LogFAQs > #956420780

#56: Wind of Destruction
Nominator: @Mewtwo59 (0/1 remaining)
Character: Cyril
Source Material: Star Ocean: The Second Sory

Scores:
Aesthetics: 3
Dominance: 5
Damn: 4
Total Score: 12/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmMuXnD1PEo&t=105s

Another contender that has the unfortunate fate of being on antiquated hardware. I'm don't know much about Star Ocean, honestly. It looks like some kind of proto-Tales Of game from my brief glimpse here? If I'm right, having this kind of extensive sequence might break the pace, but I'm not going to ding points from it due to my own ignorance of the mechanics.

You know what this reminds me of? Some of the summon sequences in Golden Sun. I mean this in a good way since Golden Sun was one of my favorite games growing up, and this move reminds me of the rank 4 Earth summon just in terms of presentation.

This is a move that has all the trappings of a good move, but beyond the reality of contemporary graphics of the time, it falls into another trap: It's a wind move. Other classic elemental moves are far easier to sell as big painful hits without needing to do anything fancy: Earth smashes stuff with rocks, fire burns or causes explosions, ice either impales or entraps, even water can flood the arena. In sprite games, the "impact," so to speak, doesn't require much work with the units that get hit. They don't need to move much aside from a general "I got hit hard" reaction.

Wind has more trouble in that the method in which it deals damage is less clear. The methods in which wind damage makes intuitive sense are as follows:

• Picking up or otherwise displacing the enemy and slamming them into something
• Scouring the enemy with the friction caused by high winds
• Pelting the enemy with debris picked up by the windstorm

Cyril here does his best, and the random explosion effects add a bit to it, but these just aren't easy to convey with the level of technology in question.

That said, I think I rated this a bit too low. This probably still could have gotten a 4 in aesthetics for the vortex being present in addition to the tornado. It's a nice touch on what is otherwise a trite attack.

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E come vivo? Vivo!