Secret of Mana

2009-10-15 05:46:16 pm

Quote from RaneofSOTN:

As I feared that the weapon selection would be rather reduced.. I think it'd be funny to set up a 2p weapon glitch with the third one casting intermittantly.. I mean it would probably generate some button mashing but think about it... on the later bosses if you can get TWO of the weapons to hit (any 2 really) it would be simple to get one to level 2 (broad sword / spear) then be able to swap to the respective ones you need. Then the third can be used to swap the weapons nearly at the same time then when they recharge, cast spells inbetween..
Would be menu hell but would probably lead to some quick boss ends in the end game (spells would lock them in place for a sec, then timing of hits would lead to quick deaths). I have no grounds on which to do this...

but if anyone of the 3 wants to do some EMULATED online testing.. i'll be down for that sometime soon (i have to write a paper this weekend) so... If you wanted to molotov, if you wanna do some testing, create save states for each boss in whatever emu w/ online you got. Then i'll grab it from you and we'll do some 2p testing see how it works out, maybe 3p if i can get my room mate in on that shit (for testing).

Thats what we really need to see... what can 3p do! not what 1p can do.

Yeah, double weapon glitch will definitely be something to practice at the lock-in (at least on my end). Chaining weapon glitch hits after magic was pretty effective on Hexas, I have to say. Gem Missile and then start glitch charging as soon as you see the gems come down. Smiley

Also, I'd take you up on that online practice offer, but my connection says that online play is impossible. Tried playing some Final Fight 2 with Alucard a while back, and it was literally unplayable due to lag. Mike and I are going to practice early in November though, so hopefully we can get a lot done then.

[Edit]: Quote added because of the stupid page break.

[quote="RaneofSOTN"]
As I feared that the weapon selection would be rather reduced.. I think it'd be funny to set up a 2p weapon glitch with the third one casting intermittantly.. I mean it would probably generate some button mashing but think about it... on the later bosses if you can get TWO of the weapons to hit (any 2 really) it would be simple to get one to level 2 (broad sword / spear) then be able to swap to the respective ones you need. Then the third can be used to swap the weapons nearly at the same time then when they recharge, cast spells inbetween..
Would be menu hell but would probably lead to some quick boss ends in the end game (spells would lock them in place for a sec, then timing of hits would lead to quick deaths). I have no grounds on which to do this...

but if anyone of the 3 wants to do some EMULATED online testing.. i'll be down for that sometime soon (i have to write a paper this weekend) so... If you wanted to molotov, if you wanna do some testing, create save states for each boss in whatever emu w/ online you got. Then i'll grab it from you and we'll do some 2p testing see how it works out, maybe 3p if i can get my room mate in on that shit (for testing).

Thats what we really need to see... what can 3p do! not what 1p can do.[/quote]

Yeah, double weapon glitch will definitely be something to practice at the lock-in (at least on my end). Chaining weapon glitch hits after magic was pretty effective on Hexas, I have to say. Gem Missile and then start glitch charging as soon as you see the gems come down. :)

Also, I'd take you up on that online practice offer, but my connection says that online play is impossible. Tried playing some Final Fight 2 with Alucard a while back, and it was literally unplayable due to lag. Mike and I are going to practice early in November though, so hopefully we can get a lot done then.

[Edit]: Quote added because of the stupid page break.

mikwuyma

2009-11-08 07:38:46 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

WARNING: Long post ahead about MAGFest marathon practice.

Quote from Molotov:

Mike and I are going to practice early in November though, so hopefully we can get a lot done then.

And we did get a lot done. A couple of things that need to be said before I talk about our practice session.

-Any method/plan that is slightly slower but more consistent is better than a plan that is faster but has a higher chance of failing because this game is RANDOM. This includes going a little out of the way to save in the beginning of the game (because if you die and didn't save, then OUCH), and restocking at certain points even though it's slower (like before the Hexas fight).

-We're using the wall glitch, it makes the run so much easier and consistent (risk of dying goes down A LOT)

-Even though we're using the weapon glitch, it's still a good idea to level up some magic. Fortunately, we don't have to level up nearly as much magic as Seiken, we just have to level Undine, Gnome, Sylphid, and Salamando to level 4 before Pure Land and we'll be golden.

-Speaking of the weapon glitch, we don't have to forge weapons because the glitch is so strong. Grin

However, it can't be reliably used against quite a few bosses (vampires, hexas). Sad

-We always confused ourselves the few times we had to control the third player.

-No matter what, we're probably going to die at least a couple of times due to bad luck. Sad

-Whoever is playing the girl will probably die a lot...Enhasa. Tongue

About the session itself:

We played through the game twice (yes, the entire game). Our first time through was a complete disaster clocking in at 7 hours with 30+ restarts (costing us an hour+). Sad

Our second time through we clocked in a little below 5 hours, 45 minutes, and we died 4 or 5 times (probably cost us less than 10 minutes).

What's the big difference between the two runs? We decided to level up using some magic at two key points for the second run.

-Level up Gnome to 3 at Ice country (right outside of the ice town).

-Level up Salamando to 3 at the Empire Castle entrance in Northtown right before going into Thanato's second palace.

In our first run, we just tried rushing through these places and we barely scraped by the ice palace after the 8th or so time (and each attempt costs at least 3 minutes). If you're wondering what's so tough about the Ice Palace, here's a small list.

-Wolf and Turtle ambushes. If you get hit, you're nearly dead, and it's very likely you will be stunlocked into the second hit. Sad

-Frost Slimes - These guys hit hard and leave you frozen for a while.

-Santa (Ice Gigas) - His spells annhilate your party in one hit, and we usually can't cure or remedy through it because the girl is almost always dead at that point (probably because she was controlled by the computer).

By leveling up Gnome while killing wolves, we gain a couple of levels and make enough money to buy rings and helmets (we have none at this point), both of which make it easier to survive (dying in 3-4 hits instead of 2 = huge difference). Also, using Gem Missile against Santa locks him in place for a weapon glitch hit.

The second area that really killed us the first time around was Thanatos's second palace. Like last time, enemies hit really hard (devils are the worst), and the boss fight is really bad (for different reasons from the Ice Palace though). Again, leveling Salamando against the knights by the Empire Castle entrance gives us a couple of levels, and more importantly, gives us money to buy good rings and helmets. Level 3 Salamando also makes the Vampire fight x100 more feasible because the Vampire is never on the ground long enough for a weapon glitch hit.

Read here if you don't want to read a lot. Now that we have most of the hard parts planned out, we should be able to make Molotov's estimate of 6 hours pretty easily.

Problem Areas:

-WEREWOLVES! Seriously, these guys suck. Maybe we should try stun-locking them instead of weapon glitching them. At least the save point for the first group of werewolves is nearby.

-Spiky Tiger can still be a problem if the bait dies too quickly. There's not much you can do aside from restart.

-The Fire Giant in the Underground Palace is still a problem, though Molotov and I decided it's probably worth it to level up Undine to level 1 and just ice spam the boss instead of relying on weapon glitch the entire time. That is, if the goblins don't stunlock us. Sad

-This is pretty minor, but is there a good reason to go to the desert before going to ice country, molotov?

Yes, all of these problem areas are early in the game. No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death Smiley

Plan outline (READ THIS ENHASA):

Note: There's a lot of shopping I don't mention because we're just buying healing items most of the time.

Molotov: If there's something I missed then just say so.

-Intro: Nothing important to say here aside from abusing Mantis Ant's AI
-Water Palace: Level the sword up to 1 along the way, if it's not level 1 by the time you reach the palace, just level a bit on the way to Gaia's navel.
-Gaia's navel: Before entering, save at Neko's in the right tunnel and maybe buy a Candy. Level up on the goblins until you're level 4 (you can still enter one or two more times afterwards). Be sure to use the spear so you can get level 1 spear.
Dwarf Village: After Tropicallo, buy candies, one or two cup of wishes (as many as you can afford), medical herbs, and a headgear for the guy. Be sure you have 100 gold for the axe. (BTW, use the armor cloning glitch on the sprite for a little extra money).
-Werewolves: Level up sword to level 2 beforehand, use weapon glitch and pray they cooperate. Sad

-Elinee's place: Spiky Tiger isn't too bad once you have the weapon glitch. There are werewolves in a tight corridor that can wreck you pretty badly though. Sad

Maybe a boomerang to stun them would be best? Oh yeah, we'll talk to Elinee, unlike Seiken. Wink

-Undine: Molotov and I still laugh every time we kill the lizard in one hit. Smiley

-Underground Palace: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Level up Undine to level 1 beforehand (still need to find a place to level it). Try not to get raped by goblins.
-Pandora: Level up pole dart a bit before you take the cannon here. Just go straight to the boss. The weapon glitch works really well against this boss.
-Killroy fight: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Some luck required, but usually you can get at least one weapon glitch on the guy.
-Jabberwocky: Level up pole dart some more on the way to the cannon to the Water Palace. Sometimes the weapon glitch misses for seemingly no reason, but not too bad otherwise.
-Upper Land: Weapon glitch the hedgehogs, it's honestly not too tough, though the hedgehogs are sometimes invincible while spinning. :-/
-Wind Shrine: If pole dart isn't already level 1, level it up because you can't hit this boss with the spear. Sad

This boss is also really hard to hit, but there's no other method Molotov and I could come up with. Sad

-Matango and Flammie Cave:
-Kakkara: Be sure to buy candies on the way out from Matango, because there are none in here or Ice Country. Go through desert (right, up, left, IIRC), go through ship sequence, kill Mech Rider (who is very easy to weapon glitch, btw), then get to Kakkara and cannon to...
-Ice Country: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts, kill wolves with Gnome, repeat until until Gnome is level 3. Should have around 3-3.5k gp, which is enough for two racoon caps (one for the guy, the other for the sprite), and 2-3 silver rings.
-Salamando and Ice Palace: The tropicallo clone is pretty easy to weapon glitch. Go to Neko before Ice Palace or else you lose a ton of progress if you die. Gem Missile Santa then weapon glitch him, you can just repeat a couple more gem missiles afterward. Take cannon to Kakkara.
-Fire Palace: Don't get in Minotaur's way while he's charging. Not too bad otherwise.
-Southtown: Trigger Mara, get code, be careful about missile fish in sewers.
-Northtown: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts again, level Salamando up to level 3, buy 3 tiger hats and two or three rings.
-Thanato's Palace: Hope none of the enemies stunlock you, weapon glitch the wall (try not to kill the eyes while doing this), Fireball vampire to death (there is no way in hell you will weapon glitch him).
-Empire's Castle: Stay on bottom for Mantis Ant clone, use pole dart weapon glitch (I think?). Weapon glitch Mech Rider 2.
-Lofty Mountains: Be sure to buy a circlet for the sprite's magic power. Stock up on wishing cups, go inside Shade's Palace, use wall glitch and try to get the girl killed (not hard since she's usually the lowest level at this point), repeat until you run out of wishing cups a second time (yeah you repeat the whole process another time).
-Gold City: Buy two battle suits (again for the guy and Sprite) and a lapzuli ring (or whatever it's called) for the Sprite with the money earned from wall glitch (yeah you get a lot). Run all the way around wall to talk to guy to trigger the gold key event. Go to Southtown, talk to Mara and get Gold Tower key
-Shade's Palace: Easy peasy with all of our leveling. Smiley

