Iāve managed to catch up after a few weeks of work horrors.
Impressions
First of all, I have never expected that getting a rat tail will make my team turn into gigachads. Bring back my cute dark mage!
Speaking of week 10 content, the temple was quite interesting. Surprisingly, it wasnāt very hard to understand what mermaids are saying. On other hand, Kraken and townsfolk were problematic to decipher.
I am a little bit confused by amount of gear we are getting, as there is simply too much. Also, if I understand correctly, I cannot see if the gear has some special effect. I wonder if it is like that in next games.
Yeah itās more wasted opportunity than, like, actively harming the experience, but I think a lot of the decisions surrounding the equipment you find in this game have been the most confusing point for me. Very odd choices about how itās distributed and what they give you.
I think this is also compounded by bugs in the original game that messed with the balance of the game (in particular the critical hit bug that Iāll talk about in tomorrowās week 11 thread).
But it is extremely strange that you donāt encounter any magic item before you get the airship. That part is not a bug, itās clearly a conscious decision. Why not have the fire sword cast Fire for instance? Itās not a great spell but it would be a fun gimmick.
I just did a bit of preplaying, and it is weird how in a future dungeon you get just a crapton of new weapons with identical stats to other ones you already have and no special effects. I even found a helmet that does the same thing as a previous staff when used as an item. I found 10-15 pieces of notable new equipment, and equipped MAYBE two of them.
Fell a bit behind due to a work trip but am catching up now!
Week 10 content
Iām one of the people that completely missed the mermaids and went straight to the bottom of the temple at first lol
Kraken wasnāt too hard, I had a little āoofā moment when it oneshotted my white mage (wizard now I guess?) in a single hit, but then it decided to spend the rest of its couple turns spewing ink. By the time I revived white mage it was dead.
Really the most difficult thing about it was the whole katakana dialogue, it breaks my brain every time.
Got the stone in the endā¦ But canāt quite remember what we supposed to use it for or where to bring it, whoops. Iām going to check out Week 11ās threadā¦ or a walkthrough.
Also itās not cool that I walzed into Gaia, spent all my money on spells, and so had to grind money a bit to afford the fairyā¦ Did you know that mummies give crazy cash? I do now!
Itās so rough. Iām really slamming into this recently because Iāve been playing the new Katamari Damacy and tons of the dialog there is full katakana, and auto advancing. Trying to train up my speed reading that stuff Gotta play more old games that were all kana I guess.
Just wanted to add onto the whole talk about the å¹ counter, just today I came across its use in the new Katamari Damacy game as a counter for yokai. Fits what you quoted about fantasy creatures.
It took another lookup to figure out that I can go left in order to go right in the sunken shrine. So I beat the boss then had to go back in again to find the stone. On to the next!
Going to see if I can finish the game today or tomorrow so I can start FF2 roughly on time. I did not factor in that JP time is pretty far ahead of my time here, so I really had a day less to get ready. Either way, I started this a few months late so a couple of days late for FF2 shouldnāt be a problem.
Iām not in JP time myself, I just post the threads the day before because Iād rather be early than late (and because thatās what @Akashelia does and I took the habit from her), donāt let that rush you!
After buying a bunch of spells in Gaia, I discovered I did not have the money to buy the fairy and had to spend some time grinding. After I bought it, I ended up going to the top of the Water Shrine first and spoke to all the mermaids so I didnāt miss the Kraken dialogue like some people. lol Some of the equipment was useful to me since I didnāt gear up in Gaia so I ended up saving money in the long run. Kraken went down in a round and a half thanks to my Monk.
The dialogue this week seemed a bit easier(except for Kraken speaking only in katakana, ugh). Between the past couple of WK levels and the N3 grammar deck on Bunpro, Iāve encountered at least 10 words/phrases I had previously added to my Anki deck for this game so thatās been nice. I feel like Iām finally hitting my stride with this game. Hoping that the foundation will let me hit the ground running with FFII. This week I finished at level 38 with 10:47 on the clock.
I did the exact same mistake, ahah!
Katakana only speak still gives me trouble, the kraken speaking in a bit of broken language iirc didnāt help too.
Broke gang rise up. Iām always amused by the dichotomy of how frustrated I was with kanji when I was just started out versus how frustrated I am when kanji isnāt used now. lol Overall this game has been helping me learn to recognize words in kana instead of relying on kanji all the time so itās helpful even if I do struggle a bit.
I finished this week a few days ago but forgot to write something up. I should really take notes as Iām playing.
I honestly didnāt really notice the screen warp in the dungeon since the PSP version doesnāt have a map. I just hugged the walls and explored all the rooms. Reading this thread kind of blew my mind a little.
I think this week is when I started to really activate more of these magic items in combat. I did have to manually arrange my inventory to keep it from being a pain though. Itās a bit funny with all the other things that this game took from DND, this is the one that is giving me a bigger hit of nostalgia. I played the Dungeons and Dragons MMO for a while, and there were so many magic items people would just carry around for a buff, but not to actually equip. Everyone called them āclickiesā, since you would click them to activate the spell.
Language seemed pretty reasonable. ē® and é·¹ were both new kanji to me, and Iām sure Iāll forget them by the next time I see them.
And this weekās sprite is, of course, the kraken.
Gotta play more old games that were all kana I guess.
