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What is this? FF5r is the product of five years or so of a ROM hacker named ff5aki's (TL note: "FF5nonymous". Yes, with those implications.) spare time. It features overtuned stats, constant puzzle bosses, a roughly 820% chance of instant death in each dungeon, and a star-studded cast of the best Squaresoft monsters of the '90s, all in one 24-megabit package that lives up to the expectations English-speakers would have of its Japanese title Kaizo Final Fantasy V. In addition, it also incorporates a page-long list of bugfixes to make sure these won't be pushovers defeatable by a solo level 1 poisoned frog Krile like, say, a Goblin or vanilla Neo Exdeath. I'm playing version 1.40, which is his final version and seems to be the most popular. There is a 1.50 further modified by someone else, but it's How do you play it? FF5r is designed solely for use with the SFC version of FF5. It might, key word MIGHT, kind of work in a Suikoden-II-good-ending way if applied after the old RPGe translation, but most definitely will not work if applied before, and of course all other versions are right out. Screenshots for this thread with English names and dialog are entirely my own takes photoshopped together. Why now? Why you? It's the 30th year of FF, and I'd like to go back and replay one, but I always get bored of Fiestas once I hit my comp's power spike. FF5r, on the other hand, is packed full of puzzles that require constant adjustment, only some of which I remember from its days as Nico/Youtube Let's Play bait among the Japanese fanbase. And because it's a gently-caress-you romhack of a game that far wittier people than I have already LPed, the focus can be less on my rewarmed snarky takes about a game old enough to rent a car, and more on some of the smarter tricks and dumber glitches that allow FF5 to really be broken open. Why run it as a Let's Play? The simplest reason is that I'd like to share it; I found it enjoyable to watch but none of the LPs out there are at all accessible to English-speakers. Beyond that, though, the puzzles are something we all can participate in if left as cliffhangers. I've never played FF5, and I'm confused. Since it's such a classic game, and my posts will be image-heavy (and photoshop-intensive) already, this LP will be open season for spoilers but avoid spending time on plot. If you've never played, or your memory is fuzzy, consider following along with another LP like Mega64's look at the various translations or Orange Fluffy Sheep's attempts to break the GBA port. Table of Contents: Part 1 - Beginning through Torne Canal Mandoric fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 21:23
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| # ? May 17, 2024 23:49 |
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When first starting FF5r, there's absolutely no clue you're touching a rom hack; the title screen and credits are untouched. The first tutorial battle is identical, and in fact our first indication that this isn't plain FF5 is, rather than the murderous greeting of rear end in a top hat Super Mario World, a quality of life improvement: Butz comes prenamed. The second indication is in the hidden chest near the meteor:  Oh god-who-I-chainsawed-to-death it's playing Clash on the Big Bridge what do I do what do I do     Oh, never mind, it's just you. Eggman, originally from Square's overlooked Half-Boiled Hero series of strategy RPGs, is not exactly a new face to FF5. Some of you may even have tried to use the Magic Lamp during a playthrough of your own, and noticed that with each rubbing it ticked down a tier of summons. After 13 tries, the mystical free win that spat out Bahamut for a Mega Flare is reduced to coughing up Chocobo Kicks, but that's where it ends, right? Nope. After another twenty, the lamp is so starved of mana that all it can manage is Eggman, offscreen, for an Egg Chop which always misses. And when the GBA version came out, what was our noble hero's reward for nearly 15 years of loyal service? A sprite for Eggman was finally added! He appeared in the monster data! ... Except he was chopped so early in development that he's completely unencounterable and even his sprite only exists in the Japanese version. The one glorious moment of terror is FF5aki's salute to him. Moving on, we reach the pirates' den, and meet two new friends.  Boulder is on vacation from Final Fantasy III, where he infested the Dwarf cave as a palette swap of the more famous Carbuncle.  