There are actually three caveats to the weapon statistics: - While Damage and Accuracy are the most important, the third one not visible in game is also critical...literally. There is SUPPOSED TO BE a critical hit chance statistic that would be high on the Vorpal Sword, but due to a bug the wrong variable is pointed to and it instead checks the item's ID number in the index - making all items programmed later into the weapon system have a higher critical hit rate. This as it happens gives the Vorpal Sword better crit rate than early game swords and axes, but only average for the point of the game where you get it, and the CatClaw you can buy in Gaia is among the very highest critical hit rate weapons. - Another is you say that almost everything useable by the Knight but not the Fighter is found rather than purchased, and another exception is the CatClaw purchased in Gaia - it can be wielded by several advanced classes (Knight, Ninja, Red Wizard, Black Wizard) but not by their base equivalents. - Only one significant armor equipability modification is made to ANY Wizard from his Mage counterpart. Red Wizards can wear gauntlets. Main value of this is handing the Zeus Gauntlet to a Red Wizard so he doesn't need to leave that equip slot empty, and have him get use of Lit2 for free.
I removed my statement that all advanced class-specific gear is found rather than purchased, if you would like to amend the above. If not, no worries. Thanks again
Nothing will ever be able to capture the sense of overwhelming wonder that this game gave me. The more o travel, the larger the world seems. Just as soon as i conquer the homeland, a world 4x larger opens up, and I still cannot access everything. Such an adventure ❤
@darth-megaman919 And thank you! Your video gave me the feeling of being on GameFaqs or reading a gaming magazine from the long ago and far away. It hit me in the right place sir 🦾
"KYZOKU" is actually a pretty good localization. In the original Japanese version, that monster was called "Pairatsu" or "Pirate/Pirates" in English; the Bikke crewmen were called "Kaizoku" or "Pirates" in Japanese. All later localizations drop the straight English/Japanese inversion, and just use other synonyms for pirate like "Privateer" or "Buccaneer" for the ones encountered randomly on the overworld.
I was waiting for you to finish the video so I could decide which comment to pin for now😂 you got me on the Catclaw, I don't know how I overlooked that. But I was thinking of mentioning in my next vid that "KYZOKU" means "Sea Bandit" or "Sea Tribe". Although I'm not at all savvy on the Japanese language by any stretch of the imagination.
@@darth-megaman919 I'm not either, any more than I am on programming. I did however see a thorough list of all text in the original game, its most literal possible English translation, and what each localization to date (NES, PS1, GBA) had changed it to. A lot of the weapons and armor already had English names for example, like almost every sword being called "Soda" rather than "Tachi", "To", or "Katana" which are the most common noun forms of sword in Japanese. So they were specifically being called out in their naming scheme as WESTERN swords. Likewise Akusu instead of Ono, though most staves were still Tsu instead of Sutaffu; the stick is just a stick. Many monsters also had Western names; Urufi for the basic wolf rather than Okami. Most of the Japanese that I have picked up in the past 35 years of gaming and anime watching has been weapon, monster, and magic effect names of course. I absorb names for these things from other languages like German, Spanish, French, etc. as well - part of me wishes I could carry on conversations outside of English but having a huge pool of synonyms to pull from as a game developer is fun. I could make an RPG where every weapon is in one language, all black magic in another, and all white magic in a third, then all monsters in a fourth probably if I really dedicated myself to the bit. Or where every player character has a single language unifying all his unique weapons, armor, spells, and the monsters local to the part of the game world in his backstory.
The Pixel Remaster not only lets you up to quadruple combat rewards and turn off random counters entirely if desired, it _also_ is the only port or remake of the game to remove the Peninsula of Power. While it was an error in the original game, it was always left in as a legacy Easter egg/option for advanced players. They decided, seemingly, that the other convenience features removed the need to retain it.
I spent way too much of my childhood on this game, and I still didn't know some of the things you mention here: Like, I knew Lock didn't successfully reduce Evasion, but I had no idea that Dark *did* reduce Evasion.
It was in Final Fantasy 3 that the party stopped attacking "Air" wasting attacks. I'm too neurotic to let an ally die to break the "symmetry", if that happens I usually reset and make sure that they don't die next time. One advantage of power grinding is the money you save that helps you buy stuff. Rather do that instead of that horrible puzzle game. Gosh I grinded near that Elf village for a wacky long time to get all the best stuff in those shops. Remember kids, if anyone in real life talks to you about floaters without talking about Final Fantasy, say nothing and leave, potentially running. That map of the marshlands looks like a snake running on legs, the Second Map looks like a train and the third one looks like an apartment building. Y'know I can't remember if I got that blasted Mystic Key let alone gone back to get the trapped treasures, but that montage is bringing back memories . I don't think anyone's the king until they can look forward on that throne without getting off of it. DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE ACTUALLY WAITING FOR A 3D CUTSCENE IN A PRE PLAYSTATION GAME!!!! What's the matter USA wasn't good enough for Lali-Ho?
