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 The rummaging and pillaging has had the intended effect: now I can afford the bare minimum armor upgrade for Eight! I don't need to worry about getting them fully decked out; first off, there's some free upgrades sitting in chests, like that leather shield in the well. Second, by the time I had enough gold to get everything, it'd be time to move on to the next town and get yet even better armor.  Pressing Select opens Trode's battle records. He makes fun of us for being level 1. The goal of this update is to change that. It also lets you look at the different monsters you've fought and what items you've obtained.  Start opens the party chat. It serves both as a reminder for what you were doing and to see what the rest of your party has to think.  We were using the west gate, but the waterfall cave is to the south, no?  Man Trode why you gotta be mean they opened a new door and everything.  A lot of DQ8 is judging when you need to rest. Our party's going to fight for a few minutes then sleep until next morning, to fight for a little longer then go right back into bed because the colored bars aren't full.  To a Vast World If you click only one music link for the entire LP, make it the world map theme. It is a perfect manefestation of the spirit of exploration and adventure. Besides fighting some mobs to make our numbers large enough to not die, we're also going to be poking around the Farebury region.  The waterfalls are visible in the distance. You can follow the roads to them, in fact.  We're going to go to exactly not there.  Our first random encounter is a singleton Lips. War Cry  Lips are hardier than slimes for sure, and they can lick a party member to shock them out of a turn, but they are nothing Eight and Yangus can't handle.  I suppose I'll compile these monster info screens when a region is completed. Someone do remind me to do so though or I'll probably forget.  There's little plants growing in the river. One of my goals with this LP is to have a lot of good-looking shots of DQ8's wilderness.  That might come to a premature end as this is one mean crew of rabbits and vegetables. Capsichums are on-par with Lips more or less, but Bunicorns are the toughest things in the Farebury region. They may or may not have a trick, for all I remember is the horrible stabbing.  And stabbing they do a lot. With three bunicorns attacking each round and Eight and Yangus too weak to take one out in a single round, they wear on Eight's HP really quickly.  Luckily, Eight pulls a critical hit out of his rear end. Critical hits are the greatest thing you'll ever see. They do boatloads of extra damage and ignore defense. Ignoring defense is the important part.  It isn't enough to stop the enemies from putting Eight on death's door, though!  Since there's only two enemies left, defending is the prudent option. They shouldn't be able to take 4 HP when their damage is halved, after all.  Capsichums can cast a single spell, Sap.  When it successfully lands, Sap reduces defense by half. It'd be threatening but this means the Capsichum isn't attacking and our defense values are so low right now that getting halved doesn't make a huge difference.  The defending was to ensure Yangus's Medicinal Herb got in. They recover 30-35 HP and having a few in case of emergencies (like this) is invaluable this early in the game.  Capsichums only have 4 MP so they can barely cast Sap the once.  Bunicorns are worth 5 experience each, and the Capsichum 3. This is enough to rocket the party to...  Level 2!!   The increases are minor but every little bit helps.  Strength and Resilience are base Attack and Defense, respectively. Agility determines who acts when and has a very, very, very minor effect on evasion, or so I have read. Wisdom is used in determining the power of spells, of which we have none.  Next fight isn't nearly as dangerous. Candy cats are about the same tier of strength as Capsichums, but instead of any trick they sometimes... waste their own turn.  Yangus demonstrates evasion. Most enemies have evasion stats of 0, but some have pretty good chances to dodge. We'll grow to hate them.  We're beaten up after two four-guy battles, but we don't have a map to point us back to Farebury!!  Oh, the colorful roofs and the plume of smoke make it easy to see from a distance.  While resting at the inn, Eight notices Trode hammering away at... something.  Huh, she's either talking about the same prince of Argonia that Trode mentioned, or there are a lot of engaged princes.  