Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Beyond the Border~ => Akyu's Arcade => Topic started by: Your Everyday NEET on June 22, 2016, 04:58:34 PM

Title: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 22, 2016, 04:58:34 PM
(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/2214987/2214987_original.png)

*sigh*This sucks.

What is The Genius of Sappheiros?
I'm pretty sure you know this game. Japanese Touhou RPG fangame made by Strawberry Bose in 2010 with turn based battle, 10+ playable characters, lots of grinding, and really hard and bordering on bullshit.

Why did you want to play it?
To be honest, I didn't, but fate conspired against me to play this game. Originally, my first pick for let's play is Touhou horror game called Ayaria Hazard, but I can't speak chinese and doing screenshot based LP on something I didn't understand is out of the question. My second pick is Chinese Touhou RPG called Blizzard of Faith and Revenge, but the game crashes in the middle of prologue. So, all that left is this game... Well, might as well do it.

How hard is this game?
Well, it's hard. The enemies is tough and can wipe you fast, bosses that requires specialized strategy and have bullshit TPK attack that you never saw it coming unless reading a walkthrough, and you'll be grinding for levels and material for hours and hours. The fact that this game has easy mode speaks for itself.

Let's get started then.

Chapter List

VS The World
Part 1
- Prologue (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/20834.html)
- Stage 1 - Great Library (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/21110.html)
- Stage 2 - Scarlet Devil Mansion (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/21272.html)
- After SDM (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/21564.html)
- Stage 3 - Forest of Magic (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22008.html)
- Stage 4 - Former Hell of Blazing Fire (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22125.html)
- Stage 5 - Palace of the Earth Spirit (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22416.html)
- Stage 6 - Netherworld (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22688.html)
- After Netherworld (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23006.html)
- Stage 7 - Muenzuka (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23167.html)
- Stage 8 - Garden of the Sun (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23506.html)
- Stage 9-1 - Eientei (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23767.html)
- Stage 9-2 - Eientei (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23833.html)
- Stage 10 - Heart of Eientei (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/24216.html)

Part 2
- Stage 11 - Youkai Mountain (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/24537.html)
- Stage 12 - Youkai Mountain Summit (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/24645.html)
- Stage 13 - Sea of Clouds (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25084.html)
- Stage 14 - Bhava-agra (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25295.html)

VS Reptillian OC
- Beginning of Part 3 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25547.html)
- Stage 15 - Forest of Magic 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25629.html)
- Stage 16 - Genbu's Swamp (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26095.html)
- Stage 17 - Genbu's Lake (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26253.html)
- Stage 18-1 - Lakebed Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26470.html)
- Stage 18-2 - Lakebed Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26629.html)
- Stage 19 - Lakebed Temple Depth (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26995.html)
- Stage 20-1 - Divine Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/27227.html)
- Stage 20-2 - Divine Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/27433.html)
- Stage 21-1 - Gorgon Barrier (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/27801.html)
- Stage 21-2 - Gorgon Barrier (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28119.html)
- Stage 21-3 - Gorgon Barrier (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28293.html)
- The Final Boss (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28516.html)
- Epilogue Part 1 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28682.html)
- Epilogue Part 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29143.html)

VS The World Again
- Expansion Prologue (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29346.html)
- Character Quest Part 1 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29630.html)
- Character Quest Part 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29869.html)
- Character Quest Part 3 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30072.html)
- Character Quest Part 4 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30210.html)
- Character Quest Part 5 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30469.html)
- Character Quest Part 6 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30739.html)
- Stage 22 - Underworld (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31085.html)

VS Generic Villain of Doom
- Sidequest Superboss Part 1 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31425.html)
- Stage 23 - Forest of Magic 3 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31584.html)
- Stage 24 - Garden of the Sun 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31919.html)
- Stage 25 - Muenzuka 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32204.html)
- Stage 26 - Dark Space (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32345.html)
- Stage 27 - Depths of Resentment (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32738.html)
- Sidequest Superboss Part 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32857.html)
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Validon98 on June 22, 2016, 05:07:55 PM
Oh hey there GoS, haven't seen you for awhile. Good luck to ya on this LP, it could... be worse, I guess?
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on June 22, 2016, 05:08:48 PM
Welp, I dearly hope you're well stocked-up on...well, whatever it is you need to cope with bullshit if it's that bad.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 22, 2016, 05:25:42 PM
In the game's defense, grinding isn't really a thing 95% of the time (and can be entirely cut out apart from a tiny bit before the final boss). Extra stats barely help at all so it's only useful if you're about to learn a really nice move, and exp rubberbands really hard to let underleveled people catch up. Materials have low drop rates but the plan is "don't need extra materials"; only craft things that will be -really- helpful, as materials stocked up will make it easier to get all the best stuff in endgame/postgame (where farming is much easier, but still.)

But the difficulty and need for strategy are not understated :V
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: nav' on June 22, 2016, 06:48:03 PM
Oh, nice. Played this one for a while before dropping it in the middle, can't remember the reason anymore as it was a pretty long time ago. The LP should be interesting to follow.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on June 22, 2016, 07:24:24 PM
Oh, nice. I remember my struggles against this game. Those were fun times. And since i gave up on the final boss fight, maybe watching this LP will motivate me enough to actually finish it.
Anyway, good luck. =)
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: MewMewHeart on June 22, 2016, 09:11:23 PM
Ah... don't get me started on all the things that made me drop it after the expansion part... it makes my blood boil.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Buggy on June 22, 2016, 11:36:50 PM
I ok about grinding in this game but I admit that this game are very difficulty (even I grinding alot a still lost the some boss fight)

and if I remeber correctly if we lost the fight while explore the map we will lose the item that we find from  map that we lose the fight right?
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 23, 2016, 01:55:06 AM
I ok about grinding in this game but I admit that this game are very difficulty (even I grinding alot a still lost the some boss fight)
That's because gaining levels increases your power very little in this game; most rpgs you gain a few and you're notably stronger, but here it doesn't really do much. If you can't beat a boss you have to change your strategy.

In the third release of the game, they did take out the feature where you can't use (and also LOSE) items that you just gained in your current dungeon dive, though, along with significantly raising drop rates, making crafting recipes use less ingredients, and making the exp rubberband more powerfully beneficial (Overall your level will be somewhat higher than before). So that got better!
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Buggy on June 23, 2016, 03:42:37 AM
That's because gaining levels increases your power very little in this game; most rpgs you gain a few and you're notably stronger, but here it doesn't really do much. If you can't beat a boss you have to change your strategy.

In the third release of the game, they did take out the feature where you can't use (and also LOSE) items that you just gained in your current dungeon dive, though, along with significantly raising drop rates, making crafting recipes use less ingredients, and making the exp rubberband more powerfully beneficial (Overall your level will be somewhat higher than before). So that got better!

hmmm...may be I should try the third version of this game because earlier I play only first realease version of game and I hear that there are Easy mode option in third release version of game which makes enemy kill easier ?
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 23, 2016, 04:04:15 AM
Yes, there's an Easy Mode in the third release. Plus you can turn it on/off at will, so you can always do Easy Mode for a hard boss you've died to a few times and then turn it off after if you want to- or just easy all the time, etc.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 23, 2016, 04:16:45 AM
Oh hey there GoS, haven't seen you for awhile. Good luck to ya on this LP, it could... be worse, I guess?
Thank you, I'm going to need all the luck I can get. (I don't know how you are able to update once per day)

In the game's defense, grinding isn't really a thing 95% of the time (and can be entirely cut out apart from a tiny bit before the final boss). Extra stats barely help at all so it's only useful if you're about to learn a really nice move, and exp rubberbands really hard to let underleveled people catch up. Materials have low drop rates but the plan is "don't need extra materials"; only craft things that will be -really- helpful, as materials stocked up will make it easier to get all the best stuff in endgame/postgame (where farming is much easier, but still.)

But the difficulty and need for strategy are not understated :V
Yeah, I'm a sucker at grinding. But I agree with you. Primary stats like STR, VIT, DEX barely helps at all, instead, I need all the HP, MP, and skills I can get. For rubberbanding and material, I agree with your opinion.

Yeah.. I really need to describe things better.

Oh, nice. I remember my struggles against this game. Those were fun times. And since i gave up on the final boss fight, maybe watching this LP will motivate me enough to actually finish it.
Anyway, good luck. =)
I spent 3 days fighting the final boss and I only won because of luck. I don't know if I can do that again.

Ah... don't get me started on all the things that made me drop it after the expansion part... it makes my blood boil.
Is it the generic Big Bad? The Lack of story? Or the extra difficult optional dungeon and bosses that makes you quit? For me, it's the lack of story

Yes, there's an Easy Mode in the third release. Plus you can turn it on/off at will, so you can always do Easy Mode for a hard boss you've died to a few times and then turn it off after if you want to- or just easy all the time, etc.
But beware, all it does is increasing your damage, reducing damage taken, and makes inflicting status easier for both sides (I think). It still doesn't do squat against fixed damage attack, TPK nuke, and status-based nuke.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 23, 2016, 04:20:28 AM
Prologue (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/20834.html)

So, I decided to experiment with the dialogue by representing the characters with portrait instead of text. But since I'm lazy, I only give it to a handful of character and only make 1 portrait each. 
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Validon98 on June 23, 2016, 05:05:24 AM
Quote
We meet Akyuu, the resident chronicler and the only dummied out character in this game. Don't worry, few years later and your look-alike will star as a main character.

Funnily enough, the Vita version of GoS undummied her out. She's still a shikigami in DoD, still a doppels in NoR, and replaces Marisa as the Mystic-based character in Marisa's Kirisame Magic Shop, at least? :V
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Kilgamayan on June 23, 2016, 05:06:15 AM
Quote
Too bad (Byakuren) doesn't enter the plot until halfway through the game.

Welllllllll...
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on June 23, 2016, 07:57:16 AM
Welllllllll...
And she still doesn't enter the plot, despite wellllll.
There's
UUDDLRLR
as well, which i discovered on my own and i thought that's what you were supposed to do. Then i looked it up on the wiki, and turns out, that's a secret too.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 23, 2016, 11:38:45 AM
Quote
I spent 3 days fighting the final boss and I only won because of luck. I don't know if I can do that again.
Ooof, if it ends up -that- bad, I can give you a little party setup help for the final boss XD

Although along those lines, somehow when giving my friend said little advice, he... mixed it up and used Alice as the tank in party 1 and Aya as the tank FOR THE SECOND PARTY, and somehow WON THE FIRST TIME HE REACHED NON-LUNATIC FORM? He got lucky as all getout, there. Aya barely helps at all on that form.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: MewMewHeart on June 23, 2016, 02:14:40 PM
Is it the generic Big Bad? The Lack of story? Or the extra difficult optional dungeon and bosses that makes you quit? For me, it's the lack of story
Because I was tired of the damn ass kicking for not doing it the game's way.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 23, 2016, 04:56:46 PM
And she still doesn't enter the plot, despite wellllll.
There's
UUDDLRLR
as well, which i discovered on my own and i thought that's what you were supposed to do. Then i looked it up on the wiki, and turns out, that's a secret too.
That's what in my instinct after seeing road like that. You know what, I'm going to ignore them and try to finish SDM with just 4 members.

Ooof, if it ends up -that- bad, I can give you a little party setup help for the final boss XD

Although along those lines, somehow when giving my friend said little advice, he... mixed it up and used Alice as the tank in party 1 and Aya as the tank FOR THE SECOND PARTY, and somehow WON THE FIRST TIME HE REACHED NON-LUNATIC FORM? He got lucky as all getout, there. Aya barely helps at all on that form.

Maybe I could use your help with them.

Yeah, that's incredibly lucky. Considering I won with 1 dying person left... after trying for 3 days...

Stage 1 - Great Library (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/21110.html)

It's been 2 years since I've played this.

EDIT: Modified the shield description and found Sakuya's portrait.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 23, 2016, 05:49:39 PM
Sanae's physical skills are actually pretty strong early in the game. The issue is that she never gets a better spellcard, though; once Wily Toad tapers off she's just got decent electric AoEs for chaser support and a couple status effect snakes. Those are a lot more relevant than Aya's uses, at least... if it wasn't for Aya's 3-bomb commander skill she'd never see use outside of a couple niche fights.

Shields can only block the things that are listed in their description, and their EVA is a flat % chance to block (which is modified by any strength or weakness the shield says it has, such as the shields that have full stars versus some elements will always block it, afaik.) But they won't activate if you use a move that takes both hands, such as doublehanded weapons or magic. If you don't USE it that turn, the shield will activate even if you have a 2-hand weapon, though... as much as that doesn't tend to matter. The only real use for magicians and doublehanded attackers are the rare shields with passive effects, which will -always- function.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on June 23, 2016, 05:50:18 PM
So why did the translation patch miss those things in particular?
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 23, 2016, 06:03:16 PM
Miss what? The reference to key color?

...that's honestly a good question, but w/e. It doesn't matter at least. Not worth putting out an entire patch update for.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Suwako Moriya on June 23, 2016, 06:38:45 PM
Because I was tired of the damn ass kicking for not doing it the game's way.

This was the primary source of my strong distaste for this game. All drops being exceedingly rare didn't bother me that much, but when boss battle after boss battle after boss battle resulted in conversations with my friends that went "How do I beat X?" "Use Alice" "I don't use Alice" "Then... ??????????", it made me lose all interest, because all of my enjoyment of the game stemmed from the large amount of character and party customization. I believe that if a game is going you present you with as many shiny toys as this one did, then boss battles should not boil down to "use this same single gadget over and over and over again". Satori especially is a kick in the teeth in this regard.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: MewMewHeart on June 23, 2016, 06:43:02 PM
This was the primary source of my strong distaste for this game. All drops being exceedingly rare didn't bother me that much, but when boss battle after boss battle after boss battle resulted in conversations with my friends that went "How do I beat X?" "Use Alice" "I don't use Alice" "Then... ??????????", it made me lose all interest, because all of my enjoyment of the game stemmed from the large amount of character and party customization. I believe that if a game is going you present you with as many shiny toys as this one did, then boss battles should not boil down to "use this same single gadget over and over and over again". Satori especially is a kick in the teeth in this regard.
Oh right the final fight in the main serious FORCES YOU TO GET ONE OF THE HARDER SKILLS for Satori.... and both are defensive.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 23, 2016, 07:38:22 PM
Satori especially is a kick in the teeth in this regard.
If you mean she's bad, it's more that being a blue mage makes her less clear on how to use. I almost never took her out of my party, so awesome. <3

But yes, Alice being the only dedicated tanking character makes it really hard to -not- have her in the party for any challenging thing, namely almost every boss; spamming Parrar gives you way, WAY too much defense boost on the whole party to not have it, not to mention Little Legion. She's your party's durability. Apart from a few bosses you can blinktank, once you're a decent way into the game there's really no way around it... you HAVE to have Alice for almost every bossfight or you're going to have a very bad time.

Oh right the final fight in the main serious FORCES YOU TO GET ONE OF THE HARDER SKILLS for Satori.... and both are defensive.
Forces? Nah, it's totally optional. She can actually do an awesome job in the first party if you got Mad Thunder, which is damn near the strongest elec attack in the game (including postgame) yet you can pick it up on like Stage 13 from Iku easily... if you take Satori into that fight, at least. Satori -is- pretty helpful in the second phase with Reflect Wall/Shield Wall/Healing/Leaf Shield/Dark manip though. Man, she really turns into some beastly support later on.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: MewMewHeart on June 24, 2016, 01:27:58 AM
Forces? Nah, it's totally optional. She can actually do an awesome job in the first party if you got Mad Thunder, which is damn near the strongest elec attack in the game (including postgame) yet you can pick it up on like Stage 13 from Iku easily... if you take Satori into that fight, at least. Satori -is- pretty helpful in the second phase with Reflect Wall/Shield Wall/Healing/Leaf Shield/Dark manip though. Man, she really turns into some beastly support later on.
Well if you want to have an easier time, but then again I was grateful for Satori supports, but they require her to be a certain level to learn them.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 24, 2016, 02:00:15 AM
Yeah, you have to come back and get Satori's special-tier support skills long after you fight the enemies with them (Was it lv50? So, you'll easily get there before the final stage, but not much earlier.) ... but they are REALLY strong skills, so it's understandable why. It's only a small handful, at least, and nearly the only skills with relevant level restrictions. Weekend relaxed a lot of the level restrictions along with massively boosting learn rate. Didn't Medullite Beam used to be like lv99??? It's not even particularly powerful! MEDOROAAAAAAA
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 26, 2016, 08:52:06 AM
Shields can only block the things that are listed in their description, and their EVA is a flat % chance to block (which is modified by any strength or weakness the shield says it has, such as the shields that have full stars versus some elements will always block it, afaik.) But they won't activate if you use a move that takes both hands, such as doublehanded weapons or magic. If you don't USE it that turn, the shield will activate even if you have a 2-hand weapon, though... as much as that doesn't tend to matter. The only real use for magicians and doublehanded attackers are the rare shields with passive effects, which will -always- function.
I don't know much about shields. All I know is sometimes they blocks, and Alice can force activate them.

I modified the decription of the shield and found Sakuya's portrait back in Stage 1.

Oh right the final fight in the main serious FORCES YOU TO GET ONE OF THE HARDER SKILLS for Satori.... and both are defensive.
Screw those defensive skills! Enemies won't cast it on you like that. Oh no no no, you have to Charm them! Control won't work because the move won't be on their skill list if you do that. Charm is just luck based as well, you have to be freaking lucky for the enemy to casts it on Satori, but the enemy is a dick and usually more content with hitting themselves, curing them from Charm. Screw this game!

