The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: DjinnAndTonic on January 01, 2012, 01:12:20 PM
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(http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/suplextrain2.gif)
Back to yer roots.
Playing my annual run of FF6. Breaking it in style. Picture courtesy of Elephantgun's LP.
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Advance Wars DS: 36 maps complete on Money Survival with Colin and Javier. Might have gotten a few more if I wasn't so sloppy on my first wave. Damn that Cold Shoulder map.
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(http://lpix.org/326222/suplextrain2.gif)
Back to yer roots.
Playing my annual run of FF6. Breaking it in style. Picture courtesy of Elephantgun's LP.
Your picture totally doesn't work!!! I mean I can kinda figure out what it's supposed to be anyway...
FF13: Up to Taejin's tower. Deciding if I want to try and take on Mission 27 so I can redo 24 a bunch or just move on. I really don't like how plotless the game has become so far.
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Dungeons of Dredmor:
I played this for a bit a while ago, when I first got it, got bored at how slow it ran, and, while interested, kinda trailed off.
So, recently, I learn that it has (had added recently? was always there and I didn't know about it?) a speedup button. (=) This is good!
I make a build idea, tinker with it, leave the save going and chuck it. Don't like some of the details. Look up the (weirdly spotty) Dredmor wiki. Try a second build, drop it-it was okay, but I feel I can do better.
Try a third build(Unarmed/Shields/Master of Arms/Berserk/Fleshsmithing/Viking Wizardry/Assassination, for the curious), accidentally autopath into a mysterious portal, die.
Try it again, clear full 15 floors and get #88 score on the Dwarven Moderation+Permadeath leaderboard for Dredmor.
Not bad for seven(I think) tries and 27 hours played. (The score is down to 100 now, though.)
I probably didn't deserve a clear that fast (first time I'd seen floors 4 through 15? seriously didn't.) but who complains about good luck in a roguelike?
Screw Lutefisk Avatars forever, in conclusion. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh floor 15 zooooooooooooo
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Replaying FFX, just got through the events in Luca (which take too long on the sixth playthrough, even if I like some of the plot stuff there).
Also playing Mario Kart 7. I have three-star ranks on most of 150cc, though even if I finish that I may want to do the same to mirror. Good fun, I'll have a more in-depth review in a few days.
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The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
Got this for Christmas. It's objectively kind of terrible. The voice acting reminds me of games from the 90s where the dev team just recorded their own. The story is actually non-terrible! It's almost like it's not an Elder Scrolls game. But the delivery remains wooden and poorly paced. The gameplay is easy (dragons excepted) and breakable with casual effort. The dungeons are so linear they make FF13 look like a sandbox.
But damned if the world isn't big, and pretty, and fun to explore.
So it does the one thing it does right very well, and that's enough.
(That and Jeremy Soule music.)
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Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword - Caveman to Cosmos
I was distressed to realize that not only does this run poorly on my PC, but that it's almost impossible to get a PC that will run it better now because it can only use one CPU and the speeds of individual CPUs have actually gone down with the shift to multi-core processors. :(
Back to Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn, which remains my favorite version since it strikes a balance between having all of the things (all of them) and being almost like playable on my machine.
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Final Fantasy Tactics - Celdia's Complete Patch
Still enjoying this. It's not LFFT for balance, but wheeeeeeee, new classes~!
Hopefully future revisions will balance it, too, because there are some great ideas here.
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Had a Dominion New Year last night. It remains the best of all possible games. Although I prefer it with expansions, particularly some of the later ones. IIRC there's a way to play this online?
Also continuing to play Magic over Cockatrice, because who spends money on entertainment? (And also everyone having the entire card pool for whatever format you're playing makes the game much better than Constructed play limited by money.)
I know there was talk on here about using Magic Online last year, but does anybody play on Cockatrice (http://cockatrice.de/)? (Or Apprentice, I guess, but it sucks these days.)
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Dominion online (which I am playing in another tab as I type this message) happens at dominion.isotropic.org .
I have also been playing Plants vs Zombies on Kindle Fire recently. It seems to have some cuts compared to the PC version, I have read about things like survival mode and they are nowhere to be found. It also cost about $1.50, so I'm OK with that.
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Replaying FFX, just got through the events in Luca (which take too long on the sixth playthrough, even if I like some of the plot stuff there).
I get the feeling you might like this FF10 a little bit. Just a hunch.
Sonic Adventure 2: Beat the Hero side. Sonic Stages were a HUGE upgrade compared to Adventure it can't be stressed enough. Ok, Final Rush needed to be shorter, and the stage before it had some annoying design decisions that the primitive camera made harder than it was, but overall they were very well made. Tails stages were pretty brainless, Knuckles Stages were iffy, though I want to say they were overall better designed than SA1 despite the fact that you can only sense one at a time...ignoring the Pyramid which just needs to die.
Probably do the Dark side tomorrow, for all that I am to understand the gameplay is exactly the same, and thus my opinions won't really change much, just needs to be done if you want to get the FRUE ENDING or something.
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Great picture.
Snow: Yep I'll just train in Tactics Ogre. *shakes fist*
Soma Bringer solo: Finished. I don't even remember the ending! Why did I not sceneskip everything!?
One of my major problems with the gameplay: You can just put a teleport gate back to town before every boss. If you lose against a boss and come back, his HPs won't be recovered.
So let's say FF1 has Soma Bringer gameplay. Right before the final boss you use a (dirt cheap) Soma Gate to create a teleport point to some city. You get to remove half of Chaos' HPs before biting the dust. But there's no game over, you reappear right before the city. You teleport back to Garland who still has half HPs, use another Soma Gate, just in case, then destroy him.
This is dumb. The problem is that there doesn't even seem to be a way to fight bosses legit if you want to? Maybe going to another dungeon? I don't know.
Game is really good for the SMAAASH, not much else. But it's really the perfect game for smash. "Walking speed" and "Attack speed" are stats, and you become a crazy ninja god with a sledgehammer/two knives by the end of the game. I don't even know why you're supposed to have allies because they never feel needed.
Star Ocean 2: Wow, I didn't remember the writing being this bad and cutscenes dragging on forever.
I soloed the earlygame with Rena and just got Precis. She's great so far! I've been grinding in that mountain next to Cross castle to get enough APs for max pickpocketing. Is it true that the less talents you have, the more likely you're going to get a new one? I got dexterity really easily, but can't seem to get the cooking related one. It's a bit of a bother since you basically can't do anything without the related talent.
The hilarious highlight of this playthrough was not recruiting Celine:
"Rena: Join us!
Celine: Yes!
Rena: Wait... Actually, we don't want you to come.
Celine: ..."
This would have been a lot better with Noel though.
Stealing from poor people and Rena's mother feels really good too.
3D Dot Game Heroes: So far, it's a nice old Zelda clone without all the annoying usual Zelda BS. And with huge swords.
The graphics are... creative, but I'm not a fan at all. Everything looks the same after a while.
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Hey Cranbud, hit me up at some point. I play a ridiculous amount of Dominion on Isotropic lately.
Mass Effect: You know what? Gameplay improves about 900% when you fix the goddamn input to allow the HUD to be toggled instead of needing to hold the button down. Why this is not an in-game option and has to be done via fiddling with the config file, I will never know.
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Professor Layton & The Last Specter - finished
Was Professor Layton. Entertaining. Didn't have any particularly aggravating puzzles during the game proper. I can't be bothered doing the bonus puzzles this time around so I don't know how they are, although I expect there are some doozies.
Being a prequel and all, they decided to copy the first Layton game and pull a completely unheard-of villain out of disguise at the last moment. Not really sure what I think about that.
Emmy was entertaining, although now I wonder how they're going to handle getting rid of her for the original trilogy.
Professor Layton & The Last Specter: London Life - beaten, done as much of the postgame as I care to
Is not that great of a game, which is to be expected I guess.
Stopped playing at the request which requires you to hand over 10 million wealth. Currently had around 2.5 million I believe.
There was a fair bit of dumb humour which appealed to me so it was probably worth playing in general, but the gameplay isn't really in existence. Which means it would probably be more worth it to just read a text dump rather than playing, if you had access to pictures of the characters on hand so you could check who was talking.
Secret Of Monkey Island Special Edition - finished
Was Monkey Island 1 with a bad interface.
Really unimpressed with the change in style for the graphics of the modern version. On top of that some of them are just ugly in general. I guess I should probably state that this mostly pertains to character graphics - background/object graphics were generally fine, in both ways. Not sure what they were thinking when it came to characters then.
They were also somewhat hindered by the hotswap capability, which lead to the modern version animating weirdly at times in order to keep with the classic version (or so I surmise). The time which most comes to mind is when crossing the cable between the main island and Meathook's.
There were times when the inventory treated the cursor as if it was around half the height of an item box higher than it actually was on the screen, and there were enough times that clicking on conversation options wouldn't trigger them that I fell back on using the keyboard for most of the playthrough when it came to conversatin'. The game also didn't lock the mouse into the play area, which made it annoyingly difficult to deal with things on the left hand of the screen, most noticably going to a lefter map on Monkey Island. Fortunately you don't need to do that very often.
Inventory disappearing after an item is selected makes it more annoying than it ought to be to work with. To be fair, you don't need to do much in the way of multi-item work in the game.
Super Mario 3D Land - Up to S8-3, although I haven't finished with S8-2 yet.
Was enjoying the game immensely. Recently this has slackened off due to a mix of the game getting more difficult than my tastes lie, and a couple of gimmicks being overused. Fortunately, I have over 200 lives currently so it has a ways to go before it defeats me. I want to say that stage S7-4 was the worst stage so far.
Does a very good job of keeping things fresh, to a point.
I am either inept or the circle pad isn't the greatest. Far too many times have I jumped in one direction only for Mario to veer off my desired path. There does seem to be some sort of assistance with regards to major facings, given that I can normally manage to walk in a straight line along them despite the circle pad not having any cavities in those positions like the Nunchuk/etc, and the camera & level design normally do a pretty good job at making the directions you need to go major ones, when they aren't being dramatic.
I haven't used Luigi yet. If it expects me to redo every stage with him for some reason, it is barking up the wrong tree despite how pleasant the game is in general. I might do a few perhaps.
I do have to say that I'm not seeing how this game is getting hyped as making the 3D worthwhile. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. It doesn't hurt my eyes, at least. Yes, I do have the 3D turned on.
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Star Wars: The Old Republic - Playing as an Imperial Agent. It is pretty fun like you would expect from a Bioware MMO. I went Operative which means I run around with a blaster rifle and stab things with a knife. Can go healer.
Combat as Concealment Operative at low level is pretty frustrating since you don't get much to work with and just play like a crappier version of a Sniper. But you can heal your AI party member through tough stuff especially once they get some AoE skills to tank with. Higher the level the easier it feels. Now that I have a few knife moves the combat actually feels really dynamic without actually being functionally that special. Given the skillset I have I tend to stab a couple of dudes with knives, drop a grenade then shoot another guy in the face with my rifle. It is all fairly fluid and makes you feel like a total badass secret agentm, but functionally isn't that huge a difference from normal MMO combat.
Frustrating things, low level economy is fucking tight in this at release. I have enough money to get what I need but at the cost of forgoing things I want. Really could do with some more inventory space now I think. After having bought the mount training last level, so the big low level cash sink handled outside of trade skills. Of course just before I logged off I accidentally bought a modifiable gun that I can't use yet trying to see what it looks like. That sucked up half the credits I had left on hand, so won't be getting that next row of inventory just yet. It is a modable gun, so in line with what I already use, but means the change is entirely cosmetic. It is a Heavy Repeater though so hey, here is hoping it looks good.
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Saiyuki: Journey West
So I played a little bit more of this game, and objectively I find it fascinating as an SRPG. However, it's really not my style... it is too FFT for me. Well-designed in a lot of ways, and the story does a lot of interesting things with the Journey to the West mythos, but I don't have a lot of fun actually playing it. Possibly too slow-paced for me.
I have since finished the LP for it, and really liked the RPG revamp of JttW story, and the final gauntlet of bosses in the last chapter. However, honestly? The thing that keeps this game on my mind is that I want someone like Elfboy/Meeple/Snow/Grefter to play it and write some large write-up about its design/flaws. It just -feels- like a game that I would normally experience that way. And I suspect there are others in the DL who would love it while it is wasted on me. Odd game.
FF6:
As I skip around, playing with bugs, I research why they happen!
...as it turns out, there's not a lot to discover, mnrogar has already documented nearly all of them... and how to fix them... and has patches to fix most of them.
Not a lot on the graphical side of things, yet, though. Well, specifically for Monster/Formation Moulds and the kinds of graphical errors there. I've almost worked out how to avoid getting the graphical errors during Magitek armor sections, but not what actually -causes- the problem. My glitch-fu is weak.
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So it does the one thing it does right very well, and that's enough.
This. Although I must admit it is constantly amusing to me how mechanically NPCs behave. I go to this mine that some mercenaries are occupying, right? Everyone I pass is constantly spouting "No sudden moves, this mine is under our control." So I wonder, what would they do if I up and started mining? Dude's standing right next me while I work, "This mine is under our control. This mine is under our control." Walks between me and the wall, pickaxe passes through his head, he moves on obliviously. "This mine is under our control." And it's always strange when an NPC gets pissed at you during a conversation because of something you said and then immediately reverts to a default cheerful demeanor for their idle quotes once the actual conversation is done. The game's loaded with behavior that captures humanity as well as does a chalk outline and I can't help but laugh.
The VA isn't stellar, but I wouldn't call it terrible. It is often flat and mechanical, which can make NPC interaction a thing of unintentional comedy, but it's not up there with the true horror of office-produced voice acting (do I really need to link back to Chaos Wars here?)
Anyway, one of my followers vanished from the face of Tamriel, very rude of her. The game kicked her out for the plot NPC during the Silver Hand eradication bit. No big, it's done that a couple times before. But this time my ally didn't respawn. Not in her default location, not loitering in the last place I saw her, not hanging around the dungeon she was removed for. Just gone. Have I mentioned Skyrim is a mite buggy?
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FF13: Finally saw the ending. Good? No. Still better than some of the abject failure of previous chapters! Game is a 7 or 8, still deciding.
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Skyrim: Blackreach is fucking huge. Also pretty. (But mostly huge, after you've been there for a while). Also Aela's quest wigged out, the Silver Hand leader won't spawn and the quest flag just points to an anonymous spot of riverbed. So no Companions achievement for me I guess.
Have I mentioned Skyrim is a mite buggy?
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Skyrim: Blackreach is fucking huge. Also pretty. (But mostly huge, after you've been there for a while). Also Aela's quest wigged out, the Silver Hand leader won't spawn and the quest flag just points to an anonymous spot of riverbed. So no Companions achievement for me I guess.
Have I mentioned Skyrim is a mite buggy?
Things tend to respawn eventually. Probably still faster for just a fresh character though.
Voltron, Defender of the Universe: Shot some dudes, tore a skull tank apart, Blazing Sworded a Robeast. Good times.
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Sonic Adventure 2: Completed.
Game is very clearly better than SA1 to me. Shadow Stages just as good as the Sonic ones (and his Final Rush was just better handled; actually felt appropriate on length, and a more unique gimmick than just "Grind Spam"), Rouge's stuff...well, she lacked the Pyramid relative to KNuckles, that's something! Otherwise dull. Eggman was just like Tails, which is to say relatively brainless.
The game aged a lot better than its predecessor, but it still has some issues. Homing Attack still feels shaky in its actual tracking and often leap of faith's occur. This wasn't TOO bad as it wasn't a big deal until the final boss where you needed to homing attack off his balls and sometimes the thing would just fart and miss. Actually, that brings up the next problem: Boss fights. With the exception of Rival Fights (which were ok, but noting special), boss fights in this game are bad. Either they huge time wasters, or just poorly designed and not really fun. Thankfully, game considers them their own separate stage so you basically have unlimited lives against them so yeah. The Final Stage overall felt a little shaky on design. Tails' was fine, but Eggman had a lot of little cheap moments and for the record, I HATE FIGHTING SLIME ENEMIES WITH CHARACTERS NOT SONIC/SHADOW. Tails/Rouge don't fight that many thank god, but Eggman/Tails...ugh.
Also, Camera problems still persist. Not nearly as big as in SA1, as I rarely had "ran off the side of a level cause of Camera" due to how it pretty much defaults to behind the character, but there are times when there's big stuff on the screen that gets in the way and you lose all visibility. Again, the final boss highlighted this well, where if you missed a homing attack or something and rammed into him, you'd take damage, then get stuck on the water with the camera farting around and him taking up most of it, and you cannot realistically grab any rings or get out of there before dying. That's a clear case of Fake Difficulty there.
That said, yeah, game's decent enough overall, and holds up much better by today. The Sonic/Shadow stages are about as good as you can get without modern mechanics being factored in, and kind of interested in doing their non-story stages as a result, because they were clearly the highlight of the game. So much that it makes me wonder why it took them until Sonic Unleashed to decide to focus entirely on Sonic-based gameplay, but decided focusing on MORE CHARACTERS would make it better (especially weird because SA2 in effect has 3 character playstyles, and clear upgrade to SA1's 6, suggesting Less Playstyles = more time to develop them. I'd rather less playstyles that are more finely tuned than a bunch of iffy ones.)
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FF13: Up to Taejin's tower. Deciding if I want to try and take on Mission 27 so I can redo 24 a bunch or just move on. I really don't like how plotless the game has become so far.
So first it's too linear, and then it's plotless? I haven't played since Dec 31st, but am going to pick it up again later this week. I believe I'm on the last battle for the second disc. Mm.. So far I've liked the game, though I did feel the Hope resolution dragged on longer than necessary, and that the suspense began subsiding prior to the Snow save.
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FF13: Up to Taejin's tower. Deciding if I want to try and take on Mission 27 so I can redo 24 a bunch or just move on. I really don't like how plotless the game has become so far.
So first it's too linear, and then it's plotless? I haven't played since Dec 31st, but am going to pick it up again later this week. I believe I'm on the last battle for the second disc. Mm.. So far I've liked the game, though I did feel the Hope resolution dragged on longer than necessary, and that the suspense began subsiding prior to the Snow save.
Yes, that is exactly my issue with the game. It is completely railroaded until Chapter 11, at which point the tracks explode all over the place.
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FF13's plot has pacing issues in general, and its not just one consistent issue...in fact, its more that the plot is inconsistent.
I didn't mind Chapter 11 saying "hey, you can do optional stuff now if you want!" since it still had a BIG GLOWING MARK ON THE MAP telling you where to go next, though yeah, the plot sort of dies but I never really was too fond of the plot anyway, so that wasn't a huge deal for me (though, yes, that's actually a bad thing for the game in a completely different way, I'm just saying Chapter 11 SPECIFICALLY is something I don't hold against the game.)
Contrast this to FF12 where its plot is rather consistent and well paced for the first 25%, then sort of stops...and when it decides to do stuff again, its now generic cliche "YOU'RE THE CHOSEN ONE!" stuff. I consider that "consistent pacing issues" because once the game started having those issues, it was consistent about it, which isn't exactly a good thing, more just you know what to expect after a point.
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FF12 was exempted by its awesome sidequests. I gather that FF13 is nowhere near as expansive as FF12, let alone the impression that Cocoon and Pulse seem like pretty small environments. Yeah, I may hop on 13 tomorrow.
Another issue with 13's pacing (at least with Hope) is the excessive use of short scenes that openly interrogate his issue. I liken it to the bipolar Hulkiness of basic cinematography, where the camera captures scenes generally for no longer than 10-15 seconds to move onto the glitz and the glamor. A great example in the steady resolution of an issue is Sazh/Vanille, where the scenes do not compound into such an exasperating experience. In Hope's case, however, you have to wait not only for the SV gameplay+plot, but also Lightning's inability to realize how to handle an issue she helped create.
Perhaps another problem with FF13's plot pacing is that the codex (?... I may be using a Xenosaga term, whatever) mentions crucial plot developments that do no manifest in the actual scenes. This is probably where I consider FF13 leveraging cinematography over actual plot development. It can be good or bad -- for example, Snow + Epic Mom was great, and thorough explanation would have undermined the immediacy of the event, or even the outside scene from when everyone collects prior to a battle.
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FF12 was exempted by its awesome sidequests. I gather that FF13 is nowhere near as expansive as FF12, let alone the impression that Cocoon and Pulse seem like pretty small environments. Yeah, I may hop on 13 tomorrow.
Another issue with 13's pacing (at least with Hope) is the excessive use of short scenes that openly interrogate his issue. I liken it to the bipolar Hulkiness of basic cinematography, where the camera captures scenes generally for no longer than 10-15 seconds to move onto the glitz and the glamor. A great example in the steady resolution of an issue is Sazh/Vanille, where the scenes do not compound into such an exasperating experience. In Hope's case, however, you have to wait not only for the SV gameplay+plot, but also Lightning's inability to realize how to handle an issue she helped create.
Perhaps another problem with FF13's plot pacing is that the codex (?... I may be using a Xenosaga term, whatever) mentions crucial plot developments that do no manifest in the actual scenes. This is probably where I consider FF13 leveraging cinematography over actual plot development. It can be good or bad -- for example, Snow + Epic Mom was great, and thorough explanation would have undermined the immediacy of the event, or even the outside scene from when everyone collects prior to a battle.
I would pretty much agree with all those points. I don't quite understand what they were aiming for with 13's plot, really. I'm sure they had a reason for the structure of Chapter 11 but I don't know what it IS.
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I highly doubt they had a reason for Chapter 11's plot being the way it is; the game's plot feels obviously incomplete there. There are some scenes that really drive this home but I won't talk about them because I don't know how far in the chapter you are yet.
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Okay I was going to not talk about FF13 this year as something of a new years resolution, but let me just posit this.
If the plot is so terrible, why are you tip toeing around spoilers? Haven't we pretty much all agreed regardless of what we think of the game that there isn't anything of value that you are avoiding spoiling there? Do you want to avoid spoiling how bad it is?
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Everyone at the end is saved by a literal Deus ex machina. There is nothing even worth discussing.
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I think there's a reason you made that resolution. You may want to stick with it.
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I seem to be falling into a habit of skipping around a bit. With a few exceptions.
Professor Layton Trilogy
These have been my portable games of choice recently, and I got to close out 2011 by finishing Unwound Future. I thought heading in that the puzzles would be the primary selling point. And for the most part, they are delightful, though by the end of the third game, you start getting an eye for what'll work on even new stuff.
However, the characters are also generally excellent. Each of them can be boiled down to one or two character traits, but this is fine that they're not meant to be deep, or even overly compelling. They're simply meant to take their respective part in a fairly simple mystery plot.
The mysteries themselves are another issue. The second and third games both have their instances of having plot twists which are certainly forshadowed, but are more along the lines of "would be an asspull if they didn't put clues in before hand". That said, fun games, and I'm definately going to be giving Last Specter a shot once I'm not so burnt out on puzzles.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Figured I'd give this one a shot. The graphics are gorgeous. The sketch based character work is just a treat for the eyes, and each of the characters has a lot of personality, both in expressions, mannerisms, and in their dialogue. The setup is also good so far. Ex-cop searching for his former buddy, now working as a guy who 'finds things that don't want to be found' under cover as a travelling salesman. Winds up at this hole in the middle of nowhere just as a bunch of interesting things, some related to him, are happening.
Really, with all of this praise, there's really only one issue I have with this game. And that's the unintuitiveness of some of the triggers. It's about as bad, if not slightly worse than the investigation phase of the Phoenix Wright games. Only there's no courtroom antics, and while there's less pixel hunting, there's more places to search, and more permutations of what to check. So, yeah. Great game, just one major flaw.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7
This one is just personal indulgence since I like strategy games. Also, this one has less minutae and fine detail handling than the other ones I've played since, for the most part, you are forced to automate a lot of stuff (or you simply don't have a lot of authority) and usually only control yourself in combat. Honestly, I like this, because it means reading the AI, and figuring out how best to manipulate it to win battles with just one unit (badassedness of unit not guaranteed, though in this game it is)
In my current game, I suspect my side is going to lose despite not losing a single real battle I've been in. Man... just realised I'm playing a Stark.
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I'm not sure if this is directed towards a specific person or the entire discussion, but there's definitely good things about the plot. I find myself interested more in the dynamics of its characters though. In any case, I'd be upset over spoilers regardless of purportedly valueless plot. I didn't purchase FF13 with a DL bedside reader. If 13 is played to the degree that games like 7, Xenogears/Saga or more popular titles at the DL, and I willingly joined a messaging board, I'll just steer clear of impending discussion.
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Skyrim: Half of Markarth's guards are detailed to a museum that something like two people actually have access to. Makes sense to me.
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Skyrim: Half of Markarth's guards are detailed to a museum that something like two people actually have access to. Makes sense to me.
And the other half are more corrupt then... some corrupt thingy.
....
Man did I ever enjoy killing everyone in that town.
Fate / Extra: As the keenly observant of you saw in the Christmas topic I got this bod boy for... Christmas. Should I have said present? Would have flowed better. Well, anyway, yeah, Christmas! Went through the Prologue on Christmas day before family stuff took over. While I originally intended to offer more posts then um, this and earlier, that sort of shattered when I realized I was beating an in-game week each day. I blame not getting this up on Monday on Sunday being also consumed by family. Or something.
The Adventures of King "Joe" Awesome and his Servant Saber. Naturally I didn't even know about all the king business going on in-game when I named my dude. So the final weeks became hilariously confusing. And does anyone actually use the nickname in the game? I never saw it. Also I'm not gonna explain anything since anyone who wants to actually play this game already has it and knows everything anyway. So bacon away!
Round 1: I won.
Round 2:--huh? You want more detail on Round 1? It's the bloody first fight! You're hand is practically held through the damn thing. What was that about my mother? Fine, fine you cheeky brat.
Round 1: So, despite being training wheels in difficultly a normal person is still all, WHOA and unattuned to things. Which is made up for with how easy the enemy patterns are. And these are the parts online reviewers claim are too hard. As for Riderboobies!, while Matrix E is pretty much shoved in your face so no real worries there. Hind isn't too damaging, though I expect that to change when against Archer and Caster. I don't know whether the Master's little tantrum at the end was true or not, but ehhhh....
Round 2: Now we have some actual pro skills cred. Except again everyone is doubting us because we're against a pro Master with resolve and determination and a spiffy beard! But a nice beard fails to the see-through skirt! The dead-end choice when running is so stupid. Which means I'm stupid. Now what does that say about you? Also I actually got the Dead End in the prologue. I'm depressed and you clearly hate yourself for reading this. So uhhh, continuing on actual game-related things, the Master handicapping himself so badly by choice for a set of ideals brings flashbacks to Stay Night. As for the actual fight, oh boy, I almost lost this one because it wasn't until the final round that I realized what Archer's NP was actually doing. I just kept guarding and assumed that was negating its effects, it wasn't until the Poison nearly killed me that I realized what was going on. Thankfully having skirmished with him in the Arena so much gave me a very good clue on his pattern which allowed me to end it.
Round 3: Now we're totally pro! Except we're up against a little girl. And as a man protagonist this means it's creepy. Also I found out in my NG+ you can actually meet Alice in Round 1 Day 1. Anyway, Alice's whole week is confusing and bizarre which fits pretty much perfectly. It was also where I got my first real Game Over against... the Vorpal Sworded Jabberwocky. He got a bloody EXTRA off on me because I conserved Servant MP as Saber. I deserved that one, badly. So beyond that and even more lose of identity, BOSS FIGHT! I was actually considering putting some points into MAG to boost defense against Caster's spells, but uh, she has the same HP as Archer(who had twice as much as Rider). And I'm now thrice! as powerful. It ended on Round 3. I don't even remember if she got her NP off. And then Alice dies and Alice doesn't and everyone is sad.
zone 0: gotta save that tsundere. also carnival phantasm has taught me lancer-kun deserves nothing but suffering
Round 4: If Lil'Ronnie wasn't so delightfully insane I'd be worried. Also home to my next Game Over because I ran into them in the Arena during that obnoxious hunting because it's impossible to tell where they are at all early on. And 900 damage on a normal attack when my HP was something 1600 was carp! So uh, that aside, and landslide victory in the hunt leading into a fight where Lancer's normal attacks did only 400 made me... annoyed? Yes, that fits. For now. *evil laughter* As for the actual big bad boss fight, it was... forgettable. I had enough of both MPs to end it on the third round again. And then Lancer bid farewell to his humanitarian wife.
Round 5: Aw man, gotta fight that big bad assassin man. Installing the bypass circuit was oddly painless, yet I have a feeling Archer and Caster are gonna get reamed. And then comes three successive Game Overs. The first one was to a Nephilim because once again HAR HAR SKILLS WHO NEEDS THOSE! The second time was using the wrong Code Cast during the assassin bout. Because boosting damage in a survival fight is better then healing! Then the third was to one of those damn birds who I read poorly and once again SKILLS, USE THEM! And then Elimination battle! Hilariously I could have won without using Saber's NP because by this time she's dealing so much damage with Thunderous Applause that it probably did 75% of Assassin's life. And fighting him so much gave me a really good read on his patterns.
Round 6: The land of the nobody. Aw man, Flower Girl got eliminated! I was really, sorely tempted to say no on the rooftop. I had to restrain myself! I haven't had to do that in... time. I honestly had more trouble against Moby Dick then the actual Servant. I was actually really worried going into this fight because of talk I heard... here? Maybe. Berserker still hit like a ton of bricks, but Saber is just too damn resilient and brutal to give him much of a chance. RH revival is ridiculous though. Glad I could burn through the resurrected HP on the same turn.
Round 7: Where Kings go head to head! The surprise in Arena 1 was damn insane, if acceptably easy. First spar against Gawain and I knew what was going on with the third Invalid. Yay knowing Morte! And of course this is the bloody sun sea. Does anything ever not conspire against the PC?no Second spar went... interestingly. Gave me a good handle for the Elimination Boss battle. Also joking around King to king was great. As for the boss... well, knowing his pattern decently well means he only got off three actual successful hit in Four Rounds. That's so... disappointing.
Mr. Millionaire. Man, I was like all, what! And oh no he didn't! And, what's up with those ears? And there's all, oh wow that Code Cast disrupted the DOOMSDAY BARRAGE! For a turn. And then there was water and moe and a blonde and a FIN.
The Adventures of Queen "Jane" ExcellentSuperior lousy space limit and her wonderboy Archer! He's so dreamy~ And she's so cute~ Man, there's hilarious amouts of foreshadowing and comparison to the endgame in the start. Spiffy. Didn't do anything of substance yet, mostly just checking NPC's I never saw or chatted with. Flower Girl's back, yay~!
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It was mostly a resolution that I think everyone is sick of me babbling about it. This is hard for me because I kind of come here because I enjoy discourse, but the conversations about this game I know I tend to dip into more mean spirited monologue than you know actual fun dialogue. I don't like to type just to read the shit I have to say, I like to do it to see what other people have to say which is clearly not the outcome that happens.
And because I can't help myself (Sorry) I of course go entirely counter to that and have to keep compulsively rambling. This doesn't actually say anything of worth. Do not read unless you want rambling. I suppose I have kind of drifted into a why Chapter 11 is the way it is and why I don't consider that a spoiler thing anyway.
I mean literally that, not that the things that happen in Chapter 11 are so bad that they are devoid of worth as a piece of writing. That would be some Xenosaga 3 shit. I mean literally nothing happens in Chapter 11. The plot progresses in that at the Chapter 10 to Chapter 11 transition you get to Pulse. There is nothing there. Then in the Chapter 11 to 12 you go back to Cocoon. Some standard story beats happen in that you unlock some Summons and the antagonist continues to be a giant dick like he had the last two chapters. There is very little in the way of actual progression on the plot front, it is going through the motions and has no build up towards the climax of the final chapters. It is an extended lull between two climaxes.
Things certainly HAPPEN in the end of FF13, but the meat of the plot is solidly planted in Chapter 10 and 12. 10 is a short one but that is because it moves fast, there is significant narrative taking place thoug. 12 has tons happen. 11 really lives up to its reputation as the Gameplay Chapter. I argue that they could have done way more with it, but as it is it functions as a prolonged piece of window dressing. It isn't like it lacks purpose, it is world building and given the part of the world they are building having it being a decent length after the breakneck speed that Chapter 10 ran at works to its advantage. It is you know, actual pacing.
Just in the context of what happens it feels really off because the scenes that are there follow the same beats as the last few chapters while both the gameplay and the plot pacing have drastically shifted gears which is why we are all left going ?????? at it. They are using the same story beats used as a vehicle for the plot for the previous climax without the content driving them. A slow walk from point A to point B while discussing your inevitable slow fate of turning into a Cieth lacks the same urgency of the physical threat you experience on Cocoon, yet we have two people gain their Eidolon's at a faster clip than we had in the last 7 or so chapters of people getting them. The story beats are out of synch with the plot and gameplay pacing.
It is out of whack with the textbook three act plot structure the other two arcs have utilised (Noting that at this point in the game it has fallen into three arcs of said structure with the initial In Media Res, story arc we jump into the climax of in Chapter 1 is pretty much resolved by Chapter 10.)
There is certainly ways I can see it could have worked. If there was more pressure put on desperation of not being transformed by failing their pilgrimage certainly would make things align a bit more (with bonus points for making the side quests all the more poignant). Maybe that was the intent? No one ever seems to really get that feeling from the chapter though and just feels like it is gameplay time have fun good luck chapter .
Okay so fragmented ramblings there I think that satisfies my compulsive need to words words words all over the place. I hope it is less aggressive and you know some kind of attempt to apologize with my brain. I don't even know what I am doing anymore.
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The one thing I was confused about in Chapter 11 is "Everyone is together! SUDDENLY, SAZH AND FANG ALONE! FANG AND VANILLE ALONE!" and it just doesn't make sense from any kind of narrative perspective. EVERYONE IS RIGHT THERE WHAT WHY.
Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed the game a great deal, it just really feels incredibly disjointed, like they started with an idea and then the writers got sick and they had to improvise.
EDIT: I will apologize for basically re-starting a discussion I'm sure everyone had here last year when the game first came out, though.
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....Why can't we just conclude that FF13 and pacing ends up the way it is because Toriyama sucks at writing and completely screwed up when he made faulty decisions when he is directing this game?
I mean, that was exactly what had happened. And I don't see the point to frustrate ourselves over Toriyama sucking at his job.
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inFamous 2: Festival of Blood- My first true adventure in add-on DLC. Fun times, kind of. Sucks getting most of the nifty powers taken away. At least the game's atmosphere chose the right influence from the first game. Mary's Sasha-esqe voiceovers and visions are hella-cool, and the whole tale is narrated by Zeke as he relates it to some floozy he's trying to impress at a bar. Totes awesome.
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....Why can't we just conclude that FF13... sucks...?
I broke your secret code.
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....Why can't we just conclude that FF13... sucks...?
I broke your secret code.
I am willing to follow this line of reasoning.
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Skyrim: Half of Markarth's guards are detailed to a museum that something like two people actually have access to. Makes sense to me.
And the other half are more corrupt then... some corrupt thingy.
....
Man did I ever enjoy killing everyone in that town.
I want to do that just for it being an unnavigable Escherscape.
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I never played the game, but I don't mind the FF13 talk.
(I will admit I'm glad Grefter isn't ranting against something cool like Great Greed though)
Fenrir's amazing(ly easy) challenges:
TO Archer SCC: Ok, this one not so much. Tried two more times. The second time one of my archers died in the first Eden battle. Sigh. Time to create some backup archers from scratch, 10 won't do.
SO2 Precis Solo: Procrastinating because I really, really don't want to go to Lacour. Level 45, built a ton of stuff with IC. All useless except for the BARRIER move and ultra punch, which makes Precis' damage even more ridiculous.
Soma Bringer Solo: Finished every sidequest. That was the most underwhelming optional uber dungeon and boss I've seen. In the end you're just ... saving some irrevelent thieves... from some easy dragon. It's less exciting than it sounds.
Adventures of Hourai Solo: Snes RPG. I'm in a retro mood.
I've been pleasantly surprised by this! I'm really not a fan of the silly school setting, but this game pulls it off. Seriously, it takes a lot to make me appreciate goofy RPG/anime/school tropes. One of the most charming RPGs I've played. I'll be humming those 16 bit tunes for a while. The FF6 sprites and FF5 job system (well, club system. And you can join 3 at a time) don't hurt. It's really rough around the edges though, and it has the first person DQ battle system, as expected from a budget title like this. I rate it: "Better than Borderlands"
Anyway I heard it was pretty easy, so I tried soloing right off the bat... This is probably like Fire Emblem or Hoshigami where soloing makes the game easier, because my Olga is unstoppable, even in this school full of badass ronins and musketeers.
- Exp is shared between party members, so she gets a lot more than in a non-solo game, much like Precis in SO2.. Except in Hourai you have 4 active PCs and 4 back row members that don't directly participate in battle (think FF10, SMT, BoF4), and exp is shared between ALL of them. So Olga gets 8X more exp than usual. (!)
- Experience gives levels but also acts as "club points". So yeah, she gets 8x more job points too.
- Getting a level refills all HPs/MPs, and she gets a level every... 5-6 battles on average?
- She's the only character who can choose to join every club. And if you master a job, you get to keep ALL of its skills, passive or active. Among other skills she now has: MT High% death, Full healing, status immunity, more exp, more gold, more rare items after battles, +30% HP, +30% MPs, +20% every other stat.
She has 999 HPs already and enemies, boss included do 20 damage to her on a good day. I haven't even used any kind of healing in the last two chapters.
Bow before this angel of destruction:
(http://nsa21.casimages.com/img/2012/01/05/120105101923755385.png)
What you learnt from the beginning of the Rushmore movie is false. Joining every club in the school is a good idea.
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Only cool people like Great Greed though so there is no reason to be hating and perpetrating on it.
TitS - up to chapter 3 I think it is? Zeiss anyway. Finally a character with a shittier Orbment setup than Estelle joins the party! I need to finish this sometime so I can go into detail on the frustration I have with the design of this system (it is minor and in no way at all think it detracts from the game functionally. It is only bad on a hypothetical scenario so far).
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Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story - Pretty cute little game. If you were expecting deep and challenging gameplay though, you've come to the wrong place. It's a cute little puzzle game with timing/RPG elements.
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OoE: Restarted as Shanoa because Albus is boring. Went through most of the game using Ignis and occasionally Luminato. Finished the Training Hall and Large Cavern, as well as all villager quests. Wow Jiang Shi is a joke compared to the randoms in there. Currently working on beating Dracula's second form. Funny how I can beat his first form without getting hit if I'm not wearing a Death Ring, but if I am I get hit by everything.
Plants vs Zombies: picked this up while it was on sale for Xbox. Beat Adventure mode. Good stuff. I liked how they interspersed the minigames to keep it from getting monotonous.
Skyward Sword: Started. What the hell is up with Zelda's nose? Flying is fun when you're not trying to catch the Golden Snitch.
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Gref: As just about the only person who likes Great Greed left, thanks.
Ciato: Watch out for that tank battle with the mole lategame. Hardcore. Couldn't beat it, had to get some help.
Adventures of Hourai High:
I'm on some desert island. All of Olga's stats are maxed. I'm running out of new clubs to join, mastering one takes like 10 minutes now.
Smash.
TO Archer SCC: Finished.
Thankfully, the game lets you save after Eden, so I didn't have too much backtracking to do after losing to Dolgare once. In the final battle he just teleported next to my team, I had Denim run the hell away while everyone else arrow rained his ass. I lost two people, but I don't even care!
I liked this challenge, because bows are awesome in TO. The general strategy was running for the hills and sniping everything from afar there while keeping the same position. There's nothing like having 10 badasses shoot every enemy down before they're even able to reach them. It doesn't always work. Archers still have three major disadvantages: Height disadvantage at the start of a battle (duh), corridors, and dragons (Archers ~10HKO dragons) Some Eden battles all had three, plus enemy archers! On the other hand, some free-gratification battles have you start with a ridiculous height advantage.
This was still a lot harder than vanilla TO, because you miss a lot of cool stuff late. (Mostly Resurrection and Petrify)
I think a ninja SCC (every ninja having a bow most of the time) would actually be easier, judging from Denim's performance. The innate JUMP+1 is a godsend. Same thing with an hawkman w/bow SCC, obviously. Maybe swordmaster SCC too? (swordmasters having bows, obviously)
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Great Greed is hilarious. I'm convinced my best friend is actually Bio-Hazard Harry.
Fenrir: I just fought a couple of hard bosses. Two caterpillars. Once I figured out how to dodge their attacks things were better though.
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Skyward Sword: Finished the first temple. The motion controls are alternately cool and infuriating. Why should I need to re-center the target every single time I use the beetle?
Whoever decided to add shield durability to a game where shields are an integral part of combat is an idiot. Doubly so because shield durability is stupidly low.
Plants vs Zombies: Finished all the minigames. Pogo Party was by far the hardest. Ended up beating it by ignoring the first five zombies and letting the roof cleaners kill them while I built up economy and planted Tallnuts, Winter Melons, and the Pirahna Plants.
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FF13- Just fooling around with an old file. Mostly been devising ways to fight Mission 64, Shaolung Guis, Long Guis and Neochu at Stage 9 max crystarium using Vanille/Light/Hope. Involved excessive use of Vanille's Mistilteinn weapon and finding ways to increase her durability to the stage where she was able to handle hanging around on her own to exploit the weapon's potential (granted I could have used it's boosted healing/revival effects to get my team back on it's feet extra fast instead of working it's boosted damage effects with Vanille solo but where's the fun in that ;)) It was fun times watching the damage/healing boosts when it all finally worked out though =) Also discovered Vanille was very glad to have Reprieve available to her in the SEN role at this stage while Light/Hope lost out there (it would have been useful for having them hang around longer while I set stuffs up at least >_>) Long Guis are actually easier than Shaolung Guis because at least you can take out the legs and make them fall down and not do stuffs for a while, then wail on them w/th Poison/Gestalt and Death*COM when they are down. In general they are easy prey to Vanille's Poison/Gestalt and Death*COM tricks here even while only on Stage 9 Crystarium via summoning to take out the legs straight away but I wanted to demonstrate to aiels one of the best ways to take out the legs without summon abuse (the others being Highwind and Snow's special) through defence/resist piercing character unique specials. Even without summon they were still easier than Shaolung Guis though because Roar is easier to predict than Bay I find~
Before this I also subjected aiels to the final boss fights and the ending ^_~ *SPOILER* used the Poison/Gestalt method the big O's first form and much to our amusement instant death hit the very first time I used Death on the second form once staggered
Resident Evil Outbreak- Zombies! Braiiinss~
Chapter 2 was more a distinct lack of zombies and more a puzzle fest though. The boss at the end thus was a much welcome stress relief buster after getting through the puzzles.
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Played through BoF:DQ with my little brother while I was home. Did you know that Elyon can take a turn to generate extra clones if you kill the first two while he's in stage 1? I did not know that.
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Elyon's a jerk.
Skyrim: So the cult of the pointy goddess tells me to go find their new sibyl, who has apparently been born in this small town down the road. While I'm marching there to pick her up, I start to wonder, "You know, no one's told this kid's parents about the whole predestination thing before today. What if they don't actually want to let her go? Is that a decision I'll have to make for them?" But no, they're totally cool with it, except hey she got kidnapped by some bandits and you'll have to get her back first. Skyrim quests: A) go into a dungeon and kill something; B) retrieve an item; C) go into a dungeon and kill something to retrieve an item.
(Incidentally, can you only get one of those "Agent of [deity]" passive abilities? I've done a couple divine quests, but of the powers the two quests purportedly gave me, only the first shows up in the active effects listing.)
Y'know, I do see some promise in the game's basic scenario. The Empire isn't so much evil or corrupt as it is weak in the face of a foreign aggressor (one which happens to have a very open creed of racial superiority); rebel leader sounds morally questionable and may be in it more for personal glory than liberation; rebels have a genuine grievance (Empire to Skyrim: "The Dominion's insisting we ban your native religion, so stop that or we'll...we'll...we'll let them walk all over you!") but it's still easy to understand a case against them--secession is only going to make it easier for the invaders to take the continent to pieces. The setup isn't bad. It's just undermined by not being populated with anyone worth caring about. I am pretty sure my interest will drop precipitously once I run out of map to look at. There is, however, a great deal of map.
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(Incidentally, can you only get one of those "Agent of [deity]" passive abilities? I've done a couple divine quests, but of the powers the two quests purportedly gave me, only the first shows up in the active effects listing.)
There's only the two Agent perks. Dibella with 10% bonus damage to opposite sex and Mara with +15 Magic Resist for no effort whatsoever. I, don't know if they can stack or not, so I'll check it out myself tomorrow.
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FE10 - The Show Must Go On. I am not sticking strictly to a no-reset rule, especially in cases where I feel I will be significantly screwed over by their deaths in the future, but I am definitely not resetting over everyone.
I'm in Part 2, Chapter 3, the Crimean Knights chapter. So far three casualties; Ilyana, in Part 1-5, Nolan, in Part 1-6, and Brom, in Part 2-2. Otherwise things have gone smoothly. I had two resets on the first Laguz map!! Never had a reset there before.
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Orcs Must Die! Into act two. The arena was great. Space for arrow walls everywhere, death from above courtesy of the archer guardians with flame arrows...nice.
Jamestown: this game is still awesome, but surprisingly short. Working on the challenges before finishing the main stages.
Cave Story+ - Grasslands. Didn't realize when I started that hard mode was an enforced 3-health run. This should be fun.
Serious Sam 3: Stage 4. Game's fun, but I'm looking forward to it getting more Sam-ish soon.
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FE10- Part 3-Prologue. I'm trying to use Nealuchi in this playthrough. :) Doesn't come back until late though. :(
2-Endgame was interesting without using Brom. It put more pressure on me to blitz the map, which worked out pretty well. Turtling may not even be the way to go, for all that it is what I traditionally do. This is one of my favorite maps in the game and I let Elincia kill the boss for karma's sake.
I want my Dawn Brigade back. I don't want to do the boring Greil chapters.
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Great Greed is hilarious. I'm convinced my best friend is actually Bio-Hazard Harry.
He probably is, Ciato. He probably is.
Metal Max Returns Solo: Can't help starting another challenge since the high school one has dreadfully boring gameplay now and Star Ocean 2 has the equally dreadful Lacour stuff coming up.
(http://nsa22.casimages.com/img/2012/01/08/120108092255334522.gif)
Better plot than Tales of the Abyss.
I am stealing fire extinguishers from every house in the game, because who would ever have an use for them in this kinda post apocalyptic world filled with tanks. Also I stole my dad's shirt because he's a jerk.
Much like Anachronox is a JRPG made in the west, this feels like a WRPG made in Japan. Kinda. Well, it's really non linear and the gameplay focus isn't on battles.
There's a tight economy and you need to really be focused to spend your money on equipment for your tank/character instead of useless junk (-> You can give money to your dad, some ruined school, some bird that eats gold, you can buy leather covered seats for your tank, you can buy expensive paintings for your house, etc etc) Obviously I'm really bad at this. But really, the leather covered seats were totally worth it!
I'm up to the old factory in the east.
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(Incidentally, can you only get one of those "Agent of [deity]" passive abilities? I've done a couple divine quests, but of the powers the two quests purportedly gave me, only the first shows up in the active effects listing.)
There's only the two Agent perks. Dibella with 10% bonus damage to opposite sex and Mara with +15 Magic Resist for no effort whatsoever. I, don't know if they can stack or not, so I'll check it out myself tomorrow.
Yep, they should stack. Agent of Dibella is under it's own effect, while Agent of Mara is under the Resist Magic effect.
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Then I'll just attribute the fact of it not being listed to Skyrim being crazy buggy.
Cave Story+ - Grasslands. Didn't realize when I started that hard mode was an enforced 3-health run. This should be fun.
This realization is what quickly made me restart on Normal. Incidentally, I miss the days when Balrog said, "Huzzah!" instead of being a Kool-Aid Man stand-in. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I find the original translation more charming. I definitely prefer the original music, but that I think is pretty clearly the Cid being an old person who doesn't like when things are different.
Wind Temple jumps own my face.
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I find the translations pretty much equal aside from the Huzzah!/Oh yeah! thing. I do like the new music, though.
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Dark Souls: First time I've put this back in the machine since Skyrim came out. So time to check out the big patch.
My divine mace+10 is doing a bit more damage. I think the patch notes said 20%; that sounds about right. Not an eye-raising improvement, but better than nothing. Miracles on the other hand... Great Lightning Spear is doing about 60% more damage. That's fucking awesome. Even regular Lightning Spear will 2hko a regular enemy. Wrath of God damage doesn't seem to have increased, but it was already good so whatever.
I was having trouble beating Demon Firesage before the patch and still having trouble afterward. So I started looking at my armor options for more fire resistance. Wait a minute... I can wear Smough's armor without penalty now? And it's better than my Elite Knight+10 set in every way? Yes please!
So I smacked the Firesage upside his head and beat the Centipede Demon with Sunbro. Also saved Sunbro's life - I think. Well, nothing a little Prozac won't help.
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Serious Sam 3: Stage 4. Game's fun, but I'm looking forward to it getting more Sam-ish soon.
Oh DOES IT EVER.
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Been playing a lot of Hotel Dusk, reached the last chapter, and it's been pretty fulfilling. The issues I've been having with the game have been dropping since interrogation/conversations have become more central, and I've gotten used to how the game drops hints so there's less hitting every option to see what will move the plot on.
Only one character left whose deal has not been learned, and it should be fun to see how that works out.
However, while I'm at home, something else has overtaken it. Namely, a cheap copy of Arkham Asylum crossed my path. I do not know if my estimation of this game will drop with time. But I do not think it can get any higher. It's just so damned fun, and the life bar is... well, it looks a lot bigger than it is, which just means that you have to stay on the ball in combats. The best part is, usually you start fights with initiative, and how you start the fight matters so much. There's just something fun about lurking around a bunch of thugs figuring out how best to get the drop on them. As well, the Inverted Takedown is easily one of my favourite moves in anything like this, because there's something satisfying about dropping onto a goon from above, and then dropping him down to dangle helplessly while his buddies start panicking.
Currently on the hunt for Harley Quinn, though I've been leaving the Riddler stuff alone for the most part right now. That said, now that I have the fourth major tool, I might just start paying more attention to those challenges.
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It's been a while, and I'm not sure what I've said before, but I'm going over a few games I've played recently here.
This is definitely disjointed. I'm just writing down whatever comes to mind. Probably a few spoilers in here also.
Xenosaga Series
- Finished. It's been a while now, so I don't remember everything that happened.
I stuck with the same team in all three games.
Jr/MOMO/chaos.
Jr. Was solid in the first game, though having only physical damage sucked at some points, but was great at others (Those magic absorbing, flying...
things.) He was average in the second and third games, though not bad in either.
MOMO was mediocre in the first game, her HP was way too low. She was very good in the second game! She dealt lots of damage. The third game she was,
again, pretty good. I honestly remember the least about the battles in the third game, even though I remember thinking they weren't bad. I guess they were just forgettable.
chaos was OK in the first game, though I never got all his techs because come on. He was the knocker-downer in the second game, and... Probably... Did something in the third.
Battle System wise...
- The first game was a bit repetitive, but not bad. It was slow, but I remember the battles more. The hardest part in the game (Actually, all three games) was the... Song of Nephilim, I think it was called? The one with the flamethrower soldier randoms. Those were the toughest enemies in the game. I think that was the only time in any of the games I felt like I just needed more HP, so I had to grind.
- Second game... It seemed like it would be good if you played it "right." I don't think I did it completely wrong, my team was luckily enough to not
overlap on elements, and I only had one down/air-er. I did eventually get the hang of it, and didn't think most of the boss fights were too bad. Hated the randoms though. Just seemed stupidly durable. And I weep for someone with a, say, Shion/chaos/Ziggy team.
- Third game had a simple, easy battle system. It was nice to be... Well, simple and easy, after the last game. I remember enjoying it, but I don't actually remember any fights.
Storywise, it just seemed like there were way too many characters. And they introduced more every game, and never gave any of them enough screentime. I was satisfied with the game after beating Dmitri, though the after that stuff was a bit... odder. I've got a pretty open mind though, and it was at least pretty and flashy.
I'm not sure exactly how I would rate them. I enjoyed them, but I hadn't played an RPG in a while.
Anyway, on to .Hack GU
Team, when they were all available, was Haseo/Sakubo/Antares. Swapped Antares out for Yata at the end.
Switched between pretty much all the weapnos for Haseo. Big sword was best in the first game. Enjoyed guarding to cancel my lag, it made me feel like a pro. Twin swords got way better in game two. Scythe took some getting used to but might have been the weapon I used most, Heavenly Wheel is great. Guns are solid as well, but you get them pretty late so it's tough to judge.
Plotwise/Pacingwise, I always felt in each game that they started out decently enough, got slow during the middle, and picked up near the end. Leveling up too much seemed to make the bosses too easy, so after a while I tried to stay underleveled.
The toughest fight I remember was against Kite and friends on the third game. I ended up just grinding out a few levels, though I might have been able to do it otherwise... Which of course made them too easy, as well as the last boss. Oh well.
Oh and Sakaki fails. Atoli screeching all the time in the fight against her avatar was pretty... funny, too.
I liked the avatar battles... Except the last one. That one was just really repetitive. I mean, they were easy, but I liked the change of pace.
Probably liked these more than Xenosaga. Haven't played the originals, but they look pretty different.
Also played Fate/Extra, Archer servant. Liked this game a lot, though I am a Type Moon fan. Rin Route. Lost once against Caster due to stunlock. Died to randoms about... three times? All were my own fault, though, for not paying enough attention, or leaving myself open for too long without throwing a skill or heal inbetween.
It seemed like the big secret to the game was "Heal even when you aren't hurt. And if you're making three blind guesses in a row, throw a skill in there." That pretty much worked most of the time.
Also died twice against Berserker, and twice to Saber (just because of NP, though I Rho Aias'd it afterwards.)
Last boss was a joke. Elixir/Fake Spiral Sword spam = Win. Actually that pretty much beat Saber to, I just got cocky and walked into an instakill.
Plot was good! ...Well, it kind of lost me at the end. But I was into talking to all the NPCs and seeing their updated text and such every round, so it must have done something to keep my interest. Probably the game I've liked the most of those I've played recently.
Also playing Wild ARMs 5. I'm at the four towers. I had been plodding along right now, but a lot of sidequests are open to me now, and I went up one of the towers with some difficulty, and ran into a huge Save Point Unlock guy that took forever to kill (Though I wasn't actually in any danger), and tried Persephone once or twice, realized if I could win I would exhaust all my resources, and climbed down.
Basically I need to either grind or do sidequests. What sidequests would be the easiest/most helpful? Or easy to get good badges and such.
Team is usually Chuck/Carol/Avril. Chuck = Moon, Carol = Sea, Avril = Sky. Though I do switch the others in when needed.
That's mostly it. I'm probably forgetting some stuff. I'll post more eventually when I think of it/play something exciting.
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Skyrim: Will you eat a dude to get a ring that gives you health boosts from eating dudes y/n?
-N.
Quest failed!
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I carry that ring around just to aid in my intimidation attempts. "You see this ring? You know what this means? Yeah, I fucking eat people. Now give me the information before I get hungry."
Skyward Sword: finished obligatory fire temple. The puzzles in this game are so illogical. There's a breakable wall on the side of a cliff. You would think you would need to throw a bomb at it. But no, you're supposed to roll the bomb along the ground. Now why would an explosion on the ground reach a breakable wall high up on the cliff? No idea, but that's what every puzzle in this game is like. They seem to reward goofing around and spazzing on the controller instead of thinking things through. Granted there is an ingame hint system for when you get stuck, but that involves flying back to Skyloft first.
OoE: New Game plus. Getting all the boss medals except for Giant Enemy Crab, because fuck Giant Enemy Crab. Only have Eligor and Dracula left.
Dark Souls: Bed of Chaos beaten. Only have Gwyn left. But I'm going to grind for rare weapons and things first because I am a pussy and don't want to do it when enemies are harder on new game plus.
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Being able to mention that ring and what it does in an intimidation attempt sounds like more role-playing than in all of Skyrim's actual game put together.
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Odinsphere: Finally finished this game after forgetting it existed for like 5 years or something...
The End of the World sections were really impressive. Story was fun. The last few scenes of the ending were meh, but overall the Story is really strong. A nice Epic Poem-style storytelling.
As a result though, it turns out that nearly every named character in the cast is royalty, which mildly annoys me and simultaneously amuses me.
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Plants vs Zombies: 54 flags in survival, eclipsing Doma's 45 flag effort. The actual losing occurred around flag 50, with combined Red Gargantaurs and Zombonis. Stuck it out the rest of the way through sheer willpower. Had one scare earlier as well when dolphin zombies wrecked my pool glooms, but I managed to rebuild from that.
As threats go: Zombonis > not being able to see your cursor when there's too much shit on the screen > Red Gargantaurs > dolphin zombies. Nothing else is really threatening.
Got all the achievements for the game and bought all the houses, although I choose to live in the Clown House because BIG SHOES.
Might get Orcs Must Die since it's on sale, or perhaps I've had my fill of tower defense for the time being.
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Dark Souls: got all the rare weapon drops. Hardest was the Channeler's Trident. That took about two hours. And uh, wow, I am loving the drop rate on Twinkling Titanite now. It's like 80% with max item discovery. I can +5 a full set of armor in about 15 minutes.
KoF13: Mr Karate is a bit different than Takuma. He actually has an air game now. I'm liking the midair Heinshippu more than I initially expected. The uppercut -> cancel is really nice. Very safe. But what he lost is combos. Regular Takuma can destroy you if he gets a hit in. Mr Karate not so much. So it's a matter of options/mixups vs touch of death combos.
Haven't messed around with his counters much but they seem useful.
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Orcs Must Die!: Into act 3. The game sort of grew a plot! Weird. Still loads of fun. Boosted paladins are pretty damned awesome, at least until kobolds start running wild - but that's what brimstone is for. Third map of the act coming up, just got ceiling-mounted ballistas.
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Captain: Wow, you got really unlucky with the Channeler's trident. I got 1 of them without even trying, two others by farming for less than 5 minutes.
You can buy Twinkling Titanite now, from the Anor Londo blacksmith, and it's cheap if you farm souls in Dark Anor Londo (I sincerely doubt you'd go there though) or in the forest, behind the sealed door. (there's a hidden bonfire nearby)
Metal Max Returns Solo:
I thought tank battles would be hard, on foot battles easy. It's the opposite. I still can't beat an on foot battle from very early (Mr Muscle. Let's not even talk about the crocodile in the sewers), yet my tank obliterates everything. And I'm still in the starting tank. He's crazy. I still run out of money all the time despite having only one character and his tank to outfit!
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Fire emblem 10 - Got through 3-7 and 3-8, the game's boring lowlight maps, as well as the very fun Crimea chapter. Now we have to 'save' Elincia from teh evilz.
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Considering how many "Help! I need the Channeler's Trident" topics there are on various message boards, I'm more inclined to say that you had an abnormal run of good luck rather than that I was unlucky. As for buying Twinkling Titanite, rather pointless when it's this easy to farm. I can save my souls for other things.
Not sure if I want to activate Dark Anor Londo or not. Kind of toying with the idea of being super healz guy to help people with bosses in Princess's Guard. Pity you can't be a Sunbro and Princess's Guard at the same time.
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80% does sound ridiculous yeah. I believe it's still slower than soul farming but only on NG+.
I think usually the people you'll help will always heal themselves naturally and will not really wait for you to heal with Soothing Sunligh. And they won't learn to adapt to your healing because you probably won't meet them ever again after that one fight.
Sunbros seem better because every survivor gets a medal after every boss if there's a sunbro fighting + the soul sign glows gold + best emote in the game.
I'm tempted to replay to try out a build centered around that Faith weapon with ridiculous requirements (50 Str 30 Faith?). And a depraved run of course. Damn.
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Orcs Must Die!: Into act 3. The game sort of grew a plot! Weird. Still loads of fun. Boosted paladins are pretty damned awesome, at least until kobolds start running wild - but that's what brimstone is for. Third map of the act coming up, just got ceiling-mounted ballistas.
Ogres are a bigger problem for Paladins- physics trap those fuckers into pits whenever you can. Kobolds.. man, I didn't even think of Brimstone. And the dialog is great during the actual chapters; it's worth paying attention to while you maim ogres.
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I think this warranted a new post.
Lufia 2 DS: This is Amon's new look.
(http://nsa21.casimages.com/img/2012/01/11/120111111057934720.gif)
He does 670HKO damage.
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Ogres are a bigger problem for Paladins- physics trap those fuckers into pits whenever you can. Kobolds.. man, I didn't even think of Brimstone. And the dialog is great during the actual chapters; it's worth paying attention to while you maim ogres.
Ogres I freeze. Frost ogres... Ballista? Brimstone won't handle entire groups of kobolds before it had to recharge, but it thins them out enough to manage with magic or the bow.
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I think this warranted a new post.
Lufia 2 DS: This is Amon's new look.
(http://nsa21.casimages.com/img/2012/01/11/120111111057934720.gif)
He does 670HKO damage.
Yeah, the Sinistral design in Curse of the Sinistrals is...uh...special. Except for Daos and Erim, and...honestly, those are plot fights >_>
BEWARE THE CLAM OF DOOM!
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Yo Lufia 2 DS, FFX called and it wants its boss back.
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Yeah, I just finished the game... This was weird. "You can now stop time. Have fun with the final boss. He's fucked" Amon is almost a plot battle too, so pathetic.
This means that Gades is the true final boss!
I kinda liked what they did with Erim but I have no idea how you're supposed to dodge half the stuff thrown at you. Good thing everything does 1 damage yet again.
Edit: Yeah, Amon has turned into a Final Fantasy flan... Ok..
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The true final is Erim though, who appears on second cycle.
But she is actually stupidly easy. How to dodge her beams? You just need to fell on purpose.
Though, the stop time thing is kinda misleading when fighting Daos. If you go into the fight and use it out right, you'll be out of charge when Daos time freeze you back.
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LoE2's ISO is out.... oh god, I can't sleep now. And there is still an hour of download time left......
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Super Mario 3d Land - beaten as much as I care to
Which means up through the second run through the W8 final, with 4 shiny savestars.
As it turns out, they do in fact expect you to do that thing I said I wasn't going to do for a fifth savestar and a bonus level, which I do not consider anything near worth it.
Nothing really to say about the few stages between when I reported in previously and now. I was concerned at the time that the way things had been heading could have made me irate enough with the game to slander the majority of it if I waited, but that didn't end up happening.
Dr. Lautrec And The Forbidden Knights - Currently stalled at the start of chapter 3
Interesting mishmash of styles in theory. It's not that good at pulling it off though.
I don't remember anyone talking about it before so let's start off with an overview of a typical quest.
First, you get a map to a hidden treasure with a brainteaser regarding where in the catacombs the labyrinth the treasure is in is. I've never figured any of them out myself but fortunately you don't need to, because Sophie and Lautrec will discuss it and come up with candidate places to go, so you go to those and talk to people and then they come up with other candidate places until they end up figuring out the actual location.
So you go to that location and play find-the-fleur-de-lis-which-marks-the-entrance. The first time this was on the ground and they had scenes of them opening it up and so on. But later on when they aren't showing this they seem to have no compunctions about putting them on the rooves of buildings and so on.
So you go into the catacombs and play stealth sections combined with block-pushing sections. Occassionally you will come across sealed entrances which require you to solve a puzzle. These aren't whimsical Laytonesque puzzles. These are find-the-difference puzzles, and sequence puzzles, and so-far-laughably-simple 'crossword' puzzles, and so on. There tends to be three per standard labyrinth so far.
Behind two of these sealed sections, you will find Treasure Animatus pedestals, one of which is the object of the quest. So you fight the Treasure Animatus by putting your own Treasure Animatus and crystals you've picked up throughout the labyrinth on plinths around the one you are fighting, and eventually tame it or kill it. Taming it lets you use it for the rest of the labyrinth, although it starts off with the same health it had left. Killing it - I'm not sure what that does as I haven't done it to any actual treasures, but I assume you still get it and just can't use it (unless you brought along a resurrection item).
I did not yet mention that you only get to take three treasures into a labyrinth. Yet there's no problem with carrying around and using treasures you get mid-labyrinth. You also only get to take three items in, although considering the battle style I'm not sure this is that much of a problem. I haven't actually taken any items in so far.
When you get the treasure which is the object of the quest, first all the treasure you have on hand get experience according to the crystals you've picked up throughout the labyrinth which you didn't get killed off (I think dead treasure still gets EXP, but a reduced amount), then you leave the labyrinth regardless of whether you're done there or not and then they give you a 'poor' grade for missing a single puzzle. Then when you go back later to do that puzzle, you get another 'poor' grade for only completing one puzzle (others are left completed, you can't re-do them - meanwhile leaving a labyrinth through the entrance rather than finishing it resets them all. Go figure).
Character sprites are nice. Sophie's eyes are horrifying. Gustav is great.
Inspector Godot with the magic police force is being made out to be a dick so far, but I'm assuming it's going to turn out that he has actual reasons for discouraging people from finding treasures revealed later.
Anyway I believe I said something about being stalled currently.
So, I've recently gotten to chapter 3. Chapter 1 was essentially a tutorial. Chapter 2 was quests 1-5 and a storyline quest (which has been given the number 21 after the fact, which may say something about the length of the game...). So far everything had been just ducky, aside from the chapter 2 boss which had over twice the attack power of most of the other treasures in Chapter 2 and was able to one-hit most of the treasure I had along. But the weight of numbers was enough even if some things ended up dying.
But now we get to the regular bosses in Chapter 3, and they're all more durable than the main boss of chapter 2. They all have more HP and more defense, and this is a subtractive defense system as far as I can see. The worst of them from these regards has 30 more HP and 15 more defence, but it also has even more attack power than the boss. I tried my hand against one which had 25 more HP and 40 more defence than the chapter 2 final, but 60 less attack, and I couldn't even get it down to the taming zone - meanwhile the chapter 2 final couldn't be tamed and had to be killed off, so you had to go right through the taming zone on it.
Meanwhile, crystals you get in the one I tried, quest 6, were all level 8. My highest levelled treasure is currently level 5, and that's after several hours of grinding (noting that I was grinding all my treasures up, of which I have 18, not concentrating on a single one, keeping in mind you can only take three at a time into a labyrinth). You can redo the quest 1-5 labyrinths for experience, and if you get all the crystals, you get 100 EXP from each run. Meanwhile, EXP requirements for each next level are 100x current level. So if they really expect me to be level 8 at this point, and I want to get my level 5 treasure there, and it currently has 160 exp to level, I'm going to need 1460 EXP for this one treasure, or 15 more runs - assuming I was running for all crystals, except I actually have recently started ignoring the secondary ghost treasure to save time, so I don't get a crystal for that and I get 90 EXP per run instead and it will actually take 17 runs (probably still takes less time all up). Keeping in mind that I finished Chapter 2 in only 7 runs, and could have done it in 6 if I had known to save the quest treasure for last.
You do get more crystals and consequently more exp for redoing the final quest of chapter 2, but then you need to fight a ghost of the chapter 2 boss and you end up with half your treasures dead and waste the EXP, plus it is a considerably longer dungeon. Not worth it.
I'm not really sure what the game is expecting of me here.
It's not like levels even really increase your treasures's stats that much.
I'm going to try bringing in a group tailor-made for attacking one of the bosses rather than running by lowest-level, and see if that can help out, but I'm not going to enjoy it.
[EDIT]
Success against the one I had tried previously. Now at the very least I have it and the secondary treasure from that labyrinth to use against others from this chapter. They turned out to be levels 12 and 14. What.
Is there some source of ludicrous EXP that I've missed?
On that topic, that quest gave off 300 EXP, but it's vastly less feasible to grind against than the chapter 2 final, so that isn't much help.
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Woo-hoo, iPhone games~
Steam isn't portable enough, so now I play iPhone games.
Starting with Square Enix's offerings because at least more than 3 people have rated those.
Sliding Hero: You know those old handheld puzzles where you had to shake or slide marble/beads into little slots to "win"? This is an RPG-themed one of those. It's freakin' adorable. Controls are really difficult at higher levels, though, so I didn't play long. Fun, on-the-go concept using FF job-classes.
Crystal Defenders: FFTA2 Tower Defense game! No plot! Why are we defending these Crystals? WHO KNOWS! Defend them! Yeah, my penchant for both FFTA2 and Tower Defense games means that this is pretty much Djinn-bait.
Song Summoner ENCORE: Apparently an updated version of Song Summoner for iPod? Never played the original, but the iPhone Free version is really something special. It's a basic SRPG, but the twist on the generics is that they are generated by the music found on your iDevice. Simply put - you select a song, and the game generates a Hero based on the properties of the song. Presumably faster songs produce faster melee characters, and slower songs produce mage-types. Also, apparently the song titles affect things as well. I'm not entire sure how it all works, but it's a lot of fun plugging in various songs from your library and seeing what kind of weird Job/Skill/Rank/Level/Statbuilds pop out. Additionally, if you use your favorite songs, then everytime you exit and return to the game, it counts the number of times a PC's track has been played on your iPod/Phone/Pad and gives them bonuses of various types. Pretty interesting.
The story's also fairly fun so far, like an odd mix of The Matrix meets Pokemon and Ar Tonelico. The battles are standard SRPG fare, but have lots of various bonuses for good positioning and party selection. The translation is... Quirky, but is easy to read, and reminds me a bit of how Steam games like Recettear and Rusty Hearts have been playing loosely with their translations. Fun, though probably not very accurate. Art and spritework are top-notch anime-style with some western flair for some of the character designs. It has a bit of gritty realism in its proportions/tone, but the actual designs are very over-the-top.
Really enjoying Song Summoner, so I haven't gotten to Chaos Rings yet, which has the best reviews of the original iPhone games that Square Enix has released so far. I'm also probably gonna pick up SoM iPhone too, since I hear they revamped the translation there. (And I'm quite curious how it controls on an iPhone)
Has anyone else tried out any good iPhone J/S/RPGs lately?
EDIT: Reading through Elfboy's 2011 list, it got me curious which games I'd actually beaten last year, so I hit up my Backloggery (seriously, how did I keep track of anything before that site?) to make a quick list.
Legaia 2
NIER
Drakengard
Radiant Historia
Ar Tonelico
Disgaea 3
Rhapsody DS
Nanashi no Game
Persona 3 FES
Crisis Core
Valkyria Chronicles
Ogre Battle
Final Fantasy Adventure (SD1)
Bahamut Lagoon (not beaten)
Disgaea 1 PSP Etna Mode
Disgaea 2 PSP Axel Mode
Disgaea 4
Phantom Brave Wii Another Marona Mode
Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman (not beaten)
GrimGrimoire
Wild Arms Atler Code F
Legend of Mana
Saiyuki: Journey West (not beaten)
FFTA2
Odin Sphere
Recettear (not beaten)
Sequence (not beaten)
Cthulhu Saves the World (not beaten)
Enchanted Arms (not beaten)
...wow, 30 games, though not all completed. Best of the year? NIER, hands down. The Nippon-Ichi games are up there, too. Legend of Mana was possibly the most unusual game I played all year, though.
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Skyrim: Winterhold College really must be cursed. I've been attacked by dragons four times while visiting that place.
Anyway, sidequest grind is manifestly an exercise in quantity over quality and it has begun to wear at me seeing the same dungeon tilesets over and over again (cave! castle! ice cave! ancient ruin! ancient dwarven ruin! ...I think that's it). And I can stunlock dragons to death so it's not like I need to power level or anything. So pretty sure I'm just going to barrel through the plot next time I pick this up. Because this:
Being able to mention that ring and what it does in an intimidation attempt sounds like more role-playing than in all of Skyrim's actual game put together.
...is so very, very true.
You know what bugs me? Having quest updates pop up in the center of the screen every time something gets started/furthered/finished. Not because of any aspect of visual design, but more because of how having all the objectives available in an itemized list makes me behave. Everything becomes just a box to be checked off; it is kind of a bother to feel so hand-held through quests and everything feels like an assembly-line process. Of course, it's not like this is the only game that organizes quests for you like that, so I might just be worn down from the lack of distinctive personalities in the game (after Fallout 3 and this, I am thoroughly unimpressed with Bethesda's writing staff). But really, the game's just begun to feel like a big to-do list. Doesn't help that every quest follows a single path. Like, the thieves' guild? They sound like a bunch of twits and I'm personally inclined to just wipe them out. But no one's going to give me a quest to do that, apparently. And if you do decide to do that...well, no achievements for you! Alternate win conditions what are those. So yeah. It's a nice-looking game, but I've seen about enough of it.
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In a perfect world we would say "Fallout 3 is a way better game than Fallout: Capital Wasteland."
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Dark Souls: beaten. Killed Gwyn on the first try surprisingly. Sunbro and I got him in the JOLLY COOPERATION SANDWICH ATTACK and I could heal myself when he turned to hit Sunbro. He did grab me once but I survived (barely) since I was wearing the Flame Stoneplate ring. After that I immolated myself and the game was over. Finished at soul level 85, although you might as well say it was 65 since the last 20 levels were just dumping more points into Faith so I could get to 50 for new game+.
New game+ time! Enemies are still being 1-hit by me for the most part, although you definitely have to respect their damage. Had my first legitimate invasion. I was walking around Undead Parish in human form, trying to remember how to do the jumps to get the out-of-the-way items. I start having a sneezing fit and when I recover I see a red phantom run up and take a swing at me. Sadly he's just a lamer preying on noobies and isn't remotely prepared to deal with a guy in full Silver Knight armor +5 with a Fire Lucerne+10. It's kind of cute how his attacks just bounce off my lightning defense.
After getting past the still-ridiculous dragon (600+ damage with Flash Sweat, 300+ fire defense, flame stoneplate ring, AND black knight shield), I finally get the Sunlight Spear miracle. Definitely not worth the two slots with only five casts. It's like 100 more damage than Great Lightning Spear. Wouldn't even bother with it if the game would let you have more casts of Lightning/Great Lightning Spear. Ah well, I'll use it anyway. It 3HKOs the first Gargoyle and 2HKOs the second though!
Trying to decide what to do with my build now. I'd like to jack my Strength up to 50 to use Grant, but that would take a lot of levels and I'd like to stick to the SL120 PVP build. Then again, Faith builds are pretty lousy for PVP anyway. I could bump my Int up to 15 and use Tin Darkmoon Catalyst to destroy things sorcerer style. But then I'd probably want more attunement slots...
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Faith builds can be pretty good for PvP, but 50 faith sounds like total overkill. At least it will help with Wrath of the Gods' damage.
- Wrath of the gods is your main damage dealer, sometimes people will go through NG +++++++++++ to have one millions castings.
- Go fight on ledges and use Force. Fun.
- Great Magic Barrier and Vow of Silence destroy mages (but they're rare)
- You can hide and cast Tranquil Walk of Peace just riiight before the invader / victim goes next to you then Wrath of the Gods spam his face.
- Healing can be useful against stallers.
You can pretty much forget about the other attack spells (even the gravelord spells, sadly), but I feel faith builds are better than magic builds for PvP (and worse for the main game)
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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Start of Part 4. Finally, we're out of the suck run of 3-7/3-8/3-10. Time for a marathon of some of my favorite Fire Emblem maps. =) And then there's Rebirth IV (the one with Sephy), but whatever, can't win them all.
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inFamous 2: Festival of Blood DLC- Fun as hell. First Vampires are sons of bitches. The final boss was one of the best I've ever played. Chase sequence where every pedestrian she passes turns into a thrall trying to kill you, so you're literally running from dozens of (admittedly weak) things while chasing her. Teleport makes it pretty easy though if you've maxed out your blood meter. Subsequent battle was also pretty good, leading into CHEESY 80'S COMEDY/HORROR TWEEEST ENDING FUCK YEAH.
Good times.
Heavy Rain: Really fun game. While the system is mockingly simple, it can be pretty engrossing with how it's implemented. It just needs to choke on a bag of dicks sometimes. Dear god does it have some frustrating points. Just finished the Butterfly clue (success!) and played Nurse with Madison.
Enchanted Arms: I can see where the money went for the lack of character models now, at least. Cutscenes are pretty nice. All I can say though is fucking waaaaay to go Atsuma. They should rename the trope after you for the scale of this.
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Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Masoukishin II Revelation of Evil God:
Wow that's a long title. So uh yeah just cleared stage 28 in this so far. Really enjoying it, Masoukishin was always kind of a neat game with spotty execution and this is a very stark improvement, while still very much resembling the first game. Bigger battles, less terribly balanced mechs[Cybuster notwithstanding], better map variety, much better visuals, even better music, etc;. Going into heavier details would entail spoilers though, so I'm trying not to say too much.
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Arkham Asylum - Still going through this. However, the later part of the game is less interesting, as the random encouters with roving bands of thugs seem to have been replaced with plant turrets, and before that with crazy berserkers, which sounds great if they had a strategy besides really obvious charge leading to easy counter/KO combo.
That said, the extra tools are fun. Especially now that the zip line is in play. Also, the plot battles with goons are still great. Currently detoured by the Joker's plot while En Route to visiting Ivy.
Civ 4 - But, distracted for a moment. Randomly came across a cheap copy of Beyond the Sword, and am enjoying the great deal of extra content that multiple expansion packs in one shot seem to add. I mean, the Holy Roman Empire? Byzantines? It may be old, but I'm quite satisfied.
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Civ 4 - But, distracted for a moment. Randomly came across a cheap copy of Beyond the Sword, and am enjoying the great deal of extra content that multiple expansion packs in one shot seem to add. I mean, the Holy Roman Empire? Byzantines? It may be old, but I'm quite satisfied.
Once you finish with the base game, check out some of the fan-mods on there.
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Orcs must die: Working through nightmare mode. Lunch break looks as unpleasant here as it was in normal mode.
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Masoukishin II Revelation of Evil God:
Senia further descends into the path of mad scientist and robo otaku. I don't remember her being that far in to the deep end in the past......
Mio and her Okihabata like shop, with Langran citizen actually buying its stuff.... things are really heading off in the weirdest direction.
Wait what? Valkruss cultists like to play Majong? And wha ha? She is Spahine's sister of all people? Goodness, the insanity must be a family thing.
And it turns out that Rasphitot is SMT YHWH. Two out of the three gods of Lagias are completely fucked up. I guess Gragios is certain to be an evil incarnated too.
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Orcs Must Die: Finished normal, started on the DLC levels and Nightmare. Got through Corner in nightmare, still working on Double Trouble (the first DLC).
New Vegas: Started this, got up to the first real quest. My already-crappy rifle is falling apart from shooting lizards and insects, so I figure I'll repair it like the game prompted me to....except apparently I can't. And the game won't tell me why, it just beeps at me. Lovely.
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Do you have any other copies of that rifle? The Bethesda Fallout games need you to have other copies of that same gun in order to do any repairs, because you only fix things by turning two crappy guns into one less crappy gun. Either that, or find someone who does repairs and get gouged.
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Blood Bowl: Improving.
Mass Effect: Dicking around with sidequests after getting Liara. Should resume main plot shortly.
I should resume playing Dark Souls at some point too.
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Do you have any other copies of that rifle? The Bethesda Fallout games need you to have other copies of that same gun in order to do any repairs, because you only fix things by turning two crappy guns into one less crappy gun. Either that, or find someone who does repairs and get gouged.
This. I highly encourage building up Repair at least enough to take the jury-rigging perk (makes it so you don't need an exact identical item to do repairs, just something similar) and build your own repair kits. Better to do repairs in the field when necessary with whatever crap enemies leave lying around than to go back to town and pay someone else to do it, I think. Although, if the item's condition actually hits zero, I think you don't have any choice but to take it to a vendor to get fixed.
That said, the varmint rifle is really bad and almost anything you can pick off a bandit's corpse will be an improvement.
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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn - Well, that was bloody. Naesala, Leanne, and Kieran died. But no being a wuss! :)
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Saga Frontier- This game appears to have no direction. I've been playing it a couple of hours or so and all I've done is training and fighting enemies on the cliff with Asellus and White Rose. Is it worth sacrificing LP to buy the weapon for Asellus from the merchant in town?~
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Turns out I wasn't seeing the "X skill level required" message for safecracking and computer hackery because the "Press V to enter VATS" tip overrides them. Anyway, that's sorted out nicely. I'm now in the Novac area, after putting down the prison rebellion. Shooting ghouls in the rocket factory, and trying to figure out how to placate the crazy Nightkin in the basement.
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Saga Frontier- This game appears to have no direction. I've been playing it a couple of hours or so and all I've done is training and fighting enemies on the cliff with Asellus and White Rose. Is it worth sacrificing LP to buy the weapon for Asellus from the merchant in town?~
Buy Asura and Sand Vessel, those two are good. Then ignore the rest.
After you are done with the plot in the castle, you can leave the region by talking to the pilot in the pub.
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Skyrim: How do you get eight pounds of leather from two pounds of hide I don't understand.
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You need to stop playing that. In this house we obey the laws of
thermodynamics conservation of mass!
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Well, you do play a lot of games people should never play...
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New Vegas: Rocketed a cult of radiation zombies into the sun. And that's the nice way to end the quest! Finishing the quest properly took some doing thanks to the goddamned Nightkin and their crazy-ass leader trying to kill me all the time, but it worked out eventually. I also recruited Boone in town, so I've got my first follower. I got to Helios One, but approached from the side instead of the front, figured picking the lock was the normal way to enter, and thereby turned the entire garrison hostile when I left. So....yeah, back to my last hardsave. Also, I seem to have made an enemy of the New Age Retro Romans, but that's cool because their assassination squads carry some really expensive weapons. Hand-delivered free Super Sledge? I'll take that.
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You might want to go back to the first town after Goodsprings, if your repair or computer skill is high enough. You can only have one human companion and one robot companion, and you can get EDI (robot) back in that town. If your skills aren't high enough (70 computer, 50 repair IIRC?) you can still recruit it after picking up stuff around the game (I did it that way by the point you were at so it's not that hard, especially if you cleared the launchpad of nightkin already). If you don't you have to wait until you get to New Vegas to recruit Rex, who is worse in most ways but is also robopuppy so I used him instead because NV isn't hard.
Also don't worry about alliances between the New California Republic and Laggy's Legion until you get to New Vegas. Those two alliances are the really important ones, so the game is nice and resets the factions' alliances (unless you built up goodwill toward either of them in any way, you keep that. Only things that soured relations between you and the faction are reset).
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So that means I can call down the Light of Judgment on Helios One with no repercussions?
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Finished Skyward Sword. All in all I have to say that I didn't enjoy the game. The game's big gimmick is of course motion controls, and this proved to be more annoying than exciting for me. Other than that, the game lacked a good soundtrack, didn't have interesting tools, and this game's 'assistant', despite looking cool, got to be pretty boring over time. The game is also overly reliant on puzzles in dungeons, to the point where fighting is barely an afterthought most of the time.
The final boss run was good, but other than that the game failed to impress.
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Basically. They're NCR right? If you plan on heading straight for NV, yeah don't worry about it. If you want to sidequest a bit I recommend not pissing off the NCR too much since they're basically the only faction you can sidequest with right now. If you piss them off you'll have them hostile until you reach NV. Since you have Boone (I stuck with him until I stopped playing, though I thought Cass was well written and used her a bit) you probably don't have to worry too much about that (I think Cass and Boone are the only companions you can pick up now that need positive alignment with NCR), though to get the best ending in an upcoming village you need to be on at least neutral terms with NCR IIRC.
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Skyrim: How do you get eight pounds of leather from two pounds of hide I don't understand.
And then you cut the leather into strips and it becomes light again. Go figure.
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Arkham Asylum, finished. Will post thoughts on the game as a whole later, but for now, I'm impressed.
Also impressed with Civ 4, mostly because it feels like they put a lot of work into making naval affairs matter a lot more with the easy bonuses to naval trade, the extra naval units (the Privateer especially, allowing the ability to harrass folks without entering a proper state of war is liberating) and the blockade option to punish people who want those lucrative trade options without getting enough of a navy to fend off privateers (or more serious naval units if a war's broken out).
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Submarines really should have the privateer flag, though. Bugs me.
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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Complete! I ended up using sword people as my team, which was fun. I used the big five + Elincia + Makalov + Mia + Zihark + Volug + Ranulf + Nealuchi + Jill + Pelleas + Oscar. Two Earth-Earth supports, which gave me hax evasion. The main discovery is that Nealuchi can accumulate a lot of strike level on 2-E with Elincia in the castle. Ranulf's Strike level was a significantly bigger problem, and I felt like I tried to get both the Strike they needed, but Nealuchi got it much more easily. It was a functional if not wonderful team. Makalov is a bit like a worse version of Titania, and Zihark's STR could be better. Volug was a power of great destruction as always, though, and Jill is amazing.
Pelleas is really a great person to just throw into a team. When he promotes he gets a B in Staves and frankly he is a better version of both the early mages (Soren, Ilyana, Calill) due to the Staff levels and a better version of the healers due to higher magic and more offensive capabilities. He's probably worse than Bastian but he is faster once he catches up remotely in levels (and 4-5 is helpful for getting him the levels he needs) which can be an advantage for certain things (and prevents him from being a liability later in the Endgame). He was my main healer lategame (at least when he wasn't spamming long range tomes) and he did a good job at it.
I missed Meg and her 30 RES (40 with the Wardwood!) on the dragon map. ;_; Curse thee, variety. The kill leader was Haar, who didn't even go to Endgame. I think he killed like 40 people on the desert map, which was hilarious. He was like the flying axe murderer or something.
Deaths were: Nolan, Ilyana (Part 1), Brom (Part 2), Naesala, Kieran, Leanne, Laura (Part 4), and Ena (Endgame). I am a bad person.
Good fun as always. Maybe I can play something new now.
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Thanks Niu =)
SF- I have a mermaid in my team and had to fight the obligatory Giant Squid. First time I fought it I used Asura but didn't get any Asura's Revenge triggers, I used Glass Shield/Broken Glass spam with White Rose and Victory Rune/Shadow Dagger with the mermaid. Asellus and White Rose ran out of resources for their main offence before the end of the fight and I was down to using Glass Shield spam with Asellus and pokes with the mermaid to finish it off. I reloaded and the second time I fought it I won much quicker with Victory Rune boosted Heaven/Hell and Glass Shield/Broken Glass spam =)
I am just exploring the rest of the dungeon for shinies now. Asura's Revenge is awesme. I saw it do 5000~ once after I'd used Victory Rune on Asellus. Big numbers so early! I like this game ^_^
Ciato is in this game!~
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Oh, you'll want to make sure you use another sword to learn sword techs, since Asura can't actually learn those (unless of course you want to build Asellus in some other way). Once you learn e.g. StunSlash or DoubleSlash, you can start using those through Asura and learn more moves as normal, it's just that Asura's normal attack specifically doesn't let you learn anything new.
EDIT: Of course, disregard this if you've already learned StunSlash or DoubleSlash.
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Skyrim: How do you get eight pounds of leather from two pounds of hide I don't understand.
And then you cut the leather into strips and it becomes light again. Go figure.
And then you use it to make armor that weighs several times the sum of all the components.
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Skyrim
Starting to get bored here. I should probably finish a playthrough before I just set it aside or trade it in.
Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword: Rise of Maankind: A New Dawn (mod)
All of the subtitles. All of them.
This is the best version of Civ 4 that actually runs on my computer. I enjoy a lot of aspects of it, although I honestly think the civics were better balanced a few revisions ago (Slavery + Caste/Feudalism and farms is pretty much strictly better than cottages + anything, and I miss the Ideology civics).
Pulled ahead in one game using that farm strategy, then trolled my rivals for a while until the game speed started to slow down and I abandoned the game as an obvious win.
Civilization 4: BtS: Caveman 2 Cosmos (mod)
I can't really run this mod. It locks up every 4-5 turns and then takes 3-4 minutes to start up again. It's so good, I've still played hundreds of turns. Anyone who has a computer that can run this properly should. It's amazing.
In one game, every other human civilization was wiped out by Neanderthals. I was by no means guaranteed to win/survive just against the barbarians (and barbarian states could have spawned new civs). At one point after weathering the Neanderthal storm, I had two trackers and two scouts parked outside my city borders with a Great Commander, who ended up with 8 promotions just from animals attacking the clump.
In another, I actually reached the ancient era before it got unplayable. Looks like this fixes the Slavery/Caste/farms issue from AND, all the more reason to play it.
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So that means I can call down the Light of Judgment on Helios One with no repercussions?
Basically. They're NCR right? If you plan on heading straight for NV, yeah don't worry about it. If you want to sidequest a bit I recommend not pissing off the NCR too much since they're basically the only faction you can sidequest with right now. If you piss them off you'll have them hostile until you reach NV. Since you have Boone (I stuck with him until I stopped playing, though I thought Cass was well written and used her a bit) you probably don't have to worry too much about that (I think Cass and Boone are the only companions you can pick up now that need positive alignment with NCR), though to get the best ending in an upcoming village you need to be on at least neutral terms with NCR IIRC.
Calling down the thunder at Helios gets Boone all pissy and turns him hostile. You can work around the NCR infamy with disguises if you wanna sidequest though. Cass only needs positive karma to keep. Which is a joke to keep.
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"Kill everyone there" is the legion option. The self-interest option is to activate the ARCHIMEDES weapon system, because then you can get a laser designator for an orbital satellite weapon system.
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Well yes, that was a given. My reward choices were (a) +4 to science, a skill I have already pumped; or (b) the ability to, once per day, summon a miles-high pillar of flame that reduces someone who has displeased me to ash.
GEE LET ME THINK.
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If it's not becoming clear already, the self interest path is usually the true path.
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Thanks NEB =)
Asellus has Knife/Asura/Rune Blade for a weapon pool and as attacks, StunSlash, DoubleSlash, Swallowswing. HardSlash,ThunderThrust, Smash and Heaven/Hell for Sword skills, Glass Shield, Phantom Shot and Victory Rune for magic. I currently have her set up with Glass Shield, PS, VR and DS, HS, TT, Smash and Heaven/Hell for her skill set I think.
I think she is going to be my main kick ass girl =) She's still CT bait because she's pink and kind of reminds me of Terra. White Rose seems to be the main CT bait so far though~
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As a warning, you need to leave a free slot on her skillset to learn new sword techs, as well as develop her special mystic powers (although you won't be able to do the latter until you fight the next storyline boss). This goes for anyone who wants to learn sword or fist abilities, although not for those who want to learn gun or magic abilities.
Also, if you set only physical skills, or only magical skills, PCs become better at learning that type of skill provided they have at least 6 of them set (but less than 8 in the case of swords/fists, per above). You can tell you qualify for this if a little crown appears on the red/blue bar at the top. This also lowers the cost of all abilities by 1 (but also lowers their damage slightly). Of course it's still perfectly valid to build fighter/mages (I often do myself) just it's nice to be aware of the other advantages, and you can temporarily shift to one side or the other to speed up learning if you want.
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Metal Gear Solid: Downloaded this on the PSN cause I figured it was time I finally played this classic or something, especially with Metal Gear Rising looking like a Metal Gear game I could actually get excited about ("its being made by the same guys who made Bayonetta, and seems to have similar gameplay? HELL YES!"), I figured I should familiarize myself with the lore some, so yeah.'
Anyway, completed. Overall, game feels very much "For its time." It did a bunch of unique things and was a new kind of game from what I can tell for its time, but overall the game shows its age. Combat is stale, which normally isn't such a bad thing since the game encourages you to avoid it as much as possible, but when the game has forced combat sequences or, say, boss fights, it really highlights it. Bosses are just not fun. They're boring monotonous fights that basically come down to figuring out how you hurt them and how you avoid taking damage, then repeating it about 10 times. Gray Fox was the only dynamic fight, I felt, as he kept changing his moves every bit of damage he takes, but he was boring for other reasons. Game is ESPECIALLY bad when it forces First Person perspective fights (see Stinger or PSG), as not only does it have unintuitive vertical angle ranges, but every-time you're hit, it completely screws your aiming. Sure, maybe its realistic, but regularly, realistic DETRACTS from fun. Also its just not very smooth transitioning from overhead to first person on the fly just to move.
Stealth stuff was decently done, to its credit, and that's what the game builds itself on, so points for that. Plot...is very much a case of "EXPOSITION!!!" Codecs were cool at first, but by the end I was getting "GET ON WITH IT!" vibes, and villains have way too much ranting for their own good. There's like 5 MASTER SCHEME reveals (which are meant to be twists and the twists themselves aren't bad mind) all with FULL 5 MINUTE SCENE EXPLANATIONS, and by 3rd, its annoying. To say nothing of Liquid Snake's end game rants...all of them. Its very much a game that "says 10 words when 2 would suffice" and its beyond "Fleshing out characters" as really, the character is well established, now its just "I'M TALKING FOR THE SAKE OF TALKING!!!" At least plot scenes can be skipped so dying doesn't hurt in that regard...Codecs can not. You can get through dialog fast, but if its a long codec, that's still a lot of text to skip through.
I know, there's some nice ham to be had when villains go into monologue mode...but that usually only works when there's one master scheme reveal. Again, Metal Gear Solid has multiple so it defeats the purpose, so its not longer "ham" and now "useless padding."
I suppose the game is decent enough, but its a combination of 'Not entirely my kind of thing" with not having aged too well, I feel. Wasn't unplayable or anything, but compared to other contemporary big games like SotN or MMX4, I feel it didn't hold up to the "Nostalgia Test" as well.
One last comment:
How in gods name is this an RPG? Like...at all? It lacked like every single quality of an RPG I can think of outside of "overhead camera" which is more just a trend (one which is often NOT used in 3D RPGs, albeit this predates most 3D RPGs.) And to think, I've seen people say the game is "like Final Fantasy." And even if they were referring to plot...no, it really isn't.
Mind you, MGS not being an RPG isn't actually a point against it so much as a huge O_o reaction when it comes to people that claim it is one. SotN is bad enough in this regard, but at least that game had qualities that are associated with RPGs (RPG style stats, equipment, and leveling all come to mind.) MGS didn't even have as much as SotN and that says something.
...and yes, I do plan on getting MGS HD Collection just because its 3 games for $40, so I can't see this being a bad deal, if at least one of those games ends up decent (and from my understanding, MGS3 sounds like its an improvement over original in most ways?)
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Hm. I got to New Vegas - at least the outskirts of it - and my favor with the Legion appears to have been reset, as mentioned. Except that I can tell it's been reset because the assassination squads are still coming after me, only when I kill them I see my reputation drop from Neutral to Shunned/Hated/Vilified all over again. So now I'm reloading every time I run into the bastards, worried that if I beat them I'll permanently wreck my reputation with a major faction. Am I right to be worried? Will my rep get reset again later down the line? Can I just kill them all and make Caesar hate me without losing much? Should I just stay in Vegas and stop sidequesting in the contested territories until I can build some positive rep? (Will that even stop the squads? Being neutral apparently didn't.) Stupid assassins.
Edit: Wait, who in God's name called MGS an RPG?
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Edit: Wait, who in God's name called MGS an RPG?
A surprising number of people on the internet. Never underestimate human stupidity, ESPECIALLY online?
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Hm. I got to New Vegas - at least the outskirts of it - and my favor with the Legion appears to have been reset, as mentioned. Except that I can tell it's been reset because the assassination squads are still coming after me, only when I kill them I see my reputation drop from Neutral to Shunned/Hated/Vilified all over again. So now I'm reloading every time I run into the bastards, worried that if I beat them I'll permanently wreck my reputation with a major faction. Am I right to be worried? Will my rep get reset again later down the line? Can I just kill them all and make Caesar hate me without losing much? Should I just stay in Vegas and stop sidequesting in the contested territories until I can build some positive rep? (Will that even stop the squads? Being neutral apparently didn't.) Stupid assassins.
Edit: Wait, who in God's name called MGS an RPG?
There's a very clear point when you're inside New Vegas proper that you get the Legion rep reset. If you're rep is Neutral on the outside(where squads still get at you), then you might be wearing a faction armor?
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Regardless of whether it's happened plotwise or not (it hasn't, the only plot interaction I've had with the Legion has been in Tipton, where they were perfectly cordial), the reset has already happened mechanically. I was Vilified from killing a bunch of assassins, then I went to New Vegas, now I'm Neutral. Maybe it's a bug, I dunno.
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Hm. I got to New Vegas - at least the outskirts of it - and my favor with the Legion appears to have been reset, as mentioned. Except that I can tell it's been reset because the assassination squads are still coming after me, only when I kill them I see my reputation drop from Neutral to Shunned/Hated/Vilified all over again. So now I'm reloading every time I run into the bastards, worried that if I beat them I'll permanently wreck my reputation with a major faction. Am I right to be worried? Will my rep get reset again later down the line? Can I just kill them all and make Caesar hate me without losing much? Should I just stay in Vegas and stop sidequesting in the contested territories until I can build some positive rep? (Will that even stop the squads? Being neutral apparently didn't.) Stupid assassins.
Edit: Wait, who in God's name called MGS an RPG?
You will know if your Legion rep got reset because someone will come up to you and tell you so. It happens after a certain story mission, and only happens once. If that hasn't happened yet, then there was probably just a bug in the way your rep is showing. It's a buggy game. If the assassin squads are still showing up, then yeah, almost certainly a bug since they should stop when the actual reset happens. Unless you piss them off again.
If you're worried about it keep a backup save, I guess.
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...and yes, I do plan on getting MGS HD Collection just because its 3 games for $40, so I can't see this being a bad deal, if at least one of those games ends up decent (and from my understanding, MGS3 sounds like its an improvement over original in most ways?)
MGS3 is squarely the best in the series. Kojima infodumping never really goes away, but it addresses pretty much all your other complaints.
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Rep resets when you get into New Vegas with all the rich people and none of the poor people. You will be approached by a non redshirt Legion member. Same with NCR. The reset happens then and not before then; my save didn't have my rep reset until that point. It's probably a bug, because the mercs should stop coming after you after this reset occurs. They probably counted on you not having any Legion outposts active on the map to check your alliance with them, or being so distracted by finally getting to the titular city to care (I know I was until I got distracted by QUESTS).
There's one required quest for all routes that requires you to be able to access the Legion Camp, so I really doubt it's reset before the point I just talked about. Keep a save if you're paranoid but it's probably not worth worrying about.
Oh, Yakko and Fudo addressed this already. Yeah I wouldn't worry.
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Okay, that's reassuring. Guess I'll finish up the quests I'm working on, then, and keep killing
Sledge delivery guys Legionnaires in the process.
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Orcs must die: completed act two on nightmare. Lunch bell is hands down the hardest map so far. No choke point? Check. No way to use swinging maces, the best way to deal with a crowd? Check. Tons of ways into the rift that you have to defend and barracde? Check! Whoof. Act 2's finale is a bloodbath but a fun one. Barrier up one path, set up a murder path. THe only reason I didn't get five skulls is that I went two seconds over.
Act 3 will be much, much more tough. Whoof. Going to have to work on that one.
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I also wouldn't worry about pissing off the Legion. Not the best faction to side with (which is yourself of course). Straight up killing bitches is fine in my opinion.
Trails in the Sky - Up to Chapter 4, doing stuff.
SW:ToR - Level 44. I really like the Imperial Agent storyline. Hits most of the core Spy plots you can have and sets them very solidly in the SW setting. Having a lot of fun.
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Edit: Wait, who in God's name called MGS an RPG?
I think this may be a reeeeeeeeally belated jab at Solid Snake being in the RPG Playoffs?
The actual reason for that was 50% I love Metal Gear quite unreasonably - those villain reveals and piles of exposition? Love them. LOVE THEM. - and 50% trolling the group that would become the RPGDL. >_>
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I've always wanted to play those games, but I didn't know where to start.
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Having had someone yell at me for claiming Catherine was not an RPG, and given the common claims of "But zelda is an RPG", I'd say that it's something that does come up in some circles.
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NV: Okay, actually in Vegas now. My first quest on the Strip is Beyond the Beef, which is supposed to be an involved kidnapping investigation with multiple endings depending on who you choose to blame for the whole sordid affair and how you deal with the actual culprits. My solution: Talk to no one, steal the manager's keys, and blunder around all the locked areas until I find the victim. PROFIT!
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Edit: Wait, who in God's name called MGS an RPG?
I think this may be a reeeeeeeeally belated jab at Solid Snake being in the RPG Playoffs?
The actual reason for that was 50% I love Metal Gear quite unreasonably - those villain reveals and piles of exposition? Love them. LOVE THEM. - and 50% trolling the group that would become the RPGDL. >_>
Well, Snake in the RPGP is one of the most obvious examples of "MGS is an RPG!" claims, but I've heard it being claimed as an RPG in many other areas, so this wasn't meant to be a specifically a point against the RPGP, for all that its hard to deny that it was definitely something that came to mind when I thought about this claim.
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Having had someone yell at me for claiming Catherine was not an RPG, and given the common claims of "But zelda is an RPG", I'd say that it's something that does come up in some circles.
::Waves a Rank Catherine flag::
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Dark Souls: Working my way through New Game+. Hasn't been bad at all. Averaging one death per boss I would say. Didn't find giant Ornstein very hard at all. Giant Smough was much harder for me. Although the Thunder Stoneplate ring definitely helped.
Got my second casting of Wrath of God, which I used to rape people trying to defend the forest against me. Hilarity ensued.
About to do the Four Kings, which should be "fun". And in case you didn't realize, I was being sarcastic.
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OMD: At the finale on nightmare mode.
...
Shit.
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Yeah that's not going to be fun.
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Nightmare mode is extremely difficult at first, bu the challenge isn't that much harder than normal mode, once you know the maps and how to play the mode. Swinging mace chokepoints guarded by Paladins slaughter everything. The second to last mission in particular just gets maimed- once your defenses are up, it's just a matter of collecting the money and enjoying the carnage.
God, fuck the finale though. I guess it's throw up barracades and hope for the best.
EXCEPTIONS:
Lunch Break: This one was fucking nasty in normal mode, and it's really nasty in hard mode. No space, no swinging maces chokepoints, not many resources.
The Arena: You have to slam down ten or so barracades in wave one. If you can do that, you stand a pretty good chance of getting four or five stars. But you can imagine how fun those first two or so waves are.
Hard climb: >_< I did well with Paladins and Ballistias for the flyers, but it took at least ten tries.
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OMD: Started. Got up to Chaos-something level. Was struggling too much, so I decided to go back and 5-star the earlier levels to get more UPGRAYDDs and learn how the game works better. I actually did not have much trouble with Lunch Break. Two barricades on the right path with elves behind it makes it fairly easy. But you know what's hard to 5-star? Baths. With the amount of money you're given at the beginning and that three-space wide chokepoint it's a pain.
Anyway, 5-starred everything so far and now it's time to continue. Best trap so far is barricades. I severely underestimated their usefulness at the beginning.
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ChinaFE: Done. This took a while considering that most GBA FEs probably take around 20 hours or so. This hack took around 40. I did make a trip up the Tower once, and used it a couple of other times to train some units but I doubt that would've added a whole lot more time. My guess at the real root cause is that a few of the missions make you really take your time (at least if you don't want to lose people) because some of the levels are just nasty.
How difficult is ChinaFE? Well, it's certainly much harder than vanilla FE8. As to how much harder...that varies. At the very least the game does take on a certain concept though. It gives you broken but expects you to fight with it. In short, even though you have a lot of broken stuff, the game actually sends enemies that are challenging enough to put up a fight. Your standard grunts are no longer really grunts. We're talking each of these enemies being roughly equivalent to a normal GBA FE boss. Level 15 Heroes with 25 Speed and 22 Strength along with 22 Defense is quite par for course later in the game. The bosses are pretty damn insane. Especially the mid-game ones when you don't have all the broken to play with yet.
To quote NEB, in some ways the game feels like proto-FE10. The enemies don't suck ass like vanilla. You can get tier 3 units. You're given lots of good stuff and you should use it. And you also get lots of units with really stellar growths and bases.
I would not recommend playing this without Save states though. A couple of the chapters had me pretty much tearing my hair out just due to the insanity of what the hack throws at you. Chapter 15 for example just fills the entire area with 25+ AS Heroes and 24 AS Wyvern Knights who can trigger Pierce. Your highest AS at that point is probably 23-24. Meaning that there will be a lot of units that will get doubled and eat painful attacks. Then if you fight off the onslaught of Heroes and Wyvern Knights, you get to deal with the onslaught of Warriors and Peg Knights, followed by more Druids. I was saved from the pleasure of finding out that the bosses move to boot thanks to not doing it blind. Chapter 19 throws in tons of Assassins with Shamshirs, causing them to have 63 Crit. Since Silencer can trigger even at 0 damage, you can't really run around the throne room like you could in vanilla and pretty much have to sit and camp. The game does some really dick moves sometimes so you want to be able to save and reload just in case. Otherwise, it's pretty enjoyable.
Game play stuff
Game play spoilers and all that. Here's your warning. First, like FE10, if pays a little bit to know who you're S class weapon users will be right off the bat. This is partially because there is really only one way to kill Fomortiis if you don't want any casualties: Blitz him down in one turn. The game says that his max attack range is 4 with 2 move, giving him 6 range. However, the game lies, since I've been hit from at least 8+ spaces before. Thus, unless you want to sit and find out his exact range, blitzing him is the way to go. Only the Sacred Weapons and a select few others have enough power to actually deal any damage to him. Also, revised Fomortiis has a really nasty trick in that his default attack is one that deals 50 damage ITD. This causes HP of all things to be very important. If you don't have at least 51 HP, the only attack you can do is the killing blow. Next, the Demon King has 31 Speed. Only 3 people in the entire game have enough speed to double him. It also means if the class has less than 27 Speed, don't bother trying to use it to attack unless its the finisher. With that criteria in mind, some thoughts on the characters I used:
Eirika: Her Defense and Resistance growth got buffed I'm pretty sure. And thank god too since otherwise she would be worse. Much worse than vanilla FE8. This is due to the lack of ability to deal damage and take any damage. 5 Con limits her to Iron Swords to avoid AS loss (and she can't use Steel before Promo unless you want to eat a massive -5 AS loss), which severely drops her attack. The doubling doesn't even make up for it much and she takes damage really bad even with the boosted growths. After promo, still needs a few levels since her speed will still be at 20 and enemies will have anywhere between 18-25 and she still can't use Steel weapons without AS loss. However, she gains a crit bonus on promo and supporting with some of the best units in the game do cover her well enough. Can attack the final boss, although will probably need an Angelic Robe (hint: Don't sell these)
Ephraim: Exact same as Vanilla. Nowhere near as good though. Faster enemies and more magic enemies make it such that he can no longer one man armies. Also gains a crit bonus and still has good supports. Usable after the split, but probably requires a couple of maps of training since the Desert is a terrible place to try and train as the enemies are too powerful. Raised caps means he can attack, although does have to watch out for the HP thing.
