Part 24: Mini Update: Force Skills

Mini Update: Force Skills

: You know, maybe we should have brought that Protector guy with us you know? He's supposed protect us from getting hurt, right?

: Well, I tried to get him to come along, but...

: When we told him about what happened to you, he just laughed until he fell over and said he was too busy. He did ask me to tell him how many more times you get knocked out.

: Uuuuggghhhhh.

We're gonna take a look at Force Skills, and what they're capable of. But first, let's finish up that quest.



When you get all the items needed for a quest, the game will let you know. Be careful not to sell them to the store by accident. It took until the 4th game for it to start warning you about that.

PC-88 Version



Force Skills can be unleashed once that force meter fills up. It takes 100 points of Force to fill up the Force meter. A popular tactic in the first game was to prepare for a boss battle by building up boost by blazing through battles, and running away from all encounters until the party reached the boss. It can still be done here, but Force builds up a lot slower than Boost did in EO1. Atlus also made it so that you lose some Force points when running away, meaning you need to commit to most the fights you get into to keep the Force. Here's the exact ways to earn and lose Force.

-Defending, using a skill, attacking an enemy, taking damage from an enemy, killing an enemy: +2
-Using the attack command: +1
-Using an item, switching, dodging an attack, attempting to escape: +0
-Successfully escaping: -5

If a character dies, they'll lose all their force. So try not to have that happen. A way to grind for force is to get into a battle with a weak enemy, and just have everyone defend, and hold down the A button for a few minutes. There are a few ways to gain Force faster, but we won't have access to those for a long while.

: All of a sudden I feel like doing this move...



When the Force meter is full, the class can access the move from the skills menu.

: THE PIPES ARE BROKEN!



Issen hits all enemies on the field for a massive amount of damage, and has a 50% chance to instantly kill each one.

: Hmm, impressive. Now which comic book did you learn that from?

: Actually it was from this-

: Who cares? Anyways, check this out! Those Hedgehogs won't be able to do a damn thing to me once I'm done with them!



: DOMINATED, twinkle-toes!





: Not so tough now, are you!?

: Are you that afraid of Hedgehogs?

: Do you know how vicious those things are!?

Dominate completely binds an enemy. Head, arms, and legs are all sealed away. This can make some enemies sitting ducks since they won't be able to use their most threatening moves most of the time. The best part about Dominate? It works on everything. Nothing in the game is immune to it. Regular mook? FOE? Boss? Dominate will completely bind them. It doesn't even care if the enemy in question is really resistant to binds or even immune to them. Dominate will land every time it's used. The downside is that Dominate has a really low speed modifier, so it tends to go last in a turn. But the enemy is guaranteed to be practically helpless the next turn.



: YOU WILL SUFFER!



:

: Note to self: don't piss off the girl.

Caprice attempts to inflict every single status effect in the game at once on all the enemies. But status effects cannot stack with each other, with the exception of stun. For example, an enemy cannot be poisoned and blind at the same time. If you try to inflict poison on a blind enemy, it will overwrite the blind effect. This also applies to our party. Because of that, this force skill uses a priority system to determine which status effects get inflicted on the enemies, with the more deadly ones such as instant death being checked for first, and minor inconveniences such as blind, last. If the status effect doesn't land, it moves onto the next one. If poison is the status effect chosen, it will deal 350 damage per turn, which is stronger than a max level Poison skill. For the record, status effects and binds can stack, so you don't have to worry about that.

Video: Riot Gun

I ended up doing a video for the next one. I tried capturing Fedot's Force Skill in a GIF, but it ended up losing some frames which made it look a lot less impressive. Also you get to see some gameplay this way.



: Hope this works. Ready... Aim... FIRE!



What Riot Gun does is hit a single enemy for massive damage, and is a guaranteed stun on an enemy. Like Dominate, this also works on everything, but more because nothing in the game is immune to stun. Riot Gun is the only guaranteed stunning skill. It has a pretty high speed modifier to make up for the Gunner's slow speed, so it tends to go before the enemy does. You can use this to safely set up a Dominate as well.

: Hey gramps, mind healing us up? I don't wanna get taken out again.

: Hold on for a second. Now how did that work again?



: All are healed!



Invoke fully heals the party and gives them a buff that makes them resistant to elemental attacks. However, unlike the Medic's and Beast's Force Skills, Invoke cannot revive party members or heal status effects.



The party gets another level up here. I take another point in Dead Law for Ken. Whips for Nick, which unlocked Climax. Regenall for Frederik. Fedot has learned Medishot, and Aliara took another level in Poison. Now let's turn in that quest.

PC-88 Version



: Now that were fast! Lessee here... One, two, three! Here's the reward for yeh.



We get a nice amount of money. I restock on supplies and rest up my party here. Now if you think Force Skills sound completely and utterly broken, you would be right. Force Skills can utterly destroy the difficulty of some battles if they're used right. In fact some strategies for dealing with the post game bosses revolve around using these. I will refrain from using them in this Let's Play. Mainly because force grinding is pretty boring for me, and you can beat the game without them. I do want to play fair with this game, and it would be boring to watch something like a boss get obliterated within 2 turns without it getting a chance to move. Well for the main story anyway. When the post game comes around, all bets are off. Still, the nice thing about them is that they can provide a way out, if you're stuck on a boss, and your various strategies and party compositions aren't working.