Stage 2 - Scarlet Devil Mansion (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/21272.html)

Recording the screenshot live is a pain. Since I played it with gamepad, I have to switch back forth since the hotkeys for capturing screenshot is in the keyboard. Plus, the fight flows too fast to be recorded smoothly.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 26, 2016, 11:45:53 AM
Screw those defensive skills! Enemies won't cast it on you like that. Oh no no no, you have to Charm them! Control won't work because the move won't be on their skill list if you do that. Charm is just luck based as well, you have to be freaking lucky for the enemy to casts it on Satori, but the enemy is a dick and usually more content with hitting themselves, curing them from Charm. Screw this game!
That's not even the best part though; at least one of the two really cool special defensive skills has very high priority, and also won't be cast if they're under the effect of Charm already, so you have to have Aya force you to go first and charm it on a turn it's already got the move queued up! ISN'T IT GREAT?! (Thank goodness there are only two skills like this, they're multitarget and otherwise not hard to learn, and are actually -really good- and worth some effort. Reflect Wall with only 1 turn cooldown... hummuna hummuna.)

Otherwise you could probably debuff their accuracy with one of Satori's other skills and/or buff their evasion with Sanae or Byakuren, but no, yes, it's a good chunk of effort. The only ones worth caring about are Area Heal, Leaf Shield, Starlight Barrier and Reflect Wall anyway- Area Heal is easy (second screen youkai mountain on common random enemy, big aoe) and the other two aren't bad so long as you know you have to interrupt via Aya on the same turn. It's somewhat of a hassle but if you've got any interest in Satori it pays off. (Or you can just dislike Satori, grab Mad Thunder from Iku for a few specific fights like the final boss, and otherwise ignore her :V)
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on June 26, 2016, 12:00:05 PM
So is the "my way or the highway" balancing this game apparently has really intentional or just poorly thought-out?
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 26, 2016, 12:19:02 PM
I think that's a pretty aggressive way of putting it? Regardless of what you see here, the game really does have a very large amount of options available to you and lots of very powerful party setups. You get 12 customizable characters (and 5 more rather quirky ones postgame).

It's just that, as said earlier, you can't really not use Alice for most bosses once the difficulty's had time to amp upwards, because she is the dedicated tank character and is mindblowingly good at her job of protecting the party via giving them her shield activations and taking hits with spellcards.

I think it's one of the best designed rpgs I've ever played, imo, in terms of difficulty via strategical party building rather than grind. Of course, there are some bosses where the best options are going to be somewhat limited, but that's just because if the game presents you with a round hole, you're going to be kind of silly if you try to force a square peg party into it; you're given 12 characters and you're expected to be willing to use them when one is more suited for a situation than the other. Figuring out which shape of hole you're dealing with and what to cram in it is still strategy, even if there's only a few good options in the end (which is generally -not- the case)- and there is practically always more than just one solution even when that is the case. (Other than the Alice thing. I'm pretty sure you could beat all the non-party-split bosses without her but you're just being cruel to yourself on several of them.)
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on June 26, 2016, 01:21:30 PM
(Other than the Alice thing. I'm pretty sure you could beat all the non-party-split bosses without her but you're just being cruel to yourself on several of them.)
I did just that. It was... an interesting experience.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 27, 2016, 04:43:28 PM
(Other than the Alice thing. I'm pretty sure you could beat all the non-party-split bosses without her but you're just being cruel to yourself on several of them.)
I didn't actually use Alice until after I get my ass kicked against halfway bosses, AKA that one boss. And I didn't fight effectively (AKA didn't use any strategy beyond jack-of-all-stats) until after I got my MP drained completely against boss with Vortex (Fuck those!).

I was thinking of making a filler after a major dungeon.

After SDM (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/21564.html)

Whew, I think this update is the longest to make. Mainly because I kinda explains too many things there.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 27, 2016, 06:45:08 PM
endless nerd rant as I go through the update

Sakuya can actually do POW-murder-based builds pretty well for status knife strategy in random battles, although it's definitely slightly unorthodox- it's nice whenever you don't want to use materials for a 2-hand sword and have a nice status knife around like charm or petrification to go with the instant death. (But yeah for the most part holy crud those 2-hand swords kick butt.)

Patchouli's PATK tree is nice because the bonus is -massive- early in the game. She's incredibly effective smashing things in the face with melee weapons until about halfway through the game, and at game start it's very useful for no-mp-cost heavy damage random clearing where spamming magic is still too expensive and you can't learn MP regen pow skills. Book's selling points are AoE physical skills for melee patch, or Reading to regain mp. But yes, it's one of the less exciting specialty weapons. (Even end-postgame there's actually still a few cases where elemental weapons can be as good or slightly better than her magic for some bosses, if you want to be goofy. But it mostly falls off once magic spamming is affordable, unless you happen to have the slayer dagger for that one boss...)

Also, with Aya commander, +10% casting speed is actually pretty good. Speed stats don't vary wildly too much and there's often a fairly low difference between what'll let you go before or after an enemy... even a few points of speed make a difference if it means getting one point over the enemy. (Although, of course, -all- of the commander passives are indeed fairly small effects.) Her 3-bomb Paparazzi is amazing, though, oh man. A real lifesaver... or just convenient for Yukkuri smashing.

When it comes to Exorcism and Divine Barrier, as I understand it, if the enemy has 10 Divine Barrier, 10 exorcism will completely negate it. I'm not entirely positive though because there's not actually many cases to test where you -have- exorcism and a relevant enemy (and you don't already have 100 exorcism...)

Phoenix Skydance (why did they not translate hinotori to phoenix? same with her special craft item, hinotori feather.) is a polarizing formation. :T The baiting is REALLLY powerful (unlike Hakurei's weak bait) but the def loss is similarly massive, so the wrong people getting hit is lethal. Very effective, but can be risky.

Synthesis get! "Sometimes skip a tier" yeahh, that's one way to put it. Much of the equipment doesn't make enough of a difference to be worth the valuable materials they cost (especially in the first half of the game, most of the character weapons are hardly better than the generic stuff- and later they cost hefty amounts), but sometimes it really is a big help to craft a couple character weapons that you're about to get hella use out of.

The vending machine weapons are a big step up at this point where the Patk values are just plain better than what you have, so if you want the codes, here ya go.
Quote
68997264 : Melon Sword (Exp earned UP)
16394122 : Gamer Japanese Fan (Item drop rate up)
28896765 : Animate Pen (Ignores defense(small))
75024087 : White Lance (Power earned UP)
71228829 : Akiba Cherry Blossom (HP Drain 10%, MP Drain 1%)
98530865 : Messe Dagger (HP&MP+10%)
28614360 : Tiger Axe (Ability to use 主砲, Main Cannon)
30723811 : D-Staff (one-handed staff, so you can use a shield)
...a few in particular are worth using later in the game, too. The postgame upgrade for the Akiba Cherry Blossom is -sweet- for mp drain, and Melon Sword still works on your commander for exp. Dunno quite how the Power Up functions though...
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on June 27, 2016, 09:39:54 PM
>Sakuya wielding Greatswords
So I take it the creator is somewhat of a fan of Fiona Mayfield? :V
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 27, 2016, 09:44:49 PM
>Sakuya wielding Greatswords
So I take it the creator is somewhat of a fan of Fiona Mayfield? :V
*Googles* Huh, the swords... really do look like this yes :V
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: RegalStar on June 28, 2016, 11:15:48 AM
I'm pretty sure that exorcism is always a percentage of divine barrier. 10 Divine Barrier and 10 Exorcism should result in 91% damage.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Validon98 on June 28, 2016, 01:45:42 PM
Yeah, Exorcism is the percentage of Divine Barrier negated, so 10% Exorcism on 10% Divine Barrier leads to 9% Divine Barrier. Only 100% Exorcism will ever fully negate Divine Barrier, regardless of its amount.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 28, 2016, 05:30:00 PM
I'm thinking of changing the title of this let's play. The current title is bad.

Stage 3 - Forest of Magic (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22008.html)

And yet, the boss will get harder and harder.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: MewMewHeart on June 28, 2016, 07:01:49 PM
I'm thinking of changing the title of this let's play. The current title is bad.

Stage 3 - Forest of Magic (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22008.html)

And yet, the boss will get harder and harder.
Funny thing when I fought her the first time I kept getting Doll Wall....
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 29, 2016, 12:01:28 AM
Yeah, the title puts a pretty negative mindset about the game to start off with for people who are unfamiliar :V

Forest of Magic goes fairly smoothly; the game is slow to introduce you to pain, but shows you it's there with Pu paralysis, Mr.Gensokyo lethal poison on the whole party that'll kill on turn 2, and Yuki-Onna's all-target attack being capable of rendering you too weak to finish the fight.

The trick (well, a notable one at least) to Alice's fight is actually that if you give Sanae an axe and a patk-focused POW build, her earth spellcard completely murders Doll Triangle and does hefty damage to Doll Wall. It's Sanae's one time in the spotlight before, other than pure buffs and heals, she's just relegated to having moderate damage for random fights... which even then generally requires forging a Snake and/or being a chaser party for elec chaser support.

Of course, her support is pretty critical, but it'd've been cool if she got more actual spellcards like the other buffer Byakuren does, considering that she's got better offense potential than Byaku does anyway.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiro
Post by: CF7 on June 29, 2016, 11:24:58 AM
Oh, Alice. I think she's the first stumbling block for many, myself included. The game basically says the kids gloves are off and now almost every boss will murder you horribly.
Dolls' suicide explosion is just plain unfair if you don't know about it. I remember finally defeating Alice after hard and long battle and then dolls blowing up in my face with predictable results.
Having Mokou for the fight kinda helps. IIRC she can burn through one of formations pretty much by herself.

Quote
Reimu: That's a good idea! We can't let such a useful item go without capturing it!

Dammit!

Yeah... even everyone in-universe don't have respect of her.


Nitori: A-An item, you say... (I kinda pity Satori now...)
Reimu is such an asshat.
Also later she refers to Genji as "this is just the item for flying" and then he kinda flips out and wants to murder everyone.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on June 29, 2016, 11:54:56 AM
IIRC canon-wise Reimu was a bit of a jerk to begin with, but yeah, this is going a bit too far.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Validon98 on June 29, 2016, 12:08:46 PM
GoS!Reimu is a pretty big asshat, yeah. She's less of one in DoD and NoR for some odd reason (in DoD the worst she does is snark at things like Komachi "dying", and in NoR the worst comment she makes is basically "forcibly recruiting" the local youkai in order to help resolve the incident).

Canonically Reimu can be pretty jerk-ish but part of it is being blunt as all get out, she's not as bad as a lot of people make her out to be (the worst thing she's ever done I'd say would be beating the crap out of Tokiko).
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on June 29, 2016, 03:27:34 PM
The trick (well, a notable one at least) to Alice's fight is actually that if you give Sanae an axe and a patk-focused POW build, her earth spellcard completely murders Doll Triangle and does hefty damage to Doll Wall. It's Sanae's one time in the spotlight before, other than pure buffs and heals, she's just relegated to having moderate damage for random fights... which even then generally requires forging a Snake and/or being a chaser party for elec chaser support.
I mostly use Sanae for healing and her party RES buff.

Oh, Alice. I think she's the first stumbling block for many, myself included. The game basically says the kids gloves are off and now almost every boss will murder you horribly.
Dolls' suicide explosion is just plain unfair if you don't know about it. I remember finally defeating Alice after hard and long battle and then dolls blowing up in my face with predictable results.
Reimu is such an asshat.
While my friend do the smart thing and stop playing after getting hit by that brickwall, I still continue forward... for the second time.
But it does warrant a chuckle or two... if you're not the one playing.
Why do you think I have a low opinion on Reimu?

Nightmare of Rebellion is 4 GB large, and has DRM. It now costs around 2000 YEN or 20$. Shipping it overseas requires waiting for 2 months. I'll probably buy it later on.

Stage 4 - Former Hell of Blazing Fire (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22125.html)

Probably the last stage I could finish in an afternoon.
Title: Re: Of Gorgons, Bullshit, and Grinding - Let's Just Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on June 29, 2016, 06:23:08 PM
I mostly use Sanae for healing and her party RES buff.
Right, but in random battles both of those things usually aren't important. (Although when you need that res buff, holy toledo do you need it.) Granted, usually you can just use a Patk buff or Matk buff instead, once you get those. But if the fight goes into turn two she can hold her own pretty dang well- the alltarget snake attack is pretty sweet and electric noncards are nice (esp. in a chaser party). IIRC snake drains mp which lets her buff and spam attacks forever. Drool. <3 I think in both my playthroughs I made one midgame when the patk wouldn't be too low and just kept using that one snake until it was well outdated.

Also, the enemy respawn trigger is healing circles. As far as I can tell, you need to step on different ones, or at least exit and reenter the map before stepping on the same one over again. Doing that a few times will respawn most of the enemies.

I think if you -really- tweak on it and maybe have a couple extra POW points, you can one-shot Utsuho with Fantasy Heaven without crafting Reimu's special weapon for some measly 10% damage bonus. (That's why I only craft two or three weapons until much farther in; their bonuses just don't do much yet, nor do you have the POW to invest into their special trees enough... but then there's stuff like The Green Eyes poison boost.) It's very silly. There's no need to go THAT far, but it's funny.

Next... oh boy. It's time for everybody's favorite enemy.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 01, 2016, 02:31:18 AM
*sigh* Even if I brought a couple of good games, I still can't play it yet, because I will get addicted to it. *sigh*

Stage 5 - Palace of the Earth Spirit (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22416.html)

It's time for everybody's favorite enemy.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: MewMewHeart on July 01, 2016, 03:00:10 AM
*sigh* Even if I brought a couple of good games, I still can't play it yet, because I will get addicted to it. *sigh*

Stage 5 - Palace of the Earth Spirit (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22416.html)
FUCK THOSE MIND FLAYERS THEY ARE SOMEWHAT THE BANE OF ME AT STAGE 5
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on July 01, 2016, 05:03:44 AM
>Hypnotic Barretr
>Barretr
>Barretr
 :getdown:
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on July 01, 2016, 10:29:49 AM
It's funny how faithfully they recreated Mind Flayers from FF.
Also i strongly object to Satori being useless. You can tweak her skills for almost any fight as needed, she's one of the few characters who has access to dark element attacks, she can be a really good healer/support unit as well. And Mad Thunder rips anything weak to elec.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 01, 2016, 02:25:30 PM
Satori Fight Solutions -
Water Mode: Sakuya's Colosseo Field prevents healing. Bye bye, Elixir.
Earth Mode: Reimu's got a barrier to prevent status effects. Bye bye, Petro Cloud. (otherwise instant game over)
Fire Mode:I don't remember if this one was even a problem.

As a playable character, Satori can actually be really godly due to immense element/move diversity and damage+status+support combo. But that requires a lot of learning... INSTEAD, to make her just pretty good in some situations and not caring that much about her overall, it's pretty easy. The two easiest uses are to set up awesome chaser party (decimates tons of stages, or even bosses) with just basic all-target magic (conveniently located on stage 13 ufos if you don't have it by then) or breath paired with Patchouli, Nitori, and whoever else (at least one of byakuren/sanae/marisa and you should be good- if you use breath damage is low but she drains MP with a staff as it's physical so she doesn't run out of mp) or to use situational moves once you get them like her awesome support skills in a boss (just area heal and reflect wall is all she needs for some fights), or Mad Thunder for crazy elec damage (it's seriously as strong as marisa and patchouli's end-postgame elec skills- do not miss this from Iku even if you aren't really planning on using Satori much, you've got party split fights. It has a minor level requirement tho).

Tentacle from those jerks in flaming hell (I think it has a level requirement? might've removed it though) should also work if Byakuren is giving her elemental damage (I... think, haven't tried that strat), and postgame she's awesome with an mp drain knife spamming status effect skills like Death Zapper. (There's other cool things, but they take more effort. Medoroa is not an easy skill to learn but holy crudmuffins)

BUT. That's not relevant right now. You know what is? Satori being the best random battle character you've got until you hit about stage 13, without even learning a single skill (which gives you plenty of time to learn random ones without even trying since she'll be in the party anyway... or just some easier time to charm/control a couple important ones on the side as you do stages. Mostly the only one you care about for a looooong time that takes charming, though, is Area Heal at the start of youkai mountain).

Poison Art, which she gets at like lv8, is the best damn thing you can do until, yeah, about stage 13 or so when more enemies get resistant. Give her a Launch Earring and perhaps forge The Green Eyes, pump her permanent-infliction POW tree and a little learning tree, and set her off. It will not miss much on non-immune enemies, works on most enemies until that stage, costs very little mp and is all-target, and deals godlike damage at this point in the game with minimal effort for poison boosting. It'll kick serious butt.
It also makes the next boss fight absolutely trivial, but there's several ways to do that. For example, Nitori can literally one-shot the whole boss in one move if she's got enough levels to learn an AoE spellcard, and/or if you forge a gun. Or, you know, her chasers wreck it too for less investment, but not as hilariously hard as ONE SHOT. Poison/chasers also prevent the TPK counter from triggering.
Plus using it makes sure you can get the godlike Poison Guard formation as soon as possible, but it's not like you couldn't do that with almost no satori use.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 02, 2016, 02:55:47 PM
>Hypnotic Barretr
I don't know why that typo is there, 't' is located pretty far from 'i' (even in AZERTY) right? Man... wish I noticed it sooner.

Also i strongly object to Satori being useless. You can tweak her skills for almost any fight as needed, she's one of the few characters who has access to dark element attacks, she can be a really good healer/support unit as well. And Mad Thunder rips anything weak to elec.
I know she can be useful, but the problem with her is she doesn't have enough power or durability to be effective, and I don't bring Satori to that fight... leaving me with Sunflower Burst to attack.

Satori Fight Solutions -
Water Mode: Sakuya's Colosseo Field prevents healing. Bye bye, Elixir.
Earth Mode: Reimu's got a barrier to prevent status effects. Bye bye, Petro Cloud. (otherwise instant game over)
Fire Mode:I don't remember if this one was even a problem.

More Satori...
]
Wow, you can always count on Serela for strategy in Strawberry Bose's games.

Yeah, I use poison for a while until I replace it with Sunflower Burst.

