So, I've been reading the Ultima LPs, which are generally pretty awesome. As an unfortunate side effect, though, I've found myself replaying...Ultima: Quest of the Avatar on the NES. Y'know, as opposed to one of the good PC installments in the series. The only reasonable explanation for this is that I hate myself, but ultimately I blame Sage for bringing the LPs to my attention in the first place. Two facts reinforce the first theory, however:
I decided to make the Avatar a shepherd.
I've also decided we need a stat-topic for this abortion of a game.
The latter detail basically requires me to level everyone to level eight, which will be a hassle, but hey, this is why we have frameskip (and believe me, I've been using it, as both normal movement and combat are horrifically slow under normal circumstances). I was going to work up the money for the best equips through normal methods as well, but just a couple days of fiddling with the game convinced me of the futility of trying this. The economy in this game hates the player so much that it makes FFXII look downright neighborly. Top-of-the-line equips can cost from 1200 to 7000 gold (each PC can have a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and a suit of armor equipped; a couple people don't give a shit about melee, though). No random encounter can ever give you more than 99 gold; the amount is randomized and I've had plenty give me single-digit amounts. I'll let you do the math here.
Long story short, I hacked the save file to edit in the best storebought equips, as well as 99 of each reagent and tool. This might seem to defeat the purpose of the exercise (I.E., suffering), but you know what? I'm still gonna have to spend a lot of time maxing everyone's levels, and that'll be plenty painful and time-consuming even with non-fail equips. The funny thing? With money-grinding removed, there is shockingly little left to the actual game. I picked up six of the eight stones in a couple hours.
