How Hard is Too Hard?

How hard is too hard? For years, masochistic gamers have demanded that games offer a satisfying level of challenge. In the case of Rondo of Swords, while those gamers are likely paralyzed with joy, it seems many other gamers are frustrated by the base difficulty level in Rondo of Swords.

What do you think? Is Rondo of Swords too hard?

[Sayckeone]

I've only played the first battle and it was cake(someone told me it was obnoxiously difficult though). I'll get back to you on the rest once MGOBeta finishes.

I doubt RoS is really all that difficult.

[avatar]

People said the same thing about Etrian Odyssey when it came out. They lamented and wept bitter tears about the difficulty. Personally, I love Etrian Odyssey, and no it's not too hard! It is challenging, but in a good and fair way. I haven't gotten into RoS yet, but I expect it to be of similar difficulty. I truly hope Atlus keeps delivering... DO YOU HEAR ME! Keep bringing over such 'challenging' gems :)

cheers,

-avatar

[Sayckeone]

I found EO to be difficult at the very beginning, but once I gained a few levels and figured things out, it really wasn't that hard.

[Trane]

Rondo definitely isn't too hard. It takes a little bit of time to adjust to the battle system. There's nothing wrong with forcing players to actually use their brains.

[thinkfreemind]

So long as a game isn't "cheap" with the difficulty, I say the harder the better. I'd rather die over and over again in a game because it is challenging, than to just coast through a game where battles are a joke and only serve to slow the game down and make it boring.

[DarkShear]

I found EO to be difficult at the very beginning, but once I gained a few levels and figured things out, it really wasn't that hard.

I never beat EO, but I got very far before I got bored. But it definitely was hard against the first FOEs.

I'll crack open Rondo tonight and report back!

[Futanari]

Is Rondo of Swords harder than FE 6 on Hard Mode? I've only reached level 3 in that game. XD Normal mode's not too bad though. :)

[Kayin]

People complain about the difficulty because they're used to playing ridiculously easy SRPGs that often don't require the S.

[Gen Eric Gui]

Rondo of Swords isn't hard, it's different. If people would get off their butts and learn the new combat system instead of insisting on playing this like an FE game, they'd find that the game really isn't that hard at all. Personally, once I figured out how to work my units in the new combat system, I've been breezing through the game.

[Riviera]

I found it very difficult for quite a while before I started getting the hang of it.

I wish that games of this nature had a difficulty setting, really.

There will be those that, the harder it is, the more they love it. But then there are those that, when faced with huge challenges like this, will send the game back despite liking the rest of it.

I'd like there to be options so that the people who love extremely difficult games can have things like extra hard mode and such to keep them happy, while people who don't get so much out of that can gradually adjust it higher as they get more comfortable with the system.

Not all of us are SRPG veterans. I myself have only played maybe 5 SRPGs total, including this one.

[Master Zombots]

Rondo of Swords isn't too difficult at all. It actually requires skill to play though, unlike most strategy games. You can't just level up your characters in extra battles, which does add to the difficulty; in my opinion, this only makes the game more worthwhile in the end.

[Foryth]

I never beat EO, but I got very far before I got bored. But it definitely was hard against the first FOEs.

Hah, I had heard so much about the FOEs difficulty, that I think I overprepared myself. Really I found the first FOEs to be surprisingly easy to beat.

Rondo of Swords isn't too difficult at all. It actually requires skill to play though, unlike most strategy games. You can't just level up your characters in extra battles, which does add to the difficulty; in my opinion, this only makes the game more worthwhile in the end.

You can level up by quiting a battle and restarting it though. But I find levels dont really help that much, it's still your strategy that makes the difference between life and death. Though it depends on which battles, in some it's one bad move and heads start rolling, while I have found some battles to be very easy.

Overall I'd say the difficulty level is just right, for once I feel like I have to actualy use my brain. :)

[Sanctine]

I call viral marketing on AtlusAram's part. I had no prior interest in this game, but now I do.

[DarkShear]

I call viral marketing on AtlusAram's part. I had no prior interest in this game, but now I do.

Sucker!

[Sei]

I don't think it's that hard, but the tactics you use actually matter, a lot.

And there is the whole quit and retry with gained levels thing that makes it impossible not to win eventually. Honestly I wasnt going to pick it up until I saw a review mentioning it was "hard". Memorable SRPGS like FFT are seldom brain dead easy difficulty level.

