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Gotta say that I'm a bit disappointed that the supposed mafia members aren't talking like some old gangster movie stereotypes. If you lean this hard into the joke you need to go all the way.
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Jul 23, 2019 17:24
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6 loving damage from a hit? This early in the game?? drat. Isn't the most damage you could take at once like 15, from an Amazee Dayzee?
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Jul 23, 2019 19:48
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SSNeoman posted:6 loving damage from a hit? This early in the game?? drat. Isn't the most damage you could take at once like 15, from an Amazee Dayzee? Actually, in both PM and TTYD they hit for 20. But yeah, you don't see anything hitting for 6 in the base game until you get to Tubba Blubba.
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Jul 23, 2019 20:12
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Cerebral Bore posted:Gotta say that I'm a bit disappointed that the supposed mafia members aren't talking like some old gangster movie stereotypes. If you lean this hard into the joke you need to go all the way. I agree. I actually find this whole mafia stuff random enough to be funny, but it'd be even better if it went deeper into it.
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Jul 24, 2019 02:01
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I was hoping with the Don this and Don that that they were going to change the cloaked guys with the TTYD Piantas. I can't believe I just said I wanted Piantas in another game.
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Jul 24, 2019 03:05
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FeyerbrandX posted:I can't believe I just said I wanted Piantas in another game. 
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Jul 24, 2019 05:51
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yeah, it actually rings even more hollow considering the mafia was such a major plot point in TTYD... but so be it. The changes are much more interesting than annoying, at least for now.
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Jul 24, 2019 07:10
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Quackles posted:Next Time On Master Quest: Two words: ‘Spiked Paragoomba’. That sounds horrific but I can't hold it against the hack when Paper Mario: TTYD had something even worse. Please excuse the terrible old meme. 
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Jul 24, 2019 07:26
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Spiked...paragoombas...this early in the game when your only attack that could hit them is the Hammer Throw. Okay, NOW the game is bending the player over the table. Also that Kamek fight. Jesus. Anyone else think they want people to grind early game?
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Jul 24, 2019 07:48
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Kemix posted:Spiked...paragoombas...this early in the game when your only attack that could hit them is the Hammer Throw. Okay, NOW the game is bending the player over the table. Also that Kamek fight. Jesus. Anyone else think they want people to grind early game? It's definitely the kind of romhack made for someone who's an obsessive Paper Mario player and knows all the tricks. I think he absolutely intends for you to grind the quiz for as many Star Pieces as you can.
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Jul 24, 2019 21:05
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I suppose the problem with the Magikoopa is purely one of the high damage being pulled out, since without an HP level up you'd die in two hits, no second chance. But considering everything is hitting harder I probably would've taken that HP level too. That puts you at 15 HP against his 6 damage attacks. With Power Jump and Goombario, you should be able to defeat him from pure damage output pretty fast, plus you have that early Super Shroom. Maybe you could also sleep him with the Sleepy Sheep. 6 damage is still pretty high and should be lowered, but the tools are there to get through. It just might take more than one attempt. I know playing Paper Mario as a kid definitely resulted in me having a fair few game overs throughout so I'd expect the same from a hard mode hack.
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Jul 24, 2019 23:47
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FPzero posted:... the tools are there to get through. It just might take more than one attempt. I know playing Paper Mario as a kid definitely resulted in me having a fair few game overs throughout so I'd expect the same from a hard mode hack. So far, I haven't had any Game Overs. I think I'll add a counter for that in the end-of-episode lists.
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Jul 25, 2019 01:23
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I feel like people treat Game Overs badly these days, but they were definitely learning experiences for me growing up. Obviously there's a fine line to walk between fair and unfair when it comes to difficulty and romhacks are usually bad about toeing it. But like, if I'd been playing here and game overed to this fight because I didn't expect the heavy damage output I would be able to go into it a second time knowing what to expect and just bust out the biggest guns I had right away. I think it's okay to lose a fight on occasion. It's when every single fight becomes a slog that we have a bigger problem. We'll see how things go from here but right now I feel like I'd want to give this hack a shot for myself. It's always interesting to see N64 hacks.
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Jul 25, 2019 02:05
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I was the kid who didn't know the word "strategy" so when I was a wee gamer and I lost a battle, I'd just go back with bigger numbers and/or play harder and meaner. Buff? Debuff? Bitch, the only debuff you'll get is debuffing that HP to 0
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Jul 25, 2019 02:24
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:I was the kid who didn't know the word "strategy" so when I was a wee gamer and I lost a battle, I'd just go back with bigger numbers and/or play harder and meaner. Buff? Debuff? Bitch, the only debuff you'll get is debuffing that HP to 0 Honestly, other than SMT and MMO’s, most RPG’s I remember playing as a kid that had buffs and debuffs had a problem where they weren’t very effective.
