(Fantasy Maiden Wars/Gensou Shoujo Taisen) What would you suggest for a challenge run?

[kanedafanatic]

Says in the title: I'm asking for those who played (or not; feel free to be part of this) for some rules. I'm not saying there's any obligated way to play the game. Rather: what would y'all suggest for a challenge run that strikes the balance between freedom and fun but also skill and strategy? Something that targets actual skill and thought without going in the domains of boring meta-builds, cheesing, or constant double-or-quit half-strategies.

Thing is I very much like that game. It's really big, it has plenty of content and a story that interests me. Character building is also something I want to experiment further by molding the characters to my playstyle and their nature. What I am still pondering about is how I can make the game hard enough to incite a challenge without losing my interest or my patience. Previously, I lost interest after making my own challenge run it was... not fun. Stopped right in the middle of a battle in the half-point of the second arc and never touched it since.

I won't beat around the bush: I was pretty strict on myself. It was very much if not a perfectionist run:
- Hard difficulty. Allowed to reduce difficulty for a single fight but a cooldown of three chapters most follow suit before reducing enemy again.
- No "deaths" excepted at the "final" and Extra bosses (e.g.: Remilia, Flandre). It makes sense that you lose characters on the former since the last battle before the incident closes. The former is because there's a windows of time for the characters to recover and go on to battle the last enemy of the arc.
- 80% or 4/5 of bonus objectives completed until the end of the arc.
- Spellcards must be caught when possible.
- If any of those rules are broken: arc reset.

In an attempt to make it challenging, I just made it into a chore. After writing those down, I realized how bad those rules (or how tedious) they are. Still to this day, I'm figuring for find the right balance between both. Before you ask: yes, I really spent a LOT of time in the first arc to get a particular bonus objective because of the arc reset.

Difficulty-wise, what I'm about to say is super obvious but: difficulty doesn't make any of us into a better player. More like: higher the difficulty, more intense the shakedown on your strategy (and characters) it will be. Scaling in this game can be odd at times; you can be cruising in one chapter and completely out-paced in the other. As such, what matters is if you can survive at the end of the day (at least for me.)

I assume I told enough details but in case if this isn't precise enough, feel free to question me about it. Curious to see what others have to say.

 

[Napechi97]

Try beating the game only using one character

 

[kanedafanatic]

Try beating the game only using one character

 

[kanedafanatic]

Cant even do my joke right.

Jokes asides, i'm not sure this is possible. Maybe in the first few chapters but later on, there can be big-ass maps where you have two fronts with like eight allied characters on either sides and double the enemies. Pulling up with one character is a fate worse than feath. Oh, and reinforcement: FMW/GST is quite a scripted game so there's that. Bosses too.

i get the idea that you can max out your character into basically a juggernaut from the start but... I don't think it is still feasible. Or at least, the proportional price to upgrade characters become so high at one point you're basically dependent on Ex points.

But does it sound fun to basically have a juggernaut pushing tear through the game. Maybe it's worth a try after all, just to see how it goes out.

(I edited this message so much. Guess I'm really that retarded.)

 

[kanedafanatic]

Try beating the game only using one character

Actually, you know what? I kind of thought of a hybrid between your idea and my own constraints. I'm still brainstorming for other ideas but, it does tntrigue me a lot.

While I don't think it's possible to beat the game with one character, a specialized squadron of four can do the trick. Now I ain't no meta-user nor did I finish the game but, this could be possible with the right characters. It keeps variety on my half while also allowing flexiblity in certain stages, but also strategy as the main game focuses on those four in particular.

I'll still wait but, not like I see this as a bad idea. Probably shouldn't had sent that in the first place; I'm often narrow-minded.

 

[SateriCat17]

This thread has made me interested in checking out Fantasy Maiden Wars.

 

[kanedafanatic]

This thread has made me interested in checking out Fantasy Maiden Wars.

Go for it! If you like RTS and RPGs, this game balances between both. Now, it is pretty much a 4-in-1 game so it's long but, it's really fun nonetheless. Some maps can take a long while before ending but, you can quick-save during those and come back later.

Gameplay-wise, since it's based off Super Robot Wars, it's not much different from it. Move a character, engage, defend or evade. There's Spirit commands (SP) that allows for certain effects (ex: Sense allows for a definite attack on your part and a definite miss for the enemy.) "Danmaku" is executed as a enemy feature that gives you debuffs within their immediate range, for which you can remediate with the focus command to push through without debuff; in exchange of range and a definite hit (successful "evading" makes the enemy's attack less hurtful to the targeted character.) It is rewarding for a game, simply just for the "warfare" aspect of it. Later on in the game, there can be battles where there you handle two fronts at a time: strategy is a obligation during that situation. Divide and conquer.

No game is flawless but, again, it doesn't ruin too much of anything. Boss scaling can be somewhat odd: you win with ease in one battle and you're trying to survive by wasting turns for the boss' spell card to end. Plus, given the game is based of SRW: it can be really heavy with it's script and become unituitive if you try to get some bonus objectives. Basically, it can feel like the game doesn't let go of your hand. However, you can switch difficulties between battles so while it is more of a game design issue, it isn't hard to remediate.

(probably should do myself a home-made NG+ save to try out the characters in their entirety... or just finish the game idfk.)

 

[SateriCat17]

Go for it! If you like RTS and RPGs, this game balances between both. Now, it is pretty much a 4-in-1 game so it's long but, it's really fun nonetheless. Some maps can take a long while before ending but, you can quick-save during those and come back later.

