Topic: Lay down your arms or die clutching them! Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics! (Read 20143 times)

Brentai · « **Reply #160 on:** May 20, 2012, 09:03:27 AM »

That Materia Blade sure is completely worthless, yep.

...no, seriously, it is completely worthless.

R^2 · « **Reply #161 on:** May 20, 2012, 10:47:22 AM »

Two Chemists, two Blue Dragons, and...

Look, a piggy! A piggy! Oink oink!

Pigs are slow, fragile, and weak. They're kind of a joke character, since they're outclassed even by goblins and piscodaemons. Later lines get some good status-inflicting abilities (like Swine, which fart at foes to confuse them or put them to sleep), but given that everything they do is short-range and they're so blessedly fragile, they're useless in combat.
Their Beastmaster skills are okay, but not fantastic. Pigs get Squeak, which revives an adjacent ally, and is the only monster skill capable of resurrecting. So there's that. Swine get the ability naturally possessed by Wild Boars that can Charm a target. And Wild Boars -- which are ironically named, since they're only available by breeding in captivity -- get Bequeath Bacon. The Wild Boar dies and crystalizes instantly, and an adjacent ally gains a level. It's described in-game as the ultimate act of porcine altruism.
Good poaching, though. You can get some perfumes and the best handbag in the game from the Pig line, but since our only human is male, we're not going to bother.

That'll do, Colonel.

That's the Pig's only attack. He's not underleveled.

Beowulf tries.

Well, that was easy.

I drop the Runeblade for Ice Brand, knowing what's coming next.

It's a complicated level, and no one understands it but its woman.

Two Ochu -- next up from Malboro -- three Plague Horror, and an Archaeodemon surround a purple dragon with green eyes.

Plague Horrors and Ochu are all vulnerable to ice. Hence Ice Brand, allowing me to easily oneshot the little bastards.

Reis knows it, too.

This is the single most useful thing Beowulf has done yet.

The dragons, while possessing powerful Ice attacks, are too slow to really make it into the battle.

The Archaeodemon revs up a powerful spell...

Well, not that powerful.

Beowulf: A companion more dear to me than life itself. Mere words can be no fitting thanks.

"At least long enough for you to return the equipment I lent you when I took your Runeblade earlier."

Meet Reis, the Holy Dragon, the first special monster to join the party. She has Counter and Cannot Enter Water, although they're not listed. Her "Breath" command includes Fire Breath, Ice Breath, and Thunder Breath -- she doesn't lay eggs like other dragons, but that's okay, since she singlehandedly obsoletes the rest of them. Unlike blue and red dragons, she has no elemental weakness.

In pursuing their sidequest further we'd lose Reis, so I'm gonna have to let you go, buddy. Maybe you two can hook back up once I'm done ending this war.

If I'd thought this through better I'd have kept him for the chance to Poach the best polearm in the game out of his corpse. Oh well.

With that, I learn the last skill from R2's Squire class. But I don't get the "Mastered" symbol on the job list. There's one more to learn, the hard way.

The lineup.

One of those Plague Horrors poached into a Zwill Straightblade, the best Knife in the game.

Friday · « **Reply #162 on:** May 20, 2012, 12:29:20 PM »

Every time you dismiss a monster, I picture the scene from White Fang

R^2 · « **Reply #163 on:** May 20, 2012, 02:37:25 PM »

The Ninja
Ninjas are fast on their feet, with good move, jump, and C-Evade. True to their nature from FF4 onwards, they can innately equip two weapons at a time, although these are limited to knives and special ninja swords. They can wear hats and clothes for defensive gear.
A ninja requires training in Archer, Thief, and Monk. I think it's job levels 3, 4, and 2 respectively.

A Ninja's special skill is Throw. This does damage based on the attack power of the weapon thrown and the ninja's Speed -- I think. The radius for Throwing is based on the Ninja's move, so equipping Move+1, +2, or +3; or wearing Battle Boots, Red Shoes, or Germinas Boots can increase their throwing distance.
Ninja have to learn how to throw each class of weapon individually, but none of them are very expensive.

Vanish adds invisible status once the character takes HP damage. When a character is invisible, the AI ignores it -- they will not target them or move to engage them. They can still catch an invisible character in an area-of-effect by accident.
Reflexes is one of the more underappreciated counter abilities. It doubles a character's Evade, combined from all sources. Equipping an Aegis Shield, with 50% magic block, gives you a doubled total of 100% magic block. So long as S-Evade applies, you're immune to magic. But even just this and a Featherweave Cloak (A-Evade 40%/30% physical/magical) makes you infuriatingly hard to hit!

Dual Wield lets a non-ninja equip a weapon in each hand. Even wizards and stuff can use it to equip two rods (for whatever reason you'd want to do that). Monks can use it to punch with both hands every time they attack.

