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Eliza, Tricia, Regina
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Oct 2, 2021 20:03
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:24 |
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I'm going to be silly and vote for the sausagefest. Vallery, Hien,
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Oct 2, 2021 20:13
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Magnus because he's Magnus, and Regina and Tricia because we haven't used them yet. 
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Oct 2, 2021 21:03
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Regina, Tricia and Hien.
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Oct 2, 2021 21:08
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Regina, Tricia and Hien.
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Oct 2, 2021 22:29
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Melomane Mallet posted:Magnus because he's Magnus, and Regina and Tricia because we haven't used them yet. Yeah this.
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Oct 2, 2021 22:29
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Eliza Hien Magnus
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Oct 2, 2021 23:32
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Melomane Mallet posted:Magnus because he's Magnus, and Regina and Tricia because we haven't used them yet.  E: Also, I find it kinda funny that Tricia waits until Ludwig is dead to join. Like, how much fighting does the party expect to be doing at this point? As far as they know it's basically cleanup at this point, and then whatever they need to do to activate the spell nullifier thingamajig. She's basically showing up and going, "Hey guys I'm ready to help fight the bad guys! What, you're saying the war is over? Aw shucks, and I was all ready to totally help out, too!" I mean, we all know there's gonna be a final dungeon and a fight with a wannabe God or hellspawn or Eldritch abomination or something because a JRPG doesn't just end with a human antagonist any more, but they think their strongest enemy is dead and everything's a downhill battle from this point. Commander Keene fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Oct 3, 2021 |
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Oct 3, 2021 10:24
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Commander Keene posted:E: Also, I find it kinda funny that Tricia waits until Ludwig is dead to join. Like, how much fighting does the party expect to be doing at this point? As far as they know it's basically cleanup at this point, and then whatever they need to do to activate the spell nullifier thingamajig. She's basically showing up and going, "Hey guys I'm ready to help fight the bad guys! What, you're saying the war is over? Aw shucks, and I was all ready to totally help out, too!" It is pretty lame. It makes her conviction look a lot less sincere. Sure, Eliza makes a point to highlight the fact that Tricia suddenly turning on and fighting against the people she was friends with as of a day or two ago is not an easy thing to do. I can understand that. But having her join the party right after Ludwig is killed and Dulkheim surrenders makes her look like she's just jumping in with the winning team. There had to have been a better way to handle that. I would have preferred to see something like her joining the party earlier, but then making her unselectable for the attack on Fort Eizenvant. I think that would have been a good compromise. She still would have been available to help out in the Ruins, or against Cargill (who I doubt she would have had any reservations against attacking), or for miscellaneous stuff like the Arena, but she wouldn't have had to fight against her former allies right away. Or hell, why not have a scene where she stays behind at the Eizenvant Bridge to help heal wounded Ordinale soldiers? At least in that case she would be shown helping without having to fight.
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Oct 3, 2021 14:12
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Yeah, Tricia joining so late is weird given how the game plays up that keeping up with the code will have her jump ship much earlier. Ludwig's whole bullshit would be easier to swallow if the game didn't keep trying to make him out to be a military genius - he's a loving idiot, Lumis is the only one on that side with a braincell but lacked ambition. If the game went with 'Ludwig isn't that hot militarily, but he's sneakily political and good at capitalizing unrest to climb up the ranks' it feels less forced.
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Oct 3, 2021 16:30
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JamMasterJim posted:Frayne for spellcasting, Eliza for melee zipping around and Vallery complimenting This sounds a lot like what I was thinking, and is probably what I'd do if I was playing. Melomane Mallet posted:Magnus because he's Magnus, and Regina and Tricia because we haven't used them yet. But I like this. Magnus, Regina, Tricia
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Oct 3, 2021 16:42
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Robindaybird posted:Ludwig's whole bullshit would be easier to swallow if the game didn't keep trying to make him out to be a military genius - he's a loving idiot, Lumis is the only one on that side with a braincell but lacked ambition. If the game went with 'Ludwig isn't that hot militarily, but he's sneakily political and good at capitalizing unrest to climb up the ranks' it feels less forced. ~~Rant time!~~ It's a major case of "show, don't tell." We know Lumis is a smart guy, because we've seen multiple instances of him employing tricky or intelligent tactics. He uses the terrain around that misty village and pieces of furniture to obscure Dulkheim's (and the villagers) retreat by slowing down the Death Wing Brigade who think that the volley of arrows and makeshift barricades are a sign of a defence force that has dug itself in for a fight. He also uses a small strike force to circle around the back of a fort while a major battle is happening in order to capture it while it is weak. Then, he uses said fort to launch a surprise attack on the weary Death Wing Brigade when they try and return for rest. Even in that last battle with him, he has Bauer setting up an ambush outside the fort, but then he also has wooden barricades for archers set up on the inside with no allied soldiers near the large open entrance. This allows the archers to pelt any enemies that enter the fort without worrying about friendly fire. Meanwhile, he has the casters and mages positioned around a corner, out of harm's way. But we never seen any of those moments for Ludwig. We're only told about them in passing or meant to assume that he did something super crafty or smart because of stuff he says. Yes, he defeats Iglesias in record time, but they were A) Already on the ropes from a years long battle, B) Without their trump card (the Death Wings) because of Lumis' skills, and C) Did not possess the spells and summoning that Dulkheim did. We don't see the battle take place, but all signs point to Ludwig simply rolling up with summoned monsters and crashing through the remnants of a beaten down enemy. There's nothing impressive about that. Other than that, any other time we see Ludwig actually doing something he's just summoning monsters. That's stuff that Vester basically handed to him on a platter. He never outmaneuvers Valkania (Diana and Muntzer were beating him and pushing into Dulkheim's territory until Valkania declared war on Marquelay-Ordinale). Valkania going to war with Marquelay and Ordinale breaking off to join them was entirely luck. Regardless of whatever strings Cargill pulled with Simmons, Ludwig had absolutely no idea that Valkania would choose to be idiotic and stab Marquelay in the back for no reason. He definitely had no hand in Ordinale breaking off and siding with Marquelay. The game constantly tells us that Ludwig is a military genius, but the only victories we see him score are a result of luck, outside help (Vester, the player's team), or Lumis. If a narrative wants you to buy into a certain lofty idea of someone, then it needs to actually prove it. When you don't prove it, then all you've done is set expectations high, which will inevitably cause the player/reader to be scrutinizing everything that character does.
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Oct 3, 2021 17:35
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I'm personally just content hating him and having Ludwig on the top 10 evil bastard names list. I will never get over the "idk maybe ruin child have kamehamehas in their DNA we can steal?" That apparently fueled the prison segment. Also yeah Tricia joining so late is definitely my biggest issue with this as a remake. I'd have had her aid Remus in breaking her best buddy out and you know being present the rest of the game.
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Oct 3, 2021 17:47
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Well lady is pretty great. Bring Remus, Hien, and Regina!
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Oct 3, 2021 22:23
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Bring Tricia, Magnus, and Hein
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Oct 4, 2021 05:06
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Psycho Knight posted:~~Rant time!~~ I really can't take seriously a villain that unironically declared that all it takes to conquer a continent is having the ambition to conquer the world. Why stop at the world Ludwig? Have the ambition to conquer the whole multiverse, surely you'll get at least a couple galaxies in the failure?
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Oct 4, 2021 12:41
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Update: It's been a very busy week for me, so I haven't had a chance to work on the next update yet. I have recorded a little bit of it, however. The ending choice is sooner than I originally thought, so I think I'll open the voting for that now. The next update will likely be a combination of arena and Bonus Dungeon content. After that, I'll pack everything together for a final story update (or two. It might be too long for a single update). ---Ending Vote--- It is time for the thread to select a character ending from the ones we have available. You only get a single vote, so choose wisely. This is the ending that will be "cannon" for this LP. I will look into the possibility of summarizing the other endings once the LP is finished. Ending Vote Link (Through Strawpoll) Voting will be open for a while, since we still have a cleanup update to get through, so no need to rush. I'm pretty sure I listed every ending that we qualify for, but let me know if it seems like I forgot to include someone.
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Oct 8, 2021 20:18
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Voted for best girl: Magnus
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Oct 8, 2021 23:15
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No VPN voting? How else can I cheat and have Meline win?!