I started with Dragon Warrior, so I was always used to party members having different level up speeds based on their classes. "Yeah of course the Thief and Merchant level up faster, their jobs are simpler and less effective than Warriors and Martial Artists. Yeah, of course the Sage and Hero need way more experience to level up, they're jacks of all trades and pretty good at those trades, actually." D&D also had classes with unequal experience requirements, rather than uniform, up until 4th edition. I prefer it that way, it lets classes vary more in what they bring to the game and lets some justify getting more "per level" bang for their buck.
I dig this, it's sort of a cross between Bob Ross and one of those old VHS lesson lecture tapes they'd sometimes play in class, in a good way of course. I was going to say maybe upgrade your mic but honestly the slight 'muffledness' adds to that aesthetic. I would say invest in a pop filter though as the plosives are audible, as is a little too much of your saliva. 😅 Other than that, I really like how you cover everything, even the basics like the meaning of terms like NPC. Keep it up!
I wholeheartedly disagree with the auto-retargeting when a foe is already dead that turn increasing immersion. I think it _decreases_ immersion. Your action selection is deciding the plan of action for a brief time window of a few seconds - all four heroes deciding to focus fire on a single enemy means all four of them are ignoring opportunities to attack other nearby enemies, whereas having the warrior attack the toughest looking guy, the thief or red mage the next toughest looking guy, and anyone else join together on someone weak is an "I got the big guy, you handle the rest" moment. You can't just choose to attack someone else mid-swing. If anything, the way the first Golden Sun has characters who've lost their target default to the Defend action instead is the best mix of user-friendliness (letting that character, at least, resist incoming enemy strikes better until his next turn) and verisimilitude, and also as with this game and the second Dragon Quest, still encourages more tactical thinking from the player. The automatic retargeting also discourages players from learning how to spread out their attacks, and from learning the relative toughness of various enemy types and relative strength of their party's attacks. In mid and late Dragon Quest 2 and 3 as well as this game, you _will_ be having your mages pick off weak enemies hand to hand to save both spell energy and your warriors' actions at the same time. You also get a certain rhythm in Golden Sun regarding who to strike with what combination of Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia. Part of why newer JRPGs tend to be such a chore to play is because most of the meaning has been stripped of player choice, if the choice is even there. If you can just hold down the Attack button without thought, much of the gameplay is lost. You will at once be robbed of learning how to attack optimally as you're liable to have two or three weak hits go onto an enemy your strong attacker could have taken out alone and robbed of engagement as there's no thought to "just attack until your HP runs low, then have your white mage heal everybody".
You sir, are my target audience 🫡 I was actually considering saying what you said in your first paragraph about battles, as a different perspective. I'm glad you mentioned it 👍
@@darth-megaman919 I like hearing different opinions on things like this. I'm actually using an RPG-maker-type game engine and part of me is considering intentionally adding that feature to at least some of the basic weapon attacks, despite automatic retargeting being the default. Something can actually be said for intentional, designed inconvenience. User friendliness can go too far, just as you say about dialogue being able to go too far.
@@darth-megaman919 Just like how doubling the rewards from random encounters or halving the random encounter rate don't "improve quality of life", but rather change the game's balance. Some adjustments/customization do more or less than others do. Likewise, later versions of the first Dragon Quest replaced the completely useless HURT spell with the much more useful Firebal/Sizz spell; it costs twice as much MP and does twice as much damage, with the original version being learned at a level where your physical attacks are stronger, pretty reliably, and thus effectively wasting your turn. Replacing the spell changed the balance - depleting MP from a source other than the Heal spell at that point, increasing the danger level from monsters who cast it (which you encounter around the same time - and are thus able to take HUGE chunks from your health, but also likely to be one-shot by it if you go first), let you take risks between two- or three-turn killing a monster and get a little roughed up or one-hit killing and losing slightly more MP than a heal spell. The balance was _altered_ , and I would say improved, but definitely _changed_ . There's also a huge difference between a Return to Town spell always taking you to the last town you stayed at the inn/last town you talked to the king and it opening a menu and letting you choose every town you've ever been to. Both are valid, one is more convenient, the other opens up potential strategy decisions.
There are actually three caveats to the weapon statistics:
- While Damage and Accuracy are the most important, the third one not visible in game is also critical...literally. There is SUPPOSED TO BE a critical hit chance statistic that would be high on the Vorpal Sword, but due to a bug the wrong variable is pointed to and it instead checks the item's ID number in the index - making all items programmed later into the weapon system have a higher critical hit rate. This as it happens gives the Vorpal Sword better crit rate than early game swords and axes, but only average for the point of the game where you get it, and the CatClaw you can buy in Gaia is among the very highest critical hit rate weapons.
