ROTDS beta testing

"Also in other news, thanks to Tsushiy (Japanese music hacker on this site) I am able now to put in even more songs (up to 237!!). "



OH. MEH GAWD. I might just have to change my pants! Wait, wait.... nah, okay. Whew! That was close.



I'd love to hear some Chrono Cross or FF7-9 music snesified! Or Saga Frontier, Xenogears, Golden Sun -The Lost Age, Treasure of the Rudras, some Lufia 1/2 or Breath of Fire 1/2. Or anything you decide to do, really. Hearing all this great music is part of the fun for me!



You could have "On that Day, 5 Years Ago" playing during Cloud's Scenario while you're going around town, "Fighting" for when you're up against the merchants and guards, and "Chasing the Black-Caped Man" when trying to shag ass back to Fraust through the Zelda Cave.

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Just Got Ronan back in the WoR. Speaking of which, my jaw dropped when I looked at the mini map and remembered the new WoR was finished.

Story so far:

1: Facility



Epic music, pretty good groups of baddies to fight. Stealing Shelters from the guards is a great money saver (and what I was doing at the base by Hellfire Pass when I thought to try the chocobo trick). Only thing that really irked me going through the facility itself is when you see Kefka drain Efreet and Shiva and he sends them down the conveyor belt, Efreet walks the belt's path like "Yep, goin down a hole, doo doo doo." It looks kind of wierd like that. Now, if he was trying to walk against the direction the belt's pulling him, and shiva's semi-lifeless body plowed him down the chute or something, that would be pretty awesome.



Speaking of awesome, one of my favorite tracks in the game to this point is playing in all it's epic glory while riding minecarts and slaughtering Magroaders.


Also I noticed the Crane boss doesn't have that glitching through the in-battle text boxes anymore, which is freakin sweet.



2: Hellfire Pass

Not too eventful coming through here since I had raided the place before Facility X, haha, BUT at this point I had several underleveled characters (compared to my slaughterr squad that I had raided this place with earlier) so I took this run through to beef them up, especially Aurora (lv 14 compared to Cloud's lv 25 or something). Reverant's can be a challenge, but the Fire Rods you can steal from them are worth 3000 Gil a pop and can be turned into Ice Rods in the Arena. The Ninja Switch is a godsend - nothing like free Pod Bracelets! The fight with Kefka's intense, but it feels so good once you stomp him to the curb.



3: Oh Snap They Burnt down the Town, Let's Eat!

I managed to talk to 24 people and get the town and castle guard-free, but couldn't get the treasue room in the base unlocked. I must've missed a guy in the guard barracks or something, but oh well. Hopefully I'm not missing out on something amazing like a Time Egg or something.



4: Uhhhhh No, we Totally Don't Know Magic OH GOD MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE



The Leviathen fight was great. I didn't have to worry about drowning while he was dying, which was the only frustrating aspect before. Having Leo around for fighting is great, and Blaster's great to combo up with Cloud's Omnislash or Meteorsword. Sentence with the word great in it.



The Burning House is, well, a burning house. Bombs everywhere. Blaster/Meteorsword and Blaster/FuSoYa's magic are nice combos for taking them out quickly. Kind of wish there were a little more variety in monsters here, but at the same time, it's a burning house. Bombs/Hellspawns would be the only reasonable thing to fight here, besides the boss.



Speaking of the boss, the Lava Demon is one of those fights you feel proud of yourself for getting past. Leo went straight to healing duty after the first fight, and Aqualins are a must for each encounter with the boss. And the music for it is so epic: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest's boss theme. Only way it could have sounded any cooler is if the track were ripped straight from the game.



5: Cosmic Mountain

I love the palette in this place! I can't remember off hand if it had that palette before, but it really fits. The music's nice, but after a few battles and running around I start to forget it's playing. Still, a good song in itself. At one point I muted my psp and started playing the Treant's Forest music from Golden Sun off my PS3. I wish it were playing on this mountain, it sounds so... cosmic.

The fight with Ultros ended so quickly for me that Eiko never had a chance to pop in for her little scene. I killed him outright XD. It didn't mess anything up tho, Eiko still joins your party and everything continues on smoothly. Bear in mind my Cloud at this point was probably quite overleveled at this point (he was my groups bodyguard when beefing in Hellfire Pass). On the plus side, this has been the ONLY boss fight to this point where I had no challenge, regardless of the mass amount of messing around/leveling/learning spells/having fun I've done.

