Wow, I have been incredibly inactive as of late. Been doing a lot of revisiting of non-RPG games as well as playing several mods. Also trying to find new means of work overall. But regardless, I still got a good memory on a number of really bad dungeons. Let's look at the SNES platform.
Infinity - Breath of Fire 2
Everyone who has played BoF2 knows why this is on here. It's long, filled with numerous passageways and dead-ends, areas that require Sten's field ability (he's not that bad of a character, but he's just plain average overall), and worst of all, an encounter rate up the ass. You can't even make eight steps anywhere in the dungeon without triggering an encounter. It's probably worse in the SNES version, which doesn't have a much-needed dash ability. And of course, the enemies are deviously strong, many different kinds exist that will force you to constantly strategize. While the fights against Barubary and Deathevan truly are epics, just getting to them will fatigue players. It's even worse for those who wish to keep shaman transformations, because not only do you have to keep everyone alive as much as possible, there's a certain part where you will get Anfini, and that will reset the transformations, meaning you have to go all the way back to Township then. Dologany is a much-needed rest stop of course, but the dungeon is long on both sides, and undeniably grueling to conquer.
Fanatic's Tower - Final Fantasy VI
Stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, this is seriously some lazy ass design for a tower. You may as well call this a lighthouse given just how the dungeon is nothing but stairs. The enemies are also quite unoriginal, being Lvl X (X is any number from 1 to 9) Magic. Then again, unoriginal only refers to the names, as the enemies themselves will have very powerful magic to cast, some of them already having annoying properties like being inherently reflective. And you can't just fight enemies, as the tower relegates you to only using magic. You're almost better off wearing the Moogle Charm and skipping all the way to the top, only to fight the Magimaster, an insanely tough mage who uses Ultima as his curtain call. Many ways to fight him, it actually may be best to just Rasp his MP while giving him Berserk status.
Sunken Worus Tower - Final Fantasy V
What do you know? Another timed dungeon? Makes sense since you're underwater, but geez, you have to speedrun this one just to get to...Gogo? Having a Thief or the Dash ability is required for this one, hands down. Run, run, run until you get to the boss, and you've got two choices. Wait while the clock is ticking (you better have enough) and he'll forfeit and give you the win, or actually fight the guy. To me, the latter just seems impossible. Being a mimic, he's obviously gonna do what you do to him, but better. Again though, you're timed, and that always sucks.
Reptite Lair - Chrono Trigger
This one's only a bit problematic in honesty. The issue of course, since I'm a completionist at heart, is getting the treasures. Gotta wait for these drill enemies to get in just the right position, then drill down so I can hopefully get what is at the bottom. Nizbel can also be a wake-up call boss. This isn't that bad, but I find the treasure hunting to be a little tedious.
Mare Tower - Breath of Fire
Having fun trying to actually defeat Mote? How about getting to him? It's already bad enough that this is supposedly a "nightmare" dungeon, meaning anything out of the ordinary sure will happen here. And that would be the spinning room. While it's already bad enough in making you seem dizzy (honestly that shouldn't happen), the disorientation will always occur. You're gonna need to figure out which of the spins results in a simple 90 degree counter-clockwise rotation, or a random spin, or none at all, and there's a minimum of seven tiles needed to actually cross to the finish. Mote ain't a picnic either, his pixelated appearance and apparent invulnerability sure would fool players here.
Up next, well, I dunno yet.
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