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Well, welcome to Crossbell. You got a very brief view of the Station Street and Central Square of the city at the start of the Divertissement chapter in Cold Steel II and they're pretty close to their 2D variations. Looking forward to a wild ride. And Cold Steel II end-game grade NPC rounds after every single plot event. :P - Remiferia is not where the Church is. That's Arteria. And Le Locle in Sky SC was in Leman. (which is also where the Epstein Foundation and Bracer Guild HQ are located) Remiferia is to the north of Crossbell. Lucy Seiland, the girl who was on the student council together with Kloe, Hans, Jill and Lechter in Sky the 3rd, was a transfer student from that place. - Random tidbit: Vingt-Sept is French for twenty seven. - Since the shadows seem to be slightly misaligned (might be a resolution thing), the sprites often appear to be floating rather than standing. Try not to pay too much attention to it, because it'll get distracting fast. :P - Randy's not from Crossbell itself, so he's not a local. - Stun Halberds have been used by Crossbell's paramilitary force for some time, but Tio's staff is like the first of its kind. (this game takes place before Cold Steel and Reinford hasn't begun copying those yet) So it's not weird Lloyd's unfamiliar with it. - The S stands for S-craft and the b stands for "break", meaning that one's set as the S-craft you use when you do the S-break. Not really applicable right now, but everyone gets a second S-craft in this game. - Tio's physical attack is indeed low, but like Emma and Elliot, her weapon counts as a magical attack meaning that it's factored against magical defense rather than physical defense. It still does sucky damage if you don't upgrade her weapon. At least her S-craft is good against stuff with high physical defense since it eats right through those. - Not sure how insistent you're gonna be about DP bonus. Let's just say that unless you get pretty much all optional conditions right, you're not gonna be seeing that tier 1 DP reward in this game. - There's only three final bonding scenes in the game, one with Elie, one with Tio and one with Randy. It's actually possible, if you pick the right characters for the right scenarios and execute your combo crafts (which you'll get later) a very specific number of times, to create a save file where you can view all bonding scenes in one playthrough. Saving after each one also keeps it flagged in your export file at the end of the game. If you're not interested in the nitty-gritty, there's always YouTube. - While the tutorial section bringing up Tio's chestplate isn't technically wrong in that it supposedly grants defense and Tio's defense stat is slightly higher than Elie's, it's also blatantly misleading when it suggests Tio's suitable for frontline battle. For one, the defense stat in the Trails games is pretty much a direct point-for-point damage reduction and it's a stat that quickly becomes practically irrelevant once the numbers start rising. Secondly, Tio's HP stat is just way too paltry to let her absorb much punishment and if you try to use her as a tank, you'll quickly end up with an ex-fourteen year old. - I usually just use Lloyd for field attacks because unlike the others, his field attack has no start-up delay, still has a hitbox that's much larger than it seems and hits twice. Though Elie's still good if you want to snipe stuff and get the aiming logic down. Tio's dead zone is annoying to deal with and Randy's swing is kinda sluggish. - The statdown-specific resistence is kinda weird. In practice, I don't think I've run into a single monster in this game that resisted some statdowns while still vulnerable to others. It's always either everything or nothing. Falcom just conflating them all into one in Cold Steel was long overdue. - Randy's S-craft is pretty much a copy of Loewe's Demon Flames S-craft in terms of animation, main difference being it inflicts burn instead of faint. - The team rush turn bonus does pop up from time to time outside of max advantage encounters, but it's relatively rare. If an enemy gets the turn bonus, they fortunately don't do a "Burst", but it does immediately bump up the turn of every single enemy on the field to the top of the turn order, meaning that in a battle against a single boss, it has no effect, but in a battle against several strong monsters, prepare to get gang-raped to death if you let the critters have it. - There's no Haze quartz in Zero (all quartz you do get is listed in the notebook right upfront), though there's one that makes enemies on the field run away sooner. - Monsters that do notice you can be kind of persistent in the Crossbell games. They don't really seem to have an invisible leash like they do in Cold Steel, you just need to put a certain amount of distance between them and your party before they give up. (there'll be a little icon above their heads once they do) - Yep, that choice about Anri (which, I think, is supposed to be Henry spoken in a French accent) is a choice that nets you BP. (one of many) Crossbell isn't nice enough to tell you DP bonuses for certain battle outcomes yet, so let's see how persistent you're gonna be in the battle ahead. Delphisage posted:I have no idea why the game decided it needed to start on a flash forward. It's not like it even hints at or covers anything more detailed than "yep, our PCs sure do get to exploring ancient castles" and "Yes, the extra elemental coverage from Sky 3rd is sticking around". There is a reason Falcom decided to stick that little bit in there, but it's not something that's immediately obvious. Erpy fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Jan 28, 2023 |
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Jan 28, 2023 12:31
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Hwurmp posted:All Cops Are Bracers This game: "LOL, no!"