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Jul 25, 2019 02:32
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Yeah, but bluffs are pretty universally bonkers. It's a rare game where push button to hit harder is something you don't want to open with.
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Jul 25, 2019 02:35
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FoolyCharged posted:Yeah, but bluffs are pretty universally bonkers. 
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Jul 25, 2019 04:02
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FoolyCharged posted:Yeah, but bluffs are pretty universally bonkers. It's a rare game where push button to hit harder is something you don't want to open with. I can think of a couple (Golden Sun/TLA for instance), but those are mostly games which are either super easy already or where the buffs are incredibly trivial and not worth the time to put them up. Also in question is which buffs and what games? For instance Haste is super great in nearly FF game it's ever been in whereas Berserk is almost always a detriment except in FF4 where it engages Turbo Murder mode.
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Jul 25, 2019 04:08
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FoolyCharged posted:Yeah, but bluffs are pretty universally bonkers. It's a rare game where push button to hit harder is something you don't want to open with. Most games don't show how much your damage will get increased by and it can be kind of hard to notice the difference, especially with random damage variance that exists anyways (maybe that was just me and my attention span, though...). Why do something that might help when you could just start carving faces in?
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Jul 25, 2019 04:14
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An interesting thing Paper Mario does is every enemy formation on the overworld is not random, but predetermined. That is, enemies don't appear randomly on the overworld. They're all placed individually, and each one has a formation tied to them. (There are a tiny few exceptions with random enemies on the overworld like the Amazee Dayzees, and in TTYD many overworld enemies have a set of predetermined enemy formations they randomly pick from.) Romhacks like Master Quest and its predecessor Pro Mode can use this to their advantage, as you can balance every encounter progressively and set up various scenarios and make each encounter a different sort of challenge. They can also use this to create various........surprises.
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Jul 25, 2019 04:28
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LiefKatano posted:Most games don't show how much your damage will get increased by and it can be kind of hard to notice the difference, especially with random damage variance that exists anyways (maybe that was just me and my attention span, though...). Yeah like, if a random battle in a game I'm playing will take two turns to beat, why would I bother applying a buff that doubles my attack? It'll just take two turns anyways and then I'm down MP/FP/whatever. That thinking definitely led to me undervaluing buffs and debuffs in the few RPGs I have played and just slamming my face into things until I won. See: Golden Sun and spamming Summons at the start of a boss battle because huge numbers, not realizing that setting Djinn for summons severely lowers your stats until they come back.
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Jul 25, 2019 04:41
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The main issue with buffs/debuffs is that their value is hard to tell. A game may tell you Protect buffs defense by 10, but it takes some knowledge of damage formulas to figure out if that's good. Poison or sleep may be great, but the hard part is getting it to land and if not the turn's wasted. Usually you don't even know if an enemy's vulnerable to it and you missed or if it's immune. FF4 is made massively easier by most of the bosses being vulnerable to Slow, but good luck knowing that without a guide, or figuring out that it did anything when you don't know how fast they usually attack.
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Jul 25, 2019 04:47
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My favorite example is Dragon Quest 3, where young me figured out buffs in that game were ridiculous amazing to the point where one of my party members would be dedicated buffer. Then the final boss just totally negates all buffs automatically with no text anywhere in the game indicating this. It'll still say you cast the buff, it'll still say your guy got buffed, but since the game had no visual indicator for a lot of the buffs, you really had no way to realize without watching the numbers closely.
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Jul 25, 2019 06:04
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Bruceski posted:The main issue with buffs/debuffs is that their value is hard to tell. A game may tell you Protect buffs defense by 10, but it takes some knowledge of damage formulas to figure out if that's good. Poison or sleep may be great, but the hard part is getting it to land and if not the turn's wasted. Usually you don't even know if an enemy's vulnerable to it and you missed or if it's immune. FF4 is made massively easier by most of the bosses being vulnerable to Slow, but good luck knowing that without a guide, or figuring out that it did anything when you don't know how fast they usually attack. Honestly, that's one of the nice parts of how Paper Mario works. Someone's Attack or Defense get buffed (or debuffed)? You can calculate the likely effects in your head. And buffs/debuffs matter. The one I could never figure out for most RPGs was if it's worth using moves that inflict status effects, because most enemies don't need them and most bosses resist them. But I seem to recall beating Macho Grubba in my last play of The Thousand-Year Door thanks in part to a lucky freeze from a stage effect, so I guess they have a place.
