SMT: Nocturne Hardtype - Ahriman (Low Level)

Calm the heck down zombero.
/ jimsonlytweet1
Rules:
- This is a low level run of zombero's hardtype mod: www.romhacking...
- The aim is to keep XP gain as low as possible without affecting my sanity.
- Hard mode, obviously
- No stat boosting items
- All other game mechanics are fair game!
Hardtype changes:
- Phase 1 HP: 6000 → 36000
- Phase 2 HP: 18000 → 55000
Ahriman's combined forms have the most HP of anything in the game. Even Kagutsuchi's forms "only" have 80000. What the hell? Outside of that this battle is largely unchanged. Everyone should resist magic to avoid being 2HKO'd by his spells. At least one phys immune ally is essential too to stop Tentacle spam later on, and those who aren't immune should still resist. Demi didn't get to learn Void Ice yet and predictably I got a wipe to double Bufudyne, the odds of which are comically unlikely. Classic cturne.
Because of his beefy HP we are forced to engage with his meta "this is but a game" phase a little more, as the final stretch forbids healing. The rules he puts in place are based on his remaining HP, and for the most part we can switch between magic and physical attacks, focussing when we're allowed and using items to heal if necessary. When he forbids summoning, this is your last opportunity to heal up. Make sure everyone is focussed too. He will then forbid spells and items - unleash a barrage of attacks. After this comes healing and items, which allows you to focus up again. Finally comes everything but physicals - one more round of focussed hits should be enough to end phase one. Amazingly I found a genuine use for Drain Attack here, since it's still allowed amongst all of this.
Phase 2 is actually easier than phase 1. We're now free to go all out with our usual focused physicals & fishing for shocks with Mjolnir. It's important to heal up at the end of each round so we don't risk dying to Apocalypse + Megidolaon (don't worry, he can't double Apocalypse). The upper limit of damage here is just under 700, but Wu Kong is the only one really at risk of dying and he has Endure as a safety net. Dark Sword's HP scaling is kind of annoying here, since we often end up having to attack on low HP, but its huge 45% crit rate doesn't disappoint.

[@totaldestruction152]

"Physical attacks are forbidden." *Demi-fiend will remember that*

[@VendreadMike95]

🤣🤣🤣

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

zombero: *Includes Silent Prayer in this mod* also zombero: *Doesn't give it to the literal god of silence* ...whatever. We're on the home stretch now peeps.

[@lysithea6074]

Sorry dumb question but who is the god of silence?

[@glettoo]

@@lysithea6074​

[@t-universegamer7609]

@@lysithea6074 Ahriman?

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

thought Ahriman was the zoroastrian take on the devil, either way he shoulda had it

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

@@QuantemDeconstructor Oh yeah, I meant within the game's story rather than his real world lore, he is literally the god Hikawa summons to bring about a world of silence.

[@Bucketgetter]

7:03 -Jim Reaper, March 2020

[@FungalFury]

Oh jesus I just realized it's been almost a year :(

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

@@FungalFury It took me 3 years to finish my first LL nocturne hard run, this is a baby hiatus by comparison :P

[@YurificationTrademark]

mf has been MIA for 3/4 of a year now :(

[@tengu6160]

I assumed the week break was for the great farming of Luster Candy 2021

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

I farmed a second batch of 20 before this. Probably need one last batch for the final boss. Wish me luck.

[@Ashcoop]

I wish I can just buy Emeralds with 10000 Macca or something...

[@bullblood_fan17]

@@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe must be funnier than grinding for AP in dds....

[@Gato-be2jr]

@@bullblood_fan17 nope grinding APs is infinitily funnier

[@maykosantiago2085]

"Spell Attacks are forbidden." Immediately casts ZIodyne.

[@flipperjr.3822]

Hey, just because he made the rules doesn't mean he has to follow them.

[@ajkhan1115]

Ahrihikawa is a Republican?

[@GrindyVine]

​@@flipperjr.3822 fair point

[@james1328]

Reject world of stillness Return to monke

[@b-frog9387]

Ahahahaha

[@apocalfailed8090]

Because having a combined HP of 91000 is totally acceptable.

[@dmua9551]

I mean, the Reason bosses have a lot of HP but they also by nature have much lower defense than previous ones, causing them to take a lot more damage

[@richardf3217]

The Kotowari boss track is still so damn good after all these years. It's hardly the only great song in the game, but they might have the most narrative weight behind them for me, even more than Kagutsuchi or Metatron's point of no return. The final chords are fantastic.

