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Would make sense if you couldn't, I mean they're giant three storey tall spider demons.
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Feb 17, 2020 21:12
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WarpedLichen posted:You really don't see too many multi tile enemies in tactics games, probably cause they'll look janky if they try to move into spaces they can't fit in. Nope, you can’t push them. They have a specific passive that makes them immune to anything that would change their position.
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Feb 17, 2020 21:26
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This LP motivated me to pick this up for Switch. God drat, this is a good loving game. Story is serviceable but the gameplay blows FFT/Tactics Ogre out of the water.
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Feb 17, 2020 21:29
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Straight White Shark posted:This LP motivated me to pick this up for Switch. God drat, this is a good loving game. Story is serviceable but the gameplay blows FFT/Tactics Ogre out of the water. I dunno about blowing them out of the water--especially the Tactics Ogre Remake (I think that one might handle classes/class levels better) but it is definitely on the same level.
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Feb 18, 2020 08:14
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Whenever traps are mentioned in this LP, I immediately think of FFTA2. Those and Reverse-Potion hijinks are the two things that I remember best from Solumin's LP.DMW45 posted:I dunno about blowing them out of the water--especially the Tactics Ogre Remake (I think that one might handle classes/class levels better) but it is definitely on the same level. Blowing two of the greatest SRPGs ever out of the water is the heights of hyperbole, but I do feel bad sometimes for Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. There's an LP of it on the forum that's currently in the end game, and it's given me a whole new appreciation for the care and craftsmanship and storytelling that was put into that game and its translation. The reason that I feel bad for it is that, in my opinion, it's better than FFT (which is also a superb game) but never gets nearly the credit it deserves because it doesn't have the Final Fantasy name (which was totally tacked onto FFT to begin with) and came out exclusively on a system that never got over outside of Japan while FFT was on a system that was wildly popular worldwide. I don't expect that there will ever be another release of LUCT, but I wish that there would be.
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Feb 18, 2020 16:33
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FFT and LUCT get their well-deserved status as classics mostly on the strength of their aesthetics and story. As a package, I wouldn't say Fell Seal is better and it's not going to dethrone them as the definitive flagship SRPG. But their balance leaves a lot to be desired and their gameplay is fairly one-dimensional, turning into long monotonous slogs alleviated only by the relative ease of mashing the kill everything button (I think a lot of FFT's greater popularity comes from having bigger and better kill everything buttons.) Fell Seal's mechanics aren't perfect but they have 25 years' worth of refinement and it shows in a big way.
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Feb 18, 2020 17:34
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JustJeff88 posted:Whenever traps are mentioned in this LP, I immediately think of FFTA2. Those and Reverse-Potion hijinks are the two things that I remember best from Solumin's LP. I feel bad for TO because when it first came out in America on the PS1, it was derided as a ripoff of FFT--when they were in fact made by mostly the same people, and TO *came out first* and is largely the reason FFT happened.
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Feb 18, 2020 20:19
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Straight White Shark posted:FFT and LUCT get their well-deserved status as classics mostly on the strength of their aesthetics and story. As a package, I wouldn't say Fell Seal is better and it's not going to dethrone them as the definitive flagship SRPG. But their balance leaves a lot to be desired and their gameplay is fairly one-dimensional, turning into long monotonous slogs alleviated only by the relative ease of mashing the kill everything button (I think a lot of FFT's greater popularity comes from having bigger and better kill everything buttons.) Fell Seal's mechanics aren't perfect but they have 25 years' worth of refinement and it shows in a big way. I agree with you quite a bit in regards to FFT, but what in LUCT would qualify, in your opinion, as a "kill everything" button? It does have very powerful uniques, but those are less egregious than in FFT in my estimation. There's nothing remotely like Calculator magic that can end an entire battle in one move unless my memory is very bad, and the fact that LUTC has more units on the map apart from the early game makes individual units less powerful in and of themselves. I genuinely would like to hear you elaborate on this, because I haven't played this game but I'm not seeing those same flaws in Ogre that you are alluding to in FFT. DMW45 posted:I feel bad for TO because when it first came out in America on the PS1, it was derided as a ripoff of FFT--when they were in fact made by mostly the same people, and TO *came out first* and is largely the reason FFT happened. Indeed. As I recall, TO showed that that style of RPG could work and they thought "If we make another SRPG and slap a big-money name like FFT on it, will it sell like billy-oh?" - and it did. It bothers me when marketing and historical revisionism taint people's recollections of these things. It reminds me of when GOG, on a number of occasions, has worked their arses off to bring back a beloved old game like System Shock 2 and then everyone credits Steam with the resurrection.
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Feb 19, 2020 01:58
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Straight White Shark posted:This LP motivated me to pick this up for Switch. God drat, this is a good loving game. Story is serviceable but the gameplay blows FFT/Tactics Ogre out of the water. Oh awesome! Glad to hear more people are picking this game up. Straight White Shark posted:FFT and LUCT get their well-deserved status as classics mostly on the strength of their aesthetics and story. As a package, I wouldn't say Fell Seal is better and it's not going to dethrone them as the definitive flagship SRPG. But their balance leaves a lot to be desired and their gameplay is fairly one-dimensional, turning into long monotonous slogs alleviated only by the relative ease of mashing the kill everything button (I think a lot of FFT's greater popularity comes from having bigger and better kill everything buttons.) Fell Seal's mechanics aren't perfect but they have 25 years' worth of refinement and it shows in a big way. Yeah, I'd say that this sums up my main thoughts of Fell Seal vs the other two games pretty well.
