Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn 101

Spoilers

Yes I realize my party sucks, but more on that later.

The Party:

The protagonist:

Party role: main tank aka the character who takes most of the melee damage.

Notable skills/spells/equipment: The Equalizer

Keldorn:

Party role: secondary tank.

Notable skills/spells/equipment: Carsomyr (+5 paladin only sword)

Viconia

Party role: main healer

Jaheira

Party role: secondary healer

Edwin

Party role: Main offensive caster

Imoen

Party role: secondary offensive caster and thief (mainly to disarm traps and open locks).

Overall Jon Irenicus/Slayer strategy

Before opening the door, it’d be wise to cast your buffs (ie, Haste, Improved Invisibility, Chant, etc etc) and cast some level 6+ summoning spells (aka cannon fodder).

Right after you use the tears of Bhaal to open the door, Irenicus summons 4 demons before transforming himself into the slayer.

One by one eliminate the demons. I suppose you could use a Protection from Evil spell ward off the demons, but it’d eventually wear off anyways. I’m too lazy to cast the damn spell and there’s way too much micromanagement associated with this strategy. Anyhow, you shouldn’t have too many difficulties eliminating the demons.

The Slayer casts Simulacrum (creating a clone of oneself), but for some reason the duplicate doesn’t do shit. And given the Slayer’s passiveness, you can avoid the Slayer by keeping to the opposite side of the chamber. If a party member has been hit by a negative status spell (ie. Horror, Maze, etc), just wait until the effect wears off. Afterwards, heal and re-cast your buffs and summons.

The Simulacrum clone doing shit all (the blue creature)

Remove the slayer’s protection using Breach, Pierce Magic, etc etc. Unfortunately, this is one aspect that I really hate about high level AD&D fights in Infinity Engine Games. Unless you pause every half second, it’s difficult to tell whether your spells were successful or resisted by the target because

1) Although you can control how much feedback you see in your message window, there are usually ten million lines to read. Especially in the heat of battle, it’s hard to find the line that tells you that the spell has been resisted

2) Even if the spell is successful, I find that it’s never quite clear if certain spells (ie, Breach) have affected the target.

Too many damn messages

Load up on spells like Breach that will disable the Slayer’s defensive magics because the Slayer will re-cast those protections several times. If you don’t eliminate those defensive magics, expect to see many “weapon ineffective” messages while your casters won’t be powerful enough to finish the job by themselves (unless you fluke out and cast a success death spell).

The slayer with his protections

Eventually, the Slayer will exhaust his magic reserves leaving him open to attack. I think physical attacks work better than magic attacks because of the Slayer’s naturally high magic resistance. Any +3 or higher weapon should definitely do some damage to the Slayer while you may or may not damage him with +1 or +2 weapons.

No more spell protections

Personally, I recommend that your casters use Melf's Minute Meteors (level 3).

Why?

“The meteors are treated as missiles hurled by the wizard with a +5 bonus to the attack rolls and with no penalty for range. Each meteor inflicts +3 damage, and an additional +3 fire damage. The wizard may discharge up to five missiles per round”. This spell also ignores magic resistance and since it’s a low level spell (level 3), you will be able to cast this a number of times.

I also recommend using Mordenkainen's Sword (level 7).

Why?

“The sword acts as a +4 weapon in all respects, as well it inflicts 5-20 damage when a successful attack is made in combat.”

If you wish, the protagonist can be transformed into the Slayer for a more potent attack. Personally I don’t transform. Why? I’m not so sure now.

Unfortunately, the Slayer heals fast, so you had better throw everything and the kitchen sink at him when you attack. Swarming him with summons is a good idea here. The Slayer will have “near death” status for an unusually long time, but he’ll eventually fall (he’ll reverts back into Jon Irenicus)

The swarm laying the smack down

Near death for what seems like an eternity

A winner is you

The problems with my party

1) My protagonist. (class: wizard slayer)

I should’ve read up about the different classes, because it turns out wizard slayers suck since a monk has better magic resistance. And a wizard slayer cannot wear any magical items such as rings or use any magical items such as healing potions. The latter can be a big problem, because he can only be healed by a priest as long as the priest’s spell isn’t interrupted in the heat of battle (big if).

