sirsystemerror (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sirsystemerror) wrote2015-02-23 01:13 am
sirsystemerror) wrote2015-02-23 01:13 am
FF6 Nudists Part II
After this point in the variant is when the natural magic game portion of it starts. You get Magicite after ocmpleting Zozo. However, it's arguably just as much equipment as anything else. So we'll not be using it for this, just to add to our plate.
As an idle mention of it, one of the features that the sound patch boasts - which converts all the audio into its SNES equivilant or close to it aside from this one instance - all the Opera scenes are sung by
.
Ultros 2 is in the code, an interesting fight. He moves to four different positions on the stage, each with their own HP bar. In the actual game itself, you will likely blow him away before he even has the chance to do anything. These nudists were no exception. The Figaro Brothers went in with Drill and Rising Phoenix respectively, both dealing high amounts of damage. He bullied Sabin over the course of the battle, hitting him with Acid Rain (by the way, the rain only hits one side) and a Tentacle to kill him. It was ultimately Locke who got to deal the final blow, embarassing Mr. Octopus with a punch to the backside.
That took the group to the Imperial Continent. Nothing to do except walk around, look for regular Potions which I had just run out of, find that no stores over here sell them, and head into Vector and the Imperial Magitek Research Factory. Dungeons in FF6 often have some sort of theme amongst the enemies in its dungeon. In this case, it's ridiculously high defense. And wait, did I seriously not take any pictures of this? Oh well, have a picture of a humorous random battle before that.
Anyway, high defense. Good thing that Edgar's Drill and Chainsaw ignores defense then, his Flash and Sabin's Rising Phoenix are magical in nature, and Celes can use Blizzard for admittedly paltry damage. Shame about Locke though, special little snowflake that he is. He was even more useless than usual, as his regular attacks did only 12 damage or so.
The usual tactics for battle with Flash + Rising Phoenix + Blizzard as needed + Steal. That knocked down just about all comers.
This is the first serious dungeon in the game in that respect, particularly for the four bosses. Ifrit and Shiva are the first up. The former has 3300HP and the latter has 3000HP. They periodically switch in and out, based off a bit that is incremented each time the esper is damaged or hit by magic (only increasing by one in the case of damaging magic). Speaking of, three magic attacks will provoke a counter in the form of Firaga and...Reflect. They're also immune to all elements except their own.
This fight was a snap. Lack of armor doesn't really change too much when being targetted by magic. Edgar went big with the Chainsaw, taking the extra damage and risk of doing nothing with the 25% instant death attempt over the weaker Drill. Sabin was reduced to Raging Fist on Ifrit, since they can't be Suplexed, but Rising Phoenix worked wonders on Shiva. Celes slung Blizzards at Ifrit. And Locke just attacked with his bare hands and accomplished nothing useful. They did some heavy damage in turn, but nothing that we couldn't push through.
Next up is Number 024, some sort of cross between a royal, a cyborg, and Baraka from Mortal Kombat. He's much like Hyne from Final Fantasy III - remember him from my Solo Monk report? He uses Barrier Change 30 seconds into the battle, which not only changes his elemental properties (he absorbs one element, is weak to another, and the other six he becomes immune to), but also his battle tactics. If he's struck with his weakness, he uses it again.
This battle went sideways the first time I tried it. He's vulnerable to the Imp status, which locks out all his attacks and forces him to rely on physicals. But FF6 has a special property on certain enemies which causes all of their physical attacks to go critical when Imp. Number 024 is among them, and with his omnipresent counter on being damaged for around 230~ damage a shot, my party quickly fell under his assault.
So I had to forgo clever plans and just violence him to death. It wasn't that difficult - he has no elemental properties before using Barrier Change, so Rising Phoenix and Blizzard both worked for 470~ and 330~ respectively (using the former was a mistake on my part: Suplex would've done 710~, and Aura Bolt 810~). I kept Locke on standby, as Number 024 would occasionally confuse my party members.