[@0phan7om0]

When i did this fight for the first time way back, i was really scared going into the second phase that the last rule would carry over. Granted his dialogue basically tells you it doesn't, but i was a dumb child.

[@garrettvance6243]

I can see how scary that would be. Imagine if that was with physical attacks. Unless you went with a magic build Demi-Fiend would just be a brick.

[@CozieGhosty]

"Games are meaningless in a world of silence." Sounds like someone was mad because they were losing at a game they made up...

[@ntrg3248]

I can't imagine being able to farm all the money for all this fusion without the Kalpa tunnels

[@demi-femme4821]

I think the poor bastard has to play the Pyro Jack game over and over.

[@GrindyVine]

@@demi-femme4821 ugh, that Pyro Jack game, yeah

[@Chr1s_1986]

Damn the reason boss music is still the best i absolutly love it.

[@LordWallace]

I did not know that about his HP, tf Zombero. No wonder he seemed to never die when I played this hack

[@PriestOfTheHelix]

Oh boy 2:00 AM, time to watch Jim play Nocturne.

[@flynn1545]

Ahriman Chungus.

[@Sneedboy]

Haven’t you got a black hole to open up?

[@flynn1545]

@@Sneedboy To eliminate Latino America? Yes.

[@Sneedboy]

@@flynn1545 damn. Maybe next playthrough you should do the White Ending

[@VelvaPandy]

Not as beefy as you, daddy Jim.

[@CereDulce37]

😳🥵🥵 and that loincloth wearing stud Loki too 🥵🥵

[@aly5513]

SHADOW HYPE SHADOW HYPE SHADOW HYPE!!!!!

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

Shadow fan eh? As of this vid all the gasfaceblob variants have been used in this run (albeit Mou-Ryo was only for skill morphs before the Matador fight, but he still played an essential role)

[@aly5513]

@@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe Of course I'm a Gasfaceblob fan. They need love and attention even if their too stupid to talk

[@bullblood_fan17]

@@aly5513 all the foul clan except for sakahagi has two weaknesses, i feel bad for shadow especially since he is the only one that i actually like :(

[@TheCrimsonWolf]

That's a spicy meatball

[@zmslayer69]

I never played nocturne and holy shit this game has a lot of bosses.

[@chestnut1563]

Shoutout to Albion for carrying my sorry sad axx in this fight

[@lilithramirez7719]

I bet that Noah's going to be one of the most annoying fights of the run.

[@darrenthesleepybird3355]

Stubborn Old Man who wishes teens would be quiet refuses to lose quickly. "I'll just level my Vigor, that'll show those kids."

[@peropero2208]

Breaking news:Funny tatoo man defeats a giant nutcracker with the help of a fart,L'oreal sponsor and a monkey from the chinese black market

[@megatenshi]

91000 hp is cool and all, but where's your monke resistance Ahriman?

[@demi-femme4821]

Ahriman is usually piss easy because you can effortlessly set up buffs to the point where phase 2 means nothing. In Hardtype, you can only go up to +2, so phase 2 is at least something.

[@chestnut1563]

Funnily, i never had problem with phase 2. The only thing that scares me is the Apocalypse+Megidolaon combo and the stupid rules on Phase 1. Phase 1 really dragged, and last 2x longer than phase 2

[@joshuamedina6807]

Technically Raidou version Lucy and his Diarahan at 1/3 health means he has an effective 100k hp making him slightly beefier than this boi

[@kameronjohnson3888]

So how beefy will lucifer be in this hack?

[@demi-femme4821]

@@kameronjohnson3888 I think that Lucifer's max HP hits some kind of interger cap. Like, they gave him as much HP as they physically could.

[@Alpha4706_]

After this run I have some ideas for other challenge runs. Like maybe hard type without demons or like jack brother only run

[@tairanomasakado5878]

Someone's already doing a Hardtype solo run. They're up to the Archangels/Futomimi now. Name is Ashcoop.

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

Honestly there is endless potential for meme runs that I will almost definitely return to in future, but I'm very very done with this game rn

[@steelpython6634]

@@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe lol i would imagine

[@tairanomasakado5878]

@Dávid Walter Counter only? I did one where I fought each boss with their demon counterpart, if that's what you mean. But that's on vanilla hard mode, not hardtype.

[@Alpha4706_]

@@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe dds 2

[@frankcooper3737]

Finally almost at the end, are you at the final party now?