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Jan 28, 2023 17:30
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Just as a note, Evasion is very strong in this game, and Lloyd works very well as an evasion tank. In this game, I'd argue that Randy's the better evasion tank since he hits harder and has a longer range on his weapon (2 RNG versus Lloyd's 1), meaning more frequent retaliation. Unlike Azure, I don't think any of Lloyd's weapons in Zero have an evasion bonus.
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Jan 28, 2023 18:04
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Tio is essentially Crossbell's Fie; a socially stunted loli with no anti-snark filter and some of the best lines in the whole game.
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Jan 29, 2023 10:18
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Maybe, but what would you build Lloyd as then, because Randy is already the power hitter with the bigger HP pool? I use both of them as frontliners and try to boost the evasion of both, but when it comes to distributing top-tier stuff like the evergreens, I found myself prioritizing Randy because Lloyd gets a means of keeping his defense boosted and defending against ailments, meaning the consequences of the enemy getting a shot in are less severe with him.
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Jan 30, 2023 09:47
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- Arios MacLaine was mentioned in Cold Steel before. Remember that samurai robot boss at the top of the Reinford building that gave you such a hard time back in Cold Steel II? The one that had the "Divine Blade of Wind's techniques programmed into it?" This is the guy it was trying to emulate. - You already very briefly met Grace back at the start of Cold Steel II's Divertissement. Now you get to meet her chibi-form. - Given how the Erebonian civil war ended with only three recorded casualties, I'd say the size of the graveyard for a major metropolis is about right. ;P - Yes, Tio can speak cat. And that grumpy cat in her room also appeared in Tokyo Xanadu. (I believe it's called Kagumaru or something) Like Mishy, Pikkards, Zwei Penguins and Poms, this is another one of those things that Falcom turned into cross-franchise mascots. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Actually yes, you do want to feed the cat. The eventual reward is great. But only if you start feeding him before the stuff you usually feed him even becomes available.
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Feb 4, 2023 20:44
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- I imagine any citizen can buy quartz in an orbal factory, it's just that without a battle orbment, that quartz is useless and battle orbments are hinted to be fairly expensive, which is why only bracers, police officers and high school students conveniently selected to test new models are ever carrying them. - I can think of at least 15 NPCs far more deserving of dialogue portraits than Fernand and Chaco, but these were apparently in that gacha game, so they got back ported seeing that they were already there. - The chest IS BS, but it's still possible to find out about it without a guide since there's a quartz early on you can equip that shows all treasure chests on the screen. - You HAVE seen a baby in a Trails game before.  - The only time you actually need an item created by failing a recipe is ironically in the prologue.
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Feb 12, 2023 01:08
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- There's a separate run button in Sky and Crossbell too that shifts you between walk and run mode when you hold it down. (you even used it during this play session) It's just that most people (naturally) have the game set to always-run, so it's hardly ever used. - The reward from the cat may not seem much, but there's an end-game reward for feeding the cat every single chapter and that includes feeding it in the prologue when you don't have other food he'll accept yet. - It's pretty funny you called Colin's expression a "children-of-the-corn stare", given that you-know-who runs around with a giant friggin' scythe in her pockets. - I see that that habit of you casually foretelling future events in random jokes hasn't gone anywhere. - I believe there's two chapters where you can get better equipment from the casino than what's available in stores at that point, although it requires quite a bit of medal-grinding. Erpy fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 13:09
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- Hey, Rean did the "I can sense people" thing nearly as quickly into Cold Steel and Tio has a much better excuse for why she's able to do that. - Both those vacant rooms you inspected will have occupants from the start of Chapter 1 on. - It was actually the early phase of Cold Steel II where your physicals keep missing if you lack Hit quartz. And in this game it's not nearly as bad.