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Jul 25, 2019 06:30
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The usefulness of buffs tend to vary from game to game. If encounters can be cleared out super fast with just damage, yeah there can be little point to them. Status effects are a more tricky thing, as their inflictions are almost always chance based, and more often than not, you don't really get told the odds of them working. While they can make life easier in RPGs, if the player gets unlucky and sees a bunch of failures, or everything is just really resistant to them for whatever reason, they can easily be written off as useless. Paper Mario 64 and TTYD aren't really much different in that regard. A lot is based on how much an enemy resists things, none of which is told to you. Though in the case of Paper Mario 64, I believe any attacks that can inflict a status effect has a base 100% success rate if you succeed at the action command. (it's a bit different in TTYD for a few things I believe.) Also fun fact, a few attacks that inflict a status effect in this game actually get more difficult to execute their action commands if the enemies resist the status effect. (Kooper's Dizzy Shell is one example.) And against enemies immune to it, you flat out cannot succeed at the action command at all. I believe this mechanic got taken out for TTYD and it just does the standard RNG roll there.
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Jul 25, 2019 09:21
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Part 5 : Fuzzies, Bigoombas, and Koopas, Oh My! We start Chapter 1 by heading onto Pleasant Path. Music: March Ahead  It does look pretty pleasant! But is that a Koopa that’s loyal to Bowser I see?  Yes, yes it is. Thanks to a Jump First Strike, our very first Koopa starts the battle flipped over. It appears that Koopa Troopas’ HP has been buffed; they used to have 4 HP, but now they have 5. Their Defense (1 standing up, 0 flipped over) is still the same.  Koopas stay down for several turns after they’re flipped, so we can take out the Spiked Goombas with Hammer Throw while Goombario headbonks the Koopa.  The battle ends without the Koopa getting a chance to actually attack.  A little further down the path is a Paragoomba. It’s teamed up with…  Wait, is that an extra-large Goomba???   They’re much stronger than a normal Goomba, boasting much more HP. But I’m not a normal Goomba, so you just leave it to me! It turns out that Bigoombas have 5 HP…  ...and they attack for 2 damage, so we’ll be taking chip damage while fighting one.  I target the Bigoomba, because if I dodge, the Paragoomba does no damage.  A little farther along, there’s some ? blocks. The one in the background can only be reached by going through a secret passage in some foliage…   …but even if Mario finds the passage, he’ll need to be able to jump higher to actually hit the block. Best come back later. At this point, I ended up taking a quick side trip back to Toad Town to rest and store inventory (so I could raid the ? blocks) and I noticed the Dojo was open!  For those who don’t know, the Dojo is a series of five hard, optional boss fights: first against a Buzzy Beetle named Chan, then against Lee the Duplighost, then three bouts of increasing difficulty against The Master. There’s nothing to win but a certificate, and nothing to lose but my pride. So why not?   Uh-oh. That lightning bolt means that Chan is electrified! Mario will take contact damage if he jumps on Chan. The Zap Tap badge might help with this, but we haven’t got it yet - or the Star Pieces needed to buy it. Still, we have to try. Let’s see what Hammer Throw does.  It looks like Chan’s defense is off the charts! Well, it’s at least 3.  His attack is off the charts, too. (In the original Paper Mario, Chan had 15 HP, 2 Attack and 2 Defense. He’s just a tad stronger here.)  Jumping does flip him, but it hurts! And Chan is still electrified when he’s flipped over. (The yellow square is a ‘lightning’ effect being overlaid on Mario. Graphical glitch.)   It’s worse for Goombario, who will lose a turn from the shock instead. (He’s headbonking in the first pic.)  Chan can flip himself upright and attack in the same turn. Unsurprisingly, he defeats us handily.  Hm… You lack strength. You have skill, though. Please return here after you have trained some more. [cough] [hack] Back on Pleasant Path, the red ? block contains the Dizzy Attack badge. Dizzy Attack makes Mario’s Spin Dash so that if he hits an enemy while dashing, the frontmost enemy in the formation will start the battle with the Dizzy status effect. (Dizzy enemies are stunned until it wears off.) Unfortunately, we don’t have time to see what it does before we’re accosted by a Spiked Goomba.  Wait, hold up. Is that what I think it is? This is a Spiked Paragoomba. Well, Mario, we might be in trouble here. As you can see, he’s wearing one of those awesome spiky helmets. That rules out my headbonk and other jump attacks. But how else can we reach him? Don’t we have any other attacks that can hit flying enemies? And where can I get one of those sweet spiky helmets?Yes, Spiked Paragoombas do have a Defense of 1, by the way. There’s one other fact about this formation that a screenshot fails to convey: I can’t jump on the Koopa. The Spiked Paragoomba is directly above the Koopa in the formation, and is thereby blocking anyone from jumping on the Koopa. What teamwork!  I actually use Hammer Throw to KO the front Spiked Goomba first, just so we take less damage while we sort this formation puzzle out.  Spiked Paragoombas don’t actually attack with the helmet - they just fly into you. So, they only do 2 damage instead of the 3 the Spiked Goomba would do.  Koopa Troopas attack for 2 damage. In the base game, they attacked for 1.  