The RPG Duelling League
RPGDL Games => Game Design and Modifications => Topic started by: Laggy on June 10, 2011, 12:48:45 AM
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(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/cyril_shinsei/SLRPG-1.png)
Last updated: 4/27/2015
WHAT IS IT: An SMRPG hack made by the Lazy Shell editor (http://home.comcast.net/~giangurgolo/smrpg/).
WHERE TO DOWNLOAD: Right here! (http://www.rpgdl.com/LFT/SLRPG.ips) This is an .ips patch, so you need to use Lunar IPS (http://www.rpgdl.com/LFT/LunarIPS.exe) to apply it. Also, if you need an SNES emulator, snes9x can be downloaded here (http://www.snes9x.com/downloads.php) and ZSNES 1.42 can be downloaded here (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zsnes/zsnesw142.zip).
PROGRESS: It's pretty much done.
GOAL: Just a general rebalance and difficulty tweak. Meant for players who have beaten SMRPG at least once and know the game pretty well. Kind of slammed this one out quickly for Tide and lulz.
STUFF THAT GOT CHANGED:
- Timed blocking is considerably harder. Most attacks will have be re-learned, though the sweet spot of timing for all attacks is the same (roughly where perfect blocking was before).
- Perfect blocking removed.
- Level up bonuses changed to require some actual thought and preference instead of autopilot to the best number. Details further below.
- Character changes:
... Mario - Mostly unchanged, emphasis on being well-rounded in stats, cost effective, gets some unique equips. Still a bland skillset but hits some weaknesses no one else can.
... Mallow - Stick-type weapons now boost M.Def. Glove-type weapons raised in Atk noticeably. Instruments now boost M.Atk. HP Rain now cures status. Snowy and Star Rain now do lots more damage.
... Geno - Geno Boost can no longer self-target. Geno Blast is learned before Geno Whirl. Geno Flash now dispels.
... Bowser - Armor is now no longer totally outclassed by Work Pants. Emphasis placed on tanking ability. Specials are quite good but FP intensive.
... Toadstool - Glove-type weapons now boost Def. Prop-type weapons now raise M.Atk and/or Speed. Healing abilities no longer cure status. Group Hug lowered in power and raised in FP cost.
- Pick Me Ups are no longer storebought (can be purchased for Frog Coins, dropped by many bosses in the game).
- Maple Syrups now cure 30 FP instead of 40. Royal Syrups now cure 50 FP instead of full.
- KeroKeroColas now fully heal the party and cure all status, but no longer restore FP.
- Mid Mushrooms and Max Mushrooms (ST healing consumables) now cost 8 and 16 coins.
- Freshen Ups now only cure Poison, Sleep, and Fear.
- FroggieDrinks, Elixirs, and Megalixirs (MT healing consumables) available at the Juice Bar now heal 20/40/70 HP, and cost 24/36/48 coins respectively.
- Frog Coin costs at the Frog Emporium and Frog Disciple Shop have been overhauled, primarily reduced.
- Equipment documentation added. No more guessing what the hidden properties of stuff are.
- General weapon and armor rebalancing to cut down on useless sidegrades (i.e. Super Hammer vs Masher, Work Pants vs too many things).
- Accessory/unique armor tweaking (nerfs got handed out to the egregious stuff like Lazy Shell and Safety Ring. Stuff like the Attack Scarf and Super Suit got downtoned, though are still quite obviously some of the best equips in the game. Other stuff that was passed over got looked at and tweaked.)
- Randoms generally just improved all around (more damage, more durability, sometimes a few more tricks).
- Pretty much all bosses now multiact and were improved.
- Lightning Orb and Storm were renamed to Dispelling Orb and Disjunction, respectively, to clearly denote that these moves now dispel their targets.
KNOWN ISSUES
- NOTE: This is an emulator issue. Try using snes9x 1.53 or ZSNES 1.42. Random freezeups involving the inventory screen. I have no idea what causes this and have not seen it myself throughout all testing but several players have reported it. Suggest liberal use of savestating before venturing into your inventory/equips.
- If you die in the middle of an enemy's multiact, they will continue to attempt to finish their multiacting without going to the Game over... prompt. Sometimes this results in just weird/glitched animations, sometimes this will cause the game to lock up. It doesn't terribly matter other than forcing you to reset/load from savestate (which the game over would have done anyway), but it's a bit of a nuisance. This may be addressed eventually if I have the time to go through every monster script in the game and modify them to check for valid targets (unlikely).
SPECIAL ABILITY DOCUMENTATION
Psychopath - 1FP, scans HP
Therapy - 1FP, power 40, heals
Thunderbolt - 2FP, power 15, thunder-elemental, MT
HP Rain - 2FP, power 10, heals, cures status
Mute - 2FP, inflicts Mute, max rotates 16
Jump - 3FP, power 20, powers up with more uses
Geno Beam - 3FP, power 45
Fire Orb - 4FP, power 30, fire-elemental, max hits 16
Shocker - 5FP, power 60, thunder-elemental
Geno Boost - 6FP, boosts stats, can't self-target
Sleepy Time - 6FP, inflicts Sleep, MT, max rotates 16
Super Jump - 7FP, power 45, jump-elemental, max hits 100
Geno Blast - 7FP, power 50, MT
Super Flame - 8FP, power 45, fire-elemental, max 24 hits
Terrorize - 8FP, power 10, inflicts Fear, MT, max rotates 16
Geno Whirl - 8FP, power 95, inflicts ID
Come Back - 8FP, revives
Poison Gas - 9FP, power 20, inflicts Poison, powers up with more uses, MT, max rotates 16
Group Hug - 10FP, power 5, heals, MT
Ultra Jump - 11FP, power 75, jump-elemental, split targets, max hits 100
Ultra Flame - 12FP, power 75, fire-elemental, split targets, max hits 32
Psych Bomb - 12FP, power 60, MT, max hits 16
Crusher - 13FP, power 120
Geno Flash - 14FP, power 75, dispels, MT
Snowy - 15FP, ice-elemental, power 70, MT, max rotates 16
Bowser Crush - 16FP, power 48, ITD, max hits 16
Star Rain - 18FP, power 100, max hits 16
ENEMY SPELL DOCUMENTATION
Arrow Rain - 64 power, MT
Aurora Flash - 50 power, MT, inflicts Sleep
Big Bang - 100 power, MT
Blast - 89 power
Blizzard - 32 power, ice-elemental, MT
Bolt - 1 power, thunder-elemental, ITD
Boulder - 72 power, MT
Breaker Beam - 80 power, MT
Corona - 88 power, fire-elemental, MT
Crystal - 25 power, ice-elemental
Dark Star - 160 power
Diamond Saw - 60 power
Disjunction - 108 power, dispels
Dispelling Orb - 20 power, thunder-elemental, dispels
Drain - 4 power, fire-elemental
Drain Beam - 26 power, MT
Electroshock - 72 power, thunder-elemental
Flame - 12 power, fire-elemental
Flame Stone - 32 power, fire-elemental
Flame Wall - 8 power, fire-elemental, MT
Ice Rock - 130 power, ice-elemental
Knock Out - inflicts ID
Light Beam - 24 power, inflicts Sleep, MT
Mega Drain - 12 power, fire-elemental, ITD
Mega Recover - 255 power, heals
Meteor Blast - 34 power, MT
Meteor Swarm - 90 power, MT
Petal Blast - 40 power, inflicts Mushroom, MT
Recover - 125 power, heals
Sand Storm - 16 power, inflicts Fear, MT
Shredder - dispels, MT
Sledge - 10 power, ITD, MT
Solidify - 47 power, ice-elemental, MT
Spear Rain - 60 power, MT
Static E! - 12 power, thunder-elemental, MT
Sword Rain - 80 power, MT
Water Blast - 39 power, MT
Weird Mushroom - 60 power, heals
Willy Wisp - 24 power, ITD
EQUIPMENT DOCUMENTATION
Amulet - Speed -5, Attack/Defense/M.Attack/M.Defense +7, halves fire/ice
Antidote Pin - Defense/M.Defense +4, immunes Mute & Poison
Attack Scarf - Attack/M.Attack +30, Mario only
B'tub Ring - M.Attack +20, halves ice, nulls fire, Toadstool only
Chomp - Attack +10, variance 4, Bowser weapon
Chomp Shell - Attack +12, variance 3, Bowser weapon
Coin Trick - doubles coins won, immunes ID, Mario only
Courage Shell - Defense +32, M.Defense +14, immunes Fear, Bowser armor
Double Punch - Attack +35, variance 5, Geno weapon
Drill Claw - Attack +65, variance 25, Bowser weapon
Exp. Booster - doubles Exp earned
Fearless Pin - Defense/M.Defense +5, immunes Fear
Feather - Speed +20, Attack/M.Attack +15, Defense/M.Defense -5
Finger Shot - Attack +12, variance 3, Geno weapon
Fire Cape - Defense +30, M.Defense +15, halves fire, Geno armor
Fire Dress - Defense +42, M.Defense +21, halves fire, Toadstool armor
Fire Pants - Defense +42, M.Defense +21, halves fire, Mallow armor
Fire Shell - Defense +46, M.Defense +24, halves fire, Bowser armor
Fire Shirt - Defense +42, M.Defense +21, halves fire, Mario armor
FroggieStick - Attack +20, M.Defense +10, variance 2, Mallow weapon
Frying Pan - Attack +90, variance 20, Toadstool weapon
Fuzzy Cape - Defense +24, M.Defense +12, Geno armor
Fuzzy Dress - Defense +36, M.Defense +18, Toadstool armor
Fuzzy Pants - Defense +36, M.Defense +18, Mallow armor
Fuzzy Shirt - Defense +36, M.Defense +18, Mario armor
Ghost Medal - auto-boosts Defense
Hammer (Hammer Bros) - Attack +10, variance 1, Mario weapon
Hammer (Seaside) - M.Attack -50, variance 100, inflicts Lucky status, immunes all status, Mario weapon
Hand Cannon - Attack +45, variance 6, Geno weapon
Hand Gun - Attack +24, variance 4, Geno weapon
Happy Cape - Defense +12, M.Defense +6, Geno armor
Happy Pants - Defense +24, M.Defense +12, Mallow armor
Happy Shell - Defense +16, M.Defense +10, Bowser armor
Happy Shirt - Defense +24, M.Defense +12, Mario armor
Heal Shell - Defense +60, M.Defense +30, Bowser armor
Hero Shirt - Defense +48, M.Defense +24, Mario armor
Hurly Gloves - Attack +20, variance 5, Bowser weapon
Jinx Belt - Attack/Defense +30, immunes Fear
Jump Shoes - Speed +2, Defense/M.Defense +1, M.Attack +5, bypasses Jump immunity, Mario only
Lazy Shell (weapon) - Attack +90, variance 40, Mario weapon
Lazy Shell (armor) - Speed/Attack/M.Attack -20, Defense/M.Defense +75, halves all elements, universal armor
Masher - Attack +50, variance 30, Mario weapon
Mega Cape - Defense +12, M.Defense +3, Geno armor
Mega Glove - Attack +64, variance 6, Mario weapon
Mega Pants - Defense +18, M.Defense +9, Mallow armor
Mega Shirt - Defense +18, M.Defense +10, Mario armor
NauticaDress - Defense +30, M.Defense +15, Toadstool armor
NokNok Shell - Attack +20, variance 2, Mario weapon
Pants - Defense +6, M.Defense +3, Mallow armor
Parasol - Attack +50, M.Attack +10, Speed +5, variance 4, Toadstool weapon
Polka Dress - Defense +24, M.Defense +12, Toadstool armor
Prince Pants - Defense +48, M.Defense +24, Mallow armor
Punch Gloves - Attack +30, variance 3, Mario weapon
Quartz Charm - auto-boosts Attack and Defense
Rare Scarf - Defense/M.Defense +20
Ribbit Stick - Attack +50, M.Defense +25, variance 5, Mallow weapon
Royal Dress - Defense +48, M.Defense +24, Toadstool armor
Safety Badge - Defense/M.Defense +10, immunes Mushroom/Sleep
Safety Ring - Halves ice/thunder, immunes ID
Sailor Cape - Defense +18, M.Defense +9, Geno armor
Sailor Pants - Defense +30, M.Defense +15, Mallow armor
Sailor Shirt - Defense +30, M.Defense +15, Mario armor
Scrooge Ring - cuts FP use in half during battle
Shirt - Defense +6, M.Defense +6, Mario armor
Signal Ring - Speed +30, nulls thunder, noise indicates hidden chest
Slap Glove - Attack +40, Defense +4, variance 4, Toadstool weapon
Sonic Cymbal - Attack +70, M.Attack +35, variance 7, Mallow weapon
Spiked Link - Attack +30, variance 6, Bowser weapon
Star Cape - Defense +36, M.Defense +18, Geno armor
Star Gun - Attack +60, Defense/M.Attack/M.Defense +3, variance 6, Geno weapon
Sticky Glove - Attack +90, variance 15, Mallow weapon
Super Hammer - Attack +48, Defense +8, variance 4, Mario weapon
Super Slap - Attack +80, Defense +8, variance 8, Toadstool weapon
Super Suit - Speed/Attack/Defense/M.Attack/M.Defense +15, nulls all elements
Thick Pants - Defense +12, M.Defense +6, Mallow armor
Thick Shirt - Defense +12, M.Defense +8, Mario armor
Troopa Pin - M.Attack/M.Defense +5, auto-boosts Attack
Troopa Shell - Attack +56, variance 5, Mario weapon
Trueform Pin - Defense/M.Defense +4, immunes Mushroom/Scarecrow
Ultra Hammer - Attack +100, variance 7, Mario weapon
Wake Up Pin - Defense/M.Defense +3, immunes Sleep
War Fan - Attack +70, M.Attack +15, variance 16, Toadstool weapon
Whomp Glove - Attack +60, variance 20, Mallow weapon
Work Pants - Speed -3, Attack/M.Attack +10, Defense/M.Defense +5, immunes ID, universal armor
Zoom Shoes - Speed/Defense +10, M.Defense +5
LEVEL UP BONUS MECHANICS
All level up bonuses rotate through the following bonuses.
Phase 1: Attack +1/Defense +2, HP +3, M.Attack +1/M.Defense +2
Phase 2: Attack +1/Defense +1, HP +2, M.Attack +1/M.Defense +1
Phase 3 is char-dependent.
Mario: Attack +2/Defense +2, HP +5, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +2
Toadstool: Attack +1/Defense +2, HP +4, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +1
Bowser: Attack +3/Defense +2, HP +5, M.Attack +4/M.Defense +1
Geno: Attack +2/Defense +1, HP +4, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +1
Mallow: Attack +2/Defense +2, HP +4, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +1
RECOMMENDED LEVELS FOR BOSSES
Hammer Bros: L2
Croco 1: L3
Mack: L4-5
Belome 1: L5
Bowyer: L6
Croco 2/Punchinello: L7
Guys/Bundt: L8-9
King Calamari: L10
Johnny/Yaridovich: L11
Belome 2: L13-14
Megasmilax: L14-15
Birdo: L15-L16
Valentina & Dodo: L16-17
Czar Dragon/Axems: L17-18
Magikoopa/Boomer/Exor: L18-20
Count Down/Domino & Cloaker: L19-21
Gunyolk & Factory Chief: L20-L22
Smithy: L21+
Booster: L8-9
Jinx 1: L13
Jinx 2: L14-15
Jinx 3: L16-18
Culex: L20+
Spoilers! Boss stat topic. (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,5947.0.html)
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I think the equipment screen freeze is a problem with the SMRPG rom and not the hack itself. I've had the same problem in my playthrough of the game. I'll definitely try the hack though. It sounds very cool.
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I'll play this if I have time... and if Bowser doesn't suck anymore.
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The equipment freeze bug is a emulation problem, not the rom. Tide should stop using ZSNES 1.51. I haven't countered it at all and I'm on 1.42.
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bumping this up so it's easier to find.
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Completed all the way to Smithy and including Culex.
Not ready to call this final yet, but it's getting pretty close; will edit on feedback (mainly that Smithy is completely untested and I'll still probably want to alter things here and there).
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Oh yeah, it kind of goes without saying but any and all kind of playtesting and feedback's appreciated.
