Part 3: Update II - Featuring: Video games in my video games (and still no dragons)
Update II - Featuring: Video games in my video games (and still no dragons)
Doesn't the font look so much better now?
The mysterious shadow lady agrees with me!
God Hand got the most votes, so Opal shall be our new protagonist.
Temp had an unfortunate mishap with a time machine and ended up killing his own grandfather, annihilating him from the timeline.
We're now fully caught up, but first...
I forgot to talk to these people outside.
Careful Gamer: My stats are kinda low... I should learn some kind of defensive skill and approach it more carefully...
~
Confident Gamer: Make sure you heal yourself if you get hurt! You gotta go for the offensive strategy! You're using attack skills, right?
~
Annoyed Passerby: *sigh* Why is it always someone else who wins things? Why didn't I win one of those tickets? I guess it's all about connections... Man... I'd love to get a chance to go in there...
I can't talk to the doll, however.
But it turns to face you when you get close.
...
I swear to god if that thing turns out to be the soul of Chucky's childhood rabbit or something I am canceling my Nodens Online subscription.
Music: UE77 In Ariake
Anyways! New party members!
We got ourselves a Samurai.
And a Duelist. Sorry Agent, you're just a few thousand years too early to join this party!
The Party menu in the Terminal lets you shuffle your people around.
The fact that we have a 1st Team implies that we'll be getting more teams down the line.
You can also change who your Leader is.
Story-wise, whoever you have set as Leader is considered to have always been the Leader. If Inoue's the Leader, then Inoue retroactively becomes the one to have met Mio. This will get exactly as confusing as it sounds if you like to swap your Leader role around.
I'll just keep Opal as the Leader for now.
The Manage menu lets you mess with things.
Status gives the same screen you can get in the normal menu.
While Change is a bit awkwardly worded.
It lets you redo a character's look, voice, and name whenever you want, but they'll stay as whatever class they were made as originally.
Class is the actual respec, but requires a few levels under your belt before you can use it. It also gives a stat boost based on what class you're leaving.
Delete is self-explanitory.
The gang's all here!
Time to play some video games.
Music: UE77 In Ariake
For the first dungeon, we're going back to the previous game.
Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals
As a nice little touch, every time you change zones while in 7th Encount it'll throw up this screen filter for a second.
Alright, leave the navigation to me. I skimmed through the manual, so I should be OK! Um... Our mission is: “Defeat the looming monsters and liberate the Skytower!” A battle will start once you encounter a monster, so be careful.
There are two colors of light: blue and green. The blue one only saves, while green also heals.
Hm... I think that just about covers it. Let's take a look at the map and head up the tower!
We then get a quick minimap tutorial.
Repetitive Man: Apparently you subconsciously start throwing them away if you try and pick up more than 15... You can put an item back if you get it from a chest, but you can't give a gift back to a person!
Wise Gamer: Each one has a different set of skills, so be mindful of which weapon type you choose. You might already have both types if you have a Samurai on your team. Check your inventory!
~
Sophisticated Gamer: I watched as an inferior player got a game over earlier. He didn't know the difference between Swords and Dual Blades, and that ignorance ended him. I suppose you could say he learned the importance of weapon choice firsthand. You be careful.
Annoyingly, VFD only allows for three save slots.
The floating green diamond is an exit spot.
Like in 2020-II, we start the game with the Enemy Radar in the top left, albeit slimmed down to make up for the smaller screen size of the 3DS.
And dungeon maps still need to be filled in by hand.
But first, let's check what everyone can do.
For Opal, Jab is a weak but instant move that inflicts God Depth, setting up her better moves. Front Punch needs 1 Depth and hits harder. Quartetto needs at least 2 Depth, gets a damage bonus with 3, and clears all G-Depth on the target after attacking. Chiropractic is a single target heal, and Detox currently cures Poison, Burn, and Paralysis.
An important thing to note is that all of the God Hand's healing moves are exclusively single target, making items a more reliable choice for party aid.
I actually find it an interesting design decision. The actual dedicated healer class is unlocked late in the game, so instead some classes can do some healing work, but nothing on the level of 7D1's Healer or 2020s Psychic. A God Hand has their heals, but those can't help the party, plus a turn spent healing is a turn spent not exploiting any G-Depth you've inflicted.
Agent also starts with Trickster's Trick Hand to boost item effectiveness for the entire party, so unless you intentionally double up on classes you'll always have some way to boost your healing early on.
Inoue, uh, hits things. The single sword skill hits random enemies, the dual sword skill deals effective damage vs fliers, and she can heal herself in a pinch. That's it. Since you can't swap weapons mid-fight, she effectively has just 2 skills starting out.
Meanwhile Yuno is... yeah. Three monsters, two traps, a draw, and a continuous spell all from the word go.
And while Agent got the short straw and won't be joining us today, I still want to point out their starting skills:
Because I consider their initial skills to be a shining example of the powercreep we'll be seeing.
Like, Hack in the 2020s? Was a Tier 2 skill, so you had to go the first dungeon or two before you could actually hack stuff. You start with it in VFD. Hack as an actual skill in the 2020s? Single target, and the multi-target Hack All caps out at half the proc chance. Hack as a skill in VFD?
Hits everything, with the exact same proc chance of the original Hack! And that scapegoat.exe?
In the 2020s this was called noiztank.exe, and was a Tier 2 skill in 2020-II and a Tier 3 in 2020! Here you just get it instantly!
But wait, it gets worse!
code:
Lv1: 1x damage. 10% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 1500 SP.
