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Just jumping in to say I really like both Ziqiya's design and character, and I hope her commands are...y'know, not unusably terrible, and she ends up workable as such. Cyan. Speaking of Mr. Thou, though, does the "all women" flag actually remove his son? If so that's an interesting attention to detail, given that Owain does have lines. Like two lines, but lines.
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Mar 15, 2022 13:49
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Haar_Dragon posted:Just jumping in to say I really like both Ziqiya's design and character, and I hope her commands are...y'know, not unusably terrible, and she ends up workable as such. Cyan. I dig Ziqiya as well! When she showed up in that suit, I actually whooped. It took a while to workshop some bones for the character - initially she was a lot closer to her base game counterpart, and I tweaked a lot of stuff trying to make her more distinct. Ziqiya's family being different is all me. Initially I thought it would be cool just to have the bereavement plot from the base game but about a gay couple, but actually playing through it, that plot isn't super thick on the ground and it kind of ends the story right where it starts. Also? I thought it would be cute and funny if her wife was a little black mage. As far as her commands go, she's not obscenely strong but she's going to be a solid workhorse. Throw can pump out huge damage and, as we'll see, SloViri is pretty useful!
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Mar 15, 2022 14:08
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B; work those vocab muscles some more. 
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Mar 15, 2022 17:54
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C, let's get Dora's unique take on this situation. (by the way, the bit where Dora said "I made that very clear" about the sharing circles? Amazing. You can just tell that Nalaal has been working at her for days, to absolutely no avail  )Nalaal: catch up with Ziqiya. Dora may not be interested in sharing circles, but you already know Ziqiya, technically. It'd be good to find out what's happened in the last decade+, and maybe compare notes on your respective abilities. Plus, y'know, that whole "talking to someone who has an emotional availability somewhat above that of a rock." Also, criminy, finally someone with some versatile commands. I predict that Ziqiya will be a mainstay in future parties, just because Magic brings so much to the table. I assume that the espers are all randomized, but is there otherwise any limitation on who can learn what spells?
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Mar 15, 2022 18:19
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Haar_Dragon posted:Just jumping in to say I really like both Ziqiya's design and character, and I hope her commands are...y'know, not unusably terrible, and she ends up workable as such. Cyan. Aw. Cyan's just bad, not unusable. And he's mostly only bad within the context of his game and because of sword tech taking forever to charge. But Dispatch doesn't have that problem and is armor-ignoring and unblockable. Empowerer is basically a free full heal, including your magic, against anything that isn't undead; it's the one ability that's sometimes worth the hell wait. Tempest is only one weapon, sure, but it has a chance of doing wind damage to everything. No, Cyan's problem is that Final Fantasy VI is really easy and the cast is better than he is. It's the Dragon Ball Z problem where Yamcha is a joke even though he's stronger than everyone on the planet, except somewhere around a dozen people. You're not going to suffer for using Cyan.
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Mar 15, 2022 23:36
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Veryslightlymad posted:Aw. Cyan's just bad, not unusable. And he's mostly only bad within the context of his game and because of sword tech taking forever to charge. But Dispatch doesn't have that problem and is armor-ignoring and unblockable. Empowerer is basically a free full heal, including your magic, against anything that isn't undead; it's the one ability that's sometimes worth the hell wait. Tempest is only one weapon, sure, but it has a chance of doing wind damage to everything. I mean...yeah. I did use him on my first run just because I thought he was cool - Yeti and Dog Boy were the ones who got left behind on that run. And basically every recent port of FFVI does the really simple thing that fixes him - that being allowing Bushido/SwordTech to charge in the background while your other guys do things. But in the SNES/PSX/GBA versions, while you're waiting for your move to charge, you could Chainsaw, Aurabolt and drop a Firaga on someone's head, but you don't get to because you're locked into the Bushido menu and the fight doesn't just stop. Yeah, calling him "unusable" is an exaggeration, but using his actual gimmick is basically just intentionally sinking an opportunity cost not just for his own party slot, but the entire party.
