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Camel Pimp posted:I dunno, III does feel when Final Fantasy starting feeling like Final Fantasy, although it wasn't until 4 that the games starting really good. All of the first three Final Fantasies are deeply flawed, and I think the original isn't poo poo on as much because it gets shielded by nostalgia. I love the NES version of III to death, it's got issues (hidden passages, THOSE enemies). But it's got plenty of charm (something I think II lacks in spades), and at the same time there's a bunch of tricksy things you can do that I really enjoy (breaking the Cave of Darkness over my knee). The DS version is complete poo poo, it's so bad it's almost impressive how bad it is. e: Hey new page, never seen II's bonus content so this should be a treat.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:43
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Soul of Rebirth Part One Let's do this.  We begin right as Minwu died in the main game.     I think I like him more than Gordon already.   Black Knight Rank 6, HP 1140, Attack Power 30, Attacks 3, Accuracy 80%, Defense 20, Evasion 1-70%, Magic Defense 5-40% And we are thrown right into it.  Oh crap. Minwu's in the front row. He has no business in the front row. All I can hope to do is get a blink up on him and hope that keeps him alive.  This is going great.  Fortunately, our mysterious buddy who is totally Scott and I'm going to stop pretending is quite a fair bit better than his brother.  For one, he comes with a decent assortment of spells. If nothing else, he'll win this fight, since these guys don't do too much damage to him and he's got level 4 cure. It takes a while, though, especially since his spells and his attack do roughly the same amount of damage, and that damage isn't great. Now he could revive Minwu, but every time I attempted it Minwu refused to stay alive. So Scott has to limp across the finish line alone.  I think his MP gives you a decent idea of how long that took. Scott gains all the stats from this fight.  Scott and Minwu confirm that they are, in fact, dead.  Yes it was.   The afterlife, I suppose. : And Hell, at that, judging by the scenery. I did take the lives of many foes while fighting the empire... Minwu recognizes a lazy flipped recolor of the final dungeon when he sees it. : The passage to Hell?: I don't know. Let's find out. And we begin Soul of Rebirth.  Now that we can use Minwu, let's talk about him. When you get him in the main game, Minwu is fantastically overpowered and he serves as your baby sitter. For right now, he has one specific but very important task: blink. His level 5, soon to be level 6 blink is going to be cast at the start of every battle. That's going to instrumental in keeping Scott alive, who in turn is going to be keeping Minwu alive. Obviously, Minwu's scooting to the back row and staying there.  Minwu default equipment is very barebones. The copper cuirass goes off, and that's all the adjustments I make there. Unfortunately, without a bow Minwu cannot attack. He's not going to be doing much for offense. However, Minwu doesn't have to start at factory default here. One of the interesting things about Soul of Rebirth is that these characters come in with whatever they had in the game before they died. Depending on how you used these characters and what they had equipped when they left the party, you can make Soul of Rebirth a bit easier. Unfortunately, Minwu being an early game character means there's only so much you can do. If you managed to trek your way to Mysidia before he left, you could have him bring some Thief Gloves and a Holy spell or something. Alternatively, you can also have your characters come in naked if you didn't realize how Soul of Rebirth worked. That's fun.   Scott is, however, the one exception. He will always start with the same stats, same spells, and the same equipment. He's a lot like Gordon, in that he's very balanced, but unlike Gordon he starts with some drat weapon levels and spells. Unfortunately his huge, huge problem is that he only has a single evasion level. And he is going to be our tank, since Minwu sure as hell can't do it. At least his evasion percent is good, considering he's covered in mythril armor. Sadly, I can't take that off, since without any defense Scott will die in an instant.  As for saving, I can't do old school saving rules, since there is no world map in Soul of Rebirth. So the rule for this is: one save at the beginning of every floor. That sounds generous, doesn't it?  Bigfoot Rank 1, HP 150, Attack Power 35, Attacks 8, Accuracy 80%, Defense 5, Evasion 1-30%, Magic Defense 4-80% Soul of Rebirth hates you.  Rather stupidly I didn't blink Scott.  If Scott dies, I've lost. I did save after that black knight fight, so at least I don't have to repeat that.  The game does show you one mercy, however.  You start with ten ethers and five phoenix downs. You probably won't use all those ethers, but if you wanna survive you have to dip into the stock.  Gigas Worm Rank 4, HP 300, Attack Power 30, Attacks 8, Accuracy 90%, Defense 10, Evasion 1-75%, Magic Defense 5-70% Sometimes, if you apply blink, you'll still die. Well, I guess that was my fault for not fully healing Scott after a battle.  Glasya Labolas Rank 5, HP 700, Attack Power 60, Attacks 10(!), Accuracy 80%, Defense 15, Evasion 1-70%, Magic Defense 4-50% And don't bother running, it never works. If running success works off of Minwu's evasion percent, that would explain why I never managed to run once.  You get ambushed?  You're dead.  No you can't leave Minwu stop trying.  I mentioned that this was just a flipped recolor of the final dungeon, and I wasn't kidding. All they did was flip the layout, put new monsters in, replaced the treasure, and called it a day. While the treasure is different, it's all in the same spots. If you remember the layout of the jade passage, this makes your life a lot easier. Since the floors are flipped it'll mess you up a bit, but it's really not that hard to remember where things are. Alternatively, just get a map. Honestly, I would say maybe it wouldn't even be worth it to go out of your way for the treasure. I did anyway, but let's just say you wanna get to the end as soon as you can.  Gil Snapper Rank 5, HP 200, Attack Power 40, Attacks 9, Accuracy 75%, Defense 15, Evasion 0, Magic Defense 1-50% Some of the enemies here are really nasty, but they did throw in some gimmes. Gil snappers usually come alone, and die to a single Blizzard from Scott.  Soul Eater Rank 3, HP 40, Attack Power 15, Attacks 3, Accuracy 95%, Defense 3, Evasion 0, Magic Defense 1-50%  Sea Serpent Rank 2, HP 100, MP 100, Attack Power 10, Attacks 5, Accuracy 80%, Defense 10, Evasion 1-70%, Magic Defense 4-40%  Death Horn Rank 3, HP 400, Attack Power 50, Attacks 4, Accuracy 85%, Defense 4, Evasion 1-35%, Magic Defense 6-30% And here are some more enemies. You'll notice they're all palette swaps, but did you expect anything different? Soul Eater are as weak as they look, Sea Serpents can do a tsunami attack but have low HP and come alone (for now), and Death Horn can be pretty nasty but for this dungeon are middle of the road. Actually, while I didn't realize it at the time, a lot of enemies here are weak to fire. Scott's level 4 fire probably could have taken some of these enemies out quickly. This version has an in-game bestiary, so this one's my fault. This wouldn't have prevented all the bullshit deaths, mind you. Just some.  I've never been so happy to see a stairs in a video game.  Saaaaaaaaaaaaaveeeee.  Hallefuckinglujah. Now, Scott still needs blink, but maybe he'll die slightly less.  And yes, it's such a lazy recolor that all of the secret passages are still in the same spot.  