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 I've included scans of some relevant pages of the official player's guide we used during the LP below the relevant video. Videos: ================ Episode 01 - Legend of the Seven Dimensions    Episode 02 - Neil Gaimond  Episode 03 - Hidden Chests  Mushroom Kingdom:  Episode 04 - Buffalo Mallow  Croco:  Episode 05 - Mack  Mack:  Episode 06 - Fancy Plaids  Episode 07 - Do Re Do  Belome:  Frogfucius:  Super Bonus 01 - Lost Episode 01  Super Bonus 02 - Lost Episode 02  Episode 08 - Geno!  Bowser:  Rose Town:  Episode 09 - Reverse Santa  Episode 10 - Nya!  Geno:  Bowyer:  Episode 11 - Goomba Stomping  Episode 12 - Yoshi Racing  Episode 13 - Mole Dwarves  Moleville:   Episode 14 - Don't Touch Me  Punchinello:  Episode 15 - Minecart Madness  Episode 16 - Teary Eyed Reunions  Episode 17 - Let Him Die  Booster:  Episode 18 - Gird Your Loins  Episode 19 - Jump!  Knife Guy & Grate Guy:  Episode 20 - The Suite  Marrymore:  Episode 21 - Farting Around the Church  Bundt / Raspberry:  Episode 22 - Fuzzy Pickles  Episode 23 - Sackit  Episode 24 - Do The Thing  Shaman Merchant:  Episode 25 - Trials and Tribulations  Episode 26 - Fried Calamari  King Calamari:  Episode 27 - 1v1 Me  Jonathan Jones:  Episode 28 - JoJo  Yaridovich:  Episode 29 - Shootin' Beetles   Episode 30 - Thornet  Episode 31 - Cricket Jam  Episode 32 - Tasty  Fortune Table:  Belome:  Episode 33 - Good Guy Bowser  Episode 34 - Metaphorical Cake  Episode 35 - Gettin' Sauced  Episode 36 - Heavy Troopa  Episode 37 - Chumpy  Episode 38 - Look The Other Way  Episode 39 - Read the Room  Valentina:  Episode 40 - Watering Eggs  Birdo:  Episode 41 - "Sincere" Thanks  Episode 42 - Seed and Fertilizer  Episode 43 - Volcano Dragon  Hinopio:  Czar Dragon:  Episode 44 - Ride the Bus  Episode 45 - Pipe Haus  Episode 46 - Robert Omb  Episode 47 - Exor  Exor and Boomer:  Episode 48 - Culex Time  Episode 49 - Hiphopanonymous  Factory Info:  Countdown:  Episode 50 - Remember Monster Rancher?  Episode 51 - Poor Bowser  Cloaker & Domino:  Episode 52 - Nostalgia Intensifies  Smithy:  ================ The year is 1996, and Nintendo is several years into the lifespan of the Super Nintendo. Meanwhile, Square has already released their sixth Final Fantasy game in Japan (Final Fantasy III in the US), but they haven't had much luck reaching audiences overseas. Square needs a way to get a foothold in the US market, while Miyamoto is apparently mulling over the idea of having Mario star in his first RPG. Worlds collide, entire galaxies are destroyed, and from the resulting cosmic debris, Super Mario RPG is born. To this day, it remains one of the most beloved RPGs of all time and a cornerstone in my childhood memories. With 3D graphics that were groundbreaking at the time (and remain charming to this day), a fun and engaging battle system, memorable characters, and a wonderful sense of humor, Super Mario RPG truly is a game for the ages. The Story ================ Our story starts out like any other Mario adventure. ================ Characters: ================ The Heroes  It's Mario! Need I say more? You know him, you love him, and this time the Italian Stallion is starring in his first RPG! But don't expect any dialogue out of him. Mario stays true to Nintendo's silent protagonist roots and in a wonderful bit of lampshading, has to communicate to the entire cast via charades and general mummery. And I love it.  Princess Toadstool (or Peach, as you may know her today), is just that: princess of the Toadstools and the Mushroom Kingdom. Kind and generous, she is everything you'd want royalty to be. Her only flaw is the fact that she appears to be very prone to kidnappings, especially when Bowser is involved. Though hopefully, she'll have a more important role to play this time around...  Mallow is a tadpole who lives in the ponds near the Mushroom Kingdom. He's a bit of a crybaby, and can't jump very high for being a tadpole, but the kid's got heart. He's sincere, kind, and has a strong sense of justice. He also happens to be the party's mage.  