Not too shabby, pretty straight-forward gameplay but it’s a dungeon crawler after all and I certainly don’t mind that or I wouldn’t be drawn to the game in the first place
I really like the way skills work, but unfortunately - straight hand-to-hand combat is kinda dull
And I can't imagine how ranged would be any better. The problem here is that there's hardly any challenge in the game - you should have
no trouble beating up monsters as long as you don't get yourself surrounded, and I don't see how that could ever happen unless the map is just
cluttered with enemies. But luring them away from each other is pretty easy anyway, 'cause the monsters don't really agro a lot unless you're really close to them.
So I guess I should blame the AI. I think the game would benefit a lot from having both you and the enemies to be able to block attacks. As it stands now you just mash the A-button for a three-hit-combo and as long as the monster keeps
getting hit - it can't attack you back and since your character pretty much never pauses in-between attacks, you just have to keep pressing A repeatedly and the monster you're attacking won't be able to do a thing.
In fact, because pressing Attack not only makes you thrust forward but also pushes the monster backwards whenever you land a hit - this means that the monster will eventually become cornered or held up against something - be it a rock, mountain wall or just the edge of the screen - and that just makes things
even easier for you 'cause you don't take
any damage from just
touching a monster, so when you have one cornered - you could just stand on top of it and keep pressing A until it dies...
So yeah while the game looks pretty good, has a nice interface, an interesting way of dealing with skills (you steal them from your enemies, btw), and is probably even more enjoyable in multiplayer - the lack of difficulty with poor AI and button-mashing-tactics makes it really repetitive and that's a real shame
I honestly enjoyed Shining Force on GBA a lot more...
I do hope that the game sells well enough for Sonic Powered to feel spurred to release an improved sequel where there's blocking and more aggressive enemies.
