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Yeah, the two of those were the best two. I guess gil quest wasn't too bad either.
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Aug 24, 2012 21:46
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DontMockMySmock posted:This talk of the ridiculous encounter rates in FF7 reminded me of this old flash animation (minor spoilers about a recurring FF enemy). I thought this was absolutely hilarious when I was a teenager. I was going to pull that one up too. One of the bonus videos was one of the funniest things ever when I was a teenager, but is now frankly just bizarre. The "I dropped mine" bit still makes me laugh though.
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Aug 24, 2012 23:19
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Booties posted:I don't understand the hate for this area either. I power level early though so maybe the encounter rate seemed trivial to me. I know all the items and I blast through this dungeon quickly. The encounter rate is fine IF you know where the hell you're going. On the other hand, if you're trying to explore each of the areas on the map without knowing exactly how to get there (and which areas are important), you burn a lot of steps and end up back at the cabin several times...so the encounter rate feels horrific because you do a lot of retreading the same ground. It also doesn't help that there's some very nice rare stuff here (Safety Ring, Added Cut, Alexander), so you can't just go "meh, screw it".
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Aug 24, 2012 23:29
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MagusofStars posted:It also doesn't help that there's some very nice rare stuff here (Safety Ring, Added Cut, Alexander), so you can't just go "meh, screw it". I did! The Great Glacier in the LLG is amazingly boring!
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Aug 24, 2012 23:53
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:I did! The Great Glacier in the LLG is amazingly boring! You literally run in circles until you pass out? EDIT: 
L5 Death fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 26, 2012 |
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Aug 25, 2012 09:29
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L5 Death posted:You literally run in circles until you pass out? I did this in my second playthru as a kid after trying hard to find the useful goodies. Naturally this is when I wandered in just the right places to get Alexander. (which I never used)
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Aug 26, 2012 00:48
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Chapter 60 - Cool Cool Mountain  Welcome to Gaea/Gaia's Cliff.  Basically, you pick up ways, follow them and once you reach the next platform, hug yourself to raise the temperature.  There's not much to this part other the fact that I absolutely love the artwork here, so enjoy.  There are some dead-ends, none of which contain anything interesting and they're there just to mock you up.  Eventually you end up in this mini-dungeon. Another great-looking place, showcasing the diversity I mentioned earlier. There's only so many color-schemes you can get out of ice and they sure know how to do them.  This place has an annoying encounter rate too, but the same can be said about all dungeons in this game.  We go all the way up north...  And end up here. There are some crystals blocking the way, so we need to find a way to get rid of them. Further west and...  We find ourselves on the second floor, hooray.  There's a hidden passage here after the bridge, leading to the second [Ribbon] in the game. Remember kids, the Ribbon is an accessory that makes us immune to every status ailment in the game, so it's pretty good stuff.  Oh, and in case you're asking, we fight bats, worms and yellow penguins here. There's also a really rare encounter in this place, we'll see later.  The [Javelin] is the second tier DOUBLE growth weapon for Cid. It deals as much damage as the weapon for Red we got back in Cosmo Canyon, which kinda spells out how ridiculously powerful it was back then.  Anyway, this dungeon's layout is confusing. I'm just backdooring all around the place.  This dungeon truly is a kick in the ball.   Je t'aime.  Moi non plus.  This is the encounter I was talking about. Remember the boss from the Nibelheim Reactor, Materia Keeper? You get to fight mini Materia-Keepers here, at an abysmal encounter rate. Either way, he's very important for one reason, the same reason I'm manipulating him.  He can cast Magic Breath on your party, a very cool-looking Enemy Skill that does multi-elemental damage (sucks). You can also manipulate him into using Trine in case you missed the other two times you had to learn the skill.  Anyway, once you get the crystals out of the way, you're out of the mini-dungeon back to the massive cliff. The cliff starts asking you questions.  