If you know anything about this game and haven't heard about Geno then... well I'm just surprised. Geno became massively popular among fans of the game (I myself am no exception and love our mysterious blue-caped friend) to the point where, if you listen carefully, you can still hear cries of "Geno for Smash" on the wind... I won't say anything more about Geno, because frankly the mystique is part of his allure. The Villains  He's big, he's bad, and he's back to his old tricks! Bowser serves to get the plot rolling right off the bat by kidnapping Princess Toadstool in what is possibly the shortest RPG setup of all time. Bowser starts off as the game's main antagonist. That is, until we get a visit from...  Meet Smithy! He's a giant sword, he can apparently do magic stuff, and he's out to do... nasty stuff! He pierces the sky, landing directly in Bowser's Castle, and sending our plucky plumber packing. Now Smithy's henchmen are rampaging across the land, and Mario's never faced a villain quite like this before... ================ Ceraph fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2017 04:47
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Episode 01 - Legend of the Seven Dimensions Welcome to my Super Mario RPG LP! This one has been in the works for a while now, and I'm super excited to finally start posting this. Joining me will be Alex and Jackie, who you may remember if you watched our Earthbound LP. Alden will... presumably be joining us at some point, though our schedules have yet to line up. But here's hoping! Anyways, it's time to kick off our adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond! Ostensibly, Mario RPG is very similar to Square's other RPGs at the time, borrowing many mechanics from Final Fantasy VI, but it does shake things up a little bit. Firstly, the timed attacks mechanic brings some of the action from the Mario series to the turn based battle mechanics. You can press the "A" button during specific parts of either your party member's or an enemy's attack animation to increase or decrease the damage respectively. The bonus is pretty substantial (I'm not 100% certain, but at least in the beginning of the game it appears to double your attack / defense) so you are heavily incentivized to learn the timings of attacks. I really like this mechanic, as it makes the turn based battles a bit more involved than they might be otherwise. Even if you've got a boss's strategy memorized, a poorly timed button press could be devastating, so you can't just sit back and let the fight unfold. One of the other big RPG formula changes is having a general "Flower Point" pool for the entire party, rather than having each character have their own magic pool of some sort. It doesn't really impact us right now, but it makes for some pretty interesting choices down the line. You can also jump in the overworld, which seems a bit trivial, but really makes the game feel like a Mario game. It also opens up the level design and makes the world feel a lot grander.
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Sep 15, 2017 04:52
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Scalding Coffee posted:Much as I enjoyed using ZSNES, that is a garbage emulator and it had freezing issues when equipping stuff. You have no idea how right you are, but I couldn't get any others to work with video capture so... here we are haha.
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Sep 15, 2017 20:34
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Genocyber posted:Oh poo poo, a SMRPG LP. A VLP even! I'm always up for an LP of this game, especially with one of you being blind to things. We're using Bandicam to record footage. Also, I had no idea about the second frame perfect defend window. That explains a lot haha. It's always fun learning more about what goes on under the hood of these games. I had considered focusing on specific stats instead of going for the bonus stats, and we might try to focus on getting Mallow more magic at some point. Mario I feel like is a good enough all around character that we can just go with the bonus stat option. Like you said, it doesn't make a huge difference, but it's always fun to try and min/max your party. Scalding Coffee posted:http://www.retroarch.com/index.php I haven't heard to retroarch, I'll have to give it a shot.
