a new ichigo-bose game: 東方幻想魔録 ～ The Devil of Decline

[Sungho]

Fancier Ending, Added more skill effects.
Fixed a problem were certain characters' graphics won't show up when equipped with certain weapons.
(Rune Axe , Orichalcum Knife)
Corrected items with wrong sorting.(I think it's talking about the Alchemy/Synthesis menu)
Corrected some map and event errors.

Nothing too much, I think.

[GuyYouMetOnline]

Okay, found my way down to the second Stratum. In addition to the five shikigami I started with (for BYakuren, it's Ichirin, Letty, Rumia, Wriggle, and Minoriko), I have Aya, Yamame, Orin, all three Prismrivers, Mystia, and the snake-lady thing. I've also located the following party members: Patchouli, Mokou, Yuuka, Marisa, and Nitori (Byakuren starts with Remilia, YUyuko, Sunny, and Sanae). Am I missing any party members/shikigami (which is likely), and if so, where are they?

Also, is there a heal point in the second Stratum anywhere, or do I have to go back to the first Stratum to heal/change my party?

[Anima Zero]

Currently leveling up my new party members Patchy & Yuuka along with finding a couple new shikigami I had missed before.  Getting Patchy was easy.  Not so much for Yuuka.  Boss fight to obtain her was...not pretty.  I failed the first attempt, won the 2nd attempt, but the game crapped out on the scene afterwards so I had to refight the boss for a 3rd time.  Only Reimu got real lucky to survive that attempt.

Guess I'll go about cleaning up as much of the 1st stratum as I can before descending into the next stratum.

Lv13 for Reimu/Marisa/Youmu and lv7 for Yuuka/Patchy right now.

[theshirn]

Also, is there a heal point in the second Stratum anywhere, or do I have to go back to the first Stratum to heal/change my party?

Considering that you can just map travel back to the shrine whenever you want, it's not that big a deal.  But other than a few very specific places, I don't believe so.

[homing curvy laser]

The only places you can't warp out of are the towers, and in those you can open a shortcut once you get to the end of them.

[GuyYouMetOnline]

I see.

What about missing party members/shikigami? 'Cause, you know, I highly doubt I found all of them. Who all is available in the first stratum (pre-hookshot, of course)?

[Barrakketh]

I see.

What about missing party members/shikigami? 'Cause, you know, I highly doubt I found all of them. Who all is available in the first stratum (pre-hookshot, of course)?

You're missing Hina.  And somehow I overlooked Mystia...

Explored the first tower (those peacock demons are jerks), made a little bit of progress in the second stratum.  There's this one particular enemy in the Netherworld that's a pain in the ass...looks like a hybrid between a bird and a hellhound.  Had a short trip through the sunflower field and found another entrance to the Netherworld...IIRC I can has a hookshot and Youmu soon?

It's kinda interesting to see how some characters develop weapon skills.  I gave Sanae a sword just because, and also gave Yuka one when I switched out Yuyuko for her.  She still hasn't learned Demonbane or that other move that hits like a cross and has slayer effects, but she's also learned some of the later skills that Sanae has just learned (like the  medium power column attack).

[theshirn]

Explored the first tower (those peacock demons are jerks), made a little bit of progress in the second stratum.  There's this one particular enemy in the Netherworld that's a pain in the ass...looks like a hybrid between a bird and a hellhound.  Had a short trip through the sunflower field and found another entrance to the Netherworld...IIRC I can has a hookshot and Youmu soon?

Hookshot's actually in Muenzuka.  You can get there from the first Makai on the second stratum, and I advise doing so.

[GuyYouMetOnline]

You're missing Hina.  And somehow I overlooked Mystia...

Is Hina the only one I'm missing? And where is she?

[Vilkni]

Iirc Hina is in the forest area to the left of the leftmost tower on the first stratum.

[Barrakketh]

Hookshot's actually in Muenzuka.  You can get there from the first Makai on the second stratum, and I advise doing so.

Got the warp for it, exploring the other parts of that Makai 1 there.  Parsee and Ran get!

Uh, wanted the teleport for the second tower's guardian so I ended up fighting him.  Managed to get him below half health at level 16, and eventually he started attacking twice per turn and spamming instant death :V  Poison helped deal with his regeneration.

Anyone know what [強打：付喪神（高）] does?  Atlas isn't really helping with that.

[Kyre]

Anyone know what [強打：付喪神（高）] does?  Atlas isn't really helping with that.

High slayer effect against artifact spirit enemies, golem types etc.

[Barrakketh]

High slayer effect against artifact spirit enemies, golem types etc.

