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 Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings was released in 2007 (JP, US) - 2008 (EU, AU) for the Nintendo DS, and is the smaller scale, portable sequel/spinoff to Final Fantasy XII. A lot of world building and exploration from the original is gone, as well as all the political drama, to tell a simpler, shorter story more focussed on it's characters. The plot also shares little with the original FFXII, perhaps because it actually started development as an unrelated title. Because of that, it's accessible to those not familiar with the original. I gotta admit, I played this one before I played FFXII, and I was fine. But there's still a lot in there for people familiar with the original, and they're gonna feel a bit more comfortable through this! If you wanna jump into this Let's Play, go ahead. However, there's an FFXII LP in the archives, as well as another, more informative one, so if you want to look at either one of them and come back, that's cool too. The graphics use a style easier for the DS to render, 2D sprites on top of 3D environments. There are a few FMVs, which will be posted on Youtube. The soundtrack is almost entirely recycled from FFXII, but it unfortunately sounds a bit worse coming from the DS hardware. Gameplay wise, its a real-time strategy, although I find that the strategy is a bit light. I'll explain the combat more when it comes up in the Let's Play, including elaborating on my feelings about it. Since this is a story-heavy game, let's not go ruining it for anyone! No spoilers at all for Revenant Wings please! Also, because this game is accessible without being familiar with FFXII, don't needlessly ruin the original FFXII. But you can just spoiler tag for the original FFXII if you're not sure, and then yap all you want! Later in Revenant Wings, there will be parts that assume you have knowledge of FFXII, and a couple of things, big things, from FFXII will be spoiled! There's nothing that will "ruin" the original in my opinion, but if you're hoping to go through FFXII completely blind one day, don't read this first! When anything that assumes you know FFXII comes up, i'll fill you in on the blanks. But enough out of me, let's start the game!  Prologue - In Search of the Eternal Chapter 1 - The Derelict Chapter 2 - Distant Skies Chapter 3 - What goes up...
Chapter 4 - A Grand Hunt
Chapter 5 - Stranded Chapter 6 - Stealing Eternity
Chapter 7, Part 1 - Illusions Within Chapter 7, Part 2 - The Oath Chapter 8 - Ivalice
 The instruction book. Just in case you wanted to read it, I scanned it in for you. Click here. Magicks and Abilities ApplesandOranges makes some informative posts about our playable characters and Espers. ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2013 07:24
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Aug 27, 2013 07:24
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 This is the FMV cutscene that plays as the attract sequence.   And this is the one that plays when you start a new file, and continues directly on from the one in the attract sequence.      "Not who I was expecting. Well if that's how it's gonna be..."  The conditions for victory are stated at the beginning of battle. For the first few battles, it's fairly straightforward.  Soundtrack: Field 1 - Battle 1 (Giza Plains) The Field part of the song plays when gameplay is relaxed and you're just walking around, and the Battle part when your characters are actually exchanging attacks with foes. It's neat and tricky to recreate in Let's Play form, so here's the two variants, take your pick. The soundtrack is recycled from FFXII, and this particular tune originally played in the Giza Plains area. Hence, it's name. Lots of songs do this, I won't point it out after this, but if you're wondering about a track name, it's probably a throwback to where is was in FFXII.  - You must get past the flan first to proceed. -  - Before issuing a command, you must first select a unit. You can use the Unit Tabs at the top of the bottom screen to quickly select units. A hand icon will appear above the heads of any selected units. -  - Now that we've selected Vaan, let's order him to attack. Touching the flan will cause the cursor to change to a pair of swords. Lift the stylus to issue the attack command. -  - Touching an open space on the battlefield will cause the cursor to change to a pair of boots. Lift the stylus to order the selected units to move to that location. Units will automatically attack enemies near their destination, so you can use the move command to attack as well. - "Let's see what you've got!" As the tutorial says, tap on or near an enemy to attack it. Being the first enemy in the game, this guy dies pretty quickly.  "Now to find Penelo. She has to be in here somewhere."Bonus: The tutorial instructs you to fight a flan before finding Penelo. You get a bit of different dialogue if you choose to walk past the flan.  "So, where did everybody run off to?"But whether you're a pacifist or not, both choices reunite at the camera tutorial.  - You can move the camera at any time to survey the battlefield. Touch the stylus to the bottom screen, then slide the cursor to the edge of the screen to scroll your view. As you can see, the camera will move in the direction of the side of the screen you touched. You can also use the Control Pad to move the camera. Now it's time to use the commands you've learned to find Penelo! -  On the top screen of the Nintendo DS is a minimap. The blue arrows are characters currently under our control. The yellow arrows are non-aggressive characters not under our control. The purple dots are foes. Anyway, Penelo is just up ahead.  If you tap on a unit, some info appears on the top screen. Here's what you get when you tap on Penelo. Once you get close to her, a conversation will automatically start. Soundtrack: Penelo's Theme (Giza Plains resumes after this conversation)  "Sorry, I got here as fast as I could." "You didn't waste time getting yourself into trouble."  - She'll cast Cure on nearby allies to restore their health. You can also select Penelo, then target an ally to have her cast Cure on the targeted unit. -  "Yeah, so?" "They're just up ahead. And I don't think Balthier is gonna wait forever." "Then what are we standin' around talkin' for? C'mon!" - Guide Vaan and Penelo through the dungeon to reach Balthier and Fran. Slide the stylus across the screen to select multiple units at once. Selecting multiple units can save a lot of time when issuing commands. You can also press the X Button to select all friendly units. -  - You can clear you current selection without issuing a command by touching the Clear icon in the top-right corner of the bottom screen. You're then free to make a new selection. -   Penelo is purely a white mage, and can't attack enemies. Her role is just healing, but it's a very valuable role. On the way up, there are a couple more flans to fight. Like the first flan battle, there's pretty much no way to lose, especially considering that Penelo is here to heal Vaan now. Once they're defeated, just proceed to the two yellow arrows remaining on the map.   "Enjoy your stroll through the ruins?" "Well, at least they waited for us. C'mon, let's go!"  If you tap on Balthier and Fran, here's the info you get.  After winning a battle, you're given the opportunity to save. Since this was a short, tutorial-heavy mission, and the prologue is only two battles long, let's keep playing! Soundtrack: Title Demo (Loop Demo)  "Whoa..."  "It would seem the Cache of Glabados holds two treasures." "Perfect! One for you and Balthier, and one for us!" "Settling for only half the treasure? What sort of sky pirate are you?" Soundtrack: Boss Battle 1 (Slash of the Sword)     "Ernh..." "This Mist...so strange. It's...cold." "Can you fight?" "Yes, I think so."     - Use Vaan and Penelo to attack Ifrit. Move in to attack while Balthier and Fran keep the other enemies busy. -  If you just follow the instructions the tutorial gives you, this battle is simple.  Fran and Balthier are being controlled by the AI, and will dispatch the smaller foes. All you have to do is tap your stylus on Vaan and Penelo, and move them both towards Ifrit!  When all the smaller foes are gone, Fran and Balthier will help you finish the big guy off.  And you're done! Easy as!  Soundtrack: Balthier's Theme (Destiny) "What now?" "The legend of the Cache of Glabados - you're familiar with it, yes?" "Why am I not surprised? Very well, I'll tell you this once, but no more." "It holds a connection with the eternal." "The eternal what?" "A treasure is like a mysterious woman. You have to be worthy of her, or she'll slip through you fingers." "Better if I take it." "Go ahead." "Vaan, what are you doing?" "He's acting the sky pirate."  "But remember, Vaan. The things you own can end up owning you." "Seems our performance has brought down the house." "We've gotta get outta here!"  Next time: Vaan returns home and tells his friends all about his adventures and how badly he screwed up. See you then! ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 27, 2013 07:25
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For anyone who asked, I plan on showing everything! Don't worry.Antipersonnel Mime posted:Small question, will there be a naming contest/vote for the airship? Yeah, probably. Gyre posted:ok Amazing, I know you said no story spoilers, but are gameplay ones okay if they don't mention stuff like units we don't have and such? All the gameplay elements will appear by the end of Chapter 2, so it won't be long, and it would be better to hold off until then.
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Aug 28, 2013 00:07
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Update #2: Eve of Adventure Soundtrack: Rabanastre  - Vaan shrugged it off. He said he'd buy a new airship, and he never even talking about the treasure we'd found. It was as though our adventures were only dreams, dreams that faded day by day under the brilliant Rabanastre skies. We went back to the quiet lives we'd always led, like nothing had ever happened. But it wasn't to last... -    "He's sure been in good spirits, considering what happened to his airship."  "Life's not all adventures and treasures, you know. There's a lot to be said for peace and quiet." "Vaan!" "There's an airship headed toward the city. But not just any airship. It's older than any airship I've ever seen. You remember the legend about the lost sky continent?"       - When Vaan gets that look in his eye, it never is. - Soundtrack: Dungeon 1 Field    "What's so important we have to come out here in the middle of the night?" "And how come we didn't bring Penelo?" "Shh! Just try and keep up, okay?"  Soundtrack: Field 1 - Battle 1 (Giza Plains)     "Something's up. You wanted an adventure, right? Time to get your hands dirty."    - Units deal one of three types of damage. Knowing when to use which can mean the difference between victory and defeat. -     - Think of it as a rock-paper-scissors relationship. We'll examine the relationship of the units over the course of the following battle. -  - Objective: Defeat all enemies! Vaan must survive. -   - Ranged units are designed to stand back and deal damage, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from nearby units. Send in melee units to quickly dispatch any ranged units you encounter. - "This one's all mine!"  - Flying units are easy map targets for a skilled marksman. Any type of ranged attack, whether from archers or mages, will send flying units crashing to the ground. - "I sure hope this works..." "You can do it, Kytes! Just throw some magick its way." If you remember back to the first battle, Balthier and Fran were ranged units as well. Kytes has a focus on black magic spells, as opposed to Balthier and Fran's guns and bows.  - Melee units attack at close range, so they have a hard time reaching flying units. This makes flying units the perfect counter to melee attacks. - "That leaves this one for me!"    At this lull in the battle let me show you the info you get about Filo and Kytes on the top screen. It will tell you if they're melee, ranged, or flying. You get similar information about your foes, so you're always able to plan ahead and use the best character for the job.    "...Or not." "Vaan--!" "Here they come!" This part of the battle is just to reinforce the mechanics the game just taught you.  Characters attack automatically when enemies are close enough. Since the enemies are approaching your characters now, you can literally do nothing and you'll win. I chose to make sure Kytes was attacking, just to speed things up a bit, but it wasn't necessary. After battle, Vaan chimes in. "This time I think we got 'em all."  Characters gain EXP after every battle. Everyone gets the same amount of EXP for winning, and the amount is fixed for each battle. Vaan learns the Duel Attack ability at the end of the battle, Kytes learns Firaga, and Filo learns Sonic Wave. Next time: A tutorial on what these abilities are and what they do. We also find out why we're out here at midnight. You'll never guess.  As a little bonus, and to explain the rock-paper-scissors match-up better, I made a chart. Ranged - Flying units interact a bit differently than Melee - Ranged and Melee - Flying, and I think this is to balance out the fact flying units can fly. The difference being able to fly makes will become obvious after a few missions, so don't worry about it this second. I'll explain... in a few missions! ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Aug 28, 2013 00:16
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The hoverboard isn't so bad. In a world with airships and other hovercraft, it's not even that unlikely. I guess it stands out because Filo is the only one who uses them in Ivalice, ever. It also becomes really useful, so maybe it's usefulness won me over.
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Aug 28, 2013 09:17
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Gyre posted:I meant like the effect of doing all the sidequests. A few people have already mentioned they don't like it, but getting specific about this would be discussing things that happen in the endgame, so it's better to leave it alone.
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Aug 29, 2013 00:27
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There are a couple of tricky battles that could get you pretty frustrated. On my first playthrough of the game, I quit for a while and came back. I'll be explaining my strategy for each battle, so if you can track down your copy, I might be able to help later! Much later.
