Password:

Severely undervalued. A dime a dozen.








Password will go here. Other players will not.

Edit: Password is reprise

This map was awesome, and then I butchered it

All of the players in Codenames 21 have signed up for another game it seems.

To keep things moving, here is what random.org decided this time:


Blue team:
Mardoc
Fenn
Pindicator
Lewwyn
DaveV

Red team:
Bobchillingworth
Sunrise089
Commodore
rho21
JR4

EDIT: Pindicator replaced WarriorKnight

After being annoyed with Chrono Cross, I thought I'd play a more relaxing game afterwards.  I had tried Legend of Mana a few times, but I was always frustrated with its cryptic mechanics.  Then I decided to do a more casual playthrough, using a guide to get through the more questionably-designed dungeons. 

This thread is labeled "Mana series" in case I want to play Secret of Mana on the Super Nintendo mini.  (Other people's thoughts on the series are welcome too!)


What Kind of Gameplay Does Legend of Mana Have?
 
-The combat looks more like a horizontal sidescroller "beat-em-up" than the top-down Secret of Mana style.  There’s no connected world map in Legend of Mana either.  Instead, you pick a region on a blank map and then place Artifacts that you get from quests to unlock new areas.  It’s a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, except you get to walk around the locations instead of the areas being pure battle arenas.


What’s Unusual About the Story?

-Legend of Mana doesn’t have much of a main plot, or at least not one I could identify on the past few attempts I’ve tried to get into the game.  Some players compare Legend of Mana to a collection of short stories rather than the novel format of most RPGs.  Many of the quests revolve around helping characters resolve their various problems.  For the most part, you keep doing sidequests until you get an ending.  Supposedly, there’s a “Dragon” route and a “Fairy” route, but I’ve never gotten far enough to tell what the differences are.




Here's Part 1 of what happened when I fumbled around with this game.  I wrote this in Microsoft Word as I was playing the game before posting it here.



Home

-I started by selecting the female character and keeping the default name of YOU.  What other game names the player character YOU?  I picked the Staff as the starter weapon for YOU, but I’ll probably experiment with other types as the game goes on.  As for the starter region, I went as far southeast as I could and went with that.  Domina was placed one space to the west of my house.
 


Niccolo’s Business Unusual


-A strange man named Elazul was asking a fairy vague questions in an intimidating manner.  YOU stood up for her by saying they were friends, and Elazul stormed off.  When I had my first companion, he later tried to force his way into my party.  Since I could only have one partner at a time, I refused him for now.  Besides, he was already creepy enough without him following YOU.
 
In the shopping district of Domina, the rabbit merchant Niccolo said there were bandits on the highway, and he was looking for a mercenary to get rid of them.  What RPG starter quest would be complete without bandits?  Niccolo told me to talk to his friend Teapo in the item shop building.  Niccolo tried to sell an Artifact for 50,000 Lucre (an exorbitant amount in this game) to her, but his pushy sales tactics failed.  Niccolo decided to let me place the Artifact instead.  Luon Highway went one space north of Domina.
 
Luon Highway had easy enemies, and was mostly a linear rocky path.  However, there was a fork in the road later in the dungeon.  Going south led me to the Wisdom of Earth Gaeus, a rock monster who gave out advice to travelers.  He told me to check an ancient tree near my house.
 
Going east at the fork led me to a boss.  (I had to look up the name after the fact.)  YOU offered the bandits candy instead of money, which led them to summon the Mantis Ant.   It barely qualified as a fight because each of my regular attacks kept stunlocking it.  The staff Special Technique Paint It Black sucked the boss into a black hole and spat it out for significant damage.  The bosses are huge in this game, so even the odd hitboxes for most weapons can’t save them. 


I’ll probably switch out the staff for something else because I don’t like its odd range.  I’d rather have something with a wide range than a long range.
Defeating the Mantis Ant made Niccolo give me several seemingly useless items (probably for crafting?) and two Artifacts.


 
The Little Sorcerers

 
-The mail carrier pelican went to my house and told me pumpkins were taking over Domina.  Of course, I had to investigate.  Before going anywhere else, I sold a few junk items and bought the weakest flail (more like nunchuks).  Two kids were hanging out in West Domina, arguing over what to do.  Bud gave himself the title “Bud the Malignant” and seemed to really think he could conquer the world with pumpkins, while his sister Lisa gave sarcastic comments about why that wouldn’t work. 
 

