Since I’m a sucker for SRPGs, I picked up Spectral Force 3 today. It’s kind of a mixed bag, though. The story may as well have been ripped straight out of Generic Fantasy Anime #83, right down to the cutscenes, mediocre voice acting, dialogue full of overwrought melodrama, etc.
It looks like there might be some decent depth to the combat system, though. Nowhere near, say, Disgaea’s crazy array of options, but there’s an emphasis on setting things up for combo attacks in different ways: assists, where you can get a nearby teammate to join in mid-attack; teamwork attacks, which seems to give another teammate an extra turn for the round; and battle formations, where the entire team attacks. The different levels of attacks (light, medium, heavy) can have different effects tied to them, so for example the medium attack might do elemental damage and the heavy attack might knock the enemy back two squares.
There’s a bit of a strategic part to it in that there are multiple kingdoms fighting each other over territories on a world map, and you have a friendship rating with each one and can help them attack other kingdoms or just hunt monsters in their lands. I’m not sure if there’s any real effect or long-term aspect to it other than just determining which areas of the map you can hunt in, though. You can even work for the ‘bad guys’ if you want, but again I’m not sure if there’s any real consequence to it.
The most annoying things so far are that exp is awarded mainly for kills, so you wind up with certain characters that leap ahead of the others (some exp is awarded for healing and buffing, and there’s a bonus exp pool to spend freely, but not nearly as much), and the healer you start out with is a bit tricky to use. Get him close enough to the others to cast, and he often winds up getting swarmed, and he has to stay alive for the combo attacks to work.
It’d probably satisfy you if you’re just itching for an SRPG, but it’s kind of pricey at the full $60. It just doesn’t feel polished enough to sit at that price point unless you’re a fanatic.
