ThricebornPhoenix

That's all true, I was just making observations about how to best utilize the team he has. It's not that different from what I ended up with on my last run, actually. Kyshakk for Trall (or Gazer) is a good trade, but despite their susceptibility to energy attacks Rotdhizons are top-notch damage dealers, getting up to four hits per round without haste. They're also great for dealing with, well, enemy Rotties (or other poison/acid attackers), which might otherwise tear through your non-resistant front line like tissue paper.

You have enough essence to make another War Trall. It'll reduce your casting ability, but it's worth considering, especially since you're so close to another level. Each of your other critters resists at least one thing better than Tralls (several decent resists, no really good ones) do. Let me highlight the best resistance for each type among those four: Cryodrayk: Physical +40%, Fire +20%, Cold +80% Kyshakk: Physical +30%, Energy +50% Rotdhizon: Physical +50%, Poison +80%, Acid +80% Trall: Physical +30%, Energy +40%, Fire +40%, Cold +40% If you can't finish the enemy before its turn, try to make sure the last hit comes from whichever creation resists its attack best (or yourself). Regeneration Aura is probably better, but Elemental Aura should greatly boost your party's elemental resistances. If you don't have either of those, you should look into getting them. It's also possible that you could upgrade some of your gear, but you haven't told us what you're wearing to battle.

You have to return to the first zone and follow the road past where you started.

Dispenser has no gold (and no wonder, with Utterly Ridiculous prices).

Note that changing factions can be tricky, but it is possible. You aren't necessarily locked into the first faction you join.

I just checked and you don't get experience for unlocking with Mechanics/Living Tools until G2. Stockpiling is still recommended since Unlock's power doesn't seem to increase much with skill and there are a lot of tough locks.

I thought the most annoying popup was the one that happened while I was walking but since I simultaneously used the numpad to select my character I accidentally closed it before I could even see what it was about so I had to reload my last save. I was happy to see minor items become unsellable. How many adventurers, outside of video games, spend half their time filling their pockets with junk and playing merchant? Not that a game couldn't have a merchant for a protagonist. There's an idea for the remake - an optional mode in which you take the role of Proof at the Junkyard. It's a hard life out in the waste, dealing with rogues, spirits, and 'adventurers' selling hot items and blood-spattered armor, but the occasional lucky find makes it all worthwhile.

Go ahead and drop the Bags of Meal. They have a little value (2.5/bag) in G2 and G3, but I don't think they ever have any other use. Hold on to the Shaper Equipment, as well as Shaper Records. I believe those are the only collection quest items, although there are also quests to obtain a Steel Dagger and a Submission Baton. Living Tools aren't worth enough to bother selling unless you're desperate for money, but you shouldn't need to carry many at once.

I think my favorite thing in G1 and G2 is having all zones on one map. No traveling through a zone (or two) to reach a different area, no zones stuck inside other zones. The latter madness reached peak insanity in G4, with The Titan's Hall buried in Sealed Catacombs which is hidden under Monarch's Realm which is sitting under Northern Grosch. The former, of course, was worst with G3's boats, but there's a lot of trekking between maps in G4 and G5 as well. Basically, I'm tired of repetitive and pointless walking.

The older Geneforge games have their charms, but they also lack a lot of modern conveniences. For example: in the first three games, every item you carry counts against encumbrance, and no Geneforge game has the junk bag. The series gets progressively more 'modern' from each game to the next, and since I started with the first I can't say how hard it would be to adjust going back.

It's always been yellow in G3 and G4 for me. I don't know why - it's scripted the same way in all three games.

In G5, the Ivory Skull should be, well, ivory, or something very close. This won't be the case if you run the DX version or turn down the graphics setting. Also, Ivory Skulls are often found in chests or other 'good item' containers rather than lying around or in skull piles, like other skulls.

I sometimes wonder, what is the deal with Tek's Spectral Dirk? Perhaps it was Tek's Dirk originally, but Tek was carrying it when he died and the dirk also died and became a ghost, somehow. Makes as much sense as anything else pertaining to unlife or the afterlife in Geneforge. It seems (slightly) more likely, though, that it was actually an extension of Tek's spirit and it somehow became 'material' enough to continue existing when Tek was re-killed. Either way, one might consider it a character - or at least a fragment of one - that is present in every game. Following either logic, though, makes the existence of two TSDs in G2 even more uncomfortable.

