Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[Gunnar]

I killed the boss, but I'm going to do it over again because I lost 10 levels on my Samurai, gotta make sure to reverse level drain before the fight ends. He put up a good fight, but not as hard as I expected. I got some cool items and it said I could now fight evil. What does that mean, is there more to do after the final boss?

 

[aweigh]

yup

 

[Gunnar]

What's the deal with this Philosophers Stone? Attack rate 0?

 

[Gunnar]

The Incarnation lies broken at my feet. A difficult battle fought mainly with Immolarati and Miracle. Nothing happened when I beat him. I have no magic left to Honey Restorer back to the town, is there anything else to do in the game?

 

[Dorarnae]

The Incarnation lies broken at my feet. A difficult battle fought mainly with Immolarati and Miracle. Nothing happened when I beat him. I have no magic left to Honey Restorer back to the town, is there anything else to do in the game?

nah you're done. on the 3ds there was another battle after that, but pc and psp it ends there.

 

[Gunnar]

The Incarnation lies broken at my feet. A difficult battle fought mainly with Immolarati and Miracle. Nothing happened when I beat him. I have no magic left to Honey Restorer back to the town, is there anything else to do in the game?

nah you're done. on the 3ds there was another battle after that, but pc and psp it ends there.

I see. I went back to my save and Incarnation had respawned, so I guess the game just lets you fight him over and over in the end.

For those interested, I used my second medal to change the Lord back into a Cleric, he gained a huge number of levels (from 117 - 173), I did this primarily to deal with Incarnation because the Clerics Immolarati spell does 50% of HP damage to him, but also would have been a great move much earlier on I think, once he had been relegated to the back row. I also ored up all my weapons for sleep, when Incarnation gets put to sleep it stops all further attacks that round and lets you do normal damage to him. The fight was much more difficult than it needed to be since I only had one Miracle caster, my Samurai. He lost 17 levels in the fight.

thanks for all the answers and everyone in this thread who helped with tips, and brought my attention to this wonderful game!

 

[Haplo]

Well, finally I'm about to join the big boys at the Tower.

Let's see just how deep this rabbit hole goes...

 

[Haplo]

Well, I gotta vent a bit.

Whoever though that it was a smart idea to provide just a sadistic 1% chance (tested minimum twice!) to Contract end-game monsters and Floor Masters deserves to be impaled!
Sure they are powerful. And I'm all for hard work to reap the fruits of your labor, but that's just ridiculous!
I've had several poke-balling sessions and wasted several hours... managing to catch... none. Even finally decided to skip the weaklings like Akabey and focus on Gaia, but still no dice.

And don't get me started about Brawlers and Clean Hits. I expected that with the High Mastery Combat Instinct the chances to Clean Hit may become reasonable. Well currently at level 60ish my Brawler has Combat Instinct 60%ish, but it only ever helps A LITTLE if he actually rolls a 4-hit combo in the first place. Which is a paltry 12,5% chance. Times 60%, that is a 7,50% chance at my level.
Could be worse, but a Clean Hit only bestows a maximum chance of 4,41% chance for Contract success.

This leads to an overall success chance of 0,34%. Just how autistic does one have to be to succeed here?!

 

[Dorarnae]

Well, I gotta vent a bit.

Whoever though that it was a smart idea to provide just a sadistic 1% chance (tested minimum twice!) to Contract end-game monsters and Floor Masters deserves to be impaled!
Sure they are powerful. And I'm all for hard work to reap the fruits of your labor, but that's just ridiculous!
I've had several poke-balling sessions and wasted several hours... managing to catch... none. Even finally decided to skip the weaklings like Akabey and focus on Gaia, but still no dice.

And don't get me started about Brawlers and Clean Hits. I expected that with the High Mastery Combat Instinct the chances to Clean Hit may become reasonable. Well currently at level 60ish my Brawler has Combat Instinct 60%ish, but it only ever helps A LITTLE if he actually rolls a 4-hit combo in the first place. Which is a paltry 12,5% chance. Times 60%, that is a 7,50% chance at my level.
Could be worse, but a Clean Hit only bestows a maximum chance of 4,41% chance for Contract success.