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Mar 16, 2022 02:43
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Haar_Dragon posted:I mean...yeah. I did use him on my first run just because I thought he was cool - Yeti and Dog Boy were the ones who got left behind on that run. And basically every recent port of FFVI does the really simple thing that fixes him - that being allowing Bushido/SwordTech to charge in the background while your other guys do things. But in the SNES/PSX/GBA versions, while you're waiting for your move to charge, you could Chainsaw, Aurabolt and drop a Firaga on someone's head, but you don't get to because you're locked into the Bushido menu and the fight doesn't just stop. I also loved Cyan as a little kid, and used him despite SwordTech's issues. He's a questing knight! What's not to like? TooMuchAbstraction posted:C, let's get Dora's unique take on this situation. (by the way, the bit where Dora said "I made that very clear" about the sharing circles? Amazing. You can just tell that Nalaal has been working at her for days, to absolutely no avail I was giggling to myself while writing that bit! In the base game, this is a segment that's simultaneously extremely dark and very silly, and I felt like it was important to preserve that sense of humour. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Also, criminy, finally someone with some versatile commands. I predict that Ziqiya will be a mainstay in future parties, just because Magic brings so much to the table. I assume that the espers are all randomized, but is there otherwise any limitation on who can learn what spells? Espers are indeed randomised, and I'm excited to explore the impact of that - more on that when we get to them! There aren't any limitations on who can learn which magic, but that would be a super cool feature, wouldn't it? It'd create some really interesting niches and partybuilding considerations if characters rolled Black, White and Time instead of just the Magic command. And yeah - access to the Magic command on its own opens up a lot of flexibility! Everyone who has it will be able to cover several niches, depending on which spells we're able to teach them. One interesting wrinkle on the run so far is that we have an outsized number of natural mages, and so the setting has had to subtly warp around the existence of all these people who have magical gifts. Base FF6 depicts a world where magic is rare and barely understood: the fact that Nalaal is a mage seeded the Esper birthright plotline, that Zekiye is a mage seeded the magicite experimentation plotline, and so on. And on that note... Why Mysidia? This is a wild one. I had no plans to change the names or general vibes of any of the locales from the base game, but Beyond Chaos threw me a curveball here. One of Beyond Chaos' flags is a simple quality of life improvement - if you flag "z" when generating the seed, it gives you the Sprint Shoes effect at all times. Normally, the Sprint Shoes are a relic you can buy or find. While a party member has them equipped, your run speed is increased. This is actually kind of a pain in the base game, because FF6 has frequent interludes where you change parties, split into multiple parties, or switch to a different character for a while - and the characters you're not using will still have your Sprint Shoes. You wind up having to buy multiple pairs of Sprint Shoes and shuffle everyone's relics around occasionally just to retain access to the game's equivalent of a run button. I turned it off in my test run, not remembering how much of a pain it was, and I wound up regretting it. So for GIRL FANTASY VI, I turned it on! Normally, there's an NPC in South Figaro who encourages you to buy some Sprint Shoes at the relic shop. He's a merchant who tells you that the Sprint Shoes make him run faster, then demonstrates by running into a wall. It's a cute moment, and the mod developers could have just left it unchanged - but hey, you don't need Sprint Shoes with the "z" flag on! Why should there be an NPC telling you to buy them? As it turns out, the soldiers of this particular nation use a recoloured version of that same merchant sprite. Suddenly, the valiant defense is being undertaken by an army of black mages. I couldn't not integrate that into the story somehow, right? And as it turned out, it vibed perfectly with Ziqiya's kit, and its preponderance of magic. Mistakes into miracles! Android Blues fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Mar 16, 2022 |
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Mar 16, 2022 05:20
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Haar_Dragon posted:I mean...yeah. I did use him on my first run just because I thought he was cool - Yeti and Dog Boy were the ones who got left behind on that run. And basically every recent port of FFVI does the really simple thing that fixes him - that being allowing Bushido/SwordTech to charge in the background while your other guys do things. But in the SNES/PSX/GBA versions, while you're waiting for your move to charge, you could Chainsaw, Aurabolt and drop a Firaga on someone's head, but you don't get to because you're locked into the Bushido menu and the fight doesn't just stop. Yeah, bad gimmick is a good way of putting it. He's much easier to pick up and use than Gau, and certainly takes less time to do so, but Gau's one of the best characters in the game. That's basically the other end of the spectrum. Then you compare him to Edgar who is just as easy to use and much better in nearly every meaningful way, and I get the hyperbole. In one of my runs, I had a Sabin that rolled the personal skill of "Carbuncle". And Setzer's equipment list but before Setzer's equipment becomes available. And not the best stats. That was useless. ...well, until I found fixed dice. But truly useless was the same run was my Banon, who spawned with imp equipment. His personal skill was also Carbuncle. 
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Mar 16, 2022 09:27
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One nice upside of magic being much more well understood and common than in the base game is that it becomes a lot easier to explain the random crooks, mechanics, and dancing girls with access to magic in Zozo.
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Mar 16, 2022 12:50
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Android Blues posted:So, instead, they did something cute. The merchant is replaced with a little black mage sprite who tells you that he bought a relic to teach himself Fire. This isn't exactly consonant with like, the setting or lore of Final Fantasy 6, where magic is rare and little known, but Beyond Chaos doesn't care about that stuff. It's a momentary cute interaction and, for my purposes, easily snipped out. An amendment here: I figured it was this, due to the weird coincidence of the dialogue that changes when you tag "z" revolving around learning magic, but actually the merchant is randomised like a party member due to the existence of the merchant disguise in the South Figaro scenario - and we rolled into a black mage sprite that's tagged female in the custom sprite files. Which is fantastic and wonderful, I think.
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Mar 16, 2022 15:28
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Veryslightlymad posted:Aw. Cyan's just bad, not unusable. And he's mostly only bad within the context of his game and because of sword tech taking forever to charge. But Dispatch doesn't have that problem and is armor-ignoring and unblockable. Empowerer is basically a free full heal, including your magic, against anything that isn't undead; it's the one ability that's sometimes worth the hell wait. Tempest is only one weapon, sure, but it has a chance of doing wind damage to everything. They fixed his Bushido in the Re-Pixelization release. You pick the attack you want to use, his gauge starts charging, then you continue on the turn and he attacks automatically when his gauge fills to the proper level.
