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Bufuman
Jun 15, 2013

Sleep in the briefing room.
At your own peril.

Glazius posted:

My first reaction to Rikku was some kind of eye-rolling "is now really the time to make promises?" thing, but then I had a think about it and realized she's probably weighing "Find Yuna" against, like, genocide or something.

Why, surely, the faux-Catholic corrupt organization with a patricidal psychopath and one of its four most powerful members wouldn't go and bring down a little ethnic cleansing on a group of people that don't agree with them. You're talking nonsense.

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Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Bufuman posted:

Why, surely, the faux-Catholic corrupt organization with a patricidal psychopath and one of its four most powerful members wouldn't go and bring down a little ethnic cleansing on a group of people that don't agree with them. You're talking nonsense.

Not anymore we killed Seymour

Speedball
Apr 15, 2008

Clearly we need to kill the other three Maesters and also whatever they worship as their God now.

Deep Dish Fuckfest
Sep 6, 2006

Advanced
Computer Touching


Toilet Rascal
Well this IS a jrpg.

Malachite_Dragon
Mar 31, 2010

Weaving Merry Christmas magic
All the best games have you shivving Jesus between the ribs, dont'cha know.

... all my favorite ones actually do, come to think of it. Legend of Dragoon is less shanking god and more going "no gently caress you dad i won't do what you tell me", though.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.

Malachite_Dragon posted:

All the best games have you shivving Jesus between the ribs, dont'cha know

Except the ones where he's in your party.

MechanicalTomPetty
Oct 30, 2011

Runnin' down a dream
That never would come to me

The Dark Id posted:

I'll try to have an update later today or early tomorrow. The desert is a fairly vast area with several points of interest spread between 20 minute stretches of gently caress-all and random battles and I'd like to get through wandering it in a single update before some other anomaly eats my time this weekend.



Fun fact, one year I spent a week up at my grandparents place with nothing but the first 2 Shrek movies and a copy of Drakengard. I made it all the way up to Ending A in between watching both of them, back to back, multiple times because there was gently caress-all else to do.

I shudder to think of what may have happened if I made it to Ending B. :ohdear:

Beefstew
Oct 30, 2010

I told you that story so I could tell you this one...

MechanicalTomPetty posted:

Fun fact, one year I spent a week up at my grandparents place with nothing but the first 2 Shrek movies and a copy of Drakengard. I made it all the way up to Ending A in between watching both of them, back to back, multiple times because there was gently caress-all else to do.

I shudder to think of what may have happened if I made it to Ending B. :ohdear:
The Dark Kid's account spotted.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Speedball posted:

Clearly we need to kill the other three Maesters and also whatever they worship as their God now.

"We can't just kill the head officials of every religion in the world?"
"Why not?"
"... Well now that you've put me on the spot I don't have a good answer to that. I dunno, seems like a bad idea."

Bufuman
Jun 15, 2013

Sleep in the briefing room.
At your own peril.

Malachite_Dragon posted:

All the best games have you shivving Jesus between the ribs, dont'cha know.

... all my favorite ones actually do, come to think of it. Legend of Dragoon is less shanking god and more going "no gently caress you dad i won't do what you tell me", though.

Well, no, there's no god-stabbing in that one. But you DO get to shank Flying Magical Hitler, so that's a plus.

Legend of Dragoon is a weird-rear end game when you really think about it.

Josuke Higashikata
Mar 7, 2013


I'm going to make a JRPG where you play as God and stab 17 year olds.

Malachite_Dragon
Mar 31, 2010

Weaving Merry Christmas magic
So, a particularly mean-spirited game of Black & White?

Josuke Higashikata
Mar 7, 2013


Yes, except your giant animals will naturally be robots that look like Gackt.

(The twist is that you are secretly a 17 year old too)

Bufuman
Jun 15, 2013

Sleep in the briefing room.
At your own peril.
You should also have a religion that worships your god of a character. A shady-looking religion that turns out to be completely benevolent. That donation money that keeps going missing? Actually being used to build an orphanage. That creepy angry-sounding priest is actually the nicest guy in the game.

Omobono
Feb 19, 2013

That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

Bufuman posted:

Why, surely, the faux-Catholic corrupt organization with a patricidal psychopath and one of its four most powerful members wouldn't go and bring down a little ethnic cleansing on a group of people that don't agree with them. You're talking nonsense.

The Wakka stare there? You know he was weighting "Find Yuna" vs "Kill the heathens" and he was pissed Rikku saw through him.