Stage 6 - Netherworld (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/22688.html)

Lucky NEET strikes! Wish I'm that lucky IRL.

Well then, will you excuse me, I'll be having a vacation, and after that I will play my new store bought games.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on July 02, 2016, 03:53:27 PM
I don't know why that typo is there, 't' is located pretty far from 'i' (even in AZERTY) right? Man... wish I noticed it sooner.
Consider that its name in the formation menu is "Hypnotic Bullet". How you'd get it wrong in the first instance, but right in the next, and yet forget to fix the previous one anyway, I have no idea.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Validon98 on July 02, 2016, 06:35:26 PM
If I recall correctly, the image translator worked separately from the people doing the other translations, so they probably didn't coordinate and that's why a lot of the image-based text has all kinda of weird typos and screw-ups. It's present in some of the image files there were going to be used for DoD as well, but I ended up fixing most of those instances myself. But yeah, that's why there's an extreme amount of disparity between the Formation menu names and the ones in the main menu.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 03, 2016, 11:40:53 AM
I know she can be useful, but the problem with her is she doesn't have enough power or durability to be effective, and I don't bring Satori to that fight... leaving me with Sunflower Burst to attack.
The power is a somewhat legitimate complaint; although she can get near the other magicians power enough that she's not weak at all (she's got some pretty strong POW tree bonuses for that), she certainly doesn't surpass them apart from some special skills like Mad Thunder and some lategame stuff that's sort of nonsimple to obtain. Even Holy and Shadow Flare are pretty eh. That's mostly sidelined when using her for a chaser party because the point there is just she's got another multitarget to pair with Patchouli that nearly doubles the damage you're getting out it for randoms. Otherwise you've got to be using status effect attacks  (or be taking advantage of her variety with elemental+light+dark+earth etc which is pretty nice sometimes- she can always hit any magic weakness unlike Patch/Marisa) like Tornado's damage+stun or instant death physicals etc. (But the physical build is more of a postgame thing)

If you aren't interested in chasers or status support then you'd probably only highlight her for support skills and mad thunder... which you'd probably only bother caring about for party splits where you're forced to use her. Well, and Punish The Judgment, but that's in the end of the final postgame stage on one of the big-boss-tier random fights, soooo  :getdown:

Okay, actually reading the update now. About the Satori review- debuffs are weaker than Byakuren's, but it's got much higher accuracy if her POW tree is invested in, e.g. on postgame boss terminator it lands like 100% opposed to Byaku's 50% roughly. More importantly they -stack-, as well. And eyes mostly DO suck other than the poison booster, until the last two, although they might be okay for a Tentacle build... maybe. >_>

Character specific material drop rate is much lower than the normal materials and that never really changes, even though the rate does increase. It's the kind of thing where it's nice if it drops but it can never be relied on or hoped for. Postgame is the ONLY real option- that's part of the reason why crafting is limited until then. It would be so painful to miss out on Sakuya's trapezohedron-tier weapon! (Vyse Sword?) (That, and even with limited crafting you're liable to run out of iron and such as recipes start wanting 3~4 each, which while farmable, is a pain in the neck until stage... 23?)

Boss fight sounds about right. Yuyuko is the real problem, as seen, because she's hard to damage. You either have to debuff her mdef so magic can touch her (not even an option for those who didn't get byakuren), or painfully deal with EVA... or, preferably, take advantage of chasers being unmissable and being physical elemental, or poison. It's amusing that the two best ways to damage her are also the ways that prevent her counter. (And yeah, sparing the materials to forge a gun lets you potentially oneshot both of them using powerful physical elemental slayer attacks. They also ignore perfect evasion with some POW investment.)
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 08, 2016, 02:20:40 PM
Okay, actually reading the update now. About the Satori review- debuffs are weaker than Byakuren's, but it's got much higher accuracy if her POW tree is invested in, e.g. on postgame boss terminator it lands like 100% opposed to Byaku's 50% roughly. More importantly they -stack-, as well. And eyes mostly DO suck other than the poison booster, until the last two, although they might be okay for a Tentacle build... maybe. >_>

Boss fight sounds about right. Yuyuko is the real problem, as seen, because she's hard to damage. You either have to debuff her mdef so magic can touch her (not even an option for those who didn't get byakuren), or painfully deal with EVA... or, preferably, take advantage of chasers being unmissable and being physical elemental, or poison. It's amusing that the two best ways to damage her are also the ways that prevent her counter. (And yeah, sparing the materials to forge a gun lets you potentially oneshot both of them using powerful physical elemental slayer attacks. They also ignore perfect evasion with some POW investment.)
I do not reached post-game bosses during my first playthrough, maybe this time, I can finally reach it... hopefully.

Shame that Marisa get Instant Death'ed right after she killed Youmu, so I can't use chasers effectively anymore. Plus I want her to to use her bullshit skill.

What's the tourist spot besides beaches in Bali anyway? It's just beach, beach, beach, more beach, and more beaches. It's so booring...  So I just stayed in hotel everyday, only went for lunch and dinner. I love being a NEET.

Now that I'm back, I can resume my LP serialization.

After Netherworld (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23006.html)

Enjoy this filler while I play the next stage.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 08, 2016, 03:32:55 PM
Youmu is really not worth using in random battles, so I can't blame you in the slightest for benching her- I don't think I EVER brought her into them apart from stage 21 grinding (Which I didn't do at all on my first playthrough, either, other than some yukkuri kings- those random fights are HARD). She totally kicks butt in bosses but apart from one notable case you can get by juuuuust fine without her too, since damage is an easily replaceable role. edit:Well, actually, I guess I did use her some with generic sword/spear weapon skills in randoms. Only in the first half of the game where that was fine, though, that falls off pretty fast.

...hm. That and the
party splits
. Good thing exp rubberbands hard and levels don't matter too much.

Although I commend you for trying to learn Satori skills despite not liking her, apart from maybe picking up basic elements from fairy mage at SDM (you can use byakuren control for this if she's lv14+ yet, idk what levels are where anymore) there isn't much worth learning yet anyway, honestly.

Muenzuka is about the point I realized I had enough POW to start regenerating mp and actually using magic and chasers without running out of mp way too soon. Fun times. Before that I even had the magicians going mostly physical >.>
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 10, 2016, 02:45:58 AM
While in the middle of capturing screenshot

*My mother come in*

Mom: Did you really play a game like that?

YEN: Yeah, why?

Mom: ...


Stage 7 - Muenzuka (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23167.html)

Filler chapter.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 11, 2016, 03:46:22 PM
Damn, it's hard trying to juggle between IRL, my new games, and this game.

Stage 8 - Garden of the Sun (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23506.html)

My favorite stage!
Except for Cockatrices, screw them!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on July 11, 2016, 05:01:29 PM
It's funny how using Sanae (and proper strategy) really helps in general. I remember struggling against pretty much everything with Reimu/Marisa/Aya/Mokou/Satori, but it was my decision and it was still fun in its own way.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 11, 2016, 11:43:50 PM
Two overall simple stages and bosses, even if not exactly easy. Petro Breath is easier to deal with than Mind Blast...!

If you've killed an enemy using a strong enough poison (Have Byakuren use Hyper Trigger on Satori? I don't recall what the poison goal target was, but if you give Satori a full poison setup and use Hyper Trigger it should be met easily. 700 dmg/turn...?) you can go to the healing circle at the Garden of the Sun to get one of the best formations. How obscure... all the other periodically obtained formations are from the healing circle at the Hakurei Shrine. Hyper Library from the shrine can be a pretty nice stage formation for magic sweeper parties later in the game, not that you'll get it for awhile. Remilia and Yuyuko will give some formations at certain points/requirements, but that's also not until later...

Next time is FUN TIMES~
IIRC, the left side is easier for a mostly physical party and the right side is easier for a mostly magic party, which also means that party will be chaser-friendly. Split up accordingly and it shouldn't be too bad. Or was it the other way around...? I think that's right. The mostly-outside portion is the magic-friendly one.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 13, 2016, 03:01:29 AM
Two overall simple stages and bosses, even if not exactly easy. Petro Breath is easier to deal with than Mind Blast...!

If you've killed an enemy using a strong enough poison (Have Byakuren use Hyper Trigger on Satori? I don't recall what the poison goal target was, but if you give Satori a full poison setup and use Hyper Trigger it should be met easily. 700 dmg/turn...?) you can go to the healing circle at the Garden of the Sun to get one of the best formations. How obscure... all the other periodically obtained formations are from the healing circle at the Hakurei Shrine. Hyper Library from the shrine can be a pretty nice stage formation for magic sweeper parties later in the game, not that you'll get it for awhile. Remilia and Yuyuko will give some formations at certain points/requirements, but that's also not until later...

Next time is FUN TIMES~
IIRC, the left side is easier for a mostly physical party and the right side is easier for a mostly magic party, which also means that party will be chaser-friendly. Split up accordingly and it shouldn't be too bad. Or was it the other way around...? I think that's right. The mostly-outside portion is the magic-friendly one.
Cockatrices have more IND than Mind Flayer, but Mind Blast has higher chance to connect. (I think)

Yes, it is obscure, but thank goodness everyone keep gushing about it in the forum.

It's funny how using Sanae (and proper strategy) really helps in general. I remember struggling against pretty much everything with Reimu/Marisa/Aya/Mokou/Satori, but it was my decision and it was still fun in its own way.
I used Reimu, Marisa, Sanae, Sakuya, and insert fifth character (it's mostly either Aya or Nitori). I used this party until 3/4 of the game when the enemies keeps getting tougher and tougher, and I stop using them in final stages.

Man, the dialogue is so boring it's hard for me to riff at it.

Stage 9-1 Eientei (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23767.html)

Since the dungeon is so long, this will be a two parter.

EDIT: I had to not use Poison Guard because it will reduce every damage received to 0, and I need to analyze enemy's damage. It is that powerful
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 13, 2016, 10:19:52 AM
Mind Blast actually ignores some RES. It may have a higher base chance to hit, but I'm not trawling through the jp wiki to check. XD Sonic Stream actually isn't a half bad formation either, but there's not a lot of cases where you really need it. Maybe if you really need to go before some MIND FLAYERS, can reliably kill most of the enemies on turn 1 in general, or if your plan is to just run a lot; it's much easier to spam run when you don't have a few enemies moving first...

If you're lucky, you can get a beast-slaying (I think?) knife drop to really wreck up one of the next two bosses (Probably Reisen). It's actually Patchouli's shining moment as MACHOULI because double stab is one of the stronger weapon skills, but you can use it on any of the conventional attackers too.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 13, 2016, 11:28:01 AM
Sonic Stream

If you're lucky, you can get a beast-slaying (I think?) knife drop to really wreck up one of the next two bosses (Probably Reisen). It's actually Patchouli's shining moment as MACHOULI because double stab is one of the stronger weapon skills, but you can use it on any of the conventional attackers too.
Maybe I can use that since Mind Flayer is faster than Sanae right now.

Unfortunately, I'm not lucky in equipment department this time.


Despite I really like Nightmare of Rebellion, I still have no intention of playing Devil of Decline. Probably because I don't really want to play as the 4 main character (Reimu too mainstream, Meiling is probably the most picked protagonist and probably it's de facto main character, Yukari's always too shady)

Stage 9-2 Eientei (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/23833.html)

Another story while in the middle of capturing screenshot
*While fighting Reisen, my mother comes in again*

Mom: Is it Pokemon?

*Facepalm* Yes, Reisen does looks like a Pokemon.
Note: My mom only just knew Pokemon recently because of Pokemon Go boom.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 13, 2016, 02:36:01 PM
Tight formations can be useful for Reimu's 25-pow AoE heal abilities, but apart from that...

Next stage has an awesome theme. And a not-mind-flayer, of course, because we've gotta have those!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on July 13, 2016, 03:33:48 PM
Next stage has an awesome theme.
Seconded. I actually enjoyed running around inner Eientei because of the music. Plus Satori can learn lots of spells there.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 16, 2016, 04:50:57 PM
Tight formations can be useful for Reimu's 25-pow AoE heal abilities, but apart from that...

Next stage has an awesome theme. And a not-mind-flayer, of course, because we've gotta have those!
Yeah, as a jack-of-all-stats, I may not use anything to has obvious drawback.

I love the stage 10-14 theme. I even work on this update while opening the game and listening it's BGM on my headphone.

Validon98 makes NoR Let's Play, I make GoS Let's Play. One more person making DoD and we can complete the Strawberry Bose trinity.

Stage 10 - Heart of Eientei (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/24216.html)

Goddamnit fucking piece of shit! Now I remember why I don't like this game. With the support from MewMewHeart, I can beat one of the hardest boss.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 16, 2016, 06:40:27 PM
Commander Youmu is more for if you want to try to force crits on nukes, which in a few cases is an ideal strategy. But, there's usually better options. Apollo Break also does give a very large ATK boost to the slot in the back, so it's not a useless formation, but I only think I used it one time (for a chaser party with Nitori in the back. Parrar still basically works okay, even if you don't get the nuker with it... whoops.). Not being useless is something, considering most of the game's formations really aren't good for much of anything... especially due to the existence of Poison Guard.

There's several ways to tackle the fight, but as you used with Marisa, slayers are a good one; Nitori can do even better than Marisa if you forge a gun, letting you take Eirin down faster. If you use Byakuren to debuff, they hit like kittens, and it's not too hard to do it to Kaguya iirc (I remember Eirin being not-easy.). Just using Alice and Poison Shield alone makes the fight much better because Kaguya's nuke will only hit her iirc, but Eirin is still dangerous until she goes down... that nuke is scary. If you take down Kaguya first you can use Colloseo World and Eirin will waste her turns, but you'd have to kill her before the field goes off, so it's best to just kill Eirin first. Or, uh...
You can use Escape while Kaguya is controlled and she'll run away, whilst Eirin constantly tries to Hourai Elixir someone who doesn't exist in the battle anymore.

Even if you know what to do, they're definitely one of the harder fights in the game.

It's too bad Heal isn't very useful. It's somewhat nice because Alice has such high HP so it's concentrated power can be worth using versus other Satori Heals for that sorta, but coming up at the very start of the next stage, you can charm Area Heal (the best Satori healing skill by far- large spread, no cooldown with her POW tree, more than enough healing power) off an early enemy without much trouble (due to it having a very large AoE, so there isn't much targetting woes). I think it might be another one of those cases where you have to charm the enemy on the turn it's being used, though... support skills really do take a little work here, thankfully there's only a few to get.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Shin Rokuren on July 16, 2016, 07:09:46 PM
Just recently did that battle and was quite fun. Had a team of Reimu, Sanae, Byakuren, Nitori and Sakuya with Mokou as Commander. Didn't know Kaguya's heal was learnable. My main gripe aside from the obvious ones, was that I miss the old boss theme.

Hadn't quite used Alice at all in any bosses, except for the split route in the previous stage. At what point does she become that much required for bosses? Heard she's quite overpowered and I'm playing this mostly blind.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 16, 2016, 07:57:25 PM
You can get by without her, but she makes it notably easier. Not using her is pretty much a conscious decision to make things harder on yourself, rather than an alternate strategy, I'd say. Marionette Parrar and her other various skills (mostly parrar and little legion.) just drastically increase the survivability of your party.

But you can totally get by without her if you want to. You'll just have to put more effort into the surviving part of beating bosses. If you don't WANT them to be harder than they already are, though, you'd definitely want her in for most of them.

Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: MewMewHeart on July 17, 2016, 10:44:16 PM
Yeah, as a jack-of-all-stats, I may not use anything to has obvious drawback.

I love the stage 10-14 theme. I even work on this update while opening the game and listening it's BGM on my headphone.

Validon98 makes NoR Let's Play, I make GoS Let's Play. One more person making DoD and we can complete the Strawberry Bose trinity.

Stage 10 - Heart of Eientei (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/24216.html)

Goddamnit fucking piece of shit! Now I remember why I don't like this game. With the support from MewMewHeart, I can beat one of the hardest boss.
No problem dude... trust me that fight is a pain in the ass... NEVER AGAIN WHY I DON;T WANNA TOUCH GoS WITH A TEN FOOT POLE I rather be doing Chapter Conquest on Lunatic than that shit. (Which I'm saying both are ass.)
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Albireo on July 18, 2016, 12:28:28 AM
I might be a bit late to the Satori discussion, but I've always found Satori to be a great character to use for random enemies, and some bosses as well. The secret doesn't lie in direct offensive skills, but in her innate Super-poison Technique skill. Super-poison Technique is cheap (6 MP), targets all enemies, and actually deals quite high poison damage. Factor in her Trauma skill tree to make it faster and give it more IND to derive both hit rate and damage from, and The Green Eyes' +25% damage boost to poison, and you have a pretty great skill to toss at enemies regardless of any offensive and defensive stats.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 18, 2016, 12:41:20 AM
Yeah, we've talked about that a bit. It works amazingly well for the first half of the game. Later it's mostly either chaser party (her+patch=double alltarget and then more) or, especially once you get better mp daggers lategame (or just use a staff, but then rip damage), you can spam physical ailment skills like Death Zapper and the occasional mind blast and stuff. Or use her stronger magic skills like Mad Thunder along with stuff like Tornado for damage+daze.

And for bosses, support skills and the better magic skills. Mad Thunder is the only noteworthy magic for bosses outside of chasers she'll get until pretty late, though, and that's only -particularly- good on elec-weak bosses... at least there IS several of those after you get it!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Albireo on July 18, 2016, 01:30:05 AM
Ah, sorry. I skimmed the thread a bit and it seems like I missed that, oops.

But yeah, Satori is definitely one of my favourite characters. She's very good as long as you're willing to put in a bit off work to get some of her more unique skills. I believe her innate P.Def and P.Atk debuff skills also stack with Byakuren's, as they're technically different debuffs. I could be wrong on that though.