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Oct 9, 2021 01:54
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Did D-MD because the familiars technically mean that in order to 100% this game takes 8 playthroughs.
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Oct 9, 2021 02:27
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McTimmy posted:No VPN voting? How else can I cheat and have Meline win?! That option is doing the lord's work.  MythosDragon posted:Did D-MD because the familiars technically mean that in order to 100% this game takes 8 playthroughs. It's for reasons like this that I may just find a YouTube video with all the endings and summarize using that. Between the familiars and the mutually exclusive endings (for Maggie/Regina/Sydney), you have to do a lot of save scumming and replaying of sections to see everything. Omobono posted:I really can't take seriously a villain that unironically declared that all it takes to conquer a continent is having the ambition to conquer the world. That was a spectacularly dumb moment, yes. I get the basic idea of what was said (that you need to have the ambition to reach for the heavens instead of just the sky), but the way he says it sounded really stupid. MythosDragon posted:Also yeah Tricia joining so late is definitely my biggest issue with this as a remake. I'd have had her aid Remus in breaking her best buddy out and you know being present the rest of the game. It's a weird choice too, since she was created specifically for this updated rerelease. Magnus and Pamela also join fairly late in the game, but at least with them they are showing up throughout the game and doing their own story-important activities while the main characters aren't around. Tricia is a minor character for the Dulkheim section, then disappears for a good 50-60% of the game afterward. The most we get to see of her are some brief visions where she's continuing her training in Dulkheim and going "Hmm, I dunno. Maybe war isn't good?" Robindaybird posted:Ludwig's whole bullshit would be easier to swallow if the game didn't keep trying to make him out to be a military genius - he's a loving idiot, Lumis is the only one on that side with a braincell but lacked ambition. If the game went with 'Ludwig isn't that hot militarily, but he's sneakily political and good at capitalizing unrest to climb up the ranks' it feels less forced. Again, if the game had just shown him doing something, then I could buy into the idea. Otherwise, like you said, they should have slowly shifted the messaging around him to be "Everyone thinks he's a genius, but he's secretly just a lucky snake." If it wasn't for King Valkania doing something supremely stupid, Valkania would have been poised to crush Dulkheim while they were still reorganizing from the Iglesias war, regardless of whether Ludwig was Supreme Commander or President or Super Hitler. Muntzer and Diana were on their way to taking two of Dulkheim's forts and establishing a beachhead. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Oct 9, 2021 |
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Oct 9, 2021 12:07
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Extra Update 5: Unlimited Power! All right, we’ve got a bit of cleanup to do before we finish off this LP. Specifically, we’re going to turn Crevanille into a literal Hellsing-brand Alucard that will cause Vester to piss his pants in fear, instead of simply joking about it.  But first, I had to put together a build for Regina because the thread is apparently dead set on making sure that every single party member gets a chance to fight. There wasn’t much left I could do with a ranged unit, so Regina has been turned into Zombie Regina. Her attacks will reduce the Physical and Holy resistance of enemies. In addition, Angel’s Sacrament will cause her to revive with full HP if she ever gets taken out during battle.  Tricia also needed a build, but hers was a bit easier. She’s just going to cast the most powerful spells she can manage while absolutely obliterating her MP bar. At least, that is what she will attempt to do. Spoiler Alert: She is not going to succeed in this update.  Before we tackle the Arena, we need to go to the bonus dungeon. The bonus dungeon is a complete pain in the rear end, but we thankfully only need to go in there for a little bit. [Well Lady]: Oh man, it feels so good to finally say those words. It’s so much better than I imagined when I was rehearsing this speech. ! …A-Ahem! *The sky then gets dark*  [Well Lady]: If you don’t, you should run. Just keep running. Don’t let anything break your stride, don’t let anything slow you down. Only those who are truly qualified should enter.  [Well Lady]: Don’t you wanna challenge the dungeon maze? Yeah, yeah!?  Yes.[Well Lady]: Yeah! That’s the spirit! Time to get going! Forward, into the maze of adventure!  Welcome to this nightmare. The Well Dungeon consists of 10 floors that are randomly generated. Like most randomly generated dungeons, however, it’s really just a rearranging of samey rooms. One thing you might notice right away is the layout. The rooms are narrow rectangles that are connected by narrow gaps. That is a major problem, but I need to explain a little more about this place before you realize why. The most common enemies in here are those demon things you see in the screenshot, the Lance-type Guardians, and the little imp guys that steal poo poo from you by attacking.  Problem #1: Those narrow gaps that connect the rooms will cause your party to bottleneck. The enemies tend to roam around very close to those gaps as well. That means you are almost guaranteed to trigger a battle while Crevanille is standing in the doorway, blocking the rest of the party from filing into the room. You can try putting on a Stealth spellstone to help with this. In most cases it won’t do anything, but sometimes you will be able to slip the whole party into the room before a battle triggers. Sometimes is better than “never.”  Problem #2: The enemies have ranged attacks, so your party is a sitting duck while stuck in the doorways. The demon enemies have ranged physicals, the Guardians like to use Pierce Strike (which won’t damage their allies, naturally), and the little imp guys like to cast Joint Spells like Meteor (by themselves, of course). The demon guys are also capable of spellcasting and solo Joint Spells. So you might be thinking: Okay, well if the party is stuck behind the lead character, then just have the ones in the back sling spells of their own!  Problem #3: Pretty much every enemy in this godforsaken place is either immune or heavily resistant to spells. The guardians have extremely high magic resistance (except to Lightning, which you can only cast as a Joint Spell), while the demons will outright Null spells most of the time. Spellcasting is essentially worthless inside this place. There is only one specific instance where Tricia will be of use in here (outside of being an out-of-battle healer, I suppose).  The one good thing about this place is that you can earn good EXP from it. If you use EXP Up spellstones, you can rake in between 1000-2000 exp per battle. Don’t bother doing that.  Listen to me when I tell you this: Avoid whatever battles you can and don’t be tempted by Treasure Chests. The treasure chests can rarely cough up good spellstones or items (such as Life/Wisdom/Gale Apples). That said, anything we can get in here can be more easily obtained in the Arena. Besides getting to the bottom floor, the only things you need to keep an eye out for in here are two particular enemies.   The first is this guy. A single low-level Ice spell should be enough to kill it. Be aware that it will attempt to use Retreat after a little while, so make sure you kill it as quickly as possible when you find it. These things are rare, but you only need to kill 1 of them. Thankfully, running up and down the stairs between floors will reset enemies, so there is an easy way to look for it without having to run through the Well Dungeon multiple times.  The other enemy is this little bastard. In my experience, it is much harder to come by than the Gold Soul.  Gold Gel has a Defence of 999 and nearly maxed out spell resistances. It only has 11 HP, but chipping through that 1 HP at a time before it escapes is risky.  Instead, you can try using Thievery with Crevanille (which seems to bypass its Defence to some degree), or you can use Star Shards to have Crevanille pop Sword Dance (which will you need to get before you can use this method, obviously). Sword Dance is probably the safest bet. Like with the Gold Soul, you only need to kill one of these things. DO NOT GRIND FOR THESE IN THE WELL DUNGEON. You will waste an unbelievable amount of time looking for them one at a time when a much easier and more efficient way is about to exist. But we’ll get to that in a second.  Once you take the stairs down on Floor 10, you will reach the depths of the Labyrinth. [Well Lady]: Congratulations!  At which point the Well Lady will float down from the ceiling to greet you. [Well Lady]: Well! You’ve reached the lowest level of the most dangerous labyrinth in all of Noyeval. Are you that good, or are you just really lucky? Either way, amazing work. If someone had to conquer this place, I’m glad it’s you. This treasure chest here is all yours, if you can meet the one… tiny requirement. And if you want out, talk to me. Wouldn’t want to make you walk all the way back!  