There isn't, sadly enough, anything of worth here. Mostly dead-ends.  Either way, you can appreciate this beautiful work of 90's Photoshop copy-pasting pictures of rocks.  There are encounters here, by the way. Most are not notable with one exception, we'll see it later.  Right now we're too busy climbing the mountain at the weirdest angles known to men.  So this is another mini-dungeon. These are some massive holes in the ground with water underneath.  And these are a bunch of platforms that, sadly enough, are too low. In other words we must rise up the water level. There's also a chest to the northwest we can't reach, and only one way out. Out we go.  Oh now you're just messing with me.  I really like this scene. It shows how high we are, it shows the way out taunting us, and otherwise it just looks cool.  And this is another super-bizarre sequence. Basically, the moment you touch these stalactites, you get into a battle.  With an icicle. Surrounded by bats.  The icicles are weak to Fire, so Beta does the trick. The bats are just there to annoy you, really. You can ignore them and go straight to the main guy - once you destroy it, they disappear.  You will dream of your teeth tonight. You know you will.  These icicles give you some huge amount of Exp, which I'm sure low-level runners must hate.  Right. Back to the dungeon. There's a chest to the right, it contains a [Fire Armlet]. This is just like the [Bolt Armlet] - decent armors that also offer us total protection to an element by absorbing it.  During the fight we also get our Elemental materia leveled up. This could not have happened in a better time, you'll understand why soon enough. In case you forgot, here's the deal with the [Elemental] - if you put it on your armor with a magic (or summon) materia, it offers protection to that element. How much protection? It depends on the materia level: Level 1 - Halves damage. Level 2 - Nulls damage. Level 3 - Absorbs damage.  The icicles obviously don't attack, but hitting them offers a 50% chance of icicles falling on you dealing some damage.  Once we're done we can open this chest for a... Last... Elixir? Sure, why not? In truth, it's a poorly translated Megalixir, God knows. Talking about nonsense, why can't we just jump to the path below? It's not like Cloud can't take 30 meters falls.  Back to the first floor, we got these icicles down, rising up the water level.  Except for this one, that just fell conveniently so we can go up and grab that chest. Who the hell placed those things here anyway?  Why? I mean, think about the logistics.  Someone went through all the trouble of climbing here while carrying what I believe to be some very heavy chests.  I bet the sword isn't light either. Let's see:  Well, that's colorful, but that's not a very good picture now, is it? JESSIE, you know what to do.  ENHANCE... sword. The CSI sword of choice.  Oh, by the way, it has 8 slots.  So yea, you walk all the way around the mountain to get back here. I still think we could have just jumped.  Back to climbing. This cliff is huge.  Luckily for us, this is the last climbing section.  It also happens to be the shortest one, so let's take this time to see what we can fight here.  OH GOD GO AWAY GO AWAY.  AHHH JESUS CHRIST BURN WITH FIRE BURN IT DOWN   So, this is the Malboro. The Malboro is a strong creature and a staple of the Final Fantasy series. Its design is always the same - a carnivorous nightmare-inducing plant themed for being poisonous. It can cast Bio2 on your party, it's immune to Poison, it absorbs Poison damage, and you can still some Malboro Tentacles from it. It's an item that casts poison. But none of these really define a Malboro.  This defines a Malboro. These creatures are infamous for having an attack called [Bad Breath].  Here you can see what happens. Barret was using protection (Ribbon) but the others weren't. Bad Breath inflicts Poison, Confusion, Sleep, Silence, Frog and Small on everyone in your party. Depending on which Final Fantasy you're playing, they may as well open the battle with it and wipe out your group. It's also an Enemy Skill.  And with that, the climbing is over.  So after this long climb and nothing exciting happening since the disk started, we end up in this cave with a Save Point. Also, that glowing spring next to it is a fountain that fully regenerates your HP/MP infinitely. I don't know about you but it smells like an upcoming boss fight to me.  This room has some tough enemies. These cheetah sphynxes counter all your attacks.  And these Blue Dragons follow the tradition of ruining your day. They have a lot of HP (8800) and do a lot of damage, just like Nibelheim Dragons do.  You can also win [Dragon Armlets] from them, which are really cool.  