Sorry, I was not in a very good mood when I made that post. The reason I ask is that it seems to follow a similar line of tedium that many turn-based JRPGs that derive from Dragon Quest do. Namely that
1. A Lack of Renewable resources makes general combat encounters deficient in complexity to be satisfying. (I believe this game tries to remedy this with an overcharge mechanic, but many of the combat encounters I've seen seem solvable by just using the standard attack). As a result, you are limited not in your thinking, but how many potions you have on hand which doesn't really make for satisfying heuristics in my experience.
2. The non-existence of "space" leads to competition between who has the most MP and HP which is not complex enough to be satisfying. SMT, for example, remedies this by making Turns be what the player competes over with the enemies for example (it's not the best example since trade-offs don't really exist for hitting weaknesses in those games though).
3. The stress on efficiency isn't tight enough usually. What I like in games that Zeboyd works on is that they tend to make enemies stronger as the battle goes on which puts more stress on using resources and making trade-offs.
4. The emphasis on DPS limits other components in my experience such as defense.
5. Status effects also often overlap or aren't effective enough which isn't that interesting. For something that gets around this, Pokemon has some issues like the standard Poison status being basically just a worse Burn, but the difference between being paralyzed and being burned or being afflicted with Toxic is hugely drastic because of the impact on stats that is nearly permanent (in multiplayer).
So how does the game get around these issues? I am admittedly interested if you say that it's actually rather difficult.
1. In my experience, each encounter on the overworld is challenging. You can outlevel in an area, but usually the next area you go to will have enemies at your level or higher. I wouldn't say anything I've run in to in a new area can be beat simply with light attacks. The overcharge mechanic encourages you to use normal attacks because it can then power up your special moves (Garrus especially). You could, of course, stock up on potions, just as you can overlevel in any RPG and bypass any strategy with the use of heals/items.
2. I don't think this is true since the roles work really well and anybody dying means your party is going to be far less efficient, no matter who has the most MP/HP.
3. In dungeons, I typically don't have many items, so I have to be efficient, or else I'm constantly running back and forth to Harm's way in order to heal up. Dungeons, for me, are an endurance run. This is, of course, partially self imposed because I have never used items much in RPGs, and also because money is still hard for me to come by and any items that are worth anything for healing are expensive and/or I don't have the items to craft.
4. I actually love defense in this game. I prefer using Gully/Alumon and building shields around my party so that they can survive attacks. I use Monica instead of Garrus (because I like her more), and focus on debuffs so that when I do hit, my attacks do more damage and I can get more critical hits. Defense is very, very strong in this game, in my opinion.
5. Status effects are hit and miss. There are several that make your physical attacks/magic attacks do more. There are debuffs that guarantee certain attacks will give you criticals when the enemy is afflicted with that ailment. There are ailments that stack like Bleed, Ignite, Chill, that, combined with creating shields can wittle enemies down while you buff yourself. And your party can be afflicted with these as well which makes them even more dangerous as they stack and cause you more damage.
Also, I must note, that I never do any dungeon on normal, I always run Hard/Legendary. Several of the sidequests I've run into have been far out of my level (found a hangman type enemy that just one-shots me...also Caldeus, lol). Dungeons are all really fun and, like I said, I have to be careful with how I spend Mana/Items, since I don't want to waste time constantly running back and forth from the main hub back to the dungeon.
