Only one lineage monster appears in the black palace.
There are 54 lineage monsters in total.
I knew the Star Hammer would come in handy! I'll try that, thanks.
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STRANGER OF SWORD CITY |OT| - "We're going to need another Timmy"
- Thread starter Parakeetman
- Start date
Only one lineage monster appears in the black palace.
There are 54 lineage monsters in total.
I knew the Star Hammer would come in handy! I'll try that, thanks.
Is it necessary to find and kill them all to finish the main story?
Nope, you have some leeway so you can leave the harder ones for later or not bother with them at all.
You need 41? Blood crystals, so enough for Saint/Dragon/King sign which is needed to progress into the last dungeon.
Ah, I see, thanks!
Actually I really like the way that you often don't have to beat a dungeon boss to continue on, you always seem to have a couple of options of where to go next, even if the listed dungeon order in the lineage info chart seems like an intended difficulty curve. I ended mapping the whole flame dungeon and killing all the lineage types apart from its boss before even working out how to get into the underwater one, and then popping back into the mines to kill Salamander after that.
Heading back to kill tough bosses later reminds me of the satisfaction gained when returning to beat up FOEs in Etrian Odyssey, particularly the powerful lineage types that interrupt you relentlessly.
Augemitbutter
Member
good game so far. put 5 hours in. died a couple of the times in the starting area but i'm getting the hang of it. didn't expect to play a demon gaze follow-up. they feel similar.
the default art is so pretty. can't wait to play more. love the special edition as well.
the default art is so pretty. can't wait to play more. love the special edition as well.
Platinum get!
I have no idea how I managed to kill the last boss. Even with spending a few hours in the Black Palace I still had somewhat shitty gear, especially weapons. (I've terrible luck apparently).
38 hours (+ 5~ more or so). Spent 80% of the game playing on normal and then when I got to the Mausoleum of storms I switched it to beginner because the gear I needed didn't drop there and in the previous dungeons I had shitty luck (unsurprisingly).
Overall, I really enjoyed playing the game. It wasn't difficult. Since the game isn't linear for the most part, it helped somewhat with the gear progression but not completely. Didn't encounter a lot of bosses that were 'difficult'. They either did barely any damage or straight up one shot my party. That's the only downside I have with the game. The perma death feature didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. You get used to it pretty quickly.
I have no idea how I managed to kill the last boss. Even with spending a few hours in the Black Palace I still had somewhat shitty gear, especially weapons. (I've terrible luck apparently).
38 hours (+ 5~ more or so). Spent 80% of the game playing on normal and then when I got to the Mausoleum of storms I switched it to beginner because the gear I needed didn't drop there and in the previous dungeons I had shitty luck (unsurprisingly).
Overall, I really enjoyed playing the game. It wasn't difficult. Since the game isn't linear for the most part, it helped somewhat with the gear progression but not completely. Didn't encounter a lot of bosses that were 'difficult'. They either did barely any damage or straight up one shot my party. That's the only downside I have with the game. The perma death feature didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. You get used to it pretty quickly.
I want a sequel.
Try going deeper into the dungeon? The other one is at deepest part of the dungeon I believe.
But I already beat the Mermaid at the end, I've ambushed on every single floor multiple times.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Nice that seems about right with your playtime and such.
Also yeah with how its designed it is a bit more free form. Plus the scaling with the items in the sense of how the bonus points with equipment vs your main characters level helped with the backtracking that you did to access other areas.
As long as one knows what they are actually doing in the genre the game is not that bad overall. Though depending on luck there can be some occasions where things get bad as you mentioned.
The fish man king I fought at an ambush point on the seabed (there are two teleporters at depth 500 that lead to the sea bed, one leads to the boss, the other to ambush points).
The kraken I fought quite early, again at an ambush point I think.
I've got a bit of a strange one- I'm about to fight the boss of the ice dungeon. Earlier I found the teleport stone in the werewolf palace, and killed Behemoth, but he's respawned on the stone and now I just can't seem to beat him again, I must have fluked it first time! It's no problem, just means walking in from the ghost town stone instead, but is annoying as the ice palace stone and an ambush point are really close together for loot runs.