-Gold Tower: If bait trick doesn't work against Spiky Tiger clone, spamming Salamando works decently too. Gorgon Bull is pretty easy with battle suits.
-Moon Palace: Yep
-Tasnica: Wrap around right to avoid Jema dialogue, mash through King dialogue to skip Jema sequence. What a sad boss. Sad

-Lofty Mountains: Girl will likely die on the way to the clones, which is a good thing, because that's one less clone to fight. Take out Sprite clone with weapon glitch, then unequip the guy and let his clone beat him up. Sprite is victorious!
-Sunken Continent: amsglskhgsldon is either super quick and easy or will go ballistic with spells (he chained 5 spells in a row on molotov once!). He's not a hard boss either way, but the time can vary by a wide margin. Jabberwocky clone isn't too tough, a combo of Salamando and weapon glitch takes him out pretty fast. Super Killroy isn't too tough as long as if you can hit him with the weapon glitch once or twice. Red Lizard dies pretty fast to Salamando spam if you can't weapon glitch him. After the Red Lizard, restock items before Hexas because it's a long and tedious battle (but not hard). Spam Hexas with Salamando, if you can get a weapon glitch hit in, great. Mech Rider 3 isn't hard, just takes about 6 or 7 weapon glitch hits.
-Pure Land prep: Land in the Sunken Continent again, talk to Jema to trigger correct Neko store (don't ask). Buy Royal Jams for healing, and a vest guard and unicorn helm for the guy. Go to Ice Country, level up elemental spirits to 4 (shouldn't take too long because Gnome is at level 3 and Salamando will be way overleveled at 5 or 6).
-Pure Land: Not too bad once you have good spells, but not ez like Enhasa said because the enemies can still beat you pretty hard. During all of the following bosses, no one should be controlling the Sprite, it's better to use him through the X menu because he can spam faster that way. Thunderbolt stun the snake, Fry the Snow Dragon, Freezelock the Firebird and Fire Dragon, Gem missile Thunder Gigas and Thunder Dragon. Wait for long (4+ minute) cutscene.
-Mana Fortress prep: Buy another Vest guard and unicorn helm for the sprite/girl (sprite gets it first, then you give it to the girl after the vampire), buy a gauntlet for the guy.
-Mana Fortress: Try not to get killed by ninjas (they are super duper scary). Salamando Buffy (vampire) to death. Give Sprite's good equipment to the girl. Use Pole Dart weapon glitch against Dread Slime, make sure all characters are right below the center of the slime. Thanatos is super easy, but long and tedious. Have the girl stand on the left while the guy tanks all damage and weapon glitches. Mana Beast is also super easy, moon energy guy, weapon glitch, repeat while the beast is vulnerable, just make sure whoever is playing the girl is alert and remedies through the Beast's attacks.

If you're not Enhasa and you actually read this whole plan, then you deserve a cookie.

P.S. Yeah, I didn't mention every time we save in the plan outline, because we do it nearly every opportunity we get.

WARNING: Long post ahead about MAGFest marathon practice.

[quote="Molotov"]
Mike and I are going to practice early in November though, so hopefully we can get a lot done then.
[/quote]

And we did get a lot done. A couple of things that need to be said before I talk about our practice session.

-Any method/plan that is slightly slower but more consistent is better than a plan that is faster but has a higher chance of failing because this game is RANDOM. This includes going a little out of the way to save in the beginning of the game (because if you die and didn't save, then OUCH), and restocking at certain points even though it's slower (like before the Hexas fight).

-We're using the wall glitch, it makes the run so much easier and consistent (risk of dying goes down A LOT)

-Even though we're using the weapon glitch, it's still a good idea to level up some magic. Fortunately, we don't have to level up nearly as much magic as Seiken, we just have to level Undine, Gnome, Sylphid, and Salamando to level 4 before Pure Land and we'll be golden.

-Speaking of the weapon glitch, we don't have to forge weapons because the glitch is so strong. ;D However, it can't be reliably used against quite a few bosses (vampires, hexas). :(

-We always confused ourselves the few times we had to control the third player.

-No matter what, we're probably going to die at least a couple of times due to bad luck. :(

-Whoever is playing the girl will probably die a lot...Enhasa. :P

[b]About the session itself:[/b]

We played through the game twice (yes, the entire game). Our first time through was a complete disaster clocking in at 7 hours with 30+ restarts (costing us an hour+). :(

Our second time through we clocked in a little below 5 hours, 45 minutes, and we died 4 or 5 times (probably cost us less than 10 minutes).

What's the big difference between the two runs? We decided to level up using some magic at two key points for the second run.

-Level up Gnome to 3 at Ice country (right outside of the ice town).

-Level up Salamando to 3 at the Empire Castle entrance in Northtown right before going into Thanato's second palace.

In our first run, we just tried rushing through these places and we barely scraped by the ice palace after the 8th or so time (and each attempt costs at least 3 minutes). If you're wondering what's so tough about the Ice Palace, here's a small list.

-Wolf and Turtle ambushes. If you get hit, you're nearly dead, and it's very likely you will be stunlocked into the second hit. :(

-Frost Slimes - These guys hit hard and leave you frozen for a while.

-Santa (Ice Gigas) - His spells annhilate your party in one hit, and we usually can't cure or remedy through it because the girl is almost always dead at that point (probably because she was controlled by the computer).

By leveling up Gnome while killing wolves, we gain a couple of levels and make enough money to buy rings and helmets (we have none at this point), both of which make it easier to survive (dying in 3-4 hits instead of 2 = huge difference). Also, using Gem Missile against Santa locks him in place for a weapon glitch hit.

The second area that really killed us the first time around was Thanatos's second palace. Like last time, enemies hit really hard (devils are the worst), and the boss fight is really bad (for different reasons from the Ice Palace though). Again, leveling Salamando against the knights by the Empire Castle entrance gives us a couple of levels, and more importantly, gives us money to buy good rings and helmets. Level 3 Salamando also makes the Vampire fight x100 more feasible because the Vampire is never on the ground long enough for a weapon glitch hit.

[b][size=16pt]Read here if you don't want to read a lot. Now that we have most of the hard parts planned out, we should be able to make Molotov's estimate of 6 hours pretty easily.[/size][/b]

[b]Problem Areas[/b]:

-WEREWOLVES! Seriously, these guys suck. Maybe we should try stun-locking them instead of weapon glitching them. At least the save point for the first group of werewolves is nearby.

-Spiky Tiger can still be a problem if the bait dies too quickly. There's not much you can do aside from restart.

-The Fire Giant in the Underground Palace is still a problem, though Molotov and I decided it's probably worth it to level up Undine to level 1 and just ice spam the boss instead of relying on weapon glitch the entire time. That is, if the goblins don't stunlock us. :(

-This is pretty minor, but is there a good reason to go to the desert before going to ice country, molotov?

Yes, all of these problem areas are early in the game. No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death :)

Plan outline (READ THIS ENHASA):

Note: There's a lot of shopping I don't mention because we're just buying healing items most of the time.

Molotov: If there's something I missed then just say so.

[spoiler]
-Intro: Nothing important to say here aside from abusing Mantis Ant's AI
-Water Palace: Level the sword up to 1 along the way, if it's not level 1 by the time you reach the palace, just level a bit on the way to Gaia's navel.
-Gaia's navel: Before entering, save at Neko's in the right tunnel and maybe buy a Candy. Level up on the goblins until you're level 4 (you can still enter one or two more times afterwards). Be sure to use the spear so you can get level 1 spear.
Dwarf Village: After Tropicallo, buy candies, one or two cup of wishes (as many as you can afford), medical herbs, and a headgear for the guy. Be sure you have 100 gold for the axe. (BTW, use the armor cloning glitch on the sprite for a little extra money).
-Werewolves: Level up sword to level 2 beforehand, use weapon glitch and pray they cooperate. :(
-Elinee's place: Spiky Tiger isn't too bad once you have the weapon glitch. There are werewolves in a tight corridor that can wreck you pretty badly though. :( Maybe a boomerang to stun them would be best? Oh yeah, we'll talk to Elinee, unlike Seiken. ;)
-Undine: Molotov and I still laugh every time we kill the lizard in one hit. :)
-Underground Palace: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Level up Undine to level 1 beforehand (still need to find a place to level it). Try not to get raped by goblins.
-Pandora: Level up pole dart a bit before you take the cannon here. Just go straight to the boss. The weapon glitch works really well against this boss.
-Killroy fight: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Some luck required, but usually you can get at least one weapon glitch on the guy.
-Jabberwocky: Level up pole dart some more on the way to the cannon to the Water Palace. Sometimes the weapon glitch misses for seemingly no reason, but not too bad otherwise.
-Upper Land: Weapon glitch the hedgehogs, it's honestly not too tough, though the hedgehogs are sometimes invincible while spinning. :-/
-Wind Shrine: If pole dart isn't already level 1, level it up because you can't hit this boss with the spear. :( This boss is also really hard to hit, but there's no other method Molotov and I could come up with. :(
-Matango and Flammie Cave: 
-Kakkara: Be sure to buy candies on the way out from Matango, because there are none in here or Ice Country. Go through desert (right, up, left, IIRC), go through ship sequence, kill Mech Rider (who is very easy to weapon glitch, btw), then get to Kakkara and cannon to...
-Ice Country: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts, kill wolves with Gnome, repeat until until Gnome is level 3. Should have around 3-3.5k gp, which is enough for two racoon caps (one for the guy, the other for the sprite), and 2-3 silver rings.
-Salamando and Ice Palace: The tropicallo clone is pretty easy to weapon glitch. Go to Neko before Ice Palace or else you lose a ton of progress if you die. Gem Missile Santa then weapon glitch him, you can just repeat a couple more gem missiles afterward. Take cannon to Kakkara.
-Fire Palace: Don't get in Minotaur's way while he's charging. Not too bad otherwise.
-Southtown: Trigger Mara, get code, be careful about missile fish in sewers.
-Northtown: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts again, level Salamando up to level 3, buy 3 tiger hats and two or three rings.
-Thanato's Palace: Hope none of the enemies stunlock you, weapon glitch the wall (try not to kill the eyes while doing this), Fireball vampire to death (there is no way in hell you will weapon glitch him).
-Empire's Castle: Stay on bottom for Mantis Ant clone, use pole dart weapon glitch (I think?). Weapon glitch Mech Rider 2.
-Lofty Mountains: Be sure to buy a circlet for the sprite's magic power. Stock up on wishing cups, go inside Shade's Palace, use wall glitch and try to get the girl killed (not hard since she's usually the lowest level at this point), repeat until you run out of wishing cups a second time (yeah you repeat the whole process another time).
-Gold City: Buy two battle suits (again for the guy and Sprite) and a lapzuli ring (or whatever it's called) for the Sprite with the money earned from wall glitch (yeah you get a lot). Run all the way around wall to talk to guy to trigger the gold key event. Go to Southtown, talk to Mara and get Gold Tower key
-Shade's Palace: Easy peasy with all of our leveling. :)
-Gold Tower: If bait trick doesn't work against Spiky Tiger clone, spamming Salamando works decently too. Gorgon Bull is pretty easy with battle suits.
-Moon Palace: Yep
-Tasnica: Wrap around right to avoid Jema dialogue, mash through King dialogue to skip Jema sequence. What a sad boss. :(
-Lofty Mountains: Girl will likely die on the way to the clones, which is a good thing, because that's one less clone to fight. Take out Sprite clone with weapon glitch, then unequip the guy and let his clone beat him up. Sprite is victorious!
-Sunken Continent: amsglskhgsldon is either super quick and easy or will go ballistic with spells (he chained 5 spells in a row on molotov once!). He's not a hard boss either way, but the time can vary by a wide margin. Jabberwocky clone isn't too tough, a combo of Salamando and weapon glitch takes him out pretty fast. Super Killroy isn't too tough as long as if you can hit him with the weapon glitch once or twice. Red Lizard dies pretty fast to Salamando spam if you can't weapon glitch him. After the Red Lizard, restock items before Hexas because it's a long and tedious battle (but not hard). Spam Hexas with Salamando, if you can get a weapon glitch hit in, great. Mech Rider 3 isn't hard, just takes about 6 or 7 weapon glitch hits.
-Pure Land prep: Land in the Sunken Continent again, talk to Jema to trigger correct Neko store (don't ask). Buy Royal Jams for healing, and a vest guard and unicorn helm for the guy. Go to Ice Country, level up elemental spirits to 4 (shouldn't take too long because Gnome is at level 3 and Salamando will be way overleveled at 5 or 6).
-Pure Land: Not too bad once you have good spells, but not ez like Enhasa said because the enemies can still beat you pretty hard. During all of the following bosses, no one should be controlling the Sprite, it's better to use him through the X menu because he can spam faster that way. Thunderbolt stun the snake, Fry the Snow Dragon, Freezelock the Firebird and Fire Dragon, Gem missile Thunder Gigas and Thunder Dragon. Wait for long (4+ minute) cutscene.
-Mana Fortress prep: Buy another Vest guard and unicorn helm for the sprite/girl (sprite gets it first, then you give it to the girl after the vampire), buy a gauntlet for the guy.
-Mana Fortress: Try not to get killed by ninjas (they are super duper scary). Salamando Buffy (vampire) to death. Give Sprite's good equipment to the girl. Use Pole Dart weapon glitch against Dread Slime, make sure all characters are right below the center of the slime. Thanatos is super easy, but long and tedious. Have the girl stand on the left while the guy tanks all damage and weapon glitches. Mana Beast is also super easy, moon energy guy, weapon glitch, repeat while the beast is vulnerable, just make sure whoever is playing the girl is alert and remedies through the Beast's attacks.

