Disc One Nuke: Difference between revisions

 

Compare [[Magikarp Power]]. [[Last Disc Magic]] is the inverse of this. See also [[Peninsula of Power Leveling]], where you can gain experience early on rather than items or equipment.

 

 

** Gau is a character built around the concept of a Disc One Nuke. He mimics the attack of monsters, letting him use level two magic long before your other party members even begin to learn first level magic, and from there until the second half of the game can usually consistently stay one-step ahead of the abilities of the rest of the party. The only catch is [[Guide Dang It|the game doesn't tell you which monsters teach him which attacks]], and finding a specific monster to teach him a specific attack can take hours.

** Edgar joins the party with the Auto-Crossbow, which lets him attack all enemies at once, doing more damage than a normal attack and ignoring row. Once Edgar joins pretty much every random encounter up until Zozo can be ended in a single round.

** In the very beginning, when the Moogles help Locke rescue Terra in the caves of Narshe, you can unequip Mog for some decent equipment that will last you through a fair bit of the early game. (He doesn't need the equipment for his boss battle since dancing has the potential to end it in one round.)

** The Fixed Dice are something of a Disc Two nuke. Immediately after getting the airship in the ruined world, your 3-4 person party can sprint into Kefka's tower and get this incredibly powerful weapon, assuming they don't randomly encounter any enemies that can't be run away from. Doing so makes Setzer your most powerful fighter pretty much until you decide to do Kefka's tower (the final dungeon) for real.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy X 2 (Video Game)|Final Fantasy X 2]]'', there is one point in the game where a merchant shows up on your home base for a while. Due to a mechanic with him alone, if you have a half-decent startup amount of cash, you can cause him to be the cheapest merchant in the game simply by buying as many [[Healing Potion|Potions]] from him as possible and selling them back ad nauseum. This doesn't sound like much, but in his final state after doing this enough the items he sells are cheaper than he'll buy them back for. Result is instant infinite gil. The problem is that you can only do this at a specific point about halfway through the game.

** Crossing over with [[Peninsula of Power Leveling]], there's Shell Shockers in the dry plains, accessible as soon as you get control of your [[Global Airship]] (which in this game is as soon as you finish the prologue). While their 4,700 HP is intimidating, their only attack reduces HP by a fixed percent, meaning it can't kill you, yet it still gives a ''ton'' of experience. Taking out even one of these is enough to make the first chapters noticeably easier.

** The License Point system in Final Fantasy XII is a bit of a Disc One Nuke, although its effects diminish the further you go in the game. It's a board, somewhat reminiscent of FFX's sphere grid, which is filled with "licenses" for all of the game's equipment, skills, and magic, as well as a section dedicated to power ups for the character that has the license. Increased attack power, extra HP, significantly less wait time between turns, etc. The important difference between this and the sphere grid is that it isn't a straight line; as long as an adjacent square is activated, you can activate any square on the board whenever you want, provided you have the license points necessary. The game keeps you from getting any of the more powerful spells and equipment too early on, since you have to BUY them in a store as well as acquire the license, but there's no such restriction on the so-called Augment licenses. Add that on to the fact that every enemy in the game gives at least one license point, regardless level, and it is possible to grind wolves and cockatrices in the beginning of the game, and before reaching level 10, have exactly 1000 more HP than you're supposed to, have three times your base MP, cast an 8-MP spell with an actual cost of 5, and fly through many of the game's first bosses.

** The powerful [[Limit Break|Quickening]] attacks are available as soon as you buy them from the License Board. Without too much grinding you can have all 3 Quickenings for each character before Raithwall Tomb. You can then use Quickening chains to curb-stomp bosses well into the Act 2.

** Experience points are rewarded for performing any action on friend or foe, not by defeating enemies of a certain level. For this reason, it's actually possible to reach level 99 in any single battle in the game, since each action rewards 10 experience points, and it takes 100 experience points to reach a new level. Job Points, which are used to master job classes, are gained in the same fashion, so it's also possible to master any class in a single battle.