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Feb 19, 2020 04:10
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JustJeff88 posted:I agree with you quite a bit in regards to FFT, but what in LUCT would qualify, in your opinion, as a "kill everything" button? It does have very powerful uniques, but those are less egregious than in FFT in my estimation. There's nothing remotely like Calculator magic that can end an entire battle in one move unless my memory is very bad, and the fact that LUTC has more units on the map apart from the early game makes individual units less powerful in and of themselves. I genuinely would like to hear you elaborate on this, because I haven't played this game but I'm not seeing those same flaws in Ogre that you are alluding to in FFT. I think LUCT had the best story by far because of how morally gray and gritty everything was, but there are definitely a lot of rough edges in the game play of the original. Speed was way too good a stat in general, bows were insanely good, ai was pretty bad, esoteric recruit triggers, a lot of spells that were pretty useless, the list goes on.
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Feb 19, 2020 07:06
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JustJeff88 posted:I agree with you quite a bit in regards to FFT, but what in LUCT would qualify, in your opinion, as a "kill everything" button? It does have very powerful uniques, but those are less egregious than in FFT in my estimation. There's nothing remotely like Calculator magic that can end an entire battle in one move unless my memory is very bad, and the fact that LUTC has more units on the map apart from the early game makes individual units less powerful in and of themselves. I genuinely would like to hear you elaborate on this, because I haven't played this game but I'm not seeing those same flaws in Ogre that you are alluding to in FFT. LUCT doesn't give you literal kill everything buttons the way FFT does but it does lean heavily into overpowered uniques with bigger and better nukes. In many ways I think it's actually worse than FFT on that count because FFT gives you a dozen different ways to demolish the game with generic classes, so if you don't feel like using the game-breaking unique characters you can still happily breeze through the game. LUCT is an even longer slog and doesn't give you a lot of room to play around the bigger numbers game, so if you don't use the unique characters with the biggest numbers you're just taking an already slow game and making it more tedious.
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Feb 19, 2020 17:53
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The SNES and PSX versions also had a level curve problem where even a difference of 1 level meant attacked plinked or whiffed altogether, and you get resurrection magic super late into the game, so most of the playthroughs involve fighting a bunch of training battles in order to even survive the mandatory encounters and being super conservative and methodical (which, combined with the size of the map, often meant sloooooowly marching your army up towards the enemy eating a bunch of damage you can't respond to). Plus your generic units were pretty much all much worse than the named units and it didn't feel like the originals encouraged a lot of experimentation. Not sure if the remakes fixed those issues but art direction aside there isn't much of the original Tactics Ogre I find all that compelling upon replay.
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Feb 19, 2020 22:28
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Update 41: Gogombob City Welcome back! Last time we fought a bunch of Sigil members who summoned some giant fire demons. This time we’ll finally be reaching Gogombob City.  We pop in to the full party walking across a bridge over lava in what looks to be the middle of Gogombob City.  At the end of the bridge, we encounter three Kawas wearing fancy feather headdresses.   Elders. It is good to see you as well. Captain Kyrie always welcome in Gogombob City! I see necromancer at your side. We value your healing, Necromancer Yates. But remember, we will not allow the use of our fallen brethren for your… science. Not my intention at all. I happened to be traveling with the good Captain, and because of my long acquaintance with the esteemed elders, thought I might be of assistance. Although since you raised the topic, my research has advanced significantly since last we spoke. If you were willing to keep an open mind…  Erm! Just let me know if my assistance is required. I’ll move out of the way for now… over there. And Yates retreats to stand opposite of Katja.   (Grumble, grumble). It is good you have not come at behest of necromancer. How can we help, Arbiter Kyrie? My team and I are visiting each of the sacred Temples as part of the Marked pilgrimage. I am here to request the elder’s permission to access the Gogombob City Temple. Oh no! Temple is closed to all! Why is the temple closed? If it is a matter of security, perhaps we could help. Since you are on Pilgrimage, you must know each Temple houses Relic. We have sensed Relics being drained. Every Relic but one in our Temple. Draining Relic is bad! Very bad! You seem to know quite a lot about the situation. Is… complicated. (Grumble, grumble).The elders step back and confer for a second. Hmm, I agree. We must trust Kyrie in this. You know about ancient beast, called The Maw? The Maw not dead. Only sealed away… In Relics.The entire party reacts in shock.  But that’s not right! Everyone knows the first Immortals defeated The Maw centuries ago. Why would they seal it up and not destroy it? We Kawas live long, much longer than Humans. Eldest Elder’s grampa alive when our people fought against The Maw. Kawas understand beat too strong for defeat! So Immortals put beast in Relics. You’re telling us the ancient best was never truly destroyed, but sealed away in these Relics all this time? What’s important now is Relics being drained. Don’t know what happens if drained. Suspect nothing good. We can help if you’ll trust us. We’re right now trying to stop Sigil. They’re the ones who’ve been draining all the Relics. Sigil is draining?! You are certain when you say this? At that, the Elder also recoils back Is big problem! Should toss Grim Eye in lava! Grim Eye and Raife arrive here not long ago. Grim Eye is summoner of great knowledge and power. Raife his good friend. Sent them to Temple to investigate Relic problem. Smelled of dark energy! Then, there’s no more time for debate. If we’re going to stop them, you must grant us passage to the Temple. Relic must not be drained! You are always great friend to Kawas, Kyrie. We will trust you. We will stop them. Careful on way! Big, nasty monsters! The two groups turn back to confer amongst themselves.  Agreed. But whatever it is, there isn’t time to talk them around. Let’s go. And things fade to black.  Before moving on, I stop by the merchant to upgrade everybody’s weapons and armor.  And then, once I leave the city and return, a new event starts up.  Where we run into Somier again!  Yes! Thanks to kind Arbiter and friends. Good trip! Good trade, good travels. Big thank you!  Somier then steps forward and gives us some gifts as thanks. The Dragonscale Mail is a solid armor with resistances to both fire and thunder damage, and the Henge Fragment is important for the sidequest I mentioned earlier. Both nice things to have.  And now, to round out the update, there’s one more side thing I want to do before hitting the Temple. And that’s returning to the Jungle Temple. If you remember, after we beat up the new Sigil recruits, we spared their lives and Kyrie said that she’d return to release them. Well, if you go there at any point after beating the Desert Temple, then an event triggers.  I believe you’ve had ample time to reflect on your actions. I’ll open the seal for you. Don’t get mixed up with the wrong crowd anymore. Yes ma’am! Here. I had these stashed away, but now that I’m returning to farming, I don’t think I’ll need them.  And he gives us a Saphire Earring, which is an accessory that prevents a good chunk of statuses, and another Henge Fragment. At this point in the game it is fully possible to finish off that sidequest, but it requires killing a Bandit Kawa in a patrol, and that’s a pain in the butt so I don’t do it until after the next Temple.  But with the Jungle Temple taken care of, it’s time to return to Gogombob City, in preparation for our trek through the Devilsblood Ascent next time!
