#i just wasted my money trying to restore my attack spirit

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 286

I gotta finish this damn liveblog, and that means I gotta get rid of this Kid Buu jerk. 

Are you prepared for the kind of death you’ve earned, little man?

There’s just one problem.  Vegeta’s so badly hurt from fighting Kid Buu that he can’t clear out of the path of the Spirit Bomb when Goku throws it.   He tells Goku to do it anyway, or else everything they did to reach this moment will be for nothing.   But Goku hesitates...

... long enough for Majin Buu to realize that if he sticks close to Vegeta, Goku won’t launch that thing at him.  I assume this means that Buu understands that the Spirit Bomb could definitely kill him.  Otherwise he’d just attack Goku, or stand his ground and let it hit him.

Down in hell, the bad guys are all watching this.   Hey, Cell.

And Frieza mocks Goku for being soft.   You know, how cool is this?  This is the sort of thing I might have imagined as a small child, and this show went all out and did it.   “All the bad guys are watching from hell.”  It’s so simple, yet so brilliant.   And Frieza’s doing most of the talking, but for my money, what makes this work is Dr. Gero’s salty expresssion as he watches his hated enemy struggling to save the universe.   Cell doesn’t seem to care much, and Frieza’s just being a punk, but Gero seems to genuinely be rooting for the universe to die, just so he can watch Goku suffer.

Also, for some reason, Babidi has switched sides?   Before, he was rooting for Goku, because Buu murdered him.  Maybe the appearance of Fat Buu confused him.  “Well, the fat one killed me, so if the fat kid is fighting him then I guess I’m on Team Kid now.”

All Vegeta can do now is appeal to Goku’s Saiyan heritage.   Goku has to do this, whether it kills Vegeta or not.   Another Saiyan wouldn’t hesitate, and neither should Goku.   And Goku’s like “Yeah, but...” 

And that’s kind of Goku’s relationship with Vegeta in a nutshell.   It’s usually Vegeta telling Goku what a Saiyan is supposed to be like, and Goku appreciating some of it, but not all.   What doesn’t get as much attention is that there’s a pushback there, where maybe Vegeta’s vision of an idea Saiyan isn’t true, and maybe on some level Goku is showing Vegeta what a Saiyan is supposed to be like.   Vegeta’s already begged the Earthlings to support his plan.   Hell, Vegeta’s plan isn’t very Vegeta-like at all.  He’s using Goku’s technique and Fat Buu’s durability and Mr. Satan’s popularity to make it work.

So it’s not very Vegeta-like at all, but I’d suggest that it is very Saiyan, because it’s a band of weaker fighters taking down a stronger enemy.   All we’ve heard about the Saiyans is that they crave stronger and stronger opponents, and they never balk at a challenge, no matter how difficult.  I think Vegeta, and others like him, got that whole idea mixed up, and thought that the goal was to simply be stronger than the competition, so that you could take them down all by yourself.  For someone like Vegeta, that wasn’t such an impossible thing, since he was the strongest Saiyan for so long.

But you have to figure that for most Saiyans, the ones who are used to getting outgunned on the battlefield, they also became accustomed to finding unorthodox solutions to win the day.   They had to, because if they didn’t they’d all get killed and the species would go extinct.    You look at the Saiyans depicted in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, and they’re a lot nicer than you might expect.   That’s because they know they might need one another when the going gets tough. 

I think that’s why Goku can’t throw the Spirit Bomb with Vegeta in its path.   It was Vegeta who got them this far, and they may need him again some day.  Goku refused to kill Vegeta when they were enemies.    How can he kill him when they’re allies?   That’s what his Saiyan heart is telling him: “You’ve got to find another way.”

Then Buu starts taking potshots at Goku, since Goku can’t move or throw the bomb.   I dig this part a lot, because when I first watched it, I wondered why Buu was just waiting around to see what would happen. 

I didn’t get a good screenshot of it, but a few of these blasts hit Goku in the dick.   Anyway, maybe Goku has some kind of force field around him to soften the blows, but still, this is some nuclear heel heat on Majin Buu right now.  

Mr. Satan is horrified, but what can he do?  What can anyone do?   But then!

Fat Buu is up!

And he’s piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed.

Satan tries to hug him, because he’s so happy that he didn’t die, but Buu just slaps him aside, because he’s got work to do.

So Fat Buu tackles Kid Buu, then calls out to Satan, who grabs Vegeta and runs for it.  He apologizes to Fat Buu, then tells Goku to throw the Spirit Bomb now, before it’s too late.

And Kid Buu tosses off Fat Buu just in time to catch...

... a big ol’ facefull of this!   Whatcha gonna do now, Kid Buu?   Whatcha gonna do?!

Oh, well he caught it.   I guess that’s what he’s gonna do.  Well played, sir.

Meanwhile, Goten and Trunks choke on corn.   Piccolo wants them all to head for the Lookout, where they can sense the outcome of the battle more easily.  

So  they arrive, and Gohan snap-vanishes behind Videl all suave-like.   “Hey,” he says, “I’m Ultimate Gohan (Elder Kai Unlock) now, nbd.”

So Videl starts chewing him out for maybe being dead and then actually being dead and not being in heaven and so forth.  

D’awwwwwwwwwww.

Chi-Chi’s kind of irritated that Gohan is ignoring her, but then Trunks and Goten show up and she remembers she’s got two boys. 

But it’s not over yet.    The problem here is that Goku’s ki is so weak from fighting before that he can’t push the Spirit Bomb against Kid Buu’s resistance.  Remember, when Goku used this thing against Frieza before, he really didn’t even need to “push” it.   Frieza tried to knock it away, and he simply couldn’t do it.    But Kid Buu can, which requires some effort by Goku, except he doesn’t have enough power left to make it happen. 

I assume there’s some sort of “leverage” involved with the Spirit Bomb, where the guy throwing it has the upper hand against the target, even if the target is physically stronger.  Otherwise, how could Goku be holding out as well as he is?  

There seems to be two solutions to this problem.  One is to increase the power of the Spirit Bomb itself, except everyone who could have contributed already has.  I’m confused how you can add on to the Spirit Bomb once it’s already been deployed, but what do I know?   The other solution is to fix things on Goku’s end.  Make him stronger, and he’ll be able to see this through.    Dende could heal him...