- Another is you say that almost everything useable by the Knight but not the Fighter is found rather than purchased, and another exception is the CatClaw purchased in Gaia - it can be wielded by several advanced classes (Knight, Ninja, Red Wizard, Black Wizard) but not by their base equivalents.
- Only one significant armor equipability modification is made to ANY Wizard from his Mage counterpart. Red Wizards can wear gauntlets. Main value of this is handing the Zeus Gauntlet to a Red Wizard so he doesn't need to leave that equip slot empty, and have him get use of Lit2 for free.
I removed my statement that all advanced class-specific gear is found rather than purchased, if you would like to amend the above. If not, no worries. Thanks again
Nothing will ever be able to capture the sense of overwhelming wonder that this game gave me. The more o travel, the larger the world seems. Just as soon as i conquer the homeland, a world 4x larger opens up, and I still cannot access everything.
Such an adventure ❤
Love it! 💯
Nice series. I like the way you edit both your video and audio too. Looking forward to the next one!
Thank you!
Great approach to the walk through! I love the visual tables for the shops you built. Thank you 😊👍🏻
Hey, thank you! 😄
@darth-megaman919 And thank you! Your video gave me the feeling of being on GameFaqs or reading a gaming magazine from the long ago and far away. It hit me in the right place sir 🦾
"KYZOKU" is actually a pretty good localization. In the original Japanese version, that monster was called "Pairatsu" or "Pirate/Pirates" in English; the Bikke crewmen were called "Kaizoku" or "Pirates" in Japanese.
All later localizations drop the straight English/Japanese inversion, and just use other synonyms for pirate like "Privateer" or "Buccaneer" for the ones encountered randomly on the overworld.
I was waiting for you to finish the video so I could decide which comment to pin for now😂 you got me on the Catclaw, I don't know how I overlooked that. But I was thinking of mentioning in my next vid that "KYZOKU" means "Sea Bandit" or "Sea Tribe". Although I'm not at all savvy on the Japanese language by any stretch of the imagination.
@@darth-megaman919 I'm not either, any more than I am on programming. I did however see a thorough list of all text in the original game, its most literal possible English translation, and what each localization to date (NES, PS1, GBA) had changed it to. A lot of the weapons and armor already had English names for example, like almost every sword being called "Soda" rather than "Tachi", "To", or "Katana" which are the most common noun forms of sword in Japanese. So they were specifically being called out in their naming scheme as WESTERN swords. Likewise Akusu instead of Ono, though most staves were still Tsu instead of Sutaffu; the stick is just a stick.
Many monsters also had Western names; Urufi for the basic wolf rather than Okami.
Most of the Japanese that I have picked up in the past 35 years of gaming and anime watching has been weapon, monster, and magic effect names of course.
I absorb names for these things from other languages like German, Spanish, French, etc. as well - part of me wishes I could carry on conversations outside of English but having a huge pool of synonyms to pull from as a game developer is fun. I could make an RPG where every weapon is in one language, all black magic in another, and all white magic in a third, then all monsters in a fourth probably if I really dedicated myself to the bit. Or where every player character has a single language unifying all his unique weapons, armor, spells, and the monsters local to the part of the game world in his backstory.
The Pixel Remaster not only lets you up to quadruple combat rewards and turn off random counters entirely if desired, it _also_ is the only port or remake of the game to remove the Peninsula of Power. While it was an error in the original game, it was always left in as a legacy Easter egg/option for advanced players. They decided, seemingly, that the other convenience features removed the need to retain it.
And I was disappointed when I discovered it
I spent way too much of my childhood on this game, and I still didn't know some of the things you mention here: Like, I knew Lock didn't successfully reduce Evasion, but I had no idea that Dark *did* reduce Evasion.
Yes! I've learned a lot myself while preparing these videos.
And Dark _doesn't_ decrease Accuracy, I knew that much, but thought it simply had no effect at all because it was doing the wrong thing!
It was in Final Fantasy 3 that the party stopped attacking "Air" wasting attacks. I'm too neurotic to let an ally die to break the "symmetry", if that happens I usually reset and make sure that they don't die next time. One advantage of power grinding is the money you save that helps you buy stuff. Rather do that instead of that horrible puzzle game. Gosh I grinded near that Elf village for a wacky long time to get all the best stuff in those shops. Remember kids, if anyone in real life talks to you about floaters without talking about Final Fantasy, say nothing and leave, potentially running. That map of the marshlands looks like a snake running on legs, the Second Map looks like a train and the third one looks like an apartment building. Y'know I can't remember if I got that blasted Mystic Key let alone gone back to get the trapped treasures, but that montage is bringing back memories . I don't think anyone's the king until they can look forward on that throne without getting off of it. DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE ACTUALLY WAITING FOR A 3D CUTSCENE IN A PRE PLAYSTATION GAME!!!! What's the matter USA wasn't good enough for Lali-Ho?