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Sep 16, 2017 15:31
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Carbon dioxide posted:The real question is why you already got a second video in that playlist but haven't posted it here yet. Sorry about that, I had the video scheduled ahead of time and then got super busy before I could post it here. I'll have the post up later today! FeyerbrandX posted:Isn't jump technically magic, and also has a hidden damage boost for each time you use it. So power doesn't have an effect on it. Scalding Coffee posted:I defeated the optional super bosses like they were chumps as soon as they were available. It feels like Jump is a physical attack unless you can show me what a star only bonus character looks like. Doing a little research online, there seems to be a consensus that Jump is in fact boosted by your magic attack stat, not your physical attack stat. I do remember hearing about the bonus damage based on number of uses, but I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it. The formula I found is: Jump damage = (timing factor) × (25 + Mario's Magic Attack + (1/2) × (number of times Jump was used previously) – target's Magic Defense) So if your goal is to maximize the damage of Jump, then putting some bonus points into the star can be very beneficial. I did not realize the physical defense from picking hammer every time was that significant, but I feel like since you can do the timed press to defend against physical attacks but can't do it for magical attacks, that almost makes magic defense the more important stat, despite the fact that most attacks in the game are physical. get that OUT of my face posted:Yes, Doo Play RPG crew is back! I won't be able to share little tidbits or Nintendo Power scans this time but I'll enjoy it all the same. Thanks! I hope you enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed playing it so far.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:08
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Episode 02 - Neil Gaimond We encounter a couple of new mechanics in this episode that I really like. The first one is every once in a while enemies will drop what I like to call a "lucky flower" when they're defeated. The lucky flower will confer a bonus to the character that defeats them. The bonuses that can drop are: "Once More": Get a free turn "Lucky!": Have the opportunity to play a mini game after the battle to double either your coins or exp "HP Max": Fully restores that character's HP "Attack Up": Increases attack by 25 "Defense Up": Increases defense (not sure how much) I can't say for sure, but it seems like the Goombas along Mushroom Way drop more "HP Max" lucky flowers than other areas of the game. If this is true, it's a nice tutorialization of the mechanic, while also making the early game where you only have 1 party member a lot easier. We get our first level up, and actually get to see the bonus stat mechanic in play. I really like this mechanic, because even if there is an optimal build path for each character, it gives you a little bit of freedom in how you want to build your characters. If somebody is really lacking in the HP department, you can dump a few bonuses into HP to even things out a little bit. The level up also demonstrates the damage calculations a bit. I love how simple the damage calculations are in this game. Goomba was doing 3 damage with his basic attack, then we got 2 points in defense and he was doing 1 damage. It makes it a lot easier to get an idea of how your level up / gear will affect you in battle. We also hint at the hidden chest mechanic, even though the chest in that area is actually not hidden at all but super visible. Super Mario RPG has 39 treasure chests that are invisible until you jump up and hit them. Thanks to my handy dandy player's guide, I have the locations and screenshots for all 39 of them! I hope to show them all off during our playthrough.
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Sep 19, 2017 02:06
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Scalding Coffee posted:Spacing out flower items is very helpful for dungeons. Nidoking posted:When replaying this game, I don't think I ever use the syrups that recover FP because I've always got an FP increasing item handy for a full recovery plus. Oh my yes. Flower tabs are amazing as full FP recovery items. I do use syrups sometimes, but only if I really need FP in the middle of a fight. Genocyber posted:I'm betting you miss 1. You know the one. Oh I know exactly the one you're talking about. We'll just have to find out 
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Sep 19, 2017 16:33
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Episode 03 - Hidden Chests It's time to hit up our first major town: Mushroom Kingdom! We can stop by the item shop and pick up some new equipment. Notably, the Jump Shoes are for sale, which let you use Mario's "Jump" special on enemies that would normally not take damage from it (like the spiny enemies on Mushroom Way). It also gives Mario's stats a small boost, which is a touch I really like. All of the accessory pins not only have a special effect, but they affect the wearer's stats as well. We also find the first chunk of hidden treasures in Mushroom Kingdom, which has three! Including the infamous one above the throne room, which as far as I recall, is the only one you can miss I also did a scan of the Player's Guide page for Mushroom Kingdom. The Player's Guide has a lot of nice high resolution renders of characters and even some items that don't actually have visuals in game, so I thought I'd include some of them in the posts. There's also some nice write ups on the cast as well. It's got these really handy icons for where the hidden treasures are on each map, which is suuuuper useful. We also meet Mallow, who is our first party addition! Mallow is 100% the mage of the group, so we're going to want to pump him up with a bunch of Magic Attack bonus levels.
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Sep 26, 2017 18:41
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Scalding Coffee posted:Those shoes are the best item in the game. Also helps clothe him since he is only wearing a shirt and no pants. There's a couple boss fights where I like to have specific status immunity, but those jump shoes are gonna be Mario's go to accessory for most of the game.
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Sep 27, 2017 03:53
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Scalding Coffee posted:Is it spoiler to say what other things can freeze the game with this buggy emulator? I have yet to find another recording set up that works, so the heads up would be greatly appreciated haha. We tried using RetroArch, but the game ended up being super laggy while recording and I wasn't able to find any settings that ran smoother.