Brunya: Best character in the hack, hands down. Have fun trying to beat the game without her. Has everything. Damage, durability, utility, great growths and usability. Also one of the three people who can double Formortiis.
Nergal: Possibly the second best character if not at least the third best. Starts off with his infinite use S class tome that deals massive damage and basically rapes everything until the very last battle. Luck is a little low, but at a point when you need to worry, his defense is usually high enough to tank those. And when he can't, you get the Hoplon Guard. Also pretty much has everything, although lacking in S class in everything means he can's use Excalibur.
Fiora: Probably the fourth best character in the game. Starts off with ridiculous bases, has ridiculous growths and flies. Possibly should go Falco instead of WK as she already has lots of Con to use even spears without being weighed down. Have to check caps on this, but if the difference in strength/speed isn't by more than 1 point, I'm leaning Falcoknights as better for her (more Res room growth AND an extra weapon to switch to).
Celica: Another top tier unit in the game. She has so much defense that it's silly. AND she joins early, providing you with a much needed second tank unit. She also promotes early than your actual lords, which means you get a horseback swordsmaster with defense really early. Also, the Falchion is a 50 MT weapon and although anyone can use it, she's usually the best candidate due to her stats.
Clea: Used her a decent amount. Above average possibly. Strength is a huge concern for her and it wasn't rare to run into situations where she just dealt 0 damage >_>. However, flying means utility so even if you don't decide to use her for combat, you can use to ferry weaker units.
Tana: Pretty good! Good attacking flyer and she joins with stupid bases and enough time to train her and grow. If the first few levels don't work out, dropping her is fine too. Also has good support options, so she's a pretty good choice if you want a solid character to invest in.
Amelia: Effort, but pays dividends in the last few chapters (and Desert too if you stick with her all the way through). More stupid bases for her level and has an astounding 70 levels to grow, meaning if you decide to milk out all the levels, you'll likely get a really powerful character. You can also choose to quick promo if her core stats are high enough, giving her more versatility than others. Also can fill in a S class weapon of your choice.
Hellene: Starts off pretty damn broken. I didn't get as much use out of her as I thought I would. Regardless, still a top tier pick on almost any team since she starts off with pretty much everything. Free S class weapon choice here too, although she should largely go with axes (not weighed down by any).
Sonia: Not uber top tier, but pretty good. Her big issue is joining mid-game and having to compete over one Earth Seal until the last chapter in the game (and haha to using it then). Brunya's pretty much always going to be better. This doesn't limit her utility though, and she's great until the last chapter or so.
Clarine: Great bases (again!) and pretty awesome growths all around. On horseback is good for mobility and has the added bonus of being able to quick promo should you choose. Loses out on supports with her very limited list and doesn't join until mid-game. Still, worth spamming staves for though.
L'Arachel: Can't really justify her on the other hand. Don't recall her bases being great, but she does grow decently. Arguably worse than vanilla FE8 since there's so much competition for staff users, let alone with Clarine being better. You can use them and support each other! That's something.
Isadora: Great early, iffy later. Res is actually an issue later as the gorgons and eyeballs and normal enemy mages have enough magic to hurt a lot. You can still barrier/pure water, but even then, it's not always enough. The defense/strength/speed combo is a godsend early on though.
Pent: Arguably, he should be up there at the top. I used him a lot less than I thought I would though (probably because Brunya is better and so are the other sages you get). Also notable is that his third tier is worse than the female sages, which makes him the worst choice to use as the Earth Seal on.
Klein: Dropped immediately after the first two levels when I realized he would way too much babying to be good. Starts off really weak and uses bows only is kind of a turn down.
Cecilia: Average-ish? She's like a jeigan. Great early, bad later. Her bases don't cover her enough here (notably Speed was an issue for me) and she's too weak later to do much except staff use and possibly poke around enemies.
Guinevere: See above. Except replace speed with Defense. Gets 2HKO by pretty much everything and then some. Also has less power than Cecilia, which means the damage she deals isn't that much better when doubling.
Other characters either looked really weak to start off (Sophia), or had bases that were debatable (Ursula). There were other issues for some other characters. For example, Dark Magic being really expensive, hurts Sophia even more. Competition for third tier being limited also restricts who you should use. Come time to defeating the final, it required Hoplon Guard juggling (so bonus points if you fly or are on horseback) and a combination of at least 7 attacks.
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Sonic Heroes: Played this up to Rail Canyon with Team Heroes before the physics bullshit, glitches, and poor controls made me just say "fuck it." To give the game a chance I tried Team Dark for ONE stage to see if there was any difference in characters...
...Shadow seems to play exactly like Sonic, Rouge exactly like Tails (even though she was a Knuckles clone in Adventure 2...) and Omega like Knuckles. Well, I guess that settles that!
The game is a mess in everyway. Constant swapping and being more battle oriented at times is NOT what you want in a game like this. Flying physics are the worst ever, enemies taking multiple hits to kill is just awful in a Sonic game and it emphasizes why Non-bosses have always been OHKO'd in Sonic games.
Now yes, Sonic Adventure 2 had 3 distinct styles of gameplay and they weren't all "SPEED!!!" The difference? The levels were designed around those specific styles. When you're playing as Sonic/Shadow, the levels are built around running really fast with quirky platforming and all that. That's good! Heroes does not do this; it just farts out a stage design and gives you 3 characters and says "use them how we tell you to!"
So yeah, game is bad, and all that.
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Tide: You didn't mention Limstella. Fenrir is disappoint.
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Gref, what server are you on?
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Tide: You didn't mention Limstella. Fenrir is disappoint.
I forgot about Fenrir because Fenrir starts off in the desert and while she can hold her own there, she's not great there :(. Competing with the other three Sages also hurts her since they've likely been used and get a leg up on levels/supports. Oh well, she's still probably better than Pent due to superior promotion. Although he does gets more usability. Probably at least above average if not better!
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IIRC she has great growths aside from really bad luck. A bit better than Sonya; honestly I used them both and had nearly only mages in my team.
No Idoun hype either? IIRC she joins right away and is already great.
ChinaFE is cool because it's the revenge of the Jeigans. Underlevelled units are crappy and absolutely never worth the investment, you can just go ahead and use your overleveled guys, they're almost always going to be better.
SaGa 2 DS: Robot only challenge. Up to Apollo's world.
Robots are awesome in this game. The only thing that can change their stats is their equipment. Give them 7 bows and they'll have uber agility, thus doing uber bow damage. (but they'll have no defense/potions) Give them 7 gloves and they'll be unkillable. It makes no sense but it's pretty great.
Early on you can "buy" those threads of fate - link thingamabobs. They all do the same thing (some big combo damage in battle) and can randomly be used in battle. They're also tied to an emotion - Love, friendship... Use some love link thing and the two characters using it will start loving each other. Awww.
This starts affecting some cutscenes!
Obviously, I've bought 4 "Hate" threads + 4 "Strife" threads + 4 "Loner" threads.
My four robots, once "childhood friends", now all want to kill each other in their sleep and then probably DESTROY ALL HUMANS.
Metal Max Returns Solo: Near the end of the game.
Concentrated Methyl ruins stuff. Be careful, OK probably has some. I am doing 100x more damage by pouring some on enemies instead of using a shotgun, SMG or crazy laser thing. That's how I beat the human only bosses, including Rodriguez.
I've began towing another tank with a support system. It's awesome. My own bright red tank hasn't failed me in about 10 gameplay hours.
Hourai High Solo: Finished.
Was anything threatening at any point..?? No.
Cool game. Since Shut up and Jam Gaiden, the bar for RPG humour has been raised (Disgaea no longer qualifies), but this game kind of works by trying to be equally charming and humourous. Like some RPGs kinda working despite having average gameplay and story.
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Enchanted Arms- Professor FrankenKo was evil? NAW REALLY?
Wait, the DOG was evil too? ... well played game.
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Enchanted Arms- Professor FrankenKo was evil? NAW REALLY?
Wait, the DOG was evil too? ... well played game.
The long-awaited sequel to Dragon Quest VIII?
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Fenrir brings the true robots to life in his games.
Rob, I am playing on Hyperspace Cannon. Imperial side obviously, that is where my guild is at and another one from my WoW server (might merge or something). Will bail if they open Australian local servers though.
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Dragon Quest VIII: Started a new game. I'm not going to do the casino this time. It's not meant as a challenge as much as the casino simple being boring. I'll still allow myself to use the initial coins though. I just beat the octopus boss.
I intend to go for Boomerang 52 and then Courage 82 for hero. After that I'll start pumping Spear. He will not be a good boss killer that way, but I tried that build before and it worked just fine.
Yangus will get Fisticuff 42 and Axe 66. This should make him good as both randoms and bosses. I haven't decided what to take after that.
Jessica will get Whip 23 and Staff 100. I don't know how effective Whip will be without the Gringham Whip, but there isn't much else I want to put points into.
I'm a bit unsure about Angelo. I'm considering Sword first since the hero now lack a good boss killer option, but I won't get a Falcon Blade though.
I could also stay at 18 for Boomerangs, and then give the hero enough Spear for Multi-Thrust. Then I get Bow for Angelo instead. I know Bow has some useful skills, but the mp draining animation is a pain though. I must decide before the next level up.
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Fallout: Glitch Vegas – that should give you an idea of how my last couple of days have gone with this game. First I blundered my way through Beyond the Beef (the White Glove Society quest) only to get stalled at the end because without quest prompts I wasn't sure how to resolve the endgame without making everybody want to kill me. So I did the quest properly, only to have the entire Society turn hostile against me midway through because I killed an assassin who was shooting me in the face, in a room where nobody could see it.
I figured this happened because somebody found the body off-camera, so I did it again, this time closing the door to the room where the dead body was. No reputation loss, no hostile waitstaff! Huzzah. So I reach the end of the quest, dramatically interrupt the villain's monologue, and his dialogue glitches out and I get beaten to death by said villain and his accomplices. So I reload and wait for him to finish his monologue, then I interrupt him. This time he doesn't go hostile but instead turns around and runs out of the room. I use the gun taken off the assassin to shoot him in the back as he flees, which, for some reason, triggers everyone else in the room to go hostile against him and beat him to death with sticks while he cowers and tries to run away. It is awesome.
And then, after I've left the room and am walking to the casino floor to turn in the quest at last, they “discover” the body of the person they killed. This somehow causes me to lose reputation, which makes me Shunned by the White Gloves, which makes everyone in their casino turn hostile to me. Including the guy I'm supposed to get my reward from, who is now trying to murder me with a shotgun.
Okay, lesson learned. Reload, don't interrupt the villain, let him run away, collect reward. Woohoo! Cash and fame. I fail the “kill the Gundersons” quest but don't care, no way I'm dealing with the fallout from a quest that requires me to kill somebody in that hellhole of a casino. On to new adventures! New quests! Vault 21! The Gommorrah! Maybe even meet with Mr. House sometime this year!
An hour later, I discover that in one of my trips to the casinos (where they confiscate all your guns on entry, and return them when you leave), all of the weapons in my companions' inventories have vanished, never to be returned. Back to my last hardsave. Which is at the end of Beyond the Beef.
It is now my life's goal to somehow call ARCHIMEDES down on the Ultra-Luxe Casino, and then pee on the ashes. Game's still awesome, though!
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Fenrir brings the true robots to life in his games.
Rob, I am playing on Hyperspace Cannon. Imperial side obviously, that is where my guild is at and another one from my WoW server (might merge or something). Will bail if they open Australian local servers though.
Was hoping it was Harbinger. Apparently it's "the AUS server" or something. Day one, started there, normal server. Day three its full of Australians.
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The Ultra Lux is buggy as hell. Look up how to reset quests to the beginning in the console, because honestly you're going to need to do that quite a few times. There's a lot of quests that I was advancing both sides as far as I could go before finally picking a side and this tends to glitch a lot of areas out. The NCR fort in New Vegas and the Ultralux were the worst.
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Masoukishin 2 RoE- Two routes finished, only one left now. I would assume Yanlong's Noble Phatasm is at least rank A++ anti army at very least.
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We rolled elsewhere because the "Australian" servers got raped to hell and back before we got in and no one did the premade guild thing. Which is terrible if we raid and need to recruit, but whatevs.
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Final Fantasy XIII- And so I finish today, having technically started on goddamned release day.
Game would be better if it was basically a boss rush, because the whole system is designed around controlling the flow of battles and the standard battles are not finely tuned enough to make this enjoyable at all. That you slam into a brick wall in terms of overall power level after C11 doesn't help. Still, boss design works very well with the system which is good since it wouldn't work without tight design; it's chaotic and a great deal is out of the player's control.
Otherwise the game can't really do anything well without fucking up something related in equal measure. So, 5/10 feels right.
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Not as harsh as I expected!~
How was the final dungeon CK? Did you do any extra grinding? I was wondering how it would go with the randoms in there.
Out of curiousity did you play/rate FF12?
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He played some of FF12, but don't think he got particularly far.
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Dark Souls: Went to the Painted World to get an extra copy of Great Magic Barrier. Except I forgot that was in Ash Lake instead. So cleaned out Painted World anyway. I was having trouble beating Jeremiah since apparently he has massive resistance to magic AND fire. So I summoned some guys to help. Except the first guy I summoned attacked me instead. Is this a thing now? Anyway, after I determined he wasn't going to help me I gave him Wrath of God to the face. Luckily the second guy I summoned was very nice and helped me with Jeremiah and cutting Priscilla's tail.
And agh, I am so close to beating Four Kings. Got them down to about 10% life before my last Great Magic Barrier expired. Looks like I need one human DDer in addition to Beatrice to get the job done.
OMD: Into Act 3. Five-starred Rebirth on the first try, yay.
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Final Dungeon was arghlefuck. I basically abused map items to get through. Didn't grind, because honestly the bosses were about finding the right tools to get through, not trying to survive for 10 seconds while buffs were applied and failing repeatedly. Much as I didn't enjoy the last chapter, though, it had good bosses and earlier points in the game were good, just ridiculously uneven.
I played FFXII just long enough to beat the final boss, Rogue Tomato. It's kinda like PE, slow solo RPG with good atmosphere and not a lot else. I'm told there's a HUGE aftergame but meh, those are very rarely fun.
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You have to give it credit for changing the main character after a full half of the game, though.
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I'd question why they never follow up the first half, but honestly post-Sakaguchi Square seems to have given up on things like 'tying together plot threads' and 'coherent story telling'.
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Don't forget brevity or the barest shreds of subtlety.
"YOUR NAME IS HOPE YOU GIVE US HOPE."
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The really sad thing is thinking about how much potential that line would have if you could still rename characters in modern RPGs.
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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn - Approaching the end of Chapter 1. Training up Edward, Fiona, Ilyana, Laura, and Vika from this group, as well as Tormod (but that's later!). Crappy people for the win.
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I see Operation: Play Something New took an axe to the face.
Radiant Historia: Decided to give this another go. Rushed through Ch 4 Alternate, followed by 4/5/6 True, all of which were shockingly short. Currently working on Ch5 Alt and expecting end of Ch6 True plot to be relevant fairly soon.
Oh, also. Arkham Asylum, nothing much besides hunting down Riddler Trophies and doing the Challenges.
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If you could rename characters though devs would miss out their chances at deep and meaningful symbolism.
TitS - Approaching the final dungeon which reading ahead is pretty huge. That is different for this game. Look forward to it. Also checked time played and it is way higher than I expected.
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I see Operation: Play Something New took an axe to the face.
Indeed it did. Playing new games is hard.
How are you enjoying Radiant Historia? :)
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If you could rename characters though devs would miss out their chances at deep and meaningful symbolism.
TitS - Approaching the final dungeon which reading ahead is pretty huge. That is different for this game. Look forward to it. Also checked time played and it is way higher than I expected.
And Snow was dictated to all the blow they used to convince themselves they made a sub-par game rather than an unmitigated shitheap.
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FE10: So 1-E proves to be the first real challenge of the challenge-ish playthrough. Five game overs so far. :(
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SaGa 2 DS: I'm considering manipulating battles so that the two similar robots in my team like each other while every other relationship between robots is full of hatred. This would add a bit of robot racism to the mix of hatred and loneliness.
Metal Max Returns Solo: Finished; every hunt included. The final was tough, I maxed every stat on my WhiteMuu tank and only gave it two Excaliburs. The first part of the final dungeon was aggravating with all those paralysis monsters.
The game is fun but I don't feel it lends itself that well to solo playthroughs. Battle damage is so random.
For the frog the bell tolls: Finished.
What a weird ass gameboy game. At least it solved two mysteries:
- Who's that Richard dude in Link's Awakening and why is he around frogs??
- Who's that awesome professor dude in Wario Land 4? (Somehow, I recognized him instantly)
Overall it's a very story focused game (on a gameboy, yes) with largely irrelevant platformer with rpg elements gameplay.
There's one really great scene near the ending. The final boss is a snake. The main's rival and his army have all been turned into a frog.
The rival goes all "Step aside! Even as a frog, I'm better than you!" then he sends every man from his army, one by one, slowly, and every one of them gets eaten by the snake the same way, without being able to deal even one point of damage.
It also has Zelda's engine, and the strange battle system from Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. Speaking of which, I love that game. (for all that it probably hates its player) Probably my #2 DS game after Castlevania OOE. (I don't know, I don't keep track of this kind of thing)
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Dark Souls: And the Four Kings go down! I ended up soloing it because Beatrice got all suicidal and jumped off a stairwell. Even though I ran out of Great Magic Barrier at the end the Kings were nice and ddn't double-team me. My setup was full Giant Armor+5 set, two-handing Grant with Grass Crest Sheld on my back. Full offense, no blocking or dodging. This is manly Dark Souls.
So now it's just endgame stuff. The only real challenge I have left is cutting off Seath's tail.
OMD: Finished. I get the feeling there's an alternate ending... that ending seemed to scream "You're doing it wrong!"
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Dragon Quest VIII: Finished the events on Maella abbey and is now going to visit the emo king. Soon enough I'll have access to both the monster arena and the bigger alchemy pot.
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OMD: Finished. I get the feeling there's an alternate ending... that ending seemed to scream "You're doing it wrong!"
Nope, that's the ending. I finished nightmare and it's the same thing there.
OMD- I need to five skulls the finale (Oh dear god) on warmage to have gotten five skulls on every mission. I also need to beat the DLC levels on Nightmare, which is no goddamn joke. Double Trouble in particular is obnoxious- you're way short on resources, you have two sides to defend and not any really good defensive spots to do it in.
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Sonic 4 Part 1: Finished! No, didn't get all Chaos Emeralds. I may be unlazy about this and just keep playing Splash Hill Zone repeatedly until I do, but for now, yeah.
Game's about what you expect from a 2D Sonic Game...with the addition of Homing Attack for some added variety, which is cool. I will say I really don't get the claim that someone made that "The isn't sure if its 2D or 3D." Um, no, its very clearly 2D; I can't even think of a moment where it went 2.5D. It says something that Classic Stages in Sonic Generations are more bipolar than this game (Classic Sonic stages are clearly 2.5D, given they play like 2D, but at times the camera shifts at angles to make things look cooler. Sonic 4 doesn't even do that much.) The only 3D aspect added in was Homing Attack, which actually was a GOOD thing because of what I said before. Well, it also had Triangle Jumping when you don't have anything to home in on...which again, good thing, its a way to make jumping horizontally much faster, as an escape method vs. Boss attacks and such (Sonic's Jump goes way too high vertically and you don't get horizontal fast enough by itself, Triangle Jumping is an extra fail safe that helps.) Took me long enough to finish this but yeah.
Sonic CD: Beat this too! I really don't get the claims of the game having really poor stage design outside of Metallic Mayhem (which is basically Metropolis Zone meets Scrap Brain Zone meets Ambitions Too High To Reach Conceivably. As you'd expect, its a nightmare.) Stages were short, and most promoted "move really fast" (and Starlight Highway is like a precursor to some of the more fun 3D Stages in how its set up!), and honestly there was nothing that stood out about this game, negatively, relative to Sonic 1 or Sonic 2. I guess stages looked pretty boring; first bunch are just clones of stages from Sonic 1/2, last bunch are Cyberpunk Nightmare style stages. I'm fine with how Metal Sonic was the only reference Generations gave to Sonic CD, because that is easily the most memorable thing about the game, as nothing else in that era really has anything comparable to that fight, stylistically.
Game is...also what you;d expect from a 2D Sonic Game! Nice that the XBLA version has Tails as unlockable and he functions like his Sonic 3 self (yay flight!), so its not completely lazy. Not nice how the game doesn't let you replay stages you've already beaten...
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Europa Universalis - So I tried playing this as Spain. And while I suspect a lot of what I have to say next comes from the fact that Spain really is ascendant when the game starts (1493), and you probably start hitting some kind of crunch about seventy years in unless you used that starting advantage really well. Including the fact that I know some of my best provinces are going to get rebellious soon. But, Spain feels a lot like easy mode.
I mean, starting with a good Explorer (Columbus), three settlers a year, decent armies and the military tech to back them up, and the best economic base to start with, including the lucrative Dutch provinces. And with the new world territories you're geared to best exploit having the Aztecs and the Mayas there. I mean, the Iroquois, while they can't really win, they also have fortifications and the ability to fight back. The Aztecs and the Mayans lose to armies one tenth their size, and have no fortifications so taking their stuff is as easy as walking in with your pathetically small army, no sieging required, and only one joke of a battle in the way. And the Aztecs, for their part, are small but loaded.
Radiant Historia - So, I'm now at the final boss of the Alternate History. Have to admit, I like the villainous rant here. Sure, it confirms all of the plot 'twists' I suspected were about to happen. But, it also explains them in a way which is true to all the characters and setting they've set up so far. Including why the villain would want to end the world. Now I just need to beat the sucker, which looks like it'll be tricky. He already game overed me once. Fortunately, Stocke's Mana Burst seems to be ludicrously good at dealing damage, especially with the Historica equipped, so hopefully it'll turn out well in take two once I have a better idea of how to fight this guy.
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SO2 Precis solo: Man, domehow in some ways this feels a lot more archaic than say, FF4?
Scenes with a shaky camera show that there's a vast void of blackness outside of the screen you're supposed to see. This is nearly as bad as the bird shadows in Arc the Lad 2 (you probably know what I'm talking about if you've played the game)
(http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/2593/shin.gif)
(see the vertical black line on the left)
The weapon dude I chose for the tournament in Lacour also made a metaphor about a shotgun. Not very coherent, game.
The whole Lacour tournament stuff was 1H20 of dread. That's nearly one whole movie! Fuck all happened except the game telling you "Dias is strong", but the game already did that in the forest earlier. Hell, everyone could tell it right away because he's a bad walking cliché.
On the other hand, Precis solo. FUN. BARRIER BARRIER BARRIER BARRIER.
I eat a ton of blackberries and call my pet eagle in dungeons when I run out of them. 20 blackberries x 20 pet foods = 400 blackberries per dungeon, one blackberry restores half of my max MPs. I can spam killer moves all the time! This is the thing I like in challenges, it kind of forces you to be more active. What I remembered about SO2 was the gameplay being kind of annoying because I always ran out of MPs, but that was because I could just use regular attacks all the time and do fine.
Of course, more fun with pickpocketing too.
The city is attacked by monsters so everybody goes to the castle.
Little girl: "Mommy? Where are you?"
Precis: "...." *steals 100 fol from the girl*
Precis, the coldest playable character since cartoonish Bioware Evil character.
Edit: "X Box acquired"
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SO2 Precis solo: Man, domehow in some ways this feels a lot more archaic than say, FF4?
Scenes with a shaky camera show that there's a vast void of blackness outside of the screen you're supposed to see. This is nearly as bad as the bird shadows in Arc the Lad 2 (you probably know what I'm talking about if you've played the game)
Beat AtL2, don't remember that
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It was the most memorable thing about the game!
There's that one city where you can see flying bird shadows on the ground.
The problem is that this special effect is not technically a sprite but a transparency effect. (This might not make sense, but it's easier to understand) This means that, while those shadows move from one end of the screen to another like you'd expect, they move along with the main character on screen!
Let's say they go from the bottom of the screen to the top.
If you go up, they'll go twice as fast as usual.
If you go down, they'll stay in the same place.
And they're big! You can't not see them!
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I'm with Monkey on this one. I beat AtL2 and I really don't know what you're talking about. Or more specifically, I understand the effect you're explaining, but nowhere would I associate it with AtL2, let alone was it something that I even noticed when I played the game.
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Hmm. That city might be optional and very minor, but the bird shadow are everywhere in it and impossible.
Maybe Arc the Lad 2 put you in a strange torpor state because it's Arc the Lad 2.
But most likely, you are all either blind or crazy.
SO2: "No, Noel, you are needed to protect the animals. The robot animals with cubs"
I find that Ally-oop is Precis' best skill. But they're all pretty good, aside from Bang Bang Attack with its ultra short range and slight delay.
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Maybe Arc the Lad 2 put you in a strange torpor state because it's Arc the Lad 2.
This sounds extremely likely.
Also I beat AtL2 and also have no idea what the heck you're on about.
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I think I *remember* that.
I didn't think much of it, because I'd followed birds around the world in Chrono Trigger. On foot.
What I'm saying here is minor details in RPGs hit up my suspension of disbelief a long while ago is all. In fact, I think I remember SoM more for the effect you're talking about than AtL2, I think it did a weird mixture of following you and actually moving relative to you that would often make clouds sync to your speed or something really fucked up.
I think. It's been a while since I've played SoM.
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Final Fantasy 4
Hats Heroes of Light: Just got to Guero or whatever the mage city in the desert is called. So far, the game is giving far more Dragon Quest vibes than it is Final Fantasy. Well, ok, Brandt isn't a silent protagonist so there's that! But interface is clunky (swapping characters in the menu being "Press X and choose character!" instead of traditional "Press L/R to cycle through!" comes to mind, minor as it is), early game difficulty feels very luck oriented, limited inventory, game starting you off spontaneously in a town with nothing to do other than run to a designated spot after you talk to a bunch of villagers about jack all before you can get to real gameplay...yeah, its like they were making a Dragon Quest, then realized they made a Non-Silent Protagonist, and instead figured it'd just be easier to rename it "Final Fantasy" than fix that, and sort of went from there, which is why we don't have slimes!
...that said, why am I getting Suikoden Tiekries Flashbacks from this? I mean, clearly there was no big mage city in a desert or anything comparable to that!
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Civilization 4: All of the Subtitles
I decided to try this with Revolutions off since supposedly they slow things down quite a lot on older machines. How about machines older than Civ 4 itself? Yeah, like those. What's more, the AI really struggles to manage its revolutions.
The good news? It did run considerably faster.
The bad news? I got stuck on a fairly sizable continent with one AI. I farmed them until they became completely unwilling to negotiate even to save themselves, killed them off, farmed a few barbarian-to-civ spawns the same way. Took the whole continent for myself, built up. I felt like my position was probably going to be unassailable when I came into contact with the other civs, since I had some late medieval technologies in 200 AD and was grabbing the important Wonders (i.e., the science ones) before anyone else.
Then, in 350 AD, a sloop - not a caravel, a fucking SLOOP, parked in my coastal waters.
One AI had run away with a continent that housed nine others, taking five capitals and all of the religions except Hinduism (which I had). They were obviously running a full suite of Monasteries in every city, in addition to all the other science buildings, because they were getting 1800s techs in 3-5 turns on the second-slowest speed setting, on Noble (so no CPU boosts). In the early ADs. Their score was 2900. Mine was 1200. None of the seven other survivors (on their continent and on another separate one) had cracked quadruple digits.
They landed musketeers and cannon (not arquebusiers and bombards) on my maceman-defended lands and ended the game shortly thereafter. I might have held on in a crippled state, but they were researching Rifling and that would have ended it straight up.
I mean, the Iroquois, while they can't really win, they also have fortifications and the ability to fight back.
Ahem (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?384744-The-Audacity-of-Hope-An-Iroquois-IN-AAR&s=9fac19c0b04ed28ceff699c6fb9d2a85).
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I cannot speak for anything in versions after EU1, as I'm playing the first one. All I can say is that all of my attempts to take the Iroquois have involved effort. Whereas my attempt to take the Incas involved walking over and saying I owned the place, and meeting pretty much no resistance. That said, I think I can buy the Incas having a better setup over the other two when you're playing as them. If only because they have more land, and are hidden a lot further away from ground zero for when the europeans do arrive.
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Orcs Must Die:
Just finished Killing Fields. Used barriers to create a choke-point in a map that shouldn't have one, which as always works wonders. Do the exploding Kobolds blow up barriers of their own accord? That is very frustrating and makes them almost as annoying as those goddamn bats. was kicked down to 4 stars at the last second by a bunch of exploding kobolds managing to get on top of me. Bah.
I'm finding the Self-buffs to be vastly superior to the alternative trap-buffs for most cases... You can empty an entire gate by yourself just standing in front of it and swinging, and the ability to Ice&Dice ogres (even Armored Ogres) superfast is just tops. As far as traps go, I just upgraded Swinging Mace but haven't used it yet. Some improved slow traps + that should be "Ah yeah" level effective. MO has mostly been a shit-ton of archers at a choke point behind slow-traps while I clean up/deal with ogres/most fliers.
Fun game, but big complaint: I can't hear this sorceress because the action is so much louder than she is. Minor complaint. OMD PLOT and all that.
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Ok... Actually read that link now. (Or, at least, properly skimmed it) That is, impressive.
I am also saddened that, apparently, province reshuffling has apparently moved the area labled Ottawa further west, effectively overwriting Nippising. Nippising needs more love, dagnabbit. ;_;
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"World maps don't make sense" are a lot different from the bird shadows, as world maps are conscious design abstractions, etc. While the Arc the lad 2 example is just someone making a mistake. IMO this is like comparing a guy fighting with a shovel vs a glitch that makes peoples' head spin. (Not for the faint of heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ))
I've seen things similar to the bird shadows in other games, but it was fairly tame in comparison, and not that apparent unless you were being overanalytical / overcritical. Maybe the rain at the beginning of Zelda LTTP for example?
SO2 Precis Solo: Only got the field of love left. This is the best part of the game!
Precis is level 100 and has finished the duel part of the battle arena. She has the bunny shoes, some shield that protects against paralysis, Stone Check, and an Atlas Ring (this gives a big attack power increase but elemental weaknesses)
I always have stone and paralysis immunity on because Precis is good enough anyway to waste a few slots, and I don't want to do trial and error in every single dungeon (I remember paralysis and stone being rampant in that game)
Edit: Wow, Claude just sits there and does nothing as his father gets killed.
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"World maps don't make sense" are a lot different from the bird shadows, as world maps are conscious design abstractions, etc.
All I can say is that I tend to set my suspension of disbelief to the highest point a game demands at any point and then leave it stuck there.
I know it's a bit odd, possibly, but I don't get surprised too often by games, due to that.
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"World maps don't make sense" are a lot different from the bird shadows, as world maps are conscious design abstractions, etc. While the Arc the lad 2 example is just someone making a mistake. IMO this is like comparing a guy fighting with a shovel vs a glitch that makes peoples' head spin. (Not for the faint of heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ))
You know, if you told me that was on purpose, I'd believe you and think that the creators were fucking geniuses.
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Judging from that video, I think somebody de-awesomed my copy of New Vegas.
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Perpetual Sidequest Machine: So the Thieves' Guild is unkillable. I see. (Evidently I hadn't tried killing anyone the game flagged as plot-necessary before.)
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Perpetual Sidequest Machine: So the Thieves' Guild is unkillable. I see. (Evidently I hadn't tried killing anyone the game flagged as plot-necessary before.)
Huh, I thought only Brynjolf, Vex, Devlin and Mercer were.
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Maybe some of them are? I dunno, I just attacked the group en masse and people kept getting back up. I didn't really track specifics.
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Maybe some of them are? I dunno, I just attacked the group en masse and people kept getting back up. I didn't really track specifics.
Either I was wrong and they all are or you just had the strangest bought of knock-down luck ever.
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When I was trying to murder people in the guild to resolve a quest glitch (fuck you Tonilla) the only people I couldn't kill were Brynwolf and the dark elf chick. The guys that can train you in pickpocket, archery, etc. are all murderable.
e-though I didn't bother going after Devlin or Vex or anybody that hangs out in the ragged flagon
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SO2 Precis solo: Stuck against Idalecio. Going to try some item creation (I haven't really done any since disc 1) then utterly crush him. Good thing all my IC skills are maxed.
Shigeo, Marsilio, Berle and Cyril were bad jokes, tough Cyril got me once with Word of Death.
Nicolus/Jibril/Ruprecht were the 3rd hardest battle in the game, Decus/Vesper the 2nd hardest. Lots of resets. Those two fights were still fun, but Indy's a real chore. The battle system really shows its weakness here, you can't even see what Indy's doing 90% of the time and you waste a lot of time just watching bad spell animations. What a lame boss. I don't think I'll try the cave of trials for this reason (that and there's not much more skill progression left for Precis)
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FE10 - Finally, the whole trinity! I think Fiona is the worst character so far; she just requires so much effort to get up to speed. I'm in Part 3 and she is still terrible. At least Lyre can evade things and HIT and isn't a total liability and Astrid can HIT. Fiona has Canto but her being hindered by every fucking map she's on is awful. 1-E she can't hit at all and 3-6, which is the laguz map, she can't move into water. Fuck you, Fiona.
Whew, I feel better.
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As probably the only DLer crazy enough to have used both, Fiona > Astrid because Fiona eventually pays off, even though her low point is worse. There's a pretty solid possibility Lyre is better than either, though.
FFX - Beaten again.
FE10 - Laguz playthrough. The goal is to use mostly laguz. I can also use any auto-deployed, and if deploying only laguz and forced people doesn't bring my deployment to 6, I can deploy humans to bring it to 6. So when it's not a laguz file, it's an undermanned file, which has its own ups and downs since I don't baby crappy people. 2-E was pretty rough with just Elincia/Haar/Marcia for humans (Haar died), 1-E was rough despite having lots of laguz, but otherwise things haven't been too bad. Lethe's not too far from S strike already, while Volug hit it in Chapter 1-7. Currently in part 3, about to get the Gallian army to show up so the true point of the playthrough can begin.
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Maybe some of them are? I dunno, I just attacked the group en masse and people kept getting back up. I didn't really track specifics.
Either I was wrong and they all are or you just had the strangest bought of knock-down luck ever.
Possibly relevant, I hadn't completed (or even really started) any of their quests yet. I just walked into the Ragged Flagon and started throwing around fireballs because, well, they're thugs aspiring to be mafia. Although I am willing to bet your latter guess is on the money, because...well...(have I mentioned Skyrim is a bit buggy?)
Skyrim: Made it ma, top of the world! Game has its share of problems, but the vistas sure are spectacular. Being able to look down on the whole world map from one spot is pretty great. ...Oh hey, there are mining spots up here. And someone left a pickaxe sitting at the summit of the tallest mountain in the world, just in case you didn't bring one, nice. For some reason I equip the thing before mining (probably because I haven't mined anything in a while and I forgot you only need it in inventory), and then go to town. ...Wait a minute. I'm using the pickaxe for mining...but it's clearly still equipped on my belt...Pickaxe duplication.
Anyway, after talking to the dragon (who actually kind of had some personality, I was surprised), I'm supposed to go the college and talk to the librarian. I do this, but he doesn't have anything new to say. No lines relating to the elder scroll quest, nothing different anywhere in his dialogue tree. The quest flag is clearly pointing at him, following him as he walks, taunting me! But I can't trigger the next step. Confused, and wondering if the game has finally broken for good, I wander back outside.
Then the Hall of the Elements disappears and I plummet several hundred feet to my death.
Y'know, I really am just trying to wrap this thing up, because I've had enough of it and the lag is getting to be a killer, but damned if the game will let me.
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New Vegas: Okay actually moving the plot now. Found Benny, let him escape, met up with Yes-Man and Mr. House (in that order, much to House's annoyance). Should meet up with the NCR and Legion guys, but I'll probably end up going the Wild Card path. Self-serving for the win, indeed.
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if you still can't advance the plot that way then if you head due north of the college you'll get to a secret base with a crazyman inside who will point you where to go (and also incidentally kicks off a daedric quest with a pretty nifty reward if you're so inclined)
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Ahh, that dude. I guess that would explain it, since I met him ages ago (I figured he wasn't the next objective for the plot since talking to him previously had triggered its own quest).
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OMD: Five starred the finale on warmage. I just surrounded the point with archers and stuck a Paladin on every entryway. Maces+tar traps slowed down the horde just enough.
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Shadow the Hedgehog: Spontaneously started this game up because shut up.
Plot is...its a game about Shadow, what the fuck do you expect? Its dark, gritty, emo and stupid. Thankfully, I've learned how to turn my brain off and ignore SONIC PLOT!!!!
Gameplay is...actually not that bad. I mean, its not amazing or anything, but you can play the game like a normal 3D Sonic game (ala SA1/2) and not be penalized for it, but then there are other ways to go about it, which involve guns, punching things and listening to a Lovecraftian Horror clearly not telling you to do EVIL THINGS!!!
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Dark Souls: You know who's tough on New Game+? Centipede Demon. On normal game I had trouble with Demon Firesage and killed Centipede Demon on the first try. On this game I killed Firesage on the first try and couldn't do jack to Centipede. So I said fuck it and opened the shortcut to skip him. Then I killed Gwyn with some summoned help and it's on to New Game++. Speedrun time! Taurus Demon -> Burg -> Bell -> kill Sif for her third soul -> Darkroot Basin -> Blighttown -> Bell -> Sen's -> Giant Blacksmith for my last two weapons and the all rare weapons achievement.
1000/1000 now. Now I never have to play this game again. Actually I might play some more of my sorcerer LLG, but I really have no interest in continuing my main character. It's pretty sad how bad people are at PVP in this game. I barely even dabbled in it and I have like an 80% win rate with my 17 vitality character. This one guy invades me as I'm crossing the rafters in Anor Londo. I make it to the other side. He starts firing Dragonslayer arrows at me. I stand there and block with Greatshield of Artorias until he runs out of arrows. Then he gets tired and starts to cross the rafters towards me and falls to his death. I send him a thank you note for the free souls.
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FE10 - Laguz playthrough. The goal is to use mostly laguz. I can also use any auto-deployed, and if deploying only laguz and forced people doesn't bring my deployment to 6, I can deploy humans to bring it to 6. So when it's not a laguz file, it's an undermanned file, which has its own ups and downs since I don't baby crappy people. 2-E was pretty rough with just Elincia/Haar/Marcia for humans (Haar died), 1-E was rough despite having lots of laguz, but otherwise things haven't been too bad. Lethe's not too far from S strike already, while Volug hit it in Chapter 1-7. Currently in part 3, about to get the Gallian army to show up so the true point of the playthrough can begin.
This is relevant to my interests. I'd be curious to hear a few more details here. It's been a while since I last played FE10, and I don't remember when you get which/how many Laguz.
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Well, if you want a summary (spoilers I guess):
-Volug joins the Dawn Brigade in 1-5
-Muarim and Vika in 1-7, and then Nailah and Rafiel in 1-8, join, but leave at the end of part 1.
-Nealuchi and Leanne appear in three maps of part 2, with Lethe and Mordecai joining for two of them.
-In the Ike chapters, the Gallian army (Ranulf, Kyza, Lyre, and the aforementioned Lethe and Mordecai) join in 3-4, leave for 3-5, and return for the rest of part 3. Reyson joins in 3-5 and remains for the rest of part 3 except 3-11, in which you use Leanne instead. Janaff and Ulki join in 3-7 and remain for the rest of part 3.
-In part 4, all laguz already available in either route (so Volug + Gallians + hawks + Reyson) carry over. Nailah, Rafiel, Nealuchi, and Leanne rejoin permanently. Tibarn, Naesala, and Skrimir join. In 4-4, Muarim and Vika return. At endgame, Ena and Kurth join, as do Caineghis and Giffca. Gareth and Nasir join for the last two maps.
The downside of the playthrough is that you only have enough laguz for it to feel like a real laguz playthrough for the second half of part 3 and all of part 4; however, forcing myself to only use six units in other maps emphasises the laguz I do use more and adds a layer of challenge, particularly to defence maps.
I reset if my laguz die, but not my beorc, unless they're too important (which... basically means "don't let the Dawn Brigade get too undermanned") or are a lord, obviously.
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Saga Frontier- Just fought the Lion Princess. Easy fight. Asellus/Lute were doing 6000~ w/th L2 Swordskill combos. Then again I had been doing quite a bit of training as my travels to Koorong found me wandering through sewers and caves until I was turned back by a horde of mini spiders. Picked up all the shinies and built up my characters well on the way. Lute ended up more built up than Rouge though because Rouge ran out of LP and I couldn't revive him =( I'd also picked up Cotton from the Bio Research Lab before this wandering so Cotton was also built up a fair bit while I was in the sewers/caves. Death Touch seems like a solid ability! I also have Thunder but I haven't used him yet. All the bosses have been unsurprisingly pretty easy so far with the amount of fighting I've been doing in general, even jokes some of them except for the Earth Sage who sent me packing the first couple of times I have into it. Good fight on the winning run. So far I am running Asellus mainly as Swords (full Sword for training vs randoms) White Rose as my main healer/support and back up offence mage, Lute as Swords (though I've thought about Gun training for him), Rouge as my main offence mage and I'm not entirely sure about Cotton yet. Currently back in the Bio Rearch Lab for moar training!~
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OMD: 5-skulled every level on Warmage. For Finale, I made quick money with Knowledge Weaver + Lightning Storm, then slowly added mace traps, tar, paladins, autocrossbows to every entrance. Decoys are very important also, place two before the first wave to get off to a good start.
Just need to go through Nightmare mode and kill 30,000 orcs.
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Skyrim: I pressed random buttons until I learned to see through time.
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OMD: 5-skulled every level on Warmage. For Finale, I made quick money with Knowledge Weaver + Lightning Storm, then slowly added mace traps, tar, paladins, autocrossbows to every entrance. Decoys are very important also, place two before the first wave to get off to a good start.
Just need to go through Nightmare mode and kill 30,000 orcs.
I didn't find money to be the problem there, more just avoiding getting owned by the fucking Kobold sappers. I used the rolling logs to slaughter the first wave and went from there.
There are only two maps that would be *REALLY* difficult to five skull on nightmare (Ignoring DLC levels, those are insanity) are hard climb and the finale.
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Doctor Lautrec And The Forgotten Knights - finished?
Had 27 puzzles unseen in the list, played through the last dungeon I currently had access to, which was a seven-puzzle dungeon with 5 difficulty stars out of 6. Expected this to unlock two more dungeons with the full 6 difficulty stars at ten puzzles apiece. After that dungeon there was some storyline and the credits ran again, which was bemusing. Saved a new version of the clear save, and loaded it up, and checked the available quests, only to have found that there were no new quests. Checked the puzzle list, only to have found that all the remaining puzzles had been added to the list, in what seemed to be a ludicrously cheap (and undiscoverable) way of adding bonus puzzles. Did one of the sequence ones and confirmed that it was one that had not been seen midgame, and that no prize was given out for having done it. Remainder of bonus puzzles left untouched.
I'm mostly concerned about the lack of 6-star difficulty quests, here. I have a theory that maybe the regular final quest may be marked as 6-star difficulty, despite all the 5-star quests being aftergame. But for some bizarre reason, the quest selector takes a page from Super Robot Wars 1 and offers you three random quests at a time in a stunning display of user unfriendliness, and I really don't care to sit there refreshing it until the final storyline quest shows up. (Midgame it always offers you two random new quests and one random old quest (unless you don't have at least one old quest, or there aren't at least two new quests, of course), so it isn't as bad as it could have been (unless you want to do quests in numerical order (in which case they've stymied you anyway by not making them available in the same order))).
Man I sure am lucky that I don't need to revisit any particular quests for anything I missed.
Speaking of revisiting things, halfway through the game four treasures show up in the shop for ludicrous gemstone costs. I waited until I had enough diamonds for the most diamond-expensive one first, and helpfully it was horribly outclassed by that time. But I gotta say, at the point the first one which became available became available it was already outclassed. Meanwhile, I never ended up getting enough diamonds to be able to buy the next-most diamond-expensive one. So if I was into that sort of thing, I could spend time grinding gemstones to buy a handful of useless treasure! no
With regards to my earlier complaints about battle difficulty spiking, after having changed tack to using whatever I had that was most powerful rather than was lowest levelled... at that point, things were still a bit touch and go, but after acquiring a couple of the treasures in question, things never reached that point in difficulty again (except possibly for Sang v2, if there was a lot of treasure lost or still fatigued from Sang v1 - but I didn't have any real trouble, and I don't carry around restorative items).
I liked the final boss, but I expected it to have five stages and was disappointed when it only had three. There was essentially a fourth stage in one of the postgame quests, but never a fifth, which seems off. The 'fourth stage' was tameable, but was an Arboreal treasure and consequently worthless, so I never tried using it to see whether it actually showed up as a tame version of the final or if it was one of the standard tame arboreal treasures.
Let's talk about the battle system since I didn't really go into it last time. You have the treasure you're fighting on the central pedestal, and put your own treasures on plinths around it, as I said.
Every treasure has HP, Attack, Defence, and a type. Types are Terrestrial, Humanoid, Avian, Aquatic, and Arboreal. And Crystal.
Anyway, every time you put a treasure down, it attacks the central treasure, then the central treasure attacks it. Then it never does anything else for the rest of the battle (aside from having an elemental effect on connected plinths and potentially participating in synergy attacks).
So, Terrestrial are the strongest, but they're only super effective against humanoids and are weak against Avian and Aquatic. Avian are next-most strongest, but are only super effective against Terrestrial and are weak against Aquatic and Humanoid. Humanoids are the next-most strongest, and are super effective against Avian and Aquatic, but are weak against Terrestrial and Crystal (Crystal weakness never comes up for your own treasures). Aquatic are the next-most strongest, and are super effective against Terrestrial and Avian, and only weak against Humanoid.
Arboreal are the weakest (outside Crystal). They're not strong or weak against anything. They are the most defensive ones. In a battle system where each of your treasures can only be attacked once each battle. YESZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Crystals can do fair damage against Humanoids, but they're mostly useful for knocking treasure which is shortly outside of the taming HP zone into it rather than risk an actual treasure doing too much damage and extinguishing it, or for being sacrificed.
When you put a treasure on a plinth, it gets a 30% attack/defence? bonus if it's super effective against the central treasure, or negative 30% if it's weak to it (supposedly - I've seen central treasures do more damage than they have attack power while in this position, but there may be other factors involved. They also get 10% extra bonus for each plinth their plinth is connected to which you've put a treasure they're super effective against on, and a 10% loss for each treasure they're connected to which they're weak to. Crystals don't seem to get 10% bonuses from being put next to Humanoid treasure, though.
Some treasures also cause synergy effects from being placed next to each other. They're few and far between, though, and the effects generally aren't that great. Then you have effects like 'Attack power x3' which do sound great until you remember that the vast majority of the time you're trying to knock treasures into the taming zone. I think that this feature also suffers severely from the only being able to bring three treasures with you into dungeons rule, especially since some effects require three treasures in the first place.
All up, if they bring out a sequel which doesn't make any improvements to the variety of gameplay types in the game, I will probably still play it, but I will be sad because there is ludicrous room for improvement.
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/me probably isn't going to be defeating the Earth Dragon anytime soon >_>
... but if there is a way I shall find it *nodnods*~
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Skyrim: Convinced people to stop killing each other (largely because I'm too apathetic to support either side) so we could focus on killing dragons instead. Said arrangement involved putting Markarth and Riften under control of the worst douchebags in each city. As if those towns weren't big enough dungheaps already. Oh well, I'm about at the final dungeon so kinda past caring.
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Enchanted Arms:
Finished with London City. Karin's really started to grow on me. Like the Backloggery says, her characterization is so inconsistant it makes her seem almost human. Raigar's a bro too. Atsuma is... not good. A lesser Naruto to the plot's shameless Naruto ripoff. it's kind of pathetic. At least the battle system is solid enough to keep me playing... even if it's a bit tedious at times. Still not quite sure what's keeping me playing other than it's easy and straightforward and looks pretty at times.
Junk City, Yuki backstzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... boring.
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Skyrim: Convinced people to stop killing each other (largely because I'm too apathetic to support either side) so we could focus on killing dragons instead. Said arrangement involved putting Markarth and Riften under control of the worst douchebags in each city. As if those towns weren't big enough dungheaps already. Oh well, I'm about at the final dungeon so kinda past caring.
Markarth dude is probably only third-worst guy in the city. And it's not like Riften wasn't already under the replacement's control anyway.
My posts are so worthless.
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4 Hats of Light: So I just got Bard and Thief jobs...why is it that Bard is introduced before most jobs in this game, and why is Thief the first Job in this game that can be qualified as a tank? This is just weird...
...game could also stand to stop being monotonous.
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SF- Defeated the Earth Dragon. Didn't need to grind moar surprisingly. Just went in with full skill/magic points for everyone, put White Rose, Rouge and Cotton in the back row and went all out attack as fast and as hard as you can on it after getting some shields up with WR/Rouge. Lute/Rouge combos were doing 5000~ here, Lute/Cotton (w/th Battle Cry) 4000~ and Asellus/Cotton about the same. Fortunately they were pumping those out and the other way luck favoured me was Earth Dragon wasn't being as Iron Ball spam happy this time. Nor did he spam his speed lowering fire move so often. Did get a bit overwhelmed towards the end when Lute, Rouge and Cotton kept going back down as fast as I could revive them but Asellus picked up Triple Thrust in this fight so I ended up just spamming that for 2000~ ph. With White Rose keeping herself and Asellus healthy with the odd Flash Fire thrown it =)
Deflect and Glass Shield helped a lot in that fight. Also Asura and Twiggy Rod are great weapons *nod nod* Triple Thrust is also awesme. I think Asellus finished off most of the last 20'000~ HP of Earth Dragon herself w/th Asura + Triple Thrust
spam~
I have shinies. The Dragon Shield. Is this good? I also kept a save before the Earth Dragon in case it was supposed to drop something~
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Skyrim: Convinced people to stop killing each other (largely because I'm too apathetic to support either side) so we could focus on killing dragons instead. Said arrangement involved putting Markarth and Riften under control of the worst douchebags in each city. As if those towns weren't big enough dungheaps already. Oh well, I'm about at the final dungeon so kinda past caring.
Markarth dude is probably only third-worst guy in the city. And it's not like Riften wasn't already under the replacement's control anyway.
My posts are so worthless.
Still, as wretched as the towns were, the jarls in charge didn't seem like bad people. I would've gladly seen someone toss out the dude in Dawnstar instead, for example (the guy who starts every encounter with "You're not as dumb as you look.")
Also: "It is important to realize when one has only a single choice." <-- Truest line spoken in this game.
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Dragon Shield's what you fought the Earth Dragon for, yeah. One of the best shields in the game, give it to Asellus or Lute probably. Be warned that Triple Thrust disables it (and all other shields) for that round, but most other sword moves will allow it. Magic won't, unfortunately, and monsters can't use it.
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Skyrim: Convinced people to stop killing each other (largely because I'm too apathetic to support either side) so we could focus on killing dragons instead. Said arrangement involved putting Markarth and Riften under control of the worst douchebags in each city. As if those towns weren't big enough dungheaps already. Oh well, I'm about at the final dungeon so kinda past caring.
Markarth dude is probably only third-worst guy in the city. And it's not like Riften wasn't already under the replacement's control anyway.
My posts are so worthless.
Still, as wretched as the towns were, the jarls in charge didn't seem like bad people. I would've gladly seen someone toss out the dude in Dawnstar instead, for example (the guy who starts every encounter with "You're not as dumb as you look.")
Also: "It is important to realize when one has only a single choice." <-- Truest line spoken in this game.
Igmund has to deal with the ramifications of his father's choices during the beginning of the Forsworn uprising, so he's been dealing with a very wretched situation for 30 years. Laila meanwhile, to go on a random theory tangent here, has to act like a blockhead to prevent Maven from just straight killing her and taking her Throne.
And then Skald is a useless idiot. I don't think a single person in Dawnstar actually supports him.
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Tales of Maj'Eyal:
So Ghouls are (possibly, or rather, it's possible to fuck up) too slow to get the good ending that everyone else gets easily. At least, I screwed it up. (I think it's quite possible to do, just uh...very, very tight time limit, and Necromancer was not the Class Of Choice for getting through that area fast.)
http://te4.org/characters/10195/tome/983568ad-975a-4314-98ba-5665c1a48179
So instead, between that and a previous decision I made, everyone's fucked.
I love this game, sometimes.
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Shadow the Hedgehog: Finished one path, one of the neutral ones anyway. Honestly, the game isn't really that bad, in terms of gameplay, and its actually fun at times too. It leads me to believe some of the complaints about the game are people doing something stupid and blaming the game. "I homing attacked off the edge of the screen :(" ...yeah, that happens when you spontaneously use Homing Attack without actually thinking about a direction, etc. You know...exactly the same as what happens when you do it in Sonic Adventure 2?
This isn't to say the game is perfect; still has some polish issues and controls are a little too loose, but this isn't a game specific flaw; SA1 and SA2 had similar issues. I seriously think people just sort of assumed "Game is about Shadow, not Sonic, therefor it sucks, lets find stuff to complain about!" Or "It wasn't exactly like Sonic games therefor bad." Um, ok, the game is you know, HONEST about it being a spin off; its called "Shadow the Hedgehog", not, "Sonic Gaiden: The Adventures of Shadow" or something. It honestly just comes off as a more action oriented version of Sonic Adventure 2 (not quite as good as the Sonic/Shadow stages in that game, but still adequate), with a few gimmick things.
...also, it occurred to me while playing the game that, conceptually, this game has so many things in common with Vincent May Cry its not even funny. The key difference, of course, is VMC basically just creates a completely divergent game, genre wise, out of a plot heavy game with a lot of backstory. Shadow the Hedgehog retained gameplay from other 3D Sonics, just with an altered focus (more action, less platforming...though, the platforming is still there), and is based off a series that has very loose plot, off a character whose backstory is so self contained, they could retcon the fuck out of it, and little would be lost. this isn't to say Shadow's plot is good, just its not a trainwreck, and more generic bad than flat out offensive (if nothing else, Maria is just vaguely annoying instead of Shiontastic like Lucrecia)
...in fact, the two games have so much in common conceptually, I feel like comparing the two in a big mega rant in a self contained topic at some point! Yes I know no one will care (and that do will want me dead), but shh!
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Skyrim: No OHSA compliance in Not!Valhalla, I see. Really, that is the least safe bridge I have ever seen. Not even railless Star Wars bridges slope dangerously to either side like that! Also...so, endgame area, final boss is lurking somewhere out of sight making disturbing noises. I'm walking through a deep mist in the warriors' afterlife. There are dead dudes around telling me to beware the dragon. This should be unnerving, and it might've been except that the only thing I can do is mentally complete their statements with, "--that sits on your doorstep. He eats little boys. Puppy dogs' tails...beeeeg fat snails. Pull the string! Pull the string!" I'm not sure what this says about me.
Anyway, final boss largely went down like a chump. (Twice, actually, because the game crashed immediately after the first kill.) I feel like spamming low-level spells shouldn't be the most reliable way to kill things, but it pretty consistently was.
I didn't kill Paarthurnax. He failed to betray me or do anything particularly heinous. Bite me, Delphine.
I gather the game doesn't have a definitive ending, so calling it quits here. Killing the villain's enough for me, thanks (really, I was over the game a while ago). I didn't bother to resolve the civil war plot and have no real interest in going back to do so. Pretty sure I've made my impressions plain by now. It's wonderful eye candy and exploration is a lot of fun. Actually attending to the quests and dungeons are significantly less so. There are worse to spend your time, but it pretty solidly cemented the misgivings I developed about Bethesda during Fallout 3. Skyrim just happens to look a helluva lot better and not shit all over a setting I like.
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Star Ocean 2 Precis Solo: Fuck. Indy. Not finishing this.
Dragon warrior 2 GBC: yaaaay...
Sometimes I just want something really generic.
And like Shining in the darkness, I'm actually surprised! Game is not all that bad!
Could it be a... 4/10?!?!?
- Status spells are all very effective, cheap and cool to use in battle, something you don't really see in Dragon Quest 1/3/4/5/6/7/8 (I haven't played 9) I love it.
- You can only target enemy groups but the AI is totally awesome about this and always makes the smartest choices.
- Games were all about cryptic hints back then, but I've figured out most of it so far without going mad / using a faq.
- When you get the boat the entire world opens up, which is kinda cool. There's only one place that seems hidden behind stupid mountains.
- For now I haven't seen any of those annoying double acting Dragon Quest bosses, and I'm already near the end of the game. I think.
- Very good treasures/item progression
The beginning is total BS though. You're alone and have to look for the first other PC, who's also looking for you. So you go all around the continent and always miss him, have to backtrack constantly, etc, before finally meeting him.
Recruiting the third PC is also a very annoying task.
And the worst part about it is that it's slow as hell, typical for NES games. Everything would be a lot better at 300% speed.
Does anyone know if the itemcasts have infinite uses?
Edit: Oh yes, I forgot about the racist robots from SaGa 2.
They just beat Venus. Robots don't need beauty or love.
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FE10 - Shitty person playthrough continues! As does the carnage. I'm currently doing the pathsplit stuff. Fiona is finally a good PC! Astrid is not totally awful. Got Tormod though. Oh gawd he's bad. :(
Death count: Leo, Laura, Oscar, Nephenee, Boyd, Jill, Heather, Rolf, Haar, Titania (just died on the mansion!). On the plus side, I got OLIVER! Oliver for Titania is a fair trade.
Fun thing about this playthrough is that because I didn't use any of the good Greil Mercs much, they are all underlevelled and not very good in Part 4. I mean, they are fine, just not what I'm used to. Leaves me with taking more risks with them than they can withstand.
I think Lyre is the best of the three terrible PCs.
Oh boy!
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I didn't kill Paarthurnax. He failed to betray me or do anything particularly heinous. Bite me, Delphine.
Hearing the greybeard dude bitch you out for taking the other option is the only time I ever felt guilty about doing something evil in Skyrim. This probably speaks volumes considering my first step after murdering Ulfric was to strip his clothes and put them on a mannequin in my basement, then settle his naked body just so that his successor had his head on his crotch
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Fenrir A: Algol works on Indalecio, just let him use divine wave at point blank range. B: If you don't want to go that option, get the magic rasp, load up on elemental defense and try to outslug him. Barrier should hit him pretty easily, and you should have stolen bunny shoes by now. C: Play Front Mission 5.
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Dark Souls: I blame the music tourney for this terrible life decision I've made.
Started as a knight, dicked around in the undead burg for a couple hours. Eventually I wind up with a couple spare humanity, so I figure I'll see what happens when you use it. Oh hey, there are new marks on the ground now. "Summon phantom?" Sure, what the hell, let's see what that does. Dude shows up wearing imposing demon armor, takes off towards unexplored regions. "Oh hey, there was a scary-looking enemy down those stairs that I didn't want to approach before, probably be easier to deal with with two people." *guest one-shots the heavy knight* "Oh." Run up onto a bridge, music starts up so this must be a boss fight. There's a health meter and everything! "Well, there's a ladder here, so I'm clearly supposed to climb up and do plunging atta--" *guest one-shots the boss* "...Oh."
Yeah, I guess I shouldn't do that. As much as Dark Souls surely doesn't deserve mercy, it's kind of silly to have someone else basically play it for you.
Incidentally, I assume Solaire is the "Sunbro" of legend?
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Yes he is.
You can try bosses without being human just to get the hang of it, then summon if you're having trouble.
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Dark Souls: I blame the music tourney for this terrible life decision I've made.
You're welcome. :smug for no reason:
Incidentally, I assume Solaire is the "Sunbro" of legend?
He is the best. (http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/Fudozukushi/Other/S68Pu.png)
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SRWZ2: Finally started a replay now that Saisei-hen is on the horizon. It's really quick going thus far; stage 18 and counting. Had some trouble with the SR point on stage 15 (nighttime battle at the start of the Geass/Wing/00/Getter/etc route), but that was my own fault for using underleveled units in hopes of building kill counts. Finally got Zero's ace bonus, expanding the AoE for his tactics bonuses from "big" to "WTF", so that should help matters going forward.
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Been playing through three games regularly.
Skyrim - What main story? I ditched that as soon as I could. I aligned myself with the thief stone and headed to Riften to partake in some of the games more polite-yet-underhanded groups: The Thieves Guild. I was coasting through those quest until thery gave me that ultimate key and told me to return it to some shrine...
Screw that. I am now a master thief, but my pickpocketing skill could use some loving. I have since ditched that quest line as well and have been wandering aimlessly looking for more undiscovered areas. Oh, and I got this boss ass sword that freezes bitches when I hack them.
Dragon Quest 6 - Got this gem for Christmas and I am enjoying it more then recent DQ handhelds I think. I enjoyed the class system from 7 switch I assume got it from this game, so yeah it's fun. I'm in or around the last area of the game, but I still don't have the hero class. I might grind until I unlock that. Lizzie is awesome.
Disgaea 3 - Beaten! The main game was easy which was my fault. I grinded too much in the item world and that's all you need to know. The bonus dungeons bumped the levels up considerably, so that's my next challenge. Mister Bigster went down without much of a fight, but Salvatore's levels are almost as much as Mao's and Almaz's. I need to get the other MCs levels on par. Currently those two are in the 290s while everyone else is 160 or lower.
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Enchanted Arms- Finished.
Hoookay. Kinda of two minds of this game. It's true that it's aggressively average, but only because it averages out to it. There are some good points, there are bad points.
The plot is basically ripped off the Naruto/Sasuke plot and molds itself around it. It's kinda sad in a way, but actually does it better in some respects. The cast really hounds the main character about his decision to save the Sasuke-equivilent, and to his character's credit he suffers massive swings of legitimate self-doubt about his decision. His convictions, of course, win out in a believable (if cliche) way, whereas Naruto... kinda skims the surface of both of those and never really focuses on anything. Some of the character arcs are boring and predictable though. You actually sort of feel bad for Infinity at the end, and the game actually acknowledges that! It was a surprising touch.
Also has an enjoyable epilogue! You go, Raigar.
The whole cast has an odd common sense about them, which is endearing. They work well together as a group... Mostly well on their own, except for Yuki, who can die in a fire.
Atsuma has the above plot stuff going for him. It's nice to see a main get called out on how stupid he is on a consistant basis, and it doesn't always work out for him! (Only most of the time). Otherwise though... meh. He works for what he is, but not really good otherwise.
Karin's characterization, again, is so inconsistant she's almost human. While generally sticking to her spunky, tsundere princess type, she runs a gamut of emotions and responses in the right situations that really could be mistaken for actual character if looked at it the wrong way, but she really does grow on you.
Raigar: Bro. Total bro. Probably the best of the lot. Has the usual duty/personal life issues of his ilk, but it's done well in his case. Certain aspects aren't exactly explained (like how exactly he got engaged to Sayaka), but thats okay. Enough is generally stated that you can draw your own conclusions. Also the luckiest guy in the world in that he's apparantly been surrounded by beautiful women his whole life. Serves a cute princess, learned under a hot master, engaged to a hot swordgirl. Enough to make you want him dead, but he's such a bro you're okay with it.
Yuki: So bad. So bad. Her intro was pretty cool, but she turns out to be so one-note and boring that you just wish any of the logical NPC candidates (looking at you, Sayaka) could have joined the party to replace her. At least good at random slaying.
Gameplay was good. Gets a bit rote after a while, but it's never frustrating or cumbersome (battles have a handy fastforward button). There's maybe one good boss battle in the game (Sayaka) and the side-bosses I fought (the God Orbs, the Elemental Beasts) didn't put up much of a fight when I got to them. It does good things but doesn't quite use what it does to it's fullest potential, which is sad, but it's still enjoyable.
But... it's... somehow a game that could have benefitted from more partysplit. You get a Pokemon game's worth of golems to play around with, but after the party jumps to 4 human members about a third into the game, there's really only two or three points where you need to fill out your party with them since humans are LIGHTYEARS ahead of golems. I used maybe 3 of the... 3-4 dozen I had in my inventory at the end of the game.
All in all, yeah, it averages out to meh, but there's enough there to get actual opinions and feelings about. Which is all I can ask for, really. Better than, say, AI2 where it's just a blur of meh and grey and whogivesashit. Not sure how to classify it. 5/10 for now, maybe 6/10 later on, or I'll kick other shit out of 5/10. We'll see.
Probably Growlanser 2 next after I finish Heavy Rain.
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Dark Souls: Bell gargoyle down. I feel good about this taking only four tries considering it was the first real boss I've fought. I kind of feel like I'm cheating using the drake sword, but fuck it, it's Dark Souls, it does not deserve mercy.
Worst moment so far: losing nine humanity trying to kill that horrible thing in the blacksmith's basement (I was two steps from retrieval when he killed me the second time). Augh.
Also, I find ranged weapons kinda terrible to deal with in this game. I can never fucking tell where the crossbow bolts are going to go, what with it being dependent on where you PC's facing and that not always being crystal clear depending on the camera angle and also the PC tends to block your sight of exactly where the bolt is traveling and augh. There's not even a rudimentary aiming system, is there?
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Dark Souls: Bell gargoyle down. I feel good about this taking only four tries considering it was the first real boss I've fought. I kind of feel like I'm cheating using the drake sword, but fuck it, it's Dark Souls, it does not deserve mercy.
Worst moment so far: losing nine humanity trying to kill that horrible thing in the blacksmith's basement (I was two steps from retrieval when he killed me the second time). Augh.
Also, I find ranged weapons kinda terrible to deal with in this game. I can never fucking tell where the crossbow bolts are going to go, what with it being dependent on where you PC's facing and that not always being crystal clear depending on the camera angle and also the PC tends to block your sight of exactly where the bolt is traveling and augh. There's not even a rudimentary aiming system, is there?
Regular bows get aiming but crossbows don't.
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Masoukishin 2 ROE- Finally, all 3 routes completed. Due to my sickness in the past week, it took me a while to get this all done. Now should I work on unlocking the omake or move on to something else?
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Regular bows get aiming but crossbows don't.
Ah well. Of course, it probably also would've helped if I'd, y'know, remembered R3 locks onto targets within a certain range. It definitely would've been good to remember before I went to the trouble of killing basement demon in melee. Ah well.
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Dark Souls: Bell gargoyle down. I feel good about this taking only four tries considering it was the first real boss I've fought. I kind of feel like I'm cheating using the drake sword, but fuck it, it's Dark Souls, it does not deserve mercy.
Worst moment so far: losing nine humanity trying to kill that horrible thing in the blacksmith's basement (I was two steps from retrieval when he killed me the second time). Augh.
Also, I find ranged weapons kinda terrible to deal with in this game. I can never fucking tell where the crossbow bolts are going to go, what with it being dependent on where you PC's facing and that not always being crystal clear depending on the camera angle and also the PC tends to block your sight of exactly where the bolt is traveling and augh. There's not even a rudimentary aiming system, is there?
Regular bows get aiming but crossbows don't.
That seems... the exact opposite of how it should go, if you were to pick only one of the two.
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Z2: I'm retarded. The way I was tackling stage 20 wasn't working at all, so I figured I'd go back to the beginning....only to discover I hadn't hardsaved since the end of 17. D'oh!
Orcs Must Die: Five-skulled Lunch Break in Nightmare. Wasn't too bad, really; there's nowhere to put a mace, true, but narrow entryways are perfect for Brimstone and Grinders, and a well-placed thunderstorm thins out the orcs well enough for paladins to deal with.
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Dark Souls: Lower Undead Burg -> The Depths. Capra demon was horrifying and must've taken me something like a dozen tries. Most of these ended without me even reaching the stairs. Jesus what a clusterfuck of a fight. So after that ordeal I guess I can't complain too much about Gaping Dragon being a joke of a boss. Damned if that isn't one of the freakiest boss designs I've ever seen, though.
Blighttown looms, resplendent with all the horror of a world without guardrails.
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Dark Souls: Lower Undead Burg -> The Depths. Capra demon was horrifying and must've taken me something like a dozen tries. Most of these ended without me even reaching the stairs. Jesus what a clusterfuck of a fight.
Hahahahaha.
Blighttown looms, resplendent with all the horror of a world without guardrails.
The best part is the platforms that are so small your model's feet aren't actually on them.
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Guide to Capra Demon
Are you alive two seconds after entering room?
| |
Yes No
| |
Grats! You win! Reload
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Pretty much.
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Dark Souls: The only good thing about Blighttown is that the residents are even more prone to jumping off bridges than I am.
Oh, but I actually cleared out the asylum before going there. Stray Demon made me wish for a zoom out button. No screen has ever held this much ass. You can't hide from it! The only possible strategy is to stay behind him and jam a sword up his anus. I wish I was kidding. The moment the screen holds anything other than GIANT DEMON ASS you are probably going to die.
Vaguely embarassed at dying four times to Quelaag given how simple and obvious the proper strategy is there. At least one of those deaths I blame on GIANT SPIDERGIRL ASS blocking the camera when I was trying to navigate between pools of lava.
I'm just saying, someone on staff must have a fetish for spreading detailed abomination ass palettes all over the screen.
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FF 4 Hats of Light: So just got an Emo Legendary Hero to Join...or at least, the last ounce of Light left in his soul as we battle his own inner emo....
...again, this is the kind of stuff I'd expect to see in a DRagon Quest, not an FF game. An FF game would be more likely to explain what's wrong with him, and your characters go to find something to raise his spirits. A Dragon Quest would just create a filler dungeon to literally say "YOU'RE FIGHTING HIS DARKNESS BECAUSE WE CAN'T TELL A GOOD STORY."
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El Cid: You sound careful and observant enough.
You'll probably go up to the four kings or the final boss! You might even beat them!
Super: I've tried Option B before and still couldn't win.
Barrier is cool but very slow and Indy moves all over the place. Plus it makes me get hit by Divine Wave all the time (Not that it ever does any damage, but it slows the battle down. Really wish I could use long range skills without having Precis move right next to the enemy)
The PS2 is kinda unavailable so FM5 is out for now.
Dragon Warrior 2: Finished.
Remember when I said that I could find where to go and what to do on my own? That didn't last. The lategame is 100% ridiculous with the five crests and evil statue stuff.
The final boss has very high stats and feels completely luck based (there's a very good chance you might die even with a perfect strategy) This is exactly like all those other Dragon Warrior final bosses I don't like (-> DQ3/4r/5/6 final bosses) First time against him he did Big MT Spell 2x in a row, everyone pretty much died. At least he doesn't get doubleacting, and he's pretty much the only boss in the game.
AT least the Cave to Rhone was the highlight of the game, with good random formations and maddening dungeon design. Defeat, Sleep, Surround and Stopspell all saw a lot of use. I had to go get 3 heal shields, one for every character, just for the free healing.
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*Whips* Less talking, more getting a PS2 for FM5.
Indalecio's divine wave at full HP isn't very threatening if you have equipped for evasion. I think you can flat out petrify him before ToT.
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Dark Souls: Today's first boss was Ceaseless Discharge, which sounds so much like a venereal disease that I refuse to believe the programmers weren't aware when they named it. I already knew the gimmick so it wasn't even a fight (although it WAS hilarious). I'll try and fight fair if I ever replay this just because the design, man, what the hell is that thing? Dark Souls has some pretty crazy boss designs, they deserve to be seen more than ten seconds (unless it's more giant demon ass).
I also refuse to believe Iron Golem is a Dark Souls boss. He must've snuck in from a Gust game after they fired him for being too easy. I even walked into that fight injured because someone had just invaded me (I ran into the boss room to escape the invader, who wasn't really threatening--he totally should've kicked me off when I ran past him on the bridge, missed opportunity there, buddy--but I could barely scratch him and dammit, I had a boss to fight). He threw something at me. It hurt a little. Then I poked him in the ankle until he died. What a lamer.
Sif was decent, though. Took a lot of blocking and prodding (and a couple deaths) to find a safe window. Well, one of the safe windows. There was obviously another I wasn't using--once or twice I survived the whirlwind attack by being right under Sif by sheer chance, but fuck if I'm deliberately trying to arrange that position when that attack can one-shot me. As with perhaps too many other fights, it ended with me miscalculating, getting stuck under the enemy, and panic-stabbing 'til I was out of stamina and the boss more or less coincidentally happened to be dead.
Presently running around in full stone armor set, which is pretty great (and perhaps more importantly looks fabulous) but doesn't seem to be upgradeable? I have to pump endurance a ton to use it, but hell, I need that anyway (I've largely ignored magic, outside of getting the basic pyromancy stuff with some spare souls).
(Completely random aside that occurs to me now: I never got rid of that random wall tentacle halfway down Blighttown, and I recall it was guarding some shinies. When I walked up to slash at it, it knocked me into the abyss, and ranged attacks didn't do anything. I left assuming there'd be some event trigger getting rid of it later, but evidently not. Hopefully it wasn't blocking anything cool? Because damned if I want to go back there.)
Anyway...some odds and ends to knock out and then Anor Londo, land of Amazing Chest, awaits. Also why did I let you out of jail Lautrec. What a jerk.
EDIT: Also, I massacred a family of hapless mushroom people today. I am a monster. I would've left 'em alone, but Pa took a swing at me when I tried to gank their treasure. It was all downhill from there.
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Final Fantasy XIII-2: Pokemon Edition
Gotta catch 'em all! Basically, it's FF13, but with more stuff to do and Monster-recruiting.
The addition of Monster PCs makes the "Party Composition is the most important factor (and ignore things like what skill to use)" a much more interesting gameplay focus. With more options to consider when furiously switching Paradigms, the game is a lot more engaging.
Also, I can put an Orange Newsboy Cap on a Cait Sith.
Time Travel plot is fun and goes in the direction of "It's MAGICAL Time Travel, don't worry about how it works too much" that reminds me a bit of Chrono Trigger. It also allows for some awesome sequence-breaking! Character-wise, Serah is significantly more interesting when you get to decide most of her dialogue choices. The Tidus-clone, Noel, is just kinda there for now, but he's inoffensive. And apart from those two, you don't have any other PCs... just Monsters. So you have 3 PCs from the moment you catch your first Cait Sith.
Both PCs have access to the same 3 jobs (Commando, Ravager, Sentinel) from the beginning, and have to purchase the other three when they level up their Crystarium (which no longer has arbitrary Level Caps!!!!!!!!!!!!). Notably, Serah can unlock Medic and Saboteur from her first level up, while Noel can unlock Synergist and Medic. So there's a little bit of innate customization there, in addition to each PC's stat gains (Serah's innately better at Magic, Noel's better physically). And then you complement them with a set of 3 Monsters from your Pokedex. You can switch between these monsters just like switching Paradigms, though all three share the same Health bar (damage percentage carries over).
Overall fun, though the main villain is the biggest tool I've ever seen in Japanese media... and that's pretty impressive all things considered.
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Yaay Djinn. Nice read~
**
I has a Silver Moon and a Spriggan Suit. I has my Dragon Shield. I has Rozario Impale and a Suzaku Junior. Asellus gets Asura, Dragon Shield and Rozario Impale, Lute has the Silver Moon/Triple Thrust and Rouge gets the Spriggan Suit. My L3 Combination attacks are doing 9000~ Life is good~
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Needs more guns. All the guns. 10 guns. 2 guns each. The best.
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I will use that strategy the day Deflect becomes a gun ability.
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Presently running around in full stone armor set, which is pretty great (and perhaps more importantly looks fabulous) but doesn't seem to be upgradeable? I have to pump endurance a ton to use it, but hell, I need that anyway (I've largely ignored magic, outside of getting the basic pyromancy stuff with some spare souls).
Nope, Stone's not upgradable.
(Completely random aside that occurs to me now: I never got rid of that random wall tentacle halfway down Blighttown, and I recall it was guarding some shinies. When I walked up to slash at it, it knocked me into the abyss, and ranged attacks didn't do anything. I left assuming there'd be some event trigger getting rid of it later, but evidently not. Hopefully it wasn't blocking anything cool? Because damned if I want to go back there.)
You don't see any damage being done to it because it's so darn huge the health bar is off-screen.
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Needs more guns. All the guns. 10 guns. 2 guns each. The best.
I like to have my guns point straight up in Resonance of Fate. Those cocky fucks on the top level are done judging me.
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I was actually talking about SaGa Frontier, but I will probably have to get back to RoF one day to appease the inner Rob.
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I have guns but I don't know what to do with them! I currently have them on White Rose for some unfathomable reason~ Heat Bazooka and Thunderbolt I think. Rouge also has one but I dunno if he's a gunner~
I will use that strategy the day Deflect becomes a gun ability.
:)
Edit - Yaay the mermaid rejoined ^_^
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Rouge is one of the best gunners in SaGa Frontier. Awesome learning rate, skill list and growths with that. Rule of thumb, if you have a mage, you can't go wrong with running a dual gunner/mage build.
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Guns are like the best weapon in the game. Gun spam FTW.
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Guns actually have a very shaky start and never really stand out for crowd control. Swords are more versatile throughout and defensively better, but require a bit more knowledge on the system (since the skill learning is more obtuse). The ST dominance on guns doesn't start until your gunner learns -at least- TwoGun anyhow, so the biggest draw of doing a mage/gunner is covering the versatility issue while not losing any of the stats mages like -and- getting stats magic doesn't give.
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Thunderbolt and HeatBazooka aren't actually "guns", but rather heavy arms that have unique attacks. They're still useful (particularly for mystics and mecs) but you can't learn gun abilities with them.
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Shadow the Hedgehog: 6 endings down! 4 to go!
Game is so much faster if you can do a lot of neutral missions along the way, given the "Get to the end of the stage!" is generally faster than "kill x number of guys!" or "hit x number of switches!" and such.
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(Completely random aside that occurs to me now: I never got rid of that random wall tentacle halfway down Blighttown, and I recall it was guarding some shinies. When I walked up to slash at it, it knocked me into the abyss, and ranged attacks didn't do anything. I left assuming there'd be some event trigger getting rid of it later, but evidently not. Hopefully it wasn't blocking anything cool? Because damned if I want to go back there.)
You don't see any damage being done to it because it's so darn huge the health bar is off-screen.
Whoops, forgot that what the squido is guarding is a Pyromancy scroll. Though you probably have it now or looked it up.
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Computer's been flat-out dead since this Sunday, so I'm having to borrow another comp and actually post on the forums for once. Anyway.
Disgaea 4: People other than Desco actually exist playthrough
Yeah, I've put this off long enough--at least as far as having paused in the middle of reincarnation-releveling my generics. Needless to say, with levels more spread out than in a Main Cast Only game, I've had to pull some interesting tricks to get through a lot of C7's fights. It's notable that I have used a minimum of Item World, and have only stopped to level generics, none of the main cast. And oddly fitting, they all hit L50 or so right before 7-8 (Death King Hugo's fight). I'm probably underleveled, so there's going to be boss respect on my part at large (and I may have to stop to grind at a later point if things start jumping up in level again), but anyway, current cast (and some generics') impressions! (I'll go more in-depth if I make my own stat topic)
Valvatorez: He's good at long fights, that much is for certain. That is, if he can survive to them. Seems like everyone has glass cannon syndrome at this rate, and it hurts in Val's case. Cross Demon Rush gives him some much-needed killpower, but the point is that his usefulness is entirely dependent on when he's deployed in the fight. Absorption might change that a bit if I can funnel him some kills, but given how early he was targeted and killed off in 7-8, not sure how well he'll fare in later maps.
Fenrich: Awesome when Val's around, decent when he's not. He's largely a single-target attacker who benefits massively from his first Evility--and is elementally-dependent for the most part. I went fist route with him, and while he's nicely evasive, he also has problems inflicting damage outside of counter wars and Dual Canine Fist. Not too bad, but could be better--if, for example, I could find a way to keep Val alive more often.
Fuuka: Was mediocre for a good bit of time, even with her amazing defensive Evility--largely due to accuracy woes and her damage being okayish. Then she hit level 50, and R.I.P. gives her some much-wanted ST killing power and range(and axes are a thing to behold in Dis4). Looks to be getting better now, looks hopeful.
Desco: Even without abusing Descozilla fusion, she's damn effective. Solid evilities, good stat bases, and a good pair of area attacks make her always useful to say the least, but best in a crowd-control situation. A bit lacking in single-target capability, and I'm not sure that'll be rectified at all, but her stats are good enough and she synergizes well enough with a Beastmaster that I don't really care.
Emizel: Kid honestly has nothing he needs to prove, he's been outright amazing through all of C7 in particular. Access to spells of every element, plus the consistently best damage has him as MVP so far. Requires care in his use, but holy shit he will absolutely wreck anything that has a weakness.
Vulcanus (no relation to the fat mustached one from the first game): No real surprise, she's the worst PC so far in terms of base abilities. Hell, her stat tendencies even easily paint her as a healer more than a gunner. Maybe it's a prerequisite of non-generic angel PCs? However, her minor usefulness with guns has led to one interesting detail with her--she has flat-out awesome synergy with the Heart Cannon due to this; positioning is key here, but Support Attack is one of the best things in this game, especially since it lets me avoid grinding.
Death King Hugo: Yeah, not a PC, but worth consideration given that he's neither Axel nor one of the many souped-up generics in C7, and at least for me, his fight was pretty damn good. AI's stupid (but Disgaea AI, not sure you can say much more than that,) but gets credit for moving into the fight while I was still dealing with Onmyo Monks and cleaning up stray Samurai. Overall, pending on durability respect, I'd see him as either a Middle/Heavy or a Heavy. The bouncers do inflate his defensive stats, though, so it's hard to really say, but even without them he's got support credit and the ability to completely nuke anyone's MP in one shot. Spoiler, perhaps? His music is the best battle theme I've heard in the game so far, at the very least.
Warriors: Tier 3 Warriors are a thing to behold. Two words: Demon Annihilation. First A-rank skill you can get, and reincarnation releveling can get you most of the needed Mana for that. Aura Pyramid use can feed you the rest. Fails against the fire-resistant, but everything else, it's awesome. Would love Dragons' first optional Evility for the sizeable damage boost.
Valkyries: Valks go one of two directions with their weapons. They either go for single-target attacks (Sword or Spear) or ranged crowd control (Bow). I'd honestly say they're flat-out worse for raw power than Warriors, but that's not saying too much when they've got their own benefits (this does nicely illustrate the gap between B and A rank skills, however). Shield Mastery isn't too bad, has its uses more with counter wars. Throw it on a Nekomata for fun.
Skulls/Witches: Your magic users. Come in four maingame varieties, this is readily obvious anyway. Skulls are power mages, Witches can cast longer. Due to this, Skulls have honestly seen more use for me so far. Omega spells and above are very postgame, but Giga Fire/Ice/Wind/Star are useful enough on their own right. As for their higher evilities...a...haha...ha...oh god where would one ever find 30,000 mana.
Beastmasters: For the most part, they're pretty good. Combine the weapon options of a Warrior and Valkyrie, and give them easy synergy with a number of monster types, and they're generally useful. Their Evilities and spells are all about boosting monsters, and throwing one next to Desco has easy benefits. Power obviously goes down if you're not fielding any monsters, what with their weapon options opening up later than the classes they draw them from.
Shamans: status status status status. They have literally every single status and statdown spell in the game. If you work with that, they can be useful, but they're an absolute pain to level given their notable lack of raw damage-dealing ability. As a sidenote, Dis4 statuses can't be stacked, so you can't pull off the sleep/paralysis+poison craziness that dominated Dis2.
Archers: Archers are, needless to say, impressive. Not as far as raw damage ability, but more for accessible crowd control combined with Support Attack usefulness. Really, you're not giving them spears, ever. Just like you're not giving a gunner fists ever. That aside, Spear Surfing and Doppelganger are good enough to go by, and Accel Shot has some usefulness.
Gunners: Read above about support attack and fists. That, however, is the only use gunners really have aside from sheer range (Range 6 attacks are an awesome thing). Throw one in a support attack chain, watch the other guy crit (autocrit if you grabbed the other Evility) every other attack and do that much more damage off of it. They're good at what they do, they just don't do too much.
Heavy Knights: Try not to think of them as a class. Try to think of them as a semi-mobile decoy with the added benefit of Throw 6. They're too slow to really do much in a fight, so I don't give them much credit.
Mage Knights: They're Emizel-lite for the most part, trading in a lot of raw power for the ability to apply it over multiple targets, the ability to use swords, and better durability. Nevermind the elemental affinity spells they're known for, they're solid in general.
Samurai: Physical glass cannons who focus on single-target damage. Give them swords, that base Evility is wasted on bows. Mind's Eye would be a nice one to give to any particularly evasive character, though.
Prinnies: Have Fuka throw them. Enough said.
Nekomata: Pretty fun monster if you can work with them. The ability to counter -anything- gives them some benefits. They'd love to have something like Shield Mastery, though, just to make their counters that much better.
Succubi: Notable largely as a sort of red mage who gets something from all pools (Fire, Healing, and some status) and can actually use them all decently, special notice goes to the capturable Empusa in 5-4 who starts with, of all thing, Giga Ice. Yes, you can capture her multiple times. Yes, that is the sound of the game crying in agony from reincarnation abuse.
Reapers: Something tells me that someone in NIS wasn't pleased with how Reapers were in Disgaea 3, because they've gone from an averageish magic-using type to "holy shit" in terms of usefulness. Very little's actually required on their part to make them good; their base Evility lets them destroy enemy SP pools without even half a thought. Now consider how important SP is in this game.
Tree Giants: Haven't gotten any yet, but I can already tell from 7-7 that their regen has been nerfed from 10% MaxHP to 10% Current HP.
Dragons: Largely unimpressive aside from their insanely expensive first Evility and any toilet humor gathered from their first skill. Move 3 is still a giant pain in the ass to work around. Oh, and the worst affinity growth rate I have ever seen.
Baciels: Single-stat attacks with gun range make them the strongest Support Attack candidate in the game. ...were it not for that 3 Move. Their specials are largely unimpressive as well.
Chickens: Trolls. Pure unmitigated trolls. How else can you explain an auto-Silence aura and the fact that every single thing they use inflicts status of some kind, including the one that kills your EXP gains?!
Haven't messed around enough with the rest to pass a verdict on them, but I admit this is seeming easier to stat topic than Dis3 already, if due to actual grind maps. Might see endgame as different pending on how much grinding I'll need to do to catch up, since I'm definitely underleveled right now (went into 7-8 at level 50-52 with Rank 18 items.)
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Divine Wave pretty much cannot hit my Precis ever, but it slows her down a lot, leaving him enough time to leave and cast one spell (or, most of the time, cast 3 other Divine Waves)
Petrification feels a bit cheap. I'll maybe go to the cave of trials later to get more levels / better equipment. But I won't try fighting him without the limiter.
Racist Robot SaGa: Beat Odin.
Money is useless now, so there's no use fighting random battles.
OFFENSE OFFENSE OFFENSE has worked well so far, but any boss with good MT magic could make my team explode. My robots pretty much have 0 healing and 0 magic defense. I hope I get some magic boosting items for my robots, because if the final boss is as good as in the original SaGa 2 I'm screwed.
Lego Harry Pooter 5-7: Playing with my girlfriend.
There's pretty much no challenge anymore ever in those games (... Not that I miss the shaky platforming from Lego Batman), they're just collect-a-thons. This is still pretty good for screwing around with someone who likes the HP series, but I wouldn't play the singleplayer.
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Dark Souls: You know, as challenging as this game is, I generally would not call it unfair. But Anor Londo sniper tagteam? That's fucking bullshit.
Anyway, at Ornstein and Smough. I'd been warned this fight is exceptionally tough, so I figured I'd bring Solaire with me (because I've not actually teamed up with him before). Go human, get killed by invader. Go human, get killed by invader. Go human, get killed by invader. I see I'm going to be playing in offline mode for a while. Wandered into the boss room a couple times anyway just to see what I was dealing with. Ornstein obviously needs to die first. He's harder to dodge and I can't really get away from the guy, so there's zero chance of me chipping down his friend as long as he's around. Problem is, he's also mister lightning face and my lightning spear isn't doing much more than scratching him.
So I figure I need to make a new weapon before going back in there. Despite being this far in the game, I don't know a whole lot about weapon upgrading and traits. First question, because it's been bugging me a while: the lightning spear (as with the drake sword before it) evidently doesn't get any damage bonuses from user strength/dexterity. Is this the case for all elemental weapons, or just these unique found ones? Otherwise...any materials I should be extremely careful about exhausting due to them being rare/finite? I don't suppose any special qualities can be grafted onto shields and armor as well? I'm still running around with a grass crest shield +5, because the stamina regen boost is invaluable and I can't really see swapping that out.
Also cleared out Ariamis after getting sick of Anor Londo...although I didn't kill Priscilla. Not going to attack someone who's just standing there politely asking me to leave. That's not how I roll, man. Especially when it's a giant dragon girl with a pleasant voice.
Have I mentioned this game has the most terrifying mimics ever? This game has the most terrifying mimics ever.
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Fenrir:
Something I noticed when soloing Iseria with Precis(Without Algol of course...and on Galaxy...mostly because "OMGWTFBBQ BOWMAN SOLOS ISERIA" was kinda an SO2 board meme at the time and I got sick of it...) is that Alley-Oop, disconcertingly, has stupidly good milage against the fast trucking enemies, because once the actual throw goes off it can't miss. It can be blocked...but not physically fail to hit the enemy.
I remember it helping a ton there, so it may help some against Indy?
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Dark Souls: You know, as challenging as this game is, I generally would not call it unfair. But Anor Londo sniper tagteam? That's fucking bullshit.
It actually used to be worse before they patched it. The knockback would make you inexplicably move sideways and slide off the ledges.
So I figure I need to make a new weapon before going back in there. Despite being this far in the game, I don't know a whole lot about weapon upgrading and traits. First question, because it's been bugging me a while: the lightning spear (as with the drake sword before it) evidently doesn't get any damage bonuses from user strength/dexterity. Is this the case for all elemental weapons, or just these unique found ones? Otherwise...any materials I should be extremely careful about exhausting due to them being rare/finite? I don't suppose any special qualities can be grafted onto shields and armor as well? I'm still running around with a grass crest shield +5, because the stamina regen boost is invaluable and I can't really see swapping that out.
Fire and Lightning weapons (as well as some unique ones) don't get stat scaling, although their base damage is ridiculously high so it's a moot point unless you're fighting an enemy nigh-immune to them like Ornstein.
Did you get the Large Ember from the Depths? Take it to the blacksmith right before Sen's Fortress and you can upgrade +5 weapons to +6 or Raw (pick "Modify Weapon" in the blacksmith menu). Raw+5 is pretty easy to make at this point and would probably serve you well enough. Put it on a high-damage weapon like a halberd and you should be good to go.
As far as rare ingredients go, Dragon Scales are rather hard to get, and Demon Titanite to a lesser extent. And don't use anything with "slab" in the name unless you're really sure you want that upgrade.
Have I mentioned this game has the most terrifying mimics ever? This game has the most terrifying mimics ever.
Attacking chests is good for your health! Also you can throw Lloyd's Talisman at them to put them to sleep (and loot them!).
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Orcs Must Die: Into act 3 in Nightmare. Also started on the DLC levels. Double Trouble was pretty simple, but the reverse tower is a bit tricky. I can keep the mobs out of the rift fine, but then they kill the Apprentice and that's not cool.
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FF13-2: Started, about an hour in.
Shale: What's killing you, the fliers or the waves of Fire Giants? Where are you making the choke point at?
double trouble is *HELL* on Nightmare by the way. Oh my fucking god.
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Oh, I'm sure it is. I'd forgotten what a luxury free revives of paladins was.
The problem at the tower was tactics - I've only taken two stabs at it, and both times the kobold sappers and gnolls just blitz through my mace-and-paladin chokepoints and mob me personally. Once I get home I'll take a run at it where I use the setup period before wave 4 to just pull the paladins altogether, drop a few decoys, and camp out at the bottom of the course with a crossbow and lightning ring.
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Your Paladins are going to get pounded bad by the later waves if you aren't there to camp out with ice magic/wind belt attacks. wind magic or overpowered spring traps to push back the hordes are effective there. I also used a lot of arrow wall traps- the bleed damage from the end of the trap weaver is effective against larger targets, and there's a lot of wall space on that map.
Though normal mode Paladins have much faster regen than Nightmare Paladins. It says something that Paladins are still so good on Nightmare.
Edit: If you can manage to five star Hard climb on nightmare, tell me how you did it.
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My strategy for the later waves is lightning ring altfire and lots and lots of maces. I was planning on grinders on the wall and brimstone past the chokepoint to catch kobolds, but if ogres are an issue, arrow walls will probably be better.
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The later waves like to throw 10+ ogres out at you. It gets ugly.
There are a couple of ways to take that map. I never use brimstones myself, prefer to use the wind belt. My setup on normal was... *thinks* Archer/Paladin/Wind/Ice/Fire/Tar/arrows/mace/Ballista
Wind pushes back the big threats on the map, ice handles those fucking fire giants. Ballistas have good range on the map and help deal with the fliers. You can camp out on the bottom- wall of Archers there, couple of Paladins, maybe some barracades to create a narrow chokepoint. The only issue with that is that archers and fliers both are going to kick the shit out of your guardians, and you won't have any room to retreat.
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As far as rare ingredients go, Dragon Scales are rather hard to get, and Demon Titanite to a lesser extent. And don't use anything with "slab" in the name unless you're really sure you want that upgrade.
I used one to max out the lightning spear (which I think was totally worth it, given what it does to anything not named Ornstein).
And yeah, I stab every damn chest I find before trying to open it.
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...Wow, I really thought I'd be stuck there a while. Three things Ornstein doesn't like: lightning defense; Quelaag's sword getting shoved in his face; SUNBRO. Still died once even with all that in order, though. Got overconfident after Ornstein died so quickly. "Oh, Smough's easy to dodge, I don't have to keep my distance!" *electrical surge* "Ohshit I should probably--" *ZAP* "...run..." Oh well, three deaths total isn't bad for this game. You were a magnificent distraction, Solaire, let's do it again sometime~
Oh yeah, how the heck do you get to that chest in the far corner of the painting building? There's no way up from the ground that I can see, and I even took another nervewracking walk across the rafters to see if jumping down was possible and didn't see a place for it.
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The chest on the chandelier? Attack the chandelier chain while walking on the rafters. If that's not it, I don't know what you're talking about.
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Oh yeah, how the heck do you get to that chest in the far corner of the painting building? There's no way up from the ground that I can see, and I even took another nervewracking walk across the rafters to see if jumping down was possible and didn't see a place for it.
Near the door that leads outside on the upper level, you can roll-jump to the area near the statue and roll-jump again to get the chest. But don't bother, it's just a Goddess Blessing or whatever those useless things are called.
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FE10 - Laguz playthrough beaten! Ultimately the hardest maps were probably 3-4 (which was mostly getting used to using 5 laguz + 1 beorc, also Kyza/Lyre sucking) and 3-11 (okay this was legitimately tough). Using six PCs who want Laguz Stones/Gems in endgame involves a bit of juggling but ultimately nothing too bad; it's not optimum but I was still able to Gem the PCs who needed it most, and three of the fights are shortish anyway.
PC notes:
Volug: Easily kill leader (116). Leaning on him heavilly makes the Dawn Brigade chapters notably easier because he's so good. Hell, I halfshifted him for the swarms of 3-12 and he was still outstanding. Got S strike around the end of 1-7 and SS at the very end of 3-6. Eventually lowish str catches up a bit but he's always very good. Nice affinity too, a great candidate for Resolve into invincibility always.
Micaiah and Ike: 89 and 87 kills respectively. They do what they always did. I ended up giving both quite a few stat boosters since I wanted to experience the laguz "raw" which helped, but Ike was speed-screwed so that just cancelled out. Ike had three SS-caliber weapons which was funny! Anyway I mainly used them for some 1-2 range stuff and in Micaiah's case, healing.
Ranulf: 82 kills. Not much to say about Ranulf, he's forced for a while but always good. All his stats are very solid, and cat gauge is really his only weakness. Then endgame rolls around and he doesn't even have that, although of course he does lose his first turn to use a gem (except in E-3). Hit S strike in 3-10 and SS late in 4-5.
Lethe: Also 82 kills. Benefits from being the easiest laguz to build strike level for in the game outside Volug (S in 3-7, SS near the start of 4-4). Cat gauge of course sucks, but she's fast and durable and does get power once she gets rolling.
Janaff and Ulki: Both around 75 kills. We already know how good these guys are. They have Canto, they fly. They don't even really fear bows outside silver. And crossbows of course. Nullify helps there. And Ulki's durability is insane. Janaff isn't quite so amazing in that regard; he just has the best offence of any laguz outside the royals and that says a lot. The best PC in the Greil Mercenary section of part 3 which was also the hardest, so this is worth a lot! They hit S strike around 3-10/3-11 and SS around the start of endgame.
Mordecai: Great strength and defence, doesn't double ever. For a while he's decent but then he starts falling behind Lethe/Ranulf/Janaff/Ulki badly. You can get something out of him with Resolve, at least, but I'm not inclined to respect that too much until part 4 which is a bit too late since tigers in endgame are lol. Hit S strike around 3-11.
Kyza: Also around 40 kills. Not even that much better than Lyre. Somehow this is the second playthrough I used him, too! Complete garbage until he gets some speed, at which point he becomes a cat with a better gauge but with less durability because he doesn't have great evade or great def. Bit more offence except against swordmasters/etc. where he has way less. Garbage for endgame of course. Bad at gaining strike level (hit S in part 4 around the same time as Nealuchi).
Lyre: Around 30 kills. Well, she's more durable than Kyza (better speed) but even worse offence because lolol 22 base attack. She grows out of that thanks to strike level but her offence is never good unless you give her an Energy Drop or two. S strike in 3-10, would have hit SS easily enough in endgame but uh yeah that wasn't happening. Worst cat in every meaningful way.
Nealuchi: ~25 kills. Useful in part 2 since he's so darn durable and has canto, even if he doesn't one-round things. Kinda... stays this way in part 4 honestly, flight and so on is good there.
Muarim and Vika: ~15 kills. Good in part 1, trash in part 4, nothing else new there.
Skrimir: Has a nice slow gauge which is great for part 4. Terrific in his first map, second... is really reliant on getting speed, kinda tempramental as a PC there though good in all other non-speed ways. Endgame neuters his big advantage and I don't see much reason to use him there though if he does gain a lot of speed he's solid.
Giffca, Caineghis: ~13 kills. I dunno, Giffca's very solid (one-rounds almost everything that isn't a red dragon or boss) but kinda forgettable. Nice at one-rounding things like Cover Spirits, at least. Cain is Cain. Giffca with Formshift = scary good. Needs Nasir help for the final battle (both do) but that's about the only complaint.
Nailah, Naesala, Tibarn: ~65 kills, Tibarn had less than the other two. I gave Naesala Nullify for part 4 so he could ruin some shit in the desert, a place he can struggle with at times normally. This let him hit SS strike reasonably in E-1 or E-2 (I forget which) and actually keep up with the other two for attack. Tibarn and Nailah of course dominate their respective part 4 maps (as well as 1-8 and 1-E for Nailah). Nailah lacks Canto but is just completely unkillable, Tibarn's amazing with the 10 move and power and durability, Naesala's the most frail and needs the most growth but still amazing. Hard to rank the royals in the endgame proper, they are top four of course because they have the godmode stats AND the formshift and yeah holy shit in general. This was certainly the easiest endgame ever because they're very likely the four best PCs in it. There are solid arguments for Elincia and maaaybe Jill/Shinon/Rolf (though only one of the latter obviously) drawing in ahead of Naesala but yeah.
Other beorc: Sothe is Sothe. Notably tied the hawks for #6 in kills with 75. Marcia was the next highest beorc at ~40, most important PC in the Crimean chapters due to flight, I master crowned her to own 3-9 hard and it works better than crowning one of the paladins if you're willing to sacrifice her long-term. Jill was also around ~40, canto makes her pretty great in DB part 3 and she was the most important non-Volug PC there certainly.
Casualties of the playthrough were Nolan, Ilyana, and Meg (died in part 1), Haar (died in 2-E trying to solo half the map), Zihark (died in 3-6. Repeatedly. After the third time I didn't reset <.<), Sigrun (with ~30 kills, too, she was really important until her death late in the desert!), Kurth (one-rounded in endgame untransformed), Gareth (ate 94 damage from the final boss, Gareth LITERALLY the best).
It's worth noting there are roughly just enough Olivi Grass storebought to field an entirely laguz army (then of course they're infinitely available late).
Fun fun. I do like the laguz, they legitimately have their own ups and downs compared to beorc and play rather differently while ultimately feeling balanced against them (obviously there's good and bad of both, but you can reasonably compare Janaff/Ulki to high tier humans, Lethe to mid, and Kyza/Lyre to low, for instance... the spectrum's the same). I think using a mix is obviously best, but it was interesting to see what the laguz alone would do.
EDIT: One last random observation I need to record: Blossom on high-level laguz is awesome. They lose nothing from it since they're gaining 1 exp anyway, and their growths skyrocket upwards especially due to how "low" they are to start with. Just BExp them to 99, pop on Blossom for a map, and boom.
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Disgaea 4 - Apparently the game decided to be merciful; C8 and the first half of C9 were a lot less nasty than C7.
Then I run into the Magichange Robot Rape Force in what I think is the last fight of C9.
God damn. Boss there (if she really counts as one like the C7 and C8 ones did) gets credit for her support being able to wipe out eight of my ten party members. Guess I'll try using my Heavy Knight as a decoy, though he's been less and less useful at that as of late. Perhaps it's time to actually spend some of the 7 million HL and pass a More Expensive Stuff bill or two.
Going to have to peg C7 and C8 as my favorite parts of the game so far overall--C7 largely for taking every "storm the castle" trope and making it silly with the increasing groups of miniboss squads, on top of having some of the best map design I've seen in the entire series. C8 was more of a breather chapter mapwise, but I enjoyed it a lot.
Quick cast updates!
Valzy (Lv68): He's gotten better at damage, and he doesn't explode in one hit to -everything- now. Just every other thing. Better in maps where there are either respawning or a large number of enemies, but Cross Demon Rush is giving him some offensive power.
Fenfen (Lv64): Not...really any changes from before. Good when Valvatorez is there, mediocre otherwise. He's fallen in usefulness now that everything has elemental resists.
Fuka (~Lv66): Pringer XX. It's nice, anyway, but at this point my best damage is coming from magic and B/A-rank skills. Always nice to have a useful wide-area attack, though, and it is awesome. Dream Girl's useful still to let her survive a hit or two, and R.I.P. has been her mainstay since the start of C8
Desco (Lv67): Just got Mana Scarcity. Her stats are good enough to deal with her poor skill bases, and she's pretty much the artillery of the group, being one of the only ones to possess good AoE nontyped attacks.
Emizel (Lv65): He's fallen off a bit in effectiveness thanks to C9 enemies largely having 25% resist all. His frailness doesn't show AS much now that just about everyone's getting stomped.
Vulcanus (Lv70): For the count, she's been sidelined since the start of C9, after gaining 5 levels from the C8 boss alone.
C8 boss: Need to make a new save to be able to fight her again at desired levels. Had to support attack abuse in order to get anything out of that fight, really, though thankfully I had a fresh set of reserves to deal with the second phase. Not sure if it counts as a valid formchange, but if so, she's probably the most durable boss in Dis4 yet. (I don't take Heart Cannon abuse against bosses for durability, if only because it gives them all sub-Jeremy durability effectively speaking. It's that broken.)
C9 Boss(?): WHAT THE CRAP IS THIS HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO--*hit by exploding plane--err, magichange bullshit*
Ebelhart (Tier 3 Warrior, Lv60), Adrienne (Tier 3 Beastmaster, Lv69) Demon Annihilation is still awesome. Enough said.
Christy (Tier 3 Valkyrie, Lv65) Around the Moon isn't Demon Annihilation, but it still kills the hell out of things. Bonus points to it being entirely nontyped.
Misha (Tier 3 Samurai, Lv60) Surprisingly, she's been able to keep up, largely through that base Evility. I expect her offense to skyrocket once she gets Soaring Nonuple (B-rank sword skill)
Victoria (Tier 3 Archer, Lv70) Also largely sidelined since the start of C9. That level? Also largely thanks to a massive boost from the end of C8.
Hina (Tier 2 Nekomata, Lv65) Have I mentioned that Cat Strike is awesome? Because it is. No really. Anticipating a rank-up soon, which means more Reincarnation Fun.
[name forgotten] (Tier 2 Mage-Knight, Lv66) She's been hit hard by the lack of exploitable elemental weaknesses by this point in the game. Will probably rank-up soon like Hina, so there may be Giga spells. Was at her peak in C7 and C8.
Willitose (Tier 2 Succubus, Lv63) Another caster hit hard by a lack of exploitable elemental weaknesses. Also likely due for a rank-up.
Sardine Thief (SARDINE THIEF) In your senate, stealing your sardines.
Probably going to try to see if I can stop some of the bullshit early in that fight before it gets out of hand. If not, guess it'll be time for a long-overdue trip through Item World to gain varied equipment and some levels.
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RS 3.12- All the SaGa talks made me boot up this hack again. Installed a bunch of new patches since the last time I played. Also dumped a few difficulty up patches, after finding out how broken is the new stuff.
