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Chapter 2: Kickin' rear end and Takin' Magi (Part 2) Yo check this tune out! Some overworld music for you! Pretty swanky stuff for just walking around outside.   Okay, Ki said we can find some magi to the south. We'll want to keep an eye out for— SPIDER SMASH KILL DESTROY  Uh, Heather? It's dead. You can stop now. Seriously, what is with you? I don't like spiders. They're creepy! They're more afraid of you than you are of them. They are now, yeah.You're not missing out on a whole lot as far as fighting goes—whole lotta bugs and the occasional conscripted Japanese farmer. It does seem that our guys are slowly getting better with their respective weapons without actually gaining stats. I don't know if weapons do more damage the lower their use count goes or if we're just fighting monsters with lower armor. At any rate, we definitely need the stats, so we're stuck with poking monsters with sticks at the moment.    Hey! The big rock! Like, it's about time. That desert was awful. Yeah, but think of the tan you'll get. Hmm! Wait. Do you hear that? Nnnno? ... They're everywhere Uh oh. Do we need to take her back to Ki and get her oil changed? Ack! I tried to tell you! Whatevs. It's not like we haven't killed them before. Yeah, one at a time. This is an entire pack! Do jaguars even travel in packs? I... don't know, actually. A group of jaguars is called a "jamboree." What, seriously? *nods* That's dumb as heck. Less talking, more KILLING  *roar*    ... Right, I'll mop these guys up. You two drag Heather to safety. I call left leg! Aw.As you can see, Heather just ate a crapload of damage and keeled over. This is to be expected, as she and Roy will be taking most of the punishment over the course of the LP. Roy's basically bulletproof right now. Heather... isn't. Party member death in Final Fantasy Legend 2 is so much more merciful than other games. It's not even death; your guy just gets clobbered so hard they're out cold. (The official status is "Stun.") If you get out of the fight with at least one character surviving, all your stunned party members come to. Granted, it's with 1 HP, but you have no idea how hard this can save your rear end if something goes horribly wrong. Best of all, you can get stunned all you want as long as you win the fight. No heart limitations or Houses of Healing here! Just chuck a healing potion at them to deal with the concussion and be on your way.   Heather, what were you thinking? Uh, glorious death through combat? Duh! Am I seriously the only one worried about having a bloodthirsty lunatic in our party? I am not a lunatic! And the rest? Guilty as charged. Okay, here's the big rock. Now we go east... And south...  Wow! No kidding! If Ki didn't give us directions, we never would've found this place. We're gonna raid a lost temple for ancient treasures. This owns! So there's magi here? Yep! Probably not out in the open, though. We'll have to search the place. Great. My feet are already killing me. Pfft. I'm barely tired! That's because you have tank treads instead of feet. Which reminds me: Why do you have tank treads instead of feet? Born lucky, I guess!   And behind door number one...   Ooh! Gimme. Seriously? Hey, everybody! I'm Simon Belmont!  ... Who?     Mushrooms are walking around? This place seriously needs a janitor. I HATE FUNGUS IT'S GROSS  Isn't it fungii? Fungi. I thought that's what I said. No time for talking! Face the Mushroom Killer Whip, scoundrels! ...That sounded so much better in my head. Protip, duder: "Scoundrel" isn't the word to use if you want to sound cool. FJKADLGJKALEJFKLEA How about that one? Prrrrobably not that one, either.Whips are our first hybrid weapon. They build agility, but they use strength to determine damage. It's fairly dumb and makes them hard to use except by trained fighters, which means they probably have a better option available anyway. However! Whips have one advantage other weapons don't. If you successfully do damage, they can paralyze. You can do any amount of damage to trigger the check; it has the same chance whether you do one HP or a thousand. If it succeeds, you get the fairly incomprehensible "Winded the whip!" message, which means that enemy is paralyzed for a single turn. I assume it means they got tangled up in your whip and you can start punching them in the face without resistance. It's my completely unscientific opinion that whips have a much higher paralyze rate than other special weapons and/or spells. I have not tested that because I know I'm right.  But, it still doesn't work on enemies immune to paralysis, like robots and undead. Probably. I mean, I'm just throwing stuff against a wall at this point, it could be wrong or right.   Jawsome. What's in these? Man, what a ripoff. Wait. Remember what Mr. S taught us?quote:
