Sunday, July 27, 2014

Mt. Bristle is as dreadful as ever.

I started a new game in MD2, and it took me three attempts to get all the way to the top. And this is only the THIRD DUNGEON IN THE GAME - before you're even given the option to revisit prior dungeons at that. I did remember this game's difficulty being absolutely dreadful, and I also remembered struggling with this place the first time around, but sheesh. This may be the only game in existence that gets this hard while still throwing early-game tutorials at you. (cue neverending list of likewise games in the comments)

Heck, even after returning with slightly higher levels and extra team members to do some missions it was still a pretty scary process. Those Starlys and Doduos just hurt so much, and if you thought abilities like Poison Point were intolerable in FRLG, here you have to contend with Spinaraks, Nidorinas and Nidorinos at a point where your stock of Pecha Berries might not be up to par, and the game keeps throwing RAWST Berries at you instead. Oh, and EVERYTHING seems to trigger Poison Point if it's done at melee range. Even stuff like Ember or Absorb.

20 comments:

  1. Uh, so that's why my little brother ended up rage-quitting Explorers of Time pretty early on. If even an adult has trouble with this dungeon, I can't imagine how harsh it must seem to an 11 years' old.

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  2. Welcome to roguelikes. Except the PMD games are easier than other roguelikes, I believe, but since Pokémon is targeted for young children, you can't have anything *too* tough, I guess.

    And speaking of MD2, I restarted that for fun some time ago, but never got around to beating it. I stopped at Amp Plains. Apparently, I decided to grind for Reviver Seeds.

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  3. I personally haven't had trouble with the poison types in that dungeon. The Nidorinos/Nidorinas are pretty uncommon compared to most other enemies plus you can just go to the next floor when you get poisoned and be fine.
    Doduos have runaway so as long as you hurt them a bit they're not too bad. The Starlies on the other hand are a complete pain in the ass. Your joke about kids getting mauled by Starlies and Bidoofs in your Platinum LP wasn't too far off. (not the Bidoofs though)
    The only thing I can think of that can increase your chance in that place is give the stat boosting items to whoever needs it the most as soon as you enter the dungeon because unlike the main series there is no EVs to hold those items back.

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    1. But I hate Doduos because Run Away usually means that you don't get shit for experience for beating them up. And of course it's even more annoying when one's in your party.

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    2. What's your party, anyway? I tend to have Pikachu as my partner or as myself, so Doduos don't really get to Run away from me.

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    3. Right now I use Charmander with Treecko as a partner, and I have a Spinarak and a Starly as extras. Not the best, but hey, I only just got started.

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  4. Wow, even you hate FRLG, it's by far the biggest step down in the series. Hey, I'm planning on actually beating the two Mystery Dungeon games quite soon. Any tips or good guides?

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    1. I've watched SuperSkarmory's videos. Believe it or not, he was the guy who got me into playing Pokemon with a whole team of six rather than just Empoleon/Staraptor/Dialga. Not bad for someone who was 13 when he started playing.

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    2. I beat the game with bad teams all the time (see also: nuzlocking, randomness, me being a massive troll)

      I also once snagged a Bisharp in my X run before the metagame really got started and we knew it was going to be hot shit. Probably my best move in hindsight.

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    3. FRLG just didn't do it for me as a remake, especially compared to Metroid Zero Mission which came out at around the same time. The Sevii Islands weren't all that interesting and seemed tacked on just for the sake of having extras (though not as badly as the extra dungeons in Chrono Trigger DS), the soundfont was all kinds of dreadful (the music honestly sounded better and more epic in the originals), and withholding evolutions like Crobat just because you don't have the appropriate Pokédex was total bullshit.

      I like how you seem to not even acknowledge MD3, as if you're so aware of how shitty it is that you forgot it existed. As a side note, MD1 hasn't aged all that well either. There's so much garbage like friend areas, the inability to recruit anything when your party's full, etc. that I'd say screw MD1, get a copy of Explorers of the Sky and be done with it.

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    4. MD3 sounded so shitty, I forgot why it sounded shitty. Besides the complete lack of Pokémon.

      And yeah, seconding the "screw MD1, just grab Explorers of Sky."

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    5. Between the balance being completely out of whack (sleep's cheapness is legendary, for example), the relative lack of content, and the emphasis on AR crap, it simply doesn't hold a candle to MD2.

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    6. Hey man, Friend Areas were fucking awesome.

      ...the rest of the game is dated though. 20 items why.

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    7. Bullshit. Being unable to recruit a Pokémon you want because you didn't have its friend area may be the single worst aspect of MD1.

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    8. There only ended up being a few Pokemon you couldn't recruit that you could find before beating Rayquaza, and then you could pretty much instantly buy every single Friend Area in the endgame. If anything, it was SOMETHING to spend your money on.

      ...I wish there was a way to fuse the systems. Like having Friend Areas, but instantly having all of them, or getting them when you got the accompanying Pokémon. That way you still get the cool feeling of walking around in a reasonably wild area with your Pokemon but the annoyance is removed somewhat.

      And I'd say the single worst was NO BAG SIZE INCREASES, 20 items is not nearly enough for an endgame dungeon. In return, having infinite storage capacity was something I preferred to MD2's limits.

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    9. I think they realized Time and Darkness' limited storage wasn't exactly flawless, because Spinda's Café in Sky was quite effective as an item sink.

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    10. Yeah, I know - it's great that Spinda Café basically makes me immediately use all my items except a few, but some choices are too hard.

      You basically end up keeping a few TMs, Revival Seeds, Oran Berries (or the better versions of them), and the few extra items (X Ray Specs, Friend Bow style item, whatever you aren't taking with you). And I liked it when you could horde more, but then I'm a horrible hoarder.

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    11. Oh, and you keep a few of the power up items as well, but even then there's not much room for those.

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  5. The last time I ever played MD1 was about 7 years ago. I was in the dungeon that Lugia was the boss of, can't recall the name. I made it to the 96th floor with just a Blaziken (in a water based dungeon mind you) and promptly died of hunger. 3 floors away from the end. I was so disgusted I never wanted to look at the game again. And you know what that was pretty impressive as I was 13 and really had no right to make it that far. To this day I have still never cleared a 99 floor dungeon. I still wonder sometimes how I even accomplished that with only 20 item slots.

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  6. Man,as fun as the mystery dungeon games are,they never could find a good balance of anything. MD1 with the shitty recruiting, MD2 with absurdly difficult difficulty (To this day,I despise Palkia),MD3 with absurdly easy difficulty (Final boss in one Rollout).Fun games,but flaws out the wazoo.

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