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Hey guys, I figured a gameplay update wasn't enough for y'all so here's an actual update a few days early.  So today we'll be going back into Mu's Tomb to obtain the Victory Rune. This is a good early game sidequest with a number of manageable enemies and some decent early to mid game treasure.  This sign is kind of funny because there are about 2-3 places in Shrike that are more dangerous than Mu's Tomb.  You can see a treasure pile poking out at the side here. I said most of the treasures in Mu's Tomb were decent. This is not one of them. It's a Shadow Dagger with a worthless attack power of 7.   As I mentioned Mu's Tomb is just filled with enemies. Some of them are pretty easy to dodge, others not so much.  This is nice. It has around 30 or so attack power and is capable of sparking Katana techs (who would've guessed?). We give it to Annie for now.  If you continue right of the Katana you'll eventually reach this room which has some nice treasure in it. We can get some cash and a Blood Chalice. Blood Chalices block instant death moves, but have a penalty to a couple of your defense stats.  Oh gently caress me!   After we grind our way through the hall full of monsters we reach this room. I like the detail here showing all of the treasures. Too bad we can't take any though.  Here we are at the end of the tomb. This piles of bones doesn't look ominous at all.  Sure enough. Once we approach the Rune we get thrust into a battle with....the pile of bones.  We can't do anything to the bone pile at first so this is a good time to put up some buffs on your team. You only get one round to do this though.    Meet the Skulldrake. He's one of the easier bosses in the game, but today he decided to be...uncooperative.   Annie starts off strong by sparking Gale Slash, a good solid move that hits all the enemies. It's quite nice in dangerous random encounters. Sadly this is about all she'll be contributing.  Perhaps the biggest obstacle in this battle is the Skulldrake's regen. If you're coming in very early, it can be difficult to out pace it. Here it's enough to counteract about one character's damage a round.  Now usually, the Skulldrake will spend most of his time using manageable Fang and Horn attacks. Today he decided he wanted to spam his group target OHKO/2HKO fire moves. He took out White Rose who was my only source of healing and then used an AoE fire attack on these guys a few turns later.  Fortunately, I had gotten some really nice 3 move combos that did about 3000 a piece. The party is in really bad shape though. Liza and Roufas are the only ones alive and one more hit will kill them both. A win's a win though.  After that intense fight we hightail it out of the Tomb and run back to Shrike's inn. We're not quite done yet though.  Our final destination for today is this room behind where we initially recruited Roufas.  Inside are some slimes and an oversized treasure box.  Both of the treasure boxes are trapped and inside the large one we find an Ettin. I made sure to save before fighting him and that was probably a good idea.  SONIC ATTACKS!!!!  It's definitely a good thing I saved.  One quick reload later and this time the big treasure chest spawns a mimic. Here you can also see Liza sparking another one of the very important fighting techniques in Babel Crumble.  Babel Crumble is the strongest of the throwing techniques even though it's animation is nothing special.  Roufas also sparks the first Katana technique. Shadow Counter is pretty cool looking and also really helps out with learning some of the more advanced sword techniques later in the game.  Annie doesn't want to be left out and also sparks Shadow Counter. This has been a good dungeon for her after all. Eventually we take out the mimic. Although still dangerous the mimic doesn't have the instant party wipe potential of the Ettin. We get a Snake Oil for our troubles (heals all status effects).  The smaller chest is also trapped but much easier. It just had a living sword inside. I missed time the screenshot, but here Emelia is also sparking Giant Swing. At this point, between the Liza and Emelia, they have found all of the 4 necessary fighting techniques, but they're each missing one. Liza is miising Sliding and Emelia is missing Babel Crumble. It might take a while to get those two because Liza doesn't have the talent for Sliding and most random enemies aren't strong enough for us to consistently spark Babel Crumble right now. But who knows! Maybe we'll end up sparking it next update. I hope you will join me then. Also I've already gotten the screenshots for the next update so here's a short preview.  