...Except there’s no way to get Dende to Goku, because Kibitoshin gave all his power to the Spirit Bomb, so he doesn’t have enough juice left to teleport.

So Vegeta tells Mr. Satan to ask the people of Earth to send more power to the bomb.   But King Kai warns him that if they try that so soon, they’ll all die.   Remember, they gave everything they could the first time around, so they need to rest.   Is that Farmer With Shotgun?   They keep sneaking him into these things, and I’m pretty sure he’s the one guy on this show who never could have come back.    Unless he’s some sort of Tom Bombadil-type figure.   Yeah, that might be it.

But Vegeta insists, since they can always wish the Earthlings back to life again if it comes to that.   Mr. Satan almost agrees, except he now realizes that this isn’t just a dream, and if this is really happening, then he can’t bring himself to betray his fans that way.   He won’t do something that would allow people to die, however temporarily. 

That says something interesting about Mr. Satan.  In this whole situation, he seems to finally have the kind of awesome power that he’s often bragged about, and now he realizes what a terrible responsibility it is to have it.  Vegeta’s been in this situation his whole life.    He may not relish this option, but he knows better than to waste time deciding. 

So he angrily reminds Mr. Satan that they have the Dragon Balls, and can just wish everyone back if they need to.   Hell, they still have a wish left on Porunga and--

Oh, yeah.

Dende asks Porunga to restore Goku’s power to normal, and Porunga’s like okey-dokey, Smokey.

One thing that makes this episode so great is how, in this moment, we finally see Goku give in to despair.    He feels totally alone, no because anyone abandoned him, but because they’re all too far away or too badly beat up or too weakened to help him.   It’s all up to him to make this work, and he just doesn’t have the strength to pull it off.  

At this point, Buu has already pushed the Spirit Bomb back towards Goku, and he’s preparing some sort of counterattack.   There’s just nothing Goku can do.  Z stands for the end.

But not yet.   Dende tells him that Porunga should have restored his power, and I guess Goku couldn’t tell unless someone told him first, but whatever. 

And then he gets his old fire back.   Goku thanks the Dragon Balls, which is kind of appropriate, because they’ve helped him out so many times since he was a boy.

So then he pushes back on the bomb with authority, turning Super Saiyan 1 just to be safe.  

And now Buu’s in deep doo-doo.  He had some difficulty pushing back on the bomb before, and this time Goku’s fresh as a daisy.

I always thought Goku should have used SSJ3, just to be thorough, but I do like how he’s sticking to the classic Super Saiyan.  No need to overdo it, after all.    As he shoves the bomb down, he praises Buu for his epic performance.  He fought everybody, multiple times, and withstood everything everyone had to throw at him.  Goku can’t help but be impressed, but it’s time for him to die.

He asks Buu to be reincarnated as a good guy, so that he can Goku can fight again some day.

Only then, Goku wants it to be one-on-one, as he promises to be much stronger when that day comes. 

Can Buu even hear him from down there?  

¡Adios, muchacho!

Is it just me, or does this look kind of pleasant?   I mean, I know the idea is that he can’t hold it any longer, and he’s getting engulfed in this big explosion, but it looks kind of fun at the same time.   Like getting immersed in this big huge ball of glowy energy.    Maybe that’s why the Spirit Bomb can’t hurt good people, because bad guys are too salty to appreciate how fun it is.

Big collage of everyone telling Goku to finish him off.   Awesome.   Very awesome.

And then arrrrrggghhh!    Yeah!   Eat it, boy, eat it!

Yeah, take your medicine, you no-selling bastard!  Welcome to Goku Town!

Sorry you couldn’t stay.

And that’s the end of Majin Buu.  Well, the bad one anyway.  It’s surreal how he’s finally beaten.   After 55 episodes, you just get used to the guy re-forming himself after a big move.  But not this time.   

Goku powers down and he looks wiped out.  But it’s finally done.  

Classic Vegeta, right there.

Mr. Satan can’t believe what he just saw.

And then Goku and Vegeta exchange hearty thumbs up for a job well done.

I really love how the narrator has to emphasize that Buu is really, honest-to-goodness dead this time.   Though I do enjoy the dub narrator pointing out how Goku and Vegeta have become friends through the course of this battle.    Maybe that was all they really needed.  They never spent a lot of time working together before this, and that was sort of the point of the last 18 episodes.    Everyone else is dead or unavailable, so it’s up to them to put aside their differences and join forces.  

And this is what they came up with.    First they fused, then they removed all of the guys Buu had absorbed, then they decided to take turns fighting Kid Buu, an when that didn’t work, Vegeta devised this whole plan using his idea, Goku’s technique, and eventually Fat Buu and Mr. Satan joined in as well. 

This arc was about teamwork.   The Babidi Saga showed how badly things could get when the heroes weren’t really working together well.   They had every advantage, but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.    The Majin Buu Saga showed each of these guys trying to handle things on their own.   Buu kills Baidi, Mr. Satan befriends Buu, Vegeta tries to fight Buu by himself, and Goku tries to prepare everyone but him to tackle the problem without him.   None of it worked.   Then things finally came together here, when they all stopped bickering and joined together in earnest.    And that’s a really beautiful thing.  

The Kid Buu Saga is a bit weird, in that we just got rid of Kid Buu, but there’s still five more episodes to go, but they’re satisfying episodes, because the characters really earned this victory.  

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke [Part 13]

Once again back at the Bill Gaiden, we continue our quest to beat the game without any grinding.

The current take on this problem is to focus on only three members of the team in the final chapter. Plus prayer and possibly lots of X items I haven’t bought yet.

I believe in you, my precious team.

...Sort of.

On whatever route I’m on, a Persian shows up. I guess I will try to catch it.

I did catch it.

Its name is Oak.

Rock Smash get, and Oak is gonna learn it for us. As our last real run taught us, Krabby is the best for HMs. Nom nom.

Sap is handling all of the Fighting trainers on this first island here. Seems prudent, given the choices involved. Plus my expectations of Sap. Sap has, by far, the largest role in my eventual plans. My child. You must take your amazing moves. Use them. And sweep all the things.

