u/thyrandomninja

What’s everyone’s favourite battle quotes? Any game, any trigger (turn start, boosting, skill use, victory, whatever).

There’s classics like “my blade is unbending!” and “my focus is unparalleled!” (which btw I swear Cyrus says it WAY faster in OT0 than he did in OT1, but I haven’t actually gone back to check), but I wanna hear some oddballs too.

This post was prompted by Goodwin’s (OT0) “bewitching mists!” when he uses Dance of Mist, which has definitely gotten me out of some trouble. His VA always gives 110%, really fits the character

Another favourite is (late game OT0 spoiler) Tatloch’s “unworthy maggot!” when her turn starts, or sometimes she’ll just cackle like a maniac when you go to max boost. Deborah Wilson can do no wrong in my book

One from OT2 was Agnea pronouncing the scholar spells names “fireball burn!”, “icewind blow!”, “lightning bolt strike!”, compared to Osvald’s “BURN!”

One that’s a little more… questionable is “fighting is not what I do…” from Temenos “I will have answers” Mistral on the victory screen. That, and “now die!” comes up CONSTANTLY during his coercion fights, which uh… not what we’re here to do, Tem

His final support skill reads as follows: “Focus specific spells on a single target, but raise the potency”

I thought this sounded great with mass ice blast, a “great damage to all” spell, which also gets the benefit of his first support skill (elemental = auto crit).

But I just used it on a group of enemies and it hit all of them.

So I’m wondering what sort of weight that word “specific” is pulling? Is it only non-elemental spells? Only spells that don’t do “great” damage? Only the spells he naturally learns?

EDIT: someone in the comments provided a list of spells that work

Curiosity got the better of me, and I used Ludo’s negotiation twice on the same boss enemy. I *expected* it to say “unable to negotiate” like when you try to steal twice, it’ll say “unable to steal”.

But instead the game actually LET me use negotiation (at max boost both times) twice on the same enemy. So: title… does double negotiation actually do anything?

Word of warning just in case the title hasn’t done its job: if you haven’t beaten the true ending of OT2, please please do yourself a favour and leave this post now. It gave me the best feeling ever to go into it unspoiled, and I WILL be spoiling the entire thing here.

So after 3 years, I have finally gotten around to OT2, and I am in love all over again. Miraculously, I was totally unspoiled on the “Journey for the Dawn”, so I was super happy to see a cutscene with all eight characters interacting, expecting that to be a final send off (and guessing Vide would be just a secret boss hidden somewhere akin to OT1 Galdera). But then, bonus surprise, we get launched into a finale chapter for everyone, paying off all the crossed paths and bringing Vide right to the fore.

I hadn’t suspected *anything* untoward about Ori the entire time, and the slow realisation of who’s writing all those journal entries was nailbiting. Nor did I suspect Kazan - I fully expected Mugen to be the servant of Vide (possibly unwittingly) in that story. You would think I’d catch on after two of these reveals, but Mindt (and an unwitting Tanzy) *also* caught me unawares! The only thing I actually anticipated was the Dark Hunter finally showing up after all the setup in Ochette’s story.

Already having a lot of fun with the finale, it was all about to get so much better with the fight against Vide. I expected the “vide consumes your party” thing because Galdera has a similar setup. But then to see them get released and group up for an epic octo-squad beatdown, allowing some totally absurd combos with all 24 EX+divine skills. Let me tell you, I was whooping and cheering. No form of media has given me that sort of feeling in a LONG time.

All in all, Vīde was a little easy, going down first try, but the spectacle of it more than made up for that (and I know there’s a significantly tougher version waiting for me as well now).

After that, all that stood between me and a platinum trophy was Galdera himself. I was spoiled about this -I knew he had returned with a vengeance, and had correctly guessed that Al was involved in that. And I have a bone to pick with this guy: despite my best efforts so many years ago, I could never take Galdera down in OT1 and eventually just couldn’t be bothered with redoing all the 8 bosses before each attempt. This time, though, they thankfully changed it to be a quick retry.

After all the base game exploration and stories, everyone was naturally level 68. I want to say it took about 20/25 tries? Plenty of remixing and refining my parties, actually to the point that I eventually swapped over everyone to the opposite team than they started on, changed four subjobs, half my passive abilities, and gave one lucky Beastling all the jerky he could ever want in exchange for a boatload of Castti items.

My four(!) merchants managed to drain 2 million leaves from my purse over the course of the final battle - those assassins and beastlings do not come cheap!