We can definitely see who got the good genes now that they've grown up. Yeesh. (As an aside, since FF5r is ultimately an exercise in nostalgia, where I have to decide WHICH name to use for a callback like this I'm going to go straight to the '90s source, or trying to mimic its style. The monster's name literally translates as Stalactite, in a case of FF3's dev staff confusing which is floor and which is ceiling, and both the old NES fan translation and the English DS release papered over it by changing its name in different ways.) Anyway, while Boulders were a threat in FF3 with a 1/3 or so chance to drop Stare and paralyze a party member, here, they're only notable as a source of Stealable Gold Needles to maximize gold gained per battle if you end up wanting to do some shopping but don't want to overlevel.  Next, we have the RollBug, which got its start in Romancing SaGa. RollBugs infested much of Square's SNES output, really, but aside from Live-a-Live they were always the weakest of the weak, so unremarkable I can't even find its English name without digging through my closet for my copy of Minstrel Song, and that doesn't change here. Once we're through the cave, it's time for a free ride to the Wind Shrine, where we walk in, grab the first chest, and  what  ouch  WHAT  OUCH WINGRAPTOR  HP: 500 Attacks: Physical ~30, Breath Wing (25% max HP damage to the entire party), White Wind (heals for current HP, cast once per defensive form phase), Claw (counter for ~50 when attacked in defensive form) Now, let's break off and talk mechanics for a moment. WingRaptor has a very simple AI script - attack or Breath Wing twice, form change, White Wind, form change, attack or Breath Wing three times, form change, repeat from White Wind. And its speed is approximately the same as ours at this point in the game, without the potential for status magic. Since White Wind heals it for its current HP, and it uses it once for every 3 turns it's outside its defensive form, your party needs to be able to take it below half within those three turns. Additionally. since it typically uses Breath Wing twice each cycle you'll need to use at least one full-party round of potions to avoid a wipe during its 4th vulnerable turn, a second to avoid a wipe during its seventh, and so on. Yet with even the finest weapons we've found only doing 30 damage a turn, and Lenna stuck with an implement better suited for spreading butter, how do we avoid a ruinously expensive battle of attrition that will burn through a thousand gil worth of potions? We grind. Not mindlessly, but to a very specific point. While FF5 uses ATB, like 4 before it, it's still very grounded in the rounds-of-combat concept of the first three turn-based games. Butz may look like he's swinging his sword once per attack and just plain hitting harder, but in reality, FF5's Fight command still hides the old "xx hits" from FF1. How can this be when characters don't have a Hit % stat anymore? (Most) weapons deal 2 hits, plus 1 extra hit for each time 128 divides into the wielder's strength times their level. Magic-based weapons deal 2-4 hits plus 1 extra per 256 magic power times level. Knives, whips, bows, and bells were intended to be agility-based. However, due to a bug, the agility scaling only takes into account the first bonus hit, and this appears to have been solved by applying strength scaling as well. Interestingly, this base of 2 hits means that it's nearly impossible to deal a prime number of attack damage beyond the early game. Now, since all our characters have 24-28 in each stat... It means that at level 5, Butz, Galuf, and Faris will each gain a third sword hit and start dealing 150% damage. (Actually, Faris should stick with or switch back to her Dagger, which because of the quick-fix solution gets a bonus hit from both strength and agility for 4x14 rather than 3x15.) So by slotting in just a couple extra battles to hit level 5, which we basically would anyway farming the gil to buy 20 potions, WingRaptor goes from a four-cycle nightmare to a two-cycle annoyance. So to Tule it is.  We open the chests we should...       Don't open the chests we shouldn't... (The Czar Dragon was an enemy dummied out from Final Fantasy 6 so late in development that it's still fightable, complete with in-battle English dialog though missing its AI script, by application of a Game Genie code. It was later brought back as the Kaiser Dragon in the GBA and mobile versions as the game's optional megaboss, and FF5r uses the GBA sprite with added wings.)  And drool through the windows. (This will be important later.) That much done, and boasting a third hit I'll regret in the future, we head back to the Wind Shrine. The Chimera, as seen before, was originally intended for inclusion in FF5 but ended up being dummied out. FF5r gives it a role as a dangerous attacker in the Wind Shrine, able to whittle down the party with repeated Breath Wings or one-shot level 3 characters with Aero. It does, however, carry Spears to be stolen, for cash or as a powerful weapon that forces you to use Freelancer for now.  