Rupee Shards

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Created By Desbreko

DARK ELVES SPEAK IN CAPS

Continuing through Final Fantasy IV, I went through the Magnetic Cave and beat down the Dark Elf earlier. I was a bit surprised to find the difficulty of the dungeon completely reversed—well, kind of. In FFIV Advance, simply getting through the cave was harder than actually beating the Dark Elf; in the original FFIV, it was the opposite. It seemed like there were fewer random battles in FFIV compared to FFIVA, and the ones I did run into didn't seem nearly as bad. In particular, there were many more Cave Nagas for Tellah to suck MP out of with Osmose and many less Ogres to put the beat down on me.

The Dark Elf was a different story. I've been noticing a trend of enemies being a little faster in FFIV compared to FFIVA but the battle with the Dark Elf was the first one which was noticeably harder because of it. Specifically, it made it harder for Tellah to keep the party healed once the Dark Elf transformed into the Dark Dragon and began using its Dark Breath attack (noticing a theme here?), which hits the entire party for quite a bit of damage. Instead of getting hit by one physical attack or one Dark Breath for every turn Tellah got, I was getting hit by both every turn. That hurt a lot but the Dark Dragon goes down pretty fast so I was able to pull through without too much extra trouble.

But here comes that, "well, kind of." See, in the easy type version there's a little trick for killing the Dark Dragon: You have Tellah cast Tornado (or Weak as it's called in the easy type version), which then lets you kill it in one attack. Most bosses are immune to Tornado, for good reason, but it works on this one. But I've never gotten it to work in FFIVA so I figured that it just doesn't work in the hard type version. Except that it does in the original hard type version. So, if you know this, the fight actually becomes easier than in FFIVA.

The fight with the Dark Elf made me see how Zeromus could be harder in the original version, though. Zeromus also has a very strong, full-party attack (Big Bang—it makes Sephiroth's Super Nova seem like a joke) and if he's able to use it more often then that would raise the difficulty. However, in my FFIVA video of Zeromus I didn't even need Rosa to cast Curaja every turn so there was a fair bit of leeway there. I'm really looking forward to fighting Zeromus in the original version now.

Final Fantasy IV - Cagnazzo

It had been a long time since I made any new videos for YouTube (Guitar Hero II and Smash Bros. Brawl can be thanked for that) but I finally uploaded another. I started playing the original Japanese hard type version of Final Fantasy IV (the SNES release we got in the US was the easy type version) because I've heard that it's harder than FFIV Advance, even though FFIVA is based on the hard type version.

In particular, I've seen various comments on YouTube videos of Zeromus (the end boss) that say he's so much easier in FFIVA and that you need to be around level 70 to beat him in the original version, as opposed to around level 50 in FFIVA. Now, considering that I can completely kick Zeromus's ass in FFIVA with my party ranging from level 55-58, and I can do it better than a lot of the videos I've seen of people fighting him at level 99, my immediate reaction is to call BS. But I've never fought him in the original hard type version so I can't know for sure.

FFIV being one of my favorite games, I could not let this lack of knowledge stand. I picked up an English patch, slapped it on (though I play the unpatched version for my recordings), and went to it. So far there have only been a few small differences that I've noticed between the original and FFIVA. (Well, besides the menu lag and turn order bugginess in FFIVA, but that only makes things harder.) But one such difference was enough to require a small change in strategy for one of the bosses so I decided to do another video for it and any other bosses that end up requiring alternate strategies from the ones used in my FFIVA videos.

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Final Fantasy IV - Cagnazzo

Video response to: Final Fantasy IV Advance - Cagnazzo

The battle with Cagnazzo (カイナッツォ) on active battle speed 1. This is the original Japanese hard type version.
Tellah Lv23, Cecil Lv15, Palom Lv18, Yang Lv19, Porom Lv18

Cagnazzo is a little faster in the SNES version compared to the GBA version so this fight requires a slightly different strategy. Instead of having Tellah cast Thundaga to do massive damage and break the water barrier at the same time you should immediately have Palom cast Thunder (Thundara is too slow most of the time) to break it or else Cagnazzo will hit your party with Tsunami. Then, since ice is more effective while the barrier is down, have Tellah cast Blizzaga to cause the massive damage. Along with Cecil's and Yang's attacks, two Blizzagas should be enough to kill Cagnazzo.

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And there we go, Cagnazzo being owned just as thoroughly as in my FFIVA video. This fight is actually a bit harder than in FFIVA if you're unprepared for it but otherwise it's not any worse.

Hatsune Mix

Holy crap, there's a Hatsune Miku manga. Excuse me while I geek out for a moment.

More of this needs to be scanlated nao.

Turning Japanese? I Don't Really Think So

Since becoming an anime fan and starting to browse more anime discussions I discovered something that really bugs me. I don't see it too often but it annoys the crap out of me when I do. That is, people randomly using Japanese words for no good reason. And, even more so, people who then feel the need to follow up that word with its English counterpart. You know, the kind of sentences which read like, "The tori (bird) flapped its tsubasa (wings) through the sora (sky) happily until it was time for its bento (lunch)." Seriously, what the hell is up with that?

First off, it's not fooling anyone; it's painfully obvious that people who do this don't actually speak the language. Second, following up with the English word renders the Japanese word completely pointless and redundant. Third, I'll nad kick anyone who does this in the comments.

Spring Anime

The spring anime season has started and I've been checking out quite a few of the new shows. I posted a thread on OB to talk about what people are watching this season so I won't repeat myself here.

Other than that, I blazed through both seasons and the OAV of Maria-sama ga Miteru after finishing Mahoromatic. It was starting to get a bit old by the end of the OAV but, considering that it held my interest firmly enough for me to watch it all within a couple weeks, I think that can be forgiven. Strawberry Panic was the only other similar series I'd seen before and Marimite was way better than that.

I started on Popotan after Marimite and I'm almost half way through it so far. And, yes, I am watching it because of the Caramelldansen thing. (Though the dance is from the game's opening, not the anime's.) It's not as explicit as the game but still retains the ecchi theme. That aside, it's plenty amusing and Mii is freaking adorable.

If anything could make me scream, "Kawaii!" like a crazed fangirl, Mii-chan would be it.

And, in case you haven't heard, I made a Caramelldansen skin for OtakuBoards. Even if you can't admit it, you know it's awesome.