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I'd say it sounds like what they flubbed on was more the writing and the miserable levels of randomness. Like, if you could always rely on being able to get certain things, or that certain actions would provide certain skill+ skills, etc. then it sounds like you could actually plan, to some extent. But it feels like nothing is guaranteed, so if you're poo poo out of luck, the RNG just gives you a swirlie.
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Dec 30, 2017 23:54
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Unlimited Saga, Part 8: Let's Just Go To Sadovos Our new friend, Michelle, has a cursed gauntlet, and it's possible Marie's family can help. Last time we crossed the Vale; this time, we must cross the Jade Forest to finally reach Sadovos.  Each of the three sections in this quest has a different gimmick, but they're not very exciting. The first one is a simple path where you can't see any of the map, due to the trees. Like so:  However, it is a straight line. You could go the wrong way from the start, but if so you'll just hit a dead end and turn around. I do like that they did a picture for the bit where the path crosses itself, though.  This area is actually fairly large. What we're looking for is not an exit, but this sign:  The Forest's Eye lies south. Turn back immediately, as this is a highly hazardous and deadly area. Reading the sign drops us in the second area, the Forest's Eye.  This is one of those oldschool endlessly-looping maze forests, but if you read the sign it should be pretty obvious what to do. Just keep going South (or, if your character started in Sadovos, go North) and you'll get there. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AridIndelibleAmericanquarterhorse-mobile.mp4 If you do wander off, there's some treasure to be found. Nothing unique, as far as I know, but it's there. After a while, we end up in another area.  This one's gimmick is that there are tunnels connecting parts of the map, which hurt you if you use them.  So I didn't do that, because it's not that big anyway and you can just walk right to the end. Here's an interesting thing:  After a while, you'll start to see Negative Panels show up after the mission. These can never be replaced, and cause various problems for you (Tiffon's Phobia of the undead is an example of this); however, they have good stats and if you're willing to put up with them you can make that decision. Usually, they will derive from what you were doing during the mission; for example, if you use only swords, you may have the option of banning swords on that character forever in exchange for better stats. These panels give bonuses, too, so if you wanted to make a terrified axe maniac you could do that and they'd probably be incredibly powerful... as long as they weren't fighting the thing they fear. I don't like to use them, because I like the choice of changing my mind later. You can replace a non-plot negative panel with a different negative panel, if you want, but you'll never get that spot back. Too risky for me. Now we're in Sadovos. The Jade Forest was nowhere near as long or difficult as the Vale, and as a result is a lot less enjoyable for me. I like the gamble and the danger that comes from such harsh game design, but it's not for everyone.  This is where Judy is from. We won't meet her, but we've already got Marie and we'll be meeting another important character from her plot:  This is Josef. He is Judy's grandfather, and he gets stuck in a magic mirror so she has to save him with cool magic and stuff. He won't be joining our party, which is a shame because he is ridiculously powerful.  Oh, Marie, you're back. How was the Festival of Regina Leone? The Festival was quite lovely! Marie, who is the man behind you? It's not like you to bring a man home. Is he... He is a customer. Looks like that gauntlet has similar characteristics... You can tell? I didn't get old for nothing. The light and dark sides are mixing. Can you try to interrupt that flow? That's too dangerous.Josef here shows up in Kurt's plot, and says more or less the same thing; he joins up in order to study the gauntlet and make sure it doesn't kill everyone or something. But in this case, we've got Mythe here as well. You won't get far with an attitude like that. Alright... close your eyes. Eek! There, that worked. You shouldn't be having any more nightmares. This means that Michelle no longer has the terrible gauntlet panel on her grid. We're free to build her as we wish, and take advantage of her incredible stat growth! She still has a tiny amount of LP, though. Well, that gauntlet is no doubt a relic. What were the people who built the Wonders thinking, leaving that behind? I appreciate the fact that Silver Girl remains uninterested in anything Mythe is doing. His story is sort of about him learning to not be such an idiot, and I like that, realistically, there was never much of a chance that this mystery girl would fall for him out of nowhere.  Mother said that Iskandar is final in Iskandar's Mausoleum. I see. You would know better than I. We will do just as you say.This unlocks the next story mission:  We've only got two story adventures left, in fact. But we're nowhere near strong enough to clear the mausoleum, and certainly not to do Pharos afterwards. So for a while, we'll just be doing lots of sidequests and learning more about the world. From now on, our goal will be to get everyone's panels where we want them, to get everyone kitted out in good equipment, and to get their HP up a bit as well. HP gain tapers off, so you can't raise it indefinitely, but our newer party members could stand to have more HP. At minimum, I want everyone to have some kind of life protection on their armor, and probably on at least one accessory. I also want as much obsidian as possible because that prevents Petrify and I know very well how completely that can shut down a party. So far we have... zero obsidian. Life protection is pretty easy to get, on the other hand. As the market improves, better armor will show up in shops, and that'll be fine. Some sidequests are very long, and some are short. This one is short, and it's called Monster's Lair.   