Einander fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Nov 16, 2014

Lies. There are no Stone-based Sword hybrid arts, no attack buffs that use Stone Anima, and no Stone attack spells that cut things. Stop lying.

(This game is not very good at merging game mechanics with its story)

It's currently sitting inside a superboss on the other end of the world.


(The Outside World)



Finishing this scenario unlocks Gruegel on the map. Four towns in the game are available for access after finishing certain scenarios and can be entered once (and only once each time, for some reason) after most combat scenarios, allowing you to walk around, talk to townsfolk, and buy items. These items change as time goes on, so there's some very good stuff up for grabs late-game. We'll have an opportunity to go to Gruegel soon in the story, though, so I'll decline for now.

Next time, the game really starts. Look forward to it!

Einander fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Feb 24, 2015

In the next round, Gustave decides to show off two wrinkles of the battle system: Sparking and Reactions.

Sparking gives each weapon type action a chance to Spark other moves, symbolized by a flashing lightbulb. Instead of doing what you told them to do, the character will instead use a technique; Sparks are dependent on the technique, and you almost always Spark upwards in strength, so this isn't really a problem. Afterward, the move is added to their move list. Sparki depends on the enemy, and stronger enemies usually have higher spark rates. Smash is an excellent attack to spark right now, having the highest attack power of anything Gustave can learn here (180 damage, compared to Slash's 40) and costing 4 WP--as good as free for Gustave.

There's no WP/SP Crown mechanic in this one, by the way, so there's no advantage to being purely physical or magical. This is by design--no one in this game's world sticks to only weapons or only magic if they have the option.



Five of the six weapon types, including Martial Arts and excluding Axes, has a innate Reaction ability, which sometimes activates against incoming melee attacks when you're using an action of that type that round. Deflect (Swords), Windmill (Spears) and Block (Staves) cancel out an attack, while Counter (Martial Arts) and Reaction Shot (bows) both cancel an attack and do damage. Reactions are more a cool bonus than anything in normal fights.

I have Gustave Slash again, since I want him to spark the attacks between Slash and Smash.

There are four main battle songs, all variations on the same theme, and one corresponding victory theme for each. It's a nice touch.




Victory pose! ...but no rewards. Most enemies don't drop money in this game, and those that do tend to drop very little. Items do drop, but rarely. Gustave also didn't Spark anything else in that battle, but Smash is great for him right now, so I'm not really complaining.



After a fight, you recover 25% HP (rounding down). If you look back at his stats in the last update, you'll also notice that Gustave gained 15 HP (195->210), 1 LP (14->15) and 4 WP (60->64) between the last update and this one. This is because his age has also increased from 13 to 15. As characters age towards their prime, they gain HP, LP, and WP. As characters get older than that, they start to lose those three stats, and they also begin to lose WP regeneration--Gustave has 4 WPR now, but he'll have 3 WPR by the time he reaches middle age.

(The thing next to Age is a blue "m" or red "f," but gender has no known mechanical effect. I don't think there are any gender-dependent attacks either. It's just there to clarify the gender of the character with the most luxurious hair.)

Gustave also has his Cannonball role now, which increases the speed of all actions by 20%. I switch him to Solo Action, though, since that increases Spark Rate (and he's alone, so it's not like he can Combo unless monsters start self-targeting).



I run into a mushroom field enemy next. Shark Worms and Fungman(s) are both more fragile than the ones we've already seen. Shark Worms can use Crippling Gaze, which gives you the Cripple debuff and lowers your damage output (to about 75% of normal), and between that and their higher damage they should probably be your priority. Fungman(s) do nothing particularly interesting.

There's one more enemy type--a Werebat, a white-and-red bat enemy--but I don't run into it this time. It can drain HP, but it's not dangerous.



Gustave's getting worn down a bit, so I select Recover HP and confirm.




Recover HP breaks the game in half. For 1 LP and zero turn cost, you can instantly restore any and all injured characters to full HP, and since you recover HP at the end of fights, you can generally go entire dungeons while only dipping into 3-5 LP per character--and that's including random enemy LP damage. Most bosses cannot deal with each and every character having 10 turn-free full heals.

Recover HP doesn't work if a character is unconscious, but in SaGa tradition, there's no special revival spell--just cast one of the two healing spells and they'll go back up to positive numbers, same as anyone else.

Recover HP is a crutch, but it's a drat good crutch, and for most of the game it's all you really need.



Gustave also picks up Double Slash, at which point I switch to using that. It costs 2 WP but does nearly triple the damage of the basic Slash, and it also triggers the next Art faster than Slash. You really, really should not be using the basic 1 WP techs if you don't have to.