*** [http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197339-final-fantasy-tactics/faqs/23261 In fact, that's exactly what's required for a solo character challenge.] Hell, if you make it through the first few battles of the solo Ramza game properly, you can own the entire rest of the game with little problem.

** Making a unit a Monk and giving him/her the Knight's Equip Armor ability helps well in the early game, as the considerable boost to HP (the armor) and attack (the Monk class' properties) increases their chance of survival.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics a 2 (Video Game)|Final Fantasy Tactics a 2]]'' nerfed many things that broke the game in Advance, but there are new nukes to abuse. Getting the ability to buy tokens in the auction houses early can let you take control of all the regions easily, and then bid on powerful items like 'Zeus Mace' or 'Excalibur'. These auction houses will actually give you even more [[Game Breaker|broken rewards]] for sweeping the lots subsequent times.

* Various kinds of Pokémon also exhibit types of [[Magikarp Power]] that can be taken advantage of fairly early in the game:

** By training the useless [[Magikarp Power|Magikarp]], which can be acquired the moment you get an Old Rod (or even earlier in the first games, if you're willing to buy the Pokémon from a shady merchant), it will evolve into the incredibly powerful Gyarados at level 20. Even if you don't go out of your way to power-level your Magikarp, it's not hard to make this happen before you or most opponents have anything else that compares. You can also obtain one via the Pokéwalker in HG/SS, at a higher level than normal and with a decent offensive move to boot.

*** Since the Abra has Teleport, you can also use it to trigger the Mew Glitch.

* The games played this straight during the second generation. The [[Minigame Zone|Game Corner]] was located early in the game at [[Capital City|Goldenrod]]. If you had the patience and skill then you could earn the coins to buy incredibly powerful TMs and Pokémon. They started out at Level 5, but the Daycare (which will raise your Pokémon for you) was just a short walk away.

*** Using the [[Good Bad Bugs|select-button warp]] trick in one room of the cave to the mushroom allows Link to enter a glitched part of Level 7 Eagle's Tower to get Level 3's power bracelet, then move over - then back, one can grab Level 7's upgraded Power Bracelet - which allows Link to go through several areas much sooner then he's supposed to and thus gain enough heart pieces/usable items/etc. to make many early boss fights much easier then they should be.

* [[Castlevania]]: [[Castlevania Sorrow|Aria of Sorrow]]. With one of three possible soul combinations, it is possible to acquire by far two of the most powerful equips in the game as early as the midpoint: the giant sword Claimh Solais, which has both incredible reach and speed, a high attack rating and is holy attribute, making it effective against most enemies, and 2) the Eversing Armor.

** Additionally, grinding for one of those monsters' souls (Curly) can be done in the same room as the Valkyrie soul, which is expensive on MP but disgustingly powerful and one of the few forms of holy damage aside from the Claimh Solais itself.

** The Mystelain is one of the other holy swords, and while it's nowhere near as good as the Solais, it can be found in a secret room in the Clock Tower, which is a fair bit before that weapon. Again, it's the holy damage that's key, and it's very useful against Death, the boss of the tower.

** Not even to mention how the game's Materia Fusion system acts, in a particularly creative player's hands, as a massive [[Game Breaker]] factory. With shrewd materia fusing (there are guides to teach you how) you can have your six equipped materia provide you the + 999% HP bonus twice (combined with the HP Break ability, you have 99,999 health instead of the standard maximum of 9,999) as well as + 100 on your attack, agility, vitality and luck stats, making you a living god when combined with the game's best armor. In fact, this is pretty much the ONLY way to face the game's ultimate optional boss and not being killed by her first attack (never mind the hundreds of attacks she'll use as you try and whittle away her TEN MILLION HP)

** There's also a hidden shop you can get fairly early in the game through the side missions. It sells materia that let you attack with and defend against any statuses attached to the other materia you have equipped. The same shop sells the Hell elemental materia, which are essentially the top Ice/Fire/Lightning spells, with Death/Stop/Poison/etc. slapped on. With enough cash, you'll be simultaneously immune to and dishing out half of the most debilitating status effects in the game.

