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Leavemywife posted:I remember you mentioning you did game design; would you say that's good design? It gives the player incentive to not obsessively hunt for every piece of treasure, but allows for extra items and the like, but at the same time, it offers them no incentive to search for treasure, which means less exploration, which could lead to trouble down the line due to lower levels, and the possibility that you've created a large, fabulous looking map, in which most players won't explore it, because there's no real incentive to do so. Really, it depends on a lot of factors and the game in question - how it's balanced and set-up, what you need to do in order to progress, map sizes, etc. In this case it's a bit of a mix. One the one hand, there's a lot of hidden treasure with ridiculous requirements/fore-knowledge required in order to find it. If you don't know that you can find non-alchemical treasures by exploring then you'll miss out on quite a few good pieces - missable ones at that. On the other hand, they're not really required to beat the game at all. Any alchemy items you need can be bought, most of the armour that is hidden away can also be purchased or skipped over and other items and secrets that come in handy aren't essential to defeating the enemies. They can make your life a lot easier, but with a bit of grinding you can get past most areas easily enough - and if you do miss those items you will need to grind, meaning running around after monsters... meaning inadvertent exploration. At that point the mapping becomes secondary - while it's really cool to have people reacting to your graphical components and how you've used them, it's whether they can get through the game or not and whether they had a good experience that matters most. It can be sad to see people skip through your carefully crafted work and just ignore the paths that lead to hidden items - it's very frustrating watching people LP your stuff when they're not the explorative type of player. The main issue is teaching the player that there are secrets to find and how to find them. Evermore does one thing that helps you want to find items - cost. The cost for items is decent enough but some items are quite costly, so finding what you can of them for free is a lot better than, say, spending 1000G for 5 of the drat things. Also, eventually it becomes very useful to use dog to find items for you because there are long stretches where you will fight a lot of enemies and you won't have access to a shop in order to buy them. Besides, never underestimate the desire to save that money up 'just in case'. If a player can get something for free, they'll try to. As you said, though, you do have to take a lot of care with balancing so that those who do find the hidden stuff will have a challenge and those who don't can still reach a level to be equal to that challenge without having to jump through ridiculous hoops. Thankfully, this game does that pretty well, which I'm sure will be shown in the LP. There's some parts that are a bit more of a roadblock than others, but overall the challenge is such that as long as you know what you're doing you'll be able to progress.
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Mar 1, 2016 15:26
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Update Three: Fire Eyes Teaches Us How To Flash Folks Howdy, folks, and welcome back! Last time, on Secret of Evermore, we got our poo poo wrecked by some Raptors and Zach dragged us off to a nearby village. Today, we're going to explore that village, so let's boogie.     We were given permission to raid the gourds in this village, which take some of the fun outta it. Nectar is another restorative item, restoring 120 HP when used.  We can save our game here and this guy will also act as an inn for us, charging ten Talons.    Incredibly, from the fire pit, we pull out some Ash.    But however will I grow stronger? I could grind off of plants and mosquitos, I s'pose, but I won't be satisfied until I've shed the blood of the strongest creatures around.     Plenty of Water in here. Maybe we'll have a use for it soon.  There's also plenty of villagers around here, so let's chat 'em up.  He's no Buzz Buzz, kiddo.  Alchemy is actually really important, and we'll need a ton of ingredients.  I've got a femur and a dog. I think people have done more with less.  I did have a bazooka.  Honey is the strongest healing item, restoring 300 HP when used. It'll be a minute before we see any of that.  As someone in the thread pointed out, these guys don't speak like your typical cavemen, like you'd expect in this sort of village. I'm chalking it up to Fire Eyes' teachings.  The metric system?! Dear God, we've truly left Podunk!  Let's storm into this hut and teach them what the hell a yard is!  Giant bug? Bugmuck? Well, I think I know where we'll be going in the future.  As for why, I think this sentence speaks for itself.  