HALI'S REVIEW THREAD (REQUEST YOUR GAME!)

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halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
All right, pushing ever closer...we found and defeated villains L through Z on our trip to the void, including both Yuugen and Alice, who I was certain I was already done with by now.

I seriously wasn't looking forward to another annoying Yuugen fight where all your attacks work exactly once, but then this happened:



84,445 is a lot of steps to have taken, and somehow more than her health bar.
...Oh. So that bug IS active in Akyuu as well. Well, since you managed to pull THAT off, this is what was meant to happen in that fight:

Attacks:
Senji Ryakketsu (100): Only used every 40 turns. Makes user immune to either physical/magical/elemental attacks and take normal damage from the other two types. 0 MP.
Ninth Reincarnation (100): Only used every 80 turns. Grants Haste: 50, Regen: 50, Protect: 50, Absorb Damage: 50% and Return Damage: 25% for the next 50 turns to the user. 0 MP.
Rebirth Flame (5): Only used once and only when HP is below 50% Max HP. Restores all HP to user. 10 MP.
Eden's Breath (10): Inflicts non-elemental unblockable damage to the party equal to 75% of their Max HP. 75% accuracy. 10 MP.
Death Halberd (10): Inflicts ~1400 non-elemental physical damage and Doom: 20 to one target. 0 MP.
Forgotten History (100): Only used once every 15 turns. Either locks Attack, Skillsets, or Items. 10 MP.
Starbreaker (10): Inflicts ~600 Mystic-elemental magic damage to the party. 10 MP.
Cosmic Liner (10): Inflicts ~3000 Mystic-elemental magic damage that ignores Defense to one target. 10 MP.
Heartless Angel (10): Reduces the party's HP to 1. 10 MP.
Other Information:
*Immune vs. % attacks
*Automatically sets up Nirai Kanai effect at the start of the battle, preventing and nullifying all buffs for the battle.

But yeah, seems it's tied into the coding used for Keine's original fight against her. Ah well, at least you didn't have to put up with that rough fight? ^^; How was Alice and Yukari btw??
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
I beat Yukari last time, and she was no trouble at all. Alice was pretty easy, too. I've killed her giant dolls before, and she's just so slow. I'm not sure if there was actually a way to spare her, but I can't really say I feel sorry for her either.

Some of those Yuugen attacks would have really pissed me off. Getting half her health back in a single turn when you are quickly running out of attack options sounds like a complete nightmare to me. That HP to 1 move would've earned her 10K damage to the face, though...
Huh. Yukari didn't boot out any of your Youkai allies? Because that's a thing she can do heh. Yukari's got a few mean mechanics about her, but some of them can be outright ignored. As for sparing her, you had to just let the battle drag out a few more turns without killinng her at that HP threshold.

Yeah, but on the flipside, Rebirth Flame is ONLY used once ever. I made certain of that. Heartless Angel is a pretty dick move though, especially considering the Return Damage, but...that's where gotta space attacks out and whatnot. Not an easy fight by any means. Eden's Breath was the bane of my existence in that fight, especially with Heartless Angel right before it. >_<
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
If Yukari could boot out yokais, I never noticed. I don't think my party had any. Reimu and Keine are human, Chaos is...something, and I don't think Advent Cirno qualifies.

Oh well. RIP Alice. Somehow, her constant antagonisation failed to endear her to me.
Yeah, Chaos is Human + Youkai I think. Advent Cirno/Cirno are Fairy-types.

As for Yukari....

