: First thing this update, I’d like to mention that I was wrong about the new battle system. It’s actually worse than I thought, but at the same time not quite as bad. You can turn it on or off using this menu: turning on “Deep Strike” gives you the old QTEs back and turning on “Imbue Affinity” turns on the elemental weakness chart mode.
: For this testing, I used two sets of options - one that’s purely the new battle system (Deep Strike off, Imbue Affinity on) and one that’s purely the old one (Deep Strike on, Imbue Affinity off).
: This is with the old battle system, on Normal difficulty. The enemies outside the factory go down in one hit as opposed to three or more.
: I counted, and for Alex’s basic attack, a “good” in the new QTE system is equivalent to a 4-hit combo in the old one. A “perfect” is equal to about 6 or 7 hits.
: For reference, most of the time under the old system I could land somewhere between 8 and 12 hits. This means that the new system is a straight-up damage decrease.
: The only place the new combat system is better is with characters who had a very low max combo count, like Vella. Vella’s new QTE gives her the same amount of hits on a “good” she’d get from a perfect QTE in the old system. Getting a “perfect” gives her 4 hits, meaning she does more damage than the old system until she gets her combo upgrade.
: This is a hit from a level 68 Vella against the Hook-Handed Jock, with a “good”, under the new system.
: Even with a “good”, Vella gets the same combo count she would have under the old system - she hits three times in both. This isn’t true later on, when Vella’s combo upgrades to a 4-hit maximum in the old system.
: Now here’s the same fight, same Vella, just with the old system on. You can see that there’s a pretty major difference because the Jock is weak to her element.
: I also tried it with Michael, who seems to hit harder under the new system provided the enemy isn’t strong against his element.
: Because his max combo under the old system was only 3 or 4 hits anyway, it doesn’t make much of a difference. I’m not sure if the new system adjusts its damage when you get the weapons that add a max combo thing. His new QTE does 3 hits on a “good” (out-damaging the old system by 1 hit) and 4 hits on a “perfect”.
: So basically, the answer to “Should I use the new combat system” is “For most of the non-Alex party members, yes.” The other exception would be Essentia, who had a relatively high max combo count in the old version.
: You might ask what I did to get their levels that high, and the answer is that I started a New Game + file. What does that get you, you ask?
: The only thing that carries over is your total EXP from when you finished the first run. You don’t get to keep any equipment, money, or anything else - just EXP. It took me 45 minutes in the Mind Dungeon to level Alex up.
: This time, recalling GrandmaParty’s wisdom, I levelled Alex’s luck up first to get 100% critical rate. This takes around 34 levels to accomplish.
: By level 68, Michael also gets a fairly high strength score (which is a waste given how bad his basic attack is in both versions) and good defense with a mere 29% critical rate. He does, however, have a fuckload of HP.
: Vella really doesn’t level up all that well. You basically want to ditch her for Claudio and Chondra ASAP.
: Actually, after fighting this guy, you might just want to turn elemental affinities off entirely, as both Vella and Michael are weak to his attacks now.
: By the way, the game softlocked again after that fight.
SOFTLOCK COUNTER: 8
: On my second run through Wind Town, I figured out that it’s actually better to turn affinities off. You’re basically trading less maximum damage for better damage on average.
: I also discovered that during certain fights (like this one with the Wannabe Cop) they forgot to get rid of the old full-party defend QTEs where each person has to defend individually.
: I gave LP Toss a try in this fight, and discovered that it has been nerfed to the ground. It does less than half of one of Alex’s basic attacks in damage. This means that the optimal way to level up Alex (unless you are using the new system for some reason) is Luck until 100, Strength, HP, and Defense in that order. At 100 luck, none of Alex’s skills will out-damage his basic attack.
: So anyway, we meet Rory, go to the sewer, and do the whole sewer dungeon. It’s all the same, including the time-wasting bullshit rooms like this one.
: Now, if you read the patch notes, you might ask “How did they improve Rory?” to which the answer is uh.. they kinda didn’t.
: The idea is that Rory now guards everyone as opposed to just one person, but in the entire time I used him I never once saw him guard anyone. I think it’s straight-up broken now.
: After doing everything but the Golden Alpaca, we get enough EXP to reach Level 70. At that level, you get the final mind dungeon cutscene, which I don’t believe you can reach on your first playthrough - I’m pretty sure I got all the possible EXP on the first run and was only level 64 or so.