There's two parts of Water in the other gourd.  Fire pits are good for finding Ash. I'm sure this surprises none of you.   Ah, a shopkeeper!   Petals, we know about.  Pixie Dust is the revival item of the game; Zach can't use revival items on York, so when he loses all HP, if there's a Pixie Dust in the inventory, York will be automatically revived with 75 HP. And if Zach bites the dust  Just throw him a biscuit and he'll be fine. I think this would actually work; I know for drat sure my dog would come back from the dead if it meant he got a treat.  Essence will heal status effects. I grab another couple of petals, some biscuits, and a couple of Essences. I couldn't afford a Pixie Dust.  We also grab 2 Roots and 4 parts Water from the other gourds.   Fire Eyes is a B-movie loving nerd? This could work out well for us!  ...I'm not sure why York is finding Ash there, of all places, but I'm sure this fellow won't mind.    : He said that there may be rare alchemy ingredients hidden in the bug's skeleton. Strong Heart searches the area often for ingredients. And when he returns, he always gives some of them to me. Then, I sell them to the townspeople who know alchemy formulas. In short, this guy will sell us alchemy ingredients when we actually have some recipes to use.  We also find three parts of Clay in the other gourd.    : I hear that you had a tough fight in the jungle. I hope you're OK now. Alright, let's go meet the chief, at the hut in the center.   Hmm. Other villagers are starting to gather 'round.   Yeah, they begin chanting "Fire Eyes." It's...Fairly creepy. Let's meet the big cheese.   ...Huh. It's a little girl.  'sup, Liz?   : Well, York. Step into my hut. We'll talk. No reason not to!  : Is that the wild beast that saved you? : Yeah. But, he's not a wild beast. He's my dog.: What's his name? Normally, we'd go to a screen and name him, but I cut that out, since we already voted to name the dog Zach.   C'mon, it's not like we named him Bonerhitler or something.  : I’m not really sure where “here” is, to tell you the truth.: You’re on Evermore, in my prehistoric village. I’m the leader.: You wouldn’t know how to get to Podunk from here, would you?: Podunk? Hmmmm... Interesting. I might! Maybe we can work something out. How’d you like to make yourself useful around here?  I'd like to point out that I've found at least a partial game script for this one, so I'll be copying and pasting as much dialog as I can. I'll do what I can to fix any mistakes in what I copy/paste, but I can't promise I'll get them all. And for these two portraits, of York and Elizabeth, I couldn't find one of York without the Bone Crusher or of Liz, and I tried the Spriter's Resource, so I had to cut them out of some screenshots. Any oddities regarding their appearance is due to that.  : He’s been searching for alchemy ingredients that are plentiful in the muck. If you can help him get back to the village, I will help you with whatever you need.  If I'd seen this movie, I can't help but imagine I'd be quoting it far more often than York does.  'course, I'd also choose a better quote than this one. Just...Yeesh.   You'll give us a real sword? Maybe an axe?  : I call it “Flash.” It’s pretty powerful against mean creatures. You can use the formula whenever you have 1 part Wax and 2 parts Oil. Just select the spell and let it fly. The more you use the Flash Formula, the stronger it will get.  So, Alchemy serves as our magic system in this game. As long as we have the necessary ingredients, we can cast the spell. Much like in Secret of Mana, weapons and magic alike can be leveled up to make them stronger and more useful. Zach can't use magic, since he's a dog, but the ingredients he's been helping us find finally have a use. I mean, not immediately, since we have just the one spell, but they will be useful.  We can also buy alchemy ingredients now (not that we can afford any), if we so choose.  We also get some more Water from the other gourd.  We'll get to starting this next bit next update.  For now, though, we'll finish exploring the village.  One neat thing is that you can choose which spells you have equipped. This is really handy because there is an assload of formulas in the game, and we won't be using all of them. Instead of having to scroll through the duds I don't want to use, I can just unequip them and keep my magic list clutter free.   I suppose. I'm not really a lizard guy, so I can't say for sure. Certainly seems like a big lizard.   Yeah, yeah, we'll go find him sooner or later. Keep your fruit on.   I've a better idea of where we are now; based on the three ladies we've seen, all dressed like this, we're in the ancient homeland of Carmen Miranda.  Free Petals are cool; we'll need ourselves a lot of healing items, until we get the healing spell and some more levels under our belt.   : Fire Eyes protects us from them.  We also snag another 5 parts of Water.  Up in the northwest corner of the village is another hut.  