After he used his first Barrier Change, a mistake led to amusing results. I had Sabin use Aura Bolt instead of Suplex. Holy happened to be his weakness, and so it dealt heavy damage and finished him off, just like that.
Third on the list is Number 128. That FAQ I talked about named him as one of the nastiest bosses this game has to offer. There are three opponents in this fight: Number 128 himself, the Left Blade, and the Right Blade. We really don't want to kill off the blades, as it makes 128 cast Haste on itself and throw out nasty magical attacks. Blitz was right out for this reason. And with Locke useless, this left Edgar and his Drill as our only reasonable option.
Still, this was scary. His Net attack stopped anyone it hit in their tracks, and with heavy damage flying my way, death was hanging over me at all times, Edgar attacked while the other two healed when they were not stopped. By some miracle, I do this on the first try - even with my healers getting stopped as shown above.
Lastly, on the way out you fight the Cranes. This was over so fast, I was like, "wait, what?" The thermal one on the right has 2300HP, the electrical one on the left has 1800. They have an interesting AI script consisting of charging up with attacks of that element, but they were very quickly scrapped by my attacks. To add insult to injury, Setzer pulled out Mega Flare against them.
By the way, Sofis, you can save after Number 128. Just head north slightly after crashing into the Magitek Armored guy, and you'll find the sparkly blue light.
Setzer's slots are notable for being able to derig them by using an Echo Screen in the SNES version, allowing you to get any result so long as no other magic is used. You can use this at any time in this version, simply by confirming the first reel when a message box is on the screen. This can be more easily done by pausing and unpausing repeatedly. I won't be actively abusing it unless I feel like it. Timing's kind of a pain, too - unless you're on Active ATB, in which case it's relatively easy.
A quick trip into Narshe gets me Mog as well. Two new party members who are fully capable of dealing heavy damage without needing to rely on weapons or espers. Yes, while some characters are rendered impotent in this variant, we have absolutely no shortage of offensive options.
Random hilarious scene from getting Gau more rages. BAR-BAR-BAR occasionally gets you Crusader, which is pretty much instant death. Thankfully, I am smart and saved often.
So who to take with me to the next dungeon? Terra is mandatory. Locke and Cyan are useless. Mog and Gau can both dish out painful water damage. It's tempting to take both, but two random uncontrollable characters that may not even use the desireed attack isn't exactly the wisest of ideas. Edgar and Sabin can both wreck faces as they did before, although all but one enemy absorbs Rising Phoenix. Setzer does Slots.
Whatever, this game is easy anyway. I mean, how much resistance could one dungeon put up?
Without getting lucky (or rather, me getting unlucky), I mean.
Terra actually turned out to be the most useful member of the party. She could fling Raise spells at everything, and though expensive at 30MP, it's not like I was going to use those Ethers for much else anyway. Later on into the cave, she learned Fira, allowing her to take out Zombones at a more efficient cost. Everything else in here absorbs Fire, unfortunately. Non-traditional undeads.
Gau and Mog used Chimera (occasionally Hill Gigas) and Water Rondo respectively. The latter was especially annoying whenever he decided to stumble, which he had a 50% chance to do due to having to change the background.
I pulled Joker Doom on Kefka, for the fun of it. He actually has a dead sprite, it's just that you can only see it if you do this, or for a split second if you do enough damage to him in the Imperial Base back in Sabin's Scenario.
Imperial Banquet, nothing really to say. I finished the first part with 30 seconds to spare.
Oh, look! Weapons we actually have a use for! As explained before, since rod breaking in FF6 involves not actually equipping the rod, these nudists do have a use of it. Which might come in handy as a last-resort in certain spots, so I plan to stock up on some. We get two freebies of the Flame and Ice Rods in the next dungeon.