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Aug 29, 2013 09:29
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Update #3: The Coveted Derelict + The Treasure is the Key Soundtrack: Dungeon 2 Field (Infiltration)     "Now's our chance!" "Right, we better hurry." "So what are we gonna do once we're on the ship, Vaan?"  "It's them or us, right? Only we're gonna take it, so we can figure out where it really came from." "We'll just, uh, take care of it until its real owners come looking for it." "Last one there's a rotten egg!" "Who says we have to tell her?"- Objective: Sneak aboard the derelict airship! All allies must survive. -  Shortly after starting battle, a few enemies will spawn in your path.  "Look out!" "Do something, Vaan!" "I've got something that'll send 'em packin'." - Let's try using Vaan's ability, Dual Attack! First select Vaan, then touch Magicks/Abilities. -  - Touch the ability you'd like to use, then select a target. Once you've used an ability, you won't be able to use it again until a short amount of time has passed. -   - Area attacks can deal damage to entire groups of enemies at once. Try attacking this group of monsters using Kytes's Firaga magick. -   To the southwest of the battle field, are some Giza Rabbits. They're not aggressive, and will actually heal your HP if you need it.  - Point-blank area attacks are area attacks centered on the caster, such as Filo's Sonic Wave. Use point-blank area attacks when a unit is surrounded to deal damage to all nearby enemies. In addition to manually using magicks and abilities, you can set up gambits to have units use them automatically. -  - You turn gambits on in the same way you activate magicks and abilities. With Filo's gambit turned on, she will automatically use the selected magick or ability. Each unit has only one gambit. Tailoring each unit's gambit to the challenge you face is important if you want to succeed. - For those familiar with FFXII, you'd know Gambits as a very simple customizable AI for your team. Gambits in Revenant Wings resemble that system in name only, instead here serving as a system that reduces micromanagement by having characters automatically use an ability when it's recharge period is over.   You don't have to defeat every enemy to win this battle. Arriving at the goal was the objective, after all. But all the enemies are placed right in your way so you can't miss any of these tutorials. Bonus: If Filo or Kytes reach the goal instead of Vaan, they each have different things to say: "I don't wanna go in first! What's taking you guys so long?" "The coast is clear, Vaan! Hurry up!" Something that will become obvious in future battles is that the recharge period for Kyte's Firaga is twice that of Vaan and Filo's abilities. (20 seconds as opposed to 10 seconds) More useful abilities are balanced by longer recharge times. Dual Attack and Sonic wave have really short recharge times, as they hit less targets, and only ones close to the user. This was a short mission, so let's do another! Soundtrack: Dungeon 1 Field - Dungeon 1 Battle      "All right, but better be careful."- Objective: Reach the summoning gate! All allies must survive. -   Right now, each character only has 1 ability, so I set their abilities up as their Gambits on the way up to the summoning gate.    Soundtrack: Title Demo (Loop Demo) (Dungeon 1 resumes after the next tutorial)   - You can use summoning gates to call forth powerful monsters known as Espers to fight at your side. Red summoning gates are under enemy control and must be captured before they can be used. Pray before a gate to capture it from your enemy. Once captured, the gate will turn blue. You can capture a gate more quickly by sending more units to capture it. - - Objective: Capture the summoning gate! -    "I wonder if I can use it to summon something..."  "Uh, sure. nothin' to it." - Touch a blue summoning gate to bring up the Summon command. When summoning an Esper, you must assign it to one of the groups led by your main characters. There's no need for the character to be near the gate. - - Objective: Summon three Espers! -  First, you need to choose a leader for your Esper. Any Esper is allowed to be summoned to any character.  Espers will be represented on the lower screen as a little mark next to a character's portrait on the unit tab. Tapping on the unit tab will select a character, and all the Espers that have been summoned to them, allowing you to move the two together. Although any Esper can be summoned to any leader, try to summon Espers that complement the leader you choose in some way.  After you select an Esper to summon, it'll take a bit of time. You can watch the amount of time an Esper has left to appear by tapping on a summoning gate, and then on the queue tab. You can also cancel a summoning here, if you've made a mistake, or if you don't need the summon any more.  "So these monsters must really be Espers." "Espers, monsters...what's the difference? The less we have to do with 'em, the better." "Well, these seem tame enough. Maybe they'll obey us."    "We'll use the ones we summoned to fight these." "Then maybe we oughta summon a few more, just to be sure!" Kytes and his Firaga Gambit take out the flying foes in one shot.  Summoning a lot of Espers and using their numbers to overwhelm foes is a perfectly valid strategy.  "Your very own Espers, Vaan!" "Let's take a look around, see if we can find anything." "Hey, take it easy, will ya!" And that's that! Before ending this post, I thought i'd give you guys a bit more background info on Kytes and Filo.  Here's the official artwork of Kytes and Filo. There's a lot of details in their costumes you can't see in their sprites. Somebody in the thread already mentioned Kytes and Filo play a tiny little role in FFXII. Kytes gets a few lines of voice acting, but there's nothing notable about him. His role is bounce some dialogue off of Vaan in the beginning of the game, but it's a tiny role and ends early. Filo and Kytes appear together as part of a late-game sidequest, but because it's a sidequest, you might not do it. You'll probably see them while doing the rounds of talking to every NPC ever, if you do that sort of thing.  Here's what Kytes and Filo look like in FFXII. Because of the differences in aesthetics, it's more obvious in FFXII than in Revenant Wings that Kytes and Filo are pretty young. Kytes is 10 years old, and Filo is 11. They mostly hang around a litter of crates in Rabanastre's Lowtown, and pretend to be Sky Pirates. Which is where you meet them in this game, actually. You'd be forgiven if you thinking they're new characters though, because they're just not important in FFXII. Well, that's all I wanted to fill you in on! Next time, who are these other thieves aboard the derelict? ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 00:57
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Glazius posted:So is this like Herzog Zwei? (Or I suppose for a more modern audience, Guilty Gear 2?) You can send espers out to anybody in the field who needs reinforcing and they'll just kind of auto-fight on the way? I'm not familiar with those games. I tried looking up gameplay videos, and I couldn't figure out what was happening in Herzog Zwei. I could figure out was going on in Guilty Gear 2 though, and you know, it does seem comparable. You can control the Espers individually, and give them their own orders, but it gets finicky with the touchscreen controls. Espers are generally a lot more flimsy than the leaders, and I feel like the game intends them to be used the way you described, send them to those who need reinforcing and let their AI take over.
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Aug 31, 2013 06:34
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Update #4: Unwelcome Guests Soundtrack: Penelo's Theme       ] "They...they forced their way onto the ship." "You don't think Vaan would do something like that, do you?" "You know how he is about airships."  Soundtrack: A Villain (Feywood)  "Kinda creepy." "Hmph!" "Do you think she'll fly, Vaan?"Suddenly, a bangaa jumps out from behind the control panel! Soundtrack: Boss Battle 1 (Slash of the Sword)   "Some snakes trying to pass as headhunters." "How many times do we have to kill you, anyway?" "Well, well. Who have we here! Tire of playing at pirates with Balthier, did you? I settle my scores, boy, and yours is long past due!" "What do we do?" "We, um..."  "Hey, get back here!"  "After them!" "What's that? Do my eats hear mutinous mutterings from your mouth?"  "Aye, sure 'n' there's not, my sister."    "Y'see, we're looking ta leave the headhunting business fer good and all. Only, Ba'Gamnan does nae take well ta desertion. So yer going ta replace the lot of us."  "Not a fair trade by half, but it will have to do." "You should know better than to bite off more than you can chew, you scurvy lizards!" "You leave her outta this!" "Cut or be cut, but be on with't." "Make it one fer the ages!"    "Now let's see how tough they really are!"- Objective: Defeat Ba'Gamnan, Bwagi, Rinok, and Gijuk! Vaan must survive. -  This is the first battle in the game that doesn't contain a tutorial.  On the top screen, we can see our foes have run to the other side of the airship, as the cutscene before the battle indicated. This gives us a bit of time to plan our attack.     All of our foes are Melee units, except Gijuk, who's a ranged attacker. Filo and Garchimacera (the flying Espers) will be valuble in this battle, so get summoning more of those.  Kytes will be largely useless, but him and Vaan can be sent out to defeat Gijuk.  You'll notice Espers have significantly less HP than party leaders, and die in a few blows. That's why you need to keep new ones in production! But there is a limit to the number of Espers you can have on field. Espers have an Affinity cost, which varies from Esper to Esper, more powerful ones having a higher Affinity cost. In addition, each leader unit in your party has an Affinity stat, and the total Affinity of the leaders on field represents how large you pool of points to summon Espers is. As you can see, Garchimacera cost 10 Affinity points, and we have a total of 75, which means we can have 7 Garchimacera on the field or in production.  If you didn't set your character's abilities as their Gambits like I did last battle, you should do that now.  There is nowhere to restore HP in this fight, so if Vaan gets hurt a lot, move him out of harm's way.  As long as you keep the Espers coming, Filo shouldn't take enough damage to ever be in danger.  "We should've quit while we were ahead. Let's get while the gettin's good!" Bwagi, Gijuk, and Rinok run off, leaving Ba'Gamnan behind.    Soundtrack: Battle 2 (State of Urgency) "The airship's moving!" "No time to waste!" "We better get to the bridge!"     "Never forget that he who laughs last, laughs hardest!"   Soundtrack: Main Theme  "On our next adventure, where else?" "What kind of answer is that?" The airship shakes faster, before lifting off!       Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  "The legend!" "The undiscovered sky continent!" "It's not our fault. The ship started moving all by itself." "Don't worry. I can fly the airship, no problem." "Hmph. You're certainly confident." "At least I finally managed to get our "guest" under control." "First things first. Our airship needs a name. No self-respecting band of sky pirates has a ship without a name." "Yeah! It's bad luck!" "But since when are we a band of sky pirates?" "This is the adventure you've always wanted, right? That's good enough for me! Now to think of a name..." I mean, if it's bad luck and all, we'd better postpone things until we have a name.  That means it's thread participation time! Let's name this airship! You can have up to 9 characters in it's name. The default name is the Galbana, in case you were curious, but lets not go with that. Dunno how long i'll leave voting open, at least a day, and then probably longer, until there's a clear winner.Some of you will have already figured out Ba'Gamnan and his siblings are returning characters from FFXII. Because we're naming the airship right now, i'll be doing a write-up of where they were in a later post. ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Sep 2, 2013 |
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Sep 1, 2013 00:35
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Ran Rannerson posted:I remember having a lot of trouble with this fight for whatever reason and I'm not sure why. Maybe I sent Vaan into the heat of things instead of keeping him out of trouble, I don't know. Moving a unit out of harm's way is kinda going against what all the tutorials have taught you so far, they all have encouraged being asserting in attacking. I had problems with it on my first playthrough as well. Since you never saw Ba'Gamnan's corpse, how did you know he was dead? Rigged Death Trap posted:You know I thought of suggesting that but He Actually makes an appearance in this one. That doesn't bother me, it would probably even make Gilgamesh a funnier name. People could name the airship after Vaan or Penalo or after any other character in this game for all I care. I'm pretty easygoing about names.
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Sep 1, 2013 14:20
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I have a doctor's appointment later today, so i'll be ending the voting once I get home from that. Gilgamesh is pretty clearly in front by now, and I don't think that's going to change between now and then, but you never know.Fearless_Decoy posted:Joining the Gilgamesh bandwagon. Thanks. I'm still not sure where it stands compared to Revenant Wings, but it sounds pretty different. Hobgoblin2099 posted:I replayed this game and Mission 1-4 annoyed the absolute hell out of me. If all Vaan's Espers die, it's no big deal. The espers that spawn with him are pretty mundane in this fight, just focus on getting more Garchimacera out there. Maybe you should keep him in the corner and just do the battle with Filo and Kytes. Bring Vaan in at the end to pick off the Bangaa once they're at low health. SIGSEGV posted:I played this game and a fatal error locked the game and hosed up my saved when I killed what I supposed was the last boss. Never heard of that happening before. Sounds pretty painful. dijon du jour posted:I remember this game and having a bit of fun with it and getting pretty close to the end before slamming into a brick wall that I just couldn't get past for some reason. Ever since then I've never really been motivated to pick it up again. There's a couple of really bad brick walls in this game. I'll point out the levels that stumped me the longest when I get to them, just hoping I don't hit the brick walls the same way in this playthrough. 
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Sep 2, 2013 01:13
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Alright guys, i'm going to cut off voting here and start working on the next update. Thanks for all the suggestions! 
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Sep 2, 2013 06:24
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Hey guys, i've got a sprained wrist, and it's my dominant hand, so I haven't been able to update. Telling the internet wasn't a priority, but I'm feeling a bit better, came to check SA, it'll still be a day or two until i'm healed enough to continue work on the update (I have the gameplay footage recorded) but I can reply to people in the thread for now.Speedball posted:Ba'Gamnon still has his chainsaw-staff, I see. I always liked that thing. Fran rides a hoverbike in FFXII, the first time you see her. That's the only other non-airship hoverthing I can think of though. DjinnAndTonic posted:FF12 Revenant Wings was such a cool little addition to the Ivalice world in my opinion. I've always been a big fan of JRPG characters having set roles, since it was another way their personalities could be defined. FF12 had a pretty interesting battle system, but I hated how the License Board basically turned all 6 characters into practical clones (IZJS goes a long way to relieving the clone syndrome, but the PCs themselves still aren't much different from eachother, but at least you can assign them different jobs). I feel FFXII still let characters have a lot of personality, while working within roles players chose for them. Every character uses same weapons differently, and carries themselves in their own way. But it changes how you see a character's personality by what role you give them, it can't be helped. Fixed classes mean the characters are read in similar ways by everyone who plays, and it means you have to swap out who to use strategically, I prefer the fixed classes too. The guidebook stuff sounds super cool! I just didn't think to turn messages on, but i've gone and changed that now. Feel free to message me! ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Sep 6, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 11:22
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The first thing I did with the information DjinnAndTonic gave me, I made a chart of the rock-paper-scissors melee-flying-ranged matchup! And added it to the second update, but i'll post it here too in case you don't want to go back for it.quote:
I'll explain the difference flying makes in the upcoming update, which i'm going to get to work on. People who've played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or A2 might be able to guess what difference it makes though.
