What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Pyro]

Regarding Trails in The Sky's 'change in tone':

Joshua, as a killer, worked in the nation north of Liberl, which is both evidently more aggressive/militaristic, and was very recently involved in a war. There were people who died in the Trails 1 game... but they were prior to the actual game, when there was a war going on. Throughout the game you are dealing with mostly Richard's men, who are still Liberl countrymen and don't want to cause mass bloodshed or any such thing (See the SpecOps guys' reaction to shooting Tita). There are a healthy number of jerks, but the lack of death/dark elements isn't absurd by even stricter JRPG standards.

The game drops a LOT of hints that Joshua is seriously fucked up. The earliest is the prologue, where he is a child but is far too serious in his dealings with Cassius, then there is his casual talk about death and destruction in several places, and 'rip you to shreds' threat to the water town's mayor... He even has a scene where he is literally giving Estelle the clear because he *doesn't smell gunpowder for a bomb*. We knew something was off with Joshua, the game just shocks in the ending because of the presentation, which was good stuff.


Legend of Heroes Games seem to all revolve around following in the trails of someone who came before and learning more about them, which makes a lot of sense with Cassius in this game.


Atelier Meruru: Beaten, got Witches' Tea Party ending.

The game was a lot busier than Atelier Rorona and Totori, keeping you constantly making things for plot quests. These ranged from building materials like Dense Wood, Magic Stones, and Alchemy Steel, to arcane items like mass-animal-mind-control devices, portable miniature houses, and enchanted soil for growing endless crops. Also lots of pies. You were never without something to work towards in alchemizing new things! The gradual development of the kingdom is satisfying to watch even if it is very scripted in how it is done.

The combat in the game was satisfying without being as deep as that of the Mana Khemia games. Atelier Rorona and Totori were kind of guilty of making the alchemist the source of ALL things skillset, while the others were just there to take hits and tack on some damage. Atelier Meruru makes sure the skillsets are varied, but not as extensively as the MK games (everyone only has 4 skills). Usually it's a specialization thing. Gino, Mimi, and Esty debuff Atk/Spd/Def while Keina has MT healing/offense buffing and Lias has Knockback to push boss' turns back a fair ways. Sterk... well he just hits things and soaks up attacks but he does it really well so we forgive him. Also his Super move is completely awesome and looks like it game from an SRW game.

While the three Alchemists all have the same pool of items (read: Skillsets), they are handled differently. Meruru is the cannon since she can initiate the game's massive-damage item combos on her turns. Totori can Duplicate items to basically use them without consuming them (very useful), and Rorona uses them at reduced power but faster than normal. All items are fast anyway, at about 1.5x - 2x normal speeds. This is nice because it builds up Super/Assist gauge, letting you put out damage faster. Item damage in general isn't as overpowering in past games, but if you know what you are doing you can make some frighteningly powerful stuff.

The game's plot is relatively weak honestly. It was driven by "I want to develop our kingdom!" without really having a personal motivation for a lot of the actual developments that take place. Atelier Totori was driven by Totori's desire to find her mother, which made the plot a little more compelling. Meruru lacks that quality. That isn't to say it is no fun, as long as you don't mind anime-styled humor [Note: NEB's stay away]. Character development was a bit lax. That said the general theme of watching a young girl's efforts to become something great slowly come to fruition is as good now as it was back when I played Rorona. The crux of THAT is what Atelier games are all about. Meruru's character development isn't handled too dramatically, but it does happen as she gains experience and it is enjoyable enough to play through the game and realize how she has changed. Also I'm totally okay with the TotorixMimi shipping going on.

Notable points in the game...
- The fight with the Wyvern midway through. That was a boss with a cool design and the battle itself was tight enough.
- The fight with the bonus boss, who steamrolled me the first time through an offense blitz, walled me the second time through amazing turncounts/healing, and crumpled before me the third time after I spent an hour or two synthesizing truly awesome stuff.

Also, I really liked the ending.
The 4 alchemists of Arland are eternally young and are mastering everything from weather control to space-time. They frequently have tea together and experiment with pie creation. Also they occasionally blow up mountains.

[El Cideon]

Dragon's Dogma: Dragonforged panties acquired.