From now on, the Well Lady will teleport you back outside the dungeon whenever you reach the bottom. Of course, you could always just use the Escape spell at any point in the dungeon and be brought back to the start of Floor 1. Still, it’s good to have options. Now, you will have noticed a few treasure chests scattered about down here. Don’t ask me what is in the middle chest along the back wall. It was already open when I first arrived in here. The chest next to Well Lady contains a Diamond. This adds to our collection of precious stones that we still have not found a use for.   It feels like I can almost open it… Almost. Something’s missing.The two unopened chests on the back wall contain the final Limit Abilities for Vallery and Regina. Like every other final Limit, however, the character needs to have their second Limit before they can acquire it. After another run through the dungeon where Regina managed to pick up her second ability: Grace…   Regina’s second limit is Grace, which heals her for 5% of Max HP multiplied by the number of enemies she has defeated during the battle. Lucky 7 is her final limit and only activates when Regina’s attack on an enemy results in the last digit of their HP hitting 7. With an activation condition as random as that, it must do something pretty awesome, right?  Wrong. Lucky 7 is garbage. “Repeat same action” sounds like it could be exploitable, but the only way to take advantage of it that I can think of is if Regina triggers it after casting a Level 5 Joint Spell. Even then, I don’t know if that works with Lucky 7, since Joint Spells are not a single character action. I should remind you that we’ve had access to Double Strike spellstones for a long time now. It’s also possible to get a Double Strike EX spellstone through the Arena, which gives a character an extra 2 attacks instead of an extra 1.  Anyway, we did what we set out to do in the Well Dungeon. Once you have managed to kill a Gold Soul and a Gold Gel, you can safely ditch the Well Dungeon forever (unless you need to go back and get the Diamond/Final Limits for Regina and Vallery). Next, we head to the Arena.  This is the poo poo, right here. Killing a Gold Gel and a Gold Soul in the Well Dungeon will unlock Bonus Battles against them in the arena. The entry fee is steep, though (30,000 Ril per battle). So, why come to the arena and blow 30 grand per battle when you can go to the Well Dungeon and find Gold Gels for free by having a little patience?  Because 1 arena battle will pit you against 10 of the things at once. Now, something I haven’t explained yet is why the Gold Gels are so important. They don’t pay out much EXP and the money is only enough to cover roughly half of the entry fee (you get about 12k-18k for killing all ten of them with a decent bonus gauge). Well, the thing about Gold Gels is…   You can steal Blessing Bells from them. A team of characters that have the Thievery Knack (or Thief’s Art EX) can swipe anywhere between 1 to 9 Blessing Bells per arena match. More than likely, you will average about 3 or 4 if you manage to hit every Gold Gel before they can flee. Blessing Bells are something I believe I only briefly mentioned at one point in the LP. It’s possible for you to snag one or two of them from treasure chests and enemies in the later half of the game. Those one or two could push a character’s level down by 10 and let them level back up a tiny bit quicker, but that’s small beans compared to what we can do with them now. Let’s take a look.  As previously mentioned (I think), Blessing Bells will reduce a character’s level by 10, but leave their stats and abilities alone. So, now that we can easily farm these bad boys, all we have to do is take… let’s say 6 of them, and then…  Voila! A Level 1 Crevanille with the stats of a Level 60 Crevanille. You can probably guess where this is going.  A quick jaunt outside No Angeles to kill the pathetically weak enemies that live there will result in a small amount of experience.  That small amount of experience is a boatload for Level 1 Crevanille, though. From here, we simply rinse and repeat. Another Blessing Bell will drop Crevanille down to Level 3 and another random battle will pop him back up to 10 or so.  Fear him, for he is your saviour. Now, we could do this with our entire team, but I won’t go that overboard. We only really need Crevanille to be brutally overpowered in order to completely conquer the arena.  Something else you may have noticed is the listing of Exhibition Matches. These matches get unlocked when you use the Homunculus Machine that Maggie created (which you need the Life Stone and Ancient Book for).  Counter clockwise from left = Mercenary King: Wolfgang, Wandering Swordsman: Maximillian (I think?), Growsian Girl: Arieta  Counter clockwise from left = Knight: Wein, Boy: Hans, Imperial Knight: Ernest (I think? Maybe Julia?), Savior of Light: Carmaine  Counter clockwise from top = Gladiator: Xenos (I think?), Shadow Knight: Riviera, Knight: Charlone Exhibition Matches 2 and 3 will pit you against characters from previous Growlanser titles. Some of them are a little hard to recognize because of the sprite work and the fact that many of them face away from the camera. These matches are brutal. First of all, unlike other matches like these where everyone seems to be split into teams, Exhibition Matches 2 and 3 are actually a battle between your party and everyone else at once. Yes, your party of 4 will be the sole targets of the other 10 characters. They won’t fight each other in any way. When the battle begins, the enemy ranged units will immediately start picking off your spellcasters to slow down any spells you might be trying to get out. Meanwhile, every melee character will gun it straight for your team.  The other characters have HP between 800 and 2000+, so they will not be dealt with quickly. I can’t give you much advice for these matches. The best I can tell you is to use as many ranged units as you can (Remus, Vallery, Meline, Regina). Being able to damage the enemy melee units while they approach, as well as attack enemy ranged units and spellcasters who hide out in the back, is a major help. The match will get easier as it goes on. You only need to take out a handful of the enemies before you reach a tipping point. Unfortunately, you need to do this quick, because the match is timed. The other hint I can give, if you plan to try and use spellcasters, is to have your mages cast Invisible on themselves. This will prevent them from being targetable for a while, allowing them to charge their spells.  The reward for clearing this match is that you will be able to teach the ability Concentration to a number of characters equal to the number of enemies you defeated. So, if you manage to beat every enemy, then you can teach Concentration to 10 of your party members. Concentration improves defence while charging spells and is a Level 1 Mastery skill. It’s okay, but nothing amazing. I’m also fairly certain that most of your mages can learn this on their own through spellstones.  Counter clockwise from right = Mysterious Man: Clive, Group Leader: Zion, Mysterious Woman: Barbara  Counter clockwise from top left = Traveler: Slayn, Featherian: Monika, Wind Spirit User: Hugh, Chairman’s Daughter: Annette  Counter clockwise from bottom = Imperial Captain: Orpheus, Moon Spirit User: Yayoi, Wandering Scholar: Viktor, Imperial General: Vincent Exhibition Match 3 is the same as 2, except with Growlanser III characters. You need to fend off 11 boss-level enemies in a limited time for this one. Whatever tactics you used in Match 2 will likely work here. In both cases, I simply had Crevanille pull the aggro of all the melee characters since he now guards 90% of attacks made against him. Regina, Magnus, and Tricia then picked off the ranged and mage units before taking some heat off Crevanille and allowing him to start curb stomping.  The reward for clearing out Exhibition Match 3 is the ability to teach your party members Null Ailments. Not Prevent Ailments, which we’ve been able to learn for some time through spellstone. Null. For as strong as Crevanille currently is, he is still susceptible to poo poo like Death and Petrify. Not so with this skill (once it’s leveled up, anyway).  After that, I go about clearing all the boring stuff in the Arena. 4v4, 2v2, 1v1, Platinum Class, and so on. Here are the kind of rewards you can expect from them: 1v1: Rings. You have a chance at getting the best Ring in the game from the Legend Rank. The Ring is called Xozar Dragon. Once you get your hands on one of them, you can easily clone it using a Duplicate Ring spellstone. 2v2: Items. You can get Blessing Bells, although we already have access to better means of obtaining those now. You can also stock up on Elixir Vitae. Platinum Class: Spellstones. If you get through 8 fights in a row, then you will receive 2 random Level 9 spellstones. Bonus Battle - Soul: Similar to the Gold Gel bonus fight. Souls are weak to Ice, so just cast Level 1 Blizzards on them for easy kills. The Soul Bonus Battle gives solid Exp that is easy than grinding in the Well Dungeon. Creature Conquest: To master this event, your team needs to kill every single enemy. This is simple once you get Sword Dance, as the enemies are weak. Just pop some Star Shards and have Crevanille Sword Dance everything on screen before the other teams have a chance to move. If the Gel enemies manage to survive (they have insane DEF), then fire off another Sword Dance to finish them.  