Still no after-battle rewards.



Past another rhino-shaped field enemy is this, a Light Spear. It has 9 Attack and Flame anima, and this one has 34 uses. I pick it up; inventory is limited, but you can convert items to chips and chips to crowns (money), so there's no reason not to pick things up if you have space. The bag has 63 free slots at the moment, so we're fine.

These luminiscent green mushroom spores have no gameplay effect. These animated mushrooms are in no other room in this dungeon and in no other dungeon, and this room is completely unnecessary. Someone just decided that these two random mushrooms needed beautiful spore clouds and got right on that.

Up there is the Buckler, a Shield. Shields take up your second weapon-available slot and give you an additional Reaction, letting you guard against certain types of moves a certain percentage of the time. The Buckler has 8 Evade (8%? who knows) and defends against Slash and Hit elemental attacks.



Gustave FINALLY gains a stat on the way up, getting 1 WP. Grand total after about six battles: 1 WP, 1 Sword. Skill levels don't increase the odds of learning techniques--that's all depends on characters and the enemy's spark stats--but they do increase damage done.

I exit the fourth cave and enter the second.



I fight one more enemy, then move on to the next area.

Perspective switch!



Kelvin looks a lot less impressive than Gustave. Half the HP, a third of the WP and half the WPR, but he has SP and more LP! He also has a + in different places in his skills than Gustave. That tends to denote higher growth rates and better learning affinity with the weapon type, and it's accurate here, since he's one of the better Spear users (in theory). His Caster Cloth is poor armor, having 4 Defense to the Iron Beastplate's 18, and the Fur Boots also add about as much, so he's a lot less durable right now.

The Defense stat is sort of a lie, though. In actuality, there's Slash, Hit and Pierce physical defense, as well as Heat, Cold, Lightning, Light (a weird sort of mixed-element) and Status magical defenses. The physical defenses are all generally the same, except when the armor has a glaring weakpoint. (Breastplates made of ribcages are bad at blocking arrows.) Generally, body armor has half as much magical defense as physical defense and non-body gear has roughly equal stats in everything except when it has one higher magic defense (Fur Boots guard against cold). Weapons have magical defenses at complete loving random (there's a lose connection to theme, but why does a Flame Rod sword-type give you 10 Heat defense? Why does a Silver Staff give you 10 Lightning defense?) except Steel, which always has 10 Status defense.

In practice, no one cares, because the game is easy. There's no need to worry about it.

More importantly, though...



...Kelvin comes with the best Hand-type equip in the game, the Birch Ring Quell. When equipped, it gives you 4 defense against the physical elements, 17 against Heat, 1 against the other magical elements (and Status), gives you immunity to Water effects along with 10 SP and 1 SP Regen, and has Water and Tree Anima. (If you want to know what SP Enhance does, sorry, no one has any clue. Welcome to Saga Frontier 2.)

There are six elements, just as there are six weapon types, and you can only cast spells you have the Anima for. Kelvin's Wood Spear is Tree, his Stone Knife is Stone, and the Birch Ring is Tree-Water, so he can cast spells that include any of Tree, Stone, and Water. (The rest of his defensive gear has none, which is default. All non-Steel weapons have one.) If you replace the Wood Spear with the Light Spear, he can also cast Fire. There's no benefit to double-dipping on Anima, so try not to.

When used in battle, the Birch Ring casts Life Water, a 4 SP Tree-Water spell with a very slow action speed that is one of only two healing spells in the game. The Birch Ring also has infinite durability because it's a Quell, a type of excavated magical artifact, and it's the only armor that has two Animas on it. There are accessories that do, but they tend to have very low defenses to make up for it, and none of them have Anima combinations as good as the Birch Ring.

Someone will be wearing the Birch Ring in very nearly every scenario from here on out. It's that good.

His Role is Support, multiplying the power of all allied Arts by 1.12. This doesn't include the user, so it's not doing Kelvin much good right now.

Kelvin enters the first cave.




Scripted encounter against three Dino Leeches.

By the way, this is environmental anima. It's actually equipment that goes in an invisible fifth slot; in addition to giving Kelvin another redundant source of Tree Anima, it's giving him 6 Status defense. Yay? (Probably Gustave too, but it's not exactly easy to check. How much is 6 Status Defense worth, exactly? I have no clue.) You can't Spark spells mid-battle, though, so there's not much point in using Tree here. It does increase the user's Psyche (magic damage), but not by much, so this never really matters.

Kelvin is also one of the aforementioned nancies who isn't willing to punch things. Like Gustave and spells, he can't equip Martial Arts either--even once you've learned Martial Arts Arts (wow that sounds silly), the category will remain grayed-out and unselectable.