Lv2: 1.1x damage. 11% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 2000 SP.
Lv3: 1.2x damage. 12% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 3000 SP.
Lv4: 1.3x damage. 13% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 4000 SP.
Lv5: 1.5x damage. 15% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 5000 SP.code:
Lv1: 2.1x damage multiplier. 10% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Initial skill.
Lv2: 2.4x damage multiplier. 11% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 500 SP.
Lv3: 2.7x damage multiplier. 12% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 1200 SP.
Lv4: 2.9x damage multiplier. 13% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 2500 SP.
Lv5: 3.2x damage multiplier. 15% of damage dealt as Mana restore. Costs 5000 SP.And again, Agent starts with this! The 2020s were incredibly stingy with easy sources of Mana healing and VFD just gives it to you with no fuss!
This is just the beginning. We haven't even scratched the surface of the powercreep.
Moving on, Samurai get to start with a free sword of each type, like the gamers outside said.
The starter twin blades are stronger, and they have a better skill, so Inoue will be use them for now.
Mana Water heals 15 Mana, as the name suggests.
Now, those of you familiar with the older games might find this layout a bit familar, and there's a good reason for that!
That's because this is pretty much entirely reused from 2020-II!
Like, I want to make this perfectly clear: The very first dungeon in VFD is asset reuse. We're not even 10 minutes into the game yet.
Music: Battlefield - UE77
Anyways, fight time!
Our first victims are a Rabi and a Blue Grass. The Rabi hits things and the Blue Grass can go for paralysis.
You can also see Yuno's starting hand. A Duelist starts with two cards, going up to four by leveling Draw Bonus, but doesn't draw a card on turn one. If she draws a card while at her hand cap of six, the leftmost card is automatically discarded to make room.
Opal jabs.
Inoue swings.
While Yuno's locked out of most of her moves. Her Summons only need one card of their matching type, while the Traps need two different cards. In the event she gets a dead hand, she can use
Effective damage is strong.
Music: Finish Them Off
...how are we getting paid in a video game?
Mio, did you get us into a play-to-earn game?
Are we on the blockchain, Mio?
Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals
On we go!
I swear they boosted the encounter rate since 2020.
Yuno gets to try something now!
In the 2020s, Freeze cut enemy Speed by around 10% on top of the DoT it inflicts, which was kinda eh compared to cutting damage dealt and boosting damage taken with Burn.
Freeze got a bit of a buff in VFD.
By which I mean it now cuts Speed by 90%. If Freeze lands on someone, they're going last for the next several turns, end of discussion.
It was at this point I remembered those demo data accessories.
The Nagamimi Charm is a nice bit of starter gear. It makes you a bit stronger, a bit faster, and a bit more evasive.
Nothing in 7th Encount gives SP, but I give the SP Upper to Inoue in advance. She'll need the SP to fuel both her skill trees.
And Yuno gets what's left.
Also, despite not having the other four classes unlocked yet, their icons still show up in the gear menu.
Medi I heals a single target for 40 HP.
Yuno has a lot of stuff to show off!
Burn in VFD also got a buff since the 2020s, but theirs is a bit more intricate. Back then, Burn directly modified the final damage going in or out. Now, Burn directly cuts ATK, MAT, DEF, and MDF by 10%. As it takes place earlier in the damage calculations, it has a bigger impact on the final result.
Everyone gets their first level. Leveling gives a full HP/MN heal, which goes a long way in dungeon crawls.
The place is extremely messed up, as you'd expect from a dragon's nest.
And yes, we will be taking all these items into the real world with us. Don't question it.
Escape Kits let us instantly flee the dungeon we're in.
And that's the first floor cleared!
Heal Aloes are party heals. In the other games they were called Heal Aeros, as in aerosol, but I guess we're just lugging around a family-sized bottle of aloe vera with us now.
Music: Battlefield - UE77
Oh hey, three enemies and a hand full of Fire cards!
I have just the thing!
At first
But at the end of the turn, all enemies take a small hit of fire damage.
One of the changes made to VFD is that all skills can now crit without needing it as an explicit property, which gets a bit funny with AOE attacks. It only rolls the crit once, so every enemy gets crit at the same time.
Now, that barely tickled, but if I follow up by spending a Fire card...
Then the free hit is now much stronger, even without a crit.
Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals
Also, if you're wondering why I haven't shown the last summon yet.
Yuno has refused to draw a Lightning card for multiple battles, and fights this early on won't last long enough to last multiple turns.
Anyways, a heal point means something has to be up ahead.
I was right!
Pay attention to how much stamina you have left and fight carefully!Hey look,
Music: Battlefield - UE77
As you might expect from a flaming ghost named Hell Cloud that a Duelist can summon for fire damage, it resists fire.
You may have also noticed that Yuno only has Fire cards in her starting hand.
Welcome to Duelist.
Thankfully, I have a solution for that.
Despite Mio's warnings, the Hell Cloud is only slightly stronger than the mobs we've faced so far.
Although it does have the same attack it uses when summoned! Granted, the Hell Cloud's attack hits everyone instead of one target like ours, but still.
...son of a bitch did you draw another Fire card!?
And then another one next turn!?
I don't even care that you haven't used the Lightning summon yet, Opal is getting the kill for that.
Music: None
???: Is her prediction already coming true...? Hmph... Not bad. Time to give them a real test. They'd better not let me down!
Well that wasn't ominous at a-
Why are there suddenly robots???
Next time: Have you ever seen The Last Starfighter?