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Feb 20, 2020 14:54
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I'm kind of glad she remembered to go back and let those poor guys out of the temple.
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Feb 20, 2020 15:01
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Presumably that guy was the only one left after killing & eating the others.
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Feb 20, 2020 15:50
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I did that by accident. "Oh! Oh, I just kind of assumed... that'd happen off screen... oh dear, I'm so sorry. You've been in here for ages."
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Feb 20, 2020 18:21
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Oh. So this entire ritual is about constantly siphoning off The Maw's destructive power to prevent it from being reborn.
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Feb 20, 2020 20:15
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Update 42: Devilsblood Ascent Welcome back! Last time we went through a lot of dialogue with the Kawa Elders. There we learned that the Relics aren’t just arbitrary dark magic artifacts, but a way to keep the fearsome beast known as The Maw in its bindings. With Sigil just ahead of us, we’re now going towards the Temple ourselves.    I’ve never seen their like before. Best be on guard. I’m not thrilled about all this lava either. I doubt anyone-or any *thing* -could survive a swim in that.And yes, that’s the game telling us that lava is instant death to anything without the floating movement type.   This time we have a pretty standard defeat all foes fight. The map itself is pretty vertical, so having good movement or range will be very helpful.  To that end, I’m bringing Anadine, Reiner, and Azure (all of whom can teleport and ignore elevation), Hannah (who can jump well and is mobile enough), Bobby (who doesn’t need to be near enemies to hurt them), and Selina who can be a solid front liner with Kyrie.   Up against us are a solid variety of enemies, including a bunch of a new type called the Helhund (the Xolotl is a max-tier Helhund). The ones with no hair or fire are just basic Helhunds and aren’t too bad. They get Pick Off (Katja’s ability that does extra damage to isolated targets) and a somewhat strong AOE fire attack. The upgraded versions are where it gets interesting. The first upgrade gives them pounce as a counter, which lets them hit your squishy mages or rangers, a copy of the vessel’s Avernaal summon for strong ranged damage, and then the Eruptor passive from the sorcerer, which builds up a damage boost for every turn that they don’t do damage. And finally, the fully upgraded version, the Xolotl, gets access to Quetzalcoatl, the Impetus speed-boosting passive, and can hover. Overall, they’re a really nasty enemy type, especially when you start running into multiple upgraded ones at once, since it’s very difficult to stop them from doing very heavy damage on the first few rounds of combat. If you can weather the storm, things get easier, but that’s usually a very big “if” for me. In addition to the Helhunds, we have a Vulcan Bulldrake, ready to annoy people from up high, a Bzil, and two slightly hidden Pekites to add a few more things to worry about.   Reiner starts the fight off by plinking one of the Helhunds to get it jump to over to me.  Azure does another chunk of damage to it before I realize that this one does not float.  So into the lava it goes!  Kyrie moves up and takes a good chunk out of another Helhund, but doesn’t quite kill it.  The Bzil and a few more enemies close in.  After some more weakening from Hannah, Selina just whacks the nearby Helhund for the kill.  Though she does get tongue-slapped for her efforts.  The Pekite takes a decent chunk out of Azure with a focus fired spell.   The enemies also spam Avernaal a few times. At least I can actually show the summon off now that the name isn’t blocking the icon.  This Helhund does about ½ of Anadine’s remaining health and cripples her, which is annoying because she’d otherwise have been in prime rampaging position. Instead she just uses spread pain to cure herself and cripple the Helhund instead.  Meanwhile, up top the Bulldrake goes to sleep. I think the enemies here deal enough burst damage that I don’t want to risk getting hit by his AOE too many times.   Kyrie and Hannah coordinate to kill the pinned-in Helhund  And Selina takes the chance to heal the front liners back up a bit.  And now that it’s Bobby’s turn, it’s time to really put some hurt down. Everything but the earth Pekite and the Bzil are highly weak to water damage, so this does quite a bit to everything. I’d also positioned him so that only one of the Helhunds could pounce over, so he doesn’t get hurt too badly in retaliation.  Soon afterwards, Reiner uses multishot to clean up another Helhund and weaken the Bzil.  Who is then taken out by Azure without much trouble.  The very much awake Bulldrake pops down into the middle of everyone and does a sizable amount of fire damage to the group.  Some shots from Kyrie and Anadine nearly take him down.  Selina takes out the last remaining Helhund with an infused edge combo.  And Bobby takes out the remaining 2 fire enemies with another Hailstorm. This leaves just the earth Pekite, who’s silenced and effectively harmless.  Which gives me time to have Reiner pop down to the corner and grab the treasure chest. This gets me 2 dormant crystals, which are useful for a number of crafting things including upgrading my mana stone consumable.  With that grabbed, it’s time for Selina to finish the Pekite off.  Selina deservedly gets MVP and I had no downs. Overall a pretty successful mission that wasn’t too hard.  After the fight, the group congregates just outside of the seal for the final Temple.  I don’t know what their intent was in draining the Relics, but whatever they’re doing, it’s dangerous and a threat to the Council. We’re going to put a stop to them once and for all. Everyone, be ready for the fight of your lives. Between Raife, Grim Eye, and tehir minions, these are going to be the strongest enemies we’ve ever faced.  She then approaches the seal which flares up before fading out to nothing.  And then we’re back on the world map, with the final Temple right in front of us. Next time, we’ll finally catch up to the leaders of Sigil and will hopefully take them down for good!
