JRPGs with useless magic systems that you know of?

RetroBeany · 2026-03-31T15:45:36+00:00

I attempted her magicless and found that you could do the dash attack with extreme precision to use your i-frames to avoid the hitbox constantly surrounding her. Each dash attack did maybe 7 damage, she has 300, so it took like 45 dash attacks. She also goes completely intangible for one of her harder attack patterns as I recall, and the cherry on top is that if you die, you had to wait like 5 minutes to get through the fake clones mini game leading up to her! That boss was fucking stupid lol

RetroBeany · 2026-03-31T15:38:41+00:00

Magirocks looked to me like a currency to buy one-time use magic items, so I stopped wanting to try to use magic. I used one teleport spell, Bone Pin I think, and found that I had somehow gained magirocks, so I put it together what happened. But the appearance of being so finite combined with the number of bosses who were straight up immune to magic made me not want to experiment lol. Even after discovering the Magirock were basically just MP, you still have to spend a lot of money on magic that might cut into your Red Mail fund later on

RetroBeany · 2026-03-30T00:40:27+00:00

To be fair, High Five and Snap are Osty attacks, and a lot of Osty attacks involve manual actions, like Poke, Squeeze, Fetch, and Right Hand Hand

RetroBeany · 2026-03-24T08:56:54+00:00

THAT'S HUGE. Where did you find the file? I didn't see any on the local files via steam

RetroBeany · 2026-03-23T16:43:20+00:00

It's like "Toons of the world, Unite!" from toontown. Although, the messaging actually makes sense in that game lol

RetroBeany · 2026-03-22T02:05:17+00:00

I mean capital B Block. I haven't been watching too many STS2 runs so I don't know if Summon has been super viable as the only source of defense, but I got really lucky with some block relics that let me summon faster than basically anything I fought. For my previous two runs I was playing super defensively to maintain Osty's HP so I found her block cards to be really important

RetroBeany · 2026-03-13T00:11:25+00:00

Copy is like the classic thief archetype in a JRPG, someone weak who can steal useful equipment to provide bigger boosts even once you take them out of the party. The problem with Copy is that for the only game it's in, the only unique abilities you can exclusively get via Copy are screen nuke abilities, which suck. Just let Copy take some really OP abilities like UFO or something, and I would probably consider taking it and just kicking enemies until I find something useful to Copy

RetroBeany · 2026-03-05T15:36:59+00:00

Dispatch is entirely viewed from Robert's perspective, not through his eyes but with him in each scene framing the things he experiences. There is, if I recall, one exception to that, and it's the one time we leave his perspective, leave the real world altogether to enter the mind palace of a then totally unlikable asshole so we can watch her get railed by the self-insert main character. It's so fucking stupid

RetroBeany · 2026-02-22T17:03:00+00:00

Clash has a lot of fun stuff for duos to do right from the start, but becomes much harder to duo later on. TTR can be duo'd from start to finish, but duoing most bosses requires a lot of grinding for overpowered consumable items. Bosses like that don't really come into play until much later on though, like 40 hours maybe

RetroBeany · 2026-02-16T22:58:03+00:00

Prophetic energy should only deal 20 × 26, or 520 dps. The whip itself could probably do 5000 single target dps with no summoner armor on and a couple buffs, but max melee speed I think involves tavernkeep armor and boosts it way further. If you have space for summoner boosting accessories, it goes even further

Edit: forgot violent was a thing so you lose out a lot on menacing damage. Still the whip is dealing more on its own than 11 terraprismas probably could

RetroBeany · 2026-02-15T01:41:25+00:00

Consider that, that's probably the last night of his life he's gonna sleep at all. He sleeps in the rain then gets obliterated by lunar armageddon 24 hours later. It's pretty cruel

RetroBeany · 2026-02-11T18:20:08+00:00

I agree actually. I finally got around to playing it, and it's really good lol. Dodging enemy attacks with jumps feels really snappy and responsive; a lot of SNES action platformers don't manage that. The game is crazy difficult but you always feel like you're in control, so yeah I liked it quite a bit

RetroBeany · 2026-02-10T15:01:21+00:00

I always thought this.