My Mt. Ember option is a Fearow, and I just can’t. I have two things that aren’t a Master Ball, I think. Sorry, Fearow. We were not meant to be.

Except Trunk can’t run from you. So I might be considering catching you.

Aha, flee accepted.

These are still dopey names.

-sigh- I tried to skip into Three Island, but it looks like you have to talk to NPCs to hit off the Biker Gang part of the Bill Gaiden. This run, having been a shrine to defeatism, didn’t bother with talking with most everyone. The cost is island hopping. Much sad. Very annoy.

“I am a video game character and my child is missing. Her name

is Lostelle.”

Video games are good.

Okay, Biker Gang subplot. Give me my exp.

GIVE ME MY EXP IN A LESS TRAUMATIZING FASHION POR FAVOR.

Later on the island, we are in the berry forest and encounter a Psyduck. With luck, it will be our box friend in the very near future.

Caught! Its name is Oak.

Don’t worry, little girl. I am the protagonist. I will save you.

By running away from the wild Hypno. Because that’s what heroes do.

Kid returned, and I think that means. I think I get to go fight Giovanni’s Gym.

Delightful.

Oak is level 50, Trunk and Sap are both 49. Bark, should she be required, is level 47.

Not a bad place to be in. Not close enough to feeling safe, but I think this has the potential to go better than Heero’s term.

Final badge. Let’s go. For added fun, I won’t even follow my map of the trainers inside the Gym. I’ll just go by guessing based on the trainer type.

Oak is level 52, Sap and Trunk are level 50. Good show, guys.

Aaaaaaand final badge! Magnificent.

Rival, Victory Road, then Elite Four, right?

That sounds doable?

Please?

I’m going to miss not having an Electric type available for the Pidgeot. And for the Gyarados. Acorn, Zaft. Your presence would be so valuable here.

I think I’m going to put Oak in front for that. Rival has enough to respond to Oak that any Sand Attacks can be swapped out. Wanting Oak for two fights in a row probably won’t happen. Hopefully.

My amusement is slowly being replaced by existential dread.

Oh, neat. The Pidgeot goes for Wing Attack instead of the awful sand. Thank you, Rival-san’s Pidgeot. I hate you and everything, but you’re a class act.

Trunk goes in for the Venusaur. It of level 53.

We get through.

I’ll actually send Sap out to (hopefully) handle the Gyarados.

Oak back in for the Alakazam. Stays in for the Growlithe.

Bloodless victory.

Hell, though. That is not a confidence boost. The levels keep reminding me how tight this really is, and I’m very short on Type variety. I know my main strategy, which I didn’t use here, is going to be massively setting up before anything else, but aaaaaaaaa.

I don’t want to go through all of this again. I’m not good enough at the game to reliably improve.

On the side of things I can do, I’m going to teach Trunk Earthquake.

And it looks very much like it makes sense for Oak to learn Ice Beam. He still has Tackle, for crying out loud. There’s room for improvement. The only problem is that hey, I still want Shadow Ball for Trunk, and guess what other TM is also a Game Corner thing?

In the spirit of bad things not happening maybe, I’m going to grab those TMs before Victory Road. No point limiting myself. I am also going to look up if I can get the Amulet coin and make some extra money, because the money situation ended up making me sad by the end of Heero and friends.

...

To. the slots.

I need 8500 coins.

Sigh.

SIGH.

170,000, is it?

Actual depiction of life’s traumas.

If I want to mess with their moves some more, I’ll do it after Victory Road. For now, this works.

Welp, no Amulet Coin for me.

There isn’t going to be much typing from here on out. Just picture a lot of screaming and crying. Because that’s pretty much what’s going on behind the scenes.

...Also I’m going to use Max Repels and the Master Ball on anything I come across. For maximum chance.

The Repel strat didn’t work out.

So I throw my Master Ball at a Machop.

Its name is Oak.

And every single time I leave the cave to heal, the switches require me to repeat their process. They fill me with hate. The smaller my team gets, the more often I have to head back to a Pokemon Center for PP aid.

BUT WE MAKE IT.

...

.

Fuck.

What do ya think?

I’m about to spend all my cash, so this is my last chance for move decisions.

I usually like something to know Toxic. Oak’s the best candidate for that in terms of an incomplete moveset, but I have a Dragon Claw TM that has similar value and can’t be wasted on Trunk or Sap.

I think this works, honestly. Oak for all things turtle, Sap for all things stall, and Trunk for miscellaneous everything. I can adjust after each one I beat. I have some interesting TMs I can play with, but for now, I think this is good.

What I need to think through is what X items I want. Then the rest goes into Full Restores. ...Oh. The X items are cheap, so I just buy a bunch without thinking it through.

Yep.

Elite Four.

Grindlocke, Take 2.

Okay, looking back over my records, I think I’m going to teach Trunk Brick Break over Yawn, use an X Attack, and go for the sweep.

Last chance to back out.

I hate this.

Two X Attacks, because I’m greedy. Dewgong down. It’s now Hailing. Have fun countering, Leftovers.

The Cloyster gets to the red with one Brick Break. Lorelei uses a Full Restore. Many stall tactics later, the Cloyster is downed with not much more of a mark on Trunk.

Slowbro next, but Shadow Ball should make that work. The hail stops, too, which is nice.

Yeesh, these things have high Defense. Slowbro’s in the red, uses Surf. Trunk is still green, but nearing half steadily. One more Shadow Ball, and the Slowbro’s gone. No Full Restore for it.

Lapras.

Brick Break puts it in the red, but it has a Sitrus Berry. I probably knew that from last time, but we’re really all about living in the moment, this run.

Lapras leaves Trunk in the high orange, but it’s out. Just the Jynx left. Going to spend a turn on a Potion just to keep things stable, then a Shadow Ball should mark the end of this.

And now Trunk is in love with it. In between being put to sleep.

...Okay, fuck you, game. What is Lovely Kiss’ accuracy?

..

75????

AND THEN TRUNK WAS FROZEN.

I knew these fights would be a bit of a stall game.

It wasn’t supposed to be in this direction.

LOVELY KISS CAN’T KEEP FUCKING HITTING YOU FUCKING AAAAAGH.

