"randomly slice" Scimitar counter bug

Leet Sketcher's Dead Hare patch approaches this by doing away with many counters:
http://l33t5k37ch3r.altervista.org/dead-hare.html

note that it hooks just the FC 01/02/03 counterattack scripts.

modifying/expanding Scimitar to set "delay counterattacks" could work for your goals.  however, true to its title, that variable is a bit limited; see "Counterattack from beyond" in Master ZED's Bugs Guide.  (and note that the issue can also be caused by multi-monster formations; anything that keeps the battle going.)

while Odin/Raiden certainly give some precedence, with Scimitar lacking the summons' supernatural origins, or Snare and X-Zone's ability to send you elsewhere, i'm just as inclined to see it as a PG version of a gory death.  keep in mind, this game *already* has enemies dying in a poof by normal means, as opposed to collapsing in a bloody pile on the ground.  so reasons like "this monster left no trace" or "this manner of death was *really* incapacitating" don't exactly seem to me like full bases for disabling counters (including finals).  you don't suppose Illumina's lopped off a few heads?  or Fire 3 created a few cinder piles?  yet somehow, the headless and the ashen can retaliate.

as seibaby said, the nature of when the dice-up animation happens is an implementation thing.  it's causing a visual incongruity which doesn't necessarily reflect a gameplay/mechanics problem.

but i can't deny the Odin/Raiden parallel, even though Espers' magical summons arguably transcend material swords (Ragnarok's apples to oranges comparison aside ;P ).

---

back to "delay counterattacks": it'd be nice to see that bug fixed.  but one issue i was running into in early stages of devising a patch is that we don't want to be too aggressive/generous in acknowledging the $341A effect, in that a multi-strike attack where some entities are killed by normal means (hypothetical, until we attach the property to things like Scimitar!) would suppress too many counters.  there were other issues, too, but i forget them offhand.

Yeah, I figured as much about what you and Seibaby are saying. I guess I was hoping there might be two bytes of code somewhere that can be reversed so the animation is displayed AFTER the counter attack happens, but it sounds more complex than that.  My hack has quite a few more counterattacks than the original game, and I definitely won't be removing those to solve this issue.  I might just leave it as is.  The only one I really noticed is HadesGigas doing Magnitude8 after Edgar has dispatched him with the Chainsaw (since the chainsaw now uses the slice effect in my hack).

Anyway, thanks for the responses!