Yeah, not to interrupt his lectures. I think you took the wrong thing away from that class. Anyway, if these are empty, there's someone else here! Great! I'd totally love to kill them. Meet them! Meet. Also kill. You have some serious rage issues.   Looks like they beat us to these, too. Look out! There's too many of them! Perhaps today is a totally rad day to die.  Okay. Set, focus, channel energy... Zero? Check this out, guys! Der Zwerg ist in meinen Hut! Holy butt! What was that? Magic? Kinda! I can't do it that often, so I save it for emergencies. Plus, mom really doesn't like it. Why not? Well...quote:
Yeah, that'd do it. ... Sara? Mother said magic is evil. It was created by the Hat. And you believed her? I do. Well, did. At one point. Well, Zero just saved us with it. That means it's not really evil, right? ...Zero has mutant abilities! He actually comes out of the box with Blizzard, and Blizzard is ridiculous for this stage of the game. It's a 40-60 damage attack that hits everything. As in, every enemy you're facing, not just a single group. Right now, that's enough to knock some serious chunks through multi-monster ranks. Even better, reptiles of all types are weak against ice! It's basically a "win" button against the frogs and lizards in this area. He only gets 15 uses before he has to recharge at an inn, so we have to use it sparingly. Also, we don't want to spam Blizzard all fight erry fight, or we'll end up with Zero at a billion mana and everyone else with horrible stats. (Remember when I mentioned nuances in SaGa combat? This is one of them. You have to sandbag your strongest guys so the others can grow.) When the number of enemies you're fighting goes past 3-4, however, it's time to bring the pain.   Looks like the floor collapsed in here. I'm not surprised. These ruins are pretty old. (The chest was a cure potion. You didn't miss much.)   me irl | | v  I know I'm not covering much about monsters, but other than the lizards' weaknesses to ice, there's not a whole lot to say about them. The mushrooms will punch you for laughable amounts of damage if you don't kill them first. That's about it. Kung-fu mushrooms are not the most SaGa thing we'll see on this journey. Not even close.   Uh. There was someone here! I knew it! They took the magi! We have to get it back! I think they're hiding in here! Oops! Maybe not. ... C'mon, we're losing them! Shiny... so... box-like... Roy? Must... open!   Magi! Did it call to you or something? Nah, I just like opening treasure chests. Excuse me. I don't mean to be rude, but maybe we can go back to catching the people who stole the powerful relics before they can use them for evil Spoilsport.  ARGH! Oh man oh jeez oh crap there's like a million of them You were right. They've got magi. Time to die, kids! ... leave us alone. What? Leave us alone. Go away. Bwa ha ha! That's rich. I think I'll start by killing this one. Leave us alone. Leave us alone!! Zero? Yeah, Roy? I'm starting to feel like our party members are bad influences on us. In our defense, they're the only ones that would take the job.In contrast to Zero, Sara starts with Flame. It's the exact same as Blizzard except, y'know, with fire. This does indeed mean we can spam Blizzard and Flame every fight and take down entire hoards of monsters while we laugh—laugh—at their ineffectiveness. But, again, that would catch up to us real quick later on. So, we hold back for now. Not pictured is Zero picking up O-Poison, because that's boring and no one cares.   Seriously Carrie back there is going to roast us alive  No! They got away! Oh no. Roy. Look...  we failed... Ashura's men... took.. the.. M.. MA..GI.. .. Were we too late? Is this our fault? No. These wounds look like they were attacked way before we got here. There wasn't anything we could do. This is awful. We have to tell Ki! And fast!    Hi! Back already? We've got some bad news... Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat We tried to stop them, but they were too fast for us. Didn't someone in town say Ashura's base was north of here? Yeah. We better head up there if we want to get the magi back. ...Ashura! Should you be making air quotes with your fingers when you say that? It's a long story. I'll explain later.Next Time: Ki and We Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 06:46
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The thing to remember, children, is that treasure chests always have treasure in them. No one knows how or why, but whoever gets to them will always get something from them.
