Game:

Chrono Trigger (1995)

Duration: 44:56

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2

I've been working on a challenge I call the ultra low-level game, or ULLG. For the rules, see the following video, since this description is too long to include them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQks0WMDJos

Dream Devourer (DD) has two phases. In his first phase, his physical defense and magic defense are both very high. I circumvent his defense by using the Venus Bow, which deals a fixed 777 damage. An alternative is to use Ice Sword and Ice Sword II; these deal about 200 and 300 damage. When you use a pure physical attack during the first phase (with an exception noted below), DD will counter by draining all of the attacker's MP. This isn't a problem with my strategy, since Marle is the only attacker and she isn't using MP. DD has a powerful whole-party dark attack that he uses frequently during the first phase, but only if all three party members are alive. I gave Crono and Marle Black Plates to let them survive this attack, but I gave Robo a White Plate to help with DD's second phase, so the dark attack will kill Robo. My strategy doesn't involve him, so I just leave him dead until the second phase starts.

The one and only time (as far as I know) that a pure physical attack will not cause DD to do a counter of some kind is when the attack brings him to his second phase. Thus, the absence of a counter is an indication that he has entered his second phase. In this phase, he will counter every attack with Chaos Zone, which kills the whole party. So, I need to make sure I have the Reraise status before I attack. In addition to his party-wiping counterattack, he also has a party-wiping proactive attack: The End of All and Nothing (EAN). Other attacks in the second phase include a powerful whole-party light attack (which Robo can survive because he has a White Plate), a powerful single-target attack (Starfall) and a very weak single-target attack (an unnamed attack where dark bubbles appear and no damage numbers are visible). The dark bubble attack is so weak that even Crono and Marle can survive it as long as their health is nearly full.

All of my attacks in the second phase need to be done very carefully, since DD will kill my whole party with his counter. Not only do I need to have Reraise, but I need to be prepared to quickly cast Lifeline again after being revived in order to prepare for the next party-wiping attack. As a result, I can only attack once every few minutes. Fortunately, DD occasionally lowers his defense to charge up EAN. This is my chance to use Cyclone Sweep, which I believe is the most powerful attack available to me. Once DD's defense reaches its lowest level, Cyclone Sweep deals a little over 2000 damage. After DD kills my party and they're revived, I must hurry and cast Lifeline again before DD uses EAN.

A peculiarity of Reraise is that if a character dies while he is able to select an action, or while he has selected one but not executed it, then he will lose his entire ATB bar. Otherwise, he will retain the bar. In the video, I did a few useless actions (like healing someone at full HP) to try to take advantage of this behavior, but it ended up being unnecessary; DD is not fast enough for tricks like this to be needed.

The battle is very long and repetitive. It features a combination of traits that make it tiring to play: it's boring, but it also requires a lot of attention since a mistake can easily spell death. For example, in some earlier attempts, I forgot to cast Lifeline before attacking in the second phase. In this successful attempt, I made a handful of mistakes that caused the battle to take a few minutes longer, but I was able to recover from them. Although this video is probably quite a dull watch, I figured I should upload it since DD is the final boss and one of the hardest in a ULLG. So, I present the entire 45-minute battle for your viewing pain.

One interesting thing about this battle is that there is a glitch that lets you kill DD by healing him. His health is 32000, which is near the maximum value of a signed 16-bit integer: 2^15 - 1 = 32767. The game appears to use such an integer to store enemy HP. In the second phase, DD absorbs all elemental attacks. If his health is at or near the maximum of 32000 and you heal him with an elemental attack, you can cause his health to overflow and become negative, killing him. For the purposes of a ULLG, I decided to ban this glitch since it makes the battle somewhat easier. One possible healing strategy is basically identical to the strategy in this video--just replace Cyclone Sweep in the second phase with Ice Sword II--but DD dies much faster.

Party and equipment:

Crono: Rainbow, Haste Helm, Black Plate, Golden Stud
Robo: Dragon Arm, Haste Helm, White Plate, Speed Ring
Marle: Venus Bow, Angel's Tiara, Black Plate, Golden Stud

With Dream Devourer in the bag, my ULLG is complete. It was definitely a fun challenge and a step up from a basic LLG; I recommend it to anyone for whom a basic LLG is too easy.

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