This was a very quick dirty project and I had plenty of rough patches to smooth over, so if you find some hilariously imbalanced things be sure to speak up. Even minor things!
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TIMED BLOCKING
Hammer Bros: Well I can't block anything but Jump still 2HKOs and L2 Mario gets at best 3HKOed with no blocking, so I can kill one and tank the other. Still L2 Mario is inferior easy mode
0 resets
Croco: Goddamned miss keeps me from doing it on superior Fire Orb-less hard mode, I can't block the 2HKOing rush. If I could then I take Phys bonuses on both Mario and Mallow on the way and just have Mallow defend the whole time, but I have to do it on inferior Fire Orb easy mode
2 resets
Mack: I have to use Pick Me Up due to unblockable Bodyguard Drain spam, the evils that Laggy brings. However I can actually block Mack's physical and Mallow can do damage without dying instantly, so I do it on L4 w/ WakeUp Pin normal mode, except I took Magic bonuses so it's easy mode again dammit
4 resets
Cool hack bro
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Added in special ability documentation and updated again to fix issues with Culex.
EDIT: okay added in enemy spells and equipment as well.
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Oh hey in ur threads commentin on ur romhacks. Might as well since I lack superior streaming abilities.
Bowser's Castle:
2 wipes, one because I can't timeblock Bowser's hits to save my life and he can 3HKO now and the other because I thought it would be a good idea to use Jump on the Klinklink. Laggy you whore.
Hammer Bros:
Well I can't block anything but Jump still 2HKOs and L2 Mario gets at best 3HKOed with no blocking, so I can kill one and tank the other. Still L2 Mario is inferior easy mode
Bandit's Way:
While wiping to dogs would've been hilarious it didn't actually happen, for all that they start off by 2HKOing Mallow. Croco wasn't much of a problem since I'm pretty thorough about fighting randoms, for all that I still fail at blocking.
Mack:
Thunderbolt owns pogodudes that randomly decide to tank physicals. Mack apparently randomly tripleacts apropos of nothing but he only does the whole multiacting thing when the bodyguards are dead and his damage isn't really scary at Lv5 so it's all good. Got lucky on the Drain spam, but being Lv5 helped a bit there. Ran out of mushrooms because I forgot to stock up but I have a bunch of syrups so it's all good.
Kero Sewers:
Well Pandorite packs some pretty high damage with Carni-kiss but is otherwise pretty manageable. Belome sucked pretty badly though. Maybe if he used sleep more he might have been a bit scarier? I dunno.
Bowyer:
Hey you 2HKO Geno good for you. The magic damage kinda failed it up against Lv7 Mario/Geno (well Mario did have that Trueform Pin equipped still but) and Geno Boost is one of the few timed things I don't completely fail at so yeah.
Mines:
Well Geno dies like a million times to randoms, Croco catches me off guard but I clutch through thanks to Geno Boost, Punchinello has tripleacting physicals which is kinda scary because I still fail at blocking but only uses them on the Mezzo Bomb phase and I manage.
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Kero Sewers:
Well Pandorite packs some pretty high damage with Carni-kiss but is otherwise pretty manageable. Belome sucked pretty badly though. Maybe if he used sleep more he might have been a bit scarier? I dunno.
Get Aurora Flash version. Uber profit
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I just got the second star. Here's my thoughts so far.
Bosses are excellent. Mack and especially Bowyer are a lot of fun to fight and are much more challenging than the original. Only thing I would change is maybe up the power on Belome's physical a bit. Great job overall.
Randoms have been pretty fun as well, but the Rose Way and Forest Maze ones aren't as interesting as some of the earlier fights. The main problem is that right now there's only two types of randoms, status whores with no damage and die easily (the bees, mushrooms and snap dragons) and heavy hitters who can a few hits (the spiders, Donkey Kongs, and weird squid things with the eyes on sticks.)
As for the party members, despite the hp difference Mario and Mallow have pretty similar durabilities because Mallow has better defenses. FP costs for Mario are a bit restrictive right now. It might be a good idea to reduce Jumps FP cost to 2 so it can compete with Thunderbolt and HP Rain which are much more useful at the moment. It might be worth it to consider lowering Fire Orb and Super Jumps to 4 and 6 respectively as well. Haven't gotten the chance to mess around with Geno yet, but initial thoughts are that Geno Boost seems to be really expensive. If its possible you could give Geno a Truform Pin or something in his initial equipment. It might help him to not get blown up by Bowyer.
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Yay, feedback.
Re: Mario's stuff, he isn't supposed to have better or comparable FP skills to Mallow since he has a good physical and Mallow does not. Jump also has that quirk where it powers up and Fire Orb is by far your best source of damage versus some bosses, so I don't think he's in any danger of not having his specials used.
He does end up having some of the cheapest FP costs in the game later, where he shines a lot less otherwise.
Re: Geno Boost, yes, but it is just that good.
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Just got through the mine. First really moment of LAGGGGGGGYYY so far because Randoms are nasty. Main problem is the Clustars. Clustars do not need Diamond Saw. It one shots everyone until Mario got to level 8 where he could then survive it with 2 hp if he was at max. This was with the best defensive set up I had. They are also faster than Mallow and Mario and some of the random sets have two of them. They use Diamond Saw frequently enough that I can easily see someone having 2/3 of their party killed before anyone but Geno can do anything. Crystal and Psyche would make them still dangerous without Diamond Saw.
Magmites or whatever they're called are more annoying than anything. 100 or so hp and physical attacks do at most 12 to them. Also, they counter all attacks after they're hit with a spell. They don't do a ton of damage but it adds up. They were less threatening when I realized that the game throws Flower Tabs at you with Croco's thieves so I was more liberal with my spells. Might want to make it so they only counter magic or lower their defense a bit so physical attacks can finish them after a spell. As it is now they're a massive FP drain, but it's manageable if you get all the Flower Tabs.
Fireball enemies are also nasty but are being compared to Clustars which makes them seem a lot less threatening. They have good physicals (26 or so unblocked) and Flame Wall hurts Mario and Geno decently.
Echindas are another enemy that has great potential for nastiness. Double Echofinder could hurt (not as bad as Diamond Saw), but they never did it. I can see them causing a lot of trouble if they manage to Echofinder Mallow early in a fight.
Croco was pretty easy. His damage is really manageable compared to the rest of the enemies. Mallow can easily keep up with it and the only way I can see losing is if he catches you with your pants down FP wise when he steals the items or if he double Chomps Mallow and you don't block it.
Punchinello one the other hand is a tough fight. I had one reset where Geno died early on and Mario died when I reached the Mezzo Bomb phase. He has a lot of damage there. Mezzo Bombs deal 30ish damage unblocked and Punchinello's physical attacks do about the same after Valor Up and he triple acts. Mario and Mallow got overwhelmed. The good news is that Geno Boosted Mallow OHKOs the small and regular Bombs (Rather comically I think the smaller bombs do more damage than the regular ones.) Second time I Geno Boosted both Mallow and Mario. When I got to the Mezzo Bomb phase Punchinello focused more on Mario and the Bombs blew up less often. This combined with me getting the Timed Blocking down on Punchinello helped me win with everyone alive.
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Went ahead and replaced Diamond Saw with Static E! on Clusters (2/3 chance of Crystal, 1/3 chance of Static E!). Also after watching Archmage play some toned down SQUID (King Kalamari) just a tad.
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<Laggy> BUT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BROKEN
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They had Ice Rock originally.
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Whee coming back from hiatus~
Booster's Tower:
I try to take on Booster. First attempt does not go well and I go back to the pond to get a Crystalline and a Power Blast, which makes things go smoothly. Booster hurts but Super Jump kinda badly trivialized him. Knife/Grate Guy were kinda decent but then I remembered hearing they were vulnerable to Fear (like moments before it came up in chat) and they became less so.
Bundt:
Didn't really do anything nasty to me other than Sand Storm. In fairness to Laggy, I did fail at avoiding enemies going back up Booster's Tower so I was a level higher than I should have been and as such kinda trivialized the fight with Super Flame.
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Grate Guy has completely wiped me twice.
First time I was Mario/Geno/Bowser. Enemies terrorized and Mario/Bowser Geno Boost'd. Things looked pretty good. Geno gets KOed by Meteor Blast I think and I decide to just leave him dead. Knife Guy went down without too much trouble. Then Grate Guy Light Beams and gets about 5-6 actions without me being able to do anything, and the party is wiped.
I swap in Mallow for Geno. The early fight goes even faster since I realize that Fire Orb tears through Knife Guy like no other. After he falls, Grate Guy remains. Soon after... Knock Out'd Mallow (who has my only Wake Up Pin), followed by Light Beam into chained attacks that KO Mario, followed up by another Knock Out on Bowser. Gah.
I was hoping to clear this without having to run and buy more status protection.
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Grate Guy/Knife Guy were kinda terrible for me, on the other hand. Mage setups completely destroy them, come to think of it - the epic MDef means that mage Mallow 3HKOs Knife Guy with -Thunderbolt- after Geno Boost. Then, mage Mario pulled off 672 damage on Grate Guy with a single post-Geno Boost Super Jump and that was that.
Booster was completely nuts with the nearly 200 damage Loco Expresses, though. I'm just glad he's weak to Jump element, so a Geno Boost'ed Mario 2HKOs him with a decent Super Jump.
Also, for the Laggys: this Booster run was done sans Bowser. As was the Grate/Knife Guy run. No resets, but I nearly died to Booster, at least, who mulched through Geno and Mallow very fast once he got going.
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Yeah, I avoided the Booster fight for the Amulet, so no comments on that one.
Knife/Grate Guy went much better when I killed Grate Guy first. By the time that Grate Guy fell, Knife Guy was nearly dead from collateral damage from Mallow's Thunderbolts.
Were you using Jump Shoes? I never realize who's immune to Jump and who isn't, so I ended up wasting a Super Jump on Knife Guy my first try against him. I'm also not very good at getting past 13-14 Jumps, so maybe I'm not getting the most out of it.
I didn't realize Geno Boost boosted magic damage... good to know. Either way, I'm surprised I ended up using Bowser. Terrorize is so much better than I remember it as a kid, and Geno not being able to target himself is a real turnoff (I can't keep him alive). I didn't think Bowser's durability would be a huge advantage since you can't pick who gets hit, but since I don't really have much multi-target healing this early (I'm stingy with FroggieDrinks) it's really helpful to have a character that can last for more than two-three hits before yelling for HP Rain.
I dunno where Toadstool is gonna fit into this. It's nice that there's decision making in terms of who I want to use, rather than the previous default of Mario/Geno/Toadstool.
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Since I'm gearing Mario to be a pure magic glass cannon, yeah, Jump Shoes are pretty paramount to my game there (boosts M.Atk in addition to ignoring Jump immunity), especially considering Mario gets his best mults on Jump attacks.
Also, yes, Geno Boost is just that damn good. Terrorize probably will wane a bit once bosses start immuning it, and while it is neat on randoms, I'd rather spend those turns using Bowser's straight offense often, given how much ahead of the curve he is at that point for physicals. Do keep in mind that my Mario's physicals suck, having gotten only M.Attack buffs for the whole game, though. >_> Also has the funny side effect of making Geno my SECOND-MOST DURABLE PC TO PHYSICALS YESZ not that he doesn't utterly suck against magic anyway. But I've been finding Geno just crucial -anyway- despite the nerfs. Geno Boost is just sick, and SLRPG makes the boosts matter more, while Geno's been my second-best offense on randoms because Mario/Mallow as mages just have terrible physical offense (Mario's improved notably due to Masher, but is unreliable. Geno's is just shy of Bowser-level and that is important). Mallow I use a lot on bosses for the healing, but he's not pulling offensive weight on things outside of hitting awful MDef or weakness or general crowd control (GUESS WHAT HAPPENED AGAINST THE CLOWNS THERE) until Shocker.
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Oh yeah: Laggy, I really like the handling of Pick Me Ups here. They were brutal, brutal overkill in the original, and while dying matters, the game doesn't punish you for dying badly, so the balance just feels very right.
One other thing: was I supposed to get so damned many Freshen Ups? I'm not complaining (SPAMMABLE MT STATUS HEALING FUCK YES), but.
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Gah, I'm getting frustrated at the Pirate Ship. So many things are OHKOing Mallow.
Dry Bones seems weird now too.
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Sounds like an invitation to Geno Boost him on randoms - which I'll bluntly say I have done time and again in SLRPG.
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Then Mallow dies in two hits instead of one. >_>
And I've been using Terrorize, which is effectively Geno Boosting my entire party. Enemies aren't immune to it yet. He's still just falling apart. And it's not like Geno would do much better in terms of durability -- he's Mallow with a bit more HP but he jobs to magic damage.
With the multi-acting and the harder timed defenses, I feel like there are times when the game just decides that someone is gonna die and there's nothing I can do about it. =/
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Talk to Laggy about that, then. I haven't been having much issues about it, but he wanted the game to not be horrendous without timed blocking, and depending on how much offense increases, this could not always be viable. But no, the part of Geno Boosting also relates to offense: killing things faster = they have less time to kill you, and Geno Boost helps with that to a degree, and Mallow has MT. Also, Zoom Shoes Bowser as well if Fear is so paramount - status is more useful when you can apply it faster. Also sounds like you'd want to have Toadstool spamming MT sleep on things as well.
EDIT: Speaking of shenanigans:
The Bundt fight was kinda funny. Mage Mario does wonders to make the fight simpler, since the better magic durability keeps the cake nicely under control. Bundt being fear-vulnerable surprised me a lot, but I'll take it for sure. There's also lul 3HKOing Raspberry with Super Jump - even at 14 jumps, that's a nice 370 damage figure after Geno Boost right there, though I know this is Fear-augmented. Deathcast Shredder was a nice touch, but not hugely relevant long-term.
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Geno Boost and Fear don't stack, at least from what I've read. Fear treats all attacks done by the Feared unit as the defender having Defense UP and all attacked done ON the Feared unit as the attacker having Attack UP -- this overrides other stat boosts. That's why Terrorize is so wonderful... it's like Geno Boosting your entire party for three turns.
Maybe I'm underleveled (I've been skipping almost every fight except stuff prior to Croco1/Mack)? I've been getting through the game fine up to this point (only resets have been on Knife/Grate Guy prior to the pirate ship), which is why I'm hesitant to blame level. I'm doing a wee bit of fighting randoms to hit 10 on Mario/Mallow and I'll see if Kalamari goes better the second time around.
EDIT: Already doing Zoom Shoes Bowser! =]
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You're supposed to hit L10 at the ship at latest - ideally, L10 at Star Hill sounds like the plan. I've been skipping a fair deal of randoms, but you don't want to be below a certain level threshold in SLRPG, and L9 mid-Sunken Ship I'd definitely call underlevelled. So yeah, that also makes sense.
EDIT: Says the person who was gnawing on Laggy due to Hammer Bros. 2HKOing MAGE MARIO at L2. >_>
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Level 10 gives Shocker.
That made things a lot easier -- and I even forgot to switch Mallow back to Cymbals for the fight!
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Geno Blast+Thunderbolt actually makes a lot of things easier, I've found! Zoom Shoes Mallow+Geno = MT 2HKO to a lot of stuff before they get going too.
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Terrorize and Boost do stack. Fear is a separate status that is completely distinct from the Attack UP and Defense UP status >_>
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In the first post, at the end, I put in a 'recommended levels' guide just to let people know what the bosses are *generally* designed for.
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I started streaming this with some IRC friends.
Made it up to the first star. So far, good. Funniest part was the Chain Chomp.
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Terrorize and Boost do stack. Fear is a separate status that is completely distinct from the Attack UP and Defense UP status >_>
Ah, guess someone made a mistake on GFAQs then. Good to know!
EDIT: Actually, I was curious so I went and tested this. Geno Boosted Mario deals the same damage regardless of if the target is Feared or not, so it looks like they don't stack.
I went into Land's End and I'm incapable of killing Geckos. Mario can deal 6 damage on a regular attack, Bowser/Mallow deal 1. If Mallow uses Shocker I can get up to 16 damage! I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I can get past the bosses fine. It's... confusing.
