Gamespot score:n/a
my score:7.3
(+)pros:-extra lenghty gameplay with tons of quests,-tons of character customization, -lots of big and puzzling and ever chagning dungeons to explore, -interestingly programmed NPC personalities
(-)cons:-gameplay mainly consists on grinding,- extremely brutal gameplay early on, -too many in game items which makes tracking of ingredients difficult
gameplay time:50+ hours(above average)
One of the games I was looking foward to last year. I was kinda disappointed in the game, I kinda expected more. But nevertheless, I shouldnt be biased, the game itself isnt bad. Its like etrian oddyssey on the DS, execpt its on PSP. The main core gameplay is around the same, with ALOT more grinding involved and a much weaker story, since the game itself isnt supposed to be story-driven. Well I shouldnt be ranting too much as the game isnt really all bad...wait I already said
that...well time to get on with it.
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Particus academy, a academy designed to train young ambitious students of different races who want to be adventurers. Story driven there isnt much. You just control a bunch students in a party to go around taking assignments in class to increase in grades until you graduate. Of course the students you control will be part of this academy, or else I wouldnt have mentioned it. Anyway your party of students will be meeting many of your goofy teachers, including a rip off teacher who tries to sell you useless stuff at high prices and even a teacher who gets something called the curse of munchies or something like that. Well thats one of the great features in this game, the hilarious and comedic NPCs. They really make it like a school, with the school's own "bully" and student council leader who tries to solve everything calmly.
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Well class of heroes is a dungeon crawler like the DS's title etrian oddyssey, well considering they are both from atlus, this concept is around the same. Well this here is the view when dungeon crawling. The graphics are pretty refined,at least better than persona portable's dungeon crawling view. Its just an improved etrian oddyssey view, nothing else. Its not really bad anyway. Also, you will be seeing your 6 party member's faces everywhere you go, even when just moving around campus. Its not bad, I kinda like it to be able to see thier faces all the time, since they are drawn nicely,
especially if you're using a 1 male, 5 female party like me :).
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Now for battle mechanics. This game has fine battle mechanics, but battles themselves are brutally challenging, especially early on. Battles run like your basic turn by turn RPG, execpt with the affinity conecpt. Its quite interesting, since affinity plays a huge part in battle. The higher your party affinity the better. You cant go like "woah the diablons look awesome" and then just place one or 2 diablons in your party and just leave it like that. Its like, unity of the races, since diablons are feared among races, they dont work well the the latter 9 races. It may sound confusing, but its easy to catch on in the game. Anyway its easy for players to get turned off by this game and leave it to rot for the rest of thier lives. The battles are tough early on, with your shitty equips, overpowered monsters and high encounter rate..this game can be quite unforgiving. They seriously didnt have to make the game so hard. And since its so godamn difficult to level up, grinding quickly becomes a must if you want your party to be able to push on deeper into a certain dungeon.
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Ok,time for some of the game's good points. First, character customization is purely insane. There is an insane amount of variations you can build your characters, with 10 races, and around 20 majors with the ability to be able to distribute points into your created character's stats, you have quite alot of freedom to choose. You can go with so many customizations such as a high agility warrior drake, or high strenght alchemist edergerist. Theres so many possiblities that one can even find himself lost in the huge customization routes. Also, you can choose factors that affect affinity, by choosing wheter a character wants to be good, evil or neutral. Obviously its good to put all neutral,and obviously bad doesnt mix well with good and good doesnt mix well with bad. However they both mix pretty Ok with neutral students. So either go all good,all bad, all neutral, or half good half neutral, or half bad half neutral.
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For my conclusion, Ill say class of heroes is a typical old school kind of RPG. Its not particularly story driven like many modern JRPGs, its just an old school might and magic kind of game. Its terribly diffcult despite cute character design, so only the strong patient hearted king of person should play this game.
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bHappy gaming.
