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No update this week. Between Mother's Day and the game actually kind of kicking my rear end, I haven't had a chance to get enough done. The release of Tears of the Kingdom definitely doesn't have anything to do with it.
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May 15, 2023 20:58
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No update this week either. After going over all my gameplay I realized that while there was a lot of play time involved, not much of it was very interesting. This last big dungeon is a real slog. So I'll play some more and hopefully have a decent update ready next week.
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May 22, 2023 22:52
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Welcome back, everyone. Thank you for waiting for this long-overdue update. We're entering one of the final areas of the game, and it stops pulling its punches quite abruptly. Our destination is the resting place of the final Divine Artifact, the volcano known as Fire Maw. Since we've been to Tortuga already, we can Return there and stay at the inn.   After that, we can hop in the airship and land it three spaces away to access the volcano.  I have to wonder how this priestess gets any supplies here, cut off as she is from the rest of the world.   Fire and ice in one trip? Lucky us!    We take the teleportal...  ...and find ourselves in a much hotter area. Fire Maw has two distinct environments: the rocky exterior and lava-filled caves. The former is far deadlier; the random encounter rate is severely jacked up, to the point that you can expect a fight every 5-20 steps.    This is compounded by the fact that the enemies here can be quite nasty. Kravens are immune to magic damage but are probably the least threat, since they don't do anything really nasty. Mandrakes can inflict poison and, more importantly, numbness. Balrogs hit quite hard and have lots of HP, but like kravens they don't have anything really nasty. Fire chariots have some nasty abilities - Discord, Onslaught, and self-healing - but are quite rare and don't hit terribly hard, all things considered. But of all the common enemies here, salamanders are by far the worst. They can use Leecher to steal a character's HP, and they can deal significant damage to the whole party via Firebreath. If a group of salamanders catches you by surprise, they can kill the whole party with Firebreath before you can take action. They're not quite as bad as the elementals from the Cave of Wonders, but they still suck and are priority targets.  And finally, we have the little foot. Little foots (little feet?) are rarer than salamanders and probably not quite as deadly, but they are a pain to fight. They have a ton of HP and spend every turn using their regular physical attack, Dinocrush, which deals well over 100 damage to even heavily-armored characters. Keeping up with healing against them is a must, since they can two-shot more fragile characters.  The interior of the volcano is way less harsh, despite all the lava. It's mostly ladder-placing segments which aren't especially tricky, and the encounter rate is much lower than outside. They're actually a bit of a breather.   Occasionally you get split paths like this, which lead to treasure, but finding replacement ladders is never hard. The magma staff here boasts decent attack power, but we'd be fools to use it in a fire area.  There's another split path further up the mountain, this time outside.  But again, it's not really much of a puzzle, since the right-and cave has a ladder required to progress. Look, I know this isn't all that exciting, but Fire Maw is almost entirely linear and there's not much to say about its design. In a way it exemplifies the worst of the era it's emulating: a lengthy area, made lengthier by a high encounter rate, and tough enemies that can send you back to the start because there are no save points.  About 80-90% of the way up the volcano is this very inconspicuous-looking chest.    What I said about tough monsters being able to end a lengthy run goes double here. Three little foots can simply delete a character if they all attack the same person, and they have so much HP that this will hold true for quite a while. Karla got her healing skills put to the test here.  At least the reward is good. I've been using Holdana's team for pretty much the whole dungeon due to their durability, and Holdana herself is long overdue for a weapon upgrade. I really should have bought one of these back in Catan.  Just a little further up the mountainside is the caldera and the most beautiful thing I've ever seen: a save point. There are no random encounters up here either, which is a relief.  