On a sidenote, why the nerfs to KeroKeroColas if you're buffing the storebought party heals? Early game I just used FroggieDrinks, now I'm using Elixirs, and I think I'll be able to buy Megalixirs by the time that Elixirs stop being a full-heal. On the topic of items... Able Juice. It being nerfed means there's no way to cure most statuses except HP Rain early on. They seem pretty outclassed by Freshen Up anyway, since Scarecrow/Mushroom are pretty rare statuses and you usually know when they're coming. I dunno, I didn't understand why it needed to be nerfed.
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For exactly the reasons you stated: status not being easy to cure early on makes it more relevant aside from just "pop the Able Juice", or forces you to use Mallow's turn for that purpose. Freshen Ups only become readily storebought when MT status is a lot more common and there are bigger threats to begin with. If there's a universal status cure, it basically cheapens the role of status in a psychological sense, where otherwise people don't feel compelled to bother curing a status because you have to go through workarounds to do so (carrying 2 curing items instead of 1), which makes the status more relevant.
Keros get used regardless. You get a ton of free ones from chests and they're still guaranteed full healing as opposed to the storebought versions. Every person who's gone through has used them during fights, so I'm not worried about them being ignored or stockpiled.
That is ... really weird. I swear damage was being quartered when I had both Boost and Terrorize in effect. Can you test damage from enemies as opposed to damage on enemies, at the least?
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Keros get used regardless. You get a ton of free ones from chests and they're still guaranteed full healing as opposed to the storebought versions. Every person who's gone through has used them during fights, so I'm not worried about them being ignored or stockpiled.
That is ... really weird. I swear damage was being quartered when I had both Boost and Terrorize in effect. Can you test damage from enemies as opposed to damage on enemies, at the least?
I am such a hoarder in RPGs. I haven't used a Kero yet, yet I gladly drop all of my money on Megalixirs. I'll chalk this up to me being silly. >_>
And I just tested... you get the same damage whether it's Fear, Defense UP, or Fear + Defense UP. I read somewhere that the game handles Fear by just giving the opposite party Attack UP/Defense UP for all calculations, and it overrides whatever the actual conditions are. I'm not sure what happens if two people are Feared, but they definitely don't stack.
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Just saved after beating the Hidon in the Sunken Ship. Randoms started out nasty, but I've gained a few levels because they give tons of experience and I've figured out a party configuration that does a good job of neutralizing them. Greapers are easily the nastiest of the bunch, Creepers hit hard but are slow and vulnerable to status. The rats are surprisingly durable which makes them really annoying due to poison damage. Not using the most updated with the weakened Clustars and King Kalamari. He didn't seem too bad, a party of Mallow, Geno and Mario handled him pretty well.
I discovered another emulator issue. I'm still using the one that has problems with the inventory screen mostly out of laziness. In the final portion of the King Kalamari fight, the emulator seems to have trouble handling everything that's going on at once and will freeze up if a graphically complex skill is used when 1 or more of the tentacles is alive. This is most notable with Super Flame and when the tentacles use Lightning Orb. It can handle regular Fire Orb so use that until both of the tentacles are dead and after that it's safe to use Super Flame on the big guy.
Some balance thoughts, Whomp Glove and Zoom Shoes are overpowered. Mallow has the best attack out of the bunch due to Whomp Glove's +60 attack power. I know that the idea is that by using them he's sacrificing magic boost from the Cymbals, but it's not like his magic stat is bad without the cymbals. Adding a magic penalty to the gloves might make the decision a little more interesting. The problem with the Zoom Shoes is their defensive bonuses. I've mainly had them equipped on Bowser and Mallow, but with them equipped only the strongest physical attacks can scratch Bowser and Mallow is moderately durable instead of dieing to a stiff breeze. I just got the Safety Badge and I suspect they may have a similar effect because the bonuses it gives are even better.
As for the characters, Mario is a good damage dealer. It feels that a lot more things are weak to jump and fire so he has solid physical damage and can sacrifice some FP to do pretty extreme damage if he hits a weakness. Mallow is feeling pretty broken now that I've given him the Whomp Glove and Zoom shoes. Whomp Glove and his magic makes him a very well rounded character and Zoom Shoes fix his weaknesses perfectly. Bowser is also very useful. He's more one sided than Mallow and Mario, but Terrorize is awesome and enemies who target him with physical damage are usually wasting their turns. Solid physical damage is helpful too.
Toadstool and especially Geno feel as though they've gotten the short end of the stick lately. Toadstool's early damage is better, but her healing and hp are worse. Mallow feels like the superior healer right now because HP Rain is better than Therapy and Group Hug is prohibitively expensive and doesn't even heal that much for it's cost. Sleepy Time is nice but that's really the only thing she has going for her right now. Is it possible to change Group Hug's targeting so it targets her allies but not herself? If so I think you could lower it's FP cost to 6 and it wouldn't be overpowering. Giving her status healing back to Therapy might also help to reestablish herself as the party healer over Mallow.
Geno has two good qualities right now, his speed and Geno Boost and that's it. He's really frail, Geno Beam and Geno Blast don't do that much damage for their cost, and he doesn't do that much with physicals because while his attack stat is good, his weapons aren't. I think the biggest problem is that his equipment is terrible. Looking at the list, Hand Gun has less than half the attack of Masher and Whomp Glove and the Sailor Cape gives 3/5 the defense and Magic Defense as the Nautica Dress, Sailor Shirt and Sailor Pants.
Hack is still a lot of fun so far.
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I had the same opinions as you when I was in the Sunken Ship, but things completely changed rather quickly.
Geno gets Geno Whirl soon. This really helps in randoms. Plus you can get the Ghost Medal in Monstro Town which really helps his durability. This also begins to coincide with enemies becoming immune to Fear.
I'm using Mario/Mallow/Geno for the most part. I agree, Toadstool isn't really desirable at the moment... I'd rather just use items for MT healing than deal with the competition for the FP. I'd switch out Mario for Bowser if I could, but Mario isn't really a liability. Mallow's magic damage is fantastic (Snowy tore through Megaslimax), and Geno Boost is too silly.
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Re: Zoom Shoes. +10 Speed and +10 Defense/+5 M.Defense is good for that point, but compare it to the Amulet (acquired shortly thereafter). You take a -5 speed hit on it, but you get +7 to all stats (including defenses) and also get element halving on top of that, which pretty cleanly own the Zoom Shoes for durability reasons. Defense stacking to make things tink is fine and expected; there are spells that ITD that exist explicitly to get around that as well, and it really differentiates who's durable and who's not, which I like as a design aesthetic (might as well take advantage of that subtractive defense!)
Toadstool is designed more as a crutch than anything. It's true that storebought MT healing items make her somewhat obsolete for that purpose, but bear in mind that not everyone is going to keep those stocked up on a regular basis and they're pretty pricy and out of the way - no way you can argue 120 or 180 coin consumables are somehow more cost-effective than a 12 FP spell. In addition, she has Come Back, which given the new cost of Pick Me Ups is a big deal if you're stingy on consumables (and Sleepy Time keeps her relevant on randoms). If you find her underwhelming early on, remember the B'tub Ring is available immediately for her and boosts her healing significantly. I'll grant that Therapy is just flat out worse than HP Rain, but nor do I want it to be a clone of the same spell (and Toadstool still easily outclasses Mallow for healing just on virtue of having MT and revival). I can't change Group Hug's targeting, unfortunately, otherwise that would be a lot more interesting as a spell.
Geno rides on Geno Boost for a very long time, but I think it's fair to say that Geno Boost is just that damn good that it still justifies his use (and his speed and offense, while the latter not being cast-best, is certainly passable enough to give him purpose on randoms). Whirl and Flash give him niches that no one else gets later on as well, and as Fuzzy mentioned, the Ghost Medal helps him immensely.
Everyone so far I've seen has used quite varied parties, which has made me pretty happy as far as I'm concerned.
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I now have a fancy awesome modded logo courtesy of Hal.
The ROM has been updated accordingly (along with other relevant things like Magikoopa not being able to freeze your game and Group Hug being dropped to 10 FP)
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Is that Logo just a modded screenshot JPEG or did you actually make the change to the ROM itself?
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The latter.
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More logging madness:
Currently on my way to Bean Valley, at L14. I think it's reasonable to assume 13-14 for Belome 2, since there's -another- XP jump at Land's End and by god they give you a star that lands you tons of XP just there. At this point, I'm comfortably swapping people while keeping Geno in my ranks - too much speed there, and the MT is just sexy enough to justify that. My party is -indeed- frail - they only went past the 100 HP average by L13, if not 14, because holy crap making pure mage Mario and Mallow takes a toll on their durability and Geno still remains likely the second-most durable PC to physicals, which is hilarious and sad. >_> This is pretty cool for my anti-boss offense, though - particularly, Ultra Jump is horrendously painful right now. Mallow also deals great damage with Snowy, but that's expensive. Well, not so much with the Scrooge Ring I bought by hogging Frog Coins the whole game. <_< Toadstool is now relevant against randoms with Sleepy Time and Therapy is hands down the best post-battle healing in the game (NOT TO MENTION you actually have reasons to have a healer -in battle- now, especially post-L13, where you may find Come Back highly desirable, but that stands true especially for bosses), while Bowser slowly begins to dwindle in worth - his durability and damage with Poison Gas are great, but Terrorize began to face immunities (particularly, Shoguns) and his speed is highly undesirable for my blitzkrieg approach on randoms, for all that Zoom Shoes helps a bit (though not much if he uses Work Pants, which he -still- has an argument to use even at Land's End). I figure he may end up low-priority in my lategame party just like the original, but I'll see about that when his lategame spells show up. Meanwhile, Mallow is very frail as well, and almost as slow as Bowser, which means he also benefits from Zoom Shoes. Due to this, I -never- use both Mallow and Bowser in my party, because I can't afford to have no fast PCs in my ranks period. Growing pains of party dynamics here.
Anyhow, some particular eye-catching enemy thoughts:
Belome 2: was hilariously trashy. Clone Geno has Dark Star, but I just went "yeah whatever ST OHKO", 2HKOed him with Ultra Jump and revived with Toadstool. Besides that, he only cloned Geno and Mario, and Clone Mario is horrible in spite of double-acting. But that's okay.
Mokura: Cute, Laggy. Really cute. Mokura is quirky and brutal, particularly at L13-14. How you handle this crap: you need magical damage to bring him out, since he's unhittable early in the fight with physicals. Fortunately, his MDef is horrendous. I was dealing 500 damage with 20-jump Ultras, and I slapped a 700 damage tag on him with a particularly nasty Ultra Jump chain. Honestly, his scary stuff lies in Sand Storm and a Boulder next turn. Freshen Ups are necessary there, and you honestly want Toadstool if she can survive a Boulder (which Geno Boost should ensure). IN FACT, a durable enough Toadstool can borderline trivialize Mokura's offense, if I'm analyzing this right. But this is the easy part.
Later, he -undisappears-. He gets a single tripleact when he undisappears - Mega Drain/Water Blast/Ice Rock, which can ruin the day for 2/3 of your party if you're not on top of your game. Once -that- is past, though, you have to deal with getting to him. His MDef turns from suck to great, but his P.Def becomes egregious failure. Caveat? He is a PAIN IN THE ASS TO HIT. So, this really turns into a battle of endurance and luck unless you want to spend a ton of time chipping the MDef. It's -reasonable-, but I realized that trying to break his evade is actually far faster if you have better than complete shit for luck - 50% or so evasion is annoying, but when he's as frail as he is to physicals, it works out okay. Laggy actually seemed impressed that I beat it, even though I used savestates to actually figure out a deal of his patterns (I hadn't saved for half an hour and did -not- want to lose progress, and I actually accidentaly savestated into the fight). So yeah, figured it was worth posting.
Shoguns: Badass motherfuckers, especially on a party as frail as mine. Carni-Kiss is now unblockable OHKO to half my party, and you don't try to MT them unless you can 2HKO them before they act (I couldn't at L13) because of their Vigor Up counter to magic, which turns Carni-Kiss into "OHKO Bowser" shit. Oh, and they immune Fear. Don't dick around these kids! They're fortunately slow, but if you're not careful, they can easily ruin your shit. Of course, they prioritize their trashy physical (not bad unblocked, but it's really really easy to block. Sooooooooooooo), so they're entirely sane. I just have to wonder why Laggy fangirls randomly over some stuff like Lakitus and Snifits and now Shoguns. =D
Also, if you want to grind for Frog Coins? Land's End if you care so much. Still having fun, and holy crap Attack Scarf is no longer completely dumb.
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Shoguns are nasty but Snowy still one shots them. Hits them all for about 300 damage, probably more for you since you've been consistently giving Mallow the magic bonuses. Mallow in general is really good in Land's End if you're willing to use FP liberally.
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- Level up bonuses changed to require some actual thought and preference instead of autopilot to the best number.
I know you posted these in chat, but could you document these in this thread as well?
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All level up bonuses rotate through the following bonuses.
Phase 1: Attack +1/Defense +2, HP +3, M.Attack +1/M.Defense +2
Phase 2: Attack +1/Defense +1, HP +2, M.Attack +1/M.Defense +1
Phase 3 is char-dependant.
Mario: Attack +2/Defense +2, HP +5, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +2
Toadstool: Attack +1/Defense +2, HP +4, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +1
Bowser: Attack +2/Defense +2, HP +5, M.Attack +4/M.Defense +1
Geno: Attack +2/Defense +1, HP +4, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +1
Mallow: Attack +3/Defense +1, HP +4, M.Attack +2/M.Defense +1
I included it in the original post as well.
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Time to feed the Lagbeast with another war story log. So, this will cover Bean Valley and Nimbus Land.
Bean Valley is pretty simple outside of the Chewies and Kriffids. Chewies used to be ID-vulnerable, so Geno Whirl to own their asses with great fury. When Laggy changed that, I never had to fight them again, so screw your evil, Laggy-chan. Kriffids, though, I find honestly more dangerous. 2HKO magic+silence is murderous if you're geared for randoms, and they're annoying as -fuck- to kill. Fortunately, they're still ID-vulnerable! Goooooooooooooooodbye. People saying Geno sucks are freaking out of their mind. However, I'm increasingly convinced that going pure mage Geno or mage+HP Geno is -the- way to go for him. Physicals being underwhelming for offense now that pdef was buffed+SMRPG giving you ridiculous amount of resources = you want magic to fry things, and Geno's got the most cost-effective stuff out there. I also slapped a Troopa Pin on him, which means he 2HKOs a lot of stuff and OHKOs some people too. Also, Toadstool -loves- them prop weapons. Sleepy Time works on a lot of stuff, and that+Geno-level speed = you kick ass on randoms. Late midgame kicks in and suddenly it's back to classic SMRPG dynamics for me. Anyhow.
Megasmilax was funny. First time, I come in with no Transform blockers! Predictably, Megasmilax comes in after I own the smaller Smilaxes and fweems my ass with Petal Blast+whatever tripleact. Second time was far simpler in spite of my lack of items, since I dropped two Transform blockers on my party and had Mallow rip Megasmilax in half with Snowy. Okay, this is it for Bean Valley - well, no. There are Birdies and Fat Troopas. But Birdies get OHKOed by Troopa Pin Geno, even though they're faster. Sure, they OHKO everybody but Bowser with unblocked Grinder, but who cares. >_> Meanwhile, the Koopas hate Ultra Jump like nothing else.
Then, Nimbus Land. I didn't bother fighting Dodo the first time. Randoms... well. I didn't fight all of them. Honestly, I skipped a -lot- of randoms on Nimbus Land, which weaved off my earlier overlevelledness and now I'm L16 for Barrel Volcano, but that's something else. The mage guys are funny in that they gave me a reason to use Mute! yesz. The Jawfuls giving up a turn to sleep turn = they're -awful-, so the most dangerous enemies I really fought were... the Shysters. Who get OHKOed by Geno Flash+Troopa Pin, but that's okay, since they're faster than Geno. Now, for bosses:
Birdo. Birdo. Laggy, you whore, why does the egg actually -act-. Well okay it was only a Meteor Swarm but that was a surprise. Well, a surprise that nearly OHKOed Geno. Then, Birdo herself. Birdo is funny in that she has a ton of in practice unblockable offense, but she's just so frail. The triple act with the overkill egg+Magnum is funny, but I had Toadstool and a couple Pick Me Ups to spare. And, as mentioned before, she's -so frail-. Mario 4HKOed her with Geno Boost'd Ultra Jump or something? Come to think of it, having mage Mario viabilizes Geno+Toadstool on bosses more, since you can have Geno boost stuff then item boy/attack in his rare spare time, Toadstool heal the universe and Mario dish out the jumps that make the peoples fall down.