Heal and Leaf Shield are pretty much mainstay skills on Satori for me. They're both very useful in almost any situation, and Heal is very cheap as well. Petro Breath is also another favourite of mine, primarily for randoms. The basic single/all target elemental magic skills, Mad Thunder, Area Heal, Death Zapper, Mind Blast, Sunburst, and Starlight Barrier are also all really nice. Her innate status ailment skills shouldn't be forgotten either.

Leaf Shield and Starlight Barrier might be a bit troublesome to get, but I definitely think they're worth it. And yeah, Mad Thunder is a way better skill than Thunderclap to get from Iku. Honorable mentions to Hyper Fang Crush as well, since it's not too terrible of a physical skill (it's just that Satori just isn't too great when it comes to physicals), and it is semi-missable.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 18, 2016, 11:06:41 AM
If I did another playthrough of the game for some strange reason (Isn't two enough?!) I'd probably try physical Satori some. Tentacle+patk buffs and elemental weapon might work pretty well on bosses for a good portion of the game, but with it's heavy def influence I can't really say how much it would or wouldn't do. I guess if the vita version was ever in english (due to new content) except I'm never gonna buy a vita????

Satori vaguely catches up in physical power in postgame where you can start having a lot of her +physical damage POW percentage buffs on at once and her Eyes are actually okay to forge because it's the ultimate weapons. But she doesn't have much in terms of "ultimate" physical skills so it's just for randoms.

I peeked at the vita version. Akyuu looks REALLY weird. She had a full battle spritesheet in GoS (not that it's ever used) but for some reason it looks like they made her a brand new one, except the new one looks... questionable, especially compared to the other characters- she just... doesn't look right next to them. I wonder when you get to recruit her...
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 18, 2016, 01:28:16 PM
Seems like my weird dislike of Satori is almost controversial.

I guess if the vita version was ever in english (due to new content) except I'm never gonna buy a vita????

I peeked at the vita version. Akyuu looks REALLY weird. She had a full battle spritesheet in GoS (not that it's ever used) but for some reason it looks like they made her a brand new one, except the new one looks... questionable, especially compared to the other characters- she just... doesn't look right next to them. I wonder when you get to recruit her...
Probably not, NISA is grinding based video game company (which this game is not), If there's a video game company who want to port it, it's probably Atlus. I think I'll buy Vita if Fushigi no Gensokyo is released in english. Though my mom would kill me for that.

Really? I can't found any images of the new Akyu. Is she looks like Saya?

Bought Nightmare of Rebellion yesterday. Goddamn I fucking love that game.
But then, this happens.

(http://i.imgur.com/zJMG2c1.jpg)

This boss moves faster than you, kills you in 2 hits, and has Earthquake, a multi target attack that kills you in 2 hits as well. And you only got one chance to heal (it's cooldown is 5 turn, boss took less to kill you) unless Saya got her Last Word. Plus, this is the first time you ever control Mamizou, meaning you can't change her equipment (She hits like kitten), can't spark yet, and can't Doppel Advent. Come on man, this is GoS level of bullshit, not my favorite game!

Oh well, back to GoS I suppose.

Stage 11 - Youkai Mountain (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/24537.html)

Hello, my name is Your Everyday NEET but you can call me YEN. This is my first post in this topic.

My first fanfic idea is about a Let's play of Touhou Fangames by the girls themselves. They are going to play some of the hardest fangames out there that can make a normal person smash their controller. This fic is going to function as a cross between walkthrough and a let's play.
Is this idea going to work?
Back in my earliest day in this forum, I make this post on Aya's Writing Workshop. I got that idea when I fought this stage's boss.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on July 18, 2016, 03:13:58 PM
Quote
...............

What just happened?
Welcome to the joyous land of OHKO bullshit, unless you know how to counter it. =)
IIRC you'll need Reimu's status immunity barrier for this. Since Momiji's attack has crap accuracy, but frozen characters can't dodge.
Oh, and Reimu also has another barrier against physical/magical damage, so that could work too. IIRC both of the attacks in combo are physical. Or at least Momiji's attack is physical, can't quite remember. But that should be enough.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 18, 2016, 08:12:28 PM
re:NoR, that boss is vulnerable to Komachi's "cut your HP in half" skill. Suddenly it dies so fast it shouldn't be a big problem. Otherwise, surprisingly hard for that early in the game... also just in case you are unaware, there's a gameplay-basics english patch out for it right now on the Touhou Projects board. In general, NoR is still a challenging game like GoS, but the strategies to beat bosses (or set up your party in general) are much simpler and easier to figure out/set up, so in the end it's definitely an easier game. You're just not given anywhere near the same margin of  party effectiveness variation... which works both ways, you can't fail as hard but you can't god mode as hard with a great setup either.  (...arguably. Just pumping a magic user with all the best magic power up stuff and using the upgraded breaths and other magic goes a long way towards trivializing maingame randoms.)

If you die on fake boss Momiji and have death hints on, your hint is just "She bit me!" XD

If you want to ubermurder the fight, you can use elemental+slayer with gun and slaughter them (Momiji is weak to earth, which is less obvious than Cirno's fire weakness; beasts in general are earth-weak. With this and Eirin/Kaguya, the sunflower seed gun is one of the awesome weapon forges in the game, but you already beat those so~) but otherwise if you can just disable their combo such as CF7 suggested, you can slug it out any which way. Just use Sanae's evasion buff and some method of weakening water, whether it's Land, accessories/armor, Alice's element skills, etc... and some way you won't be frozen, whether through buff/debuffs or Little Legion and a freeze accessory or etc.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Shin Rokuren on July 20, 2016, 08:17:47 PM
So far I've done up to
Tenshi
without using Alice. Let's see if I can keep this up.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 21, 2016, 12:39:59 AM
re:NoR, that boss is vulnerable to Komachi's "cut your HP in half" skill. Suddenly it dies so fast it shouldn't be a big problem.
I thought that skill like that won't even work against bosses, in the end, I got a lucky Last Word. So I can finally continue- Holy Shit did I just kill Arare Yukidzuki in just 1 turn? Reimu and Marisa as well? Now the game will stop pulling its punches.

Shame I bought Nitori's new gun after I fought them.

So far I've done up to
Tenshi
without using Alice. Let's see if I can keep this up.
You could beat up until stage 19 boss without Alice. Final boss borderline requires her.

Stage 12 - Youkai Mountain Summit (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/24645.html)

From a bullshit bosses into a hilariously easy one.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 21, 2016, 02:34:54 AM
Hurray!

If you have any interest in chaser parties, next stage is the best place to easily pick up Satori's three basic all-target magics for it. You also definitely want Satori to get to the lv30 minimum (Commander slot hogging time?) and bring her into the upcoming boss for one of her best skills, even if you're not really planning on using her.

About Alice not doing much vs. Cirno, if her shield can't block an element at all, her +1000% protection bonuses still won't let it kick in, I think. But she does have some skills that specifically block X element for those cases if you want a stronger shield with more limited innate block ability, I think. This is sorta relevant for the upcoming stage, too... <.<
Oarfish counter everything with lightning breath, ouch...
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 22, 2016, 04:35:57 PM
While technicality I got wiped out only once, if I have reset count, it'll probably be well over 30 times by now. Unlike Validon98, I'm a reset maniac.

Stage 13 - Sea of Clouds (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25084.html)

I like how many enemies there are weak to thunder despite being a thunder based stage.

The next stage though... *shudder*
I'll probably won't finish it in a day.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Hanzo K. on July 22, 2016, 07:05:57 PM
I had a few issues with Iku myself...Though largely due in part to playing differently than you, and wanting to get Mad Thunder without beating her before that happened. :V
You would not believe how many times I had to reset simply because she used Thunderclap and Satori learned that instead. :ohdear:
I also didn't have Dark Sword at the time, so I had to make do with Weapon Bless(Earth). still hit comparable numbers though!


Now I'm curious though, what's the POW spread you've got everyone on? Take your time on noting it down though, I'm in no hurry. I just want to compare our runs is all.
Believe it or not, you actually motivated me into getting back into it. (Though now my time is spent on MHG, 7th Dragon III, and other such matters.)
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 23, 2016, 06:49:03 AM
I had a few issues with Iku myself...Though largely due in part to playing differently than you, and wanting to get Mad Thunder without beating her before that happened. :V
You would not believe how many times I had to reset simply because she used Thunderclap and Satori learned that instead. :ohdear:
I also didn't have Dark Sword at the time, so I had to make do with Weapon Bless(Earth). still hit comparable numbers though!

Now I'm curious though, what's the POW spread you've got everyone on? Take your time on noting it down though, I'm in no hurry. I just want to compare our runs is all.
Believe it or not, you actually motivated me into getting back into it. (Though now my time is spent on MHG, 7th Dragon III, and other such matters.)
I guess I'm lucky then. I only have to repeat twice, one because she used Thunderclap, and two because she didn't hit Satori with the Mad Thunder.

POW spread:
Reimu: I max her Barrier tree so that she can heal 3 persons at once while curing Permanent with her healing.  She got decent growth in her Spirit and Concentration since I want her to strengthened her light spells, and bonus HP and RES, though she only got 3 points each in her Exorcism and Gohei.\
Marisa: I lean her POW heavily to Astronomy and Laser to strengthened her overall magic and give her slayer to Warrior, Magician, and Giant. She also got decent 7 points in her Magic and Broom, this is at the cost of Power tree because I don't use Master Spark that much.
Sanae: Balanced POW growth overall that leans towards Wind Priestess, Miracle, and her weapon.
Aya: Balanced POW growth that leans heavily towards her weapon.
Sakuya: Heavily leans toward Time Stop and 2 Handed Sword with the rest only having 3-5 POW. +135 PATK? Yes please.
Patchouli: Since she's pure black mage. I got no need to put point towards her weapon and Knowledge Storage since it increase PATK.
Nitori: Heavily leans towards Research (Chasers) and her Gun. I don't think it's worth increasing anything else since it increases so little.
Mokou: I don't know which one of her skill tree is the best. I think it's her Fist and Phoenix.
Byakuren: She's amazing at buffs, so...
Alice: I maxed her Manupulation skill tree and I have 10 points each in her Craft and Dummy skill tree. She has no need to attack right?
Satori: I don't know which part of her skill tree is better. Is it the ability to inflict Permanent which I never use, or is it the ability to inflict Variety which I never use as well? I'll go for Third Eye instead, it got PATK, MATK +30 if you allocate 13 POW in it.
Youmu: My favorite stance for her is Manussya. I so leans her skill tree heavily toward it while giving the rest of it decent POW.

So that's my POW allocation for everyone I guess.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Hanzo K. on July 23, 2016, 04:51:20 PM
You could've just screencapped y'know. would've probably only taken...what, 5-10 minutes give or take?
As for Nitori, I've actually gotten ludicrous use out of her tree that has the Auto-Heal passives. second from the top, left side. she's got one in there that restores 2 MP a turn, which is a godsend. I relied on that and her higher-end Gun skills so much against the Eirin/Kaguya boss fight. Plus she doesn't even need Byakuren's help to use an Element, which will make her potentially useful to you in the upcoming boss fight, as Byakuren will likely be too busy buffing other people to pay attention to elementally-imbuing Nitori.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 23, 2016, 11:34:56 PM
Worth mentioning that starting in stage 12 and (almost?) every one afterwards, there's hidden (read:almost or completely invisible) chests with shards of adamantite and orichalcum. It will be pretty helpful if you get them; the wiki has images showing where each one is.

Tenshi might be a good time to try out Mad Thunder, too... Satori's got some important magic boosters in her learning tree and miscellaneous tree, and eyes suck once you're done with poison. You might need a solid Alice+Sanae defensive to actually keep her alive in that fight, but, that somewhat goes for most characters, actually...
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 24, 2016, 12:50:22 PM
You could've just screencapped y'know. would've probably only taken...what, 5-10 minutes give or take?
I actually screencapped them. But I don't want to fill the the topic with 12 pictures. Yeah, I'm weird.

Worth mentioning that starting in stage 12 and (almost?) every one afterwards, there's hidden (read:almost or completely invisible) chests with shards of adamantite and orichalcum. It will be pretty helpful if you get them; the wiki has images showing where each one is.
Yeah, they're pretty well hidden even I couldn't seen them.

Stage 14 - Bhava-agra (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25295.html)

I don't like this stage.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 24, 2016, 01:00:04 PM
Genbu's Swamp actually is a canon area, it's been in the official comics and looks just like it does in the game. (Is octagonally tiled swamps a japan thing...?)

Forest of Magic 2... I recall a variety of elements being pretty necessary to have around for the stage to go smoothly.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 25, 2016, 10:43:33 AM
Genbu's Swamp actually is a canon area, it's been in the official comics and looks just like it does in the game. (Is octagonally tiled swamps a japan thing...?)
Whoops... Strike 1 for me for not doing research before mocking them.

Beginning of Part 3 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25547.html)

In which I don't give a shit about any of the villains.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 25, 2016, 12:14:46 PM
Nice images there  :getdown:

By the way, I did an unnecessarily large writeup about Stage 19 for you in advance, so that you won't have nightmares about the
triple party split
.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Hanzo K. on July 25, 2016, 07:20:44 PM
And now you've caught up to where I am...I should really get back to playing this, now that I think about it...
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 26, 2016, 01:45:18 PM
By the way, I did an unnecessarily large writeup about Stage 19 for you in advance, so that you won't have nightmares about the
triple party split
.
I'm curious about your strategy. Surely it will be better than mine. Using 2 full parties to slowly wipe out one path at a time is very slow and tedious... but safer.

And now you've caught up to where I am...I should really get back to playing this, now that I think about it...
Go ahead then. But don't play like me who juggles between frantically keeping up with Serela and MewMewHeart in NoR and me trying to keep this LP on schedule.

In the mean time, I have been listening to Toono Dance 1. A lot. It is infinitely better than Battle 2 BGM of GoS.

Stage 15 - Forest of Magic 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/25629.html)

Reimu is a Grade A asshole.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 26, 2016, 03:29:57 PM
Yes Saya's friend comes up and gets saved if you don't skip the cutscenes :V And yeah, if you know exactly what to gear up for on 2/3 routes of stage 19, it's not hard to clear them out the normal way. It's just, well... normally you would have no idea exactly what to prepare for, resulting in nightmares.

Straw Doll Kamikaze is actually pretty powerful if you want it to be. It powers up with Alice's HP, and if you abuse a questionable thing in postgame you can hit obscene numbers with it... but it's just surprisingly solid in general if Alice has any patk to speak of (which she won't really for a long time, unfortunately, once the rainbow greave's attack power wanes off- why would you take them off, after all?!). I still used it for Yukkuris, even then.

Reimu in that cutscene is amazing. They make so many sprites for poses and gestures she will never use at any other point. (GoS does this a lot, actually. It's great!) Just to kick in how awful she is. <3

And, yeah, of course using a first tier weapon from game start, in late game, is not going to work well. XD Satori can learn flare and holy, but honestly, they kinda suck eggs and aren't worth bothering for.

And next is...! ...something really easy.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 28, 2016, 12:36:33 PM
Straw Doll Kamikaze is actually pretty powerful if you want it to be. It powers up with Alice's HP, and if you abuse a questionable thing in postgame you can hit obscene numbers with it... but it's just surprisingly solid in general if Alice has any patk to speak of (which she won't really for a long time, unfortunately, once the rainbow greave's attack power wanes off- why would you take them off, after all?!). I still used it for Yukkuris, even then.

Reimu in that cutscene is amazing. They make so many sprites for poses and gestures she will never use at any other point. (GoS does this a lot, actually. It's great!) Just to kick in how awful she is. <3
I know how to do it. With Sanae's max HP buffs right?

That's why I only use 1 portrait each character. Ripping all the character's expression will take a really long time.

frantically keeping up with Serela and MewMewHeart in NoR and me trying to keep this LP on schedule.
The bad thing about rushing 2 games at once is that you ended up underleveled in both games, which is not good.

As much as I don't like GoS, at least it's bosses difficulty increased steadily with sharp increase in difficulty during stage 10 and final stage. In Nightmare of Rebellion, previous bosses I faced only has 2 x 300 HP, which I can one hit easily. And then, next stage's boss has a whooping 8000 HP...
At least it's Boss 1 Theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRkGBUHRoVs&index=4&list=PLCrJxmTAGvNJgScn8Uw709nfLF2fdAH_x) is pretty catchy. 

Stage 16 - Genbu's Swamp (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26095.html)

Is that the boss for this stage?
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 28, 2016, 01:40:57 PM
For funsies I've killed her in literally 1 turn before  :getdown: It wasn't easy, but doable.

So, big dump- since the stage after next is the triple split, here ya go for stage 19!

...oh wait. It's stage 18. Well I mixed them up then. You know which one I mean.

This is the first stage you get Trapezohedrons, I think. These are VERY VALUABLE. You will not have as many as you want, and you will still care even in postgame since they aren't just for character-specific gear this time. I don't remember there being -any- armors worth using them on. Sakuya's Vyse Sword has -very- useful slayers (Hopefully you didn't run out of her specific material) and if you don't forge the Kusanagi, Youmu's Doujigiri Yasutsuna is almost a -required- craft for the final boss. But, well, if you can afford the Kusanagi you totally want it anyway, so. Anyway, that warning out of the way, onto strategy.

RouteA: Unlike the other two routes, the enemies here are actually pretty varied. You'll need a variety of elements and both physical and magical attackers. When well set up the other two paths should be breezy easy, but this one isn't- and since there's no one tool to use to win, all I can say is, you need to be prepared to take on any kind of enemy with this party- there's many that will force you to use certain types of attacks.

RouteB: A lot of the enemies are very vulnerable to instant death; time to bring out the Executioner axe! The HDDs and mind flayers especially are weak to it, I recall... this is -the- party to give your Launch Earrings to, no doubt. There's also a good amount of slash-weak enemies, and if you forge the Kusanagi, the slayers combined with slash and instant death will keep this area entirely easy to clear out, provided you've got the status resistance for it. Don't bother with any magic here (it won't work well on many enemies anyway, apart from not needing it), but do NOT neglect to outfit -everyone- for status resistances, even if you bring Sanae for RES buffs; I did say mindflayers, and the flowers use sleep.

