Lurker > MariaTaylor

rope ladder is based on three points of balance. you want your hands on two separate rungs, never on the same rung. then you keep your weight on ONE of your back feet. as you advance your trailing hand to the next rung, you shift your weight to the opposite leg and move your third point of balance onto that leg. not sure if that description conveys the image that I have in my head.

anyway if she told you anything other than this, you got scammed.

that feeling that you "tricked" the carnival worker into revealing their secret by giving them a chance to "feel smart" is basically the opposite of what really happens. you get tricked into thinking that you're tricking them into giving up some secret, when actually you still end up losing at the game.

if you're good with numbers, this might help explain it better:
Left Hand: 7
Right Hand: 6
Leg: 4

As you move your Right Hand over to rung 8 (SKIPPING RUNG 7, NEVER PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE SAME RUNG), you advance your leg to rung 5. It's hard to explain the leg thing, but basically, once you get a feel for which leg should be in front, you just need to remember to keep shifting your weight between the two legs as you climb, and always maintain three points of balance. Then you'll end up in this configuration:

Right Hand: 8 (Moved 2)
Left Hand: 7 (Did Not Move)
Leg: 5 (Moved 1)

Repeat.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

moved both characters to the back row, equipped the earring to sabin, put my physical attack and counter items onto cyan and gave it another shot. won this time but it was still close. that is a pretty crazy boss fight. it's like, he drains 90%> of your HP almost guaranteed in two turns. can easily kill you if you're not prepared. but you can also defeat him with like 4 attacks. so it really is just a matter of making sure you're prepared to survive more than two turns, with likely 10% of your HP remaining.

after this a kid named Gau finds us in the river. he runs away. I go to the plains, save, start looking around, fighting monsters. Gau shows up again. he keeps saying he's hungry. I have no idea what to do. I don't want to attack him. I tried giving him a potion. I don't have any food to give him, so I just turned off my game. I'll come back to it later, there didn't seem to be any other way to end this encounter aside from attacking him. I guess I could have run away? but I had saved like 5 minutes ago anyway and I was only planning to check the map a bit, which I succeeded in doing anyway.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

there is an NPC who appears in the ruined temple looking area right at your main bonfire in firelink shrine. you can give him items and he will give you souls in exchange. there's no efficient way to "sell" items like in bloodborne, but this is your best option.

you might hear him snoring if you go there now, I'm not sure if he will actually appear yet. can't remember if you have to ring both bells or not.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

Grand Kirby posted...

Don't know about the gameplay, although I remember hearing that the controls were still optimized for mobile touchscreens even on the PC version.

this is true, yeah. I hear there is a mod to fix this as well.

so basically the steam version is really only worth it if you're willing to get a mod to fix every aspect of the game to make it more like the original. not because "new things = bad" meme, but because the newer version literally changed so many things for the worse.

at the very least this seems to be commonly agreed on by almost all of the sources I checked.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

the counter effect seemed cool but it hasn't been useful in any fight because there's no way to guarantee he gets targeted
the first skill which is just a basic slash is a good stand alternative to doing basic attacks since it's just higher damage with one more input
#3 supposedly cuts the enemy HP but when I've used it on bosses I don't think it actually cut their HP in half
so I'm not sure if it's as useful as it should be

a direct quote from me, from a discussion I was having earlier with someone else.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

I'm playing FF6 for the first time right now, so I did a little bit of research on this recently for my own purposes. My understanding is...

the original SNES version has what is considered the best graphics and sound

the GBA version has basically the same graphics and sound, but lower quality. however, there is added content to the game. this makes it worth it to play the GBA version if you're okay with handheld quality. also, it can be patched with the SNES quality.

the PS1 version is I guess a joke that everyone hates.

the Steam version has all of the added content from the GBA version... however... it has totally different graphics than the original SNES version. the sprites are all totally redone. the style of the game is brighter and more washed out looking, less detailed, and less impressive overall. this is really a sticking point for most people.

the main thing I've heard is that the Steam version is worth playing only because it can be modded. this can fix the new design issues and also opens up opportunities to include things that weren't in the original or GBA version (like a fully orchestrated soundtrack mod that is considered pretty quality). I can't give much advice beyond that because, well, that's the point where I made my decision. didn't feel like going through the effort to find out which mods were good or to install them, so I'm playing the GBA version.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

didn't play much today, and made very, very little progress. close to zero. well, that's not exactly true but it kinda is. after fighting a few random battles in this area Shadow decided to leave my party! well, he wasn't kidding about leaving at any time. he basically left before we even got EXP or money.

after this, Sabin and Cyan went up to the waterfall area alone.