Waterwalking lets the ninja move on top of water as though it were solid ground, at no penalty to Move.

R^2 · « **Reply #164 on:** May 20, 2012, 02:49:45 PM »

Welp, back to Goug.

Mustadio: By the gods! The machine speaks!
Automaton: AWAITING YOUR COMMAND, MASTER.

R2: M-me? Must I? Mayhap -you- could--
Mustadio: What are you talking about? You're the thing's master!
Automaton: REPEAT: AWAITING COMMAND.

It's... it's a...

DANCE MACHINE!

R2: Well, then...

Construct 8 is the next monster NPC. Like generics and Reis before him, he can't switch jobs or learn new abilities. He is massively strong, but very slow, as you'd expect from a solid-iron machine. Despite having an innate Walk on Water and Ignore Weather, he can't enter water in the first place. I mean, he'd rust.
Construct 8 has a permanent Faith of 0. He is immune to Faith-based magic, including the disciplines of White, Black, Time, Mystic, and Summon magic. He is not immune to attacks based on MA but not Faith, such as Geomancy or monster skills.
The "Tasks" skillset has only four commands, three short-range attacks of increasing power and a ranged attack. All of them deplete a little bit of Construct 8's HP when used -- and you can't use White Magic to heal him! Items, Choco Cure, Chakra, and similar skills will all work, though.

Doom · « **Reply #165 on:** May 20, 2012, 05:11:04 PM »

It isn't until today that I realized how much of a dick move it was for Ramza to order a robot to shoot Mustadio in front of his father.

Should've recruited those Marlboros!

Disposable Ninja · « **Reply #166 on:** May 20, 2012, 06:32:33 PM »

... wait, why did Ramza think it would be a great idea to tell the robot to attack his friend?

Why would he even think that was a thing he should do?

Brentai · « **Reply #167 on:** May 20, 2012, 07:31:06 PM »

It doesn't come through very well in screenshots but the offhand way Ramza just points and says that makes it clearer that he was just joking around, and did not realize the robot was actually super-dangerous. Also this might be my memory making shit up but I remember him actually saying "Punch out Mustadio!" in the earlier builds, until somebody complained that the robot does not actually punch anything. So it got changed to something that maybe sort of could be Ramza ordering it to do something like throw him out of the building, and the robot interpreting it as something else.

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #168 on:** May 20, 2012, 07:41:55 PM »

I love how calm Mustadio's dad is in that scene. Like, "Oh, a robot just murdered my son right on front of me, nbd."

R^2 · « **Reply #169 on:** May 20, 2012, 08:32:40 PM »

The first translation had the line "Beat Mustadio up!", which illustrates a little better that it was a joke.

Stush · « **Reply #170 on:** May 21, 2012, 02:33:50 AM »

Is that the first time a phoenix down actually works in a cutscene death?

I know I might be reading into this too much, but this is one of the problems with having an item that can revive dead people in your setting, whenever someone actually dies, it's like "Why didn't they just bring them back? You can buy the darn items down at the corner store!"

Brentai · « **Reply #171 on:** May 21, 2012, 07:19:57 AM »

FF games are usually careful to differentiate between Wounded/KO states and actually dead. FFT actually has a built-in mechanic that separates the two, so there's that.

Still doesn't justify how guns and swords suddenly become extremely deady in cutscenes, though.

R^2 · « **Reply #172 on:** May 21, 2012, 07:52:48 AM »

Granted, not everyone who dies instantly turns into a chest or a spirit crystal, so it's still hard to say sometimes. I think I had played through the game two or three times before I realized one minor enemy actually dies the first time you meet him, and only shows up later because of a deal with the devil revived him.

R^2 · « **Reply #173 on:** May 21, 2012, 08:07:45 AM »

A random battle shows off Construct 8's go-to skill. He'd be useless if he didn't have it, because he's too slow to close the distance to enemies most of the time. But Dispose has a range of 8 and does solid damage, giving Construct 8 something to do while he laboriously walks up to enemies.

Wish I'd thought to equip Speechcraft before this fight.

Of course, sometimes a mobile enemy will make 8's life a little easier. POW!

I haven't bothered increasing my allies' Bravery much in this game, knowing that most of the monsters would breed their own replacements before long. But 8 and Reis are going to be around for a while, so I go ahead and Steel them.

But uh, how do you Steel a guy who's already made of metal?

On to the next story battle.

Two Black Mages, two Dragoons, and Knight, and an Archer vs. my party of massive hulking beasts. Oh yeah, my King Behemoth bred into a Dark Behemoth. So that's pretty cool.

You really shouldn't qualify your statements with such obvious loopholes, ser.

8, too far away to smash anything, uses frickin' laser beams instead. They singlehandedly save the character, I tells ya.

Dark Behemoths are crazy strong, yo.

