Rondo of Swords puts your entire team to work
by Eric Caoili 
{ Feb 12th 2008 at 8:00PM }
Another Rondo of Swords preview has hit the scene, and it's given us another reason to look forward to the SRPG and its unorthodox combat system. Playing through these 40+ hour epics, you tend to accumulate more teammates than you can effectively manage. Who has the time or patience to level up all the Sword Dudes that join your band, especially when you're still trying to train Archer Girl? More often than not, those Sword Dudes spend the game just hanging around, making cynical remarks about your primary fighters.
Rondo of Swords has a creative solution to that dilemma -- send those ne'er-do-wells to run some errands. Instead of loafing around and eating Funyuns while your elite crew does all the work, your Sword Dudes can pick up essentials at local shops, level up at training workshops, and
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cheese Muffin @ Feb 12th 2008 8:38PM
*foams rabidly at the mouth*
That's brilliant.
Candace Savino @ Feb 12th 2008 9:13PM
The game sounds really cool, although I wonder if letting your secondary (or never-usem-dary ) characters level up might make the game too easy. Also, a good way to add replayability to a game (like, for example ... oh, I don't know ... maybe Fire Emblem? :P) is being forced to choose a certain team on the first playthrough, and then choosing some previously neglected people on the next go around.
The whole thing also kind of reminds me of the whole Fire Emblem "arena abuse" thing that they did away with in the past few games, although there was a lot of risk involved with using that strategy. Or, the better comparison is probably the Tower of Valni in FE8.
I like the errand system, though. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out, and the game looks fun regardless.
At any rate, I've put way too much thought into this. Way to go Sword Dudes, indeed.
jorojoserojas @ Feb 12th 2008 9:52PM
GENIUS!
Feigr @ Feb 12th 2008 10:46PM
Why can't the Japanese make more RPGs where you only control one character and it's all turn based. I always prefer single character RPGs to party RPGs (Dragon Quest being the exception).
A game like the first Dragon Quest but updated to fit the DS would be awesome. They are always trying to make it more and more complicated. I want utter simplicity. Just let me grind XP and kill monsters and get items and weapons. Not all this party management and uninteresting story that just detracts from the fundamentals of an RPG.
Tyler @ Feb 12th 2008 11:12PM
They did that in Final Fantasy Tactics. Nothing new.
Game does look neat, though.
hvnlysoldr @ Feb 16th 2008 11:39AM
Difference being it seems like you can do that with ALL non-active party members at the same time.
potato @ Feb 17th 2008 11:03PM
"tag your mp3s"
i lol'ed
Syrione @ Apr 17th 2008 5:42AM
Brigandine for the PS1 had a similar system to this. Where all non-active members can go on quest for items, characters, monsters and even see certain events unfold. This was very innovative feature then. Not only that it had territorial boundaries that made each character useful like in RoTK so it indeed is nothing new.
But it's new for the DS at least