If you're not Enhasa and you actually read this whole plan, then you deserve a cookie.
[/spoiler]

P.S. Yeah, I didn't mention every time we save in the plan outline, because we do it nearly every opportunity we get.

Molotov

2009-11-08 09:03:34 pm

Quote from mikwuyma:

-Spiky Tiger can still be a problem if the bait dies too quickly. There's not much you can do aside from restart.

Actually, I think the main issue with Spikey was that I just kept screwing up. I don't think the wake-up hit from the girl was my fault though. Still, it shouldn't be a big problem with a third player.

Quote:

-The Fire Giant in the Underground Palace is still a problem, though Molotov and I decided it's probably worth it to level up Undine to level 1 and just ice spam the boss instead of relying on weapon glitch the entire time. That is, if the goblins don't stunlock us. Sad

Yeah, we should definitely copy Seiken here. Sissy poke -> Freeze spam. I'd add a weapon glitch after the Freeze damage though, just to be sure he dies.

Quote:

-This is pretty minor, but is there a good reason to go to the desert before going to ice country, molotov?

Beats me. I always just did it because of Seiken's run, but I also figure it has to do something with magically finding out that the Fire Seed is missing. Worth testing later, of course.

Quote:

Yes, all of these problem areas are early in the game. No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death Smiley

With the occasional weapon glitch too. Smiley

Quote:

Molotov: If there's something I missed then just say so.

I think I only have three other notes:

1. When we buy the Headgear, actually equip the freaking thing. Seriously, how did we miss that?

2. The first snake is mean and moves around too much.

3. It seems that the Golem Ring is the worst of the three options (Silver Band, Golem Ring, Frosty Ring), because immunity to petrification is pointless. I'm leaning toward recommending the Silver Bands. A lot cheaper and the immunity to knock-outs sounds awesome. It's a loss of 6 defense and 11 magic defense though. Immunity to frosty is not bad either obviously (Frosty Ring), but we were just using Fireball anyway.

Quote:

-Underground Palace: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Level up Undine to level 1 beforehand (still need to find a place to level it). Try not to get raped by goblins.

Best thing I can figure: Freeze some poor Rabite four times (the Sprite will have about 9 MP), sleep in the Dwarf inn, hit the orb, bomb the goblins three times, sleep again, bomb them four times, and sleep/save. It would be nice to have 12 MP for a two pass thing, but he won't get that until level 13. Sad

Quote:

-Lofty Mountains: Be sure to buy a circlet for the sprite's magic power. Stock up on wishing cups, go inside Shade's Palace, use wall glitch and try to get the girl killed (not hard since she's usually the lowest level at this point), repeat until you run out of wishing cups a second time (yeah you repeat the whole process another time).

Worth noting that the girl should get whacked by a Dark Knight once before the Fireball. I'm trusting that the YouTube video guy knew what he was doing, so I would stick to that (just like we did).

Anyway, I think you summarized everything really well. As long as I remember to write down some more cheat sheet directions (Southtown -> Lofty Mountains being one, but what are the others?), we're probably mostly done with planning. Good thing too, because I'm definitely not touching this game again for at least a week. Tongue

[quote="mikwuyma"]-Spiky Tiger can still be a problem if the bait dies too quickly. There's not much you can do aside from restart.[/quote]

Actually, I think the main issue with Spikey was that I just kept screwing up. I don't think the wake-up hit from the girl was my fault though. Still, it shouldn't be a big problem with a third player.

[quote]-The Fire Giant in the Underground Palace is still a problem, though Molotov and I decided it's probably worth it to level up Undine to level 1 and just ice spam the boss instead of relying on weapon glitch the entire time. That is, if the goblins don't stunlock us. :([/quote]

Yeah, we should definitely copy Seiken here. Sissy poke -> Freeze spam. I'd add a weapon glitch after the Freeze damage though, just to be sure he dies.

[quote]-This is pretty minor, but is there a good reason to go to the desert before going to ice country, molotov?[/quote]

Beats me. I always just did it because of Seiken's run, but I also figure it has to do something with magically finding out that the Fire Seed is missing. Worth testing later, of course.

[quote]Yes, all of these problem areas are early in the game. No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death :)[/quote]

With the occasional weapon glitch too. :)

[quote]Molotov: If there's something I missed then just say so.[/quote]

I think I only have three other notes:

1. When we buy the Headgear, actually equip the freaking thing. Seriously, how did we miss that?

2. The first snake is mean and moves around too much.

3. It seems that the Golem Ring is the worst of the three options (Silver Band, Golem Ring, Frosty Ring), because immunity to petrification is pointless. I'm leaning toward recommending the Silver Bands. A lot cheaper and the immunity to knock-outs sounds awesome. It's a loss of 6 defense and 11 magic defense though. Immunity to frosty is not bad either obviously (Frosty Ring), but we were just using Fireball anyway.

[quote]-Underground Palace: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Level up Undine to level 1 beforehand (still need to find a place to level it). Try not to get raped by goblins.[/quote]

Best thing I can figure: Freeze some poor Rabite four times (the Sprite will have about 9 MP), sleep in the Dwarf inn, hit the orb, bomb the goblins three times, sleep again, bomb them four times, and sleep/save. It would be nice to have 12 MP for a two pass thing, but he won't get that until level 13. :(

[quote]-Lofty Mountains: Be sure to buy a circlet for the sprite's magic power. Stock up on wishing cups, go inside Shade's Palace, use wall glitch and try to get the girl killed (not hard since she's usually the lowest level at this point), repeat until you run out of wishing cups a second time (yeah you repeat the whole process another time).[/quote]

Worth noting that the girl should get whacked by a Dark Knight once before the Fireball. I'm trusting that the YouTube video guy knew what he was doing, so I would stick to that (just like we did).

Anyway, I think you summarized everything really well. As long as I remember to write down some more cheat sheet directions (Southtown -> Lofty Mountains being one, but what are the others?), we're probably mostly done with planning. Good thing too, because I'm definitely not touching this game again for at least a week. :P

RaneofSOTN

2009-11-09 05:04:50 am

I want off the ride....

I read your plan; and what not; still keeping up with what you guys do so need be, I can step in.

Having a cheat sheet of directions is a good idea unless your like me and have the maps of all of SD3 memorized (most of the early sd2).

You guys seem to have a good hand in it and planned well. Any weekend if you guys want to practice with a third, it might be possible to do this online (2 on your side, one over here) Unless you did your testing online...

Emptyeye

2009-11-09 05:56:26 am

Talk to the Hand

Yay, cookie for me! Smiley

Quote from mikwuyma:

-Pure Land prep: Land in the Sunken Continent again, talk to Jema to trigger correct Neko store (don't ask).

What is this I don't even. <_< >_>

So um, if you don't talk to Jema, what's Neko sell you?

mikwuyma

2009-11-09 11:01:21 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Quote from Molotov:

Yeah, we should definitely copy Seiken here. Sissy poke -> Freeze spam. I'd add a weapon glitch after the Freeze damage though, just to be sure he dies.

I remember Seiken also used cure spells a bunch to counteract level 4 exploder, which would have killed his entire party if he didn't cure. We should definitely take that into consideration.

Quote:

Yes, all of these problem areas are early in the game. No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death Smiley

With the occasional weapon glitch too. Smiley

Yeah, weapon glitching the gigas also helps out with the sprite's mp.

Quote:

When we buy the Headgear, actually equip the freaking thing. Seriously, how did we miss that?

Haha, yeah, I'm not sure how that happened.

Quote:

The first snake is mean and moves around too much.

Yeah, our hits seemed to be mostly luck. I still think it's a good idea to use spells to set up the weapon glitch.

Quote:

It seems that the Golem Ring is the worst of the three options (Silver Band, Golem Ring, Frosty Ring), because immunity to petrification is pointless. I'm leaning toward recommending the Silver Bands. A lot cheaper and the immunity to knock-outs sounds awesome. It's a loss of 6 defense and 11 magic defense though. Immunity to frosty is not bad either obviously (Frosty Ring), but we were just using Fireball anyway.

After we kill the knights at the castle entrance, we'll have enough money for Frosty Rings. I don't see why we can't wear frosty rings most of the time, but wear silver bands in areas where chances of being knocked out are high (lofty mountains, aegropolosihfsin battle, pure land). The only problem would be remembering to switch gear. Cheesy

Well, the defense difference might not be high enough to make switching around worth it, not sure. Instead of buying Frosty Rings we could always stick a ruby vest on the guy just to make sure one person survives the run through Thanatos's palace, but I don't remember the trip being especially bad once we had tiger caps.

Quote:

Best thing I can figure: Freeze some poor Rabite four times (the Sprite will have about 9 MP), sleep in the Dwarf inn, hit the orb, bomb the goblins three times, sleep again, bomb them four times, and sleep/save. It would be nice to have 12 MP for a two pass thing, but he won't get that until level 13. Sad

Sounds good to me. We could even cast the first few freezes on the fish right outside of Undine's cave.

Quote:

Worth noting that the girl should get whacked by a Dark Knight once before the Fireball. I'm trusting that the YouTube video guy knew what he was doing, so I would stick to that (just like we did).

