Part 80: Challenges F

It's time for another set of Challenge Missions.



I had to rearrange the panels to accommodate the Glide (5) we just got. We barely have enough space for everything.

See the unlinked panels on the bottom right of the second page? Well, ALL of them fit to the LV Doubler we just got, but I'm not using them because it would mean we have 4 more empty panels just for one extra level. It's not worth it.



Since we're now going to do the challenges for Master rank missions, we have to get serious. That's why we stop our partners from attacking normally. This also stops our partners from using Limit, which leaves them with just magic and Mega-Potions.

I didn't mention it before, but the knockback from our partner's finishers can cause our own combo to miss. Also, they can sometimes hit a weakness with their magic. So everytime I complained about Xion using keyblade instead of magic? I could've solved that problem here.

My reason for not doing this before is that (for some reason) I thought I'll give this game a fair chance. And so I can show off the other Limits naturally.



On to the actual challenge, which is nothing new.



The Barrier Master dies very quickly.



Aeroga is still great



1:25. I don't think there's any more to be said here, really. Just do these timed challenges quickly and you'll be fine.



The main reason I put the Lite's Play in these updates is so that I wouldn't just say "do this mission again but faster" 70% of the time.



Challenge Mode is good for letting us try these mission from a different approach, at least in theory. In reality there's just too many of them to be interesting.



I can't think of any other defense to this mode, really.



We needed 200 Munny. At least this mission has us killing Dusks instead of avoiding them. That's certainly a change, right?

Don't bother killing the Samurais though. They have too much HP to be worthwhile.



Speaking of doing missions in a new way, doing them without magic would be interesting if the combo is interesting.

Weapons giving different combos is kinda interesting, but not being able to change them mid-mission devolves these kinds of challenge to no other choice but button mashing.



For example, normally we would've knocked these Dual Blades down and then hit them with Thundaga to kill them quickly. Now we're forced to attack manually.



At least Luxord try to help, which would've had more effect if Thundara doesn't suck.



3:05. Translation: The developers expected us to spend 2 minutes mashing attack and occasionally block/dodge. Great game design, guys



Now, you might think that the challenge here is to make the proper configuration and try to fit everything we need on the panels. I mean, that's the part of this game I repeatedly praised, right?



Well, normally, we have 2 choices: try to fit everything in or sacrifice something (item/magic/ability/level). We need to actually think to be able to fit everything, especially with those awkwardly-shaped panels.



However, with those restrictions in place, there's no need to actually sacrifice anything.

(By the way, we can now jump toward the cannons instead of having to use the barrels.)



Can't use cures? Swap it with Hi-Potions. Limited levels? Swap them with magic/items. Can't use attack magic? Swap them with items. Can't use items? Don't bother swapping anything.



To add another problem to this mode, there's neither any indication of the recommended levels nor the goals we need to pass.



The lack of recommended levels results in early challenges that are impossible for early levels. A.K.A. the challenges we tackled last update.



Without any guide, I wouldn't be able to tell you that the time limit here is 3:30.



Right, now that I vented about this mode, let's get right back to the regularly scheduled Lite's Play..



I skipped last stage, so we're now at Stage 7. This is the best stage in the game.



Stage 6 was U-1 wooing some girl. Unlike Stage 4 which only has defense phase, that stage only has attack phase.



While U-1 do that, Puma was kidnapped, which is why we can't change into Gitaroo Man. That leads to...



...Yeah. We're starting this stage with a battle phase while our HP is that low.



The impostors move on after a certain amount of hits, meaning Limit Breaks are the best method for their challenges.

Swap Critical Sun with Extreme. And then be careful not to get hit.



1:15. Here's a fun game: Auto-Life actually kicked in at the earlier GIF. Can you tell when?

It's right at the beginning of the Final Limit.



This mission is much longer than before with more lenient time limit, so it's better to stay alive than to be quick.



So, we have a guard phase with a quarter health. This should be fun.



I said that unironically. I played this stage so many times I can do this with my eyes closed (literally).



Puma, meanwhile, is just hanging around



Eventually, they will change positions and attack U-1 from 3 sides instead of one. It has absolutely no effect on the gameplay.



Meanwhile, over here we have a gauntlet with a bunch of Mega-Shadows. They die very quickly and are here just to waste our time. They do make using Extreme very risky, so there's that.



???(Xion) is a lot more annoying than ???(Riku). She teleports away a lot more often so even Limit doesn't work that well against her.



3:20. Like I said before; we have plenty of time.



They really like these timed challenges, don't they?



Here's a tip: Using Thundaga from afar is faster than going over there and hitting it manually.



There's 2 globs each in the outside and inside of the ship. We only need to kill 5 for this challenge.

1:00. Yeah, this one is tight. You really need to memorize which globs are the closest.



This challenge is uninteresting, but I think you can guess what's coming after this one.



Back here, the guard phase is still going. There's actually another version of the track where this first part is filled with both attack and guard phases which is only playable in Versus Mode.



Oh yeah, there's this guy. His name is Miranda (though it's never mentioned in the game). He's supposed to be the mentor, but he's incompetent and end up being completely useless.



You can't really see it (and I'm not bothering to make a GIF for it), but the crane is rotating very fast here. This marks the main event of this guard phase.



