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Get this bird off my nuts: Let's Play Chocobo's Dungeon 2! Latest update: 30: Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto Hello, and welcome to Let's Play Chocobo's Dungeon 2!  Released for the Sony Playstation in 1999, Chocobo's Dungeon 2 stars a naive young adventurer with a large appetite who travels around with a spunky sidekick, in a very Saturday morning cartoon-style world. Along their travels they meet up with some new allies, including a young lady from a different time period, and together they all stop a demon based on one of the seven deadly sins from destroying the world. The gameplay focuses on exploration, the characters learn new abilities and power up existing ones by using weapons and magic repeatedly, and it's all set to a nice soundtrack. This all might sound a little familiar at this point. What can I say, I have a type.  Being a Mystery Dungeon game, it uses randomly-generated dungeons and items that have unknown effects until they've been indentified, either via use or magic. This randomness gives it quite a lot of replay value, and it's worth looking for a copy if it sounds interesting. Sadly, it's not available on PSN outside of Japan, but the soundtrack is available on iTunes. Speaking of, if you've played some of the later entries in the Chocobo series, you may be used to some familiar tunes popping up. Sadly, with this entry... not quite. If all of those  turned you off, you can just watch the attract mode video here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9LxIaGwpss Table of Contents
Edward_Tohr fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2016 15:07
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Apr 26, 2016 15:07
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As is customary in video games, we open with a cutscene. That sure is some scenery, yep.   I'll say.  : Wait, this must be the entrance to a dungeon! Yes, that's it! I've finally found it! Yep, my gut feeling was right. Yep, that's right... And we're given the chance to name this Moogle fellow here. Despite the fact that he's already been referred to as "Mog". Anyway, we've got seven characters to work with, but I'll be leaving him with his default name for now. : Yep, my gut feeling was right. : Hey... Are you listenin' to me? Hey.... Same deal as before, seven characters, sticking with the default for this update. Don't worry, you'll get to rename these guys before we start playing for real.   Chocobo, being the player character, doesn't actually speak. Instead he just pantomimes, which makes my job a lot easier. : Chocobo, you weren't listening, were you? Whatever... And this is Mog's motivation. He's just after the loot.  : Hardly finding any rare items... It's been a long journey...  : As a rare item collector, it'd be such a cryin' shame to pass up a dungeon like this...: Okay, let's go, Chocobo!: Wha...! Whatever, let's go! As might be expected of the treasure-hunter, Mog is kind of a jerk.   : This must be another mysterious dungeon.: What!? You forgot? In mysterious dungeons, stairs from the previous floor disappear. There may be monsters, too. Despite all that, you can get a lot of rare items. And here's Chocobo's motivation: dude just wants a snack. : Alright, let's move it! : Huh? What now, Chocobo?: What? Why are you in the lead, you ask?: That's the way it always is. Come on, Chocobo! And once Chocobo's done mugging for the camera, we get to play the game. A very short intro sequence, especially once you consider that you can hold L2 to auto-advance the dialog.  The game's interface is pretty simple. We have our current dungeon floor in the upper-left, our current experience level next to that, then our HP, and finally energy at the upper-right. Energy is our food counter. Every so often, it decreases by one, and once it gets very low we start to lose HP. The minimap is in the lower-right corner of the screen. Green is walkable areas, blue is where we've already walked, light blue is items, red is enemies, and white is the staircase to the next floor.  Oh yeah, that's a goblin in front of us. As an early-game monster, they don't hit particularly hard, and only have 7-8 HP.  Even after one attack, he's very nearly dead.  Mog decides to show off his special ability right away, and steals a Map Card. I'll go more into stealing later on, but in general each enemy has four steal slots, and Mog is more likely to steal when you have fewer items in your inventory. Map Cards, by the way, reveal the full minimap.  Memory Tags allow you to save your game when you find the stairs. Most of the dungeons in this game are short enough that saving halfway through isn't really necessary. That enemy on the right there is a Guz. They have less attack and defense than Goblins, and also waste their turns crying when you hit them.  Mind you, they'll still try to fight you.  Mog socks this one upside the head to finish him off. The book on the ground next to him is a Fire Book. Spells are cast from books. Each book has one use, and casts the spell of its associated element. As you cast the spells more, their level increases, dealing more damage and occasionally getting a beefier animation. Fire books are useful later on in the dungeon, though, so we'll be keeping this one.  Using the Map Card shows us the full minimap for this level. Much like NetHack and Rogue, each floor is divided into a grid of potential rooms with connecting hallways. Map Cards are mostly useful if you're just trying to rush through the level, as the 4x3 grid doesn't take very long to manually explore.  Treasure chests are pretty much the same as they are in every other video game. You open them and get stuff from them.  This particular one held a potion, which restores 30 HP when drank. Given our max HP is only 35, it's safe to save this for emergencies. The stairs are just to our south, but there's something I forgot to take care of earlier.  That green thing is a recycle box. You can put two items in, and get a random item out. It's a great way to make those memory tags and map cards useful.  For instance, our memory tags became an empty bottle! Usually you get these by drinking potions, but you can sometimes find them as loot. They're one of the more versatile and useful items in the game.  Bottles can be filled from magic springs, which replaces the bottle with a random potion. They can also be kicked at monsters, which does exactly 4 damage every time. Equipping a bottle (or stone) allows you to kick it just by pressing L1, which saves a bit of time.  Killing monsters also gives you experience points, and once you get enough of those, you level up, which boosts your attack, defense, and maximum HP.  While clearing out the area, we stumble across our first trap, the bounce tile. It launches Chocobo forward a few squares... and that's it. A very gentle introduction to traps.  Especially when you consider the Lost-Child trap right next to it. This trap makes you forget the minimap. Still not dangerous, but quite annoying. Thankfully, we were almost done with this floor anyway.  Since all of the enemies in this part of the dungeon have either 7 or 8 HP, it's easy to just hit them once, and finish them off with a kicked bottle. Why bother doing that?  Because killing an enemy with a bottle will drop an Essence. Each essence type has a different effect when drunk. Critter Essence, for example...  ... Is our first unidentified item. Huh. Yep, most items are unidentified when you first pick them up, and are distinguished by "flavors". For instance, un-ID'd potions might be "bubbly" or "glowing", and cards can be "bent" and such. Because we started off with a Map Card and Potion, those two were ID'd for us.  Anyway, Critter Essence restores some Energy. There are certainly worse things out there. Anyway, enough faffing around. Down the stairs!  Good job, Mog, you've jinxed us.  : Oh shoot! Get down!: Just do it! Well, that doesn't sound too dangerous to us.  : It took out that Guz and leveled up! If a monster takes out another monster, it goes up in level! A Goblin becomes a Dark Goblin... We'll never beat it, let's scram!Pff, says you. I'm sure we can take it.  Look at that, Mog, he can't even hit you.  One thing I've forgotten to mention up to this point is that the game is strictly turn-based. You have as much time to think about your move as you need, but once you either move or attack, everyone else gets their turn, too. Hence why Chocobo needs to kick the air in order for Mog to punch the goblin.  Oh... Well, we've got 70HP between us, I'm sure we can whittle down this guy.  O-oh. Monsters can also level up by killing your partner. When a monster levels, they're also fully-healed, so watch out for that. But hey, Mog was a thief, and we're clearly some sort of fighter, right? We can take this g-   Oh.  The little bar underneath the enemy is thier ATB gauge. Most monsters have a special move that takes more than one turn to charge, and this lets you keep an eye out for that.  Oh dear.  Welp. That was a bust. See you next time! Oh, and don't forget, you can suggest names for our intrepid duo. 7 characters, and please bold suggestions so I can see them.
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Apr 26, 2016 15:08
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Since we've got a three-way tie, I'm gonna let the trusty d6 decide this one. ... And we're going with Kwehry and Riposte! Update should be coming later on today. Edward_Tohr fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 28, 2016 |
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Apr 28, 2016 17:23
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Zanzibar Ham posted:It was actually supposed to be Kwehry Y'know, that does make more sense.
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Apr 28, 2016 17:59
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Welcome back! After the unfortunate demise of the previous two adventurers, let's meet their suspiciously-similar cousins from the next village over.  Let's skip past the rest of the cutscene for now. You've seen it already.  What you haven't seen yet, is equipment. Kwehry's weapons take the form of claws. We'll take a closer look at these later, once they've been identified.  Aero is our first spellbook. Each book gives you one casting of its associated spell, and spells power up the more you cast them. It's usually better, therefore, to use them throughout the dungeon instead of hording them all for the boss.  Two books already, and we've barely started to explore this level. I have a good feeling about this one. Junk shelves give you a random item when examined, from spellbooks to potions to rocks.  Ooo, and an unidentified card. Cards have varied effects, so we'll hold onto this one until we can get a better idea of what it might do. The other shelf in here just had a Map card, but that recycle box is looking tempting...  Kwehry dumps his map cards, and picks up another spellbook!  Oh yeah, there's some enemies, too.  Guzzes are about as basic as enemies get. Riposte can steal Identify cards from them, which are very nice to have, as well as lost-child cards, which make you forget the map. They're also nice to have, but for different reasons. They also have a tiny chance of dropping some armor that we'll discuss in more detail if/when we actually pick some up. Gobbos are a little tougher than Guzzes. Notably, if Riposte yoinks a card from them, you know it has a positive effect. They are also set to have iron saddles, but never drop them.  Wild Rats hit hard and have more HP than their comrades. They can also haste themselves, which gives them two turns for each of yours. Needless to say, this is not a good thing. Riposte can take tonics that cause both haste and slow, so be careful if you chug un-ID'd potions from these guys.  Woo, more cards.  And here we see a status effect trap just before Kwehry sets it off.  Oh, and it's Haste. Yes, sometimes traps give you buffs.  With haste up, enemies take twice as many turns to do everything, including move. This also applies to Riposte, though, so be careful.  That there is a landmine.  They explode, dealing damage and destroying any adjacent items. Usually they also destroy surrounding walls and create a crater, but since this one was too close to the stairs, it didn't.  Hmm. Now we have two rough cards, meaning they're probably one of the more common card types.  A potion and another fire book. With that room looted, I think it's time we perform the time-honored tradition of ID-by-use.  Certain cards will prompt you to choose an item to use them on. Let's choose our digging claws.  And my hunch was correct! Rough cards are now identified as Identify cards. Oh, and we know our digging claws are uncursed.  And there's our patched up card. Like I alluded to earlier, these things are nice to have around, just not to use.  While doing a final sweep around the floor, Kwehry goes up to level 2. And then goes down to level 2.  This scripted event only happens once, so if you get killed by the upgraded goblin, you need to start a new game for your chance at revenge.  Dark Goblins are a pretty beefy step up from the standard variety. Riposte has a tiny chance of stealing a decent claw or saddle from them, assuming he survives long enough.  He does not.  Black Goblins get a huge boost to defense, and a slightly smaller boost to attack. If you can manage to find one with Riposte still alive, you can get yourself some drat fine equipment, especially for this stage of the game. Also of note is the crazy jump in EXP. Kwehry's gonna get him some of that.  Once you've identified a particular card or tonic as harmful, you can kick it at an enemy to make them suffer the effect.  Since enemies forgetting the map would be pointless, it instead prevents them from attacking for a few turns.  During which time, we blast away with our spells.  Avenging Chocobo and Mog gives Kwehry two levels at once. Of course, that wild rat there decides to mess up the celebration.  And eats an Aero for his trouble.  Oh hey, there's the stairs. That was quick. But let's see what else there is on this floor before we leave it behind.  Some armor! Speaking of, I should probably go over the stats on our weapon, huh?  ATK is pretty obvious, it's what the claws add to your attack power. For Saddles, this is defense. DUR is durability. Every so many uses, the DUR will decrease by one. When it hits zero, the claws break. Energy determines how quickly you'll lose energy. Higher values cause energy to decrease more slowly. Toughness is the number of uses needed for durability to decrease. Level Limit is the maximum bonus that can be applied to the weapon. These claws would max out at +45, giving a whopping 46 attack. Hit Rate and Critical are pretty self-explanatory. Saddles have these two as Dodge and Special Defense. Finally, that little rock icon there shows that the claws deal earth-elemental damage. Earth damage on a claw is what causes the "dig through walls" effect mentioned in the item description. Observe.  Before...  ... and after. Breaking walls counts as two uses of a claw, though, so in this case each wall costs 1 durability. Let's keep these claws safe for a rainy day.  And with nothing else of note on the floor, Kwehry descends, alone. See you next time!
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Apr 28, 2016 21:58
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Dander My DOSDruid posted:If Mog is still alive can the Chocobo die and the game still continue? Or is it only the other way around? Nope, if Kwehry bites it, you get kicked out of the dungeon and have to start again, no matter how his partner's doing. Granted, this game doesn't do permadeath, so you're just out whatever items you had kicking around in your inventory, and have to tromp back to where you were when you died in order to grab your equipment. Since there's a sidequest that specifically involves dying and losing some items, I'll be demoing that when it comes up. Black Balloon posted:Only +5 hp from a two-level jump? That's the same bonus you got from your first level, and I don't recall gains normally being that awful. I wonder if it only actually gave you the stats for one level. I... hadn't noticed that. I'll have to science it. Glazius posted:Dang. I imagine a lot of various badstats Chocobo can suffer really just translate as a multi-round stun to enemies. Oddly enough, most status ailments work the same on enemies as they do on Kwehry. Amnesia is the only real outlier. It's also far and away the most useful. Zanzibar Ham posted:Ah, now I get it. I was a lot more conservative with my items (packrat mentality hooray...) so I didn't unlock the full potential of this game. Don't worry, we'll have hundreds of items in storage by the end of the game. KirbyKhan posted:That's the mystery dungeon genre for you. It's a rouge-like that isn't mean and obtusely trying to kill a player. I was a literal child when this game found it's way to me and I remember it fondly. The game is forgiving enough with the early game that you don't really need to engage with a lot of the systems to win. It hits a nice balance of having the complicated mechanics that the OP is showing off be incredibly useful, while still allowing an 8 year old with 2nd grade reading comprehension have fun bashing his numbers against the gobbos. Yeah, face-ramming will eventually get your base numbers high enough to get past most of the game. At least until the bonus dungeons. pichupal posted:I'm so happy there's another Chocobo thread up. I enjoyed the Chocobo Tales one, and there was an LP for the Wii version that disappeared, so seeing another Chocobo thread is a treat. I've only played the Wii one so I'm excited to see more of Kwehry and Riposte's adventures. I'd love to do the Wii one after this, but it'd be a blind run. Which honestly probably works just as well.
