Before I started this run, I had a thought about a "Low Star Challenge." Because, you see, I always had too many Element slots by the end. Marcy and Irenes being loaded up with CureAlls made even the final boss in this difficulty mod pretty simple. Well, dumping Serge completely and bringing along Greco and Mel is pretty much like what I wanted. I have so few Elements slots in this and it was nerve-wracking setting everything up. What if I needed healing and I didn't have it? What if I needed to color the field a certain way but because I have so few slots and i put everything into healing, I didn't have the necessary color?

And then I got to the fight itself. Jesus. 30 minutes successful run, imagine all the failures. There were a lot of them.

First things first. I am unsure if this is something specific to this mod or if it's in the regular game, but even if you "kill" a form, it won't transition to the next until it performs certain required moves. I first saw this when the Yellow form changed to Red after I used Imbecile on it. As you probably know, Imbecile does no damage. The guy was dead, but he had to get off that final tail strike before the game would let it change. At least that's my understanding.

Speaking of moves, killing Yellow and Red before they can use ThunderStorm or Volcano is pretty essential given both how much damage they do and also how costly healing is for this party. Better to just find a way to blitz through them. That is what was holding me up at first. Second, I had the presence of mind to bring along HolyLight and UltraNova Traps. In general, I've used Traps way more this time around than even my last run of this mod where I tanked UN and HL both. But as I already said, this party is way too lean on healing for me to even try this. I do not have a convenient super awesome Blue Innate loaded up with a nigh-endless supply of CureAlls to fix everything in one move. Finally, I also learned to use Turn[Color[]Elements way more this run than I ever have before. Early on they were great at buffng Sprigg's forms, but at this point, Greco has far surpassed any of her monsters in terms of normal attack damage. And so turning him the right color and letting him beat the shit out of the boss was very useful.

This brings me to Sprigg. This is an assessment of Sprigg in this fight and in all the game. Most of her forms are useless. It's not that they were good early on and then drop off, no, most are just worthless from beginning to end. The handful who are good are VERY good, especially since their Elements reset when change back and forth between monsters. I may not have been able to defeat Garai without Diminish if not for WightKnight, who was still useful even into this final boss. Nevertheless, I wish I could play around with her a bit more instead of always sticking to just the same few monsters.

So Greco is a beast, Sprigg can be very good, and Mel is...not really much of anything. She's a Thief and I like her more than Fargo, and I've already used Kid. That's why she's here. My parties have now been:
1st: Serge/Kid/Karsh
2nd: Serge/Irenes/Leah
3rd: Serge/Steena/Marcy
4th: Sprigg/Greco/Mel

Please tune in next week for my 5th run with a team of Sneff, NeoFio, and...I dunno, Skelly. (this is sarcasm)

The observant among you will probably notice many mistakes but the one I regretted immediately was using Volcano against the Blue form. I should have done GraveDigger. It would have done several hundred more damage, as I had seen in a previous failed attempt. My only excuse is I'm very tired after being stuck on this fight so long. I was so happy to get to Blue that I was rushing through it to get to Black and White.

Also fuck HellSoul and Hellbound. HellSoul ended many a run prematurely in the Red form because it would kill someone, and I was NOT wasting a precious Revive in just the third form. But yeah, everything would be going perfectly, and then they'd just oneshot Greco. Black is one of the worst Colors in this game, IMO. Very few good Black Innate characters, a couple of the Black Elements are instant kills which are of course useless in boss fights, and so-on.

I think this is all I have to say... This is the final "real boss" of Chrono Cross. (Lavos Time Devourer is impossible to defeat normally in this, at least not until NG+. His Omega attacks do 1000+ damage. ) This fourth run has taught me even more about the gameplay, and made me love the battle system even more. I continue to say it's one of the best turn-based JRPG systems out there, right alongside Final Fantasy X and the best Shin Megami Tensei games.

If anybody watched any of these videos, and especially if you watched this long-ass vid, I greatly appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed yourself.

SPRIGG: Stone Staff/Stone Vest/Moonglasses/Dreamer's Scarfx2
GRECO: Spectral Glove/Prism Mail/Stamina Belt/Power Sealx2
MEL: Prismarang/Prism Vest/Moonglasses/MementoPendant/Dragoon's Glory

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