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Feb 26, 2023 12:27
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Admiral H. Curtiss posted:Despite Zero/Azure largely using the same buff/debuff/ailment mechanics that Cold Steel does (unlike the weird mess that was Sky...), there's one significant difference that you can spot in your battle with Wald here: In Cold Steel, the turn you start casting is a 'free turn' that does not decrement the turn counter or trigger any end-of-turn effects like Poison. In Zero/Azure, they count the same as any other turn. So, for example, if you start your turn with a 3 turn SPD+ and cast an Art, by the time the Art is done casting you only have 1 turn SPD+ left. This also means that it's impossible to refresh your buff with a self-target Art if you have 1 turn left on it before you start casting! This took me a while to get used to. This is also why Fortuna is kinda cumbersome in Zero. You can cast it twice, raise your ATS stat to the max and pump out ONE boosted attack art and then you don't even have enough turns left to renew your buff before it runs out. They buffed Fortuna's ATS buff to 5 turns in Azure as a band-aid solution, but it wasn't until Cold Steel that they introduced the "charging turn is not a real turn" mechanic.
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Mar 6, 2023 08:32
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- Huey was the red nephew. The green one was Louie. - On the bracer board, "perimeter patrol" (or "Erebonia/Remiferia") means "don't bother looking for this bracer this timeblock". - Aeolia is essentially albino Anelace, as you no doubt immediately took note of. - Estelle's reaction to Tita in Sky was also along the lines of "we could take her home, she'd be like a pet who'd cheer us up whenever we felt down" before Joshua commented on how hosed up that sounded. - Grace wouldn't be able to afford a luxury apartment in Villa Raisins, but you do find out who lives there eventually, long before Sammie does. - That door in the back alley is open in Azure for exactly one segment and if you miss it then, the recipe behind it is lost forever. I found this out the hard way. But yeah, it does lead to the department store's behind-the-counter section even if the door's not obvious from inside. - In the pre-Geofront fan translations, Grizzly Grimm's nickname was "Mister Beardy Bear". It was used in serious conversations the same way nicknames like "Divine Blade", "Radiant Blademaster" and "Icy Maiden" were used. It was hilarious. - You're not the only one who noticed Inspector Dudley's similarity to Machias. Take note that this is Machias' menu portrait post-Cold Steel II.  They're not even being subtle. I'm pretty sure that Falcom, when coming up with characters to be part of Class VII, thought something along the lines of: "Alright, we already have a blond tsundere with mommy issues, a harem lord who can go super-Saian and operate a huge mecha, a snooty noble with a chip on his shoulder, a snarky emotionless kid, a mysterious girl with big boobs who is mysterious, a sword lady who swords, a music note in human form and a guy who says "wind" a lot, but we're still missing something. Oh, I know: how about a younger, dorkier Dudley with a slightly smaller stick up his butt?" Erpy fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Mar 12, 2023 |
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Mar 12, 2023 15:12
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- There's no rush to get the covers, but they do contribute 1 bonding point. (I'm not sure what the ones for Lloyd do, but his do count for the achievement.) They're quite affordable, at the standard Sepith exchange rate, that's less than 6 of each color. Just maybe hold off until after more useful stuff - especially weapons - is purchased. Not just that, they also carry over into Azure and doing so gives you an additional bonding point with those three characters in that game too. So it's a good idea to buy them at some point.
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Mar 27, 2023 13:04
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I love how you are able to tell who's the new tenant of that apartment on East Street by the bo staff mounted on the wall and the obnoxious amount of sneakers stored in the cupboard underneath it.