The idea is nice, but... no. I like Scott being able to hit things.  And then some Gigas Worms killed Scott before I could even put up a blink. Yay!  Oh, hey, he looks familiar...  Kill him.  Zombie Borghen Rank 7, HP 2500, MP 370, Attack Power 30, Attacks 3, Accuracy 95%, Defense 5, Evasion 1-60%, Magic Defense 10-100% So this Zombie Borghen is slightly different than the one in the main game. He's got a decent amount of HP, but no flare (thankfully) or anything, really. It takes a while, but he's not difficult.  But he does have paralysis touch, and this meant that Josef didn't do anything in this battle. This is going to be theme for him, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, a few fire spells and we won.  Again, they all establish they are, in fact, dead.  And that there's a common theme in their deaths. Minwu also posits that there might be a reason why they're dead/undead, but no idea what that is. Hm. Anyway, now we've got Josef.   Yikes. Unlike Minwu, Josef wasn't overpowered when we got him. All he has going for him is level 2 fists, and that's pathetic. Even if you do try to train him up, you only have him for a single dungeon. Maybe some of you had different experiences, but it is very, very hard to make Josef useful.  At least he's near some pretty useful armor. I guess you can give it to Josef to help his lagging eva- yeah, no. Scott gets it.  Death Knight Rank 2, HP 150, MP 30, Attack Power 30, Attacks 10, Accuracy 80%, Defense 20, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense 4-60% Frankly, for the moment I'm just going to let him die and stay dead (well, dead-er.) Josef simply has nothing to offer, and it would take more resources to keep him alive than I'd care to use.  But while Josef is a bust, I did get a very interesting drop. Unfortunately, Scott only has level 2 axe skill, which would normally make it pointless to switch, but...  Holy moly. His attack will be kind of hampered for a few battles, but he'll gain levels quickly enough for that to be a minor problem.  Onto the third floor! We're making good progress here!  Flan Princess Rank 5, HP 85, Attack Power 10, Attacks 4, Accuracy 80%, Defense 45, Evasion 0, Magic Defense 3-50% Pyrolisk Rank 4, HP 90, Attack Power 20, Attacks 4, Accuracy 70%, Defense 4, Evasion 2-50%, Magic Defense 3-50% And the enemy formations have changed up a bit. Hm, Pyrolisks. Aren't they in FF1-   OH gently caress YOU.  Same defense score as the Mythril Armor, fraction of the weight. This brings Scott to 98% evasion.  There's still a shop behind the waterfall.  And it sells the same spells, except with Holy instead of Death. I got some stuff to sell off, but that only nets me about a couple thousand gil. I buy two Berserk tomes, with one of them going to Scott. Holy would be nice to give Minwu some offensive power, but in the end that won't be necessary.  The fourth floor is pretty unexciting.  Treasure room!  It's not as good as this room is in the main game. A demon spear is a hefty upgrade to Scott's starting Mythril Sword, but it's not as good as the Poison Axe. There's also a Golden Shield, a decent upgrade from the Mythril Shield, and eye drops. Woo.  Miss Vamp Rank 3, HP 100, Attack Power 25, Attacks 6, Accuracy 85%, Defense 10, Evasion 1-75%, Magic Defense 6-30% Miss Vamps have drain touch, which you'd think I'd freak out about, but not really. Scott needs Blink to survive anything already, so what's one more example on the pile?  I have no idea why they think I'd use this. But yeah, no death on this floor. Onto the fifth floor!  Oh, and I revive Josef, stick him in the back, and give him a Berserk tome. Josef really, really just isn't going to work as a front line fighter, so I'm going to attempt to make him into some sort of half-decent mage. It's really the best I can do with him.   Oh, another E- wait, what?  So Josef met the man who took his life, and Ricard... gets a worm that inconvenienced him once?   Roundworm Rank 7, HP 2000, Attack Power 25, Attacks 4, Accuracy 95%, Defense 10, Evasion 1-10%, Magic Defense 4-50%  Some epic grudge.  Cool.  And they all just say what we already know: Ricard recaps the plot for Minwu, they continue to establish that they're all dead, and that traveling with Charlie and Co. is a recipe for death.   Unfortunately, since Ricard's at default he's not as great as he could be, but getting him is a boon anyway. His HP is on the low end, but he's a strong fighter who comes with decent equipment. That Knight Armor has to go, though. Now I would think about putting Scott in the back, but Ricard really can't carry the party himself, and I'd rather not lose Scott as a fighter. We're gonna rock two front liners. The game actually kind of expects you to have three, with Josef in the front, but noooope.  Nice! Richard gets it, and Scott gets his Giant's Gloves.  We're on the final floor. So... is Pandaemonium on the other side?   ...huh. Camel Pimp fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 04:45
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That very first enemy encounter? You can get a Sun Blade from the lone Black Knight as its rarest drop. Needless to say, this helps Scott out quite a bit compared to the Mythril Sword. (You would almost certainly have to savescum for it, obviously. But if you're having trouble, the option's there.) I remember that I gave Josef a Poison Axe from a similarly timed drop, because like hell was he staying with his fists. Like Camel Pimp said, he's not exactly going to pull his weight yet even if you didn't kill him off immediately.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:18
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I'm hoping (foolishly?) the town indicates we're done with the zero-effort section of Soul of Rebirth.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:35
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The only thing I remember about this is grinding. Lots of grinding. And for a looooooooooooong time it was barely win one battle, rest, repeat.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:48
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I used Minwu to kill the soldiers in Altair or whatever it's called for Toad tomes, so I really had no problems early on. Also, I turned Richard into an absolute beast, including high-level blink, berserk, drain, osmose, etc. So I actually found the trip through the cave pretty easy. Then I lost interest and haven't played again. Leaving me feeling stupid for spending so much time turning Richard into a killer.
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Oct 16, 2014 06:15
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I lucked out and got a Sun Blade drop on my first (and only) attempt at the starting battle. I also had the good fortune of not having Minwu die during the first round so I was able to cast Protect on him, meaning that only critical hits would scratch him. A Protect on Scott guaranteed my (slow) victory. From that point it was largely the same as Camel Pimp's run to Machanon, except with Protect spam on Scott instead of Blink spam.
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Oct 16, 2014 22:21
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Schwartzcough posted:I used Minwu to kill the soldiers in Altair or whatever it's called for Toad tomes, so I really had no problems early on. Also, I turned Richard into an absolute beast, including high-level blink, berserk, drain, osmose, etc. So I actually found the trip through the cave pretty easy. Unlike me who was completely blindsided and had two un-leveled un-equipped characters. At least I manged to make use of Joseph as a front liner.