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Nov 9, 2013 17:58
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2 or 3 more dangerous places than Mu? I was about to sarcastically say the third most dangerous being the inn, then I remembered Plot with a capital P making the third.
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Nov 9, 2013 19:29
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FeyerbrandX posted:2 or 3 more dangerous places than Mu? I was about to sarcastically say the third most dangerous being the inn, then I remembered Plot with a capital P making the third. I'm guessing one of them is the location of the porno book. Who knows what "encounters" might lurk in that darkness? Bufuman fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Nov 9, 2013 |
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Nov 9, 2013 21:06
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Bufuman posted:I'm guessing one of them is the location of the porno book. Who knows what "encounters" might lurk in that darkness? Nah. And actually, the two tombs are pretty similar in difficulty, but the boss of one of them is much harder. The Skulldrake may in fact be one of the easiest non-plot bosses in the game. (For those playing at home, Emelia gets a SEVERELY NEUTERED version of the Despair/Freedom Rune boss; for most runs, it's about on par with the Skulldrake - it doesn't regenerate health, but it hits a LOT harder.)
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Nov 10, 2013 04:54
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Once you've learned DSC, is there a reason to keep the tiger mask on? Does it make the attack stronger?
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Nov 10, 2013 15:44
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It doesn't boost the damage but Liza's talent list is almost unquestionably better than Emelia's so you can keep it on if there are any other sword or fist skills that you want to learn that Liza has the talent for.
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Nov 10, 2013 15:52
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dude789 posted:Also I've already gotten the screenshots for the next update so here's a short preview. Yessssss.
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Nov 13, 2013 22:37
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I'm looking forward to mech types, they're possibly my favorite part of SaGa. Beep boop equip personality.exe
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Nov 13, 2013 22:54
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 Welcome back! When we last left off we were grabbing the victory rune in Mu's Tomb. Today we'll be grabbing the Vitality Rune. Oh and also learning the most powerful attack in the game. I've been trying to be a bit secretive about it so far, but it's getting to be time to spill the beans. The strongest attack in the game is a martial arts move called the DSC. To be able to use it you must equip the fighting abilities Sliding, Babel Crumble, Giant Swing, and Suplex. Right now Emelia is only missing Babel Crumble, but the Pink Tiger costume gives her the talent for Babel Crumble so she should learn it within a few tries if she's fighting strong enough enemies.  And where else would we go aside from the Bio Research Lab to fight strong enemies. I actually can't use the DSC against this enemy because, being a tree, he's rooted to the ground and immune to throw attacks. Whoops!  On the way out Roufas learns Headwind, a neat mid game attack that does good damage and has good combo potential.  So to show off the DSC I popped over to Koorong to fight some weak enemies and get some footage. The biggest problem right now is its cost. The DSC costs a whopping 17 WP and Emelia can only use it once (granted she's one WP away from 34). There's also a fair bit of variability. The DSC can have anywhere from 3-5 attacks as a part of it. I had to run back to the inn a few times because I wanted to get some shots of the 5 hit combo as seen... Here. And how effective was it?  Oh yes. Keep in mind this is mid game damage and stats. At end game a 5 hit DSC combo could probably crack 20000 easily. For reference the 3 and 4 hit combos were doing about 3500 and 7000 respectively.  So now that we have the DSC let's see about getting that Vitality Rune. Any time you leave from Koorong with the Rune quest started and at least one Rune acquired you will see this ship instead of one of the normal ones.   There's a seen of chaos in the (reused) cockpit and we find our selves in this organic looking area. I'll let our surprisingly aware NPCs tell us whats going on.  