If this game was much easier it would be junk.

[BadDad]

I love this game. It' is hard, but not too hard. It makes you think about which characters to use, troop placement, skills, equipment and timing of moves. It's awesome!

[sulta]

It's the best strategy game I've played in a while. AW DoR was good, but pretty easy. Altus always surprises me by making really great, old-school style (and challenging) games. I wish they would still work with the Advance. I bought a Micro a year ago and I've really only been able to play Summon Night and FF games on it.

[Onion of Mystery]

To be fair, publishing != developing. Your kudos for the awesome strategy game in this case should go to Success.

[Inzaghi]

To be fair, publishing != developing. Your kudos for the awesome strategy game in this case should go to Success.

And Fun Unit.

[sulta]

To be fair, publishing != developing. Your kudos for the awesome strategy game in this case should go to Success.

And Fun Unit.

haha, that's what I meant. Everything Atlus publishes. Not that Atlus isn't awesome, too.

[Sayckeone]

I'm maybe seven or eight battles in, and so far, this game is bordering on pathetically easy. I think the people who said this game actually requires skill and strategy are playing a different game than I am, because it requires neither.

The whole drawing your line of movement/attack isn't quite the innovative feature it seemed like it was going to be. Overall, the game is pretty underwhelming and lackluster at this point. Also, I don't know if the Japanese script was like this, but the US one suffers from infantile dialogue, like most handheld titles do.

Inzaghi, contrary to what you had said, this doesn't do the same for SRPGs as YU did.

I think I may put this game away and play FFCCRoF again.

[Ruhdezee]

well its not that hard but its not that good either.. atlus is amazing but this was a rare miss

[Macstorm]

Rondo was not too hard. It just required a new kind of thinking than your typical tactical RPG. One you got in far enough, you could really abuse one character to make the game almost too easy.

That aside, I really enjoyed Rondo and would gladly play a sequel. I wish it would be a little more polished though.

[OtakuReborn]

After playing it a bit, I won't say that it's too hard, but what it is, is different. Unique. Requires you to think outside of the box. It seems hard because people who play SRPGs or are used to playing SRPGs have a very strict way of going about strategies. I know I had to get used to it. For Rondo of Swords, by passing through enemies to attack, it throws most of one's strategies out the window. For example, going against a group of melee fighters, conventional SRPG wisdom tell you to hide your weaker characters close behind your stronger ones to protect them from attack. If you've played Rondo of Swords, this is clearly a horrible idea. Conventional SRPG wisdom also tells you to stay one square out of ranges to lure enemy characters out without getting hit. In the case of Rondo of Swords, you want to move into their range to lure them out, preferably at the tip of their range or use a heavily armored unit.

There's enough differences in the game from traditional SRPGs to make you re-evaluate your previous strategies. I think that's why it feels hard. I managed to kill every enemy on the playing field in the first battle (including Gauss) (though it took a few tries) and it was after that when I really understood the new strategies I needed to use to survive. The game itself is not too hard, but it is challenging enough to make you want to play it. There is a clear line that divides difficulty due to challenge and difficulty due to bad design choices. Rondo of Swords falls into the challenging category.

But I do have to say there are a few choices that I would have made differently. Maybe it's just one character, but Selmer is worthless. Mages are already handicapped in that they can't move and cast magic, unlike archers, but Selmer has a horrendous move stat. Cotton at least has a move of 8 to compensate for that, and her magic is powerful and has good range. The other thing is that the OverBreaks are generally not worth it. Serdic's and Ansom's OBs are great. Cotton's is good, but only for herself. The others don't get their OBs often enough to do anything, not to mention Margus and Kay have horrible OBs, both require the sacrifice of HP. I don't know, I don't use OBs much outside of Serdic and Ansom. I'd say healing is usually an issue, since Marie doesn't heal much with her healing, but it adds to the challenge, I think, so you can't overly rely on healing to get you through a battle.

But overall, I like the game. Is it too hard? No. Is it challenging? Damn straight it is.

[James Fiend]

I pretty much agree with Sayckeone. The difficulty wasn't bad but I couldn't get into the plot or characters. Just because they're cute anime sprites doesn't mean the story can't be full of intrigue and betrayal (and in the case of Final Fantasy Tactics, molestation).