This Jynx is going to run out of Ice Punch PP before I get a hit in.

Oh thank fuck.

Would you look at that. It’s dead.

Oak’s going to be first for Bruno’s Onix, so Oak gets a Sitrus Berry for luck. Trunk’s healed back to full HP, and. Round two, get ready.

I gotta say, after everything I just went to, the sight of that Onix is a damn relief.

Only with that dealt with, the Hitmonchan’s prepped to come out.

Sap’s up. Because this is going to take a bunch of switching, I think I’ll try to stick with straight Sludge Bombing for as long as I can. Sap’s got a better Attack stat than Trunk at the moment (I think), so it shouldn’t be too rough.

Yeah, one Sludge Bomb puts Hitmonchan practically in the red, and Sky Uppercut doesn’t move Sap anywhere near orange.

?

Hello.

Bruno took out Hitmonchan to put in Onix.

Yeah. Switching. Oak, you’re up again.

Bye, Onix. And I’m going to leave Oak in to mop up the Hitmonchan to conserve PP. Bruno Full Restores it, but Surf puts it in the orange, so... eh, good enough. Oak takes an extra hit, but Oak’s time in this room is up anyway.

Hitmonlee.

Uh oh.

Also, bullshit, I had just used Minimize and Mega Kick’s accuracy sucks starting out, but. primarily. uh oh.

Ummmmmm.

Bad news, Oak.

I am so sorry.

Yeah, so Oak died, and now Oak is out at full health.

X Defend time.

OH SO NOW MEGA KICK CAN MISS, HUH.

Throw an X Special on the pile.

Oak uses up his Sitrus Berry, Bruno uses another Full Restore.

Hitmonlee goes down after far too long, and the Machamp comes out to play.

Surf gets it to deep orange. I’m going to use a Full Restore to be careful.

That there is a partially happy sight.

This, on the other hand...

Sap, I can give you a proper sendoff later, when my brain is doing something besides screaming. Suffice to say, you did nothing wrong, and this game hates me. Thanks for the fun, sorry you didn’t get to live longer or for your entire purpose.

I’m also looting your corpse for your Leftovers for Oak.

So Agatha’s next, right?

I finally get to see what a Snorlax with Shadow Ball can do about that.

I’m very much hoping the answer is, “something.”

Let’s dance, grandma.

First out is a level 54 Gengar. It knows Double Team, because this game really doesn’t actually want me to be happy. But Shadow Ball hits and gets it into the red. Agatha uses a Full Restore, and the next Shadow Ball actually hits too.

And now Trunk is confused.

Trunk.

Buddy.

Stop hitting yourself.

Fantastic, he does.

...Agatha has a Golbat? Ew. It’s level 54 too. It faints semi-easily, and then there was a level 56 Arbok. I’m just gonna spend a second on an X Attack, don’t mind me... Then a Full Restore so Trunk doesn’t fucking die...

Problems. We have them.

The level 58 Gengar coming out does not solve enough of them. Or any. It’s pretty much universally bad, actually.

That sound you hear is the snap of my fragile, innocent, sanity. I use a couple of X Defends instead of waking Trunk up. Then health becomes a slight issue, so you know what, Full Restore time!

Okay, great! Second Gengar dead! All that’s left is a level 53 Haunter. For. Reasons of who knows.

Okay.

I have never used the Poke Flute this much in my life.

And then it uses Hypnosis again, and it hits, again, and we do the whole dance over again, as you do.

IN A STUNNING TURN OF EVENTS, HAUNTER CURSING ME PUTS AN END TO ITS FUCKING CURSE, AND EVERYTHING IS IMMEDIATELY BETTER.

NO ONE ASKED YOU, YOU DAMN OLD LADY. YOU AREN’T A GENKAI. YOU’RE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO A GENKAI. FUCK YOU.

Hell, let me think.

Lance.

Dragons.

He has... two Dragonites, one Dragonair, a Charizard, and an Aerodactyl? Maybe?

I’m not banned from looking things up, but it hasn’t felt sporting to check up ahead of time. And no matter what, I think the best strategy I have here is to throw Oak in, toss on a ton of X Defends, and pray. So it doesn’t really matter what he has.

But Oak’s learning Toxic.

As a kid, I always thought Lance was just the coolest. Lance is a bitching name, and he has a dragon theme, and then he has a fucking cape. Top ten video game heroes.

As an adult, I hate Lance so much. Even the dope cape can’t spare him.

Oh hey, it’s a level 56 Gyarados. With my favorite move. Dragon Rage. That’s actually great, and it should feel free to keep using it. Dragon Rage doesn’t get critical hits. Yeah, actually, this is perfect. I’m just going to stack Oak with everything and not switch.

All of Dragon Rage’s PP later, Toxic can’t hit anything apparently, and it’s a contest of Biting. Cute.

THEN IT USES HYPER BEAM AND THE HYPER BEAM, NATURALLY, GETS A CRITICAL HIT, AND OAK HAS 15 HP AS HE LANDS THE FINAL BITE TO KILL THE FUCKER.

...Well. The poison kills it. But the feeling is there.

Look, there’s the Dragonair.

Look, it’s using Outrage.

Look, Outrage got a critical hit.

Look, it’s me crying from sheer stress.

Look, it’s the miracle of me getting a critical hit for once. It dies.

...Then out comes a second Dragonair.

Level 54s, btw. I forgot. Too many other horrible things were going on.

Oak takes that one out too, then it’s the Dragonite.

I think you just need to not die, Oak.

That works.

Aerodactyl last. Level 58.

Surf gets it.

Hate you so much, Lance.

I think the main problem here is that if I open with Oak, the Venusaur pops out, and any preparation I do during the Pidgeot round will vanish. That makes Trunk that more appealing option for an opener.

Pidgeot, Gyarados, Arcanine, Alakazam, Rhydon (?), Venusaur.

If it wouldn’t mean the Venusaur coming out, I’d just let Oak handle everything. Maybe I ought to do that anyway, and just accept that I’ll be bleeding more X Defends than I want in this fight.

Actually, wait.

Okay, no... I don’t think that’s a good move. I was thinking I could teach Oak Calm Mind for some extra boosting, and it’s not a bad thought, but.

