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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    Default Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)



    After a minor vanishing due to the forum being down...it is time!

    Once upon a time, Nintendo decided "hey lets make a cable that could connect the Game Boy Advance to the Gamecube" and everyone was like "okay but why?" and their reason was basically that having two screens might be a cool thing. And then that idea never ever took off in any sort of way. But, for a time, we had this ridiculous system that if they bothered to make games that used it, had stuff on the TV screen AND on the controller in your hands. Ridiculous, right?

    At any rate, thus was made Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, a very weird multiplayer game that is still playable single player without using the Game Boy Advance link cable thing. An odd ball for Final Fantasy, it's an action RPG/dungeon crawler sort of thing, where you walk around bopping people in the face and picking up things. At the end of each dungeon you fight a boss, etc etc it's all very basic. What drew peoples attention to this game is that one, it's super beautiful. I'd argue this is the best looking game on the Gamecube, and two it's a goofy and weird multiplayer game with an interesting story.

    So, how's the LP going to work? Well, because I don't have any way at all to actually play the game multiplayer, I'll be going through it in singles mode. I'll be doing my best to get as much done in game as possible, but I can't promise I'll get 100% of every memory in the game because that basically requires delaying the game by a lot, and as I've noticed with other games (cough Four Swords cough) no one really cares about something taking forever. So I figure I'll be doing a round at each dungeon and then doing what needs to be done to beat the game and then doing that (It's...complicated, and I've never actually beaten the game before!). I'll be doing some off screen grinding to get stronger, but I'll elaborate more on how that works in the thread proper. So without further rambling, let us begin our road trip to save the world.

    Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles [1] A Calm River


    Video Length: 35:49

    And so we begin, starting with the song Sound of the Wind, one of the best songs I've ever heard in a video game. This is the English version, here is one in Japanese if that's more your style. It's a beautiful song, that really touches on the themes of the game, which we'll be exploring as we play. In this game you're a member of HOME TOWN, a caravaner who's going to save the village from it's yearly threat of destruction by journeying to get the magic crystal juice known as Myrrh from fancy trees, three drops per year, that recharge the super crystal keeping the deadly Miasma from killing everyone and making someone's house sapient. We call our town Malta at the request of my art friend in search of a joke that's not actually going to work in this game. Ooops. And then we're faced with our first mechanical decision: creating a character.

    So, let's talk mechanics. There are four races, the Clavat, Lility, Yuke, and Selkie. Clavats are hardy human type boys, wielding sword and shield, with well rounded stats that have a priority on defense. Lilities are the defacto main race of the game lore wise, a group of violent onion esque short people who will just tear your face off. Their stats are focused on strength, and they fight with spears. The Yuke are these mysterious bird robot/golem things with feathery arms that are wearing/a spirit animating armour and clothing. These odd magical beings are of course focused more on Magic then any other stat, and they use hammers to fight with. Then we have the Selkie, aka elf roma in the flavor. They are vagabounds that steal stuff and generally don't make sense at all for the setting because how does a race of nomadic blue haired Kender exist in a universe where society is super closed off and insular due to magical crystals saving everyone's life. Regardless of the sort of vague feelings of impossibility this race gives, they're well rounded stat wise but with more of a focus on attack strength, and are best at charging up their attacks to do a Focus Attack. Each race has their specific tastes for food (the main healing item in the game beyond just casting Cure) and while that's just a minor thing, It's something pretty cool.

    For the LP we will be maining a Selkie, mostly because that's just one of the races I like the most and since this is a Patreon choice I let the person who suggested this game decide what I play (it was either this or a Yuke). I'll be showing off the other races as well, don't worry, we're just going to be focusing on our Selkie, Ayah, and her adventures to save the world so that she can go back to stealing everything. After picking our race we then can pick our parents, and each one has some benefits worth going off. Miller, Farmer, Rancher, and Fisherman are all family trades that will send you various foods to help you on your journey. As a result they're not super useful! The other family trades are far more useful, setting up shops in your home town. Except for Alchemist, which I've picked. It creates scrolls for weaponry and armour and stuff that you can use to craft stuff at a Blacksmiths. The Merchant is a store, selling all sorts of things you might need, and the Tailor makes accessories which might be super useful too actually, though of these Alchemist is "the best" choice.

    With all that done, we can FINALLY set off on our adventure. Whereupon we are immediately interrupted by an event. Events basically happen at random, no idea when you'll get what and so on, except for like the first one. We meet the Caravan of of the Lilty fort city Alfitaria, and among them we find the knowledgable moogle Stiltzkin, and some random moogle named Mog that opts to help us out since we're in Single Player. But what does he help us with? Let's go over that! So, as stated above, the world's covered in a deadly Miasma that kills everyone almost immediately. Only crystals can protect against it, and our chalice that'll be holding the Myrrh has a small crystal on it that protects us. Someone has to lug that thing around, and Mog'll be doing that. He also allows for some degree of Multiplayer esque Spell Fusing, ie casting our spells over each other to make them stronger. This isn't required in Single Player since you can just smush Materia together but I digress, it's a neat mechanic that they have. Other than asking Stiltzkin about the world's lore there really isn't much else I want him to tutorial at us, so we leave after this, getting another Diary entry, and with it a memory.

    But, a thing to note that I actually like...we have to actively ask about the lore of the world. In a fairly easy to skip tutorial, too, though you can go talk to him in game later to hear it again. It's fascinating that this game, which is effectively a story driven RPG, requires your direct actual intervention to make the plot happen. You can just completely ignore the information you get about it and just play the game however and it's fine. You need to actively seek the conclusion to get it. It fits into the themes of the game, and that'll be fun to talk about as we go on. But enough prattling let's...you know, actually play the game? We head off to the first dungeon, the River Belle Path!

