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nullPointer
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by nullPointer Wed Mar 28, 2018 12:44 pm

Ack wrote:Hey null, do you know about the special summon and Ultima? If you absolutely, positively must do everything, they are part of the experience.

Good call! I did manage to snag Ultima through Luso's Game Hunter learning ability, and then later (much later than I meant to actually) I had him cast it on Ramza so he could learn it as well. From what I could tell, the common wisdom seems to be to try and learn it during the battle at Riovannes where you're tasked with keeping Rapha alive, but her AI is so aggressive that she kept on dying before I could actually acquire the spell. I think I learned it in a later battle with those same assassins from Riovannes.

I don't have that special summon (Zodiac I believe?) ... yet. My understanding is that you can learn it from the superboss in the lowest level of the optional Midlight (AKA Deep) Dungeon (which I think is my next task and as far as I know the last optional side quest to complete). I have to admit though, I haven't gotten a whole lot of mileage out of the summons in this game (particularly as compared to other FF games), due to the fact that the more powerful summons have relatively high casting times. Once my other Mage learned all the Arithmetician skills I started using him almost exclusively for my mage slot and all but abandoned my Summoner in training. So when I embark into Midlight Dungeon I'll probably use Summoner as the primary class on my Artithmetician in an attempt to learn that special summon. We'll see how it goes! Do you know if this dungeon allows (or prompts) you to save in between floors? That might have an impact on my approach strategy.

For the bulk of Chapter IV my 'secret weapon' has been to just send in Orlandeau (AKA the Thunder God :lol:) to plow through anything set before him. Seriously, between the fact that his learned abilities are laughably OP and he comes equipped with Excalibur which grants him permanent Haste effects ... he deals exclusively in the currency of death. :twisted: It also certainly doesn't hurt that his portrait makes him look like Obi Wan Kenobi.

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nullPointer
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by nullPointer Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:46 pm

I'm a few days behind on posting an update, but I did in fact mange to thoroughly plunder the depths of Midlight's Deep in FFT:WotL. In terms of opposing forces, I really didn't have much trouble at this point in the game. As I mentioned in my previous post, both Ramza (dual wielding Dark Knight) and Orlandeau (Sword Saint) are incredibly effective melee combatants and my Summoner-Arithmetician hangs back and spams Flare against whatever he can hit (ideally while avoiding friendly fire casualties). Balthier (Sky Pirate) is likewise an effective long range combatant when combining his pistol usage with his learned Barrage ability (he also served as my 'item dispenser' due to the number of opponents in this dungeon utilizing powerful status effects). Lastly in this dungeon plundering roster was Rapha (Thief) serving as both Thief and Treasure Hunter (and equipped with invisibility gear to keep her mostly out of combat). This lineup served me well, and I was able to retrieve most of the rare artifacts I set out to find.

I should mention that I shamelessly used online maps in this section due to the fact that the entire dungeon is pitch black, all treasure locations are invisible (although this holds true in all of the game), and the (also invisible) exit locations are randomized between four different locations per floor (of which there are ten). So while I was expecting some stronger resistance in terms of enemy forces, it actually turned out that the trickiest part about this dungeon was simply finding all the stuff. The final boss of the dungeon (Elidibus) presented some interesting challenges due to his largely unavoidable Poison Toad status effect (which unsurprisingly doubles up both Poison and Toad statuses). That part certainly kept my Item dispenser busy! In fact, the only losing battle I had in the whole dungeon was during my first encounter with Eldibus in which he turned my entire party into Toads (an effect which lasts for the duration of battle). After that defeat I reequipped both my Item guy and my Summoner with gear that grants immunity to Toad. That way the Item dispenser could be Johnny-on-the-spot with the Maiden's Kisses, and hopefully the Summoner could learn the Zodiark summon (which he eventually did). From there it was a relatively simple task to completely break Eldibus.

All told, this 'superboss' encounter was no where near as difficult as 'superbosses' appearing in other Final Fantasy games. Now my units are most likely super-duper over prepared for the last few battles in the game, but I'm glad I took the time for side quests in this one. There were definitely some fun surprises to be found.
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by BoneSnapDeez Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:21 pm

I'm glad it's taking you this long to finish the game. Makes me feel good. I'm playing Final Fantasy right now and will probably be on it for 4 weeks.
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nullPointer
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by nullPointer Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:45 pm

BoneSnapDeez wrote:I'm glad it's taking you this long to finish the game. Makes me feel good. I'm playing Final Fantasy right now and will probably be on it for 4 weeks.