I'm not sure the girl getting whacked before she gets hit is necessary, she seems to die in one reflected fireball anyway. Either way, it's not a big deal.

Quote:

Anyway, I think you summarized everything really well. As long as I remember to write down some more cheat sheet directions (Southtown -> Lofty Mountains being one, but what are the others?), we're probably mostly done with planning. Good thing too, because I'm definitely not touching this game again for at least a week. Tongue

Thanks! And yeah, I agree we're mostly done with planning, at least all of the big things have been taken care of. I don't blame you not playing the game for a week, 13 hours of SoM in two days is too much for a guy to take.

I don't remember what you had written down for Flammie directions, but here are some things that stuck out in my mind: Sunken Continent to the nearest town for restocking (Hexas prep); Ice Country to Pure Land; and Pure Land to Sunken Continent is Northwest. There was also something about going west to Pandora because the inn was right where you landed, but I don't remember any details. Sad

Quote:

What is this I don't even. <_< >_>

So um, if you don't talk to Jema, what's Neko sell you?

When we landed the first time, Neko sold us items from the town in the Lofty Mountains (at normal prices, not Neko ripoff prices too!). When we landed the second time, we talked to Jema and Neko sold us the stuff he's supposed to sell.

BTW, Magical Armor shouldn't look so much like Vest Guard. <_< Good thing Magical Armor is a lot cheaper.

RaneofSOTN: Cool, we'll definitely need a backup, especially if one of us starts getting sleepy. We could try some online practice sometime, but it would only be two player because Molotov's connection isn't that great and he lives 2 hours away from me.

[quote="Molotov"]
Yeah, we should definitely copy Seiken here. Sissy poke -> Freeze spam. I'd add a weapon glitch after the Freeze damage though, just to be sure he dies.[/quote]

I remember Seiken also used cure spells a bunch to counteract level 4 exploder, which would have killed his entire party if he didn't cure. We should definitely take that into consideration.

[quote][quote]Yes, all of these problem areas are early in the game. No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death :)[/quote]

With the occasional weapon glitch too. :)[/quote]

Yeah, weapon glitching the gigas also helps out with the sprite's mp.

[quote]When we buy the Headgear, actually equip the freaking thing. Seriously, how did we miss that?[/quote]

Haha, yeah, I'm not sure how that happened.

[quote]The first snake is mean and moves around too much.[/quote]

Yeah, our hits seemed to be mostly luck. I still think it's a good idea to use spells to set up the weapon glitch.

[quote]It seems that the Golem Ring is the worst of the three options (Silver Band, Golem Ring, Frosty Ring), because immunity to petrification is pointless. I'm leaning toward recommending the Silver Bands. A lot cheaper and the immunity to knock-outs sounds awesome. It's a loss of 6 defense and 11 magic defense though. Immunity to frosty is not bad either obviously (Frosty Ring), but we were just using Fireball anyway.[/quote]

After we kill the knights at the castle entrance, we'll have enough money for Frosty Rings. I don't see why we can't wear frosty rings most of the time, but wear silver bands in areas where chances of being knocked out are high (lofty mountains, aegropolosihfsin battle, pure land). The only problem would be remembering to switch gear. :D Well, the defense difference might not be high enough to make switching around worth it, not sure. Instead of buying Frosty Rings we could always stick a ruby vest on the guy just to make sure one person survives the run through Thanatos's palace, but I don't remember the trip being especially bad once we had tiger caps.

[quote]
Best thing I can figure: Freeze some poor Rabite four times (the Sprite will have about 9 MP), sleep in the Dwarf inn, hit the orb, bomb the goblins three times, sleep again, bomb them four times, and sleep/save. It would be nice to have 12 MP for a two pass thing, but he won't get that until level 13. :([/quote]

Sounds good to me. We could even cast the first few freezes on the fish right outside of Undine's cave.

[quote]Worth noting that the girl should get whacked by a Dark Knight once before the Fireball. I'm trusting that the YouTube video guy knew what he was doing, so I would stick to that (just like we did).[/quote]

I'm not sure the girl getting whacked before she gets hit is necessary, she seems to die in one reflected fireball anyway. Either way, it's not a big deal.

[quote]Anyway, I think you summarized everything really well. As long as I remember to write down some more cheat sheet directions (Southtown -> Lofty Mountains being one, but what are the others?), we're probably mostly done with planning. Good thing too, because I'm definitely not touching this game again for at least a week. :P
[/quote]

Thanks! And yeah, I agree we're mostly done with planning, at least all of the big things have been taken care of. I don't blame you not playing the game for a week, 13 hours of SoM in two days is too much for a guy to take.

I don't remember what you had written down for Flammie directions, but here are some things that stuck out in my mind: Sunken Continent to the nearest town for restocking (Hexas prep); Ice Country to Pure Land; and Pure Land to Sunken Continent is Northwest. There was also something about going west to Pandora because the inn was right where you landed, but I don't remember any details. :(

[quote author=Emptyeye]What is this I don't even. <_< >_>

So um, if you don't talk to Jema, what's Neko sell you?[/quote]

When we landed the first time, Neko sold us items from the town in the Lofty Mountains (at normal prices, not Neko ripoff prices too!). When we landed the second time, we talked to Jema and Neko sold us the stuff he's supposed to sell.

BTW, Magical Armor shouldn't look so much like Vest Guard. <_< Good thing Magical Armor is a lot cheaper.

RaneofSOTN: Cool, we'll definitely need a backup, especially if one of us starts getting sleepy. We could try some online practice sometime, but it would only be two player because Molotov's connection isn't that great and he lives 2 hours away from me.

seiken

2009-11-12 05:43:23 am

Secret of Mana

Hello everyone ^^ I randomly lurked this board for a few games and i'm happy that you are interrested by this game, maybe finally i will see a new run Wink

Even if it's glitched ;( I wanted to post again in this thread Smiley

-This is pretty minor, but is there a good reason to go to the desert before going to ice country, molotov?

Yes, there is a good one. First it levels up Undine on Meka1, but its only interresting for a speed run no glitch i guess Sad

However, it's still faster for you : if you do High country --) Ice Country, you will need to do then Ice Country ---) Mushroom Town ---) Desert and not Ice Country ---) Desert because the guy will tell you : "Sorry, i don't have enough powder for to put you directly in Desert :D" even if you have defeated Frost Gigas.

-WEREWOLVES! Seriously, these guys suck. Maybe we should try stun-locking them instead of weapon glitching them. At least the save point for the first group of werewolves is nearby.

Put the two werewolves in the corner in the middle of the south of the area. Then they will run on the wall on you will safely hit them. If you play alone, let the sprite die or he will help the 2 werewolves to get out of the little corner in the south corner. It's really faster to go to Spikey with the 2 allied dead ^^ It's just the sprite must have 8 Mp for to use 4x undine on Fire Gigas then 9 Mp for to do 3 earth slide on the wall.

I didn't understood why u wanted to buy equips ? They are useless Wink

Hello everyone ^^ I randomly lurked this board for a few games and i'm happy that you are interrested by this game, maybe finally i will see a new run ;) Even if it's glitched ;( I wanted to post again in this thread :)

[i]-This is pretty minor, but is there a good reason to go to the desert before going to ice country, molotov?[/i]

Yes, there is a good one. First it levels up Undine on Meka1, but its only interresting for a speed run no glitch i guess :(

However, it's still faster for you : if you do High country --) Ice Country, you will need to do then Ice Country ---) Mushroom Town ---) Desert and not Ice Country ---) Desert because the guy will tell you : "Sorry, i don't have enough powder for to put you directly in Desert :D" even if you have defeated Frost Gigas.

[i]-WEREWOLVES! Seriously, these guys suck. Maybe we should try stun-locking them instead of weapon glitching them. At least the save point for the first group of werewolves is nearby.[/i]

Put the two werewolves in the corner in the middle of the south of the area. Then they will run on the wall on you will safely hit them. If you play alone, let the sprite die or he will help the 2 werewolves to get out of the little corner in the south corner. It's really faster to go to Spikey with the 2 allied dead ^^ It's just the sprite must have 8 Mp for to use 4x undine on Fire Gigas then 9 Mp for to do 3 earth slide on the wall.

I didn't understood why u wanted to buy equips ? They are useless ;)

Nitrodon

2009-11-12 12:35:39 pm

Molotov requested that I hack the magic damage formula, so I did so. There seem to be two hidden stats involved:

magic%: intelligence/4 + 75, caps at 99
mdef%: wisdom/4 + equipment

Magic attack:

Start with (int + spell power) * (spell level + 2) / 2.
With probability magic%, add (mana power)^2 and multiply by a random number in the range (1, 17/16). Otherwise multiply by magic% instead. Divide by 2 if strong against element, or multiply by 2 if weak against element. If both, resistance takes precedence over weakness.
Divide by number of targets.
Cap at 999.

Magic defense:

With probability mdef%, multiply mdef by a random number in the range (1, 17/16). Otherwise multiply by 5/4 * mdef% instead.

Damage: Magic attack - magic defense (for spells which deal damage, excluding Evil Gate and possibly others), capped below at 1. Magic attack is also used for the duration of some effects.

Spell power:

Blaze Wall: 32
Gem Missile, Acid Storm, Lava Wave, Fire Bouquet, Air Blast, Energy Absorb, MP Absorb: 43
Fireball: 52
Burst: 100
Mana Magic (both): 250
everything else: 61

There may be some mistakes in this post, since I've only spent a couple days on this.

P.S.: Elemental physical attacks (such as sword magic and weapon effective bonuses) are bugged. The target's attack elements are used instead of the attacker's, thus making the elemental effect useless. The code 8B9A-77DD (GG) / C050CCB9 (PAR) fixes this mistake, if anyone wants to see the difference.

Molotov requested that I hack the magic damage formula, so I did so.  There seem to be two hidden stats involved:

magic%: intelligence/4 + 75, caps at 99
mdef%: wisdom/4 + equipment

Magic attack:

Start with (int + spell power) * (spell level + 2) / 2.
With probability magic%, add (mana power)^2 and multiply by a random number in the range (1, 17/16).  Otherwise multiply by magic% instead.  Divide by 2 if strong against element, or multiply by 2 if weak against element.  If both, resistance takes precedence over weakness.
Divide by number of targets.
Cap at 999.

Magic defense:

With probability mdef%, multiply mdef by a random number in the range (1, 17/16).  Otherwise multiply by 5/4 * mdef% instead.

Damage: Magic attack - magic defense (for spells which deal damage, excluding Evil Gate and possibly others), capped below at 1.  Magic attack is also used for the duration of some effects.

Spell power:

Blaze Wall: 32
Gem Missile, Acid Storm, Lava Wave, Fire Bouquet, Air Blast, Energy Absorb, MP Absorb: 43
Fireball: 52
Burst: 100
Mana Magic (both): 250
everything else: 61

There may be some mistakes in this post, since I've only spent a couple days on this.

P.S.: Elemental physical attacks (such as sword magic and weapon effective bonuses) are bugged.  The target's attack elements are used instead of the attacker's, thus making the elemental effect useless.  The code 8B9A-77DD (GG) / C050CCB9 (PAR) fixes this mistake, if anyone wants to see the difference.