Of somewhat less note, godhood also acquired.

[Fenrir]

Jailbreak! Look, Duchess, this probably isn't the best time to get it on--well, okay, if you insist.

You know, either Capcom is really progressive, or just really dumb.

Seemed like the trick to the first boss was to try and tell when it's using the stronger attack by seeing how fast it moves between the command and act spots on the bar.  Then you can defend to not get killed.  There's also a few other things you can do to make it easier, but that's the big one.

Yeah, I figured that out, but the window is too small.
Currently I'm stuck against the Dark King. Eventually he just OHKO everybody and every status in the world can't stop that. I can't even get back to grind in the arena/buy new things. (Save before Vault 2, in another slot) Even the world is lame.
So far I've managed to survive by having Gabe act as the tank (Leer on turn 1, then Triceratops), Jim as the mad cypher / skeleton summoner, Moira as the molotov/potion throwing girl, and Tycho as whatever I want him to be at the moment (mostly an healing battery/gardener/hobo)


Mass Effect 2 Insanity Vanguard: Finished the loyalty missions, level 26.
I like how I went from using Charge to kill the last remaining enemy, to using Charge to single out enemies, to just using Charge + Shotgun all the time (+ Either B B B B or Run while activating Geth Shield) . Right now I'm trying to change things a bit by throwing people into bottomless pits and using Pull + Charge.
I have to restart about once every battle on average. I've actually run into a ton of glitches and errors I didn't notice first time through. It might be as bad as Dragon's Dogma about it, if not worse. (I've had to restart about 3 times because I was stuck in a wall) Weird.
Really looking forward to ME3.


Spelunky XBLA: Roguelike platformer -> Timeskip. I've unlocked the first shortcut, unlocked one character, sacrificed a dog who believed in me to Kali, found a jetpack once, and died about 85 times already, mostly because of my own mistakes. Good times.
Not really fond of the new graphics, but the added polish is worth it.

[El Cideon]

Jailbreak! Look, Duchess, this probably isn't the best time to get it on--well, okay, if you insist.

You know, either Capcom is really progressive, or just really dumb.

The latter. Remember, if you're running this quest like the game tells you to, you're in full armor for this scene. Does no one on Capcom's staff know how long it takes to get in/out of plate mail? You need trained assistants to get that done in any speedy manner. It's like raising a barn! I must also note, the Duchess's running animation is hilarious.

By way of experimentation, I grabbed a random Cassardis citizen and tossed her into the surf. It turns out, people in Gransys can breathe underwater and, when completely submerged, find themselves in no great hurry to remedy this condition. I also chucked a couple random NPCs into the Everfall. No one minded (and they were back the next day). Sadly I did not see them plummet back down from the sky in an endless loop until they achieved terminal velocity, a la Portal. I would've thrown the whole town down there to see that.

I never do things like this in games, which I think speaks volumes about the game's plot/worldbuilding. The introductory text still makes me laugh. "There was a bad dragon so people sent an army to kill it. This didn't work so they sent one dude instead." Almost verbatim, and presented without irony in context! The ending, well, as far as I can tell, bad things happen because god is a giant douche and god is a giant douche because the guy who had the job before him said, "Look, this is just how things work, I dunno either, this is what the last guy told me." Then again, I'd probably be a little mad too if the only things the job let you do were toss people into the ocean and send dragons to incinerate them. I'm not entirely clear on everything that happened post-final-final boss, except that that was one mighty goofy expression on my pawn's face. At least the Duke's raging incompetence makes sense, though. Dude couldn't hack it in the big leagues.

(Why would you build a giant wall on top of a mountain, specifically to keep out a dragon...that can fly?)

There are times the game feels like someone trying to ape the superficial aspects of a WRPG and failing miserably at it. The main character's silence never stops being hilariously inappropriate. Evidently Crispin Freeman is credited as "voicing" the male MC, wherein the voicework constitutes grunts, battle screams, and the occasional shocked gasp. You look goofier every time you fail to defend yourself against charges of treason and demonstrate a conspicuous willingness to let cutscene villainy just waltz off the screen. I feel sure the Arisen is in fact clinically retarded. And none of this touches random technical stuff like being able to run back forth behind the inn counter a couple times before the innkeep spawns from the void.