The Magical Bunny is a Carbuncle recolor that's entirely too magical for its own good; it can Confuse characters at will, especially dangerous when any of your members can two-shot each other, and it also does decent damage on its own with Fire or Thunder. Do not under any circumstance feed the bunnies, as the only thing preventing them from busting out Flare or Death is a lack of MP.  A quick shortcut I'd forgotten about, and...  WingRaptor goes down smoothly and we've got our first six jobs.   First order of business is to march out of the Wind Shrine on foot and pick up the first two Blue Magic spells. Goblin Punch is a must-have that does 8x attack damage to enemies with the same level, which can always be forced given enough time magic and chemistry; it also ignores weapons' special damage calculations, which lets you ignore resistances and turn the Excalipoor into a goddamned tactical nuke. Aero is the only source of Wind-element damage available for a long time, which will be vital for a certain boss's AI.  And then it's off to the pirates' cave again for Vampire, which is fixed and no longer allows insta-healing but is still cheaper than Cure.  On our way, though, we make our way slightly to the east, to a narrow isthmus that's utterly unremarkable in FF5.   Honestly, there's no reason to play FF5r if you want to ascend to demigodhood and then rubber-band the A button for automatic murder. The appeal of the hack is applying all the craziness the job system makes possible while staying at a reasonable level, and for exactly that reason its dev has supplied us with our own early game Magic Pot standins: this place is home to nothing but wild chocobos, harmless creatures who only run away and leave behind 1 ABP each (or three each from the fat ones).  Unless you make them mad. Don't make them mad, this poo poo makes Link's chicken-taunting look safe by comparison. With our Blue Magic sorted, and absolutely everyone taught Learning and !Steal because seriously this is FF5 you should already know this, it's time to head off to Torne Canal and move on with the plot.  The only new monster in this minidungeon is Tentacles, who's essentially identical to the Octoraken he replaces, right down to the AI that will only attack female characters because ADTRW was already a well-established meme in 1992. So why go out of your way to change the name of one random monster on your way to Because you're not getting Karlabos. You're getting Kraken. And it's going to be roughly as regrettable as chugging a handle of the stuff. KRAKEN  HP: 1600 Level: 4 Fixed attack script: 8 Legs (100-150 damage + Paralyze), Mini-Blaze (50-75 damage to all), 8 Legs, Tidal Wave (750-1000 damage to all)  Kraken here is, surprisingly, not one of the Four Fiends. Instead, his sprite owes more to the Kraken of FF3, and his abilities are completely different from either his inspiration or the boss he replaces.  Instead of randomly cycling between attacks like most bosses, Kraken is a straight-up DPS race and the game will tell you so at the beginning of the fight. You have four turns to inflict 1,600 damage by any means possible, unless you intend to grind up to level 40 or so on goblins. (And even if you wanted to take the brute-force approach, your damage would outscale the 100/member/turn target long before you hit enough HP to survive.) Just to see what we're getting into, let's try with the kind of balanced party an FF fan would make when given base jobs and a strong/smart/beefy/quick party lineup:       Ouch. We barely got 500 damage off, although we did learn that Kraken has nothing worthwhile to steal. (This is technically a lie, one of FF5r's tweaks is that monsters can have up to three stealables - but no, he has nothing but the leather gear we're already kitted out with, so we don't need to waste valuable time here.) So, here we are our first cliffhanger. In between us and the next update that I'm already halfway through but I'll reload and try your input anyway: One supremely ornery octopus. How shall we cut him down to size without gaining Mandoric fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 21:25
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You've got a bad tag in the OP. [/spoiler] should be [/url]. So are there any changes to the jobs that you get, or is it just the monsters?
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Jan 29, 2017 21:40
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ultrafilter posted:You've got a bad tag in the OP. [/spoiler] should be [/url]. Thanks, fixed! It's mostly monsters, but there are some ability tweaks and one replaced job.
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Jan 29, 2017 21:50
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For Kraken...Blaze means you can't do Knight/Defend shenanigans, and I've a feeling that Black Mages are too squishy (even assuming Kraken's weak to lightning). Aero/Vampire spam, maybe? Vampire letting you deal damage and heal at the same time seems like it would be useful for not wasting turns healing, anyway. Just go ham with monks?