Hammer Throw takes out the Spiked Paragoomba in one smooth hit. This is almost certainly why its damage was buffed.  With the helmet-wearers gone, we can take out the rest of the fighters easily. Though that was a tough battle formation, it gave us 8 Star Points, so it’s not all bad.  It looks like Dizzy Attack is unchanged from Paper Mario. Sadly, we don’t have the BP to equip it.  A little ways down the road is a ? block with a Fright Jar.  There’s also a battle with a Koopa with another Spiked Paragoomba in tow. We use Hammer Throw to KO it and flip the Koopas.  From there, standard tactics apply. After the Koopa is defeated, we’re able to find a POW block in the nearby ? block.  The nearby tree also has a switch that, when hammered, makes a bridge appear across the river.    It’s hard to see, but the nearby brick block has a Spiked Goomba atop it. We’re not breaking that block!  I took another quick trip back to Toad Town at this point to heal. Of course, this means the enemies come back. I zoom past a few with the Speedy Spin.  There’s also a Star Piece on this segment of the path, but we’ll only be able to get it once we have Kooper, our next partner.  We also pick up a Sleepy Sheep behind a fence, then head to the next area.   We want to go to Koopa Village. If we tried to go straight to Koopa Bros. Fortress, there’d be a switch we couldn’t hit yet blocking the way. Also: See that blue-and-green Candy Cane by the sign? If we dash around that in a circle, it’ll spit out hearts. We can use this to our advantage to heal if we get beaten up around here.  So, once Mario’s fully healed, we head down to Koopa Village instead.   If Mario hits these brick blocks in the order left-right-center, a block with a badge appears.   The badge is Attack FX B, which changes Mario’s attacks to have the sound of a slide whistle. Koopa Village is just ahead.  Unfortunately, the place in chaos! Fuzzy-related chaos.   Music: Fuzzies Stole My Shell! Mario can help the Koopas get their shells back by solving some simple puzzles.       Oh, thank you, Mario! I owe you one. I just can't walk around without my shell on. Talk about embarrassing! Mario, be sure to keep your shell safe from Fuzzies, all right? We also find some a Dried Shroom and a Koopa Leaf hidden in bushes.  The Koopa Leaf will be useful for cooking later. In the original Paper Mario, I’m pretty sure you could only get one leaf per visit. Here, one bush on each screen of the village gives Leaves, and you can get another leaf each time you change screens - making Koopa Leaf grinding easy.  Donlon’s ‘associate’ isn’t much help, but we can just head for the one house in Koopa Village that has the most commotion.  It’s Kooper, our soon-to-be new partner! But with his shell stolen, he’s in trouble.   Let's help him out.  Of course, the shell-stealing Fuzzy absconds out Kooper’s back door.   A bunch of other Fuzzies start running interference for the shell-stealing Fuzzy. Unlike the ones in Koopa Village (which just bounce around), these ones fight you.  Fuzzies have 4 HP, but if you don’t defeat them in one turn, you’re in trouble…  ..because they drain your HP to heal! Note that they have 3 attack, too, so they can always undo the damage of one of your normal attacks. (In the original game, Fuzzies had 3 HP and their attack did only 1 damage.)  This just means that attacking fuzzies requires teamwork.  The chase leads past an HP Plus badge on some stumps. We won’t be able to get this until we have Kooper to help us.   We finally corner the Fuzzy in a grove with four trees, but we have to play hide-and-seek with it to convince it to give up the shell. The Fuzzies jump between trees in the ‘hiding’ phase, and we have to hammer the one we think the shell fuzzy is in.   After three rounds of increasing difficulty, we get the shell back and the Fuzzies retreat.   Kooper asks to join us! He’s emulating his archaeokoopagist neighbor, Kolorado.   And so we get our second partner. Kooper has two moves: Shell Toss, where he launches his shell at the frontmost enemy, and Power Shell, where he sends himself flying through all ground-bound enemies.  We get to test his moves out when the Fuzzy we beat challenges us!  OK, let’s do the math here. Say we knock out one Fuzzy on this turn. Then, the other Fuzzies will attack us for 6-9 HP when they act, depending on how well we dodge. Then 4-6 HP the turn after knocking out the second Fuzzy, then 2-3 HP before we can KO the last one. I don’t think Mario has enough HP to tank that! Fortunately, we’ve got an alternate strategy. Power Shell time!  Kooper’s Power Shell has been buffed compared to the base game. It only costs 2 FP, one Flower Point less than in Paper Mario. We use the Fire Flower we picked up back near Goomba Village to finish the Fuzzies off in a blaze of glory.   On the way back to Koopa Village proper, we’re able to test out Kooper’s field ability: sending his shell out to hit switches and grab items. Here, we end up snagging the HP Plus badge we saw on the way in.  Like in the vanilla game, the badge is basically a way of trading one level-up’s worth of BP for HP, instead.  Koopa Village is nice and quiet now that the Fuzzies are sorted out. Music: Koopa Village  The house with the yellowish roof is the home of the famous archaeologist and explorer, Kolorado. Kolorado’s always running from one mysterious place to another to do research. His dad was a warrior, y’know. I think he went to fight a dragon named Hooktail. I wonder how he’s doing.We can repeat the simple block-pushing puzzle on the east side of town to get a Star Piece.  The shop sells a few items we haven’t seen before.  