Genius of Sappherios Zansyo/Weekend

[Starxsword]

Well, the Mystic shield seems like the best bet if you have it. It would probably make the fight very easy, just kill Orin first and Okuu will eventually die if you are taking 0 damage from Mega Flare.

[Sakurei]

ok, tell me now. I am playing the first game, so.

are the stages going to continue getting longer? stage 5 already took me like what, 2 hours? how the fuck are you supposed to know you have to talk to torches to progress :V I am not paying attention to details like "OMG IT'S NOT BURNING"

so yeah, is there going to be a cap or is the last stage like 10 hours worth playtime?

[Kanoe]

I knew I recognized the name somewhere. Thanks for the comments on my Genius of Sappheiros LP, Starxsword. 


Really depends on the stage. Most stages have some minor gimmick you may want to pay attention to (like manipulating torches). Besides that, depends on how quickly you can fight the encounters. I do not take that long in the early stages but the late game can take a bit simply due to the large number of encounters in each room. But that is like final stage level stuff.

[Sakurei]

so I only tookforever because I'm an idiot :V that's reassuring. I suppose I can continue then. will be a pain to grind up youmu to current levels, though. I'll probably leave her in commander spot for a while. /hax

also, does anyone know the artist for the potraits you're shown when you use a last spell etc?

[Serela]

Yeah, you get boosted exp for low level characters, so you just drop them in the commander slot for awhile.

[Sungho]

The 'Staff' in the official site mentions that the illustration was done by someone named 小川ハリ.
I was unable to find any other evidence myself.

[homing curvy laser]

ok, tell me now. I am playing the first game, so.

are the stages going to continue getting longer? stage 5 already took me like what, 2 hours? how the fuck are you supposed to know you have to talk to torches to progress :V I am not paying attention to details like "OMG IT'S NOT BURNING"

so yeah, is there going to be a cap or is the last stage like 10 hours worth playtime?

Well, the first time I tackled the second to last dungeon I took about 14 hours :V but that was mostly because I believe I was using ineffective strategies and still felt like beating every single enemy in it (there's a billion per room). The first encounter I had took me about 30 minutes to beat because the enemies kept calling more enemies who did the same and used a skill to prevent my escape, and the only area attack I had wasn't too effective on them. It was kind of horrifying.

It obviously didn't take me that long in my latest playthrough, I believe something between 3 and 4 hours (also while killing everything because I like doing that).

[Serela]

One thing that greatly influences how long it takes is

A.How many of the encounters you want to beat
and
B.How effectively set up your party is for them.

They're both probably more important then what the actual stage is, with a few exceptions. None of the stages are terribly long, unless these two factors amplify things a lot :V

Then again, this might be an unclear answer? Mmmph. Stages can easily take several times as long purely over these two factors, really. (And no, being effectively set up is not based on your level, and mostly not on what equipment drops you've got; it's not a grind-oriented kind of difficulty, the game is just very strategical)

[Sakurei]

> very strategical.

WELP, SEEMS LIKE I'M GOING TO BE STUCK AT SOME POINTS :V every strategy game ever I overcame by simply overgrinding. I think I never used any of the strategies for labyrinth of touhou. like, don't debuff the eientei bossfight? fuck that shit, renko all the way :V
yeah. I am like that. turns out I'm bad at RPGs and exploiting useful things. like...orin and okuu fight? you know, the one the wiki recommends killing orin first? I went for okuu first :V I tend to ignore status effects altogether and just throw some high level spells at my enemy. has been like that for everything. ever since pokemon.

[Serela]

I'unno, I think killing Okuu first is totally the way to go in that fight anyway.

But in any case, you'll have to learn eventually, you'll start hitting sheer walls at certain bosses (and even some random encounters will give you obscene trouble) otherwise Buffs and debuffs and statuses can be exceedingly useful in this game, even for not-bosses.

[Sakurei]

> I threw byakuren out of the party because she had like 2 moves that did actual damage as opposed to mokou who works wonders, even if she only has very few spells.

if I hit a wall, I will probably stop played for a year only to pick it up again and see why I stopped in the first place. I dunno. I read youmu&yuyuko is pretty darn hard. I can always grind until I oneshot everything :V

[Serela]

Not really, the stat boosts from a levelup do almost nothing :V and getting the next tier of attacks tends to take awhile. Plus the game gives you lowered exp after awhile.