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Jan 29, 2017 22:09
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:For Kraken...Blaze means you can't do Knight/Defend shenanigans, and I've a feeling that Black Mages are too squishy (even assuming Kraken's weak to lightning). Aero/Vampire spam, maybe? Vampire letting you deal damage and heal at the same time seems like it would be useful for not wasting turns healing, anyway. Just go ham with monks? Monk ham test results:  Sadly, can basically be written off based on Galuf's results in the first test run. 1,600 damage in a maximum of 16 actions is a hard target, and 96 damage per doesn't quite bring us there even before the added front-row pain from 8 Legs or its Paralyze effect. Vampire/Aero is something I didn't try, so I just fired up a savestate to test, and...  No dice, around 40~50 damage from either. Those 50 points of healing from Vampire would be enough to keep a backline character upright through 8 Legs and Mini-Blaze, but since it'd need to be cast by the first 8 Legs target on turn 2 and all four characters (or pray to RNG) on turn 3, that would leave at best 11 actions to burn through the remaining 1,350. What really kills this strategy, though, is that 8 Legs is basically guaranteed to paralyze for a turn , so it can't save the first 8 Legs target and the second 8 Legs target may as well die since they're losing their final action anyway. That shaves 4 more actions off the clock. Black Mages, on the other hand...  This is promising. This is very promising. In fact, I just tried it, and when set to Wait mode to ensure I got all 12 actions their HP pool allows, it just barely worked. However, in Active, Butz and Galuf have a bad habit of not being quite quick enough to get their hits in before Kraken acts on any given round; essentially the order ends up as Faris-Lenna-8 Legs-Butz-Galuf-Faris-Lenna-MiniBlaze-Butz-Galuf-Faris-Lenna-8 Legs-Butz-Galuf-Faris-Lenna-Tidal Wave. This means that no matter who gets taken out of the fight, we end up being unable to take any more than 10 actions, requiring perfect RNG luck and Thunder hitting for 160 rather than 150 each time. There are still other, safer, more dangerously cheesy solutions for an Active victory, though! However, I'm not sure multiple full updates a day would be healthy for the thread or myself, so while I'll be here to run trials and confirm it if someone hits the best solution I'm aware of, otherwise I'll let it stew until... Oh, how does a Wednesday/Sunday schedule sound?
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Jan 30, 2017 00:25
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Your lp, update whenever you want. This isn't some paid job where you have to meet an expected pace. Regarding Kraken, I hope it's not something where normal ff5 physics don't apply, like being able to freeze the tsunami/kraken itself or something. Because that would make for a mean guessing game.
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Jan 31, 2017 05:13
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I've never actually played the game before, but I'm assuming L2 White Magic isn't available yet, so no using Silence. And also that there isn't any Blue Magic available yet that we haven't seen. I guess you could grind for Two-Handed on the Knights? That doesn't seem like an elegant solution though. And I'd be kind of amused if you could just flee from the fight, but I suspect that's not possible.  (For those who are also sketchy on what classes can do, Dr Pepper's LP has class analyses).
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Jan 31, 2017 06:09
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Is it the spear you got in the wind shrine?
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Jan 31, 2017 06:19
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Oh boy, I've always been drat interested in this hack but too afraid of moon runes to tackle it myself. Assuming the answer isn't "master every job you have as soon as you get it on 1-3 ABP" (because ugh, that sounds godawful), then sticking !Black on sturdier characters won't quite cut it - it doesn't grant its full MAG stat until level 6, and any less MAG and you start rapidly eating into DPS. Rods aren't available (normally) until Karnak, so 750ing it won't cut it. That's assuming they're even in this game at all considering how effortlessly they trivialize the first world. Mandoric posted:How shall we cut him down to size without gaining Inconsistent levels are your friend, honestly - if you had two party members at Lv5 and two at Lv4, you could still get the Gobbo Punch DPS (on a stronger class like Knight or Monk, even!) while still being able to push through Wing Raptor. Plus, it futureproofs you against later blue magic. That said, your selection of Blue Magic is woefully underwhelming at this point - a (non-bugged) Vampire, Aero, and Goblin Punch. No Beastmaster, so gobbo-flares are out. ..........Tell me more about that 3000 gil sword. It may not be easy to grind out the dosh for right now, but the Pirate's Cave has a little extra lucre to help with that now that you've got jobs, and it's a lot more feasible to grind out 3000 gil (or, god, even 9000 gil) off goblins and chocobos than it is to master all jobs ever.
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Jan 31, 2017 07:34
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The furthest I ever got in FFV was getting past the fire crystal. Not that the game got hard, I just ended up too busy to continue. I did watch a fiesta run of it though. Unfortunately, fiesta runs teach you how to abuse four specific classes, not how to abuse all the classes. Going off of Dr. Pepper's list: Guard and cover abuse with the knights doesn't seem like it will be too useful because we're in a DPS race. Thief agility spam: I don't think the agility bonus is going to be high enough to give us 20 actions instead of 16, but I'd still like to try. Monk: Grinding out barehanded on everyone for the strength bonus and then using knight or thief might work, but it might be against the spirit of the challenge. I don't think the mages are going to be of much use here.
