Super Mario RPG Switch Restricted Weapons/No Deaths Run - Land's End Shoguns
2Original version video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71zMKfHrrfU
Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO2o0_k4kOryFUHsFDdkj9f0n2YfuNKar
Sky Bridge is still an interesting minigame, granted that it's still simplistic overall.
With Speardovich, Mallow's MATK Ally Buff stood out for allowing for wallbreaking ol' Speary Yarid's alarming MDEF. Now it's Bowser's turn to shine with his Ally Buff, and it shows with the Shoguns.
In the original, Shoguns scream at you to have Mallow at Level 14 to have his move from that, and it wasn't an immersive solution. This was the result of the Shoguns having unblockable 100 PATK Carni-Kiss, which generally 2HKOed Mario and Mallow unless they were Defending, and with a minimum of 4 encounters, the potential RNG spike that could allow that to come up was a very real possibility. Now? Carni-Kiss, as I had hoped, is now blockable. The sweetspot timing is confounding, and even the general timing is going to catch you being remotely lax, but what we have is very much workable. This isn't the only improvement that helps, either.
Bowser's Physical DEF Ally Buff is starting to really show its merits. There was one point where Mario took a fully unblocked Carni-Kiss because I was at the time trying to talk about how regular Shoguns have become easier than Speardovich simply from Carni-Kiss being blockable. Mario, with 78 HP and 59 Physical DEF default, would have slumped to the ground if I didn't have a 2 Chain up, reducing the damage from 82 to the provided 72. This IS magic number involvement, but this is with 2 Chain and the lowest PDEF value of any member of my active team. 5+ Chain has Mallow (who has 65 PDEF default here) taking slightly more than half of the damage he would take with no Chain, and Bowser with his default 72 PDEF? Look at that, barely a third. This can actually be overall stronger than the Defense Up provision of Geno Boost, something I have found in the past to be the big powerful aspect of Geno Boost, and you aren't spending 12 FP to have this benefit for the entire party against enemies who never deal magic damage. It's more vulnerable to higher PATK enemies, sure, but big deal, we're guaranteed to have ways to play around those. And believe me, there will be more significant instances of the PDEF Ally Buff being absolutely helpful.
I was ready to write off these fights being overnerfed because regular Shoguns are now significantly more susceptible to attack-heal-attack-heal thanks to Carni-Kiss being blockable, leading to the comparison to Speardovich that I was talking about with Speardovich potentially milking the Duplicate for an RNG spike involving chip damage. However, my recording attempts ran into why it's relevant that Shogun is treated as a regular enemy rather than a boss. That point will be displayed with my next upload, and will it be involving VERY welcome commentary.