I quess that just happened. Sure.
Itās cruel enough that theyād use the FF2 stat growth thing, but to add insult to injury you canāt even have the characters punch themselves. Iād argue that would be the most crucial element to include in this game.
Everything so far about this game appeals to me for all the wrong reasons.
Canāt wait to see how deep this rabbit hole goes.
Iām definitely going to be following this one, I have a soft spot for terrible RPGMaker games! Even if the end result is really bad and unfun, I like to see where the effort went in! 
Okay, no, but for real I kinda like most of the alternative colours. That yellow is terrible and we will ignore it forever now.
Sorry to keep you, but you look new to the area. Do you have any questions?
This guyās just here to tutorialise a few things. Weāll skip over most of this, but that Wisdom System is very important.
Itās one of two ways to get new spells. You take a Cryna Orb and use it in combat. It then attempts to extract a spell and let you learn it later.
Itās the bastard lovechild of Draw and Magicite. Itās like āokay Draw was always disliked for being terrible, but what if we made it worse?ā Cryna Orbs are one-use items. If a thing does not have a spell, you lose the orb. If you fail to extract the magic (~50% chance!), you lose the orb. You get the spell, you get a different orb and can have one (1) person learn the spell.
So, what about stat gains? How bad are those?
Translation: lose at minimum 50% of your current HP to have a chance to gain a couple points of HP. And by āa chanceā I mean itās an 80% chance, which is surprisingly high.
See above but replace HP with MP. Itās ALSO an 80% chance to go up.
Oh and HP and MP are the only ones with increases that, uh, also increase. HP caps at +7 a proc and MP at +6. Howā¦ weird but nice?
Win a fight and get super lucky. This one has a 10% chance to increase! Thatās really all there is to this one. Just fight and donāt run away. The most āgrind, you foolā stat if there ever was one.
Added bonus: all the stats that arenāt HP/MP go up 1 at a time. Yay. :sigh:
Heal. A lot. It looks like you have to at least triple your current HP to have a 60% chance for it to increase. Naturally this gets easier the more HP you have.
Itās also lying because it can be done when out of combat as well.
This works like Vitality but for MP instead. Tutorial is still lying about it having to be in combat.
Reverse Strength. If you flee, that fight doesnāt count towards maybe getting +1 Str but instead can give +1 Spd. This is also a 10% chance so, uh, itās also kind of a āgrind!!ā stat.
The elements thing isnāt worth worrying about right now so weāll ignore it.
Last bit of tutorial is telling you how to gain non-magic skills. This is not as helpful as it thinks right now, but whatever.
Welp, letās get to this sewer level then.
Canāt go through the door right now? Quess Guess weāre gonna be back later then, oh boy.
Southward bound we go, then. Could go west but meh, leave that 'til later.
Pretty quickly come to another branching pathway. Gonna head on south again becauseā¦
That lets us get Cryna Orbs. These 4 are all weāve got until weāre done here.
ā¦Fortunately, there are only 3 spells available in here and one of them is Scan so it doesnāt even count. 
Head ever further on left now; up just completes a loop and means we miss out on some more loot.
Battle
(might be pretty loud)
Oh boy, itās a terrible MIDI mashup of several Final Fantasy battle themes. Iām sure this is a surprise to you.
But RPG Maker 2000 has very open files, so I removed this for something that Iām going to enjoy listening to for at least a little while. Itāll probably end up on rotation, really.
Itās a crab from Final Fantasy VIIās tiny sewer section, why am I not surprised?
Wait no Iām wrong, Clipper here is Clipper from Final Fantasy IX.
ā¦Itās a water monster. 'Sgot 12 HP and 12 MP, drops Antidotes (15% chance) and likes to try and poison you sometimes. The magic you draw from this guy is Scan. Pass.
But we can get money now! Weāre gonna get way, way more from crabs alone than we got paid for the entire previous update.
Only other enemy down here is a Flan, which isā¦ the Flan from Final Fantasy IX. Sure, whatever. Sealion was around before and these things were in the same dungeon at least.