That's probably because the monsters are all scared of this big bastard.  Meet the magma dragon. He arrives without fanfare and dies similarly. He has decently strong physical attacks, plus his special attack, Firestorm, which...   Yeah, it looks cool and does some decent damage, but it's nothing we can't handle. It's not an especially long fight, and probably qualifies more as a mini-boss than an actual boss.  It drops a fire bomb on death, which I find mildly amusing.  It's dead, but with no Artifact in sight, we have to keep moving.   We take another teleportal to a room with another save point. I won't say no to that.  This must be the Shrine of Ice. Yes, after the massive slog that is Fire Maw, we have this unnamed snowy area too. Luckily it's not nearly as long or as encounter-heavy.   Tritoch? The author wasn't even trying to be subtle any more, was he? Anyway, those tritochs are no joke. They're spellcasters, debilitating the party with Slowall and attacking with Icebolt, Snowstorm, and Blizzard, the last of which can deal hellish damage to the party. Nothing else here really matches up. Bluebirds have Double Attack, but don't real much damage, and Blackwolves are relatively fast and deal decent damage but aren't too tough. Basilisks and crystal slimes... Okay, I gotta be honest, I only encountered them once, near the end, and by that point I was not in the mood to wait around and find out what they could do.  Bonus fact: tritochs count as dragons, so Raj Ahtan can deal phenomenal damage to them with his dragon claw.  For all that it's linear and kinda boring, I will say that this area, like Fire Maw, is at least pretty nice to look at.    There's a side area here with three chests, all containing pretty solid prizes (including a chest-in-a-chest). The ancient chest sounds especially intriguing.   ...Oh.   That also sounds intriguing, so I expect to be once again disappointed.  And, indeed, I am.  Of course, it wouldn't be an ice area in Hero's Realm without an ice sliding puzzle!  But really, it's not hard, and we're through and back outside pretty quickly.   At the base of the mountain is yet another building, containing yet another teleportal.   Outside is the very last accessible landmass we haven't yet explored. Surrounded by mountains and covered in forests, we had no other way to reach it. Luckily, we don't have far to walk to reach our destination.  Im not sure what this place is, but it's spooky.   The enemies here are mostly the same as on the snowy mountain, but powerdemons are new. They're spellcasters that use powerful stuff like Firevolt. They're not a big hassle.  Directly up the stairs, we can see the chest which obviously contains the Divine Artifact, but we can't reach it.  Looping around the walkway, we come to another set of stairs and a save point. This is, at least, a mercifully short dungeon after the gauntlet we just ran.  Even more ominous. Let's see who our foe is today.  Oh. poo poo.  So this is the long-foreshadowed Frozen Throne. Does that mean those other two guys are..?    It's really hard to overstate just how busy Murzhor has been during this game.    Ah, dammit, I was right.     Yeah, we're in the endgame now. Murzhor's playing for keeps.   The demon still loves his evil laughs.  So here we are, fighting Murzhor again. The fight is pretty similar to the first, with Murzhor backed up by a pair of meat shields, except that now the shields are two very competent fighters. Prince Alex is immune to magic damage and mostly uses standard attacks, but sometimes smacks the whole party with Sandstorm, or even more rarely casts Healusmore, restoring around 300 HP to his team. Prince Kenji is more similar to Akira, hitting single targets with Shuriken (damage), Ninja Star (more damage), Poishuriken (damage + poison), or Chainwhip (more damage to the whole party). Of course, Murzhor himself has upped his game too. Besides his classic Mutespell Omega and Eviler Flame, he can also use Quagmire to damage the whole party and Blazemost to do significant single-target fire damage.  Lina's new Blizzard spell does wonders in this fight. Although it doesn't hurt Alex, it does a solid chunk of damage to Kenji and over 2,000 to Murzhor. His complaints about the cold weren't just flavor, they were him telegraphing his weakness.     Unfortunately, Murzhor retains another trick he had in the first fight: reviving his fallen underlings. Since Kenji and Alex can both deal significant damage, this is a bit of a problem. The trick is that Murzhor only does this when both princes are down, so by taking out one (preferably Kenji, who's a bit more dangerous) and leaving the other standing, we only have to deal with two foes rather than three.   