snahgle

I just finished my first playthrough of v2.0 (second playthru of BNW - I played 1.9 previously) and thought I'd write up some impressions. First off, great job on the game balance! I made a special effort this time to main characters I didn't focus on last time - Gau, Strago, Setzer, Mog - and found them all to have surprising flexibility and craftibility. The few times I found myself seriously stuck, I was able to think my way out of the problem by changing strategy (most notably, Gau Locke and Sabin in the minecart ride - thanks to the forum for suggesting Rain Man!) The challenge was on point: while I didn't feel like I game over'd too often, I would still start pumping my fist in the air and cheering when the death animation hit for almost every boss, it was that satisfying. Excellent work on the character scenes, too. I'm not a huge fan of the referencey humor, but that was toned down here, and I AM a huge fan of the awesome characterizations in this release - everyone seems more of themselves, Celes and Setzer really shine, even Gogo picks up a good line or two! I wrapped up the game with my crew at level 30--32, Esper level mostly 22-23. Kaiser was great - I love the extra strategic layer for that fight, and it was extremely satisfying (although I'm still not sure whether I figured out what I was supposed to do or just got lucky). I was pleasantly surprised to run into some real difficulty with Kefka and had to retry the last fight a few times. Eventually, I used Runic with Celes to absorb the Meteor counters, kept up non-magical healing with Setzer and Sabin, and dealt damage mostly with Terra's Ragnarok procs, with the occasional double Fixed Dice and claw attacks thrown in for extra. There were a few things that struck me as off. First, Edgar's Mana Battery seems underpowered: I gave him 15 Siren levels, but at the end he was still only hitting for +45 MP, so why wouldn't you just throw a tincture? (Especially since I was rolling in money well before the end game.) In comparison, his bro (13 Stray) Sabin's Chakra gives >50 MP to all three of the other party members - to match that performance, I would expect the Mana Battery to do more like +100 or +150 MP on one target. Second, I don't really understand the choice to remove the elemental beams from the Magitek Armor: it made the beginning feel less like "awesome introduction to the game world" and more like "boring filler to get through ASAP". (That was accentuated by Whelk being further nerfed, it felt like that battle was over in 3 hits.) It also removed some enjoyable storytelling from Cyan's dream. If it's a matter of the beams having identical effects, they could be used to provide an intro to the elemental system - for example, make the mammoths immune to ice, make wolves weak to bolt; maybe make Whelk adapt to absorb the last beam type that hit it, so the player has to keep rotating. Then the beams have a purpose in addition to looking cool, and the player has something to do besides mash A. Third, I really enjoyed the storytelling in the escape from the floating continent, but the forced use of one particular action in the battles felt like it went against the ethos of 'play how you like' that the rest of the game does so well. It's awesome, people will use it without being required to. And honestly, that's about it. Everything else is refreshing and awesome. All in all, this has been the most fun I've had with this game since probably before 2000. Thank you so much to the devs who have put so much effort into bringing the strategy and gameplay of this classic up to par with everything else we love about it!

Hey, thanks Nesouk! Fortunately I had Rain Man, and that was great advice: Bolt2 let Gau one-shot a MagRoader (sometimes before it one-shotted Gau with Wheelie) and clear the arms on Number 128 pretty quickly, which made the whole thing more manageable. In hindsight I was also making the mistake of having everyone kitted out in rogue gear, so no one could take a significant number of hits and stay standing. Once I put tankier gear on Locke and gave him a Knight Cape, I could keep Gau alive most of the time and use Sabin for targeted damage or support as necessary. This is a good example of what I like so much about this revision of FFVI: there are actual build options that let you really take advantage of the combinatorial possibilities of the huge character roster. BTW, listing what the actions are in the Rage menu is a huge quality-of-life improvement, thanks whoever made that happen.

This is a message to all the Gau friends out there. If you're listening, Gau and I need a little counciling. See, it all started when I thought to myself "you know, I never use Gau. I know he's been all shined and polished up since vanilla and I've seen some forum posters swear he is OP if only you learn to use him... So you know what? I'll give him a chance!" And I gave him a chance. I gave him a chance all the way through the Magitek Factory with his best bud Sabin and he got KOed a lot but everything was going just fine. Until the mine cart ride. Which I just died on five times in a row, playing what I thought were more and more conservative strategies: Locke on heal (shiv) and Life/Fire2, Sabin on Fire Dance and Black Belt/counters, and Gau trying his best with Conjurer for Rerise but he keeps throwing Frazzle instead. Wipe after wipe. And no chance to go back and pick someone I know how to use. So, any advice, thou Gau whisperer? Can someone show me how I'm mishandling the wild child (or the party comp) and help me save this file? I, as an FFVI veteran, of course don't have a backup save. (Edit: this is 2.0 RC27-P, if it matters.)