Where are we? Maybe we were swallowed by that monster, Tanzer!!! A ship, this is a pleasant surprise. You! Bring your luggage here!  Hey, don't tell us what to do.Booby Trap  Some thugs emerge from the entry way on the left and try to steal our luggage. There's no visual indication, but when the man talks back to them they shoot a couple rounds at his feet. Eventually though their boss shows up and sets them straight.  Boy, they are so typical. You back there, yeah, you too. How annoying. Boss...these idiots don't listen to us. ..:bigtran:You are pretty tough aren't you. You idiots!  ...tle misunderstanding back there. My men can act like morons sometims. We are in the belly of Tanzer. I didn't believe there was such a creature as this until it swallowed my ship recently. We are just trying to make ends meet by scavenging whatever Tanzer eats up. You'd better move along quickly before this monster opens its big mouth again.  Wait a minute. Don't go with her. She is the infamous crime boss, Nomad!!Crime boss! Really?!  How scary! Good looking...:bigtran:He is right. I am Nomad. True, I did some rough stuff when I was on the outside. But I only that that to survive. Besides, that's all in the past. You're free to go with that man or me. Take your pick. I thought nothing could be worse than being swallowed by Tanzer, but now I've got to live with Nomad too, talk about bad luck. Maybe this is paradise. Doesn't it stink in here?Is there anything to eat?It's dangerous to stay here. Let's go!!I don't know why they introduce Nomad here. We never really interact with her on this quest. Aside from that Tanzer is a pretty neat dungeon in terms of design but it's an absolute pain to navigate. Fei-on will help us somewhat but he's vaguely useful at best.    So Fei-On leads us through Tanzer to find a colony that all the people who've gotten eaten have established. Their dialogue is pretty funny, so I'll include it in a bonus update. We need to talk to Fei-on to get to the Rune so let's go do that. Nomad is dirty. I'm trying to protect people from her. Can you help me? (I'll help.) Thanks. What? You're collecting runes? I can take you to the Slime Pool. That's where the rune is. Are you going? (Yes)   Once again we have to follow Fei-on through the literal bowels of Tanzer. He doesn't do a very good job and it's easy to get lost or stuck going in circles. This is yet another area where playing on a well lit monitor helps you navigate the dungeon.  The enemies are getting nasty. This is the bird mech who almost wiped out the party in Trinity Base. The nastiness of the monsters is compounded by the fact that there's no real way to fully recover in Tanzer. There's an inn at the colony but it only heals LP. It's possible to run out of JP and WP and get stuck. Especially in one certain quest in particular.  Ahahahahahaha  I just want to point out that I'm not even 3 hours into this file and I already have 2 characters with the DSC. It's not that hard to get if you know what you're doing and get a little lucky.   Every so often Fei-on will call out from offscreen or stand in front of a valve we need to pass through but of course he disappears right when you might need him.  Eventually though we make our way to the slime pits which are a bit of a sliding puzzle. There's no significant penalty to botching it. You just have to start again.  Wheee  Dammit.  After a few tries we make our way here. Fei-on will pop out and warn us about the upcoming fight and tell us the victory condition. Basically a human or mystic has to touch the Vitality Rune. There will be some guys in the way. Multitarget attacks are recommended.   Good thing we have Gale Slash and Flash Fire. Annie and White Rose make short work of these Slimes and the only surviving one is the big one in the back.  Every turn one slime will pop back into battle starting with this one in the left. It can make this battle overwhelming if you come in too early, but most MT attacks make this fight a joke.    We wipe out all the Slimes on the next turn leaving a clear path for Emelia to touch the Vitality Rune and end the fight.   The stress from beating the slimes causes Tanzer to spit us out and it dumps us back in Koorong and that is where we will end things for today. Next time we'll finish up the Rune quest with the Hide Rune. I hope you will join me then. buddychrist10 fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 15:44
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Fei-on also joins you here. In case you need a third person with adequate martial sparking skills to break the game over your knee.
