How do you know you're hooked on a game? Well, if you cannot wait to get your fix and if said game's music keeps looping in your head all day long, that's a pretty good sign that you're hooked indeed. I'm still playing the fourth attempt I mentioned in my last post; and at that point, said fourth attempt has been promoted to my official OTB run.
This means that I can now dive into the specifics of said official run! My four starting dungeons are the Ash of Heavens, the Temple of the Dragon, the Heptacolour Hot Springs and the Garden of Purrfection. Based on what I've infered from OTB wisdom on the internet, this is a pretty good combination indeed, with the two latter dungeons hosting a number of nifty items. That's not to say that my run became any easier in the process; in fact, I suspect it's the opposite indeed. Heptacolour and Purrfection are a pain to navigate to start with, and navigation was made even harder by the fact that I was nearly bereft of Keys at first. I got my paws on the 'ro' wooden tag and the Yellow Key in Heptacolour pretty early on; however, the 'ro' tag was useless because I couldn't access the matching door yet, and the Yellow Key could only do so much for my progression. This left me kinda stuck: while polishing off my first Feast of All Demons was but a mere formality, I couldn't access the second one because it was located too deep in Purrfection, with an Oni Boss blocking the way. Heck, Oni bosses were actually blocking the way in every single dungeon, and there was little hope I could eradicate them with my puny first generations of clan members.
So, how do you think I got out of that bind, dear fellow gamers? Why, through good ol' grinding, of course! I started dutifully racking up Devotion; and before long, through the magic of breeding and genetics, my family had become strong enough to wipe out Oni obstructions. (I'm actually a tad overleveled, if I have to be totally honest; but that will make the upcoming difficulty spikes easier, so I'm not complaining.) I could then progress at long last, and I got hold of two more Keys and the 'i' wooden tag. I'm currently in the process of tying loose ends and roaming the few parts still unexplored in dungeons, just to make sure that I'm not missing on yet another Key; and after that, I'll tackle my second Feast of All Demons and move onwards. I still have to find that fabled room with all Keys in Purrfection, which I suspect is hiding behind the 'ha' door located at the entrance of the dungeon. The corresponding tag is currently available in my town's General Store for an outrageous one-or-so million ryōs. That has to be one of the most expensive RPG item I've seen in a long time; however, I'm pretty confident I can get my cheating-hungry paws on it in a matter if hours. They don't call me thrifty for nothing, after all.
After several tries with speed settings, I finally found the balance I was looking for: I roll with Serious when I want to crawl, and with Fortunate when I want to grind. Finding the right balance in all things fighting was a tad trickier: no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up with one idle party member that didn't get to strike in 99% of random encounters. That wouldn't have been a problem, if not for the fact that said idle party member was sucking precious XP and devotion. I was certainly not going to keep a family member fed, clothed and leveled-up only for boss fights, thank you very much; and after a bit of pondering, I decided to play it daring and roll with a mere two units. I was a tad febrile, as you might expect; however, my fears were unfounded, as this setting works beautifully indeed. My Fab Two are a Halberdier and a Dancer, a combination that can pretty much clean a random encounter battlefield in a single turn; and to my relief, that duo also does a great job at vanquishing bosses so far.
Having two units only also makes party management much smoother, allowing me to settle into a comfortable routine: once my units are done studying, I crawl relentlessly with them until the older one reaches their peak, right before decay starts. I breed said older unit and let them train their offspring, while my younger unit grinds solo; then, I send the offspring in dungeons with my younger unit for a bout of levelling-up, while my older unit stays at home until bitting the dust. Once my younger unit hits their peak, I breed them and let them train their offspring, while the older offspring grinds solo; once the younger unit bites the dust as well, the cycle is over and can start again. This is so soothing and satisfying, I could go on like that forever. It's the circle of liiiiife...
With that said, I'm done with the current OTB tidings, dear fellow gamers! But I'll see you very soon for more indeed. Thanks for reading, and drop by anytime!