** Fusing the right 3 Persona (Pixie and Nekomata then the result with an angel) early on can give you a Lilim with the 4 main elements<ref>In this game, hitting an enemies weakness gives you an extra turn once per round</ref> by level 8. This lasts more than long enough for the next quad elemental persona (Pale Raider) which lasts till the right skills are accessible for specialists.

** A similar recipe exists to create a 4-element Yomotsu Shikome a Lv. 9 Hermit persona. It's slightly better than Lilim because Shikome has no weakness and is resistant to Darkness/Mudo.

*** In the most literal example, there are cards called Blank Cards in the game that can be overwritten with essentially any card in the game. You get the first one fairly early on. There are cards in the game that, unmodified, can nuke the entire enemy area of the battlefield for about 400-500 damage. Most end-game bosses have less than six times that, so...

* ''[[The World Ends With You (Video Game)|The World Ends With You]]'' features the ability to evolve existing pins into more powerful forms. Pins require one of three types of experience points to do so. While the selection of pins is rather limited, it is nonetheless possible to get the Yoshimitsu pin (the most powerful Shockwave pin), as well as the most powerful versions of the Natural Puppy energy blast pins... during the first week (chapter) of the game. It's not even that hard-Shutdown and Mingle PP aren't affected by what point of the game you are at, so a game-end player with 100% Completion will get those points in the same amounts that a newbie just starting his game will. If only pin evolutions weren't such a [[Guide Dang It]]...

* Savvy players of ''[[Mega Man X (Video Game)|Mega Man X]] 5'' can get X's Ultimate Armor and/or Zero's Black Armor early; they simply need to {{spoiler|fire the Enigma cannon and/or launch the shuttle at the space colony}} before striking out on any of the eight Maverick levels, then {{spoiler|go through the first three Sigma levels and slide down to where the armors are being held}}.

** Of course, doing this is pretty much a one-way ticket to the bad ending, and usually makes it impossible to get Zero's upgrade unless you're '''insanely''' lucky.

* ''[[Oracle of Tao]]'' has a way two ways to level to 20 in the first town. The first is beating a certain type of ghost near the graveyards, and the second is a random room which has a priestess that gives levelups to the party (up to level 20).

** Stealing from the second boss in the game yields a Dark Sword which is much more powerful than any of the current weapons before this point. Also, multiple copies can be stolen, giving a great deal of money for other items.

* ''[[SaGa 2|SaGa II]]'' (known in the states as ''Final Fantasy Legend II'') randomly awared new mutant powers at the end of battles based on the level of the monsters fought. One particular boss encountered relatively early in the was a class "9", more or less meaning that a little bit of [[Save Scumming]] would net you a power far more advanced than you were meant to have at that point in the game.

* In ''[[Suikoden I]]'', if you enter the forest beside Seika early you will meet Kobolds, monsters FAR stronger then what you should be facing. However you can wipe them out in one fire spell. Because you get more experience the bigger the difference in levels between you and the enemy, ten minutes of fighting can set you FAR ahead of the curve before you even have your fortress, which just happens to be where one of the hardest fights in the game is.

** In ''[[Suikoden II]]'', you have the opportunity to get through a gate into one of the later areas, Matilda, and pick up two characters that import from the first game. Your levels will jump significantly, making much of the rest of the game, at least until well beyond that area, nearly trivial.

** In ''Morrowind'' the amount of easily obtainable magic rings you can pick up just after the start of the game can also help make early levels a breeze. Denstagmer's Ring gives you 30% resistance to Fire, Ice and Shock. Mentor's Ring boosts your Intellegence and Willpower by 10 and the Ring of Phynaster grants 20% resistance to Poison, Magicka and Shock. All of them can be found in caves just outside of towns and are not too badly guarded.

** And of course, there are wonders of [[Game Breaker|Alchemy]], being able to cyclically boost your ability to make better and better potions right at the start of the game, culminating in utter unstoppability <ref>(or [[Unwinnable]] game if you boost some wrong stats, such as [[Too Fast to Stop|running]] or [[In a Single Bound|jumping]])</ref>. Disc One Nuke comes in form of a second-best alchemy set available for free in a town not far from the start of the game.