jumping down the waterfall should lead to the way forward. once we were in the waterfall we fight a bunch of fish. this section wasn't too bad. one thing that helped was that the player character's readied actions followed through. so if I killed the last of the fish on the screen when Sabin was about to attack, he'd immediately attack and kill the next fish that appeared.

then the boss fish appeared, rhizopas I think was his name? either way... this one was a freaking monster. I tried attacking it a bit but it was a lot faster and more dangerous than my party. then out of nowhere he cast a spell that killed both Sabin and Cyan!

not sure if this was a timed encounter, where the boss one shotted them because I took too long, but if so... man, the timer was really short. the alternate explanation is that his damage output was so high that by the time he did his AoE attack, both of my characters had low enough HP already to be taken down. if that's the explanation then I just need to go in more defensively next time. if it's a timed encounter, I guess I have to go in more offensively next time.

either way, I fight my way back to the waterfall entrance and then save my game. I'll worry about rhizopas next time, maybe after getting some advice. I plan to move Sabin into the back row and have him just use Blitz commands. does the same work for Cyan's Bushido?
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

I drew my own Sabin's Bizarre Adventure fan art


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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

the reptoids

LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

People up top.
They then pay famous people or instagram people to wear their styles.
They also pay people on the radio/tv/twitter/magazines/trendy-websites to state such messages.

but really this is the most accurate answer

especially astroturfing, which is a big thing now, and sort of only exists because of how the internet works now
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

yep! I did sit down at the table and eat, that was another fun little event. haha. just so much stuff happened sometimes I forget to mention it all from memory afterwards.

and yeah, one or two fewer cars would've gone a long way.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

okay so it turns out the forest that I thought was the forest, wasn't actually "the forest." it was just a patch of a bunch of forest tiles together on the world map that looked like a location you could enter. after going south for a bit further I find the actual Doma castle and, a ways further, the actual "the forest."

I enter

the forest map in this game reminds me of this beauty and the beast game that I think was for super nintendo. I remember being confused as shit trying to play it when I was a very little kid. anyway, I'm less confused here, and I navigate my way through... blasting everything down with aura cannons.

after that, I get onto the PHANTOM TRAIN.

this section was really cool although it might have been a BIT too bloated. I still loved most of the stuff contained on the train, though. at first I avoided the ghosts, but then I realized one of them was an ally who wanted to join my party, which is a neat aspect. some of the others did try to attack me.

one of them actually had a shop! I probably should have gone back and talked to some of the earlier ghosts I avoided, but I wasn't in the mood for random encounters so I decided to do as little backtracking as possible.

the shop allowed me to by like 50 potions which I burned through much faster than you could imagine. good thing I did find this shop honestly because, without it, I would have run out of potions much quicker and probably ended up getting stuck with no healing. I also purchased some shuriken for Shadow to throw. he seems to do a bit more damage with this attack but I found it wasn't worth it for most encounters when I could blast things with aura cannon.

when I find the first treasure chest this hilarious guy shows up. siegfried(?) I think was his name. anyway he starts the encounter by doing a multi attack that hits the party like 10 times.... for about 5 damage per hit. then he gets really tired and has to stop to catch his breath. well, I hit him one time and he got knocked out. he steals the treasure and runs away. funny, although I do wonder if there was a way to get the treasure? maybe by possessing him with the ghost?

damn, I should have tried this!

next treasure room has a monster in a box which is a little more powerful than the standard ghosts.

this was getting to be a long session but I figured the boss was coming up or the end of this section soon, so I kept playing even after I found two different save points along the way. eventually the PHANTOM TRAIN itself comes to life and attacks us.

before anyone asks, yes, I did in fact suplex the train.

a surprisingly easy boss, I think the easiest of the three sections I played so far. these characters are all powerful and by this point I'm very used to all of their combat mechanics. I didn't even need to heal, I just kept attacking until the train went down.

the train decides to let us off at the next stop while it picks up its next set of passengers... the victims from Doma castle. Cyan gets to see his family one last time, and then the group departs onto the next stage of their journey. I really liked this scene and it was a great conclusion to this little story arc.

overall another great section of the game.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

not in much of an RPG mood today, I doubt I'll play any of this until tomorrow
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

got started on sabin's route today. a lot happened, not sure I can really cover it all just from memory. I start off next to this shack with a different old man, this one named aged man, living there. also seems like a solider outside but apparently he's just a merchant. the old man is crazy and will only talk to sabin about some random nonsense. unless this is some kind of secret/puzzle I was unable to solve. he doesn't seem to mind if I sleep in his bed.

outside near the well is the mysterious badass, Shadow, from earlier on the game. he decides to go along with Sabin, under the condition that he might just leave at any point in time. better than going alone, I suppose.