A bit more fighting gets Eight and Yangus to level 3. This one is more important than 2 because...  Eight gets the Heal spell. It's more or less identical to a Medicinal Herb except that it gets boosted by tension and costs 2 MP. Level 3 also comes with 5 MP.  Sadly, Eight's MP doesn't refill itself on levels. Back to the inn, because with this we can trek out quite a bit farther!  In this case, we're heading due west.  Along the way a Candy Cat demonstrates its ability to waste its own turn.  Well this is odd. We're far west enough that a few tougher enemies have joined the fray. Firespirits both resist physical attacks and have an innate damage reduction that make them far more resilient than their 9 defense would imply.  They're here to make sure you know that psyching up is a valuable tool.  For the cost of a turn, Eight's multiplied his damage by 1.7. Tension can go up to four stages: the second is +20, which is triple normal damage - technically breaking even. At the third stage, +50, you more than break even and hit for five times normal damage! There's even a fourth level that is 7.5 times normal!  Despite all their resistances, the bonus from a single stage of tension is enough to level these goobers. Handy, since firespirits can cast the basic attack spell Frizz that hits for as much as 10 damage at once.  We're at the far-west part of the Farebury region. Frist, at the top there, the castle in those ominous purple clouds is where Eight and Trode came from, the kingdom of Trodain. Whatever Dhoulmagus did there, it's left a mark. Second, the bridge between here and there is out. Given our party came from the west, I wonder what happened? Third, and probably most curious, is that brown-orange-whatever thing. While normally monsters are unseen random encounters, some special monsters appear on the overworld. I'll elect to not gently caress with him, because there's little point and it would be a dangerous fight.  Finally a satyr shows up. They're the last part of the enemies that show up around Farebury. They're nothing special.  Oh my, it's one of those mysterious chests that King of Adventure mentioned! Finders keepers!  Okay I would really like to know who put this here because who the gently caress puts their underwear in a chest in a forest near a ravine?  Regardless, it's a sizable upgrade over Yangus's default armor.  I elect to travel back to Farebury via Chimaera Wing. eventually we'll have dozens of places to which to go.  Cya later shitlords!  The fourth trek into the wilderness starts extremely improbably, as we somehow get a 1/256 drop from a Bunicorn.  This is literally the first 1/256 drop I've gotten in any of my playthroughs of DQ8.   It's nothing terribly exciting though 2 agility is a 33% increase for Yangus.  Trek #5 (because I wanted to save a 1/256 drop) has two bunicorns.  They're enough to get the team to level 4.  Eight learns the poison-curing spell, but far more importantly...  DQ8's other big thing is the skill point system. From now on, every level will carry with it a few skill points. Each character has 5 skills - three weapons, an unarmed set, and a personal quality with utility abilities. Let's get the rundown on Eight's  Swords are the requisite weapon of any noble protagonist! For developing this skill, Eight will gain the ability to slash things in specific ways. Dragon Slash deals heavy damage to dragons, of which there are many in a game named Dragon Quest obviously, for example. The other big skill here is Falcon Slash, which is more or less a free damage multiplier and a fantastic skill in general.  Spears open strong with Mercurial Thrust, which in exchange for slightly decreased damage, let Eight attack first in a round. Multithrust is a good single-target option, but the important maneuver here is Thunder Thrust. The attack either wiffs completely or scores a critical hit. Auto-critical moves, as I've taken to calling them, are extremely potent in a few situations where nothing else can even match. So much so I think I overvalue them and keep going with spears in my playthroughs.  Boomerangs focus on hitting all enemies where spears and swords generally focus on one. The abilities overcome the weaknesses in Boomerangs while giving a few elemental options for variety. You can't go wrong with 'em.  Fisticuffs isn't here for punching things. Sure, it's possible, but no weapon isn't a substitute for a good weapon. It's here for two abilities. Defending Champion is five times as potent as the defend option, reducing damage to a tenth, a very potent defensive option against physical attackers. The other is Thin Air, a subtly amazing Woosh-elemental attack that hits all enemies for surprisingly high damage that costs all of 2 MP. It's strong enough that boomerangs are considered an alternative to Thin Air.  