    As dungeons go this is a fairly basic one. It's full of goblins (in a variety of sizes), which will try to stab you or throw a rock at you. Mu, these weird squirrel creatures that are actually a standard Final Fantasy enemy I suddenly realize, that run around trying to scratch you, and Hedgehog Pies, which cast fire spells at you and try to do a spike drop on you with their spiked butt. Overall, not that difficult, and it's a good place to shake off the rust if you haven't played this game in a decade like I have. Gameplay wise you have a three hit combo (which requires timing, not mashing) that can also be charged to do a Focus Attack (which attack you get changes depending on the weapon, and the Selkies charge faster and have longer range). You can also do a guard, though in the case of the Selkie they have the worst guard in the game, a half second flip of complete invincibility. Super hard to time, and given how you need to switch off of Attack to get to Defend, hard to actually use in combat. Magic is cast through the same basic principle of the Focus Attack (get to the relevant action, hold attack) and as you fuse spells to make stronger versions, you get a larger casting charge time but a longer range (it just looks smaller due to the AOE marker being larger, this is a mistake I hadn't realized at the time). All in all it's a good action-y combat system.

    Now let's take a look at progression, since this isn't your standard Final Fantasy experience. You don't level up in this game. Instead, in little nooks and crannies and enemies of the land, you'll find Artifacts. They give you bonuses, ranging from +1 to a stat to having an extra Heart or command slot. Each Artifact you pick up in a dungeon gives you it's effect for the dungeon, though at the end of the dungeon you can only pick a single artifact to take with you forever. Of course since redoing dungeons is completely free you can expect me to do some off screen grinding to get stronger. Single player isn't hard, but it's also shockingly unforgiving if you're not careful. So we're gonna need to be at our best.

    At the end of the River Belle, we find the Myrrh tree. But before us is a beautiful pond and waterfall...and behind the waterfall, a giant crab! The first boss fight is actually a little tricky, not lest of which because uh oh turns out he's a little resistant to ice and I didn't know that oops. The Giant Crab has a couple attacks, swiping with it's claw arm, smashing it's shield arm down, generating electricity by scratching itself allowing it to shoot a laser of electricity, and spitting out Slow spell bubbles. As you damage the crab, it's arms eventually break off, and once it's down to no arms it starts hoping around crazily (for no damage, shockingly) and casting Thundara a bunch. Not the hardest boss in the world, even with the Mu occasionally coming in to help it. We take the crab down, and get our drop of Myrrh. We then get a letter from the villager elder saying "hey by the way do a good job" and that's nice. We pick the Moogle Pocket artifact because command slots are super important, and thus ends our first dungeon (and, after some faffing about with Moogle Nests, this video).

    Hoo...that's a lot of text huh? This game has a lot of it's mechanics super frontloaded, so I'm not surprised we've got this much to discuss. Don't worry, future posts won't be as heavy. For now though, this has been the first video, so I'll see you guys Monday for more of this. Hope you enjoyed!

  2. - Top - End - #2
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    And we return! Hurrah!

    Spoiler: Gravity Rush 2 Comments
    Show
    Just from the initial picture, I’m liking the aesthetic… let’s see how well it continues.

    Event horizon? Are we mining a black hole?

    Whoo… yeah, those visuals are nice…

    This seems dangerous. Like, really dangerous. That platform looks like it could fall at any moment. And are they planning to just have the ore on that platform? It’s almost like they don’t care about the lives of their miners…

    It’s funny, up until they lost the armour, I was seriously questioning my initial comment, and was beginning go wonder if the first picture was just your background or something.

    And, once more… floating settlement with a complete disregard for safety. Where are the railings?

    Oh, okay, there are a few. Tiny, unsafe looking ones.

    I think quick time event was probably a good choice here, to save the tutorial segment for a place where it’d break the flow less.

    Oops. You seem to have caught a guy in your gravity. And now you’re flinging him upwards.

    All in all, this game looks pretty cool, even if we didn’t really get too far into it.


    Been holding onto those for awhile.
    Now, you've already seen my other comments, but, just for the good folks here, (and also so this isn't entirely an off topic post), might as well repeat them.

    ****

    Well, that was a nice song. And the graphics really are nice, given they were from almost a decade and a half ago.

    Name your town? Is this turning into Animal Crossing?

    Year 1? Well, then. I expect this game to span some expanse of time.

    Ah, friends. Always there for you in your time of need. Except when it's funny.

    One of these names does not quite match up.

    Ooh, that is a nice map. Beats a sheet of paper, at any rate.

    Interesting premise. And, also, yes, 'twas a tad fast, but, thankfully, that's what the pause button is for.

    "Right: Lots of monsters. Left: Lots of monsters." ...that's a very helpful sign.

    Ah, I see going outside the chalice range gets you zapped by the celestial bug zapper.

    And... ouch, that is fast.

    Ah, rubbing rocks together. That brings back memories.

    That's one ugly crab. At least it'll feed you for weeks?

    One third? There's gotta be a catch...

    Interesting sidequest. Stamps.

    So, all in all, this game looks interesting, and I look forwards to watching it. I'll be making sure to record the enemies exactly as you first call them. So choose your names wisely.

    Enemies Defeated (Zodipedia version):
    Goblin: 8
    Goblin, Giant: 3
    Hedgehog: 5
    Squirrel: 10

    Bosses Defeated:
    Giant Crab
    The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.

    01001110011001010111001001100100

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Time to set out once more on our crystal caravan. Let's go!

    Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Caravan [2] A Vast Forest

    Video Length: 27:58

    Starting off this episode, I introduce you all to the blacksmith's son, Zorhm. Gotta love those random H's in names huh? He's a Yuke, so let's talk about Yuke's for a second. Yuke's are the most magically inclined race, having the highest base magic stat and being able to cast magic faster than any other race. They fight with hammers, which are decently strong, but where they really excel is that for some reason their defend command is the best in the game. After about a half second of charge time, they become invisible and as such completely indestructible for as long as the button is held. Sure, they can't move during it, but this is the ultimate perfect guard. Since Yuke's are weird potentially eldritch monsters that inhabit an armoured shell of some sort (and may or may not have a physical body underneath, it's not entirely clear in this game, but if they DO then those striped feather hands are their flesh which is fascinating) so their defend command makes SENSE, it's just...the Clavats are supposed to be the best at defense but all they have is a shield. It's a little goofy. Anyway, let's get a move on.

    Today, we start off our journey by returning to Malta to pick up some things (and learning about the legendary Black Knight from the Alfitoria caravan, who I realize probably came down to this area for some grinding which I find hilarious). Specifically, we're going back to check out the new Blacksmith. The way Blacksmith's work is that you bring them the scroll that has the item you want on it, plus the material's it needs, plus a fee of gil, and they make you the item. In this case, we make some Bronze Armour for ourselves, and a Bronze Belt. We don't have the resources to improve our weapon, sadly. We also find a so called Secret Item. Every town has one or more of these, more or less, and I think they refresh after every dungeon run but it might be after every year cycle, I can't quite recall. Point is it's a nice little semi rare item you can find, in this case a seed. Nice. That'll make a good gift. With that all done, it's time to set off once more!

