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Another Elminage thread! Let's use this thread to talk about all NON-GOTHIC Elminage stuff!

Dorarnae

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Jan 21, 2016
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serious question

wtf does Dispel actually really do...? i have never landed it, nor have i ever used it for anything that worked or whatever.

i used to think the holy flute instrument casts Harias (blesses weapons so u can hit ghosts) but no, that's the Kagura (some trumpet-like instrument, for reference). then i thought holy flutes would cast Harias, but no, they don't.

"This item breaks the curse of the spirits".

what

it kills or make them run away, ghost and undead type (or all ghost/undead with cleric special skill) but I don't remember if in elminage it gives exp, I know in some game you don't get the exp for using that.
it also depend on your level, so if you're too low, it won't work.
I often use a dragonewt lately for cleric, so I end up using breath instead and they lvl a bit slower, but if I used any other race, I'd probably use it a few time (at least good against those samael , in particular when they come in group of 3...)
 

Rpgsaurus Rex

Guest
I played a bit of the Japanese version of Elminage Original for PSP (it's called Original because it's a port from the PS2, iirc). They're basically just Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord clones. Though it does prove how well the original Wizardry games do stand the test of time (wireframe graphics notwithstanding). As a gaming version of comfort food, they're alright but I am shocked how many of these Proving Grounds clones keep coming out year after year. Is there really that much of a niche for them in Japan?

They're cheap to make and a very popular genre for handhelds. Easy to pick up and play on the go.
 

moraes

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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I want a Wizardry game with a million classes and a million races. I know there are Elminage games out there where you unlock crazy shit like Ogres and Goblins and Puppets. I don't know which one it is, but I want to play it.

That's Elminage Original.

wtf does Dispel actually really do...? i have never landed it, nor have i ever used it for anything that worked or whatever.

In Elminage Original: it turns away undead, making them leave the battle. You don't get XP for undead you defeat this way. At level 26 the cleric class gets a mass dispel that affects rows and awards XP for enemies affected.

I don't know how it works in other games.
 
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aweigh

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so, yeah, you are all correct! it's really only useful when being used by a pure Cleric char but goddamn it does work. it's especially useful in elminage: original's post-game because one of the deadliest enemies there are the Vampire Lords and La Fluenese and Sammaels.

in elminage: gothic it's still useful for Sammaels but since Gothic toned down the direct-damage from spells (i.e. Vampire Lords' enterook mista spamming), combined with that they beefed up the enemy roster with tons more devils/gods than in any of the other elminage games (upon which Dispel doesn't work) then the usefulness goes down.
 

Puck Man

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Jan 18, 2017
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Dorarnae
Since I'm pretty sure you have the game Wizardry Xth 2 Unlimited Students could you tell me, does the later released "Wonder Price" version contain any additional content? It's usually priced higher I think, that's why I'm wondering.
 

Dorarnae

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Dorarnae
Since I'm pretty sure you have the game Wizardry Xth 2 Unlimited Students could you tell me, does the later released "Wonder Price" version contain any additional content? It's usually priced higher I think, that's why I'm wondering.

not suposed, wonder price are suposed to be cheaper, it's like the greatest hit thing that sony does ...
 
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aweigh

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Yo, Dorarnae , how about uploading that 3ds rom of the elminage 2 port? I'd love to move over the PSP elmi 2 translation i've been hard-at-work doing over to the new 3ds version!!! i'd love you forever if you do it :) :)

(tried googling all the 3ds rom sites but nobody has uploaded it...)
 

Dorarnae

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Yo, Dorarnae , how about uploading that 3ds rom of the elminage 2 port? I'd love to move over the PSP elmi 2 translation i've been hard-at-work doing over to the new 3ds version!!! i'd love you forever if you do it :) :)

(tried googling all the 3ds rom sites but nobody has uploaded it...)

I bought the game on the nintendo store, I have a japanese 3ds....
 
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aweigh

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yeah, i know man. there's a way to take that downloaded game data and transfer it to PC, but don't worry mate. thanks anyways :)
 

Eggs is eggs

Learned
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Messages
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Is the PC version of elminage 1 any good? I've thought of playing the PSP version but on the emulator I can blow it up to take up about 1/2 the screen before the graphics get too blurry. I have no problem with Japanese. I googled the PC version and found it's on ebay for ~$60 which makes no sense since I can play it for free on an emulator.
 