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Sep 7, 2013 02:58
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Update #5: The Winged Galbana lilies are based on a real-world flower, and are what the Airship is named after. More importantly, they are the favorite flowers of Vaan's dead brother Reks. (Reks appears in the tutorial of FFXII, set 2 years before the events of that game. He dies in a dramatic fashion, which in turn gives some drama to the backstories of Vaan and other characters) It's cute to know Vaan's still thinking of his brother, although the detail gets lost easily because who remembers a minor character's favorite flower? Anyway, here's what they look like:  drat it i'm always getting those two mixed up. Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste)  "It's perfect!" "Aye-aye!" "Aye-aye!"  - Many of the places you'll visit, such as the airship's bridge, are filled with characters you can interact with. Some will give advice on where to go next, while others offer useful items and equipment for sale. - Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  When you're close enough to strike up a friendly conversation with someone, they get a cute little speech bubble over their head.  "You remember what Balthier said when we found the Cache of Glabados?" "Something about it having a connection with the eternal, right?" "You don't think the Cache has something to do with this airship, do you? That it brought us here?" "It just may have, Kytes. But what's it all mean?" "Whatever the answer is, I bet it's waiting for us on that island!"Talking to a character twice can prompt a different conversation. I'll transcribe these as one long conversation and won't point it out in the future.  Minor FFXII reference: Migelo is a Bangaa who runs an items shop in Rabanastre. He served as a paternal figure to Vaan and Penalo. "I just hope we get back to Rabanastre in one piece." "Take it easy, Penelo. I'm here. What could possibly go wrong?"  "Ya got me. But she seems to have accepted us as her crew. Guess we'll just have to see what happens."" What kind of monsters do you think we'll run into out here? Are we gonna be okay?" "Don't worry. It's just like hunting dire rats back home. Those never gave us too much trouble." "It's a long way down. If you don't start behaving, we can always show you the door." "Ngraah!" "Think of the treasures we'll find. Not to mention a healthy supply of raw materials." "Yeah, so?" "You're not looking at the big picture, Vaan. We can use those materials to make new equipment, new weapons... all sorts of things. Those raw materials are treasures in their own right." "Whatever you say." "Well, just gather up what you find and bring 'em to me. I'll put 'em to good use." "Say Tomaj. I've been meanin' to ask you... Uh, why exactly are you here?" "That's a fine thing to say! I thought you'd be grateful for me help. Well, you will be soon enough!" Alright, let's not get ahead of ourselves. With all the optional conversations done here, all we have left to do it talk to Filo and advance the plot.  "You think anything's wrong with it?" "Maybe you should try using the Cache. It seemed to work before." "Aye-aye! Just let me know when you're ready to get under way!"  The control panel changes from blue to green, and the airship shudders to life! Soundtrack: World Map (Cerobi Steppe)  - Touch the screen in the direction you wish to move. The sirship can land at locations designated with a land icon. Approach named locations to enter them. Important locations containing missions that advance the story are marked with a flag. -  The world map is up on the top screen.  The large island to the East is called the The Muruc Cahuac Skysea, and lives up to its name by being almost entirely covered in a brilliant blue lake.  To the north, is an island covered in greenery and framed in a jagged mountain ridge, the centerpiece of which being a mountain surrounded by a moat of air. Arda, Heaven's Pillar is the name of this island.  Tormelados, Isle of the Megalith, looks like grassy ribbons covered in large crystal structures. It is on the west of our world map.  We'll be exploring those as the game progresses, but right now, we can only land on the island in the south; Zephyr, the Windward Isles. So let's go there. Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste)  "Aye-aye!" "Am I the only one having second thoughts?" "Thanks, Tomaj." "Just one thing before we go. I want each of you to promise you'll do something for me."Soundtrack: Penelo's Theme "What kind of promise?" "Being a sky pirate isn't all thrill and adventure, you know." "It's not?" "Not exactly." "If you know the answer already, why won't you just tell us?" "It's the kinda thing you have to figure out for yourself." "Well, I guess a little hint couldn't hurt. Part of being a sky pirate is hunting for treasure." "Hunting for treasure? That's it?" "It's a start."  "We can all write down our ideas in a log as we go along." "Um... no?" "I never even wanted to be a sky pirate." "Then we're agreed. Everyone will keep a log until we get back to Rabanastre." "Right. (Who put her in charge?)" "Yes ma'am. (What a waste of time!)" "What!? All right, all right. If Penelo's finished, then... let's go!"   If you return to the airship after Penelo's talk, there's some new dialouge.   Filo is right. Let's get to it!   Soundtrack: Field 1 - Battle 1 (Giza Plains)   "I didn't think we'd find our first treasure so soon!" "Hmm. Might as well take it, just in case." "If we found something this soon, just think how much treasure must be waiting out there!"      "Is he even a... a hume?" "Let's save him first, ask questions later!" - Objective: Save the wounded warrior! At least one ally must survive. -     Pretty simple, move all your units in and attack!      "Maybe all the people here have wings." "Over there!" - Move one of your group leaders to a Foraging Point and eat the berries growing there to recover HP. - On the top screen map, berries are represented as, well, red berries.  "Here, let me help you over there."  "I am well now, thank you."  "We're sky pirates, but don't let that give you the wrong idea." "What is this place? We came here by accident, and we don't really know where we are." "This is Lemurés. It is the land of my people, the aegyl."   "My companion." "She's in trouble!" "..." - Objective: Save Llyud's companion! At least one ally must survive. -  Now a tab for Llyud has been added. In many ways this battle is easier than the last. Berries are ample, and Penelo is here to heal you. Also, the battle only ends if everyone dies, so you don't have to babysit one unit.  - You can gather minerals and other useful resources by moving a group leader to one of the material nodes found throughout the map. Resources take time to gather, so make sure the area is clear before starting. -  I mentioned in an earlier update that Flying units interact differently with Ranged units, to balance out that they can fly. Well, this is the difference being able to fly makes. Flying units can go over empty sky, water, and other roadblocks Melee and Ranged units would be stopped by. They can take advantage of this as a shortcut, and become very mobile. And maybe a bit overpowered, without a strong weakness to Ranged units.  Penelo and Llyud both have abilities that you could set as their gambits now. Penelo's is Curaga, which provides area healing, by a noticeable amount.  Llyud's is Jump, in which he... well, he jumps into the air, and comes down on a foe. He can jump at foes which are outside the range of his regular attack, meaning he can use it to get the first strike.  These bones are a Material node. The green bars indicate how you're progressing in scavenging, when one fills, you get one material. Materials you get are displayed on the top screen, under the combat log. You can get a few materials out of each node.  To the north-west is another treasure chest. Treasure chests and Material Nodes share an icon on the field map, a yellow sack, so you'll have to pan the camera around to see what is what. Chests contain equipment upgrades generally, but sometimes other cool things. Not many, but a few chest items are missable. So grab every chest to avoid missing out!  There's no time limit to finish this mission, despite what the mission goal implies. It won't take you long anyway, but feel free to relax and explore a while if you want.    After showing you how much exp you get, the game will show you what items you got. Just showing it off.   "Yeah, but what was that all about, anyway? Who was attacking you?" "Sky pirates." "Sky pirates!?"Soundtrack: Suspicion (Auditory Hallucination)  "It is they who drive the Yarhi to their frenzy - sky pirates such as you."The camera pans across the Bosco Pampa.  "Behind this barrier we aegyl had dwelt here in peace for any thousands of years. But no longer." "Let him finish, Vaan!" "Not long ago, there came a great rush of Mist from the world below. This Mist breached the barrier. Our isolation was lost." "You don't think that could be--" "--the explosion of the Suncryst? Who'd have thought it could reach so far away?" "Now our very way of life is in jeopardy." "Tell ya what. Why don't we help you get rid of these sky pirates who are causin' all the trouble?" Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste) "Not all of us sky pirates are bad, honest!" "We're not all that different from you. When we get into trouble, we help each other out."  "Then just show us where these troublemakers are, and we can get down to business." "They've set up camp in a temple not far from here. Come, I will show you." "That wasn't so hard, was it?" The Sun-Cryst exploding is something that happened in FFXII, and the fact it reveals this sky continent could be considered a ret-con. It's an event that happens late in FFXII, and brings a lot of other plot threads and events to a head, so a summary outside of what the game just told you would be filled with spoilers, tricky to write, and not really needed to understand what's happening here. So next time: We beat up some other sky pirates for a guy we just met! ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 10:25
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Rigged Death Trap posted:So is there a unique piece of music in the game? Pretty sure there is no unique music in this game. But they're not ripping off FFT sprites wholesale. FFT's aesthetics are comparable to Revenant Wings, as both games use 2D sprites, 3D environments, and share the setting of Ivalice. But in FFT the sprites are taller, and use a more muted palette. To illustrate the difference:  A lot of generic monsters resemble those from FFT, Advance, and A2, but they have been re-drawn to match this game's style. Ivalice games have all shared a lot of enemy types and such anyways, so it's not a big deal.
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Sep 8, 2013 01:44
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Update #6 Auracite and the Yarhi - You can return to the airship at any time to outfit your party or talk to your companions. Revisit cleared areas to engage in melee battles and hone your skills. Visit areas with mission flags to advance the story. - You know, we should return to the airship now, because we now have access to...  ...the Ship's Log! Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  It's mostly just a big book of flavour text. Four flavours of text, in fact!   The Mission List is a summary of all the missions we've done thusfar. We can also discover there are a total of 81 in the game. Neat!  The Recipe Library is where we can view the contents of that book we got last mission. At a glance, this looks like an item crafting system, so I guess it would be ok for me to come out and say it's for an item crafting system that will be unlocked a bit further into the game. As usual, you'll get the specifics when it comes up. But it looks like there's a new item in there for everyone!  The Folio features worldbuilding words, about characters, locations, and terminology. All the entries in the folio have a purely informative "History" tab. Then, the "Lore" tab which gives information from the point of view of a character in the world, and features trivia mostly.  The Logbook is the diary everyone agreed to keep in the first mission of Chapter 2. This is entirely lighthearted bonus character building stuff. It's cute, funny, and helps you get to know the cast. Folio The Sky Continent of Lemurés
The Aegyl
Vaan
Penelo
Kytes
Filo
Tomaj
Llyud
Logbook First!
First Encounter
No Manners
From now on, at the start of each update, i'll post the new Folio and Ship's Log entries. There's usually not this many new entries, so no more big chucks of reading like this from here on out. Now lets see what everyone on the airship has to say, before heading on to our next mission.   "Don't forget to make one yourself, or you'll never hear the end of it from Penelo. So... is this all there is to being a sky pirate?" "Only now with the barrier down, sky pirates are havin' a field day up here." "Sounds about right." "So how'd this barrier get here in the first place?" "I don't know, but there's not much use worryin' about it now." "Fly first, ask questions later. Words for a sky pirate to live by!" "Why?" "Well, yeah. I mean, we never expected to find anybody out here." "Here we are born, and here we live and die. There is no 'why' to it." "Yeah, I guess. So now that the barrier's down, do you think you'll ever visit Ivalice?" "The world beyond Lemurés holds no interest for the aegyl." "That answers that." "What!?" "We're gonna give back the treasure?" "Of course we are, don't be silly. It belongs to the aegyl -- why shouldn't we give it back?" "The contents of those chests are aegyl offerings made to the gods to keep Lemurés safe. If we use these treasures to defend my land, surely no aegyl could voice complaint." "Sounds like we've got a license to plunder!" "You're incorrigible, Filo." "Ah, right, you missed all the excitement. Long story short, this place is getting overrun by sky pirates. We offered to lend a hand, help clean up the place." "That doesn't exactly answer my question..." "I'm sure you'll be up to speed in no time. Maybe you can even help us hunt down some of these sky pirates." "No time. My hands are full running the Good Ship Tomaj." "It's the Gilgamesh!"  - Auracite and the Yarhi. Clan Gilgamesh springs into action to rescue the aegyl Llyud. But they're in for a fight -- the sky pirates invading Lemures have arrived in force. - Soundtrack: Field 2 - Battle 2(State of Urgency) The Battle part of the song is playing during the intro cutscene.   "Ah, you must mean the Yahri that accompany them." "Well, whatever you call 'em, where do they come from?" "The power of the auracite gives them form."    : "It is clear they seek the auracite."   - Objective: Defeat all enemy leaders! At least one ally must survive. -   "Yeah, I think we've got those gates figured out."  The field is fairly straightfoward, with material nodes right at the start! As suggested by the last cutscene, taking control of the summoning gate, while collecting the treasures here at the start, is first off.   Beyond the archway is our first foe. Once finished up in the starting area, just send everyone in.  Once an enemy party leader dies, their dazed body remains on the field. Unlike the Espers, who just vanish. The same is true of your own party members.  There is material node in the east corner here, don't forget to grab it before you fight the next guy!   Capturing the summoning gate here means summons won't have to walk all the way from the other summoning gate outside to get to here. It also means your opponents won't be able to use it! Even if you don't think you need a summoning gate, you should capture it, just so the enemy can't use it!   All the generic enemy NPC party leaders in this fight share the designs of character classes from Tactics Advance and A2. And we haven't seen the last of these designs either!   I didn't bother capturing this summoning gate here, the fight was almost over anyways. Once the last leader is dead, and our victory condition filled, anything else of our opponent's left on the field dies.   Llyud becomes my first party member with more than one ability! Soundtrack: World Map (Cerobi Steppe)     "It is said the Yarhi are the sword given us by the Eternal when He forged this land. Using auracite, we call them from the realm of illusion to do as we bid." "I bet that the treasure you found, the Cache of Glabados, must be a piece of auracite!" "Auracite, yes. Yet I sense an even greater power in this Stone."  "I think it's another piece of auracite." "It is. You can use these stones to forge new packs with the Yarhi. Take this. It is what we call a Ring of Pacts. With it you will be able to summon new Yarhi to your aid." - You obtain the Ring of Pacts! The following selections are now available on the World Map Menu: Ring of Pacts, Espers -   Before finishing up this update, let's look at our new goodies!  Here's our menu! The Primer is where tutorials are, I won't be showing it off. As for the rest of the non-self-explanatory stuff...  Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste) Different screens of the menu play different music. Most menus will play this tune, with the Ring of Pacts menu being the exception. Not a new goodie: The equipment menu! Stats! Items! Weapons and Armour boost stats, and add elemental properties to characters. Accessories add buffs, protection against debuffs, and other special effects. Since accessories offer these rather than outright stat boosts, picking the right accessories for the job is interesting.  Soundtrack: Genjyunomori (Eruyt Village) - Use the Ring of Pacts to forge pacts with new Espers and enlist them to your cause. To enlist an Esper, first touch on of the glowing yellow nodes on the Ring. Each node represents an Esper. Once you've selected an Esper, touch Enlist to forge a pact with that Esper. Forging pacts requires auracite. You can rotate the Ring by touching the slide wheel found along its edge. Remember that you must add any new Espers you've enlisted to an Esper Troupe before you'll be able to summon them during battle. -  We can unlock a few lv1 espers right now. Some are Final Fantasy mainstays, like cactuars and bombs, but there's some more out there ones too. At this stage, it's best to unlock espers as you need them, so take a look at what espers your next foes are wielding before spending Auracite willy-nilly. Auracite is in surplus, there will be more than enough Auracite to unlock everything on the Ring of Pacts, but it's uncommon enough to tread with caution for now!  White Hares provide healing though, that's always handy, so I went right ahead and made a pact with them! There's a bit more to the Ring of Pacts, but for now, let's take a look at Esper Troupes.  - To summon Espers during battle, you must first assign them to a troupe. You can create up to three Esper troupes. Touch Modify to adjust the composition of a troupe. To enlist new Espers, touch Pacts to view the Ring of Pacts. When you've finished assigning Espers to a troupe, touch back. -  - You can assign up to five Espers to a troupe. However, an Esper cannot be of a higher rank than that indicated on its slot. - All our slots and espers are Rank I. You get higher ranking slots as you get the higher ranking espers.   Looking good. We'll test our new troupe in battle next time! ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Sep 10, 2013 |
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Sep 10, 2013 11:16
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ApplesandOranges posted:Since we've met the five characters we'll be controlling for a very long time, here's a (somewhat rough) breakdown of how they all are: That's a really nice write up! I've been struggling to find a way to get that info out efficiently and accessability, and you just nailed it! Mind if I link it in the opening post? As for espers, doing a write-up of those would be so super-duper cool of you, it's not really a big deal as long as you stay away from the ones locked off for now. Especially if you're just doing the level 1 Espers, go right ahead. Glazius posted:Oh, interesting. Every party member gets their own deck of espers they can summon at the gates? So basically instead of skill development you're mixing and matching the Esper selection. Troupes basically allow you to save three favorite collections of Espers, and you pick only one to use at the beginning of battle. If anyone is confused about any systems in the game so far, just ask, so I can address them in the next update. I'll add this info clarifying how Esper Troupes work, since we'll be seeing them and the Ring of Pacts actually in use then. DjinnAndTonic posted:I love how the White Hares are literally wearing White Mage robes.  5 minute sprite edit in Paint, anyone?