Then, there's Dodo and Valentina. Dodo's duel eats a 3HKO from Geno physicals, and his two actions being Flutter Hush left me thoroughly unimpressed. Then, Valentina. The first phase is pretty repetitive and owned by Group Hug. When Dodo rejoins, the fight actually starts, though! Dodo isn't very impressive (fully blockable and easy to block), but Valentina gets pretty scary, being able to one-round Toadstool at will, having Shredder and dropping MT sleep that deals damage like nobody's business. Of course, she also derped some with mixing up with her awful physicals. My damage here was entirely done by Mario, and I used my Crystallizes here too in order to mitigate the insanity her damage can rack up. Of course, she also isn't that durable either, and once Dodo died, she kinda bit it to Mario Ultra Jumping on her overgrown lap. Mage Mario is awesome.
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Finished the hack. Lots of fun overall. Final party was Mario with Jinx Belt, Bowser with Feather, and Toadstool with Rare Scarf. Levels were 25 for all.
Mario: Pretty much the best damage dealer throughout the hack. Jump is good until late and the Fire attacks where an acceptable substitute when they were resisted. Jinx Belt and Ultra Hammer make him ridiculous and he's able to blow past even the toughest physically defensive enemies with sheer attack power.
Bowser: Excellent tank early on until enemy offense gets ridiculous late. Would have been really bad at the end except that I discovered Poison Gas against Exor. Poison Gas is completely ridiculous. It tended to do around 350 damage and was almost never resisted. The poison is a nice side effect not only because of the damage but it provides a sort of pseudo-Psychopath effect with the way SMRPG poison works.
Toadstool: Gets better and better as the game goes on. Her hp starts out pretty bad but eventually she surpasses Mallow. Healing is pretty expensive early, but by the end of the game it's much more manageable due to Royal Syrups becoming common and having 99 FP instead of ~65. Of course she also gets a big offense boost between War Fan and Frying Pan so that also helps. Mute and Sleepy Time are amazing when they work.
Mallow: Hit and Miss. Early on he's pretty good because Thunderbolt is cheap and you don't have any better options. Solid also in the Pirate Ship because of the Whomp Glove. After that him being good coincides with enemies being weak to Snowy, and if they're not he's worthless. Terribly weak to phyicals and the low hp doesn't help his durability against magic.
Geno: Probably LVP of the game. With the exception of Geno Boost everything he does can be done by someone else better and items can cover for Geno Boost. Granted, part of this could be because I never was able to get the timing on Geno Whirl, but still. His damage specials are expensive and Poison Gas and Snowy do more for less. Made of paper against physicals and his magic durability wasn't that good either.
Around Monstro Town I started using savestates in boss battles, mostly because their offense started getting pretty insane. With that in mind the most difficult boss was probably the Axem Rangers, then Valentina and then Boomer. Smithy probably would have been up there if I hadn't been stocked with a load of the best items.
Some balance notes: I wish there was a little bit more that I could do against status. Do Freshen Ups eventually become storebought? If so that helps but they still take up an inventory slot and those are a rather precious resource. In particular, as far as I know it's not possible to block both Mushroom and Sleep at the same time and a number of bosses use both statuses liberally (Valentina, Megasmilax, and Countdown come to mind immediately). If it's possible to make one, an ID blocking pin that give minor defense boosts like the rest of the pins would also be nice because ID is used rather liberally and the current ID blockers have pretty big downsides.
Also, late game boss offense could stand to be toned down some. I'm not a big fan of making Crystallines and such required, but Boomer and Smithy 1 and 2 have the potential to do pretty extreme damage. If Blue Boomer uses Solidify and Corona in a row that's a wipe if no one is defending or buffed. Similarly, for Smithy1 Sledge does 165 which only Bowser and Mario could survive and he's faster than everyone on the team. Smithy2's mage form also would have OHKOed my team from full health without the Crystallines with pretty much any 2 spell combination that involved Sword Rain or Meteor Swarm and he's also got the Body who throws around 140 damage physicals and 500+ Mega Recovers. Toning down the offense and giving the body Shredder could really help to make buffs less of a necessity.
I'm also a bit curious, do Bowser's Poison Gas and Mario's Jump work off of the same "get stronger with more uses" counter? It would explain why Poison Gas was so good at the end of the game despite never using it before.
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Mallow: Hit and Miss. Early on he's pretty good because Thunderbolt is cheap and you don't have any better options. Solid also in the Pirate Ship because of the Whomp Glove. After that him being good coincides with enemies being weak to Snowy, and if they're not he's worthless. Terribly weak to phyicals and the low hp doesn't help his durability against magic.
To be fair, the stretch where enemies are notably weak to Snowy is pretty huge (Megasmilax, Volcano, etc.) and even when not hitting weaknesses it tends to be the strongest MT spell the party has. Star Rain later on also outclasses all other MTs with the full 16 hits quite cleanly (easily 400-450+ damage at Level 20 if boosted). That said, his durability and speed woes are pronounced and I can definitely see people giving him a pass based on playstyle.
Some balance notes: I wish there was a little bit more that I could do against status. Do Freshen Ups eventually become storebought?
Yes, they're storebought from Marrymore (or Sea - can't remember exactly when) and onward. I have them drop liberally in the Moleville mines as well.
The other status stuff is quite intentional, admittedly. I didn't want one accessory catching both Petal Blast and Aurora Flash/Light Beam, hence it was split between Safety Badge (Mushroom/Mute/Poison) and Jinx Belt (Sleep/Fear). ID blocker limitations are because I am a dirty Coin Trick fanboy. I do think you're selling the Safety Ring a bit short, though. It's still quite amazingly good - a -7 stat hit is a small price to pay for full elemental immunity + ID immunity on bosses that use ID liberally.
Also, late game boss offense could stand to be toned down some. I'm not a big fan of making Crystallines and such required
The issue here is that it is practically impossible to balance between parties that have boost effects (mainly Defense UP status) and those who do not. Bosses that are designed to be competent/dangerous against an unboosted party become utterly laughable if you double the party's durability. With that in mind, I kind of had to design around the expectation that boost would be in play, and that people weren't afraid to skimp on items - I still think you can get by with relatively little grind, and the autoboost items help tremendously on this matter. (Did you get the Quartz Charm?) Lategame, money becomes mostly a non-issue anyhow (you can get 5 Frog Coins per run at Land's End really easily, and you get an infinite coin chest, amongst other things) if you do find yourself starved.
I could up the prevalence of Shredder and other dispel moves (Lightning Orb + Storm), but I feel these moves become degenerate if they are commonplace rather than infrequent. It breeds the mentality of "why should I even bother boosting if the RNG decides to screw me over and make it a wasted turn?", and ... the game is pretty RNG driven as is for boss scripts (though not to the point where I feel like blind luck > everything). Expecting people to be boosted, which may admittedly feel a bit unfair, is a more consistent design nonetheless and causes less frustration about random factors.
I'm also a bit curious, do Bowser's Poison Gas and Mario's Jump work off of the same "get stronger with more uses" counter? It would explain why Poison Gas was so good at the end of the game despite never using it before.
Now that you mention it, it's actually pretty likely they do. That's kind of hilarious and would explain why a lot of people go ZOMGWTFBBQ the first time they use Poison Gas. >_>
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The ridiculous offense is only for a couple bosses, most notably both Smithy's and Boomer were the only ones who had the potential to wipe out the entire team at once and Boomer's is only because I let him get Vigor Up cast.
For Shredder, I think giving it to the Shysters that Smithy1 makes and the Body of Smithy 2 would make it so that buffs are less centralizing but also so the boss doesn't waste too many turns on them. Granted, I didn't see all of Smithy's heads. He sat on mage head for about 50% of the fight and 50% on the tank head so Mario was able to wail on him with 700 damage physicals. I can see what you mean about Shredder though. Whenever Culex used Shredder it was a bit of a breather turn. As for the Quartz Charm, I did have Toadstool equipped with the Ghost Medal for a long time, but I swapped it out for the Rare Scarf at the end. Mario defenses are significant and at that point enough enemies used Shredder or another dispelling move that Ghost Medals defense boost was inconsistent and I was expecting the final bosses to use Shredder at some point in the fight.
The main problem I have with Mushroom and Sleep status is that an awful lot of bosses have both. It's frustrating to have to sit there for three turns and do nothing just because Valentina decided to doublecast Aurora Flash and Petal Blast or Megasmilax used Petal Blast and one of the Mini Smilaxes used Sleep Pollen on the person you had set up to block Mushroom.
I'm not very good at Mallow's Star Rain so that could have contributed to Bowser being a better source of MT damage in the end. Even if I was good at it though, 450 is often overkill and Poison Gas's 300 is good enough in most cases. It's also really expensive without Scrooge Ring and if you're running Scrooge Ring then you have to deal with Mallow's speed where enemies can take potshots at him before he blows them up.
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If 165 damage is OHKOing anyone at Level 25, something seems seriously up to me. Like, you never boosted HP ever or something like that. Unless Laggy made more far-reaching changes to the levelup tables than I think he did.
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Everyone except Mallow had over 165 for me at L22, but I did the occasional HP level ups. I completely left base growths alone so no, those haven't changed...
Re: Mushroom and Sleep? Petal Blast is really limited. I explicitly took it away from Valentina, actually - she only has Aurora Flash. Megasmilax has it and the other Smilaxes have sleep, yes, but you can kill them pretty fast. Axem Pink has Petal Blast and a ST sleep skill, but she has other issues (easily killable, wastes lots of turns with Recover, etc.) Culex's Wind Crystal has Petal Blast and Light Beam, but that's literally all that crystal has. Count Down has both Blast and Aurora Flash, but is 100% telegraphed.
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If 165 damage is OHKOing anyone at Level 25, something seems seriously up to me. Like, you never boosted HP ever or something like that. Unless Laggy made more far-reaching changes to the levelup tables than I think he did.
Yeah, I don't think I ever used the HP bonuses. In general the stat ups seemed more important and when I played regular SMRPG I would only pick the HP Up when the boost was significantly more than the other options (like 5-9 for hp vs 2-3 for the other options) so part of that was my fault.
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I kind of don't understand this problem with assuming people are using Crystaline and the like and then suggesting the final boss dispel? That spells out Geno or GTFO. Limiting dispel but balancing around buffs for some key fights (like the final damned boss is a pretty good one to do so with as are key climax bosses) lets you assume the player has grind up a spare buff item for each Smithy fight and be done with it.
It just seems like more dispel would make for an unfocused piece of design unless he made the dispel hit hard as well which would be a pretty dick move.
Edit - That said, in any other game where buffs were more readilly available or something? Putting it on summoned trash enemies is a good idea, so not to disparage that point! I think it is a good design idea, just not the game for it.
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@dude: I'd also like to note that, given you were L18, Geno Flash badly trivializes Boomer (gets rid of his biggest gimmick!) so in case you felt Geno was that badly LVP... >_> (It also helps versus the Cloaker/Domino pair).
The Whirl trick against Exor also still works. I changed it a little, but it does!
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@dude: I'd also like to note that, given you were L18, Geno Flash badly trivializes Boomer (gets rid of his biggest gimmick!) so in case you felt Geno was that badly LVP... >_> (It also helps versus the Cloaker/Domino pair).
The Whirl trick against Exor also still works. I changed it a little, but it does!
It probably would have helped a lot assuming that Geno doesn't get blown up by the physical stage. Exor and company was really easy for me. Poison Gas does tremendous damage to all of them except the physically resistant eye. Culex was easier than Smithy and I fought him at a level below what I fought Smithy at. Just like in regular SMRPG the crystals have more potential damage but sometimes waste turns doing stuff like Flame and Crystal. The buff to Poison Gas really helps because Bowser does 350 to all with it. Smithy's big MT damage is a lot more consistent and therefore more dangerous.
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Also, I thought Geno died to magic -far- more easily than physical. This doesn't help considering magical damage is the more dangerous type anyway, but.
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Not sure if it is a bug or if you are just batshit fucking crazy, but Dry Bones are not dying.
To anything. As far as I can tell I have to sit here and take damage with my dwindling resources until they decide they feel like dying. Then they get up again in 3 seconds and I am stuck behind one and then I am fucked.
Also they have the fucking worst time blocks. Fuck them up? lol 2 shot Peach. Timing on them? At times that make no fucking sense at all. Have fun with that.
Working as intended?
Edit - As far as I can tell it makes this chest nearly entirely unable to be obtained, certainly not worth the investment.
(http://members.optusnet.com.au/grefter/shitfuck.png)
Edit - Ignore. Laggy explained the enemy to me. Still fuck timed blocks. Terrible terrible mechanic. Blaming SMRPG, but still. So bad.
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I think dry bones have some quirk to them like you have to use magic on them before they can be killed. I'm also pretty sure that that chest is only coins.
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So testing Poison Gas. My base damage (No rotations) was 184. I used Jump about 50 times, next time I used Poison Gas the damage was 187. 4 more trials after that were also 187.
So I guess it is scaling with Jump, but very slowly?
Edit - Yaridovich can double act and OHKO Bowser with melee attacks. Timed blocks are terrible. Edit 2 - And even with slow down I can't find the frames to block Pierce. So fucking terrible.
Edit 100000 - Reflecting on this from having seen the rest of the fight instead of just being wiped the fuck out in 2 turns. I suppose it is just the clone that can do the physical spam? He seemed to use spells the rest of the fight which is more manageable obviously thanks to elemental resist. So that made it come down to I had to pick the clone to Jump on with Mario and then kill it with Poison Gas or someone would probably die that turn, maybe 2 people. Smells like RNG boss to me unless there is some way to tell them apart that I missed.
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Okay, I finished the game a couple of weeks back and I promised Laggy a write up. So here we go. Overall as a re-balance hack, it's pretty good. As a difficulty hack, it also succeeds. In terms of Laggy's goal of getting people to use Mallow and Bowser more, I say he accomplished this better than anything else. The game's pretty much completely different than what you would expect. Items are rebalanced, equipment's changed, spells are augmented - some things got nerfed but overall more things got a boost than the boot.
I'll first mention a few things that I didn't like since they are easier to remember. First, I really dislike any offensive timing changes. Even if they are considered dead easy, just changing the timing on offense bothers me. The only time this really kicks in is for Geno. Initial versions and up until the very latest one, most of Geno's spells timing got tighter. You had a ton of leeway in the original sure, but the change just made relearning that timing a very big "Why". Boost also has to compete with Power Blast and Crystalline more so now, so this actually hurt Geno a lot initially when I was playing. I think Snow mentioned something similar which was Laggy finally decided to change this back. Second, I don't like assuming that you'll have Boost up all the time against bosses since I personally feel it restricts the type of team you can bring in (especially true if they have a relatively low frequency of using dispel attacks). Incidentally, it makes some of the balance changes for the PCs a bit for naught since you'll inevitably end up needing Geno anyway (or tons of Boost items that eats your inventory space). However, as I've talked to Laggy about this, I know it's not hit fault but a default limitation of SMRPG. If Geno Boost had a timer on it, it really would solve this entire issue. The final thing was basically how nerfed Geno felt in the initial versions. He was basically "use Boost then die", with nothing else to offer. A few bosses you don't even need Boost, so for almost all the way until up to around Bean Valley he was just this big "Why" PC. Thinking on it, this wasn't so much as Geno got beaten with the nerf bat, but more so everyone else got better whereas he got very little. This eventually led to a more cost efficient MT option for him and easier Whirl timing. I haven't played the final patch update, but Geno at early/mid game should feel more like he now has something to offer.
And that's it. Yes I realize it's basically big ball of text around Geno. But screw it, the issues I had all ended up having something to do with him.
