seki108

Spin Hina Spin

Spoiler

https://mochiyy.deviantart.com/art/Spin-Hina-Spin-437418720

 

 

Well, time to talk about 'Flandere Snaps 2: Electric Boogaloo'. 

On the off chance you saw my status update months ago (when I first started talking randomly about FMW stages), you saw Flan was the final boss of the first game.  An easy stage of weak mooks, before finally taking on Flan and her 5 spell cards;  with limited units (with only half having any attacking power and no reliable way to recover EN), this was meatgrinder of a boss that could oneshot most units:

Now 29 stages later, this stage is back......literally.  The stage consists of Flandere and a swarm of the same bat mooks as back then, with one major difference:  this time where outside at night, which means their S terrain ranking kicks in and makes everything dodgier, beefier, stronger, and more accurate by a 10% factor.  While the bats could still go down easy, having anyone by Reimu try to advance before they were taken care of was not good (except for Mokou, who had a partner who could support defend 3 times).   Considering how low the total unit cost was for this mission, I couldn't afford anyone dying before the fight with Flan.

While this Flandere only had one spell card that you had to fight once her first HP bar was taken care of, she was given more HP each bar to compensate (compared to the 12,000-15,000 she got each bar last time).  Unlike the first game, she actually had skills to worry about this time, so those certainly made her more durable (on top of the S terrain ranking).  Each HP bar could still be taken down in a turn if you brought moderately good units (even faster if you brought a unit with one of the 10% damage buffs, but tried to also use this stage to buff up units that are behind in levels).

It really shows how far some of your units have come.  Also, got an odd number on my first attempted to finish her spell card:

The second spell card is more of a story related spell to complement the objective.  Flan surrounds herself with a shifting maze of unpassable tiles and you have to get her sister beside her to talk to her, with the skill point being getting 5 other conversations beforehand.  The story/interactions is the main reason I was excited for the stage.  Seeing so many characters try to talk Flan down in their own ways was heartwarming;  EVERY character that's available for that stage has a convo for her I believe.   The main story theme here seems to be bad communication can lead to bad things (almost happening)..............I wonder if this is going to be a trend

Have to note this animation unique to this scene below.  I showed it back in a status from a few months ago (below) but her it is again (in spoiler tag).

(http://www.rebornevo.com/forum/index.php?/profile/69875-seki108/&status=111706&type=status)

"And then there were none"

Story talk below

My favorite 8-bit remixer just released  good rendition of RWBY's first opening, which usually means more from the series are to follow.  Outside of rare cases (like remixing the English Pokemon opening or the Power Rangers opening), he usually sticks to just Japanese things (with a heavy emphasis on Kamen Rider and mecha anime-----including Code Geass and Eva).

Also, RWBY vs Touhou sythe battle       R.I.P. Elly for not being Touhou's rep

Spoiler

 

It almost seems the FMW decided to make the canon fanon joke that Kaguya (the stage 6 boss of Touhou 8) is easier than her subordinate Erin (Stage 5 boss of Touhou 8-----also midboss of Stage 6).   Compared to the last stage, this one was much easier, mainly because there was massive waves of mooks that I had to waste my HP on.  While having more than the 14 to 16 mooks would have raised my unit's morale more, I have a bard for that (who is also 1/3 of possibly the best unit in the game). 

Surprisingly, Erin was both harder and easier than last stage.  Her one HP bar higher this time than any of them last stage (but it was only one) and her field gave her an additional 40% recovery each turn (on top of her default 30%).  Of course, that 70% recovery rate isn't a problem when you have enough units to deal that much damage in turn. 

As the final boss of this adaptation of Touhou 6's storyline, Kaguya had the traditional 5 spell cards to go through (in addition to her first HP bar).  Considering I brought 2 units that could inflict a 10% defensive debuff to her, I usually only needed about 2/3 of my units to tear though a spell card a turn.  Of course, she could certainly dish out damage like a final boss (and almost took out 3 of my units with her first MAP attack) and I had to use most of SP just to keep my lighter units from getting one-shotted. 

Her overall theme seemed to be to exhausting my units herself, with a pretty good shield buffing her defenses from the 3rd spell card onward, 2 of her spell cards raising either my SP or energy costs, and 2 others buffing up her defenses (one making her immune to 5 attacks per turn and  the other giving her the shield I mentioned while she defended for the rest of the card).

Then, after her fifth card was done with (and thus her boss fight),  she pulls another spell card out of nowhere and gets an awesome track to end off the fight.  Now she switches to offensive as well (though compensating with her highest HP bar and a new ability that limits damage from each attack to 5000 max), with a deadly accurate MAP attack and and a field that nullifies a different defensive SP spell of ours each of it's three turn.  

While it was certainly easier than the last fight, I found this one much more enjoyable.  It was more a task of resource management than anything else and all her gimmicks were reasonable (not like a spell card that completely disallows you to do anything).

Next up is a stage I know about and one I'm looking forward to:

Well, I finally completed that FMW level I started over a day ago.  After my initial failure that I posted about on here, I restarted with a better team.  With the number of mooks (and with the bulkier ones having Support Defend to make killing them and the bosses hard), it was a slow process that I couldn't do all in one sitting. 

You want to know the one thing more annoying than an enemy with a 30% HP-regen skill?  Having that enemy regenerate all their initial HP bar in an event the first time you take them down, then ending the event with them at half health.......with only one unit left to attack with.   Considering I timed it so I had just enough time to take out her initial health bar, then her next two (each Spell Card counts as a separate bar, with the amount of HP usually increasing).  Thankfully, I was somehow still able to reach the end of the next spell card on time (thanks to  Hatate's damage buffing personal skill, Hermit Purple----yes, that's a Jojo reference)...........then her last card.

A gimmick can be challenging if you are able to fairly counteract it.  Making a field where everyone caught in said field can't do any actions, doesn't really fall there.  The effect is simple enough to counteract, just having to use a unit outside the field to use a bomb to get rid of the field (assuming you didn't blow the two bombs you got) and maybe another to free up the rest of your units.  This falls flat on it's ass if every one of your units is trapped in said field;  I even went to the last turn for the skill point and she kept the field in the same place.

It might seem cheap, but I had started making backups mid stage all the way back in the second game, after having to repeat a mission 3 times because of RNG bullshit.  It almost didn't work, since the placement of the field is kind of random, but sending one of my units just outside of what the field's range did pan out the last turn........though I barely had enough attacks to beat her last HP bar (since my highest damage dealer, Marisa, was outside of the bomb range and couldn't do squat.

*Sigh*  Just one more stage with these HP-regen immortals.........just one more.  At least her attack animations were pleasant to look at (first),  as well as Lockon Reisen's themes from earlier in the stage (second)

It wouldn't be a hard level if 1) I didn't have to worry about on type of mooks having S terrain ranking on this stage, 2) the skill point didn't force a time limit,  3) if the bosses didn't have 3 support defenders (damned rabbits) each that had to be taken out before dealing with them directly.  Like most spell cards in the game (except on the 'final' bosses of each story part) the last one could have been timed out,   but that would have cost me the skill point, any exp and money for the final kill, and her great item drop..........plus, it just feels cheap unless you have to.

In celebration of 303 rep, here's a post about my favorite mech from Eureka Seven, the TB-303 Devilfish.  I wish there were better quality clips from the actual anime, but I'll settle for SRW "All Attack" videos.