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Apr 30, 2016 22:07
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Welcome back!  Kwehry presses on alone, in search of treasure. It's (probably) what Riposte would have wanted.  Critical hits do up to twice as much damage as a normal one. They're a helpful bonus, but probably won't pull you out of a tough spot on their own.  Of course, enemies can get them too. The RNG seems to be sticky, in that you'll often get strings of sequential misses or crits.  Switches are a bit of a gamble. Early on, they're more likely to spawn treasure chests, but they can also drop you down a floor, spawn some enemies, or just do nothing, in addition to a few other, rarer effects. It's still worth it to hit them all, but try to keep close to the room's exit and be prepared for an ambush.  Our haul from the treasure was two saddles and a claw. I'll hold off on equipping them until I can get some ID going. In menus like this, un-ID'd items have a glowy font, while ID'd ones use white text. Note the ID'd saddle that I haven't yet equipped.  Haste. That's good!  Silence. That's bad. Silence prevents you from using spellbooks, so it's best to avoid it if possible.  This seems to be the status effect floor. Confusion essentially randomizes your facing whenever you do something. If there's enemies nearby, spells are your best bet for getting rid of them until you recover. Thankfully it's a short-lived status ailment. Status ailments overwrite each other instead of stacking, so you don't have to worry about being a poisoned, sleeping, confused, silenced, slowed, tiny frog.  A nearby goblin was kind enough to help us out with our identification issues.  And good thing, too. Our claws are cursed! Cursed equipment has a penalty to attack/defense compared to uncursed versions, and can't be removed once equipped. In this case, the claws would only provide +2 attack instead of the normal base of +3 for wooden claws. Yep, our -1 wooden claws still do more damage than our digging claws. Curses aren't so bad this early in the game, and even later on, IIRC, the game will never generate cursed equipment with a bonus (or malus, if you prefer) lower than -1. Plus, there's a tonic that'll fix a curse up right quick. It won't flip the enchantment, but it'll let you unequip the item.  It's around now that I remember that I have a saddle I can equip to reduce some of the damage I've been taking. Also, those chests have yet another wooden claw and saddle. The bookshelf next to the chests will always give you a spellbook when examined.  One of the game's more memorable early-game sidequests involves gathering up seven Thunder books. Another very important sidequest that opens up at the same time requires another. Having all eight by then makes things go a whole lot more smoothly, so Kwehry'll be on the lookout for bookshelves.  Despite our equipment bonanza, Status Effect Central continues on unabated with the introduction of sleep. Sleep is pretty nasty, as Kwehry will snooze on the ground for a few turns, giving enemies free reign to attack. The duration is short, but it's a nasty one.  Sleep traps also don't disappear once they've been triggered. If you're not careful, you can hit the trap every time you enter or leave the room.  Kwehry will also need some essence for the upcoming sidequests. Essences are a little unique, ID-wise. Normally, any items that aren't in your inventory are un-ID'd whenever you leave the dungeon. But once Kwehry finds out what a particular type of essence does, it'll remain identified forever. Goblin Essence, here, restores a bunch of HP when drunk.  Critter Essence restores energy. A sufficiently-resourceful Kwehry can meet all of his dietary needs without needing to rely on lucky potion or nut drops. With that, we're done with the third floor, and are ready to hit those st-    On the fifth floor, we reunite with our pal Riposte! If Kwehry's partner is needed for a cutscene, they'll be revived. Other than that, though, the only way to get them back is to leave the dungeon.  : What? You say we're stuck in here!? : Hey, you can get through no problem. It looks too narrow, but you can go through diagonally. Come on, move it.Diagonal movement isn't quite as critical here as it is in other Roguelikes, but it can save you a turn here and there.  Meanwhile, Kwehry stumbles across a mini trap. Mini makes your physical attacks laughably weak. You can get around this by using magic. Anyway, let't take a closer look at that pointy-looking new guy.  They can curl up to reduce damage taken, and spend a few turns charging to shoot needles in random directions. They're a bit tougher than goblins and such, but still very much an early-game monster.  And finally, after covering the entire rest of the floor with nothing else happening, we run into the other 4F newcomer.  They can drop nuts. They can throw nuts. But, most vile of all, they can eat nuts.  But Kwehry doesn't mind sharing. After all, he can just drink the life energy of the nut eater's friends for sustenance.  Peanuts are the basic nut-type item. They restore about 30 energy. If a Nut Eater gets ahold of a nut, they'll spend a few turns chowing down on it. This gives you free reign to finish them off.  But do make sure you finish them off, or they'll go after your skull next.  Skull Eaters are beefy mofos. They hit almost as hard as the tier-3 goblin, and have more health, despite only being a tier-2 monster themselves. Their nut-thow attack can cause poison.   Poor Riposte doesn't stand a chance.  You'd think that Item Eaters would be the tier-2, and Skull Eaters the tier-3, but I guess not. They can cause confusion with their nut-throw attack, and hit like a truck, but oddly have less HP than Skull Eaters.  Kwehry, forgetting that this isn't Angband, attempts to use the hockey-stick technique to whittle down the dangerous foe. While Chocobo's Dungeon 2 doesn't have the same asymmetrical line of sight trickery that Angband does, it's still possible to confuse the pathfinding algorithm.  It's a little hard to see, but that line of rocks to Kwehry's northwest is just what we need.  We do one lap around, with the Item Eater in close pursuit...  And success! Now he's trapped on the other side of the barrier from us. He can't hit us with any of his attacks, but he's still close enough to blast with spells.  I should probably stress that this sort of "leveling up monsters then killing them with magic" cheese is entirely unnecessary. Arguably, it's even counterproductive, due to the loss of those spellbooks and all. Still, it's a fun gimmick and has a slight chance of getting a good item. Anyway, down the stairs!  Kwehry's starting to feel a little hungry. Maybe he should have eaten that nut himself.  Oh, hold that thought, new enemy time.  Sometimes they spawn with only 4 HP, meaning they die instantly to a single bottle. They'll charge up to cast a level 1 spell, so try to take them down before then. They'll often drop spellbooks on death.  Currently, for Kwehry, stones do 5 damage. Black mages will never have more than 5 HP.  In a treasure room, we finally have it happen. Something I've been dreading since the game began. Kwehry runs out of inventory space.  That "18/18" up in the corner shows our current carrying capacity. If we find a Carry Tag, a fairly rare item, we can expand it.  If you can't pick up an item, you can still use it from the floor by standing on top of it.  The faded card is used on another item. This means it's almost-certainly something we don't want to lose. Thankfully, Kwehry has an un-ID'd bleached card that might be helpful.   Oh. Well, once hte confusion wears off, we can pick up the faded card, anyway.  Oh, dammit. That blue smudge there is the first type of teleport trap. It'll send the victim off to a random spot on the current dungeon floor. In this case, it just warped Kwehry one room to the north.  And then Kwehry steps on an Invis trap. Enemies won't notice Kwehry when he's invisible. This is great for avoiding fights, but slightly annoying when you're trying to kill things. The card on the floor there is just a map card.  Map Cards not only reveal the floor's layout, but also the location of all enemies, items, and staircases. Since there's nothing in that room to the north, let's just go down the stairs.  6F has a unique tileset, and revives Riposte.   : It'll stink if it's a trap though...: But... it just might give me some treasure. Alrighty... Off-screen, Kwehry kwehs. Or was this back when Chocobos still warked? I forget. Anyway, Kwehry makes a Chocobo noise. : Hey, Kwehry?  The camera pans around a bit, before...  Kwehry is launched!  Doesn't stick the landing, though. That'll cost him a few points.  Thankfully, though, there just so happens to be a white mage in the vicinity. Next time:  Anime. So much anime. Speaking of, our new friend needs a name! As usual, we get seven characters, and please bold suggestions.
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May 1, 2016 21:53
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Voting'll close in about 24 hours.Blaze Dragon posted:Also I didn't understand how IDing items works. Do all items appear un-ID'd? Do you need to ID every item, regardless of if you had one of their kind before? FredMSloniker posted:Basically, every time you enter a new dungeon, everything's rerandomized, so you have to start all over with identifying. The exception, if I remember right, is that if you bring something into the dungeon, anything identical to it is also identified. (So bringing a map card into the dungeon will let you recognize other map cards.) Of course, bringing stuff into the dungeon means fewer slots to bring stuff out... This. To use an example, say you're in the dungeon and you pick up a fizzy tonic. You drink it, and find out it's a potion. You then leave the dungeon, either via Teleport Tag, getting killed, or beating the boss (To be very pedantic, leaving the dungeon is what re-randomizes everything, but there's only one un-ID'd item you can pick up outside of a dungeon, and it's a one-time fixed drop). When you re-enter, potions might now be glowing tonics, and fizzy tonics might be poison. Anything in your inventory is ID'd when you leave, and stays ID'd when you re-enter, so if you have a potion going in, you'll recognize them when you pick them up inside. This means that keeping a potion and ID card in your inventory each time you go into a dungeon is a good way to avoid having to play the ID game for those basic items. There are a few items that are always ID'd, like empty bottles, rocks, and tags, and essences never get un-ID'd once you find out what they do, but those are all specific cases. Since this is the first time Kwehry has left the dungeon, I'll be going over this stuff again next update.
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May 2, 2016 17:40
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I actually kinda like it, but then again I make chainmail for fun, so I might have a much higher tolerance for tedium than most people. And Phoenix Downs are... not really a thing in this game. There is something that revives you when you die, but it vanishes completely when used, you can only have one at a time, and it doesn't take up inventory space. It's also extremely rare.
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May 2, 2016 18:46
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And Dagger take a surprising, come-from-behind... err, tie. Time to bust out the usual tie resolution mechanism. ... and rolled a 2, so Dagger it is! Update should be ready tomorrow. AmewTheFox posted:This, and it just generally not being safe to pick up whatever you see on the ground. This is a bit truer in NetHack or Angband, but a lot of items on the ground can either kill you or aid in your inevitable demise. Mystery Dungeon can't do anything that intense, which is probably why my storage in PMD was always pretty full. I'm assuming we'll be getting a method of uncursing equipment, or do you just dump cursed stuff? There's a tonic we can pick up that'll dispel curses. There's another method that we'll be seeing in a few updates, too. There's also the option of just using the cursed gear until it breaks, though that's usually only worth it for cursed digging claws. While the malus can be removed, it's usually more worth it to just dump the gear. I'll be keeping it around to show off a silly trick later on.
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May 3, 2016 17:44
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Welcome back! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db8YGvSPwYg  Looks like Kwehry's getting a nice nap, at least.  And he's waking up!  Meanwhile, someone wearing white mage robes gingerly puts a pot on a shelf. It's full of nitroglycerin, by the way.  Kwehry is distracted by the sound.  Which, itself, alerts the white mage.    Apparently nobody told her that the "reveal your face by dramatically removing your hood" thing only really works if your face isn't plainly visible with the hood up.  All Kwehry can manage is a blank stare. And some blinks.    : I was so surprised when you fell from the sky. : ? This is probably your first time seeing a human, isn't it? Uh-oh, she's busting out the "hands on hips" pose. Kwehry's in for it now.  : The way I see it, a bird like you is a lot more unusual than me.  : Oh, I see. My name is... Had Chocobo and Mog continued their journey, they would have met Shiroma, whose name comes from "Shiro Madoushi". Which is Japanese for "white mage". Yes, her name is essentially "WMAG". But since we're watching the adventures of Kwehry and Riposte, the white mage's name is Dagger. : I'm Dagger and I'm a White Mage. Nice to meet you, Kwehry. You look very healthy, I guess the tonic worked well enough. : Well, I'm relieved.: Well, I'm going out. If you're tired, rest on the bed. I wasn't kidding about the nitroglycerin earlier.  And with that, Kwehry mugs for the camera, and we're given free reign to  Oh well. This tonic is un-ID'd, but it's always a Nitro Tonic. You can drink it to lose a quarter of your current HP (max 50), or kick it at enemies for the same effect. It explodes like a mine trap does, so it can be used in a pinch to break down walls.Or rather, it could, if we could carry it. Speaking of our items, though...  My hunch was right, our un-ID'd card was a polish card! This'll increase the enchantment on a claw or saddle by 1.  And looks like our other Wooden claws were cursed, too. As well as one of our saddles.  As Dagger mentioned, we can rest in her bed to save. And that's that for her house.  Wow, she set up shop pretty much right outside the dungeon. Oh well, back to spelunking!  Switches will oftentimes do nothing at all.  Two more sets of Wooden Claws, and no space for them. The smart thing would be to dump the cursed crap, but I'm saving it up for later. Still, that does remind me that we have our polish card to use.  And now we have a +1 wooden saddle equipped!  And we're caught in a mud trap! Mud is more annoying than dangerous. Kwehry can still attack as normal, he just can't move for a few turns.  The quake book isn't so important right now, but I do want that fire book for later. Kwehry drinks a potion, drops his memory tag and stones, and picks up both books as well as the two sets of claws from earlier.  Cantrip books are a little different from normal spellbooks. They don't level up with use, for one. For another...  We're prompted with this menu when we use it. Since we have no way to control which effect we get, Kwehry goes with random.   And like that, all enemies in the room are asleep. Cantrip books cause wide-area status effects. Once Kwehry has a way of choosing the effect, they're pretty helpful. But for now they're not worth the inventory space, especially since choosing random can backfire and cause Kwehry a little bit of damage.  Still more claws. And hey, maybe this smeared card is identify?  Oh. At least we'll recognize them for later in this dungeon, I guess.  And Kwehry decides to demo the polymorph trap. It turns you into a random monster that the floor can spawn. While transformed, the L1 button will make Kwehry use the monster's special attack. In guz's case, here...  ... he starts crying. Thankfully it wears off quickly enough. Monsters later on in the game have some unique abilities that make polymorph traps a lot of fun.  Hmm. Kwehry hasn't leveled up any spells yet, and his inventory is full. I think we can kill two birds with one stone.  Next floor, Kwehry finds a tasty nut, which restores both HP and energy. A useful find.  If you find a tonic that you don't want, you can always pour it out and keep the empty bottle.  Spike traps damage you much like landmines do. Here, though, the trap doesn't trigger. This happens from time to time.   Next floor, we find ourselves in a cutscene.  : I've had enough of this dungeon. I'm goin' home. Thus begins Dagger's long and storied tradition of being ambushed by skeletons.  : What!? Really, though, this is a Final Fantasy game. Undead have no business going near white mages. : Whew... that was close.: Th-that's why I don't like this place. The only reason I came this far is 'cus you asked me to. : Hmph... what kind of chocobo are you? Get a hold of yourself. Sounds like Chubby Chocobo is a pretty normal chocobo, all things considered. : Uhhh, that's...: Fine. I'll continue on by myself then.: No, it's too dangerous.: I'll be fine. I have a Teleport Tag if I run into any problems. : Besides, I want to find this dungeon's secret. Therefore, I must go.: You be careful, too.: Wait a sec! But... she's gone...  And on that note, we'll continue this later. See you next time!