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Sep 12, 2013 02:03
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Update #7: Reinforcements New Folio entry: Zephyr, the Windward Isles
New Logbook entries: Bored
Eureka!
Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  "That's what Balthier said, right?" "And if the Cache is really a piece of auracite, then that legend must have something to do with Lemurés." "Hm... Do you think Balthier knew about Lemurés all along?"  "The Yarhi." "The Yarhi are the sword of the Eternal. They live in the World of Illusion." "But we can summon them here using the auracite, right?" "Exactly. Sort of like Espers." "And the Eternal taught the aegyl how to summon the Yarhi so they could defend themselves." "Yeah, that's what it seems like. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"The choice menu appears again. "Auracite." "Auracite is a powerful type of stone that we can use to summon Yarhi. If we gather enough auracite, we can use it to forge pacts to summon new Yarhi." "That's what the Ring of Pacts that Llyud gave us is for." "Yup." "Since I used the Cache of Glabados to summon Yarhi, that means it must be a piece of auracite, too." "I thought I hear Llyud say it was different somehow, but it must at least be something close. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?" "Maybe some other time." "Okay. Just let me know if you need a reminder."  "But i'm working on something to remedy that." "Oh yeah? Let's hear it." "I think i'll save it for a surprise. Just leave the running of the ship to me. Compared to managing the Sandsea, this'll be a breeze." "Holy laws?" "If you attempt to call a Yarhi that is beyond your ability to control, you will be destroyed." "Harsh law. I guess it pays not to get in over your head." "In this, as in all things. We aegyl have had growing difficulty in controlling the Yarhi. It puzzles me that these sky pirates from the underworld should command them with such ease." "The World of Illusion is everywhere, and it is nowhere." "I don't think I understand." "It is not a place within our world, but another world parallel to our own. The portals between our world and theirs are what we call summoning gates." "So the auracite Vaan has -- the Cache -- is that a portal to their world too?" "That's right. I used this to summon Yarhi all by itself." "Though it is possible to summon the Yarhi using auracite alone, there are limits to the Stones' power. Summoning gates are a far more effective means of summoning great numbers of Yarhi." "If the Yarhi are from this 'realm of illusion', then that must mean they're some sort of illusion, too." "I took a look at it, and there sure are a lot of different Yarhi to choose from. How're you gonna decide?" "I dunno, Filo. Which ones do you think would be good to have?" "That's easy! The big, strong, scary ones!" "Naturally. So, you enjoying all this excitement?" "Are you kidding? This is the best adventure ever! We're finally honest-to-goodness sky pirates!" "Yeah, pretty fun, isn't it?" "Do you think we can make pacts with all the Yarhi on the Ring?" Our destination is the Fane of Gucuma Qul, again. Let's go deeper in! Soundtrack: Dungeon 1 Field - Dungeon 1 Battle       - Only group leaders can activate switches. Don't send an Esper to do a leader's job. -   "Then that's where we'll find the leader of these sky pirates." Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste) - This is the Battle Party Screen. You can assign group leaders and modify Esper troupes from this screen. Touch enemies with the style to assess their strengths and weaknesses, then assemble your battle party accordingly."  Before every battle, we'll now get to see this screen. This screen lets you plan ahead, do any setup, and save before battle. You can also see some important details, like if the mission contains summoning gates or not, on the top screen. One thing this screen can't tell you is in what proportions foes appear, which is actually an issue in some fights. Not in this one, though. Our foes mostly have no elemental advantages, but they do have two Espers with elemental weaknesses.   So I unlock two Espers on the Ring of Pacts to counter this. An Esper's nature is the type of attack it uses. It's weaknesses and resistances are fairly self-explanatory. Not all espers with the same nature have the same weaknesses and resistances. I find differences in Type usually make a bigger difference than natures, but having an advantage in as many forms as possible couldn't hurt. Aquarius won't prove too helpful, as you'll see.  Now we can select our new Troupe to use in battle. Troupes allow you to save and pick a favorite team, and you can switch between them between battles. With the setup all done, let's begin combat!    Soundtrack: Dungeon 1 Field - Dungeon 1 Battle The initial Espers at the beginning of battle are summoned to leaders that share their type. We have two flying leaders, and two flying Espers, so they get 1 of each flying Esper.  The Ramih are the reason I unlocked Aquarius, but you may be able to see, they're an even match. They're both flying type, and they're both weak to each other. Lots of Enemies in this fight resist confuse, which is not a factor in anyway. I left the map in this screenshot to show it off.  An Aquarius proves to be the first casualty of the fight. Because there are no summoning gates here, keeping your Espers alive should be on your mind. Moreso than it should in a course with gates, that is.   The first enemy leader is to the west, up a set of stairs. The espers flanking him are weak to Earth, so Kytes and his cactuars provide good support.   Zoom! All the enemy leaders in this battle run off after they've been defeated.  The road through is linier, and made even more so by the switches. The switches are just something new to do mostly, they don't change the feel of battle much.  The foraging points are floating blue glossy fruits.  After opening some chests, enemy Espers will spawn behind you. They're so easy to defeat, they're not even a disincentive to open a chest.   This guy up here has some White Rabbits to back him up, so...  ...So they're not doing anything.  So they didn't do anything! Doesn't matter. There's a switch behind them, but White Rabbits can't attack, so you don't need to murder them even. I mean, I did murder them, but I didn't have to.  It's at this stage I realized I missed a chest right at the start of this course. I left in the map so you could all revel in my forgetfulness. Look at it, all the way back there.   Yeah I went back for the treasure chest.  Nothing great in it either. Ah well.  Now, after that detour, it's time to go through the last door!      Soundtrack: Boss Battle 1 (Slash of the Sword)  All our Espers have vanished, so I guess it's up to the party leaders to defeat this guy!   Vaan's been knocked out! And this Esper is getting me good! Those other sky pirates have a reason to celebrate, looks like.  Soundtrack: A Scheme (Little Villain)           "See for yourself."Soundtrack: Boss Battle 1 (Slash of the Sword)  "Aye, enjoy the spectacle while you can. The worm will turn!" "Did you see that!?" "Ba'Gamnan's obeying you?" "I call it Ba'Gamnan's Bane. Just a little something I threw together. I suppose you could say Ba'Gamnan works for me, now. Go easy on 'im." "Me neither, but i'll take all the help we can get." Llyud's Revive ability can bring Vaan to his feet again. Revive drains 25% of Llyud's Max HP, but usually (and definitely in this situation) the advantage of fully restoring the HP of a fallen ally is worth it. Our enemy retains the damage we did to him, and with Ba'Gamnan on our side, victory is close!  Soundtrack: A Scheme (Little Villain)   "What are we going to do with him, Vaan?" "We use Espers to fight for us. Why not him?" "Do you think we can trust him?" Soundtrack: Battle 1 (Giza Plains) "Brave words, boy. If it weren't for this blasted muzzle, i'd carve my name in your bones!" "That's just the fear talking. You can dish it, but you can't take it." "Muzzle or no, let's have at it, boy!" Before closing up the update, its (finally) time for a spiel on where Ba'Gamnan was in FFXII!  Ba'Gamnan is a returning character from FFXII. Like Filo and Kytes, he appears early, and fades into the background, except for a late-game optional sidequest. Ba'Gamnan is far more memorable though, as he's a minor antagonist. Ba'Gamnan sees Balthier as his nemesis, and attempts to lure him into a trap by kidnapping Penelo ( ). Initially, it works, in that it lures Balthier. But Ba'Gamnan's plan fails, as the party engages him in battle. Or runs away, you can choose to run or fight, and running away will still advance the plot. His siblings fight alongside him in this battle. There's a bit more too it, but that's enough to give you the jist of Ba'Gamnan's role. In the optional sidequest involving Ba'Gamnan, he posts up a bill hoping to lure Balthier, and you defeat him for good. Except you don't, or he wouldn't be here now!On a side not, Ba'Gamnan's weapon is called the Ba'Gangsaw. That's a pretty cool name! Anyways, if switches weren't a cool enough gameplay mechanic for you, we've got something else special waiting next time! (I'm not joking, the upcoming gameplay mechanic is really nifty.) We'll also get to use Ba'Gamnan in battle. ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 12:19
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ApplesandOranges posted:Yeah, you can link to my ramblings if you want. I'll probably talk about the level 1 Espers tomorrow and decide where to go on from there. I wasn't sure if listing the abilities the characters learn'd be a no-no, but if that's fine with you I can ramble about them too. The abilities aren't that much of a spoiler, so go ahead, but i'll be discussing them as they come up myself. If you still want to talk about them, that's your call though. I'll be using Ba'Gamnan, of course, because i'm sure a lot of people want to see that! That's a bad reason to ask to see a character's official art, but I will post Vaan and Penelo's official art with the next update. I've been meaning to post it anyway. Schwartzcough posted:I'd be afraid of spending time leveling him because he's a shoe-in for getting free and betraying you later. But I don't know how this game handles "leveling" insofar as whether you can waste your time doing it, or if everyone just levels equally. People who don't participate in battle get reduced experience. Since somebody is going to be sitting out of the next fight, i'll do the maths as to how much less exp they get, but I think they only get a quarter of what everyone else gets.
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Sep 13, 2013 08:15
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  I'm bad at making a red mage rabbit, apparently. But here's some rabbits. Espers level up with your party, and stay at the average level of all your members, if anyone was wondering. You can use some later game abilities to raise their levels while in battle, but that's stuff in the future. Espers have some abilities which afflict ailments and things that give an advantage in a neutral matchup. Their stats don't make too much of a difference, not enough to be seriously considered as an advantage or disadvantage in most situations in the game. Party Leader's base stats are worth considering and comparing sometimes, but not Espers. It's hard to show off a lot of this stuff in early battles, because they're pretty easy and can be won with some basic strategies.
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Sep 15, 2013 04:11
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DjinnAndTonic posted:That's perfect! Enjoy I laughed when I saw my new avatar, like I just had this little giggle-fit right now. Gosh, and thank you! One of the reasons I chose to play this game for the internet was because it feels like a lot of people are curious about it, but there's not that many who've actually taken the leap and played it for some reason or another. I'm glad there's all these fans of it though, it makes things more interesting that way!