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Nov 16, 2013 16:56
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FeyerbrandX posted:Fei-on also joins you here. In case you need a third person with adequate martial sparking skills to break the game over your knee. In addition, a random slime forces its way into your party. So you get a mediocre human and a gently caress-terrible monster all in one package! Ironically, I'm pretty sure this means Fei-on can never get the gift for one of the two magics, though I forget if it's Rune or Arcane. KataraniSword fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 19:13
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FeyerbrandX posted:Fei-on also joins you here. In case you need a third person with adequate martial sparking skills to break the game over your knee. Actually, Fei-on is pretty terrible at learning the DSC as he's one of the characters who only has the talent for 2 of the necessary techniques. Fei-on is great at learning all of the fighting techniques except for the throwing techs which are of course the most important. He also can't get the gift for Rune magic because you can't recruit him until you're part of the way through the Rune quest. Also, it could be a bit more than a week till we have the next full update as I have a business trip this week and won't have the computer with all my Saga Frontier stuff on it. I should be able to bang out a gameplay update though.
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Nov 16, 2013 19:48
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KataraniSword posted:In addition, a random slime forces its way into your party. So you get a mediocre human and a gently caress-terrible monster all in one package! Seriously, you just picked up a slime from the dungeon floor and made it a party member. That's awesome! I always thought Chrono Cross was the gold standard for pointless party members.
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Nov 16, 2013 22:32
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I dont know posted:Seriously, you just picked up a slime from the dungeon floor and made it a party member. That's awesome! I always thought Chrono Cross was the gold standard for pointless party members. The sad part is that the goddamn random useless Slime is actually, according to the artbook, influential in several of the storylines canonically.  I can't explain exactly how without delving into spoilers, just that it is apparently a thing that exists and has relevance.Despite being a random monster with no explanation, no dialogue, and no purpose. But nope, canonically important. SaGa Frontier, ladies and gentlemen.
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Nov 16, 2013 22:36
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dude789 posted:Actually, Fei-on is pretty terrible at learning the DSC as he's one of the characters who only has the talent for 2 of the necessary techniques. Fei-on is great at learning all of the fighting techniques except for the throwing techs which are of course the most important. He also can't get the gift for Rune magic because you can't recruit him until you're part of the way through the Rune quest. I think Fei-On has some talents for a few of the best Punch-based techs in the game, but it doesn't really matter much since DSC exists. And yes, Slime is the best monster bar none. Character-wise that is. EDIT: Here's another jazzy arrangement of Battle 2 too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU6Zh1dHDbE Thwack! fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Nov 17, 2013 |
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Nov 17, 2013 03:48
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Do you get any powers from picking up these runes, or not until you get the complete set?
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Nov 18, 2013 07:20
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dude789 posted:They released a pretty complete storyline of what the 8th character's quest would have been in the big Japanese-only Essence of Saga Frontier book. Someone on Gamefaqs translated that part awhile back so I'll cover how the 8th character interacts with the main character at the end of their scenario and also point out some storyline differences. The portrayals of some of the villains and final bosses are particularly funny just because of how different they are from their in-game behavior, but that's something to be covered in more detail once we get there. That was me. RedBoot's LP got me playing the game again, and I decided to give the story a shot. Feel free to use that material or post it. I can also send you my master file if you need it. It's got a few modifications and corrections since the Gamefaqs posts.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:51
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Glazius posted:Do you get any powers from picking up these runes, or not until you get the complete set? You only get anything when you get the complete set; getting all four gives the gift for Rune Magic to all of your human/mystic characters who don't already have Arcane Magic and/or the gift for it. Assuming they were there for the whole quest, which means gently caress you, Fei-On. In other words, they're basically sidequest coupons and nothing more.
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Nov 18, 2013 13:24
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It's even worse for Emilia, because think about who was in the part from the beginning of the Rune Quest. Yeah. All of three people.