Dizzy Dials can make most enemies dizzy, stunning them. Volt Shrooms will give Mario that nifty electric effect that Chan was using (which we can also get by equipping the Zap Tap badge). Prices are, of course, higher due to Master Quest-related inflation. Dizzy Dials originally cost 10 Coins, not 12. POW Blocks cost 4 Coins in the base game, not 10 - and Fire Flowers previously cost 8 coins instead of 12. Volt Shrooms have been bumped up to 20 coins, from 15! Yikes! There is one more thing we can do here in Koopa Village before it’s time to hit the road.   Yep! It’s the start of old Koopa Koot’s favors. This will be a persistent sidequest for the next five or six chapters.  Kolorado’s House is just a few doors down. He isn’t here, but his wife gives us the book.    It was behind the bookshelf. Legends? Is that what they’re calling ‘em now? Kolorado’s wife has a little extra advice for us.  We’re going to ignore it.   On giving the book to Koopa Koot, he rewards us as we richly deserve.   For his next ask, he wants a Sleepy Sheep. We give him the one we picked up outside Koopa Village.    It looks like his payment schedule is going to be a habit. This time, though, he also gives us…    A card for a minigame house in Toad Town! We’ll get access to the ‘Playroom’ once the Toad Town logjam is cleared out of the way, after the Chapter’s over. That’s the last favor Koopa Koot will ask for, at least for now, so it’s time to focus back on the main plot, and head to the Koopa Bros. Castle.  Game Version: Updated from 1.1.6 to 1.2.0 Badges: 7/89 (New: Dizzy Attack, Attack FX B, HP Plus) The previous version of the game said there were 87 badges. That was a mistake, and this version correctly says there are 89. Star Pieces: 14/180 Chuck Quizmo’s Quiz Questions: 6/64? Game Overs: None, yet Chan doesn’t count - you wake up in the Dojo with 1 HP. SUMMARY OF CHANGES FROM MAIN GAME (in this installment) • Chan, Buzzy Beetle at Dojo, trains formidably. ( +15 HP, electrified shell, +6 Attack, +? Defense, can get up and attack same turn) • Extra-large Goombas observed in vicinity of Pleasant Path. (Bigoomba: 5 HP, 2 Attack.) • Hostile Koopas team up with Spiked Paragoombas as anti-air defense. (Spiked Paragoomba: 2 HP, 1 Defense, 2 Attack.) • Bountiful harvest year for Koopa Leaves in Koopa Village. • Koopas get buff. ( +1 HP, +1 Attack) • Fuzzies also get buff. ( +1 HP, +2 Attack) Maybe it’s all the Koopa Leaves? • Koopa Village shop raises prices on Volt Shroom, Fire Flower, Dizzy Dial, POW Block (the last one by a LOT). Next Time On Master Quest: Kooper joins the Bob-omb squad. Quackles fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Aug 3, 2019 |
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Jul 25, 2019 10:52
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See, this I'm a little less cool with. Adding new enemies and formations is cool, but making it so basically everything is doing chip damage the whole time? That means that every battle is going to be a net loss of HP. Obviously that's more like how other RPGs handle it but other RPGs also have healers in their parties. Paper Mario never has healers, just healing items. And with only two party members available at a given time, only one of whom can use items and do the vast majority of attacks, skipping your turn to heal often won't get you out of the bind you're in. So it's more a race to see if you can get through all the foes before your HP pool gets whittled down. Not to mention the item costs are increased. I hope you're getting more coins for these fights but somehow I doubt it. I know I was praising it yesterday, but today I can't help but raise an eyebrow.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:17
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Quackles posted:There’s one other fact about this formation that a screenshot fails to convey: I can’t jump on the Koopa. The Spiked Paragoomba is directly above the Koopa in the formation, and is thereby blocking anyone from jumping on the Koopa. What teamwork! Apparently this kind of logic was in the original game, but it was never actually used. Presumably because it is very devious.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:23
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Color Printer posted:Apparently this kind of logic was in the original game, but it was never actually used. Presumably because it is very devious. Probably because there isn't a whole lot of ways for the player to deal with it. Your basic moves either hit anyone in the line from above or just the enemy directly in front. Other abilities have to be found in the environment, so you really can't guarantee the player will ever have the toolset to deal with that scenario. On top of that, it isn't really immediately visible. Spike hats are a clear visual. An enemy flying over another one (with a lot of clearance no less) doesn't immediately indicate "Can't jump on the bottom one" without additional visuals like a grid in place, which is already hopping into lots of complication with little pay off. Honestly, it shows that Paper Mario could have been a very complex game if Intelligent Systems wanted it to be but they opted for really simple and player friendly, which is good in my opinion, considering the general tone of the game and its target audience.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:46
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FPzero posted:See, this I'm a little less cool with. Adding new enemies and formations is cool, but making it so basically everything is doing chip damage the whole time? That means that every battle is going to be a net loss of HP. Not shown in the LP: I've been using Toad Houses and Heart Blocks a lot, often after every two battles or so. Each battle is individually a challenge now - which is arguably the point of the hack - but you do need to hang around Heart Blocks for it to work.