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May 4, 2016 23:01
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Welcome back! We're back in the dirt part of the dungeon.  Kwehry picks up some Mage Essence. That's all that happens on the fifth floor.  On the sixth floor, however, we run into our new friend! : Do you have business in this dungeon, too?: Have I seen your friend? Hmm... I haven't, but... Well, if you're continuing on, shall we go together? Honestly, I'm a little scared, too.: Okay, let's go then. Sometimes Kwehry can find a stove before this point, but here's where it gets explained. : What's wrong? You've never seen a stove before? You can combine, by putting two claws or saddles in there and adding fire or thunder. Combining may get you more powerful claws and saddles. Why don't you try it?: I don't have to tell you? You know already?: Then I guess I'll just tag along with the wise Kwehry.And with that, Kwehry has a traveling companion again!  And can finally free up some inventory space!  Stoves are really drat important. Combining equipment may seem like a small thing, but...  Certain nuts and essences can be used with the stove to add effects to the resulting item. Goblin Essence increases energy, essentially making the item lighter. Critter essence increases hit/dodge. Mage Essence, on the other hand...  Mage Essence adds silence to it. Status effects in a claw will cause the effect, and in a saddle will prevent it. In general, status resists are far more useful than status adds, especially since claws can only have one status effect at a time, while saddles can resist all seven, and even gain a defense boost for doing so. In short, this basic Wooden Saddle is going to be our endgame defensive gear thanks to combining. The patterns you can choose determine which item is the base item and which is the additional one. In this particular case, pattern 2 gets us two more DUR for free.  Items that have been combined are rendered with a blue font. Combining an item gives it another special property that we'll be seeing in action a bit later.  In the mean time, let's consolidate our cursed claws. The bonus and/or malus of each piece of equipment is added together for the final item. Also, if one item is cursed, the combined item will be as well.  Kwehry decides to ID his remaining equipment by equipping it, and stumbles across this gem.  And is even able to boost his saddle to match, though at the cost of some DUR.  Different claws have different animations layered on top of Kwehry's kick. Wooden claws give this starburst.  Switches sometimes do nasty, terrible things like this. Picking up all loose items in the room before you hit a switch is a good idea.  While mopping up the floor, we get the 4/256 drop from a hedgehog. Critical claws boost Kwehry's crit rate.   Comparing them to our +2 Wooden claws, they hit a bit harder, miss slightly more often, but are tougher and more durable. But you know, we do have a stove on this level....  When mixing two of the same claw or saddle, the result was pretty straightforward. When mixing two different types, though, things get complicated. Toughness is just averaged together, but energy remains the same? What? The secret is that the stats are averaged together with more weight given to the first item. Specifically, the first items stats are tripled, the second item's stats are added to those, then the whole thing is divided by four. Level Limit is fixed by type of claw, and attack is just the claw type's base attack plus the bonus. Those nerdy enough to do the math at home might notice that the calculation for hit rate is off by one. That's because the game actually stores hit rate as an accuracy penalty. So the Critical Claws would have an 8, the wooden claws would have a 6, and the resulting claws have a 7. This concludes this week's episode of Gushing About Numbers Theater.  ... Okay, that concludes it.   Down on the seventh floor, we get a new tileset, some new music, and some new enemies.  Skeletons can breathe poison gas and take a few hits to kill. Undead Essence will add confusion to a claw or saddle, so picking up a bottle or two while you're here is a good idea.  Level 2 Guz's start showing up down here. They're not much tougher than their weaker counterparts.  Kwehry ID'd rotten nuts a few floors above. They restore energy, but cause damage. Almost never worth it.  Sometimes, Kwehry will find magic sigils on the ground. The red ones, shown here, boost his magic power while he stands on them.  Verify cards automatically ID everything in your inventory. Needless to say, usually when I find one, it's the only un-ID'd thing in my inventory.  This wizard is extraordinarily rude to poor Kwehry. He just wanted to trap a skeleton's soul in a bottle and mix it with some wooden saddles.  See how he likes being magic-ed at, the jerk.   Dagger, being a white mage, can heal Kwehry once per floor when his HP is critical.  On floor 8, Kwehry hits level 7 as a skeleton drops this particular card. Skeletons have a chance of dropping some Very Bad Things, so Kwehry won't be using it until he knows for sure it's not going to kill him.  The Cantrip Book is eh, but I want that Drain book. The un-ID'd card would be nice to have, too. As would the one from the treasure chest off-screen. Let's start with that one.  Okay, it wants an item to be used on. It's probably an Identify card, then, so let's see what our Warm card i-  Oh. Repair cards increase a claw or saddle's DUR. Great to have. Not so great to waste.    Yep, Kwehry is glad he didn't use that one.Doom Cards are basically Scrolls of Death. If you're not very near the stairs when you use this, you're gonna die. Like most harmful items, it can be kicked at an enemy. Unfortunately, the effect of the Doom Card isn't "kill the user", but rather "kill Kwehry". So don't do that.  On floor 9, imps make their appearance.  Imps are more annoying than dangerous. Their special attack is to teleport you to a random spot on the current floor. Drinking an Imp Essence will restore all of your energy, while forging with it will raise either critical or special defense.  Kwehry finally picks up the eighth thunder book he'll be needing.  He also discovers the purple glyphs. Purple glyphs come in pairs, and stepping on one will teleport you to the other. Again, more of an annoyance than a danger.  On floor 10, though, things get interesting. : W-what? Oh, hello there.   Skullhammer here is our first boss. He hits hard, has a decent chunk of health, and can cast the tier-2 version of quake. Being undead, he's weak to fire and holy, though exploiting the latter isn't something Kwehry will be able to do for a while. Still, opening up with your stock of fire books is a good way to start.  Luckily, any use of a spellbook counts for leveling it up, so using fire books to cook your equipment isn't a waste.  Even level 3 spells hitting a weakness aren't enough to do him in, though. Unless you've somehow acquired the 16+ books you'd need for ten shots of level 3 fire.  Luckily, Kwehry's saddle is good enough to keep the damage reasonable. Had it been weaker, Kwehry would have had to retreat and hope to stock up on potions on the way back.  Kwehry and Dagger both score a critical hit, doing about as much damage as a single fire book.  And then spend the next two turns whiffing.  Quakara has an impressive animation, with huge boulders flying up from the ground, instead of Quake's piddly rocks from the ceiling.  Thankfully, Kwehry is saved by the sticky RNG.  Once Skullhammer is down to half his health, though, things get very interesting.    When Skullhammer falls to pieces, he gets even more dangerous. The head will chase after Kwehry and Dagger and try to bite them to death.  Even with a crit, though, he's not very deadly on his own. The trouble only comes if you get cornered by the hands, but since they just wander around until they happen to be within melee range, you can usually focus down the skull before they become a problem. The skull can drop a variety of claws. We get a simple, uncursed pair of wooden ones.  An important thing in this fight is to keep an eye on Dagger's health. While bosses won't level up from defeating Kwehry's companions, Dagger brings enough extra damage to this fight that it's worth kicking her a potion if need be.  The hands are much weaker, offensively, than the head, so as long as you take them on one at a time, there shouldn't be a problem. They can drop saddles, including some fancy status-resist ones. Finally, the heart.  If you're playing along at home, this is the time to queue up Yakkity Sax, because the heart just runs away, aiming to prolong the fight as much as possible. It inherits whatever HP the base form of Skullhammer had remaining when it collapsed, so it's not as durable as the base HP score makes it seem. Having Dagger here can nearly triple your damage output, if you can chase the heart out of a corner like that.  And that's that. Skullhammer can be intimidating, but as long as you keep your wits about you, don't panic, and try to avoid fighting multiple parts at once, you should be able to make it through. Doing so on low health with no potions, though, is not recommended. Getting a lucky dodge on that quakara was the only thing that made it possible. Still, all things must come to an end, and that includes undeath.  As well as this update. See you next time! Edward_Tohr fucked around with this message at 23:35 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 22:08
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EponymousMrYar posted:You missed replacing your Choco emote lines with the actual emotes. That's what I get for changing the portrait names from Choco to Kwehry.
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May 8, 2016 23:35
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Glazius posted:That was a pretty neat boss fight. Does our White Mage buddy ever cure-nuke it? Sadly, no. She thwacks him with her staff when she can, but she'll only cure Kwehry. In-game, think of Dagger as less of a Final Fantasy-style white mage, and more of a D&D-style cleric who just happens to never have any Turn Undead charges left.