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Nov 20, 2013 08:28
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Gameplay update: The DSC In the last update we had not one but two characters learn all the necessary abilities to use the DSC so I figured we should spend some time to talk about it a bit more ind depth. The basics of the DSC are that it's a fighting technique that appears at the bottom of the fighting tech list when you have Sliding, Suplex, Babel Crumble, and Giant Swing equipped on your skill list. For the cost of 17 WP it will chain together anywhere from 3 to five of these attacks (order goes Sliding-Babel Crumble-Suplex-Giant Swing-Suplex) that typically does anywhere from 3000-25000 damage to a single enemy. It's a throwing type technique which means that some enemies who are rooted to the ground or too big to be thrown are immune so keep that in mind when using it. All human characters will be talented for 2 or 3 of these attack so naturally if you're training someone to be a fighter, you will want to train them up someone who is talented in 3 of the necessary skills for the DSC. The characters who are talented in 3 of the necessary skills are Annie (misses Giant Swing), Gen (misses Sliding), Liza (misses Sliding), and Red (misses Giant Swing). It's also worth mentioning that Annie misses Air Throw which can make learning some of the throwing techniques (especially Giant Swing) quite tricky. Finally, Emelia in her own scenario can easily learn all 4 by learning Sliding in her regular or Dancer costumes (or the other two that have no change on her talent list), and Babel Crumble, Suplex, and Giant Swing as the pink tiger. Of course, just having the talent is only half of the job, you also have to use the right techniques in battle. Fortunately it's pretty simple. To learn the throwing techniques just spam Air Throw or other throwing techniques if you're fighting early or mid game opponents. To learn Sliding just spam either punch or kick. Overall, Liza's gotten a bit of a reputation as being the best candidate to learn the DSC, and I suppose ignoring Emelia with costumes that's technically true. Because Sliding has such a low encounter rank threshold to make learning it possible, she can start trying to hit that 1/256 chance right at the start of the game. Also, if you're playing on system data that already has a few scenarios beaten then Liza can start with Suplex. She also has the best fighting list in the game, but Gen is practically as good at learning the DSC as Liza and he's available in every scenario. So while Liza is the best at learning the DSC, it's not by as much as rumors and FAQs would have you believe. If you have to have someone with the DSC you can always use Gen, and of course this is Saga Frontier so you never know what could happen. Outside of her own scenario, Emelia is one of the worst at learning the DSC and I once learned it in a single run through of Sei's Tomb at the start of the game. Sometimes luck can make up for any poor talent list.
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Nov 22, 2013 04:23
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The problem with Gen being as good at learning DSC as Liza is that Gen has another specific niche he wants to fill, being that he is (to my knowledge) the absolute best in the entire game at learning high-level Katana skills. Since Sword/Katana techs and Martial Arts techs don't exactly overlap in their learning, he has basically twice as much to learn, including smacking your face repeatedly against that 1/256 chance of actually ever getting Sliding. I've heard a lot of people say that Rouge is good at learning DSC but for the life of me I can't imagine why.  FH_Meta posted:It's even worse for Emilia, because think about who was in the part from the beginning of the Rune Quest. The worst part about this is that you can't start the Arcane quest once the Rune quest has started, and since Emilia starts it in her opening dungeon, it locks her out of getting a few characters - notably Gen - early. In some ways, getting Asellus is compensation for that, but it's still a bit frustrating. KataraniSword fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 04:45
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KataraniSword posted:The worst part about this is that you can't start the Arcane quest once the Rune quest has started, and since Emilia starts it in her opening dungeon, it locks her out of getting a few characters - notably Gen - early. In some ways, getting Asellus is compensation for that, but it's still a bit frustrating. Fuse is also great, but given that you need to beat a tough-rear end boss to keep him (and some even-tougher enemies guard some really REALLY nice treasure), you're probably not getting him early anyway.
