Super Mario RPG Switch Restricted Weapons/No Deaths Run - Mushroom Way No Damage
0You might think that picture is photoshopped clickbait. It isn't. Watch through the video if you aren't taking my word for it.
Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO2o0_k4kOryFUHsFDdkj9f0n2YfuNKar
Relevant rules:
-Jump Special is disallowed (it was only allowed on Bowser specifically in the last part for obvious reasons)
-Action Gauge stuff restricted to use at discretion
-Start boss battles at 0 Timing Chain (exceptions may be made at discretion)
Hammer Bros. fight is at 17:56
First off, credit to Christopher Niosi AKA Kirbopher for indirectly letting me know that you can get an extra FP here as a result of a remaster change. Note that the Flower Tab and the Pick-Me-Up guarded by Goomba ambushes are not in the original, and were likely added to reduce problems with the player's early game capability.
Mushroom Way is our introduction to the game's general gameplay. I may as well highlight the new mechanics in the remaster that are involved here:
-Enemies involve new, updated timing windows, and generally reward paying close attention to their behavior; this isn't quite obvious yet, but it's worth mentioning now.
-New item system. Rather than deal with a total normal item capacity of 29 like in the original, the player gets to work with a per item type capacity. On Breezy, each item type actually has a cap of 30, but on Normal, this capacity is significantly more variable between types and never exceeds 10 for any type. Surplus items also get sent to the Storage Box at Mario's house. We will see how much this system helps in later videos.
-There is an Action Gauge, although the one thing that I involve with it here is for demonstration purposes, since the Toad Assist is an obvious placeholder for what is to come when we eventually have 3 party members. The Action Gauge's details are as follows:
--The full gauge is 600 points, thus every 6 points represent 1%
--As long as Mario is in action (shouldn't be a problem with this run), you get 10 points on a non-Sweetspot Action Command (timed hits in the original), or 20 on a Sweetspot Action Command
--During a displayed Timing Chain, you get extra points on the next Action Command involvement regardless of success; the bonus is 2 points at 2 to 4 Chain, or 4 points at 5 or more Chain
--Upon every multiple of 10 Chain, you also get 60 points
-Have I mentioned that there is now a Timing Chain mechanic? This has other points of interest, but nothing that comes into play yet. I will get to this soon enough though. For clarification, the Chain carries over between battles; I'm going to want to avoid milking that for reasons I'm sure you can already guess.
-Sweetspot timed attacks, if they don't miss by luck, now cause other enemies to be hit, each one for 40% of the damage they would take from an untimed hit primarily targeting them. The splash itself is actually subject to luck-related missing.
That last one is relevant for the Mushroom Way boss, the Hammer Bros., who I will first talk about how they have changed. They still have the same behavior, but their biggest threat, Hammer Time, now has more intuitive perfect time blocking. Originally, it was block when you expected the 3rd hammer to disappear, but now it's right when the 1st hammer lands. This is cleaner, though still scary even if you are okay with taking damage. I'm naturally fighting these two with Level 1 Mario with no Jump and no Toad Assist as well. By itself, that would be all-encompassing.
What takes this a step further is the convenient math with the AoE damage. Hammer Bros have 50 HP and 13 Physical DEF, so with Sweetspot timing, you inflict 14 HP to your primary target, and 2 to the other HB. It's amazing what happens with these values that Nintendo and Squaresoft used nearly 3 decades back where they couldn't have been thinking of the physical AoE involvement. Of course, on my end, to have both the No Damage part accomplished and showcase this, I'm consequently having to involve 19 Sweetspot timings in a row, and that's on top of the splash needing to not miss at all or the whole effort gets ruined because of the game being spiteful toward the notion. This ends up with isolated recording so that I can minimize the problems with trying to record this, because I don't need this to put me through repetition.
At least I got this out of the way. I'm not doing No Damage on every boss fight, or even every boss fight that is theoretically possible to No Damage without grinding. There's one soon enough that I'll be checking up on and even then I'm not going to bother past that one to avoid issues with tedium. Super Mario RPG is not built to be No Damage possible for a good chunk of the game anyway.