Flame Eater in the burning house could be utterly decimated. Terra could Trance into her Esper form, then break an Ice Rod over its face for ridiculous damage as long as it's alone, which Strago is perfectly capable of doing via killing the balloons with Aqua Breath. But just to dispel any notions of taking the easy way out or anything, I decided to give the hard way a shot. And besides, it's the first boss that has a respectable HP pool to survive an onslaught, so may as well.
Terra and Locke were good for only one thing in this fight: and that was feeding Strago healing items. He meanwhile, went to work with Aqua Breath and the odd Revenge Blast, when his HP was low enough so that it'd be more worth it. Strago took heavy damage from the counter-Firas, heavy enough so that sometimes, it was more worth it to get the extra damage in and worry about reviving/healing up after. Flame Eater summoned a more powerful Grenade at the end of the battle, which could have spelled problems with its 3000HP if it weren't for the fact that Strago immediately killed off the boss right after.
I get Strago to Level 25 before taking on Ultros for the third time. Stone, as discussed in Sofis' solo Strago playthrough, is essentially the Goblin Punch of this game - doing eight times the damage if the user and target's level match up. Ultros happens to be Level 25...and also has Stone himself. He never used it, thankfully - even if it wasn't used on Strago, it confuses anything that survives the hit. Terra Tranced and unloaded with Firas that did around 3000~ damage (rod breaks did around 2.5x that). Together, and with Locke and Relm around to watch, the octopus was violenced to death. No need to use Sketch.
I was going to open what on Realms Beyond (it's broken up a bit differently here) was the third part of this FF6 variant with a briefly comment on every character and how they perform in regards to this...then I realized it's pretty pointless. Does the character have a secondary command they can use without equipment? Congrats, they have a use.
So who to take to the Floating Continent? Shadow will be mandatory. Celes and Cyan are right out. The latter can't use his attacks, and the former joins us anyway. Locke has one use: stealing a Debilitator for Edgar. I could've gotten this on the Cranes, but they died too quickly. He's otherwise as useless as ever. This would come in handy on the boss, but it'd require two trips. Relm has some passable Sketches along the way, even through the command's flaws, but Ultima Weapon will be problematic with her.
We start off with a series of battles, though - including the Ultros and the Air Force. With this in mind, I decide to go with Gau, Mog, and Locke to start off with.
This fails. While they're able to destroy the sky armors with Wind Slash from Marshal and Wind Rhasphody respectively, Ultros and Typhon massacre me with Tentacle (can deal close to 700 damage to Gau!) and Fireball (also painful). Second time was also a failure. I switched Celes in the place of Gau, after leveling her enough so she'd learn Blizzara along the way. She was also able to use Protect to reduce the Tentacle damage.
Though the first phase was just as easy, Ultros and Typhon went sideways when Mog refused to use Elf Fire on the former. I still got by, but then he killed the Missile Bay before Locke could steal the Debilitator.
Finally, I got it to work, using Gau in place of Mog because that was so dumb, but not before two more wipes - once because Gau wouldn't use Wind Slash and a Spitfire kept using Absolute Zero, and once to the Air Force itself. Then I proceeded to pay for it trying to get off the Floating Continent with this worthless excuse of a party. These guys are jerks, throwing scrolls at you. You can Imp them, but they can still use throw.
After this, I returned with a party of Edgar, Mog, and Strago. The latter was able to pick up the Level Lores and chip in some major damage with Stepmine and Aqua Breath. He also one-shot the Gigantos monster-in-a-box, with L5 Death, who could brutalize my unarmored party.
Shadow threw stuff, Edgar did his usual tool thing, and Mog was able to heal with Wind Rhapsody's Sunbath. Which was good, as I forgot to buy Hi-Potions.
The Debilitator turned out to be more trouble than it was worth, but that's certainly not to say it was worthless. This sets a random weakness on the enemy. I got wind the first time which was swell for Aqua Breath and Wind Slash purposes, then after holy and poison, fire popped, so Shadow started throwing Flame Scrolls.