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Feb 25, 2020 14:15
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Update 43: Mountain Temple I Welcome back! Last time we fought up a volcano and made it to the entrance of the final Temple. This time, we’ll be following Sigil inside to hopefully stop them.  We come in on the group, walking up some stairs set in the middle of a volcanic crater and surrounded by lava.   Unsurprisingly, Raife and Grim Eye beat us here and have a bunch of lackies with them.   (To the Sigil Members) We must not be interrupted. Stop the Arbiters by any means necessary. The cause depends on it!  Raife and Grim Eye head up to the top of the Temple.  And Grim Eye conjures up a wall of purple flames to block the two of them in.  Never mind that. We must break these rebels quickly and stop those two before they drain the last relic!   And with that it’s time for the fight.  This time we’re locked to 6 again, and I’m bringing Mongo, Bzaro, Eustace, Sophia, and Katja.  Up against us are 2 Bzils, (one’s a Tangrel base, one’s a Malcubus base), a Reaver, a Druid, a Scoundrel, a Ranger, a Peddler, and a Mender. So overall a pretty diverse group. One quirk of the map is that the Bzil on the stairs will not move unless forced to, so if I want to reach the ranged units, I’ll have to deal with it first.   Once the fight starts, there’s a lot of buffing for the first few rounds.  But eventually the Malcubus Bzil breaks ranks to debuff Kyrie’s mental stats. Since he’s out of range of any enemy, I just have Eustace use his turn to cure them.   And then Kyrie, Katja, and Sophia work together to take out the exposed Bzil.  Kyrie then gets immediately blinded  And hit by the Reaver, taking her down to about 40% health.  Bzaro cures her blindness, but then the Peddler comes down and chucks a boosted rock at both of them.  So instead of doing damage, I have to have Mongo save Kyrie.  Which was a good idea, because the Druid double casts at the group of 3, nearly killing Bzaro and Kyrie all over again.  After a few more enemies barrage my group, it finally reaches Eustace’s turn with everyone somehow still up (especially because Bzaro managed to get a very lucky ~6% dodge chance). Eustace helps the front liners back up.  While the Ranger revives the dead Bzil with some phoenix ashes.  Having a Reaver running around in my backlines is a bad idea, so I have Katja get a good hit on him with Pick Off.  Which does enough damage for Kyrie to comfortably take him out.  The newly revived Bzil comes back into the fray, but isn’t in range to hit anyone weak. Bzaro absorbs dark damage, and Mongo and Sophia are bulky enough that they don’t really care about the hit.  Sophia heals Kyire back up again.  The Peddler chucks another rock and nearly kills Bzaro, so I have him blast the enemies with Fire and then fly off.  The Ranger, apparently on revival duty, brings back the Reaver as well.  While the Tangrel Bzil uses their Heavy Potion on the Malcubus Bzil.  At which point I remember that Katja has Boomerang Bounce, the ranged push attack that the Kawas love to spam, and use it to warm up the Druid.   And then Sophia uses Immortal Souls to do a good chunk of damage to most of the enemy team.  The Scoundrel, who’s been off to the side taking potshots, decides to sacrifice themselves to heal the damage back up. I’m not complaining though, they would’ve been a pain to deal with otherwise.  I have Bzaro heal Kyrie up, as she’d been targeted by a few enemies in a row.  Which was a great idea in retrospect, as it allows her to just barely survive getting sniped by the Ranger.  I respond by having Katja dunk the Peddler in the lava as well.  In hindsight, I realize I screwed up and Kyrie had been sitting in danger of insta-death for a while, thanks to the Tangrel’s push attack. Thankfully, the Bzil chose to weaken Mongo instead of killing Kyrie.  I have Kyrie weaken the Reaver while Eustace, Sophia, and the enemy mender all spend their turns healing people.  But after that brief respite, Mongo’s able to take advantage of the Malcubus-Bzil’s holy weakness to 1-shot it with a Righteous Blade.  I also realize that the Tangrel-Bzil is bulky enough that I won’t make much progress if the Mender’s active, so I have Bzaro fly over and put them to sleep.   Katja weakens the Reaver again.  Though it might’ve been a bit unnecessary, since Kyrie could’ve killed him without the help.  At this point, I spend quite a while wailing on the Tangrel-Bzil, who just uses its turn to heal itself.  There was also apparently a root trap on one of the neighboring squares. I get lucky and Kyrie dodges the attack from the Bzil that could’ve easily killed her.  Bzaro puts the Ranger to sleep as well, which means the map is essentially over.  Kyrie soon takes out the Bzil.  Sophia has a worm eat the Ranger.  And then Katja takes out the Mender.  Katja gets MVP, pretty deservedly since she took out quite a few annoying enemies. I’m pretty astounded I managed to make it out without anyone falling, since I did not really play this that tactically. If I were to do it again, I’d probably run another person who could fly or teleport to get in the backline earlier and prevent their mages and ranged attackers from wreaking so much havoc on me.   After the battle, we see Raife finish draining the Relic. That was the last Temple Relic. Everything we dreamed of, now within reach! Kyrie rushes up to the two Sigil leaders. Summon as many demons as you please, you will not slip past us this time! Hmm… Very well. Raife removes his hood, and Kyrie apparently recognizes him.  But before she can do anything else, Grim Eye starts summoning power.  A bunch of giant purples flames appear again, all around the map.  And out step a bunch of demons! However, this is where we’ll be stopping this time. Next time, we’ll get to see the stunning resolution to this cliffhanger!
