Paralyzed. Seriously, the whole section with Lucca going back 10 years into the past and shutting off the machine flew completely over my head. I asked myself what the whole point was because Lara's still alive in the future, the only difference is that she gets off the chair and says she's gonna go for a walk. Then I read online and you know the rest.
Why does this guy wage war against humans when his only goal is to kill Lavos? Does a war against humanity have something to do with summoning Lavos? My only theory is that Ozzie was the one in charge of the war and that humans just blame Magus for it, but Magus just doesn't care about what Ozzie does because killing Lavos is all he cares about. I would reach an easy conclusion if he was just an "evil for the lols" kind of guy, but that's not the antagonist he seems to be. Does the game explain more about his motivations?
Up until this fight I've been using Nevan for pretty much every mission along with Agni & Rudra. I found Nevan to be really great for crowd control and really fun for flinging enemies into the air. When I got to Arkham, I had the same weapons I just mentioned previously and I was already aware how annoying people said this fight was. When the slugs came out from the ground I spammed the hell out of jam session while in DT mode and it was one of the most satisfying sights I've seen. Kinda got a little hard to do when Vergil appeared and wouldn't let me enter DT to avoid being stunned, but it doesn't matter. I love Nevan!!
I loved the puzzles, dungeon crawling, characters and setting. But I'm still confused by a few things.
- The Guardian: it was hard to tell what this thing was defending exactly, the firebrand or the temple as a whole, and how did this thing come to be?
- The archaeologists: was the whole objective of these things after discovering something shocking to destroy the glyphs to convince explorers to not delve further? it just seems weird that they would start from the prophecy puzzle
- Trotter's sacrifice: I thought that in order for a sacrifice to the deity to happen, someone must be stabbed with the firebrand, but Trotter just falls into the lava with it which is enough to summon the deity
- Sacrifices: when exactly did the ancient civilization just randomly stop and think that sacrifices weren't okay? None of the murals were depicting that
Either I'm overcomplicating it, or I simply don't understand
I was back in Roadtown listening to one of Monty's stories and I decided to search up this "captain trotter" he kept mentioning to see if he was real. It turns out he was and I wasn't supposed to know that he was the >!tritagonist-turned-main antagonist!< of chapter 4. Shit... Please tell me there's more than just this twist
After I beat them on my 5th or 6th attempt, I read online that the cerberus makes them really easy, but I was using rebellion the whole time. My main tactic was to deflect their attacks with royal guard. I died a lot of times trying to learn and deflect their attacks in both the 1st phase and the 2nd.
Grandia is the only JRPG (and videogame in general) that comes to mind. It's short, not littered with enemies, and instead of the regular dungeon theme, the boss theme is playing. I wish more sewer dungeons were like Grandia's!
When you go back in time to get the real gold orb from your younger self to swap it with a golden bauble, I just keep thinking of that younger version of the protagonist who will be experiencing the same shit that has happened in the entire game from slavery to petrification, and that said younger version of the protagonist having to go back in time 18 years later too. And the cycle just continues.
Mullen says the wings on Leen's back are the symbol of sin. I don't get it. How? I didn't understand it then, and I still don't understand it now during Leen's speech at J Base.
Half-elves are extremely hated in Tethe'alla, so why do the king and pope of Tethe'alla listen to them? I started questioning this when Lloyd and the others are arrested by the papal knights.
I had auto-reflect and reraise on Locke, and he was the only one alive in battle. I kept changing magic master's barriers until he casted a spell that he was weak to. Eventually he became weak to fire and he casted Firaga a lot. I changed his barrier like 23 times until this happened. My head hurts now.
This game was fun for 95% of the way through, it's a really great game for a 1994 title. There are many great things about the game along with a few bad ones
Things I liked
Shaman fusions: It's so cool discovering new transformations for your characters. I even made a notepad of which two shamans are compatible for which characters.
Story: I was very intrigued with how fascinating the story was. Playing as child Ryu to adult Ryu was awesome, and discovering the truth about Gate blew me away. It was also really sad and I actually shed a tear or two at some scenes.
Characters: I loved the diverse personalities of each character, and the development of each one is noticeable. Sten going from a douchebag to a sensible guy, Katt going from boisterous to encouraging and mature.
Villains: Habalk (or Habaraku) was an awesome villain. He's powerful, smart, remorseless, and just really fun to hate. I couldn't take Deathevan seriously with the "RYUAAAAAAAGHHHHH" but that's ok because he had an awesome final boss fight and a very catchy theme.
Dungeons: I liked a lot of this game's dungeons. I made a post awhile ago saying how much I hated 1's dungeons and if the later games had better ones. They do (mostly). The Thieves Tomb is easily in the top 10 of my favourite JRPG dungeons. There's also the Sky Tower, Mt. Fubi, Tagwoods, are more.
Music: The battle themes really make up for the blasphemous encounter rate. I don't recall there ever being a single bad track in this game. They saved the best for last because the final boss theme makes me want to dance instead of fighting Deathevan.