[Xfraze]

I found the game to be extremely difficult. Then I went online and read a faq and learned the art of abusing ZOC in the first level. After that, the game just became hard. Making sure you can get some of the earlier people in your party was hell, then the game starts to ease up on the difficulty. That's what I noticed atleast.

[TRDG]

I've only done a couple battles myself, and at firts I thought "what the Hell??" But as you get into it it does tend to get easier.

Cheers, now if I could only find the time to start this game up again!!!!

TRDG

[Paradox_Knight]

I do believe that what I'll be saying isn't anything new, so feel free to skip if you've read everything that came prior.

Hmm... Was it hard? Hard to say. Was it challenging? That depends.

I don't know if someone can understand what I mean, but the game is nearly like any other games. Once you can spot a pattern, something you can abuse, the difficulty can drop pretty quickly.

Of course, you also need a certain amount of chance if you're not using any tips or walkthroughs as well (quite obviously), as many characters can be missed, many of which helps bolster your team quite nicely.

Though as I said, once you've learned the pattern, everything becomes much easier. If you've got a good brain on your shoulder, this game shouldn't be too tough after the first few battles to introduce you to the system. Once you figure out how the game is to be played, and once you find yourself even just one good piece to play with, everything gets much easier.

if you simply focus upon one team, power leveling them up, you might find yourself dominating. Lay yourself thin without your entire group and the challenge rises as well. Fail one too many time and the game becomes easier. Of course, I imagine many of these details were already mentionned.

The challenge only becomes hard when you decide not to fail a single time, when you decide to do every sidequests as well as the main story in one fell swoop (not that there's much other choice), when you opt to dominate the game rather then simply finish it.

Alternatively, taking certain characters, some obvious ones like Ansom and Cotton in your team permanently makes the entire game pretty damn easy. Marie is a good healer too simply because her MP regenerates, and if you've been holding steady with a few good strong characters, her healing is more then enough already.

So, returning to what I originally meant to say. So long as you can see the new patterns forming. How the enemy bites, how you can bite back, the roles you can issue to your various characters, the methods towards a swift victory or an adamant defensive. The difficulty will lessen pending on how good you are at doing this, adapting.

Course, like I said, what I'm saying isn't anything new.

[CyberKlown28]

Rondo of Swords is very challenging.
It will be extremely tough for ....lesser players....skillwise
But I beat it in about 3 days on my new game + file (2nd time through)

[TwilightAurora]

I haven't played Rondo of Swords for quite some time, but it wasn't anything too difficult. It definitely required more thinking than games like Fire Emblem, where you could over level instead. In RoS, weaker characters could easily take out stronger ones with good strategy.

[dragonlife29]

This game's a bit hard for me because I have to get through the missions without having anyone fall on me; If just one gets wounded, I have to restart =P

It would make things easier if I just let it go, but...well...yeah.

[Macstorm]

I'm so sad this game was so overlooked. I just needed a little more polish and a little fine tuning, but was overall really great. Having a reviewer say that it wanted to be Fire Emblem was so wrong on so many levels.

[Balrog]

This game just takes a while to get adjusted to. I think there were a couple battles that I had to play a couple times to complete but the battles are fairly quick. If the hardness lasts more than 4 hours, consult your physician.

[Macstorm]

This game just takes a while to get adjusted to. I think there were a couple battles that I had to play a couple times to complete but the battles are fairly quick. If the hardness lasts more than 4 hours, consult your physician.

Hahaha. Nice one... and true.

[babypuncher]

Rondo certainly was a challenge. Getting all the characters was harder than beating the levels tbh. I would sacrifice so much just to get new characters. and trying EVERYTHING to get them.

[Grungust]

The game itself wasn't super hard... But getting the hang of the system took some time. It made you think a lot harder about situations that would be much easier to handle in a normal SRPG.

I thought it was fun though, and liked the cameos.

[bionicle4life]

Some levels are hard and some are easy, but some are just too lonng.

[Sedric]

The first lv. was kinda hard for me but now i can easily beat it!Fire Emblem was like easy!Even the last level was easy on the gba one.Rondo of swords is an awsome game!A startegy game like no other and they should like make a sequel you know.I like the new battle system it adds to the difficulty and makes it more challenging!I like stuff thats challenging and this is a great thinking game! ^__^