...Actually, yeah?

Gyarados and Arcanine both have Intimidate, but Oak has Special Attack as its primaries. If I use up some X Defends on the Pidgeot to leave room for Calm Mind... the only problem would be if the Pidgeot has Whirlwind. But if it did, that would be a separate issue anyway. I can’t smash through without setup.

Max Calm Minding should make it possible for Oak to survive long enough to nail the Venusaur with Ice Beam. Barring critical hit problems. That limits the pain of removing Bite, too. If Oak’s Special is all maxed, the particular move matters less.

Done, do it.

Oh.

NEVER MIND. Blastoise doesn’t learn it. Damn.

I think I’m thinking too hard. I’ll let Oak take the Pidgeot, then Trunk can set up against the Venusaur, then I’ll just let the nightmare of switching back and for be what it will. I guess. ...

How fast is Venusaur?

Faster than Blastoise, and my Blastoise has a nature impairing Speed.

Well, I can already feel how badly this is about to go.

Sorry in advance, Oak.

Hey.

So the Pidgeot is level 59.

And it still knows Sand-Attack.

AND WHIRLWIND, OKAY.

Sorry, little gal. This one wasn’t wholly my fault.

Trunk’s going out. If I can’t have Oak kill all the things, we’ll just. Yeah.

Featherdance. Featherdance, Whirlwind, Sand-Attack, and Aerial Ace. Fuck this thing, tbqh.

Alakazam’s next.

Featherdance really can’t stand, and the Sand-Attack severely impacts Trunk’s effectiveness as well.

Ooooooh I’m not going to like myself for what I do next.

Dig like your life depends on it, girl, because it does because I am awful.

Level 57 Alakazam v level 47 Dugtrio.

But my kid’s faster. All those EVs were good for something. Bark dodges a Psychic, and since Alakazam chose Future Sight, hopefully her next Dig will spare her that as well. Too stressed. Can’t count.

Okay, how bad...

She lived.

Bark, I do not deserve you.

You did so good, Bark. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Oak out to hopefully bait the Venusaur into showing up.

Alakazam’s Psychic packs a punch, but still a green one, and Oak’s Bite settles the matter.

Yes, the Venusaur is coming out.

The. Level 63 Venusaur. Hell.

And Earthquake isn’t super effective like I thought/hoped.

Two Growths, and Sunny Day. Oh fuck this can’t end well.

But Body Slam paralyzed it? So maybe?

Trunk outspeeds it.

It’s dead.

Oak swaps in on Rhydon because Trunk is going to be done the second he’s up against the Intimidate friends, so I need some time to set Oak up for the sweep.

It’s level 59.

This should be okay.

Sunlight faded. Want to use a Full Restore to heal up Oak in case of critical hits.

A couple of X Specials.

Should be good to go.

Rhydon down. Gyarados coming out. It’s level 59. It uses Hydro Pump, thankfully it doesn’t do much. Oak uses Toxic, and it actually hits.

Gyarados fainted.

Arcanine is up. Level 61. Need to Full Restore for caution. It uses Flamethrower. Doesn’t move Oak out of the green. Uses Flamethrower again, since it’s faster.

Oak uses Surf.

Oh.

Oh.

This. This was what this was all for, in the end.

I win.

Holy heck I win.

Pidgey-Oak, Krabby-Oak... you guys did great. Thanks. ...Many, many apologies.

Sap, we never got to see you shine the way I meant you to, but you were a valued member of the team, and made a lot of things so much simpler. If nothing else, you were an inspiration to try things a little more cerebrally, and that was the only approach that was going to make a dent.

Bark...

Bark. You were the linchpin. I brought you back into a fight you had to rely on luck for, and you brought in so much of that and just... I wish it made sense to use you more.

Oak.

Trunk.

You did it.

You really did it.

I’M DONE.

MANY FAILURES, MANY SADNESSES LATER. IT’S DONE. IT IS FINISHED. IT IS WON.

HEERO. PO. SPRINKLE. ZAFT. ALLENBY.

OAK AND TRUNK STAND ON THE BONES OF YOUR PROGRESS. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR HARD WORK.

I AM NEVER DOING THIS TO MYSELF AGAIN.

Though I might come back to another Nuzlocke, in a while. Not now. Definitely not now. But except for this being horrific, it was a lot of taxing fun. So I’m sure I’ll come up with something else to do. Maybe not in this format. I’ve been trying to learn how to make Twitch do stuff, and playing and talking takes less time than playing and typing.

Who knows.

For now, though, it’s over. Thank you to anyone who’s read these.

[ciathyzareposts]

Ishar: Trophy RPG

A minotaur takes apart my party while I hit him occasionally for 2 hit points.

            Aside from its graphics and sound, which I began my first entry by praising, Ishar feels like a “lite” version of every game that inspired it. It’s like it took a bunch of other RPGs but only copied their most superficial features. It has the character attributes, skills, and leveling of a lot of RPGs, but not with any depth or complexity. It has the switches and keys of a game like Dungeon Master but none of the challenging puzzles. It has a combat system that looks something like Might and Magic III or Eye of the Beholder, but it doesn’t really get it right. It’s like a movie with great cinematography but bad acting and not much of a plot.

I don’t know how to judge its combat system. Either the developers screwed up or they deliberately did something different but in doing so introduced new problems. On the surface, it adopts a Dungeon Master convention of giving each character an attack button and having them trade attacks with enemies in real time. It even does one better by mapping the attacks to the function keys. The problem is that there’s no cool-down, so it hardly makes sense to have all your characters attack. In fact, it makes the most sense to have the character with the best combat skills attack exclusively, keeping the others up front only as meat shields, to spread out the damage taken from enemies. The attacking character has to eat more often to regain stamina, but otherwise there’s no downside.

I’m not sure I understand the little combat formation grid that you can activate on the right side of the screen. Each character has a unique symbol, and you can arrange those symbols on a 5 x 5 grid to make ranks and formations. It’s not a bad idea, but I don’t think the game really makes full use of it. Characters not in the front rank can neither hit nor get hit in melee combat, but beyond that, I don’t see where the specific position and arrangement matter. Someone correct me if you know more.

