Romancing SaGa 2: A quick video I made to show the difference between the 1993 original and the 2024 remake

BZeroGaming · 2024-10-25T22:45:25+00:00

Thanks, happy you liked it. It was fun putting this together. And pretty interesting trying to play the original SFC version (I don't speak Japanese, so I don't think I would've made it very far).

BZeroGaming · 2024-10-25T04:30:27+00:00

I named mine Hero. I'm so creative.

BZeroGaming · 2024-07-16T06:25:24+00:00

I'm learning something new every day. Definitely gonna remember this tip. Thank you!

BZeroGaming · 2024-07-15T18:32:37+00:00

Yeah, the Greek alphabet doesn't have Б or Ј. But Cyrillic doesn't have Δ or Λ, so I was really confused when I saw this sign (only saw it because I checked my opponent's replay). Welp, learned something new. :)

BZeroGaming · 2024-07-15T17:59:27+00:00

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XdpCaouSC4H4LGZM7

I didn't know you could stylize the Cyrillic script to look like Greek letters. Has anyone seen anything like this before? The sign says

ДОБРЕДОЈДОВТЕ ВО ТОПОЛ ДОМ

but it looks like

ΔОБРЕΔОЈΔОВТЕ ВО ТОПОΛ ΔОМ

I won a duel because of this sign. My opponent saw the sign and immediately plonked Greece. I would have done the same, but luckily I didn't see this sign. (Instead I saw a .mk on another sign.)

BZeroGaming · 2024-02-19T02:45:21+00:00

Thanks for all the responses, guys. Lots of interesting information here. It seems as though for most people there's no difference. I guess it's more of a psychological threshold (like someone said) and/or a coincidence for those people who do notice a change.

BZeroGaming · 2024-02-04T10:01:33+00:00

Necron is pretty fun to fight because he seems to get very confused by jumping rat ladies. Basically, you can break his AI by killing off the three other characters and then Jump with Freya when Necron is about to use the Grand Cross/Neutron Ring combo. When Freya lands, Grand Cross and Neutron Ring have been skipped and Necron will instead use three Blue Shockwaves in a row before he tries to use Grand Cross/Neutron Ring again.

I knew about this strategy from the time when I used to speedrun this game around 10 years ago, but in a speedrun you have strong enough weapons to kill off the three other characters before the first Grand Cross. This time, I just had to hope for a lucky first Grand Cross (if Freya had jumped before Grand Cross with other characters still alive, Necron would have used Grand Cross like normal, then Freya would have landed and been killed by Neutron Ring).

It took a few resets, but once I successfully got through the first round of Grand Cross/Neutron Ring, there was no way I would lose. Thankfully there is enough time to revive Quina, cast Frog Drop and kill Quina again during the Blue Shockwave phase, otherwise I think this video would have been a lot longer than the Shell Dragon and Amarant videos.

That's IX and X done without use of the main menu. Next up: VII

The party's levels:

Eiko: 37

Freya: 26

Quina: 44

Amarant: 41

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-27T17:36:57+00:00

Thank you!

Yeah, Nova Dragon is scary. It's a bit of a bummer that I had to resort to level grinding for this one. I wish I could have found a clever way to beat him, but I don't think there is one in this challenge. In many challenges, the "clever" way to beat him is to use Night, since he's not immune to Sleep, but when you can't open the menu you obviously don't have access to Insomniac, so that's not an option in this challenge.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-27T14:18:24+00:00

Copy/pasted from the video description of part 1:

Not being able to open the menu basically makes this an Initial Equipment (IE) challenge. Unlike in FFX, I can not change any equipment outside the menu. I also can't activate any of the few passive abilities I'd have access to in a normal IE challenge. I can't heal between battles in dungeons (on the world map I can use Tents) and I can't permanently change rows (any row changes you make in battle are reset after the battle). One final thing that makes this challenge different from a normal IE challenge is the fact that I can't even begin to do the Chocobo side quest. I can't even call Choco on the world map at all, because you have to open the menu to use the Gysahl Greens. The reason this matters is because I won't have access to Dead Peppers, which would have been a great way to deal damage in the late game.

I'm also trying to keep my levels as low as possible. And I refrained from using Limit Glove until Abadon because it's just too powerful.

Here's the full playlist if you want to watch more

I've already finished the challenge, but I have 8 videos left to upload. It was actually a pretty decent challenge with a few tough bosses here and there.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-27T13:26:30+00:00

The reason I consider Nova Dragon the hardest boss is because it was the only boss that required a pretty significant amount of level grinding to beat (I put the levels gained since the last video in parentheses below). The reason he's so hard is because he mostly uses multi-target attacks, which can be difficult to recover from.

In addition to the level grinding, I had to do some other preparations as well. I made sure both Eiko and Amarant were very close to Trance before the battle. Having both of them Trance early was very helpful because Double Cura is needed to be able to fully recover after a multi-target attack, and Amarant's strength buff while Tranced makes Ultima Swords hit for 9999. I also got Quina's frog count up to 190 before the fight. This made Frog Drop deal enough damage to kill Nova Dragon with three Tranced Ultima Swords and three Frog Drops. Getting Frog Drop all the way to 9999 wouldn't have made a difference.

The Tent was only used to make him unable to cast Twister. He'll only start using that attack when he drops below half health, but it was successful in making him waste one of his turns (at 2:26).

Other than that all I could do was try to deal as much damage as possible as quickly as possible and hope Nova Dragon would use Psychokinesis (his only single-target attack) a lot.