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Sep 27, 2017 15:48
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Coolguye posted:there's a special build of snes9x that's specifically set up for recording TAS runs. snes9x-r, i think? i forget, i'd have to check. that's the best way to record if you're not doing a netplay run, since you can do a ram and input recording that boils down to one save state per frame, and when you have things working EXACTLY the way you want, you can just record via screen grab using bandicam or OBS. Scalding Coffee posted:Poisoning bosses messed up the game and the poison damage isn't even worth it. Poisoning enemies would be worthless. I will have to look into that and do some testing. Thanks for the tips, guys!
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Sep 27, 2017 21:23
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Episode 04 - Buffalo Mallow We encounter our first star in today's episode! I love how they implemented the traditional Mario star mechanic in this game, letting you win entire encounters outright just by running into the enemies. It really maintains that good old "I've got a star and nothing can stop me now!" feeling from the older Mario games. To keep them from being completely broken, however, they do not respawn. Also Alex started to explain an exploit you can use with the stars, but he got it a little wrong. Luckily we haven't encountered it yet, but the game over mechanic in this game is fairly unique. If you lose an encounter (IE everyone in your party faints) you get sent back out to the file select screen. When you load your game, your progress has been reset, except for any levels and experience you obtained. Chests containing stars are among the things that get reset when you reload your file. What you can do is save right before getting a star, get a crapton of experience from the star, lose the next battle, and do it all over again. We won't really be abusing that, though, since this game is pretty well balanced and I don't think we'll hit any parts where we need to do any serious grinding. We also fight Croco! I've included Croco's blurb from the Player's Guide below (I blanked out half of the page because the next boss got included in this page as well). Their strategy is pretty spot on.
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Oct 3, 2017 02:45
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Reimou posted:Oh, seeing that attempt to equip something freeze the emulator reminded me. The emulator has a similar lock happen when you get the fifth star piece, and it's unavoidable because the game makes you look at the star pieces you have when you get the fifth one. It's a ways off for now. I wish I knew a workaround besides using a different emulator. ooooooh craaaaap. Well I will definitely try and get this whole situation figured out before then. I have figured out how to swap save files between emulators, so at least there's that.
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Oct 3, 2017 04:02
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Scalding Coffee posted:I think they censored Croco's dialog in a rerelease. Mario games are too hardcore for some audiences. That is pretty cool, I had no idea they did that. Though I guess it makes sense, given that that's hardly family friendly language in the UK.
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Oct 4, 2017 15:11
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Episode 05 - Mack It's time to head back to Mushroom Kingdom to pick up Mallow's cricket pie, but the town is under siege! Much to our dismay, the town has been overrun by Shysters (who are just shy guys on pogo sticks). You can collect a few items but saving various townsfolk from the Shysters (the best by far being a Flower Tab). We can also revisit the vault and collect the prizes there again (though this is the last time we can do that). It's also time for another boss fight! This game really does do a good job of throwing boss fights at you on the regular even if they're not all over Star Pieces. This time, Mack is up on the chopping block! Mack will be joined by 4 Shysters who respawn occasionally. We want to make use of Mallow's multi-target Thunderbolt to take out the Shysters while having Mario focus on using Jump on Mack. Mack is actually weak to Thunder damage, but Mario's Jump still packs quite the punch. Mack's Magic Defense is 20, compared to his 25 Physical Defense, so we really just want to rack up our Jump counter as much as possible in this fight. Also in a note not directly related to this episode, I did some testing with Alex the other day and I think we've figured out an alternative recording setup that will work with RetroArch and SNES9x. No menu freezes in the test we did, which is encouraging. It's gonna take a little while to catch up to what we've recorded already around Booster Tower but it should be well before the potentially game breaking freeze that Reimou mentioned. Anyways, below is the rest of the page I posted last time, with the bio on Mack.
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Oct 10, 2017 01:10
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Reimou posted:For as much flak as Mallow gets, he's your best (and certainly most FP efficient) source of multi-target damage for basically the entire game. He's a good source of multi target damage for now. But once we get the Mushroom Boy at Seaside Town and can get as many Rock Candy as we want, Mallow will be completely obsolete.