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Oct 16, 2014 22:58
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Because I didn't really understand GG2 and wandered around a lot, Ricard was well over 1k health at this point and had a few basic support spells and decent combat stats. To say he carried my team would be an understatement.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:56
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Soul of Rebirth Part 2 So the makers of this optional dungeon actually show you mercy here. Instead of launching straight into flipped recolored Pandaemonium, they put a town here. Despite what this guy says, no, at no point will monsters enter or anything. But... if this is the FF2 afterlife, it's going to be filled with some familiar faces.  What Cid has to say is actually kind of important, so I'm just going to present all of it.  No one's more surprised than me. Who's have thought there'd really be an afterlife? And to top it off, everyone here died fighting the empire. How do you like that? ... I gave up my life of a white knight for the lure of the skies, and here I am. Never thought I'd wind up in Hell for it, but... Any way you slice it, this place is different than any story I ever heard about Jade. You don't think this is Jade? If this is the entrance to Hell, what are innocent little kids doing here?Depending on the time period, and who you ask, unbaptized infants go to limbo, so I guess it's not that unbelievable. I mean, we're talking FF2 here. They should be glad that they're not currently on fire. When I first got here, this place WAS just how you'd picture Hell. Monsters fed on anyone they could catch-the old, children, you name it. By the time we found a place without monsters to build this makeshift town, most of the people were already done in.: Terrible... Since you all showed up, people have started to show some hope. It's funny to think of the dead having hope, but there it is. As long as I'm defending this village, I'll help you in any way I can. So I'm asking you, find out what in blazes is going on! Where are we, and what are we doing here?Minwu and co have been here for, like, thirty minutes. Also, when he says he's going to help in any way he can, that means Cid will not do a goddamn thing.  Good for you. Anywho, that's the excuse this thing for having a town right next to what is apparently not the Jade Passage. So, you might be wondering if this a "real" town.  Yes, it is! Just having an inn here is a major help.  There's actually a lot of stuff on sale here. This town has the full suite of stores, each of them with three sellers.  Most of the stuff on sale is actually rather basic, but it's not as though you couldn't use more of these spells. In addition, Machanon also sells fire, blizzard, thunder, cure, blink, protect, shell, and basuna. I get Josef the basic elemental spell plus cure to get him starting on becoming a mage. He also gets blink, life, and mini. Those latter three are far more useful than any attack spell, and Josef doesn't really train his elemental spells much. Oh well.  Despite the fact that Minwu already comes with a great number of spells, I decided to toss Silence and Teleport to make room for more. Silence is redundant since a) it inflicts a temporary ailment and b) Minwu already has Fog, which casts the permanent version of silence. As for Teleport, I could still theoretically use it as a insta-death spell, but it was very low-leveled and mini has higher accuracy. Moreover it's disabled out of battle, so I can't use it for its intended purpose. Teleport goes. I could probably toss more of his spells, but the only new spells I want are mini and a certain mystery spell- we get later. Also, Ricard gets Life. Ricard's not going to be a spellcaster, but I want everyone to be able to cast Life.  The weapon shop is pretty unimpressive, though. Both of my front liners generally have better weapons than the ones on sale. However, since they sell bows both Minwu and Josef now have means to attack from the back row.  Oh yes and Tobul is here. Do you even remember him? Made the mythril stuff that you never, ever use? Told him I'd see him in hell, but this isn't what I expected   The armor shop is even worse. This is the best it offers. Yeah, I skip it.  The item shop has the Gaia Drum instead of Cottages, which makes sense since we'll never see a world map, but otherwise sells the exact same stuff item shops sell in the main game.  And like the main game, most of our money will be going towards ethers and elixirs. All right, so, now that the party is all rested up and I've got 18 ethers, we're good to go, right?    Mini Satana Rank 5, HP 1200, MP 350, Attack Power 60, Attacks 8, Accuracy 80%, Defense 50, Evasion 1-50%, Magic Defense 6-60% Bloodbones Rank 4, HP 1000, MP 200, Attack Power 90, Attacks 5, Accuracy 75%, Defense 35, Evasion 2-40%, Magic Defense 3-50% Purobolos Rank 4, HP 800, MP 300, Attack Power 60, Attacks 5, Accuracy 80%, Defense 50, Evasion 0, Magic Defense 4-40% Li'l Murderer Rank 4, HP 1500, MP 250, Attack Power 100, Attacks 6, Accuracy 80%, Defense 4, Evasion 3-20%, Magic Defense 2-40%   Yeah, we're a little underpowered for this. The Bloodbones and Purobolos are just physical attackers, and they can be neutered easily enough, but the Li'l Murderer can cast some pretty damaging spells, and if they hit Minwu or Josef, they're taking them out.  The Mini Satana, however, are complete bastards. All of the party has pretty low magic defense levels, and boy does it show.  Also the Mini Satana casts stun.  Yeah.  Chimera Brain Rank 5, HP 2000, MP 240, Attack Power 85, Attacks 6, Accuracy 90%, Defense 70, Evasion 1-65%, Magic Defense 5-40%  Again, this is a case where my party's low HP, especially my back row characters, bites me in the rear end. Chimera Brains rather like this blaze attacks, and two of them kill Minwu and Josef. Minwu can cast Barrier, and that helps immensely, but a) he has to cast it before dying, which isn't reliable, and b) he doesn't blink for that turn. Josef can't pick up the slack, he's poo poo at applying blink, so that leaves Ricard and Scott vulnerable for a few turns. Sounds trivial, but they could easy die in the meantime. Remember, if they both die, the battle is lost.  This was a message I saw a lot. This party can actually win battles here, but not consistently. Also, winning a battle takes so much MP that I pretty much have to run to the inn after every battle. It's unavoidable; I gotta grind.  First off, I'm going to go back through the Not Jade Passage to buy some more spells from the waterfall store. Since I've got a full party, and we're a bit stronger now, this is actually a fairly easy task. One tip for this dungeon is that if you're having a lot of trouble in the beginning (and of course you will) you can just try to rush through it as fast as possible then come back later to get the treasure. Although there's no easy way back to town, you gotta walk. Kind of annoying, but I need to grind anyway.  All I grab is a single haste tome, mostly that's all I can afford, but that's all I need. It goes to Josef. The trip gives him a chance to gain a few spell levels, but he's never going to be much of a mage. At best he'll help Minwu or Scott set up buffs.  I say the trip was worth it. Sadly, we're still not ready to tackle the next part. But, there is something we can grab real quick.  There are actually three teleporters in town. We know where the other two lead, but this one?   It's... the top of Mysidia tower?    I still really don't know how people exactly die twice here, but whatever. Minwu didn't, so we're good.  Much like Ultima in the main game, we have four silver orbs and a gold orb.  And like in the main game, each of the four silver orbs give +10 to a stat. Minwu got intelligence (bleh), Scott got agility (he's the one who really least needs it, but okay), Ricard got spirt (ugh), and Josef got strength. Disappointing all around. I could have reloaded and rerolled those results, but that's lame, so I'll just live with it. However, you don't want to grab the gold orb, at least not right away. You actually can grab the silver orb and then leave the gold orb sitting there. Why do that?  This time, you can't just grab Ultima without a fight.  Ultima Weapon Rank 7, HP 15000, MP 500, Attack Power 150, Attacks 9, Accuracy 100%, Defense 190, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense 8-70% Ha ha ha. No.  We'll have to come back to this later. So... grinding. Yes, grinding. Well, we have two options where to grind. In Jade, where the enemies are easier to kill but give less rewards, or Pandaemonium(?), where you can easily get wiped, but surviving battles means more stats. It's actually worth your while in grind in NotPandaemonium. Not only will you gain more stats more battle, but they drop better things.  