Just wait until you see some later alchemy spells. There's one in particular that is just so very   : My family has used alchemy for many generations. Alchemy effects increase in strength when you use formulas often.  This would have been a better spot for the ingredient shop, considering that guy's speech.  However, this shop is important, too.  Because he sells armor! We're too poor to afford any, but hey, he sells it!  He also has a Leather Collar, Vine Bracelet and a Grass Hat. Had we managed to defeat the four Raptors that appeared earlier, he would have tossed a free Grass Vest our way.  We find (what else?) more Water in the other chest.  Up at the north of the village, we find a couple of bits of Wax, which means we can Flash something now!  ...I could have phrased that better.  Let's see what this guy has for sale.  That top line looks a little confusing, but I already have two bits of Wax (the bits we just found), and he'll sell us packs of five for 120 Talons. We can get five Oils for 100 Talons, 5 Crystals for 80 Talons, 5 bits of Ash for 60 Talons, and 5 parts of Water for 60 Talons. For those of you curious, we've currently got 20 parts of Water.  On that note, this update has been finished.  With full HP (and only 24 Talons to my name), we don't need to rest right now.  However, this is good by me. Saving is a good thing.  Next time, on Secret of Evermore, we'll start working our way toward the Bugmuck to the East! Stay tuned! Leave fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Mar 2, 2016 |
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Mar 2, 2016 07:20
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Keeping ingredients seems like it might be a pain in the rear end, but I can always get behind a game with Ultima-style spellcasting.
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Mar 2, 2016 08:48
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I thought you had to use Pixie Dust and it gave you an auto-life effect, not that it would automatically use itself from your inventory?
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Mar 2, 2016 11:00
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It's odd - some places say that it only triggers if you use it on yourself, others say just having it in your pack works... time to experiment! There is something later on in the game that has to be used on a character to trigger a revive, so if Pixie Dust works as a non-use item, then it might have been that you were thinking of instead. Honestly, I can't recall very well since it's been a while since I last played, but I could have sworn it was an auto-trigger item. Maybe it's something that was changed between the PAL/NTSC/Japanese versions? It would account for the disparity when I looked it up. I've only had experience with the PAL version. silversatyr fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Mar 2, 2016 |
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Mar 2, 2016 11:26
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It's a bit early to really get into it, but the way things are set up heavily favors healing and utility over attack magic. Oh, it's helpful enough early on, but... well, we'll get there when we get there.
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Mar 2, 2016 14:11
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So you cast spells by combining items? That seems like a kick in the nuts if you have to level them up. Are there any items that are limited in quantity?
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Mar 2, 2016 20:45
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:So you cast spells by combining items? That seems like a kick in the nuts if you have to level them up. Are there any items that are limited in quantity? A few "unique" spells, yes, have requirements of limited quantity. But when the LP gets there, you'll easily understand why they're limited.
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Mar 2, 2016 21:27
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:So you cast spells by combining items? That seems like a kick in the nuts if you have to level them up. Are there any items that are limited in quantity? To be fair, the only use of the items is casting spells. But yeah, on the whole, I don't like the alchemy system because it can be a pain in the dick to resupply before a boss fight and it feels like you're spending most of your game money on ingredients instead of other things. I tend to hoard things in games (even missiles in Metroid games) so this doesn't help with my proclivity to not cast magic to hurt things. When I beat the game back in the day, I was borrowing a friend's Super Nintendo and box o' games and he was amazed I finished it because the last fight was "so hard." Turns out, my healing spells were much higher levels than his (I checked his save file), so they were much more effective on keeping me alive. So much so, in fact, that I felt like I was just walking through it.
