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There were a few earlier, but just to go into Xenogears again: -Fight your non-boss, non-Gear battles the following way unless you run into trouble: cycle through EVERY possible Square, Triangle, and X combination that does not end with a X. This is because ending something in a X will start a Deathblow. So if you have 4 AP, you should do: Round 1: T-T-T-T Round 2: T-T-S Round 3: T-S-T Round 4: S-T-T Round 5: S-S Round 6: X-T Round 7: Repeat Adjust the pattern as you get more AP, and of course if the battle ends before you reach the end just try to remember where you left off last battle. This is important because you will optimize your Deathblow learning efficiency, and will in fact master Deathblows before they are even available to you. Since Deathblows are largely more important than leveling up, this will save you a lot of time grinding or otherwise wasting your time trying to learn Deathblows. -Bosses that self-destruct almost always give better items if you kill them before they do so. There is one in particular near the end of the game that you absolutely do not want to allow to self-destruct because the item received (Trader's Card) is extremely helpful for end-game preparation. -Buy three Tank Lids or whatever that prevent Fuel from being stolen in battle. You won't likely need this until the final battle, but you will be thankful for it at that time. At a certain point they disappear from all available shops in the game and you can't buy them again, so get them as soon as you see them. -Stuff equipped on your human character ALSO affects them while in their Gears. There are many, many items that bestow insane abilities on Gears when their human pilots equip them, as the game is not explicit as to what they'd do to the Gears. Pay special attention to anything that increases speed or Ether, especially the famous Ether Doubler with Elly. This is because once she learns Aerod, equipping her with an Ether Doubler will make most Gear battles with her trivial. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Oct 14, 2008 |
# ¿ Oct 13, 2008 19:10 |
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# ¿ May 7, 2024 10:22 |
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SereneCrimson posted:Final Fantasy IV DS -Give 2 augments to Palom, and 1 augment to Porom. It doesn't matter which ones, though there are some weaker ones at the start that probably work best. You NEED to do this to get Dualcast, arguably the most useful single augment in the game if you give it to Rosa, and one that is almost god drat required for some of the later battles. -Conversely, you may as well suck it up and use an augment FAQ to make sure you get everything.
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# ¿ Oct 16, 2008 05:41 |
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The problem is once you've noticed that you're having a hard time with the scaled monsters in Oblivion it's usually too late. After all, if the monsters are hard and you go off to improve your combat, they'll be even harder when you come back. Picking useless skills as majors won't really do you that much good, since the monsters scale up based around your overall level I believe. I think on a modless version like the 360 version the only way deal with the loving terrible scaled monster system is to devote your abilities to combat 100% of the time.
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# ¿ Dec 2, 2008 17:34 |
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Putting the same glyph on both buttons lets you do do a combo of sorts by rapidly pressing Y and X back and forth (it's great for Nitesco). I went through the majority of the game with Vol Falcis and Vol Macir pairs on my A/B glyph sets. Usually complimented by a defense boost from Fortis Fio. There are some special glyph unions though if you do mix the glyphs up a bit. Nitesco + some weapon does a great glyph union that's essentially the sword union except with a light saber. Umbra and Luminatio have probably the single most powerful attack in the game in their glyph union, though it takes a lot of hearts. I think "some element" + "some weapon" is the standard formula, which you can adjust according to your attribute levels and what the enemies are weak against. Don't forget to pay a lot of attention to what enemies are weak against (the red markers on their info pages). You don't want to be using slash against robots for example. For bosses, just try out a few elements to see what does the most damage. Also if you have the Emperor Ring, you can use it to get a LOT out of your potions too (a high potion essentially completely heals you).