ARGH THAT WAS MY FAVORITE LAMP WHY WERE YOU CASTING SPELLS IN THE HOUSE
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You have to hand it to Ashura's goons. It has to take some level of skill to kill a couple of guys, loot their corpses, and disappear without trace in the five seconds it takes you to follow them out the door. More than you'd usually expect from evil-villain-mooks, at any rate. I guess you're supposed to rush the door, discover that it's MAGI-locked, and then fumble around for a minute trying to figure out how to get it open before you get the three MAGI in the adjacent room. I always went in the MAGI room first though, so meh.
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Oct 18, 2014 07:07
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Chokes McGee posted:I wanted to hurry up and get this out there because Asura posted instead of replying. I'll be kicking myself for that for a while now.  I swear I'm not usually that dumb. Sorry Chokes.In regards to the newest update and Zero getting another mutant ability, if I remember right, mutant abilities always replace the bottom one when they roll a new ability. That means that you can shuffle the useful ones like Cure and Flame up to the top, and leave X-Fire and the like at the bottom to get overwritten.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:52
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Sweet LP, love the dialogue. We didn't play very many Gameboy games (our parents only bought one to shut us up on a cross-country car ride in '93, heh) and I was always curious about the "Final Fantasy" games that... weren't. I did follow your LP of the first game (where all I'd heard about it going in was that  was God and you could cut him in half with a chainsaw) but I know literally nothing about this one. Looking forward to it!Sara posted:A group of jaguars is called a "jamboree." Huh, never heard that (and I'm one of those guys who pointed out that owls came in "parliaments" and not "courts" to his comic book friends). Always figured it'd be a "drive." 
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Oct 18, 2014 14:00
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Guess religion does muddle details over time, since The Lady of the Saw was primarily a magic user in her early adventures.
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Oct 18, 2014 14:05
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Asura United posted:I'll be kicking myself for that for a while now. I thought it was adorable, personally. I like to see that level of enthusiasm!  (And post/reply issues happen all the time, don't take it too hard.) Asura United posted:In regards to the newest update and Zero getting another mutant ability, if I remember right, mutant abilities always replace the bottom one when they roll a new ability. That means that you can shuffle the useful ones like Cure and Flame up to the top, and leave X-Fire and the like at the bottom to get overwritten. I was going to get to the that eventually (no biggie), but you are correct. Right now, I think both mutants in the party have three abilities apiece. When we pick up our fourth, I'll show off the shuffle method. Wayne posted:Huh, never heard that (and I'm one of those guys who pointed out that owls came in "parliaments" and not "courts" to his comic book friends). Always figured it'd be a "drive." I was really skeptical at first, but the internet says it's so. If it's on the internet, it must be true. Also my favorite of those is an "intrigue" of kitten. Intriguing~
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Oct 18, 2014 15:59
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I found the FFL1 LP just as it was wrapping up. It was a joy and wished I had discovered it sooner. So happy to get in on this one from the get-go. You're the best, Chokes! 
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Oct 18, 2014 16:20
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You would think having tank treads for feet would be an issue with, oh, the millions of stairs Roy just had to climb.
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Oct 18, 2014 16:36
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Valgaav posted:You would think having tank treads for feet would be an issue with, oh, the millions of stairs Roy just had to climb. Tank treads are great for tackling uneven terrain. Bi-pedal war-robots on the other hand... 
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Oct 18, 2014 17:09
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Valgaav posted:You would think having tank treads for feet would be an issue with, oh, the millions of stairs Roy just had to climb. 
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Oct 18, 2014 19:26
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I remember somehow muddling through this game at one point in my youth. It was a total debacle that seemed incomprehensibly random most of the time, but I managed. I lucked into finding your original FFL LP in the Archives, and enjoyed it greatly, so it's great to see you doing this one too. I know it's too early to ask if you're going for the trifecta, but it'd be cool to see your take on the third game.
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Oct 18, 2014 23:21
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Chokes McGee posted:I was going to get to the that eventually (no biggie), but you are correct. Right now, I think both mutants in the party have three abilities apiece. When we pick up our fourth, I'll show off the shuffle method. Wasn't it the same in the first FFL game too? I don't think you said it in that LP; that's why I mentioned it. If you knew about that though, you probably also know about the way you can roll some pretty devastating magics really early. I could see you doing that a few times for plot reasons.