Also rofl :V Byakuren is an awesome damage dealer by using her offense buffs to double someone else's damage. Or using a debuff to make bosses do zero to you.

Then again I don't think she knows either of those yet, but.

[Validon98]

I can always grind until I oneshot everything

Ahahahahaha... no you can't.
Grinding's only good for getting Power and item drops. Even then, you have to use strategy against a lot of the bosses.

[RegalStar]

Pure grinding will get you nowhere. Every boss in this game is a puzzle boss to some degree; they're all very easy if you know what you're doing.

[Pandaology]

Though Youmu + Yuyuko seemed rather luck based, they either destroyed my party in the first few turns  or I died to to intsa. death, but I might have been way under-leveled.

[Serela]

With Sanae's RES buff, you can mostly be fine against the instant death. Her def buff helps vs. Youmu too... and from there, there's a couple ways to kill Yuyuko;

Spoiler:

either mdef debuffs and then use magic, or Aya for high accuracy attacks that ignore perfect dodge,  or Nitori's perfect-accuracy chasers that hit weakness for huge damage, or Satori's Poison Art, or Nitori with a gun to ignore perfect dodge and use Element Bullet+Spellcard to literally facemelt both of them in one hit....

[Pandaology]

Does raising your starts reduce the chance of some status effects?    For the battle:

Spoiler:

I just used Nitori's flame line spell, it hit Youmu on her weakness and Yuyuko for a fair bit. By the time Youmu went down Yuyuko was at half health, and I just used Big Bang or what ever it is to do the final damage. It was annoying watching everyone miss or hit for zero's, though Mach Punch allowed Mouku to actually deal damage.

[Barrakketh]

I used Nitori's Bad Camouflage to reduce Yuyuko's evasion to 0.  She never dodged anything with that up.

[Starxsword]

I knew I recognized the name somewhere. Thanks for the comments on my Genius of Sappheiros LP, Starxsword.

No problem. I was looking at your Fantasy Maiden Wars E LP, so I decided to watch the GoS LP too.

Does raising your starts reduce the chance of some status effects?

Yes, sort of, there is only 1 stat(POT) that reduces chance of getting hit by status effects and it takes like 4 points of that stat to get a point of RES(this is your resistance to status effects). Though, if you RES is 100 or something, I don't think status effects can hit you at all. Reimu and Sanae can reach 100 RES, so they are pretty much immune to status effects if you get there.

You can also use Sanae's RES buff or Byakuren's RES buff for pretty much immunity to status effects too. Byakuren's RES buff is stronger, but you don't generally need it unless you are trying to block Vortex. Sanae's RES buff is AoE, so it is more useful overall.

[Sakurei]

people, youmu and yuyuko weere piss easy and I had no idea what I was doing. defeated them on my first try and luck-survived resurrection butterfly because sanae had a no-death item equipped.

same goes to komachi. Idon't even know why the wiki says she's even remotely difficult. all she has is a lot of HP

yuuka and medicine however...fuck them :V took me like 5 tries to realize that I have to change something. put the power-up point on different stats, changed reimu's skillset and all was set and go. defeated them then.

OH YEAH, WHO ELSE THINKS YOUMU IS GOD TIER!? she was 5 levels lower than everyone and skill did 1000+ damage to yuuka. as opposed to everyone else.

who else thinks eientei is stupid. do I have to use both parties? because 6 of my members, aka the 2nd party, has an average level of 9.

[Pandaology]

The battle seemed to hinge on what stance Youmu uses, cause she'll take apart you party in a few turns or spend the entire time doing nothing. The first time I fought them, I got Youmu down, despite not actually having a prepared party, and than Yuyuko spammed death and killed off all party members. The second battle... I lasted around 4 turns, my entire front line was downed in two hits.