Consider some character specific event, I'll stick to Red, Gustaf, Grey, Vulcano, and Jenny for the early game. Then replace Grey and Jenny with Final Emperor and Emilia after I am done with their quest. Then kick Vulcano out after I can re-recruit Asellus. This team should do me well until the start of end game.
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FF13-2: Met Hope in the ruins.
Early thoughts: Don't care for the changes made to the system on the whole. Not being able to see your Crystarium is *not* cool, makes it a total crapshoot for where you should stick your points. Randoms being invisible again is also not a good change. Also really wish the goddamn item shop lady would shut the fuck up and just hand me my items without having to click through the dialog. Making jumping/moving objects a button press instead of automatic is also puzzling and augh. Just a lot of little things that FF13 got right that got changed. The sidequests are also shit. Hey instead of a cool fight that's clearly marked on the map, you get to wander around blind and hope you stumble onto the item or the miniboss! The QTE/timed hit stuff irritates me to no goddamn end, but that's more of a personal thing.
The exploration elements feel completely tacked on. FF13's greatest strength was that it was so streamlined, and 13-2 looks to have stepped away from that.
The combat is FF13's again for good or bad (Good in my opinion). Plot looks to be pretty bad, but at least Serah/Noel are engaging.
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RS 3.12- All the SaGa talks made me boot up this hack again. Installed a bunch of new patches since the last time I played. Also dumped a few difficulty up patches, after finding out how broken is the new stuff.
So, are you going to try for the Saruin fight (...and its nine prerequisites) if I may ask?
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The sidequests are also shit. Hey instead of a cool fight that's clearly marked on the map, you get to wander around blind and hope you stumble onto the item or the miniboss!
Remember, there are people who wanted this style of sidequest back. The game finally respects your intelligence by not telling you where to go!
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It seems strange to me to try to appeal to people who didn't like the first game. You know, people who won't buy the sequel anyway...
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FF9 - Grefter convinced me to name all the characters immature NES names. One hour in.
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FF9 - Grefter convinced me to name all the characters immature NES names. One hour in.
Are ASS and POO taken?
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The sidequests are also shit. Hey instead of a cool fight that's clearly marked on the map, you get to wander around blind and hope you stumble onto the item or the miniboss!
Remember, there are people who wanted this style of sidequest back. The game finally respects your intelligence by not telling you where to go!
Sandbox style games are fantastic if done right. FF13 has none of those elements (Wide open world, lots of mobility, variety in what you can do in those sidequests) that would make it effective. FF13 isn't FF6 and attempting to make it that was a bad decision.
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The sidequests are also shit. Hey instead of a cool fight that's clearly marked on the map, you get to wander around blind and hope you stumble onto the item or the miniboss!
Remember, there are people who wanted this style of sidequest back. The game finally respects your intelligence by not telling you where to go!
That was one of the less egregious ways the game didn't respect your intelligence; of course they'd change that one.
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FF13-2: SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BURN IN ETERNAL HELLFIRE WITH SHION, CHOCOBOLINA. STOP GIVING ME THE SAME GODDAMN OBNOXIOUS SPIEL EVERY TIME I NEED TO BUY A PHOENIX DOWN!
I've met Hope for the second time. Gameplay wise I'm... eh. The monsters are a way to let you access all six jobs equally, but I am kind of lukewarm to it so far. Really hoping to run into a SAB monster soon.
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FF9 - Grefter convinced me to name all the characters immature NES names. One hour in.
Are ASS and POO taken?
They must be at least 8 letters so I can delete vowels.
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FF9 - Grefter convinced me to name all the characters immature NES names. One hour in.
Are ASS and POO taken?
They must be at least 8 letters so I can delete vowels.
::Sighs:: Obviously NEB still has a long way to go in your education.
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Putting in votes for UNCLFCKR and CNTLCKER. Also THRILLHO.
~
Dark Souls: Pretty much a comedy of errors today. The plan is to head down the Great Hollow and clear Ash Lake, right? Only I get cursed on the way down (first time this has happened--and no wonder, stone armor gives you like no curse resistance), and I don't have cures. So the game tells me my only choice is to see somebody in New Londo. ...Welp, looks like I'm going to New Londo! After getting uncursed.: "...Hell, while I'm down here I may as well clear this place to the best of my ability." Eventually I reach the second fogwall. "This has to be a boss door. I have almost enough souls for a level. I should go back topside." Unwisely, and in what's to be a depressing pattern for the day, I keep going. Four Kings!
I do better than I would've expected, killing two and having the boss meter at 35-40% before inevitably dying. But going in with only five estus flasks and no real preparation, well, victory was incredibly unlikely. But now I could make a plan! Burn my last demon titanite maxing Quelaag's sword (no regrets), eat some humanity to boost its attack, go in wearing Havel's armor set for maximum tankage (I usually don't use it due to speed penalties), toss Iron Flesh, and just fucking go nuts two-handed on each one before the next can spawn. The Cid has total confidence that this can work! On the way there, turns out I'd forgotten the two ghosts hanging around outside the boss room. My transient curse has worn off and I don't notice this until I've whiffed a couple times and they're cutting me up. Roll away, use transient curse, roll again to use estus flask. I roll into the water. 'kay, done with New Londo for the day.
At some point I'd made a divine weapon because I thought they worked on ghosts. Evidently I was misremembering--they work on the respawning skeletons in the catacombs! So I figure I may as well go there instead. This was pretty painless. Obligatory "Wait, what? Was that a boss?" for Pinwheel goes here. The only reason he lived through one attack sequence was because he ported out at the last second. Afterwards, with ~40,000 souls and three humanity in stock, I really should be jumping back to a bonfire. I don't. The foolishness of this course of action is immediately made apparent when I discover the next dungeon by falling to my death down the entrance. But the catacombs are easy, so I run back down to recover.
Then I keep going. Tomb of the Giants pretty much immediately becomes my least favorite area of the game due to not being able to see where the fuck I'm going and where the pits are, and I just want to get it over with. I make it reasonably far but oh my god why can't I find a bonfire anywhere and sooner or later I make a plunging attack at a giant skeleton that doesn't connect and wait what he's got friends--*splat*. Then I die to mooks on the way there trying to recover.
Figure that's enough failure for one day. Guess I will go crash and burn in the Demon Ruins tomorrow since that's the only endgame area that hasn't yet witnessed flagrant Cid idiocy. (My brief sojourn into the Duke's Archives ended inside a mimic.)
Incidentally, can you take off Artoria's ring once you're actually inside the Abyss, or does it get locked in for the whole fight?
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Sadly there is a seven character limit on FF9 names. This is how the NES-style vowel removal got started; Grefter had demanded Zidane be named ANALFIST and then we had to improvise.
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It did lead to some grand and glorious things though.
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RS 3.12- All the SaGa talks made me boot up this hack again. Installed a bunch of new patches since the last time I played. Also dumped a few difficulty up patches, after finding out how broken is the new stuff.
So, are you going to try for the Saruin fight (...and its nine prerequisites) if I may ask?
Since I am going to tackle Saiva, stomping Saruin is ncessary. He isn't that bad anyway, after as longas you have proper defence against Sword Rain and Darkness of Heart. He is much cuter compare to total monster like Apollo., or Chaos Ruler, which I am going to make him into.
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Sadly there is a seven character limit on FF9 names. This is how the NES-style vowel removal got started; Grefter had demanded Zidane be named ANALFIST and then we had to improvise.
THRLLHO. Make it happen.
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Cid: You must wear the ring throughout the boss fight. Once you've beaten them, you do not need to wear it. Unless you are summoned to help someone else fight the Four Kings; you still have to wear it during their boss fight also. I think being limited to one useful ring is the biggest thing that makes that fight so hard.
Regarding FF9, I'd go CNTSLRP over CNTLCKR.
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Oh you guys~
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ARABNGGL for sure.
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FF13-2:
Chocolina appears in all locations, in all times, sometimes in multiple spots in the same time/space. She probably has to be careful not to run into herself.
Chocolina is Doctor Who in a Chocobo Dress.
Plot-wise: Serah and Noel are pretty engaging. The little sidequest-stories are fun time-travel ideas, like finding notes from your future-self, or your cell phone from an alternate you. I like the idea of different times 'bleeding' together in little pockets.
The rest of the plot, particularly the cast from FF13, is kinda 'meh' for now. I don't have much hope for it. (No pun intended)
Gameplaywise: Djinn used Master Ball. FERAL BEHEMOTH WAS CAUGHT!
Feral Behemoth likes the Carbuncle Plushie you gave him.
I'm okay with the fetch-quest-style sidequests. They aren't all slogs. They're easy to ignore if they seem hard, and the little plot details you get from the easy ones are pretty worthwhile.
Also, I get to throw the shit out of my adorable moogle and get rewarded for it.
They seemed to have gotten rid of the terrible crafting system for weapons that FF13 had, so overall, I'm calling this game a success.
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Needs more Dickdog.
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Been racing and getting involved with speedrunslive. Ran Snowboard Kids 2 a few times, once in a race, several times alone. Gotten my time down to an hour before but it requires near flawless play and a lot of luck in the last few levels.
Will see what other stuff to race.
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FF13 changes to fix things haters hated
(http://members.optusnet.com.au/grefter/ask.png)
I never asked for this.
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Why is Grefter so win? ~
Har. I don't know though. Going to pick up a copy of the strategy guide today. From scouting ahead seems like the game has PUZLESZ in spades. Obnoxious puzzles and obnoxious puzzle dungeons are obnoxious. Maybe FFXIII-2's won't be so bad but it'll be nice to have a guide handy in case. It does seem like they might be obnoxious from the amount of them I've seen in livestreams and one long dungeon is a huge tetris box with floating tetris blocks where if you don't jump right you fall allll the way down. Super's also right about the Crystarium this time - it's completely non linear and you can progress your characters any way that you want - except the game doesn't seem to tell you what the stat upgrades are and the abilities also aren't all marked out for you for future planning, strategy guide might also help with for finding a successful way to develop Serah/Noel and my monsters so they have respectable stats, not wonky. Also looks likes there's a boatload of other stuff in general that I might miss without a guide~
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It's weird, seeing a Square logo when I fire up a modern-gen game and then playing a game I like. I came in with such low expectations and it turned out to be really, really, really good.
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Phantasy Star IV: I'd been avoiding this game because you guys hype the hell out of it which is usually an indication that the game is shit. But I was bored so...
Wait... This isn't too bad! There's cutscenes... and humor... and I get to extort money from my own party members! I guess this might actually be playable.
This completely awesome mage joins who has a massive TP reserve and destroys everything in one hit. Then he leaves and is replaced by a slow, inaccurate fighter. NOOOO
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This completely awesome mage joins who has a massive TP reserve and destroys everything in one hit. Then he leaves and is replaced by a slow, inaccurate fighter. NOOOO
Relax, that dude will soon be replaced by someone more useful (like, say, anyone else in the cast.)
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Not soon. Gryz is like the longest-lasting temp in the game and he's pretty much the worst of them all.
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Growlanser 2: Started. Wayne Campbell Cruz totes believes decision making is most important in a commander and would defend and counter during a surprise attack. He came to learn Combat Tactics and feels he is weak in Defensive Magic. His protective element is Earth and he loves Onyx.
Seems like a game I should enjoy. The VA is surprisingly wooden, but WORKINGDESIGNS LOL. Played the tutorial mission and the first battle, about to head out to investigate somethingorothermonsterscouldn'tpayattentionwhatthefuckiswrongwiththatguy'svoicedoeshegarglerazorblades?
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Dark Souls: Four Kings went more or less as planned. Brief panic moment when I hadn't noticed I'd accidentally shuffled the items during a butterfingers moment, cue mad mashing of square button and "Oh god why am I not regaining HP?!" Fortunately Frue Tanking was still in effect. Also minor freakout when the fourth one died but the battle didn't end. "Wait what there's still a smidgen of the boss health meter left WHAT'S GOING ON." Fight in general is an admirably tense encounter. It wasn't particularly difficult when I came in prepared (I actually had time to spare between enemy appearances), but the atmosphere puts you on edge before you're even engaged in combat. Drop down a dark shaft at the bottom of a ruined subterranean city, find yourself surrounded by absolute, unyielding blackness, suddenly this ghastly apparition that looks like an explosion in a sheet metal factory warps in (then another one, and another one...and another one) and all the while this is blaring at you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUk1R-XNOzw&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUk1R-XNOzw&feature=related). I don't believe I can think of a videogame battle better suited to instill a sense of sheer panic in the player.
Glad to be done with New Londo (at least until the inevitable titanite slab farming ensues). Thereafter cleared out the Tomb of the Giants, which I will be glad to never see again. Nito, by contrast, was saaaaad. Admittedly he might not be if I hadn't come in with a divine weapon to dispose of his support. But without the skeleton mob? Zero strategy, just run up and slash at him with Quelaag's sword until he falls over. If he uses magic, heal, otherwise laugh.
Tore through the Duke's Archives, stopped after dying half a dozen times in the Crystal Cave. Obviously I don't have the focus tonight to deal with a dungeon full of invisible paths over fatal drops. Not looking forward to going back. While I give it credit for not looking like any other environment in the game, it is just, well, very blue.
EDIT: I can't help but wonder at the precise dimensions programmed for the Abyss. I started running directly away from the bonfire to find out. Eventually the bonfire dwindled and disappeared. Then I couldn't find it again and had to use a homeward bone to get ported to it.
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The game certainly had its flaws, but Dark Souls was definitely the best programmed game of 2011.
PSIV: I have a Land Rover that fits in my pocket.
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The game certainly had its flaws, but Dark Souls was definitely the best programmed game of 2011.
PSIV: I have a Land Rover that fits in my pocket.
Pfft. You're just glad to see me.
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Guilty as charged.
PSIV: Wtf, Alys died! And they buried her with a tombstone and everything? Now how's she supposed to make a dramatic ressurection?
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She does. But you probably haven't completed the requirements for it now.
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You have to visit the dragon-head-shaped forest and fight the Golden Dragon. It's only a 0.01% chance random encounter, and it will drop a "Revive Alys coupon" at a 0.001% chance. Get that and then complete ALL the missions and you'll receive a special fight against Alys herself later in the game. If you managed to powerlevel enough to beat her, then she'll be revived in your party. Make sure to powerlevel for at least 20 hours first. She's THAT hard. Harder than that Land Rover in your pocket.
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You have to visit the dragon-head-shaped forest and fight the Golden Dragon. It's only a 0.01% chance random encounter, and it will drop a "Revive Alys coupon" at a 0.001% chance. Get that and then complete ALL the missions and you'll receive a special fight against Alys herself later in the game. If you managed to powerlevel enough to beat her, then she'll be revived in your party. Make sure to powerlevel for at least 20 hours first. She's THAT hard. Harder than that Land Rover in your pocket.
You have your games screwed up here, because this is clearly the revive Leo method.
Reviving Alys I remember definitely has 7 more steps at least in the manner, and at least one of them was "Revive Aeris on Disc 1."
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Sage: Alley-Oop is actually my favourite move in Precis' entire skillset, I only used this (and sometimes Barrier) past a certain point!
El Cid: You need to keep the ring against the four kings, but don't have to keep it in the Abyss afterwards.
Nowadays I sometimes die against Pinwheel and Iron Golem, never against Bell Gargoyle and Taurus Demon. Weird, huh?
Lego Harry Potter 5-7 : Finished, 100%. That was fast.
Probably a better game than Skyrim.
Racist Robot SaGa: Finished. The final boss was downright impossible with my robots, as predicted. So I checked a few topics on the arena on gamefaqs to get the best prizes (figuring this on your own would be such a pain) With 3 more MT full healing rods (Each with 5 full healing charges) that I slapped on my two fast robots while the two others were spamming Excalibur and Gungnir, I won!
I also beat every battle in the two optional arenas, except the one against Perfect Apollo. Good enough for me.
The game lasted about 15 hours. Robots are broken because you only very rarely need to fight random battles. You get enough equipment from dungeons, just slap those on your robots and you can probably beat anything.
I had two strength robots and two agility robots all the time. For most of the game, agility robots >>>> strength robots. Agility robots acted first (which is useful with those group attack guns), did about the same damage, and never had accuracy issues. (Strength robots couldn't hit anyting past a certain point without two rapiers or three in their inventory. And they only have 7 slots)
Then you get Gungnir and Excalibur, and strength robots start doing slightly more damage while still going last. Hurray.
Thankfully you can just change your setup whenever you want. I should have sticked with four agility robots for the whole game, with maybe one strength robot endgame to make good use of all these big damage swords everywhere.
In any case, I loved my racist robots. This just wouldn't have been the same with humans and espers.
It's unfortunate the developers didn't keep the same giant tower with floors setup of the first FFL, even if that didn't make any sense. Climbing a giant tower that leads to some worlds on different floors >>>> Going to the top floor every once in a while and teleporting to some worlds from there.
Highlights of the game:
- A town called Final Town, next to a dungeon called Final Dungeon. I really wouldn't want to live there.
- Racing minigame in an RPG: The weirdest racing since Big Rigs.
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Ninja Gaiden 2: So Chap 7 was fine until it decided to throw a completely pointless filler boss out of nowhere after you just beat a fairly tough boss (who had actual plot) right before it. Said boss also has one of the dumbest mechanics you can give a boss like this:
Self Destructing that is instant death if you don't dodge it in a specific way, and the way to avoid it is discovered purely through trial and error, meaning you can kill him multiple times before you actually progress. Seriously, that was just a stupid move and I don't know who thought the game needed a giant lava armadillo.
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And later on you fight two at once!
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El Cid: You need to keep the ring against the four kings, but don't have to keep it in the Abyss afterwards.
Nowadays I sometimes die against Pinwheel and Iron Golem, never against Bell Gargoyle and Taurus Demon. Weird, huh?
How do people die against Pinwheel? New game+++ or something? OR are you just running there right after arriving at the Firelink Shrine (which I guess is possible, and probably why his HP's so terrible?) Funny how boss difficulty can go between players sometimes. I hear horror stories about O&S and Four Kings, then die less to either of them than I died against Seath this afternoon, despite being told the latter is one of the easiest bosses. Maybe that's the problem. Expecting something in Dark Souls to be a pushover is a pretty great way to get yourself killed.
I don't know who thought the game needed a giant lava armadillo.
Who are you and what have you done with Meeple.
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Ah, filler bosses. They always seem the most bullshit for some reason. Probably due to a distinct lack of plot relevance and thus the inability to show off their awesome powers in cutscene-vision.
Disgaea 4: So, let's talk about 9-7 for a bit. It's not that I had much trouble with it once I worked out my strategy for the second attempt at it, but it's more of how I should not have been able to beat it at all.
This is totally serious; 9-7 has just about everything roughly 10 levels above me, minimum. The Cyborgs there have enough raw power to one-shot most people with anything better than a basic physical. This is before they start with Magichange shenanigans. The boss there (and the map doesn't end if she's beaten, since she's more of a glorified generic not unlike C4's boss) has stats on par with other bosses, and starts with a Giant Magichange weapon. On top of that, 10% cHP regen and if you save her for last, her stats all double due to One Man Army. There are no terrain quirks that one will be taking advantage of, and no Geo Panels to do the same for.
Statistically speaking, this should have been unwinnable for me at my level. And yet thanks to the raw cheeze that is Heart Cannon, I managed to systematically take the fight apart after killing the three problem magichange monsters in the first round. (the Baciel and Chicken/"Roc" to use the official terms aren't worth the trouble. Conversely, the Dragon, Alraune, and Reaper must die -yesterday-).
If nothing else, I guess this is a testament to just how damn overpowered Heart Cannon is, because nothing says overpowered like tripling the number of attacks in your queue against a given target. Also this had made my Archer hit level 80 by the start of Chapter 10.
Gave in and decided to throw out a couple of shop upgrade bills after 10-2. Spent my ass off with Rank 22-24 gear, which I'm convinced is going to be actual endgame for me. Currently in a reincarnation grind because my Mage-Knight just unlocked Tier 3. Regrettably, that -doesn't- come with Giga spells. Or even new sword abilities. Boo.
Quick Cast Update:
Valvatorez: Most of the recent fights have been short and brutal, often with few kills. This doesn't fare too well for him, though, since he absolutely loves fights with large numbers of enemies. He also hates being stuck with enemies who either heavily resist physical attacks or are at such a distance that he can't do anything to them. Looking at you, 10-2 and 10-3.
Fenrich: He's gotten some use back, between oneshotting the reaper in 9-7 and enemies in C10 lacking resists altogether. I am so tempted to have Hina(Nekomata) magichange with him just to see what kind of horrible things he can do with that S-rank skill. Oh, and magic counts for nekomata counters.
Fuka: Running into the same physical walling as Valvatorez. Oh, and a lack of space, too. She's fairly good at damage when she can use it, though. Prinny Kaiser XX is still awesome.
Desco: Beastmaster+temp-movement=stupid stat bonuses=effective 3000+ ATK or so. Desco is indeed final-boss-like. The raw stats plus amazing range have made her highly effective.
Emizel: You know that issue he had in C9? Gone now. He's nuking again, and with the aid of glasses, better than ever.
Vulcanus: No real change. Fits well in Heart Cannon slotting. Her specials also have very good vertical, which I can never deny the value of.
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El Cid: You need to keep the ring against the four kings, but don't have to keep it in the Abyss afterwards.
Nowadays I sometimes die against Pinwheel and Iron Golem, never against Bell Gargoyle and Taurus Demon. Weird, huh?
How do people die against Pinwheel? New game+++ or something? OR are you just running there right after arriving at the Firelink Shrine (which I guess is possible, and probably why his HP's so terrible?) Funny how boss difficulty can go between players sometimes. I hear horror stories about O&S and Four Kings, then die less to either of them than I died against Seath this afternoon, despite being told the latter is one of the easiest bosses. Maybe that's the problem. Expecting something in Dark Souls to be a pushover is a pretty great way to get yourself killed.
The game sorta directs you to the Catacombs with Rhea and Petros, but well, no one really takes that route that way.
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Who are you and what have you done with Meeple.
Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of the few games that does NOT get improved by such things, believe it or not.
(Now, Devil May Cry? That's a totally different story!)
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Well, Pinwheel gets stronger the longer the fight goes on. So on New Game +++whatever when you can't kill him quickly, he can get out of control.
And yeah, I think I mentioned how bad Centipede Demon is on New Game+ compared to New Game. Dark Souls boss difficulty is all over the place.
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If nothing else, I guess this is a testament to just how damn overpowered Heart Cannon is, because nothing says overpowered like tripling the number of attacks in your queue against a given target. Also this had made my Archer hit level 80 by the start of Chapter 10.
Heart's Cannon is ridiculously broken. More than one boss I obliterated in a single attack chain and usually HC was responsible for a good 50% of that damage (if not more).
The game sorta directs you to the Catacombs with Rhea and Petros, but well, no one really takes that route that way.
The respawning skeletons were enough to keep me away when I tried to go there early on.
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The game sorta directs you to the Catacombs with Rhea and Petros, but well, no one really takes that route that way.
The respawning skeletons were enough to keep me away when I tried to go there early on.
Andre eventually points you towards the Divine Ember after talking with him enough and after Gaping Dragon/Quelaag upgrading/Sen's will be on your to-do list. Doesn't mean going there's a good idea anyway ha.
Soul Calibur V: So, got this Tuesday, but didn't play until Wendsday. Was the reason I've been absent/as lurky as always and why I haven't voted on music tournament or added links for AC0. Until now. Or something that makes sense. Man, I reuse material too much.
So uh, the game! I haven't tried out everyone yet, or gone online, mostly did Story and Training and Arcade and Quick Battle. And Create a Soul. So, first off, let's go with something like who I have used and what I think! Because I am terrible.
Siegfried: My SC4 boy! Oh how you've changed. I can't really compare well since I am terrible, but he's been reworked a bit. His movement speed seems much, much faster, but changing holds seems so much slower. He's also lost BBB which was my damn workhorse! And some other of my prime moves were switched to being Brave Edges which consume the brand new special bar!
Nightmare: Holy SHIP is he a Nightmare! I r punmaster. Anyway, he's gained a LOT of ground-damage moves, and a ridiculous move in A+B. His Critical Edge/SUPER is goddamn amazing though. If they don't block it it does a ton of damage, if they attack while you're charging it then it goes off on them without a chance to dodge/block. So throw it up when you know an attacks coming and POW.
Patroklos: His attacks can be so jumpy and air-comboish that it's easy to rack up the Counter damage on him. But if he gets going effectively he's tough to stop since he has a lot of speed moves.
Pyrrha: Scardy-sister is also kind of jumpy and floaty like her brother so falls into the same Counter damage. And unlike him she can't take hits at all. Nightmare's Critical Edge/SUPER can near OHKO her. Her throws are awesome animation-wise though.
Ezio: Haven't played him much myself, but seeing others play and fighting him too much in Quick Battle's given me something resembling an insight. He has a lot of variety and his crossbow is nine-flavors of bullshit. Even top AI can be taken apart by it.
Viola: Viola is very, very difficult to use. She requires an insane amount of set-up and positioning. She has some damn insane range and lots of surprising attacks.
ZWEI: Pre-release info I read about him made me dread him. A werewolf-ghost guy who uses a sword like a tonfa? Even for a game with sentient swords and vampires and lizardmen that's almost too much. Yet, he rarely actually does use the sword like a tonfa, and he's actually pretty decent all told for story purposes. In combat he's all about setting things up with his werewolf-ghost. His Critical Edge/SUPER does garbage damage so it's all about the set-up.
Xiba: Is basically just Journey to the West Goku. Food-loving thickheaded. Also he's Kilik's replacement so that means he's the glorious staff-cheese guy. And what a way to cheese! He's more involved then Kilik, which is like saying 2 is higher then 1. His moves tend to be utterly hilarious or flashy, unlike Kilik's narrow-arse.
Natsu: Taki's replacement. Despite being a red-headed ninja is actually not all that bad since she's constantly being snarky in her few, so very few, quotes. Anyway, is, well, Taki. Does too much damage for her speed and not as frail as she should be. Also air combos and throws.
Ivy: Now wears a thong and thigh-high boots and one of those like noble-coats with the two folds out the back so they cover her buttcheeks. She has a punch of weirdly placed moves and throws. So, she's Ivy.
Astaroth: BULL RUSHING FRANKENSTEIN WITH AIR AND GROUND GRABS!
Aeon/Lizardman: Has wings for some reasons. Also breathes fire.
Rock: Isn't here at all thank god.
Alpha: Jesus if he can get going nothing can stop him. Most of his moves are so hard to pull off though that it'll take a ton of practice to get down.
Omega: Is sorta, there? Basiclly Pat and Pyrra with less air and more ground.
Algol: King of throwing everything everywhere. Why he shoots giant black balls from spikes out of his chest I'll never get.
Mitsurugi: Still does too much damage for how fast he is. Seriously, Natsu's combos should not be doing less damage to him then a single counter hit he does to her. And half the highest AIs in quick battle are him for some dumb reason.
So uh, not all the cast but for the most part ones I've seen/played the most! Which is so depressing, which you'll learn why this is the case and many things when we get unto story mode...
Soul Calibur V, Story Mode: It is a bad thing. In order to paint a better picture, I'll talk about SC4's story mode, which was simple. Pick your character, go through five fights/levels get your ending. Short enough to want to beat with every character, and easy enough to beat with anyone you were unfamiliar with. At the start you get your scrolling text of PLOT and at the end you get your, ending movie which ranged from awesome(Zasalamel's musing in the 21st century) to the ironic(Voldo guarding Soul Edge so well people stop coming for it and Soul Edge fades into nothing), to the weird(Amy pushing Rapheal into a put) to the incredibly stupid(WHY DID YOU RANDOMLY MURDER SIEGFRIED TAKI) to the stupidly feel-good ending(Talim).
Soul Calibur 5 will have none of that. It's a series of 20is fights where your character is selected for you at all times. And half the available cast don't appear and of the half that do so very few actually do anything. Maxi and Natsu appear for one fight and contribute nothing to the plot. Now for someone like Astaroth this is fine, but Natsu's supposed to be looking for Taki or something(not like the game tells you this, OR ANYTHING since character bios have vanished) and why's Maxi not hunting down Astaroth again?
Anyway, the story starts with a cutscene of Siegfried beating Nightmare, except the world doesn't end with being frozen over for some reason. And now despite being in the perfect position to destroy Soul Edge he... doesn't. So, fast forward 15 years for Patroklos to be fighting some rebels against his lord and stabbing dudes who look ugly because looked bad is a sure-fire sign of being evil! Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere. He's still looking for his kidnapped sister, so apparently Sophitia and Cassandra both failed. Anyway, after getting his gut punched in by ZWEI his lord turns out to be evil and has Voldo for a guard(Also Voldo now has a manthong!). So Patroklos somehow finds Siegfriend and gets Soul Calibur. He then finds Tira and his sister Pyrrha and leaves for home because hey, mission accomplished. Except HIS LORDO is waiting for him and is Nightmare. So Pyrrha pulls out to fact that she's actually still feeding off of Soul Edge's power and beats Nightmare away then pat runs because he is scared out of his mind about Pyrrha's new CLAW! This of course encourages him to repower Soul Calibur and kill her because he is a jackass. Then he rewinds time and doesn't and they all live happily together forever.
Except nothing is really resolved. Yay. And just for some form of inconsistency, add Ivy, Astaroth, Viola, Xiang, Xiba, Natsu, Maxi, Edge Master to the list above to get everyone who actually appears in story. Most of this group for no more then one actual scene.
So on to less... dumb, propositions.
Quick Play is gonna be the bread and butter for people wanting to play. Offering 240 semi-randomly created opponents for you to fight! Ranging from so dumb it's possible to get a triple-perfect(of yeah matches are best out of 5 now as the baseline for some dumb reason), to I never managed to get them below half health in nine rounds! Currently I've taken down around 190 of the bastards. With about 40 of those being through PURE Natsu cheese.
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Pinwheel does a ton of damage with his clones, he's a glass canon. With a low damage character (priest), you can easily get bombarded and die.
You'll never hear the end of his cool boss theme in game in any case, this battle is quick. :(
Iron Golem is slow and all, but if he grabs you there's a good chance you're dead (Same thing, to a lesser extent, with Gaping Dragon), and if you're too busy locking at him all SotC style, you might fall into a pit yourself.
I never died against Seath except by getting way too careless (no curse protection) Just try getting to his tail and you pretty much can't get hit. I don't get it. Anticipation must have a good influence, yes. Just imagine Four Kings with no knowledge whatsoever of what's going to happen, and a crappy weapon that doesn't kill kings quickly enough (getting you into a fight with 3 of them at the same time).
I also hadn't figured out divine weapons killed skeletons by the time I got to Nito first time through. This was hell.
Dragon Quest Monsters Caravan Heart (GBA):
Lots of weird mechanics here, introduced to the player one by one.
The monsters are the core of the game. You can use three of them in battle at the same time. They learn skills by levelling up.
Killing a monster sometimes gives you its heart. Fuse two hearts with one monster (level 10 or higher) and you get a brand new level 1 monster that keeps all its skills and can eventually learn all the skills of the two original monsters the hearts come from. (you can only have 6 skills max though) Getting back to level 1 is not much of a problem since you keep something like ~75% of all your stats and get new levels at a crazy rate. The class of your new monster only seems to have an influence on growth rate.
So, pretty standard monster breeding system, with a good potential for broken.
Now, each monster gets a caravan. Each caravan has four slots where you can put people. Say, in order, a fighter, a priest, a mapper and a dancer. On turn 1, the fighter wil attack an enemy, on turn 2 the priest will heal, on turn 3 the mapper will do something that has probably no use, on turn 4 the dancer will do a little worthless, on turn 5 nothing happens, and on turn 6 the whole thing starts again.
Those dudes have no HPs/MPs, they only act as support to the monster who's guarding the caravan, and their stats are directly linked to the monster's stat.
Some people have an use outside of battle, the mapper can whip you some maps free of charge if you bring him with you, for example.
Obviously some dudes are better than others, that's why there's a weight system. Each dude and monster has a weight, and there's a max weight of 10 for each caravan.
An obviously awesome strategy is to put a priest on the first slot; this means free healing at the start of every battle.
There's also a food system, not unlike roguelikes. Move around and you'll use food/restore HPs. With no food, your Hps will go down.
Travel for a while and the caravan level will raise, enabling you to carry more food at the same time.
The old lady at the camp can refill your food for a price, 1G/ration.
Travelling on a plain consumes much less food than travelling in a forest, travelling in a forest consumes much less food than travelling on a hill/desert. Moving the main camp around (where there's your church, shop, the old lady, etc) also consumes a lot more food.
So, world 1 is nice enough. I have one slime, one caravan with three people inside, battles aren't tough, there's a nice guy that can give me free food, there's not even any boss.
World 2. Enemies aren't getting much better, but I consume a ton more rations than I get gold. After using up almost all my money, I panic and go back to the first world. Free food guy has disappeared. Oh god. How can a kid play this and not be terrified?
I start eating every item in the inventory (the lunchbox, the apples), and just when I have nothing left, I get my first merchant. If he gets a turn in battle, I get 10G. Screw the priest, I put that guy in the first slot. No more food issues, probably ever. The rest of the chapter is a breeze.
World 3. I get a new monster and a new caravan, enemies are getting tougher. I'm getting the hang of this game.
SOLO time! I only ever get to use one monster and his caravan.
I get my ass kicked, but eventually learn how to fuse monsters, and turn my puny one star slime into a cool two stars dragon. With the help of a little grinding, Sap and a lot of healing items (you can use an item and have the monster attack in the same turn, handy), that dragon beats and gets the heart of the first boss (a gargoyle)
I thus promptly fuse my dragon into a three stars (!!) dragon with additional healing. I grind some more to get him up to level 10 or so, laugh at the Melfice wannabe boss, and proceed to World 4. That's it for now.
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I never died against Seath except by getting way too careless (no curse protection) Just try getting to his tail and you pretty much can't get hit. I don't get it. Anticipation must have a good influence, yes. Just imagine Four Kings with no knowledge whatsoever of what's going to happen, and a crappy weapon that doesn't kill kings quickly enough (getting you into a fight with 3 of them at the same time).
Seath is totally hard if you have someone screaming completely wrong facts at you.
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Solatorobo: Red The Hunter - played through, including all the DL missions (currently available? The last one I've done required that all other missions be completed first, so it seems reasonable to assume it's the last one)
Reasonably good. Very lightweight in areas which it isn't focused on, though, like SRTOGSEF. For example, character sprites in towns are low-res with small animations that loop endlessly -particularly annoying are Theria's, Chocolat's, and Arzane's. Along the same lines, some enemy mechs essentially have the faces of the pilots 'pasted' onto them rather than them being modelled, which is really noticeable when they're on certain angles.
I don't see any point to the Hunter Rank system, or at least any point which pleases me. For a start, all the storyline missions have a rank requirement, and only storyline missions have a rank requirement. For a followup, I was doing all the side missions possible before doing the storyline missions, and I was never more than one rank or so above the storyline mission requirements. So - doing side missions to increase your rank doesn't give you any rewards at all, while not bothering to do side missions ends up locking you out of storyline missions due to you not having a high enough rank.
I used only attack and hydraulics parts for customisation throughout the vast majority of the game and never had any problems, only swapping in a defence part for the boss rush missions. Never used mobility or revive at all. I feel like that indicates that there is something wrong with the customisation system, but I'm not sure what. Ended up with 10 sockets still locked on the second tier of customisation... I assumed that the corners were going to become available at some point as well, but they don't seem to have. Possibly they are on a different frame, but I never bothered with any of the other ones since the default one boosts attack/hydraulics and the others don't.
The racing mission type is fairly horrible, but after taking forever to beat the Suzette/Diamundo racing mission I didn't end up having any trouble with any of the rest, except for some amount with the second race in the scrap area.
Need to remember to nom Drop Of Light next time such a course of action is possible.
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And yet thanks to the raw cheeze that is Heart Cannon,
If nothing else, I guess this is a testament to just how damn overpowered Heart Cannon is, because nothing says overpowered like tripling the number of attacks in your queue against a given target.
It is pretty overpowered, but honestly, I welcome any mechanic to Disgaea that increases the importance of positioning. Considering that the Lift/Throw mechanic is one of its biggest (only?) unique features for maingame playthroughs compared to other SRPGs, I'm okay with them tossing in a broken ability like this. It really made Dis4 play a lot differently than previous Disgaeas.
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PSIV: A cute android girl joins the team. She has useful skills like accurate ID and revival. She also gets upgrades to all her armor and weapons in this dungeon, making her the strongest character. Odds of her being the next PC to leave the party? 100%. But on a brighter note, Gryz finally leaves the party to make room for Hahn++.
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Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere.
Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.
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FF13-2: So we're now molesting sheep and changing weather patterns. This is clearly FF: Australia or something. Fang does have that accent...
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RS3.12 - Forenus is down. He'll be the only noble devil I killed for a while. Took him down only because I need a few thing from the Ocean Palace. Namely the Meteor Shard and meeting Subier.
Grey learned Triple Thrust early made the fight much easier. Thanks to the termite quest let a few end game bugs make early appearance.
Then what's left is to tweak water immunity on everyone, place Alkaiser in the center of Flying Phoenix formation to absorb all physical danage, Mad Thunder ends up becoming Forenus's threatening offence. He went down pretty quick.
Now it is time to head to the east to complete the Demon Brand event so I can kick Grey out and put Asellus back. Meanwhile picking up Gerald but not making him nto Final Emperor yet.
Byunei is going down after I am done with the east, so I can finally access the lab.
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FF13-2 - Back in the Historia Crux after the boss fight with Caius in Oerba Joke fight? Ended in less than a minute and a half flat. Though not so much of a joke for Noel since the boss did manage to finish him off at least (which is kind of fitting given the plot) while I was busy kicking ass with Serah ^_^ Serah's SAB, RAV and Ruins are good stuffs. After the fight and returning to the Historia Crux via the gate with the new CPs I'd earned I was able to upgrade the Crystarium more and picked up other fondly rembered FFXIII SAB spells like Imperil. Shiny~
The area/plot progression path I've found myself in has went New Bodhum > Bresha Ruins > Sunleth Waterscape (yaay Vanille's theme after some story stuff~) > battle arena place > back to Sunleth > Yaschas Massif > Oerba so far. I briefly visited the Steppes after Sunleth but left after the opening scene so I could go back and follow the Yaschas arc =) The first encounter with the big boss at Sunleth was definitely something else compared to the most recent boss fight I've done. Considering Serah and Noel only had around 580~ HP with Cait Sith not having much either at that stage it was a long, painful, frantic fight full of paradigm shifting and SEN/SEN/MED + Potion spam abuse. Somehow I eventually won though. It was scary stuffs near the end of the fight when the boss used it's limit special and gained Haste so it kept constantly and rapidly attacking my characters but I managed to keep my head and shifted/healed fast enough to keep up with it. Also the first time I experienced the effects of the Wounded status proper as my entire team also became severely crippled by that near the end of the fight and it took me time to work out that's what it was. Thankfully I had a Wound Potion in my inventory.
Nice to see Oerba is as beautiful/haunting as ever~
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FF13-2 - Back in the Historia Crux after the boss fight with Caius in Oerba Joke fight? Ended in less than a minute and a half flat. Though not so much of a joke for Noel since the boss did manage to finish him off at least (which is kind of fitting given the plot) while I was busy kicking ass with Serah ^_^ Serah's SAB, RAV and Ruins are good stuffs. After the fight and returning to the Historia Crux via the gate with the new CPs I'd earned I was able to upgrade the Crystarium more and picked up other fondly rembered FFXIII SAB spells like Imperil. Shiny~
That fight is ridiculous if you're not heavy on offense and underlevelled. I had to change my setups for PROizn strats to win.
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You can afford to play much more defensively than normal in that fight, because you have Snow there as a guest constantly hitting the boss. That means you don't have to worry about the stagger gauge emptying out.
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Dark Souls: Demon Firesage got punked by a fire sword. Way to fail at being a firesage! Centipede Demon killed me a couple times, though. #1: "Oh, well, if you're just going to stand way over there, I guess I'll shoot arrows at you. Oh, he's winding his arm back for an attack, I should probably--" *splat* "...move..." #2 was a lot of me stabbing his feet while he stood over me, which went pretty well until he hit low health and went berserk with the red cyclone farts. Wasn't too bad once I knew to get out of the way of those.
So, Lost Izalith. Died once to Bed of Chaos and decided that fight could wait 'til tomorrow, called it a night. Though not before clearing the place. Solaire...Nooo, don't do this, bro! *GRIEF* But at least I saved Siegmeier, right? Right?! *warp to Ash Lake* ...Goddammit man, why did you just keep standing there in the poison slime? I didn't save anybody, did I.
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Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere.
Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.
Rapheal was hunting after Soul Calibur in 4 so he shouldn't have been anywhere near Sopthia. Unless that whole Nightmare-is-possessing-Rapheal's-body thing is true and the SC5 Rapheal in-game is actually now a ghost-vampire.
Solaire...Nooo, don't do this, bro! *GRIEF* But at least I saved Siegmeier, right? Right?! *warp to Ash Lake* ...Goddammit man, why did you just keep standing there in the poison slime? I didn't save anybody, did I.
Welcome to my world!
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I didn't do Siegmeyer correctly in either of my first two runthroughs. So on the third I just killed him myself so I could finally get his ring.
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It is pretty overpowered, but honestly, I welcome any mechanic to Disgaea that increases the importance of positioning. Considering that the Lift/Throw mechanic is one of its biggest (only?) unique features for maingame playthroughs compared to other SRPGs, I'm okay with them tossing in a broken ability like this. It really made Dis4 play a lot differently than previous Disgaeas.
Fair enough. I admit Dis4 has made me consider positioning a good bit more than other Disgaeas. The main story maps frequently have a lot of terrain variance that really makes it important that you have solid positioning and know your vertical tolerances for skills. In theory, this capacity for massive vertical tolerance is an upside to Vulcanus...except that her damage is nowhere near the best and were it not for the fact that guns are awesome for Heart Cannon, her stats and damage output easily indicate "Healer". :|
Speaking of which: Finally beat Disgaea 4. Long analysis is going to be a while in coming, but suffice it to say my endgame level wasn't too far different from Dis3 (75 for Dis3, ~80 for Dis4, counting gains from killing boss support in the final area. Of course, this is also spread over about 12 different PCs or so, whereas Tal's playthrough ended with the plot PCs being Level 100 or something I guess). If I write my own stat topic I'll probably take Tal's endgame level just due to how it's a requirement for Desco's final skill (and it lets me use a good number of Tier 4 generics aside from the starter classes), but I'm most definitely treating the frequency of high-accuracy enemies (Archers, Gunners, Rifle Demons) as an outlier for stats, rather than let it destroy any semblance of evasion cast members may have. Seriously, some of these guys had a HIT of 3300+. You're not dodging that shit no matter how hard you try.
The ultimate testament to Heart Cannon bullshit? An incomplete chain (8 out of a possible 10 people--Emizel got killed early and I couldn't get Val positioned just right) played out to its full potential against the final boss. With a lot of his support still active. The total damage? ~32,000. Out of 40,000 or so. Credit for surviving a chain that long, but at the same time, god damn. If I had gotten a full ten-action chain, I'm betting I could've one-rounded the final.
Speaking of the final...placing him is tricky, and it depends a lot on how much you'd allow support credit for him(It's not like Hugo where you'll get swarmed in short order. Still say he's flat out one of the best fights in the game.) and let it affect his stats. With the bonus, he'd be a decent Godlike off of the stats (Unlike Aurum, his basic physical does something, and he still has a -lot- of damage he can pump out with Fear the Great.) Without....eeeeeh, his gimmick doesn't translate well to a duel and I'd see him as...probably a high Heavy (Special's still an OHKO, just nowhere near as strong of one.)
I admit I didn't use as much as I could have to my efforts to win; Magichanging my nekomata lategame would've given Fenrich an S-rank skill that would have been -stupid- off of the stat boosts he usually gets from Valvatorez.
And as one last note for tonight: Sardine Thief hype hasn't ended yet. Catsabers have an S-rank skill by level 100.
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That fight is ridiculous if you're not heavy on offense and underlevelled. I had to change my setups for PROizn strats to win.
Hahaha I used those with Vanille for similar situations in FFXIII too ;D What levels were you for the first fight with Cauis Tal? I don't remember my exact levels before the fight but after upgrading my Crystarium back in the Historia Crux I now have Serah L38 COM, L38 RAV, L21 SAB, L6 SEN, LV1 MED and Noel with L40 COM, L40 RAV, L20 MED, LV 5 SEN, LV1 SYN for Noel. I've been mostly focusing on big MAG upgrades for Serah and STR/HP for Noel. As for monsters I have a maxxed out Pulse Knight, a L25 Cait Sith and a L15 Nekton in my current deck :)
Serah's Poison and Deshell/Deprotect/etc were still quite useful on the boss I think just Poison probably wasn't as useful as it would have been at lower levels.
Nekton is a nifty little critter for those missing XIII's Slow by the way. Nekton inflicts it as well as other debuffs with it's Spider Web Feral Link :) I think it's neat anyway~
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Monkey - I forgot about that! Good point. That probably definitely helps with eventually breaking through the Sunleth boss's Regen too. Go Snow!~
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Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere.
Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.
Rapheal was hunting after Soul Calibur in 4 so he shouldn't have been anywhere near Sopthia. Unless that whole Nightmare-is-possessing-Rapheal's-body thing is true and the SC5 Rapheal in-game is actually now a ghost-vampire.
I think the answer to this is quite simple:
SOUL CALIBUR PLOT!!!
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Hahaha I used those with Vanille for similar situations in FFXIII too ;D What levels were you for the first fight with Cauis Tal? I don't remember my exact levels before the fight but after upgrading my Crystarium back in the Historia Crux I now have Serah L38 COM, L38 RAV, L21 SAB, L6 SEN, LV1 MED and Noel with L40 COM, L40 RAV, L20 MED, LV 5 SEN, LV1 SYN for Noel. I've been mostly focusing on big MAG upgrades for Serah and STR/HP for Noel. As for monsters I have a maxxed out Pulse Knight, a L25 Cait Sith and a L15 Nekton in my current deck :)
I was in the 11-18 range for that fight. I've been spreading out the levels more evenly than you have though. My monsters ranged from 12-17.
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FF9 - How did I survive the 8 second ATB gauge!?!? This game is so goddamn slow. Nothing has happened like at all.
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FF13-2: Sunleth Waterscape (my third area, not sure how linear this game is). Game was too easy up to this point besides one optional fight in Bresha Ruins, but the boss here was pretty competent definitely. Finally had one reset in one of the randoms here although that was of course avoidable if I wasn't lazy.
CT: Yeah, I've also been keeping that monster around partly just for that reason, yay Slow. In general I probably need to take a closer look at what my monsters to do, I've also been using one as a Medic since the main PCs still haven't unlocked it (I grabbed SYN/SAB first, and then the ATB gauge upgrade).
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Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere.
Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.
Rapheal was hunting after Soul Calibur in 4 so he shouldn't have been anywhere near Sopthia. Unless that whole Nightmare-is-possessing-Rapheal's-body thing is true and the SC5 Rapheal in-game is actually now a ghost-vampire.
I think the answer to this is quite simple:
SOUL CALIBUR PLOT!!!
Man I know but even if something is bad dammit I want it to at least tell you everything so you can laugh at it! Instead namco's whoring for money. Again.
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Never let it be said that just because something is bad that there isn't a right way to do it. Fighting game plot may trend towards bat shit insane, but there is fans for that. At least do them the favour of keeping that insanity consistent and cohesive.
I am disappointed that they still haven't made a game where canon ending is Voldo breaking Soul Edge on his face and turning into the new Nightmare so we finally have a Nightmare in a studded mankini jamming his junk in people's face.
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Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere.
Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.
Rapheal was hunting after Soul Calibur in 4 so he shouldn't have been anywhere near Sopthia. Unless that whole Nightmare-is-possessing-Rapheal's-body thing is true and the SC5 Rapheal in-game is actually now a ghost-vampire.
I think the answer to this is quite simple:
SOUL CALIBUR PLOT!!!
You don't tell David Bowie what to do.
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Dragon Quest 4 Hats of Light: So after an annoying fight with a Volcano boss who beat me once due to some status nonsense going his way, and me figuring out his gimmick later (or alternatively, just discovering how good a certain move was which basically IGNORES THE GIMMICK ENTIRELY AND NUKES HIM DEAD MWAHAHAHAH!), I get...a spell that gives you a bunch of Awesome Stat Boosts, is White Magic, Regen, and AP Boosting. Umm...so where's the incentive to stop using White Mage again, whose already spamming Curaga every other turn?
Ok, so then I beat another status whore boss whose entire way of winning (despite hitting me with silence, confuse, etc. EVERYWHERE) was petrify...he then hands me a Status IMmunity Shield. Gee, I wonder who that goes to! Oh wait, that means she can't resist elements without Capes, which I accidentally sold the Earth one already, I guess that su-...
*next arc beaten, get a Cape that resists all elements* ...NEVERMIND!
Then I get an Armor that is freaking sweet all around, yay, adding to the theme...actually goes to a different PC because the stat boosts probably work better on someone actually doing offense (and with resisting all elements AND immuning all status as is on a character spamming Curaga, its kind of hard to feel threatened ever)...
So with all this awesome shit, I'm looking forward to my next awesome legendary equip, which is probably a wea-*gets a HUGE FUCKING WHALE VEHICLE that is more or less obsolete due to already having a flying Dragon* ...:(
So yeah, I think I have like one more legendary equip to go. I only know this because on my LIST OF HATS, there's a blank one in between some of the newer ones I got.
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Dragon Quest Monster Caravan Hearts: Just went through the DQ2 final dungeon again. Yep, this game takes place in the Dragon Quest 2 world for some reason!
No problems so far, except that one fight against badass warrior and badass mage (who had badass physicals) For the first time I started thinking I needed better skills instead of better stats. I fused my monster and gave him Upper. Cast it twice, boss physicals do 1 damage.
It's been my strategy for a while now.
Dinosaur with an axe was useful for a very long while (my first monster with speed!)
(http://images.wikia.com/dragonquest/images/5/5c/Battlerex.gif)
But since then I've been able to fuse even better five stars monsters. Now I have some shark with legs.
(http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/images/cms/news/31196/51gurandosya-ku.gif)
He looks wrong, but I can't say no to that +14 attack every level up. He even learnt Healmost.
I don't need additional healing or money anymore, so all the people in my caravan are badass fighters that do monstrous damage because my monster has monstrous damage.
Tales of Innocence:
Never played this game before, doing a Mania mode solo challenge right away, nothing could possibly go wrong.
Well, at least I know the battle system. (it's the same as TotA's)
I barely watch the first scene then fastforward through all the text. (L+R does this. I can do something else at the same time!) I like to know that everything is translated even though I don't read any of it. Pretty funny, considering that I was criticizing my little brother for not ever reading RPG plots and paying attention, when I was a kid.
There are two kind of random enemies at the beginning of the game:
- Blue things. I can beat them, but I basically need to make a visit to the inn after every battle
- Birds. They kick my ass, always.
I think I'll grind a little before getting anywhere else because this is not looking good.
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FF13-2: The REAL villain emerges.
(http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/217023-chocolina.jpg)
This.... creature...
Has created the entire paradox of FF13-2. Having been driven out of the merchant business by a combination of the Fal'Cie and their incredibly efficient save points slash mechanized merchants, she is left destitute. Her first career destroyed, Lina was driven to furry based prostitution to make ends meet. (See: image). This had the bonus effect of driving her insane and instilling with her a deep hatred of all things human *and* Fal'Cie, making her a creature darkness beyond mortal imagination. With Bart and the Fal'Cie killed, she had her chance to strike. Scattering the previous game's heroes to the wind, she then literally hops through the changed timeline and replaces the old merchant machines one by one, leaving the people to starve and do without by the millions.
The problems of starvation and struggling that we see in 13-2? EASILY FIXED WITH A MERCHANT SAVE POINT. But no. Chocolina had to have her blood profits, no matter the cost. Chocolina then makes it even worse, by taking the guise of a friendly merchant and following around the heroes at every point. Why would she do that? The artifacts, duh. These objects of power are distortions in time, and help further the problems of the universe. By having them collected in one central point, Chocolina knows where they are. When enough objects are in place, she can easily backstab our poor heroes and leave them dead in some empty pocket of time, millions of years from anyone or anything they would know. Chocolina even admits to not being human to our adventures, who are too busy dealing with FF13-2's plot to see the the one constant in their travels- no, not Caius, but a single merchant girl who is somehow 'always' there when they need her.
Hopefully our heroes realize the face of *true* villainy before it's too late and put this time travelling menace down for good.
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FF9 - How did I survive the 8 second ATB gauge!?!? This game is so goddamn slow. Nothing has happened like at all.
We were all used to twiddling our thumbs during combat after FF7&8 summon animations.
~
Dark Souls: Finished. Final boss was brutal. The obvious cheap way to win is parrying, but oh my god I'm so bad at that. The first serious attempt I made at trying that I landed three in succession and tore off something like 60% of his HP, but that was a major fluke. Other attempts I couldn't even connect once. Usually "parry" is just a faster way of saying "Please end my miserable existence." So I did it the old-fashioned way, circle and get a jab in after an attack sequence, wear him down one rapier poke at a time. This was painful (didn't help that I went in with the wrong weapon the time I won). Seriously considered murdering the Anor Londo firekeeper for an estus upgrade, but resisted! That is not the way of the Cid. Perseverance paid off eventually. Well, that and a better shield.
Anyway, great game, Cids were thoroughly impressed. It's difficult but, with very few exceptions, I would not call it unfairly so. I wonder if it's just that most games released nowadays are incredibly easy that makes it seem so tough. Dark Souls is technically demanding, but when you die, it's generally your fault. You're obligated to exploit every possible advantage to survive. This is a conscious design decision they're totally up front about from the beginning. It is legitimately tense and frightening to play, which I don't think I can say about anything else I've played in years.
It also looks pretty damn great, I have to say. I might've bitched about getting tired of a few places, but there's a pretty healthy variety of environments to run through, most of which are seamlessly connected (the game only has loading screens when you die or, late in the game, warp). Even the places I probably complained about are pretty distinctive (Tomb of the Giants at least had going for it the fact of being terrifying. DOG SKELETONS AGHLE BLAGHLE). This is actually really nice, as it makes the world feel like one organically connected environment instead of just a bunch of disparate areas strung together for the purpose of progression. Find a good vantage point and it's very easy to see where things are in relation to each other. Dark Souls isn't big on plot, but it says plenty with its environments: it's all part of the same crumbling wreck of civilization.
There's a lot about the presentation that reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus. See above, see also the use of music (fantastic music, damn you antivoting heathens!) being largely reserved for boss fights and other major events. Also the generally minimalist attitude to storytelling. I've really come to appreciate this approach. The only real cinematic sequence in the game is the intro movie, which I admire for being completely straightforward and not bothering to justify anything. Seriously. Creation myths aren't about explaining stuff, things just happen back at the dawn of time, right? Dark Souls doesn't dump quadratically-increasing tonnage of backstory on you and expect it to automatically be interesting (hi Skyrim and your ten million books I ignored after the first couple hours of gameplay). It just cuts you loose with a modest amount of direction and lets you soak everything in. There is a definite vibe of fading grandeur and vitality to be absorbed from the perpetual sunset of beautiful, empty Anor Londo. Something else it shares with SotC: a bittersweet air even in victory. I'm not 100% sure what happened in the ending, but I would not be at all surprised if linking the fire incinerated your PC even if it did do what it was supposed to do, because that's just how Dark Souls rolls.
It's not perfect: there's plenty of FAQ-bait (pretty much anything relating to NPCs, rare drops); equip upgrades and (less importantly for me but likely frustrating to true completionists) achievements are built in a way makes 100% impossible to clear on a single run; inventory management can be a hassle (scrolling through dozens of weapons along a screen that only shows five at a time, ugh). But ultimately I think these are minor complaints. It is pretty easily the best thing I've played in the past year regardless.
Online stuff can be hit or miss. PVP only ever ended with me dying horribly, but I'm not all about PVP anyway. I actually did appreciate all the other details that come with online play. Encountering phantoms, messages from other players, bloodstains from where other players died--all this stuff is actually pretty nice just for assurance that yeah, this is tough, but you're not really alone out there.
Boss death count! Because Dark Souls. I can put this in a spoiler box if people want. I don't see much reason to since DS isn't all that much for plot and if you can't tell you'll be fighting a few specific people just from the intro, well, you haven't played many videogames, but hey.
Asylum Demon: 1. ("Haha stupid boss, can't hit me up here, can you?" *SPLAT* "...Oh. Oh, you can.")
Taurus Demon: 0. (Guest-killed.)
Moonlight Butterfly: 2. (1: Running into boss room to flee giants, low on healing. 2: Jump into fireball instead of rolling. Argh.)
Bell Gargoyle: 4.
Capra Demon: 12-16? (I was too filled with rage to keep an accurate count.)
Gaping Dragon: 0.
Stray Demon: 3.
Chaos Witch Quelaag: 4.
Ceaseless Discharge: 0. (Gimmick killed.)
Great Grey Wolf Sif: 2.
Iron Golem: 0.
Crossbreed Priscilla: N/A. (Not really my style to fight people who aren't attacking me.)
Dark Sun Gwyndolin: N/A. (Didn't fight him, though I may if I replay this. The Wizard of Oz act does not inspire trust.)
Ornstein and Smough: 3.
Pinwheel: 0.
Four Kings: 1.
Gravelord Nito: 0.
Demon Firesage: 0.
Centipede Demon: 2.
Bed of Chaos: 7. (At least I got plenty of demon titanite from making that run repeatedly.)
Seath the Scaleless: 5. (Four of these were me being a dumbass and expecting the rest of the game to fold just like Nito.)
Gwyn, Lord of Cinder: 10. Ow.
So yeah, this was a blast, will clearly have to give Demon's Souls another shot at some point. I guess it just wasn't what I was in the mood for at the time (or it just didn't have awesome music, something which sells me on a game perhaps more than it should). Dunno about new game+ in Dark Souls. That is basically just your existing PC cycling through the game again but with souped-up enemies? So just like before but with more dying? I'd be more inclined to run a new PC just to try a different build.
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Glad you took the jump to play Dark Souls and enjoyed it that much, El Cid. It's honestly my favourite game, difficulty only being a small part of what makes it great.
Demon's Souls is less good (there are 5 distinct worlds with a hub, there's less balance, healing is handled poorly) but still worth playing.
The seamlessness in the world is crazy. You can die in the forest, then go up to Sen's Fortress and see your bloodstain down below! It's not even something that was hyped anywhere.
NG+ is that yeah. Comparatively, enemies do a lot more damage and die more quickly. Since you're used to the game and have access to 20 flasks right off the bat, you should die a lot less in NG+. I found playing as another role to be more fun and difficult than NG+, honestly.
I'm not sure I understand - Did you lit the bonfire in the end after beating the final boss?
Dragon Quest Monsters Caravan Hearts:
Finished. There's aftergame, but so far it's kinda meh.
Here is the ENTIRE PLOT of the game:
King: Child abuse! Fun!
Child Kiefer: ...! *hides*
Master of Illusion: I am the master of illusion! I will teleport you to the DW2 world, which also includes the DW1 world. Isn't fanservice great? By the way, fetch me some stuff and I'll grant your wishes! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Child Kiefer: *fetches some stuff, this being the entire game*
Master of Illusion: You fell into my trap! NOW I AM ALL POWERF... *gets trampled by an elephant with ridiculous stats*
Child Kiefer: *teleports back*
King: NVM, child abuse is bad.
Roll credits.
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I'm not sure I understand - Did you lit the bonfire in the end after beating the final boss?
Yep. Didn't except any real good to come from this both because of what I'd heard about there being no real "good" ending and because Frampt wanted me to do it (no one who casually talks about people having outlived their usefulness can be reliable).
Ohshit my boss lineup is missing Pinwheel must fix.
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RS3.12 - Demonbrand get! Now Grey has outlived his usefulness. *dumps
The fight with Katana Oni let be blinked a couple new techs, but why Alkaiser refuse to learn any new Hero Moves?
Though, hasn't got to the required HP to get Asellus rejoin yet. But now Byunei has attacked, I'l go clean up all the event that requires me going inside the Roanne Castle.
Then I'll deal with Byunei and the Drgon Eye event in one go after that.
And... I didn't expect Super to hate Lina this much to the point of fabricating facts.
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My lips are sealed~
People really have to discover the truth of her themselves ^_^
FFXIII-2: Academia 4XX. Just received the Graviton Core fetch quest. I already have two in my inventory. Also accepted the Monster Professor quest and did two Brain Blast trivia challenge games while in the city. Fun fun~
Augusta Tower was obnoxious though >_> Got stuck there for a while trying to figure out the way forward to the final floor while obnoxious enemies kept obnoxiously spawning in my face while I tried to figure out the situation with the puzzle switches and the platforms to/between the different rooms including solving it so they were set right so I could go where I was supposed to go. I kept losing track especially since enemies would keep respawning before/after I'd hit a switch and the darn game wouldn't just let me run away when all I wanted to do was hit the switch and see if I'd aligned the platforms/other rooms right yet. All hitting Retry did is have enemies respawn basically right back in my face again. Enemies in this place are practically unavoidable more or less and at times they can attack you practically right as they materialise too.
Scenes/boss fights on the top floor were cool though! Touching scene with Yuel/Caius and amusing Live Trigger events shortly after.
Glad there was a break with the city after this though. Good place to put it I think!~
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Final Fantasy 4 heroes of Light: I fought the final boss 4 times, and every time my losses were due to some random factor, be it "he used Black Hole two turns in a row...no, we don't care if there's literally no way to defend against this, and it fucks you over!", or in the very last run that was looking good for a while...
"Oh, that character is now absorbing an element? I thought she was nulling it! I GUESS I CAN HIT HER WITH A SECONDARY STATUS ON THIS MOVE NOW :P" which led to a bunch of shit that resulted. Yes, that's right; the game PUNISHES you from upgrading from "Null Element" to "Absorb." Why does it work this way? Because the game decides that Nulling = Missing, instead of the usual "0 damage"...
...which is something Dragon Quest games do. You know, Dragon Quest games have a "The move misses!" indicator if you do 0 damage, leading to things like Metal Babbles having seemingly higher evade than they really do (which is more just them having really high defense, and the game treats 0 damage and misses the same.) Yeah, this game seems to do the same, though often when you can't overcome defense, its "do 1 damage" but alas.
...this game is seriously a Dragon Quest that was changed to Final Fantasy mid-development and given an FF paint job and it shows. Let me count the ways...
-Fetch Quest Based plot
-Limited Inventory divided among PCs (instead of just a universal one)
-Clunky Menus
-Shitty Interface
-Space Flea from Nowhere Final Boss whose basically just "INCARNATION OF EVIL!!!" whose also the main villain, with no herald figure (like, say, Golbez) to at least play the role of a consistent antagonist, for at least SOME Good Guy vs. Bad Guy interaction
-Speaking of which, an army of one scene wonder henchman who pretend to have a lot of plot but actually don't, who exist to just have boss fights (at least the FF1 Fiends had BACKSTORY. That's more than these losers can say)
-Games refusal to tell you a shit load of hidden stats and factors.
I could go on, but the game is a Dragon Quest, not a Final Fantasy. Anyone who says "its a great way to capture old school RPGs!" has issues, because no, it illustrates like every problem that existed in the NES era that we've moved on from...FOR A GOOD REASON.
And to make matters worse, who in god's name thought making you unable to target manually was a good idea? The AP system is at least unique for strategy, but strategy is mitigated when you don't have full control of your PCs. And bosses are clearly designed with randomized AI too, outside of HP triggers. You can go through an entire fight, lose at the very end, prepare to avoid that scenario, only to see him whip out a move he didn't have the previous fight COMPLETELY out of nowhere at the beginning of the fight. And the way later fights are structured, you can get screwed on turn 1, if you don't do things exactly.
The game does have a Job system which is...alright, though kind of misses one of the fun factors of the Job system (ability to mix and match skill sets), without any sort of compensation factor (FFX-2, for example, made up for it by letting you swap jobs mid-battle, allowing you for a different kind of variety with the system.) The job system is poorly executed in that the balance is kind of blech, and at times it feels like you outright need certain jobs to beat certain bosses. Not to mention, again, the game doesn't tell you all significant factors for a job, like apparently all jobs have hidden weapon and magic affinities like, say, Suikoden 2/4 Rune affinities. So you can equip someone with a bad-ass sword and they'd have high strength, but you'd see them do shitty damage and question why.
See, here's another problem with the system are those affinities. In most other job systems (FF3/5/T most specifically), the game just says can you equip y/n? If you can equip a Sword, you're good with swords, and now its your stats that determine the rest (ie a Blue Mage can use a Sword, but obviously a Knight does it better because of much higher strength), if you can't, then you can't use a Sword unless you equip a skill that lets it. Pretty logical stuff! Because I mentioned it earlier, FFX-2 just side steps the entire equipment issue by not having conventional equips outside of accessories, so you never have to worry about that (which is also an acceptable way of handling the scenario.) Here, though, your Black Mage can use a Sword just like your Bandit can, but there's no way you'd know the Bandit had higher affinity in it, and you'd just assume he was doing more damage because of much higher strength. So when your Ranger starts doing less than Bandit despite the strength scores with the same weapon, you suddenly scratch your head. Ok, the game does tell you for SPECIFIC JOBS that they're "Good with this weapon!", but that to me is the game's way of saying "They have an S rank in that weapon, it is special, USE IT!"
For a different kind of flaw...
The game lacks a central main character, and is clearly an ensemble (the name is kind of not subtle about that.) This isn't a flaw in and of itself, but the way its handled is and I'll get to why. See, like FF6, FF8, FF9, and FF13, there's constant character splits and you're forced to deal with only some characters for the first half of the game.
At first, this isn't too bad when you have only Brandt and Yunita after Jusqua and Aire leave early, because shortly afterwords, you get a Temp PC. Ok, cool, if the game is handing me temps to fill in empty gaps, I can live with a party split, as my team won't feel as hindered...
...the problem is its not consistent about this. After your first temp leaves, you don't get another until a few hours later when one of your PCs is crippled by a hex (not that the stat loss is notable enough at this point) and you only get 2 more Temps, one of whom joins for not even a full dungeon, so often you're left with only 2 PC teams and in a game that keeps introducing jobs fast, it doesn't really let you get a good chance to experiment when you only have 2 PCs.
But the fail doesn't end there. See, the game doesn't balance the PCs properly either. I don't mean stat wise, I mean EXP wise. You get Brandt and Yunita used for a while...ok, then Jusqua and Aire get to be used, so they catch up...fair. Its not too bad as characters are dealing with different areas allowing for enemies to be balanced properly around lower leveled characters catching up...
...that is until late in the first half of the game. Brandt is split from his ally just as an excuse for a cheap plot device, so he's gotta go solo for a little while. This isn't too bad because Brandt has been used for some time now, he's leveled up fine, with up to date equipment, so he can deal the updated enemies solo well enough if set up fine...
Then Jusqua decides to leave his teamate for NO GOOD REASON, and you haven't been using him for a while, so he's both behind on equipment with no chance to catch him up UNLESS you knew this scenario was coming ahead of time and put stuff in storage, and he's underleveled, and he's basically about to fight the exact same enemies Brandt fought...solo. So enemies yo were cruising through 5 minutes ago are now kicking your ass and there's nothing you can do about it...
...did I mention that "run" is a Job skill? Because it is, on one of the worse Jobs in the game (Wayfarer, your first Non-Jobless Job.) Uh, yeah, "Run" being a Job skill fails for obvious reasons since its a BASIC ABILITY in games not FF3o. No, I don't mean "Escape", as in "100% Run" like Tidus and Zidane's Flee, or what the FF5 Thief gets, I mean GENERIC RUNNING. You get Escape too, and that's fine as a Job skill! BUT RUN SHOULD BE A BASIC FUNDAMENTAL "ATTEMPT TO GET OUT OF A STICKY SITUATION!" ability. FINAL FANTASY 1 GOT THIS RIGHT THIS GAME HAS NO EXCUSE!!!
Honestly, I could go on and its really hard to think of anything this game does right. Cool boss designs are smacked by the stupid randomness of the system (random variance is all over the place), neat concepts are hit by Dragon Quest level polish, etc.
What's the game getting? I'm angry enough at it to give it a 2/10, but that might be a bit harsh, but its not getting above 3/10, that's for sure. Yeah, the game is just bad, and "IT REALLY CAPTURES OLD SCHOOL STYLE GAMING GREAT!!!" is true in that "NES RPGs were shit. So glad we're out of that era."
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RS3.12 - Cat's quest is completed. So is the Dragon's Eye. Good bye to you too Sif! *Dumps
Went on and destroyed Byunei with Gwan after that. Since this is a fight using Gwan, Byunei sucks by nature.
Now I have access to the lab! Yay, lean new techs for free!
Red also learned on more Hero tech. Seriosuly, it took him this long just to get Deflect Lance? And I don't even hace Kaiser Smash yet.
The HP is still not at the point for Asellus to rejoin, but I'll probably be there after I get the Holy Grail, so off to Leonard's Castle I go.
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FF13-2: Got to the Archylte Steppe,
missed where the game wanted me to go went exploring, found enemies that destroyed me. Some things don't change.
I am currently using three monsters: Nekton (Ravager with slow), Cait Sith (medic yay), and Clione (offensive synergist yay). Serah mainly RAV/SAB with some COM/SEN, Noel is more boring and uses his high Atk to COM things, but is also the defensive SYN. My main problem with my current team is I have no mechanical monster to use up those items but shrug, maybe an appealing one will show up.
Most of the design changes from this game make it feel like a step back from FF13 but it's still quite enjoyable certainly. It and FF9 being played side-by-side in this household at the moment leaves very little doubt as to which game is better!~
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El Cid: You can get most of the plot from item descriptions and meeting Kaathe in the abyss (by fighting the 4 kings before placing the lordvessel)
Spoilers
You got tricked into essentially becoming the guardian of the flame (like Gwyn was) by Fraampt and Genevievre, who's actually an illusion created by Gwendolyn. (I guess that's why she's so big compared to the other giants)
Kaathe works for the dragons (the ones who get their asses kicked by the gods in the prologue) To follow his plan you must kill Gwyn and leave after the final battle instead of touching the flame. This makes you follow the prophecy of the pygmy (your ancestor) and become the dark lord. This is kinda like the true demon ending in Nocturne and could be seen as the good ending, because the gods are jerk anyway. But honestly, I don't think Kaathe and his dragons ruling would be a very good thing for anyone. And dark lord doesn't sound good, even if it's meant in a literal way here. (No fire = darkness)
As a neat touch, in Demon's souls there are six archstones that lead to six different places (the main levels of the game) Unfortunately, one is broken and you can't do anything about it in the game. It was supposed to lead to the northern lands... Dark Souls is the missing level from Demon's Souls.
Dragon Quest Monsters Caravan Hearts Solo: The aftergame is pretty bad, you're supposed to go all around the world to find stuff yet there's no holy water available to eliminate crappy random encounters. So much tedium. Fortunately my monster is a metal slaying level 30 stat god.
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FF13- Just working on the Ores sidequest. Whoever thought throwing in more fetchquests to FF13 was a good idea deserves to be shot. Gameplay is way worse across the board. Fuck Augusta Tower and Academia 400 in particular for this. No, game. Unavoidable randoms that spawn during puzzles is not good design. .
On the flip side, even the deep voiced villainous wanker is getting development, and the entire cast has been enjoyable outside of Alyssa.
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Re: Super rants on Chocolina
...and here I thought I couldn't like her any more than I already did.
Dear Super,
Please Write a Bonus Match-type write-up about Chocolina.
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FF9 - Going to the Outer Continent. For some reason. Can't wait to get UNCLFKR so we can have an emo rivarly.
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FF13- Just working on the Ores sidequest. Whoever thought throwing in more fetchquests to FF13 was a good idea deserves to be shot.
FF fans.
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FF13- Just working on the Ores sidequest. Whoever thought throwing in more fetchquests to FF13 was a good idea deserves to be shot.
FF fans.
The amusing part is that FF games since FF4 have been far less fetch quest heavy...
...except for FF12...which is less "fetch quests" and more "huge amounts of gameplay with little plot progression", and is also regarded as the "most different" FF in the series.
...so yeah, unless they're huge fans of FF1-3, I find the hypocrisy here quite amusing! (this is not aimed at you, Tal, more the hilarity of people asking for shit that actually is NOT the norm in the series)
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RS3.12 - There is certainly a lot of things to do in Leonard's Castle. Asellus rejoins, got the Emerald and Holy Grail. Also blinked a few more techs by fighting Yami. And yes, Red finally blinked all his hero tech outside Al-Phoenix and Final Crusade.
Fetched the Ice Magi after that.
Also started chasing Jackle, time to collect all the Holy King items.
And just noticed this patch does not have Iron Will, shock. I'll have to prepare some substitues.
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Fenrir: Well that pretty easily clarifies whether or not I'm killing Gwyndolin when I replay this! And yeah, I had never even spoken to Kaathe, which I will certainly be doing next time.
Mrgh, already inclined to replay this in a different class. Presumably would go much faster with advance knowledge of the game. I barely used magic at all (just Iron Flesh for a couple bosses, and the occasional fireball) so would presumably run a caster. EDIT: Hmm, cleric or sorcerer?
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Overall fun, though the main villain is the biggest tool I've ever seen in Japanese media... and that's pretty impressive all things considered.
I was going to call bullshit on this, but wow. No. He rivals Kevin for absolute wankery.
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Yeul is no Shion though so there's that at least~
Also I think the point is Caius is sick and tired of being a tool which is why he wants to *Late first half Episode 5 SPOILERS* kill the Goddess! Of being a tool and of Etro using others as tools~
Read one of Fang's fragments from Sunleth 400 AF for her thoughts on the being behind it all as well.
I think players might be put in his shoes in the end Foreshadowing going on here!~
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RS3.12 - Took down Jackle, yeah shinies! Also did the vampire and Cyfreet quest. Watching Sophia being Rudvich's loyal underling feels so weird. Beat Bokhon after that, fetching that Moonlight. Also tag along with Fuse and beat Campbell. Wonder Fuse has Awakening in this patch or not. If yes, he'll be final party member material.
Then I head to Holy King's Chapel and use the Dragon Ruler there to blink techs. Got a bunch of high level rod, rapier, and gun techs. At last I have those states buster moves I need. And whee Red learned Tiger Rampage on top of blinking Al Phoenix and Final Crusade!! Lovely, only Re-Al Phoenix is left!. Anyway, by damage out put should be enough bu this point. Next thing to do would be torturing Dantarg until Asellus drains Grand Cross from him so Asellus can obtain uber physical states.
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El Cid:
Miracles : Many miracles offer nice utility (healing, tranquill walk of peace, vow of silence, great magic barrier, homeward, wrath of the gods...) You can't rely on the attack spells to get you through the game, and you still need to spend some stats where it counts (like endurance, vitality...) Wrath of the gods is supreme but you only get 3 charges.
Sorcery : Pure mage, you don't need anything but really high magic stats (a little vitality wouldn't hurt though) The Chameleon spell is hilarious, but otherwise you only get pure damage.
I found sorcery to be considerably easier and a lot more different than other classes.
If that matters, the worth of both classes is reversed in PVP, sorcery is extremely easy to avoid or null, while Wrath of the gods might be too good.
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FFXIII-2: Final dungeon. Yes that's right >_>
The design is Tetris blocks dungeon! and the first boss fight within is *Giraffes! Which I haven't defeated yet *Giraffes! are OP The fights so far in the final dungeon have been tough in general. Might be time to spend all that CP I've been hoarding! On the other hand I don't want the enemies/bosses to go from tough to pushovers like most of the game so far~
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FFXIII-2: Final dungeon. Yes that's right >_>
The design is Tetris blocks dungeon! and the first boss fight within is *Giraffes! Which I haven't defeated yet *Giraffes! are OP The fights so far in the final dungeon have been tough in general. Might be time to spend all that CP I've been hoarding! On the other hand I don't want the enemies/bosses to go from tough to pushovers like most of the game so far~
Blow the CP. The randoms are obnoxious as is.
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/me nods
I might after the boss duo then. I think I've came up with a working deck set for them. Just need to tweak it since I discovered if you manage to take one of them out the other one revives it's fallen comrade! I'm using Serah as lead with SAB/SYN/SEN -W- (start) SAB/RAV/SEN -C-, COM/COM/SEN and SEN/MED/MED for the most part here. With the odd Tortoise-SEN/SEN/SEN thrown inMy Pulse Knight is a great guardian and Serah/Noel's best friend right now <3
Yeah though if the randoms/bosses are only going to get even tougher as the dungeon goes I might as well go ahead and blow it all. Thanks for letting me know super. I have about 80'000 CP saved up from just clearing the story events from Augusta Tower to here. Seems like the case is it'll just give me an edge under these circumstances rather than enabling me to curb stomp everything~
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Ninja Gaiden 2: Part way into Chap 8. There is nothing about this chapter that is actually fun so far. Starts off with Bazooka wielding Ninjas that keep respawning. Game wants you to fight them in a sniper war, but that doesn't work because they fire faster than you (and don't have to aim), its 2 on one at all points, killing one means another spawns pretty much RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU, being hit by one means you get chained smacked, and the sandbags do jack all to block their arching missiles. IOWs, its stupid...
Then they throw 3 robots (that respawn a few times) at you...WITH SNIPING BAZOOKAS. This is dumb for a number of reasons, the biggest one being, of all things, the robots self destruct, so if you kill them with a finishing move, they'll explode immediately after your invincibility is over, and if you aren't blocking, you're taking damage...if your back is facing one of the robots? Screwed. If missiles are being fired? Screwed.
Its basically this nonsense for the first part of the chapter over and over again. Sniping Bazooka Ninjas. Then you finally get into a room with EXPLODING SHURIKEN NINJAS. Ok, not so bad; NG1 did it...except NG1 did it a lot better. Having a cap of 3 means its actually manage-able (if still ball bustingly hard), and they didn't throw them EVERYTIME YOU WERE ONE PIXEL OUT OF MELEE RANGE (and there's a cap of at least 5 of them.) Its really just a huge "so you took one of the most annoying things of the previous game...and made it WORSE by adding in multiple design decisions?"
I'll finish this game, but damn is it frustrating. Its like they took one step forward in some areas, and 3 steps back in others. NG1's difficulty, boss fights aside, never felt poorly handled. Oh, you got your ass kicked a lot, but eventually you got a hang of things. Here, I feel like its luck half the time. Shame too, because Chap 7 was really quite fun before the Armadillo bullshit, and showed this game definitely still has life in Mook Combat.
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FF13-2: Done. Not finished, but done. Got to the final boss (After a chain of other bosses and cutscenes) got absolutely wiped by Teraflare. I wasn't even remotely close to surviving it, so I will youtube the ending later.
This game has problems across the board. This game tries to be a sandbox RPG and fails miserably at it. The lack of the directions in the side missions is frustrating in the extreme, especially in light of how FF13 did missions. FF13 had the little blurb and ballparked you where to go for a bos fight. Cool! FF13-2 mostly has you do item hunting with no direction or marking on the map, so it's either FAQ time or hope you get lucky. The platformers that they tacked on sucked too (Hi, final dungeon). This is a problem at the couple of points where the game just dumps you out of the main plot and expects you to muddle through. Okay, whatever, I can deal. The actual plot is time travel nonsense, y ou ignore and just try to enjoy the character work.
FF13-2 fails *miserably* at gameplay. The change to invisble randoms irrirated me at first, but it turned into a black mark against the game later on. You can't avoid randoms in two of the later dungeons, which is bad enough. In Academia, they spawn almost instantly in a mazey area. Augustus tower just has them spawn in puzzle areas where they attack you before you can even really see them.
Combat is watered down. The game itself is easy. You set a rav/rav/rav and a com/com/com and it handles 85% of the randoms. Sab is still useful, but it got the nerf stick bad- slow and daze aren't available any more, and all of the debilitation spells aren't available for the controllable PC's. So when you get to a fight where you want to try fogging the enemies, nope! Hope you have a monster sab handy with those skills, and better hope the monster feels like using them. Syn also got horribly nerfed- there is only one PC syn worth a fuck (Noel) and he doesn't get any offensive buffs. So when you actually get challenging fights, you can't really put the system to full use the way you could in 13 and buff/debuff/tinker with strategies to deal with the fight. FF13 cast balance meant that there were good arguments for using and not using every PC; 13-2 sticks you with Serah/Noel/Monster of the day. 13-2 should have been more of C9-13, where the game pushed you and got you to really think about your options. Instead you get a largely fixed team and a shallower version of the game system. Blah.
Re: ClearTranquil's point about the purple wanker
Caius was willing to destroy in opposition to what the Yuels said they wanted. Noel called him out on his bullshit most aptly near the end. Waaaaaaah I keep having to see the seeress die waaaaaah I am going to create A WORLD WITHOUT PAIN FOR HER oh hey let's go kill time so she can have eternal happiness. This is literally the same crock of shit Kevin fed Shion at the end of XS3.
I don't have a high opinion of that character.
There are some postives. Serah and Noel are both reasonably well done, and Snow's appearance was cool. Some of the plot stuff was strikingly well done, and the game does a better job with storytelling than FF13. Just... *shrug* it's a massive step down from FF13, when it could have been so much more. I blame moronic fans entirely for this. Game clocks in at a 4/10. It's flawed but has enough going for it to justify this.
tl;dr version:
Good: FF13 combat, some character work
Bad: Gameplay changes, FAQ bait sidequests
Ugly: The purple wanker.
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I pretty much agree with most of that, outside the "invisible" randoms, and any stuff that requires you be further into the game than I am (Academia, villain stuff). And of course with the snarky comment that every game that tries to be a sandbox RPG the whole game fails miserably at it as far as I'm concerned, and at least 13-2 has some story structure. The game will do significantly better than a 4/10 for me barring an epic collapse but I still agree with way too much there.
Anyway, just fought the Faeryl at the Archylte Steppe. While it's quite possible I'm underlevelled, I found this guy quite tough, he piled on a lot of damage and it kept me on my toes all fight. Had one reset and came back with a paradigm set that was less terrible for bosses. I'm finally using SEN again which is nice, it felt useless for a while. Nice to see some of what made FF13 so good still shines through.
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Well ... Yeul still isn't Shion! >_>
All I'll say for now until super's watched the ending is that Caius's plan isn't as obvious as it seems, there's more to the situation than Serah and Noel think as they make their way to the final fights. I'm not saying the way Caius is going about things is right but I think upon watching the ending players who have connected to/been invested in Serah/Noel will get a taste of his frustration and rage. Both Caius and Yeul warned Noel what would happen in the end, if Noel had finished him off to begin with things might have been different~
/me watched ending already back during Japanese streaming >_>
Unlike super I'm actually enjoying the final dungeon which is surprising because when I saw it on streams it looked quite obnoxious but surprisingly I'm not finding it so. I'm actually quite enjoying theTetris blocks theme and the atmosphere here so far. Well I won the first boss there after a few more retries. My new deck set ups worked out quite well after tweaking them so most of them were under -W- formation tuning. I also discovered something cool, after having Serah spam Wound through out the fight including while the target/s were staggered and for finishing one of them off with, when the remaining target revived it's ally it wasn't revived back to full health this time. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with the Wound status proper but because I'd been heavily inflicting it through out the fight I think so. Either that or it was because I'd been dividing damage between the targets this time and the remaining target can only revive the other back based on the amount of HP the reviver has left. They did manage to revive each other two or three times but it was less and less HP each time. Hmmm. Fun times~
I think SEN is going to be quite useful for the final dungeon on the whole. Ran into Proto Behemoth while exploring after the boss fight and owww. Need to remember and bring Tortoise for the finale too it seems.
@ NEB - Yeah agreed. I've had similar experiences by apparently taking a more difficult but still relatively direct route through the main stuff, though quite a lot of it was easy there are definitely exceptions to this where the battle system proper does shine through. Granted this does seem rarer than first time through FFXIII too though true. Hmmm~
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*Whistles* the purple wanker can still get bent, but that ending was pretty damn good. Edit: That's enough to push the game up two points and me to push my foot out of my mouth.
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El Cid:
Miracles : Many miracles offer nice utility (healing, tranquill walk of peace, vow of silence, great magic barrier, homeward, wrath of the gods...) You can't rely on the attack spells to get you through the game, and you still need to spend some stats where it counts (like endurance, vitality...) Wrath of the gods is supreme but you only get 3 charges.
Sorcery : Pure mage, you don't need anything but really high magic stats (a little vitality wouldn't hurt though) The Chameleon spell is hilarious, but otherwise you only get pure damage.
I found sorcery to be considerably easier and a lot more different than other classes.
If that matters, the worth of both classes is reversed in PVP, sorcery is extremely easy to avoid or null, while Wrath of the gods might be too good.
I actually started a file as a cleric last night. You know what never happened in my first game? Moving at full speed. I was always carrying something close to 50% weight capacity. Oh my god I'm never wearing armor again. Resolved to keep weight at 25% or less at all times for the sake of maneuverability, which pretty much necessitates just sticking to clothes. You know what difference in durability I've noticed as a result of this? None whatsoever. So yeah, defensive stats in Dark Souls, not worth caring about unless you're fighting Four Kings. So now I'm running around in Dusk's outfit just because it looks fabulous.
The attack magic might not be overwhelming, but it's certainly nice to have. Lightning Spear? Killed that first titanite demon in four hits. I can't believe I was killing those things in melee first run (or wasting ~100 arrows/bolts sniping each one). Want Great Lightning Spear so bad. But alas, that requires jolly cooperation, which chronic overleveling apparently makes unlikely. I should just forgo leveling for a while since I seem pretty well set to deal with anything at the moment.
Ran the catacombs as soon as it was feasible (that is, as soon as I could get a divine weapon, which meant running through the Valley of Drakes to get the Astora straight sword). 1x Pinwheel death acquired! "Oh, he lived through a full attack sequence this time. And now there's four of him. I should probably--" *ZAP* "...move." Fully kindled bonfires and heal spells...yeah, I don't think I'll be running out of healing at any point during this run.
I let a guest wipe out Capra Demon for me. I beat him legit the first run through this, totally entitled to employ gameplay skip for the most hated battle in the game. Fuck if I'm burning another couple hours on a fight that's almost wholly dependent on whether dogs get in your way the first couple seconds. Player on the other side must've been shaking his head as I blundered into a corner with the dogs, somehow lived on like 2hp for the duration of the fight because I'd accidentally switched items without noticing and there just happened to be a column in the way preventing the enemies from hitting me for the crucial couple seconds it took the guest to kill the boss.
In sum: last time I ran the Juggernaut. This time I'm a lightning-throwing pretty princess swordgirl. One guess which is more effective.
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YOu're making me want to resume my Dark Souls playthrough =(
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*Whistles* the purple wanker can still get bent, but that ending was pretty damn good. Edit: That's enough to push the game up two points and me to push my foot out of my mouth.
Are you serious? The ending had made the entire thing into a nonsensical time loop.
And this created a fal'Cie=Etro is dead before she is dead type of situation... which is totally WTF.
RS3.12 - Done collecting all the Holy King items, killed Gwen after that and rebuild the small village. Kzinssie is pathetic as always. Anyway, got the Day Blade from him, now Gerald can become Final Emperor.
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YOu're making me want to resume my Dark Souls playthrough =(
Join ussssssss. (How far were you?)
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*Whistles* the purple wanker can still get bent, but that ending was pretty damn good. Edit: That's enough to push the game up two points and me to push my foot out of my mouth.
FF13-2 ending stuff
Spoilers go here.
The main plot's nonsensical. I'm just surprised they had the balls to A: kill Serah and Lightning. B: Do so in a fashion that was foreshadowed beforehand. That Alyssa spoiler too, wow. You spend two games trying to save the sisters, and nope! offed in the end.
Time travel plot is bad plot, but the overarching character work (as with FF13) is more important. Game had some other really good stuff in there too- Noel's dream world and Alyssa's betrayal high on the list.
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Cid, you can farm Sunlight Medals from the small bugs by the secret passage in Izalith.
Also, damn you people enjoying cleric so much. It was probably the worst class before the patches.
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Forget everything else I've been playing, ADD set in and I randomly tried out Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey.
Gameplay is too dungeon-crawler for me (It's why I'm not a big EO fan), but the story and demon-collecting work for me. I don't see myself finishing it without massive cheating.
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FF13-2: Decided its about time I started this game because...shut up.
Anyway, basically played past the intro and finally got access to Chrystarium. First impressions other than "Hey, its an FF13 sequel!"? Well, Serah's about what I expected, didn't know what to expect with Noel but I am liking what I've seen so far since they're going down a more friendly, optimistic route than "super cryptic mysterious guy!" route. Its like they remember "you can be mysterious and still act like something resembling a normal person!" here, which is points.
On the otherhand...Chrystarium seems to have taken back steps. Definitely prefer FF13's version, if only because you can see what stat boosts you're getting ahead of time, allowing you to plan what you want for reasons OTHER than skills. Knowing "ok, going this way gets me +20 Magic while going this way gets me +20 Strength...oh wait, this is Hope, CHOICE IS OBVIOUS!" is preferable to "activate node, HERE ARE YOUR STAT BOOSTS!"
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FFXIII-2: OMGG the final boss. Finally won after at least half a dozen attempts where it managed to respawn it's allies multiple times as well during each attempt. Including in the winning fight where over the course of it each ally respawned like five or six times before I was finally able to finish off the main target proper. Thankfully Serah's SAB with Wound damage kept reducing their maximum HP totals for each time they revived, so at least it became quicker and quicker to take them out each time. Once the main target's HP is low it also gets new moves to spam yaay (one of my wipes was when it used both this and another OP move back to back before I could Tortoise/heal/buff on time to survive) Epic boss fight? Epic boss fight?~
Serah 3000~ HP/ 600 MAG/ Buff Duration 8% (with equips), Noel 5000~ HP (with accessories) /500~ STR, Pulse Knight max LV, L52 Cait Sith (Long Gui back pack!~)
Decks used - SYN/SYN/SEN (W) SAB/SAB/SEN (C) MED/MED/SEN (W) SAB/RAV/SEN (C) SEN/SEN/SEN (W) COM/COM/SEN (C)
After my first losses I ended up tinkering with accessories to boost Serah's MAG and Noel's HP more. I think it made all the difference in the end for improved debuffing/healing and survival. If Serah fell Noel would survive and I'd be able to get the whole team back on it's toes =) Tinkering with the Paradigm Formations and setting it up as above also seemed to help for priority on AoE buffing/healing/etc with the Wide decks and on ST for focused debuffs/damage with the Cross decks. Also Phoenix Downs are godly in this game (revives + buffs yes plz) (although I didn't have any for the final fight there's also Phoenix Blood which is revives + Hastes ;o)~
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Dark Souls: Dear Anor Londo snipers: Wrath of the Gods. That is all. (Vengeance!)
Was a day for dying to easy bosses apparently. Got whacked by Iron Golem while pausing to chuck a lightning bolt (did I mention I'm made out of tissue paper this time around? I've barely boosted HP). But it turned out okay because TARKUUUUUUS avenged me by finishing the boss as I discorporated. "YOU DIED/received core of iron golem." I am trying to trigger all the NPC phantom events this time because I didn't really see any of them first run.
I also died to Ceaseless Discharge. Man, last time he didn't even attack me as I ran past him for the gate. And I moved slower then! Weird. Stopped to take a closer look at the monstrosity while he was passive. Had not noticed the thing actually had a face before! Thought it was just a big ball of tentacles. And what a face. Ceaseless Discharge does not look happy about being Ceaseless Discharge.
Also, swordgirl upgraded to scythegirl! This is totally impractical for the wind-up and high stamina costs, but come on, scythegirl. Dark Souls, totally a game you can gimp yourself for style, right? (I actually chose it because it had the highest raw attack stats out of the weapons my meager STR/DEX let me use, but admittedly looking like the grim reaper when I've got Quelana's outfit on is a definite bonus.) I've actually been consistently outdamaging my original PC this run just because stat-scaling. I leaned on the drake sword/lightning spear way too heavily last time.
The forest archer jumped off a cliff trying to attack me. Welp, no Black Bow of Pharis for Cid this time around! I'd be more upset if I weren't planning to go with the Darkmoon Bow anyway.
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R.S3.12 - Did the quest with Cash and Neidhart. Also beat Orlouge and Rocboquet. Noel will be next.
*Whistles* the purple wanker can still get bent, but that ending was pretty damn good. Edit: That's enough to push the game up two points and me to push my foot out of my mouth.
FF13-2 ending stuff
Spoilers go here.
The main plot's nonsensical. I'm just surprised they had the balls to A: kill Serah and Lightning. B: Do so in a fashion that was foreshadowed beforehand. That Alyssa spoiler too, wow. You spend two games trying to save the sisters, and nope! offed in the end.
Time travel plot is bad plot, but the overarching character work (as with FF13) is more important. Game had some other really good stuff in there too- Noel's dream world and Alyssa's betrayal high on the list.
I see, that is understandable then. I am not too sure on Lightning.
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Cid: Uh, if I recall right...
I'd defeated Taurus Demon, Bell Gargoyle, Capra Demon, Gaping Dragon, Spider Boobs, Iron Golem, Moonlight Butterfly, Great Grey Wolf Sif and Pinwheel. I think I'd been wandering around the ruins of New Londo and/or Anor Londo.
Anyhow. Mass Effect replay. Kinda slacked off, so now I don't have a ton of time! Trying to stay somewhat in-character with side mission selection and the like. Currently doing Virmire and then Noveria remains of all that. Should be able to finish that this week, and then blitz through ME2 before ME3.
Bastion: Only one more core left, I guess. Then, clearly, the game ends, what with so much of the map open.
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Dark Souls: So apparently Super Ornstein's only move is an electric buttstomp. Yeah, I'll go back to killing him first.
Messed around with PVP some because I want that Darkmoon Blade miracle, dammit. This was probably less productive than farming the damn things from harpies would've been but augh farming (also augh harpies). I can only win anything through Wrath of the Gods spam. I'd feel worse about this if the alternative weren't usually LAGSTAB. It's painfully obvious I haven't invested enough in HP to actually stand a chance against most other PCs (also LAGSTAB), but at least I can potentially nuke someone if I catch them off guard. And at least there's an amusing death once in a while. Watching the host get stabbed in the back by hollows while taunting dead Cid? Totally worth an ex-Cid. Also. *Host bows. Cid bows back. Host's phantom buddy stabs Cid in the back. OHKO.* Chivalry is dead. Darkmoon invasions seem pretty risk-free though, dunno if that goes for the other covenants as well?
Somewhat related, Undead Parish phantom Solaire has a fuckton of HP. Dude ate a WotG and a whole battery of heavy attacks while in the center of a hollow mob before going down.
EDIT: I found what looked remarkably like a puddle of nuclear waste sitting on the road in Anor Londo. "Would you like to view dragon remains y/n." I wandered off. What the heck was that?
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RS3.12 - Noel and Rocboquet down. Got the game best rapier from Noel as well. Got the Obsidian Sword after that, Hate is still a pitiful punch bag.
And I found out Ixtel is in this game, and he drops Brionac too! Yay, I now have the strongest gun! Then move on did a whole a lot of SF2 event, blinked Final Letter and Fire Dragon Fist when figting Megalith Beast!! Yay!! But bah, I couldn't find Death Sage for some reason.
Since I want to recruit Sherah now, I'll quickly go close other Abyss Gates first so I can initiate the quest on Death.
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That patch sounds crazy.
El Cid, you should have checked this out, because you might not ever see this again. (same thing with vagrants/ gravelord invasions)
Armor gives you poise on top of defense, which can get pretty useful. (see why everybody PVPs in heavy armor)
Archer is the worst class by far unless you just give him an axe or something and forget about bows. They're only good at doing a little chip damage, with a few lategame exceptions.
SO2 Precis Solo: Went to the cave of trials, got 50 levels and 2 Tri-Emblems from Santa. I'm too lazy to go back to Indy but I feel like I've already won.
ToI Mania mode Luca Solo: Finished the first dungeon, on my knees, after playing for about 10 hours.
Yeeeeah this is way too hard. Battles against the three mini bosses were really fun and intense, but I can't go on like this forever, any real boss could utterly crush me.
I could break the game by grinding the guild dungeon and getting uber weapons, but where's the fun in that? I'm bumping the difficulty down to normal or hard mode.
I really like this Tales battle system, it has free run with enemies being able to handle it (unlike in Abyss), being able to Guard -> Sidestep right through the enemy is great, skills don't cost too much TP, style and weapon customization are alright. The DS controller isn't really comfortable enough for this kind of game, though.
And the game is bombarding me with skits I choose not to see!
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EDIT: I found what looked remarkably like a puddle of nuclear waste sitting on the road in Anor Londo. "Would you like to view dragon remains y/n." I wandered off. What the heck was that?
Was it gray? Then it might have been a Dragon Covenant duel sign.
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That patch sounds crazy.
...
ToI Mania mode Luca Solo: Finished the first dungeon, on my knees, after playing for about 10 hours.
That patch sounds crazy.
That patch sounds crazy.
That patch sounds crazy.
I missed you dude. Never leave again.
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El Cid, you should have checked this out, because you might not ever see this again. (same thing with vagrants/ gravelord invasions)
Armor gives you poise on top of defense, which can get pretty useful. (see why everybody PVPs in heavy armor)
I've seen all of one vagrant, at the end of my first run. And the "Defeat of the Gravelord servant" message has popped up many times, but I've never actually seen any effect of that invasion.
I seriously miss actually having poise, yeah. Everything staggers me and even plenty of blocked heavy attacks will knock me back a couple feet. I've barely noticed any worthwhile difference in durability from not wearing armor; poise seems to be the real advantage of it.
EDIT: I found what looked remarkably like a puddle of nuclear waste sitting on the road in Anor Londo. "Would you like to view dragon remains y/n." I wandered off. What the heck was that?
Was it gray? Then it might have been a Dragon Covenant duel sign.
It was indeed, yes.
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This means I'm a good judge of what's crazy or not!
El Cid, in 200 hours I've never been gravelorded and have seen only one vagrant.
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FF9 - Disc 3, now I have access to the lagoon. Time to try to find the chocobo upgrade so I can explore more!!!
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That patch sounds crazy.
And that is not the most comprehensive patch either.
This patch I am using is an inbetween patch of 3.12 and AA patch.
The latest patch is AA Beta patch. Which has the monster transformation system and Mec customization fully integrated. The variety of events covers up to with Judy's quest in Unlimitede SaGa.
But god, do they have to nerf Goddess and Blue/Rogue in that patch or not.
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FF13-2: Just beat up a giant robot in our first time traveling adventures!
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RS3.12 - All Abyss Gate closed, and I get Re-Al Phoenix too!! Now it is time to beat the crap out of Death, but before that I need the Black Diamond first.
And gee, not only I can't find the Death Sage, I can't find the Chaos Ruler either!
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Dark Souls: Killed Lautrec in the firekeeper's outfit. Vengeance!
So, Tomb of the Giants, best place to invade or best place to invade? The ohshitwhereishe factor is pretty high on both sides. The smart hosts seem to just sit still and wait for the invader to walk by. One of them I only noticed by his glowing shoes. What the heck makes boots glow in this game? One time the guy died offscreen while I was still materializing. Tomb of the Giants! It is possibly only made more eerie by the fact of enemies patiently waiting for the host's arrival while you're in phantom mode. Sound is dulled and there's this muted, vaguely breathlike background noise while you walk around motile but passive corpses. Suddenly you're a POV monster from a horror movie.
I still suck at invasions though and am just not built to deal with other PCs (not enough HP). It can be an amusing disaster sometimes, but the only reason I'm really doing it in the first place is for souveneirs of reprisal (I want the Darkmoon Blade miracle) but this obviously is not to be. So I went in for Jolly Cooperation instead. This was much more fun/successful, and I got Great Lightning Spear out of it too. Most horrific moment possibly in the game: host pulls a Leeroy Jenkins into the Ariamis basement. Oh my god how are you still alive. Somehow the only casualty was the other phantom ally.
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I realized that one of my hand-me-down PCs had Steam on it. Since I couldn't fairly complain about having to use it if it had been autoloading for years for no reason, I broke down and bought Terraria.
It's as great as I imagined it would be while grumbling at Let's Plays of it. Just killed the Wall of Flesh and started Hard Mode.
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Started playing Perfect World again since I have a lot of time on my hands. Surprisingly little has changed in two years. Gold prices are up, but many other commodities are rather cheap.
The new expansion launched today, and it's pretty groovy. The free armor set is a bit worse than what I've been using, but the weapon is an improvement. I also got a new skill that turns me into a whirling dervish.
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SRWJ, finally beaten. Took me awhile, but I slowly got there. Kill leader was Toya in the Granteed(obviously), followed by the Nadesico and Mazinkaiser. Neither one of which are remotely surprising. Final fight was funish, was tempted just to slaughter endless waves of reinforcements for kicks for awhile, but decided to end it. Final map PC oddly dissapointing despite having monster durability.
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Started playing Perfect World again since I have a lot of time on my hands. Surprisingly little has changed in two years. Gold prices are up, but many other commodities are rather cheap.
The new expansion launched today, and it's pretty groovy. The free armor set is a bit worse than what I've been using, but the weapon is an improvement. I also got a new skill that turns me into a whirling dervish.
Was playing a couple weeks ago. Should jump on to check out the new patch.
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Sonic Colors (DS)- Finished, sans emeralds. If this were indicative of Dimps in general, they seem alright. Not good necessarily, but okay for being the B Team.
That said, they've made some truly baffling design decisions here. Primarily a) arghle Void and b) You're... reusing Sonic 2 special stage design? Really? Fortunately that second thing isn't a big deal, both because it's optional and because they're less stupid than Sonic 2's despite touch screen controls. The first, well, it only REALLY applies to one stage, so one stage out of twelve being terrible isn't a complete knock on the game.
The rest of the game is alright, little on the easy side, but I'm not gonna complain about that. Bosses were even easier, on average, but the final is pretty decent and very Sonic-y, so I can't fault it entirely.
So, y'know, 'salright. 6/10 territory.
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RS3.12 - Did the quest with Marin and got the Black Diamond. The Minion are still worthless punching bags. Also beat up Amt's stupid cat. Having Lightless Sword, aka big ITD+ITE damage in this patch made the stupid animal pathetic. Half way in Wagnus's event. I must say all his henchman are all more competent then him.
Death will be next after Wagnus is finished.
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Deus Ex Human Revolution (PS3): Fuck.
The game is big enough to be dubbed (unlike Alpha Protocol), but not big enough to include language options (unlike Assassin's Creed)
Stuck with a bad dub that completely pulls me out of the game.
Who's to blame? Square Enix?
Tales of Innocence Luca solo Mania: In some sewers. With 5 PCs out of 6. Pulling along nicely. I cheesed the last two bosses by only using the long range Fierce Demon Fang.
Dark Souls Valentine Card:
(http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz60dr9IIl1qad16go2_r1_400.png)
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Was playing a couple weeks ago. Should jump on to check out the new patch.
You won't be able to access the new area unless you're level 95+. But there are minor changes to quest tracking and the like.
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Disgaea 4 - So I've been blasting through this lately, and have been having a blast.
Contrary to how I normally play Disgaea games, I'm restricting myself quite fiercely - each stage can only be visited once, and no item/character worlds. This restriction will be lifted once I know I'm in the aftergame, but until then... I'm being provided with quite a bit of challenge.
Highlight reel:
Chapter 7 Boss: Death King Hugo - Oh good lord. 2HKO damage, SP Damage on hit, and freakishly durable... And that's just the boss. Nevermind that the support is competent, and the boss only waits three turns before rushing you to help kill you. This is the first REAL hard battle in the game. I won this by the skin of my teeth, and abusing the fact that the Base Panel lets me move twice. Two resets, or somewhere thereabouts.
8-3 (or is it 8-4?) - Deathblow block meant free levels for my healer. Got her up from 43 to 58 in one map.
Chapter 8 Boss: Des X - Damage race, because I still hadn't learned how awesome Heart Cannon was. Emizel really proved his worth here, even with only Mega Wind... And Desco's Magichanged form has a B-Ranked power skill to help kill things faster, too. 3 resets. One for me not expecting the phase transition and going in the second phase with only six characters, the other two being washes for too many characters eating death too early.
Chapter 9 - Is a real breather after all that, though I did feel gimped on money for a good while. I wasn't really threatened by the CH9 boss, either.
Chapter 10 - Oh god even the stages are hard. Stage 1 isn't too bad - some enemies stupidly leave themselves on Bye-bye Panels. Stage 2... Eh, another easy one. Just gotta be careful where the blocks are.
10-3 is the first real killer stage. I wind up soloing half the stage with Valvatorez, the last enemy having to be killed by Bow Val due to all his other skills being out of range.
10-4... I don't recall it giving me too many problems, but I did have a case of "enemy lives with 1 HP". Damage race stage that I won.
10-5... I looked at it. My brain melted.
[08:07] <MagicFanatic> ...Okay... What?
[08:08] <MagicFanatic> ...This stage... How...?
[08:08] <Namagomi> MF: :D!
[08:08] <MagicFanatic> 10-5.
[08:08] <Namagomi> Have fun!
[08:09] <MagicFanatic> Oh god.
I somehow won it by running the Shamen on the upper level out of SP, and killing everything with Valvatorez's Tower moves while sitting on a square two blocks higher than everything surrounding it. Outranged the archers with my gunners (I kinda found out that they don't move ever), and then built a staircase to take out the last Shaman.
10-6... Brain melted again. Gave myself a few resets after I didn't like how a few attacks resolved in the first round... And then I had a brilliant idea: Kill the no Color Change block, and then throw everything out of the way to prevent Magichanging. There was one I absolutely could NOT prevent, but... He died before he got to take advantage of his Magichange goodies. The rest of the battle was easy, if long due to me having only two gunners to not die and kill everything with Heart Cannon combos.