'Sgot 8HP (very quickly gonna die then), drops Potions (15% chance), and just does a basic attack and nothing else. Can draw Panacea which cures Poison. Also pretty meh.
Alright, so back to the dungeon we go. Just gonna grab these then head allllll the way back to where we started.
Itās not really a long trek, because the maps here (right now) are mercifully on the smaller end of things. At least as far as these kinds of things go.
Itās 60x80 squares but most of that is inside walls and stuff, so itās not as bad as it sounds. Itās going to get much bigger much quicker though!
Like right now. Going south here is a waste of time though. Weāll head up north instead.
Hey these are genuinely, actually new. Like not really new, but new as far as this cares.
Guarantee escaping from fights where you can isnāt too shaā
ā¦Weapon Phototype. That says Phototype. How did thatā¦ I donāt understand.
The path around here reconnects back with the southern path from before. South again is progress, so weāll head left. Get more Potions but alsoā¦
A pair of Phoenix Downs Tails, and an Ether for good measure. Couldnāt have gotten the Tail before but this makes up for it I suppose?
And by āthisā I mean the Ether.
After that, itās just a giant long path that leads to a new screen which isā¦ a PuPu and a bridge. Definitely not ominous. Nope.
Surprise, itās a boss fight.
So, now we get to fight this guy for real oh boy!
Lets make sure it never reaches the surface!
Anyway, letās see what we can get from this guy first offā¦
So we gotta thow the orb to see it shatter. Over and over and over again.
ā¦On the eleventh try, we finally get Bio.
The fake-Draw system is not at all worth it outside of save scumming. Even then, it takes a while to get some things.
Anyway, the Bio Yoma itself is mostly similar to before. He does have a couple new tricks though. Venom Claw is a single target attack that can poison someone.
Every 5th turn, he casts Water. This hurts a lot, yes. Itās by far the most dangerous thing weāve seen thus far.
But thatās it. Very ho hum. If you use Berseker itās 100% possible to kill him in less than a minute and not even need to heal, though.
For beating a boss, we get a bonus fixed stat gain. This one sucks though, of course; itās +6HP and +4MP.
Letās just leave the sewers and pretend that we wonāt ever be back.
Final Fantasy VII was popular and its first town was the slums.
Correlation equals causation so letās make the first town here ALSO be the slums!
So lets hurry to the Space Station in the Shopping Area before itās shut down.
I hardly think 200 Gil was enough for this job.
For reference, we currently have over 1000 because of the sheer number of crabs and flans. Being exterminators must pay super well on this rock.
I agree. But getting back at Sho was really worth it. I wish I could have seen his face.
I was referring to the FC Troopers. Iām still curious about their working with Sho. I sense something odd.
You also said something odd. That middle sentence is a goddamn mess, jeez.
You know what else is also a mess?
Anime RPG affection systems!
ā¦Yes, really. The points are also wildly out of balance. Being a Nice Guy gets +5 romance Love Points (yes, really) whereas actually hitting on the robot gets -2.
Gonna try and max all the date points because fuck it why not.
Iām glad youāre here Motor.
Youāre my partner right. Who else would I want to watch my back.
ā¦ We should hurry.
And hurry we shall. Eventually. Thereās a craphole of a town to look around and explore.
NPCs to talk to.
Dialogue to begrudgingly deal with and mostly ignore because itās not even the good kind of shite.
And this guy shares the tutorial manās generic sprite, so heās going to exposit at us.
Well, letās get this over with then.
Six Star Resort
It was built four years ago by a wealthy merchant named Sho. With itās popularity raising after each week so does the amount of garbage produced. This is the cause of the mid section of the asteriod being turned into a huge junkyard.
Atmosphere Generator
space rocks such as Asteroids. Once the asteroid is sealed with a glass like material the generator mantains a livable environment.
ā¦Discounting how over the course of 3 sentences, the word āasteroidā has been written in just as many different waysā¦ how on Earth did āenvironmentā get spelled correctly? I am genuinely impressed by that one. Huh.
