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Captain Bravo posted:He's talking about the nation points thing that you used to purchase stuff like your national Aketon for the slight movespeed bonus. It was never a very important element, but he's correct about how it worked. Ah, I guess they added that after I quit. Back then it was just regular walking when you were far from a controlled crag or city with stables.
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Jul 25, 2015 18:33
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This is why you never engage FF11 players. They turn everything into a support group meeting.
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Jul 25, 2015 21:55
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Bufuman posted:This is true. Even without his abilities (most of which are useless outside of Trance anyway), he's got drat solid stats all around and decent equipment options (armor is a bit on the weak side early on, but he's got high enough HP to compensate for that). OK, maybe he'd be a little gimped if you have him in garbage equipment, but if you manage to make him COMPLETELY useless, that's more on you rather than Zidane. Honestly, Zidane's only real fault is that if you want Thievery maxed out, you more or less need to use Steal every turn he gets for the whole game, throwing in a normal attack once in a blue moon or when you're on Disc 2 with Vivi, Dagger and Eiko and don't have the patience to have Vivi kill everything.
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Jul 26, 2015 03:27
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TravelLog posted:Honestly, Zidane's only real fault is that if you want Thievery maxed out, you more or less need to use Steal every turn he gets for the whole game, throwing in a normal attack once in a blue moon or when you're on Disc 2 with Vivi, Dagger and Eiko and don't have the patience to have Vivi kill everything. I'm not even really talking about Thievery. His staff weapons hit so freaking hard that all you need is his basic attack. Thievery is just the icing on the end-game cake.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:02
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The best part is between stealing every battle and a certain crazy awesome addictive minigame, you should never EVER have to buy a consumable. Until disc 3 because I'm not sure if you can steal Vaccines.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:22
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I've stolen pretty much every turn all game at least twice, and Thievery still tends to do around 4-5K endgame. It takes a ridiculous amount of grinding to max out. Same with Quina's grindable ability.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:32
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834 steals is not an arbitrary goal for the LLG, I'll just say that much.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:52
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Schwartzcough posted:I've stolen pretty much every turn all game at least twice, and Thievery still tends to do around 4-5K endgame. It takes a ridiculous amount of grinding to max out. Same with Quina's grindable ability. Quina's ability is way simpler to grind out than Thievery though. Obviously leveling to 99 is a pain for anyone because of how high the EXP curve gets, but the other aspect of the ability isn't too terrible. In my experience, for example, you can usually manage catching ~25-30 frogs by the time you go to the Iifa Tree near the end of Disc 2, so you're almost a third of the way there, and once you get the Airship or Flying Chocobo, its easy to visit the other marshes and bump up another 20 or so frogs, meaning you just need to do regular visits in between Likewise, killing 100 dragons for Freya's Dragon Crest isn't too bad since early game Ironites and Serpions both count, which means your total should be at least around 20, if not higher by the end of Disc 1.. TravelLog fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 04:58
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FFXI was a terrible game. Now that's over with... FFIX was the last classic Final Fantasy game on a console. Now the closest you get is Record Keeper which has Vivi and Garnet as characters. Vivi as the best magic character in the game with Garnet being close behind. Not to mention Vivi appeared in Kingdom Hearts 2. I don't recall any other characters from FF9 appearing in anything that wasn't basically fan service made specifically for Final Fantasy.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:58
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TravelLog posted:Quina's ability is way simpler to grind out than Thievery and Freya's Dragon Crest. Obviously leveling to 99 is a pain for anyone because of how high the EXP curve gets, but the other aspect of the ability isn't too terrible. The problem is it takes too drat long for the frogs to respawn. I mean, getting them is easy, if you're willing to leave the game running overnight all the time so they respawn. But by the time you have the transportation to farm all the swamps normally, it's late enough in the game that catching that many frogs requires sitting around doing nothing for hours after you've finished all the sidequests. By comparison, you can max out Dragon Crest really freakin' early in about 45 minutes.