Attacks:
Nest of Fireflies (10): 1st phase only. Inflicts ~1200 Mystic-elemental damage to the party. x2 damage vs. Insects. 56 MP.
Obsolete Line (10): Only used when HP is below 25% Max HP. Inflicts ~9999 non-elemental physical damage to one target. 255 MP.
Doppler Effect (10): Inflicts ~1400 Mystic-elemental damage to the party, Zombie: oo, and reverses all buffs/debuffs. 10 MP.
Outer Force (6): 1st phase only. Inflicts Eject to all Youkai in the party. 10 MP.
Zen Temple (10): Inflicts ~1000 Mystic-elemental damage to the party. 10 MP.
Magic Eye of Laplace (10): 1st phase only. Inflicts ~700 Mystic-elemental damage, Fear: 50, Debrave: 50, Deprotect: 50, Defaith: 50, Sap: oo, and MP Sap: oo to the party. 10 MP.
Bound to the Grave (10): 2nd phase only. Inflicts ~1350 physical damage and Fear: 50 to one target. x2 damage vs. Undeads. 42 MP.
Between Brain & Feet (10): 2nd phase only. Inflicts ~1000 Mystic-elemental damage to one target. x2 damage vs. Gods. 64 MP.
Ran Yakumo (10): 2nd phase only. Inflicts ~1600 non-elemental physical damage to one target. 10 MP.
Splitter (10): 2nd phase only. Inflicts unblockable non-elemental damage to one target equal to 50% of their Max HP. 10 MP.
Other Information:
*Immune vs. % attacks
*Changes to phase 2 when HP is below 20% Max HP.
*Changes elemental weakness every turn in order of: Fire > Earth > Wind > Water > Holy > Lightning > Shadow > Ice > Gravity > Poison > Mystic > Repeat.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
What was Kaguya's deal supposed to be? She seemed very underwhelming, especially with how the story went earlier.
Attacks:
Paschal Moon (10): Inflicts ~2900 Dark-elemental Absorb damage that ignores Defense to one target, and drains HP to heal user. 45 MP.
Dragon Bullet (10): Inflicts ~2200 Mystic-elemental damage to the party. 32 MP.
Buddhist Diamond (10): Inflicts ~3600 Holy-elemental damage, Blind: oo, and Silence: oo to one target. 25 MP.
Tree-Ocean of Hourai (10): Inflicts 5000 non-elemental HP/MP damage that ignores Defense to one target. 80 MP.
Salamander Shield (10): Inflicts ~2000 Fire-elemental damage and Heat: 10 to the party. 32 MP.
Rainbow Danmaku (10): Inflicts ~3800 Fire/Ice/Thunder/Holy/Dark elemental HP/MP damage to the party. 50 MP.
Life Spring Infinity (10): Only used once every 60 turns. Restores 5000 HP and all MP to user, grants Regen: 50, and Absorb Damage: 50% for 30 turns. 0 MP.
Endless Chaos (7): Inflicts ~2000 non-elemental damage to the party, and the party loses 300 HP every turn for the next 10 turns. 10 MP.
Almagest (10): Inflicts ~1500 non-elemental damage, Sap: oo, and Disable: oo to the party. 10 MP.


She's basically identical to her first encounter, but gains Endless Chaos, Life Infinity, and Almagest.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
Oh, so she was mostly just huge damage. I'll give you props for having a late-game boss that didn't need an invincible gimmick the first time you encountered her.
The hilarious thing is in older versions of the game, apparently people were able to beat Kaguya the very first time with just Patchouli or something. I don't know HOW or WHY....but it was a thing that could be done. But yeah, she's just big damage, but at the levels you're meant to come in as, that damage is kinda hard to deal with, especially on top of the nasty statuses like Disable and Heat.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
Welp, I thought I'd beat the game tonight, but you foiled me with your nonsense yet again. On the way to confronting Pandora, I encountered an enemy that can set the party's HP to 1. Naturally, even as a rare encounter, this was easily exploitable for Keine peril strats. We took down both forms of Rinnosuke with no trouble at all.

Then, since Chaos was in the party, she never vanished like she was supposed to:



Peril Keine and Keine 2 made short work of the barrier guardians. I even managed a lucky fight with Elis that Keine escaped from with her 1 HP in tact.

Then you just had to bring back the goddamn mirror boss, didn't you? Somehow, having half the party counter-attacked for 9999 damage wasn't sustainable. Dishing too much damage is clearly not an option, but for whatever reason, you also gave this boss White Wind. So now I have to figure out how to do exactly enough damage not to die, but still make progress in a fight where the boss also uses turn-wasting moves like Polish.