"Why did I bring a metal shield with mAAARRRRGH"

Other than their ever-rising HP, PA, and MA, the only thing that differentiates different Behemoth breeds is their Beastmaster skill. Dark Behemoths get Almaguest, which covers a wide area of effect and does as much damage as the Behemoth has lost (Max HP - Current HP = damage, again).

The screencap didn't catch it, but that's 202 damage to all three targets. Nothing to sneeze at -- and finally I have a monster with enough HP to use that kind of attack reliably. Bombs and Goblins sure don't!

SQUISH

Black Mages tend to ignore 8, since he's immune to magic. It is to their detriment to do so.

Corner the archer, collect the chests and crystals.

I did a little training in Thief on the way here, picking up Steal Accessory and Steal Weapon. Steal Helm is an okay addition to the set.

While waiting for the chests to drop, I spent several turns Steeling Reis and Construct 8. I was going to keep doing that, but the Archer took aim at R2 and loosed an arrow... right into the Cockatrice's face. The Cockatrice counterattacked and KOed the Archer, winning the fight.

So, uh, yeah.

R^2 · « **Reply #174 on:** May 21, 2012, 08:24:58 AM »

I didn't screencap the status screen -- I'm really out of it this morning I guess -- but R2 is a Monk with Steal skills and Safeguard equipped.

You're so damn offended I don't know who you are but we have never met before, ever. Chill out.

Oh. Tedious.

Meliadoul here has two totally-worth-snagging pieces of equipment. Defender is the first knightsword we've seen, and has a 50% Weapon Evade rate to go along with its higher-than-average attack power. Chantage is a perfume that grants the user Regen and Reraise. Since R2 and monsters can't equip perfumes (only ladies can), we don't care about the Chantage, but we're totally taking the sword.

Teleport: still awesome. Steal doesn't have the vertical range necessary to take Meliadoul's sword this turn, so instead...

...I Aurablast a summoner.

The ninja here tries to sneak up on Reis and Aim a dragon-felling attack, but leaves herself open to a Talon Dive.

Construct 8 supports from a distance with more frickin' laser beams.

A summoner charging a spell is a vulnerable target, but not vulnerable enough for Reis to oneshot. Still gotta get that Bravery up -- hers started at 32 or so, and is only fortysomething here.

Assa no good.

My screencap didn't take, but that was Titan, the earth-elemental summon spell. The Jura Aevis line is weak to earth attacks. My Cockatrice is lucky to be alive.

Since longbows get extra range depending on elevation, taking out the archers before they can kill my Cockatrice is now a priority.

As is revenge on the summoner.

Stealing this sword has never been so easy. Got it on the first try!

Meliadoul is a Divine Knight, giving her another kind of magic sword abilities. Unyielding Blade skills do some hefty damage and break equipment, like the Knight's Arts of War but at range and also hurting you.

To be a Monk in this battle offers two benefits: Monks wear less equipment than other classes, so they have no weapons, shields, or headgear to break. If she can't break an item, Meliadoul's Unyielding Blade won't work at all*. Second, barehanded characters get that unlisted bonus to Steal skills I mentioned in passing earlier, making it easier to nick her sword and perfume.

She has Reequip. Shame she never uses it to pull out another Defender.

* - This is altered in the PSP rerelease, where her skills do damage and break an item, rather than doing damage contingent on the item breaking. This makes it possible to target empty equipment slots and use Unyielding Blade against monsters.

Only one enemy turned into a crystal, and that one had nothing to teach. Sigh.

WARNING. WARNING. ROBOT ATTACK IMMINENT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

THIS IS TOTALLY A DRILL THOUGH.

R^2 · « **Reply #175 on:** May 21, 2012, 08:33:03 AM »

Bard is a magic-based class I haven't used yet, and I need the MA to pull of some Speechcraft here.

Then why are you in the middle of the river already, you doofus? Besides, we can't "misstep" into the creek. Half of us can't enter water and the ones who can either teleport or fly.

This doesn't seem right. Finnath Creek is always overrun with chocobos, but usually has up to two red chocobos and at least one black (sometimes one red chocobo is replaced with a Pig, making the battle significantly easier). Six yellows is an odd turn of happenstance.

Doesn't take long before I have them eating out of my hand, though.

Dark Behemoths are still stronger than Construct 8. Good thing he has frickin' laser beams.

It's a chocobo battle. Not exactly hard wark.

Just think of all the summoners who won't kill you as you soar unburdened through the skies!

R^2 · « **Reply #176 on:** May 21, 2012, 02:39:33 PM »

We reach Zeltennia!

R2: Why has the High Confessor planted you among Goltanna's men?
Delita: I see no harm in telling you. Duke Goltanna and Count Orlandeau. I am to assassinate them.