Bud challenged YOU to a fight after that conversation.  Since I was using a new weapon, I didn’t have any flail Special Techniques yet.  The flail’s range made more sense than the staff’s, but I still didn’t like how I couldn’t cancel a combo.  YOU was often flailing around after a miss.  Bud and Lisa sometimes cast spells, whose range was telegraphed by glowing lines while they were charging up.  The flail often stunned the two siblings, but the awkward combat made it so I had low health by the end of the fight.  When I won, they offered to become my apprentices, and I agreed to it.  Bud and Lisa now lived in my house, and the quest was over.


 
Huntin’ Du’Cate


 
-This was the worst quest so far.  It took place in the Jungle, which was the Lost Woods of Legend of Mana.  In this playthrough, the Jungle was to the north of Gato Grottos, or two spaces north of my house.  I had to follow a guide just to find out which screens I needed to go to.  The backstory involved a Sotherbee (aka Mr. Fuddy-Duddy) hiring hunters to bring him Du’Cate tails so they can pay back a slight portion of their 10,000,000 Lucre debt.  I brought Lisa with me for the sake of variety.  She spent most of her time casting various weak elemental spells with instruments. 
 

One character cast a spell on YOU to prevent her from getting lost.  Not that it did much good.  I talked to the Du’Cate hunters and agreed to help, then I headed all the way to the right where the boss battle was supposed to happen.  Nothing occurred.  I then knew I was facing the true enemy of all RPG players:  event flags.  Talking to one of the hunters and then going back to the arena led me to Du’Cate at last. 
 

Du’Cate was a giant Sasquatch-like ape.  It was as easily stunned as the Mantis Ant.  Occasionally, it would make things fall from the trees if it was able to move.  I used the Flail for this fight, and it had mixed results.  The Drunken Monkey Special Technique often failed to connect.  (Its animation is doing several somersaults before swinging the flail, in case you’re wondering.)  YOU’s overpowered staggering abilities defeated Du’Cate , and its smaller friends carried the boss away.  Sotherbee gave me 500 Lucre and Artifacts. 


It was hinted that I was supposed to give the prize money to the other hunters, but hey, I’m playing this as if I were a beginner.  For whatever reason, this was listed as Quest #8 instead of 3.  I guess I should have saved this for later?
 
 

Monster Corral
 
-A Beast egg was in West Domina, and I wanted to catch it!  A local gave me some advice on catching monsters.  Eggs would flee if they saw YOU approaching them , so she had to be stealthy.  I dropped a Citrisquid on the ground and grabbed the egg while it was eating.  The pelican mail carrier swooped down and took it back to the Monster Corral.  Some exposition revealed that I could have 5 monsters, and they could level up via combat or grazing.  Feeding monsters different things would influence their development.  Each egg could be one of several classes, such as Beast in this case.  They would hatch within “days”, whatever that meant in Legend of Mana time. 
 

Monster Corral was listed as Quest #57 despite appearing early in the game.  After the quest, I walked around a few spaces, since I guessed that was how time passed.  I was right, and the egg hatched into a Rabite, the rabbit-like monster from Secret of Mana.
 

 
Reach For The Stars
 
-Quest #36 took place in Duma Desert.  Two factions of wizards were fighting each other, and the evil faction’s leader Mephianse stole a spell book.  YOU agreed to help the good faction, and all the NPCs ran off.  Rabite came along as a companion, but its performance was underwhelming.  I guess I can’t blame a newly hatched level 1 monster for being weak! 


The bow was my weapon this time, and I think I’ll stick with it.  If I was going to button mash through the game, I might as well do it from afar.  The bow’s Trueshot Special Technique was good too.  It hit for reasonable damage and buffed DEX, which I’m guessing is the bow’s governing stat.


Several of the evil students tried to block the way or lie about what direction YOU should go.  Why bother with such nonsense when I had an FAQ to use as a map?  Mephianse said he was going to destroy the world by making stars fall after firing a cannon. 