    After some brief detours to get the proper crystal property for our chalice, we head to the Miasma Stream...and find one of the most beautiful sights in the game, while also the most horrifying. Maybe it's just me, but the Miasma Stream areas always feel me with this unending dread. This idea that the Miama, this ever present death cloud you cannot escape, has places on the world where it's THIS thick, is horrifying to me. And look at the place, it's dead and twisted, and the Miasma is thick enough to be extremely visible and walking through it has the Miasma actually PUSH BACK against you, it's so thick. Even the meager protection of our Chalice isn't 100% effective here, and while we CAN penetrate the Stream and move on if the element of the Chalice and the Stream match, you definitely get this feeling that if the elements didn't match you might just die outright, worse case scenario. The music too has this haunting, beautiful tone. This is a fun little rompy game of silly goofy multiplayer fun, but the Streams exist to remind you that no we live in a death world and without the crystals that we spend all this time hunting after, we'd be dead. Oh so dead.

    We make it through the Miasma Stream, and before us lays the Mushroom Forest, our next dungeon. A vast forest of oversized fungi, full of fairly dangerous enemies. This might actually be the easiest and shortest dungeon in the game, for all that I'm building it up for. It's a little maze like, but this early in the game the mushrooms aren't fully grown yet enough to be an issue, though in return we can't find everything on our first attempt. As for enemies, we have the Tiny Worm, which...crawls around and tries to poke you. Not the most threatening of foes. We have the Hell Plant, a stationary enemy that shoots little bloops of exploding plant goo at us, and is surprisingly effective at blind siding me with sap. The Gremlin, a bouncy little imp with a bon bon on it's head like a Moogle, that lashes out with said bon bon so hard that you flinch and fall over a bit if you get hit, which makes this the strongest enemy in the area. And finally, the Ahriman, a classic Final Fantasy enemy, the magical floating eye that spews out eye lasers (in this case they slow us) casts magic (in this case Thunder) and swoops at us. In order to beat them we need to make Gravity with our spell fusion to tear them from the sky. Then we can bop em on the face eye. All in all a good enemy set to deal with. During our travels in the forest we find a Mog Nest, and the Earth Pendant. The Earth Pendant is the artifact we'll be choosing for this dungeon, as it gives us an EXTRA HEART. That's super good. But to get it, we need to beat the boss.

    The boss in question is a Malboro, another Final Fantasy main stay! Unlike it's normal appearances, this one can't throw a billion status effects on us...but it can still status us down pretty hard. It can cast a massive area Slow (I call it Slowga, but given that apparently a level 1 protection item can stop it, it has to just be a massively boosted Slow) that you can only avoid by running to the other side of the arena, it has it's Bad Breath move that inflicts poison on you, and it can cast the non damaging Curse spell, which reduces all your stats by half. Luckily, we found the spell Clear in the forest, so we can purge any of those status effects from us with ease, and we really should. The Malboro's only actual attack is jabbing it's tentacles into the ground, flailing them around and trying to stab you, but it's semi random in how their distributed so it's not that difficult to avoid. Since the Malboro is immobile it's arguably easier a fight than the Giant Crab, though it's weakness to fire isn't as exploitable as the Giant Crab's weakness to Holy. The adds in this fight are two Hell Plants that respawn periodically, but they're not that big a deal to remove.

    With that all said and done, we get our choice of artifacts and our drop of Myrrh. Two thirds done towards saving our village! To commemorate this achievement we get a letter from our Mom...giving me what is probably my most favorite phrased way to say this. Remember, what is not ours, actually, is ours. So take everything you can! Look, it's a joke because this is a multiplayer game where bonus points decide who gets first pick of the artifacts and it's meant to encourage the player to snatch up items, I get it, but come on Mom. Stop being such a stereotype. We live in a world where "a wandering vagabond" is someone who just kinda walks around town a little more than usual. Stop trying to steal from everyone! We give her a seed of some sort and rest up for the next adventure, which we will get to next time. Hope you all enjoyed.
    Last edited by LaZodiac; 2017-05-15 at 08:48 AM.

  4. - Top - End - #4
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    It's... umm... well, it's a different sort of game, surely. I'll reserve judgement for the moment, but it was one of the few FF games that I never even picked up. Heck, I even picked up FF VIII. Didn't finish it, but at least picked it up. In fact, this may well have been the first FF game I never picked up.

    It's... not as bad as all that, I suppose. It's not in the mold of the classical FF game, but that's by no means a bad thing. After all, how do you grow as a development group if you don't think outside the box, right? Perhaps it was because I was still so sour about Legend of Mana and it reminded me of that.

    I may actually have to pick this up, in fact. This looks like a good way to introduce to my son the wonderful world of playing video games. He can be my chalice-buddy, and we can play together. Even if the game isn't an amazing example of the genre, that feature alone can probably be a lot of fun.

    I also feel that not having this re-released on the Wii-U and it's controllers being very similar to a GBA + Link Cable was a missed opportunity.
    Last edited by ShneekeyTheLost; 2017-05-15 at 12:33 PM.
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    The only problem with playing this game with your son (FANTASTIC idea by the way, since game over-ing just restarts the dungeons and they're small enough to not really be that big a deal, and there are easy two person cooperative puzzles to make him feel good) is that you'll require two GBA's and two GBA to Gamecube connector cords. You need one of both for as many players as you have, by the way, so to play this four player you need four Game Boy Advances and four cords that connect the GBA to the GC.

    If you can do it though, definitely do this.

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Oh man, Marlboro as the second boss.

    Hoo.
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    The only problem with playing this game with your son (FANTASTIC idea by the way, since game over-ing just restarts the dungeons and they're small enough to not really be that big a deal, and there are easy two person cooperative puzzles to make him feel good) is that you'll require two GBA's and two GBA to Gamecube connector cords. You need one of both for as many players as you have, by the way, so to play this four player you need four Game Boy Advances and four cords that connect the GBA to the GC.