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Apr 2, 2023 17:47
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- As others mentioned, Poker is the most efficient way to get medals. In this game and Azure, you can raise once and fold once for every round, so if you save before playing, fold if you get a bad hand and raise if not, you'll have pretty good odds of winning. - Elie's holy bullet is great. Healing to everyone and 20 CP to everyone but her for 20 CP was so good they nerfed that craft in Azure so it couldn't target her anymore. So enjoy it while it lasts. - That's probably the first time I've ever seen a monster dodge a battle scope.
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Apr 10, 2023 18:07
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Tio was Estelle's friend who lived on the farm outside of Rolent. Did you ever read the Ring of Judgement manga? It's readable here. It's basically a side story taking place after Trails in the Sky SC while Estelle and Josh are touring Erebonia and during the story they team up with your favorite sentient scratching post Toval and also briefly meet Ein. Near the end, a panel shows them watching the SSS face off against those three giant apes and rush in to assist.
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May 14, 2023 20:45
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- People like to rag on Cold Steel for Rean's harem, but all that stuff is mostly contained to optional events. Crossbell is nowhere that subtle and tends to pick mandatory story-related cutscenes to beat you over the head with the harem anime shenanigans. - The reason only the little girl in the reception area had a name is because she's the little girl who usually hangs out with her cranky grandpa during the day. He's the guy in the Crossbell harbor who fishes all day long and hates everyone who isn't his granddaughter. - This series would never stoop to mini-plotlines of people teaching wolves how to paratroop. People teaching dogs how to paratroop on the other hand. - I think Randy is like 3 or so years younger than Cecile. - "Nurse Cirone rules". Yes. Yes, she does. (though she requires an appreciation for Mint-like catastrophes)
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May 22, 2023 18:37
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I definitely don't agree with that. Randy has too much personality - he's nowhere near bland and serious enough to be a main character. Secondly, he gets only a small to moderate amount of attention from women, instead of an obsessive amount - that alone is enough to discredit that he was a secret main character. Of course, Estelle and Kevin don't fit those criteria either and they're actual Trails protagonists.
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May 25, 2023 07:21
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The reason Shanshan latches onto Rixia, aside from the fact they're both easterners, is because they're the same age. I don't think it's brought up very often, but I believe that at the time of Zero, Rixia, the primary object of Falcom anime-boobs obsession, is the same age as Elliot. (i.e: sixteen)Rabbi Raccoon posted:I actually have a theory that Imelda is from the same place as Emma Hmmm, not sure about that. (very minor Cold Steel IV spoiler: you can talk to her in Cold Steel IV with Emma in the party and Emma, Erebonia's worst liar, never even bats an eyelid) Erpy fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Jun 21, 2023 |
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Jun 21, 2023 07:18
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:When Ilya isn't being an HR nightmare, she's a pretty solid character. And, if nothing else, I appreciate how her being a lesbian is treated as just a fact. No one questions it or finds it unusual, which as A Gay is nice to see. Sky wasn't BAD about per se, but Olivier's finding Joshua attractive is treated as slightly odd. At least by Estelle. But then again Estelle was very anti-anyone finding Joshua attractive In Olivier's case, it was less the fact he found Josh attractive and more the fact he immediately offered a hug and make-out session. Josh asked a tricky question and Olivier's extremely agressive come-on was his way of (successfully) changing the subject. Schera calls him on it later on.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:35
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- In the fandom, Rixia is notorious for how her bust size seems to increase in each successive game she appears in. Elie isn't that far behind either. I think Alisa also gets an asset upgrade, although for her it is not to excess, unlike the first two. Since Rixia doesn't have a baby face, it's easy to forget that the owner of Zemuria's largest chest already had that title while she was still a minor. (I believe that at this point in time, she's the same age as Elliot) And forget the "seems". I believe later games actually comment on how she's still growing in that aspect.