The L'il Murderers in particular love giving out poo poo. While Black Robe doesn't protect against any statuses, it does reduce damage from fire, ice, and thunder. Considering how easily Minwu and Josef fall to Blaze or the L'il Murderer's Thunderbolt, this is actually a really great find. Scott ends up with it, since he is pretty much what's keeping the party alive. I'll eventually get more, though, so no worries.  Chimera Brains can drop the best knife. Eh, not great. Since the main gauche doesn't show up in Dawn of Souls, it's really not worth it to train knives.  Warg Wolf Rank 4, HP 1500, Attack Power 70, Attacks 8, Accuracy 80%, Defense 50, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense6-60% It can poison you. That's pretty much it.  Orukat Rank 6, HP 1140, MP 400, Attack Power 85, Attacks 7, Accuracy 90%, Defense 70, Evasion 0, Magic Defense 5-70% Okay, it was stupid not to heal up, but perhaps I could still swing this, right? Guess what Orukats can do.   Yeah, this ended in a game over. I got a lot of game over grinding here. Just... trust me, okay?  After about, hrm, an hour or so of grinding (or attempting to, anyway) I decided to give this another whirl.  So what can the Ultima Weapon do?  It has a nasty, nasty attack, but Minwu's blink is up to level 7, so that can be neutralized.   Oh goodie. However, a Barrier from Minwu cuts this down pretty significantly.  It doesn't help, though, if Minwu doesn't cast it in time.  The real feather in this boss's cap is single target Flare 16.  Yeah, this attempt didn't work.  So I tried it again.  Oh, and the Ultima Weapon gets an earthquake spell.  Not that bad.  Once I got every on their feet, barriered and shelled, with the fighters blinked, I was actually keeping steady, for the most part. If Minwu healed in every round, no one would fall to Blaze or Earthquake, and since Scott is the fastest one if I need emergency healing he can do that.  Unfortunately, there were two major problems. One, it was difficult to damage this boss. Even with berserk neither Scott nor Ricard could do much damage. Turns out 190 defense is hard to cut through. I eventually got them doing up to 1000 damage per round. Out of 15,000. This was going to take a while.  The other problem was flare. Scott and Richard had enough HP and magic defense to survive a flare, but for Minwu or Josef it was a one-hit kill.  It was nice that everyone here knew the life spell. Also, in the original game life sometimes failed, and it was never revive more than one person at a time, although you could still multi-target the spell. Here, it never seemed to fail. Lucky for me. In addition, he's resistant to all eight elements, so I can't cheese this with frog, or cripple the boss. Also, Sap is mind elemental, and unlike Osmose, can fail. It doesn't work. If I had Osmose in some form I possibly could make this boss so much easier. You can't pick up Osmose in Soul of Rebirth, so you'd have to have Ricard come in with it. Good luck with that.  The battle went on long enough that I had to start using ethers. This battle was almost ten minutes long.  But I eventually won. He doesn't drop a drat thing, by the way.  And I get Ultima. Apparently the game doesn't let you give it to anyone but Minwu, but I wasn't going to do so anyway. If nothing else, at least Minwu now has an damaging spell. This time I actually went and looked at everyone's stats before I signed off, so let's check up on them.        
Camel Pimp fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 03:09
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It really seems like Ricard and Josef are the ones who get the most screwed from your base-stats run, since they're just functioning as inferior versions of the first 2 characters. Ricard especially since he's around for enough of the game to probably gain some reasonable spellcasting ability without resorting to grinding.
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Oct 22, 2014 04:12
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And I assume Ultima is as "meh" as ever, and will take a backseat to Mini.
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Oct 22, 2014 04:29
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Schwartzcough posted:And I assume Ultima is as "meh" as ever, and will take a backseat to Mini. It's not as terrible as it is in the main game, but it's still not that good.
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Oct 22, 2014 06:16
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Keldulas posted:It really seems like Ricard and Josef are the ones who get the most screwed from your base-stats run, since they're just functioning as inferior versions of the first 2 characters. Ricard especially since he's around for enough of the game to probably gain some reasonable spellcasting ability without resorting to grinding. I wouldn't say Ricard is screwed, he's definitely contributing, but he's not as great as he could be. Higher stats for Ricard would be nice, and he can come into SoR with some great stats, but what I'm really hurting for is the equipment. Even if you don't do ridiculous poo poo like carry the Blood Sword in, he could bring in a Black Robe or Black Garb or even a White Robe if you're not using it for some reason. Having any of those earlier would have made my life a lot easier. Even still, he's solid enough at base. Not outstanding, but he's not Josef. Then again, that's not high praise...
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Oct 22, 2014 06:23
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So ya, the main beef with Rebirth. GRINDING. loving GRINDING is the best they could do with this. They should have just thrown in an end-game dungeon or two on the world map of the main game, made more things and a couple super bosses and left things as is. I like what they did with FF1's added content, even if the bonus dungeons were a bit painful to stare at. This...could of, and should have, been scrapped for something else entirely.
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Oct 22, 2014 06:24
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Kemix posted:So ya, the main beef with Rebirth. GRINDING. loving GRINDING is the best they could do with this. They should have just thrown in an end-game dungeon or two on the world map of the main game, made more things and a couple super bosses and left things as is. I like what they did with FF1's added content, even if the bonus dungeons were a bit painful to stare at. This...could of, and should have, been scrapped for something else entirely. I actually like the early part, and you pretty much cannot grind at all, but yeeeaaah this was lazy. I get that it needs to be a step up, and it's hard to balance this since people can have wildly different experiences with it, but this was not balanced well. I understand that they really didn't expect people to go in with base stat characters, but in all honesty it could be worse; I could have come in with naked characters. Now I actually beaten SoR that many times, I believe I only beat it two times previous, and one of them was with base stats (but not equipment). So maybe people who didn't go in with base stats had a less grindy time here? I'm gonna guess not.
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Oct 22, 2014 06:32
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Kemix posted:So ya, the main beef with Rebirth. GRINDING. It reminds me a lot of some of FF4: The After Years' stages, where you basically had to grind because they didn't bother pacing the "gather your team" parts of a chapter with the "and now run the gauntlet" end (Edge's chapter is probably the most egregious). Makes me wonder if there's just a Square Enix Z-team whose only job is pushing out  content packs for re-released games.Would also be remiss to not add: thanks for the LP, CP, never got Dawn of Souls so it's cool to see this stuff. 
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Oct 22, 2014 07:09
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Something that goes a long way towards making Ultima Weapon manageable is that it's not immune to Curse procs from the Ancient Sword. Scott naturally has good skill with swords so the terrible base accuracy on the Ancient Sword isn't as big a deal; have someone throw a Haste spell on him to hedge your bets then wait for the stat-halving effect of Curse to kick in. Mind, Flare still does a lot of damage even with Curse active, but it's much more manageable.
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Oct 22, 2014 13:31
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This is the one bit of the game I never finished, since... Well, let's just say it would've taken a miracle for me to beat the main game without the Blood Sword. That being said, I know just how... Weird the story of this place gets.
