Toughest Battle in an rpg!

denizsi · Apr 25, 2009

Gotta love the age demographic of Codex. 5 pages so far and 4 out of 5 posts, name either Infinity Engine game for toughest battle in an RPG. AN IE GAME FOR FUCK'S SAKE! You playing like a moron and dying doesn't equate to toughest battle. Fuck you Codex, and die.

No surprise that 10 years from now, people, Codexers, will be mentioning Oblivion and Fallout 3 on the subject of toughest battles in RPGs.

Fyz · Apr 25, 2009

Annie Carlson said:
There was one boss - not even a major one, just a midlevel scrub boss - in Persona 3 that was insanely, cheaply, stupidly hard. I was certain there was some sort of technique or trick I was missing, and eventually gave up and looked online... And walkthroughs all said "Nope, there's nothing you can do. You just have to beat on the fucker until he dies." The battle wasn't even interesting - just 30 minutes of smack-smack-heal-smack-rez-smack-smack-DIE ALREADY-smack-heal-smack-etc. Other bosses were way better - I have no idea what the hell was up with that unbalanced motherfucker.

Was that the sleeping table by any chance? That was one damn annoying fight. Next one my list were the 3 hell knights.

Damned Registrations · Apr 25, 2009

I stopped playing because of the first fight with the jesus looking guy. I didn't really feel like either fighting him another 5 hours hoping to get the right combination of critical hits and dodges to win, or grinding in the tower for another 3-6 hours for healing items and an extra 2-5% power so I might win with another 3 hours of fighting. The combat in that game was stupidly unbalanced. Everything with a weakness is helpeless. Otherwise, it just boils down to stats and luck, with no strategy involved at all. Buffs and debuffs are worthless. Blech.

Jasede · Apr 25, 2009

DamnedRegistrations said:
I stopped playing because of the first fight with the jesus looking guy. I didn't really feel like either fighting him another 5 hours hoping to get the right combination of critical hits and dodges to win, or grinding in the tower for another 3-6 hours for healing items and an extra 2-5% power so I might win with another 3 hours of fighting. The combat in that game was stupidly unbalanced. Everything with a weakness is helpeless. Otherwise, it just boils down to stats and luck, with no strategy involved at all. Buffs and debuffs are worthless. Blech.

o.O
They're the only thing keeping me alive on Hard. Persona 4 on Hard is a /lot/ easier than this one...

Fat Dragon · Apr 26, 2009

Most of my toughest battles were with just some random enemies in a random encounter rather than against some boss NPC.

I remember getting raped many many times in Wizardry 4's Cosmic Cube level, that place was a motherfucking son of a bitch to clear. Mapping the damned place was already enough of a nightmare, but the enemies turn it into hell. The Maze of Wandering was no walk in the park either, goddamn. The game is a fucking beast, the most punishing RPG I've ever played. Even just one little fuck up and you're dead.

The battles you encounter during the last hour of Wizard's Crown were pretty damned hard too, that final long trek back to town was un-fucking-believable for me. I remember trying desperately to make it back to town with the crown while extremely low on healing supplies with half of my party already injured, and with every encounter I came just that much closer to a game over (encounters can take forever too). I barely made it home. Good fucking times.

I tried one of those Persona games some of you have mentioned, didn't like them myself. Music was awful imo, dungeon crawling was just plain old bad and that loli girl that never shuts the fuck up in combat (which is simple and boring) annoyed me so much I quit the game. Fuck it.

Jasede · Apr 26, 2009

I got Persona 3 after 4 and the during-combat talking is terrible, just terrible. Turning the sound off is perhaps the best option; an even better option is not to play it.

---

Y-. you cleared the Cosmic Cube on you own, alone, and without any internet sources? For real? I think the true master reveals himself...

Fat Dragon · Apr 26, 2009

Jasede said:
Y-. you cleared the Cosmic Cube on you own, alone, and without any internet sources? For real? I think the true master reveals himself...

I had some help. One of friends at that time was also at that part so we worked together on it. Took us weeks and we sweat blood, shit, and life essence mapping the place but goddammit we made it through finally. No internet sources though, the area we lived in didn't have access back then. Hard as bitch but I consider it one of the greatest and funnest times I've ever had with a video game.

Admiral Rimjob POOBUM · Apr 26, 2009

I got up to the "Intrepid Knight" in P3, some wank who spammed OHKO wind attacks on my main character. Realised I would have to grind up a few levels to beat it. Realised the game was horribly shitty and I had no desire to do so. Stopped playing forever.

