Some questions about playing Efera & Jiliora

[EmperorIng]

Are you trying to bull rush your way through the game by vastly overpowering enemies instead of developing effective tactics?

As for killing villagers, I don't think it matters long term.  Leave town and return and they'll forget you're a murderer. 

Ha, I mentioned decent enough tactics in my strategy for the boss. However, this whole line of inquiry started when, in my initial phases of fighting the boss, I emptied the entirety of my sickle-spell into him and it didn't seem to dent him. Plus, as Falcon intimated, making your way through to the first "dungeon" (the castle outside of town) without a decent level (and the sickle spell) is a foolhardy endeavor. The enemy spawn rate in that corridor, coupled with your short attack range, can be tricky indeed.

Necro, do you recall places that restore your MP? Or buying MP restoring items? At the least I think I will continue to be a murdering bastard to those villagers. It's a good thing they all carry an ample supply of Phoenix Downs or I might feel bad.

It's funny you mention Ys, since if there is usually a place or boss that is too difficult, upping your level once or twice is usually all that you need to do. This is less so in Ys II, which has slightly better boss encounters (it's hard to choose though honestly). But back on topic.

[A Black Falcon]

Really, is it so hard to understand?

Nope, I get that you're an rpg wuss that can't handle a little grinding.  Not being able to beat Ys is a dead giveaway, as those games are quite easy and comparatively light on grinding.  The vast majority of RPGs require grinding to some extent or another anyway, so you whining and crying about it is akin to complaining that there's too many bullets in a bullet hell shewty.

THIS.

Falcon, nothing more needs to be said. Ys games are easy, save for an occasional segment (such as a final boss) that might require some genuinely dexterous maneuvers.

Let's move on...

Sure, Ys games aren't too hard, they're just kind of tedious.  I haven't finished an Ys game not because of challenge, if you level up it's easy enough.  The problem is that I hate doing that.  The almost-entirely-grind-based gameplay gets boring!  My favorite RPGs and action-adventure games, such as the Zelda series or the Baldur's Gate games for PC, have a lot more variety instead of just constant grind.

[wildfruit]

I don't know. I think there is plenty to keep you engrossed in Ys. Ys IV and III are the first console games I've played through in years without giving up. I felt real compulsion to see them through. Especially IV as a translated labour of love. That felt special. Magical even. Plus they're not that much of a grind fest, you should easily be able to reach max level well before the end without too much enemy bashing.

[Necromancer]

Necro, do you recall places that restore your MP? Or buying MP restoring items?

I think the herbs are it.  They can be picked in a few different places (don't they respawn?) or bought from later shopkeeps, but there's not a lot of 'em around.  You need to use magic sparingly, mostly relying on your sword to clear the baddies.

[EmperorIng]

Playing a bit more I can confirm two things:

1) you do gain new spells as you level up; not from talking to villagers

2) playing a Jiliora makes a big difference.

To elaborate: Efera is a sorceress, and Jiliora is a warrior, and the stats the two characters have reflect this: Efera has more MP and learns spells but has less strength, whereas Jiliora's techniques have yet to be useful (level 9ish) but her strength far exceeds Efera and can kill monsters far easier.

As an example, my previous questions in this topic revolved around using Efera, whose strength deficiency makes dealing with monsters - particularly the bosses - a pain. Jiliora was able to make it through the castle and kill the boss at level 6 or so.

Now, this still brings up a problem in that Efera couldn't take on the first boss of the game unless I grinded levels until level 10 or so, and that her spells did next to nothing to the boss. I think that's an issue of poor balancing unless I am just playing wrong (and I don't think I am). I suppose I could have feasibly nicked its health away but it would have taken probably 8x longer. While her spells work wonders on local monsters I am less encouraged by its poor performance on monsters that matter (ie, bosses).

[reno5]

I still have to find time to play this game. Got it a few months back and only tried it for few minutes.

[NightWolve]

Really, is it so hard to understand?

Nope, I get that you're an rpg wuss that can't handle a little grinding.  Not being able to beat Ys is a dead giveaway, as those games are quite easy and comparatively light on grinding.  The vast majority of RPGs require grinding to some extent or another anyway, so you whining and crying about it is akin to complaining that there's too many bullets in a bullet hell shewty.

THIS.

Falcon, nothing more needs to be said. Ys games are easy, save for an occasional segment (such as a final boss) that might require some genuinely dexterous maneuvers.

Let's move on...

Sure, Ys games aren't too hard, they're just kind of tedious.  I haven't finished an Ys game not because of challenge, if you level up it's easy enough.  The problem is that I hate doing that.  The almost-entirely-grind-based gameplay gets boring!  My favorite RPGs and action-adventure games, such as the Zelda series or the Baldur's Gate games for PC, have a lot more variety instead of just constant grind.

Hard to believe you were willing to give up on a great Action-RPG story unfolding before you while you listen to one of the greatest soundtracks in videogame history in a series that is relatively easy and only a couple of hours long... You don't have to level up THAT much, I never felt the sense that I had to do it too much and got bored on that basis... There are far worse relative to Ys and I think they're a little too easy, but I enjoy them for the story, music, characters, etc. for the general reasons I like [Action-]RPGs. But hey, each to his own.

[T2KFreeker]

When Windancer hooked me up with my turbo CD, he sent me this game saying I needed to try it. You know what? This game so rocks. I really haven't beaten it, but this game really is very nice and so worth the price of admission...er, well without checking Evilbay, I'm not sure anymore, but if it's still $12.00 or so, it's surely worth it. Very fun game.