None of this winds up mattering a great deal because it's Capcom and plot fail's certainly not stopped them previously from making games that are just fun to play. And for being truly mindless hack and slash, DD is pretty darn fun to play. And the ally AI's actually good! Pawns aren't spectacular at self-preservation, but they'll learn through trial and error what works against specific enemies and mostly stick with it, and they'll pick up stray items from the ground (which is fine by me since it keeps my personal inventory from clogging up with crap, and having to manually dole out healing supplies). I've actually found if I want them to pick up something in particular, running over said item usually gets the point across. This is cool.

Postgame dungeon-diving was pretty nice. Whoa, threatening enemies again, been a while. Not overpowering, but dangerous if you're not paying attention (the chimera/gorechimera/wight that summons hellhounds room was just OH GOD MY SPLEEN why would you do this, though). Optional superboss seems too much of a pain in the ass to be worth the bother, though. Anyway, I've already started cycling through this a second time and I have no idea why since nothing will be challenging at all. Will just throw all the new gear I find at low-level pawns. And romance Mercedes properly this time (which is to say that I will bribe her with wine). Right now I'm running around in the lady's clothes you buy from the Black Cat. I wish I could wear glasses with this outfit, but the game won't let me. Why can't I be a swashbuckling Victorian schoolteacher, Capcom?

[SnowFire]

Ys I Chronicles, PSN-on-Vita: This was...  this was a thing.  Level is the god stat of god stats, where enemies who you literally tink off of go to pushovers with a single level-up.  So evasion is not as useful as you'd think since you're just hurting your grindin'.  I also did not know the HP regeneration trick for some time, so nothing like running all the way from the Shrine / Thieves' Guild on one end of the map all the way back to Barbado Port on the other to get my free healing since paying 50 gold in Minoa was too expensive.  Then due to some bizarre way Quest XP works, I went from level 1 to level 4 in about 5 minutes after ~2 hours of being level 1 and then I was suddenly thrashing everything.  Huh.  (Doing the lost ring sidequest and finding the sleepwalking Luta Gemma.)  Combat is not actually really interesting, since enemies turn on a dime, so attempting to ram the good ship Adol into an enemy facing the wrong way usually gets you hit.  Nope, it's all about the slight angle as per Sage.  Sure whatever.  (Interesting that because of this, the Timer Ring, which would be brokenly good in a Zelda game, was basically useless.)

Final boss was a total badass and I cannot imagine how people win that fight on harder difficulty modes (I went through on Normal).  Oddly enough it took me about the same amount of actual time to ultimately defeat the final boss as it took to defeat the damn bat demon at the bottom of the Mines - the bat demon fight takes absolutely forever even at max level, and I first tried him at lvl. 9.  The final boss takes from 30 seconds to 2 minutes max since he has the sense to fight Our Hero on a disintegrating platform of doom.  So yeah, 20 tries against the final = 2 tries against the bat demon.  Why the game designers screwed up the bat boss fight so badly when the *later* boss fights are better balanced despite having equivalent stats I'm not sure.

"Plot" was strange.  All the details you don't care about (how the huggable thieves you meet are actually extraordinary decent, nice people who only steal from bad people, of which Esteria seems to have a shortage of), very few of the details you do, like WTF the villain wanted, why he was running around stealing people's stuff then stashing it in the middle of dungeons, what happened with the goddesses, etc.  On one hand I give the game credit for not handing it all to the player on a silver platter and slow rolling the goddesses, and there are sequels for more YS PLOT, so we'll see.

Ys II Chronicles: So I guess I time-travelled back 700 years ago or something since Adol is in Ys?  I guess.  Man, even without a sword people identify Adol as a swordsman pretty fast and lump all their problems onto him.  Also the game apparently thinks that not telling someone about their terminal illness shows touching concern for not breaking her fragile little heart or something rather than being monstrous, but whatever.  Also thank god for the full guide with maps I found which shows the total BS "doors" in the bottom of the Rastoonie Mine to get the Iron Ore & Evil Bell.  If you want to have an opening when the camera angle doesn't allow you to see a door, you need to have some blatant visual cue...

