|
Oh poo poo, the finale is here! 
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 18:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 09:23 |
|
|
Evil Fluffy posted:Oh poo poo, the finale is here! Since everything is written and linked with images on imgur, I just need to do some light proofreading. Schedule should be 23 Dec - WORLD 29 - The actual final fight 26 Dec - WORLD 30 - What was supposed to be the final post of the post game LP 29 Dec - WORLD 31 - A few minor surprises and tributes 30 or 31 Dec - WORLD 32 - The New and revised final post so that I can pretend I didn't let this go all the way into 2023 : negative:
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 20:11
|
|
|
Didn't expect to see this come back! Christmas has come early!
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 21:25
|
|
|
I see, waah, that rumours of your death have been greatly accurate. I didn't even know about the heavenly generals until you mentioned them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 23:23
|
|
|
Glad that you were kept busy because of good things irl and good to see you back.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 23:35
|
|
|
 Amusingly there's no steam achievement either for completing the CODA, or for one eyed slayer which I'm a little surprised about. Farmed up an extra 30 vit and res for both Vyce and Catiua was enough to get me over the hump.
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 12:27
|
|
|
WORLD – Episode 29 – Okay! I’m Reloaded (With Items)! At the end of the last episode, Vyce got wrecked and I needed to rethink my strategy. We need items, and lots of them. I think we’re ready finally. [Side note, it's killing me that I didn't think of the photoshop in my head right now when writing this update. You may see yet another terrible photoshop added retroactively here]  Look, I was all in in on making this photoshop abomination before I realized that the Okay, I’m Reloaded line was from Carlito’s Way instead of Scarface. Indulge me this once please thanks? Or else I’m going to inflict psychic damage on you all by doing a photoshop of Don Quixote as Tony Montana, Catiua as Gina Montana, and Vyce as Manny. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Where in the World is Don Quixote?  After a very embarrassing loss after absolutely rolling most of the game I’m taking this all very personally to absolutely ruin the dark knights. How dare they call us out as frauds.  On Medicine 2 is one of the best craft books for the high-end post-game battles and even for chasing some of the titles about no-incap throughout the base game.  Now we’ve got to go make bunch of Mending Seed +1s so that  We can make a bunch of Mending Seed +2s so that  We can make a bunch of Mending Seed +3s so that We can go buy a bunch of Mending Salves and use them to make a bunch of Mending Salve +1s so that  We can go make bunch of Mending Salve +2s so that We can make a small handful of Mending Essences, which will allow us to heal a unit for 100% of their HP so that  We can do the whole process again but only for Magic Essences. This was about a 30+ minute process due to the joys of crafting   : But wait there’s more! : WAT : You know there’s no way to enter into a shop in the middle of CODA 4, right?: And?: So, we have to go back in WORLD so that we can use an anchor point where you can go to a shop. : But you can time travel so let’s just do that and then come right back here after getting some items and: So, we’ll just load this anchor point right here and : But that’s back in CODA 3 and we - : We can buy stuff here and I don’t even know how you got those other screen shots. You’re skipping over steps. The thread readers need to know that we have to go back. We’ll just -: Plz no. Why: Load this here, and buy stuff, redo all of CODA 3 and all the fights in CODA 4 –  : Plz UR hurting me. Look we’re right HERE! See the pointy finger? Why are you still talking!: - And 2 hours later you can get back to where you just were! EZ PZ! : I regret all of my life decisions.  : [incoherent sobbing sounds] : We just needed items!!!!!!!  : We already finished these things! Multiple times!!!!!! Only my blackened and dying liver knows if this is a joke or the truth.  Vyce, Catiua, and Don Quixote are all getting Field Alchemy 4.  We try again, but for real this time. No really.  Blah blah blah piss off  The fruits of all that time spent crafting.  It’s all your fault in the first place Vyce. Shut your terrible mouth or I’m going back in time to reintroduce you to the version of you who was BFFs with Nybeth.  : You… rang…?  : Gaaaaaaah!: As I was saying That little pep talk (and the extra 6 battles to get back here) cause Vyce to hit level 50 as well.   