Cross Tails Review (Frostfeather)
6/10
I enjoyed all the Mercenaries Saga games, so I guess it's no surprise that I like this as well. Nice little strategy RPG that doesn't really innovate, but is still rather enjoyable due to depth & group customization level.
Pros:
- Between gear, subclasses, training, strategies, stats, deities, skills, etc, the game has a great amount of depth. Definitely the game's greatest strength by far
- There are tons of overpowered combos to discover and almost limitless party combos since you eventually get 6-7 party members
- You can set a "Strategy" at the start of a fight, which affects everyone on your team with bonuses and possibly penalties. I *love* this because I always build my entire group around a strategy, so this allows me to really lean into that
- Units get xp at the end of a fight. Helps normalize xp for healers and such who aren't attacking often
- Great class list, including Time Mage (Clocker, lol), Ninja, Bard, Necromancer, and many others. Alchemist is pretty unusual to see, and is really fun
- Some levels are actually somewhat challenging
Mehs:
- The whole "tails" thing is borderline gross. Would almost feel like a "furry game", but it's only really noticeable in the ears of characters during dialogue. I guess I can live with it since they're just normal humans with ears and since dialogue is definitely *not* a reason to play a SRPG
- Color palette is too light, no dark colors or saturated colors anywhere. Doesn't help in differentiating between units, either
- Starts off too hard as you have no options, and becomes too easy partway through due to massively op abilities. You can change difficulty on the map screen, at least
Cons:
- Map design is pretty boring and generic
- Can't use keyboard/mouse to play. Very lame
- Allies and enemies all look the same. Same height, hair color, etc. Can get confusing
- Translation is hilariously bad. Extremely verbose and at times even at times hinders your understanding of abilities
- You have to cast buffs in combat a *lot*. Gets better later with the Clocker passive & Clocker skill that extends buffs, and gets better with map-wide buffs, but until then you have to manage buffs on everyone constantly