I explore the world map for a bit and eventually end up in the imperial camp.

at this point the game does a bit of switching between various narrative and gameplay sections. you have the introduction of cyan, a new character who uses bushido skills to great effect. the internal affairs and plotting of the imperial camp between kefka and general leo, and of course sabin and shadow attempting to get through doma to return to narshe.

for some reason I pictured sabin and shadow as like JJBA style characters going through the camp and beating up all the random soldiers in style, doing battle poses and everything.

official "good due" leo is called away by the emperor, leaving kefka in charge. this allows kefka to go ahead with his plan to poison everyone in doma. the plan mostly succeeds. cyan is unfortunately one of the only survivors. the king dies, most of the other soldiers die. then there's a really sad scene where cyan goes into one of the rooms and finds some dead children.

this whole part of the game was pretty great.

after this cyan goes berserk and starts attacking the camp on his own. sabin and shadow were unable to catch kefka, but they meet up with cyan and team up with him to battle their way through the camp and escape.

the group travels to a forest next, where I chose to save the game and quit for now. really good stuff overall. despite the fact that this squad has no dedicated healer, and they are all physical bruisers, the game does a good job of making each one feel unique. and there is something satisfying about going through each zone just beating up on the random foes with a mix of ninja skills, samurai skills, and straight up martial arts.

oh one thing I forgot to mention... shadow's dog seems to do this weird thing in combat where it blocks for him instead of using a shield to block. and it will randomly run onto the battlefield and absolutely nuke someone for like 1,000 damage. the first time that happened I was quite shocked.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

oh, I'm into this.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

yeah nothing really happens. you just walk across some of the maps you've already been through until you get back to the place where the game started.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

okay yeah the ability to ride on monsters is insanely useful and from what I can tell everyone is sleeping on this so far. I did several multiplayer hunts this morning and in each hunt I was the only player who was summoning tailraiders to ride around the map.

they literally

1. automatically track and follow the monster you're currently hunting
2. allow you to drink potions, eat food, craft items while traveling there
2a. since I'm using the LBG I couldn't test whether it allows you to sharpen your weapon or not. someone else can confirm for me one way or the other? if not, I'll test it when I play later

and

last but not least

3. they don't climb walls while following... they instantly jump to the top of the wall without using any stamina.

so basically it's an automatic method to follow the monster you're hunting, without using stamina, gets you there faster if there are any cliffs/walls to climb on the way, and it lets you manage your inventory between zones without needing to stop, slow down, or try to navigate the menu while moving (since the mount moves on its own automatically)
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

terra, edgar, and bannon's adventure down the river continues. I fight a few more random battles before finishing up with that section. afterwards I'm back in the northern figaro section of the map. nothing has really changed up here.

I go to narshe but they don't want to let me back inside. so I go south to check on the castle. it's gone, of course. still sunk. I go further south to the cave, maybe the game wants me to meet up with locke and celes.

no, the cave is blocked.

I go back to narshe again to look around. it takes some time but I finally decide to go and check the rocks on the left side of the village. a bit cryptic since there is no visual indicator of where you're supposed to search. but once you do so, terra mentions something about locke using a secret passage here and they open the passage to proceed.

after this it's just a matter of back tracking through the first dungeon again. I go and take a little detour in the moogle nest and retrieve the rune blade on my way through. if there were any other treasures I missed them. we return to old man's house, I think he has a name now, but I forgot what it was.

the plan now is for old man to convince the villagers of narshe to allow terra to go and speak to the esper. and yeah that was definitely very short.

to be honest I wasn't a huge fan of this portion of the game. I was mostly going through maps I've already been through, with lots of random encounters... but all of the enemies were too weak to pose a threat. having access to the very broken auto crossbow AND pray on top of that made every encounter feel like a nuisance rather than a challenge. it was like I just wanted to get to the next section but the game had to stop me every 5-6 steps.

one more route to go!
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

also sorry if this sounds like an obvious question but at this point it can't hurt to ask... what monster are you hunting? are you sure it actually has a severable tail that can be carved? some monsters you can "break" their tail and you get a special reward at the end of the mission for breaking it, similar to breaking any other body part, but it doesn't drop a tail node on the ground for you to carve separately. it's only certain monsters that actually have the tail fall on the ground and you need to carve it to get the special "tail" item.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

it looks the same as the tail icon in your inventory after you gather a tail item
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

there's a tail icon on the map to indicate where a severed tail is
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

well having played the remaining event quest, I can definitely say the one I hadn't done before is easily the best. it can be completed in about two minutes, but has a chance to drop decorations -- including the new level 4 decorations. yeah. I got a level 4 decoration just from catching a few hot spring possums. if you want to grind decorations this seems like a really fast and effective method for doing so.