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# ¿ Dec 17, 2008 15:10 |
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tokyosexwale posted:I justed started to play through Persona 2: Innocent Sin because I saw some of 3 in action, which looked cool, and I wanted to start from the beginning. However 2 seems to be nothing like 3. The long and short of it is that you should only worry about getting cards and new pesonae whenever you start having trouble, and not sooner. Make sure you don't return any personae that aren't level 8, as that's when you get the best items back. I didn't really start worrying about keeping my personae up to date until around the park which was fairly deep into the game. It's probably a good idea to think about switching out your personae once they hit level 8, though you can still power them up through fusion spells with parameter increases and mutations. Speaking of which, try your best to finish battles with fusion spells. Water-Earth-Water and Earth-Water-Earth are pretty good early on, as they hit all enemies. Finishing a battle with a fusion spell nets you a small chance to either have a character's persona get their final spells, parameters increased, a 2 rank increase, or a mutation into a different but stronger persona. Contracts do exactly as you say, and are only useful as far as I know for getting Free Tarots. But Free Tarots are GREAT. I make the majority of my personae with them. It's always a good idea when you're grinding in an area to get a few contracts to get as much out of the process as possible.
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# ¿ Dec 20, 2008 04:35 |
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You use a persona by going into "Strategy" and selecting a spell from the resulting menu. Fusion Spells occur when you have characters using certain kinds of spells in a certain order. For example: Tatsuya: Aqua Michelle: Magna Maya: Aqua Would result in a prompt for "Bane Splash," a water fusion spell that damages all enemies. More often than not you'll find that the order of your characters isn't ideal for this right off the bat in a battle, so you'll have to move them around with the "Change Order" option. There are of course many more fusion spells, though most of them are single enemy targeted. For the most part enemies should respond to answers the same, though there does seem to be a small chance they'll respond differently. The way to know which ones to use in the first place are what their personality traits are. Like "Wise" demons seem to like or be interested in Maya's Advice. A lot of it is a crapshoot though, I'll admit. Since you're only going to be training area to area, and each area only has a handful of demons, it's usually not too hard to keep track of what works. Usually it doesn't change on you like it did apparently for you with that Pixie.
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# ¿ Dec 20, 2008 06:34 |
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The easiest way to figure out Fusion Spell combinations is to equip everyone with Solving Orbs and go into the main menu, Analyze, and then Fusion Spells. You can get Solving Orbs at the Mu Continent, though it might be hard to get enough coins without cheesing saved states to win big at bingo.
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# ¿ Dec 20, 2008 19:13 |
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If only Meena had a spell that healed the whole party, I don't think you could do much better than Hero/Alena/Maya/Meena. As it is I used that configuration for almost all of chapter 5 in DQIV but switched out Meena for Kiryl near the end game.
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# ¿ Jan 21, 2009 04:53 |
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Binowru posted:Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Try to 100% maps as early as possible. There will be some obvious parts that you will know you can't get to yet, but otherwise you should check for walls to break. You want to try to rescue all of the villagers and otherwise it could be a pain hunting for any you miss. If you see a glyph appear while an enemy is attacking, you can steal it from them. Don't bother with Super Potions. Rather, when you get an Emperor Ring use that in conjunction with High Potions and food to heal up. Use the elevator when you get to the top of the lighthouse. You'll know what this means when you get there. Don't let Goliath corner you, or you will die. You can escape under his big leg stomps. Also, no you don't suck, it just really is that hard.
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# ¿ Jan 25, 2009 21:18 |
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Yeah but Splash Woman is kind of a pain in the rear end with just the Mega Buster, where as Galaxy Man is pretty easy no matter what.
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# ¿ Feb 2, 2009 02:59 |
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tokyosexwale posted:Silent Hill Without spoiling it completely, I'll give a few hints I suppose...since half the fun is figuring out the puzzle anyway. Getting the Good ending: -Go to Annie's Bar when you get the chance -Try to figure out how to open the gas tank in the motorcycle you find in a certain location Getting Good+/Bad+: -Try to figure out a way to pick up the liquid on the ground in the hospital -You'll want to use it during a certain boss fight (not the last one) Except for that final line, all of these things should be something you can do as soon as you discover them. In other words, don't just gloss them over and expect to have a chance to go back and do them later. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Feb 3, 2009 |
# ¿ Feb 3, 2009 14:50 |
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InsanityRocks posted:i've just started to play through chrono trigger on the ds, anyone got any tips? Also in Zeal, don't forget to figure out the Fire-Water-Wind puzzles in the smaller towns. You'll lose the chance to do so at a given point. Use Ayla's charm on the bosses in the Black Omen. Also, go through the Black Omen in 1000 AD, that way you can go through it again in the past (and get the items you stole from the final few bosses again). Don't sell the Demon Hit (treasure in Ocean Palace), as even though it's not Frog's best sword it will be for the large part of a New Game+ (it's impossible to have Frog's best sword carry over to the beginning). Directly after the Ocean Palace, put Ayla in your party. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Feb 9, 2009 |
# ¿ Feb 9, 2009 06:13 |
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glod posted:Not so much a "first time", more of a "I haven't played this game in years", but does anyone have anything to say about Chrono Cross? I also recommend choosing "Not to save Kid" so that you get Glenn. Most people obviously pick to save her (even though the choice doesn't really matter) and miss out on the coolest character in a game of mostly mediocre party members.