Hah, yeah on one hand I tell myself that, 'this is my portable title, so it's understandable that it's taken this long since I only play it when I have a spare moment', on the other hand, I typically have many more opportunities for portable gaming than I do for games requiring dedicated time in front of a stationary screen. :|

It's ultimately been a great experience though. FFT is one of those games that encourages and rewards deep exploration of it's various systems, job combinations, etc. I suppose if there's any downside it's that this exploration eventually allows you to completely break the game, but really by the time you reach that point you've already paid your dues in order to get there. Even now when I could easily beat the game I'm thinking to myself, "Yes ... but what if I also trained Orlandeau as a Ninja!? Then I could have two powerful dual-wielders both with legendary knight swords!" :mrgreen:
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by Exhuminator Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:14 pm

@Null - I thought the final boss of FFT was really cool. I hope they didn't muck it up in the PSP version. Congrats on making it this far. YOU CAN DO IT
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by PartridgeSenpai Sun Apr 08, 2018 4:47 pm

Just finished the first half of Tales of Legendia. While I'm digging the game mechanically (getting new eres based off of which ones you've used a lot that combine into more is pretty cool), the bad voice cast is REALLY hurting this game. It's turning an otherwise above average story into an average/below average one just because of how alright/downright terrible the main cast's VO work is. This was made by a Tales B-team, and the localization effort really reflects that. I mean other stuff like dungeons generally not having puzzles outside of what are literally completely separate, no encounter having-puzzle rooms also reflects that, but the VA work is the more immediately and consistently obvious one. I'm still enjoying the game and I'll still almost certainly finish it, but it's just such a shame that this came out the way it did when Namco usually do pretty good English localizations.
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Ack
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by Ack Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:33 pm

Dudes, Dragon Wars is legit good. It's a game where you are free to build your party however you like, but where your build choices can be critical at times to access various paths and means of solving puzzles, while you also have to think things through. It's a game that offers challenging fights but will even reward you if you lose, and a true game over is absurdly rare, though I do not recommend dropping items. It's also a game where choices matter, and every problem may have numerous solutions.

Case in point: you start in a town called Purgatory, a prison city populated by thieves, beggars, madmen, screwups, and all manner of other lowlife. You have to escape. You don't realize it at first, but you have options: 1) Fight your way through the horde of guards at the gate, 2) Win your freedom and citizenship in the arena, 3) Receive a dark god's blessing and travel into the underworld, 4) Disguise yourself as a corpse so your body is thrown over the wall, 5) Escape through what is basically a toilet into the harbor and hope you survive the fall...and the swim, 6) Find several secret passageways that lead to the outside world, or 7) Sell yourself into slavery. Seriously, that is the first town.

I just broke out if a dungeon, but I could have assassinated the evil wizard who runs it or released his pet dragon, which would result in the city being raised to the ground

This is crazy awesome.
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by jacjon Fri May 04, 2018 3:04 pm

grinding out quests right now for the new 120 level cap on my aff warlock. good times :D
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darsparx
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by darsparx Tue May 15, 2018 8:10 am

In the dreadnought in FF2. I am so ready to be done with this. I was liking it a lot but it just doesn't seem very deep and again like ff1 that I already beat as part of the dawn of souls cart, there's just been much better games that improved on everything it's done. The weapon system is just bizarre to me but I kinda like it. Hopefully after I go to the meeting I have to declare my major I'll finish out more of it.
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Ack
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Re: RPG Progress Report

by Ack Sat Jun 16, 2018 1:38 am

Anvil of Dawn

I am only a couple of hours into this game, but so far, I am enjoying it. Anvil of Dawn offers real-time combat and grid-based movement, so in some ways it feels like an updated Dungeon Hack, albeit without the roguelike elements. AoD also doesn't use Dungeons & Dragons rules, and there are no character levels, only skill levels for weapon types and magic. I've raised my slashing level once, but magic hasn't been boosted at all yet.

I'm still very early in my mission to defeat the evil Warlord, but I have already knocked out a couple of short dungeons: Gryphon Keep and the Dark Lantern. I am currently in the Underground City fighting the Cronenberg-esque monsters contained within, but I need to head back to the Dark Lantern to travel to the Sunken Ship. Once there, I have to summon some kind of demon. I don't expect this will go well.

You get a choice of five characters to play as at the start, but if you don't like a character's stats, you can edit them to make what you want. All characters are fully voiced too, so I picked the strong black woman with a great afro and have been enjoying her mercenary attitude ever since. She grins whenever anyone mentions treasure, and taking damage causes her portrait to get splattered with blood, so I'm usually smiling while red streaks from my own innards adorn my cheeks. It's a marvelous touch.

So far, Anvil of Dawn has been wonderful. I hope it keeps up the quality.
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