As for the good things, I really like how the hacks blends several elements together. For example, the Coin Trick which was relatively useless in vanilla, is now a pretty damn good accessory. This is partially due to lower FP recovery, more expensive FP costs and the need to actually use said spells in battle. Now there's an actual chance you may not have enough coins to restock syrups, so the Coin Trick's actual function is worth something. The way Pick Me Ups are handled are also pretty brilliant. It's a bit of a changer initially since you don't expect it to be pretty scarce. But making it purchasable for 2/3 Frog Coins means that you can still get them if you need a few more and dying becomes more relevant. PC balance is of course, spot on outside a few minor blemishes (noted above). Laggy's pretty good at this balance thing for PCs. And the difficulty boost is very cool. It's tougher, but not so much so that you want to stab yourself with a spork. Makes late game bosses not total jokes and are actually decently competent. I wiped to all the factory bosses once SANS Smithy (go figure). Only thing to note is that some randoms are insane beyond believe (HI CHEWYs), but this is because Laggy is a fanboy, so whatever. He's allowed to have some fun while producing hacks.
Thoughts on PCs:
Mario: He's not very durable and is one dimensional all the way through. More durable than Mallow during Chapter 1 and decent damage there. Mid-game is just various shades of wanting to boot him. He gets substantially better late game due to Jump's special property. If you fight randoms here and there, it is actually quite possible for Jump to be boosted strong enough to outclass Super Jump. For a cost of 3 FP, this means he has the single most cost-effective ST spell late, which is really cool. And of course, his physical improves as the game moves on.
Mallow: Strong on damage, not so much on other stats. Mallow's damage has improved notably, in part due to spell improvements and in part due to getting some bonuses on his equips. Early game, Thunderbolt at 2 FP is pretty cool. Mid-game, he has Whomp Glove and Ribbit Stick to let him play different party roles and his MT picks back up with Snowy. Shocker's also cool for hitting weaknesses against ST targets and is a pretty good source of damage for a long while. However, raw HP durability is an issue (see: getting OHKO by Sledge without boost). Also despite the buff to HP rain, I still hardly ever used it outside of very specific circumstances. Not sure what this says other than, "it's not a great move"
Geno: Initially he starts out pretty good. Then around Booster Tower and all the way up to Bean Valley, he was terrible in the version I was playing. Late game, he's great as bosses have stupid offense, a few spells that can Dispel and Quartz Charm. Was the LVP in my overall experience as he has that huge stretch in the middle where he is extremely middling. Probably better now though with the recent fixes.
Bowser: Okay, initial changes to Bowser were *ridiculous*. Game might as well have been called Super Bowser RPG, because Bowser's insane durability and non-fail damage inevitably meant he usually was the only one who lived through some really nasty assaults. Bowser's big thing is durability in this Laggy hack. Terrorize is godlike and POIZN Gas buff means now it's quite possibly one of your strongest spells. Bowser's easily better to be built as a mage in this version due to his spell buffs. Late game, he trails as getting rid of randoms quicker > Fear and bosses getting higher and higher damage means its harder and harder for him to try and solo. Still has his shining moments since, for example, he completely owns Eph. Possibly MVP, which just shows how much he got buffed and needed the buffs to compete.
Toadstool: MT healing is all she needed because even with it at 2.5x more FP, lower power and no longer healing status, it is still a ridiculously good spell. Although part of this is also because MT healing got more expensive to purchase. Then of course, she has Sleepy Time for crowd control. Mute I never used, but reading Snow's recent logging shows that it has some use occasionally. Oh yeah, and I think she has the second best durability? Not 100% sure on that, but she's certainly more durable than one would think. A more defensively oriented PC, but great where she is needed. Never found her offense to be good, but Laggy has told me otherwise.
Overall, a great hack. Recommend playing it if you like SMRPG and feel like spicing things up a bit or want to run with a more difficult version of the game. Some of Laggy's nastier surprises are worth playing for.
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Updated to tentative FINAL VERSION unless huge issues are found.
- Keros now cure status
- Valentina, Johnny, and a handful of other bosses downgraded slightly
- Animation glitches on Exor fixed
- Bowser Crush nerfed slightly and given higher FP cost
- Various enemy modifications
- Documentation for equipment and items in-game updated where clarity was needed
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Playthrough topic. Mostly trying to look at randoms as I go through this. As a warning I don't have any major plans for how to build stats and will probably choose them fairly randomly depending on what I think I need. So far:
Mario (initial 1): Power, HP, Power, Special
Mallow (initial 2): HP, Special, HP
I'll try to keep this updated for reference, I'll also be listing my levels.
Bowser's Keep
Terrapins still suck.
I was one hit from losing to Bowser. Whatever to this fight in general.
Mushroom Way
Level 1 -> 2
This dungeon makes me hate Laggy's decision to replace battle music with dungeon music. Booo Mushroom Way. I'll forgive him by the Forest Maze no doubt.
Anyway, this area's inherently a bit limiting but works for what it is. Enemies deal 2/4 damage depending on blocking which is enough to make me care but that's about it, pretty straightforward really. Koopa Troopa act as a "use Jump!" tutorial, Spikies from what I recall act as a "don't use Jump!".
First Hammer Brother went down like a chump, but then the second got pretty nasty, I was a bit worried about winning.
Bandit's Way
Level 2 -> 3
Old enemies are pretty bad, those early levels are noticeable.
Frogogs hit fairly hard but I didn't fight many so I don't have much to say about them. K-9's are the real threat here, 2HKO damage unblocked or fear. And they don't get OHKOed at Level 2 (Mario can do it at L3, which makes them much easier) and are faster than Mallow. Yikes! My first fight with them was closest I've come to losing so far.
Croco... I started out with Fire Orb and Mallow providing heals, but later I switched to mainly using physicals to save FP/items since I'd used more items in the dungeon than I was used to and money is slightly low at this point. His defence seemed like it was a bit lower than in vanilla, I could do ~40 with Mario physicals when my old stat topic notes say to expect ~26, making this strategy more viable. Anyway he plays fairly rough below half HP, doubleacting (and the healing's now a free action so no pressure lost there), decent fight.
Mushroom Kingdom
Level 3 -> 4
Shysters... I take some time to relearn the timing for Thunderbolt. Once I do it takes them out quite nicely, so these guys are a good tutorial for that! They go between Mario and Mallow so that makes Mallow feel a bit lamer despite the MT OHKO, and Mario does get to one-shot them with physicals at L4.
I have two resets on Mack, he's very tough! Wouldn't have been so bad if I had raised Mario's Special, though... as is Mario just took lots of magic damage from Drain and Mack's multiacting magic. Defences are clearly going to be more important in this hack. Also making Mack hard is the fact that I have no revival; I used my one Pick-Me-Up against Croco, which I now wish I hadn't.
Kero Sewers
Level 4 -> 5
The second dungeon that makes me dislike the decision to do away with random battle music. The BGM is so dreary which is completely inappropriate because this is the best dungeon yet for challenge! Optimally if it were me I'd like to see random battle music persist in some dungeons (like this one), but dunno if it's possible to pick and choose like that.
First off, we start getting status, which makes things like Able Juices and HP Rain matter! Rat Funks mostly serve to distinguish between Jump Shoes and no Jump Shoes, since Mario outspeeds them only if he has them. Otherwise they poison and are okay. Gobies get owned badly by Thunderbolt, but this is okay, they do get turns at least. Hobgoblins multiact but generally weren't too threatening, I know they had some status but I forget what, now (I think silence?).
The stars of the dungeon, though, are Big Boos and Shadows. They like to show up together, have varied defences (Boos immune physicals, Shadows at least immune Thunderbolt which you'll be using anyway). They inflict lots of fear, and do very solid damage, especially the Boos on turn 2 when they seem to consistently use Lightning Orb. Pure Waters are pretty great but you don't have many, and these battles definitely punish you for mistakes, especially the one against one Shadow and three Boos. I have a couple resets here, both quite avoidable but I suck.
Pandorite uh... has HP. Carni-kiss hurts enough that he might draw a Pick-me-up (and those remain limited!), but not too threatening past that.
Belome wasn't too bad compared to the better randoms. Scarecrow just isn't a very frightening status, and his damage remains pretty limited. Light Beam is nasty, but he only used it once for me. If he could use it twice in quick succession it could have led to a wipe, though one that would be counterable by the Wake-Up Pin which you can have by now (missable?).
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Wait, Laggy took out the GAY PRIDE PARADE battle music?
HEATHEN.
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The chest enemies still have it!
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Laggy is the best.
Rose Way
Level 5 -> 6
Easier dungeon than the last, which is fine.
Starslaps are scrubs. I guess they heal occasionally. Shyguys manage some damage, though are unexciting. Not much to say about them, they aren't negligible. Snapdragons are less damaging generally but they'll sometimes put people to sleep. I assume. They went 4/4 on targetting the person with the Wake-up Pin so I never saw it. <.< Crooks are better because they're fast. Sometimes they run away, but sometimes they stick around and do decent damage off "goes first" speed, so they're kinda pests then.
The star of the dungeon (besides Starslap oh ho ho) is the Arachne which hits hard (unblockable 2HKO with Venom Drool) and even adds poison. They have pretty good def but Fire Orb roasts them, the first time I've felt that spell really worth using in a random so far.
Forest Maze
Level 6 -> 7
Awww yeah Beware the Forest's Mushrooms in its uninterrupted glory.
Rat Funks are back, coming in large packs. Unfortunately Thunderbolt doesn't actually OHKO them. Fortunately they mostly run away. Funny thing is they mainly do damage with poison now since defence is so much higher with Rose Town armour. A use for the Antidote Pin?
Thunderbolt makes Buzzers explode, but at least they're fast, so they're kinda this dungeon's answer to Gobies. Damage is bad but they have poison, uh more Antidote Pin potential hype I guess?
Wigglers are badass. Hit them physically and they power up and try to hurt you bad (they're not awful at damage before this). Don't trigger this and they'll use Sand Storm, MT fear, ow. They make for good fights and my first encounter with two kills me since I wasn't prepared for this kinda of upgrade.
Amanitas counter physicals! That's kinda cool. They turn people into mushrooms sometimes which would be more dangerous if they came with more dangerous enemies.
Guerillas hit pretty hard and have decent HP but nothing too exceptional. They do tend to be worth a Fire Orb. Octolots do magic damage which I like because we don't have enough of that in randoms so far (though the longer animation time makes this a defensible decision) and are a mid-range enemy in general.
Bowyer, like Mack, got a big damage upgrade, and the button disabling gives the battle its own interesting ripple. Geno Boost is cool but I forget the timing of it and Bowyer is pretty smart about dispelling it so it isn't as decisive as it could be and probably makes this battle harder than it has to be. It'll never be a joke, though, just because Geno is such a damn liability in this fight with that lack of armour against double/triple-acting, and he can't boost himself. I guess bringing in a Bracer would help, but I end up just doing the last half of the fight with just Mario and Mallow. It works.
Pipe Vault
Level 7
Optional dungeon woo. Anyway, the enemies pulled from Chapter 1 are awful but this doesn't need an annoucement. The new enemies are certainly competent, though, again continuing the trend of destroying Geno handilly. They're also physical tanks. Sparkies hit both defences for decent damage (yay), go before Mallow (sadface). Piranha Plants have both good damage and a couple decent status attacks to tie you up. Geno would be terrible here but he at least manages decent damage before he goes down, or can boost Mallow when I'm up against 4+ enemies.
Moleville
Level 7 -> 8 (Geno 7)
Hooray for new storeboughts! I don't bother with Work Pants for now. SLRPG is so far giving me a healthy opinion of defensive stats and the speed hit seems ill-advised.
Well with the new equipment upgrades Sparkies aren't quite the offensive threats they were, although they're not negligible outside and still draw some FP. Magmites are the same deal, anti-physical and not great damage, but not quite as bad.
Bob-ombs are interesting enough, they do some decent damage with self-destruct but are easy to kill first. Horribly bad if you fight them alone (which happens too often) but otherwise they present interesting decisions as to whether they're worth targetting. Enigmas have decent speed, decent damage, and add silence while doing said damage, so they're usually a high priority. Clusters mostly fail but they counter lightning with ID or something like that?
Sackits sometimes do high 2HKO damage off great speed, though more often run away. Their support is awful by this point so there's no reason for them to do their damage more than once.
Overall this is a bit easier than Pipe Vault or Forest Maze but not a total joke.
Croco's solid enough. He doesn't like Geno Boost as he has no way to deal with it, but his damage can still add up, especially on Geno, and your FP is finite. The fight probably hinges a fair deal on how much you go in with. I unloaded some damage but outside the two boosts (which are great) and HP Rain I didn't want to use too much. PSYCHOPATH was totally awesome in this fight so I knew exactly how much FP I needed to ration! Yes!
Punchinello apparently has Sand Storm but I didn't see it. He still managed to kill Mario with some focus fire at one point with the bombs actually deciding to do something, and my missing the timing on his Geno Boost. I had no Pick-Me-Ups but I used a Bracer on Geno and roughed out the fight well enough. Boosted Thunderbolt MT OHKOing the bombs except for the last ones helped a lot and made my not seeing Sandstorm not that improbably, it seems.
Booster Pass
Level 8
Short place but some good enemies with one particularly nasty one.
Spikesters hit fairly hard, especially when they use Funguspike, which also 'shrooms the target. Remember when I noted Amanitas would be scarier if they came with people who had damage? Yeah, that's the case here. They don't like magic too much at least. Carroboscis is mostly notable for great speed. They turn people into scarecrows which isn't bad since both they and Spikesters die well enough to magic, but they do lots of damage off their good speed so you don't want them to stick around too long.
Artichokers are the real monsters of this dungeon, though. Magical tanks who also counter magic with great healing (which has the added bonus of dissuading Thunderbolt while they're around), a nasty physical attack with bubble, and decent MT magic. Screw up taking out their allies efficiently and they'll choke you to death one-on-one (or possibly even one-on-two) as you flail ineffectively against their great HP. One-on-three's not so bad at least. Three resets here.
Booster Tower / Marrymore
Level 8 -> 9
Not too many individual notes here. I run with Bowser and Mallow because I like Thunderbolt and because Bowser's stats are pretty boss. Bowser can control any battles that threaten to be really nasty with Terrorise, to boot.
Spookums are okay. They can do some decent magic damage sometimes with their doubleacting, but sometimes they just do Drain once and aren't really much. Blasters die to Thunderbolt pretty badly. Fireballs are... fast, but really weak, so I guess that kinda works as a punishment since they're just traps. Similarly Rob-ombs are pretty fast and blow up, can do pretty good damage unless they target Bowser, see earlier Bob-omb comments. Jesters and Orb Users are mages but not too notable past that, Remo Cons are decent physical fighters with the associated downsides, Chomps can fear as well as fight. For some reason individual fights make less impression on me here and it's probably because the dungeon isn't super-long but has so many enemies so I don't fight any more than 3-4 times!
Snifits are pretty durable and kinda okay. They're a great source of Pick-Me-Ups! In the Booster fight they're another matter, three at once is very scary and if not for fear I'd have been seriously worried about winning with all the magic damage (argh Blizzard spam) they dish out, as well as silence. Booster himself is also pretty powerful despite being hit by fear! The fight itself draws 3 Pick-Me-Ups but I don't save anyway so who cares. Booster hates Fear and Super Jump, not much to say past that.
Knife Guy and Grate Guy, hmm. Really pretty easy when there's the two of them (thanks to fear). Sure, Grate Guy sleeps people which is annoying, but their damage isn't too impressive (Knife Guy's Static E deserves note for doing 1 to everyone!) so I'm able to largely manage even if things are kinda slow. They have dispel though just so you know Geno is an awful choice for this battle, I guess! Once I kill Grate Guy (since he seemed the more dangerous!), Knife Guy decided he wants to be way better and starts triple-acting with instant death (one per round but still), which is ick with the SLRPG revival situation. Yay for those Snifit Pick-Me-Ups? If I fought them again I would certainly try to kill them at the same time or near enough, since they really weren't too bad together. Checking the stat topic Grate Guy alone is even more evil, so...!
The cake is the cake. I dislike how long the sequence going into the fight is but nothing Laggy can do about that. Knowing that he's fear immune, I opt for a party of Mallow and Geno (I figure I could survive without Mallow but it would cost a lot of money). Geno Boost rocks, Geno himself is incredibly frail and I consider using a Bracer on him but nah. Unlike SMRPG I felt the cake got much more dangerous once reduced to just Raspberry, when he started getting more and more actions with the stronger part and throwing out MT fear, ew. Freshen Ups to the rescue! I leave Geno dead for the last stretch and do fine, Mallow eventually falls because ow Diamond Saw wasn't expecting that even though I should have been because he had it in vanilla and after reviving him he's quite frail too (FroggieStick would have helped here). Still, I prevail first try. Apparently I got a little lucky because I never saw Lulla-bye used in the triple-act phase and it shouldn't be that rare.
