Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

I regret having to write this review as a negative. I really love FFT and most games done in its likeness. This game has a lot of the good qualities we look for in strategy rpg titles. The big drawback though is that every class has a way to heal, some classes can both heal and buff. Like FFT you can have a subclass. 99% of the fights are 6v6. Putting all that together means 90% of the fights you are facing an AI that (Even on Easy) will choose the option to heal EVERY TIME. All 6 enemies will be able to heal, they will have shields, buffs, etc. Not just 1 healer and 1 subhealer... 6 supports with maybe 2 subclasses chosen to hurt you. Its not that it is HARD to focus 1 at a time, or that you cant subvert their healing. But it is a SLOG and gets boring to constantly need to weaken/taunt everything or else everything full heals. Honestly its my only complaint but its so annoying to deal with lol I thought it was just me but I've found other complaints about this mechanic with the Devs actively defending the decision to make every enemy a healer. If you can get passed the annoying healing it is a solid game.

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is a Western take on the Final Fantasy Tactics genre of games. I think at face value, you can definitely tell that this game flaunts that western element from the shopkeepers being represented as drawings of the devs or high tier patreon’s of the project. Either way, I have mixed feelings about this game and what it represents as a title for people who like tactics games and who enjoy these types of games. However, If I were to sum the entire game up with one word, I would consider it “tedious”. The base systems of the game provide a plethora of gameplay choices, classes and new unlocks that come with story characters and the myriad of party members you’re bound to create throughout the campaign to fill in those gaps. Progression in this game can feel like an uphill battle making you repeat certain battles to get the classes you want and to achieve enough xp points to level up specific class abilities. I would imagine if you tried to optimize classes and progression to receive the right amount of xp for each class, you’d spend two or even a threefold amount of time when it comes to grinding this game. I do think that the health system and death system in this game at its base level difficulty can feel definitely too punishing at times provoking a sense of disappointment when it comes to that progression. What I mean is when characters die in battle, they get an overall negative debuff stat of injuries based on how many times x character has died in an instance. This also means that if the AI is deciding to punish you for using your phoenix ashes or resurrection spells by killing your fresh res teammate, they will accrue 2 stacks of injury at the end of the fight. One should also note that injury stacks are only removed per battle instance a character has not participated in a fight. I think it's easy enough to intuit that these multiple stacks incentivize players to have a full size party of around 20 units in which they’ll be rotating through fights to gain and share xp. More often than not, I’d imagine many players are progressing the story only to be in a position where they’re forced to either reload a save or be taking fights where enemies are 3-4 levels above your current party threshold, and it can be quite frustrating when human units have access to a lot more abilities and class mixes than you. I think that overall from a balance perspective, classes like the Demon Knight getting additional actions per kill, Druids getting double casting makes you feel as though that the action economy in this game is designed where you have no choice but to play in a way where your objective is to buff up your squad to alpha strike opponents or spend a majority of fight debuffing opponents to prevent action economy from ruining your fight. I think at the end of the day, this game is presented towards a niche audience who I imagine is a demographic where they haven’t bought an expensive pc to play XCOM, or don’t have a handheld console to play Fire Emblem, but still want something to scratch that itch. While this is also somewhat of an older title, I still think that it’s good for what the game is trying to be albeit just not a game that’s right for me.

Starts out really, really good, but has some baffling design choices that make middle and endgame an abysmal slog. Basic gameplay consists of clearing maps in turn-based combat, and the minute to minute tactical depth is pretty impressive. Some of the class advancement tracks are bizarre, though. Ranged physical track is Scoundrel (basic thief) into Ranger, into - well, Gunner, except that in order to qualify for Gunner, one also needs several levels in melee classes like Mercenary and Knight. Since characters can't wield ranged weapons while being main specced in melee classes (why?? Did they suddenly forget how to shoot a crossbow?), the ranged damage dealing backbone of the group is suddenly a complete drag on the group. After advancement into the next ranged class, they suddenly remember again how to shoot stuff. Similar issues plague the advancement tracks for casters. In addition, one of the final caster classes, Sorcerer, takes the piss out of the game - they have tons of spells that damage everybody on the map. It's as powerful as it sounds, and it is also as boring - the I-win button jokes basically write themselves. The game has some really good bones; even the negative reviews are from people who have played 50-150 hours of this game. It just falls apart at the later stages.

Advertises a commercial product by creating a folder in your home directly and loses savegames if you remove it. Devs claim this isn't an ad, it's just an accident that's been reported to them repeatedly for years that they refuse to fix it.

The controls feel like a chore.

