Utawarerumono Strategy-RPG translated!

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

The anime did leave some things in the air. Like Kamiy going vampire. But otherwise, the anime is better in almost every aspect.

Not like the game was any better in this regard: Vampire Kamyu is still as unexplained as in the anime. My personal take on it is that giving her a "dark" personality was about the only way to smuggle in a H scene, given her normal personality and relationship with Hakuoro. And, unfortunately, i am only half joking here.

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

You better not skip her H-scene :naughy:

I am betting a cookie that Keroko will simply end up faceplaming at that scene. At least my desk had the dent in it severally deepened thanks to H scenes of Utawarerumono, which is about as low as pure, senseless fanservice can get in my opinion.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

I can see what you mean But your tactics will change a bit in hard mode ..in normal i also used to run all over the place, but in hard it requires you to have a rather solid formation ... you don't want your characters surrounded, trust me. And the AI smartens up as well: if you leave Eruruu within whacking range, be sure she will get some spanking. All the more reason to keep your formation relatively without holes

I always suround or block enemy routes as quickly as possible, even in normal mode. I generally avoid holes and use the 'let the enemy come to you' aproach wherever its feasible (if the enemy is scattered, that is not one of those times). Rarely do the fast characters get to run their full distance (the only time this happens is when they need to regroup after just butchering some scattered enemies)

Originally Posted by Skyfall

If you noticed my post in the other game discussion thread, the H scenes were my main complaint. I have nothing against them generally, but dear lord - the ones in Utawa are scarily pointless and dumb. Doesn't affect anyone any way and no relationship developments come from it. Eruruu would have gone yandere by the end of the story if the writer would have actually bothered to think about any impact sleeping around with everyone might have, instead of only inserting the scenes when the rest of the story seems to have been finished already.

Options would have been nice too. The way Uta is build, its not so much an option of 'what do I choose' but more 'when do I go there'

Originally Posted by Skyfall

Aruruu is a tank, not a damage dealer

Then she should re-spec furry. Seems to work wonders for Touka.

Originally Posted by Skyfall

For what it is worth, i would say the anime did a good job on improving the otherwise less than impressive game of Utawa. (not related to the scene in question, but in general in terms of explanations, pacing and battle/peace balance). I find the anime superior in every aspect. (i could wish for better animation, but heh - thats another kettle of fish).

Yes, the mishmash of sub-storylines, character relations and development is very scattered in the game. Th bridge scene is somewhat of a pity, but I can understand the choice. The shift from drama to comedy would have derailed the tension the anime had been building.

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

In most missions that are actually challenging. ('Mask' for example.) It's much better to flank them and kill them off one-by-one. In these situations, casters long range and non-direct attacks are useful.

But yeah, the move or cast rule is pretty bad

I always suround and kill one by one, though recently my key characters have become perfectly capable of bashing skulls on their own. 960 BP for Touka after Yue's dead, you go girl!

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

I never really liked Oboro. When the game didn't force him to you, I found him overperformed by many other characters.

Durrr, of course he would! You never really trained him, so his stats were inferior to the others. He's my main hit-and-runner. Dashing in, killing annoying targets, then limp back to Eruruu for healing.

Ironically he's also the only guy I may accidentally lose when I'm screwing things up.

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

I always had Doriy with me. After boosting his attack to 99 he ended up 1-hitting a boss with his finisher combo.

Touka does that on a general basis, lately.

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

Glad they made OVA's of the 'Oboro barrier' and Touka doll scenes My favorites in the entire game. Althought the Touka scene did end half way through and you ended up feeling so bad for her

Which reminds me, I never got around to looking for the DVD specials...

Of to watch then.

Originally Posted by Skyfall

I am betting a cookie that Keroko will simply end up faceplaming at that scene. At least my desk had the dent in it severally deepened thanks to H scenes of Utawarerumono, which is about as low as pure, senseless fanservice can get in my opinion.