LordSparda
Member
The exact spot I found the kraken was at the ambush area just north the magic stone. I originally wanted to get some armor and shields off the normal octopus, so I kept passing the others until the octopus showed up. Smacked him a bit then the kraken showed up mid battle behind. You HAVE to meet the octopus first, the kraken doesn't show up alone. Or possibly you're killing the octopus too fast?
As far as I can tell the only place that merman dude appears is at the lowest floor, at the ambush point in the east half of the floor. Run around that floor killing a few merman in normal (non-ambush) encounters, then do the ambush, keep passing and he'll eventually show up. That's how it worked for me.
Hope that helps.
Got my platinum last week too. My hours were longer (around 50 hours) mostly because of my overtly careful playstyle (I go back to town every time I mapped ~20-30% of the floor). Also did excessive grinding after experimenting with class changes (which is totally unnecessary to win the game, I might add). Otherwise, same deal. I started at Beginner and switched to Normal after reaching the second set of dungeons. I felt the difficulty was a little inverted as it seemed to get easier as the game went on, I kept getting killed and hit reset in a few bosses early on, but nothing really came close to killing me at the end. I still think it's great though, better than Demon Gaze, Operation Abyss, Dungeon Traveler and all the other Vita DRPGs I've played so far.
Got myself Ray Gigant and Uncharted 4 next, not sure which one to start first, lol.
I'm pleased to see them experimenting with new classes and skills with the new edition. After playing through Operation Abyss, Demon Gaze and SoSS where, despite being different series made years apart, the fighter always gets a variation of extra attacks, the knight blocks for the party, the samurai hits a line, the archer pierces a row, the priest can throw up a magic shield to absorb damage and the wizard nukes stuff, it could do with some fresh additions. Even the buffs, using force guard to protect them and whistle to keep the party formation makes preparing for boss fights feel similar across their games.
Still, SOSS is the best one yet IMO.
Still, SOSS is the best one yet IMO.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Yeah new classes most def is needed as for the most part things are fairly similar across all of the main drpg titles. Excluding Ray Gigant.
SoSC is great due to the freeform customization given to players who put in the time and effort with the class change system. That for me was personally the most interestering thing about the games design.
So I'm up to the boss fight after choosing a path,
Wow. He hits like a ton of bricks. Any ideas on a strategy for this? Even my usual holy light/magic shield/iron defence etc didn't stop my knight dying in one round after taking over 1000(!) damage.
It looks like the fight revolves around defending while the latter is in front and attacking when it's in the back, but even so, I've tried that several times and still get creamed with my level 25 party that happily wiped the floor with the last three bosses.
Edit: victory!
kyo and Georgios
Wow. He hits like a ton of bricks. Any ideas on a strategy for this? Even my usual holy light/magic shield/iron defence etc didn't stop my knight dying in one round after taking over 1000(!) damage.
It looks like the fight revolves around defending while the latter is in front and attacking when it's in the back, but even so, I've tried that several times and still get creamed with my level 25 party that happily wiped the floor with the last three bosses.
Edit: victory!
Holy veil stopped Georgios doing much while in the back, so I ignored Kyo in front to make sure I didn't KO him until the greater threat was dead. Even so, feels like I cheesed it a bit. Not sure how else I could have done it as Georgios's melee strength is insane!
Augemitbutter
Member
i made multiple chars cause people kept dying. lifepoint recovery takes a long time, eh. almost feel bad for letting some of the first premade dudes vanish. r.i.p
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Pretty much its all based on how many battles you get into. No idea what that amount is though lol.
If you can get
kyo into the back row you should have much problems since his range is S. Use force break when he makes his way back to the front as he gets buffed during that. Also anti human weapons are helpful
bout the other one
hes around lv 44~ can heal himself for 2100 HP every 8 turns, has around 10k HP, range is M, soul blast has the "mute" status effect on it, can kidnap party members, does morale down every 5 turns, does erase buffs every 8 turns. can hit for 350 ~ 400 x 3 hits. Good luck knowing all of that now, but should give you an idea of what to attempt against him.
