Cor Hydrae update
Sep. 8th, 2013 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigozealI am indeed steamrolling the doom fortress as feared. Before a battle begins in Baten Kaitos, one of your characters will make a brief comment that will clue you in as to how tough the enemies you're facing are: "I don't like the odds here..."; "~*Sorry!*~ Hope this doesn't hurt too much!"; etc. So when we rolled up to the first monster in the castle, a fearsome-looking chimera-type beast about half the length of the screen, I knew we were in trouble, or rather not enough trouble, when the first thing out of Savyna's mouth was: "What a waste of time."
Taking screenshots of your 133t Baten Kaitos combos is apparently a thing on Tumblr, so enjoy this blurry photo of my Xelha:
I think my screenshot is the blurriest of all!
The card-game battle mechanics reward you with extra damage for putting out matching hands during a character's turn: two pairs, a straight, etc. I haven't paid much attention to this mechanic throughout the game, since you really have to settle for downgraded equipment for most of the game to get enough matching numbers in a character's deck, but the best stuff for the mages lately has been cards with 2's, 6's, or 8's, and the narrower spread of number leads to more frequent combos. Xelha and Mizuti have been killing it as a result. (There's been no multiparty stuff so far in the Cor Hydrae final fortress, so I've been letting a Gibari-Mizuti-Kalas squad handle things every now and then. Yeah, I know I said Kalas was permanently on the bench. I guess I can't stay mad forever - at least not *that* mad.)
Dramawise, the final assault started off quite badly, I have to say. with the world leaders moving their islands into position to release their lands' ~*~magical power~*~ and try to nullify the barrier around the doom fortress, but the images of the islands moving during this cutscene were clearly blurry, badly-rescaled cutouts from the world map just slid across the screen. It looked quite bad visually and especially stood out in a game that takes such great pride in its visuals. Not to mention that the scene itself was...well, really rather hokey, with groups of dodgily-voice-acted people in four places reacting in turn to things going well, things going poorly, etc. I did not expect, of all people, Giacomo's former goons to save the day, though. As soon as they started speculating about who was going to lead the Empire in the charge now that it had no ruler and no one to unleash its magic, I thought, "Hey, how 'bout that Azdar guy who led Savyna's squad; he seemed competent," and he was indeed there, but Ayme & Folon were running the show. I'm skeptical that they could actually handle that, but I suppose if Airhead Rainbow Queen can manage, the bar isn't that high.
A deeply unfortunate scene also took place the day before the characters marched into battle, in which it was at elaborate length concluded that Kalas, being an artificially-created being made in a attempt to spawn eternal life, was a divinely-mandated counter to the evil god, the force through which the cosmos was attempting to reassert balance and therefore its official Representative of Good, an idea for which there are not enough "oh, please"s in the world. Stop trying to make Kalas the Real Sincere Hero happen, game. He's been far too much of a jerk for far too long for that role, and though I know forgiveness and redemption is a running idea in the game, we haven't learned enough about Kalas's mindset regarding his little heel turn for me to feel comfortable forgiving him yet. (Oh, God; he is going to be mandatory in the final battle, isn't he.)
Treats along the way: the music for the final dungeon is the most RPG final dungeon-music ever composed. We also had another Lyude moment, as he won from a boss fight his final special attack: Finale, which involves him somersaulting into a gigantic gun turret made of light, with fragments behind arranged to resemble wings on his back. I'm gonna miss you when this game is over, buddy.
.
Taking screenshots of your 133t Baten Kaitos combos is apparently a thing on Tumblr, so enjoy this blurry photo of my Xelha:
I think my screenshot is the blurriest of all!
The card-game battle mechanics reward you with extra damage for putting out matching hands during a character's turn: two pairs, a straight, etc. I haven't paid much attention to this mechanic throughout the game, since you really have to settle for downgraded equipment for most of the game to get enough matching numbers in a character's deck, but the best stuff for the mages lately has been cards with 2's, 6's, or 8's, and the narrower spread of number leads to more frequent combos. Xelha and Mizuti have been killing it as a result. (There's been no multiparty stuff so far in the Cor Hydrae final fortress, so I've been letting a Gibari-Mizuti-Kalas squad handle things every now and then. Yeah, I know I said Kalas was permanently on the bench. I guess I can't stay mad forever - at least not *that* mad.)
Dramawise, the final assault started off quite badly, I have to say. with the world leaders moving their islands into position to release their lands' ~*~magical power~*~ and try to nullify the barrier around the doom fortress, but the images of the islands moving during this cutscene were clearly blurry, badly-rescaled cutouts from the world map just slid across the screen. It looked quite bad visually and especially stood out in a game that takes such great pride in its visuals. Not to mention that the scene itself was...well, really rather hokey, with groups of dodgily-voice-acted people in four places reacting in turn to things going well, things going poorly, etc. I did not expect, of all people, Giacomo's former goons to save the day, though. As soon as they started speculating about who was going to lead the Empire in the charge now that it had no ruler and no one to unleash its magic, I thought, "Hey, how 'bout that Azdar guy who led Savyna's squad; he seemed competent," and he was indeed there, but Ayme & Folon were running the show. I'm skeptical that they could actually handle that, but I suppose if Airhead Rainbow Queen can manage, the bar isn't that high.
A deeply unfortunate scene also took place the day before the characters marched into battle, in which it was at elaborate length concluded that Kalas, being an artificially-created being made in a attempt to spawn eternal life, was a divinely-mandated counter to the evil god, the force through which the cosmos was attempting to reassert balance and therefore its official Representative of Good, an idea for which there are not enough "oh, please"s in the world. Stop trying to make Kalas the Real Sincere Hero happen, game. He's been far too much of a jerk for far too long for that role, and though I know forgiveness and redemption is a running idea in the game, we haven't learned enough about Kalas's mindset regarding his little heel turn for me to feel comfortable forgiving him yet. (Oh, God; he is going to be mandatory in the final battle, isn't he.)
Treats along the way: the music for the final dungeon is the most RPG final dungeon-music ever composed. We also had another Lyude moment, as he won from a boss fight his final special attack: Finale, which involves him somersaulting into a gigantic gun turret made of light, with fragments behind arranged to resemble wings on his back. I'm gonna miss you when this game is over, buddy.
.