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Jul 26, 2015 05:01
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Schwartzcough posted:The problem is it takes too drat long for the frogs to respawn. I mean, getting them is easy, if you're willing to leave the game running overnight all the time so they respawn. But by the time you have the transportation to farm all the swamps normally, it's late enough in the game that catching that many frogs requires sitting around doing nothing for hours after you've finished all the sidequests. By comparison, you can max out Dragon Crest really freakin' early in about 45 minutes. I edited my post with more thoughts, but basically I think that as long as you do regular visits to the marshes and then clear them out fully when you know you won't be back to an area for a while, finishing the collection when you have full access to the world isn't too bad. Sure I'd say it takes a couple hours over all, but Zidane's stealing is just ENDLESS by comparison. I don't know if TheWhiteDragon ever mentioned his steal counts in his LP, but I can't imagine that going into Disc 3 or 4 that most players would have 300-400 much less 800+ steals.
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Jul 26, 2015 05:06
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Schwartzcough posted:The problem is it takes too drat long for the frogs to respawn. I mean, getting them is easy, if you're willing to leave the game running overnight all the time so they respawn. But by the time you have the transportation to farm all the swamps normally, it's late enough in the game that catching that many frogs requires sitting around doing nothing for hours after you've finished all the sidequests. By comparison, you can max out Dragon Crest really freakin' early in about 45 minutes. Not really if you know what you're doing. But that's way ahead of the LP.
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Jul 26, 2015 06:20
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About a certain minigame/ability grind: The secret is to leave one of each sex frog in the pond. If you do, they repopulate faster. Clearing each available pond after each dungeon is easy to get you to 99 in disc 3. Also, I think that this games Blue magic is the most balanced of any other Final Fantasy. Usually it is either completely broken, or marginal at best. The spells here have niches and uses. Nothing is blatantly overpowered.
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Jul 26, 2015 09:26
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Sum Mors posted:Also, I think that this games Blue magic is the most balanced of any other Final Fantasy.  That's not exactly what I'd call it.
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Jul 26, 2015 09:30
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Oh hey, caught this LP pretty early, never followed the earlier one so this'll be cool. IX has always been one of my favorite games in this series and probably the most underrated one. I never really minded the slow combat either, but then again I played through the PS1 version of FFV like three times so maybe my patience was honed there.  Also the soundtrack of this game is pretty incredible, I think VII has the most atmospheric and fitting one in the series but IX has practically nothing but great tracks. On a related note, this is from a couple of pages back but Quantum Toast posted:I had no idea that's what that music was called. It's actually called "Reckless Steiner", although it's called "Steiner's Delusion" in the official soundtrack. They renamed a bunch of tracks for the OST, mostly to make them sound better in English, although I think Reckless Steiner is a pretty fitting name already.
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Jul 26, 2015 10:15
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TravelLog posted:I edited my post with more thoughts, but basically I think that as long as you do regular visits to the marshes and then clear them out fully when you know you won't be back to an area for a while, finishing the collection when you have full access to the world isn't too bad. Sure I'd say it takes a couple hours over all, but Zidane's stealing is just ENDLESS by comparison. I don't know if TheWhiteDragon ever mentioned his steal counts in his LP, but I can't imagine that going into Disc 3 or 4 that most players would have 300-400 much less 800+ steals. I just let at least one female and one male frog alive, that's enough to repopulate the marshes really quickly. Generally, every time I visit one it's swimming in frogs and has at least one frog king.
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Jul 26, 2015 12:14
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Iretep posted:
I'd consider it balanced in the sense that it's not overpowered (looking at you Enemy Skill) nor really underpowered (looking at you Ronso Rage). Personally I feel it's a tiny bit underwhelming in some aspects, but it does its job well enough.
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Jul 26, 2015 13:01
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I've actually found Quina's Frog grinding the worst and most time consuming one. I've never gotten Frog Drop to deal 9999 damage until Disc 4, whereas by doing regular steals and fighting in that area where you're 75+% likely to run into a Grand Dragon, am usually able to max out Thievery and Dragon's Crest by early-to-mid Disc 3.