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Sep 12, 2023 08:41
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- Don't think I didn't catch that Gabriel Knight II reference. - The moment you headed towards Stargazer Tower, I knew you were gonna spend 10 minutes commenting on the bananas. - You do meet Vaan's alcoholic dad eventually, though not in this game. And when you meet him, I imagine your first reaction is gonna be "of course, THAT'S the name they gave him". - There's two people with the surname Crois. One male, one female. You'll meet both before long. - Remiferia is a principality, so the "Grand Prince" Arios is talking to is actually the head of state.
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Sep 20, 2023 19:21
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claw game handjob posted:Basch? Bacchus
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Sep 20, 2023 20:21
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Level 1 Thief posted:Good catch! I did forget about Kurt having a completely missable breakdown about mind control there, that was a wild scene. I don't think that scene was missable. Joshua even refers to it in his conversation with the villain at the end.
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Sep 21, 2023 05:55
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It was possible, btw, to at least enter the premises of the MacDowell estate before. (though not the actual home) I believe that while you were doing the subquest with the cat that Ryu and Anri found (that was secretly adopted by Sunita without Bond and Creil being aware), it was possible to enter the gate and knock on the door of the MacDowell estate and the butler would answer the door and mention the kitten didn't seem familiar. The reason he didn't react to Elie's presence? Because while your party was facing the door, Elie "subtly" moved to the back of the group and hid behind the gateposts before Helmer could open the door and after he closes the door, she walks back up to the group before they could turn around.
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Nov 2, 2023 11:17
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- Remiferia is DEFINITELY not like Spain. You've met a handful of people who were born there, like Lucy Seiland (the transfer student who was on the Jenis student council together with Kloe), Aeolia and one more prominent character in Zero. None of them would be mistaken for Hispanics. - Scott's fiancee is the dark-haired receptionist of the Times Department store. You've definitely spoken to her before.
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Nov 12, 2023 00:52
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- "Kitty" kinda already revealed herself last chapter (and it's exactly who you think it is) when she mentioned she was going to amuse herself by "messing with Freckles". - By "gearing yourself up", the game means (but does not say) something along the lines of "make sure you have deathblow accessories unlike you enjoy cursing at the Random Number God".
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Apr 22, 2024 12:27
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- Jona's theme and the IBC basement theme are actually two different tunes although they use the same leitmotiff to denote the connection between the occupants of both rooms where said tunes play. - The legendary journalist's name is revealed in Azure, although said person was already a background NPC you were able to talk to in Trails in the Sky the 3rd. (tip for later: remember where that Fulitzer price is) - Arcus units from the third Cold Steel game onward already have cameras and primitive apps. - Lloyd was the name of the NPC who... ahem... hooked Estelle on fishing. You first met him in FC at the lake inn in the Bose region (where Olivier got his attention by blowing in his ear) and in SC he was the one who gave Estelle the first fishing rod in Ruan. In 3rd, he was the first opponent in the dreaded Fishing Door. He was already first referred to when the SSS first met Joshua and Estelle, who mentioned they also knew a Lloyd and a Tio back home. - 1:37:12 Hahaha. - Yes, Janetta works at the department store. She and one of her colleagues even have a mini storyline stretching over the course of several games.
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Apr 30, 2024 14:31
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 12:32 |
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You might remember those skull-faced cannons from Trails in the Sky the 3rd, where a whole group of them was one of the bosses of the third chapter, although this time they don't have a phantasmal copy of Kevin to spam Grail Sphere and keep them under max guard status. Fun fact: the doppelgangers can also use Exploding Talisman. If you're not kitted out in anti-deathblow gear and the RNG decides it hates you and you're not gonna win, Yin will just create several copies and they'll all be spamming that one move until the last member of your team stops moving. One difference between the doppelgangers and the real one (or rather the 2nd generation body doubles and the 1st generation body double) is that the weaker copies are vulnerable to AT delay while the main one is not, so Randy and Noel can use their crafts to keep them pinned down. None of the foes in that fight are immune to stat-down, so spamming Chrono Down on them in order to limit the number of turns they get is considered a very good strategy on harder difficulties. Erpy fucked around with this message at 18:26 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 18:09
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