Opinions on Grand Knights History

So, after putting in more hours in Grand Knights History than I care to publicly disclose, I finally beat the game. Part of what took so long was my absolute refusal to beat the game with anything less than a top tier team. In order to make one, you have to spend a lot of time training your knights. Do it enough times, and you pretty much get a boost when training them. Each one requires a permit to do, though, and you only get them by completing quests. At the very least, you have to go through 70 permits to max out, which takes at least... 6 teams (and 70 quests). For use on the online game, I also had 3 teams lined up in addition to my offline team. All in all, I think I made twelve.

So, I'm just going to say this right now: Grand Knights History is a good game, I liked it a lot. The main draw is customizing a team of four, figuring out what skills to load them up with, and how to make certain strategies work. You can have an evasion-based team, a really hard hitting team, or you can go for Confusion/Paralysis lock down. Finding all these different strategies and tweaking them is pretty much the game, and you can take your strategies online and see how they fare against other players.

Thing is, the offline mode is really only there to build up teams before you send them to online mode (and you can't recall them back to offline mode). There's a world to explore and people to meet... kind of... but the main focus is on getting your characters up to speed so that they can go to war. You'll probably have to make a second or third team to beat the game, which can be a bit of a downer for those who get attached to their team... but usually when this happens, I recreate the same characters with different classes and have another go at it.

It's a really innovative game, honestly, and I don't think anything like it's been done before. Online mode features three countries (you choose which one you serve), and players put their teams into different territories - one for each territory that is being attacked by an enemy country, and one for the territory that your country (by majority vote) decided to invade. Based on how well everyone else does in your country, you may take or lose territories.

Fighting other teams is done by proxy though - you can manually control your team on the field of battle yourself, or you can just tell them to do their thing (AI-controlled, which is the only enemy you'll face online). You can set the AI for each team with some general orders (Healing takes precedence, or Conserve AP) as well as specific actions to take (but only up to the third round). As such, it can be a little difficult to win if you're letting the AI manage your team, but the upswing is that you can do other things while your AI teams are out... like offline mode, or personally taking charge of another online team. Based on how well you do, more things in the online, in-game store will open up.

I had a lot of fun playing the game, and having beat offline mode, I only have offline end-game content, and continuing online mode should I decide to keep playing the game. I might every once in a while, but now that I've formally beat it, I'm moving on to 7th Dragon 2020.

... However, as a versus RPG, or a versus anything, there are somethings that can go wrong, specifically when dealing with game balance. My suggestions are...

Evasion - I think a 40%/20% spread for levels 1 and 2 would be good (but still maybe on the high side). Evasion Lv.1 is borderline game breaking as it stands, Evasion Lv. 2 can be as bad if you base your team around it.

Cat Ears - Definitely game breaking. Speed bonus should cap out at 20 or 25, the pure white cat ears shouldn't guarantee you going first. I think a +10/+15/+20/+25 spread should be good, from worst cat ears to best (as opposed to +15/+30/+45/always go first). These should not be a substitute for dropping Agility. Cat Ears + Evasion = high Agility for an equipment slot and an ability slot, without needing to spend training on it.

Fast Stab - Current version always goes first. I don't like absolutes, so this should be Speed +60 or something (still ridiculous, I know). Someone who maxes Agility should still have a chance at going before Fast Stab if you've completely tanked Agility. Surprisingly enough, I really haven't had much of a problem with Fast Stab, though some people say it's broken.

Instant Death/Dead End - Instant death effects should halve current HP (after damage) in the online game, they can stay instant death offline. This way, you can increase the activation chance of Dead End by a lot (relatively), and maybe Instant Death by a little. Not only that, it can finally be allowed by AI teams if this happens. Maybe.

Poison/Flame - Flame trumps Poison in every way. Maybe Poison should eat one AP when it cures naturally, or Flame only applies its damage when you attack (not defend, but still doing double damage if you've been Trace Dolled).

Confusion/Paralysis - Currently, Confusion is just better than Paralysis. Maybe Paralysis should drain one AP when it stops you from acting? Paralysis is easier to inflict though (based on what skills add it), so maybe it's okay as is.

Phalanx - Formation should also debuff evasion (moderate), and its effects should be a two round debuff that renews whenever you start a round in formation. Currently, the formation maxes your AP at the start of the fight, but applies a large penalty to your Defense... but you can move out of formation in the first round and lose that penalty (while keeping the AP).

Rapid Moon - See Cat Ears above, keep the Speed bonus in check.

Reverse Moon - Maybe this should just ensure that all your characters act at the same time, at the average of your party's speed?

Death March - Poison should be a renewing effect at the start of the round and last as long as normal, even when formation is broken.

Formations - If it's not Phalanx, Rapid Moon, Death March, Knight's Form, or any of the three formations that boost attack power for specific classes, I think it needs a boost.