 
Mephianse kicked me out of that room and summoned two Axe Beaks.  This was an easy fight, but satisfying with the bow.  Trueshot and regular attacks stunned them into submission, and Rabite made a good distraction at least.  When Mephianse’s cannon fired, the result was nothing more than fireworks.  The leaders of both factions were perplexed, and Team Good gave me more Artifacts as a reward for helping them.  This was a fun comic relief quest, and I can see why Legend of Mana became a cult classic.

Anybody up for an AOW3 SG? I've played the campaign long ago and reading the game bargains thread, I got the itch to play it again. I won a duel game on a random map at Lord difficulty yesterday easily...although I took way longer than you're supposed to on a small map, due to my overly cautious playstyle. I'd love to get to know better strategies.


(Also, I'm looking forward to AOW: Planetfall already!)

Another request.  If anyone has copies of the old editors, specifically emagic, grimoire and momedit2 (both dos-based), I'd be very grateful if they could be shared.  I can find many references to them and many links, none of which work.

Hello All!

I'm trying to find a good map editor for MoM.  MomTweaker is not as effective as I'd hoped (adding bonuses to the map does not seem to do anything, and trying to change water to land and vice-versa fails to change movement abilty).

I have the really ancient edmap.exe (the file is from 1995), which will at least let me edit terrain bonuses, but hoping for more than that.

Please let me know if you have anything!

In case anyone wants to discuss Chrono Trigger, they can post in this thread too.  But my current RPG variant isn't a Chrono Trigger playthrough.  It's a Chrono Cross Low Tier Character Challenge!


What Is This?

Chrono Cross has 44 playable characters, but most players won't use many of them.  The party is restricted to 3 members, and Serge can't be removed until New Game Plus.  I'll play through the game using weak or gimmick characters such as Poshul to make things more interesting.  To recruit as many characters as possible, I'll be reading GameFAQs often.


Why Not A Solo Run?

I tried a solo Serge run of Chrono Cross not too long ago, but the boss battles took a long time, and that meant a high chance I would die to some status ailment I couldn't do anything about.  In a game where you can't level grind, that would be more frustrating than fun.  So instead, I'll make Serge as useless as possible by either keeping him dead or keeping him from attacking or casting spells in boss fights.  This is almost a duo run.


How Is Chrono Cross Combat Different From Chrono Trigger's?


Both games are turn-based RPGs, but don't have many similarities other than that.  Chrono Trigger plays like an ATB Final Fantasy, with some special moves that use 2 characters at once.  Chrono Cross uses a stamina turn based system.  All characters have 7 stamina, which recovers when other characters take successful actions.  3 levels of physical attacks are available, from the weak and accurate level 1 to the strong but inaccurate level 3.  Weak attack combos make strong attacks hit more often.

Physical attacks build up the Element gauge, which lets you cast spells.  All Elements use the same amount of stamina.  Different characters have different Element grid layouts, and you can only use each Element slot once per fight.  (This restriction doesn't apply to enemies as far as I can tell.)  Every character gets unique Elements for levels 3, 5, and 7.  Some are offensive spells, while others inflict status ailments, deal physical damage, or heal. 


All player characters and enemies have an innate color, which gives them an elemental affinity and weakness.  Serge is White innate, so his White Elements become more powerful, but he has a weakness to Black spells.  Yellow is the opposite of Green, and Red counters Blue.


You can switch between characters at any time, so one good option for physical characters is to attack until they reach 1 stamina, and then switch to another character and start a combo until the first one regenerates their stamina.  It isn't always good idea to finish a combo with an Element, especially if you're using a low MAG party.   



How Does Leveling Work?


Chrono Cross gives Star Levels at the end of most boss fights.  Random battles can drop money, forging materials, and Elements, and minor permanent stat boosts (mostly HP), but you can't power level in this game.

So 2nd time with Illians, last time I got razed by Bob's scout early.

I'll give thoughts of picks etc. later, but just going to say now that the starting position is very lush!



Those manas make my arcane game plan certainly easier too... that's nice. Obvious tech selection: Agri, Calendar (revolt), Crafting, Mining. Happy cap of 9 there with CHA + Enchantment mana.