Asteroid Colonies
Over 350 years ago Finel Capital became the first asteroid colony and is now the largest. Soon after many other colonies were formed some remaining others not. The asteroid we are on now Stars Bliss, is younger that other major colonies being only 80 years old. All asteroid colonies are alligned on a huge asteroid belt called Vesta Belt.
Christ, thatās a lot of badly written exposition.
Also, I sure as fuck doubt the asteroid belt being named Vesta is Delita flexing his astronomy muscles here. Itās most likely just a coincidence that 4 Vesta is a well-known asteroid within the actual proper asteroid belt in our real universe. Itās also definitely not named after the Roman goddess Vesta, unlike the aforementioned asteroid. Mostly because Vesta hasnāt been in Final Fantasy at all. Not even in Mobius!
Thereās a reason Iām going to ignore most NPCs. This is one of the more interesting ones. Yes, really.
Anyway, yeah, you probably missed it in the expositionman dialogue above but odds are good that FC stands for Finel Capital and not Finel Quartet.
BUT! With this game, I could believe either. And itās not like the game does anything at first but imply very heavily that the C is Quartet is anyway.
This part of town is also where the Inn is. Itās cheap, but also costs more than 50% of the fights in the sewers give.
Anyway, this building here above the expositionman is important and not just because it lets us know that rapper B.o.B has been around here.
Not so much for the people in it, though this really makes me question the folding screen at the back of the room.
No, there is an item in here. Can you see it?
No you canāt, stop lying.
Itās here. Itās in a treasure chest even, so that implies that youāre expected to be able to see it somewhat. Iām fine with hidden items (Iāve played JRPGs before after all), so itās not that itās hidden that bugs me.
If the writing was better that Ether would be more worthwhile as a reward for exploring. As is, you get punished for looking around by railroading and bad text. There is no incentive to not just run to the next plot beat.
What doesnāt help is that there are 3 chests in the slums and that one is the only one that was hidden. If it wasnāt in a chest I guess Iād like it better.
Is that weird? Yes, yes it is. This is me just being persnickety about things for no reason. Iād at least put a hidden item in a container or something. Thereās lots of them dotted around but examining them just has Darren lament that theyāre empty in boring ways.
Anyway, items! JRPG tradition dictates that we canāt buy Ethers, so theyāre out. Everything else in here is stuff we already have. At least we can buy the Orbs if we want to play along with the Draw mechanic more.
This guy isnāt important, but that building above him is. Itās a restaurant!
And itās only noteworthy because everyone in here is an asshole who insults you.
ā¦Hey so remember Wall Market and how there was someone in a bathroom there? And you needed to give them medicine so theyād help Cloud crossdress? That sure aināt gonna be in the HD Remake but at least itās partially preserved here!
Shows what I know for not following much of games media much, huh?
The one thing Iāve noticed, by the way, is that ātheirā is very consistent. It is always the possessive. Always. I could be wrong about that and the other versions get used later, but so far every single instance has been āeirā.
Anyway, weapons, armor and MS Paint Grafitti.
ā¦I canāt really call that out for being bad. Thatās probably about as good as I could do as well.
Weapons arenāt worth buying. Broadsword is the default sword Derren has; Hand Gun is Motorās default, uh, gun and the Iron Sword is not any stronger. It just deals extra damage to Shell creatures (like the crabs). Meh.
Armor is a little more worthwhile though. Bronze and Cotton are the defaults but the other two are upgrades straight up. Armlets boost speed which is going to be important because I donāt see that getting many stat gains through normal play. I flee very, very rarely in Shin Megami Tensei games (because I make nothing but Good Ideas) so I sure aināt doing it here unless/until I need to grind it out for any reason.
ā¦What Iām saying is if this game gives me a Chicken Knife then everyoneās Speed is going to jump very high very fast.
Oh and the equipment store has an Arcade Machine in it. Itās currently broken. It will always be broken. No minigames for you, mister.
Alex from Golden Sun is just chilling out here telling us the name of a place we definitely wonāt be going to later on. Nope.