    If you can do it though, definitely do this.
    Wait, can't you just use additional GC controllers?
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Qwertystop View Post
    Wait, can't you just use additional GC controllers?
    Hah, no. Multiplayer ONLY works using the GBA link cable. All your UI stuff goes onto the GBA, as well as a special radar depending on which player you are, and it tells you what your secret bonus is.

    Otherwise, you have to do single player.

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by ShneekeyTheLost View Post
    It's... umm... well, it's a different sort of game, surely. I'll reserve judgement for the moment, but it was one of the few FF games that I never even picked up. Heck, I even picked up FF VIII. Didn't finish it, but at least picked it up. In fact, this may well have been the first FF game I never picked up.

    It's... not as bad as all that, I suppose. It's not in the mold of the classical FF game, but that's by no means a bad thing. After all, how do you grow as a development group if you don't think outside the box, right? Perhaps it was because I was still so sour about Legend of Mana and it reminded me of that.

    I may actually have to pick this up, in fact. This looks like a good way to introduce to my son the wonderful world of playing video games. He can be my chalice-buddy, and we can play together. Even if the game isn't an amazing example of the genre, that feature alone can probably be a lot of fun.

    I also feel that not having this re-released on the Wii-U and it's controllers being very similar to a GBA + Link Cable was a missed opportunity.
    You might want to grind off-screen for him (once in a while), the game has a bit of a ... weird curve if you don't do some dungeons several times before advancing. It's also a nice lesson in ... patience to the game since the mid to late game has a bad case of enemies going into stun-lock loops occasionally from which which it's just luck if they stop or you are fried.

    That aside, the above pointed issue of the GBA cables and GBAs. (But... amazingly... Dolphin actually can hookup with a GBA emulator... or 2 of them, granted it DOES require a beefy PC to be able to run the three of them on simultaneous).

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    Hah, no. Multiplayer ONLY works using the GBA link cable. All your UI stuff goes onto the GBA, as well as a special radar depending on which player you are, and it tells you what your secret bonus is.

    Otherwise, you have to do single player.
    To... not even justify just point out the only drop of sanity. The GBA screen is also the menu screen for players so you can do menu management without pausing the game for everyone, and everyone can go their own ways when in town. Not defending the horrendous practice... just saying there's an inkling of sanity SOMEWHERE.
    Last edited by AsteriskAmp; 2017-05-15 at 10:45 PM.
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by AsteriskAmp View Post
    That aside, the above pointed issue of the GBA cables and GBAs. (But... amazingly... Dolphin actually can hookup with a GBA emulator... or 2 of them, granted it DOES require a beefy PC to be able to run the three of them on simultaneous).
    Hm. Can it do so if the GBA emulator is on a different computer, over a network? That could be a fun episode, grab a few people and set up a Hamachi.
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Oops, I'm a little late, but it's still Monday. For now.

    *******

    Oh, good. A Black Knight. Since that went so well last time...

    What? You aren't farming wheat seeds? Tsk.

    Ah, this is much more relaxing speeding up than the last time you used it.

    Hoo boy. That, uh, does not look welcoming. Who builds a port on that?

    Huh. Moogles don't care about miasma. That's interesting. And explains why they're everywhere.

    Geez, what kind of mother tells a child that? "Oh, well, honey, we're all mushrooms." (Okay, I know it wasn't quite like that...)

    So... does the game give you any indication of what rocks you need to rub together to form certain spells? Or do you just need to, uh, bang rocks together?

    Is getting tired a thing that happens in multiplayer, too? Or is it just based on who draws the short straw and is forced to carry?

    Another giant thing as a boss. I should just by default have "Giant" before every boss.

    Hahaha... that letter. (Why was it titled "Oh. No." though?)

    That's not on fire? But what about that +5 Flaming Sword? Think she'd just leave that behind?

    Enemies Defeated (Zodipedia version):
    Goblin: 8
    Goblin, Giant: 3
    Hedgehog: 9
    Squirrel: 10
    Tiny Worm: 3
    Hell Plant: 15
    Gremlin: 4
    Ahriman: 3

    Bosses Defeated:
    Giant Crab
    Giant Mini-Malboro
    Last edited by DataNinja; 2017-05-15 at 11:27 PM.
    The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    I have this game, but the cables broke. Also, I thought that while you could repeat dungeons that's there's still a time limit to the game. Is that not so?
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Shadow View Post
    Oops, I'm a little late, but it's still Monday. For now.

    *******

    Oh, good. A Black Knight. Since that went so well last time...

    What? You aren't farming wheat seeds? Tsk.

    Ah, this is much more relaxing speeding up than the last time you used it.

    Hoo boy. That, uh, does not look welcoming. Who builds a port on that?

    Huh. Moogles don't care about miasma. That's interesting. And explains why they're everywhere.

    Geez, what kind of mother tells a child that? "Oh, well, honey, we're all mushrooms." (Okay, I know it wasn't quite like that...)

    So... does the game give you any indication of what rocks you need to rub together to form certain spells? Or do you just need to, uh, bang rocks together?

    Is getting tired a thing that happens in multiplayer, too? Or is it just based on who draws the short straw and is forced to carry?

    Another giant thing as a boss. I should just by default have "Giant" before every boss.

    Hahaha... that letter. (Why was it titled "Oh. No." though?)

    That's not on fire? But what about that +5 Flaming Sword? Think she'd just leave that behind?

    Enemies Defeated (Zodipedia version):
    Goblin: 8
    Goblin, Giant: 3
    Hedgehog: 9
    Squirrel: 10
    Tiny Worm: 3
    Hell Plant: 15
    Gremlin: 4
    Ahriman: 3

    Bosses Defeated:
    Giant Crab
    Giant Malboro
    It's not actually a giant Malboro. It STARTED as a mini malboro, but grew to a regular size.

    In multiplayer it's a case of "okay who drew the short straw", yeah. No one gets tired in Multiplayer, except for the actual players.

    I'd have to assume it's called "Oh. No" because she forgot to tell us the Selkie family code: What's yours is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by ThePhantom View Post
    I have this game, but the cables broke. Also, I thought that while you could repeat dungeons that's there's still a time limit to the game. Is that not so?
    There is no time limit. I know that some events "have an ending" but that's about all I know. I know that they are probably sad because this game is pretty clearly secretly a sad game about memories and bonds and stuff.