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Oct 22, 2014 14:02
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Oct 22, 2014 22:39
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Camel Pimp posted:I actually like the early part, and you pretty much cannot grind at all, but yeeeaaah this was lazy. I get that it needs to be a step up, and it's hard to balance this since people can have wildly different experiences with it, but this was not balanced well. I understand that they really didn't expect people to go in with base stat characters, but in all honesty it could be worse; I could have come in with naked characters. Now I actually beaten SoR that many times, I believe I only beat it two times previous, and one of them was with base stats (but not equipment). So maybe people who didn't go in with base stats had a less grindy time here? I'm gonna guess not. I actually think if they were seriously trying to make a balanced dungeon, it probably would have been easier to just give each character some pre-assigned stats (or at least a floor for minimum stats) and either set equipment or start off naked but with a bunch of chests around. That allows the designer to better set up the dungeon, since they know what players are coming in with, rather than having a range that goes from "so I killed Ricard and stole his equipment" to "I knew this was coming and gave Ricard some spare badass items to pass around". Of course, based on the level of shown here, they probably didn't care this much, honestly.Also, as a general FF question, I haven't played all of the various remakes that added dungeons. But have any of the added dungeons been considered genuinely good? Seems like they're pretty much all considered somewhere between "poo poo" and "mediocre" by the fanbase.
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Oct 23, 2014 13:27
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I'd say the dungeon added in FF6's GBA release was fairly good overall, if only because a sizeable number of the re-fights were designed so that Ultima spam was out. Really, the biggest disappointment (to me) was going through all of that effort for an Esper that taught Gravity spells, though there was more than enough loot to make up for it.
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Oct 23, 2014 14:00
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e: Oops, meant to post in the main FF thread. Though while I'm posting, so far there doesn't really seem to be much strategy involved other than grinding to get the right gear, which is kind of a shame.
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Oct 23, 2014 15:40
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MagusofStars posted:Also, as a general FF question, I haven't played all of the various remakes that added dungeons. But have any of the added dungeons been considered genuinely good? Seems like they're pretty much all considered somewhere between "poo poo" and "mediocre" by the fanbase. The bonus dungeons in the FF1 remakes are generally recieved pretty well, and as noted, the FF6A bonus dungeon is at least something different, something that generally encourages proper strategy instead of Ultima Spam. Past that, you know about Rebirth of Souls now, FF5A's bonus dungeon is almost entirely ruined by arbitrary skill requirements (making it impossible to do in almost any Four Job Fiesta, amongst other things) and a random encounter rate that is nothing short of absolutely infuriating, and we don't talk about Chrono Trigger DS's bonus content. We just...don't.
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Oct 23, 2014 16:24
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I dunno, I've done the FF1's Dawn of Soul optional dungeons, and the later ones get tedious as poo poo. I mean, wasn't the last one 80 floors or something?
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Oct 23, 2014 17:59
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I know the PSP release of 1 added in another dungeon with a superboss whose difficulty scaled to how well/fast you completed it, and you could extend your time by giving up stuff like saving, using items, etc.
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Oct 23, 2014 18:20
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Camel Pimp posted:I dunno, I've done the FF1's Dawn of Soul optional dungeons, and the later ones get tedious as poo poo. I mean, wasn't the last one 80 floors or something? I thought "tedious as poo poo" was synonymous with "working as intended" for NES-era Final Fantasy. 
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Oct 23, 2014 21:26
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KataraniSword posted:we don't talk about Chrono Trigger DS's bonus content. We just...don't. I guess I'm one of the few that actually liked the Dimensional Vortexes, then? They were still so much better than the unspeakable horror that was the attempt to make 65,000,000 B.C. have more content.
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Oct 24, 2014 01:02
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SorataYuy posted:I guess I'm one of the few that actually liked the Dimensional Vortexes, then? They were still so much better than the unspeakable horror that was the attempt to make 65,000,000 B.C. have more content. It was less the Vortex as a dungeon and more the weird quasi-retcon that they used at the end to try to tie the game better into Chrono Cross. And also that second thing you mentioned.
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Oct 24, 2014 03:00
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Also that horrible awful Poke-Nu arena. Holy poo poo, that's the only thing i even remember from the DS remake cause I played about ten minutes of it and went "no, i think I'll just go back to emulating this game on the SNES."
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Oct 24, 2014 03:05
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KataraniSword posted:It was less the Vortex as a dungeon and more the weird quasi-retcon that they used at the end to try to tie the game better into Chrono Cross. Yeah, that was kind of weird, especially since they got rid of pretty much every Guile=Magus reference in Chrono Cross itself. Way to remain consistent, guys. Honestly, I could've dealt with the shittiness that was the unspeakable horror, if pretty much all the rewards from it weren't still inferior to the normal endgame items that you've been able to get since the SNES version. About the only ones that aren't complete garbage are Lucca's Elemental Aegis armor (it's still inferior to the Prism Dress, but it's a good backup option for Lucca if you lack the patience to get three Prism Dresses from three Black Omen runs) and the unique accessories for Frog and Ayla (a combined Hero's Medal & MP cost reduction on the former and a Crit-boost plus Counter effect for the latter? GIMME!) and they're not even close to worth going up and down THAT loving MOUNTAIN a couple dozen times. About the only thing I liked about Unspeakable Horror is that the bosses were actually a challenge. CT is an amazing game but it's piss easy even before you know all the tricks. As for the Dimensional Vortex, it would've been better if they hadn't thrown in a bunch of random spots from areas with enemies that are by now complete trash. It made going through the first 90% of each Vortex area a boring-rear end chore. Now, if they had just taken the unique areas at the end of each section and made them the entire Vortexes, that would've been awesome. On that note, I was appreciative of the devs finally working Singing Mountain into the game. I love that track. Speaking of places with previously-unused tracks, I was disappointed in the attempt at a multiplayer option that is the Arena of the Ages. There seems to be absolutely no point to it other than to get a couple of crappy accessories to add to your item collection list. Sure, you could actually do the "multiplayer" part and battle someone else's minion... but why would you? It's a loving boring combat system.
