Wow, I rated this game lower than UFO and POFV. Which is kinda crazy, as I think this is the easiest game in this series. Seriously, I beat it on my first run, and even captured 90% of the final boss's spell cards. I find the plot nice, still like the chain of consequences MoF created, and the OST is really lovely in stages. Boss music is eh for the most part, Seiga and Mamizou have real bangers compared to everyone else
The gameplay is at fault for why I didn't like this game. Sure, it's super easy, but this game has so many weird design choices that just brings it down for me. Trance mode, the main gimmick of the game, is so bizarrely handled. You have to collect spirits that enemies drop, which stay in place and mostly stay at the top of the screen, making it somewhat dangerous to go fetch them should an enemy pull a gotcha!. Charge your meter to the max and then release to be invulnerable of 10 seconds and deal more damage. Cool right? I just don't understand why it needs to be charged to the max, when dying uses up what you have accumulated as some sort of dying breath attack. Why not use it at command, if dying is gonna basically do that? Easy to abuse? Maybe, but I just find that weird personally.
Then comes the resources. They are also spirits, and still use the piece system. Being in Trance mode doubles how much a spirit is worth, which is cool. What I find weird is how lives were handled. Getting a life from pieces increases the amount of pieces you need for the next one by 3. Ok, sounds like something to prevent abuse. What I don't understand is why bomb pieces don't do the same, or better yet, why the heck does the threshold stay after you die? You could have 2 lives left and the next life requires 18 pieces to get.
It's crazy how a game this easy in a notoriously difficult genre is this unlikable to play to me.
The gameplay is at fault for why I didn't like this game. Sure, it's super easy, but this game has so many weird design choices that just brings it down for me. Trance mode, the main gimmick of the game, is so bizarrely handled. You have to collect spirits that enemies drop, which stay in place and mostly stay at the top of the screen, making it somewhat dangerous to go fetch them should an enemy pull a gotcha!. Charge your meter to the max and then release to be invulnerable of 10 seconds and deal more damage. Cool right? I just don't understand why it needs to be charged to the max, when dying uses up what you have accumulated as some sort of dying breath attack. Why not use it at command, if dying is gonna basically do that? Easy to abuse? Maybe, but I just find that weird personally.
Then comes the resources. They are also spirits, and still use the piece system. Being in Trance mode doubles how much a spirit is worth, which is cool. What I find weird is how lives were handled. Getting a life from pieces increases the amount of pieces you need for the next one by 3. Ok, sounds like something to prevent abuse. What I don't understand is why bomb pieces don't do the same, or better yet, why the heck does the threshold stay after you die? You could have 2 lives left and the next life requires 18 pieces to get.
It's crazy how a game this easy in a notoriously difficult genre is this unlikable to play to me.