Our party is going to raid this cave and get some sweet loot. By the way, if you do decide to use negative panels, try to use Phobia instead of Pacifist. Why? Well, having a Phobia drops your damage output to double digits, but that doesn't preclude comboing to make other characters effective. Like so:    The simple fact that Tiffon attacked everyone twice meant Sapphire's Shock could deal more LP damage, and kill them off. if Tiffon had a Pacifist panel, she would have taken a bunch of damage herself and died. So... don't use those. Unless you really, really want to, I guess. Our party is ridiculously powerful for what we're facing here. I need to get the encounter rating up a bit so we can train more effectively.  The boss of the small cave is three of these ugly guys. But again, they cannot stand up to Tiffon and Sapphire. Mythe fires off two fire arrows, to use up the enemy turns, and then they combo all the orcs to death at once.   Our reward is three max-level chests.  They're locked and trapped, as you might expect, and with such a high level it'll be difficult for any party to open them quickly. This mission has a very low turn limit, so I had to rush here to get the stuff in time. I also learned that you can't use Shock to open magical locks; it has to be single-target. Thankfully Laura comes with Fire Arrows learned, so she can handle them. We get another magic tablet (nice!), a meteoric iron staff (nice, to sell), and a lead ring (terrible). We have to collect the treasure and make it back to the entrance for the mission to count as a success. What happens if you run out of time? Well, you get sent back to town and you don't get any panels. However, you will keep any items and money you found, and the actions taken will count whenever you do finish a quest, meaning you'll still get the HP and skills you earned. So it's actually not as harsh as it seems. If you try again, any unique items (such as the magic tablet in the chest) won't come back, but you get to keep your map and there'll be new treasure around. If you want, you can use this to keep a sidequest with some easily accessible boss around to spark stuff off of, if you are the grinding type. That's boring, though, and I'd prefer not to do it. Our party is actually progressing pretty well. Next time, we'll do a more involved quest and see if we can't find some interesting stuff around the world. And if there's any of you who've actually played this, and you have a quest you'd like to see me tackle, feel free to suggest it! Some of them are quite memorable. At some point we'll do the Seven Wonders that we have available, too. So stay tuned. corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Dec 31, 2017 |
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Dec 31, 2017 02:48
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You're making this game look good and it saddens me because I know it's a lie. How would you rank the SaGas?
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Dec 31, 2017 02:56
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ChrisBTY posted:You're making this game look good and it saddens me because I know it's a lie. That's a tough question because it's really down to what I want. I do actually like Unlimited because it's all weird world-building and character development, and I enjoy that. You have to improvise to succeed, but within that framework there's a fair bit of freedom. SaGa Frontier 2 has the best story and characters, and looks wonderful as well. However, the way magic works is just this huge hassle of juggling equipment constantly if you want people to actually learn anything. It's probably my favorite overall, but sometimes I don't have the patience for the annoying parts. Minstrel Song is extremely cool to play exactly once and then never again. There's multiple endings and outcomes and stuff but it's just so drat long that I can't see myself ever replaying it to get the other endings or Darque or whatever. And honestly, the new translation of RS2 is a really cool game. It's got alternate outcomes for various events, and while it can still feel aimless there's always a definite goal to move you forwards. But if you think the characterization in US is limited, well, RS2 doesn't even have that much. But I can see why people in Japan love it so much; it's maybe the most perfect expression of what Kawazu wanted to accomplish with the series. So I guess maybe RS2 is the best SaGa? I like discovering weird mechanics and I like minimalist storytelling so I really kind of just love them all. SaGa is great and I wish they'd localize Scarlet Grace so I could play it dammit
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Dec 31, 2017 03:19
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So they travel all that way just for Mythe to say, "Eh gently caress it" and fix it himself? So the cursed gauntlet that affects Kurt for his storyline was something Mythe could've just fixed himself if they ever met and he actually felt like doing it? This game is amazing.
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Dec 31, 2017 06:18
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Mythe didn't know what the problem was. Once he did he could attempt to fix it, but apparently the situation was akin to "cut the wrong fuse and the bomb explodes."
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Dec 31, 2017 06:24
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Tallgeese posted:Mythe didn't know what the problem was. Once he did he could attempt to fix it, but apparently the situation was akin to "cut the wrong fuse and the bomb explodes." And Mythe's solution was to knock the bomb off with a hammer and chisel.
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Dec 31, 2017 10:52
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Only two main story missions left? How long have you been playing?