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Mar 16, 2022 18:31
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That Bushido/SwdTech improvement would make him considerably better. In all likelihood. It would certainly make Empowerer* (I assume they call it the much less impressive sounding "Dragon", now) even more viable than it already is, but depending on how the math works out, it might make Quadra Slice, Stunner, and maybe even Cleave* useful. Since, on particular sacks of meat, being able to control your other characters to, I dunno, heal or whatever. Though, by the time you can get Cleave, you probably have a few ways of doing max damage. ~~~~~~~~~~ And now, bonus analysis, since I'm bored and I looked up the other translations. Which is cooler? The updated version or the Woolsey version? Bushido/SwdTech ~ I think pretty obviously "Bushido" wins. For one, it's not abbreviated. I'll admit to finding a certain charm in SwdTech, or "Sword tech". It feels... somehow gratifying to say out loud. It shouldn't be badass, but is inexplicably kind of badass. Nonetheless, Bushido is much more elegant, and sort of informs the whole of Cyan's character. 1-0 Fang/Dispatch ~ Dispatch is irrefutably cooler. An ability named "Dispatch" just drips with pure disdain. It being the lowest level skill and the one that requires the least effort emphasizes this even more. Fang is a pretty cool word, no doubt, but in this context, "Dispatch" is as clearly superior to its weaker opponent as Cyan is. 1-1 Sky/Retort ~ I'm gonna give Retort the edge on this one in both languages. For one, it's more accurately describing the move. But for two, it's a word with some gravitas. Like Dispatch, Retort has a bit of a disdainful edge to it. I don't understand why this move was named "sky" in the first place. There might be more historical context I am missing. 1-2 Tiger/Slash ~ Ew. Can I pick neither? I'm gonna go with "Tiger", which, hey, this move is nothing like, but at least 1)Tigers are cool and 2)"Slash" is the most boring way you can describe moving a sword across a body. "Cut" is sexier. 2-2 Flurry/Quadra Slam ~ Flurry clearly wins. "Quadra" is a clunky word to use in an ability, but "slam" kind of gives it that little extra it needs to sound just aggressive enough to work, so I don't hate it, but "Flurry" is so much a more elegant way to describe a sequence of hits that manages to feel both vicious and controlled. 3-2 Dragon/Empowerer ~ Maybe a bit controversially, I'm gonna go with Empowerer. Dragon much more accurately describes the move, as, I mean, there's definitely a dragon. But honestly? Dragon is incredibly overused. It's supposed to be special. I have a personal rule. Anything self-named "dragon" feels weak-sauce. To be respectable, "Dragon" must be a title one is bestowed. Meanwhile, Empowerer is a bit clunky, but something about it still makes me say "God drat!" 3-3 Eclipse/Stunner ~ I'm tempted to call this one a draw out of leaning toward Stunner but to a degree that I'm sure it's adjustable for not only my own bias toward the version I grew up with, but a Pavlovian response to the word "stunner" and instinctively knowing it's a big loving deal to be hit with one, thanks to work of Stone Cold Steve Austin. It also more accurately describes the move--it literally stuns the enemies. Eclipse is a cool enough name to almost make up for it, so, again, I'm close to calling it a draw to counteract my knee-jerk bias. However, when doing this, I put "stunner" into Google Translate and it gave me "Sutan'nā". So it would appear to be one of those words that they went with a mutation of the English word, and that has to be because of Stone Cold. It has to. What other context of the word "Stunner" would require it being necessary to use the English word? You know what? gently caress it. Japan will forgive me, as even they acknowledge the emotional weight behind "Stunner". 3-4 Tempest/QuadraSlice ~ Tempest wins by a country mile. Where Quadra Slam almost works because it spices up the intellectual "Quadra" with a visceral "Slam", QuadraSlice is mixing some intellectual energy with... hmm. Slick punk? I'mma go with slick punk energy. The result is less balancing out, and sounding weaker. Hell, take Quadra out of the picture, and while "Slice" is probably a more effective use of a sword, it just doesn't sound as nasty as "Slam". And frankly, it's only a little better than "slash" and still not as good as "cut" when it comes to boring ways to describe moving a sword over a body. It feels weaker than the ability it's supposed to be better than. Meanwhile, Tempest manages the complete opposite. Not only being a word with some weight, it's a clear upgrade vs Flurry. A flurry is a small storm, a tempest is a big storm. This is an incredibly elegant way to name an upgraded ability. 4-4 Oblivion/Cleave ~ Out of respect, I am going to go with Oblivion. I have many thoughts here. And I may have the wrong interpretation/idea about Oblivion, but I doubt it. I've seen the concept of "Oblivion" (or sometimes "emptiness") brought up several times before in Japanese Media, with regards to the pinnacle of form and swordsmanship and/or martial arts. And while I don't get it, I see the edge of it. But it doesn't work on me. Call it a lack of cultural understanding and a failure of our translation. We've settled on "oblivion" in a few places but our western concept of Oblivion doesn't do justice to the concept being conveyed as I understand it, which is probably not well enough. My best guess based on the context I see it used is it's supposed to be an idea that, at the true peak of mastery, there is no thought at all. A concept approached in another direction entirely with Dragon Ball's "Ultra Instinct", which also fails to really convey the meaning. I don't think we have a singular word that's adequate. "Gone?" "Outside?" Perhaps I'll think of the right word. On the other hand, "Cleave" is a word I like, has its own gravitas as a word for splitting in two, accurately describes the action of the move, and feels somehow completely inappropriate in context. As the final move for a skilled swordsman, as the result for letting go of his rage over his past (or, I guess, hitting level 70), as an ultimate personal achievement? It is woefully inadequate. Where I like "Cleave" is where it fails. It is completely lacking in poetry. And while I think that the very concept of martial "arts" or finding beauty and dignity and poetry in swordsmanship to be a convenient, dehumanizing lie, for even the softest, the most delicate and precise of cuts is still a horror and a shameful violence. There is no beauty in violence. We are no different in the West, with our dignified depictions of duelists, or our romantic notions of chivalry. We deign to call boxing the 'Sweet' science. And yet, it is precisely this discrepancy between the softer, fanciful, more poetic descriptions and the harsher realities of violence where the concept we sometimes call "Oblivion" actually succeeds in being the achievement of the truest masters. "Eclipse," "Sky"... similar names used elsewhere... these are all running away from the truth, but "Oblivion" as I woefully try to understand it, I feel does not. Indeed, that has to be why the state is so hard to reach. Because, acting in this way of non-action, giving in, the enlightened swordsman is able to take the courageous leap to relinquish control to the situation and release themselves from the burden of thought. Gone away. Free of second guesses. Free of malice. Free of fear. And guilt. Beautiful, merciful freedom from guilt. I think I understand now. A better word in our culture would be "Absolution". 5-4. This one got away from me a little. I'm gonna go for a walk.
