Author Topic: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)  (Read 41242 times)

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Offline Fjurbanski

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #50 on: March 13, 2013, 06:33:17 PM »
Yeah, it made me laugh a little the first time i ran into those circular paths on the outside of Darm Tower (or is it on the inside, and it's hollow? Idk). I walked to the right and saw one door. My natural way of handling this is to say, "Ok, there's one door, but the path keeps going. Let's see how far this goes and then come back to this door later." So I keep going and find a second door. I go in that one and I'm back in the same room I just left. It was kind of funny, but it did get the point across that those paths go in circles. Which is probably the best a game like this could do.
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Offline Pixelated Pixies

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #51 on: March 13, 2013, 07:01:01 PM »
My natural way of handling this is to say, "Ok, there's one door, but the path keeps going. Let's see how far this goes and then come back to this door later."

Yup. I do the exact same thing. When it comes to exploring areas I always have the following rules to make sure I don't miss anything.
 
1 - Explore every wall and corner of the area you're in before going through any doors or ascending/descending any stairs.
 
2 - In the first instance, always explore areas by moving anticlockwise, left to right, and bottom to top.
 
3 - If you are in a position to complete a sidequest, collect an item, or defeat a boss then do so before moving on and exploring other areas. Being in a position to do something is usually the game's way of telling you to do it.
 
4 - Speak to everyone. Try to memorise faces, names, items, myths, legends, prophecies and places regardless of how banal they may appear to be.
 
5 - If you reach a seeming dead end, experiment with every single item or piece of equipment that you have even if it does not make sense. Game designers are far from infallible.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2013, 08:18:51 PM by Pixelated Pixies »
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Offline Ibogaine_Effect

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #52 on: March 13, 2013, 08:12:24 PM »
If you reach a seeming dead end, experiment with every single item or piece of equipment that you have even if it does not make sense. Game designers are far from infallible.

Yeah, that was where my mistake was. Or rather, where I failed to account for the developers mistakes, depending on how you look at it. I got to a point where I just figured I didn't have the right item when it turned out I just wasn't equipping it right. It's strange, there are a lot of single use items in this game.

Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #53 on: March 13, 2013, 08:41:38 PM »
Is it normal that when I walk up to a Roda tree (without seed) it fades out, plays music for a split second and fades back in with nothing happening? That's on the Steam version. It seems like there are some weird bugs.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2013, 10:43:13 PM by Rodrigue »

Offline Fjurbanski

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #54 on: March 13, 2013, 10:31:50 PM »
3 - If you are in a position to complete a sidequest, collect an item, or defeat a boss then do so before moving on and exploring other areas. Being in a position to do something is usually the game's way of telling you to do it.


With that, I generally do the opposite. I'm always afraid that if I do anything that I know the game is telling me to do first, then it might force me into a situation where I can't explore further.


Kind of why I hated the mines in Book I so much. I would get to an area that I knew was the way to progress, but I was never sure that I had fully explored the area I was on.


Also, no, that Roda Tree issue never happened with me (Wii VC).
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Offline llaffer

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #55 on: March 15, 2013, 12:05:46 AM »
I bought the Wii VC version of this when it was new, and never really got into it.  I started over last night almost beat the second boss to get the third book, then resumed this evening to finish the boss in the mines and start my way up the tower.

I'm currently stuck on the boss on L8.  None of the rings seems to have any effect when fighting this boss, so it seems to be an endurance event .... can I play for 5-10 minutes without getting hit? Even with the silver sword equipped, hitting him only does about 5% damage where if I get hit once, I take about a 35% hit.

I've been following a guide from gamefaqs with maps to help me along, and this is what the guide has to say about this boss:

Quote
This boss battle is actually quite simple to get through. ... It is a quick and easy battle, but the blades will cause a lot of damage, so be careful not to get hit by them!

I read that and thought "F-you guide".

