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« on: January 19, 2016, 03:36:56 AM »
I replayed the game recently and would like to phrase my thoughts on the game:
On the plus side, I really enjoy the general engine of the game. You have a lot of ways to design a map, make much more use of positioning than in most tactical RPGs and having variable attacks gives classes and characters a lot of flavor. The map editor is also easy to use and let me have fun making various multiplayer maps.
However, the campaigns both felt rather weak. The Vengeance of Emma Strider had some nice ideas, but the execution was rather bland. I'm not very fond of dark and serious stories, mostly because the characters tend to become too much alike and many writers refuse to let positive and fun things happen. The character interactions in the campaign were only mildly interesting at best and forgettable at worst. Also, the maps are obscenely oversized, it takes a lot of turns just to get to the next batch of enemies. It doesn't help that the AI plays rather slowly and attack animations can't be turned off. After the rescue Meridian mission, it became so bad that I stopped altogether.
Guard Llama is much shorter, but it's overall still not very good - while I admit that I liked Lorenzo (particularly the Llama puns), most of the 'humor' is simply repeating tropes and claiming they're funny because they're blatantly spelt out. The final map also has the trouble of being rather big and taking a while to traverse - it's also easy to die to the final boss when not moving properly, making this lengthy map rather grueling. However, it having a puzzle map, a more unique main character and a legit funny ending makes it the better campaign overall.
I know I should finish the main campaign to properly review it, but it was so painfully long and tedious that I just couldn't do it. Not to mention that permanently crippling/losing units for a single mistake magnifies this problem even more.