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Oct 10, 2017 15:22
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Krumbsthumbs posted:I think if you press the button right as the lightning hits for the last time, a thundercrack happens and the attack deals more damage. I forget the exact timing because it has been quite a while. For whatever reason I find it easier to use the audio queue for Thunderbolt, which is why it's hard for me to try and explain it to other people. I always just hit the button about half a second after the first thundercrack sound effect happens, and then if you do it right another thundercrack happens.
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Oct 11, 2017 16:31
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Genocyber posted:[Regarding the latest episode] Oh dang, I never realized how much they sold for. That's a pretty penny. Also sorry for being late with getting the post up, I'll have it done later today.
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Oct 17, 2017 20:54
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Episode 06 - Fancy Plaids It's time to head into the Kero Sewers on our way to Tadpole Pond. As you might expect, the Kero Sewers have a very "World 1-2" vibe going on, though unlike Mushroom Way the music is not a remix of the old Underground Theme. One thing you definitely want to do before heading to Kero Sewers is to buy Antidote Pins from the item store in Mushroom Kingdom. The rat funks in Kero Sewers can and will poison you and it's best just to not have to deal with that. Picking up the Trueform Pin from the
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Oct 17, 2017 22:39
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Episode 07 - Do Re Do It's time for another big 'ol boss battle as we take on Belome! Belome has the "S'crow Funk" ability that can turn your party members in scarecrows (have I mentioned how much I love the status effects in this game?). When you're a scarecrow, you cannot use normal attacks and can only use specials. This is why we wanted the Trueform Pin for Mario (Mallow's basic attacks are nothing to write home about anyways). Beating Mallow treats us to the Midas River mini game! As far as mini games go, this one's not too bad. Just follow the path I outlined going down the waterfall if you want the best haul on the first run, and the barrel pattern is pretty straight forward once you get the hang of it (one top, three bottom, lather rinse repeat). After Midas River, we finally make it to Tadpole Pond and reunite Mallow with his grandpa, Frogfucius! We get a touching (but not very surprising) scene between Mallow and Frogfucius, and then we get the first bit of the Toadofsky mini game! I would never have been able to figure this mechanic out as a kid without the guide, but the rewards are well worth the trouble. If you're thorough, you can find all of the melodies that you need to play for Toadofsky throughout the game. The first one is Frogfucius' Suite No 18, which is right behind Frogfucius in the previous screen. Here are the scans of Belome's and Frogfucius & Toadofsky's pages:
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Oct 24, 2017 04:53
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Episode 08 - Geno! Our first order of business it using our fancy new Alto Card at the Juice Bar! We can now but Elixers for 42 coins a pop. It's kind of expensive, but an 80 HP heal to all party members is great especially considering we won't be getting Toadstool's Group Hug for quite some time. We also want to sell off Mario's Hammer. Unlike many JRPGs, there is no benefit to hanging on to old weapons and armor. With no bank storage and a very limited inventory, hoarding equipment can be very detrimental. Before we can get to Rose Town, we have to make it through Rose Way. There's not really too much of note here. The only interesting thing is the 4 treasure chests with 5 coins each near the end that respawn every time you enter the area. To be honest, I never really used that as much to grind for coins as I did just killing the bandits over and over (each one rewards 10 coins when you kill them). At the end of Rose Way is Rose Town, but things aren't looking too great here. Strange arrows are falling from the sky and people are getting frozen in place! In this sleepy little town hides Geno! The surprise fan favorite from this game makes his first appearance after a quick scene at the inn. The player's guide page has some spoilers about his back story, so I won't be posting it just yet. We do get a bio for Bowser and Gaz, though.
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Oct 30, 2017 23:39
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Super Bonus 01 - Lost Episode 01 We had a bit of a recording mishap a while back and lost a few episodes worth of video from Kero Sewers to the Toadofsky mini game. I managed to salvage the video for the first episode, but we'd already re-recorded it so I just used the new footage earlier. I decided to edit the original footage and put it up as a bonus episode, so here you go!