Thanks, he wasn't the problem, it was his bigger pal really, but good to know. Still, they are dead now
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Thanks, he wasn't the problem, it was his bigger pal really, but good to know. Still, they are dead now
good job lol yeah the other boss is more of a problem on the 360 / PC version its
Odin
*dont click on the following below = spoiler. Though this boss isnt in the Vita version.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
No idea really, guess they just wanted the versions to seem slightly different. As outside of some minor things for the most part its just a graphical change with the bosses.
it isn't the boss for the vita, but I saw him on some of the additional dungeon as a normal mob (don't remember if it was the same name though but same skin).
Augemitbutter
Member
does force hit/avoid stack?
Just finished this up, including the post-game boss. It was a bit of a shame that the last three boss battles could be beaten with similar tactics due to similar scenarios
.
Surely they could have come up with something else, as to be honest the same tactics of setting up as many buffs/divinities as possible then protecting them with Force Guard is pretty much standard operating procedure. For future games it would be great if they could push a level of strategy beyond that, as at the moment non-spellcasters only get a couple of skills that you can just spam as it also makes their basic attack redundant. They could look at Etrian Odyssey, which has far better synergy between fighter and Mage classes due to linked/bind attacks, attacks that exploit status effects inflicted by other classes, and also new ideas for classes rather than 'cleric', 'wizard', 'fighter' etc. I love me some D&D but even the tabletop RPGs offered dozens of variations on those themes after a decade or two.
Still, I really enjoyed it, the flexibility of party builds as I experimented with multiclassing in the post-game was cool. I also loved the thrust of the story being 'we want to go home' rather than 'we need to kill eldritch thing', which is really more of a side-effect of the party goal! Also, the setup of the strangers, and the way they arrive in and are used by that world. And the way Kyo goes from being
In case it helps anyone else, I finished up the main campaign at level 27 without needing to multiclass at all. However, the final part of the post-game end-boss gauntlet needed a much stronger team, as my party that wasted the main story bosses, upon heading straight for the post-game boss, was doing 0 damage. A respec of classes and a couple of hours grinding levels via ambushing for A-rank kit did the trick.
boss with waves of spirits as shields
Surely they could have come up with something else, as to be honest the same tactics of setting up as many buffs/divinities as possible then protecting them with Force Guard is pretty much standard operating procedure. For future games it would be great if they could push a level of strategy beyond that, as at the moment non-spellcasters only get a couple of skills that you can just spam as it also makes their basic attack redundant. They could look at Etrian Odyssey, which has far better synergy between fighter and Mage classes due to linked/bind attacks, attacks that exploit status effects inflicted by other classes, and also new ideas for classes rather than 'cleric', 'wizard', 'fighter' etc. I love me some D&D but even the tabletop RPGs offered dozens of variations on those themes after a decade or two.
Still, I really enjoyed it, the flexibility of party builds as I experimented with multiclassing in the post-game was cool. I also loved the thrust of the story being 'we want to go home' rather than 'we need to kill eldritch thing', which is really more of a side-effect of the party goal! Also, the setup of the strangers, and the way they arrive in and are used by that world. And the way Kyo goes from being
a nobody in our world to an arrogant knight with the increased strength of us strangers there. It reminded me of the old D&D cartoon, where the fantasy of being a normal kid, flung into another world and given amazing powers to fight epic battles, soon means nothing when you just want to go home, but some might find the change to suddenly having a level of power and agency intoxicating.
In case it helps anyone else, I finished up the main campaign at level 27 without needing to multiclass at all. However, the final part of the post-game end-boss gauntlet needed a much stronger team, as my party that wasted the main story bosses, upon heading straight for the post-game boss, was doing 0 damage. A respec of classes and a couple of hours grinding levels via ambushing for A-rank kit did the trick.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
The stuff like the same sort of buffs / debuffs in terms of the hit / accuracy is one of the same stuff that fans talked about with things they were getting tired of lol. It was something that came up in the questionnaire they did for making ihoujin 1.5. Other stuff too was like new classes. Forgot exactly what else people wanted in particular, but those were 2 I clearly remember from the live stream. There was the comments in regards to the story content too, which is also being touched up on they mentioned that during the 10 year anniversary thing.
Cool. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to you and the other thread regulars here for answering my questions during my playthrough, it was the same during Operation Abyss too. Much appreciated.