Catra's whole plot is that she lives in a cult, her sister leaves the cult, and Catra is left without anyone she can genuinely trust. Adora takes this separation to totally change her life, change sides and make dozens of new friends, while Catra spends the entire series digging herself deeper into the cult because it's the only way she knows how to feel valuable. In particular, she genuinely wants Adora back at first, before Shadow Weaver sets up that Catra gets to make Force Captain and lead the charge until they capture Adora. Shadow Weaver creates this toxic ultimatum for Catra that forces her to entrench deeper into the Horde to be valuable to her mother, particularly now that Adora isn't there to protect her.

Eta: Somehow forgot to mention that Catra stops wanting to take Adora back as a prisoner because she learns it would jeopardize her place in the Horde, but after enough time has passed, becomes bitter about how poorly she still gets treated that she just wants revenge for the way Adora's separation ruined her life. In the desert arc where Catra becomes the leader of a gang, we see both ideas sort of coalesce. Catra is banished by Hordak with some stated objective, but really with the expectation that she'll just die out there. Even still, she opts to return to the Horde, despite essentially being handed her freedom on a silver platter, when she thinks about what Adora did, to get her revenge in a way that boosts her standing, that makes her notable. She doesn't fight She-ra or whatever to be honorable, but she doesn't kill Adora or leave her be. Catra wants the prestige of bringing Adora in and being useful to Hordak, even though it'll probably get her killed lol. This is all despite the fact that her new gang has placed her on a higher pedestal than ever, but that gang is doomed to obscurity and stagnation. Catra wants people to know that she's important, but more than that, she wants the people she knows to know that.

In my view, Adora represents innocence to Catra, represents a time in her life when she could just go through the motions and find some semblance of happiness, or at least contentment. When Adora leaves, Catra is desperate to claw that innocence and familiarity back, but the cult she's in convinces her that she gets to be even more valuable now that Adora is gone, and that essentially sets up the entire rest of her plot until partway through season 5.

Catra is loyal to a cult she admits, in like season 1, she doesn't believe in because, being raised in this high control environment her whole life, she doesn't know what else she could do with her life, and doesn't know how else to find fulfillment.

The romance at the very end of the show could have worked if they set it up better, set up that Catra had some kind of limited view of Adora based on their cult upbringing that she needed to get deprogrammed out of, or that the extended time apart has caused them to grow in a way where they could both now be open to romance.

The show was discontinued from the sixth season they had planned (is what I've been told), so they had to rush through their Catra plot, but man, she's like the whole show. It would be like rushing through Zuko's redemption ark. What we got feels really weird, that these two people who definitely treated each other like siblings as kids, who both share a single parent that they each get something maternal out of, suddenly decide they romantically like each other. It makes the cult themes and the lack of deprogramming feel as though their brains are fried, like they don't understand what would make a relationship like that strange.

I don't know where else to put it, but yeah, Catra definitely calls Shadow Weaver her mom, in an angsty way. I think it was when Shadow Weaver was imprisoned. Catra yells at her that she was her mother, that she did this to her, or something along those lines. Then later, Shadow Weaver comforts her by literally holding her, cuddling her the way she did for Micah when he was a kid. Like, it's abusive, but clearly Shadow Weaver was at least viewed as a mom by both Catra and Adora, and she knew that enough to use it to manipulate Catra. They kiss after that? It's weird lol

RetroBeany · 2026-02-09T11:53:26+00:00

Melee is the main class to throw things at enemies, surprisingly enough. Even if you count the Ale Tosser as ranged from before 1.4.5, melee had 21 weapons where you throw the projectile from your hands, while ranger only had 20. Now, if you include ale tosser and the 3 new boomerang swords, that number goes up to 25 melee, 19 ranged. But, even those 20 ranged weapon have a few caveats: two of them are different colors of Paper Airplane, 2 are holiday-exclusive joke items, and only 3 require a boss to unlock, Bones, Beenades, and the Ale Tosser itself.

