RPG Editorial: The 'right level' experience system

This is something I kinda enjoyed about ToD:DC’s battle system. While it is 2D, you just can’t button mash your way though a bunch of fights (you might could get away with it on normal fights, but bosses will kill and punish you).

It brings about another point: comboing. In most of the other Tales games I played, it was usually wasn’t of too much importance, or you couldn’t do it enough to make a difference. In this game, it’s fairly important to learn how to combo your moves together, lest the enemy damage breaks and attempts to skewer you. The good thing is that they jacked up the AI, so they will try to keep a combo alive (my average combo count on a normal boss fight later in the game averaged around 50-120 hits). Elements also play a big part in this too, since if the enemy actually resists an element (no absorption here), you’ll end up doing single to double-digit damage. You’d think that’s not so important, but towards the end, (and especially in the bonus dungeon) it makes a huge difference on damage output.

Anyways, I’m not gonna go too much into it, since I’m saving up on describing everything in a different thread.

That old Cid’s mailbag about experimental magic systems was good stuff (though totally unimplementable).

Oh yeah. This would be one of the more recent JRPGs I’ve played where battles are actually fun and make me want to battle more. There’s still grinding though, if you want to level up your pins etc.