Is it worth getting Vagrant Story: yes/no?

[Necronopticous]

Del! I am so proud of you right now.

[Del Murder]

For using my spell items? Yeah, I'm a big boy.

I'm into this game now. I can get level 2 or 3 chains pretty consistently, and I just got the silver knife that was alluded to earlier in this thread. I'll try and make that my undead weapon.

How do you know what type of enemy you are facing? I'm fighting hellhounds and I don't know if they are Beast or Undead. When I open up the fight bubble it says beast but a guide I am using calls them undead, and it appears that they give me skillups on the Undead part.

[Necronopticous]

Your fight bubble is correct. They are beast class. I don't know why your guide says otherwise. More likely, you are seeing your undead be negatively affected. Have you turned on the option that shows you when you get +/- class/affinity values? If not, you should definitely turn that on. I think it is off by default.

>-+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-<·
     Gained pts.      Human  - Beast    - Undead   - Phantom  - Dragon  - Evil
>-+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-<·
     Decreased pts.   Beast  - Undead   - Phantom  - Dragon   - Evil    - Human
                      Undead - Phantom  - Dragon   - Evil     - Human   - Beast
>-+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-<·

It is worth noting that affinity is quite a bit more important than enemy class in damage calculation, so while you should focus on using and building weapons for specific enemy classes, when you start enchanting/socketing your eqiupment to boost damage you should always prioritize affinity over class for the maximum benefit.

[Del Murder]

Does affinity mean elemental affinity? I've been going under the impression class is the best to focus on.

[Necronopticous]

The three things that matter most about your weapon as far as damage calculation is concerned are type (blunt, piercing, etc), affinity (water, fire, etc), and class (beast, undead, etc). The amount of points you have vs the amount of points the target defends against in each of these categories is going to determine how effective your attacks are, and they all matter, but some are more heavily weighted in the calculation. Type is the most weighted of the three, affinity is the second most weighted, and class is actually last. The reason why it is common to focus on class when building your weapons throughout the game is because it is by far the easiest of the three categories to continually modify (since you just use certain weapons on certain enemies consistently), and while not as weighted as the other categories, is still a very important piece. Later you will be using lots of buffs & debuffs, as well as socketing your weapons with gems that boost affinities--this is where you are going to shine in the elemental affinity category. Pull out your best weapon for whatever enemy class the boss is, socket it with gems that boost your elemental attacks on the element he is weakest against, and then use your buffs/debuffs to exacerbate the differential.

[Del Murder]

I am super addicted to this game now. I spend an hour in each Blacksmith upgrading all my stuff. I play this more than my current console game (Skyward Sword).

I see what you mean by affinity. I went up against a fire demon and did 0 damage to it and died. Then I went into the room before it and found a spell that increased the water affinity on a weapon. After using that I was able to do damage and kill him easily. I like how there are particular things that will give you an advantage in each boss fight, and that exploration around the boss room will yield you useful things for the fight.

[Necronopticous]

You are rocking it, man. Keep it up.

Based on what you said, it sounds like you recently made your first surface inside of Lea Monde. I always find that to be a particularly relieving and memorable scene in the game. Most of the time you are underground or in some sort of enclosed cavern or dungeon, which gives the game a very claustrophobic mood. The stark contrast of the brief outdoor scenes almost feel like coming up for a breath of air after being underwater. I especially like that first surface since they so quickly plunge you back into the underground. Very unsettling.

[Del Murder]

Yeah I thought the whole city was underground at first.

I hit my first chain 8! I can chain like crazy now. Though it's harder with spear since the timing is different (I use spear, sword, and dagger). What's the highest chain you've gotten?

What's the best chain abilities? I mainly just swap between the one that does an extra damage hit and the one that recovers MP (that one is pretty broken since it makes you pretty much invincible as long as you can do damage and chain).

[Necronopticous]

I tried for a long time to hit the 30x chain for the title you get for it, but could never quite get it. I think the closest I got was 24 or something, but it has been a long time.

For chain abilities I like the ones you mentioned as well as the one that restores DP to make my weapons hold out longer (important since repairing takes away your PP and your weapons do the best damage when they have DP and PP). Also, a little later on in the game you will probably want to start using chain abilities that add good status effects like disable/silence so you can get a handle on harder normal enemies (especially in groups) without your risk going through the roof.

[Del Murder]

Is Silver not better than Hagane? I upgraded some stuff to Silver and found that the strength and intelligence are actually worse than the Hagane equivalent. Is there a use for Silver?

[Wolf Kanno]

Silver is a specialty metal, it has high affinity against undead, spirits, and evil. Hagane is better for actual combat overall and works as the main metal type for everything until you get some of the rare stuff. Damascus is the material you really want but it's both rare and difficult to make.

[Del Murder]

This game makes me disappointed. Disappointed that I didn't discover it until now! It's been pretty awesome.

Just when I think the game is getting a little too repetitive, it throws something new at me. I was dreading having to go back through half the town to unlock those doors when I got the right key, but then I got the Teleportation spell.

[Necronopticous]

Had Yazmat given us the ability to cycle through weapons without menucrawling, Vagrant Story just might be a perfect video game.

Good to hear you are still playing, Del.

[Del Murder]

After I got the hang of things I was able to cruise right through most of the bosses in this game. But now I'm at the final boss and he's kicking my butt. I can barely do any damage to him and even after a good half hour of chipping down his HP with my 5 damage strikes, he kills me in one hit with Bloody Sin. Any tips?

[Necronopticous]

My best general advice would be to come packing 8 weapons all full on PP and hit him hard with Phantom Pain on all of them, then resort to your chipping tactics to finish him off. Blow ALL of your items. Keep yourself fully healed at pretty much all times to stay alive during his regular attacks. Keep your risk at 0. Keep Magic Ward on at all times. The best way to survive Bloody Sin is to not let him use it at all--it can actually be cancelled if you hit him as he flies above you in preparation. When you notice he is going for it, get in the middle of the platform and continually "pause" with your game with the L2 shortcut menu until you see him just above you, then smack him with your longest range break art. Go for it!