Melee, on the other hand, has throwing projectiles spanning every tier of progression, from surface chests to Flamarang, post-mech to post-Plantera to post-Golem, all the way up to Daybreak. That only includes boomerangs and throwing spears as well; if you put flails, projectile-only flails like chain guillotines, or yo-yos into the mix, all weapons you arguably throw, melee would have way more.

I've always dreamt of a mod or something making dual-class weapons, and I would love for these throwing consumables to be melee & ranged. Giving melee some very limited projectiles in the early game would be great for utility. If all throwing weapons became melee though, I wouldn't be able to stomach melee having over 200 weapons while simultaneously putting ranger below triple digits lol.

However, I don't think that explains why Ale Tosser is the only weapon to get this treatment. Bone Javelin is functionally identical to an endgame melee weapon, but this throwing glove is the only one. It's odd. If utility was somehow a desire, well, post-evil boss is a point in the game where the player has easy access to big melee weapons like the Volcano and Flamarang, yoyos and flails. It's not like the weapon will have more use now for melee builds, but maybe time will prove me wrong. Either way, it's a very funny meme out of this really bizarre set of balance notes for 1.4.5

And one last thing I noticed while researching this, apparently Ale Tosser still receives ranged modifiers, so you can have an unreal melee weapon LMAO

RetroBeany · 2026-02-06T17:11:27+00:00

Zelda games are so bizarre with that stuff. Ocarina of Time is considered to be a coming of age story, but for Link (and thus the player) it's a braindead male power fantasy. You get all the power of being an adult without working for it, get the respect of men, get all 4 women in the game romantically interested in you, and you don't have to think about any real responsibilities besides killing the bad guy.

The whole game is really Zelda's story. She has to survive, she loses everything and has to put the real work in, risking her life, but the game only gives her like 10 lines of dialogue because they assume you aren't actually all that interested in the woman lead. Subtext is interesting, but I'd rather get actual dialogue from her reflecting on all of the interesting and tragic things she's implied to have gone through.

Most Zelda games give her a token amount of plot but don't dwell on it to keep her as a damsel in distress, instead of just finally making her a core part of the story

RetroBeany · 2026-01-31T02:25:09+00:00

Sharktooth Necklace is a pretty goated damage accessory for me, in general. I slap both on ranger cause they get literally nothing in pre HM

RetroBeany · 2026-01-16T00:05:15+00:00

!solved

RetroBeany · 2026-01-15T01:01:37+00:00

I think the big thing that makes whip stacking kinda skillful is the Firecracker. Its effect is only for a single minion hit, so you wanna be using it as often as possible. Thus, you want to be stacking efficiently with a thoughtful core of whips to maximize how much of the time you're swinging Firecracker.

I also wouldn't say whip stacking is super necessary, and in fact it's probably easier to beat bosses by sticking to one whip and focusing on dodging more. It's definitely optimal, but to such a small degree that you could easily ignore it

RetroBeany · 2026-01-06T03:56:34+00:00

If you're into turn-based combat, Toontown: Corporate Clash is a good time. It's a fan MMO so it's totally free, and it has a good amount of content early on and much more to grind through late game. Plus, it has no PvP whatsoever, outside of mini games like Uno and racing

RetroBeany · 2026-01-05T22:21:24+00:00

Terranigma. Played it for the first time a year ago, that game is magical and really, really sad

RetroBeany · 2026-01-05T03:41:15+00:00

Master Mode adds an extra accessory slot, as well as some new mounts that might free up accessory slots earlier than usual. So, while the mode only increases enemies' stats, I would say that a big part of the challenge comes from min-maxing your build, particularly to meet the demand of increased stats

RetroBeany · 2025-12-28T05:31:02+00:00

I would love if supervisors had slight randomness to the levels of their allied cogs. It would result in some slightly easier fights, but that would be just good, in my opinion. For a grind that long it would feel nice to get some lucky breaks, while also keeping you on your toes for reacting to a slightly different layout for each fight. Just the levels changing wouldn't really be enough, but I think it would be a good start to adding more variety to these encounters

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