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Sep 16, 2013 00:08
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Update #8: 'Neath Darkened Wings New Folio Entries Yarhi
Ba'Gamnan
New Log Book entry Ba'Gamnan's Bane
Ba'Gamnan's Folio entry bridges his story between FFXII and now, if you had any questions on your lips about that. Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  "That trinket was worth every gil." "Trinket? You mean the muzzle you've got wrapped around Ba'Gamnan's snout? What did you buy that for in the first place?" "Sorry, I can't be giving out trade secrets." "Whatever you say, Tomaj." "Have you seen the size of the sky saloon on this ship? There must be some use we can put it to." "I wouldn't get too worked up if I were you. Wouldn't want anything to happen to ya." "Let's have it, then! All wind and no steel is what you are!" "I warned you." "Leave me be. This muzzle's bad enough without having to talk to the likes of you!" "Aw, c'mon. You're having fun, aren't you?" "I guess.... But i've never really been much for fighting. What if something really big attacks us?" "Then just be glad we'll be facing it together." "Right, Vaan! Just promise me you'll try not to get us in too much trouble, okay?" "I'll say!" "All that hard work and practice down in Lowtown really paid off." "It sure did! I told those scurvy landlubbers it would!" "Too bad we couldn't bring more of the old crew along." "He he he. They'll just have to wait for next time! When are we gonna go see what's in that temple?"Penelo and Llyud don't have any new dialogue. Our mission is in the Fane of Gucuma Qul once more. So what is it? - 'Neath Darkened Wings. The group presses on with the help of Ba'Gamnan, who is tamed by Tomaj's device. Arriving at the shrine's inner sanctum, they learn the true ambitions of the sky pirates. -Right, let's get going! Soundtrack: Battle 4 (Rebellion)    "If you think you're taking that auracite, think again."   "Slice 'em up good, lads!" - Possession of a soul crystal enables KO'd group leaders to rejoin the battle after a short period of time. -   Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste)  These are Ba'Gamnan's stats.  I put him in battle in place of Llyud. Most of our enemies are Melee or Ranged, so a Melee until has less weaknesses than a Flying one here. The Revive Gambit is also less useful on a field with a soul crystal.  I unlock Bomb Espers to use in this fight.  And this is my team going in! Let's begin battle! Soundtrack: Field 4 - Battle 4(Rebellion)  Bombs have a self-destruct ability. When you tap an Esper, usually you just get the option to dismiss it. (Dismissing an Esper can be helpful, as it frees up Affinity points to spend on other Espers) Espers with abilities, like self-destruct here, get a Magick/Abilities option similar to the one party leaders get. Espers can't have Gambits, so you've got to use their abilities manually like this! The map is fairly straightforward, there's a summoning gate in the middle that starts off property of our foes, so we should catch that on the way. Righty-o!  Filo has learned Defense Snare after the last battle. It's a trap which lowers the Stamina and Mind of foes. Setting up traps near a Soul Crystal or on choke points on an arena can be a good idea. Trapping abilities have a pretty long recharge time, so don't just place them anywhere, put a bit of thought into it! But this trap never comes into play here, as this is the first battle to show off the soul crystal mechanic and therefore not a tricky fight. In fact, let's get to discussing Soul Crystals now!  Soul crystals don't appear in all battles, but do show up semi-regularly from now on. Since they automatically revive leaders, healing becomes less of a priority.  The mission won't end unless your soul crystal is destroyed, so you could have everyone dead and be able to make a comeback. Not that having everyone dead would be a good place to be in, mind you, but since death isn't as big of a deal, a focus on offense and bruting your way to the foe's crystal is important.  In this battle, you need to keep summoning Espers, as they tend to die quickly as well, and need replenishing.  Enemy leaders are also automatically resurrected by their crystal, after a short period of time. Killing leaders as you go means they'll all be at the crystal by the end, and it can get thorny then.  I don't kill the white mage here, since they're the least threatening, and having them close to the Soul Crystal will make every other enemy leader who's going to spawn there harder to kill.  Soul Crystals change the approach you should take to battle significantly. Other ways things will change will be seen in future fights!   Bonus: If Ba'Gamnan isn't around, Llyud has something to say on the Soul Crystal's destruction!  Kinda dull compared to Ba'Gamnan. Doing the battle a second time, to find out this worthless little bite of info, my strategy was: Press X to select all party members, and tap the soul crystal. And it worked! I was kinda surprised it did work, but if you're having trouble on this mission, just charge wildly at the soul crystal and hope for the best! Soundtrack: A Scheme (Little Villain)  "And who gave you the auracite in the first place?" "You'll not get another bleedin' word outta me!"   "I'm going to enjoy this..." "Fine, i'll tell ya what I know, which is little enough. We got the stone we used from a shady character called the Judge of Wings, ya follow? I don't know who or what she is, and that's the truth of it!"   "What would a judge from the Empire be doing here?" "They wouldn't be doing anything here! Who said anything about the Empire, anyway? This Judge of Wings is all done up in armor with wings on the back, so that's what we call 'er, ya follow?" "So who is she?" "The Judge of Wings broke the barrier protecting Lemurés, and now she plans to invade Ivalice. She sits in judgement of all life... and death." "What's this about invading Ivalice?"  "Shh! Don't give 'em any ideas!"   "Auralith?" "Hey, get back here!" Soundtrack: Shop Menu (Rabanastre Downtown)      "Did you see any of those sky pirates come this way?" "Why didn't you stop him?" "I'm not much of a fighter. No weapons, scarcely any muscle on me -- I'll pass." "Look on the bright side. At least he's all right." Soundtrack: Suspicion (Auditory Hallucination)  "The auraliths are the root of the power that sustains our world. It is said there are three such crystals. Their story begins many thousands of years ago, when the Eternal created this land." "When He created Lemurés, He used the three auraliths to create a barrier to protect us. Feolthanos lives even now, standing watch over Lemurés, sheltering us from harm." "He is the Eternal. He knows not death." "I'm starting to see a pattern here." "Is something wrong?" "No, but we better get moving. You wanna keep the auraliths safe from the Judge of Wings, don'tcha?" "The auraliths hold the power of the Eternal. They are the very foundation of Lemurés. They must be protected at all costs." "Anybody trying to become a god's got his armor on too tight, if you ask me." "Do you know where any of the auraliths are?" "One, yes."Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste)   "A great cloudstone rises from the island to the west. The auralith is there."  By the way, here's the official artwork of Vaan and Penelo.  Phew. So next time: Chapter 3 begins! ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Sep 17, 2013 |
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Sep 16, 2013 08:22
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Update #9: Savagery New Folio entries: Summoning Gates
Auracite
Feolthanos the Eternal
New Log Entry: Log Check
 To the west, we've got a new area open! We'll head off there in a second, but first, let's... well, you know the drill. Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  "Could be bad for your health, aye." "No, we're just taking a little break is all." "Phew! I was gettin' worried." "Don't forget what Penelo told you. There's more to all this than finding treasure." "Right, right." "What are you up to this time, Tomaj?" "I'm hurt, Vaan. When have I ever been anything but a valued ally?" "He dwells in the Keep of Forgotten Time. It lies in darkness, in a place not even our wings can reach." "The Cache, Lemurés...they all have a connection with the eternal. Maybe she's looking for eternal life." "Is that even possible? This talk about the Judge of Wings has me worried. Be careful, okay, Vaan?" "-- (pant) I can't keep it all straight!" "Sounds like you've got it down better than I do." "You really think so? I don't know..." With the Kisne Rise open, we can now land on Tormelados, Isle of the Megalith. Getting close to the landing point triggers a cutscene.   "What's the matter, Vaan?" "Aren't you coming?" "While we're busy here, what's to say some other sky pirates aren't off causing trouble somewhere?" "That's actually a good point, Vaan. But we can't exactly be in two places at the same time."Soundtrack: Shop Menu (Rabanastre Downtown)     "All right, let's get going!"    Soundtrack: World Map (Cerobi Steppe) The notice board can wait for now. We've got a new button for Tomaj on the world map, but let's check out the Kisne Rise.   - Savagery: The Gilgamesh drops anchor at the Isle of the Megalith to stop the Judge of Wings from reaching to auralith, only to find a sky pirate attack already underway -Soundtrack: Field 2 - Battle 2(State of Urgency)     "We're too late..." "Not too late to help!"   - Objective: Defeat all enemy leaders. All aegyl must survive. At least one ally must survive. -      The aegyl are yellow arrows on the world map, naturally. Penelo will heal aegyl in trouble, like she'd heal anyone else, so if you're ever worried about an aegyl dying it's Penelo to the rescue!    After defeating the sky pirate badgering an Aegyl, they'll fly to the entrance point of the arena. Once they're back, they'll be officially saved, and they'll thank you and vanish.   The aegyl here won't take damage before your party approaches and they say their blurb. This is the last aegyl we'll get to, but he won't be hurt a hitpoint until we get close. Don't worry.  We should be rescuing aegyl in the order Vaan counted them in the prior cutscene, so our party kinda zigzags around the field. We're going to capture a summoning gate here, so don't forget to queue some new summons after it's captured.   Looks like I forgot to kill a goblin, and it chased this aegyl all the way back. Aww. The aegyl are fast, have a lot of HP, and it's pretty forgiving.  Kytes learned Bio last battle! Bio takes a bit longer to recharge than Firaga and Blizzara, and it doesn't do direct damage, but it adds the poison status ailment to your foes. Poison takes away 2% of an afflicted character's max HP per second, for 10 seconds. So I guess you could say that's 20% of foe's Max HP damaged away by Bio! That's not bad!   (The exclamation point's colour mucked up in the GIF, it's still meant to be red. My bad.)     Even though this seeq comes out of nowhere and intercepts this fleeing aegyl, he's slow, and the aegyl is fast so he shouldn't die. The seeq will be distracted by your party when they approach, so he's not too dangerous, but after he appears taking him out should still be priority #1.     Trying to solo these guys with Filo was dumb. Llyud's revive to the rescue. By the way, Llyud has a new ability, called Lancet. Activating Lancet will give Llyud's regular attacks a HP draining property for 20 seconds. Handy for recovering from using a Revive! Or just recovering in general, really. He drains 80% of the damage he inflicts with Lancet active, but there's an accessory you can get later which will change it to 100% Lancet has a 40 second recharge time, which is very long. But it's effects last for 20 seconds, so it's effectively 20 seconds of recharge after it wears off.  Well, just gotta kill this last guy and...  Bonus: Aegyl death reel.      You fail the mission if even one aegyl dies, so I took these with screenshots with save states. A game over doesn't mean your game is over, you still get a few experience points from the battle you lost, and the option to retry or go back to the airship. Soundtrack: Genjyunomori (Eruyt Village)  "And that's where the auralith is." "You don't understand the kind of people we're dealing with here. All they care about is getting what they want. To them, it doesn't matter if people get hurt doing it."  "Why don't we let them on the airship to stay safe? Who knows if they'll get attacked again. Besides, there's plenty of room." "That's a great idea."  "The ship's as much yours as it is ours. Maybe it'll give Penelo someone else to mother for a change."  Hey, I just remembered I haven't shown Llyud's official art yet either. Here you go!  Next time, let's see what Tomaj has got for us on his notice board.
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Sep 19, 2013 10:26
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Are Donga's eyes supposed to be black voids?  Hobgoblin2099 posted:Seeq are creepy in general. They're basically the secondary default evil race in the games, from what I've seen, aside from Bangaa. Seeq are like bigger, dumber Bangaa. I wouldn't call them default evil, but they're predisposed to tedious and undignified work. And in this game, it mostly involves working for the baddies.
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Sep 19, 2013 23:47
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Update #10: Sidequests! Bug Hunt + Once Bitten, Twice Shy + Maleficent Mayhem + The Scofflaw Dialogue on the airship doesn't change between side-missions, so we won't be reading the new dialogue there until the beginning of the next update. Tapping the new Tomaj icon on our world map gives us our sidequest menu.  Let's do these in order. First up's Bug Hunt!  Selecting a mission will automatically transport you to where it's taking place. Handy. Soundtrack: Field 1 - Battle 1 (Giza Plains)     "Yeah, what's with all the bugs? Ick!"  "Now, be good little children and feed my pets for me! Hehehe..." - Objective: Defeat all enemies! At least one ally must survive. -    These side missions are super-straightforward. Just don't forget to grab the treasure chest!  The hardest part is the huge pile of Antlions. But if you bring both your flying leaders, and some flying Espers, and victory is easy as. You should come here sooner than later, a weakened team might have trouble, and everything else on the map is pretty easy to pick off in comparison. If your characters have any buffs by this stage, using them before charging into the Antlions is a good idea!   "You'll be singing a sadder song when you encounter my next creation! But first, I must experiment! To the laboratory!" "Hey! Get back here!" "Bring on the bad guys, and the Auracite will follow!" And that's the end of that!  Here's what our noticeboard looks like in our airship. Hmm. Noticeboard-y. By the way, I lied, and Tomaj has a new dialogue.  "I've already got some choice bits of information about the Windward Isles. It's all up on the notice board, so take a look when you get the chance."We know, thanks. Let's get moving! - Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Already word of these sky pirate's wrongdoing reaches my ears. They beleaguer a group of aegyl at the Fane of Gucuma Qul on the Windward Isles. Best hurry while there's still time. -Soundtrack: Field 2 - Battle 2(State of Urgency)     "She won't stand down." "But why fight? It doesn't make sense!" - Objective: Capture the summoning gate! At least one ally must survive."  Aegyl fly, so ranged espers are helpful. Flying units and kinda neutral, and the aegyl use some melee espers (like Chocobo) so some flying Espers can help beat those.   The objective says to capture the summoning gate, but it actually means all four of them.  Since you'll murder everything on the way, it's not too different to a kill everything objective.  The last summoning gate is a bit tricky. Some tough espers defend the staircase up, there's an aegyl to knock out, and this gate spends the whole battle spitting out chocobo and would have spat out quite a lot by now. Take a bit of time to heal and beef up your esper supplies, don't just charge in.   "Once her guard was down, they wrought destruction on the shrine." "So she thought we were playing the same trick." "Not exactly." "She said it was unbecoming of an aegyl to consort with sky pirates of any sort." "Does that make you an outcast or something?" "Perhaps." "It doesn't matter. Either way, you're still one of us!"  - Maleficent Mayhem: Monsters block the way to the auracite at the Fane of Gucuma Qul. From what I can tell, the sky pirates are only making the situation worse. See that it doesn't grow more so. -Soundtrack: Field 3 (Dalmasca Eastersand)       This isn't a very good esper troupe for this battle. There's more enemies weak to earth than fire, so I should have focused on earth more. I still win with it, but yeah, this troupe could have easily been better.   Unlike our first time here, the switches aren't active. Doesn't change anything really.  At the end, there's a bunch of enemies that will climb up these stairs and attack you. Set a trap up on the stairs to snare them all!  Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  "I'll bet it's those sky pirates!" "The nerve of those guys!" "We'll just have to follow Tomaj's leads to get to the bottom of this." "I'm sure they'll take us to the bottom of something."  Beating those last 3 missions unlocks a fourth one. Time to bring the little side plot in these sidequests to it's conclusion! Soundtrack: Field 3 (Dalmasca Eastersand)      "A true sky pirate pillages and plunders as he pleases!" "Well, then, why don't we settle this dispute in true pirate fashion!"- Objective: Defeat all enemies! At least one ally must survive. -  This battle isn't too different from the previous battle fought in the Dais of the Auracite, even though we have another enemy leader, and no soul crystal. It's a bit trickier, but the soul crystal battle was so easy, it's hard not to be trickier than that.   One of our enemy leaders had died when I took this screenshot, a Viera archer, and where they were is now a star. There's two summoning gates here, and it's better to capture them both, to stop your foe from using them. The white mage is weak, and I didn't kill the white mage the last time I fought a battle here, so.  The second Viera archer is up the stairs between the two summoning gates, and likes to cast Vanish. Vanish will make her invisible on the map, so don't forget she exists. Vanish automatically comes off when she starts attacking.  Quaddo likes to come down and attack you when you climb the stairs the second Viera archer was defending, rather than waiting for you to get to him. You should just kill him when he comes for you. Don't forget to replenish your Espers as you do!  Soundtrack: Vaan's Theme (The Mosphoran Highwaste)  "But I guess there are plenty of thieves who call themselves sky pirates too." "Nuh-uh! Tell him, Vaan!" "That's why there are good sky pirates and bad ones. It's just a question of which you want to be, Kytes." "I wanna be one of the good ones!" "Just believe in yourself and the sky's the limit!" "Er... right, something like that." And with that, we've done all the sidequests available to us for now! So, why do sidequests? You get things for hundred-percenting the game, and beating all the sidequests is part of that. In addition, you get EXP, so it allows you to level-up a bit. There are other ways to level, but they feel like grinding, and this doesn't so much. There's also a bit of character development and stuff you'd otherwise miss. All the usual reason you'd do sidequests in games, I s'pose. We have him to thank for this diversion, so here he is! Tomaj's official art!  And next time, it's back to the main plot. ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Sep 22, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 02:14
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PopeCrunch posted:Heh heh. You said dong. Ha ha yeah but now the typo is edited, and thus the fact anyone saw it is edited out of reality.
