Highest Difficulty, Willpower run?

#1superdementoPosted 8/21/2011 1:02:43 AM
Long ago I played an all magic run, and it was actually easier than using weapons lol thanks to homing fire as the staple weapon. The only drawback was in dispatching enemies who where immune to magic, with low physical power.

Has anyone tried picking the LEAST effective stats per level? How was it? I'm beginning a new game of this(oh sweet nostalgia) and I want it on Nightmare Mode hurrr

mattocks and lizardmen woot

This time I won't miss the Were Axe >:o

Anyway, what are your thoughts on a high difficulty playthrough? I won't grind on werewolves this time either :3 (they make it SO easy)
#2BareknuckleRooPosted 8/21/2011 4:17:58 AM
I actually liked doing all-magic when I beat this game the first couple of times. Getting a homing attack spell as your first magical offense is definitely broken.

Doing a willpower only run is probably still not as difficult as a low-level run though. If you max out willpower you'd have to restrict yourself to no offensive magic (except for Ice when needed for puzzles) as even if you focused on willpower your magic would still be pretty crazy strong (casting spells at max willpower seems to give them a significant damage boost as opposed to a special property like swinging a weapon). With all of your points going to willpower, you'd be able to cast boosted Fire spells like there's no tomorrow so I suspect it'd be similar to an all magic run unless you stuck with weapons only.

Not that willpower run wouldn't be fun or anything, but I'd say if you really want a super extreme difficult run of the game you could always try to do a low-level run (gain as little exp as possible, ideally fighting only bosses or enemies needed to open doors).
#3superdemento(Topic Creator)Posted 8/21/2011 2:22:29 PM
I don't intend to grind or anything, and I'll prolly avoid a fair number of unecessary battles(I was never much for chasing down out of the way foes anyway), but I wouldn't want to worry about gaining as few levels as possible. I like to fight enemies if I feel the desire, you know?

Will power affects magic damage? oh. I thought it just affected the speed that your special attack meter gained. hmm.. if only I could play as an enemy or NPC or something. It'd be so fun to play through this as a crappy lizardman :3
#4_KazPosted 8/22/2011 11:15:42 AM
Really? I thought willpower only affected the special bar too.

Having a quick raising special bar is also nice; you get to swing your sword around endlessly! (That's the only weapon that seems to have two "full power" attacks -- are there any others?)
Kaz Fact: Welcome to Version 2.0!
#5BareknuckleRooPosted 8/23/2011 6:26:42 PM
Will does only affect the rate at which the special bar increases, but since magic gets boosted in damage/healing if you cast a spell with a full special bar it's actually a pretty useful stat for spellcaster builds. Choosing Will at level up also gives you 1 point of Wisdom, thus increasing your magic damage by a bit, so going with Will instead of Wisdom basically raises your Wisdom by a bit less for more special bar speed. In the end, pure Will builds will still naturally be far more capable with magic than with weapons, because only choosing Power or Stamina on levelup adds points to Power.

Really, the benefit of going Will is that you get special meter faster than you would normally. By the end of the game, your Will will naturally be fairly quick, even if you weren't putting points into it (since all levelup options raise a minimum 1 Will), so Will builds are basically the equivalent of a bit weaker Wisdom builds late in the game.

If you want the lowest stats possible without resorting to an actual low level run, you should do a no-magic Wisdom build game. Since you're not allowed to use magic, your high Wisdom won't be any help and you need to pay close attention to your stock of healing items, your Power will stay at the minimum the whole game, and you'll only gain 1 point of Stamina/Will per level, meaning your Max HP and special bar also don't go up very quickly.

The sword's the only weapon to have two special bar attacks as opposed to one (because it has two different basic attacks as well, the stab and slash), however only the flying special is really useful. I find the spinning attack knocks normal enemies around too much to the point where it's easy to have them run into you and against bosses I much prefer the safety of staying far away and attacking at a distance. The flying attack is handy, but you can actually hit enemies towards you if you hit them on the way back, whereas something like the axe special doesn't normally have this problem (although this doesn't apply to most bosses except perhaps Julius's first form).
#6_KazPosted 8/26/2011 9:39:10 AM
Ah. I thought the other weapons had variants I wasn't aware of.

While I agree that darting forward and back in a nigh-invulnerable state is nice, I'm a bit too impatient to sit back and throw things. With the Blood Sword equipped, I tend to heal more than I hurt when I crash into things in my spinning state.
Kaz Fact: Welcome to Version 2.0!
#7BareknuckleRooPosted 8/26/2011 4:56:44 PM
It's even worse when you consider the Sword is the only weapon with a special attack that isn't simply a boost to its range & damage. All the other weapons basically have one special attack: enhanced range. Chain, Sickle and Star all just get added range; Spears and Axes get thrown. It's pretty clear that the game really wants to make swords more 'appealing' for some reason.

I was always sad that you never find a stronger Sickle. I thought it was a cool weapon. :(
#8superdemento(Topic Creator)Posted 8/27/2011 1:42:46 AM

I would love to... I dunno....MAKE a new FFA game. With my own little sprites. And story. It would feature two special attacks per weapon!

It would be an awesome game tho.

But I love this game, despite it's limits. I .... LOVE the final dungeon music in the Holy Land.
#9DragonAtmaPosted 8/27/2011 2:14:25 AM
Obviously, they read http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroesPreferSwords too much.

Anyway, it's not hard to come up with a second super attack for every weapon. At the very minimum, you can have them do the standard attack type with extra damage added on.
Nagas on a plane! ^_^
#10BareknuckleRooPosted 8/27/2011 9:38:38 AM

That and the final boss music were probably my favorite songs in the whole game. Despite its hardware limitations, I thought the gameboy was capable of some really great music, and I still have that song on my VG music playlist.