Tree Spear isn't very useful either (it's Light elemental, for some reason! so are Flame Spear and Stone Spear and Tone Spear!)--it does decent damage for this point but it can't trigger Sparking, so I select Thrust instead.

Dissolve is the game's most common Water-elemental attack, and Kelvin is completely immune thanks to the Birch Ring. It does decent damage and may also lower defense? But there is a lot of good gear in this game that's immune to Water, so after a while it just becomes a wasted turn. He also sparks Lawnmower, one of the better early Spear attacks, combining high speed, decent power, a reasonable 4 WP cost, and a Stun effect.



Victory poses! (I selected Punch on the last round, so Gustave's put his sword away.)

This is the second type of battle. You can either fight normally or enter a Duel.




This changes a few things. First, you can only use one weapon at a time, which is a pain when, say, you're a Flame-Tree magician and you've got Flame on one weapon and Tree on the other. Second, actually using Spells this way requires you to select the Anima from each object (which is why you can't use the Anima on your other weapon), which means it's a lot rougher on Tool durability (though you can only lose 1 Durability on each item each round). Third, you can't choose Arts from a list, you have to assemble a list of four commands, which can connect to form weapon or spell Arts. And four, you can't Spark off of random inputs, though you CAN permanently learn any technique you get the right combination for... If the enemy has a high enough Duel Spark difficulty and you get lucky, that is. If you've learned a Tech, you can usually use it with the right command... Usually.

There is no way to see your tech list midbattle, by the way. I hope you remember Reviva's command on your own! (That's a bad example. Reviva is weird.)

Duels are useful if you know what you're doing and/or have a guide so you can quickly get new Arts, and there's uses (just about every weapon has a powerful technique that only uses 1 WP in Duels, since only damaging abilities use WP--Slash/Backslash/Thrust for Spears, for example, are 1 WP and the rest are 0), but generally you want to do party battles so that everyone's stats go up.



Water is the other heal spell, acting faster but healing much less than Life Water, and is the basic action of any Water anima item. Items with combination techniques, like Tree Spear or Life Water, get broken up into their components in Duels, and have to be sparked if they're sparkable. Life Water can be learned and used, but Tree Spear can't, so you can't use it in duels. Not all techniques have a duel command; AOE attacks usually don't.

Defend is a lot more useful in Duels. If you select it at least once during your four actions, it reduces damage by more than half for the full round. Unless you have a very, very good reason not to, always Defend at least once a round.



The most annoying thing about Duels is that when trying to learn a spell, or even when you know a spell and just get unlucky, you'll often get a Custom Art instead. Custom Arts suck--they're essentially just multiple-turn versions of the basic Anima spells with slightly better effects. Custom Art Water is the only one that's any good, and you're still better off with Life Water.

Kelvin doesn't even manage to learn Double Thrust in this fight. It's kind of sad, becaue the Slime keeps wasting its turns on Dissolve and Kelvin can't connect any dots this fight.




He does surprise the hell out of me by learning Water Hammer, a Water-Stone spell.

Every time you use an Anima, you get to roll on an after-battle table to see if you'll learn a spell. Each Anima gets its own table for each character, and each time you add another Anima, your chances for each Anima get smaller. There can be overlap, though--Kelvin has Sonic Sanctuary (Tone and Stone) on the lists for both Anima, so he can learn it off either. It's better to roll for one thing on two tables, if you can... But in practice, the only spells you won't get from characters joining are the very best ones, and only one of those can't be learned in Duels, so it's not all that important. Solo Action has no effect on this, just on Weapon Arts sparks.

(tl;dr: Use spells, sometimes get spell of elements used, different characters get different spells)

As a weird effect, this also means that if you don't grab one specific no-Duel spell in this scenario (Howling Heaven), you can't get it until you get a hidden character or the game hands it to you. And this spell sucks, so this is weirdly specific. Game design!

Kelvin used three Anima and Water Hammer is fairly high in after-battle Spark difficulty for this point, so this is incredibly weird. I equip it on him in commemoration. The item behind the Slime Kelvin killed (very slowly) is a Hunter Bow, a Fire Anima bow that is also the weakest one. It'll be useful regardless, though.



Moving on, this room connects to both Cave 2 (bottom-left) and Cave 3 (top-left). You move onward by following the ridge at the upper-right.



The Gremlin on this ridge is the other kind of duellable enemy in the area. Let's see if Kelvin can do any better this time.




Immediate success! Needle Shot is Kelvin's best (easily acquired) damage option at this point, it saves Spear uses, and it also means he rolls for his Tree table, which has something he's actually fairly likely to learn. Not a useful thing, but a thing nonetheless.