Eventually (I want to say at around half HP), Murzhoor starts changing his elemental weakness, becoming immune to or even absorbing other elements. He gives away his weakness by the color of his staff gem and necklace, though I wasn't perceptive enough to notice that until the fight was nearly over.  Eventually, I realized that Raj Ahtan's party wasn't going to cut it; the monk himself kept getting muted and unable to cast spells (and thus heal), and Lina went down. Luckily, we've got a team with three master classes waiting in the wings. Despite Akira being probably the weakest protagonist, they're likely the best team overall thanks to the Stooges. With them in play the fight was a breeze.     And so we finally, finally kill Murzhor. It's kind of a weak victory though, since Paranor is under siege and the princes of Jumongu and Monoboraba are both dead. Also, we don't yet have the last Artifact.  This is not an especially difficult puzzle.    And here we are: the Divine Grail, last of the Divine Artifacts.   Dropping down again takes us outside (somehow). But as we leave...       They're not doing this by halves.  The skies are dark, the forces of good are under siege, and the fate of the world hangs by a thread. Let's go be heroes. Level Up Roundup Oh god there were so many levels in this update.                                                
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May 31, 2023 01:34
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No number puzzles to comment on but rip to two whole princes.
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May 31, 2023 11:04
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You know what? gently caress fate, gently caress destiny, gently caress chosen ones. There's Randalor fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jun 1, 2023 |
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May 31, 2023 13:15
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well that escalated quickly
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May 31, 2023 19:43
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Randalor posted:You know what? gently caress fate, gently caress destiny, gently caress chosen ones. There's 12 of you, just go destroy the army of hell. If that's actually how the plot goes... Woo! Go us! There 16 of us, actually.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:32
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Sorry for the radio silence, folks. Between the endgame ramping up the power of the monsters and life getting a bit busy, I haven't had time to update. Unfortuantely, it's probably going to be another week or three until I can update again - which extra sucks because we're real close to the end. Sit tight, and I'll be back to finish this thing.
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Jun 11, 2023 00:46
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It's fine, those princes aren't getting better from death any time soon.
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Jun 11, 2023 00:57
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Welcome back everyone! Thank you for your patience during the last few weeks. When we last left off, we'd finally killed Murzhor (good), but also discovered that Paranor is under siege by Urok, last of Mephistocles' Dreadlords (bad).  This is of course an urgent matter, but the best way to handle a siege is with a good night's sleep.  When we wake in the morning, the skies have cleared, so clearly everything must have sorted itself out.  (No of course not. But the bug in the overlay is amusing.)  Hopping in our trusty airship, we head for Paranor.   Yeah, this is pretty bad.   It looks like we got here just in time.   Luckily, despite having overrun the city, Urok's troops haven't taken the walls, so we can get inside pretty easily.   There are some random battles in Paranor, but the encounter rate isn't especially high. Urok's elite absorb magic damage and are immune to other magical effects, while myrdraals are reasonably fast and strong, but don't have any special gimmicks.  Finally, we arrive at the entrance to the Gurus' base.  Like the rest of the city, it's a wreck. Luckily, the corpses all seem to be soldiers and not, say, the Child of Light.   Hidden at the back of the auditorium, we find Alistair, Pablo, Lady Kip, and the Child of Light herself.      Honestly, this all seems pretty straightforward. You just know it isn't going to be that easy.  I had a joke ready here about how presumptuous it is to name a child (even one destined to save humanity) after your deity, but then I remembered that we do that in the real world too, so I guess the joke's on me.  As we exit the prep room, our hero runs to the podium and the camera pans south to reveal...  I mean, yeah, who else would it be?   