One thing to point out here: Eiko joins the group with Krosis equipped as an esper, even though technically Krosis joins you after or before the FuSoYa/Golbez flashback. If someone has Krosis equipped at the time, she'll have one equipped as well. It's nothing major really, but if she's going to join with Krosis, it would make more sense to not have Krosis at all until she joins, then pop the "Receive magacite: Krosis" afterwards.

The fights with Leo before he dies were pretty epic. Tho thinking back I should've tried letting Kefka kill me to see if I'd get a game over, or if the scene would continue like normal. I mean, either way Leo bites the bucket, so I figure it would go on whichever way he does it.



One thing to point out after that scene: Best use of Breath of Fire's Something-bad-done-happened music. Ever.



6 Floating Continent



One of the areas I've been looking forward during my hours of goofing off . Majin Buu and Storm Eagle weren't too much of a hassle, minus keeping FuSoYa alive. The Continent itself has some intense monsters, even for my heavy hitters Cloud and Avalon, but fights were still winnable.



I love the music here (FFA ftw), although I wish I could hear some Tower of Babil from the last area of FF4 here, and hear the FFA track somewhere else earlier on, say like on the mountain near the beginning of the game. Mostly from the amount of FF4 awesomeness at the scene with Zuriel and the Statues, and the foreshadowing/nostalgia factor would be a trip.



Ultima Weapon - Hard as hell, so feels like you're fighting Ultima Weapon. And it even taunts you before it try's to stomp you in the dirt. Took a couple tries to take him down, but I managed it. Love the new save spot after he dies. Beats me backtrekking or save-stating.



Zemus/Zemus and Zuriel - Tough fights, especialy the 2nd one. Had to stay on my toes on the healing fron to manage. Killing Zuriel off first is key to winning here. If you don't kill Zuriel off first, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME. (Spot the reerence here and you earn a cookie)



Raditz - Wow. This ones a doozey. But if you make an effort to try to buff or heal before he goes super saiyan, you should be safe. But even still, it was down to wire. Also I noticed the name switch when he transforms, so I figure his super saiyan form's a different monster entirely. So healing/buffing during his transformation is the way to go, cuz he'll switch back after a bit.



7) WORLD OF RUIN



Not much progress here storywise yet, just got Ronan back and saved the kid from Arc's old house. I love the new WOR. It's like the WoB is Pangea in comparison, and it shows that Zuriels been raping the planet over a barrel for more than a year. Music for the overworld's great, muuuch better than what FF6 would originally be playing at this point haha.



Only thing I'd figure to point out right now is that the single-tree tile looks off. The ground surrounding the tree has a slightly more saturated brown color than the general palette of the overworld. First place I noticed this is right next to Township.



My current game time is 46:06. That's 46:06 of fun that I've had so far, so thank you! This game's a great boredom killer.

EDIT: Another thing I noticed is that everyone keeps saying that the dead have risen and that there are zombies everywhere, but the only undead things I've seen are trees.... zombie trees hahaha. I even checked the graves in the town you find Aurora for zombies, but instead was raped by tomberries. It would be great to fight random sprites that are zombified and half decayed (like how you fight the merchants in Cloud's scenario, a battler of a sprite).

I need me some ZAMBIES! END EDIT



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Alright, that's all so far. Hope you don't mind me writing a mini novel every so often like this hahaha.

thank you for the detailed feedback Bahamut Zero, its appreciated

I'll even give you a small teaser too look forward to in regards to the zemus/zuriel fight (2.0 is going to be a completely different ball game due to a very special and unique guest character, I will say no more)


and I caught the south park reference so I'll be awaiting the cookie lolz

Alright, so I just picked up FuSoYa and killed the dragon on the way, so that is 3 dragons down. Love the fact you made a room with the water area so Mog can still get that dance! All that is left is to get Cloud and the gang will be all back together!

One question: I found Master Tau's house but cannot approach it. Will gaining access be something I come across as I go through other areas? Or am I missing something.

Update for me. I last left off at... Phantom Train on my last post.

The rest of Ronan's path was pretty easy by comparison.

Zero issues with Cloud's path. Aurora's boss was amusing and unexpected. I had two dead on the first round from that but still was easy to beat with Miracle spam.

Army battle... =(((((( I pretty much relied 100% on Avalon's team of Aurora and Arc. Runic the big spells and pray that I didn't get poisoned(was out of the cures and as far as I know there is no shop in Aurora's path if you do it last... Also was out of all heal items, sooo... really challenging lol. Maybe move the Neko next to the save point before the battle or add one in the moogle's den?) To manage it, if I did get poisoned I killed off the group for the rez at 1 hp and status cure and continued along with them lol. My other groups got absolutely demolished in pairs, the damage was just way too high to keep up on heals with Tifa and I had no items for the other group since I couldnt get to the Neko in time lol.