I feel like we’ve seen this line a bunch of times now.  Mainly Vyce, but yes Catiua. Let us go forward and save lives, by murdering the ever-loving crap out of the Dark Knights!    Our final builds for the final fight just for reference.  I’m not pulling any punches here; I want it to be absolute horrible weather so that a couple shots miss throughout the fight.  That’s better. Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills would be proud of us.  Do you realize just how OP it is to have 400+ magic points at the start of a battle?  Same deal as before, we’ve got to buff up real good.  This time Martym doesn’t go off on our flank and I don’t send Vyce to his death. Time to send a summon spell at that smug face.  Tremendous shot doesn’t care about the bad weather. And I’m going to need things to turn around sooner than later.   The support units can really make this fight drag or keep one of the dark knights alive long enough for them to get a very powerful attack off. However, remember when I said, having 400+ MP to start a fight is really OP?    Heavenly Judge 2 has entered the chat.  Sup bro.  No, it’s definitely by all your wounds.  TREASURE BAGGG!!!!  Not ideal, but it’s a class mark for Ozma. It’s better than an oberyth.  As the fight continues, they start to fall faster and faster as we clear out the chaff and the supporting units.  A tarot card for our efforts. Great. Effin great.  I’m not dropping Heavenly Judge II on my own dudes, but I just wanted to show you how it’s just a one-shot nuke with the way we’ve built up Catiua over the game.   Even a Dark Knight isn’t safe.  One of the interesting things here to note is which commanders die, and which commanders run away. You can tell that there are still plans for some of these characters in a future game. Now, if that game ever comes out, who knows.  The best way to actually be able to beat this fight is to be able to perform one hit knockouts as often as possible or else you begin to fall behind rapidly on the damage race.  And then Lans Tartaros finally manages to make it down the hill and into the fray. Great. Effin great.  Yesssss, do it Vyce. Do iiiiiitttttt.    By the way, it’s another Hagiaknight Mark.  This is where the salves come in handy. See that run of 8 enemies before I could possibly even move again? That could be enough to ruin this run without the OP healing items.  Oh crap, Tartaros is casting magic. Keep in mind, he’s got divine magic spells and augments. Not typically what you expect your big bad who isn’t God to be wielding but Tartaros is a bad rear end on his own level. I didn’t manage to get a shot, but Ozma used her unique finisher on Catiua.  gently caress.   Items, once again coming through in the clutch. Now that’s she’s not going to die, and she’s not charmed (and going to kill us), it’s time to resume Heavenly Judge II spam.   Note that Lanselot’s magic resistance is so high that this attack will only remove about half of his health, as opposed to most of the other Dark Knights where this spell either outright kills them, or seriously weakens them.  The AI knows the most dangerous unit on the field right now and is really making me sweat here.  I JUST FIXED THIS! STOP IT!  STOP ATTACKING HER SO I CAN AOE NUKE YOU ALL TO DEATH!  Aww yeah Heavenly Judge II time.  Wait. She’s bewitched. gently caress.  Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow  I’ve got to somehow heal her, keep everyone else alive still *AND* also remove bewitched again. This fight is a really tough fight and I can’t stress it enough. However, Vyce’s magic resistance isn’t enough to chance him getting nuked. We choose heal and run Vyce as far away as possible.   Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow  So Catiua is definitely getting revenge for all the runs where you let her die to collect Lord marks, and I’ve got Lanselot Tartaros, Ozma, Andoras, and Balxephon staring down Don Quixote a half health. This is fine. How about we take a break from me crapping my pants to look at Lans’s equipment and stuff.    This Apocalypse finisher has the chance to remove a heart btw. It’s unique to Lans and it really hurts. Why no, I’m not telling you this for any particular reason. No, Lans doesn’t have 87 out of the 100 technical points he needs to use this skill in this screenshot. Nope.  So instead of attacking, we use a full-on mending essence and try to keep the panic poop inside.  Despite being most of the way through all the enemies, we are definitely on the defensive right now while we try to deal with the ramifications of Catiua using Heavenly Judge II on us, instead of our enemies.  