If Nitori's learned any physical chasers yet, using those with executioner will bring not only good damage, but each chaser proc can land that sweet instant death; their damage is also boosted by IND for some reason (? It's weird, but true.), so it comboes well. Elemental chasers are not [? Element] and as such will not carry over the weapon effects like Death. There's some interesting applications for goofy weapons.

RouteC: Nearly (or literally?) everything is weak to light and/or elec. Even Satori's super basic magic like Plasma Ball and the star ones are useful (because mad thunder costs notable mp). You don't need physical attackers- but you do need some petrification resistance. And maybe Alice, too... if you bring her, this route is a breeze.

Notable details:Each path has an adamantite and orichalcon shard to grab. The generic wizard drops the Wisdom Ring III- and the IIIs are important because they upgrade into IV later AND you can get ANOTHER III to drop once you upgrade the original. I don't remember what drops the strength one...

You can learn both Psycho Blast and Shield Wall on Satori, which is a valuable unique MAtk+Mdef debuff (and much more accurate than Byakuren's, as are all of Satori's due to her POW tree) and a flat damage reduction support skill. Shield Wall requires Aya manipulating turn order to go first because it's very fast, and, as usual, you have to charm them the turn they're already planning to use it... and it's got a 2 or 3 turn cooldown even after POW trees since it's not magic. But it reduces all physical damage for the party to 25% that turn, and that can be seriously useful in a few bosses if you care (like the final one), without being an expensive spellcard like Starlight Barrier.

Before you fight the bosses, I'd really recommend having Mokou reach Fujiyama Volcano. I always got it before reaching them (the fact that you have to use literally everyone helps, she's gonna get plenty of exp in this stage like it or not) but if you don't, might wanna grind some, it's massively powerful and you need it. I have no doubts Reimu will hit Super Duplex Barrier by then with how much you use her. edit:Well you already got that BUT
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on July 30, 2016, 02:46:59 PM
So, big dump- since the stage after next is the triple split, here ya go for stage 19!
Well, those two stages are exactly the same though, I don't blame you.

It's going to be a lot of hell in the next stage.

Stage 17 - Genbu's Lake (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26253.html)

Never thought those guys could actually gave me a lot of trouble.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on July 31, 2016, 01:36:45 AM
Hourai Forest formation must be a typo. You get big bonuses to the character in front as said. Still, not a pleasant formation. I could imagine it being okay if you're like "For the penalty slots, this person uses instant death but has no real power, this is sanae for buffs, back has no penalty, and the front goes my big hitter with the kusanagi!" for route 2 or something, though. But... I'd rather do without a speed penalty.

Also, Remilia will be giving you some formations around now/when you step into the temple. One of 'em is a 4 person! At that point you're just missing Yuyuko's 4 person for Youmu dealing a bunch of instant death but, eh, you've got enough to choose from, probably.

Woohoo! Kusanagi! Sweeeeeet. Just the perfect time for Reimu to learn a good attack, too. Next stage shouldn't be tooo bad with my guidelines... equipping/setting up for it alone will be a lengthy endeavor, though.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 02, 2016, 03:51:08 AM
Woohoo! Kusanagi! Sweeeeeet. Just the perfect time for Reimu to learn a good attack, too. Next stage shouldn't be tooo bad with my guidelines... equipping/setting up for it alone will be a lengthy endeavor, though.
Like Super Duplex Barrier, that is incredibly useful.

A lot of my friends has been recommending me to play The Last Remnant lately. Is it that good I wonder? I heard it is also grindy, turn based, and has multiple parties... just like a certain game I let's played.

Stage 18-1 - Lakebed Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26470.html)

Like Bhava-agra, this is one stage that I really do not want to play. Even with Serela's strategy, this stage is incredibly tedious and difficult, and I'm just 2 level below this stage's minimal level. This is just great.

And in NoR, the Train Station got two freaking bosses for God's sake, all of them are equally difficult. Let's see, go back to GoS and it's tedious stage 18, or go back to NoR where Mamizou's rival's ready to kick my ass.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 02, 2016, 05:15:36 PM
Stage 18-2 Lakebed Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26629.html)

This game! This fucking game! I had a bad day today, and this game makes it worse! Just 3 stages left... Drag yourself to the finish line, NEET.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 02, 2016, 08:11:33 PM
Oh yeah, always do needles first since it's super short but can go sour. Kagami is the safest fight so she goes last.

Thankfully stage 18 being done should put the frustration out of the way. The next two aren't that bad (and the bosses are fairly easy), and then you're at the finish line. You don't even really need to fight anything in stage 21 (although running is pretty hard there...) 'cept maybe try to encounter some yukkuri kings at the last room after the checkpoint's been hit!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 05, 2016, 04:32:16 AM
Oh yeah, always do needles first since it's super short but can go sour. Kagami is the safest fight so she goes last.

You don't even really need to fight anything in stage 21
That is my mistake, I fought the needles last in my second fight because I want to continue recording new screenshot.

On top of very low escape chance, that place is cramped and filled with lots of enemies. So, no.

Stage 19 - Lakebed Temple Depth (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/26995.html)

I like bosses whose only strategy is Hulk Smash.

So, I heard that the last stage's BGM is so good.

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/2682619/2682619_900.png)
It's even written as such in that game's TV tropes page.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 05, 2016, 09:52:27 PM
If you stack Satori and Byakuren's debuff, the fight is a lot safer since you've got two layers to shrug off. Even Patchouli can take zeroes like that. Satori can also do incredible damage since she's weak to elec for Mad Thunder. She's not too hard if you can keep magicians alive (since magic is way more effective in this fight), although relying on debuffs that can be removed is somewhat risky- but if you've got a good strike resist accessory for Alice and use her provocation and parrar spam, it's not too dangerous, mostly.

The speedrun has Byakuren give her an elemental weapon buff so that all of the bosses attacks hit elementally, which is abusable in various ways. It's pretty amusing.

Full Moon Revenge/Chaotic Flowerfall is from the Romancing SaGa series. FMR is really strong earlier in the game, but it gets very outclassed by Sakuya's normal multihit noncards once you can devote the POW to make them more reliable. It does look pretty awesome.

The accessories requiring trapezohedrons to upgrade is only part of why you'll never have enough... ouch.
They also upgrade the reward code weapons from Rinnosuke's shop, and while most of them are eh and upgrading the exp sword is nice but not too important, it's pretty useful to upgrade the MP drain dagger; lots of people could use such an easy method to regain large amounts of mp, like Sakuya or physical status Satori.

And yeah, the orichalcon/adamantite stuff is almost exclusively postgame because it's actually not very hard to obtain those materials at that point. Just a matter of working for it. Otherwise you have to deal with very low drop rates on stage 21 random boss encounters... although they do drop some nice upgradable gear, it's very much a completely skippable thing for any but the most dedicated players.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 07, 2016, 01:35:51 PM
If you stack Satori and Byakuren's debuff, the fight is a lot safer since you've got two layers to shrug off. Even Patchouli can take zeroes like that. Satori can also do incredible damage since she's weak to elec for Mad Thunder. She's not too hard if you can keep magicians alive (since magic is way more effective in this fight), although relying on debuffs that can be removed is somewhat risky- but if you've got a good strike resist accessory for Alice and use her provocation and parrar spam, it's not too dangerous, mostly.

The speedrun has Byakuren give her an elemental weapon buff so that all of the bosses attacks hit elementally, which is abusable in various ways. It's pretty amusing.

The accessories requiring trapezohedrons to upgrade is only part of why you'll never have enough... ouch.
They also upgrade the reward code weapons from Rinnosuke's shop, and while most of them are eh and upgrading the exp sword is nice but not too important, it's pretty useful to upgrade the MP drain dagger; lots of people could use such an easy method to regain large amounts of mp, like Sakuya or physical status Satori.
Maybe I should've switched Sakuya with Patchouli or Marisa.

Heh heh, Cheeky bastard. We could changes the boss' attack to earth since we use thunder to hurt her and I have 5 earth resisting accessories, plus, it's counted as buff, not debuff, so she couldn't block it.

Trapezohedron are stupidly rare in stage 20. Dammit.

Stage 20-1 - Divine Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/27227.html)

I thought it was going to be an ordinary stage... I was wrong. It took me my whole weekend (With a side dish of NoR) just to get through the first half of that stage.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 07, 2016, 08:31:56 PM
Because of all the elemental weaknesses in this stage, chaser parties can be effective. However unlike earlier stages where you can mostly wipe fights with one element, there tends to be various different weaknesses in one battle... so it might be more accurate to say it's best to bring a lot of good elemental attack users. Anyway, you already basically finished the stage.

The "second part" is very short if you know how to solve the puzzle (or look up the solution). It's also the only place you can encounter the terrifying Hydra... I recall it having some nice drops if you're specifically set up to encounter it.

Even if you aren't set up, it's not too large, so clearing all the enemies and futzing around still is much shorter than the rest of the stage.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 09, 2016, 01:08:10 PM
Because of all the elemental weaknesses in this stage, chaser parties can be effective. However unlike earlier stages where you can mostly wipe fights with one element, there tends to be various different weaknesses in one battle... so it might be more accurate to say it's best to bring a lot of good elemental attack users. Anyway, you already basically finished the stage.

The "second part" is very short if you know how to solve the puzzle (or look up the solution). It's also the only place you can encounter the terrifying Hydra... I recall it having some nice drops if you're specifically set up to encounter it.
Unfortunately, I haven't use chasers since stage 5.

No, I don't know how to solve it. And no, I didn't specifically set up for that thing.

I'm going to be honest. I'm actually really scared of facing Strawberry Bose's bosses. Usually, before facing a particularly difficult bosses, after I reached the save point, I took a break, and set up my strategy before facing them. It's even to the point when I spent 3 days of strategizing when up against a certain boss in the expansion (Well, at least I first try it). Probably that's why I quit playing soon after. Even in NoR, I spent half a day setting up strategies against those 3 shitheads. Even then, my strategy failed because the buttefly always ruin my strategy in my run and the FUCKING DEER Mega Stroke me twice.

Stage 20-2 - Divine Temple (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/27433.html)

I hate Trial-and-Error! Not knowing that a certain boss will TPK you before dying? Ooooh, that's difficult alright.

I'm still really bitter at the fucking butterfly fucking poisoned me before the fucking battle
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 09, 2016, 03:31:13 PM
Biotopos is pretty easy, her TPK counter at the end is about all she's got since you can just overwrite her fields. Blasting her down with magic and Fujiyama Volcano, it's only a matter of time.TPK death counters are sort of cheap but she's easy, so, whatever.

Hydra requires Aya's breath reflection (and enough power to take it down, like youmu+byakuren), and is just about the only non-party-split time Aya is worth anything outside of the commander slot. Low p.atk, awful MP, support that isn't really worth anything in random battles (or almost any bosses, either)... it's really too bad she's not more useful, but that bad MP stat makes it hard to even use her half-decent physicals, which of course, cost too much MP to cast. At least she's a good commander.

I think it had a decent drop rate on trapezohedrons...

Dang, sounds like these kinds of RPGs aren't quite your thing. At least we're here to help you on the strategy part if you're struggling.

edit:Hydra has 25% trapezohedron drop rate, so if you really want to get more, it's your best bet.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 13, 2016, 02:57:00 AM
Biotopos is pretty easy, her TPK counter at the end is about all she's got since you can just overwrite her fields. Blasting her down with magic and Fujiyama Volcano, it's only a matter of time.TPK death counters are sort of cheap but she's easy, so, whatever.

Hydra requires Aya's breath reflection (and enough power to take it down, like youmu+byakuren), and is just about the only non-party-split time Aya is worth anything outside of the commander slot. Low p.atk, awful MP, support that isn't really worth anything in random battles (or almost any bosses, either)... it's really too bad she's not more useful, but that bad MP stat makes it hard to even use her half-decent physicals, which of course, cost too much MP to cast. At least she's a good commander.

Dang, sounds like these kinds of RPGs aren't quite your thing. At least we're here to help you on the strategy part if you're struggling.
That's what I do during my fight against her.

Maybe I'll beat that cheating bastard after I'm done with final stage and before fighting the final boss.

I'm more of an RPG Maker guy than a bullshit RPG one. Well, at least here I still have my sure fire strategy. No such luck for NoR though.

Stage 21-1 - Gorgon Barrier (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/27801.html)

Welcome to hell where all the enemies took twice as long to beat and a generic rock song plays 24/7
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 13, 2016, 03:18:05 AM
Unfortunately, a lot of the encounters in the next two maps are much nastier, so it's a dash to the finish line z.z Can't even hope beat the scary mecha-angels unless you're specifically set up for it (and not exactly easy then either)... and mind flayers, oh god the mindflayers.

But the last map, once you've touched the checkpoint and don't have to worry about game overs anymore, oooh, delicious yukkuri kings. Awkward to level up off since you need to bring a party capable of killing them reliably, (Aya commander, Sakuya to timestop, Nitori's guns, other various multihits, etc) but so much delightful exp.

...Lithos is a very goofy boss fight. Ontop of surviving her unorthodox attack strategy, in the way of killing her is lots of Divine Barrier and mdef, and I think evasion too...? At least she has two weaknesses.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 14, 2016, 11:15:57 AM
...Lithos is a very goofy boss fight. Ontop of surviving her unorthodox attack strategy, in the way of killing her is lots of Divine Barrier and mdef, and I think evasion too...? At least she has two weaknesses.
(http://i.imgur.com/OXZYVZS.jpg)
I fucking hate dodge tank! Strawberry Bose's main way of increasing difficulty aside from making the boss one hit you is making them very hard to hit.

Just like those strong idiot, cheaters, and fucking dodge tank in NoR, they have a weakness against a single element and weapon. Holyshittheyarethesamecharactertype! Strawberry Bose has no shame of using the same character archetype.

Stage 21-2 - Gorgon Barrier (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28119.html)

Welcome to my hell
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 14, 2016, 12:25:43 PM
Oh boy, here it comes! So, the Final Boss...

Unless you want to make things hard for yourself, the second form basically requires Alice+Youmu+Byakuren. Give Youmu one headshot goggle and the Kusanagi (or her god slaying katana, but kusanagi is just as good if you don't need it in phase 1) or you'll cry at the very end, and I highly recommend Byakuren's All Up party buff among the more obvious Dark Weapon and patk and heals (Actually, use her RES buff on youmu too if you've got any more slots, but it's not super important- it stops Vortex though). The rest of that party's survival support is flexible based on what you want in your first party. And when you're going into the fight- don't forget to put both parties in the correct party order for your formation! If you're using poison shield that's pretty easy though since you just put the tank first iirc.

The summon roulette can bring up annoying minibosses. So, just DON'T KILL THE MORE HARMLESS SUMMONS. If they're crocodiles or snakes, leave 'em the heck alone. If it's a turtle, well, that's gotta go, not much choice there. You shouldn't have to worry about minibosses most of the time since you'll only have to deal with a few summon roulettes this way. A couple of them can be killed really fast at least if they DO show up, but it's taking time away from the actual fight.

Anyway. First form, Anastasis does some pretty scary stuff, so you need some method of handling her spellcards, whether it's Duplex Barrier, Aya party evasion blinktank, timestopping past it, Satori's Shield Wall, Nitori commander bomb, etc. Her mdef is very low and she has the least Divine Barrier so she is the easiest sister to damage, magically at least; Mad Thunder deals hella damage, although I don't recall if it bounces it's damage onto the summons... Nitori chasing works very well in part 1 of the fight overall if you don't care to have her commander bombs for phase 2.

Biotopos has more mdef and Divine Barrier, less pdef. Fujiyama Volcano works well for her FISTING WEAKNESS if you don't want Mokou (commander or inparty reraising) for revives in the second party. She's got Mad Thunder, so you want your main tank (Dodgetank Aya works, since Alice is needed in party 2, but you can build any durable character for it) wants some elec resist, other than that she's pretty boring iirc.

Lithos has higher mdef and iirc a staggering 40 Divine Barrier (see a pattern?) so even physical attacks against her low pdef and hitting weakness don't do super high damage unless you have exorcism; tanky as f.  She still has status effects and Vortex and such so you don't get to decide you want Sanae in party two, you need that RES buff and status healing skills, and probably resist accessories on her so Sanae doesn't go out of commission unable to fix up your party. If you've got Reimu in this party, you might want her status barrier.

Second time around, Anastasis and Lithos seem more likely to charge up their specials, and Anastasis will kill you if you don't have the defensive measures I mentioned earlier. Other than that, everything goes about the same.

PHASE TWO. Kill it in 9 turns or you're gonna die harder than ever before, no questions asked. No weaknesses anymore, but they have a 666 damage petrification attack, so your tank needs some MYS resist to reduce that to a survivable amount and petrify resist. They've got like... that, Earth Shower (which is also painful all-target earth damage), and stuff I don't remember mattering at all. It's mostly just a damage rush. You -need- to be able to kill this in time so save those bombs! Sakuya's Timestop can mess up their pattern and buy you a little extra time, but it also winds down all of your party's buffs, so it's not necessarily amazing. A good chaser party can blow this phase out if Satori's in it using Mad Thunder, otherwise stuff like Fujiyama Volcano and Sakuya should be able to seal the deal. If you get them next to dying ahead of time, swap to Party 2 and start buffing Youmu up. If patchy is in party #1, after you get some damage out use Void Spirit to CLEAR THE LAND. CLEAR IT, CLEAR IT NOW. KEEP IT CLEAR.