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Dec 31, 2017 14:39
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marshmallow creep posted:Only two main story missions left? How long have you been playing? That update ends with the game clock at 11hr, but when I'm not doing stuff for gifs I usually have the emulator set to 2x fast-forward since I already know what I'm doing, but that has the effect of ballooning time spent in menus and stuff since, I mean, I still have to read them. Plus I left it on by accident once? So the clock is not necessarily helpful in seeing how much time has passed, really. I recorded a bunch of stuff when I got bored over the weekend so I ended up with lots of footage and just sort of had to cut it into updates where it seemed appropriate. We're gonna do a bunch of side stuff and probably (don't hold me to this) end at around 20-25 hours, including the final dungeons. Maybe? I've never done Judy's scenario all the way through but I've heard you can finish her plot, apart from the final dungeon, in like four hours, and then the rest is just doing sidequests and making your characters strong (not that she needs to do too much of that either). Like I said, the game (and SaGa generally) is mostly about side stuff. The only one I can think of where you're always doing the plot is, of course, Frontier 2. Maybe I should LP frontier 2 sometime, though I think somebody did do that once before e: Even if we can't get enough obsidian or whatever, the final boss should still be doable if I'm clever. That's just to make it easier 
corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Dec 31, 2017 |
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Dec 31, 2017 17:26
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corn in the bible posted:And honestly, the new translation of RS2 is a really cool game. It's got alternate outcomes for various events, and while it can still feel aimless there's always a definite goal to move you forwards. But if you think the characterization in US is limited, well, RS2 doesn't even have that much. But I can see why people in Japan love it so much; it's maybe the most perfect expression of what Kawazu wanted to accomplish with the series. So I guess maybe RS2 is the best SaGa? There are exactly four "characters" (in the sense that they have unique sprites) that you can get in your party in Romancing SaGa 2. One dies 30 minutes into the game, the second (his son) dies about two hours after that. One is completely optional, and one is the protagonist you name at the beginning and generally won't see until the 20-30 hour mark. Everything else is just a meatgrinder of generic units with palette changes. These people only matter as much as you make them matter to you, personally. From a Game Informer interview about RS2: quote:For players who have never played Romancing Saga (or even a Saga game in general), what would you say to convince them to play? So yeah, if our benchmark is "the most perfect encapsulation of Akitoshi Kawazu's ideals", RS2 is top, followed probably by US and then mmmaybe Romancing 1? Romancing 3 and Frontier 1 have more cohesive narratives and Frontier 2 basically scraps the usual barebones framework in favor of a story that is already laid bare in front of you; if anything, SaGa Frontier 2 is basically Romancing 2 with a more rigid structure and preset characters. It's "one person's" playthrough of that story. KataraniSword fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Dec 31, 2017 |
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Dec 31, 2017 18:59
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KataraniSword posted:There are exactly four "characters" (in the sense that they have unique sprites) that you can get in your party in Romancing SaGa 2. One dies 30 minutes into the game, the second (his son) dies about two hours after that. One is completely optional, and one is the protagonist you name at the beginning and generally won't see until the 20-30 hour mark. Everything else is just a meatgrinder of generic units with palette changes. Or if you're like me, you get the son killed and replaced with a generic while struggling to figure out the arcane subsystems!
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Dec 31, 2017 20:59
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KataraniSword posted:So yeah, if our benchmark is "the most perfect encapsulation of Akitoshi Kawazu's ideals", RS2 is top, followed probably by US and then mmmaybe Romancing 1? Romancing 3 and Frontier 1 have more cohesive narratives and Frontier 2 basically scraps the usual barebones framework in favor of a story that is already laid bare in front of you; if anything, SaGa Frontier 2 is basically Romancing 2 with a more rigid structure and preset characters. It's "one person's" playthrough of that story. It'd be RS2, RS1/Minstrel or Unlimited, Frontier 1. Frontier 1 does have more cohesive narratives for each character but there's still plenty of side stuff to do and a good half of Frontier 1's characters have such incredibly bare-bones narratives that they match pretty much what's been shown here in Unlimited (which is often said to detract from what people enjoy about Frontier 1.)
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Dec 31, 2017 22:53
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One of the major issues that a lot of people have with SF2 is the amount of revolving door character changing the game has. Due to the way the story is structured it is kind of necessary that it happens but it definitely throws people off and can make the story difficult to follow if you're not doing them in the right order since you'll constantly get new faces with no idea of their relation to the plot.
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Jan 1, 2018 19:28
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On the plus side once you spark something, it's available to everyone, all you need to do is equip the right elemental trinkets or weapon and you're set. Also some guy is perfectly happy to grave rob (or steal from the future if you don't go chronologically) equipment from other characters so you don't need to worry about someone leaving with your good stuff. On the other hand, random NPCs or random jiggling blobs on the map will want you to load up your pocketstation to play a game that even if you had one, its best reward is a 7 durability sword.