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Sep 22, 2013 12:51
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Update #11: Rendezvous Round Back New Folio Entries: The Canon
Tormelados, Isle of the Megalith
New Logbook Entries: Captain's First Log
Clouds Below
That's it?
Grand Opening
Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)   We have a new location, but also some shopping to do. So we're going to do the one that involves going back to the airship first.  "When did you find the time for that?" "I'm a man of many resources. You should know that by now." Let's see what he's got. "Buying or selling, you've come to the right place."You get a choice to buy, sell, or cancel. Let's take a look at what we can buy.  If you've been opening every treasure chest so far, as I have been, you should have every weapon and armour Tomaj is selling. Frankly, you should never have to buy a weapon from Tomaj. The not-unlocked-yet crafting system will always give you better, cheaper weapons.  Accessories are interesting though. As i've mentioned, they give buffs rather than direct stat boosts. Some accessories can be found in treasure chests, but some can only be brought here. Sprint Shoes are one of the first accessories you get, back in missions 2-1, the first mission we did on Lemurés. If you somehow missed them, you should seriously pick up a pair right now, and don't forget to equip them! You'll need them for the upcoming mission. Let's go sell some stuff.  Since weapons become obsolete, stopping by and selling some you don't need should be routine. The main difference in this menu is that you can sell back materials. Hey, look, I know menus are super-exciting, but we've gotta get back on track here. Let's talk to Tomaj!  "We've got aegyl crawling out of the woodwork." "They're gonna be staying with us for a while. Just until we're sure they'll be safe." "I don't suppose you'd care to elaborate? Maybe tell me who they are, or how they got here?" "I'm sure a practiced streetear such as yourself should be able to piece it together." "So now i'm supposed to investigate what my own friends are doing? This is a fine pass we've come to."   "Some say the Judge of Wings is Feolthanos come to walk among us. If this be true, we must not meddle in His affairs." "Llyud's choice to befriend you is a puzzling one. Perhaps he fits in with your unlikely group." "What's that supposed to mean, Vaan? When did I ever mother anyone?" "Uh, when haven't you?" "What!?" "Take it easy, Penelo. It's not like it's a bad thing." "The aegyl should be safe inside the airship now." "Yeah. Who knows what would have happened if we hadn't found 'em when we did." "We can't let things going like this. We have to do something about the sky pirates." "Yes." "So, what's the difference between auracite and an auralith?" "The origin of auracite and the auraliths is the same. All auracite comes from the auraliths, and both were gifts given to Lemurés by the Eternal." "In other words, the auraliths are just big pieces of auracite, right?" "You might say that, yes. The Judge of Wings is gathering auracite and seeking the auraliths. To what end?" "Yeah, I hope so. There's just so many of us now... Well, the more, the merrier." "The more, the merrier! Are we going to fight the sky pirates again? I hope I'm not in the way..." "Hey, not so fast, Filo. We gotta make sure we're ready first." "I'm ready, already! Who's gonna stop those sky pirates if we don't?" "Rushing off before we're ready will only make things worse." "Okay, okay... So if you were the father, and Penelo were the mother, that'd make me the daughter!" - Rendezvous Round Back: After saving the aegyl, the party heads for the shrine holding the auralith, but a watch has already been posted outside! How does Vaan plan to sneak past? -Soundtrack: Dungeon 2 Field (Infiltration)   "Too many patrols."     "Are you crazy? You saw what they did to those aegyl!" "Well, I don't hear any other ideas."  "You might have told us a little sooner." "The entrance can only be opened by a switch inside the temple." "Arrr..." "By yourself? What if they catch you?" "It's hardly the first time I've snuck inside a heavily guarded building. And if I go alone, there's less chance of getting caught."  "You guys head around to that secret entrance, and i'll meet ya there." - Objective: Sneak into the temple! Vaan must survive. -   This mission can be a brick wall for some people, but the strategy is simple. Tap Vaan, tap the goal, cross your fingers that you don't get hit with an immobilising ability on the way. As long as you remembered the sprint shoes, it's that easy. You may have to brute-force your way, but you get exp even if you lose, so no sweat. If you're really having trouble, go around the outside of the arena, not right through the middle. No treasure chests here contain missable items, so feel free to skip them.   If you're not feeling confident about your level, you should go gain a few now. The main way to get levels outside of doing sidequests are melee battles. After completing the story missions in an area, you get the option to battle the indigenous monsters there. I'm not going to show the melee battles, as they're not interesting. They're fairly generic, no cutscenes wrapping them, and bland. Enemies in melee battles do scale to your level, and you can mine materials from melee battles, so they're for grinding levels only pretty much. So i'll still be doing them, just off screen. But because this update is a bit short, i'm going to post the video of the melee battle in the Bosco Pampa. This won't be a regular thing, it's just in case you wanted to know what the battles looked like in motion. Click here for the video Next time: We go inside the temple.
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Sep 24, 2013 04:18
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:This mission angered me so much, because I was OCD about collecting those treasure chests, but Vaan kept getting killed. If you grind Melee battles, you can make it with all the treasure chests. But drat, still must have taken a while. At least you'd be in good shape for future battles! Schwartzcough posted:I don't remember if you've gone over this, but does this game have a "line of sight" system allowing you to sneak around? Because putting a sneaking mission in a game that doesn't allow for sneaking seems... ill conceived. In addition to what ApplesandOranges said, combat seems inevitable, because of large lines of Viera archers right on the path. You also gotta turn off your Gambits, if Vaan has duel attack as a Gambit, he'll use it on a foe when you walk near. This game isn't made for sneaking.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:35
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Update #12: The Crystal's Cry + Judge of Wings New logbook entries: Security
An East Wind
Memories
Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  "Best make your peace now. Hrah!" "There are other aegyl who have fled here for shelter. Tomaj is showing them around the airship." "The sky pirate mumbling to himself has been staring at us." "The question is, what?" "Better be careful, Vaan." "It is the most direct way there." "We owe you one, Llyud. I don't think we'd have found a way without you. You can leave the rest to us. We won't let anything happen to the auralith." "Why are you doing this?" "The auralith - it's important to you, right? That's good enough for me." "To protect the auralith is our sacred duty. It is the will of the Eternal. The auralith is deep inside the temple. Are you ready to search for it?" "We need you to be there for us, Vaan." "Don't worry, Penelo. I know what i'm doing. Besides, even if something did happen, you'd still be here to mother everyone." "Hmph! Just remember, we have to look after Filo and Kytes. So try not to do anything stupid." "Maybe you should sit this one out. Y'know, stay here and get some rest." "Rest!? We're sky pirates! What good is a sky pirate resting inside an airship? You don't need to worry about me, Vaan. Now let's hurry up and find that auralith!" - The Crystal's Cry: Having slipped past the watch, the party continues toward the inner chambers of the shrine in search of the auralith. What they find is beyond imagination. -Soundtrack: Dungeon 4 Field - Dungeon 4 Battle (An Imminent Threat)      - Objective: Defeat all enemy leaders. At least one ally must survive. -   The purple level II esper our foes have is Carbuncle. They're the upgraded version of white hares, and can provide some serious healing! You'll need to kill them first, or they'll keep topping up your foes HP.    Across the field from our starting point is the Spoony sky pirate, the white mage of the enemy team.  They have a few espers defending them, but not enough to be a challenge. Two of the espers are Carbuncle, and so once all the espers who can attack are dead, these guys can't do anything to you.  Some enemy espers come around the corner from the summoning gate our foes control, but they're pretty whatever.  These big-eared espers are the Cait Sith of this game. They're pretty cute, but sadly, they have to die.  We can take out the Regretful sky pirate here, but the Unscrupulous mechanist will run off.  Capture the summoning gate and summon more espers, take a bit of a break to bulk up your forces.  In this corner, the summoning gate will mostly spit out Carbuncle. You have to thin their numbers, perhaps even kill them all, before you go for the leaders.  Soundtrack: Dungeon 3 Field (The Beginning of the End)   "Small wonder the barrier has fallen. What manner of device is this?" "I don't know, but you can bet the Judge of Wings is behind it." "Um, Vaan? Something's headed this way."Soundtrack: Boss Battle 3 (Esper Battle)       "Together we will find the two remaining auraliths. You will have all the auracite you want and more." "And what of Ivalice? Under my dominion, I could grant your every wish." "I already told you, we're not interested." "(chuckle) Sky pirates are ever creatures of avarice and greed. Perhaps you, too, seek the Eternal?" "Did you say "eternal"?"   "See for yourselves the true face of greed."    Soundtrack: Balthier's Theme (Destiny) "But you, my dear, poison yours. You've no sense of fair play."   "Your 'eternity' is an illusion." "Our desire for the Eternal is the desire to become undying. Ask, and I can make eternity a reality for you." "All this talk of dreams and desire - I'm like to take you for a lover, not a foe." "It's time you opened your eyes to reality."  "Not this day."   Soundtrack: Boss Battle 3 (Esper Battle)     "I set him free - free of life's burdens." "These tricks you're playing on us, these things you're showing us - I don't believe any of it!"      - Objective: Defeat the Judge of Wings. At least one ally must survive. -   Soundtrack: Boss Battle 2 (Desperate Fight)   "Who do you think you're talkin' to?"  The Judge of Wings starts up near Shiva, but will quickly rush over to engage your party.  This is near the second summoning gate, and she's already here! Smarter players would camp at the start until she came up and attacked, but it's not a hassle fighting her here. After defeating her, the objective changes a little!  - Objective: Defeat Shiva. At least one ally must survive -  Capture the nearby summoning gate, and sure up your numbers.  Shiva is behind Sirens and Goblins, Flying and Melee espers. She herself is Ranged, meaning it's a bit messy getting in there. Send Vaan (and/or Ba'gamnan, if you're using him here) to attack Shiva, after distracting the other Espers with other characters.  Shiva is also weak to Fire, so use Fire Espers on her. As a warning, most Fire Espers are weak to Water, which is Shiva's element, so distract Shiva with another unit. Kytes' Firaga is also helpful here!  Don't forget to top up your Espers! You can lure Shiva over on top of the summoning gate, then summon Espers she's weak to from under her, if you want.  Soundtrack: Boss Battle 3 (Esper Battle)           Soundtrack: Sad (White Room)     "I... I just don't know." "Don't know what?" "How should I act?" "Don't be too hard on yourself. Sometimes there is no right way to act." "Well, what's everybody standin' around for? We've got a judge to catch!" 
ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 23:49
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:I played Revenant Wings before looking into the story of XII (dumb, I know), but this chapter here really made me like Balthier. You've got this ridiculously powerful mage in armor, and he flirts with her instead of taking her seriously. I played RW first too, so no worries! I also found Balthier pretty cool, it's hard not to. The subtleties of his body language in FFXII can't really be recreated in itty-bitty sprites though, but since i've played FFXII now, I can imagine it in the sprites. SSNeoman posted:Balthier was, and always is, the best character. That item is also available from Tomaj, so unless there's anything super duper cool in between the sneaking missions and Tomaj selling it (and I don't think there is), then there's no reason not to buy it later.