OFF WE GOoo  My tablet broke again so I drew this with a mouse. Life sucks sometimes. It's time for yet another Dragon. These past encounters were pretty tough and our party isn't really healed up. Schizo is a tough opponent - first, he's split in two heads, each with 18,000 health for a total of 36,000 combined (so using All or Enemy Skills is recommended). Each head attacks separately and they can deal some good amount of damage. Let's see what they can do against us.  Oh. So here's the deal - Schizo uses a lot of magic. The right head deals Fire and Earth damage, while the left head deals Ice and Earth damage. Their final attack deals Lightning damage. So in total that's Fire, Earth, Ice and Lightning. Schizo doesn't deal any physical attack. So what gives?  Without touching materias, we can nullify the two main attacks in a single character. The armor Fire Armlet will actually make his Fire attacks heal us, while the accessory Ice Ring will give us immunity to Cold. There goes half the challenge, folks! Now here's the fun part - the Elemental Armlets have exactly 4 Linked (2 pairs) Materias. It's like the devs wanted us to do this. We also have two Elemental materias, so by linking them to Earth and Lightning we get to this:  In other words, we're 100% invincible to a boss. If you don't do this he's hard-ish, I suppose.  Oh, and you can steal this from him. Let's move on.  Once you leave the cave, a cutscene starts as you finish climbing the last part of the cliff.  What the  Holy gently caress.  Holy gently caress that's a big crater.  And with that, we conclude this update. NEXT TIME: Holy crap look at the size of that cratter WE'RE DOOMED. 
Elentor fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Aug 28, 2012 |
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Aug 27, 2012 14:51
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If I remember right, Schizo wasn't even in the original release of Final Fantasy VII. I think he was just a boss added for the American port, for whatever loving reason.
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Aug 27, 2012 14:59
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Elentor posted:
 But not for the reason you think. Leavemywife posted:If I remember right, Schizo wasn't even in the original release of Final Fantasy VII. I think he was just a boss added for the American port, for whatever loving reason. No, Schizo was always there. The added bosses share a particular theme.
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Aug 27, 2012 15:03
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God I had such a hard time with that loving boss. I didn't understand materia or how the various armor works or anything. All I know is that I kept getting my poo poo pushed in by this boss. gently caress you Schizo!
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Aug 27, 2012 15:10
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With those mountains ringing the cone, I can't tell if that outer flat-looking area around the cone is the floor of the crater and the raised cone is the impact site, or if the crater is just the inner cone.
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Aug 27, 2012 15:12
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:With those mountains ringing the cone, I can't tell if that outer flat-looking area around the cone is the floor of the crater and the raised cone is the impact site, or if the crater is just the inner cone. 
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Aug 27, 2012 15:15
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Schizo can definitely cause you problems if you don't have some understanding of how the game works. Not one of the easiest bosses by any means. Also when I played this game as a kid, I somehow managed to miss the fact that you can warm yourself up while climbing. Collapsed right before making it inside so many times. Good times.
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Aug 27, 2012 15:26
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:No, Schizo was always there. Hmm. I thought I heard that somewhere, but looks like that was false. Oh, well. Kanfy posted:Schizo can definitely cause you problems if you don't have some understanding of how the game works. Not one of the easiest bosses by any means. I'm inclined to agree here; Schizo can be a major rear end in a top hat if you're not prepared. But, if you understand how these things work, Schizo is a breeze and some easy exp.
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Aug 27, 2012 15:31
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You can drink that shiny water to completely restore your HP/MP, this is one of the last things I've discovered in this game.
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Aug 27, 2012 15:56
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THIS BOSS. The first time I had to legit grind for this game with the help of the sparkly fountain, because for some reason I did not have elemental protection. Of course, I beat myself up ever time after because of how easy it is if you know what to look for.