additionally, this does drop a special event ticket for a unique headpiece. it's literally a monkey riding on your head. has decent slots, and gives recovery 2 which I guess is somewhat useful for just about any build. all in all if you haven't got any master rank head gear yet it's not a bad choice, but the fact that it's really unique and cute is the best thing about it.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

ha, that's funny. will probably still happen to me at least once even after being warned.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

FF6 time

locke and celes head north from southern figaro and I discover a few interesting things.

apparently there's some cottage out in the middle of the woods. I wasn't sure if this was always here and maybe I missed it earlier. I notice there's a path behind the cottage so I decide to go back and check the world map again before I proceed.

mt. kolts is blocked off, so I know I'm not supposed to go that way now.

of course when I come back, ready to explore into the woods, I find something else out. exiting the cottage map by taking the path behind the cottage, into the woods, just returns you to the world map. well I guess this isn't where I'm supposed to go either!

with only one route remaining, I go west, and back into the cave that terra, edgar, and locke used to travel from the desert to southern figaro. the enemies here simultaneously feel more threatening and less threatening than before due to the change in party members and levels of the party.

at the end of the cave is a pretty serious boss with no save point. granted, I was given the opportunity to heal before the boss, but yeah. if I had died, I would have gone all the way back to the beginning of the cave!

anyway, I battle this metal truck with a giant drill that can also cast magic. and this is of course the tutorial for celes' runic ability! I had a little bit of trouble with the timing, I couldn't tell when he was going to cast magic or use basic attacks. at first I was just spamming runic every turn, but then locke's HP started to get low.

of course right when I stop using Runic and I cast Cure, the enemy immediately killed Locke with Poison which is apparently a one hit kill. celes was not kidding about needing to stop this magic.

I used a phoenix down on locke, getting him back up. the enemy immediately attacked him with low HP. he blocked it. clutch!

after that I started to get a feel for the enemy pattern. it's something like magic -> attack -> drill - > attack -> magic,etc. if I'm not mistaken it seems to loop through these four actions? hard to tell because I killed the boss almost immediately after I started to feel like I understood the pattern.

either way, nice little section, and I guess I'm done with Locke's route already!

okay these routes are shorter than I was expecting based on the conversation in here earlier and I guess my expectations of other games with "routes."
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

was this topic just a trick to get us to watch your stand up?
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

I feel overall very satisfied with this so far. my only complaint is the current master rank event quests feel pretty lackluster. they really should have had some more exciting event quests and reward tickets for what is essentially the launch of the new expansion. instead there's like... barely anything. four event quests, none particularly interesting. two of them give nothing special. one of them gives a ticket that is only good for making a specific sword. the other one I haven't checked yet but I can't help but feel disappointed. it'd have to have an amazing event reward to make up for how I feel about the other launch event quests. and considering it's a mission to catch hot tub possums I'm gonna guess it's nothing special.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

locke's route started. I decided to kick back and play the game rather than play the game while taking notes, which means two things: more progress, but less thorough details in my write up.

things start off with a pretty neat little stealth sections. stealth in non-stealth games is one of those things that can be pretty terrible if the designer isn't really careful to make it not suck. I thought this was interesting enough and not too grating. coming from shantae and the pirate's curse, which has a stealth section that returns you to the very beginning of the level if you get caught at any point, this feels a lot more forgiving.

I loved the aspect of stealing people's outfits and swapping between them. they really nailed the feel of locke being a traditional "rogue" and he feels more definitive when he's operating on his own rather than just being the less efficient attacker in a party of attackers. he uses stealth, pickpocketing, stealing, disguise skills, and even a bit of deceit to get where and what he wants. I was finally able to steal that cider that I'd been wanting to steal since like an hour ago (ingame time).

the only disappointment in this section is that I didn't get to participate in any side missions or objectives to harass the empire soldiers. they basically just had locke do this stuff offscreen and started me immediately at the point where he was ready to escape. if your only complaint is that you wanted more of something, I suppose that means it was pretty good.

on the way I learned some valuable information, the army is already on the way to narshe, though I sort of already knew this. the guy I knew was the traitor was confirmed as the traitor. at the end I go ahead and rescue celes, a former general of the empire who has turned against them. her motivations come along with an interesting new tidbit of information. there's another town whose name escapes me now (dola?) where kefka is planning to poison the entire village in order to take them out. celes disagrees with their methods, so they lock her up and plan to execute her.

locke shows his characterization of wanting to help people again here, offering to help celes when there isn't much in it for him. yet another thing that is kinda helping to set him apart now that he's on his own. I feel like everyone was mostly nice to terra, although some of them had less pure motives (edgar being a womanizer, bannon wanting to use her to fight against the empire). locke showing again that he's willing to put in extra work and extra risk in order to save someone, who is no immediate benefit to him, shows that he probably would have helped terra even if she wasn't so special.