And thatās basically it. So, how about this Travel Agency?
Wait, this was a Space Station one scene ago.
And now it is again! The two are very much not the same thing.
I mean I sure donāt expect the train station to be travel agency, so why should this?
This is also totally where it self-destructs, right?
ā¦Right?
But, yeah, we shouldāve seen this coming really. That one guy did somehow break chronology and causality to exposit to that Sho fella about us.
We canāt go to the sewers cause they would expect that. We canāt stay in town because in a few hours it will be crawling with guards. That only leavesā¦
Sensible reasons we canāt go hideout in the sewers:
- We just came from there so logically thatād be the first place theyād check
- Disease!
- We blew up a base IN said sewers
- Itās a fucking sewer
Given reasons we canāt go hideout in the sewers:
- Hiding in them is predictable
I get thatās basically point one on my list butā¦ the way its written is more āgoing back there is the expected thing and what anyone would do!ā
Oh but a junkyard? The big olā thing that just sits in the middle of the asteroid and the guys would have to go through to get to the slums? Nah, theyāre never gonna look in there.
(Easy for you to say. Androids can always turn off their smelling sensors.)
Alright then. Lets head east of town. Butbefore we go we should stock up on goods.
From underground sewers to a junkyard which is basically aboveground (mechanical) sewers.
So real quick! Letās just think for a second about why this is terrible. Why should you never, ever, ever make a sewer level the first dungeon? And then the second dungeon, kind of.
Itās just common sense, surely. You want to start off strong to get people interested. You want investment. You donāt want to start off with the most maligned level type, even if in this particular instance it was mostly inoffensive. Sewer levels are never good, and even a well done one is just bland at best. It might not have any of the hallmarks of a traditional sewer level (outside of things what do a poison) but just knowing that itās going to be a sewer level and then it being kinda dull is just a surefire way to kill enthusiasm stone dead.
ā¦Admittedly in this particular case that wasnāt a concern because the opening cutscene also kind of does that job pretty well on its own, but thatās not the point!
3 Likes
Goodness. Those stat mechanics could definitely use some QoL tweaks. I get that theyāre trying to do something different, but this is a different thatās already been tried in the series proper, and was really not what the doctor ordered.
Yeah, if the stat gains end up being too low due to bullshit RNG I can, and will, tweak them to compensate. Gonna try and not do that, as much as is possible, but it is an option I will take if it ends up being necessary.
I guess youāll always be going last in fights because constantly running trying to gain speed is a really bad idea.
Like, I get -why- speed bonuses are tied to running. Thereās really no other action they could be tied to that makes sense.
That being said, when you have to make that much of a stretch it should be a sign that your level-up system is a bit shit and needs a rework.
Oh man, I had forgotten what a treasure it is when people try to bend the RPG Maker 2000 battle system into doing things it wasnāt designed to do.
I like this game. I have poor taste; but I liked this game.
Itās very strange seeing an LP of this. I played this game quite a bit aroundā¦ gosh, maybe 15 years ago. Considering it was free entertainment, I was more forgiving towards it flaws. Granted, I was also 14 at the time, but that also reflected the charm of it; the game looked like something that was reasonably within my own abilities to make, even down the questionable quality.
I remember it being impressive for being an actually completed RPG Maker game, of which there were only a few of. Many of the games I remember playing usually were only demos or ended halfway, even for the āgoodā games like The Blurred Line, which one LP of exists of in the LP Archive. The only way to make an RPG Maker game impressive is to program a lot of complex systems into it; but the more complex systems you add in, the higher the risk the game becomes impossible to actually complete development. This game actually shipped and wasnāt just a straight port of the base engine, which got a lot of interest for the time.