Because Catiua is still most definitely still bewitched and everyone wants to fire magic things at Vyce.  We can’t reach Vyce, who’s really hurting right now. We’ve got a very angry sister who is not killing the right people, and all the Dark Knights seem to be surging towards Vyce instead of Don Quixote. We need to keep Lanselot alive so that he’s the last person killed as well, even though he’s the most dangerous unit left alive. We can’t use a Zolia Drought to get rid of bewitched because you need a Zolia Drought +1 to get rid of bewitched. If we don’t’ take care of Catiuas’s bewitched status, she’s going to end this run by nuking us again.  We’ve got an ace up the sleeve though. A scroll that we can use to cast Ease to remove bewitched.  SHE’S GOT DARK ADVERSE TOO??? COME ON!!!! It’s a 50/50 shot here, as is fitting for this drat game, we’re at the mercy of the RNG.     Clearly the only thing left to do is heal as much as I can, gather everyone together, duck and cover, and hope Catiua makes it quick and somewhat painless. BUT WAIT!!!  Heavenly Judge II has a really long cool down time!!!!! Somehow Denam will get to move again before Catiua can send us all to the big tactics RPG in the sky!!!!!  We’re back in business ladies and gents! Smooth sailing from -   Crap. Well, I guess it’s time to start all over and do this again. Maybe the third time will be… : Are just gonna gloss over the fact that you didn't even listen to yourself Waah?: I did no such thing. : ... Oh.  We’ll just load up this anchor point again and  Excuse me?    Since Catiua used up about half of her magic nuking us… it’s time to refill her and then kill Ozma as soon as we can so that we can avoid bewitching “fun” again.  We use a scroll to get instill air on Don Quixote so that we can get some extra elemental damage on our targets since we don’t want to waste a full-on attack on Balxephon or Lans. Ozma is the only target that matters right now.  STOP THAT!!!!    But finally, we get back to doing the important things – casting Heavenly Judge II on our enemies. gently caress off Ozma.  Because of you Ozma, I’m sending an invoice to Lodis for new pants. Mine are awful brown right now.  And we don’t even get a freaking weapon!!!  Now that Ozma is gone time to clean up other targets of opportunity.  I’m only continually posting pictures here because the ratio of number of times Heavenly Judge II was cast on our enemies compared to the number of times Heavenly Judge II was cast on us is way too close.   You sure did. And you aren’t even going to make it into a sequel.  Lans is hurt, but remember, to get the title and the weapon he has to be the last enemy standing, so we can’t take advantage of him sitting like this. Oh well. Nothing else to see here.  I love the confidence here. After everything that’s happened in the game, the entire long journey to be here where Don Quixote had self doubt and seen so much loss, this moment makes me pretty happy.   To see the verified bad rear end Lanselot Tartaros show signs of worry is equally awesome. We’ve went over both  The beauty of this line is that when this raid occurred Denam would have been about 16 or so. When the events of Knight of Lodis start, Tartaros was also about 16 years old.   It is odd, but it’s time…  Time for us to punch Balxephon in the back.      Dodged losing a heart again. I think this run is going to end up okay.   Heavenly Judge is also good, just isn’t as big of an AOE spell.   Yes, go die quickly, we’ve got to finish this fight before all of our luck runs out.  I can’t even complain anymore. It is what it is.  Lans is going to stab Catiua but there’s on additional problem. There’s still one random dude hiding behind the house. He’s got to die before we finish Lans.  Doesn’t help that he’s throwing healing spells out there still.  But this will solve our problem.  Now, we can take out Tartaros, but there’s one important thing to do before we inflict the killing blow:  We’ve got RNG/CHARIOT manipulation to do.  After reloading, we have Vyce do the honors.  AND TARTAROS PARRIES THE SECOND ATTACK?!?!?!  And he counters with is own finishing move on Vyce because why not.  Doesn’t matter, our MVP, our favorite (and only) sister will do us the honors.   And with that Tartaros straight up dies. Not shift stones away, but actually dies. Time to get his loot.  Oh.   