Bounty Sword Double Edge (バウンティソード・ダブルエッジ), launched 7/30/1998, developed by Headquarters, revealed by Pioneer LDC
That is the sequel to Bounty Sword, a real-time Tremendous Famicom recreation I lined earlier. It was re-released on the Ps in 1997 as “Bounty Sword First,” with some adjustments that made it considerably tougher (permadeath being probably the most notable addition). It additionally was now labeled as a part of the “Bounty Sword Trilogy.” The second recreation, Double Edge, got here out in 1998, however there was by no means a 3rd recreation — I’m unsure if this was due to poor gross sales of the second recreation or another purpose. I didn’t end the sport, largely as a result of I simply don’t like these form of actual time technique video games — it nonetheless has all the issues of the primary Bounty Sword however one way or the other I discovered it much more annoying to play.
The sport is known as “double edge” as a result of you may select between two major characters. Each of them have the identical aim — to seek out the 12 rings hidden on this island that has turn into a battleground for various nations in search of treasures. The male character is Kain, a younger (although already burnt out) knight, who’s the son of a Darkish Knight that makes use of sword methods that many really feel are out of date. The girl is Sara, though I don’t know a lot about her as a result of I didn’t play her route (the instruction guide says she is the widow of a Holy Knight persevering with her husband’s work).
The large distinction between them is that when you select Sara, you get a recreation over when you go over the time restrict in a mission, whereas for Kain, you simply don’t get any bonus cash (as within the first recreation).
The sport is comparatively open; you journey across the island with every motion taking at some point. The character you don’t select turns into a rival, who strikes round themselves, and might discover the rings and a few recruitable characters earlier than you do. You may get again the rings when you encounter them and battle. Though I’m not sure, I don’t imagine that you may lose the whole recreation by taking too many days. From what I can collect, a big plot occasion occurs that divides the sport into two halves; I imagine the plot occasion occurs on the similar day regardless, however which may not be the case.
A few of the circles have battles, some nothing, and a few plot occasions. On most of the dots you may select “search” to battle a free battle, that doesn’t take a day — I believe that in case you are going for a “discover all rings and companions earlier than your rival” path (which requires figuring out your rival’s actions from a walkthrough or earlier expertise), you would wish to do a number of levelling to make that occur.
When you begin getting the rings, you should utilize the rings to warp to numerous locations on the island which reduces the variety of days it’s essential spend travelling.
The battle system is basically the identical as within the first recreation. You set obscure AI choices for the characters after which watch them go battle. As I mentioned within the introduction, I’m not a fan of those techniques since you simply sit and watch a number of the time, and I all the time really feel like success is predicated extra on preventing towards the system and overcoming its issues than it’s on precise technique. Additionally, the pathfinding is simply as unhealthy because it was within the first recreation, that means that you need to always enter particular paths simply to make it possible for your characters could make it throughout a bridge or get round obstacles.
Every character has particular strikes; one change on this recreation is that you just begin every battle with 0 SP and it slowly goes up because the battle proceeds.
One other addition from the primary recreation are the “void” items, the little robots you see within the earlier screenshot. You assign a void to every character, and though you can provide them their very own instructions they have a tendency to remain across the “grasp”. You may customise them within the outlets or construct new ones, and the elements you may assign will weight them extra in direction of distance assaults, shut assaults, magic, and many others.
Ultimately, as I mentioned earlier, I simply don’t discover these video games notably enjoyable. I used to be capable of beat Bounty Sword regardless of my dislike of the system, however I wasn’t having fun with this one very a lot. If the battle system doesn’t hassle you there are in all probability issues to love about it — the story appears doubtlessly fascinating and the “rival” system isn’t unhealthy. However given the variety of video games I nonetheless should play I’d slightly transfer on to one thing else.