Here we have our last multi-party area. We're charged with protecting the Child of Light from waves of incoming monsters.  Our strategy is simple: Set up three of our teams to try and block the way to the Child of Light as much as possible while using the fourth to slay as many of those monsters as we can. Since Akira's team is by far the strongest and there's no reason not to feed them as much XP as possible before the end of the game, they get that job.    Besides the myrdraals we fought outside, we have a slew of new enemies to kill here. Trexes, rhinorajahs, and kawakos are all basic fighter that pose little threat (though the last are immune to magic). Brainhunters seem scary but are similarly unthreatening, and as a bonus they're undead. Shadowfiends are easily the worst foes here, since they can use both Numbing Thorns and Slasher, and are incorporeal. They are, however, undead, so between Blessaga and Spirit Skean they go down fairly quickly. There are also black dragons running around, but... I kind hosed up my recording and failed to get footage. I also missed quite a few level ups, though none of them were really noteworthy.  See that guy in the space northwest of Akira? He runs back and forth in front of Urok and I somehow failed to hit him despite my best efforts. This was not one of my better sessions. Anyway, what's that, Urok?    So here we are, facing Urok, last of the four Dreadlords. As Mephistocles' greatest general and one of the last bosses in the game, you'd expect him to be extremely nasty. It turns out he's a total pushover.    To be fair, Urok ins't entirely helpless. He can slow down the party with Slowall, and his special attack, Savage Claws, hits pretty hard. As a bonus, he also absorbs fire damage.  The thing is, he's still vulnerable to debuffs. With Inept inflicted and our party buffed with Heroic, he's basically no threat at all. Also, he sometimes wastes turns using Observe Battle. At no point in this fight did I ever feel genuinely threatened. Part of this is just how incredible this team is, but even with regular classes we could still hit him with enough debuffs to effectively neuter him.  He goes down like a chump and drops an obviously cursed ring.      I don't even know where that is, but I guess we're about to find out. The screen fades out, then fades in on a new scene.  Heck yeah we did.        We get these little animations of the Child of Light receiving the relics in preparation for the final battle, which is a nice touch.      We've got our last mission, but of course we need to have a look around first.   On the shelves next to Pablo's chair we find the Reaver, Holdana's ultimate weapon. It's two-handed but very powerful. A bit boring, but we'll take it.   When your clairvoyant has an ominous feeling, something bad is probably going to happen.    This green ajah gives us some extra info on our final target.      Meanwhile, this brown ajah reminds us of how we killed all the Dreadlords.    There's quite a bit of good stuff to be found in Hawksnest. This room alone has three pieces of protagonist-exclusive gear.   The fort's well has an Earthwall, a shield that can cast Upperself. We don't really need it, but thanks anyway.   A trip around the walls shows us two more chests, both accessible from the north exit.   To the east, we have the Jingu Bang, named for the Ruyi Jingu Bang, the size-changing staff wielded by Sun Wukong. It's Raj Ahtan's ultimate weapon, taking both hands but giving him three strikes. It's kinda lame for an ultimate weapon (I think a pair of dragon claws would be stronger), but as with the Reaver, we'll take it. From what I can tell, Akira's ultimate weapon is found elsewhere (I may know where but I'm not positive), while Zefiryn doesn't get one at all, which is lame.  On the other side is a second hero shield.   Finally, there's a shop here selling all-new, powerful gear. We'll stock up before heading out.  A guard at the north exit warns us that we're about to face some nasty opposition, as we'd expect as the game's finale.  But that's for next time. Level Up Roundup                   
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Jun 26, 2023 19:59