Augemitbutter
Member
damn, mimics hit hard.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Cool. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to you and the other thread regulars here for answering my questions during my playthrough, it was the same during Operation Abyss too. Much appreciated.
No problem since bunch of us played the stuff first and as mentioned made abominations so you didnt have to lol.
Other stuff was just mainly reading off the wiki since cant remember everything with how many titles I go through constantly.
Yeah early on they most def can. Later on they wont be as bad. Cept for when you get unlucky with requiem lol
After middling around and not making any progress for a few days, yesterday was a giant leap forward.
Ended up by cheesing
by keep him in the back row by leaving the adds alive as best as possible. Then, I'd use my ranger to snipe him, and mage to double cast fire bolt on him while refreshing Spirit Wall (I think that's what it is, the one that prevents debuffs on your party).
Now it's time to explore underwater...
On that note, where does one begin to grind Muramasa? Is it like Demon Gaze, where it's super RNG?
Ended up by cheesing
the Kyo fight
Now it's time to explore underwater...
On that note, where does one begin to grind Muramasa? Is it like Demon Gaze, where it's super RNG?
Black palace. Also known as the post game dungeon. Getting the three muramasa weapons wasn't that bad. If you want to kill the post game bosses you'll be spending a few hours in the Black palace and you're bound to get all three weapons unless you purposefully avoid all katana chests.
Augemitbutter
Member
kraken in this game are terrifying.
too afraid to challenge them now. had to run and leave my treasure.
too afraid to challenge them now. had to run and leave my treasure.
MotionBlue
Member
Does Gender of the main character matter at all? Working through my backlog and I finally reached this on my vita. Really loved the art style and even got the art book.
Have you opened the mines/flame dungeon yet (at the north end of ruined valley)? I found good loot in there compared to how hard it was.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Nah doesnt matter really.
Augemitbutter
Member
that
murdered my kickass dwarf fighter :/ didn't expect that. had my cleric tank the rest of the fight.
gotta train a new generation.
black dragon
gotta train a new generation.
Ugghhhh.
I don't get it. Underwater, I cannot use spells. But the Ghost Ship/Ghost lineage requires the damned Wizard spell to actually damage it properly :/
I also killed the first lineage type on Ghost Town and then died on the... well, I'm sure anyone that's made it to that knows what happens.
Uuuuggghhhhhhhhhh
I don't get it. Underwater, I cannot use spells. But the Ghost Ship/Ghost lineage requires the damned Wizard spell to actually damage it properly :/
I also killed the first lineage type on Ghost Town and then died on the... well, I'm sure anyone that's made it to that knows what happens.
Uuuuggghhhhhhhhhh
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Get weapons that can damage immortal types. I cant remember if there was an item that has the same effect as casting holy weapon. Ok no item that has the same effect as holy weapon but just look for weapons that have the O against immortal status on them. And its the same thing.
Wizards skill forgot the name already is meant for damaging spirit types.
Yeah, I meant the cleric spell, but I'll try switching weapons.
To top it off that fucking ghost drains my points, too :/
Wait, that ghost/ghost ship is an immortal type, not, you know, a Spirit?
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
In Japanese it makes more sense than English due to the type of "spirit" used is basically the same as elementals, forest spirits etc. That type and not BOO Scooby Doo type.
In general the whole spread of those is a bit fucked to begin with since no idea why slimes are considered spirits. But they are apparently.
Isn't Holy Weapon a cleric skill rather than a spell? You can still use those. Yes, ghost ship is 'immortal' (undead) rather than 'spirit' (think of spirit as translating as magical creature instead of undead). Generally, anything that looks ghostly/skeletal/zombified is an immortal (and often weak to the cleric's holy shine spell). Wisps, slimes and magical constructs like the palace Knights are 'spirits' and vulnerable to the wizard's 'magic weapon' skill rather than the cleric's 'holy weapon' skill.
Most magic and mithril weapons, unless something specific like a 'holy lance' will have O immortal O spirit in their enchantment description, which means they affect both.
What I did throughout was keep an eye on which weapons affected immortal/spirit units, and kept one as my physical attackers second 'set' even when their main weapon wasn't magical but was stronger. It doesn't cost you a turn to change set.
