Paper Mario 2 Low Level Game

2004-10-20 01:14:04 am

Hello, it's me again. I have Paper Mario 2, I just beat it the other day, and before I go through and try to get a PERFECT game file, I have to wait for some FAQs to come out that list all the star piece locations, and especially the invisible block locations, because I didn't want to buy a player's guide, and going through every screen with Ms. Mowz is a bit of trouble.

So instead of doing a 100% game, I'm taking the easy way out and doing a low level game first. I don't have to know where ANYTHING is to do one of these, because I skip everything

But first I have to decide what the conditions are for a Perfect low level file. This is going to be a bit tough

Now by my standards, if you can load up the game file and find out I got something or did something that I didn't HAVE to do, that's not a perfect low level file. This means no getting items or coins out of blocks, no getting anything from treasure chests, no buying anything from any store (keeping the points at zero),

uh.... no shinesprites or star shards, no badges, no troubles solved, no anything like that.

what else... oh of course I won't be able to go through the game at level 1 because of boss battles, so every time I do level up I raise BP, which will be useless cause I won't get any badges

Inns should be okay I THINK, unless there's some way to tell whether you've ever gone to an Inn before

Those restore blocks that restore your hp fp and sp for so many coins, I think those are off limits, because the first time you hit one you get an explanation of how they work, and I want to keep that.

Star Powers should be Okay, I'd better get good at the stylish timings

Nothing tattled of course, so I'll have to keep a count in my head of remaining HP I suppose

Superguarding will be a must

It looks like this game doesn't keep track of first strikes and such, so there won't be any need to pay attention to that thank goodness.

Items you don't get from item shops or blocks should be okay, but I have no idea how many of those I'll run into, since I can't use an item finder badge or Thief Kiss. I think I should be able to get Omellete Meals by constantly staying at the Poshley Heights Inn, and also I could get fruits from trees and things, that should be okay

The upgraded boots and hammers and paper abilities probably are all unskippable.

Showstopper instantly kills an enemy and only gives you one star point for it, which could mean it'd be handy for reducing the exp you're forced to get, but I don't think it works on bosses, and since that's probably all I'll be killing, it probably won't be of any use anyway.

I guess that covers everything

And I guess I just go straight from Star to Star with nothing in between until I beat Shadow Queen. And then I'm done.

If anyone can think of any conditions that should be in here that I missed feel free to add on. I'm sure there's some things I didn't account for. Remember, I'm talking things that you'd be able to tell I did if you loaded up the save file at the end of the game

Thread title:

Hello, it's me again.  I have Paper Mario 2,  I just beat it the other day, and before I go through and try to get a PERFECT game file, I have to wait for some FAQs to come out that list all the star piece locations, and especially the invisible block locations, because I didn't want to buy a player's guide, and going through every screen with Ms. Mowz is a bit of trouble.

So instead of doing a 100% game, I'm taking the easy way out and doing a low level game first.  I don't have to know where ANYTHING is to do one of these, because I skip everything

But first I have to decide what the conditions are for a Perfect low level file.  This is going to be a bit tough

Now by my standards, if you can load up the game file and find out I got something or did something that I didn't HAVE to do, that's not a perfect low level file.  This means no getting items or coins out of blocks, no getting anything from treasure chests, no buying anything from any store (keeping the points at zero),

uh.... no shinesprites or star shards, no badges, no troubles solved, no anything like that.

what else... oh of course I won't be able to go through the game at level 1 because of boss battles, so every time I do level up I raise BP, which will be useless cause I won't get any badges

Inns should be okay I THINK, unless there's some way to tell whether you've ever gone to an Inn before

Those restore blocks that restore your hp fp and sp for so many coins, I think those are off limits, because the first time you hit one you get an explanation of how they work, and I want to keep that.

Star Powers should be Okay, I'd better get good at the stylish timings

Nothing tattled of course, so I'll have to keep a count in my head of remaining HP I suppose

Superguarding will be a must

It looks like this game doesn't keep track of first strikes and such, so there won't be any need to pay attention to that thank goodness.

Items you don't get from item shops or blocks should be okay, but I have no idea how many of those I'll run into, since I can't use an item finder badge or Thief Kiss.  I think I should be able to get Omellete Meals by constantly staying at the Poshley Heights Inn, and also I could get fruits from trees and things, that should be okay

The upgraded boots and hammers and paper abilities probably are all unskippable.

Showstopper instantly kills an enemy and only gives you one star point for it, which could mean it'd be handy for reducing the exp you're forced to get, but I don't think it works on bosses, and since that's probably all I'll be killing, it probably won't be of any use anyway.

I guess that covers everything

And I guess I just go straight from Star to Star with nothing in between until I beat Shadow Queen.  And then I'm done.

If anyone can think of any conditions that should be in here that I missed feel free to add on.  I'm sure there's some things I didn't account for.  Remember, I'm talking things that you'd be able to tell I did if you loaded up the save file at the end of the game

Wassup Dawgs

2004-10-20 01:25:24 am

You're waiting for a FAQ to get a 100% game?

Am I the only one who never does this? (I just got to that part of your post. I'll read the rest later)

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-20 01:33:08 am

Sure, the game file doesn't know if I used a guide or not =P

Besides it's mostly so I get all the invisible blocks and star pieces the first time through an area. Who wants to backtrack?

Also it's so I know what items I can sell and what I should keep for Zess T. recipes. Only have so much item space you know. Also so I can get as many of the ingredients as I need for all the recipes the first time through an area, again, not a fan of backtracking.

Curses, I got a star shard without meaning too. Maybe I DO need to know where they are >_> *resets*

And curses, they force a badge upon me at game start

Or... do they?

Edit: Yep, they sure do. "Sequence Breaking?" I say. "Dream on" the game says.

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-20 02:12:01 am

Gold Fuzzy forces my first level up. Film at 11.

I have a feeling this low level game isn't going to wind up at a very low level. In fact I have a feeling I'd be lucky to finish under 10.

On a plus note, there's no reason not to use this badge that was forced on me, and I can get a 4x stylish from the attack. That'll fill up my star power reeeel nice. I think I will be fond of it

Red Scarlet

2004-10-20 04:00:57 am

I('d) like to watch (some MP3 runs)

Quote from Wassup Dawgs:

You're waiting for a FAQ to get a 100% game?

Am I the only one who never does this? (I just got to that part of your post. I'll read the rest later)

No, as I used to write those kinds of faqs.

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-20 05:14:05 am

Hooktail down, through a combination of superguarding (both his attacks can be superguarded and I think pretty much every attack in existance can be as well) and sweet treating and power smashing. And attacking with Kooper who was in front.

I forgot to do this my first time in petalburg, but on the return trip I stocked up on turtley leaves and horsetails.

Currently in chapter 2, and my second level up forced by the Shadow Sirens. Quake took them down like a Gengar in Gold. Again, only BP is upped, and I have no badges besides powersmash.

Now I must figure out if these Piders can be skipped. Away!

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-20 07:55:52 am

'tis me, in Chapter 3, at level 3 (almost 4, definitely not going to be easy to avoid gaining levels.)

Today's episode features heroic tales from chapter 2. Oh how harrowing it was.

First problem was to the right of the first red door, an Xnaut that kept running into me as I was blowing the punies over the bubble tree, but I trapped him behind the pedestal where the orb goes, bwahaha.

Also I used to totally hate and never use Flurrie, but now I find her power to be pretty useful for avoiding battles. Koops and Goombella have little or no use to me outside of battle. Of course once I get my Yoshi, which I intend to be black and named Starling, that'll be the best out of battle power, and will be most used from then on.

For the most part things were pretty simple, but there was one giant bump in the road: the Piders. I had to avoid killing them if possible, yet get the Punies past them. Well I did, I never killed a single one, but man is it annoying.

The first Pider isn't bad, just wait for him to go back up and run under

The other two Piders that need dealing with are in the middle of this windy road above the secret shop (which I did not expose)

Now with 101 Punies following me, I was able to get half of them across to the Jabbie Hive. Problem is I had to figure a way to go back and get more.

There is a way to leave punies in the Jabbie hive room as it turns out. A very tedious and annoying and not reliable way. You kind of, blow on them with Flurrie, and if you're in a good spot, and a lot are being blown, a few at a time will just... stop following you, and be idle

When it stops working, you'll have to find a new spot. When a lot of spots are taken, you'll have to start blowing, then moving back at the right time to get them to stop following you. And you will probably never get less than 10 following you either way, though it is possible.