Fyz · Apr 26, 2009

I've just beaten P3 a few days ago, and the only grinding i did was for my party to get all their skills for the end boss fight.
Something I could have avoided with proper planing during my playthrough.
After beating the end boss, which I've found she nothing special compared to other fights like to stupid table or the Hanged Man full moon boss.
All you need is to find the proper persona/tactic for every fight. A good persone can make a huge difference. For example Titania, a healing persona with divine grace (doubles healed amount) could be used from the moment you can fuse her, at l48 till the end boss fight. Being able to fully heal your party with a cheap spell every turn makes the game much easier.
Of course there were some very annoying battles and although some of them were random, with proper planing everything was beatable without grinding.

Also, I really liked the soundtrack, it's probably my favourite one on par with Torment's. Fuuka's voice couldn't be more annoying tho.

Jasede · Apr 26, 2009

Were you playing on Hard? Hard mode simply doubles all damage you receive, and some other bad things.

Fyz · Apr 26, 2009

No, I've played on Normal. I was told that the Answer much harder then The journey, so I wanted to get the hang of the game on normal first. I might try The journey on hard sometime, but I'd like to finish the answer and ff12 before that.
Double damage sounds like a bitch tho.

Jasede · Apr 26, 2009

Status affects hit you more often, you hit much less often, and good luck tailoring a persona with specific abilities and resistances for boss fights: the summon cost of the personas is increased by the factor 4, so what cost 25K before now costs 100K.

And The Answer is playing automatically in this Hard mode, enjoy.

Zyrxil · Apr 26, 2009

Elwro said:
Jaesun said:

Ironically, before TotSC came out, the pre-patched BG1 with Saervock was a cakewalk. Just summon Kobolds, and they will kill him fast with normal missiles.

Click to expand...

After TotSC you just summon as many critters as you can to keep everyone occupied, and then use Kivan to snipe the bad guy.

But without Kivan - no, I don't know what to do :D

I remember the first time playing BG1, not really understanding wtf I was doing with regards to the D&D system or character building or even effective spell use. I was getting slaughtered against Saverok and realized I had a bunch of full charge Wand of Monster Summoning Is lying around never used in my inventories. I must have used them around fifty times, the screen was just filled with lvl 3 critters that'd get killed by the dozens every 30 seconds, but they just kept taking 1 hp off Saverok now and then until he went down. Death by corpse drowning.

Fyz · Apr 26, 2009

Jasede said:
Status affects hit you more often, you hit much less often, and good luck tailoring a persona with specific abilities and resistances for boss fights: the summon cost of the personas is increased by the factor 4, so what cost 25K before now costs 100K.

And The Answer is playing automatically in this Hard mode, enjoy.

Sounds like a good challenge

BearBomber · Apr 26, 2009

Fyz said:
Annie Carlson said:

There was one boss - not even a major one, just a midlevel scrub boss - in Persona 3 that was insanely, cheaply, stupidly hard. I was certain there was some sort of technique or trick I was missing, and eventually gave up and looked online... And walkthroughs all said "Nope, there's nothing you can do. You just have to beat on the fucker until he dies." The battle wasn't even interesting - just 30 minutes of smack-smack-heal-smack-rez-smack-smack-DIE ALREADY-smack-heal-smack-etc. Other bosses were way better - I have no idea what the hell was up with that unbalanced motherfucker.

Click to expand...

Was that the sleeping table by any chance? That was one damn annoying fight. Next one my list were the 3 hell knights.

>>>Did the girl heal herself by shooting in her own face? WTF?

Carlos' Bitch1 · Apr 26, 2009

Dragon Wars takes many a cake. Whether it be battling the Kingshome army at Byzanople, or even killing the Pirates, the game was full of combat where you never really thought you could win, but somehow did. Eventually. Never came across a game that, without spawning endless masses of trash, has tough, one off battles like DW. Brilliant game.

Fountain of Dreams. An atrocious game that dared to call itself a sequel to Wasteland. While Wasteland had plenty of excellent, tough combat in it, FoD had almost impossible, mass spawning combat that killed the game.

PoD probably takes 1st prize though. The final battle was...terribly hard.

deuxhero · May 11, 2009

Admiral jimbob said:
I got up to the "Intrepid Knight" in P3, some wank who spammed OHKO wind attacks on my main character. Realised I would have to grind up a few levels to beat it. Realised the game was horribly shitty and I had no desire to do so. Stopped playing forever.