But notably absent from this process is the additional testing to make sure that said complex systems are actually good. Endless Nova is in the middle of the road on this front. A lot of what it does is usually not at all balanced, but at least it keeps it interesting. Another game I know of in RPG Maker was Dragonās Destiny by a guy named Rast. It was a game with a lot of advanced programming and plenty of integrated systems that made it something of a technical marvel; however, it was also very poorly balanced, had unforgiving difficulty issues, and was just downright boring to actually play. āWow! This dungeon puzzle that is a fully 3D Rubikās cube is a really impressive thing to have done in RPG Maker,ā I once astutely observed. āItās almost too bad that I am not fucking playing that.ā
A lot of the things we like to rag RPG Maker games for are products of RPG Maker itself. Hilarious typos and bad text formatting are one example. RPG Maker itself has no spellcheck, nor any decent way to do copyediting that isnāt part of just doing regular coding in the map editor. Sometimes the matter of finding the lines which need editing is also difficult, since they can be hidden in all sorts of nooks and crannies. A friend of mine who kept up with RPG Maker much better than I did only found a command-line tool which dumps all the map data textboxes into one place for easy proofreading just a few years ago. In the heyday of RM2000 and 2003, these tools werenāt as freely available.
The younger meās only real complaint about the game was how it used a slightly-nonstandard version of the RTP, so a lot of the builds of the game shipped with chipsets and animations missing. However, the missing items were only used in the game around the time after you got the gameās airship equivalent about 15 or 20 hours in, at which point the game would crash. It was fixed eventually, but it still was something of a letdown to play all that time and only encounter a fatal error then.
1 Like
Alright, so the junkyard is just though the marked sidepath here. If that dirt path didnāt go over there, you wouldnāt know thatās actually a door (it makes the door noise at leastā¦). So, uh, good job with that I guess?
The faintest of praise.
So, the ground here is covered in puke covered in confetti. Sure, okay, whatever.
Nice of it to have a sign telling us that the west side of the meteorite is the west side by the by.
Oh, uh, I may have spent the rest of my cash on getting armor upgrades. Itās not that big of a deal, really.
I didnāt buy one of these, though. Because I knew it was right here AND also because itās not really an upgrade. Nothing here is shelled except the crabs in the sewer.
Speaking of which!
There are a whole two enemies here, again. This toad from FFIX (ā¦I seem to be noticing a trend here) is the rarer of the two.
And thatās why. He gives you Fire, sure. He also casts Fire himself but only when heās below 25% HP. At which point heās also kinda dead soā¦
He makes up for it by having Blind. Goddammit.
Uh, right, he has 15 HP, 24 MP and drops Eye Drops at a 15% rate. So, basically never. Also heās immune to both Fire and Poison (amongst other things that donāt matter), because fuck you.
Bite Bugs areā¦ represented by Final Fantasy IXās Dragonfly rather than the actual Bite Bug in Final Fantasy VIII? I donātā¦ Sure. Sure.
10 HP, 12 MP and drop Antidotes (15%ā¦ Iām seeing another pattern here). Theyāre ALSO immune to Poison!
Theyāre flying enemies. Motorās guns ruin fliers, so she can just run roughshod over these guys. They like to poison you in two ways so thatās nice.
You draw Bio from these guys if you want it. I grab that for Deren so I have someone who can use it when it matters. Saving the other one for someone else later.
Back to the dungeon(?), we canāt get to that chest yet. Thereās a rock hidden under theā¦ pipe? I think thatās a pipe.
I see a manhole though, so weāll get to this thing through the sewer later. Ugh.
At this point, Derenās magic goes upā¦? Oh! This event starts by giving you a full heal! Thatās not at all ominous.
Also it actually happens elsewhere on the map but its triggered by stepping on tiles elsewhere heading away from this spot. Goddammit.
Itās strange. I mean the last time I was here the junkyard was much smaller, and the residential was not only larger, but a hell of alot cleaner. The Finel that I know would never let such atrocities happen to Stars Bliss. So why are the FC Troopers working with Sho. A man they should lock up in the darkest corner of Finel Prison? And why
ā¦Would you believe I already forgot that guyās name was Skeet? Because that seems quaint and sensible to some weāre going to see in a few moments. Really.
It is all very strange. I suggest we figure out a way to escape before we get futher into this confusion.
Too laā
Silence
Well, thatās a thing that just happened. Huh. Thatās new.