Not much to say about the escape. I got Doom and Roulette off Nerapa before splattering her. Then I got the god Cid rescue, that speedrunners would be jealous of if Sketch didn't break the game to pieces.
Next | Index
As an idle mention of it, one of the features that the sound patch boasts - which converts all the audio into its SNES equivilant or close to it aside from this one instance - all the Opera scenes are sung by
.Ultros 2 is in the code, an interesting fight. He moves to four different positions on the stage, each with their own HP bar. In the actual game itself, you will likely blow him away before he even has the chance to do anything. These nudists were no exception. The Figaro Brothers went in with Drill and Rising Phoenix respectively, both dealing high amounts of damage. He bullied Sabin over the course of the battle, hitting him with Acid Rain (by the way, the rain only hits one side) and a Tentacle to kill him. It was ultimately Locke who got to deal the final blow, embarassing Mr. Octopus with a punch to the backside.
That took the group to the Imperial Continent. Nothing to do except walk around, look for regular Potions which I had just run out of, find that no stores over here sell them, and head into Vector and the Imperial Magitek Research Factory. Dungeons in FF6 often have some sort of theme amongst the enemies in its dungeon. In this case, it's ridiculously high defense. And wait, did I seriously not take any pictures of this? Oh well, have a picture of a humorous random battle before that.
Anyway, high defense. Good thing that Edgar's Drill and Chainsaw ignores defense then, his Flash and Sabin's Rising Phoenix are magical in nature, and Celes can use Blizzard for admittedly paltry damage. Shame about Locke though, special little snowflake that he is. He was even more useless than usual, as his regular attacks did only 12 damage or so.
The usual tactics for battle with Flash + Rising Phoenix + Blizzard as needed + Steal. That knocked down just about all comers.
This is the first serious dungeon in the game in that respect, particularly for the four bosses. Ifrit and Shiva are the first up. The former has 3300HP and the latter has 3000HP. They periodically switch in and out, based off a bit that is incremented each time the esper is damaged or hit by magic (only increasing by one in the case of damaging magic). Speaking of, three magic attacks will provoke a counter in the form of Firaga and...Reflect. They're also immune to all elements except their own.
This fight was a snap. Lack of armor doesn't really change too much when being targetted by magic. Edgar went big with the Chainsaw, taking the extra damage and risk of doing nothing with the 25% instant death attempt over the weaker Drill. Sabin was reduced to Raging Fist on Ifrit, since they can't be Suplexed, but Rising Phoenix worked wonders on Shiva. Celes slung Blizzards at Ifrit. And Locke just attacked with his bare hands and accomplished nothing useful. They did some heavy damage in turn, but nothing that we couldn't push through.
Next up is Number 024, some sort of cross between a royal, a cyborg, and Baraka from Mortal Kombat. He's much like Hyne from Final Fantasy III - remember him from my Solo Monk report? He uses Barrier Change 30 seconds into the battle, which not only changes his elemental properties (he absorbs one element, is weak to another, and the other six he becomes immune to), but also his battle tactics. If he's struck with his weakness, he uses it again.
This battle went sideways the first time I tried it. He's vulnerable to the Imp status, which locks out all his attacks and forces him to rely on physicals. But FF6 has a special property on certain enemies which causes all of their physical attacks to go critical when Imp. Number 024 is among them, and with his omnipresent counter on being damaged for around 230~ damage a shot, my party quickly fell under his assault.
So I had to forgo clever plans and just violence him to death. It wasn't that difficult - he has no elemental properties before using Barrier Change, so Rising Phoenix and Blizzard both worked for 470~ and 330~ respectively (using the former was a mistake on my part: Suplex would've done 710~, and Aura Bolt 810~). I kept Locke on standby, as Number 024 would occasionally confuse my party members.
After he used his first Barrier Change, a mistake led to amusing results. I had Sabin use Aura Bolt instead of Suplex. Holy happened to be his weakness, and so it dealt heavy damage and finished him off, just like that.