              This arrangement doesn’t seem to do anything different than putting one character anywhere in the front rank and the other characters anywhere in the other four ranks.

             The worst part about combat is how the game treats missile weapons and spells. If a character is equipped by a missile weapon, hitting the attack key doesn’t launch it; it brings up a cursor so that you can click on the specific enemy that you want to target. Why is this extra step necessary? Melee weapons don’t target specific enemies. If combat paused while you made your selection, that would be one thing, but instead enemies continue to attack while you take your hand off the keyboard and move it to the mouse to point at a specific enemy and click.

Spells are even worse. To cast one, even in combat, you have to click the “Action” button, then “Cast Spell,” then the name of the spell, and then target it, all while enemies are pounding away.

             Casting takes too much time to do in combat.

          Both missile weapons and spells are a god-send, however, when you encounter the occasional enemy who refuses to advance. I wasted a lot of hours trying to melee a minotaur guarding a bridge with a morningstar in each hand. After several full-party deaths, I realized I could stand a square away and pelt him with arrows (albeit expensive ones), “Magic Missile” spells, and daggers until he finally collapsed.

A lot of spells are defensive or healing spells, and party members are useful for their other skills, including “Lockpicking,” “First Aid,” and “Languages.” But you need far fewer than the four companions you can choose to go on the adventure.

As for the innovations with NPC interactions, they’ve mostly been annoying. The one time I tried to kick an NPC out of my party, the other characters voted to overrule me and keep him. Meanwhile, NPCs that I want to retain have a way of disappearing in the middle of the night, with all the expensive stuff I’ve bought for them, when we stay at inns.

          Coward.

         I broke off the last entry by suggesting that I was going to try to map the island, which I estimated at 100 x 400 and concluded was “big but not unmappable.” That’s the problem with doing multiplication in your head. I had calculated it at 4,000 squares, which is the same size as a dungeon of 10 levels of 20 x 20. In fact, 100 x 400 is actually equal to 40,000–not Fate: Gates of Dawn, but still a few too many to map unless you really love the experience. 

Upon studying the map in more detail, I realized that a map might be superfluous anyway. Kendoria is a large place–much longer east-west than north-south–but it’s mostly made up of small islands interconnected by bridges. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to comprehensively explore an island. You just run around its perimeter and crisscross the interior a few times.

             Kendoria is less a “land” than an archipelago.

         The game begins on the furthest-west island, which is divided into Fragonir to the north and Angarahn to the south. Fragonir had the village on the docks, while Angarahn had the other village I explored last time. Between the two of them, they have a strength trainer and an agility trainer, but I still haven’t felt flush enough to use them. Angarahn has some encounters with orcs that seem to respawn. Enemies typically leave bags of a few hundred gold when they die, but it costs about 1,500 gold pieces to have a meal and a night’s sleep at a tavern.

East across the bridge from Angarahn is a large island with Lotharia on the west and Fimnuirh to the east. Lotharia has a small village to its north with a spell trainer. There were several encounters with werewolves or maybe bears, probably bears because later I fought somethings that looked more like werewolves. Fimnuirh is a huge, empty area where I keep getting attacked by something that I can’t see. I suspect that this is the “invisible lizard man” named Brozl that I learned about in an NPC’s hut. The NPC told me that to kill him, I would need to use a Mental Vision Helmet, wherever that comes from. I’ll need to kill Brozl because he has some magic rings that “protect from the dragon’s fire.”

            I have no idea what race this NPC is.

          There was an interesting encounter in Lotharia with a floating head calling himself “Azalghorm the Spirit,” the messenger of the “Silmarilian Gods.” He told me that we “could attempt” three quests, all of which would help us “when you finally have to face [the] evil Krogh.” He said the quests were called “The Magician’s Talisman,” “The Exhausted Witch,” and gaining possession of all of the rune tablets. I have no bead on the first two quests, but I found one rune tablet on a pedestal in Lotharia and the other on a pedestal in the dungeon.

           The main quest turns into sub-quests.

           East from Fragonir and north from Lotharia is a small area called Osthirod. There were some encounters with tall, powerful werewolves plus a hut where a “medium” offered to give me medical advice for 1,000 gold pieces. I took a screenshot of some kind of tall sentinel in armor blocking access to some part of the area, but I neglected to mark where it was.

Most of my NPC companions were killed by the bears and werewolves, plus some bandits that I met in Osthirod’s neighboring nation of Rhudgast. I replaced them with a weird monk named “Unknown,” a warrior named Fragorn, and a priest named Kiriela, who I found standing around the wilderness of Fragonir. Soon afterwards, Fragorn disappeared when we stayed at a tavern for the night, so I replaced him with a terribly effective “spy” named Nasheer. Unknown is kind of useless except for his “Magic Missile” spell and Kiriela is useless except for her “Healing I” spell. Golnal is just useless, but the party wouldn’t let me kick him out. Aramir remains the best melee fighter.

           Who’s your god? Hugh Hefner?

         Osthirod and Rhudgast occupy the same island, separated by a large, impenetrable thatch of forest. You have to cross between them on a small strip of land to the south. A pathway leads north from this strip of land to a dungeon entrance–the first in the game. There wasn’t much of a transition as I entered the dungeon, and it was small enough that I suspect it exists on the same scale as the outdoor map and could be mapped on the same piece of paper with it.

            The dungeon had some keys and levers but no puzzles.

           The dungeon was small and to-the-point. There were some doors I had to find keys to open and some barriers I had to lower with a lever. Monsters included skeletons, giant spiders, and some behemoth that took a couple of reloads.

            The photographer didn’t make it.

         The rewards for the dungeon were a few treasure chests, an empty flask, and a rune tablet.

           Primitive cultures. They’re always placing rune tablets on a pedestal.

              All geography ultimately funnels to the land of Aragarth, on the far eastern side of the Osthirod/Rhudgast island. A bridge leads from Aragarth to what is essentially the second half of the game, and this is where I got bottlenecked for a time by a minotaur, until I learned how to kill him from a distance. On the other side of this bridge, I found the land of Silmartil, a much less hospitable place than the western lands. After I died at the hands of some barbarians, I decided I’d better do another loop around the lands I’d already explored and grind a bit.