I mean, the pod sure isnāt but something happening. I give it a minute though.
And now Deren is going to asphyxiate and weāre going to get our real-real protagonist?
! Motor!!! Motor! Snap out of it! Come onā¦ I can barelyā¦ breathā¦
Oh, so the Girl in the pod was aā¦ mousegirlā¦? Maybe? Itās kinda hard to tell but that ear is not pointy enough to be a generic catgirl.
ā¦When Iām tempted to call that a point in this thingās favour, anime has gone too far.
More important, what a surprise. The soldiers came to the junkyard. Probably because of the pod breaking the glass ceiling (???) and nothing else though.
Are you ready for sudden, random unrelated scene with The Worst Fantasy Names? Too bad.
Juction (Deep Sea Research Center)
Yes, weāre also back to a scene without text boxes. My favourite.
Sorry guys. I just canāt wait to get into a monster fight. I want to be the world greatest monster slayer!
You know just as well as I do that monsters are all but extinct in this region.
Of course the guy who acts without thinking is royalty. Still not sure why this is relevant to anything butā¦
I can do that too. But it doesnāt hurt to follow your dreams until then. Come on!
ā¦what does that even mean?
And I quess this is going to be a recurring thing, rather than a weird one-time accident.
More Walking! My feet hurtā¦
Scene ends, back to things ofā¦ importanā¦
I canāt even finish that sentence.
ā¦There is a LOT of Final Fantasy VIII music in this thing, jeez. It makes some degree of sense, because space, but itās about to get dumber in a bit.
But, uh, weāre in jail and alone in a cell. We can approach the door to talk to people.
If it wasnāt for the music not matching, Iād think this was happening because this exact same thing happened in VII. It just, yāknow, was important and relevant then.
Filth! Youāre the one whoās working for Sho!
You donāt know the first thing about me!
And Iām afraid you wonāt have the time to fill me in. Once that girlās been picked up Sho is gonna kill you, and dust your cyber witch. You thieves drive me crazy!
(Thieves? Shoās the thief!)
Oh good, finally. I kind of just internally clocked out for a minute there. Yes, we get it.
The soldiers are evil, blah blah blah. Letās just get back to ripping off Final Fantasy VII (and VIII) badly.
Now that iām away from it all of my systems are back to normal. When I started up again in the cell I noticed the lock was pretty simple so I opened it.
Thanks Motor I owe you. Afer that crystal broke the air seal I just passed out.
Do you know of the crystals origin?
This thing was strange! How strange! Strange. Strange. Strange.
That also seems to be getting used a lot.
I think so. I donāt think sheāll be safe with themā¦ We should get her away from them!
I donāt know if thatās a good idea. We are already in enough trouble.
I suppose youāre going to do what you want, so Iāll go with you.
Great! I think weāre in the north area of the sewers. We should be able to gain access to the resort area through a pothole.
Not gonna lie, I keep consistently reading that as āthrough a plotholeā and while that one is 100% on me, it makes just as much sense.
But anyway, back to ripping off VII and VIII again. And kind of VI as well, but notably there isnāt much of that in here in general. Didnāt even use Decisive Battle for the boss music or anything, for shame.
So, weāre back in the sewers again.
They sure are sewer-y sewers. But the biggest difference between now and before is these guys and the Flans will sometimes run away.
Oh and I gave Motor Fire, because itās useful. She has higher magic than Deren but still pretty low overall. Itās her best way of contributing though, because its just pretty strong on its own.
ā¦Okay, so the map here is RIDICULOUSLY HUGE and is pretty much empty.
Well, uh, there is this. Thatās something.
Iām just gonna skip past the rest of it to the exit but if you want to see what bad map scales look likeā¦
The Sewers In Paris Think This Is Excessive
I cut out all the fights and stuff, because thereās nothing of interest in them. Theyāre JRPG fights that I autobattle through. How exciting.
End
Sailor Neptune ~ Beautiful Tide
Why is there a random image of Elena from Final Fantasy VII masquerading as an ad?