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Nov 1, 2017 20:42
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Episode 09 - Reverse Santa It's time to head into the Forest Maze and see what's up with all these arrows. There is an awful lot of treasure in here, both invisible and otherwise. You can also use the Forest Maze to stock up on mushrooms which can become especially useful once we unlock the mushroom guy in Seaside Town. I do like that there are just mushrooms popping out of the ground all over the forest. It's a nice treat, and mushrooms aren't exactly amazing items, so it's not completely broken. We also get to show off the last of the bonus flowers: Lucky! Lucky treats you to an optional mini game after the battle where you can potentially double your experience or coins earned that battle. As far as I know it's completely random which one is which. Even when I'm not using an emulator I always play the game. There's only a 33% chance of a negative outcome, so statistically you should end up ahead. Ceraph fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Nov 14, 2017 |
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Nov 7, 2017 00:42
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Scalding Coffee posted:I think the menu only freezes when equipping stuff, but you are still using ZSNES. Very true haha. We're about halfway through what we recorded before switching our recording setup, but I am so excited to not deal with ZSNES anymore 
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Nov 7, 2017 16:21
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Episode 10 - Nya! I realize now going back and editing the footage that we missed something in Rose Town. If you talk to the guy who got locked out of his house by his crazy disappearing stairs again, he tells you about a secret in the forest. The instructions are: Left, Left, Up, Right. This confused the crap out of me as a kid, because I assumed they were relative to the camera, not Mario. We get rewarded with a bunch of treasure chests, which apparently have random contents. They can contain 10 coins, FP up, or a recover mushroom. All that's left is to follow Geno to the boss for this area. As you could no doubt guess, we get Geno as a party member! For the first time, we finally have a full party of 3. We will get more party members, but we can only ever have 3 people in active duty at once. Geno's page in the player's guide has some spoilers about his backstory that we don't learn until after this fight, so I waited until now to post it. One other interesting thing in this scan is the renders of the Thick Shirt and Thick Pants items. As far as I know there's nowhere in the game where you can see the new equipment that you buy, so I think it's cool that they include a bunch in the player's guide. The boss this time is the extremely strange Bowyer! Contrary to what you might expect seeing people in town, he doesn't actually freeze party members in the fight. Instead, he freezes one of your 3 main button inputs. Because you can get locked out of your basic attacks, it's best to save your FP for when that happens. He can also put party members to sleep, so it's best to equip a Wake Up Pin to Mario and Mallow before starting the fight (unlike us). Super Bonus 02 - Lost Episode 02 It's also double update time, as I got the second part of the lost episodes done. Unfortunately the video this time around was gone for good, but I edited the audio together so feel free to give it a listen if you like. It picks up after the last Lost Episode ended, right after Midas River.
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Nov 14, 2017 16:51
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Scalding Coffee posted:Bowyer is in blackface in the original version. You can sort of see him uncensored in the ending credits. Oh... oh wow. I had no idea but now I'll have to keep my eye out for it.
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Nov 15, 2017 17:03
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Episode 11 - Goomba Stomping Before moving on with the main story, there's a couple things we want to take care of. First off, if we head back to Rose Town and go back to the inn, we get a scene with Geno and Gaz. Gaz gives us the Finger Shot weapon for Geno, which is great to pick up both early and free. Worthwhile to note that we can use the inn here for free now for the rest of the game (and if we do, there's an easter egg to boot). The path to Moleville opens up but we're gonna take a detour first. The path to Yo'ster Isle via the Pipe Vault is open as well, and we're gonna do some good old fashioned side questing! The denizens of the Pipe Vault aren't particularly scary (the Goombas here have the exact same stats as Mushroom Way). There is a mini game that's basically like Whack A Mole but with Goombas (which I guess is why they have a mole running it). The first score you need to beat is 20, and then he has you beat your previous high score by 2 every time. I believe the first three rewards are a Flower Tab, Flower Jar, and Frog Coin. The player's guide recommends just sticking to one pipe, which is great if you get lucky, but it very much leaves you at the mercy of the RNG.
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Nov 21, 2017 00:45
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Scalding Coffee posted:That goomba stomp game is not RNG so much as loving over the player. I tried to game it and there were times where no gold goombas would show up. Yeah I'm pretty good with never playing that mini game again haha. I don't think I've seen that reaction, we'll have to check it out the next time we record.