DoubleThink

Edit history:

DoubleThink: 2009-11-12 08:39:49 pm

2009-11-12 08:07:24 pm

There's a word for that

Well, the information on TASVideos has some things calculated slightly differently, but it all works about the same. That stuff is here or thereabouts, but it didn't give the spell powers! Angry

Physical damage is a pain though, I can't seem to get it to work right.

Did some brief testing around Mandala to try and explain why Energy Absorb is so much weaker. I know Magic Absorb is final damage/10 so I figured it was something along those lines. Compared to Acid Storm it does around 30% as much to Trap Flowers and about 40% as much to Bomb Bees and Eggatrices, which is really easy to understand, but w/e.

Now that I think about it the difference made by having higher Int (and/or using a stronger spell) can also be directly calculated, as Int*((spell level + 2) / 2). Double that for weaknesses, halve for resists etc. Like on Buffy at Lv5/6 +10 Int would give +35/40 damage, which is like 25% extra per hit.

Quote from mikwuyma:

No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death Smiley

What I say? ._.

Well, the information on TASVideos has some things calculated slightly differently, but it all works about the same. That stuff is [url=http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=425&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=420]here[/url] or thereabouts, but it didn't give the spell powers! >:( Physical damage is a pain though, I can't seem to get it to work right.

Did some brief testing around Mandala to try and explain why Energy Absorb is so much weaker. I know Magic Absorb is final damage/10 so I figured it was something along those lines. Compared to Acid Storm it does around 30% as much to Trap Flowers and about 40% as much to Bomb Bees and Eggatrices, which is [i]really[/i] easy to understand, but w/e.

Now that I think about it the difference made by having higher Int (and/or using a stronger spell) can also be directly calculated, as Int*((spell level + 2) / 2). Double that for weaknesses, halve for resists etc. Like on Buffy at Lv5/6 +10 Int would give +35/40 damage, which is like 25% extra per hit.

[quote="mikwuyma"]
No Doublethink, the Thunder Gigas is not a difficult boss when you can just Gnome spam him to death :)
[/quote]What I say? ._.

Crow!

2009-11-25 09:32:39 am

What's that gemma?

@ Mikwuyma / Molotov:

You don't have to level up the bow or pole dart (whichever you use on Springbeak). Just charge up your spear with the glitch, then have player 2 pick up the weapon you want to use and then trade it to you.

Idkbutlike2

2009-11-26 03:22:56 pm

Sorry to just burst in, but how come no one is yet to discuss the Midge Mallet trick (an easy trick to take out bosses)?

Molotov

Edit history:

Molotov: 2009-11-29 03:38:37 am

2009-11-29 03:21:22 am

Quote from Crow!:

@ Mikwuyma / Molotov:

You don't have to level up the bow or pole dart (whichever you use on Springbeak). Just charge up your spear with the glitch, then have player 2 pick up the weapon you want to use and then trade it to you.

This is good to know, but the uses are sadly limited outside of Spring Beak. Worth noting though that this kind of switch (I just call it a quad switch to help keep things straight) locks your charge meter after the final switch. It's pretty cool to run around with a super charge for as long as necessary. That aspect is probably only useful on the Gigas dudes and/or Dark Lich, but my brain is fried right now so I might have missed something obvious.

The reason it is fried is because of another mini-marathon. Had to test whether or not Dryad was capable of replacing Gnome/Salamando/Sylphid. I'd say that it is capable of doing that, but only grinding to level 4 is not good enough to be reliable. Level 7 was pretty much a super nuke, so I'd say grind to 6 and let the rest come later. How exactly grinding from 4 to 6 compares to 0 -> 4 twice, I don't know.

My experience with Dryad's usefulness:

- Kettle Kin (level 4) = seemingly very effective. (Weapon glitched once for about 900+ and then one Burst finished him.)
- Hexas (4) = effective.
- Dragon Worm (4/5) = ineffective.
- Snow Dragon (5/6) = fairly ineffective.
- Thunder Gigas (6/7) = ineffective. (Level 7 came late in the fight.)
- Blue Dragon (7) = very effective.
- Buffy (7) = heck yes. (400+ damage per hit!)
- Dark Lich (7) = effective.

There's a pretty obvious pattern there, as you can see. Certainly suggests to me that grinding past 4 is a good idea. (Pure Land was a one trip deal, by the way. Even with Griffin Hand draining though, it wasn't by much.)

Quote from Idkbutlike2:

Sorry to just burst in, but how come no one is yet to discuss the Midge Mallet trick (an easy trick to take out bosses)?

I assume you mean abusing it for invincibility? If so, I'm not sure it's worth picking up because we generally just drop candies and such for that. If I remember correctly though, it's quick and easy to pick up the Midge Mallet. Maybe for dire emergencies, but I doubt it would see much use. :/

[Edit]: Fun note: The Mana Beast fight had to be one for the record books. It went down in something like 3 passes and pretty much waited around for the beatdown. Seriously, it only used Lucent Beam one time. Didn't even do any damage with said Lucent Beam, because I just so happened to be using Moon Energy at the time. Haw haw.

Just figures though, because the rest of the run was garbage.

[quote="Crow!"]
@ Mikwuyma / Molotov:

You don't have to level up the bow or pole dart (whichever you use on Springbeak).  Just charge up your spear with the glitch, then have player 2 pick up the weapon you want to use and then trade it to you.
[/quote]

This is good to know, but the uses are sadly limited outside of Spring Beak. Worth noting though that this kind of switch (I just call it a quad switch to help keep things straight) locks your charge meter after the final switch. It's pretty cool to run around with a super charge for as long as necessary. That aspect is probably only useful on the Gigas dudes and/or Dark Lich, but my brain is fried right now so I might have missed something obvious.

The reason it is fried is because of another mini-marathon. Had to test whether or not Dryad was capable of replacing Gnome/Salamando/Sylphid. I'd say that it is capable of doing that, but only grinding to level 4 is not good enough to be reliable. Level 7 was pretty much a super nuke, so I'd say grind to 6 and let the rest come later. How exactly grinding from 4 to 6 compares to 0 -> 4 twice, I don't know.

My experience with Dryad's usefulness:

- Kettle Kin (level 4) = seemingly very effective. (Weapon glitched once for about 900+ and then one Burst finished him.)
- Hexas (4) = effective.
- Dragon Worm (4/5) = ineffective.
- Snow Dragon (5/6) = fairly ineffective.
- Thunder Gigas (6/7) = ineffective. (Level 7 came late in the fight.)
- Blue Dragon (7) = very effective.
- Buffy (7) = heck yes. (400+ damage per hit!)
- Dark Lich (7) = effective.

There's a pretty obvious pattern there, as you can see. Certainly suggests to me that grinding past 4 is a good idea. (Pure Land was a one trip deal, by the way. Even with Griffin Hand draining though, it wasn't by much.)

[quote="Idkbutlike2"]
Sorry to just burst in, but how come no one is yet to discuss the Midge Mallet trick (an easy trick to take out bosses)?
[/quote]

I assume you mean abusing it for invincibility? If so, I'm not sure it's worth picking up because we generally just drop candies and such for that. If I remember correctly though, it's quick and easy to pick up the Midge Mallet. Maybe for dire emergencies, but I doubt it would see much use. :/

[Edit]: Fun note: The Mana Beast fight had to be one for the record books. It went down in something like 3 passes and pretty much waited around for the beatdown. Seriously, it only used Lucent Beam [b]one[/b] time. Didn't even do any damage with said Lucent Beam, because I just so happened to be using Moon Energy at the time. Haw haw.

Just figures though, because the rest of the run was garbage.

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2009-12-13 07:39:09 pm

2009-12-13 07:27:22 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Okay, did another practice run with Molotov yesterday. The run honestly went pretty smoothly, so smoothly in fact, that we managed to beat Seiken's time despite...

-The game locking up on us twice (thanatos palace 1 and Gold Tower while talking to Lumina :(), making us lose at least 4-5 minutes.

-Dying 4-5 times (most of it on Werewolves, damn them), which probably cost another 4-5 minutes.

-The AI getting stuck on every single object imaginable (I think Enhasa can do a better job at this ;))

-Forgetting where to go after Thanatos's palace in Pandora.

-This goes without saying, but a couple of battles where we get screwed by the worst luck imaginable (Frost Gigas, Pure Land snake).

-Too many menu screwups to mention.

To be fair, Seiken's run doesn't use the weapon glitch, and what makes our run faster is planning, not execution.

BTW, our time was around 5 hours, 8 minutes, add the ending and it's 5 hours, 16 minutes.

Run Outline

NOTE: Not much has changed since last time. If you already read it, then all you need to know is:

-We don't level up the pole dart, thanks to the quadruple switch.

-We level up Undine to 4, not Gnome, because freeze is more damaging than gem missile

-We don't bother leveling up the first four elementals for Pure Land, just Dryad because Burst is stupid good.

-Intro: Nothing important to say here aside from abusing Mantis Ant's AI

-Water Palace: Level the sword up to 1 along the way, if it's not level 1 by the time you reach the palace, just level a bit on the way to Gaia's navel.

-Gaia's navel: Switch to the spear for weapon leveling. Before entering, save at Neko's in the right tunnel and maybe buy a Candy. Level up on the goblins until you're level 4 (you can still enter one or two more times afterwards for money). Be sure to use the spear so you can get level 1 spear.

Dwarf Village: After Tropicallo, buy candies, one or two cup of wishes (as many as you can afford), medical herbs, and a headgear for the guy. Be sure you have 100 gold for the axe. (BTW, use the armor cloning glitch on the sprite for a little extra money).

-Werewolves: Level up sword to level 2 beforehand, use weapon glitch and pray they cooperate. Sad

-Elinee's place: Spiky Tiger isn't too bad once you have the weapon glitch. There are werewolves in a tight corridor that can wreck you pretty badly though. Sad

Maybe a boomerang to stun them would be best? Oh yeah, we'll talk to Elinee, unlike Seiken. Wink

-Undine: Molotov and I still laugh every time we kill the lizard in one hit. Smiley

-Underground Palace: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Level up Undine to level 1 by taking 3 trips to the beginning of the palace. Try not to get raped by goblins.

-Pandora: Just go straight to the boss. The weapon glitch works really well against this boss.

-Killroy fight (Gaia's navel): Cannon to Gaia's navel. Some luck required, but usually you can get at least one weapon glitch on the guy.

-Jabberwocky (water palace): Sometimes the weapon glitch misses for seemingly no reason, but not too bad otherwise.

-Upper Land: Weapon glitch the hedgehogs, it's honestly not too tough, though the hedgehogs are sometimes invincible while spinning. :-/

-Wind Shrine: Use quadruple switch (charge spear, switch to sword, switch back, switch to pole dart) so you can use the weapon glitch with pole dart. This boss is also really hard to hit, but there's no other method Molotov and I could come up with. Sad

-Matango and Flammie Cave: This boss is so annoying (like everything else in this game, all luck). Sad

-Kakkara: Be sure to buy candies on the way out from Matango, because there are none in here or Ice Country. Go through desert (right, up, left, IIRC), go through ship sequence, kill Mech Rider (who is very easy to weapon glitch, btw), then get to Kakkara and cannon to...

-Ice Country: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts, kill wolves with Undine until you level her up to level 3. Should have around 4-5k gp, which is enough for two racoon caps (one for the guy, the other for the sprite), and 2-3 silver rings, and a golden vest (for the guy).

