Ys Origin: Hugo Hard finished. (Finished Yunica Normal earlier.) Fun stuff for all that I think I like Oath in Felghana combat better. It's too bad that the super-influential levels means that difficulty level is to some extent a matter of annoyance - rushing to a boss on a Normal is equivalent to grinding a little on Hard, and grinding some on Normal is equivalent to a bit of over-grinding on Hard. It's not good if your difficulty level is secretly a proxy for "test player's patience at grinding," for all that most of the bosses I didn't have to go hardcore grind mode on. (Also, as usual, it'd have been nicer if the regular enemies were a tad harder.)
I did like how they mixed up who lived and who died between routes, as well as the plot boss fights, for all that as usual Ys plot is a trainwreck. (The Black Pearl buried on the surface? I guess, but we find it in flying Ys later... also WTF Toal in the Hugo path. Dramatic and all sure but sense not it makes. Except as far as anime dark horse paint-by-numbers I guess.) Also, Hugo's line is "corrupted" or some crap?! Bah, that manages to make the Ys I villain even lamer since we could have assumed he was just power-hungry or something before. Well, equally as stupid as the idea that all descendents of the 6 priests are automatically do-gooder heroes I guess. Could make for an awkward conversation I suppose.
Hugo: Just so you know, Yunica, I think that due to my actions this game, my great x19 grandson might kill your great x19 granddaughter. But it's cool, your great x19 grandson will survive as a do-gooder thief or something.
Yunica: 'k.
On the bright side, the fact that Hugo persistently ignored the annoying clingy Miuscha was a minor saving grace. Hugo also got to play the SH Yuri role of mocking everyone who got in his way, so that wasn't bad either.
Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together: Complete. Well, finished, anyway, since there's other paths & sidequests & wtf did everyone in Port Omish just attack Denam & Canopus INCLUDING THE OCTOPI WHAT. Pretty fun, for all that the game absolutely has... idiosyncrasies. Crafting, leveling, FAQ-bait recruitment, and MP being the most obvious examples. Also probably gets my award for most improved remake ever that was an authentic remake rather than something totally new with the same name... largely due to Tactics Ogre PSX being unplayable and all, but TO PSP is authentically good while adhering to a lot of the original TO's ideas and plot.
Anyway, final sequence was at a pretty good challenge level via charging it immediately and skipping any further sidequests - I think you're supposed to be lvl. 22 when you start and lvl. 23 when you get to the end, but I did lvl. ~20 at the start and lvl. ~21 at the end, so the enemies could actually hurt me, but I could still hurt them too (as opposed to the super-underlevel Ozma recruitment side-mission where doing damage was a struggle). Luckily I'd been warned that the Hanging Gardens were huge and stocked up on items. The penultimate fight was fantastic and fun, and something I wish more tactical games did. Frue final was practically immune to physicals but when he's outnumbered 12 on 1, just throwing special moves at him still took him down reasonably fast. Who needs stupid Lombardia anyway, should have left it at the sanctum in the hopes that Diablo 3 logic would apply ("Take up your sword, warrior! This will restore your memory for true!").
I will say that it's too bad that the only way to really safely challenge yourself is to do sidequests out of order / charge the endgame. It's not too hard to intentionally stay at low level if you want in FFT - use new generics at worst - but you can't even really do that in TO, at least if you want to use the same class but at lower level. Not a super-huge fan of how challenging yourself with difficult fights dramatically ups your potential money spend, and just how stupidly awesome Field Alchemy is, but whatever.
Canopus gets MVP forever, act shocked. After that, anyone in the Archer class. After that, who cares distract the enemy and heal yourselves. Final party:
Denam - Warrior (sword & shield). Tanky, never was incapacitated, but not particularly damaging except when Rending Gale goes off.
Hobyrim & Arycelle - Archers. (And earlier, Sara + 2 generics as well, of course. If I wanted to cheese more I'd probably deploy 4 archers rather than 1-2.)
Ravness - Valkyrie, actually. White Knight didn't offer enough of a stat edge and was notably slower.
Sherri - Enchantress since Witch was lvl. 1 and I'd already leveled Wizard with a generic.
Canopus, Jeunan, Vyce, Mirdyn, Olivya, Ozma, Catiua - In their unique classes. Mirdyn was first on the chopping block if anything needed to be cut later on, White Knight was a total disappointment.
Divine Magic on non-Wizard/Witches (Knights, Valkyries, etc.) seems like an obvious slam-dunk. Even Ozma has some trouble breaking MDef despite her nutty stats, Ravness is pretty well guaranteed to do 1 damage with her spells, so I'll take some ranged healing instead, thanks.
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Anyway, time for plotty stuff based on a Law playthrough. SPOILERS as usual. Also willing to throw the game some slack since it's obviously trying to respect the SNES game, and sometimes you need to bend the plot to have an excuse for a battle (see: why did Mr. Noble Galgastani Knight fight you and die rather than just join up, or surrender, or something), and Matsuno is a cool guy. Still...
