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Who else has played Power Kingdoms?

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:55 pm
by 3DOKid
It is awesome. I'm starting it again, and I find it more enjoyable than Final Fantasy tactics (and I actually enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics) anyway, I'm hoping to compete the whale section.

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:07 pm
by Trev
Played it & beat it. It is one of my fav 3DO games, and has aged pretty well too I think. BTW, be sure to bulk up on supplies once you hit the ark, or else you'll have a heck of a time getting off it.

Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 10:23 pm
by Trev
This thread deserves a bump ... Guardian War/Powers Kingdom is a great game (and 3DO exclusive too!) Every 3DO gamer should have it in their collection.

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 12:08 am
by Anonymous
I have it, but have yet to actually play it. Its not caught my attention yet.. Maybe its the graphical style? Ill give it a go some day, just dont know when.

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 3:11 am
by Austin
This is a game I've been meaning to revisit for a very long time. I enjoyed it back when I had it, but RPGs and I don't get along when it comes to actually finishing them.

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 3:53 am
by Trev
This one is a bit easier to go back to imo, since it isn't really story driven. It does have one very tough spot in particular, which can grind progress to a halt.

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 1:22 pm
by 3DO Experience
I've put it in and messed around with it, but I wouldn't say I spent enough time to say I played it.

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:12 pm
by 3DOKid
I still think this is one of the best games on the 3DO. It is very much a standard bearer for that whole transition from 16bit to 32bit multimedia. It tries, with caveats, to look great. It's a JRPG, so loved in the early 1990s and to the 3DO's credit, it's obviously an experiment. Or a tech demo with bells on.

to be honest, i still love it. :)

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 7:57 pm
by sneth
i think i beat this.

somewhere along the game i must have enabled a cheat or something because my team just got ridiculous. I think it was a debug menu or something that i found by accident.

I enjoyed this game when the 3do was on the market. It would be painful to get through that now.

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:31 am
by Martin III
This was one of the game that made me want to get a 3DO in the first place. It's also one of the games included in the bundle with my first 3DO... two or three years ago now I think? And guess what? I still haven't played it.

I've just been savoring the experience too long, I think. I was tempted to put it in after finishing Night Trap, but then I realized I'm playing too many other RPGs right now... Need to get through them, take a break with a rail shooter or something, and then dig in.

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 7:23 pm
by Martin III
I finally got around to Guardian War yesterday. I'm having quite a blast with it, too. It's not quite the spiritual predecessor to Blazing Heroes (a.k.a.Mystaria a.k.a.Riglord Saga) that I thought it would be, but the variations are interesting. The combination of Tactical RPG with dungeon crawling elements sets it apart from any other RPG I've seen, and the gameplay really works. It's so addicting that I've been tackling two maps in each sitting. Not a very difficult game, but not overly easy, either. The boss fight with the trio of Lesser Demons took me a couple of tries to get a handle on.

The lack of story is kind of a shame, as the visually striking settings and boss fights would have only been strengthened if you were given some reason for visiting them. This doesn't decrease my enjoyment at all, but I can't help but feel the game would have been a much bigger hit if it had a storyline, even a cliched one.

The body system is bizarre. It seems secondary bodies are useless in battle, since they're stuck with the mis-matched stats and equipment of the primary body. Oh well, I'll figure out in due time, I suppose.

By the way, the voice audio seems very poor quality. There's an irritating volume of white noise in the clips, and the voices themselves sound muffled. Do I just have a bad disc, or is this actually what the game is like?

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 7:44 pm
by Trev
Martin III wrote: By the way, the voice audio seems very poor quality. There's an irritating volume of white noise in the clips, and the voices themselves sound muffled. Do I just have a bad disc, or is this actually what the game is like?
My game has the same sound issues.

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 6:38 am
by JohnnyDude
I played through the game to completion about a month ago. I get the feeling I never beat it before, because it goes on for a very long time.

I'm unsure that I enjoyed it all the way through, since I felt like I was exploiting certain abilities over and over. I was also overloaded with items I never used.

By the way, something that's very valuable to know: you can use an item AND take an action (attack,cast a spell) in the same turn.

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 6:59 am
by 3DOKid
I bought this, just the other day.

Image

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 1:46 pm
by Trev
Gotta love those character models. :)

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 2:42 pm
by Martin III
Yeah, it's funny how they still seem so fearsome when you're using them in battle. :o

Is that a Canadian version, 3DOKid? My understanding was that the PAL release was under the Powers Kingdom title, and given the French on the front...

I just finished the first beach battle. Man, I love the variety of settings this game has. Since I didn't have any of my characters in a body that can cross water, though, those last three lesser demons were quite annoying. Inevitably one of them would retreat back to where the battle would end, and I couldn't get close enough to engage him again! Thank heavens for the ability to save anywhere. Still, the selectively passable water does add a nice bit of realism.