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Mar 4, 2020 14:37
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Are we supposed to recognize who this guy is from the revealed sprite?
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Mar 5, 2020 07:41
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I do recognize the Alphonse Demon recolour
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Mar 6, 2020 05:13
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Apologies for the inconsistent schedule this past bit, work suddenly went a bit crazy. Things are looking like they're slowing down now, so other than today, I should be able to resume the previous Thursday-Sunday releases. Update 44: Mountain Temple II Welcome back! Last time we fought through a bunch of Sigil members to try and stop Raife from draining the final Relic. We were too slow to stop him and, after draining the Relic, he and Grim Eye summoned a ton of demons to deal with us once and for all.   We’ll be jumping straight into the fight. This one’s another relatively straightforward one, just need to ensure that Kyrie never goes down.  We start back in the same position as the previous fight but without a chance to heal any injuries between battles. I didn’t have anyone go down, but I’ll still be swapping people around to bring Reiner, Anadine, and Hannah in.    Against us, we have an Archafflictor and an upgraded version called a Pestilord, a few Harvest variants, a few Malcubus variants, and then Grim Eye and Raife themselves. We haven’t seen the Archafflictor before, so here is a quick overview. As is probably evident from the similar sprite, they’re similar to Alphonse’s demon form from way back in the first temple. They’re kinda slow but are solidly bulky and have pretty high physical attack. Additionally, all of their abilities are about status effects, either inflicting them or getting damage boosts from targeted affected units. They’re not necessarily too bad on their own, but combined with Malcubi (to inflict more statuses and debuffs) and Harvesters (who can both buff the Archafflictors and do good damage on their own) they can be really nasty.  Raife himself is pretty similar to Kyrie. His Marked class is the exact same as hers. He also has the Cleave, Execute, and Avenger passives, which are all quite powerful, especially if he’s one of the last enemies alive. Not immediately evident, but he also is floating, so he can just hang out on top of the lava as he pleases.  Grim Eye is much more magically inclined. He has a unique class which gives him a bunch of dark-themed abilities. There’s Luussa which is a strong AOE dark attack that can inflict berserk, Blood Offering where he resurrects fallen units as a random demon similar to Reanimate’s zombies, Dark Beam which uses all of his MP and deals damage in a line, and then Dark Barrier which buffs all elemental resistances but Holy by 25. He has Blood Magic as a passive, though there’s no designated healer in this fight so it’s not nearly as devastating as the Lich could be in the Halloween fight. For one more annoying point, Grim Eye’s counter is to inflict weaken, which will make it hard to keep my people healthy. He also has the basic Kawa Warrior skills including the beloved Boomerang Bounce. Like Raife, he also floats. Overall, while the demons are threatening, the real dangers for the fight are Grim Eye and Raife, so I’m going to need to be careful around both of them.  Grim Eye opens the fight by buffing his and Raife’s elemental resistances with a Dark Barrier.  Anadine buffs herself as well.  And on Kyrie’s turn, she starts talking to Raife (Part of the dialogue triggers on Raife’s turn too, but Kyrie didn’t do anything to warrant mentioning.)   But you were one of the greatest Arbiters of the era! And a partner to my mentor, Sylvia. Yes, I used to be Sylvia’s partner. Did you know she was unhappy with the Council’s rule? Quite unhappy. … During a Council meeting, she raised concerns about how the Immortals were using their power, and how a few had been misusing it. And how do you suppose the Council responded? By sending her on a suicide mission! Knowing exactly the nature of her assignment, she… She left without me. And died, without me, just as the Council planned. Great age they have, the Immortals, but precious little wisdom. They struck her down out of fear, but she would never defy them. She was too loyal to her word… to her principles. Raife then uses the group’s Heavy Potion to heal Grim Eye back up, in a bit of overkill.  There are a few more general turns of maneuvering and buffing before Bzaro jumps out and puts one of the Malcubi to sleep.  The other one debuffs Kyrie a bit.  Sophia uses Quetzalcoatl to take out about half of the Archafflictor’s health from a safe distance.  Grim Eye hits Reiner, taking about half of his health off, though thankfully the berserk does not proc.  On Adadine’s turn, she has somethings to say to Raife as well. … …Or not say, as the case may be.  She then pops up to the top of the stairs and takes a chunk out of Grim Eye and the Malcubus.  While the Huntsman floats over to my units and takes about a quarter each off of Kyrie and Hannah’s health.  And on Kyrie’s turn we get even more dialogue. For so much more than revenge. This is the only way to free everyone from the Council! But what is this “only way”? What do you accomplish by draining the Relics of the essence of the Ancient Beast? Join us, Kyrie! Join us and I will tell you anything you wish to know. Kyrie takes a moment to nearly kill the Malcubus before responding.  I don’t need to know what you’re planning to know you cannot be trusted. Have it your way, then. I extended my hand to you for Sylvia’s sake. It is what she would have wanted. But this work is too important to be diverted by sentimentality. You understand nothing of my mentor, or you would never have chosen this course.  I’m just out of range, so Raife just uses his turn to heal Grim Eye again.  The Harrower uses Spearvault to hit Reiner and Kyrie, nearly killing Reiner.  While Hannah hits Grim Eye and pops the Malcubus’s mirage charge.  Reiner uses Multishot to kill the Malcubus and hurt the Pesitlord and Raife, at least a little bit.  And I have Sophia heal Kyrie up so I don’t lose out of nowhere.  Meanwhile, the AI notices that I have a person on an edge and it has a ranged push attack. RIP Sophia.  Anadine falls just short of killing Raife, but I have her weaken him anyway.  And Kyrie takes out the Pestilord with an Infused Edge combo.  To demonstrate how dangerous he is, Raife kills Anadine  And then uses the extra turn from Cleave to nearly kill Hannah as well.  