The final rank of the 4v4 battles doles out a special reward. You’ll have a rough time getting it, though. You need to fight: Simmons, Cargill, Norman, and that Dulkheim Captain guy that I can’t remember the name of right now (not Abrams, the other one). In Round 2, it’s: Bryntir, Muntzer, Bauer, and Silverneil. Finally, you need to beat the team of: Alfonse, Chris, Vester, and the Death Wing Leader in Round 3.  This is a tough round to beat before the endgame and without Blessing Bells. Vester and the Death Wing Leader love to Petrify, which is a huge pain to deal with while being wailed on by Chris and Alfonse. Vester is also capable of casting Joint Spells like Tornado by himself, because of course he is. The reward for mastering the 4v4 battles is this:  Seems like a pretty terrible reward, right? Well, the level of this spellstone is a bit deceiving.   The M2 Amulet will add +100 to a character’s STR, DEX, and INT. You can also stack them. They are great for giving instant stat boosts to characters without having to go through the Blessing Bell grind. In a NG+ run, 2 or 3 of them can completely destroy the difficulty of the story until stuff like Blessing Bells become easier to get. Also, because they are such a low level, it only takes a few enemy kills to duplicate them.  When everything in the arena has been mastered, one last challenge will open up.   The final exhibition match pits your team against three others. Team A: Chris, Alfonse, Bryntir, Baker Team B: Simmons, Norman, Muntzer, Diana Team C: Abrams, Cargill, Bauer, Marler  Now, unlike the other two Exhibition Matches, this one is a free-for-all. The different teams will attack each other. Believe it or not, that actually makes this match harder than the other two, at least when it comes to mastering it. See, in order to master this Exhibition Match, your team (Team D) needs to take out every other enemy. If any of the other teams manages to kill someone and score a point, then you won’t be able to master the battle. Some of the weaker characters like Abrams and Cargill will usually start the battle by going after your team. Simmons and Norman, however, will usually try and pick a fight with Alfonse/Bryntir/Chris. Suffice it to say, they will quickly get bodied.  When it comes to the stronger characters, it can be very difficult to keep track of how much health they have lost and roughly how much they may have left. It’s very common for one of them to get picked off while you are fighting them. Joint Spells may be helpful here, but the most important tip I can give for mastering this battle is simply to gun it straight for the weak links as soon as you can. Do not let guys like Simmons, Baker, Norman, and Abrams get caught fighting the Royal Guards, Bauer, or Bryntir for too long. Now, if you are really having a hard time getting all the kills in this mission, there is one way to (sort of) cheese it. It involves a dangerous, forbidden technique…  Here’s the deal: Load Crevanille up with 2 Thorned Powers and an Angel’s Sacrament. Then do all of your buffing and head into the match.  Start out by attacking some of the weaker characters a little bit with the rest of your party. Simmons and Norman will probably eat a hit or two from Chris and Alfonse, but that’s fine. Make sure to use a Star Shard or two on Crevanille. You want him to have almost enough ARP to trigger Sword Dance (10 ARP for the first cast).  Crevanille should be able to wipe out one of the weaker guys with his doubled up Thorned Power. Be aware that he’s going to eat about 300 damage in backlash, though. This kill should trigger Sword Dance.  Sword Dance will proceed to deal a ton of damage to every enemy on the field. Unfortunately, it will also 100% kill the poo poo out of Crevanille due to the backlash damage of Thorned Power.  This is what Angel’s Sacrament is for. See, the backlash damage to Crevanille only kicks in once Sword Dance has resolved. Once Crevanille falls, Angel’s Sacrament will automatically revive him with full HP. With any luck, this devastating attack will wipe some of the weaker enemies and leave the others near death or at least severely weakened.  Now, before the enemies have a chance to capitalize on this, have Crevanille swap out Angel’s Sacrament for Revival Art. Angel’s Sacrament only works once per battle, but Revival Art is a different spellstone, so that won’t apply. It only has a 30% of revival upon death, but that’s better than nothing in the event that this next shot leaves someone still standing.  Now, when Crevanille gets his turn, you are going to want to pop the Knack “Berserk.” See, Berserk increases damage by 50% against the target you use it on. Normally, it leaves Crevanille uncontrollable until either Crevanille or the target is dead. The thing is, you can get around this limitation by having someone throw Star Shards at Crevanille to trigger his Sword Dance ability. Yes, Sword Dance will combine with Berserk. The result is:  999 damage to everything on the screen. This should be enough to fell the remaining fighters when combined with the previous Sword Dance. If anyone is still left alive after this, then there is a 30% chance that Crevanille will revive. If all the enemies die, however, then Crevanille doesn’t officially count as defeated.  He will fall to his knees only after the Mission Complete banner has disappeared.   [MC]: N-No way! Crevanille has come in first or achieved complete domination in every event in this arena!  Aww yeah! The tower of power, too sweet to be sour, funky like a monkey, sky’s the limit and space is the place. [MC]: In praise of his fantastic exploits, we have decided to present Crevanille with three amazing items. Mastering every single thing in the arena will reward you with 3 spellstones: Ultimate Skills, Ultimate Spells, and Ultimate Knacks.  You also get to choose a number of scrolls per the number of enemies you have defeated in the Exhibition Match. These scrolls will teach Spells, Knacks, and Skills to characters you use them on. You can use these to get certain skills on characters that they otherwise cannot learn naturally. For example, you can give Quick Attack to people like Tricia, or Quick Cast to people like Hien and Magnus.  As for the Ultimate spellstones, they teach all available Spells, Knacks, and Skills to a character simultaneously. The only exception is Blast, which you still need the Master Materia for. With that, we’ve cleared all the bonus stuff. There’s just one last little thing to pick up.  We’ve been collecting these precious gems since Dixon gave us our first one (Topaz). Amethyst is acquired from talking to Kate after she finishes her research on the Blast spellstone. You also get Tricia’s final limit ability from talking to Kate, but our Tricia has yet to pick up her second limit. Anyway, we’re still missing one more stone. We’ve got Topaz, Jade, Amethyst, Diamon, and Ruby, but where might our Sapphire be?  To find it, we need to go knock on this lady’s door in Rebrant. Yes.[Woman]: Oh, happy day! Thank you. What I want to ask is… for you to find my husband. He’s a soldier in the Valkania Army. Bargana, my husband, was asked by the Valkania Army to restore an ancient weapon called a spellcannon.  [Woman]: “All my hard work,” he uttered. “But I can fix it again!” he shouted, before running out of the house. *sigh* I’ve heard it said that weapon caused much death… but I don’t care for all that. I just want my husband. I know I’m asking a lot, especially if you lost anyone to that cannon. But please… he’s all I have. I beg you, bring him back safe to me… Looks like a rogue Valkanian soldier has run off to try and fix that busted spellcannon. It’s unlikely that he’d be able to do it by himself, but that doesn’t mean we should let him try.  We head West of Rebrant and towards Fort Baltrick. Inside, we take the southern door that leads up the mountain.  Monsters are here now, but they should be easy to avoid. Keep heading towards the summit by going East and then Northeast.  [Bargana]: I can’t give up until I’ve seen the cannon for myself… whether it was destroyed or not. But even if it was, I have this spare energy cartridge that I created. It can be used to help repair the spellcannon! Then it could still be of use to Valkania…  Bargana heads towards the summit, but is stopped by a big troll monster. Bargana also says “Yes, sir!” just before this happens, for reasons I don’t understand. [Bargana]: Huh!? He tries to run, but several more of the monsters drop down on the paths surrounding him.   This is a straightforward battle. The monsters are pretty beefy, though, so don’t get too careless.   This is going to get dangerous! Listen to our instructions![Bargana]: Ugh, I guess I have no choice. All right, what should I do? We can give three different orders to Bargana: “Come here,” “Defend yourself,” or “Move on your own.” I recommend “Come here!” There is one monster directly in front of the party that you should be able to deal with quickly. A reinforcement will arrive later on, but if you keep a melee unit near the starting location then that shouldn’t be a problem. Having Bargana come towards you is the easiest way to keep the monsters away from him. I send Crevanille and Magnus out after the three monsters on the roads, while Tricia and Regina stay near the starting location in preparation for the reinforcement monster.  Bargana should still be at a safe distance when the new monster shows up. Tricia is unfortunately not, but she can handle herself. Mostly.  As soon as the mission is complete, Bargana will bolt for the summit. The rear end in a top hat…  Yes, we made sure of that when we destroyed it. [Bargana]: And after I had given so much to fix it… Hey, you’re the ones who saved me back there, yeah? I didn’t get a chance to say this before, but… thanks.  [Bargana]: The damage to the spellcannon is too severe--I can’t fix it. Valkania’s end is irreversible. We aren’t here to arrest you. Your wife asked us to come out.[Bargana]: My wife? I see… You should return to her.[Bargana]: You’re right.  [Bargana]: Even then, it was my wife who kept me comfort and supported me. It’s time to return the favor. Thank you for helping me to see, after all these years… If you’re ever in Rebrant, stop on by and say hello, will you? Until then. *Bargana then leaves and we start the trek back to Rebrant for our reward*  [Woman]: I can’t thank you enough… My husband has returned unharmed. And as soon as he got back, he handed in his resignation and went looking for a new job! The only thing he said to me was “sorry.” But I really only care that we’re together… Everyone, I’m in your debt. My husband told me I should give this to you if you came by. *We get a Sapphire* [Woman]: The gem symbolizes wisdom and sincerity, and they say its glow increases proportionally based on one’s purity of heart. I hope that you will be able to find some use for it along your journey. Good luck, and take care. So, we now have all the gems. …What does that mean, you say? Get ready for some BS.  I had to look up what the hell these things were for, since I never found a use for them in my personal playthrough long ago. It turns out that you need to use all six of these gemstones during the final dungeon of the game. Doing so will unlock the final limit ability for…  Yes. Remus’ final limit ability is hidden behind an obscure quest that spans the entirety of the game. Topaz: From Dixon. Sapphire: From knocking on a random NPC’s door in Rebrant near the very end of the game. Amethyst: From going up to Kate’s room and talking to her once the Blast spellstone is complete. Diamond: Final floor of the Well Dungeon, which in itself is a hidden quest. Ruby: Going back to Saudrick around the midpoint of the game and doing that Merchant Escort quest a second time. Jade: Playing hide and seek with the armour merchant’s little brats.  So stupid. There’s a solid chance that you’re not even using Remus in the final party, since there are 9 other party members to pick from. To finish things off, let’s take a brief look into the Appendix. Since we now have all of the battle party members, there’s a neat little set of pictures in there that the thread may enjoy.  Leona apparently likes to doodle. She has a drawing for every battle party member and herself under the Character Gallery section of the Appendix.  Crevanille’s has already been seen. I used it as the update list header image in the table of contents.  Remus has a weirdly drawn mouth for some reason.  Here’s Hien, with Mt. Not Fuji apparently in the background.  Vallery flexes and looks pretty angry. Not sure if that’s how Leona views him or if she’s just having fun.  Magnus is drawn with little birds shooting out of his armpits.  Frayne is drawn with flowers. Leona also managed to draw her weirdly designed future suit.  Eliza is drawn smuggling two watermelons in her dress…. and on her head.  Leona likes fish. Makes sense, since she’s totally not a cat.  Regina legit looks like a blow-up sex doll.  Meline is just… Meline.  And Tricia is farting butterflies while being slowly choked to death by the volleyballs stuck under her chin. That was fun, huh? With all that boring endgame cleanup stuff done, we can finally look forward to the final boss and the thread’s choice of character ending. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 12, 2021 21:24
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That is a lot of power! Remus’ final ability isn't going to be even remotely worth the time and effort, is it...?
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Oct 12, 2021 22:00
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The spellstone Deadeye Shot makes the Well Dungeon infinitely more bearable by letting all of your ranged characters ignore walls. And doubling their range. It's not quite as broken as the spellstone that gave Hans infinite range in 2, but it's very useful for taking out mages that have shoved themselves into a corner of the map.
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Oct 13, 2021 00:20
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Psycho Knight posted:Counter clockwise from right = Mysterious Man: Justin (Possibly?), Group Leader: Zion, Mysterious Woman: Barbara iirc, his name is Clive. I am 99% sure of that, but am out of state until Friday and away from my books, so can't be 100%.
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Oct 13, 2021 01:37
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Melomane Mallet posted:iirc, his name is Clive. I am 99% sure of that, but am out of state until Friday and away from my books, so can't be 100%. Oh, right. I forgot about Clive. Yeah, he would make the most sense to be on a team with Barbara and Zion. I'll correct that when I get the chance, thanks. Ardeem posted:The spellstone Deadeye Shot makes the Well Dungeon infinitely more bearable by letting all of your ranged characters ignore walls. And doubling their range. It's not quite as broken as the spellstone that gave Hans infinite range in 2, but it's very useful for taking out mages that have shoved themselves into a corner of the map. That might make it a little better, but not insanely so. The ranged units don't really have a problem attacking things in that dungeon (since the enemies typically bunch up around the doors), they mainly have a problem dealing heavy damage. You also need to be lucky (or patient) enough to get Deadeye Shot. I never got it in my original playthrough that we are using for the LP file (it would have transferred over like the other stones). I also haven't gotten it during this LP run. vilkacis posted:That is a lot of power! Almost certainly not. We'll find out, though. I never did this in my playthrough, so I'm a little curious to know what the Limit does given how weirdly hidden away it is. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 02:41
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You can get most of Leona's doodles from checking the organize party board during furloughs. I never saw Crev, Remus Hien or Leona herself though despite clicking a thousand times and seeing the others a dozen plus each and Tricia just joined. Also huh, wonder if the file I had to rip from the internet already did that quest and that's why my Remus has had his 3rd limit all game. It's honestly probably the best barring Crev's. Also drat, guess I gotta do all that nonsense now myself. I've given everyone but Crev a blessing bell so far, and I was kinda thinking I wanna see his natural limits.... but yeah I should just use your strats lol.
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Oct 13, 2021 08:54
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Welp, game's over, pack it in everyone.
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Oct 13, 2021 11:24
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NOTE: Ending vote will be closed on Saturday. I'm anticipating having a little free time to record the next section of gameplay on Sunday, so I'll need to know the character ending by then. This still leaves people with another two or three days to participate.MythosDragon posted:You can get most of Leona's doodles from checking the organize party board during furloughs. I'm not sure why that is. Crevanille can't be removed from the party, so swapping a character in would not be the condition for unlocking the doodle. Also, I don't think it's a matter of including Leona in the party with the appropriate character, because I don't think I ever used Leona in my personal save (which this LP file is using the Clear data of). LP Leona has only been in the party with with a handful of the characters, as well. The arena nonsense is made a lot more bearable with the Speed function of the emulator. Doing this all back on the PSP would have likely taken hours. The fact that you need to run from the counter to the arena before every match, then from the arena to the counter after every match, is a huge inconvenience. Also the fact that you need to rest in order to heal up. Your party should be auto-healed after every match. It's not like you would ever not be able to afford the 12 Ril it costs for the arena inn (and even if you couldn't, you can rest for free at the villa, which is like 5 seconds away). Omobono posted:Welp, game's over, pack it in everyone. I did say I would only hold back until the endgame (plus, I'm technically still holding back by not doing this to the entire party). It's possible to get 9 Blessing Bells from the arena almost as soon as it is unlocked. Combine that with the 2 or 3 you get from elsewhere in the game and we could have turned Crevanille into this monster ages ago. Like I said, this game is difficult and frustrating if you are playing for the first time and don't know what you're doing. But it's laughably easy to break if you know what to look out for. For example, the very fact that you can combine Star Shards, Sword Dance, Berserk, and Thorned Power; then cancel the drawback by equipping Angel's Sacrament, is downright stupid.
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Oct 14, 2021 16:28
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I like the doodle art. Except Regina's, hers does look like a sex doll.
