Dark Law: Meaning of Death (1997)

Beat the game though I got the bad ending due to missing 2 scenarios. The available material on the game claims that it is extremely difficult, especially early on and at the final boss. I did not find it all that difficult.

I started off by making all 4 characters. The 1st guy was the main and I gave him balanced stats with plans on being the tank. Blonde girl I pumped her int with plans to make her a spell caster, other guy I pumped his skill with plans to make him the thief, and the other girl I gave balanced stats with plans to make her more of a dps warrior, but since party size is only 3 I never used her. I did a fight in the sealed cave just to get a feel for the combat and what I should buy. The party collectively armed with only 1 knife barely scraped by. I bough 2 short bows and had the tank use the silver knife. The jobs were: guard, consul and thief. The basic enemies are too dumb to move when you shoot them, so combat was easy. Later enemies were more mobile and I barely scraped by. Got a couple levels then started doing scenarios.

Combat in the scenarios was easy but the adventure game style of story progression was so tedious that I frequently had to check a walkthrough to figure out what to do. I also had to do some research outside the walkthrough to find out that there are minimum and maximum levels for each scenario. I had to go back into the sealed cave to grind levels and get treasure, but before that I bought the main guy a longsword, full plate and large shield, and everyone an under chain suit. I learned a bit about character progression from the walkthrough, though I had already figured out enough to make the girl and 2nd guy hunters for better archery. I also got everyone magic and used the walkthrough to learn the spell recipes; everyone had healing and curing status, while girl went for area nukes and the 2nd guy got some of the nukes girl skipped. I later abandoned archery with the girl and bought her full plate and large shield with a morning star from the sealed cave.

By the time I was level 13 the main guy was still stuck as a guard, the girl was a soldier and the 2nd guy had died so many times that his vigor was 1 and he was only level 12; best class he could manage was thief or hunter, though later he managed to unlock consul. I never bought armor for him and he was left with ring mail and later chain mail found in the cave. I was at the last scenario but did not start it for some reason. I went and cleared the entire sealed dungeon. Some of the end game tier enemies were difficult but not so much as to cause me to need to flee or load a save. I took huge damage from nukes and quickly figured out that they stopped casting spells once someone approaches. The most annoying enemies were the groups of high defense healers, which took forever to kill. Archer guy upgraded to a longbow earlier in this dungeon and got an arbalest this time. Killed the dungeon boss by outlasting his mana with my own healing; archer never got an angle to shoot so he healed the entire fight. The other 2 barely used any mana.

Then I spent hours doing the level ups, using trial and error to figure out what stats and skills were needed to unlock better classes, with plenty of save scumming. I figured out that jump is needed to be better than a guard and discount is needed to be a knight, so the main and girl could learn cross attack. Main already had trick guard and I got everyone that from magician. Only the girl had dispel so I realized that was needed to unlock bishop and sorcerer for magic barrier; I wanted that after all that massive nuke damage! I made them fishermen for swimming as I realized that was needed for the best classes. Main guy ended at level 19 just barely unlocking the ruler job for that final level and learning critical and overpower. Girl did the same but ended at level 20. 2nd guy was not able to get ruler because he lacked cross attack from the knight. He did unlock ninja though, which got him critical. He changed to warrior to be able to use full plate. He was the only one who unlocked ninja, and he and girl unlocked sage. I never did unlock the crusader job. I spent large amounts of money at the temple to raise stats and all 3 characters had near max stats; they ended with all stats between 16 to 25, and between 2k and 3k health and mana.

Main guy was using an einomoto katana, knight shield and black mail, girl still had the morning star, einomoto armor and veil shield. Archer wore full plate and I had a large shield and some melee weapons he could use. During all this leveling I missed the final scenario and went straight to the final boss, who died in a few rounds without doing any damage. Well that was anti climatic. I did like this game; it felt more like a pen and paper D&D campaign than a Jrpg, despite the game's many problems.