Ragnarok: Sword or Esper?

[SC_Nikki]

What will you do? Obviously, there are advantages and disadvantages to each. Even if you choose the sword, you can still get Ultima by purifying the Paladin's Shield. I actually did that once, and while incredibly annoying, all it really takes is patience. I just went to the solitary island and hacked it out.

Plus, if you do purify the Paladin's Shield, you get one of the best pieces of equipment in the whole game. What's more, the Ragnarok sword can effectively be exchanged for Lightbringer at the Coliseum. It's my understanding that you can steal another one from one of the tiers in the final fight, but then you don't have it to keep (unless the pixel remaster's clear save preserves it).

Ordinarily, I would just take the Esper because I generally don't want to bother with the shield, and if you just teach Ultima to Relm as soon as possible, you basically have no need for any other weapon. :P

But depending on the achievements in this version, I guess we'll see...

[Dadalama]

I believe you steal the lightbringer from either goddess or specter.

I'll probably go for the Esper but I bet they are both achievements so if you are an achievement hunter you'll probably do both.

[KaosReigns]

Say what? Huh? Such a mediocre method and inefficient way to farm.

You can do a lot more with the sword than Ultima.

Gengi glove + mime for example, will output way more DPS than ultima + Mime can even hope to come close to. The animation timing also needs to be considered in the long run.

1 Turn of a genji glove attack is faster by a large margin than Ultima's cast.

With all that said, I will concede this is for the SNES version. I dont know what changes they are making to this one, and with the other versions having auto battle and such, they might have an option to turn off animations. Who knows.

[Pack 4 Potatoes]

Either is good. One lets you learn Ultima quicker. The other gives you an endgame weapon quicker. There are plenty of others, though. The Esper lets you turn enemies into items. Although, those items are obtainable through other means, except for one useless ring.

I would probably go with the sword on my next run.

[Cegopi]

This is a remaster where all the spells get better quality than ever, so I'm going for esper.
You get the best magic, which is gonna look cool remastered and you get the esper that's also remastered. If you opt for the sword, meh... even if you exchange it for lightbringer you don't even need that to win and it's way less cool.

[Winter Lord Luvaar]

I would always go for Esper. Especially because there might be an achievement for getting All Espers. You can steal Ragnarok Sword from one of the two enemies in the 3rd section in the Kefka Tower Fight right before him. I believe the other enemy gives a Second Ultima Weapon Sword.

[Pack 4 Potatoes]

Originally posted by Winter Lord Luvaar:

I would always go for Esper. Especially because there might be an achievement for getting All Espers. You can steal Ragnarok Sword from one of the two enemies in the 3rd section in the Kefka Tower Fight right before him. I believe the other enemy gives a Second Ultima Weapon Sword.

You can't have all espers, because you have to make a choice between Raiden and Odin. Sucks, I know.

[Falcus]

Originally posted by Stop Potato Hate:

Originally posted by Winter Lord Luvaar:

I would always go for Esper. Especially because there might be an achievement for getting All Espers. You can steal Ragnarok Sword from one of the two enemies in the 3rd section in the Kefka Tower Fight right before him. I believe the other enemy gives a Second Ultima Weapon Sword.

You can't have all espers, because you have to make a choice between Raiden and Odin. Sucks, I know.

You can still have all espers since Raiden is a direct conversation/upgrade (whatever you want to call it) from Odin. I'd expect if there's an all esper achievement it'll require Raiden since you need to have obtained Odin to obtain Raiden.

[Nooneyouknow]

Originally posted by Falcus:

Originally posted by Stop Potato Hate:

You can't have all espers, because you have to make a choice between Raiden and Odin. Sucks, I know.

You can still have all espers since Raiden is a direct conversation/upgrade (whatever you want to call it) from Odin. I'd expect if there's an all esper achievement it'll require Raiden since you need to have obtained Odin to obtain Raiden.

Direct upgrade would imply they taught the same spells, and gave the same stat bonuses. They don't. Odin is the only source of Speed+1 and, the only source of Meteor available before slaying all 8 dragons. Raiden is the only source of Quick. So unless part of the rebalacing is shifting bonuses and spells around, Raiden isn't even close to a direct upgrade, he's entirely different.

Originally posted by Dadalama:

I believe you steal the lightbringer from either goddess or specter.

I'll probably go for the Esper but I bet they are both achievements so if you are an achievement hunter you'll probably do both.

The only Lightbringer is from betting Ragnarok in the Coliseum. One of the unnamed parts of the final tier before god Kefka has a rare steal of Ragnarok, but that's only relevant if there's post game saves, and even then only for collecting since the game is over.

[Pack 4 Potatoes]

If there is an achievement for both, make sure you keep a save before you choose between them.

[Falcus]

Originally posted by Nooneyouknow:

Direct upgrade would imply they taught the same spells, and gave the same stat bonuses. They don't. Odin is the only source of Speed+1 and, the only source of Meteor available before slaying all 8 dragons. Raiden is the only source of Quick. So unless part of the rebalacing is shifting bonuses and spells around, Raiden isn't even close to a direct upgrade, he's entirely different.

You definitely missed the point completely. Your reason is why I wrote "whatever you want to call it" since I couldn't think of an appropriate wording. I did intend to write conversion though not conversation.

The point was you need to have obtained Odin to obtain Raiden, so by having Raiden you clearly had Odin already and that works as all espers since you obviously needed to have obtained Odin before you can obtain Raiden.

[Nooneyouknow]

Originally posted by Falcus:

Originally posted by Nooneyouknow:

Direct upgrade would imply they taught the same spells, and gave the same stat bonuses. They don't. Odin is the only source of Speed+1 and, the only source of Meteor available before slaying all 8 dragons. Raiden is the only source of Quick. So unless part of the rebalacing is shifting bonuses and spells around, Raiden isn't even close to a direct upgrade, he's entirely different.

You definitely missed the point completely. Your reason is why I wrote "whatever you want to call it" since I couldn't think of an appropriate wording. I did intend to write conversion though not conversation.

The point was you need to have obtained Odin to obtain Raiden, so by having Raiden you clearly had Odin already and that works as all espers since you obviously needed to have obtained Odin before you can obtain Raiden.

I didn't respond to the achievement point, because you don't even need to check Odin off checklist style, you just need an amount of Espers equal to the max ownable. Even then, it's far more likely they'll just have an achievement for one character knowing all spells. I only cared about the "direct upgrade" wording, because I have encountered plenty of people who did the upgrade to Raiden so fast they never even looked at Odin's spell list or stats.