Snickerd00dle's Summer Challenge 2012 - how is it going?

[alienjesus]

^

(Any RPG) + (Your party has died (x5)) = Much more grinding to be done

Oh I know, doesn't mean I have to like it

I am at the place where most guides say I should be level-wise, so hopefully I can finish this up tonight 3+ hours of grinding=teh suck

EDIT: Died again. Fuck this game. Nothing like an end-game grind-fest to suck out any enjoyment I was getting from the rest of it. I really don't see why people hold this entry in such high regard, the characters and story all seems quite average compared to many better 16-bit RPGs and to better games in the FF series as a whole, and it clearly has some poor balancing issues here at the end.

For the record, my team ranged from level 49 to level 53 when I beat it. It came close a few times, but basically boiled down to spamming curaja with Rosa whilst the others tried to find opportunities toi attack or use phoenix downs or elixirs/dry ethers.

Rydia

was useless, died in one hit to the attack the boss used basically every turn, but the other 4 could normally stand one hit from it each.

Most of my early damage was caused by

Edge throwing shurikens.

After that, it was just gradually whittled down with attacks from the 3 main attackers.

[dsheinem]

^

(Any RPG) + (Your party has died (x5)) = Much more grinding to be done

Oh I know, doesn't mean I have to like it

I am at the place where most guides say I should be level-wise, so hopefully I can finish this up tonight 3+ hours of grinding=teh suck

EDIT: Died again. Fuck this game. Nothing like an end-game grind-fest to suck out any enjoyment I was getting from the rest of it. I really don't see why people hold this entry in such high regard, the characters and story all seems quite average compared to many better 16-bit RPGs and to better games in the FF series as a whole, and it clearly has some poor balancing issues here at the end.

For the record, my team ranged from level 49 to level 53 when I beat it. It came close a few times, but basically boiled down to spamming curaja with Rosa whilst the others tried to find opportunities toi attack or use phoenix downs or elixirs/dry ethers.

Rydia

was useless, died in one hit to the attack the boss used basically every turn, but the other 4 could normally stand one hit from it each.

Most of my early damage was caused by

Edge throwing shurikens.

After that, it was just gradually whittled down with attacks from the 3 main attackers.

My team ranges from level 52-56 and I'm doing all those same things you mentioned, but when the boss throws certain combos at you it doesn't seem to matter.

EDIT: I just timed it...I can get from the last save point to the battle in about 5 minutes (at best, when teleporting out of fights) and then the cutscenes/unskippable dialogue takes another 6 minutes.

So AFTER that 10 minutes of time wasting, I then proceed to fight for about 4 minutes, doing fine until I get hit with/killed by two of the "big" attacks in a row without having time to cast my curing spell. It seems like essentially I would need each character to have about another 1000 HP to survive, which is a hell of a lot of more grinding.

[dsheinem]

Got the first one crossed off the list!

[noiseredux]

Got the first one crossed off the list!

congrats, dood! Glad you had the tenacity to stick with it at the end there. What will you focus on next?

[dsheinem]

congrats, dood! Glad you had the tenacity to stick with it at the end there. What will you focus on next?

I'll focus on not writing angry letters to the people whose names appear in the credits.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Final Fantasy I through V are balls hard for first-time players - especially those not using walkthroughs or hints of any kid. Once you hit part VI the balance is shifted as you characters become overpowered about halfway through the game and the final bosses are a joke.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Here is my list, in no particular order:

1. Hotel Dusk Room: Room 215 (NDS)
2. Ecco the Dolphin (GBA port)
3. Final Fantasy II (GBA port) COMPLETE
4. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
5. Starfox 64 (N64)
6. Sonic CD (NGC port)
7. Return Fire (PS1 port)
8. Nectaris: Military Madness (PS1)
9. Galactic Attack (SS)
10. Decathlete (SS)

Speaking of Final Fantasy...I completed Final Fantasy II last night. I actually enjoyed grinding levels in that game, and my characters were WAY over-powered when they arrived at the final dungeon.

The game had an interesting difficulty curve. It was hard at first, but after spending some time building up my characters stats on some enemies that should have been outside of their range, I found that the rate of growth for my characters' abilities outpaced the rate of growth for the monster's abilities throughout the game. Accordingly, I stayed well ahead of the monsters by simply not allowing my characters to flee from any battles. The only times later in the game when my party was defeated were when they were all hit with a Confuse XVI spell and ended up killing themselves.

In any event, I ended up enjoying the game quite a bit, and I will likely write a bit more about my experience in one of the Final Fantasy threads.

Next up . . . Muramasa: The Demon Blade. I am mostly through Momohime's scenario, and I expect to finish it up soon. It is a very enjoyable game so far, but - like other Vanillaware games - my interest starts to wane after I put in 15 hours. (My 35 hours with Final Fantasy II actually started out as a "break" from Muramasa...)

[BoneSnapDeez]

Speaking of Final Fantasy...I completed Final Fantasy II last night. I actually enjoyed grinding levels in that game, and my characters were WAY over-powered when they arrived at the final dungeon.

If my memory serves me the final dungeon is like two dungeons put together...? It's brutal in the original version (no save points).

It's certainly not a terrible game, better than some of the modern Final Fantasies.

Nice to see Muramasa on your list. Epic game.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Speaking of Final Fantasy...I completed Final Fantasy II last night. I actually enjoyed grinding levels in that game, and my characters were WAY over-powered when they arrived at the final dungeon.

If my memory serves me the final dungeon is like two dungeons put together...? It's brutal in the original version (no save points).

It's certainly not a terrible game, better than some of the modern Final Fantasies.

Nice to see Muramasa on your list. Epic game.

The final dungeon is basically two continuous dungeons (i.e., the Jade Passage and Pandaemonium), and I think that the original Famicom version of this game would be very frustrating. The fact that the GBA version allowed me to save anywhere helped tremendously and allowed me to appreciate the game's merits.

[dsheinem]

Wow, Star Fox is fun. How have I never played this?