Bufuman posted:

Well, no, there's no god-stabbing in that one. But you DO get to shank Flying Magical Hitler, so that's a plus.

Legend of Dragoon is a weird-rear end game when you really think about it.

Flying Magical Hitler had just hijacked the ritual to become God, it still counts.
I can't believe the sentence I just wrote, by the way.

Malachite_Dragon
Mar 31, 2010

Weaving Merry Christmas magic

Omobono posted:

Flying Magical Hitler had just hijacked the ritual to become God, it still counts.
I can't believe the sentence I just wrote, by the way.

Close, but no :v: he hijacked the super powerful demi-god monster intended to be god's Creation Reset Button.

E: Spoilers just in case.

Malachite_Dragon fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Oct 17, 2015

Geostomp
Oct 22, 2008

Unite: MASH!!
~They've got the bad guys on the run!~

Glazius posted:

My first reaction to Rikku was some kind of eye-rolling "is now really the time to make promises?" thing, but then I had a think about it and realized she's probably weighing "Find Yuna" against, like, genocide or something.

Yeah, this is probably the biggest secret Rikku has and giving it up at all is a great sign of trust for her.


Bufuman posted:

You should also have a religion that worships your god of a character. A shady-looking religion that turns out to be completely benevolent. That donation money that keeps going missing? Actually being used to build an orphanage. That creepy angry-sounding priest is actually the nicest guy in the game.

I'd like to see that. JRPGs have used the "religion/God(s) is secretly evil!!" twist so often that it's become almost as cliche as giant swords. Let the local belief be well meaning for once rather than an allegory for a trite self-determination message.

Derek Barona
Dec 8, 2009

WHO'S YOUR FRIEND?!
Don't forget the Cosmos addendum. If the god or goddess in question really is good and 100% on your side, they'll inevitably end up powerless, dead, or needing a rescue from the evil god by the end of the game.

Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger

Kavak posted:

"Eat poo poo and die" is ruder than "Eat me", but adding "cocksucker" to the former makes it politer. This is fun.

EDIT: Slightly more on topic:



"30" :stare:

What does it take to get a "0" on the impolite-polite scale?

FeyerbrandX
Oct 9, 2012

Keeshhound posted:

"30" :stare:

What does it take to get a "0" on the impolite-polite scale?

"gently caress the loving fuckers" comes so close I can't read what it says.

"gently caress" isn't a complete sentence, but it looks like its the closest to 0 possible.

e: "Screw the goddamned cocksuckers" is proposed as an alternate, and labeled as "contentious" I haven't seen "contentious" before.

e2: Its funny how the site can't comprehend the versitility of that word, other alternatives throw the swears out of proper order. "rear end in a top hat the frakking dickheads"

FeyerbrandX fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Oct 17, 2015

Camel Pimp
May 17, 2008

This poster survived LPing Lunar: Dragon Song. Let's give her a hand.
I personally love how when I put in "you people are jerks" it decided that "men are motherfuckers" was more polite.

dis astranagant
Dec 14, 2006

"Die in a fire!" is more polite than "Die in a fire" but "Die in a hole" is far less polite than either of them :v:

Golden Goat
Aug 2, 2012

You guys are doing it wrong.

Translate all of that into Al Bhed THEN check how polite it is.

Attitude Indicator
Apr 3, 2009



gently caress you and your poetry Seymour

Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger
Interestingly, it seems unable to quantify Catullus 16 beyond "impolite;"

GeneralYeti
Jul 22, 2012

Look at this smug broken asshole.

dis astranagant posted:

"Die in a fire!" is more polite than "Die in a fire" but "Die in a hole" is far less polite than either of them :v:

Proper punctuation is important, after all.

dis astranagant
Dec 14, 2006

Golden Goat posted:

You guys are doing it wrong.

Translate all of that into Al Bhed THEN check how polite it is.

Ayd y pyk uv telgc! he says, neutrally. All caps gibberish seems to always get 12 but it varies wildly with proper caps and punctuation. The lowest I've found is "oval office", which gets a 3. The end of impolite on the bar will be somewhere around 15 if you're not zoomed in.

dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Oct 17, 2015

Stabbey_the_Clown
Sep 21, 2002

Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?
Taco Defender
"Hello, how are you, birdfucker?" is considered polite (76/100). Adding "my good" before birdfucker ups it to 83.

Bufuman
Jun 15, 2013

Sleep in the briefing room.
At your own peril.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

"Hello, how are you, birdfucker?" is considered polite (76/100). Adding "my good" before birdfucker ups it to 83.