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Jan 31, 2017 08:40
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Do we have enough daggers to just race with Thief+Two-handed?
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Jan 31, 2017 11:44
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Indeterminacy posted:Do we have enough daggers to just race with Thief+Two-handed? Two handed doesn't work on all weapons. Notably, I'm pretty sure knives of all kinds are exempt.
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Jan 31, 2017 12:32
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Yeah I'm gonna second wanting more info about that expensive sword. Also, just how much more gil can we get from the hairpins in the pirate cave?
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Jan 31, 2017 14:00
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Choco1980 posted:Yeah I'm gonna second wanting more info about that expensive sword. Also, just how much more gil can we get from the hairpins in the pirate cave? Thirded. Also oh boy, FF5r!  Been interested in this since I saw it on Mato's stream but caught it very late in the postgame.
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Jan 31, 2017 14:30
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Can the sword really be the "answer" if its wielder needs to not become paralyzed the entire fight? If you're looking at that kind of rng, might as well do the full-Blackmage-party and roll for the high numbers...
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Jan 31, 2017 14:35
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It could have anti-paralysis properties like the Hermes Sandals, for example? That's why I want a stat block.
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Jan 31, 2017 14:37
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Stealing Spears from the Chimera and Double Gripping them if possible sounds like the answer to me. Hell, Double Grip anyway since it passes on Strength Edit: Actually, assuming vanilla stats that won't work until level 12 or so since lances can't be Double Gripped. Rosalie_A fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 15:16
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This is the craziest poo poo, and that's on an SA LP level of crazy. Like watching a bunch of boxers in 1986 trying to figure out how to beat Mike Tyson. "Maybe if I wear bricks in my gloves and punch him in the dong?"
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Jan 31, 2017 19:55
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Wait. Kraken is weak to thunder. I bet that broadsword in the Tule shop is Thunder-elemental or is a casting weapon that can cast Thunder. Or both. Could be both.
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Jan 31, 2017 23:34
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With an all-BLM party averaging 155 per cast and 10 casts, we need only the scantest improvement in DPS to make it over the top. Is a sword we can only feasibly give to one member enough to get us there? FF5, of course, predates ingame stat blocks, buuuut... I had my suspicions about both its name and its presence, so I went ahead and bought it.  In addition, it has a chance to cast Thunder. Simply Simon posted:Can the sword really be the "answer" if its wielder needs to not become paralyzed the entire fight? If you're looking at that kind of rng, might as well do the full-Blackmage-party and roll for the high numbers... I'd say "they only need to outdamage a BLM by 50 in the time they're up", but at our level... That's the same thing. It's still better to rely on the sword, though. There are 50% odds (3/4 * 2/3) both 8 Legs will go to a different target, compared to the .01% odds that ten coin flips will all turn up heads. In the process of learning Blue Magic, stealing enough Gold Needles (75g each) to buy, and actually sailing through the canal up to Kraken, we've hit level 6. Butz with his 51 strength will do around 4x14 per Fight command. Sword per-hit damage is actually 100%-112.5% of listed damage, rounded down, and then with target defense subtracted. We just haven't made it to monsters with defense stats yet. We need just 50 extra damage. With a guaranteed output of 56 from the sword, can we do it? Is it enough?   Barely! With a Knight's miserable 11 Magic stat, Butz only manages to wring 120-128 damage out of Thunder, for 176 minimum damage a proc. Incidentally, the damage numbers we're seeing DO show that Kraken has a magic defense stat. Butz would need 37 rather than 11 to get multiplied spell damage. (Magic deals in per-hit times hits just like physical attack, but with four free hits plus one for each time 256 goes into Magic * Level.) His 120-128 damage is 4 hits, or 30-32 damage each. The BLMs have Magic stats of 58-60, for one more hit and 30-32 damage times five. Meanwhile, casting Fire deals only 25-30 damage, so 5-6 base damage multiplied by five. Since elemental weakness to magic means that defense is ignored and damage is then doubled, and tier 1 spells have a base 15 damage, we can tell that Kraken has exactly 10 Magic Defense.) But wait. What if there were a way? A way to wring more magic out of a sword-wielder? A way that's honestly not any more useful?   Blue Mage can swing a sword too. It loses two physical hits, sure. But that leap in Magic, from 11 to 48, gains a magic hit, and magic hits are twice as valuable. And why just rely on RNG, when you can rely on RNG in stylish masks? I actually did learn Double Grip, too, and with it both Knights and Blue Mages only really need one proc. But why show the grindy way? Anyway, let's move on from Kraken before I get any more of a craving for cheap greasy Gindaco takeout. Coming soon, another doubleheader (because the first boss in it is miserably dull again)!