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Oct 15, 2021 02:55
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Update 34: Date with Destiny [Marquelay Soldier]: Please come to the castle! Now that our endgame cleanup is done and Crevanille has become an unstoppable nightmare that could vaporize Vester just by sneezing in his direction, we can proceed with the last remaining bits of story. First of all, we are needed at Marquelay Castle.  Also, say goodbye to our good friend “Marquelay Soldier/Messenger.” I’m pretty sure this is the last time he’ll be bringing us the good news from Marquelia.   We officially received Dulkheim’s surrender papers. Taking down Ludwig was the deciding factor. Losing their President and hero broke them.The fact that we captured the bridge and military base right outside their capital in a matter of hours also probably contributed to that spirit breaking. It is all thanks to you. Don’t forget Chris’s part. It was really because Christopher and the others helped us so much. Yes, Christopher’s accomplishments are indeed many. We will help him protect the peace now, though.Oh, right. Something that I was waiting for but apparently never popped up is that we also altered Chris’ fate by altering Alfonse's. Alfonse and Diana both showing up at Fort Eizenvant is what saves Chris’ life. If Alfonse dies, then Diana gets overwhelmed at one point and knocked out of the fight, leaving Chris to fend off all the Dulkheim soldiers by himself. After the battle, his vague illness kicks in and finishes the job. It is still possible to save him through an obscure (and time sensitive) side quest, but it requires you to poke around and find a cure for his illness. If you save Alfonse, then Chris’ fate is automatically changed and he survives the battle at Eizenvant (probably because he doesn't put nearly as much strain on his body). I think the reason why we didn’t get a prompt for that is because Chris and Alfonse share the same slot in the Fate list. Princess, it is time for the meeting. What about Dulkheim’s spellcannon? General Baker, if you will. When we pressed them on it, they told us they were creating it inside Mt. Eizenvant. Technically, the weapon was more a high-angle summon cannon. But it wasn’t finished before the war ended. Why’s it so special? It is apparently different from Valkania’s spellcannon, as it does not directly destroy its target. That doesn’t sound dangerous at all. Why are we not already on our way to break this thing? It’s that kind of weapon. We shall have to dismantle it completely eventually. I will bring it up at our meetings.Uh, no. We should go and destroy that immediately. What the gently caress is wrong with all of you where you think a WMD is a matter best settled during meetings and political wrangling? ”Well, Peace Walker was only 90% complete. We’ll just leave it in the hands of the country that surrendered while we are forcing them to adopt a completely new, and lopsided against them, form of government. It’ll be fine. We’ll get around to taking it apart eventually.”   And I’m sure that will go swimmingly. After all, who would elect someone promising to maintain Marquelay’s grip on this new senate in order to keep the superpowers that tried to destroy them under thumb? No way that would find any traction amongst the populace, I’m sure.  Morons. Anyway, let’s head back to No Angeles and wait around for that spellcannon to bite everyone in the rear end, despite how easy it would be for us to just go and destroy it. Not like we have an entire network of Fast Travel points or anything.  There’s some time before the Spell Nullifier is completed, so rest seems a wise option. I agree. We should take a break so that Master will be in peak condition.Pfft, Master is already in peak condition. Have you looked at his stats lately? We should go talk to Sydney at once.Might as well. Off to No Angeles!   Ah, so you’re taking a quick rest before going about the eradication of all spells? That’s a good idea! Miss Maggie informed me that what she’s working on will be done the day after tomorrow. Please enjoy the whole day! Well then, where would you like to go on furlough?Even though we get a choice between Marquelia and No Angeles, this isn’t a true vacation/furlough. This is the moment where you decide on a character ending (or lack thereof). In the case of the LP, I put it up for a thread vote. Out of all the character endings we qualified for, the thread was tasked with voting for one of them. I’ll do my best to summarize the rest after the LP is finished, but the one that came out on top in the vote is what the LP will canonically finish with. No Angeles. Understood. I’ll note that location for tomorrow.We’re going to pick No Angeles, purely because there’s more stuff to do there. Marquelia doesn’t exactly have a bustling nightlife (as far as we’ve seen, anyway). Admirable work, everyone.Everyone heads off to their rooms and we follow as soon as we’re able.   In addition to swapping Yuni back to her vacation costume one last time, I also pop a save. I’ll need to keep this safe, in case I need to reload this for character ending/final date summaries. You also might notice that Yuni’s stats are getting up there. She only has two skills remaining which haven’t been mastered: Bargaining and Revenge. Both of those are sitting at Level 4, right now. I could work on having her max all her stats, but I don’t think there’s any reason to do so. As far as I’m aware, she doesn’t get anything for complete mastery.  After hitting the hay on the final vacation day, Crevanille will find himself feeling a bit restless during the night.  Master, can’t you sleep?*Yuni floats over* I’ve decided I don’t want to go through war ever again. We’ve fought for so long… and lost so much… Melvin…   Can you think of anyone you’d want to spend your last moments with…? …… Well… I’m going to sleep now, too. Good night, Master. Right away, we’re presented with the choice to talk to Yuni. Doing so will lead us towards her ending.  But that’s not happening. Yuni got some votes, but not nearly enough to win. Now, before we move on with the actual top-voted person, I want to mention something about the Familiar Route. Familiars have one last costume in the game that is only unlocked by going with their character ending. In the case of Yuni, we would have unlocked this:  As far as I know, there is no way to use this elsewhere in the game. Even after unlocking it in the character gallery by temporarily going down Yuni’s route, the costume is not unlocked across my other saves. So it looks like Yuni will be back in her trusty Costume H once this is done with.  Moving on.  How the endings work is that you go up to the door of the character you want an ending for during the night of the final furlough. If you knock on the door and they don’t answer, then it means you didn’t fulfill the requirements for their ending. If they do answer, then…   Eliza won by a handful of votes. I believe Tricia came in second. Vallery, Pamela, Alicia, Hien, and Diana were the only ones to not get any votes at all. Even “Nobody” got a vote, for crying out loud. That saddens me, since I liked Pamela… Oh well, nothing to do about it now.  And you’ve seen it all from almost the beginning. I can’t imagine how hard that was.Personally, even though I do like Eliza, I see her as kind of the “safe” choice. Not quite the vanilla choice (that’s Frayne, in my opinion), but also not an unexpected or bold one. Do you remember the night we talked, before we saved my father? I didn’t know whether I could do it. But then you said this to me: You have this way of making me feel… safe, every time I look at you. Like I can do anything when you’re with me.Maxed out stats and tenuously stable spellstone combinations will do that. There was something else we talked about that night--about how I felt, and what I couldn’t say. So… how about you? Do you… feel the same way about me?For some insane reason, you get the option here to either embrace her or walk away. Listen, game: If you want to give the player an opportunity to back out from a choice like this, then do it before the heartfelt confession/reminiscing takes place. Then again, I guess this isn’t very surprising. We’re talking about the same game where we could have driven Yuni’s successor to magic fairy suicide.  Thank you, Crevanille… Whatever happens, stay with me… always.*Fade to black*  Now, when you say, “just you and me”… Yeah, Yuni can get some rest. I can’t be alone with you if she’s around.I wonder how she’ll react to that? She can be a little… territorial. When you’re ready… Now that we’ve made our choice for character ending, it’s time to go out on a grand date. No jumping around between multiple characters, just you and the object of your affection, admiration, weird sexual lust, or crazed desire for 100% completion.  Levan will catch us as we try and sneak out. Yep. Crevanille and I have got ourselves a date.[Levan]: What!? Mr. Crevanille… Uh-oh. You’re not mad, are you?[Levan]: Mr. Crevanille… take good care of Miss Eliza. I have served her since she was born, but never has she opened her heart to anyone but you. Please, cherish her… Really? She at least seemed to be on friendly terms with Chris and Alfonse. Levan, you’re overdoing it…[Levan]: Not at all, Miss Eliza. For there will never be another like Mr. Crevanille… And the world should probably be relieved about that. …Yeah, I know that, Levan. Oh, can I ask you to take care of Yuni?[Levan]: Yes, of course. I’ll explain the situation to her. Please, enjoy yourselves. *Levan leaves*  First, we’ll hit the theatre, then the restaurant. Let’s go! How about it? How’re we doing? I’m having fun.The fact that you had a plan done up in advance is a little disconcerting, but yeah, it’s going good so far. Notably, we could also respond with “It’s nice and free.” Don’t be a penny-pincher, Crevanille. I know I’m usually the one to hoard money, but in this case we’re sitting on nearly 1 million Ril that we’re never going to use. Nearly everything we could ever want is in the Arena. Really? Ah, good. I’ve never really planned social activities. Well, I’ve planned the stuffy ones, but never the fun ones. And you’re the last person I want to disappoint. I want to be able to say, “We had some great times together.” And not just that… Be careful, because old age really sneaks up on you, judging by Hien (remember: He's supposed to be 45. Only 27-28 years older than Eliza and Crevanille, the teenagers).  