Animations: A big step-up from Breath of Fire 1. Ryu's and Katt's basic attack animations are really crispy. The spells are really cool for an SNES game and they don't go on for more than 10 seconds.
Things I didn't like
Shaman fusion loss: I hate how easy it is to lose your shaman forms. Just by getting to low health is enough for you to lose it, which is such a frustrating mechanic. It's especially annoying for glass cannons like Katt & Sten.
Encounter rate: For a game that gives itself the potential for replayability, it does a good job of discouraging the player from playing it again. There's overworld abilities like Rand's rolling, and Jean's transformation that reduce it, but that's just the overworld. There's nothing you can do when you're in the dungeons, and smoke doesn't do that much to reduce the encounter rate.
Final dungeon: Dude, fuck this place. Infinity is the embodiment of what makes a JRPG dungeon bad - high encounter rate, confusing layout, enemies with a lot of hp, etc. There's also the enemies with instant death spells that you can't do anything about except pray that they don't kill your characters with shaman transformations because it means you have to leave Infinity, go back to town, and get back to where you were while hoping you don't lose them again. This, along with the encounter rate, are what discourage me from replaying this game.
Namanda bell minigame: Probably the hardest minigame in any videogame I've played. It requires very precise timing and it overall took me 90 minutes of attempts to complete. However, this isn't too big of a deal considering it's optional.
This game is an 8.6/10. Probably one of the best JRPGs on the SNES that's well worth your time.
Unique in a way that he's nothing special. He's merely one of Psaro's lackeys who doesn't have the strength to get what he wants. By killing Rose and putting the pin on humans, he puts Psaro in an extreme rage and makes him take things further, allowing him to take Psaro's position once the Chosen and Psaro obliterate each other, with Aamon later perfecting the secret of evolution.
What makes Aamon lazy is that it isn't explained on how he survived his first run-in with the chosen. And unlike Psaro who has a good amount of screentime throughout the game, Aamon only shows up at around the end of the main story and in the post-game content. And finally, the fight with Aamon during the post-game content is extremely underwhelming. Psaro literally had me shaking and panicking during his fight, but Aamon was a joke. I was getting excited when Aamon said "the pinnacle of evolution" but that excitement went away when it was just the same thing as Psaro's boss fight but with a different colour palette and less phases.
It took me 4 tries to defeat the Deacons of the Deep, and only 3 tries to defeat the Nameless King? I used a crappy Uchigatana build for the Deacons and it would take 4 hits just to kill one of the skinny minions, after that I joined Rosaria's covenant and changed my dexterity build to a strength-based one. Fast-forward to the Nameless King fight, I was around level 80-85 and I heard that the Nameless King was the hardest boss in the game. But when I went to fight him, he really didn't seem that hard compared to what people were saying from their experiences with him. Sometime after I defeated the Nameless King, I heard that people found the Deacons to be the easiest boss in the game.
It might be because I knew about all the plot points before playing the game. Sure, this game has some major dark moments - >!child slavery, watching your own dad get incinerated in front of you, and being turned to stone for 8 years!<. But most Dragon Quest games have some dark moments themselves. There's the dark implication of Milly from VI being a >!child sex slave!<, there's Solo from IV who watches his >!childhood friend sacrifice herself first-hand for his safety!<, etc.
In the end, the games come out to be very light-hearted and joyful. Dragon Quest V felt like a fun and happy journey most of the time, and the dark moments were just smaller in comparison. I think for Dragon Quest standards, this game is dark. But when comparing it to a lot of other JRPGs, it's not that dark at all.
Seriously, fuck this dungeon. I lost so much progress because these brain bats ambushed me and instantly killed me with ba-boom. This place is so similar to Final Fantasy 3's final dungeon when it comes to a lack of save points and annoying enemies. I couldn't imagine the hate this game would get if this dungeon was mandatory.
I've been doing this shit awful-minigame with the Namanda bells just to get this spell, and I want to know if I should persist and get it over with or just move on and enjoy the rest of the game. I've heard that this game's final dungeon is the most brutal out of any JRPG and I think this spell would help quite a lot.
I finally beat it and got the spell!! Holy crap I don't want anyone to say that FFX has the worst minigames when BoF 2 has this shit.
I tried searching a walkthrough on the game just to see what the combat was like, but I didn't realise I clicked on a different video, which showed the ending of the game, and I ended up seeing >!one of the characters die.!< Will I still enjoy the game despite this?
Either I haven't been paying attention to the story, or the game hasn't explained them well. I'm at the point where Liete joins the party. From what I know, Icarian twins were born to humans but given great power by the spirits, which allowed them to grow wings. My main question is, were there only 2 of them, or were there more? I hope I don't sound like an idiot by asking a question like this.
Seriously, fuck this encounter rate for trying so hard to ruin a gorgeous and awesome game for me. Really unforgivable. I'm already like an hour and a half into the game and I can see how much of a step-up it is from Breath of Fire 1.