[Baby Bonnie Hood]

I gotta play this some more so I can actually read all these spoilers

[Lachesis]

Lancer, Exo-

Spoiler

I probably found it easier because I had agility boosts, Spirit chance, auto-Mirror, K.O.-resist, Stone-resist, and multi-elemental resist on essentially all of my characters due to equipment combining, not to mention Sophia having several extra attacks and Natalie having pretty much negligible E. Cost. Also because my turn order was lucky enough that Sophia got an attack shortly after JQV separated (having everyone Fast helped) and that Cyclone ended up being good enough to kill three of the five pieces in one go.

I guess there was the minor point of Karen not having Stone-resist and me not noticing until the party got Stone Gassed. Oops.

Baby Bonnie Hood-

Spoiler

Good idea.

[Exophase]

Lachesis, on 10 September 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

Lancer, Exo-

Spoiler

I probably found it easier because I had agility boosts, Spirit chance, auto-Mirror, K.O.-resist, Stone-resist, and multi-elemental resist on essentially all of my characters due to equipment combining, not to mention Sophia having several extra attacks and Natalie having pretty much negligible E. Cost. Also because my turn order was lucky enough that Sophia got an attack shortly after JQV separated (having everyone Fast helped) and that Cyclone ended up being good enough to kill three of the five pieces in one go.

I guess there was the minor point of Karen not having Stone-resist and me not noticing until the party got Stone Gassed. Oops.

Spoiler

Yeah, I think you were on a whole different level with all that combining. I actually had no idea it was so effective. My experience with combining in other RPGs has always been a crapshoot and a big risk so I was reluctant to mess with it here. So I had to use my boosts very conservatively, but in retrospect I really should have gone with different ones for the finally battle - stuff like sword shield and sword amulet is great for mowing down enemies but just wasn't worth it here.

I think agility boosts had to have made the single biggest difference. The bosses were getting in several turns in between mine, especially if they managed to cast faster. More KO protect would have been good too, I must have had it on two party members since the other two kept insta-dying. Rush was really essential for me - if I realized that first thing I would have probably done a lot better. Next most essential was Resistance Field. I used some other jewel arts too, though. That greater art that brings everyone's max HP down to almost nothing was handy for the angel field phase. Judgement worked very well (~150,000 damage, I didn't even know something could exceed 99,999 until then). Three party members had sacrament so they could recover pretty easily, but I still had to spend plenty of turns burning through miracles. All but one of the final form's targets went down with cyclone from Sophia's Princess Slayer (which I think also did > 100,000 damage per enemy), so that was handy - didn't expect them to have so few HP.

I'm looking forward to a sequel now too Or whatever Lancer does next, I'm sure it'll be good. And I'm sure it'll have another all-female party.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Exophase, on 11 September 2013 - 12:51 AM, said:

Spoiler

Judgement worked very well (~150,000 damage, I didn't even know something could exceed 99,999 until then). Three party members had sacrament so they could recover pretty easily, but I still had to spend plenty of turns burning through miracles. All but one of the final form's targets went down with cyclone from Sophia's Princess Slayer (which I think also did > 100,000 damage per enemy), so that was handy - didn't expect them to have so few HP.

Spoiler

Basically, arts that strike multiple times can do extra damage but this is generally invisible to the player. Hence several ice spells can break the barrier (they hit twice if the freeze 'succeeds'; this just means the check needs to succeed, not the actual freezing effect), cyclone can break the barrier (it hits 5 times), judgment can break the barrier (it hits twice) etc. The other way to break the barrier is to use something like Fractale or Chain Lightning on a reflecting party to reflect onto one enemy; that way actually shows the damage per hit. Hitting multiple times also has implications for shields and barriers; a shield normally blocks 100% of damage but Judgment will usually pierce it and do half damage with the first strike smashing the shield.

By the way, mechanics-wise, if I made this game again I'd probably make the following changes:
- The multipliers for 'jewel' and 'greater' arts would disappear. Neither are useful to rely on and most of the spells from those people actually use have relatively little to do with the multipliers. I would make the remaining effects reasonably constant- hence you would specialise in basic, battle or spirit arts (or potentially a combination of them)
- Art multipliers would no longer go below 1.00
- For battle arts, when you master a weapon (unlock all arts) you permanently learn one of the arts and can use it with any weapon. Dunno if I'd let you pick the art or just have a predefined one with every weapon (and hopefully different for each weapon!)
- Battle arts would be further multiplied by your damage multiplier (and the more powerful battle arts probably nerfed a bit to accommodate this).

These wouldn't be difficult changes to make but they would require rebalancing huge portions of the game so it may not happen.

[Exophase]

I like the sound of those changes.

This isn't really related, and you'd probably have good reason to not want to do this, but I thought it'd be nice if there was some way to turn off encounters (through some equipment or something) or if really weak encounters were automatically avoided or instantly won or something.