Most likely. Concidering the comedical bath scene, I can already see where this is going. It has to pull Touka OOC to even begin to work, and that's most likely what they'll do.

[Sam the Onion]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

Not like the game was any better in this regard: Vampire Kamyu is still as unexplained as in the anime. My personal take on it is that giving her a "dark" personality was about the only way to smuggle in a H scene, given her normal personality and relationship with Hakuoro. And, unfortunately, i am only half joking here.

Well, atleast there's some reason for it.

In anime it just happened suddently and was never mentioned since. Even if the whole thing was a shameless way to justify the rape scene, it is still much better reason than half of the H-scenes.

I am betting a cookie that Keroko will simply end up faceplaming at that scene. At least my desk had the dent in it severally deepened thanks to H scenes of Utawarerumono, which is about as low as pure, senseless fanservice can get in my opinion.

I would be surprised that anybody, who is not a horny and/or ignorant teenager, wouldn't sigh at that scene. It's a comic relief like Touka herself A very good comic relief
I guess that at the end of the game the game makers just decided to put them there to boost sales. Shameless, yes. Pointless, yes. But hey, if I could double the sales, I, too, would add those extra 10 CG's and 30 pages of script.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Keroko

Options would have been nice too. The way Uta is build, its not so much an option of 'what do I choose' but more 'when do I go there'

The whole 'where' to go next system should have been reworked that it would show the important one, so you could do the bonus scenarions before it just that you woudn't have to reload just so you can read that one extra scene. Would have so much time and no harm would have done to the actual 'plot' as the bonus scenarios don't add any.

Durrr, of course he would! You never really trained him, so his stats were inferior to the others. He's my main hit-and-runner. Dashing in, killing annoying targets, then limp back to Eruruu for healing.

Ironically he's also the only guy I may accidentally lose when I'm screwing things up.

Except that I used him on every fight before that point

He just had so much worse attack, magic and normal defence than Benawi, who then got changed to Karura.

Touka does that on a general basis, lately.

I never managed to do her finished

I found out how they were done after finishing the game and was forced to stop unsaved before I got her in hard 2

[Keroko]

The only H-scene so far that was reasonably done was Karura's, mainly because it fit her character, it fit the scene, and it even had somewhat of a lasting impact on the story (at least untill the end of the Na Tunk arc, it did, which is better then the others I've seen so far)

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

I would be surprised that anybody, who is not a horny and/or ignorant teenager, wouldn't sigh at that scene. It's a comic relief like Touka herself A very good comic relief
I guess that at the end of the game the game makers just decided to put them there to boost sales. Shameless, yes. Pointless, yes. But hey, if I could double the sales, I, too, would add those extra 10 CG's and 30 pages of script.

I would have left them out and lowered the rating to boost sales myself.

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

The whole 'where' to go next system should have been reworked that it would show the important one, so you could do the bonus scenarions before it just that you woudn't have to reload just so you can read that one extra scene. Would have so much time and no harm would have done to the actual 'plot' as the bonus scenarios don't add any.

Eh, you'll get to do those anyway after the mission is finished. Nothing really changes, strangely enough.

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

Except that I used him on every fight before that point

He just had so much worse attack, magic and normal defence than Benawi, who then got changed to Karura.

Hmm? Strange, Benawi is currently my second-worst fighter (surpassed only by Kurou) but then, I still have to boost their stats now that I have their ultis

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

I never managed to do her finished

I found out how they were done after finishing the game and was forced to stop unsaved before I got her in hard 2

It's pretty cool in my opinion, dash dash afterimage *splurt* head's off. Quite a satisfying way to finish a boss.

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by Keroko

The only H-scene so far that was reasonably done was Karura's, mainly because it fit her character, it fit the scene, and it even had somewhat of a lasting impact on the story (at least untill the end of the Na Tunk arc, it did, which is better then the others I've seen so far)

I'd argue that it was Eruruu's, considering the two have "history" together and Hakuoro is somehow supposed to feel special about her, but heh ... not like either of the two was anything to write home about. (unless you want to write some mean nasty things).

