Together Retro December 2021 - Camelot on the Spot

[MrPopo]

It's also interesting the sheer difference between bosses who are mostly physical and bosses who are mostly magic. Mostly physical is a snoozefest; one Support and you stop caring, while mostly magic and half your party is spending their turns healing to keep you up (Shield comes so late for Lisa).

[SpaceBooger]

So I finally finished the South Shrine... it took me forever to realize you "had" to fall down one of the holes to finish it.
That is done, I saved the King and have 2 extra party members. I did notice that Arkane is real weak so I tried to keep her in the party to level her up, but then learned that the members not active still received XP and level up in the background. That is nice.

Speaking of party members and since everyone will level up as I play - who is your preferred party of four when playing?

[MrPopo]

When I got Akane I swapped her in for Basso and ground her to 20 immediately (her exp gain at that point is quite fast and a had a single Apple for 19->20). She gets the mass heal spell very early promoted so I knew I wanted her around. Didn't bother with Forte or Doyle, and then swapped Lisa in for Rodi.

[Nemoide]

I feel bad for not participating this month. I'm waiting for my Toshiba CRT to come back from the repair shop before I hook up my Genesis and it's taking longer than expected. I'm tempted to start Golden Sun as a backup option but I already have a handheld JRPG going (Valkyrie Profile) and don't want to start another one yet.

[alienjesus]

When I got Akane I swapped her in for Basso and ground her to 20 immediately (her exp gain at that point is quite fast and a had a single Apple for 19->20). She gets the mass heal spell very early promoted so I knew I wanted her around. Didn't bother with Forte or Doyle, and then swapped Lisa in for Rodi.

Highly recommend using Doyle. Take your first mithril ore and use it to forge him a mithril claw and it triggers his most powerful special about 50% of the time. He was dealing out 200 damage an attack at a time when Arthur was doing 70. Eventually other characters catch up a bit but he remains one of your highest damage dealers for the rest of the game.

My end game team was Arthur, basso, Doyle and akane with the other party members switching in when needed for specific circumstances - forte for the rare multi target bosses, melody or Lisa for buffs or healing when Akane needs support or runs out of mp, and rodi only after he gets his spell from The second last dungeon to clear buffs from bosses.

[MrPopo]

I was running Doyle with the Mithril Claw when I did my Hattori grinding to get Aura 3 on my healers (and Aura 4 on Akane). He was fine. But honestly, you can do anything in this game. Only boss I had trouble with was the Tower of Illusion boss because I didn't stack multiple Supports so I could stay faster than him when he self buffed and utterly blank his physical attack.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I finished Shining Force 2 yesterday! Now that I'm done with it, I think I honestly preferred the first game. I'll likely get into it a bit more when I write the proper review for it, but a lot of it has to come down to the encounter and map design. SF2 has a lot more gimmick maps that are almost always the worst in the game (particularly those awful dark maps and the kraken fight). The difficulty curve is also more steep in weird places than the first game (that chess board fight is an absolute nightmare), and I guess I respect what they were going for with the world map and its random encounters, but I really didn't enjoy that aspect of it (it made it easy to forget where I was going next between play sessions Xp).

I think I'm gonna try and get in one more Camelot game before the month is out, and I'm thinking that game is probably gonna be Shining in the Darkness, but that depends on how much time I have with the school semester wrapping up~

[SpaceBooger]

I'm at the East Shrine in Shining and the Holy Ark and have been power leveling where AJ suggested. I have my main character to level 12 promoted... I am tempted to level every one to 20 before moving on.

[MrPopo]

So outside of an initial grind after getting Akane (went into a hallway in the South Shrine that had a single encounter spawn that was easy but good experience), I didn't do any grinding until after Tower of Illusion, and that was to get Aura 3 on everyone who learned it. The boss of East Shrine is easier than the boss of West Shrine, so the amount of fights you do navigating it is sufficient to let you steamroll. The Tower of Illusion boss can be mean if you don't remember that the game lets you stack buff moves ad infinitum, and they boost a percentage of your current stats, so nothing stops you from sending them sky high.

[SpaceBooger]

So, Poop what party to you prefer for the final boss? I usually don't use much magic and just tank thru bosses after tons of grinding in all RPG games.
I accidently didn't have the mithril claw equipped, long story of trying to use it on another character, and beat the boss is the west shrine with Arthur, Basso, Doyle and Melody to heal every one in a while.
I should learn to use magic to buff.