This leads to an overall success chance of 0,34%. Just how autistic does one have to be to succeed here?!

dunno, it usually takes me about 30-40 mins to catch gaia

 

[Haplo]

Well an hour later, success.
Only took me about 4 hours to catch my first 99% Summon Resist Floor Master.
Guess the RNG hates me.

On the other hand Gaia was totally a great choice. Buffed by the Blood Oath, he's the main damage dealer in my party, by far. Absolutely destroys most enemies, at least on the first 6 floors of the tower. Of course a Robuti or some such here and there helps a lot.

Am currently looking for better spears on floors 5-6 (especially a decent sub-spear). That's another case were luck hasn't been kind so far.

My Valkyrie is missing Hand of Kindness... but on the other hand not having Swallow Killer would totally suck at the Tower. Everyone and their mother Swallow Returns on the first 5 floors... seems like sometimes against a different target then attacked them (maybe when Gaia is hidden?).
On the other hand good news is that my own Samurai's Swallow Return can even trigger from counterattack attack chains (past the first one, I guess). Nue is truely a master disabler. And Bracing apparently breaks any attack chain before it can kill.

 

[aweigh]

i seem to remember the game's best sub-spear, the God Slayer, being available as a rare drop from the lower levels of the cave of the ancients because I always reached the tower with it already.

at any rate i can guarantee you the god slayer does not drop in the first 5 floors.

 

[Haplo]

According to the Japanese wiki, it does drop on the 5th floor as a rare drop and on the 6th as an uncommon drop.

 

[Haplo]

Aweigh,

I'm starting to believe the RNG really hates me.
Been farming levels 5 & 6 for a while and got lots of Malte, Romulus, some Lon, Gungnir and even one Amenohoukan. No God Slayer though.

Nice Sapphire and Black Lacquered helmets though. And somewhat decent robes. And tons of other junk and Talismans.

I've confronted the files you've extracted and it seems the wiki is partially correct: God Slayer only drops on floor 6 though. Eh, off to more grinding.
Hope the Dark Claws will give me less trouble at least.

The whole grinding for gear and for summons is starting to wear me down. That's one aspect of the game I don't really like. I mean sure, it's optional... but things cannot be unseen.

Will prolly limit my summoning contract efforts though. To 1-2, max 3 more Ibag Tower denizens. Definitely ones without Restore EX Skill. Wonder if Belial and Stargazers have it. Trying to capture a Skillving was pure masochism.

 

[Gunnar]

My two cents Haplo, you don't need to grind for gear, really. Every time you enter the tower, push as far as you can and then get out, the gear will come to you. God Slayer dropped a bunch of times for me, I never did any grinding for loot. The Amenohoukan only ever dropped once for me, sounds like you've already been lucky with the drops there.

 

[Haplo]

Thank you Gunnar.

But according to the spreadsheet, GodSlayer will only drop on floor 6. Dark Claws on floor 8. Once I break through those floors and leave, I won't find them.
At least after I activate the elevator for floor 10.

I don't plan to grind for armor and accessories. Well maybe for a Light/Rainbow Talisman or something, IDK.
But these 2 are pretty vital for the combat effectiveness of my characters.

 

[Gunnar]

I went through 99% of the game without realizing my Valkyrie could equip a secondary spear I found the Godslayer in the store where I had sold it. you don't need it, really, but I hear where you're coming from. What weapon does your Brawler have right now? Blue Gale? I never found a light or rainbow seal in the tower at all.

 

[jungl]

Still don't know how they could fuck up this elminage so bad compared to original. Gold useless. Overpowered and useless classes. few non generic items to farm. map item. no rival party that grows in power with yours.

What they added more maps and pointless difficulty that goes away immediately when the player grinds alchemy mats.