PHASE THREE. Your tank still needs petrification resist. I think she has one spellcard that can sorta do instant death too but I don't recall it ever landing? Manipulating for dark is fine (the boss regens in light), but you need the 4 other elements to stay neutral or you die. Youmu is all the damage you need, just have everyone else present do their support thing. Patchy or Satori can cast opposing element magic (or Patchy's Void Land) to keep the land in check, but you should be able to damage rush her if you just went in with neutral land, so Patch isn't required (although it does add a little risk). If the land gets too high, use panic survival skills like Mokou/Nitori 3 bomb commander skills or Little Legion, Starlight Barrier, etc, but... the boss's land counter isn't guaranteed to go off the first turn it can, so it's a gamble whether you pick the right turn and live or do it early and die due to inability to stop it. Fixed 777 damage to all and big heal to herself from eating the land power. RIP.

You want either Reimu or Satori in this party for support like LOTS OF HEAL SPAM and emergency damage prevention to stop people from dying while Byakuren uses a heal instead (if you teach Satori Area Heal and Reflect Wall or Starlight Barrer or Leaf Shield; if she doesn't have any of those, she may as well stay in party 1 with mad thunder) and a commander with actual helpful bomb skills like Nitori, Mokou, or Aya. You can't revive people at all if you don't bring Mokou, Nitori adds serious survivability for if you get into a pinch, and Aya lets your healing go first so you don't die. BTW, if you have a spare turn for it while someone else prevents damage, I like using Alice's shield boosting field here, as it's basically a global party durability boost. ARE YOU USING THE AEGIS SHIELD? YOU PROBABLY WANT TO MAKE THE AEGIS SHIELD. IT'S WORTH THE COST

First party's commander is just whatever schmuck didn't make it into the other 11 slots. Their commander doesn't really matter. Mine was Sakuya because she's useless in party 2 and didn't fit into my particular party 1 setup, and Sakuya's commander powers are completely irrelevant, so.

...that should basically do it. >.> *Coughs*
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 15, 2016, 03:19:23 PM
edit:Hydra has 25% trapezohedron drop rate, so if you really want to get more, it's your best bet.
So, I farmed Hydra for it's Trapezohedron. Apparently, the game read my mind and reduces it's encounter rate to a crawl. Somehow, I met more Yukkuri than Hydra. You know what's funny? HOW THE FUCK DO I GOT A VERY RARE 1% MATERIAL OVER A 25% TRAPEZOHEDRON?! This game is messing with me!!! Anyway, it took me 45 minutes straight just to get 1 Trapezohedron. That Aegis Shield though... Hehehehe.

Load, encounter, reset, load, encounter, reset, load, encounter, reset, load, encounter, reset, load, encounter, reset, load, encounter, reset, ARRGH!!! It's so boring!!! Fuck those mini bosses in Gorgon Barrier. If I count my reset like Validon, it'll probably reached 150+ now.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 16, 2016, 09:47:36 AM
Stage 21-3 - Gorgon Barrier (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28293.html)

This update is another filler of me fighting the RNG, the game that hates my guts, grinding, and boredom.

I predict that the next update is going to take a long while because the final boss wouldn't cooperate with me, plus, I have a bunch of stuff to do IRL.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 16, 2016, 01:10:50 PM
I... I forgot the Aegis Shield takes obsidian. I thought it was something I crafted before the final boss in both playthroughs, but that's way too high of a requirement until postgame!! I must have used a small shield that's a step down... in any case, that'll make the final phase much easier, you really might be almost invincible! By the way, the Yata No Kagami and Yasakani no Magatama are godlike awesome accessories, if it wasn't obvious already. I often give them both to Alice along with Rainbow Greaves to cancel out magic weakness, and then Little Legion is like soaking damage into a pillow.

The magic-resisting one is also the only way in the game to resist Void attacks. This makes a lot of rather terrifying attacks much easier to mitigate since you can just Little Legion them away. >_>

About lv60 is good for the final boss (and you only even need to get all the way there on a few characters like Youmu; a couple yukkuri kings can set anyone's party up) but a bit extra certainly can improve your RNG chances. Wind of Miracles is a VERY useful thing to have around so that's a pretty good boon.

Rando-boss encounter rate can be a little frustrating, but as you level the escape rate improves immensely. Still, they're pretty intensely optional. At least their special equipment drop rates (not the forging materials though, whew) are pretty good. The other boss in the same area as the big giant blue guy (Hecatoncheries? I forget), anyway, it's Ambivalence, and it has Medoroa, and mindblowingly strong pierce-AoE void-element Satori spell... that costs 99 mp. Scary. With her mp reductions and a reduction staff it's usable...? I wouldn't worry about it, but it's worth mentioning in the thread for being so damn powerful.

Oh, and I think the last monster kill milestone is only 15k. Still, that's a crazy high amount. On my first playthrough I don't think I hit 10k until slightly -after- I reached the postgame final boss. You sure get some crazy recipes for it, though.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 19, 2016, 05:13:38 PM
Huh, I first try the final boss. I guess Serela's strategy did work after all. Compare that to my 2 years ago playthrough where it took me 3 days just to beat them, even on easy. Thanks Serela

The Final Boss (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28516.html)

You guys don't know how happy I am right now. After all the frustration, I finally finished this game.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 20, 2016, 01:58:28 AM
Congrats!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 20, 2016, 05:07:17 PM
Lesson to NEET: Never do 2 updates worth of content in a single day.

Epilogue Part 1 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/28682.html)
Epilogue Part 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29143.html)

So that was Genius of Sappherios. A very hard, frustrating, bullshit, game that can be fun once in a while. I would like to finish this LP, but unfortunately...

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/2801388/2801388_900.png)

There's still an expansion for this game waiting for me. I won't be covering it immediately though as I want to take a little break at this LP

(http://i.imgur.com/YNmIcFO.png)

To play some other game like NoR (I mean, almost everyone by this point already completed NoR and reaching the end of the expansion, while I'm still stuck at halfway point of the game with my crap agility and survivability, how do I move faster than my enemies and bosses?) and my unfinished games in my steam library. See ya.


(http://i.imgur.com/sJCH25y.png)

Well, that is to be expected. I guess I'll be taking a break from that game as well. Don't want to further frustrate myself you know.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 21, 2016, 11:39:15 PM
Oh yeah, that's one of the harder bosses in the game. IF you want a tip- make someone a full time debuffer (With heals on the side). Magic doesn't work well on her anyway so your magician is open. (Mystic might do okay, but I think she's got good mdef too? The debuffs are more important anyway) Buff+debuff makes her physicals miss and her attacks mostly survivable, especially when Akyuu's main skill is up because damn that magic hurts.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: the old guy on August 22, 2016, 02:14:05 AM
I know this is a old post, but:
Reimu in that cutscene is amazing.

Disagreed, Reimu may be a asshole in canon, but she's never been THAT bad in canon.

Also that scene was way too fucking mean for me to find it funny.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on August 22, 2016, 09:35:28 AM
Congrats on beating this bullshit game.

/me checks his save file to see if he wants to try to beat final boss too.

Party levels.
Reimu/Marisa/Aya/Mokou/Satori - 67.
Alice - 60.
Everyone else - below 50.

Nope, nope, nope. Not today. And likely never.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 22, 2016, 06:25:03 PM
Oh, GoS Reimu is definitely a huge asshole and not "accurate"- it's like canon Reimu exaggerated to a parody level. I can see it being too much for some people, but it works for me. <3

/me checks his save file to see if he wants to try to beat final boss too.
One or two Yukkuri kings would get the rest of the party up to speed (most people being below 60 is fine, and they will get DOUBLE EXP from yukkuri kings below mid 50s- which will explode their level upwards. Only reason you may need 2 instead of 1 is since Youmu wants to be lv60) so I wouldn't let levels hold you back. It's a hard fight though and takes a good chunk of prep, so I can't blame you for not wanting to do it!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Reptillian OC - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 23, 2016, 03:47:25 PM
I tried beating them at level 60s, the three days slugfest happens. But yeah, you'll need a good amount of grinding to reach comfortable level to beat the final boss and a great strategy to even beat them. Serela's strategy greatly help.

It's my birthday. Since I can't draw profile pictures, my birthday present will be re-opening my let's play. Welcome to the expansion of Genius of Sappheiros.

Expansion Prologue (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29346.html)

I think someone's trying too hard to be edgy.

EDIT:
Reimu: Yukari. You should learn from me and start trying to solve things yourself too.

Funny enough. Once she started solving things by herself, she sucks at it. In NoR, she has the highest death count among my party member (Granted, I built her as semi-support + attacker, but still). Enemies seems to have a strange obssesion with poor Yukari.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 25, 2016, 04:23:35 PM
Character Quest Part 1 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29630.html)

One fun moment VS two bullshit moment. Well, all is fair in the name of this game I guess.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 26, 2016, 08:22:27 PM
Lithos sure is a weird character to use. Pegasus Meteor Attack is learned in mid/late 60s and is pretty much a straight upgrade to Muscle Revolution, although Muscle probably has better EVA and if there's multiple targets, it lets you focus the damage on one. Her specialty, other than lolzing over randoms with Aging Drizzle (YESSSSSS), is that one of her passives Rainbow Wings buffs elemental damage by like 50%... so you can enchant her weapon with Byakuren and do major damage to elementally weak bosses with Pegasus Meteor. (Or just enjoy the +50% damage against non-weak bosses).

Although, you won't have Byakuren for a bit. Her rapier skills aren't that great, but she's got some status effects, at least, and they sorta boost Matk for her multitarget magic skills... which... work alright enough to use I guess? She's weird. It gets better when she gets Earth Shower at lv80, since it's boosted by Rainbow Wings, at least.

Cirno is... a dubious character. :T She can be pretty good for random fights, either to pierce levels of water resist for stable damage and some chance of freeze, or the better option, use her Ice weapon for AoE instant death with good damage alongside. Her AoE death physical attack on Ice is the best thing she can do, and it's pretty nice. But, apart from that, yeah, she's really not that exciting. She's pretty alright on ice-weak bosses? But not super special, still... (Her multihit attack with the Ice weapon is better for them then her magic, still. Plus it can let you get multiple chasers from Nitori, which is nice, even if they're showing their age now.)

Cirno is pretty important for Sanae's fight IIRC. Too bad after getting Mokou and Sanae the best she can do is be "good enough to use in randoms if you do want to use her", though.

...all the expansion characters are weird, but at least the others are more desirable than Cirno XD
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 27, 2016, 03:15:23 PM
Lithos sure is a weird character to use. Pegasus Meteor Attack is learned in mid/late 60s and is pretty much a straight upgrade to Muscle Revolution, although Muscle probably has better EVA and if there's multiple targets, it lets you focus the damage on one. Her specialty, other than lolzing over randoms with Aging Drizzle (YESSSSSS), is that one of her passives Rainbow Wings buffs elemental damage by like 50%... so you can enchant her weapon with Byakuren and do major damage to elementally weak bosses with Pegasus Meteor. (Or just enjoy the +50% damage against non-weak bosses).

...all the expansion characters are weird, but at least the others are more desirable than Cirno XD
I think Lithos' skill are all based around spectacle (since we have almost all of the final boss' attack), except this game is not made by Platinum Games.

I never use Chaser, it's harder to set up in this game and most multi-target elemental costs bomb. At least in NoR, the chaser is much easier to set up and more powerful that I based my whole strategy based around chasers. I can chase 3 magic in 1 turn, plus I can do around 700 damage per attack unless the enemy has more than 2500 HP or resists all 3 elements, I'll wipe them all in 1 turn. It can miss though (Which I learn the hard way when I fight the deer).

Almost all the expansion character are gimmicky
except for Yuugi whose gimmick is just Hulk smash
.

Character Quest Part 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/29869.html)

Now that I have Mokou and her Fujiyama Volcano, let's have some fun!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 28, 2016, 01:03:19 AM
Eirin can still use Starlight Arrow and mess you up. The fight's difficulty is mostly whether she actually does or not. Sanae is a pretty scary boss if you don't think to try Instant Deathing her summons, which... well, if you didn't know they were weak to 'em, you probably wouldn't think to try, making her pretty hard to do until you get some more characters.

Reisen is one of the best expansion characters. I'll let you cover the main gist of her abilities, but if you were so inclined you can easily use her as your main damage for -every- stage boss in the rest of the game (and a lot of the sidequest ones, once you get your status characters back) for broken-tier levels of damage- against some bosses it's not hard to hit 99999 without even targetting an elemental weakness. Her specific weapon gives her pretty alright attacks for randoms, too, along with her wide variety of slayers.

Also I think chasers are pretty amazing, you just have to pair up Patchouli and Satori and maybe throw in Marisa or Sanae (elec aoe when not buffing) or element weapons or something. In postgame though, her chasers are getting a bit stale, the damage is falling off, so it's too late for that- it only keeps up on bosses because of stuff like Sakuya's multihit attacks meaning you can chase like 6 times on a single attack for extra damage. Using her physical chasers with special effect weapons for lots of instant death or otherwise is fun, though, and some of her finals guns have extra slayers to use along with her element attacks to keep her somewhat relevant (which also carry on her physical chasers; being [? Element] is such a big buff for them). Weirdly, her physical chaser damage is boosted by IND...

...Nitori mostly isn't too exciting in postgame (They should have given her something more exciting than new elemental nonspells!) but she can hold her own in some of the fights, at least.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Eilaris on August 28, 2016, 08:38:57 AM
Out of curiosity, Serela, how does Sakuya with the Kusanagi fare on the final boss compared to Youmu?
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 28, 2016, 12:26:01 PM
Kusanagi makes other characters viable (It's about on level with Youmu's clearly specially-made katana for the final boss, after all) but you have to keep in mind the boss has very high evasion- and Sakuya's attacks have negative accuracy. Full Moon Revenge might not, but Full Moon Revenge is also kinda weak at this point in the game and iirc costs a lot of mp. A proc of "normal attacks hit twice" does more damage.

Mokou's Fujiyama Volcano would probably work with Kusanagi if her bombs/mp will last long enough? You can always just equip for more bombs, but MP is a little harder. No one else can compare, since Nitori and Patchy's bonuses don't boost DRK and Patchy's dark boost books only give exorcism on magic (Silent Selene does -not- do enough damage either way). Satori would be a massive "MAYBE." for Acala Sword or something if she could equip swords but she can't, and none of her late eyes are DRK and her DRK magic is NOT strong enough for this, so there's no way in hell it'd be enough damage. Aya maybe if her LW was up (it's a pretty massive boost- she gets power increases other than just moving twice) but she'd be fucking awful when it wasn't, so lel. And Byakuren's dark magic is too weak.

If you had a really weird set up that could use Nitori's all-chaser and physical chaser to attack with [? Element] chasers for Dark+Slayer, maybe, but I don't know how you'd get enough chaser procs for that to be worth anything. tl;dr, Mokou is the only replacement I can see that isn't "You could win if you can last long enough, but it's gonna take a LOOT longer than necessary." Maybe if you had both Satori and Patchouli as a mix of support and actually being set up for Dark blasting (I'm not sure if either would be better as physical or magic...) and Sakuya using Dragon Fang Sword or something. Plus Alice and Byakuren, of course. If you replaced Byakuren with Sanae to use her as a commander for MP restore, and put Mokou in with Kusanagi instead of Sakuya, maybe you could one-party clear. :V It'd be harder than using two parties, though.

...that was probably way more of an answer than anyone cares about :V:V
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Eilaris on August 28, 2016, 11:46:13 PM
Quite helpful, actually!  There was one other big thing I was wondering, which is:

Which synthesis items before the postgame are ACTUALLY worth making, besides the obvious things like Rainbow Greaves?
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on August 29, 2016, 12:33:34 AM
Depends on what your party is at certain points in time- don't make weapons for characters you aren't about to use a lot before the next tier upgrade, for obvious reasons. I'd make a snake at some point mid-game if you want to, the mp drain and decent attacks make Sanae pretty alright in randoms when she isn't buffing and you don't need to replace it for a few tiers since she's not a big attacker, Marisa can use some increased mp regen from any broom and doesn't need to upgrade often either, Sakuya's swords are all nice (just don't make a whole lot of them, or you'll run low on trays and iron!), and I'd highly recommend Vyse Sword because it remains very useful into postgame. I'd recommend Nitori's sunflower seed gun because it comes in time for doing awesome slayer damage for not one, but TWO bosses, apart from being a boost for randoms, but obviously if you're past that point of the game it's too late for that. Satori's The Green Eyes is good until like stage 13 or 14 where Poison Art starts being less godlike, but you really don't need to bother making any eyes after that until postgame. Some of Mokou's fists give nice special effects and they're pretty good in general, so make one here and there if you want to. The Deva Scroll is great because it's the only one with IND boost, the late ones start giving defensive stuff at some point and letting Byakuren get tanky, but that might just be postgame...

Goheis are pretty eh until the final few, Aya is hardly even worth putting in the main party unless you really like her so a fan is over-investment (if you need breath reflect just use her starter weapon), Youmu really doesn't need any of her katanas until the final few (She'd prefer to access generic  weapon skills in randoms), same with books unless you just -really- like physical Patch since it gives her AoE and an elemental self-buff.

Accessories are a "make them if you need them" basis. Stat boost ones for offensive purposes are obviously nice. Armors are sort of the same, if you really want a certain element armor for defending against, the robes give magic damage up for certain elements iirc which is neat (But don't blow all your elemental shards, you'll want to make the late versions of the robes too!). I barely forged any armors until postgame, and the only shield you care about making is the one you get at the end of maingame that's like a lesser Aegis Shield. The Yasakani no Magatama and Yata no Kagami are obviously amazing.

Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on August 31, 2016, 03:24:50 PM
Using her physical chasers with special effect weapons for lots of instant death or otherwise is fun,
(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/2875835/2875835_900.jpg)
Hahahaha.... Normally, I chases thrice in 1 turn, one of them should bound to connect right?