Hmm? Strange, Benawi is currently my second-worst fighter (surpassed only by Kurou) but then, I still have to boost their stats now that I have their ultis

Agreed here, Benawi was largely useless for me as well. Well, "useless" might be stretching it, but there was little reason to have him on the scene, and he made little difference even if he was. He started out good, but somehow his value became less and less as time went on. At least he has a two square attack

[Lynx190]

Benawi is my next-most-useless character after Guraa, Urtorii, and Kamyu... basically he's made redundant by other characters; Aruru is a superior tank simply because she gets a head start on defense and several battles worth of BP, her attack is more expensive but she only needs 800 BP to max tech, the cheapest of your melee characters (versus 1200 for Benawi), and she's your only wind melee. Benawi is water element, which you already have with Touka, who is far superior; plus Touka and Aruru get to fight in the Na Tunk battles (and are required in the next battle after you get back), putting them even farther ahead. As far as 2-range characters go, Kurou is far more useful for me, with only 900 BP needed to max tech (2nd cheapest melee after Aruru), cheaper attack stat, and he's your only earth element other than Eruru. He was lagging behind for a while, but he quickly racked up *massive* BP in the Shikeripecim arc.

After thinking about it, I'm no longer 100% sure about the Hakuoro boost to female characters (which is *definitely* present in the PS2 version as a skill). I know early on, it seemed like Eruru had no trouble healing Hakuoro to full HP, but other characters she'd frequently fail to fully heal. Also several times Aruru seemed to be doing unusually large damage to an enemy with a neutral element. And then when I first got Karura she was doing way more damage than Oboro it seemed, even though she initially had less attack. So I'm fairly certain it exists, although I don't know how much range it has, or if it gradually weakens at range, or what.

The only reason I'm not entirely sure is because there's another factor in damage that I hadn't realized until way late: apparently having a maxed gauge improves defense (at least for enemies anyway). At the start of the Shikeripecim river battle, I was trying to kill off this one enemy unit quickly with Oboro + Benawi, but kept coming up a tiny bit short; gave up and changed strategy, resulting in said enemy unit attacking Hakuoro (and depleting its gauge). Then when I attacked that unit I did significantly more damage with the exact same attacks and finished it off with ease. I also noticed it with archer vs. archer sniping over barriers, Dorii's first attack would do less damage than subsequent attacks (after the enemy archer had fired back).

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

I never managed to do her finished

I found out how they were done after finishing the game and was forced to stop unsaved before I got her in hard 2

I thoroughly suck at doing combos manually; in the second tutorial, I would gain like 2 levels with Hakuoro by the time I finally executed the 4th hit, 3 is the limit to what I could get consistently... in the actual game it's even worse cause there's no chance to get a rhythm going. I finally kind of got the hang of it in the 4th tutorial, but still not nearly reliably enough. Thus for special attacks I just hold Alt for an auto-combo, it only ruins the damage of the combo hits, not the initial attack or the special (which is all you really need). If finishing enemies with regular combos does give more BP, I also probably should have been using Alt more for regular combos as well (when the first hit's damage is enough to get the kill that is).

And no, it's not cheating because Eruru even tells you about it in the tutorial; on the other hand, the glitchiness of the Shift-while-choosing-characters thing tells me I'm really not supposed to be doing it :P

[Zaris]

Originally Posted by Lynx190

on the other hand, the glitchiness of the Shift-while-choosing-characters thing tells me I'm really not supposed to be doing it :P

Hahaha, I didn't know you could do that. That's trippy. Maybe when I play on the harder modes instead of normal, I'll give it a try, but then that means I got more characters to spread the exp around to.

I don't really have any "best" characters, because I try to keep my offense around the same level. Karura, Touka, and Aruruu are the ones who see the most action with Oboro and Benaui as backup selections. Kurou and the archers are mostly dead weight to me (sadly).