Then I had to go back and get another group of Punies and take them across. However, again I only managed to bring across about half. And I tried blowing on them to leave them in the Jabbie room, but it gets progressively harder, because going near any punies you left last time makes them follow you again, but you need room to maneuver to get them in front of you or they won't get blown. And you only have half the room to work with, go any further and you'll wake the Jabbies

However, I finally managed to get a ton of Punies over, and it was enough to destroy the Jabbies. Once you destroy them, the next room has a spot for the Puni Orb, so you can just leave them there easy while herding the rest. However, all 101 must make it there, past the Piders. After many trips, I got them all over, then proceeded as normal.

Thankfully I didn't lose any Punies, so I didn't have to do that again.

There were a few unavoidable Xnaut battles, and of course Magnus Von Grapple. He can also be superguarded (no duh) and my horsetails and turtley leafs were a big help. Again I abused power smash, (the quad stylish fills up a full star point and then some with a full audience!!) but used items more than sweet treat, for my star power was saved for the Quake, which I used when he got those rocket fists out, to take them out and hurt him in one fell swoop. Not enough exp to force a level, but close. And that was that, though I was rather sad to find that I couldn't re-enter the tree to get mystic eggs. I'd used some items up and wanted replenishment.

When I got back to town, a grave error hit me. I needed to go to Don Pianta. For this I would need 10 coins for a contact lens, 2 coins for a dry mushroom and 12 for a dizzy dial. I had none. I've run from every battle, and just doing that a few times was enough to deplete my resources. I sold off all my horsetails and turtley leafs at 2 coins a pop, but it wasn't enough needless to say, so I had to go back to petal meadows and get more and sell them until I had 24 gold. I also got enough to keep a few. Then I proceeded as normal.

The error is this. At the start of the game, when I had money, I probably could have gotten that out of the way, and should have. But now you all know to do that first thing if doing this type of game.

Now I'm in the Glitz Pit all signed up. I have no choice but to win every match with the condition the first time, because to avoid unnecessary exp I can't afford even one fight more than necessary, though I will certainly have a forced level up, and maybe even 2 o_O the goomba bros. fight got me exp in the teens, I imagine being at such a low level I will get massive exp from everyone, and 20 battles is nothing to sneeze at. Maybe I'll even be forced 3 levels. Which would really throw a wrench in the whole 'low level' concept, wouldn't it? Though since the levels are all going to bp and I'm not getting any more badges, it really doesn't matter how many I gain I suppose.

Well, at least the bed I have for free fp and hp is really really good, and know what else is good? I get money, and I have something to spend it on: hot dogs! Those won't raise my shop point total, so I can buy all I want! I loves me the hot dogs. I will use every bit of my money on them, cause any left over will just be lost from running, and I can store extras in the shop. It's the perfect scheme...

And that's all she wrote for now.

'tis me, in Chapter 3, at level 3 (almost 4, definitely not going to be easy to avoid gaining levels.)

Today's episode features heroic tales from chapter 2.  Oh how harrowing it was.

First problem was to the right of the first red door, an Xnaut that kept running into me as I was blowing the punies over the bubble tree, but I trapped him behind the pedestal where the orb goes, bwahaha.

Also I used to totally hate and never use Flurrie, but now I find her power to be pretty useful for avoiding battles.  Koops and Goombella have little or no use to me outside of battle.  Of course once I get my Yoshi, which I intend to be black and named Starling, that'll be the best out of battle power, and will be most used from then on.

For the most part things were pretty simple, but there was one giant bump in the road:  the Piders.  I had to avoid killing them if possible, yet get the Punies past them.  Well I did, I never killed a single one, but man is it annoying.

The first Pider isn't bad, just wait for him to go back up and run under

The other two Piders that need dealing with are in the middle of this windy road above the secret shop (which I did not expose)

Now with 101 Punies following me, I was able to get half of them across to the Jabbie Hive.  Problem is I had to figure a way to go back and get more.

There is a way to leave punies in the Jabbie hive room as it turns out.  A very tedious and annoying and not reliable way.  You kind of, blow on them with Flurrie, and if you're in a good spot, and a lot are being blown, a few at a time will just... stop following you, and be idle

When it stops working, you'll have to find a new spot.  When a lot of spots are taken, you'll have to start blowing, then moving back at the right time to get them to stop following you.  And you will probably never get less than 10 following you either way, though it is possible.

Then I had to go back and get another group of Punies and take them across.  However, again I only managed to bring across about half.  And I tried blowing on them to leave them in the Jabbie room, but it gets progressively harder, because going near any punies you left last time makes them follow you again, but you need room to maneuver to get them in front of you or they won't get blown.  And you only have half the room to work with, go any further and you'll wake the Jabbies

However, I finally managed to get a ton of Punies over, and it was enough to destroy the Jabbies.  Once you destroy them, the next room has a spot for the Puni Orb, so you can just leave them there easy while herding the rest.  However, all 101 must make it there, past the Piders.  After many trips, I got them all over, then proceeded as normal.

Thankfully I didn't lose any Punies, so I didn't have to do that again.

There were a few unavoidable Xnaut battles, and of course Magnus Von Grapple.  He can also be superguarded (no duh) and my horsetails and turtley leafs were a big help.  Again I abused power smash, (the quad stylish fills up a full star point and then some with a full audience!!) but used items more than sweet treat, for my star power was saved for the Quake, which I used when he got those rocket fists out, to take them out and hurt him in one fell swoop.  Not enough exp to force a level, but close.  And that was that, though I was rather sad to find that I couldn't re-enter the tree to get mystic eggs.  I'd used some items up and wanted replenishment.

When I got back to town, a grave error hit me.  I needed to go to Don Pianta.  For this I would need 10 coins for a contact lens, 2 coins for a dry mushroom and 12 for a dizzy dial.  I had none.  I've run from every battle, and just doing that a few times was enough to deplete my resources.  I sold off all my horsetails and turtley leafs at 2 coins a pop, but it wasn't enough needless to say, so I had to go back to petal meadows and get more and sell them until I had 24 gold.  I also got enough to keep a few.  Then I proceeded as normal.

The error is this.  At the start of the game, when I had money, I probably could have gotten that out of the way, and should have.  But now you all know to do that first thing if doing this type of game.

Now I'm in the Glitz Pit all signed up.  I have no choice but to win every match with the condition the first time, because to avoid unnecessary exp I can't afford even one fight more than necessary, though I will certainly have a forced level up, and maybe even 2 o_O  the goomba bros. fight got me exp in the teens, I imagine being at such a low level I will get massive exp from everyone, and 20 battles is nothing to sneeze at.  Maybe I'll even be forced 3 levels.  Which would really throw a wrench in the whole 'low level' concept, wouldn't it?  Though since the levels are all going to bp and I'm not getting any more badges, it really doesn't matter how many I gain I suppose.

Well, at least the bed I have for free fp and hp is really really good, and know what else is good?  I get money, and I have something to spend it on:  hot dogs!  Those won't raise my shop point total, so I can buy all I want!  I loves me the hot dogs.  I will use every bit of my money on them, cause any left over will just be lost from running, and I can store extras in the shop.  It's the perfect scheme...

And that's all she wrote for now.

Radix

2004-10-20 09:13:05 am

Blade, solr and me have already been discussing this and made a channel on irc for its discussion... /list to see.

Edit: just told to Sess in irc but wanted to make it permanent public record. Fright masks are an absolute necesitty for the required fights against little guys, like goombas or spiky things on the way to the sun/moon key. You scare away the little guys and only get 1 experience instead of how ever many you get for fighting them normally.

Yoshi348

2004-10-21 12:11:05 am

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Quote from Sesshoumaru:

Hello, it's me again. I have Paper Mario 2, I just beat it the other day, and before I go through and try to get a PERFECT game file, I have to wait for some FAQs to come out that list all the star piece locations, and especially the invisible block locations

Why don't you just use Merlovlee? She's only 5 cents a pop...

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-21 08:53:58 am

Well Merluvlee would involve backtracking, which is what I intend to avoid by waiting for a faq or some such. Though if one isn't out by the time I finish this low level thing (if I do) I probably won't worry about it.

Alright, lots of info about recent progress.

Fright masks. How annoying. As Radix said, any not-boss bad guy you fight in a 'required fight' can be fright masked away, reducing the exp for that battle to 1.

Know what else? I checked on my current low level file (at chapter 3 if you'll recall) and it even works in the Glitz Pit. Yes you can win practically every battle with fright masks.

Needless to say, all that forced leveling up I was having done in the Pit, that didn't have to happen. Not to mention some of the past forced leveling up in previous chapters.

That information required a restart.

"Alright" I figure, "I can buy exactly as many fright masks as is required to minimize experience, and still keep my shop points total at an absolute minimum"

So I set out to do that. This time, I took the 100 coins I started with and bought 20 fright masks.

I worked my way up through the prologue, chapter 1, trouncing Hooktail yet again, through chapter 2, doing the horrible puni stuff again, trouncing Magnus Von Grapple, and onto Chapter 3

Here's the enemies I fought which I could not run from or avoid.