Used a total of three Pick-Me-Ups here (two against the brothers, one against the cake) but at this point I can afford them well enough.
Star Hill
Level 9
For some reason I thought this dungeon was longer, just two screens with enemies. Back to using the Mallow/Bowser party. Honestly, while there's a case to remove Mallow (two thunder-immune enemies in this dungeon), I'm uninclined to do so because it's annoying to constantly switch him or Toadstool in between battles for healing. I wish SMRPG let you cast spells with the reserve PCs but what can you do? And non-spell healing is just too cost-ineffective to do throughout a dungeon;it wouldn't be so bad if you had unlimited inventory for Mushrooms but you don't. Anyway.
Sackits are back, same deal as before really. They give lots of coins so I try to track them down.
Geckos are an unremarkable enemy who can inflict sleep while dealing damage, so they can't be taken completely lightly. Mastadooms are kinda badass, I see one do 60 damage to Bowser with a physical! What the hell man. They also null thunder, but Fire Orb shines against them. Pulsars are kinda weird. Physicals prompt them to use a self-destruct instant death counter which... actually isn't a bad way to get rid of them! Or you can jump them to death. Other magic doesn't work so well. Finally there are Mukumukus, who are seriously just annoying. They don't do much damage, and they waste lots of turns taunting you (the taunt takes like five seconds), but they're hard to hit so fights with them take a while if you don't feel like blowing FP on their weak asses.
Sea
Level 9 -> 10
Okay, let's talk about Zeostars and Leukos, specifically when they show up together. Zeostars respond to physicals by healing themselves, so unless you OHKO them (which I could with fear/boost but otherwise no) that's out. Leukos respond to magic with Solidify which is a solid MT attack. Their own turns aren't as bad but not negligible. You fight two of each at the same time, this is actually surprisingly nasty. You can't MT blitz them down because oh god Solidify counters twice. So you have to use a mix of physicals and ST magic. Not too bad once you know what to do but yeah. One reset here.
Mr. Kippers look like Gobies so I assume they'll suck. Wrong, ow, decently powerful doubleact physicals. Bloobers aren't as impressive relatively, I don't remember them much. Same with Crusties, who I mainly remember being the standard slow but strong enemy... but lightning weakness ensures they don't stick around too long.
Sunken Ship
Level 10 -> 11
Fun! Greapers, first of all. These bastards are fast (maybe twinked Geno goes first, didn't try), do lots of ST damage + fear or moderate MT damage as often as not. Sometimes there are two at a time. They often come with Reachers, who do some quite nasty physical damage (OHKOs are possible against the more physically frail), but are at least slow. Reachers are physically tanky but hate fire. There are also Gorgons, who are most notable for Willy Wisp having a low ITD 2HKO but otherwise are unremarkable. Straw Heads also accompany sometimes, but tend to die easily enough to Thunderbolt which they take lots of damage from.
Dry Bones will never die until struck by magic, and they null thunder. Unlike SMRPG (IIRC?) they need to be chipped down first, and their magical defences are decent, so this basically translates to 2HKOing them with very specific things. Notably they spoil cymbals Mallow a bit which not many things do so that's something? Anyway, Dry Bones + Greapers + Reacher (five enemy fight) is evil in particular. Two resets here. Terrorise is the best and generally saves my ass in these fights since enemies don't immune fear.
Alley Rats are fast, weak, run away, and poison. Sometimes they come with enemies who are actually scary though!
King Calamari isn't too bad. Mallow/Geno team. He fears people a lot but eh that isn't too bad. Boosted Mario and Mallow both OHKO tentacles with appropriate elemental attacks, Geno can toss items or Mario can heal. Calmari himself is a pretty standard SLRPG boss, not incompetent but up against boosted PCs nothing too special, either.
Hidon is surprisingly nastier, the Goombettes he summons can make short work of people with bad defence while Hidon himself tosses out decent magic damage, and in particular Willy Wisp. Complicating things is that Hidon is really damn tanky; nulls most elements, good defences (especially physical). I have one reset here, another kinda-reset as I win but use too many Pick-Me-Ups, and end up running Mario/Geno/Toadstool after upping their defences to something passable. Group Hug is great for recovering from the spread-out offence the enemies manage, Geno Boost is Geno Boost, and boosted Super Jump felt the best way to actually kill the bastard.
And then there's Johnny, who deserves note as a total troll boss. Leave Bandana Blues alive and they use Knock Out, which is still terrible (for you). Johnny himself is competent but nothing special, except for the turn you knock him below half HP, where he will act three times and one of those is OHKO damage. And you can't fear him any more, which I was somewhat counting on (Bowser is not a good PC in boss fights where fear is out). So ultimately, I came back with Mallow/Geno. Thunderbolt wrecks the Bandana Blues, Geno Boost is Geno Boost, and this makes Johnny's killer limit turn less disasterous by far. I actually didn't even see him challenge Mario to a duel, though if he had, Mario was boosted and he would be one action from dead anyway, so it's not a big deal. Super Jump dealt the main damage in this battle again.
Mario has been paying off somewhat in tankishness (mostly physical, he has mostly power boosts) and decent special damage despite little in the way of special boosts. He's unexciting but it feels like he has more of a niche in this game. Still wish you could take him out sometimes but so it goes. Mallow's the character I use the most and I guess I might argue him the overall MVP but Bowser is the best when fear works, which is pretty often.
Seaside
Level 11
I run a party of Toadstool and Geno for Yaridovich, and don't regret it for a moment (in fact I'm not certain how parties that lack Geno handle this fight unless they have way more money than me to afford lots of Bracers). Funny how one of the hardest fights in original SMRPG calls for the best party in original SMRPG.
Yaridovich alternates between two phases and both are nasty. During his spell phase he lobs Willy Wisp (OHKO ST) or Water Blast (2HKO MT) and follows it up with a Flame Stone regardless. Without boosted defence, um, ow. With, it's not so bad, although he can kill people if he catches them not fully healed. The mirage phase is generally scarier: it involves him summoning a mirage (which acts basically immediately, so the turn isn't wasted) and then having the mirage throw out doubleacting magic of various (weaker) flavours including the dispelling Lightning Orb, which Yaridovich himself uses doubleact nasty physicals (which are actually slightly weaker than in vanilla! Yeah whatever they OHKO if you don't block unboosted). Four actions to deal with are pretty nasty given how strong they all are; at least Lightning Orb comes late.
I found there was an interesting decision on whether to kill the mirage or not, and it varied with if I had the actions to do so quickly. After three turns the mirage goes away by itself (and this even causes Yaridovich to skip a turn), so there's a case to just wait for that instead of hitting the mirage. But killing it does get you back to the part of the fight where there's no Lightning Orb and missing a timed block isn't a concern. I liked the fact that the game made me consider the decision.
Overall, 1 reset, quite nasty. I actually thought I was going to win first try and generally cruised through the fight until it all unravelled towards the end, while on my second try I felt like I was going to lose far more often but then pulled through and won anyway. That's just the kind of fight it is. Probably one of the most enjoyable in SLRPG so far, but that's no real surprise. It was a fun juggling act of healing, MP healing (Yaridovich has a lot of durability, news at 11), boosting, controlling the mirage, and dealing damage.
Land's End
Level 11 -> 13
I should note right away that the hack has been changed since I played it, so take all comments here with a grail of salt.
This area kinda annoyed me and I'm trying to put my finger on why. Well, I have a pretty good idea actually. There is a particular fight with two Geckits, two Chewies, and a Shy Away which just felt borderline impossible, or at least without way too much luck. Five enemies all with way too high MDef, the Chewies in particular immune to status and dealing out doubleact high damage. Just felt like I couldn't make any progress.
The other fights were less bad but still frustrating because of "oh hey you used Bowser/Toadstool for status and lots of things start immuning it now" which is sadface. I just felt like if I approached a battle wrong I would lose lots of FP and either would have to reload or waste a lot of money. I dunno, it isn't as hard as the Sunken Ship outside that one fight probably but for some reason I was less in the mood for its style of challenge. Some of it was the frustration of dealing with too high enemy defences, some of it was the sheer length of the place, some of it is just wanting something breezier after the also rather challenging (but fun!) Sunken Ship.
Anyway, enemy notes:
Chows have RANDOM STATUS IMMUNITY, do very high damage that or fear depending on their mood (OHKO unblocked). Octovader can throw out some nasty status (silence counters) and if it hits someone not immune that kinda sucks, but at least you can take them out quickly enough with various tricks. Shoguns are kinda like Chows except that their special move can't even be blocked; no fear though (which really only matters if you Geno Boost to survive it). I don't really remember Spinthras well, I fought some and I think they were all-around decent but after I realised the Geckit sprite triggered the obnoxious random above I stopped trying. Geckits are... strange. They can waste turns entirely orrr they can use Sleep-Sauce which is nasty. High MDef means they don't die to collateral and random failure makes them a low priority so you're mostly just hoping they don't use Sleep-Sauce. Fink Flowers status a lot but are kinda scrubby anyway since they don't really accompany good enemies otherwise. Stingers aren't too bad; Mushroom off high speed (though at least the Safety Badge blocks this, unlike sleep) but damage is only okay and they die quickly to Terrorise/Thunderbolt. Shy Aways do high damage off good speed but have the grace to run away at least. Chewies are satan and I have little more to say because I didn't uh ever actually win a fight against them.
The run of Shoguns in the desert holes deserves specific note. Mallow/Geno party although Bowser/Geno is probably a better idea? Not sure. Best way to deal with them I found is to boost Mario then jump on them for a OHKO, anything else leaves them alive too long for Carni-Kiss which is just too damaging without boost. Non-Mario people don't do enough damage and MT is not an option, although at least Mallow's Shocker is decent and pretty close to a OHKO with boost and cymbals.
Belome Temple. Ribbites offer yet more Sleep-Sauce, I have dropped my defences to block it on one PC but even then it is a frustrating move since it both damages and sleeps. Kriffids... good lord, death tanks. Immune to fire, nulls physicals, great MDef, lots of HP. Fights with them are a huge grind and don't feel remotely worth it.
And finally Belome! Two resets here, because those clones are pretty nasty. Some of it is bad luck, I seriously had a sequence of Dark Star on the one sleep-immune -> Aurora Flash -> Dark Star -> Boulder -> Dark Star -> Boulder -> Dark Star. What the hell man. I blame you, Laggy.
Anyway Belome's not as bad as two resets deserve but he's still decent, Aurora Flash is still a badass move and the clones (particularly Geno) do some nasty things. Geno Boost keeps things pretty under control, and Toadstool has a sucky clone so yeah, Toadstool/Geno party go! Just need to make sure Toadstool isn't OHKOED BY DARK STAR UNDER BOOST FFFF but yeah.
Bean Valley
Level 13 -> 14
Well this is mostly a repeat of enemies from Land's End, but I have two new shinies to throw at the enemies: the Troopa Pin and the Ghost Medal. The latter stays mostly on Geno since he can't boost himself and has bad durability and wow this makes him much better. The former bounces around a bunch. Also, Level 14 is a big one, when I do get it. Mallow/Geno for basically this entire dungeon.
Geckit and Fink Flowers are back, I don't have too much new to say here. Fink Flowers sure love to status you for all their relative lack of damage. Also magic tanks with evade, so they take a while but you won't lose. I realise I underrated Stinger damage a bit, it hurts reasonably, but they still die fast enough, so they're good early targets.
So the enemy that really needs to be talked about here is Chewy, who tank magic well, counter physicals with sleep, and on their own turns use doubleact physicals for nasty damage. Ow. High 2HKO per hit if unblocked, and two of them means four of these in a row which is ick. And they're immune to all status. Alone, they're not too bad. Geno Boost on Mario and he can 2HKO them with physicals, although this does provoke sleep counters (however, all magic does double-digit damage at best, so meh). With two people in defence up the storm can be weathered well enough.
Now, when they come with support, namely Kriffids, Shy Aways, and/or Geckits? Yeah this is monstrous. I don't try to win these fights until I get Snowy. But Snowy pretty much changes everything. Attack Up Mallow OHKOs Geckits, does evil damage to everything else. This spell is pretty much godmode here.
Box Boy's the latest monster in a box. I have two resets against this guy, although one reaaally shouldn't count because I learned that if you get three different symbols from the "slot machine chests" you fight one of these guys, and I triggered a fight with a nearly-dead, nearly-no FP party in hopes of getting a mushroom. Whoops. Anyway, Box Boy doesn't like boosted Ultra Jump much, which I now have, that and Shocker takes them out well enough although they hit back really hard with both Blasts and summoning guys who do 130+ damage unblocked. I dunno how an enemy with 900 HP ends up feeling like ball lightning but he does.
One reset on Megasmilax because I mixed up which accessories I had equipped and had nobody immuning Mushroom. Whoops. Other than that, this fight is all Snowy domination. OHKOs the Smilaxes, just shy of 3HKO on Megasmilax (after boosting of course). Megasmilax's defence is higher than in vanilla so I don't do that much damage with anything else (Ultra Jump is immuned) although I admittedly didn't think to try Geno Whirl. Not a big deal, with only 1000 HP he isn't going to be attritioning my party to death or anything anyway.
That leaves the climb up the beanstalks, which have Birdies. Birdies continue the chain of on-crack physicals, easily OHKOing unblocked. What makes them better than anything previous (in a vacuum, at least) is that they go before 30 speed PCs (didn't try twinking to go faster, didn't seem useful). Of course Ghost Medal helps ward them off a bit, and Troopa Pin Snowy is a MT OHKO. I also get good milage out of Geno Whirl for when Mallow drops before getting a turn. There are also Heavy Troopas, who inevitably die before finally acting on their second (slow) turn. I'm sure they do something scary though!
Funny how Geno Whirl and Snowy are very useful (especially the latter) and I basically found both worthless in vanilla.
Nimbus Land
Level 14 -> 15
I mostly use Mallow/Geno for this dungeon. Some Bowser but as usual he feels bad when fear is blocked, and there are several enemies here who do (and Leuko/Jawful spoil it further by countering its use, as noted below). Sleep faces the same problems, although not sure if it'd be countered. Those PCs are certainly better for the fights where those aren't spoiled, though.
Defence upgrade here. Birdies now miss some OHKO but the same general comments apply. Heavy Troopa now get fought three at once so I'm more likely to see them act; they can be 2HKOed with strong enough magic but that's not worth the MP since they're big charge-up move is in fact just a Grinder variation.
So now for the new enemies. Muckles reprise Leukos, meaning they tank and counter magic (aside from Geno Whirl!). They come in large formations so you want to use MT but you can't because yeesh Solidy hurts, so they make battles notably harder. Physicals kill them not super-easily (2-3 hits I generally found). Jawful also act as MT spoilers because they only wake up after one, but their turns aren't as dangerous as Solidify counters. They're really otherwise only notable for having high defence so magic's the way to go.
Orbisons are quite annoyingly tanky and use Mega Recover, mostly annoyances because they're not too threatening. A bit less bad with the latest nerfs. Pinwheels have good speed and can hit either defence... but not super-hard. A joke when they show up alone or with only one other enemy, but often show up in large groups where they're a non-negligible extra complication. Sling Shies are one of the dungeon's stars despite a hatred of Snowy. Originally they had crazy speed so they could do their "high damage + any damn status pretty much" and there was nothing you can do about it, as is they still at least outspeed Mallow/Bowser and can do all that. And they counter physicals if you use them to avoid MT due to their friends. Certainly most dangerous with Leukos. Shamans are also pretty good; decently magically tanky (except magic makes them run away sometimes, so magic's a decent option), good evade, and can rack up lots of damage when they don't decide to use terrible physicals.