Also, I should’ve selected a non-melee class for my protagonist. Why? Eventually your priest will be able to revive dead party members (assuming they didn’t die by a big physical attack which would reduce them to bits of kibble. Have you ever tried reviving bits of kibble? Yeah that’s what I thought). However, as soon as the protagonist dies, it’s game over. I find that melee characters are the most likely to die because they are taking all of the damage for the party.

2) Jaheira

A second healer is nice, but ultimately ineffective. In battle, if 2 healers are needed to get through a battle, you should focus more on offense, so that you take less damage negating the need for 2 healers. The best defense is a good offense here. And you can simply rest more in-between battles.

As a healer, Jaheira just pales in comparison to Viconia. And when it comes to offense, Jaheira is near useless compared to my other party members. Ahhh!!

Final Fantasy V 101

SPOILERS

The Basics of the JOB system

Unlike FF4, FF5 has the vaunted job system, so each character isn’t locked into a specific path for character development. The job system is pretty much like the class system in your typical CRPG (computer role playing game).

When you have a job equipped, you automatically gain the abilities of that class. For example, if you using “white wizard” you can cast “white magic” (curative & restorative magics). However, if you decided to switch over to the “knight” job then you lose the ability to cast white magic.

However, the game has a mechanism that allows you to mix and match abilities.

Basically, after battles, in addition to earning experience points, you earn ability points (ABP). So if you’ve selected “white wizard” as your job, you will earn ABP towards that job.

For example, after earning X ABP as a white wizard, you’ll be able to use level 1 white magic in conjuction any other job. You can gain as many abilities as you please, but you can only use 2 abilities at one time.

When you gain all of the abilities of a job, you “master” that job and gain all of its inherit advantages (ie, if you master “knight”, you can equip Sword, Shield and Armor, no matter what class you select).

Like in sports, it’s important to have a well balanced team. I mean your football team wouldn’t be composed of 11 quarterbacks on both offense and defense now would it?

The Party:

For everyone, I select the “generic/starting” class, because it allows you equip the best equipment. And each character has gained or mastered many abilities

Butz - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Monk, Mystic Knight, Archer, Ninja.

2-Handed - Allows any class to equip two weapons (other than bows or harps) at the same time.
X-Fight - Attack four times, with a weaker than normal strike.
GP Toss - Spend money to cause large amounts of damage to all enemies.

X-fight in conjunction with 2-Handed allows Butz to attack 8 times in a row per turn.

Lenna - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Archer, Monk, White Wizard, Black Wizard

White magic – White Magic (Cure3, Arise, Holy)

Cara - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Knight, Thief, Monk, Time Wizard, Caller

Call – Summoning magic (Bahamut, Golem)
Jikuu – Time magic (Fast2)

Faris - Notable Skills/Spells:

Mastered: Knight, Monk, Samurai, White Wizard

GP Toss
White magic

Overall Exdeath and NeoExdeath strategy:

This battle is fairly easy because the party should have more than enough firepower to overwhelm Exdeath/NeoExdeath.

However, I tend to play on the defensive because Exdeath/NeoExdeath has some potentially devastating spells (hence there are 2 white wizards in my party, Faris and Lenna)

- Holy         - 2500-3000+ dmg, single
- Flare        - 2500-3000+ dmg, single
- Meteo        - random damage, , 4 hits, all, random
- White Hole   - instant death, stones, single
- Maelstrom   - critical HP, all, random
- Almagest    - 600-1000+ dmg, constant HP loss all
- Grand Cross - different negative status, all

White Hole is especially annoying because you need to take 2 turns to revive then de-petrify the affected party member.

Butz:

Exdeath: X-Fight.

NeoExdeath: X-Fight is much less effective here, because NeoExdeath puts up “fake targets”. GP Toss works much better here….better than Holy and Bahamut for that matter.

See? X-Fight is useless here

Lenna:

Cure3 and Arise (Restore a dead party member with full health) when necessary. Otherwise, cast Holy every round (high damage for only 20 MP).

Lenna casting Holy

Cara:

Cast Fast2 which will speed up the entire party and re-cast as necessary. Cast Golem to block physical damage from the enemy and re-cast as necessary.