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Sep 26, 2013 06:28
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Update #13: Backstabbing Bangaa. New Folio entries: Astral Crystal
The Judge of Wings
New Logbook entries: Preparations
Master Artificer
Worried
The game automatically sends you onto the next mission and... woah! Three missions in a row without an airship break? Really?  If you pause the game, you can exit back to the world map, among other things. Since the game automatically sends you into this mission, the only way you can see the in-between mission airship chat is by quitting after it's begun! Then, it can be selected from the world map like any other mission. This chat is easy to miss, so let's get to it! Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  "I wouldn't write off Balthier just yet." "Who asked you? You keep to your affairs, and i'll keep to mine." "If the auralith lies broken, that, too, is the will of the Eternal." "The auralith is destroyed? Then such is our fate. Why struggle against it?" "They tell me you can use something called astral power to strengthen Yarhi during battle." "I think we found something like that in the auralith chamber." "Why am I always the last to hear about these things?" "Don't ask me. You're the 'streetear'." "I go out of my way to help, and this is the thanks I get. The aegyl didn't seem too concerned when I told them what happened to the auralith. They do care, right?" "Who can blame him? Something important to him was destroyed right in front of his eyes." "What does this mean for Lemurés? What do we do now?" "We'll figure out something." "Right. It's been a while since I had to cook for so many people. I hope it turns out okay!" "Just wanted to see how you were doing. Try not to think about it too much." "..." "Me, I spend all my time worrying about what to do, and end up not doing anything." "I mean, everybody has doubts about stuff, but you can't let 'em get in the way. With all these aegyl onboard, the bridge is getting kinda crowded. Not that it bothers me. But I wonder what the aegyl think of all this."Alright, so, back to our mission... let's do this from the top.  Soundtrack: A Scheme (Little Villain)     "Addled of wit from playing at pirates with the wee ones, aye." "We're done followin' you, my brother. No more will we come running at your beck and call."         "We have to stop them."  Kytes can be helpful for crowd-control, as a lot of enemies attack in groups. However, a lot of enemies are of the melee type, which makes him less effective, so I choose not to bring him. Ba'Gamnan must join you for this battle, as indicated by the little lock next to his icon. The level III esper that Ba'Gamnan's siblings have is Tiamat. She is a ranged unit, of the thunder element. She is weak to Earth. My level II esper is Golem, who is a melee Earth type, to counter her. Bombs are also dangerous and prominent in this battle though, and some people prefer an pick a level II esper to control them instead. Kytes Blizzard can also thin their numbers efficiently.  Soundtrack: Dungeon 3 Field - Dungeon 3 Battle (The Beginning of the End)  - With the astral crystal in your possession, you can use the Fortify Esper command at any summoning gate. As time passes, the crystal accumulates astral power (AP) which you can spend to increase the level of your Espers for a short time. -   Right in front of you, is a line of bombs. It's tempting to charge straight in, but that's the wrong idea!  ...because one of the Bangaa will try and take the nearby summoning gate away from you! Foes can steal summoning gates off you, as you can steal gates off them. If you're off fighting Bombs while this guy is taking your gate, things will get thorny. Camp around the summoning gate until the Bangaa tries to grab it, and deal with the Bombs after you've dealt with him.  Now we're a bit into battle, you can see the AP system at work. On the top screen, you can see your AP accumulating over time, and up to five crystals at once can be held. These are spent to fortify your Espers, each fortification raising an Esper's level by one for the duration of the battle. The first fortification for an Esper costs one AP, the second one costs two, and so on. This battle, I am going to focus on fortifying Golem and the White Hares.    Bwagi teams up with Tiamat. Level III espers like Tiamat, or Shiva from the last battle, are as strong as party leaders, and have a few abilities to their name. Tiamat has Plasma Storm, which hits a radius of targets for a fair bit of damage. She also has Mighty Guard, which casts Protect and Shell on herself and her allies within range, those being two buffs reduce the amount of physical and magical damage taken respectively. If Tiamat uses Mighty Guard before you engage her, wait for it to wear off before engaging. I keep Llyud out of the skirmish, because as a flying type, he's weak to Tiamat. He's also the only one on the party who can revive the fallen, so if he dies, the battle becomes a lot harder.  The summoning gate here is protected by not much. Take it, regroup, and have a breather. You've cleared half the field. Now onto the second half!  Here's what's left on our overhead map, entering this part of the battle, and... Tiamat? Again? If you do take a break, Tiamat may be summoned, but to Rinok's side. As far as i've seen, you'll only have to fight Tiamat twice in this battle, she won't be re-summoned after she dies here.  "A gift from your new masters?" "You'll rue the day you turned on me!" The second skirmish with Tiamat and one of Ba'Gamnan's siblings is no different than the first. It might be a bit easier, if you've been fortifying your Espers!  There's a summoning gate right behind Rinok. I think it's better to wait until after you've beaten her to capture it.  A row of bombs is protecting Gijuk. I coax them into exploding, sacrificing Filo and Ba'Gamnan in the process. It's ok, Llyud can revive them. There may be better ways for dealing with bombs, but keep Llyud out of the skirmish, for the same reasons as before, you may need him to revive others!  Gijuk's AI gets him stuck behind the Carbuncle for a while here. Oops. So um... don't forget the material node here!    The Carbuncle are very dangerous right now, because they can heal so much of your foe's HP, it can easily null the damage you're doing. With Penelo healing you, it can end up a stalemate. To avoid this, once Gijuk has had his spiel, lure him down and away from his summoning gate.  Once he's further away, then engage him. Some Carbuncle may follow, but enough to pick off.  "We'd best get whilst the gettin' be good!"  Bonus: Ba'Gamnan can't talk to his siblings if he's seeing stars! Here's the alternative dialogue.   Vaan is the one to talk to Gijuk, so what happens if Vaan is unavailable?  "The Judge of Wings has gone to the skysea, and you'll not be followin' her!" And that's all! Soundtrack: Dungeon 4 Field (An Imminent Threat)    "We're gonna go after that Judge of Wings, right? That means we have to fight her. But Balthier tried, and look what happened to him." "I wouldn't worry about him." "She's using sky pirates to find these auraliths for her, so she can take over Ivalice and all." "Then we just have to make sure she doesn't get them."      "Right now only one of the auraliths is gone, so the barrier's still there, right? But what would happen to Lemurés if the barrier went away completely?" "It's reasonable to assume it was put in place for some purpose."  "But things like this, they give you a chance to look inside yourself. And that's where you find hope. For one thing, i'm sure Balthier's still alive. Vaan said as much, and i'm sure he's right." "..."Soundtrack: Main Theme    "We'll look for her first."  "There is an island to the east that holds a great skysea. Perhaps this is the place they spoke of." "Then that's where we're goin'!"   I think I spotted a new character named in the logbook, so next time, let's find out who they are. Let's find the Judge of Wings! Let's find Balthier! Let's find the skysea! Hmm... maybe we won't find all these things, but better get lookin'!
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Sep 29, 2013 05:54
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Aristide posted:Just caught up with the thread and I gotta say, this Revenant Wings has a lot more charm then I was expecting. FFT/TA and XII were some of my favorite games in the series but for some reason I never picked RW up and I've yet to get more then 30% through FFTA2. I'm looking forward to seeing how the game unfolds and the little nods it makes here and there to the other Ivalice games. I'm about 10 hours into FFTA2, and the thing holding me back is how slowly the story is moving. I was enjoying it, it improved a lot of things gameplay-wise over FFTA, but the slow story makes things feel a bit more boring than they really are. But i'll have to go back to it sometime. While we're talking about FFTA2 actually, Vaan makes a cameo in that game. His design in the game looks like this:  I'm pretty sure he also has this outfit as an alt costume in Dissidia, if that's anyone's scene. The thing I want to point out though, is the ornament around his waist, that resembles the wings of the airship in this game. It's a pretty cool nod from FFTA2, to this game, and I was looking for an excuse to mention it. Thankyou!
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Oct 3, 2013 15:39
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Update #14: A look around the Sky Saloon. Soundtrack: Rabanastre       "I've got big plans. Big. Let me show ya around."         "We'll help run the stores, too. Right, Llyud?"   Welcome to the Sky Saloon! Built on the deck of our airship, the Sky Saloon contains lots of new goodies.   "Hi, Vaan. (sigh)" "You don't look so good, Filo. You feeling all right?" "I'm just tired. Don't worry, i'll be fine." "Listen up, everyone! I'm making my special soup for dinner tonight, so save room!" "Yuck. Now I think I am feeling sick."Lets go through the stalls in the order Tomaj pointed them out. We'll start on the lower left.  "After all, who can fight on an empty stomach? I'll take care of the kitchen.  "I know i'm not the greatest chef, or even a halfway decent cook for that matter, but still." "Don't sell yourself short! I'd love it if you cooked for us." "Speak for yourself, Vaan."Like most videogame food eateries, Penelo's cafe doesn't actually sell food or anything. It's rather a place that you sometimes see characters hanging out and shooting the breeze. There's also a few sidequests that relate to the cafe. Let's talk to Kytes, and find out how he really feels. "I dunno, Vaan. This talk about Penelo cooking has me worried." "She cooked for us all the time in Rabanastre. I don't remember anyone complaining then." "We just didn't want her to feel bad. But up here, we're trapped!" "I'll let you in on a little secret, Kytes. If you swallow it without chewing, you don't taste a thing!" "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"Alright, moving north, we find this blue guy near Llyud's shop.    "I'm afraid a dozed off a moment and awoke in this curious place. I've a penchant for ascribing names. Might I inquire whether you harbor such inclinations? Perhaps I might tempt you to rename your ship... What do you say?" No thanks! You can change your ship name here, but I don't think anyone here wants that. Just tap Done without making changes.  And he walks off. Namingway likes to hide behind things, but he's never hard to find. Namingway appears in other Final Fantasy games, most notably in FFIV.  Here's what he looks like in FFIV, in case you didn't know. He is a rabbit-eared creature who can change the name of the playable characters. In the 3D remakes of FFIV, he can no longer rename characters, and is re-purposed as a sidequest character who travels throughout the land changing his own name in order to seek his purpose. He looks kind of like an Ivalice moogle, doesn't he? So, naturally, in a game set in Ivalice, he becomes a Sahagin. Naturally.  Tomaj runs over.  "Here you can sell materials you find in battle, or buy new ones. Come by whenever you need that last hard-to-find material you've been looking for. " "He's as entitled to work here as anyone else. I couldn't very well deny him the honour, could I?" "I would not protest." "Don't be modest! You've earned this privilege! Okay, back to work!"And Tomaj runs off.  Let's chat, Llyud. "What is there to talk about? There, now we have talked."O... kay. Let's check out the shop.  Well, there's sure some materials As Tomaj said, this place is best used to buy materials you're missing. Like, if you just need one more material, rather than doing a whole melee battle just for one material, you can just buy one. It's helpful sometimes. Well, it's time. To find out what these materials do.  Tomaj runs over again.   "Master artificer. And I must object to you calling me 'Cu Sith'. I do not call you 'hume'." "The difference is there are lots of humes here, and only one of you. Stubborn thing, but with the right materials she can make weapons better than most you'll find. She'll ask you some questions before starting, so be sure to pay attention." "So you summoned this, uh... Cu Sith just to man the forge?" "It's not so simple as that, but I do answer to Master Tomaj. That's all you should need to know." "It's a long story, and not a particularly interesting one. If I were you, i'd worry about getting the right materials to Cu Sith. It's worth the trouble!"And Tomaj runs off again. A bit of Tomaj and Cu Sith's story was told in the logbook from last update, so go back and give it a read if you're curious.  "I owe Master Tomaj more than you can know! If there is any way I can help him, I will try!"Soundtrack: Shop Menu (Rabanastre Downtown)  This is it, the crafting system.  To demo it for the let's play, i've decided to make Filo a new  Each material comes in three grades. Rare material is the best, obviously. It will give you bigger stat boosts. The stat boost from Medium grade material is fine, but the stat boost from Low grade material is only worth it if you're starving for a new weapon.  This is what's going into the new skybandit. Next, is the quiz...  The quiz indirectly asks you what where you want your stat boosts to go. Some questions, like this one, are pretty obvious about it.  And a few questions are a bit obtuse. You can tell these things will affect other things, but the relationship is hard to determine exactly.  Cu Sith can also ask something about the person receiving the weapon! Sometimes, entire quizzes can be made up of questions like these. It's really hard to tell what they'll do for the final result.     This weapon is really good, the attack boost alone is more than twice that of a Mythril Cutter you can buy from Tomaj. The quality of material also determines it's sellback value, so if/when this weapon becomes a bit obsolete, it can be sold back for a nice price. We're also given the option to name our weapon.  In a casual playthrough, i'd name all my weapons. For now, i'll be using the default name, for clarity's sake. Anyway, what are Cu Sith's other quizzes in the Starter Manual? Let's take a gander.  Who would this sword protect?
What will drive the sword?
Are you worthy of this sword?
 What do you think of Penelo's dancing?
Is Penelo's cooking any good?
What do you like about Penelo?
 What magick impresses the most?
What would you use this rod for?
Bless the rod!
 How can you recognize a true warrior?
Name your rival.
Do you consider yourself a warrior?
I'll be posting one recipe book full of quizzes every update, as long as we have new books to post quizzes of. Anyway, there's one more shop to check out, but before we go there, let's talk to some of the NPCs wandering around the saloon. Soundtrack: Rabanastre  "Of all the mutinous - ! Grragh! What gives those petter ne'er-do-wells the right to cut me out! Without me, they're nothing! And that's all that'll be left of 'em when i'm done!" "If you ask me, you're getting all worked up over nothin'." "Quit your jabberin', boy! When I want your opinion, i'll beat it out of ya!"Yikes. How are the aegyl holding up? "My people harbour no love of disorder. Even should the sky pirates fail to steal the Stones, they've already robbed us of our peace." "All auracite derives from the auraliths. The astral crystal left when the auralith was destroyed is a rare variety of auracite. You can channel the power that accumulates in the crystal to fortify your Yarhi." "We ought be thankful we escaped with our lives, but what life have we without our home? Aegyl are not meant to travel the skies in these crude vessels."Right, onto the last shop.  "Rare aegyl and sky pirate equipment at prices you wouldn't believe." "Actually, I wanted to ask you about that. How come you charge us for all this?" "Do you think these wares are going to stock themselves? It's simple: You make money, I sell you weapons, take that money, and buy new, stronger weapons. So have a look at the notice board, get out there, and make some money!" "Right..." Actually, I just wanted to talk, Tomaj. "You don't think anyone's expecting to get paid for working here, do you?" "I doubt Llyud does, but Penelo might be a different story." "Hmm, I better think about that when setting my prices..."When we talk to him a second time... "This kind of reminds me of working at the Sandsea back in Rabanastre. I hope I have a job waiting for me when we get back..."Tomaj's shop functions the same way it did before. Except there's some new items! New items will be unlocked periodically.  We've got some okay armour upgrades. If enemies are ever kicking your rear end, it's nice to be able to buy this, but you should be able to find a lot of armour in treasure chests too.  And there's some new accessories as well. This one, the Goblin Pouch, was brought up in the thread in particular. I find it handy to take on Melee battles, as it increases your chances of getting a rare material. Otherwise, use it with restraint, it might be more practical to take an accessory that can help you win a battle in the first place!  To the south of the sky saloon, there's the exit to the bridge.  Since this update is fairly long as it is, i'm going to call it an update here. Next time will be a time for sidequests! (and the update after that will explore the new territory) ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Oct 4, 2013 |
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Oct 4, 2013 03:37
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Schwartzcough posted:I honestly can't remember- is the main story really that slow, or are there just so many sidequests to do that it FEELS slow? I really liked the sidequests - they were so varied and cool. I think the main story was really just slow, but I guess having a lot of sidequests would slow it down, so it's hard for me to say. SSNeoman posted:Yeah, this is true, but still my extra rewards The Sky Saloon is pretty neat, I like how blunt Llyud was in this update  I don't think you can say this game doesn't have skeevy sexist poo poo when one of the characters actually wears bikini battle armour.  Although that's the fault of the original FFXII I s'pose. It's weird Toriyama couldn't think of anything to contribute to that, but weird in a good way.