And now we need to talk about BIRDO. Birdo is pure genius, but unfortunately I don't figure out the gimmick (even though NPCs say what it is) so I just found her hard. The shell does crazy damage but only lives to see it if you spend time buffing, then Birdo is... not too bad against boosted PCs at first (oh god, if you aren't), then Magnum with multiacting comes out to play. And at low HP, tripleacting and spells. Her HP sucks but the defences are awesome, at my levels the best I can manage short of Work Pants is a little over 100 damage with Ultra Jump while other attacks don't feel worth it (even Geno Whirl). I do have a Rock Candy lying around, though, and figure a boss this tanky with this dangerous a limit phase deserves it applied directly to the face, so there is that. Geno/Toadstool party, love that Group Hug and Geno Boost. How vanillaish. One reset here, plus one more I won't count because I forgot to heal up before the battle due to stupidity, wasted turns doing so since I figured I could stand against the shell as long as necessary, then SHREDDER + METEOR SWARM MT OVERKILL hahaha.
One more new enemy in the dungeon after this point, Bluebirds. They're pretty badass with their SNOWY SPOILING, and decent mdef in general, until I realise that they get destroyed utterly by physicals. Confused by basic attacks, rank them clearly.
And that just leaves Dodo/Valentina, which is a nasty fight on a few fronts. Dodo himself isn't too bad, counters and Flutter Hush add up. The right setups can take him down pretty effectively (for instance, Mallow can OHKO him) but you have to worry about the rest of the fight. Then Valentina herself, who isn't too bad with just one non-physical action. But once both you have to fight both, yeah, ow. 1-2 actions from Dodo and 2 from Valentina is a hell of a lot of offence even if one of those is a Valentina physical, and Shredder can undo the hard work to actually stay alive, including Ghost Medal. It only gets worse from there, as Dodo uses Vigour Up below a certain HP threshold making his damage positively nasty, while Valentina gains an extra action and just has ridiculous offence at that point. I end up doing this fight without sleep immunity just because I need better defences to survive, and fortunately this is actually doable due to Valentina always waking someone up and Freshen Ups healing two people at once, though yeesh.
I don't have many specific comments beyond that (I used Geno and Toadstool ultimately after some experimentation), but it's certainly a very good fight. I had 3-4 resets and generally found it the hardest boss so far, although there is some competition for that.
Barrel Volcano
Level 15 -> 16
Undoubtedly the easiest dungeon since getting the fourth star, but it's no slouch. Lazy Shell is part of this, as Mario's Troopa Pin-enhanced physical now stings enough to be useful against randoms... well, the ones that don't mock physicals Increasingly I start running Toadstool/Geno as Sleepy Time and Geno Whirl are excellent control tactics that don't break the bank FP-wise.
Pyrospheres are the dungeon highlight in terms of badassitude. Great speed, have instant death or decent MT damage in Flame Wall as options. To make matters worse, they null Snowy! Poor Mallow. Fortunately Mario can OHKO them and they're sleep-vulnerable.
Chained Kongs I tended to Whirl right away. I'm a jerk like that. I think they had decent HP and damage but yeah. Magmus is a defensive tank who dies pretty well to Snowy, or they can be whirled in turn. Body/Corkpedite eat Whirl though can Migraine in response. Oerlikons hit pretty hard and mock most status, but they can be blitzed well enough with other tricks (Mario physicals, Whirl, Snowy). Vomers are the new Dry Bones, hit decently hard and counter on death, need to be 2HKOed by any physical + any magic. Stumpets actually immune death! And also tank physicals. So they'll draw a few decent magic attacks. Offence is whatever but not so bad I was really tempted to invest only really low-FP moves to kill them.
Bosses were quite tough! First, Czar Dragon. While nothing new after the brutal Valentina/Dodo fight, defensive boosts felt completely necessary here. The boss has two main gimmicks - fear (which is extremely difficult to justify blocking with all the far better accessories) to try and punch through defences, and Helio summoning. The Helios take two decent MT attacks to kill and if they live a round and a half they'll blow up for some rather nasty damage (in addition to Czar's own turns) which are hard to deal with. After one reset I switch Toadstool to Lazy Shell/B-Tub Ring for a defensive boost, which helps. The fight is slog of tossing Freshen Ups (would have been easier if I'd had more than two), healing, MP healing, and keeping people boosted. Czar's physical defence is very good and I don't feel like using attack magic except to kill Helios so he sticks around quite a while, I'm sure there are ways to blitz him but eh, safe and it works. Zombone by comparison went down like a chump against my strategy despite Sand Storm letting him spread even more fear around; his damage goes down (Czar's Willy Wisp/Blast are mean) and his defence sucks. Also no Helios. Still the overall fight is a slog so I was quite happy that the second phase couldn't measure up to the first, and I'm sure some strategies (hi twinked Snowy) take Czar to pieces, so eh, balances.
Axem Rangers got some serious upgrades; they remain quite a good boss. Most of them get scarier the fewer of them are left. Axem Red, in particular, is just evil once he only has two allies (Shredder + Vigour Up + doubleacting AFTER the Shredder?) so he has to go as one of the first two. One reset discovering this! I take out Pink first because I fear Petal Blast, Red second. Black and Green are vulnerable to sleep, so make extensive use of that, even though Sleepy Time triggers a counter from Black despite putting him to sleep (SMRPG CODING). Yellow gets to go next as at this point he has doubleacting and hits decently hard, magic is the way to go against him (I use physicals otherwise). Green, even after Valour Up, is fragile enough to go next, with Black last... not bad seeing as Black has nasty triple-act unblockable physical damage. The mech is fairly benign, I found, but again, it's a long fight and the last part isn't the "real" part, so like with Zombone I'm fine with this.
Bowser's Keep
Level 16 -> 19
Bowser is awesome here. Malakoopas, Terra Cottas, and Gu Goombas have a significant chance of permanently switching sides if they see him, so yeah, hard to justify not using him. In particular, those enemies can be quite dangerous if not confused... they're all fast, and they all doubleact. At one point I accidentally have Bowser switched out of the party and fight six of them, dead before I get a turn.
The rest of the enemies are pretty durable but come in small numbers... Tub-o-troopa, Forkies, Big Bertha, Star Cruster. Geno Whirl takes them out very cost-effectively. Thus, I end up running a team of Mario/Bowser/Geno, switching in a healer between fights if necessary. Doing so is annoying and I doubt I'd have patience for it all game, but this team is just too effective here so I deal.
The battle rooms deserve note, here. First of all, that's way too many fights in a row with no ability to leave, restock items, or even run away. Still that's SMRPG's bad design and there isn't too much that can be done with it. Anyway, the varying fights are from Nimbus Land and Barrel Volcano as well... I end up subbing Mallow in for Geno past the first few fights when it's clear I'm not facing Bowser-bait enemies any more, so I gain some good MT damage. This ends up getting me killed once, as the last fight in one of the rooms is a Glum Reaper which is pretty brutal at this point. (Fast, evil doubleacting damage, not frail.) Geno Whirl kills him on the retry.
Chester, the last of the box monsters, is, like the previous ones, quite dangerous. Not as dangerous as the last two but on the other hand you're 12-24 fights away from your last save or recovery point which makes him quite stressful. He himself is mostly just kind of durable, but he summons a Bahamut. I later figure out these can be killed with Whirl, but not this time, and he throws out some powerful damage and fear. Objectively not too hard a fight overall, but I'm low on resources and kinda scared at this point, so.
Magikoopa! Well when I first try to fight him he has Aurora Flash, which is nasty. I come close a couple times, but not quite... it doesn't help that I have no remaining Freshen Ups and am somewhat unwilling to part with my KeroKeroColas. Laggy changes his mind about him having Aurora Flash and I beat him then, usual boss-fighting tactics. He's mostly about his three different summons. Bahamut, as above, is pretty powerful especially with Magikoopa throwing out decently powerful on his own turn (including Boulder), but can be Geno Whirled. King Bomb will self-destruct after a round, doing quite a bit of damage, but it's manageable. I at first try to kill them but then realise it's better to heal, buff, and just let the explosion come. Jinx Clone is the scariest because there's no easy way to take him out, and the right combination of attacks from him and Magikoopa can be quite hard to deal with. Also I do actually fail to block Silver Bullet now and then which is obviously terrible. Anyway, aside from the summons, when Magikoopa is alone he will heal for a decent amount... nothing that can't be outraced while on offence, but it still really emphasises an offensive approach. Oh yeah and sometimes he uses Sand Storm. We hate this. But generally, not tooo bad, varies a good deal with how many items you can afford to drag into the fight probably. Possibly the best of the Bowser's Keep bosses which is certainly a change?
Whoever is the best of the Bowser's Keep bosses, it's certainly not Boomer. I am actually fine with this, it would be quite rude to make both Boomer and Exor badass since they're back to back and you certainly want Exor to be the tougher one for plot/style reasons I think. Anyway he switches between physical and magical modes, but still uses the attacks that are in the wrong "mode" which basically fail at damage and give you a breather. He has lots of actions and some of them do do real damage so if your defences suck he'd probably ruin you, and he does mix Shaker (HP-1 or death) in there so you can't totally go to sleep. But in general not too bad. Geno Flash also neuters his buffing gimmick, Nelson-laugh.
Exor! He does lots of stuff, with three parts acting in relatively quick succession (although Mario broke up their turns for me, going after Neosquid). Left Eye (on the right) gets hurt decently by physicals but lulz at magic, and throws out status physicals (sometimes he'll just double physical which is happy times). Neosquid will use Carni-Kiss for okay physical damage (blocking this is important!) and then his usual array of badass multitarget, which includes Aurora Flash (noooo!) and the always-painful Corona. Right Eye savagely mocks physicals but gets destroyed by magic, and is the single-acter. Some of his moves aren't too bad, but some... namely Dark Star and SAND STORM (noooo!) are.
Kill either eye (I kill the left to save FP mostly, except when Mario gets scarecrowed, although on the whole I probably fear right more) and there's two rounds to beat on Exor himself. He's actually less durable than I was expecting (unchanged from SMRPG?) so the fight doesn't last as long as it could... but it's still plenty long seeing as you have to kill the eyes repeatedly and Exor likes to beat on you pretty badly. I decide not to use Geno Whirl because I have a sneaking suspicion Laggy would troll me if I tried, and checking the stat topic I was mostly right! All in all this is a pretty rough fight, but also a lot of fun, certainly the most enjoyable of the three here. I burn my Freshen Ups and do eventually burn both my KeroKeroColas too rather than risk a reset so far from a save point, though I use the second when, as it turned out, Exor was one hit from death. fffff.
Onwards to the end!
Factory, part 1
Level 19 -> 21
First of all, I go beat up Jinx, since the Jinx Belt is sweet. I mainly use Bowser with Troopa Pin (for Bowser Crush) and Geno with Ghost Medal (for Geno Flash), which means my healing is limited. Fortunately Jinx durability, I actually don't heal very much.
Now for the Factory itself. I start hitting Level 20 from my first few fights here. Glum Reapers are the first notable fight, and they're quite scary... instant death, dispel, fear, and good damage off of double-acting and great speed. And there are three of them! So I twink for speed with Signal Ring Bowser and Feather Mallow, Terrorise + Snowy takes them out.
<Laggy> ...
<Laggy> You used Signal Ring
<Laggy> yessssssssssssss
<Elecman> More than I've used Safety Ring now.
<Laggy> ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD
Ameboids take lots from physicals but do quite a bit back, while inflicting fear or poison. At one point Mallow takes over 300 from their strongest physical attack (2x, poison) while feared! Pretty awesome. Fortunately they themselves can be feared, and Jinx Belt ruthlessly spoils them with its def boost and fear immunity anyway. Also, occasionally (once) I fight a Hippopo, which has a pretty sweet design but I don't remember much about it otherwise.
So then there is Count Down. The ding-a-lings use some decent attacks like Fear Roulette and Dark Star, though they also waste turns on physicals and advancing the clock. Clock itself has some pretty nasty attacks, with the worst being Aurora Flash, Shredder, and Petal Blast (the latter two coming in succession), and some okay magical offence turns. It also has some healing in there to keep you on offence. Anyway I have no status immunity which makes this into a slog. I luck out, though, in that the Ding-a-lings skip the first Aurora Flash while I kill them off. Still, I'm able to keep control of the fight well enough despite losing a bunch of turns to sleep/mushroom, although it isn't exactly easy. I'm not sure if it's optimum to kill the Ding-a-lings or not, as keeping them alive does distract the healing onto bad targets and they do wake people up from sleep. I'm pretty sure it would be worthwhile to have at least one Safety Badge wearing PC for this fight, though.
Next wave of the dungeon. So right away I need to talk about the Axem Rangers because holy shit. First fight with Yellow/Black involves Axem Blacks acting four times before I get a turn, I use Terrorise and watch it fail to fear them and two Spritz Bomb counters and Yellow turns argh dead. Red/Green/Pink just involves Boulder -> Petal Blast -> reset before I even see a turn. Haha. Anyway, I eventually realise that a speed-twinked physical fighter (Signal Ring Bowser or Feather Mario) can OHKO Axem Pink before the horrid Petal Blast and I can tough out the fight easily enough otherwise. Yellow/Black are trickier, but speed-twinking, Ghost Medal and Geno Boost let me live, smash black in face (they're not too durable), heal a bunch, take out Yellows with magic so they don't counter.
Doppels aren't too remarkable as enemies. Nothing negligible certainly but generally a lower priority. They often come with L'il Boos, who are just annoying because their defences are so high you pretty much need to spend loads of FP on them. Enemies who are just hard to kill with everything aren't fun. Jabits hate Terrorise and Thunderbolt, which is good since they're off the main PCs I'm running in this area. There's also Mad Mallets, Pounders, and Poundettes, who I don't have too much to say about... I think some of them (not the Mad Mallets?) are kinda competent due to magically tanking and having some decent damage, but didn't do anything to specifically stick out. Finally, there are Puppoxes and Springers, the latter notable for countering, both notable for some status, especially sleep. Sleep + physicals isn't too scary a mix, though.
At this point I run out of MP healing so I leave to buy more. Also I figure I have one unfinished piece of business.
Space Between Worlds
Level 21 -> 22
Culex is a jerk. Not much new here. Geno/Toadstool party, I pull the Amulet back out for Mario so I can better tank what he does. A couple resets, he's tough. A bit better than in SMRPG where he was a superboss. Of course now he's not really a superboss any more, it's funny how that works.
So anyway. Wind Crystal occasionally uses nasty evil status attacks. Its other attacks are quite weak. After two resets I give Toadstool a Safety Badge so I get less ruined by these, although they're still unpleasant to see. Oh, it does dispel with Lightning Orb occasionally. Fire and Water Crystals can unload lots of damage but it's nulled by Lazy Shell and resisted by Amulet, which is why these are crucial for keeping their offence sane. Earth Crystal does moderate, unresistable, but also rather unimpressive damage. Certainly it's best move is Sand Storm. The only nice thing about Sand Storm is it cancels sleep! Still a good use of Freshen Ups since I'm no longer immuning fear with anyone.
Culex himself has his usual "you have to predict it to block" physical and he'll throw in something else too. At least he can't doubleact it with Shredder, which he retains and of course we don't like it much. Still, it's nothing too unreasonable. However, two things can make him badass: one is killing the Wind Crystal, which I foolishly do on my first attempt. Hello, doubleacting with Petal Blast! Ugly. This could be luck but he used it at a way higher rate than the Wind Crystal itself, so killing it certainly isn't worth it. Secondly, below half HP he learns to tripleact and the last action is usually Dark Star. Um, ow.
Still, the overall fight mostly comes down to usual SLRPG Geno/Toadstool boss tactics... boost a lot with Ghost Medal Geno, heal and tank with Lazy Shell Toadstool, do damage with Mario. The fight has its own ripples to stay on top of and I'd be inclined to call this the hardest boss since Valentina. Mercifully killing Culex ends the fight even if all the crystals live.
Factory, part 2
Level 22 -> 24
So the Quartz Charm is f'in sweet. Geno has an upgrade. Also, two Ghost Medals, effectively!
Last few Machine Mades! Macks are pretty scrubby, Thunderbolt sets up a pretty easy blitz. Bowyers are much better, Arrow Rain stings quite a bit and he can take a few hits, so you actually need to be awake and sink some FP into the fight. Probably best to treat it like a miniboss and use Toadstool. Yaridovich is largely the same idea, though no button disabling. Also hates Cymbals Shocker, so Mallow can help blitz him down. Oh and there are Ninjas around here too. I mainly fight them solo so they're pretty wussy.