Delita: The people tire of war, and their disdain for the Crown grows with each passing day. Of course, Goltanna and Larg want to put down the rebellions at home, only they lack the troops to do so. To break the impasse, they seek to bring an end to the conflict for good and all. Even as we speak, their armies mass at Fort Besselat to that purpose.
R2: Then these months of rebellion and unrest -- it all goes as the High Confessor had planned.
Delita: Yes. But it will not end as they have hoped.

I think this line parses easier if you ignore that R2 ever spoke that last line, and Delita is just continuing his thought from before.

Delita: Larg and Goltanna will be assassinated once the battle begins. Cut off one head, and two more spring forth, so naturally their closest allies must die with them. Count Orlandeau of the Order of the Southern Sky, Zalbaag of the Northern. And, of course, Lord Dycedarg. With their leaders gone, the fighting will cease, and they will have no choice but to embrace the peace we offer.
R2: A peace? Or surrender on the Church's terms?
Delita: The people will proffer to the Church the role of mediator with hands upraised. What's more, the Church will have the Zodiac Braves. But there's the rub.
R2: The stones...
Delita: One thing yet remains between the Church and the auracite. The heretic, R2 Beoulve.
R2: Is that it? You've come to fetch the auracite for your masters?

Delita: I cannot join you. She needs me -- far too much to leave her now.

Delita: Prince or princess, the Church cares not. It craves only power. A puppet state, with the High Confessor at its strings. This is their grand plan for Ivalice.
R2: And you? Do you not use Ovelia to fulfill your own ambitions?
Delita: I cannot say. I am sure only of this.

"After all, my sister is in trou-- oh. Uh. Never mind."

Then, a flash and a noise from outside!

R^2 · « **Reply #177 on:** May 21, 2012, 02:48:50 PM »

"Clearly they don't, or they would recognize you as a Church spy."

R2: If we explain what has happened, they may well listen.
Delita: Hear your words, R2! Reasoning with their ilk is folly, even you must see this. But you have leave to try!

Considering how well they listened to the explanation of what really happened at Lionel, we'll just kill them.

Delita opens with the magic sword skills we saw him use earlier.

A yellow chocobo comes along largely to keep Construct 8 in working order.

Bardsong! This is Life Anthem.

It restores a few HP to all allies.

When it comes to sheer kickassitude, my Dark Behemoth still gets the highest numbers out of regular attacks.

Cleaning up the last few enemies.

Zalmour: This man is a heretic! You that do abet him shall share his fate! I did not think to find the commander of the Blackram Knights a traitor to our cause!
Delita: My choice is made. If it means I must slay each of you to the man, so be it!
Zalmour: You should tremble with fear to mock the Heavens so! To slay a man of the cloth is to wound this land's peace, and turn your back on the natural order the Father has bestowed upon us! It is to turn your back on the gods!

You know who you remind me of? I met this knight apprentice from Limberry a little over a year ago...

Delita: Wound the peace? Ha! You hide behind this peace only as it suits you! You invoke the name of the gods to subjugate the weak. This peace you hail is a vile force! Men such as you profane the gods to speak their names!

R^2 · « **Reply #178 on:** May 21, 2012, 02:51:27 PM »

Illustrating Stush's point well, Zalmour is now dead, dead, dead. He will not be appearing later in the game. But nothing indicated that his death was anything other than "blarrg I am at zero HP I am falling over and will retreat off-camera in the next cutscene".

R^2 · « **Reply #179 on:** May 21, 2012, 03:01:30 PM »

R2: The second is to speak with Count Orlandeau.
Delita: The Thunder God?
R2: I mean to enlist his aid in exposing the Church's intruigues.
Delita: How?
R2: I have powerful evidence of the Church's misdeeds.
Delita: The Scriptures of Germonique!
R2: I spoke with the count's adopted son, Orran, not long past. He pledged their aid should I bring hard evidence against the Church.
Delita: Orran, eh?

And then, a young woman in a miniskirt that would make a Geomancer blush approaches.

"Which is hard since I never open my eyes."

Delita: And a fine job you're doing of it. Only she knows our plans in full. I trust no other in Goltanna's army more.
Valmafra: You're the youngest Beoulve, R2, am I right? My name is Valmafra.
Delita: I take it you did not come for idle chat?
Valmafra: The Northern Order moves.
Delita: They make for Besselat?
Valmafra: Count Orlandeau himself has departed for the same only just now. Duke Goltanna is like to join them soon. At the head of your Blackram Knights, no less.
Delita: Then we're too late. The fighting will continue.

Who's "we", Delita? This is just as planned for you.

R2: Do not give up yet. I might still convince the count to avoid this needless bloodshed.
Delita: Then our paths part once again.

No, they don't. We're both going to Besselat.

R2: Be safe, Delita.
Delita: And you, R2.

R2 remembered how to shake hands this time.

News:

Poll

How shall I go about this?

Author Topic: Lay down your arms or die clutching them! Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics! (Read 20143 times)