--prologue--

Crump
Goombas (used a fright mask)
Blooper

--chapter 1--

Bald Clefts (fright mask)
Bristles (fright mask)
Fuzzies (fright mask)
More Fuzzies (fright mask)
Gold Fuzzy
Red Bones and Dull Bones
Hooktail

--chapter 2--

Shadow Sirens
Xnaut (fright mask)
Xnaut again (fright mask and then)
Xnaut the third (fright mask incurred)
Magnus Von Grapple

--chapter 3--

Glitz pit battle 1 (fright mask)
battle 2 (Fright mask)
so on and so forth

But woah nelly, something happened

As I was (once again) battling in chapter 3 in my low level game, I fought a group of Dull Bones.

Just for kicks, I tried Fright Masking them. I used 7 on them, none ran. "So" I says, "Just like in Hooktail castle, you can't scare skeletons"

Just to be safe, I reset and tried again. But uh oh, some ran this time. What's up with this?

Well it turns out Dull Bones can be fright masked away, but it's very very difficult. There's a small chance that any one Dull Bones will be scared by a mask when used.

This is bad. As you'll recall, in Hooktail Castle, I had to fight a Red Bones and 4 Dull Bones in one of the battles.

Could it be I could have Frightened the Dull Bones away, turning the 33 EXP I gained from that battle into a mere 9?

If this was true, it would mean, ANOTHER RESTART. But I had to check, so I started a new game and checked.

Yep, those Dull Bones can, (though usually won't) be scared away. The Red Bones however, absolutely definitely never runs.

The Dull Bones are 6 exp each. I take 24 exp off my total by making them run and only getting the 9 exp from the Red Bones. In fact, it turns out if you make EVERY Dull Bones run, you come out of Hooktail with 97 exp and can actually enter chapter 2 while still at level 1.

So, that's right, I restarted my low level run for a third time. Grumble Grumble. This information made Blade have to restart his run too, so it wasn't fun for anyone.

Alright, my (hopefully) real low level run. I got to Hooktail Castle in Record Time and proceeded to take on the Dull Bones with a handfull of Fright Masks.

A handfull isn't enough.

Of the 4 Dull Bones surrounding the Red Bones, you're lucky to even get ONE to run away in any one use of a fright mask.

Now here's another problem. They respawn. If and when you DO manage to make one Dull Bones run away, the one next to him will replace him.

Now remember, no Dull Bones can be killed, or you get unwanted exp, only the Red Bones can die.

Unfortunately, my Power Smash can get nowhere near Red Bones, for he's not at the front, and you have to get the Dull Bones in front of him to run before taking him out

Also, when you do take him out, he just collapses, and comes back to life if there's any more Dull Bones on the screen in a couple turns

What this means is the Dull Bones and Red Bones must be taken care of really close together. Since you can't make Dull Bones run quickly after taking out Red Bones, since you have no control over whether the Dulls run or not, the only other option is to make sure the entire screen is clear of Dull Bones, THEN take out Red Bones

Red Bones must be taken out fast. He will build more Dull Bones.

Red Bones cannot BE taken out fast. His defense and HP are too high, even for my power smashing self. This means it take 2 turns minimum to take him out. 2 turns where he can build more Dull Bones, and trust me, he almost always will, which means you can't take him out anymore, but instead must continue trying to frighten those Dull Bones he built, which you probably won't

And through all this, you only have space in your bag to carry 10 fright masks. If any Dull Bones are left when you use them all, you must restart.

Sound fun yet? This is very very very very problematic.

I tried and I tried and I tried. One saving grace was Ice Storm.

See since I bought 20 masks at game start, I got the 20 point prize, and ice storm. I used it here.

I brought 9 Fright Masks and my Ice storm and tried over and over and over to scare every Dull Bones off and kill the Red Bones before he could make more.

You can't use Ice Storm when any Dulls are around, because it will kill them, and you'll get experience. However, when only Red is left, you can use it to freeze him solid for 3 turns, giving you PLENTY of time to take him out, and he'll never make a Dull Bones again.

Of course, getting it so all the Dulls are gone and only he is left, is the hard part.

The Dulls don't like to run. That's why it's hard. They REALLY don't like to Run. On average, 2 or 3 Dull Bones ran by the time I was through all 9 Fright Masks. Sound good? Well keep in mind, they were almost always one at a time, and shortly after one ran, one was spawned to replace it. Now you see the problem.

The time it finally worked for me, I had used 5 Fright Masks with NO results, still 4 Dull Bones there, the 6th made one run, 7th nothing, but no respawn, so that was good, then my 8th mask made the other THREE run.

Believe me when I say you are the luckiest man alive if you manage to make three of those guys run with one mask. In half a day of trying, it only happened to me twice, and this was the second.

I was in bad shape, too. Only 3 hp left for Mario, and I was sure Red Bones was going to spawn a Dull. He didn't, which was good, but he aimed at Mario, which is bad! I could have died, but thankfully I superguarded. Not as amazing as it sounds, by the time I was done trying the Bones, I was a master at superguarding their bone throws, and if any of you try this, you will be too.

But as I lived, I immediately froze Red Bones and went to town with my Power Smash. Booyah. Thankfully I didn't get First Struck on my way back to the save point, and I lived to tell the tale.

Shortly thereafter I trounced Hooktail for the third time (first try this time) and the Shadow Sirens, and am now in the Great Tree, dreading a third trip through the Piders. Sigh.

Now one more thing before I end this episode. Yes, I did use 8 fright masks on that one battle. It could have been done with less, or more, but it's impossible to control how many you use when you finally do succeed. Therefore, I can no longer say there is a "lower limit" to the fright masks you must buy from the shop to finish this run, therefore no minimum shop points, which means I can't make least-shop-points-possible a condition of my run anymore

HOWEVER, I can do the next best thing.

According to my calculations, you will have to buy at least 30 masks to get through the game, but well less than 50. Note that two of the shop prizes come at 30 and 50 points.

Therefore, the new condition of my low level run will be as few shop prizes reddened out as possible. In other words, I can't go above 49 shop points. I think that's pretty decent.

Welp, off to continue my marvelous journey.

Well Merluvlee would involve backtracking, which is what I intend to avoid by waiting for a faq or some such.  Though if one isn't out by the time I finish this low level thing (if I do) I probably won't worry about it.

Alright, lots of info about recent progress.

Fright masks.  How annoying.   As Radix said, any not-boss bad guy you fight in a 'required fight' can be fright masked away, reducing the exp for that battle to 1.

Know what else?  I checked on my current low level file (at chapter 3 if you'll recall) and it even works in the Glitz Pit.  Yes you can win practically every battle with fright masks.

Needless to say, all that forced leveling up I was having done in the Pit, that didn't have to happen.  Not to mention some of the past forced leveling up in previous chapters.

That information required a restart.

"Alright" I figure, "I can buy exactly as many fright masks as is required to minimize experience, and still keep my shop points total at an absolute minimum"

So I set out to do that.  This time, I took the 100 coins I started with and bought 20 fright masks.

I worked my way up through the prologue, chapter 1, trouncing Hooktail yet again, through chapter 2, doing the horrible puni stuff again, trouncing Magnus Von Grapple, and onto Chapter 3

Here's the enemies I fought which I could not run from or avoid.

--prologue--

Crump
Goombas (used a fright mask)
Blooper

--chapter 1--

Bald Clefts (fright mask)
Bristles (fright mask)
Fuzzies (fright mask)
More Fuzzies (fright mask)
Gold Fuzzy
Red Bones and Dull Bones
Hooktail

--chapter 2--

Shadow Sirens
Xnaut (fright mask)
Xnaut again (fright mask and then)
Xnaut the third (fright mask incurred)
Magnus Von Grapple

--chapter 3--

Glitz pit battle 1 (fright mask)
battle 2 (Fright mask)
so on and so forth

But woah nelly, something happened

As I was (once again) battling in chapter 3 in my low level game, I fought a group of Dull Bones.

Just for kicks, I tried Fright Masking them.  I used 7 on them, none ran.  "So" I says, "Just like in Hooktail castle, you can't scare skeletons"

Just to be safe, I reset and tried again.  But uh oh, some ran this time.  What's up with this?

Well it turns out Dull Bones can be fright masked away, but it's very very difficult.  There's a small chance that any one Dull Bones will be scared by a mask when used.

This is bad.  As you'll recall, in Hooktail Castle, I had to fight a Red Bones and 4 Dull Bones in one of the battles.

Could it be I could have Frightened the Dull Bones away, turning the 33 EXP I gained from that battle into a mere 9?

If this was true, it would mean, ANOTHER RESTART.  But I had to check, so I started a new game and checked.

Yep, those Dull Bones can, (though usually won't) be scared away.  The Red Bones however, absolutely definitely never runs.