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Jan 1, 2018 19:51
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Unlimited Saga, Part 9: Let's Do Some Sidequests We're still unprepared to take on the next story mission, which has a big giant in it that will kill us. I tried! I really did. So, instead, let's go explore the Sunken City.  Known for its beautiful red rooftops, the famous city of Roanne was once called Florid Roanne, and was inhabited by aristocrats who used it as a summer resort. But Roanne was swallowed by an unprecedented flood, and the city submerged into the marsh. Only the beautiful rooftops, covered in mud, remain. Roanne, little more than an abandoned city covered in mud, is now known as Miry Roanne. You came to this city because you were hired by a former resident who longs for the memory of Roanne. Bring back a meaningful memento! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVWHQ2C0gsQ  This mission has a unique tileset and several gimmicks. Essentially, we need to explore Roanne and find a nice souvenir for the people who hired us. There are a lot of treasure chests to find, and lots of areas to explore. Also, lots of fish.  By coincidence, the party was also attacked by fish that turn. It wasn't as a result of the fish swimming about, though.  Laura has a Damascus Axe, now, as well. Axes are very good at dealing damage, though they tend to be inaccurate. One specific axe technique is the most damaging attack in the game, but they are generally quite good. In my experience, usually lighter weapons will have attacks that do less damage but have better special attacks; however, this is not always true. Anyway, Time Lapse doesn't do amazing LP damage but it can spark Reverse Delta, which is the best attack. If you don't like the reels, though, just make really heavy weapons and you'll probably be OK; level 4 or 5 techniques are going to be amazing regardless. Marie and friends are still learning lots of spells.  It'd be nice if I got Magic Blender on Marie since she starts with a wide variety of lame spells. I never will, though. As the party explores, the number of fish nearby increases.  Some houses have open windows to climb into, like so:  Inside, you may find treasure, or a monster, or nothing at all. In any case, the fish go away when you do. If too many fish start swimming at once they attack in a big group, which would be dangerous if we didn't have so much great all-party damage to deal with them. Some areas have a broken archway or bridge. If you have someone with Obstacle Crossing, they can do a check to see if you can climb over it.  I didn't find too much in this mission as a result, but sometimes there's unique items behind skill checks like this. Sometimes it skips whole areas, making the adventure much easier! So it can pay to keep someone around with Swimming or Obstacle Crossing if you're going to do a dungeon.  The town is quite large, and you don't need to check any attics to find the memento. But it's a good chance to level up a bit and everyone has a magic tablet to learn, so it can't hurt to spend some time here. If you let the fish become too numerous, this happens:  And then this happens:   So the fish are not a problem. I think the fish are set encounters, though, so if you came here early they would be a real danger. After searching many attics, we reach the northernmost point of the town.  Sounds like a good place to find a memento.   So, we have a boss fight with this big monkey guy. He is quite dangerous, in that he has a sword and can put out a lot of damage. However, he has trouble hitting multiple targets at once, and if we spread his attacks out with a large group he's less likely to eat through someone's HP and do LP damage. Still can, though, if he gets lucky (or if he hits Marie).  I like his reaction when attacked, though.  Now, anyone who has played SaGa games knows that bosses are very useful because you can spark stuff on them. Thus, even though it's not as efficient, I have everyone use attacks they don't yet have special attacks for. Tiffon's bow apparently shoots arrows that are, like, seven feet long:   When you start dealing LP damage you know it's time to switch to piercing attacks... if you want to win quickly. I wanted to get someone to spark something so I kept using axes and martial arts. Not much luck, though. Grace learned Cut In, as seen in this incredibly ugly screenshot. Don't zoom in so close to the sprites! It looks awful!  The monkey guy is cool, though. He's very good at breakdancing, for example (the break is your bones when he kicks you) https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AnchoredSlimyDartfrog-mobile.mp4 Finally, I got very lucky:  https://thumbs.gfycat.com/CluelessUnawareLeopardseal-mobile.mp4 The giant ape is unable to stand up to this onslaught and dies instantly. Nice!  The Melody Disc from the music hall that symbolized this town... A perfect item to reminisce through. Let's take this back! We got a lot of treasure and money from that, so I bought everyone some armor. I've found that Bone Mail is pretty good -- it doesn't have amazing defense, but it has very high defense against piercing attacks specifically. Piercing damage is what you really need to worry about, so it's good. Heavy, though, so if you have a martial arts character give it a miss and go for crocodile armor or something like that. By the end of the game you'll be swimming in cash, and it's easy to buy up lots of iron to fix everything, though it may still be hard to afford Diamond (if you're lucky enough to even find it in the shop.) Fun fact: when repairing an item, there's a chance you will reveal or hide one of the traits on the item. Fun times. If one goes away that you need, you have