And the game ends out that way and you have to sit through all the credits and cut scenes. You can skip them by hitting the start button and skipping scene, but the way the scenes are broken up, you’ll need to skip about 10-15 sections all together. And you’ll want to do this becauuuuse, unless you want to redo the entire battle over again, setting up the temporary save spot right before you kill Lans Tartaros is the only way to actually deal with the RNG so that you can get Tartaros’s sword – your uber trophy for going above and beyond what 99% of the player base will ever achieve. Cue me redoing this section over and over and over again for the next 3 hours to get Tartaros’s sword to drop. None of these screenshots are duplicates and represent yet another reload to try to get Ambicion to drop.                                             : zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz: Aren’t you going to take a screenshot? It dropped!!!: WHAT?????? [cue me panic taking a bunch of screenshots worried that I’m going to miss it]     What’s so special about this sword?   To be quite honest, not much. There are much better swords you can get from the post-game dungeons; however, the stupid low-level requirement could be useful… if you didn’t need to be super overpowered to begin with to get it. Maybe if you could start a brand-new new game + and carry the ambition with you it’d be worth it, but that’s not how this works. Your real reward is that you get to say you did the super hard and tedious task and lived out massive wish fulfillment.  Provided you’re willing to either cheese or come back and get the weapon later, you get He Who Stops the Wheel for not using chariot or retreating after beating CODA 4.  However, the grand jewel of it all is this title that’s only achieved by beating this battle as we just did, as Tartaros retreats when you bring your whole army. The Warren Report does not change depending on if you get One-Eyed Knight Slayer or not. In both instances, the final line is still that Lanselot Tartaros’s location is unknown. And that’s it! We’ve got some after care to finish out with the last couple posts and the last few surprises but we did it! YAY!!!!! It only took :squints: almost 5 years for me to get my poo poo together and finish writing this out, some of it is me procrastinating, some of it is getting a promotion (all the delays over 2022) and some of it will be addressed in the next post. I’ll post it as it was written and finished back in 2021, but thankfully entire parts of it no longer apply. I’ve enjoyed being on this ride with you all, thank you so much for being patient even when it looked like I was going to say peace out. Post Update Edit: It's fittings that I summon a giant snowstorm to help me get through this stage and the day I post this, we're having a massive blizzard in the states that makes me appreciate how miserable it would be to fight in these conditions. Yay coincidences!!!!
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 16:09
|
|
|
that issue with Ease having a 50-50 between removing Bewitched and Dark-Averse leads me to consider that the true purpose of the Averse status effects. The number of times the enemy has tried to Ease their guys of Stunned or whatever and got rid of Averse instead; or the number of times I've Charioted to correct that...waah posted:
so if it drops someone to zero hearts (but not zero HP), do they die immediately, or do they just have no more "get-out-of-dying-free" cards? also, I wonder if they changed Apocalypse at all in Reborn, given the hearts are gone. NullBlack fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Dec 23, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 16:39
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:I see, waah, that rumours of your death have been greatly accurate. In one of the last updates that Tithin did before the post game hand off, he showed a fight with one of the Heavenly Generals in the Pirates Graveyard. The biggest problem I have was that I was trying to get Orichalcum legit and it's just so soul crushingly tedious to get enough to make enough forks. tithin posted:
I saw that when someone was talking bout the PS5 version as well. Basically almost all of the trophies and achievements are tied to the the regular game. The only real bragging writes for the post game are the titles you earn in game, just like how the PSP version was. NullBlack posted:that issue with Ease having a 50-50 between removing Bewitched and Dark-Averse leads me to consider that the true purpose of the Averse status effects. The number of times the enemy has tried to Ease their guys of Stunned or whatever and got rid of Averse instead; or the number of times I've Charioted to correct that... Tithin would have to tell you or get a screenshot of the Reborn version of Apocalypse. I'm nowhere near any of the codas. I imagine if you entered the fight with one of your units only having one heart and Lans used apoc on them and destroyed a heart then yes, that character would instantly die.
