This game reminds me of Etrian Odyssey in the vast difference between a normal mob and a boss fight as well as the overall difficulty of the game. At the beginning you can choose between 7 different characters, one more of the seven can become your ally if you choose, and the rest will hunt you down and try to kill you for the runes that you are collecting(there are 7, see a pattern? lol). Anywho, I chose the Tetsujin(robot) Lux. The guy has stupid high defense, high HP, and high Str. Where he blows is speed(but not as bad as the dwarf) and his magic stat isn't so great.
Now this game does something that is quite annoying, especially in the beginning of the game. It links speed/agility to hit rate as well as dodge. Dodge I understand, it's kind of expected, but hit rate?! And it's pretty noticeable. You will find that in the early game, for most of the characters, you will miss...quite often...usually resulting in your death lol Did I mention that this hit rate is universal and applies to your magic as well? Later they give you access to an item to boost your agility alittle bit but it doesn't stack, no buffs do actually. By the time you have grabbed the third rune though you'll probably be at a place speed-wise where you aren't missing as often unless the mob in question is known for it's speed. If I were going to have that mechanic in the game, I'd give you an item that makes the next hit a certain hit or maybe once you defend first then the next hit is a certain hit, something like that. Or idk...maybe make magic a certain hit? The defend thing actually leads me to one thing that I did like about the gameplay and that's when you defend, your next attack has it's strength doubled...which means you waste TWO turns when you miss :)
So, why the solo run? Well, I found that you level up MUCH faster solo than you do in a group. The game is already kind of grindy anyway and I actually wanted to finish this game this month...not in december lol to be honest, as lux, in combination with the power of the runes & buff bottles, I didn't have too much of a problem pushing through this game...until now.
The final rune is within this cave, held by Gorsia who is invisible unless you have the magic item, Moonlight, held within the Cave of Silence(they sure like their caves in this game...). Anywho, been there, done that, got the t-shirt...and the moonlight. So I make my way to Baron Cave to fight my way through, defeat Gorsia, and get the final rune. Except there is one problem...the boss on the first floor, the dreaded Monmo. At first glance, this creature looks like a carbon copy of the Dragon that "had the Sky Rune" and who was easily defeated when you popped an agility buff, but don't let his looks fool you. Monmo has stupid high resistance to pretty everything except fire spells. Lux doesn't have any fire spells. But wait! The game provides you with an item that will cast fire spells for you! Except you can only have 9 at a time and they only do about 50 damage a pop /sigh.
I could grab one of the other characters as an ally(I believe three of them have access to fire spells naturally) but there is no "hey please leave my party, you are sucking up all my xp" button so that leaves me with one choice....grind levels until Lux's Laser & Thunder spells can defeat Monmo lol which leads me to another sort of broken part off this game....it's like once you hit lvl 40 all other levels after that are 16000xp. I am level 50, and to be level 51 I still need 16000xp. It's like they gave up at a certain point. Figured you wouldn't level up that high and notice the mistake lol If any of you happen to know a better way of soloing Monmo as Lux, please let me know :)
Overall, the game is fun in the variety of character choices, certain gameplay aspects, simplistic menus (standard & battle), and does well with most of its items(harps & mirrors saved me on a regular basis in this game and all they had to do was sit in my bag to do it lol). Lot of potential wasted when it comes to the storyline though. Unless you are Lux or Olvan(the dwarf), you don't really see a difference in the story and even then it's not a major plot point to be either of these guys. Lux gets access to upgrades late game and Olvan gets some extra treasure areas to hit up(probably to pay for his outrageously expensive armor & weapons).
If anyone has any comments about 7th Saga, their own experiences beating or playing it, and mainly how they would have done it better, please comment below. The purpose of this post was two fold: 1. How to Lux solo Monmo & 2. What can we as developers learn from this game? Positive and negative.
edit: Just beat Monmo. Took all 9 B.Fires, an Agility Buff, the Light Rune magic stat buff, Lux being lvl 51, and being lucky enough to dodge every one of Monmo's hp catchers(think vampire). Hopefully, now I can steam roll the rest of the game, we shall see.
edit: So over the weekend I managed to beat the remaining three bosses & ultimately the final boss Gorsia. After my grinding up for defeating Monmo, they all fell with ease after several buffs. The final boss was interesting, until I crippled him with the runes, after that it was standard attack after standard attack with a potion 3 here and there. Reminded me of the final boss battle in Breath of Fire 1 except this final boss was still able to do a bit of damage. Overall, the game was ok and the solo run was pretty easy. I feel like actually having a team member in this game is a hindrance due to the xp being split and the monsters not exactly giving you more xp after a certain point. Even at the end there were still monsters giving me 500xp each <.< not to mention that if you have a partner and use the runes too much or find a rune, there is a chance that your partner will betray you and fight you to the death for the rune...which sucks because they are much stronger than you typically lol
Final thoughts: I feel that the game was difficult enough though I think it could have raised the xp given by monsters while reducing the encounter rate, I loved what they did with the items in this game such as the harp & the mirror though I wish they would have been permanent versions of those somewhere(yes I know there are accessories that do the same thing but Lux can't wear them /sigh), I loved the defend + attack doing double damage thing, but I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential with the storyline & the seven characters. The ending was very generic and actually didn't apply to Lux the robot. I feel like a small scene with the character finding whatever they were seeking somewhere in the game would have been "required" but evidently not. Less towns with the towns left having more character/soul would be nice as well. I think they were going for realism in this game in how they spaced out towns and how many there were in the world but I by the end of it the only thing I knew about the towns were the Zellis sells Mirrors & Polosu sells Harps. For those that have played this game, how would you improve it?
Proposed "better ending" for Lux:
Spoiler
Have a scene where a scientist finds Lux's remains after the final battle and rebuilds him. When he activates Lux, the first thing Lux says is "What is my mission?" to which the scientist will say that they don't know. The reason this is better is because evidently Lux's whole purpose in going after the runes is to find out what his mission/purpose is because after thousands of years he forgot(old memories drop off at a certain point evidently). Through the course of the game, you find out that Lux's purpose was most likely to protect Melanam or he could have well have been a street sweeper...wish they pointed out him realizing what his mission/purpose was only to lose that memory when he was destroyed. Seems a lot better than being rewarded by Saro by being reborn(can robots be reborn as humans?) as Remeer/Lemele... Thoughts?