Insane Difficulty: Anima Zero plays Brave New World - Insane Difficulty

Today's videos begin exploring the World of Ruin where Celes has to locate all of her allies and watch out for angry enemies that want to eat her. Luckily, she runs into Sabin at Tzen, then Edgar at Figaro Castle. Said king needs help dealing with some punks in the engine room.

Said punks decide to tentacle rape Edgar too. That was a bad day for him, heh.

Don't you mean that was a wonderful day for him? He loves that shit.

First batch of today's videos have the team hooking back up with Setzer at Kohlingen before visiting a tomb of one of his closest friends to get some new wings to roam around the sky, the likes of which are used to pick up another character and some goodies.

Anima Zero, on 02 December 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

A few more videos before I get off for tonight. which involve a couple team members being brought back to the party as well as Gau having some fun in the colosseum. Fun for all!

Tonight's videos involve more character recruitments, a demon in the sky getting evicted (and one who kicked my ass a couple times and almost did so again here), and raiding a tower for some easy loot.

First batch of today's videos have more characters getting added to the team. One's a mimic, the other a familiar moogle.

Also, regarding the beloved moogle, given the build he's going to go with for this run, I felt it was appropriate to change his name.

Who's he known as now? Here's the obvious answer:

Well, Captain Rex is getting his training done for his glorious entry into my party for Narshe. While that's happening, the rest of the team is heading to the Phoenix Cave to pick up a familiar treasure hunter and kill another optional dragon.

Of course, this optional dragon kicked my ass hard the first attempt. He did not get so lucky the next try though.

Might as well finish uploading what I have currently in reserve for videos.

Featured in this trio of videos? Everything getting spear'd in the face by Captain Rex. Hell, he gets the kill on Brown Dragon...with a double jump.

Captain Rex doing what he does best folks!

Tonight's videos take the team inside the soul of one of their own to help him confront his inner demons. Said demons include a real goof troop of brothers and a boss with possessing hijinks.

Today's videos have the team finishing off business in the Fanatics Tower before an old man, his granddaughter, a magitek knight, and Captain Rex go annihilate a beast of the old man's past.

One word of advice though...the White Dragon? Don't pull a stupid like me and equip Black Hearts for it. White Dragon uses Quartr, an earth based attack. Shouldn't be too ba...wait, Black Hearts make Quartr into an instant death attack for those with the relic equipped which is everyone on my team, FUCK! Amazed I didn't get a party wipe from that.

I think Magimaster doesn't like it when somebody has Shell up. He won't use Meteor/Quasar spam if nobody has Shell, opting for magical attacks that give away his weakness. Whether that's better or worse depends on how much elemental absorb you bring, I suppose; his Quasar isn't too strong, so with a dedicated healer you're sponging Meteor through Shell and just have to keep healed enough for Quasar, and aren't concerned about elements. Sometimes he'll Purge instead of Meteor/Quasar, but with Wall Rings that's basically a wasted turn.

It's always hilariously unwise of him to roll weaknesses to Holy and Fire/Bolt though. That's usually when he ends up losing most of his HP, especially if you have Locke, Celes, Terra, Strago, or Relm, plus Gogo. With all those rods he never had a prayer unless he rolled Earth anyway, and your strategy might've actually saved you from the more annoying things he can cast (Virite, Aero, etc.). Also supposedly he stops counterattacking neutral damage at a certain point in his script, but for the life of me I can't tell the difference between the "will Overkill + Elixir" and "won't" phases.

Last sidequest gets completed in tonight's pair of videos. Features a mini boss that almost game overs me, then a dragon who gets his ass kicked so hard it's shocking ...and this is considering the fact I accidentally had Terra with an Elec Blade instead of my intended dual Wing Edge setup, heh.

Finally breaking in to Kefka's Tower in tonight's videos. Lots of random enemies get punted and a few bosses fall.

Also, Inferno didn't play nice with Team C on my first attempt with it, resulting in a game over. Sheesh, I think I have more game overs in this playthrough compared to my Clean New World one, heh.

It may be a little late to point out, but the Daryl's Soul/Hyper Wrist combo can be pretty good on Setzer for random clearing once he has the Fixed Dice. Boosters don't work on the Fixed Dice damage, but Berserk for some reason does. It helps bump some of the average rolls up slightly, although big rolls are still going to hit for 9999 regardless and small rolls for triple digits. It does mean you can't control him, but in a party with Celes and Edgar I doubt that'd be a big problem. I do kinda wish Hyper Wrists protected from some other negative statuses for potential boss fight usage, but they're great damage boosts for random fights (for Umaro, as you demonstrated, it's essentially a 50% buff, better than the Rage Band and stackable with it).

All those Holy and Ice 3 damage cap hits just show off how nasty Soul Box Celes can really be. The cheap Cure 2s don't hurt either. I tend to think Vigor Terra and Magic Celes is the way to go just in terms of playing to their strengths, but I did have a very good run with a supportive Terra using the Gem Box. In endgame terms though I think the Soul Box ends up better. Force Armor + Soul Box on Celes mitigates magic damage, Minerva on a Vigor Terra protects her outright from certain elemental spells that would kill her regardless of MDef when Morphed and boosts Vigor. Though if using only one in a given party, Minerva all the way.

It was also kind of impressive to see a zombified Umaro throw Relm into herself. As if it weren't bad enough when he was throwing her so she'd get countered by Warmechs.

Hyper Wrist boosts Fixed Dice eh? Interesting. Learn something new every day.

I also think Relm is going to have an irrational fear of giant white yetis for the rest of her life, heh.

Anyways, more videos tonight. Basically, if your a dragon, you're dead by the end of these videos, especially Kaiser Dragon. Terra kicked untold amounts of ass with a dual Wing Edge setup + Hyper Wrist against that one.

I don't think a fear of giant white yetis is irrational. I used to live with one, and he was painfully stupid.

Edit: just saw that dragon kill. You kicked its ass. I'm thinking it would've been worthwhile to have Gogo use Aero once at the beginning.

Holy shit, you trashed Kaiser.

Warring Triad is now just a pile of corpses in front of my teams in the first batch of today's videos. Rest should be up soon once I get some descriptions typed up for them.

Another run of this fine hack completed with the final battles getting put down...even if I did ham it up on the first two phases, heh.

Until next time!