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Oct 24, 2014 04:26
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Soul of Rebirth part 3 After beating the Ultima Weapon, I'd like to say I started the second half of SoR, but no, there was more grinding. Even then, enemies were still pounding my face into the dirt. It was slow going.  But every battle won, and enemy drop gotten, helps. Scott gets toad.  Some drops... are less useful. L'il Murderer dropped this. Josef gets confuse for the sheer hell of it, but it's never useful. I'm only going to spend so much time grinding, and spending that time leveling Blink and Berserk will always be more useful.  But, two hours after arriving in Machanon, I finally made it to the second floor of the palace. After which I immediately walked back.  Black Dragon Rank 7, HP 5000, MP 450, Attack Power 180, Attacks 8, Accuracy 100%, Defense 180, Evasion 1-75%, Magic Defense 8-40% Not before running into this nasty fellow.  It gets flare 16 too. Goodie gumdrops.  Fortunately, unlike the Ultima Weapon it's susceptible to matter. Minwu's gotten Mini up to a respectable level. He's not yet up to one-shotting whole enemy parties with it, but he'll usually take out single targets.  Sweet. Everyone wants this, but it goes to Ricard.  And more Black Robes, too. Minwu finally gets something to help with his survival.  And an Orukat drops a Protect Ring! Especially nice considering that death elemental attacks are kind of a problem now. Minwu equips it. After sleeping at the inn, the party makes a serious run at the palace.  Cait Sith Rank 3, HP 700, MP 370, Attack Power 40, Attacks 7, Accuracy 75%, Defense 60, Evasion 1-90%, Magic Defense 5-40% Lamia Matriarch Rank 6, HP 1760, MP 150, Attack Power 50, Attacks 8, Accuracy 95%, Defense 50, Evasion 2-80%, Magic Defense 7-40% Dark Magician Rank 4, HP 750, MP 600, Attack Power 40, Attacks 2, Accuracy 75%, Defense 35, Evasion 1-30%, Magic Defense 4-60% Cait Siths have blaster, but other than that, not a terrifically difficult fight. You'd expect the lamias and magicians to be real jerks, but they weren't.  Hey, I finally managed to grab a palace treasure chest! Woo!  But the drops are even better. Thanks Black Dragon! Ricard equips it, and now the whole party has resistance against the main three elements (and poison).   Catoblepas Rank 5, HP 1200, MP 80, Attack Power 100, Attacks 8, Accuracy 90%, Defense 85, Evasion 1-65%, Magic Defense 5-70% Twin Heads Rank 5, HP 800, MP 400, Attack Power 40, Attacks 5, Accuracy 65%, Defense 25, Evasion 1-50%, Magic Defense 3-50% Catoblepases are kind of jerks.  Fortunately I have a gold needle kicking around, but only having one character who can cure status ailments can bite you in the rear end. Also Minwu's esuna level isn't high enough to cure stone. Yeeeah.  Oh, and Twin Heads can cast toad.  Poor Scott. Since this was at the beginning of the floor, I just reset.  Dark Behemoth Rank 7, HP 6000, MP 300, Attack Power 180, Attacks 9, Accuracy 100%, Defense 120, Evasion 1-40%, Magic Defense 8-30%  Ouch. Thankfully it's a physical only enemy, meaning that once I blinked my fighters, this was no problem.  And this is just sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Okay.  And I'm actually going to use it! Ricard's evasion percent is high enough to take the hit, and he's not casting so he's not worrying about int/soul penalties.  The defense boost from the Genji Gloves really, really helps. Also a mind resistance is never a bad thing to have.  Chaos Rider Rank 6, HP 1800, MP 190, Attack Power 120, Attacks 8, Accuracy 85, Defense 120, Evasion 1-70%, Magic Defense 5-70% I could already tell this was gonna be bad.  First off: level 16 drain spell. Goodie.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck  This sucks. So, just reset, right?  And then they dropped the best axe in the game. drat. I threw an ether onto Scott, and just walked back to town. Teleport doesn't work (and I threw it away anyway), so I gotta walk back every time. Yaaaaay. I don't know if Warp works, I assume it doesn't. There are two enemies that drop Warp, but I'm not grinding for that.  Gold Golem Rank 7, HP 3000, Attack Power 150, Attacks 8, Accuracy 95%, Defense 200, Evasion 1-50% Magic Defense 14-100% And Golems. Weak to lightning. Physical only enemies. Yup.  Once I'm back in town, I buy as many ethers and elixirs I can get my grubby hands on. At the end I have 9 elixirs and 31 ethers. That should be enough. This time, I was determined to make it all the way to the end.  At least all these trips through the palace means I'm getting magic defense. The importance of this cannot be overstated.  Malboro Menace Rank 5, HP 900, Attack Power 85, Attacks 8, Accuracy 85%, Defense 85, Evasion 1-70%, Magic Defense 5-70% They're pretty similar to the Malboros of the end dungeon. Can inflict a ton of status upon hitting, but again physical only enemies can be neutralized, so not so bad.  They drop some neat stuff, but I actually don't equip any of this. Body resistance wouldn't be bad, if only to stop stun, but everyone's happy with the armor they already have. Poison resistance is pointless, and it's not better than the two protect rings and genji gloves I already have. I guess I could give it to Josef, but it's really not needed for a back row character, especially since it would lower his evasion.  And we're up to the fourth floor, and its squad of mini-bosses. Originally they protected some Genji stuff (which I finally found some use for, at least) and a single ribbon. Here.... well, let's see. We start at the far left.  These count as different floors, by the way, which I consider enough to count a save point. Deal with it.  Okay, we start off with the Ribbon. Not bad.  Steel Giant Rank 7, HP 6500, MP 480, Attack Power 180. Attacks 12, Accuracy 100%, Defense 200, Evasion 0, Magic Defense 14-100%  Unlike his Iron brother, this isn't a physical only boss.  Ouch. Other than Starfall he's also got level 16 slow, which he cast on Josef for whatever reason, and Curse 16. Minwu's barrier helps block that.  Oh and Flare 16 because of course he has Flare 16. And yes, that kills Minwu. Hooray.  However, the Steel Giant has much less HP, so the fight isn't nearly as long as the Ultima Weapon fight. And he's also weak to lightning like the Iron Giant, but I didn't realize that. Oops. Oh, and he dropped another set of Genji Gloves. Didn't use them. The Ribbon goes to Minwu, who takes off his black robe and protect ring to gain back some evasion. The protect ring passes onto Josef. Now in the main game the door that led to progress was the third from the left. Since everything's been flipped, it's now the second from the left. Meaning that we skip the next door down and go to the third door from the left.  Dark Soul Rank 4, HP 500, MP 170, Attack Power 35, Attacks 4, Accuracy 80%, Defense 40, Evasion 1-50%, Magic Defense 4-50% They cast low level full party spells. Not scary at this point.  Nor do they drop anything that a) you don't already have or b) want. I don't have much to say about Dark Souls.  Oh yeah, Catoblepases also have stone touch in addition to gaze. Fuckers. At least I had the foresight to buy ten Golden Needles on my latest trip back to town.  However, Minwu is starting to get scary with Mini. It's up to level 6 now.  One nice thing about Catoblepases, though: they drop the Sun Blade. A lot of people have mentioned that you can get a Sun Blade drop off the first battle of SoR if you're lucky or patient. I am neither. Ricard gets a much needed weapon upgrade.  While the first chest we grabbed had a familiar Ribbon, the rest of the chests here have entirely new equipment. Of course, we gotta fight a boss before we can use it.  