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Mar 2, 2016 21:31
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Seiren posted:Yes and no. Virtually every spell for support, healing, or offense has ingredients that can be bought somewhere, for some price. I guess that's a good way of giving you overpowered spells while still limiting their usefulness by giving you a cap, but... Explosionface posted:To be fair, the only use of the items is casting spells. This. I'm starting a playthrough (because why not?) and that's kinda my style. I like to hoard. I don't like having to scrounge for items. Guess that's something I'll have to work on.
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Mar 2, 2016 21:42
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You won't really have to scrounge, though. Money becomes plentiful as the game goes on, and you'll be able to buy as many ingredients as you want. Also, there are so many spells that you will always have access to the resources you need to use at least some of them. In fact, you're going to want to rotate your alchemy list to incorporate new spells anyway, for reasons that we will see later.
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Mar 2, 2016 22:22
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It does actually pick up a solid dynamic if you just go with the flow. In the start, treat the limited inventory like spell charges - you'll just run out at some point, it's just gonna take a while longer to get them back. I hate spell charges, but in SoE it kinda works because you don't really want to use magic/alchemy on normal enemies anyway. In Final Fantasy 3, for example, that's a huge dealbreaker - you got a Black Mage you want to train but he's not really going to use those, like, 5 charges of Fira on the first five random encounters, right? So he's useless in every fight until you finally reach the boss you can blow them on. Sucks. In SoE, that's only for the first few hours. Afterwards, you will actually have enough money to just stock up on basic spells rather quickly, and then you can continue to use those even on normal enemies, level them up a little. The new spells you get, those are now your new charges you conserve for bosses. And so on. You will continue to pick up ingredients as you go along, those can fuel some spell you haven't used in a while, or keep you going as you push on; maybe you'll get half of a spell in good amounts, then you only have to restock the other (maybe cheaper?) half. Overall, the system is flexible enough to work surprisingly well; and believe me, I've hoarded through enough games in my life, SoE really doesn't need that much of an attitude adjustment to just go out and use the drat spells already.
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Mar 2, 2016 22:32
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Simply Simon posted:It does actually pick up a solid dynamic if you just go with the flow. In the start, treat the limited inventory like spell charges - you'll just run out at some point, it's just gonna take a while longer to get them back. I hate spell charges, but in SoE it kinda works because you don't really want to use magic/alchemy on normal enemies anyway. In Final Fantasy 3, for example, that's a huge dealbreaker - you got a Black Mage you want to train but he's not really going to use those, like, 5 charges of Fira on the first five random encounters, right? So he's useless in every fight until you finally reach the boss you can blow them on. Sucks. I forgot to mention that, yes, it simply feels more restrictive than it really is. I dislike it at a more abstract level, I suppose. I need to dig up my copy and see where I am. I think I know, but I'm not sure.
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Mar 2, 2016 22:50
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:This. I'm starting a playthrough (because why not?) and that's kinda my style. I like to hoard. I don't like having to scrounge for items. Guess that's something I'll have to work on.
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Mar 2, 2016 22:51
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Thanks guys, I made it through the first boss (holy hell I should have stocked up because that was a close one). Sounds like it's worth pressing onward. Even if Leave seems to think an upcoming boss is gonna kick my rear end. Anywho, this is his LP, I don't wanna distract from it. Thanks again guys. Sounds like the Alchemy system was well thought through, I just need to plan around it a little better.
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Mar 2, 2016 22:57
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the first boss is a cocksucker good job!