"Mercy Please!" is still the best command.

The Gremlin keeps tackling Kelvin before he uses Water, so he's a little low on HP. I burn an LP and keep going.

Kelvin then spends five turns trying to learn Swing & Stab. It has a Duel Difficulty of 1. Needle Shot has a Duel Difficulty of 10. It is the saddest goddamn thing.



FINALLY GEEZ

He also picks up Double Thrust.



Windmill, the Deflect for Spears; he spins the spear, blocking all damage. Also a Timely Action. What are those? Well, weapons have optimum distances. Martial Arts are best closest, Bows are best furthest. Timely Action rewards you for attacking from the correct distance by making your attacks harder to evade or by increasing your evasion and penalizes you with the opposite, and in party battles, it also affects your action speed.

You can't change distance yourself, nor do you have any real control over character positioning. Since there's certain "default" distances, this means some weapons are nearly always fast and others are nearly always slow. This is not indicated anywhere.

Timely Action is dumb. I like to pretend it's an action command system instead. (I'm the kind of person that still holds the A button when a Pokeball is shaking.)



Then I use Stone-Tree by accident and learn Delta Petra on the first try, which has a Duel Difficulty of 15. I... I just... Whatever, okay? Whatever.




And that's the thing he could learn from the Tree table, but that I really didn't expect him to.

Here you go, Kelvin--you want magic? Have your drat magic. Go nuts.

(Needle Shot has 36 Power and Mindscape increases everyone's Reflex, which is action speed. He can't cast it, though--no Beast Anima.



Delta Petra is basically an AOE Smash-level attack at this point, even before the Petrify, and the Petrify is pretty drat reliable! It's kind of out-of-depth.



Water Hammer does about 110, comparatively.



You can kick this mushroom, which causes mushroom enemies to jump down out of it and come after you.



This will also eventually spawn a Mushroom Tear, which has 2 physical and 1 magical defense. Mushroom Tears also drops off of the Mushroom enemies, but rarely, so this is the way to pick one up. It has its use later on.

Gustave: so violent that he can even make fungi cry.

Along the way, Gustave's up to 6 Sword and Kelvin gains a Stone level, bringing him up to 2.



Gustave tries to punch a Gremlin to learn things, but learns nothing. I pass through another fairly simple room, and...



Slow pan downward.

The one downside of Smash: it's one of a few moves that has a special low-accuracy flag, making it one of the few attacks that can outright miss.




I also learn Cross Slash (2/3 of Smash's power, effective against Undead), Rotation Kick (as strong as Double Slash) and Running Slash (a little weaker than Smash, 3 WP), just for the heck of it... Then promptly accidentally reset instead of pausing the emulator. I'm good at this! Thankfully, I had a mid-scenario save right before (SF2 lets you save anywhere, in addition to its quicksave feature!), so Kelvin keeps all of his bullshit spell learning.

That lets me show off one of the cooler features of Duels. In addition to Reactions, you can get Cross Counters--both combatants attack simultaneously with physical Arts, each doing increased damage to the other. Very cinematic!



Victory pose!

(Remember how Gustave said he wanted to make a sword three times longer than the Trial Dagger? The "Dagger" is about the size of his torso. Kid's got a hell of a lot of self-confidence, that's for sure.)

This boss fight isn't particularly interesting. The Burglars do minimal physical damage, and the Burglar Chief can use Boss's Temper on them to increase their Morale (physical damage) in exchange for ~1-4 HP. They'll also try to use Stone on Gustave (basic Stone Anima) to lower his defense, but they'll usually fail. You win when you either do enough damage to the Chief or take down all three Burglars, since she can't attack--the fight just ends at that point.

Normally, it'd take three to four turns. But, uh.



Remember how I said Delta Petra does AOE damage? Kind of amazing how they mapped themselves to the exact AOE, really.

Gustave uses Smash on the front Burglar, doing 160 damage. Then Kelvin casts Delta Petra.



The first one takes out the Burglar that Gustave hit. The second one ends the fight. Not only does it take out the Burglars...



...but it turns out that the Burglar Chief isn't immune to Delta Petra's Petrify. Normally, she's supposed to have an end-of-battle line for either win condition, after which she flees.

That one. But instead, the battle just ends. I've beaten the game like six times and I'm still learning things!



This dialogue works so, so much better when Gustave is carrying a Kelvin who maybe knows one or two Spear moves. Now it's just silly.

Einander fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jan 29, 2015

KataraniSword fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Nov 18, 2014

Coding in SGF2, part 1:

KataraniSword fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Nov 18, 2014