Dual Orb II (1994)

Beat. This game started out very interesting, hit a few bumps along the way, fell off a cliff and managed to land without too much damage. The combat is brutally difficult; sometimes it is refreshing and other times it makes me wonder if the game was actually play tested! I got wrecked on the 1st boss. Tried again putting the healer in the back row and won. Managing the rows is extremely important for this game. Once I got the evolved armor, Lagnus was tanking like a boss by himself in the front, but I had no idea he could suddenly use magic and had to restart the 2nd boss fight. That really should have been communicated better. For the rest of the game, the hero tanked in the front with Saladin and the pirate, though he took the front by himself at end game.

The random battles were very challenging and I found I needed tactics to fight efficiency so as not to require healing after every fight. I had Aleth use bind on fast spell casters to prevent them from nuking for absurd damage. I never got silence or heart break to work on anything. Made use of my own nukes to wreck certain enemies but the elemental weakness from the scan spell was not translated into English, so I had to save state scum to try every spell. Some battles I even fled because I knew I would take too much damage to be worth it. Some enemies stand out as being annoying but interesting concepts. The immune to physical, the healers that can only heal, the fast monks that get 2 attacks but go down easily and the mages. One random battle in the final dungeon was particularly ridiculous. First encounter went like this: enemy mage 1 nukes entire party for massive damage, enemy mage 2 nukes entire party killing 3, hero attacks killing a mage, giant turtle attacks, enemy mage nukes hero for massive damage, game over. I did manage to beat that battle a couple times by equipping Serra with magic resist armor and one time the mages cast confusion instead of nukes. But the party was dead or low hp afterwards.

Mid game bosses did not give me much trouble as I focused on buffs and debuffs. However once I got to the late game the bosses were so difficult that I had to save state scum constantly. The first offender was the mage boss who only did nukes for massive damage or instant death. I had that magic resist armor for Serra but decided not to buy more than 1 because it was expensive and gave no physical protection. I also did not buy any magic chainmail and only found out in a walkthrough that it gives a bit of magic resist. That would have been helpful, but I was not able to go to any shops! I hate when games put in surprise points of no return that could screw you over if you did not make a backup save or prepare properly. Took a lot of scumming but I managed to beat him. The next boss was even worse. I had used the flying machine to find the blacksmith town and made +15 weapons for Aleth and Saladin. Could not afford to max them out. But the next part of the game took away the flying machine. There was another blacksmith shop but it was far more expensive than the ultimate one. Does the game expect you to grind ridiculous amounts to max out your weapons there? Pirate girl boss gets 3 attacks per round, hits for massive damage and has 2 tough minions. It took multiple tries, extreme save state scumming and quite a while to win. The walkthrough said to use bind on the minions but that never worked for me. What did work was buffing with protect, haste and regen, and slowing her so she did not get back to back attacks, my healer got 2 turns and 1 person could use an item to heal her 3rd attack. It was slow going getting the minions killed and I pretty much had to use save states to decide who the boss attacked each time. The next 2 bosses were slightly easier but overall the same strategy and also ridiculously hard. After that I got access to flight again and maxed out everyone's weapons. I then grinded a half million money to max out a bow (the walkthrough said it would be useful for the final boss) and spent the rest on items. The end game was not too bad with maxed gear. Still had to do some save state scumming but I changed my strategy to let characters stay in the red for ultimate attacks, except for the final boss because it was too much of a risk to let the tank die. Oh and I hate unwinnable fights. This game seriously abuses the concept, especially sneaking one into the end boss gauntlet. For Many of the game's boss fights I let myself die thinking it was unwinnable. Nope the game is just that unfair and that seriously holds back what is otherwise a great game. I loved the healing magic though, with all heals except the starter one scaling in power as the game went on. Best healing magic ever. Would have been extremely useful to have multi target heals though.

I can't view the characters at the final save for some reason but they ended in the low 50s. Aleth has tiamat blade and holy plate, Saladin has Shiva blade and magic chain, Karina has both maxed out rapier and bow, and magic chain, Serra has her guns and swapped between magic chain and guardian talisman.