Like so many RPGs, this game throws you far more gold than you can spend. I expended barely a tenth of my money pouch on that next shop, and there's at least three more battles to go before the next one! It's always a thrill to have an RPG party outfitted with brand new equipment, though.
JohnnyDude wrote:I played through the game to completion about a month ago. I get the feeling I never beat it before, because it goes on for a very long time.
Really? I've cleared most of the world map and have only clocked in about 8 hours.

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 3:15 pm
by 3DOKid
I don't actually know if it's the Canadian version or the French version.

Maybe the NTSC version....?

The NTSC version works on a PAL Unit. (Guardian War)
The PAL version doesn't work on a NTSC version (Powers Kingdom)

Weird...
Martin III wrote:Yeah, it's funny how they still seem so fearsome when you're using them in battle. :o

Is that a Canadian version, 3DOKid? My understanding was that the PAL release was under the Powers Kingdom title, and given the French on the front...

I just finished the first beach battle. Man, I love the variety of settings this game has. Since I didn't have any of my characters in a body that can cross water, though, those last three lesser demons were quite annoying. Inevitably one of them would retreat back to where the battle would end, and I couldn't get close enough to engage him again! Thank heavens for the ability to save anywhere. Still, the selectively passable water does add a nice bit of realism.

Like so many RPGs, this game throws you far more gold than you can spend. I expended barely a tenth of my money pouch on that next shop, and there's at least three more battles to go before the next one! It's always a thrill to have an RPG party outfitted with brand new equipment, though.
JohnnyDude wrote:I played through the game to completion about a month ago. I get the feeling I never beat it before, because it goes on for a very long time.
Really? I've cleared most of the world map and have only clocked in about 8 hours.

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 3:22 pm
by Trev
It's the Canadian version. I have the same one.

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 4:58 pm
by pitsunami
I think i will give the game a go again
after fifteen years!!

Haha last time i remember playing this
was summer at 1997 or 98!
Damn years are passing too quickly!

Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:51 am
by Martin III
Still having fun with this. The underwater levels are pretty darn cool - and hilarious in a sense, too. I mean, you've got samurai and archers walking around in water, encountering evil magicians and skeletons. Good thing they're golems, or I'd be tempted to ask how they aren't drowning! :lol:

The interior of the whale is quite a spike in challenge. Which is good, but it caught me off guard. All of a sudden I'm having to rely on healing items to make sure I don't lose any party members to the enemy's initial attacks.

The deck of the ark was annoying me; I kept doing the encounters in different order, but whenever I got to the third encounter, one of my guys would get OHKO'd. I guess this level explains why MicroCabin felt the need to let the player save at any point! The evil tigers and their resistance to physical attacks takes me back to playing Blazing Heroes. In fact, I'd say the game in general reminds me more and more of Blazing Heroes.

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 12:10 am
by Martin III
Finished it. It took me off-guard how long the game goes on; they really throw you off by saying "the final battle is nigh" when you're barely halfway through. I wish they'd come up with a more interesting final boss, but I have to admit that the waves of black dragons was pretty scary.

The soundtrack is absolutely crazy, all over the place in terms of tone and genre. Mostly good tunes, though.

Looking over my whole experience, Guardian War met my expectations in pretty much every area, and well exceeded them in terms of the graphics. I mean, jeezus, this game looks scarcely worse than Blazing Heroes. All in all, very gratifying when you take into account that this is one of the four games which prompted me to get a 3DO.

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:30 am
by Trev
Martin III wrote:Finished it. It took me off-guard how long the game goes on; they really throw you off by saying "the final battle is nigh" when you're barely halfway through.
I was kinda thinking the same thing. The game had a pretty good amount of content.

Congrats on beating it!

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:42 am
by JohnnyDude
Trev wrote:
Martin III wrote:Finished it. It took me off-guard how long the game goes on; they really throw you off by saying "the final battle is nigh" when you're barely halfway through.
I was kinda thinking the same thing. The game had a pretty good amount of content.

Congrats on beating it!
Yeah I was both dismayed and happy when the game threw me onto a whole new world map! I'm glad to hear you mention the music, I've really enjoyed it myself. In fact it was this game that got a tune stuck in my head that made me seek out some 3do game music.

I think I hardly spent any money, did you have that problem all the way through?

Glad to hear you beat it!

Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:47 am
by Martin III
JohnnyDude wrote:Yeah I was both dismayed and happy when the game threw me onto a whole new world map! I'm glad to hear you mention the music, I've really enjoyed it myself. In fact it was this game that got a tune stuck in my head that made me seek out some 3do game music.

I think I hardly spent any money, did you have that problem all the way through?
"Both dismayed and happy" is a very good way of putting it! The nice thing is that they throw a great variety of locations at you.

And yeah, like with most RPGs of the time, you start off having to manage your purse, but by the end you have far more than you can spend. Admittedly, the problem is aggravated in Guardian War because they give you most of the items you need in treasure chests, and you have very little access to shops after you finish the first world map. I think I had a couple million in funds left by the end. Fortunately, there are more interesting things to do in the game than managing money! :)