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May 8, 2016 23:53
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Welcome back! Oh, hey there Riposte!  : You can't go in. Who knows what will happen to you if you go in there...? : Hey, it sounds like you plan to snatch my treasure. Why else would you be here? Well, I'm not letting you.: Well, you see......Uh-oh, she's started to ellipsis.  : By the way, all the treasure is gonna be mine.Riposte status: still a jerk.   : I'm human... so I'll be fine. But the one who already went in there...: What, he's your friend? Well, that certainly seems ominous.   Guz, what are you doing with that crystal? It's bigger than you are! Also, how in the hell did you even get here? Those skeletons a few floors up would one-shot you.  He hears the door open, and scurries off into the corner.  Riposte is, of course, super excited about the giant crystal.  : It was definitely worth coming this far!! This will be the rarest in my collection of rare items... : But anyway, that's mine, so get your dirty little hands off it! Scram!: If you don't, I'll... C'mon, Riposte, without Recycle Boxes, what would we do with all those Memory Tags? Save in the middle of the dungeon? Pfft. : Let's see... How am I gonna get this treasure... : Here I go. I can't reach... Once more... The crystal begins spinning rapidly. And making that gleam, crystally sound effect. You know the one.  Uh-oh.  For best results, grab your monitor and shake it around while reading that screenshot.  And also this one.  But not this one. Here's our world map screen. On the left, you can see the dungeon and Dagger's house.  Oh. Welp.  Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), the speaker here isn't a twitchy, semitransparent version of Kwehry.   : Oh, I see. Perhaps the entire dungeon fell in the ocean and we ended up here...  : Oh...   : Y-yeah... As usual, Riposte is thinking of the loot. : Argh!! The dungeon collapsed and fell into the sea... Today has not been a good day for Dagger. : Shoot... That giant treasure...: Well, since my house was destroyed, all I can do is return to the village...: What, there's a village around here?: Yes, we're probably close to the village now...: Well, take me there! I'm outta practice. It's been so long since I've explored a dungeon, I'm beat.: O-okay... I guess that's all I can do...: Alright Kwehry, come on, move it. I guess Riposte is expecting Dagger to lead from the back?  Thank you for that establishing shot, Riposte. Without this line, I would have had to screenshot the "Enter village?" prompt on the map screen.  Oh dear, looks like someone's recognized Dagger.  : Hi... Auntie Bomb... Nope, Riposte isn't done being a jerk yet.  : Hmph, you've got no right to call me auntie. You're probably just up to no good again.: That's not...: She's one of the bad guys?: What a peculiar visitor. So, something bad must have happened to you?: You got that right! : I see. Well, you just can't trust humans. So, you must be on a journey. If so, you can stay at my house. I wouldn't want you to stay at a human's house by mistake.: You're pretty nice! Even to other jerks, Riposte is still a jerk. : I could've done without the face comment, sonny. Come with me.: Well, come on Kwehry.   Dagger is not having a good day. : I guess I'll go home. You'd better go too.And with that, we're given free reign to explore the village. But this update is getting long enough. See you next time! (Riposte is still not finished being a jerk)
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May 14, 2016 01:00
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Welcome back!  Now that we've finished the first dungeon, Kwehry has access to the town. This will be our home base for the rest of the game, and there's plenty of little things to do and people to talk to. Starting with Dagger; today hasn't been very good for her.  : Oh, you were worried about me? No, Mrs. Bomb is really a nice person. This would explain her "I'm a human, so I'll be safe" line from when Riposte went into the crystal room. : But then again, the only humans around here are the old man living in the tower and me. That old guy? He lives on the outskirts of the village... But the gate leading to his tower is all locked up now... I think Chubby Chocobo has the key...: Chubby Chocobo is my childhood friend. He's at the Tool Shop.We'll be getting very familiar with Chubby Chocobo's Tool Shop as the game goes on. ... That didn't sound so bad in my head. : How do you like my room? I felt a little uneasy living in the village, so I moved. But now I'm back. I should add some decorations in here.Just as a quick aside, I do like that her house in town is laid out a little differently than her house by the dungeon.  Unlike Riposte, Kwehry is perfectly content to stay at a human's house. Intentionally, even.  There's not much to do in the house north of Dagger's just yet, so let's head over to the bomb-pattered one just next to Dagger's place.  Nevermind, this place is full of jerks. Also, talking to Riposte triggers the cutscene that lets you advance the plot, so I'll be holding off on that.  This workshop-looking place is up next.  This is Gamedon's Storage. We can give him some of our items that we're holding onto for later, and free up space in our inventory. Keeping a spare claw and saddle in storage is also a good idea, in case Kwehry runs out of HP deep in a dungeon.  Currently, though, renting storage space costs 1000 more gil than we have. We'll be back later.  This place is also important.  It's the Black Mage Research Lab. There's a few sidequests here, but only one's active at the moment.  Jessie here is why we held onto a Goblin Essence, even when Kwehry really could have used the HP restore.  We can't pick up our reward yet, though. Once it's ready, though, Jessie will let us take a drink of a Dispel Tonic whenever we're in town. Biggs and the Head Magician won't let us start their quests yet, so we'll ignore them for now. Next up, that statue in the middle of town.  Well gently caress you too, Ben.  Next up, Restaurant le Tonberry.   : Lately that drunken Malboro has kept ze customerz away. But I am not ready, because ze drunken Malboro is driving away all ze customerz.I'm sure there's something we can do about that.   poo poo, that should have been the thread title.  : What? You want some bolts!? But... I can't really do much in this form... <sob> <sob>... And now he's sobbing in the corner. Hmm. : Uhh... uh...huh? Oh? You have a Thunder Book. : Please, give it to me. Use it on me!So, before we go through with this, let's look at Kwehry's current spell levels.   : Not yet! That ain't enough to make me 'member my real shape! Please, one more time.By "one", he means "six". This doesn't have to be done all in one sitting, thankfully. Still, if you have the seven thunder books to spare, there's no reason not to.   Oh crap, it's an old human!  : We did it. Now I can say good bye to that ugly shape! I got drunk and fell asleep on one of those Morph Traps. Man, I must be losing my touch! Who would have thought I would turn into a Malboro and not be able to change back... Oh yeah! It's all because of you. I'd like to reward you. I shall assist you! Call on me whenever you wish. And Ramuh gives Kwehry his first feather! Feathers are special enhancements for Kwehry. Red ones like the one Ramuh is giving us now allow us to summon a new companion. They'll hang around, acting like normal companions, but if/when they're killed, they'll use their summon effect. In Ramuh's case, he hits all nearby enemies with lightning. Yes, Ifrit, Shiva, Titan, Bahamut, etc. will be showing up as well.  : But finally customerz will start coming back. I am zo happy!Speaking of being happy...  Yes, each one of those seven thunders counted for leveling the spell up. Okay, I guess we've put it off long enough. Time to go to Jerkhouse.  But first, Kwehry can also save in the guest bedroom here.  Back in the kitchen, that kid is afraid of us, apparently. : Oh, you're staying here, too? Well, I guess it's fine with me. That sure is some sort of logic, yep.  : Bombay style wildrat curry. : Yeah, yeah! : Anyway, it looks like there might be tons of rare items around here. Maybe we can find a treasure like that big crystal, too.: Man, that crystal was huge. It's such a waste that it fell into the ocean... If only there was some way to get it from the sea floor...: Are you still talking about that? You don't learn, do you...? Let the humans deal with that rubbish. Only the weird old man that lives in that tower would be crazy enough to try and make something that takes you to the bottom of the ocean.: What!! That weird old guy has something that'll go to the sea floor.: Yes. He was talking about its submission or something...: A submarine! Kwehry, that's it! We can get the sunken treasure!: Okay Kwehry, I'll get everything ready in the village. Your job is to go find the old guy 'n ask to use his submarine.: Kwehry, the ocean's great. : Great, now that it's decided I'm countin' on you.Giant crystals? Fostering harmony between humans and monsters? Kwehry doesn't care. Bird's gotta eat. : The old guy lives in a tower on the outskirts of the village. But the gate to his tower is locked. No one wants to see that human. It's probably best if you find another way.Thankfully, Dagger already told us that Chubby Chocobo has the key. Let's go visit the tool shop.  : I'm sorry, I'm not open yet.: What? Do I know anything about a gate key? Yeah, I've got one. Everyone's freaked out by that old man so they locked the gate. As for me, I have to do business with him so I use the key to go in and out.: Huh? You wanna go see the old man? Why didn't you tell me that sooner? I'll open it for you.After a quick fade-out...  : Huh? You would have opened it yourself if I gave you the key? Tell me that kind of stuff sooner. I'm pooped. And he just parks himself in front of the exit. Okay, I guess diagonal movement is necessary to actually beat the game. Once Kwehry leaves the building, though, Chubby Chocobo manages to get behind the counter.  He sells some basic consumables, including ID cards and Teleport tags. You can also dump some of your crap off on him in exchange for cash. Hey, that Doom card is pretty nasty, maybe it'll at least sell for something?  Oh.  Hawking our equipment would net us a tidy profit, but I have other plans for it. gently caress it, let's just go to the tower. The game helpfully puts a dotted line showing you to your next destination. Granted, it's mostly a formality, since you'll never have more than two endpoints, and one of them is always the village. Anyway, next time, we explore the tower and meet the best character in the game.  Speaking of, both the old man and his tank need names. Seven characters, bold, you know the deal by now. See you next time!
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May 16, 2016 02:54
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pre:Cid:
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Glazius posted:So we can just call on Ramuh once a dungeon now? I'm pretty sure we didn't do all that just for a one-shot item. The summon feathers replace your partner with the summon, who uses normal attacks while they're out. They can be dismissed at any time by talking to them, but if they run out of HP they use their summon attack and you lose the feather. Thankfully, there's other ways to get said feathers, so you never have to worry about losing a unique one, but it can be kind of tedious and RNG-dependent. Edward_Tohr fucked around with this message at 17:39 on May 19, 2016 |
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May 19, 2016 17:35
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Welcome back! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTwIn75272c (Polsy link) (as usual, skip down to "FMV ends")    That's a nice little house out front.   A-are those anti-aircraft cannons on the roof? No wonder the people in the village think this guy's so weird.  Oh well. Weird neighbor is the only way to get a submarine, and the submarine is the only way for Kwehry to get fish.  Oh, an explosion. That's not good.   Y'know, Kwehry's handling this really well. I know I'd be getting the gently caress out of there if my neighbor's tank was launched from the upper floors of his tower and landed right next to me.  At least Cid's okay.  And after a brief bit of fist-shaking...  He gets back in the tank and floors it right through his front door. And with that, the FMV ends.   And here we are in the second dungeon, Cid's Tower! Much like with Dagger, Cid won't be joining us immediately.  Generators can be started with a Thunder book, and they light up the room they're in, revealing any hidden traps that might be there. Yeah, not really worth it.  There's also some new monsters to look at.  Clay Golems are the first regular enemy to not drop an essence. Other than that, they're tough and can hit pretty hard.  Cacti are a bit more interesting. Their special attack attacks at a decent range, and they can drop money. Money drops in this game are a little odd, as the final amount is based on the actions the enemy has taken. In this case, the cactuar group has a set maximum amount (400 in the Cactus's case), and each action halves the amount they drop. Imps also show up here, but we've seen them before.  Hmm. Kwehry's claws are down to 5 DUR.  We start one step off from the elevator on the second floor. We could go up, but gently caress it, let's go exploring. What's the worst that could happen?  Oh.  Oh.  Flame Claws are a great base for your endgame weapon, since a full half of the game's bosses are weak to fire. The other half are weak to lightning.  Things are starting to get hairy for Kwehry.  Thankfully, the stout tonic wound up being a hi-potion. They restore 100 HP, and are pretty handy to have around through the rest of the game.  After amassing 1300 gil, Kwehry buggers off.  He spends the first 1000 on storage, and dumps his essences and spare claws, along with the doom card.  The remainder is spent on another Teleport Tag. Always have a teleport tag handy when going dungeon-diving.   Carry Tags increase your carrying capacity. They are amazing and almost always worth going out of your way to look for.  Along the way, Kwehry breaks his awesome claws!   ... Oh.  Claws and saddles that have been combined at a stove will drop feathers when they break, based on their bonus. +0 or lower will give nothing, +1 through +5 will usually give a lower-level feather, and +6 or higher will give a more powerful one. Usually the feather given is related to the equipment's properties in some way, like how the critical claws give the critical UP feather. This is how Kwehry will be getting most of his new abilities from now on.  Oh. Oh. This isn't good.  They can hit each other with their ranged attack, so having to deal with upgraded monsters is a very real threat.  This would have been an acceptable choice. One hit away from death, a bunch of unpredictable enemies around... yeah, running away would have been safe.  Summoning a friend might also be helpful. Ramuh would come in at full HP, and so he'd be a viable meatshield long enough for Kwehry to retreat.  Instead, I tried to be clever. I figured I could zip around those rocks and toss a few spells.  See the one on the lower-right? The one who doesn't have direct line-of-sight to me because his friend is in the way?  Turns out that apparently projectiles can pass through other enemies if the shooter is off-screen. Or something.   Welp, that was a bust. See you all next time!
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May 19, 2016 19:59
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Welcome back! Thankfully, death isn't permanent in this game. Kwehry just gets kicked back to town and loses all of his items. On that note.... : Can't let you go empty handed, so here, take this. We're given a potion, a teleport tag, and some un-ID'd wooden claws. These particular ones happen to be +1.  The claws and saddle Kwehry had equipped are placed on the floor he died on, so you don't have to worry about losing crazy-customized endgame gear. Back to the tower!  Enemies can trigger some traps, too.  gently caress yeah, dying was the best thing ever!  Plant Essence, from the Cacti, causes poison. The implications for mixing it into a supersaddle should be obvious.  And a second pair of Flame claws. I guess it's nice to have a pair for breaking.  Up on the third floor, we run into a cutscene.   An old man is beating a cactus to death with a wrench.  : And that!  This guy's reaction to most things is "hit it with a wrench". He's easily one of the best characters in this game.  : What's that!? : Hey pardner, ya say you're not an enemy, huh? : But that trick won't fool me! Well then, just what are ya doin' in my tower?: Ya forgot? Geez, well ya've got a selective memory. I don't have time to deal with a fella like you. I've gotta get my tower back from the Imps. If only, if only...  : What a disaster! The Imps have taken over my precious machine... : You say ya'll help me?: In exchange for a favor, huh?: Well, what's the favor? Yep, Kwehry's already forgotten why he wanted to go to the tower in the first place. : Of course. Ya fergot, huh?: Oh well. Look's like ya're not the type that can cause mischief. Besides, as long as I'm followin behind ya, there'll be no danger.: Do you even remember yer own name?: Nice to meet ya, Kwehry. I'm... By default, his name is Cid. We're keeping it that way.  And with that, he's our partner. His theme song keeps playing until we leave this floor, so let's go exploring instead of immediately bugging out to do more sidequests.  Craaaaaap, I didn't realize these guys could spawn here.  They can cause Mini with their special attack. Their essence causes/prevents sleep. Needless to say, getting some is vital to our endgame saddle plans.  Unfortunately, Kwehry's a little short on empty bottles, owing to the whole "dying" thing from earlier. Whoops.  Anyway, let's talk about Cid. Like Riposte and Dagger, he has a special action he can do. Unlike those two, who do them either at random or when Kwehry's about to die, Cid will only do his when asked to.   Because what Cid does is set landmines. These are identical in every way to the random landmine traps you'll sometimes find in the dungeon, and can make a substitute for Digging Claws, if you have enough HP and potions.  Crash Stones are fun. When kicked, they explode. Just like a landmine, or Nitro Tonic. They do a small percentage of the target's current HP in damage, and are somewhat useful for weakening something without killing it. As long as you can eat the splash damage.   Up on floor 4, we get some new scenery and music.  Also a new treasure chest, but we'll get back to that.  Another possible outcome of flipping a switch is bombs. Some have shorter fuses than others, so it's usually possible to pick a path through the room and take minimal damage. Or hole up in a hallway or something.  Edged Collar? I wonder what that do-   L-let's leave it alone for now. Collars are Kwehry's final equipment type. They have varied effects, some helpful, some harmful. They're analogous to rings or amulets from more traditional roguelikes. Collars are the only items that don't ID on equip, and the game occasionally curses a beneficial one just to trick you into getting rid of a helpful item. It's an absolute rear end in a top hat move and I love it.   Oh hey, another new enemy! Those empty mechs have 50 HP and take 1 damage from most physical attacks. They don't do anything on their own.  Until an Imp shows up to pilot it, anyway.  They hit like a suit of power armor. They also take a few rounds to boot up once the imp hops in, so go nutso and blow the fucker to smithereens. They're pretty likely to drop Rust/Repair cards, which affect the durability of Kwehry's claws and saddles. Rust cards can also be kicked at mechanical enemies to damage them.  Anyway, back to this jeweled chest. Or sealed box, as the game calls it. Trying to interact with it brings up a list of our spellbooks. Let's just hit it with a Blizzard.  Oh, that was a lucky guess. Each sealed box can only be opened by a particular element. If you use the wrong one, it'll play an animation to give you a hint. Or you can just say gently caress it and hit it with Drain. Drain will always open a sealed box. The rewards are usually high-end consumables, like Polish cards or summon stones.   Certain floors in Cid's Tower are set up as catwalks above the previous floor. The big difference between these floors and others is that you can't dig through the empty space, but flying enemies (or Kwehry polymorphed into one) can cross it all they want. Also, that yellow thing is a Grand Roller.  If we're really lucky, we can snag a lightning-resist saddle from one of them. Their tier-3 forms are particularly infamous for dropping Carry Tags, but we're a long ways off from being able to farm those.  Fuuuuuuuck that noise, Kwehry's outta here.  Back in town, we can finally reap the reward of giving an essence to Jessie earlier. For 100 gil, we can drink some Dispel tonic out of the cauldron. Handy in an emergency, but we're all set for now. We can finally get the Head Magician's sidequest, though.   : Will you cooperate with my research?: Thank you! Let's begin. And he just gives us a feather. : What do you think? What does that look like to you?: What!? It looks like a feather? I see, I see, that's what you think? So... hmm. To thank you, I will give you a feather. Your experience with it will contribute to my research also. Pick one. Hoo boy. All three of these feathers let us replace our single-target spell with one that affects an area. Specifically, they all wind up targeting nine squares, but the arrangement differs with each. Fireball is your traditional 3x3 square AoE. A lot of enemies are weak to fire, especially in the dungeon after Cid's Tower. If we don't get it here, we can spend some time cooking and improving our fire claws, as breaking one in the +1 to +5 range gives this feather. +6 or higher gets us Ifrit, though, so it may be worth holding out for that. Blizzard Storm turns Blizzard into Cone of Cold, shooting out in a three-tile, 90-degree spread. This is less immediately useful, as fewer enemies and no bosses are weak to Blizzard. On the other hand, enemies usually spread out a little, and the wider angle can help clear out rooms while standing in the doorway. Plus, Blizzard doesn't have much else going for it. Thunder Cross is probably the most immediately useful, due to the common lightning weakness in Cid's Tower. As the name implies, it attacks a cross-shape centered on Kwehry, three squares in front of him, and two squares on the other three sides. It's really situational, but it does let us hit multiple lightning weaknesses at once. Voting can be done here. Feel free to explain/argue your choices in the thread, though. Just because I'm prepared to have forty updates on a page doesn't mean I want to have forty updates per page. See you next time! Edward_Tohr fucked around with this message at 17:51 on May 23, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 01:13
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Bob Locke posted:I usually get Blizzard Storm since Fire and Thunder books are best saved for stoves, but I voted for Thunder for some reason. I guess it's more immediately useful, even if the pattern is the worst of the three. I've checked it a few times, but nothing's turned up yet. Might be because I didn't lose stuff that could turn up there, or you have to do the Head Mage quest first, or just plain bad luck. Either way, I'll be showing it off, even if I have to intentionally suicide a few times.