-Salamando and Ice Palace: The tropicallo clone is pretty easy to weapon glitch. Go to Neko before Ice Palace or else you lose a ton of progress if you die. Weapon glitch Santa, oh man this battle is painful. Take cannon to Kakkara.

-Fire Palace: Don't get in Minotaur's way while he's charging. Not too bad otherwise.

-Southtown: Trigger Mara, get code, be careful about missile fish and blue blobs in sewers.

-Northtown: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts again, level up undine to 4, buy 3 tiger hats and one or two ruby vests.

-Thanato's Palace: Hope none of the enemies stunlock you, weapon glitch the wall (try not to kill the eyes while doing this), you can also throw in a couple of freezes if you feel like it. Freeze vampire to death (there is no way in hell you will weapon glitch him).

-Empire's Castle: Stay on bottom for Mantis Ant clone, use weapon glitch. Freeze Mech Rider 2.

-Lofty Mountains: Be sure to buy a circlet for the sprite's magic power. Stock up on wishing cups, go inside Shade's Palace, use wall glitch and try to kill the girl with walled Salamando (not hard since she's usually the lowest level at this point), repeat until you run out of wishing cups a second time (yeah you repeat the whole process another time). If you don't kill her off with Salamando enough, you'll have to make a third trip. Sad

-Gold City: Buy two battle suits (again for the guy and Sprite) and a lapzuli ring (or whatever it's called) for the Sprite with the money earned from wall glitch (yeah you get a lot). Run all the way around wall to talk to guy to trigger the gold key event. Go to Southtown, talk to Mara and get Gold Tower key

-Gold Tower: Weapon glitch Spiky Tiger clone, this might take a while :(. Gorgon Bull is pretty easy with battle suits, especially if Sprite is in front of his face taking hits as bait.

-Shade's Palace: Easy peasy with all of our leveling. Smiley

-Moon Palace: Yep

-Tasnica: Wrap around right to avoid Jema dialogue, mash through King dialogue to skip Jema sequence. What a sad boss. Sad

-Lofty Mountains: Girl will likely die on the way to the clones, which is a good thing, because that's one less clone to fight. Take out Sprite clone with weapon glitch, then unequip the guy and let his clone beat him up. Sprite is victorious! If that doesn't work, then just let the guy die, revive him, then kill off the sprite.

-Sunken Continent: amsglskhgsldon is either super quick and easy or will go ballistic with spells (he chained 5 spells in a row on molotov once!). He's not a hard boss either way, but the time can vary by a wide margin.

-Dryad Leveling: Go back to Ice Country. Nuke wolves with Dryad until Dryad is level 6, then level up luna to 1 for mp absorbing griffon hands later.

Sunken Continent revisited: Jabberwocky clone isn't too tough, just weapon glitch him a bit. Super Kilroy dies to 4 bursts, IIRC. Red Lizard should be the same. After the Red Lizard, spam Hexas with burst. Restocking shouldn't be necessary because Hexas only requires one fairy walnut, IIRC. Mech Rider 3 isn't hard, just takes about 6 or 7 weapon glitch hits.

-Pure Land prep: Land in the Sunken Continent again, turns out you don't need to talk to Jema. Buy Royal Jams for healing, and a vest guard and either gauntlet or unicorn helm for the guy.

-Pure Land: Not too bad once you have good spells, but not ez like Enhasa said because the enemies can still beat you pretty hard. No one should be controlling the Sprite while fighting the bosses, it's better to use him through the X menu because he can spam faster that way. Here are the cliff notes: Burst Burst Burst, Freeze, Burst. Here's the full version: HOLY CRAP DON'T LET UP ON THE SNAKE OR YOU WILL REGRET IT! be sure to siphon mp off of griffon hands after each boss battle. Wait for long (4+ minute) cutscene.

-Mana Fortress prep: Buy another Vest guard and unicorn helm for the sprite/girl (sprite gets it first, then you give it to the girl after the vampire), buy a gauntlet for the guy (or unicorn helm if you bought the gauntlet before Pure Land).

-Mana Fortress: Try not to get killed by ninjas (they are super duper scary). Burst Buffy (vampire) to death. Use Pole Dart weapon glitch against Dread Slime, make sure all characters are right below the center of the slime. Thanatos is super easy, and now only somewhat long and tedious when we burst him to oblivion. Give Sprite's good equipment to the girl (not necessary, but good to be safe). Mana Beast is also super easy, moon energy guy, weapon glitch, repeat while the beast is vulnerable, just make sure whoever is playing the girl is alert and remedies through the Beast's attacks. We had plenty of mp for the Mana Beast, so that shouldn't be a concern.

If you read the first one and this one, and you're not Enhasa, you have too much free time.

I recorded the attempt to my video camera, so I'll try to upload the footage soon.

P.S. I'm still going to keep the time estimate high (5:40 or so) because times can vary a lot playing this game.

Okay, did another practice run with Molotov yesterday. The run honestly went pretty smoothly, so smoothly in fact, that we managed to beat Seiken's time despite...

-The game locking up on us twice (thanatos palace 1 and Gold Tower while talking to Lumina :(), making us lose at least 4-5 minutes.

-Dying 4-5 times (most of it on Werewolves, damn them), which probably cost another 4-5 minutes.

-The AI getting stuck on every single object imaginable (I think Enhasa can do a better job at this ;))

-Forgetting where to go after Thanatos's palace in Pandora.

-This goes without saying, but a couple of battles where we get screwed by the worst luck imaginable (Frost Gigas, Pure Land snake).

-Too many menu screwups to mention.

To be fair, Seiken's run doesn't use the weapon glitch, and what makes our run faster is planning, not execution.

BTW, our time was around 5 hours, 8 minutes, add the ending and it's 5 hours, 16 minutes.

[b][size=14pt]Run Outline[/size][/b]

NOTE: Not much has changed since last time. If you already read it, then all you need to know is:

-We don't level up the pole dart, thanks to the quadruple switch.

-We level up Undine to 4, not Gnome, because freeze is more damaging than gem missile

-We don't bother leveling up the first four elementals for Pure Land, just Dryad because Burst is stupid good.

[spoiler]
-Intro: Nothing important to say here aside from abusing Mantis Ant's AI

-Water Palace: Level the sword up to 1 along the way, if it's not level 1 by the time you reach the palace, just level a bit on the way to Gaia's navel.

-Gaia's navel: Switch to the spear for weapon leveling. Before entering, save at Neko's in the right tunnel and maybe buy a Candy. Level up on the goblins until you're level 4 (you can still enter one or two more times afterwards for money). Be sure to use the spear so you can get level 1 spear.

Dwarf Village: After Tropicallo, buy candies, one or two cup of wishes (as many as you can afford), medical herbs, and a headgear for the guy. Be sure you have 100 gold for the axe. (BTW, use the armor cloning glitch on the sprite for a little extra money).

-Werewolves: Level up sword to level 2 beforehand, use weapon glitch and pray they cooperate. :(

-Elinee's place: Spiky Tiger isn't too bad once you have the weapon glitch. There are werewolves in a tight corridor that can wreck you pretty badly though. :( Maybe a boomerang to stun them would be best? Oh yeah, we'll talk to Elinee, unlike Seiken. ;)

-Undine: Molotov and I still laugh every time we kill the lizard in one hit. :)

-Underground Palace: Cannon to Gaia's navel. Level up Undine to level 1 by taking 3 trips to the beginning of the palace. Try not to get raped by goblins.

-Pandora: Just go straight to the boss. The weapon glitch works really well against this boss.

-Killroy fight (Gaia's navel): Cannon to Gaia's navel. Some luck required, but usually you can get at least one weapon glitch on the guy.

-Jabberwocky (water palace): Sometimes the weapon glitch misses for seemingly no reason, but not too bad otherwise.

-Upper Land: Weapon glitch the hedgehogs, it's honestly not too tough, though the hedgehogs are sometimes invincible while spinning. :-/

-Wind Shrine: Use quadruple switch (charge spear, switch to sword, switch back, switch to pole dart) so you can use the weapon glitch with pole dart. This boss is also really hard to hit, but there's no other method Molotov and I could come up with. :(

-Matango and Flammie Cave: This boss is so annoying (like everything else in this game, all luck). :(

-Kakkara: Be sure to buy candies on the way out from Matango, because there are none in here or Ice Country. Go through desert (right, up, left, IIRC), go through ship sequence, kill Mech Rider (who is very easy to weapon glitch, btw), then get to Kakkara and cannon to...

-Ice Country: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts, kill wolves with Undine until you level her up to level 3. Should have around 4-5k gp, which is enough for two racoon caps (one for the guy, the other for the sprite), and 2-3 silver rings, and a golden vest (for the guy).

-Salamando and Ice Palace: The tropicallo clone is pretty easy to weapon glitch. Go to Neko before Ice Palace or else you lose a ton of progress if you die. Weapon glitch Santa, oh man this battle is painful. Take cannon to Kakkara.

-Fire Palace: Don't get in Minotaur's way while he's charging. Not too bad otherwise.

-Southtown: Trigger Mara, get code, be careful about missile fish and blue blobs in sewers.

-Northtown: Stock up on Faerie Walnuts again, level up undine to 4, buy 3 tiger hats and one or two ruby vests.

-Thanato's Palace: Hope none of the enemies stunlock you, weapon glitch the wall (try not to kill the eyes while doing this), you can also throw in a couple of freezes if you feel like it. Freeze vampire to death (there is no way in hell you will weapon glitch him).

-Empire's Castle: Stay on bottom for Mantis Ant clone, use weapon glitch. Freeze Mech Rider 2.

-Lofty Mountains: Be sure to buy a circlet for the sprite's magic power. Stock up on wishing cups, go inside Shade's Palace, use wall glitch and try to kill the girl with walled Salamando (not hard since she's usually the lowest level at this point), repeat until you run out of wishing cups a second time (yeah you repeat the whole process another time). If you don't kill her off with Salamando enough, you'll have to make a third trip. :(

-Gold City: Buy two battle suits (again for the guy and Sprite) and a lapzuli ring (or whatever it's called) for the Sprite with the money earned from wall glitch (yeah you get a lot). Run all the way around wall to talk to guy to trigger the gold key event. Go to Southtown, talk to Mara and get Gold Tower key

-Gold Tower: Weapon glitch Spiky Tiger clone, this might take a while :(. Gorgon Bull is pretty easy with battle suits, especially if Sprite is in front of his face taking hits as bait.

-Shade's Palace: Easy peasy with all of our leveling. :)

-Moon Palace: Yep

-Tasnica: Wrap around right to avoid Jema dialogue, mash through King dialogue to skip Jema sequence. What a sad boss. :(

-Lofty Mountains: Girl will likely die on the way to the clones, which is a good thing, because that's one less clone to fight. Take out Sprite clone with weapon glitch, then unequip the guy and let his clone beat him up. Sprite is victorious! If that doesn't work, then just let the guy die, revive him, then kill off the sprite.

-Sunken Continent: amsglskhgsldon is either super quick and easy or will go ballistic with spells (he chained 5 spells in a row on molotov once!). He's not a hard boss either way, but the time can vary by a wide margin.

-Dryad Leveling: Go back to Ice Country. Nuke wolves with Dryad until Dryad is level 6, then level up luna to 1 for mp absorbing griffon hands later.

