Gailardia series, iOS, free promotion - ID: 1621
FORUM: Gossip - The rusty dagger tavern
This topic was started by chrlpolk on 07/04/2020, 02:48:54
Gailardia series for iOS free for a limited time! Extremely similar (although not quite a clone) to Dragon Warrior titles on NES.
Gailardia 1
<URL url="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gailardia/id430795324">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gailardia/id430795324</URL>
Gailardia 2
<URL url="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gailardia-2/id440993831">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gailardia-2/id440993831</URL>
Gailardia 3
<URL url="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gailardia-3/id518547727">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gailardia-3/id518547727</URL>
Download all three while the promotion lasts, play at your convenience!
Thanks! I've never heard of these, but will try them out!
The first one is kinda "meh", just nostalgia trip for the very early Dragon Warrior series. Three pre-set characters, NPC's with mostly lame "advice" on game mechanics or quirky comments not much related to the plot, occasional side quests but fairly linear due to map layout.
Just started the second one, so far it's a huge improvement! Class system lets you customize your party of 4. When you change classes, you lose EVERYTHING about your class, but keep your experience points and become the appropriate level of your new class. It costs gold to change classes, but it ensures plenty of opportunity to experiment without feeling like you've gimped your party and have to start the game over. So far, similar lame NPC's and still fairly linear although I haven't gotten too far into it.
Just finishing the bonus area of Gailardia 1. Graphics are meh, game mechanics are a bit clunky, and the translations are .... hit or miss. :) But generally pretty good. Looking forward to #2.
Here's my breakdown of the classes in G2.
Core Classes:
Warrior: Strong and slow, able to use just about all weapons and armor.
Samurai: Similar to Warrior, but less Strength and Defense being traded for much higher Agility (which helps dodging and combat turn order). Can't use as many weapons and armor as the Warrior, but can use some Samurai-only equipment. Main benefit over warrior is that the faster turn in combat can take an enemy out before they can attack.
Magic Swordsman: A Paladin, except with significantly less strength and equipment choice than the Warrior. Stats are only slightly higher than the Monk, although better equipment choices do make a difference. Slowly learns from the Monk magic set.
Monk: Cleric. (Don't even try to go unarmed and unarmored!) Learns magic quickly and has slightly higher Agility compared to others.
Wizard: Your mage of the dark arts! Limited weapons and armor, low HP, but highest agaility other than Samurai.
Elite Classes:
(You can only have 1 in the party. Not one of each, but just one!)
Ninja: Combines Warrior and Samurai, and gives another boost! Highest in all stats (except MP, no magic). All weapons and armor, including the Samurai sets. No instant kills, but in my experience tends to have way more "critical hits" (high damage).
Sage: Combines Monk and Wizard. Quickly learns both sets of magic.
My Party:
After several class changes (cost determined by level), I've landed on (for now):
Ninja - I chose ninja over sage just because of my tendency to hit the "all attack" button in order to reserve MP's. Also, in boss fights, Ninja will be the one I use the "high tension" spell on.
Magic Swordsman - Really, Warrior or Samurai class would be just as good, if not better for higher attack and defense. Just chose this one for the additional heal spells. I imagine it will be useful to have 3 casters of the buff spells later on.
Monk - Have to have healing, no way around it.
Wizard - Kind of a gimped class as most bosses are immune to their offensive magic. However! Saved by three things. First, offensive spells makes grinding easier in new areas where your level and equipment is not quite up to the challenge. Second, wizards get good buff spells to use during boss fights. And last, surprisingly, the Wizard does actually get some light healing spells early on!
Seeing the improvement between the first and second games makes me want to rush through this one to see what waits in G3! But alas, it's an old-school Dragon \Warrior style game, which means there will be grinding involved, so no rushing through here!
Makes sense, ninja > sage, esp. since you have the magic swordsman. Re. Wizard, I was surprised how little I used offensive magic in G1. In the boss fights, the magic used was exclusively defensive or healing.
When you say "after class changes," do you mean you settled on those four after experimenting, or that those four started as something else originally and wound to as ninja, monk, wizard, and magic swordsman?