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May 23, 2016 01:39
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 Hmm. We've got more posts in support of Thunder than votes for it. Anyone who hasn't voted in the poll should do so soon.
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May 25, 2016 00:56
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 And that's that. Despite a rapid surge in popularity, Thunder Cross was unable to steal Fireball's lead. Update should be coming either tonight or tomorrow.
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May 25, 2016 16:55
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Welcome back! The thread has spoken, and Kwehry's destiny is to be an engine of fiery destruction.  Now that we've gotten our feather from the Head Magician, we can help Biggs with his stove problems.  That's twice now we've had to electrocute someone to help them remember basic information. In Biggs's case...  Dumbass tried to start a fire with Blizzard. : Hm, I owe you my thanks. Because of you, I can use the stove properly soon. Oh yeah, aren't you the one that has the peculiar ability to see your powers as feathers? Allow me to give you a feather as a token of my appreciation. Pick the one you like. To be honest, I forgot that he gave you a feather here. In the interest of not bogging down the LP with too much voting, I went with Aero All. Much like the previous three, these two enable certain spells to hit a wider area. In this case, instead of hitting a nine-square area, they hit the whole room. Biggs will also let us use his stove, for 300 gil each time. Needless to say, having the ability to combine items without needing to find stoves and use spellbooks is very helpful.  Speaking of equipment, our Edged Collar from earlier is a cursed one. Burden collars increase Kwehry's rate of energy use.  Chubby Chocobo doesn't care, though. He'll buy cursed gear just as readily as normal stuff. And that's our business in town done for now.  Cid meets us back on the first floor.  Teleport Boxen will let Kwehry send something from his current inventory straight to storage. Assuming storage isn't full.  As tempting as it may be to kill the enemies in a room before flipping the switch, sometimes it pays to do it the other way around. He turns into a potion, by the way.  Kwehry demos Areo All here. While he's starting to get the tornado down, he's still lacking the lasers.  Fireball is less of a fireball, and more of a bonfire.  Up on the fourth floor, we get the rare drop off an Imp. Mirage Saddles have a high dodge.  Even though it's cursed, it'd still be worth it to equip.  There we go, got the essence. Oh, and a new enemy, too.  The Onion's special ability is to remove Kwehry's equipment. They don't have essence, but they can drop haste or slow tonics.  Hey, a stove! Kwehry lost his anti-silence saddle back when he died, but he does have a spare Mage Essence sitting around in storage. In the meantime, we can start with a plant essence for poison prevention.  Do you see the elevator in this shot? Because I sure didn't when I was playing.  Up on floor 8, we find ourselves a gnome.  They bury landmines. More annoying than dangerous. They have two rare drops, both collars. One reduces Kwehry's rate of energy depletion, and the other makes sure he never dodges a trap.  Well, that'll come in handy.  Oh.  Oh, is that what I think it is?  Jesus gently caress, Cid, that could have been nasty.  Starting in Cid's Tower, there will occasionally be stores in the dungeon. Much like other roguelikes, stealing from the shop is possible, but not recommended.  Because the shopkeeper is the grim loving reaper.  No. Just no. While it's technically possible to kill him late in the game, it's not worth it. Especially since a dead Store Keeper can still mind the shop and punish shoplifters.  Thankfully, he's treated as an NPC instead of a monster, so trying to attack will result in him chatting with Kwehry instead.  Floor nine is another catwalk maze, but this time with a platform that rotates when Kwehry hits a switch.  And another new enemy type!  Thugs can steal items, and will try to run away upon doing so. If you kill them before they teleport out, they'll always drop it. Otherwise, they'll use their normal drop table. They can only steal from Kwehry, so if you're gunning for a thief key or a collar, try getting your partner between you and them.  Oh. Whoops!  Yeah, the tier-2 rollers are kind of awful. Their drops aren't great, and they're pretty tough for this stage of the game.  Rollers will start to self-destruct once their HP gets low. If you don't kill them before that, you'll feel it.  Floor ten. Almost there.  They cast Drain. They drop Drain books. Their essence causes Mini. Apparently they like to pick on Tonberries. Speaking of...  Tonberries are pretty generic here. They stab a bit harder than most enemies around here, but not enough to be worrisome. Their essence boosts crit/special defense when combined, and restore a lot of energy when chugged, so finishing them off with bottles is usually a good idea.  We've got a summon stone and a collar. And we've got enough gil to afford both. Summon Stones are your typical Final Fantasy-style summons. Use it, a thing shows up, does a big magic attack, and fucks off. This one here is Ifrit, so we'll probably hold onto it for a while. The collar is un-ID'd. We'll find out about it later.  The tenth floor of Cid's tower is unique. Instead of being one 4x3 grid of rooms, it's two different, but connected, 2x3 areas.  With a park area in the middle. Cid knows how to build.  : But why're there so many of those Imp varmints?: Oh yeah, there's no reason ya'd know that...   Oh, hey there, dragon. : So who are ya? : I? I am Bahamut, the keeper of time. Having found the existence and power which should not exist in this place and time, I have come.: What are ya ramblin' about? The Imps are saying what?: They aren't the source, but merely its servant. But it is certain they are trying to make that power complete. Beware. I have yet to find out the truth of this matter. The power, the Imps, and the meaning of the girl's existence. I'm just gonna spoil right now that showing up at random, rambling a bunch of crap about time, and then loving off is Bahamut's thing in this game. He'll be doing it at least once per dungeon from now on.  Oh well. We'll be finding out more later. See you next time!
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May 25, 2016 21:13
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Welcome back! Cid has a vending machine in his picnic area. It sells Octopus Essence, which restores a bunch of energy. It's also used in a sidequest coming up.  Because of the way the tenth floor is structured, we can backtrack through the garden area to keep on generating new floors. Usually doing that is more effort than it's worth, though.  FloatEye Essence adds sleep resistance to our saddle. Combining status-resist saddles directly (i.e. mixing a No-Poison saddle with a No-Sleep saddle) results in the final saddle only having one of the two resists. Status essences are not only more common, but allow the output to keep all of the status and element resists from the donor saddles. If you learn nothing else about this game from this LP, make it that. Always combine saddles with status/element essences.  Hmm. This might be bad.  Or not.  And here we've got a spinner trap. It unequips Kwehry, and if he stands on it, he'll start to kick stuff in random directions.  It can even remove cursed gear, so it's... something?  The twelfth floor has a maze in the middle, with rooms in the four corners. A decently-tough pair of Digging Claws trivializes this floor.  All burn.  The Guard Collar makes Kwehry immune to theft. Thieves will still waste their turns trying to steal.  The 13th floor is the final normal floor. It spawns Imp Robos as regular enemies.  Oh.  But we do get our final new enemy type.  When at low HP, they curl into their shell and gain a bunch of defense. They also only drop gil when shelled. Turtle Essence causes slow when drank, but increases toughness when combined. This sounds great, but remember that combining equipment averages the toughness of the two inputs, so you'll need to build up the toughness of both pieces of equipment before combining.  We've taken a bunch of damage from the Imp Robos, and have no healing items. Better to flee than die, especially late in a dungeon. Plus, we have a bunch of stuff to take care of in town.  Now our saddles are uncursed!  And there's some excitement in Chef LeTonberry's restaurant. Can we help the goblins find love?  He's willing to pay us 500 gil for a summon stone. Sorry, Ifrit. Maybe I'll summon you next time.  Gobbie is less than thrilled, though.  The chef here wants to make them a special meal, but needs Octopus Essence to do it. Not that he ever tells you what his special sauce needs.  Our saddle gains some more defense, and resistance to Mini. The other stats take a hit, but we'll be able to fix that later.  The back of Chubby Chocobo's shop has some boxes. Before now, there was a third box that blocked off access to the corner.  We'll be making very good use of those stairs as the game goes on. : Hey, hey, hey, you finally found it? : I was thinking of building a shortcut to Cid's place to make business easier. Of course, I was going to have Cid help out. But for some reason I haven't seen Cid lately... So, I just completed it all by myself.As we explore the current dungeon, Chubby Chocobo will have a shortcut that lets us skip the lower floors.  The catch: The shortcut is, essentially, a mini-dungeon. Filled with enemies, and with no loose items. Still, being able to skip a whole bunch of floors is great, especially when you're just trying to kill the boss. The first time you use the shortcut, though, there's a special event.   And he asks for a Teleport Tag so he can get home. Kwehry's not a jerk, so let's help him out.  Continuing on, the shortcut takes the appearance, music, and enemies of the dungeon it leads to.  The shortcut floors usually have two exits. One goes to the dungeon, the other leads to another shortcut map. In Cid's Tower, the shortcuts go to floors 6 and 11.  You're also on your own in the shortcut. This can be a good thing if you're trying to gather essence.  Back in town, it turns out that Chip, the hamster there, is Gamedon's pet. Now that we've rescued him, he's much kinder to us, and doubles our storage capacity for free. He'll also boost the DUR of our equipment, for a price. Since most things in town cost money, it's not a bad idea to hit up the first floor of Cid's Tower and kill some cacti.    Welp, looks like we've got a good base for our claws, now.  Not a bad haul for just the first floor.  Since claws can't have more than one status effect attached, elements are far more important for them. At least until later in the game, when certain other special effects become available.  There's a few more sidequests in town. One involves visiting the beach after having died, but doesn't seem to be active at the moment. The other involves this tree.   It's easy to see why most people avoid this one. You can give feathers to the golems, and occasionally receive nuts from the tree. Not the greatest reward for the cost, but it's still a sidequest, so....  Farming wooden equipment for Dodge UP/Miss DOWN feathers to feed the tree is... not terrible, I guess? Before we can get our reward, though, we'll need to head back into the dungeon. See you next time!
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May 28, 2016 23:10
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Glazius posted:Oh man we're finally going to get some nuts! From back in the first dungeon, even.  (most of my dives since then have been too short to worry about food) Choco1980 posted:It blows my mind seeing someone figure out how to game the system in this game. Like I said, when it first came out, GameFAQs and the like weren't really a thing, so everything was guesswork, and it being a roguelike, the game doesn't really encourage guessing. If you know what you're doing, clearly the game becomes far better... Oh yeah, I knew none of this crap as a kid. Everything was solved by kicking it and chugging potions. Related: I remember this game being a lot harder then than it is now.