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Welcome back everyone. Thank you again for your unwavering patience. When we last left off, the forces of light were getting ready to head for Death's Gate for the Final Battle. We got all of our preparations done, so all that remains is the assault.  As we set out, we use the Deluminator to switch to night. You'll see why in a moment.  There's not much to say about the enemies here; they're all the same as in Paranor. Tough, but nothing we can't handle.    This is the lone exception: a ghost merchant who only shows himself at night.  He sells a few crazy high-end weapons, including Akira's ultimate weapon, The Imperial. He also sells wizard potions and life herbs for frankly dirt-cheap prices. We buy enough to give us 50 of each: almost certainly enough for the endgame, but honestly, I probably should have just maxed us out to be safe.  Finally, we arrive.  So, you might remember that I said that the battle in Paranor was our last multi-party area.      However, you may also remember me saying that I hadn't played this game in a long time. Turns out there's one last dungeon waiting for us.    To be honest, there's not a lot to say about it. It's mostly just a bunch of caves and cliffs. The encounter rate is also super low, so getting into more than two fights with any party is highly unlikely.  So let's talk about the new monsters. First up we have the ifreet, which is actually an ice-themed beast able to cast Icespears and Stopspell. We also have cockatrices, which...   ...loving kill characters outright.  A fight like this can just end a party if you get unlucky.  Next we have the Chimera, which can use basic attacks, as well as Lion's Bite, a strong physical strike, and Goat's Milk, which heals it (ew). I'm guessing it also has Dragon's Breath and maybe Snake's Venom, but I didn't see them.   This is also a good chance to show off Holdana's Reaver. Despite a lack of special abilities, it does have a sweet attack animation, and it can do a ton of damage. This is a crit, but even standard shots hit for around 700 damage.  And finally, we have the phoenix, which uses fire and healing magic. It's really nothing special.   At the end of each character's path is a save point and a set of stairs leading to a floor button.  Getting all four parties through this is no trouble. As I said, the encounter rate is super low, and with a save point at the end of each path, even a TPK isn't a disaster. So let's get Death's Gate open and get on with this.      Well that's ominous.   Oh, he's a big one.  Um  UM  UM  When we return to Death's Gate, it's in control of the Child of Light.    Well, so much for the armies of good.  At least our protagonists survived.    Not gonna lie, that's  as hell.      The game's giving us some top-tier dialogue here at the end.  So here we are fighting the Shadowstorm, the second-strongest demon there is. Rather than one of our parties, we're playing as the Child of Light. All that time we spent gearing her up actually came in handy!  She has a ton of good spells, including Zefiryn's unique top-tier spell that she'll likely never get high enough level to learn.     She's also quite tanky; she isn't 100% immune to damage here, but she has enough durability and speed that with proper healing she'll never go down.     She also gets some help, as our unconscious heroes get back up to join the fight.   We also get some shots of Raj Ahtan's and Akira's ultimate weapons.  Wait what.          In a bold move, Kristin sacrifices herself to allow us to win the fight. Kudos to whoever called the Child of Light not surviving to defeat Mephistocles.   Shortly after this, the Shadowstorm changes colors and starts spamming Black Soul, which restores 9999 of its HP with each use. Its defense also goes way up, so this time is best used for buffing and healing.  Eventually it changes back, and the fight begins properly. Besides Powerbeam, which deals a bit over 100 damage to the whole team, it has a number of very powerful moves. Fiendfyre deals a ton of damage to one character, Frozenite deals some damage and a bunch of stat-down moves to one character, and Dhoom sets everyone's HP to 1.  But with some persistence (and a lucky crit from Akira), it does go down.      Hell yeah.  ...Way to ruin the mood, Akira.  Next time: the end, one way or another. Level Up Roundup     There really wasn't much combat this update.
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Jul 17, 2023 22:37
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RIP the regular characters, I'm not sure I like it but I can appreciate the approach of just killing 75% of the PCs.
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Jul 18, 2023 01:10
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SIGSEGV posted:RIP the regular characters, I'm not sure I like it but I can appreciate the approach of just killing 75% of the PCs. Nah, they're still here. The four parties got reassembled after the fight with the Shadowstorm.
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Jul 18, 2023 03:09
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Oh, just for the heroics then. Can you actually do this sort of thing, pick a team from the parties instead of only picking a party? I'm not sure the multiparty dungeons would react badly to that actually.