Must I/Prince Ralse choice in the opera doesn't wrap to new screen, just continues the text directly after the choices which looked odd.

Seems if I meet Oboro with a full party after flying to the new continent he won't be there if I come back with open slot. Lucky for me I had saved before and used the PHS in the main town to get him added in there. Btw, the PHS feature is nice addition.

Talking to kid in Thistle as he is sliding down the rail causes the screen to kinda... bug out and not stop moving... Pretty sure this bug existed in the original game. Is not a big deal, just enter menu and it resets. Can't reproduce though so idk how I did it, eeeh.

Hellfire Pass... Oboro just chills in the kefka fight as everyone else responds to what's going on lol. He doesnt dash forward when talking to Kefka or duck when the espers come out.

On the boat can't access menu to equip tifa for leviathan etc. Not sure if intended that or not, but seems annoying b/c you can move around before engaging him.

Burning building... kinda loooong encounter, but pretty fun. Glad I ran into that NPC that mentions aqualin calms fires, otherwise I woulda probably been irritated at that lol.

Krosis joins after burning building, but when eiko joins says you receive krosis power and she comes equipped with him so I have him on two allies lol. Not a big deal honestly, but is just one of those things that seems outta place.

Skull Cave where u get the lightsaber. Pincer attack Gushing and Steelpion both appear on right side with nothing on the left.

Got 4 birdo eggs by buying pod bracelets at Auction House, going to the arena and betting them for four cat's bells, then betting those for Birdo Eggs. Dunno if you want this to be possible in world of balance but it certainly helped me on the floating continent.

Zemus/Zuriel fight made me really angry. Wasn't very fun getting everyone hit with cyclonic then instantly hit with another spell to be wiped out. Rubber shield was probably the only reason why I didnt rage quit at this point. Also Oboro was fairly useless... kept getting one shot so I just left him dead on the fight.

World of Ruin. Near Kefka Tower, Devil babies throw a machete for 3.5k hp and instant killed my group. I hate to think of how hard this would be if I didn't level Tifa as part of my floating continent group lol.

@DJKool - You need the Heavy Lump of Coal rare item that is received in the Dream Phantom Train.

@Gaff - Good stuff! I forgot all about Oboro/Shadow there in the Kefka battle event in the Sealed Gate not doing anything lol. Doubt I can ever fix it/re-edit it due to how the battle events are, but it's worth looking into again.

Ah alright, thanks. One other thing, I am trying to fight Darkblaze (Fire Dragon) and I am afraid the hint that he is sacrificing his life force to increase his power is not enough for me to figure it out, sorry. Some help would be appreciated.

You just gotta survive his onslaught for about 200 seconds of battle timer time. In other words you can't kill him by normal means you just have to survive for long enough and he will die.

I thought that might be it. I thought I had managed to survive that long, but maybe not. Time to give it another go!

Killed him! Just so you know, I got no reward for defeating him, I don't know if that was intentional or not (I mean from the battle, I got the chest he was guarding)

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Finished with Avalon's dream sequence, and am now at Tyrano Tower. Albion is a huge pain in the ass, I have managed to kill a few dragons now, but this guy is outrageous. I understand the whole cast reflect to counter his Curaga thing, but he uses Heartless Angel to bring everyone to one HP, and then kills me with Saintly Beam right after (also he loves chain casting that move 3 times in a row). Currently I am finding this fight more annoying than fun.

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Just finished Tyrano Tower, no real issues, however can you possibly add a save point in there somewhere? If not that, then maybe at least the ability to Teleport? It really sucked having to haul ass out of there after beating Azala and being all hurt.

just came back on to say something that keeps occurring to me: (I just watched the flashback with Serin and Ronan) (going back to get ronan and cloud for the events in their respective places before I haul back and get the party I actually wanted) and frankly, I really like Serin's old clothing, in fact I think it looks far superior to his current one....

that's pretty much it, I'd love to have Serin in his flashback outfit...

just came back on to say something that keeps occurring to me: (I just watched the flashback with Serin and Ronan) (going back to get ronan and cloud for the events in their respective places before I haul back and get the party I actually wanted) and frankly, I really like Serin's old clothing, in fact I think it looks far superior to his current one....

that's pretty much it, I'd love to have Serin in his flashback outfit...

Dressing Room anyone?