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Aug 27, 2012 16:02
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Petiso posted:You can drink that shiny water to completely restore your HP/MP, this is one of the last things I've discovered in this game. I knew that, and somehow I forgot about it this time.  I wish this game had less content.
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Aug 27, 2012 16:04
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Yeah, Schizo was the first boss I actually lost to in this game. Not counting Reno and his drat pyramids.
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Aug 27, 2012 16:04
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Gaea's Cliff is where I finally got stuck and fed-up on my first playthrough of the game (my very first RPG, at age 13). When I came back to the game about a month later, my save was corrupted.  (Although I eventually got a copy of a friend's save.)
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Aug 27, 2012 16:07
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 Last time, Aerated was murdered by Sixshot, who accessed his secret seventh Wingwolf form to kill the city commander.   So...  Go literally the other way. Good plan.  It was for this Elemental materia, which I forgot on my first trip and desperately need.  I also pick this up. Since Taft is a fixed feature of the team, it may come in handy some day.  Also this. Elemental immunities are my bread and butter.  At Icicle Inn this is the only notable purchase. Somehow I'm worried about running out of Ether money. CLOUD will get a wonderful weapon soon enough, Clispaeth has the Viper Halbred and Javelin, and Ice T can work with the Blue M-Phone from Wutai.  I also get some Tents as inns are few and far between for the next bit.  Chekov's Refreshment.  And I don't even bother to talk to anyone before stealing mandatory items. CLOUD is an adventure game protagonist.  "Honey that is a terrible name."  Oh no how will I ever avoid her punch  Oh man how did I ever avoid her punch  Anyway I just cannot get over how the crossdressing stuff stays in the key items menu the entire game. Also the Keystone is still there even though it's completely irrelevant.  OW poo poo  gently caress OW  GODDAMMIT OUCH  AAAAUUUGGHH  OOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW  I am terrible at snowboarding.  And CLOUD died from multiple concussions.  Anyway, though the Great Glacier has numerous treasures I will ignore all but one of them. The rest are simply irrelevant to someone whose average level will be below 30 by the end of the game.  Instead I get this Elixir.  Eighteen times.  It'd be more but CLOUD died again from exposure and multiple concussions.  Still, not a bad haul. Those Elixirs will be useful for a long time.  Yes I know the sto-  Fucker!  This move has way too long of an animation but it's not very dangerous.  Stilva desperately wants to be my friend but since he rewards 1000 EXP upon death I have to run from him.  More elemental absorption stuff!  Oh. These things. You know the fight over 2nd hardest part of the LLG is extremely intense? These guys are the current leader. Far more annoying than Demon's Gate.  Because they accompanied by all these loving bats!  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck these bats! They've got a reasonably strong non-elemental magic attack that can mute, are decently fast, and there are four of the shitheads! They'd be enough of a problem normally except I can't kill them!  So I have to whittle away the Icicle's 3000 HP while not hitting the oh so fragile bats (who only have 740 HP each), all the while getting pelted by Ultrasounds and the icicle has a 1/2 chance of using a fantastically strong physical attack in reaction to damage. Of course, this time it died before Clispaeth so I have to start alllllllllll over!  Eventually, I try assorted things like
 The reason I can't kill the bats is because if the Icicle dies first, the bats don't give EXP rewards. Of course the Icicle itself gives 500 EXP so I can't just blitz it, I need Taft and Clispaeth to fall first. All the while four goddamn bats are trying, and usually succeeding, at murdering CLOUD.  This is the first. Of four. gently caress.  I stole a T/S Bomb somewhere along the line so I throw it and it deals around 2300 damage. If I knew that'd work I would've stole more!  After two Icicles, Clispaeth goes to the reserve while Ice T gets to not get EXP.  I never knew that, despite being around 20 levels lower than what I'd be normally, Comet would still be a lifesaver.  Eventually I get all the goddamn Icicles. I think I let this last one go as I can avoid it and therefore must.  And CLOUD gets his weapon of choice for most of the disc. Eight materia slots is too many to ignore, especially since his physical attack is mostly useless anyway.  