When you say "after class changes," do you mean you settled on those four after experimenting, or that those four started as something else originally and wound to as ninja, monk, wizard, and magic swordsman?
Class changing. All 4 characters have the same base stats (you can see that when you start the game, before choosing classes). Adding the class just alters those stats. So changing classes removes the stat changes from the previous class and adds the new class - nothing is gained or lost, there's no benefit, it just allows you to try another class. It's costly, but not prohibitively. The only remorse I had was the thought that gold could have been spent on weapon and armor upgrades and now I'll have to grind again!
They started as Warrior, Samurai, Monk, Sage. Which worked out pretty well! But I was curious what the Ninja would do, and at that time wasn't using offensive magic, so I changed them to Ninja, Samurai (as my warrior wasn't attacking until near the end of the turn), Magic Swordsman and Monk.
Then I hit a difficulty curve! I was getting wiped out and needed to grind gold for better weapons and armor. I realized the offensive magic would be useful. By this time, the Samurai felt "Ninja-lite" and didn't have any utility other than another, less efficient attacker. So I changed to the current configuration of Ninja, Magic Swordsman, Monk and Wizard.
If I were to restart, I would use either the original party configuration or the final. Personally, I prefer the final, only slightly, because the buff spells only last a few rounds and it's useful to have that responsibility split between 3, while having a hastened - er, "high tension" Ninja doing the heavy hitting.
Thanks chrlpolk. I gave up G1 (*) and started G2 with your config, except I have a warrior rather than a magic swordsman. My thinking was that the warrior would be better at the beginning, and as others got stronger, with better armor, etc., I'd turn him into a magic swordsman. You're definitely right about the benefit of having three casters using buff spells. That seems to be the best strategy in Gailardia. I prefer the combat in Silversword, where offensive magic is (usually) pretty useful. Fighting the demons in G was like fighting shadow stalkers or the grumshakh (sp?) who were magic resistant. Lamia etc. we're not magic resistant, but the offensive spells were just too weak to be worth using.
- — I won the game and found Excalibur and the dagger of light but concluded Quetzalcoatl was not beatable without grinding up an extra 10-20 levels, and it was too boring.
Fighting the demons in G was like fighting shadow stalkers or the grumshakh (sp?) who were magic resistant. Lamia etc. we're not magic resistant, but the offensive spells were just too weak to be worth using.
My biggest issue with offensive spells on bosses in G1 (which occasionally did work), was that I would spend the first 2 rounds buffing, then a round healing, and maybe I'd get in an offensive spell before the first buff spells wore off - but most likely not!
- — I won the game and found Excalibur and the dagger of light but concluded Quetzalcoatl was not beatable without grinding up an extra 10-20 levels, and it was too boring.
After you beat the game, you'll notice that the outside enemy rate becomes erratic. You may get very low level enemies or very high ones! Someone online gave me this tip - go to the forest near the tower south of Colma and cast Amor (to keep away weak enemies). You'll start getting a lot of Silver Bell battles, which will quickly boost your XP.
As for Mr. Q, for all the trouble of beating him you get
Found the bells, went from about level 50 to about 55. Unless my math is faulty, I'd need to get to about 65 before I have enough HP to survive Q. I wasn't willing to do that. 8-)
BTW, I found a monster list for G1 and found that of all the bosses (5 devils, Lamia, and Q) Lamia and Q are worth the least in XP! Weird.
You're right — the most frustrating thing was the buff spells wearing off so fast, and getting separate notifications (text only) for each character as they wear off. An icon would've been better. Basically, casters are only there to protect and heal the warriors in Gailardia.
You're right — the most frustrating thing was the buff spells wearing off so fast, and getting separate notifications (text only) for each character as they wear off. An icon would've been better.
G2 has the same issue with paralysis. I can't tell you how many times I discovered in a battle mashing "all attack" that one of my members isn't striking and I was left to question how long they had been paralyzed for! Or likewise, went to heal and got the message that the caster is paralyzed - had no idea!
I'm throwing in the towel.