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May 30, 2016 02:44
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KirbyKhan posted:If you want to simulate the true childhood experience just add 3-8 dungeon runs between each sidequest leg. If you want to simulate the behind-the-scenes experience here, do the exact same thing. It's amazing how much gets cut out when you're only showing the interesting/exciting parts. Speaking of... Welcome back! When we left Kwehry, he was visiting the tower in order to pass the time for a sidequest reward to be ready. Saving up 3000 gil to buy some octopus essence probably won't be a bad idea, either.  Welp. That's a collar, on top of a landmine.  Thankfully, the game is kind enough to attempt to pick up the item before destroying it. Unfortunately, I forgot that my inventory was full. Oh well, better dump something so that this doesn't happen again. On the next floor up, Kwehry finds some new equipment! Order Claws are interesting. As the description states, they attack behind Kwehry in addition to in front of him. Interesting, but not very useful.  So, Thief Keys. They can be used to open those gray treasure chests that are scattered around floors where thieves spawn.  Much like with Sealed Chests, they usually have good loot inside. Hey, what's that down to the south?  Oh, good, a shop. I can dump some of this crap, and get the gil for the ess-  fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Welp, there go the Order Claws and that one Shiva stone I picked up off-camera.  Well, that makes up for the one that got exploded, anyway. Time to go reload the floor until I can get some more loot to se- fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, that makes it all worth it.  And a second one on the same map. Still no new shop or salable loot, so gently caress it, I'll get the essence the proper way in the next dungeon. For now, back to town to check up on that tree.  Remove Seeds remove special abilities from equipment. Woo. Admittedly, they can be helpful if you put a special effect on a claw and you can't replace it with something else. All right, enough loving around, let's go murder us an Imp boss.  We could break this for Quake All, or combine it to put earth resist on our saddle. I'm leaning toward the former, as the latter can be down with any saddle and the right essence.   Can't get frog resistance until next dungeon. This is seriously the fifth or sixth time Kwehry's been frogged in the past five floors, too.Oh well. Not much else of note happens on the thirteenth floor, so let's take that elevator up...  The fourteenth floor is mostly cutscene. : Huh!? No doubtin' that's...!And he runs off. The chest here has a hi-potion, so it's a good idea to grab it.   : I didn't htink they'd get it this far. This is my machine. I call her... Default name is "Cidtank", even if Cid's been renamed.  And up we go...  So we've got a crazy old man in a hand-made tank facing off against imps in mecha. This game knows what to do.  (Boss music! It's pretty good.)  : Kyahahaha. This tower will be ours. And we shall prepare for his revival. His default attack is to launch spiked balls on chains, which hits through a few squares, so be aware of his reach. Granted, Lndmstr also has a long reach, and the cannon deals splash damage around the target. Kwehry, though, has other plans.    The mooks have a lot more health than the usual Imp Robos, so this doesn't immediately level them. They can also drop bombs around the arena, but I didn't really get a good shot of that. Also not shown: Kwehry chugging a Thief Essence to get Haste.  Kwehry went into this fight with 12 Thunder books.  And the final one is used to finish off the boss. Going all-out with spells that hit the boss's weakness is always a good strategy.  The big thing to remember with this fight is to keep out of Lndmstr's way. That cannon will hurt you just as bad as it hurts the imps. Also opening the fight with a hasted barrage of lightning magic tends to help.  : Yep, and it's all thanks to yer help. I'll do ya that favor now. Amnesia Tonic: Not Even Once. : What? Ya want me to take ya back to the village so ya might remember? Jeez, what a pushy fella! Guess I can't say no, though. If I go, the village folk will all be scared, though. Well, shall we get a move on?  : Howdy, little lady. Ya look well.: I'm doing all right. Oh yes, I heard he went to ask you to borrow your submarine. Can I get a ride, too? I'm still concerned about that dungeon...: I see. That was what ya were supposed to ask me. Welp, nothing can go wrong now! Sadly, the name is always "Cidmarine", not $CID_NAMEmarine. Before we get on the boat, though, we've got some business back in town.  : This feather also lets you pick the effect for the usually random Cantrip Book. Phew. Let's go over these in order. Slow is amazing. Anything that isn't immune moves at half speed for a long time, enabling Kwehry to kill them before they can attack, or escape if he's in danger. Sleep is also good. More things resist it, and the duration is shorter, but anything effected is shut down completely for a few rounds. Confusion is the schadenfreude option. While is lasts longer than sleep does, it doesn't shut enemies down as effectively, and there's the chance that an effected enemy will kill another and level up. As before, please vote here, and feel free to discuss your choice in the thread. See you next time! Edward_Tohr fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 21:52
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 Well then, if you're all going to be so generous... Kobold eBooks posted:Is there a Final Fantasy game where Slow isn't the best status effect? FF5, where instant death is.
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Jun 3, 2016 03:33
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Welcome back! Amazingly, I only forget I have this a few times in the upcoming section.  Over by the statue, Ben seems to be a little worried about his artwork. Sadly, "some talent" isn't an option here.  But Kwehry can tell the behemoth that his stone statue sitting outside on the dirt doesn't quite smell earthy enough.  We'll, uh... we'll leave him to that. In the mean time, we've got ourselves a Cidmarine to ride. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItJlLdg_ai4 (Polsy link)    I've been playing this game since I was a kid, and I only just now noticed the mountain in the background there.  And we get a good view of Cidmarine.  Cid wasn't kidding when he said he'd been wanting to take her out for a spin.  Dagger feels the need to laugh at the excited old man.  I gotta say, of all the ways to board a submarine, having it extend its arm as a bridge is pretty cool.   You'd think the claws would give Kwehry better grip, to stop him from slipping like this.  Ouch. Good thing there's a white mage around.  Oh dear. Good thing there's a mechanic around?   Cid is... not taking this so well.  Thankfully, Kwehry spots something useful.    Yep. Deus Ex Chocobo-sized Diving Gear.   That, uh... That doesn't look good. (FMV ends)  Kwehry's all about that dungeon.  : Something good happened? : How did I get here, you ask?: You say you swam and swam until you found the dungeon's entrance? Hee hee. You wonder how I made it here when you had to swim so far? Well, let me explain. And she leads him off-screen.  Oh, that explains i- Hang on. Kwehry and Dagger were to the submarine's right. Meaning they started on the side where the dungeon was.  : In a rush, we grabbed on to the submarine's arm and then that's what happened... We didn't even need that big thing after all. You made such a big deal about it, too.: Well, let's go then.: To the dungeon, of course. I'm going to solve the secret to that dungeon no matter what. Well, let's be careful. And she just waltzes on in, leaving Kwehry to follow her. Tune in next time, where we finally get to (re) explore this dungeon!
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Jun 5, 2016 22:28
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Welcome back!  Land Turtles make a reappearance from Cid's Tower, but the octopi are new.  They can squirt ink to cause blindness. Blindness doesn't seem to affect Kwehry's hit rate at all, just blanks out anything more than two or so squares away. They're common, and we can harvest their essence for the next step in Chef LeTonberry's sidequest. Or we can drink it to restore some energy and HP.  We also find Sahagins on this floor. Merman Essence is our first elemental essence, adding Ice to claws and saddles. Needless to say, stacking elemental resistances on our saddle is a great way to reduce damage. They have two rare drops. The Ice Saddle is a decent way to pick up Blizzard Storm or Shiva, but the Waterwalk Collar is the more interesting one. It lets Kwehry walk across water, which is handy in the upper floors of this particular dungeon.  Speaking of this dungeon, it's a long one. Kwehry will be needing to eat to keep up his energy.  It's always nice to see traps that do nothing because of Kwehry's saddle.  Oh. Whoops.  A Sealed Box nearby gives Kwehry his first Spell Book. Much like Cantrip books, Spell books start out with only the "random" option until you obtain certain feathers. Also like with the cantrip books, now that we have one in our inventory, the Head Magician will be giving us a feather when we speak to him again.  Kwehry's gotta eat.  Mild nuts wind up being Tasty nuts this time. Kwehry's good on energy right now, but the HP restoration is welcome.  In a treasure chest, we find this. Kwehry still hasn't found any identify cards yet, so we'll refrain from equipping it.   On the fifth floor, the dungeon changes to an underground maze. We also get some new enemies.  Bombs have a lot of HP, and if you take too long to kill them, they explode. Their essence adds fire. Thankfully, even though Kwehry's claws deal fire damage, enemy elemental resists don't apply to physical attacks. Enemy weaknesses on the other hand....  The upgraded Hedgehogs are a good source of Critter Essence, which restores energy. Other than that, though, they're pretty well outclassed by this point.  While exploring the floor, Kwehry identifies Dispel Tonics. Since we have a few in our inventory already, we can take a chance with that collar we found.  With the collar...  ... and without. Looks like we've got ourselves an uncursed Burden collar.  The sixth floor goes back to the rooms and hallways style. And adds some more new enemies.  Puppeteers can attack at a distance with their bird, but they much prefer to summon other monsters.  Kwehry takes a chance on a Tasty tonic, and it winds up backfiring.  Although we do find this +1 Flame Saddle here, in the same room as a stove, even.  Right now, I'm more concerned about durability than two points of defense. Plus, in theory, the elemental resists will help to make up for that.  Tag! Hidden in an out-of-the-way area! Aww, man, my inventory's been full since I started this dungeon, this'll be so help-  Oh. Well screw you too, game.  Bomb Essence restores a lot of energy when drank, so I figured I'd slow this one and try to get some. Certainly because of the energy restoration, and not at all because I forgot that Kwehry already has fire on both his claw and his saddle. Why would you even suggest that?  And then Dagger just straight-up murders it.  Thankfully, the partner AI isn't always the greatest. Even though she could attack the Bomb from here, she'll instead move back to be adjacent to Kwehry. At which point she'll see a nearby enemy, move back to this square, and repeat the cycle. Tricking your partner into not killing enemies that you're trying to get essence from is just as important as getting them to help you kill things when you're not going for essence.  Rotten nuts deal 10 damage, but restore 10 energy.  The eighth floor is a magma-flavored variant of the first floor. But magma is not water, so the waterwalk collar is still useless here. As usual, with a new tileset/layout, we get some new enemies.  Magmen are invisible until you approach them, at which point they glorp up out of the ground and attack. They're also the first enemy type we've encountered where each level drops a different essence. Magman Essence adds fire to equipment, and restores a tiny amount of energy when drank.  Kwehry's inventory is full, so he starts eating some of the nuts he found in Sealed Boxes earlier on in the dungeon.  LevelDown nuts cause Kwehry to lose a level. They can be kicked at an enemy to downgrade them, as well.  Amusingly enough, the very next un-ID'd nut is this one. LevelUp nuts cause Kwehry to gain a level, and can be kicked at monsters to upgrade them.  The next floor introduces yet another new enemy.  Puddings, interestingly enough, are the tier-2 version of the Flan enemy. Pudding Essence is identical to Magman Essence. Being gelatinous monsters in an RPG, they divide if not killed quickly.  Torn Cards turn out to be Identify Cards this time. This is the first one we've found in this dungeon so far.  The tenth floor introduces another staple Final Fantasy monster.  Magic Pots do not behave like they usually do, though. Instead of demanding elixirs and rewarding you with lots of points of various flavors, here they teleport around like jackasses and throw potions at enemies. They can also drop gil.  Finally, we add Ice to our claw.  Against something not weak to fire or ice, we do about 30 damage. Stacking elements on your claws is very helpful.   The eleventh floor brings another new tileset, another new song, and, as usual, some new enemies.  Weak to ice, so our new claw will deal a lot of damage. Lamia Essence causes confusion when drank, but has a unique effect when combining.  Well, we got this card from a pudding. Let's see what it does.  Divide cards will halve the bonus of a piece of equipment, but give you a duplicate copy. Mind you, if your inventory is full, the duplicate will just silently vanish into the aether. Which seems like a good place to call this update. See you next time!
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Jun 9, 2016 18:33
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Welcome back! So, this update is a little late. Why?  Reasons. Anyway, when we last left Kwehry...  Ahh, right. Divide card plus no room in inventory. Well, whatever. +3 attack isn't so big a deal, especially when you can hit an elemental weakness.  When polymorphed into a Lamia, Kwehry can use their confusion-inducing attack. There is only one monster type that Kwehry can transform into and retain their natural spellcasting ability.  On the one hand, it's probably best to save these until the end, since higher levels require more XP. On the other hand, gently caress that noise. Kwehry's gonna eat that poo poo ASAP.  I don't remember if I've discussed Arc claws before. They hit the three squares in front of Kwehry, making them slightly more useful than the front-and-back attacks of the Order Claws. If you give a multi-way attack claw the earth element, it'll still only dig out the square directly in front of Kwehry.  On the thirteenth floor, things start to get hairy.  Ogres do what ogres always do: hit like a truck and have tons of HP. Oh, and they don't have an elemental weakness to exploit.  Still, Dagger pulls her own weight here. And then some.  Kwehry switches to the Arc claws for a little while, since the elemental mythril ones are about to break.  Identifying harmful potions early on in a dungeon isn't a bad idea, since you can just dump them out on the floor and take the empty bottle.  Turns out that one of Kwehry's un-id'd nuts was this. Wisdom nuts pick a random element...  ... and level up Kwehry's skill with that element. Handy!  Also handy is that Dagger's heal scales with her level.  Oh, and we get upgraded black mages now.  With only 10 HP and no defense, these guys pose no threat as long as you can damage them before they get their spells off.  The fifteenth floor is a special one, and our first visit here gets us a cutscene. : Doesn't seem to be any movement... What is going on...? Oh, god dammit.   : However... you are a mysterious organism.: Meeting you here again must be...?Bahamut is a jerk here and not even looking at Kwehry.  : Who are you?: I? I am the keeper of time, Bahamut. Young lady, you must turn back.: What are you talking about? Ahh, so the titular Mysterious Dungeon is time-displaced. Good to know. : It's best just to live in the village without knowing. The villagers' doubts will pass. As long as they do not awaken...: What do you know about this? And this is our explanation for why Bahamut gives cryptic hints all the time. He doesn't know what's going on, either. Doesn't excuse the pronoun game, though.  Oh, goddammit, Bahamut, now Dagger's ellipsising. Quick! More adventuring will cure her!  The sixteenth floor brings with it yet another new tileset.  Oh, and these fuckers.  Neons will, when near-death, go possess another enemy, which levels them up. Yes, they can possess other Neons. If not near death, they'll float over the bottomless pits on the floor and cast lightning at you. In short, gently caress Neons. They don't even drop any essence.  Oh, thank gently caress. My inventory is full of un-ID'd crap. Mostly Repair cards.  Dagger isn't doing so well. She's been doing a lot of tanking, both because Kwehry is low on healing items, and because the Neons can attack from anywhere. And yes, their quote changes based on their health.  loving Neons, they don't even need to be on-screen to possess something.  Ahahahahaha, gently caress no.  See ya!  Back in town, we've got a few more sidequests to progress on. Starting with this one, where we get to choose a feather for our Spell books.  Fans of the Final Fantasy series will recognize these spell names, but let's recap them anyway. Gravity does a fixed percentage of the target's HP as damage. I haven't actually used this one very much, so I don't know if it goes off of current HP or maximum. Meteorite pelts one enemy with space rocks. It hurts. This is the only feather I've actually made use of in my various runs through this game. Because space rocks. Doom doesn't summon a grim reaper, but rather causes instant death. Y'know, probably. Flare is another powerful magic attack. Presumably it ignores defense, as it typical for it throughout the series. Bio deals damage and causes poison. Again, probably. Vote here. I'll try to make it a point to use these books more often. See you next time!