Xeno, the auto-counter bosses are the most diabolical shit you ever came up with.
Wait, Chaos didn't disappear??? She's supposed to not be available anymore, what's going on there?? Maybe because I never removed her from the party...hmm....

As for Kikuri, the counter is coming from her Reflect, right? Which IIRC comes from Polish, and there is a way to deal with Reflect unlike Return Damage/Absorb Damage. Unless it IS Return Damage when Polish isn't up???
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
She stops being available if I change the party through HRCS, but otherwise, she just sticks around anyway. I'm half-tempted to beat the game with her, but having Aya as Keine's double-cast setup is way too tempting...not that it helps with my current problem. -_-
Oh, so then it's just because she's never removed from the party after the Rinnosuke fight, got it. But yeah, edited my message up above. Would you like to see her skillset?
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
I'll look if I get really stuck. I already have an idea on how to take her. I've just had about enough of this game and hitting a wall I can't brute force through took the wind out of my sails. I'll get her; I got everything else.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
I FINALLY BEAT THE GAME.

It figures that disk lady was the 2nd-to-last boss. However, I should be thanking you Xeno, because the strategy I ended up using revealed to me the ultimate coup de gras. I brought Hope to use Vortex and remove Polish from the boss. I brought Koishi so she could learn White Wind and use it to my advantage. I brought Sakuya so she could use Private Square and guarantee Slow on the boss (while Hope healed it off the party). Lastly, I brought Sanae because she's the best at healing the whole party. The fight went mostly fine; Koishi didn't actually learn White Wind, but that ended up not mattering. We dished it out, kept up with healing, and beat her first try.

But over the course of the combat, I ended up using Hope's Revive ability...which raises a dead hero to 1 HP.

I think you know where this is going.



With Hope in the party, I no longer needed to worry about Keine staying below 10 HP. If she died, it was simply a matter of using the weakest revive the game offers. The final battles were mostly a complete joke. The only trouble I ran into was when one of the phases used an Earth attack, which healed Keine out of peril. Who would've thought that'd be the worst thing she could do to me?

Anyway, it all came down to this screenshot, and you're witnessing the killing blow. Aya kept Keine double-casting while Hope maintained the rest of the party. Advent Cirno threw in an Omnislash here and there. That's all there was to it.

I was half-expecting a Disney ending where everyone they lost was revived by the power of friendship or some bs, but it seems that mostly wasn't the case, so props for that I suppose. I'll compose my thoughts into a review soon enough, though you can probably guess everything I have to say already...
Did it break the final battle at all?? As in, it didn't just outright remove all the phases, did it? ^^;;

But yeah, Revive is exceptionally powerful since it's a free AoE revive. Sure, 1 HP, but you're usually going to have some method of healing afterwards...or pray that there's no more AoEs after that if she's the last one alive. Hope's actually one of the ones that never really leaves my party at all (same with Marisa and Koishi).
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
You were smart with your HP thresholds; I wasn't able to skip any of the phases. I still blew through them in a matter of seconds. I think some of them might not have even gotten to move before the phases were forced to advance. Somehow, being able to deal almost 40k damage before their first action was just too much.
I think the HP threshold was if her HP was <10,000 HP, then it would change phases. That way, you couldn't just instantly gimp the fight outright. Mostly because nothing in the game is supposed to DO more than 10,000 HP in one blow, excluding EX Keine whom was dummied out, but well...bad coding makes her come out lol. And of course, I think her max speed is something like 200. HP was 55000 per phase, to a max of 440,000 total with all phases combined. If anything, I want to THINK I handled the finale of the game relatively well...
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16858
I'm sure it would've been epic if I didn't break it wide open. This game has bigger problems than that anyway; some of which should be abundantly clear to you. Others, you seem fairly oblivious to, given what you've described to me over the course of these eight and a half months. You didn't catch them through your own testing, and it seems the people you got to help you didn't mention them either. There are just so many little things that bring it all down with their frequency.

But whatever, you'll hear it all when I write it up.