 

[Haplo]

I went through 99% of the game without realizing my Valkyrie could equip a secondary spear I found the Godslayer in the store where I had sold it. you don't need it, really, but I hear where you're coming from. What weapon does your Brawler have right now? Blue Gale? I never found a light or rainbow seal in the tower at all.

My Brawler still uses The World. Sometimes Aura Punch for some high AC God-type targets. His due for an upgrade and Dark Claws should be pretty solid.
Blue Gale is a Spear, I think?

 

[Gunnar]

I went through 99% of the game without realizing my Valkyrie could equip a secondary spear I found the Godslayer in the store where I had sold it. you don't need it, really, but I hear where you're coming from. What weapon does your Brawler have right now? Blue Gale? I never found a light or rainbow seal in the tower at all.

My Brawler still uses The World. Sometimes Aura Punch for some high AC God-type targets. His due for an upgrade and Dark Claws should be pretty solid.
Blue Gale is a Spear, I think?

I might have the name wrong, it's a 'Blue' knuckle though that I received before I got Dark Claws. Yeah if you're still using World you probably need that upgrade way more than a secondary spear.

 

[Haplo]

Found the Dark Claws. And actually I'm a bit dissapointed. The damage difference between a The World +5 and them is pretty minor. Well at least I can enchant them to do double damage to Gods or something. Or add+5 base damage.. Hmmm...

 

[Haplo]

And I finally got rid of the 90% malus on Charm and Confusion resistance.

 

[Haplo]

Finally! GodSlayer!
Actually 2 of them... which is good, as my Samurai can use it as well.
Triple damage vs Gods... sweet! Although no ToHit bonus. And must remove gear which gives a + to Gods (+50%) to benefit from triple damage.
I wonder if that's a bug or intentional. In all other cases, the best bonus prevails.. but in case of racial damage bonuses - the weakest dominates.

 

[aweigh]

Haplo sorry for not checking the thread past weeks.

yeah the japanese wiki can be misleading in the sense that a rare weapon can drop 1 out of 20 chests or 3 times out of 20 chests. if you do the % math that comes out to a huge difference in probability of getting said item, however both are still "rare".

and what Gunnar says is true: don't stress over rare shit. there is soooo much gear in this game that filling out the item book (704 fucking items listed in the spreadsheet, btw) is one of the those things where only high degree autism will accomplish.

i've never done it, in any of the 4 elminage games (thankfully the best 2 of them being in english!), and i've sunk in literally around +2k hours spread over all 4 games, with around 700 of those hours on playthroughs w/ different parties of E: Gothic alone.

fuck, i didn't even snag a Poison Sword (rare drop, L-ranged Ninja sword. yes, an L-ranged sword) until like, my 3rd party playthrough of Gothic on PC.

hehe, instead of obsessing over not getting a specific weapon try "taking a break" from Ibag's Tower by playing Elminage Original (for PSP/NDS/3DS "roms" I use a website called Nico Blog, just google it, I can assure you I have never gotten a bad file from Nico's site) and download PPSSPP and just start a playthrough of Original since I assume you haven't.

Ibag's Tower is no joke, it can literally take more time to clear than the entirety of the game's previous content and there's nothing wrong with taking a break.

E: Original is an incredibly different experience with pros and cons, but one thing that is the same in either of the 2 english-lang elminage games is the sheer masterful itemization.

There is simply no other RPG studio out there, let alone "DRPG", that rivals Starfish Studio's skill in itemization and competent-to-great dungeon design mixed with unapologetic straight-up old-school Wizardry blueprint design in terms of party building, class balancing and encounter design.

E: Original is also much shorter than E: Gothic and its atmosphere is WILDLY different and plays much more like a more traditional fantasy-themed RPG adventure. I still consider Original's opening dungeon one of the best examples of how to design a perfect "tutorial dungeon". It also features actual puzzles in several dungeons that go far, far beyond the navigational puzzles present in Gothic.