Character Quest Part 3 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30072.html)

My current motto: If the enemy doesn't want to play fair, then neither do I.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 01, 2016, 12:26:49 AM
(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/2875835/2875835_900.jpg)
Hahahaha.... Normally, I chases thrice in 1 turn, one of them should bound to connect right?
Depends if NoR chasers keep the weapon statuses! In GoS, the elemental chasers do -not- keep special weapon effects, so you can't do silly stuff 'til you get the ? element ones. I didn't use chasers too much in NoR (I was wiping the randoms hard enough with one cast of magic to start with, after all- I've been shown they're quite deadly in bosses though) But lesse, GoS LP update~

Yeah, unless a boss is vulnerable to petrification, the only thing Lithos can use competently in boss fights is Pegasus Meteor Attack (or maybe muscle revo for really evasive bosses). It can be tweaked with Rainbow Wings to be pretty silly though. Eventually
I think at 94 or 96 or something she learns a new two-bomb spell that does 9999, to anything.

Reisen's multi-hit skills on her suppository are pretty good, imo. But it only matters if you use her in randoms (Which she's alright at, due to all her slayers), because for bosses she's gotta use spellcards and her innate noncards for special slayer of doooooom. Nothing is too resistant to variety debuffs! :D

Making all the orichalcum weapons is fun. Finally everyone can taste their delicious special equipments, and with good bonuses on them to boot! Some of them have hidden exorcism bonuses, for some reason. Although until you get all your party members recruited, you can't get orichalcum very quickly yet.

The Vyse sword sure is gonna be silly in a minute now!

Some of the character-specific material quests are a little silly until you obtain really sweet gear, it's true... :T Getting the Magatama no Yasakani and Yata No Kagami both forged helps you BS through some, though. Reimu's really is just sheer luck... (although Medoroa sure is silly on Satori.) On the upside, on characters you hardly (or never) forged anything for in the main game, you get enough materials from chests without having to do their subquests at all.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 02, 2016, 03:09:31 AM
Character Quest Part 4 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30210.html)

I apologize for the shortness of this update. I swear I'm gonna tackle the rest of the quest in the next update.

I'm bored... I'm bored of GoS because it's quests are tedious and boring. And I'm afraid of playing NoR because I'm getting nearer to my nightmare (deer, along with her friends that needs to be killed twice). I need to play a good game.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 02, 2016, 11:50:40 AM
Marisa dies -really- fast to Vyse Sword via stuff like time stop or having Aya make you go first, so you can beat her first and avoid caring about sparks... except Alice actually becomes surprisingly terrifying if you do. I don't remember quite what happens, but something along the lines of becoming invincible most of the time... >.>

If you get Sakuya's Last Word up on any of these bosses, you can do silly one-shot tier damage on some. It's silly how strong her LW is. Also, her innate noncards are notably stronger than Full Moon Revenge, if you raise her accuracy enough to use them.

Nazrin's (and a crab in Stage 22) Kabuff +1 is learnable by Satori. A party defense buff, that's not expected... it's power should be comparable to Sanae's even with Sanae at max POW buff tree, based on me having looked at the move's stats in the JP Wiki.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 04, 2016, 05:25:27 AM
If you get Sakuya's Last Word up on any of these bosses, you can do silly one-shot tier damage on some. It's silly how strong her LW is. Also, her innate noncards are notably stronger than Full Moon Revenge, if you raise her accuracy enough to use them.
Yeah, I got it during Satori boss fight. And she dies faster than ants. At least this game doesn't force you to kill 2 40k HP boss in the same turns or else the boss revives her partner with full health. That's just bullshit.

This was the primary source of my strong distaste for this game. All drops being exceedingly rare didn't bother me that much, but when boss battle after boss battle after boss battle resulted in conversations with my friends that went "How do I beat X?" "Use Alice" "I don't use Alice" "Then... ??????????"
Validon98 is currently doing a no-Alice ru. In GoS and he seems to have a good progress in it (I don't how you defend against Tenshi without Alice). It seems he's currently in stage 20/21.

Character Quest Part 5 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30469.html)

Mokou wrecks the first part while Sakuya wrecks the last part of character quest.

Elixir may be cheap and useful. But good luck trying to learn that skill.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: CF7 on September 04, 2016, 08:56:01 AM
Validon98 is currently doing a no-Alice ru. In GoS and he seems to have a good progress in it (I don't how you defend against Tenshi without Alice). It seems he's currently in stage 20/21.
I pretty much did No-Alice run save for party splits using Reimu/Marisa/Aya/Mokou/Satori. Some parts were harder (sometimes a lot harder) than they should have been and some were not so bad. You can do some really fun stuff with Satori, if you commit to learning lots of enemy skills. And actually you can do lots of various fun things with the game if you're creative enough.
Tenshi's TPK is physical, so you can defend against it using Reimu's phys-negating barrier or use Nitori's camouflage. Plus after the initial opener, she telegraphs the use of the TPK the turn before she's going to use it with a "Drill" move, so you know it's coming. Her other attacks are not threatening enough and you can get by with just healing.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 04, 2016, 11:27:27 AM
Remilia is an awesome sweeper for random fights. IIRC her javelin skills are mostly better than her innate ones (Unless you need higher accuracy or spellcards!), and Star of David is nice sometimes for HP% damage. Unfortunately her stronger spellcards have too much cooldown for her to be much special in bossfights, but she shines gloriously for randoms, so it's alright.

Darkonium Marisa quest isn't so ba-oh wait, that's because I fought it using both super accessories... right... >.> I don't remember if that's one of the quests I ever -stopped- doing that or not. If you just put on some physical resist (I don't recall which kind...) and use a healing commander you should be able to? I guess you might want to wait for a better weapon.

Elixir/Raise Dead both require Reimu's lv90 skill to learn. Emphasis on REQUIRE. If you use charm and luckgarbage your way into getting it used on Satori, it literally just doesn't work right because revives. Unless Elder Dragon has it in the Control list after all, but it's phenomenally difficult to control him, so that's not even worth it. In any case, iirc when I used Raise Dead it fullheal'd. Having revives on someone other than Sanae is nice.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Validon98 on September 04, 2016, 02:30:39 PM
Oh, NEET mentioned my run. Yeah, I'm around on stage 20, the only bosses I've ended up using Alice for were Reisen and Chichiro or whatever the name of the octopus maid was, so in other words, only the party splits (which means she's super underleveled, but I'll probably throw her into my commander slot during stage 21 to boost her up so Lithos won't get her starting level gimped). Dunno why I'm doing it, but I guess after like... three or so runs where I didn't experiment too much (last run was the first where I didn't get Mokou and Byakuren early, truth be told), it's nice trying to play the game without relying on one character. It's given me a LOT of appreciation for Mokou's Xu Fu's Dimension, which I've pretty much never used before, on top of things like a true full chaser, party, etc.

As for Tenshi, you don't get Reimu's multi-target physical/magical damage blocking barrier until somewhere around Lakebed Temple even if you keep up on her leveling (I didn't get it until stage 20, actually). You instead use her barrier that nulls the four basic elements on turn one, and by that point you should have gotten Sanae's defensive buffs up on top of shifting the Land away from Earth enough that further casts don't do much more to you. Also, Earth resistance accessories. Those help a lot.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 06, 2016, 11:59:45 AM
Character Quest Part 6 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/30739.html)

This will be the last time I tackle those tedious character side quests. I fucking hate those quests!
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 07, 2016, 02:41:36 AM
Some of the quests are fairly annoying, especially in terms of locating them. Thankfully you can skip doing ones for characters you didn't forge multiple weapons for. The quest sets are static too, so especially once you beat Stage 22 and unlock the Kourindou bosses (wonderful exp farms and mass forging funtimes), you don't generally have to do many annoying ones (Although I eventually get tired of fighting the Terminator... :T Sometimes that fight doesn't go well.). Granted, some kourindou bosses are hard, but most of them are really easy if you know what you're doing. (Elder Dragon and Otherworld Challenger (not-royal-duke) are the hard ones, Terminator is a runner up, the rest are e.z.! Mind Flayer for awesome exp farm times, woohoo instant death weakness! It even shows up twice in a row regularly!)

Cirno's is the hardest character quest if you don't have the super tank accessories yet. It's not entirely trivial even if you -do- have them... at least with Reimu's if you have bad luck you can just Run and try again and it's usually on the first map. And yeah, if the fight isn't going well, I'm pretty sure you're allowed to Run on these and just start the fight over.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Golbez on September 10, 2016, 03:08:41 PM
I liked the personal quest. They can teach you about the abilities of the characters.
For Reimu I specialized her into swords and teamed her up with Nitori. Still a nasty one.
For Cirno I think there was some way to heal her when doing damage, combined with her counter move.
Byankuren I had the most trouble with, you can give her some life draining knife and perfect-resist her but it can easily go wrong.
Well, thats what I remember, It was quite some time ago since I've played this. :)
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 10, 2016, 11:26:14 PM
Ooh, using Nitori's no-evasion commander skill for Reimu's is a good idea.

Byakuren is definitely luck-based but Perfect Resist gives you a pretty high chance of living. Whilst Patk Up+Elec Weapon on a good dagger (so you get hp drain from the double-attack skill) kills it at a good pace.

Cirno, I forgot, magic reflect makes it much easier to survive through without the ultra accessories... provided you don't get hit by a fire spell on the turns reflect isn't up. Just one or two generic physical resist accessories and Remilia commander drain gets you through everything else, with counter up to help damage. If you don't care about using Cirno though, you don't need to bother with it.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 11, 2016, 04:22:26 AM
For Reimu I specialized her into swords and teamed her up with Nitori. Still a nasty one.
For Cirno I think there was some way to heal her when doing damage, combined with her counter move.
Byakuren I had the most trouble with, you can give her some life draining knife and perfect-resist her but it can easily go wrong.
I don't need to reduce enemy's EVA to 0, all I need is to penetrate its Perfect Dodge.
Cirno regens greatly from water. Cirno's magic Reflect makes is easier for her to die because 6 of the fairies use physicals.
That disk's HDD Crash penetrates 50% of her RES. So yeah, its all luck based. You can use Plasma Knife from angel in stage 21. Or you can silence it.

Stage 22 - Underworld (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31085.html)

Think this is easy. Just wait for the next stages.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 11, 2016, 01:29:26 PM
Penetrates 50% RES, but even with only half of a Perfect Resist you're pretty good. The RES boost is pretty huge- good for stopping Vortex in other situations. (Useful on your nuker in boss fights with vortex, or even cast it on the Terminator himself!) Plasma Knife makes the fight a little faster but it's really not necessary, silencing it is a good idea though- what's that from, the orichalcon knife...? Hmm. (Or just casting it once you get to that chunk of the fight, but I'm not sure how good the accuracy is to make it worthwhile)

Magic Reflect doesn't make it easier to die :S It's one of Cirno's own skills so it's not like it uses your accessory slots and you need to stay under a certain amount of damage per turn. You might want all three accessories for physical resists, but I'm pretty sure I've beaten it with less because you can drain/regen all your hp between turns as long as you're not getting one-shot (or paralyzed by the axe user, iirc). Either bring a fire robe or hope you don't get fire'd whilst reflect isn't up (Use Perfect Freeze or something on that turn to hopefully stop the mages from moving, chance of Cirno getting melted is fairly low).

Straightforward stage with straightforward boss! Evasion works pretty well on her too. If Alice has blunt resist, her provocation skill and Poison Shield pretty much end the fight already. Reimu is capable of blasting her to smithereens due to light weakness. tl;dr, she's easy peasy no matter what way you slice it. About as straightforward of a character to use, too... HULK SMAAAAASH! Not sure if she's worth using in randoms with how often she'd be limited to her (Albiet quite strong) normal attack, but when it comes to bosses, all you need is a sweet slayer weapon (and/or Byakuren enchantment for weakness) and high enough level for her better skills, wham~ Berserker Soul can be quite good too with multihitter weapons or otherwise, and with 101 IND (or a cast of Hyper Trigger!) it'll last 3 turns instead of 2. Theoretically you can berserk her to raise her attack power during it too, but I'm not sure if it's worth doing... never tried it out, maybe it's good?
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS The World Again - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 12, 2016, 01:23:12 PM
Magic Reflect doesn't make it easier to die :S It's one of Cirno's own skills so it's not like it uses your accessory slots and you need to stay under a certain amount of damage per turn. You might want all three accessories for physical resists, but I'm pretty sure I've beaten it with less because you can drain/regen all your hp between turns as long as you're not getting one-shot (or paralyzed by the axe user, iirc). Either bring a fire robe or hope you don't get fire'd whilst reflect isn't up (Use Perfect Freeze or something on that turn to hopefully stop the mages from moving, chance of Cirno getting melted is fairly low).
I used her Magic Reflect on turn 1 during the boss fight. It gets me killed instantly. I know, stupid move.

Sidequest Superboss Part 1 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31425.html)

I have a rotten luck.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 12, 2016, 02:37:08 PM
Killed instantly? You still definitely need to equip physical resist accessories. Then you use Remi drain on turn two to refill your HP as you start manipulating the land to get regen going.

For the hydra, you don't necessarily need Alice- you can just boost Aya's evasion and debuff Acc to dodge fang crushes. However, it's a little more reliable to use Alice in case the back gets fang crushed. Reisen can do 99999 on it- try inflicting Poison too along with hitting 5 debuffs!

Medoroa is pretty sweet, but it's not very spammable.... the damage gets pretty high with some Matk tweaking and a buff, though. At least Satori gets some MP cost reductions in her pow tree, and some staves do it, but until you can craft the Azoth, it remains real expensive. And meteor, sadly, sucks eggs. There's only a few magic skills that are really worth using in postgame, like Mad Thunder. In postgame I actually used her with her charm-inflicting final eye (it doesn't say it does charm, but it does) or the mp drain dagger and spammed (mostly physical) status skills in randoms. Once you can grab Punish the Judgment, though...

Mech Dragon is really easy. If you give Aya mystic resist and evasion you're pretty much set to wail on it with ice until it dies. Evolution Breath is the only dangerous attack it's got. Cirno is actually pretty good here if you forge her Ice weapon, although it's about the only boss she's much good for.

With a party of Alice/Byakuren/Sanae/Satori/Reisen you can easily kill the obsidian boss, too. Debuff it to hell (Satori's are more accurate then Byakuren with her Id tree, so she's worth taking- and she's got poison!) and special slayer it into oblivion. It's not that hard to debuff and afterwards it does zeroes. What an easy boss.

If you want to fight the Terminator, Alice/Byakuren/Satori/Marisa/Patchouli is probably the easiest way at first, although there's other ways to get the damage if you want to level Nitori (ostracon gun) or Lithos or something. Aya commander 3bomb first turn, if Byakuren's patk debuff doesn't land you have to reset, but Satori's lands about 100% of the time and then she does top tier damage with Mad Thunder afterwards as Marisa/Patch wail with elec and elec boost field. Refresh Byakuren's debuff ahead of time as it gets a little low, and at some point CAST PERFECT RESIST ON THE TERMINATOR because the main worry of losing is that it casts Vortex and dispels itself.

...Elder Dragon and the devil's heart fight are legitimately hard to do before you reach stage 27. You can beat the Dragon earlier if you really want to though (Kusanagi is nice!) and the devil is beatable if you get Reimu to 99 instead. :V (Otherwise for the devil you need probably Yuugi's Super Aja weapon which is unlocked after beating stage 26 iirc, or Satori's ultimate nuke spell from stage 27.)


...stage 23 is actually kinda hard. Stage 24 is easier by a long shot. There's a reason I brought Satori to spam stasuses for 23. x.x Hmm, with a strong stab weapon, though... what else were those dang beholders weak to? Instant Death? I don't remember which status was better to use. Sakuya's IND tree and Power Direction skills might be handy.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 17, 2016, 06:20:25 AM
I might as well describes the Vita-exclusive character.

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/2963265/2963265_900.png)

In the PSV version of GoS, Akyu has been undummied out. She has above average HP (her HP is higher than Reimu's or Lithos'), low MP, and even worse stats than Satori, strangely her stats growth explodes when she's Lv99. Her unique weapon is Brush, basically a cross of spear and rod, with good support skills. She can equip up to medium armor and shields. Using her Gensokyo Chronicles, she can copy enemy's skills by killing them herself. Her skill is divided into 4 forms. Magician form gives her all sort of mid-top tier spells, Warrior form gives her all sort to top tier physical attack including second tier elemental breath, Insect form gives her lots of debuff skills, and Aquan form gives her really good support skill. In short, she's a good multiform jack-of-all stats. She does have a weakness though: Her lives and bomb are just 1 and 2 respectively. Die once in any battle, you can't use her anymore. Her Last Word is Gensokyo Chronicle, it reduces all damage against the party to 1/3 for that turn only.

On top of being a good jack-of-all-stats, she's also an AMAZING support. Her Commander skills are:
Passive: Item Drop Rate +100% (Yes, she doubles item drop rate)
Support 1: Treatment: Cure Permanent and Variety status, and restore HP to the whole party
Support 2: Blast: Damages all enemy. Damage: High

Her skill tree consists of Poetry Wing, Record, Memorization, and Chronicle. Poetry Wing increases her HP, MP (up to 50% and 40% respectively), Lives, and Bomb. Record strengthens her physical attack. Memorization strengthens her magical attack. And Chronicle increases her gained experience and party experience value as well. (Note: Her 20 POW skill tree except for Poetry Wing increases her lives by 2). Increasing her Brush skill tree gives her small boost of PATK, MATK, ACC, Physical Deflect, and gives her healing skills and Mystic based attack.

Disclaimer: This information may be wrong though as I can't read Japanese that well.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 17, 2016, 06:23:36 AM
...stage 23 is actually kinda hard. Stage 24 is easier by a long shot. There's a reason I brought Satori to spam stasuses for 23. x.x Hmm, with a strong stab weapon, though... what else were those dang beholders weak to? Instant Death? I don't remember which status was better to use. Sakuya's IND tree and Power Direction skills might be handy.
Status + Reisen = good way to kill enemies. Nitori's 6th tier weapon slays Transcendent. But it's counter though...

Stage 23 - Forest of Magic 3 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31584.html)

To think I spent 3 days strategizing against that boss when answer is just right in front of my face:
Yuugi
.