You definitely got the mystic key. You couldn't have got the TNT without it
I started with Dragon Warrior, so I was always used to party members having different level up speeds based on their classes. "Yeah of course the Thief and Merchant level up faster, their jobs are simpler and less effective than Warriors and Martial Artists. Yeah, of course the Sage and Hero need way more experience to level up, they're jacks of all trades and pretty good at those trades, actually."
D&D also had classes with unequal experience requirements, rather than uniform, up until 4th edition. I prefer it that way, it lets classes vary more in what they bring to the game and lets some justify getting more "per level" bang for their buck.
I dig this, it's sort of a cross between Bob Ross and one of those old VHS lesson lecture tapes they'd sometimes play in class, in a good way of course. I was going to say maybe upgrade your mic but honestly the slight 'muffledness' adds to that aesthetic. I would say invest in a pop filter though as the plosives are audible, as is a little too much of your saliva. 😅 Other than that, I really like how you cover everything, even the basics like the meaning of terms like NPC. Keep it up!
I appreciate the input!😅
Wow an ff vid
Yes, one of the many 😅
Is temper and the useless stat fixed in the rereleases?
Yep, eventually. I know the Pixel Remaster does
I wholeheartedly disagree with the auto-retargeting when a foe is already dead that turn increasing immersion. I think it _decreases_ immersion. Your action selection is deciding the plan of action for a brief time window of a few seconds - all four heroes deciding to focus fire on a single enemy means all four of them are ignoring opportunities to attack other nearby enemies, whereas having the warrior attack the toughest looking guy, the thief or red mage the next toughest looking guy, and anyone else join together on someone weak is an "I got the big guy, you handle the rest" moment.
You can't just choose to attack someone else mid-swing. If anything, the way the first Golden Sun has characters who've lost their target default to the Defend action instead is the best mix of user-friendliness (letting that character, at least, resist incoming enemy strikes better until his next turn) and verisimilitude, and also as with this game and the second Dragon Quest, still encourages more tactical thinking from the player.
The automatic retargeting also discourages players from learning how to spread out their attacks, and from learning the relative toughness of various enemy types and relative strength of their party's attacks. In mid and late Dragon Quest 2 and 3 as well as this game, you _will_ be having your mages pick off weak enemies hand to hand to save both spell energy and your warriors' actions at the same time. You also get a certain rhythm in Golden Sun regarding who to strike with what combination of Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia.
Part of why newer JRPGs tend to be such a chore to play is because most of the meaning has been stripped of player choice, if the choice is even there. If you can just hold down the Attack button without thought, much of the gameplay is lost. You will at once be robbed of learning how to attack optimally as you're liable to have two or three weak hits go onto an enemy your strong attacker could have taken out alone and robbed of engagement as there's no thought to "just attack until your HP runs low, then have your white mage heal everybody".
You sir, are my target audience 🫡
I was actually considering saying what you said in your first paragraph about battles, as a different perspective. I'm glad you mentioned it 👍
@@darth-megaman919 I like hearing different opinions on things like this. I'm actually using an RPG-maker-type game engine and part of me is considering intentionally adding that feature to at least some of the basic weapon attacks, despite automatic retargeting being the default.
Something can actually be said for intentional, designed inconvenience. User friendliness can go too far, just as you say about dialogue being able to go too far.
@@RoninCatholic Yes! That is the exact reason why I dislike the term "quality of life" improvements.
@@darth-megaman919 Just like how doubling the rewards from random encounters or halving the random encounter rate don't "improve quality of life", but rather change the game's balance. Some adjustments/customization do more or less than others do.
Likewise, later versions of the first Dragon Quest replaced the completely useless HURT spell with the much more useful Firebal/Sizz spell; it costs twice as much MP and does twice as much damage, with the original version being learned at a level where your physical attacks are stronger, pretty reliably, and thus effectively wasting your turn. Replacing the spell changed the balance - depleting MP from a source other than the Heal spell at that point, increasing the danger level from monsters who cast it (which you encounter around the same time - and are thus able to take HUGE chunks from your health, but also likely to be one-shot by it if you go first), let you take risks between two- or three-turn killing a monster and get a little roughed up or one-hit killing and losing slightly more MP than a heal spell.
The balance was _altered_ , and I would say improved, but definitely _changed_ .
There's also a huge difference between a Return to Town spell always taking you to the last town you stayed at the inn/last town you talked to the king and it opening a menu and letting you choose every town you've ever been to. Both are valid, one is more convenient, the other opens up potential strategy decisions.