Really enjoyable tactical RPG once you get passed the art style. The class system is surprisingly complex and interesting to plan around, the fights are decently challenging (on "normal"), and the story is engaging enough (though, it starts stronger than it ends). Overall, I struggle to find complaints with this one. However, there was one thing I found frustrating: the injury system. If a character falls in combat they get reduced stats until they sit out a combat encounter. This was frustrating for me just from a time perspective - it incentivizes you to go back and play an easy random battle. You can have plenty of back up characters on your bench, but it is quite easy for these characters to fall behind in level to where you always feel penalized in an annoying way with the injury system. It doesn't help that it seems quite easy for the enemy to down one of your characters (maybe I'm just bad at the game). They are good at focusing, often doing very high damage in quick succession, and are annoyingly good about finding OHKO opportunities with environment effects (drowning, lava, etc.). If you revive the character and they go down again, they get an additional injury. For example, if they went down three times in one combat they'd need to sit out 3 combats to heal all of their injuries. [b]HOWEVER[/b], the injury is not really an issue because you can very easily tone down the injury system (just an experience malus) or turn it off entirely. Once I toned down the injury system, I started having a lot more fun.

这是我第一次玩到你越练你就越弱的游戏。 一开始我看到好几个很容易拿到的成就完成率只有1%的时候我就该跑的，但我实在太喜欢战旗了，而且当时没踩坑就继续玩，然后不小心吃了一嘴的翔。 说几个这游戏搞笑的点： 1.职业很多，但你通常只能上6个人，于是你唯一的选择就是挑6个人猛练，全职业都精通获取精通后的属性加成，就跟手游一样刷关卡，然后搞笑的来了，这游戏职业解锁需要剧情推进，需要其他职业精通等级，而每个职业升级时提升的属性又不一样，所以你一开始练的几个人反而是最弱的，因为他们被大量的垃圾职业成长占用了升级属性，所以你必然的选择就是：全职业精通后，再重置等级，从头来一次。我又要但是了，怪物的强度是根据女主等级定的，你重置了女主，他们不重置，所以，你要用其他人带一开始定好的6个人升级。 2.敌人永远比玩家强，制作组想抄袭FFT的玩法，但是别人FFT你遇到的遭遇战敌人强度永远给了玩家很高的容错，所以玩家即便是不停换职业拿技能精通，依然有不错的游戏体验，这游戏不一样，特么的敌人配置精良，正常打都跟你55开，你换了职业来练，相当于人均让对面一个主职业跟他打。而且最牛B的是有水环境的关卡，玩家的角色如果不装备那个可以游泳的鞋子，落水就秒杀了，但是角色最多穿戴6个装备，用宝贵的格子换一个平时用不上的游泳功能，想出这个设计的真是纯畜生，所以玩家越练，就越要弱势打强势，你说我不练行不行，嘿，还是不行，因为后解锁的职业成长高，你就是得练。这套玩法最搞笑的循环：我为了加强战斗力需要练职业精通，所以不停打怪，打怪就会给经验，于是我遇到的敌人越来越强，敌人越来越强我更需要打精通，于是主角等级越来越高，精通的成长明显跟不上敌人变强的速度，于是在19级的时候，我的队伍在有水的关卡被吊起来打，对面怪人均游泳，把你撞下水就算了，我走位可以规避，最骚的是可以交换位置把你换下水淹死，相当于你必须全员带会游泳的装备，要不然就是每回合无损杀你，我DNMD。 3.特么一个单机游戏，派遣系统居然是按照实时时间来算的，一个任务半小时起步。你想抄FFT的派遣，但是别人几分钟就搞定了，通常一场战斗的时间就完成了，你这一场战斗十几分钟，得打2场，然后吧，奖励也扣扣搜搜，去做任务的人员提升追不上打怪的，于是他本想鼓励你多练人，你反而更不想练人。 4.强力职业都不在主角团之中，这游戏IMBA的公主、狼人、吸血鬼等等还有几个特殊职业，都是主角团不能转的，于是制作组给主角团塞了几个特殊职业，结果这些特殊职业都是路边一条，也就是说，最高战力不是主角团，而是玩家自己练的招募NPC，这波属实搞笑。 简而言之，这游戏就是抄了一个超好玩的战斗玩法，但是战斗玩法之外全都是一坨，烂完了。

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mask is a tactical RPG that takes a lot of inspiration from final fantasy tactics. The game has a lot of classes and a lot of variation to choose and unlock from. Honestly, I didn't think the story was all that great, but I enjoyed the gameplay. A lot of levels needed strategy to beat, and you can't just steamroll through the game for the most part. For example, there is a fight where an enemy uses an ability to teleport your characters onto water, and they will instantly die if you don't equip correctly. At times the game does feel a bit slow, especially grinding some non-boss fights... but I didn't mind the pacing for the most part. Overall, if you enjoy FF Tactics, you'll probably like this game. I would recommend picking the game up on a sale, as it goes on large sales quite often (it is <$10 quite often).