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    One thing I quite like about this: Magic doesn't require some other resource bar or consumable items. It's just a different (delayed, more interesting) kind of attack. Too many games put a limit on things like that when they really don't need to.
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Qwertystop View Post
    Hm. Can it do so if the GBA emulator is on a different computer, over a network? That could be a fun episode, grab a few people and set up a Hamachi.
    The way dolphin deals with networking is by running the game in all PCs, syncing states and then transmitting inputs, so you need to run FFCC in Dolphin, boot up GBA emulator and sync it with FFCC and then run netplay over Dolphin. (Virtually speaking, dolphin doesn't care what it's input method is since the barbaric way it goes around netplay which is pretty much a need for a number of reasons just works perfectly in this particular case). But I wouldn't recommend doing it that way. I've done it at my own home with two computers on the same switch, on top of the usual Dolphin syncing issues, the GBA has to sync with the game and... fun happens.

    I was thinking of trying more experiments but alas, exams. But you don't even need Hamachi, Dolphin has netplay by itself.

    Quote Originally Posted by ThePhantom View Post
    I have this game, but the cables broke. Also, I thought that while you could repeat dungeons that's there's still a time limit to the game. Is that not so?
    You can go forever till the heat death of our universe. There is a sort of mini time limit to dungeon instances, where if you clear a dungeon after 3 years it upgrades and you can't visit the lower level version, but that's hardly a time limit since they block at tier 3 anyway.
    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    In multiplayer it's a case of "okay who drew the short straw", yeah. No one gets tired in Multiplayer, except for the actual players.
    You rotate the chalice around depending on what the enemy is, no point in having a Yuke mace things if a Lilty is in the party, you normally drop it during fights and draw a circle around it. Since you still run slower with the chalice on your hands everyone is stuck at the chalice-carrying speed anyway.
    Quote Originally Posted by Qwertystop View Post
    One thing I quite like about this: Magic doesn't require some other resource bar or consumable items. It's just a different (delayed, more interesting) kind of attack. Too many games put a limit on things like that when they really don't need to.
    This is balanced out by magic in this game being in almost every single case atrocious or Cure. Holy and Gravity are required otherwise killing some enemies takes aeons, but they don't do much damage just allow melee to do more damage. Artifacts prioritize melee, and no equip raises magic damage (save one or two exceptions that are mid game equips).

    The only spells that would remain relevant are haste and slow/stop but almost everything resists slow and stop, or would have died to a charged attack anyway. Haste IS amazing but outside of some REALLY horrendous to get stuff, you can't do it on every stage because of the fusion reqs.
    Last edited by AsteriskAmp; 2017-05-15 at 11:35 PM.
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    It's not actually a giant Malboro. It STARTED as a mini malboro, but grew to a regular size.

    In multiplayer it's a case of "okay who drew the short straw", yeah. No one gets tired in Multiplayer, except for the actual players.

    I'd have to assume it's called "Oh. No" because she forgot to tell us the Selkie family code: What's yours is mine.

    Alright, that's been fixed.
    I didn't actually know that was regular size, given that the only FF game I've played is Revenant Wings. And there, Malboros were only about the size of humans. (And there were no Ahrimans. Ahrimanae? Ahrimani? Ahrimanics?)

    That's probably a good thing. Otherwise all it would do is cause the short straw and the entire group to slow.

    You'd think that you'd have been told that since being a child...
    The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Shadow View Post
    That's probably a good thing. Otherwise all it would do is cause the short straw and the entire group to slow.
    Carrying speed for players is slower than moogle, and that's not changed in MP. You DO slow down, though you can shove people ... kinda.
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by AsteriskAmp View Post
    Carrying speed for players is slower than moogle, and that's not changed in MP. You DO slow down, though you can shove people ... kinda.
    Ah, well then. I see.
    The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    On Episode 1:
    I remember this game. I never completed this either! Even when I went back to try do it years later, I still did not have the patience for it, even if I went further. like oh my god, is it just tiresome to try and play. like sure its beautiful and such, but it is NOT built for single player or for someone just trying to have a casual time. I don't know why my brother bought it, because he didn't seem to finish it either.

    Thing is, this world always struck me as kind of dark- each you have to constantly go out, find three drops of a special tree, and each tree you find only gives one drop for no reason, and return and if you don't, your village just dies. and yet no one thinks to try and get the trees themselves or their seeds and just plant nine of of them in the village itself and just be all like "give this to me" every year and chill, on a rotation.

    I never found out why the miasma was there either, and of course there is the whole chalice thing. and the magic being temporary. Just so many reasons why I never found this game all that enjoyable despite its beauty. and I never even knew you could fuse spells.

    and of course, the bosses. they simply take forever. tediously long. I do not envy you Zodiac, even as I watch you try and play this game and apparently enjoy it. Because to me, this game is just so boring and slow that I just can't muster the energy to ever complete it myself, and this coming from someone who likes to play long story-oriented rpg videogames with lots of cutscenes. the lack of Knowing Whats Going On, really hurts the game in my perspective.

    Episode 2:
    and this is just nonsensical, why would tell your child that!? That has got to be a parental troll move. Or a metaphor for the father's junk.

    and um, Zodi you missed the goblin dungeon before this? before the miasma? I remember going through the goblin thing before the mushroom forest.

    this forest is made of bronze mushrooms apparently. everyone! bronze grows like mushrooms! mine the mushroom forest! and uuugh, I remember the Malboro. and for some reason I remember this boss being bigger....

    maybe her name is really Ay Ah, and everyone else just pronounces it as one word because its easier then pronouncing the space?

    And one wonders how the Selkie are supposed to be wandering thieves in a world where you die if you go outside the crystals radius? Well maybe perhaps since crystals have a certain radius, that means space is limited. So while there are a bunch of small crystals that lots of caravans can use to travel around, there is not enough big crystals for everyone to use to settle down. therefore there is probably a bunch of Selkie caravans who just travel around with their own small crystals with no bigger town to serve, taking whatever they can because they figure that that since the miasma screwing everything up, they have to be prepared for the worst, since there is at least one town out there that succumbed to the miasma, the world is simply too post-apocalyptic to assume that every caravan out there is legitimate and there doesn't seem to be any higher authority or king? Just towns where people are trying to survive.

