Let me start by first saying thank you for all the time and effort you have given to allow me a chance to relive a game I had cherished in my youth. I have spent the last few weeks bashing my head against the wall of your hardcore mod. A few challenges still remain to be conquered, I have yet to kill Emerald Weapon, Ruby Weapon, Sephiroth, and the strange red cat that guards KOTR. Here are my thoughts thus far;
The very first boss encounter remains memorable, a very hard hitter, being wiped out repeatedly on the first boss definitely set a new mood to the game. After a little leveling I noticed the 2nd level lightning items the enemies would drop which made the first and the second boss much more doable. It seems to be a prevalent theme in the game - items or materia nearby are often key to overcoming some of the more difficult challenges.
After the Air Buster boss I didn't find the rest of Midgar very difficult with two exceptions; the trio of named SOLDIER enemies in the chest (they killed me many times, I think I finally beat them by using status effect items on them) and the random encounters on hojo's 2nd floor lab (they seemed ALOT harder then the other floors of Shinra). The trip from Kalm to Junon was reasonably difficult though nothing stands out in my mind as truely challenging, unless you count the Zolom which crushed my face just like a 40 foot serpent should - but I think you made him basically unbeatable at this point in the game. I came back 3 more times trying to kill the Zolom and learn Beta the first was after the boat ride, the second was after getting the buggy, and finally after Cosmo Canyon I finally emerged from the swamp victorious.
The next fight that REALLY felt tough was Dane in the prison, apparently Barret would rather die dozens of times than let Cloud and the others help - to my endless frustration. It was finally a combination of poison elemental on my weapon, limit breaks, and just plain luck when he starts attacking twice in a row. All smooth sailing all the way up to the cave of the GI, which was one of my favorite areas the difficulty of the random encounters here was perfect, deaths were my own doing when forgetting to heal after a battle.
After Cosmo Canyon I powerleveled a little in the Shinra mansion (perfect place the axe guys are weak to gravity and a single summon can kill all other encounters) with the goal of getting Vincent. Eight levels later and the Missing Number in the safe was still picking his teeth with my bones so I gave up, easily beat the materia keeper and plowed through Rocket Town. Wutai was great, heading there right after Rocket Town is a good challenge though I have to admit walking there with no materia is not fun AT ALL, LOL. Once there the encounters were good but the boss wasn't as difficult as I expected. After Wutai I was finally strong enough to get Vincent. I also got Kujata before the Temple of the Ancients which I think my earlier powerleveling helped me survive.
Disc 2 started out pretty fast, Beta wiped the floor with everything in the Glacier and still was a force to be reckoned with in the Whirlwind maze. I hate the wind barriers it takes me about 20 attempts to successfully pass through the 2nd and 3rd barriers, maybe I just suck :| .
Jenova-DEATH was a huge challenge not much I can say, she hits like a truck, fire elemental doesn't help, and I can't guard everyone from death, you just gotta hammer her down and heal through her punishment, I had Tifa spamming Deathblow and Cloud casting when he could.
I immediately went to chocobo breeding after getting Cloud back and tried my luck at the Quadra-magic cave. The boss was a beast the first few times a tried to down him, but soon his spell mechanics became apparent and I discovered the damage gravity could do to him and, after adding 1-2 different elemental absorbs to each character, crushed him. Feeling slightly ahead of the curve with my new Quadra-magic I went back to the story.
The Shinra guards at the underwater reactor impressed me, I like the way they use the grenades for massive damage but are glass cannons almost as they die easily, the last two in the L shaped hall are particularly tough and killed my party the first time as I wasn't really expecting them to do so much damage so quickly. Carry Armor boss was hard but it didn't feel unfairly hard since I had Quadra-Magic and Lightning
.
Midgar was the hardest part of disc 2 by far - powerful random encounters, the SOLDIER trio, and Hojo.
Now on disc 3 I went to battle square for omnislash and 2xsummon. Smoke bombs work great to get out of the last battle and keep the points. Next was Ultima weapon, not so hard by disc 3. Back to battle square for the special battle. I really hated the Blaster attacks the cats did and the oar move the ghost ships use to throw you out of the battle the Blaster attack misses often enough but the oar move always seems to hit
. Ultima Weapon and 4xcut makes the special battle very manageable.
The Mime cave was a bit tricky but I read here about their % based attacks, with wind resist and saving the double summons and omnislash for the final 4 i managed to kill them. HP-MP cave boss was probably the easiest of the 4 caves - Poison Resist and Gravity kills him.
The KOTR cave is still giving me trouble, I thought I had a good strategy with Double Summon Hades then Bahamut Zero then Mime until death. It seemed to work well enough, Hades poisioned/silenced/frog/sleep on him every turn and B. Zero did about 25K dmg per turn. Ran through this cycle for about 15 turns, problem is he continues to cast his spells even with status effects so his regen keeps popping up. I can't tell if my Hades summon cancels out his regen since he flashed green from the poison. I got him down to where he says "death is not the end" and gains 30K. Kept killing him -- again he says "death is not the end" and comes back. Eventually he gets enough spells off in 1 turn to kill me.
Anyway great job I really enjoyed the mod.
One side note battle square handicaps might be broken if the wheel lands on independent materia my hp pluses still work same goes for it landing on the command materia my 4x cut will still work. The Red, Green, and All-Color Materia seem to work, not sure about the blue.