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Mar 16, 2022 21:09
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I'm off on a long weekend to visit friends in Wales, so the next update will be early next week! Feel free to natter and input commands in the meantime. Veryslightlymad posted:That Bushido/SwdTech improvement would make him considerably better. In all likelihood. It would certainly make Empowerer* (I assume they call it the much less impressive sounding "Dragon", now) even more viable than it already is, but depending on how the math works out, it might make Quadra Slice, Stunner, and maybe even Cleave* useful. Since, on particular sacks of meat, being able to control your other characters to, I dunno, heal or whatever. Beautiful and trenchant analysis, entirely in the spirit of the thread. I have always agreed that Cleave is a woefully inadequate thing to call an ability that represents both the pinnacle of the warrior's art and the absolution from guilt and fear - or hitting level 70 - that is required to summit that pinnacle. You have given the world ample words to phrase this old unease. (I do think Eclipse is more apposite than Stunner, though, just because Stunner does sound like a result of the brute movement of bodies qua Stone Cold Steve Austin, and yet the effects of Eclipse are clearly magical. They also originate from the sky, although Eclipses aren't really associated with rains of things, so both names just overlap the edges of the technique. On all other points we are in harmony.)
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Mar 17, 2022 05:40
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In the Japanese version the Bushido techs could actually be renamed, which was pretty cool. That was removed in all localized versions, though.
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Mar 17, 2022 13:44
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I'm going to guess that the original names of the Bushido techniques also did that thing where the names were written as a single kanji instead of as hiragana or katakana. It's one of those nuances that can be tricky to convey in English (as seen with how poorly it was handled with Fujin in FF8).
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Mar 17, 2022 14:27
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Dora: probe our new ally for information. There was a reason why you were willing to come along on this trip. She ties into it somehow, doesn't she?
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Mar 17, 2022 16:20
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W.T. Fits posted:I'm going to guess that the original names of the Bushido techniques also did that thing where the names were written as a single kanji instead of as hiragana or katakana. It's one of those nuances that can be tricky to convey in English (as seen with how poorly it was handled with Fujin in FF8). Yeah, they're in single Kanji. Also noticed in the Pixel Remaster they actually have both the English name and the kanji in the ability names, which is interesting.
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Mar 17, 2022 20:38
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Veryslightlymad posted:I don't understand why this move was named "sky" in the first place. There might be more historical context I am missing. 1-2
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Mar 18, 2022 10:44
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megane posted:The kanji for sky can also mean “emptiness” or “void.” One place it’s used this way is the title of the last chapter of Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, usually translated as the Book of Void, so there’s a close association with bushido there. If you were handed the kanji without context you’d probably translate it as “sky,” though, since that’s the most common usage. Thank you! That explains it. Although that seems to be going for the same vibe as Cleave/Oblivion, which... probably doesn't work. If anything, I think I like the name less.
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Mar 18, 2022 15:11
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That one's an odd translation, too. Here's all the kanji they use (at least in the pixel remaster) and how I might expect them to be translated:
megane fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 18:15
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with the foresight of decades, the 'mini-game' of waiting for a gauge to fill seems like a terrible idea I feel like they may have been going for a sort of- focus during a heated incident, patience until the moment to strike, kind of thing, but it gets too much in the way of fun to work out that way imo same with sabin's fighting game craze era deal- imo you should be able to select from a menu the type of attack or heal, and then do an input to try to give it an effect- hits 2x, ignores armor, holy, etc- so that if you don't nail the input, the monk still fires a beam or does some punches or attempts a suplex- it's just not gonna be turbocharged. So you'd still keep the thing I personally enjoy about Sabin's deal- feeling like a badass when you pull off the move (i am not good at fighting game special moves) rly enjoying the LP! thought at first flush this might be a thread for Recast FF3: War of the Magitek, which genderswaps Cyan and swaps the fates of Setzer and Daryl (if I only had to change one thing, it would be this, relegating the worst playable character in final fantasy to an offscreen dead ex-boyfriend)- this is much more interesting! glad you found foone's death generator- they would be stoked to know it's being used for this, I think Peanut Butler fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 23:26
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Peanut Butler posted:same with sabin's fighting game craze era deal- imo you should be able to select from a menu the type of attack or heal, and then do an input to try to give it an effect- hits 2x, ignores armor, holy, etc- so that if you don't nail the input, the monk still fires a beam or does some punches or attempts a suplex- it's just not gonna be turbocharged. So you'd still keep the thing I personally enjoy about Sabin's deal- feeling like a badass when you pull off the move (i am not good at fighting game special moves) Super Mario RPG built an entire game around this mechanic, so can confirm, good idea.