[Sam the Onion]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Eh, you'll get to do those anyway after the mission is finished. Nothing really changes, strangely enough.

You do? I am sure that once when I visited Urto's room and had two other choises, they dissapeared and were never to be seen again.

Hmm? Strange, Benawi is currently my second-worst fighter (surpassed only by Kurou) but then, I still have to boost their stats now that I have their ultis

Well, he wasn't useful for long

Originally Posted by Skyfall

I'd argue that it was Eruruu's, considering the two have "history" together and Hakuoro is somehow supposed to feel special about her, but heh ... not like either of the two was anything to write home about. (unless you want to write some mean nasty things).

Yeah, the best thing to do for the woman you care about is intoxicate and bang her

[Lynx190]

there's a few options that are lost for good, but it's really very few... a number of times the story progresses and it looks like you aren't going to get to choose them, but even after a battle or two, they pop up again.

Re: the H-scenes, they weren't all that bad (although the Kamyu ones were just ridiculously out of place) and usually at least had something leading up to them... the problem with all of them was the total lack of indication afterwards that anything had happened. The Touka one, particularly, should have resulted in massive embarassment afterwards, but no, everything's back to normal. Honestly, in terms of how well it was set up and made sense, the Yuzuha one was probably the best. Too bad that by eliminating it and thus also everything leading up to it, the anime basically made Yuzuha a pointless character; one of the few cases where the game was definitely better.

Random thoughts:

Does anyone think it's odd how jealous Eruru gets when Aruru is with Hakuoro? Early on, it seemed like she was just upset with Aruru making Hakuoro her father, since that would essentially make him her father too, and she obviously doesn't want him thinking of her that way. But later on she gets all mad every time Aruru snuggles with Hakuoro, basically reacting the same as if Karura was hanging all over him... makes one almost expect there to be an Aruru H-scene

It's interesting how the game basically made Touka a total comic relief character, starting with her doing a Wile E. Coyote impression in the bridge scene... from that point on, everything she did made her seem like a joke character. The anime had the same scenes afterwards - with her trying to commit suicide, falling over herself thanking Hakuoro, then being obsessive with guarding him - yet while the scenes were funny, Touka herself still seemed like a serious character. (Yet the anime had the scene with her fawning over Gatchatara - the one time in the anime that I recall she seriously makes a fool of herself - which I was disappointed to see wasn't even part of the game)

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by Sam the Onion

Yeah, the best thing to do for the woman you care about is intoxicate and bang her

I doubt she was drunk to the point she didn't realize what was going on (plus we all know she probably wanted it anyway ... her first comment after he stopped molesting her earlier in the game, although she was somewhat frightened, was "am i that unattractive ?"). Though Hakuoro certainly doesn't score any courtesy points in his approach. "Eruruu, i want to sleep with you" .. no wonder the poor girl choked on her drink

Originally Posted by Lynx190

Does anyone think it's odd how jealous Eruru gets when Aruru is with Hakuoro? Early on, it seemed like she was just upset with Aruru making Hakuoro her father, since that would essentially make him her father too, and she obviously doesn't want him thinking of her that way. But later on she gets all mad every time Aruru snuggles with Hakuoro, basically reacting the same as if Karura was hanging all over him... makes one almost expect there to be an Aruru H-scene

Yeah, i find it a bit odd as well. Though i suppose she was jealous of the fact her sister gets some "special treatment" from Hakuoro, while he didn't show any extra affection towards her. (well, she obviously wanted different kind of attention that Aruruu was getting, but attention non the less).

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

I'd argue that it was Eruruu's, considering the two have "history" together and Hakuoro is somehow supposed to feel special about her, but heh ... not like either of the two was anything to write home about. (unless you want to write some mean nasty things).

Eruruu's was just... pathetically lame. It should have been a major pivotal point in the story, but it looked more like a 'sleep and dash' concidering how much effect it had.