Same goes if an accessory, shield or wand with an inate spell (I had healing, whistle and thunderbolt staffs) becomes cursed through use, swap it out with your second set as it will no longer be contributing stat bonuses. Particularly important if you have a 'healing shield/earring +12' or whatever, as the curse means it's now useless and your overall defence is weaker.
Augemitbutter
Member
yea that ghost ship boss fun, but i didn't have too much trouble. the 2nd underwater area is kicking my ass currently and i can't find a proper bow for my ranger to damage stuff down there. he is still nice as a debuffer though.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Both of them are still pretty much theoretically spells due to costing MP to use. Think it was 2 or something.
Ah, quite right, there were quite a few wisps as far as I remember too. Once you find the magic stone underwater, it's easy to start ambushing for magical kit and then heading back to town when you run low on resources too.
If you don't have magic weapons at the start of the underwater area, heading for the mines and ambushing creatures there will gain some easily strong enough to carry you through the sea dungeon.
You can also equip the cleric/wizard with staffs that have inate spells, and then use butterfly powder on them to remove the curse once they run out. My wizard had a 'thunder emperor' staff at that point as I did the mines first due struggling to get into the sea dungeon, that just wasted magical and undead creatures (along with everything else!). With staffs, they are used as items, so it doesn't matter if they aren't all equipped- you can have six firebolt staffs in your bag and cycle through them underwater if you like
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Ah, quite right, there were quite a few wisps as far as I remember too. Once you find the magic stone underwater, it's easy to start ambushing for magical kit and then heading back to town when you run low on resources too.
If you don't have magic weapons at the start of the underwater area, heading for the mines and ambushing creatures there will gain some easily strong enough to carry you through the sea dungeon.
You can also equip the cleric/wizard with staffs that have inate spells, and then use butterfly powder on them to remove the curse once they run out. My wizard had a 'thunder emperor' staff at that point as I did the mines first due struggling to get into the sea dungeon, that just wasted magical and undead creatures (along with everything else!). With staffs, they are used as items, so it doesn't matter if they aren't all equipped- you can have six firebolt staffs in your bag and cycle through them underwater if you like
Yeah using items is a pretty good way to get around no magic and stuff. Its where the odd skill thats on dancers come in handy with being able to use an item multiple times. Though do not think those work for the equippable items with uses. But good way to burn through all those attack items lol
Augemitbutter
Member
some of these bosses really love stomping my knights. that's when my cleric replaces them and tanks everything just fine, lol. made a 3rd knight know for the rotation. it's an elf this time, because why not.
Have you put points in agility for the knight? If you're tanking boss hits for the whole party with Iron Defence you want to be dodging a few too, as they hit multiple times like a ton of bricks!
Augemitbutter
Member
most was vit, some luck and a lil agi. i was going for max vit first. have vit maxed on my dwarf now. i can focus on other stats now.
So I'm officially an idiot. I've made this game way harder for myself than it should have ever been. I knew something was off, but couldn't put my finger on it (well I could, but I thought it was some quirky game mechanic...)
As you know, when you level up a character, the game tells you when they've learned a new skill. Doubly so for magic users, as it seems they have more skills than other classes.
To date, I've played just over 26 hours
and did not realize you could cycle through spell lists for cleric/wizards by pressing the L/R buttons, meaning I've been playing all this time without casting Multi-Hit, Multi-Avoid etc. All this time I've been wondering...Where are these spells going? I kid you not, my line of reasoning was "These spells were in Demon Gaze, I guess they just aren't in this game. Hard Mode activate!"
I'm now smashing my head against a wall due to my own stupidity. I'm going to go trounce some bosses now. Gold Armor man/mecha thingy, I'm looking at you.
As you know, when you level up a character, the game tells you when they've learned a new skill. Doubly so for magic users, as it seems they have more skills than other classes.
To date, I've played just over 26 hours
Just beat the old man in the valley after he invites you out
I'm now smashing my head against a wall due to my own stupidity. I'm going to go trounce some bosses now. Gold Armor man/mecha thingy, I'm looking at you.
Always activate the "force" skills (hit, avoid, magic, etc) when you enter a dungeon.