Spoiler

In particular, slogging through the same weak enemies in the Red Maze was kind of a chore. I did appreciate that the worldmap encounters went away once you became able to find the dragon.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Exophase, on 05 September 2013 - 10:43 PM, said:

I'm still not really sure how to get the chests in the corners.

The pushable blocks must be the key, but I can't get any out of the top-left area because a stupid chest is in the way. And I can't get any of the rolling boulders very far out either.

[Lachesis]

It looks like we missed out on a Diamond and

Spoiler

a Sword Amulet. Dang.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Lachesis, on 11 September 2013 - 01:13 PM, said:

It looks like we missed out on a Diamond and

I think there's 3 or 5 diamonds in the chest there.
EDIT: No, I'm wrong.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Here's how to access the top-left chest:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube....h?v=pvlWZROTbCQ

The top-right chest is accessed in the same way; once you have the two boxes past that inconveniently-placed chest you can easily get them to the top-right and there's only a two space gap to the chest there.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Spoiler

Man, I thought I was hot shit when I finally defeated a Bird.

Then in the diamond area of the Gemstone Mine, I got rocked by what I can only call a Super Bird. The only reason I didn't got a total party wipe was because it escaped after a while.

Ohh, yes...

[Lachesis]

Spoiler

The brown-vested Birds in the later towers are pretty great. I don't remember if they're the same as the Birds at the bottom of the gemstone mine. I didn't really notice the enemies down there because I waited to do the gemstone mine until after I got back from Nexus with my full party at 26 or 27

edit:

Spoiler

re: Dungeon 2b solution--I wonder why I never thought of that... I guess it never occured to me that there was only one square between the bridge and the platform.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Spoiler

I just got to disc 2.

Yeah, we Star Ocean now.

Or Might and Magic.

This post has been edited by Baby Bonnie Hood: 13 September 2013 - 06:12 AM

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Spoiler

How deep does the Chaos Labyrinth go? Is there anything important inside? Does it even have an end? And is it right that I'm sometimes fighting Nexus enemies and getting Nexus items there?

...also, when do I get my shades and black trench coats?

Lachesis, on 05 September 2013 - 07:12 AM, said:

Spoiler

Spoiler

I just got here. Holy shit, where do I even begin? Hell, is it even worth it? What do I get if I somehow complete it?

[Lachesis]

Spoiler

The Chaos Labyrinth is infinitely deep. The inclusion of Nexus equipment and enemies is intentional. It's not worth getting, though. Most Eden equipment you start getting by that point in the game is much better.

Spoiler

Sword Tower top-floor puzzle vague solution tips, don't read if you want to figure it out yourself:

Spoiler

With that puzzle, you pretty much start by pushing alternating blocks across the puzzle and then getting rid of certain blocks in the corners, then you just kind of work around the square, making sure you don't get yourself stuck in a situation where any given block can not be pushed into the puzzle area. It's actually a lot easier than it looks once you've got the basics down; the difficulty comes from how easy it is to make a mistake, like in my screenshot. I could make a video probably.

The reward is some equipment and a health restore tile + status restore tile.

edit: You get

Spoiler

Sword of Truth (2x damage, 1.3x hitpoints, 2.2x attack, 1.5x accuracy, Resist sleep, Resist frost, 25% spirit chance) (this was my main sword on Sophia for a long time!)

Shield of Fate (10% block, +10% dodge, 10% guard, +10 def, 10% barrier) (eehhhhhh)

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

I tried the puzzle again, to no avail.

Screw it, I'll go back for it later. Maybe.

Edit:

Spoiler

Actually, I'll do the entire tower again later. Pygmalion is waaaaay more powerful than the monsters in the Sword Tower.

Seems I have a lot of grinding to do :x

This post has been edited by Baby Bonnie Hood: 14 September 2013 - 03:56 AM

[Lachesis]

Spoiler

Might want to go do the Crescent Tower and come back. One of my earlier spoilers has a hint on where to get the key :3

[KKairos]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

I just felt like being in on this. The game is great so far, but I'm probably not far enough that I should be reading this thread as far as it's gone.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Spoiler

Wow, this RPG has everything. It even has a legendary Pokemon flying around the world map! Needless to say, it kicked my ass. That'll teach me to chase after legendary Pokemon.

So, one can assume that the Chaos Labyrinth is a glitch in the Matrix Eden?

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Spoiler

The Chaos Labyrinth is procedurally generated, right? Would it be possible to make it so that the deeper you go, the glitchier it appears? Like jumbled terrain tiles and stuff? It'd go pretty well with the mismatched enemies and item*10 chests, I think.

Also, I'M A BIRD! WE'RE ALL BIRDS! OHH, YES...

...I hate them.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

...where's the key to the Gemini Towers? I can't find it :x

[Dr Lancer-X]

Baby Bonnie Hood, on 17 September 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

...where's the key to the Gemini Towers? I can't find it :x

Spoiler

In the Black Maze. Take the rightmost south exit from the first part; it's in a chest in the lower left on the map that leads to.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Spoiler

So much for saving the Black Maze for last.

