After giving it some thought, I decided to leave no regrets/missed achievement feelings behind and went for a new game on hard difficulty. I started an NG+ game and went on a run I'm so glad I decided to do because it proved challenging on some fights and allowed me to discover and play the other path of the story in the first ~35 days. I also got to see variations in scenes I missed on my first playthrough which was absolutely great
In a kind of epilogue to my other post
here, I wanted to post extra aspects I noticed in this second run, along with day 1 saves for both my first run and NG+ for those wanting to take on the game with good starting stats/titles on normal/difficult and also save a good bit of time and F12 key longevity doing so
After landing a decent start this time with "Prudent Kind" (which I think could be cool to think of as the MC's canon traits because they fit his actions and personality in the story), I went on an undefeated record through this run, and I think NG+ was crucial for having a chance at achieving that. Speaking of which, I'd like to mention that I had 15 points to spend in the NG+ menu at the start, as opposed to the current 13 cap mentioned by BlueFireNick
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That would mean The 30 cap mentioned is actually reachable in the current version, but I honestly don't know what I did or how
I managed to do that, my guess would be points received from clearing onsen content / post 100 subjugations ?
With that, I went with Sturdy Body (must have and great value), 5 points on Strength and Wisdom each (you get a huge head start much needed to face the early fights), and the last 3 points on Start Money(huge power spike after first bookstore visit on first weekend for the 5 purchasable skill books). Resulting in these op starting stats:
- AP 70
- ATK 155
- TEC 154
- DEF 159
- GUT 154
- WIS 215
- SKL 240
- [Preparation] Unlocked
- [Leader] Unlocked
- [Auto-Recovery] Learned
- [ATK UP] Learned
- [DEF UP] Learned
- [Healing] Learned
- [Cooking] Learned
- [Soft Touch] Learned
This resulted in Guild Strength of 844 right from day 2(you don't have access to the status menu by day 1). which is insane considering it took me ~40 days to reach that level in the first run. I had maxed my stats at 400 each +120 AP by day 50 (half the time it took in 1st run for the stats and much earlier for AP)
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Now I'll go on about some battle related points:
- I found out by pure luck that the guild members' max favor events get them extra passive skills aside from their EX, I found this by randomly hovering over the words that get added under their EX skill names in the status menu, respectively:
- Kana gets Devotion: There is a chance that Kana's attacks will be followed up (by brother)
- Yui gets Dedication: When attacked and the HP bar becomes 0, Activates recovery by consuming all of Yui's action power
- Kasumi get Wit: The recovery amount of action points at the start of the battle turn is 2 -> 3 at a constant rate (I think it's a proc chance mechanic like kana's)
- Yui's passive is incredibly strong because it's basically a one time revive and heal to almost full hp in case your hp drops to 0
- One specific skill of brother: [Blitzkrieg] shouldn't be learned imo because your overall kit is geared more towards lengthy combat and attrition
- All skills in the game aside from [Special Move] have a mechanic similar to crits in that they have a chance to proc each turn
- [Auto-Recovery] is your sustain and one of your strongest skills which makes you last long enough to send out all your skills/moves
- Kana's EX synergizes perfectly with [Auto-Recovery], allowing you to stall and negate enemy actions for up to 4 turns, while passively healing (from [Auto-Recovery]) and also throwing out damage
- Kasumi's EX synergizes well with yours, she can let you throw 2 of them and burst down the enemy in the first 5 turns, you can follow that with with Kana EX moves to finish or have some HP back
This time I maxed out the stats and got all the skills (except blitzkrieg), It took me 37 days from day 113 to day 150 to push from 400 to 500 on all stats due to the limiter on 400+
For the enemies I was already thinking Seal Heroes with 9.5k hp were busted but then I had a good laugh when I saw that 12.8k hp bar for the last boss (as of current 1.4.3 game version). I will rank them from easiest to toughest to beat, starting with the noob party:
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Nothing special when you are maxed
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At one point (round 9~10) you get a mega crit for 6k+ damage, so you only have to manage to hold and get it sufficiently damaged by then
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will machine-gun you with a series of attacks that should be pretty manageable
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This one hits like a truck, he gets to charge a huge attack around round 7~8 and that's where Kana can shine with her EX
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When she dies you should have 1200+ hp or she'll take you down with her
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This one can be really annoying and you will have to go all out on the offensive and finish before last round, you can make use of Yui's resurection to stay focused on attack
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Those bunch are just stat checks who will defeat you because they have high stats, you could play it attrition mode trying to finish with a bigger bar or you could wait till you max out 500 stats all around and go for the KO
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Your first encounter with the Leader of the Monkeys, you'll fight this one without kana who'd be busy distracting the horde according to plan
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Your second encounter with the Monkey leader when you go for an the 999 days remaining subjugation, has 5 times your hp and annoying with his breaks, he will sometimes charge an attack that you must guard or you'll get smashed for most of your hp bar (if not outright killed)
My second run took me an additional 15 hours (It's insane to think I've played this game for 45 hours, I played Far Cry 5 3 years ago and it took me around 50 hours to 100% with all side missions, and the amount of content is on a complete different scale. That's to say how much I enjoyed and lost myself in playing, replaying and wanting to discover everything about this game)
Now onto the guide/tips part II:
- I found out a way to consistently get the "Amazing" state (and keep it for the next day since that's when it comes into play). It's by bathing with your sister and having her wash you (wash your body first -> wash your head/body). This is the 1st and only consistent way I know of that you can use, and you need 200+ trust to have the option for sister to wash you in bath (easily attainable by day 20 with consistent chat interaction with sister and bathing together when you reach 100 interest). I previously thought the "I'm eating out today!" activity I mentioned before in the 1st post was a surefire way but it proved otherwise after more testing.