I play through the rest of the warehouse level, collecting gear for celes along the way, and refining my battle strategies with this party. we take a lot of damage but I mostly heal after every few fights and it's okay. the only thing I couldn't figure out was the Runic ability of Celes -- I'm still not yet sure what this does. finally I get back to the world map and, considering this section to be complete, I save the game and quit for now.

really good stuff, I'm enjoying this a lot right now and it's also making me like locke more where before I didn't care about him as much. interesting to see what the deal is with celes, if she has anything more to offer, and curious to see where the plot goes from here. especially if the game keeps throwing weird curveballs at me with different types of gameplay in each new section as it's been doing so far.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

probably no updates today as I'm focusing on monster hunter world iceborne expansion. I do actually want to play some more though, and that feeling of wanting to play more will likely lead to a longer session/more progress next time I do get around to playing more FF6. should be tomorrow, I don't have anything else going on.

also have decided on the BK approved order of Locke -> Terra -> Sabin
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

I'm ready
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

scammers heavily rely on that "blindsided" effect to try to get you to do something careless before you have time to think about it. luckily, recognizing and stopping the scam halfway through will prevent the worst consequences. unfortunately, there are still some consequences. most likely, the worst thing you'll have to deal with, is that they may sell you personal information to telemarketers. it's annoying but not the end of the world.

I had a similar experience in the past where I was dialing a government phone number and I mixed up two digits. well as it turns out, the scammers had this number and were basically ready for people who made a similar mistake. when they asked for my credit card information I became immediately suspicious and I'm really glad I did. I voiced my concerns about giving my credit card information over the phone, and the woman became increasingly insistent that I needed to give her the info: this is usually a good sign that you're getting scammed. I had already given my name and address by that point. funny thing is, the woman clearly misspelled my name, because I started getting junk mail with my name spelled wrong almost immediately.

number one most important rule to keep in mind to avoid being scammed is to basically never give your credit card information out unless you are 100% sure who you are giving it to. this is the outcome that can and will lead to the WORST consequences. I wouldn't be surprised if they had asked you for yours had the meeting gone on a little longer.

it's usually done with some kind of explanation along these lines:

- they say they aren't going to charge you, or it's only going to be a small charge
- but they need your credit card information just so they can run your credit/verify your identity/some other excuse

if you ever feel uncomfortable about the validity of someone asking for your CC info, you should always voice your concerns. reason why? if they're legitimate they will understand your reluctance and there's almost never a case where they need your credit card RIGHT AWAY. if they're illegitimate they will become weirdly insistent and try to pressure you into giving up your information before you have time to think it over.

anyway I know most of that information wasn't relevant to your specific case but maybe someone else will read it and it might help them avoid being scammed in the future.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

I knew about back row but I didn't think to use it in this case. would have indeed been very effective, especially since Bannon is only there to use Prayer and cutting his damage in half is not a downside at all. definitely need to keep stuff like that in mind for the future so I don't get steamrolled by easy bosses like this.

I did notice that Ultros was announcing his single target attacks but I never felt like I had enough time to react. it was just like, he said it, and then he was already attacking.

any advice on which route I should do first? does it matter? was thinking Locke
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

alright alright, I tried again and things went better this time. I guess the answer was just 'try again.' I really focused on keeping everyone's health completely up at all times. although terra still got KO'd multiple times with oneshot attacks -- I probably could have prevented this by switching her back to a set up with a shield? she was never attacking anyway. it was just a matter of praying that ultros never went after bannon specifically since he would kill him with one hit.

after the battle sabin jumps in the river to try and beat up the octopus dude. this leads to him getting knocked down the river and going the opposite way.

well that's a party split if I've ever seen one.

now the game actually wants me to choose a scenario, rather than playing through these events in a pre-determined order. I suppose I'll save that for next time.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

time to continue!

hey, I got to experience going the wrong way this time. so I guess I just happened to pick correctly on the first river raft sequence. interesting that you could use this method to easily grind while bannon full heals the party infinitely for free. not really motivated to do that.

managed to pull off the suplex for the first time.

the next save point is only a few seconds away... as opposed to last time where I felt like I didn't get a chance to save for like 15 minutes. weird, but I'm not complaining.

uh... hm. okay. maybe I should have grinded. and now I don't know what to do.