Third on the list is Number 128. That FAQ I talked about named him as one of the nastiest bosses this game has to offer. There are three opponents in this fight: Number 128 himself, the Left Blade, and the Right Blade. We really don't want to kill off the blades, as it makes 128 cast Haste on itself and throw out nasty magical attacks. Blitz was right out for this reason. And with Locke useless, this left Edgar and his Drill as our only reasonable option.
Still, this was scary. His Net attack stopped anyone it hit in their tracks, and with heavy damage flying my way, death was hanging over me at all times, Edgar attacked while the other two healed when they were not stopped. By some miracle, I do this on the first try - even with my healers getting stopped as shown above.
Lastly, on the way out you fight the Cranes. This was over so fast, I was like, "wait, what?" The thermal one on the right has 2300HP, the electrical one on the left has 1800. They have an interesting AI script consisting of charging up with attacks of that element, but they were very quickly scrapped by my attacks. To add insult to injury, Setzer pulled out Mega Flare against them.
By the way, Sofis, you can save after Number 128. Just head north slightly after crashing into the Magitek Armored guy, and you'll find the sparkly blue light.
Setzer's slots are notable for being able to derig them by using an Echo Screen in the SNES version, allowing you to get any result so long as no other magic is used. You can use this at any time in this version, simply by confirming the first reel when a message box is on the screen. This can be more easily done by pausing and unpausing repeatedly. I won't be actively abusing it unless I feel like it. Timing's kind of a pain, too - unless you're on Active ATB, in which case it's relatively easy.
A quick trip into Narshe gets me Mog as well. Two new party members who are fully capable of dealing heavy damage without needing to rely on weapons or espers. Yes, while some characters are rendered impotent in this variant, we have absolutely no shortage of offensive options.
Random hilarious scene from getting Gau more rages. BAR-BAR-BAR occasionally gets you Crusader, which is pretty much instant death. Thankfully, I am smart and saved often.
So who to take with me to the next dungeon? Terra is mandatory. Locke and Cyan are useless. Mog and Gau can both dish out painful water damage. It's tempting to take both, but two random uncontrollable characters that may not even use the desireed attack isn't exactly the wisest of ideas. Edgar and Sabin can both wreck faces as they did before, although all but one enemy absorbs Rising Phoenix. Setzer does Slots.
Whatever, this game is easy anyway. I mean, how much resistance could one dungeon put up?
Without getting lucky (or rather, me getting unlucky), I mean.
Terra actually turned out to be the most useful member of the party. She could fling Raise spells at everything, and though expensive at 30MP, it's not like I was going to use those Ethers for much else anyway. Later on into the cave, she learned Fira, allowing her to take out Zombones at a more efficient cost. Everything else in here absorbs Fire, unfortunately. Non-traditional undeads.
Gau and Mog used Chimera (occasionally Hill Gigas) and Water Rondo respectively. The latter was especially annoying whenever he decided to stumble, which he had a 50% chance to do due to having to change the background.
I pulled Joker Doom on Kefka, for the fun of it. He actually has a dead sprite, it's just that you can only see it if you do this, or for a split second if you do enough damage to him in the Imperial Base back in Sabin's Scenario.
Imperial Banquet, nothing really to say. I finished the first part with 30 seconds to spare.
Oh, look! Weapons we actually have a use for! As explained before, since rod breaking in FF6 involves not actually equipping the rod, these nudists do have a use of it. Which might come in handy as a last-resort in certain spots, so I plan to stock up on some. We get two freebies of the Flame and Ice Rods in the next dungeon.
Flame Eater in the burning house could be utterly decimated. Terra could Trance into her Esper form, then break an Ice Rod over its face for ridiculous damage as long as it's alone, which Strago is perfectly capable of doing via killing the balloons with Aqua Breath. But just to dispel any notions of taking the easy way out or anything, I decided to give the hard way a shot. And besides, it's the first boss that has a respectable HP pool to survive an onslaught, so may as well.