Dorarnae

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Is the PC version of elminage 1 any good? I've thought of playing the PSP version but on the emulator I can blow it up to take up about 1/2 the screen before the graphics get too blurry. I have no problem with Japanese. I googled the PC version and found it's on ebay for ~$60 which makes no sense since I can play it for free on an emulator.

pc version for elminage original is the best.
 
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aweigh

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i'll PM you an iso of elmi: original for PC. give me a couple of hours to upload it to firedrop.

of course, i hope you already know that it's not localized. only the psp version of elmi: original is localized into english language. The pc port is in jap-language only, but don't fret, it doesn't feature new content. it's literally a (fucking BEAUTIFUL) HD remaster of the psp version's graphics, is all.

i'll pm you the firedrop link later.
 

flyingjohn

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i'll PM you an iso of elmi: original for PC. give me a couple of hours to upload it to firedrop.

of course, i hope you already know that it's not localized. only the psp version of elmi: original is localized into english language. The pc port is in jap-language only, but don't fret, it doesn't feature new content. it's literally a (fucking BEAUTIFUL) HD remaster of the psp version's graphics, is all.

i'll pm you the firedrop link later.
Would you mind sending me the link as well?
 

bataille

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Feb 11, 2017
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I've played around 12 hours of psp original, and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm still packing the flamberg, the bandages and the longbow +1. Damage is laughable, survivability is barely there and I'm starting to suspect that I need a thief to get any weapons. Almost cleared the four first dungeons, but their later stages are insufferable, with fey folk that heal 150 hp each turn and other bastards like instantly killing mages. Inventory is around 15 spaces deep, and even 10+ level monsters bombard me with stuff that's worth 5 gold coins with occasional useless cursed shit for 20000. Petrification is my best friend. Abyss swallows my characters every day. Demons reach with their 100 damage spears for my alchemist. Cleric lays in a pool of her own blood. Servant broke another tea cup. Dragon friend breathes halitosis instead of fire.
I'm lost, sick and forlorn.
 

Eggs is eggs

Learned
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I played it a bit a few years ago and I think you're supposed to find a dungeon that is at your level. Once you beat the first dungeon, other ones open up IIRC or maybe you need to complete mini-quests to get more dungeons to open up? I remember that even the first dungeon gets pretty tough after the first level. As is with typical Wizardry clones you need to get better equipment from monster drops. It wouldn't surprise me if you need to do some grinding. I was going to play it again soon so I'll see how it goes.
 

Dorarnae

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I've played around 12 hours of psp original, and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm still packing the flamberg, the bandages and the longbow +1. Damage is laughable, survivability is barely there and I'm starting to suspect that I need a thief to get any weapons. Almost cleared the four first dungeons, but their later stages are insufferable, with fey folk that heal 150 hp each turn and other bastards like instantly killing mages. Inventory is around 15 spaces deep, and even 10+ level monsters bombard me with stuff that's worth 5 gold coins with occasional useless cursed shit for 20000. Petrification is my best friend. Abyss swallows my characters every day. Demons reach with their 100 damage spears for my alchemist. Cleric lays in a pool of her own blood. Servant broke another tea cup. Dragon friend breathes halitosis instead of fire.
I'm lost, sick and forlorn.

if you're playing with a brawler, I highly suggest playing with a thief, they'll be able to steal very good weapon for them at lvl 26 (also need an alchemist to uncurse them if your brawler isn't devilish).

as you get deeper iin each dungeon, it gets harder...you should try clearing the first floor of other dungeons(sheba ruins/the dungeon with the tarot card/ and the bird....), while the loot kind of suck on the first floor, you'll get some exp and maybe a few items.
 

bataille

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Feb 11, 2017
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Yeah, that's what I've been doing.
Almost immediately after posting my dooms and glooms I found an axe that was worth 250000 to identify. Turned out to be a two-hander with 0-48 damage and 4 swings. Pretty good.
 
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aweigh

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outright piracy is supposedly forbidden eggs is eggs, which is why PM it.

bataille

In elmi: Original there is one cheap way to clear 75% of all of the game's random battles and that is to abuse the FUCK outta the weapons that cast group-damage spells, such as the Flame Wand and the Flamberge.

Step 1: Make a balanced party...