I've gotten pretty far into G2, I feel, but the way they've extended gameplay is annoying. Every step pretty much boils down to: You need Object A. In order to get to it, you must find Object B. Once you collect Object B, you get almost to Object A, you learn that you also need Object C to progress, so you have to backtrack.
Every. Single. Step.
It just got tiresome so for that reason, I moved onto G3. The classes are handled a bit differently, with Warrior, Samurai, Magic Swordsman, Monk and Wizard available to your 4 characters from the start. Eventually, Ninja, Sage, Fencer (an upgraded Samurai so far as I can tell, although that feels backwards when thinking of field battles...) and Holy Knight (a true Paladin!) are opened up without the limits of the first game. I started playing it a little bit but it just felt the same... I'm interested in giving it a chance, but for now, I need to cleanse the palate with something different!
Silversword does a bit of that "now you need A, but to get it, go to B, but to go there, you need C" as well, but it felt so much less contrived. Partly because the game is better designed, partly because the story is better fleshed out.
I also find the lack of a decent map frustrating. (A journal would help, too!) If memory serves, we started in Howard Castle for some reason, but I'm not 100% sure, and I'm also not completely sure how to get back there. Travelers Wings are handy but a cheap cheat to avoid implementing a map. I shouldn't need to keep paper and pencil handy to play a mobile game I might be playing in the train or whatever.
If you're a sports fan, Out of the Park's MLBM (Major LeagueBaseball Manager) is quite good. It's a management game, so you are making the personnel and strategy decisions rather then pretending to be the player and pretending to swing the bat with your finger. And if you like jigsaw puzzles, Zimad's Magic Puzzles is my favorite.
In Silversword, it just doesn't feel like Mario is zigzagging us across the entire world map over and over again as a cheap way to extending gameplay time. Gailardia series has a spell to quickly warp between towns, but it's still tedious when there is plainly no other purpose than an egg hunt.
I think the 3rd or 4th town you come across gives you the same kind of world map you get in the first game - you have to take care of a problem in a cave for it, which isn't bad. But after that, you will put that world map to use zig-zagging back and forth! And like you said, I wish there was a quest log to recall where that one person was who COULD HAVE done something the first time you talked to them, but no, you had to run into an issue first, AND THEN they will do it.
no, Silversword wasn't THAT bad, repeatedly!!!! Heck, G1 wasn't that bad, and exploration such as finding a new town felt meaningful because you were moving on from where you started.
And I don't feel like I'm being too critical, after all, I didn't even make a fuss out of the bizarre translation choices.
I do fully intend on giving G3 another go after I have the chance to get through some others. I've had "Stranger of Sword City" on Steam for awhile and haven't had the chance to really sit down with it, and I'm still slowly working my magic-lite party through Silversword!
I've actually considered the baseball manager one, I had read some good reviews on it! I'm not really into jigsaw puzzles, but oddly enough, I've played several escape-room scenarios which involved jigsaw puzzles and found those quite enjoyable! In small doses, I suppose, but thank you for the recommendations!
If you're a sports fan, Out of the Park's MLBM (Major LeagueBaseball Manager) is quite good. It's a management game, so you are making the personnel and strategy decisions rather then pretending to be the player and pretending to swing the bat with your finger.
There are several versions, looks to be up to 21 now. Which one are you playing? Also, it looks like the company makes a similar one for hockey!
Wow, I'm behind! I'm only on 18. But in my experience, having played v. 11, 12, 13, and 16, most of the upgrades don't change or fix very much. E.g. I complained on their forum years ago that you could make trades DURING THE WORLD SERIES and the acquired player would show up on your playoff roster. I did this once when my best player was injured during game one and I couldn't put him on the DL or bring up a player from the minors due to the rule against making roster moves during a series. BUT, I was able to make a trade! They have put out about four new versions since then and the bug is still there. But they have added a plater editor and fixed some bugs, e.g. One that allowed you to sometimes acquire a team's best prospect in exchange for a low level career minor leaguer.
I haven't tried the hockey game. My iPad is pretty old and there are some newer games I can't download.