Sunken Continent revisited: Jabberwocky clone isn't too tough, just weapon glitch him a bit. Super Kilroy dies to 4 bursts, IIRC. Red Lizard should be the same. After the Red Lizard, spam Hexas with burst. Restocking shouldn't be necessary because Hexas only requires one fairy walnut, IIRC. Mech Rider 3 isn't hard, just takes about 6 or 7 weapon glitch hits.

-Pure Land prep: Land in the Sunken Continent again, turns out you don't need to talk to Jema. Buy Royal Jams for healing, and a vest guard and either gauntlet or unicorn helm for the guy.

-Pure Land: Not too bad once you have good spells, but not ez like Enhasa said because the enemies can still beat you pretty hard. No one should be controlling the Sprite while fighting the bosses, it's better to use him through the X menu because he can spam faster that way. Here are the cliff notes: Burst Burst Burst, Freeze, Burst. Here's the full version: HOLY CRAP DON'T LET UP ON THE SNAKE OR YOU WILL REGRET IT! be sure to siphon mp off of griffon hands after each boss battle. Wait for long (4+ minute) cutscene.

-Mana Fortress prep: Buy another Vest guard and unicorn helm for the sprite/girl (sprite gets it first, then you give it to the girl after the vampire), buy a gauntlet for the guy (or unicorn helm if you bought the gauntlet before Pure Land).

-Mana Fortress: Try not to get killed by ninjas (they are super duper scary). Burst Buffy (vampire) to death. Use Pole Dart weapon glitch against Dread Slime, make sure all characters are right below the center of the slime. Thanatos is super easy, and now only somewhat long and tedious when we burst him to oblivion. Give Sprite's good equipment to the girl (not necessary, but good to be safe).  Mana Beast is also super easy, moon energy guy, weapon glitch, repeat while the beast is vulnerable, just make sure whoever is playing the girl is alert and remedies through the Beast's attacks. We had plenty of mp for the Mana Beast, so that shouldn't be a concern.

If you read the first one and this one, and you're not Enhasa, you have too much free time.
[/spoiler]

I recorded the attempt to my video camera, so I'll try to upload the footage soon.

P.S. I'm still going to keep the time estimate high (5:40 or so) because times can vary a lot playing this game.

spineshark

2009-12-13 08:54:01 pm

新世紀進歩的羽扇子音楽

Quote:

If you read the first one and this one, and you're not Enhasa, you have too much free time.

yeah basically, I only even care about this because you guys are doing it haha

seiken

2009-12-16 06:44:54 am

Secret of Mana

Quote:

To be fair, Seiken's run doesn't use the weapon glitch, and what makes our run faster is planning, not execution.

And 50Hz/60Hz Wink

Anyway you will see that even in a glitched run, if you go for SS, it will be still really hard, always because of the same thing, the bad IA of allies, especially when they try to follow you. Anyway you can maybe skip the other dead factor which definitely forced me to make segments : the dead random factor of boss : Spikey Tiger staying hidden, Gortoro ( the second minotor in Gold Tower can kill you in one hit with triple earth slide lv8 ), the wall of Aegagropilion, the snake of pureland ( he can clean your inventory very fast ) and the 3 dragons here which can kill you in one hit between two 999 magical dmg.

I saw a demo NTSC weapon glitch run ( with emulator but not a TAS ) of 3h ( 3h30 ?? was long time ago) on bisqwit forum when secret of mana is fully done, so maybe you can try this time, i don't know at all with glitch what you can do.

For the menu it's too hard since its not a table but a f**g circle which always changes without you can put an order =(

Good luck !!

[quote]To be fair, Seiken's run doesn't use the weapon glitch, and what makes our run faster is planning, not execution.[/quote]

And 50Hz/60Hz ;) Anyway you will see that even in a glitched run, if you go for SS, it will be still really hard, always because of the same thing, the bad IA of allies, especially when they try to follow you. Anyway you can maybe skip the other dead factor which definitely forced me to make segments : the dead random factor of boss : Spikey Tiger staying hidden, Gortoro ( the second minotor in Gold Tower can kill you in one hit with triple earth slide lv8 ), the wall of Aegagropilion, the snake of pureland ( he can clean your inventory very fast ) and the 3 dragons here which can kill you in one hit between two 999 magical dmg.

I saw a demo NTSC weapon glitch run ( with emulator but not a TAS ) of 3h ( 3h30 ?? was long time ago) on bisqwit forum when secret of mana is fully done,  so maybe you can try this time, i don't know at all with glitch what you can do.

For the menu it's too hard since its not a table but a f**g circle which always changes without you can put an order =(

Good luck !!

Hattori HANZo

2009-12-17 06:50:32 am

contraddicted

Quote from Molotov:

[Edit]: Fun note: The Mana Beast fight had to be one for the record books. It went down in something like 3 passes and pretty much waited around for the beatdown. Seriously, it only used Lucent Beam one time. Didn't even do any damage with said Lucent Beam, because I just so happened to be using Moon Energy at the time. Haw haw.

IIRC, back in the days I managed to beat down the beast in 1 or two rounds. Of course at a way higher level.
But if you buff enough you can do hundreds of damage with an uncharged hit to it Cheesy

@ mikwuyama
I don't have too much free time, but I am unfortunately interested in keeping an eye on your progress. This run's going to be quite some fun to watch I think Smiley

mikwuyma

2009-12-21 10:16:05 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

http://mikwuyma.quandra.org/SecretOfMana_Practice_Part1.mp4 up to Ice country (we go to Kakkara first)
http://mikwuyma.quandra.org/SecretOfMana_Practice_Part2.mp4 Ice country to Empire's jail
http://mikwuyma.quandra.org/SecretOfMana_Practice_Part3.mp4 Empire Jail to collecting Dryad

Part 4 will be uploaded soon, it's just a bigger file than the rest because I used a different setting to record it, which was probably stupid because the setting I used for the first 3 parts worked fine.

Why was the run split up into parts? Because we took food and bathroom breaks.

Some notes:

-Yes, this was recorded using a video camera, deal with it.

-I didn't record from the beginning because the camera and tripod took some time to set up.

-Don't expect witty banter from me and Molotov, we're just trying to figure out the best strategies.

-We die around 5 times, most of them at the beginning of the game. (yes, the game is harder at the beginning)

-I will hopefully be faster at the menus during MAGFest :-/ And yes, I know I can mash through them, I just didn't think of it at the time.

-We might not need to level undine up to level 1 before the Fire Giant. However, the undine leveling in Ice Country lets us buy armor that makes the ice palace MUCH easier (we would die so much otherwise), and leveling up undine to level 4 at northtown gives us a way to kill the vampire (weapon glitching him is a one in a hundred chance, seriously).

http://mikwuyma.quandra.org/SecretOfMana_Practice_Part1.mp4 up to Ice country (we go to Kakkara first)
http://mikwuyma.quandra.org/SecretOfMana_Practice_Part2.mp4 Ice country to Empire's jail
http://mikwuyma.quandra.org/SecretOfMana_Practice_Part3.mp4 Empire Jail to collecting Dryad

Part 4 will be uploaded soon, it's just a bigger file than the rest because I used a different setting to record it, which was probably stupid because the setting I used for the first 3 parts worked fine.

Why was the run split up into parts? Because we took food and bathroom breaks.

Some notes:

-Yes, this was recorded using a video camera, deal with it.

-I didn't record from the beginning because the camera and tripod took some time to set up.

-Don't expect witty banter from me and Molotov, we're just trying to figure out the best strategies.

-We die around 5 times, most of them at the beginning of the game. (yes, the game is harder at the beginning)

-I will hopefully be faster at the menus during MAGFest :-/ And yes, I know I can mash through them, I just didn't think of it at the time.

-We might not need to level undine up to level 1 before the Fire Giant. However, the undine leveling in Ice Country lets us buy armor that makes the ice palace MUCH easier (we would die so much otherwise), and leveling up undine to level 4 at northtown gives us a way to kill the vampire (weapon glitching him is a one in a hundred chance, seriously).

Dudemanguy86

2009-12-24 06:02:48 am

hey mikwuyma,

did you guys upload part 4 anywhere? was hoping to watch it Smiley

thanks

mikwuyma

2009-12-26 10:58:55 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Sorry about the wait, dudemanguy86, but part 4 is finally up.

http://mikwuyma.quandra.org/SecretOfMana_Practice_Part4.mp4

Thomaz

2009-12-27 08:23:31 am

Catchin' them all

Wow, you guys really had crap luck at times. Stupid SNES just going haywire at times. 'twas great to watch anyway. Cheesy

<3

mikwuyma

2009-12-27 10:06:33 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Our luck: I know! The worst part was that the glitching out always happened at least 2-3 minutes after we saved. It doesn't help that you have to fight two bosses in Gold Tower. Sad

The restart did help me discover the greatest gorgon strategy ever though. Cheesy

At least the cartridge didn't glitch out right after the aegroppolin battle, or else we would have to suffer through about 2-3 more minutes of nonstop burst.

Glad you enjoyed watching it, Thomaz.

Enhasa

2009-12-28 01:24:08 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

I have been working on this, more in a bit. I was gonna update tonight, too tired though. Sad

Sorry I haven't posted yet, but I had the flu and I've been sick as fuck. Sad

This post will make no sense, please read it as best you can, lol. Also I've had all this shit to take care of (moving into a new apartment, getting all the shit setup, problem with my insurance, seeing all these people who want to see me who are only back in the area because it's Christmas, etc) and I have to get it all done before Magfest because school starts for me on the 5th (!), so I have to leave DC earlier than I'd like anyway (and my advisor wants me to be back on Mon but I told him I really can't do it). I spent all today picking up my dad from the ATL airport, he's been gone on sabbatical since May and just got back. So in the next couple days I need to hang out with him, like go out to eat, just sit and talk, etc. Blah blah, I'm sure nobody cares. Tongue

About this game, I played through it twice, watched seiken's run, read this whole thread (btw if you're reading this Molotov, sorry if you wanted a magic bullet but it's that you're supposed to buy Neko gear for Pure Land, I guess this is a cheap answer but "don't get hit" is really what it is... remember VP2 when I mentioned no forced fights and "don't get hit" and you were like huh??? and see where you are now :D), gonna watch these practice vids. The toughest part is really going to be the coordination aspect, but since you guys practiced together at least you'll have that much down. I wish I lived close, live practice would help, my online wouldn't cut it either. Anything I did on my own is clearly no substitute for group practice, and you guys are more talented and put more time into it to boot, so hopefully I can do my best to just get out of the way. One person is fine (does most of the work like buying, flying, just everything), two people adds a little versatility, but the third person (especially in this game... the girl is near worthless) doesn't really add much. At times it's necessary or better to turn off controller also, like sprite casting. The biggest reason to have a 3rd player is really just so the AI doesn't get stuck on obstacles. Although the girl will be dying all the time anyway and then you still have that problem, lol.

Awesome, this will be like those Tales runs where the main guy gets his little brother to be 4p and he doesn't really do much but be a warm body. Tongue

All the shopping and stuff like that is 1p. It's interesting for me because in all the time I played this game back in the day, I have never once played the girl (just like in MMOs, the healer is the little bitch of the group who gets that job because it's the easiest and anyone can do it, lol). Well now I'm the worst player in the group and get to be the bitch now, hah. Tongue

I'm reading back through the thread again for the rest of this:

Before I forget, Santa is actually infinitely easy. You literally can't die. It's just like the first boss, he will life you instead of you wiping. Maybe I'm psychotic and making this up (and it would be odd if he was so difficult, that you wouldn't have found out about this by accident), but I'm 99% sure of this.