The entire series happened because they lost control, in a bad way, through their own carelessness and complacency. Unbound, giant bugs, etc. - basically all of the horrors seen in later games - could never have happened if the Shapers were not frequently careless.

I don't recall Darian saying this, but Sage Clois* (G1, Quiet Marshes) does. Her basis for this belief is a high degree of similarity of intellect, based on long observation of Serviles and Shaper writings, which is not conclusive but worth considering. One thing we can accept as fact is that That the Serviles may originally have been another human tribe that was warped by raw Shaping ages ago is not certain, but nor is it at all hard to believe. I have said before that G1 shows several ways in which the Shapers were becoming more enlightened since the events of 200 years ago. Actually, the process has probably been slow and steady for the last few thousand years. *Mysteriously, I can't even imagine what these two observations, obviously clues, are hinting at. I don't believe Clois is even referenced in later games, so no help there.

Cryoas have a great ranged attack - good multiplier, above average accuracy, chance to stun, few enemies resist it. You just need to keep other creations between them and Rotghroths, maybe cast Augmentation on them for particularly tough battles. You can easily keep a Cryoa or three to the end of the game.

Geneforge is about accumulating power for its own sake, and the mechanics both reinforce and subvert this theme. It's basically The Neverending Story for RPGs.

Disabling the machine in Rising is one of the most exciting events in the series. The resulting chaos is glorious.

Actually... putting extra points in Strength or Intelligence can be really useful for low-level creations in the first two games, especially at the beginning. They need the STR to hit and the INT to not go rogue after a hit or two (and Artilas and Vlish could use the extra Energy). It's pretty pointless later on, of course, and it won't make low-tier creations strong enough to compete with higher ones. A Cryoa/Thahd Shade/Searing Artila - to say nothing of the tier 2 and tier 3 creations - will be much more effective than a starter creation regardless of your upgrades.

G2 stuff (my memory for detail is pretty rough, so this may be a bit off): G1 stuff (same disclaimer about memory):

Now it is, but as I recall the original 'Shaper' tribe used the power of Shaping as an offensive weapon, directly and randomly altering their enemies' bodies. You mean this one? Presumably he was a pretty old drayk before he used the Geneforge. Hence, decades later, a very old drakon.

I haven't tried with Fyoras, but I have (Normal difficulty) kept at least two Cryoas alive through the end of each game at least once. I didn't even invest much essence in their stats - some END when it got hard to keep them alive, some DEX when they started to miss, but not much of either. It could probably be done on Hard with more effort or by someone with more skill. I don't imagine anyone keeps low-tier creations for long on Torment any more than they keep a Stick as their primary weapon. Significantly buffing weaker creations doesn't make sense. It would disrupt what balance the games have and contradict the lore, which usually cites each higher tier of creation as an improvement on a previous one. Note that every Fire creation except (probably) the Roamer is based on the Fyora. (This creates a neat bookending effect as the humble Fyora, most stable and tame of creations, is the progenitor of the series' WMD.)

Quite true. No one since, even among the Shapers, has had the skill and means to create a belt with +3 to each of the major attributes, or indeed any artifact worth over 7500 coins.

How about a separate option for friendly fire? That way us non-Torment folks can also experience it, if we choose. (I'm always in favor of more granular difficulty settings. Big fan of Halo 3's skulls.)

I have a crazy idea. Actually, I have nothing but crazy ideas, but there's one that may have merit here: zone descriptions. That text that pops up just before you can begin to explore a new zone? That's usually several paragraphs long, and only triggers once? I'd like to see that segregated to an optional action which you can perform at any time. This would mean rewriting a lot of them, I suspect, at least partly, but as it stands they drive me batty. They really kill the pacing and I sometimes close them accidentally. I would be much happier if the zone description triggering was up to me. As a bonus, maybe the prescence of certain creations in your party could add more information than your mere human senses can discern, to expand on the non-combat side of shaping. Alt+tab? Hmm... there are some odd cases in item drops (an apparently hard-coded low-chance Girdle of Might drop from a particular Terror Vlish in G3, for example, that I found reference to only in an obscure thread here), and I suppose you're right - some in-game way to see these things could be helpful. And, actually, that sort of info could be more important if the Geneforge remake follows recent convention and doesn't show you enemy HP when you right-click them. I just would rather not see only technical data. I think we're all hoping to see a lot of inconsistencies squashed. I seem to recall that it was complaints about them in Geneforge that led to Avadon's lore being worked out right at the start, so I think this is one hope with a good chance of happening.