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Suikoden V: With the new one out in Japan I got the feeling to go and relive my glory days. IN HD! Sorta. Having a giant-ass flatscreen TV allows me to see a lot of weird things. Like, the character portrait boxes actually stretch a good deal to the left and don't have a lefthand border, I can see vague outlines of Shigure's eyes and there's a bunch of random lizards just chilling about the Dwarf Camp.
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That's great, Fenrir.
Chapter 7 Boss: Death King Hugo - Oh good lord. 2HKO damage, SP Damage on hit, and freakishly durable... And that's just the boss. Nevermind that the support is competent, and the boss only waits three turns before rushing you to help kill you. This is the first REAL hard battle in the game. I won this by the skin of my teeth, and abusing the fact that the Base Panel lets me move twice. Two resets, or somewhere thereabouts.
That fight was horrifying. I beat it first try, but Desco was the only survivor. Because the boss thought it was a good idea to wipe out the barely alive gunner instead of the PC who could actually do real damage. And because he didn't care much about zapping his support earlier when he fried half my team. (I am pretty sure he reacts to proximity rather than being on a timer. I inched forward over several turns to try and have my team just at range to move and attack next turn. He lunged forward and brought the pain the moment anyone was in range.) Desco for MVP as always.
Also new Suikoden what Fudo.
~
Dark Souls: Four Kings remain the embodiment of pants-shitting terror. Fought them first because I wanted to talk to Kaathe this time, had some trouble because I couldn't tank it out and my damage is too slow with this PC (higher per-hit, but not as spammable), said to hell with it and brought some summons. They both turned out to be sorcerers. Oh my god what is wrong with sorcerer damage output. Ran the fight in phantom mode a couple times later. Did you know even as a phantom you need to have the Artorias ring to survive in the Abyss? Would've been good to know before jumping into the pit! Think I redeemed myself on the host's second try though (which might've been unnecessary had I been there the first time, but details). Also how did I never know there was a shortcut through drained New Londo. Decently quick way to make 90,000 souls. Wait, what? 90,000? That's, uh...what just happened?
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Deus Ex Human Revolution (PS3): Fuck.
The game is big enough to be dubbed (unlike Alpha Protocol), but not big enough to include language options (unlike Assassin's Creed)
Stuck with a bad dub that completely pulls me out of the game.
Who's to blame? Square Enix?
At least the French will be better than it was in the original I hope given that it was made by Eidos Montreal from memory (Pretty sure it was Eidos' choice for what it is worth).
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Also new Suikoden what Fudo.
Suikoden tsumugareshi hyakunen no toki / Suikoden Not VI the second.
Suikoden V: Bloody salt event still won't trigger. Stupid random chance. Every other time I always get it as soon as Raftfleet opens but not the time it'd actually be worth it. On the other hand I've already broken 100,000 potch so eh.
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Still playing Terraria on and off. Is there an dl server for this? Does it ever see use? Will I search through the vast "What games are you playing" archives to find out?
(The answer to at least one of these questions is no.)
In other news, the latest build of Caveman2Cosmos is much more stable on my PC, which means more glorious Civ action. :D The AI civs seem a little better at surviving the neanderthal hordes in this version, too, which is nice.
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FFXIII-2: I found a red chocobo. I tried to ride that chocobo. Discovered that they eat greens at an alarming rate, so you can't ride them (and hence, listen to their theme music) for very long.
0/10 game confirmed
Otherwise, just finished up the plot at the (first?) visit to Academia 400. Pretty scrubby randoms here but a solid boss, good fun. Then the game told me to go find the right gate to advance the plot... somewhere. I miss the orange arrow so much, oh well. I have a commando monster with 400+ attack and 5000+ HP which is insane at this point, but he's literally capped out. Jeigan robot.
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I never saw any red chocobos :( Either on the field or in battle. It's really cool they can be sorta ridden on the field though. All I saw were yellow chocobos all of the time, I think I saw a green pop up in battles a couple of times (and didn't get it's monster crystal) though!
Speaking of which Lightning/Amador DLC get aww yeah! Weapons for Serah/Noel as well. Haven't actually obtained any of this in the game proper yet though just down loaded it all so far.
It's pretty neat there's so much to miss in a blind/quick run through the game though because this way when I replay it I'll still have lots to do including fighting bosses, etc with DLC characters in my team :) There's also the New Game+/gate closing type thing if I want to do that instead or too. Hmm~
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You wouldn't care about the Red Chocobo anymore when the game eventually hands you a gold one for free.
Then go capture a Tonberry and fuse its ATK+35% and MAG+35% on to the Gold Chocobo, then add some miscellaneous ability and you'll be slaughtering the entire Chocobo Race in no time.
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I think you completely missed the point of my post!
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The game just didn't want you to ride that chocobo
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Every time I see something any say "Not even NEB would like this," he always finds a way to go lower than my expectations. Case in point: the chocobo.
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It's too hilarious not to like!~
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Suikoden V: Bloody salt event still won't trigger.
So of course it happens as soon as I start up again. Clearly my bitching turns the causes of probability.
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FM4- Doing a quick replay of this since Tide's FM3 stream got me in the mood. Right before map 5, about to kick the shit out of Dranz for the first time.
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Suikoden V: Bloody salt event still won't trigger.
So of course it happens as soon as I start up again. Clearly my bitching turns the causes of probability.
This happens with alarming regularity for me. Random event won't trigger? Getting dicked over by the RNG? I just need to bitch to Jenna or Tai about it and it'll fix itself pretty fast. Especially if they can then look at the screen to see what I'm talking about, only to discover the thing I'm complaining about is no longer happening.
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Deathmetal de Chocobo is pretty much the main reason I wanted to play FF13-2.
Lost Odyssey: Sampled this. I still haven't gotten to fight anything not in tutorial land. However, I -have- read two short stories!
...at least they're pretty good short stories.
How does this Target Ring system work? Grah.
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At least the French will be better than it was in the original I hope given that it was made by Eidos Montreal from memory (Pretty sure it was Eidos' choice for what it is worth).
Doesn't seem so, it's a very standard dub with the standard people I've heard from every game (Sarif's boss is Adam from Bioshock / Marco from Assassin's Creed / Random bad guy from Just Cause 2 / whatever this guy is in every game) and horrible lyp synching.
But yeah. At least it's better than the Spanish and German versions from what I've seen. Jensen's voice is good.
Like every voiceover it's very grating at first but you get used to it... If you ignore the terribad lyp synching.
I'm at the police station right now.
The game reminds me of Alpha Protocol and Vampire Bloodlines, but... It's not really as good as either so far, I feel.
There are too many "Bethesdaaaaa" moments, especially for a non Bethesda game. Putting fridges near people to block their field of view. People talking about you to their friends even though you're just in front of them. Women casually talking in the toilets at the beginning of the game, me jumping like a madman in front of them.
Still very interesting. I've gotten the social enhancer, level 2 hacking and fridge moving augmentations so far, trying to do a no kill playthrough. Hacking feels like cheating, with the game throwing so many codes at you all the time.
Bosses are going to own me, but it can't be as bad as Marburg in Alpha Protocol. (Brayko is worse, but he's forgiven thanks to the battle music)
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Women casually talking in the toilets at the beginning of the game, me jumping like a madman in front of them.
I am given to understand that this is not actually unrealistic.
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The more fragments you collect, the longer you can ride that chocobo. Clearly if you can't handle sidequesting, you cannot handle this chocobo.
Speaking of FFXIII-2, I have 159/160 fragments collection. However the last one I require needs you to fight every single enemy in the game. Some of the spawnrates are awful, even with the Battlemania fragment skill. So fuck it, I'm done.
Silver Chocobo is better for racing since it doesn't require as many materials to level up. All you need is 680 attack/magic, infuse it with a microchu and cactuar and you'll win every race.
In case you didn't know about Chocolina, It's Sazh's frocobo, mutated from Sazh's well permed and washed hair.
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DEATH TO CHOCOLINA
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How does this Target Ring system work? Grah.
Hold the button down. A big ring will zoom in. When it reaches the center ring, release it. You want to hit it anywhere between the Outer Ring and the Inner Ring (you'll see what I mean when you look at it.) If you get it directly on the border of the inner Ring, you'll get a Perfect, I believe.
The Ring stuff isn't integral to playing the game, as failing it means you just do standard damage, but it is nice to get the hang of. You can make it easier by getting a + Ring, which is basically the same thing but with an increased hit box (though only for "Goods"; it expands the outer border basically and makes it really obvious where to hit. Its good for practice so you know what to look for.)
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Bosses are going to own me, but it can't be as bad as Marburg in Alpha Protocol. (Brayko is worse, but he's forgiven thanks to the battle music)
I never had that much trouble with Marburg, but then again, I used chain shot on him and then stalled him in conversation long enough for the cooldown to refresh and did it to him again.
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Dark Souls: So I'm doing the lead farmer thing in New Londo because dammit, that maiden set looks nice and I want it fully upgraded (fashion~). I toss down a summon sign when I walk in each time just for the hell of it, may as well break up the tedium with one of the most brutal fights in the game, right? This mostly proceeds normally (in-between summons for NG+ runs, which I am woefully unprepared for). Except this one time something else altogether happens. "Invading world as a dark spirit." What the christ? How do I invade someone without telling the game to do it or having any choice in the matter? What the bloody hell just happened?
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Glitch. There's other weirdness that happens sometimes with invasions.
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Cid:
1) Didn't you use the red stone ? I never used it in game, but I think whoever touches the red sign gets invaded.
2) Didn't you have the ring of random invasions from the Dark Moon covenant equipped?
Rob: Pistols are awesome. But as a mostly stealth build on hard mode recruit, every boss is almost impossible. CQC is terrible against a few bosses, too. The three main bosses all give me a ton of trouble on at least one playthrough, even Owen.
Deus Ex: Double takedowns + Level 5 hacking. I
I took double takedowns to stylishly deal with that one quest where you need to get rid of two talking thugs at once.
I still have no augments to help with hacking, but so far it hasn't been a problem.
Half of my playtime is spent doing this with various songs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y414Q7vVgYU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y414Q7vVgYU)
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Cid:
1) Didn't you use the red stone ? I never used it in game, but I think whoever touches the red sign gets invaded.
2) Didn't you have the ring of random invasions from the Dark Moon covenant equipped?
1: Nope, white stone. I've never once used the red stone. Anyway, it was me invading someone else, not someone else invading me.
2: Haven't equipped that thing since I went back to the sunbros. And even then, Darkmoon invasions make you show up as a blue phantom (I was red this time), and the ring pulls you to Anor Londo (the invasion stayed in New Londo).
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Skyward Sword: Yo dawg, I heard you like dungeons. So I put a dungeon in your dungeon that's in your dungeon.
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Dark Souls: Holy crap I actually saw Gravelord Servant invasion sign. They weren't trying to hide it, mind--it was right there in the open as an invitation for PVP. Still, that's a first. The signature looks thoroughly arcane and disreputable. (I still haven't seen any of the black phantoms the covenant's supposed to generate, though.)
I joined the forest covenant so I could kill them and take their stuff, and now I do ninja flips everywhere. I feel like a dick, but still, ninja flips.
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RS3.12 - Fought Death. The hell? Why is his defense so thick? But that is kinda the only thing going for him. He does not have Open Gate in this patch, thus his only threatening move is Death Rain, which is easily nullified with water equips. His are damaging moves are ST, so tweaking and Rising Phoenix Formation can deal with it just fine.
Then proceed to fight Sherah after that. Wow, her defense is as thick as Death and... wait what? Why are you spamming high 2HKO MT damage twice a turn? And why is you Wind Darts doing 4 digit damage? And what is with that ridiculous evade after she cast Moon Glow!?
Due to Sherah's stupidly high offense, I end up item farming for the right equips to deal with her. Her most damaging moves are Status and Cold element based. I have to farm a couple of robes that has enough Cold defense and spread out my accessories that has high Status defense to have my entire team with at least 70+ for both Cold and Status defense.... not. Apparently there is not enough Status protection gear in the game to cover everyone, so instead of spreading them out, I gave them to Asellus and Gerald, who are my main sword users with Lightless Sword, which can bypass Sherah's evade. Also tag Ice Sword onto Asellus, so she can null Cold damage completely. Thanks to her low LP, I can't let her get hurt at all. (I had under go multiple resets simply because she ran out of LP).
Then I deal with ST overkill that is Crimson Flare and Wind Dart in the same way I deal with, have Red tank it with Rising Phoenix Formation. Tagging Valeria Heart on him nulls Crimson, and Red has enough physical defense to reduce Wind Dart to three digit.
The fight is a pretty long slug fast. As the only reliable offense against Sherah is Lightless Sword. And even with all the defense tweak, her damage is still high, so must of my turns is used for healing and the average out put per turn is around 6000 only. Took forever but at least I won.
After Sherah, I proceed on destroying the possessed elemntal kings and Mirsa, who are just push overs.
Recruited Sherah after that, hell yes, she can use all element of magic but Sun magic all at once. And high enough agility and dexterity to serve as a gunner. I guess I can throw away the idea of using Emilia in my final team. Speaking of Emilia, I guess I all go her quests before fighting Saruin. I have to train Sherah to gain some physical tech level first.
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Probably a glitch then.
Deuss ex: In China.
I liked the first boss, you have a ton of options against him. I beat him with the level 3 dermal protections and the rocket launcher once, then reloaded, beat him with stun gun + throwing explosive stuff at him, and got the Super Mario Bros augments instead (jump really high + safe landing)
Seems like my pacifist playthrough is ruined because punching walls while people are on the other side kills them. Who would have thought!?
I think I got pretty much all the really useful augs I need, the rest is just going to be utility or very expensive. (like the stealth cloak + all the extra energy level upgrades I need to go with it) I still don't need any hacking aug aside from the level 5 one.
I'm not a fan of weapon upgrading, because this makes you pick up a weapon very early and stick with it. Hope there's enough ammo around! Weapon stores seem to have a very limited inventory.
The hotel in China really got to me. I know people living in slums/on the street have it even worse... But their living conditions are less inhuman.
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Lost Odyssey: Been itching to play this one, so I just shoved everything else aside and played that last night.
I got decently far I think? I'm playing it without a walkthrough for once, so I'm constantly getting paranoid about missing cool things. There's lots of little treasures hidden all over the place in this game, and my HDTV isn't large enough to prevent the eyestrain it induces from looking for all the little things.
The game is pretty challenging so far. It's pretty easy to wipe to bosses and even difficult randoms. Perhaps I'm not levelled enough, but I find myself spamming items just for survival in a lot of battles. There's not a lot of customization options as of yet, so I'm not sure how I could be doing this more efficiently without grinding. The battle system itself is -really- basic turn-based stuff. If it wasn't as challenging as it is, it would be worthless, but it does its job well enough.
The character growth system is pretty fun. I can already tell that I'm going to like the Mortal characters more than the Immortals, because the Immortals are getting broken and interchangeable quite fast. I've only got 3 PCs so far, and the randoms are consistently numbering in the 4s, 5s, and 6s, so hopefully I get a larger battle party soon. Around level 16.
Story is engaging enough so far, though I wish they would have held off on making the villain so readily apparent after they spent about an hour making him more ambiguous and interesting. And then they show him rubbing his hands and cackling evilly. Argh. His only hope now is to go the Blue Dragon Nene route and just be a total troll.
Main three PCs are a mixed bag. Kaim is just there most of the time. Seth is kinda grating, though it could still go either terribly awful or terribly awesome depending on where they go with her development. And Jansem is comic relief that actually makes me laugh (I can't be the only one who has played this and immediately thought "Sokka" from Last Airbender here, right?).
FF13-2:
Played more of this since my friend and I managed to meet up again on our days off! It's still pretty awesome. Battles are fast, monster-catching/raising/eating is engaging, and the time-travel mechanics are still loose and fun!
My favorite example is how Snow is apparently doing his time-travel thing separately from Serah and Noel, but then Serah and Noel solve the problem that Snow set out to fix (through more time-travel, of course!). So Snow starts disappearing from the time he was in due to it not being a problem anymore... but not until Serah and Noel show back up in that time period to watch it happen. *Tsk tsk* Snow, don't you know you have to go visit the Old Man at the End of Time first so things like "being effected by time changes" won't hurt you?
Just started Episode 4 (of 6?). Will play this more if my friend can make it over, but otherwise, I'm focusing on Lost Odyssey for console games.
Half Minute Hero: Picked this up again, it is good times. I'm totally gonna stat topic this.
Seiken Densetsu 3: Running out of steam on this one, but I'll still play it from time to time. We'll see if I finish it this time.
Song Summoner: I've almost reached the second boss fight! Seriously, this game is slow for an iPhone game. I thought I'd be done with it by now.
Advance Wars series: One of my favorite LPers started this, so I tried it out for a little while. Hey, it's Fire Emblem with nothing but generics! Yay? More fun to read than play, honestly. Not likely to pick it up again, but I'll keep reading it.
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Djinn: Lost Odyssey is a decently tough game until somewhere mid-Disc 2. Then it takes a bit of a plummet in difficulty. By Disc 4, you are basically too broken for it to fight back, for a number of reasons. I'm tempted to play a more restricted playthrough next game where its like "Immortals can only use skills from Mortals they have plot connections too", and maybe allow skills that are from the currently equipped accessory too (but only if said accessory is equipped, doesn't matter if they've learned it), and see how well that holds up. My only issue is that Seth won't get any real skills until Disc 3.
That said, Seth and Kaim are pretty similar, but Ming is not, though there is another Immortal whose pretty much identical to Ming with a very slight magic advantage (...I'm not kidding. The only difference stat wise is that the 4th Immortal has an A in Magic while Ming has a B. Its weird they didn't give Ming SOME stat advantage on the other. Not that the difference in magic is large enough to care)
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Dark Souls: *Cid gets invaded in the Depths. Casts Chameleon, turns into giant pile of excrement. Watches invader run past twice, disappear. Cid gets a book.*
This shit is on now, motherfucker.
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That sounds like really compelling PVP. You should try out the deatmatch mode in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood or Revelations sometime Cid.
You can dress up as a hooker and spend the whole match sitting on a bench.
Edit - This isn't to disparage the gameplay there, it is pretty awesome that it exists.
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The best part is that I later found out he unlocked the level shortcut before quitting in frustration. He looked everywhere.
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Mass Effect 1: And beaten again. Despite largely being a repetition of my first playthrough (wanted to clean up some odds and ends in my playthrough for ME3), it was still pretty enjoyable. Was playing on Veteran because whatevs.
Difficulty in ME1 really gets laughable after a certain point. By about Virmire, most enemies just weren't threats anymore, and the ones that were one-shot me (snipers!). Marksmen is still completely insane, turning your average pistol into a killing machine of unfathomable power. Sabatoge wrecks most enemies, as do Throw and Lift. By the finale, I was pretty much just running and gunning.
Inventory is still tremendous ass. Terrible and pointless system, especially given that weapons were pretty much "choose next one with biggest number." I also don't appreciate how much better certain company weapons were, such that, say, FoeBlaster VII (Bad Designers Design) is strictly inferior to the CuddleGun VI (Rainbow Co.), since it made gearing up even more tedious.
I also encountered a bizarre number of bugs along the way. I really don't remember the game being quite so buggy, but I had at least three crashes, and several just plain weird things.
Story wise, it is Bioware. Some things are good, some things are bad and, regardless of anything else, it is written better than 90% of other games on the market. The plot carries itself well enough and the individual missions are well done (with Virmire standing out as particularly awesome). Side missions are pretty weak on the whole, although there are a couple decent ones.
Characters...
Kaidan: Not bad, but bland. Has a couple of decent things to say.
Ashley: Space racist. Pretty decent. Generally like her portrayal.
Garrus: Solid character all around with a good arc. Clearly a bro.
Wrex: Probably best character? Manages to be a representative of the Krogan race, but also defy expectations and be a witty and likable SOB.
Liara: Didn't do much with her this time around.
Tali: Falls too heavily on being a representative of the Quarian race, but is fun.
On the whole, the game stood up surprisingly well, even having played ME2. Speaking of...
ME2: Now to do this game again. Grabbed the Thief, the Convict, the Mercenary, Archangel, the Scientist and the Warlord already, and am now onto Horizon. Gonna stop and do some sidequests after.
The difference in ME1 and ME2 remains pretty much as glaring as night and day. ME2 gameplay is far better (although the silliness of Biotics and ME1 cooldowns is missed) and cutscene/dialogue direction is far and away better.
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Fortune Summoners: Beaten
Fortune Summoners is an independently developed PC game with anime-like designs that follows the adventures of one cute little swordgirl and her two cute little magic using friends. It also features lines such as "My magics are the punishing fires of hell, here to burn you all to ash!" and "Oh yay we're going to be devoured! Wait. What's that mean?" The game isn't very serious.
It is more or less a 2-d sidescroller action RPG with three characters: Arche the idiot swordgirl, Sana the healer mage (to a T) and Stella the fire mage who makes things die glorious blazing deaths (with fire, you see). The game alternates between some solo sections and combinations of two, but past the beginning parts you're going to be kicking ass with all three of them together, holding off enemies with Arche while Sana heals/buffs/throws in damage and Stella calls down the aforementioned punishing fires of hell. You can opt to take the role of any of the three, as the AI is very good and can handle most situations... often better than you the player can. You can also adjust the AI in terms of formation and magic-intensiveness with the literal push of a single button to cycle through a few modes. Very nice and easy to use feature, that.
Enemies and allies alike have pretty good AI, with healing and damage and buffing balanced, and the right abilities used in the right situations ( a diagonal-up fire spell to deal with aerial enemies or used in stairwells where it can get a lot of hits). Monsters generally do the same (buff strong fighter allies, GTFO and try to heal or used ranged attacks at low health, and input-read (okay that is more "cheating AI" than "good AI", but there you have it). Most enemies generally command some respect, and the game will wipe you out over the course of it. Fortunately death is a slap on the wrist, with the ability to restart from the entrance to the screen you are on, and you can 'escape to safety' in the middle of a dungeon for 10% of your money, which isn't usually very painful at all since you frequently invest it in equipment anyway.
I generally enjoyed the game with a few notable gripes. The dungeon design is cruddy, as it is easy to get lost (everything *looks* the same) and the 2D nature of it with multiple layers means that there are more forks than you would like. Still, I was never so lost that I didn't know where I was or what the hell I was supposed to do. A map sure as hell would have been nice though, for all that it may not be a bad idea to keep one yourself. The input-reading could be a little annoying at times, but it encouraged using all three girls and there are ways around it (rolling on the ground has never been such an awesome sword technique).
Anywho. Fortune Summoners was a fun game and I enjoyed it a fair amount. The demo is pretty lengthy and free if you want to give it a shot on Steam.
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FF13-2: Up to the final episode.
On the one hand, the plot has gotten better recently, and the final dungeon seems like it has stepped up the game's often inconsistent challenge. Pretty cool. On the other hand, the fetchquest involving searching for the five pieces of ore hidden in different eras was pretty inexcusable. Not only did it send me scurrying to a FAQ, but it meant I went a very long time without meaningful gameplay. Bah.
Main villain motivation is pretty awful as advertised, although at least so far I don't think comparisons to the Red Wanker are justified, just because the game seemed to want me to sympathise with the latter so much. Of course I'm not done yet, so this may be re-evaluated!
I think the game's headed for a 6 but we'll see.
*minor spoilers*
Oh yes and I was amused by the fact that there was a point in the game where "Scream at Hope" was not just a dialogue option, but it the correct dialogue option. I'm sure some people will appreciate that at least!
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Watch out for evil Giraffes! ~
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Tell me how you do against the Behemoth+two sab fight if you run into it, Elfboy. That one slaughtered me repeatedly (And which I had to die about a dozen times to avoid since FF13-2's encounter system is fucking terrible and the random had me pinned in a corner).
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Evil giraffes were pretty badass, yes!
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Fire Emblem Plot, the Marxist-Feminist-Poststructualist perspective: On mission 3-7, Rivals Collide. I'd just like to point out that this is the first time I've seen an enemy commander that is female, and if you're familiar with the mission, this fact barely counts! (Okay it is possible 3-6 also has an enemy female commander, but I sure didn't see them if they were with the fog and endless waves of suicidal troops seeking to embrace sweet death. I guess a foolhardy Jill could have flown bravely into the darkness to take a peek, but eh.) Having come off Mass Effect 2 recently (argh, still need to write a retrospective on that) which was pretty good about having random female soldiers trying to kill you and random female mercenary commanders and the like who range from brutal & incompetent to pretty scary, this is more noticeable than usual. Especially since Begnigon, from what we know about it, you'd think would be pretty darn egalitarian on gender grounds at least - they're freaking ruled by a girl, and the commander of the Holy Guard is a woman (Sigrun), and Tanith & Marcia exist, etc. But aside from rando-Pegasus Knights, everyone you kill is male. Less of an issue with generic grunts, more odd with the named bosses.
Also the depiction of the Laguz in FE10 is actively annoying. Radiant Dawn seems to think that the racists are basically correct in that Laguz really are quasi-intelligent violent killing beasts out for blood, but hey, Ike likes 'em anyway, so whatever. Weirdly enough Skirmir is fine, since clearly he's the arrogant noble and he both pays a price for his pride and eventually comes to like cowardly beorc "thinking" and tactics, or something, so hey, character development. No, it's how everybody talks about the grunts, and Lethe / Kyza that are the issue. (Chapter 2 Lethe: "I don't get why you want to talk this all out. Violence is the fastest way to decide who's right!" Chapter 3: "Our army would never accept stopping fighting. Once you get them pumped up they just keep going at killing beorc! Rargh!" Chapter 3 Lethe: "Well it's suicide to cross in darkness when the opposite bank is held by an unknown enemy, but the laguz way is to keep advancing anyway into a slaughter, so gogogogogo.") Really, in general I shouldn't think too hard about things like "occupations" and trailing forces and supply lines in Fire Emblem games, but all the constant references to laguz savagery and bloodlust make me wonder WTF is going on in cities they conquer. If their troops really are constantly spoiling for a fight, Ike merely ordering them to stop fighting because they surrendered is only going so far. Also, Ashera help Begingon's native laguz - now they really are likely collaborators with an invading force, and resistance forces have an absolutely clean conscience killing them all off.
So, yeah. I pretty much hate Chapter 3's plot arc because it is so close to something I'd potentially write or generally like - yet getting the narrator's stance entirely 100% upside down and backward. I'd love to see a fictional treatment of, say, Napoleon's invasion of Russia in disguise. But that isn't the story they're telling in FE10 Chapter 3, though, although by rights it should be. Sigh.
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Okay it is possible 3-6 also has an enemy female commander
It does, though you're entirely forgiven for not noticing and, like 3-7, it doesn't really count. There's exactly one female enemy commander in the game who "counts" (and you can probably guess her class), and yes this is something that all Fire Emblems are bad about.
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Hey, be fair: there's another female commander who counts AND isn't riding a flying horse!
Anyway, Laguz aren't portrayed as animalistic so much as proud warrior race guys. They're like furry klingons. It makes a weird sort of sense though, remember that a great many of these guys are about one generation removed from literal slavery. Of course they're going to embrace the more tribal, historic culture of their people, it's the furthest thing from beorc 'civilization' and emphasizes their own identities as races.
The bigger lingering question for me was how the hell the Begnion Senators were still in power. Given things we see from them during the invasion, Zelgius or not they should have had a full blown military coup on their hands.
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Seeing as they stated back in FE9 something as simple as "our leaders are chosen based on strength!" and Ike goes "hey, I'm all for that! Makes more sense than just being lucky to be born into a family", it does display there are some advantages to that (eg a Laguz Leader, due to their leadership philosophy, will never have someone "weak" leading them.) Now this isn't always good as a strong person can be corrupt, but a weak ruler is not something you want either. I guess the logic is "Strong but corrupt > Weak but good hearted." as the former can at least defend their country if need be. I wanna say that somewhere in FE10, they state that as much of a heartless tyrant as Ashnard was, he still was a strong leader who had people supporting him, and the country felt safe from invaders.
...really, Part 2 displays this well in a different way. Elincia is held against the ropes because the nobles think she's not strong and shouldn't be on the throne. By the end of it, she's managed to thwart a rebellion and prove she can stand on her own two feet, even being able to make costly decisions that she knows she'll regret, but ultimately need to be done. Hell, even in Part 1, we see Pelleas is basically the prime example of "Weak Ruler only in that position because of his birthright", displaying that the REAL leader of the Daien Army is Micaiah, and Pelleas is basically a "Ruler in Name Only" that Micaiah happens to be loyal too.
...yeah, I know its not FE10's theme that "rulers need to be strong" but it is something that is consistently displayed throughout, that being a benevolent leader isn't enough. I mean, Skrimir, for all his failings at actually thinking things through, still maintains loyalty from his troops, because he's not afraid to take action (just his actions aren't necessarily ideal.)
BACK TO THE LAGUZ THING WITHOUT BEING SIDE TRACKED!!
Remember the definition of Laguz and Beorc. Laguz are "Children of Strength" and Beorc are "Children of Knowledge" IIRC. Laguz are more likely to fight head on, and do things based on brute strength and what not while Beorc are going to be more about strategy and using terrain, weapons, etc.
You'll note Ranulf actually is self aware of the oddity of Laguz actually making plans, as he goes "Believe it or not, we have a plan of our own!" when he notes they have a plan (one that would have actually worked if not for an unexpected factor.) You have to bare in mind that only a few Laguz actually have dealt with Beorc personally, and they too are running off prejudices (albeit, FE10 has displayed that, in Crimea at least, the situation has improved), so they are clearly not going to THINK like Beorc.
I mean, Lethe has more interaction with Beorc than most, being an Ambassador of Gallia to Crimea, and even she's still not exactly fond of Beorc politics.
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I wanna say that somewhere in FE10, they state that as much of a heartless tyrant as Ashnard was, he still was a strong leader who had people supporting him, and the country felt safe from invaders.
Well they shouldn't have, considering that he abandoned his country and let it be invaded while he hung out in some other country's castle for some fucking reason. The Ashnard leadership plot hype is a swing and a miss.
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It was more along the lines of "Ashnard might have been a raging douche,b ut when he was around we had a strong military, this Begnion occupation would never have happened under his watch". Basically the general 'war mongering means we're STRONG and DON'T AFRAID OF ANYTHING' mentality. It's stupid, but so are civilians in FE10.
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Meeple, re FE10 laguz: As the semi-sarcastic intro noted, this was me putting on my leftist intellectual cap. To be more explicitly sociological for *why* FE10's portrayal annoys me... bah, let's do the full rundown. Man fears the Other. There's Us, and Them. There are lots of Thems; other religions, business competitors, sports rivals, and so on. Since Radiant Dawn tackles racism head-on, Thems based on nationalism & racism have been pretty common in history. The English hated the French, the French feared the Germans, Chinese & Japanese looked down on Koreans, etc. In the particular American context, I'd argue that Cowboys & Indians was one of our solid examples from the 1900s-1960s or so. It's *good* to have a savage opponent out there who just wants to burn down the settlement that you can feel good about killing and protecting the womanfolk. And sure, grant them a certain intelligence, a low cunning if you will, that enables them to use sneaky ambushes and other tactics to gain a temporary edge, until a man with courage stands up and fights back.
Anyway at some point the realization dawned a bit more that American Indians were *people* and not just opponents, and it became uncomfortable to use Indians as straight-up mook screaming bad guys. Most of popular culture has just stuck with multicultural guards inexplicably loyal to the Dr. Evil of the day (rather than claiming Dr. Evil convinced a savage tribe in darkest Africa that he was a god or something, as seen in the 1930s). Fantasy figured out how to get back classic Indians - just call them orcs instead. We've created a whole race who's intelligent enough for surprise raids but won't learn or join civilization. They're evil, see, and just not cut out for it. (And yes, Tolkien himself was better than this, but there's no question that Tolkien rip-offs from D&D onward have used Orcs / Goblins / Kobolds precisely for the classic Indian role of "can be killed on sight, barring occasional cute sidekick who is probably hated by his home culture.") And... I'm okay with this, a bit. It's a hack, but so long as attention isn't drawn to it, it's not so bad as a source of stuff to kill.
However all bets are off once politics & racism are a theme. Now, this is fantasy, so I don't expect all the rules of normal Earth to apply - notably, on actual Earth, people are people are people with perhaps slightly varying diseases you're likely to get by race, while in a fantasy world there might be genuine differences. Fine. However, it gets very uncomfortable as far as I'm concerned when you get into a situation which echoes actual history, yet one where racism is actually correct. All the "laguz are wild and savage" stuff seems to directly confirm what European colonizers thought about Indians / Africans etc., and the laguz really are invading! To be sure, the game thinks the races should coexist, it's just bizarre that the moral seems to be "well, yes, they are savage and bloodthirsty, but we should STILL get along!" This is... patronizing. And the thing is, there isn't even any need to emphasize it as much as the game does. Skirmir can't control his army? Okay, that has precedence in history, we've got something more akin to a giant raiding band than a proper army, and you saw that in some tribal democracies who'd team up to take on the big city's "proper" army. This is an interesting situation. Yet Skirmir & Ranulf are quick to attribute this problem simply to "that's how Laguz roll bro." Which would imply that no, even in some happy future, you still couldn't have a proper laguz army that would accept sensible orders. Same with the river crossing. It's dark! We're under attack! This is a panic situation. I'd be totally okay with any number of excuses to have 3-6 happen - Lethe realizes what's going on but can't get a clear sense of the situation, conflicting reports are coming in, etc. Or just plain "Benignon couldn't possibly have formed up much of an army in our rear without noticing, this must be a scratch force trying to psyche us out, push on anyway." Or just plain make a mistake, "They can't stop us, there's too many of us, we'll crush them." Instead, the game once more *directly attributes* the continuing disorganized advance to the laguz nature -> "we don't back down! Rarrgh!" Yup, the Laguz walked right into our CLEVER TRAP because laguz just don't think and want a fight, even on terms badly disfavoring them. Again... uncomfortable echoes of an earlier age and seemingly confirming that the racists are 'right' in this world, a conclusion I'm not really happy with. There are all sorts of interesting mistakes that the Laguz can make that are made for the same reason everyone makes mistakes; stick with that rather than "oh now the Laguz will do something stupid because they're Laguz!" Do FE10 beorc justify their bandits & marauders by saying "Well I guess that's how we beorc roll?" No.
Of course, the risk with listening too closely to the sociologists is becoming gunshy about handing out flaws, and always having Noble Nature Warriors a la Radiant Historia's Guttrals. It's bland with no twists. I'll offer a brief example of a "primitive" culture I think was done reasonably well for video game fiction: the Ixataca in Skies of Arcadia. Okay, sure, Valua came in and beat the snot out of their fleet. But whatever, because we're going to unseal our local giant doom monster! What do you think about that?! A bad decision, for sure, but an *awesome* bad decision, and shows that they have both heroes & villains & in-between, just like everywhere else.
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Man that is the biggest load of bullshit I have seen you post ever Snowfire.
At not one point do you note down how the Leadership structures of the Laguz countries innately favours the male Laguz as men are statistically higher on Strength on average and the fact that the Bourgeoisie merchant classes wield all the true power in Begnion. The Merchant royalty that can straight up buy and sell Laguz as pets as seen in FE. Just like the slaves they keep under their boots in wage slavery.
You do alright at Post-Structuralist though because well, Post-Structuralist angles are far more flexible than Functionalism and Structuralist arguments though.
Not Feminist, Marxist or most especially not Marxist-Feminist interpretation though.
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I want to know how anyone fears an army whose MO is "charge forward and always fight." Just dig a long enough Punji pit and you win the war.
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I tie a string to my dick and swing around a weight at the end of the string then my cat chases it.
See the dickstring represents the strangling grip of the patriarchy and the cat represents a cat.
Then I pee in a bottle and drink it myself.
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Snowfire, part of the problem is that Laguz have been this way for...what? 800 years? You can't expect them to make a sudden turn around into a more civilized approach. Its not that there is no hope for them, just Laguz as they stand now aren't use to this idea of "quitting while you're ahead." Again, the Laguz have stated they are structured based on the laws of the wild.
Battles are basically an "evolution" of the hunt. In the hunt, you strike to kill. So an extension is that battles, you must finish off your opponent. Correct me if I'm wrong, Skrimir does acknowledge that he understands Soren's stance, at least once Soren explains himself, but at the same time, he states that the rest of the army wouldn't understand it. They're too built on adrenaline and surge for combat. Laguz outside of the higher ups like, say, Caineghis, aren't use to diplomacy factors.
They're not saying the Laguz are complete savages, but rather, the way thing are now, they simply aren't ready to think in terms of "Quite while you're ahead" and are still thinking in terms of "strike to kill." Again, they note that Laguz have advantages in their social structure, such that since its built entirely on "Leaders come based on strength", it means they'll always have a firm leader who can garner support. Afterall, as corrupt and untrustworthy as Naesala is...he's damned strong and can defend his people.
Again, Galia and Goldoa being monarchies is more the implications of the Royal Family, in that Lions and Black Dragons > others of their race respective Laguz race (Birds don't have anything like this. Based on gameplay, and how its mutually agreed that Tibarn > Naesala in plot, I guess we can assume Hawks are the top end of the Birds, though I suppose that Birds had Herons was suppose to be their "Special" Laguz race.) Its worth noting that these two countries also come off as more "civilized", at least with the Royal Family and higher ups, than Kilvas and Phoenicis which are basically just countries living off pirate actions. Caineghis certainly came off as a ruler who uses his head and not his muscles to get things done. I also seem to recall that one of the reasons they sent Skrimir off to war was so he could get an actual view of the world outside of Gallia, and learn a thing or two from the Beorc, so he could be a king similar to Caineghis rather than just a brutish one.
It was more along the lines of "Ashnard might have been a raging douche,b ut when he was around we had a strong military, this Begnion occupation would never have happened under his watch". Basically the general 'war mongering means we're STRONG and DON'T AFRAID OF ANYTHING' mentality. It's stupid, but so are civilians in FE10.
Yeah, that's pretty much the idea. I don't think they say its a GOOD thing, just more that having a douchey ruler who CAN defend your country is better than being occupied by a bunch of foreign douches who don't give a shit about you. Its a case of "one is bad, the other is worse." FE9 of course just displayed the issues with the extreme of "Really strong leader, but immense douche!" which...just about every RPG ever shows.
FE10 shows the problems with the other extreme:
A kind hearted, benevolent ruler who wants the best for his country but can barely stand on his own two feet. That's what Pelleas is for.
It doesn't say one is better than the other, just both Corrupt Strong Leader and Weak Benevolent Leader have major issues and you don't want either. Its clear Daien would have fallen apart if Pelleas didn't have Micaiah has a crutch to lean on. In Ashnard's case...well, we saw what happened there! The entire world unites against him and he loses!
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At not one point do you note down how the Leadership structures of the Laguz countries innately favours the male Laguz as men are statistically higher on Strength on average and the fact that the Bourgeoisie merchant classes wield all the true power in Begnion. The Merchant royalty that can straight up buy and sell Laguz as pets as seen in FE. Just like the slaves they keep under their boots in wage slavery.
Your marxism fu is weak. All that ranting and you don't touch on how the power structures provided by religion and espeically the oligarchy of the nobility provide the power. Snowfire using feminism is pretty ineffective though, I agree. The power abuse in game is gender neutral- look no further than Reyson's stuff in FE9. There's a female empress, female goddesses, female soldiers, etc. It's clear the opportunity for power is there for women, and some do take it. (Ena)
Snowfire on Laguz
The problems with Laguz struck me as military issues more than racial ones. Laguz tactics and command structure is shit because they are so much stronger than the average human. They walk into the trap in 3-6 because they're goddamn arrogant and don't think anyone can stand up to them. It doesn't imply a lack of critical thinking that racism would.
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...right, I play games too, completely forgot!
Duodecim: So yeah, finally got back to this. Everyone is level 100 and much to my dismay of actually giving Kain more time in my party than he deserves, level 100 for everyone doesn't get you anything, its only level 50. *sigh* Also beat Dragon Isle. Now to find the last area of 000 because there is an Accomplishment for it! Also need more KP to get useless stuff.
Ninja Gaiden 2: Quick Rundown of the last 3 chapters!
Chapter 8: Nothing fun about this chapter at all. It keeps pulling bullshit after bullshit after bullshit. See, after beating up a lot of stupid EXPLOSIVE SHURIKEN SPAMMING BASTARDS, what's the game do? Hurl a mini-boss...with really damned competent support at you. Said boss has misleading attacks and no real pattern, so its a luck shot if you beat him. Also, you fought him earlier, he didn't count as a Checkpoint in that chapter, HE DOESN'T COUNT AS A CHECKPOINT AGAIN WHAT THE FUCK? The boss of this stage, Zedonius...not too bad, but again, highlights how bosses in this game are clearly random, have no AI, etc. Also, Fuck his throw animation...a lot. I don't need to sit through 5 seconds of him just wailing because I didn't see his non-telegraphed big move, which interrupts the flow of battle. Couldn't, you know, they just have him chuck Ryu against the ground once and make it to the same damage as the collective number of hits before?
Chapter 9: Overall not bad, but some stupid parts, like the miniboss from nowhere, the swamp of Centipedes abusing bad camera angles, and the boss. Ok, 2 Dragons that hurl big shit at you that you need to fight with Arrows? that's fine, and not easy, since they have lasers that can be fired before you have a chance to react. But THEN they summon infinite spawning support which not only attacks you without warning, sometimes, distracts the auto aim so you can't just do rapid fire to get the last bit of health on one of the two. Again, this is a case of the game saynig "Well, we could do this...but fuck you ^_^"
Chapter 10: ...an actually fun, well done chapter. It kicked my ass, but it was constant "ok, lets try that again!" moments, and nothing like "Fuck this game." The boss was actually not too bad but highlights a lot of problems that I'll cover in a bit. To branch from that, fighting off 87 Ninjas like that was ridiculous...but fun. It just shows "yes, Mook combat can be fun when this game isn't being too cute." The demon spam after it worked as well. Also, the boss had a 1 second Throw Animation that was straight forward, to the point, and actually unique looking (she stabs you with her tail)...WHY CAN'T EVERY OTHER BOSS IN THE GAME HAVE THIS?
I have maxed out all my weapons and have 100k yellow souls. I think I might be able to Item Spam a lot from this point...yet I still fought the boss of Chap 10 without items...
Boss problems in NG2 that are consistent:
-Inconsistent stun times. See, when you hit them, sometimes they flinch, sometimes they just walk through it. Its never consistent, you can't ever decide "do I want to attack again?"
-Misleading start up times. Sometimes their attacks look IDENTICAL to their flinch animation, so playing around with point 1, you get slammed by a big move because you think they're flinching but they're winding up for an attack.
-...not to mention some moves look identical but have different properties. IN Chap 10's bosses case, she has two "tail stab moves"; one is a blockable attack she'll combo you with (sometimes breaking your guard spontaneously...yeah, lots of random factors), sometimes its an unblockable throw. YOU CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE AT ALL AND DODGING IT IS NOT REALISTIC.
-Throw animations. See how I hyped Chap 10 bosses throw and not Chap 8's...
-They have no real AI or patterns of which to look out for. Basically, you jump in there, dodge/block a lot in hopes you don't get hit, and hope enemy runs out of health before you do. Compare this to, oh, a Devil May Cry game where you start to actually read enemy moves, get an idea of what's a safe range, and how fast enemies act, and even what they'll do when (if based purely on HP triggers.) The bosses still put up a fight because they don't make it easy to dodge consistently, but there is a sense of consistent improvement. Each time you fight, you slowly get this "Ooh, so that's how you dodge that!" feeling and then you start focusing on the timing, not the actual skill. NG2 bosses? No, you don't get that...at all...
...yeah, the only thing that makes NG2 bosses less stupid than NGB's is the durability. If you get lucky, you can plow through them very fast, but not unlike NGB, their core designs just suck.
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At not one point do you note down how the Leadership structures of the Laguz countries innately favours the male Laguz as men are statistically higher on Strength on average and the fact that the Bourgeoisie merchant classes wield all the true power in Begnion. The Merchant royalty that can straight up buy and sell Laguz as pets as seen in FE. Just like the slaves they keep under their boots in wage slavery.
Your marxism fu is weak. All that ranting and you don't touch on how the power structures provided by religion and espeically the oligarchy of the nobility provide the power. Snowfire using feminism is pretty ineffective though, I agree. The power abuse in game is gender neutral- look no further than Reyson's stuff in FE9. There's a female empress, female goddesses, female soldiers, etc. It's clear the opportunity for power is there for women, and some do take it. (Ena)
Snowfire on Laguz
The problems with Laguz struck me as military issues more than racial ones. Laguz tactics and command structure is shit because they are so much stronger than the average human. They walk into the trap in 3-6 because they're goddamn arrogant and don't think anyone can stand up to them. It doesn't imply a lack of critical thinking that racism would.
Your views on Marxist rhetoric is terribly small minded if you think it has to pull from the entire body of Marx' work. There is entirely Marxist dialogues that ignore large swaths of the removal of his approach to Theology. Shit you can even use Marxist rhetoric without wanting to completely destroy the cash system. The central point is that Economics is the fulcrum on which the current society functions and most likely the source of a great deal of problems.
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Dark Souls: In the catacombs, just about to hit the hidden bonfire. Get invaded, can't use it. Climb up to bridge switch, cast Chameleon. I don't think the invader will cross the bridge since I haven't cleared the fog wall, but it's my only option since I'm deadmeat in a duel. Invader checks bonfire room, no Cid there. Invader checks switch platform, sees a vase, moves on to the bridge. Cid presses switch, bridge flips over and invader falls to his death. This was a triumph.
Chameleon: best spell or best spell? Totally worth having one less spell slot for offensive magic.
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Marxism is about power inequalities. I don't think you can split organized religion (Which FE10's clearly was) from this in FE10's case, considering what a large roll it played. I mean, Oliver's a duke, there's a heavy religious element due to Ashera's influence and so on.
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Ashnard might have been a raging douche,b ut when he was around we had a strong military, this Begnion occupation would never have happened under his watch
Except, of course, for the minor detail that it did happen under his watch.
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I tie a string to my dick and swing around a weight at the end of the string then my cat chases it.
See the dickstring represents the strangling grip of the patriarchy and the cat represents a cat.
Then I pee in a bottle and drink it myself.
You know, you could be making money on this if you'd tape it and sell it to the Japanese.
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Marxism is about power inequalities.
Marxism may be about that. Marxist rhetoric doesn't have to be about that. It is about power structures and the way economics effects them. You could theoretically apply Marxist rhetoric in support of the Capitalist system if you were brain dead enough to think it is one that works but followed the general idea behind the way the power structures are built and function.
It is taking the basic construct of Marx ideas and applying them outside the scope of his initial arguments. Marx was all about power inequality and betterment of the human condition. You can still apply his analysis of power constructs and apply them completely differently. You are still analysing the ways that economic difference is utilised to leverage power in that scenario.
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Did not. He was totally out of teh country with Begnion invaded, and dead when they occupied. remember, these are idiots, not rational people.
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If a king voluntarily leaves the country along with most of its army, after provoking the strongest nation in the world, and that nation invades as a result, I'd say that gets classed as an invasion "under the king's watch".
It's like if Hitler, in 1941, decided he wanted to move all his military forces to Algeria and make that his new country, and the allies promptly and invaded and occupied Germany. Somehow I don't think the German people would be too happy about this. Countries very rarely look back fondly at leaders who lead their country to ruin through military error (to stick with the German example, note how they turned on the kaiser after WW1), and Ashnard is an especially egregious case of unjustifiable stupidity.
Basically Ashnard plot in FE9 is, pardon the language, fucking retarded. It requires a severe suspension of disbelief that his own officers didn't assassinate him or that his own army didn't suffer from mass desertion, since I doubt many of them would be especially happy to be dicking around in Crimea while their families back home were ravaged by an invading force. Neither FE9 nor FE10 ever seems to notice this, I guess we're supposed to believe that Ashnard is so badass he cowed his entire army.
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Grefter: I didn't want to blow everyone's minds, so the Marxist part kind of fell by the wayside in favor of some post-colonialist material I had lying around. (also i didn't want to mix bullshit in with an actual complaint.) However, while it's true that all the main laguz nations are clearly dominated by the Patriarchy as seen by men being their leaders, there is one exception. Nailah is the queen of the wolves, and she has 30% Strength growth while Volug has a mere 25%, obvious facts that I'm sure you knew. So why did you neglect to mention that, mm? I bet you were following foul Elfiato hopes of a Volug coup by forcing poor Volug to abuse Energy Drops so his STR will be higher since of course Laguz leadership is decided by the strongest. Much like the East German Olympics program heartlessly sticking their athletes full of steroids. You criminal. No wonder Elf gave Volug an A+ and Nailah a mere A.
Rob: Preeeetty much.
Zenny: I'd say it's pretty obvious that the urine represents the patriarchy, myself, not the string. Drinking it symbolizes simultaneously the guilt of liberal knowledge of male crimes yet the acceptance of the power it provides, common among those who deny the need for revolutionary action.
Meeple: Yeah, I had originally written but later removed a nod for Cainagheis as being presented in FE9 as a ruler with both wisdom *and* strength. It's just weird and annoying how FE10 seems to have decided that such wisdom was vanishingly rare among the rest of Gallia. The plot also doesn't seem to grapple at all with the implications such an allegedly savage warband averse to tactics would likely have.
The problems with Laguz struck me as military issues more than racial ones. Laguz tactics and command structure is shit because they are so much stronger than the average human. They walk into the trap in 3-6 because they're goddamn arrogant and don't think anyone can stand up to them. It doesn't imply a lack of critical thinking that racism would.
That's exactly what I'd think, normally. And as I noted, I wish they'd let laguz make mistakes like this that's clearly just an error, or a personality flaw, like Skirmir. The problem is that *the laguz grunts themselves* claim it's a racial issue rather than a military issue. "The laguz way is to stupidly charge forward!" Don't get me wrong, I'd rewrite the plot to go along the lines of your explanation, I'm just not sure the game's script entirely agrees.
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Marxism is about power inequalities.
Marxism may be about that. Marxist rhetoric doesn't have to be about that. It is about power structures and the way economics effects them. You could theoretically apply Marxist rhetoric in support of the Capitalist system if you were brain dead enough to think it is one that works but followed the general idea behind the way the power structures are built and function.
It is taking the basic construct of Marx ideas and applying them outside the scope of his initial arguments. Marx was all about power inequality and betterment of the human condition. You can still apply his analysis of power constructs and apply them completely differently. You are still analysing the ways that economic difference is utilised to leverage power in that scenario.
Your analysis is not going to hold up if you are ignoring large parts of what sets up the conditions in the first place. You can't separate economics and religion in a theocracy, especially one with as much corruption as Begnion. A straight analysis of Oliver's habit of buying birds for unspeakable acts would not be complete without noting how his religious post (Senator) gave him the economic and military might to pull off such corrupt acts.
(To Snowfire) *Shrug* The leaders were smart enough for the Laguz and showed a head for strategic planning. I am willing to write it off as grunts being dumb and Laguz tactics not being good because of the lack of a compelling need there.
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Meeple: Yeah, I had originally written but later removed a nod for Cainagheis as being presented in FE9 as a ruler with both wisdom *and* strength. It's just weird and annoying how FE10 seems to have decided that such wisdom was vanishingly rare among the rest of Gallia. The plot also doesn't seem to grapple at all with the implications such an allegedly savage warband averse to tactics would likely have.
In fairness, you have to recall that Caineghis is older than most Beast Laguz hence the wisdom thing, and actually has interacted with Beorc on a fairly regular basis (including Crimea's Royal Family.) He's clearly exceptional in that regard, and all the better for it, as he's got the best of both worlds. Ranulf is also established as being someone who uses his brain. You'll note he's not afraid to say "Skrimir, SHUT UP AND THINK" at times. At the same time, he knows what Laguz are like and he's not going to be irrational into pretending something isn't the case when it is.
Ranulf, again, unlike most Laguz, has actual interaction with Beorc, so he's going to stand out. Yes, it makes Laguz seem like savages, but its stated that this is a race of beings who've been living on basic extensions of "laws of the wild" who are slowly adapting more civilized styles (Caineghis is one such example of that.) Its not them saying "There is no hope for Laguz!", but rather, "Laguz as they are now aren't ready, but we're making progress!"
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Final Fantasy XIII-2: Beaten. Final dungeon was good. I wasn't able to beat the 2x Schroedinger + Proto-Behemoth fight (did beat another Proto-Behemoth but I was probably a bit lucky there) though in retrospect I could have messed with paradigm formations and possibly done something good there. It's okay, it was a good warmup for the final.
Final boss was a fun fight! (gameplay spoilers follow from here) I had adopted a rather defensive set of paradigms to deal with some of the enemies in the final dungeon. This is a terrible idea against the final. Everything about that battle stresses having decent offence (although obviously you'll need some defensive strategies too since there are debuffs and it had too much HP to blitz). I dunno if you can actually see Doom like in FF13 but I still had to give up the battle once and rejig my paradigms because there was just no way I was beating the boss in a reasonable time without at least one full-offence paradigm for certain spots in the battle. Ended up going with the following (Serah/Noel/monster listing):
SAB/RAV/COM, SAB/RAV/MED, RAV/RAV/COM, RAV/COM/MED, SEN/SYN/MED, SEN/COM/MED
I didn't use the last one that much ultimately (although it did payoff as a "stabilise enemy chain while staying on one's feet/removing buffs) but everything else got serious use.
I didn't do much optional stuff (obviously), had 41 fragments I think? I finished with Serah having 3200 HP and Noel 3400, with the two monsters I used in the final battle, Flanitor (MED) and Orion (early peeker COM) having around 3500-3700. Game time was about 25 hours.
Overall, well. The game's low point is undoubtedly the ore fetch quest to advance the plot past Academia 4XX. What the hell, game. Other than that the game is a bit disappointing in a few areas. Due to non-linearity the experience of individual fights was no longer tightly balanced like it was in FF13 (right down to the star rankings), and the game suffered very inconsistent challenge as a result, which made it harder to enjoy at points. They also nerfed SYN/SAB (though this was arguably needed, it did make randoms less fun because the optimum strategy was far more often just to use a permutation of Commando and Ravager), and stripped you of a bunch of skills while adding little in return (Wound doesn't make up for no Pain/Fog/Haste/Slow/Enelement/Barelement). Pretty eh on the monster stuff... for instance, at a certain point while levelling up my Flanitor in the final dungeon its HP, which had stalled at around 1000-1100, suddenly started increasing by 150 per level, which was kinda WTF (how was I supposed to predict that would happen? Makes me wonder what other monsters I missed). And just aesthetically and narratively I guess I'd rather have people! But yeah, basically the gameplay experience isn't as good. Still pretty good because it's still FF13, it has great polish decisions and isn't afraid to kill you at points if you approach things wrong.
*minor spoilers, big stuff is spoilertagged*
Plot's weird and is both like and unlike the first game. Unlike in that it gets notably better as the game goes on! Some of the stuff in the last two chapters was quite good, particularly the dream worlds. Also, the endings. Wow, great stuff. The main one is... haha. Just a delicious subversion of RPG norms. (The game tricked me into thinking everything would be sunshine and rainbows and then everything turned horrible with the deaths of Serah, Lightning, and the realisation of Caius' goals even in his defeat. The best part is THE GAME SAID ALL OF THIS WOULD HAPPEN and I sorta brushed it off with the "oh it's an RPG through sheer force of will we'll make everything turn out fine anyway!") Also Youtubed all the paradox endings and many of them are surprisingly great, some of the best I've seen in the genre, a fun series of what-ifs mixed in with the occasional one that is completely silly ("Mischievous Mog's Marvelous Plan With Flan!" is somehow more ridiculous than it sounds).
Of course, like the first game (in fact even moreso), some of the raw plot stuff shouldn't be taken too seriously (time travel's inherently a mess and I refuse to think about it, I'm sure it has plot holes everywhere but I will await Snowfire to analyse them or something). And it's, on the whole, more about the characters. Serah is quite good, as is Hope (though neither is amazingly deep). Noel's a bit of a miss... inoffensive, certainly, but a bit bland, and I thought the weakest part of the endgame plot was his showdowns with Caius (during which Serah does a lot of politely sitting there waiting for them to have their manly showdown or something). Noel does at least say things to Caius that badly need saying, so he can get some points for that. Caius, of course, is a complete tool and has an -incredibly- unsympathetic motivation by the standards of villains who aren't just out to devour the nearest baby. But the game doesn't really try to paint him as anything else, and does do a couple things that perhaps make you understand a bit more where he's coming from in the endings which is a nice touch at least.
Not sure where the game scores. I had it pencilled in as a 6 but it's one of those games helped out by the end. Final dungeon was a high point gameplaywise, but unlike, say, Blue Dragon, it can't drag up the game's gameplay that much because it's quite short. Plot doing some good things was more unexpected though. Could be a 7 after all, I'll think about it. Fun enough game, disappointing in a fairly expected way but I'm quite glad I played it, and far better than a certain previous Final Fantasy direct sequel.
Not doing the optional stuff any time soon if ever, I haven't even gotten around to that in FF13 and that sounds much more up my alley than this game's fetchquests!
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I've only played the demo, but it tells you that some monsters will be "late-bloomers" and some will be Jeigans.
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It does. (This one was neither an early peeker nor a late-bloomer, for the record.) I don't think that especially excuses sudden spikes in performance at unexpected places. I'm fine with small changes (e.g. how some pokemon gain exp faster early and slower late, etc., is handled in an inoffensive way) but this is literally a monster whose HP tripled during one item-feeding session after several sessions where the HP climbed only slightly (maybe 10-20% each time), with no reason to believe this would happen.
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It does. (This one was neither an early peeker nor a late-bloomer, for the record.) I don't think that especially excuses sudden spikes in performance at unexpected places. I'm fine with small changes (e.g. how some pokemon gain exp faster early and slower late, etc., is handled in an inoffensive way) but this is literally a monster whose HP tripled during one item-feeding session after several sessions where the HP climbed only slightly (maybe 10-20% each time), with no reason to believe this would happen.
from reading the gamefaqs ff13-2 forum a bit, i gather that flanitor is the only monster who is like that.
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Ninja Gaiden 2: 2 MORE CHAPTERS DONE!
Chapter 11: Not much to complain about here. Ok, fighting those Spider-demon things now 3 at a time instead of two with no free hits from sniping AND exploding shuriken assholes was not nice, though didn't end up as bad as it could have been. Also, FUMA SHURIKEN FUCK YES!!! Pity its been nerfed since the previous game, but yay having an unlimited ranged weapon that DOES STUFF.
Chapter 12: Demons not too bad, Dragons are dumb because you haven't fought them yet and they hurl about 10 at you in one area when you have no clue what to do, and Ninja Dogs can bite me. DUAL FLAME ARMADILLOS!!!! ...weren't that bad actually when I discovered that Incendiary Shurikens not only actually work if you hit their head, but do a fuck ton of damage and is way safer than going head on. Wish I knew that before in the solo fight. Zedonius 2 can bite me though. No, I'm sorry, a boss who stays out of your range via flying, can summon support while there at a whim, hurls projectiles everywhere, practically camouflages itself due to being lava, AND THE LAVA IS A MASSIVE HAZARD WITH NO PRECEDENT THAT YOU ARE NOT TRAINED TO DEAL WITH. To make matters worse, this is a clear example of poor game design where Mid-chapter bosses are NOT Check Points, and when you have a near invisible mine field that you don't expect at all right BEFORE a save point, it means you have to refight this stupid boss. Oh yeah, the frame rate reached its worst by far in this fight to boot.
The Werewolf guy whose name eludes me now? He wasn't too bad on the refight. At first I thought it was dumb, but then discovered that a UA from the Lunar Scythe can kill 4 of his support immediately, his support does NOT respawn, and that right there starts things off way easier. There is still some stupid shit, most notably his support has 2 factors that make them bullshit:
-the usual complaints about enemy throws...all of them. His support has both long animation throws AND they're near instant -_-
-Their shockwave attack. Its not the attack itself that's annoying so much as the animation. Its a big yellow flash that can be spammed...in an arena filled with nothing but light brown sand...with a boss who is tan colored...in a game that already has camera angle issues. I don't thinK I have to explain what's wrong with this scenario...
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Dark Souls: Join up with chaos covenant because dammit I am going to save Solaire this time. Build up thirty spare humanity, throw it all at Quelaan. Run to Izalith shortcut secure in knowledge that dammit this time we did something right. Kill bugs, open door to kill other bugs, see crazy Solaire. Kill crazy Solaire. Goddammit, From Software.
Siegmeier died again too. I remain skeptical that it's possible to save either of them.
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FF1 BMNAM- Black Mage No Attack Magic. This came out of wondering if I could beat any real challenge out of Dawn of souls. I
can use: Buffing magic, support magic like warp, and status magic. Anything that inflicts direct damage is banned. I'm also not doing any
of the side areas.
Resets up to Garland: About a dozen. I have to avoid Gigas Worms (Creeps) as they will wipe the floor with my party. Any fight with
grey imps is also really bad news, as black mages have zero durability. I have to spam sleep on anything more threatening than imps and
hope it connects. I run and grab the Leather hat in the chaos shrine. One of my black mages dies horribly, so I need to go back to the
first town to get him revived and buy more potions. Reaching level 4 is critical- it doubles black mage HP (26 to 52!) and removes the
risk of getting OHKOed by Garland.
Garland at L4 is tough but beatable. I get lucky and get some dodges, plus a crit hit for a whopping 11 damage. Before you mock, my
black mages were not breaking defense half the time so this was better than my average round of offense. I did this fight with three PC's,
as one of the black mages was L3 due to dying in the first run and thus OHKOed by a Garland physical. I blew through all seven potions but won with three PC's alive, so yay.
Focus sucks, my PC's learn sleep. Nothing else matters in the L1 level, so I save my cash for L2 magic (Temper. Glorious temper) and potions.
I cross the bridge! And promptly draw mad horses, who wipe me out without breaking a sweat. Okay. I have to avoid randoms on the way to Pravoka, as the following formations kill me:
Two creeps
Ogre
Any of the crazy horse formations
Those fucking Iguanas
The result of this is about 10 resets or so! I reach Pravoka at L5, with just enough cash to revive/heal/buy leather gloves. The pirates are as easy as ever and give a level up, so yay. I grab Temper from the shop and go to elfland. Of note is how rapidly the cost of revival is going up. It's not going to take long before it's more economically viable to buy phoenix downs at 500 a pop.
I fight four spiders, which is normally pretty easy. They can't really damage even my black mages, but my own offense is bad. About ten rounds of attacking got a single spider down, and my entire team poisoned. Thankfully, I remember that I blew some cash on temper. This takes my BW's offense from like 10 at best to 30 against the spiders, which is obviously a massive improvement. (
THINGS I HAVE ALSO LEARNED: poison damage in FF1 *is* fatal in battle. Damn it. )0
I'm mostly dead at this point, so I have to go back to town. Four pures+inn is 300 gil, which means I'm once again flat fucking broke. I did hit level 6 though! There is grabbable loot in the dwarf cavern at this point, so my next mission is to go ther-
*Runs into three spiders*
*Kills them, but gets poisoned and has to put all the gil from thte fight into healing/unpoisoning the team* Woo boy.
I have to be careful when travelling the seas, as a shark can nearly kill a black mage in a single hit at this point (L7-8). Thankfully L8 is a benchmark level for HP.
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Dark Souls: Join up with chaos covenant because dammit I am going to save Solaire this time. Build up thirty spare humanity, throw it all at Quelaan. Run to Izalith shortcut secure in knowledge that dammit this time we did something right. Kill bugs, open door to kill other bugs, see crazy Solaire. Kill crazy Solaire. Goddammit, From Software.
Siegmeier died again too. I remain skeptical that it's possible to save either of them.
Solaire I've seen video evidence for. But I've never seen any shots of Siegmeyer alive at the end.
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Beat Astos. Buying those knives helped *massively*, as I could now break enemy defense. Wizards I beat on the third try. Was just a matter of drawing two of them and getting lucky. A double tempered BM could OHKO a Wizard, it was just a matter of living long enough to do that. Thankfully I got very lucky and my main attacking BW evaded a wizard physical in the second to last round. I had about a half dozen resets in the marsh cave, which isn't bad at all. I just didn't get in many fights there period, which is a blessing. Astos was one reset, that was entirely due to poor luck and not taking him remotely seriously.
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super's Black Mage antics are amusing me more than they should. I wish there were screen caps to go along with it. Go go status slinging.
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....On the other hand? The randoms guarding Astos's treasures were HELL. I walk into the treasure room, ample up and
*Draws six of the ghost type enemies. In an AMBUSH*
Needless to say, this was a reset.
I had about ten resets in Astos's treasure room. I could sort of beat three ghosts/mummies if I got lucky and I didn't get jumped. Any more than that and it required my black mages (4 defense, 100 HP) to tank for several rounds and welp. Undead in general are going to be a massive pain in the ass. Status+decent damage+status immune+come in large packs=OH GOD THE PAIN. On the bright side, Confuse is awesome! MT and doesn't wear off like sleep does, so when I run into formations with more than a couple of enemies.
Also, silver armlets were a massive, massive jump in defense and worth every penny I spent. I'm in the Earth cave right now. vampire should be as pathetic as ever at least, though I am not looking forward to Lich.
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You're not using spells from the Black Mages, but will you use item-casting, or is that out of bounds?
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OK: I'm unsure. Leaning yes towards itemcasting attack spells being okay, unless someone has a strong argument against it.
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what's the point of masochistically torturing yourself if you don't make it as miserable as possible?
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Attack Items do cap off at Level 2's unless he gets stuff from the Soul of Chaos Dungeons. It'll be ok for MT, but only really stand out of he can nail weakness (and even then, level 2's hitting weaknesses that late are a bit iffy overall, but its still free MT damage that's probably better than Black Mage/Wizard physical bets)
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L2 itemcasts rip apart some areas, such as the Sea Shrine, on normal playthroughs, let alone ones where your offence is BM physicals where you will probably always use them if there are 2+ enemies and they don't resist the element in question. I don't really have an opinion on whether they're used or not but they are very centralising and will certainly "stand out".
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I think I'll stay away from item cast attack spells, with the cavet that I'll use them if I start getting absolutely pasted by dungeons later. Elfboy is underrating the effect if anything. Dawn of souls changed the formula- INT now matters for spell damage- which means even L2 in the hands of a Black Wizard is on par with an L3 in FF1o.
Just beat the Vampire. 2HKO physical! Has status! OHKOed by a Black Mage physical. On that note, my ST damage if I get a turn or two to buff is scary. Three tempers+Haste in the opening round means a Mythril Dagger Black Mage physical jumps from like 30 damage to 400 damage. The game's gotten much easier at this point. Sure, the dungeons are brutal resource grinds and I nearly ran out of potions on the way out of the earth cave! But. I only had about a half dozen resets, which is way less. Being able to control large scale randoms with confuse+sleep helps tremendously, and my ST damage output against single target is quite good.
I'm around L22 right now. I need to go buy confuse/haste for more PC's, and then restock on items before tangling with Lich.
Edit: Beat Kary at L27.
Lich was a joke. Oh hey, he lets loose a brutal high 2HKO to the team! Then dicks around with his awful physical and haste/slow. Zzz. He gets mowed down by temper spam.
I get to Crescent Lake.
Item shop:
High Potion (150 HP per potion) 150 gil
Ether: 150 gil
.......
Welp.
I steamroll Kary's dungeon. The randoms are owned hardcore by status/temper fueled beatdowns. The lone exception to this is the Red Dragon, which has 2HKO MT damage and crazy high MDef. I run from these assholes as a rule, since it's not worth the effort of killing them. Kary herself was pathetic- yes, she OHKOed a Black Mage with her physical, but that's all she did. Hold stopped her completely.
This challenge has gone from ball breakingly hard to *lol* in an exceptionally short period of time. We'll see if the ice cave can reverse this.
Edit: Just got the Oxyale. Game's challenge has plunged hardcore, as noted above. Ice Cave gave me a few resets (Swarm of wizards) but nothing too bad. Castle of ordeals was cake. I really need some money to be able to afford Catclaws/Ruby Armlets. I have two armlets and one claw. Level 33 or so right now. The items are part of it, but it's mostly that randoms have not kept up in raw offense with the improved gear. Every single boss is going to be a pushover till Chaos (He... could be trouble, we'll see.) Randoms just have been total status bait to this point, and the ones that aren't don't have enough offense to be remotely scary.
I've gotten some use out of Sleepara. It's really useful for things like Clay Golems or Raskahas, who have status immunity but iffy Mdef. It's funny, but this challenge is probably easier than running four thieves.
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NG2: Completed! Chap 13 was nothing special, Chap 14 is exactly why a Boss Rush should be kept out of this game, because...god, bosses just aren't fun! Even if Genin and Elizebet are two of the lesser annoying ones (Genin does have a Throw that does 75% DAMAGE WHAT THE FUCK EVEN DANTE MUST DIE DOESN'T PULL THAT SHIT!)
Game's done though, and won't be replaying it. Its not bad but...there's just a huge level of frustration and while it does get better in the 2nd half, there's still a large amount of bullshit that holds the game back.
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Dark Souls: Join up with chaos covenant because dammit I am going to save Solaire this time. Build up thirty spare humanity, throw it all at Quelaan. Run to Izalith shortcut secure in knowledge that dammit this time we did something right. Kill bugs, open door to kill other bugs, see crazy Solaire. Kill crazy Solaire. Goddammit, From Software.
Siegmeier died again too. I remain skeptical that it's possible to save either of them.
I believe you have to talk to Solaire at the Sunlight Altar after killing O&S but before killing Centipede Demon with him. Not sure if having him help you with Centipede is required. Think you have to use him at all available bosses prior to that also.
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http://tinypic.com/r/11qs8d1/5
As you can see, Tiamat was not challenging. Outside of a a five undead ghost fight in Kraken's shrine (Which I died every time I ran into it, so ten resets or so) the game has had zero real challenge. Randoms in particular are *pathetic*, they get owned hardcore by spammed black mage physicals at this point. I've stopped using status and buffing most of the time. I knew FF1 challenge dovetailed bad late, but this is silly.
Edit: Beat. Chaos was tough but crackable. I had three-four resets until settling on a plan. Invis/heal/heal/toss a potion until evasion got up, then heal/heal/attack buff/attack buff, then heal/heal/attack buff/attack.
Outside of Chaos? *flush* Randoms don't have enough HP and their offense tails off horrendously late as well. Bosses run screaming from Temper spam, and you can even buy the potions once you get the bottled fairie.
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FF6 Eviltype, Mild Version - Just finished Zozo. It's a moderately more difficult version of FF6, not a whole lot to say really. It will never be my bag, baby, but it's a fun enough experiment. Still has FF6's non-existent HP curve~ Daldulma the freaky dude was pretty hard, I ran out of Phoenix Downs during the fight.
Edgrr just got his Chain Saw. Bitches will be cut.
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Well done, Super. Now, thief solo??
Deus Ex Human Revolution: In China redux.
It's really weird how it goes back and forth between being an elegant game and being really dumb. (Taggart's press conference was so stupid)
Either Deus Ex 1 or the final dungeon got foreshadowed, because out of nowhere comes this guy talking about his giant plant in Arcantica where he does supersecret things.
I've removed every navigation help and outer glow around objects, and the world suddendly is a living thing instead of a videogame environment. It's not like I needed to find every item anyway! I don't really use any against grunts, and bosses are rare. Actually, the second boss died to a stun gun bullet + 2 typhoons to the face. I'm still sitting on 17 typhoon bullets.
Tales of Innocence Luca Solo Hard Mode:
There's this boss called Chien (=Dog in French), he attacks with two dogs.
The guy is called Dog because he has dogs.
Anyway he was crazy hard. I farmed 15 Lemon Gels (60% HP healing) to beat him, and got a few levels by doing so. Strategy was TEMPEST STRIKE TEMPEST STRIKE TEMPEST STRIKE against the dogs, then heal with Center instead. (Oh yeah, I got some self healing)
Feudal Japan island comes next and there's a sudden spike in difficulty...... Yeah....
Thankfully I got some overpowered Mithril Sword from a level 4 guild dungeon, and a passive skill that allows me to take one hit before flinching. Both of these things, plus self healing, somehow make Luca the Tales God.
This is a cool game, I think I'll pick up Vesperia soon. Cutscene "skipping" is not optimal but works well enough in practice, and this game in multiplayer + HD sometimes sounds lovely.
Dissidia: Tried the final battle without ever having played the game before. This usually leads to confusion, but Dissidia takes this to a whole another level. I had no idea whether the buttons did anything at all. This game looked like a gigantic mess.
Nevertheless, I got Chaos' second form to 60 HPs, on difficult, on the first and only try, which was apparently really good. Plus I made Chaos have an epileptic crisis or something.
And I've seen a bit of Starcraft 2. Somehow, it is bigger and dumber than Gears Of Wars.
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Dark Souls: Finally got around to finishing my cleric run, played enough NG+ to get that last miracle. Sunlight Spear is pretty fearsome (I've seen upwards of a thousand damage per shot) but ugh two attunement slots + only five charges. Anyway, with that taken care of every trophy's unlocked but two. Knight's Honor (collect every unique weapon) is way too much of a pain in the ass to deal with. You need Sif's soul three times to complete that! That means you can't get this without going a decent way into NG++. NG+ goes by pretty quick from what I've seen, but to hell with that. From Software, trolling completionists like a boss. 94% completion is still a damn sight better than I've bothered with on any other game, anyway (I usually don't go out of my way to get trophies that aren't easily acquired over the normal course of the game; Nier's 77% was the previous highest, as you get plenty by accident just cycling through for all endings).
Collecting all unique weapons would also require the completion of the other trophy I'm not getting, which is Defeat Crossbreed Priscilla. Feh. Should say "Murder Crossbreed Priscilla." I will let those two stand as a testament to not killing people who don't need to be killed, thanks.
Onwards to Demon's Souls now, I guess.
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Demon's Souls: Enter first area past the intro as human, immediately get invaded and backstabbed to death. This is familiar. (Surprising though, given this game's a few years old and, y'know, Dark Souls just came out a few months ago.)
Now that I'm capable of not completely failing at combat...game isn't bad, but a multitude of improvements made by Dark Souls are immediately apparent:
-Oh my god healing is so gimped in this game. Running out of healing supplies is a constant concern. I actually went back to the black phantom horde in Boletaria and farmed up to 99 crescent moon grasses--sure, they barely heal anything at all, but they're readily available in bulk and don't come with an assraping price tag.
-Making you run through a lengthy opening area and boss fight before letting you level or buy anything? Bad form. (Sure, Dark Souls did this, but it was a vastly shorter sequence.)
-So is it just me or is there no way to revert to human outside of a limited and fairly uncommon item? Because having to run around at 50% HP is uh kind of fucking annoying (okay, 75% if you don't mind having a ring slot forever spoken for).
-Max inventory limit? Feh.
-I bought a grindstone thinking it would let me repair items any time I wanted. I used it once and it disappeared. It cost two thousand souls. Okay repairs will just always have to wait for the next Nexus visit.
-It seems impossible to wear any decent armor without slowing to fat roll speed from a single item. And yes, I am prioritizing endurance.
-I've fought three bosses. None of them killed me. (Tutorial boss doesn't count.)
-Visual design took such a step up between games. Dark Souls wasn't spectacularly colorful most of the time, but at least it knew to shake things up once in a while. Demon's Souls seems bent on constructing the grimmest, grimiest, darkest and dingiest fantasy world it possibly can.
-The music in Demon's Souls is so inferior that it's depressing.
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Demon's Souls: Enter first area past the intro as human, immediately get invaded and backstabbed to death. This is familiar. (Surprising though, given this game's a few years old and, y'know, Dark Souls just came out a few months ago.)
Now that I'm capable of not completely failing at combat...game isn't bad, but a multitude of improvements made by Dark Souls are immediately apparent:
-Oh my god healing is so gimped in this game. Running out of healing supplies is a constant concern. I actually went back to the black phantom horde in Boletaria and farmed up to 99 crescent moon grasses--sure, they barely heal anything at all, but they're readily available in bulk and don't come with an assraping price tag.
-Making you run through a lengthy opening area and boss fight before letting you level or buy anything? Bad form. (Sure, Dark Souls did this, but it was a vastly shorter sequence.)
-So is it just me or is there no way to revert to human outside of a limited and fairly uncommon item? Because having to run around at 50% HP is uh kind of fucking annoying (okay, 75% if you don't mind having a ring slot forever spoken for).
-Max inventory limit? Feh.
-I bought a grindstone thinking it would let me repair items any time I wanted. I used it once and it disappeared. It cost two thousand souls. Okay repairs will just always have to wait for the next Nexus visit.
-It seems impossible to wear any decent armor without slowing to fat roll speed from a single item. And yes, I am prioritizing endurance.
-I've fought three bosses. None of them killed me. (Tutorial boss doesn't count.)
-Visual design took such a step up between games. Dark Souls wasn't spectacularly colorful most of the time, but at least it knew to shake things up once in a while. Demon's Souls seems bent on constructing the grimmest, grimiest, darkest and dingiest fantasy world it possibly can.
-The music in Demon's Souls is so inferior that it's depressing.
-Hilariously, because my guy had so little health I never ran out. By endgame I was actually maxed out on the high-end grasses. Dark is way better either way.
-You should be able to buy things at least.
-There is one, maybe two enemies that drop it. Stupidly difficult to farm for them though.
-And items in your quick bar count towards character weight too.
-I don't even think it restores all the way either.
-Armor in Demon's is beyond useless. Not only does it barely reduce damage but it noticeably affects stamina regeneration.
-All *-1 bosses are pathetic. Early during Dark Souls I read about people saying Dark bosses were easier then Demon and I psyducked at them.
-It gets a bit better in the later parts. Though I enjoy 1-* because it's relatively fall-free and it's the most unseigable castle ever.
-5-3 is the best track in the game and it's only middling compared to Dark Souls.
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-You should be able to buy things at least.
-Armor in Demon's is beyond useless. Not only does it barely reduce damage but it noticeably affects stamina regeneration.
-All *-1 bosses are pathetic. Early during Dark Souls I read about people saying Dark bosses were easier then Demon and I psyducked at them.
-Right, largely forgot this because everything was beyond my price range anyway. >.>
-Yeah, I'm running around in Miralda's outfit because, well, if armor's not good for anything else at least it lets me look like a psychotic bondage queen (sans hood, which is just too creepy).
-Fool's Idol was nice enough to just sit there and let me have a conversation when my brother called mid-fight. I felt like I was fighting the librarian ghost from Ghostbusters.
I walked into the Tower Knight fight and just had to sit there a moment, thinking, "Really? That's the music you're going with?"
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Mass Effect 2: Recruited everyone. Completed Horizon and the ship. Now just wrapping up loyalty missions before I dive forward to the quasi-point of no return.
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FF1 PSX- Just beat Kary.
Crescent lake area is offically when the PSX/NES version got harder than my BMNDM challenge. MT status magic means that you end fights fast as a black mage, and Phoenix downs/ethers/high potions means resources aren't an issue. Meanwhile in the PSX version, I got jumped and my White Mage got IDed! Had to run back to Crescent lake. The randoms weren't especially threatening to the team, but it did wear me down- I did the dungeon in two parts due to that death and still ran out of potions by the time I got to Kary.
I have a slightly suboptimal team for this run- Two fighters, a red mage and a white mage. A second red mage would be better. That said, it's still one of the best possible teams in the game and is designed to beat the crap out of things. With the exception of Chaos and a few random formations (Hello, ghost fight in the underwater shrine), I am expecting this playthrough to be harder than a bunch of goddamn attack magicless black mages flailing away at things with their physical.
I should say I haven't had any game overs with this team and had some late with the black mages, but every single game over was getting jumped or running into a few nasty formations. Every other fight, except for Chaos, was total domination.
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FF13-2: I play games slow. (Well, since I'm co-playing it, I have to wait for my friend to have time to play too)
Midway into Chapter 4, I keep taking detours from the plot to hunt for exciting new monsters. The project I'm chomping at the bit for is to start recruiting my Choco-Rangers. I just got to the point where I can go and collect a Silver Chocobo.
Current collection of funtime Monsters are the Pulsework Knight (SEN, of course, everyone should be using this instead of wasting CP on Noel/Serah's SEN path); Feral Behemoth (COM, going to get eaten by the superior Dragoon soon); and a Silver Lobo (SAB, starts with Imperil stuff and just looks cool with a Carbuncle on his back).
Collected a Red Chocobo (COM) that I want to start power-levelling for awesome Monster funtimes. Trying to catch a Blue Chocobo too (RAV, apparently the best monster one in the game).
Monster Medics have been pretty disappointing thus far. Especially since the best earlygame option is the Flanitor... and it's just too ugly for me to consider letting it on my team. (Hey, it's Pokemon 13-2, looks MATTER!) Cait Sith is just too slow and frail to be viable anymore, despite being the cutest 'mon in the game. I want the Green Chocobo, but I don't know where to get it.
Plot: Actually kind of cool! I loved the repeating time loop with the boss of Augusta Tower. Just a really fun idea. (I also liked the solution that Serah comes up with.) Absolutely full of headaches if you think about it too hard, but it was a really fun scene/grandfather paradox that out-paradox'd itself.
I've been choosing all the "silly" options at the dialogue branches, and Serah is a delightfully flighty treasure-loving, murder-mystery-novel fangirl who likes tossing Mog around and humoring Noel. Basically an improvement over every character in FF13 not named Sazh.
Non-Time-Travel Plot is :psyduck: - Oh look, Clairvoyance causes Paradoxes and/or Death... Serah's eyes glow... and the main villain is 'cursed' by a goddess or something. I don't even care, go back to wacky time-travel hijinks.
@super: What is with this sudden Black Mage hype? I get that you like status-whores, but come on...
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It's more having to do with Dawn of Souls scoring like Grandia/10 on the challenge scale after a certain point. I was killing enemies in the mirage tower and onward with BM physical spam, which is sad beyond belief.
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FF6 Eviltype, Mild Version - Just finished the Lava Caves with Terra, Setzer, Sabin, and Gau. A very bad team for this dungeon, what with the Ings who absorb Fire and Setzer who is basically useless. Phoenix Down spam is a go.
The challenge level is above FF6 but not dramatically.
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Fudo: 2-1 was the hardest boss in the game for me. Nothing else really gave me too much trouble.
I beat Deus Ex, comments later. It's probably something like 8/10. Way similar but inferior to Vampire Bloodlines, but I love that game.
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Fudo: 2-1 was the hardest boss in the game for me. Nothing else really gave me too much trouble.
I had way too much trouble with him too.
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Mass Effect.
Just finished ME1, still find it interesting that it's generally Garrus who's all "You're going to sacrifice humans?", especially since this time it was Shepard and Kaidan he was hanging out with.
Aside from that, moving straight on to ME2 has reminded me of just how much better ME2 is over the first one. The combat just feels more refined, and while biotics have been hit with a nerfstick, they also feel more balanced. Whereas in ME1 it was simply toss a Singularity and everyone in that area is effectively dead, now it's never quite a one hit kill, and cover works against it. Also, there's defenses. That said, I'm enjoying the Warp/Carnifex Hand Cannon combo. Also enjoying the shorter mission scenarios, feels like you're accomplishing more than the massive setpieces ME1 had.
Currently got the DLC recruits, as well as all of the early recruits but Subject Zero. Looking forward to seeing the differences between Kaiden and Ashley at Horizon.
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Demon's Souls: Bell Gargoyle's little bros killed me a couple times. I said to hell with this, I'm going somewhere else because Tower of Latria is the most depressing place in the history of places. So I went to the Valley of the Defiled. Oh my god I was wrong. This is the most depressing place in the history of places. Hope you like shit brown walls, shit brown rain, shit brown swamp, shit brown diseased mutant rat men, shit brown slugs and poison poison poison. This place makes Blighttown seem nice and homey. First boss there was laughably sad, second just ate a bunch of healing supplies due to the quasi-poison gimmick. Music continues to inspire naught but eyerolls. The tubas of vague menace will haunt me forever.
Found a vender that sells the humanity restoration item. It costs ten thousand souls (and I am guessing the stock is limited). Keep on trollin', From Software.
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Honestly, I worked on the assumption that Soul Form was default health and being human was a lucky bonus.
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You people pay money to do this.
Puzzle Quest 2 - Played through this again as a Male Assassin. Finished it. Disappoint as Achievement popped up at the end, Completionist 2/4 and that is it. No having finished with same class of different gender. That means that Steam didn't register my first character finishing the game and that makes me very sad. I LIKED that character.
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Perfect World: Up to level 97. The new Morai area is neat, and offers quite a bit to people who aren't heavy cashshoppers. Unfortunately that's a small percentage of the players now.
NBA Jam On Fire Edition: This is... surprisingly not bad! Captures the spirit of the original game rather well, and the mechanics seem fairly balanced. Playing through Road Trip with the Dallas Mavericks, because shut up, I always played them in the original NBA Jam. Dirk Nowitski can score from just about anywhere. Jason Kidd sucks as a defender, but he's got a 10 in passing so he can get the ball to Nowitski no matter how many defenders are in the way.
Haven't been able to get online though. Game says I already have an EA account attached to my email (pretty sure I don't). But when I ask for the password to be sent to that email, nothing shows up. faceEApalm
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Really need to stay away from ME3 related boards. Spoilers and spoileresque discussion is getting common thanks to the spaaaaace editions. But on that note.
ME2: Grinding out loyalty missions. Completed Mordin's (yay!) last night. Started Zaeed's.
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FF1: Tiamat beaten . With the profanity inducing exception of the ice cave (Six resets, every time due to getting jumped by status slinging randoms), it's been pretty easy. Game's challenge goes *pffffft* after the ice cave, even in the decently challenging version of the game.
IDing Tiamat is always cool.
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Lots of things you might expect of me (Starjewelled) and...
Back a little bit to Upgrade Complete
Still can't seem to beat the game with mono Lightning SCC. They're just lacking the DPS it feels like.
Gun SCC is still kind-of hard.
Beating the game with a ship costing no more than $30,000 (less than some fully upgraded parts) is...still not that bad. (And I ended up with 8 guns, 4 missiles, which makes the fact that the gun SCC is hard kinda weird).
Partially I just wanted to test this game on a faster computer. See...last time I played I noted that guns had the most DPS, but mass guns didn't actually kill things all that quickly. Now, what I had concluded was there was a cap on the number of bullets that can hit a target in a frame, and wondered if a faster computer would make the Gun SCC fairly easy--apparently not, it's the game design working here, and not the speed of my computer.
Played a little Upgrade Complete 2 as well. I...see what they were going for, but I'm also not really feeling it. Partially it's just a much more complex system that I'd have to learn if I wanted to min-max it.
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Quick, Ciato - get with super and do a writeup of the differences between FF9's Elemental Fiends and FF1's.
Alternately... Meeple, GO!
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Quick, Ciato - get with super and do a writeup of the differences between FF9's Elemental Fiends and FF1's.
Alternately... Meeple, GO!
FF1 fiends are largely cannon fodder; the scary parts of the game are the randoms. Best boss in the game is likely a large group of wizards or Chaos, depending on your party composition. Kary and Lich can be trouble if you're beat up by the dungeon, but are pretty beatable if you get to them in good shape.
Finished PSX version of FF1. Final level was 29. Boss HP doubled between the versions of FF1 and with the exception of Lich, the plot bosses frailer due to Temper/saber spam. Chaos suffers from the same problem Lich does. He has some excellent moves, but his skillset has a lot of crap in it. Too easy to get buffed up and cut him to ribbons.
Holy crap is endgame magic a total wasteland, though. Wall got used once (To protect my non ribbon user against Chaos) and Full life was quite good. The rest was varying shades of overpriced. Black Wizard gets exactly one unique spell worth giving the slightest of fucks about (Nuke) and that's pretty limited by how late you get access to it. If it weren't for RM not getting revival until post class change and the volcano/ice cave being the hardest dungeons in the game, I'd say WMs were completely skippable. Dia is replaceable by Fire spells and Heal... enemies in FF1 don't tend to let you use it much. Bosses don't have threatening MT, and the randoms that do tend to overwhelm you before it's useful. But man, the nastiness of those two midgame dungeons justify using a WM. There's also the early part of the game where potions are a little expensive, but eh. Cure 2 is equal in price to 25 potions, so it isn't like you aren't better off going with items then.
This version, I'd say class balance is:
Fighter>>Red Mage>>>White Mage>Black Mage>Monk>>>Thief
NES is
Fighter>>>>>>>>Red Mage>>White Mage>>>Black Mage>Monk>>>>>>Thief
Dawn of souls is...hell. (Assuming you do the side areas, which have some challenge. Main game is so easy that it doesn't matter)
Monk>White Mage>Black Mage>>Fighter>>Thief>Red Mage
Fighter is just straight up worse in this version. New equipment closes the tankiness gap between him and the other PC's. On top of that, resources don't matter. You can buy Ethers and Phoenix downs in Pravoka for a trivial sum of gil. That plus Fira and Temper means you are going to buzzsaw everything in sight until at least the fire cave. He also has MDef issues now, on top of being the clear second best attacker for the entire game. Red Mage is also much worse. The change to the INT system means that his attack and healing magic are much worse than the other mages, and he's left in the dust as an attacker by Monk, Thief, and Fighter. You also want a black and white mage anyway, so there isn't really any payoff for his hybrid style.
Monk is your best attacker; much higher levels make his bare fists much stronger. Thief sucks less due to having excellent accuracy and new equips, but he's still a watered down fighter. Higher levels mean that fighter and thief both slam into the hit cap late, and storebought Temper/Haste potions mean his magic is moot. Black Mage can OHKO randoms with elemental 2s for the vast majority of the game and has enough MP to spam spells. WM is a must have for the bonus bosses, as you really want the elemental nulls/Heal there. She has enough INT to be good at itemcasting as well.
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Found a vender that sells the humanity restoration item. It costs ten thousand souls (and I am guessing the stock is limited). Keep on trollin', From Software.
It's either limited or refreshes when you have none of the Stones. Also the price rises as you level.
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FF13-2: So just did a tower in 300 AF. Then tried to fight Atlas without activating the thing...that didn't go over well, so just redid it the way I did before. Then saw I would have to replay all the areas I did before and was about to swear until I saw a nice "Open Gate" option that just sets things back to the way before, and all was well!
...that was a big scare moment though <_<;
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In Demon's Souls I've pretty much kept the 75% health ring the whole game. Even in human form, just for convenience.
Demon's is pretty much straight up worse than Dark in every way IMO, but there are a few very nice touches. Old Monk, the valley of defilement, the prison, Lautrec's spoilerish predecessor, etc. Invasion and co-op are a lot simpler too.
So, Deus Ex Human Revolutions.
Third boss fight was a pain. I'm an idiot so I went to the clinic earlier (Why not? free stuff!!!!) and got punished for it. I must say, this is one of the best plot choice with actual gameplay consequences in an RPG. Bioware would not have the balls to do something like this.
So anyway I'm on hard mode, with a stun gun, a submachine gun, a laser rifle, a heavy gun. They all suck, and I can't use my overpowered typhoon with its absurd amount of charges I've gathered.
After about 30 tries I just stunlock him with the stun gun.
Shoot, run behind him while reloading, shoot again. He dies. Awesome.
I had no idea of what I was doing against the final boss, but I won.
So there's a button, ok I press it, there are two others buttons, I press them too. They seem to do nothing. Hack that level 3 thing, I get attacked by turrets, so I hack the level 5 thing that's unprotected instead. Random enemies start appearing? I start shooting but then out of nowhere the floor gets electrified and they all die. Ok I have no idea what happened there. Repeat twice. Uuuh what to do... Shoot the girl? Battle won.
This seems to be the game built for replays, but it fails badly at that.
In Fallout, you need 70 Repair to fix your TV. You need to invest in Repair as the game goes on. In Human Revolution, only hacking level 1 through 5 works like that. If you get the Punch through wall skills, and you'll be able to punch through any wall in the game. Most of the augments only marginally help with stealth, combat, or hacking, and aren't necessary to do anything.
In practice, you'll probably get all the skills that are needed to go to certain places (jump higher, punch through walls, hacking level 5, electricity immunity...) really, really early, and you'll still be able to do either stealth or combat rather well.
In short, you have options, but very soon you can do everything and choices suddendly don't matter. It's not like Bloodlines, Alpha Protocol or Fallout where you need to stick to a build for the whole game. It sometimes felt kind of sad to see developers put so much effort into giving the players passwords all the time when hacking is always so cheap and so easy, or into creating a ton of alternative routes when I could do them all...
Nevertheless, this was a long enough game, and this should please completionists I guess.
I'm not good at talking about plot. But the plot stuff is great. The world building and character design were near perfect, but the game unfortunately railroads the player with its cutscene sometimes. The worst example being Jensen getting seduced and trapped by one of the Big Bads.
The LA Noirish sequences were worthwhile most of the time, and sidequests were all very focused and great.
I also had way too much fun removing every fridge from every apartment. 8/10.
Tales of Innocence Luca Solo Hard Mode: I think I am immortal now.
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Deus Ex boss spoilers if you care:
All three boss cyborgs can be beaten with nothing but using the stun gun over and over. But the third boss can be beaten with... wait for it... a single takedown. All you do is hit the B button repeatedly while he's jumping over a wall. Instant win.
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ME3 demo-
I think I want my multiplayer character to be a Krogan Battlemaster named Hull Krogan.
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Yeah that's a pretty good thing to want.
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Demon's Souls: "We lead humble lives. Leave us be." So this is where the one decent song was hiding! Repetitive, but very effective in context. I am guessing this is the one and only time the game tries to do anything dramatic, but at least it worked. Poor Garl, thwarted by low ceilings and a refusal to go on the offensive. Understandable given you're a bodyguard, but doesn't work out so well when your opponent has a regen ring and you don't. Immensely glad I've been pumping vitality--his parries left me at like 10hp.
Shrine of Storms, blah blah blah. Not a lot to say here. Circle Adjudicator, shoot in head with arrows. Tank out Storm King's manta ray missiles, shoot in head with arrows. I actually stayed human all day today. Four bosses and I didn't die once. What is this tomfoolery! And some people say this is harder than Dark Souls? I am guessing that has a lot to do with them playing Demon's Souls first. Coming into this knowing exactly what all the stats do and how to build the character I want has undoubtedly helped immensely (I certainly made plenty of flubs on that front first time through Dark Souls).
I presume 2-1 is the infamous armored spider, as I haven't seen him yet and Stonefang is the only area I haven't done much with (I've got invaded twice just going there to buy supplies, also fat clown pyros are jerks).
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Demon's Souls: "We lead humble lives. Leave us be." So this is where the one decent song was hiding! Repetitive, but very effective in context. I am guessing this is the one and only time the game tries to do anything dramatic, but at least it worked. Poor Garl, thwarted by low ceilings and a refusal to go on the offensive. Understandable given you're a bodyguard, but doesn't work out so well when your opponent has a regen ring and you don't. Immensely glad I've been pumping vitality--his parries left me at like 10hp.
Wow, I didn't even know it was possible to survive his parries.
EDIT: Huh, not closing quote tags results in everything quoting.
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I've been dumping levels into nothing but vitality and endurance since I noticed strength boosts get me a whopping extra point of damage per attack. So yeah, it is. (Would not have been survivable if I wasn't human, mind.)
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Went back and did a challenge I remember doing before with Upgrade complete.
Namely:
1. You can never fail a wave.
2. You can take only one cash action between each wave. (i.e. buy a new part OR buy an upgrade).
My successful order went something like...
(You start with 2 guns)
2: Missiles (1)
3: Missiles (2)
4: Gun (3)
5: Gun (4)
6: Missiles (3)
7: Missiles (4)
8: Gun (5)
9: Gun (6)
10: L2 Missile (1)
11: L2 Missile (2)
12: Gun (7)
13: Gun (8)
14: L3 Missile (1)
15: L3 Missile (2)
16: L2 Gun (1)
17: L2 Gun (2)
18: L2 Missile (3)
19: L2 Missile (4)
20: L3 Missile (3)
Which is really weird when you think about it (I spent about as many levels on Missiles as Guns, but I needed an 8:4 ratio before it seemed to be effective? How odd).
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Rob: I will be severely disappointed if you don't.
re Demon's Souls: 2-2(?) I believe it is had the absolute most aggravating boss in the game (for some builds), if I recall right. It took Capra Demon to piss me off that much again.
Mass Effect 2: Zaeed loyalty achieved. I want to take a moment to say, however, that Mordin's loyalty mission? Probably one of the better sequences in gaming, period. They do more with him in that bit than most games do with characters in their entire length.
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It took Capra Demon to piss me off that much again.
Well, at least I'm not alone in being driven to controller-tossing rage by that fight.
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Demon's Souls: Killed Penetrator. Died once because his super attack of rape tossed me into a corner and then the boss followed me into the corner and I couldn't move. Wandered through Boletaria until a dragon showed up and perched above the only forward path. Okay I guess I'll come back here later. Went to Stonefang, killed an armor spider. I can see this being hard when fought reasonably early in the game! At level 60, however, I can block everything, just walk up and cut it to pieces. 2-2 is kind of ugh what horrible. Once I hit a lava swamp with no obvious exits, I just warped out instead of fumbling around further (have I mentioned I've only found that one egress item the entire game? I've only found that one egress item the entire game), since I had a bunch of souls to spend and, for once, what seemed like a decent amount of weapon upgrade materials (it got me one upgrade for a weapon I rarely use. Have I mentioned Demon's Souls is offensively stingy with upgrade materials? At least I got a fire sword out of the ordeal, though). Did not want to make the trek back down there tonight (there aren't any shortcuts are there ffff) so I went back and killed Maneater now that I had a (slightly) better weapon. This was harder than it should've been because...
Have I mentioned that world tendency is an incredibly stupid idea? World tendency is an incredibly stupid idea. Gameplay element with arcane rules, scarcely controllable by the player, which can have the effect of powering up enemies and boosting their HP. One of the ways world tendency gets skewed towards the black (tougher enemies) end of the scale? The player dying when human. The game doesn't care how you die, just that it happens. Making a boss run earlier today, get invaded and killed. Check world tendency screen. Yep, Latria's further down the scale now. 'kay, playing this in offline mode from now on. In Dark Souls, getting killed by an invader was just inconvenient. In Demon's Souls, it directly increases the difficulty of the game. This is the most bullshit design decision ever. You know, formulating a game with the notion of being a challenging ordeal is fundamentally okay. Punishing the player for failing at your difficult game is not okay. Dark Souls was challenging because it had good bosses. Demon's Souls, when it is difficult, is so largely because of stupid design.
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Hilariously 2-2's boss was one of the easier ones for me.
The egress miracle is a lot better then Dark Souls version at least.
And screw tendency!
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Fudo: Were you a caster, by chance? I hear it is much easier that way.
Cid: I was serious. You should ignore human form in Demon's. >_>
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Fudo: Were you a caster, by chance? I hear it is much easier that way.
Cid: I was serious. You should ignore human form in Demon's. >_>
Jack-of-all really. Though by endgame I was bloating my magic to unhealthy levels while still only relying on physical attacks like a dumbass.
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Again, you people pay money to do this.
Serious Sam 3 - Playing this on Easiest difficulty, but for time concerns this time rather than because I don't give a fuck like the last couple of games that got super easy mode. I want to play it and finish the other game I am working on before Mass Effect 3 comes out and everything gets back burnered unfairly.
Serious Sam 3 on pussy mode is amazing. I mean SS3 is pretty amazing anyway by the looks of it. On pussy mode though? It is Doom Comic: The Game. I teleport around one shotting dudes with the melee move which is OP as fuck because enemies don't do much damage and my health regens up to 200. So get attacked by 30 dudes. Teleport around snapping necks, ripping out hearts and decapitating skeletons with my bare hands. This is glorious.
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Black tendency really doesn't affect stats much honestly and gives better drop rates from every enemy.
The system is really stupid because it's obscure as hell and you can't get pure black/white without playing offline, but the changed difficulty isn't really a part of that. It's like the Zodiac Spear in FF12, there's no real actual influence in game.
Usually people choose to do 2-1 right after 1-1 (and get promptly stomped by the Armored Spider) because 1-2 has instakill dragon and those crazy dogs, 3-1 has instakill cthulhus, 4-1 has crazy ninja skeletons, 5-1 has ohgodohgodohgod while 2-1 has nice little easy enemies that don't even move much.
I forgot talking about the greatest moment in Deus Ex. There are two weapon shops in China, one in the hotel and one in the alice pod gardens. At one point, in one of the most chilling moments of the game, the alice pod gardens were invaded by immense jerks who just kill everything in sight. The weapon vendor there naturally disappeared. I went back to the other weapon shop to restock, and only saw a wall with a terrifying graffity, something like "Sarif bitch". My supplier was probably already dead, my opponents clearly were after everybody I knew.
Later I realized I was stupid and just missed the real entrance. Weapon shop dude was still there. How disappointing.
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Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2: About 15 hours in, up to Bemusoleum. Which...is the 6th dungeon, so game's moving at a very nice clip considering that I have spent 2-3 hours randomly grinding for shits(entirely not required! I was just getting new mons up to speed to try them out, coulda moved on much earlier).
The biggest thing I can say here is that this game cuts SO much of the usual DQ bullshit. Zoom is gotten early, you use it to return to any dungeon as well, not just the one "town" area. Also you get a skill called Zip, which lets you move to the zip pad in the dungeon, usually found close to the end, after you activate said pad. So need to go scout a mon found near the end of a dungeon? Just zip, no need to walk back through the damn thing.
Also as compared to MJ1, much better balance of + and - mons, as well as alot more randomly found neutral mons, which is nice. Oh and your mons gain exp while sitting in the monster pen, you don't have to take them out on your team for them to get levels. They don't get much, but it's easily enough to have your latest crop of fused monsters go from level 1 to level 10 or 11 after completing a dungeon.
Plot wise...all I have to say is that Don Mole is a central plot figure. I think that says everything.
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Black tendency really doesn't affect stats much honestly and gives better drop rates from every enemy.
The system is really stupid because it's obscure as hell and you can't get pure black/white without playing offline, but the changed difficulty isn't really a part of that. It's like the Zodiac Spear in FF12, there's no real actual influence in game.
I actually did notice enemies needing an extra attack to drop after Latria slid a couple notches towards black. This counts in a boss fight! Suddenly I couldn't kill the first Maneater before the second one spawned. (This was the hardest fight in the game under any circumstances--one of only three to kill me, and the only one to do it repeatedly. Way too easy to fall off the bridge.)
Also gee thanks for killing all those people I saved, Yurt. Jerk. They make another game in this series, anyone using a shotel is kill on sight.
Anyway, game finished. Old King Allant did not hit me with the level drain but is a tremendous jerk anyway. I think I've already complained about everything that required complaint (oh wait no why do you have to move so slowly when climbing ladders). It is basically Dark Souls--. Or Dark Souls is this++. I would have no hesitation including that in a shortlist of favorite games, this largely gets an "Eh, it was okay," shrug. I am actually encouraged by the fact that the developers recognized what most of the annoying shit was in Demon's Souls and tossed it when making the sequel, though. Astraea fight was solidly the high water mark here. Probably the only thing of note that'll occur to me if I ever think about this game again.
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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - Been playing this, got to the requisite Castlevania bad ending, which means I need to check a FAQ. Game's been pretty enjoyable so far, with the two-PC gameplay playing to my biases. It feels a bit broken at points and each character's individual gameplay is rather unexciting, but still solid enough. Bosses have been a mixed bag, with the non-plot bosses being largely forgettable or gimmicky, but the three plot bosses I've faced have been very fun fights, so there's that.
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FF13-2: Oh look! Another FF13 Cameo! Also Moogles are apparently substitutes for balls these days...
...I blame Tidus in Dissidia.
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Sonic Generations: I've been working my way through this in my moments of free time. Got all the challenge stages down in the first two generations, and cleared out Crisis City and Rooftop Run in the third. Loving the game, even though being able to see the end around the corner makes me really wish it were longer (com on, DLC!). Rooftop Run is the most surprisingly great level thus far – really pretty, and loaded with good setpieces for classic Sonic. The level design is nicely varied in general, which goes a long way toward making up for the fact that of the last five levels, four have been Speed Highway (which runs through a city), City Escape, Crisis City and Rooftop Run (said roofs are in a European city). Also I hadn't played Sonic Adventure in ages and goddamn did Perfect Chaos give me a nostalgia trip. Good times.
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Saints Row 2- Because it was $3.75 on Steam.
Still a fun game. I'm glad SR exists because GTA got totally up its own ass and forgot why we liked the series (it's not because of their realistic driving physics and story lines from Scorsese movies btw).
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FFXIII-2- I found a brown moustache. I cannot put it on my Sazh. I r disappoint. I have the chocobo chick adornment on his head instead and the Cait Sith has the moustache. I haven't levelled Sazh up yet any. I can't decide which kind of build to give him yet, balanced, HP based, MAG based or STR based. He's a SYN but has a high HP base stat and Cold Blood as his special skill which is based of STR I think. I made over 300'000 Casino Coins off Sazh's DLC card games. They are fun. Chrono Bind is the one I've been sticking to so far though. The coins I made with Sazh transfered over to Serah/Noel so I was able to buy the Chaos Crystal, Just 1 Gil and the Setzer's Dice at the prize desk back at the other Serendipity with them. I also have enough for Unicorn Horns, Phoenix Blood, Elixirs and all sorts of stuff if I'm so inclined. I've been doing stuff. FFXIII-2 has a lot of stuff to do and stuff to get. I had to tell a dude some jokes so he'd hand over an item I needed for something else. I'm in the process of finding/rounding up a bunch of dudes so I can fight a bad ass monster to save another dude. I think these dudes might be ded. The game seems to have a thing about ded people, I keep finding them and then they ask me to do stuff. I saw/fought a Purple Chocobo and a Black Chocobo while I was doing other stuff. Didn't manage to catch them though =( Oh and I bought a whole bunch of Gysahl Greens so I could ride a Red Chocobo while doing stuff. Stuff and stuff~
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My PS3 can't read discs anymore. Sounds like I need the lens to be replaced, but only after ~400 hours of playing? Weird.
