ERPG

by MellowSoul

Kaiser

The next series on the list turned out to be one of Spike's favorite: Breath of Fire.

"The lore follows a dragon named Ryu who can take on human form," Twilight explained, "The original never made it clear whether he was a full-fledged dragon or a hybrid. In the sequels, it's assumed his reincarnations are half dragon, half bird because of the second game's story. The first two games on Super Nintendo were fairly straightforward and linear. The third one came out on PS1 and introduced new battle formations and a mastery mechanic where you can learn spells from sages you find throughout. Some are easier to find than others."

"Don't forget about the gene system." Spike reminded.

"Oh, yeah. You can combine different genes you find across the world. The most powerful combination is called Ultimate Kaiser. It makes you between three to four times stronger and turns Ryu's hair gold like a super saiyan."

"Sounds pretty powerful." Rainbow replied.

"The first time we played, I killed one of the mini bosses in two hits."

"Sounds about right."

"There are items you can use to increase your stats, but by the end of the game, they're not really worth getting. Your stats can technically go up to 999, but they stop influencing battles around 300. The only ones it helps to collect at that point are HP and Magic shards. Magic shards in particular will be the most useful. Combining ultimate Kaiser with the Focus and Shadow Walk skills takes up a ton of AP, but it's worth the trade-off because you can deal upwards of ten thousand damage every attack if you know what you're doing."

"What's the strongest gear you can get?"

"The Goo King Sword and the Life Armor. The Goo King sword is a rare drop from gold Goo Kings, but it's not really worth getting. The encounter rate is completely random, and you only have a 1 in 256 chance of getting it. You're better off just stealing the Dragon Sword from Teepo and leaving it at that. The Life Armor is a lot easier to get. You just have to follow a specific path in the desert of death. Once you equip it, it'll heal you while you're walking on the overworld screen."

"Sounds pretty useful."

"It's worth picking up, but not really necessary. Status ailment protection is still the most important factor."

"Are there any grinding tricks?"

"Each game has its own variation. In the first one, you have to fight giant gold slimes called M. Slimes. The second game has a spot called monster island where you fight gargantuan versions of monsters from the world map. The third and fourth games are a bit trickier. You have to power up specific enemies and use a skill called Monopolize so one character reaps all the experience."

"It's divided between party members? Aw, that's so gay!"

"Yeah, but it's not too bad if you know how to work around it."

"Well, I'll let you do your thing. At least getting through all four games should take a while."

"Yeah."

Comments

[prism heart]

All 4 GOOD games anyways. We don't talk about Dragon Quarter for PS2 except to insult it.

[MellowSoul]

10972137
For real. The limited saves and dragon mechanic were such bullshit. Not to mention the early game was way too damn hard. I liked the core concept, but the execution was ass.

[prism heart]

10972218
Also, the effective time limit is bull, I mean what JRPG doesn't let you grind?

[MellowSoul]

10972427
It feels like they were trying to go a weird resident evil route. Not sure what that was all about.