Probably just doesn't recognize the word birdfucker. "I appreciate your dicksucking." got a solid 87.

SaitoBatch
Jun 16, 2009

Bufuman posted:

Probably just doesn't recognize the word birdfucker. "I appreciate your dicksucking." got a solid 87.

Everyone appreciates that, whether it be literal or metaphorical.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather
Conversely some perfectly nice and well meaning statements can be considered quite rude. :(


Than again, I guess that can be considered a threat.

Arsonist Daria
Feb 27, 2011

Requiescat in pace.

Air is lava! posted:

Conversely some perfectly nice and well meaning statements can be considered quite rude. :(


Than again, I guess that can be considered a threat.

"Nice grandma you have there, it would be a real shame if something were to happen to her," gets a 71.

The Dark Id
Aug 13, 2005

Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]
Episode LXVI: Journey to My Home


Music: Scorching Desert




Did you know the Playstation 2 was capable of having fairly long draw distances? As long as you were only mostly rendering the level geometry with a very basic texture and perhaps a far off sky-box. Time to exercise that for a bit as we wander the Sanubia Sands desert. But first, a tutorial. Haven't had one of those in a while!







Rikku, being Al Bhed and good with machines, apparently knows everything there is to robots. Including how utterly poo poo their workmanship is under the hood.





As such, using her Steal command on any standard machina enemy will instantly cause it to crumple into a pile of scrap. That's what you get for holding your work bot together with a pair of hand grenades. Anyway, that's the whole tutorial. Wakka hits flying things, Tidus hits fast critters, Auron hits armored jerks, Lulu magics elemental fools, and Rikku one-shots machina. Yuna is on healing and pulling the panic button with summons. Kimahri continues to exist.



Rikku will be following in the field for the duration of this leg of the journey. She doesn't actually do anything handy like give directions to treasure or landmarks. Instead she just kind of lazily follows in Tidus' wake. At least she manages to navigate most geometry successfully, unlike certain NPC followers in other titles I could name.









After the sand dune corridor, the map opens up into a massive empty field with treasure chest scattered to all four corners of the map, a few landmarks of interest, and most importantly an obnoxiously high encounter rate. The earlier monsters all make assorted appearances further into the area. But here a few new rather unique encounters crop up.




Music: Normal Battle




The Zu creature has immediately been downgraded from mid-boss to uncommon random encounter. It's is identical to its early incarnations. Though funny enough, the thing is actually way more of a pain in the rear end having to juggle the rest of the far slower party eating up turns instead of just having Tidus soloing it.

But Zu is old news. Let's see something neat.





It wouldn't be a proper fantasy desert setting if it failed to have a gigantic worm, now would it? Meet the ever creatively named Sand Worm. This beast is a frikkin' mountain of HP. 42,000 points of the hit variety to its name. For reference, that's more than the Crawler tank, one round of Seymour, and the Wendigo combined.

Now you might assume this is just one of those token badass uncommon encounters you're meant to run away from until end game, where you return to wax it for profit and glory. But nope... the Sand Worm actually isn't particularly difficult at all.





First off all, while worms may not have eyes, that doesn't mean they are immune to blinding. No, that doesn't make sense but just roll with it. The Sand Worm's primary means of attack 95% of the time is just bashing people with its beak. So there goes most of its offensive capability. The other 5% of the time they will use Quake. But you have to really, really dawdle forever for it to muster the effort.



On top of being easily blinded, giant sand worms are highly susceptible poisoning. Life in the desert is harsh. If you've forgotten, poison in Final Fantasy X is NO JOKE and will deal 4,500 HP of damage a turn. In addition, it's weak against water elemental attacks so Lulu with Blizzara can dish out around 2500-3000 a turn and Tidus' buffed Brotherhood sword is water elemental and can do from 2,500 to 5,000+ on a critical hit.









The one major thing to worry about with Sand Worms while burning through their pool of health is the Swallow attack. Swallow will... well temporarily swallow a party member. It's effectively like the Eject status where the afflicted teammate will be removed from the battle and their slot left vacant. Battles apparently work on strict tagging out rules it would seem.







Unlike a proper Eject, Swallow will only last 2-3 turns before the party member in question is barfed back out no worse for the wear. Really. It doesn't do any damage or have another other negative status effects.



The only thing to worry about is a swallowed character will receive no AP if the Sand Worm is slain while still trapped in its stomach. Nobody cares if you dealt 2/3rds of the total damage against the beast. If you aren't immediately available for the post-battle celebration, you're worthless to the team.