Yamatano Orochi Rank 7, HP 8000, MP 450, Attack Power 160, Attacks 9, Accuracy 100%, Defense 190, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense 8-70% I get a preemptive strike to set up all my buffs, so this starts on a good note.   It turns out not to really matter. It also has a party wide Thunderbolt 16, equally unimpressive. And that's all it managed to do before it died. It was very underwhelming.  The treasure is not, however. All of equipment on this floor, with the exception of the ribbon, can only be equipped by a specific character. As you can see, Minwu gets the Stardust Rod. It has okay attack power, but he can't use this from the back row anyway. It casts Fire 16 when used as an item, and I believe it can't be broken, but that's not that awesome.  What is awesome is that it will put his Spirit, Intelligence, and Magic up to 99. All of the character specific equipment will set certain stats to 99. You may think that's overpowered as hell, and it is. All right, next door down.  Oh and on the way to the next treasure chest I got two(!) Yoichi bows from some Malboros. Minwu doesn't want it, but Josef can use it.  I think we know who gets this one.  Wait, that's it? You couldn't even give me an actual boss here? Lazy.  ...  Anyway, in addition to 169 attack power (which is better than the Masamune) the Wyvern Lance gives Ricard 99 strength and agility. Awesome. It doesn't cast anything when used, however.  If you recall in the main game the first door on the left had the Masamune. And the path is still there.  However, it has this sword instead of the Masamune.  Lucifer Rank 7, HP 10000, MP 540, Attack Power 160, Attacks 9, Accuracy 100%, Defense 190, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense 8-70% Unlike the main game, it's guarded.  Luci has a single target Fire 16, which did pitiful damage against Scott, and single target Death, which Josef resisted. And I have no idea what else it can do because that's all it did before I killed it. ...my word, is this starting to become easy?  Nice. Scott is lacking in status protection, so he equips it.  Anyway, the Wild Rose. It has 100 attack, and gives Scott 99 strength and intelligence. Nice, but not as good as the Wyvern Lance, right? Wrong. It casts Berserk 16 when used as an item. Berserk 16. And keep in mind that when you use spells procured from items the game does factor in intelligence. Which the Wild Rose gives you 99 of. Now, it is multi-target, but level 16 Berserk cast by a character with 99 intelligence is still quite awesome. Plus it's faster. Honestly, I'll probably never cast Berserk regularly ever again. Josef definately never will, although he'll cast Haste instead, so he's got something to do. I probably should have skipped berserk entirely, but honestly I needed berserk to get to this point.  And now we go through the last of these four doors.   Beelzebub Soul Rank 7, HP 8000, MP 450, Attack Power 160, Attacks 9, Accuracy 100%, Defense 190, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense 8-70% Hello again Beez. Will you actually do something this time?  Nope. At least this time around Beez has matter resistance. Both palette swapped Astaroth and Tiamat lack matter resistance. I kind of assumed that they wouldn't let you just frog one of the bosses in the optional dungeon, but nope! You can still frog two of them. (Well, I would have minied them, but whatever.) Guess that was kind of silly for me to assume that. Also I just noticed that apart from the Iron Giant all the bosses here have the exact same attack power, number of attacks, defense, evasion, and magic defense. Lazy.  Oh, and the Bracers go to Josef, and unlike all the other character specific equipment it's armor, not a weapon.  And like Josef, it's underwhelming. It'd be nice if it boosted his agility, since fist only characters have problems with agility, but nooope. And as far as I can tell, it doesn't protect against any elements.  And now we are officially on the end stretch of this dungeon.  At least the chests in the latter part actually has noteworthy stuff in them. Ricard doesn't have anything better in the helmet slot, and his evasion percent is untouchable, so he dons the Genji Helm. Honestly, by this point this team has weathered so much that they're not going to have a lot of problems any more. Minwu and Josef's HP are still sad, but otherwise everyone's got decent status protection, decent magic defense, and enough buffing spells to get through anything. Chaos Riders could be an annoyance, but like the Death Riders, they don't show up in the later floors. The only issue at this point is if I have enough ethers to get to the end. Out of 31 ethers I ended with 17. Yeah, I had enough.  Due to a series of stupid decisions on my part, I didn't record it, but this chest contained an Aegis Shield. Scott got it, and gave the White Robe to Josef. Other than Ricard, everyone is completely immune to status ailments.  I actually didn't equip this. I wanted the matter resistance the Black Garb gave Ricard. Of course, the Genji Helm he was already wearing also protects against matter, which I forgot at the time, so it's a moot point. Still, the Genji Armor protects against death, and Ricard's magic defense is getting good enough to resist most death spells anyway.  On the penultimate floor for some reason the flipped perspective threw me. When it wasn't in the bottom left I thought it was up top for some reason. It's just on the bottom right corner. I don't know why I got confused.  Hey, a Gold Hairpin. Josef finally gets a helmet.  But we're finally on the last floor. What will we find? Since we're almmost done, let's take one final look at the party.   This won't be fully accurate, since I'm going to present everyone sans equipment, and they have their ultimate weapons equipped for the final battle, but I figure you're curious. Although Minwu's close to 99 spirit anyway. Not bad. Unless you did something criminally stupid with Minwu, like have him forget all his spells, he'll always be useful. Not much to say. He's great in the main game and great here. His low HP is a bugbear, though.   Scott can be a major weak link, or a boon, depending on how you prepared your characters for SoR. If you're into power grinding getting stuck with Scott can be a downer. Still, he's one of the first two characters you get, and unless you trained Minwu as a front row fighter, you need him. He's versatile enough to fill any role you need him to, so he's never completely useless. As for my party, he was my lifeblood early on, but once came into his own Scott became more of a hybrid fighter and supporting mage. But he does it well. At this point he's pretty much here for the Wild Rose's Berserk 16. That makes it sounds like he's useless now, but Berserk 16 is just that good. Even without that he's quite solid.   Josef sucks.   As I and a lot of people have mentioned, Ricard can be ridiculous in SoR. After all, you get him later, and he's with you for a long time, so you can plenty of time to level him up in the main game. Even if you don't really train him well, he can at least come in with awesome late game equipment. At base stats, he was overshadowed by Scott at first if only because of Scott's versatility. Ricard came into his own quite quickly, though. Actually, what holds him back is that he starts with weapon levels in spear and sword (fun fact: in the original game, he just had sword skill. No levels in spear) and SoR doesn't give you a lot of swords and spears. It kind of hampered him. I could have had him train with something like axes like with Scott, but I just chose not to. Still, his ultimate weapon helps out his mediocre strength and agility (at least his base strength is higher than Mac's....) and that's all you really need for Ricard. Well, let's find out who's at the top of this palace.  What the gently caress is that.