--

Pyro re Trails: I don't think you quite follow my concern.  I don't think it's a plot hole, and thought the scene was well done, properly dramatic, etc.  As I said, the concern is the sudden shift in tone.  Even if Second Chapter verifies that the plot twist makes 100% sense within the game world, it's still jarring.  Not a huge deal, just something that stuck out.

To go into that a bit more, there are many more obvious hints than the ones you mention about Joshua's past.  However Joshua's skills are quite independent of how many people he killed - it'd make just as much sense for him to have been trained by Orouborous and killed 0-5 people.  And I wasn't criticizing Trails for not being dark enough!  Many games are too grimdark so I'm fine with a setting where death is rarer and means something.  In fact it's that precise "realism" that makes Joshua's plot twist jarring: even if Erebonia is more militaristic, that hardly means that assassination is something casually ignored, since we've already established that we have a pretty sensible modernish society next door.  And Ourborous was able to accomplish their objectives reasonably well in Trails 1 without dropping bodies everywhere.  In other words I'm complimenting Trails 1's tone for the most part and am slightly disappointed if it turns out SC is bloodier.  (Okay, okay, Dunan gets let off too easy, if one person needs to die it's him, but whatever comic relief clause or something.)

For a worse example where it really detracted for me which I will pick because I know you liked it, remember that anime you recommended ages ago, The Daughter of Twenty Faces?  Haha 4 episodes of cartoony action where people casually jump to the ceiling to avoid gunfire and it's all light, then suddenly OMG THE COMIC RELIEF MACHINE GUNS THEM ALL DOWN.  That...  doesn't get points in my book, although if you like that kind of shift, more power to you.  Sudden tone shifts CAN be really cool but it's tricky.

[Meeplelard]

Theatrhythm: Beat the main game! NOW ONTO ALL THE RANDOM STUFF LIKE RANKINGS AND GETTING SONGS AND MORE CHIBIS AND *is shot*

[Luther Lansfeld]

Same as meeple! Just beat the main game

[Talaysen]

Same as meeple! Just beat the main game

[Gatewalker]

Same as meeple! Just beat the main game

[Otter]

So I beat Penny-Arcade Episode 3 on Hard, then reloaded to beat the final boss on Insane, and then I realized I'd completely missed the Atelier and Colosseum on the main map for the entire game (what) so I cleared the Colosseum a few times (back on Hard), beat the optional boss, and got my unused class pins up to level 40 so that I'm ready for the optional content whenever it's released.

Gabe ran Hobo/Masochist and did all the damage, Tycho and Jim mostly set up rest-of-battle effects and then acted as healers, and Moira was the super-fast garçon de l'items.  Feeding lots of Energite/BuffX to Gabe helped me end battles in a reasonable time for the most part, although the optional got to about 250% power and was OHKOing people by the time I finished her.  The game is good and I plan to start over on Insane to try some new stuff out.  One thing I may have to change for the added difficulty is how I ignored all the equipment upgrade tiers until endgame and spent my money on item upgrades instead, but I'll see how much I can get away with.

[Clear Tranquil]

Does anybody have Aerith yet? =)~

[Meeplelard]

Unlocking characters in Chibi Fantasy Revolution is annoying.  I'm only 3/8ths of the way to Cid, Vivi, and Ashe/Yuna (can't tell), 1/8th of the way to Minwu, and 2/8th's of the way to Faris!

[Luther Lansfeld]

I'm halfway to Vivi!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

<Tally-chu>

[Gatewalker]

Crimson Scarlet is Ashe(EDIT: I got crimson and scarlet mixed up. Crimson is Ferris, who I do not have), and yeah. I've spent all morning doing Dark Notes, which are the best way to get crystals, and still don't have any new chars. I've gotten 6/8 for Ashe, 5/8 for Vivi and 4/8 for Rydia, which are my closest three.

[Meeplelard]

Theatrhythm: I'm getting close to Ashe, and about halfway to getting Vivi, Faris, and Cid!  Up to 20k Rhythimia, and done about 10 Dark Notes.