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Oct 19, 2014 01:59
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Just so you guys know, I am recording fan art as you submit them. If you check the second post of the thread, you'll see me slowly add them there. Keen! As for people clamoring for exploits: I'm going to eventually do side features showing them off. For now, though, I'm focusing on the story. This chapter coming up will be kind of boring, but everything should take off pretty well afterwards.
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Oct 19, 2014 05:01
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Chokes McGee posted:Just so you guys know, I am recording fan art as you submit them. If you check the second post of the thread, you'll see me slowly add them there. Keen! I assume it's boring because you're grinding to 6800 GP to buy a new weapon for Roy at the next town.
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Oct 19, 2014 05:15
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Asura United posted:Wasn't it the same in the first FFL game too? I don't think you said it in that LP; that's why I mentioned it. Nah, in FFL1 powers just came and went randomly. I think you could even have multiple powers change at once. Also, they started with 4 dummy slots for powers right from the start, so you could only ever equip 4 items. In FFL2 you can load up a mutant with 7 items right at the start and they'll only ever have 1 power, although that means their starting power will be overwritten by the first power they get and you'll never be able to save any powers.
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Oct 19, 2014 05:21
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Gabriel Pope posted:Nah, in FFL1 powers just came and went randomly. I think you could even have multiple powers change at once. Ah, alright. I'm not as familiar with the first one. That... seems pretty unpleasant. Surprise, have X-Poison and ESP! Hope you weren't relying on that Cure and Armor spell 3/4ths of the way through the dungeon! I did know about being able to mark more than 4 slots for weapons / armor though, which is crazy useful since mutants have pretty piddly defense and having 4 slots for armor + a weapon or two is really nice. Unless you roll O-Physical or something, odds are you might want more armor than abilities.
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Oct 19, 2014 11:41
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On the other hand, mutant powers are the only mechanic that differentiates them from humans, who are otherwise considerably stronger. If you want someone who has lots of equipment space and is good at magic, the answer is actually a human instead of a neutered mutant.
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Oct 19, 2014 15:00
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Chapter 3: Ki and We Let's go!Ki's joined the party! Let's take a look at what's she got.   Ki's stats are actually comparable to our characters right now—nothing special, pretty much on par for a magic user at this point in the game. Her gear, though, is outstanding. Thunder is a very powerful spell right now, and Cure is always welcome. The hammer and shield are meh, but if you need to stall her so your characters can grow, they're very helpful. You'll note our guys are coming along pretty well! Stat growth is more or less on par with expectations. We will not be grinding this run unless it's absolutely necessary. I appear to have a talent for minmaxing RPG combat to the point where I hardly ever need to grind, and I plan on using it to my advantage. Grinding sucks, is boring, and basically breaks the game if you do it enough. I'm in this for the plot.  So, Heather. Yeah? I gotta ask. How are you going to be a movie star if you can't go five minutes without sticking a sword through someone's head? Movie star? What are you talking about? When we left town, you said you wanted to be a star. I just assumed, you know, it was stage and screen. Guh, no thank you. I want to be something a little bit higher profile than that. Oh? Like what? A gladiator! You cannot possibly be serious. I totally am. I'm going to be the most beautiful, most vicious pitfighter that ever wielded a blade! Is this really how you guys roll? 'Fraid so. Well, at least it's never dull. Besides, party quirks are endearing! I bet you secretly wear a hat when no one's around.  Kind of, anyway.  Cozy. Don't be fooled. North Town has been in cahoots with Ashura ever since he set up a base nearby. I don't know if I blame them. Sometimes cooperation is the only way to survive. We need to ask around. If they've got a deal with Ashura, they might, like, know things.  ...become the only god to rule the whole world. "Only?" Man, you guys are in for a shock later on. Pretty sure we're covered on that one.  ...Ashura's Base. You don't seem too happy about it. I'm not. They quarter troops in our town and are complete jerks to everyone. They said they'd leave us to our own devices if we cooperate, but they've pretty much wrecked the place, and they lean on our merchants to cut them ridiculous deals. Beats being dead, I guess. Psh. You should totally stand and die like a man. I'm a woman! So am I, but it doesn't stop me! Shopping tiiiiime~ Let me handle this. I've got, like, expertise. New faces? Huh. Where'd you come from? Rumor has it the stork brought me! Weirdo. Anyway, here's what I got. GAH How are we supposed to afford this stuff? How is anyone supposed to afford this stuff?! We get these weapons directly from Ashura's smiths. Most of it isn't for widespread public consumption. This stuff is legal, right? It's grey market, if that's what you're asking. Ashura'll turn a blind eye to us selling his surplus as long as it gets put in the right hands. Explains the high prices. Fits Ashura's M.O., too. I can't help that. Now, are you gonna buy or not? Ew no. We don't have anywhere near that much gold. Then scram.North Town has some incredibly powerful gear available. It's also incredibly expensive. I'm reasonably certain this stuff isn't as expensive in later towns. I definitely don't remember Cure being freaking 6.8k gold, but it's been a while since I've played FFL2. Personally, I don't see a need to invest in any of it. There's a reason it's stupidly expensive, and our guys will be fine as is—especially with Ki's Thunder and Cure spells.   So, what's up with Ashura? You seem to know a lot about him. Guy's seriously bad news. We've got scrolls going all the way back to the dawn of time that prophetise his appearance. Prophecies are just, like, guesses. You can make them mean pretty much anything you want. ...quote:
It was prrrrretty specific. Well, here we are! Love what they've done with the place. Really? No, absolutely not. Maybe the zombies will know something. That could very well be the worst idea in the history of ideas. You shouldn't judge people by their appearance, Roy. Unless they're wearing a hat? I have my limits. Hi! Can we have a moment of your time? Sure thing. Wow! Really? Yeah. Makes it a lot easier to kick your rear end. You are in for the surprise of your incredibly short life.   Well, at least your heart was in the right place, Sara. So are theirs! You put that down this instant.Talking to the roving guards will, of course, trigger a fight. You'll notice they're not actually zombies; it's just a convenient placeholder. You'll get the same random encounters as usual. Afterwards, the guard will still be walking around on the map, so you can repeat the process if you like. This is actually a really good place to grind—assuming you feed Ki a steady diet of hammers and/or shields to keep her out of the way.  Alright. Now that I've seen you guys in action, I think I can trust you with a few secrets. Great! Whatcha got for us? You remember those magi from the ruins? How did you know about those? What, seriously? I can see them glowing through your pockets. I didn't even know I had pockets! Anyway, here's some blessed necklaces I brought with me. Each of you take one and hook a magi on it. Okay...  The power of the ancients totally flows through me!  Now that we have magi, we can equip it! Each character can have one type of magi equipped at any given time. IIRC, they stack—i.e. if you have six power magi, you equip all six of them. If you want different effects, though, you'll have to swap them at the appropriate times. The names pretty much speak for themselves at the moment, but we'll see some more interesting types later on. Not surprisingly, they have a noticeable effect. Heather jumps from about 30 damage to about 70-80 with her power magi equipped.   They can watch other parts of the base? That's some seriously powerful magic. Ugh. This kind of tech is completely inappropriate for our time period. The prophecies were right, Ashura's a dick. Uh, Ki? You're a cleric. Should you be using that type of language? Hell yeah I should!    There really isn't a lot going on here. It's far and away the most boring part of the game. The random encounters are the same as everywhere else, and there's barely any new scenery to take in. Unless you're particularly enamored of watching us spam Blizzard, Bow, and Long Sword over and over again, there's not a lot of reason to linger.  Hmm. What's in these? I think I can guess...  I guess even bad guys need time to unwind. Sometimes you wanna go where they punch you in the face!  Roy. You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'? Oh yeah. We can totally get away with it in here. Yo, barkeep! A beer for me and my friend! Sure thing—as soon as you show me some ID. Dang. You guys actually card people? We may work for the very incarnation of evil, but we still have to keep our liquor license.  Ooh! Too bad it's surrounded. I don't think we can take that many of them. You guys are adorable. Just head on over there, you'll be fine. Shouldn't they be doing something? Anything? Guards are the least observant monsters in the entirety of existence. The sooner you learn that, the better. Omigod! This totally goes with my outfit!  