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Jul 18, 2023 03:11
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SIGSEGV posted:Oh, just for the heroics then. Not in this game.
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Jul 18, 2023 03:29
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akira out here about to drop his mario level design contest level
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Jul 18, 2023 05:05
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Kinu Nishimura posted:akira out here about to drop his mario level design contest level Haha, I thought the exact same thing, but I figured no one would get the joke.
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Jul 18, 2023 12:20
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I know the game's trying to get us pumped up for the end, but losing the Child of Light like that, as well as the Army of Light? It almost feels like all that running around we did was almost pointless, were it not for the fact we also did so much good for the countries we visited. ...maybe I'm just salty that she had to sacrifice herself to save us from Edgelord Atma Weapon. / 
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Jul 24, 2023 02:45
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Gilgamesh255 posted:I know the game's trying to get us pumped up for the end, but losing the Child of Light like that, as well as the Army of Light? It almost feels like all that running around we did was almost pointless, were it not for the fact we also did so much good for the countries we visited. If we hadn't gotten all those relics, she wouldn't have been able to take Shadowstorm in the first place. If not for all that running around, we'd be dead in our tracks and Mephistocles would have already won.
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Jul 24, 2023 03:35
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5-Headed Snake God posted:If we hadn't gotten all those relics, she wouldn't have been able to take Shadowstorm in the first place. If not for all that running around, we'd be dead in our tracks and Mephistocles would have already won. Yeah, again, I'm probably just salty.  That said, I wish I had seen this thread earlier, I got into this late and just caught up. If this does manage to get a commercial release eventually, I hope it also comes out on consoles.
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Jul 24, 2023 04:42
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While I get the saltiness, I'm also a sucker for plot twists of the prophecy calling for a foretold chosen one, who is the chosen one BECAUSE they draw the actual heroes out who ultimately save the day. While the Child of Light is great, she's just a child and doesn't hold a candle to our peeps who killed demonic generals without any fancy holy items or prophecy.
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Jul 24, 2023 13:14
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I actually wanted to check the wording of the prophecy and realized that I don't seem to have actually screenshotted it.
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Jul 24, 2023 16:35
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5-Headed Snake God posted:I actually wanted to check the wording of the prophecy and realized that I don't seem to have actually screenshotted it. You could probably load a very, VERY early save, but then you'd probably have to do a lot to get back to where you were. Not that I'd mind waiting myself, I'm used to waiting quite a bit for my favorite LPs to update. That said, despite my saltiness in regards to that part...I can't say that I hate it. Heck, I might dare say I...like it(?). Can't exactly pin point why, though.
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Jul 24, 2023 18:25
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I am curious if gaining the Duke's (Baron? I forget his proper title) favor by doing the arena would have actually made his army show up, or even altered things a little. Probably not.
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Jul 25, 2023 04:22
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Gilgamesh255 posted:I am curious if gaining the Duke's (Baron? I forget his proper title) favor by doing the arena would have actually made his army show up, or even altered things a little. Probably not. Dammit, I knew I forgot something.
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Jul 25, 2023 12:21
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5-Headed Snake God posted:Dammit, I knew I forgot something. To be fair, that would've required you to grind to an average level over 50 to get into that part of the tournament, and I do recall you mentioning that you aren't exactly that patient, especially since you have some heroes that are low leveled from reclassing. Maybe do that after you beat the game so you can, uh, "do some rebalancing outside" aka cheat without feeling too bad about it, and then seeing what the last stretch of the tournament is like, and then seeing if there are any actual differences. Again, probably not.
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Jul 25, 2023 14:01
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Eh, any help sent by them would have been killed at the end anyways. Prolly for the best that they stayed away.
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Jul 25, 2023 14:07
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They do show up if you clear the arena, but all they do is lower the monster encounter rate for that dungeon.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:57
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Worgit posted:They do show up if you clear the arena, but all they do is lower the monster encounter rate for that dungeon. 
