Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

I wish there was a more neutral rating for steam games. but I can't recommend this game. I've played through this game, and the classes and stories are fun. But there is something about combat that isn't satisfying at all. The strategy is shallow and the cause of it could be that you can knock an enemy into water instant killing it. same could happen to you. You can play a well thought out battle, but the moment you place your character near water, it is over for you. For strategy, most of it is kill them before they kill you kind of situation given that there aren't tanks or defensive tactics. review edit: I forgot. I really really disliked the art. The sprites remind me of maple story - or of a certain gacha game. It is kind of hideous. Usually art style just needs to be good enough for me, but this was a constant turn off.

I cannot get over how the in-game sprites look like they're from Maplestory compared to the world/portraits

It's inevitable that every review of this game is going to mention Final Fantasy Tactics, and fair enough, as that's basically what this is recreating. However Fell Seal optimizes a number of obscure mechanics that FFT had and I think it might be a better game for it. This does not mean the game is perfect though, although after having played for over 100 hours, I can safely say that it is a game worthy of a lot of praise. Music/Sound: The music has not gotten stuck in my head the same way that FFT did, but that doesn't detract from the quality that is here. While the number of different tracks and tunes is rather limited, the battle music is catchy and never gets reptitive and annoying. The overworld and menu music all evoke a feeling of classic RPG's and are quite pleasant, if not outstanding. The sound effects are excellent though, each sword hit, gunshot and spell effect sound incredibly satisfying and fuel the addiction to grinding quite nicely. Graphics/Art: This is always going to be subjective, and I've seen many people comment that they don't care for the art style and graphic design. I will say that I wasn't in love with many of the character portraits but I do think the in game models, monsters and environments look really fantastic. I wasn't a fan at first, but they really start to grow on you the more you play the game. Gameplay: Ah here is the meat and potatoes. The job system is fantastic and greatly encourages experimentation and character building. Mastering any particular job doesn't take a very long grind to max out a class, and so you'll have plenty of time to switch things up and gain new skills as you play. Stat growths are determined by the classes you master and level in, so some planning ahead might be necessary on hard difficulty settings if you're looking to minmax the game. This really isn't required though, as even on a normal to medium level of difficulty, none of the story encounters and battles are so hard that you need to make broken characters to stand a chance. The game is classic tactics gameplay, movement on a grid, being able to scale up vertically, and having a variety of melee and ranged effects are going to be keys to victory. There is a bit of an over reliance on lethal terrain and pushing characters though, better hope your character can swim or hover or they might be one-shot by falling into water or lava. There is much more of an emphasis on buffs and debuffs compared to FFT here, and while many have mentioned that this might be too tedious or annoying to deal with; I personally didn't have much of a problem with it. The way items and weapons are handles is very nice, with some of the bet gear and accesories being crafted from rare components, or acquired out of a chest. I do wish there was just slightly more options for gearing that didn't simply amount to more stats, but that is a minor complaint over all. Items are not consumables, in the sense that you don't need to waste time buying new potions or phoenix downs after every battle. This is a nice feature, and is actually used in a way that balances the strength of items as you cant simply bring 99 elixirs with you to each battle. The Story: Left a lot to be desired. Very tropey, and a bit predictable. Nothing can compare to the masterpiece of story that was FFT, but I really was hoping for more here. They give you a lot of plot early on in the game, and then over half of the game is just trailing behind the bad guys and fighting the same braindead group of bad guys over and over until near the end when the story begins to move forward again. It really would have been nice if they fleshed out the history of the world a bit more, have us more insight into the immortals, arbiters and how the world functions. Instead we are just given enough to have a skeletal framework of a story that ends with you fighting a big bad that is just kind of... there? All that being said, I absolutely loved this game and would highly recommend it to any tactics fan, or even just an RPG player in general.

NAH YEAH!!!

After playing the game further, the game gets ridiculously too difficult where multiple enemies heal and run and buff themselves defensively. They always field greater numbers than your 6 person team while beginning on higher ground. They also have counterattacks or thorns. Even after grinding the map at least once after defeating the node the enemies are still extremely difficult. Game really becomes more of a chore and not enough fun. I've played many tactics games over my lifetime as a middle aged person and I've never felt so frustrated at a game. This game is complete horse****

I was promised a Final Fantasy Tactics experience, but instead I got a generic intro, horrible artwork/animations, and painfully slow combat. Yes, turn-based is supposed to be slow, but it should at least be interesting and strategic. The first real encounter shouldn't take 10 turns because the health pools are too huge (against generic, boring bandits nonetheless). Very bad first impression, not willing to put in the ~30 hours into this game.

I would like some consistency in the game design - pushing. I'm on the roof of Yates cabin - try to push an enemy off, thinking this will be hilarious. Nope! Sorry, can't! Very next turn the enemy pushes Kyrie off roof to her death. Alt-F4 moment.

This is not so much a game as it is a brain rot simulator. For those who are just starting out and don't want a dead run, go follow a guide. Oh sorry, I mean THE ONLY GUIDE. There is only one way to play this game for it to not be a pain in the ass even on the easiest settings. As soon as you reach the 3rd story fight of the game, they make it abundantly clear that this game is not for your enjoyment, it is for the developer's enjoyment, you must follow in their every footstep. The enemies will always have more units than you, have more advanced skills than you, have more advanced passives than you, have better terrain at the start of the fight than you, have better AoE than you, have better heal AoE than you... Unless you follow the steps below. Buy 10 units at the start, cycle level them to level 4 and then reset their level and do it all over again for 20 hours until you've unlocked the best classes and learned their busted skills and passives, and then reset one more time and pick one main class to stick with for your character levels as your stat gains are based on only your main class.

Its a Final Fantasy tactics clone, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The story is way weaker, FFtactics was mature and gripping with main story characters dying left and right, this is PG rated and the story amounts to "We have Final Fantasy Tactics at home, son". With that said the bones of the gameplay formula is here, and its good enough. the music is faithfully SNES too