The Dull Bones are 6 exp each.  I take 24 exp off my total by making them run and only getting the 9 exp from the Red Bones.  In fact, it turns out if you make EVERY Dull Bones run, you come out of Hooktail with 97 exp and can actually enter chapter 2 while still at level 1.

So, that's right, I restarted my low level run for a third time.  Grumble Grumble.  This information made Blade have to restart his run too, so it wasn't fun for anyone.

Alright, my (hopefully) real low level run.  I got to Hooktail Castle in Record Time and proceeded to take on the Dull Bones with a handfull of Fright Masks.

A handfull isn't enough.

Of the 4 Dull Bones surrounding the Red Bones, you're lucky to even get ONE to run away in any one use of a fright mask.

Now here's another problem.  They respawn.  If and when you DO manage to make one Dull Bones run away, the one next to him will replace him.

Now remember, no Dull Bones can be killed, or you get unwanted exp, only the Red Bones can die.

Unfortunately, my Power Smash can get nowhere near Red Bones, for he's not at the front, and you have to get the Dull Bones in front of him to run before taking him out

Also, when you do take him out, he just collapses, and comes back to life if there's any more Dull Bones on the screen in a couple turns

What this means is the Dull Bones and Red Bones must be taken care of really close together.  Since you can't make Dull Bones run quickly after taking out Red Bones, since you have no control over whether the Dulls run or not, the only other option is to make sure the entire screen is clear of Dull Bones, THEN take out Red Bones

Red Bones must be taken out fast.  He will build more Dull Bones.

Red Bones cannot BE taken out fast.  His defense and HP are too high, even for my power smashing self.  This means it take 2 turns minimum to take him out.  2 turns where he can build more Dull Bones, and trust me, he almost always will, which means you can't take him out anymore, but instead must continue trying to frighten those Dull Bones he built, which you probably won't

And through all this, you only have space in your bag to carry 10 fright masks.  If any Dull Bones are left when you use them all, you must restart.

Sound fun yet?  This is very very very very problematic.

I tried and I tried and I tried.  One saving grace was Ice Storm.

See since I bought 20 masks at game start, I got the 20 point prize, and ice storm.  I used it here.

I brought 9 Fright Masks and my Ice storm and tried over and over and over to scare every Dull Bones off and kill the Red Bones before he could make more.
 
You can't use Ice Storm when any Dulls are around, because it will kill them, and you'll get experience.  However, when only Red is left, you can use it to freeze him solid for 3 turns, giving you PLENTY of time to take him out, and he'll never make a Dull Bones again.

Of course, getting it so all the Dulls are gone and only he is left, is the hard part.

The Dulls don't like to run.  That's why it's hard.  They REALLY don't like to Run.  On average, 2 or 3 Dull Bones ran by the time I was through all 9 Fright Masks.  Sound good?  Well keep in mind, they were almost always one at a time, and shortly after one ran, one was spawned to replace it.  Now you see the problem.

The time it finally worked for me, I had used 5 Fright Masks with NO results, still 4 Dull Bones there, the 6th made one run, 7th nothing, but no respawn, so that was good, then my 8th mask made the other THREE run.

Believe me when I say you are the luckiest man alive if you manage to make three of those guys run with one mask.  In half a day of trying, it only happened to me twice, and this was the second.

I was in bad shape, too.  Only 3 hp left for Mario, and I was sure Red Bones was going to spawn a Dull.  He didn't, which was good, but he aimed at Mario, which is bad!  I could have died, but thankfully I superguarded.  Not as amazing as it sounds, by the time I was done trying the Bones, I was a master at superguarding their bone throws, and if any of you try this, you will be too.

But as I lived, I immediately froze Red Bones and went to town with my Power Smash.  Booyah.  Thankfully I didn't get First Struck on my way back to the save point, and I lived to tell the tale.

Shortly thereafter I trounced Hooktail for the third time (first try this time) and the Shadow Sirens, and am now in the Great Tree, dreading a third trip through the Piders.  Sigh.

Now one more thing before I end this episode.  Yes, I did use 8 fright masks on that one battle.  It could have been done with less, or more, but it's impossible to control how many you use when you finally do succeed.  Therefore, I can no longer say there is a "lower limit" to the fright masks you must buy from the shop to finish this run, therefore no minimum shop points, which means I can't make least-shop-points-possible a condition of my run anymore

HOWEVER, I can do the next best thing.

According to my calculations, you will have to buy at least 30 masks to get through the game, but well less than 50.  Note that two of the shop prizes come at 30 and 50 points.

Therefore, the new condition of my low level run will be as few shop prizes reddened out as possible.  In other words, I can't go above 49 shop points.  I think that's pretty decent.

Welp, off to continue my marvelous journey.

Yoshi348

2004-10-21 09:11:57 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Wow.

Now, hopefully I'm just shooting my mouth off here, and I don't think it's possible, but COULD it happen that getting more XP earlier will get you less XP later, actually resulting in a net loss of XP? Again, it doesn't seem like it should, but I might as well do it now so on the off chance it works you don't have to do the Punies AGAIN. If I get here in time.

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-21 09:53:21 pm

Actually if I were to guess based on what I've seen, you don't get any more experience by being at a low level in a low level run.

Puny monsters give you more exp if you're at a low level, but you fright mask all of those. The only guys you kill, bosses, I'm pretty certain their exp is fixed.

I base this on the Shadow Sirens fight. At level 2, they gave me 36 exp (12 each) and recently when I beat them at level 1, they still gave me 36.

Alright folks, live from the Glitz Pit, at the 4th battle, the one with the Dull Bones. By Solr's calculations, between chapters 4 through 7, I'll only need about 3 fright mask, I'm going to estimate 4 just in case. To keep my Shop Points under 49, is going to be tight. I have to decide how many masks I'm willing to commit to this Dull Bones fight. Using Clock Stopper, I can keep them from respawning, but I have no idea how many enemies after them will need more than one mask.

I have to ration with the Glitz Pit. I can afford to use, I think between 4 and 6 masks extra in the glitz pit (extra being beyond 1 per battle). I'm thinking I go for getting these dull bones to clear out in 2 masks, maybe 3. We'll see how it goes. It won't be easy, but there's only 3 so it's definitely do-able.

Actually if I were to guess  based on what I've seen, you don't get any more experience by being at a low level in a low level run.

Puny monsters give you more exp if you're at a low level, but you fright mask all of those.  The only guys you kill, bosses, I'm pretty certain their exp is fixed.

I base this on the Shadow Sirens fight.  At level 2, they gave me 36 exp (12 each) and recently when I beat them at level 1, they still gave me 36.

Alright folks, live from the Glitz Pit, at the 4th battle, the one with the Dull Bones.  By Solr's calculations, between chapters 4 through 7, I'll only need about 3 fright mask, I'm going to estimate 4 just in case.  To keep my Shop Points under 49,  is going to be tight.  I have to decide how many masks I'm willing to commit to this Dull Bones fight.  Using Clock Stopper, I can keep them from respawning, but I have no idea how many enemies after them will need more than one mask.

I have to ration with the Glitz Pit.  I can afford to use, I think between 4 and 6 masks extra in the glitz pit (extra being beyond 1 per battle).  I'm thinking I go for getting these dull bones to clear out in 2 masks, maybe 3.  We'll see how it goes.  It won't be easy, but there's only 3 so it's definitely do-able.

Bladegash

2004-10-22 04:52:46 am

And before anyone asks, we have tested Gale Force, and it gives full experience upon defeating an enemy. Others have said showstopper does this as well, which may make getting through the final Chapter's required battles difficult if one's to remain under the 50 point limit.

Yoshi348

2004-10-23 07:38:48 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Just got done with the final boss... gosh, I guess you're dreading that... BIG *LONG* UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENE OF DOOM! I only had to retry once and I still found it really annoying. (I completely tailored my... 90?... BP for her second time around.)

Speaking of which, does anybody else dump EVERYTHING in BP? Honestly, all you need is an early FP up so you can actually cast the big spells. BPs just do so much more for you, and you never have enough.

Radix

2004-10-24 12:17:18 am

I did about 10 BP levels up in a row after level 8 or so. I had 25/15/whatever for most of the game then. Eventually I upped it to 35/25 and then 40/25. I'm at level 34 now with almost everything done (including the pit). In my low level file i'm at magnus von grapple.

Edit: ready to start Glitz Pit... tomorrow.

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-24 02:36:34 am

Guess where I am. Chapter 8! And the more of this low level thing I play, the less interesting it becomes.

Seriously, star powers make this such a pushover. And since you're only seriously fighting about 15 times in the whole game, yeah... Getting people to run in 1 fright mask is more work than actually beating a lot of these guys. Of course I haven't fought Gloomtail, Grodus or Shadow Queen yet, so I may wind up eating my words.