We’ll just have to see it again. You asking me out again? I accept! Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s go eat!Food time! Food time is the best time. Well, maybe not quite as much as sleep time.  You and I went to different places, we met all kinds of people… and we saw that everyone has their good and bad points, and that people are people wherever you go, know what I mean? I never would’ve learned all that if I’d stayed in Iglesias, or all cooped up in the villa. You helped me figure it out. You’ve really grown up. Ha! Levan told me the same thing. But I’ve got a long ways to go, still. And you’ve been right there with me this whole time. I just hope you’ll stick around.*After a presumably lovely dinner*  There are three responses here: “Right when we first met”, “Since you got tough and cut your hair”, and “Since we saved your parents.” Not sure when the people who voted for Eliza really latched on to her, but I will assume it was when she showed up with punching swords. Since you got tough and cut your hair. Ah. Everyone was so worried about me back then. But I’m not some helpless rich girl anymore. I don’t even miss the old hair. Before that, I’d have gone with my parents gladly. But just then, I wanted to be with you instead. And that’s when I figured it out. So… what do you say we spend a little more time together?*Crevanille and Eliza walk to the left a little bit, in front of some flowers* How long have I been in the villa? I used to think when the war was over, there’d be no more reason for me to be here. But now, I want to stick around… When I first came here, I hated it, and I wanted to be with my parents. But now, it’s full of memories of you… *They embrace* ‘Course, if you’d rather be somewhere else, we can talk about that, too… But just don’t go without me. You’ve gotta stay close to me. That’s the rule. Hah. Make it a promise?Sure thing! …Rrright after the final battle is done. You sort of weren’t voted into the final party, so… *The scene fades out on Crevanille and Eliza embracing. When it fades back in…*   We have a present for you!Present!?  You’ve done so much for us. We all got together to choose it!*Frayne walks forward* Here you are. Oh! It’s… uh… one of those snake oil ionized bracelet things… Mel scammed you into this, didn’t she? What did she get you for, a hundred bucks? Two? It’s not an everyday item, really, but we thought it would look good on you. Thank you so much. For everything. Don’t make it sound like it’s the end! Thank you, now and forever! It’s just as Leona says. I knew it. It looks perfect! Hah, I knew it! Looks good on you. I helped pick it out, too. Though the time we spent together was short, I love you as much as anyone! All right, now that the mushy stuff is over, let’s turn in! You’re right. Guess it’s time for bed. Good night! Everyone heads off to their respective rooms. Pamela and Maggie were weirdly quiet, though. I wonder what’s up? Maybe they were standing back there rolling their scientist eyes at the stupid friendship bracelet.  Yes.They’re a weird bunch, but I can’t deny that they are fun. At the very least I don’t hate any of them to the same extent as certain characters in my other LPs. Even Meline. Anyway, the scene fades out as soon as we answer Yuni. We aren’t gone long before a knock comes on Crevanille’s door, however. Huh? Who could it be at this hour? Please, enter.*Maggie and Pamela enter*  Now we can rid the world of spells. Can we use it right away? A little quick on the trigger there. We can’t just use this anywhere we want. I mean, the Nullifier works, but its range is limited. It needs to be set up in a good location to reach as far as possible. Where should we go? That’s convenient. Ancient machines that were used to collect chi have been found in the area, so this is likely. Using the Spell Nullifier from the peak should efficiently collect chi and prevent spells from being cast again.I think this is the first time that any reference has been made to the energy in this world that powers spells. So, we have to carry this there. Yes, I’m afraid so. There’s something I need to tell you before you go use this. Is there a problem? Yes, unfortunately.That’s never a good thing to hear. I wasn’t sure whether to say something or not, but I’ve decided to now. Something will affect just Master and me? I think it will do something to Leona, too. She might go back to where she came from, or she might stay here… She shouldn’t die, though. Things are more serious in the case of you two. Oh… You will undoubtedly disappear. And not just your Familiar, but you, too, Crevanille. This device was made using the memories that were found in Akyel’s Memory Gem. Remember? Akyel’s memories… I’m talking in circles. Let me explain what I mean. Recall that you are made up of a certain portion of Angel essence. This essence is what the device will be drawing out of the world. Oh… That means… You may not just up and vanish, but we doubt things will go smoothly, or that you will be completely safe. Crevanille, please think about this. Are you still going to use the Spell Nullifier? Yes.Don’t really have much of a choice, if that future vision from Akyel was anything to go by. You’re right, Master. We must do this. And I will be with you till the end! All right then… Take the device.*We obtain the Spell Nullifier*  Once you decide, though, it should be easy to use. You need only pull this lever when you get to the peak. We were able to apply the same principles to it as we did the Modified IntRod, so it should be safe to use. We’re counting on your, Crevanille.Then the scene fades out. Well, that was certainly a bummer, wasn’t it? Crevanille isn’t guaranteed to disappear, but Yuni’s fate seems to be sealed and Leona’s is completely up in the air.  But we’re not done with things taking a sudden turn for the worse. Time to see what Vester has been up to since we last saw him Thanos’ing some Dulkheim soldiers.  Master Vester, we’re done with our preparations. The summon cannon should be completely usable. Let us fire it at once, then! The first shot should be sent south, just between Marquelay and Ordinale. The second one should go north, southwest of Fandelcia. Of course. Do not miss. The gates we open within those areas will act like a tuning fork. This area will become the primary focal point of our actions. Target coordinates are calculated. Fire! There’s no fancy cutscene for this one. The scene just fades to black and then we find ourselves waking up in the morning to Remus freaking the gently caress out. We should get more information about this. Come on, everyone is downstairs. Let’s go find out what the consequences were for everyone’s laissez-faire attitude towards the WMD they decided to ignore.  Looks like we do get to hear from the castle messenger again, after all. [Messenger]: Yes, sir! Two shots from a long-distance cannon were fired from Dulkheim: one at Marquelay, and one towards Fandelcia! Wait, though--Dulkheim? I don’t get it. Didn’t they surrender? It’s Vester. *Crevanille actually explains one of his Foresights to the group. Hallelujah!* Oh my… Oh, no… The summon cannon is something that fires crystals infused with summoning spells, right? After the crystal lands, gates will open and beasts will be continually summoned from them. TWO attacks like this were launched? With one of them close to Fandelcia… What’s the current situation? [Messenger]: However, beasts are spewing forth from the gates, and General Baker is on his way to deal with them. There’s no doubt that the gates are open, then… I wonder what’s happening in Iglesias… I’m more afraid of what Vester’s next move is… And I want to save my sister, Cynthia, too. Vester’s the cause of this. If we don’t stop him, the problem won’t really be solved. Should we defeat Vester up on Mt. Eizenvant, or go deal with the summoning crystals? Once you decide on the party, it’s your call.At this point, you need to put together a team. Not sure why they are getting us to do this again, when we already had a party in place, but whatever. The thread already voted for Regina, Magnus, and Tricia.  Now, we could head straight to Mt. Eizenvant and go after Vester, but considering we have a network of fast-travel points that could lickety-split us straight to Fandelcia, it might be a good idea to handle the monster invasion currently taking place. Shutting down those summoning crystals might also hinder Vester’s plan a little bit.  We’ll deal with Fandelcia first, then go hunt down the crystal near Ordinale. These missions are technically optional, so if you don’t intend to do them then just head for Eizenvant Bridge. If you do intend to do them, then make sure to buff up before teleporting to Fandelcia.  Don’t ask me how this works if you didn’t do Eliza’s character quest. I assume you will need to head to Riesel and get a boat from there, as we had to do before we set up the Transgate.  Oh, hey! Chris is here! …Somehow. [Dulkheim Soldier #1]: R-Right!  Christopher? Your presence is unexpected. Oh, it’s you guys! I was in the neighborhood on business, and then this happened. So I got here as fast as I could. Listen, help me out. We can’t let them into the city. I bet if we get rid of that pillar, we’ll stop the summoning! A straightforward mission, although the presence of NPCs could complicate it. The Dulkheim soldiers are sitting ducks. Christopher should be easy to keep alive, though. I'm also just now wondering what happens if Chris is dead by this point. This mission might be more difficult if he's not around to help fight off the monsters.  There is a “new” monster on the field, although it’s basically just a recolour of the summoned beasts we fought outside Trockmere and on Mt. Baltric.  The summoning crystal doesn’t have any attacks, but it will constantly spawn reinforcements as the battle goes on. It also absorbs nearly all forms of magic, so don’t even bother trying.  