- Have two damage dealers (Fighter/Brawler/Ninja/Samurai/Lord/Valkyrie/Hunter; take your pick of those)

- One pure thief (although TBH, my first playthroughs of elmi: Original and elmi: Gothic were without a thief); not only for their ability to strip enemies of their equipment (rendering some key enemies a complete joke to fight), but also because the #1 way for your party to die in an Elminage game is death-by-trapped-chest, and only a pure Thief will net you the biggest % chance of successfully disarming those.

- so that's your front row, now for the back-row: 1x Alchemist (the game is simply unplayable without an Alc to forge enchanted weapons); 1x Mage/Bishop (I prefer the Bishop instead of the Mage due to the convenience of identification of items on the spot, plus it saves you GP which you can then use to increase character's levels by donating money at the Church); and lastly 1x Cleric.

Step 2: Fight the Avi Statue in b1f of Kraidia Caverns until everybody is at least level 8-10. Spell casters all universally (except Bishops and "hybrids" like samurai) learn their 7th-magic-level upon reaching character-level 13, so feel free to class change that level 13 Cleric into a Mage or whatever so that the character has access to both spell schools.

Step 3: As mentioned above, buy a Flamberge and go to the 4th dungeon in the world map, i forget the name (something like Hidaara Valley?) and fight enemies there near the entrance until you get a drop of the FLAME WAND.

Step 4 and beyond: Abuse the fuck outta the Flame Wand's "use" effect during battles. Grind enemies in that Valley until you have a Flame Wand for everyone, even if they can't equip it, because they can still "use" the Flame Wand during a fight without any repercussions whatsoever.

Yes... this means that, assuming you actually take the time to grind out 6 drops of Flame Wands, you can open every single fight with 6 castings of Rabalad (what the Flame Wand casts, which is stronger than what the Flamberge casts, BTW; the Flamberge casts Mabalad). This will simply obliterate almost any enemy group for the first half of the game.

EDIT: They "balanced" this cheap tactic by making weapons with magic effects have a % chance to break when used in a fight in elminage: Gothic. In any case, don't worry though, later dungeons' enemies will have resistances to fire (or resistances to magic, period), and you'll have to go back to using your brain to win fights :)

P.S. if the fight is against a Shaman-type enemy group, LOL @ 6x Rabalads reflected back at you on turn 1 of the fight. It's hilarious and don't worry, it's happened to all of us.
 

Dorarnae

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alchemist are not a must but yeah they're pretty good for their spell line alone. it's kind of like how I liked bishop in the beginning for extra money, then I stopped playing them because they were too slow to lvl but I have been enjoying them again recently(class change with the medal at the end).
what I mean is, alchemist are good but recently when I played, the material you get at first sucks, so before crafting become good it takes a while. so you could create an alchemist and keep it at the bar. ln particular if you use a devilish brawler, you don't really need crafting.
 

hackncrazy

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aweigh

Outside of the Elminage/Wizardry series, is there any turn-based RPG that you recommend that focus more on the gameplay and battles than on developing a story and such?

I must admit that I really hoped that Persona 5 would be like this, but going through 2 or 3 hours of story and dialog to get to the good part is just not my cup of tea.
 

bataille

Arcane
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Feb 11, 2017
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Well, I'm not very interested in using cheap tactics unless they reduce tedium.
I consciously decided not to optimize my party in any meta way and just went with the things that appealed to me aesthetically:
fighter, brawler, priest
hunter, servant, alchemist
But I had to change the alchemist into a bishop since I'd become pretty paranoid about items. It was either ditch the items or make the dungeon raids super short. The moment when I had a 5 gold worth katana and a 250k worth axe after a single crawl, I knew I had to have some means of identification, for my mental soundness. I couldn't find any info on the subject of alchs gaining any additional skills at later levels, so I just changed her 20th level self into a bishop.
 
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aweigh

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hackncrazy

The games put out by Exp Inc. / Team Muramasa, of course:
- (Windows PC) Generation XTH: Code Hazard.
- (VITA/Windows PC) Operation Abyss / Operation Babel.
*(contains dumbed down remakes of "Code Hazard", and the two following chapters which were never localized: Code Breaker and Code Realize. Play the PC version instead and if so inclined, play chapters 2 and 3 in their "remade" form via this package).
- (VITA/Windows PC) Stranger of Sword City.