Cave Noire (Gameboy): Finished the M levels. This and Baroque are the only roguelikes I like, this one being objectively the best.
Here you're given four different objectives, simple but not too repetitive maps (unlike other roguelikes), not a lot of different items and 8 inventory slots.
There's no experience at all (but nice drops sometimes) and running from enemies is usually not hard, so it's recommended to just avoid fighting alltogether.
God Hand: Finished Stage 2. Sucking at this game. I'm having multiple resets on every map, have never seen level 3 enemies, etc.
This feels surprisingly a lot more like Dark Souls than, say, something like Devil May Cry, but it's so much more fast paced and I can't keep up.
I'd like some level select option to go back to the first one train a little.
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God Hand: Finished Stage 2. Sucking at this game. I'm having multiple resets on every map, have never seen level 3 enemies, etc.
Pretty sure that's normal! Well, I think I saw Level 3 enemies at some point in stage 2 but not as a regular thing.
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If you get to Chapter 2 in God Hand on your first playthrough without multiple resets, you are some kind of god at the game. Its suppose to kill you...a lot! That's kind of what the game does <_<
That said...
FF13-2: So I think I finished the chapter...at least I think its a chapter finish because it was like an arc got wrapped up and uh...yeah, lets just go with that!
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If you want higher-level enemies, there's always Hard mode (good luck getting past the first 2 dudes you fight <_<). But yeah seriously, if you got through the first stage at all, you're doing fine.
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Sonic Heroes: Just beat Hide Castle and it...actually...didn't suck. No, really. It was a neat stage with some cool ideas, fun gimmick, neat design, and no real bullshit. There was one section, I guess, that if your flight wasn't pin perfect, you'd die, but seriously, this stage was actually, dare I say it, FUN!!!
...it also makes me question why this wasn't used in Sonic Generations for the Sonic Heroes representation. Seaside Hill is about as lazy as you can get and "They wanted a water stage!" sort of fails when they already have Chemical plant, and other games could have provided cooler stages if they weren't boring (like, say, AQUARIUM PARK?)
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Fortune Summoners: Beat it. It was rather fun for the first half, but less so the second half.
At first you may think the game is a metroidvania where you control a little girl as the main character. However, the progression is entirely story based and all skills save one are from level ups and are solely for combat. You also get three characters and the AI controls two of them.
The controls are rather bad. If you keep attacking and then hold backwards, you will never turn around because the game keeps queuing up attacks and they take priority over turning around. Also, Arche (main character) has an upward slash, but to use it you can't just hold up and attack, you have to tap up right before attacking. The same goes for other moves. If you want to downstab, don't press down until right before you press attack, else Arche will do a normal attack instead. The characters also has a large momentum and thus needs quite a lot of time to stop.
It's not so bad at the first half of the game, you can compensate for the bad controls by figuring out how the enemies moves and fight smart. However, the game then gets harder and due to the controls, it cannot pull that off without bullshit. Enemies will fling spells from afar and are often airborne when they do so. You can cancel their spellcasting by hitting them, but the bad controls makes hitting enemies in the air harder than it should be. The melee enemies also becomes very good at blocking attacks and hitting them multiple times in succession is impossible, which is rather bad since it takes over five hits to kill them. The game also likes to place spikes or other terrain hazards in combat zones, something that doesn't feel fair in a game with such floaty controls.
The AI is very good though. Your companions will navigate platforms just fine and can find you even if you're at the other side of the map and there's a lot of platforming needed to reach you. Unfortunately, the enemies also have very strong AI. They know how to dodge spells, even though you have multiple spells and each covers a different area. Also, if your casters start charging up a spell, they will try to interrupt it if they are close enough. The effect is that if you cast a spell to far from the enemies for them to reach you in time, they will dodge the spell and if you cast it close to them, they will interrupt it. In the end, spells only work because when the AI has three targets and you use your fighter to repeatedly hit them, half the time it will be to much for the AI to handle. Actually, at the first half of the game the spell casting will work just fine since the enemies aren't bullshit yet and you can reasonable keep them away from your spell caster.
The game does have a lot of charm. The main character is a tomboy who's rather dim in an adorable way (says butter instead of butler, need to use her fingers to do addition and so on,) and is generally all brawn over brain. The dialogs aren't particular well-written (some are actually rather bad,) but are still cute. The charm kind of breaks once the third character joins, I found her rather annoying and I don't think her personality really fits a child character. Oh, and it's at the halfway point that she joins.
It's a game that could have been way more fun that it was.
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Portrait of Ruin - At what I can only assume is the final boss. The game continues to be quite easy except for plot bosses who are quite hard! Pretty fun.
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Portrait of Ruin - At what I can only assume is the final boss.
Does his name rhyme with "Venomous Tentacula?"
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Monkey Island 2: SE - played through
Better than MI1SE in terms of SEness. Also otherwise, but that was already a known quantity. Didn't use MI1SE's woeful attempt at style, want to say the interface was improved but I'm failing to remember how.
Did still have some annoying touches like making some people look like they had cut-out mouths and such.
Vaguely saddening that they only had hard mode (or that they didn't have easy mode, depending on how you want to look at it).
Now they need to digitally rerelease MI3 somewhere.
Kirby Adventure Wii - played through, two players. No current intentions to play extra mode.
Pretty entertaining.
Could have used some more superpowers, not that I ever got to use any by virtue of not being 'allowed' to play as Kirby.
I particularly enjoyed damaging floating enemies with the chargeup of the up-hammer attack with King Dedede and jumping with Waddle Dee, for some reasons. Meta Knight is a horrible character so I didn't use him very much.
The multiplayer system does make some things seem a little too easy, such as having a secondary character hold a key while the main character navigates an area dangerous to keys and then has the secondary character teleport to them by virtue of getting too far away. Plus that one area where there are multiple water currenty paths downward... I think that area is more tricksy that it looks though.
VC Wario Land: SML3 - played through
Got all the treasures, but was still a couple thousand coins short for the best prize. Since I already got that in my youth I didn't bother grinding for it again.
Probably not as great as I was remembering it to be, but still great. Still better and more challenging than SML2.
I remembered Wario was slow, but I didn't remember him being -that- slow.
Dragon Hat is still worthless and horrible-looking-effect-having. Jet Hat is still the best.
Now they need to rerelease Wario Land 2. Preferably as soon as possible. Then they don't need to worry with the rest for a while.
Dragon Quest VI: Realms Of Reverie - played through. No aftergaming planned.
Decent. Not as good as HOTHB, but fairly entertaining.
I don't understand why we never ended up finding Milly's statue/body (how did the main's statue get unpetrified anyway?). I read somewhere that Luca had dealt with that before you show up, but I don't remember that being explained ingame anywhere and as I remember it when you first meet Milly and Luca they say that Milly is visible because she's been dewed up. Milly also doesn't seem to have any history with the main despite the opening, although to be fair Carver doesn't either outside of that one flashback. Her behaviour in Felonia and with Terry, eventually, doesn't seem to make much sense if she didn't recombine either. It's all very confusing.
Also confusing is that while the lower people can't see the upper people normally, lower people have no problem seeing the upper people (and the upper everything else) when they're taken there. Also why doesn't the upper world block out the sun to the lower world for all the people that can see it.
The ending is fairly mediocre and leaves you wondering what use Dream Dew is supposed to have normally if it's given use doesn't work in the proper order of things. Also the future is apparently sparkly.
I like how the final boss room starts off with a one-way jump in but then doesn't have any way out (that I could find, although I wasn't particularly thorough) and disables Evac WAIT I ACTUALLY DON'T
Now they need to remake DQ7 for DS/3DS.
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Mass Effect 2: Beat. Still goddamn pimp.
Mass Effect 2 - Overlord: Decent little piece of DLC.
Mass Effect 2 - Lair of the Shadow Broker: Decenter little piece of DLC.
Just have to beat Arrival tonight and I'm already for ME3 at midnight. Hell yeah.
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FFXIII-2- I found a brown moustache. I cannot put it on my Sazh. I r disappoint.
Wait, Sazh joins in this game? Is that like the Lightning dlc?
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FFXIII-2- I found a brown moustache. I cannot put it on my Sazh. I r disappoint.
Wait, Sazh joins in this game? Is that like the Lightning dlc?
There's a DLC that, from my understanding, is a side-story about Sazh and what he's up to, and completing that lets you use him as a monster like Lightning.
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Supposedly, Sazh is forced to play poker to escape temporal limbo.
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That's awesome. Why did FF ever stop being funny like that?
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It's also $5 for about 3 minutes of story and about 20 minutes of broken ass poker mechanics. The AI will call your All-ins with 4-8 off suit and fold when there hasn't been any bets. Also you instantly lose if you go all in with 20,000 chips when your opponent has 2000 and lose the hand.
When you get playable Sazh, you find out he's a Synergist with really no outstanding qualities. Statistically he about the same as my Purple Chocobo. At least if he was a commando you get his awesome blitz attack and silly animations.
You can't even play poker with Serah/Noel and talking to the person at the table still mentions "COMING SOON VIA DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT" that's already installed. I believe Sazh and Serah/Noel share the same coin pool, but it's still faster obtaining items through the casino by just buying coins with gil or chocobo racing.
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What's his Feral Link?
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Cold Blood~
I don't have a Purple Chocobo and I didn't get a Yakshini until I already had/was using Sazh so I'm building him up as my main SYN :) He also comes with Item Collector as a default passive ability which is nice for rare drops. So far I have five Indrajits and Noel's Romulus and Remus (which dropped at the same time/from the same fight as the fifth Indrajit >_>) Sazh also gets the Feral Speed passives so I'm thinking of a set up where he can spam Cold Blood a lot.
I hadn't touched the Casino with Serah/Noel either so I racked up my Coins with Sazh. I made 300'000~ from the Chrono Bind game before I decided to move on and do some more content with Serah/Noel. If I want more I can always go back to Sazh's node. Chrono Bind is fun I find, I like it. Though I did also play poker some as well during Sazh's story bit, using the all in thing to rack up the rest of the Fortune Coins I needed after getting some from the other quest in the Sazh DLC (see below) Fun fact after I went back to play Chrono Bind for Casino Coins with Sazh I also racked up dozens more Fortune Coins in the process, Fortune Coins which there appears to be no further use for <_<
Also there's a little sidequest Sazh can do to help out Chocolina with some story/interesting events to watch~
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Sazh and Chocolina story? Well worth five bucks. Super would agree, I'm sure.
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I didn't really expect God Hand to be that hard.
I beat Dr Ion handily. I have no idea how you're supposed to kill the three losers together without abusing the roulette / god hand boost (like I did), especially on level DIE or something.
I'm getting a lot better at this game, I'm on level 2 most of the time, and can get a few Level DIE kills. (not many) I also beat every arena fight but 4 or so, so far.
My biggest issue is with crowd control. I don't know how to do it beyond "strafing" and "kick one opponent far away then handle the other"
I'm nearly a 1 on 1 pro though... except against bosses. (Guard breaking is immensely satisfying, by the way)
This game has ridiculous fanservice, even for Capcom. Everything involving a female character is fanservice.
Tales of Innocence: Is starting to drag a bit. I hate the dungeons, they're all annoying mazes with identical corridors and no minimaps.
Ricardo is the worst assassin. Worse than Irvine in FF8.
Harry Potter Azkaban GBA: RANK HARRY POTTER.
Unfortunately it is a boring EA game and the characters are all lights. Stopping now, no stat topic.
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Mass Effect 3-
Spent like two hours poking around the Citadel eavesdropping on conversations. Most are quite good, but I would single out the conversation at the Human Embassy's front desk. If you haven't listened in on that one, check in on them whenever you go to the Citadel. It seems pedestrian at first and then you kinda read between the lines.
Fleet Admiral Hackett still kicks ass. Also there's finally a Turian in power who's not a total fuckwad!
Really digging the new weapon system.
POSTERS FOR THE NEW BLASTO MOVIE!!!
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I have no idea how you're supposed to kill the three losers together without abusing the roulette / god hand boost (like I did)
Doin' it right. Especially at higher difficulty levels, there's nothing as consistently threatening as fighting multiple enemies with long-range attacks.
I'm getting a lot better at this game, I'm on level 2 most of the time, and can get a few Level DIE kills. (not many) I also beat every arena fight but 4 or so, so far.
My biggest issue is with crowd control. I don't know how to do it beyond "strafing" and "kick one opponent far away then handle the other"
Try using one of the leg sweep moves. Evading high attacks while potentially knocking everyone in front of you down is an effective means of crowd control that doesn't rely on isolating enemies.
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Wait, why weren't you already sweeping the leg?
SWEEP THE LEG. COBRA KAI!
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Wait, why weren't you already sweeping the leg?
SWEEP THE LEG. COBRA KAI!
HAHAHAHA! Yeah! Get him a bodybag!
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(http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17fcjwdvi6yigjpg/xlarge.jpg)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBMKLyRfY8Q
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They did perform that in the stage version. Also the McPoyles show up and Charlie plays harmonica.
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Mass Effect 3: Started last night. Having a blast. General combat continues to be improved. Shepard has more auto-dialogue/more character now, which is just gonna piss some people off to no end. Honestly, I think they're pretty close to finding the ideal sweet spot for this sort of game.
Opening of the game is a bit rushed. Introduction to Vega is sloppy, as well as recapping players on the events immediately before (non-import make a difference, maybe?) But then goddamn Reapers everywhere.
The whole kid thing is a bit forced and too heavy-handed, but, for now, I'm content to believe it is a figment of Shep's imagination.
Mars was pretty fun on the whole and gives you a pretty good feel for controls. Spacebar being used for everything in the game is a little annoying, but honestly, not hard at all to adjust to. Movement to and around cover is MUCH better and your speed is pretty damn good. That and the ability to stay in cover is huge given (at least on Hardcore) your health and shields go FAST.
Character interaction has been increased about a million fold up through this point, so that makes me happy.
Made it to the Citadel and talked to the Council and now it is time to dick around a bit!
Explored the new and improved Normandy. Alliance really hates interior lighting. New layout is slightly confusing to me, but it is roughly analogous to the ME2 ship with some differences due to retrofits.
In general, as of about two hours in, game is again improves upon its predecessor. The continued refining of the system is likely to annoy some people (likely the auto-dialogue being at the forefront), but so far, I'm satisfied.
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You know what I feel the biggest difference nobody mentions is? Debriefings rather than emails to end side quests. It's a small detail but it makes the stuff you do seem more important.
Not that the email Grunt sent me afterwards wasn't great.
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Arkham Asylum - Started this yesterday. The start is -extremely- slow, even if it has The Joker, who is awesome. Batman in serious situations just makes me laugh due to shear absurdity. He's a dude with bat ears, a wet suit, and a ridiculous cape. He looks like kind of a moron talking to police officers, like a cosplayer going into a business meeting or something.
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Castlevania - Portrait of Ruin: Beat this!
I find myself with rather little to say about the game. It's pretty good but not amazing. Generally I think the 2D singleplayer Castlevanias I've played have generally linearly improved and this game does feel in between Aria of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia. Of course I haven't played the ones which are usually regarded as less good which might endanger this linear trend!
On a positive note, though, I will say that I greatly enjoyed the final boss battle. Probably the two hardest boss battles in the game where both framed as 2-on-2's which I liked stylistically; it certainly gave PoR's final boss a unique feel. Took me a lot of time to learn how to handle properly. The second form was easier (as well as more generic) but certainly durable so I had to learn how to fight it well, and, in particular, truly get good at the first half of the fight. Fun times.
I beat the game without getting the Vampire Killer because the game was all "DON'T USE THIS IT WILL KILL YOU". I look in a FAQ and the game was just full of shit? Okay. So I load it up and beat Whip's Memory which was a fun enough boss... I made almost no progress until I figured out how to deal with him then he became fairly easy. Worse than the big plot bosses but I'll take it over the plotless scrubs.
For bosses towards the end I mainly controlled Jonathan using the best available spear... they had loads of damage and reach, which I found handy. Even with swords, he felt more sluggish than most Castlevania mains (and certainly was a huge shift from Shanoa's lightning-swift sword attacks) so some of the challenge of bosses came from working around that. I controlled Charlotte a bit less often, which became significantly less often once Jonathan got his Space Jump Uppercut, because her normals were worse, though some of the spells were handy enough. I do appreciate the two available PCs though, as well as the option to have both fight at once, and the ups and downs that came with that. (First form of the final boss largely spoiled a second PC, I found, but the second form had lots of opportunities for her to help out, including That One Attack.)
So yeah it's pretty good. Not much else to say, I'll probably do something else with the game eventually.
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Ciatos playing Arkham Asylum? Well that seemed like it was out of nowhere. Hope you enjoy it though.
Persona 3 - So I finished this. The PSP version really fixes some of my key issues with it. They ripped some of the bullshit out of the combat system (controlling characters), dungeon exploration (fatigue system), dating sim stuff (people don't randomly get pissy at you for not doing stuff with them at regular intervals requiring you to spreadsheet your fucking social interactions out like a 30 year old with 3 jobs). It leaves the game far more polished and playable. It still isn't something I consider fantastic, but I don't hate it and want to punch everyone in the fucking face for it now. Kind of like Skyrim though I played it on super fucking easy mode because it is a game I don't really give a fuck about, so that might make some of the other bullshit in the combat system less bothersome. I still rage at enemies with MT Instant Death. Yeah you Homunculus and stuff. But when 2 gets used up on 25% MT ID on your 4 character party I want to punch things. It leaves me wondering who the fuck uses Ken or Koromaru. Fuck using a character weak to one of two types of instant death in a game.
I still like SMT aesthetics at time, I am a sucker for saving the world through practical demonology. Mara is kind of creepy and actually surprisingly intelligent for a SMT demon design as well. The fact that it is a pun in Japanese apparently isn't really the appealing thing, but with Mara being the spirit of temptation in Budhism? That is fairly fitting. Mara is a giant dick monster riding around on a chariot for reference. I am left pondering the meaning of it being a circumcised dick monster though.
I still need to watch the ending sequence (killed the boss this morning then left to work). Even did the final form proper like (cause you know, easy mode). Fuck that must be a boring arse fight on normal or hard. lol we made a boss u can only attack half the time. isnt it fun. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz oh time to rebuff. Also multi acting. So your debuffs wear off quicker and making buff spells twice as good in comparison. Nice one arseholes.
Also for reference, most of the optional side stuff is five kinds of get fucked, but that is SMT sidequests for you.
So overall. P3P. It is a game. What the fuck ever.
It DID make me pretty pumped for P4: The Golden for two reasons. The name is still fucking hilarious. Even more so than FES was. Noun? We don't need no fucking nouns. I hope they put out a remake of Fresh Prince of Belair and just call it The Fresh. Or a remix of P.Y.T. and just call it P.Y. Secondly, if they improved on P3 that much (over two games, because you can't get it right the first time when you can convince people to buy the game two more times to make it "okay"), then man, P4 honestly sounded pretty good to me. I just never got around to playing it and I was kind of SMTed out when it was released. I look forward to see what sort of ground they make on that.
Since Mass Effect 3 is installing I guess I can watch the ending sequence for P3 now while I eat dinner.
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I use Koromaru, bitch.
God Hand: In game trying that leg sweep move in a fight against three bosses looks really, really desperate. Maybe that will make them laugh, giving me the distraction I need to punch them in the face.
Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes: It's that CT hack that got canned because Squaresoft sent a Cease & Desist letter at the last minute, holding a glass of wine in one hand and cacking maniacally. Obviously everybody was royally pissed and a prototype for the hack got leaked.
It's nothing too groundbreaking but it's still a pretty cute hack. I like it. It's nice to see Porre starting to become crazy in CT. Oh and I especially like how Magus is trying to act badass and failing to accomplish anything.
But the game spends too much time trying to tie up CT with CC and explaining time travel stuff when the original CT just didn't care. (for good reason) The new graphics are pretty good, but there are some areas that are supposed to be in ruins but just look glitched.
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Oh right! Of course.
So yeah watching the ending now. Tons of spoilers follow. So here is a big gap to skip over and just not read. I am not doing tiny text because even my attempts at humor shouldn't take actual effort to seek out. There is nothing of value here to discuss about my opinion of the game other than jokes as a running commentary of Social Links ending vignette things and the final sequence.
Edit - Okay so I wrote a fucking wall of text and didn't notice. I will shrink it because WHY DIDN'T YOU AVOID THE SPOILER WALL OF TEXT is a dick move. It will still be a readable size instead of the bees dick font size everyone uses to avoid SPOILERS YOU LEAVE VAULT 13 IN FALLOUT SPOILERS stuff.
Edit 2 - I am brilliant and made it bigger instead of smaller.
*Aigis cried despite being a robot* The robot with functional AI can cry and that is surprising? If you didn't want her to be able to cry why the fuck did you give her tear ducts? If she had them why the fuck is that surprising when she has clearly been capable of emotions for months at least.
Otherwise, self sacrifice of yourself is the key to victory and the answer to life is your friends and that was the most fucking boring plot boss I can think of. Really? Can I watch that same attack animation a few more times? That would be cool. I didn't get sick of it the last 6 times it played. SPIRIT BOMB MOTHERFUCKER.
Oh so they all lost their memories. Retcon history so that they lived in the same building for a year and NEVER FUCKING TALKED TO EACH OTHER? Fuck that shit. Fuck everything about that. But the people in the same grade are friends and don't remember how or why? Except for Aigis, lol.
Your memory wiping magic is less effective than the little glowsticks in Men In Black. Good job.
Oh so I get to spend another 2 days fucking around in dating sim game. woooooo. Good thing I have DLC still downloading.
Okay, so lets get back to this. The reason to live is for friendship. You will die in March. They mind wipe you so you forget all your friends. Not mind wipe you so the Dark Hour is forgotten, the fact that you had lived with and made good friends with people over normal activities outside of school hours.
that is fucking brilliant
Junpei forgets the woman he loved and remembers that he fell in love with someone.
Yukari invites you to meet her mother who she now has unresolved resentment towards once again. She wants to take you to meet her mother so she can say you are her best friend. lets do it over Spring Break she says. Organised just days before the main character will be dead.
Bebe writes in Hiragana with a French accent. Oh and he won't come back to Japan because a relative died. You get a letter about this days before you will die.
Rio resolves her relationship problems with Volleyball. True love was finally found with the thing she was always obsessed with and not the boy she loved. She is going to go to a training camp to get good at volleyball. I hope the funeral doesn't ruin it.
Fuuka tries to start another club that only the two of you are members of. This is going to be great.
Hidetoshi gives up on the whole thing that represents him as being the Emperor arcana and decides to become a teacher. I choose not to laugh in his face because the game is already being a bigger dick to everyone else than I am.
Mitsuru remembers being friends with the main character. Wonders what her life would be like without her and looks forward to hanging out after Mitsuru graduates. Lets meet on the weekend. Again, plan to meet up just days before you die. Also her dad died mysteriously and she won't remember why.
Saori writes a letter to you admitting that she pussied out of a suicide pact with her boyfriend before he topped himself (or he just died or something?) and how you changed her life. Again, letter talking about how important people in someone's life died and how important you are to their life. Then you die.
Akihiko got in a relationship with you because you live in the same dorm. Yukari and Junpei just finished saying earlier that they don't really know him and haven't talked to him much. Your friends don't talk to your boyfriend who lives in the same dorm as you all. Nice.
Ken can no longer remember how his mother died. Has no resolution to his anger issues anymore over it, but remember he should be pissed off at someone for letting her die. Also is not totally skeeved out by the fact that he got moved to your dorm.
As an aside from the running commentary, no one bats an eyelid about the main party living in this dorm together put together by this one guy? Now that no one will remember why Mitsuru was helping back him and his influence. Now he is mysteriously disappeared.
Monk dude found his wife and kid. His home life is terrible.
Bunkichi and Mitsuko are going to refurbish their book store. Nothing bad happens. Except that the game is set in 2009, so smack bang in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis and they run a book store. We are still feeling the aftermath of how hard that industry crashed in 2009/2010. Bet plenty of you missed that one.
Sun guy (Akinari?)'s mother comes to meet you and talk to you about him cause he died. Which is creepy because he sent you best wishes to fuel the Spirit Bomb. Wonder if it killed him. Anyway, she finds out that he gave you his notebook and tells you to keep it to remember him by for the rest of your long life. Shouldn't be hard. Now let us relish the tragedy of a sick 19 year old die in the story of the death of a perfectly healthy 16 year old.
Maiko's dad talks to you about his daughter in past tense a lot. Creepy. He feels sad because his house is empty. Then he hits on you because his daughter likes you and runs the fuck away. Maiko went to live with her mother because she thought this guy could cope better?
(http://members.optusnet.com.au/grefter/poorly.png)
Koromaru is a dog.
President Tanaka is being investigated for fraud (of his own money? And they say it might be tax evasion? Unless he claimed the charity on tax how the fuck does that even work? Then he spent it on Charity and should have a receipt). He fucks with the media and drives away like a boss. Still the best character in the game. Game tries to fuck with him, he tells game to get fucked. Pimper than TheDisco Pimp. Taught her everything she knows. Except he won't die like a chump.
Aigis remembers everything. Aigis gets to have her friends ignore her and not talk to her for 3 months. Hope you are getting good value out of those emotions Aigis!
This all is fucking brilliant.
Oh awesome, Mitsuru gets to have a sudden breakdown on stage talking about the death of her father. The crowd is stunned that she stumbled over a speech where she is talking about her dead father. Nice.
Then everyone spontaneously gets their memories back. This plot point went far. Alright. I didn't like the ending until now. This, this is pretty enjoyable. I didn't expect the game to deliver Schadenfreude on this level.
Aigis talks about finding the meaning of life. The party arrives on the rooftop to meet up like they promised just in time for the main character to die without ever getting to talk to everyone as a group.
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Brig: Grand Edition- I hate fighting meteor doom enemies on defense. 200 freaking damage to your entire army is bad; that is made infinitely worse when two characters have it. I got lucky and Iscalio never rushed me with four meteor doomers, or they would have fucking wiped me out. (They had a Loki/Super Tyrant/Necromancer/Lillith).
It's fun to see the AI play the system smartly. They protect promoted monsters reasonably well and level up good project knights (Lance, Kiloph). Shame that GE's time limit is so short.
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re: Persona 3
I always figured the implication was that the main character remembered just fine and didn't want to bring up the whole "we totally fought death itself and prevented the apocalypse" thing and ruin the mood. Which raises the question of why the hell they and Aigis didn't hang out more.
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Grefter vs. Persona 3
<3
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The Main remembering does very little to change the hilarity of the ending sequence. Edit - I should clarify there. I don't think the main character new that what would happen does. Even assuming that they remember the events and that they didn't know the outcome of those events, that doesn't stop how much the plot is just fucking with everyone (other than Tanaka because he is a boss).
I get that they are going for a bittersweet ending. You could do that without layering on the fuckery that deep though. It is straight up comedy at that point.
On reflection. I really like the Heirophant one for the subtlety of how much they are fucked over, but my favorite one is Sun. It mixes narrative dochebaggery with irony to a degree none of the others quite matches.
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ME3- holy shit, it's CONRAD VERNER! A small part but so awesome. And you can make sure his ending is a good one, no less.
I shoulda tried to recruit him. I bet his rating is at least 120.
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Brig: Grand Edition- I hate fighting meteor doom enemies on defense. 200 freaking damage to your entire army is bad; that is made infinitely worse when two characters have it. I got lucky and Iscalio never rushed me with four meteor doomers, or they would have fucking wiped me out. (They had a Loki/Super Tyrant/Necromancer/Lillith).
It's fun to see the AI play the system smartly. They protect promoted monsters reasonably well and level up good project knights (Lance, Kiloph). Shame that GE's time limit is so short.
Is this one of those games where you spent the first few years idle so the AI could level up?
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No. Grand Edition has normal mode and multiplayer mode. There are three normal scenarios in MP mode- one of which is the start of the game, two which are a little later with Leonia and New Almekia defeated (and Esgares in the last one). There's a fourth multiplayer mode unlocked where it's a normal game, except every country starts with a ton of unlocked monsters. IE: Norgard starts with a Fafnir instead of a White Dragon, Leonia starts with a Seraph unlocked, etc. Esgares gets the strongest pool of monsters by *far* (Zemeckis and Esmeree start with a L20 Lucifer and Lilith).
MP mode is meant to be played versus humans, but you can also just set up other countries under AI control. It's lots of fun either way, and different from the normal game- there are no animated cutscenes, just text like in normal Brig. You also don't fight Bulnoil/Snake of Chaos.
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Tactics Ogre: The Death of Flash - Started this up to play on the bus. Decided I will play without FAQing the shit out of it. So now I am confused and have to make choices about things without understanding them.
Clearly what I will do is poke and prod Ciatos to understand things outside of Archers are broken. I need to understand things like "How do I get more archers?" and "How badly is the game going to punish me for being a douchebag constantly?" and most importantly "How do I get more archers?".
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Mass Effect 3 just took the crown for best dialogue. This is technically spoiler stuff, but you'll only see it if you port a game with Mordin dead and you just don't do that shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9k2ywHWL4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9k2ywHWL4)
In other news, I'm about to start into the end game. So far? This game is amazing.
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FF1 Origins - Started this today. I killed Garland without taking damage. An extremely difficult boss, to be sure.
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Shadow Hearts: Covenant - The revenge! I'm replaying this game because it's pretty cool and I like replaying games that are cool. Currently in the Paris subways, i.e. where the game still kinda tries! Also huh, Yuri actually isn't a very good PC right now because L1 fusions are blah and he has no GT, although obviously he's still solid with ST damage and HP and such. Meanwhile Gepetto still has game-worst everything that isn't damage, and the damage is overkill for most randoms.
Wait why am I replaying this game and immediately analysing the gameplay, this isn't what I'm replaying the game for. That said it's too early to say much about the plot, except to say that earlygame Nicolai is pretty fun. Also, shut up, Blanca.
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Needs more DDR mat.
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ME3- Finished. God damn that ending was an abrupt tonal shift. A shame, because everything before the last five minutes is amazing.
WELCOME TA EARF is honestly one of the best sequences I've played in a game in a very long time. It is what climactic final battles want to be.
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Shadow Hearts: Covenant - The revenge! I'm replaying this game because it's pretty cool and I like replaying games that are cool. Currently in the Paris subways, i.e. where the game still kinda tries! Also huh, Yuri actually isn't a very good PC right now because L1 fusions are blah and he has no GT, although obviously he's still solid with ST damage and HP and such. Meanwhile Gepetto still has game-worst everything that isn't damage, and the damage is overkill for most randoms.
Wait why am I replaying this game and immediately analysing the gameplay, this isn't what I'm replaying the game for. That said it's too early to say much about the plot, except to say that earlygame Nicolai is pretty fun. Also, shut up, Blanca.
Bullet to the brain stem in that case, because Blanca only thinks. I can't fathom why they thought we'd want to read the thoughts of a shallow, sociopathic dogwolf that isn't even interesting about it, though.
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Dammit, now I want to go play it again.
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Messing around with co-op in Dark Souls last night, because I don't feel like starting something new and it's a decent timewaster before bed. Hanging around in Kiln of the First Flame, get summoned by a dude who's clearly just sitting there to kill invaders. Kind of bad form to go into PVP with multiple allies, but whatever. I have a bunch of black knight gear in inventory that I was about to toss before getting summoned, so I do it in phantom mode while we're waiting for an invader to show up. Host sees this, starts doing the same thing. Soon there's like thirty items sitting on the ground. I start to wonder if all this is going to provoke vagrants in other worlds. Kill a couple invaders, host eventually gets fragged. I check messages next time I visit the area: multiple "Be wary of bug/strange creature" messages, repeatedly uprated. Christmas in the Kiln, vagrants for everybody! Totally worth the time to introduce unsuspecting players to an obscure gameplay mechanic.
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ME3: Goddamn you are fast, Rob.
Just finished off Suk'resh and am dallying about on more sidequests. Sad Michael Beattie didn't reprise Mordin, although Meer does a passable impression.
Grabbed the DLC squadmate. Still not sure how I feel about him as DLC, but it certainly doesn't seem as offensive as people thought it was? Will see.
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I feel like he was cut for disc space more than anything. There's some places that space limitations really show. The 360 is really pushed about as far as it'll go on this one.
And, you know, money, but I think they had to cut one squad member, and it was either Javik or Vega.
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My only issue was that he didn't come free with new copies like Shake or the extra shop in Dragon Age 2. Given that his existence twist the plot a bit and certainly has an impact on other team members (Liara especially).
ME3 - Not sure how far through I am, but it feels like I am a decent way through. Might be much shorter than other games in the series? Or just feel that way maybe.
Done some multiplayer. It isn't a bad little swarm mode. Having 3/4of the party organized offline helps as does playing with a guild mate in ventriloo. Getu enemies got a buff it seems from that. I miss one shotting pyros by hitting their fuel tanks. Rocet dudes ruin your shit if the catch you off guard and heavens help you if they catch you in a crossfire. Reapers are just fucked. Shit all over Geth for difficulty (who are harder than Cerberus). Enemies that have good synergy, unusual hit boxes and three kinds of threatening unit are just monstrous. I really look forward to playing more. Engineer is great fun to play in it I find. Combat Drone is nice to either use as a decoy that gets decent free damage or you can just fire and forget somewhere if your allies have a specific area fairly covered. It will serve to split up the enemy forces and a t as delaying tactic if you leave it off somewhere by itself. Max rank lets you have it have AoE, close range stun on weak enemies and the ability to shoot Incinerates at long range. So it is useful in all situations. It can even tie up a Banshee for a while if you get lucky. Handles probably the moth threatening thing on the field while giving you time to pick it off from safety.
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I'm all about the MP mode. I was apprehensive at first but I am really digging it.
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SF's FE10 plot corner:
Just finished up Chapter 4 Prologue. I gotta say that wow, Ike & Mist sure are blase about working with the force that directly caused the death of their mother AND caused their father to cripple himself and probably live with horrible gut-wrenching guilt. I mean, sure, no choice and all, but I wish the game at least had them react some way to this little fact.
Yune / Ashera plot is potentially cool so far, but I fear wimping out. Basically, I hope they give Yune teeth, and not just have her be the vaguely ditzy 'good' goddess who loves the flesh bags. When Yune was explaining their portfolios, she left out "war and violence" vs. "peace." I hope they bring that out more outright; Ashera unrealistically wanted peaceful people working in harmony with the whole 780 year old promise, while a chaotic force likes humans... partially because they're passionate and fight and kill each other. Which would be a little uncomfortable to be working with. Maybe also play up "justice" vs. "(irrational) forgiveness", order doesn't forget a slight, chaos can drop it all and live & let live, and right now humanity really, really doesn't want a justice that would end them all. Not sure how much actual Yune will end up having the qualities I'm hoping for, but we'll see. (Well. The violence one sure seems indicated by FE9, so I sure hope they are at least consistent and remember that.) That said, to be clear, definitely some stuff to like. I especially like the bit about how Ashera hates Yune, but Yune likes Ashera, so she'll talk to Mist who has the Spirit of Order in her and all.
Also, vaguely curious to see WTF is up with Micaiah plot and what other amazing powers they'll give her. It sounds like Yune was cheating a bit, though... she was asleep and locked in the medallion, but also in a bird and able to give Micaiah super-good intel? While Ashera's little wake-up convo made it seem like she was totally out of it.
Been said in chat already, but Chapter 3 plot is still lame. This is what happens when you refuse to make characters villains and/or just wrong, and want to have a bunch of sympathetic characters fight it out for some reason, vaguely like comic books trying to concoct an excuse for Batman and Superman to fight. People just fight.... because. They can't even keep their reasons straight and/or consistent. In the back half of Chapter 3, we are told that Daien is still working with the Senate faction, we can't have that, let's go invade through Daien. But then... we're trying to have peace with Daien and don't want to fight them after all? As we are *marching through their forking lands*?! What? Didn't you pay attention to 2-P? If they didn't have an excuse before, they have one now. I'd have been fine with "Okay, Daien is working with Begnigon's Senate for some incomprehensible reason, we can't risk them invading Crimea or something while the Knights are out, we need to go conquer them and smack some sense into their government first, then hit Begnigon." And *stand* by that where the characters aren't angsting about fighting Daien because that's the whole damn point. It's still slightly bizarre, better to go fight the civil war first, but at least it's there. OR just travel into Begnigon on the same route their army used to get to Crimea, and then have the Daien army come back on Begnigon land again to aid the Senate forces, like 3-6 again. Then you can try and evade them and go all "get out of the way, you're not our target, we don't want to fight you." Either one works; but doing the combination of these two doesn't make sense!
The War of Laguz Aggression is a similar mess, mostly because the objectives of it are never really clear, aside from maybe "teach Begnigon a lesson about people who mess with our diplomats." (Protip: Considering the murder of a diplomat a full-on act of war is something that only, say, the British Empire in the 1800s can get away with.) The only reasonable goal would seem to be to depose the Senate and get regime change... but the only thing that'd do that would be complete conquest, so Soren's comments about offering peace halfway through didn't make tons of sense. Of course they were rejected for irrelevant reasons, too, but I can't begin to imagine what kind of a peace treaty would make either side happy. It's not like the Senate would agree to being arrested... so yeah, if you didn't think you could taken on the Central Army in a straight-up fight, this war was even stupider than it seemed at the start. Which was pretty damn stupid, since you knew about the dark god in the medallion.
The Blood Pact is plot hammer BS as usual. I've got nothing against grand, impressive magic that works in strange ways, especially if voluntary in some sense, as there's a long tradition that voluntary magic dramatically increases in power. But killing everyone in the kingdom whenever the contractor wants, and 'voluntary' meaning 'in the fine print of a magic treaty'? This is ridiculously over the top and implies Lekain has deific magic powers. It's not even clear if it has to be the king who signs it, or what "being king" even means. (Would it have worked on Pelleas while he was still a rebel in the countryside? If not, couldn't he just abdicate? If so, and it was bloodline based or something, what happens when the order of succession changes? e.g. a brother taking the throne in preference to a son not of age.) If the game had wanted to man up AND make more sense, just freaking make Pelleas a villain. Plenty of rebels in the countryside prove terrible kings once on the throne. Alternatively, for a slightly more sympathetic villain, use the Harry Potter-esque unbreakable pact, which is a less godlike display of power but still shockingly immediate. If Pelleas breaks the pact then *he* will die, and he's a coward, so he chooses the death of his countrymen & soldiers rather than his own death, and goes along with Lekain. The one thing I can give credit to is that Almedha comes off as a decent villain, not really caring too much about Ashnard's pile of bodies he stepped through on his way to the throne. Although that sounded a bit wacky too, since this flashback 'wise man' was apparently a genocidal wise man who just wanted to blow up tons of Daien citizens or something.
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ME3: Finished the Krogan plotline. All I can say is: =(
Called back the the Citadel and dealt with that plot event. Hurrah for people listening to Shepard.
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ME3: Finished the Krogan plotline. All I can say is: =(
Called back the the Citadel and dealt with that plot event. Hurrah for people listening to Shepard.
The version where you side with the Salarians, with both Wrex and Ashley dead? Yikes. Mordin lays an ICE BURN on you.
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Addressing by paragraph. Some isn't REALLY spoilers, but what the heck.
1. That is kinda odd. Ah well, happens.
2. It's more of an emotion vs reason thing than strictly chaos vs order. Otherwise, I'll let the game speak for itself.
3. The game is unclear on this point, but if you poke around outside materials it makes more sense; FE10 takes FE9's hard mode as canon, and assumes Ashnard did draw on the Medallion's power during his last stand. Based on the timing of when Yune shows up in the backstory, we can infer that she was released at this time, at least enough to assume her bird form.
Micaiah's powers aren't truly explained until later.
4. The idea was that they couldn't afford to have Daein attack their rear, so they marched on Neverra in the hopes of getting them to back down, whether by diplomacy or by breaking their morale. It worked about as well as can be expected.
5. Bengion had promised Gallia a lot of reform after the last war, including ending Laguz slavery, strengthened diplomatic ties, and formally ceeding Serenes Forest back to the Herons. When none of this happened, they sent diplomats, as Sanaki had been highly sympathetic and active before. When said diplomat died, they assumed she had either betrayed them or lost power, and in either case marching against the senate was the only means to secure those demands.
6. the precise terms of blood pacts seem to be variable. The most logical conclusion is that the version Ashnard used targeted his family (and by extention the royal line, though no small number of commoners apparently), while the one Pelleas signed was the entire country.
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Rob: Nah. Ashley dead. Wrex alive. Sided with the Krogans. Conclusion was just very *sadface*.
Glad to see I'm not generally insane in that I'm finding the game enjoyable though. Too much time on BSN/following metacritic.
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FF13-2: So...game decided to go all Fetchquest on me...
...and people were wondering why FF13's linearity can be considered a genuine conscious decision to improve the game...
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Mordin's line under this circumstances is something like "what, do you have Ashley waiting to shoot me on your signal? Oh wait, you thanked her for that by killing her."
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Rob: That is a pretty damn sick burn.
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See and here I was going to say that the Renegade line really is a kick in the balls this time. Siding with the Salarians while Wrex is alive was making me feel pretty disgusted. Watching Shephard have the same response as I felt at the time was pretty great.
Sounds like the Kaidan/Ashley split is fairly significant this time. Nice to know. As is the Wrex/Wreav one from what I have watched my brothers play (which made the Renegade choices even more ergh).
Where Renegade was being a Douchebag Rock Star in ME2 it feels like it is really hammering home that doing whatever it takes to succeed isn't always particularly successful in the ways you want it to be.
The attempts to humanise Shephard are really heavy handed at the worst times (and they really stand out), but there is small little things that do actually work.
Some of it feels like they had a cool story and then went over it with a stupid brush when someone said they didn't see where they were humanising him like they claimed they were. So we got every scene in the game with the child.
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I was pretty genuinely surprised at the impact some of your decisions had. In general I think the writing is really good, but sometimes it trips up. There's a decision later that I made that made me feel even worse than going renegade would have, if you can believe it.
Also: be sure you take Javik to Thessia. He'll shatter your world.
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Cthulhu Saves the World - Cthulhu's Angels. Just got my third PC. So far this is quite a bit easier than the maingame, I'm pretty sure it's because earlygame October is OP. Fire burns everything.
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Been playing Pokemon: White, Mass Effect 3 (paragon ManShep with a touch of Renegade), and started up both Demon's Souls and Folklore. Pokemon has actual writing, Mass Effect 3 is... well... I've yet to read up on what others have said, but I'm sure it's been discussed to death, Demon's Souls is actually a LOT harder than I expected, and Folklore is awesome and more people should play it.
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Lost Odyssey:
So... really enjoying this! I think the best description of why is something like "It has all the usual tropes of JRPGs I like, but isn't nearly as embarrassing about it!" It helps that it has story sequences that are genuinely moving. Not the main plot so much as the backstory. The main plot seems fine so far, apart from the mustache-twirling villains, but I'm wary about it.
Battle system is straightforward and fun, though the loading times are atrocious. At least the creators seemed to realize this and turned the encounter rate -waaaay- down compared to most JRPGs. Randoms are harder than the usual fare too. Tiered leveling a la Suikoden is a good touch to keep the grind down and helps the bosses stay balanced (at least so far, they have all been challenging). The Immortal customization vs Mortal unique skillsets is certainly an interesting growth system, and I totally want to stat topic if I ever finish this game.
On Disc 2, about to go pirating~
At this rate, I should finish the game in no more than 2 years!
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"It has all the usual tropes of JRPGs I like, but isn't nearly as embarrassing about it!"
About the game with funeral clowns.
Mass Effect 3 - Admiral Hackett has word on your mother. She has been promoted to Rear Admiral.
Awwwwww yeah.
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In fairness, "Funeral Clowns" is not something I'd consider a jRPG trope, on simple grounds that "Funerals" are almost never in jRPGs (we have FF6 Leo's funeral, WA1's Funeral which is just a backdrop for opening credits, I guess Yuna's big sending dance is effectively FF10's funeral...then I'm kind of at a lack of thinking about others!)
So his statement remains true! He didn't say "it's not screwed up in other ways" afterall.
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Mass Effect 3: Met with the Quarians, grabbed Tali. Now, while their liveships burn, I shall do a few sidequests.
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I found this half finished guide in my GE notes from when I was doing Knight analysis on the old board. I decided to finish it up since I've been playing Brig of late.
Esgares in Brigandine Grand Edition: How *you* can take over Forsena with the might of the Ivan, Roecod , and Paradoll!
One of the biggest changes from normal Brig to Grand Edition was the expansion of the Esgares quest, giving it an actual story. It was one of the hardest countries in normal Brignadine in theory, but the overwhelming power of Zemeckis (He can OHKO Rune Knights before power in normal Brig) and no need to fight an endgame boss meant that the challenge wasn't any different from the rest of the game. Grand Edition changes this. Zemeckis has been badly nerfed- Power is a flat 50 point boost rather than 1.5x offense, and he no longer can move and attack at long range. You also lose four knights at 22 castles. (Enide, Meltorfas, Cador, Soleil), and only get one in return (Shred, who has 150 fucking rune at L20). The result is that you're going to be horribly short on Knights for the entire game, as you can only gain seven knights from the start of the game- Liguel, Miguel, Victoria, Daffy, Shred, Helrato, and Rod.* About half of Esgares's knights are terrible to boot, due to low level or bad rune or both. All this means is that Esgares in GE is much harder than every other country. The lack of quest knights means you don't have a Cortina or Hyude to level up, or someone like Aaron to slap on a border to replace one of your own knights. You also won't have much ability to quest, so forget about all those shiny promotion items or nice items. It's also a hell of a lot of fun to play, since nothing else Grand Edition does pushes you as hard as playing Esgares. This guide is going to focus on border defenses, where to attack, and making a good snakefighting team from what you have available.
*I've never tested to see if you can gain Rain and Carmaine, but that requires questing Mira and Millet for several months. They can gain them in theory, but you're daft if you are willing to give up two of your best knights for several months for a project and someone who would join at endgame anyway. Helrato's a bit of a crapshoot, since Layoneil has to join another country first and Helrato picks an opposing country at random.
Esgares does have some advantages. They are the only country in the game that can summon every monster from the start, so you you have flexiblity in how you want to build your army. They also start with several notable promoted monsters- Two Fenrirs, a Tiamat, and a Vampire Lord, all of which are extremely good. The sheer number of knights they possess at well means that they can opt for certain strategies (mage rush) that other countries can't pull off. They also start with the only Ninja in the game (Shiraha) and Gish/Esclados/Cador/Zemeckis are all a lot of fun to use due to level and class. They also win the game fast, so you have all the time you need to level and refine your snakefighting army near the end. You need to use all of those advantages in order to beat the game.
Esgares starts with five active borders with the four strongest countries in the game. This quickly expands to six borders whenever you go on the offensive and try to take out a country. You start with 18 knights, so that means you'll be using literally everyone within a month or two. You are going to have to reorganize your entire army and smartly team your knights up in order to hold on. The AI will not attack in the first attack cycle, so you can leave all your borders unguarded. I highly recommend gathering up all 18 knights and putting them in one castle. Fato (Rocs, Demons) or Cadbury (Dragons, Angels) are what I usually choose. Demons/Angels make excellent assassination units, and Rocs/Dragons are awesome L1 meatshields. Summon however many angels/demons/Rocs you can afford, and divvy up your army. Now comes the fun part- how in the hell do you defend all those borders? A lot of this is just figuring out which knights you like using and who you want to use on your attack team. Here is what I used on my last Esgares playthrough.
Cador (At Lidney, borders Norgard)
Enide
Meltorfas
Gish
Rainguinus
Irvin
Mira
Millet
Paradoll
Esclados
Soliel
Shiraha
Zemeckis (Snakefighting/attack team)
Castor
Esmeree
Roecod
Ivan
Fiel
No matter how you work it, that last attack team is going to suck and suck bad. I expanded south and knocked out Iscalio fast for Daffy/Miguel/Victoria. Roecod's group was total crap, but I stuck them on the border with Leonia when I expanded south and they held fine. The Gish team can replace Rainguinus with Ivan if need be. The entire idea of that formation is that three Geno spells a round will rip up any army fast. It's extremely effective at knocking out warrior heavy formations that NA and Norgard used, so I put them in Orkney. Lidney is the one castle you absolutely have to hold. (It's the one that borders Norgard only.) If you lose here, you get an extra two borders to defend which is going to result in a lot of shorthanded defenses and lost territory. I put Cador there for that reason. L29 Knight+Vampire lord means that the AI won't attack the map much. It's also one of the easist castles in the game to defend- the only way to reach it from the north by crossing bridges, which means the AI attack will only reach you in disjointed pieces.
Esgares has the added bonus of having no spare knights at all once it's attacks get going. Not only do you need to win most of your defenses, but you can't afford to get a single knight wounded. It's better to retreat from say Salisbury (Borders Caerleon and Iscalio) rather than getting say Mira and Castor wounded in a winning defense. No spare knights means that you have to pull back your attacking team for at least a month to reinforce your borders, which gets bloody frustrating. Because of this, you are going to want to attack a country that gives you a knight when you defeat them. If you're going to use Liguel on your attack team, I recommend smashing NA fast. If you're not using her, go to Iscalio. Iscalio has a lot to recommend it as a target- a soft border with Leonia, two to three knights join you when you beat them, and that Bahamut if you can pry it out of Dryst's mitts.
Other notes on defense: Assassinate, assassinate, assassinate. You're going to get the best of every country that attacks you. NA is going to send out Gerenit/Coel/Melegant after your ass with the Salamander in tow. Norgard is going to send Vaynard, Iscalio will send Dryst and Iria, etc. You can get attacked several times in a month (This sucks by the way), and you're going to be facing a large disadvantage in rune capacity most of the time. Focus on killing rune knights rather than smashing monsters and try and steal high level monsters. Caerleon is by far the hardest country for Esgares to fight off, since they have a lot of mages. Cai and Dinadain are a brutally effective team and are just about the only thing in the game can beat Zemeckis early on. Stick your absolute best team on defense on Salisbury if you're not attacking to the south, and hope the AI retreats when you wound Dinadain/Shast.
Attacking is relatively simple by comparsion. You're going to either take out Iscalio or NA first. Zemeckis is still awesome in GE even post nerf, so you shouldn't have any troubles on offense. He also hits L30 without any effort just from counter attacks, so you can focus your EXP on other units. If you're using Esmeree, dual her over to Enchanter. If you're using Castor, you can dual class him or just raise him as a Paladin/Avenger/Samurai Master, whichever. There's not a ton of twinking to do in Esgares, so just pick who you want and run with it.
Bulnoil/Snake of Chaos is the final two GE only fights. Bulnoil is intimidating on paper. He has a lot of good support, great magic himself, and a barrier which makes him hard to snipe. In practice, Bulnoil's support can be sniped (Bulnoil isn't a Rune Knight and thus has no monsters), meaning that you can kill Enide/Meltorfas off relatively quickly and just stomp him from there. The Snake is a literal run to the boss, and his support can hit back and front rows with ease. You also want evasive units as well, since he summons dopplegangers that turn into whoever they attack if they successfully hit. Low rune area knights struggle against the Snake, and mage leaders are vunerable to being sniped. All this means is that you are going to want a mobile, evasive army for the final fights.
Good units for the Snake of Chaos: Zemeckis, Esmeree, Mira, Millet, Liguel (if leveled), Shiraha. Castor and Rod work in a pinch as well. High Centuars, Lucifers, Liliths, and anything that can fly are generally good as well.
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"It has all the usual tropes of JRPGs I like, but isn't nearly as embarrassing about it!"
About the game with funeral clowns.
Right, I should state that anything related to FASHION in this game is terrifying. Dear God Cooke/Mack/Seth... o_O
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Mass Effect 3: Met with the Quarians, grabbed Tali. Now, while their liveships burn, I shall do a few sidequests.
Oh god, the Legion scene...
E: to clarify, I didn't manage to make peace between them. Oh god that Legion scene.
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"It has all the usual tropes of JRPGs I like, but isn't nearly as embarrassing about it!"
About the game with funeral clowns.
Right, I should state that anything related to FASHION in this game is terrifying. Dear God Cooke/Mack/Seth... o_O
If nothing else, it is a good reminder that their world =/= our world in any sense of the word, thereby they're clearly not trying for any form of immersion!?
...yeah, I'm not exactly gonna go far to defend that point <_<
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Mass Effect 3: Met with the Quarians, grabbed Tali. Now, while their liveships burn, I shall do a few sidequests.
Oh god, the Legion scene...
Not that far along yet, sadly. Just met with them so I could use Tali while I did sidequests.
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Everybody hating about the ME3 ending makes me want to play the game.
Tales of Innocence: Interest waning. Damn.
God Hand: Finished. 98 continues were used. Not bad for not checking a faq ever (apparently the Yes Man Kablaam move is OP!?) I loved how the game just kept throwing random bosses after random bosses, past one point.
This is a good Capcom game. It is a good game, but it is a Capcom game. Whatever that means.
Armored Core For Answer: I HOPE YOU LIKE NUMBERS.
I am in some ultra fast big robot shooting stuff. Cool. Then comes a mission against another ultra fast robot and I can't hit him. I try seven thousand setups and finally beat him. Repeat.
Story is obscure as fuck, probably on purpose. I have no idea what's going on. I'm a mercenary and I need some cash to get a bigger robot so I shoot some things for big evil corporations. I'm just some pawn in their plan.
Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes: Got Magus in the team. The game is in Magus fan mode right now, he has stats either equal or extremely higher than Lucca's right now. But dual techs are pretty important in this game (unlike regular CT), so he's not really unbalanced. I'm very tempted to go with that sexy Lucca/Robo/Magus team.
Alan Wake: This was all a dream... Or was it!?
So far this is reasonably creepy but no Silent Hill.
I'm a bit disappointed that running away from monsters is that hard to do and just shooting them is that easy, even on hard mode. The most captivating horror games are the one where the main character is the most defenseless (Clock Tower SNES, in which you're a 16 year old girl with no weapons, taking the crown of scariest shit ever) Gameplay's solid so far but... It's really going to get repetitive, isn't it?
Mother 3: Replaying on hard mode with a flashcard. (Hard Mode is more of an excuse)
Grefter you need to try this out at one point. At least Chapter 1.
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You want to play it. Part of the reason the ending angers me so much is that it's a complete tonal shift in the last five minutes of what I was about to say was one of the best games I've played in this generation of consoles (up with FONV, AP, Nier, NSMBW and The Witcher 2).
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You really said NSMBW instead of, say, Deus Ex Human Revolution here, Rob?
To be fair, I think I agree. Traitor co-op is definitely the best form of multiplayer there is.
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DXHR is held back by the exact thing that holds back ME3: the goddamn ending. It's actually funny how similar the last five minutes of each game is.
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Khalisah al-Jilani: "Press the button in front of you and you'll have sex with Garrus. Press the one on the right and you'll have sex with Liara. Press the one on the left and you'll have sex with Wrex. Press that last one way back and you'll destroy everything"
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DXHR is held back by the exact thing that holds back ME3: the goddamn ending. It's actually funny how similar the last five minutes of each game is.
So exactly the same as Deus ex then?
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Khalisah al-Jilani: "Press the button in front of you and you'll have sex with Garrus. Press the one on the right and you'll have sex with Liara. Press the one on the left and you'll have sex with Wrex. Press that last one way back and you'll destroy everything"
Lady Shepard has been waiting three games to have multiple krogasms and it's not my place to stop her.
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DXHR is held back by the exact thing that holds back ME3: the goddamn ending. It's actually funny how similar the last five minutes of each game is.
So exactly the same as Deus ex then?
No. Deus Ex gave you three distinct gameplay targets to pick your ending. HR is literally picking from 4 buttons.
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God Hand: Finished. 98 continues were used. Not bad for not checking a faq ever (apparently the Yes Man Kablaam move is OP!?) I loved how the game just kept throwing random bosses after random bosses, past one point.
This is a good Capcom game. It is a good game, but it is a Capcom game. Whatever that means.
Now New Game + it so you can take your revenge. Alternately: try it on Hard mode so you can pay for your hubris.
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DXHR is held back by the exact thing that holds back ME3: the goddamn ending. It's actually funny how similar the last five minutes of each game is.
So exactly the same as Deus ex then?
No. Deus Ex gave you three distinct gameplay targets to pick your ending. HR is literally picking from 4 buttons.
So ME3 is the worst of both: only THREE choices and all of them are pressing a button.
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Given that basically the only thing I've read about the ME games is how your choices define, if not the overarching story, then at least the personality of Shepard and what happens to your party, it's kind of stunning that anybody thought it would be a good idea to make the only choice that matters in the ending the one you make in the final five minutes. Gooooooooo BioWare.
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The part that's really baffling is when you contrast it to the rest of the same game, where decisions large and small from all over are reflected as you play through the game. For example, when you need to climb through a vent and Tali is with you, if she was the one you had climb through the vents at the end of ME2 she will have one line, and if you sent someone else it'll be another. Like I said: complete tonal shift.
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Tales of Graces f: Years of praying and sacrificing things to the dark gods has finally paid off and I have this ablessed game in my hand! I've been listening to White Wishes every day since March started in drooling anticipation. I was worried I wasn't gonna be able to set a pre-order and get my pointless costumes but fortune smiled upon me for once! And then finally, I actually played it yeay!
The opening animation is nine sorts of hilariously disconnected from the lyrics of White Wishes. I mean, it's not like Vesperia was king-champ of related either, but it seemed to fit at least. And Abyss' lyrics were entirely about Luke/Asch's petty struggle. White Wishes is a love song so it just comes across as weird to open with that.
So, actually getting to the game! We start off in glorious kid-time! Also vague spoilers! With 11-year-old Asbel and... wimpy-year-old Hubert. Defying their jackass father's wishes they go up to some hill to look at flowers. Because that's what real men do. Look at flowers over teetering cliffs. There they find Unknown Girl(Sophie) and Asbel totally falls in love with her after she nearly walks off a cliff. They pick flowers and everything is a gravy boat. Mmmmmmm, gravy. So, we've actually been able to combat in kiddo-time but Sophie brings the party up to three and she's already a lot tougher then either boya. Combat is unlike the other western Tales releases because of delicious CC system. There is no basic attack, everything is an arte that uses the CC gauge which restores itself after a few seconds of not attacking. Attacking a lot increases the maximum amount of CC you can use. It's spiffy eventually.
Anyway, with Sophie in tow we return to town! Where we meet Cheria who quickly asserts herself as being sick and clearly won't make it to the future despite having a full teenage sprite and everything. It's just a trick. Like a fake murder trial. So after failing to run ten feet, we learn that Sophie takes commands extremely literally. Oh yeah, when she was introduced she supposedly has amnesia. Anyway, Asbel weasels out of paying the price for leaving Cheria behind on the manly flower viewing tour by giving her a flower. Then we go meet Cheria's grandpa the butler of Asbel's family who rule ...Lhant? That sounds like the name. Then we go look for clues for Sophie's identity at a cottage to the west, where Sophie literally responds to Asbel's commands to flip and twirl. It's funny.
Speaking of flipping, when kiddo Asbel reaches the top of a ladder he feels the need to front-flip off it.
With no clues to Sophie's identity again, we return home where we meet Asbel's mother(voiced by the same woman who does Arshtat I think?) who forbids Asbel from seeing Cheria. Sure, that'll last beyond the next cutscene. Inside we meet Asbel's jackass father, who then has to run off because a very important person from THE CAPITAL is late so Asbel follows and helps out in defeating the monsters that waylaid the Turtle.
No, they use giant Turles as a transport. This game's weird "guys-dressing-up-as-animalz" thing are Turtlez. It's like this game wants me to love it or something.
Once we clear out the... boss? I dunno. Father-Aston chews Asbel out some more before very-deep-voiced generic guard lets his actions slide. Also Cheria was with us but eh.
Asbel, pride of non-teenage rebellion he is, wants to see the very important person and so breaks into his own house. There he meets RICHARD! who is obnoxious and Bryce who is Richard's sword teacher. Who Asbel decides to fight because Richard isn't feeling well. It's not an actual combat fight, just cutscenes, but clearly he won't be a boss fight in the far future. Clearly.
So, there ends my first session of the day. Also now we're taking Richard to see the flowers. Also we named Sophie at one point. Also I'm using we again. Also I'm using also too much again.
Some closing notes. Titles are now how you learn new ARTES and get status boosts, just think of it kinda akin to Vesperia's Skill system. Costumes are now changed at will in a different menu. Collector book and monster book are easy to get. Byt that I mean automatic. And the Manual control Manual is in the first item shop. Dualize is the game's crafting system. It looks really, really bad. Especially after Vesperia's fairly decent one.(barring the karolian hammer nonsense)
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Speaking of complete tonal shifts, and of me reading about things everybody else on the Internet already knew, apparently Ninja Gaiden 3 has decided the series didn't really need multiple weapons, and what the fans really wanted was online multiplayer. So... Uh, there's sixty bucks I get to spend on something else, I guess.
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Speaking of complete tonal shifts, and of me reading about things everybody else on the Internet already knew, apparently Ninja Gaiden 3 has decided the series didn't really need multiple weapons, and what the fans really wanted was online multiplayer. So... Uh, there's sixty bucks I get to spend on something else, I guess.
Devs: Hey guys, you know the whole multiple weapons thing that both NG and NG2 got down really damned right and was one of the fun features of the game? Yeah, we decided to remove that. No no, don't thank us. We're thinking about you always!
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Fenrir, may I ask which version of ToI you are playing?
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Tales of Graces f- Started, got through to the end of the childhood arc. Asbel's dad is the biggest idiot.
Okay. I get his basic reasoning. the idea of sending second sons away to other lords to prevent feuds over land and title is not terrible unto itself, and I'm certain has plenty of precedent in earth history. But birthright or not, you're telling me this guy looked at his rebellious, hot-headed son saying "I'm gonna join the knights" at every opportunity, and the reserved, bookish kid who spent all his free time studying and learning whatever he could, and decided the eldest was going to be your heir? Never thought for a second the kid was serious and was in no way planning to inherit the title? That even if he changed his mind, it'd be an incredibly bad idea? c'mon now.
Not that this impacts the game negatively. Then again, he's probably secretly party to the plot anyway.
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"It has all the usual tropes of JRPGs I like, but isn't nearly as embarrassing about it!"
About the game with funeral clowns.
Right, I should state that anything related to FASHION in this game is terrifying. Dear God Cooke/Mack/Seth... o_O
Waaaaaait, you take issue with Seth's clothing but nothing about Ming?
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Ming is a Queen, she can dress like a slut if she wants. Opulence is a luxury for royalty. Also, that kind of standard anime cheesecake outfit doesn't phase me anymore (apart from reminding me how degrading games can be to women).
Cooke/Mack/Seth just have -stupid- written all over their outfits. And make what little fashion sense I have cringe in fear.
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Double thong is just normal clothes to Djinn.
ME3 - So yeah the ending is kind of stupid as advertised. Whatever. It is the tone being fucked up to me. With the one I picked (Red lazors) it pulls a fucking FF7 on you. You wanted closure and shit? lol fuck that. I picked that ending because Renegade story is honestly at the end of it just shit this time. It is making bad decisions and watching terrible shit happen because of it.
Two spoiler things, one to say why I liked picking Red Lazors for this ending of my play through and one question for Rob I guess or Laggy if he reads these forums. Anyone else if they finished the game/when they finish the game.
So I picked Red Lazors because the only resolution I had picked with Renengade options that didn't lead to completely fucking everything up for at least one race was the Quarian/Geth. You can reunite them by yelling at them enough all angry face. So of course I had to fix that by destroying all Synthetic life in the galaxy
Also in the final sequence, even though I can only think of one or two points I picked Paragon dialogue choices. I always took renegade actions. I did all the side quests. I was unable to pick what I assume was the final Renegade dialogue choice when TIM is mind controlling you and made you shoot Anderson and you try to convince TIM that he is indoctrinated so I guess it needs maxed out Renegade or Paragon to get that choice which kind of shits me since they were never that restrictive in previous games. You needed to be close to max, but not 100% and I was pretty fucking close to 100%. I am kind of not seeing how you get that dialogue.
Not that I necessarilly want to get the outcome I expect from that dialogue because fuck that guy and there is FF7 ending anyways.
The thing that lets me down the most isn't the end of the plot or the pick from three buttons path choice. It is the thing that counts as a final boss is fucking shit. It isn't fun. It is hard I suppose and has me deciding that I am never playing on Insanity, but it isn't fun.
Waves and waves of guys. Yay! Oh hope you wanted to fight 3 banshees at once. what do you mean fighting multiple banshees at once isn't fun when your guns are probably empty. Just run to a place with ammo. You know. Those places that can be blocked off by bullshit teleporting 2HKOing Banshees. Oh and dodge those instakill lasers as well. The ones that shake the screen and ruin your aim. There is more than one wave of Banshees as well btw. hope that is cool with you.
Compared to the final boss of ME2? This is terrible. We went from a Contra boss in a shooter to this? lllaaaaaaame. Even compared to the Saren fight in ME1 it leaves a great deal to be desired and the Saren fight isn't a particularly compelling boss fight (One that honestly didn't need to be there and I would have been happy with ending with dialogue if you were skilled enough).
So you know what? Other than random Atlas battles and a couple of points where the game where you have to fight multiple Banshees, the only thing that constitutes as a boss fight is the two Kai-Leng fights. The Kai-Leng fights are horrible. As unfulfilling as the ending is I consider the first Kai-Leng fight the low point of the game. What the game didn't need when it was losing steam was to throw in a boss fight with a Ninja guy doing flips and shit and generally animu godmoding up in shit. Except the boss fight is pathetically easy and absolutely laughable. The only threatening thing is the first time he runs off to recharge his shields and you don't know his gunboat is coming and it will rape the shit out of you on the way to cover. Otherwise it is just shooting a chump in the head for a few minutes while he talks smack about how awesome he is and how you are shit. Especially as a Soldier where you have your generic Bullet Time skill. As I unload 80 rounds of Assault Rifle clip into his head while he spins around allegedley dodging "You are slower than I was expecting Shephard". Yeah buddy and you are truely amazing.
Then after the fight that HE WINS BECAUSE HE HAS AIR SUPPORT THAT SHOOTS ROCKETS AT YOU, he sends you an email saying "oh wow you lived you are better than I gave you credit for" talking more smack about how he is totally awesome and owned your arse.
Good job mang, you had a gunboat with rockets setup in an ambush to back up the knife you brought to a gun fight.
Just a fucking terrible scene with a terrible character. I am incredibly disappointed becaues I know Bioware can do better Wuxia influenced stuff than this.
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WA3 - So I start this and get introduced to a rash and impulsive teenage girl who does rash and impulsive things, a guy who despite being a treasure hunter is somehow surprised at the existance of traps in an ancient ruin, a guy who aspires to be a lazy bum no I haven't played WA2 I totally can't tell what's in store for him thanks, and an older guy who is clearly the babysitter for this soon-to-be formed band of chucklefucks. Then a train gets robbed time to have a firefight on top of a train wait why is there a ninja also what is this thing called physics can you eat it. Then we get off the train and go to visit the lazy bum's village and get informed of DIRE PERIL that is threatening the world wait DIRE PERIL that is threatening the world in a WA game I am shocked. Then we go to another town to go and do something unrelated and rash and impulsive girl decides we should be a team, everyone is happy except for the incompetent treasure hunter who is clearly a scrub with a perpetual case of sand bleeding out of his ass and gets told to shut up pussy. Then we meet the train robber and his two flunkies again, they are not at all suspicious but are told to fuck off. Then five minutes later rash and impulsive girl decides to trust them despite saying that she couldn't trust them five minutes ago and when rightly called out on this bizarre change of heart she says she has to trust them otherwise she can't trust them. Oooookay girl whatever floats your boat. I would just go on happy not trusting them but I am mean and petty.
Naturally the train robber betrays the party OH NO THE TRAIN ROBBER WAS UNTRUSTWORTHY WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING and the treasure the party led him to is apparently part of the seal to an evil weapon. Good fucking job there rash and impulsive girl. So we can't let him have it so clearly we need to get the other stuff, okay, cue next dungeon where the party runs into a band of misfits led by a raging bitch who, as she has opinions and wishes to express them, is mad at the obviously inexperienced rash and impulsive girl for being obviously inexperienced, okay so this isn't the most newbie friendly job but you are basically hating water for being wet. Also raging bitch hides a chaingun roughly the size of her up her skirt that is certainly a thing, what they do with portable holes these days. So raging bitch gets beat and presumeably intends to write us into her revenge diary what the hell I thought I wasn't playing TotA but then she runs off, okay. Then we run into the train robber and his flunkies and raging bitch comes in and train robber proceeds to add chauvanism to his growing list of venal sins and we reaffirm that yes, rash and impulsive girl, he is indeed a very bad man, so naturally we must fight the train robber again, who now has the power of TEAMWORK on his side, oh no we are doomed.
Except not, so train robber runs off and tries to blow up the ruin. RIG (because I am tired of typing that out and am refusing to use actual names here) is rash and impulsive and runs after him being oblivious to the fallen masonry and has to get saved by the incompetent treasure hunter. Then she deservedly gets smacked in the face by raging bitch for being a fucking dumbass. Raging bitch proceeds to prove herself to be confused on the subject of morality by insisting on the abscence of good and evil despite the fact that a very bad man walked out of the ruins not five minutes ago, and then proceeds to announce to the party that she is walking into an obvious trap laid by the train robber and insists that the party follow her. Which they do, because apparently no one is allowed to have at least two braincells to rub together at this point.
So we walk into the obvious trap where SHOCK AND HORROR raging bitch gets defeated by the train robbing trio's mad cutscene powers. The train robber proceeds to reveal to the team that his penis is, in fact, very small and that he needs a larger phallus to be satisfied. No one is shocked as his large bayonet indicates that he is clearly overcompensating already. At this point said larger phallus descends upon the earth and is reveled to be the aforementioned evil weapon, which... gets shot away by RIG's dinky revolvers. Okay, game whatever works for you. Train robber continues to one-up himself in his eternal quest for tastelessness with rape metaphor. Cue round 4, cue floor falling from below train robber's feet, he's dead yay except not and gets approached by dudes who invoke tired white after labor day jokes and gets asked if he DESIRES THE POWER then gets stabbed in the crotch with the evil large phallus weapon and is satisfied and becomes a freaky fishy guy, I'm sure he'll never be back.
So clearly we need to defeat the evil penis. With guns.
This is sure a thing that is happening.
NxC - There are dudes and they get punched. Or shot. Occasionally timewarps happen. Okay.
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Tales of Graces f- Started, got through to the end of the childhood arc. Asbel's dad is the biggest idiot.
Okay. I get his basic reasoning. the idea of sending second sons away to other lords to prevent feuds over land and title is not terrible unto itself, and I'm certain has plenty of precedent in earth history. But birthright or not, you're telling me this guy looked at his rebellious, hot-headed son saying "I'm gonna join the knights" at every opportunity, and the reserved, bookish kid who spent all his free time studying and learning whatever he could, and decided the eldest was going to be your heir? Never thought for a second the kid was serious and was in no way planning to inherit the title? That even if he changed his mind, it'd be an incredibly bad idea? c'mon now.
Not that this impacts the game negatively. Then again, he's probably secretly party to the plot anyway.
Totally.
Tales of Graces f: Also up to the adult time! After some finicking I also managed to get Asbel into his sexy sexy belly-shirt. Now I just need to find a green wig for maximum Sothe. Combat's become some sort of dream now. Artes have divided into A-Artes and B-Artes that require (or require Asbel at least) to switch stances to do things. Which is as simple as pushing the other button! Because both sides link into each other whenever you want, combat is about managing yourself extremely well. I'm already fully capable of pulling out no-hitters because of the excellent dodging mechanics.
Anyway, adult time is also when things really start boosting up. You get a "Mixer" which is... well there's nothing really similar to it? It's a menu command where you can set Food Items to be used in battle when someone falls below a certain HP threshold. And if you put normal items in it, then they have a chance of spawning new ones. You can even spawn new ones out of items you no longer have as long as you got at least one at one point. It's a spiffy idea.
Anyway, start of adult has Malik showing off why he's such a badass. Also he's voiced by Jamieson Price so Asbel using Iaido is hilarious. Anyway, Malik is a figher-caster hybrid who currently just does tons of damage. And then we get Cheria again! Where I learn its really just magic that does a ton of damage holy wippa.
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Gref, if you want to use those options on TIM, you need to have used a charm/intimidate on him every time, which means running out the dialogue tree any time you talk to him. Usually people miss the one on Mars.
And yes, Kai Leng is awful. The lead writer wrote the first Earth part, Kai Leng and the final scenes, so he should probably never be allowed to write unsupervised unless he starts writing anime bullshit. Though, while he's stupid bullshit he at least doesnt completely ignore and downplay what you spent the rest of the game doing, so he's less offensive than some of his other creations.
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Dawn of Souls- Just finished up the Ice Cave. I'm trying a four white mage, no itemcast team. It's weird. I have had a few resets, but mostly from being reckless and not healing/buffing enough. Lich and Kary were jokes (Owned by Diara and Blink/Silence respectively), but some of the randoms are tough. I am running from any headache formations, which means I'm a tad underleveled. It's still pretty easy, since white mages are durable. My offense is absolutely wretched right now- 'wretched' in dawn of souls being that my WMs have two hits. High defense enemies do wall me cold, but they just get ran from.
I did manage to lose to the fucking pirates, though. *Facedesk*
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FF13-2: ...whoever felt it was necessary to require Wild Artefacts, and make enough ways to use them BEFORE hand such that you'd have to actually look for the obscure areas to find them needs to die. I've been doing nothing but running around areas looking for wild Artefacts, and yes, I did use the Serendipty one already.
I mean, the game is nice enough to say how many Gates are in an area AND if they're activated, as well as how many Fragments...couldn't there be a Wild Artefact indicator? At least then I'd know what time lines to run around aimlessly in.
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Kai Leng was so terrible I thought his cheesiness was kind of the point. I mean that level of badness has to be deliberate right? Right??????
I went like 85% paragon 15% renegade and I still was given access to all the paragon dialogue choices in the game's final conversation so I dunno Grefter. I actually wonder what happens there if do not do full paragon/renegade choices, from all implications there couldn't be a fight ala Saren. I am guessing you get an interrupt?
Final fight was yeah shit. It's sad because I kind of liked the final mission runthrough before then (though it doesn't even hold a candle to Suicide Mission, ME2 did a far better job of wrapping things up into a climax) and then LOL BANSHEES (literally only threatening enemy in ME3) AND INSTAKILL LASER. I got through it by spamming cloak and hiding behind a tank while the laser killed everything. Friendly fire mechanics working in my favor woo. This was on Hardcore.
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FF1 Origins - Beat the Kraken, but not before he vanquished my Red Wizard in one hit with Invis2 up. You lucky bastard.
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If you don't do the Charm/Intimidate at least at the point I did it was me telling him he is pathetic and then shooting him. Think it was a renegade interrupt but I forget.
So sounds like it is Infiltrator on Insanity again if I bother.
Also we don't do it justice for the shittiness. Instagib Laser one shots your squad who do nothing to dodge it. So on top of dodging three Banshees and the laser you have to manually control allies pathfinding. Fuck all of that.
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Oh squadmates you mean you care about them living in that sequence hahahahahhaha
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Yeah, I would lure enemies near them and use medi-gel to revive them for an instant crossfire. IT WORKS OKAY
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Perfect World: Up to level 99 now. Made my 99 accessories, so I'm up 2.22 aps. Finished my Endless Universe armor set, now I just need another level to use it.
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Tales of Graces f: Yay I have me five people! Suck on exclusion Cheria kyahahahahahaha!
Ahem. So, I think I left off at the start of adult-hood? Anyway, things keep going and precious things return and confusingly go forward. And then I go under some cave with water where I fight a bunch of slimes that poison. And holy hell is poison beastly! Good thing if you get Poisoned enough you actually get a title that blocks it! This made the big bad boss pretty much effortless. On some sort of combat note, if Asbel gets hit too many times when he's using B-Artes he gets stunned BADLY. The upside? If he switches back to A-Artes after B-Artes he heals himself roughly based on how much damage he does. During normal combat it's only about 80 HP to his thousand, but once Eleth Burst goes off he can get over a thousand easy.
So uh, going forward, and Hubert eventually makes his return! For one battle with hilariously dangerous mooks! And then he jackasses out with an unwinnable boss fight against him.
So, Asbel, having nowhere to go returns to Knight School. Or not as we meet up with Richard and Team Friendship is formed again! Also Team Destiny. Also all Richard is missing from straight being Leon's moveset is Pow Hammer which.... no one has...? Well, continuing on, fighting against more military mooks and I realize something. See, all along the roads between towns are monsters and NPCs, and I wonder why the NPCs aren't bothering. And it's because monsters are just pissant weak compared to actual humans! Seriously!
So, going on and on and we meet our fourth party member, Pascal! Who feels the burning need to touch Sophie all over. Clearly she's in good company. After another dungeon I can already feel the Abyss call to return far later in the game I go and piss away a couple hours accidently grinding because I was trying to get one-freaking-drop from one enemy. On the upside I boosted the difficulty up to Hard and realize how unlocking most titles is going to go. mainly using an arte a lot unlocks a title! And using certain people with others! Like Sophie and Richard! They'll actually learn variants on each others artes!
So, continuing on to an eventual Brutal Boss battle. My trials in Abyss served me well as I actually wasn't afraid to use Life Bottles when needed. And then eventually another boss after Cheria rejoins with her pathetic number of titles that she didn't get SP for when she wasn't in the party unlike Richard who did and actually mastered a bunch of them that way. Also the Boss used a Mystic Arte, but I already have.... huh, yeah I have them for each character. Neat.
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Just reached the Quarians. They are too dumb to live. Fortunately for them, I need their fleet. Interactions with ME2 cast is nice, though fairly dissapointing that it looks like none of them are playable. (Garrus and Tali do not count) That said, Mordin's Paragon plot arc? Beautiful. Just excellent from start to finish, and I'll be surprised if any other character in the game can outshine him. Wrex had a chance, but failed to get there before the two of them bowed out of the spotlight.
May need to get XBox Live, annoyed that the single player is, even slightly, beholden to online multiplayer.
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I just wanted some bait for the fucking trash mobs or someone to clean up as I run like a bitch to try and regen shields. Adrenaline Rush is great and all, especially when you pack light, but fuck there is only so much I can do solo.
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Just reached the Quarians. They are too dumb to live. Fortunately for them, I need their fleet. Interactions with ME2 cast is nice, though fairly dissapointing that it looks like none of them are playable. (Garrus and Tali do not count) That said, Mordin's Paragon plot arc? Beautiful. Just excellent from start to finish, and I'll be surprised if any other character in the game can outshine him. Wrex had a chance, but failed to get there before the two of them bowed out of the spotlight.
May need to get XBox Live, annoyed that the single player is, even slightly, beholden to online multiplayer.
First, multiplayer is extremely fun. I would say you're missing out, especially now in the window where people haven't maxed out every weapon in their arsenal. Seriously, we'll team up. I got lucky a while back. Have a Widow.
Second, you can get all three endings without it. You miss out on like a five second clip that adds ADDITIONAL PLOT HOLES but oh well.
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Maxing it gives you like the post credits scene of megaeyeroll?
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FF13-2- Fragments 122/160 get. Taking a short break from the game before I attempt the rest. Most of them have been fun to get so far through the sidequests, etc with the CP rewards for doing the sidequests nice to have as well though there has been the odd obnoxious one like the Slots Fragment. I've also been saving other potentially obnoxious Fragments for getting at the end though I still have a few potentially fun ones left to get as well like I still have some Paradox versions of bosses left to fight =) On sidequests I have particularly enjoyed the Blitz Squadron/Vile Peaks arc and the Bresha Ruins paradoxes =) Travelling between the time lines to solve anomalies is quite neat, I like this feature of the game.
I finally found the last Wild Artefact though I have yet to use it. I also finished the Yaschaf and Academia maps and finally found the Map Lady in Academia 400. Having to go from one side to the other in that place looking for a tiny side path that is easy to keep missing to take you back to the section where the Map Lady is ... yeah. The encounter rate there is as obnoxious as ever too >_> At least I had the data for eight 100% maps to give her so I was rewarded for my efforts by getting a bunch of new fragments all at once.
I recently picked up the Chocobo Music, Eyes of the Goddess and Rolling in CP Fragment Skills. The latter is especially shiny. I also have shinies such as Monster Collector and Encounter Master for boosting monster crystal drops and controlling random encounter rates. I have a Blue Chocobo. I have a Silver Chocobo (it has over 2900~ HP at L1!) I have a Serah fully maxxed out in all six roles for the Crystarium. I've fought all the Steppes boss fights including Yomi. I finally have a L45 Sazh after farming the Hedgefrogs, etc on the Steppes for Potent Essences and also maxxing out on Potent Crystals from the frequently spawning Microchu fights in the process. I finally has a Mewmao which will be a nice companion for Cait Sith. I will eventually get a Feral Cat/Schrodinger to round this trio out because cutest monsters in the game. Kitties~ I have new adornments. My L45 Sazh has a Rum and Raisin ice cream scoop on his head. It's huge. I has a Twilight Odin which I'm planning on building as my go to COM for farming randoms. I obtained the Giant's Fist achievement/trophy for Serah's Ruins doing 99'999 to a downed and staggered Long Gui. I have the Chaos weapon Odin Bolt for Serah. I also have the ATB and Chain Bonus boost weapons from the Steppe bosses for both Serah and Noel. I've mostly been using the Seraphic Wing DLC weapon for Serah though since it's apparently supposed to be broken hax with the right set up. I've fought Paradox Atlas and Paradox Royal Ripeness and saw two more Paradox Endings (I've seen three total so far) I've fought Lightning, Amador, Omega and Jihl at the battle arena though I have yet to obtain any of their crystals so I can use them as allies in my team. Jihl was tough. A Study in Elegant Death - indeed~
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Maxing it gives you like the post credits scene of megaeyeroll?
Yeah, introduces a whole new plot hole with it.
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D3 - Beaten? I don't know if I mentioned that or not. I am very tempted to keep playing this game as I love the Disgaea battle engine for some reason. Why use any weapon other then fist though?
Big Bang kicks all sorts of ass and all of my other party members are starting to fall behind the guys who use the fists to do the talking.
My highest lv guy is a 2700ish Brawler named Scar followed by Axel who does not have Big Bang, but came with just as good of a skill initially, and then Mr Champloo leads the rest of the pack. I have started to train my Male and female Ninja as well after giving them both the BB as well as my hero unit too.
I want to get a mage with enough mana to have a 9x9 spell grid, but...well I should just put her in that one class that steals mana from people...lazy.
Mao is around level 800. While he was my strongest unit during the main game, he has become an afterthought.
I've also been trying to collect enough tickets to get access to the LoC, but that journey has taken longer than expected. Every now and then I get the urge to power level my way through some
~
Star Ocean 4 - Just picked this up for the PS3 for cheap. I love you Amazon! I just left earth and now my party is six people deep. Item creation is fun, but I haven't put too much points into anyones craft skill yet. I've focused on battle skills for the moment.
Battle trophies are fun to collect. There also seems to be some sort of bonus, but I haven;t achieved it yet. Speaking of bonus, the battle bonus gauage is awesome. I fill it with the aqua points for extra exp...because...who cares about the other thing?
Lots of fan service in this game! Reimi has been naked twice already and of course the up skirts after victories for all the fans out there. I am happy that robocop has joined my team. I'm not sure if that joke has been mentioned before here, but I can guess it has. He is awesome nonetheless AND a miner!
My gf is playing this on her own too. Which makes this her first RPG (not counting the Kingdom Hearts series) she has attempted to play. She did not like D3 at all! She has been trying to rush past me in the game, but my skills of playing while she sleeps at night can't be beat!
The PS3 Tales game just came out, but I imagine me and my gf will tackle that one together after we are finished with SO3...so not really rushing to play it yet. I do here it is awesome though!
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You're playing SO4, not SO3. You can tell the difference because SO3 isn't terrible.
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WA3 - So we get roped into looking for a missing barmaid because why the hell not. We find the barmaid and lazy bum is obviously smitten and we get roped into looking for an artifact because why the hell not. Then we find the artifact and OH WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WAS A TRAP and oh no the barmaid was possessed by a creepy woman okay that's different. Creepy woman goes on to say that SHE IS THE PRETTIEST but the party babysitter is all like bitch please and creepy woman goes WHAT DO YOU MEAN I AM NOT PRETTY I AM PRETTY OH SO PRETTY PRETTY AND WITTY AND BRIGHT OH HOHOHOHO~ and then rar boss fight which is pathetic because lolmdef buff + heal berry. Then creepy woman decides to hijack the barmaid again because we messed up her hair. Then train robber shows up again, he is now the demons and gleefully tells us about his new phallus and his ability to cause the party pain and discomfort by masturbating but he is still the same scrubby train robber and his ass is put down shortly and we leave.
So then we go to a ruin to look for things because why not. There we meet a creepy man who is leeching from Sailor Moon so we fight him to save Sailor Moon. He is very vague and so we make him less vague and he is an amazing boss fight with his complete inability to inflict damage whatsoever. He flees and we chase him and he pulls out a demoted superboss and gets away oh no. Then at the evil lair of villain Grahf Ikari bitches out the train robber for being a useless pussy who didn't help of Mr. Vague McCreepyman. Meanwhile our heroes piece together what the baddies are doing and go to an underground tunnel. Then archaic tin cans with lightsabres are repeatedly fought because why not. Then we get introduced to the creepy robed people proper and find out that they are crazy and trying to turn the planet into the demons through EVOLUTIONZ. That is not how evolution works, this is stupid, these people are stupid, this game is full of stupid.
Then we fight the train robber again but it's a superlame plotfight. Then we go to Arkansas and find another ruin because why not. The ruin is completely devoid of creepy robed people presence but that doesn't stop us from having to fight a LoZ boss twice, because why not. Then I decide to grow carrots.
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Finish Disgaea 3, Scar. And get on to Disgaea 4. Better balance and more customization. Also, prettier graphics and funnier endgame.
ClearTranquil: Holy crap, you are milking FF13-2 for everything its worth, aren't you? To be fair, Serah is probably the best CT-bait character I've seen in a long time.
Lost Odyssey: ^_^ This game is so much fun. Jansen basically carries the whole cast on his own, but the others are decent enough and the story has its moments. I guess I just like seeing a "standard RPG" done in such a high-budget way. The Immortal/Mortal character growth systems continue to be fun to play around with, so I might be grinding more than I should.
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why do I suddenly want to expose CT to copious amounts of Tales plot...
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Tales of Graces f: The f stands for FRIENDSHIP!
I've put nearly 24 hours into the game within three days. This actually would be more if I actually played it for an applicable amount on Tuesday.
So, where I was last I had put the difficulty to Hard, or was going to... but I know I beat a boss! And then I fight yet another boss right after. Who despite this literally being his first appearance has a Mystic Arte. Not nearly as threatening as the previous boss, but he still managed at least one KO. And then I beat him and get 800 SP for the win and another 2500 SP for the Bonus. Wowza! Afterwards we get glorious anime cutscene and Richard's smugest grin. And then Malik joins yayyyyyy! With barely any titles! Booooo! So few that I actually have to put points towards MASTER! And the same with Cheria but eh. With Richard gone and Team Friendship RUINED my main team becomes Asbel-Sophie-Malik with Pascal and Cheria switching out as needed. Like immediately because Cheria has no empty titles either. Unfortunately all the high-end enemies are now gone, so there's only crap that runs from me on the road and I putz around for two hours before continuing the story.
The story which leads to an epic DBZ clash and a boss battle with Asbel-Sophie and Hubert. Another fun enough Boss Battle. And then stuff happens and more stuff happens and I fill in some missing parts of the Discovery book. Also I get the watermelon attachment which immediately goes on Pascal and Cheria's heads haha! So, after Hubert worms his way out of joining again(seriously, his Titles are gonna be whack...) we head over to the desert. Well, after awkward shoehorned teenage romance of course! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Ah Pascal, your mockery of it is what makes it tolerable.
Now over at the desert officially! Where I waste so much goddamn time fulfilling the requests for the area that I get the Soul Spheres for half the enemies(Soul Spheres are what you get when you kill one specific enemy a bunch of times whoooooooooo!). Pascal gets her second Mystic Arte(she's the summoner and she got the Water summon where half the enemies are weak to Freeze, fun! If she ever used it.)
After a bit more traveling to the acid falls of butt peril, I get into another boss battle. Who hilariously kicks my ass seven ways from Sunday. First Game Over go! Well, it was mostly because I had unlocked EVIL difficulty and was playing on that. Dammit game, stop making combat fun or it'll take me over a hundred hours to beat you!
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You're playing SO4, not SO3. You can tell the difference because SO3 isn't terrible.
Ha, Right! You can tell my subconscious tries to forget SO3 ever happened.
Def enjoying this more than the last one...
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Def enjoying this more than the last one...
I haven't a clue how you could do that.
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I liked SO4 more than 3, but thought they were both excellent overall. But 4 needs moar Adray.
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I really like SO3 but haven't played 4. (:
FF6 Eviltype Mild - Started the PC collection process. Got a SrBehemoth Rage and now Gau can crush things under his boot, casting Fire 3 and X-Zone.
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4 stripped out all the things I liked about Star Ocean games. Customizable parties, abusable IC, multiple endings... Nope. Doesn't help the cast is bland at best, and at worst, blatantly pandering to pedos. Plus, it's a prequel, which means you've got an uphill road to begin with, since they're harder to do well.
It's especially bothersome because SO was one of the JRPG franchises I actually still enjoyed before SO4.
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Rob needs more secretly-18-years-old-but-physically-8-year-old lolis in his life. Play Riviera!
Lost Odyssey:
Well, I take back what I said about it being less embarrassing. Just got Sarah in my party and man did they drop the ball on that little sequence... The worst was when the kids start singing to 'bring the sorceress back from her self-imposed hatred barrier' or whatever. It could -almost- have worked, too. I like music box songs, and they used some decent camera angles and logically, it's not the worst idea for trying to snap someone out of their stupor (they even set it up earlier during the funeral scenes). ..it's just... dear god their singing is so terrible. Why god why...
God is dead. </xenogears>
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why do I suddenly want to expose CT to copious amounts of Tales plot...
Who me?
I saw some Tales plot from Xer streaming Tales of Hearts. There was a bit where it was about people going inside people where there were people inside people ... Yeah. It was kind of messed up. Especially since there was a brother involved and I wasn't sure which character was which at first >.< Apparently quite a bit of this type of thing goes on in Tales of Hearts.
Only other Tales plot I've seen is ToV and Tales from a New World/Radiant Mythology :P
**
I like SO3 and I think SO1 best I think :) I'm not sure which is my least favourite out of SO2 and SO4~
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Rob needs more secretly-18-years-old-but-physically-8-year-old lolis in his life. Play Riviera!
I was actually referring to the pubescent girl dressed like a prostitute from the bad parts of Bangkok, but that was also pretty bad.
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Cthulhu Saves the World - Cthulhu's Angels mode, about to head to the Magitek Foundery. While the "play through the same game with different PCs" is certainly fun, this one's going to be less replayable because there's only one party. Fortunately it's all part of one big game anyway so I guess this doesn't matter. Otherwise, I've been having quite a lot of fun, although you can tell the randoms were balanced for the primary party... they've generally been quite simple so far although the volcano was a step in the right direction. Come to think of it, though, the mid maingame was simple enough too, so I guess the biggest difference is that CA October is overpowered in the earlygame. Bosses, meanwhile, clearly have adjusted to the higher damage scale of this party as they have about 50% more HP than their maingame counterparts. U-Bovinator was the best, but no resets thus far, funnily enough. Have had a few on randoms here and there.
Shadow Hearts: Covenant - About to go beat up Rasputin. This arc of the game is not its strongest writing-wise, but even it has some good moments... some of Yuri's stuff in Turkey was better than I remembered, or perhaps my memory for the game had failed. I still love how this game breaks the fourth wall at times... you can tell Yuri in particular has been through an RPG before and isn't always excited to be doing so again. Yuri is just great, definitely someone who is worthy of the hype he gets. Combat-wise, randoms still fail forever but are fun with all the timed hit stuff. Bosses I've decided to try not comboing to death relentlessly this time, instead focusing on things like Energy Charge and Entrance. So far this has made bosses last a bit longer than on my first playthrough but I just got Lucia's strike booster so we'll see how long that lasts. Since I'm not focused on combos I should probably bench Karin, but I like Karin. So we'll see.
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Finish Disgaea 3, Scar. And get on to Disgaea 4. Better balance and more customization. Also, prettier graphics and funnier endgame.
I hear good things about d4. I will get to it, eventually. I bought D3 for 20 bucks and plan to do the same with the fourth game. No rush...but when I DO buy it, I plan to actually get some DLC for this game. I had to resist the urge to do it for part 3, but having all those Disgaea characters at my disposal is too good to pass up.
Eventually!
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FF1 Origins - Eat pigeon crap, Tiamat. Got the Excalibur and other good stuff. Going to tackle the final dungeon tomorrow.
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Tales of Graces f: f stands for full party after 25 hours!
So, let's see, when last I left off I was uhhhhh, fighting my first Evil boss? Right, that looks right, the Parasite Queen. So after about a dozen more horrific failures on EVIL I had to give up and revert back down to Hard like a wuss. The fight goes from chaotic hell to so boring I probably could have let the AI handle it alone. Anyway, after a pepper bomb covers us in rocky snot we head back to whatever the objective was. And playing on Evil is getting me so much SP that I'm running out of titles to level for people not named Asbel or Sophie. After some more dungeon treks, including one that makes no sense whatsoever(it was the one in the English party demo). It's time for another boss fight! At least I hope it's a boss fight or my deaths would make it just sad. But after those deaths I actually enter THE ZONE and become able to beat my first boss on EVIL! Except I literally get less SP then I do from normal fights. And then the next boss slaughters me so badly I have to bump the difficulty down to NORMAL.
Anyway before that monstrous NORMAL boss I get my full party FINALLY! Except Mr. Joins Last is in such a title drought that they're all either Mastered or 5ed. What a waste of time. Then I spend like three hours wasting time doing sidequests.
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WA3 - :maya:
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Tales of Graces f: The f stands for things that happen to you when you play on CHAOS.
When last I left off all of two posts ago because my stunning vagueness collapsed everyone else's RPG playing, I was heading forward with a full party to the land of snow! Newbie is honestly kind of pathetic and ungodly frail in combat. Which is some form of irony I'm sure. Actually before the land of snow and pumpkins there's the obligatory Tales Arena. This time it's again it's own pseudo-nation independent from the major powers because it has such badasses leading it. And it's such a eye-opener to just how much I rely on the party over just straight Asbel jeez. Also it has the best name. Riot Peak: The Warrior's Roost.
Anyway, officially on to the land of snow and peaches which look like Cheria's butt because her skirt is so short. More towns to grind stuff in and eventually one hell of a field-dungeon type dealie that actually has a boss which is just a random boar who unlike the Nova Dragons or whatever they are I actually did well against it on EVIL. Also it randomly spawns minions. Also I spend so much damn time on the mountain that the enemies start to run scared by the time I'm done with it. So, in the newest town I play the greatest mini-game ever! Annoying Frictionless Puzzle Boxes!
And then stuff happens and I infiltrate a tower. Said tower has reskins of one of the earliest bosses as a common enemy which is laughable now.
And then there's a run at yet another dungeon that ends with a MYSTIC ARTE boss who also summoned minions.
Oh yeah, there was also another dungeon between those two with another monster boss that summoned minions.
And then some faux-DPZ action and failure and we finally maybe get a name for out villain! Also Hubert acts ridiculously dumb! And so does Malik! And there's some guy with two spears that are also guns!
Also I'm now so glutted on SP that I have only three titles between everyone that aren't 5ed or Mastered!
And Pascal has her third Mystic Arte while no one else even has their second!
And I unlocked the highest difficulty, CHAOS! Where Hubert died faster then usual!
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Been playing a bit recently.
- Mass Effect - Played this for the first time.Adept. Finished, did a fair number of sidequests, though not all of them. Especially near the end.
I'm sure you've heard most of the ups and downs of this game before. EX - Driving up cliff walls - sucks! I agree with most of them. Combat started out decent enough, if a bit difficult (I am bad at shooting games), but gradually turned incredibly easy as I got better stuff and Singularity became more awesome.
Well, I could have turned the difficulty up, so I can't complain too much. Mostly used Garrus/Ashley.
Mass Effect 2
- Playing this now. Finished most characters Loyalty. Enjoying the gameplay quite a bit more than ME1. The story hasn't really done a lot, but I've enjoyed it. The characters are more interesting, they've mostly got quirks and actually have a reason to join you - I like that. Though, again, recently I've been feeling the missions get a bit repetitive, but the difficulty feels better (at least on the difficulty I'm playing at - perhaps ME1 was better balanced at higher ones), and the gameplay is much more engaging. Still enjoying the game quite a bit.
- Mostly playing Paragon, but I pick the renegade choices if I feel like it, or if that's the choice I want to make.
Mass Effect 3
- Picked it up. Played some multiplayer. It's not bad. I'm not very good though. Uncertain if I'm going to go into this game right after I beat ME2 or wait a bit and play something else inbetween.
Super Robot Wars MX
- Played through this a bit ago. Not bad, standard SRW. Kind of easy. A couple of the lategame levels were real slogs (The Dendoh ones in particular) though I Liked the EVA levels quite a bit.
Trying to decide between Persona 3 FES or Baten Kaitos Origins for the next RPG I play.
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ME1's going to be super easy as an Adept at any difficulty. They kind of break the game without that global cool down.
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FF13-2: Ok, big plot reveals finished, time for Final Dungeon!
...wait, missed bad ending, lets go see that!
*Closes Academia 4XX AF, redoes entire sequence to get bad ending, and a fragment in the process*
Ok, useless stuff done, now onto final dungeon!
Also got a better Sentinel and Commando in my team as far as monsters go; just need a better Ravager and I'll be gold or something.
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WA3 - Divinely(?) inspired archaeologists get helped out, more :maya: is witnessed, the words lineage and destiny are said way too many times in a single dungeon, and we sail halfway around the world to a two-headed snake dungeon and bosses fall to the power of carrots.
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FF1 - Vanquished Chaos, the world was saved, Garland came to the celebration. Wait, what?!
FF2 - Started this game. This feels like the ugly stepchild of FF1 and SaGa Frontier. The combat is really really boring and you can run into the physically immune first boss and uh lol.
FF6 - Finished the Phoenix Cave, fought six of the eight dragons, and I think I'm ready to take on the final dungeon.
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Cthulhu - Angels mode beaten. Sara was quite nasty, final boss less so but not awful or anything. I got all these really cool spells from the levels I gained from beating the final boss, which seems kinda weird since the game is over (weird, since I can't see how I could be underlevelled). Otherwise, I enjoyed the parody ending plot well enough for what it was, and was glad the mode threw in one new dungeon at least. Pretty fun spin on the game, though as mentioned before, less replay value than the original of course.
Shadow Hearts Covenant: Idar Flamme is... soooo big.
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FF2 - Started this game. This feels like the ugly stepchild of FF1 and SaGa Frontier. The combat is really really boring and you can run into the physically immune first boss and uh lol.
Well, this WAS the game that more or less created the SaGa series! I have no other words beyond that.
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Among the numerous things making difficulty a joke in Mass Effect 1, biotics stand pretty tall. Hell, I destroyed the universe as a Sentinel mostly on the power of Marksman and Lift.
Mass Effect 3: Finished up the Quarian/Geth thing. Used the almighty Paragon solutions.
The Tali romance actually felt pretty well tied in throughout this entire arc, and you get a sense of an actual relationship between Shep and her. Also, there are a couple of severely funny lines. Fairly satisfying on the whole. Big decision of the Geth/Quarian plot is a bit of an idiot ball moment (seriously, just get everyone to chill out for five minutes), but it worked.
Also, Tali face revealed.
Wrapped up a couple more sidequests (adding the Samara one to the "Seems like they wanted to do more, but ran out of time/money" list, standing alongside Verner, Zaeed and Kasumi). Now it is time for Thessia.
I want to note that powers are back in full swing of destroying the game, although the relative fragility of your character helps check it a little bit? Pretty much all the major powers are pretty nuts (lolz Cryo Blast) and by going lightly armed, you are pretty much chaining powers at all times. Small arms are a little whiffy about damage early on, but once you reach the endgame stuff (Paladin pistol) and you're one-shotting most things with headshots. Even Brutes melt pretty fast under the Paladin.
Banshees were weirdly durable, though.
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I play Vanguard. I have my recharge bonus at 195%.
My game is literally charge/nova or charge/heavy melee and repeat. No other attacks necessary.
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Tales of Graces f: Where f stands for the Failure that is Cheria.
Let's see, where was I last? Right, unlocked Chaos, heading towards DESTINY! Destiny in this case being a boss battle immediately after the last one. Or close enough. HILARIOUSLY! Despite being a Nova boss on Chaos difficultly, the sheer bonus to your own damage for hitting enemy weaknesses is enough that I'm actually able to beat him! And get a grand total of 6500 SP out of it! That is literally enough for Asbel and Sophie to 5 their newest titles! Yay! And then Sophie's out of commission.
FUCK YOU GAME.
So after JRPG time show it's ugly head I'm now forced to rely on Cheria's godawful ass. Who promptly shows her failure as I literally die on a semi-boss fight more times on Chaos then I did for the actual Boss. And then I only eventually win that because I shunted her terrible ass out. What a useless sack. Which just gets worse in the next dungeon, where an hour's progress is lost because she can't deal damage or stun worth a shit and I have to bump the difficultly down to EVIL like a goddamn wuss. This makes the next two dungeons pretty much a joke. And they would be more of one if I had an actual decent party. Using her against Novas is a bloody suicide mission I swear.
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Your Cheria sucked probably you didn't raise her defense states properly.
ToGF's states gain upon level up depends on your current state. In other word, higher states you have right now, the more you have upon level up. So it is pretty important to tweak mage's defense with everything you have early on so they don't die to a touch in late game in higher difficulty.
Tweak her while you still can, as she is the only character with access to Time Stop later on, which is stupidly valuable in after game and super boss fights.
Shining Blade - Played this none stop and almost 30 hours in.... freaky I can put up with a mediocre game like this just because there is bishies for me to drool at.....
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That sounds like a terrible design decision.
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How very Final Fantasy 9 of them.
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I assumes states means stats.
But it's not her stats that are killing her. It's the fact that she can't lock down enemies. Her AI does not use A-Artes at all and her B-Artes are completely inferior to Malik and Pascal. And I know for a fact Malik has less Defense then her... for some reason, but he's not the one that I have to waste Life Bottles on.
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That sounds like a terrible design decision.
How very Final Fantasy 9 of them.
The words, they are different, and yet they say the same thing.
SHC - So apparently Mind's Eye + Energy Charge + Rage + Strike boost is pretty evil. Almost done disc 1!
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Are you using Technical Ring again Elf? I suppose you are with Mind's Eye etc.
I always did enjoy SH2 replay when I stopped caring and threw it on normal. Just chill and play it through snooze mode. Make the game numerically harder and less punishing. Crank some tunes and fuck around. Much more fun.
At least if you aren't doing it right and playing with a DDR mat anyway.
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Technical yeah. Which to be fair the Mind's Eye doesn't really sync with super-well, since it makes it harder to get Strikes (for all that I'm getting better at it). I didn't get the Mind's Eye last playthrough (I think one of the early Solomon Trials put me off) so it's pretty fun to play around with on this one, although I have used it (and its more evil magic equivalent) in SH3.
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Are you implying there are games you don't play with a DDR mat?
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When I think of people playing DDR with a controller I feel I understand why so many religions consider masturbating a sin.
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Are there really that many religions that consider masturbating a sin besides the three that all spawned from the same place?
Plants vs Zombies:
Finally got enough coinage to unlock the I, Zombie mode. BRAIIIIIINS~
Lost Odyssey:
Continues to be fun Menu-Based Combat. Story keeps slipping further and further into that "What were we doing again, Director?" zone. Sarah is quite pretty, at least. Jansen needs more lines to save this game from mediocrity.
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I assumes states means stats.
But it's not her stats that are killing her. It's the fact that she can't lock down enemies. Her AI does not use A-Artes at all and her B-Artes are completely inferior to Malik and Pascal. And I know for a fact Malik has less Defense then her... for some reason, but he's not the one that I have to waste Life Bottles on.
How did you set up her AI? Though I highly recommend you to set her up doing nothing but healing and occasional Flash Tear if she is on AI.
B-Artes? Patience I guess, she'll come around once Virtuous Ray and Indignation comes in.
BTW, to any one that is playing ToGF right now, once you beat the main game, start the F arc right away. Accel Mode can only be unlocked in the F arc. You want to unlock those first then come back to the main game to do the after-game dungeon and super-bosses (better if you bring the Narikiri titles, having Richard the spammer back in main game would be a great plus). A couple of character's Accel Mode are life savers.
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I assumes states means stats.
But it's not her stats that are killing her. It's the fact that she can't lock down enemies. Her AI does not use A-Artes at all and her B-Artes are completely inferior to Malik and Pascal. And I know for a fact Malik has less Defense then her... for some reason, but he's not the one that I have to waste Life Bottles on.
How did you set up her AI? Though I highly recommend you to set her up doing nothing but healing and occasional Flash Tear if she is on AI.
B-Artes? Patience I guess, she'll come around once Virtuous Ray and Indignation comes in.
BTW, to any one that is playing ToGF right now, once you beat the main game, start the F arc right away. Accel Mode can only be unlocked in the F arc. You want to unlock those first then come back to the main game to do the after-game dungeon and super-bosses (better if you bring the Narikiri titles, having Richard the spammer back in main game would be a great plus). A couple of character's Accel Mode are life savers.