Originally Posted by Lynx190

After thinking about it, I'm no longer 100% sure about the Hakuoro boost to female characters (which is *definitely* present in the PS2 version as a skill). I know early on, it seemed like Eruru had no trouble healing Hakuoro to full HP, but other characters she'd frequently fail to fully heal. Also several times Aruru seemed to be doing unusually large damage to an enemy with a neutral element. And then when I first got Karura she was doing way more damage than Oboro it seemed, even though she initially had less attack. So I'm fairly certain it exists, although I don't know how much range it has, or if it gradually weakens at range, or what.

... Are you sure its not just the elemental stats? It certainly sounds like that.

Originally Posted by Lynx190

I thoroughly suck at doing combos manually; in the second tutorial, I would gain like 2 levels with Hakuoro by the time I finally executed the 4th hit, 3 is the limit to what I could get consistently... in the actual game it's even worse cause there's no chance to get a rhythm going. I finally kind of got the hang of it in the 4th tutorial, but still not nearly reliably enough. Thus for special attacks I just hold Alt for an auto-combo, it only ruins the damage of the combo hits, not the initial attack or the special (which is all you really need). If finishing enemies with regular combos does give more BP, I also probably should have been using Alt more for regular combos as well (when the first hit's damage is enough to get the kill that is).

I'm quite skilled at doing combos, but then I had a lot of practice when playing Legend of the Dragoon, which has a similar battle system (in fact, its far more crucial on LoD, concidering it decided how fast you will regain SP) the trick is to press right at the moment the center square lights up.

Originally Posted by Lynx190

It's interesting how the game basically made Touka a total comic relief character, starting with her doing a Wile E. Coyote impression in the bridge scene... from that point on, everything she did made her seem like a joke character. The anime had the same scenes afterwards - with her trying to commit suicide, falling over herself thanking Hakuoro, then being obsessive with guarding him - yet while the scenes were funny, Touka herself still seemed like a serious character. (Yet the anime had the scene with her fawning over Gatchatara - the one time in the anime that I recall she seriously makes a fool of herself - which I was disappointed to see wasn't even part of the game)

The DVD specials also animated the Doll part, which is not one of her most charming moments either.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Heh, I suck at doing the combos too. It would be easier if the timing between the different characters was more consistent, because Oboro's seems to go faster. Oh well, I guess i'll just have to keep practicing.

[Keroko]

Oboro's combo's do go a lot faster, that's part of the challenge. Touka's last two hits sometimes give me trouble myself, the doublestrike is very deceptive, and sometimes has me clicking too soon.

[Zaris]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Eruruu's was just... pathetically lame. It should have been a major pivotal point in the story, but it looked more like a 'sleep and dash' considering how much effect it had.

Only because they didn't do any "real" follow up after their little fling. We are reminded every so often about Karura's bond to Hakuoro - both in action and speech (she's fortunate her personae allows it to come out so freely), whereas Eruruu would appear to have stayed the same throughout the story, as if their encounter in the bedchamber never happened.

[Lynx190]

Originally Posted by Keroko

... Are you sure its not just the elemental stats? It certainly sounds like that.

No, it's definitely not that, because I pay close attention to the elemental matchups, and wouldn't have been surprised by the damage if it was because of that. Also element doesn't come into play with Eruru healing Hakuoro for more than she can heal others. Maybe there's some hidden effect involved specifically with Eruru x Hakuoro, but that still means there's *some* kind of hidden bonuses at least.

Originally Posted by Keroko

I'm quite skilled at doing combos, but then I had a lot of practice when playing Legend of the Dragoon, which has a similar battle system (in fact, its far more crucial on LoD, concidering it decided how fast you will regain SP) the trick is to press right at the moment the center square lights up.

Well after the first extra hit, I can't do the subsequent hits visually at all, I just have to try to time it, which usually fails; all the circles start blurring together, and I can't react in time if I wait until I see it's time to click.