Denam after sticking Versalia on the throne for her thousand year reich:
I was fine with Catiua early on, because it felt like she was just a pessimist about the prospects of the Walister and skeptical of steel solving all problems while still being loyal to her younger brother. If they'd come up with some kind of political reason for her actions in late Chapter 3 / early Chapter 4, that'd have been fine. Instead, the game seems to explicitly say that this is all Catiua's revenge against Denam for, in her mind, leaving her, thus how do YOU like it now. Plus there's a dab of "screw you adoptive dad you're not blood anyway and don't count" which makes her just awful. All this makes her fine as a villain! But bah, the game massively lets her off the hook if you spare her. I do not think she is going to make a very good Queen.
I found the dropping of the whole New Walister Alliance plotline in C3-C4 both understandable and realistic, if a bit of a missed opportunity, considering how C4 is largely the same across playthroughs. Sure, the NWA was founded in like 6 weeks or something by Vyce (ah video game plots), and thus we can assume it's got strong respect for its leadership, so if Vyce is sold that they have to work with Denam's old resistance, I can buy that they'd sign up. It just gets weirder when the anti-nobility movement ends up warring to stick Catiua on the throne if the plot goes that way. And then Vyce gets to be addressed as "Lord Bozeck" in the end. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Like I said, realistic considering how these movements normally go, but a bit of a shame.
It was interesting that the game lets Lanselot T. / Volaq / Balxephon off the hook and denies you a big final confrontation with them. This takes some bravery in the script writing, although this is partially Lans being a bit of an evil Gary Stu. Still, it seemed to fit with Lans being portrayed as cautious, although this leaves Hobyrim / Ozma's plotline massively hanging. But it also helps make it feel like a more realistic world, where you don't always get to do your destined revenge confrontations. That said...
..wtf was Lans T. doing here anyway? He encourages Brantyn to *not* rein in the rest of Valeria, which is a little weird since if he's the regent he should have retained at least nominal control elsewhere, but just to stay in Bakram lands. He brings along Brynhildr. But as pointed out, he makes the Dark Knights spend all their time looking for Mannaflora, Abuna Prancet, and Versalia. Theoretically Versalia could have done, uh, something involving Dorgalua's legacy. (Unlock the Chaos Gate? That seems unlikely, *Brantyn* was the one who presumably could have done it after Dorgalua left.) But as pointed out by Martym, they didn't need her anyway even if she could have helped; the stolen Xenobian sword was sufficient. Okay, so I take this to mean that Lans T. wasn't interested in Dorgalua's legacy after all, fine, that sounds sane (and is an interesting double cover - no, the real reason I'm here is the obvious one). So... was he just here to establish a government friendly to Lodis after the civil war faded? And he thought that Catiua was the best method of doing so, but Brantyn favored the Elhanama (sp?) puppet we never see? I guess. If you kill Catiua Lanselot calls her the only hope for peace in the isles before running off, so I guess the theory was that if Lodis plain conquered the isles and propped up Brantyn as a puppet, there'd be endless unrest or something. But expecting Catiua to be a compliant puppet, even given her behavior in late C3 / early C4, seems a lot to ask as well. Also, if you didn't want Dorgalua's legacy, don't bring the freakin' stolen sword here! Go stick it in the ultra-secure magical artifacts storage wing of Loslorien or something. And don't mislead your subordinates either.
On that note. Villain plots, forbidden dark power, pick 2, but I'm still a little confused on what exactly Andoras / Barbas / Martym / all the flunkies they convinced to work with them rather than Lans T. saw in the Chaos Gate. I don't see any indication they had any way to really control that power, or find some magic artifact, or anything. They just had a gate to Hell. Fantastic. You can go, uh, visit, and possibly get killed, or maybe turned into an Ogre. At least Dorgalua had a vaguely sane goal: see my dead family. Unless these 3 actually wanted to get turned into ravening monsters? That doesn't strike me as tremendously appealing even to a villain. You want to HARNESS the forbidden dark energies not be consumed by 'em and all.
For Lanselot H., it's kind of odd how much Denam seems touched by him in the ending, he's not really around Denam all that much. It's inspiring that a foreign war hero decided to help his cause, of course, despite the ulterior motive, but eh. Also, why does Denam act like he's dead in the ending? Warren is maybe dead, sure, but remember when you found Lans at that sanitarium? Helllllllllo?
I'd also like to nominate Regent Brantyn as the unsung hero of the game, at least assuming he was the "trusted lieutenant" left behind to unseal the Chaos Gate to let Dorgalua back in. HMM, crazy mission to hell to resurrect family from a megalomaniac who constructed a giant floating garden at tremendous expense, should I let him return? How about no.
Also, I'd like to point something out. Dorgalua reigned for 50 years of peace according to the opening movie, after conquering Valeria. Afterward, civil war raged for at least some time... 2 years, let's say. Let's say Dorgalua was crowned king at 25 - that's a pretty fast conquest and that's still pretty young to lead an army, but hey, Napoleon did it at a pretty young age too. Catiua is 19 as the game starts. That means Dorgalua had Catiua at 25+50+2-19 = ~58 years old. I see. (Also, Dorgalua would have been 75 when he hobbled off on his mad quest to Hell. I suppose fathers outliving their sons is pretty tragic, but at that age, assuming the Queen was remotely in the same age range, the Queen's death shouldn't have been all that shocking, at least.)