But she retaliates by taking him out, as well as doing some good damage to the Archafflictor and Grim Eye.  Since most of my guys are getting really low, I decide to have Bzaro sacrifice himself to revive Sophia at full health.  And as if to demonstrate the necessity of healing, the Hunstman kills Hannah and triggers her reraise.  I have Reiner pop behind Grim Eye and snipe him. With that, the 2 biggest threats are down and I just need to be careful not to lose Kyrie as I finish off the rest.  I have Sophia revive Anadine at low health to take advantage of her passives.   And she proceeds to kill both the Harrower and the Archafflictor.  Kyrie takes out the Huntsman.  And then soon afterwards she finishes the fight off by killing the final Malcubus.  Overall, I’m pretty happy with the fight. I lost Sophia to a bit of stupidity, but otherwise didn’t make too many missteps. Things definitely could’ve gone worse, at least.  After the battle, Raife and Grim Eye lie defeated, but not dead, in front of the party.  … Now, you’re going to tell us your purpose in siphoning the energy of the Relics. Shouldn’t we confiscate that wand, just to be safe? Not that I’m volunteering to handle it myself, mind you. The wand, Raife. When suddenly, a familiar sound is heard.  A circle appears on the ground.  And Primus himself teleports in!  Do not touch that wand! We don’t want a repeat of what happened to young Anadine, now do we? I will handle this, Kyrie. Primus?! But how did you- No time to explain. Quickly, give me the wand! And he teleports off. But not too far.    Illuster’s Relic is all I need now. (To Raife and Grim Eye) It is unfortunate you couldn’t handle things here. I had to destroy the Temple barrier to get in. The rest of the Council will have noticed by now. We’re going to have to fight our way to the Relic. So you say. But I do not relish using force. Anyone who obeys me shall be spared. As you command. Come. Our last task awaits. At that, Primus teleports himself, Raife, and the absolutely loving it Grim Eye out of the Temple. There’s then a brief pause as everyone gathers.   I don’t pretend to understand what just transpired, but I have a feeling it wasn’t good. Were those two working with Primus all along? : I’d never seen Primus before today, but I certainly wouldn’t have pegged him as an ally of Sigil. There’s definitely somethin’ janky goin’ on here. Primus mentioned fighting their way to the last Relic, in Illuster. It sounds like he expects the rest of the Council to try to stop them. What do we do, Captain? If the Council is divided, whose side shall we take? I might not agree with everything the Council stands for, but this conspiracy to absorb the essence of The Maw must be the greater evil. It seems as if the Primus is the one ultimately pulling the strings. If that’s the case, I don’t think we can trust his motives. And I definitely don’t agree with his methods. Primus set everything in motion by initiating the Marked Pilgrimage in the first place. That he is absorbing the dark energy Sigil has been collecting points directly to Primus being the mastermind. And that aside from the fact an Immortal should not have been able to enter the Temple. That he had enough power to force his way in must mean he has already absorbed the energy from the other Relics. He’s been planning this betrayal from the start.  Our objective will be to assist the Council in stopping Primus and Sigil.But I get the feeling there is something more afoot here. I want everyone to stay on guard once we’re on site. We may need to switch plans at a moment’s notice. After Primus’s mess has been sorted out, the Council or what remains of it will need a new Immortal more than ever. I hate to raise this now, but… You should probably do your thing with the last Relic so you’ll be ready for that eventuality.    Kyrie suddenly falls to one knee.  Kyrie! Are you okay? I have grown stronger than before. But so has the dark energy…  A lifetime- lifetimes enduring this… It is a daunting prospect. … I’ll manage. But I’m more concerned than ever about Primus. What must be his state of mind after absorbing so much dark energy? Let’s head straight to Illuster. There’s no time to dally now.There’s then a quick fadeout back to the world map.   Having made it to all four Relics, Kyrie finally unlocks the final ability for the Marked class and gets the mastery bonus.  We can also see that Illuster has turned red, which is not a great sign of things to come. However, this is where we’ll be leaving things this time. Next time we’ll check out what the heck Primus has done.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:04
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You'd think they would've mentioned a character like that beforehand.
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Mar 9, 2020 15:10
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Oh. So they all live in constant pain. Guess that's why Immortals choose to end it. Not really a shocking development overall though.
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Mar 9, 2020 15:30
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I have a feeling it's more than pain, especially given how cool all our idealistic antagonists are with summoning helldemons.
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Mar 9, 2020 19:07
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That was the only fight that I had to do over a couple of times... mostly because I tended not to use Kyrie on random fights and she was thusly pretty underleveled and a big target. Oof.
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Mar 10, 2020 16:46
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DMW45 posted:That was the only fight that I had to do over a couple of times... mostly because I tended not to use Kyrie on random fights and she was thusly pretty underleveled and a big target. This fight went pretty smoothly for me right up until the end. Grim Eye decided to randomly charge forward and got ganked very quickly while Raife hung back and didn't do much while I dismantled all the monsters, then he came up and immediately killed two of my team thanks to Avenger + Cleave.
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Mar 10, 2020 16:55
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ultrafilter posted:You'd think they would've mentioned a character like that beforehand. Yeah, I'd agree that they do drop the ball a bit with the reveal. I guess the bigger one might be about how Sylvia died, but Raife/Clyde is a bit out of context.
