None of these Henchman enemies are individually that dangerous. I cast Reviva--there's just one character on the field this time, so let's be cautious.




With Cannonball equipped, Wide Swing is fast enough to lay them all flat before they can act again.



(Lazy translation. The word that romanizes as "amai" is both "sweet" and "naive" in Japanese, depending on context.)



And then we jump back onto the field.

Well, that's not a problem--we know Wide Swing is faster and that Wide Swing will end the fight. Let's clear the next set of speedbumps.



Nope--they go faster and she goes down. So we reset and try again. No need for Reviva, the battle ending will reset it anyway.



Except that Trap is faster and can combo. Okay, let's try this again.

It's hard to tell, really, but the enemies seem to get slightly stronger every time. Cordelia will trade first turns with them sometimes in the first, but she's almost always slower in the second. Wide Swing only takes out two enemies in the second second fight, but Twin Dragon outspeeds the third and ends the fight.



...and then in the third fight, they're even faster, and combo for 500 damage. Down.

You can get to three or four rounds, but you're simply rolling too many dice--the enemies have about five different combos they can pull out, and any of them will kill you outright, even in the best gear you have available. You can't cast defensive spells faster than them, and no matter how long you keep fighting, there are always more of them.

You can come in with Stun resistance, but then they still have combos. You can come in with higher HP, but they'll still sometimes triple combo you. And even if somehow you get past all of that, your weapons will break and your LP will run out.

Even a great hero won't be able to stand up to continuous attacks by multiple enemies.

Einander fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Dec 6, 2014

Bellmaker fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Dec 4, 2014

TARDISman fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Dec 4, 2014

I take a moment to change the group; after Infiltrate! without Cordelia, the character who went is at the front of your party, followed by Wil, Nina, and whichever one didn't go. (A moment later, I switched Tyler back to the front, since he's beefier and wants to be closer anyway.)

Rolling in the age increases from both Infiltrate! (1238) and Showdown! (1239):

Wil and Cordelia aged from 16 to 19 and have +24 HP, +5 WP, +3 SP.
Narcisse aged from 31 to 34 and has +15 HP, +1 WP, and +1 SP.
Tyler aged from 26 to 29 and has +28 HP, +1 WP, and +1 SP. (I think I missed an HP increase somewhere in Infiltrate!, because that is weirdly high.)
Nina aged from 46 to 49 and has -12 HP and -1 WP.



In terms of enemies, this entire area doesn't have too much. Sand Rhinos are the same as ever. I believe it's the first to introduce Housekeepers (they look like flat snails, essentially), which can block attacks but are otherwise pretty harmless. They can also drop a decent shield. The crocodile things are Ammits, which are fairly tough and can use Soul Crush to cause instant death. The Dirt Hoppers aren't that dangerous. (But you should generally keep an eye on Hopper types--Pegs and Hoppers have stronger variants that use the same sprites.)




I take the route upward. There are two bridges, and on the other end of the north one, you'll notice the little metal ring there. If you interact with it...



...the bridge will explode, becoming permanently uncrossable. This will also knock the higher bag off of the ledge. There's also one on the lower bridge. You aren't allowed to blow up both bridges, because you need to come back here and you need to cross at least ONE of the bridges. Both bridges give you a Silver Staff for blowing them up, and since the top bridge is the longer way around, you should usually blow it up.

I'd forgotten the Silver Staff was here... So Wil can basically always use the good stuff too if you spec him as a Staff user, provided you know about the two Silver Staffs. You have to go further in before you can actually pick it up, though.



This bird is the first optional boss of the game. Every single bird enemy in this area is the same optional boss, and they respawn when you leave and enter a screen.

You think I'm joking, don't you.

In honor of the first optional boss, let's listen to something other than the normal battle theme! This is Rhapsody 1, from 'Piano Pieces "SF2" ~ Rhapsody on a Theme of SaGa Frontier 2'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTuSHy76fgg



This ugly bastard is a Griffon. It has 22972 HP, 12 LP, surprisingly middling Flash and stat-increase stats, and if you fight one you will probably be murdered.

"optional boss" may seem like an exaggeration if you just look at the stats on paper. 22972 HP, in particular, isn't THAT much by later standards. The problem is that only two teams can come here. Wil's team has awful weapons and low stats. The other team has one actual party member (if a strong one) and two filler characters.