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Feb 1, 2017 00:39
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Couldn't you just give the Knights Black Magic in the second slot to give them a boosted Magic stat?
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Feb 1, 2017 00:52
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alcharagia posted:Couldn't you just give the Knights Black Magic in the second slot to give them a boosted Magic stat? If you wanted to optimize the procs at the cost of the melee hits, yeah.
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Feb 1, 2017 01:21
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This is really cool and I'm digging all the problem solving in finding ways to beat each boss. Looking forward to more!
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Feb 1, 2017 02:21
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Mega64 posted:This is really cool and I'm digging all the problem solving in finding ways to beat each boss. Looking forward to more! Honestly, getting the thread to think it through is a pretty fun idea that is more novel than just showing everything off. I love it!
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Feb 1, 2017 02:38
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Kyrosiris posted:If you wanted to optimize the procs at the cost of the melee hits, yeah. Yeah, Black 3 gives 46 Magic, anything more than that is a little ridiculous to expect to pan out this early on. Two-handed, on the other hand, effectively doubles your melee attack power. Unfortunately, the skill that grants a Knight's inherent Strength stat is its capstone and Freelancer doesn't passively gain Two-handed. There's not really a feasible way to get a Knight's strength, a Black Mage's Magic, and dual-fisting all at once yet.
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Feb 1, 2017 03:03
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alcharagia posted:Couldn't you just give the Knights Black Magic in the second slot to give them a boosted Magic stat? At level 6, level 1 !Black (which I didn't have taught, but it's not exactly a stretch) gives 40 base Magic, so only 240 of the 256 needed for the multiplier. Level 2 would do the trick at 258, though, as would Lenna's innate modifier!
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Feb 1, 2017 03:03
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Ahh, the Ship Graveyard. Home of so many undead, we'll think we're level 30 or so in a Korean MMO. HOT TOPLESS SKELETONS who are otherwise no different from the base game infest the floating wrecks. (Also, they have green shorts, but the green shorts joke is probably too creepy even for a Japanese romhack.)  They're accompanied by Zombies, here from the PS and GBA ports of FF2. These appear to be just here as a token of ff5aki's enthusiasm for spriting.  FF5 and I go a long, long way back, and on my first playthrough I was using my dad's terrible computer with only 256-color VGA and ZSNES 0.400 - a combination that made SNES transparencies completely opaque. In other words, I got to feel my way through this segment purely by luck in some sort of unintended copy-protection. And with nothing else remarkable, it's boss time! SIREN  HP: 2200 Level: 2  Living: Silence, Slow, Sleep, Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Haste, Protect, Cure  Undead: Embrace (~120 plus poison), Vampire Vampire on a 2200-HP enemy sounds terrifying right about now; since it's not bugged, it will heal her for half the damage she's taken and leave me prisoner to RNG, hoping she never decides to flip undead and use it while low. Even Embrace would be far preferable. On the other hand... Undead Dead   Very dead  On the way to Caerwen, we spotted cows on the run. I'm almost tempted to go back and farm them, since I'm pretty sure they didn't do that in vanilla? Also in musical trauma, I've suddenly realized at this late date that FF5's small town BGM is the direct ancestor of THOSE GODDAMN BAGPIPES IN SANDORIA AAAAA  We pick up an Ice Rod while we're here, which will make Lenna (or whoever else gets crammed into BLMness) our best physical attacker until we decide to smash it like an overpriced guitar.  The North Mountain adds FF3's Firefry. Firefly? Honestly BOTH of those could be puns on manta rays. Their special attack is a word that still puts Macross Frontier songs in my head, completing the trauma of music I don't want to remember. (They can also cast Fire, which I mind less.)  And there's the MossFungus, which should have terrified me but I honestly forgot it was in the Cleft of Dimension. As we make our way further up the mountain, the climb's uneventful until a hooded boss makes their appearance. Click to cue the music as you scroll down...  MILON  HP: 2500 Level: 9 Abilities: Command, Steal: Hi-Potion GHAST  HP: 150 Level: 5 Abilities: Dissolve (flat 120 damage + slip) Weakness: Holy, Fire This battle is driven by an endless cycle of life sucking.  The Ghasts do nothing on their own, but each turn of Milon's while there are any alive...  He commands them all to use Dissolve. (So, instakill on the weaker 3 jobs, and will kill the other three if they're not topped off - and there's four of them to cast it.)    Milon himself both attacks and counters with Lit-1, and if all of the Ghasts are gone, he casts Lit-2 every turn instead before eventually raising them again.   Last but not least, if we manage to take out Milon, the Ghasts will sink into the earth and reforms as him on their next turn. PARTY STATS: Bartz Level 9 WAR3/THF4/BLU2 Lenna Level 9 THF4/WHM4/BLM2/BLU2 Galuf Level 9 WAR2/MNK1/THF4/WHM3/BLU2 Faris Level 9 THF5/WHM3/BLU2 New equipment availability same as vanilla What's the battle plan?