[A Black Falcon]

Hard to believe you were willing to give up on a great Action-RPG story unfolding before you while you listen to one of the greatest soundtracks in videogame history in a series that is relatively easy and only a couple of hours long... You don't have to level up THAT much, I never felt the sense that I had to do it too much and got bored on that basis... There are far worse relative to Ys and I think they're a little too easy, but I enjoy them for the story, music, characters, etc. for the general reasons I like [Action-]RPGs. But hey, each to his own.

Well, I got Ys I & II for TCD as one of the first games when I got my TCD fixed in mid 2013.  I never did play a lot of the game, though; I started it, was disappointed by the huge size of the border around the screen, the somewhat average graphics, and the low difficulty level when compared to the MUCH harder Sega Master System version that I'd gotten several years prior and was my first experience with Ys (in the TCD game, versus the SMS, you move much faster, which maybe reduces strategic movement in combat; combat seems easier; and bosses are easier for sure, early on at least -- of course the SMS game is only Ys I, not also Ys II), and didn't play it for long before stopping.  I haven't yet gone back to play it; I wanted to finish that SMS version first, but I got stuck because of how tough that version is (you max out at only level 10 so levelling to each new level takes forever, enemies seem harder, etc.) and never did that, so the TCD and PSP versions of Ys I & II are games I have but still haven't gotten to... I should, sometime, sure.  I find the Ys games somewhat overly simplistic (while simple games can be great, overall I do prefer a good balance between simplicity and depth) and definitely don't love the series, but they are good games at least, certainly.

Necro, do you recall places that restore your MP? Or buying MP restoring items?

I think the herbs are it.  They can be picked in a few different places (don't they respawn?) or bought from later shopkeeps, but there's not a lot of 'em around.  You need to use magic sparingly, mostly relying on your sword to clear the baddies.

Ugh, that's pretty annoying.  If you're going to let me play as a mage actually let me use magic as much as I want, darnit!  Make replenishing my magic easy!  I prefer playing as mages or archer class characters in RPGs, and don't like generic-warrior-hero guys nearly as much most of the time, so of course I wanted to play as the mage in this game.  They shouldn't punish you for that by making mana replenishment overly difficult.  The game has plenty of flaws, but at least Magicoal lets you replenish mana easily... (and it also has two player co-op, too, like Efera & Jiliora).

[Necromancer]

They should give you unlimited MP so you can do nothing but spam the most powerful spells and heal over and over.  f*ck skill and actually trying!

[NightWolve]

[A Black Falcon]

They should give you unlimited MP so you can do nothing but spam the most powerful spells and heal over and over.  f*ck skill and actually trying!

That's not how a good magic system works and you must know that.  My favorite kind of magic system is that from D&D, ,but that's obviously too complex for a game like this.  Just some normal magic-points system is fine, if you can recover them without too much trouble.  Anytime you can heal your health you also should be able to heal your magic just as easily.  The point of playing as a mage character is to actually be able to use magic, not to be a really weak sword-fighter!  Some traditional turn-based JRPGs also make magic a bit too limited in terms of MP and such, which is always kind of frustrating; I don't like it when an RPG makes it so hard or expensive to recover magic that I'm stuck using normal attacks most of the time with my mage(s).  Sure, magic can be powerful, but the best way to balance that is definitely not to make using it so limited that you can't use it as much as you'd like.  You just need to balance the spell system a bit better.  There are plenty of games out there that do that.

For an example, I recently tried out the two Mahoujin Guru Guru games for SNES, two simple little RPGs on the SNES based on a childrens' anime license.  The games are nice-looking and quite easy, but have some big differences.  Relevant here, in the first game magic spells for your mage character (you have a warrior and a mage in your party) cost a lot of MP, so you can't use many spells at all before running out of magic and having to use a mana-refill item.  It's a bit annoying.  The second game, though, makes the basic spell cost a lot less MP, so you can use it more.  That doesn't make the game way easier though, because they balanced it for that.  It's just more fun, because now you can cast more than like three times early on without running out of MP!

[EmperorIng]

I might be missing some crucial element here, but playing as Jiliora in that forest with the swarming bugs (outside of the third town) lacks any discernible skill or "tactics." What a lousy area.

Watching a playthrough on niconico, the player uses Efera who gains an invisibility magic that lets her pass through the endlessly spawning bullshit with ease. Jiliora in my play has had no such luck. It's in this section that I really begin to rue how far you have to move to scroll the screen. Fast-moving enemies like these bugs can get multiple cheap shots and lock you into place. What's worse is that either this forest area is supposed to be some stupid "forest of illusion" or it just happens to spawn you in illogical places during screen transitions (e.g. moving down into a new screen > walking up does not return you to the same place!).

[esteban]

I might be missing some crucial element here, but playing as Jiliora in that forest with the swarming bugs (outside of the third town) lacks any discernible skill or "tactics." What a lousy area.

Watching a playthrough on niconico, the player uses Efera who gains an invisibility magic that lets her pass through the endlessly spawning bullshit with ease. Jiliora in my play has had no such luck. It's in this section that I really begin to rue how far you have to move to scroll the screen. Fast-moving enemies like these bugs can get multiple cheap shots and lock you into place. What's worse is that either this forest area is supposed to be some stupid "forest of illusion" or it just happens to spawn you in illogical places during screen transitions (e.g. moving down into a new screen > walking up does not return you to the same place!).

I think it is supposed to be a "Forest of Confusion" and I believe that the designers wanted you to experiment with different characters/tactics to progress through the game.

I beat this game in early 2000's because a former pcefx member (GUTS) always had recommendations that matched my tastes.

[Necromancer]

Yarr, the forest is supposed to be a confusing maze.  I mapped it out as I went, so I'm sure it's not random.

More whining about how E&J sucks.

This game is not all that difficult and most certainly isn't broken.  If you don't like it, don't play it.