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

Demons still come and go, but there are some that are going all the way to the end now, or close enough. Monke, birb, laughing horseman and support bae from this vid

[@Mrspeedwarrior2]

*quietly anticipating funny fly lady*

[@gamerice2477]

I can't wait any longer for the remake, People of youtube should I get the original or wait. I'm ready to suffer through anything!

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

You have to really love this game to suffer through the random skill inheritance of OG. But if you were thinking of playing this mod it's unlikely you'll be able to play it on the remake for the forseeable future since its creator has been AWOL for years.

[@The_PolterGhost]

@@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe To be fair, the actual changes made could be replicated, to a point. Skill changes, enemy and player stats, etc. You'd have to make up better formulae and make your own AI changes, but maybe PC Hardtype would end up a better experience out of someone rebalancing it further. The same can be said for the opposite, though, especially depending on the type of person that makes it.

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

@@The_PolterGhost Yeah the stat changes would be simple enough to replicate albeit time consuming, but the new damage formulae are real nice and it would be a shame to redo that when he already perfectly fixed it.

[@juliofigueroa5567]

Persona 6 looking crazy

[@lemmon_Grove2533]

luster candy is a thing in nocturne? i sure could have used that in my play-through

[@heeho5495]

It's only in the hardtype mod created by zombero as a consumable item, not the original game

[@lemmon_Grove2533]

@@heeho5495 damn

[@a_seraph]

How do you have the patience to get the skill changes you want? For like midgame and early game

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

Idk, this whole run is a joke that went too far

[@grilledcheezvirtualoniisan8670]

That sure is one beefy boi

[@nr2676]

Wukong MVP

[@bigdingus9333]

Hey Jim, how did you get this working? I’ve tried everything to emulate and it won’t work. Any help?

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

What's your issue? Is it running poorly, or have you got transparency issues, or will it just not boot up at all? I can try and help with the first 2 but probably not the latter

[@pinkstarmona1695]

Oh boi 2 am upload

[@unbubbletea]

Any reason in particular you're putting points into Agility now?

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

I figured the last few points could go into Str, Ag or Luck and it wouldn't make too much difference. I noticed throughout the run that sometimes Demi would whiff attacks even with full speed buff stacks so I went with Ag to try and stop this. Granted the whiffs were when I was using the less accurate Hell Thrust. Anyway, without knowing exactly how zombero changed the stat formulae it's impossible to know the best way to minmax here. In the end it looks like the extra agility is giving me favourable turn order for the final bosses which is the most important thing, so I guess I made the right call without thinking about it too hard.

[@m_e_nere]

This guy always looks cool

[@toxas3063]

1:46 bruh I thought physical attacks were forbidden, what a cheater

[@swausgaming23123]

Two uploads within 24 hours? What is this witchcraft?

[@joshuamedina6807]

Jim tends to upload in waves expect the next reason bosses in the next 24 hours

[@pootisbootfromdiscord8678]

holy heckin shit

[@nr2676]

Uzubae :D

[@CosmicEncounter7]

Feels like a lazy edit honestly. They could've done something like, you know, made him do more damage in first form. Mithra could do 600ish with megidola, why not have ahriman do more than like 140. I know he was debuffed and you were buffed, but c'mon lol, he does appropriate damage in his second form.

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

He does do wayyy more damage than vanilla tbf. You gotta remember everyone here resists phys/magic, this is a pretty specialized setup Some new moves or improvements to his Dekaja/Dekunda AI would've been nice though... (yes he has both Dekaja and Dekunda, not that you'd know it)

[@FungalFury]

From what I understand the changes to both ahriman and mithra aren't actual stat buffs but just effects of changing the magic system

[@paulstillman4949]

Skill changes aren't cash this time

[@DMSwordsmaster]

This fight really encapsulates what I don't like about this mod. Simple fact is, when you do nothing but jack the HP of the bosses up by like five times the amount or other stupid garbage like that, especially for excessively simple bosses that _weren't designed around that,_ the fights just stop being interesting and turn into a complete slog. Like. What is engaging about essentially following the same set of turns for friggin twenty minutes?? The only part of any sort of value is the first form with the rule gimmick. The second form is nothing but "deal big numbers", and that's literally it for _ten minutes._ Ten friggin minutes of the same tiny batch of skills from the boss. Seriously, how is this fun? It isn't even hard, it's just boring.

[@Kanzuki]

What's that theme at the start?

[@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe]

Large Map - Last Area. Along with the real world large map, the most criminally underused theme in the game

[@Kanzuki]

@@JimReaperSaysUnsubscribe Thanks! For some reason I thought it was a theme from one of Raidou Kuzunoha's games