HALI'S REVIEW THREAD (REQUEST YOUR GAME!)

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Nah, it would've said "An optional item can be be bought at the Tengu Village!" for optional characters (most of them. Advent Cirno is the only exception to this rule AFAIK). And huh, guess I never fixed that or something for when you're not supposed to be there that early...
Good news @halibabica! Shooty and the Catfish Episode 2 is ready to be added to your cue for playthrough int 2049! ~ <3

https://rpgmaker.net/games/11152/
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
author=visitorsfromdreams
Good news @halibabica! Shooty and the Catfish Episode 2 is ready to be added to your cue for playthrough int 2049! ~ <3

https://rpgmaker.net/games/11152/
Sweet! Maybe episode 3 will be out by then!

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So, I beat electro-counter tank boss after realizing its gimmick. It wasn't too hard to figure out when I noticed the shockwave damage looked awfully familiar. After that, it was just a really painful slog. I would've been fine with the fight as a whole if not for the desperation move it used to wipe me out twice. Very uncool, that.

My strategy was to have Keine blast it with perfectly predictable damage thanks to her 800-power First Pyramid while Meiling, Cirno, and Sanae shrugged off the retaliation with Chakra, Mysterious Fairy, and that lottery bomb deal. It worked fine until it stopped using halving moves at the 11th hour (fuck you Xeno). I had to spend a Megalixir punching through that shit. At least Keine's busted EXP share caused half of the entire group to level up.

Now, on to Pandaemonium!
...It has a desperation move?? o.o??
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
That electro wave or whatever. It hits the whole party and deals actual damage. I dunno if it's supposed to be rare, but it was an instant wipe in the first battle, and it used it twice in a row in the second. In the successful fight, it didn't use it at all, but I didn't give it the chance to.

Also, you could probably take Maelstrom off this thing. It's just a royal pain to bounce back from.
Oh, was it Wave Cannon? It has to be Wave Cannon, that's the only real move it has to kill, and it's a 1/2 HP attack that CAN kill (and inflicts Sap too). As for Maelstrom, I was debating that with it when I played, though the way I played ensured that its Gravity attacks didn't matter so long as I didn't damage it TOO much (aka Marisa is the absolute worst person to bring to this fight as she hits both Magic and Thunder weakness, so imagine that 2400 damage you do without meaning to being reflected back at your party. @_@; ).
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
That was the initial trouble I had fighting it. Keine was slamming it with her Ephemerality for 1800 damage, and that wasn't sustainable by any stretch. Wave Cannon was indeed the move that did me in, and for as long a fight as that is, not very nice at all. If you want to keep it in, lower its damage threshold or something. If it did 25-30% HP with kill potential, it would still be dangerous since its other moves/counters keep your health low anyway.
Yeah, though once you actually figure its gimmick out (which good on you for figuring it out, though I know it might not be the most fun one to deal with), it's not TOO bad, especially if you stagger your turns with its turns.

Wave Cannon is like that allll throughout the game. I wonder if Iron Golem is the first one to use it?? He might be, actually, and it does pop up more later in the game with its 50% HP damage (but usually, there's only one enemy around).
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
I guess it's worth mentioning that this move is much easier to deal with at lower levels. Since the damage is based on your HP and you can heal a higher percentage of it with the same moves, being overpowered is actually a detriment in this case. You may need to consider how it's balanced more carefully, depending on what monsters use it and under what circumstances...
Aye, and there's also the fact that some things NEVER changed when Potion Berries were the go-to healing item (originally, they restores 2000 HP, then 1000 HP, and now they are what they are). Potion Berries got nerfed to heck and back because of how ridiculously strong they were lol...

Speaking of which, I guess you recall seeing this gimmick with Meira, right? That's what tipped you off? : v
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
I don't remember who Meira was. I noticed the gimmick when I did a test run with Sakuya. The lightning wasn't happening when she wasn't damaging the boss, so that was a big tip-off. I confirmed my suspicion when I saw that the damage it dealt matched the damage I caused. Then, it was just a matter of picking who could handle it most efficiently.
Meira was the samurai you fought twice (once in Yuuka's dream world, the other time in Cave to Makai). She had a Counter to her too, same as Iron Golem but hers was a random target instead of AoE. Same deal with her, except Meira was easier to deal with (also, you may not have noticed this, but the 2nd Meira fight, which is the one in the Caves, had a 100 turn limit to it. If you didn't beat her by then, she'd use Iainuki to set the party's HP to 1, then next turn do Oblivion 4 times in a row for 1000-1500 unblockable damage to the party).
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
Oh, her. Remember, there's no way to view enemy names in this game without Aya's Intel. I'm also terrible with names in general and this game has dozens of them. :I

I think my party was too OP for the 100-turn limit to be an issue. I noticed her counter gimmick, but just powered through it.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
So...I never thought the most absurd thing to happen in this game would be in my favor. I'm exploring the hollow tunnel in Makai to get the stones, and I was getting annoyed of all the monster boxes. When I came across one that the characters warned me about opening, I teleported out and readied a more suitable party. With Aya, Sakuya, and Keine specced out for huge physical damage and new girl tagging along, we went back in to check the chest.

The dragon living inside was quite fearsome, but not nearly as scary as what Keine did next. A new command appeared for her, turned her Super Saiyan, and her damage-based-on-steps-taken move annihilated the dragon with over 50,000 damage.

Xeno...WTF JUST HAPPENED?!
...Well then. Was it the Hakutaku command? Because uh...that command is supposed to be completely dummied out lol. I wonder what actually triggered that to come back? Maybe it's something that I forgot to outright remove...I'll have to look into that to make sure it doesn't happen again. It might only happen with the Curse Dragon in general, but yeah...Hakutaku was meant to be like Terra's Trance command from FFVI, but I couldn't do it the way I wanted it to, so I just removed it.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
Yeah, that's what it was. I don't know what caused it to appear and it vanished immediately after. Seeing how completely broken it is, I can understand why it was supposed to be removed. This isn't the first time I've seen commands change arbitrarily. Every once in awhile, Nitori has mirror items that deal damage instead of healing. No clue what makes that happen, but it's pretty useful when it does.
Ah, the Mirror Items is an alt command for Nitori that requires a specific armor on her (one of her unique armors I believe) in order to utilize it. She has other armors that gives her the Chemist ability too (doubles the potency of her Stock and Mirror Item command).
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
Well, it seems Hakutaku is definitely connected to the Curse Dragon somehow. I found another one and the same thing happened. I screen capped it this time.



Hazarding a guess, I think it's related to how the dragon locks certain abilities. I assume it does this by locking one and unlocking the rest...which would cause Keine's locked ability to appear. No clue if that's what's really going on. Anyway...



This old man sure looks a lot like Reimu.
Oh riiiiight. I thought I dummied Youki out lol. As you can tell, he's meant to be since he never got a proper skillset (nor spriteset as you can tell). ^^; And huh...I'll have to look into that with Curse Dragon then.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
from Xenomic
Oh riiiiight. I thought I dummied Youki out lol.
He even still has dialogue in the cutscene.

This is why we test things. Not just major stuff like this, but lots of little things, too. I spot so many parts in this game that could've been cleaned up with a bit more care and attention to detail, and they're things that should've been obvious even on a normal playthrough. Take notes. Rewatch your own streams. Don't let these things slide or assume they're fixed. Sorry to lecture, but if it didn't happen so often, I'd let it go. You just need to be more thorough and careful.