[Alavaria]

Originally Posted by Lynx190

Well after the first extra hit, I can't do the subsequent hits visually at all, I just have to try to time it, which usually fails

I think I've gone Touka's so many times I do it automatically.
It gets annoying because I've triggered her ultimate several times because I wasn't aware that her vitality was at full.

[Lynx190]

Wow, finally finished the game after a horrible horrible time getting through several of the late battles (before the last few turned into a relative joke). Some of those are just insane on Hard 3, I really should have started on an easier difficulty since I did a bad job of building my characters to begin with, which hurt in the long run. I nearly resorted to the Shift cheat several times but managed to beat it without. Not exactly spoilers here, but spoiler tags just in case someone doesn't want to know *anything* about the scenarios (and to clean up the post so you can skip to my more significant comments instead of my recital of my last few days' experience)

Spoiler:

The battle with the hordes of Avu Kamuu outside was the first one where I hit a roadblock; after numerous failed attempts, when I finally beat it that attempt alone took hours because I was being so careful examining the turn order and thinking ahead, trying to guess what the AI was going to do... felt like I was playing chess.

Then Mask was evil evil evil, I thought I finally had made it, then get yet another horde of zombies on me and it was instant game over. I had to do the very beginning a zillion times, trying to test various ways to move Hakuoro to bait the AI properly so my other characters wouldn't die instantly.

The Kuuya battle wasn't quite as hard as it looked at first, I thought I'd have to use Shift when I saw I was stuck with my never-used Urtorii and Kamyu, but my first sleep-deprived test run (before trying for real the next day) I had killed all but two Avu Kamuu when Hakuoro died (with Dorii and Touka still alive) so I knew it was doable then.

The slime one, oh god... Shift does no good there anyway and I thought I was completely toast when I realized they got 2 turns at the start... I ended up beating it with just Hakuoro (with lots of defense) and Eruru in the lower-right corner slowly finishing off the slimes (got a nasty surprise from the Hard 3 AI... had Touka, Kurou, and Dorii left as well, but the AI retreated a wind slime to open the way for a better element to attack a nearly dead Touka... she ended up barely surviving after all but I had already moved Hakuoro and Eruru to the back).

Everything after that was just LOL EASY (oh noez 4 Avu Kamuu and 2 boss ones with all my characters, after beating far more with a smaller number of weaker characters). Well except the final battle, kind of... I never had to reload, but Touka had to finish off the last half of its HP all by herself with everyone else quickly dying.

I ended up with Touka, Kurou, and Dorii being my powerhouse characters... Oboro was supposed to be but I screwed up and raised his tech after that first tough battle (trying to max it, but ended up being too late) when I should have just kept raising attack and defense, and there was no way I was going to redo the battle. Karura had tons of attack of course, but with only 1 tech (never got around to saving up for it... BP for 1 tech = 20 attack for her) and her godawful slow turns, she ended up being just another sacrifice late in the game (if I used her at all).

And the cat in the development room confirmed several of the observations I made of hidden effects... Hakuoro *does* boost the stats of females around him, while Oboro boosts Dorii's (and I presume Guraa's) stats... although I don't know if they boost his. Took me a while to realize it on my own since usually Oboro is out on the front lines and not close enough to them to get the effect; once Dorii's attack was high enough it became really obvious when it was working though. There might be extra boosts for Karura/Derihourai, Urtorii/Kamyu, and Benawi/Kurou in close proximity as well. The cat says something about Derihourai anyway, and also says something about having friends near each other... lots of his tips cut off with "..." so you have to guess.

Also having a maxed special gauge boosts defense, and I think attack as well (the cat is cryptic there, says good things happen while it's filled)... late in the game I rarely even used specials unless vital for quickly eliminating tough opponents (i.e. Avu Kamuu), because my characters would die so fast without that extra defense. There's also the effects on turn frequency for proximity to allies/enemies, although Eruru mentions that in the tutorial already.