Some people like that, some don't. I'm the type that can appreciate a good Adventure Game style puzzle (such as E: Original's "Tarot Card Puzzle" in the 1st floor of the Parthenes dungeon, which actually required me to check a wiki for the solution), but much rather play the "navigational type" puzzles in Gothic which are more reminiscent of Wizardry 1-3, such as for example the Royal Tomb and the Ice Cave.

(Wiz 4 introduced tons of Adventure Game-style puzzles and in fact, the entire game is one huge puzzle in order to unlock the true ending, and quite frankly it is probably the most difficult puzzle/DRPG hybrid anyone will ever play; Wizardry 5 however, due to the immense backlash due to the difficulty of the of the puzzles in 4, decided to tone it way the fuck down and has a healthy mix of adventure-puzzles and navigation-puzzles... which is why many, myself included, consider Wiz 5 the definitive Wizardry experience).

---------------------

Now, if you don't feel like playing E: Original right now, for whatever reason, (do it!), then I also highly, highly suggest giving a chance to:

- PS1 version of Wizardry 5. Wiz 5 is the literal blueprint for ALL Elminage games and when/if you play it you will realize: "HOLY SHIT, WIZ 5 IS PROTO-ELMINAGE".

And I DEFINITELY and WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend making time for Wizardry Empire 2: Legacy of the Princess, whose .iso is available (uploaded by both myself and helly) on THE ISO ZONE. If for whatever reason you're squeamish about this sort of thing, this one is abandonware and was never released in English.

Only reason we can play this MASTERPIECE of a DRPG is thanks to codex members MrRichard999 and Helly who translated this gem.

Wizardry Empire 2 was Starfish Studio's 2nd attempt at making a wizardry game (they made a 3rd one for PS2/PSP-only and then the license fell through, and thus they had to make their own shit and that is how Elminage was born).

And Empire 2 frankly features the absolute best dungeon design I have yet experienced in any turn-based crawler. To me, Wiz Emp 2 is the epitome the kind of game a Studio puts out once every ten years, and it is truly Starfish Studio's MASTERPIECE.

E: Gothic, which came out 13 years later, is Starfish's 2nd best DRPG, although it is definitely more replayable sinec, obviously, they learned a LOT.

Seriously, fucking play Wiz Empire 2 man. If Wiz-5 is "proto-Elminage" then Wiz empire 2 is "Elminage-in-Disguise". Same races even!

SERIOUSLY BRO, PLAY WIZARDRY EMPIRE 2.

 

[aweigh]

Also, the best dungeon ever, Cave of the Ancients, is filled to the brim with fan-service references to Wizardry Empire 1 and 2 (Emp 3 took a 100 year time-jump and wan't made by the same Starfish in-house team that did the first two).

I played E: Gothic first and loved the aesthetic of CotA, and its music, and I found the NPCs inside to be great "Wizardry throwbacks", but then afterwards I played through the english-translation of Empire 2 and then few months later reached CotA again with that playthrough's party and suddenly I got every single reference made by the NPCs inside the cave.

It was like playing it for the first time ever. You can really tell how much Starfish loves Wizardry, and it shines through brighter than ever in their Cave of the Ancients.

 

[Haplo]

aweigh,

Thank you for your recommendations. Will probably get around to trying Elminage Original, eventually. Though lack of Ex Skills will probably feel like a downgrade (well, actually its simply older, but...).
Maybe also Empire II... someday. But let's finish Gothic first and do this one by one.
With some other... distractions thrown between.

For now I've managed to unlock the 10th Floor elevator. Took me a while to find the switch, but fortunately the static encounters on this floor are easily avoidable.
The lowest "racial" damage modifier being applied must be a bug, no? Like + (+50%) overriding x2 and x3 modifiers.
It could be by design, but then items like the Black Lacquered Samurai Armor set pieces make little sense. All of them have damage modifiers, minimum "+" vs all adventurer sub-type ("race") enemies (like Fighter, Mage, Thief, Cleric). And each piece has x2 modifier vs one of those sub-types. But the way the game currently works, if you equip two or more Black Lacquered armor pieces, their major x2 damage modifiers will get overwritten by the "+" modifiers.