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Oct 4, 2013 07:01
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Update #15: More sidequests! Baubles and Banditry + Easier Said Than Done + Harmony in Discord + The Trodden Past Soundtrack: Airship 1 (Near the Water)  We'll be heading out on the sidequests unlocked by entering Chapter 4. But before leaving the airship, we'll have to talk to Filo first. The optional conversations, and the new folio/logbook entries, will be covered next update.  "It's a fold-out canoe! This might come in handy on the skysea. Speaking of setting sail, guess who's at the helm? That's right - me! Ready when you are, Cap'n!"   We can now travel to Port Marilith, on the skysea.  However, a new location opens up on Tormelados. There's no plot-advancing mission here (as the lack of a flag would suggest) but there is sidequest here in this update.  Soundtrack: Field 1 - Battle 1 (Giza Plains)   "Hold it right there!"  "Who do you think you are!?"  "A wise leader uses what resources are at hand. There is no shortage of aegyl here. Why not put them to some use? Or... is that a problem?" "Yeah. A big one!"  - Objective: Destroy the enemy soul crystal! Your soul crystal must survive. -   Since all but one enemy leader here has a weakness to fire, bring lots of firepower! And chocobo, bring chocobo.  These foes like to use immobilise. There's an accessory you can buy from Tomaj, the Winged Boots, that Vaan can equip, and that will prevents immobilise from affecting your party. Equip it, it makes the fight a lot easier!  Summoning Espers that clear out large groups of foes, like Bombs, might help. Lamia can confuse foes, and that may buy you some time. Otherwise, you could summon Golem, and go on your own immobilise-fest.  The slopes here tend to be pretty bad catching points for the AI, and coupled with immobilise, they're really deadly. Prolonging this battle may get everyone caught on the slope, and it becomes an uphill stalemate.  But why bother with strategy, this is a soul crystal battle! Capture a summoning gate, and get yourself some chocobo!  Then tap the soul crystal, and we're two-for-two when it comes to cheesing the soul crystal battles. Soundtrack: Penelo's Theme    "It's the thrill of exploring new places, the adventure!" "I don't quite understand." "Just give it some time. You'll catch on before you know it!" - Easier Said Than Done: The aegyl that have taken shelter on the ship mentioned a cache of materials in the temple gardens on Tormelados. It's guarded by the usual nasties, but nothing you can't manage. -Soundtrack: Field 3 (Dalmasca Eastersand)       - Objective: Find the treasure! At least one ally must survive. -  The most dangerous foe here is the Minotaur. (The blue level II Esper) He is a melee type, with no nature, weakness, or resistance. To add to this, he's at level 36, twice the level of everything else, including your party! To counter him, i've brought Diabolos, who is a flying type with a similar lack of any nature. Since this map has no summoning gates, i've brought both flying leaders along, to get the maximum amount of Diabolos.   Our target is the northmost node. But there's a material node right behind the starting point, so nab it.  The enemies don't wait for our approach to dogpile, coming down to us!  On the upside, this is a fight where you know if you've won or lost quickly, no painful stalemates like the last fight. You might keep Llyud out of the skirmish, so he can heal fallen members, but it's not necessary.  Once everything's cleared out, there's nothing left of the field, and you have a straight shot at the material node you need to mine to win.  Soundtrack: Rabanastre   "Something worth having is worth fighting for." "Is that something you learned being a sky pirate?" "Yeah, I guess I did. But it didn't happen overnight. It took a lot of hard work." "Hard work? Don't you mean supervision?"  - Harmony in Discord: The auralith chamber in the shrine on Tormelados teems with monsters. Hardly the proper respect for so sacred a place. I think a hunt is in order. -Soundtrack: Field 5 - Battle 5 (Challenging the Empire)   "Think it's those sky pirates again?" "Your guess is as good as mine. Either way, we need to clean this mess up!"- Objective: Defeat all enemies! At least one ally must survive. -   Let me be perfectly honest. This is a glorified melee battle. It's really easy, which is reassuring considering the last couple of battles honestly.  Walk around, kill things, and catch summoning gates.  Enemies spawn themselves out of summoning gates pretty quickly compared to anything seen so far, so there's an extra incentive to capture the gates.  The final challenge is an uphill battle against a whole lotta flans. Push ahead, try to make it to the summoning gate, to stop it spitting out new foes.  Soundtrack: Rabanastre    "I think that's precisely what happened."  "Their destruction distorts those laws, which in turn gives rise to the unnatural."  "Well, i'm just glad we got to meet Llyud." "Me too!" "But I guess you'd be happier if none of us sky pirates came here at all, huh?" "I wouldn't say that..." - The Trodden Past: Sky pirates have been raiding a ruin on Tormelados known to aegyl as the shadow of Paharo. It's a special place they've protected for centuries. It wouldn't do to let it fall to sky pirates now. - Soundtrack: Field 3 (Dalmasca Eastersand)    "What splendid pieces! I absolutely must have some. No, no, wait... I must have them all!"   "Barbarians?" "You make a companion of an aegyl? You've poor taste in friends boy. " - Objective: Defeat all enemy leaders! At least one ally must survive. -   This is a really bad battle for Fire Espers. Oh yeah, it's possible to take less than five Espers. I took this amount, so I could start the battle with Cactoid on the field.  Soundtrack: Field 1 - Battle 1 (Giza Plains)  Cactoid are important, because of this summoning gate. The Appraising sky pirate, the Bangaa on the foe's team, will try to capture it straight away, and bring an army of Raiden along.  Raiden are Flying natured, and weak to Earth, making them really weak to Cactoid. Have your flying type units capture the gate, while Kytes deals with the other Espers here. Kytes' magic demolishes them quickly, but leave Penelo with him, or he'll die quickly.  It's possible to die really quickly in the initial skirmish, but the rest of the battle is pretty simple once it's over. Observe what Espers your foe has summoned in droves, and bring something to counter it.  Capture summoning gates when you can survive doing so, not when all the foes are clear. The summoning gates replenish foes quickly, and you'll have a hard time until you stop them.  This Viera here is our last foe. They can cast Vanish, so you might forget they're here. Anyway, there's a bunch of ranged units, and a treasure chest behind them.  To nab the chest, i've sent my flying units to sneak up behind it, and distracted the Viera and the Lamia espers with my other characters.  The chest contained a rare material, so... more effort than I needed to put in for it, but still neat. It's a strategy you can use for other treasure chests in the game.  Soundtrack: Rabanastre  "Llyud, don't let what she said bother you." "I have come to know that you are different from the others." "But there are lots more like us. If you don't believe me, you should come see for yourself!" "..." "Trust me, you'll have a great time." I just realized, as I was writing this update, i've built up quite the little army of Espers. Including unlocking a few Level II Espers. But i've never showed you my collection! Well, here's who i've got so far.            There are so many ways to go along the Ring of Pacts, and it's possible to have quite a different set of Espers at this stage of the game. Since a lot of monsters at the start of the game are weak to Fire or Earth, most people will probably have quite a few of those, if they're unlocking based on need. I've also taken a note to myself to unlock a flying Lightning esper. Next time we give a hearty thumbs up to Llyud. No, wait, we already did that, so let's bring in some more minor FFXII characters. But which ones? 
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Oct 6, 2013 08:09
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Glazius posted:I really like that item-forging mechanic. The quiz makes it feel very... artistic, I suppose? I like how every response to the quiz is like something you can imagine Vaan saying, and just picture him going through the options in his head. It does make the end result seem like something personally forged for it's owner, and the fact you can name them just reinforces that. Schwartzcough posted:On the other hand, those questions reek of Guide Dang It. Maybe the stat variances don't matter that much in the grand scheme of things, but for min-maxers there're typically only a few stats you care about for each character/weapon. Having no idea where you're throwing precious, precious stat points seems frustrating. Min-maxers are the few and hardcore. There's probably some way to improve it to make it nice to casuals and min-maxers, but I don't mind that the quiz isn't geared towards a minority of players. You're never going to get something egregiously bad, and you can always reset and try again if what you get really bugs you.
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Oct 11, 2013 07:55
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Magicks and Abilities! I know it's been a longer than normal between updates, but don't worry, it's on it's way. But one more bit of housekeeping before moving into Chapter 4's story, is explaining all the Magicks and Abilities. All my characters now know 3 Abilities each, but i've only highlighted a few. So here's a post about everyone's Magicks and Abilities. Each of these abilities were learned at levels 3/7/12, and are put in the order under which they're learned, for all units. Vaan's Abilities:  Dual Attack (Recharge time: 10 seconds) Deals two successive hits to one foe.  Sprint (Lasts for: 15 seconds. Recharge time: 30 seconds) Increases Vaan's movement speed by x1.5.  Steal Speed (Lasts for: 15 seconds - Recharge time: 20 seconds) Gives a speed boost to Vaan, and a speed penalty to his foe, as well as does a bit of damage. Because Vaan can already reliably buff his speed with Sprint, Steal Speed is useful for slowing down your foes, and also when Sprint is recharging. Penelo's Magicks:  Curaga (Recharge time: 10 seconds) Restores HP to all allies in range.  Mystic Dance (Lasts for: 20 seconds - Recharge time: 40 Seconds) Gives the Faith buff to all allies in range. Faith raises unit's Magic by x1.4. Penelo's Magic stat raises the potency of her healing, but the same stat raises Kytes' damage output. Those two will benefit the most from the dance, so try to get them both in range for it whenever possible.  Esunaga (Recharge time: 10 seconds) Removes debuffs from all allies in range. Kytes' Magicks:  Firaga (Recharge time: 20 seconds) Deals Fire damage to all foes in range. In case you were wondering, it is always Fire elemental damage, regardless of whatever Kytes' nature is.  Blizzaga (Recharge time: 20 seconds) A Water damage version of Firaga.  Bio (Lasts for: 10 seconds. Recharge time: 30 seconds) Will inflict Poison on all foes in range. Poison takes away 2% of max HP of those afflicted, and lasts 10 seconds, meaning it takes 20% of a foe's max HP away. It's not a huge amount of damage, but it can give you a bit of an edge in some situations. Filo's Abilities:  Sonic Wave (Recharge time: 10 seconds) Deals damage to multiple foes, in an arc in front of Filo.  Defense Snare (Recharge time: 30 seconds) Sets a trap. Upon being triggered, it lowers the Stamina and Mind of the foes unlucky enough to step into it, to x0.8 for 20 seconds. Stamina and Mind are the two stats which monitor Attack and Magic Defence, if you didn't figure that out.  Glide (Lasts for: 15 seconds - Recharge time: 30 seconds) Increases the movement speed of Filo and those standing near to her, by x1.2. Llyud's Abilities:  Jump (Recharge time: 15 seconds) Leaps at enemies from a long range away, and does damage. It does have a small hit radius, so it will hit a couple of foes if they're standing on top of each other. (more common than it sounds) There are some clever ways to use it sometimes, but it also works fine as a do-more-damage ability.  Revive (Recharge time: 15 Seconds) Consumes 25% of Llyud's max HP to revive a fallen ally. Revive is one of - if not the most useful ability at this stage of the game, in my opinion.  Lancet (Lasts for: 20 seconds - Recharge time: 40 seconds) Drains 80% of the damage Llyud inflicts with any of his attacks. Helpful when recovering from using a Revive. Ba'Gamnan's Abilities:  Wild Swing (Recharge time: 10 seconds) Deals damage to surrounding foes. Yeah.  Drain (Recharge time: 5 seconds) Absorbs 80% of the damage it does as HP.  Berserk (Lasts for: 20 seconds - Recharge time: 40 seconds) Berserk doesn't make you lose control entirely of a unit in this game, but it does restrict them to their basic attack. It also sharply raises speed, movement, and attack. So that's it for Abilities! A few things I didn't bring up, but worth keeping an eye out for is how long the animation for each ability lasts. It's normally not something to factor in, but use common sense and don't try to do a run-and-gun for an attack with a long animation. Battles move very fast and have a lot going on, the time it takes to select an ability in the first place could be valuable time wasted, so before getting into a big skirmish, check Gambits are at their most useful. For most of my units, their first ability is what I use as their Gambit, as it's usually their most basic one. Some abilities don't lend themselves to being Gambits at all, like Filo's Defense Snare which requires being positioned in a good place, or situationally useful spells like Penelo's Esunaga. Sometimes, the AI has different priorities than you, like Llyud continuing to attack foes rather than using Revive as a Gambit, or Penelo not using Curaga as a Gambit when allies HP is mostly full. Which is why I emphasise rests in battle, they give you a good chance to review your abilities and Gambits, as well as time to use abilities and buffs and stuff with no stress. So, yeah. Chapter 4's story missions start next update, for real this time. ok Amazing fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 12, 2013 02:43
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