Thanks, Atlas had "Faint (Height)" after the colon, so I had no idea how I should interpret it (Google's translator was even more useless) :V  Finally a decent random drop...I haven't gotten much other than crafting materials from enemies, but I also haven't been doing any grinding.

[Vilkni]

Hey, at least the crafting system AND drops are actually better than it was in GoS.

[Barrakketh]

Hey, at least the crafting system AND drops are actually better than it was in GoS.

The problems is, right now there's nothing I would want to craft unless I were to upgrade some accessories, and the last time I looked there was nothing particularly interesting there (looked like it just added some stats to the elemental rings).

I'm hoping I'll find a chest with some better elemental weapon recipes in the near future.  I'd really like something that has additional light/dark damage.

[theshirn]

Thanks, Atlas had "Faint (Height)" after the colon, so I had no idea how I should interpret it (Google's translator was even more useless) :V  Finally a decent random drop...I haven't gotten much other than crafting materials from enemies, but I also haven't been doing any grinding.

Actually, Google translating one character at a time told me it was a high power slayer effect; the type was what I couldn't reason out. :V

[theshirn]

WELP.

Third tower boss one-shots Shikieiki.  I guess that means no magic.

Despite godawful accuracy on the last couple rounds, I still manage to win on the first try. :toot:

EDIT: OKAY WHAT

the god damn jiangshi does 130 to Yuka with her basic attack

the last one? single digits

HOW DO I BEAT THIS

[GuyYouMetOnline]

Okay, I just stumbled onto a shrine area in the first Makai area in the second Stratum. It's a small, recruit-someone-here type of room, with only one entrance/exit, but there's nothing in the room. It's got to be used for something (there's even a warp point to it), but does anyone know what?

[theshirn]

Likely where you'd find someone that you started with, by the sound of it.

[Vilkni]

So people said that characters couldn't possibly learn all weapon skills. I can confirm that's NOT EVEN TRUE AT ALL.

See, the issue with this is the way tech types work. If the tech type matches the skill move you're trying to get, you get no penalty at all. If for instance the tech type match ends up with X, which is the worst, you lose -80% of the chance to get the skill (So 100/1000 goes to 20/1000 in that case) AND +5 skill level on top of the normal requirement. While this kind of means you could spam regular attacks to learn almost everything in the game, the chances are MUCH more horrible on a X match and not only that, but you're going to get much more worse skill level requirements than if you used skills, and even then...

I willl now show you a example:


超次元破砕斬
Type:1
Enemy Level:23
Derived tech:次元斬
Skill level:20
Base learning chance:(10/1000)

This is Hyperdimensional Crusher, which I believe is a hammer skill. The tech type 1 characters have a 10/1000 chance to learn the skill and they need a skill level of 20. Youmu IS not a Tech Type 1, but rather a Tech Type 2. Tech Type 2 chars get X on matching to Tech Type 1 skills so she ends up with 2/1000 chance to learn the skill and they need a skill level of 25.

And GuyYouMetOnline, it appears you started with Sanae and that would have been where she was gotten if you hadn't chosen a main character that had her in her team. It's the same story with other characters that don't appear in a group with a main character.

[Starxsword]

I sort of said something on the lines of that. If this game is like Romancing Saga 3, then each character has an affinity to specific weapons
and skills. And I know through experience in that game that there are skills that some characters can never learn. But that is for that specific
game, so this game may be completely different.

[Vilkni]

I sort of said something on the lines of that. If this game is like Romancing Saga 3, then each character has an affinity to specific weapons
and skills. And I know through experience in that game that there are skills that some characters can never learn. But that is for that specific
game, so this game may be completely different.

Well except that every magical spell/physical spell/buff via shikigamis is determined by a shikigami's level requirement and they learn it automatically anyways, and merely having specific better weapon affinity doesn't mean you'll learn that specific weapon skill move faster. In fact, every weapon skill has a tech type and what the tech type is in addition to a character's tech type means that some of the weapon skills may actually be harder to learn even if you're good at learning weapon skill levels quickly like Youmu and Yuyuko (Yes, she's a surprisingly good learner in swords apparently) who learn sword skills at what is a quick leveling rate. So apparently while no weapon skill is barred from every characters, some of them are horrible at learning certain weapon skills even if they level that weapon skill quickly. And apparently from what I understand the weapon skill moves have no restrictions on who can learn what move, but it basically amounts to learning rate modifiers and skill level modifiers based on tech types solely. If I could post the tech type list for characters, you would sort of understand it better, but it seems to be speculation on that part, unfortunately, especially since it is missing a character.

I got this from http://blog.livedoor.jp/maroku/ on page 4, if a translator would care to read it (If they have beaten the game, that is). The latest update is on how strong the slayer effects are.