Yup. This is too fast for just one hand, so I had to borrow my left hand. Good thing this phase doesn't require the analog stick!



Back here, this mission can be done just by targeting the tail and spamming Thundaga.



1:15. Of course, tight time limit means it might require multiple times, but at least if you fail you don't waste more than 2 minutes per attempt, right?



And so, we've come to our next challenge. I've shown this one in the actual update. The total amount of times we can attack is 0.



Since we can't attack at all, it means magic is our only option. I used every Fire panels I have because it's only vulnerable to fire (LOL if you think Fira or Firaga won't miss every time).

Ignore the Limit Recharges. I forgot that we have to attack to use Limit in the first place.



I'll just link the video here in case someone wants to actually watch me use Fire like 27 times. (Yes, I counted them. One of them missed.)



While we're fighting Ruler of the Sky, we'll check on the other game, where we just finished the Guard Phase.

We lose if we miss 7 notes, and there's 111 notes in this section (yes, I counted this too). It can take quite a bit of practice, but it's not much harder than the lower difficulties.



The trio fires off a charged shot, which U-1 dodges.



The shots bounces off each other, with one of them hitting the crane.



This releases Puma which mean we can finally turn into Gitaroo Man. Great job, guys

U-1 actually runs toward Puma to grab the Gitaroo, which puts the skeletons all on one side. That's how it's going to be for the rest of the stage.



(This challenge takes a long time.)



The emulator is not kind toward the fire effect.



The charge phase is just like normal while Puma rescues the prisoners. Did I mention there's prisoners? You can barely see them in the previous shots (except Miranda, who can be seen clearly).

In the PS2 version, more people came out of the door. I guess it's because of hardware reasons.



After being freed, everyone stands behind U-1, including Miranda and Puma who are covered in this shot.



(Did I mention that this challenge is tedious? Well, this challenge is tedious.)



Now it's time for the true battle phase. There's 4 parts of them in this stage.



There's no obvious visual signs of the parts. The attack-guard transitions in the second half last twice as long as the first half, so you can at least differentiate between them.



This stage's Master Mode is heavily nerfed from the PS2 version. For example, there used to be an extra O that was pressed right after that [].

That's why this stage's master mode is the hardest one in PS2 version. Not in the PSP version, though. That one's coming up next.



Another special thing about this stage is that there's a whopping 4 variations of it. There's one for Soda, Carrot, Pine, and all three (the individual names are never mentioned outside the collection screen).

I very rarely get Soda's version of the song (it feels like 0.2%), and even then I only got the second part. Unlike the other stage, I have no idea how to rig the game to give the variation I want.



Most of the time I get Sanbone's version (feels like 99%). It's interesting at first, with them eventually going with formations, but I saw it too much it became boring. The first part goes into that version automatically for some reason.

If it weren't for the skewed RNG, this stage would've been perfect. It's still my favorite, though.



(I actually died and had to use Auto-Life here. Usually I reset the boss if this happens but I don't give a fuck by this point.)



There's an exchange at this point that goes like this:

quote:

Miranda: Go for the weak spot!
U-1: What weak spot?
Miranda: Um...I forget

Like how U-1 being surrounded makes no difference to gameplay, finding a weak point also makes no difference whatsoever.

Or to put it in another way, U-1 is so badass he doesn't need any weak spot to (re)kill the skeletons



The trio wisely decided to retreat at this point...



Only to be stopped by Puma and co. who had somehow teleported offscreen.



At this point all they can do is run around aimlessly.



Not that it helped them in any way.

There's heartfelt dialogue between U-1 and Puma at this point that you won't get if you don't watch the story.



I wish fighting Ruler of the Sky is this fun.



I'm going to be stuck with "B" ranks, aren't I?



And we're FINALLY done with the challenge!



This mission isn't hard if you know what to do, but it really tests your patience.



However, there's an even more tedious mission. I won't even bother trying to do that right now



You know what, let's continue with a few more challenges. These should be quick.



You can probably use the Fire from last mission, but I can't be bothered to swap the levels back in.



Fire deals with this mission very quickly.



4:20. I can't say any more by this point. I said everything about them at the beginning of this update.



This one is a bit interesting, at least.



No, not the challenge itself. Rather, it's the "staying alive" part of the challenge. Remember, I abused the death system when doing this in story mode.



The trick is still the same, though. Break the far jars first. We can leave the room and came back if turns out the jar contains a Living Pod. It won't notice us from afar (like in this picture).



I'm sure you can guess what's the requirement for this challenge is.



And our final challenge for today is...another fucking timed mission.



Repeat that like 5 times and we're set. Ignite and Jolt are very good against enemies with high HP



4:05. See above comment.



And with that, we're finally completed 74% of the challenges!



Our rewards today are a LV Doubler that I can't use (not enough Level Up panels), Glide LV+ (great), and Omega Gear (we already have Omega Gear+).

Omega Gear might look normal, but there's something special about it: It's our final gear. So now I can finally show off the weapons! I'm not counting Pandora's Gear.

New reports:


Kirah is the girl U-1 wooed last stage. Ignore how she looked just like Pico; they're not the same person.