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Mar 12, 2020 23:25
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Update 45: The Crossroads II Welcome back! Last time we beat up Raife and Grim Eye before discovering that Primus had been backing them the whole time. Having drained all of the Temple Relics, Primus teleported the three of them back to Illuster to gather the final Relic needed to complete their plans, whatever they happen to actually be. This time, we’ll be chasing after them to hopefully catch up before things go too bad.  However, as we approach Illuster, a battle triggers on the unmarked Crossroads.   Upon entering the map, we discover a ton of demons all over the ruined inn.  We can’t allow them to run loose. We need to eliminate them, now!  After the craziness of the previous fight, this one’s pretty simple. Just a basic defeat all foes, where they’re all demons.  This time we get 6 controllable units and 2 friendly Arbiters helping out. I’ll be bringing Eustace, Hannah, Selina, Bzaro, and Bobby.   Up against us are a bunch of demons. 3 Malcubus varieties, 3 Harvester varieties, a Pestilord, and 2 Overscourges (max tier Archafflictors). The Overscourges are really nasty because they have a map-wide attack that, while not super damaging, randomly inflicts debuffs on all enemies. And it seems to love berserking whichever unit whose turn is upcoming.  The AI Scoundrel opens the fight by shooting a Harrower.  Who responds by hitting quite a few of my units with an AOE.   However, both Kyrie and Hannah swarm the Harrower and take it down pretty easily.  Selina takes out about two thirds of another Harrower’s health.  While the AI Merc heroically decides to charge 5 demons on his own.  I had Bzaro boost Bobby’s MP, so Bobby takes a big chunk out of all of the demons with a Holystorm. It also kills the weakened Harrower.  There’s a bit more skirmishing as the demons gang up on the 2 AI partners and one of the Overscourges inflicts a few status effects on people.  The Pestilord takes advantage of the debuffs to nearly 1 shot Eustace and take a big chunk out of Selina as well.  While Kyrie uses her new ability to take out one of the Overscourges and severely weaken a Harrower and the other Overscourge.  And Hannah then leaps over to kill the Pestilord.  Selina heals quite a few units with a burst.  And then thanks to my positioning a Sincubus pits both Hannah and Selina to sleep.  On Bobby’s turn he blasts everybody again, but only kills the Huntsman.  And the lack of kills was unfortunate because one of the Domincubi uses Soul Binder on Hannah. Since she’s asleep, this does significant damage and charms her as well. Which is great because she’s up next.  And she uses her new turn to leap over and kill Selina.  Kyrie kills the remaining Domincubus.  While Eustace kills one of the Sincubi. If I’d been smart, I would’ve combind Bzaro and Eustace to kill the other one instead.  But because I didn’t, Eustace falls to a last shot Sedate from the final Sincubus. On his turn, I have Bobby remedy Hannah so she doesn’t kill another one of my units.  Instead, she kills the Huntsman.  The Sincubus runs off and revives an Archafflictor, but neither of them has enough health to survive a third Holystorm from Bobby.  Despite her teamkilling, Hannah still receives the MVP award. Not too tough a fight at all.  The timing is certainly suspicious. This has to be related to Primus and Sigil.Suddenly Reiner runs on screen.  It looks as though they came straight from the Capital. I don’t know what’s going on in Illuster, but it can’t be good if demons are pouring out of it. All the more reason to hurry. Let’s go.And we’d pop back to the world map. But instead of heading on to Illuster, I’ll be taking us back to the Devilsblood Ascent for a brief moment.  On a skirmish there (through a combo of buffs, focus, and the attack bonus from a massive height differential) I finally manage to kill a Bandit Kawa.  Who drops a bunch of stuff including a rapier one tier up from what’s currently available.  And the final Henge Fragment I needed!  So in the grand tradition of poorly timed sidequests, we’ll be checking out the conclusion of the events at Lodestarhenge before saving Illuster from demons and an evil god-king.
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Mar 12, 2020 23:25
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And because that was a relatively short one, here is Job Update: Final Normal Classes: Sorcerer    Unlocks: 6 abilities (Lich*) *= other jobs required The peak of regular magic attackers, the Sorcerer is a pretty one note job. Of course, that note is “blast the entire the battlefield with solidly powerful magic”, so it’s still a very powerful class. Most of its stats are solidly below average, especially speed which is one of the lowest growths in the game, but it has the 3rd highest MND growth and an above average Res growth as well. Combined with a limited equipment selection, the Sorcerer is probably not a class I’d try to use as a base chassis for the long term. Despite the mediocre stats, the class itself is definitely worth dipping into and/or mastering due to its strong abilities and passives.  Notable Abilities: --Storm: All of the active abilities of the class are essentially the same thing: spend a lot of MP to hit all enemies with an elemental or non-elemental magic attack with decent power. They’re all quite expensive, but that actually combos with the other passives quite well. Eruptor: A passive that’s pretty simple, but quite useful. Each turn the character doesn’t deal damage, they get a 0.18x bonus applied to their next hit (up to 0.72 after 4 turns). Because you can still heal or buff, this can be a great way to boost your sorcerer’s damage while still letting you do other things Economy: An incredibly simple passive. Just cut all MP costs down by a third. This is useful in basically any situation, since it either lets you cast a spell a turn earlier, spam things more effectively, or do things like keep Mystic Shield up and running more easily. Warmage    Unlocks: None The Warmage is the final hybrid class, and it is great. It starts off with above average offensive growths and speed, without too much compromising on survivability. Then it goes to a great equipment selection that allows you to customize how you want to deal damage. You can use Scythes to get big single hits in, use a rod to focus on doing more magical damage, or use a mace if you really wanted to. Both the rods and maces can be dual-wielded if you want to get more damage in that way too. Getting both robes and light armor allows for versatility though I generally lean robes because they usually boost your MND more than armor boosts your ATK. The abilities are pretty simple, essentially single target spells, AOE hybrid bursts, and then Infused Edge to combo them with the strong basic attacks. Overall a pretty great job, and one that you could definitely leave a character in as their final choice. That said, the skillset in general is good as well, and can definitely see some strong use as a secondary skillset too.  