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Jul 26, 2015 13:28
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AW MAN I managed to get here early enough to enjoy the ride  this was absolutely my favourite Final Fantasy of all time and I loved reading The White Dragon's LP of it so I can't wait to enjoy it all again!Loving your low-level run btw OFS, looks a lot more interesting to screw around with than FF7's run with the bosses never giving you EXP. That's really weird I always thought, it always struck me as kind of bizarre in games when the bosses don't give you any Experience Points and for the life of me I never figured out why. Then I realised in this day and age, it's because of people like you for the extra challenge I suppose. Man what must have been a crazy low-level-run scene swept the nation in late-90s Japan.
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Jul 26, 2015 14:59
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Libluini posted:I just let at least one female and one male frog alive, that's enough to repopulate the marshes really quickly. Generally, every time I visit one it's swimming in frogs and has at least one frog king. There can actually only be one Golden Frog across all the ponds in the game, so it depends on your luck whether it "travels" with you between continents and such. But yeah, obviously leaving 1 male and 1 female helps. That said, while you can check between every dungeon, no one wants to trek back through fossil roo (for example), so sometimes you don't necessarily do optimum frog-catching
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Jul 26, 2015 16:07
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Too much black bars for something that we'll see in a few updates anyway. Let's hold off until it comes up. Update either later today or tomorrow, depending on how lazy I am.
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Jul 26, 2015 16:11
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 The FF wiki tells me this image is Zidane's dagger with Dagger's necklace...but I still can't seem to make sense of it. It still just looks like some sort of weird streetlight to me. I'm also surprised I'm not super familiar with the image given how much FFIX killed me.
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Jul 26, 2015 18:22
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:The best part is between stealing every battle and a certain crazy awesome addictive minigame, you should never EVER have to buy a consumable. Until disc 3 because I'm not sure if you can steal Vaccines. gently caress Virus.  You can steal Vaccines, and get them as drops, the problem is that you can never buy them, and you only ever get them from things that spam Virus anyway.EDIT: Also, there's possible reasons to stock up on High Potions, Tents and Softs, as there's a few points where you're locked in a party without a healer and Tents/Softs have more uses than just healing. You should never need Ethers or normal status healers, though. KataraniSword fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 18:37
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VagueRant posted:
Zidane's dagger is on the upper left of the post/rod/whatever, Dagger's pendant is hanging right off it (the bit that makes it look like a streetlight). Pretty sure the dagger is broken, too, which is why they appear to be just a couple of handles strapped to the whatever.
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Jul 26, 2015 19:14
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I think it's been said before in the thread, but Tents are great to have in battle. You can throw one on a party member and they can get a decent HP/MP heal with it...with the possibility of getting bitten by the Silence/Poison/Blind snake(s) (Which don't bite if you have immunity to said ailment) can -really- shutdown some bosses without a hitch if tossed onto them early in a fight (Like an annoying one we'll be fighting late disk 1 and is the second to last major boss fight on the disk)
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Jul 26, 2015 19:34
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Its his off hand dagger, the one that doesnt change to reflect equipment changes.
Rigged Death Trap fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 19:35
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Kemix posted:I think it's been said before in the thread, but Tents are great to have in battle. You can throw one on a party member and they can get a decent HP/MP heal with it...with the possibility of getting bitten by the Silence/Poison/Blind snake(s) (Which don't bite if you have immunity to said ailment) can -really- shutdown some bosses without a hitch if tossed onto them early in a fight (Like an annoying one we'll be fighting late disk 1 and is the second to last major boss fight on the disk) I tried this for a lark, but it just healed the boss.
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Jul 26, 2015 19:45
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That's why you do it at the start of the fight. It's not a guaranteed hit, so using it upfront means they don't benefit if it fails.
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Jul 26, 2015 20:03
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Its his off hand dagger, the one that doesnt change to reflect equipment changes. That looks like something Squall would be using. Am I the only one who sees a gunblade?
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Jul 26, 2015 20:22
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For some reason all that picture makes me think is "Go go gadget extendo-blade."
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Jul 26, 2015 20:31
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Its retractable. Basically a giant switchblade, except the blade just extends outwards rather than emerging from a sheath.