Note: After this stage, I will effectively play the game blind as this is the last stage I play 2 years ago.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 17, 2016, 12:06:49 PM
Woohoo, onto easy stage.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 18, 2016, 02:15:40 PM
Stage 24 - Garden of the Sun 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/31919.html)

Serela's right again. This stage is easy.

But still, as you go on, your offensive and defensive option against boss becomes increasingly limited from here on out.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 19, 2016, 02:15:14 AM
Easy stage, easy boss. You might not have a lot of offense options, but it's not a very intimidating fight either, so eh. After these two fights your options -increase-, really, because you don't have quadruple hatreds crowding up the fights and necessitating Reimu along with whoever else. (Technically, Reimu is still a pretty important option for the next fight though, come to think of it... *coughs* But there's a few other ways around it! ...err... one or two other ways? >.>)

About Hina's last phase I was mentioning there- Normally, Reimu's unreflectable light attacks are the only real option for finishing the Hina fight off, but you can also Reflect attacks back at Hina (Cirno, Satori's Reflect Wall, Mirror Shield), and I'm not sure but you might be able to Reflect a dispel onto her or use Satori's Vortex? (Learn from terminator, probably) Although, unless you want to be weird, Reimu's the best option. Satori's Breaths and Marisa's lasers work, but you'd have to tank an awful lot of counters to beat the final phase that way. Hmm, I wonder if I'm forgetting any other unreflectable attacks... I don't -think- time stopping prevents reflection...?

Getting through the middle of the fight is easy. Anyone with a staff (or Sanae/Reimu) have magical dispels, and Satori/Reisen have physical dispels (plus Reisen does crazeballs damage as always), which let you dispel both of her normal barriers. Plus Reimu/Marisa can just outright ignore the magic reflection barrier. She's weak to dispel, so it's easy to inflict. Keep in mind that in order to be able to finish the fight, you have to be able to stop her regen- whether through preventing Dark land from building (Reimu or Patchouli's land skills), from Sakuya's Colloseo World, or from a strong enough poison. Otherwise you literally cannot trigger her final phase and she will refuse death.

But yeah, lots of materials! That's good, because people who craft a good amount of stuff in maingame will run out trying to craft all the orichalcon weapons... not to mention all the steel you'll go through trying to make armors, ouch.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 20, 2016, 11:39:07 AM
Turning the Land to extreme light is very easy, my biggest problem is damaging her fast enough as to not cause her bitch-fit. Reimu and Marisa couldn't possibly takes out 120000 HP by herself.

Stage 25 - Muenzuka 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32204.html)

Shame that she is not the culprit of the incident. I actually likes her scene as a villain. But this part is called VS Generic Villain of Doom, not VS Vengeful God.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 20, 2016, 06:31:33 PM
She might resist attack down, but all the other debuffs work fine, so Reisen can do silly damage as usual and then Reimu blows her up. Alice takes all of Hina's bite away anyway.

The next stage uses mind flayers as enemy markers, but it doesn't actually HAVE any mind flayers... I guess they just wanted to embody the player's own hatred.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on September 26, 2016, 07:27:10 AM
Tried Devil of Decline for 1 hour. Ended up not liking it.

Stage 26 - Dark Space (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32345.html)

Offensively meh (except for bullshit), defensively insane, that's still the theme for all late bosses of Genius of Sappheiros.

Forgive my horrendously slow update recently. My college work piled up.

EDIT: Something I noticed as well: I'm playing lesser version (and translation) of this game. Something I learned the hard way when playing DoD.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on September 27, 2016, 01:55:13 AM
About the version, it's fine. Literally the only difference that I know of (including translation wise) is the newer version fixes an exploitable bug with the hexagram miniboss fairies in subquests and such.

This stage is a bit of a doozy to explore without a minimap, but fairly trivial with one...

Reisen and Mokou also work well on the boss. But Reisen works well on literally every boss in the game, so. Dying to it's nuke is annoying... Alice, what would we do without you?

Coming up next, a really long stage, surprising no one. Don't forget to check Akyuu now for your new recipes, and again after facing the super final boss once iirc! The super final boss is a good bit less forgiving in party formation and strategy, though. Well, unless you get super overpowered of course, or learn Punish the Judgment for Satori. What a silly skill. The Seraphim can be taken on without issue to learn it if you use Nitori's Chameleon Camoflague, I... think? It's useful for killing the subquest boss for devils hearts in any case, but those aren't super important anyway. You don't really use Satori though, so this is more a comment for others :V
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on October 02, 2016, 11:22:22 AM
If I make Let's Play of DoD and NoR (which is very unlikely), I would name it.
DoD: The Power of Cuteness Will Save The World (Guess why)
NoR: When Yukari's Hatedom Unite (Enemies in NoR loves to target Yukari for unknown reason)

Stage 27 - Depths of Resentment (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32738.html)

First Half of Stage 27 Stream (https://www.twitch.tv/youreverydayneet/v/92321237)

Geez, that stage annoys the hell out of me and even causes me to rage for a while.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on October 03, 2016, 03:16:20 AM
Looong stage. Also, Cirno's ult.weapon is actually pretty good in the final boss, but it doesn't really matter if you just use her magic instead (your damage will be lower... but you'll still be perfectly fine) so whatever. Remilia is pretty solid for randoms but has almost no real use in any bosses (She can blink tank in the final boss! Buuuut you have to use everyone anyway.) so it's not surprising you don't really use her, either.

The expansion characters are really... weird... they have super limited scopes of usefulness. Lithos is -almost- flexible but has such a stiff moveset, albiet a quite useful one, Cirno+Remi are almost exclusively for random enemies, Yuugi is so one-trick pony it's silly, and Reisen... well, apart from her tiny moveset Reisen is actually fairly good in randoms -and- annihilates every boss. Jeez Reisen.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on October 17, 2016, 04:09:10 PM
It's a shame though, I used Remilia often in my first playthrough. I guess she's been overshadowed by Reisen.

Finally, after 2+ weeks of me burning through Nor and beating the Final Boss, mental anguish due to stress, and vacations with my girlfriend, I'm back to this LP. My last 2 reasons doesn't belong in the same sentence doesn't it?

Sidequest Superboss Part 2 (http://youreveryneet.livejournal.com/32857.html)

Looks like I have to do more grinding and get everyone to level 85-90 and their ultimate weapons and armor before I could face the final boss.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Serela on October 17, 2016, 10:24:38 PM
Yeahh, mixing the max hp buff and the buff-buff causes a basically gamebreaking level of silly to occur. And if you actually build Alice offensively (to some degree) then she can actually really deal some pain, because increasing max hp actually directly increases the power of Straw Doll Kamikaze- unlike all other attacks in the series based on hp!

I wouldn't worry about most of the armors. Half of the character armors are really just not notable other than giving bombs, and most of the other half isn't a notable upgrade either. They also require more of the character material than the weapon for some reason. (At least it's not THREE anymore, what the hell?)

Remi's sidequest isn't bad if you use her high-accuracy skills with a good pierce weapon of some sort and go for evasion, because she can nearly always evade their physicals. (Or you can increase your resistance to them.) But yeah, hitting the thing can be somewhat luck garbage-y and evasion isn't 100%. (You also need mystic resist for this strategy) At this point you have the defense accessories to cheese anything though.

If you want to fight the superboss demon, you either need Satori's Punish the Judgment or Yuugi's final weapon (or maybe lv99 Reimu for her ultimate skill) or you won't live through the damage rush phase. (Marisa's mystic nullification commander skill can help, or Satori's Reflect Wall/Starlight Barrier along with Little Legion and Reimu's Duplex Barrier- you need to be able to cover a lot of turns unless you have enough strength to blast it into orbit.) To fight the dragon, you need Aya for breath reflection... and Yuugi's final really helps, but isn't entirely necessary.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: RegalStar on October 18, 2016, 01:56:59 PM
I think that you're overselling the spirit world challenger  :V Reimu, Alice and Satori (needs Reflect Wall and a lot of speed) can buy so many turns that even Youmu with Doujigiri (plus Byakuren support, whose magic defense buff is helpful to make Alice not die from tanking 10x Dark Giga Flare anyways) can methodically grind down the guy. At least, that's how I killed him for the first time because I wanted Satori to learn Dark Giga Flare for explorations. Reisen with Kusanagi might work better though; I haven't tested that option. Surviving the first phase is a far bigger problem, but Alice can tank it easily with Kagami and Swordmaster's Proof (it only has Slash, Dark and Mystic attacks; Fang Crush is weapon-elemental and @wiki says it's equipped with a sword). I believe what I did was Poison Shield + Provoke so spirit world challenger can only hit the backlines once in a blue moon (it doesn't have all-targetting attacks unless dark land is 2/3 up, so don't let that happen), spam the reduce damage by 80% skill on Alice, while covering the backline with Starlight Barrier and Leaf Shield. The Elder Dragon was far more difficult IMHO just because it can neither be cheesed nor easily predicted.
Title: Re: Reimu Hakurei VS Generic Villain of Doom - Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on October 28, 2016, 06:04:26 AM
After I posted the last update, I become so busy until I literally got no time to play at all. When I finally got a time to play again, I spent 2 full days grinding everyone until I got really bored and wanted that game to end. After I consulted the strategy with Serela, I fought the expansion final boss the next day... only to finds out that the expansion final boss is way too hard for me to handle.

I spent 3 days fighting it again and again and again with the same result. I just can't seem to win against it. I'm sorry but I can't win against the expansion final boss at all. I could probably win by being Doctor Strange, but honestly, what's the point? I'm already tired of this game kicking me again and again. I'm tired of grinding without a purpose. And I'm tired of spending a huge amount of my time for this game. With regret, I hereby declare this LP:

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/3033055/3033055_900.png)

In Permanent Hiatus.

I'm such a failure of a gamer and a NEET.


Nightmare of Rebellion Expansion Preview:
(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/3032812/3032812_900.jpg)
Nice view

BGM: Toono Dance 3
(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/3033407/3033407_900.jpg)

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/3033178/3033178_900.jpg)
I really like that oarfish. That thing has a badass and ridiculously over-the-top name.

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/3033763/3033763_900.jpg)
Do you love pallete swapped enemies? Don't worry, the expansion has a whole lot of them.

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/youreveryneet/76738738/3034190/3034190_900.jpg)
I'm fucked.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Validon98 on October 28, 2016, 06:39:20 AM
Honestly, don't feel too bad. I ended up having to quit my own LP because of technical issues, but I wouldn't have enjoyed trying against the final boss. The entire expansion as a whole is just godawful, the other two games have infinitely better ones, it's just... yeah. Yeah.

Good luck with NoR's expansion though, it's... a thing.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Serela on October 28, 2016, 02:18:31 PM
Huh, I thought NoR's expansion was pretty nice.

I thought DoD's expansion less balanced and more difficult than NoR's :V

Also Validon since you have extraction tools and whatnot for the game, is it possible to get out the expansion music files and complete your youtube game soundtrack? O: There's some sweet tunes.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Validon98 on October 28, 2016, 02:42:06 PM
DoD's expansion is indeed unbalanced (see: the fights in the Demon Arena), but I still prefer it to GoS's, I only say NoR's is a thing because it has a lot of grinding in the red doors if you want the best gear, but that's per usual for the Strawberry Bose games.

Oh, and uh, yeah, I've been meaning to upload the expansion soundtrack, just haven't got around to it. :'D
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Serela on October 28, 2016, 03:29:57 PM
Oh yeah, the endgame grind is even sillier than usual if one is so inclined (I would know, given I did a good chunk- the worst part is the way the game rolls for the "generic" endgame forge material, that system is horrible). But as usual, it's not very important, either, my test run on the final boss kinda curbstomped it... of course, there's always the POWERED UP version... (Which I can probably do but never actually -did-?)

Well as long as I know you CAN do it and will -eventually- that works! It's much better than "nah I don't have any sound files for them so I can't!"

DoD's isn't necessarily bad, but the balance is definitely... off. Lol I hit the boss with a resist debuff so now my next attack does half it's HP in one hit? Um, okay. Making weakness and crit damage scale with stats was not the smartest plan, Bose.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Your Everyday NEET on October 28, 2016, 04:19:51 PM
5% for a gold chest, and another to get to get actually rare weapon. Bleh. Grinding in NoR is more fun though, because you grind for 25 characters at once, and killing certain enemies may make it joins you. Grinding 1/64 doppel is still crap though, it took me solid 3 hours just to get that awesome oarfish, and it's get worse when the game realized I'm grinding that thing.

If you don't have the sound files, you could try to get it the hard way, like what I did with Touhou Mother and Touhou-A-Live.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Serela on October 28, 2016, 06:47:28 PM
Nah, he's got 'em (he has the extraction tools) he's just lazy. I CAN UNDERSTAND THIS

But yeah. Get the rare item drop, and then get ANOTHER gold chest from that enemy to actually get the forging material... which you need way too many of to make a single piece of good gear. Thank goodness they really aren't important or it'd be a nightmare and a half.

The 1/64 common enemies aren't all that bad to recruit, but 1/64 on seraphim and royal duke... heh. XD Not to mention the million final area enemies, plus they're all in red doors so you can't run... hah.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Validon98 on October 28, 2016, 07:05:57 PM
Hell, I don't just have the audio files, I have the actual soundtrack versions (including the song used for the PV for the expansion, which is a remix of the theme that plays during the second phase of the postgame version of Nightmare Yukari), it's just, yeah, laziness, plus I've been going back and forth between a bunch of stuff (Final Fantasy XIV, that Nightmare of Rebellion run where I'm forcing myself to use bows [made it to Underground Lake], a Genius of Sappheiros run where I'm using a fixed party of six [made it to Genbu Swamp], and a bunch of RPs and homework), so yeeeeeeah. Same thing with English patch stuff, there's more I need to do with it but I just haven't. :'D

Anyhow, yeah the grinding is the worst part but thankfully it is optional. On that note, I did find out what the drop system is and it's kind of a doozy. I explained it to NEET but I'll explain it here (thank you based Japanese blog that has a bunch of information on DoD and NoR)

So you kill an enemy, congrats, now you roll for a chance (per specific enemy) for it to drop a chest. If it hits that chance, then it rolls again for what item (out of 17 possible). There's seven common chest items (10% for each), five silver chest items (5% for each), and five gold chest items (1% for each). I don't exactly know how the Rare drop up boosts work, but I imagine they shift the weighting to prefer silver and gold chests over common chests, while the regular drop rate boost just increases the rate at which a chest will drop.

If a chest doesn't drop, there's a separate chance (based on dungeon/area, not on enemy) that the enemy will drop a screw. If it does, it rolls from a big list, which is uh... usually big. The lists are on the blog, but they're pretty big and drop a huge variety of items.

So yeaaaaaaah. The loot system in this game is admittedly dumb with its chances but I suppose that's what the Yukkuri items are for in this game.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Serela on October 29, 2016, 01:30:47 PM
Oh yeah, I've read up on that after being like "SO WHY AM I NOT GETTING THIS DROP?"

And then found out the gold chest drop is replaced with it if you get it again.

But sometimes drops that work this way are literally 1% drops.

Man, that Quick Shot bow or whatever it was with the 20% pre-empt rate... best offhand weapon ever. With that and the surprise raid baby doll I had like 35% pre-empt, sweeet. I don't... think the bow would have stacked? I actually had like 3 from doppel grinding.
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: Golbez on October 29, 2016, 06:19:52 PM
Sad to see you drop it. But I understand. That final boss took way too much grinding. And even then I got kinda lucky when I managed to kill it. It did feel pretty good when, with the last of my strength, Patchouli's final word managed to finish it off.

Have not tried DoD or NoR yet even tho I have those. Still waiting for a possible story translation.  :)
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: ditt93 on October 30, 2016, 12:43:13 AM
5% for a gold chest, and another to get to get actually rare weapon. Bleh. Grinding in NoR is more fun though, because you grind for 25 characters at once, and killing certain enemies may make it joins you. Grinding 1/64 doppel is still crap though, it took me solid 3 hours just to get that awesome oarfish, and it's get worse when the game realized I'm grinding that thing.

That rare spawn + rare drop and trying to recruit a Yukkuri type doppel. :V
Title: Re: Let's Play The Genius of Sappheiros [HIATUS]
Post by: isanomi on August 12, 2019, 12:53:48 PM
Took me 4 hours to figure out the pattern... hope this can help others in the future from the fruitless random grinding...

Farming obsidian (100% drop rate, at least for me):

1.   Touching healing circle 3 times.
2.  Either 1st left map - escape 2 times to meet Hydra. (Someone else used this with a team including Byakuren, but with 7 turns instead of 5, not sure about their pattern and party members)
     Or       3rd left map - Hydra on 1st encounter. (I used this)
3.  Exit the game (not soft reset with F12) each time after defeating a hydra and getting an obsidian and saving at the healing circle.
4.  Repeat 1.

                                                                                             .                                         
Turn               1              .             2             .             3             .             4              .            5
Hydra                                     attack Sakuya(dazed) and Byakuren

                                                                                                                                      Sanae 3-bomb
Aya              reflect                reflect                  reflect                 reflect                 reflect
Sakuya        attack                full moon            full moon            full moon           full moon
Byakuren    starfire              starfire                starfire(got LW) amplifying         last world (190%)
Youmu        bold advance  asura stance       asura strength   def                      slash of spring wind
Mokou        attack                 attack                 attack                   attack                volcano

My Mokou has gamer fan on her, not sure if it changes anything about the drop whether anyone in the party equips it or not.

(https://i.imgur.com/GZOFQ7r.jpg)

Edit:
Do NOT clear the 1st,2nd and 4th maps with my method, only clear all the mobs that are on your way (appear on your screen) to the 3rd map, for some reasons I can't trigger Byakuren's LW on the 3rd turn whenever I cleared the 1st,2nd and 4th map.
And yes, somehow not clearing my path to the 3rd map also screws my 100% obsidian drop rate pattern too?