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Nov 21, 2017 14:44
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Episode 12 - Yoshi Racing Yo'ster Isle is completely optional, but you can get some good items out of it. The racing mini game you have to win to get said items can be very difficult, though. I don't know if Jackie and I are in the minority, but I can never seem to get the "rhythm" they're looking for. Luckily Boshi doesn't move at a terribly fast pace, but seeing Yoshi hop up and down while you're trying to find the beat can be really frustrating. For our victory, we get some Yoshi Cookies! In addition to summoning Yoshi and having him eat an enemy in battle (doesn't work on bosses), you can use the cookies as a form of currency and bet on the races. If we can come back later, we can even trade a bunch of cookies for a Red Essence (prevents damage for 3 turns), which is pretty sweet.
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Nov 29, 2017 23:37
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Episode 13 - Mole Dwarves After our brief detour to Yo'ster Isle, we arrive at Moleville! Moleville is home to the mole people who work the mines at Mole Mountain. Poor Dyna and Mite got stuck in the mines when one of the stars fell into Mole Mountain so it's Mario to the rescue! We can grab the absolutely wonderful Work Pants while we're in town, which will remain on some party members for quite some time. Some people like Bowser have equipment that has just absolutely awful defense, and takes a while to outscale the Work Pants. There's not much to speak of in terms of the enemies in the mines. The Magmites have low magic defense while the Sparky has particularly high magic defense so use Mallow's Thunderbolt accordingly. It's also very advisable to track down all the bandits that are with Croco when he nabs your coins as you get ever wonderful Flower Tabs.
Ceraph fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Dec 16, 2017 |
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Dec 12, 2017 02:37
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Episode 14 - Don't Touch Me What's this? Two boss fights in one episode?! If you can really count Croco as a proper boss, anyways. He's not too different from his first fight. He is still vulnerable to fire, so have Mario use Fire Orb fairly often. He does get one new trick this time: halfway through the fight he will steal all your items, so make sure to leave some FP for Healing Rain when you need it. Punchinello on the other hand is a little trickier (but still not too bad). Make sure to stay stocked on FP so Mallow can keep Thunderbolting all the Bob-omb adds. Besides that there's not really anything special about the fight. He's strong against Jump attacks so just have Mario and Geno wail on him with normal attacks. Here's the scan for Punchinello, with some spoilery bits blacked out.
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Dec 21, 2017 05:02
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Episode 15 - Minecart Madness Hey everybody, sorry for the long delay on this one. Work and life stuff have been kicking my butt lately, but things should be calming down for a while now. As a result, I've got TWO episodes for you today! First up, it's time to get Dyna and Mite out of these treacherous mines! We are treated to another mini game on our way out. Luckily, this time it's actually a good thing if you do poorly the first time around! After the first run, if you play it again you are rewarded coins for beating your high score. There is no absolute number you have to hit, so you can purposefully get a very high time and make it much easier to beat it. You can wager 30 coins to win 50 coins if you beat your score. It's not the greatest reward, but it's a decent way to make some quick cash. After finishing the mines, we also unlock some things to do around Moleville. First up is the rare item shop! This philanthropic toad scours the world for rare items and sells them to you at a premium. We pick up the Lucky Jewel, which can be used 10 times to force the shell mini game to appear at the end of a battle. If used wisely, you can easily make your money back with it. The other items (Metal Plate and Mystery Egg) will be very useful to pick up as well, but he doesn't have them in stock just yet. We can also take care of this trading mini game while we're here. Buying the fireworks from one of the mole men (it sounds weird when I say it like that) starts the whole thing off. If you trade the fireworks for a shiny stone, and then a shiny stone for a carbo cookie, you can get the small mole child to get off their bucket! Hooray! The bucket is actually a portal to Midas River, so we've got a shortcut back to that mini game now. Hooray? We'll want to revisit this trading thing later, but that should do us for now.
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Jan 11, 2018 02:12
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Episode 16 - Teary Eyed Reunions ZSNES rears its ugly head again in this episode (just a few more episodes to go before we never have to deal with it again). Despite that, we manage to make it through Booster Pass and on to Booster Tower! There's not a whole lot to Booster Pass just yet. There's a switch in Booster Tower that unlocks a passage in Booster Pass, so we'll be coming back soon enough. We also
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Jan 11, 2018 02:31
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Scalding Coffee posted:Random trivia: That weird face at the door to Booster's tower, is on some sort of lift, so he is clipping through the floor. You can't use it, it is a programmer's trick. As a developer, that trick makes me so incredibly happy. Why program some special behavior when you can just use platforming tricks that already exist?