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Mar 18, 2022 23:42
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Peanut Butler posted:thought at first flush this might be a thread for Recast FF3: War of the Magitek, which genderswaps Cyan and swaps the fates of Setzer and Daryl (if I only had to change one thing, it would be this, relegating the worst playable character in final fantasy to an offscreen dead ex-boyfriend)- this is much more interesting! ...But Kimahri's not in this game.
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Mar 19, 2022 00:02
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megane posted:That one's an odd translation, too. Here's all the kanji they use (at least in the pixel remaster) and how I might expect them to be translated: I pulled mine from the Final Fantasy wiki. This list goes 8/8 for Woolsey. EDIT Although Severance makes a fairly delightful pun.
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Mar 19, 2022 01:45
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I found a patch that makes blitz and swordtech into menus. https://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/thread-3770-post-37115.html#pid37115
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Mar 19, 2022 05:02
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Hi there Android Blues, how's it going? I can neither confirm, nor deny that this LP may be one of the main reasons why I made an account. What I can say is that I'm really impressed by your ability to write dialogue, and I too want to hear Dora's perspective on things So I vote C
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Mar 21, 2022 04:24
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9. The Exiled Esper A) Be Nalaal. [0] B) Be Ziqiya. [1] C) Be Dora. [5] You are now Do - TooMuchAbstraction posted:Nalaal: catch up with Ziqiya. Dora may not be interested in sharing circles, but you already know Ziqiya, technically. It'd be good to find out what's happened in the last decade+, and maybe compare notes on your respective abilities. Plus, y'know, that whole "talking to someone who has an emotional availability somewhat above that of a rock."        Ziqiya laughs, joy parting the lines of worry on her face.       Ziqiya looks intently at the silvery brickwork that lattices Nalaal's throat.        Nalaal is quiet for a second.     Nalaal's Friendship [0 > 1] Ziqiya's Friendship [0 > 1] Nalaal became friends with Ziqiya. Nalaal finds her resolve... Nalaal's Bravery [0 > 1]  You are now Dora the Wasp. Everything about human beings is disconcerting: their height, their teeth, the way they laugh and then expect you to laugh and then look wounded that you didn't laugh. Every second you spend with Nalaal Xandros Figaro is like rubbing a ginger root against a raw nerve - and now she has a new, equally loud companion, and they're ramping each other up to new heights of jubilant yelling. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Dora: probe our new ally for information. There was a reason why you were willing to come along on this trip. She ties into it somehow, doesn't she? You glued yourself to Nalaal (for pennies!) because of the silver tower on her throat. You'd recognise that sign anywhere: it's the keystone of Alexander, stentorious patrician among Espers. Not just anyone can pick mortal heirs and heralds. The human probably doesn't even know it, but her birthmark would allow her to pass into the Realm of Espers, past the forbiddance of the Sealed Gate.  You'd like to go back there. As to why a Mysidian got dragged into this...it does make you uneasy. The nation founded by the Magus Sisters is a byblow from a trio that merited little respect in the War of the Magi, but even if it's low grade, Ziqiya is still carrying a touch of Esper legacy. Could be that she wants something from the Sign of Alexander too. [CHECK: Curiosity] Dora attempts to interrogate Ziqiya...     You don't know what that means, but you think your hunch was right. Better make clear that this is your pigeon.  Dora's Curiosity is less than 1. Hm. You think that went well. You haven't travelled with anyone since you were attached to a regiment of Imperial troops, decades ago. You didn't enjoy that either. You reach a segmented hand down and stroke it through Tongue Hunger's sable fur. She always understands. The existence of dogs is the one consolation of life in a world of animals.   This is SloViri. Ziqiya's hands flex through the stations of black magic, and grey-white vapour pours from her palms, shrouding enemies in a fog that numbs the mind and slows the body - then airbursts, bombarding them with colourful plumes of poison.    Slow 2 hits first, applying the Slow status to all enemies - then Virite, which deals Poison damage to all enemies and inflicts the Poison status. Virite doesn't do a lot of damage, and it only has 80% accuracy, but this is a great command for opening difficult fights. Slowed enemies take far fewer actions than normal, and the aftershock of Poison damage is just a nice bonus.  You notice instantly when the leaves on the forest floor become a little stiffer and more brittle - grey. Nalaal and Ziqiya march ahead, talking, not seeing.  Why now? Is it stopping for you? All the dead at Castle Mysidia mean its boiler must be bulging, but maybe it saw you on its route, and decided to pick up a stray. It could be for Nalaal - some obscure interest in the Sign of Alexander on her throat - but you doubt that. These big deal Espers stick together. Alexander and the Phantom Train both dabble in the mortal world, and they have old treaties about interfering with each other's projects. You don't have any such protection. If you ever did, it was revoked long ago. You try leading Nalaal and Ziqiya the long way through the forest, down scraggly descents and treacherous gullies. You add hours to the journey. Still, as you knew you would, you end up at the station.  Normally garrulous, you can see the human's brow beading with cold sweat. Her hand has moved to her throat, pressing against the Sign there. Not surprising.   She turns around, not listening to you at all, to find the thicket through which you entered wrapped in bosky shadow.   The train's interior is cold as a casket. Plumes of steam pass by the windows as it begins to pick up pace, but you know there's no heat in that vapour.        Nalaal's voice is weak, but she summons up her accustomed pluck. You can feel her fighting to sound jolly. For the first time, you don't completely resent her for it.    It's a rhetorical question, so you don't answer it. You think the answer pretty hard, though.    