to fight and hope it unlocks again, or I guess reload a save cause that's annoying. Depending on your item you may not use or care about the lowest skill, though. In addition to the regular adventures, there are also sidequests that ask you to clear the Seven Wonders. They range in difficulty, and I found that Nakle Lines (Laura's dungeon) is hardest when I tried to complete it and got destroyed by the dungeon boss. So we'll return to that later. Instead, let's do Deities' Table, which is much easier. The dungeons are somewhat different when part of a main character's plot, though the degree to which that's true varies a lot. For example, I think the Hanging Garden is just straight up a different dungeon when it's the final one. Deities' Table is Judy's dungeon, and when she goes there she must find a bunch of items around the dungeon to complete it. Plus it's longer and has mini-bosses and stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVbQ9zOjo_U   When we begin, we're on the ground, looking up at the Table. We proceed forward, and:    The Deities' Table is sort of a weird maze, where you can't see the walls. As you walk around, the ground fills in, which both looks kind of neat and also makes it very clear where you've been and where you haven't looked yet, so it's not a maze you can get lost in. It's perfectly fine. The other thing about it is that everything just looks like mirror shards and glass, so you don't know whether you're examining a monster or a trap or whatever. Sometimes shards will fly at you, requiring a skill check.  I was not aware of this at the time, but apparently the enemies you fight if you fail have a good chance of dropping magic tablets. Generally that's true of special monsters in these dungeons, though. Of course, since it's random, it's not like I could have deliberately failed to dodge them, but I could have spent some time farming here, I guess? Humorously, the mirror thing even applies to chests... except they forgot to do it to the notification that you've found one.   I guess if there were traps and chests in the same spot you could be confused, but it's still silly. Here's some enemies:  Because I still didn't remember to just go and get Laura an axe panel (it's very easy to do if you want one!) her odds of actually doing Reverse Delta are low. If you have her lead a combo and have perfect timing then it'll work but... I don't! Marie is almost done learning Power Surge, which is a fire-type spell that boosts damage. By a lot. It's really good! Laura actually knows it by default, but it never hurts to diversify. When I have more money to burn I'll buy a bunch of carnelian and try to get Fire Arts on Laura's axe, so she can cast it too.  After the Mirror of Sins is the Mirror of Dreams.  It's followed by the Mirror of Time. Sadly, it's hard to get a good overhead shot of these areas, because the mapping skills work by how many nodes away things are, rather than distance on screen. Like this:   Several of the Seven Wonders play around with the board game theme and form shapes or things like that, but it's hard to really get across with pictures. And my favorite Wonder, which is the one in Chapa, will have to remain unseen since Mythe can't actually go there... Anyway, at this point, the bird shard things appear in big groups. A good chance to get tablets, probably! But I didn't, no.  I was so proud of how often I dodged these things, hah. Anyway, when you warp out of the Mirror of Time area, you get sent to a boss fight. We're here to fight a big bird on a weird triangle mirror thing so let's do that.  This guy is a pushover. He's actually weaker than the big monkey dude we fought in the city. It's sort of a phoenix, I guess? So it does fire attacks, which are worthless against our party because all the mages are basically set up to deal fire damage and, thus, they also have high fire resistance. Sapphire could just stand in the way of the fireballs and be fine, and so that's what I had her do. Laura also has a relatively good fire level, though not nearly as high as it would be if I built her to actually use it, so she got to help too. Ultimately, not much of a fight. The Nakle Lines boss, on the other hand, caused a full party wipe in three turns, so that one's maybe just a little bit more powerful. But who cares!  Hooray! Everyone got good panels, and the enormous amount of treasure lying around the Wonders means we're rich, too. Laura finally got that Axe panel, and Grace got a Lv3 bow panel while Tiffon got a Lv4 Dagger panel, so I had them swap weapons again. No worries, it's fine. Everyone either has spells to learn or a panel to spark stuff, so next time we really will go check out Iskandar's mausoleum and find out what's up with Silver Girl. And also, an unrelated cemetery! So stay tuned. corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Jan 1, 2018 |
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Jan 1, 2018 20:21
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I'm really enjoying this. Maybe I didn't give Unlimited SaGa a fair shake when I played it. (Or maybe I did and it's just that weird.) And it's pretty! Much nicer looking than Minstrel Song. But I just noticed... Axes have abillties. So close...
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Jan 1, 2018 21:19
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This LP is almost making me want to give this game a second go. On an emulator though.
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Jan 1, 2018 21:36
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Ubiquitous_ posted:This LP is almost making me want to give this game a second go. On an emulator though. Fortunately, thanks to being pretty simple graphically it's very easy to emulate.