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 21:08
|
|
|
waah posted:In one of the last updates that Tithin did before the post game hand off, he showed a fight with one of the Heavenly Generals in the Pirates Graveyard. Watching this version of the game, sadly, has reminded me of all of its major flaws. With Reborn and one vision now, I can't recommend this one anymore. Heavy RNG affecting loot and progression, which are one and the same, is simply bad design. By the way, waah, you don't need to talk about uncomfortable personal happenings if you don't wish to. I was concerned by two things: That the LP would never be completed and archived and that you were unwell somehow. Both of my concerns, at least, are assuaged. Well over a decade ago when I first started following LPs, the LPer disappeared and we found out a good year later that he had died suddenly. It's been so long that I can't remember the name of the game, but that incident left me... sensitive to LPs that suddenly go dormant.
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 21:48
|
|
|
NullBlack posted:that issue with Ease having a 50-50 between removing Bewitched and Dark-Averse leads me to consider that the true purpose of the Averse status effects. The number of times the enemy has tried to Ease their guys of Stunned or whatever and got rid of Averse instead; or the number of times I've Charioted to correct that... IIRC, it now drops your level by 10 (in battle only).
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 21:58
|
|
|
akkristor posted:IIRC, it now drops your level by 10 (in battle only). Correct! It's also non dispellable! Gives enemies a 31 level advantage if it lands
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 22:23
|
|
|
another Festivus miracle!
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2022 23:00
|
|
|
Very happy to have you back, waah!!
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 01:52
|
|
|
The war is actually over by Christmas, especially if you don't mention which Christmas.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 19:45
|
|
|
Do they ever explain how Tartaros knows about the wheel?
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 21:02
|
|
|
Well, if they're bringing in Knight of Lodis (which is questionable), Tartaros probably has knowledge of celestial mechanics due to being perpetually pissed at God and seeking power for power's sake. In Knight of Lodis, Tartaros got an extremely bad deal even after doing God a pretty nice favor of setting up the circumstances to redeem said deity's favorite angel at the sudden cost of his personal happiness. Basically, the Lucifer equivalent Shaher threatens to kill Tartaros and everyone else present if he doesn't get to escape his eternal prison due to being an extremely sore loser and jealous of God's love for humanity. Tartaros' girlfriend Eleanor, who promised to be with him after defeating Shaher, turns around and merges herself with the angel out of pity regarding his loneliness. This is enough to redeem Shaher and send the two straight to Heaven. God does not turn around and send Eleanor back down as he almost certainly has the ability to do, turning Tartaros extremely and understandably bitter and cynical about how the world works since he effectively did all that for nothing. Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Dec 25, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 21:25
|
|
|
Tallgeese posted:Well, if they're bringing in Knight of Lodis (which is questionable), Tartaros probably has knowledge of celestial mechanics due to being perpetually pissed at God and seeking power for power's sake. Well, you see, God is dead.  From user @catiuapavel on Twitter.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 21:49
|
|
|
Dead to him, at any rate. Ungrateful bastard. God couldn't think of any way to save Shaher from turning completely evil short of sealing him and waiting until some nice lady screws up her own future for his sake. You have no clue Knight of Lodis' protagonist ends up being Tartaros until you quite literally have him do everything correctly and he still gets screwed for it. And when that all happens, it's completely understandable! Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Dec 25, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 21:56
|
|
|
Tallgeese posted:Dead to him, at any rate. Ungrateful bastard. Do everything correctly, have the protagonist himself get 50 kills, and clear the game within a time limit. Only then do you get the scene that confirms he's Tartaros. But yeah, the gods of Ogre Saga are generally more hands-off with the affairs of Man after the conclusion of the first Ogre Battle, and also don't like it much when mortals interact directly with the divine. Neurion fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Dec 25, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 22:11
|
|
|
Well, except Ashmedai. He loves it because people and angels start doing very stupid things when they interact with each other. For example, in Black Queen he literally gets a shot at invading the world because an angel fell for the Sage Rashidi (if you buy Ashmedai either is or is related to Diablo) and subsequently did the incredibly dumb thing of stealing the 13th Zodiac Stone for him.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 22:21