I can volunteer to play werewolves if one of you guys want. The last time I did this, I was the sprite with no EQ and no levels, and the guy who played the boy had EQ and levels and still got himself killed, and I had to painfully (although slowly) kill the werewolves by myself, prompting the 3rd guy in the group to get really mad at the 1st player and forced him to let someone else play the boy. Tongue

Mike's long post: Looks good because the goal is to be as safe as possible, which explains all the early game insane conservativeness. Saving all the time is a smart idea. Even if the enemies don't kill you, sometimes the glitches will. Sad

The lucky thing about this game (not for normal play, but for running) is how relatively linear and straightforward most of the dungeons are. Now saying that, I will probably get lost out of stupidity and being fucked up by that time, not to mention x straight hours of play, but that's the best part of having three people. Smiley

Also, you're only as fast as your lead guy. Everyone else just has to beat getting caught at the back of the screen. So whenever you have to use whip, sword, etc. The thing a cheat sheet REALLY helps is those stupid orbs.

~~Best elements are Undine and Dryad.~~ Dammit, you said this later, ignore.

I don't think it's worth bothering with frosty rings, stick to silver bands.

Do you know if we have a particularly bad cartridge, or it's just the game being glitchy as usual? Seriously, the SNES SD games (ok all Square games) are such glitchy shit. Someone else "borrowed" my cart and kept it forever. Undecided

I had a friend who had a SOM cart where it was literally impossible to beat the game, there was a big unblockable rock for no reason in the middle of a passage, lol.

Don't read this if you like SOM (bad thread to put this :()

BTW spending time with this game makes me think even less of it, lol. I'm gonna be like one of those old geezers who raves about how the moon landing was fake or whatever, in the eyes of most people, when I talk about how mediocre or bad these old Square SNES and PS1 classics were, when there are good or fucking awesome games for SNES that STILL haven't been translated by fucking 2010, like Chaos Seed, Energy Breaker, Albert Odyssey 1-2, Dark Half, Mystic Ark (ok I lied, someone just did this less than a month ago apparently), Lady Stalker, Superfamicom Wars, Tactics Ogre if you count that, did FE4 or 5 ever get completed?, etc. If you're willing to settle for games that are better than Live a Live or Front Mission (ie all games hur hur), then there's dozens more. And SNES RPG is already by far the genre with the best "coverage" in terms of fan translations. Not complaining since I don't care about story and can save state experiment my way through games in Japanese, plus I'm not gonna bitch about people doing hobby work for free like a certain Mr Campbell, but wapanese emu "scene" people are naturally gonna stick to their brand loyalty and/or work on games with story focus. Not surprising or wrong that people who learn Japanese just because they love everything Japan so much, would want to translate Japanese games for the story. None of those people could possibly hate JRPG or manga or anime plot.

I have been working on this, more in a bit. I was gonna update tonight, too tired though. :(

Sorry I haven't posted yet, but I had the flu and I've been sick as fuck. :( This post will make no sense, please read it as best you can, lol. Also I've had all this shit to take care of (moving into a new apartment, getting all the shit setup, problem with my insurance, seeing all these people who want to see me who are only back in the area because it's Christmas, etc) and I have to get it all done before Magfest because school starts for me on the 5th (!), so I have to leave DC earlier than I'd like anyway (and my advisor wants me to be back on Mon but I told him I really can't do it). I spent all today picking up my dad from the ATL airport, he's been gone on sabbatical since May and just got back. So in the next couple days I need to hang out with him, like go out to eat, just sit and talk, etc. Blah blah, I'm sure nobody cares. :P

About this game, I played through it twice, watched seiken's run, read this whole thread (btw if you're reading this Molotov, sorry if you wanted a magic bullet but it's that you're supposed to buy Neko gear for Pure Land, I guess this is a cheap answer but "don't get hit" is really what it is... remember VP2 when I mentioned no forced fights and "don't get hit" and you were like huh??? and see where you are now :D), gonna watch these practice vids. The toughest part is really going to be the coordination aspect, but since you guys practiced together at least you'll have that much down. I wish I lived close, live practice would help, my online wouldn't cut it either. Anything I did on my own is clearly no substitute for group practice, and you guys are more talented and put more time into it to boot, so hopefully I can do my best to just get out of the way. One person is fine (does most of the work like buying, flying, just everything), two people adds a little versatility, but the third person (especially in this game... the girl is near worthless) doesn't really add much. At times it's necessary or better to turn off controller also, like sprite casting. The biggest reason to have a 3rd player is really just so the AI doesn't get stuck on obstacles. Although the girl will be dying all the time anyway and then you still have that problem, lol.

Awesome, this will be like those Tales runs where the main guy gets his little brother to be 4p and he doesn't really do much but be a warm body. :P All the shopping and stuff like that is 1p. It's interesting for me because in all the time I played this game back in the day, I have never once played the girl (just like in MMOs, the healer is the little bitch of the group who gets that job because it's the easiest and anyone can do it, lol). Well now I'm the worst player in the group and get to be the bitch now, hah. :P

I'm reading back through the thread again for the rest of this:

Before I forget, Santa is actually infinitely easy. You literally can't die. It's just like the first boss, he will life you instead of you wiping. Maybe I'm psychotic and making this up (and it would be odd if he was so difficult, that you wouldn't have found out about this by accident), but I'm 99% sure of this.

I can volunteer to play werewolves if one of you guys want. The last time I did this, I was the sprite with no EQ and no levels, and the guy who played the boy had EQ and levels and still got himself killed, and I had to painfully (although slowly) kill the werewolves by myself, prompting the 3rd guy in the group to get really mad at the 1st player and forced him to let someone else play the boy. :P

Mike's long post: Looks good because the goal is to be as safe as possible, which explains all the early game insane conservativeness. Saving all the time is a smart idea. Even if the enemies don't kill you, sometimes the glitches will. :( The lucky thing about this game (not for normal play, but for running) is how relatively linear and straightforward most of the dungeons are. Now saying that, I will probably get lost out of stupidity and being fucked up by that time, not to mention x straight hours of play, but that's the best part of having three people. :) Also, you're only as fast as your lead guy. Everyone else just has to beat getting caught at the back of the screen. So whenever you have to use whip, sword, etc. The thing a cheat sheet REALLY helps is those stupid orbs.

[s]Best elements are Undine and Dryad.[/s] Dammit, you said this later, ignore.

I don't think it's worth bothering with frosty rings, stick to silver bands.

Do you know if we have a particularly bad cartridge, or it's just the game being glitchy as usual? Seriously, the SNES SD games (ok all Square games) are such glitchy shit. Someone else "borrowed" my cart and kept it forever. :-\ I had a friend who had a SOM cart where it was literally impossible to beat the game, there was a big unblockable rock for no reason in the middle of a passage, lol.

Don't read this if you like SOM (bad thread to put this :()
[spoiler]BTW spending time with this game makes me think even less of it, lol. I'm gonna be like one of those old geezers who raves about how the moon landing was fake or whatever, in the eyes of most people, when I talk about how mediocre or bad these old Square SNES and PS1 classics were, when there are good or fucking awesome games for SNES that STILL haven't been translated by fucking 2010, like Chaos Seed, Energy Breaker, Albert Odyssey 1-2, Dark Half, Mystic Ark (ok I lied, someone just did this less than a month ago apparently), Lady Stalker, Superfamicom Wars, Tactics Ogre if you count that, did FE4 or 5 ever get completed?, etc. If you're willing to settle for games that are better than Live a Live or Front Mission (ie all games hur hur), then there's dozens more. And SNES RPG is already by far the genre with the best "coverage" in terms of fan translations. Not complaining since I don't care about story and can save state experiment my way through games in Japanese, plus I'm not gonna bitch about people doing hobby work for free like a certain Mr Campbell, but wapanese emu "scene" people are naturally gonna stick to their brand loyalty and/or work on games with story focus. Not surprising or wrong that people who learn Japanese just because they love everything Japan so much, would want to translate Japanese games for the story. None of those people could possibly hate JRPG or manga or anime plot.[/spoiler]

DoubleThink

2009-12-28 05:06:23 am

There's a word for that

Quote from Enhasa:

Before I forget, Santa is actually infinitely easy. You literally can't die. It's just like the first boss, he will life you instead of you wiping. Maybe I'm psychotic and making this up (and it would be odd if he was so difficult, that you wouldn't have found out about this by accident), but I'm 99% sure of this.

IIRC you get dumped outside the ice palace if you lose. Still loses some time, but not as much obviously.

Quote from Enhasa:

Do you know if we have a particularly bad cartridge, or it's just the game being glitchy as usual? Seriously, the SNES SD games (ok all Square games) are such glitchy shit. Someone else "borrowed" my cart and kept it forever. Undecided

I had a friend who had a SOM cart where it was literally impossible to beat the game, there was a big unblockable rock for no reason in the middle of a passage, lol.

Don't read this if you like SOM (bad thread to put this :()

blarg

I don't know how much you know/care about this game, but supposedly it was originally being designed for the enhanced SNES that Sony was developing, and after that fell through due to general Nintendo stupidity the game designers were forced to cut out huge portions of the game to fit it on a standard SNES cartridge. Hence the particularly large number of glitches, Shade through Luna basically being one big fetch quest, and the missing orbs near the end. I've always wondered what this game could have been like if Square had actually been given the chance to finish it properly.

[quote="Enhasa"]
Before I forget, Santa is actually infinitely easy. You literally can't die. It's just like the first boss, he will life you instead of you wiping. Maybe I'm psychotic and making this up (and it would be odd if he was so difficult, that you wouldn't have found out about this by accident), but I'm 99% sure of this.[/quote]IIRC you get dumped outside the ice palace if you lose. Still loses some time, but not as much obviously.

[quote="Enhasa"]
Do you know if we have a particularly bad cartridge, or it's just the game being glitchy as usual? Seriously, the SNES SD games (ok all Square games) are such glitchy shit. Someone else "borrowed" my cart and kept it forever. :-\ I had a friend who had a SOM cart where it was literally impossible to beat the game, there was a big unblockable rock for no reason in the middle of a passage, lol.

Don't read this if you like SOM (bad thread to put this :()
[spoiler]blarg[/spoiler]
[/quote]I don't know how much you know/care about this game, but supposedly it was originally being designed for the enhanced SNES that Sony was developing, and after that fell through due to general Nintendo stupidity the game designers were forced to cut out huge portions of the game to fit it on a standard SNES cartridge. Hence the particularly large number of glitches, Shade through Luna basically being one big fetch quest, and the missing orbs near the end. I've always wondered what this game could have been like if Square had actually been given the chance to finish it properly.

Dudemanguy86

2009-12-28 06:38:03 am

wow, the luck you guys have is just disheartening Sad

mikwuyma

2009-12-28 09:17:47 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Santa: I don't remember the specifics, but I remember during our first practice run, we died at least 10 times going through the ice palace and at least some of those were on Santa, so yes, you're psychotic Enhasa. Doublethink, you're probably thinking of the choice you get before fighting Santa (get out or fight). And yes, those 10 deaths are the reason why we now grind for items a bit before going to the Ice Palace.

Cartridge: We used Molotov's cart. IIRC, my cart doesn't have any such problems.

We need an Enhasa game journalism thread so he can fit all of his opinions in one topic. Roll Eyes