Notable Abilities: Leech Mana: A passive that converts about a tenth of the damage that a regular attack does into MP. This is great for this class, since it’s relatively MP hungry and can allow you to much more easily build up MP to use the bursts or Pulsar. Haste: A reaction ability that counters by hasting the unit. Haste is a good buff, especially on an offensive unit, so getting easy access to it is really nice. I think that slow is better because it can affect multiple enemies and benefit the whole team but this is still pretty useful if you don’t bring a buffer along. Infused Edge: The core of the class, this ability seems pretty simple on the face of it. You do a normal attack, and then cast a single target version of any spell the character knows on the same target. At base, it’s pretty powerful and can boost your damage a lot. What really makes it shine is combining it with other classes. Dual-wield lets you hit twice before casting a spell, combining that with doublehand lets you dual wield Scythes and then cast. The Vessel’s Hallowed Mind essentially gives the spell component a 0.45x boost, and the Hallowed Body passive massively boosts both of the attacking stats. You could use it as a Gunner or Ranger to blast people from range with huge damage, or you could slap a Plague Doctor’s skillset on as a secondary and then both damage and inflict a big variety of debuffs. And then there’s this skill’s very interesting interaction with a specific weapon. That weapon is the Auto Crossbow. On the face of it, it’s a pretty basic weapon: an elementless crossbow that we’ve been able to purchase in a shop for quite a while now. However, it does have one unique quality: when you use a regular attack, the auto crossbow will hit the targeted square AND the three squares right behind it. This only applies to regular attacks, and not to any abilities, even if they use the weapon to determine range. But because Infused Edge makes a regular attack it, in fact, does get the extra squares. And then, because they were part of the targeted area, the supposedly single target spell is also applied to them. So by using the auto crossbow you’re suddenly able to hit up to 4 enemies with effectively 2 powerful attacks a turn. Duelist    Unlocks: None The Duelist is the final purely physical class. Statwise, it’s pretty much what you’d expect, with a very high ATK growth, a high HP growth and decent DEF and SPD, but below average magical growths. Its equipment is also relatively limited, though daggers and rapiers are solid enough weapons. The name describes it pretty well, in that the class is focused on one-on-one combat. It has no ability that targets more than 1 square and even has a passive that boosts their damage every time they target the same unit. However, as a trade-off only the Revive spell takes MP. Every other ability is available at all times and they are all pretty powerful. Overall, it’s a class that I really like and is totally viable to stick with as your primary. I just rarely end up using it because it’s a pain to actually reach since you need to go through almost every other physical job to do so.  Notable Abilities: Flowing/Blazing/Earthen/Thundering Flourish: These are the main attacks of the class and they’re really strong. They all hit with a 1.55x modifier (for comparison, Kyrie and Anadine’s Wrathful Blow/Enraged Blow hit for 1.6x but take ¼ of their health and cost MP), and have a 25% chance of inflicting a corresponding debuff. Evade Skill: One of the most powerful reaction abilities, Evade Skill makes it so that the unit is entirely immune to most non-magic abilities. This is both great at keeping your units alive in general and also for dodging annoying status effects from classes like Gunners. Leech Life: The unit absorbs about 1/3 of the damage done by their regular attack as HP. While useful on a Duelist for keeping them up, it works really well on classes like the Warmage or Fellblade since they use regular attacks almost every turn. OOrochi fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 12, 2020 23:29
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Hatman, Hero of Old! Pete Poisonbrood! Gubmint! I enjoy the random names in this game a lot. 
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Mar 13, 2020 05:28
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I did not know that about the autocrossbow. Clever! I don't know if it's better than Infused+Dual Wield+Gun, but if they take that option out, autocrossbow will probably be my goto to replace it. Edit: Wait, you can dual wield crossbows? I thought they were 2-hand weapons. Edit 2: Yeah, I just double checked, cannot dual wield crossbows, even with Sturdy Grip. DMW45 fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 07:28
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DMW45 posted:I did not know that about the autocrossbow. Clever! Oh, you’re totally right. In my head I had the crossbows as one handed weapons and never bothered to confirm dual wielding them. Thanks!
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Mar 13, 2020 13:06
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Yeah, I somehow unfollowed the thread and forgot about it for months, and was pleased I was able to catch you before you finished your playthru. That trick is absolutely sick and you can get some gaudy combinations out of it, including using it as almost exactly the opposite of what the Warmage is intended for---since you can actually hit four enemies with a single target spell.
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Mar 13, 2020 13:45
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Duelists are very very much a straight rip of parivirs from FFTA2. Growths, skills and all I got the game after seeing this LP and mulling it over a while. Binged it to completion. Good game but honestly a little disappointed with it more than I liked it.
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Mar 13, 2020 13:53
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Duelists are very very much a straight rip of parivirs from FFTA2. I did find that it loses some its luster towards the end of the game (but then, that seems to be par for the course.) Still jonesing for another playthrough, but I've got other stuff to do.
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Mar 13, 2020 15:22
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I would also like to play again, but they're prepping what appears to be a pretty major update sometime Soon, so I figure I'll wait until that drops.
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Mar 13, 2020 15:45
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That reveal definitely need to be foreshadowed a bit more, that felt sloppy.
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Mar 14, 2020 04:55
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WarpedLichen posted:That reveal definitely need to be foreshadowed a bit more, that felt sloppy. Yeah, this does feel like a misstep in the story.
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Mar 14, 2020 16:37
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WarpedLichen posted:That reveal definitely need to be foreshadowed a bit more, that felt sloppy. DMW45 posted:Yeah, this does feel like a misstep in the story. Yeah, I do agree that this comes out of pretty much nowhere. Rigged Death Trap posted:Duelists are very very much a straight rip of parivirs from FFTA2. Agreed on the parvirs. Funnily enough, another class that I barely used. And glad that you got the game! Doctor Reynolds posted:I would also like to play again, but they're prepping what appears to be a pretty major update sometime Soon, so I figure I'll wait until that drops. Yeah, the diaries they've been putting out for it look pretty cool to me. Of course, it'll probably come out right after I finish, just to make me want to play again.
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Mar 16, 2020 01:49
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