The good news for this mission is that the field is very wide and open. Have your strongest melee character (Crevanille. I’m talking about Crevanille) pop dash and plot a route around the enemies to the summon crystal. Everyone else should be focused on fighting off the monsters near Chris and the Dulkheim soldiers. Make sure you also watch out for any monsters trying to make a break for Fandelcia itself. The mission is over if they reach the city gate.  The crystal is not super strong. I’m not sure of its exact health, but one attack from Crevanille is enough to destroy it, so it has less than 999 HP. We have destroyed the crystal. The summoning circle has disappeared! However, the creatures remain. Please dispatch them as you see fit, Master.Sword Dance, got it.  Killing the summon crystal gives Crevanille the ARP he needs for Sword Dance, which gibs everything still left alive. In case it wasn’t obvious, we could have just had Crevanille do that from the moment we arrived and ended the mission without taking a single step, but where’s the fun in that, right? The city is now safe. Here. As a “thank you.” Careful. It’s valuable.*We obtain the Coat of Ys* Use it wisely. Well, I’d better get moving.*Chris and the soldiers leave for the city* I’m glad we were able to protect Fandelcia. Coat of Ys is the ultimate armour for Magnus. That’s one summon crystal down, one to go.  For the second crystal, we have a few options for approach. I would recommend just heading north from No Angeles, though. Our destination is the entrance to Ordinale Cave.  When you get here, stop and do your usual buffing.   Everyone! You’ve come after all!Of course! We can’t trust you to handle this. You can’t even protect the goddamn harbour that’s 10 feet from the castle without our direct involvement. Baker! It appears the crystal pillar is summoning the monsters. I suspect destroying it will stop the summoning, but… Master! Let us aid Baker in destroying that crystal! Please, make sure no monsters make it to Marquelia!Mostly the same conditions as in Fandelcia, except that Baker isn’t as powerful as Chris and the route to the crystal is a lot more narrow. As far as I know, you can approach this mission from three directions. You can start where we currently are by heading north from Marquelia/No Angeles. You can start closer to Baker and the soldiers by going to Ordinale and then back through the cave. You should also be able to teleport to Sunsail and then head south to start closer to the summoning crystal. I prefer this starting point, however. Going through Ordinale cave is not worth it for the slight difference in starting distance. As for Sunsail, getting to the summoned crystal faster and with less resistance is nice, but you leave Baker and the Marquelay soldiers without backup since you’ll start on the other side of all the enemies. You also risk some of the monsters breaking off and making a run for Marquelia.  Send most of your units after the monsters near Baker, as he’ll need some help. While that is happening, you should be able to slip Crevanille through the trees in the south.  Crevanille will face a bit of resistance on his approach, because two of the monsters tend to remain near the crystal and cast spells. You should still have an open shot at the crystal, though.  For whatever reason, this crystal seems to be a bit hardier than the one in Fandelcia. Crevanille doles out 1570 damage before it gets destroyed, meaning that is has anywhere between 1000 and 1570 HP. The summoning circle has disappeared! All that’s left is to defeat the remaining monsters! Crevanille then kills one summoned beast and automatically Sword Dances the rest. Good stuff.  …That reminds me. This is but a small token of appreciation, but it may prove useful to you.*We obtain Holy Shroud! …Which we already had!* I shall return to Marquelay Castle to make my report. Holy Shroud is the ultimate armour for Tricia. She already started with this available to her in our playthrough. I guess I must have done this mission in my personal file but never bothered equipping the armour to her. Weird.  Oh well. We have saved Fandelcia and Marquelay from the summoning crystals, so now we have to hit Vester before he can set everything back up. Off to Eizenvant Bridge!  Then we head west, where we find the crossroads to Dulkhen and Mt. Eizenvant. To the mountain!  Do you idiots not realize the danger we’re all in right now?!  And before you start, yes, these soldiers do know that the spellcannon on Mt. Eizenvant is being fired. One of the other soldiers standing in this blockade directly mentions it.  One of the soldiers will mention that there is an alternate route to Mt. Eizenvant, though. God forbid we just be allowed to take the main road, though. Wouldn’t want world saving to be easy, now would we?  Head southwest from the blockade and into the next field.  This is a large area, but I would recommend sticking to the edge of the lake and circling around. The fields to the south have some lesser demons and spectres floating around, but nothing in the way of items or points of interest.  After circling around the lake to the west, hook north and keep going to the next screen. Ignore the desire to explore the west side of this screen, as there is nothing important there. Keep going north along the lake.  You’ll eventually hit a group of enemies. They should be easy to slip past if you see them, but they tend to sneak up on you, so a battle is likely. Once they are dealt with (or you have spotted them), work your way northwest.  Up this little cliff and to the left is the next field.  Keep going west.  When you can, hook north to reach our destination.  To the west of this entrance is a treasure chest (with nearby enemies) that contains a True Power Up spellstone. It’s not that great. It just periodically bumps a character’s attack by 5 during a battle (to a limit of 255). You are better off just using an M2 stone. You might notice the faded outline of a transgate in the upper right of that screenshot. Unfortunately, examining it will reveal that it doesn’t appear to be working. A shame.  Only one way left to go. Next time: We tackle another crappy cave dungeon where we can’t see poo poo. Yay! Also, there may or may not be a big epic final battle. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Oct 19, 2021 |
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Oct 19, 2021 17:54
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Psycho Knight posted:Also, there may or may not be a big epic final battle. By that you mean, Vester may or may not simply commit suicide at the sight of your Crevanille. Probably not, moron's too arrogant to know when to quit. E: I can't blame Marquelay for not dismantling the cannon ASAP, they have Hellsing Abdirged Omobono fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Oct 19, 2021 |
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Oct 19, 2021 18:19
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Rip Yuni, both for my vote, and this stuff I have no memory of since I only actually beat the game on my first play a decade ago.
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Oct 19, 2021 19:27
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Omobono posted:By that you mean, Vester may or may not simply commit suicide at the sight of your Crevanille. If memory serves, Vester might actually have a non-zero chance of at least forcing me to restart the final battle. He obviously has no chance of winning, because Crevanille shrugs off every form of attack made against him at this point (I could also give him a Dispel stone so that he is permanently immune to magic, if I felt like really making him indestructible). But there is a tiny... "condition" that we need to meet which could be a problem if Crevanille's destructive power gets away from me. It's sort of a similar situation to how I had to restrain him during that update with the Tricia and Cargill battles so that he didn't immediately erase everything in his sight. MythosDragon posted:Rip Yuni, both for my vote, and this stuff I have no memory of since I only actually beat the game on my first play a decade ago. I'm surprised by how much I still remember. Or, at the very least, how much has come back to me as I have played. I was able to do a lot of the character quests from memory. I also remembered most of the tricks that certain missions pull without having to do to a trial run. That said, I initially had no memory of those gem stones, which is why I first started talking about them possibly being used in the Ruins of Hope. I also had to follow a guide for Yuni's costumes, because I had forgotten where most of the Familiar costumes were hidden/the time frame you had to acquire them.
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Oct 20, 2021 01:10
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Growlanser 6 has been released! It's apparently not been 100%ed, but it's drat close.
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Oct 22, 2021 07:57
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MythosDragon posted:Growlanser 6 has been released! Well, poo poo. Is it standalone or a Growlanser 2 case (following up on a previous entry)? Cause I do not remember almost anything about 5.
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Oct 22, 2021 09:11
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JamMasterJim posted:Well, poo poo. It's a direct sequel to 5.
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Oct 22, 2021 17:46
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On a continent and with a new protag. So it's likely designed to be played by new players, who will then have interest in 5 like most games like this.
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Oct 22, 2021 17:53
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Getting ready to post the last two updates. Just testing to see if I could push this to the next page.MythosDragon posted:Growlanser 6 has been released! Good to hear. Not sure I'll have the time to play through it anytime soon, but at least it's out there.
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Oct 23, 2021 13:59
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Please let's get to a new page
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Oct 23, 2021 14:55
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