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Nov 22, 2013 05:31
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My brother got SaGa Frontier when it came out and hated it, so I used to sneak it away from him while he was at work and play it, so it holds a special place in my heart. One of the things I love about the game is the sharp, gritty, and loud sound effects in it. There is a very saturated feel to some things and it kicks some of the battles up another notch. Personal favorite being one that is enveloped in big end game spoilers so I won't even mention it, but this youtube video is a good example of a 5 way combo blowing your mind...This includes an end game character yet to be seen, but its basically just end game techs in the bio lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WagR3FlnkiE
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Nov 22, 2013 19:24
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Man, few things are more fun than watching the screen light up for a combo attack. Level 5 combos are so badass too. Fun mechanics fact: DSC can't combo with anything because it's technically considered a combination attack all on its own.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:19
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Crazyweasel posted:One of the things I love about the game is the sharp, gritty, and loud sound effects in it. There is a very saturated feel to some things and it kicks some of the battles up another notch. Personal favorite being one that is enveloped in big end game spoilers so I won't even mention it, but this youtube video is a good example of a 5 way combo blowing your mind...This includes an end game character yet to be seen, but its basically just end game techs in the bio lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WagR3FlnkiE Two, actually, if you count the monster. That particular form only shows up in a single final boss battle, or if you hand-construct it on your monsters. It's also arguably the best all-around monster form in the game, though others beat it in certain stats (notably HP). PluralSlash (The sword move the Mech used) is so silly for how much damage and combo ability it has; once we get to mechs, you'll notice that it tends to show up pretty drat early for what it's capable of.
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Nov 22, 2013 23:07
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Isn't DSC just an acronym for "Dream Super Combo"? I really reading that in the English guide.
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Nov 22, 2013 23:30
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Tallgeese posted:Isn't DSC just an acronym for "Dream Super Combo"? I really reading that in the English guide. I could've sworn it meant "Dangerous Super Combo", myself.
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Nov 24, 2013 14:46
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I've heard *somthing* Suplex Combo also.
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Nov 24, 2013 21:14
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This is making me more and more curious as to what other variants people have heard in regards to what DSC stands for. I've always thought Dream Super Combo because I too had the Strategy Guide (hey it was fun to read about this game, and it had colour coded pages!), and that's what it called it. In a related note, I just had Liza get it within the first 2 hours of my current Emelia playthrough.  I think that's the fastest I've ever gotten it, so... things are going to be hilariously quick, I think.
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Nov 25, 2013 04:41
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Pneub posted:I've heard *somthing* Suplex Combo also. It says Dream Super Combo in the American strategy guide and Dangerous Suplex Combo in Japanese materials. Everyone's a winner! Except for the guy getting hit with it.
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Nov 25, 2013 04:58
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I think I've also heard Dream Sequence Combo somewhere. IMHO Dangerous Suplex Combo sounds the coolest, but I'll stick with calling it Dream Super Combo.
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Nov 25, 2013 05:07
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I had remembered it as Demon Super Combo, myself.
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Nov 25, 2013 13:45
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Dream Super Combo sounds the most like an actual Japanese wrestling move name.
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Nov 25, 2013 18:39
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gently caress yeah, DSC. The only thing in existence where you feel kinda like a genius or one lucky son of a bitch for finding out about it without a guide. Also, I remember the move's name as Dream Super Crush, and I have no loving idea where I got that from.
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Nov 26, 2013 01:11
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I'm going to be disappointed if the OP doesn't make up a new "real name" for DSC every single time it's used in the updates now.
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Nov 26, 2013 04:51
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Einander posted:I'm going to be disappointed if the OP doesn't make up a new "real name" for DSC every single time it's used in the updates now. This could be fun. I'll try this out on a trial basis for a few updates to see how it goes. If it seems like I'm pressing our it's not as funny as envisioned just let me know.
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Nov 27, 2013 04:47
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Everyone is wrong; I just checked. It's Devastating Suplex Catastrophe.
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Nov 27, 2013 04:59
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dude789 posted:This could be fun. I'll try this out on a trial basis for a few updates to see how it goes. If it seems like I'm pressing our it's not as funny as envisioned just let me know. That sort of thing worked out pretty amusingly for the two subordinates in yokaiy's Suikoden 3 LP so far, so it's not like the medium is proven terrible or anything. I'm looking forward to it.
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Nov 27, 2013 06:22
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Delectable Secret Combination Wait, this isn't my strategy guide, it's a cookbook! 
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Nov 27, 2013 16:06
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Department of Suplex Corrections
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Nov 27, 2013 21:28
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