I think this is my stop point.  It's one thing to die a lot while you learn things to get better for next time.  But there is nothing to learn here.  It's just a case of "don't get hit for 5 minutes", which is easier said than done.
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Offline pPatko

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #56 on: March 15, 2013, 01:39:32 AM »
Nygtilger.  Eff that guy.  How was I to know I needed to have the long sword to do damage?  And how was I to know that I should grind to level 10 in order to not have it repeatedly ass rape me?  Anyways, still enjoying the game.  The music is fantastic.  I wish I had the opportunity to play this when it was current.  Now I'm trying to rush through it, partially because of Retroactive and partially cuz I'm a grown ass man with not enough time to play games!  :(

Offline Crimm

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #57 on: March 15, 2013, 11:17:44 AM »
I hate to say it, but you gotta grind a two or so levels.
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Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #58 on: March 15, 2013, 01:47:12 PM »
Does the Power Ring change how much damage you deal vs the vampire? I tried it and it didn't seem to make a difference. I still beat it in the end but the difficulty curve there is kind of obnoxious. Gets better in the tower I guess.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2013, 03:55:12 PM by Rodrigue »

Offline llaffer

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #59 on: March 15, 2013, 04:31:08 PM »
Does the Power Ring change how much damage you deal vs the vampire? I tried it and it didn't seem to make a difference. I still beat it in the end but the difficulty curve there is kind of obnoxious. Gets better in the tower I guess.
  I think the effect of the rings don't matter on boss fights.  They only matter against the trash enemies.
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Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #60 on: March 15, 2013, 05:32:14 PM »
Seems silly that these items are said to "double your strength" or "reduce all damage" then.

I just finished the game and for me the most annoying parts were the final boss and the forced backtracking 10 floors back. Still was enjoyable overall, took me 8 hours.

And I don't get your issue with the F8 boss if you haven't beaten it yet, are you under level 10 or missing some silver equipment? It took me maybe 3 tries when I did it and it was 100% my fault for standing right in the blades.

  • Given that the game's primary goal is to explore floors and levels of dungeons, the omission of any on screen indicator for which floor you're on is kind of weird. I found myself saving alot simply to see which floor I was on.
In the Steam version I could press the L button (on a Gamepad) to toggle an overlay that included my stats, enemy stats known to the bestiary, and the current area (including floor if in a dungeon).

  • Grinding the hell out of the guys who break through the wall Kool-Aid man style on floor 20 of Darm Tower was really useful.
I don't understand the point of that, unless it is the DS version since it has 24 levels instead of 10 (or maybe my version's the weird one).
« Last Edit: March 15, 2013, 05:50:41 PM by Rodrigue »

Offline llaffer

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #61 on: March 15, 2013, 05:58:25 PM »
And I don't get your issue with the F8 boss if you haven't beaten it yet, are you under level 10 or missing some silver equipment? It took me maybe 3 tries when I did it and it was 100% my fault for standing right in the blades.
I don't recall exactly what level that I'm at.  I have 103 hit points if that helps.
I have the Silver Sword and Shield (but not the armor.  I had it at one point, but wasn't able to recover it yet after losing it the first time I hit L6).
Seems that I have to hit it 35-50 times to kill it (my estimation of 5% per hit was quite high) and I die in 3 hits.  So if I'm doing something wrong, I don't see it.
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Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #62 on: March 15, 2013, 06:03:44 PM »
And I don't get your issue with the F8 boss if you haven't beaten it yet, are you under level 10 or missing some silver equipment? It took me maybe 3 tries when I did it and it was 100% my fault for standing right in the blades.
I don't recall exactly what level that I'm at.  I have 103 hit points if that helps.
I have the Silver Sword and Shield (but not the armor.  I had it at one point, but wasn't able to recover it yet after losing it the first time I hit L6).
Seems that I have to hit it 35-50 times to kill it (my estimation of 5% per hit was quite high) and I die in 3 hits.  So if I'm doing something wrong, I don't see it.
Are you playing the DS version? Normally HP rises in increments of 20, so a max HP of 103 would be impossible. And I was level 10 (max level) even before I beat the vampire boss so I had 255 HP. If regular enemies are tough to beat maybe you are underleveled. I found it really easy to level up even though it required a small amount of grinding.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2013, 06:07:21 PM by Rodrigue »