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Feb 1, 2017 04:19
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Mandoric posted:New equipment availability same as vanilla That includes a single Frost Rod. 750, baby.  Yes, it's lazy, but sometimes the lazy methods are the best... as evidenced by Mandoric using a Phoenix Down on Siren (notably something you couldn't do in vanilla, IIRC)
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Feb 1, 2017 04:26
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Is Milon undead? Can you break a rod on the ghasts and then phoenix down him?
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Feb 1, 2017 04:40
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Is any status magic effective? Carwen gives access to Sleep and Silence. Aside from that it seems like the standard tactic of leaving one zombie alive until Milon is weak and then finishing them both off at once could be effective. Also looks like Goblin Punch is going to be effective here so that can help with weakening Milon.
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Feb 1, 2017 04:50
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Ooh, this is a neat looking LP.
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Feb 6, 2017 14:17
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dude789 posted:Is any status magic effective? Carwen gives access to Sleep and Silence. Aside from that it seems like the standard tactic of leaving one zombie alive until Milon is weak and then finishing them both off at once could be effective. Also looks like Goblin Punch is going to be effective here so that can help with weakening Milon. This was my thinking as well. Kill all but one ghast, goblin punch Milon and then finish them both off. Also see if silence will neuter his
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Feb 6, 2017 18:47
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Sorry for the delay in posts; I've never done one of these, and thought that I should consistently play ahead a post to always have content, but that just lead to me blocking for the past week as this post's boss has refused to cooperate* I waxed him on my first try because he was given a Goblin Punch-compatible level, and later that night managed him the "right" way, but he also has a useless rare stealable that requires perfect execution plus good RNG. So the screenshots for this update are a hot mess taken from around ten different runs too! No boss in the hack relies on a previous steal, so in the future I'll focus on keeping up the pace and sadly letting things like that go. At the least I'll pop in and rage. -- Milon is, as speculated, weak to the status magic we could pick up in Caerwen. Specifically, Ghasts can be slept, at which point they stop responding to him...  And Milon himself can be silenced. From there, it's a simple process to either kill all Ghasts, silence him, and win, or even more effectively to kill all but one before burning him down and finishing the last Ghast before it wakes up. He drops a Strength Potion in case we want to really break open Goblin Punch. From there, we have a Hiryu! If we want or need to, we can go do more Chocobo grinding.  The town of Worus is mostly unchanged, except Garula is gone from the hidden area. Instead, we have a clue about Chocobo grinding in case we missed it.  Sorry, I had to.  Additionally, there's a new enemy, a slightly upgraded RollBug, who's utterly unremarkable right now but who we'll be coming back to.  Harpy/Jackanapes still lurks in the castle basement, and as I'm trying to avoid unneccessary running the Elf Cape will have to wait. (Some running will be necessary, so the Brave Blade won't be an option either.)  Up in the tower, there's a resprited Elf Toad who teaches us Frog Song. And completely new to the area are Demicrystals, which carry Mythril Swords but cast AoE Blizzara every other round; thankfully they're susceptible to Silence for easy farming. We get a knife, skip the sword since I'd just purchased a Long Sword anyway, and decide why not try Shiva while we're here?   Maybe we can do this if we come in at full HP!   No, no we can't. Shiva will wait for later, we don't have Summoner yet anyway. Demicrystals infest the tower as well, and the Ricard Mages now drop Flame Rods if we're lucky (we're not). Wyverns carry Mythril Knives, which are a nice upgrade for our Thieves.  Gee I wonder who this is.   Hmmmmmmmm.  