Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

Can't believe I forgot to throw a review here, solid game, decent memories of when I played it, it's a classic or rather it is a representation of the genre we can now call classic. If you were even interested in finding the charm of what games were many moons ago but in a more current day wrapper then this is it.

THE BIGGEST REASON I REFUNDED IS YOU CANT ROTATE CAMERA, WTF!!

Reason #2:
Also, be sure to read all the tags. Story is very important for these types of games- see Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem. I just don't have it in me to play with a Female MC. Some of the responses have been if she does everything a boy does- what the problem?

Well A: Why make her a girl? If character identity doesn't matter, how deep is the story can the story or side stories be??

B: Why not let the player choose, if it doesn't matter?

Finally C: I don't want to play as a girl.

Reason #3: I think the story starts a bit rough, and while i hear good things about the classes, but the actual customization is lacking. Other reviews will tell you the specifics, but this game was built wide, not deep.

Reason #4: Not worth $30. The standard is set pretty high in this genre. Based off of 20 mins, an original romhack of FFT would blow this out the water- and thats free. In comparison, even if it's not fair- Palworld for PS5 is $30. Metal Gear Solid Collection is $20.

All these reasons are why I don't recommend.

-- Good Stuff --

> Great pixel art for pretty much everything. Especially nice higher-tier spell VFX.
> Pretty unique story with a variety of good characters and some decent twists.
> Really well balanced fights that keep up with your team strength, whether you like to grind a little extra or not.
> A ton of character classes, combinations and team builds, but...

-- Bad Stuff --

> ...the best of almost every character build came down to Dual Wield + 1 or 2 moves.
> The game really needs more music tracks. Felt like I was listening to the same 1-2 tracks for the entire playthrough.
> Some character portraits and the load screen look rushed or much worse than the rest of the game.
> Classic tactics game problem, but there were soooo many missed 95%+ hit chances. On enemies and teammates.
> The lack of a line-of-sight check is weird and kind of dumb. Not many maps that this makes a difference on though.

This is an extremely competent Final Fantasy Tactics-like. If you are interested in unlocking a tree of classes and combining their abilities together, you are in for a good time.

The story is a little twee and suggests a depth of intrigue that it doesn't really pay off on, but I liked the main cast of characters enough to care what happened to them, so that's a plus.

The tuning here is not perfect. I'm generally of a mind that it is okay for some abilities or ability sets to be objectively better than others, but you do tend to have a melee build and a martial build that all your characters converge on. One nice thing though is that your characters are frequently on different paths towards that build (or overshoot), so to not waste AP you end up with a reasonably varied team.

I played through the game on Veteran and found that I was never significantly challenged, but occasionally had some pleasant pressure put on me through the main story and the tournament.

Before you play, make sure to keep at least one male and one female non-story character around and trained to keep pace with the level of your main team. You'll want them for some unlockable classes later.

I'm a huge fan of turn-based tactics games and I found Fell Seal to be one of the best I've ever played. Loved its huge job system, tons of options for increasing or decreasing the challenge of battles, and the overall look of the game. The story is somewhat generic, but there are some terrific battles along the way. Really enjoyed the large scale battles...I wish there were more of those or that they were part of the main story.

Finished the game, 100%. Enjoyed the game. The accuracy and dodge need some improvement or clarity. Everything else is great. I recommend this game if you are looking for something similar like Disgaea.

Please help, my family hasn't seem me in days... I can't put it down, just a few more ap points to master...

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.

The art was what turned me off from ever getting into this game.

A very solid opportunity to satisfy the hunger for a strong FFT like

It does scratch the Final Fantasy Tactics itch. Has a cozy art-style with a modern approach.
If you are a big fan of tactical RPGs, this is a no brainer.

Was fun enough for me to 100% it. That means it's good. Although rng can induce rage from time to time when you miss several 90+% hits in a row on a guy that proceeds to murder one of your own next. Comes with the genre I guess.

On the surface, Fell Seal looks a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics. Unfortunately it lacks an enormous amount of strategic depth and complexity that made FFT so good. There are loads of little issues that drag down the experience. With that said, Fell Seal isn't a bad game, it just couldn't meet my sky-high expectations. I am disappointed, but I recognize my disappointment comes from expecting too much - therefore I don't have the heart to leave a bad review. I enjoyed it enough to get all the achievements.

