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Just reading your synopsis makes me want to play the game even more. I heard they really improved the characters in general too. For instance Edward isn’t the most useless character in FF history anymore?…
Damn I really envy you James.
Yea I really really like the ‘decant ability system’ or whatever which allows you to take ability’s from paste allie’s who leave the party. Sounds like it would make the replay value be pretty high
Yea I knew you got the rom…I need to figure out how to hack my DS so I can get these damn games ahead of time and not pay 40 bucks for a DS game lol.
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackingNemix Felm said:
Just reading your synopsis makes me want to play the game even more. I heard they really improved the characters in general too. For instance Edward isn’t the most useless character in FF history anymore?…
Edward… is still fairly useless. He does have a new medicine ability that allows him to use an item on every party member (e.g. a potion for everyone with a single action, healing 100 HPs each), but as you might expect it takes an item for each character. His HPs are still low as well. I did make some use of his songs, however, and once he gets the second harp he can be at least somewhat useful in battle.
Rydia was actually a monster while I had her. She did more damage than Cecil in most cases using the regular Rod as an item in battle (it performs an arrow attack). She was weaker at first, but at around level 10 she was caught up with him in damage, and she soon surpassed. When you get the Ice Rod she becomes even meaner. Tellah is a monster with the rods (and it is also worth noting that he did a pretty good job recalling useful combat spells in battle when I used his recall ability).
Edit: Oh! I should also point out that they messed with character balance and levels. Rydia, for example, joined my party at level 7 (she used to join at level 1). I went into battle expecting her to get killed quickly, as she always does, and I was surprised to find she absorbed a blow.
lordyuanshu said:
Damn I really envy you James.
Yea I really really like the ‘decant ability system’ or whatever which allows you to take ability’s from paste allie’s who leave the party. Sounds like it would make the replay value be pretty high
Yea I knew you got the rom…I need to figure out how to hack my DS so I can get these damn games ahead of time and not pay 40 bucks for a DS game lol.
Hehe… I’m really having tons of fun! Sometimes I hardly notice that I’m actually playing the game in Japanese. I struggled just a little with the Decant abilities now that I’ve finally decided to use them. I gave Cecil the Counter ability, Palom (er… well… the male one) an ability, replacing his fight command, that seems to increase his item damage (rods, FTW) by about 80%. Palom (or the female) is getting auto-potion. I’ll see what it does exactly. I thought it would be a pain to use them but the game offers a few visual cues for someone that can’t speak the language here as well. They are stocked in the inventory in the order you received them (as you might expect) so if you make good use of them (rather than stockpiling them) you can probably keep track of what you have. Also, when you use the item, an image of the character who it is associated with flashes on the screen (so if Rosa appears when you are trying to teach someone Counter, you know something probably went wrong). I got Counter from Yang’s wife. Haha… she was carrying her pan when she came out to meet me.
As for ‘hacking’ the DS, M’lord Yuan Shu, thousands of inbred children all around the world are figuring this out every day. Surely an intelligent old-school gamer such as you can do this in your sleep? All you need is the R4 (which you can buy at all sorts of places, now) and some ROMs. When IV comes out in English I’m going to buy it just because I believe in supporting a game like this, but as odd as it may seem I’ll probably still play it on the R4. It is nice knowing you can backup your saves and quite convenient to have all of your games on a single cartridge. I even made a Diaochan RTK theme for the thing.
Oh… and Golbez is a badass.
Yeah not many people knew about the old trick to use the "rod" as an item in battle and it does an attack.(No homo)
Golbez was always badass though. I really want to try this out. Only thing is I have to get a DS. Its basically the only thing I’m lacking in the Nintendo department.
Cool James, the game definitely sounds fun. The difficulty / character balance is one of the first things I heard about too – Rydia usually blows at first joining at level 1 like you say and dies quickly. I’ve heard even the Imps at the beginning aren’t pushovers and you need to grind a bit to make it to the Mist Cave.
Did you get the new thing with Rydia? Not sure I liked the sound of that "poucha" (SP?) minigame.
Golbez is badass huohu
Regarding the hacking, yea I did not think it was too difficult. Just kind of lazy on my part not to look into that. I’d be trying many more DS games like Etrian Odyssey II for example if I didn’t have to hunt around to find it and pay for it. I do agree with what you say though, for quality games worth supporting like FFIV it’s worth the purchase outright.