You push through the milling herd of ghosts, many of them still realising that they are dead. They have dim eyes, and don't fix them in one place for long.  You don't know if it's possible to get out of here. You're buzzing a tense, angry, quietly scared staccato hum, masked by the thrum of your wings. But Nalaal's right: the Phantom Train does have an engine, as precious to it as a human's heart and lungs. Kicking apart your captor's boiler would at least let you die with spite in your mouth.   The Train's onryo - spirits of the vengeful dead. You've never taken this ride before, but you know that normally there are only a few of them in each carriage, simmering over the slights and injustices that lead to their death.  Now there are dozens. Everyone who died at Mysidia: others who died long before, the echoes of faces you recognise. Your wings flutter, and you almost rise up above the train in shock.         Ziqiya helps Nalaal up. The younger woman looks dazed and clammy: you clamp your hands to the railing, looking back at the ghosts giving chase. Your magic, jumbled and disordered and reacting with itself in a fission of misaligned power, sizzles beneath the border of your carapace. You could melt everything in this strange realm to slag; you could blow it apart, derail the carriages, and untie yourself in the process. But that would mean the Phantom Train getting its way. Also...there wouldn't be anyone left to take care of Tongue Hunger. This consideration is the only thing that has kept you from letting the spite roll out of you in some particularly irritating human town, or tempting the vertices against a detachment of rebel troops, dozens of times over the years. The magic is like a loose thread, desperate to unravel and become a thoughtless tangle. It roils behind your brow, courses down your limbs, demanding to know why you are choosing to exist as a hoarse and hobbled refraction of yourself.   For now, the best you can do is your wits, your knife, and the sparks of your true self that are left.   The ghosts aren't an offensive threat, but they do have an interesting feature - auto-reraise. After dying, they resurrect themselves, and have to be beaten back again! Characters have variable Evasion and Magic Evasion, and Dora's are both extremely high, at 35% and 10% respectively. For reference, the highest natural Evasion stat in the base game (not that it matters when Evasion is bugged!) is 28%, and most characters run between 5% and 15%. She has another advantage, too: all physical attacks that target Dora have a 50% chance to be blocked by Tongue Hunger, which is a separate check occurring before the Evasion check. Light and agile, flitting from spot to spot on gossamer wings, the Wasp is nearly impossible to touch with a blade - as many soldiers have found out to their detriment. When another onyro looms through the doorway of the next car along, you stiffen and arc a jolt of magic down your arm - but Ziqiya stops you.  The spectral woman points to Nalaal. Her glassy eyes look furious, but her slumped shoulders and slouched back make it clear she doesn't have the ramrod clarity of her kind.  You flit into one of the overnight cars, indicating with one segmented hand that the humans need to follow you. Ziqiya braces the door as spectral hands phase partway through it - then lose interest, their foggy memories no longer sure where the heartbeats they wanted to stop are. You snap loose the clasp of your bag, and digging a hand into it, flick Tongue Hunger a scrap of cured oxtail.  Because it's arrogant, furious, and remembers what you did. Because you've wanted for years to go home, and you had the temerity to dog at the heels of Alexander's keystone in case she might help you do it.   Absolutely typical. You don't know why you bothered learning the human world's wet mouth sounds and tongue flaps. You're already fiddling with the window catchment. It yaws up; you peer down the train, gauging the distance to the locomotive. Nearly there. You signal to Ziqiya, and she lets the door clatter open, bolting into the hallway with her blade drawn. You're surrounded as soon as they begin to hear your heartbeats again, but with Ziqiya shrouding the vengeful ghosts in slowing fog, they can hardly touch you. Their bodies merge with one another and take new shapes in the close quarters of the passenger car. Nalaal heaves herself forward. You forge onto the train's exterior with a mob of wailing spirits at your heels.   Forming half-words with her shapeless mouth, the onryo that feels some life-held loyalty to Figaro possesses the cruel spirit blocking your path. You weave a flickering ghost yourself: it lunges at its mirror with its sickle.   The possession reaches its climax. The entire rank of ghosts bursts into will o' the wisp flame as the strongest spirit's magic is inverted. Their bodies become wisps of fog, coalescing in the roof of the carriage.  Behind you, Nalaal pauses in her staggering steps, and touches her hand to her throat. As she pulls her fingers away, wisps of smoky black curl from their tips, and you see that the silver tower on her throat is limned with them, too.  Well. Even if the Phantom Train had no interest in messing with Alexander's pet human, it appears to have done so. Magic is like paint: it mixes, sometimes too freely.   The Bombs that swarm around the racing carriages of the Phantom Train, sensing carnage, are a strange inversion. They've rerolled their iconic ability, Exploder, into its polar opposite. They now cast Life 3, dying and living in a loop as they hunt through the borderlands of the afterlife.  Nearly at the locomotive now. The ghost at your heels tries to pass one final carriage pin - and cannot. Bewildered, she fades backwards into the night.     These ghastly vultures scourge those dead who try to escape their fate with belches of excruciating flame. They cast Fire 2 - and their Magic stat is apparently high, because it does upwards of 500 damage.    You can't use your own magic, but you can turn the Phantom Train's against it. You catch the idea of flame from out of the vulture's beak, and explode fire through its innards, turning it to ash that scatters through the overhanging boughs. Battered, beaten, and filled with bloody-minded vengeance, you finally mount the locomotive. You slip into the engineer's room, and slash open easing valves, pull loose the drip rag from the boiler. You haul unmarked levers to what you're sure are wrong positions.  A great wailing sounds as the train slows from breakneck speed to a gruelling crawl.    