I didn't set up any AI simply because it worked out exceptionally well so far until this point. I'd say I have to change it, but it still works fine for EVIL. And once Sophie's back I can just ramp back up to CHAOS.
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If I only played my JRPGs with a DDR mat I would not need to go to the gym nearly as badly as I do.
Djinn, off the top of my head it is frown upon for some practicing Buddhists and maybe Shinto? Not 100% on that though.
TO: PSP - Up to chapter 3 in Law. I am stunned at how short this is. Is this how FFT feels for the fiends who are good at it? Archers are crazy. Just now got into a fight with dragons though. Tinking on dragons. Oh right I will try out that Petrify scroll and stuff on my witch. Whoa 100% hit rate? That is crazy, maybe it is just learning it. Okay, second one has 93% hit rate. Wow. Broken Petrify much? I guess you don't get loots from it is my first thought. Then dragon breaks free after 2 turns.
I see.
Well I guess I need to think on my feet for this fight since I forget when I saved. Won't lose much if I get my first game over though.
Also wow, really guys, you aren't kidding when you say archers are broken. Literally able to choose when I end fights entirely because of how many assassination missions there are. Randoms are magnitudes harder than plot fights because you actually have to kill everything.
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Perfect World: Level 100.
(http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/2874/infinityarmorset.jpg)
Rarr, I'm a rock monster.
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Up through Horizon. Kai Leng is a prat. His arrogance is particularly funny in that fight, given the circumstances. Unsure as to whether I consider his writing incompetent or genius. His death shall bring me pleasure. Unless he doesn't die. Then I will go cry on forums.
Also, emergency induction ports. Someone needs to work through their daddy issues.
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I will work daddy through your issues Andy.
TO PSP - Goddamn. Crafting system so terrible. For fucks sake. Never ever make the default selection No for an option someone just picked like that. It is pretty bad even if it didn't do that. As is, straight up appalling. So bad I can't even swear enough to describe how bad it is.
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Oh no! The default for having you help me work through my Daddy issues was No, so I failed to select it! =(
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I will work daddy through your issues Andy.
TO PSP - Goddamn. Crafting system so terrible. For fucks sake. Never ever make the default selection No for an option someone just picked like that. It is pretty bad even if it didn't do that. As is, straight up appalling. So bad I can't even swear enough to describe how bad it is.
Another game in the long line of games that convinced me to ignore item crafting in RPGs whenever possible.
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TOPSP's crafting system tries to balance its own gamebreaking overpoweredness through pure deliberate tedium. Cock design at its finest.
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TOPSP has crafting? >_>
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WA3 - So we head up a terraforming system and beat up the creepy brigade. Creepy Woman spouts off about butterflies and how EVERYTHING MUST BE PRETTY and our babysitter calls her a terrible artist and she's all like HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY ARTISTRY I WILL MAKE ANGRY FACES. Boss fight ensues and she decides to be Evil Gaia's long lost sibling because all she does is POIZN. Then comes Vague McCreepy Guy and apparently he needs an adult so he is trying to bring back his mommy and gets all HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY LOVE FOR MAMA I WILL MAKE ANGRY FACES. Oooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaay. Boss fight ensues and he is a confusion whore which makes things annoying but whatever. Then we fight the train robber again man have we really gone that long without fighting the train robber even as a plot fight wow and he engages in WA3 boss death animation so he must finally be dead. Then we reach the control room where RIG's father tells Sandy Mangina to fight for everlasting peace and we head up to the top where we find Grahf Ikari and his cronies. Grahf Ikari is all bloo bloo because he can't turn the planet into the demons any more and HOW DARE RIG'S FATHER STEAL MY WOMAN FROM ME I WILL MAKE ANGRY FACES, and again rar boss fight.
So the party did what they needed to do and leave and it turns out the creepy brigade *isn't dead yet* and oh god fuck the train robber's still alive too oh wait the demons got summoned and killed the train robber never mind. Meanwhile we need to go help out those archeologists again but fuck that I'm gonna grow some more carrots first.
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Your Cheria sucked probably you didn't raise her defense states properly.
ToGF's states gain upon level up depends on your current state. In other word, higher states you have right now, the more you have upon level up. So it is pretty important to tweak mage's defense with everything you have early on so they don't die to a touch in late game in higher difficulty.
You mean tweaking with title skills, I assume? As in, equipped stats don't matter, just base + title skills?
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Fun TO fact: The crafting success rates were apparantly *dramatically* increased in the NA/EU release. Supposedly even the simplest ingredient craft would have a 30-40% chance of failure, on top of all the other crap you have to put up with.
It really feels at times like crafting was only included in TO PSP due to editorial mandate, and the developers decided to rebel by making the whole process as garbage as possible.
Edit: Oh yeah, Archers. The one major failing they have (besides trouble damaging monsters, which almost every physical attacker shares) is that they struggle to actually target stuff on fortress battles, where enemies a long distance away are too high up elevation-wise while enemies at an aimable height often end up in your deadzone. On flat or even slightly-uphill terrain they are completely absurd, and there are a couple of stages where you start off with a huge height advantage and can literally reign arrows down on the entire map from your starting position. Weapon balance in TO PSP is amazingly lopsided in general, but giving bows/xbows the most effective damage formula in the game stands out as being extra-special nuts.
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TOPSP's crafting system tries to balance its own gamebreaking overpoweredness through pure deliberate tedium. Cock design at its finest.
Or make the weapon weaker than the original material, as all those weapons with hidden atk bonus will lose that invisible bonus when upgraded.
Your Cheria sucked probably you didn't raise her defense states properly.
ToGF's states gain upon level up depends on your current state. In other word, higher states you have right now, the more you have upon level up. So it is pretty important to tweak mage's defense with everything you have early on so they don't die to a touch in late game in higher difficulty.
You mean tweaking with title skills, I assume? As in, equipped stats don't matter, just base + title skills?
Equip matters actually.
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Mass Effect 3: Back on Earth.
Kai Leng fight was satisfying.
As the end of the game approaches, I've definitely enjoyed the ride. There've been some faults along the way, but, on the whole, I've quite enjoyed things. Now let us see if the end fucks that up.
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TOPSP's crafting system tries to balance its own gamebreaking overpoweredness through pure deliberate tedium. Cock design at its finest.
Or make the weapon weaker than the original material, as all those weapons with hidden atk bonus will lose that invisible bonus when upgraded.
Hrm, got a list of what weapons have these hidden bonuses? I'm only aware of Baldur weapons having a hidden modifer against undead, and *that* definately carries over to the upgraded versions.
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I have the list in Japanese if you don't mind.
http://masterwiki.net/tacticsogre/?%C9%F0%B4%EF%C1%B4%C8%CC%A1%A6%B9%CD%BB%A1#n155b9c5
And the hidden bonus I talk about is not those bonus against undead. But a universal bonus that increase the atk base on your current stat. Stronger you are, stronger the weapon. At low levels, since you are weak, you might notice those bonuses. But by the end game, those bonus becomes ridiculous. Low rank weapon with the bonus can out-damage after game hidden weapon that does not have bonus.
Below the chart I link you to is the chart for weapons that are anti undead.
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Mmm, interesting. Thanks for the list.
I wonder if these still exist in the international version. Guessing yes, but the nerfed stat growths (+0.1 per level-up instead of +0.5) made them a lot less effective, especially if they run off base stats only.
At the least they aren't as significant as the benefits from high dex weapons like bows/daggers/1h katanas. I ended up using some of those weapons (Culnikronne, Holy Comet, Rose Whip) and they were still doing way less damage per-hit than Brilliant Daggers and Superior Brahmas with their uber-dex formulas. Hell, by the 40s Denam could do more per-hit with a Brilliant Dagger (96 attack power) than he would with Brynhildr (142 attack), which is insane on more levels than I can count.
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Mass Effect 3: Short version. Game beat. Yes, end sucks. Game good overall. 7.5-8/10 range. Some really well done stuff and some shockingly incompetent/corner-cut stuff.
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Mmm, interesting. Thanks for the list.
I wonder if these still exist in the international version. Guessing yes, but the nerfed stat growths (+0.1 per level-up instead of +0.5) made them a lot less effective, especially if they run off base stats only.
At the least they aren't as significant as the benefits from high dex weapons like bows/daggers/1h katanas. I ended up using some of those weapons (Culnikronne, Holy Comet, Rose Whip) and they were still doing way less damage per-hit than Brilliant Daggers and Superior Brahmas with their uber-dex formulas. Hell, by the 40s Denam could do more per-hit with a Brilliant Dagger (96 attack power) than he would with Brynhildr (142 attack), which is insane on more levels than I can count.
Oh yeah, overlooked the reduction in the state growth.....
Though, what is the dex formula you are mentioning??
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ToG- Apparently the world is doomed. Screw that, I have Estelle plushies to give to little girls~
It's kinda weird. Despite effectively being the director's cut version of the game, I keep seeing scenes here and there and thinking "I bet they had more lines here before. I wonder what the deleted scene would be like..." This isn't to say these things not being there detracts from the game, and indeed extending a bunch of scenes would be a net negative, but still I wonder.
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Here's the best numbers I cound find on the subject. Not 100% sure they're correct, but they're pretty close at the least.
Anyone can check this by equipping +STR/+DEX items on someone completely stripped of skills (as strengthen gives you % increase based on rank, while augment element is of an unknown bonus I'm still trying to figure out)... I used ring of deftness+1/horde+1 because they're the most accessible, and you can compare them to something like ring of vitality without making changes to base ATK.
But here goes...
(Weapon type) (ATK increase for 10 points in STR) (ATK increase for 10 points in DEX)
claw 8 6
dagger 6 10
1h sword 7 5
2h sword 7 5
axe 7 5
spear 7 5
hammer 8 6
1h katana 5 9
2h katana 7 5
cudgel 8 6
whip 7 5
spellbook 8 5
bow 8 10
xbow 8 10
gun 8 10
Gee... I wonder why dual daggers/1h katanas are so powerful even though they generally have worse base ATK. Stupidly insane stat growths on DEX (which is easier to increase via equips/classes generally have higher base DEX), plus lower RT/weight and the ability to be used twice? Even ranged weapons are good because they have decent scaling. They really should've increased the STR based melee weapons scaling by 2 on STR to even things out.
This results in really silly things like Denam doing more per hit with a single 1H Brilliant Dagger that he can dual-wield than Ozma can do with the heaver, 2H, much higher attack power Rose Whip and higher stats.
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Tales of Graces f: Where the f stands for being distracted by other games. What? What do you mean that doesn't start with f? Look, you go find some word that means what I posted that starts with f and I'll change it.
Anyway, in theme with F! Got to Fodra. Did the dungeons and prepping things to return to the actual conflict of the matter. The first boss here was hilariously pathetic. I don't think he ever managed to hit Asbel. The second one I thought was a normal fight until he started zipping around on a hoverboard. Also somewhere in-between them Sophie's back YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! And then I run into the worst enemy-type in the game and lose ten minutes of progress. I try the second dungeon--which by the way is so terrible I wish bad things on whomever designed it, preferably involving a baseball bat at a head--on Insane at first but halfway up I run out of Eleth and halve my life bottles so back to wimpy Insane I go.
Once I am done, Pascal and Malik gain anti-Nova skills! Except they already had other ones anyway! Consistency! And I find a hilariously good way to get cash that involves selling the Reflex!
And before I finished for the.... night? I had a duel against Malik where he hilariously over-killed Asbel.
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Here's the best numbers I cound find on the subject. Not 100% sure they're correct, but they're pretty close at the least.
Anyone can check this by equipping +STR/+DEX items on someone completely stripped of skills (as strengthen gives you % increase based on rank, while augment element is of an unknown bonus I'm still trying to figure out)... I used ring of deftness+1/horde+1 because they're the most accessible, and you can compare them to something like ring of vitality without making changes to base ATK.
But here goes...
(Weapon type) (ATK increase for 10 points in STR) (ATK increase for 10 points in DEX)
claw 8 6
dagger 6 10
1h sword 7 5
2h sword 7 5
axe 7 5
spear 7 5
hammer 8 6
1h katana 5 9
2h katana 7 5
cudgel 8 6
whip 7 5
spellbook 8 5
bow 8 10
xbow 8 10
gun 8 10
Gee... I wonder why dual daggers/1h katanas are so powerful even though they generally have worse base ATK. Stupidly insane stat growths on DEX (which is easier to increase via equips/classes generally have higher base DEX), plus lower RT/weight and the ability to be used twice? Even ranged weapons are good because they have decent scaling. They really should've increased the STR based melee weapons scaling by 2 on STR to even things out.
This results in really silly things like Denam doing more per hit with a single 1H Brilliant Dagger that he can dual-wield than Ozma can do with the heaver, 2H, much higher attack power Rose Whip and higher stats.
Ah that formula. Yeah, it didn't stand out that much in the Jp. ver as it got out-shined by the invisible bonus. But this should tell you how brokenly unbalance is the damage out put in the Jp. ver..... especially if combined with elemental boost skills.
A Vyse duel wielding Marauder Knife with water booster is like.... what the fuck?
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Dark Souls: Decided to start playing this again. Since its been so long since I last played, I decided to just start over.
Female Bandit. Going for a Strength build (Str #/End #/Dex 18). Black Firebombs for starting gift.
Game started pretty well. Nailed Asylum Demon in one shot, nailed Taurus Demon in one shot, Bell Gargoyle's took two with Sunbro's help (messed up the first one, did get his tail) and Capra Demon took two (amazed I succeeded on the second one). Had a weird spat of bad luck today with four or five really sloppy deaths. The Hollow Assassins and Dogs are really wrecking my shit.
Still, solid progress. 20 End, 27 Str, 12 Dex so far.
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I fucking hate those dogs.
40 is generally a good goal for endurance since that's where stamina maxes out. Past that its only real purpose is if you want to carry more stuff without slowing down.
Are you on PS3 or Xbox? I have a sorcerer sitting at level 75 for endgame co-op if the former (sorcery is broken and demolishes the game, mind).
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Cid: PS3.
And yeah, dogs and assassins are evil. I seem to recall I had a lot less trouble with them on my last playthrough. Then again, it was a hybrid Strength/Faith build with Axe and Board so...
Anyhow. Up through Depths. Gaping Dragon slain in one go, although Sunbro did not survive (Sunbro, stop standing in front of him, please). Tail acquired.
Experienced my first real invasions today. I didn't really run around as a human much last game since I was dying a lot, but I'm trying to stay human as much as possible this time. First invasion was pretty ineffective. Guy can't really launch an offensive, gets laid out by R2 swing on the Zweinhander, then I finish him with R1's. Second invasion occurs while I'm AFK. Did not realize that you could be invaded while at the bonfire. Third invasion occurs while I'm at the bonfire (Depths). Set up an ambush right around the inside corner of the room. Unfortunately, invader is smarter and dive rolls to enter the room, spoiling my attack. I try to recover but eat a fatal backstab.
Alas.
To Blighttown we go!
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-Not once have I seen Solaire live through that fight. You have lightning bolts, man! Stay back and use them!
-Yeah, there's no guaranteed safety against invasions while human unless you've already killed the area boss or the area doesn't have a boss. It will actually kick you out of bonfire mode if someone invades while you're sitting there. Also, lagstab seems the preferred method of dispatch in PVP. Not coincidentally, I'm not very fond of PVP.
-Mostly I feel like I should avoid giving area/enemy-specific advice since figuring out the best way to deal with things is a lot of the fun, but I would suggest clearing the asylum of loot before hitting Blighttown. It'll make the lower area much less painful.
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FF13-2 : 159/160 Fragments and 23/31 Achievements Get. The only Fragment I still have left to obtain is for the Academic Rank: Monster Hunter from showing a Complete Bestiary to Doctor M. I haven't gone over my bestiary yet to check it, hopefully there will be some clues as to which sections still have to be filled in. Either way this could take a while. Monster Collector and Battlemania should help though at least =)
So next time I play I'm expecting to be hunting for some rare monster data and hopefully collecting some for my monster ally collection too. Since obtaining the Monster Hunter Fragment is one major side quest which requires actually fighting and involvement with the general dynamics of the game's monster system I don't mind so much.
The last set of Fragments I collected was for the Captain Cryptic section. He wasn't tooo bad to do/find/answer over all and I was able to find him the first three times without too much bother at all really, based on the clues given from the random blabber/chit chat from the NPCs~
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Also I've obtained/watched all the Paradox Endings now. My current favourite is "Heart of Chaos" Vanille's (of course) is also a favourite too~
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Portal 2: Started this up. Fun game, unshockingly. The first part is meta-unoriginal - it feels a lot like an expansion to the first game where you're just running through more tests for no good reason because...well...Chell is actually being run through more tests for no good reason. They're fun tests, though. I just hit the TWIIIIIST and started climbing again. Cave Johnson is very much as I imagined him.
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Mass Effect 3 - Just finished Asaritown. This game feels a lot more scripted than the other ones in the series. Right up to and including the Renegade/Paragon choices barely ever coming up. Granted, part of this may be due to the fact Ninja McWankerson refuses to die no matter how many times I shoot him.
That said, the plot info gained about the Crucible at this point has done a lot to lessen my objections to the device from a narritive standpoint. Seeing as I absolutely hated the idea of the current races being helpless without some Prothean superweapon no one ever heard of before. Having it be something that got worked on a little bit more every cycle, and making it a legacy project? That is something I find thematically apropriate enough to let my suspension of disbelief kick right back in.
About to head to Horizon, and soon enough, to see what all the fuss is about the ending.
Oh right, also on an SRPG kick, kinda research based, kinda fun based. Currently fiddling about with XF because of it's great little class system, and because it needs more love. Map design and scripting will likely be the two main areas of interest, since it'll be interesting to see where they use dialogue and when to advance the plot (so, more technical details than actual merits of the writing staff). Meanwhile, XF probably is the second best RPG I've seen for map design, at least in terms of producing maps that aren't just kill all enemies, assassinate specific enemy, or sieze something or other. Currently at Poliasha after the Marsh Bug battle.
May decide to look at FFT or Vandal Hearts after this. The former because it is simply the best SRPG out there. The latter because it is likely the third best, and easily the finest one in terms of map design and alternative victory conditions. It's just completely outshone by FFT and XF in terms of mechanics.
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Cid: You know, on my last play, I made it up t oAnor Londo without ever going back to the Asylum. Not that Spiderboobs didn't take me a dozen tries. *grumbles* I think I'll try it though.
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Started up Tales of Graces F. Been a while since I played a JRPG. Scant minutes in, I've acquired 1x robot girl and 1x Ill Girl. Some things never change.
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Also started Tales of Graces today!
Marathoned it for like 10 hours. Really fun battle system, the synthesis system is pretty awesome too. Voice acting is overall good. Skits are pretty funny.
Starting out as kids... I can see how it might be a good thing in the long run for developing these characters, but dear god is it grating in the immediate moment.
Played up to adulthood, 1x Sexy Knight Captain GET. 1x Twintailed Healerchick GET. This game is all kinds of Djinn-bait.
The adult sections are already 10 times better than the child portions and Asbel is a lot more fun.
I like playing around in the battle system to get new titles, and I'm playing walkthrough-less so I likely won't get everything, but it's still pretty awesome. I imagine the cast will be interesting duelists, too. Mages and Fighters are a lot more balanced, too. I like playing both kinds of classes.
Plot is... Growlanser 2. (For all three people who'll understand that reference!)
Final Fantasy 13-2: Wanted to start ToG, so I dropped all my sidequests and made a run for the ending. Got -an- ending, though I have no idea if it's the good one, bad one, alternate one, cliffhanger one, character A/B/Z one, or joke one. Or even how many alternate endings there are.
It was a pretty bold ending though. I'm going to have to youtube the others and then go back and read others' comments on 13-2, because overall it's probably one of my top FFs of all time, just after FF6 and FFX. Really good character work, humor, and a fun (if headachey) plot. 8.5/10 rating.
...if only Caius wasn't such a wanker.
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Plot is... Growlanser 2. (For all three people who'll understand that reference!)
I don't get it, really. I do not remember GL2 being overloaded with FRIENDSHIPFRIENDSHIPFRIENDSHIPFRIENDSHIP all over the place.
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I remember GL2 mostly being about mercenaries, mind control, and used car salesman looking best friends. Is that what ToG is about?
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Started up Tales of Graces F. Been a while since I played a JRPG. Scant minutes in, I've acquired 1x robot girl and 1x Ill Girl. Some things never change.
At least the Ill Girl isn't fighting! Yet.
Plot is... Growlanser 2. (For all three people who'll understand that reference!)
I don't get it, really. I do not remember GL2 being overloaded with FRIENDSHIPFRIENDSHIPFRIENDSHIPFRIENDSHIP all over the place.
You just didn't look 'ard enough.
I remember GL2 mostly being about mercenaries, mind control, and used car salesman looking best friends. Is that what ToG is about?
Hmmm....
Yep, sounds like it. With a bartender thrown in for good measure.
Now for what you've all been waiting for...
Tales of Grace f: Where the f stands for.... let's go with forty because I swear that's how many hours I've played that don't involve combat or story. Damn sidequests.
So, I was actually lying last time, I did play again on the same day. I know this breech of trust can never be forgiven, but... something uplifting. I actually instead headed off to the Cacoon to do my famous destruction of metamorphosing insects routine. Except without insects and instead with me half-assing the first fight and realizing that Chaos is just going to be beyond me. I am the Wimp King.
Anyway, eventually I get to the end of the dungeon where I have glorious NEW FORM boss! Who goes down like a sad jump yet again. But the second boss? Oh well now ain't that one just a bitch-and-a-half times 30. Mystic Arte that ganks one character minimum? A spell that hits the whole arena and everyone for 6k damage? A shield that's active 90% of the time that staggers the hell out of melee? What a hellish fight. I still barely managed to beat it on Hard. I am the pansies.
Anyway, PLOT PLOT PLOT anime cutscene with a revealing camera pan for something already shown and PLOOOOOOOOT.
And sidequesting for two days.
Malik bartender is the best thing.
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Hell, I just played GL2 and I couldn't answer that. All I remember is that spies are the best choice for potential mates.
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Oh yeah on the note of sidequests, Niu, is there any way to deal with that thing at the Shuttle Crash Site that doesn't involve knocking the difficulty down to Easy?
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Doing too much for All-Divide to help? Of course, I suck and just play on normal.
That said, no less than half the game hinges entirely on the player buying into the opening. I like it as a writing thing: they know they need to go very dreary places very early in the story, and lay a foundation for the whole trust theme, so you introduce variations on the characters before sending them to the meat grinder.
ToG- finished the regular game. Ending is still playing out as I type. GOddamn that is a lot of sidequest, even by Tales standards. I think the developers looked at the game and thought to themselves "Okay, we can't have a map as huge as Vesperias, so what can.. ohhh, there we go, optional bosses out the ass and tons upon tons of sidequests from seemingly generic NPCs."
Pascal remains the mostest balancested.
Oddly, the meat of the ending, after the boss, is the one part of the game where I felt they were laboring a point rather than having a firmly edited final draft. Oddly because this makes it considerably more Tales than most of the game to that point.
I still think Aston is an idiot. Well intentioned or no.
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I love NES games.
FF2 - This game continues to offer me masochist amusement. The magic immune boss from the last dungeon is now a random in this dungeon? That's balanced. I beat the boss with one reset, but not after having to Warp out of the dungeon due to running out of MP due to the fucking turtles. Now I predictably have to visit Hilda, so she can tell me where to go next. Is Hilda the only person in this world with a lick of sense? Does she tell Firion when he can wipe his ass and when he can't?
Josef's death was really goofy. Blockin' boulders with your face or something. I am glad that the guy named Josef is from a place that looks like Siberia so I can make Soviet Russia jokes, but that's about it.
FF3 - Black Belts are pretty terrible. Hooray for a class that has Black Mage defense but that you can't put in the back because it makes them pointless. Doesn't help that FF3 God hates the BB. Current team is Fighter/BB/RM/BM. Well, that's now that I am not miniature anymore.
The Mini dungeon is pretty terribad. Let's review!
1. All randoms 2HKO you and come in packs of threes.
2. Magic apparently misses all the fucking time in this game.
3. The boss OHKOs you with magic (at least a reasonable portion of the time).
I found this about as fun as you'd expect. Tinkered with my setup a lot, but had to redo the dungeon like seven times. It was truly a fabulous NES experience.
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Doing too much for All-Divide to help? Of course, I suck and just play on normal.
60,000. I have no idea how in the nine hells it got so high either. And this is only on Evil. I shudder what to think it would do on Chaos.
ToG- finished the regular game. Ending is still playing out as I type. GOddamn that is a lot of sidequest, even by Tales standards. I think the developers looked at the game and thought to themselves "Okay, we can't have a map as huge as Vesperias, so what can.. ohhh, there we go, optional bosses out the ass and tons upon tons of sidequests from seemingly generic NPCs."
ARGH. I AM WASTING TOO MUCH TIME IN SIDEQUESTS THAT EVERYONE HAS SURPASSED ME AFJGSAFJGSA:F
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I clocked something around 60 hours, so I may have just been playing mroe the past two days? I dunno.
I think the game has some hidden multipliers for some stuff. Like, the Rockagong does more damage than seems reasonable even given its stats, so I wonder if there's not something that adjusts damage based on level differences or flags for things like being giant or whatever. Presumably he's also getting a critical hit of course. But even then the most you could do would be... hm. All Divide + Title + Block to only eat 8000 damage? Which is only double overkill!! Goddamn.
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Again, go to F arc first after main game for the Accel Mode, come back to main game later. Accel Mode really makes things easier. (Specifically Cheria and Malik and Huber)
I remember GL2 mostly being about mercenaries, mind control, and used car salesman looking best friends. Is that what ToG is about?
Mind control maybe true, but I don't see mercenaries or car salesman looking best friend. If anything, Richard is a troll rather than a salesman.
Oh yeah on the note of sidequests, Niu, is there any way to deal with that thing at the Shuttle Crash Site that doesn't involve knocking the difficulty down to Easy?
Block when it explodes.
Or just use those titles that have "halves damage when the damage does more than 1000".
The piece of scrap metal is really a no brainer.
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I know it's a no-brainer, it just did blatantly unsurvivable amounts of damage. Even with those titles(that I forgot about) an All-Divide and blocking it would still theoretically do more damage then I have HP.
I mean, like I sorta said, I just went down to EASY and beat it because I am a wimp/lost an hours of sidequest progress because I was unprepared for such BULLSHIT.
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How much HP do you have? I believe at least 3000 right? That should make the explosion survivable with all the reduction.
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2700-4700ish. But even guarding with Asbel on Easy still wiped half his HP. Or more, since Curry activated on someone and he got healed off it.
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Regardless what mode you are on, assume it does 20000 damage.
With all-divide and title reduction, the damage will be quartered. Which becomes 5000, and if you guard, that becomes 2500.
Your hp is more than enough.
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Probably. Not like I could test that out now.
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Just put a meal in your Eleth Mixer that revives you when someone dies. That's what I did.
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Dark Souls: How did I ever manage without the Rusted Iron Ring? Stray Demon down (after an embarassing number of attempts, kept getting greedy), Moonlight Butterfly Down (criticized by Ashley for killing an innocent butterfly, defended self with classic "I didn't shoot it with lasers first" defense), Spiderboobs down (Amazing chest ahead +1 rating, also, thanks Maneater Mildred), and Ceaseless Discharge down (apparently I did not beat him in the true gimmick way?)
Zweinhander remains amazing.
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I think the game has some hidden multipliers for some stuff. Like, the Rockagong does more damage than seems reasonable even given its stats, so I wonder if there's not something that adjusts damage based on level differences or flags for things like being giant or whatever.
More than likely, it's just a skill mult just like everything else. Nothing special...
Also, damage is quadratic with offense stats I believe, so higher stats would do more damage than you'd think at first glance.
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FF3 - Black Belts are pretty terrible. Hooray for a class that has Black Mage defense but that you can't put in the back because it makes them pointless. Doesn't help that FF3 God hates the BB. Current team is Fighter/BB/RM/BM. Well, that's now that I am not miniature anymore.
Monks improve a lot the instance their Unarmed physicals start doing actual damage, due to Nunchakus being god awful on accuracy. This is pretty much exactly like FF1 really!
Masters are notably better out of the gate (irrelevant right now I know!), since while yes, their physicals > their weapons eventually, Claws don't embarrass themselves on damage, and actually quite competent weapons through and through. Nothing saves Nunchakus; they're just there because "better than early unarmed Monk damage", and its a wonder why they keep upgrading them.
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Dark Souls: How did I ever manage without the Rusted Iron Ring? Stray Demon down (after an embarassing number of attempts, kept getting greedy), Moonlight Butterfly Down (criticized by Ashley for killing an innocent butterfly, defended self with classic "I didn't shoot it with lasers first" defense), Spiderboobs down (Amazing chest ahead +1 rating, also, thanks Maneater Mildred), and Ceaseless Discharge down (apparently I did not beat him in the true gimmick way?)
Zweinhander remains amazing.
I feel vaguely lame for never beating Ceaseless Discharge legit. It's just so easy the gimmick way. The gimmick is: run back to fog wall as quickly as possible as soon as he goes hostile. Make it there fast enough and he'll leap across the arena to reach you. This will leave him hanging from the ledge by one appendage (for lack of a better word). Attack said appendage, boss falls to his death. Instant win.
Moonlight Butterfly is not the true "Okay I don't want to kill you anymore please stop attacking me" boss, for my money.
Knockdown weapons are indeed great.
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My way was pretty cheesy as well. Just hide behind the boulder and get him to take swings at you. Takes a little care since he can clip you through the boulder, but you can hit him back too!
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I think the game has some hidden multipliers for some stuff. Like, the Rockagong does more damage than seems reasonable even given its stats, so I wonder if there's not something that adjusts damage based on level differences or flags for things like being giant or whatever.
More than likely, it's just a skill mult just like everything else. Nothing special...
Also, damage is quadratic with offense stats I believe, so higher stats would do more damage than you'd think at first glance.
It explains why I'm doing more damage to enemies in the cocoon with a weaker sword.
EDIT HELLO POST I DID NOT SEE EARLIER
I clocked something around 60 hours, so I may have just been playing mroe the past two days? I dunno.
I'm at about 60 too. I really should stop wasting time with sidequests and just burn to Future.
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Brig:GE- Meteor doom sucks and I hate it. I am fooling with multiplayer and letting the AI slug it out to see what happens. This leads to hilariously high leveled knights if you wait long enough. In short, I had two L30 Necromancers and a L30 Monk attack me.
I had promoted monsters, including an L30 Lucifer and a Salamander. I lost. I lost bad.
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Tales of Graces f: Where the f stands for future! finally
Since I was so continuously disheartened by other people beating this ahead of me I just said screw it to side-quests and burned through to the normal ending--haha who am I kidding I still did sidequests and almost by straight luck found Asbel's level 3 Mystic Arte. Actually it was nothing but luck. And Excalibur ended up being weaker than his current sword go figure. So actually getting into the stupid-as-all-hell final dungeon which is really long ans samey with time-consuming brainless puzzles. Like every dungeon's puzzles. As all of two of you know, because I have the Sword of Kings that means I went and fought all six of those jackasses. Until I get told there's a seventh one or something. Also missed whatever Discovery comes after the brokered but whatevs.
Final bosses are ummmm. Well I'm still on Evil and the first one was a solid-enough fight. I literally only lost against the second one because Asbel got hit by a stupid-unlucky petrify. By then I was so fatigued from playing a video game that I just wimped out down to hard and smashed.
Ending was ummmmm a thing!
Anyway, started future up. Didn't realize I had actually left things on Hard until my first fight with RICHARDDDDDDDDDDD back. Then I bumped it up to Evil. Also my 100% usage of Asbel is ruined(or would be if character usage was tracked) because there's a boss fight for the others. Which means I control Hubert's ridiculously fun ass. Clearly if I had friends to play this with I would sub as Hubert.
Anyway, comedy is actually much more prevalent now. Sure, you got some in Adult-land but hot damn are these skits are fantastic. Malik and Richard make a great trolling team.
Now if the game would just stop shoving AsbelXCheria down my throat in every cutscene it'd be just peachy.
Also I see now why you recommend Accel Mode Niu. Hot damn is that nine sorts of broken. So of course I die and lose half and hour of progress. LOGIC!
And for added comedy my final level for adult was 69. With a time of 69 hours. Yay me! I did it! I'm the best!
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Congratulations. I will celebrate with cake and party streamers. Well done on your achievements. They will be remembered forever.
TO PSP - So my Blowgun Ninja was becoming less fun and more dead weight, so I moved him to using Daggers. Mostly because I read hinode talking mechanics and go ooookay, I need more dex based equips okthanks. So now he does about an extra 60% damage or so. Breaks defense on randoms now as well as just plot fights (where he was mostly running interference and sniping enemy mages).
This game is very silly. I missed Ozma and I am not 100% certain why. I think it is because I read some Talk files or something from what I gather. Info online is also pretty vague. Whatevs, not like I care. I only used any special characters because I wanted a different sprite and the dude is used to recruit Ozma. Now that I say that out loud maybe I should get someone better looking the Jeunan to be my dagger ninja. Maybe Hobyrim. Zatoiichi is a cool ninja dude riet?
This game is very very silly. Randoms are stronger than plot fights. Randoms have more equipment. So randoms have more defense. So randoms hit harder. You can retreat randoms so that is all well and good. It is just baffling. I didn't like go and grind or anything. Plot fights scale with your level as well (to a pretty extreme point). I just don't understand what this game is doing.
That actually applies to a lot of things in TO. It is kind of fun and stuff. Most of the systems make some kind of logic in a vacuum with one or two strange oddities. You put them all together and I have no clue what the fuck people were thinking. It really boggles my mind.
The one complaint that confuses me though is special classes starting at level 1. It is everything around that You throw one dude in there and they soak up exp like crazy and get up to speed relatively quickly. That is fine. That isn't the problem. The problem is that it means you can't equip anything so they are pretty much a glass cannon (if even that). so they are dead weight. I get that. Whatevs. Ones I have done it with are usable in like 3 or 4 fights? That isn't like Nino level babying here. We have all babied characters in SRPGs way more than that needs. What shits me is the impact it has with skills.
Some characters recruit with like no damned skills at all. Or toss all weapon levels. Skills are pretty fucking rad. Way harder to work up than class levels (Like I got Arycelle or whatever her face is. I am using her. She is in a class I use all the time, so she was fine for gear and stuff. She is still significantly weaker than the rest of the party for that reason). It is really weird.
Also the skill system is batshit insane. At its core, it is okay I mean you get SP for taking part in fights. You learn new skills! Cool! There is upgraded skill ranks for some skills. Cool, you unlock them with levels. Wait some rank up from use instead? Okay I guess that makes sense. Wait you get like 1.something experience per use of skills? That is okay for weapon skills in theory. But they level super fucking slow. Like my bow guys that have been archers since the start of the game are Rank 4. You learn the last Limit Break style skill at Rank 8 if my reading is accurate. I am in the last chapter of the game. I get that there is a lot of postgame shit in this game. Just wow though man.
Where it gets really batshit though? Pretty much every skill other than weapon skills that level up the same. Meditate is an okay example, you get MP at the cost of TP (limit break bar). It starts off giving you SFA mana, but hey it slows your casters down a bit for some pretty precious mana. That is cool, I don't mind my casters going last in all honesty, it lets you control the flow of battle pretty well. It is off the deep end with things like Deflect and Parry though. They seem to get exp at the same rate as weapon skills unless I am mistaken. Unless they level up every time they have a chance to go off goddamn, they must take forever to level up. Random chance to maybe get 1.something point of experience. RNG chance got to go off 100 times to get a chance to go off. Woooooooowwwwwwwwww. Even if it levels every time you get attacked? That is still reliant on you being attacked rather than something you are likely to do every turn like weapon skills do. They are going to level insanely slow unless you do some crazy pointless grind for it.
That isn't even the part where they go completely off the deep end. The skills you can learn to counteract those skills. They also level up. HOLYJESUSWHAT? Do they only level if they go off against a target that actually succeeded a Parry or Deflect roll? Just enemies that have the skill? That ain't a lot of enemies in the main game at least. Or do they level up with every attack you make? I don't even know what to think if they do. I guess that means if you levelled them you would shit all over enemies with Parry or Deflect? But there isn't that many? And you unlock the skills pretty late?
Skill system is just full of what is this i don't even.
Man Tactics Ogre is weird.
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FF3 - After fighting the Big Rat, I was challenged by a Medusa, which did a total of 22 damage to me the entire battle. Medusas, unlike big rats, apparently don't have high level magic or deadly physicals or much of anything besides Petrify which didn't hit. <_<
Oh, and yes, Nunchucks are awful.
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Man Tactics Ogre is weird.
I got Arycelle or whatever her face is
Aloser.
I'm not going to play God Hand much more because I know I'm not a bad enough dude. Sorry. Hard mode kicked my ass.
Mother 3: During the ultimate chimera dungeon. The ultimate chimera is good, but not as good as the absolutely safe capsule.
Why do Mother characters all look stern from the front and happy from the side? I realize this has made me feel really uncomfortable, the first time I played Earthbound.
Mother 1: Yeaah Mother 1 made me want to try this again even if I absolutely hated it last time.
It's not as bad as I remember because I don't follow a walkthrough and just take my time instead of rushing through everything, but it still has NES insanity with a crazy random encouter rate and crazy dungeons that all look the same with no map. JUST LOOK AT THIS FACTORY: http://starmen.net/mother1/miscinfo/maps/duncanfactory.png (http://starmen.net/mother1/miscinfo/maps/duncanfactory.png)
Every character has one weapon slot and three armor slots. The only stores in the game that sell armor are all next to each other, and sell every kind of armor in the game. You can afford all the gamebest armor at that point in the game, too. Not balanced.
The main character is asthmatic. This doesn't affect anything until you fight one of those crazy trucks that exhaust fumes and make the main character have an asthma attack. Hope you have some asthma spray (unlimited uses) in your inventory or you're dead. I approve of this.
Gatling Gears: Downloadable twinstick shooter. Decent co-op game. Stalin is the main character and Lenin is the villain.
http://taigame.org/game_screenshots/201109/gatling-gears-18.jpg (http://taigame.org/game_screenshots/201109/gatling-gears-18.jpg)
We started on hard and had to restart the tutorial three times. Then we bumped it down to normal and never died again.
Saints Row 2: Yattaf from the block.
I always try to play sandbox games rather peacefully, at least at first. But the first objective in Saints Row 2 is to kill the doctor that took care of you during your coma, because he has the key to the door you want to to open to escape. Then it gets worse. I have probably already slaughtered hundreds. It is literally impossible to be a nice guy in this game.
I've also finished a few activites and eradicated the barons of samedi.
These sandbox games are weird because they're trying to be kinda realistic in their ownway, but the main character is some 100% unkillable godlike machine. Granted, GTA4 is a lot worse about it for obvious reasons.
I'm controlling a woman wearing a sweet black and red costume and am wondering why there are pole dancers in every one of my houses.
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TO PSP - So my Blowgun Ninja was becoming less fun and more dead weight, so I moved him to using Daggers. Mostly because I read hinode talking mechanics and go ooookay, I need more dex based equips okthanks. So now he does about an extra 60% damage or so. Breaks defense on randoms now as well as just plot fights (where he was mostly running interference and sniping enemy mages).
If you haven't spent too much time building up his dagger level yet, you might want to switch him over to Katanas. Daggers are slightly better stat-wise, but Ninjas get a very limited selection of them. Noticably, there's nothing between Baldur and Damasc (which isn't storebought until you beat the game), so you have to craft Baldur Dagger +1s or get Damascs to drop from random enemies to give him something non-sucky. I'd rather just use Katanas and keep up with the shop upgrades, personally.
This game is very silly. I missed Ozma and I am not 100% certain why. I think it is because I read some Talk files or something from what I gather. Info online is also pretty vague. Whatevs, not like I care. I only used any special characters because I wanted a different sprite and the dude is used to recruit Ozma. Now that I say that out loud maybe I should get someone better looking the Jeunan to be my dagger ninja. Maybe Hobyrim. Zatoiichi is a cool ninja dude riet?
All the new PCs in the remake have ridiculously complex, time-sensitive recruitment reqs. In Ozma's case, the steps are
1) Read a Warren Report entry before the third plot battle (Mount Hedon, which is second if you go in unarmed at Brigantys)
2) Visit Krysaro in-between Hagia Banhamuba (fourth plot battle, the one where you save the old Priest from his daughter) and the Barnicia Castle sequence (where you fight Tartaros)
3) Deploy a decently-loyal Hobyrim (his starting value's enough, thankfully)
4) Pick the right dialogue option in-battle (this one is pretty obvious, at least)
5) Reduce Ozma's HP below 10% WITHOUT killing her and make the other boss flee to end the fight
6) Pick the right dialogue option post-battle (not totally obvious due to a questionable translation choice)
Oh, and for extra fun that optional fight in Krysaro has a minimum level of 21/22 for the enemies, which is probably way higher than your levels at that point. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it's higher than your levels right now. On the upside, Ozma is vulnerable to status effects in that fight, so you can petrify her while you get rid of Volac and not have to deal with her dangerous finishers.
The one complaint that confuses me though is special classes starting at level 1. It is everything around that You throw one dude in there and they soak up exp like crazy and get up to speed relatively quickly. That is fine. That isn't the problem. The problem is that it means you can't equip anything so they are pretty much a glass cannon (if even that). so they are dead weight. I get that. Whatevs. Ones I have done it with are usable in like 3 or 4 fights? That isn't like Nino level babying here. We have all babied characters in SRPGs way more than that needs. What shits me is the impact it has with skills.
The problem for me is that sometime around level 5-7 or so they actually don't gain exp all that fast, at least if you're deploying a full team. I was able to get the uber-classes like Lord and Knight Commander caught up easily by soloing easy random battles, but Ranger was pretty painful because Vyce couldn't stay alive solo. Meanwhile I opted to raise Catiua as a Princess in preparation for the postgame, and it took literally every last optional battle in chapter 4 save for PotD* for her to get caught up in levels, and there are 40+ sidequest missions in C4. Thankfully a dedicated healer who does nothing but cast Heals and Boon of Swiftness while hiding in the back rows can actually get away with being massively underlevelled and not a major liability.
*Note that just in case the Palace of the Dead's 100+ floors of undead, stat-boosted palette swaps, and pain-in-the-ass terrain weren't tedious enough to begin with, the game decided to give you total crap experience for every floor except the 5-6 story battles.
Also the skill system is batshit insane. At its core, it is okay I mean you get SP for taking part in fights. You learn new skills! Cool! There is upgraded skill ranks for some skills. Cool, you unlock them with levels. Wait some rank up from use instead? Okay I guess that makes sense. Wait you get like 1.something experience per use of skills? That is okay for weapon skills in theory. But they level super fucking slow. Like my bow guys that have been archers since the start of the game are Rank 4. You learn the last Limit Break style skill at Rank 8 if my reading is accurate. I am in the last chapter of the game. I get that there is a lot of postgame shit in this game. Just wow though man.
Personally, I maxed out Canopus' Crossbow levels while sidequesting in C4, just because range 5/6 move + ranged attacks gave him so much more opportunity to attack than anyone else. The Archers were around L6 when I beat the final boss I believe, and every melee attacker was under L4.
For most weapons it isn't that big a deal, as long as you have L2 at least for some sort of finisher. Crossbow is the big exception because the L6 finisher, Deathwail, is a three-hit attack that OHKOs basically everything save the final boss and trivializes assassination battles even further. There was one insanely annoying fortress fight with a Lich whose undead minions clogged all the movement lines and would get replaced by summons if you exorcised any of them, plus it was a fortress battle so archers have some trouble targetting stuff. I basically just had Canopus shoot the squishest enemies in his range until he got 100 SP and then sent him in to OHKO the boss while the entire rest of my team basically served as distraction for the 3-4 turns until Canopus got the job done.
Where it gets really batshit though? Pretty much every skill other than weapon skills that level up the same. Meditate is an okay example, you get MP at the cost of TP (limit break bar). It starts off giving you SFA mana, but hey it slows your casters down a bit for some pretty precious mana. That is cool, I don't mind my casters going last in all honesty, it lets you control the flow of battle pretty well. It is off the deep end with things like Deflect and Parry though. They seem to get exp at the same rate as weapon skills unless I am mistaken. Unless they level up every time they have a chance to go off goddamn, they must take forever to level up. Random chance to maybe get 1.something point of experience. RNG chance got to go off 100 times to get a chance to go off. Woooooooowwwwwwwwww. Even if it levels every time you get attacked? That is still reliant on you being attacked rather than something you are likely to do every turn like weapon skills do. They are going to level insanely slow unless you do some crazy pointless grind for it.
That isn't even the part where they go completely off the deep end. The skills you can learn to counteract those skills. They also level up. HOLYJESUSWHAT? Do they only level if they go off against a target that actually succeeded a Parry or Deflect roll? Just enemies that have the skill? That ain't a lot of enemies in the main game at least. Or do they level up with every attack you make? I don't even know what to think if they do. I guess that means if you levelled them you would shit all over enemies with Parry or Deflect? But there isn't that many? And you unlock the skills pretty late?
A lot of those skills just aren't meant to be levelled up to any meaningful extent. Parry/Deflect feel like they exist mainly for enemy bosses, who often get assigned L4 or so on them. Overpower, on the other hand, feels like it's there just to fill up space in the skill list, not for anyone to actually use.
One cute thing you can do though, if you don't care about a perfect fatality record in your Warren Report, is to recruit a random enemy with a levelled skill in his/her/its top 4 skill slots, then kill him off and salvage his skills onto a permanent PC. Some veteran players will actually salvage easy-to-recruit special PCs for skills like elemental Augments and Parry, then World back and rerecruit them.
Also, a quick note on Meditate: storebought Wizard's Hat and Magus Robe have +1 Meditate each, along with some pretty decent Int/Mind boosts. If you're willing to go through the tedium of crafting, the upgraded versions are +2 Meditate apiece, making them some of the best mage equips in the game, especially Wizard's Hat +1.
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I'm not going to play God Hand much more because I know I'm not a bad enough dude. Sorry. Hard mode kicked my ass.
How far'd you get? If you make it past the dancin' stage 1 midbosses, you're a bad dude.
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If I remember correctly, in the fight recruiting Ozma, you have to make the other boss flee first before dropping Ozma's hp to 10%
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Yeah I just hit the point where I found out that the next two daggers can't be used by Ninjas. That is pretty awesome. I guess I can swap him over. Think I am nearly done with the plot fights anyway? Not really planning to run around and do sidequests overly much.
2) Visit Krysaro in-between Hagia Banhamuba (fourth plot battle, the one where you save the old Priest from his daughter) and the Barnicia Castle sequence (where you fight Tartaros)
This was the flag I couldn't get to work. I guess I read the Warren Report to late. This is also very silly.
trivializes assassination battles even further
Just so many fucking lols. I have Canopus rocking the Crossbow, but he didn't get much use in randoms for a while as I levelled Ninjas. I don't seek out randoms, but if I run into them I don't bail either.
Did do the crafting grind and yeah, those hats are pretty boss. Makes the skill worthwhile.
Also have to agree on the Parry type skills, they are probably there for filler. Not that they need the filler. I just got the statusproof skills on my menus and good gods there is so much clutter now I don't even know what to do. They cost 10000 skill points to get. What the fuck. Also lol at status resist skills having levels as well. Because you get so many chances to level them up.
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Dark Souls: Successfully navigate past enemies, fall down elevator shaft, die.
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FF13-2: Beat this last week, working on aftergame stuff, currently at 130 Fragments and there's still a Wild Artefact I gotta find for Oerba 300 AF's gate! ...thought I was done with that nonsense -_-
Kid Icarus Uprising: Got this, its amusing, etc. Not much else to say.
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Dark Souls: Successfully navigate past enemies, fall down elevator shaft, die.
Sen's Fortress?
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Nah. Far more embarrassing. Backdoor exit from Blighttown, New Londo Ruins. Just wasn't paying attention.
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This game is very very silly. Randoms are stronger than plot fights. Randoms have more equipment. So randoms have more defense. So randoms hit harder. You can retreat randoms so that is all well and good. It is just baffling. I didn't like go and grind or anything. Plot fights scale with your level as well (to a pretty extreme point). I just don't understand what this game is doing.
I must have missed these randoms, since the ones I fought were far less impressive than plot fights at the same point of the game. It should be noted I only fought randoms quite late, if that's a factor at all. I remember exactly zero challenging non-story fights, though, and while TO storyline fight challenge varies, it tops out at quite tough.
Pretty much seconding Grefter about lulz directed at the idea of weapon ranks hitting level 8, personally. I'd have to check my file but I really don't think I had anyone above 4, maaaybe 5, at the end.
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ToG- where the f stands for finished.
L&L final is kinda lame really. The stat swapping is all well and good but she was pretty good without th eabsurd MA, thanks. Very effective and tying you up and keeping you off her.
Core story is alright, you can tell they had this basic idea in the back of their heads but didn't quite know where to take it while doing the original release, and the fact that it's really a few filler dungeons plus an endgame crawl displays this readily. THAT said, all the good skits were saved for here; Malik and RICHARD make a great duo. I've seen people complain about the increased Asbel/Cheria content, but honestly it's just giving them the sort of urgency they lacked in the main quest to really push them to actually resolve their feelings. The one that's odd is how shoved into the limelight Hubert/Pascal was. It was a valid interpretation of some of Hubert's reactions but they really kicked it up beyond what's in character for the kid. Fortunately, trolling tag team duo.
Anyway, it's definitely 8/10 material, I think I like it a little more than ToS2 but it's not really on the level of Abyss by any stretch.
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TO-PSP seems to have been designed with the idea that skill growth should stretch across complete playthroughs of all three routes, which... sort of makes sense with the World system?
I know on my Complete Law Complete Chaos 1/2 Neutral playthrough, Canopus had maxed at least two weapon skills and everyone was at 8 in their primary weapon.
... and I still don't think I had Parry above 1 on anybody despite running it constantly. >_<
So yeah. Lots of them are just stupid.
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TO PSP- Stuffs.
This game is very very silly. Randoms are stronger than plot fights. Randoms have more equipment. So randoms have more defense. So randoms hit harder. You can retreat randoms so that is all well and good. It is just baffling. I didn't like go and grind or anything. Plot fights scale with your level as well (to a pretty extreme point). I just don't understand what this game is doing.
I must have missed these randoms, since the ones I fought were far less impressive than plot fights at the same point of the game. It should be noted I only fought randoms quite late, if that's a factor at all. I remember exactly zero challenging non-story fights, though, and while TO storyline fight challenge varies, it tops out at quite tough.
Pretty much seconding Grefter about lulz directed at the idea of weapon ranks hitting level 8, personally. I'd have to check my file but I really don't think I had anyone above 4, maaaybe 5, at the end.
Having checked stuff a bit more it might be because I am a bit overlevelled (I assumed plot battles scaled with levels more than they do or something?). 25 on my not archers and 27 on the Archers, so randoms have a tier of gear above store bought gear (Scored a Permafrost Bow on the way to the Hanging Gardens) and that might be the source of that? I dunno. Like I said, I didn't grind, but I don't avoid randoms and I did do 3 maps in the Forest place because uh I didn't realise I needed to go to a castle sometime in Chapter 2 for a plot point. So proceeded to the next Red location that showed up. "Wait this is a branching dungeon? That doesn't sound right. "
Definitely weapon level 5ish and I am up to the Hanging Gardens. Like I note above, got a Permafrost Bow, so Disco Fucker now has Augment Ice. .5 skill points per attack. lol once again. Up to the second mission in the gardens. Not a fan of paring back party size as you go further into the dungeon. Get what they were going for I think, but like have a cutscene telling people to stay back and guard or something. Don't just randomly strip out 5 party members. Final fight at this rate is going to be small party stuff of zzzzz.
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I'm not going to play God Hand much more because I know I'm not a bad enough dude. Sorry. Hard mode kicked my ass.
How far'd you get? If you make it past the dancin' stage 1 midbosses, you're a bad dude.
I wish! I didn't beat the first stage.
... I need to try again...
CT Crimson Echoes: Nobody never asked for a Marle solo section, seriously.
At least this makes Provoke very useful, for once. Slap it, princess.
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Haha, Provoke's theoretical use finally pays off in a game with better randoms than CT. Not shocked.
Grefter: The party size fluctuates in that dungeon (not just in one direction), and in particular you get a full party for the final boss.
SH2 - About to go back to Europe, just got through most of the really awesome story stuff! Gameplay features bosses getting OHKOed. I probably shouldn't get the optional fusions this time.
FF13 - At chapter 6. Where we learn that the main commando should not also be the main synergist. Or maybe just that the main Commando should not be Sazh, I'm not sure.
I'll play something new eventually.
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Persona 4's so good, I'm currently replaying it twice. (Once with a friend who's watched the anime and wants to see the game, but isn't interested in playing RPGs, and once on my own because I don't like being restricted on when I can play awesome games.)
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SH2 - About to go back to Europe, just got through most of the really awesome story stuff! Gameplay features bosses getting OHKOed. I probably shouldn't get the optional fusions this time.
I can hear your boss respect picking up a shovel and digging through the bottom of the well.
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They are what they are, there is nothing to really change my respect here. I do wish the boss design was less lazy, though.
<Kato> OH NO IT IS ASTAROTH, A TERRIBLE FOE WITH DEADLY POISONOUS CLAWS.
<Astaroth> hi I don't actually have anything of the sort, but uh I will 3HKO you with magic if you don't mind... like most other bosses you've faced so far. Try to forget to heal or something, please?
Though I do think the boss designer just thought demons were lame, because dudes with machine guns and mad scientists pilotting giant robots are certainly less fail, relatively. Even the best bosses are largely a mix of "ST status attack you heal with the appropriate item, GT spell you heal with Arc Cure" (assuming you aren't blitzing the hell out of things with the game's array of broken), which is rather unexciting, though. Amazing what SH3 was able to do to improve on this largely just by adding boss doubles and jacking up boss speed.
Regardless, I do have to stress that this isn't something to egregiously hold against the game. SH2 is a story game and knows it, it is very careful that the gameplay will never wall anyone from seeing the story. And its easy gameplay remains fun because the judgement ring is a very enjoyable timed hit system which the game does an excellent job of playing with (mostly this shows up in the Goreme trials, which I am enjoying this playthrough, but also with ring abnormalities), and is almost certainly the best such system in an RPG I've seen (certainly better than the Mario RPGs). It's also quite fast even despite taking the time to make judgement ring hits, and keeps the encounter rate to an appropriate level, neither of these being things you can take for granted in the genre. So I really can't find much fault with it.
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Kid Icarus: Just beat Pandora! She is totally the Icecream Pope's Evil Henchman.
Sonic Heroes: FINALLY finished the Hero route, and because Mandy asked, I showed her some of team Dark. That's probably where my playing of this game ends because seriously, fuck it.
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Portal 2: Aperture backstory acquired! Cave Johnson is still hilarious, GLaDOS backstory is somewhat less depressing than I expected (although there's still time for it to get worse). Now to figure out the first three-gel test, and then explode with some dignity.
SRWZ2 replay: Stage 22. Got the SR point on 20 easily enough the second time around. Z2-2 in a week!
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Shale, remind me to mention something about GLADoS backstory when you finish?
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TO-PSP seems to have been designed with the idea that skill growth should stretch across complete playthroughs of all three routes, which... sort of makes sense with the World system?
I know on my Complete Law Complete Chaos 1/2 Neutral playthrough, Canopus had maxed at least two weapon skills and everyone was at 8 in their primary weapon.
... and I still don't think I had Parry above 1 on anybody despite running it constantly. >_<
So yeah. Lots of them are just stupid.
To give you guys a better idea of just how damned slow some of those skills in TO grow, I just checked my 181 hour file where I did most of the sidequests (including PotD... twice >_<) and finished all the Coda episodes, and my highest elemental augment level is Denam's L6 Light. Meanwhile nobody has an Anatomy level higher than 3 in my entire party, and that's one of the first skills I buy for everyone. By contrast, I managed to max out Yuria's bow levels by the time I finished Worlding through Chaos route and going down PotD, and she's a postgame recruit. And these are skills that you actually get a chance to build up with normal everyday actions, let alone stuff like Steal, Parry, and the status resists.
I can't speak for Grefter, but I found random battles in TO more dangerous on average than plot battles because you ran into Dragons/Golems/Octopi far more frequently in randoms and you have to kill them. I essentially had only 1 competent attack mage and not a lot of crushing weapons for most of the game, so I had serious trouble damaging them until I started racking up broken elemental weapons for everyone. In story battles that had monsters, I could usually just send Archers and/or Ninjas to make a beeline for the comparatively squishy boss while my Rampart Aura users + status mage held the monsters at bay.
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Pretty much. Said Golem/Dragons/Octopi also seem to be higher level in the randoms and maybe have an accessory equipped.
On another note, I am going to have to test what the fuck is up with weapon levelling. I just shot Disco Fucker in the back of the head by accident with some angle problems and his bow skill ranked up. I can only guess at two things. My first thought was that you get weapon skill for being hit by a weapon type as well as firing it. Then I dismissed that as stupid and thought you might get weapon levels from Counter Attack without being actually able to counter attack. Just tried going back a turn and Punching Disco Fucker in the back of the head. No skill up.
what the fuck. I am going to have to finish the game and then give one of my mages Dagger skill and then stab them in the face with someone else.
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Yes, getting hit will level up weapon skills. Also stuff like anatomy.
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What the fuck were they smoking? Do you think it was trying to make like Augment stuff and Attenuate stuff make some sense and it splashed over to impact all levelling up skills?
Anyway, glad it is a known thing and I don't need to work out what the shit just to satisfy my curiosity.
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The only randoms I faced had quite inferior numbers/positioning to most story battles. I'm not exactly running scared of dragons or golems of any level if they aren't backed up with good support, and I played without an attack mage for the last third of the game (also when I fought most randoms I ever did, as mentioned). It's possible I just lucked into wussy randoms but yeah I'm seriously confused by hype for them; I never wiped to one nor do I even remember any close shaves or serious drains to my all-important revival item supply.
Of course I feel exactly the same way about FFT and I know I've seen people out there who disagree. (Weirdos.)
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I'm not going to play God Hand much more because I know I'm not a bad enough dude. Sorry. Hard mode kicked my ass.
How far'd you get? If you make it past the dancin' stage 1 midbosses, you're a bad dude.
I wish! I didn't beat the first stage.
... I need to try again...
First few stages are the hardest, since you don't have the moves yet to really deal with things. Leg sweep for godlike, etc. Piece of advice: when there's a checkpoint halfway through a stage, anything you leave on the ground will still be there when you continue, but when you continue you start at full health. So if you can manage to get to the first checkpoint without using ALL the healing items, it'll help considerably.
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Randoms haven't caused a wipe or anything, they are just significantly stronger than the story battles. It is like the armour fight in FF7 on the way to the submarine or the Turks fight with all three of them. It isn't exactly hard so much as you might need to pay attention.
For what its worth the ones I found hardest were definitely ones that were just a big open plain and you are pretty much surrounded. Throw in 4 or so dragons or Golems and you have a significant attrition war going where you don't have much terrain to work with. Jumping from doing 50-60 damage an attack to down to 10-15 on a person with Draconology or Golemancy or 1 on some people is a significant difference (I even gave one guy Herpetology just in case I ran into Lizard men and because the name made me giggle). I mean you might actually want to use Finishing moves on them!
Just did fight with a Necromancer and some undead stuff in the Hanging Gardens and got bored again. This final dungeon is such a mega snooze slog.
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KH 3D- I know I can always trust the Subasekai team in making a game that fully utilize the hardware. Outside the Drop system being completly stupid, everything elese is perfect. The control, the conceptual design of the battle, and the actual graphical prensentation or all superub.
Also, what is with this impossibily thick plot armor that Sora is having? To the piont I am feeling bad for Master Xehanort.
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CTCE: Provoke's good, but honestly every status is very useful. Enemies are damage sponge, not quite Xs2 level but they're a serious step up from vanilla CT. Sleep > Confusion > Stop, Hypno Wave being broken if enemies aren't immune.
Following MARLE SOLO, we get Lucca and Robo in some alternate reptite vs robot future. This is cool.
Then, Frog/Crono/Magus. Oh god. Perhaps the worst team. I died against the first random battle. Good thing the game is showering the player with Lapis (200 MT healing item) because Frog's 80 ST healing doesn't cut it.
The game is becoming more meaty! And I don't mind how blatantly unfinished it looks at times. Boss battles take too long, but otherwise no complaints. It's even better than CT about some things. I just hope Magus is a jeigan because it's embarassing how good he is right now. Best stats by far, being the earliest character with two elements, stealing, Omnishield to cut both physical and magic damage. Meanwhile, Frog has crappy everything. Come on now, romhackers. You're not 15 years old anymore.
Saints Row 2: Buried alive one man, nearly dispatched the ronins (I like how they're nearly all caucasians)
Sorry, but tragic deaths don't work in this game. Nope.
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Kid Icarus Uprising: "Hey, you're going to fight Medusa, so we're handing you a bunch of awesome stuff, including a totally overpowered weapon like nothing else! No, we weren't going to tell you that we're actually giving you this stuff until you actually start the mission, thereby making all your weapon practices and what not before completely meaningless!"
...ok, to be fair, its hard to complain about a surprise feature like that, because...really, you're handed something more awesome than you're expecting to use in that chapter. I just felt like being snarky!
So yeah, Chap 9 beaten. Game is still fun, quirky, and a sequel to a game made 25 years ago. Yes, that last part deserves repeating because the game totally doesn't go out of its way to remind you its been 25 years since the original game on a constant basis. Nope! Not at all!
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Tales of Graces f: Where the f stands for how am I still on my first playthrough!
The final dungeon for the future arc is a complete confusing slog through enemies with 20K HP on the low end, a maze of similar looking corridors and one-way warp points, everyone's favorite STATUS FLOORS! And my resources vanishing every five minutes. Oh, and me trying to get the materials for the Roleplay dolls. That'll be fun.
But first, errrr, second really now but you can bet your bacon and eggs I'll be back to bitch about the future final, where I last left off. ....And where was that....? *checks last post* Ugh I need to reply to... nah... Uh, let's see.... It's five days ago now. Right, I ragequitted because of new enemies. Hate world. Had to resort to going through on Hard because screw effort for that place. Seriously. Anyway, it ended with another sort of quasi-bossfight who I just kinda sleptwalked through. Whatever. After that it's off to Fodra for a new dungeon.
My talk about the final dungeon? Well one of the other complaints is that it's unreasonably huge. All three errrrr, well I guess four, well, three of the dungeons unique to the future arc are outrageously huge and this is the first one. It basically requires using the Book of Swiftness to move. And of course the enemies are still future-arc stupid-hard. Thankfully I can go toe-to-toe with them on Evil again. After the obnoxiously large dungeon we get into a boss fight with what is essentially the base-version of what's gonna be a giant pain-in-the-ass for the next two dungeons.
And then the place explodes and I have to deal with an obnoxious escape mechanic. Seriously.
Next dungeon ahoy, and we see the precursor to the final as it's an actual teleport forest. So of course when I actually muddle my way through to the end, the unholy end of bosses is among me. After two failures on Evil(the second of course being on the final wave) I just get pissed I'm taking so long on this game I wimp out down to Hard and sleepwalk through. And then take a convenient path back to the start. Giddity.
Then I piss away a couple hours flying around the world and finding out just where the Pow Hammer is. Then run scared. VERY SCARED! and the reward isn't worth it just gald seriously?
I take a quick crack at the final after that before getting booted off.
Then today/...no just today.
Final dungeon ahoy. I spent maybe four hours alone in the first part because it is so huge and samey and one-way. And during that time, I got a half-dozen of the drops of each type from each enemy here. I got the Soul Orbs for all of them.
And despite that, I still did not find the new weapons for Asbel and Pascal. So they're stuck with the ones they had before, while everyone else is rocking spiffy new Tales weapons. Now, they will actually drop from another enemy latter. This is still terrible and you will learn why.
After I spend way, way too much time in the first part I muddle through to the second. Which has the, joy of joys, status-effect floors! On something resembling an upside it's a good place to get the STATUSproof titles. If y'know, who got what wasn't pre-determined. Nine know how many times Asbel not having Freezeproof killed him. Now, there is a way to rid floors of the effect. You need to do this to proceed, but Nine know who'd be insane enough to leave them up anyway. In order to take down the effects you take down a local semi-boss and all is well.
Except when it turns out those mini-bosses turn into normal enemies in part three and they drop all of the F final dungeon weapons. Ha...
But before part three, it's a rematch against the swarm. In the Paralysis Effect which you can't get rid of. I think, I didn't get much further but eh... Anyway, just like before I get the swarm down to the final wave on Evil and then get reamed up the backside. This time I don't sleepwalk through Hard because all the skill I was using is gone so I actually waste more resources on the easier fight than I did on the hard version. Go figure.
Along the way I started maxing out stamps for the various cities. I was expecting more unique ores like from Telos... but nope, just one-buy only versions of default items. With fancy qualities. I can only guess these are what they want you to use to make the ULTIMATE weapons. Which.... you can't actually get in future arc... I think?
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Shadow Hearts Covenant: Beaten. I decided to do absolutely zero sidequests once the final dungeon opened this time, which means I should probably go back and do the final Goreme trials since I was enjoying those. Hien and Raiden are still utter joke bosses, but the final wasn't so bad. Still not a great final boss by any means (two of his support got OHKOed by a single Entrance'd spell from Anastasia, and he needed dispel so badly) but better than most SH2 opponents done this way certainly.
Ho hum. This playthrough I learned that I'd badly overrated Kurando. I can't say I really missed him for randoms (though I suppose he's better than Joachim/Gepetto there due to speed?) and for bosses he's just not much of a team player (can't buff/can't use Entrance/can't MT heal, only okay at combos) and SH2 bosses are all about team play; they don't really reward his good stats.
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I'd say Kurando's real strength is in his uncommonly strong physical with Jutendouji, which tends out outshine Joachim's skills in that matter if you don't have him transformed as I recall. But there's not as many physical fighters and the game rarely rewards one over the other, so yeah, I can see that.
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Final Fantasy 3 - Played a lot of this yesterday and the few days before.
-I think this game really picks up when you start getting a wider variety of options for job classes, as would be expected from a job class game.
-I think that two Mini dungeons is probably two too many. I can accept the first one for just being quirky but the second one was just unacceptable.
-Probably my least favorite dungeon in the game so far was the Ancient Cave. The enemies that split on their own turn aren't fun, they are just boring and take too long.
-Favorite dungeon is probably the Cave of Tides or the Temple of Time.
-Master Monk is pretty hilarious in that he went from being the MVP of the team from when you get the Water Crystal until the Ancient Cave. Then he became the LVP very quickly. High defense enemies I suppose.
-Big Rat is Satan.
-Garuda is Satan.
-Hyne is a pretty obnoxiously slow boss which has pretty vague hints that he will basically be a mega physical tank and I used up a lot of my MP in the dungeon because the dungeon was kind of f'ing hard. I beat him after like 80 turns though. Hooray for encouragement to hoard magic.
-Cave of Darkness cannot stand up to the might of STEELGUARD!
-This game's speed is not random. It just seems random at first. When speed gaps begin to appear it is pretty apparent that the mages are slower than the fighters.
I picked four random RPG characters and tried to keep their gameplay function as close to their in-game functions as possible. Without including gimmick dungeons (Mini dungeons and Garuda mostly):
Delita's progression has been Fighter -> Knight -> Mystic Knight -> Knight. He will probably end up as the team Ninja. He's been the physical fighter and little else, mostly because the other characters are a little more diverse even if Delita can technically be whatever class he wants.
Ana(stasia Romanov)'s progression has been... Black Mage -> Scholar -> Thief -> White Mage -> Conjurer -> White Mage -> Black Mage -> Summoner. She was assigned to be the Summoner because she says "I summon you!" for her attacks. Her HP kind of sucks due to the class selection, unfortunately. Thief was a class I wanted on someone and she spies in Rasputin and steals snacks! Or something.
Snow has been a Black Belt -> Black Mage -> Master Monk -> Knight -> Warlock. A decent representation of all of his three major roles, I think. Knight with two shields with all critical allies in the Cave of Darkness kind of rapes it, since the enemies seem to exclusively use physicals, including the boss. Amusing and very Sentinel.
Chris (Lightfellow) has been a Red Mage -> White Mage -> Knight -> Mystic Knight -> Shaman. This one was probably the least representative, since her HP isn't great and her role in S3 isn't really primarily of a White Mage, but she does fit well enough as one, which is why I ran it (and because White Mages are pretty vital and useful). I got some Knight /M. Knight time in there, so I am pretty happy with the results overall.
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I'd say Kurando's real strength is in his uncommonly strong physical with Jutendouji, which tends out outshine Joachim's skills in that matter if you don't have him transformed as I recall. But there's not as many physical fighters and the game rarely rewards one over the other, so yeah, I can see that.
Yuri is better still at physicals, but yeah, if you plan to run an offence based primarily around a team assault using Arc Rage, you're obviously going to use Kurando. Still that alone isn't a very good case for him to be the second best character in the game, which was the conventional wisdom I used to subscribe to until thinking things over this playthrough.
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I didn't realize there were other things you needed to do besides use Arc Rage and punch the fuck out of things. It's SH2. Pretty sure if Yuri's in your party nothing else matters.
Anyway, I'm replaying Alpha Protocol. I'm going to try and turn Marburg instead of killing him this time.
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Decided to do a run through of Saga frontier since I haven't played it in a while and I didn't have much to do this weekend. Picked Red's quest and as far as his story is concerned I just beat the final Black X boss (order I used was Shuzer, Berva, MBlack, Campbell.) Power wise, my characters are in destroy the game mode. Party is Swordsman Red with mind magic, Mage Rouge with Light, Realm, and Rune, Gunner Emilia with Arcane and Shadow magic, Fighter Liza and Rabbit. Health ranges are currently in the 700-800 range and I've done almost all of the sidequests.
For whatever reason, I hadn't seriously used a gunner before this playthrough and i have to say I'm impressed by them. 2-gun Boundshot is competitive with everyone's best damage (not counting Liza's DSC of course) and QuickDraw and 2-gun give them good physicals for randoms. They have trouble with some enemies like the undead and plants but Trickshot seems to well against those enemies and is generally one of the most cost effective moves in the game (2000-3000 damage for 2 WP? Yes please!)
Most of my resets were in the beginning. I decided to solo Sei's tomb with Red and got killed multiple times because of Dead Knight combo attacks. I was able to beat them when I sparked Gale Slash in the first fight and then in either the second or third fight against them ended up sparking 2-Gale Slash as well. I remembered that you could get the Shield Card without going through Mosperiburg in Red's quest but I must have done some event out of order because I ended up having to do it. I had another bunch of resets trying to beat the Red and Black dragon fight with a party of 300 hp characters. Eventually I was successful when Liza decided she actually wanted to hit with her throwing techniques which were by far my best damage. A nice side effect was that she sparked Giant Swing and Babel Crumble so she was in business for the DSC.
The one on one Shuzer fight had a couple of resets because Red barely lost the damage race and I didn't have any good ways to heal him, but on the third try Red was able to take him out. I also had a reset against a nasty encounter group in the Shingrow Ruins. I had just bumped up to a new encounter level and one of the first enemies I ran into was a Genbu, two ice worms and some moderately difficult undead enemy. The genbu was positioned just so that it blocked 3 of my characters from hitting the ice worms and on the first turn the two ice worms teams up to take out Rouge before he could MegaWindBlast them. The Genbu then proceeded to block most of the attacks from part of my party and the other two members didn't have the firepower to cut their numbers down in time.
Overall it's been a lot of fun. I'm impressed with how atmospheric some of the areas have been especially the broken ship ruins in Shingrow, the Bio Research Lab and Wakatu. It really makes me want a remake of the game with some of the stuff that got left out and just to see some of the areas with modern day graphics.
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Fudo, the F weapon drops in final dungeon usually don't have the Accel related skills attached.
Those you find in the chest does. (Ever dungeon in F arc you visited, whether new or old, should have at least one or two).
What you want to do with those weapon are pulling out those skills that increase Accel culmination put them on a jewl, refine them to the max, and tag it on Cheria or Hubert or Richard. And you know the rest.
The weapons themselves are actually pretty useless. The ones you can get in Zhonecage inside the main games are way better.
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Fudo, the F weapon drops in final dungeon usually don't have the Accel related skills attached.
Those you find in the chest does. (Ever dungeon in F arc you visited, whether new or old, should have at least one or two).
What you want to do with those weapon are pulling out those skills that increase Accel culmination put them on a jewl, refine them to the max, and tag it on Cheria or Hubert or Richard. And you know the rest.
The weapons themselves are actually pretty useless. The ones you can get in Zhonecage inside the main games are way better.
.....Uh oh.
Yeah, right now I'm only missing Pascal's final dungeon weapon but uhhh....
In retrospect, that seems so obvious. So I'll let you facepalm for me when I say I just sold off the versions that had the accel skills because I had copies and didn't check the skill tab.
Yeah, I figured the Zhonecage weapons would be better but these are the best... sorta, I have right now.
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Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Playing this. Hard to follow the plot because I'm playing in Japanese but it's Zelda plot so it's not like it's going to be all that different from any other entry in the series. Got through the first dungeon, really liking it so far. This game is what they wanted Twilight Princess to be with the Wii controls. Unfortunately the controls are still a little sloppy even with the new motion sensor controllers, but for the most part it works well. Also, they managed to make flying far less tedious than sailing was, which was something I was worried about.
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.....Uh oh.
Yeah, right now I'm only missing Pascal's final dungeon weapon but uhhh....
In retrospect, that seems so obvious. So I'll let you facepalm for me when I say I just sold off the versions that had the accel skills because I had copies and didn't check the skill tab.
Yeah, I figured the Zhonecage weapons would be better but these are the best... sorta, I have right now.
Uhhh.... in this case... then it depends on how much you want to abuse the Accel. If you truly want to break the game, you can play the F arc again after finished once, and the chests re-spawn.
KH2DS - The card battle mini-game is extremely addicting and distracting, I really should stop playing it.
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But is it more distracting and addictive than KH Monopoly?
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Kid Icarus Uprising: So...I just took down the Death Star. I mean that more literally than you think too...
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.....Uh oh.
Yeah, right now I'm only missing Pascal's final dungeon weapon but uhhh....
In retrospect, that seems so obvious. So I'll let you facepalm for me when I say I just sold off the versions that had the accel skills because I had copies and didn't check the skill tab.
Yeah, I figured the Zhonecage weapons would be better but these are the best... sorta, I have right now.
Uhhh.... in this case... then it depends on how much you want to abuse the Accel. If you truly want to break the game, you can play the F arc again after finished once, and the chests re-spawn.
Well I do enjoy a good game breaking. Once I beat Future and make my Save, can I beat the normal final again and load another Future save from it?
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Most of my resets were in the beginning. I decided to solo Sei's tomb with Red and got killed multiple times because of Dead Knight combo attacks.
Yeah, that fight can vary a little with luck. You need to go Alkaiser ASAP and hope your evade holds out there. Cotton would help some there, but he means no Alkaiser (bad) and the bio lab isn't exactly easy pickings regardless.
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League of Legends: Dabbling around in the MOBA field again. My attempts to learn to jungle have not gone well so far. Might just be that Fiddlesticks isn't the right champ for me.
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Most of my resets were in the beginning. I decided to solo Sei's tomb with Red and got killed multiple times because of Dead Knight combo attacks.
Yeah, that fight can vary a little with luck. You need to go Alkaiser ASAP and hope your evade holds out there. Cotton would help some there, but he means no Alkaiser (bad) and the bio lab isn't exactly easy pickings regardless.
I've done it before, but I seemed to have really bad luck with them triggering the DoubleSlash/StunSlash combo which results in a dead Alkaiser that early in the game. Of course, with Gale Slash all I needed was Alkaiser to get one turn, but getting that turn was trickier than it should have been.
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But is it more distracting and addictive than KH Monopoly?
It is more addictive, but not as distracting. As it won't take forever to finish like some of the monopoly maps.
.....Uh oh.
Yeah, right now I'm only missing Pascal's final dungeon weapon but uhhh....
In retrospect, that seems so obvious. So I'll let you facepalm for me when I say I just sold off the versions that had the accel skills because I had copies and didn't check the skill tab.
Yeah, I figured the Zhonecage weapons would be better but these are the best... sorta, I have right now.
Uhhh.... in this case... then it depends on how much you want to abuse the Accel. If you truly want to break the game, you can play the F arc again after finished once, and the chests re-spawn.
Well I do enjoy a good game breaking. Once I beat Future and make my Save, can I beat the normal final again and load another Future save from it?
You can, and I think you can just re-access the F arc after beating it, no need of fighting the main game final again.
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FF3 - Went through the fiery first part of the final dungeon. Delita is now decked out in Crystal armor! The HP curve in this game is pretty fun. Snow has 600-700 more HP than Ana.
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.....Uh oh.
Yeah, right now I'm only missing Pascal's final dungeon weapon but uhhh....
In retrospect, that seems so obvious. So I'll let you facepalm for me when I say I just sold off the versions that had the accel skills because I had copies and didn't check the skill tab.
Yeah, I figured the Zhonecage weapons would be better but these are the best... sorta, I have right now.
Uhhh.... in this case... then it depends on how much you want to abuse the Accel. If you truly want to break the game, you can play the F arc again after finished once, and the chests re-spawn.
Well I do enjoy a good game breaking. Once I beat Future and make my Save, can I beat the normal final again and load another Future save from it?
You can, and I think you can just re-access the F arc after beating it, no need of fighting the main game final again.
Neat. I'll probably fight him anyway since I should be beefy enough for an EVIL win this time though.
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Dark Souls: Asylum Demon, Bell Gargoyles, Capra Demon, Stray Demon, Gaping Dragon, Quelaag, and Moonlight Butterfly all down. Currently traipsing through the Catacombs. Should have grabbed a divine weapon.
Regardless, Zweinhander remains ludicrously awesome.
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Kid Icarus Uprising: Just beat Chapter 20.
I have determined that the more Trolls Pit has to deal with, the better. Oh, Palutena was hilarious and great, but lets face it, you can only do so much with just her! Add in a few more goofball gods, and hey, things are fresh again!
Thankfully, they introduced the others soon enough that Palutena never reached that "getting old" point.
...that said, people who complain about the characters "never shutting up" need to have a stronger sense of humor. Yes, the characters keep talking, but they keep the dialog actually creative and witty, and its not like they're constantly reusing jokes (and when they do reuse jokes, there's often a cute spin on it, or its done in a "Running gag" style, so it still works.)
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Dark Souls: Asylum Demon, Bell Gargoyles, Capra Demon, Stray Demon, Gaping Dragon, Quelaag, and Moonlight Butterfly all down. Currently traipsing through the Catacombs. Should have grabbed a divine weapon.
Regardless, Zweinhander remains ludicrously awesome.
The necromancers are generally dumb enough to stand in plain bow range, so it's usually not too bad in there even without a divine weapon. You do want one for the subsequent dungeon's boss, though (probably a ways off, mind).
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Pft. PFT. A real man only needs ONE weapon and is totally willing to just aggro all 8 skeletons to kill the necro.
I'd rather just ignore Tomb of Giants forever, though. I've had one experience with it on my previous playthrough. I think I made it 10 feet before I decided I had entered hell and would run away screaming.
Then a giant skeleton killed me.
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Pft. PFT. A real man only needs ONE weapon and is totally willing to just aggro all 8 skeletons to kill the necro.
You are playing a girl.
(You can't reach the Tomb of the Giants boss until after clearing Anor Londo anyway, so no point going that far down yet. Also it is painful getting out of that place when you can't warp. I went down there as early as possible when I ran a cleric just for the divine/miracle stuff you can get out of the trip. It was very oh my god what.)
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To be fair, Andy is always playing a girl.
TO - So finished this. Started playing a bit more aftergame stuff. Got bored. Think I am moving on.
Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 or whatever the order that string of words is supposed to go in - Started this up. DQ menus in ur pokemans. Wow. You can order characters what to do! Have to manually do it each turn. Cursor defaults to auto fight command each round. So great when you are trying to run away from giant worm. Giant Worm does not actually game over though, so that is okay I guess. Not sure if I can put up with DQ bullshit enough to play this for all that it looks like it might be fun.
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I played ManShep all the way, thank you.
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This is why you are no good.
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Meh, Meer has improved hugely since ME1. Also FemShep's idea of being sexually forward is to say things that sound like they came from the mind of Dennis Reynolds.
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SRWZ2-2 - ISO get, but no time to play yet.
KH3D - Water Barrel is such a wonderful thing, I almost developed the same fetish as Ashton. That barrel had saved me so much grinding time. The only thing that us left to farm are the fusion materials....
And... I can not anticipate the affect that Roxas's words is going to have on the doujin market.
And god, is Shimomura awesome or what? The Xemnas fight is so well done.
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I played ManShep all the way, thank you.
I wasn't talking about in videogames. I was far more horizontally minded with that statement.
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SRWZ2.2 - got, started. Up to the first pathsplit (four paths, four stages each, then a two-way split depending on whether you
took the path of righteousness and virtue went with Tetsujin 28 or not...and you thought Z2.1 was splitty). Awesome so far. Brasta's animations are much improved from Hakai-Hen - far less drawn-out and with an actual sense of impact to them. SR points aren't a constant string of "finish in X turns." There are actual mission objectives other than "smash everything." Oh, and Tetsujin is awesome.
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Pokemon Card GB2 GR団参上!
Started, because I've never played it. Got 3/4 of the GR Coin, need to hunt out GR4 dude and kick his ass in a childrens' card game. Almost double the amount of cards there were in the first game, and includes the Team Rocket card sets (Dark <Pokemon>). The AI is actually kind of competent, retreating feels like they do it at opportune moments. The option to select gender is present here, which is a p. big plus in my book (though they don't seem to explain how the female character got recognition as beating the Grand Masters in the first game, while you played as Mark/the guy in the first game). The opponent decks are also pretty competent too, but that's most likely because your selection of cards at the start of the game is pretty damn limited, the GR decks that the Club Masters give you are dual-typed but are the common ones (I haven't encountered any Psychic dominant decks yet, and I don't have any Electric-centric automated decks, so I don't have enough Electric energy cards to make my own). As usual, some battles are heavily luck based. You don't need to do the tutorial/practice match anymore, which is a plus too. Skipping animations is a good idea, you can mash B and finish matches smoothly and quickly!
It almost feels like different Coin types affect your Coin Toss luck with different types of Pokemon. With the Green Coin, I was able to Paralyze-lock a LV37 Moltres with LV8 Tangela's Stun Spore 5 times in a row, for example. o.O
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Kid Icarus Uprising: Finished! Now onto all the aftergame stuff because MY GOD THAT'S A LOT OF ACHIEVEMENTS and what not.
Anyway, game is quite fun. Might as well point out my "issues" with this game:
-Control scheme. I know everyone has ranted about it, but the controls really could have used some fleshing out. The main problem is the camera, which is annoying to control, and sometimes you'll change it by accident. There had to have been an easier way to handle that. Dashing can be annoying at times, but nothing too game breaking.
-The Villain. Now, I don't mean his personality, writing, etc., but rather, the fact that he was the villain. Game does this thing of "He's the villain...well, no, he's not, he's just a troll now...wait, no, HE IS THE VILLAIN!" IN a serious plot, where "troll" would be a more serious role? Yeah, that could have been a nice twist, but in a game like KIU, he really should have maintained the "Questionable Ally" role because he was a lot more amusing as that and it turns him more cliche by making hm the villain again.
-"What the fuck is hitting me?" syndrome. This happens a lot. If Pit is positioned a certain way in some areas, and the attacks have some homing, you can be pelted with a lot of damage out of nowhere and not see what's hitting you, and even when you move, you're still taking damage. You can go from Full Health to less than half really quickly as a result.
None of these flaws, even the control one, are enough to really destroy the game's enjoyment. Its fun and the dual system (Air and Ground based combat) works rather well, Air Fights especially. The writing is absolutely hilarious for the most part, and keeps you smiling. Palutena is an amazing troll too. It offers a nice range of weapons too, and the weapon fusing strongly encourages experimenting and using what you feel comfortable with, and many options within each set...yeah.
If you liked the first Kid Icarus (or the gameboy sequel)...it'll have no impact on the enjoyment of this game one way or another. Oh sure, first 9 chapters have a heavy emphasis on referencing the NES game, to the point of using Screenshots from the game and what not, but you don't need to play the original to get the jokes there! This game is about as different from the original as Mario Kart is from the Main Stream Mario games. This isn't a bad thing mind, and since its a sequel to a series that hasn't had an entry since the early 90s, you may as well go all out and change everything, because to most people getting this game, they probably haven't even played the original games, so they have no clue what to expect, so it might as well be a new IP.
Also, lets face it:
This game would not have been made without Brawl. Brawl actually made people remember Pit existed (and many were introduced to the character through Brawl), so being able to actually market a Kid Icarus game in the modern times became logical.
Unlike, say, FE Shadow Dragon, they did it properly too. Oh sure, it doesn't mention Pit by name, but...
(http://www.bigshinyrobot.com/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/kidicuprisingbox.jpg)
Do you have to when this is your box art? That's a very obvious and distinguishable character on the front, even wielding the Bow and Arrow from Brawl (despite how he doesn't actually use it that much in this game).
Its like how FESD could have sold itself to people not-Fans of the series entirely on "Marth is in this game!" and didn't do a damned thing to promote that this is "The one with Marth." I seem to recall that his name doesn't come up at all on the back of the box, nor does he appear in any of the screen shots. I think we can call that a "big failure."
Anyway, if you have a 3DS, I recommend at least giving this game a chance. Its fun and neat, and...well...watching a DMC HD review, I think I'll quote them, but adjust the line a little bit to fit this game more:
"In an era of gaming where action games take themselves way too dark and seriously, its a nice to have a game like Kid Icarus Uprising that is light hearted and doesn't take itself seriously at all!"
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Saisei-Hen: Holy fuck what did they do to Twin Satellite Cannon. Remember the Twin Buster Rifle MAP from Alpha 3? Imagine that with infinite range on the beams and ridiculous base power.
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Tales of Graces f: Where the f finally stands for finished. At 94 hours Nine what is wrong with me.
Anyway, I went and got Asbel's f final weapon(naturally I forgot Pascal's entirely until the ending cutscene was playing) and putzed around a bit to get Asbel's last A-Arte to Master. Which also unlocks the title that gives him his Second Mystic Arte shortcut. Of course that'd be a big help against the final boss. If I actually bothered to grind for it. I also went and grabbed the Roleplay titles for everyone so ultimate harem dream plan is one step closer to an octotail conclusion.
Anyway, final was frankly boring. I had flashbacks to Abyss' stupid crap because Asbel can't hit that(or tap that) half the time. After getting it down to phase 3 or so on EVIL I just run out of steam and let it kill me. Wimping out on Hard barely makes thing easier because Phase 4 is the unholy spam-child born from.... something. Look I've been awake two hours give me a break. Back to good old adult land. Hilariously the joke fight that opens Zhonecage got me dangerously low on health because I was too busy trying to spam B-Artes up. After that I muddle about on sidequests.
Oh yeah there was an ending there wasn't there? Well not really. Both adult and future had really lackluster endings. I should not be looking back and Abyss and even Symphonia for better endings dammit. At least the ending slide answered my burning question of why Victoria randomly shows up in a bikini during the Arena. Also Fouriour's apparent gorilla arm.
Back to Adult land... The Dark Wings in this game are just so stupid... Which is impressive because Noir and co aren't exactly D+ material either. Ah well, Black Mambo Ried will always be there for me at the end of a long hard day.
Finished up the doll quest as well. Which certainly put an interesting little spin on some things for future even if it was kinda stupid.
Yeah, I guess that's it. Other then laughter at trying to pigeonhole anything into a stat topic.
I might try and half-ass my expectations and feelings regarding the plot. Maybe. I doubt it.
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And god, is Shimomura awesome or what?
Welcome to 1999.
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Hey, SMRPG soundtrack is pretty cool and that's 1994.
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FF13-2: Fragments 160/160. All achievements/Platinum Get 31/31 :) The final achievement unlocked was Trigger Finger, the one for successfully pulling off and obtaining all the prizes for all the Cinematic Actions during the main story, there were a couple I screwed up a while back while playing through it but I locked gates/re-wound story events and went back to fix that~
Watched the Vanille's Truth, Beneath a Timeless Sky and Heart of Chaos endings again and then re-did the final stretch of the main story for the Chrono Savior and Anomalous achievements before then too. Secret Ending/Scenes Get (the one after the credits w/th 160 Fragments + Paradox Scope and the new scene from going to the Valhalla node after) ~
I have a uber Purple Chocobo for racing - L99, A in Speeed, A in Stamina, infused with ten passives on top of it's default two for a total of ten passives for a list of ten racing abilities/skills for it to work with. So far Bocoloco has won all of the races, in every class including the secret races at least once =) For most of these Bocoloco had Mog riding on it's back (Mog Figurine from race prizes) though to start with it was wearing a Coronet and it's currently sporting a Cute Cactuar~
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Psychonauts - Replaying this on steam. Love the game still. But I hate it right now. Meat Circus is still fucking stupid as fuck. They nerfed it on PC so it has a lot less teeth. Things that used to throw you back to the start because you would run out of lives are pretty much neutered to doing damage to you instead.
That is all well and good, but the shitty fucking platforming is the things that kills it, not much else. Escort quest bit was dumb, but the thing that is breaking me and threatening to make me break my hand is the platforming part of the final boss. Specifically jumping between climbable meshes with fire on them. Respawns going through some mindless jumping shit, then you get to try to jump between meshes with pretty close to the worst possible camera angle, the most awkward motions (got to jump between them in a spiral, so jumping out straight then turn into them) and worst of all is the double jump just randomly not working.
Fuck everything about this part.
Edit - Mission successful. I had a minor mental breakdown because of shitty fucking controls. Pscyhonauts living up to its name.
Edit 2 - aaaaand enterred a fugue state for 5 or so seconds after I saved when I got to second last panel. Failed jump because camera angle changed mid jump. Loaded and it takes you back to the start of the section.
Mind completely shattered for a bit there. I just moaned in disbelief.
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FF3 - Done! Cloud of Darkness is a big big bitch.
FF2 - Went to a dungeon, open treasure chest, HILL GIGAS, death, turned game off. NES GAMES!!!
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Lost Odyssey: So I started this. Was disappointed that Fuck-Me Pumps dude is not in fact yet wearing fuck-me pumps. Clearly he must go through a villainous breakdown first. Other than that there has been very little gameplay so far, not the first game to start slowly in this regard but it is a usual complaint. Story-wise it seems okay, some decent setting work I guess although the characters aren't yet grabbing me and-
*dream sequence*
Okay this game already has better writing than 50% of the genre, good job.
Final Fantasy XIII - Chapter 10. Using Vanille/Fang/Sazh at the moment. Mmm, gameplay.
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*dream sequence*
Okay this game already has better writing than 50% of the genre, good job.
They hired an actual author to do the TYoD sequences. He didn't touch the actual story I don't think. Which I think you'll be able to tell quite easily over the course of the game! Still, good little snippets of story throughout is better than most manage.
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That was sorta what I was thinking.
At least during the rest of the game I'll be able to have fun at the expense of the character designer.
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FMP gets his kit on about a quarter of the way in I think. And yeah the dream stories are magnitudes better than anything else the game has to offer. Unfortunately I wasn't really able to work out how they actually fit in continuity wise with the tech levels of the rest of the game, but that doesn't matter.
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The difference between the dreams and the real game gets very jarring later on.
Valkyria Chronicles: Started.
"SECOND WORLD WAR! ^_^ ^_^"
Yeah.... The battle system looks really easy to abuse, and cutscenes are so long. I'm starting to worry.
Saints Row 2: Finished the game. It's slowly starting to become obsolete, like older GTA games, but it isn't quite there yet.
Yattaf scares me, but she listens to Tears for Fears.
Saints Row the Third:
Is the Mass Effect 2 to Saints Row 2's Mass Effect 1. If that makes sense. Also, more ridiculous.
I like the evil French speaking villain. "Please, I am Belgian!"
Mother 3: Save erased...
Mother 1: Trying to beat the last dungeon with only Ninten and Lloyd. And failing.
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One is good and one you have to stare at horrible clothing?
Psychonauts - Forgot to say I beat it yesterday. I have like 4 more steam achievments not got in normal OCD completionist run through. They are pretty early fun parts of the game, so might go ahead and get them.
SW:ToR - Started up a Smuggler to play around on Australian servers. Up to Tatooine. Tatooine kills all Star Wars boners.
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Saints Row the Third:
Is the Mass Effect 2 to Saints Row 2's Mass Effect 1. If that makes sense. Also, more ridiculous.
I like the evil French speaking villain. "Please, I am Belgian!"
Just wait until the crazy starts ramping up.
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"Please, I am Belgian!"
Then go make yourself a fucking waffle.
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SRWZ2-2: My first, and thus far only, fully upgraded unit: the Tower.
I make good decisions.
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Tales of Graces f: The Zhonecage is trippy maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
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Fudo, you only say that when you are at the end of it.
KH3DS- I'll have to put a stop on this for now despite I really want to complete the trophies and collect all the pets, as SRWZ2-2 is over there tempting me and I can't resist.
Overall a pretty good game, and would be better if it is not on a hand held. All the wall kicking and blitzing and climbing and all the stuff they let you do to fuck with the map. I mean, serious, you literally can travel over the sky scrapers in The World that Never Was and fly all over the place, if wasn't 3DS such a tiny handheld and doesn't feel good when trying to maneuver the movements. Though, I feel like screaming at Nomura for not doing this back from KH2.
And the evil evil drop system become less annoy later on as there are ways to control it eventually, and that system is a pretty good source of cash due to its nature. Which is nice, as it is far easier to buy the materials from Moogles rather than farming it.
As for characters, Riku>>>>>>Sora in this game. Why? Riku's unique skill set is simply way over the top, plus he can get them early. Meteor Burst is pretty easy to access by the mid game, and it destroys grunts and bosses alone at AMAZING efficiency. It is 1.2 bar of a boss's hp if landed right. Dark Splicer might come in late, but it is such a ridiculously good boss slayer, it is the perfect counter to all the teleport spamming, auto evading end game bosses, especially when Riku has to deal with more of those by end game than Sora. Dark Aura's damage is also ridiculous and another good more at wiping out grunts.
Oh, Dream Eaters can be carried over in the next game cycle, aka Riku get to use broken tech early. Critical mode might be a lot easier than expected once I have the time to start on it.
Sora? Tornado and Holy isn't nearly as efficient compare to all the broken techs Riku has. Holy Rise also got a nerf compare to the BBS version, Final Break and Break Time are simply useless, and Sonic Rave simply just don't do enough damage. Fine he has Last Arcanum, which is an amazing tech this time as it automatically connects on every hit and very hard to intercept. Too bad in comes in so late, with Xemnas being the only person to use it on.
I also like the boss design in this game more than KH2. This game has less "boss spamming long move with ridiculous invinci frame" or "you need to combo for damage but we counter a lot" that KH2 has. The boss are easier to hit, easier to intercept, and no more stupid over the top invinci frames. But to compensate for the bosses, they have much more fire power. There are a lot more of tradings blows than KH2, where boss fights usually is "it is always Sora's turn" or "It is always boss's turn".
The plot? Wow gee, Nomura actually fixed what he has to fix. Riku finally stopped being insecure about himself and go this master title, Sora finally had his brain worked out..... okay I did froze a bit and stare at the screen when Roxas renounced his identity against Sora's wish.
But still, like all other KH, the Disney World really needs to stop being fillers. Almost nothing happened until The World that Never Was.
Very enjoyable game over all, I'll have to return to this after SRWZ2-2 is done.
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Kid Icarus 3D: Never really played the original, so bought this because its cheap, and beat it! Managed to find a nice exploit with Medusa's AI where positioning yourself at a specific height lets her fire directly under you at the angle she fires at, but you can keep shooting at her and continual fire means her Tanatos summons get killed as well!
Fun little game, though seems to get easier as it goes on oddly...which is inversely intuitive to like everything else!
Kid Icarus Uprising: Working on the first picture achievements as much as possible, currently doing easy ones like "beat boss using this weapon!" and what not.
I have learned that the game actually has randomized generic dialog. It seems it has a large pool of dialog between Pit and Palutena, at least in the first section of the game, where sometimes Pit/Palutena will say things that are all encompassing of the scenario. I saw the exact same exchange in 2 different levels, and I was certain that was not said in my first times through those levels. This isn't a bad thing, more of a random trivia fact <_<
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FF2 - After getting conquered by Hill Gigases, I finally triumphed over the Deist Cave, where I put a dragon egg into a pond for some reason. I love how no one spoke of this plot again. Then Hilda tried to come on to me, which I should have known was a bad sign because Hilda has better taste than that. Sure enough, Lamia tried to murder me.
GORDON is back. Oh yay, I love my great temps.
Next I save Hilda, and then I watch Gordon mack on my lady. Pisses me off.
Next uh I killed some guard captain in the castle, that was easy. Then I did a quest to find a mask under the castle after the Russian ninja told me how to get in.
Firion has 2 INT. He hit thing with sword, it hurt real bad. The other two are a little more balanced. I am leveling Berserk, Flare, elemental spells, Cure mostly. Osmose is hax and doesn't really require building.
FF2 is delightful.
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"One is good and one you have to stare at horrible clothing?"
Olga/Yattaf is wearing an Oktober fest dress right now. So no.
I know win 15k per hour and haven't done the second mission yet. Hey, at least I'm playing hard mode. I'm looking forward to the craziness (I only know about the laser shooting jets)
Alan Wake: Finished.
About 2/3rds through the game, they tell you all the plot and there's nearly no mystery anymore aside from "Dude is this all a dream or not?" which is standard fare. Then near the end it starts making no sense anymore like it's a Lynch movie. To give you an idea, there's a final plot twist at the very end but I have no idea how this is supposed to matter.
Gameplay continued to be kind of allright and not very scary. The game showers you with ammo and you lose all of it at the start of every chapter (+some random points), which is a very good idea as this means you can experiment / go all out. But this also means that it's never really scary even on hard mode. Outrunning enemies is almost impossible anyway, so you might as well kill everything.
Mother 1: Finished with only Ninten and Lloyd. The game didn't care and acted like I had Ana in the team.
It is still a grindy mess, but Mt Itoi is not as bad as it could be thanks to 4th dimension slip. Once you get to the healer house everything is handed to you (at least if you never recruit Teddy)
Lloyd never stopped being utterly useless compared to Ninten. It's like... A Fighter/Thief party in FF1, except the Fighter has 4x more speed than the Thief, Thief joins underleveled and Fighter gets all the White mage spells while Ninja doesn't get magic. Yeah. That sounds reasonable.
Seiken Densetsu 3: Playing with a friend thanks to nethack like it's 2005.
Kevin/Lise/Duran is just plain nuts in the earlygame.
I've also wanted to try an SCC but it looks like I've already done one...! My memory is awful.
(Fenrir Knight SCC, obviously. Might try again as Duran, Angie or Charlotte)
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Sonic Generations: Finally started this, found a way to start a new file on the Main Account without affecting Mandy's file. That useless Memory Card I had FINALLY came in handy for something!
Anyway, just beat Perfect Chaos.
Game is...basically what I expected. Best Classic Sonic has ever been (controls are just as good as the Genesis, Stage designs are overall better and more creative, less glitch nonsense that screws you over) for half the game, other half is basically Sonic Colors without Wisps (this is a neutral thing as while Wisps didn't hurt Colors gameplay, they also didn't enhance it either, so you could throw them out and game would be just as good). So yeah, living up to the hype so far.
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Found my old DDS2 stat topic notes - didn't have any boss data, nor did I have information for Cielo at Lv 40 (meaning I couldn't get any damage averages for the temps).
So, naturally, I decided to start again, using the notes I've got already to shape my playthrough. I'm following Mantra paths based on what people start with, with some slight exceptions (everyone gets Devourer, Gale only gets one of the final Physical Mantra, Seraph/Cielo get basic Hunt skills but not the fatal ones, but also get Spirit/Bhikkhuni in order to get the Hunt skills) but I also don't have Heat. Ah well.
Don't suppose anyone can find me any notes on DDS2 stats/skills? I'd take a look, but the laptop I'm on here is horrendously slow, so it'd take me ages to get anywhere, only to potentially find nothing. :|
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Are you looking for some kind of specific in depth mechanics, or just general information like Mantra trees?
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Preferably something in-depth. I've got some basic stuff that I've managed to gather from a few playthroughs/tests, but I haven't got information on some of the weirder stat uses (I'd guess Luck affects more than just status/crit/miss rates, for example) or on which statuses take priority over others (again, got some from my own tests, but at the moment, it's basically just "Curse > all"). Also, HP costs of moves, although I imagine that one will be easy enough to find when needed.
Lastly, any AI information at all would be great, mostly for things like "Do physical skills use enemy HP?" or "How much evasion does [boss] have?"
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Do physical skills use enemy HP?
I'd be stunned if the answer was yes, for a variety of reasons. Also, I imagine a lot of the info you're looking for is in Fenrir's boss notes for the game, have you found those?
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"I'd guess Luck affects more than just status/crit/miss rates, for example"
I doubt it affects anything but those and drop rates. (Sorry, but Cielo just sucks)
IIRC I've thrown a lot of random data in the DDS1/2 stat topics. I doubt the mechanics change very much between the game, aside from -kajas/kundas. I've also fought bosses a ton of time and often stalled fights to figure out their moves / HPs, I never saw a significant difference. So I doubt their moves have HP costs.
Rayman Origins: Finished world one, co op. Lovely. Very similar to New Super Mario Bros Wii, with a bigger focus on speeding through levels rather than precise jumping. (much like 'splosion man) Competition between players (lots of slapping) is still there but more harmless. 100%ing this game sounds hard and great.
Valkyria Chronicles: Played a few other chapters, warming up to it. There aren't that many cutscenes, and I still don't know what's the optimal way to do things and am experimenting.
Saints Row the Third: Loren ;_;
I have seen one truly awful machine in the BDSM mansion.
Pokemon Ruby:
Nuzlocke challenge!!
- Any Pokémon that faints is considered dead, and must be released.
- The player may only catch the first Pokémon encountered in each area, and none else. If the first Pokémon encountered faints or flees, there are no second chances.
- No dupes because seriously, THE FIRST POKEMON IN EACH AREA IS ALWAYS A ZIGZAGOON. 7 fights against dupes and the player cannot get any pokemon in the area.
I've never done one before and I don't even remember anything about Pokemon Ruby. I'm probably dead before the second gym leader.
Team:
- Treecko lvl 9 (Benny)
- Zigzagoon lvl 4 (Ziggy)
- Poochyena lvl 3 (Ephraim)
Edit: A level 3 Seedot killed my level 7 Ephraim. Rest in peace.
Holidays.
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I need to do a DL Pokemon run. Meeple is totally a Luvdisc.
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I doubt it affects anything but those and drop rates. (Sorry, but Cielo just sucks)
Thankfully, DDS2 rectified this slightly by giving him a more useful stat (go go evasion-whore Cielo with high Agi/Luck~)
Anyways, that's pretty cool. I haven't had much chance to look around for notes (seriously, this computer sucks) but I'll see if I can get to them now. I'd rather not use DDS1 notes, just in case there is a change, but I suppose I'll look at those too, just as a basis for any notes here.
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I need to do a DL Pokemon run. Meeple is totally a Luvdisc.
...no. Just...no. I'm pretty sure Eph's the one who is Luvdisc, and even avatared him at some point.
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Now, Loudred, on the other hand, is constantly making noise, although most of it is meaningless~
/me flees.
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Sonic Generations: Beaten! I then went back to try out the new awesome ability the game gives you, followed by fighting Metal Sonic to Sonic Boom because...seriously, that's how the fight SHOULD have been!
Silver was a nice fun fight, Egg Dragoon not so much. Egg Dragoon wouldn't have been so bad if the fight didn't take forever to kill; not only does he take a lot more hits than any other boss in the game, but he's only open during specific moments that can be easily missed, and the fight gets monotonous, and the falling section really just gets obnoxious.
The Final was...rather unfun. Not that Super Sonic Final Bosses have been all that fun to begin with, but this was especially boring. S Ranking it attempt #1 means that I must have been doing everything right though <_<
Overall...game is just great. The fact that the Sonic Fanbase is bitter about this game just shows how unpleasible they are. It IMPROVES Classic Sonic style with better controls, less glitches, more intuitive physics, etc., and has the best of Modern Sonic, and is a perfect representation of the series from the original game through Colors. Furthermore, the ending credits managed to outdo Dissidia in terms of Nostalgic Fan-service, and that's no easy feat. I really can't find a reason to say this is anything but the best the Sonic Game ever.
That said...
Best Classic Stage: Gonna go with Crisis City. Its hard and stylish, and really makes you work, but never feels STUPID about it. Its exactly how difficulty should be handled.
Worst Classic Stage: Seaside Hill. Besides the cool Whale bounce thing, this stage offers nothing. Its a bland attempt to basically put Aquatic Ruins/Hydro City/etc. in the game with a different paint job, and has nothing going for it. Its not difficult (though not trivial), and unoriginal.
Best Modern Stage: Rooftop Run or City Escape. City Escape is impressively faithful to the original version despite that not being a Modern Sonic Game, which just goes to show how Sonic Adventure 2 really was "Proto-Modern Sonic" in terms of style, Rooftop Run is just very well done, and stylish, and NOT a carbon copy of the original (which they totally could have gotten away with, because that was a really damned fun looking stage in Unleashed and Unleashed uses the same style as Modern Generations.) Honorable mention to Crisis City because damned was that impressive how they made that FUN.
Worst Modern Stage: Seaside Hill again. See, the Classic Era Sonic stages were cool to see the adjustment into Modern style, what with Green Hill Zone's FISH CAVE or the Exploding Chemical plant, the others were faithful adaptations of the originals (or flat out immense improvements in Crisis City's case), then we have...this stage, which offers nothing but a go cart section that is mostly a MACH SPEED section but less interesting.
