Doomsday31415

Darkkefka could answer this better than me since this was a change I've only heard him explain a few times in the past, but the battle music was removed for technical reasons. It's definitely normal and not a bug. I liked the music too, but I believe it didn't work right with the revival or something. I hope you enjoy the game regardless

Of course! The lack of healing spells (group or otherwise) is what makes everything before Star Hill harder.

Unusable? I used her plenty in the beta...

Right, I think it would be better to release a public demo for the purpose of hype rather than to find balance issues. If something comes up from the demo, you can adjust the balance before the release anyway. Everything else should be done first, though.

A public demo wouldn't be a bad idea, although I highly doubt it will be useful for determining balance. Some people will think it's too easy and others will think it's too hard regardless. Another consideration is that you'll want the savestate to be compatible with the final release, since otherwise everyone would have to go through the beginning again.

It's complicated. I can't say I have all the details, but here's what I can point you to:

You made it! Good to have you back I've been holding the fort here while you've been away. People are just itching to play v9! On that topic, what's left?

Ah, you mean the v9 alpha. I know at the time it was called the beta, but at this point it's better referred to as the alpha. The beta was only given to me to test (I streamed my test of it). It's very different from the alpha, and much closer to what the release will look like. Someone already posted the v9 alpha a few days ago actually. With that in mind, I don't see any reason to say no to someone wanting to make some videos of it. Just remember to mention in the video that it's the alpha, not the final release.

Assuming you're talking about the videos of me playing the beta, I think it's best for everyone involved to not watch those videos. It will spoil some of the experience from actually playing v9. That's why those videos are staying in the vault... nothing would be gained by watching them now.

Considering the most powerful attacks in the game (Crystal Stars, Riot Blade, and Xion in general) all deal physical damage, you'd do well to go all or almost all HP. The extra magic attack isn't needed to deal enough damage, and the magic defense is hit or miss. Also, a no Celebi run? Good luck with that.

Huh, neat.

It's true that I have that version and the videos of when I streamed it. However, those are locked away in "the vault", never to be seen again. The next time you see version 9 will either be one final beta from DK or the actual v9 release. I know he's taking forever, but please be patient. He should be coming back to finish this soon To tide you over, have you beaten everything in the hard mode of v8? What about earlier versions? All the ones still around are available in the download section.

If you have to ask... he's probably unbeatable. He's only supposed to have a few lives. P.S. That version is the v9 alpha, even though it might sometimes be called a beta. The v9 beta was never released publicly, although I did stream it earlier this year.

The fix I gave makes her HP effectively 30,000, so that's not surprising. In v8, damage can be as high as 30,000, but will only display up to 9,999. v9 will display more useful information here

No problem! I was confused by that at first as well. The UI for that editor can be pretty unintuitive sometimes...

You need to select the check box to the left of the line, then click the X.

So, the easy fix is just to remove the "If memory $7EE02 >= 1" line. This will cause Valentina to give up at 30,000 damage. I'd recommend just making this change for simplicity (and because of limited space). While it will be easier than intended, if you've gotten to the point where you realize she doesn't ever give up, it'll be easy either way. To go into a little more depth what's going on, there's two different "formations" that Valentina appears in: the one in Nimbus Land with Dodo (385) and the solo fight (236). Whenever Valentina is attacked, it runs the counter logic and does different things depending on the formation. For the 385 formation, it checks to see if her HP is below zero. If it is, it increments $7EE002, heals her for 9,999 HP three times, then checks to see if $7EE002 is at least two. Basically, $7EE002 is the "lives lost" counter. Most superbosses do something similar here. Once enough lives have been lost, they're defeated. The problem is in the 236 formation. Notice that $7EE002 is checked, but never incremented. Valentina is also never healed. This is why she's stuck at zero HP. As long as "Disable Auto-Death" is set, enemies will not be defeated even when they hit zero HP. The proper fix would be to do the same thing as 385, but limited space leads to the above recommendation. Hope that helps!

Could you post the AI for the enemy that's the problem? Specifically their counter logic.

Are you using Snes9X 1.53 or 1.54?

I do agree that Armageddon has a power creep where anything that doesn't kill you isn't really a threat. That's not a result of the blocking, though. That's because of how powerful, cheap, and plentiful healing is. Any attempt to fix this power creep would have to make healing much harder. As a side note, attacks that are capable of hitting multiple targets can't be blocked for technical reasons.

Better by what standard? Strategy is a major part of this game, and having attacks that are entirely predictable (i.e. not based on something that can't be known in advance like failiing to block) is part of that. Also, I'm not familiar with v7's damage reduction. Could you elaborate?

It's possible. Invincibility has been replaced with 50% damage reduction and status protection.

To answer your first question, as far as I know, there are no missable chests/items/equipment in v8. However, there are certain pieces of equipment that you only get once, so don't throw them away or sell them unless you're SURE you'll never want it again. As far as where the hidden chests are, I'll just refer you to the following thread that ninjasdf was kind enough to bring back: http://ngplus.net/InsaneDifficultyArchive/www.insanedifficulty.com/board/indexab10.html?/topic/7319-the-ultimate-game-content-spoiler-q-a-thread-v80/

Regarding the archive, obviously without the ability to log in, we can't see messages we sent the normal way, but do they exist?

I believe you get a weapon for completing that fight, but I don't remember what it is.