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# ¿ Feb 23, 2009 17:07 |
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CloseFriend posted:So I finally got the ability to play Panzer Dragoon Saga. Little help here? I know about the plot twist where the main character turns out to be dead, and the opening cutscenes really remind me of Ico and Out of This World, but I don't know anything else about the game. Don't blow up the giant aircraft carrier thing if/when you revisit that area, you can ruin a sidequest. I tended to favor offensive Dragon forms. The rest of the battle system is pretty straightforward. Keeping track of your Dragon's position is the real key to a lot of battles, IIRC. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Mar 25, 2009 |
# ¿ Mar 24, 2009 01:14 |
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Popcorn posted:There's nothing you really need to know. It's a very accessible and intuitive RPG (which is one of the reasons I think it's still the best JRPG ever.) Of course this revealed to me that apparently a lot of Panzer fans don't consider Orta canon, which would throw that out. Anyway, I do have a lot of love for Panzer Dragoon Saga. My only complaint is that the game is incredibly short. I guess compression technology sucked back then because the game is like 12 hours long with 4 discs. It was really unique though, and if you're going to play one Saturn game I'd strongly recommend it. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Mar 27, 2009 |
# ¿ Mar 27, 2009 17:33 |
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I think ultimately it's ambiguous, or at least a matter of semantics, as I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, I just interpret it a bit more optimistically. I'd have loved to have discussed it in more detail back when I played it and could remember details. I'm not sure if the fandom views Saga's departure from the style of the other Panzer games as the Zelda II of the series and dislikes it, but I loved the battle system and I'm not sure I'd get the same out of the shooters the other games are.
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# ¿ Mar 27, 2009 20:23 |
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CloseFriend posted:Unfortunately, after I asked, all this talk of Panzer Dragoon Saga is now a moot point; I don't have a Saturn here and I can't get Discs 2 or 3 to work on SSF. I don't suppose any of you know which versions of SSF work or what I can do about this...
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2009 02:41 |
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Twitch posted:I recently started playing Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube, anything I need to know? I'm a few hours into the game (just got a 5th party member), and I have it figured out alright, but I bought it used without a manual. One specific question: I've heard that it's a game worth playing multiple times, does anything carry over between games, or are there just rabid fans who love the game? Don't spend Grade at the cat shops or whatever they're called. You'll pick up so many EX Spheres that you won't ever have to worry about having too few. Better to save up that Grade for choosing what you want for a New Game+. Don't be an rear end to Zelos on your first playthrough, for one main reason which I won't spoil here. This is more of a personal preference on my part though. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Apr 20, 2009 |
# ¿ Apr 20, 2009 02:04 |
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I finally got Soma Bringer patched and working on my DS...any particularly helpful tidbits?
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# ¿ Apr 20, 2009 23:28 |
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Felter Chesthard posted:A couple have referenced it but nothing specific, so how about something for Resident Evil 4? I haven't played any of the others in the series. Also fun with ladders, where you can just knife enemies as they climb up towards you. Try to save a Rocket Launcher for the part where you fight a boss with liquid nitrogren all over the place. Get really good at head shots.