|
|
|
So what is the hint/implication that Rudlum is a reincarnated Albeleo from Black Queen? Only connection I can really see is he's a Xenobian searching for Draconic magic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 22:43
|
|
|
There's a couple things. If you compare his Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre portraits, they are very similar except in coloration. In particular, note the... brooch? Collar? Standard Warlocks do not have it. In original LUCT, his Clan was Indistinct/Unknown. Now, it is Xenobian. The most telling is his death quotes, which mention that he will reincarnate. Only he, Warren, Deneb, and Rashidi are known to do it. Two of those are already accounted for. Supposedly, and I have seen no proof, he outright admits it in the Japanese version back on the SNES. Keep in mind these games are not consistent, however. They deliberately dropped Canopus' sister Iuria being romantically interested in Gilbert who is like three times her age, thank Christ. Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Dec 25, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 23:20
|
|
|
Neurion posted:Do everything correctly, have the protagonist himself get 50 kills, and clear the game within a time limit. Only then do you get the scene that confirms he's Tartaros. Oh, THAT was the game with the time limit. I wasn't paranoid about TO for zero reason after all! 
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2022 23:41
|
|
|
For those of you interested in the knight of Lodis ending, I've peppered in a few screenshots during the post game. http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/gba/b/to.htm Let's you look at all the different endings of the game. waah posted:Here go images from the VG museum. It should go without saying that this link is full of spoilers being literally the endings of Knight of Lodis. Click on this link if you feel like seeing the fates of characters who you have no idea about.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 00:57
|
|
|
Accidental doublepost
waah fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Dec 26, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 00:59
|
|
|
How is Knight of Lodis? In general, but also differences in mechanics and such. I played Knight of the Black Queen and Person of Lordly Calibre long after they were relevant (they did not come out in Europe until around 2010) and recall not really caring for either, but Knight of Lodis looks reasonably promising. I can't imagine that it's Let Us Cling Together/Reborn levels, but I wonder if it is as janky and impenetrable as the SNES and PS games.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 02:03
|
|
|
waah posted:For those of you interested in the knight of Lodis ending, I've peppered in a few screenshots during the post game. I remember when you posted that originally. It really makes me want to replay Knights of the Lodis even if it’s probably a real chore now.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 02:04
|
|
|
Knight of Lodis is okay. I can't ever remember why but battles seemed really slow even compared to OG LUCT on the SFC/PSX, and it is way too short for my liking.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 15:49
|
|
|
Tallgeese posted:Keep in mind these games are not consistent, however. They deliberately dropped Canopus' sister Iuria being romantically interested in Gilbert who is like three times her age, thank Christ. i remember canopus asking why she isn't with gilbert in the first coda1 cutscene. edit: lmao nope she's literally just 18. Roobanguy fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Dec 26, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 20:10
|
|
|
^^^^ Yep, lets go ahead and do this. World 30 – All Good Things Must Come to an End Ladies and gents, goons and goonettes, this is it, the final update (not anymore thanks to a year passing and a remake being released out of nowhere bitches!!!). This whole experience has been just as much of an exercise in patience and stamina as it was to actually get through the end game on an All Titles Run that turned into something closer to 90% titles run. My excuse is that finishing the thread for the post-game counts as finishing off the last few titles I didn’t get. I just couldn’t stomach grinding for that last bit of orichalcum needed to craft heavenly forks. The entire Ogre Battle series is something incredibly dear to me. It started as a game that was quirky and unique enough to capture my attention as a teenager, and morphed into to a series that became an emotional crutch to me, to a remake we didn’t deserve (TWICE). This series has been a staple in my life for decades at this point. I was in high school and I rented a copy of Ogre Battle from Blockbuster video. I would rent it multiple times, never getting further than the Valley of Kastro before I had to return the game. I could never get the same copy back without someone deleting my safe