After it was all said and done, I simply sat and basked in it for several minutes before preparing for the Extra Battles. Selling 1.8 million worth of gear to buy more Castti items, as well as fund my merchants’ hired help addiction (though I have at least reverted back to my usual 2 merchant/dancer hybrids, rather than the 4 I used for Galdera).

I had also been spoiled on the return of the OT1 cast in these fights, but honestly there have been plenty of surprises in their movesets to keep me entertained. After a good 10 tries, I’m SO CLOSE to beating Ophelia/Alfyn/Tressa/Olberic - it’s a little awkward for my OG protagonist Ophelia to be face to face with my “knockoff? no, no, no, I’m the upgrade” Cleric!Castti, but I’m sure she understands that she’ll always have a special place in my heart.

I’ve also had a cheeky quick look at the other traveler team, and Therion alone absolutely annihilated me, so I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it… I’ll be honest and say I don’t think I have the cahones for True Vīde after what I’ve heard about him.

Really I just wanted to rave about these boss fights. They’re all so damn fun to puzzle out, but the big shoutout has to go to the octo-fight against Vide. It was just… magical to get there without it being spoiled.

I don’t know much about the changes made in OT0, but I know there’s a crapton of party members and I think there’s like front and back parties or something (and please DON’T confirm or correct me on that front), so I can’t wait to see what they pull off with that game’s endgame bosses, but if it’s anything like OT2, I know I’m in for a treat!

EDIT: so after posting this, I first-tried both OT1 fights back to back! Therion ALMOST ruined it by stealing Agnea’s wind EX skill, but a little on-the-fly thinking got me through it. Hired Help Beastlings remain the uncontested GOATs of this series, with Castti concoctions in second place.

Set up for both fights was:

- Cleric!Castti spamming boost+might concoctions and going for aelphric’s when there was room for it

- Merchant!Agnea spamming beastlings and assassins, with the occasional wind EX and I think once did Sealticge’s so that:

- Arcanist!Osvald could throw up six team-wide reflects vs Cyrus, but usually he was on One True Magic spam for shield breaks (saved his latent for second half to burst down Tressa+Therion), occasionally Malice/Blessing for the corresponding recovery, and sometimes a cheeky Diffusion->Genius if the turn order lined up

- Warrior!Ochette spamming Draefendi’s so Alfyn+Therion would break faster, and just for great total damage, swapped over to Beastly Fangs/Brand’s for the second half to hyper-focus down Tressa and Therion

Unquestionably I have gotten *much* better at this game than I ever was at OT1, now that I’ve learned to lean into item and leaf skills. Before, I was the classic “what if I need it later” type, so Alfyn and Tressa never reached their full potential under my guidance, but Partitio, Castti and Merchant!Agnea really shined once I threw off those shackles (about 75% of the way through the story, but y’know… I got there eventually).

I also think the OT2 crew is generally stronger than OT1. Latents are all incredible, not a single one I didn’t make use of again and again. EX skills are a bit hit-or-miss, definitely some I never touched, but most have some good use cases (One True Magic and Windy Refrain are far and away the highlights).

There’s also some fantastic job-specific upgrades. Hired assassins are just a straight upgrade to veterans, Ochette’s beasts are infinite use and Mahina (I love owls, poor Akala never stood a chance) is way more useful than Linde, Agnea’s allure partner has a passive ability without needing to summon, Hikari’s learned skills are great for support (he gets a more expensive version of “Donate BP”, team-wide attack-stats-up, analyse+armour corrosive COMBINED, and outright damage immunity) or just to expand his elemental roster. Scholar and Cleric were a bit nerfed by changing double-cast spells to a number-limited skill, and changing overheals from passive to EX, but honestly I didn’t really miss the ways of OT1, they were still both great jobs.

I also think the secret jobs are overall better in OT2, I never put Starseer and Runelord through their paces properly, but made use of all 4 secret jobs this time around. Conjuror’s BP Regeneration passive is absolutely way too strong - must-have on every character. Inventor feels a little lacklustre with the rebuilding mechanic, but I mean I used it for Galdera first phase, so it literally can’t be that bad (plus its passives are all incredible). I did miss Sorcerer, but it was a bit too good imo, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover a new set this time.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember ANY “reduce shield points regardless of weaknesses” skills in OT1, so half the OT2 crew just has an automatic leg up on their predecessors.

Setting OT0 to install overnight so I can continue the journey tomorrow - very excited