What's the most recommended difficulty for first timers?

[agu10play]

Some people say that the game is pretty easy in normal, easy in hard, an unfair in expert. So... what should I choose?

[Mondae Sundae]

You can change difficulty at any time.

As such, start the game on Hard. If that turns out too difficult, just change to Normal. I'd recommend putting in a solid attempt before switching [Hard --> Normal] as the opening section is challenging when starting blind (mainly due to the learning curve and lack of healing items).


If you're feeling adventurous, start on Expert. However, I'm reluctant to recommend this if you haven't at least beaten another challenging ARPG on highest Difficulty. Additionally, Expert only makes sense if you're going to go out of your way to locate every (sanely obtained) overworld (and mini-area) collectable as each new overworld area becomes accessible. This is because the battles that naturally occur due to this natural exploration of the Overworld are more-or-less necessary to keep Expert a sane experience.

Of what I've played of it, Expert is genuinely challenging, but not unfair. The only thing that I consider potentially unfair would be the Tainted Enemies, of which, fighting them at level on Expert is like a mosquito trying to suck dry an elephant that sweats RAID Bug Killer. However, these are optional "super-enemies" designed to be "unfair" on all difficulties (they may be the one thing that's challenging to beat even on Normal).


DISCLAIMER: I've only experienced Expert (and the game) up to mid-Chapter 4. I have no experience with any other difficulty.

[Aryend]

Originally posted by Mondae Sundae:

DISCLAIMER: I've only experienced Expert (and the game) up to mid-Chapter 4. I have no experience with any other difficulty.

In my experience expert is ok until chapter 6 or so, where it seemed every enemy turns into a damage sponge and you spend more times in menus healing than actually fighting. I turned it down to hard becouse it was more annoying than fun imho.

[Emoge]

I'm not far into the game and I keep jumping between Normal and Hard. I'm also an older dude that wants to just play through games and not have an extreme challenge. Hard is not hard. I just jump down during the dark aura monsters since some of them one shot me at Hard but are easy on normal.

[Dark Exsphere]

I'm currently playing on the hardest difficulty. The game is ridiculously easy. Later on though, you'll have to do less button mashing and more dodging simply because enemy count is high and they can hit you hard with ranged attacks

[Aahzmandias]

Originally posted by agu10play:

Some people say that the game is pretty easy in normal, easy in hard, an unfair in expert. So... what should I choose?

Hard is close to "normal" difficulty. At least in my oppinion.

Easy is on "Al Bundy" level. You can play the game with eyes closed, while your cat presses the buttons.

[Tsuanli]

Keep in mind that a large portion of the game (kingdom builder) turns useless if difficulty is too low.

[Ydyp]

The only thing I regret on expert difficulty is that my 2 AI companions always end up dead at the end of most fights I take. As they also get hit by larger amounts of damage and they still don't look for healing orbs/healing aura's when they are low HP.

For the rest expert will teach you to take notice of monster positions and castings. Or you do just like you do in other jrpgs: you overlevel and just overwhelm them that way.

[emotional shawtyy]

Never played before, so I started in Expert and I believe that's fine. Just pay atention to every mechanic and try to use any advantage in your benefit. Explore everything in the game and things will be easy.