Guess I'll kick off then regarding Shadow Hearts: FTNW along with Resonance since these are the two games I'm currently working on and plan on making my primary submissions for RPGLB 2017. Most people here know about FTNW, so let's talk about that. It's a game where the speedrun is amazing because it focuses purely on the gameplay. In fact, RPGs where the core battle system is good often have great speedruns, unless they tend to largely involve glitches, in which case, that depends on the glitches to be done. Luckily, FTNW doesn't have glitches in it that we know of, so its just a straight up play with the judgment ring.
So I haven't actually been able to practice this game in a month since I left my disc in Texas. I finally got it back earlier last week so I just did a complete review of all the fights in the game, along with parts where stock is variable. That's actually one of the tougher skills to learn - managing stock. Some fights are a lot more simple when you have stock to bounce off of, versus when you have none. Learning this isn't something you can do in a day either. It's something that only happens the more times you run through the game, so you know when stock expenditure is a good idea and how and where to conserve it at maybe the cost of some time. For example, the forced fights against the monsters Gilbert summons in Machu Pichu are best fought without any stock expenditure. This way, you get to keep the stock for Poisonman, and if you do the revised strat there, can carry that stock to Killer 1 assuming everything goes well. Of course, since we don't use Shania anymore after North America, the very first fight where she participates against these monsters, her stock expenditure is free.
Which part are these then? Most notably, it starts becoming critical as early as Vegas. It's important early since you want the stock for Tatan'ka but you get some breathing room on Sentinel/La Sirene. However, MODOK is much faster when there is stock to bounce off of and Killer 1 is much much faster, so Vegas is kind of the critical part where stock manipulation is key. Because of this, hitting strikes so you're not burning any stock to save yourself from GANGSTERS is also important. This also serves as a good excuse for me to review the tier 1 and tier 2 magic strike zones since I need to re-adapt again to my standard TV. I miss a few of them, but the most part, I'm regaining my touch. Notable as well is that getting a ring perfect with Shania here allows her to one shot fat gangsters. Worth learning and practicing since it also helps with the Tatan'ka duel and opens a possibility to 3 round!
Redoing all the boss fights was also a good idea, since it reviewed some of the concepts that I need to keep in mind. Above all else in this run, offense is the key driver and you should be spending actions to improving offense versus defensive stock like taking away the enemy's stock or even healing yourself. That's not to say they don't have a place, but in certain fights, defensive maneuvers are a mistake and a big risk to getting yourself killed (sup Malice Killer). I get into a fight with Gilbert during practice where he went first and murdered everyone but Natan and eventually came back from it, although it took me 7 turns. I missed a strike on a Double Arc Cure/Arc Barrier which is what cost me that extra turn. If I had hit it, Hilda would've been ready to go and I could use the Third Key at that point to salvage. Guess that's a double ring I should learn the timing for. There's no trick to learning rings really other than just practicing, although I will say I've gotten a lot better at bullshitting ring perfects from learning more about the system. Speaking of rings though, I have to relearn the Double Gale Blast into Evil Shade ring, just in case I get the god luck opening against Killer 1. A zero turn victory there saves like 3 minutes compared to normal or something ridiculous.
The other fight I struggle with is Tatan'ka although that's largely due to ring execution and the fight being very tight by default. I also manage to beat La Sirene with 1 HP. Thanks for reminding me why we drop the seals on Shania! Speaking of Shania, she is bad and should feel bad. Stop missing attacks! Yeah, yeah, Yuri misses too in Covenant, but Shania's misses are often more fatal - probably because she has those duels. I think FTNW just reinforces my feelings that actual duels in RPGs suck :V. Then again, it could just be the high stakes that take place - I dunno. Anyway, this is another fight to go back and do more work on. The improv if needed just sucks.
Finished off my practice session with Lady. I love this fight, even though its essentially all execution. The stakes are high, you get blown up if you get too sloppy, etc but somehow it doesn't annoy me. Not quite sure why. Anyway, I probably should work on doing a Gate practice session instead of just fighting Lady since you need 1 bar of stock on everyone (and you're not guaranteed to have it after trees), but whatever. I just wanted to see if I still have it. Went pretty well for the most part! The blind Double Energy Charge Physical ring is still a pain - practicing for it helps to stabilize nerves a bit, but in the real thing, that's at the end of nearly 4 hours so the pressure isn't quite the same, let alone when you're on PB pace.
As for Resonance - I tried to redo Prologue to Ch.15 again since it's a good refresher and forces me to carry mistakes through and thinking about ways to salvage if I mess up. I get up to Ch.7 and find out that one of the drops I thought was guaranteed is also part of the RNG cycle. This is indeed a Tri-Ace game. Along with Tri-Ace hitboxes. 10/10. The I finished learning Chapter 16. Last two rooms in the dungeon are impossible. I can't replicate the strategy because the aggro always seems to be focused on the wrong person. I should figure this out again maybe sometime tonight. Oh and also need to learn the Christmas chapter for reals. I just basically free style it right now since you can't die, but I probably lose a gazillion years as a result. The kids have hitboxes bigger than Zangief and it makes me sad. As for the final boss, well. He's trickier than the other bosses buts its a RoF bosses meaning he gets owned pretty badly. This game is like that. Easiest boss fights, hard everything else.