Silver armor is the next tier up from bronze. It's still pricey right now, so this is a welcome find. We give it to Heather since she's our secondary meatshield and Roy is still very, very difficult to damage.    Command Center Well, this seems kind of important. We should brace ourselves for a fight. I'm pretty sure a command center needs a commander to run it. See how much clearer you think without hydrocarbons in your bloodstream? I have to admit, it's pretty nice. Hot dang! It's rainin' loot! Ooh! Ooh! Let me do it! Go for it, dude.  Neat, I can use this to— *yoink* Oh come on! That's the second treasure you've taken! Zero, if you try to take this from me, you're getting it back the hard way.And just like that, we have our first axe! Axes are, not surprisingly, a power weapon. Using them increases strength, and they use strength to determine damage. It's a weapon practically custom-made for Heather, and it will definitely not be the last one we see.    ...yes, sir. Our men secured all the magi in this world but three. No, I assure you, I'm aware... We have every soldier in the area looking for them. Absolutely not, they won't be able to get in here without Isis' blessings. Then I got some bad news for you jerkwads! Wonderful. Now we don't have to go looking for you. I'll call you back as soon as they've been disposed of, sir. Over and out. I mean, I appreciate you coming all the way out here to deliver the magi personally... but now that you've seen our operations, I have to kill you. Then it's a good thing I didn't come alone! You guys ready for this? Maybe! That's the kind of ambivalence I like to hear!This is the Rhino! He's totally not a dinosaur, stop asking. Rhino is a higher level enemy that basically serves as babby's first world boss. Not surprisingly, its defense is pretty high. Fortunately, we have some pretty powerful magic users, and the Rhino's Magic stat isn't that great. By the way, now seems a pertinent time to mention that spells and abilities are resisted with Magic and not Defense. An enemy with a low Magic rating will get absolutely pasted by spells. Why do I mention it? Wnes i wneud rywbeth! Oh, no reason. Nice shot! Thanks! Now let's point Miss Cuisinart over there at him and call it a day. Kill the pig! Drink his blood! ... Welp. Is she okay?! Yeah. This happens a lot. You'll pay for that, Ki! What do we do now?! Tá hata agam!  Woah! When did you learn to do that? ...For whatever stupid reason, rhinos are considered dinosaurs—which means they're reptiles, and thus have X-Ice. And that means it goes down in one round thanks to Ki's and Sara's combined attacks.   ...Ashura's hands! Computer, initiate Protocol Eleven! ... Computer. Protocol Eleven. What? What are you talking about? Is that even a thing I should know? JUST BLOW UP THE drat BASE  YEAH WE CAN SEE THAT AAAAAAAAAAA RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE— Oh hey, treasure. NOW IS REALLY NOT THE TIME Meh, I'm sure it'll be fine. It takes a lot to bring down a four story building.   So THAT'S where they put the magi they stole. WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE BASE THAT'S ABOUT TO COLLAPSE AND BURY US UNDER TWO TONS OF RUBBLE Oh. Yeah, we better do something about that. There's no timer, so you're actually safe as houses if you want to screw around. In fact, you'll still bump into random encounters while the base is exploding. You have to deal with the screen shaking while you're walking around, though, which is pretty annoying. Plus, there's no reason to walk back through the base unless you somehow missed the world's most obvious treasure chests. Grab the magi and beat it.   ...magi and come after us again. It's only a matter of time. Heck yeah we will!  Hey. What's that? The Pillar of Sky! We can finally get to it now that Ashura's base is gone! It's a beanstalk. It leads to the Nexus of Realities. You'll be able to access other worlds with it! It's totally a beanstalk! Well, yeah. But it's a very important beanstalk! We need to restock if we're going up there. Saw only knows what we'll find. Good idea. Mind hanging out with us a little longer, Ki? Meh. Not like I have anything else to do. What about your shrine? Honestly, Sylph and the Captain take care of day-to-day stuff. I just kind of hang out and heal people. Nice work if you can get it!Later...  Alright, all geared up. Looks like we're ready to go! Wooooow This is so totally rad. What's the panel up there do? ... What? No! We need your help! No, you don't. Seriously. I barely did anything back there at Ashura's base. Except collect gold from our fights Shh You're a lot more powerful than you give yourself credit for. All of you. All you needed was some encouragement. Thanks. Just remember: No matter how sharp your swords, no matter how powerful your spells... the most important weapon you have on your side is your friendship. And our magi. That too. Laters! Alright, soooooo. Now what? *bzzt* HOLY CRAAAAAAAAAAAAPNext Time: Saaaaaaandstorm
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Oct 20, 2014 05:03
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I'm glad to see Sara is recovering from the brainwashing. And various liquids from cars.
