KYLELASCAR'S PROFILE

If I remember correctly, you can't find more than two or three Ribbons over the course of the game (including the one-time-only reward for defeating one of the arena monsters), which means you have to craft additional Ribbons if you want more of them. In case you don't know already: Visit the Master Sage in the small area surrounded by mountains in the northwestern corner of the world map (needs airship). You need one Dragon Crest and one Dragon Emblem for one Ribbon. As I mentioned in my post above, Ribbon crafting only works when you have exactly one of each ingredient in your inventory (due to a bug), so equip excess Dragon Crests and Dragon Emblems on your party members. If my memory serves me right, Dragon Crests can be crafted in one of the villages, and Dragon Emblems are dropped by a particular arena monster (one of the stronger ones in the right arena section).

author=Sooz
But if it's a casual mode, that implies that there's a non-casual mode, so the form of storytelling isn't really gone?

When scientists asked six years old children whether they wanted candy immediately or (the same amount/size) after tidying up their rooms, 100% of the children chose the first option. :P

That's one of the issues inherent to difficulty modes: Some prideful players feel compelled to choose the highest difficulty setting, even if that means less fun for them, and some players always choose the lowest difficulty setting (why bother if there's an easier option?), even when they can handle and fully enjoy a higher difficulty setting.

Apart from that, I would like to highlight one aspect that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves yet: More difficulty modes means more necessary balancing efforts, which can easily overburden indie developers, no matter if they use RPG Maker or not. Most developers already get sick of playing through their own games dozens of times on one difficulty setting (well, that would apply to me at least if I was a developer). Now imagine how motivated they would be to test several difficulty settings.

If these difficulty settings (to reduce the workload) only differ in enemy stats, then I can draw a line to what I mentioned above: Do I feel compelled to choose the highest difficulty setting, or should I just choose the lowest difficulty setting if there's no incentive for playing on a higher difficulty setting apart from bragging rights? Choosing a difficulty setting can be so aggravating that I don't even want to play the game in question anymore, and each game featuring several difficulty settings has a much harder time winning me over.

By the way: Games that - difficulty-wise - try to pander to core gamers as well as to casual gamers are as likely to fail as bands who want to please fans or their old style and fans of their new style at the same time. :D

Yeah, then it's likely that you encountered the bug I had mentioned. If you defeated team 'Monsters', you should be safe from now on, and you can leave the Colosseum after every fight without any trouble.

It's possible that the patch only works for newly started games, but I'm sure seacliff217 will tend to that issue.

Kenlan, do you by any chance mean this bug that I addressed recently? Since I played through that part not too long ago, this is the only explanation I can think of, but then I wonder why you didn't mention the repeated cutscene (see below).

author=KyleLascar
During chapter 7, the game alternates between two parties. When the second party completes the first part of Cerebral Mountains after having found the Climbing Claws, the game switches back to the first party. Now the player is supposed to sign up for the next fight in the arena (against team "Monsters"), but if (s)he leaves the colosseum instead, an earlier cutscene is repeated, then the game switches back to the second party next to the Climbing Claws treasure chest. Also, the second party can now walk all over the map until the player triggers the climbing animation once. Now the player can complete the first part of Cerebral Mountains again, but when the game switches back to the first party then, the cutscene doesn't play out so that the player gets stuck and is forced to reload a previous save. Fortunately, the fight against team "Monsters" is easy, which means the player can escape the "lockdown", and afterwards the bug isn't present anymore.

Talking about (potential) bugs, here are some more so that seacliff217 is really motivated to patch up his game. :)

- Shoaling, Water Shrine: I think the door that is supposed to be opened using the Water Key can actually be opened without the Water Key in the party's inventory (I'm pretty sure I first opened the door and then found the Water Key).

- Shoaling, Water Shrine: After the dungeon has been cleared, the player can't return to the boss room due to how the switches work (although it's unlikely that the player misses anything because of this). In Mizu Sacrarium, though, most of the dungeon is inaccessible during a post boss visit.

- Chapter 8, Sineba, Mirror Hall: Passing the last set of nails and letting them reactivate (while trying to revisit the boss room) actually turns out to be game-breaking, since there's no way out. A simple solution would be another green switch right of the last set of nails. The same applies to Tower Infinity in Takeura when returning to the boss room (the player can't leave, because there isn't a switch to turn off that one flame). By the way, I can't be the only one who revisits every room he couldn't manually explore before. :D

- Chapter 8, Mylitta, Factory One: Laser Cannon 2.0 Ver 76 GOTY Edition is surprisingly weak (goes down in one hit), comparable to Final Security 802 in Factory Two.

- Chapter 8, Mylitta: Reentering Factory One (and then leaving) after having defeated the boss seems to permanently disable the menu's save function. The same applies to reentering Frozen Heights (Ayldan). Spending the night at an inn doesn't solve the problem; progressing the story (i.e. being teleported from a save-disabled to a save-enabled location) could or could not be the only way to remedy this.

- Chapter 8, Takeura, Tower Infinity: Turning upwards or downwards while standing on a flame tile that can't send the player to a lower floor freezes the game (game-breaking).

- Chapter 8, Takeura, Tower Infinity: The bridge-collapsing parts (especially the ones that must be triggered in order to advance) don't trigger when using auto-dash. On one of the higher floors, though (the one on which the monster floats across the abyss), it seems the passage can only be completed by using auto-dash.

- Chapter 8, Shoaling: After having completed Mizu Sacrarium, I was able to cruise over palms using the ship (at least this doesn't seem to provide an opportunity to get permanently stuck).

It would be nice if you, seacliff217, could answer two questions before I venture into the final dungeon tomorrow: Are there any (missable) party events to be found in remote world map areas (east of the desert on Sineba, around Night City on Mylitta, western and eastern parts of Takeura's world map, Frosty Castle region on Aylden)? Can anything new be discovered in previously visited dungeons? Normally, I would check this myself (and I already did here and there), but somehow I don't feel like it if there isn't anything (new) to miss. Thanks in advance.

That's odd, I completed that dungeon yesterday and didn't encounter any problem of that sort. Admittedly, it takes a bit of practice/timing to utilize the arrow key tiles on the first try, but it works or should work independent of whether the player uses auto-dash or not.