This is an unexpectedly hard fight. The Phantom Train is one of FF6's most beloved bosses, and for good reason: it's a cool sequence and entirely a flourish. It uses visual tricks and technology that were lush at the time, it feels dramatic and tense - and it's completely unnecessary to the plot of the game, so the developers threw all this visually gorgeous effort into giving their fantasy world a sense of richness and wonder. Love it! But is it hard? I mean, a little, but normally you have a lot of guaranteed damage to throw out here. This party doesn't have that. Nalaal is their big hitter, and her usual fight ender, Stunner, is stymied by the Phantom Train's ludicrous Magic Defense, which rolled higher than its base game 210 (already one of the highest of all monsters in the game) and settled at 219. Stunner hits for about ~230, down from its usual ~650.  The train has all its iconic abilities - Acid Rain, Scar Beam, and Evil Toot - but it has something else as well. In the most crushing iteration of auto-status yet, it rolled auto-haste, and so it takes twice as many turns as usual. Acid Rains come out at double speed, and wipe the party very quickly. Nalaal, her holy birthright interacting badly with the unearthly realm of the dead, is easily swept away in the searing deluge.   It has 2200 HP. The party has about eight of its turns before they're either dead, or on an unrecoverable triage. How can they win? Dora brings Tongue Hunger, but a) this iteration of the train doesn't do much in the way of physical attacks and b) it rolled auto-float as well as auto-haste, which (and this is real niche Final Fantasy 6 ephemera here) means that canine attacks specifically will always miss. She can also Sketch Acid Rain or Scar Beam - but it actually absorbs the Poison damage from Acid Rain, so 50% of the time rolling the dice on Sketch means Dora spends her turn healing it.  Ziqiya is a utility mage: she can swing for good damage, but mostly she brings buffs and debuffs. She has fantastic debuffs, it's true...but this iteration of the Phantom Train is immune to Slow, and it absorbs Poison damage, so the Virite chaser just heals it. Her weapon attacks can't chip away fast enough to stop the ghastly Esper before it drowns you all in acrid smog. There's one ace in the hole, here. Aboard the train, fighting her way to the smokestack, Nalaal levelled to 14 and learned a new spell.  It's a spell her sister already knows - Quarter. The Phantom Train's cold pistons overlapped with the holy machinery of Alexander, and left a dark stain where their concepts met. She has just enough MP in the tank to cast it once before she needs to lie down for a while. The Phantom Train is not immune to instant death, and as a result, it's not immune to Quarter. It does, however, have a good amount of HP, which means Quarter misses a good portion of the time. Let's do a quick breakdown on how Stamina works in FF6. This is one of the game's core attributes - all characters and all monsters have a Stamina score, and most players assume it has some relationship to HP or durability. In fact, Stamina only does two things: it increases the power of Regen ticks and Poison ticks (!) on the character, and it increases a character's chance to evade instant death attacks or attacks coded using the same logic as them, which Quarter is. Monsters have a set Stamina value of 16 plus 1 per 512 max HP, up to a limit of 40 Stamina. The Phantom Train has 20 Stamina - which means Quarter has an 85% hit rate against it. Not awful, but not reliable when you can only cast it once!     The runners splinter as the locomotive dips and barrels through the track supports, the admixture of divine and umbral magic warping its metal housing.  In the next instant, the Phantom Train's headlamp fixes Nalaal in its beam, and her muscles stiffen. She slumps into Ziqiya's arms; you dart out of the way, focusing little stray sparks of reluctant magic to push home the swing of your knife.   You score a deep furrow down the cylinder bracket, and the brushed steel within lurches out of its fitting. The locomotive wails. The Phantom Train veers down a junction, its smokestack wheezing and wavering. Onryo cling to the running boards, peer out of carriages, their unsatisfied eyes fixed on you.   To pull back the curtain here, I had to run this fight about six times. If Quarter missed, I gave it my best shot, but it was overwhelmingly likely to be game over from that point. The party just didn't have the steam to pour on 2200 damage against an auto-hasted metal psychopomp that was immune to most of their best tricks. There were other ways to win - Ziqiya Throwing a rucksack full of weapons at the train, Dora rolling the dice on R-All - but Quarter was the clearest shot. Even when Quarter finally connected, it was down to the wire. It ruled. Beyond Chaos is extremely cool. Having to pull out the toolbox to figure out a boss fight that would normally be a fun setpiece is deeply satisfying, and then realising that your party of ragatags beat an auto-hasted ghost train with 219 Magic Defense is more so. You may be wondering, hey, why not just throw a Phoenix Down at the train? It's Undead, right? Nope! It rerolled out of the Undead status, possibly in the same breath as it rerolled into auto-haste. Beyond Chaos is wonderful.  You buzz - and the humans clamber - up to the cold stonework of an empty train station. The clotted darkness in the surrounding thickets is gone: the Esper of death no longer wants you in its realm. As you trudge through the forest, colour slowly returns to the leaves underfoot, and once again you can hear the sound of chattering birds. Tongue Hunger lopes off after a rabbit.        The little curl of smoke rising from the shoreline, a comma on the blue glint of the sea. You haven't been to this part of the world in years. Not much call for paid violence, here, unless it's done to wildlife. Dora has a choice. A) It was reckless to follow the Sign of Alexander around, hoping it would let you go home. If you ever did manage to return past the Sealed Gate, this brush with oblivion was proof enough that a warm welcome would not be in store. Leave. Whatever's left of your life, you'll have to build it in the realm of mortals. B) You can still use the Sign - but you have to be more circumspect. Leave, and tell the Empire about Nalaal. They'll salivate at an opportunity to open the Sealed Gate once again. C) There's still a chance - and you told this brave, aggravating idiot that you'd get her where she's going. Fly ahead, and scout the Veldt for Nalaal and Ziqiya. Fair trade for them saving your life from the Phantom Train.