Terra and Locke were good for only one thing in this fight: and that was feeding Strago healing items. He meanwhile, went to work with Aqua Breath and the odd Revenge Blast, when his HP was low enough so that it'd be more worth it. Strago took heavy damage from the counter-Firas, heavy enough so that sometimes, it was more worth it to get the extra damage in and worry about reviving/healing up after. Flame Eater summoned a more powerful Grenade at the end of the battle, which could have spelled problems with its 3000HP if it weren't for the fact that Strago immediately killed off the boss right after.
I get Strago to Level 25 before taking on Ultros for the third time. Stone, as discussed in Sofis' solo Strago playthrough, is essentially the Goblin Punch of this game - doing eight times the damage if the user and target's level match up. Ultros happens to be Level 25...and also has Stone himself. He never used it, thankfully - even if it wasn't used on Strago, it confuses anything that survives the hit. Terra Tranced and unloaded with Firas that did around 3000~ damage (rod breaks did around 2.5x that). Together, and with Locke and Relm around to watch, the octopus was violenced to death. No need to use Sketch.
I was going to open what on Realms Beyond (it's broken up a bit differently here) was the third part of this FF6 variant with a briefly comment on every character and how they perform in regards to this...then I realized it's pretty pointless. Does the character have a secondary command they can use without equipment? Congrats, they have a use.
So who to take to the Floating Continent? Shadow will be mandatory. Celes and Cyan are right out. The latter can't use his attacks, and the former joins us anyway. Locke has one use: stealing a Debilitator for Edgar. I could've gotten this on the Cranes, but they died too quickly. He's otherwise as useless as ever. This would come in handy on the boss, but it'd require two trips. Relm has some passable Sketches along the way, even through the command's flaws, but Ultima Weapon will be problematic with her.
We start off with a series of battles, though - including the Ultros and the Air Force. With this in mind, I decide to go with Gau, Mog, and Locke to start off with.
This fails. While they're able to destroy the sky armors with Wind Slash from Marshal and Wind Rhasphody respectively, Ultros and Typhon massacre me with Tentacle (can deal close to 700 damage to Gau!) and Fireball (also painful). Second time was also a failure. I switched Celes in the place of Gau, after leveling her enough so she'd learn Blizzara along the way. She was also able to use Protect to reduce the Tentacle damage.
Though the first phase was just as easy, Ultros and Typhon went sideways when Mog refused to use Elf Fire on the former. I still got by, but then he killed the Missile Bay before Locke could steal the Debilitator.
Finally, I got it to work, using Gau in place of Mog because that was so dumb, but not before two more wipes - once because Gau wouldn't use Wind Slash and a Spitfire kept using Absolute Zero, and once to the Air Force itself. Then I proceeded to pay for it trying to get off the Floating Continent with this worthless excuse of a party. These guys are jerks, throwing scrolls at you. You can Imp them, but they can still use throw.
After this, I returned with a party of Edgar, Mog, and Strago. The latter was able to pick up the Level Lores and chip in some major damage with Stepmine and Aqua Breath. He also one-shot the Gigantos monster-in-a-box, with L5 Death, who could brutalize my unarmored party.
Shadow threw stuff, Edgar did his usual tool thing, and Mog was able to heal with Wind Rhapsody's Sunbath. Which was good, as I forgot to buy Hi-Potions.
The Debilitator turned out to be more trouble than it was worth, but that's certainly not to say it was worthless. This sets a random weakness on the enemy. I got wind the first time which was swell for Aqua Breath and Wind Slash purposes, then after holy and poison, fire popped, so Shadow started throwing Flame Scrolls.
Not much to say about the escape. I got Doom and Roulette off Nerapa before splattering her. Then I got the god Cid rescue, that speedrunners would be jealous of if Sketch didn't break the game to pieces.
Next | Index