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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2734 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 20, 2025

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This is straining my memory some, but I recall the gambit system in the original game being much more finely tuned than Zodiac Age. It only gave you the option of automating poisona for instance, after you'd spent a dungeon manually curing poison in combat. In Zodiac Age you can purchase all the gambits right from the jump, letting you automate everything immediately. I recall the original had this effect of, as soon as a task got tedious, the option was available to automate it. In Zodiac Age the game feels like it's playing itself more.

I did find I was constantly tweaking my gambits, most on account of status effects. Another difference I remember was that with the OG license board, I could give all my characters some low level spells, like Protect or Shell, so the whole party would work together to keep those protection spells up. In Zodiac Age, you tell your single white mage in the part to keep everyone protected, it's virtually all they do it takes so long to cast 3 times in a row, and then it's nearly worn off! Meanwhile they aren't healing or curing status effects.

I donno, I think some of the quality of life features in Zodiac Age actually made the game worse in ways that are counter intuitive.

I did find I was constantly tweaking my gambits, most on account of status effects. Another difference I remember was that with the OG license board, I could give all my characters some low level spells, like Protect or Shell, so the whole party would work together to keep those protection spells up. In Zodiac Age, you tell your single white mage in the part to keep everyone protected, it's virtually all they do it takes so long to cast 3 times in a row, and then it's nearly worn off! Meanwhile they aren't healing or curing status effects.

This was what really put me off the game back when I played the original. IIRC, I had every character basically playing as a red mage, never bothered with skills, and just unlocked the strongest weapons available whenever I found new ones.

Yeah, the original there were a handful of unlock events for most of the status and health level gambits. They could have used a bit more granularity and evenness (why is ally: lowest hp or foe: lowest hp a mid-game thing?), but it did help a bit. And the ones you could get from chests in the original also avoided the whole 'giant list of shit to buy' problem Zodiac Age had.

In exchange, Zodiac Age hide a lot of spells that were previously buyable by putting them in chests. Which, imo, feels a lot worse. Though at least it did fix the damage limit that made a lot of those higher-end spells useless.

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