I mostly need to start spending some money. I’ve been very stingy. My characters would probably do better with some more armor (so far, I’ve only found leather), helms, and shields, and everyone could train a few points in strength or agility perhaps. I need to stockpile more rations to restore Aramir’s stamina, since every attack reduces it by 1%. If the dungeon respawns, that might be an easy way to earn both experience and wealth.

               This is probably the key to character development.

          Aramir is Level 6 now, everyone else either 3 or 4. I guess leveling affects maximum health and stamina, but as far as I can tell, skills are fixed from the beginning. (Unless they increase when you pay for attribute increases.) I’d probably do well to try to find better party members, but then again maybe I should be grateful that I have four of them who seem to get along and don’t bail on me at night.

To recap, Ishar is a pleasant enough game, but one that doesn’t grip me with its mechanics or its story. At least it’s pretty to look at.

Time so far: 6 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/ishar-trophy-rpg/

[where-music-will-guide-us]

JFC

Ayakashi: Ghost Guild is the most infuriating game ever during events. Like, seriously, wtf people?

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 309: Sandor (1989)

This game alas has nothing to do with Sandor Clegane.

       Sandor

Germany

Motelsoft (developer and publisher)

Released 1989 for Atari ST

Date Started: 10 November 2018

Sandor is another game from Motelsoft, the developer that previously brought us Seven Horror’s (1988), a game I didn’t hate but couldn’t figure out how to win. On the game’s official page, Motelsoft offers only that the game is “self-explanatory,” which it isn’t, at all. But I’ll do my best to muddle through.

The top-down perspective has a party of six adventuring over a landscape dotted with towns, cathedrals, and dungeons. I gather that the land itself is called “Sandor.” The dungeons are also in top-down perspective–a shift from the previous game, which offered first-person views.             

A traveling merchant approaches the party in the land of Sandor.

        The game draws some of its races from Seven Horror’s, although it seems to merge races and classes into a single list. Attributes are agility, strength, intelligence, endurance, and skill, rolled between 1 and 20 during character creation, although certain classes seem to get bonuses or weights to some attributes. It’s worth spending some time on the race/classes, partly because I don’t have a lot to discuss otherwise, and partly because they’re so weird. I’m hoping they make sense to German readers in a way that they do not to me. They are:

Megrim. In English, this word means, “depression.” It’s a variant of migraine. Some dictionaries give an alternate definition as “low spirits,” and I wonder if some developer didn’t try to translate that exact phrase, thinking of the other kind of “spirit.” Or maybe someone bungled an anagram of “Grimm,” as in the fairy tales. I’m otherwise out of ideas. If it helps, Megrims get their highest rolls in intelligence and skill. Motelsoft got a lot of use out of the word. It was a race in Seven Horror’s; it appears in a title of a 1994 game, Escape from Ragor II: Megrim’s Rache; and it is the name of an NPC in Trauma 3D (2002).

Hunch. From “hunchback,” maybe? They get high roles in strength and skill.

Glonen. Maybe a play on klonen, “to clone”? Also appears to be a last name. They get low rolls in all attributes, making me wonder what they’re good for.

Psychonaut. This term has been around from at least the 1970s to describe people who “explore altered states of consciousness.” Google suggests that the term has been used in numerous RPGs as a specialty class. I’m not sure if Sandor did it first. The class gets high rolls in everything but strength.

Exane. I don’t even have a guess on this one. Attempts at Googling are overwhelmed by an investment bank of that name. The race or class gets high rolls in everything but endurance.

Mensch. This is the only obvious one. It literally means “human” in German, and the race gets very balanced rolls with almost everything around 10.

         Character creation. This guy’s a true mensch.

        After character creation, the party lands on the game map, with options to open, look, take, drop, investigate, use, read, and camp. The game begins near a city called “Kolono,” where you can visit a markeplace, pub, or healer.

I took some time to buy starting weapons and shields. It seems that you can wear a piece of armor or hold a shield but not both. Weapons are restricted by strength, but not (as far as I can tell) by class. Fortunately, attributes can increase during leveling up.           

I was lazy and went with anagrams for party names.

         I set out exploring the land and spent most of this session mapping it. The explorable part of the world, at least at the outset, is around 50 x 50 squares. Rivers and walls block further progress to the east and south, although I can see some towns and other features there, so I know it will somehow be possible to explore further. Towards the eastern edge of the map, there’s a little walled compound with a gate, and stepping up to the gate indicates that I need some kind of gem to pass.          

The land so far. I screwed up one column or row somewhere, but it basically works.

          In a potentially ominous note, visiting the pub at a town near that gate brings up a message that “this is where the world ends for the freeware adventurer” and that to explore further, I need to order the full version by sending DM25 to Harald Breitmaier (one of the two listed developers) in Stuttgart. I got the game directly from Motelsoft, who doesn’t offer any option to register it on their web site. They didn’t respond to inquiries I sent about Seven Horror’s, so I don’t have a lot of optimism that they’ll respond on Sandor. I guess I’ll play until I can’t.            

DM25 in 1989 would have been $13.30, or about $27.00 today.

         Combat is far more advanced than Seven Horror’s, showing perhaps some of the influence of some SSI games. It doesn’t seem to draw from any previous European inspiration. After you’re told the composition of the enemy party (both type and level), you’re brought to an 8 x 10 grid, where every character has the ability to move, attack, cast a spell, use an item, get information about the enemies, pray, or pass. The entire party acts first, in some kind of initiative order, followed by the enemies. Each character has a number of points that he can use for both movement and other actions, so if you’re right next to an enemy, you can put all the points in attacking. This is quite similar to SSI’s Wizard’s Crown and Shard of Spring series.            

For this fight, I face a dervish, a hellhound, a fire imp, and a brigand.

          This early in the game, I don’t have any spells or items, so it’s just been attacking. There have been some light tactics in anticipating the enemy’s movement and trying to get him to come to me rather than wasting all my action points approaching him. I’ve also learned to target spellcasters quickly because they have a tendency to summon other creatures.          

My party members taking on four foes.