The prettiest glow is a free heal, next to a save point. I'd get more Dragon Armlets but they're drops from Blue Dragons, not steals.  And now, a boss!  (yoink)  CLOUD's got the Fire Ring, Aurora Armlet, Elemental+Earth, and Elemental+Ranch. Right Breath doesn't hurt, Left Breath and Double Breath are full heals, and Tremor and Left/Right Breath 2 are resisted.  Earth-elemental Tremor is used as a reaction to every 5th hit, and Lightning-elemental Left/Right Breath 2 are on-death counterattacks. Ice T hits the Right head with Comet to make it fall first, as the Left head is CLOUD's source of healing.  By waiting for Schizo to heal CLOUD for me after Tremor, it's easy enough to have enough HP left to survive the on-death attacks. Right Arms and Aqualung are good for killing. It'd be possible to run Schizo out of MP, but the lightning attacks don't use any, and Tremor is too minor of a nuisance to be worth it.  And for that, CLOUD gets enough EXP to make having Aerated be the sole survivor of disc 1's bosses seem like an extremely minor nitpick. NEXT TIME: a wonderful animated gif.
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Aug 27, 2012 16:09
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quote:Hey OFS.   (We suck).
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Aug 27, 2012 16:15
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Elentor posted:Hey OFS. That snowboard game is crazy hard, though. Now I'm going to continue my playthrough (just at the start of Ice Town) to see what time I get. Also, isn't it possible to pair Kjata Materia with Elemental for three immunities at once?
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Aug 27, 2012 16:59
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Man with Hat posted:That snowboard game is crazy hard, though. Now I'm going to continue my playthrough (just at the start of Ice Town) to see what time I get. Not really, no. Kjata just fucks you up (it doesn't return any elemental value).
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Aug 27, 2012 17:04
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Elentor posted:Not really, no. Kjata just fucks you up (it doesn't return any elemental value). Oh. You just saved me a bunch of pain then, thanks! Also 3:31.30 (that's still bad, isn't it?)
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Aug 27, 2012 17:17
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It's probably horrible and we should all be ashamed of ourselves (for talking about it).
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Aug 27, 2012 17:18
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Elentor posted:Hey OFS. I must demand you acquire all Gold Saucer Snowboard ghosts.
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Aug 27, 2012 17:22
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One thing you didn't mention is that the screen where you fight Schizo is one of the few places with the inescapeable battles bug: the game doesn't turn off the "can't run away" flag until you change screens, so if you barely managed to beat the boss battle, are low on items and MP and the RNG is feeling particularily dickish, it's possible to run into an inescapeable Blue Dragon with a half-dead party before you can save.
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Aug 27, 2012 18:15
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Elentor posted:Chapter 60 - Cool Cool Mountain Also, can't you train for the snowboarding game at the Golden Saucer?
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Aug 27, 2012 18:25
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Is that bit of dialogue meant to be the Schizo heads groaning/growling before they attack? Very random boss. Cool to see all the crazy elemental strategies I have never been aware of, anyway. OFS: how long did it take you to go all the way back to Mt Nibel?!
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Aug 27, 2012 18:36
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I believe the minigames at the Gold Saucer are mysteriously broken until you play through whatever event in the game they match up to once. So Snowboarding would be broken until you've snowboarded.
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Aug 27, 2012 18:44
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VagueRant posted:OFS: how long did it take you to go all the way back to Mt Nibel?! About an hour, mostly because of random encounters once I was there.
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Aug 27, 2012 18:44
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Man, it's crazy how loving huge Great Glacier is until it pans back to show you the crater. Question: Is it true that losing the battle against the "Snow" enemy that gives you Alexander doesn't result in a Game Over screen?
