Regarding Pokemon RBY, one other thing I really don't miss about gen 1 is the poor documentation of moves. I remember holding off on teaching my primary water type Surf because I assumed Bubblebeam would be better (not sure why, might have checked a guide which called one "strong water damage" and one "strong water damage WITH A CHANCE OF SPEED DOWN"), and I deleted Slash for Fury Swipes. Ugh.
I'm pretty interested in this Metroid 2 remake after some of the good reviews, even though I haven't played Metroid 2 yet. Maybe I should do that first?
Wild Arms XF - End of chapter 1, aka this game just got hard.
1-13 (rhinos): Relatively easy, though I do lose one PC to petrify + shatter. Usual mix of elemental magic wins this pretty easily overall. I gain access to Combination Arts and they're okay for taking out grimalkins who resist all elements but mostly I don't even bother.
1-14 (town defence) [8 resets]: The hardest map of the game so far, the winning strategy ends up putting the entire Geomancer skillset to good use. How the map works: there are initially five enemies. Once two are killed, three more show up. Once a total of four enemies are killed, another three show up. Spacing out the reinforcements is key to giving me more time. Anyway I have Labby and Levin as elementalists, Clarissa and Felius as Geomancers, all with the skillset of the other. Felius and Levin start on the right near an earth leypoint, which they can use to Translate (warp) to the back of the map near a bunch of berserkers, and start eating into them. I also have them use Replace once the Berserkers move past them to essentially push them back while simultaneously getting them into range to blast more of them as they move forward. Meanwhile Labby and Clarissa go and wait near the left for the excavators to show up. I kill one of them then Shut Out the other, buying me some more time for the guys to mess with and weaken the Berserkers. Eventually when Shut Out is about to wear off I kill the second Excavator. This brings in the three reinforcements on the left.
The Geomancer is the real problem since he has an unrestricted 8 move. I place Clarissa and Labby to block the progress of the berserkers (not entirely, but so that it takes them way too many turns) and fire spells at the Geomancer, who dies in about three. Shut Out's an option for him too. Killing him and one Berserker brings in the second set of reinforcements, which is the hardest part of the fight. I have Levin fire a spell at the right Geomancer than Replace with him once he moves past, buying me some more time. I also at this point start picking off all the greatly weakened original Berserkers, but making sure the Geomancer dies (their armour makes them resist elements) while not letting the two new full-health berserkers past is tricky, I need to use a combination of Replace, Shut Out, and careful positioning to pull it off. (I can only move on turns I heal or throw gems; I do use a few of those even though they're the same as elementalist spells if I badly need to move that turn.) Labby and Clarissa finish up their side first so they're able to use the spare turns to Ley Spread a nearby fire leypoint to power up fire (important because fire is the best element to use on the right Geomancer anyway) and Translate over to the right side where they can help cleanup. Clarissa's out of MP at this point but gems/etc. do help.
1-15 (zombie invasion) [1 reset]: Ragnar is bad due to only having one skillset, I stick him in Geomancer and maybe this is a mistake, I dunno. Anyway, this is a marathon map in which I have to be careful about positioning, healing, etc., to not be worn down too much. I don't have too much to say about strategy specifics. Once the reinforcements show up I mix on some backpedaling to not be swarmed by too many elementalists at once, and also try to minimize the number of times the Sentinels can strike me, since they hit hard (fortunately the sand panels slow them down and Shut Out can hold them up for a while). I have good luck on the winning run and not a single one auto-revives, which is good because my tactics are relatively poor and I lose Labby during the initial reinforcement rush and Clarissa at the very end.
1-16 (Black ARMs) [5 resets]: Last time I did this I at least had Switch to heal the townsfolk, this time I have nothing. If a civilian dies I lose and I don't have many ways to prevent this. The tactical uses of Replace shine in this fight, as I can either Replace an enemy away from hitting civilians, or Replace a civilian to safety at times. Pretty cool. The biggest issue comes near the bottom of the map where one civilian gets hit by a Fantastica w/ Geomancer OC's Shut Out making him harder to save. I use Replace twice with Levin (once on a Secutor in the centre of the map, once on a Sentinel) to get him into range of Shut Out, which causes the Fantastic to hit him with that instead of going for a hit on the civilian, which is crucial to keeping him alive later. Otherwise it's mostly a matter of using Replace/Shut Out to control enemies while beating them down with spells, especially with my real elementalists (the geos with their much lower damage mainly run the utility moves). Of course I can easily die too so I have to stay on top of my own healing, being very careful about the turn order and figuring out what enemies can do what. Tricky since there are four targets to protect but eventually I refine my strategy enough and am careful enough that I win.