Otherwise cast Bahamut every round.

gogo Bahamut

yay Golem

Faris:

Cure3 and Arise when necessary.

Otherwise GP Toss every round.

The power of GP toss

I suppose that you could master more classes and get other powerful abilities (i.e. X-magic), but that require a lot more work.

I’ve uploaded my save file to my email account along with the rom (noporns@gmail.com, pass: gimmee). Give it the ol’ college try. The emulator can be found at www.znes.com

Cripes. Of all places to leave the game untranslated......

FInal Fantasy IV 101

SPOILERS

First things first:

I will always refer to the final fantasy games by their Japanese numbering hence:

Japan	North America
Final Fantasy (NES)	Final Fantasy (NES)
Final Fantasy II (NES)
Final Fantasy III (NES)
Final Fantasy IV (SNES)	Final Fantasy II (SNES)
Final Fantasy V (SNES)
Final Fantasy VI (SNES)	Final Fantasy III (SNES)

But the fun doesn’t stop there.

Japanese gamers originally found FF4 to be too difficult, so an “easy-type” FF4 was created while the original version came to be known as “hard-type” FF4.

“easy type” FF4 (japan) = FF2 (north America)

The game play differences between hard and easy types are listed here:

Final Fantasy II (North America)

Final Fantasy IV

The Party:

Cecil and Kain are on the front row. Rosa, Rydia and Edge are on the back row.

Party notes:

Cecil has Excalibur.

Rydia has Bahamut

Edge’s dart inventory: 3 old weapons, 4 Ninja shurikens.

Zeromus Strategy:

Generally, I don’t always do the side quests in final fantasy games, so my characters tend to be underpowered. Hence I usually have to devise strategies to work around these shortcomings.

Before I developed this strategy, I usually had a lot of difficulties with this battle. Situations like this were common.

OH SHIT!

Yes, occasionally I still found a way to win. Occasionally.

Surprisingly, the best defense is a good offense despite Zermomus’s large number of HP (120,00 in easy type, double in hard type). The sooner the battle ends, the less likely you’re going to die.

Edge:

Dart until inventory is empty. Then attack

Cecil:

Attack. Attack. Attack.

Then Attack some more.

Kain:

Jump. Jump. Jump. Jump.

Then Jump some more.

Rosa (aka the most important party member):

Cure4 EVERY SINGLE ROUND.

Even if everyone is at full health, Cure4 EVERY SINGLE ROUND. If Rosa dies, the whole party might die. Better safe than sorry.

And at least once during the battle, someone should give Rosa an elixir/whatever to give her max MP. If Rosa is unable to cast Cure4, the party may be finished.

Resist the temptation to cast White/Holy.

Rydia:

Sometimes, to save the hand, you have to cut off a finger.

Although Bahamut does a lot of damage, it’s best to leave Rydia dead for the duration of the battle.

Bahamut is not needed

Why?

With only 4 party members, Cure 4 more than cancels out Zeromus’ Big Bang and Virus attacks. Cure 4 is even more potent when it’s cast as Kain jumps.

Cure4 on 5 party members

Cure4 on 4 party members

Cure 4 on 3 party members

See how (1 / alive party members α Cure 4 power)?

The battle actually goes faster now because you don’t have to watch the Bahamut animation over and over. Also, you no longer have to worry about casting times since FIGHT (Cecil and Edge) happens right away whereas Bahamut takes about 10-20 seconds to cast. Of course, if one of the 4 remaining party members dies, revive them ASAP or the battle will drag out a little longer.

The only real danger is Zeromus casting Big Bang then a flare spell on Rosa followed by another Big Bang. Hence why it’s important to keep Rosa alive for the Cure4 spell.

So like Rocco on Jenna, just keep pounding away on Zeromus and he’ll soon be down for the count. Eventually Zeromus will start casting Meteo, which means he’s near the end.

Zeromus gets desperate

All in all, this battle should only take 5-6 minutes.

I’ve uploaded my save file to my email account (noporns@gmail.com, pass:gimmee) along with the rom. Give it the ol’ college try. The emulator can be found at www.znes.com

For you lazy asses who don’t want to finish the game, the ending of the game can be seen here: (great ending............Brother!)