ā¦Actually that doesnāt even matter, really.
We could go to the casino and check out Sweet Minigames, or we can check out Stars Bliss TV station. Because that exists.
ā¦Except the SB doesnāt stand for Stars Bliss? What? Then what DOES it mean?
If we really wanted to go back, weād have to go through the sewers but that door that opened is locked so we canāt actually do that. Weāre stuck here for now, yay.
Thereās also a random street vendor if we need supplies, which is bizarrely generous honestly.
Ah, thereās the catch! He only sells Potions, which are secretly not very useful as of right now.
So letās check out the casino! Itās the best of the best so that means the most effort went into its inevitable gamebreaking minigames, right?
ā¦Honestly, yāknow what? Probably a good thing we canāt do any gambling yet.
But we also need to come here anyway, because I guess we really care about rescuing a preteen furry?
i Not even FC Troopers![/i]
i I think itās time we use Finel justice to end those two thieves advances.[/i]
i back from the sewers.[/i]
At this point, Iām just genuinely wondering if these guys are intentionally challenging Storm Troopers for the least effective footsoldiers of any army ever.
And I think Storm Troopers managed to achieve something at some point??
i Good! You remembered.
(Moronās.)[/i]
So now we can take the elevator, I guess, and something dumb happens here. I know, Iām surprised too.
At this point the game auto-opens the menu to let you do this, even though we could just do it manually ourselves if we wanted to. Itās letting you know to re-equip and doing this, becauseā¦
Upon entering the elevator, all of Derenās equipment is removed. Why? Hell if I know. Itās ONLY Darren that gets everything removed too, so itās just a complete mysery.
Between this, Motor being all āletās not fight a thingā and the save point, this is some of the most blatant HEY THEREāS A BOSS FIGHT signposting I have seen in a while.
Itās not #1, but itās up there.
We received direct orders to take the girl with us.
I swear, if this works then Sho is the dumbest character in the entire game. He should absolutely recognise Danās voice considering the whole knowing each other, betrayal, inexplicable blood vendetta thing going onā¦
When did you get that message!?
no really if this works then oh my god
When is not where, jeez, Derren.
Oh, huh. Sho might actually be competent after all. I am genuinely impressed by this.
goddamn are my standards for what passes as a good thing slipping
What are you doing!
You donāt even know what youāre lying about!! Who are you two anyway!
ā¦I think Iām going to retract what I said about competence. That sure isnāt the right word for it.
Get away from me!! Ahhhhh!!!Help me!!!
So, the game tells us thereās two enemies here, but then makes us fight one.
ā¦But heās off-center, so his buddy will spawn in later.
Notably, this is the first enemy outside of the Soldiers that isnāt a sprite stolen from Final Fantasy IX. Instead itās an RTP sprite, so this required even less work than usual!
So, for this fight we have three characters oh my. Unnamed Mouse Girl actually starts with her unique skill all ready to go, even!
Sheās a Geomancer.
More specifically, she is a Final Fantasy III/V style Geomancer. Fights with bells, uses terrain damageā¦
ā¦is actually useful because she starts with 16 Magic!
But no attacks outside of Terrain, which all has a base power of 1. Oops.
I didnāt mention this before, but bosses in this game are - as a general rule - immune to all ailments. Because JRPGs. Pig Boys here are the exception; theyāre immune to everything except Poison (which is an 80% modifier). Guess what we just goooot~!
ā¦They resist Fire though, just because.
Oh and this guy casts Silence. Of course he does.
Once he loses 10 HP, his buddy spawns in. Sure, whatever. Itās a bad comedy skit, moving on.
Their basic attack isnāt all that threatening, honestly. It does hurt Geomancer Girl a bit but thatās because sheās a spellcaster with barely any defense (a grand total of 6 right now!).
Yellow Pigman likes to boomerang his axe which is the most threatening thing in this fight. Itās still easy to outheal though, so whatever.
It took about like 20 orbs to get Silence, because of course it did. Itās not even really worth it. You can also only get it once, because you can only successfully Draw once per fight. I understand the logic behind that but itās still really dumb!