So you can not only get this R4 on the intranets but also in like Gamestops? I’ll have to look around – this is how you’ve been playing roms like DoaE on your DS right?
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackinglordyuanshu said:
Cool James, the game definitely sounds fun. The difficulty / character balance is one of the first things I heard about too – Rydia usually blows at first joining at level 1 like you say and dies quickly. I’ve heard even the Imps at the beginning aren’t pushovers and you need to grind a bit to make it to the Mist Cave.
Hmm… I’m not sure how much tougher the Mist Cave was. The imps (and other creatures) do substantial damage (meaning that their damage can actually add up). My memory may be hazy, but I seem to recall the beginning of FF IV being excessively easy with Cecil and Kain. Still, for someone with experience, the Mist Cave is something you could charge right through without so much as a concern. Well… you may need a few potions.
lordyuanshu said:
Did you get the new thing with Rydia? Not sure I liked the sound of that "poucha" (SP?) minigame.
It has made an appearance, and I summoned it by accident in battle once while I was fumbling for the right commands against a Sand Worm (they hurt). It punched for one damage, three times, then vanished. It shared Rydia’s HPs. I imagine it is a random thing. It could have done something useful. I haven’t experimented much with any mini-games, but if the ‘cheats’ section at GameFAQs is an indication, each character has one. So far I don’t like the white voodoo marshmallow.
lordyuanshu said:
Golbez
I’m glad they’ve translated his bad-assdom to 3D.
His Japanese voice acting is also wonderful. I hope it is as cool in English.
lordyuanshu said:
So you can not only get this R4 on the intranets but also in like Gamestops? I’ll have to look around – this is how you’ve been playing roms like DoaE on your DS right?
Gamestop? I’d be really surprised… I’ve never heard of local stores carrying it. That also doesn’t make sense from a business perspective. You wouldn’t go about encoraging your customers not to pay for your products! If you go to FatWallet.com and search the ‘Hot Deals’ forum you can find discussion about the R4 and its successor (I think the M5). The M5 is essentially the same but it supports SDHC. Use a credit card if you buy from a fishy store so you can perform a chargeback if it doesn’t work out (or choose a store which you know people are receiving goods from).
Yeah, I’ve been playing things like FF IV and RTK DS using the R4.
The R4 is also the thing I used to play Destiny of an Emperor.
(Edit: I can see that was actually your question. You need to add an emulator.)
Cecil is a Paladin now. He looks pretty cool!
The battle with the earth fiend was actually quite cool too. :)
I forgot how much he sucks after you first start him off again…
Hmm..well I’ll have to get one of these R4 things or the similar product. It would be fun to play games I own like DoaE on there :)
Milon Z is pretty tough eh? So why is Cecil bad as a Paladin? I remember him having no defensive gear and a crappy weapon when you get him…but you should find something nice in the Baron Sewers for him.
I wonder how the Baigan battle will go in Baron too
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackingMilon Z was not harder than I remember… but how could he be if you know how he works? He counters attack magic and physical attacks… so if you just use cure on him over and over again he dies a pretty pathetic death. I guess I would have to play from a pretty basic perspective to look for difficulty changes.
I was just saying the battle transitioned well to 3D. :)
As for Cecil, it was just starting out at level 1 again. He has a nice HP carry-over but it is strange when you swipe at a zombie with holy damage, which they are weak against, and you see 18 damage. He catches up as his level increases as normal, and soon he becomes great. You can buy armor for him in Mysidia before you enter the level and have him well-equipped before he even transitions, so defense isn’t a huge concern.
I’m curious about the Baigan battle too. That was always one of the most memorable battles in FF4 for me.
I’m really excited about this game :)
I’ll be there soon. I’m about ready to pack up and head overseas to deal with him and Kainazzu (sp?)
Xian Zhu Xuande said:
Yeah, I’ve got to side with LYS on this. And this is a problem which has been going on for a while. It seems that with each step we’ve taken toward greater graphics we’ve taken a step back in terms of gameplay and, well, accessibility. There have been exceptions: Parasite Eve, for example, was a graphic marvel when it came out, but it was backed by incredible gameplay. More often than not, though, this just isn’t the case.
How many first person shooters are just empty re-hashes of the same tired concept?
I love gaming, but I’ve been using my DS more and more.