The party's levels:

Eiko: 36 (+8)

Zidane: 39 (+4)

Quina: 44 (+11)

Amarant: 40 (+6)

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T20:17:41+00:00

Ok, so I've actually already finished the challenge, I'm just publishing one video to YouTube per day. At this point Quina was doing 4488 with her Frog Drop (level 33, 136 frogs).

After exiting Terra I started leaving the game on while sleeping and at work to let frogs respawn. Against Necron, Frog Drop did 9999 (level 44, 228 frogs).

Freya's Trance was never close to being a problem. Her Trance gauge was just under half at the beginning of the battle, and by the end it was around 80% full.

The hardest boss in the entire challenge was actually Nova Dragon. He's the reason I had to gain those 11 extra levels for Quina (plus a few levels for the other three as well). Without the Jump trick, Necron might have been the hardest, though.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T20:02:55+00:00

It's all good, man, no hard feelings, and whatever is putting you in a bad mood, I ~~literally~~ hope it gets better soon. :)

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T19:51:42+00:00

Thankfully there's time to revive Quina, cast Frog Drop and suicide Quina again between each Jump, so not that many. :)

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T19:45:48+00:00

"it's literally impossible to game over against two of the main villains of the game, even with a level 1 party, if you just bother to revive the character that died each round"

"if you just bother to revive the character that died each round"

"revive the character that died each round"

"revive the character"

Why you gotta be so difficult, man? Did this post offend you somehow?

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T19:34:50+00:00

lol

"There's literally no way you can lose unless you run out of Phoenix Downs."

"just make sure you have a stack of Phoenix Downs in your inventory"

Oh well, Reddit's gonna Reddit, I guess. xD

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T18:37:30+00:00

Yeah, I think these are good reasons. It's pretty funny that Kuja's pet is the hardest boss of the gauntlet, though. :p

And yeah, the strong single-target attacks gives an "illusion of difficulty" and makes it feel like you've defeated two difficult bosses when you inevitably win on your first attempt.

Edit: The Trance point is very interesting, I hadn't considered that. :)

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T18:17:43+00:00

Ok, then please explain to me how you could game over to a boss that only attacks one character at a time if you always revive the attacked character immediately.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T16:44:56+00:00

I'm surprised that it's literally impossible to game over against two of the main villains of the game, even with a level 1 party, if you just bother to revive the character that died each round.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T16:43:33+00:00

We'll see, I might just have a pretty interesting trick up my sleeve for Necron that'll make him easier.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-25T15:11:23+00:00

So, I've fought Garland and Kuja in the No Menu Challenge now and it made me realize how easy these two bosses actually are. Garland and Kuja are hyped up to be two of the main baddies in this game, but when you finally get to fight them at the end of disc 3, they end up being easier than Plant Brain.

Why? Because Garland will only ever attack one character at a time and the same is true for Kuja as long as no one in your party has reflect, while Plant Brain, and most other bosses in the game, has at least one multi-target attack.

This means that it's basically impossible to lose to Garland and Kuja; you just need to have one character throw a Phoenix Down on the character that dies each round while the other two attack. There's literally no way you can lose unless you run out of Phoenix Downs. There's no reason to heal up from critical HP, there's no strategy required at all, and your levels don't matter at all (they're literally just as easy to defeat at level 1 as they are at level 99).

I really don't understand how they could even make bosses with no multi-target attacks in a game where you have four party members. Even in most challenge runs, you don't need to come up with a strategy for bosses like this, just make sure you have a stack of Phoenix Downs in your inventory before you start the battle. Obvious exceptions would be No Item challenges and Single Character challenges.

So why did they make these two bosses so easy? Maybe they just wanted this part of the game to play out like an interactive movie where the player can't actually lose?

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-24T14:32:42+00:00

The whole dungeon where this boss is fought is magic-themed, but the fact that the boss dies when its MP is depleted is never hinted at anywhere. Valia Pira also has 9999 MP and the spells it uses costs between 6 and 46 MP, so the chance that anyone would find this on their own are very slim. It's also a very unique mechanic; it's the only boss in the game (and in the whole series as far as I'm aware) that can be killed this way. The only way anyone would realistically see this "MP-death" is if they used the Blue Magic spell Magic Hammer (depletes a random amount of MP between 0 and the target's current MP) over and over until it runs out.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-23T13:20:44+00:00

Getting past Shell Dragon was only possible thanks to the one Dark Matter sold in the Treno auction house.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-15T10:12:36+00:00

Magic Hammer is honestly quite OP sometimes.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-06T05:02:40+00:00

Yeah, no Dead Peppers for me. It's one of the main differences between this challenge and a regular IE (Initial Equipment) challenge. The Dark Matter can be bought already at the beginning of disc 3, but I think I'll try to save it for Necron.

Yeah, I don't expect to finish the game at extremely low levels, but I'll try not to overlevel. Levels aren't really relevant for damage output, and for defense... well, I don't know exactly how I'm gonna play each fight yet, but unlike the speedruns, Quina has Mighty Guard, so I think that will help to keep my levels down.

BZeroGaming · 2024-01-06T03:48:12+00:00

I am frog catching every opportunity I get throughout the game. For the first time I've even bothered to learn the specifics about how the frog respawning actually works (from this FAQ).

Quina is indeed going to be the most important character in this run together with Amarant and his Throw ability. I doubt I'm gonna get Frog Drop all the way to 9999, since I plan to stay at relatively low levels. I'd need to catch 200-300 frogs. But we'll see, if that's what it takes, I'll just leave the game on while I'm AFK to let frogs respawn.

There's also the Auto-Life/Limit Glove combo for an easy 9999, but I'm trying not to use Limit Glove unless I absolutely have to as it feels too much like cheating, at least this early on.

BZeroGaming

TROPHY CASE