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Mar 3, 2016 00:12
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This is from the second post, but it's worth pointing out that the raptors don't actually teleport; there are just multiple of them so one pops his head up as a decoy to distract you while a different one jumps from a different bush.Rabbi Raccoon posted:Thanks guys, I made it through the first boss (holy hell I should have stocked up because that was a close one). Sounds like it's worth pressing onward. Even if Leave seems to think an upcoming boss is gonna kick my rear end. Oddly, the first real boss is actually one of the most difficult parts of the game. It's too early for you to have gotten the hang of handling the game's fairly unique Alchemy system, you're probably too broke to stock up on armor, and you might not yet understand just how useful it is to search all over for stuff.
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Mar 3, 2016 03:13
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The thing about Alchemy for me is that, on looking at the exploration and purchasing ingredients elements of the game, it is sort of well-implemented in that there is a tangible power reward for that initial investment, but at the same time remains optional enough that you can skip much of it if you want to, and are not heavily penalized provided you spend your time and money on more recognizable essentials like gear. When I played this when I was much younger, I tended to abhor burning consumables so I would often avoid using Alchemy for a good 70% of the game, but got by on the more standard combat mechanics. When I revisited it as a teenager, I saw value in building up Alchemy earlier in order to make some key combat sections much easier, but then simply spent time and money on that instead of other aspects of the combat. Either path really seems valid in retrospect. (the following is a mechanics spoiler) Weapon skills are more essential for the early game and the ability to level up weapons was much more of a contributor to your effectiveness than any one formula. I think that only changes in the late game with some extremely strong buffs or with some of the glitchier formulae, but again, those can be ignored if you want.
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Mar 3, 2016 04:02
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In my case, I honestly stopped bothering with offensive spells past the early-mid game; it got to a point where grinding up new spells to the point where they could beat out weapon attacks and my old spells was too much of a chore to bother with, and the old spells would eventually get outscaled even at higher levels. Now the utility spells, on the other hand, generally ranged from good to flat out game breaking. I know there was talk about healing spells in the final boss fight earlier, but if you know your options well enough you can coast right on through it without ever needing to heal.
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Mar 3, 2016 04:12
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Woo I just noticed this thread, I need to check this forum more often clearly. I loved this game as a kid, and I remember being really proud of myself for "figuring out what was going on" despite the fact that it was never explicitly stated that I recall. Anyways, can go more into that later, looking forward to this.
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Mar 3, 2016 04:42
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counterfeitsaint posted:Woo I just noticed this thread, I need to check this forum more often clearly. Ooo! Another chance to
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Mar 3, 2016 04:46
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You may say that our hero could have picked a better quote from "Mars Needs Lumberjacks", but honestly, if you're enjoying a movie called "Mars Needs Lumberjacks" you probably don't know good dialogue from a hole in the ground.
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Mar 3, 2016 05:22
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MagusofStars posted:This is from the second post, but it's worth pointing out that the raptors don't actually teleport; there are just multiple of them so one pops his head up as a decoy to distract you while a different one jumps from a different bush. I might feel bad about this, if our hero wouldn't have taken the opportunity to do the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO5wryDdEI0
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Mar 3, 2016 05:25
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DoubleNegative posted:Keeping ingredients seems like it might be a pain in the rear end, but I can always get behind a game with Ultima-style spellcasting. It's fairly decent. Unlike Ultima where it's kind of pain to go to places to pick up middling amounts of a certain reagent and then have to wait for it to respawn, Evermore sidesteps that by having ingredients pretty much everywhere. I want to say of everywhere you can go in the game, the amount of areas that don't have an alchemy ingredient, whether in a pot/chest etc. or on the ground numbers in the low teens. It enough to where there's only two situations where you'll run out: in the beginning where you're strapped for cash and can't buy them from vendors, or you forgot to stock up at a vendor and ran out because of it. As such Alchemy ends up pretty much the same place as Ultima reagents do, only it takes a little bit for you to get there 
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Mar 3, 2016 05:40
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"I'm ready for anything" is actually the only line from Mars Needs Lumberjacks. It makes fantastic use of posture and camerawork to convey everything without words, making that point before the showdown where you actually hear Captain Meldrock's voice incredibly striking.