: I hope you’re ready for one last Allanson Monologue. At least, I hope this is the last Allanson Monologue I ever have to read.
: This character has a different voice, and I don’t know if it’s Chris Niosi just doing a different voice or one of the Allansons. I streamed it and the video will be up just after this update.
: “I’ve come to realize something.. something pretty screwed up. You and I…? We’re the same. Like, literally the same. Like, a concept. Like, a stuffed panda.”
: No, you see, I’m different in that I didn’t fuck up my first game after getting Kickstarter money, fuck up a second game after getting a publisher deal that I didn’t deserve, never learn a goddamn thing, and then fuck up a patch to my second game that makes it.. you’ll see.
Typo Counter: 1
: “A stuffed panda can be a friend, it can be a playful monster, it can be a protector.. whatever it needs to be, that’s what it is.”
: “The concept of a stuffed panda is greater than any actual panda. Same thing with a crow. A crow is ugly. It’s not welcome. No one would EVER want one in their home, unless they were weird.”
: Hi, question from the audience? Can the concept of the stuffed panda make Brian Allanson learn anything?
: “So, somehow.. we’re both the stuffed panda, and the crow. We’re not perfect. In fact… we kinda suck. We’re absolutely mediocre young men.”
: “But, have you stopped to look at who tells us how much we suck? A teenage goth girl who slept with someone twice her age. A bratty photographer responsible for one of the skeeziest websites on the net. A robot, who would lead infinite amounts of boys to a life of solitude on a distant star, just because one might hurt someone one day.”
: Wow, that’s.. yiikes.
: “No one ever said we’d hurt anyone. That wasn’t written in stone. Just like how dad said you’d never be able to learn to ride a bike. You fell off! SO MANY TIMES! You were sooooo bad at it! That’s the same thing.”
: “People say you’ll destroy the world enough times, and damn.. you’ll grow to believe it!”
: That’s Andrew Allanson for you, taking what’s basically Ryuji’s awakening cutscene in Persona 5 and turning it into a monologue that is at least three times longer. This monologue is well over 50 FUCKING TEXT BOXES.
Typo Counter: 2 (It’s bad RAP, you incompetent fuck! Bad RAP!)
: “That’s just because we had a lot growing up. Good mom, lots of money… we lived in a nice town. Things were easy for us. But, you know what? That’s just on a basic needs level.”
: “Life sucked. Dad left us… mom was NEVER HOME… television raised us. No one was there to check out homework.. Dad never called… never…”
: Can’t have a fucking 50-textbox monologue without a pointless Earthbound reference that 98% of people aren’t going to bother to see.
: “That would’ve been nice.. but yeah, we had everything else. No one ever judged us for the way we looked. No one was scared of us walking down the street. Maybe our life was on easy mode…”
: “I don’t know. I’ve never lived another life. But.. I guess, we’re weak. Easy mode was too hard for us. I don’t even know what I’m talking about any more, man.”
: “So, look. Here is the deal. The world is over, it’s done.. but there is another world.. far away… I’m going to suggest something radical. SUPER RADICAL. Go, right now.. and kill proto you!”
: “You’re strong. Stronger than you’ll ever be. Go and fight him alone.. and from there… maybe then you’ll find happiness. Just avoid that robot. She’s not a bad girl, she’s just not good for you.”
: “We bring out the worst in each other.. don’t we? Yeah, so… if you want to be happy, you’ll need to kill proto you, yourself. Then you’ll be good to go! Just you, Panda, and Krow. The holy trinity of suburban mediocrity.”
: “Good luck, man. Oh, did you figure out the question? Yeah, I thought you did.”
: Even though he says this, I don’t think there’s any actual way to fight the final boss alone. Besides, we saw what happens if you kill the final boss - the game softlocks.
: Oh, we’re here. I hope everyone’s ready for the AMAZING new Golden Alpaca cutscene.
: All of the dialog here is the same as before, because naturally the Allansons couldn’t just throw away all those voice clips they had. I’ll let you know when it starts changing.
: Vella looks like she’s either high on something, just shit herself, or both.
: This crotch shot on Rory is clearly very important for the storyline.
: I had my mic off when I was recording this, but I burst out fucking laughing at this. This entire cutscene looks like a kid’s first attempt at using Source Filmmaker.
: So this is it, right? They got rid of the Golden Alpaca as a fight, and instead we’re fighting a Rory-themed Soul Survivor? I mean, at least that’s more appropriate.