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Jan 11, 2018 17:23
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Episode 17 - Let Him Die It's time to check out Booster Tower! I always liked this area, though I think the slammin' music is a large part of that. I also love Booster as a character / antagonist. He's not evil or even particularly malicious. He's just an insane man-child who has no idea how things in the real world work because he's had his servants tend to his every need his entire life. We also touched on something in this episode that I haven't mentioned before. Every character (except for Geno) has one of the four playing card suit symbols show over them when they do a special attack. So far we've seen Mallow with the club, Mario with the spade, and Bowser with the diamond. I did some research online into the symbolism of the suits but I wasn't able to find any correlation that seemed obvious. If anyone knows definitely let me know! Also, the scan for Booster:
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Jan 18, 2018 01:07
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Scalding Coffee posted:I like how flat Mario doesn't look terrible compared to 3D Mario. It's true, on modern displays the crisp pixel art even looks cleaner. That just makes me think of how much I would kill/die for some sort of Mario RPG remaster. All the same stuff, just capture the stills of the models at a higher resolution.
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Jan 19, 2018 18:53
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Episode 18 - Gird Your Loins Turns out I've got two episodes for you guys because I forgot I edited two episodes in one week. Whoops! Anyways, we're continuing our traverse up the deadly Booster Tower. The first thing we encounter is a little puzzle involving Booster's lineage. If you remember in the last episode, we passed portraits of the previous Boosters in order from oldest to youngest in the lobby. Now we have to inspect these jumbled up portraits in that same order (653124). Our reward is Bowser's first weapon: the Chain Chomp! Bowser has some of the best weapons in this game (both stats and aesthetics) and I just love the fact that he chucks a chain chomp at enemies. We also encounter a room filled with coins! Both regular coins and frog coins populate this room, but there are invisible encounters all around. Unless you're looking to do some quality grinding (which isn't necessarily a bad idea. The enemies here have a high drop rate of Lucky! flowers) I wouldn't bother with the regular coins. They're only worth 1 coin each. One last thing, this marks the first episode after we switched to using RetroArch and the SNES9x core. Which means, no more menu freezes! This is truly a momentous occasion.
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Jan 24, 2018 17:34
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Episode 19 - Jump! We're just about at the top of Booster Tower, but before we reach the princess there's a quick mini game we have to do. It's very simple and you can't really fail it. If you get spotted behind the curtains you just have to start that chunk over again, but they always go in the same order so you should get it without too much trouble. Unfortunately, Booster absconds with Toadstool before we get a chance to stop him. Knife Guy and Grate Guy block our way and we've got to take them down before we can give chase. There's really not much to this fight. Focus down Grate Guy first, then unload all the fireballs on to Knife Guy. After the fight, we're rewarded with another mini game! Again, you can't fail this one (I don't think you can fail any of the required mini games) but you can get some sweet sweet max FP upgrades out of it. You can play this mini game again later for a chance to win some frog coins, but you only get one shot at getting flowers. EDIT: Here's the scan!
Ceraph fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 11, 2018 |
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Jan 24, 2018 20:17
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Episode 20 - The Suite In today's thrilling episode of Super Mario RPG, we stay in the suite! ... A lot! It's expensive at 200 coins per night, but for your first stay you get a Flower Tab, and for your third stay you get a Flower Box! A permanent FP upgrade of 4 for 600 coins isn't a bad trade in my opinion. I also just love staying at the suite, and the room service is one of the few places you can buy Kerokero Colas (albeit at quite the steep price). Mario singing / whistling in the shower is such a great touch. There are so many little things like that in this game, you can tell it was a labor of love. We can also upgrade some of our equipment at the shop (conveniently located at the inn as well). You should probably be more careful about what you buy than we were, though. Turns out the Masher is amazing and won't be replaced for a couple towns yet. Also because of how relatively little defense Geno's and Bowser's armor gives them, the Work Pants are actually still the best call for now. Don't bother picking up any Happy equipment for them. EDIT: I missed this one earlier, but here's the scan for Marrymore and Chef Torte!
Ceraph fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Feb 11, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 23:15
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Nidoking posted:I'm rather sad you didn't show what happens if you sleep in the suite multiple times, particularly when you're out of coins. Oh no, I completely forgot that was a thing! For anyone who's interested, I found a no-commentary video that shows off what happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj5JCDjAfXI&t=205s
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Feb 6, 2018 17:15
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