I managed to Perfect Chain both Basic and Expert Level Searching for Friends on attempt #1, heh.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Put in chibi-Locke for the Robs. Just got him.

[Captain K.]

Since apparently I'm the only person not playing Theatrhythm...

Pokemon Conquest:  Evolved Oichi, which is overly difficult.  You have to get her to 55% link during her substory.  But her substory is rather short, so this means *not* destroying the computer for a while.  So I fooled around with the economy system instead.  There's some neat stuff you can get from upgrading your shops, etc.  But it's still largely inferior to the "smash enemies, level up moar" playstyle.

So while I'm fooling around with economy, CPU Ranmaru builds up a massive army, spearheaded by a Fraxure with 350 strength.  Note that the next highest strength pokemon in the world was around 200 strength.  I finally fight this army and find out how it got so strong.  There's two Soft Light Warriors and two Empathy Warriors in that army.  That is a lot of frickin healing.  So Fraxure just walks around smashing things with Dragon Claw while getting full-healed constantly.

Anyway, I finally manage to get some wins via special territory features (CPU is horrible at capturing banners).  And then finally evolve Oichi so I can finish this damn substory.

Afterwards I went ahead and did Ranmaru's story.  Which is the same territory setup except Ranmaru starts with two dragon types with Dragon Rage.  Yeah, that didn't go well for the CPU.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I also play games that aren't Theatrhythm, because buying two copies of the game would be silly!

Grandia 3 - So I am replaying this. I decided to go with an easier challenge than last time (where I used two PCs), and set for myself the following somewhat zany run:

(a) each character can only use spells of "their" element. Based on the techs various PCs have, this is obviously Yuki = wind, Miranda = earth, and Ulf = fire. Process of elimination from there insists that Alfina has water, as does Hect, and Alonso has fire.
(b) no items or orb use
(c) MP restoration ban. The item ban mostly does this already but I could theoretically circumvent this with crap like Meditate and Magic Absorb in a slow and grindy fashion, so I did the more elegant thing and just banned it entirely
(d) no egg fusion

Anyway I am on disc 2 and have just beaten the Eternal Corridor. Some highlights of the run so far:
-Earlygame isn't terribly affected. Crackle is way too good for an attack spell you gain at the first shop in the game (it's still useful on disc 2).
-Yuki got poisoned in Arcriff forest (the small "dungeon" with the sheep) and this persisted between battles and I had no way to heal it! It's an easy area anyway so it's not a big deal, but I did mean I couldn't get any Excellent victories.
-Characters dying is bad as I have no way to revive them until Dahna joins and I teach her Resurrect (and even then, I have no way to resurrect Dahna). G3 battles are extremely controllable and nothing save Desert Lord actually dishes out OHKO damage (I did not fight Desert Lord) so this isn't actually too bad, but does keep me on my toes. It only really goes south once when I lose two PCs in the fight against Green Man x3 in Dragon Valley (the last dungeon before Dahna joins) but this is very near the end of the dungeon so Yuki was able to haul the two corpses to the end.
-I'm way better at this game than I was the first time I played it. Armed with a better sense of how the game's timing works, a healthy respect for the Perception (evade) skill, and when to use cancel/defend/move, I get a large number of Excellent victories despite the nerf to my offence.
-To break down the elements... fire is the best attacking element, but it's on the weakest mage (the MP has been a larger issue than the Mag stat ever since I got BOOMOR. That spell is too good). Wind is a less extreme case; probably the second best attacking element, and on the second weakest mage. At least Yuki now has the option of the Rune Sword if I want to emphasise this side of him, but the MP is still an issue unless I give him Wind Mastery. Water is mostly all about healing; to my point in the game it still only has one attack spell but at least it's a good, fast, cost-effective one albeit sadly ST. (Good thing Alfina has Ripple Shot.) Earth gets slow, unimpressive, attack spells but at least two of them are pure MT. Quake is quite costly though. Of course, earth also has Diggin/Cure/Resurrect which are very important. Overall the PC balance under this challenge so far is Alfina > Yuki >= Ulf > Dahna I think, but it varies.
-Hardest opponents have been the Green Men, Golems (though they weren't as bad as I expected even with my nerfed magic), EXCISE PSI (ohgod, closest I've come to resetting, twice), and most boss battles. Disc 2 in general has been a significant step up but nothing new there!