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# ¿ Apr 30, 2009 15:41 |
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Fidel Castronaut posted:I never played Chrono Trigger on SNES, and I'm about to play it on DS. Is it going to be as awesome as everyone said, or is it a nostalgia thing? Also, any tips would be welcome. It's a great game, one of the greatest JRPGs ever made, and I'll hear no one say otherwise As for tips, the game is honestly so easy you'll probably figure it out fine. There is a point in the game where you can decide to open certain, specially locked black chests...first, try to open them in 600 AD, and select "No." Then go to 1000 AD and open them there. Then go back to 600 AD and open them up once again. That way you get two items, one of them an upgrade of the other. There's also a sidequest you can lose if you tell a certain lady to burn her plant rather than plant it. To open the sidequest up you have to tell her to plant it, but that option will always be available to you.
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# ¿ May 3, 2009 22:04 |
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Captain Sharpie posted:- Don't touch the TMP at all. It does absolutely nothing that another gun can't do just as well and takes up far too much space in your inventory. My preferred arsenal is: Red9, Riot Gun, TMP, and Broken Butterfly. You can just about fully upgrade all of them in one playthrough if you save your money and use the treasure maps to grab as much treasure as possible.
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# ¿ May 6, 2009 20:46 |
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Capsaicin posted:Oh, and if anyone has any tips for Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, please let me know. What souls I should really spend time getting and whatnot. For Dawn, a good trick to getting a lot of money (for buying the Soul Eater ring, for instance) is to equip a Mimic soul and go to the save point in the clock tower that has spikes right outside. Remove your defensive equipment and run back and forth on the spikes grabbing the gold bags that pop out. When you are close to dying jump out and save to heal. You can easily get enough for the Soul Eater ring in around 30 minutes.
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# ¿ Jul 1, 2009 16:21 |
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Dramatika posted:A friend of mine just loaned me his copy of Xenogears in return for me loaning him my Final Fantasy 3 (6) SNES cartridge. I've heard a lot of good things about Xenogears over the years, is there anything specific I should know about before I get started? -Fight your non-boss, non-Gear battles the following way unless you run into trouble: for every character cycle through EVERY possible Square, Triangle, and X combination that does not end with a X. This is because ending something in a X will start a Deathblow. So if you have 4 AP, you should do: Round 1: T-T-T-T Round 2: T-T-S Round 3: T-S-T Round 4: S-T-T Round 5: S-S Round 6: X-T Round 7: Repeat Adjust the pattern as you get more AP, and of course if the battle ends before you reach the end just try to remember where you left off last battle. This is important because you will optimize your Deathblow learning efficiency, and will in fact master Deathblows before they are even available to you. Since Deathblows are largely more important than leveling up, this will save you a lot of time grinding or otherwise wasting your time trying to learn Deathblows. -Bosses that self-destruct almost always give better items if you kill them before they do so. There is one in particular near the end of the game that you absolutely do not want to allow to self-destruct because the item received (Trader's Card) is extremely helpful for end-game preparation. -Buy three Tank Lids or whatever that prevent Fuel from being stolen in battle. You won't likely need this until the final battle, but you will be thankful for it at that time. At a certain point they disappear from all available shops in the game and you can't buy them again, so get them as soon as you see them. -Stuff equipped on your human character ALSO affects them while in their Gears. There are many, many items that bestow insane abilities on Gears when their human pilots equip them, as the game is not explicit as to what they'd do to the Gears. Pay special attention to anything that increases speed or Ether, especially the famous Ether Doubler trick with Elly. This is because once she learns Aerod, equipping her with an Ether Doubler will make most Gear battles with her trivial.
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# ¿ Jul 7, 2009 16:28 |
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Argon_Sloth posted:Usually the way to learn deathblows is to use the moves associated with them. Be mindful that not all weak or strong attacks are the same. But you won't learn them if you use death blows. All 7 point deathblows are elemental, learn to use this to your advantage. Also not every one learns each deathblow. The Ether Doubler can be found in two places if I remember right besides Nissan, both in chests. One is Babil, and other is near the end of the game. The Nissan one is the most useful though because of how early it is, but it's probably a bit too tedious to ask a first time player to bother with grinding all of those Hob Steaks to sell to get enough money for it. I guess for a first time player my advice would boil down to: learning Deathblows is more important than leveling up, and make sure you get the Trader's Card from the self-destructing boss. I think everything else can be fairly easily worked out on your own. E: Argon_Sloth posted:-Take note of Billy's Ammo, it can be changed. Most importantly the elemental square ones.