But all of that is kind of a tedious grind when the reward is only 2,000 AP and a thousand Gil. There's an alternate way to deal with a Sand Worm infestation straight away. We just need Auron to be loaded up with his Overdrive and...



“Remember, walk without rhythm and we won't attract the worm.”



Pfft. gently caress that noise! Auron has better things to do.



There is one more unique uncommon encounter out roaming the desert. This one is far more elusive and deadly than any giant worms.



Behold! The majestic Cactuar. The most dangerous of game: a mascot character. This is a weird battle. Cactuars are flighty little buggers. They have extremely high evasion to the point where Wakka and Tidus are the only two characters with a remote chance of landing a physical hit on 'em and even then they're armored so at best it'll deal around 400-800 HP of damage. Cactuars only have 1,000 HP total.

Magic is also out of the question as the sentient cactus creatures have extremely high resistance. Like only double digit damage from tier 2 spells sort of resistance.





But that if they take a decent amount of damage... or the party takes too long... or it gets a bit chilly out... or it's the wrong time of day... or just gently caress you in general... The Cactuar will book it without warning, leaving the party with nothing to show for their trouble.





Realistically, the best method to slay a Cactuar is to use a non-magical Overdrive on it. Tidus or Auron's ones work quite well. So why would we want to murder a cute little mascot character in the first place, especially one that just will flee if left alone?



Those little sons of bitches are AP pinatas! For reference, the last three boss battles combined gave us 13,830 AP. Cactuar genocide run can lead to some nice power leveling in this area.



That is not to say Cactuars are totally defenseless. They have one lame physical attack where they will ram their spinney faces into one of our crew for around 500 HP of damage. On the other hand, once in a while they'll use 10,000 Needles. What does 10,000 Needles entail?





Well, apparently getting pricked with a needle is equivalent to 1 HP of damage. If you ever wanted a real world baseline for a single HP damage. 10,000 needles involves jamming ten thousand needles into its victim in rapid succession. In this case, Kimahri.





Needless to say... it's a pretty bad scene for the recipient of 10,000 Needles. Indeed, while farting around grinding for a bit I had a Cactuar manage an ambush and wipe my entire party just tripling down on needle streams in rapid succession. Now I don't feel so bad about cutting them open for that sweet, sweet AP juice inside on contact. :v:



A final note. I never played Final Fantasy XI because my general misanthropy cannot abide MMORPGs and also that game seemed bad. But who decided Cactuars needed to be re-imagined as dumpy middle-aged thunder-thigh sporting man-cactus hybrids...? That thing is eerie looking.


Music: Scorching Desert




In any case, if we follow the big red mini-map arrow's general direction northward, we'll eventually come to a fork in the road and a signpost, alongside a welcome save point. Let's see what it says...



poo poo. Feaken fiends. The worst kind! If you cannot puzzle out Al Bhed's remaining mystery characters, there are stronger encounters like the Zu and Sand Worms on the northwestern path and the more common variety scaled toward the northeastern path. We're going to need to hit up both for our completionist sake, even if the handy red arrow IS suggesting the latter path.





The reason being they have stuck an Al Bhed Primer down each trail. To the northeast we discover the hidden truth that [N = R]! Lyhto lunh ec kynpyka dean Rymmufaah lyhto. Kuttysh dannepma!



Yeah yeah. We'll come back this way in a minute...



Doubling back and taking the left trail from the save point reveals a much more interesting looking area with several treasure chests containing such treats as Elixirs we'll never use and the like.



There is an odd crest engraved on a ruin due north... wait no the drat camera keeps shifting west. There's nothing we can do with this at the moment. We'll just have to remember it's there for later.



To the right of those ruins are... more ruins! These contain the second Al Bhed cipher discarded in the desert. Today we find that [X = Q]! Hu uha lyh cdub Sn. Tusehu! HU UHA!



Discovering this Al Bhed Primer also levels up Tidus' rank. That's 16 out of 26 letters deciphered. Not bad, Tidus. You can read Al Bhed at roughly a “took some high school courses + 7 years out from graduation and forgot most of it” level. Which is more than can be said for most of the party.







Doubling back to the northeastern path, we enter another massive open sand field we must trudge across. This one is a bit more linear with just a very wide central field and a few branches to the sides. Some markers in the central area will give a bit of direction.





Candcdormcs do sound quite dangerous. But I'm not sure if I like the sound of Cdrong fiends either. May as well stick with the east to west exploring trend we've been doing.