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Mar 3, 2016 05:47
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Also, the spells don't take long to level up if you're using them - as with weapons, you can see how much experience they need before they're up a level. There's an added bonus in that they're great for softening up enemies so you can do a final blow. Weapons level up based on kill amounts. Spells level up based on use amounts. This means you can cast a spell and while it attacks, let your meter on your weapon fill, then hit the enemy when it has been knocked back. Both will get experience. It's a system that works well. Also, some of the more offensive spells are great end-game as long as you take the time to focus on levelling them up. They do a hefty chunk of damage when enemies are out of range or move too fast to hit, which does come in handy.
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Mar 3, 2016 07:22
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So I found my copy and plugged it in to see where I am and I was on the money. The real reason I'm posting about it is that I had forgotten the names I used in this playthrough because I'd reached the "who gives a poo poo" stage of character naming. The boy is named MegaDude (a throwaway name I use all the time) and the dog is Sir Barkington.
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Mar 3, 2016 07:44
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Explosionface posted:So I found my copy and plugged it in to see where I am and I was on the money. The real reason I'm posting about it is that I had forgotten the names I used in this playthrough because I'd reached the "who gives a poo poo" stage of character naming. The boy is named MegaDude (a throwaway name I use all the time) and the dog is Sir Barkington. Oh yeah, one other thing to love here is that the character limit for names is kind of absurdly long. I think I gave our hero four names (two first, two last) for one play through and adored the fact that everyone used the full name when addressing him.
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Mar 3, 2016 16:23
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Explosionface posted:So I found my copy and plugged it in to see where I am and I was on the money. The real reason I'm posting about it is that I had forgotten the names I used in this playthrough because I'd reached the "who gives a poo poo" stage of character naming. The boy is named MegaDude (a throwaway name I use all the time) and the dog is Sir Barkington. Petition for Leavemywife to rename the dog to Sir Barkington.
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Mar 3, 2016 23:06
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Update Four: Into The Bugmuck Welcome back, folks. Last time, we explored Fire Eyes' village and met the girl, Elizabeth, herself. Today, we're going to start our adventure into the Bugmuck, so let's boogie.  Looking at this shot now, it almost looks like Zach is preparing to eat York.  Dropping a piece of meat, York takes the time to run like hell.   We are going to see a shitload of levels coming up. Coming into the Bugmuck, if you take the time to make some cash to buy ingredients and armor, like I did, you'll rake in the EXP.  As we have new enemies coming up!  Like that guy right there. Just look at him.  This is a Skelesnail. With 30 HP, they'll take a few hits to down, but it takes longer than that to kill them. Every time you hit them, as you can sort of see in this shot, they go flying backward. They attack with gentle jumps, floating slowly to the ground, and smashing into you with their shells.  They drop 15 Talons and 20 EXP a piece. I've been consulting a GameFAQs guide for these monster stats, and apparently, there are some monsters that have properties that aren't immediately obvious. These guys, for instance, lower the Hit Rate of the non-controlled character by 30.  And here's a shot of a dog making an abomination explode.  I spend some time killing these Skelesnails, gaining some money for supplies and stuff.  Let's move along.  There's a whirlpool there, and they're kind of important.    And not just because they make the ground eat you. I mean, that's sort of cool, but it's where this pool takes us that's important.    And we get a great "HOOOOOLY CRAP" face outta York.   But not as good as the face Zach gives us.  Ugh. I'm sure you now have sand in places you didn't know sand could get into.  Well, there's a cave here, so may as well head inside.  I imagine this guy going to get groceries is probably a huge pain in the rear end.  Hey, rear end in a top hat, I'm trying to kill monsters using a bone. Don't judge me for being a little slow.  Or we could just do speed like a jaguar...   : It gives the wearer the ability to run with the speed of the fastest feline. And it's free with any purchase, today only! This guy acts as a shop out in the field, letting you resupply without going the ten feet back to Fire Eyes' village.  He also sells Nectar, which the village shop doesn't have. I buy a single Petal, since I'm still not rolling in the dough.  And for 20 Talons, we get a free accessory!   We can now sprint around like a jackass, but it depends on our stamina bar. Once we hit 0%, we'll go back to walking.  We now have a pouch for holding accessories.  We don't have to equip any accessories, as they'll just automatically activate when we receive them. We can see their effects here. There's more on this later, when we get to some accessories (that just plain-rear end don't work), but for now, we can run like a jaguar.  We also snag a bit of Clay and two parts Water. I'm hoping the offer to take from the gourds in the village extended out this far.  And this is what it looks like when we run around. Little jackassy, but much quicker than walking.  We can also run past whirlpools now. I'm not sure why York couldn't run before, but it might have something to do with him doing little besides watching movies and looking for vintage Marty McFly gear.  After this, if we get caught in a different whirlpool, we'll be thrown around this map randomly. Sometimes we go back, sometimes it's a lateral shift, but it's always annoying.  That's right; with that advice in mind, we'll never---  Son of a bitch.   Aww, shaddup, you.   Moving around the map, you'll see these pools pop up. As long as you're paying attention, and occasionally quick with the run button, you shouldn't fall prey to any more.  Though, if you're trying to murderize something, that doesn't work out quite so well.    The nice thing about level ups in this game is that they're a full restore to your HP. If things are getting bad and you're low on supplies, if you're careful, you might be able to save yourself by gaining a level. It won't solve all your problems, but it might give you the boost needed to get back to somewhere you can restock.   Crystals will be coming in handy soon. We could have bought some back in the village.  Over on this side is a set of steps that allow us up onto the rocks around the area.  Nothing down here, except for this mosquito. He was splattered soon after this.  Skelesnails are the most prominent enemy around here, which is fine by me.  Following the path is this gourd, which holds a Petal.  And we can come back to this first area.  Well, if nothing else, I suppose there was some Clay here.   Enemies can drop things upon death, and they'll have a different death animation for when they do.  These guys turn into a pile of pink dust.  This could have also been a small amount of money; enemies will normally drop money upon death, but when they drop it after death, like this could have been, you get that in addition to the money they already dropped.   And now we're coming into the Bugmuck proper. It's a tar pit.  With horrific monsters living inside of it!    OH GOD THEIR TEETH ARE HORRIFIC PAIN DAGGERS oh, yeah, you can also see a maggot down at the bottom of the screen.  With 30 HP, they're not too tough, especially with the levels we've gained. They only drop 4 EXP and 4 Talons.   These assholes, however, have 50 HP, but drop just 22 EXP and 17 Talons. If you're grinding, the Skelesnails are a much better option.   Hey, look, another cave.  It's hard to read, but we got two Crystals out of this gourd.   Before entering the cave, I get my revenge.  I sincerely hope you're Strong Heart.  In all fairness, you do live in...How do I say this politely?  A shithole. You live in a shithole.   Strong Heart must have a set of brass balls.  I'll never turn down more magic. Magic is good. Especially when you throw some of this together and some of that and---  Well, yeah, basically.   Combine some Crystals and Clay, which we've found a good bit of, and we've got a new attack spell.   And this guy also sells ingredients.  I stock up on Oil for Flash, since I like it better than Hard Ball. I'm not sure which is better, though. From what I can tell, according to a GameFAQs topic about it, Flash will end up a little stronger than Hard Ball. If anyone has a more definitive answer, I'd love to hear it. If we could get some good mechanics chat going on here, I'd be game for learning about it.  However, on that note, we're going to take a break. We've got some more Bugmuck to go through, and I couldn't find a good break point later on in my footage, so next time, let's see if we can finish off our first dungeon area! Stay tuned!
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Mar 4, 2016 22:49
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The idea of packing a crystal in some primordial mud and winging it at somebody is pretty drat funny.