ā¦But I donāt think Iām allowed to complain. I set the price for Cryna Orbs to 0 Gil so I could just have 99 of them and mitigate the dumb way getting magic works.
Aside from that, theyāre really not hard. Gudo (pink) has 40HP and Adjo (yellow) has 36, which means that one of them has less HP than the Sealion āāBio Yomaāā from before so they die pretty quick.
They each drop a status cure, which is nice I guess? Each enemy can only have 1 drop in RM2K which is an annoying engine limitation.
(Later RPG Maker versions increase that and then fan scripts lets you basically just give everything as many drops as you want.)
Boss stat gains here are +5HP, +2MP, and +1 to Str, Mag, Vit AND Spd! Kind of sad that Mystery Girl didnāt proc a regular stat gain too because that is 100% possible here and tells us her name a little early. Good olā interface spoilers.
Hey Sho!
Thereās no sound effect or animation but the implication here is that Sho just get punched right in the gut. Sure, whatever.
We have to find a way off this asteroid fast!
Wait! Iā¦ I just donāt remember anything. Iām scared.
I think from now Iāll just overlay the Love Points (that is still A Name for an affection system alright) changes on the dialogue options just so you get an idea of what they are.
Youāll be fine. Trust me.
Okā¦ Iāll trust you.
Wow, that wasā¦ really easy and simple. People totally definitely talk that way, yup. Makes sense to me!
Ok Motor lets look for a way out!
Well, this door is new and we probably canāt do anything going the other way so letās see where it leads!
Oh and while I remember, I teach Deren Silence (so he can be an ailment kinda guy I guess) and ??? gets Fire because she has nearly 20 Magic and Motor is a firm second place.
And I think right now she has 8.
āFiquresā
I quess there are a lot more "g"s that are written as "q"s for some reason. That is so weird.
Anyway, we gotta use that computer to try and leave soā¦
I donāt know whether or not you donāt know. Making this a question is probably not at all intentional, but whatever.
You donāt remember your name? What about anything else?
Iām sorry. I donāt remember anything. This is all very strange.
Darren having a surname is kind of expected, but whatās surprising is that itās mentioned at all. Thatās much more of a rarity, thinking about it.
Well, at least we get to go to Friend Moon next. I guess thatāsā¦ something.
Ok. We really have no choice now do we. Motor set course to Ally Luna and make sure you clear the computerās data to buy us some time.
Ok. ā¦ Finished. Once all three of us are in they will head out.
Alrightā¦
Here goes nothing.
i They must have used escape pods. They canāt take them very far.[/i]
Hmm, I wonder. Where could they possibly have gone tā
wait.
Thatās the correct āthere.ā The miracle do happen!
There arenāt many places for them to go. Besides space pods canāt travel to far.
(1) This works out well then. We know what to do.
What!!! You guys promised to fund my new resort extention!
This is rediculous! You can just shove those resort passes I gave you guys!!!
You wanna know the best thing about all this? Unless Iām forgetting something this is the last time we see Sho!
Also, even better, Buddy Satellite is a tiny area that is basicallyā¦ nothing but plot scenesā¦
wait shit thats not a good thing at all
3 Likes
Bye Sho. You had the most anticlimactic final scene I think Iāve ever seen a character have, butā¦ at least you didnāt die? Thatās usually how Final Fantasy forgets its characters exist.
1 Like
āAnd I wouldāve gotten away with it, too, if it werenāt for that meddling kid! And that bot, too!ā
1 Like
ā¦you sure about that, Deren?
2 Likes
Iām really curious as to how Mouse-Girlās Geomancy will (or wonāt) work!
I love random RPG maker games! I love Final Fantasy!
I do not love this game. I remember playing it and dropping it almost immediately back in the day. So itāll be nice to see the rest of the game, generic as it is.
1 Like
So I got curious enough to download it myself, and as bad as this game is, itās still got better map design than Moonchild, a commercial RPGMaker game thatās so bad that I might have to LP it myself sometime. Eugh.