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Session 8 was on December 15. I thought I might beat the game this day, but I didn't.
Pretty much the first thing we did was track down some Jerky to finish the Sun Stone quest. With this, we earned Wondershot and Sun Shades.
Since it was close, we did Sunken Desert next. I was trying to get screenshots of Wondershot getting pleasantly boosted damage but I don't think I pulled it off. I am thankful that I got at least one of the three characters with access to water-based abilities for this part of the game, since you kind of need it for both the normal battles and the boss here.
At the bottom of the Sunken Desert, we fought the rogue sand pelvis!
I've had some bad fights with Retinite in the past, but this was very manageable. We got the core part out pretty much right away.
Before Rust Tyrano, I had the foresight to put the Red Mail on Marle, and Lucca already had her Taban Suit on, so we'd resist the fire attacks. Well... we one-cycled this silly dino and didn't even suffer any real attacks. I was completely surprised that we won so quickly.
I think I have no idea where this team is on the game's intended power curve, if there is one. Arbitrary battles in Giant's Claw still carried risk, and we barely withstood two attacks from Spekkio, but we can beat bosses like MotherBrain and Rust Tyrano with so little effort. It is strange.
Since we located the Rainbow Shell, it made sense to go back to Guardia Castle in 1000 A.D. and let Marle have her time in the limelight.
This isn't a real dungeon though, seeing as the enemies are from the cathedral, and give like 8 experience points. That said, Yakra XIII can reasonably be considered a real boss. For this battle, we hasted Robo and then Lucca and let them pile on the damage with elemental tackles, Antipodes, Uzzi Punch and Mega Bomb.
It was one of Robo's Uzzi Punches that ended the fight.
We celebrated our resolving of all issues of the Kingdom of Guardia across two ages with a tasty Crono Special.
The only sidequest left, really, is Ozzie's Fort, so next time we'll do that and then the Black Omen. I think we'll probably do the Black Omen a couple of times to be plenty strong for the real endgame.
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Pretty much the first thing we did was track down some Jerky to finish the Sun Stone quest. With this, we earned Wondershot and Sun Shades.
Since it was close, we did Sunken Desert next. I was trying to get screenshots of Wondershot getting pleasantly boosted damage but I don't think I pulled it off. I am thankful that I got at least one of the three characters with access to water-based abilities for this part of the game, since you kind of need it for both the normal battles and the boss here.
At the bottom of the Sunken Desert, we fought the rogue sand pelvis!
I've had some bad fights with Retinite in the past, but this was very manageable. We got the core part out pretty much right away.
Neither Marle nor Lucca were particularly effective on the offense here, so it was pretty much Marle using Ice II to drop Retinite's defense and Robo using Uzzi Punch to deal damage. Lucca mostly threw items, occasionally shooting Wondershot. It seemed worthwhile to use Haste on Robo, and that worked out well, I think.
Next, we talked to Fiona and met Robo at Fiona's Shrine. We got our GreenDream and also purchased a Vigil Hat for Robo to wear. It ain't often I do this without Crono.
Reminded that I miss Crono, I decided we would do Death Peak next. This required getting a Clone from Norstein Bekkler, which I had totally forgotten about. I did okay at the mimicry minigame.
Death Peak was on the easy side all around. The Lavos Spawn battles were very quick using strong single-target attacks on the head parts, such as Fire Tackle. In the first Lavos Spawn I was a bit strategic, using Haste on Robo for example, but it was much faster to just go on the offensive.
The main reason I even wanted to do Death Peak now was it had a sort of logical progression to it, since Robo's Giga Arm is here and I knew that would be obsolete after Geno Dome... so I figured I should do this first. That probably didn't matter.
But, we reached the summit no problem and saved Crono. That's always nice.
After saving Crono, the party is at the End of Time! I decided to check on Spekkio and try to beat him since he gives a bunch of tabs if he's in his Masa & Mune form. Although he is currently in his Masa & Mune form, he kicked my butt. I am not sure whether this is going to happen in this playthrough.
The next area we chose to do is Geno Dome, which besides providing Robo with excellent weapons also gives him a permanent stat boost. The conveyor was nice; I used Shock for my first few times and got to see Robo utterly wrecking the machines here.
Now, in this area, Robo needs to be at the front of the party. Although you otherwise have free choice of party, my official party is Marle, Lucca, Robo and I wanted to keep them in that order, so I applied the script I was using at the beginning again. This made the palettes a little wonky in battle, and also made the battles feel a little bit fresher by keeping Robo out of party position #1.
Of course, the real impact this had was most noticeable in the Atropos fight, for a few reasons.
