by redle » Fri, 13Oct11 06:54
The game certainly doesn't have the best battle system around. That being said, if you could kill everyone with attack, attack, heal, attack, att... ad nauseam, wow, talk about a boring and pointless adventure. I think the general theory behind the combat is that the contestants quickly get clearly out of the league of the player, a la David and Goliath (or Luke vs the Death Star, if you prefer). As the player, you need to find his 1 fatal flaw before he manages to squash you. You can strategically use the heal and some of the other boosts to 'stall' and give yourself a few extra tries at finding that weak spot, but yes, if you just keep pounding the bully in the chest, you are going to end up the loser. Basically, it's more of a puzzle than a combat sim.
Of course, considering no one is playing the game with the mindset of, hurry up and get to the next one, I just want to play the battles; it can be very frustrating indeed when those 'side adventures' are what keep being road blocks or causing game overs.