Persona 3? Ha, try Persona 4's "Mitsuo's Shadow". He has something like 2000 hp, but constantly gives himself 1400 hp you need to grind threw to hurt him proper and he has skills that will randomly insta kill the MC and give you a gameover. Horribly deisgned fight there.

BearBomber said:
Fyz said:

Annie Carlson said:

There was one boss - not even a major one, just a midlevel scrub boss - in Persona 3 that was insanely, cheaply, stupidly hard. I was certain there was some sort of technique or trick I was missing, and eventually gave up and looked online... And walkthroughs all said "Nope, there's nothing you can do. You just have to beat on the fucker until he dies." The battle wasn't even interesting - just 30 minutes of smack-smack-heal-smack-rez-smack-smack-DIE ALREADY-smack-heal-smack-etc. Other bosses were way better - I have no idea what the hell was up with that unbalanced motherfucker.

Click to expand...

Was that the sleeping table by any chance? That was one damn annoying fight. Next one my list were the 3 hell knights.

Click to expand...

>>>Did the girl heal herself by shooting in her own face? WTF?

The way I understand it is in Persona 3, Persona are summoned (for skill use, including healing ones) by using the vaguly gun like evokers. Hence the meme "Summon(ing) your Persona"

Annie Mitsoda · May 11, 2009

Oh god, good point - Mitsuo's Shadow, for those of you who don't know, has a form WITHIN a form - you need to destroy one to hurt the real form. And you can't stop that dick from reforming it. You just need to make sure you've got your attacks PRIMED for when you can make that fucker just HAVE IT. Attack and To-Hit boosted Chie can ruin his day PROPER-like, though. Actually, Chie can ruin just about any enemy's day. One of my favorite game characters, she is.

That fight took a long time and was annoying, and a little unbalanced, but to me it was the only one in P4 I can recall that seemed off like that.

And yes, the shooting was part of Persona 3. Fit with the theme, actually - death and apathy and having some of the characters with survivor guilt and such. I'm a little sad that Persona 4 didn't have such a compelling and... well, unsettling visual method to summon their personas.

Also, Final Fantasy Tactics: FUCK YOU, WIEGRAF. Most unbalanced fucking fight in just about ever. To the point when people will level up with specialized character builds just to beat him in an all-of-a-sudden, counter-to-previous-experience, one-on-one battle when just about every other fight EVER is team-based. A sour note in an otherwise sweet song.

Jasede · May 11, 2009

Here's a post about how great I am, who doesn't love those?

Persona 4 on hard mode required me to grind twice, and twice only: Yukari's Shadow and Kanji's Shadow. I am sure you can win these battles on hard without too much grinding - for example, make Personas that give fire and physical resists, respectively. After that, on hard, there was no grinding required ever again - something that I really do appreciate. It reminds me of Final Fantasy 4 where, again, the only "grinding" you need is at the very, very start for maybe ten minutes, and when you turn a paladin for another ten, and then, if you can not defeat him, again for the last boss.

I think people who grind a lot in jRPG's are just doing it wrong - in general. I wouldn't call "don't flee from encounters while exploring" grinding either.

Persona 3 on hard, though.... I bought that game eight months ago and I haven't played more than 2 in-game months yet or so, simply because hard mode in that game is just suffocatingly harsh. I had to grind for every single mid-boss so far. The bosses themselves were easy, but getting there was not. I'll definitively say I find 3 a lot, a lot more harsh than 4.

Edit: Mitsuo didn't ever give me trouble. Are you using all the buffs and debuffs you can? I don't remember if there is, but if there is a haste spell, do use that too. And of course focus/mind charge, and some timing. I do think it's that kind of battle where you are supposed to lose on your first try.

Annie Mitsoda · May 11, 2009

Oh yeah. I never died from him, fucker just took me a long time is all.

And can I say that one thing I loved about P4 is that buffs and debuffs actually WORKED and were a compelling part of the gameplay instead of just a miss-fest? As in, they work for your PARTY, instead of just having their only function be to futilely attempt to undo a harsh debuff some bad guy slapped on yer doods.

<3 Rakunda. Right out the gate, you slap that on, power up one of your guys (Chie), use the rest of the round to raise everyone' defense (and/or lower the enemy's attack power with Tarunda), and in Round Two you do a powered-up physical attack that hits them so hard their FRIENDS feel it. That was a strategy I quite liked, indeed.

Jasede · May 11, 2009

Yeah, too bad I couldn't resist using Trumpeter for the last dungeons; he sure saved my bottom from grinding on Hard mode. All debuffs in 1 spell make the very, very best spell in P4!