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Jul 26, 2023 01:35
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 Welcome back, everyone. Things took a grim turn last time, as the Armies of Light were annihilated and the Child of Light sacrificed herself to defeat the Shadowstorm.  A quick check for survivors turns up none.    Tragically, even Pablo, Kips, and Wip were killed in the blast. We're the only survivors.     As we head north, the valley darkens, then takes on a eerie red glow, and we come to the teleportal that leads to Mephistocles' prison.  The prison itself is pretty uninteresting, though the walkway is lined with demonic statues to give it a more threatening aura.  And here's the big demon himself.     The demon king has more choice dialogue, as befits the big villain.  So here we are. Mephistocles (or "Mephisto" as he's called in the enemy list) joins the fight with two appendages to assist him. Our basic strategy for this is simple: use Curly to apply Heroic to our party and heal as necessary, while everyone else takes out the appendages and then the boss himself. In practice, of course, it's not so simple. This is partly because Curly's beneficial spells have an obnoxious habit of missing, but mostly because, well, this is the final boss.   The front appendage, the Grapnel, uses Omnislash, which looks impressive but just hits the party for middling damage.    The Talon, in the back, uses Ruination, which hits one character for minor damage and a status ailment. I saw Sleepmore and Inept, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could inflict others.    When the Grapnel is destroyed, Mephisto replaces it with a new appendage, the Red Terror. Despite the intimidating name, it got destroyed before taking a single action.    When the Talon is destroyed, Mephisto likewise grows another arm, the Gloomblade.    This arm uses Gloomslasher, which hits the whole party for middling damage and inflicts Sap. It's also incorporeal, so physical attacks can't touch it. But with that name, maybe it counts as undead?   It does, in fact - and so, it turns out, does Mephisto himself. That discovery makes the fight much easier, since it means Akira can reliably deal over 4,000 damage per turn by throwing Spirit Skeans.   Despite that, Mephisto himself is no slouch. He opens the fight with Dhoom, reducing our party to 1 HP, and then uses Raspall to drain a chunk of our MP.    He often uses Laser Eyes on one target, though only Curly takes much damage from it.   Soul Frenzy restores a huge amount of HP for him and any arms that are around, but he doesn't use it much (I only saw it once). I think it's meant to prevent the central body from dying before the arms are dealt with.       Once the arms are all dealt with, Mephisto transforms into the Mephisto Core. He keeps most of his previous attacks, but gains at least one new one.    Unholy Blast is impressive-looking and does solid damage to our party. Well, except for Curly, who appears to be immune.    He's still undead, though, and falls to a concentrated offensive. The fact that this happened right after he used Dhoom definitely made it look like a closer call than it was. We've won! The world is saved!   Oh wait, no, there's still phase 2, because this is a 90s-style JRPG final boss.       Not if we can help it.  And now for round 2. Mephistocles is an appropriately tough fight, but the basic strategy is no different: apply Heroic, stay healed, and beat the piss out of Mephistocles.  As with round 1, he opens the fight by casting Dhoom, which does absolutely nothing since we're already at 1 HP.   He's also still undead for some reason, so Spirit Skean is going to do good work.  We can also apply status ailments to him, but they don't seem to last long, so it's not especially worth it.   By far the least dangerous of Mephistocles' attacks in this form is Charge Up. Though it looks impressive, it's no different from the version used by other enemies; it's still followed up by a weak physical strike.  His standard physical attack, shown here, actually deals more damage.      Ultra Black Death is probably the most skill name in Mephistocles' arsenal, and does a decent chunk of damage to the party.    Red Star certainly looks cool, but I have no idea what it does, since this was the only time he used it.    Blackfire is by far his most obnoxious attack. It doesn't deal much damage, but it hits consistently and dispels our buffs.      Ion Storm deals decent damage and can inflict Surround, which is most problematic for Moe and Shemp (the two who were, of course, affected by it).    Darkblast, like Red Star, only got used once and missed, so I'm unsure what it's supposed to do. Overall, it's a more irritating fight than a difficult one, though that may be because this party is so powerful.  Finally, with one last Spirit Skean...  ...Akira takes out the dark lord.    With one last gasp, Mephistocles acknowledges our victory, then explodes.   As his prison begins to shake and collapse, we run back for the exit. 