: This absolutely looks like Vella shit herself, and Rory is just starting to smell it.
: I swear it’s like it’s not possible for that Vella model to not look like it’s in the middle of taking a shit.
: Boy am I glad I killed his useless ass off in the main LP.
: Vella has been exposed to the YIIK script and now the last brain cells are leaving her cranium.
: Meanwhile, Alex is basically T-posing and.. god I don’t even know what the fuck you’d call that facial expression. It looks like someone just told him Haruki Murakami sucks.
: Michael has committed soul suicide in the back and has left for another plane of existence. Seriously this just looks fucking goofy and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what they intended.
: This is some fucking cutscene direction right here.
: God these fucking faces.
: And here’s a carbon copy of an earlier shot, because this is how cutscene direction works.
: Rory nutted so hard he went to space.
: Gotta love that Ghost Rory basically has the America Online logo on his chest.
: Also gotta love that Alex has turned around now because someone else is monologging and he’s just not interested anymore.
: I hope you are ready for some quality* content, because we’re getting close.
*quality not guaranteed
: Meet the new Golden Alpaca. I’m not sure if this is better or worse than the old one, but I think I’m gonna go with worse. The Golden Alpaca is voiced by DC Douglas.
: By the way, the Allansons claim that they had some kind of side story involving the Golden Alpaca, but I have not seen it. I’ll post what that is after we’re done here.
: What’s funny is that they promised a “dramatically reworked” sewer dungeon, but this is the only change.
: And now I guess we’re in End of Evangelion?
: Remake of YIIKvangelion: Cutscene Direction (Is) My Passion
: The Alpaca has nutted.
: Finally, someone else who feels the same way I do about this game.
: You might ask “Is he repeating himself?” and the answer is yes, yes he is. They only got DC Douglas to record around 20 voice lines, if that.
: The game goes through this entire crotch shot of Michael and I have no fucking idea why. Cutscene direction!
: This is starting to feel like a much, much dumber version of Killer 7.
: Mechanically, the Golden Alpaca fight is almost the same. He still summons Soul Survivors, and then eats them.
: As he absorbs the Soul Survivors, the “WARNING” bar increases. You can basically loop him just by having Vella use Banish on every turn, which will cause him to keep summoning new ones. I didn’t test to see if you can cast Banish on the Alpaca itself to lower the warning bar.
: When the Warning bar hits full, the Alpaca uses an attack that immediately brings everyone down to 1 HP. I had to have the entire party spend five or six turns doing nothing to get this to happen.
: So yeah, as far as I can tell, that’s about it. The scene goes on as it did before, with the whole “VELLA, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” and all. Let me just post what the Allansons put in the patch notes about this. It’s in spoilers in the patch notes and is annoying to take a screenshot of, so I’ll just post them in text form.
“For this Deviation Perspective, we chose to focus on the Golden Alpaca. The scene is now told from the tonal perspective of a fictional IP in the YIIK Universe, from which the Golden Alpaca originates.”
38XX PPC Electric City Golgotha: Crucifusion
A Film Synopsis"The 30 pieces of bloodless silver have been stolen. With these tempest metals, any evil deed, no matter how transcendental, can be brokered.
Arcangelo Alpaca, Interdimensional Demi-god, Savior of Shattered Space, must travel through dangerous dimensions and diabolical hellscapes of terror and awe to stop the thieves before it’s too late.
In the far reaches of reality lies his destination: Electric City Golgatha (sic). A seedy underbelly of Angel Stocks, and Digital Soul Vessels. At the center of this debauchery is the COUNCIL OF DIMENSION BIZARRE ESQUIRE.
The motive and identify of the silver thieves are known only to this Shadow Firm. By Holy Judgement’s Blade, he will track down the King and Queen seeking to make the dastardly purchase, no matter the risk.
Armed with the All-Seeing Eyes of God and Gleaming Fur, the Golden Warrior will travel to the ends of time and space to prevent a corporate merger from hell."
: I have absolutely no idea how you’re supposed to get any of that out of what we just saw, but okay.
: Anyway, that’s been YIIK 1.25. If they ever release 1.50, rest assured that I will drop everything to dunk on it. I was honestly kind of hoping there’d be more content rather than one extra monologue. Maybe I won’t need a separate hub post for 1.50 after all.
: The Allansons never learn anything.