Yeah I agree with the lord, never said he’s wrong. Like I said, I’m not a graphics whore. And besides, I buy games in which the gameplay really appeals to me, games that are unique and of my taste.
So I’m ready to fight Zeromus now. What a wonderful remake this has been! They have definitely increased the difficulty of monsters in this version, though you notice it more as you get later in the game. It makes sense because some of the abilities you get and are able to equip really makes your party much more powerful and versatile.
I have a Phoenix ability on Kain, for example, which, upon his death, expends his MP (which are obviously not used) to resurrect every other party member with a HP percentage equal to his total percentage of HPs. That’s huge when a battle goes sour. Rosa has a multi-target ability that lets me cast Hold on all enemies, or Haste or Life on all allies.
Attacks don’t get too much rougher. They definitely hit harder though. What really gets ugly is the mutli-target magic and certain special attacks. Folks might remember the Giant of Babil right before the end? Remember those little portable laser-looking things that use beam over and over again? It used to do, what, 700-1200 damage at most? I remember they being a little irritating, but now they are vicious little monsters. They can easily do over 2000 damage now, and boy do they love to do it. Cecil is usually dead (I use an ability called Attract on him) in moments after the battle starts against them. And if you don’t get them under control they’ll just have a field day with you.
The attack device (of the boss) is the worst. His attacks are random now (were they before?) and his laser attack does 1800-2500 damage to everyone. He will usually pull one off before you get a single turn, throwing your entire party near death or very close. If you delay at all healing with Rosa, or heal too slowly, he is quite find of using it a second time and wiping your whole party out before you even have a chance to get started.
I met a red dragon of doom in the crystal temple. He used his heat ray literally every two seconds or so. It was doing about 40-70% damage to everyone (and I was pretty well leveled, too — around 70-75). Two attacks and only Cecil, Edge and Kain remain. I start trying to recover but instead decide to depend on Kain’s Phoenix ability. He uses it again, everyone dies, Kain brings them back. I rush to slow him down so I can recover and he uses it twice more and only Cecil remains. I had to use an Elixir while I was running to survive. That dragon did not stop using the multi-target heat beam attack.
Other monsters like the flame beasts or the giant soldiers are also scary.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that despite fighting nearly all battles and using plenty of carefully selected spells (blink, slow, haste, hold, berserk, stop, toad, etc.) there have still been some challenging battles. In the original version I could kind of half-ass my way through the game attacking, maybe summoning a little, and healing after the fight. That doesn’t cut it anymore.
Another thing that’s neat: certain abilities and items have been re-worked. The Mist Dragon Summon, previously generally useless as you got further in the game, is powerful enough that it serves you well through the entire span of gameplay. I was using Titan regularly against Behemoths and Evil Masks. So that is definitely cool.
Equipment used as items in battle are much more useful now. Here’s a fun one: remember the Stardust Rod? It used to cast Comet for about 1000 damage to all enemies? (Worthless by the time you get it)? Well, comet is now a brutally vicious attack which easily clears 5000 damage to all enemies (often-times capping at 9999 like Meteo). And it is packed away in a simple item. Items have use times now, though (not sure if they did before), and the time to cast Comet from an item is equivalent to the time to actually cast Meteo (ten seconds).
Some monsters get the shuffle later in the game. The Red Giants that you used to fight in Bahamut’s cave are gone. I thought that was annoying as I used to like fighting them for some experience (though they were mean). When I discovered that they were brutal enough in the Lunar Dungeon that I was running from them even with a much more powerful party, though, I realized why they moved them. Warlocks pick up where they left off slaughtering your party with multi-target spells dealing around 1300-1800 damage to each person, or single-targeting with enough force to kill Cecil in one blow.
Sadly, the crystal temple no longer features battles against multiple foes (no more Behemoth/Evil Mask encounters, or Behemoth/Behemoth encounters, or the dreaded 3x Red Dragon). It would be fun to fight the previous combinations, but I guess I can understand with the red dragons. Given what one managed to do to me because it woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I can’t imagine what it would be like to fight three of them.
There are some special fan-service flashbacks at the end of the game. You learn how Kain/Cecil/Rosa met, which is cool. You learn about the story behind Cecil and Golbez, which is very cool.
