RPG Insanity

I've been playing Asdivine Hearts on Normal difficulty, and I'm currently doing postgame content - leveling up in Trial Tower to prepare for the Platinum Cup. A lot of the gameplay mechanics have issues that drive home how this is one of Exe-Create's earlier games, and just not as balanced or player-friendly as later titles.

I'm presenting a long list of negative things because I can, but I do want to emphasize that my overall impression of Asdivine Hearts is positive - I've had more than one play session where I got engrossed in the game and hours just flew by. Asdivine Hearts' gameplay really is a lot of fun; if I didn't like it I'd just lower the difficulty to Easy and skip most of the side content (which is what I did with Revenant Dogma).

Formations sound like a cool idea, right? The problem is, most of them are useless. Their drawbacks outweigh their advantages. Speed is such a powerful statistic (more speed = more turns, and Speed helps the party go first in random encounters) that Let's Do This, which buffs the entire party's speed and has no negatives, is outright superior for 99% of all situations. Unlucky Mage/Unlucky Hero would later have a formation system where different formations have useful purposes.

Why can't I teleport between towns? The long, monster-ridden ship voyage and hike every time I want to visit Forgotten Village is getting old. Even worse, the monsters don't give very much experience once the party reaches level 80+.

Why can't I have more control over the encounter rate? Something to force an encounter with every step would be nice when I want to grind, or rebuild the Trust Gauge. The only thing I've found to turn off random encounters is Mighty Salt, and it only repels encounters with weak enemies, and it's very limited in supply. At least the ability to instantly win battles with weak enemies is a menu option.

Fleeing doesn't have a 100% success rate like in Revenant Saga (although the rate seems high on Normal?). Punishing fleeing with a small decrease in the Trust gauge feels more or less reasonable, and is arguably less punishing than losing gold. I've read references to fleeing with skills, but what skill enables the party to flee battles?

Uriel's Trust gauge attack ("Grovel on your hands and knees!") is flat-out broken overpowered on Normal difficulty. It trivializes boss fights by keeping the boss paralyzed for multiple turns and doing massive damage with Fever, in addition to the heavy stat debuffs. From what I've read, paralysis only lasts one turn on bosses in Expert, so Uriel's ability wouldn't be an automatic win there.

Judgement (halves enemy HP, does 20% total HP to bosses) is a stupidly overpowered attack. Even with the limitations that it can't be used on metal monsters, or to bring an enemy's HP below 50%, it's absurdly strong for a mid-game spell that costs a mere 100 MP, which is probably why I haven't seen it in the other Exe-Create games I've played.

Limit breaks sound like a cool idea, but in practice they're a way for the game to randomly destroy you. The odds of a boss or tough enemy scoring a limit break on the party are low on Normal, but if it happens, you just die. I will grant that the late game has some defensive workarounds, such as the spell or Uriel's ability to automatically revive a Swooned character.

Other than a fourth-wall-breaking "Save your game before you explore a new island" tip, Asdivine Hearts does not tell the player what level of enemies to expect where. I guess that's supposed to be part of the "fun", but I prefer Fernz Gate, where various NPCs explicitly say "level 300 monsters are in this area" and "level 500 monsters are in that area". If you're going to break the fourth wall, just take a sledgehammer to it already.

What's with the hidden mechanics? Some things are not mentioned in the Help menu, and I only know about them because of Azyleo's guide at

https://www.rpginsanity.com/forum/asdiv ... mechanics/

Magic Attack and Magic Defense are hidden statistics because - why? I guessed that Uriel has the highest Magic Attack, but it's not obvious that Zack and Stella have the naturally highest Magic Defense, since their innate Intellect is on the lower end.

I double-checked the Help menu to confirm that the mechanism to force a combo limit break is simply not mentioned in the game.

And finally, I have a complaint about postgame sidequests.

Asdivine Hearts is really hard in some aspects.

The lack of mini-map is also a problem, like I lost my way through Shaddai in the post-game dimensional final dungeon many times.

Also this game also influence how hard the Izayoi's Duology in terms of difficulties.

Hearts also one of the game that will make you grind it's in-game currency (AHP) to buy things that will make everything easy. Unlike Era of Dios to Saga Remake where they gave you points, but the game doesn't has freemium so maybe why. (android ver.)

 

 

[quote=42337]

Why can’t I teleport between towns? The long, monster-ridden ship voyage and hike every time I want to visit Forgotten Village is getting old. Even worse, the monsters don’t give very much experience once the party reaches level 80+.

[/quote]

First Asdivine game introduce in the west. Also Original SaGa and Cross does have this concept and maybe kept to the first Asdivine introduced in the west, which is Hearts. Unlike in Saga Remake, where you can freely teleport in specific towns/dungeon, Original SaGa.. force you to travel from let's say Sol Ruins? Or whatever the name of the Ruin in the Southwest of Torzel City to the  Adiva City of the Zandark Continent.

The only good thing in this early Asdivine even though you can't teleport,  the transport is really fast.

Apparently there is an item to teleport between towns in Asdivine Hearts after all... but buying it costs Guild Coins, which are better spent on stat-boosting seeds. There is also a way to force encounters with each step, but it's a special jewel that I never synthesized.

Leveling up in Trial Tower is shockingly fast. The party was gaining a level every couple battles in the lower floors up through the first boss, and easily reached 100+. More balance problems presented themselves.

The Substitute skill is severely overpowered. It can be used to eliminate the wait time of the spell another character is casting. It can be used to hit the enemy with one's strongest attacker over and over. I still like Substitute, because it adds a strategic element to battles, but at the very least it should cost more MP than it does.

Celine's level 99 skill, Bloom, is completely broken overpowered in the player's favor. On Normal difficulty Bloom kills every random encounter in one hit, except possibly big monsters like Behemoths. I'd been using a lot of strategy on the Trial Tower's random encounter enemies when the party was level 85-98, since enemies hit hard and groups of six enemies posed a serious threat. Then Bloom (and a big stock of Skill Puddings to replenish Celine's skill meter between battles) completely trivialized regular encounters.

Getting ambushed is massively unbalanced in the player's disfavor. It's too easy to just die without getting a turn from an ambush, especially if ambushed by six enemies. Retrying the battle doesn't remove the ambush state. Fortunately, the ambush rate appears to be very low on Normal.

I knew what to expect from the Asdivine Hearts special signposts because I'd encountered special signposts before in Journey to Kreisia. In both games, going to the signposts as soon as they become available (when the player is most likely level 75-80) is instant death on Normal difficulty.