        Combat hasn’t been overwhelmingly common–maybe once every 30 moves. It has been quite deadly, however, and I’ve had to reload after about half of them. The difficulty of enemies is tied in part to the area of the map that you’re exploring, and I’ve been attacked by numerous parties that I was nowhere near ready to take on. Fortunately, the rarity of combat means that you can just reload and get out of those dangerous areas. It also means that you rarely face more than one combat per game day, and sleeping at night restores most hit points for a Level 1 party.

There are a variety of schools scattered around the land, where characters can literally spend intelligence points (and money) to learn skills like hunting, lockpicking, healing, and spellcasting. Some of the schools are duplicated, and some of the skills are offered in towns, and I’m not sure if there’s any difference among them. I haven’t found near enough money yet to get any of these skills.          

A school. I can learn healing at this one.

         It’s the skill system that convinces me that the direct inspiration for Sandor is SSI’s Demon’s Winter (1988), which not only had the combat system from Shard of Spring but also had the same schools around the map. There are some analogies among the skills themselves. There are a lot of other little similarities, including the way markets offer one item at a time, the way you can get lore in pubs, the way that different towns offer different services, the various temples that try to convert your members, the spacing between encounters in the wilderness (Demon’s Winter had one every 43 moves, precisely), the requirement to find a guild to level up, and in general the top-down interface. Even some of the tiles and icons look similar. Demon’s Winter was a decent game, so no complaints there.          

Unlike Demon’s Winter, Sandor is clear about how you advance through the items.

           Across the map, I found:

Three dungeons. None of them have obvious names. I haven’t really explored any of them yet, but they use a top-down interface just like the outdoor areas. 

            What dungeons look like from the entrance.

           Six towns. They all have three syllable names, and five of them (if I’m getting the pronunciation correctly) are dactyls: Kolono, Ulono, Nihili, Nalosa, Okokat, and Pelinos. Services vary by town, but among them you can find marketplaces, pubs, guilds (for leveling), skill schools, inns, and healers.

           This one town had all the services.

             Nine skill schools: spellcasting, hunting, “opponent estimation” (analogous to Demon’s Winter‘s “Monster Lore”, I imagine), healing, resurrection, fighting, and locksmithing. There are some skills offered only in towns, and I’m not sure I’m translating them right: fallen-beseitigens (“fall-eliminating”?), schiffskunde, waffenkunde, and kartenkunde. I get the first words (“ship,” “weapon,” and “maps,” in order), but every dictionary I consult suggests kunde means “customer,” not “skill,” which you’d really expect there.

Four “faith communities” (Glaubensgemeinschaft), three dedicated to the god Sunlot and one dedicated to Cenobit. Each gives me the opportunity to convert to that god; if I try to pray without converting, it says “you do not believe in this god!” I’ve kept the party neutral for now.

Two weird places where a title screens says: “Holy Blood. Say no to evil.” Each character has the ability to “renounce”; if he does, a message says, “You are not in league with the devil.” Weird. I can’t remember if there was anything similar in Demon’s Winter, but I remember I never really understood churches and religions in that game.

           I’ll be happy if I end the game knowing what this is about.

        Three gates that I need some kind of “mage-gem” to pass, although one just lets me walk around it.

              I’ll be back, I guess.

          An old man’s hut. He wants the Wand of Urakus and threatens dire consequences should I return without it.

            I think I’ll refrain from asking what the hell he’s laughing at.

           A bunch of icons that look like collapsing castles or towers, but with nothing obvious to do there. Maybe they’re just visual.

            During my explorations, I rose to Level 2, which comes with a satisfying increase in hit points and attributes. There are two guilds, on opposites ends of the map, for leveling. I almost have enough for Level 3. My finances are very slow to grow, however, and I hope that dungeons offer more in that area.             

Leveling up.

        On the plot, I’ve got nothing. The best I can go on is rumors from the pubs. A guy in Kolono told me about two caves in the west, and that I should not enter the first unless I have the Ring of Arcan, which I can get in the second. (I apparently need it to conquer some creature in the first.) Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me how I could distinguish the first and second caves.

Out in the wilderness, a “lone wanderer” named William Bacon said that his castle, “across the river,” was attacked by a “Jonge priest and his hordes.” His children were murdered and his wife imprisoned. He asked for my help and I said yes, but nothing else happened after that. This might go with another pub rumor about “hordes” to the east surrounding a city called Habata.          

Can you imagine attacking him? “Sorry, buddy; this just isn’t your week.”

          I started this game hoping that it would be a quick one-off like Seven Horror’s, but it has a lot going for it. I just wish we could dig up the manual.

Time so far: 5 hours

*****

If you’ve been looking at my “Recent and Upcoming” list and wondered how we got all the way down to Sandor, here’s the rundown:         

Legends of the Lost Realm: Still can’t get anywhere with it. I’m basically waiting until I’ve scheduled several postings so I can spend time on it without worrying that I won’t have anything to blog about for more than a week.

Le Maître Absolu: Weird French game based on the engine to Le Maître des Âmes (1987). It loads up the first time, but then every time I load it after that, it sits on a black screen. I might have something misconfigured in my Amstrad CPC emulator, which I don’t use all that often. Still comparing versions, testing, etc.

Paladin’s Legacy. Ultima clone for the TSR-80 Color Computer. Gets stuck on the loading screen after character creation. There’s a web site where the creator says he had trouble with MAME (which is what I’m using) and recommends a different emulator. Have to download, test, etc.

Sea Rogue. It’s an interesting simulation game about searching the seas for valuable shipwrecks. A commenter wrote 4 years ago and made an impassioned argument for the game as an RPG, and I admit it has some RPG elements. “Characters” (basically, people assigned to ship’s stations) get better through training and experience, and you get a kind-of inventory to make your explorations easier and more valuable. Combat, on the other hand, is all ship-to-ship (and not even a necessary part of the game), and overall it’s not really and RPG. I’d play it if I liked it, but I’m not much of a simulator fan. I gave it an hour and decided, with apologies to P.H., to scrap it.

              Numbers and gauges typify the simulator approach to Sea Rogue. This is one of about nine stations on the ship.

         Lower on the master game list, I rejected Sleeping Gods Lie (1989; only GameFAQs though it it was an RPG) and, predictably, 1989’s Soccer Star. The others remain on my list but will requires some extra work. Advice welcome if you already know what the problems are.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-309-sandor-1989/