But I'm sure everyone's dying to hear my tale, so let's get started

I got the dull bones in the Glitz Pit in 2 masks.

As it turns out, everyone in the Glitz Pit except the Iron Clefts, Rawk Hawk, and the Dark Craw (believe it or not) can be scared. Yep, even the Koopinator only took me one try.

I really can't believe the Dark Craw of all things is scare proof, but I must have tried 6 masks on him 10 different times with nothing. Amazing...

Anyway, I ran out of masks a bit ways through, but with the money I make in the pit it's easy to re-stock. I also bought plenty of hotdogs with everything that I didn't spend on masks.

Rawk Hawk is kind of hard to superguard. (Best music ever). Macho Grubba on the other hand, you can see his attacks coming a mile away, so he wasn't much of a problem.

The main issue was getting everything to run in one try. There were a looot of fights in the pit, and many have multiple enemies that don't scare none too easy, though none were as hard as the dull bones. Of note was the piranha plant in the Mind Bogglers' group, I think he was dull bones in terms of difficulty to scare.

Now, if anyone else wants to try this, this is important

You MUST satisfy every condition of the fight on the first try. If you save and you didn't satisfy the condition, you'll have to repeat a fight, and that's more exp that you didn't need to get

Note that this also counts for running from the Iron Clefts. The first time you run, satisfy the condition first! Otherwise you fight the bandits again.

I got me a black yoshi named Starling.

Then came Chapter 4. Two Doopliss fights and it was over. Yawn.

Important note: Get 5 gold leaves while in the steeple to sell for 20 coins in town. You need 20 coins to pass to the east two times to get Bobbery.

Chapter 5 was Funky. There were some required ember fights, none of which had a save point right before them without a lot of stuff in between. 3 embers per fight, and about as hard to scare as a bristle or cleft I think. Still, with persistance I managed to scare off every fight in one mask each.

For the bill blasters, you can just fight them and run, and pass through while blinking

Cortez was a pushover. His attacks do little damage, his charged attack can be Veiled with viv, and his multiple swords fall to Tremor or Gale Force. I opted for Tremor. As for Crump, his minions were the only danger, Crump himself was immensely superguardable.

As for 6, 3 goombas I had to fright of all things. Important note: make sure you have at least 3 fright masks before boarding the train, cause if you don't have any once you're on, you lose.

Then Smorg, who was the turning point as far as difficulty of this run goes.

3 tentacles that each did 5 damage. When it rises up to hit the back guy, that's reasonable to superguard, but when hitting the front guy, that's hard. No reaction time.

Fortunately, falling in a pattern of quaking the tentacles and murdering the core got through the first part without much complication. I died a fair bit to the first form, but once the giant claw comes out, it's a cakewalk

Yes, the giant claw that does 10 damage in one hit, and is so easy to superguard it makes you want to cry. I had 100% success sguarding that thing.

As for chapter 7, that's just a lot of running around. Getting general white without using the shortcuts no less. Ugh.

Magnus Von Grapple 2 was just a matter of vivian burning, power smashing, super guarding the divebomb and propeller, and tremor when he seperated his fists. I had problems with the audience cannon, that thing is murder to superguard, and if you don't, you're pretty dead. BUT, using the power up move to raise your defense to 3, it becomes totally powerless, so all one has to do is predict it coming, and I think it depends on his HP.

Aaand, now I'm in 8, trying to figure out if anything can be fright masks. Doesn't seem like it can. So I should be done reasonably soon.

Guess where I am.  Chapter 8!  And the more of this low level thing I play, the less interesting it becomes.

Seriously, star powers make this such a pushover.  And since you're only seriously fighting about 15 times in the whole game, yeah...  Getting people to run in 1 fright mask is more work than actually beating a lot of these guys.  Of course I haven't fought Gloomtail, Grodus or Shadow Queen yet, so I may wind up eating my words.

But I'm sure everyone's dying to hear my tale, so let's get started

I got the dull bones in the Glitz Pit in 2 masks.

As it turns out, everyone in the Glitz Pit except the Iron Clefts, Rawk Hawk, and the Dark Craw (believe it or not) can be scared.  Yep, even the Koopinator only took me one try.

I really can't believe the Dark Craw of all things is scare proof, but I must have tried 6 masks on him 10 different times with nothing.  Amazing...

Anyway, I ran out of masks a bit ways through, but with the money I make in the pit it's easy to re-stock.  I also bought plenty of hotdogs with everything that I didn't spend on masks.

Rawk Hawk is kind of hard to superguard.  (Best music ever).  Macho Grubba on the other hand, you can see his attacks coming a mile away, so he wasn't much of a problem.

The main issue was getting everything to run in one try.  There were a looot of fights in the pit, and many have multiple enemies that don't scare none too easy, though none were as hard as the dull bones.  Of note was the piranha plant in the Mind Bogglers' group, I think he was dull bones in terms of difficulty to scare.

Now, if anyone else wants to try this,  [b]this is important[/b]

You MUST satisfy every condition of the fight on the first try.  If you save and you didn't satisfy the condition, you'll have to repeat a fight, and that's more exp that you didn't need to get

Note that this also counts for running from the Iron Clefts.  The first time you run, satisfy the condition first!  Otherwise you fight the bandits again.

I got me a black yoshi named Starling.

Then came Chapter 4.  Two Doopliss fights and it was over.  Yawn.

Important note:  Get 5 gold leaves while in the steeple to sell for 20 coins in town.  You need 20 coins to pass to the east two times to get Bobbery.

Chapter 5 was Funky.  There were some required ember fights, none of which had a save point right before them without a lot of stuff in between.  3 embers per fight, and about as hard to scare as a bristle or cleft I think.  Still, with persistance I managed to scare off every fight in one mask each.

For the bill blasters, you can just fight them and run, and pass through while blinking

Cortez was a pushover.  His attacks do little damage, his charged attack can be Veiled with viv, and his multiple swords fall to Tremor or Gale Force.  I opted for Tremor.  As for Crump, his minions were the only danger, Crump himself was immensely superguardable.

As for 6, 3 goombas I had to fright of all things.  Important note:  make sure you have at least 3 fright masks before boarding the train, cause if you don't have any once you're on, you lose.

Then Smorg, who was the turning point as far as difficulty of this run goes.

3 tentacles that each did 5 damage.  When it rises up to hit the back guy, that's reasonable to superguard, but when hitting the front guy, that's hard.  No reaction time.

Fortunately, falling in a pattern of quaking the tentacles and murdering the core got through the first part without much complication.  I died a fair bit to the first form, but once the giant claw comes out, it's a cakewalk

Yes, the giant claw that does 10 damage in one hit, and is so easy to superguard it makes you want to cry.  I had 100% success sguarding that thing.

As for chapter 7, that's just a lot of running around.  Getting general white without using the shortcuts no less.  Ugh.

Magnus Von Grapple 2 was just a matter of vivian burning, power smashing, super guarding the divebomb and propeller, and tremor when he seperated his fists.  I had problems with the audience cannon, that thing is murder to superguard, and if you don't, you're pretty dead.  BUT, using the power up move to raise your defense to 3, it becomes totally powerless, so all one has to do is predict it coming, and I think it depends on his HP.

Aaand, now I'm in 8, trying to figure out if anything can be fright masks.  Doesn't seem like it can.  So I should be done reasonably soon.

GSGold

2004-10-24 02:57:32 am

I'm doing this too, but not perfectly by Sess's standards. Pretty much the only thing I'm going for is to get to the end as low as possible. To make it difficult I'm at least putting things in BP and not using badges and not levelling up partners, but other than that I'm letting myself do whatever. It's still fairly tough (I'm up to right before the first shadow siren fight), but that's because I suck with the timing of superdodges.

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-25 02:43:37 am

Well what fun this is. Radix just discovered that when bowser shows up in the glitz pit, you can lose to him, and there are no consequences, except you don't get exp.

Lucky for me I kept a save file after hatching Yoshi just in case something like this happened, so I wouldn't have to do the dull bones and punies again. Boy am I glad I thought of it.

Looks like I'm going all over again from chapter 3. The second match of the Iron Harriers also is probably skippable by just losing.

Well at least this'll give me a chance to test some things in chapter 4, since I got lazy. 5 and 6 again won't be a big deal aside from getting the embers to run in one mask all over again, which is pretty annoying.

Well, I'd better get started if I'm to catch up.

GreenMamba

2004-10-25 07:48:19 pm

What luck, there's french fry stuck in my beard.

You and your crazy low level games, Sess. :P

I still have to beat this game...

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-26 08:20:17 am

Finally back at Gloomtail. The embers in chapter 5 were harsh.

After discovering the joys of Power Lift, I made minced meat of Cortez, Smorg, and even Von Grapple 2.