Wild Arms XF - Since I am incapable of doing just one zany challenge replay of a game I enjoy, here's another! This one's pretty simple.
(a) Only "basic" equipment (the stuff that costs 200 gella... fortunately this exists even for PCs/classes who join late!)
(b) Since this nerfs my offence and that is part of the point of the playthrough, no attacks which deal damage independently of offensive stats (i.e. Valiant, Item Toss, gravity, petrify/death).

I expect this will end up feeling like a LLG, since you can't actually do a true LLG of the game without hacking. So far I am in early chapter 2, where the game expects you to have upgraded equipment either once (by shops) or twice (by synthing) and already I can feel the difference, but I imagine it will be much more pronounced lategame. It's not really hard enough to draw resets but the last five battles (1-14 town defence through 2-2 sentinel switches) have all been rough. Except 1-15, which I learned you can cheese out if you kill the last two undead at the same time (go go Widespread Sanctify) to avoid seeing the reinforcement swarm. Ragnar is worse on this challenge due to being hit extra hard by his already low attack/hit becoming lower, but Felius has been more useful than normal due to my valuing of his raw durability and Upper Hand's ITE. Party is Clarissa/Felius/Levin/three generics so far.

[Niji]

Mass Effect 3: Finally got to see all 3 (and watched the 4th) endings before voicing my opinion. This game was boss and I loved all the endings, very very very trope so thoroughly enjoyed, don't see why people hated them so much THOUGH HOWEVER I was never a big fan of this series to begin with. But especially the synthesis ending was boss and my "perfect" ending that I would choose everytime irl imo. Completely Satisfied with this game.

Phantom Brave: FINALLY on Chapter 2 I don't even remember how many chapters there are now. Stealing story character items like a boss now that I finally got me some bottlemails XD SUCH A GOOD GAME ZOMG. Found out..after years and years, the Witch lets you edit your special skills....holy shit ballz what. Dunno how I went through the whole game the first time all those years ago never knowing most of what I know now /youngin' mind.

Valkyrie Profile: Restarted on hard because accidentally deleted save data. good thing I never played this on hard originally >.> Feels mildly challenging now instead of roll my face on the psp keys.

HAVE MY DS AGAIN: Resuming P:B&W and going to start working on the extra stories for Chrono Trigger DS(witholding new game+ing for now till I have farmed to lvl 70+ this time around). Ahh almost beat ocean palace first playthrough on it Lavos(cause i spent forever farming Nu on chrono lucca and ayla) feels like a real boss at this power level. REALLY want to fight the black omen in 2300 AD but....sealed hmm wonder if there is a way to do it, dem rumors. First bonus story areas that have opened up are hard as fuck so this game feels satisfying again hard to believe I am so under-leveled for it @_@

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The reason the ending is badly made is because it does several really shitty things:

1- makes Shepard a secondary character to the Star Child, who is the one actually resolving everything. You just push a button and he does everything.

2- marginalizes everything you did in the game so far by Deus ex Machina-ing the problem away. ME2's final section would have been as shitty had the companion loyalty not impacted anything in the collector base, so all that time you did or did not sink into it was irrelevant. A GOOD catalyst would have made the Reapers beatable (say, by permanently deactivating their barriers) but still able to fight, rather than just eliminating them entirely. Then if you had done a bad job preparing, the result would be notably different and maybe you'd get a bad ending.

3- no confrontation with Harbinger, who has been the main Reaper for two games. He lasers you and then is just gone forever.

Also synthesis is so nonsensical it hurts.

[AndrewRogue]

The reason the ending is badly made is because it does several really shitty things:

1- makes Shepard a secondary character to the Star Child, who is the one actually resolving everything. You just push a button and he does everything.

2- marginalizes everything you did in the game so far by Deus ex Machina-ing the problem away. ME2's final section would have been as shitty had the companion loyalty not impacted anything in the collector base, so all that time you did or did not sink into it was irrelevant. A GOOD catalyst would have made the Reapers beatable (say, by permanently deactivating their barriers) but still able to fight, rather than just eliminating them entirely. Then if you had done a bad job preparing, the result would be notably different and maybe you'd get a bad ending.