so basically a boss, Ultros, appears right after the save point. I have no way to grind before going to face him, at least none that I'm aware of. he oneshots Terra if he attacks her directly. he oneshots Edgar if he attacks him directly. he almost oneshots Sabin. he can multi-attack the party and leave most of them with just a sliver of health remaining. I spent most of the fight spamming phoenix down just trying to keep my party alive. oh, but the worst part? he can oneshot bannon. so yeah after spending X amount of turns trying to fight him and keep my party alive, he oneshots bannon which is an instant game over.

so what do I do now?
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

SantaRPidgey posted...

pokemon maker

Creating our own towns and plots using existing resources? god it would be amazing

you should get into rom hacking. it's basically what you're describing. well, it's basically a "maker" with more freedom but also more work.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

oh, huh. that is really interesting!
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

it's just a short walk to the next mountain path. or, rather, this seems to be the actual Returners hideout. I spent some time practicing my Blitz commands on the wild monsters on the way. the aura cannon actually requires you to roll the directional buttons. it didn't work when I input the directions one at a time.

here we meet Bannon. he seems to think Terra is incredibly dangerous, I think, but also she's the only hope left for the world? after that the party splits up to rest, and I'm solely in control of terra again. I decide to go around and talk to people.

locke tells me why he joined the returners and how he lost someone important to him.

sabin tells terra that she should trust edgar, but edgar says that terra should decide for herself whether she wants to fight for the returners or not. after all, if they force her, they are no better than the empire.

when I talk to bannon, he actually asks if I want to become the ray of hope or not. I'm very tempted to pick "no" just to see if the game actually allows me to refuse or not, but I also don't want to reset the game just to pick yes. hmm... I decide to try it out. all that happens is you go back inside and you have to talk to him again to progress the story. vaguely unsatisfying but not unexpected.

bannon gathers everyone and explains his plan: we'll have terra go and try to talk to the esper, to prevent another war of the magi.

unfortunately, the empire has plans of their own.

the meeting is interrupted as we learn that south figaro has been taken over by the empire, and they are on their way in this direction to deal with the returners next.

edgar, sabin, and terra escape down the river. they will head to narshe and continue on with the plan.

meanwhile, locke is going to infiltrate southern figaro and try to cause problems for the empire by attacking and subverting them from within.

so on the raft I have to actually choose which way to go to guide it, although I have no real idea or indication which is the right way to go. also I'm supposed to protect Bannon from being attacked but I wasn't really given a chance to change my equipment or anything after I was told that. would have been nice!

bannon can heal everyone for a lot of health every turn with his Pray command, which is helpful. but he does have low HP, so I still need to be vigilant and make sure I burst down the enemies as quickly as possible.

after a few battles we reach a save point and I'm also given the chance to equip the knight's code onto sabin. this will help protect bannon, as well as my other party members. also, since terra was given the gauntlet, I decide to have her equip it. I sort of imagined she would be relying on magic attacks more, and having a shield would be useful since she has lower HP, but hey. might as well cleave things with a two handed sword when she's not using MP. especially if sabin is gonna be tanking anyway.

since there is a save point here I will use this opportunity to stop for now.
---

I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

I don't think I have a favorite...
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

oh yeah the game didn't tell me about that, but I did investigate it on my own earlier. either way good call out. would have been useful to know if I hadn't checked it already for myself.

you know, one thing I'm realizing, is how much both FF7 and FF8 were inspired by this game. it's really cool to look at this from a historical perspective while playing it. even stuff like the musical direction in certain scenes gives me a lot of nostalgia for FF7 and FF8 at certain times.

I don't even think those two games are very alike, but it feels like the few things they have in common are elements which were drawn heavily from FF6, which really paved the way for both. well, this is just the opinion of someone who has only played an hour or two of FF6 so what cares what I think anyway.
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I saw the truth, I saw endless night skies; Understanding is pain.
https://imgtc.ws/i/OObNl5s.jpg

ninkendo posted...

"Final Fantasy spent a decade constructing idols and Final Fantasy VIII demolished every one of them. Its elaborate, extravagant, and chaotic parade of ideas marched toward an evolutionary dead end and ensured there would never be another game like Final Fantasy VIII. Even by Remastereds distressing modernization, Final Fantasy VIIIs paradigm shifting idiosyncrasies still showcase one of the most fearless and contemplative models of its medium. Final Fantasy VIII is a classic for people immune to the charms of classics."

who writes like this
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

followed the guy back and forth between the old man's house a few times, but I couldn't figure out how to steal the cider. maybe I have to go somewhere else to find/steal/buy some? for now I'm gonna see if I can find mt. kolts and this duncan guy.

found it. pretty fast, actually.

traveled through the caves, fighting martial arts guys, and I found a main gauche for locke to wield.

the gorgias in here are really dangerous, dealing around 40% of Locke's HP for each hit. they could quickly kill Locke or Terra if I'm not careful with healing/damage distribution. I actually noticed for whatever reason Locke tends to get targeted a lot, though. maybe the enemies really, really hate him.

on the way up, you can see a shadowy figure climbing as well. it looks pretty similar to edgar so I'm gonna guess this is his twin brother who was mentioned earlier.

found a save point which means maybe a boss or something coming up soon?

rather than wasting a tent to heal the entire party, I have Terra heal everyone and then use a single sleeping bag to recover her MP from casting Cure a bunch. dungeon crawling strategy!