Gameplay-wise, since it's based off Super Robot Wars, it's not much different from it. Move a character, engage, defend or evade. There's Spirit commands (SP) that allows for certain effects (ex: Sense allows for a definite attack on your part and a definite miss for the enemy.) "Danmaku" is executed as a enemy feature that gives you debuffs within their immediate range, for which you can remediate with the focus command to push through without debuff; in exchange of range and a definite hit (successful "evading" makes the enemy's attack less hurtful to the targeted character.) It is rewarding for a game, simply just for the "warfare" aspect of it. Later on in the game, there can be battles where there you handle two fronts at a time: strategy is a obligation during that situation. Divide and conquer.

No game is flawless but, again, it doesn't ruin too much of anything. Boss scaling can be somewhat odd: you win with ease in one battle and you're trying to survive by wasting turns for the boss' spell card to end. Plus, given the game is based of SRW: it can be really heavy with it's script and become unituitive if you try to get some bonus objectives. Basically, it can feel like the game doesn't let go of your hand. However, you can switch difficulties between battles so while it is more of a game design issue, it isn't hard to remediate.

(probably should do myself a home-made NG+ save to try out the characters in their entirety... or just finish the game idfk.)

Well, I did download it and start playing it a bit ago. It seems pretty interesting.
The strategy aspect of it is what especially made me want to play it.
For now, I'm just taking a little break from it.

 

[SateriCat17]

Well, I did download it and start playing it a bit ago. It seems pretty interesting.
The strategy aspect of it is what especially made me want to play it.
For now, I'm just taking a little break from it.

The game also having a "quick-save" is very good for me, as I prefer having the ability to come back to the battle later if I need to do something else.

 

[kanedafanatic]

Coming back to give a formal official apology to @Napechi97. As much as I made fun of his idea, I currently have fun playing FMW and want to continue further ever since. His idea and my own contraints managed to make something that's really cool if I say so myself.

As of speaking, I'm at Chapter 23 (or Chapter 8, Arc 2). To answer a question: you cannot beat the game with a single character naturally, nor with only four in my case. In my case, Chapter 3 is the earliest outlier; makes it impossible because of the wall of enemies put in front of you at that stage. To finish this chapter, you need to battle Sakuya once to trigger her spell card. That you beat her or not (capturing her spell card), doesn't matter, but getting to her is pretty much impossible when you have a singular character. The game forces you to use Focus/Graze mode, which limits your movement range.

In my case, I play in Hard. For what changes between difficulties, here's the link for the game's wiki page and the difficulty section about it: https://akurasu.net/wiki/Gensou_Shoujo_Wars_Complete_Box/Difficulty
(it's like a few second of Excel spreadsheet reading, go read it.)

Now, truly, what changes in such a playthrough? Here's what I noticed until now:
- You battle enemies in the enemy turns as they come to you instead. Use your turns to move around to attract enemies to you. Obviously, having a minimum of a singular character on the front makes offense awkward. At least for me, it's a maximum of four to be used to attack.

- Given the fact that some characters are forced to be with you, I thought to allow certain characters with healer propreties to take part of battle only for healing. E.G.: Keine and Daiyousei are present but does not get involved in battle, only to heal those who fight. Worst case scenario, they can only defend or tank: support defend is fine (they aren't supposed to be there in the first place fuck them).

- Spell Cards are not worth capturing if you know you can't keep up. Don't bother going toe-to-toe on a character like Remilia with her three Spell Cards, solo runs weren't put into account (obviously.) Unless you have enough characters to counter her own regeneration or either you have enough resources to neutralize the character in the allocated time span; just let it go and observe the bosses struggle to get you.

- Your character(s) become very broken at one point (grass is green). I already hit the level cap for Reimu at Chapter 22 (Chapter 7, Arc 2), both EX-P and money levels. Given that in my case, it's only a handful that are allowed to battle, you gain PP points extremely fast too, so generic skills can be bought in a battle or two. My own Reimu manhandled Chapter 20 at 400HP because she was untouchable; probability rates for attack was zero near all the time because of generic skills too.

- Tied to the absurd early levelling, the AI begins to break. During enemy turns, small enemies will rather move and do nothing instead of actually fighting you. Bosses too. It gets into situations where Momiji only moves but doesn't hit, yet can block a majority of the attacks you give (Chapter 20.) Now, again, grass is green: it's because there's no reason for the AI to hit you at that point, since the probability is at 0% on it's part. Reimu was aura-farming at that point.

- Your numbers of turns will directly rise (what else, the Earth is round?). Chapter 20, again: 50 turns. Now, it's a really big map where normally, it separates the battlefield between two fronts; expect a singular Reimu to take her time here (battle took around more-or-less of an hour IRL).

- probably more on top of my mind but think that's enough.

In the case of my own challenge variant: I do have a selection of characters, including Reimu like mentioned earlier. Youmu is also on the warpath but, given the direction of the arc, she won't be back for a while.

As of current, Reimu stands at Level 23 with those generic skills:
Shrine Maiden lvl.4 (tied to Reimu's current level)
Instinct lvl.9 (maxed)
Prevail lvl.8
Predict lvl.1
Streaming lvl.2 (maxed)
Ammo Save (extremely important as to augment the offense autonomy of Reimu with her attacks)
SP Up lvl.2

A question of around 800PP to finalize Reimu's generic skills for the long while. Considering the scale of the game, there's more than enough time for that. Later on, certain things can be changed but, overall, fits my playstyle well enough. Currently waiting to finalize my generic abilities for Reimu to focus on an another character.

Long story short? I enjoy my time.