Best Boss: Shadow. Stylish, uniquely designed, and really everything a rival fight SHOULD be. Silver and Metal Sonic weren't bad by any means, shadow is just exceedingly good.
Worst Boss: The Final. Poorly done Super Sonic style boss, as I said.
Best Contribution to the game: Even Sonic Adventure 2 or Sonic 2k6. City Escape and Crisis City are great, and both games contributed fun rival boss fights. I think I'll give 2k6 the win here just because "Holy shit they made Sonic 2k6 LOOK GOOD" which edges out the Shadow fight or something.
Worst Contribution: Sonic Heroes. Having the worst for both style stages, and adding nothing else, there's really no contest. and its not the home game's fault either, because Sonic 2k6 is easily the worst game they used of the 9 and well...see above <_<
Oh, I will say this:
While I was disappointed with Planet Wisp being Sonic Colors stage, I will say the stage (both styles) was well done and it surprised me they actually incorporated THAT mechanic into the game. Nice little treat.
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"I'd guess Luck affects more than just status/crit/miss rates, for example"
I doubt it affects anything but those and drop rates. (Sorry, but Cielo just sucks)
If even all those (At least, P3 doesn't get hit/miss and DDS is somewhat similar enough that it wouldn't be surprising to see most stats generally work the same way).
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I need to do a DL Pokemon run. Meeple is totally a Luvdisc.
Meeple is a Ludicolo.
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Meeple is either a Chatot or a Loudred.
Note that I typed this before I read Yoshiken's post.
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Planet Wisp seemed like a weird choice at first, but it turned out to be exactly the kind of level the game needed more of - a wilderness environment taken over by Eggman/Robotnik's factories.
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I need to do a DL Pokemon run. Meeple is totally a Luvdisc.
...no. Just...no. I'm pretty sure Eph's the one who is Luvdisc, and even avatared him at some point.
Seconding Snow here, Meeple is clearly Ludicolo.
Eph is surely Poochyena.
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Planet Wisp seemed like a weird choice at first, but it turned out to be exactly the kind of level the game needed more of - a wilderness environment taken over by Eggman/Robotnik's factories.
Its mostly that when I think of Sonic Colors, I think of these really unique looking terrains, that are really colorful and just stand out. Look at Astro Coaster, Starlight Carnival, and Aquarium Park. Heck, even the first stage, Tropical Resort, stands out like this.
Then there's Planet Wisp, which is more like "its on its way to becoming that" and kind of stands out as not that way. Its not representative of Sonic Colors in terms of design, I feel.
TO BE FAIR, Planet Wisp was well done in Sonic Generations, both visually and in terms of layout, but at the same time, I feel one of the other stages could have been better. Personally, I'd have gone with Aquarium Park to be the "Token Water based stage", and chose a more interesting stage from Sonic Heroes (TO BE FAIR, its Sonic Heroes, so options aren't exactly interesting, though, I remember liking the Castle stage in that game)
Whatever, can't hate a stage that ends up being fun of course, and Planet Wisp is hardly bad in that regard. Truth be told, the only stage I feel that was "bad" was Seaside Hill, though I'm not a fan of Rooftop Run Classic (it loves its spikes a little too much), GRANTED, Rooftop Run Modern makes up for it.
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I liked Rooftop Run Classic for giving 16-bit Sonic some ways to engage with the layout of the stage. You've got a point about Planet Wisp not really being representative of its game, I just thought it works well as a representative of the series as a whole.
SRWZ2: holy shit Dynamite Explosion is the best thing ever.
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FF2 - Just got Leon. He's pretty lame.
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Laggy is also Farfetch'd. I am Delibird. We need a third for a Single-Evo Birds Trio.
Trips is also Zapdos, but that doesn't count.
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Laggy is also Farfetch'd. I am Delibird. We need a third for a Single-Evo Birds Trio.
Trips is also Zapdos, but that doesn't count.
Which generation are we talking about again? Or does anything go? If anything, Chatot could fill that void.
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DDS2: Man, I always forget how brutal Abaddon is. It's even worse on a DL-legal run where Cielo will never have Fire/Earth/Force and is forced. Gah.
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Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising - Done. Finally. Holy crap this game took me forever. Really interesting system in the same way that Yggdra Union excites me with just how -different- it is compared to most RPG styles. I'm always happy to see that there's a lot more directions the supposedly-idea-dead RPG genre can take. I may play AW3 soon, but I'm going to put some time into some other games first, since I hear they are VERY similar.
I want to do -something- DL-related with the game mechanics here, but apart from some fun mental exercises, I can't really think of any tournament format the units/characters would fit into...
Re: Pokemon
Clearly the time has come for "The Great DL Pokefication"!
(Disclaimer: I may or may not have chosen these with a dartboard)
Meeple: Meowth
Snow: Jinx
CT: Marill
NEB: Ninetails
Ciato: Arcanine
super: Bulbasaur
Ko: Ivysaur
Andy: Flareon
Ashley: Vaporeon
Idun: Butterfree
Sopko: Eevee
Captain K: Alakazam
Namagomi: Mr. Mime
MagicFanatic: Nidoking
Neph: Dratini
Rob the Stampede: Tauros
Random: Exeggcute
Fenrir: Houndoom
Eph: Blastoise
Nitori: Poliwhirl
Shale: Kabutops
Laggy: Farfetch'd
Trancehime: Dragonair
Niu: Raichu
Dhyerwolf: Entei
Yoshiken: Luvdisc
Snowfire: Cyndaquil
hinode: Staryu
Metroidcomposite: Abra
Tonfa: Bellsprout
Gate: Plusle
Eternal: Squirtle
NotMiki: Jigglypuff
Talaysen: Mew
Grefter: Croconaw
Pyro: Chimchar
Sage: Slowbro
Stelas: Seel
VSM: Psyduck
OK: Chancey
Djinn: Charmander, of course.
These choices are all 100% the most accurate choices possible, there is no room for debate what-so-ever.
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Yoshiken: Luvdisc
Fuck you too. :(
When I catch a Stunfisk in B/W2, I'm calling it Djinn now.
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Andy: Flareon
Welp, I'm convinced. This guy knows his stuff.
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Djinn: Charmander, of course.
No, I don't think so. You're totally Ditto.
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NotMiki: Jigglypuff
I'm not that jiggly!
/me runs, sobbing, into the corner, pounding a tub of Ben & Jerry's
EDIT: Actually, typing that out reminded me of middle school, when I was bullied for being slightly overweight, among other reasons.
...
Where's that Ben & Jerry's...
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Pretty sure Eevee for me was the result of the dartboard.
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Clearly I just think of Sopko as Fluffy and Cuddly and likely to get too close to a radioactive stone.
Jim is clearly Jigglypuff because he's the most likely to get on top of a soapbox with a Marker-Microphone and put people to sleep.
Djinn: Charmander, of course.
No, I don't think so. You're totally Ditto.
Hmm... maybe you're right. ;)
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Plusle? Cold, man. Cold. ;_;
Anyway, playing more Tales of Graces: Freindship is Magic. Up to unlimited sidequest works after cocoon. Which I had to fight the bosses of twice due to being a derp and not saving after then getting exploded by some random gimmick fight. Second boss was...I won't say hard, just really bloody annoying with too many defensive tricks.
Will prolly end up poking Tal/Xer in chat about sidequestan to make sure I don't miss anything good.
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Random: Exeggcute
Well that's a filthy lie :/.
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Nitori: Poliwhirl
manga adventures eh
I'm okay with this
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I'm a Jinx? Calling me ugly is grounds for a public execution, you know.
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Captain K: Alakazam
'Stache powar.
Should MC be concerned that I'm her final evolution?
=======
Skullgirls: great art and music, seems like a really solid fighter - if you're hardcore into fighters. It's not casual-friendly at all, and there's a disturbing lack of polish on the things that aren't the game itself. I mean, I can understand not having ingame movelists if it came with an instruction booklet. But it's a downloadable title...
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Plusle? Cold, man. Cold. ;_;
Anyway, playing more Tales of Graces: Freindship is Magic. Up to unlimited sidequest works after cocoon. Which I had to fight the bosses of twice due to being a derp and not saving after then getting exploded by some random gimmick fight. Second boss was...I won't say hard, just really bloody annoying with too many defensive tricks.
Will prolly end up poking Tal/Xer in chat about sidequestan to make sure I don't miss anything good.
It is death. Destroyer of worlds.
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I'm a Jinx? Calling me ugly is grounds for a public execution, you know.
Simply the first Ice-type I could think of. Your name is Snow, after all. Also, I'm saying you're Psychic! And a girl? Whatever, dartboard, man.
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Andy: Flareon
Ashley: Vaporeon
Well. Our relationship can be quite steamy.
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Andy: Flareon
Ashley: Vaporeon
Well. Our relationship can be quite steamy.
Pics, Nao
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Trance absolutely has to be (male) Gardevoir. There is no other acceptable option.
Well, okay Kirlia might fit even better.
Also Gref is clearly a Geodude.
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Cthulhu Saves the World: Beaten.
That only took about 8 hours. Cool.
Made some bad choices early on with skill choices, particularly with Umi. But once I figured out not to immediately Insane Strike everything, the game got a little easier. Paws is my favorite PC, because Meow is awesome for my "Insane-ify first, ask questions later" style of play, it seems.
Cthulhu's Angels Mode: Also Beaten.
Second verse, same as the first, only about 10x funnier (except for Molly... what the hell). Final Boss of this mode is the best final boss. Elona was pretty amusing overall. Dark Umi wins for best new character. October manages to just be there, despite ostensibly being the main character...
Angry Bridge wins for best random boss design.
Rank CstW plz. kthnxbai
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Tales of Graces F: Beaten the maingame, doing the L&L arc.
The core of the system is pretty good. Chain Capacity gives a great deal more flexibility than the typical normal combo -> Arte -> Arcane Arte mixup that is so overused in other Tales games. Most characters have Artes that function differently enough in terms of AoE/damage/typage/windup/recharge to make Chain Capacity pay off in terms of balancing various options for starting/ending/escaping from an attack sequence.
The implementation of A-Artes instead of basic physicals works well enough, and I can't really complain. I dislike the system that ties A-arte usage to spell time reduction because it really should have let any arte usage decrease subsequent cast times. As is the game's AI just can't take advantage of this system and it feels kind of unfair to Cheria/Malik. Still, having variable skills to mix things up in place of typical "stand there and hit a single enemy a bit" is a great idea.
The titles system is good in theory, poor in implementation. Being able to set the build pattern as you want is cool in theory since you can prioritize getting certain skills/stat boosts before others. The problem is in actually acquiring titles! It winds up vastly favoring PCs you are using to the point where you damn those you aren't using as much. The oddities of some of them like "Get inflicted with X status 5 times" are also silly, and I am chagrined by the fact that you have to use many skills hundreds of times for some titles. Silliness.
The plot started out as kiddier than most Tales games because everybody was a kid. This segued nicely into the adult arc by giving the characters some background and letting you see where they developed from. It also featured one monumentally stupid decision on the part of the MC! The beginning of the Adult arc takes this and runs with it, forcing Asbel to contemplate just HOW stupid his decision was and how things have gone south for everyone. The political nature of the plot from here till the 1/3rd mark works pretty well! It doesn't mesh too well with the less serious characters (Pascal), but it is a compelling enough narrative to keep me hooked. Then TALES PLOT kicks in and you're off to save the world. Yeah.
Characters are good but not up to Vesperia's level. I'll rant about em later.
I do have to complain about some boss' capability of raping your spellcasters from across the screen. This is just wrong in a game where spellcasters are your healing/revival. So yeah, I'll bitch about it because there's little you can do about it and it is annoying.
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ToGF opening chapter didn't really catch my interest, figured I'd knock out one of those games that have been sitting around a couple years instead, ran the first couple chapters of Bayonetta. How does she not dislocate her hips strutting around like that all the time.
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Pokemon Nuzlocke:
Which pokemon you are doesn't matter. You're all dead.
Some punk named Brawly killed everyone.
Saints Row 3: Finished. Finished most of the good stuff in the game. (not including finding objects and doing every little task 250 times)
I like how I had enough money to buy everything / max respect juuust at the very end.
The highlight was Tron world, but most things from that point on are gold (except gangstas in space) I don't know what Volition could ever possibly do with Saints Row 4. I'll probably never be able to go back to Saints Row 2 despite the less attractive city now.
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Saints 4: Gangstas in Time. Make it happen, Volition.
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Lost Odyssey: The plot is less coherent now... Kinda having FF12 flashbacks. Not a fan of this latest Ice Dungeon now that I'm in Disc 3. However, Jansen's ability to talk smack like a boss and the various off-color humor parts like Auction House Chickens make the maingame story worth it. If only Cooke and Mack were less... there.
The Dream sequences continue to be exciting! Recently got The Butcher General one. I was genuinely trying to figure out whether anything was actually happening to him or if it was all in his head during that one. Despite the conclusion, I'm still not convinced one way or the other is definitive. Very cool.
Genuine point of confusion (possible spoilers?) : Is Aneira some kind of sentient bird or is s/he supposed to be like an angelic figure? The two Dreams about Aneira so far seem slightly conflicting here. And since this seems to be the one Dream that actually gets referenced in the main plot, I figure someone would know.
Gameplaywise, it seems like a game that would be easy/interesting to stat topic. The further along I get, the more obvious the build options for the Immortals become, and while they'll all be a lot more similar in a stat topic than they are in practice, they should still maintain a pretty notable edge over the Mortals and make a diverse cast with lots of options. Kaim or Sarah would make a pretty awesome Nyarlie's contender, too. I need to figure out how GC works, though.
There haven't been any plot bosses to really write about so far, though. All of the boss fights have been really fun and interesting(gimmicky?) so far, and despite the recent drop in difficulty, they would make decent duelists, but there's just no plot for like... ANY of them! They're all just tanks or random large hungry monsters or whatnot.
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There is like only one plot boss in the games and that is Captain FMP. Aneira a non-human with wings and a long lifespan. General rule of thumb is given the number of dreams that are relevant to the plot it suggests that everything they describe are legit and not metaphor.
999 - So this game has a good plot. Then there is puzzles and shit and they bore me. Not because they are bad or anything, but because the plot sets the bar too high and I just want to see that. Probably my loss, but oh well.
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I thought the game was pretty straightforward about Aneira being just the last of a winged race of humans that have exceedingly long life spans relative to humans. Its why he and Seth were able to connect on such a level, because he'd be the one thing that'll actually last (if still temporary) when everything else around Seth keeps disappearing, thus being the only friend she'll have throughout the ages. I guess I should give a nod to the game for stating Seth and Aneira did NOT hook up, and were merely close friends, not falling into a cliched "lovers!!!" scenario.
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The core of the system is pretty good. Chain Capacity gives a great deal more flexibility than the typical normal combo -> Arte -> Arcane Arte mixup that is so overused in other Tales games. Most characters have Artes that function differently enough in terms of AoE/damage/typage/windup/recharge to make Chain Capacity pay off in terms of balancing various options for starting/ending/escaping from an attack sequence.
I think any moves do. Just spells takes longer to cast if you start with them, so the reduction effect takes longer to be apparent if you starts off with only spells.
A-Artes is much fast to use, you can acquire reduction of 3 actions worth in a just a few seconds.
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Witcher 2: Enhanced for her pleasure Edition. So I play the tutorial, and the game suggests I should play the main game on Easy. Fuck you game, you're not the boss of me! So I play Normal. And then I'm trying to fire this ballista and there's 4 guys fighting me at once and they have shields and I die a lot despite using The Force on them. Anyway I finally get through this.
So is throwing daggers really awkward on the PC version? Cause it sucks here. I'm assuming you could just point and click on PC? Bombs aren't so bad because you just have to hit in the general area.
Also, I have a concern: Is it safe to store my Witcher 2 soundtrack next to my King of Fighters soundtrack?
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As long as the Witcher soundtrack is far above the KoF soundtrack.
Also, you're about to enjoy 2011's GotY, so get pumped.
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Shin Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible / Revelations: The Dragon Slayer (US Title):
Randomly stumbled across this little SMT title while looking through my completely-legal collection. It is SMT-style gameplay but in a standard tropetastic JRPG world that might well have been directly stolen from Final Fantasy IV...
Of course I loved it.
Finished it in about 8 hours with a guide and the emulator's 'go faster' button. I never knew this title even got -translated-. It's really fun collecting the various demons and fusing them together, and the fact that there's multiple human PCs to play around with really rounded out the experience. Plot was Lufia 3 bad, but I love Lufia 3 too. There's something about Gameboy Color RPGs that I can't help but love. I'd say it's nostalgia except that I never played a handheld RPG until GBA's Lunar Legend (and THAT most certainly did nothing to encourage me to play more handheld RPGs... >.>;; )
The final boss is named Lucifer, but other than that, I'm not sure what any of the game has to do with Last Bibles...
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Bayonetta: Well, it's basically a DMC game, so naturally I die a lot. Aside from some camera dickery, though, combat is pretty smooth and polished. Everything else is the expected manner of ridiculousness, which mostly just washes past me. Also, if Enzo isn't Joe Pesci, the voice actor is a pro at mimicking him.
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So yeah, it looks like Disgaea 4's been putting out DLC for a while now. But now I have recruited Priere, so all is right with the world. Additionally, Nisa is available. Oh the fun I shall have. Currently playing the Tyrant Valvatorez flashback chapters. They're actually quite good storywise, assuming you like bromance. Fully-voiced and full of awesome. Looking forward to the release of the Zettai Hero Project Unlosing Ranger DLC! Then I can have -all- the Superhero N1 characters! Prism Red, Nisa, Unlosing Ranger, Dark Hero Axel, and a random Masked Hero would round things out. Kind of wish Almaz was available...
N1: gotta catch 'em all?
Reminds me that I need to buy Dis3 Vita
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I had a hankering for some pokemon so I decided to start up a new play through on HeartGold and to make it more challenging I'm going to do a grass type only run again. It should be different from the RSE playthrough because the grass type pokemon are just so different from the ones available in RSE. So far, I just beat Morty's gym and the final team looks to be something like Victreebell, Meganium, Sunflora, Jumpluff, Exxegutor, and Tangrowth. Levels are around 21 and I have everyone except for Tangela. I feel that overall these are better pokemon than the ones available in RSE, but HG is a lot less kind for grass pokemon than RSE what with all the poison types running around.
The team definately feels a bit different right now. Right now my offense is almost entirely normal and grass type moves and it sucks not having a pokemon like Nuzleaf who can use Nature Power or something to get in some different attack types. The good news is that HG's grass types are a bit more traditional than RSE and I have much more access to status powders and leech seed compared to RSE where Breloom and Vileplum were the only ones who got them. It also feels like I have a lot of pokemon with Synthesis.
As far as significant battles go, mostly they've just been a matter of surviving while leech seed and poison wear down the opposition. As such, Falkner, Bugsy and Morty have all been pretty hard. Bugsy and Morty both had pokemon who could 2HKO all of my guys and were faster (Scyther with u-turn, Gengar with shadow ball) and I had to wear them down with Bayleef and Sunflora respectively. Whitney and the rival battles have been pretty simple. Milktank loses to Bayleef one on one if it's been leech seeded and poisoned and the rival has been pretty dumb in all of the battles I've had against him. His Quilava preferred debuffing my guys instead of Flame Wheeling them which means he gets taken down by leech seed and poison. I think my team's movesets are going to get a little better soon so hopefully the future battles won't take as long.
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DDS2: Fuck the Gate Core. It's fine normally - Flare Cannon isn't usually barely missing a OHKO, thanks to buffs/debuffs. In a DL-legal run, though, nobody gets those. That means Flare Cannon is potentially leaving people on single-digit HP. That's not too bad, though. What is is when the other two guns manage criticals/weakness every single time and somehow land them in just the right places to barely KO my party.
I should really either grind or just stop playing so I stop getting annoyed at games, but I'm apparently a sucker for being killed in the most irritating way repeatedly.
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You're playing SMT. Being annoyed is the crux of the experience.
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Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.
I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.
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Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.
I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.
Most of the levels will have these hidden teleporters called Alfheims hidden around where you have to beat up angles in a time limit with a certain restriction in place (enemies can only be hurt in witchtime, must use angel arms etc.) They look like yellow orange circles glowing on the ground. Doing the Alfheims will fill in the blank entries.
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The core of the system is pretty good. Chain Capacity gives a great deal more flexibility than the typical normal combo -> Arte -> Arcane Arte mixup that is so overused in other Tales games. Most characters have Artes that function differently enough in terms of AoE/damage/typage/windup/recharge to make Chain Capacity pay off in terms of balancing various options for starting/ending/escaping from an attack sequence.
I think any moves do. Just spells takes longer to cast if you start with them, so the reduction effect takes longer to be apparent if you starts off with only spells.
A-Artes is much fast to use, you can acquire reduction of 3 actions worth in a just a few seconds.
This lines up with my experiences as well. You can kind of see it if you use cheap B-Artes that cast quickly (Pyro Ring for example) but A-Artes are just faster still.
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DDS2: arghlefuck, reached Vritra. Here is where I lose all motivation to continue.
Tried it a few times already. First, got him to 25% before getting fucked over by Sonic Wave, of all things. Second try, I got wiped in one turn - Gelid Torrent off the bat, double-froze and 3 MT attacks after the Torrent meant Cielo couldn't survive. Well fuck.
One more try at Lv 38, grinding a little if this fails.
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Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.
I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.
Most of the levels will have these hidden teleporters called Alfheims hidden around where you have to beat up angles in a time limit with a certain restriction in place (enemies can only be hurt in witchtime, must use angel arms etc.) They look like yellow orange circles glowing on the ground. Doing the Alfheims will fill in the blank entries.
Ahh, I see. That would require me to actually be capable of clearing any of said challenges. Alas.
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League of Legends: Derp, derp. More or less.
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Disgaea 4: DLC
Finished up all the available DLC chapters/bonus battles for this. The Tyrant Valvatorez flashback chapters are the highlight here, though there's a fair number of hilarious scenes in the DLC PC's recruitment battles. Particularly liked Adell/Rozalin's. Looking forward to the Phantom Brave, Zettai Hero, and Baal package, as well as the new Desco/Fuka Mode.
So yes, lots of cool stuff. But mostly it's the fact that now I have pretty much the entire roster of world-destroying entities of the N1 universe at my command on a single team.
TL;DR:
(http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/OverlordIconFull.png)
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Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.
I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.
Most of the levels will have these hidden teleporters called Alfheims hidden around where you have to beat up angles in a time limit with a certain restriction in place (enemies can only be hurt in witchtime, must use angel arms etc.) They look like yellow orange circles glowing on the ground. Doing the Alfheims will fill in the blank entries.
Ahh, I see. That would require me to actually be capable of clearing any of said challenges. Alas.
First off, if you get to an Alfenheim, I'd say try it out first, and see what the requirements are. Some are actually not too bad like "Beat this fight with only taking 3 hits!", which is a good opportunity to practice dodging at no real penalty, and possibly get reward in the process.
Secondly, some of the fights do require some backtracking. The game will always tell you what Verse you've just completed, so you can check if you've missed any kind of through that.
You don't have to do all of them, of course, if you're playing casually and just want to finish the game, but if you want a COMPLETE PLAYTHROUGH!!!!! or something, you'll need to do them all, but seeing as you are probably skipping Alfenheims (which count in this regard), its probably best you don't bother worrying about it too much.
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Did I really just kill an angel by chaining her astride a metal horse and stomping her into pieces. Is this really a thing that just happened. I think it is.
Re: Alfheim, yeah I'll always walk in and give it a try if I find one because why the hell not. Haven't passed one yet. No real plans on going back for 'em. As with DMC3, game is fun enough for me to keep going but not so much my style that I want to do a completionist run.
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DDS2, DL-legal run: So apparently I wasn't Lv 38, my levels were 36/36/34. Checked a guide, it recommends 35-40, and that's with things like Void Fire, Dekunda and Sera being able to do something useful.
Welp. Now I'm 37/37/36, and cheating slightly. (Using Karma Rings, for all that I'm selling away all of the gems to boost them.)
Not really sure how to take the Hidden Mantra on the Mantra Grid. I guess, in a DL-legal playthrough, if they're activated, then they'll go towards their final stats/the averages. Not that it matters hugely, it just draws in the curve a bit.
Anyways, first run at Vritra with new levels, and I get murdered on the first Inferno Roar because of Sonic Wave -again-. Fenrir, are you sure that's 20%? I'm consistently getting at least one, usually two characters hit by it, and not just because of Cielo's weakness. But anyway, I'd decided Sera could have Bufudyne so she could take out Tentacles. Turns out, having Bufudyne while Panicked and using it instantly to waste all of my turns -isn't good-. Next Inferno Roar left Gale on 11, and he got Panicked as well. Well. Fuck.
Edit: Second try at these levels is a win! Apparently, only getting silenced by Silent Howl once, never missing with Zionga/Zanma and having Vritra spam Gelid Torrents at the end, right into Ice Drain, means I'm very likely to win.
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SRWZ2: This game is so broken you guys. SO BROKEN.
For one minor example, let's take the Love spirit. It's one of the most desirable spirits in the game - damage, guaranteed hit, immunity to the next attack, extra experience and cash.
There's an item that casts Love for free once per battle.
There's an original who gets Love for 40 SP, in a game where SP totals run in the mid-100s with 12 stages to go.
And then there's Basara, who can cast what is essentially Love (minus the guaranteed hit) on up to four people at once for 35 SP. And he comes with SP Regen.
So....yeah. It's a testament to the shocking competence of original enemies in this one that I've still managed to have people die in the last couple of stages.
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SRWZ2: This game is so broken you guys. SO BROKEN.
For one minor example, let's take the Love spirit. It's one of the most desirable spirits in the game - damage, guaranteed hit, immunity to the next attack, extra experience and cash.
There's an item that casts Love for free once per battle.
There's an original who gets Love for 40 SP, in a game where SP totals run in the mid-100s with 12 stages to go.
And then there's Basara, who can cast what is essentially Love (minus the guaranteed hit) on up to four people at once for 35 SP. And he comes with SP Regen.
So....yeah. It's a testament to the shocking competence of original enemies in this one that I've still managed to have people die in the last couple of stages.
Whatever spirits Basara has on him at the time (less Gain and Lucky since they're automatically transferred) are transferred via that spell. So... Hot Blood, Awaken, Accelerate, Lock On, Concentrate.
You can indeed transfer what is effectively Love to four people.
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Did I really just kill an angel by chaining her astride a metal horse and stomping her into pieces. Is this really a thing that just happened. I think it is.
And that isn't even remotely close to the nonsense you'll be seeing later in the game!
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Lost Odyssey:
Still putting away at this. The level of quality "JRPG-ness" has dropped considerably, though it's still pretty good for a standard JRPG. The cackling-mad villain is starting to grow on me in an ironic way, which changes the whole experience. Also, Tolten is such a dumbass. How long do you need to figure out that someone is evil when you -catch them standing dramatically over the ruins of a disaster, cackling evilly-?!
It's called genre-savvy. Get some.
Also, I thought I noticed a few other people playing this on backloggery - any updates on where you guys are?
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Well, I figured out what can make me ignore Z2-2 for a while. Diablo 3 beta. Free weekend. This will either be awesome or horrible, but at least I'll find out.
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Witcher 2: Everyone in this game is either bald, or wearing a head-covering to cover up their baldness. Seriously, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Ri3HqKvig&feature=player_embedded
Only the main character has hair, which is to make it obvious to the person playing the game that he is the main character. He's like Bobobo-bo-bobobo fighting the Hair Kingdom.
Anyway, Bobobo has recently failed to stop the evil Hair Hunter from killing King Foltest. Honestly, shouldn't he have seen that coming from the title of the game?
And before someone says that Triss has hair, that is obviously a wig. I saw her naked, and she is like chemo-patient hairless.
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Lost Odyssey - Huh, the first boss was pretty legit.
Not much to say past that. Glad that we finally got some gameplay, it was getting a bit slow. Gongara is such a great human being, he just saved Tolten's life! I'm glad we're working for this guy. Also Jansen is a complete idiot, I just can't decide if he's a funny one or not.
The game's voice acting and especially body language/motion capture work is a bit stiff, unfortunately, which really hurts the epic storytelling feel they're going for. Ah well.
The game is very clearly in the same series as Blue Dragon, but the tone is just so utterly different. It's a bit jarring. All I will say is, thank god we didn't get a thousand years of Shu's dreams. Nobody wants to see that.
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The game is very clearly in the same series as Blue Dragon, but the tone is just so utterly different. It's a bit jarring.
Wait, whut? Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?
Also... how?
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I think he means same series in the same way FF games are the same series.
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Reminiscent turn system, similar spells and items, Kelelons, both having lots of tiny treasures everywhere to drive OCD types mad... think there were one or two other things I've already noticed.
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Huh, I see. I suppose that's interesting. Same 'series' seems like a bad term. It's more like same company carry-over, or some other similar term.
Trinity Universe:
Finished Kanata's story. Working on Rizelea's. I -will- finish this before I have to return it to Tal at DLCon! Surprisingly long game despite the very static gameplay.
Got this scene recently. Had to share it, if for no other reason than Rizelea's delivery on some of her last lines and Flonne's reaction to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvMk_sh2X5U
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DDS2 DL-legal run: Reached the temp point! Saved just before Kartikeya, gonna take a shot at her and, if I can beat the fight, that seems like a good level to take the temps at. Currently looking at Lv 45 for everyone - anyone who knows DDS2 able to tell me if that seems fair? My last run somehow hit Lv 40 - I have no clue how I survived the Airport in that file. Fuck fighting Ice-immune, Force-absorbing enemies when 3/4 characters use those elements.
Edit: Looks like Level 45 gets me a win on the second try, so sure, that works. Now time to spend an age getting temp stats!
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Diablo 3: Fun, but also laggier than a Laggy. I hope that's just the stress test factor. Anyway, beat Leoric with a dual-swords Monk. Next up: Barb, maybe? It's the one D2 class I never touched.
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Huh, I see. I suppose that's interesting. Same 'series' seems like a bad term. It's more like same company carry-over, or some other similar term.
Same design team makes a game in the same genre with repeated spells, items, some enemies, and other signatures. Sounds a lot like Final Fantasy to me, so yeah, I'll call them a series.
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Yeah, same series. Just like Tales of and Star Ocean. Or SaGa and Seiken Densetsu. I don't know, it's just semantics, but I'm of the opinion that Final Fantasy is the oddball one when it comes to what makes a 'series'. I mean... if similar terms for spells and systems is all it takes to make a series, then even FF is kinda slow. It took them 12+ games to finally re-use the word "Esper".
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Tales and Star Ocean are made by different companies and the games I've played have zero overlap in terms of things like spells, items, and enemies (beyond complete fantasy staples). Saga and Seiken Densetsu are slightly closer due to the Square Enix tie-in but it still feels like a major stretch unless you can think of things connecting them that I am missing. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are very clearly connected for reasons I already stated, about as much as any two Final Fantasy games.
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They even share a couple of otherwise unique status effects. I don't remember Tales and SO having any type of similarity other than being ARPGs I guess. (And Saga and SD have what in common? Not even battle system.)
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D3: Demon Hunter. Rapid Fire is absurd. I can't wait to see what runes do for it.
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The first Tales was made by the team that became tri-Ace. Most of the item names and functions are the same in the earlier games, but that's about it for similarity.
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Tales and Star Ocean also share a number of similar location names, and spell names (Earth Glaive, Ice Needle come to mind), and similar skills like Demon Fang. And yeah, Namco's Wolf Team went on to become tri-Ace after ToP.
As for Seiken and Saga, I was thinking more along the lines of both series' similarities to FFs in the SNES era (so much so that their earliest entries were branded as FFs in the States). Bahamut Lagoon and Rudra no Hihou use some similar spell/item/monster names/sprites as well.
Trinity Universe: Complete! True Ending get! Humorous little romp, but glad to be done with it. Tal, your game shall be ready for you at DLCon.
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Bayonetta: The game that answers questions like "How are you alive in a vacuum?" with "Motorcycle."
Finished. This was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Normally the over-the-top approach doesn't really reach me, but I can't help but admire the effort these guys put into being absurd. Seriously, I'm still laughing about some of the crazy shit that went down near the end of this game. I mean, there are plenty of games that culminate in the player killing a god. This is the only one I can think of where you punt God into the sun. And have to steer her around planets en route.
Jeanne fights I think were the highlight, even though the last one was infuriating. "Hi, I have four health bars and can hit you from anywhere on the map with missiles that have a narrow counter window you have to make four times and barely damage me even if you succeed. Also here have an instant death quick-time event. Or two." Jeanne why is your crotch glowing purple. You might want to ask a doctor about that.
Miscellaneous stuff:
-QTEs continue to be lame. I mean, for once I kind of understand why they're there--the developer wants to do something cinematic that wouldn't work in regular gameplay, but they don't want you just sitting there watching, right? I can tell that's how these guys were operating just because, well, see above spoiler text, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, etc. But in practice they're usually just an annoyance that throws me off.
-The novelty stages didn't really work. I appreciate that they want to break things up, but man, And Then Bayonetta was a Shmup isn't really the solution. Wouldn't have been such a bother if enemy projectiles weren't so easily obscured by enemy death explosions.
-Wasn't a regular occurrence, but the camera could be monstrously uncooperative at times. I died pretty quickly first attempt against the final boss just because I couldn't tell what the fuck was happening.
-I don't even know what to say about the fanserviceness of it all. It'd be easy to handwave it all as part of the general absurdity of the production, but when there are so many ass shots that even the Cid can only roll his eyes, well.
-I continue to fail miserably at this kind of gameplay. I mean, it's fun and all, but wow, I only got something other than the worst ranking on two chapters. Bronze on the giant sea rhino thing, gold on the penultimate boss--which was probably the only chapter where I had no deaths.
-Related to that latter note, apparently getting hit by a building doesn't hurt very much.
-Enemy design was pretty great. The gold and white angel theme is just a rather striking and unique look for videogame enemies. Then again, not may other games are built around deliberate angel genocide.
So yeah. There were some problems, but nothing more than the sort I encounter in damn near every 3D action game. It was fun, anyway.
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Yeah, that pretty much all sounds about right, Cid.
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For the record...
A. Almost no one likes the Space Harrier sequence. Its a part of the game universally smashed and when Hideki Kamiya was asked by GI about how people thought it "took too long", he just responded "What? I personally loved it and think its perfect length!" Yeah, its one of those "the developers loved something, but the players did not" moment, and yeah.
What irks me the most is Jeane 4, which IMO is the game's Highlight fight, is attached to that mission and you can't skip it. So you have to spend like 10 minutes of boring Space Harrierness to go to probably the most fun fight in the game. And no, its not Halo Grinding as an excuse for this; Darth Pope is in a mission by himself, and gives you MORE Halos as a boss bonus for beating him.
B. Bayonetta is suppose to kick your ass on your first playthrough, so you're not the only one. I personally got a Gold on the Prologue Mission, a Silver on the 2nd, then most Stones from there on in with a scattered Bronze in there, until yeah, Pen-ultimate boss who gave me...Silver I think? Can't remember. You convert those bad mission on replays if you care!
DMC games really run off similar logic, though the ranking system isn't quite as strict if only because DMCs lack the Verse System which nets you a lot of points.
The rest of your review...yeah, pretty much. You'll note my 2 points aren't even necessarily contradicting what you said even!
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Ending every chapter with "You suck. I give you a E" is probably a bad design decision.
"Anyways, first run at Vritra with new levels, and I get murdered on the first Inferno Roar because of Sonic Wave -again-. Fenrir, are you sure that's 20%? I'm consistently getting at least one, usually two characters hit by it, and not just because of Cielo's weakness."
In my stat topics I tested status probability at the very least 20 times. Sonic Wave probably hit 4 times out of 20 then (not ever including Cielo).
Those numbers are decent but not super accurate or anything, I might have just gotten lucky.
Do you have a 0 luck Sera? Are you playing on hard?
Pokemon Ruby: Restarted Nuzlocke challenge, removing the "No dupes" rule. I can only catch the first pokemon in any area, period.
I might get 1000 zigzagoons, but whatever. THEY CAN CATCH RARE CANDY!
Last time, the second gym leader, Brawly had beaten my Wing Attack spamming Taillow with a Machoc crit, then my entire team exploded.
I've fully learnt my lesson. My new strategy: Grind Taillow (now named ANTIBRAWLY) more before the gym, continue to spam Wing Attack all the time. This worked perfectly and I'm now near the 3rd gym.
Team is:
Lvl 21 Marshstomp (Eddy)
Lvl 20 Makuhita (Esther)
Lvl 23 ANTIBRAWLY (Swellow) (He rules) (God I don't want him to die, please)
Lvl 21 Gulpin (Milo)
Lvl 11 Zigzagoon (Ziggy)
Lvl 5 Zigzagoon (Ziggy 2)
Rayman Origins: Near the end of the game. I fully forgive you for reusing the same worlds, game.
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Super Mario Galaxy: Just beat Bowser Jr's first big robot thing. Also got all the stars in the first area and went to Sweet Sweet Galaxy or whatever its called.
While I know its a load of wash, I can see why people would say Sonic Colors ripped off this game. There's a lot of little superficial elements and the whole "SONIC IS TRYING TO BE MARIO!!!" thing...well, you get the point...
Sweet Mountain comes to mind given the area I just beat!
...the problem is that it assumes SMG was the first to use all these ideas, which is also just wrong, and the things SMG IS unique/original about are things Sonic Colors definitely didn't follow suit with, so the "Its copying!" idea is just a stupid claim.
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"Anyways, first run at Vritra with new levels, and I get murdered on the first Inferno Roar because of Sonic Wave -again-. Fenrir, are you sure that's 20%? I'm consistently getting at least one, usually two characters hit by it, and not just because of Cielo's weakness."
In my stat topics I tested status probability at the very least 20 times. Sonic Wave probably hit 4 times out of 20 then (not ever including Cielo).
Those numbers are decent but not super accurate or anything, I might have just gotten lucky.
Do you have a 0 luck Sera? Are you playing on hard?
Sera was about average at the time, I think - at least now, she's got near enough average stats (as does Serph - totally going the average Seraph route, even if it nerfs them, since it seems fairest interp.)
And nope, playing Normal. I mean, I did see some Sonic Waves that hit nobody, I guess, but it seemed like it was around 30% to me. It actually, oddly enough, hit Cielo less than it hit Sera, from memory, and I know my final run only ever had Gale hit by it. (Albeit hitting him every time it was used.)
Anyways, DDS2 DL-legal run: Stat testing for temps wooooo. I've already got the other two party members attacks done (turns out, Zio/Zandyne are still better in duels than Jupiter's Fury/Tempest) and I've covered all of the Hunt skills that Serph gets, for all that they're mostly going to be banned in duels, I guess, and are pretty terrible even if you do allow them, and I also got Attack/Counter/Makajam for him done. Started on Sera's Ice/Hunt skills, Serph's Ice/physical skills and working out how Quick Cure affects the status duration.
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I did see some Sonic Waves that hit nobody, I guess, but it seemed like it was around 30% to me
Unless you tracked this with a large sample size and wrote the numbers down, you can't make a statement like this. The difference between 20% and 30% is something which is difficult to detect without fairly rigorous testing, and it's entirely possible that you were just unlucky. (It is of course possible that Fenrir was just lucky too.)
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/maths
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I did see some Sonic Waves that hit nobody, I guess, but it seemed like it was around 30% to me
Unless you tracked this with a large sample size and wrote the numbers down, you can't make a statement like this. The difference between 20% and 30% is something which is difficult to detect without fairly rigorous testing, and it's entirely possible that you were just unlucky. (It is of course possible that Fenrir was just lucky too.)
For a very small value of infinitycloser to 0 than normally applied to small values of infinity
Edit - Infinity is a euphemism for penis
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Tales of Game's presents Chef Boyardee's Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden - Episode 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.
I don't know what to say about the game. It's ridiculous all the way through, its concept is ridiculous, its names for items and status are ridiculous, and it's fun all the way through. My only complaint? It's too short.
Like, I started this yesterday and finished it today kind of short.
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League of Legends: Fun fact. Glen is pretty good.
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LFT- Just beat the execution site. I have been using monsters this game, specifically trees. Whoof. Tornado is freaking awesome early on, and isn't too hard to get (Trents). Sacreds, dragons, and ghouls are also excellent. Humans are going to surpass monsters later for the most part (not least due to crazy speed twinking) but they feel competitive on the whole.
Tonfa redid the entire move find item trees. It's worth the effort to have a unit dedicated to this- the treasures are a step ahead of storebought gear, and some of the stuff is extremely good for the time.
Setups
Ramza has been a Lancer/Archer with Guts as a secondary. Laggy wanted me to try Archer as a carrier class. It's good for carrying any type of fighting secondary. Spears mesh extremely well with the class, due to the high weapon power and being able to use shields with them.
I have a calculator. I'm just waiting to get access to more status immunity, so I can start bombing fights with don't move/slow. Calc is one of my favorite LFT classes, just has a ton of options due to the movement and skillset. Do you focus around the class's innate non charge and death bomb/summon things? Do you use math skill? Tons of cool paths. Also using a squire carrier, focusing on drawouts. Plus a Mime. I also have an equip armor bard who will be badass as soon as I can dig up a circlet.
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LFT as well!
Not doing anything particularly special, just wanted to replay the game again. Currently have Ramza as a Knight with Item, a Thief with Charge, a Monk with Charge (I think he's an Archer with Punch Art right now, but that's just because I wanted something better than Charge +2). He has Concentrate. Two mage girls are Time/Black and Summon/Item, trying to decide exactly what I want. :)
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I did see some Sonic Waves that hit nobody, I guess, but it seemed like it was around 30% to me
Unless you tracked this with a large sample size and wrote the numbers down, you can't make a statement like this. The difference between 20% and 30% is something which is difficult to detect without fairly rigorous testing, and it's entirely possible that you were just unlucky. (It is of course possible that Fenrir was just lucky too.)
Well, I'd have probably said 40-50%, but 40% was after trying to account for Cielo's weakness, and 30% was the middle ground between my thoughts and Fenrir's results.
I did have a stupid number of runs against Vritra, but didn't keep any figures, unfortunately. (And, to be fair, I don't think Sonic Wave is exactly the sort of thing he'll be needing to be an extra 10-20% more accurate anyway.)
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Tales of Game's presents Chef Boyardee's Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden - Episode 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.
I don't know what to say about the game. It's ridiculous all the way through, its concept is ridiculous, its names for items and status are ridiculous, and it's fun all the way through. My only complaint? It's too short.
Like, I started this yesterday and finished it today kind of short.
It would probably wear out its welcome if it kept up like that too much longer, really. There's something to be said for conciseness.
Apparently they have also made games about Anne Frank and the Wu-Tang Clan. Not together, though that would also be awesome.
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Yeah, great as Barkley was, its not a game that could afford to go on much longer than it did. Any longer, they'd have started running out of ideas, and the game would have started becoming less fun and more stale. Being short is one of its advantages in this regard, really.
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You should replay the game in victorian Al Bhed mode and side with the genies, keep the F.I.N.A.L.G.U.N., take the boat, actually finish the dating sim, collect every library card to unlock the optional dungeon...
By the way, they're working on a sequel.
Can't wait.
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Skyward Sword - Up to the Fire Sanctuary, which seems to be the last dungeon before the final, though there's a lot of other stuff to do between now and then it seems.
I've been enjoying this quite a bit. The sword functionality feels a lot less like a cheap gimmick than it did in Twilight Princess. Makes sense, since TP was a Gamecube game in Wii clothing. Almost to the point where it makes me think that Nintendo should have just waited until this was done to release it's Wii Zelda title, but alas. A number of the other mechanics it introduced, primarily the flying and sky diving sections, are also really well done, and while there's some issues with the sensitivity on the Wii's motion sensor, it's only noticeable during the minecart section, when turning the remote too far confuses it and makes it think you're turning it the other way.
There is one thing that Twilight Princess did better in using the Wii controls, and that's aiming your bow/clawshots/etc. Instead of using the infrared sensors, the game uses the tilt sensor in the controller, and lets you set the default position to base where you're aiming from. This works OK, but can be really frustrating when you're pointing at the screen but aiming way to the side in the middle of a battle and need to re-calibrate. It really just throws you off. It's weird, too, because the aiming in Metroid Prime 3 and Twilight Princess, which used the sensor bar instead, worked perfectly fine! I really hope this isn't a trend developers follow for aiming with the Wii remote.
The game does a pretty good job of making all the tools you have consistently useful throughout the game. Zelda games tend to have a bunch of weapons that are absolutely useless outside of the dungeon you get them in, and a few niche puzzles. A couple weapons fall into this, but for the most part there's usually a good number of puzzles that use the otherwise useless whip and gust bellows. It's much less noticeable than it was in Twilight Princess, or really any Zelda game since Link to the Past.
Plot is whatever. The basic concept isn't as interesting as Twilight Princess's but if you're playing Zelda for the plot you're a dipshit.
Anyway, game's good. I recommend at least checking it out. I like what they did with the motion controls, but if that does nothing for you then it's not worth playing, since it's impossible to play while ignoring the motion gimmicks.
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Z.H.P.: Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman- Beat. Cute game. But they repeat themselves a bit, and there are points the game grinds to a halt because your options are so limited and really you don't have many ways to truly power up.
Most of the dialogue is punchy snark, which works but too easily overstays its welcome. It'd have helped if all the stuff relevant to the characters wasn't shoved off to the tail end of the game. I mean, yeah, I get that you couldn't have Level-9 any earlier than it was, but at the same time it feels out of nowhere, even with the television cuts and all.
Still, it's neat seeing such a DIFFERENT take on a roguelike. gear? Gear is all percentage-based boosts. apart from the last level, grinding for gear is a waste at best. Death? Oh, sure you die. And the levels get dumped in you stash and go from there. So forth. Of course, I'm not a huge fan of the genre, so I'm not sure how much it really means to me.
6-7 range. It's engaging but I hesitate to call it truly good. Interesting at least, though.
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The game does a pretty good job of making all the tools you have consistently useful throughout the game. Zelda games tend to have a bunch of weapons that are absolutely useless outside of the dungeon you get them in, and a few niche puzzles. A couple weapons fall into this, but for the most part there's usually a good number of puzzles that use the otherwise useless whip and gust bellows. It's much less noticeable than it was in Twilight Princess, or really any Zelda game since Link to the Past.
This is the exact reason I couldn't force myself to finish Twilight Princess. It was mind-numbingly dull.
(Not mentioning that I've not finished Skyward Sword - that's just my usual habit of reaching the final bosses of games and then stopping. :|)
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I really hope this isn't a trend developers follow for aiming with the Wii remote.
Don't count on it. They're going to ruin the next Wii games! Like uuuuh...... Madagascar 3: The Video Game?
Link's Awakening had dungeon items that stayed useful for the whole game (Feather, pegasus Boots, hookshot, fire Rod, flippers. The power bracelets were the only lame items, really), but it's kind of a curse as you can only use two at the same time, the sword being one.
Pokemon Ruby Nuzlocke:
Beat the 5th gym. I found a great way to make sure my AWESOME Swellow doesn't ever die: Replacing him with Skarmory. Slaking w/ 3 hyper potions vs Skarmory was the longest pokemon battle ever.
I still haven't found a worthwhile 5th pokemon, and honestly, Swalot is pretty worthless. I like him and all, but yeah. Really strong earlygame, but without any particular strengths right now. I'm only using him because I don't want to only have 3 pokemons left.
My only loss so far is one of my Zigzagoons. I switched him in a panic after Voltorb used Bide. I hadn't realized he needed three turns to unleash the super mega awesome attacks instead of two.
Rayman Origins co-op: One more boss and I'm right before the final level. Finishing the time attacks sounds like a more daunting task every day. It's odd, I've never liked Rayman before but this might possibly be my new favourite platformer well, ever.(I love Mario and all, but there's not one Mario game I'd put vastly over the others)
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Prototype 2: Platinum get.
What? I didn't say I was actually playing the game? Look, it came out Tuesday and I already have the Platinum. That should tell you everything. You want more? Fine myself, I'll give me a nice detailed rant to... vent I guess? I dunno I liked the game well enough it's just not worth 60 bux. Also I'll be comparing it to Prototype 1, and both InFamous because I am a drama whore from 20whatever.
So uh, where to start? Gameplay? Sure, that's what games are supposed to have and whatnot!
So the Gameplay! Because I felt like a paragraph break. It's much improved from the first Prototype's. Balance on your powers are a lot better, but more importantly more streamlined. Unlike inFamous 2 where you got a bunch of cumbersome powers that made things too slow in actual use. A lot of the useless, gimmicky superfluous stuff is now gone, and now everything is much more useful. Unlike in Prototype where when you got the Blade every other power(except for occasional whipfist) became useless. In fact, have a handy sorta talk thingy.
POWERS!
Claws: Claws are the first power you get and fill the role of sharp thing hurts. They also have a pounce attack for when you go after rocket launcher jackasses. Useless against armor, and probably ends up being the weakest power at end-game, but they're still the best weapon against super-soldiers.
Tendrils: The new power. Smacks things at a bit of range, with a charge-up attack that drags a whole bunch of crap into a Black Hole of death. At its higher levels it has a tendancy to trap mid-level infected and ground armor so it's probably the strongest power overall.
Shields: Actually not useless! Can be timed to stun enemies or reflect rockets! Also is only ever one button press away.
Hammerfist: Slow, but lays down the hurt on all things equally. Charge attack is a line of spikes, and the hammerfall dive gives an circle of death around you. And I think the full combo actually knocks things into the air and lays'em flat on their ass.
Blade: Massively, massively nerfed from the first game. It's normal attacks no longer do insane damage and can't hurt armor, and it's air spin of death is less useful because so many more targets are so mobile. It's charge-up is really strong if you can get it off(Tornado of Death!) but good luck. Also, you're now invincible while consuming so the Blade's short eat time is no longer imperative. Has some use against Goliaths but that's it.
Whipfist: It's normal combo is low-damage but a huge sweep(around four traffic lanes wide and long. You can clear out whole intersections with the thing). It's charge-up is the best anti-tough-unit in the game since it has stupid-long range can be done in air and knocks their ass back in addition to doing a lot of damage. It also allows you to do a ranged grab which is great for many reasons.
OTHER STUFF THAT DOESN'T MUTATE YOUR ARMS!
Weaponize: Steal weapons from vehicles. Good to have early on against armor until you get better options. Lugging around a 600-round minigun is fun though.
Finisher: Instantly destroy any armor or helicopters once you board them. Yeah, it's kinda broken...
Devastator: Vastly improved from Prototype 1. Instead of being "bonus health" now has it's own bar that fills up pretty fast. Does A LOT of damage and can't be interrupted... eventually. But it's less useful because of...
Pack Leader: Summons Brawlers(this games Hunters basically) to fight for you. They are hilariously powerful, and can take out military groups and other infected with stupid ease.
Bio-Bomb: Turn things you can grab into bombs. Can also be done in stealth to reduce whole bases into exploding piles of black tentacles without anyone being the wiser. Also does really good damage against high-level enemies for some reason.
Sooooo, powers taken care of... time to move unto enemies! Military is the same, 6 types of grunt, APC, tank, two helicopters and super-soldiers. The super-soldiers are... worse. In Prototype 1 I damn near ran from them at all times because they were SCARY. But these ones are kinda lame. And they look stupid. But I'll get into the stupid-looks of things later. Now, the Infected on the other hand? They got a boost. Hunters have been replaced by Brawlers, but there's three new types of infect that you'll encounter a lot on missions excluding the weird mini-boss guy thing.
Free-roaming and collectibles are much better. There's no need to scour every inch of the map for stupid landmark glowing orbs of doom or HINT orbs of stupid. What you do is now mildly related to actual sane things, collecting logs from soldiers killing FieldOp teams and cleaning Lairs. And the map actually pings you a general location on them! GASP! And you'll want to do them, because besides the EXP they offer they also count towards a Set reward letting you get essentially Perks like in other games.
But, one thing I feel the game does worse is the Military-Infected fights. Despite Manhatten being wall-to-wall Infected it seems like there's just less fighting going on. Hell even in Military Zones in Prototype 1 there was almost always some chaos going on. Sure, the military zones here are constantly under siege, but it just doesn't feel as wide-scale as the fighting in Prototype 1. In any overlapping control zone I would see fights down every street and the Hive were hell. But it's just soooooo dull here. There are a few nice war-scenes in the story, but just nothing compared to taking down a Hive in 1.
Speaking of story! It's... well, I think we can all agree here, and by we I mean me myself and I, that if anything, Prototype 1's story was told interestingly. inFamous had it's comic-book style which was coool and all. Prototype 2's is depressingly straight. There's no chaos of 1's or the narration of inFamous. It's just, talk-talk things happen! Web of Intrigue has been scaled back to being damn near nothing more than blurbs to do side-missions. As for the plot? Well, there's.... well... I'll say three "twists" that will probably catch everyone off guard for reasons. Characters are... there? Not like 1's cast was great or anything but you got a lot more info on your enemies. Haller just yells and rages and everyone else is pretty much "Heller-Heller-Heller!" all day every day. At least in the first game Greene got equal "OHSHIT" time more or less. This time it's all player. Roughly on that line, Blackwatch has moved from being utterly ruthless and effective bastards to being cartoon-level super-villains. Kidnapping people off the streets and experimenting on them? Releasing Infected into refugee camps? Literally feeding people to infected? Shit, original Blackwatch experimented on a whole town yeah, but when the virus was released they hunted that shit DOWN. They did not propagate it. And their new outfits are so stupid! The hell do they need pauldrons for? And glowing blue neon shit? I mean, not like the Marines are any better using wood camo in urban, but the infected don't see shit normally so making sure you're visible to allies is OK and all and Blackwatch is too callous to give a shit if anyone sees them shooting each other. And the hell are the Marines even still doing here? They were supposed to be the fall-guys for when things went to shit in 1, but now they're here watching Blackwatch do horrific shit 24/7 and take it like little bitches. And Heller doesn't seem to give a damn about other Marines at all. What a jackass. At least Mercer was a borderline-amnesiac jackass for all of 1. Sure, Heller's supposed to be mentally unstable because he wants to gut Mercer like some sort of black-spikey trout, but the hell does he not have reprehension? Sure, he does say he isn't a hero at one point, but even Mercer gets morality as the game went on. Though, I guess... well, whatever.
And to finish things off, the boss fights. Or fight. There's sort of a semi-boss fight or... four. But only one real boss. He is a pretty damn fun fight and requires you to know your powers really well. it's just there's only him. At the very end of the game. Still better than 1's terrible fights though.
So in short.
Gameplay: inFamous>Prototype 2>Prototype 1>inFamous 2
Free-roam and collectible stuff: Prototype 2 > infamous 2 > infamous > Prototype 1
Story: inFAMOUS > inFAMOUS 2 > Prototype > Prototype 2
Bosses: inFamous>Prototype 2> infamous2(I don't even remember if it had bosses)>Prototype 1
Total: inFAMOUS > Prototype 2 > Prototype > inFAMOUS 2
NOMNOMNOM: Prototype 2>Prototype>infamous>infamous2
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LFT - Got to Zalera.
My tactic is pretty simple; Rob the Thief with Attack UP, Move +2, Counter, and Charge beats the shit out of everything with knives, and then dies. He is revived, and murders things more. I also have a Lancer with Abandon and Punch Art/Martial Arts, Ramza with Battle Skill and Item (switch between Chemist and Knight), a Black Mage with Time Magic, and a Summoner with Geomancer. I was originally using Draw Out but Draw Out kind of sucks in LFT. <_<
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Rob the Thief
That is terrible Ciato.
Valkyria Chronicles 2 - Holy shit they animed the fuck out of World War 2. I mean ignore the plot and shit. Those are some huge tits. On like everyone. But especially pointlessly bitchy head of Class A. Good gods.
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Grefter we had that talk back in DLC6.
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Valkyria Chronicles 2 - Holy shit they animed the fuck out of World War 2. I mean ignore the plot and shit. Those are some huge tits. On like everyone. But especially pointlessly bitchy head of Class A. Good gods.
I like how this is your first comment about the game. Good old Grefter. Never change.
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Deus Ex Human Revolution: Adam Jensen does a mean Clint Eastwood. Also I can't play this without hearing Safety Dance in my head. Thanks a lot, Fenrir.
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Rob the Thief
That is terrible Ciato.
He tried to charm a demon assassin, but no luck. :( Stabbing bitches is funner anyway.
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Well 30 mins in it is talk about tits or tutorials. This is one of the few instances where breasts win out.
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Xenoblade- No one will accuse this game of starting off strongly. Clunky battles, tutorials telling you how to use shops, and forced overuse of buttons so far.
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Xenoblade- No one will accuse this game of starting off strongly. Clunky battles, tutorials telling you how to use shops, and forced overuse of buttons so far.
And that was the game that was supposed to drag JRPGs back to relevance kicking and screaming? And yet they don't address a decade-plus-old problem?
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Well you know how it is. Those problems are one of the things all the other genres copied from RPGs.
(Although I'm not sure what Dhyer means by overuse of buttons exactly.)
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Actually overuse of buttons describes Witcher 2 fairly well.
Witcher 2: Killed some monsters around town, except I let the troll live because he was apparently born without a head and I felt sorry for him. Then I beat up everyone in town and engaged in some games of chance and some fornication. Then I killed the giant tentacle monster. Not sure why they make such a big deal about building a trap to catch its tentacles when the trap spell that you start with does the exact same thing. Also, quick-time events in battle, seriously? Doing it in cutscenes without warning was bad enough.
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Actually overuse of buttons describes Witcher 2 fairly well.
Witcher 2: Killed some monsters around town, except I let the troll live because he was apparently born without a head and I felt sorry for him. Then I beat up everyone in town and engaged in some games of chance and some fornication. Then I killed the giant tentacle monster. Not sure why they make such a big deal about building a trap to catch its tentacles when the trap spell that you start with does the exact same thing. Also, quick-time events in battle, seriously? Doing it in cutscenes without warning was bad enough.
You should be able to disable most QTEs and turn the rest into "hit a button till the bar fills" simple ones in the options menu.
Like I said: 2011 GotY.
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LoL: The harder I try, the worse I get.
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Lost Odyssey - This game. This game. I don't know what to make of it.
On the plus side, the dream sequences remain excellent. And the rest of the game's writing is actually showing some signs of life (though remains much worse). The game does emotional scenes pretty well, and in the interludes it's fun to watch Gongora be a total snake. (I'm a sucker for villains who do this, same reason I liked earlygame Van in TotA.) Also I love a villain who talks about "WE WILL BE THE MOST POWERFUL PEACE-LOVING COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!", very Big Brother of you there. Cast still doesn't really impress even if Kaim is rounding out a bit, and Jansen has his moments (although the game really can't seem to decide how charismatic he is).
Gameplay's cool enough when it exists, GC is an interesting enough idea and I like how the game handles turn order based on your action (and I also like that there is a spell that takes two turns and it is totally worth it). Several bosses / fixed fights so far have been quite challenging, too, which is nice. Especially those two giant worms, you know the ones if you've played I suspect.
On the minus side, graaah pacing. Maybe this is a Sakaguchi thing, because this game suffers from much of what plagued the later PSX FFs. I'm 8 hours into the game and I feel like I've seen the amount of gameplay I'd expect from a 3 hour game. Towns are too big, there's too much dialog, and... funeral minigames. God, these were so bad. I get that the game wanted me to feel involved in things but it was a huge miss with TWO separate annoying fetchquests and then one incredibly poorly-explained and dumb game involving torch lighting. Sigh.
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LFT - At Altima!
I like how you actually want to kill other enemies during assassination missions now. It's rather refreshing really. Class balance is pretty fun! I am amused that Ramza is playing the exact same role as Clarissa did in my last playthrough of WAXF; the person who is really fast (Excalibur/Thief Hat in Ramza's case with Scream, Nightstalker with Clarissa) who gives everyone else turns. Otherwise I have used Thief, Archer, and Knight, all classes which I ignored in the original game. The biggest disappointment is the badness of Samurai and its skillset; the class feels like it was balanced without the fact that its skillset robs you of resources kept in mind. Summoner and Ninja, though nerfed, are both still quite good and fun, though. Short Charge is a must lategame for Summoner though, and eventually the Thief won out over Ninja due to higher HP.
Current team is Thief with Charge/AttackUP/Counter, Lancer with Punch Art/Martial Arts/Abandon, Ramza!Squire with Item/MP Switch/Throw Item, Summoner with Elemental/Short Charge/HP Restore, and Wizard with Time Magic/Short Charge/HP Restore. Everyone has move boosters as their movement slot.
Curse thee, Altima!
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With this kind of competition, there's just no way a game with (even optional) mid balles QTEs is GOTY 2011. It is simply impossible. Sorry Rob.
Pokemon Ruby Nuzlocke: My Titanic is no more. The uber awesome invincible Skarmory, the one in my team who couldn't possibly die ever, is gone.
I was fighting some regular dresser who switched to Magneton. (First time I've seen this happen, actually) Magneton has that innate skill that prevents switching pokemons. He also likes doing crits to birds with thunder elemental moves. Fuck. Magneton.
So I decided to Nino the Anorith that was sitting in my computer, to make up for that loss. So far he's eaten a ton of xp (thanks to the multiexp) and is still as useless as ever. I also got some Dusclops, so I guess this is my final team. I'll switch to Spheal if one of them dies.
So the team is:
- Swampert (MVP)
- Swalot (Who got a bit better once I gave him Shock Wave)
- Hariyama (Nothing too outstanding, but he gets the job done. Fake Out is a godsend for dual battles)
- Dusclops (Owns normal types?? His moves are strong enough, but he's slow as hell)
- Anorith (Evolve, dammit)
- Insert HM whore here
7th gym is next.
Rayman Origins: Finished the game and the optional dungeon.
So yes, this is still my favourite platformer, even if it took some time to get used to. The only problem I see is that the controls could stand to be slightly more precise. Jumping on enemy bubbles is particularly iffy sometimes. Otherwise, it's shockingly great everywhere.
Some music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc4Ha3T09Dk&feature=BFa&list=PL1388C846567D676C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwhBD2gvYRE&feature=BFa&list=PLE8928066141C8C03
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kk5p-lUPzw&feature=BFa&list=PL1388C846567D676C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eggc_-oqFpQ&feature=BFa&list=PL1388C846567D676C
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On the minus side, graaah pacing. Maybe this is a Sakaguchi thing, because this game suffers from much of what plagued the later PSX FFs. I'm 8 hours into the game and I feel like I've seen the amount of gameplay I'd expect from a 3 hour game. Towns are too big, there's too much dialog, and... funeral minigames. God, these were so bad. I get that the game wanted me to feel involved in things but it was a huge miss with TWO separate annoying fetchquests and then one incredibly poorly-explained and dumb game involving torch lighting. Sigh.
How can you not note the clowns. FUNERAL CLOWNS.
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Funeral minigames what. Really?
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A fairly significant character dies. Tears are shed. There is a funeral. There are minigames during the funeral.
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If there are minigames at my funeral I will crawl up out of the ground and strangle the party responsible.
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Its "you are part of the ceremony, now be the actual character performing it." Honestly, I didn't find the minigame that poorly explained and got it done right on the first attempt <_<
That said, why it exists is...questionable, and doesn't really add to much, as they could have just streamlined the whole thing with just cut-scenes and what not, and got the same effect.
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I was fighting some regular dresser who switched to Magneton. (First time I've seen this happen, actually) Magneton has that innate skill that prevents switching pokemons. He also likes doing crits to birds with thunder elemental moves. Fuck. Magneton.
Actually, Magneton's anti-switch skill only works on Steels. And it has lots of Special Attack and hits weakness on Skarmory.
Skarmory was really good in competitive gen 2 (for reasons which I imagine are now apparent to you!), so they pretty much gave Magneton that skill just to spoil it.
EDIT:
Honestly, I didn't find the minigame that poorly explained and got it done right on the first attempt <_<
Congratulations, have a cookie.
Here is the thing, though: I didn't get it right first attempt. The game does not give any feedback for what I am doing wrong, like you would expect most games to do. It does nothing whatsoever, pretty much just hangs until I figure out what the game had (poorly) explained what I was supposed to do. This after all those fetchquest nonsense and ages away from the previous save point. Not exactly a happy fun times experience.
Which is a real shame because the scenes leading up to the funeral were quite effective!
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Meeple is trying to increase the size of his e-peen, don't hate.
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How can you not note the clowns. FUNERAL CLOWNS.
To be fair, pimp clowns look like they're supposed to be priests in Lost Odyssey world.
this is supposed to be FANTASY youknow??
Actually, Magneton's anti-switch skill only works on Steels. And it has lots of Special Attack and hits weakness on Skarmory.
Skarmory was really good in competitive gen 2 (for reasons which I imagine are now apparent to you!), so they pretty much gave Magneton that skill just to spoil it.
*shakes fist*
This is horrible.
Couldn't they have just spoiled Luvdisc instead or something.
I'm pretty surprised by how far I've already managed to go in that Nuzlocke challenge, on only the second attempt. I don't even know the pokemon weakness tables very well. Like, what does poison do to ground types? I have no idea. What about a ghost move against a dark pokemon? Or a steel move against anything? What the hell is Astonish's type??
The game's even easier than I thought, because I know very few things about Pokemon and usually suck at this kind of challenge (the ones with no margin for error, as opposed to the ones where you're supposed to retry and reloads a lot)
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If there are minigames at my funeral I will crawl up out of the ground and strangle the party responsible.
Technically my entire funeral is a shooting minigame, but that's because my will specifies that in lieu of a funeral, my ashes are to be mixed with the highest-grade gunpowder and made into two special .480 rounds which will be used to kill whatever managed to end me.
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That 3 year old will sure get what is coming to it.
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Wait until they have to kill an incorporeal concept. Not only will it be violent but they'll have to renact parts of Wild Arms 2
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I'm pretty sure Wild Arms 2 killed incorporeal concepts on its own.
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I haven't even played Lost Odyssey yet, and I dominated that minigame. So awesome when I flipped the switch to rotate the mirror, redirecting the laser beam. The priest did not freakin' see it coming. Pretty sweet.
I thought the catapult was a nice touch, too.
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You should see that YouTube clip whee the dude does an Ollie off the corpse and makes it launch into space. lolhavocphysics
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Wait what? If you fuck up the funeral ceremony, you game over? I didn't have any trouble with it, but I just assumed that failure meant "don't get best rewards" or something.
Goddammit Lost Odyssey, why ya gotta make me hurt you, baby?
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I'm pretty sure Wild Arms 2 killed incorporeal concepts on its own.
And that will be their shame.
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Wait what? If you fuck up the funeral ceremony, you game over? I didn't have any trouble with it, but I just assumed that failure meant "don't get best rewards" or something.
Goddammit Lost Odyssey, why ya gotta make me hurt you, baby?
No, I think Elfboy means that screwing up the Minigame just leads to a "You screwed up, try again!" scenario, except unlike other Minigames, it doesn't remind you on the controls for each failed attempt or give a pointer to your failure.
I can't imagine they'd game over you for screwing up something so trivial.
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It's not a game over, the reason he was complaining about savepoints is primarily that we weren't expecting to play Lost Odyssey for like 1.5+ hours before getting another savepoint. How 1990's of it.
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Finally elfboy and I complaining about the same thing. Funeral sucked for the minivans with bad controls and taking a long damned time. Not fun when you are trying to finish up for work the next day.
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No, I think Elfboy means that screwing up the Minigame just leads to a "You screwed up, try again!" scenario, except unlike other Minigames, it doesn't remind you on the controls for each failed attempt or give a pointer to your failure.
It's even worse: it doesn't give a "you screwed up, try again" message. It says -nothing-. There's no clue as to if what I'm doing is even the right general idea or way off. I'll even admit there's a chance that if I read the instructions carefully I don't have this problem since by this point I was pretty impatient due to hunter-gatherer fetchquesting, but yeah, it's just bad design.
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You just sit there waving the torch around and nothing fucking happens. It is pretty awesome. There is a reason you could always find a topic on the forums at Gamefaqs going WTFWTFWTF about it when I played through.
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Been playing a bit lately.
Finished Mass Effect 2, Adept.
Pretty good stuff, combat was more enjoyable. The characters were more than blocks of wood, so that was nice.
Near the end I felt it was dragging on a bit, like "I *guess* I'll do this mission" sort of thing, but I enjoyed it. Good game overall.
Finished Persona 3, as well.
I played Persona 4 first. I still think 4 is a better game, for a variety of reasons (Social Links being better is one), but I enjoyed it for what it was. 90 hours or so.
Speaking of Social Links, some were interesting enough to read, and others were just boring as heck. When they're written decently or at least kind of interesting I like them! But sometimes they really just aren't.
Started The Answer, I'm about 9 hours in. I like the game because it's perfect to just grind at it while you're talking to someone on Skype or listening to headphones or watching a video or something, which is good.
Also started Mass Effect 3, a bit after the attack on the citadel.
I have a *really* high opinion of it so far. Like, everything seems so much better. I've also played like 50 hours of multiplayer with friends before even starting the game. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I'm really enjoying the combat, and the story is going somewhere, at least, and hasn't stalled too much. For a note on who I used each game -
Mass Effect: Garrus and Ashley
Mass Effect 2: Mordin and Thane
Mass Effect 3: EDI and Javik
Also, took Inferno Grenades as my bonus power. Now I can carry 9 cluster grenades and blow everything up. It is the best.
Oh, me and a couple friends have been working on an FE7 romhack for a while. Would any of you guys be interested in it? The gameplay is "a bit harder than the original" but it's really not that bad, though Hector Hard Mode is a pretty big jump.
Basically, the characters are different, the text and supports are different, but the maps are the same (Well, the enemies have changed, as have the bosses)
A lot of the bosses are stupid cameos like Tengu, or Haseo, or other random characters that I was thinking of at the time.
Anyway, if anyone's interested, I'll post a topic. It's mostly done, just needs a bit more playtesting.
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FE Romhack? I'd be interested. ^_^
Bahamut Lagoon: Finished! Great game, a bit too easy. If any game needs a rerelease, it's this one. Just upping the difficulty a little would make for a really deep SRPG. Particularly like the Terrain Effects, Melee-Range Turn-based Battles, and the Dragon Bonding. Dragon Raising was a cool -concept- but terribly opaque and needed -some- kind of documentation for the level of complexity involved.
Stand out feature: With over 30 PCs, I'm impressed they managed to give each of them so much personality. Certainly better than Chrono Cross and 4/5s of the cast of Suikoden 1!
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Super Robot Taisen Z2-2;
Completed.
Generally speaking way the heck better than Z2-1 while still being a very similar game. Mostly, rather than being a straight up "This is a squad game in character design, single PC units in actual fact" borefest game of SRWJ(generously) complexity...
Well, you have massive rocket tag. Generally speaking, I find that SRW is at its best in rocket tag.
The highest overall cash amount of any Super Robot Taisen on a single playthrough(I cleared with just under 29M as a total gain throughout the game), the highest raw unit deployment amounts(28/28/30 for the last stages, often endgame levels for most games(20-24) for ages before that), eight pilot skills-which enemies abuse liberally-a lot of extremely wacky SR points(MAKE this allied neutral get three kills, for example), a bunch of enemies that would be scary as hell in any other game...
Well, it's silly. And actually sorta okay on challenge. And is much more in line with what I was hoping for when I went into Z2-1-an interesting non-squad game that attempted to build on the formula. It does so rather linearly, but I can handle linear.
It isn't perfect, though. Some units still feel utterly useless to an exceptional degree-I can just feel them wondering what the hell to do with Sara's Panther to reconcile its plot usefulness and its gameplay usefulness in a logical way and blanking. The SRs tend towards being speed a little too often still(this has been a problem with all the Z games, though it was a lot worse in Z2-1, and even Z1-one of the few things I will say this game does better than Z1.). In the end, you're still rarely using support mechs because the cast size is so spectacularly stupidly huge, and because the battleships have good enough support spirit sets(you can deploy up to four of these by the end, too!), that they still don't do that well.
And, the largest issue, for some reason the challenge rockets screeching off a cliff after the final pathsplit. I admittedly had my only unit death during that stretch(Vajra Queen successfully stunshocked Dancougar Nova-Steady doesn't stop that-then offloaded 13000 damage onto it next turn. I was impressed.), but that was an exceptional map. The final was decent too. All eight other stages were stupidly easy, and even those two had an SR finished a full turn early(on a three turn limit) and the entire final stage finished in two turns, respectively. (Granted if I had screwed up on the final stage, I would have been rather dead. That's what happens when you screw up those blitzes, you spend thirty minutes, end up a few thousand damage short, and reload because you can't really recover.).
There's still issues. But it's a *lot* better.
Incidentally, the worst thing ever is that PSP SRW Z2s show my time played. I didn't need to know that. OH WELL I'M SURE A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF IT WAS DUE TO ME CHATTING WHILE PLAYING. Yes. That's it.
Oh, and I swear to god they somehow made Turn A better than it has ever been. It is kinda scary. At this rate they'll just give it a fullscreen enemy-only MAP weapon next game.
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<SageAcrin> Jo'ou play Z2-2. :(
Incidentally, I was supposed to be playing CSTW but haven't touched it since Monday.
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<SageAcrin> Jo'ou play Z2-2. :(
Incidentally, I was supposed to be playing CSTW but haven't touched it since Monday.
Isn't this the story of your life when Hello kitty isn't involved?
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Who says Hello-Kitty isn't involved?
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That was more of a safety net statement than anything else.
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DE3: So apparently while I was under for life-saving surgery, my employer thought it would be totally cool to replace my healthy arm and legs with cybernetic prosthesis. David Sarif, world-class douche. Next time read the fine print, Adam.
Boss fights, somewhat problematic when you run around without lethal weapons in your inventory. Fortunately, exploding barrels remain the solution to all life's challenges.
I'm not sure about this golden glow that seems to suffuse everywhere in this game. It's very Bladerunner, possibly too much so. Like the city of Detroit hired the guys who did interior decorating for the Tyrell Corporation for all their design needs (or at least mood lighting). It's nice, but it's a bit much when it's everywhere. Maybe that'll change when I go somewhere else. On that note, onward to China.
Also, note to self, do not test fragmentation devices in the lobby of your apartment building.
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You can turn off the overlay in the options if it is a bit much.
Also tip for boss fights. Stun prod is broken against them. Stronger than any lethal weapon. Combined it with an upgraded pistol if you want to take them down quickly (Pistol because it is small in your inv and upgraded because you have nothing else to do with your weapon upgrades...). All the bosses can be handled quite simple with a stun prod to the face and unloading a few clips between the eyes.
Edit - Valkyria Chronicles 2 - Continues to be anime as fuck. Character missions give ridiculous amounts of exp and gold.
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DE3: I'm assuming "Hengsha" is Chinese for "Holy shit this place is huge." Also, the irony of the People's Republic of China recreating the capitalist hell of Midgar is great.
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Tales of Graces F
Hubert is awesome.
Looking back, I wish every Tales game going forward uses the battle system in this game. It is just so much fun! I played ToV after this game, and the battles seemed so slow and boring compared to ToGF.
Almost done with the game, but I am doing some farming and what have you before I jump into the last (I think it's the last) dungeon. I am constantly out of money in this game, so dualizing is very time consuming. I am using the extra Gald book too.
Ah well, I am glad they gave me another front line fighter to use, because Asbel, while fun to fight with, is a pretty lame character.
Great game though!
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So decided to put my rather large backlog on hold to replay some d2 in anticipation of D3.
Rolling a CS/LF Jav Zon because they were basically my second favorite thing to play way back next to WWSin's which is something impractical to try and do in Single Player, Zon is fairly gear independent as a class which is nice in contrast. This is a good thing, since the rng gods have debatably not been nice to me this playthrough.
Up to Act 5 in Nightmare so far, and am still using two blues, one of them being a Maiden Javalin of Replenishing(with plus 1 to zon skills as a side bonus), this is typically alright, since CS zon's aren't actually weapon reliant and mostly just want them to self replenish for LF spam, but once I reach hell the Lightning immunes are going to become super common and if I'm still using one of the weakest weapon classes at that point things will really start to become painful. Ended up crafting some blood gloves to give me some crushing blow to help counteract the crappy weapon damage for lightning imunes, was hoping I would get something cool like attack speed or + jav skills, get +30 to two resistances instead, considering I will probably have an even 0 in those resistances in hell with those gloves I decided I was okay with that. Also gambled a Circlet in the hope of plus zon skills, 500k gold later rolled one with 50 lightning resist and a small amount of the others decided that actually being able to take hits in hell will be more important then overkilling non boss enemies harder. Also made the stealth Runeword in an armor because nothing good was dropping and I like the faster runwalk and hit recovery.
Unfortunately, my rings and Ammy are still relatively worthless, one ring is a rare with a minute amount of lightning resist, and the other has nothing useful but mana leech, which is failing to keep me from chugging mana potions because my leechable damage is horrid :-(. Ammy is a blue Zon skiller, which is alright, but doesn't actively help my character with anything but killing bosses faster really. The belt is equally meh, basically having some Faster Hit recovery and cold resist.
As for the drops that have actually made me happy in this run so far? I got a rare set of boots with Faster Runwalk, a little magic find, cold resist, and self repairing. I love Faster run walk on zons, and the fact that one of the item slots that loses durability the quickest got self repair is cool. As for the best item drop so far, Diablo dropped Sigund's Shield in normal, which I promptly put a socket in and the socketed with a perfect diamond once I could in act 5. I will probably keep this shield forever or something decent resist to everything, near perfect block rate, and plus 1 to all skills. I could probably technically upgrade it by runewording a spirit or rhyme, spirit would give an extra plus to skills, give loads of faster hit recover, double my mana pool, and boost 3 resist at the cost of losing about 20 or the fourth, the problem being the fourth is fire resist which I'm currently the lowest on, and is the resist that gets hit from the only thing that has killed me thus far (screw you Fire Enchanted rares that I accidentally oneshot through doorways, screw you) so anyways screw that, Rhyme on the other hand basically loses the plus skill for slightly better resist, crappy block percentage, some magic find, and Cannot be Frozen. Freeze is a pretty shitty status to get hit by, but whatever thawing potions can be used if it's really bad, and Duriel is a jerk and ignores that mod anyways so yeah whatever.
So yeah, text flood that can be summarized as I got crappy items and all I do is run faster wee or something. Also I somehow managed to max three resist in nightmare with crappy gear, except for fire, that's at like 0, I expect happy fun times and lots of dying in hell should I fail to rectify that soon.
In other news I demonstrated the OPness that is suicide Soraka to Andy in LoL >.>
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Fire Emblem - replayed
Back in the day, I spent most of my time on Hector Mode and I never ended up getting the images for Eliwood/Ninian or Eliwood/Fiora because of it. So I decided to do a runthrough to get Eliwood/Fiora. It was a success.
Had three tactics and four funds at the start of the final so not likely to have improved my current EN rank. Final team was /10 Eliwood, 20 Nils, /12 Lyn, /11 Hector, 20 Athos, /17 Fiora, /10 Priscilla, /2 Nino, 8 Louise, 9 Geitz, 12 Pent, 14 Jaffar for anyone that is into knowing that sort of thing.
Not planning on running again for the Eliwood/Ninian image any time soon.
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Perfect World: Now level 101. Have 2 pieces of my 101 armor, but need ~3 weeks to get the other three pieces.
Territory wars with Endeavour are tiring. Three hours straight for two nights in a row.
Witcher 2: I learned from this game that when whores are not busy... whoring... they plough each other with wooden dildos. Game of the Year 2011 - if you're a 14-year-old boy.
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Did you at least win tonight's?
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wooden dildos
Somebody did not think that through.
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Did you at least win tonight's?
Yep, they barely got our crystal down to 2/3rds.
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wooden dildos
Somebody did not think that through.
Except that this is a thing people actually used before the advent of plastics. Presumably very carefully smoothed down because oh god splinters no.
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Xenoblade Chronicles: Started this earlier. Spent 10 minutes doing plot, then about 3 hours doing collectible stuff and sidequests. Why are there Lv 70+ enemies around the first town? 10 more minutes of plot, another 45 minutes of sidequest. 20 more minutes of plot, more sidequest! I'm really good at dying on this one sidequest boss, hm. After, like, 5 deaths on this boss, I found the map travel thing, went to continue plot, and then remembered that I didn't actually change equipment. I'm off to a good start~
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Why are there Lv 70+ enemies around the first town?
Because there are level 70+ enemies EVERYWHERE.
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Xenoblade Chronicles: Played again briefly, cleared the next area. Plot plot plot. Something tells me I should have finished a few more quests earlier. Hmm.
Persona 4: Grindan for quests. Cannot seem to get coal. Got everything we need except coal. Ready to fight Shadow Rise, but I need coal.
Also, the mini-boss in Shadow Kanji's room got torn apart by a combination of Kanji hitting weakness and Souji using Oni, which was brutal - Dodge Physical, Counter and Resist Physical, as well as Tarukaja'd Rakunda'd Atom Smashers. Ends up hitting for around 200-300 when the rest of the party hits for about 60-80 against it (including Kanji and the All-Out Attack).
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So uh can you not play Xenoblade without doing 'optional' sidequests?
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So uh can you not play Xenoblade without doing 'optional' sidequests?
Xenoblade sounds like some sort of FF12 re-imagining or something, so I'm going to say "Technically yes, but you'll really wish you did some"?
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I think it just rediverts the challenge from the secondary bosses to the maingame, judging by enemy levels in the maingame vs enemy random levels.
So yeah you can probably rocket through it and still enjoy it, it's just different.
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I've largely been ignoring sidequests (except ones that are basically 'on the way'). I've had to stop to gain levels at times. So I think it's fair to say the game assumes you sidequest to some degree, but the sheer volume of quests is way higher than the number that makes the maingame content doable.
That said, the continue system is fairly generous (respawn at last safe zone, no loss of exp/items/monies) so even if you just hammer at the same thing repeatedly you'll get through.
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*nods* I mean, in theory I'd like to play games other people seem to enjoy, but I like playing rather minimalistically and it feels like all people do is talk about the sidequests. <_<
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It's a matter of degree.
The main plot from what I've seen is quite decent in a kind of airy way, the combat is pretty fun as long as you're nearly matching your target(which is usually), but it is a game that is basically a more streamlined, actually plot-filled, convenience filled, etc. Morrowind-style RPG.
Which is to say, while you can blow through it, the game is kinda short if you do, and the scale of the game is pretty much impossible to convey. DQ8's rather fun world map has nothing on wandering around in XB, and the sidequest stuff is just the part that stands out most. It's a nice little thing otherwise.
(Disclaimer; I am not very far, and may be wrong about it being shortish. Or something could go wrong/right with the plot, but I kinda doubt it ever has massively deep plot or horrible plot twists.)
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Xenoblade's sidequests, I found, are probably best done piecemeal. Don't do any and you'll find yourself underleveled constantly, but if you do them all at once you'll end up increasingly overleveled until you're just effortlessly rolling over everything waiting for the monsters' levels to catch up to yours*. So you're probably best off doing some, moving on until you find yourself under par level-wise, going back to do some more until you're caught up, etc. I figure the next time I go through the game, I'll go with a more moderate approach, because missing out on what I've been hearing are some actually tough fights sucked.
It should be noted that, while you could just grind up the deficit, you miss out on the rewards of raising an area's affinity, such as more options when trading(which can, in turn, help with other sidequests), or the fourth skill trees, which have some very nice things in them.
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Are most of the sidequests just fights?
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Most of them involve either fighting stuff as part of a kill quota or for their trash drops, or they'll ask for some of the collectables that are lying around all over the place. The latter tend to be the ones that get people stuck, depending on their luck(though there are a couple of kill quests that can be annoying due to mob availability or poor wording in the quest description). Most of the rest just involve talking to other NPCs or hitting some objective on some point of the map. Most of the quests you get can be done either on the way to where ever you're heading to, or done in big batches because they all take place in the same location.
The hard part, though, is actually getting the quests, because nearly everybody follows a daily schedule and might not be around when you make a pass through their normal hangout(you have free manipulation of the in-game clock though, and resetting it to 10 AM/PM will have the majority of them at their usual spots). Any quest given by an unnamed NPC will auto-complete when finished, which saves you from having to hunt them down again, and named NPCs you've talked to will have the times they're active listed on the big affinity chart, with their general locations listed in the quest details if you're having a hard time finding them for the turn-in.
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Xenoblade: ...Well played, plot. Well played.
Now back to sidequests.
At the discussion: I'm doing the majority of sidequests, but I'm also pushing through with the story and not going too far out of my way for quests. (Which generally just means doing about 6-7 quests at once, rather than individually.) That said, yeah, it seems very possible to get through based on just a few fights and a couple of simple quests, thanks to the experience you'll gain just from reaching new areas, finishing basic quests and obtaining achievements.
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Xenoblade's sidequests, I found, are probably best done piecemeal. Don't do any and you'll find yourself underleveled constantly, but if you do them all at once you'll end up increasingly overleveled until you're just effortlessly rolling over everything waiting for the monsters' levels to catch up to yours*. So you're probably best off doing some, moving on until you find yourself under par level-wise, going back to do some more until you're caught up, etc.
This is always how I end up doing it in sidequest heavy RPGs. It's a natural consequence of exploring towns thoroughly looking for sidequests, then skipping the ones that look really boring. This is the natural way of doing things for me.
I like Xenoblade's sidequests.
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Tales of Graces F - Beate.....wait wait, there's more? SCORE!
At least I have finally unlocked Chaos mode. Still trying to get all the titles too. Glad there's more to the game, I thought I missed a crap load of things. Then again, this is a Tales game. I am certain that I have mised a ton of things.
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Tales of Graces F - Beate.....wait wait, there's more? SCORE!
At least I have finally unlocked Chaos mode. Still trying to get all the titles too.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
Glad there's more to the game, I thought I missed a crap load of things. Then again, this is a Tales game. I am certain that I have mised a ton of things.
Not really, no.
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Re: Xenoblade
I'm guessing that you wouldn't have to do much grinding if you just picked up the sidequests you see while walking around town. NPCs with sidequests have a white ! above them, and for a lot of them you don't need to report back when you find the items/kill the enemies. If you grab the quests, then go and kill enemies on the way to your next destination and pick up items on the way, you'll probably clear some of them without much effort. And EXP scales anyway, so if you get behind, the things you kill will give more.
I've been doing all the sidequests myself (but ignoring any enemy that isn't for a quest or a unique monster to keep levels down a bit), so I don't know exactly how this ends up working in practice, but it seems like the game doesn't completely screw you over if you aren't doing all (or even most) of them. CmdrKing says he needed to grind up some, but I don't know how much he's been fighting on the way / how many quests he's grabbed on the way / etc.
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Largely ignore enemies that don't aggro, kill those who do, take quests very, very rarely.
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I'm fairly certain that in any given game I fight more randoms than CK.
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Hitting up FFXIII again. I'm CH10, and just finished fighting Mr. Sexy Transformation; am wondering when the CP will come running in, because I really, really want Hope to learn some Saboteur things. So, at the suggestion of AwesomeCT, my team is now Lightning/Vanille/Hope. I would really love to have Fang in, so I may just interchange with that. If Hope can learn some great Sab stuff, then I don't need to put Sazh in.
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Fang starts really picking up about Chapter 11, I think.
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Yeah once she picks up Deprotect, Deshell and Imperil she's good to go =)
**
Salvation (MED, MED, MED) is a great deck with Light, Vanille and Hope Idun. Triple RAVs is great too =) So is Imperil + En spells. At least I think Hope gets En spells by this stage~
I would recommend these decks for switching betweens -
RAV/SAB/SYN (more effective with Role Levels)
MED/MED/MED
RAV/SAB/RAV
RAV/RAV/RAV
RAV/RAV/RAV (ATB Refresh)
COM/RAV/RAV
Can't really recommend Chapter 10 for the CPs without it getting kind of grindy (there was a place between a Behemoth and a group of bomb types I looped between for a while during my replay) Chapter 11 and later has better spots.
Does Hope know Faith/Brave yet? :) Faith/Brave/En spells + Deprotect/Deshell/Imperil work great together~
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Xenoblade: Finished off the time-restricted quests - I love that the game tells you which ones have a restriction on when you can do them - then continued with the story. Didn't exactly have trouble on the boss, but it wasn't a complete walkover. (Required healing at the right times and careful move placement, but doing that meant nobody fell, let alone coming close to TPK.)
Left the mines after the next boss fight, walked into another fight. They're loving them plot battles right now, yeesh. Niiiice scene. I was waiting for them to reappear, and I'm glad the scene was done well.
...Back to Quests. Yeah, I'm trying to complete all of them. Turns out, though, I've done basically everything available at this point anyway. I got a quest that gave me two choices: throw an item away, or find someone who sends me on a fetchquest and then presumably more. Went with the fetchquest because I figure it'll be better for Affinity. If this doesn't change anything compared to the other option, I'm gonna be a little annoyed at putting in extra effort for no extra gain.
Also, I seem to be unable to find Beach Krabbles in the opening area. I've found everything else, including various Lv 70+ monsters, but not the basic crappy thing I have to kill for a quest. Blaaah.
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RAV/SAB/SYN (more effective with Role Levels)
MED/MED/MED
RAV/SAB/RAV
RAV/RAV/RAV
RAV/RAV/RAV (ATB Refresh)
COM/RAV/RAV
--------
That is crazy. I have exactly this (except not two ravs. . . which is ingenious really)
Can't really recommend Chapter 10 for the CPs without it getting kind of grindy (there was a place between a Behemoth and a group of bomb types I looped between for a while during my replay) Chapter 11 and later has better spots.
Nope! Not yet! Or, he may, and I haven't noticed. I'll check later tonight! Thanks guys. (:
Does Hope know Faith/Brave yet? :) Faith/Brave/En spells + Deprotect/Deshell/Imperil work great together~
[/quote]
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Hope gets Brave/Faith in the crystarium section unlocked after the Chapter 10 story boss, although IIRC they're somewhat far along so you probably won't see them until Chapter 11.
MED/MED/MED surprises me as a paradigm choice; it feels like you could get more milage out of replacing one of those Medics with a Commando (to maintain the chain gauge) or Synergist (to tilt things in your favour for later). Especially Commando if you run Tri-Disaster, since its chain vanishes rapidly if you switch to a full defensive paradigm. However I have not actually tried it.
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Well the thought process there is for the combination of all the role level bonuses for three MEDs to result in some rapid fire healing to full through the enchaced healing before immediately switching back to a chaining/offensive deck. Granted I usually control Vanille for some thoroughly boosted MT heal spam before switching back to something else~
With Lightning as leader instead COM/MED/MED might indeed work as an alternative =)
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I've MED/MED/MED just for instant healing, and I can say it's a nice 3 second break on the eyes. With V/L/H normally L & H get low HP, and Vanille heals weird - half and half, for example . . and I almost always control Lightning. What I *don't* like is COM/SAB/SAB unless the other SAB is decent in offense.
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Pokemon Affirmative Action Version: Finally doing the after game, got 2 of the 3 Legendaries...who aren't really after game apparently BUT I MISSED THEM BEFORE AND GETTING THEM NOW SHUT UP YOU SMELL >:(
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DE3: Stalking evil Canadians.
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Sands of Destruction- Beat. Turns out not only is the game not scaled for chaining attacks, but it's not scaled for doing all the sidequests. Final boss did 50 damage with it's Special, and failed to break defense otherwise. The sidequest gear is good, to be sure, but um. Yeah.
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Red Dead Redemption: Hum. The game nails atmosphere (... Mostly in cutscenes), but there's nothing exciting going on. Going to this after Saints Row 3 is painful. And it's what, only 2 years old?
Controls are Rockstar bad. Too complicated, not intuitive enough. Even at the end of the game I'm going to hit the "get out of cover to eat sandwich" button instead of the "kill everything" button.
The first non cutscene event I've seen was a madman starting to stab a woman. He stabbed her about two or three times (I was wrestling with the controls) before I managed to shoot his face. The stabbed lady got up in one second and stared at me like there was nothing wrong going on and everybody got back to what they were doing. Yep.
Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost Souls (PS3): Got addicted to this. Already finished the game as the human female, and restarting as a solo human male. (I'm not racist)
For the first few floors, the difficulty comes from understanding all the weird mechanics in place.
These kinds of weird mechanics:
- First thing you need to do is buy a map, or you're going to get very lost very soon.
- You get a permanent 1 Vit stat loss for being resurrected by conventional means. Vit roughly (very roughly) determines how many HPs you're going to get every level up. I've discarded a few characters because they were too Vit-screwed.
- Identifying an item costs as much as selling it back. You need some bishop ASAP to identify all the items for free because all your money is coming from that. But bishops have to be either good or evil alignment and need 13 Piety + 13 Intelligence
- Good and evil characters can't be in the same team.
- "YATTAF LOST 1 PIE". This is piety, not a real pie. You can lose stats from levelling up. Annoying at first, then you realize this doesn't matter at all.
- Actually you just kinda stop gaining stats from levels after about 30 levels unless you've been dying a lot, and this is normal.
- The shopkeeper never restocks, and his starting items are kind of crappy. Money can be converted to experience though and this is awesome.
- The inn lets you stay at a stable for free, this restores magic charges but not HP. Just use some healing spell and sleep again, voila, you never need to pay for anything more (I do anyway)
When you start getting to used to this, enemies really start striking back, with instant death, big MT damage, attacks that drain levels or money, etc. Fun. And the game has 0 puzzles, puzzles being the worst thing about dungeon crawlers! *glares at the Dark Spire* The final quest is a bit annoying since it involves going back to previous floors (no idea which ones) I just faqed my way to the final boss from that point on, but it wasn't too much of a problem.
The final boss is also named "Tempestus Rex" despite having nothing to do with T-Rexes whatsoever.
I'm going to do the DLC at some point, but right now I'm concentrating on the solo mode. Solo is HARD. You really, really need someone for identifying items (a bishop) and someone for opening rigged treasure chests... (a thief/ninja) I'm probably going to hog money and go ninja all the way. (with some fighter class change for more HP) Right now he's class changing like a madman. Fighter -> Samurai -> Fighter -> Mage -> Fighter -> Bishop.
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I am also playing Wizardry. I nabbed the Wiz1 remake and am playing on epsxe. Just got to the third floor.
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Sands of Destruction- Beat. Turns out not only is the game not scaled for chaining attacks, but it's not scaled for doing all the sidequests. Final boss did 50 damage with it's Special, and failed to break defense otherwise. The sidequest gear is good, to be sure, but um. Yeah.
Well that's because the special ignores defense.
- Actually you just kinda stop gaining stats from levels after about 30 levels unless you've been dying a lot, and this is normal.
There's a stat cap at +10 of the race's starting base stats, so yeah.
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DE3: Obligatory, self-indulgent visit to [developer hometown here] concluded. Bosses...yeah, they don't like EMP grenades. Only reason I was in any danger was because of the electrified floor (I died once because I didn't immediately notice that was happening).
Augments are weird. You could probably get through the game without taking any, since...the game was obviously designed around you not taking any. The developers gave you complete freedom to take whatever upgrades you want! Correspondingly, because they couldn't know what you would take, none of them are actually necessary to further the plot. Augments might open up alternate paths, extra goodies, be necessary for sidequests but, in order to avoid the player getting stuck somewhere because they didn't pick the proper upgrades, they're never required to progress through plot-important areas. So we get stuff like all required hacking being level 1 even if it's in a high security compound, while some random storage compartment in an alley is level 5.
Game is fun, it's just silly sometimes.
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Wizardry 1- Finished. Final boss's support was brutal- I wasn't high enough leveled to dispel his support, so it was silence spam and hope. I got lucky, jumped the final boss and managed to silence him turn one.
Short game. Class changing and the like isn't really worth it; you just don't get high enough leveled for it the way you do in later games.
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DE3: Finished up with Detroit redux, went home to jet out again only to discover my enemies had laid a diabolical trap--the door to my apartment building was replaced with a vortex to the abyss, and I plummeted to my death immediately upon entry! Wait, that was just a bug. Well, they should look into that anyway. It was very effective.
Back in China, replay opening sequence until I actually manage to save Malik. Man, that was rude. Horde of goons > bosses, always. Also, in what I suspect will prove to be a bad decision, immediately went to the clinic to get biochip replaced. The current air of paranoia is such that I have to presume something I didn't ask for got installed at the same time, but having systems short out on me randomly is kind of bad.
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I should really post here more often. I haven't posted about the non-Lost Odyssey games I've played in over a month, wow.
Lost Odyssey - I've kinda stalled on this. It's not bad but the pacing gets to me a bit, as mentioned. Anyway, I'll definitely be playing it more when a certain friend visits, since he really enjoys watching it and making fun of the character designs. I am currently running around the Numaran palace after stripping the Numaran army of their clothes. Honestly, given the costume work in this game, they should thank me for doing them a favour, but instead they got angry and embarrassed and want to kill me. Jerks.
Final Fantasy XIII - Beat this. In Chapter 12-13 I settled on a Sazh/Fang/Vanille team. Worked pretty well I guess, though not as well as my first playthrough team. I had one reset on each of the three final bosses.
Doing the aftergame this time. Swapped Hope in for Sazh because I was getting fed up with lacking Ice and Water spells for my ravaging, plus the second high-end Medic does add some flexibility. Anyway, aftergame was uneventful enough until I ran into Titan's trials, which has some rather nasty bosses. The first encounter was with Neochu who is just a douche; it took over half a dozen resets to manage his upper HP and then I learned he gets new tricks below half and yeah I don't think I'm good enough to deal with him yet. The next two proved more manageable but still quite nasty. Zirnitra I hit a wall against until I realised that he was so ST-based that he could controlled quite nicely with Sentinel Snow loaded up with anti-status accessories. Ratkavija was more straightforward, a fun suped-up version of the Inertial Barrier enemies from Oerba. The aftergame does really get more milage out of PCs' secondary roles (particularly Commando, Sentinel, and Ravager) which is neat.
Laggy Fantasy Tactics - Playing this, just beat Adramelk. I'm doing an FF13-flavoured playthrough. The only really hard restriction is that, after Chapter 1 anyway, I've forged characters to use certain weapons, though the general designs are things I've tried to copy from the home game as well. To summarise:
Snow "Steelguard" Beoule: Fists; Squire/Knight/Monk/Summoner/Black Mage; Martial Arts/Equip Armour/Half of MP. Golem off high HP is cool and the most flavourful thing I could find for him.
Lightning: Swords; Geomancer/White Mage/Thief/Black Mage; Attack Up/Equip Sword. Hits things and casts Raise.
Sazh: Guns; Time Mage/Black Mage/Bard/Chemist; Equip Gun. Applies various buffs; occasionally does item duty. I stole Balk's gun so he now has Flamestrike.
Vanille: Rods/staves; Black Mage/White Mage; Short Charge/Magic Attack Up. MVP for much of the game because female black mage makes things go boom, and she emphasised this quite strongly. Also a pretty effective white mage, no Holy though.
Fang: Spears/sticks; Lancer/Oracle/Samurai/Time Mage; Equip Spear/Two Hands. Hits things very hard with pointy objects, casts YYM or TM as appropriate (only has the Slow spells from Time, hasn't actually spent time there due to Sazh spillover).
Fun times. Battles notable for challenge so far include Wiegraf 1-2, Algus, Queklain, Izlude, Riovanes Roof, and especially Doguola Pass which was the site of four resets (nothing else so far has broken two). Yeah, Doguola Pass. LFT is a strange creature.
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Wizardry Labyrinth of lost souls: Beat the DLC. It's worthless.
Almost every encounter in the last floor can and will easily wipe your team unless you grind like a madman. Teleporting during battles is risky because you can teleport into a wall. (not pretty) And even then, most of the time three characters are already dead before the fastest one can react and use the freaking teleport spell.
Every enemy is faster than the fastest kind of character, and every enemy does near OHKO damage to the most durable kind of character. (killing everybody else handily) What could I possibly do? There is nothing to prevent horrible death but save abuse.
I liked the game overall, and have been addicted for a while, but this is far from being one of the best dungeon crawlers, even ignoring the DLC. Exploration is king in those games, but here everything feels so empty and there are randomized treasure chests (awful idea)
Pokemon Ruby Nuzlocke: Victory Road is a brick wall. I'm advancing very carefully and very slowly, backtracking all the time. I'm not used to randoms this powerful.
Somehow Groundon was the first pokemon I encountered in his dungeon, so hey. I hope he doesn't have diabate, because he's going to eat 18 rare candies real soon.
So I have my final team of 6 pokemon. Groundon, Swampert, Dusclops, Swalot, Armaldo, Hariyama. They're all pretty useful (except Armaldo, but I fed him so much exp I'm not dropping him)
Inindo Way of the Ninja (Snes):
This game hates the player! (at first)
The main character is the wimpiest looking main character I've seen (Probably), and he begins the game by getting his ass kicked by 3 random ninjas. He then goes kill some rats (congratulations), before going all the way across the world map to Mt Fuji (good thing I know Japan somewhat, or I'd never have found it). Along the way he sees countless generic looking cities with tons of nice characters to recruit or attack (unfortunately he can't do that since his level is too low and nobody trusts him) or fun activites like spying and army battles (he can't do any of those either).
There's a good chance that anywhere on a world map or in a inn, a random ninja will come, kick his ass, leave him at 1 HP and steal half his money.
Good lord. Fortunately, the Mt Fuji dungeon (did you know that there were fire rats in Mt Fuji?) got me a ton of levels and good equipment. Real game, here I come.
But first:
*goes to drink tea*
*meets another ninja who kicks my ass and steals half my money*
Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes: Finished. Final boss wasn't much of a trouble!
The plot did go a bit crazy and nonsensical towards the end, but that's to be expected from something that tries to tie Chrono Cross to anything.
My final party was Magus/Ayla/Robo.
Ayla was a monster thanks to her new Auto Berserk move. This + Haste Helm + Speed belt = Dead randoms.
Gamebest team is Magus + Ayla + Marle. (Marle being the best support character, which is a bit mindblowing to me. It's freaking Marle! The only thing she has over her CT self is MT Haste instead of ST Haste)
I wasn't floored or anything, but this was a very decent hack.
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Marle was already the best support character in CT anyway if you ask me (Haste!), so I don't really get the surprise. Granted, CT wasn't really a game about support characters and you could very easily play without one, but Marle was better than uh... I guess Frog is the only other one, so she wins by default.
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Elf: You must make a Hope generic and then let him die over and over again.
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I meant that she's the third best character, as she supports Psycho Ayla and Fangasm Magus (the two MVPs) well.
She's just better than Lucca, Crono, Robo and Frog (OMG)
Marle is a textbook bad character for me in vanilla CT. (maybe not as bad as Frog who has no niché, but everyone else is way better) She's nearly useless against most randoms, and she's subpart against bosses before she gets Haste and after you get a Haste Helm. Even then setting haste up is a bit annoying and she feels like she often feels like she's the only character who can actually die in game thanks to that awful physical durability. She just makes battles last a lot longer than they should.
But it's mostly the uselessness against randoms.
In Crimson Echoes, MT Haste sees a lot of use against randoms as they're (too) durable. You might as well not have her act after using it, but it's good enough.
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Wizardry 5- Started up the PSX remakes. The differences:
1.Everyone caps out at 18 in a stat, rather than just +10 to the base value of a stat. This makes race pretty irrelevant.
2. AUTOMAP. Oh god, automap. Not only is it an automap, but it's a good one. It marks things like dark zones on it, which is wonderful.
3. You can port the PC's from earlier versions of the PSX wizardry remakes. That doesn't much matter. What does is that they start you with PC's who are above level 1. Even better, you get one of each class- including Ninja and Lord, which are pains in the ass to pick up normally.
4. You lose stats a little more often than you did in the SNES version on levels up.
Other than that, it's Wizardry 5. I'm enjoying it. I did have trouble getting the potion of spirit away event to fire correctly, but it did eventually work. I'm L8 or so right now. Running a Lord/Lord/Samurai/Ninja/Mage/Bishop team. The lack of a Cleric is hurting a little (I am going to miss Bamordi) but other than that, it's strong enough. Didn't run a mage last game, so I am enjoying getting to play around with that.
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You know what? I am legitimately interested in how you take to an expansive old school dungeon crawlish romp that you don't have experience with. DLCon, I am throwing money at you and you are buying a later Might and Magic game or two (I was thinking 6-8, buuuut 6 is only in a pack with 1-5 which I know you have some experience with and/or have no desire to say HERE PLAY THESE).
Mass Effect 3 - So I have been kicking around in Multiplayer still. I have discovered a few things. I still love Engineer the most. Human Engineer and I are like BFFs 4 life. It was a really weird feeling trying out other classes (after levelling one through to 20 about 3 times before really playing something else). I actually felt like I should just use Missile Launcher to gib Banshees and the like with other characters! How alien. Human Engi gets tools to handle every situation and it is fantastic. Roll engi more often dudes. Other thing I have discovered, I enjoy being the fucking Predator. Geth get a Hunter Mode. It is wall hacks and makes you do everything you are good at faster and hit harder. It halves your shields. Most importantly it makes you see the world through Predator targetting reticule (and makes your headlamp bright fucking red). I played Infiltrator and hated it until I stopped trying to be an infiltrator and just ran around bossing shit like fucking Rambo with Predator Mode going. Can still stealth to run like a bitch! Also learned that going "man all these powers fucking suck" and putting points in HP boosters actually has very significant boost to your durability. Can still run around and tank rockets to the face with halved shields and most of a Geth's durability is shields (like 450ish health and 1600 shields I think it was). I had underrated these skills.
What I hadn't underrated was Melee. Melee is fucking terrible in Mutliplayer. Yes it kills things and does a lot of damage. You see unfortunately you need to fucking melee shit to do that. You know what is a terrible idea to melee? Turrets. Banshees. Atlas. Guardians. Like fucking tons of shit. Stop it PUGs, I am sick of picking you up off the floor. Heaven help you if you get stuck in a pug with 2 retards trying to melee everything.