files and the battle took too long. I would resort to playing at night and leaving a shirt over my super Nintendo when I went to school so that my parents wouldn’t see the light on the SNES and turn off the console. I was in college, racking up a ton of debt while realizing each month that I was pursuing a degree I wasn’t cut out for. Inertia kept me going forward because at the time, hell even now, the “you need a college degree to get a good job” mantra was in full force. I knew I had nothing but failure lined up, even if I succeed in getting a degree which caused me to start with a bit of underage drinking. Things progressed rapidly from there I knew I was really going to end up in trouble or dead. Ogre Battle 64 was released and it gave me a reason to stay in and out of trouble on those Friday and Saturday nights. I realized I needed to change my life seriously and leave where I was, so I moved back home feeling like a failure. I had OB64 still, but then I beat the game and got the ending where it doesn’t end well for Magnus. It crushed me, I thought I was doing everything right! So, for the next few weeks, I would find myself constantly thinking about this game where I ended up being no better than the power I was rebelling against. I projected those thoughts onto my own life, and realized that I was just on the completely wrong track still. Everything I was doing was wrong, so I re-examined my life, did some soul searching and chose a different path. At one point, Knight of Lodis was the one stabilizing factor in my life. I was struggling with transition to civilian life, constantly bombarded with dark thoughts, and honestly unsure how to even go on. Knight of Lodis was there. I would play it and fall asleep, only to wake up and have to replay a stage when my Gameboy ran out of batteries. The game became my emotional security blanket, and do this date, I’m not entirely sure why. The story is quite dark, the “best” ending is one where the hero is never heard from again, while the canon ending is the one where the main character loses the one thing most dear to him, and goes on to commit unspeakable atrocities for reasons not entirely known. This was not supposed to be a game that gives you something to cling to, (obviously there’s another title that even tells us you should cling to it ) but there was something about seeing a confident person doubt themselves and their purpose that really comforted me. I was obviously no Lanselot Tartaros, but I could definitely understand the emotional rut and moral quandaries that Lans found himself in. I obviously wasn’t going to beat a fallen angel to death with my best bros, but I did want to see how Tartaros… ahem- Alphonse would pull off this impossible task. Every night, Knight of Lodis was there for literally months until I fell asleep, because it kept the bad thoughts at bay. Micromanaging an army down to every weapon, managing alignment, keeping track of kills, and hoping for equipment drops kept me sane. Your mind can’t wonder when it’s occupied. Eventually, once I got past that point in my life, I didn’t need Knight of Lodis as a distraction, but it remained almost an emotional security blanket. Flash forwards a few years, I read a review from a well-known video game reviewer who gave the PSP remake a perfect score. I had never actually beat the original version of Tactics Ogre at the time, I got as far Briganti’s castle in chapter 3, but other games ended up taking my attention from the original version. I enjoyed it, but I just figured it was a game I would never finish. I had wanted a PSP for a long time, so I pulled the trigger and bought a PSP and the remake. I dabbled but nothing serious for a few months. Then the person most dear to me at that time, left my life in a way that utterly broke me. I’ll never forget that day laying in a sparse bedroom, starting at the ceiling. I got up and needed something to take my mind off of everything, and I went looking for one of my favorite books. I found my PSP in a drawer. I couldn’t find the book, so I figured the PSP would be good enough. I grabbed the charger and went back to lay down. The now familiar opening fanfare cut through the deafening silence of my apartment, and I realized, that once again this series would be my comfort through yet another trying time. Tactics Ogre, this massive, completely unwieldy game with a stupidly obtuse end game content became the perfect crutch for months. There was always something else to do, something else to learn, a crapton of rare items to try to collect, and most importantly, fun enough to eat up all of my time. If there’s always something to keep your eyes on, then you can’t see the monsters just barely being held at bay. It’s entirely possible that if not Ogre Battle Saga, then *something* else would have been there to fill the void. Yet, I’m not naïve enough to think that would have been a complete certainty. This series will always have a place in my heart until the day I die. One thing that I feel Tactics Ogre does miles better than other games, is convey and explore extremely complex emotions. Catiua’s death scene pierced right through me. It’s just a