Offline llaffer

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #63 on: March 15, 2013, 07:05:05 PM »
And I don't get your issue with the F8 boss if you haven't beaten it yet, are you under level 10 or missing some silver equipment? It took me maybe 3 tries when I did it and it was 100% my fault for standing right in the blades.
I don't recall exactly what level that I'm at.  I have 103 hit points if that helps.
I have the Silver Sword and Shield (but not the armor.  I had it at one point, but wasn't able to recover it yet after losing it the first time I hit L6).
Seems that I have to hit it 35-50 times to kill it (my estimation of 5% per hit was quite high) and I die in 3 hits.  So if I'm doing something wrong, I don't see it.
Are you playing the DS version? Normally HP rises in increments of 20, so a max HP of 103 would be impossible. And I was level 10 (max level) even before I beat the vampire boss so I had 255 HP. If regular enemies are tough to beat maybe you are underleveled. I found it really easy to level up even though it required a small amount of grinding.
I'm playing the Wii VC version of the game, which seems to level up similar to how the DS version levels up in Book II based on the gamefaq guide that I was reading.
EDIT: OK. I looked again, and it seems to be a little different.  But when I got to 100HP, I leveled up once, and only gained 3 more instead of the 5 that I was earning.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2013, 07:08:19 PM by llaffer »
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Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #64 on: March 15, 2013, 08:37:36 PM »
OK, if that's the Turbografx-CD version I don't really know about it, I didn't realise it was so different from Ys Eternal/Complete/Chronicles. But you most likely need to level up more. When I played, some enemies would utterly destroy me until I gained one or two levels, and then I would own them.

Funny thing I found (and a spoiler unless you've reached the mine), in that version (which I presume most of you are playing), Sara (the fortuneteller) is "kidnapped", but in the other versions she is murdered.

Also (spoiler if you haven't finished book I) Dark Fact seems incredibly easier to beat on the Turbografx. For me one hit would take out a sliver of health and I often got trapped because of how many tiles disappeared.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2013, 08:59:19 PM by Rodrigue »

Offline llaffer

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #65 on: March 15, 2013, 10:33:23 PM »
OK, if that's the Turbografx-CD version I don't really know about it, I didn't realise it was so different from Ys Eternal/Complete/Chronicles. But you most likely need to level up more. When I played, some enemies would utterly destroy me until I gained one or two levels, and then I would own them.
Yeah. This is the Turbo CD version.  This weekend, I'll grind a few more levels to see if that helps.  I think I'm within 100 XP of the next level, so shouldn't take too long.  It's only 300-400 XP between levels at this point.
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Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #66 on: March 16, 2013, 12:56:17 AM »
I assume enemies give less XP in general since for me it cost thousands to get levels towards the cap. But apparently the cap on the Turbo is really high (if there even is one) so if you really want to you could grind to the point of one-shotting bosses.

Offline Pixelated Pixies

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #67 on: March 16, 2013, 03:09:40 AM »

  • Given that the game's primary goal is to explore floors and levels of dungeons, the omission of any on screen indicator for which floor you're on is kind of weird. I found myself saving alot simply to see which floor I was on.

In the Steam version I could press the L button (on a Gamepad) to toggle an overlay that included my stats, enemy stats known to the bestiary, and the current area (including floor if in a dungeon).

In the TG-16 version it doesn't have that unfortunately. That sounds like a worthwhile improvement though.


  • Grinding the hell out of the guys who break through the wall Kool-Aid man style on floor 20 of Darm Tower was really useful.
I don't understand the point of that, unless it is the DS version since it has 24 levels instead of 10 (or maybe my version's the weird one).

 
What do you mean you don't understand the point of it? If you think you might be underlevelled going into the last couple of floors then you can easily grind some levels. The great part about that particular room is that those enemies respawn so easily. If you move even slightly to the right and then back to the left all three guys will reappear and they'll even line up for you to rush through them all in one go.