I get into a few encounters after this, but mostly the type where I vaporize them all with auto crossbow before they can touch me. edgar gets poisoned along the way but I heal him with an antidote.

the guy we run into, vargas, is not sabin. but he does look like edgar/sabin a bit. and apparently he knows sabin. he knocks us all down with a cool backflip or something. then, a boss fight commences.

vargas has two meat shields in front of him which slightly diminish the 'blast everything with fire/auto crossbow' strategy I've been relying on up until now. it takes a few turns to burn through those two. after that, we start attacking vargas directly. locke manages to steal for the first time and gets... a potion.

bio blaster helps deal strong damage to vargas each turn, until he gets ready to unleash his ultimate technique. then, the real sabin shows up to interfere.

my main part gets literally blasted off of the battle screen. once again, loving this mid battle conversation and third wall breaking stuff. then sabin has to face off against vargas in a 1 v 1 duel. it was... really intense. I tried using the blitz command at first and of course nothing happened. I didn't know why at the time, but if you're reading this you've probably played FF6 so you probably know. so then I spammed attack.

the Doom counter is ticking down while I'm getting hit over and over. eventually the game tells me to use Blitz, but I waste like two more turns trying to figure out how to do it correctly. eventually I'm down to just 2 HP. Vargas attacks me and misses. finally, on my next attempt, I get the Blitz to work properly. with just 2 HP left and about 16 seconds left on the Doom counter, I take him down. what a comeback.

I get the rest of the way through the mountain pass and decide to take a break for now.
---

Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

as a character the only one I really like so far is terra. but in terms of effectiveness... yeah I love the auto-crossbow.

the shops in southern figaro carry weapons, armor, and relics of the utmost quality. first thing I do is go around and steal everything that happens to be laying in boxes and jars out in the open. I like to imagine this is what locke contributes to the party. otherwise, why is he even here?

next thing I do is go to the pub. I'll check out the shops later...

um... a little kid just followed me into the pub. I can definitely say I would never have guessed that was about to happen. at the bar we "meet" a guy named shadow. well, they mostly talk up his reputation and agree to stay away from him.

as it turns out, the pub is connected to the inn... which is also connected to the relic shop. this is a very strange design for a town. it's like, one giant building with everything inside of it.

I decide not to buy any relics right now because I have no idea which ones might be good, and they are kinda expensive.

man there is really a LOT going on in this game though. I feel like every single room has at least one NPC who does or says something interesting or mysterious. the world feels very alive as a result. I can definitely see why so many people like this game so much.

I found this guy who was clearly a spy for the empire, and in his hidden basement there was like 2,000 gold.

so one of the guys I ran into earlier was delivering cider to an old man. I follow him and find out that this old man used to work for the rich guy who is a spy for the empire. this old man (not to be confused with 'old man' from earlier) doesn't want to talk to me unless I also bring him cider.

while exploring I find a teleport stone, upgrade all of my weapons and armor, and buy a bunch of potions, because why not?

I find a save point in some guy named Duncan's house, and decide to stop for here. this is probably the longest sitting sessions I've played of the game so far... and all I really did was walk around town and explore. I'll remember to go back and see if I can steal some cider next time, and finish exploring the side of town I haven't looked at yet (if there's anything up there).
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

it was pretty good
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

time for maria to listen to the new tool album
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

time to enter the cave

there were a few branching paths but ultimately it wasn't any difficulty to get through. I find it kinda amusing how the party isn't particularly balanced at all. Edgar has the highest HP, the highest basic attack damage, and he can use his Tools without needing to rely on MP. Terra can do AoE but she relies on MP for it, and Locke is just a straight up worse fighter than Edgar.

I've tried to steal a couple of times now, and never managed to succeed at it.

kinda disappointed there was no boss at the end of the cave or anything. really wanted to try taking down a boss with the group tactics I'd been developing on the monsters in this cave.

I find the next village and decide to save my game before heading inside, as I've been doing with new overworld locations so far.
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

The Popo posted...

What are you playing it on?

GBA version
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

apparently getting into figaro castle isn't so easy, but the door man knows who locke is and we're allowed inside. I want to explore a bit, but everyone here REALLY wants me to go see the king. the king flips me off and then introduces himself as Edgar.

locke immediately leaves terra with this strange man who tries hitting on her, but she feels nothing. oh well. at least now I'm allowed to explore the castle.