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Jul 26, 2015 20:34
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Kemix posted:I think it's been said before in the thread, but Tents are great to have in battle. You can throw one on a party member and they can get a decent HP/MP heal with it...with the possibility of getting bitten by the Silence/Poison/Blind snake(s) (Which don't bite if you have immunity to said ailment) Wait, what? Snakes come out of the tents?
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Jul 27, 2015 21:09
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 WIND NOISES   It is indeed the cargo ship! Now I can take the princess back to the castle! Wha!?     We've been making lots of 'em since they set up the factory six months ago. Who cares? This is a piece of cake compared to farming. Better money, too. H-Hey! Is that scary guy in armor running toward US!? Let's get outta here! WIND NOISES  What could they possibly be shipping out from this village? Did I just see that barrel move? Oh hey this is like my only chance to talk before we continue so, uh, hello. Anyway let's stab the barrel.   The princess!? -----  You scoundrel! Is this your doing!?  Zidane, I don't know what to say to Vivi. I never knew anything suspicious was going on at the castle... We still don't know for sure. Let's stay by Vivi's side. (I must get the princess onboard the cargo ship somehow. Then we can head back to Alexandria Castle.) ...... That's convenient! Did you ask someone? Th-The old man in the shack told me! So it must be true! You're acting strange...  ...Welp.     What? What are you talking about!? You were all unconscious from the blizzard. He said he was a Black Waltz!  My power, magic, and speed make me far superior to No. 1! Resistance is futile! No! I will not return to the castle. Come with me, or you'll regret it! Kee hee hee! You think I care?    Today we'll be fighting the second Black Waltz.   This time, there's no summon and we have a full party.  He has a physical attack where he acts like a total show-off. Yeah, you know the Warp spell, I'm so loving happy for you.  Like every other boss so far, he has steals we want. The Steepled Hat gives a tiny strength boost and can teach Dagger Protect. You know, if she didn't already know it. It's a couple points more magic defense for her at least since Vivi and Zidane want to learn Add Status first.   Speaking of Protect, I use it on Steiner since he's the only one in the front row. Of course, Waltz 2's physicals aren't what's threatening about it.  Since I'm trying to steal stuff, I have Vivi Focus so once Zidane is done he can end this battle a bit more quickly.   Shell makes more sense against a freaking Black Mage.      Except using it on Dagger is useless because Waltz 2 won't actually attack her, only the guys. However, if all the guys are dead, Waltz 2 will automatically put her to Sleep status and it'll be Game Over. Anyway, Black Waltz 2 will counter Fire with his own powerful Fire spell. You may notice that Steiner was just sent to Trance from that attack.  Unlike every other character in the game, Steiner gains no special abilities from Trance. Instead, Steiner "merely" does triple the damage from his physical attacks, rather than the 50% increase other characters get from physical attacks under Trance.  He was hitting for ~80 before because I switched him back to his weakest sword. Now he can deal a fourth of this guy's max HP in one hit.     Eventually Waltz 2 will release a nasty Fira spell for major damage.  Enough to send Vivi into a Trance of his own! Vivi's special Trance ability is Double Black, or probably better known as Dualcast. He casts two spells in a row. You can't choose to cast only one, and both have normal MP costs. This still has its uses, of course.  Waltz 2's other steal is the Leather Plate, armor that only Zidane can equip for now. It teaches Chakra, an ability Zidane can't learn. It does reduce ice damage by half though, so that's nice.  Anyway, at this point I didn't know that Waltz 2 countered Fire.  I certainly learned after I dualcast it, though.  Trance Steiner beats the guy into submission before I could revive Vivi.   The longer you stare at Trance Steiner, the less sense he makes. WIND NOISES  Did my mother really send him to capture me...? It can't be! There is no reason to trust the words of some bandit. He was just another criminal, scheming to use the princess for some evil deed. Have I not been careful enough? Your noble upbringing cannot be disguised so easily. You're the one with the problem! Walking around, yelling "Princess!" everywhere... Yes? Sure, Lindblum should not be terribly far by airship!  