- Concerning policy choice, in a fresh run I'd suggest taking "part-time job life" for the first 1-2 weeks, with agriculture skill preferably, because money is important and needed early game, check part I for why.
- After that tho, I find "Reading Week" to have the most benefit out of the ones available, giving you adventure books (and extra :b) and free coffee effect for the week. "Bento life" is also good early game making AP management easier.
- With NG+ you shouldn't have to train at home or in the weekend(aside from running for AP) even on hard difficulty, All the stats I got were purely guild activity/RNG events/adventure books and lastly big/super adventures.
- This gets me to mention once more the importance of adventure books, ideally buy and read a 10 stack each week and that's +20 on each stat per week, this is done in your free time and training would never get you anywhere remotely close (you can't even train DEF and GUT stats at home). They're still relevant for grinding from 400 to 500, even though their yield is halved, they still offer 5 stat points per use and will have a good contribution in getting you maxed fast.
- When going on the big adventure, the optimal way would be to advance in steps of 20, which should be easily achievable with high enough AP (100+) and a bit decent luck with card draws. Doing this yields +7 across the board in stats.
- When you get your first match encounter in day 11 against [gourmet club] you should be severely outclassed without NG+, but in this case you can manage to beat them, and then you'll face akatsuki which you'll also be able to win against. This will set you on the second path for the "Think of countermeasures" arc. where you participate in an expedition to exterminate seals (instead of coming up with a restaurant menu with sister if you lose those 2 fights). I was overly excited to see the soundtrack [RAIN_&_Co.ogg] used in the game in the fight against Yukari when she tests your strength before the expedition, It's one of my favorite tracks from the BGM folder of the game and I was questioning whether it was there for future usage and it turns out I missed the point where it was used .. for a year X"D
- Saying in my last post to let sister gradually open up to you before engaging with her proved to be even more rewarding, I spent my time this run casually hanging with her and bathing together, until one day she surprised me while in the bath
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From here she started showing more and more affection until one day she came to my dreams
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I knew somewhere inside me that it was not a mere dream but a vision of our mutual love and wishes. After that she starting becoming restless as her desires grew day by day towards the person she loved the most in the world
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I told her she was my everything, she was the love of my life since the day I met her when my family passed in the last calamity and I got saved by her father. That day, I despaired, I was broken. She told me she would be my sister and family from that moment and embraced me. She taught me how to live again and gave me so much. She saved me, I now wanted to save her from her illness that made her fragile. Her father was a great adventurer and went to the west of the kingdom to help against the emerging chaos forces. He departed and left her in my care, the world tree was our hope and we couldn't believe when she was cured by transferring my energy, it cost me the ability to father a child for 10 years, but I didn't care and could give anything for her sake. I wanted to protect her from the unknown threats of the world. And I told her we would be rejoined before long. All the pain I've endured so far, so much pain and misery. I thought my heart would be broken forever, but thanks to her, I know what happiness is, and this day I felt the most joyous I've ever felt, we reunited and became one for the first time
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Every day since then filled our hearts with happiness, we spent our days happily together. She told me she wished to have a family with many children in the future when the effects of the ritual subsided and I couldn't be happier hearing her express my wishes on her own. And then before I knew it, the Happy memories outnumbered the sad ones and my life was bliss
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When her condition got better, she regained her golden hair and joined the guild wishing to support me and be my power. We were now ready to set out on a new adventure to save the world
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I couldn't help but turn it into a fanfiction in the middle X) This is what my headcanon looks like
Overall the experience I had in this second round was wonderful and now I can truly depart in full towards my own arc.
Wish you the best everyone at F95