I noticed the castle music stops playing when I talk to the high priestess. she introduces edgar's twin brother, sabin, to me... through a flashback, anyway. after exploring a bit I decide to see if I can leave. I can. I almost get killed by some scorpions, but I get some nice EXP as a reward. when I try to get back inside, the door man stops me. then he lets me back in. is he going to do this every time?

not sure how much grinding is required in this game, but since the most basic enemies in this area pose a serious threat to me... I decide to go and kill a bunch of them to get a little bit stronger.

um, so, apparently, they have the ability to paralyze you with an ability called Numb. needless to say, if you're fighting alone, this is a problem. Terra just stands there getting attacked for like a full minute and then dies. whoops. guess I'm playing through this section again.

okay time to find out what I'm supposed to be doing to advance the story.

this time I do a better job of exploring the castle, find some items, and when I return to the throne room a cutscene triggers. kefka shows up to squat in the sand and complain about his job.

after this, locke returns. he does a bit of explaining about what is going on, although most of this I could already infer by the direction of plot and the flashbacks given. basically this resistance group, the Returners, is secretly plotting against the empire. Figaro, despite having an alliance, is part of this group. also old man is a member. and locke is important somehow too, for reasons. I like to imagine he's just talking himself up to try and impress terra...

kefka doesn't like being told to buzz off, and so he comes back later to try and burn the castle down. edgar, locke, and terra escape on chocobo while the castle sinks into the ground.

some of the magitek armors from before try to chase us. despite how overpowered they seemed at the beginning of the game, they're no match for terra's magic and edgar's tools.

I really appreciate how the characters actually reacted to Terra using magic, since it's not supposed to exist in this world. and they even have a cute little cutscene in the middle of battle. it feels very third wall as well, with the ATB stopping, and the characters interacting with the framing of the screen.

the chocobo ends up being a hindrance since I can't access the menu. I decide to hop off immediately so I can save, then walk the rest of the way across the desert. I'll take a break before heading into this cave.
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

I have a pair of prescription glasses, but I don't wear them
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

terra spends a little bit of time walking through the mines before she is surrounded and falls into a hole. there are a lot of memories that we see in her unconscious state. basically she helped the empire burn a bunch of stuff and kill people.

a guy named locke is apparently friends with old man, and he decides to jump into a hole to save terra.

then some moogle come out to help us play a battle minigame. I definitely remember this part, but this is really the last thing I remember, so yeah. this is about the extent of my final fantasy 6 knowledge. everything after here will be a "blind" playthrough, minus any information I might have absorbed passively by existing on the internet where people discuss video games.

as soon as we leave the cave I realize we're in the same town we were trying to escape from. I spend a little bit of time in the adventuring school.

I was just thinking, you know, it's kind of dumb that we were trying to escape from this town and now we can just walk around here freely. moments later, as I'm trying to actually enter town, some guards show up and chase locke and terra away. well, fair enough.

now we head south to a place called figaro. and grind EXP by fighting some cabbage along the way. using some information I picked up from the adventuring school, I have Terra target all enemies with Fire. this proves to be incredibly effective and I can kill everything on turn 1 consistently.

we end up in a desert and my "bomb everything with fire" strategy helps avoid being overwhelmed by some scorpions. they are more dangerous than the forest enemies but barely give more EXP. with that in mind it might be better to grind in a safer area.

I found the next town but, rather than entering, decided to save on the world map. yet another epic trick I learned from the adventuring school...
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz

in the kingdom of something or other, some agents of the empire travel to a remote mining town. two of them are actors from the star wars movie. there is also a green haired girl who is wearing a slave hat. this hat lets you know that she is a good guy and only doing bad things against her will.

we spend some time murdering dogs, humans, and a giant snail.

oh, the reason we are here is to look for an esper. hey we found it.

oh, the guy got disintegrated.

oh, the other guy got disintegrated.

green haired girl wakes up, and her name is terra. hey, I know her from the critically acclaimed Save My Final Fantasy Character series. old man removes her slave collar and sets her free. well, he wants her to run away through the mines, which are infested with monsters and bandits. and I guess if she survives she'll be free.

the alternative is stay here and get killed by the angry guards. seems like a fair deal.

I like the music in this game so far.

I've actually played through to the end of the mines before, but nothing past that. also I don't even remember any specific details about what has happened so far. I didn't even remember old man existed, I sort of just vaguely remembered that terra ended up going through the mines on her own.

gonna play some more after dinner.
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Reality seems very harsh
https://imgur.com/3a03avz