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Mar 23, 2022 18:17
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The dramatis personae has been updated in accordance with our ever-fuller roster of heroes - along with their Heart Indexes, so you can have a look at their emotional weak spots! Peanut Butler posted:rly enjoying the LP! thought at first flush this might be a thread for Recast FF3: War of the Magitek, which genderswaps Cyan and swaps the fates of Setzer and Daryl (if I only had to change one thing, it would be this, relegating the worst playable character in final fantasy to an offscreen dead ex-boyfriend)- this is much more interesting! It's absolutely wonderful and has allowed me to add loads more dialogue than I'd initially planned to. Fiddling with Krita was a lot slower. If you know them, tell them thanks from me! Also, running this LP has gotten me curious about other FF6 romhacks, and this looks like a dope one. Fully agree that as a kid I instinctively recognised that Daryl was extremely cool in her two minutes of screentime, and wanted her to be more prominent than "appears in a flashback to die". EchoBaz posted:Hi there Android Blues, how's it going? I can neither confirm, nor deny that this LP may be one of the main reasons why I made an account. What I can say is that I'm really impressed by your ability to write dialogue, and I too want to hear Dora's perspective on things Really flattering! Glad to have you along for the ride.
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Mar 23, 2022 19:11
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C, for "Can't Suplex The Train This Time."
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Mar 23, 2022 19:16
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Pyroi posted:C, for "Can't Suplex The Train This Time." I considered mentioning this, but yeah - even if we had access to Suplex, the auto-float status would have protected the Phantom Train from it entirely (along with dog counter-attacks, being suplexed is one of the weird little edge cases Float protects against). Truly, a chastening thought.
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Mar 23, 2022 19:19
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B, let's keep it spicy. I'm a little late for Cyan chat, but in vanilla he's not bad because swordtech is bad (though it isn't super great compared to some other abilities), he's bad because his magic is abysmal and he has the second worst speed stat in the game. His best stat is physical defense which doesn't amount to much when most of the biggest threats are magical, and being as slow as he is negates a lot of the benefits of his survivability in situations where it does matter. As stated elsewhere, the vanilla game isn't hard enough for it to matter and Cyan works just fine in practice. Giving Swordtech to someone with better stats might actually have a huge impact on its usefulness, though in a run like this where you have some truly busted abilities, it's probably just OK.
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Mar 23, 2022 19:19
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Android Blues posted:You may be wondering, hey, why not just throw a Phoenix Down at the train? It's Undead, right? This is the actual reason why it's undead and not immune to instant death, isn't it? An escape clause for a section with a fixed party with limited healing. E: in the base game I mean Omobono fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Mar 23, 2022 |
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Mar 23, 2022 19:24
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Omobono posted:This is the actual reason why it's undead and not immune to instant death, isn't it? An escape clause for a section with a fixed party with limited healing. Entirely possible. I think the base game's party will generally be okay here, but if you're a theoretical little kid and you've forgotten how to do Blitz inputs and you didn't buy any Potions, yeah, it's a one step solution that you can read in a hint guide and get past the roadblock. (It actually does have instant death immunity in the base game and rerolled out of it here, something I had to double check just now, but killing Undead with Phoenix Downs/the Life spell is mechanically separate. This game is a wild mirror maze of mechanics under the hood!)
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Mar 23, 2022 19:29
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B does seem like it'll have some interesting potential consequences down the line.
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Mar 23, 2022 19:38
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i can't decide what to vote but want to say aaaaaaaaaa that was so good! AB you continue to hit it out of the park, thank you for doing this
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Mar 23, 2022 20:13
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Let's go with C. Dora seems like the sort to pay her debts.
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Mar 23, 2022 20:35
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B. You've fulfilled your side of the bargain, you don't owe Alexander's pet mortal anything more. And if selling her out to the Empire might open the way home, then it's worth a try. Besides, if this experience made anything clear to you, it's that you're already a damned soul. One more sin for the pile probably won't make any difference at this point. Right?
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Mar 23, 2022 20:42
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Hmmm, I wasn't sure what to vote on this one, but the above post convinced me B
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Mar 23, 2022 20:57
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Finally, it's time to be Bad.
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Mar 23, 2022 21:01
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Dora might not be super altruistic or anything, but giving the Empire free access to the Sealed Gate just...how could that possibly not backfire? And since she seems to find Ziqiya and Nalaal exceptionally annoying even for humans, she should probably A, let both sides rot. Or hopefully kill each other off.
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Mar 23, 2022 21:02
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