Looking to take advantage of the HDB sale, and wonder which of their TRPGs people like the best. Spectral Souls? Blazing Souls? Agarest War? What do you guys think?
Agarest is a little... Slow moving for my tastes. It also has some dating sim type elements... They're there so you can mix n match for the next generation characters, but personally, I prefer the Souls series. It's also got quite a bit of grinding, but it progresses at a slightly quicker pace. This is all if you're playing without IAPs. If you're going to purchase IAP packs as well, the Agarest games can move a lot quicker as you'll have better weapons and the possibility of more currency to upgrade everything. Souls has no IAP... so there's that too... But both are decent SRPGs. Worth playing if you're into the genre. Nothing that will replace FFT though... =oP
I've played pretty much all of them and Agarest imo is definitely the best of the bunch, especially if you love pretty anime-esque RPGs. Admittedly it is slow to battle but it's still very well made and pretty fun. Since it's a port you get a huge RPG experience for Agarest if you keep going with it. The Soul series didn't appeal to me because the learning curve was really high even though I'm a huge fan of SRPGs. I just couldn't get into it.
So, it turns out I already had Spectral Souls and never got into it. I tried it and the got pretty lost right off the bat in the battling. Perhaps my tastes are too shallow for this game. Could it be that the Spectral is the oldest of them, and the newer ones have better tutorials, or better UI, or other advancements? I'm still interested, though, for some reason... What is the better of the Souls Games, in your opinion? What is the better of the Agarest games, in your opinion? Thanks for the input!
Agarest is definitely the more polished and fleshed out of the two (and I preferred the original to Zero). If you can get over the dating sim elements, it's more likely than not going to stick with you and click more than the Souls series. But if you do decide to check it out, I'd snag Spectral Souls over Blazing Souls. If you enjoy SS (it's plot is a little convoluted, and there is quite a bit of grinding [to be expected in a 100+ hour game, and all 4 are pretty grindy]), then maybe check out BSA. But only if you're REALLY itching for some more. It's really hit n miss, more often being a miss. But SS will always be my favorite of the bunch. Oh yeah, also a good idea for all of them; get a PDF manual. Even if you're a veteran strategy gamer... They're easily findable on Google.
Sorry for the late reply but that's what I would've recommended anyhow. Hopefully you enjoy it! Money-wise it's definitely worth it. All those games can be 100+ hours long.