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« Last Edit: March 16, 2013, 03:13:37 AM by Pixelated Pixies »
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Offline Jonnyboy117

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #68 on: March 16, 2013, 03:48:37 AM »
This point came up during the first part of RetroActive, which you'll hear Sunday, and it's worth writing down here:

If a boss is driving you crazy, you probably missed some equipment or need to get a level up. The patterns and timing are not all that hard for most bosses, with exception of the vampire (which has a really short window of vulnerability, as many people here have discussed).
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Offline pPatko

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #69 on: March 16, 2013, 06:14:44 AM »
Ys: Giving the a whole new meaning to the term "bump n grind".  :cool;

Offline llaffer

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #70 on: March 16, 2013, 09:37:52 AM »
I assume enemies give less XP in general since for me it cost thousands to get levels towards the cap. But apparently the cap on the Turbo is really high (if there even is one) so if you really want to you could grind to the point of one-shotting bosses.
Most enemies early on give 2 or 3 XP per kill, then scale down as you level up to 1 XP per kill.   I've not noticed what kind of XP that I'm getting from enemies in the tower.

I just looked.  At L21, the first creature that I found on L9 gave me 12 XP per kill.  I currently have 3355 XP and need to get to 3500XP to hit the next level.

Should I have the silver armor before attacking the boss on L8?  Or am I current on my gear at this point?
 
EDIT: I did some grinding in L9 until I was L25.  At that level, the mobs that gave 12XP per kill started to give me 3 XP per kill, with the next level needing 400XP to get, so leveling started getting slower.  I then tried to beat the L8 boss, and it was easier.  My hits started doing more damage (probably closer to my 5% estimate vs. the 2% that I was getting at L21), and I could take more hits (maybe 8-10 hits instead of just 3).
I guess I'm just used to how games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest scale, where there is little difference between levels, but in a game like this, 2 levels can be a significant difference.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2013, 10:01:15 AM by llaffer »
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Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #71 on: March 16, 2013, 10:34:32 AM »
What do you mean you don't understand the point of it? If you think you might be underlevelled going into the last couple of floors then you can easily grind some levels. The great part about that particular room is that those enemies respawn so easily. If you move even slightly to the right and then back to the left all three guys will reappear and they'll even line up for you to rush through them all in one go.
I posted that before I realised that the Turbo version had a different leveling system since on the PC version I reached the level cap before the end of the mine. Because of that the enemies you are talking about were really hard to beat since I couldn't get any stronger, and there wasn't much of a point in beating them except to get more information on them for the bestiary.

Offline Fjurbanski

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #72 on: March 16, 2013, 11:40:06 AM »
So it looks like there's a few big differences between versions.


Really wish I could have had that map overlay..... :|
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Offline pPatko

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #73 on: March 16, 2013, 12:23:01 PM »
Given that the game's primary goal is to explore floors and levels of dungeons, the omission of any on screen indicator for which floor you're on is kind of weird. I found myself saving alot simply to see which floor I was on.

Thankfully, I discovered early on that the current floor is noted in the menu under "Status".

Offline Rodrigue

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Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)
« Reply #74 on: March 16, 2013, 01:44:25 PM »
The item in the ice ridge of Noltia makes me feel a tiny bit bad about killing demons.

The use for the Misty Ice Drops? :confused;
 
I never would have tried that had I not referred to a guide. Some times games expect me to make these leaps of logic that I'm just not capable of making.
 


It can freeze air into ice? Surely it's the water in the air that's frozen into ice? And if it can freeze the water in the air into ice, thus creating a solid platform to walk on, then why can't it freeze the trickling waterfall into ice so that I can just walk up it? Also, if it can freeze air into Ice, then how come it only works in that once specific spot? Why can't I make platforms between all other gaps also? How was I to know that I had to use it in that specific spot?

 
See what I mean? My mind just doesn't seem to speak 'game developer'.
It seemed very obvious to me. I reached the cave where the ice needs to be used, saw a weird mist but couldn't do anything about it. Then I left, got the item, read the description, and it was the only place where it seemed like something might happen. I didn't actually expect it to create a bridge but I figured I would have to use that item somewhere, and it worked. Maybe the visual indicator in the PC version is clearer.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2013, 01:58:40 AM by Rodrigue »