Now I have to figure out how to pull off getting all the titles; I only got 4 in that game... apparently people saying you just have to beat the hardest difficulty to unlock the last two CGs were wrong; getting at least one title unlocks the first, and getting every title unlocks the second... and you can just play Hard 1 to get the titles... now I feel like I ruined the game's replayability by starting out with Hard 3, since if I drop to Hard 1 just to get titles it'll feel too easy.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Oboro's combo's do go a lot faster, that's part of the challenge. Touka's last two hits sometimes give me trouble myself, the doublestrike is very deceptive, and sometimes has me clicking too soon.

I found Youka's to be really easy to get. I can get them every time they appear. Touka REALLY got me out of tight spots when going up against the Av Kamiw (aka Avu Kamuu). Double goes for Genjimaru. Damn, that guy pwned. Genjimaru does easily 400+ damage total with one attack if you can get his full combo going. The Evenkuruga are freaking juggernauts.

Spoiler for Genjimaru:

I was sad when Genjimaru died. I don't like the fact that he cut Sakuya's tendons (even though she asked him to) but he was a great character. I don't think he spoke his mind enough, though.

The other characters that are quite powerful are Hakuoro (especially when you get all the combo upgrades) and Oboro. By the end of the game, Touka and Oboro were doing all the big damage for me. Hakuoro's combo was cool because you never knew what element he would use for the final attack. They were pretty awesome.

I also liked Aruruw (for good defense), Karura (good offense), and Urtoriy (good magic). Karura I used for hit-and-run attacks (she hit's 100+ with just one attack, 200+ if you get her combo), then I stuck Aruruw in as bait because she doesn't take much damage unless she's in the rain. Though her defense is practically non-existent, Urtoriy's magic attacks were insanely good in close quarters, when the enemy is closely packed together. Her Light attack looks awesome, does a ton of damage, and has a godly range. Her only limitation was not being able to move and use magic at the same time.

Personally, Dorii and Guraa were my "worthless" characters. They did their purpose as long range characters in the first couple of arcs, but after the Av Kamiw started showing up, I ditched them in favor of characters that had a better defense.

I'm currently playing through the game on hard level 1 (I'm going to go through each one), and it's going okay so far. I've had to redo a level or two because I screwed up and got Hakuoro pasted, but I'm up to the 5th battle. This time around, I'm skipping the storyline. It's very nice, but I like battling. If I want the storyline, I'll play on normal.

[KaneDragon]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

Though Hakuoro certainly doesn't score any courtesy points in his approach. "Eruruu, i want to sleep with you" .. no wonder the poor girl choked on her drink

At first, I thought Hakuoro meant that in an innocent way and just used an unfortunate turn of phrase. Then I laughed hard. Hakuoro knows what he wants and wastes no time getting to the point. To that, I salute you. GARzilla, indeed.

Guh. I'm stuck at the battle where Touka first appears, on Hard 2. Too bad the shift-trick makes Eruruu disappear. And I've already failed my attempt to get the title where everyone uses their special. Now that I know about titles and what not, I'll just do Hard 1 runs from now on, though I'm already tempted to start now considering how I'm stuck...

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by KaneDragon

Guh. I'm stuck at the battle where Touka first appears, on Hard 2. Too bad the shift-trick makes Eruruu disappear. And I've already failed my attempt to get the title where everyone uses their special. Now that I know about titles and what not, I'll just do Hard 1 runs from now on, though I'm already tempted to start now considering how I'm stuck...

I got to that part too, but that's not the lever I'm stuck on... I'm stuck on the damn part where you have to save Derihourai. That idiot keeps dying on me, even when I force him and his companions as far back as possible to buy time. Thank god for Touka, Karura, and Kamyu. Kamyu's magic weakens people at long range, then Touka and Karura finish them off.

I also noticed on harder levels that Eruruu is targeted by anyone within range. At least when I play, I have to protect her a lot because she gets killed so often otherwise....

I still really like Hakuoro's finishing move. The random element thrown in at the end is totally bad-ass.