No reason not to unless you're going for the super secret speedrun item. Oh gently caress it, I'll go ahead and spoil it now because it has no bearing on this Let's Play since I'm not going for it and it's dumb to have it in black bars since it'll keep coming up in the thread. If you make it to the end of the final dungeon in twelve hours, your reward is the Excalibur II, Steiner's super-secret ultimate weapon. It's absolutely not essential in any way, just a nice perk if you're willing to go for it. Of course, it's a pain in the rear end to go for it, especially for those in PAL regions where the timing differences makes it even difficult, especially if you don't use the trick of opening your PS1 lid during FMVs to skip them or whatever. And god forbid you're a perfectionist and try a low-level game for Excalibur II while collecting all missibles and limited-quantity items... Anyway, I'm not doing any of that, so let's rest.  Vivi, you'll be safe with me.  Not much new dialogue.    ...Hmm? This is Innkeeper Hal. In case you haven't noticed, pretty much every NPC in the game has a name and some other descriptor about them because you really should care about each and every character in this game.  Hey, I know she's cute, but it's rude of you to stare. Oh, no, I wasn't staring at the young lady... Th-The room is through that door...  This is the second time now the stupid innkeeper forgot to charge us for our room, by the way.   But after that he actually charges us now. I'd pay again but I spent most of my money on Wrists for some reason.  The only other different thing is Zidane doesn't want to enter the mayor's house anymore.   Anyway, we've mined all we could from this place, besides the stuff we can't get to until a very brief window in Disc 3 when most people wouldn't even bother thinking of returning. Let's leave. WIND NOISES  I-I shall go ask them! Oh, really. How come? I-It is not for your benefit! I am only doing this for the princess!  An airship full of barrels like the ones I saw at the castle... Steiner was against going...  But why...? Didn't you just say we should get on the ship? Yeah, I know. Trust me! What is it, Vivi? Those dolls they were making underground... They look kinda close, but not really that much like him. Not really. They're just dolls, Vivi.AIRSHIP ENGINE NOISES  What the heck is Steiner up to? On a ship that's not going to Lindblum!? I don't have time to explain.    Hurry up! You have nothing to worry about. Hurry, before she takes off! But...    And so we don't close the update off with sexual harassment...    Here's an airship taking off in dramatic fashion. Not really video-worthy, but there'll be some such moments next update, so don't worry. Mega64 fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 01:06
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Mega64 posted:
And that's why people love Zidane. He's so unabashed in his skirt chasing that you can't help but love him even in moments like this.
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Jul 28, 2015 02:40
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BW#2 is a chump, but in theory it's actually a pretty well-designed fight. A lose condition if you get three allies KO'd, a counter to magic, and an upgrade to -ra level spells midway. Too bad he's a mage and thus really vulnerable to daggers and swords in the face. He's not the only boss who employs selective targeting in the series - Rude in FF7 will avoid attacking Tifa unless she's the only one left alive, and Vossler/Gabranth in FF12 especially love targeting Basch if he's on the field.
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Jul 28, 2015 02:50
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When I first played it, I didn't see the slight of hand. I just saw his face going side to side in close proximity
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Jul 28, 2015 03:01
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I love little scenario-specific combat sequences in JRPGs. Programming BW2 to not damage Dagger shows the narrative in the code. Cool.
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Jul 28, 2015 03:05
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Can I just say that I love the look of the Black Waltz. Just a bunch of crazy monster black mages. It's a shame they don't last long though.
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Jul 28, 2015 03:24
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Mega64 posted:
This moment really floored me when I was playing the game. Steiner is so dedicated to getting Garnet back to the castle that he'd straight-up lie to the rest of the party just to get it done. And then Zidane just sees through it anyway.
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Jul 28, 2015 03:35
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Mega64 posted:This is Innkeeper Hal. In case you haven't noticed, pretty much every NPC in the game has a name and some other descriptor about them because you really should care about each and every character in this game. I love this so much about the game. Not to mention the best NPCs of all have amazing descriptors. Robert Dogherder  
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Jul 28, 2015 03:47
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