It makes them basically a powered-up version of their class with bonus stats, and locks them into it forever. One interesting thing Symphony of War does that I haven't seen elsewhere in my admittedly limited experience is the ability to cap the progression of a unit with a special item. Cozy character progression for standard units. The fact I can bear the light touches of Current Year without violently rejecting the game entirely (which is my normal wont when dealing with modern media) is quite an accomplishment on the creator's part, and I salute him for it. I say this as a grumpy old Christian conservative bastard who's pretty convinced we're living in the End Times, and for whom the well of popular media has been thoroughly and irrevocably poisoned. It does its job and it doesn't grate too much on my sensibilities. It also takes some zigs where I expected zags. The beats are well done, there's plenty of maturity to the storyline and it doesn't veer into cloying naive childishness. In this area at least, it holds up well in comparison to its inspirations. Not to say it's the next Mask of the Betrayer or anything, but it successfully rocketed me back to my pre-teens, hunched in front of my SNES, playing Ogre Battle for the first time. You might call this "Babby's First Battle for Wesnoth in RPGMaker" (try rolling that one out 5 times in a row :D). Although, again, not nearly as intricate as that old stalwart has turned out to be over the years. In fact, now that I think on it, the game Symphony of War most closely resembles is actually Battle for Wesnoth. It also has something like the cool scenario map system of Fire Emblem and MOTBQ, but again, none of the nooks and crannies of its forebears (no treasure-hunting ala MOTBQ, and very flat random shops/treasure chests ala Fire Emblem). Instead we have very vanilla Tier 1 > Tier 2 > Tier 3 progression, with at most one branching choice at each promotion (and sometimes not even that). It has something like the rich character class progression system of MOTBQ but (as far as I've seen) none of the cool nooks and crannies the elder game had (making Liches and Princesses, dragon shenanigans, interesting/niche/weird classes like the Dollmaster and so on). It's also not nearly as complex in any of its systems as either of its progenitors. But the scenario maps are turn-based, and the battle grid and scenario maps themselves are much closer in look and feel to Fire Emblem, as is the character development system. It has the character sprite and art aesthetics, world map look, general battle flow and inter-chapter "feel" of MOTBQ. I would call it a mash between MOTBQ and Fire Emblem. My impression is that it's mostly been put up as a spiritual successor to Ogre Battle (MOTBQ). I can't remember if anyone correctly categorized this game earlier in the thread. So I feel like I can give some initial impressions. I just finished Chapter 13, I suspect I've hit the climax and am working on the build-up to endgame.
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