Super Mario RPG Switch Restricted Weapons/No Deaths Run - Sea Caves
0Original version video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6rQgYC8WRo
Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO2o0_k4kOryFUHsFDdkj9f0n2YfuNKar
Hey! The totally not suspicious townsfolk are not running in place in general! We should bake them an "At Least You Tried" cake, just to see how they will feel about that.
Zeostar is nerfed to now have his usage of Recover be a consideration for his turn rather than be an counter that wouldn't even be as obnoxious with the "out of FP" message from successive attempts because of the Switch version's streamlining in general. I would have preferred the Recover attempt still be a response to physical attack hits; even if it would suck at disrupting our momentum, anybody doing attack-heal-attack-heal instead of considering Mallow's Thunderbolt shouldn't be minding a little extra tedium regardless.
I will grant, though, that Special variant Zeostar ends up with 112 PATK, at a point where Bowser's PDEF Ally Buff barely manages to provide about 15 points in general as your characters other than Bowser himself are scrambling to crack 60 PDEF on their own. Here's a reminder: Booster was a nuisance with 75 PATK not long ago, and now we're seeing that be the bog standard base that Zeostar has. Of course, this isn't a bad thing, especially since Zeostar isn't difficult to combat either way. Mostly, it's the inflated HP that invites tedium and makes me wish Bowser could better address Special variant enemies, as screaming for extra Thunderbolts because I don't use Geno's PATK Ally Buff is still a bit much.
Leuko, meanwhile, is a case of Magic Evade's removal not being an objective nerf, but in the first place, if you were using Terrorize (90% Hit Rate on a 0 Magic Evade enemy) against multiple Leukos in the original, even with Leuko's 30 Magic Evade, you were still looking at an approximate 40% chance of hitting both Leukos and setting off their 89 TMATK Solidify countering; that chance is non-negligible in the first place and definitely not something I would want to risk dealing with. Now without Magic Evade, that chance is 81%, when the MDEF Ally Buff belongs to Peach, not Mallow or Bowser. Oh, and BTW, I checked in practice running to see if Thunderbolt triggers the Solidify despite dealing no damage. It does, surprise surprise. But Thought Peek doesn't set off the Solidify, even though it counted as an attack when used during Knife Guy and Grate Guy's balancing act gimmick. Huh.
Something I'd also like to point out: Leuko's strong Power stat is Physical ATK, at 65 points, so the 50% boost goes to that for a Special variant Leuko, increasing it to 97, but Leuko doesn't even use physical attacks to begin with. Oops. Developers, you might have wanted to treat unused attack stats as 0 for the purposes of determining Special variant boosts, given Snapdragon also gets his 50% boost to his unused Magic ATK. I'll grant that what Leuko would get the 50% boost for instead would be Magic DEF (60 points, increased to 90 instead of 72), which can easily be bypassed much like with Special Lava Bubble, but it wouldn't be a complete waste, and it would even fit with the worldbuilding point that I make with Magic DEF and the original's Magic Evade, helped by Leuko being a jellyfish, so of course he should be a magic interdictor of sorts. Anybody who is setting off Special variant Leuko's 97 TMATK Solidify would already be doing something either wrong or deliberate, and it's not like 62 TMATK Static E is a joke with the passive damage at this point anyway.
Oh, and speaking of worldbuilding stuff, I attempt to showcase dialogue from the Seaside Town "elder" that is supposed to update upon reaching the Sunken Ship. For whatever reason, that doesn't happen. He's supposed to say "Found the Pirate Ship? Don't give up now! The star is almost in your hands!" It was easily missed, along with Frogfucius's guidance for the Sunken Ship talking about the giant squid, so that's possibly what may have happened. But at least we still have adaptive shopkeeper business dialogue. Pretty much, that's a trade-off, even if the shopkeeper stuff IS inevitably the better deal. I just want to clarify that ArtePiazza missed another spot, that's all.