Of course Gloomtail was on a different league altogether from those punies. It took many tries. Mostly because he has this stomping attack that he ALWAYS will use when he gets down to a certain hp. It does 10 damage and pierces defense, meaning power lift won't protect you, and it always seems to go for Mario.

It's hard to superguard too. Oh yes...

The breath attack I got very good at superguarding, and he doesn't do any other attacks often enough to make them worth learning to superguard well, so I normal guarded everything else. Including that stomp attack, since I can't practice superguarding it, because I hardly get any chances. First I have to get him that low, then I get one chance to try it before I die.

So normal guarding works, it takes 9 hp off Mario but I quickly follow it up with vivian using an item and mario using sweet treat.

My items for the fight by the way were hotdogs and coconuts. Both restore 5hp, and the hotdog also restores 5fp, so I pick and choose what to use as is convenient.

Yeah I used Viv. For Cortez and Smorg and them types I used Yoshi, because combined with Power Lift, Yoshi gets the most benefit by far.

However, when your enemy has defense, that changes. And Gloomtail has 2 defenses. So it actually works out that for most of the outcomes of Power Lift, Yoshi and Viv do the same effective damage. If I get the rare 4+ attack with power lift, Yoshi will do one more damage, but if I get the equally rare 1+ with power lift, Yoshi does nothing where viv would do an effective 3. And viv has higher HP, so I don't have to babysit her with healing moves and items every 10 seconds. So that's verry good.

oh yeah, not to mention Viv can veil that Megabreath attack. Which means every time he charges for it, Mario gets in a free power smash or power lift or sweet treat, whatever's needed, and viv veils and if he keeps charging well you can keep going that way with no danger to you.

And once he enters the megabreath phase, it is my experience that that's what he mostly does, so that's very good.

It took many tries, a lot of things have to go right, and you really can't afford to not superguard the breath ever, or if you do miss one hope for a bingo.

And you will get bingos in this fight. You have to hit him a bazillion times, bingos are happening, so watch for them coming and try to make use of them. For example, if a star bingo is coming next turn, go ahead and use art attack or sweet feast, go nuts. Or if a flower bingo is coming, go crazy with the FP. You have to assume you'll get every bingo, because if you're not good enough to do that, what are you doing in this fight? Seriously, you have to count on those bingos a bit. But you will get them, it's a long fight, so it's okay to count on them.

Unfortunately, if no other experience points can be skipped in the game, you level up here at a very bad time: fighting the dry bones in the bones puzzle. Which means whatever wasteful condition you wind up in at the end of fighting dark bones, you're stuck with it for the shadow siren fight.

Whatever horrible condition you're in after the shadow sirens, that's how you gotta fight grodus

And of course, whatever's left of you when taking on Grodus, that's how you have to fight Bowser.

Doesn't that sound fun.

Of course you could always jaunt back to town for an Inn or even a restock of hotdogs or something. No harm in that. I may do that later, but now I'm going to fight the Shadow Sirens.

I have 17 exp, if I want to level up fighting Grodus like I'd hoped, the shadow sirens would probably need to give me about 20 exp each. But who knows, maybe they will. Here's hoping.

Finally back at Gloomtail.  The embers in chapter 5 were harsh.

After discovering the joys of Power Lift, I made minced meat of Cortez, Smorg, and even Von Grapple 2.

Of course Gloomtail was on a different league altogether from those punies.  It took many tries.  Mostly because he has this stomping attack that he ALWAYS will use when he gets down to a certain hp.  It does 10 damage and pierces defense, meaning power lift won't protect you, and it always seems to go for Mario.

It's hard to superguard too.  Oh yes...

The breath attack I got very good at superguarding, and he doesn't do any other attacks often enough to make them worth learning to superguard well, so I normal guarded everything else.  Including that stomp attack, since I can't practice superguarding it, because I hardly get any chances.  First I have to get him that low, then I get one chance to try it before I die.

So normal guarding works, it takes 9 hp off Mario but I quickly follow it up with vivian using an item and mario using sweet treat.

My items for the fight by the way were hotdogs and coconuts.  Both restore 5hp, and the hotdog also restores 5fp, so I pick and choose what to use as is convenient.

Yeah I used Viv.  For Cortez and Smorg and them types I used Yoshi, because combined with Power Lift, Yoshi gets the most benefit by far.

However, when your enemy has defense, that changes.  And Gloomtail has 2 defenses.  So it actually works out that for most of the outcomes of Power Lift, Yoshi and Viv do the same effective damage.  If I get the rare 4+ attack with power lift, Yoshi will do one more damage, but if I get the equally rare 1+ with power lift, Yoshi does nothing where viv would do an effective 3.  And viv has higher HP, so I don't have to babysit her with healing moves and items every 10 seconds.  So that's verry good.

oh yeah, not to mention Viv can veil that Megabreath attack.  Which means every time he charges for it, Mario gets in a free power smash or power lift or sweet treat, whatever's needed, and viv veils and if he keeps charging well you can keep going that way with no danger to you.

And once he enters the megabreath phase, it is my experience that that's what he mostly does, so that's very good.

It took many tries, a lot of things have to go right, and you really can't afford to not superguard the breath ever, or if you do miss one hope for a bingo.

And you will get bingos in this fight.  You have to hit him a bazillion times, bingos are happening, so watch for them coming and try to make use of them.  For example, if a star bingo is coming next turn, go ahead and use art attack or sweet feast, go nuts.  Or if a flower bingo is coming, go crazy with the FP.  You have to assume you'll get every bingo, because if you're not good enough to do that, what are you doing in this fight?  Seriously, you have to count on those bingos a bit.  But you will get them, it's a long fight, so it's okay to count on them.

Unfortunately, if no other experience points can be skipped in the game, you level up here at a very bad time:  fighting the dry bones in the bones puzzle.  Which means whatever wasteful condition you wind up in at the end of fighting dark bones, you're stuck with it for the shadow siren fight.

Whatever horrible condition you're in after the shadow sirens, that's how you gotta fight grodus

And of course, whatever's left of you when taking on Grodus, that's how you have to fight Bowser.

Doesn't that sound fun.

Of course you could always jaunt back to town for an Inn or even a restock of hotdogs or something.  No harm in that.  I may do that later, but now I'm going to fight the Shadow Sirens.

I have 17 exp, if I want to level up fighting Grodus like I'd hoped, the shadow sirens would probably need to give me about 20 exp each.  But who knows, maybe they will.  Here's hoping.

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-27 06:52:48 am

Well the Sirens were easier than I thought. It seems Clock Out works on them. Quite well actually.

In the battle I had, I immobilized Marilyn and Bedlam, leavin puny Doopliss to try to hurt me. I had Yoshi out, and after using Clock Out I Power Lifted to take out the shadows lickity split. Poor ole Doopliss, what with copying Yoshi and his mighty ground pound was less than no threat.

And each of them gave me 25 exp, for a total of 75! This brought my experience to the nineties for the Grodus fight. So it looks like I'll be able to level up before Bowser after all, and save a lot of headache.

Lucky for me that all that experience was skipped. If I hadn't scared the dull bones or lost to bowser and the harriers I would have leveled at the Sirens instead

Well after a quick jaunt back to rogueport for sleep and hotdogs (I loaded up on them) It was time for Grodus

Grodus was no easy matter let me tell you. He is HARD to superguard.

The thunder I eventually got very good at superguarding. Like Gloomtail's breath, the timing seems random, but once you do it enough times it becomes easier to get in the rythm.

His flame attack, not so good. I only managed to superguard that about half the time by the time I was done.

The ice attack, that one really sucks. I super'd that a full NEVER. And it freezes you to boot sometimes, which believe me is instant death. You can't afford to lose turns here, or he'll build up on the guard x's, and those will wipe you out.

Oh yeah, I got about as good at guarding those things as the flame attack. The timing isn't bad, it's just that you have to know it's coming and be ready, and you always know when they're coming. Unlike Grodus' elemental attacks, which you can never see coming until it's too late.

He seems to do thunder most, at least that was the case with me, so once I learned to sguard that it became a lot easier, but there's still the problem of taking this guy down 50 hp with all that defense shinanigans he does.

My weapon of choice was art attack. I would usually art attack when 2 or 3 defense x's were on the screen. My first circle would take out all 3 and do damage to Grodus, and every circle thereafter on Grodus himself. I could reliably do 15 and greater to grodus a pop by the time I was finished. Used Viv by the way.

Also Grodus cannot be hurt by art attack, tremor, or anything else while there's 4 defense x's around him. My first move was Viv taking out one of the x's, THEN art attack or tremor. two art attacks, a tremor, and several power smashes later, he died. Then leveled up to 8, which is probably the level I will beat the game at.