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Oct 20, 2014 05:17
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Chokes McGee posted:Ki's stats are actually comparable to our characters right now—nothing special, pretty much on par for a magic user at this point in the game. Her gear, though, is outstanding. Thunder is a very powerful spell right now, and Cure is always welcome. The hammer and shield are meh, but if you need to stall her so your characters can grow, they're very helpful. It's a bad enough problem that when I played this I accidentally broke the game and snapped the difficulty curve over my knee less than halfway through the game even before I did a playthrough to use some of the exploits you can pull off. Loving what you're doing with this and enjoying the LP!
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Oct 20, 2014 05:25
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Those spells that cost 6.8k? They still cost 6.8k everywhere else. They're powerful and the only way your human is going to get a decent mana stat so she doesn't explode to any spell herself. However she doesn't need to worry about that now. She, and all of them actually, desperately need speed so they can hit things. Also, if you didn't go back and buy an SMG for your Robot you're a horrible person or something. That thing is a great "oh poo poo" button.
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Oct 20, 2014 05:43
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Krumbsthumbs posted:Also, if you didn't go back and buy an SMG for your Robot you're a horrible person or something. That thing is a great "oh poo poo" button. You mean a great "Use against every grouped monster you come across" button.  Conservation? What's that?
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Oct 20, 2014 06:00
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Asura United posted:
Equipping a second SMG, of course
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Oct 20, 2014 06:01
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Krumbsthumbs posted:Also, if you didn't go back and buy an SMG for your Robot you're a horrible person or something. That thing is a great "oh poo poo" button. Look, I loves me some SMG—probably to an unhealthy degree—but there's a time and place for everything. Just hold on to your trousers for now, we'll be bringing the pain soon enough.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:05
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Chokes McGee posted:
Power, okay. Speed, okay. Mana... ambiguous but IIRC that's the name of the Magic stat in this game. "Prism"? Did I miss a screenshot that makes that effect obvious? Looking forward hearing more about this mechanic overall. Part of what I enjoy about this LP is that it takes these weird game mechanics and turns them into a fairly coherent narrative, which is impressive considering how illogical so many of these mechanics are.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:52
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DjinnAndTonic posted:Power, okay. Speed, okay. Mana... ambiguous but IIRC that's the name of the Magic stat in this game. "Prism"? Did I miss a screenshot that makes that effect obvious? Prism is the one you get that tells you how many MAGI are left in the world you're in. It's in the first update.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:59
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DjinnAndTonic posted:Power, okay. Speed, okay. Mana... ambiguous but IIRC that's the name of the Magic stat in this game. "Prism"? Did I miss a screenshot that makes that effect obvious? Yeah. Back in Chapter 1, Mr. S teaches Roy how to use the Prism. It shows the amount of magi left to collect in each world.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:59
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 You can equip magi? And it like...does stuff? Granted I was only like 9 years old or something when I played this game, but I had no idea you could do that. I thought there was only 1 you could equip, much later in the game. Man, I made this game much harder than it needed to be.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:07
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Was that a load-bearing rhino? Tsk. Shoddy worksmanship, that Ashura.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:03
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Ah, this classic. I read through the SaGa LP on the archives earlier this year, glad to see the game that I played more getting the same treatment. Makes me want to pick up my SaGa 2 DS run again. Speaking of, I kind of like the 'Nexus' as depicted in this version moreso than the DS version, which just uses columns of light to elevate you as opposed to tiles that send you hurtling through space and time until you arrive at your destination.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:33
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Oh wow, another Chokes FFL LP! I only just found this today. Unlike the first game, I played the hell out of this one. When I was a kid I was no good at it and maybe made it about 15% of the way through the game before hitting the wall. Much later, in college, on a whim I got back into the game, and thought I was really good at it...until I hit another wall in-between the penultimate and last boss. Not a cool place to get totally stuck. One thing people haven't talked about here is the bizarre way the random encounters work. See, the big secret to the game is they aren't actually random. Instead, the battle setups (ie, what enemies you fight and how many) are determined by an incredibly complex set of variables that are difficult-to-impossible to orchestrate deliberately. Sure, some of it is standard stuff like where on the map you are and number of steps you've taken, but then it gets arcane things to pick up on like your names, and I think the game clock. And to top all of that off, it does appear that which stats grow when is also partially determined by these factors as well as things like the exact way a battle will turn out--ie the turn order and what actions are chosen by each combatant specifically. There exists a trick you can do if you have the original cartridge and gray brick Game Boy where after you win a fight you save then manually reset the game to manipulate the way the system stores RAM so that you can grind specific stats to maximum, but it's not the easiest to pull off. And one time I got lucky messing around and found a room in a dungeon that always gave the same enemy layout a specific number of steps in, while still allowing me to exit the room without another encounter that let me makeshift the trick and max out my third character's magic.