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Jul 31, 2023 16:51
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  As the screen fades back in, the camera pans over Death's Gate and over to Paranor.  Every good story needs an ending, right?  We open on Zefiryn and Alistair, as well as Zefiryn's cat Felix, who we last saw in her house in Dracoma.      Zefiryn has gone from a local Magus to the leader of the Gurus of Paranor. Not a bad step up.  As the camera pans south and fades out, we see the crowds of citizens cheering their new leader.  Raj Ahtan seems to have returned to Skatmandu.    I don't believe that's how sultanates work.   Well, whatever. It's another ending fit for a hero.  Unsurprisingly, Akira has also moved up in the world.    Despite the endless enthusiasm of Captain Ginyu and his men, Akira leaves the throne room without a word. Maybe his adventures have made him more soft-spoken.  And Holdana? Holdana returns home.      Holdana's mom is a pretty nice lady.  While everyone else gets promotions, Holdana gets a parade.  But then, even that seems like more than she wants.       Final Thoughts Replaying Hero's Realm was a good experience. While it's not an amazing game, it does almost everything right, and for its price, it's worth playing. I appreciate everyone sticking with me through the LP and being patient with my many delays, and I hope y'all enjoyed it. 
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Jul 31, 2023 16:53
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...Surely there is a secret postgame, that's how those things work. That final boss guy couldn't have just died like a chump after 2 phases?
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Jul 31, 2023 18:31
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Regallion posted:...Surely there is a secret postgame, that's how those things work. That final boss guy couldn't have just died like a chump after 2 phases? Not unless you count New Game +, which lets you carry over nonessential items, characters, and levels. But yeah, for the most part, Hero's Realm is not a hard game. And to be fair, Mephistocles put up a decent fight, but I had three master class characters on my team. Without Curly constantly applying Heroic, the fights probably would've been quite a bit harder.
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Jul 31, 2023 18:35
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Huh. That was both short and simple. Nice that we get a little "Where are they now" ending for each character that doesn't drag on forever. Just a "And the heroes got their reward, the end".
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Jul 31, 2023 19:45
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i can't believe that my insistence on naming characters after the three stooges would lead to satan getting curbstomped by them good lp! i liked it
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Jul 31, 2023 23:33
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Huh. I knew I joined late, but to the point where we're at the final battle? Guess I was lucky to have caught it at all. Anyway, thanks for the LP! Definitely going to get this when it goes commercially available; it has that charm going for it.
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Aug 1, 2023 00:07
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this game was neat as heck, and I'm glad you took the time and effort to post this curated tour! Thanks for the Let's Play, and I hope you can do more in the future!
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Aug 1, 2023 00:22
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Randalor posted:Huh. That was both short and simple. Nice that we get a little "Where are they now" ending for each character that doesn't drag on forever. Just a "And the heroes got their reward, the end". It's probably for the best. With all the grim stuff at the climax, focusing on the world at learge might have been a little dark. Kinu Nishimura posted:i can't believe that my insistence on naming characters after the three stooges would lead to satan getting curbstomped by them Thank you.  SatansOnion posted:this game was neat as heck, and I'm glad you took the time and effort to post this curated tour! Thanks for the Let's Play, and I hope you can do more in the future! Aw, thanks. I've been tossing around the possibility of doing another LP, but I'm not sure whether I want to make the time commitment. It would be significantly more work than this one.
5-Headed Snake God fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 1, 2023 04:40
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