EDIT: 1.10 patch:

・ソフトリセットを長押しすると、以後リセットが効かなくなる問題を修正しました。
・式神のスキルで連続攻撃した際に２回目以降に主人が行動する問題を修正しました。
（見た目の不具合のみで、内部の処理は元々問題ありませんでした。）
・バトル中にＸボタンでコンディションを確認した際の解説を加筆しました。
　また、フィールドの効果も確認できるようになりました。
・回復の魔法陣の当たり判定を大きくしました。
（ロード直後の当たり判定は小さいままです。一度入りなおすと大きくなります。）
・マップやイベントの不具合を修正しました

Wow, so soon? Must have been something important that they missed. I think this is now 2 more patches than vanilla GoS.

[trancehime]

・ソフトリセットを長押しすると、以後リセットが効かなくなる問題を修正しました。
・式神のスキルで連続攻撃した際に２回目以降に主人が行動する問題を修正しました。
（見た目の不具合のみで、内部の処理は元々問題ありませんでした。）
・バトル中にＸボタンでコンディションを確認した際の解説を加筆しました。
　また、フィールドの効果も確認できるようになりました。
・回復の魔法陣の当たり判定を大きくしました。
（ロード直後の当たり判定は小さいままです。一度入りなおすと大きくなります。）
・マップやイベントの不具合を修正しました

1) Soft Reset bug where it did not work if the buttons were pressed too long was fixed
2) Bug involving Shikigami skills which hit multiple times was fixed. The bug itself is that multi-hit works only up to two times.
3) Enhanced condition viewer upon pressing X button in battle. Furthermore, you can view field effects here.
4) Magic circles which heal you will heal a lot more than before.
5) Fixed some errors involving the map and some events.

I got this from http://blog.livedoor.jp/maroku/ on page 4, if a translator would care to read it (If they have beaten the game, that is). The latest update is on how strong the slayer effects are.

Sparking in DoD does work like RomanSaGa 3 (Dunno why I said SF), but I'm not sure how it's spoiler-worthy in terms of story. You don't need to have beaten the game to know this stuff. I can go into detail or someone else can if I'm not around I guess, but only if people want to. Incidentally there was a bug where each sparking type had their skill availabilities reversed. :V

[Lightseeker]

So I heard that there are no more Spell Cards (or more accurately, character-specific skills like in GoS) and the playable characters are only capable in learning weapon-related skills.

Is there a story explanation for this? Or is it purely part of the gameplay?

[homing curvy laser]

4) Magic circles which heal you will heal a lot more than before.

Wow, so fully healing you wasn't enough already? 

[theshirn]

Wow, so fully healing you wasn't enough already? 

Yeah, I was wondering about this one myself...

[GuyYouMetOnline]

I don't think it's referring to the actual healing circles. Have you noticed that you'll sometimes be healed while you're out exploring? I thought it was happening upon getting a new shikigami, but I could very easily be wrong about that. That healing may be what it's referring to.

[theshirn]

I don't think it's referring to the actual healing circles. Have you noticed that you'll sometimes be healed while you're out exploring? I thought it was happening upon getting a new shikigami, but I could very easily be wrong about that. That healing may be what it's referring to.

I have never noticed this.  The only time I've been healed when out exploring that I've noticed is after boss fights - and again, that's to full.

[Anima Zero]

Current status : Mapped out everywhere I could reach on the 1st stratum after clearing out all previously visited areas to get Yuuka & Patchy leveled up.  Also got several new weapons, armor, and various crafting materials from enemies.  More Shikigami of course too.  I'm fine with the Prismriver sisters and gaining the ability to buff & debuff stats finally.

Boss wise, took down the demon guarding the entrance to the 1st tower.  While being a jerk and randomly throwing out an attack that made everyone lose their turn and having some rather strong ice magic, buffs and Reimu getting a LW charge kept everyone alive to the end of the fight.

Inside the 1st tower...cool new battle theme and a lovely little puzzle mechanic.  Ended up reaching a healing point and a boss room.  Opened up the shortcut back here, then checked the boss out.

*Looks at the boss's HP*

That might be a problem.

*Hits Yuuka with a physical that did 180 dmg to her, then does a power/magic charge*

That's a bigger problem.

*Boss does a party wide attack that OHKOs 3/5ths of my party and leaves the other two low on HP*

...I'm not supposed to be doing this fight right now, whoops D: *Dies the next turn*.

Guess I can safely go into the 2nd stratum now and check things out there after looking around the rest of the 1st tower for any treasures I missed.

[trancehime]

Wow, so fully healing you wasn't enough already? 

the changelog isn't clear which magic circle it even is. it's definitely not those ones though