I wish I had seen the previous post sooner so I could say this earlier, but..heirloom weapons! I was left doubting if you did get them from your last post, but yes, invest in them as soon as you can. Since you have only 2 characters, you might want to invest in some heirloom armor as well, but weapons are more important.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why you need to do this as soon as possible, is because you need to grind with them. Heirloom equipment starts out stupidly weak, but grows stronger as it gets passed down from the generations, even gaining random, but always useful, abilities once in a while. In fact, it might be a little late for it to be completely optimal, but you need to do this.
The reason is because without them, you'll need to grind to insane levels. The difficulty spike at the end is horrendous. I made this mistake on my first playthrouh, and swore to never again. Trust me, other end-game level equipment does not cut it.
Also, if you like to do a little post game, there a little bonus if you always pick the same gods, but even without that, it's overall better to always pick the same ones. High and middle tier gods tend to randomly screw off and force you to find and battle them in the field about 2 billion times. No, those gods never get to stick around permanently, so they can't be relied upon for breeding. The gods that dump you are random in each file, so work out the ones that stick around and invest in them only.
Also, you might have seen this already, but gods gain affection level for the family, and you might even get to see some random traits pass down. It's possible to get the ears/horns of some gods for example(not wings though, sadly). And as a dating sim fan, I just like some of the more lovey-dovey lines some gods get.
Otherwise this is a really good game. I've been meaning to replay it, but I've recently got stuck into some very long games, which seems to be a theme this year. I spent 146 hours on final fantasy XIII alone. No 50 games completed this year at this rate! At least it keeps from engaging with the rest of the community much, which seems to get more radicalized every year.
Thanks a lot for the piece of advice! ^__^ I've been planning to treat my clan to Heirlooms sooner or later; but for the time being, I'm busy trying to figure out how the whole thing works. Heirloom stats seem to vary from month to month and peak when clan members get older, so I'm gonna monitor Heirlooms for a while and purchase some when good stats pop up.
DeleteI've been sticking to the same gods lately, and I'm starting to see interesting results affinity-wise. None of the gods I've mated with so far have taken their leave while I was involved with them, so I guess I'm lucky overall.
I agree, this is an excellent game. It has a couple of flaws, but nothing too crippling. I'm already itching to replay it again with all my accumulated knowledge of it; I can already see myself progressing insanely fast thanks to my hard-earned mastery, especially in the early stages.
Best advice is, just get them as early as you can and then glue them to your characters. It's best to not worry about the whole system, as just having them for a long time will always pay off in the end.
DeleteThere's also some gods that will become unavailable after a certain point, but I won't spoil who. Just stick to the lower ones and grind those up. If you find a new god on the battlefield that you never saw before and beat it three times, it will become available for breeding, but ignore them too; those gods are part of the "tends to screw off" list as well. In total, there will be 11 of those, which I think it's a third of the available gods. This is the game's biggest flaws in my opinion, as it's almost pointless to spend several lifetimes fighting them, only to have them leave a generation later.
A shame this game wasn't more popular so someone could translate the original game's PSP version. There's still some hope we might get a sequel in future, but ehhh. We should be thankful we get a sequel at all after 15 years, and that it came west.
I also find the roaming gods darn annoying. I like the idea of having complimentary bosses as a whole; but those complimentary bosses should have been demons, or gods that stay put once you've sent them back to the heavens. It's just vexing to have a god on your radar, only to discover that they're missing; and to add insult to injury, the game doesn't give you the slightest clue about where the god in question might dwell. Just a simple mention of the name of the dungeon would have alleviated that frustrating situation quite a lot; but no, Alpha System wanted to play it bitchy and let us players toil like idiots. I'm salty about this, I really am.
Delete"We should be thankful we get a sequel at all after 15 years, and that it came west": agreed. Regardless of OTB's flaws, I'm glad I got to play it, and in english to boot.