3- no confrontation with Harbinger, who has been the main Reaper for two games. He lasers you and then is just gone forever.

Also synthesis is so nonsensical it hurts.

This, more or less.

The main problem (aside from just being inferior to ME2's final mission in general), is that Star Child just leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Honestly, you could have had the endings stay the EXACT same and just have it be Shepard fiddling with the Catalyst and it would have been significantly less offensive.

Star Child is just... dumb. A literal Deus Ex Machina is kind of annoying.

The game's conclusion also kind of insults a lot of the Paragon results you achieve throughout the game. It is REALLY hard to ignore the "Biologicals and Machines can never coexist!" if you reconcile the Quarians and Geth and are generally support of EDI.

Like. Really. Really. Really hard to ignore that.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

ME2's final mission was a thing that actually made you feel like the time you sunk into putting together your crew and doing the loyalty missions actually MATTERED, which is what makes it so good.  If ME2's final mission played out like ME3, a ghost would show up out of nowhere when you got to the end, rather than the fight with Super-Sized T-800, and he would say some stuff.  Then regardless of how many people were alive or how many loyalty missions you'd done, you'd make a choice and the game would end.  Also in addition to the destroy/preserve options for the Collector base there would be a third one and it would make no sense but supposedly it would solve everyone's problems by drawing on them with neon green marker because a ghost said there was no other way.

The part that bothers me the most is that right up until that stupid platform turns on and you go up to the Star Child room the ending was goddamn amazing.  Then the last ten minutes shit all over everything by making everything you did in the game irrelevant. Whether you went in with a united, cohesive fleet constituting the combined military forces of the entire galaxy or a flotilla of warships held together with spit covering for four guys in a shuttle on the ground, you still win.

Maybe they were trying for a Lord of the Rings thing, but the thing is, Aragorn and company KNEW they were just a diversion the whole time and that they were simply trying to fight the Uruks and draw attention from Frodo.  This is like if they had no idea what the Ring did until the last chapter of the book, and the entire rest of the story was Aragorn running around getting people into the Army of Men while the reader is occasionally told second-hand reports of Frodo's progress by Gandalf.  You'd probably feel like "so if the army that I just spent 1800 pages reading about wasn't really for anything and Frodo was the important part, why didn't we ever see them?"

[Dark Holy Elf]

Grandia 3 - I died once to the fishmen in the Nautica dig site, letting them ambush me then losing control of the fight and finally biting it to them spamming my last surviving PC with the paralysis-inducing May Showers as if to say that, if you're going to screw up that badly, we will give you a taste of FF1. First reset of the challenge! Would it be the last?

Vejas Jungle/Ruins is quite a gauntlet. The enemies here are quite competent, especially the Arlaunes who need to be dealt with using maximum prejudice before they murder me, or drain my MP, or both. Then the temple has all its damn apes with their high-speed 3HKO cancel nonsense, and finally the Forest Protectors. It's really rough for my party's resources, I have to start skipping fights towards the end and it's only barely good enough. Forest Protectors are monsters. Dahna died in the first battle, Alfina ran out of MP in the second. The only reason I beat them is I get a lucky proc of Dragon Slash appearing (Yuki had just gotten Special Level 9, so I knew it was possible) and an upgrade of Red Lotus in the same, third battle. Even then, I just scraped through with the aforementioned out-of-MP Alfina having 170 HP and everyone else dead. Yes. Somehow no resets!

And now I have gotten to Melc Crystals and they are goddamned demoralising. Six runs so far (some minor tinkering here and there between fights), and only one have I gotten particularly close to winning. It's doable I just need to refine my strategy, and unlike other fights so far, I probably will need a bit of luck. They are just monsters

[Meeplelard]

Chibi Dance Revolution Fantasy Hero:  In an attempt to get one of Faris, Minwu or Yuna, I get Rydia.  Not what I was aiming for, but acceptible nonetheless.

Been just tring to unlock characters basically.  So far I have Cid, Rydia, Vivi, Locke and Ashe.