Underlevelling challenge

[Yet One More Idiot]

Y'know, I was just wondering that myself. I could get all the way to the very end of the game - after maybe a month or two of die/restart/die/restart(etc), and be so underlevelled at the end that I score critical 0's against Dark Gaia. That would be pretty hilarious.

As far as I can tell, the engine cuts off fractional hit points, so Dark Gaia's wave-motion attack does 0 damage at the extreme because it's actually doing less than 1, it just got rounded down to the integer below. So if I'm doing less than 1 damage against him, then yeah, I guess I would inflict no damage.

Actually I could test that theory now by using an invincibility cheat to save me the constant restarts - then when I've found out, go back to where I am (against Stormkeeper) and continue with my genuine low-level run challenge. That way I wouldn't have to wonder about it for ages and ages.

[Axe Kazama]

level 36, top that suckers

[EverPhoenix]

lowest ive done it at is lvl31.. because i couldnt be bothered hitting dark gaia for 2s, and couldnt afford red armour. didnt want to grind to get it as it was a 'no grinding' run. not an underleveling challenge

[Yet One More Idiot]

I did level 31 before easily. The first time I played, I came to the end at level 28 and won on that pretty decisively too.

I'm still stuck on Stormkeeper at level 8 though, it's a right *beep* - most of the bosses will be, for that matter.

[Azure Phoenix]

Axe Kazama wrote:

level 36, top that suckers

omg, i did it at lvl 28 the first time round... i didn't expect that to be that good.

[Yet One More Idiot]

I'm having to make extensive use of savestates now in order to preserve my sanity during the long Boss fights. I said I wouldn't in the beginning, but it's really necessary.

At the moment, still facing Stormkeeper, but I've hit him so far for a total of 60HP in his first form.

...here, now that I think about it, that's something missing from the TE website - there's a list of all the dungeon monsters and how much HP and EXP they have, but there's no similar list of the bosses. Being that I'm hitting the bosses 1HP at a time, now might be a good time to calculate their starting HPs if no-one has previously.

[Hammerit]

Yomi's Evil Twin Intern wrote:

Being that I'm hitting the bosses 1HP at a time, now might be a good time to calculate their starting HPs if no-one has previously.

If you aim to do just that just use a Cheat Searching tool and keep counting downwards from an unknown number. A quicker way is to switch between saved states with different boss hps. Doing so you'll have your answer in no time (since all left to do is look up the value at the adress you found out the moment you enter the bossfight) .

[Yet One More Idiot]

That all sounds rather impressive, but I don't know how to lookup values in a game's code).

I'm now up to 105HP dmg. Using the savestates to back up my progress also seems to help make me more aware of desperate moves that will cost me my in-game health.

EDIT: Got him! 142HP I counted.

[Hammerit]

Yomi's Evil Twin Intern wrote:

That all sounds rather impressive, but I don't know how to lookup values in a game's code).

Not in the games code, in the backup memory the game uses to process temporary data (like the boss current hp) . Meaning if you actually found out the adress you can simply look up the value saved there and got a winner. Others however would use the information to inject certain data (as for boss hp most would set the value to 1) ...

[Yet One More Idiot]

Oh, right. I wouldn't have a clue how to do that - I'm not that computer savvy. Now I'm on to facing his second form.

[Yet One More Idiot]

Yippee! I did it. OK, maybe not that impressive to some people, but it was to me.

32 minutes it took in all, at 1/2 speed, so really 16 minutes in game. I managed a couple of critical 3's, which rather surprised me, and levelled up to level 9 (now at 2541xp). Here's the crowning moment, made slightly funny by causing him critcal existence failure with a 1hp dmg at the end.

[Yet One More Idiot]

After Zue and that long boss battle, the Canyon was a welcome relief - quite a few monsters (all low XP though), and 'cos Leim beats the Mud Doll, I don't get anything there. And being underlevelled didn't really affect that battle with the Mud Doll, I think it goes by the number of hits, not any total of HP. (Cos I do the same HP damage to it whether I'm level 9 or level 18, like I am usually by this point due to a little grinding).

Current XP = 2,779.

[Yet One More Idiot]

It took me the a little under three hours on half-speed to clear Eklemata and beat Dark Morph; that turning-into-bats schtick that he does is just time-consuming and painful normally, never mind when I'm underlevelled!

Levelled up again though - now at 3,479 exp and level 10.

[Azure Phoenix]

i wonder how you'll do against that machine boss in beruga's lab... at first thought, i'd say you'll get slaughtered

[Yet One More Idiot]

I've worked it out; basically, throughout every combat area in the whole game, I just keep moving with the Slicer attack *at all times*; that way, nothing can touch me.

*Is going mildly hysterical after the 2-hour boss battle against Dark Morph* I need sleep! Goodnight!