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Jan 2, 2018 02:16
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I feel confident enough after your explanations to give this game a second chance. It's the only SaGa game to actually scare me with the mechanics, but it's so interesting in concept.
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Jan 2, 2018 08:41
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Unlimited Saga, Part 10: The Mausoleum of Iskandar After the last adventure, I bought up all the wood I could find and set to repairing everything. Michelle's steel sword turned into tempered steel (remember, 1 less damage means this has occurred) so I made her a damascus sword. Mullock is hard to find generally, but it can show up in the frontier towns which generally do not upgrade their contents. I know some people laboriously check every town because they are insane, but that's boring. Usually I just go to Vaftom, which seems to have the highest rank always and buy any rare materials (diamonds are great, for example) and then maybe check a town like Serin or Sadovos to see if they have mullock, if I want to be unfair to the game. High end materials are pretty much just as good as damascus; its appeal is that you can make it early and break the game with it. For example, steel is pretty good, diamond is almost exactly the same (but good luck finding that) and stone weapons are pretty good too, honestly. Any town can have stuff that's good for repairing things, like serpentine or wood or iron. Usually you get a bonus when repairing something if the material is similar or the same. Also one of the smithies is better at repairing, theoretically? It has a sign that says so but I've never noticed a difference. I also want lots of life protection, and there's lots of things which give that. I've noticed that bone charms offer it and bone shows up all the time so I just bought a lot of that. If you combine an elemental stone with an equipment there's a chance it'll put the Arts skill on it. For weapons or accessories it's slot 2; for shields, slot 4. It's a somewhat low chance but if you just keep trying you'll get it eventually. You can do this to get an accessory which has life protection AND Water Arts, for example, or you can do what I did with Laura's axe and shove Carnelian into it until it gets Fire Arts. She can't do much damage with them, but she knows one buff spell and I never use Tomahawk, the ability it replaced, so why not?. Now, before we go to the mausoleum and see what's up with Silver Girl, we're going to do one more sidequest. Do we need to? No, but I think it's funny.    Spooky! This path leads to the cemetery itself, which is largely empty of monsters barring a few undead walking around. There's a shed, where the groundskeeper is hanging out to yell at us.  What is that guy's problem? What a jerk! This area is full of graves, which you can search. Though you can only screw up three times, it's a very easy reel.  Succeed and you get an item. Fail and you fight some zombies. Search the right grave (it's in the furthest area, of course) and you get a key!  Maybe now the groundskeeper will talk to us.   I literally only did this sidequest so I could show you that message, because I think it's funny. Well worth the effort.  Sapphire kills all the zombies with Shock and then Marie burns him to death with her Fire Arrows. Nice. The room behind the shack has some high-level chests. They'll have traps, of course, but if you manage to defuse them the reward can be good.  Remember, failing to defuse an explosion trap destroys what's in it. One of the chests blew up and we'll never know the contents... So that sucks. I found a shop selling a single piece of obsidian and I bought it. It cost over sixty thousand gold. This is good because, while I said earlier that there's a guaranteed piece of obsidian, I forgot you can't actually forge stuff out of boots and therefore they'll be useless for this purpose. Even a single piece is good though, since you definitely don't want your healer getting petrified. Everybody else can hopefully rely on their endurance to help prevent status effects, which is its main purpose. Spirit blocks mental effects but a lot of those can just be powered through or ignored, especially if the character isn't a spellcaster.   We've been here before, of course, but, as you may remember, the party fled a strange noise and did not reach the end.  Once we get back to the purple floor, everything begins to shake.  After a few turns, the guardian finally appears:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z10BiGp-ibo This is a tough fight. Thanks to GameFAQs I can tell you that he has around 12k HP, and 12 LP. He can also attack the entire party, and quite effectively too. He won't do that early in the fight, though, so I started off by using as many people as possible to spread out his single attacks.  Unfortunately, Grace and Sapphire aren't too useful in this fight. They're set up to deal crowd damage, which is great for exploring but bad for bosses. This means Sapphire is mostly stuck on healing duty, and Grace is useful only as a way of absorbing hits (which she does quite well). For context on his HP, if Laura pulls off a Reverse Delta it does about 600 HP damage. A full combo with several party members can do maybe a thousand. However, neither of those are reliable options because this guy is very slow, meaning it's hard to use up his turns and set up a combo, and he often stuns with his attacks, meaning if we shove Laura out by herself she'll just end up not taking any turns! Plus, he exclusively uses spears, which deal piercing damage, meaning even if he attacks someone with full HP he can deal an LP or two -- especially if he gets off a combo. However, since all his spear-based attacks are physical, you can reduce his damage through equipping good armor, or by giving people stuff to parry attacks with.  