There are a collection of new tails which you can use to get special Onion equipment now. Very few items carry over to a new game (onion/tail equipment, such as the Adamant Armor, soma drops [and the MP equivalent], special abilities you’ve taught or saved, Namingway quest completion) — you have to begin everything else over again. So while you might be invincible with any Adamant Armor you may have earned, you won’t keep that precious Glass Helmet. You can New Game+ for a total of three games, so you actually have to consider your ability distribution even then. After level 75 your stats raise in concert with the abilities you have equipped and it is possible, through carefully planning (and a few New Game+ runs) to have what you need to max out all stats. This works similar to equipping Espers for stat boosts in FFVI.
Complete every map to 100%! You earn the Treasure Hunter ability, which doubles the drop-rate of all rare items (making it tolerable). If you fail, though, or don’t feel like worrying about it on your first play-through, your map completion rates carry over to your new game.
I’m actually looking forward to playing through again in English. :)
And I’d be happy to answer any questions!
Wow, huge post. Don’t know where to start…
I always fight up at the Giant of Babil, by that save point. I grab about 60 cabins before going there. How are the D Machina’s (that was their name right?) Those laser enemies were the easiest enemies of the bunch around here. I remember the enemies from that place well…the big Giants, the Machina, the horseman, the alarm, the laser enemies, and those robotic creatures that show up with the lasers / horsemen sometimes.
I did hear about that CPU boss being hard as hell. So you just have to sit there and absorb the attack bot’s attacks since it casts an all-kill move if you kill both right? Doesn’t sound easy this time; the SNES version the Attack Bot didn’t seem that powerful at all.
Completing the maps? That’s pretty cool…Edge has the ‘Sneak’ ability to steal correct?
sounds like those Decant Ability’s add a lot of strategy to the game. As does the increased difficulty.
Looking forward to this…about a week away now!
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackinglordyuanshu said:
I always fight up at the Giant of Babil, by that save point. I grab about 60 cabins before going there. How are the D Machina’s (that was their name right?) Those laser enemies were the easiest enemies of the bunch around here. I remember the enemies from that place well…the big Giants, the Machina, the horseman, the alarm, the laser enemies, and those robotic creatures that show up with the lasers / horsemen sometimes.
I would fight in the giant for quite a while myself trying to steal Alarms from… the Alarms. Without them finding things like the Pink Puffs (Flan Princesses) was just a nightmare. Mercifully, you can buy Alarms now on the moon, so there is no need for that anymore. I just ran through the level and completed it this time.
That, and those little laser monsters who, as you say, used to be relatively harmless, make the giant a much scarier place to visit. What nasty little creatures they are now.
lordyuanshu said:
I did hear about that CPU boss being hard as hell. So you just have to sit there and absorb the attack bot’s attacks since it casts an all-kill move if you kill both right? Doesn’t sound easy this time; the SNES version the Attack Bot didn’t seem that powerful at all.
Nah, you kill the attack unit first. In fact, if you don’t kill him fast you will die. He’s very very good at making you dead (and sometimes before you even pull off an action if you, say, try to cast Curaja). Once he goes down, though, the fight becomes really easy as long as you kill the main CPU before the defense unit. If you kill the defense unit the CPU goes nuts on you with Globe 99 and you are all dead before you know what happened.
lordyuanshu said:
Completing the maps? That’s pretty cool…Edge has the ‘Sneak’ ability to steal correct?
Edge comes with steal as usual. Though in honesty the only thing I really used it for was some Artemis Arrows and the Alarms (well, and to close Rubicant’s cloak). With the Alarms being purchasable he just pilfered me a few arrows. Cecil has darkness at the start, Rosa has prayer (one of the most useful abilities in the game), Edward’s harp magic is quite good, Yang has a defense ability that reduces damage by 75%, Cid has the ability to draw an element out of an item (like Zeus’ Anger) into his weapon for attacks, FuSoYa has a really cool ability that’s basically Regen for your MPs in battle (which you can later give to someone — I gave it to Edge because he can set it off really fast and get to attacking).
The auto-attack (almost like All-Out) is really cool. You can also choose what ability the character uses when you do.
lordyuanshu said:
sounds like those Decant Ability’s add a lot of strategy to the game. As does the increased difficulty.
It is really great! I gave Cecil a really cool combo: Counter, Attract, and Kick. So when the enemy attacks they always attack Cecil, he always Counters, and he Kicks when he does. Rabble dies a terrible death at his feet. It is great with Kick unequipped too. And what’s nice about it is that it makes your back-row characters much safer. Definitely give Cecil Attract and Counter when you play.
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