homunculus boss by spanking her instead of whipping her. I know the things they do are their main kinks, but a little variety shows some more depth to the characters.
Despite all that, though, I'm still enjoying the game, though. So I can see why it got a 7.5. It's a game that has numerous issues, but the things that are enjoyable are so good that I can overlook the game's flaws to some degree. No game is perfect, after all.