    So it is in fact perfectly plausible that the Selkie could be bandits and vagabonds in this world, as they would just need some picks to steal a bit from a larger crystal to take with them as they go off to survive on their own and travel around taking everything from everyone else in a selfish survivalist sense, doing this would make the big crystal a little smaller and thus shrink the already limited space. now you see why I consider this game dark and apocalyptic despite its seeming beauty.
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    Thing is, this world always struck me as kind of dark- each you have to constantly go out, find three drops of a special tree, and each tree you find only gives one drop for no reason, and return and if you don't, your village just dies. and yet no one thinks to try and get the trees themselves or their seeds and just plant nine of of them in the village itself and just be all like "give this to me" every year and chill, on a rotation.
    It's supposed to be rather dark. The trees only grow in the miasma, also they aren't natural normal trees that you can just plant. Myrrh is the dew of the trees, what you get is all they can give you for that time period (even when you return to the area until enough time has elapsed you can't collect from the same tree.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    I never found out why the miasma was there either, and of course there is the whole chalice thing. and the magic being temporary. Just so many reasons why I never found this game all that enjoyable despite its beauty. and I never even knew you could fuse spells.
    Miasma lorewise has a purpose. As for gameplay in MP it's to make everyone be forced to be geographically close, otherwise with the GBAs you could walk way ahead and kill the processing power of the cube rendering 4 scenes. In SP is so you hurry up before the Moogle gets tired and you are forced to take a while fighting around it. Not a big issue, and makes some boss battles interesting in both modes.

    Without spell fusion killing anything after the first set of areas is hell... it's also explicitly stated an infinity of time and happens automatically when you arrange command slots around.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    and of course, the bosses. they simply take forever. tediously long. I do not envy you Zodiac, even as I watch you try and play this game and apparently enjoy it. Because to me, this game is just so boring and slow that I just can't muster the energy to ever complete it myself, and this coming from someone who likes to play long story-oriented rpg videogames with lots of cutscenes. the lack of Knowing Whats Going On, really hurts the game in my perspective.
    If you use unfused spells, yes. Otherwise if you get artifacts and upgrade gear they are quite reasonable. SPECIALLY for a Final Fantasy game. You ARE told the lore just not vomited it in your face, and you gotta actually get involved with the game to find it out. The game won't hold your hand through the story and theoretically you could play forever before finding out there's an ending to the game.

    The bosses issue is not length, it's the fact that a pair of them have stun-lock loops which will outright kill you if you get unlucky.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    and um, Zodi you missed the goblin dungeon before this? before the miasma? I remember going through the goblin thing before the mushroom forest.
    The dungeon you are thinking of is actually rather... peculiar to say the least. She didn't miss a dungeon.

    Spoiler: Like 2 eps away
    Show
    The dungeon shows up on year 2 just before the stream, it's called the Goblin Wall


    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    And one wonders how the Selkie are supposed to be wandering thieves in a world where you die if you go outside the crystals radius? Well maybe perhaps since crystals have a certain radius, that means space is limited. So while there are a bunch of small crystals that lots of caravans can use to travel around, there is not enough big crystals for everyone to use to settle down. therefore there is probably a bunch of Selkie caravans who just travel around with their own small crystals with no bigger town to serve, taking whatever they can because they figure that that since the miasma screwing everything up, they have to be prepared for the worst, since there is at least one town out there that succumbed to the miasma, the world is simply too post-apocalyptic to assume that every caravan out there is legitimate and there doesn't seem to be any higher authority or king? Just towns where people are trying to survive.
    Chalices allow you to go out of the radius of a crystal. The crystals in towns are chunks of a bigger crystal. Selkies were wanderers before the miasma happened, they are now stuck on limited areas and have a miserable existance.
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Onwards, the caravan rolls.

    Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles [3] A Dark Mine

    Video Length: 35:08


    Starting us off today, we make our lovely Lilty caravaner so we can learn a bit more about how those little onion heads work. The Lilty race is the strongest physically, wielding massive glaives and bouncing the chalice on their head because their arms are too stubby to hold it up above them which is hilarious and ridiculous. The starting glaive they have has the same kinda focus attack the Yuke's do, a jump attack, but it shields them from harm during it. The Lilty defend command is pretty bad, holding up their stick to defend. I think it still makes them take chip damage, and unlike the Clavat guard we'll see next time, doesn't block status effects.

    With that out of the way, it's time to visit the first town in the game! The first that isn't Malta, at any rate. Town's are interesting in that they change over the course of years, some stores not being available, some moving around, some changing prices and stuff. If I had infinite time I'd do all my shopping and smithing at Malta, but I don't so let's stick with what we've got here. We talk to some of the townsfolk, learning of their various plights. One has a womanizer grandpa and it sucks, one feels bad about her husband being dumb, one is a child who's Mom left them to go on "vacation" after giving her Dad "something called a divorce" which I just...I just cannot handle this because the logistics of it means she either just left the barrier, crystal chalice or not, or she's literally just sulking at the edge of town hoping no one notices her. We also get some word of people being forgetful on their travels, which I mean that's fair. Who wants to remember the horrible death fog?

    Mechanically, we sell basically all the trash I picked up along our adventures, using the combined gil to buy the Warrior's Weapon scroll plus the Alloy needed to make it, and then proceed to make it, getting us the dual shooter. A very powerful racket that is going to give amazing dividends once we actually get to put it into use. Sadly, our old Racket must just be crumbled up into dust because you can't sell old equipment in this game but they still take up inventory slots. How annoying.

    With our business in Marr's Pass done, we make our way towards our final destination for the year. The Mines of Cathuriges. This is effectively our "final dungeon" for our first year, and it shows. It's a fairly winding mine system with huge rooms with multiple paths that don't lead anywhere and some pretty violent monsters to contend with. The main force we'll be fighting are Orcs, which are fairly rare in Final Fantasy. These green jerks run around wielding weapons like a battle axe, or a hand axe, or a magic stick, but they're all just Orcs to me, and they all die in one Focus Attack now that we have our Warrior's Weapon. Overall not that threatening, and in fact pretty hard to aggro. The second enemy we face are Bombs, who can Fire, Meteor, and when slain explode with a fairly weak explosion that a sets you on fire. Dangerous if you encountered a large group of enemies with a Bomb for support, but overall not that big a deal. Finally, we have the Ogre, a huge monster wielding giant smashy tools. It does a ton of damage, and takes a lot of damage, but given our increased Focus Attack charge speed we're able to tear it down rather quickly. All in all the enemies are interesting here in that, they are all fairly threatening, but would be far more so if the encounters kinda put them together. It's weird because this dungeon feels...a little empty, like they have more to show us but just aren't here. Maybe it's because it's still early game and they want to ease it in on us.