There is actually very little of note to the east. There is a strange mural of a Cactuar etched into a stone overlooking a valley being ravaged by a sandstorm. But there is precious little we can do about it at the moment.



Indeed, even trying to enter the valley below is off limits at this time. We'll just have to remember this is here for later on. Possibly some sort of end scenario of what some would call a game. Like an end... game? Weird, I know.





In the western part of the map, we find a whirlpool containing a treasure chest containing the Mercury Crest. Try saying that five times fast. The Mercury Crest is an important component of another end game quest. But at the moment it is of little use. We'll just have to remember we collected it.





That is not the only treasure chest discared carelessly near a whirlpool of quicksand that Tidus is stupidly more than willing to dive into for loot. However, not all whirlpools are quite as hospitable as the first one. Indeed, there are three more whirlpools in the area that have fiends taken residency at their bottoms.




Music: Normal Battle




Meet the Sandragora, a much less marketable desert plant creature. As you can see, it has a respectable amount of HP, a weakness to Fire and absorbing Water elemental attacks. I guess Tidus is sitting this one out.





There isn't a lot to say about this one. Obviously, Fire elemental spells are the ticket to taking it down and physical follow-ups not augmented by water don't hurt. Beyond that it is a fairly standard battle.





The mandragora of the sands' primary attack is Seed Burst, which doesn't hit for a whole lot of damage but can cause Confusion. Which if it strikes a beefier party member, can cause issues. Tidus, you'll never get your Affection score up with Lulu if you keep stabbing her in the chest like that.





Enough about desert botany. Defeating the Sandragora and raiding its treasure will result in a new, rare Sphere Grid sphere: the Teleport Sphere. Teleport Spheres will warp a party member's position on the Sphere Grid to any node activated by another party member. So if you decided Yuna ought to get into Black Magic or Kimahri is better off following the path of the Blitzball player for some reason, there you go.





At the far north end of the desert prior to reaching the Al Bhed's Home, there is a mandatory battle against a Sandragora. But meh... we already covered this lame plant. Auron, can you handle this...?





Thanks, buddy.





At long last, our journey across the desert is at its end! This might have seemed like a short area, but it actually took me around an hour and a half to run it dry of points of interest. Desert levels suck. Always.



Alright, let's do this thing. It's been ages since the last time we've seen a proper village on the pilgrimage road. And let's be frank, Guadosalam was a dirty hole of a town. Hopefully with their technology and such, Home will be a lot more hosp—



Eh? What's the problem? Don't tell me we went in the wrong direction or so help me, I will bench you with Kimahri for the rest of of the g—



Oh... Home is on fire and being raided by rampaging monsters. Yeah alright, Rikku. I guess that's a valid reason for concern. Welp! So much for crashing in a half way decent bed for a change...







Sand Worm - Final Fantasy Record Keeper Sprite



Sandragora Concept Art

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Oct 17, 2015

Josuke Higashikata
Mar 7, 2013


For no valid reason, I always saw the FF11 and 14 styled cactuar as sort of spin-off species that my brain associates with Sabotander, the Japanese name.

They are called that quite often in that game, but there's no reason for me thinking they are different.

The traditional cactuar pet in 14 is one of the better minions you can get though. (Ultros is best)

Geostomp
Oct 22, 2008

Unite: MASH!!
~They've got the bad guys on the run!~
Man, everyone's hometown is getting invaded in this game.

Digital Jello
Nov 2, 2012

Now I have a machine gun. Ho! Ho! Ho!
I never played XI, so I can agree with the whole "God drat those things are ugly", but the ones in XIV are fairly cartoony looking and more on par with its predecessors. I think there's one with a twirly mustache too, but my knowledge of the FF mythos is lacking.

Kheldarn
Feb 17, 2011



The Dark Id posted:

Lyhto lunh ec kynpyka dean Rymmufaah lyhto. Kuttysh dannepma!

Oui dyga dryd pylg nekrd huf!

Derek Barona
Dec 8, 2009

WHO'S YOUR FRIEND?!
I finally broke down and cracked open and started playing the factory-sealed copy of FFX-2 I've had for like, six or seven years now but never got around to playing because of reading this thread. I feel like I should feel bad about this.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather
Nah. It's actually a fun game. I hope you enjoy it.

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FeyerbrandX
Oct 9, 2012

Kheldarn posted:

Oui dyga dryd pylg nekrd huf!

I know, right? It's strange how so many people can be so wrong about that.

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