multitude of small things, the sprite movements, the hesitation, the utter look of anguish on Denam’s character portrait – those things could only come from someone who at some point had felt that perfect mix of helplessness, denial, and despair. If you’ve made it this far, you may have noticed that the update – For Those Who Went the Distance was easily my most emotional and what I think was the best update I wrote for this whole shebang. I watched several of my friends take the journey into self-despair the same way Azlestan did. I watched as they threw their lives away the whole while giving me the same warnings of what not to do. “Don’t throw your life away,” as I watched them wrack up DUIs, get into constant fights, and end the night in tears as they lost the ability to hide their pain. Yet I was no Denam, I couldn’t find a good enough reason to get them to come out of their spiral. Not all of them have made it this far, they couldn’t continue the fight. While I was lucky enough to not have any of my friends be killed in action while deployed to Iraq, not all of them were so lucky to navigate living a “normal” life again. Seeing the scene in the Pirate’s Graveyard where the treasure is just a remembrance of those who have fallen, was just a brutal scene for me to work through. The ones you care about are the real treasure, and anything to place out there to honor their memory is a priceless treasure. A set of boots, an old shirt, a half drank bottle of their favorite booze, the smell of a shared experience – those sentimental items are the means by which they obtain immortality or at least a temporary sense of life after death. At least until even those who know what those items mean fade out of existence. There are so many of those little scenes in this game, where you don’t quite understand how well the scenes are written until you’ve experienced great loss. This is why I insisted on finishing this thing out. Ogre Battle, well more specifically the Tactics Ogre entries, represent the best and worst of what we all have in us. There are so many different emotions that are represented in these games if you are paying attention to them. The ogres are monsters of myth until all of a sudden, they aren’t and they become you. While life experiences and having small children definitely didn’t help the speed of this post game LP, they don’t represent the entirety of why it all took so long. Truthfully, I’ve been dreading this update because I have been dreading the end of this. As long as these last two or three updates were unwritten, talking about Tactics Ogre wouldn’t be over. I am both incredibly happy to have been able to share the post-game with you all, because I absolutely adore it, but I’m also incredibly sad that this has to end.  If that isn’t the best representation of the final image, then I don’t know what is. The Ogre Battle Saga will continue…, seems incredibly cruel since it’s been 11-12 years as of the time, I’m writing the final update without any news on a new game. But who am I to complain about someone taking too long. I WAITED SO LONG THAT WE ACTUALLY HAD A REMAKE!!!! THE SAGA DOES CONTINUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WORLD 30 – All Good Things Must Come to an End Postgame LP attached to Tithin’s Original LP April 2018 – December 2022 For Those Who Went the Whole Distance waah fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Dec 26, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 22:14
|
|
|
tithin waah you finished your LP  
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 23:19
|
|
|
birdstrike posted:tithin Not quite done yet as waah has two updates and I want to write something myself to see us out. But yeah, we did it
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2022 23:42
|
|
|
tithin posted:But yeah, we did it 
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2022 01:29
|
|
|
Thank you both so much for the effort you put into this lp. It made it a truly special experience and is part of the reason why I was so excited for the remake.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2022 03:59
|
|
|
Such a fantastic LP, one of the SA best. I am legit honored to have been here for the whole run watching and waiting and damned if it hasn't been worth it. I feel like this has been made by Persons of Lordly Caliber!
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2022 04:07
|
|
|
I didn't keep up with it the whole way - man this game is long - but I was here from the beginning and it's been quality the whole time. drat fine stuff.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2022 04:10
|
|
|
drat, end of an era I suppose. Great game, probably the greatest in the series.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2022 12:06
|
|
|
Well done, both! Are you going to get this LP put on the Archives?
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2022 15:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 09:23 |
|
|
The power of Hannakuh and Xmas happening simultaneously brought waah out to post a lovely update. Aren't the holidays nice!
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2022 19:08
|
|