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Aug 27, 2012 19:29
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Ugh, those loving Malboros- is there some conditions that have to be met for them to use Bad Breath? The last time I played, I had to sit in a battle with one for about 30 minutes, slowly poking him to adjust his HP levels, before he finally used the drat move. I'm sure if I wasn't hunting the enemy skill and didn't have ribbons equipped, he would've spammed the loving move every turn.
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Aug 27, 2012 19:54
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:I stole a T/S Bomb somewhere along the line so I throw it and it deals around 2300 damage. If I knew that'd work I would've stole more!
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Aug 27, 2012 20:01
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:
When you first mentioned in the thread you spent an hour doing this, I posted that it wasn't necessary but couldn't elaborate because of spoilers. So here's how to easily beat Schizo without any Elemental materias on a LLG. Cloud-Bolt Armlet Someone else-Fire Ring and Aurora Armlet 1. Go have a snack while he uses up all his MP breathing on you. His Quake attack is only used as a counter, and the lightning thing is a final attack, so whoever's protected against Fire and Ice can't die. 2. Phoenix Down on Cloud. 3. Kill him. Only the final attack can be used without MP, so Cloud survives (the other guy will get killed by lightning).
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Aug 27, 2012 20:04
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Schwartzcough posted:Ugh, those loving Malboros- is there some conditions that have to be met for them to use Bad Breath? The last time I played, I had to sit in a battle with one for about 30 minutes, slowly poking him to adjust his HP levels, before he finally used the drat move. I believe it might be tied to its HP, but I'm not sure. I also had a long-ish battle with one (even hasted the drat thing to get it to cast it quicker), before it decided to cast it so I could finally Aqualung it to oblivion. I don't think I'd have the patience to sit there for 30 minutes, though (I think mine took 5 or so). Also, Elentor is using the same party I've just used for Great Glacier. 
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Aug 27, 2012 20:07
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I was about to mention the Icicles are vulnerable to Demi spells, so T/S bombs and a limit break are the fastest way to finish those battles. You probably could have saved a ton of headache there.
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Aug 27, 2012 20:21
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Schwartzcough posted:Ugh, those loving Malboros- is there some conditions that have to be met for them to use Bad Breath? The last time I played, I had to sit in a battle with one for about 30 minutes, slowly poking him to adjust his HP levels, before he finally used the drat move. Malboros actually have quite complicated behaviour. Basically, they have a standard attack, Frozen Beam, that they use most often. Every time they use it, they have a chance to do a special attack the next turn. Which attack that is depends on the turn that the chance comes up: if it's been an odd number of turns since the last special attack, it'll use Bio2 next turn; if even, it'll use Bad Breath (up to a maximum of 3 times a combat). There's also a 1/4 chance for it to just start off with a Bad Breath, which can really ruin your day. The chance of these special attacks depends on its HP: if it has more than 75%, the chance is 1/8; between 50% and 75% makes it 1/6; and less than 50% makes it 1/3. That means that you were probably pretty unlucky if you had it below 50% for most of the fight, not that that's much consolation. There's quite a bit of stuff in FF7 that's more complicated than you'd think. For example, those bats with the icicles evade a quarter of attacks, but it's not because their Df% is 25 - instead, they have a 1/4 chance to set their Df% to 255 for each incoming attack. That means they can even evade Vincent using one of his max-accuracy weapons. Someone put a lot of thought into how to make those bats as annoying as possible.
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Aug 27, 2012 20:54
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Zandar posted:That means they can even evade Vincent using one of his max-accuracy weapons. Someone put a lot of thought into how to make those bats as annoying as possible.
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Aug 27, 2012 21:13
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SCHIZO!  gently caress that drat invisible out-of-nowhere 36,000 HP rear end in a top hat. At least Materia Keeper had the decency to be visible.
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Aug 27, 2012 21:41
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