Eternal Poison

[BG-57]

Just got this the other day, the premise intrigued me: tactical gothic fairytale where you can capture enemy demons, and use them as allies or grind them up for magic points or bonuses.

I'm playing Olifen's scenario first and I just got to the first real boss. I took to long to reach him (I play defensively) and he teleported away. I'm going to replay the level simply because I want to try and recruit him.

I like it so far, but like any tactical game I get frustrated in the first playthrough. Had to turn off the attack animations though; that really slowed down the game, although I'm glad it was optional so I won't complain too much.

[black orb]

>>> Never played the game but i like the character art..

[BG-57]

There's very little 3D rendering so far. Mainly it's character portraits with changing expressions during cutscenes.

So far I haven't had much problem winning the battles; mainly I'm struggling with capturing the Maijin (demons), especially bosses. I guess I'll have better luck in the second playthrough since story characters carry over levels.

The monster grinder looks straight out of LoK, I'm still not used to hearing the monster screams during the grinding. That seems a little cruel, even though they're evil. Even slaughterhouses are a little more merciful.

[black orb]

>>> The latest interesting tactic rpg i played was Disgaea 1 and 2.. I Played La Pucelle too but I did not liked it very much.
Now Im interested in this game too, sadly my Ps2 is broken.

[Vermachtnis]

It was alright. I only played through as Ashley. I started Thage's story, but got a little bored. Music was good though. But my favorite part was the minigame.

[BG-57]

I'm most of the way through my second run through of Olifen. It's much easier to win and capture demons with an overpowered party. Although the optional allies start at the same level every time, so they are pretty weak the second time through. The most helpful recruit is Yuri, who acts as a white mage that can cure multiple allies at once (Levatte can only cure one ally at a time).

I've found using human allies preferable to demons because:

1) They don't die permenantly, they simply disappear from the battlefield.

2) They don't consume Poison Points to stay in the fight.

[BG-57]

Okay I finished the game: all four character scenarios (Olifen, Thage, Ashley, and Rondemian), the unlockable fifth character scenario, and the final boss. Everybody was in their second or third runthrough except the fifth character.

Final verdict:

Character designs are gorgeous. The monsters are interesting and fun to fight and more fun to play as allies, although the game only forces you to fight with them a couple of times.

Music varies from good to great. Not as uneven as FFX-2, but doesn't approach the epicness of Xenogears or FFVIII.

Storyline is interesting and the characters usually compelling, although the interpersonal conflicts get annoying at times. Voice acting ranges from good to annoying. I mainly skip through the dialogue once I've finished reading the text.

Battle system is problematic. You can't check status by selecting a unit, you have to open up a status screen and toggle through the entire list, every time you want to check ally health or enemy weakness. Very annoying. Odd that this follows FFT by so many years but the earlier game handled these issues much better.

Game seems to have random bugs. My first copy froze about 1/20 battles or so, I traded it for a new copy, this also has random moments where screens don't load or the action freezes. It's manageable, but saving a lot is mandatory.

All in all, not a bad game, but could have been much better.