[Sakurei]

I wouldn't say she did nothing. she took out large chunks of HP. I just had 2 characters that could heal, so she just wasn't fast enough. though riemu spend half the time dead :V

yuyuko was the one that did _nothing_. all she spammed was ghastly dream that di like 0 dmg to everyone but mokou. I completley forgot about the resurrection, so that one caught me off guard like crazy. but sanae surived that shit, so it's alright.

I'm having trouble in eientei, though. my main party onsists of mokou, sanae, reimu, youmu and sakuya (with byakuren as commander). so a lot of enemies give me trouble. like the bamboo sprouts, the red jelly, the carriage and the rat. that's like...everything, except the silly broom and the bacteria. I believe if it wasn't for youmu's godlike abilities (I.E death inducing normal strike. like, what? it will be a while before I change that weapon), I'd have wiped like 10 times already. I haven't looked at the wiki yet (with the exception of 1 time in labyrinth of touhou, and yesterday where I rad up to yuuka and medicine, I never look at the wiki before I've done it myself), but it will probably tell me just that. physical attacks are shit for party A. it will probably tell me that team A has to be all magical and shit and team B is well suited to be on the physical side.

I can imagine this game pulling that dickmove. because that would mean I have to play both parties. probably making team A fight the first half of reisen & tei and team B the 2nd or something. it will be a while before I can continue, because I have to grind 6 character from average level 9 to average level 25...god, I hate this game's level-up system.

[Serela]

The issue is you're using a physical party on the side of Eientei that's highly resistant to physical attacks, and uses stuff like Blind and Physical Reflection. Use a magic party on that side, and a physical party for the other side, and you should be good!

On the matter of Youmu- use Human stance for bosses after you get Slash of Eternity. At that point, it's by a landslide the best stance to use for single targets, and that stays the same for the rest of the game. (Arguably Asura could work after you get a new non-stance-specific nuke, but...!)

it will be a while before I can continue, because I have to grind 6 character from average level 9 to average level 25...god, I hate this game's level-up system.

It shouldn't be an issue, especially since you'll get large EXP bonuses on the low level characters. While level 9 might just be too low, your characters can be 10 levels behind and it doesn't make a huge difference; and they'll be catching up that much really fast with boosted exp and the way the EXP curve works.

For that matter, this is a kind of game where you need basically everyone leveled up. You'll get screwed over later in the game if you're severely neglecting half the cast. (Aya is the least important character to level)

You don't need to grind though, just make sure to change up your party when you start every new stage. Even in the non-weekend version (Which has a much less nice EXP curve keeping your average level a decent bit lower, and far lower drop rates) I was able to complete the game without grinding once, without much trouble.

[Starxsword]

I can imagine this game pulling that dickmove. because that would mean I have to play both parties. probably making team A fight the first half of reisen & tei and team B the 2nd or something. it will be a while before I can continue, because I have to grind 6 character from average level 9 to average level 25...god, I hate this game's level-up system.

You can use a mixed party between physical and magical attackers for both A and B side. I believe that is what I did the first time around and I did fine. Try to split your buffers(Byakuren and Sanae) in 2 separate parties. Their buffs are very useful, especially attack up or magic up, depending on your party type.

[Sakurei]

say, how worthwhile is it to let satori learn some spells from the enemies? like stuff from bosses, which I am sure are learnable, too. until now, she's only got some real weak stuff, but...eh, I'm sure there're strong spells she could learn, but I am just not sure how much it's worth, considering the risk against bosses, for example.

also, tei was super easy, reisen was really weird to fight against. somehow managed on the 4th try or so, though.

another thing is the innerpart of eientei. like what? the enemies were super dangerous and I don't think I wiped as often in the game as I did in that one dungeon. I felt so bullshitted at times. but what's worse was the boss fight. I had no idea how to approach it. both had tons of HP, dealt tons of damage if they chose to and healed for easily a round worth of damage. I had to switch around with parties, formations, equipment and growth-points before I found out kaguya can be dealt with by using charm and control. I never used control before, so I wasn't exactly sure how it'd help me in the fight. turns out having the boss buff me was easier than using sanae to do so :V it was still a pain to deal with considering the sheer amount of HP. marisa and patchouli didn't have enough MP to deal with kaguya after eirin was down so I had to resort to physical attacks, which was really annoying because nobody actually had a powerful physical attack (team was reimu, sanae, byakuren, patchy and marisa). and while marisa dealt 1k dmg per attack with absolute zero and that fire spell, without MP they don't help.