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Oct 25, 2014 01:31
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Soul of Rebirth Part 4 So... I'm just going to present this whole thing with the full text. I think this deserves it.  The emperor! But not the emperor you have come to know. He is somehow different from the creature I fought... You must permit me to apologize for his indiscretions. Charlie and his companions did indeed defeat me. I died once at their hands.  Really, Soul of Rebirth? That's our plot twist? A light half? Yes. My dark plummeted to Hell, where he gained his fell power. Then he became master of Pandaemonium. Then...this isn't Pandaemonium? Though they look alike, you now stand in Arubboth, palace of the heavens. The passage you thought was Jade is in fact Raqia, realm of the fallen angels. Angels who have sinned are twisted into beasts and cast out into its depths. I found myself here and became lord of Arubboth. As for you, Minwu, who forfeited your life to lift the seal of Ultima... Scott, who fell defending the remote Kashuan Keep... Josef, crushed by a falling boulder in Borghen's trap. And Ricard, the last dragoon, who sacrificed himself to my dark half... You who lost your lives fighting the empire - it was I who brought you here. Why? The good must pat penance for the deeds of the wicked. And I mean to.That's... almost reasonable? Then again, it's kind of a tall order, with the whole "killed nearly 50% of the world's population" thing.   You've got some nerve! You mock us! I expected you'd say as much. Reluctance to forgive has long been a human failing. It is man's nature to sin, yet you answer sin with violence upon violence. Is that not itself a sin? ...Game, where the gently caress are you going with this? Forgive me and you shall have life eternal. You can live in this paradise for all time. Forgive you? Eternal life, huh? In paradise, no less. Again, I offer my apologies for the discourtesies committed by my dark half. Now you...you must forgive me. I'm telling ya, you're going going to make any progress until you forgive me. You might as well get it over with and get on with this game... I can wait a lot longer than you can, believe me...     Guys, I wouldn't trust these apparitions. I mean, I don't know who these people are, but they aren't the gang.  Seriously, who the gently caress would have Holy 16?  Whoever these guys are, they suck.  Hey, maybe we can finally see what Ultima can really do.   Oh FF2.  Yeah, let's cut away from that.  I'm gonna be a dragoon! Don't worry about me! You are the pride of Kashuan, my brother! I will never give up. You can do no less! And they all disappear, one by one. You know, as silly and corny as the whole "your friends pray and give you strength" was in FF4, at least it was set up and there was some logic to it. Here... there's no reason given as to why everyone's spirit (?) is here. How do they even know that these guys needed their help? Hell, how are they 'helping', really? Gah! : Why do you hesitate? Do you not desire eternal life? I didn't come this far to dishonor myself now! My hopes live on in those who remain! We chose to die. But we died so that others might live. Foolish men... If you will not have eternal life, I will give you eternal suffering! The Motherfucking Emperor, Mk. II Rank 1, HP 25000, MP 540, Attack Power 180, Attacks 9, Accuracy 100%, Defense 220, Evasion 1-80%, Magic Defense 16-70% So we're fighting the Emperor again. This time he's got even more HP and even more tricks up his sleeve.  For one, he still has Starfall.  But it's a hell of a lot nastier here, especially for Minwu.  And like every other boss in SoR, he gets Flare 16. At least with Shell on it may not one hit kill Minwu, but it did kill Josef here. Eh.  Huh. You know, I think this enemy is the only one who ever casts Holy in the entire game. Not just in SoR, but the main game too.  But it's multi-target, so no big deal.  As for the damage the party could do, while neither Ricard or Scott were ripping the emperor apart, they did decent damage. Honestly, while it wasn't a quick battle, there really was no major stumbling blocks. Josef died once, but that was it. His spells are powerful, but as long as you're always careful to keep everyone's HP up you'll be okay. If nothing else, everyone except Ricard has decent leveled Cure, so they can supplement Minwu. If you can get to this battle, you can win it.  I beat it faster than I thought I would.  And he still explodes.  Your bloody legacy...of war and violence will not...end here! Ungahhhh!   Then the game goes through the final cutscene, and it's almost exactly the same.  Except now the four ghosts here will pop in and occasionally say something.    Waaaait a second, you guys weren't here originally. I didn't really show the Dawn of Souls version of this sequence, but they're not here in the main game, either. They just stuck them in here and hoped we wouldn't notice.  But Ricard never did teach little Kain the most important lesson: wait until he's dead to go after your best friend's girl.  After Charlie and the gang walk off, the camera pans back to the ghost men.  This is their time, now. Do you think they're up to it, Minwu? I believe they are. If anyone can change our legacy of violence, they can.....you mean Scott's fight against an evil empire who eradicated whole towns, or Ricard and Josef's sacrifices to save the lives of others? That "legacy of violence?" And Minwu was a medic, ho- oh gently caress it who cares it's over.  They play the ending monologue, and it's exactly the same.  And some dudes' ghosts, but no one cared about that.  It plays the end credits again, but it's not like we needs to see more credits for this. For as hideously unbalanced as this optional dungeon is, I kind of like it. I like the idea of a party that consists of all the characters who died, even if the actual plot of Soul of Rebirth is stupid. And I like that the early part is a desperate scrabble to survive, to get more equipment and characters. But around the midway point it falls apart. Unless you came in overpowered, there's no way to continue onward unless you grind for at least an hour or two. That really kills the momentum. For the record, I tried to grind only as much as I felt was necessary. I don't feel like I was overpowered by the end, but still after the Steel Giant I pretty much breezed through the rest. Unbalanced is kind of an understatement. Regardless, it's done, and with it, the LP is done. Thanks for sticking around for what ended up being waaay more bonus updates than I anticipated. At this point, I think I've really said all there is to say about FF2. Camel Pimp fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 01:41
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With that... twist? Does that constitute a twist? Where was his 'good side' during the normal game? Would it have hurt them to add a couple lines or something saying he started out conquering the world to make space for his destitute country? Maybe have some random NPC walking around saying Paramekia/paramecia/Palampolum whatever was buried under that desert and his original intention was to give his people a place to live? Without any sort of context or fleshing out, what did he ever do that was good? Sack a neighboring country, build the death star, kidnap a neighboring regent, make a sharknado, conquer hell? Would it have hurt them to even say maybe he saved that mini-boss Behemoth from being drowned in a sack as a pup? ANYTHING?
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Oct 25, 2014 02:56
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FeyerbrandX posted:With that... twist? Does that constitute a twist? Where was his 'good side' during the normal game? Would it have hurt them to add a couple lines or something saying he started out conquering the world to make space for his destitute country? Maybe have some random NPC walking around saying Paramekia/paramecia/Palampolum whatever was buried under that desert and his original intention was to give his people a place to live? That's actually why his light half is ALSO a stupid jerk, he's just THAT evil.
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Oct 25, 2014 02:59
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bathroomrage posted:That's actually why his light half is ALSO a stupid jerk, he's just THAT evil. I swear this part was inspired by someone's five-year-old son. "You should make the next Bad Guy SUPER evil! So evil that even his good half is also evil! And then all the guys who died team up and chop his head off!"
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Oct 25, 2014 03:12
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bathroomrage posted:That's actually why his light half is ALSO a stupid jerk, he's just THAT evil. I always took it as "he wasn't happy just dying and taking over Hell, he had to die and take over Heaven, too."  Have to admit, people give Kefka a lot of credit for actually being a villain that wins, but The Emperor has cast-iron balls.
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Oct 25, 2014 03:13
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Awesome job. I thought I was just getting one really good LP from this thread. But you did three really good LPs. Thank you I had a blast reading them.
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Oct 25, 2014 03:43
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He didn't have a good half. He was completely full of poo poo. There's only one afterlife. None of this good-bad-demons-angels poo poo. Dead people go HERE, living people stay THERE. Even if you forgave him, he was still gonna turn around and go "oh cool, see you in oblivion" and kill you anyway. Killing dead things in dead land destroys them utterly, everybody knows that. He was trying to send EVERYONE there and kill them. This is why he split in the first place; his primary objective (kill everyone the first time) still needs oversight, but now that he knows things need to die TWICE, he needed two of himself. BAM. What a prick.
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Oct 25, 2014 03:58
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So uh I guess this leaves kind of a huge power vacuum in both Heaven and Hell. That could be a problem.
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Oct 25, 2014 04:59
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