Courage is the odd man out here. It gives Eight a few spells to round out his collection, such as Zoom, which replicates Chimaera Wings, and Holy Protection, which replicates Holy Water. It's not particularly important at first, since, well, you noticed how I defined the spells in terms of items, but eventually Eight will want to go to the top of this.  Eight's not alone in having skills.  Axes start off with the ever-handy Helm Splitter, an attack with the Sap effect of lowering defense. It's the home of the game's other auto-critical skill, Hatchet Man. Functionally identical to Thunder Thrust, the long and short of it is that we're going to have at least one of these around for the moments when they're useful beyond anything else.  Clubs have Heart Breaker, an attack that can sometimes shock an enemy out of a turn, and Penny Pincher, an attack that can steal a smidgen of gold. The problem is, every Club ability costs MP and Yangus has downright pitiful MP. They also aren't that useful, as this is a single-target weapon whose abilities mostly wiff against bosses, so we're paying for mild multipliers at the highest investment. Still, they can come in useful against some random encounters, and the MP thing is anything but unsolvable, and if a boss happens to be a robot or made of bricks or something clubs can wreck it.  Scythes are here for Stainless Steal Sickle, an attack that steals items and is a free 1/5 extra damage. Constant stealing may just net something of some value and if nothing else, it's Yangus's only ability that increases damage at no MP cost. I know that doesn't sound like a resounding endorsement but seriously Stainless Steal Sickle is really good.  Fisticuffs for Yangus is a lot like Eight's in that the point is to get Thin Air. It's cheap enough that even Yangus's pitiful MP is enough to blow away random encounters. It also has Padfoot, an ability a lot like Holy Water that stacks with it to let us travel without getting harrassed every now and then.  Humanity gives Yangus a few useful moves like his own Heal and the ability to trigger random encounters without having to run in circles. The main thing for us is Nose for Treasure, which will tell me if I'm missing some loot in a dungeon. It'd be embarrassing to miss, I don't know, cow poop because I didn't break every vase in a zombie-infested ruin. So, to summari-   two of them okay this is fuckin' riri what the gently caress So there's two votes here. Rather than blindly voting to allocate skill points, I'll offer a few builds that will cover the bulk of skill points intelligently, getting the good stuff and then getting out. Eight's skills! Fisticuffs to Swords- Get Thin Air to handle random encounters, then go to Falcon Slash Boomerangs to Swords - Get Boomerangs's good skills, then swords for Falcon Slash Fisticuffs to Spears- Get Thin Air, then develop Thunder Thrust for auto-crits Boomerangs to Spears- Boomerangs for mobs, Spears for bosses, more or less Spears & Swords- kinda gimmicky but Falcon Slash is good and so is Thunder Thrust. All of these presume developing Courage afterwards to get the high-end spells out of it. The best boomerang and best spear are mutually exclusive, but the second best boomerang is good enough for the job that it doesn't matter much. Yangus's skills! Fisticuffs to Axes- get Thin Air, then focus on auto-crits. Fisticuffs to Scythes- get Thin Air, then Stainless Steal Sickle for damage and stealing Fisticuffs to Clubs- get Thin Air, then try to rationalize using Clubs Axes & Scythes- Single target as hell, with a variety of options for hurting one guy Clubs & Scythes- the crime option with gold and item stealing that sometimes may happen maybe. All of these presume some Humanity in there for its goodies. No clubs with axes, as the best weapons of those two are mutually exclusive, and the gaps between #2 and #1 for each are too large for my tastes. I'll require at least one auto-critical ability, so if no spears or axes option is in either poll's lead, I'll take whichever has the most votes to ensure one ability. Vote here for Eight and here for Yangus! The poll will go on for at least 48 hours, so whenever I notice this thread on Sunday evening!
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| ← # ? Oct 31, 2014 20:25 |
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