Of course the hard part now was that you can't save or anything, but now fight Bowser and Kammy.

Bowser is easier to superguard than Grodus by far. His stomp you technique is the same as Crump's, and his breath attack has the same timing as Gloomtail.

But the good news is both bowser and kammy are suceptible to Clock Out. The time I won I managed to get both clocked out several times.

Needless to say, all my star power was saved for Clock Out. For healing and replenishing FP, I used several hotdogs. Using Viv to burn and keep a stream of hotdogs going, and powersmashing pretty much exclusively with Mario, and doing Clock out every time they became mobile again, they went down hard. I took out Bowser first, and Kammy is absolutely no threat on her own. So finally, after many many tries, I'm through with that.

Now all that's left is Shadow Queen. Almost through!

Well the Sirens were easier than I thought.  It seems Clock Out works on them.  Quite well actually.

In the battle I had, I immobilized Marilyn and Bedlam, leavin puny Doopliss to try to hurt me.  I had Yoshi out, and after using Clock Out I Power Lifted to take out the shadows lickity split.  Poor ole Doopliss, what with copying Yoshi and his mighty ground pound was less than no threat.

And each of them gave me 25 exp, for a total of 75!  This brought my experience to the nineties for the Grodus fight.  So it looks like I'll be able to level up before Bowser after all, and save a lot of headache.

Lucky for me that all that experience was skipped.  If I hadn't scared the dull bones or lost to bowser and the harriers I would have leveled at the Sirens instead

Well after a quick jaunt back to rogueport for sleep and hotdogs (I loaded up on them) It was time for Grodus

Grodus was no easy matter let me tell you.  He is HARD to superguard.

The thunder I eventually got very good at superguarding.  Like Gloomtail's breath, the timing seems random, but once you do it enough times it becomes easier to get in the rythm.

His flame attack, not so good.  I only managed to superguard that about half the time by the time I was done.

The ice attack, that one really sucks.  I super'd that a full NEVER.  And it freezes you to boot sometimes, which believe me is instant death.  You can't afford to lose turns here, or he'll build up on the guard x's, and those will wipe you out.

Oh yeah, I got about as good at guarding those things as the flame attack.  The timing isn't bad, it's just that you have to know it's coming and be ready, and you always know when they're coming.  Unlike Grodus' elemental attacks, which you can never see coming until it's too late.

He seems to do thunder most, at least that was the case with me, so once I learned to sguard that it became a lot easier, but there's still the problem of taking this guy down 50 hp with all that defense shinanigans he does.

My weapon of choice was art attack.  I would usually art attack when 2 or 3 defense x's were on the screen.  My first circle would take out all 3 and do damage to Grodus, and every circle thereafter on Grodus himself.  I could reliably do 15 and greater to grodus a pop by the time I was finished.  Used Viv by the way.

Also Grodus cannot be hurt by art attack, tremor, or anything else while there's 4 defense x's around him.  My first move was Viv taking out one of the x's, THEN art attack or tremor.  two art attacks, a tremor, and several power smashes later, he died.  Then leveled up to 8, which is probably the level I will beat the game at.

Of course the hard part now was that you can't save or anything, but now fight Bowser and Kammy.

Bowser is easier to superguard than Grodus by far.  His stomp you technique is the same as Crump's, and his breath attack has the same timing as Gloomtail.

But the good news is both bowser and kammy are suceptible to Clock Out.  The time I won I managed to get both clocked out several times.

Needless to say, all my star power was saved for Clock Out.  For healing and replenishing FP, I used several hotdogs.  Using Viv to burn and keep a stream of hotdogs going, and powersmashing pretty much exclusively with Mario, and doing Clock out every time they became mobile again, they went down hard.  I took out Bowser first, and Kammy is absolutely no threat on her own.  So finally, after many many tries, I'm through with that.

Now all that's left is Shadow Queen.  Almost through!

Shikyo [old]

2004-10-27 02:08:46 pm

I thnk we need an intervention . . .

Sesshoumaru

2004-10-28 02:57:56 pm

Ding Dong Shadow Queen is Dead. Not quite like I'd hoped though.

Man, it's Prime low percent all over again. Every time I do something, someone finds something that makes me have to do it aaaall over again. I've restarted from various points 4 or 5 times the past more than a week I've been up to this. And now something happened which is throwing the whole worth of the run into question.

Get this. The shop point count rolls over at 300. And all the prizes you reddened out, they become black again. Which means less shop points is, excuse the pun, pointless, as you could always just buy 300 dried shrooms and roll it over to zero again.

As far as I'm concerned this is a very significant thing. By my own little rules of what constitutes fair game for these kinds of runs, unlimited items are now fair game.

To put it simply, this run is hardly worth doing anymore I think. Specials abuse was bad enough, already turning most bosses into jelly with no more than some superguard practice. Stack Life Shroom abuse onto that, and why even learn to superguard?

Seriously, think of it. Perpetual boo capes, multiple fright masks on everyone, the works. Spam Smorg with thunder rages. Endless stopwatches against bowser and kammy. Excessive Dizzy Dials on Gloomtail. Of course just 10 life shrooms could probably take you thorugh any boss in a couple tries, even 1 try.

To put this into perspective, I was previously trying Shadow Queen, mostly relying on pastas. Obviously I had to become very good at superguarding. Frankly it was a chore just to make it through the Peach form without a game over.

Now, I've been spending a week on this file. Normally I wouldn't bother with a run like this anymore, the shop point restriction was what made it worthwhile from my perspective. Now it's just, not even a real fight until Grodus, and maybe not even then. But I really wasn't fond of the idea of wasting the past week so I went ahead and took out Shadow Queen.

But the point is, to put this into perspective, where it was a significant effort to just get past the peach phase before without death, now stocked up with 10 life shrooms, I took out Shadow Queen in about 3 tries

And believe me, I was a lot worse at superguarding than I should have been, and I screwed up a shine bingo opportunity when I needed it too, and at the end of the battle I still had 3 life shrooms left over.

Those things are friggin cheap. So now I hope it's clear why something like this makes it so... less worthwhile from my perspective.

Well I suppose someone might like to know how to beat Shadow Queen, so here's what I did.

Turn 1 art attack and a purposely non-timed viv attack, turn 2 power smash and another non-timed viv attack, (SQ should charge for the megabreath thing now) turn 3 art attack and a veil, turn 4 power smash and the auto shine bingo kicks in.

Then sprinkle 2 more art attacks between power smashes and viv attacks. Eventually there'll be enough star power for a third art attack.

Now for art attacking Shadow Queen, you only need to encircle the peach within her. She's quite small, making 7 circles what you want to shoot for, and 6 is quite guaranteed, so I was able to do 18 - 20 damage per art attack (never managed a 21 >_>)

Do the math and the art attacks alone take out almost 100 of her hp. the remaining goes down quite fast to power smashes and burn damage. And that's it. All you have to do is not die to the hands more than 10 times. That's it. Whoop-de-freaking-do.

Well I've done the low level game now, and I have the file so I suppose I got what I wanted out of the past week. Not nearly so triumphant as I'd hoped it would feel, but I guess it's better I found out before Shadow Queen than afterwards.

Anyways, now I can copy that file and turn it into my 100% game. There's star shard and shine sprite faqs up now at gamefaqs, so it ought to be pretty mellow to wander through and get everything in one sweep of each area. Then recipes, the 100 trials pit, the trouble board, the badges, and... leveling up to as high as I figure I'll want to go. I guess that's about the size of it. And this time I have the RIGHT color Yoshi.

And it certainly does seem everything I can't tattle anymore wound up in Frankly's garbage. So there should be nothing to keep me from getting 100% on that low level file.

Finished the game at level 8 by the way. Here's my list of required experience if anyone is interested.

FM means fright masks used, so now you know how many and when you'll need the fright masks if you intend to do this now significantly less worthwhile thing. Which if I were you, I wouldn't.