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Jun 16, 2016 01:13
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Welcome back! Looks like we'll be picking up Flare! And we didn't even have to deal with Omniscient's react:physical bullshit! Before we do that, though, let's go through the other  Most of the other dialog stays the same, but there's usually something new for dinner.  Ben has been mulling over our "earthy smell" comment for a while now.  Thankfully, all he wants is a Quake book. Next time we enter and leave the dungeon, we'll be able to progress on this sidequest some more.  Over with Chef LeTonberry, we finally have the Octopus Essence he needs to make his special dish.  Kwehry picks up a Fusion Seed from the tree. Using this, if Kwehry combines two claws or saddles with special effects, the resulting equipment will have both of them. Usually, anyway. Some abilities are hard-coded to not work with this. Speaking of combining....  With the undead essence we picked up way back in the first dungeon, Kwehry's saddle now grants immunity to confusion. All we have to worry about now is frog and slow.  Thief Essence is interesting. It adds the "Gil" special ability. Which sounds good, but giving any enemy a tiny chance to drop a small amount of gil isn't exactly game-breaking.  Whoops, accidentally chose pattern 1 here instead of pattern 2.  Enamel is a right jackass of a special ability. It does nothing, but it still takes up the ability slot and is difficult, if not outright impossible, to remove. If we switch over to pattern 2, however...  The Remove seed here removes the Arc from our arc claws, letting the Gil ability take its place.  Sadly, the Fusion seed won't let us gave confusion-inducing mug claws.  Lamia Essence will cause the output of combining to be a Brandname item.  Which, it turns out... is pretty good! Brandname items can also be broken for some powerful feathers, which we'll hopefully be seeing a lot more of in the next dungeon.  And here's the claw we wind up with at the end of this cooking spree.  Chip continues to sell storage capacity upgrades.  Since we need to jump in the dungeon real quick to progress sidequests, might as well take the chance to repair Kwehry's equipment.  Having a good elemental claw really does wonders against enemies with weaknesses, especially on the earlier dungeon floors.  In addition to Waterwalk collars, Kwehry can also walk across water by being polymorphed into a waterwalking creature, or by being a frog.  Oh. This floor is easy, I guess. The third floor here actually has two down stairs. One, seen here, is isolated on a small island, and usually requires a form of waterwalk to get to. The other is located on the main area. The difference between the two branches?  A unique underwater tileset!  Oh, and the Devilfish gain a theft attack.  100% worth it, every time.  Especially when the game gets generous. Aside from the tileset, the underwater branch just uses the usual underground layout that we've seen in the first dungeon.  The Gil effect in action! ... yeah, I'm not terribly impressed.  Well, that was enough farting around down there. Time to head back to town.  Visiting Ben again, we find that the area's shaking.  I'm sure you all can see where this is going.  And we've got our second summon feather. ... come to think of it, I still haven't used the first one yet. Anyway, Ben heads home, and next time we enter and leave the dungeon we'll be able to help him out there.  In the restaurant, things are looking up for the goblin couple.  Apparently hash, eggs, and an octopus soul is the recipe for becoming the Buddha. Who knew? ... As usual, there'll be yet another step next time we come back from the dungeon.  Once Kwehry's bought the 30-item storage capacity, Gamedon's shop gets a lot bigger.  As does Chip's house. And with that, there's not much left in town to do, so one more quick dive....  ... through Chubby Chocobo's shortcut...  ... And we might as well kill two birds with one stone here. The absolute easiest way to break a claw is by giving it the earth element and tunneling through the walls.  As may be expected, low-level Digging claws give us the Quake All feather. Higher-level ones would give us Titan, but we've already got that covered.  The deepest we can go with the shortcut right now is floor 17. Since ogres still hit like a truck, this involves some creative solutions at times. Anyway, that was just to see how deep we could get. Back to town!  Ben needs a Crash Stone this time to clean up his house.  Back with le Tonberry, his business has picked up, and now Gobbie's working as a waitress. There's also a juice bar downstairs.  And yet another fetch quest. Who ever would have thought. Anyway, we give her a spare plant essence we had laying around in storage.  According to the item description, Dragon Essence is "Good for combining".  And before we end this update, we've got the basement of the Black Mage Lab to explore. Examining the statues here gives some info on the enemies they represent.  Even including a characteristic quote. And that seems a good place to leave off for today. See you next time!
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Jun 23, 2016 00:49
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Derek Barona posted:Preemptively requesting a compilation of the statue pics, quotes and all. This is exactly why I keep a save with all the statues unlocked already. Glazius posted:Oh yeah, shovels would break pretty quick. Can you get other feathers that way, or do they wind up being earth-element since you have to put that on the claws? You can slap earth/dig onto any claw without changing its base type, so keeping a few digging claws around for combining purposes is a great way to get a bunch of feathers. There's a few things we can pick up in the next dungeon that help the process along even more, though, so we'll be waiting until then to do the really broken stuff. Update should be up later on tonight.
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Jun 26, 2016 21:23
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Welcome back! With our new feather in tow, and all of the sidequests waiting on another dungeon dive, let's get right to it. Hopefully we can make it through the whole thing this time, too.  Watch out for the Puppeteers, they can attack from outside spellbook range. And since we've had a request for it, I'm going to be showing off the enemy statues from now on.  The green face lists elements they're weak to, and the red one shows what they resist. The number next to dwn is how many times they've killed you, while KO is how many of them you've killed. I should note that the screenshots here will be taken from a postgame run, so those numbers won't match Kwehry's actual stats.  This place is kind of a clusterfuck.   As expected, the fire-type enemies are both weak to ice.  Kwehry is just too drat good at one-shotting Lamias to get more essence. Whoops.    Each of the three tiers of enemy has their own quote, so I'll be showing off the first-tier ones when we meet up with their stronger palette-swaps.  Oh hey, that Jelly is new, though.   Jellies are wind-elemental Mousses. They are one of the few enemy types that drop different essences depending on their level. Said essence adds Wind to equipment when mixed, so Kwehry grabs two. ... Oh yeah, there's that other green rear end in a top hat.  Don't worry, we'll be meeting more Blue Hulks later.  And here's the Pudding, for completion's sake.  Huh. Never knew that Magic Pots could float.  Pretty accurate to their AI.  I wonder if Dagger's attack is Holy-elemental?  It'd explain why she's doing more damage than Kwehry against these guys. (for now)  Frog and slow are the only two ailments our saddle doesn't protect against yet. Needless to say, Kwehry gets hit by both of them.  One amusing thing about Frog, though, is that it allows your physical attacks to cause it. Frogged enemies will flee until it wears off, making it useful to buy yourself some time to breathe.  Every single one of these is important and worth showing off, dammit!  Kwehry's gone four whole floors without a snack. Even with his energy collar on, that's still 13 whole points of energy he was behind!  Excellent, another new trap type. This is the pitfall trap. What it does....  Is drop you down a pit. Pretty self-explanatory.  This also has the side effect of actually moving you to a lower floor, which is a mixed blessing. In my case, these catwalk floors in this dungeon suck rear end, so I'm glad to skip them. In Cid's Tower, since you're going up, pitfall traps actually move you back a floor instead of ahead. And they don't show up at all in dungeons that go horizontally, like the next one. Also, yeah, gently caress exploring this floor. Neons and ogres are the worst.   And we get another change of scenery, enemies, and music!   Zombies can breathe on you for different ailments, much like skeletons. They're also innately slow, so they're not much to worry about.  Normally we'd've seen these guys on one of the catwalk floors guarding the stairs. However, I lucked out and was able to gently caress that noise. At least down here, they come one at a time, instead of four at once.   They're as boring as they are annoying. They don't even have the decency to be weak to wind, like most other flying Final Fantasy monsters. If you hadn't grabbed wind element from the Jelly essence earlier, these guys's Wing Essence does the same thing.  Well now, this bodes well.  And just like that, we've added earth and wind to our claw's elements. Holy and Lightning are a bit trickier, though, since no essence grants those. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  And between the 21st and 22nd floors is this rear end in a top hat. So gently caress it, I'm calling the update here. Dude's just gonna ramble on and this update has enough images in it as is. See you next time!
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Jun 26, 2016 23:52
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AmewTheFox posted:Speaking of which, I was meaning to ask about that. Does it just slow things down to a crawl because you have to do each individual movement, and does it let you do cool things like Ramuh using Thunder when you want to? I gave it a quick test and... no, none of the partners can do their special action when controlled by the second player. curiousCat posted:All of this actual use of stoves is showing me how far behind the curve I really was. Ahaha, and I haven't even begun yet. The next dungeon will make that clear. ... Admittedly, that's because I need some essences we can't get until then to really break poo poo. ---- Welcome back!  I imagine that this scene would be a lot more confusing if you manage this dungeon in a single run, considering we last ran into him six floors ago. : You dare come here after all. Do you plan to find what this realm is?: Of course that's what I plan to do.: I see... I am the keeper of time... As far as excuses for dribbling out the plot bit-by-bit go, "Hey, I'm still trying to figure this poo poo out, but here's what I've already found out" is passable.  That said, you'd think the freaking Keeper of Time would be aware of major time-travel events, y'know, as they happen. : The future?: Yes... The distant future. There, humans like you have built an advanced civilization. This dungeon was built by them as a weapon.: A weapon? Why would they...?: They were fighting against him...Don't worry, we'll be getting a name for "him" soon.    I have to wonder what it was about Bahamut's text that made the localizers give up like they did. : However, as a way to revive the dead, they built this weapon. Their lust for technology pushed them to the point where they could build a time-traveling device such as this. Yep. Imps. Those are the evil future-enemies that beat the crap out of the future-humans, even with all their future-weapons. : That must have been the downfall of their civilization... The humans were defeated in their last bastion and prepared for the worst.  : That man was one of the creators of this weapon. That man planned to dimensionally transport his newborn child... To a time where there was no war... : The dimensional transfer was disturbed by him and it failed. Then the unthinkable happened. This weapon, him, the Imps, and even that child were brought to this time... : They were put to sleep in this dungeon and you were raised by the villagers.: ...: I can't tell you to turn back. That is your decision. And then he just vanishes, as usual. : ... Let's go.So, to recap what we know now: In the future, humans have advanced technology. Imps, led by some unknown entity, start attacking the humans, and wreck their poo poo. Humans build a giant fuckoff dungeon that's also a weapon and a time machine. The Imps manage to take it over, anyway, and invite their leader along to the victory parade. Meanwhile, some dude gets the bright idea to chuck his newborn daughter into the time machine and send her into the distant past. Imp Leader fucks with the time travel (somehow), and winds up taking himself, the dungeon and the Imps back in time with the newborn Dagger. The child somehow made it to the village to be raised by the monsters there, while the dungeon was sealed away with the Imps and their leader inside. Everything was fine and dandy until the dungeon reappeared, along with its inhabitants, which turned the villagers into racist fucksticks. And then Kwehry and Riposte found it, and that's where the game began.  And then a bunch of poo poo happened and now we're fighting palette-swaps of enemies that were introduced earlier in the same dungeon.   For comparison's sake, here's their tier-1 form again: This dungeon really stops loving around once you cross the halfway point. Like their previous forms, Necromancers can summon other monsters on the level. As the name implies, most other monsters on these levels are undead.  Case in point.   Mummies have an energy-drain attack. And they're typically found deep in long dungeons, where running out of energy is an actual concern sometimes. Like all undead, they're weak to holy and fire. So let's do just that.    The summon animations in this game tend to have a lot of fullscreen effects, which makes giffing them hard.  But yeah. Kwehry sends everyone to Mars, where Ifrit flies up, chucks Kwehry out of the way, and sucks the enemies into a black hole that somehow does fire damage.  The 24th floor returns us to a familiar tileset.  Familiar-looking enemies, too.   Undead, so fire and holy are the ways to go. Posion breath can be annoying, but our Saddle protects against it.  They can drop poison, which causes poison. Since Kwehry's saddle is still poison-immune, drinking this tonic does nothing. I don't quite know how that works, but I'm not complaining.  Once again, we get a cutscene between floors. Dagger still seems distracted after having heard about her origin.  Bam! Skeleton out of nowhere! Again! ... Oh poo poo, it actually hit her this time.   : I'm okay... This game likes to have characters doing stuff while the screen is fading out. Which is kinda nice when playing, but makes screenshotting it difficult. Especially with Kwehry shaking his head at Dagger again just as the screen is fully black.  And we get another change of scenery for this cutscene.  It may look pretty from in there, but marine snow isn't something you'd want to catch on your tongue.  : I'm okay, I'm okay...That wound seems pretty serious. : ... Can I ask a strange question?"Kwehry, do you think love can bloom, even in the dungeon?"  We actually do get one of the game's few remixed songs from the main series here.  Thankfully, Dagger just wants to ask why we hang out with a jerk like Riposte.  : Do you like him?: Why? : So you don't know, either... Of course... I knew I was... adopted... I kind of sense I was different. Not because I'm human... but something else. But, Mrs. Bomb, the Head Magician, Ben, Chubby Chocobo, Cid, they've always been nice to me, from the time I could remember. I've lived in the village ever since...: So that's why... no... I'm not making it an excuse, but... I'm just fond of everyone in the village. : Isn't it the same with you and Riposte?: To have the feeling of wanting to care for someone. It's simple, that's all. I don't mean that it's insignificant. Just... you don't need a reason.In retrospect, naming her Dagger was a good choice. : So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter when or where I was born. It doesn't even matter what I may be. ... They say I'm from the future... but I don't know... And off they go. Off-screen, Dagger apparently remembers that she's a white mage, since her wound here never comes up again. But we've had enough talking for one update, and there's more coming up shortly. See you next time!