If you decide you want to kill a Griffon, Wil's team is the one to do it with.



Mostly because there's four of you, and Reviva exists.



The main problem with Griffons is that they are really drat tough. Even with high-level Arts and low SP or the best weapons you can get by 1239, you'll be hitting for about 600. If you assume I'm doing about 2000 damage a round, then I need twelve uninterrupted rounds to kill one.

Basically all of a Griffon's attacks can do LP damage, and they do that LP damage often. It can Charm you. Wide Shot can hit multiple characters.






And if it decides it doesn't want to dick around, it can just Glider Spike you for way, WAY more HP than you have, or kill basically everyone with Heavy Gale. Both of these are Piercing, which is your weakest physical defense by far at this point. (Weakest defense for the Padded Mail and Beast Amulet, and the Bone Breastplate is next to useless against it. The Tone Shell has good Piercing Defense, but you have no real reason to equip one.)

If you don't have Reviva, something WILL go wrong. You can't heal more than one character at a time, the Griffon can simply kill anyone it wants whenever it wants, Water heals less than Heavy Gale will do to your party, and Life Water is slow. Without Reviva, it's a slog with several possible points of failure. With Reviva, it's a demented game of whack-a-mole.



Also sometimes it just uses Heavy Gale twice in a row and then you're pretty much boned, Reviva or no Reviva, unless two characters can tank it or you've assigned Cannonball to the right person.



Wil's a pretty competent healer with Life Water by now, though, and can revive Cordelia to full. Narcisse revives Tyler with Water and he burns an LP to get back to full.

This area has incredibly good passive Anima, having both Pasture (Tree-Water) and Rock Surface (Stone). It's nice having Water available on everyone.






Beast Lightning and Turtle Killer are invaluable in fights like this, lowering magical and physical defenses and greatly increasing the damage you do.



Megahit is just reasonably priced and easy to combo with. It's also a giant jumping cleave, so there's that.






Combos really kick your damage upward--the first and second combos did about the same amount.




I've referenced LP-casting before, but I haven't shown it. This is a really useful feature, since it ensures that you can always cast Reviva if you really need it. 1 LP isn't too much to pay, so long as you don't do it regularly. Also useful for Steel-wearers who don't have SP regen but still need to cast Water on someone.



By the time it goes down, I'm pretty worn-down... And this is with a strange streak of Body Double never Charming, which would have messed things up a lot more. I actually had a fairly good run this time.

I kept a list of who died to what during the fight, just out of personal curiosity.

Narcisse (Glider Spike)
Everyone else (Heavy Gale)
Tyler and Cordelia (Heavy Gale)
Tyler (Glider Spike) [519 damage!]
Tyler and Cordelia (Heavy Gale)
Tyler (Heavy Gale) [Cordelia survived with 7 Hp this time]
Cordelia (Heavy Gale) [It used this three times in a row! Tyler was still dead, so he didn't go down again]
Tyler (Glider Spike)

So Wil and Narcisse died once, Cordelia died three more times, and Tyler died six times. Being in the front spot really, really didn't pay off for him...

Then I just start the scenario over, because there's no real reason to fight a Griffon. Yes, they do drop two of the better equips in the game (I'll point them out once we find them normally), but they're easily replaceable, especially since neither of them has an Anima. (If you decide to fight a Griffon, make sure the area shows both Pasture and Rock Surface enviromental Anima, for Reasons I'll explain a little later.) Quicksave before trying to run around a Griffon, and just soft reset if you get into a fight; the fifteen seconds that'll take is less than the time it'll take to try to run away, much less kill it. (Quick Start has basically no loading time and Quicksaves are instant.)



You may have noticed the second bag back when I blew up the bridge. There's a second gimmick for the treasure here. See that bag on the ledge? You can't grab it, it's too high... But you'll notice the two Griffons on this screen.



If you make a Griffon run into one of the bags, they'll be knocked off the ledge.

Yes, they put multiple optional bosses in an area and then filled it with treasure that requires you to play optional boss Chicken. There's only two chests to get this way, though, and neither of them are too important, it's just a neat thing.