And, of course, the Etrian Odyssey series:
- (Nintendo DS) Etrian Odyssey 1, 2 and 3.
- (3DS) Etrian Odyssey remakes of 1 and 2, and EO IV.

Released (so far) only on the VITA:
- (VITA) Dungeon Travelers 2 (haven't played it as I don't own a VITA but Dorarnae and other Codexers swear by it, and I trust them).

For the Nintendo DS:
- (NDS) 7th Dragon (made by ex-employees of the Etrian Odyssey core team; this one is a real good gem of a game that I heartily recommend. It's a perfect 50/50 mix of top-down view JRPG-style game play except using the classes/stats/etc templates from the EO series. Personally I enjoyed this game, 7th Dragon, much more than the NDS EO games).
- (NDS) SMT: Strange Journey (1st-person view dungeon crawler set in the Shin Megami Tensei universe. Haven't finished it yet but the 30~ hours I've got clocked so far have been very enjoyable. Only reason I dropped it is because I read they're releasing a 3DS remake soon).

Also for the 3DS, though I have not played them:
- (3DS) Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (made by the EO team, no idea regarding its quality).
- (3DS) Etrian Mystery Dungeon (no idea what this game is even about; I assume it's a take on the top-down view style of 'crawler like the Chocobo Dungeon games).
- (3DS) Beyond the Labyrinth (recently got fan-translated into English; zero idea if it is worth playing or not).

And for the PSP, though I have not bothered to play past the first hour or so:
- (PSP) Unchained Blades (starts out like any other Wiz-clone with a nice 1st-person dungeon crawl introduction, but it switched to a button-mashing mini-game at one point and I lost patience. Someday I'll give it another try).
- (PSP) 7th Draon 2020 (recently fan-translated into English; this is a sequel to the Nintendo DS game "7th Dragon" and IMHO it is much inferior though it's still the same blend of JRPG/dungeon crawler that 7th Dragon was, and for that alone it is worth playing).

On too many systems to count... my favorite non-Wizardry/Elminage series of games:

- Dragon Quest I & II (recommend playing the SNES remakes).
- Dragon Quest III (again, the SNES remake is the one you want; btw, this 3rd entry is considered by many to be the best one in the series, though I rank it 2nd).
- Dragon Quest IV (even though they made the enemies weaker in the Nintendo DS remake, that is the version I would recommend playing; though if you don't give a shit about graphics or updated UI then by all means play the Nintendo version which is much, much, much harder).
- Dragon Quest V (the best title in the series IMHO, followed in 2nd place by #3 for the SNES. In any case, the best version of DQ V is indisputably the fan-translated version for Playstation 2).
- Dragon Quest VI (the NDS remake, no contest: though like the NDS remake for DQ IV they made the enemies weaker, the remake makes up for it with extra character classes and tons of items not present in the original).
- Dragon Quest VII (above I said DQ V was the best in the series and it is, but that's if I'm being "objective": the really-real best DQ of all time is this one, number 7. It is a masterpiece of a JRPG. If you visit the DQ thread I wrote hundreds of words about why this is so... and although the 3DS remake made the enemies much weaker, same as the NDS remakes of 4 and 6, they did introduce some ease-of-use UI updates that *might* warrant playing that version but make no mistake: if you're playing the 3DS remake of DQ 7 you are missing out on 20-30% of content that was cut due to space limitations).
- Dragon Quest VIII (eh, skip it. If you want to play it then the PS2 version is the only candidate, as the 3DS remake had content cut out of it just like the DQ 7 3DS remake).
- Dragon Quest IX (only available on the Nintendo DS and I heartily recommend it! It's basically an easier-version of DQ 3, and I rank it either #4 or #3 depending on my mood).

(Dragon Quest X is/was an online-only title for the Wii and is thus not worth discussing).

Calling for reinforcements: Siveon, Courtier, MrRichard999, Helly, Crooked Bee, Emmanuel2, Viata, Zetor, an Administrator, Gamerhenky, Mustawd
 
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aweigh

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And I know I hammer this recommendation to death on nearly every post but: if you've yet to play Wizardry Empire 2: Legacy of the Princess on Windows PC, fan-translated by codexers MrRichard999 and Helly, then stop whatever you're doing and go play it right now.
 

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