"One to be born from a dragon..." -- Let's Play Final Fantasy II

Also,

Marions and puppets, eh?

I think I just heard Eddie screaming all the way from here.

I wasn't trapped in the backwater Toroia all that time?

Also,

• Playing castanets
• Snapping his fingers

You mean there was a better way to fight Valvalis then to jump on her head then beat her up really fast?

Bricks are indeed the most informative of LPs!

You know, if you're going to be proven wrong, there are less worse ways for it to happen.

- Eddie

So back when I first played this game (spring break 1992), I was doing the same thing as I did with FF1 in the fall of 1990; that is, forget to equip shit. So it turned out that Zot is the first place where, if you run a lot and don't buy and/or equip new armor and weapons, your negligence will catch up with you. So to this day, the Zot music and the battle with the Magus Sisters fill me with dread, even though the whole thing is a cakewalk now. Here's to the fears instilled in your childhood.

Also, Kain is clearly scrolling Talking Time on his smartphone.

It's nigh essential in the DS version.

Is it a stretch to declare them the manliest team in the entire series? That said, my favorite party is the one you get to fight Valvalis because all five people - including Rosa, with aim - can land a good hit without spending MP. They're my choice for sleepwalking the end of FF4A.

Nope! First time I played this I got stuck on the Magus Sisters and had to go back to buy some Cure2s. What got me was not knowing I could simply leave. I didn't even try walking out until I worried I'd have to restart the whole game.

I'm not sure what Valvalis did to Brick, but she was cake to me compared to Lady Magi.

A 10% hit rate. Did I guess right?

You can use a dagger as an item? I've just had my daily dose of Tell Us What We Didn't Know!

I didn't know animated GIFs could move this fast! I must be turning into a web hermit.

Which version of the game shows two rows of dialog text in battle? Shopped?

Ever hit the 1 in 65,536 chance of a Master Ball fail?

Also, I really like Mario RPG's system of replacing randomizers (for the most part) with skill. More RPGs need to use Timed Hits.

What.

Valvalis (or Barbariccia, since I first played it on GBA) was the least memorable of the four fiends for me. Scarmiglione had the whole back attack thing, Cagnazzo was the king for half the game, Rubicante was just a badass... Meanwhile, Barbariccia just sort of shows up out of nowhere and has the worst gimmick out of all of them.

Oh well. Different strokes.

Also, he's clearly looking for the GBA Micro he lost in the folds of his hand.

It's Kain. If anything, he'd be browsing F My Life.

...or perhaps looking up lolcats.

That's happened to me about... hm, 3 times now? Granted, it's been out of about 150 Master Balls tossed (yeah, I glitched the original; who didn't?), but I'm pretty sure 3-in-150 is a much larger number than 1-in-65536.

Yeah, timed hits are a pretty nifty idea. Giving the player control like that is nice, as long as the game doesn't require the player to have excessive precision to complete the game. I don't think I would've put up with SMRPG if they'd made it so you HAVE to land a 100-jump chain to continue the game.

You've had a Master Ball fail?!

Do any non-Mario Nintendo RPGs have timed hits? I know Mother 3 does (still need to play that), but what else?

I believe Legend of Dragoon did.

Sure have. As a general rule of thumb in video games, if there's an unlikely and very bad result, sooner or later I'm gonna see it. Usually much sooner than later.

It's not exactly timed hits, but Kingdom Hearts 2 has Reaction Abilities. Of course, being an action RPG, you kind of expect that sort of thing, so yeah. In the more turn-based department, there's Vagrant Story (yes, seriously; it only looks real-time) and its chain/RISK system.

Squall's gunblade is essentially this (auto crit with good timing).

Well, yes, but only Squall can do it. I mean a universal (or near-universal, even Mario RPG had the stupid unblockable spells with the long-ass animations and the aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah) gameplay mechanic.

Oh hell no. We don't need to stinkin' skill in RPGs! I don't do skill. >_<

I think there I just made more use of Haste, Slow, Protect and Shell than I ever needed to in the original. It's possible by the time I played that version I would have been using Berserk, but I really don't think I ever used it on Ms. Hair Tornado before.

It's not Nintendo, but...


SSSSSSHHHHAAAADOW HEARRRRRRRTS

Glory of Heracles (the most recent, Nintendo-published one on DS) had... I'm not sure what to call them, but it sure had 'em, and they sure made your spells stronger.

Given that protect and shell aren't in the original, that's not hard. But, yeah, slow, especially, is a necessity and I pretty much used the first of Edge's turns in every boss fight to use a spider web in the final dungeon.
Except once you get good at it you don't really need other characters. Junction something good to Str, junction drain to added effect, critical hit every time.

Also it makes the battles take longer.

Quite the opposite! Done properly, you do your timed hits during the animations you'd otherwise be seeing (or in a 1 second window beforehand), and the whole idea is to let you significantly up your damage output with awesome timing, so, assuming allowances are made for people sucking (and generally they are) being able to actually time things well is going to lower the total number of rounds spent fighting, yielding quicker battles.

That and seriously, it's mainly the Mario RPGs and Shadow Hearts series that do it, the former of which has that whole minimalist kick, and the latter is all about killing bosses in the short window you have before your characters all start going crazy on you.

Yes, when you compare it to the musclebound manly madness of Sabin and Cyan (with special guest stars Gau, Shadow and Ghost Dude). Let's review their accomplishments in the relevant chapter of The Book of Manly Exploits (aka The Testostertome):

- Cried manly tears over fallen loved ones, then immediately channeled them into murderous, army-destroying rage
- Stomped through enemy camp in crazy robot suits
- Boarded zombie train to the afterlife, ripping through every car before suplexing the goddamned train itself
- Jumped off huge-ass waterfall, punching a hundred fish in their stupid faces on the way down
- Messed shit up on the Veldt, learning to be just as savage as its indigenous beasts
- Crammed three heads into one diving helmet and somehow had enough breathable air to survive being dragged along the ocean floor halfway across the world

I guess Cid and Co. went to a cave where their armor was kinda heavy? And needed to be saved by the power of gentle lute plucking? Fuck that. Sabin and Cyan are Chuck Norris' personal heroes.

Not to belittle your post, but it was much longer than it needed to be.

Cyans got a 'stache, yes. But so does Yang, and Cids got a rugged BEARD. Tellah also has a beard, but it is far less ruggedly manly.

That being said "Jumped down a waterfall in order to punch more fish in the face", "Ran along the floor of a deep-sea trench" and "train suplex" are more then enough to prove the point.

"You wanna talk beards? Let's talk beards!"

That's not a beard, that's a mane.

A man's mean lion's mane of manliness and evil's bane, but a mane nonetheless.

NO.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

NO NO NO.

NO NO NO NO NO NO.

NO NO.