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Jun 29, 2016 16:19
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Welcome back! Despite the cutscene dump from earlier, we've still got a little bit of dungeon left to explore here.  Well, that'll be helpful.  ... As will that stove.  And now our saddle resists wind! ... in retrospect, I probably should have waited for a frog or slow essence. Oh well, it means we don't have to carry that Jelly Essence around anymore.  Life Nuts are interesting. They boost Kwehry's max HP by one.  Still screenshotting every single Carry Tag.  And on literally the last step before the boss, we find a familiar face.   Malboros are another Final Fantasy staple. Thankfully, their Bad Breath can only cause confusion here, which our saddle protects against. If you missed getting Plant Essence from Cid's Tower, they do give you another shot at it before the next dungeon.  The 27th floor here is our boss floor. : Did you say something? Oh no.   : I, the Great Ultros, haven't had this kind of dinner in quite a while... : What!? Kwehry actually moves at running speed to get between Ultros and Dagger here. It's a neat touch. Oh yeah, and also boss time.     The tentacles move and attack independently, but all they can do are physical attacks. Ultros himself prefers to attack with Drain, as his statue quote suggests. Thankfully, being aquatic enemies, they're weak to lightning.  Or possibly not, we'll see.  We start by nuking him from orbit.  Followed by roasting in a black hole.  And then we unload our Sylph stones.  As may be expected by the wind summon, they attack with a giant-rear end tornado.  Interestingly, all of the summons did 255 damage across the board here.  Meanwhile, when Ultros's attack managed to connect, he did about 40. Still, his 3000 HP is more than enough to outlast our summon stones, so it's time to bust out the rest of the spellbooks.    Literally, in this case. Flare may not be spacerocks, but exploding the gently caress out of an enemy is cool, too. Plus, the feather we get from low-level Brandname items breaking is Meteorite, so we can get that one easily anyway.   On our last Quake book, we hit level 9 for Earth. This means that, instead of casting Quake, we now cast Quakara.  And we're actually on-track with most of the others, too. Kwehry still has about 20 or so Fire books, and enough Thunder books to cross the threshold.  Sadly, Ultros ran out of HP before we ran out of lightning. Oh well. : Awww, c'mon... How cruel... That... that is one way of putting it.   Down the stairs, Dagger seems to recognize this place. Then again, this place is pretty recognizable.  : It collapsed, what's it doing here? And it looks like everything is new again... like it's alive... Sadly, the door is locked. Guess Riposte won't be getting his crystal, after all.   Dagger starts looking for a switch.  When suddenly, she's surrounded by enemies that she could one-shot by now!  Kwehry might be quick, but he's not quick enough, here.  Oh dear.  And here's the enigmatic Imp Leader guy, Gla- ... Hang on. Glass Goth? That's... that's really what they're going with? Really?  That's really what they're going with. Okay.  And they warp out.  And Kwehry is just barely too late.  : I, will destroy, everything... this, world, this, time...  And then that motherfucker buggers off, too.  Well, at least there's something shiny here.  Ahh. Dagger's Pendant. I'm sure that'll never be plot-important. But this update's gone on long enough. See you next time!
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Jul 3, 2016 21:30
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Welcome back! Last time... things didn't go so well.  Kwehry doesn't answer. : ... What's up Kwehry? And Cid just barges in and exposits in the form of a question. : Who are you, man?: Let's just forget about that fer now pardner.: That Bahamut fella came to see me... Says the monster he was talking about was the one who kidnapped the little lady. Cid takes exactly zero poo poo from Bahamut. : He even had time to point me in the right direction: Snow Mountain. It's up ahead in the cavern.: Hah! Serves her right. She deserved it. Cid also takes zero poo poo from Mrs. Bomb, but in a more respectful manner. : Of all people, you should know that little lady isn't like that.: Just what are you trying to say?: Nevermind ma'am.: So Kwehry, yer goin' too right, little fella? : It's gonna be a hard trip through the forest and mountains. Ya still wanna go?: I'll wait over yonder, outside the village near the forest entrance.And he heads off. But before Kwehry joins him, we need to prepare. Which includes a nap, of course.  It's been so long since I've used the regular save for this game, I forgot it handled multiple files.  Anyway, the forest is just north of town, and our ultimate destination is that ominous-looking spiky mountain in the background. ... And no, the text boxes don't look any different. It's not like I switched to a more accurate emulator at this point into the update. Don't be absurd.  So, here's the forest. The music is just some ambient noises not included on the OST. Off to the left, our first new enemy is visible.   Mamons drop gil sometimes. That is the most interesting fact about them.  Worms, though...   Worms can put their targets to sleep with their ranged spit attack. It's pretty nasty. What makes them particularly notable, though, is their essence. We'll talk about that later, though.  Malboros are also found here. This one drops his Calm Saddle, which is polite of him.   First things first, though. We add silence resist to our increasingly-ridiculous saddle.  And then we combine it with that Earth Saddle from way back when. Worm Essence is great. It not only acts as a Merge Seed, which combines elements instead of overwriting them, but also boosts the bonus by one. Our saddle is now only missing two elements and two statuses. The statuses we can take care of very shortly, but holy and lightning can't be added via essences. Which, now that I think of it, is probably intentional on account of every boss being weak to one of those two.  We've completed the Restaurant LeTonberry sidequest. Our final reward, after the Dragon Essence?  A jukebox that plays a selection of music. Most of them are pretty obvious. "The Quest for Items" being Riposte's theme, "Within Tenderness" being Dagger's, and "Cid! Cid!" being Cid's. They did slip in a subtle pun here, though. "Doom is my Rival" isn't the frantic piano piece that plays when Doom is chasing you. Instead, it's Chubby Chocobo's theme. Y'know, the only other shopkeeper in the game.  Back at the tree, we get a Merge Seed. Also known as the boring half of a Worm Essence.  Back in the Behemoth household, it looks like Ben's wife has finally returned. Yeah, his wife walked out on him, and his response was to abandon his only child and go hang around a statue wondering what "earthy" smells like.  Back in the dungeon for a bit. Hmm. Those claws are kind of expensive.  Good thing we have Earth on our existing claws.  There. That wall is looking a lot less solid, now.  Tunneling using your main fighting claws is usually a bad idea, since it chews through the durability like crazy. But it'll be worth it.  The game does stop you and make you close a dialog prompt before you leave the store. Why?   This is a Roguelike. Shoplifting is a very Bad Idea. The track is appropriately titled, since it only plays when one particular enemy is on the map.   What, you thought the literal embodiment of the concept of death would play fair? As if one wasn't bad enough, every enemy on the map is transformed into one of these guys. Including all the dead ones. And before you get any cute ideas, trying to use a Teleport Tag just results in him saying "I see..." and nothing happening.  The one saving grace you have is that all flavors of Doom require several turns to charge up their attack.  Not that that makes it easy to avoid them or anything.  Still, with a bit of preparation and luck, escape is possible.  Poor Cid got one-shot, though.  The exit is in sight! Taking the stairs is the only way to escape once Life Keeper is after you.  See you later, shitlords!  Once you've left the floor, there's nothing stopping you from teleporting out as normal. Or continuing on, if you feel like it. But that'll be it for this update. See you next time!
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Jul 11, 2016 02:05
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Welcome back! Today, Kwehry'll be tackling another sidequest.  Step one involves putting all his valuables in storage.  Step two involves dying. A lot.  There's a beach in town. I haven't brought it up much since there's usually nothing there. But for every two times you die...  ... There'll be a treasure chest!  ... Not that it always has actual treasure, mind you.   Since I'm planning on dying anyway, there's no harm in chugging random tonics on the ground.  Oh. Well, now I have an empty bottle to fill from the spring.  And survey says.... Yep, another one. Figured that was amusing enough to warrant showing off.  Seeing as how you have to walk right past the storage on the way to and from the beach, there's no reason not to stash useful stuff.  Oh dear, Cid's gotten himself confused. Well, that shouldn't be a pro-  Welp.  Hey, now that's useful. X-Potions restore all of Kwehry's HP, making them great lategame panic buttons.  And finally, once we pick up our fifth treasure, we finish the sidequest.  Oh hey, it's Sylph!  : What a great person!: What a great person, picking up all the trash that's fallen in the ocean! Kwehry ain't in it for the environment, he's in it for the loot. And even then, the only reason he's in it for the loot is because sometimes the loot is food.  : It's decided, I'll help you out! 'Till we meet again!  C'mon, Kwehry, you've gone through this twice before. Anyway, now we can have Sylph follow us around. Hooray. Time to go find something else to do.  And that something is "go explore the dungeon a little more".   Toads can Frog you with their special attack. Their essence causes Frog, which means it'll be going into our saddle as soon as we get some. Unfortunately, they also have the uncanny ability to get killed by things that are not bottles.  On the very next floor, though, Rock Slugs appear.   Slug Essence causes Slow. Rock Slugs leave puddles of slime around as they move that cause slow when you step into it. They can also eat items.  On the next floor, we once again meet up with our old friend.   Still hits hard, still takes a beating, still has no other gimmicks.  Oh dear.   As above, but with larger numbers. Hey, I have an idea.  Hey, Titan! Go meatshield for us!  Good Titan!  Summons can be dismissed if you don't want them hanging around. Which is good, because if they die, you lose their feather. Titan here got hit once.  Yeah, I'm not hanging around Ogre Woods without a buddy. See you next time!
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Jul 14, 2016 22:00
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This'll probably be the last update on this page, since it's starting to take loving forever to load. We only need, what, eight more posts, counting this one? ---- Welcome back! This update is brought to you by the letters v, i, and m.  Let's start off by adding slow resist to our saddle, before heading back into the dungeon.  loving finally! Now if only I had a goddamn spare saddle to mix it with.  One telport tag later, and we're back on dungeon level 1. Say, what's that switch do?  Oh. Well, it gives Kwehry an excuse to train his magic some more.   And we've unlocked Aera, just as we ran out of Wind books!  Oh. At least we've got some other stuff.  Like fifteen goddamn Blizzard books sitting around in the inventory.  On the next floor, Kwehry finds a shop. Still no saddles, but those Drain books are tempting.  And a Malboro drops this for us. Contrary to some other roguelikes, the shop here only owns the items it spawns with, and anything you explicitly sell it. Drops and other items that just wind up in the shop are owned by Kwehry.  And now everything but Drain is at its tier-2 form.  And the game makes sure you know it. The animations get bigger and flashier, and the damage jumps up more than usual for going up a spell level. We'll probably be hording the rest of our fire books for the boss, though.  Because holy loving poo poo, that's a Flare and a half's worth of damage right there.  Blizzara isn't hitting a weakness, but it's still doing over 100 damage.  And Thundara, for completeness's sake.  The AoE attacks all get new animations, too.  Pausing our destructive rampage for a moment, Kwehry finds some new claws. Lite Claws have a high Energy stat, which reduces the rate of energy depletion, but they're not terribly strong on their own. Still, they might be useful to keep around, if only for the +2 enchantment.  Oh, Cid got frogged.  Oh poo poo, Cid got frogged!   They're a bit more annoying than regular toads, but nothing to worry about.  On the seventh floor, we leave the marshlands and enter the caves.  Oh, and some new tunes.  Oh, hey, Moles!   Moles can tunnel through the walls. Their essence adds earth. Had Kwehry not picked up an Earth Saddle, this would've been the next best source of that resist. Sadly, the slug got to those claws before Kwehry could.  Fuckdamn frog traps!  And I can't even use this poo poo until Kwehry unfrogs.  And now this rear end in a top hat is chasing me around.  All right, there, now he's trapped in that little hole, and I have enough time to hop around and wait for Frog to wear of-  Of course.  Sure, why loving not? Let's have a goddamn Ogre and frog party!  Thankfully, the very next step is when Frog wears off. And Kwehry has just the tool for the job.  loving rainbow tornado, bitches!  Oh thank gently caress, finally, a stove!  gently caress you, Ogre!  Choke on Flares in hell, you bastard!  ... Anyway, here's our current saddle. Y'know, for demonstration purposes.  And here's what happens when we put Frog resist onto it. The Ribbon saddle is the reason I've been harping about all of the status resists you can put onto a Saddle via essence. Not only does it help by, y'know, making you immune to most status effects, but it also turns whichever saddle you were putting them on into a base 14 defense, max level 60 beast. In short, the Ribbon is just as good here as it is in any other Final Fantasy game.  Anyway, let's ID-by-use this wooden saddle, see what sort of bonus we can g-  gently caress.  Well, I've got two Jiggly Tonics, and I know they're not potions or Hi-potions, so chances are good they're dispel tonics.  Causes brain damage, and apparently quite tasty. What's in those Amnesia Tonics, anyway?   After that, I think Kwehry deserves a nap. Tune in next time, where we'll hopefully make some actual, measurable progress into the dungeon! :s :save :sav :help save :!google how the gently caress do you save in vim
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Jul 22, 2016 02:23
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 17:22 |
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It's no exaggeration to say I've been planning this since the start of the run.Edward_Tohr, almost fifteen updates ago posted:
Okay, so maybe it wasn't that particular wooden saddle that wound up becoming Kwehry's ribbon, but the theory holds.
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Jul 22, 2016 03:20
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