Naturally, in these circumstances, Atropos was even easier than usual. In normal play, this fight is practically scripted, but this time it was over much more quickly and we didn't get to see her using all of Robo's moves against us.
With that, we got the little stat boost I mentioned. 3 speed ain't nothin' to sneeze at.
When I got to MotherBrain, I thought about the battle really strategically for a bit. I know that the monitors heal her constantly and that her script gets considerably more aggressive without the monitors, so probably the smartest move is to keep one monitor alive and then use single-target attacks. Well, I didn't do that. Instead, I used Antipode 3 and Shock and won the battle in three attacks. Whoops.
The next place I thought we should do is Giant's Claw.
We had a couple of tougher battles here, just because Fossil Apes and Leapers have pretty high damage capacity. I found occasion to use Life 2 at least once. As well, the stream died and reconnected partway through.
Next, we talked to Fiona and met Robo at Fiona's Shrine. We got our GreenDream and also purchased a Vigil Hat for Robo to wear. It ain't often I do this without Crono.
Reminded that I miss Crono, I decided we would do Death Peak next. This required getting a Clone from Norstein Bekkler, which I had totally forgotten about. I did okay at the mimicry minigame.
Death Peak was on the easy side all around. The Lavos Spawn battles were very quick using strong single-target attacks on the head parts, such as Fire Tackle. In the first Lavos Spawn I was a bit strategic, using Haste on Robo for example, but it was much faster to just go on the offensive.
The main reason I even wanted to do Death Peak now was it had a sort of logical progression to it, since Robo's Giga Arm is here and I knew that would be obsolete after Geno Dome... so I figured I should do this first. That probably didn't matter.
But, we reached the summit no problem and saved Crono. That's always nice.
After saving Crono, the party is at the End of Time! I decided to check on Spekkio and try to beat him since he gives a bunch of tabs if he's in his Masa & Mune form. Although he is currently in his Masa & Mune form, he kicked my butt. I am not sure whether this is going to happen in this playthrough.
The next area we chose to do is Geno Dome, which besides providing Robo with excellent weapons also gives him a permanent stat boost. The conveyor was nice; I used Shock for my first few times and got to see Robo utterly wrecking the machines here.
Now, in this area, Robo needs to be at the front of the party. Although you otherwise have free choice of party, my official party is Marle, Lucca, Robo and I wanted to keep them in that order, so I applied the script I was using at the beginning again. This made the palettes a little wonky in battle, and also made the battles feel a little bit fresher by keeping Robo out of party position #1.
Of course, the real impact this had was most noticeable in the Atropos fight, for a few reasons.
Naturally, in these circumstances, Atropos was even easier than usual. In normal play, this fight is practically scripted, but this time it was over much more quickly and we didn't get to see her using all of Robo's moves against us.
With that, we got the little stat boost I mentioned. 3 speed ain't nothin' to sneeze at.
When I got to MotherBrain, I thought about the battle really strategically for a bit. I know that the monitors heal her constantly and that her script gets considerably more aggressive without the monitors, so probably the smartest move is to keep one monitor alive and then use single-target attacks. Well, I didn't do that. Instead, I used Antipode 3 and Shock and won the battle in three attacks. Whoops.
The next place I thought we should do is Giant's Claw.
We had a couple of tougher battles here, just because Fossil Apes and Leapers have pretty high damage capacity. I found occasion to use Life 2 at least once. As well, the stream died and reconnected partway through.
Before Rust Tyrano, I had the foresight to put the Red Mail on Marle, and Lucca already had her Taban Suit on, so we'd resist the fire attacks. Well... we one-cycled this silly dino and didn't even suffer any real attacks. I was completely surprised that we won so quickly.
I think I have no idea where this team is on the game's intended power curve, if there is one. Arbitrary battles in Giant's Claw still carried risk, and we barely withstood two attacks from Spekkio, but we can beat bosses like MotherBrain and Rust Tyrano with so little effort. It is strange.
Since we located the Rainbow Shell, it made sense to go back to Guardia Castle in 1000 A.D. and let Marle have her time in the limelight.
This isn't a real dungeon though, seeing as the enemies are from the cathedral, and give like 8 experience points. That said, Yakra XIII can reasonably be considered a real boss. For this battle, we hasted Robo and then Lucca and let them pile on the damage with elemental tackles, Antipodes, Uzzi Punch and Mega Bomb.
It was one of Robo's Uzzi Punches that ended the fight.
We celebrated our resolving of all issues of the Kingdom of Guardia across two ages with a tasty Crono Special.
The only sidequest left, really, is Ozzie's Fort, so next time we'll do that and then the Black Omen. I think we'll probably do the Black Omen a couple of times to be plenty strong for the real endgame.
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