Dan Reads Sonic Fan Fiction

Game Grumps: Dan Reads Sonic Fan Fiction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1QpEh05MTg

I'm probably going to hell for laughing at this, but it's surprisingly good-natured and not as cringe as I thought it was going to be.

I find 99% of YouTube videos about gaming to be unbearable, but I got into Game Grumps because of their Wind Waker playthrough and then stayed for their friendship. I've also enjoyed watching them evolve as people, and I appreciate that they take what they do seriously and are so open about how, for example, taking acting and business management classes has helped them run the show successfully.

I Am Setsuna, Part Four

After having played I Am Setsuna on PS4 and abandoned it in 2017 because of a particularly unpleasant dungeon, I did two things. First, I bought the game on Nintendo Switch and played it as a portable game with a reliable quicksave function; and second, I bought a copy of the Japanese strategy guide so I wouldn't have to get lost in that stupid dungeon like a peasant.

I also figured out how to win every fight with minor enemies instantly. This was extremely helpful, as I'd been having trouble with random encounter battles that would last for much longer than I was comfortable with (especially while lost in a dungeon with no save points). Like Chrono Trigger, I Am Setsuna allows different sets of characters to perform combination attacks. Unlike Chrono Trigger, I Am Setsuna won't tell you which special abilities you need to equip on your characters in order to make these combo attacks available. By sheer dumb luck, I found that two garbage special abilities equipped on Nidr (the Auron character) allow him to perform two game-breaking combo attacks with the main character, Endir. One of these attacks, Crosscut, targets (and usually instantly defeats) all enemies, and the other, Blowbeat, does the same thing while also serving as the only decent source of debuffs in the game.

Since even weak enemies in I Am Setsuna don't shy away from completely healing themselves, and since most enemies are resistant or immune to magic, being able to defeat multiple enemies at a time with physical attacks is really the only way to go. This is a bit counter-intuitive, as the game gives you a lovely roster of spellcasters. Unfortunately, it's difficult to actually use these characters, so you have to rely on your two brute-force attackers and your one healer.

I guess this aligns with the setting of the game, in which humankind became too greedy for magic and was punished for its hubris, but it's also a bit silly that you can breeze through every fight by spamming the same two combo attacks. Not that I'm complaining, of course; I like winning.