KAINAZZO  HP: 3672 Level: 10 Normal form: Attack (~125), Turtle Shell (~300 and poison), Slow, Silence (counter magic), Constrict (counter physical), transform (every second turn above ~1200 hp), Cura (every second turn below ~1200 hp) Water wall: Fixed script, transform (counter Thunder) Drops: Protect Drink BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFNStOZR-wI the "tl note: i couldn't hear it" parts hurt so bad uh i mean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B08Nhzrp41c In normal form he counters magical attacks with Silence and physical attacks with Constrict. Essentially, he can't be physically attacked at all, and can only be attacked with magic when his wall is up or for around half a turn after he's Silenced (since Silence blocks Silence) With his water wall up, he has a fixed AI script: Haste If hasted, Tidal Wave   Tidal Wave is unsurvivable, and once he has Haste it's essentially impossible to act between him forming the wall and casting it. Unfortunately, the game's structure and means he's an execution boss rather than a puzzle boss, so no experimentation this update.   We spam Steal and Thunder as soon as the wall goes up...   Silence his Cura and burn him down with Blizzard (...) And soon enough he drops. We've now got Magic Knight, Summoner, Time Mage, Red Mage, and Berserker, so it's off to stare at chocobos for an hour in case we ever need Chainspell. Next time, way sooner: optional bosses AND puzzle bosses!
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Feb 11, 2017 08:02
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Did the romhack improve berserker in anyway?
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Feb 11, 2017 08:31
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Berserker isn't buffed directly, but tighter timing windows make its lack of a menu delay more useful. And the usual Axe-centric hijinks (Death Sickle, hammers in general two-handable + back row OK, ignoring 75% of defense) may be more useful. I also wouldn't put it past the game to throw unavoidable Berserk at us, at which point why not embrace it?
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Feb 11, 2017 11:25
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Would anyone fault you if you just set it on Wait? Seems more like a quality-of-life thing than a challenge thing.
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Feb 11, 2017 11:55
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magikid posted:Would anyone fault you if you just set it on Wait? Seems more like a quality-of-life thing than a challenge thing. Wait doesn't last very long even at Battle Speed 6 - maybe like two seconds max - unless you're in an item or spell menu (which pauses the ATB); with a lot of classes, you're on the front menu aiming and/or selecting one of your main four commands - the spell menu pause only actively benefits Spellblades, Bards, Chemists (with !Mix) and actual magic classes. And that's in vanilla; for all we know, that window's been tightened even further in FF5r.
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Feb 11, 2017 12:25
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I'm assuming the primary strats against Shiva will be to break those fire rods all up on her.
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Feb 11, 2017 22:14
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| # ? May 17, 2024 23:49 |
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KataraniSword posted:Wait doesn't last very long even at Battle Speed 6 - maybe like two seconds max - unless you're in an item or spell menu (which pauses the ATB); with a lot of classes, you're on the front menu aiming and/or selecting one of your main four commands - the spell menu pause only actively benefits Spellblades, Bards, Chemists (with !Mix) and actual magic classes. Other timer-related funfacts: Drag, the level 1 time magic, sets Battle Speed to 5. If Battle Speed is 6, it still sets it to 5 and speeds things up instead. Really, though, I don't expect timing to be as tight again unless it's specifically a boss gimmick. I know that will happen even with my foggy memory of what's out there, because yeah, Odin, but Kainazzo very particularly: * Can't have very many interesting gimmicks because he's still fought with only Wind jobs. * ff5aki apparently judged him annoying enough to leave him at a Punchable level. * Even when playing along with his gimmick, the tightness is doubled if you're trying to steal his useless trophy Trident; getting one reactive Thunder off is easy, the pain was in Steal plus Thunder before he could act until Steal worked. Anyway, moving on:   The best thing about hour-long LCS games is being able to unlock this in the background. It feels almost like cheating, though; perhaps I'll self-enforce a 2-hour cooldown on it Tonight, we fight Shiva in a literal blizzard! Mandoric fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Feb 11, 2017 |
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Feb 11, 2017 23:52
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