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Mar 4, 2016 22:56
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DoubleNegative posted:The idea of packing a crystal in some primordial mud and winging it at somebody is pretty drat funny.
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Mar 4, 2016 23:03
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Is there an elemental system in this game? It's been so long I can't remember now. Like, are some things resistant to flash because it's fire based?
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Mar 5, 2016 00:08
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Unoriginal One posted:In my case, I honestly stopped bothering with offensive spells past the early-mid game; it got to a point where grinding up new spells to the point where they could beat out weapon attacks and my old spells was too much of a chore to bother with, and the old spells would eventually get outscaled even at higher levels. If I recall, the balance patch fixes this by making it so that related spells gain experience together. Take a look: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/602/ Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Mar 5, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 00:29
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For whatever it's worth, I seem to recall Flash being a little (key word little) better than Hard Ball, though it's balanced a bit by the fact Flash requires 2/1 ingredients instead of Hard Ball's 1/1. And I don't think there's an elemental affinity system - later spells are often just straight up better than early ones.
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Mar 5, 2016 00:38
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counterfeitsaint posted:Is there an elemental system in this game? It's been so long I can't remember now. Like, are some things resistant to flash because it's fire based? The first two damage types are spread out fairly evenly, for example Flash targets magic defense and Hard Ball hits normal. The third type is pretty rare though a few alchemy formulas can do that kind of damage. Enemy defenses are a bit more nebulous. There are no 'huge bricks of Def/MDef' types like Flans for the FF fans, although there are some where you'll notice that your physical attacks/alchemy formulas are doing noticeably less damage than other alchemy formulas. It's entirely possible if not actually recommended to kill everything with your weapon/dog attacks in the game, bosses included. MagusofStars posted:For whatever it's worth, I seem to recall Flash being a little (key word little) better than Hard Ball, though it's balanced a bit by the fact Flash requires 2/1 ingredients instead of Hard Ball's 1/1. They're both intro formulas though, they have really bad growths. EponymousMrYar fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Mar 5, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 00:39
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Flash does have a weird quirk where the projectile is so slow that if you try to hit some faster enemies with it, it never catches the enemy and just fizzles. Doesn't happen often though.
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Mar 5, 2016 01:00
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DoubleNegative posted:The idea of packing a crystal in some primordial mud and winging it at somebody is pretty drat funny. Now that the LP has actually arrived somewhere, alchemy becomes much more relevant as a supplement to your standard arsenal. Those Skelesnails are very easy to kill with alchemy, and they have higher physical defenses than anything else in the area (as well as that hidden property causing the sidekick to miss more often). Those skeletal bone monsters that appear in the tarpits are frequently located in hard-to-reach or inconvenient locations...and are trivialized by alchemy. This mirrors some types of enemies from Mana -- a huge pain or impossible to deal with using weapons, but weak and easy to kill with magic (any ghost-enemy, those flying wizard birds, or the Tomato Men come immediately to mind). Keep an eye out for evasive, fast, hard-to-reach, or tanky enemies as they tend to always a good target for alchemy experiments  counterfeitsaint posted:Is there an elemental system in this game? It's been so long I can't remember now. Like, are some things resistant to flash because it's fire based? Keldulas posted:Flash does have a weird quirk where the projectile is so slow that if you try to hit some faster enemies with it, it never catches the enemy and just fizzles. Doesn't happen often though.
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Mar 5, 2016 01:06
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Wow, rad that you're LPing this; I couldn't get past this first level when I was a kid, be nice to see the whole game.
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Mar 5, 2016 04:48
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Tallgeese posted:If I recall, the balance patch fixes this by making it so that related spells gain experience together. quote:2- Shared exp for weapons. Now as you level your axe, once each 4 kills (you need one kill/final blow to get experience into your equipped weapon), will level all the other axes on the game, even if you don't own them at that point in the game. Same goes with swords and spears. Amazing. If this were in the base game I wouldn't have used weapons from this stage of the game throughout the whole thing.
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Mar 5, 2016 07:02
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