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# ¿ Jul 7, 2009 17:38 |
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Scalding Coffee posted:A DB strategy that uses triangle so much will delay learning new ones for hours. Sacrifice accuracy for learn faster and you won't need Wizardry accessories. My first time through the game, I probably spent at least 10 hours spread throughout the game trying to individually master Deathblows. By but rotating in my second run, I NEVER had to grind whatsoever and learned Deathblows left and right with little to no effort by simply progressing through the game at a normal rate. Really, though, this strategy is mostly meant to alleviate the pain for those last few Deathblows. Nothing like getting them all unlocked only to find they're already at 100% and only require an eventual levelup.
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# ¿ Jul 7, 2009 18:50 |
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Corridor posted:I couldn't find mention in this thread, but I heard that some of your party members die permanently in Dragon Quest 4 as part of the story. I think I would really like to know more about that before I go upgrading them with skill seeds etc. DS version, if it matters. Dragon Quest V on the other hand had some playable characters who'd leave your party for good, IIRC.
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# ¿ Jul 15, 2009 14:00 |
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Can someone give me a few specific tips about Front Mission DS? What is the maximum level for skills? 3? It seems like Skill level is not tied to the level of your pilot. If I want to get Guide from Level 2 to Level 3, do I just have to successfully complete it X number of times? Or is its rate of Level Up proportional to the amount of experience obtained per turn? I ask because I'm stuck a certain mission where I'm continually getting hosed by my guided attacks missing. I want to grind them up a bit in the Arena, but a lot of my characters with their current equipment sets are getting very little actual experience from the matches.
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# ¿ Aug 2, 2009 20:43 |
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aerether posted:The maximum level for skills, is, incidentally, MAX, after level 3. Seriously. Also, skill progression is tied entirely to luck - it has a set chance to increase every time it's activated. I think the chance to increase a skill from 3 to MAX is something like 1/500 or something absurd. Lloyd seems to have a slightly higher chance of leveling his skills (he had Duel MAX, Switch 3, Guide 3, Speed MAX, and First 3 when I finished the game) but he's in every battle so I guess that explains it What was screwing up on that mission way back was that I was going for the missilers (who are without a doubt the ones you have to kill first in every mission), but trying to hit their arms. There were a few missions where disabling the missilers was simply easier. However in this one they kept on retreating and just regenerating back at their carriers. All I had to do was adjust my strategy to go for the bodies instead. And it hasn't changed since that mission. I just can't see a way where Short is worthwhile, to be honest. Especially late in the game, even with the best HP/DF parts enemies in Short combat have a good chance at taking out an arm or leg each turn. So much easier to just skip that hassle and snipe them with missiles over and over. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Aug 9, 2009 |
# ¿ Aug 9, 2009 22:05 |
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aerether posted:Though honestly, the game isn't that difficult (and I'm terrible at SRPGs!) so quibbling about the best way to annihilate Driscoll and co. is somewhat pointless Is the USC scenario about as long as the OCU one? I clocked about 25 hours in the OCU scenario.
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# ¿ Aug 10, 2009 03:55 |
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The Red9 is the best but you have to get a stock for it to be worthwhile. I'm not sure if I could have handled the lack of space my first time through the game, but now whenever I go through it I always use it (along with a TMP, Riot Gun, and Broken Butterfy). I don't remember a specific upgrade for the Butterfly that made it better than the Killer7, just when all is said and done it winds up being more powerful by the end. And you get one for free.
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# ¿ Aug 14, 2009 21:01 |
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BigBreats McLean posted:Any tips on FFVI? I mainly just want to know if there is anything cool i can miss permanently, and stuff like that.
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# ¿ Aug 22, 2009 00:44 |
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Alright so I'm playing Seiken Densetsu 3 for the first time and I must be doing something wrong, because these bosses are just bulldozing me. The only way I've been able to beat the two ninjas for example was constantly mashing X and healing with items because one or two attacks would kill anyone. I'm running an Angela/Hawk/Duran team and have up to Undine for spells...although they are only attack spells at this time for some reason. I don't think I'm particularly underleveled, unless unlike Secret of Mana it requires Dragon Quest-esque of grinding. I must be putting my stats into the wrong areas and not learning the right moves or something.