Oh well, just two more towers and then I can end it. Y'know, it's refreshing that all the optional content isn't post-game and that instead of an uber hard not-plot-related-at-all bonus boss, the final boss is just buffed up according to how much of the game's been done by that point. Recent games should follow your example.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Finished after 35 hours.

My review:
blah blah blah best MZX rpg ever ffffffffffff

...nah, I kid. I'll write something more substantial later.

Spoiler

The text scroll in the title screen turned out to be completely meaningless in the end. Is there anywhere I can reread them, though? All I ever see now is "red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red".

Edit:

Spoiler

I should mention how I beat the final boss. I was actually doing okay, then I had the idea to use Dies Irae on the Computer Core. I didn't think it would work, but it did. And with it now at a puny 1000 HP, a usage of Black shut it down for good.

This post has been edited by Baby Bonnie Hood: 19 September 2013 - 07:47 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Baby Bonnie Hood, on 19 September 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

Spoiler

The text scroll in the title screen turned out to be completely meaningless in the end. Is there anywhere I can reread them, though? All I ever see now is "red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red red".

Spoiler

The robot at 10,25 on the title screen contains all the text. To be honest it's a decorative thing I shoved in because I had all these spare chars and the title screen needed a bit more stuff happening so I threw the marquee in and then left it displaying 'the quick brown fox...' in a loop for almost all of the game. I never really had a great idea of what to use it for but I needed to use it for something, so...

Baby Bonnie Hood, on 19 September 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

Spoiler

I should mention how I beat the final boss. I was actually doing okay, then I had the idea to use Dies Irae on the Computer Core. I didn't think it would work, but it did. And with it now at a puny 1000 HP, a usage of Black shut it down for good.

Spoiler

If your mystic stat is decent Dies Irae has a pretty good chance of working and Computer Core's resistance isn't extremely high. I knew it was game-breaking when I included it but after SUPERORBITAL, LUNATIC DELUSION and BLACK I was running out of ideas for super powerful Greater Arts.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Review is up. Although after submitting, I just noticed that the game version was still 1.04. Might be a problem if people level their characters all the way up to 99.

Spoiler

And on that note, black.mzx doesn't seem to recognize red.mzx's save files (I patched to 1.05 before playing for the first time). Not really a problem since they still play fine in red.mzx anyway.

About the scrolling text, it turns out that not all of them are meaningless. The early ones do a lot of foreshadowing; I only thought they meant nothing because I didn't see most of them since I played through the early part rather quickly.

Dies Irae does kinda break the game. But you do have to go through the Heart Tower (or should I say, the ZZT Darkness Tower) to get it. Anyone who puts up with all that probably deserves that reward at the end.

Finally, I won't bother asking how you fit the entire game in only three boards. You're freakin' Lancer-X, you can do anything in Megazeux.

[Lachesis]

I've been waiting for 1.06 to write a review :x

[Exophase]

Spoiler

I wouldn't call Dies Irae game breaking, it was utterly vital to my last-boss strategy (where I seemed to have a much harder time than everyone else but I also got there with a much shorter playtime so whatever ).. the fact that the boss has several forms/parts and you can't exactly spam greater arts kind of balances it out.

I kept forgetting to ask, is there any significance behind the hex codes for the locks in the red maze? Also, for anyone who is looking to go into heart tower from the top, you need some piece of equipment that I never got, so that way wouldn't have worked for me

[Dr Lancer-X]

Exophase, on 20 September 2013 - 01:23 AM, said:

Spoiler

I kept forgetting to ask, is there any significance behind the hex codes for the locks in the red maze? Also, for anyone who is looking to go into heart tower from the top, you need some piece of equipment that I never got, so that way wouldn't have worked for me

Spoiler

Nope, no significance. The locks guarding the heart tower back entrance were just to ensure you couldn't get there until you've cleared the other towers.

0x1F (Evil Blade) - acquired as part of main quest
0x3B (Black Mirror) - top floor of Gemini Towers (right tower)
0x4F (Dragon Plate) - top floor of Spiral Tower
0x6D (Zircon Necklace) - acquired as part of main quest
0x7F (Rainbow Shield) - top floor of Gemini Towers (left tower)
0xA3 (Shimmer Armour) - acquired as part of main quest
0xC7 (Reflect Ring) - top floor of Crescent Tower
0xF1 (Mysticbane) - top floor of Sword Tower

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

I noticed that the version number is now 1.06. So, what's new?

[Dr Lancer-X]

Baby Bonnie Hood, on 23 September 2013 - 07:42 PM, said:

I noticed that the version number is now 1.06. So, what's new?

• Updated the other .mzx to fix the bug you mentioned.
  
• Fixed one particularly bad piece of sequence breaking that makes the final are accessible before it makes sense.

I think that's it; this was just a release to make sure the version in the archive is the most up-to-date it can be.