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Jul 25, 2019 20:16
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Quackles posted:Not shown in the LP: I've been using Toad Houses and Heart Blocks a lot, often after every two battles or so. Each battle is individually a challenge now - which is arguably the point of the hack - but you do need to hang around Heart Blocks for it to work. If you have to go back to the Toad House after every two fights or so (or until you get to a heart block) it sounds like it really interrupts the flow of level progression, or otherwise forces you to grind like hell
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Jul 25, 2019 20:18
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:If you have to go back to the Toad House after every two fights or so (or until you get to a heart block) it sounds like it really interrupts the flow of level progression, or otherwise forces you to grind like hell Speedy Spin means you can dash past most enemies while traveling, so I haven't been grinding much. Mario's only at Level 3 so far, if I remember correctly. If I ever find myself needing to grind for something, I'll take a side trip to the Pit of 100.
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Jul 25, 2019 20:30
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I have one hopefully tiny critique about your style. You seem to sometimes have your commentary above the screenshot it's relevant too. It makes it a little hard to follow at points.Quackles posted:
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Jul 25, 2019 21:50
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mateo360 posted:I have one hopefully tiny critique about your style. You seem to sometimes have your commentary above the screenshot it's relevant too. It makes it a little hard to follow at points. Yeah, I've been putting it above sometimes and below sometimes, depending on what I felt flowed best for each scene. If it's bothering people, I can try to normalize it a bit.
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Jul 25, 2019 22:48
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I'd recommend sticking to comments below images just because it's more of a standard among SSLPs. Definitely don't recommend mixing the two, because then it becomes all confusing.
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Jul 25, 2019 23:41
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I definitely prefer always below. I find it easier to look at an image and then read the comments about it rather than the other way around.
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Jul 25, 2019 23:49
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mateo360 posted:I have one hopefully tiny critique about your style. You seem to sometimes have your commentary above the screenshot it's relevant to. FPzero posted:I'd recommend sticking to comments below images just because it's more of a standard among SSLPs. Definitely don't recommend mixing the two, because then it becomes all confusing. senrath posted:I definitely prefer always below. I find it easier to look at an image and then read the comments about it rather than the other way around. OK - will do!
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Jul 25, 2019 23:51
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I love the original Paper Mario so I'm really looking forward to see what else changes, for better and for worse!
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Jul 26, 2019 03:59
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Tattle posted:The house with the yellowish roof is the home of the famous archaeologist and explorer, Kolorado. Nice. Nobody tell him. 
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Jul 27, 2019 19:04
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| # ? May 2, 2024 06:15 |
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Part 6 : Mario Go Boom With Kooper in tow, we’re able to get into Koopa Bros. Fortress.  But we’re going to go back one screen in the direction of Toad Town first, to grab that Star Piece we couldn’t get earlier.  There’s a Honey Syrup hidden behind a Candy Cane on the road to the fortress.   On the next screen, the Koopa Bros have set up an ambush.  Mario’s ready for it, though!   It turns out that Kooper’s Shell Toss does 3 damage! It only does 2 in the base game.  This lines up extremely well with the many 5-health enemies on the Pleasant Path.  Kooper can also KO Spiked Goombas on his own, too, which is nice.  A little past the ambush site, there’s a block Kooper can hit to net us a Thunder Bolt.  In the base game, Thunder Bolts did 5 damage. Here, they do only 1, but Shrink an enemy, halving its Attack. The change was likely made because there’s an upgraded version of the item, the Thunder Rage, that already hits all enemies for the same damage.   The Koopa Bros.’ big ‘security system’ is keeping the bridge leading to their fort locked behind a switch only a Koopa could hit. But we have a Koopa.   Past the bridge is a new enemy: a Paratroopa.  This is a Paratroopa. No surprise here— Paratroopas are Koopa Troopas with wings. When you jump on 'em or use a POW Block, their wings fall off and they become normal Koopa Troopas. It's easy to beat 'em once they're normal Koopa Troopas. Give 'em another Jump attack! They think they're pretty cool because they wear sunglasses, but they're not that tough.  