    The dungeon itself features a main gimmick that we follow for the first 2/3rds of it, babysitting a mine cart that'll bust it's way through barriers that are in our path. It's not super complicated, but I manage to mess it up at least once because I genuinely forgot this cart even existed. I've played this game before, sure, but damn if I remember anything past like, a handful of dungeons. At the end of this one, we face the mighty Orc King, a massive red orc with a sceptor axe type thing and a hammer. He is surprisingly fast for his size and armament, quickly casting Flare spells and bashing us with a mighty mallet. He's apparently weak to fire but given the power of our Focus Attack (and my desire to just keep Haste on to out move him) means I didn't actually weak if that's true. Orcs can come in to help him but they're really more of a distraction. Once he's almost dead the Orc King starts casting a self destruct spell, and while you can kill him during this there's no benefit or reward for doing so, beyond not taking a large amount of damage that could kill you if you're not careful. With a mighty explosion the Orc King dies, freeing the way towards the tree. We collect our final drop of Myrrh, and head home.

    At Malta, we celebrate. We perform the ritual to give the three drops of Myrrh to the crystal, recharging it and protecting us for another year. We sing and dance, as the memories of our adventure pass us by in diary form along the screen, a feature I completely forgot and super appreciate. We laugh and sing, because we know for another year, we are protected. Time marches onward. And though our journey has ended for the year...this is just the beginning of what will be a truly fateful crystal caravan. I hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time...for year two.

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Clearly, what you need is a Bag of Holding.

    Huh, that seems odd, not being able to sell old weapons. I suppose no one wants their weapons used?

    Pfffft. That old man... he made me actually laugh out loud because he acts exactly like one of the PCs another player has in a campaign... who is also named Cecil. Life works funny like that.

    "Hey, Mr. Moogle, wake up!" "Do you want a stamp, kupo?" Not anything anyone normal would say like "what are you doing staring at me while I'm asleep?"

    Geez, why does it always seem like monsters move into every uninhabited mine? Especially flaming ones?

    Those bridge tracks seem really dangerous...

    Okay, okay, I'll file it under "Orc", rather than "Orc, Magic Stick".

    Slowest Self-Destruct spell in history. "Hey, you guys mind waiting around while this charges? Wait, what are you doing? Come back! Pleas-" *boom*

    Festival! The reflections on the crystal is a nice touch. And, my, what acrobatics.

    Dang it, Zodi! What happens next?

    Enemies Defeated (Zodipedia version):
    Goblin: 8
    Goblin, Giant: 3
    Hedgehog: 9
    Squirrel: 10
    Tiny Worm: 3
    Hell Plant: 15
    Gremlin: 4
    Ahriman: 3
    Orc: 23
    Bomb: 5
    Ogre: 2

    Bosses Defeated:
    Giant Crab
    Giant Mini-Malboro
    Giant Orc King
    The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.

    01001110011001010111001001100100

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    On Episode 3:
    I never thought to grind on dungeons.

    and yeah.....disturbing implications all around....

    the Mine of Cathuriges. fitting how the mine used to power the Lilties empire would end up in the hands of orcs.

    videogames: instantly proving lets players wrong every time they open their mouths!

    but yeah, this mine is dark, I had trouble going through this one.

    Perhaps Mogs keep around the boss because all the other monsters are afraid of the boss? or maybe...The mogs are the real masterminds behind the Miasma this whole time. After all, why can Mogs live without the crystals eh? Why are they immune to the Miasma? What if the Mogs engineered this whole situation so that they can take over the world by having monsters to command and to populate themselves more than anyone else? After all, its really convenient for the Mogs that only they are immune to the Miasma!

    then why aren't you Doooooooooooooodging Zodi? your getting face smashed here.

    and so the Orc King is defeated, and the (Mog) Miasma is held back one more year. the unrelenting tide of evil is held back from flooding one more time, receding to low tide. But the tides always turn back to high eventually, the waters of evil come flooding again and heroes will rise up to push it back, if only for one more year....
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    then why aren't you Doooooooooooooodging Zodi? your getting face smashed here.
    Just from what Zodi's said, dodging is really awkward, especially as a Selkie. Hard to time dodge that requires you to remove the attack command. Of course, I may be entirely off base, given that I've never played.
    The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.

    01001110011001010111001001100100

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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    Onwards, the caravan rolls.

    Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles [3] A Dark Mine

    Video Length: 35:08
    one is a child who's Mom left them to go on "vacation" after giving her Dad "something called a divorce" which I just...I just cannot handle this because the logistics of it means she either just left the barrier, crystal chalice or not, or she's literally just sulking at the edge of town hoping no one notices her. We also get some word of people being forgetful on their travels, which I mean that's fair. Who wants to remember the horrible death fog?
    Couldn't she have left in a safe way (caravan, helper to annual chalice-holder, etc)?
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    So, priced it out. Looks like 2x GBA's plus 2x GB Link Cables = $100 from Amazon, plus the game itself. To be able to play a single older game multi-player with my kid, when other newer games would probably be cheaper and just as good.

    Blergh...
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Shadow View Post
    Just from what Zodi's said, dodging is really awkward, especially as a Selkie. Hard to time dodge that requires you to remove the attack command. Of course, I may be entirely off base, given that I've never played.
    Can't speak for Zodi but that's most likely the case in my experience. Blocking in this game is not really worth it unless you are a Yuke/Clavat in MP and in certain boss fights if you are slowed. You need to switch command slots mid combat, if you are on attack hope you don't overshoot, anywhere else, it's better to not even try. Even if you pull the feat, the Selkie block is only going to give you a very short invincibility frame to not get hit, and it's REALLY small. The Yuke and Clavat aren't much better since shielding makes them immobile and the way you die in this game outside of stun locks is when you get ganged, and shielding enables just that. Even for projectile enemies blocking is often not worth it either since the attack animations are often shorter than the time it takes for you to drop shield, move and retake shield.