Cloaker and Domino! The least memorable bosses in SMRPG ever! And... still among the least memorable bosses in SLRPG. Oh sure, I have a reset here because I walk in with an abysmally bad boss-fighting team (aw yeah speed-twinking and no Toadstool or Geno, plus I waste a turn trying to fear them) and might have been able to win anyway if I'd blown a lot of resources. When I fight them for real they're obviously way wussier than Culex. Not negligble of course, but yeah. I kill Cloaker first because he's the default target. Not much to say about the fight, there is Sand Storm from the resulting Mad Adder Endobubble throughout so I guess that gives the fight a bit of a fear flavour.
Clerk and Mad Mallets! Well Mallets still hate Thunderbolt, aw yeah getting milage out of the 2 FP spell in the last rooms of the game. Clerk isn't too special.
Manager and Pounders! Okay this fight is way better. I'm sure the Pounders have some status hole but I am not feeling very experimental. Pounders hit quite hard when you're not blocking them, tank magic pretty well. Physicals? Oh yeah, Manager can revive them all, so ST options aren't appealing until he's dead. Lots of physical damage here. 1 reset, one more "I refuse to use resources on this fight damnit!" reset which probably shouldn't count. Manager's just durable enough to draw some boss-fighting tactics out of me, which is to say he dies in about 4 boosted hits.
Director and Poundettes! Just an all-around improved version of the prevoius. Poundettes sometimes double-act and sometimes inflict fear, and there are four of them instead of three. Director gains some counters, and triple-acts later into the fight (he also dies... not... quite as fast). Very nasty, I get somewhat lucky with my second Ultra Jump taking out two of the Poundettes, allowing me to kill the third and tank through the rest.
Factory Chief and Gunyolk is easier than the last two fights but no slouch. No resets here. The chief is annoying enough with his doubleacting and ability to inflict mushroom, so I take him out first, but this gives Gunyolk constant, unending, MT OHKO damage, every turn. Mario falls from the initial assault and I'm completely unable to find the actions to both heal up (since it solidly 2HKOs boosted Geno), revive him, and boost him to survive. Dealing with this with two PCs is tricky but Group Hug and Megalixirs make it possible. Oddly it would have been way easier if I'd kept the B-Tub Ring on Toadstool so her healing would be better, but I had switched her to a Rare Scarf to tank the Poundette swarm.
One update left!
Smithy
Level 24
Sledge hurts. I think that's public knowledge by now. I also think it exists to troll people who never pick HP boosts! Boost Toadstool, Defend, Group Hug, tank the next round, Boost Mario, Group Hug, and from there on the battle can be fought normally. Unfortunately this is when the Smelter starts summoning. The Shypers don't do great damage but with how good Smithy himself is (especially once he gets to lower HP and can use Attack x2 + Sledge) it does add up to be rather scary. Smithy durability isn't incredible so I don't bother killing them and apparently this is a good thing.
Now, form 2. Going into it buffed, it's really not too hard. I first face Tank Head who does pretty weak damage, and then Mage who does better damage but certainly nothing that can put up a fight. I cut through 4000 HP without too much trouble. And then... and then things get nasty.
First of all Mage Head starts countering everything with freakin' Dark Star. And starts using it too, as part of its doubleactions. Ouch. This makes it rather difficult to continue the blitz. And at this point I feel like I should talk about the rest of the battle.
-At this point the body starts healing Smithy for about 500. That's actually non-trivial to bash past, at least in some of his tankier forms. It still acts on the turns it does that. I actually end up killing the body when I'm against tanky forms just to stop the healing and extra damage it does, not sure if this is a good idea though.
-As for the tanky heads, the biggest one in that regard is Safe Head, who is mostly notable for throwing out a little dispel, and using LIGHT BEAM to tie up the party. Fortunately the body will wake people up. This form isn't too threatening past that move but it's certainly not negligible either. Shredder would have been pretty bad but I never did see it.
-Chest Head throws out MT status doubleacted with Meteor Swarm, which is ow. I twice get Scarecrow which is a bit frightening, fortunately one time Geno dies immediately so I can revive and have him use items, the other my FP/boost status is in good shape so I can hold on with Group Hugs well enough, though I mostly stall waiting for the status to end on offence. Which is unfortunate due to the healing of course!
-Tank Head starts acting four times and using Magnum. Its damage isn't great but it really adds up, and Magnum is just rude. Also it counters. Def is pretty good, MDef doesn't suck like in vanilla, so it's hard to do good damage to, and has those counters to boot. A bit ugly. Not a form I make much progress against in general.
-And finally Mage Head, still the best way to damage it despite Dark Star. At one point the counter it uses is Dark Star AND a full turn, just to be extra ugly (Smithy multi-actions post-transformation glitches, aw yeah). Still depending on who the Dark Star hits one heal a round -may- suffice, and two's also an option... Mario's physical alone does 500+ here.
Overall I get through the fight with no resets, but I have to burn most of my items (which includes, for reference: two Rock Candies, 4 Royal Syrups, 4 Pick-Me-Ups, 4 Megalixirs, a Crystalline, and a Red Essence, which is used on Geno so I can avoid worrying about him at one point) which is what you'd expect for the final boss. In some ways he's very much the objective "best" boss in that regard, no other boss made me use -that- much stuff. That said there's less "lose control" potential than the other good bosses and of course you have no reason not to use all that stuff, so in practice he's not the hardest by any means. And of course aw yeah more resets against Manager and Director.
Final thoughts
To some extent this hack isn't intended for me. I don't actually like Super Mario RPG that much... 'tis okay, but not my cup of tea the way the other two RPGs I've extensively played hacks for are. By making the game harder, the hack drew more attention to certain flaws, which are its clunky and limited inventory system (also, I'm pretty sure enemies just -can't- drop items when your inventory is full. What the hell game), and the fact that most of its timed hits give no visual indication of when their timing is unlike LoD/SH. Also, of course, there's the fact that the hack feels designed for people that know all the game's tricks; I know most but not all, and for sure I'd like the game less if Laggy, say, hadn't reminded me where to get certain coins, frog coins, the free Pick-Me-Up at Marrymore, etc. Also god forbid trying to play the game without knowing about the secrets I mostly did remember, such as Lazy Shell and Ghost Medal. Ow.
That said it is overall pretty cool. It succeeded at making most boss fights individually memorable, which is great. Laggy did an excellent job of running with the existing gimmicks and making them more memorable. It did a decent job with individual randoms too, although of course I have complaints here and there (mostly already voiced, but the big one I'll re-iterate is that enemies with all defences high just aren't any fun). The game made me really care about the accessory slot in particular, and about all of the game's stats (adding ITD moves was a great choice to emphasise HP, while multiacting made defences very potent and of course offences need no explanation!). I also liked the decisions with Mallow and Toadstool's weapons, letting you customise them to some extent for what you really wanted (even if parasol/fan and cymbals were dominant, I did use the others at times). And finally, the hack draws out the potential of one of SMRPG's good design decisions, which are all PCs getting full exp and being able to be swapped in at any time, something the original game kinda failed at due to the PC balance being obvious. SLRPG does a great job with PC balance and everyone felt really useful. I don't want to think about getting through the game being forced not to use a character, any character, and that's great. If I had to point at my favourite thing about the hack it is that.
Least favourite thing about the hack that Laggy has control over? FP costs. I really don't think they needed to be scaled upwards as a general design thing. In particular, the specials Star Rain, Crusher, Bowser Crush, and Geno Flash were all rendered virtually unusable to me by their costs. Not that one couldn't use them, but in randoms they were a huge pocketbook hit so I almost always found something that could be done cheaper. Even as far as "huge MT damage" goes, Snowy snuck into that niche well and really prevented much else from competing because while it's expensive, Bowser Crush/Star Rain/Geno Flash are way moreso (and often do less damage anyway, though to be fair Star Rain wouldn't except for my failing at it). Geno Blast, Poison Gas, and Psych Bomb have a lesser version of this problem. Against bosses... just no, don't have FP for that, with the exception of incidental Geno Flashes for dispels. With storebought FP healing capped at 30 it's nearly impossible to justify the extra action cost of the high-FP specials, especially when you can just use Ultra Jump which does similar damage for 11. It's worth noting that the -only- time I got real use out of Bowser Crush was against Jinx, a ball lightning boss a few seconds from a recovery point.
In the defence of this design decision, if one avoids spending any FP on healing/boosting there's more left over for part of spell blitz (though even then, the big ones cut through FP awfully fast... still, this could help the likes of Crusher).
PC notes
Mario is forced, which is an unfortunate fact since it cuts the number of possible parties significantly. And there are definitely times when I wanted Bowser/Geno/healer as a party, and the game wouldn't let me. Sadface. That said, Mario is pretty good. Kind of unremarkable for much of the game, since he basically has decent ST damage and that's it. Really takes off late, though. The Lazy Shell and Ultra Hammer give him huge atk, and he gains a bit of MT, and his ST specials are way more cost-efficient than Geno's or Bowser's. Mario usually ends up as THE damage-dealer in boss fights, and a key one in randoms. That's not a bad role for someone who is forced.
Mallow's weird, but definitely carves out his own niches. Thunderbolt is wonderful, and a complete bargain at only 2 FP. Shocker is decent ST damage, Snowy is costly but badass and sometimes absolutely worth it, especially with an attack boost. He'll usually want cymbals to make his magery badass, but glove physicals are an option I guess, or Ribbit Stick tanking. HP Rain's status removal is also very nice... I didn't usually pick him above Toadstool for bosses but I at least considered it (and both's an option, I suppose). But definitely one of my absolute favourites for randoms for a long, long time, just great at magery and has two elements to work with later.
Geno mostly comes down to "Geno Boost is badass". Yes, you can replace it with items... two separate items that cost 150 coins between them. Or the MT versions which break the frog coin bank. And Geno Boost is super-valuable. Basically, if there's a particularly durable enemy who is fear-immune, you'll have a hard time selling me on not using Geno. Geno Boost being not self-targettable is a big drawback, and he suffers for it a lot until the Ghost Medal which had might as well be called the Geno Medal. (Quartz Charm improves on this further, but only optionally and late.) Aside from that, Geno Whirl is very useful for mashing certain styles of randoms (it particularly shone in Nimbus Land, Barrel Volcano, and Bowser's Keep), and Geno Flash has a great utility effect for a few bosses. Not much to say, he's still good.
Bowser is about tanking and Terrorise. He maintains his tanking ability better in this game than in vanilla, which is nice. Terrorise is pretty much godly whenever it can be used, Geno Boost your entire team in one action? Yeah. I honestly wasn't too impressed by the rest of his specials, but honestly... he doesn't need them. He's durable, and his physical ranges from decent to great once he gets the Drill Claw, so he's the guy who tosses down Fear, doesn't die easily, and then kicks some ass. Loves speed boosting to get the Terrorise out quickly, but that's no shock. I generally wouldn't use him when fear was immuned, but I did use him to Bowser Crush Jinx I suppose.
Like Geno, Toadstool still carries her broken ability out of SMRPG, nerfed but not really enough to stop it from being dominant. (Higher FP cost stings a bit, but the lack of status healing really reigns it in.) Anyway that ability alone justifies her use, sure you can use 4 Megalixirs per boss fight instead or something oh wait haha that costs 720 coins let's not do that. Obviously some boss fights you can blitz more or get by with cheaper/ST healing but Toadstool's a very safe option. Oh yes and she has Come Back to save 3 frog coins per use as well, also outstanding. Aside from bosses, her main thing in randoms is sleep which like fear is pretty uber on what it works on. She doesn't bring much else to the table in randoms (unless they call for Group Hug, which isn't often), so she's basically completely worthless in them early (not sure how to address this or even if doing so is needed). But obviously still a highly valuable character.
Cool hack, would play again if I play SMRPG again, which may or may not happen. Thanks Laggy~
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Badum-pish! Thank you muchly NEB for massively detailed war log feedback and putting up with my pestering all the time.
Updated with various changes and balance alterations re: feedback.
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Wait you mean final Smithy can do more than constantly cycle back to Tank to spam Magnum at you endlessly? Lame.
Edit - And needs more Bowser love. Make it MT Laggy.
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Update since Tallychu is going through and I want to use him as a guinea pig and the editor updated its functionality.
FroggieDrinks, Elixirs, and Megalixirs now heal 25, 45, and 75 HP respectively, while their prices have dropped to 30, 40, and 50 coins.
Energizers and Bracers have dropped to 40 and 80 coins respectively.
The following equipment (except for CourageShell, which is an unrelated edit) have had their elemental properties changed, possibly with other corresponding edits as well.
AMULET: Halves fire/ice (used to halve all)
B'TUB RING: Nulls fire, halves ice (used to halve all)
COURAGESHELL: Immunes fear
LAZY SHELL: Halves all elements (used to block all), attack and speed penalties dropped to -20 (used to be -25)
SAFETY BADGE: Nulls thunder (used to do nothing), defense boosts dropped to 8 (used to be 10)
SAFETY RING: Stat penalties removed (used to be -7 to all stats), nulls ice (used to block all)
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surprise
* Geno now starts with an Antidote Pin equipped
* Attack Scarf upped to +30 Attack/M.Attack, removed defense bonuses
* Wake Up Pin no longer prevents Mute
* Antidote Pin now prevents Mute
* Safety Badge no longer immunes thunder
* Safety Ring changed to halve ice/thunder (instead of null ice)
* Signal Ring now nulls thunder
* Parasol's Speed bonus increased to +5, M.Attack increased to +10
* War Fan's Speed bonus removed, Attack increased to +70, M.Attack increased to +15, variance increased to 16
* Fire series of armor now halves fire
* Able Juice now cures all status
* Crusher upped from 110 to 120 power
* Lightning Orb and Storm were renamed to Dispelling Orb and Disjunction, respectively, to clearly denote that these moves now dispel their targets
FP Changes
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Fire Orb 5 FP -> 4 FP
Super Flame 9 FP -> 8 FP
Ultra Flame 14 FP -> 12 FP
Shocker 8 FP -> 5 FP
Snowy 16 FP -> 15 FP
Star Rain 20 FP -> 18 FP
Geno Beam 4 FP -> 3 FP
Geno Boost 7 FP -> 6 FP
Geno Blast 8 FP -> 7 FP
Geno Flash 15 FP -> 14 FP
Poison Gas 10 FP -> 9 FP
Bowser Crush 20 FP -> 16 FP
Coin Cost Changes
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Bracer 80 coins -> 40 coins
Coin Trick 9 frog coins -> 6 frog coins
Earlier Times 3 frog coins -> 2 frog coins
Elixir 40 coins -> 36 coins
Energizer 40 coins -> 20 coins
Exp. Booster 15 frog coins -> 10 frog coins
FroggieDrink 30 coins -> 24 coins
Max Mushroom 40 coins -> 16 coins
Megalixir 50 coins -> 48 coins
Mid Mushroom 20 coins -> 8 coins
Scrooge Ring 12 frog coins -> 8 frog coins
See Ya 6 frog coins -> 4 frog coins
Rock Candy replaced with Royal Syrup at Frog Coin Emporium (3 Frog Coins each).
Enemy Changes
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Nerfed Kriffids, Geckits, and Ribbites to make their appearances in Land's End (pre-Snowy) be less obnoxious.
Lowered Mack's HP.
Reduced the chances of Bowyer using Dispelling Orb.
Removed fear immunity from Valentina.
Removed Willy Wisp from Czar Dragon.
Changed Axem Red's limit phase to require 3 allies dead.
Removed fear immunity from Axem Black.
Lowered Jinx Clone's HP.
Reduced Tank Head's and Safe Head's M.Defense.
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Look at all these buffs to try and make everyone nearly as good as Bowser.
That isn't how you make people as good as Bowser bro.
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Hey. Hey Laggy.
Does Bowser have MT ID+Full Healing IFF yet?
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(http://i.imgur.com/6VZjvQw.png)
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That is how you improve Bowser.
Good job.
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Bit of an overall compilation of wishlist/proposed changes for Laggy, including ones already noted in the thread:
- Make it Multi-Target.
- Give it to Bowser.
Edit - running this into the ground over 3 years. Dedicate to the bit.
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God dammit Grefter