Jumping on a Paratroopa will knock it out of the sky, and if it’s a timed jump, it’ll fall to the ground knocked over.  This is just as well, because in this game, Paratroopas attack for 3 damage! They only had an Attack of 1 in Paper Mario.  We end up in trouble thanks to the Fuzzy hitting us repeatedly for 3 damage while we flipped the Paratroopas.  We’re able to focus down the Fuzzy, but…  We end up with 1 HP after the opponents have had their turns. This state is known by the game as ‘Peril’.   I have Mario eat a Mushroom so we don’t bite it, while Goombario keeps flipping Koopas. Then, next turn, we take out the Bigoomba with a Power Jump.  Once only Koopas are left, we can keep them safely flipped with Jump attacks, and are out of danger.   After the battle, we collect a Fire Flower that was in a hidden block, then head back to the Candy Cane that gives hearts to recover.   On the next screen, there’s a Star Piece hidden in a tree.   The early outbuildings of the fortress have come into sight! We won’t be able to get through that pipe until we come back with someone who can blast through walls, though.  There’s a Heart block at the end of this path… thank goodness! After using it, it’s time to bust into Koopa Bros. Fortress. Music: Koopa Bros. Fortress   Thankfully, Black Koopa Bro runs inside without locking the door.  The first room of the fortress has a Koopa guarding a locked door. The Koopa has the key, so we jump on him.  Who are all THESE people? This is a Bob-omb. Bob-ombs are pretty temperamental, and they get steaming mad when you attack ‘em. You’d better not jump on ‘em when they’re angry or they’ll blow up in your face. In fact, stay away entirely. Attack ‘em from a distance with items like Hammers. Or you could send in other things, like shells. If they attack when angry, they’ll charge in and explode. So you’d better take care of them before they blow!Only one problem with that.  Bob-ombs have a Defense of 1 in this game! It’s not going to be easy to take them out in a single turn, no sirree.  On the other hand, they attack with a jump attack that only does 1 damage… when they’re cooled off. Bob-ombs can randomly get mad after they attack.  We can see that the rear Bob-omb has decided to get mad. The mystery Koopa in the back seems to do the same 2 damage as a normal Koopa. Who is he, anyway?  He’s almost as strong as they are, but that isn’t really saying much. They practice ninja skills, so if he jumps, be careful he doesn’t sneak up on us. He also buffs his allies’ Defense. That could be bad for us! We need to take this guy out fast!Despite what Goombario says, the Ninjakoopa isn’t top priority. The Bob-ombs are.  That’s because Bob-ombs do 5 damage to Mario when they explode!!  Kooper carries the day with a well-timed Power Shell, stopping the other Bob-omb from blowing up in our grill.   The White Ninjakoopa responds by deploying that Defense buff. He already had a Defense of 1 like a normal Koopa, but now it’s 2 - and he still has the buffed Defense of 1 when he’s on his back!   Mario can still knock over the Ninjakoopa with Jump attacks, despite the Defense buff - he just won't do any damage. The Ninjakoopa can get up and attack in the same turn, though (like Chan back in the Dojo), so it's only useful to lower his Defense for a strong hit.  The last move White Ninjakoopas have is a jump attack, like a Dragoon in Final Fantasy. He jumps on one turn…  …and lands at the end of the next turn, doing 3 damage.  Kooper comes in clutch to KO the pesky Ninjakoopa.  We level up from the battle - and I pick BP, this time. It’ll let us equip that HP Plus badge we got earlier, until something better comes along.  The Koopa drops a door key after the battle.  The next room has Bob-ombs in it, but the door out isn’t locked.   It turns out, if Kooper does a First Strike on a Bob-omb, it starts the battle mad. This means I can explode it right away.  Just… not by jumping on it! Jumping on an upset Bob-omb makes it explode for 6 damage - even more than the 5-damage hit from the regular explosion!   Instead, Kooper can defuse (well, detonate) annoyed Bob-ombs without trouble, as we saw earlier, while Mario takes care of the air side of things.   Note that we did not knock the Parakoopa down on purpose. That way, Mario and Kooper can take care of the other Bob-omb from a calm state by attacking it twice next turn: once with Mario's hammer, and once with Kooper. That’s the basics of defusing Bob-ombs: give them a wide berth, detonate them from range, and arrange matters so that you can KO a Bob-omb in one turn if it hasn’t gotten mad yet.  In the next room, the Koopa Bros. have secured some door keys behind gates, where we can’t get at them.  The gated area in the middle of the room, though, has a secret entrance on the right side, which the Koopa in the pic just jumped out from.   We’re able to go in and get a completely new badge: Gambler’s Jump. (Power Bounce was here in the base game.) Gambler’s Jump does either a lot of damage to an enemy, or almost none.   