9 - Crump
1 - 3 Goombas - (1 FM)
20 - Blooper

= 30 exp into chapter 1 =

1 - Bald Clefts - (1 FM)
1 - Bristles - (1 FM)
1 - Fuzzies - (1 FM)
1 - Fuzzies - (1 FM)
22 - Gold Fuzzie
9 - Red Bones - (8 FM on dull bones)
32 - Hooktail

= 97 exp into chapter 2 =

36 - Shadow Sirens <<Level 2>>
1 - Xnauts - (1 FM)
1 - Xnaut - (1 FM)
1 - Xnauts - (1 FM)
33 - Magnus Von Grapple

= 69 exp into chapter 3 =

1 - Goomba Bros - (1 FM)
1 - KP Koopas - (1 FM)
1 - Pokey Triplets - (1 FM)
1 - Dead Bones - (2 FM)
1 - Spike Storm - (1 FM)
1 - Hand-it-overs - (1 FM)
1 - Mind-Bogglers - (1 FM)
1 - Punk Rocks - (1 FM)
1 - Bob-omb Squad - (1 FM)
16 - Armored Harriers
1 - Tiny Spinies - (1 FM)
1 - Poker Faces - (1 FM)
1 - Shellshockers - (1 FM)
1 - The Fuzz - (1 FM)
1 - Magikoopa Masters - (1 FM)
14 - Craw-Daddy <<Level 3>>
1 - Hamma, Bamma, Flare - (1 FM)
1 - Chomp Country - (1 FM)
1 - The Koopinator - (1 FM)
15 - Rawk Hawk
34 - Macho Grubba

= 65 exp into chapter 4 =

24 - Doopliss
25 - Shadow Mario <<level 4>>

= 14 exp into chapter 5 =

1 - embers (1 FM)
1 - embers (1 FM)
1 - embers (1 FM)
36 - Cortez
26 - Crump

= 79 exp into chapter 6 =

1 - Goombas - (1 FM)
1 - Goombas - (1 FM)
1 - Goombas - (1 FM)
37 - Smorg <<level 5>>

= 19 exp into chapter 7 =

1 - Elite X-nauts (1 FM)
39 - Magnus Von Grapple 2.0

= 59 exp into chapter 8 =

93 - Dark and Dry Bones <<level 6>>
35 - Gloomtail
1 - dull bones
4 - red bones
12 - dry bones <<level 7>>
13 - dark bones
75 - Shadow Sirens Featuring Doopliss
40 - Grodus <<level 8>>
50 - Bowser and Kammy
1 - Shadow Queen

Game End: Level 8, 83 exp

As an after note, trying to minimze the fright masks I used was completely pointless. Sigh. The end. Go home now.

Ding Dong Shadow Queen is Dead.  Not quite like I'd hoped though.

Man, it's Prime low percent all over again.  Every time I do something, someone finds something that makes me have to do it aaaall over again.  I've restarted from various points 4 or 5 times the past more than a week I've been up to this.  And now something happened which is throwing the whole worth of the run into question.

Get this.  The shop point count rolls over at 300.  And all the prizes you reddened out, they become black again.  Which means less  shop points is, excuse the pun, pointless, as you could always just buy 300 dried shrooms and roll it over to zero again.

As far as I'm concerned this is a very significant thing.  By my own little rules of what constitutes fair game for these kinds of runs, unlimited items are now fair game.

To put it simply, this run is hardly worth doing anymore I think.  Specials abuse was bad enough, already turning most bosses into jelly with no more than some superguard practice.  Stack Life Shroom abuse onto that, and why even learn to superguard?

Seriously, think of it.  Perpetual boo capes, multiple fright masks on everyone, the works.  Spam Smorg with thunder rages.  Endless stopwatches against bowser and kammy. Excessive Dizzy Dials on Gloomtail.  Of course just 10 life shrooms could probably take you thorugh any boss in a couple tries, even 1 try.

To put this into perspective, I was previously trying Shadow Queen, mostly relying on pastas.  Obviously I had to become very good at superguarding.  Frankly it was a chore just to make it through the Peach form without a game over.

Now, I've been spending a week on this file.  Normally I wouldn't bother with a run like this anymore, the shop point restriction was what made it worthwhile from my perspective.  Now it's just, not even a real fight until Grodus, and maybe not even then.  But I really wasn't fond of the idea of wasting the past week so I went ahead and took out Shadow Queen.

But the point is, to put this into perspective, where it was a significant effort to just get past the peach phase before without death, now stocked up with 10 life shrooms, I took out Shadow Queen in about 3 tries

And believe me, I was a lot worse at superguarding than I should have been, and I screwed up a shine bingo opportunity when I needed it too, and at the end of the battle I still had 3 life shrooms left over.

Those things are friggin cheap.  So now I hope it's clear why something like this makes it so... less worthwhile from my perspective.

Well I suppose someone might like to know how to beat Shadow Queen, so here's what I did.

Turn 1 art attack and a purposely non-timed viv attack, turn 2 power smash and another non-timed viv attack, (SQ should charge for the megabreath thing now) turn 3 art attack and a veil, turn 4 power smash and the auto shine bingo kicks in.

Then sprinkle 2 more art attacks between power smashes and viv attacks.  Eventually there'll be enough star power for a third art attack.

Now for art attacking Shadow Queen, you only need to encircle the peach within her.  She's quite small, making 7 circles what you want to shoot for, and 6 is quite guaranteed, so I was able to do 18 - 20 damage per art attack (never managed a 21 >_>)

Do the math and the art attacks alone take out almost 100 of her hp.  the remaining goes down quite fast to power smashes and burn damage.  And that's it.  All you have to do is not die to the hands more than 10 times.  That's it.  Whoop-de-freaking-do.

Well I've done the low level game now, and I have the file so I suppose I got what I wanted out of the past week.  Not nearly so triumphant as I'd hoped it would feel, but I guess it's better I found out before Shadow Queen than afterwards.

Anyways, now I can copy that file and turn it into my 100% game.  There's star shard and shine sprite faqs up now at gamefaqs, so it ought to be pretty mellow to wander through and get everything in one sweep of each area.  Then recipes, the 100 trials pit, the trouble board, the badges, and... leveling up to as high as I figure I'll want to go.  I guess that's about the size of it.  And this time I have the RIGHT color Yoshi.

And it certainly does seem everything I can't tattle anymore wound up in Frankly's garbage.  So there should be nothing to keep me from getting 100% on that low level file.

Finished the game at level 8 by the way.  Here's my list of required experience if anyone is interested.

FM means fright masks used, so now you know how many and when you'll need the fright masks if you intend to do this now significantly less worthwhile thing.  Which if I were you, I wouldn't.

9 - Crump
1 - 3 Goombas - (1 FM)
20 - Blooper

= 30 exp into chapter 1 =

1 - Bald Clefts - (1 FM)
1 - Bristles - (1 FM)
1 - Fuzzies - (1 FM)
1 - Fuzzies - (1 FM)
22 - Gold Fuzzie
9 - Red Bones - (8 FM on dull bones)
32 - Hooktail

= 97 exp into chapter 2 =

36 - Shadow Sirens <<Level 2>>
1 - Xnauts - (1 FM)
1 - Xnaut - (1 FM)
1 - Xnauts - (1 FM)
33 - Magnus Von Grapple

= 69 exp into chapter 3 =

1 - Goomba Bros - (1 FM)
1 - KP Koopas - (1 FM)
1 - Pokey Triplets - (1 FM)
1 - Dead Bones - (2 FM)
1 - Spike Storm - (1 FM)
1 - Hand-it-overs - (1 FM)
1 - Mind-Bogglers - (1 FM)
1 - Punk Rocks - (1 FM)
1 - Bob-omb Squad - (1 FM)
16 - Armored Harriers
1 - Tiny Spinies - (1 FM)
1 - Poker Faces - (1 FM)
1 - Shellshockers - (1 FM)
1 - The Fuzz - (1 FM)
1 - Magikoopa Masters - (1 FM)
14 - Craw-Daddy <<Level 3>>
1 - Hamma, Bamma, Flare - (1 FM)
1 - Chomp Country - (1 FM)
1 - The Koopinator - (1 FM)
15 - Rawk Hawk
34 - Macho Grubba

= 65 exp into chapter 4 =

24 - Doopliss
25 - Shadow Mario <<level 4>>

= 14 exp into chapter 5 =

1 - embers (1 FM)
1 - embers (1 FM)
1 - embers (1 FM)
36 - Cortez
26 - Crump

= 79 exp into chapter 6 =

1 - Goombas - (1 FM)
1 - Goombas - (1 FM)
1 - Goombas - (1 FM)
37 - Smorg <<level 5>>

= 19 exp into chapter 7 =

1 - Elite X-nauts (1 FM)
39 - Magnus Von Grapple 2.0

= 59 exp into chapter 8 =

93 - Dark and Dry Bones <<level 6>>
35 - Gloomtail
1 - dull bones
4 - red bones
12 - dry bones <<level 7>>
13 - dark bones
75 - Shadow Sirens Featuring Doopliss
40 - Grodus <<level 8>>
50 - Bowser and Kammy
1 - Shadow Queen

Game End:  Level 8, 83 exp

As an after note, trying to minimze the fright masks I used was completely pointless.  Sigh.  The end.  Go home now.

Izo

2004-10-28 03:29:25 pm

soaking through

Damnit, this game's not out yet and Sess has already done a crazy-stupid low level game. I hate you Sess. :P

Yoshi348

2004-10-28 08:47:31 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

:(

Although, seeing as how all this stuff is for personal achievement, one could just resolve not to do a rollover. Assuming there aren't any mental locks in place.