    In MP a good tactic is to send the Clavat/Yuke to draw aggro while the party nukes from a somewhat safe distance abusing Selkie added focus attack range provided by an accessory and their ultimate weapon which has the most range of them all and Yuke added spell range accessory. Or have a Lilty do a charge leap to unleash the full combo on something. The problem is most bosses will AoE the party anyway, have minions or arenas so tiny even if they focus a single character it's still hitting everyone.

    Why block and attack are part of their Action Slot system is something that seems simply horrible since you can't even unequip them or switch them from their position, but then you realise that it's a result of the game being designed for the GBA in terms of control scheme, which is actually missing functions due to a lack of buttons (There is no Mog control buttons in the GBA since it's meant for MP where there is no Mog). The game has several of this... that's a horrible idea until you remember it was designed for being played with a GBA with 3 other people.
    Last edited by AsteriskAmp; 2017-05-19 at 08:28 PM.
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  28. - Top - End - #28
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    Quote Originally Posted by ShneekeyTheLost View Post
    So, priced it out. Looks like 2x GBA's plus 2x GB Link Cables = $100 from Amazon, plus the game itself. To be able to play a single older game multi-player with my kid, when other newer games would probably be cheaper and just as good.

    Blergh...
    Yeah it's...a hell of a thing. Look on the bright side, if you DO get it you could play The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventure together. That game is good.

    And on the further bright side, if I wanted to record that perfectly, as a multiplayer game, I'd need three additional gamecubes, with gameboy players, and three additional TVs.

    This very tiny experiment with GBA as second screen for Gamecube was VERY weird and VERY expensive.

  29. - Top - End - #29
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    It's time. Thus begins year two.

    Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles [4] A Mighty Wall

    Video Length: 27:08

    In this episode, we begin Year 2. So, let's discuss the whole yearly cycle thing. Every year, the miasma streams change element, locking off some areas and making some areas more easily accessible. It's pretty neat, though definitely annoying after a fashion. After beating a dungeon, it spends two years in a recovery period. You can still grind in it for artifacts, but you cannot get Myrrh from it. After those two years are up, the dungeon is back in working order...and also has upgraded. Each dungeon has two tiers of upgrade it can get to, and each upgrade changes the enemies inside and in some areas, the layout. The dungeon also gives better loot as well. Additionally, the year changing means all the events you can run into have increased. After all, everyone is changing along the years with you. It's strange to say it, but despite being a desolate wasteland of miasma, this is a very well executed living world. It feels like the world kind of exists. Every year we also receive a bit more information about the lore of the world from Roland, in this case...if you can't get enough Myrrh, please return. There was once a man who tried to rid the world of Miasma. We don't know what happened but miasma exists and his town doesn't so...yeah.

    And so we set off, after preparing (and showing off the power of Clavats, aka: a shield) and we immediately run into the Marr's Pass caravan! They've been attacked by the Black Knight...and instead of actually fighting with skill and precision as his legend says, he just kinda flailed at them wildly screaming about nonsense. He still WON their fight, but that's a far better outcome than I expected. We also encounter Bal Dat, of the Striped Bandits. Called as such because they're secretly bandits and they're not so secretly wearing striped outfits. Unfortunately for him, the old man they work with failed to actually steal from us. Make no mistake, they will in the future steal our stuff, but for now this is just an introduction to these weirdos. With all those events out of the way, it's time to head to our first dungeon of the year, one that just popped up over said year!

    Say hello to then Goblin Wall. It is, shockingly, full of goblins. Including wizard goblins! There's also Flans, that shoot a paralytic spit out, and Electric Jellyfish that cannot be touched to being electrified. We also have the simple, humble bat, which takes far more hits to kill than anything else in this dungeon, showing why you want beyond all else to use Gravity on fliers. Another thing this dungeon has a lot of is treasure! It's gigantic, has many enemies, and all are prone to dropping nice loot. We don't really pick up anything super good (though on my grinding run after this I DO pick up something useful) but we get a LOT of it, so we'll at least be making a lot of money here. The boss of the Wall is then Goblin King, a wizard goblin of untold power! He's also pretty smart, setting up a barricade we need to get through first before actually fighting him. The fight itself is pretty simple, the King casting -Ga level spells, Slow, and Bio to try and kill us, and occasionally bopping us with his staff or teleporting away to stop us from hitting him. He never does the latter in this fight for some reason.

    Unfortunately for the Goblin King, his weak defenses are his down fall. We dispatch the king and send the goblins running, and gain access to the tree in his bed room. Another drop of Myrrh collected, one third of our adventure this year complete. What else could await us? Find out next time. Hope you all enjoyed.

  30. - Top - End - #30
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    Default Re: Zodi Plays: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Road Trip to Save The World!)

    I wonder how the element changing works logistically? And what would happen if it didn't fully change over? "Oh, sorry, you now need a Fire and a Wind Chalice to cross, sucks to be you."

    Gee. A black knight being up to no good? Never seen that before.

    Huzzah, light! As they said, wherever there is light, there I am.

    Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, something wicked this way is...

    His staff seems to have been nitroglycerin soaked...

    To be fair, in life, you need food to live, then gil can buy items and food. It's just not practical game advice.

    Wait, they were attacked? I thought they said they had challenged him.
    ...yep. They did. "We ran into the Black Knight, you see. I've always wanted to see how strong a warrior he really is, so I challenged him."

    Portable crystal. The perfect gift for mom.

    (As a note, the Enemies Defeated list has now been shifted to Alphabetical order. Bosses will still be chronological.)

    Enemies Defeated (Zodipedia version):
    Ahriman: 3
    Bomb: 5
    Electric Jellyfish: 5
    Flan: 5
    Gremlin: 4
    Goblin: 26
    Goblin, Blue: 5
    Goblin, Giant: 8
    Hedgehog: 9
    Hell Plant: 15
    Humble Bat: 5
    Ogre: 2
    Orc: 23
    Squirrel: 10
    Tiny Worm: 3

    Bosses Defeated:
    Giant Crab
    Giant Mini-Malboro
    Giant Orc King
    Giant Goblin King
    The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.

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