** In ''Oblivion'' it's possible to get one of the strongest swords (if not the strongest) in the game very early. It's held by a very strong NPC and it would normally require an intense battle with her to get it, but all one really has to do is attack her, and then hop on a horse and lure her to the nearest city and let the guards kill her for you.

*** There's also an area of the battleground you're supposed to fight her in that, if reached, makes you impossible to hit. You can then spam arrows at her at your leisure, as long as you've got enough to kill her with.

* ''[[Baldurs Gate]]'' has a tutorial section in which you learn how to control party members. Many players found they could loot the inventory of party members of valuable items (such as a ''+ 1 shield'', a ''wand of heavens'', and ''healing potion''s, and nonmagical plate mail), and then export their characters, and simply start a new game with said character--who now starts off with enough armor and money to breeze through until the first major dungeon.

** Also, in the section just outside Candlekeep, to the north, you usually will "randomly" meet Drizzt and a party of his friends. By saving the game here and having Imoen attempt to pickpocket him successfully before he exits the screen you could end up with BOTH of Drizzt's +5 named artifact scimitars!

*** A better way to get a ton of XP early was to buy a Scroll of Protection From Petrification and then go kill the basilisks near one of the early towns. They gave about 7000 XP each and were fairly trivial as long as you couldn't be turned to stone. If you wanted to solo the game, you could gain a number of levels very quickly this way.

** Algernon's Cape grants the use of an at-will, instant-cast, virtually-unlimited-ammo Charm spell to a first or second level PC five minutes into the game through a ridiculously easy pickpocket or NPC kill (approximately 4 HP) - yeah, that's a game nuker. An easter egg, to be sure, and serious players who wanted to enjoy the game wouldn't use it, but still. There's nothing quite like turning an enemy party against itself. You could win the whole game with one character, never having to raise a fist. Of course, no kill XP, but then that's what quest completion XP is for.

*** A word of caution though, this doesn't work in the expanded ''Fable: The Lost Chapters''

** Also, it is possible to abuse the Hero Save feature, which resets the player to the beginning of a quest, up to and including resetting all item spawns, conversations and Hero doors opened during the quest, every time they save, to attain both a ridiculous amount of money and enough silver keys to open every chest in the game. Including the one in the Hero's Guild, which contains a legendary weapon.

** It also has Skorm's Bow, the most powerful ranged weapon in the game and if you play your cards right (and are not too [[Chaotic Evil|squeamish]]) it can be yours before your first mission.

** There's also Wellow's Pickhammer, which you can get literally in the first 30 minutes of the game if you know what you're doing. It has about four times the damage of anything you can afford when you start the game, and remains the best weapon up to and including the Arena quest, which is about two-thirds of the way through the game. All you have to do to get it is murder one or two people in front of the Demon Door guarding it...or just eat 15 or so crunchy chicks.

 

== Shoot Em Up ==

* An early Wave in old-school PC shoot-em-up ''[[Raptor Call of the Shadows|Raptor: Call of the Shadows]]'' has a Air-Ground Missile pickup from a destroyed building about 30 seconds into the Wave. You can then quit out to the hangar menu, ''keeping the weapon'', and sell that weapon for half price on the [[Black Market]] (in this case, 70K). Repeat this process until you have enough money. Alternatively, if you're more patient (or have access to the level warp cheat), there's a later Wave that drops a Dumbfire Missile worth even more credits.

* The Tektite Blaster (T-Braster) in [[Gaiares]], which has a bit of a [[Guide Dang It]] on how to get it (Fire the TOZ 6 times, missing all of them, and then capture an enemy weapon with the 7th TOZ shot).

 

== Stealth Based Game ==

** In ''Brotherhood'', while the parts of the game where they are received vary by player, the crossbow and poison darts make most of the guard encounters a breeze, even in stealthier missions. The ability to instakill most enemies silently is extremely [[Boring but Practical|boring, yet practical!]]

** ''Revelations'' is full of these, largely due to the fact that basically everything opens up to you fairly early on in the story. The Master Assassin Armor set is attainable as early as Sequence 3, giving you massive amounts of health compared to the two pieces of basic leather armor available at blacksmiths at that point.