ADDIT'S PROFILE

So I just fought the boss “Nightmare” at the Cave Of Dreams with Ami and Nobumasa after completing each dream sequence with the rest of the characters and found that Nobumasa’s initial weapon that I equipped on him, a “Shippuu,” has an elemental probability that heals the boss. Okay. But the problem is I placed a “Berserk Ring” on him to do double damage with each swing, making him an incredibly deadly force and I pretty much gave Vahn the same thing to make this game a complete cakewalk thus far.

Okay, fine, at least Ami was able to harm the boss, so I just waited for the boss to KO Nobumasa and defeat the boss just using Ami. I won the battle, watched the cutscene afterwards, and was pleasantly surprised to see the “Game Over” screen right afterwards – WTF???

Apparently, while checking the code to see why this happened, it’s because Ami is the first party removed before Nobumasa is before adding Vahn and everybody else. The problem is that since Ami is the only character still alive and Nobumasa isn’t, the game then registers it that everybody in the group has been defeated and the game over screen is supposed to commence. Now, normally I wouldn’t have a problem about this if I had the chance to optimize my equipment before fighting the boss – but here’s my beef:

Since there are save points in each of the dream sequences, it’s almost like a falling into a trap to save your game using them, because, say, if you haven’t been using Ami or Nobumasa that often or switched out most of their equipment, you’d be royally screwed in this battle. And because I couldn’t have the opportunity to switch out my equipment before the fight, I got screwed. Either way, I guess you could blame me and say that it was my fault for placing that equipment setup on Nobumasa, but the fact of the matter is I STILL WON THE FIGHT, DARN IT! >_<

I’m not terribly upset about it because stuff like this occasionally happens in a very large game like this, but it still feels like a punch to the balls. I’ve got past this part already thanks to my own meddling, but it still sucks. Oh well. 9 hours in and this is the only major thing that I’ve discovered that jerked me off.

And sure, I have fought bosses before in this game where they can heal off the elemental probability's of a weapon but usually there's a save point right before the boss and I have the chance to optimize my equipment before facing him / her / it. But in this situation? I have no control, especially if I saved my game in any of the dream sequences or haven’t used either characters before the fight.

I suppose this could be fixed one of many ways:

#1: Place Vahn in the party (and maybe one other character just to be on the safe side) first before removing Ami and Nobumasa and then putting them back in the party.

#2: Place a “full heal” command right after this fight is over (which is what I did).

#3: Remove all the save points from the dream sequences. (Although I’m guessing a lot of these towns show up later in-game and it’s probably best to just keep them. Still, to avoid the player possibly getting trapped, best to just lock them in place.)

4.) Open up the default menu just before the boss to give the player a chance to optimize their equipment before the fight.