well, that happened. I'm in stage 11 now and the easy encounters are nice for a change. I suppose I'll get those in the 20s up to reimu, sanae etc, who are now 34/35. I don't expect a fight that difficult anytime soon. unless the game's a bitch and the momiji midboss (?) was just to tease me. and then BAM super tough bossfight in my face. preferably momiji 3x as strong :V or kanako with 30k HP or whatever I will have to fight at the end of this stage.

[Cor]

Satori is a good support with Area Heal, Starlight Barrier and whatnot. Punish the Judgment and Mad Thunder are strong attacks, and she has access to the rare darkness element. I mostly went for all spells to satisfy my collection urges, but a great many of them are useless. Eh, I'll let Serela fill you up on her uses.

[Starxsword]

Yeah, most of Satori's spells are unimpressive. There are a few of them that I find very good. Poison Art is very good from early to late mid game. It starts being not too effective maybe around stage 16 or so, around the Heaven area. Mind Blast is very useful, and Enervation is insane. Enervation can single handedly win you both regular encounters and boss encounters. Mad Thunder, I heard is good, but I did not get it. Petro Breath and pretty much most of the defensive skills are all good. Everything else I don't believe is all that impressive. Later on, you can get some pretty crazy spells, but that's post game.

For the second part of Eientei, try to use Sanae and resist buff. There are a lot of enemies with some pretty crazy status effects.

[Sakurei]

I see, thanks for the input. I'll think about it a bit more, then. not sure what I'll do with satori yet.

as for eientei: I'm done with it; it was simply a pain to get through. I was so slow at times that the enemies respawned :'D well. that happened.

[RegalStar]

Do use Satori. While a lot of her spells are crap, the ones that are worth learning are very much worth learning. Area Heal, Mad Thunder, the Demon series, and later Medoroa, Dark Giga Flare, Tentacle and Vacuum Wave are all fantastic spells, and she also has lots of status spells like Enervate, Time Stop, Death Zapper, Wail, Petro Breath. She also has some great support spells in Leaf Shield, Starlight Barrier, Reflect Wall, and MUCH later, Raise Dead. I can't imagine beating some challenges such as Spirit World Challenger or the entirety of the endurance dungeon without her.

[Serela]

I'm still a bit under the weather, but the best uses for Satori in mid-game, uhm...

Area Heal is fabulous forever, and using her vanilla multitarget element magic (UFOs give them to you in Cloudy Heaven if you don't get it before) is good for triggering chasers in tandem with Patchouli, which is extremely effective on a few stages with lots of elementally weak enemies. I highly, highly recommend getting Mad Thunder from Iku when you run into her not too far away in the future, too- it's super strong if you get it this early.

She would have been great for Silence/other-debilitating-status on the scary enemies in Eientei, making them harmless, but you made it past that! By the way, the best way to have gotten high damage on the Eientei trio is slayers; they were Magician and Warrior, which are common slaying types, on all of Nitori's guns, and Marisa's laser POW tree has a bonus that gives ALL her magic (not just the lasers) slayer on Warrior/Magician/Giants. Plus, lasers hit both of them at once, so it's convenient.

Once Satori gets lv50, you can go pick up stuff like Reflect Wall and Enervation and Time Stop, if you like. Starlight Barrier is nifty sometimes, as is Leaf Shield (which is a lv40 skill I think but awkward to learn), but Reflect Wall/Enervation are definitely the more useful ones I think.

I like Death Zapper, too (Waterfall Dragon God guy things in the Youkai Mountain Lake)... although I never really use physical Satori until pretty late in the game, because CHASERS and/or MAD THUNDER. It's notable that if she uses a Knife you can get a nice success rate/speed boost on any physical status inflict skills, for that matter. Later you'll also get a nice dagger with MP drain that inflicts Silence too, which makes that a pretty nifty setup idea.