Sometimes people aren't so lucky: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/JauntyPersonalAnemonecrab-mobile.mp4 The giant acts several times per turn, and everything turns into a big damage race. I actually had fun with this fight; it's dangerous, and I had to constantly cycle your party to protect them. However, you're free to ignore that and just gamble on doing your strongest attacks all the time, or maybe rely on buffs and debuffs, which are very powerful in this game. Michelle sparks a cool skill, Bopeep. It can cause Blackout, which for enemies means instant death. It even works on mini-bosses sometimes! Plus, even if that fails, it still does a ton of damage and looks pretty cool. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/YawningTinyCottontail-mobile.mp4 This means Michelle and Laura both have powerful level 4 techniques to pull out. Plus, Michelle has a Lv4 sword panel, meaning it's very easy to do this every single time she attacks. Like so: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/WelltodoOblongArchaeocete-mobile.mp4 Even if I missed the timing, I'd still probably use Roundabout, which is the level 3 attack. Less powerful, sure, but it can stun enemies and is thus still perfectly acceptable. Notice that I switched to her reel from another one. That's because it resets the position when you do that, and so if I want to do Bopeep it's a simple matter of switching to Michelle, waiting a second, and hitting the button on the line of level 4 panels. It's not as damaging as Reverse Delta, but it's more reliable. Finally, we kill the boss and are sent back to the map.  The party proceeds towards the newly opened room, searching for treasure along the way. Nobody has been down here in a long time, so there should be plenty to find.   The room has a switch, which opens another room. Good. Eventually, though, we find this weirdly-shaped chamber: our goal at last!   Don't ask me to open it! It's risky enough to be found by the Knighthood in here... Iskandar's alive and well, and yet he's hanging out in his own tomb? I guess you eventually run out of stuff to do when you live that long. Is...kan...dar... Hey, where'd you come from? How'd you pop up like that? Don't worry about it, young man. Mother told me, "Meet Iskandar." You must be the daughter of Rivelvalla. Your name? Faedaljen.Even though we finally know her name, the game still calls her Silver Girl. I think that's kind of strange. She has a name now, so why not use it? "Loyalty to God." It's so Arcanian. Mother would be grateful. No, I'm the one who should be grateful. You opened me up to the truth. Hey, what's this all about? Young man, let us finish, okay? As an Arcanian, you have the ability to thwart their energy and return the darkness to its former state. Your wish is Mother's wish, and her wish is my command. Thank you. The only ones who can save the world are the ones living in it. Hey, young one. Be her guide.So, we have our final mission: head to the Undercity Pharos and defeat the Knights who reside there. This is the famous Most Difficult Boss, and we'll get there eventually! But since this is the big, final plot dump, Mythe is unsatisfied with everybody's explanations and demands to know more. You owe me an explanation. What's going on? I'll explain, but it's a long story. Want to hear it?You can choose to skip all the exposition after this point, if you want. But that wouldn't make for a very good Let's Play, would it?  She is an Arcanian, created by the gods. The Seven Wonders are the relics of her ancestors. But their power almost destroyed the world. The gods prevented this by vanishing. We were born in the ruins of the gods. In that sense, we are no different from monsters. What on earth is he talking about? Is he mad? Is this some wildly exaggerated story? Or could it be... the truth? Leith Torles first introduced me to an Arcanian about a thousand years ago. That was her mother. I couldn't believe it myself -- that I wasn't a real human. I created several photographs of her. She looked exactly like her daughter. The Arcanians are all so alike. They have the perfect human form. Either way is fine. No matter who she is, no matter what she does, I'm going to help her. That's all there is to it. I... wish to go to Tal'fa Palacaleo.But we won't go there yet, because we'll die. So in the meantime we'll do another Wonder or two, and maybe check out some ruins, before finally heading to Pharos to finish the story. Stay tuned! corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 17:15
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I... feel like I've rarely seen a major, turning-the-world-on-its-head plot twist revealed in quite so casual a manner. I'm not sure if it's the translation or if it's just this goddamn game being itself.
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Jan 2, 2018 19:06
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So the Silver Girl is from an ancient race of people who hubristically died out and in the process the gods left the world behind in order to save it for reasons. Also Iskander, the legendary hero from a thousand years ago was a fan of photography and is still alive because he's apparently not human and is just hanging out in his own mausoleum for funzies I guess. And now Mythe has been recruited to kill the Knights of the Round Table who rule the world. Oh loopy, weird, SaGa plotting, how I missed you. I was thinking that Mythe's story was making too much sense. It turns out they were just saving the good stuff for the end.
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Jan 2, 2018 19:07
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Why is Alexander the Great Liberace? But not even Liberace in his full blown Opulent Regalia, but just Liberace in an evening shawl?
