Rudras is proving to be interesting and confounding. I've discovered a number of interesting things so far. Right off the bat, I found what are clearly some of the best spells in the game: NIHILIST does massive light damage to all enemies and has a very epic animation. RUDRA does similar damage to a single target for half the cost. After some experimenting, the hint I got from a dungeon revealed that REEM increases magic defense, and can be combined with elements to create specific elemental defenses. IG is the base fire word for example (though FIRE also works, has the exact same cost and effect and combines with the same suffixes), so IGREEM creates fire defense. However, while NA is the generic means of making things hit all (NAREEM is magic defense for all for example, and IGNA is fire damage to all for cheap) IGU is shorter, but produces a fire all attack of significantly more power. Likewise, AQU is the water base, bit AQUA does a water attack vs all for a lot more damage. IGUREEM and AQUAREEM also create elemental barriers for all the way IGNAREEM does, but cost a lot more. But just jamming in random letters doesn't do anything helpful. IGJNAREEM for example, goes back to single target fire protection. So clearly it's taking the high powered IGU as it's own word and combining with the magic defense base. However, ANGEL produces a powerful light attack with a unique animation, and HEAVEN does as well (a similar theme but with multiple targets) but ANGELREEM is just gibberish. There was also an enemy spell, RANIHIMEL that cost a measely 4 MP and produces a weak non elemental multi target attack. To make things even weirder, some combos don't produce proper animations, and just make text float across the screen. WAR is an example of this. There are also very small spells that are inexplicably powerful, like OD being a strong lightning attack vs all. Which I actually discovered by trying ODIN first and dicking around. ODIN gave a stronger lightning attack vs all with a totally different animation. To confuse me even more, One of the suffixes enemies/item spells seem to use is NATES. NATES by itself is a non elemental attack all spell. But TES is a wind attack vs all (and fairly strong to boot) possibly the wind equivalent of IGU to IG, but TES is the same length as TEO, which is kinda weird. At any rate, IGU and IGUNATES have the same animations, while IGNATES is cheaper than either and looks different. Further, I just discovered a base for light elementals, STAR, STARNATES however, is cheaper than STARTES. And STARTES is single target only. And now I've found HOLY is the light base, costing only one MP. But HOLYNATES costs more than STARNATES, even though STAR costs more than HOLY. And now I've just discovered HEAVEN does WAY less damage than STARNATES, even though the later costs only 1 MP more. Different scaling methods perhaps?
Overall, I'm having a ton of fun. They must have done insane amounts of work to translate all this stuff. I was ecstatic when I found out HEAVEN was a special spell, and so was HELL and ANGEL. VAMPIRE steals life, DEATH is an instant kill. And BLADE is a water elemental attack vs all with a chance of freezing, which implies room for improvement even on really powerful spells by adding status effects.
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(was stuck for a while on a first chapter mission).
