Anyone excited by Grand Kingdom?

Luitoine

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Hi,
Long time no see (but I have an excuse for not posting recently, I was playing Overwatch which is not really a RPG :rolleyes:), but tomorrow I'll get my copy of Grand Kingdom (for PSVita, because I don't have the PS4)! :biggrin:

Is anyone here looking forward to play the game?

It's a Japanese Tactical RPG (with action timing required for some attacks) developed by Monochrome (to be honest, I've never heard of them, but they have some former employees of Vanillaware) and edited by NIS America (which is not so surprising for a Japanese niche game).
The graphics looks simple but nice, and the gameplay seems rich enough for a single player T-RPG (there are 17 classes of fighters, all customisable). There is also a strange "asynchronous" online multiplayer mode that I didn't really understand yet, but that might be fun (maybe?).
It's released today in Europe (I've already bought mine, but couldn't go to the store today :-/), and in a few days in the US.

I'll try to do a small review if anyone is interested to have my opinion on the game :)

You can see a short trailer here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikd27jrKvWc
And there's more info in the US website : http://nisamerica.com/games/grand-kingdom/
 
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Yes! Yes, yes! We would love a review...or even your first impressions. I've been watching that one for a while and I kinda wanted to get it myself…I'm dying to know if it's any good!
 
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I've played a couple of hours, and for now, I'm really enjoying the game.

Here's a quick summary of what the game looks like:
After a short tutorial, you arrive at the "base camp", which is a list of menu where you can do the following things:
- recruit heroes between 17 classes (for now, I've only seen about 10 classes, but I believe what is written on the box). You can organise them in troops (up to 4 heroes in one troop) and you can have up to 6 troops.
- buy (and sell) equipements for you heroes.
- teach new techs and "upgrade" the stats of your heroes (if you have the require items).
- start a mission. There are 4 types of mission : "campaign", which is the (solo) main story, "single" which are "one shot" missions you can do to level up/receive stuff/kill time, "versus" which are missions were you play against the teams made by other players (but controlled by the AI), and "travel" which are "free" missions with no objectives to complete.
- go to war (which is the asynchronous-MMO mode that I didn't try yet).
- visit the four great nations capitals, where you can find special shops and a blacksmith (that can craft or enhance equipement).

The missions play on a "turn-based gameboard" where you can move only move from one location to an adjacent one at the time (of course, the ennemies also move). When you encounter an ennemy you go to battle mode. The battle mode is a 2D side scrolling where the displacements are turn-based but the attacks (depending of their type) require a good timing to achieve maximal efficiency. It's a bit strange at the beginning, but I really like how it feels: you have plenty of time to think of what you gonna do (you can even cancel a displacement if you realize it was a bad idea), but since the attacks looks like those of an action-RPG, you feel "powerful" when beating the ennemies.
Depending on the mission you can have different objectives: reach a given location, kill all the ennemies, take all the ressources that are scattered on the map (I read online that their also are "defending" and "infiltration" mission but I did'nt try them yet). For each mission you have a given number of turn that you should not exceed if you don't want to lose.
Also, each of your heroe as a special ability (like "freezing ennemies movement for 5 turn") that can be used if you have "TP" (which you earn by killing ennemies). And you can find several chests or special NPC (like "a medic") on different locations.

At the beginning the game seems a bit complex (there are some other particularity I didn't mention, like the level up system, the pyroxene you can put into your weapon to boost them, the grimoire crafting system to learn a tech one of you heroes knows to another hero, etc.) but if you like the kind of game where you can spend hours to craft the "perfect" team of characters, it will probably please you.

On the technical point of view: graphism and music are very good (if you like this style), and the characters animations are also nice. The only downside are the loading time which are a bit long on the PS Vita (I don't know for the PS4 version).

To finish, here are a few advices I can already give you if you want to try the game:
- during the tutorial you have a premade troop of 4 heroes: you're not going to keep them after the tutorial, so if you like them, you should enrole the same classes when the opportunity is given to you! (especially the first time you can enrole heroes, you have a huge discount price, so you should take all the ones you want).
- as odd as it seems, the principal stat of the medic is "strengh" (used for her poison bottle), so don't do like me and don't boost her "magic" instead…
 
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Aaah, thank you so much, Luitoine! I was excited to hear your impressions. I kinda want this game now. :)
 
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Aaah, thank you so much, Luitoine! I was excited to hear your impressions. I kinda want this game now. :)

You're welcome :)
(Maybe I'll put more informations/impressions as I advance through the game)
 
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How doable is the game if you miss all the twitchy combat actions?
 
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How doable is the game if you miss all the twitchy combat actions?

For the "melee attacks", there's not a lot of skill required: you can do correct amount of dammage simply by mashing the buttons. All the melee heroes have a "simple mode" which is a sort of auto-combo (you only have to press circle repeatedly to do list of attacks you have preset in the character menu), and an "technical mode" where each touch (circle, square, triangle) does a different attack.
For some "ranged attacks" and "magical attacks" it's more tricky, because depending on the timing of your attack, the ennemy will be launched in a different direction, and if you do not time wisely, the ennemy can even be launched out of the area of effect, stopping your combo after the first shot… I had some trouble with my arcanist at the beginning, but now I'm getting more familiar with the timing required, and also, he learned new spells that do not require any timing at all (some are traps that you put on the ground, and some are auto-target).

I think that you're going to be better if you master the timings, but the game should be doable without that (some character as the medic do not require any timing at all). And, by the way, the medic is way more offensive than what is name may let you think ;)
 
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wow, super interesting review. i definitely want to play now :)
 
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Now that I've played a bit more, I have noticed another small downside: it seems to me that there are no special missions (except the "travel" ones) that you can do (or redo) with low level characters if you want to level up a new troop of heroes :x
 
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I just downloaded the demo a couple days ago and it's pretty fun...it grows on you. I was expecting something more action-y, but I love how you can customize your own party from the ground up. I'm still debating on getting it. I like it, though. :)
 
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I preordered the physical Grand Edition for the PS4 a while ago, but it won't be shipping until June 28. So, I have to wait a little while yet to try it.
 
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