The art and music are strong points, as is the class system. The story and characters are good enough but nothing special. Figuring out a good build for my team was most enjoyable to me.

Heals and ranged attacks are too abundant - nearly every class has a heal, a ranged attack, or both. Far too many attacks deal percent damage based on current or max HP.

Infuriatingly, there are some hidden mechanics altering the numbers in the enemy's favor. I was doing a random patrol battle for EXP when I noticed the enemy was taking a lot less damage than they should. With near-identical stats, my unit takes more damage than an enemy.

Compare this:
Difficulty settings all set to "Default"
My attacker: LVL 38, 315 mind, Thunderbolt spell
My other unit: LVL 38, 229 resist, 0 lightning resist, takes 97 damage from the front (less damage from frontal attacks)
Enemy unit: LVL 33, 236 resist, -50 lightning resist, takes 70 damage from the back (should do bonus damage from the back AND for the lightning vulnerability!!!)

Surely 7 points of resist stat can't account for this difference.

Dice rolls are lopsided in the enemy's favor. One battle had me facing 100% identical duplicates of my characters. They had 10 for 10 successful Blind/Sleep powder attacks, but I only had 2 of 10 successful.

This game is the closest to the original Final Fantasy Tactics as any I have played (and I have played a lot of these). It has customisable difficulties and you can make the enemy level scale with yours (so that you cannot out level them). This was great for me as I usually like to play these games with only one character (otherwise I find them too easy) however, with scalable enemies, I found the entire game enjoyable.

I will say that, when playing on the harder difficulties, the early game is challenging; however you can manipulate the enemy levels by deleveling some/all of your characters at the "guild". I only had to do this once to allow all my characters to learn the classes that i deemed "the best"

It was a great game, I would like a sequel (and I am purchasing it as a gift this Christmas!)

delivers

Very good game. It is like Final Fantasy Tactics but with a more modern approach. Filled with more functionalities and a very cozy art-style.

Can't wrong with this one if you are a big fan of tactical RPGs.

I recommend this game. It's a fine entry in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics, or Tactics Ogre. It offers lots of class choice...maybe too much, and decent equipment selection. The story is very standard, but the gameplay makes up for it.

Great tactical game.

Decent game that does a decent job of capturing that Tactics type gameplay. However it has major issues preventing it from ever coming into it's own.

Biggest downsides:
1) Missions are real time based side quests you send units on. What this ultimately means is either you go AFK and watch Youtube, or just do what you'll end up doing, bouncing your system clock back and forth 1 hour. You can basically skip all other forms of leveling for non story characters as this is THE most effectively way to level.

2) Because stat progression for some classes is just far better than others, you WANT to level as specific jobs (much like FFT) However in FFT you needed to level your generic units through all the jobs to get there. In this game you can just hire any class you have unlocked at the level of your highest unit. So every unit you get early.. is just fodder to unlock jobs. You'll just buy better guys from a recruiter. This causes two major problems. One it destroys any sense of attachment to your roster. And two it makes the story characters terrible in comparison.

3) The narrative is so boring, that I frankly stopped reading it a few hours in, and don't recall a blasted thing about it. Blah blah blah you're a special girl boss for reasons. Yeah, no idea.

So what the gameplay ends up looking like is skipping through dialogue cause it's awful, fiddling with your system clock to power level 3 units into unlocking jobs. Then buying super units off a recruiter with base stats FAR higher than you could get naturally.

It's a broken system, even compared to FFT.

I just finished this game and I really enjoyed it. It is a tactical rpg like others in the genre such as Tactics Ogre. You recruit a large group that you manage while only bringing 4-9 characters into a battle. What makes this game fun is the sheer variety. It has dozens of classes and a large variety of different types of encounters. The developers added tons of optional content that I have not completely explored after putting nearly 80 hours into the game. I had a great time with this game and I hope this developer is able to make more games in the future.

Very reminiscent of old-school Final Fantasy Tactics... so if you love that kind of game as I do, it's definitely worth it.

great art and an overall fun to play classic turnbased rpg with class changes, item requirements for chests and the always dull story. the guild aspect, and the limit of how many units I can deploy doesn't make much sense and just makes you hoard characters you won't ever use for guild quests only. Overall 4/10, no replayability and class level limit for class changes suck.