Usually, it’s almost none! I asked around and did some testing. The badge will normally do a standard-damage jump (1+1 = 2 damage) without using an action command. However, it has a 1 in 5 chance to deal +4 extra bonus damage on the first hit (for a total of 5+1 = 6 damage, instead). The chance of a big hit apparently increases as Mario gets better boots, eventually topping out at 1 in 3. I don’t think this badge will be that useful, unless the game gets hard enough for me to have to exploit RNG via save states. I’ll only do that as a last resort, and I’m not there yet! Power Jump is better for dealing bonus damage consistently (albeit less of it). It costs less FP, too.  There’s another key in the cage on the right side. We’ll be able to get it once we can blow up the wall. Once again, the door is unlocked, so we can just ignore all of this.    In the next room, the stairway leads nowhere. Instead, we fight a nearby Koopa to see if he’s got a door key.  This particular Koopa has three Bob-ombs in tow, making him something of a final exam at Bob-omb defusal. (The solution to this one that doesn’t involve Mario getting blown up is for Kooper to use Power Shell, then Mario can set off the remaining Bob-omb with his hammer.)  This Koopa didn’t have a key, but a switch drops from the ceiling after beating him.  Hitting it makes the stairs lower, becoming a stairway down to the basement.  In the basement, there’s a door to the right and a passageway to the left. We take the door…  And find a prison cell with a bunch of Bob-ombs. It’s a pity none of them have noticed that the cell wall is weak!  When we go down the left passageway, the ways out levitate off the ground where we can’t get to them. It’s an ambush!  We have to KO a Koopa and two Paratroopas before we can leave.     We make it! … just barely.  In the next room, there are Fire Bars.  If you jump over a Fire Bar 10 times, it gets faster with each swing - then explodes into a shower of coins.   Past the Fire Bars is a key, so we can open the door upstairs.  In the next room, Yellow Koopa Bro is working on something awfully suspicious.  OK! This is perfect… I think.   Before we go up there, we go out a side door and save at a conveniently placed outdoor Save Block.  Back in the spiral room, we head to the door to the left, first, and ignore the suspicious ? block.   In the room to the left, we pick up a Dusty Hammer and a POW Block from ? blocks. However, the door is locked, so we can’t go farther. (I can’t find any reference to these ? blocks in walkthroughs, so it’s possible they’ve been added for Master Quest.)      So, we have no choice but to hit the suspicious ? block and, as they say, ‘fall for it’.   We end up in the same jail as the Bob-ombs we saw earlier, and meet Bombette the Bob-omb.      She’ll join us in the fight against the Koopa Bros - they’re the reason she’s locked up here.  Bombette’s specialty is blowing things up… like cracked walls.   …like the one in this jail cell.   Oh! An escape route! Well, I… I guess I never thought about doing that before… I was so mad, I just blew up over and over in one place! Tee hee! OK, that was a little silly!  On the way out, we’re ambushed by the Koopa prison guard and… are those red Bob-ombs?   These shiny red jerks have some heavy artillery locked away inside. They somehow found a way to pack twice the firepower into the same tiny body. Technology, amirite? Goombario isn’t joking around. Not only does a standard Cherry Bomb jump attack do 4 damage, instead of 1…  …but they can also light up and attack in the same turn, doing a whopping 10 damage when they explode in Mario’s face!  Kooper defuses the second Cherry Bob-omb at range before it can give us a Game Over. From the looks of the damage dealt, the Cherry Bob-ombs also had 2 Defense!  With the Cherry Bob-ombs beaten, and Bombette on our side, it’s time to take another trip through the castle. We now have the key we need to blow everything wide open. But what further nasty surprises do the Koopa Brothers have in store for us? Badges: 8/89 (New: Gambler’s Jump) Star Pieces: 16/180 Chuck Quizmo’s Quiz Questions: 6/64? Game Overs: None so far, but I did have both Cherry Bombs blow up on me on their first turn while I was replaying their fight for testing purposes. SUMMARY OF CHANGES FROM MAIN GAME (in this installment) • Kooper, through advanced velocity training, has a stronger Shell Toss. (3 damage instead of 2) • Thunder Bolt items do only 1 damage, but shrink like Mario Kart. • Paratroopas healthier and meaner. (+1 HP, +2 Attack) • Bob-ombs now extremely dangerous. (+1 Defense, +1 HP, and they explode for 5 damage instead of 2). • Koopa Trainee Ninja Corps hired by Koopa Bros as mercenaries. (White Ninjakoopa: 5 HP, 1 Defense (0 flipped), 2 Attack, 3-damage jump attack, can give an ally +1 Defense, can get up and attack on the same turn.) • Power Bounce badge filched from fortress, replaced with Gambler’s Jump badge. • Cherry Bob-ombs assigned to guard Bob-omb prison cell. Extremeli-er dangerous-er. (Cherry Bob-omb: 8 HP, 2 Defense, 4 Attack, explode for 10 damage. Can light and explode on the same turn.) Next Time On Master Quest: Bob-omb buddy burgles Bros.’ bastion, beats Bowser (?). Quackles fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Jul 28, 2019 04:05
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