The Silence Bow is pretty good for this point, so it's mostly worth it. Shame we only have Narcisse to use it with.



The path splits past this point. Right takes you further in, down loops around to the other bridge's way in.



The other side of the lower bridge.



Griffons can turn surprisingly fast, so it got me about, oh, a fourth of a second after this screenshot. Unpause, BAM, spinning battle transition.




This drop-down bag is a pain. This is just below the top bridge, and the only Griffon here is at the top. So you need to pull him down all the way from the top, fighting against his "return to perch if player not within X radius" AI pattern and also trying not to touch the optional boss. This is difficult when it's hard to distinguish between "going up to return to base" or "going up to dive at you."



The Pop Shoes are pretty great defensively--8 physical defense, 7 magical defense. They give no SP, but they do give a special weapon tech, Press, which costs 4 WP and has 38 Power. It's the one Rhino types have, where you jump and stomp on something. Unfortunately, it can miss (like Cleave; most Arts can't, remember), and isn't actually associated with any weapon type, so it's not that strong.

It's a bonus, though. You mostly care because of the great defensive stats.



This is left of the Pop Shoes bag and just above the area behind the lower bridge. ~30 more Rock Axe uses here. See what I mean about Tyler only using the good stuff?




The 500 Crowns is here either way, and the second bag is where items go when you blow up the bridge.



I really didn't expect this, so... I need to explain something a little earlier than planned. Can't complain, though.

The Antler Spear is one of the Scene drops for this area. "Scenes" are specific enemy icons in specific areas, and each of them has their own associated enemy list. (Which is another reason there are so many Sidhe Bunnies stored in the monster data.) Essentially, think of the item drop table as having five entries. Each enemy contributes up to two, with the last three items being tied to the Scene.

The non-Griffon scenes here all have basically the same enemies... It's just that one can drop Flint Axes (9 Power Fire Axe), one can drop Stone Shields (16 Evade against physical, +10 SP), and the last can drop Antler Spears.

Scene drops are an enormous pain in the rear end if you're crazy enough to go item-hunting. (Don't go item-hunting.) The same icons always have the same Scene, but figuring out which is which is going to take some trial-and-error with save states or a LOT more trial-and-error without.

(Remember how I said to check the enviromental Anima against the Griffon? There seems to be at least one Griffon scene in this area that trades one of the good drops for one of the game's worst and kicks the other good item down to least-likely. Don't fight one in any area that only has Pasture terrain.)

Still, I've got one now, so Cordelia keeps a Light Spear equipped for Flame Anima (she needs it for Twin Dragon) and starts using her Sacred Spear in normal fights. Between the Sacred Spear, the Antler Spear, and the weapons I'll let later, she should be mostly using good ones from here on out.

And since I was testing something out in the run where I got that, I had to run back and grab the Rock Axe again. And, uh.



yep, THAT'S never going to break, ever



There's three ways onward. The mine entrance here links up to a higher one, which you can access from the left branch when the netting splits at this plateau.



There IS a Stone Shield in the middle, though, if you actually use shields. (I don't. More varied Anima access is almost always more useful, and if it isn't, you usally want the Kris Knife's magic defenses more than the shield. There's one exception, but you're only guaranteed one copy of that.)



Climbing up the right branch leads you to your goal.

The Hell Wingers have 40000 HP each. Defensively, they're a step below the Griffon, but it's not a very big step.




And like the Griffon, they have Heavy Gale and Glider Spike. (I went with a better presentation of Heavy Gale over the one with accurate numbers, but it did about the same as the Griffon's.) One of them has Oscillation, too, which is Sonic instead of Piercing but similarly overkill.

You can kill one Griffon, but even with Reviva, you are not killing two Griffon+ enemies. It's just not going to happen.




In a bit of poor planning on the part of the developers, taking the noncanon route will generally result in the player being wiped without explanation here. To trigger the right event, Nina has to be in the party.

If you do, then once your party wipes, instead of the "Wil Knight's party has lost" pre-Game Over message, Nina will get back up.

When Alexei said the power of the Egg was sealed, he wasn't joking. The Knight Servants have a little less than 1000 HP. Alexei has just below 3500. They can do maybe 100 damage to you in a turn.

It's really not a fight at all.






No music.

Einander fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jan 13, 2015