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Oct 20, 2014 23:12
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FairGame posted:
I'm pretty sure I made it to what was probably the final boss without learning this. No wonder I struggled so much 
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Oct 20, 2014 23:51
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Word on the Wind posted:Ah, this classic. I read through the SaGa LP on the archives earlier this year, glad to see the game that I played more getting the same treatment. Makes me want to pick up my SaGa 2 DS run again.
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Oct 21, 2014 01:01
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Bellmaker posted:I'm pretty sure I made it to what was probably the final boss without learning this. No wonder I struggled so much If it's any consolation, I got to the game's fourth major boss before it sank in that you had an easier time if you actually equipped gear (aside from explosions, I used those because they were awesome). Not just once. I got to him, stalled, quit, restarted, got all the way up to him again, quit, restarted again, got all the way up to him a third time...
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Oct 21, 2014 01:10
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Grimthwacker posted:You mean the DS version (along with SaGa 3 or whatever FFL3 was called) that we never got here? Just thinking about that fact hurts. Yeah that's the one. 2 and 3 both have fan translations available.
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Oct 21, 2014 01:17
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I think I'm gonna have to do a playthrough alongside this LP. I just need to decide which one to play. The DS version has a bit more balance and the encounter rate is more stable, but that friendship power mechanic is just... strange.Word on the Wind posted:Yeah that's the one. 2 and 3 both have fan translations available. Didn't the translation group disband? IIRC, Saga 2 was still a little buggy on their last release.
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Oct 21, 2014 02:50
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Hell yes Chokes is doing FFL2 While I am totally stoked for this, there are some nuances of the game that make me question the way you're building your characters, Chokes. Of the 4 main stats, only 2 are relevant concerns...mostly because of the way the game is built. I'm just hoping your choices don't come to bite you later in the game. Poor Sara. O-Poison may have saved her from death, but she might have been better off...
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Oct 21, 2014 03:05
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Eh, he's got a robot. He's set. I am a bit disappointed that of all the "is X, but thinks (s)he's Y!" character suggestions nobody submitted a human that desperately wanted to be a mutant. There have been several FFL2 LPs in this subforum and I don't think anyone has shown off what humans can do with spellbook training.
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Oct 21, 2014 03:16
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I started up a playthrough of this thanks to the lp and I forgot just how random mutant powers are. My mutant had three cure spells at one point. It was ridiculous. I couldn't even go through 2 of them before I just needed to restore everyone else's abilities.
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Oct 21, 2014 03:38
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 05:42 |
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UmbreonMessiah posted:While I am totally stoked for this, there are some nuances of the game that make me question the way you're building your characters, Chokes. Of the 4 main stats, only 2 are relevant concerns...mostly because of the way the game is built. I'm just hoping your choices don't come to bite you later in the game. No sweat, I can make stuff work if I have to. I managed to shepherd Rezen through the game with 98 HP, remember?  I'm a professional, though. Don't try this at home.* * is not a professional of any kind
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Oct 21, 2014 03:44
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