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# ¿ Aug 22, 2009 04:43 |
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Corridor posted:I don't know why you only have attack spells that late in the game. I seem to recall that Angela only learns attack spells, but the others should have some support spells and some elemental sword spells which will make many battles MUCH easier. Leveling up is taking forever in the desert too so I'm worried if I might have gimped my game a bit.
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# ¿ Aug 22, 2009 05:16 |
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YggiDee posted:Edit- Neither Duran nor Hawk get any spells at all until class change.
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# ¿ Aug 22, 2009 05:31 |
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More FFVI: Don't use the Lete River trick or the Vanish/Doom/X-zone trick. If you do not know what these two things entail, then just as well.
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# ¿ Aug 22, 2009 21:46 |
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That's all well and good but I already went with Duran as a Knight (Light) for the healing spells. I guess this is a game meant for repeated playthroughs to maximize the process so you can find out what sucks the first time through. loving Lugar in the Moon forest was a repeat of the same poo poo as the Ninja brothers. As in "oh god hit X as fast as I can so that I can heal my characters every single turn." I actually ran out of all my healing items AND reviving grails and killed him with my last remaining character who had less than 100 HP. Probably was countering me and I was too frantic with healing to notice. I can't believe I'm underleveled (Level 25ish), just pretty sure I upgraded the wrong stats. For example I only just learned that Agility is what gives Hawk new moves as a Ninja, and Spirit is what affects Duran as a Knight. Sure would have loved to know that 10 level ups ago. But yeah some buffing items would go a LONG loving way. Money is certainly not a problem at this point.
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# ¿ Aug 24, 2009 00:14 |
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CloseFriend posted:If you plan on doing a 100% items run, write down the names of the rooms where you get each missile/energy upgrade. You won't get them all yourself (foregone conclusion), and backtracking and having to remember which you picked up (or worse, which you may have picked up but then died and never saved) is a giant pain in the rear end. It took me like two hours of backtracking when I decided to do a 100% items run because of this. Prime 2 though I wasn't able to find anything that way for whatever reason. Prime 3 it isn't a problem at all since they provide help with finding everything anyway. Honestly though don't worry about it too much, the only thing you can potentially gently caress yourself on is not scanning something that only appears briefly like a boss. And the only rewards for that are generally artwork if I recall.
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# ¿ Aug 25, 2009 13:48 |
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Salt Block Party posted:Anything for Persona 2? Innocent Sin if it matters, but I think both it and Eternal Punishment share similar mechanics. I'm mostly worried about how to go about using personas, random battles, and the monster interrogation thing. For example, in Innocent Sin, you can actually make it so that you can put ALL points into Tech by getting the Vit Sauce accessory, It will add a point to Vitality every level up no matter what. So you equip that on as many characters as possible, and for the Hero put all points into Tech. That way their HP/Defense increase a little, and their Tech will go through the roof. You can get these accessories in the casino place whose name escapes me at the moment. After you've maxed out Tech, switch your efforts to Vitality. If you play your cards right you can have both totally maxed out by the end of the game for the Hero. It will probably be harder to do this with the other characters, since you don't directly control their point allocation. If possible, equip Personae that give a Tech bonus for every level up, but don't try to compromise your team's battle skills too much. Agility is also worth putting some points into occasionally, however Luck and Strength are pretty much useless. I went through the entire game of Eternal Punishment without putting a single point into Strength for my Hero. Also don't worry too much about getting the super high level Personae in Innocent Sin. You won't need them. Once you get the second Greek set, just max them out and stick with them the rest of the way. It's a different story in Eternal Punishment because the bonus boss and level are really tough.
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# ¿ Sep 6, 2009 19:13 |
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# ¿ May 7, 2024 10:22 |
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Cinroth posted:I'm going to be starting Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia and Chrono Trigger DS, anything good to keep in mind that I could overlook by mistake? (especially concerning Chrono Trigger, what with it being a jrpg and all that) Pay attention to enemy weaknesses, as you will need to be able to switch your glyphs in and out on the fly to be able to kill anything quick enough. Otherwise you are going to die a lot.
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# ¿ Sep 18, 2009 02:51 |