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Jan 2, 2018 19:15
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Mods change my name to Liberace In An Evening Shawl
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Jan 2, 2018 19:21
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FeyerbrandX posted:Why is Alexander the Great Liberace? But not even Liberace in his full blown Opulent Regalia, but just Liberace in an evening shawl? When 900 years old, you reach, look as good, you will not.  Also, Iskandar apparently doesn't mean that he specifically isn't human, but rather than everybody isn't a human -- that is, they're not God's people and they didn't build any of the Wonders. This is, I think, supposed to tie into Mythe's character arc of moving away from the past, since the relics they find and repair aren't their society's past to begin with. Most of the problems in Unlimited ultimately derive from people misusing ancient relics, so as much as the game has any unifying theme it's that. e: also, I did beat the game in my last recording session, so good news: the LP won't end with me being annoyed, having to grind endlessly, or giving up. corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 19:57
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Yes! Good news. The LP curse on this game can finally be broken.
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Jan 2, 2018 21:07
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Um, is there an explanation why the Knights need to be killed?
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Jan 2, 2018 21:55
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Tallgeese posted:Um, is there an explanation why the Knights need to be killed? Clearly this universe thrives on pure chaos and randomness and the Knights are far too ordered to be suffered to live.
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Jan 2, 2018 21:56
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So the plot so far: -Mythe sees a picture of a hot girl and decides to try his luck -After wandering around convincing random women to join his crazy quest he tracks down Picture Girl -Picture Girl drafts him into looking for a legendary hero -They find legendary hero in a tomb where he explains Picture Girl was created by God and now she has to kill the Knights of the Round Table who rule the world, for...reasons That about it?
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Jan 2, 2018 22:23
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:So the plot so far: Yes. Correct. And while it won't be in the next update, going after them is the final quest in his game. So I would like to know if anyone can guess how Mythe's plot actually concludes, actually. Tallgeese posted:Um, is there an explanation why the Knights need to be killed? Iskandar asked Faedaljen (Silver Girl) to do it, so we're going to do it. That's pretty much all you get in Mythe's story: they are bad and the world's greatest hero wants them dead, so go kill them. However, they also play a part in Ventus's story, where you learn a bit more about them. They control all the undead in the world, especially vampires, and are apparently invincible. Plus they live in a place nobody can go, since you need ancient knowledge to even get into the central area of Pharos where they reside. It's a problem!
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Jan 2, 2018 22:48
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corn in the bible posted:Yes. Correct. And while it won't be in the next update, going after them is the final quest in his game. So I would like to know if anyone can guess how Mythe's plot actually concludes, actually. Task complete, Silver Girl slowly fades out of existence. Mythe looks on with tears in his eyes and a broken heart, smiling even though she barely acknowledged him at all. The rest of the girls just get in one big fuckpile without him
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Jan 2, 2018 23:00
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Mythe just goes home to resume his life saying "Well, that was weird."
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Jan 2, 2018 23:04
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corn in the bible posted:Yes. Correct. And while it won't be in the next update, going after them is the final quest in his game. So I would like to know if anyone can guess how Mythe's plot actually concludes, actually. The Knights were all that was keeping the world together, and without them, it explodes.
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Jan 2, 2018 23:18
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Nothing untoward happens to Silver Girl. Mythe finally summons up the courage to ask her out on date and gets rejected hardcore and she gets a restraining order after the boss battle. Galahad laughs. All the girls in Mythe's party become the next big pop act and Mythe becomes the greatest drummer of all time and starts a side business making guns.
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Jan 2, 2018 23:41
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The quest over, the Silver Girl announces that she is leaving forever. Mythe desperately asks her to stay. A giant reel appears; every panel on the reel is "No."
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Jan 3, 2018 00:08
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Haberdashery posted:The quest over, the Silver Girl announces that she is leaving forever. Mythe desperately asks her to stay. A giant reel appears; every panel on the reel is "No." This is exactly how I want this story to end.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:14
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Haberdashery posted:The quest over, the Silver Girl announces that she is leaving forever. Mythe desperately asks her to stay. A giant reel appears; every panel on the reel is "No." Hahaha holy poo poo that'd be amazing
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Jan 3, 2018 00:18
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Haberdashery posted:The quest over, the Silver Girl announces that she is leaving forever. Mythe desperately asks her to stay. A giant reel appears; every panel on the reel is "No." This would be perfect.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:36
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Haberdashery posted:The quest over, the Silver Girl announces that she is leaving forever. Mythe desperately asks her to stay. A giant reel appears; every panel on the reel is "No." 
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Jan 3, 2018 00:38
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Haberdashery posted:The quest over, the Silver Girl announces that she is leaving forever. Mythe desperately asks her to stay. A giant reel appears; every panel on the reel is "No." I wish I could five-star a post.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:58
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