It is even worse when you see that stuff I said about durability boosts being pretty significant? You forgo that to be better at melee. So you are squishier and need to get all up ins to do your damage. The perks are even meant to be used in tandem with shooting, but terribad pugs don't do that. They just try to Krogan headbutt shit all the time even though they got like a 30% weapon damage boost for hitting something 20 seconds ago with heavy Melee.
Aaaaaalso, I don't know if there is bots playing this or just people AFKing, but for all that Bronze is super easy at this point I am sick to fuck of three manning it to carry some scrub who doesn't actually want to play the game to unlock things for the game. For serious, I saw a game where someone only got a medal for 10 assists. You get assists just for scratching something that someone else kills. You get one for getting 5 headshots (...) and like 25 kills. Dude didn't even manage that. GJ there level 17 Soldier. We Legit 3 manned stuff yesterday instead of carrying someone. Still easy mode, we actually had a good pug in one we 3 manned (Missiling Banshees as they pop. Cloak Missile Launcher is fucking sex btw) and cleared it just a touch over 15 mins which is faster than most 4 man games go with bads. Also had an amazing pug where someone like rank 400ish joined my 2 player premade and were like oh this should be a cake walk. Then someone rank 1333 joined and absolutely dominated the game. Beat 2 of us but about 10k points (fucking huge scoring game all round) and the 400ish rank guy did sweet fuck all. 14:30 clear. Sadly couldn't keep the 1333 guy next game as we were swapping in a third and game filled the pug spot before I switched it to Private to get in a buddy that had finished lunch and couldn't dump the new guy. Arianya, respect.
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Elf: You must make a Hope generic and then let him die over and over again.
>:(
*makes a Djinn generic and lets him die over and over*
I meant that she's the third best character, as she supports Psycho Ayla and Fangasm Magus (the two MVPs) well.
She's just better than Lucca, Crono, Robo and Frog (OMG)
Marle is a textbook bad character for me in vanilla CT. (maybe not as bad as Frog who has no niché, but everyone else is way better)
She's nearly useless against most randoms, and she's subpart against bosses before she gets Haste and after you get a Haste Helm. Even then setting haste up is a bit annoying and she feels like she often feels like she's the only character who can actually die in game thanks to that awful physical durability. She just makes battles last a lot longer than they should.
But it's mostly the uselessness against randoms.
In Crimson Echoes, MT Haste sees a lot of use against randoms as they're (too) durable. You might as well not have her act after using it, but it's good enough.
No argument about randoms (outside Magus' Castle where Ice Water is the best, and she's also fine during the part of the game where she has Ice 2 before you start getting real high-end stuff, though unexceptional), but against bosses, she gets Haste around midgame and you don't get Haste Helms until the very, very end (Black Omen) at which point you can use them against two bosses (Lavos Spawn and the Zeal chain) before you face Lavos who does way too much magic damage/status to consider using Haste Helm over Prism on anyone except perhaps Magus. I generally found Haste outweighs any other possible differences between the PCs in boss fights because permanent 2x speed is pretty awesome (and unlike FFX, bosses never dispel).
CT bosses skew pretty magical so I didn't find Marle's durability to be a problem in practice. I guess it's more important than low physical durability in Legend of Dragoon though! Probably.
I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea she's #6, but the gap between her and #1 isn't that large (because CT is weirdly balanced).
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To be fair, a lot of classes have trouble scoring well at low levels. Trying to get points on my Justicar was fuckig awful for my first two games, coming off my level 20 Vanguard.
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DE3: Mr. Anatomy is down. Also, biochip replacement proved as ill-advised as previously considered. Dammit Cid, stop doing things you know are stupid.
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That specific part of DE3 is something I love. Make a genre savvy check to save screwing yourself over.
Also teaches valuable lessons with regards to firmware and software upgrades in real life. Not that you can't trust them, just the level of access you are providing to your hardware.
And yeah Rob Some classes are a bitch at low level. You can still get more than 10 assists. All you need for that is to shoot or use a skill on like 5% of the spawned enemies. Grab an smg and click the button. Get assists.
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So what happens if you don't get it replaced?
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The game is easier. You don't have the random glitches and boss fight doesn't screw you.
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So what happens if you don't get it replaced?
You get to be SO FUCKING SMUG.
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Yeah CT is well balanced (Except Frog... But even Frog is no Mogu or anything, he's still a serviceable healer with no bad stats) I can't say Marle isn't good when she shines, it's just that her lack of speed/damage/physical durability/(arguably MT healing) are just too much of a problem to use her a lot. She's a hassle to use most of the time. (Does anyone really switch Marle in only against bosses then switch her out? It's probably the most efficient way to play the game technically, but yeah)
I also wouldn't use Marle against Lavos anyway, because recovering from Big MT Rock to the face with Marle as your only (dead) healer doesn't sound good (not that it's too much of a problem anyway, it's CT)
PKMN Ruby Nuzlocke: Finished.
Elite 4 didn't stand a chance against my lvl 64 Pikachu (His name is a trap, he's actually a Groudon. I'm not above using unfair tactics against the Elite 4) Swelot was the second most useful, Toxic being godly in those battle of attritions and Sludge Bomb being decent damage. Since I've been trying and failing in just about every game to raise an useful poison type (the coolest type), this is great.
The other four in my tema were sitting ducks against the Elite 4, really. I gave Swampert Blizzard and it hit 1 time out of 5. I really need to stop ever using Blizzard.
If you're always on your toes and use durable pokemons, the challenge is not too hard. I won it on the second try without knowing much about the game at all. (I didn't even know the types of the Elite 4. Hell I still don't know the type of the first Elite 4 guy. Normal ? Dark ?)
It wasn't the most interesting challenge, but it gets points for never feeling like a cakewalk.
I've also learnt one valuable thing : Even in the direst situation, fighting against all odds against powerful gym leaders... You still don't care about those berries.
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D3: Rolled a Monk, completed act 1, nerdgasming on the epic perfection it was.
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Elite 4 didn't stand a chance against my lvl 64 Pikachu (His name is a trap, he's actually a Groudon. I'm not above using unfair tactics against the Elite ... Since I've been trying and failing in just about every game to raise an useful poison type (the coolest type), this is great.
...
I've also learnt one valuable thing : Even in the direst situation, fighting against all odds against powerful gym leaders... You still don't care about those berries.
And this is why you will always be my favourite.
Diablo 3 - I am playing and I like it and that is all I am really going to say about it because everyone pretty much knows how the chips fall in this one.
There was two things I really wished for most of last night was an item filter to stop seeing white items since they are worthless (not even worth the effort to vendor. You will make more off walking a bit further and getting 3 more gold drops than for an inv full of white loot). I didn't find this.
The other thing I wished for was to be able to change which skills went on which button and to have a bit more info about skills. This is actually in there under Gameplay in the options menu. Complex Tooltips and Elective mode do both of these things.
So I am running around throwing explosives at things, spraying them with my gats, killing things with my Hatred and rocking a wicked scarf. Demon Hunter is pretty much Grefter Perfection.
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Diablo 3 - Played a little last night. Witch Doctor. Grefter what is your Battle net ID. jerkface is CotigoDArmes#1907
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Must...avoid...buying...D3...so soon...
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give in
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Ha! I don't even need to resist because my computer's so shitty it wouldn't even be able to play it!
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DE3: Adam Jensen: 1; world gone mad: 0.
Went with the Darrow's speech ending. Although I'm not fond of broadcasting a general anti-technology message, this was pretty much the default option for unmasking secret world council of douchebaggery, and the Cid is almost always going to adopt an anti-authoritarian stance if that's an option. Besides, when you're using human beings as computers and your human computers wail constantly about what perpetual fear and pain they're in, it might really be time to take a step back and say, "What the fuck are we doing."
General comments after checking out other endings.
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Wizardry 5: Finished. Man, the Silver Armor trick makes wandering the dungeon so much easier.
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Ha! I don't even need to resist because my computer's so shitty it wouldn't even be able to play it!
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DE3: Adam Jensen: 1; world gone mad: 0.
Went with the Darrow's speech ending. Although I'm not fond of broadcasting a general anti-technology message, this was pretty much the default option for unmasking secret world council of douchebaggery, and the Cid is almost always going to adopt an anti-authoritarian stance if that's an option. Besides, when you're using human beings as computers and your human computers wail constantly about what perpetual fear and pain they're in, it might really be time to take a step back and say, "What the fuck are we doing."
General comments after checking out other endings.
You know Darrow is actually a pro-authority ending that serves Illuminati goals, right? Beacuse, Darrow... you are a puppet. This is a Deus Ex game; the Illuminati are just way too many steps ahead of you. Consider this: no matter what you choose, the fact you make it through everything means Bob Page wins.
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(Very long) Fighting Game Weekend!
Street Fighter 4: (AE2012 for the awkward ones who'd complain. ;o) Played a few games, all as Cammy, including losing a couple of games online due to failing horribly at pulling off EX Cannon Strikes on pad. Mostly watching my friend play as Zangief, T. Hawk and Hakan online. Nothing better than seeing Zangief run at an online Dudley from across the stage and just have the guy stand there and get grabbed.
BlazBlue: So much story mode. I've never played BlazBlue before, but wanted to for about 2 years, thanks to seeing some at Evo '10. I think this was CS2, but not Extend? Anyways, mostly watched my friend going through story modes, and I absolutely love the joke/bad endings. Specifically the bad ones, actually. "You killed the main character. That's kind of a bad thing." Arakune continues to be weird and I love it but I would hate playing as him. I played through Arcade once, having never touched the game before, and managed to get to the end quite comfortably on Normal as Noel, until I got absolutely stomped by Hazama. Whoops.
Skullgirls: This is almost exactly what I wanted in a fighting game, and I'm totally grabbing the PC version when I can/when it's out. Things like infinite prevention, ridiculous combos (BlazBlue or Guilty Gear-style) but with only one OTG per combo, a range of characters where projectiles rarely mean much, a pretty well-balanced cast, air-blocking, air-dashes, and a grappler I can actually play as. These are why the game is awesome. Valentine and Painwheel are the reasons the game is not awesome. I'm just not a big fan of their design, but I think Filia and Cerebella are fantastic, and I can see why those two were the ones included in the demo. Also, Peacock's blocks being, uhh, actual blocks? That's nice. Also hearing "Garbage Day!" when you least expect it.
And we forgot to play Marvel. Oh well, no real loss for me.
Also no SFxT, but that's just jabjabjabjabjab anyway.
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You know Darrow is actually a pro-authority ending that serves Illuminati goals, right? Beacuse, Darrow... you are a puppet. This is a Deus Ex game; the Illuminati are just way too many steps ahead of you. Consider this: no matter what you choose, the fact you make it through everything means Bob Page wins.
I'd assume all of them are, to some extent. Prequel, can't fundamentally change the mythos. Shutting the industry down or leaving it up for mind control abuse both seem to serve them, after all. I figured this option was less egregious due to at least including an effort at unmasking them, even if it's not likely to go anywhere because see above + loony-sounding conspiracy theory even if it happens to be true + one of Adam's lines to Darrow was absolutely correct, who's really going to listen to what Darrow has to say given what he did, etc. Still, didn't involve outright being someone's lackey (Taggart in particular said all the wrong things to convince me) or killing everyone, which I really can't see being any kind of solution* especially after I made an effort to get through Panchaea without killing people. Contrary to what Eliza said, I don't see how that would prevent anyone from spinning the situation--it's not like the Illuminati are going down with Panchaea, they could say whatever they hell they wanted about it through Picus. There's an air of futility about the situation no matter what the choice.
*Unless, as you seem to imply, Adam being alive is crucial for series developments elsewhere, given the whole miracle DNA thing. Note that I haven't played DE1 and have no idea who Bob Page is outside of his appearance here.
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Note that I haven't played DE1
You should get about fixing that.
D3 - Okay one last post, finished normal. We were going to find the town in Act 4 to sell stuff because our inventories were full after end of Chapter 3. Then suddenly final boss and finishing gaming at midnight and I have gym in the morning.
I didn't like Act 3 much honestly. It touches on all the parts of D2 I didn't enjoy much. Specifically it is Act 5 of D2:LoD and shades of the first couple of zones in Act 4. Act 4 itself promised more than it delivered as well. I was hoping for some neat architecture and straight up wanted to see a town after what we saw in Act 4 town in D2. Instead I got some okay stuff and then more Act 4 first 2 zones again. Meeeeehhhhhhhhhh where is the architecture eye candy.
Gameplay is still what it is. On the fence on how much I will play, but it was worth picking up for myself at least.
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You know Darrow is actually a pro-authority ending that serves Illuminati goals, right? Beacuse, Darrow... you are a puppet. This is a Deus Ex game; the Illuminati are just way too many steps ahead of you. Consider this: no matter what you choose, the fact you make it through everything means Bob Page wins.
I'd assume all of them are, to some extent. Prequel, can't fundamentally change the mythos. Shutting the industry down or leaving it up for mind control abuse both seem to serve them, after all. I figured this option was less egregious due to at least including an effort at unmasking them, even if it's not likely to go anywhere because see above + loony-sounding conspiracy theory even if it happens to be true + one of Adam's lines to Darrow was absolutely correct, who's really going to listen to what Darrow has to say given what he did, etc. Still, didn't involve outright being someone's lackey (Taggart in particular said all the wrong things to convince me) or killing everyone, which I really can't see being any kind of solution* especially after I made an effort to get through Panchaea without killing people. Contrary to what Eliza said, I don't see how that would prevent anyone from spinning the situation--it's not like the Illuminati are going down with Panchaea, they could say whatever they hell they wanted about it through Picus. There's an air of futility about the situation no matter what the choice.
*Unless, as you seem to imply, Adam being alive is crucial for series developments elsewhere, given the whole miracle DNA thing. Note that I haven't played DE1 and have no idea who Bob Page is outside of his appearance here.
Just the fact that he made it through all the shit thrown at him is proof enough. That's how far ahead of you the Illuminati are. There is no choice you can make that doesn't work for them.
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Which is really quite a depressing conclusion.
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You don't get to be a shadowy global conspiracy that controls the whole world by not understanding backup plans, scapegoats, smoke screens and catspaws.
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Ys: Ark of the Napishtim - Started this. The quality of the voice acting is inversely proportional to how damn much of it there is. Honestly kind of surprised everyone has voiced lines. I weep for how much money the company lost on this. Still sort of getting my ARPG touch back, but having fun with the gameplay so far. Crossed through the tunnel to the human settlement. Kind of amusing how blatant they are with the real world location references. Gives Valkyria Chronicles a run for it's money.
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Pokemon Black: Reached Undella Bay! Yay progress or something!
Kid Icarus Uprising: Cragalanche beaten with Poseidon Cannon (about as bad a Poseidon Cannon as you can get too...), Lightning Valley Girl Bitch beaten with a Meteor Bow, and SPACE BUTLER defeated with WORST WEAPON IN THE GAME NO SERIOUSLY WHY DOES IT SHOOT A SHITTY RANGE SHIELD THAT DOESN'T DEFEND MUCH AS ITS CHARGE MOVE!?!??!
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Diablo 3: Barbarian. Still in Act 1 because work owns me. Just finished up the spider caves and holy crap is this game good. Sounds like Act 4 is somehow even shorter than it was in D2 which is lame, but I guess that's what difficulty levels are for. Shale#1151.
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Corpse Party: Up to Chapter 5. I... honestly can't quite decide how I feel about this game. It has some relatively brilliant things and well done things, then it does some absolutely pants on head stupid things. Got a Wrong End for Chapter 5 that just sort of seemed weird as it careened wildly out of control and didn't really explain anything that happened on Ayumi's end?
Dunno.
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Diablo 3: Barbarian. Still in Act 1 because work owns me. Just finished up the spider caves and holy crap is this game good. Sounds like Act 4 is somehow even shorter than it was in D2 which is lame, but I guess that's what difficulty levels are for. Shale#1151.
I'm only slightly further ahead of you. Next time I'm on (Friday evening your time?) if you're on I'll try and join your game. D3 is fun but I have more fun with it with other people.
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Just picked up Endless Space on Steam. The build is only an Alpha (5/8 races playable) but it really doesn't feel like it. I've only encountered a couple of bugs, graphical only, and game balance is a little off with tuning build times and such, but that's a constant process.
Really scratches my space 4X itch after the disappointment that was SotS 2. You customize your ships loadouts to a weight limit, but hulls are fixed, so it's not QUITE GalCiv 2 (RIP USS Dongphin) but I really like the way planet management works.
Systems have 2-5 planets of different quality. Some will have anomalies that penalize or benefit them in some way. They also have different climates and being able to settle them is linked to that (as well as production and such). Initially you can only colonize planets that have fairly tame climates, but as you expand the tree you can settle desert worlds or build gas giant habitats or whatever.
Combat's also pretty interesting. It's fairly automatic, as your fleet starts out at range and closes in. You have some special maneuvers you can execute to help you or hinder your enemy. While this is happening, huge starship fleet battle porn is going on. You dont fight forever, though, your fleets do a sortie and then pull back. Makes it harder to pin down a losing enemy, which is good and bad. Different weapon types are more effective at different ranges, so that can affect your choice of maneuvers as the fight continues. I'm not that advanced so my ships primarily rely on projectile weapons, as I don't have access to the resources to make beam weapons or newer torpedoes like I do cannons.
Anyway, it's 25% off on Steam for the forseeable future so if you like space 4X you should check it out.
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Waterga!
All the enemies go "poof!"
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Tales of Graces F - Beaten. For good this time! Bu, I am still playing, because there is so much I forgot to do. After beting the game, not selecting NG+ allows me to jump back into the first part of te game and collect all those things I missed.
90% of the treasures collected.
75 % of the skits.
and 80 % on the item discovered.
Hubert's is the only character who has almost all of this titles. Guess I will have to play as everyone else to and start unlocking some skills.
D3 - This game is fun! Never played any of the other Diablo games, but since all my friends were raving about them, I figured I might as well give it a try! I started as a Demon Hunter. The character is fun, my friends really help improve the game though. Solo questing can get dull. We are just a shade into act 3 right now.
I made some ults so I could play with other people, but I have a Monk, Barb, and Wizard all around 10 as well. The wizard is a tough character to play! But that's my own fault since I joined up with a friend who was near the end of act 1 while my guy was only around level 5 or so. I then left him and tried to solo the end of the act with my weak ass mage only to get one shotted by every damn enemy! I eventually managed to get past the butcher and into act 2 with him, but man was it challenging! He is level 11 currently.
Also, the Scoundrel is a blast to have tag along with you. His conversations are entertaining. Not sure wha my gamer tag is. I will have to go back and check later on today!
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Just left Mah'habara, got Hectonheir (sp?) and simply saved and turned the game off. So everyone has their individual eidolith. I have a couple L4 roles, and have decided to stop branching out to unlearned roles until the end of the game.
I feel like the battling is getting faster (Ruinga+Thundaga); spamming specific moves've gotten the battles a bit too formulaic at this point.
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So...
Picking up D3 tonight, will play a little bit of it, then probably not for a week or so (yay Virgin Islands for a week). Make sure not to completely finish off everything before then, people!
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Pfft. Come play Path of Exile with all the cool kids instead.
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D3: Purchased, both Ash and I are playing (one compy, sadly =( ). Barbarian for moi, currently past getting all three sword pieces. Ash is playing a Demon Hunter and up to the Skeleton King.
League of Legends: Bad couple of games in a row =(
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Also picked up D3 yesterday. Running a female Witch Doctor. In Act II, level 18.
Game is good. There are a LOT of awesome improvements from D2. It feels a little less like Diablo and a biiiiiiit more like AARPG stuff (which...is the designed purpose). Seemed so easy early...and then, at the first major boss fight against King Leoric, it actually got tough. Final boss of Act I in particular was nasty. The characterization...they actually finally made the generic characters have a personality. This is probably the best part - it's less of a "skip text, grind more" and actually interesting storyline-wise. Feels longer overall than D3 (although...Act I was fairly short in D2). The support characters are a great idea...honestly, you should be able to have all of them (3...I assume, as that's how many I have now) active at once. Would be great, and give a neat party aspect to single-player.
The fact that mage stats now actually impact damage is great. Lots of different skills, and, so far, a reason to change them around. I actually CARE about armour defensive stats now, because enemies actually are intelligent enough to go attack your character and not your meatshields. Especially bosses! Holy shit less micromanagement of town portal and identify. Also, awesomeness incarnate - more relative inventory space! Holy shit! Also, buying weapons (i.e., crafting) gives money a use. And now money is a decent commodity, instead a dump for rings. On the flipside, stuff sells poorly, so it's not worth picking up anything but magic items and money now.
Bad stuff...while I don't care about it myself, there should be an off-line single-player capacity. Don't like health potions having such a cooldown...but on the other hand, they are immediate-acting...but so were the D2 ones. Enemies are rough, and some of the unique specials are brutal (although for good reason - they're used intelligently, and make teamwork more important) - Waller and Vortex and Jailer are nasty attributes, as they limit your ability to kite. I'd like to see a bit more individual customization (maybe +3 stat points per level to distribute how you want in addition to the automatic 5), but otherwise, pretty pleased with the game. It is fun, addicting, and clears some of the dumb stuff from D2. Decent story progression, and holy shit sidequests. I did Act I in...8-ish hours? And I still found out I was missing out on half the dungeons and a bunch of sidequests. Holy shit.
So yeah, when I get back from St. John, anyone up for teaming up? I wish it were more than 4 people, but...
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I had to start clicking white things again for gems. But that's about it. A less genre savvy friend of mine picks up absolutely everything and it is infuriating.
Change classes (or maybe I will, I don't think I know anyone who plays monk) and I'm in. 2 witch doctors is asstarded though.
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In my latest game of Endless Space, through random happenstance it came out that I started out in a part of the galaxy isolated from the rest except through one stable wormhole. Naturally I went about setting up a base on my end, then eventually crossed through to explore, and start setting up outposts on the other side of the wormhole when I make contact with another empire.
I know you're thinking "wait isn't that like exactly what happened in DS9?" Well, you'd be half right. On the other side of the wormhole was an empire but it wasn't so much the Dominion as it was an all-consuming enemy horde that exists only to kill. The Cravers are like part Borg, part Reaver. Their ships are cheaper, tougher and more powerful, while they get a bonus to all output from worlds they hold. After 50 turns their worlds are depleted and take huge output penalties, so they gotta keep conquering shit.
Fun enemy, except that last patch made them more formidable by breaking fleet cap sizes for them. At this point in the game my cap on command points was 7. Destroyers/corvettes are 1 point, battleships and cruisers 2, and dreadnoughts 4. Well, the Cravers come at me with fleets whose CP value reads 30/7, made up of ships with passive bonuses to HP and damage.
Currently I've been pushed out of the galactic core and am fighting them on my end of the wormhole. I'm hoping that if I can stall them for several more turns by continuing to hold the bottleneck, their worlds will deplete and I can turn shit around. Fortunately I'm no Federation, and it I was, I'd be the Captain Kirk kind.
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Some days it is easy to forget that you are a big enough nerd to actually partake in a full blown conversation on this site instead of just vastly improving it with colour commentary.
Today is not one of those days.
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Hey, not my fault it's been a while since there's been a 4X or RPG actually worth talking about. This was gonna happen when the Civ V expansion dropped.
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Are you telling me that Fantasy Odyssey Sword 3 is not a game that deserves all the discussion it's been getting around here?
What are you, some kind of fucking socialist?
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And this is why you will always be my favourite.
Less than 3, man.
Hey Super, did you draw your own Wizardry maps or did you just faq the whole game?
You should probably try one of those DS dungeoncrawlers. Strange Journey or Etrian Odyssey. Having the second screen act as a map is so great. (I could say the same thing about Castlevanias) (and I know, FM5)
Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost Souls Solo: Losing interest because 1) I've already played the game 2) The main character is a guy not named Yattaf
Inindo: Beat three dungeons of Learn Some New Skill At The End, then one dungeon of Powerful Equipment.
There are a ton of potential party members and I have no idea what's the real difference between any of them beyond "Slightly more magic oriented" or "Slightly more physically oriented". All I know is that I want some chicks in my team instead of those two boring samurais.
Turned the sound on then immediatly off. The battle music makes me want to start another horrible music tournament. I don't hate it more than the Second Miltia music or anything, but still.
By the way, this is the guy who wants to kill Nobunaga:
(http://nsa29.casimages.com/img/2012/05/22//120522123059652459.jpg)
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D3: I finally got to Act II! Jesus Christ those acid-spitting bugs are annoying when you're pure melee. And when you're getting 400ms ping and can't dodge their shots. I was going to play more this morning and hopefully take advantage of less-crowded servers to run through that part but oh look bnet is down again. I swear, my boss is paying them off.
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Xenoblade Chronicles: Okay, so I told myself I wasn't going to quest today, since I've barely been playing it because I've been aimlessly questing. So naturally, I started off doing a few quests for Frontier Village. Whatever, they were easy ones. Then, off to Alcamoth, and oh god how am I underlevelled I've been questing almost non-stop ;-;
So, spent a while beating enemies around here, just so I can catch up to the enemy levels. Continue with plot, go through a Tomb. Urrrrrk. Boss here took me about 4-5 tries. Started off with a team of Shulk/Reyn/Sharla, switched to Sharla/Reyn/Melia after one loss, and two losses with that team pushed me to a team of Sharla/Shulk/Reyn. Turns out, me being Sharla is much better than the AI doing it, and they can handle Shulk perfectly fine. (In fact, sometimes better than me, because they actually give a damn about Monado skills that aren't Buster.)
Off towards Prison Island~
Oh, but I should probably do that Colony 6 quest sometime soon...
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Pokemon Black: Explored all unexplored places for the most part, apparently missing an ENTIRE SECTION OF THE MAP in the main game in the south west corner leading to hilariously bad trainers that were probably meant to be semi-competent!
Also caught Kyurem finally. Now I think I just have the Runner left...by which will require me to activate it first...
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Hey Super, did you draw your own Wizardry maps or did you just faq the whole game?
Wizardry 1 and 5 on the PSX had automapping, which I used. I did FAQ 1/5, but I've already beaten 5 before, and 1 had next to nothing to actually FAQ.
EO's on my list of games to play, but I can't find my DS. AUGH
Edit: Downloaded L4D2 a couple of days back, since I never did play around with the imported L4D1 maps. Bunch of superficial changes to the maps (To make camping harder mostly- you can't run back to the safe room in Dead air 3 before the panic event, dead air 4 has a second panic event as well). DA's finale was surprisingly easy though- they kept the closest from L4D1, and standing behind the plane is easy if you conserve ammo thanks to only having two sides to worry about.
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D3 - I am on my second playthrough with my Demon Hunter. I beat the first game with almost no Vitality in my gear. Yeah, that running around with 900 HP in Nightmare mode was not working.
My guy is now lv 38 and has around 6k HP, but still gets smacked around, kiting is my best friend. I should really be running around with the Templar, but I did that the first run through so I have that enchantress with me. She does not take hits for me sadly.
I will try and get a character to level 18. I have a Wizard, Monk, and Barb all around that. My witch doctor is only level 2, and it seems like three would be a crowd.
My battle.net name is Scarface#1474 I think.
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In my latest game of Endless Space, through random happenstance it came out that I started out in a part of the galaxy isolated from the rest except through one stable wormhole. Naturally I went about setting up a base on my end, then eventually crossed through to explore, and start setting up outposts on the other side of the wormhole when I make contact with another empire.
I know you're thinking "wait isn't that like exactly what happened in DS9?" Well, you'd be half right. On the other side of the wormhole was an empire but it wasn't so much the Dominion as it was an all-consuming enemy horde that exists only to kill. The Cravers are like part Borg, part Reaver. Their ships are cheaper, tougher and more powerful, while they get a bonus to all output from worlds they hold. After 50 turns their worlds are depleted and take huge output penalties, so they gotta keep conquering shit.
Fun enemy, except that last patch made them more formidable by breaking fleet cap sizes for them. At this point in the game my cap on command points was 7. Destroyers/corvettes are 1 point, battleships and cruisers 2, and dreadnoughts 4. Well, the Cravers come at me with fleets whose CP value reads 30/7, made up of ships with passive bonuses to HP and damage.
Currently I've been pushed out of the galactic core and am fighting them on my end of the wormhole. I'm hoping that if I can stall them for several more turns by continuing to hold the bottleneck, their worlds will deplete and I can turn shit around. Fortunately I'm no Federation, and it I was, I'd be the Captain Kirk kind.
The Cravers sound kind of like the Zuul in sword of the stars - same sort of flavor, same big mechanical drawback, similar bonuses.
Is your story a fluke or are the cravers actually good? The Zuul mostly just ate their starting planets down to bedrock then floundered...
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The Zuul just had a fixed autoharvest amount and raised fleet cap, which is mechanically pretty different. The cravers never cause a system to collapse to 0, which helps. Since ES doesnt track resources like in SOTS, the Cravers just get a big bonus to all four yields for 50 turns and then an equal-sized penalty after that. However, a fully developed system will never become totally useless like with the Zuul.
The other is that the Cravers get all of the following:
-Bonus to weapon power
-Decreased weapon mass, so you can add more of the more powerful weapons
-increased ship health
-Decreased ship cost
Tips the odds a lot more in their favor during an offensive campaign. The planet depletion thing is basically their only weakness, unlike the Zuul who had a bunch of them. A well-played Craver would be scary as fuck, though the AI in the game isn't necessarily finished. Another thing I found impressive despite being an Alpha, actually, is how functional the AI is for something that is only about 20% complete.
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Broke down and bough D3. NotMiki#1973. Be my fwend.
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Since we're all doing this, AndrewRogue#1770 I believe
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I too gave in. PM me if you want the sekrit number (you can probably guess the name).
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Well... I'm getting Dragon's Dogma... and uh...
Inindo: I got one sword from a blacksmith that MUST ONLY BE USED UNDER EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCES then sold it, I think this means I'm near the end of the game. That and having explored almost all of Japan.
Game could be really nice at about 3x its speed, like a ton of other RPGs.
Dragon Quest 9: Solo, first time through the game. My main character is... Yattaf. (Hatbot chose that name for me a while ago. I was expecting him to choose GRFSTK instead) Anyway, Yattaf already kicks ass and hasn't even changed classes. I only have one nitpick: Yattaf, don't use your rapier to slash things. Come on.
The battle against Morag made me understand why Captain K likes the game so much. It was all "Morag stares at Yattaf, completely enthralled" and "Morag performs her best puff-puff on Yattaf. Yattaf has a huge grin on her face." I, um, wow.
The fact that there's no way to change text speed is crazy. Like an FPS not letting you choose between normal and inverted controls in 2012.
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The fact that there's no way to change text speed is crazy
The main reason I stopped playing that piece of crap.
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Heh. Crazy. Something NEB and I agree on!
Game Developer Story:
Best little skinner box on the planet. Simulate 20 years of the game industry and perform hostile takeover of the market! I named my company NISA for catharsis. Hit Top 15 on the leaderboards for the day when I did! That's the first time I've -ever- hit within Top 100 on -any- game I've played with an online Leaderboard. Good times.
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I started a run of Pokemon Red version, but with a twist. The starters have been changed, and the overworld sprites for your character and the rival become female (though these changes are purely cosmetic and don't affect back sprites and the rival's in-battle sprite...). I felt like going on a nostalgia trip. My team is basically the trainer card banner thing you see in pretty much most Pokemon forums ever, just because. I'm around Mt. Moon right now, just breezing through thanks to frameskip. I'm playing it on my DS, which makes train rides a lot less boring.
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Heh. Crazy. Something NEB and I agree on!
In fairness, anyone who doesn't agree with the concept of GENERAL CONVENIENCE has something wrong in the head!
...which possibly explains the entire Dragon Quest fanbase...
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Convenience is highly overrated. Reading the text is so much more rewarding when you have to work for it.
The battle against Morag made me understand why Captain K likes the game so much. It was all "Morag stares at Yattaf, completely enthralled" and "Morag performs her best puff-puff on Yattaf. Yattaf has a huge grin on her face." I, um, wow.
Well my main character was female also!
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Only in the most tangental sense of the word work does staring off into space while waiting for text to load constitute work.
Diablo 3 - My monk will be named "Jesus the Just."
checkmate, athetits
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NieR: Been STEALTH PLAYING!!!! this and finished the A Ending about last week or so; may get to other endings later, etc. Won't get nito a Mega rant, just simple mentioning of thoughts.
Generally speaking, the game was decent. I wouldn't say its WOMG AMAZING or anything, but it was solid enough. Gameplay in the first half of the game is repetitive and kind of boring. One weapon class, enemy variety is low, lack of allies for half of it, and when you finally get an ally, she's consistently leaving during dungeons, etc. 2nd half of the game, it picks up notably here, since...well...it does work to alleviate a lot of those issues. Enemies are definitely more varied and some have actual gimmicks making you change your fighting style up, 3 weapon styles (even if Spears felt clearly the best for non-combo rating purposes, Spears are still more interesting a weapon class than 1H Swords), you have all your spells from the outset, and the game feels more balanced around "use what you feel works" rather than "Most of these boss fights rely on Dark Lancing shit", etc. I wouldn't say the gameplay is amazing, but it had something resembling substance I suppose.
Plot...hmm...I wouldn't say the plot is really all that good. Its basically Zelda Plot of "Find macguffins...now find a second set of macguffins!" to save Nier's daughter from 2 different crises. There's a twist at the end, but I felt it wasn't quite built up enough? It felt a little too phoned in relating it to the beginning without actual enough substance in between linking them. There were some attempts, but not enough for the reveal to feel like it answered anything beyond "No, the opening was not meaningless."
That said, I do like most of the cast. Nier himself (is that his actual name OOC, or just a fan name? Manual just calls him "The Father") gets props simply for being a middle aged dad whose entire incentive is acting for his young daughter. The fact that the PS3 version in Japan changed it to a young adult bishie boy brother taking care of his sister (as opposed to father/daughter) just annoys me because seriously, the relationship works better when its just a dad doing what he can to make ends meets, is actually experienced with the world, etc. Turning him in an attractive bishie just for JAPAN jRPG STEREOTYPING! ...yeah, ok, good thing I didn't play that version. Anyway, I liked how he was just an unconventional main, and wasn't turned into an anti-hero either; just a dad trying to juggle making an honest living by doing tasks no one else in the village is capable of and being there for his daughter.
Weiss...ok, I don't think I have to say anything other than he's great. Reminds me of ToS2 Tenebrae, only less trolling and more general snark with excellent dynamic between the characters. So yeah, really good job there!
Kaine...I wasn't a fan of. Dunno if the other endings say otherwise, but her entire character this game is "I'm a fucking bitch, eat shit and deal with it, asshole." The few moments she wasn't like that felt...kind of forced. Her entire dialog is just swearing a lot and basically making herself seem as tough as humanly possible, and she's just a walking trope. Granted, she DID open herself up constantly for Weiss to call her out on...well...everything, and Weiss was generally good on capitalizing on that!
Emil...ok, I'm just gonna be straight: Its impossible to take him seriously. Yes, I know he's suppose to look weird, and all that, but the impression I got from the game is he's suppose to look "frightening" kind of weird, not "5 year old drawing a skeleton given to a professional video game artist, adapted literally." It just completely clashes with all the other designs in the game, and in a bad way. The character himself wasn't too bad I guess, but just god damn did they need to, at very least, redesign the face.
Lastly, the MUSIC! ...ok, this was filled with good stuff, and I have no complaints.
Overall, 7/10 game I suppose. I can see it getting hyped if you liked the gameplay more, and were more a fan of the plot, I guess. Then again, gameplay stuff may be me being jaded since I feel so inclined to compare it to SPECTACLE FIGHTERS!!! like DMCs, Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta, which just do combo flat out better in everyway.
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NieR:
If you have only got the first ending, and I'm guessing from what you wrote you never read the Project Gestalt documents in the really narrow window you have access to them, you only think you know what happened. It goes so much deeper than that.
Also you only replay the second half of the game for reasons that will become obvious.
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Re: Brother Nier (and yes, the main character is consistently called Nier by the Japanese development team, so I feel safe in calling it canon)
The original concept for the game was built around a younger main character who acted like a plucky JRPG hero, but the rest of the world responded to him in the appropriate manner that such an attitude would elicit in real life - mainly "you are a dumb fuck, stop being naive" and he gets beaten down repeatedly until the time skip, where he takes on a much more drastically changed personality than Father Nier does. None of the story dialogue changes, but a bit of the NPC and non-voiced dialogue subtly changes to accommodate the shift that changing the main character's age causes.
Notably, the decision to create the Father Nier character was wholly a decision created because it would appeal more to an American audience... and honestly, it -does-, so good on them for recognizing that.
Interestingly, the Project Nier companion book seems to indicate that both Brother Nier and Father Nier exist at different points in the timeline.
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It wasn't just character design appeal. The guys at Cavia actually realized that family dynamics are different in Japan and the West, and since the game needs the relationship between Nier and Yonah to be relatable, they realized that they needed to change it to fit. Which was the right call, because the obsession Nier descends into as the game goes on would have come off far more off-puttingly than it did as a father. That's also part of the reason they wrote two separate scripts for the EN and JP versions.
Have I mentioned how this game makes me reflect on how sad Japanese family dynamics are? No wonder nobody wants to have kids there.
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D3 - Beat Normal with my WD. Beat Diablo on the first try which didn't strike me as that hard. Normal really is gimp difficulty, and I get that there's modes higher than that but it'd be nice for it to start of harder. Enjoyed it quite a bit. Playing through with a Monk now. Couldn't name her Jesus the Just because fuck you Blizzard. Can't play on Nightmare with a new character which means I'm speedrunning to get through lolnomral I guess.
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Kaine...I wasn't a fan of. Dunno if the other endings say otherwise, but her entire character this game is "I'm a fucking bitch, eat shit and deal with it, asshole." The few moments she wasn't like that felt...kind of forced. Her entire dialog is just swearing a lot and basically making herself seem as tough as humanly possible, and she's just a walking trope. Granted, she DID open herself up constantly for Weiss to call her out on...well...everything, and Weiss was generally good on capitalizing on that!
There's a lot extra material relating to her on a second cycle (that, plus random other scenes and shadow mumbles get translated). Quick and easy to bash through the second act again since all gameplay-related stuff carries over, and fairly worth it if you liked the game at all. C/D endings can be safely Youtubed (and, you know, ending D deletes your saves). I think all you'd miss out on there is one more boss fight.
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Ending D also forbids you from using that character name in a new game, hilariously enough.
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Pokemon Red, all I can say is I cannot wait for Vulpix to learn Flamethrower. Meanwhile, Jolteon and Gloom are just sort of wiping things out of the way. Dodrio for cleanup.
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Clearly, we must have Meeple purchase the Emil face bullet hell DLC to make Meeple suffer.
And yeah, Nier is the MC's cannon name.
Have I mentioned how this game makes me reflect on how sad Japanese family dynamics are? No wonder nobody wants to have kids there.
What is even more sad is how violently Cavia reacted at the idea of father Nier. Going so far that they'll lose their drive to make this game if they can't keep their bishie Nier when the oversea team suggest taking out bishie Nier all together.
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Civ5: Bought this. I am weak. Very weak.
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Clearly, we must have Meeple purchase the Emil face bullet hell DLC to make Meeple suffer.
Wait, is this something that really exists? I must try it...
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Yes, that DLC turns ever round shape projectile from the enemies into Emil's face. Totally hilarious.
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Nice to know the devs have a sense of humor!
Though I'm not sure what Niu is expecting it to do to me other than garner a little chuckle <_<
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Finished up various games lately. And by "lately" I mean "over the past 6 months." Had a long Radiant Dawn rant that got eaten by the computer gods, and my Mass Effect 2 comments I never finished, but eh whatever. Anyway:
Mass Effect 2
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
The World Ends With You
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
Catherine
Diablo 3
They're all quite good! In different ways. Well, Catherine is the weakest of the set, but it's still interesting enough and certainly worth a playthrough.
Since it's officially D3 chat time or something, yeah, the game is great. I'm honestly surprised since I thought I was pretty well Diablo-d out and am not in general a huge fan of hack & slash, but I really like how D3 moves toward more action, less RPG. You don't slugfest it out with better items, you control space and use the right tools for the job, and dodge enemy missiles and ground attacks. Cleaning out all the tedious nonsense From D1/D2 which made sense for Nethack in the 80s, a 2-3 hour game, but doesn't make sense in a long-term game played for enjoyment is great. I love not having to fear an XP penalty from death, which generates weird anti-fun behaviors in D2 like "let me go safely farm rather than actually play the game." (Side note: I never know how seriously OK is with his comments, but color me glad that the game does max out at 4 players. Balancing around an 8 player lynch mob would be godawful, and with seeing and dodging enemy projectiles so important, you don't want the screen to get too chaotic with PC effects which might cloud enemy movements & telegraphs. Plus each player plain matters more with only 4 players. Doing solo mode while letting 3 NPCs do all the work also sounds chancy, so maxing that at 1 helper is also the right call.)
Plot is silly but well voice-acted and appropriately melodramatic, which is the right call. I do think the plot & setting in Act 3 & Act 4 could have used some work. I'm not talking about "making sense," since I don't expect that to really happen in Diablo games, but just to have the main plot thread be cooler. E.g. Leah is supposed to be Deckard's successor, right? How about having her knowledge of those crazy old stories come in handy at least *once*? I respect they can't show that off in FMVs, so you end up with Azmodan just showing Leah where he's invading, but eh, all she's used for in Acts 2 & 3 is her power - Leah, go explore the sewers, Leah, go resurrect a crazy Dark Horadrim, Leah, go knock down the palace gates, Leah, go stop the soulstone from leaking because it can hold 3 demon souls just fine but goes batshit with 4 demon souls in it. I don't think D3 is tricky enough to be doing some kind of subversion about how knowledge is actually useless, so.)
Party mechanics are a ton of fun. Mostly have played with NotMiki / Talaysen / Zenny and some random other friends of mine, and it actually changes the way you play. For example, Wizard has a secondary, Arcane Orb, which I intially thought was kind of crappy - overpriced area damage you can't set up reliable and can miss. But with Zenny's female monk (no wonder she couldn't be named Jesus) drawing in enemies nearby with Cyclone Strike, followed up by a Frost Nova from me to lock 'em down, and suddenly everyone can unload AoE damage (including my Arcane Orbs) guaranteed and get a very dead mob very quickly. It's great seeing synergies like that form.
As far as boss design, chalk me up in the uncreative that says Act II boss was the best designed. It's just a damn cool fight, complete with Castlevania-esque "Now see my true form, and despair!" ham. Tal / NotMiki / myself even wiped to him on my first time. As for Diablo himself, I think I like the design, but it's hard to judge since he ended up being too easy. (I suspect the difficulty falloff in Act III / IV was partially because our team started aggressively trading good rares to the characters who needed it, meaning our gear was better than the solo experience it was proabably balanced around.) I will say that I'm glad that two ideas I wanted to see sort of made it in - you should have at least one part of the Diablo fight in deep shadows with poor visibility, because he's supposed to be the lord of terror not shooting fire, and you should have to fight the equivalent of Zelda II Dark Link, because Diablo games are all about corruption from within or something, and this could be a symbolic battle against the evil within you and also a classic dark mirror scenario. Well they combined 'em, so hey, I'll take it.
Anyway, on to Nightmare. The only complaint - and this is super minor - is that since you get all the flexibility of a character in one playthrough, there's less reason than D2 to replay the same character type and try out new builds, because you already could have tried out all the builds. And for me at least, I'm not overly interested in Barbarian / Monk since I like positioning games & dodging over tanking, for all that I admit it's a totally necessary role in a team. That means I "only" get to really play 3 characters before I start repeating myself or playing off-characters. Oh, the horror of being able to experiment in one playthrough rather than many. I'd say I've already gotten my money's worth, so yeah, I don't care.
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FE 10- Into part 2. Part 1 was brutal, especially that BK fight. I needed to level up Micaiah twice with extra BExp so that she got 2 more Spd points because anything less than 11 was not really cutting it there. Lost Edward, Leonardo, Fiona and Laura (Meg I just did not bother to recruit). Balance is really weird. Since I know most of these characters do not become that great later, they become really confusing.
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Nice to know the devs have a sense of humor!
Oh, they do. They're just inclined to black humor.
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Diablo 3 - Playing my monk more than my witch doctor, because PUNCH ALL THE THINGS.
Had to change up my playstyle for Nightmare. Draw everything in and punch them without thinking works pretty well throughout normal and maybe nightmare if you have a teammate, but rare enemies deal so much more damage (re: any) in this mode that the strategy is a lot less viable. You actually have to dodge their special moves, wtf? After changing up my build the game became a breeze again. Found Zultan Khull's head. Will probably try to grind a bit in the oasis for the item for the sekret stage.
If nobody else has done the sekret stage yet, it's awesome and you should do it.
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Convenience is highly overrated. Reading the text is so much more rewarding when you have to work for it.
Incidentally this is why every game should have an Al Bhed language option. Anyway I agree, but the work has to be difficult gameplay sessions.
DQ9 Yattaf Solo: Ragin' Contagion and the next boss was tough as hell, I had to grind a bit.
Nice touch: The Ragin' Contagion dungeon had one of those RPG puzzles where you need to direct a light to some specific place by moving mirrors around. Seen in DDS, ToP, IU, and probably at least 20 other RPGs around. Except in this one, you don't need to do anything to the mirrors, the puzzle just solves itself. So um... What are you trying to say, DQ9? Was this part of the game rushed? Will something be unlocked later on? Is this Dragon Quest parodying RPGs?
The next boss was really hard as well. This part was the most painful in the game by far: I had to give Yattaf the slime armor, something not even Lady Gaga would ever wear.
Then classes unlocked.
The class system is nice and all, but it's broken by having the ability to keep skill points between class changes. You can just use each class a bit, then pool all your skill points, learned in any class, into any skill tree.
In that case: Spears, because they own metal slimes, which means more xp, more skill points and more skill trees mastered. I then got anything that could give me some power boost for a low skill point cost, then nearly maxed shields. Got a ton of money, bought everything available, unlocked gladiator and mageknight, did a ton of alchemy, re-bought everything, and steamrolled the Lleviathan dungeon. (I nearly ran out of MPs against the boss, at least)
Now that every class can use spears and that spears are always the superior option in every case, there aren't even that many differences between classes anymore. I'll still try maxing fisticuffs at some point.. But not now.
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Reached the Apex of Taejin's Tower and opted to do the C'ieth stone mission. I can't access the enemy, so I guess I have to make my way back up the column. That's lame.
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That mission is a pain in the ass to trigger correctly, and the boss is exceptionally hard. That was the only fight I had to use -sols in to win.
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Shining Force 1
Replayed because I need something turn-based to play in the background while I chat.
This is the second time I've played it on the Wii and the first time I had my game designer hat on while I did so, and, uh... ouch.
Early on, I was annoyed by interface decisions. Heal doesn't auto-target injured characters and to this day, after four playthroughs of this, five of SF2 and one of SFCD, I still don't see rhyme or reason to how changing targets works in Shining Force games. Pressing the action button brings up the menu instead of talking (when you're facing a person) or searching (when you're facing something searchable), despite there never being a case where you'd benefit from searching a person or talking to an object. Item shops don't show you the effects of purchases. Battle messages don't progress automatically. All in all, there are just gobs of extraneous clicks.
Later, I was annoyed by the worst goddamn AI ever. For more than half the game I routinely ran into melee enemies who wouldn't move when targeted by ranged attackers. Enemy spellcasters seem to choose their spells at random, or possibly to minimize damage (Dark Dragon chose to cast a non-lethal spell on Bleu, who was on his own, instead of every other character except Max, for instance). Enemies in general seem to understand who is vulnerable and then actively avoid those characters. Domingo, my tankiest character in DEF and second in HP, was always their first choice to attack. Plus the passivity I've come to expect of tactics game AI - the enemy stand around and wait in most battles, and they're scattered all over the map. Made worse by larger maps.
The story is really, really bad, and it didn't have to be. It's like an '80s Saturday morning cartoon except tons of people die, including at the protagonists' hands. One villain after another pulls the "taunt and then teleport out" trick, the "secret" the characters spend over half the game trying to find out is spoiled for the player in the opening cut scene, and there's a completely pointless bit of "nice job breaking it, hero." Honestly, the terrible AI is almost forgivable because it's in character. The sad part is, I or probably anyone here could rewrite this script in a day or two, keep the same progression of battles, and have something that's actually really cool.
There's still a lot to love. The character designs are creative (Domingo! Guntz! Centaurs as the main demihuman race!) if not all that well-done from a technical perspective, the setting is actually one of the better medievalesque fantasy worlds out there (unlike a lot of "ancient technological civilization" stories, SF actually makes that matter, with the bad guys and eventually the party digging up combat robots and using them), you have a lot of choice in what to emphasize in your Force from an early point (end of Chapter 3, basically), and I found myself rather liking the simplicity of the class and equipment systems. Tactics games in the Tactics Ogre tradition usually feel like they're won or lost on the menu screen long before you deploy, Shining Force, if it wasn't so damn easy, would actually require you to win with good tactics. Not losing your XP on death is a nice touch as well; if they'd only taken that as a cue to make it hard, it would be much nicer.
As it stands, it really is the comfort food of tactics games. Now that I'm done I'll probably play SF2 again as my "background game" and see if they fixed any of my criticisms.
Mega Man X
Played because I saw it cited in a webcast on game design (Extra Credits? I dunno, it's been a while.), a friend talked about the time she played it with no powerups, I had Wii points that have just been sitting there, and I've never played it before. Initially seemed impossible. Then I changed the button mapping so it wasn't fucking idiotic (fire was Y on the GC controller, seriously?) and -
Wait, what?
An SNES game where I can change how the buttons are mapped? <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Anyway, I'm done with everything except Sigma. Of the SNES classics I've played for the first time on the Wii, this is probably my second favorite (trailing Super Metroid). This is actually the first Mega Man game I've cleared all the robot masters/mavericks on (I've only had them as rentals before), but the ability to pick the order you do levels in, the way beating some of the mavericks changes other levels, and the option to go back and stock up on lives/energy are all really cool. It's easy to see why this is regarded as a classic game and why the series is so popular.
Also, holy shit this game is gorgeous. The weapon effects, X's sprite, the maverick designs, the detail in the backgrounds - all of the polish. All of it!
I assume it's really easy for people who don't suck at real-time games? Not being able to shoot vertically feels so weird when the main action platformer I'm used to is Metroid, but I eventually adjusted to it... sort of. Aside from that it's not really all that hard for me and I'm awful at this sort of game.
Dragon's Dogma
Haven't had a chance to play this yet, but my father picked it up so it's inevitably going to come to me as a hand-me-down. I watched him play it a bit yesterday, it looks so very good. Dat hydra. Wow. Also, best character creator, or best character creator?
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If you like the concepts of SF1, I'd recommend playing the GBA remake Resurrection of the Dark Dragon. I think it solves most of those.
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The GBA remake added a whole host of problems. It Dawn of Souled the challenge pretty badly, and had the extra bonus of making the leveling system awful. Why yes, I want class promotions to lower my stats and hurt my growth overall!
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Except for the difficulty and AI of course, good gods did they not even touch those.
Valkyria Chronicles 2 - I am getting progressively more frustrated with Evasion. The game really pushes and rewards high risk maneuvers by way of rankings being tied to turn number and the small force size you can deploy at a given time. It is all too easy to be in a situation where you will over extend yourself trying to get dat A and it balances entirely on whether or not the enemy randomly drops to the ground and becomes nigh immune to damage. Most of the time I have been fine, but goddamn it is frustrating whenever the enemy does dodge. If ou didn't have to worry about Turn count you could take your time and bait and shoot people in the back and the like (all these cool mechanics the game has!), but as is you pretty commonly need to run in guns blazing with too few people to manage that.
Especially frustrating on boss fights. Juliana in particular was pretty annoying. I lost the map because she didn't die to 4 CP sunk into spraying her from 3 sides with shock troopers. Then she drops 3 CP to wander into my base camp that was undefended because I had spent half my unit deployment on surrounding her with dudes to unload all over her. Restarting and blitzing to her base camp, running interference with a Tech and then sniping her in the back of the head twice cleared the level in 1 turn. Which was satifsfying by frustrating because it is the complete opposite of normal tactics you utilise in the game.
Best part was the game having lines about how we will remember what we learnt from that fight. Hit and fade quick attacks to assassinate the enemy commander? These are good things to learn, but things the game never actually gets you to do. It is always kill everything that moves, you can use 6 guys. So the game that plays like Rambo suddenly threw Enemy at the Gates at me and patted me on the head for doing so.
Also fuck rando awards. Fucking none of my Armour Techs have a Certificate yet, but Alexis got a Diploma for that running interference. So now she can skip from base Armour Tech to Fencer Elite straight away.
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For those of us not familiar with it, what does "Dawn of Soul"ing do to challenge?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAYL5H46QnQ
This pretty much.
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Djinn, super beat Dawn of Souls with Black Mages casting Temper on each other to double their attack power and stabbing Chaos in the eye with daggers, and apparently it wasn't even hard after the first third of the game. Good luck trying attack magicless BMs in FF1!
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Gosh darn it. Diablo 3 really did give me my first pinky injury I can ever recall having when I realized I couldn't really play the game on Sunday. Right hand holds the mouse, left fingers cover 1-2-3-4-Q skill slots / potions, leaving left pinky to be the "Shift: stand still" and "Alt: show lootz" buttons at an awkward angle. And you will be holding shift a *lot* as DH / Wizard. Definitely taking a break for awhile to let my pinky recover? What?
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For those of us not familiar with it, what does "Dawn of Soul"ing do to challenge?
Butcher the challenge to an insulting level of the original. If you take FF1 in either its NES or Origins form (difficulty difference between the two mostly comes from Origins being more polished, so less FAKE difficulty involved) and then compare it to the Dawn of Souls/PSP version, you'll notice one version makes you actually try for your victory, the other you sort of steam roll without breaking a sweat.
I assume it's really easy for people who don't suck at real-time games? Not being able to shoot vertically feels so weird when the main action platformer I'm used to is Metroid, but I eventually adjusted to it... sort of. Aside from that it's not really all that hard for me and I'm awful at this sort of game.
The game isn't easy, more that MMX1 is forgiving, and has many "fail safes" for beginners to fall back on. Part of the thing with Mega Man games is your first playthrough is done often by trying to figure out what works well on what, using full inventories, and replays you try to adjust something about it, either something simple like "Fight bosses in different order", or try challenge runs like the classic "Buster Only" challenge.
That said, I'd say the 8 Bit games are tougher than the higher graphical games. And when I say 8 bit games, I do in fact include MM9 and MM10. Honestly, I'd recommend looking into playing some of those. MM2 is often a good place to start, though MM9 may be better just due to probably being a little more polished (lacks the GUN TURRET ROOM OF HATE)
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That mission is a pain in the ass to trigger correctly, and the boss is exceptionally hard. That was the only fight I had to use -sols in to win.
You know, eff you people and yours -sols. I currently have ONE Ethersol from a treasure chest. Turning on the game now to see this boss.
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Since it's officially D3 chat time or something, yeah, the game is great. I'm honestly surprised since I thought I was pretty well Diablo-d out and am not in general a huge fan of hack & slash, but I really like how D3 moves toward more action, less RPG. You don't slugfest it out with better items, you control space and use the right tools for the job, and dodge enemy missiles and ground attacks. Cleaning out all the tedious nonsense From D1/D2 which made sense for Nethack in the 80s, a 2-3 hour game, but doesn't make sense in a long-term game played for enjoyment is great. I love not having to fear an XP penalty from death, which generates weird anti-fun behaviors in D2 like "let me go safely farm rather than actually play the game." (Side note: I never know how seriously OK is with his comments, but color me glad that the game does max out at 4 players. Balancing around an 8 player lynch mob would be godawful, and with seeing and dodging enemy projectiles so important, you don't want the screen to get too chaotic with PC effects which might cloud enemy movements & telegraphs. Plus each player plain matters more with only 4 players. Doing solo mode while letting 3 NPCs do all the work also sounds chancy, so maxing that at 1 helper is also the right call.)
I am always 100% serious, girlfriend! :)
I mean moreso that there should be an option, honestly. With only 5 classes, it's not a huge issue, but if (lol, when) they make an expansion, with 7 or 8 classes, it would be nice to have the option. I do agree with you that it is nice to balance around smaller groups, and with the lag the game gets, it's a blessing. But D2 you could limit the number of people in a game, so...it's not a breaker to me, honestly, but a thought. What can I say, I like a mass of people. I do like it with the fewer people, honestly (probably better than with more), but it still is a thing to keep in mind.
Finished up Act II. I'm...probably too high a level - my blacksmith is at the max level he can get until I find those blacksmithing pages. Game is very good. I agree with a lot of Snowy's comments - particularly, that I don't have a burning desire to make more than one of the same class. I think it wouldn't be terrible to add something that differentiates skills a bit more per individual character, but eh. I can't imagine not using a rune for a skill - is there any reason not to use a rune on a skill once it comes? I'd like to see more of a +/- relationship here, but eh.
Love the Witch Doctor - very fun class. Also, with the way damage works now...I am going to be running a two-handed axe or something, as the ceremonial knife I had with the fetish wasn't doing much. Damage exploded with the two-handed weapon, so yeah. Act II boss was excellent, as Snowy said. The positioning focus is so much better than D2's mass of damage racing. Love the mix of skills that just work so well together.
Also...if Adria doesn't end up becoming a major villain either in the game or during an expansion, I am going to be surprised. Seriously, her conversations after you first rescue her are just...yeah.
Might call for people sometime this week or weekend, although I need to rush to Nightmare mode to catch up.
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Djinn, super beat Dawn of Souls with Black Mages casting Temper on each other to double their attack power and stabbing Chaos in the eye with daggers, and apparently it wasn't even hard after the first third of the game. Good luck trying attack magicless BMs in FF1!
This can't be said enough, but dawn of souls makes Grandia 1 look like Wizardry 4.
1. Massively increased levels compared to the NES version. This makes your evasion and accuracy much better. Your offense skyrockets due to this. Getting four hits (Eight with GM) in the NES/PSX version is not easy, in DoS you can do it before you beat Astos fairly easily. Defenses can be overwhelmed by Temper in the PSX version, but in the DoS version? I did 3000 fucking damage with a Black Wizard physical to Chaos. Enemy stats are unchanged.
2. Items. Ethers are 100 gil and are storebought in Pravoka. Goodbye resource problems. Hi potions exist and give you a ton of extra healing on the off chance you need it (You won't unless you refuse to use a white/red wizard). You can also buy haste/temper/defense potions after you buy the Fairie from the Oasis. Of course, that doesn't matter since you'll be using a couple of mages. There are also Phoenix downs, etc.
3. Magic changes. INT affects spell damage; spell charges are replaced by a traditional FF MP system. Both result in spells being *gruesomely* broken. Itemcast Bolt/Fire 2 slaughter everything once you get them in the NES version. You can start spamming those spells of doom by Elfland in DoS. The changes to the spell system means that you are going to be doing far more damage than before with those spells. Healing is similarly improved.
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Honestly the Shining Force issues are not that bad for a 20 year old game. I find the wonky turn order (with no way of knowing in advance who's going to act) much worse. This made it the least strategic TRPG I've played, as planning ahead is almost impossible.
DQ9: Got my fourth fruit. How do these things regenerate after being eaten?
I like how important characters are 3D and random NPCs are 2D, by the way. Seems so strange in a Dragon Quest.
Grinding wise: Unlocked ranger, got Meditate from the martial arts tree (Figured this tree would have good self healing). Now I'm raising boomerangs. I should probably train something else, but they're my favourite DQ weapon.
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I can't imagine not using a rune for a skill - is there any reason not to use a rune on a skill once it comes? I'd like to see more of a +/- relationship here, but eh.
....
Also...if Adria doesn't end up becoming a major villain either in the game or during an expansion, I am going to be surprised. Seriously, her conversations after you first rescue her are just...yeah.
There's never a reason to not use a rune, but aside from the first rune on a lot of skills, runes don't get linearly better. I'm level 39 or so and have most of my runes unlocked, but on many skills I am still using the second runes I unlocked because their effects work better for what I want.
Also
loldiabloplot
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There are a few skills where the first rune you unlock changes the move fundamentally enough that you're losing something good it had in the basic version, so if you don't want to make the tradeoff, you keep it unruned until you unlock something less dramatically different. Other than that, yeah, there's always a rune worth using.
Anyway, killed Diablo. OMG final boss spoilers. More importantly, unlocked the secret level. And found a 110 STR spear there.
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You did the grinding to unlock the sekret level? I haven't had the patience, just leeched off a friend who had. Can't seem to get the dungeon in the Oasis that has one of the items to unlock. -_-
On the bright side I have TWO black mushrooms so, you know, absolutely fucking useless.
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The Oasis dungeon was the only one I had to grind for. Well, that and the thighbone, but it's right next to a waypoint in Act I so it took like five minutes.
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In 3 runs through I've yet to have the random drops drop either, but I guess if I keep playing enough I'll unlock them soon enough.
The level's awesome enough to just want to run through it over and over again, though. Especially given how many people were bitching about Diablo supposedly having a lighter atmosphere and brighter world based off a few screenshots.
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Dungeon Crawl: I have a level 6 character with 35 Intelligence. Demigod Wizard, first two ring drops were +6 and +4 Int. This cannot end well.
Perfect World: The new instance is fun, especially since Soppy can't go there. Oh ho ho ho.
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I don't have the cash to unlock the secret level yet. I'm not sure how you guys do... I have all the items except the one you have to buy (which is like 100k).
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Dungeon Crawl: I have a level 6 character with 35 Intelligence. Demigod Wizard, first two ring drops were +6 and +4 Int. This cannot end well.
Perfect World: The new instance is fun, especially since Soppy can't go there. Oh ho ho ho.
The new expansion is up? Oh well. Been having too much fun hanging with Grefter to care.
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I don't have the cash to unlock the secret level yet. I'm not sure how you guys do... I have all the items except the one you have to buy (which is like 100k).
I've beaten Normal with two characters and started selling most of my dropped gear instead of salvaging it because I had an abundance of crafting material to begin with. That's how.
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Second character is really big. Not pissing money down the Crafter money sink gets you loads of cash. Rolling my wizard I was like wow I have 100k in Act 1 Normal. How did that happen? Which at the time could have bought you some shitty act 5 Hell gear on the AH.
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Saw more of Dragon's Dogma last night and even got to try the controls. Why are you people playing Diablo 3 when this exists? Put down those mice and go play Devil May RPG! :U
Seriously, though, even leaving aside my hate for Diablo, this is like everything I've ever wanted in an action RPG. Which is... basically being an easier Devil May Cry with levels. "Being an easier Devil May Cry with insert thing here" is what I want from all 3D real-time games, so ymmv.
The game isn't easy, more that MMX1 is forgiving, and has many "fail safes" for beginners to fall back on. Part of the thing with Mega Man games is your first playthrough is done often by trying to figure out what works well on what, using full inventories, and replays you try to adjust something about it, either something simple like "Fight bosses in different order", or try challenge runs like the classic "Buster Only" challenge.
That said, I'd say the 8 Bit games are tougher than the higher graphical games. And when I say 8 bit games, I do in fact include MM9 and MM10. Honestly, I'd recommend looking into playing some of those. MM2 is often a good place to start, though MM9 may be better just due to probably being a little more polished (lacks the GUN TURRET ROOM OF HATE)
Oh, don't get me wrong, MMX1 being forgiving is part of why I can understand how it's considered a great game. It's still at the upper end of what I'm capable of completing, action game-wise.
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Saw more of Dragon's Dogma last night and even got to try the controls. Why are you people playing Diablo 3 when this exists? Put down those mice and go play Devil May RPG! :U
Because some of us like games that aren't awful. I know that's a hard concept to wrap your mind around, but it is a fact.
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LFT - Beat this with the FF13 team.
After clearing Murond Holy Place, I did the Kolliery. First two battles were painless enough. Third one, I couldn't beat, so I went out, did a bit of the DD, and came back. Last two fights were both quite brutal, not much else is new. After all that I was around Level 50 so the final dungeon wasn't so bad, but Rofel and Kletian were still pretty evil fights.
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Dragon's Dogma (skill based, japanese, behind the shoulder view, singleplayer) and Diablo 3 (brainless & loot driven, american, isometric view mostly multiplayer with boring singleplayer) probably don't attract the same market at all. Both have levels and an embarassing plot (I'm 99% sure of that) but that's about it.
I'm getting DD in one week. (And I'm also going to replay it three weeks later with a female character named Yattaf and no pawns)
DQ9: Boomerangs were totally worth it, with all those strength bonuses. I'm never going back to spears, except against metal enemies. I'm even going to kill bosses with boomerangs. (They have an amazing ST skill!)
I've never played FFXI or FFXIV, but this Yattaf solo feels like what I'm thinking those two games should be without the interaction or endless grind. Nothing amazing, but it has its charm as a relatively painless Skinner Box. I'm betting this gets much worse in the post game, but hey, post game is post game.
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Normally I'm right with Zenny when he says that most of you have bad taste, but Diablo 3 is not what I'd hold up as a better alternative.
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Xenoblade Chronicles - Finally done. Final time: 124 hours at level 80 for the entire party. Pretty damn good game. Sits tentatively at 8.5/10 for me. Haven't been hooked onto something like this for quite a while without feeling frustrated. Full write up to come at some other time.
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Pokemon Red (Revolution hack) - I had to ditch my Girl version run because the hacker was inept at tweaking trainer battles, and the Rival fight enroute to the Elite 4 was so terribly glitched that you cannot finish it without WtW, which I cannot use because my GB emulator on my DS can't handle cheats. So, I replayed it with the Revolution hack, by Collosseum Translations [sic]. I have finalized my team and am just playing the "level catch up" game because I am 10 levels below Elite 4 levels.
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Radiant Historia- Aht/Stocke pseudo soloish. Just defeated Forest Bear + Stumpy group with Aht L4 (Rhapsody + Life Robe + Sprig Ring + Leaf Ring + Bishop Stud - Poison Wing + Aht speed + First Aid Kit spam + chip mushrooms to sliver of health each + Aht speed + Change abuse + Triple turn to finish off three mushrooms + last mushroom uses Shot + final turn + finish off last mushroom) ~
Stocke's last boss was solo vs Rosch at L14.
Also did I note here I played and finished Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor? Final team was Main, Yuzu, Keisuke, Gin/Atsuro (Gin's Path) Great game. Will be replaying at some stage (CT baits were Haru, Gin, Yuzu, Keisuke and Atsuro, also liked Amane and Mari ^_^)~
Edit - Urgh ... forgot and saved in Alistel before restocking on items. Either I go back in time so I can shop and thus have to go through Forest Bear again before I can reface the Shadows or I just try a duo Aht/Stocke fight for them. I've been trying to stay solo with each as long as possible though =/
Edit 2 - Did the Shadows with L14 Stocke + L8 Aht. Only had one Poison Wing, one First Aid Kit, two Soothing Balms, two Might Herbs and a Healing Herb to utilise. Took a few retries. Stocke + MAG tink + Fire spam didn't work very well here so I physically tinked him with a Fang Charm and Rose Ring for accessories instead. Had Aht Poison Wing one Shadow, used Might Herb on Stocke so he could work on Power Wave abuse on another frontline Shadow , put Polaris up with Aht, then had her space out between guarding and healing. Once one Shadow was finally down fight became a bit easier, used another Might Herb and didn't take too long to finish off another Shadow with Power Waves since poison had already done it's work. Once only one Shadow was left, Aht speed + Stocke speed + Change abuse + Multi turn combos made the rest of the fight a joke =) Was able to fit in Stocke Heals later in the fight too for getting to the business of proper Change abuse.
Aht didn't die. Well Reinforced Cape + Bishop Stud + guard/speed is nice ^_~
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League of Legends: Honestly, my play, while still mediocre has improved immensely. Still held back notably by the fact that if something abnormal happens (needing to lane swap, playing against something bizzare), I tend to fall apart completely, but it is progress.
Last night was a pretty good example. Team of Trynd (Bot)/Ahri (Top)/Kog'maw (Mid)/Akali (Bot)/Warick (Jungle, me) vs Jax (Top)/Kog'maw (Top)/Maokai (Bot)/Nasus (Bot)/Katarina (Mid). Standard sub-30 solo queue stuff. Game starts off great. Get leashes on Wolves and Blue, clear down to Red in no time, huzzah.
Then our Koggy DCs. No problem! I cover mid for a minute or two, he reconnects, all is good! I head back to the jungle and... Koggy DCs.
Then he DCs again.
Then he DCs again. He doesn't return.
Call a quick lane swap with Ahri and things just start going to hell. I'm distracted by trying to figure out what to do, so I start levelling skills in the wrong order, then I forget build order trying to account for the Jax/Kog'maw top. Etc. I don't do terribly, but I'm so completely unsure of what to actually do that I just flail for a while.
Ended with a surrender at 20 (all things considered we were doing okay, though. 2 turrets down, but we were actually leading in K/D + Dragon, so we were a little ahead in gold or right about even), but yeah. I really need to just have better all around knowledge so I don't panic and do things like start building my Frozen Heart before I have any Boots. =(
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One of the more memorable times I had in LOL was when I participated in a 3v5 (two random Dcs) match. I was on the team with three champs, and we somehow ended up playing very well together and won the game. I forget who I played, but yeah, t'was fun.
Tales of Graces - Still playing this ever so slightly. Messing around with the bonus dungeon, got all the way to the 5th level before trying other things in the game. I have been playing characters other then Hubert more to try and get some of their mastery titles unlocked since the AI doesn't seem to want to use a good portion of their skill sets.
I am trying to get all the Inn Request turn ins completed too. So I have been farming for random things in dungeons for those special dialized items. My inventory and enemy list is still incomplete, but I finally got all the food recipes.
My gf is occupying the PS3 most of the time now. She just got that Deus Ex game and seems pretty entertained with it.
D3 - I beat the game, but I don't have these special items yet. I think I have one, it is bound to my account? Some rainbow thing? I am not sure where I got it, but I have no idea how to get the other things.
My demon hunter is at level 43 in nightmare and things are going pretty slow for him. I haven't been able to play with my friends in quite some time and all of their characters have blown by my guy. So I have been playing solo and just trying to stay alive right now! Fun fun fun!
We also started hardcore champs. I made a female wizard and managed to survive long enough to get to the second act and level 17. It's fun to hear people panic when they see red on their screen in that mode. Then you start to smile only to realize you are getting smacked by 30 different things and are on the verge of losing your champion as well. Good times.
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The Liquid Rainbow? Nice, that's one of the pains in the ass to get.
The others are:
Black Mushroom. Pops up frequently (but not always) in the first level of the cathedral.
Thighbone: Sometimes there's an object called “burned log” in the fireplace at Leoric's mansion (toward the entrance, in a room on the right-hand side). If it's there, you can click on it to find this.
Wirt's Bell: Buy from “Squirts” in act 2 for a hundred freaking thousand gold.
Liquid Rainbow: You have this. Found randomly in a randomly-appearing cave in act 2.
Gibbering Gemstone: Found on a randomly-occurring boss in the Caves of Frost, which appears sometimes in the plains area of act 3.
Staff of Herding Plans: Randomly dropped by Izual. I got it on the second try, but apparently that's unusually lucky.
You use the plan at the blacksmith to teach him a recipe for the “Staff of Herding,” which requires the other five ingredients and 50,000 cash. Then you go back to Act 1 normal, put the staff in your pack and take it to that weird glowing red pit in the fields between New Tristram and Zombie-Infested Crappy Tristram. It's expensive, but oh so entertaining.
I've also been playing hardcore. Just beat the Skeleton King with a monk. I figured healbot was the way to go on this mode.
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A couple clarifications:
Gibbering Gemstone: This only appears in the Caves of Frost, and is only dropped by an enemy with a purple name that's some bad ice pun. The Caves of Frost only show up in the Fields of Slaughter, the area with the catapults. Only one cave will generate at a time in this field, so if you get the other one, reload (if you're grinding).
Izual is the second to last boss. It took me 5 times for it to drop while grinding, not counting the previous times I beat him.
Anyway
D3 - Got my Staff of Herding and unlocked Hell mode with my Monk. Almost have enough gold to unlock the sekret level is Nightmare mode. The difficulty really ramped up mid Act 3 on nightmare mode, to the point where I couldn't continue until me and a someone else tackled it together. While I had fun playing my WD on Normal, I haven't really touched him since, and have been pretty bored playing him recently. Monk is a lot more fun. Should try to tackle Hell mode while plastered later tonight.
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Pokemon Red (Revolution hack) - Main game beaten.
Lyra the Zapdos, LV51
Lady Nox the Tentacruel, LV48
Alair the Muk, LV46
Rin the Scyther, LV46
Sapphira the Onix, LV47
Lady Luck the Raticate, LV48
Of the team, only Lyra and Rin saw action in all 8 gyms and the Elite 4. Only Rin was fainted at the end, when the rival's Alakazam (LV63) finished it with a Psybeam. I should have Swords Danced first and then used Quick Attack over Slash, since Slash couldn't OHKO anyway. Either way, Lady Luck went for the Hyper Fang revenge kill (and also went first against Alakazam speed despite being 15 levels lower).
Now to find that drat Master Cave and get Lugia
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FE12 - About to do chapter 4. Chapter 3 (edit: not 3x) was really dumb. Why yes, put villages only Marth can visit in the opposite corner of the map, and the castle only he can seize in the centre, in a game with no Shove/Rescue command and before I have anything such as Warp/Rescue to speed this process up in any way. ffff
Game's enjoyable enough outside that!
FF13 - Only one mission left! Gigantaur was a dick, but I eventually triumphed with the power of daze, then buffing, then unloading on him for a bit, then switching to double Med and trying to keep afloat, then repeating once. Adamantoise was also expectedly badass, I eventually got into a strategy which mostly worked outside of getting killed by Roar, which I eventually solved by replacing Hope with Sazh for the fight. 2x Raktavija was also pretty badass but I have no real specific notes for that. Aftergame has gotten me to use every PC at least sometimes so that is nice at least.
And now all the turtles have UPGRADED. I think this game likes turtles. I can't really deal with those now, doubt I'll be patient enough to ever be able to do so.
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Xenoblade Chronicles write up -
So here it is. I'm expecting this write up to be actually huge, but I'm going to aim to be concise if possible. In a nutshell, this game is really well done. I'm not just talking about the gameplay, the graphics, the plot or anything. I mean as a completely package, it's pretty darn solid. Everything it does ties together and on top of that, the game has a pretty good level of polish. This is especially important in a game this long. I mean, I was literally surprised at how they implemented some of this, but it's good that they considered these factors.
So what polish am I talking about? I'm talking about things such as warning you in advance that you will need items for certain quests for example. Xenoblade gives you a lot of drops, so this feature is really nice. You don't end up selling them off and it lets you know in advance that you'll likely need to hunt this specific monster or item. Second, the game lets you warp around the world. In a sense it's no different than having an airship, but you get to do this at the beginning of the game. Given how much ground you have to cover by walking, this is so important, it's not even funny. But this warping feature is very cool since you can go from different locations very quickly. Next, the game also has an adjustable timer. The day/night system is kinda of annoying, but at least with the timer, it's far more tolerable as you can manually adjust the time instead of needing to wait for a certain time. Another cool and important polish feature that they added includes the ability to save anywhere and having very fast reload times. This is awesome because you can save before dangerous areas/fights and if you die, instantly reload. It also lets you take a break without needing to find specific save points, which would suck in such a huge world. These things don't sound like much, but they make a really big impact on how enjoyable the game is.
SPOILER WARNING FOR PLOT
As for the actual game itself, I really enjoyed the plot. I mean this in an actual genuine way. It's not that the plot is original, but it's the way the plot is executed. They don't throw out something completely crazy out of nowhere and there is a good deal of foreshadowing for all the major plot points and plot twists in the game. The game actually *makes sense*, which is a huge accomplishment. There may be some tiny plot holes (can Zanza possess multiple people at once? If yes, why not possess everyone? If not, how did he possess the giant and Shulk at the same time?) but for the most part, everything the game poses as a question does get answered and it all eventually does come together. The reason why the High Entia Emperor chose Melia as his successor despite Kallian being the male and also the older of the two siblings for example is explained and totally understandable (her being half homs means she doesn't possess the gene that transforms them into Telethia). Same with why Shulk's Monado cannot initially damage Faced Mechon. At the end of the day, the plot manages to come together as the epic it wants to without stepping all over itself like a certain other Xeno game. As long as you're not expecting novel like material, it's actually really good.
Each of the characters furthermore are also relatable. I don't dislike any of the main cast all. In fact, they are all enjoyable to some degree (yes even the mascot character), which is pretty impressive. Villains on the whole are decent enough. You dislike the ones that you should be hating because they are lamers and you can certainly understand the directions of others. The frue villain is also understandable on some level as at the end of it, all he really wants is to remain alive. Not that this really excuses him from what he tries to do, but that's why you get to beat him up. So all in all, good plot, good characters!
END PLOT SPOILER WARNING
The battle system is also cool. You have 6 characters (for a good 50% of the game), and later on 7. All 7 characters do completely different things, but they're well balanced enough that you can throw anyone in any team and still be able to beat most baddies. You'll need specific formations on tougher monsters, but for the most part, your party is never truly restricted by game play problems. The game features a couple of things such as positional arts and visions that keep you on your toes and makes it such that you have to actively pay attention to what is going on. You can't really sit there and spam arts repeatedly because it's not really effective. You lose on are party gauge which is needed to revive and you lose the effects of bonuses which can help a long way in making battles far more efficient. You are limited in your healing, which means you have to think about how you want the aggro of enemies to go. Since the game is over if your player controlled character dies, this is important to consider. Thankfully though, the AI is smart enough to revive. Their competency with each character varies in combat, (it's great with Sharla/Reyn but absolutely terrible with Melia and not much better off with Shulk) but they'll do general things such as encourage you if are suffering from low tension or help you recover from status effects with great zeal. Against tougher and harder monsters, your set ups are equally important as the strategy you carry out and the game gives you a lot of freedom to customize your options. In many ways, one of the key things I really like about fighting battles here is that your team of characters actually feels like a team most of the time, so its quite immersive.
The music is great and the settings are gorgeous. Probably the best well done setting I've ever seen. And really, I think that's what got me to buy in after the first few hours. If you like eye candy, XB delivers this too. Even if the Wii isn't as strong as the PS3 or the Xbox or what not, the environments are really quite awesome. I've spent time in this game just standing around sometimes to survey the landscape.
Now then, the bad points about this game. Polish isn't completely perfect. Why they added an inventory limit is beyond me. You get so much crap, and unfortunately, Shulk doesn't have perfect predictability about what items are needed for quests. Inevitably, you'll have so much junk that you are not sure if you can get rid of because they may be needed for quests later. The game also badly badly needed a bestiary so hunts for monsters and drops are more smooth. The affinity chart could also state the exact location to avoid the frustration of locating NPCs for quests, which is by far the worst time waster in the game. Second, the game is long. Like extremely long, especially if you do quests. It's longer than Persona 3/4, which are already 90 hour games, so this should say something. It's amazing that the game can keep you hooked thanks to the characters/plot/gameplay package, but such a long game means that it does drag on at points, and I won't be surprised if some people lose interest. Thankfully all the quests are optional, which should cut about 30-40 hours of time from the clock. Finally the battle system has one fatal flaw that would've pushed it one of my favourites instead of just "cool". The game enforces a stat penalty based on the level difference between you and the enemy. If you are ahead in levels of your enemies, you'll massively stat nerf them and vice versa. The level range for this begins at 6 all the way up to 22. This massive stat nerf sounds like it will be 'cool' for challenge, but it really doesn't and actually causes complications. For one, it means that randoms can quickly become incompetent due to the stat nerf, and two, it also means you can't challenge monsters without specific gems or skills. Physical attacks are heavily nerfed already at a 6 level difference, let alone 22. This means that you have to constantly level up and level becomes a far more important stat than anything else. Too bad. If it wasn't for this factor, it really could've been much better.
CHARACTER/GAMEPLAY ANALYSIS
Shulk - I like Shulk. He's a nerdy guy you can tell since he spends all day in the lab when the game begins and his life goal is to figure out the secrets of the Monado. So when he comes to gain this awesome power, his reactions are totally believable and his motivations for going forward is equally believable. He's a pacifist and not one that really likes fighting, and the game keeps him to this agenda making him quite consistent and giving him an interesting enough character flaw. Shulk's largely driven by revenge initially, but later on by curiosity, which is really something that defines him (see above). His actions for the most part, make sense and it's interesting watching to come to terms and struggle with the new discoveries the party makes.
As a PC, Shulk is defined by his unique weapon, the Monado. He only has 8 normal arts, but unlike everyone else, he has a subset of skills in the Monado, giving him a total of 16 arts that are all equipped at once. The Monado starts off kinda bland. Early on, Enchant is super important. As it gains more features, enchant fades out but it does all sorts of stuff and makes him very versatile. He's a great support character which is what you should use him. Always a good pick in any team to be honest, although he needs his Monado arts to truly go up there.
Reyn - Reyn's also pretty cool. He's the best friend of Shulk, and the game does a really good job of selling it. Maybe its because the two of them share the same goal initially or maybe it's the way he's introduced, but you generally get the idea that he's really a bro. He encourages Shulk, and talk and discuss problems together. He knows that thinking ahead isn't really his forte but he's always there to help out. His dynamic with Sharla is cliched but it works well enough due to solid execution. His interaction with Melia and Dunban are great when available. The game pokes a lot of jabs at him, but yeah.
Reyn's role is mainly to tank which he does really well and the AI does really well. Where he starts kicking off is around mid-game. At which point he can break out of the tank role and go for Burst DPS. This option is actually very advantageous for him and it probably doubles his worth as it makes him capable of one shotting weaker monsters quickly or severely damage one. Very solid and only really "bad" towards the end when other characters also start getting damage option or for really long fights as his arts have very long cool downs.
Sharla - Probably the weakest in terms of the main cast. I didn't really feel anything for her, but for the most part, she also didn't really irritate me. Admittedly she only really gets a lot of scenes around the point past Mechonis Field to sum up her subplot. I guess the reason why she seems the weakest is because her character is really cliched? I dunno, but inoffensive regardless, which is nice.
She's the team's medic and the only one at that. You have secondary healers, but if you need constant healing, Sharla's the person you add to the team. She lacks damage though, which means that putting her on your team does slow you down. However, if you employ strategies that rely on stalling or you're using a physical wall like Reyn, having Sharla along is always a good idea. Least used PC for me, I just found the healing a lot less valuable and Shulk/Riki were often enough.
Dunban - I also really liked Dunban. The game likes to re-emphasize that he's a hero, but he comes off as modest without being overly so. He also has a sense of humour and is badass without the game forcing him or making him look badass. Most badass characters have this emo streak or try to be loners or whatever, but Dunban is like the exact opposite. And from the course of the game, he really does get stuck in some shitty situations but he handles them the way a mature character would do it. Quite cool.
Dunban's a dodge tank but also has lots of damage options available. He can aggro control too, but he's weaker at it than Reyn and much worse if trying to control groups. A really good PC though since his emphasis is on agility which governs hit/evade. He's tough to hit and his damage is very consistent. In battles, his arts are all meant to flow together in strings like combos. So not only does he build lots of party gauge, but he can also self stun or self topple without needing help from others. A great choice against individual targets or if you need just a third who can deal damage and is durable.
Melia - Favourite of all the cast. Melia comes off with this air of grace, which you expect that she would have. She doesn't come off anywhere as obnoxious or snobby, but rather as someone who's rather unfamiliar with the workings in other parts of the world. I like how she's mature but at the same time, the game reminds me of how she is fragile (see the scene with the Emperor at Prison Island) and that ultimately she is human like everyone else (that little crush she has on Shulk). She gets lots of good scenes near the end of the game to boot and I liked her subplot the best out of everyone.
PC...damage damage damage. Melia specializes in magic which is rarely resisted. And she can be set up to do lots of damage over time or as a burst specialist. She'll wipe most enemies out real fast from the moment she joins the team. Her biggest weakness? Frail Frail Frail. At level 80, she has around 3300 HP and unimpressive defense. Everyone else has around 4500-5000 HP. Reyn and Riki cheat and have like 9500 HP. Controlling aggro is key with her, and she's not good on fights where she may attract a lot of attention since she doesn't have any durability to take it.
Riki - Mascot character. Has very little reason to joining the party but isn't offensive. He's married and has like 10 kids, which is kind of a nice twist. Gets a decent scene or two in the main plot.
As a PC, Riki's all about status effects and damage attached to his status. Pile them on, run away or spam support moves, wait until their cooldown is over, repeat. Having the second best HP (which progresses to game best) and the third highest agility means he's also hard to kill so he's a better DoT specialist than Melia and he can be set up to be a very effective supporting PC if you need damage but Sharla isn't cutting it for you. He has no burst option though so he's worse than Reyn and Melia in those departments.
Seven - I like the symbolism between Shulk and her and ultimately what does happen to her at the end. On her own, I don't think her character is impressive (since she's doesn't exist for 50% of the game) but what is there is okay. Her scene at the beginning of the game is the motivating force and part of me it's better if she didn't return as a PC. Once she does return, it's like a hybrid character, but for what it is, again, it's okay and not offensive.
Seven's unique gimmick are her armor sets. You get customizable equipment later, but for the most part, she's all about equipping the right equipment for the task. Her best set though is the Speed set, which turns her essentially into a ninja. Attacking at twice the speed, critting and hitting twice means she shreds most enemies before they get going. As Uno puts it, if the enemy is within 5 levels of Seven, they are pretty damn well dead. Her main weaknesses are limited slots on equips although this does eventually go away and her arts aren't very good (they cut into her most effective role).
Anyway, great game if that wasn't obvious enough! 8.5-9/10 for me. First good game in a while.
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D3: Up to Act 2 Hell with my DH, with two other classes in NM. Uniques and Champion packs are finally starting to get more consistently dangerous, which makes for fun times. Currently rolling with a sort of face tanking spec using the gloom rune on Shadow power and bitter pills on Bola shot with the crit disc mastery. So pretty much I just stand still and facetank things until they die with perma 65% damage reduction, which somehow works because armor with all resist, vit and dex is easy enough to find at hella cheap prices for some stupid reason. Currently rolling with slightly under 5k deeps, 20k life 1800ish armor and 75 all resist, oh and 23% crit for discipline passive feulage, which seems decent enough for being only level 54 at the moment.
So, after one act through hell, I've decided so far that my worst nemesis is invuln minions, pretty much always causes trouble, and ended up running into a pack of those with nightmarish and mortar, pure hell in a jar. Died twice to those before I finally got them down, which was really just me running around in a big circle in the cleared portion of the dungeon taking a rare shot whenever the Vulnerable champ was not being blocked by his minions and mortars weren't flying in my imminent direction. My reward? The game felt sorry enough for me for going through all that effort that a white mob dropped the Legendary Giant skull on the next floor down, which makes my first legendary drop of the game, quickly equipped it, and then set it aside and put it up on the ah for like 45k or something because hey, it's decent, but I can guarantee I can find a 20k rare that's twice as good, it sold within 5 minutes, whatever, I guess people rather have shiny uniques then good loot for some reason, will definitely serve as a lesson that I can probably sell even crappier uniques that drop on the ah for a decent quick buck.
Planning to hopefully have enough energy after work to finish Hell sometime in the next two weeks, after which point I may actually farm up the pony level items. After that at some point I'll probably start trying some more coop or something, which I've been avoiding accept with a few people I know where we do all alt characters on occasion because I am one of those people that feels a need to explore every nook of the map and kind of get the feeling this would not mesh well in pubs.
Gamertag for anyone interested is 1139 name is easy enough to guess.
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Dragon's Dogma
I love it when a member of my family buys a game and then decides not to have time to play it for a month. Free games! Woo!
Anyway this is really, really good. Probably the best of the open world RPGs I've played, certainly the best of the fantasy ones. Fallout New Vegas might be better; it's hard to compare the two.
The downsides are kind of shitty story (it's about on par with Oblivion or Skyrim), a clunky system for alts (which is understandable due to the Pawn system, but unfortunate), too many quests that are just wandering around talking to bland NPCs and fetching items, and no fast travel (again, understandable considering the importance of the day/night cycle, but the area around the capital gets real old, real fast).
The upsides are everything else. The combat is tight, responsive and interesting, with each monster having specific tricks and those tricks actually mattering. The monster design has a great AD&D 2e Monstrous Compendium style to it. The character creator is the best I've seen and you get to use it twice per alt. The way height and weight work is particularly interesting: taller and heavier characters actually have different in game options (run faster, less stamina, for the most obvious example, but it also effects jumping, ability to fit through tight spaces and even how the character fights certain monsters). The Pawn system is surprisingly compelling despite initially seeming kind of silly in the story; pawn trading and the emergent story created by their AI can be entertaining to watch all on its own. There seems to be a ton of content, although I'm not far enough to say for sure.
Humble Indie Bundle V
I bought this mostly for Bastion. Decided to download through Steam for no good goddamn reason, and found it's "not available, try again later." Ah, Steam. Thanks for reminding me why I never used you except for Terraria.
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Dragon Quest 9 Yattaf solo: Beat the final boss, as a level 45-ish Ranger.
He got me one time but then I equipped green trousers. Green trousers protect against paralysis, you see.
Dragon Quest 9 is Dragon Quest. Nothing more, nothing less. (ok, maybe less ambition) It's better than a few other DQs because soloing is very fun, as is playing Barbie with your character.
Passive skills made Yattaf one hell of a monster. More than half of most of her stats (including HP) came from passive skills, actually. All the strength bonuses made the boomerang the obvious best weapon, most random battles were over in 2 or 3 rounds and low defense bosses like the final ate 400 damage against Firebird Throw's 7 hits.
Ranger was the best class overall, since it has the best healing spells without being a priest with priest stats.
I almost never used any of the active skills, except those from the gladiator tree. There's Feel the burn (-> getting attacked sometimes raises tension. In a solo game. Against bosses that multi-act) and Clap Trap (Bitchslap a dragon for 1TP. Useful against high defense enemies)
The best part of the game was that mage general at the end of the game. I used the spell that casts Reflect...The only thing he could do was hitting for a 0/1 damage physical and using a special skill that lowers MDef.
Post game? Eh... I still haven't finished the DQ Caravan Hearts post game.
Etrian Odyssey 3: Either the first stratum is way harder than in EO1/2, or I'm terrible at picking up characters/skills. The first boss just destroyed me for a good while.
Etrian Odyssey is still fun, the shop upgrade mechanics and the sense of mystery are wonderful. The ship is the best addition that could be done to this game. The battle system could stand to be a little less random, and the game is still too ANIME, but I managed to get a 100% loli-free team with one UOM, so whatever.
I went with a Buccaneer/Hoplite/Monk /Zodiac/Arbalist team.
On the third floor I ditched the hoplite (All those defensive skills are too situational and random) and Buccaneer. (Chase skills sounded fun: Everytime someone uses a *insert element* attack, the buccaneer automatically does one attack of his own. BUT: I'm not getting all my team to focus on cheese elemental attacks, just to run into a cheese immune boss later on)
So I got a Gladiator and a Wildling instead. The Gladiator is boring but does his front line attacking role well, and the Wilding summons a mad cow that paralyses dragons by stomping on them. It doesn't get any better than this.
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Diablo 3: Nightmare Act 2 with my barbarian. Still having fun. Elites are kind of threatening now! Haven't been able to play co-op much because when battle.net isn't lagging me to death, my own connection does, and being in a game with just one other player, never mind three, makes it worse to the point of unplayability (as Tal can testify). This is shitty, especially since it seems that playing co-op changes D3 a lot more than it did for D2, but for me it just means I watch other people kill things while I run in slow motion and get to everything after it's already dead.
Also running a hardcore monk who is in Act 2 normal. Liking it a lot. The risk of permadeath makes even earlygame Normal pretty fun, and the monk has a good skillset for survival-first play.
Limbo: Bought the Humble Indie Bundle mainly for this. It's interesting. Currently about halfway through, at the bit with the rotating saw on the floor.
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Diablo 3:
Finished. Normal and (as of 0100 today) Nightmare.
I have a lot of great stuff to say about this game. It really, really improves on a lot of the issues D2 had. Granted, there are some issues, but all things considered, they're pretty minor.
I love the secret level. Blizzard, you are an awesome pack of troll game developers, and I salute you.
Game is a very fun romp, even better with multiple players. There seem to be a bunch of different skill set-ups, and I find myself changing often for the situation, even using skills I don't think are very good (like, Hex...I undersold that by a lot, especially with the healing rune) at first glance.
Some of the features (like advanced tooltips and elective mode) should be standard, but again, minor.
I totally called the story twist! Very good overall, though, and clearly leaves it open for expansions. Game has good challenge, but doesn't get tedious the way D2 did. Very, very satisfied with it. Will get my WD up to 60, then probably work on a Wizard and DH next.
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HERE BE SPOILERS FOR DIABLO 3. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
General Act and Gameplay Thoughts:
Act I is very well set-up. I like how you're put into combat, instead of starting in a town and then going out. Generally good challenge balance. Two main bosses, Leoric and the Butcher, are great. Leoric is definitely a wake-up call, and killed me once (surrounded by skeletons, he teleported on me, killed me). Butcher was by far the hardest boss fight in the game (3 deaths) - the terrain effects are nasty, and there is so much lag there. Haaaate his mimic Scorpion move so much - the range on that is so much greater than it looks. Randoms are generally pretty standard - lots of melee enemies that are pretty easy to clump up and kill. Nothing crazy. Good dungeon length - I am happy there is nothing much longer than 3-4 floors, and even then, they're broken up very well. Story-wise...very solid. Nothing bad to say about it. I love how throughout the game they're adding background and story elements which helps so much (and D1/D2 needed it so badly).
Positioning is so, so big in Diablo 3 vs. D2's spell spam. This also is further impacted by the fact that stats affect mages now. In D2, stats were there mostly for using equipment, as mage damage came from skills (Frozen Orb, Bone Spirit, etc.). I like that I care about equipment, particularly weapons now - I remember using a magic tier 1 wand on my necro for ages simply because of the skill bonuses. With the way skills and stats are handled, I actually have to make a choice between bonus stats or skill boosts (which are...rare, but more on that later). Mana regen is good (although, for the WD, it could stand to be a bit faster/bigger pool), and makes it so you use skills intelligently, but not limitedly.
Act II is a big step up in difficulty. The damn Huntresses are back, and they are frustrating. Oh, and the swarms...ugh. Hate all of them. It's a desert again, though not bad (at least there's room to move around a lot). Bosses are fair - Maghda is awful, Zoltun Kulle is...ok. Belial is decent - got me once (damn poison bursts), but he was definitely easier than the Butcher. Lack of terrain effects and a load more telegraphy (and less lag) help there. Loot wasn't too much better than Act I, but still nice. This is where I found that Zombie Dogs are best for blowing up in peoples' faces. It's surprisingly effective.
Act III is excellent. The randoms are about 100x worse than the bosses - I didn't lose to any of the bosses at all, but randoms are nasty. Unlike Act V of D2, you actually get the impression of a battle that's going badly here. It feels epic, which is refreshing. There are lots of soldiers fighting, dead bodies, lots of random effects that really hit the mark. Excellent. I like it a lot. Azmodan is awful, as are his lieutenants. And thank god Tyrael finally got off his ass and fought - seriously man, Also, completely called the Adria betrayal. Bet she's the villain in the next expansion.
Act IV is great. It actually climaxes the game well, and builds on what happened in Act III. There is a sense of urgency, and the bosses and randoms are...fairly balanced. Terror Demons are nasty, and the first 2 bosses are hellishly tough (Iskatuu...fuck you and your surrounding me). Though...why is there no Izual achievement and WHY is there no extra dialogue with Tyrael? That seems like a huge missed opportunity (how is he back...etc.). Diablo killed me once in the first part of the battle with his teleporting.
Yeah, thought I could say more, but really well-done. Act III is probably my favourite act overall, but they're all good. No Act III D2 again, which is a huge plus.
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Super Mario Bros. 3 - Playing this on the Virtual Console. Great game but man does it get challenging later. I'm currently in World 7, getting wailed on by 7-7/7-8.
Celdia's Complete Patch, an FFT hack - Got to Altima. The hack definitely improves the Zodiacs a lot, Zalera in particular is borderline impossible, but the other encounters aren't too dramatically different. The HP is in general on a lower scale and the game does feel like a bit of rocket tag, but it's pretty fun. Love the spriting, and any game with a Red Mage will suit my fancy.
Fire Emblem 12 - A classic case of a remake that should have been less faithful to the original. A little tweaking of the generally poor map design and antiquated mechanics like only the lord can get the villages would have done the game a lot of favors. The game seems to really favor female characters to an absurd degree since this was way before they got the memo that speed is really good. Current death count: Radd, Mattias, Rody, Luke, wanky anime rival of Merrick, Samto, Warren. Warren was sad because he was good but I was lazy.
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Trial by Devil Axe is in full force I see.
Also wait, they gave Merrick a WANKY ANIME RIVAL? That's... so stupid it's kinda awesome.
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FE12 - Flying is so broken in this game. Swarm (Bolting) mages who sit just across rivers. Forest everywhere. Enemies carrying really good items who escape from maps, usually on the aforementioned forest maps. Two desert maps in just the first eleven chapters.
That's before any consideration for fliers with good stats or Wing Spears.
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The randoms are about 100x worse than the bosses
This pretty much sums up all of Nightmare and Hell difficulty. Even the Butcher is a cakewalk compared to some of the elite enemies that pop up in Hell mode and the end of Nightmare. As for your comment about it not getting tedious... it does. You just have to get to hell mode, then it's "oh I died oh I died oh I died oh I died FUCK THIS GAME". It's pretty much a cake walk up until then though.
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I had a couple weeks between school ending and summer Calc III starting up, so I played some flippin' games.
Castlevania DoS: Finished a normal game. Tentatively want to say I like it a bit better than AoS because I think it has somewhat harder bosses, but otherwise it's just such a retread.
Castlevania PoR: Finished a normal game, then Richter/Maria mode, then Old Axe Armor, then Sisters. Beat Dracula with Richter and OAA at sub-level 30, reloaded my Richter save and did the secret dungeon with Abaddon. Lots of fun killing Dracula with OAA. The main game is pretty easy, but I like having all these bonus modes. The game feels small, though, because the castle itself is tiny and there's technically eight portraits but four of them are styled after the other four. Probably liked it better than DoS.
Castlevania OoE: Finished a normal game, then NG+ on Hard, then NG+ Hard with a level 1 cap. Then finished Albus mode sub-level 30. This is more like it. I had fun with all the stuff I did afterwards, but the main game on normal has solid difficulty on its own, at least if you're me and refuse to use healing items on bosses out of spite. Level 1 Hard Mode turned out to be a huge snoozefest because by that time I had two death rings and knew how to fight the bosses without getting hit; death rings contribute way more to your offense than all the level-up stats. Definitely my favorite DS Castlevania, although I don't think I'll keep spending time with it the way I do with Super Castlevania IV. Speaking of which!
Super Castlevania IV: Ran it a few times and failed, ran it a few more times and 1cc'd, then 1cc'd a few more times just to make sure. Mostly ending up with five or six spare lives at the end lately. Ironing out Stage IX helped a lot and I've finally gotten the hang of the Death fight, I think. Could manage a deathless run sometime.
I also replayed FF7 with no items, summons, or HP Up. That's a challenge run in name only but eh, I was really just playing the game and didn't want to wait through summon animations or make all boss damage a joke with HP Up. I think my final time was just under 24 hours.
Not sure what's next. Are there any good DS RPGs? I'm basically trying to keep myself out of the Diablo III Skinner box by locking myself up in a smaller, safer Skinner box. Might not matter now that class is starting, though.
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Flipping them what? The bird? Make those games ur bitch
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Otter: I hear Radiant Historia is pretty good, but haven't played it myself.
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RH is in fact pretty great. You can do a quick run or tool around the timestream optimizing everything, so it'll work for a short timewaster or an extended play.
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FE12? Isn't that the second one for the DS? Is there a translation patch or something?
Otter: Yeah, Castlevania doesn't get any better than Super Castlevania 4 and Order of Ecclesia. (and that final battle in PoR)
Level 1 hard mode on a fresh file is pretty intense/stupid. I liked it.
"I'm basically trying to keep myself out of the Diablo III Skinner box by locking myself up in a smaller, safer Skinner box." There's
- SMT Strange Journey. You have about 300 demons to go talk to / recruit / kill / fuse / minmax. The story is Alien, and it's 1st person like Persona or Wizardry.
- Etrian Odyssey 1/2/3... If what you want is drawing a map on your lower screen and having perfect maps. Same 1st person dungeon crawling.
- Radiant Historia. The story itself is a checklist.
- Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story: No skinner box here, just great fluff. As expected, Bowser is a great main character.
I wouldn't really strongly recommend any other regular DS RPG.
Inindo: Finished. Nobunaga kicked my ass. I came back with 20 Elixirs.
I don't know how you're supposed to do those war battles properly. The army I sided with kept 235 generals and 1439834 soldiers in their remote provinces, and 2 generals and 60 soldiers in the provinces that were right next to Nobunaga's monster army.
What I did was just sabotage every enemy province multiple times, until they were even weaker than my army. Then I just used magic in army battles. It's more broken than Yuber in Suikoden 2.
Sabotaging was like drawing in FF8. It's easy and rewarding, you need to do it, you need to stop at one point but you don't know when.
The game is an obscure Snes RPG with a small budget. Immense flaws, still playable and a bit fun with some frameskip abuse. Would get a metacritic score of 12 if it were released nowadays.
Etrian Odyssey 3: Got down to the third stratum. Plot twist: A second, worthless city!? Dual classing feels... mostly worthless but I'm probably completely wrong. I got a Wildling/Hoplite, Gladiator/Hoplite, Zodiac/Ninja, Arbalist/Princess and an Ugly Old Monk/Ugly Old Prince. The idea is to get more defense.
Zodiac is on a downward slope from MVP to LVP and it doesn't look like things will change anytime soon.
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FE12? Isn't that the second one for the DS? Is there a translation patch or something?
Just menus, though they're apparently pretty close to being done the full plot translation. Your milage may vary as to if that's worth caring about. I actually care about the lack of portability more (I guess I could invest in a flash card or something, while cursing Nintendo of America all the while); helps that there is at least an FE3 translation on Serenes Forest to refer to.
FF13 - Defeated Gaul's finest warrior with the mighty of POIZN. Extremely hard battle, but then, I didn't grind (never killed a single Adamantoise outside the one in Mission 63), so I knew what I was getting into. I eventually won with a party of Vanille (leader)/Fang/Hope, after playing around with both Snow and Sazh as possibilities for a while (still not certain Hope over Sazh was the right choice, but I -think- the better healing offset Hope's awful HP). Paradigms were SABx2/SYN, SABx2/MED, MED/SEN/SYN, MEDx2/SEN, RAV/COM/RAV (hey sometimes I have openings for offence!), and SENx3. Mostly below 2/3 HP it was all about keeping HP high, poison as the highest priority, scream like a child and switch to Tortoise the moment the words Wicked Whirl appear then switch to Combat Clinic immediately after. For a while I also got Deprotect out then occasionally launched offence but when he upgraded to the final form I couldn't even afford to do that. Only four stars, oh well... maybe could have gotten 5 if I'd sandbagged Fang's weapon but the fight would have taken longer so whatevs.
I think I'd really like the challenge of five-starring the missions if you could restart a battle upon seeing the score you got; as is the walking back and forth is unacceptable for such an endeavour. Of course I still tried as much as possible and did get a large majority.
That was pretty fun. No real intention to beat the super turtles; I have beaten all the missions and claimed by Galuf-themed achievement so life is good. Done with the game for now (just in time for Grefter to visit!).
FE12 - Beat Chapter 12. Marth has decided to screw dealing with puny humans and chase into some dragon countries or something. Fights are quite a bit harder here which is welcome.
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Pokemon Sacred Gold: At the Radio Tower, and holy hell Archer you're suddenly competent now! That teaches me for just raising Farfetch'd to absurd levels, seriously this is silly. Need to bank on slightly underlevelled Pikachu getting the OHKO and have to devise a strategy to take out Scizor. Gahhh. So far I have never needed a Fire-type, and now I do :[
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Virtua Fighter 5 FS: It's Virtua Fighter, you either love it or hate it. Seems to be lacking in offline content compared to VF4 Evolution, but the game itself is still solid as it ever was. Throw Breaks are more lenient on timing, which is nice. Played through everything with Taka, who is pretty fun. Also tried out El Blaze, but did not like his move commands. Online seems pretty good so far netcode wise.
Witcher 2: Guess I should go ahead and post my thoughts on this since I've lost all enthusiasm to play it. Got halfway through Chapter 2 and there's just other things I would rather be playing than this. It's not bad per se, it just gets outclassed in every area by some other game that came out last year:
Dark Souls had better graphics and combat.
Deus Ex HR had a better upgrade system and storyline.
Skyrim did the living town thing (1) and exploration better.
Bastion had better music and atmosphere.
So yeah, game of the year 2011 it's not. Honestly this whole thing feels like some teenage boy's D&D campaign that got turned into books/tv series/video games.
DM: You arrive in town.
Bobby (as the Witcher): I go to the inn.
DM: There are some fistfights going on, and gambling, and there are whores everywhere.
Bobby: I'll be doing all three of those! But first I look for that mage chick.
DM: You find her in her room. She looks at you longingly.
Bobby: I have sex with her.
DM: You rock her world for an hour straight. Afterwards she reminds you that you're supposed to be looking for a Ring of Power.
Bobby: "One ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them!" (2)
DM: Yeah hahaha totally dude.
Plotwise I don't get the two swords thing. Okay monsters can only be harmed by silver, I get that. But wouldn't the silver sword work just as well on a human? Gameplaywise this doesn't matter as it gives you the opportunity to play around with different weapons.
(1) You know how people complain about Skyrim characters repeating themselves? This is much, much worse. Each person in town has exactly one line of voice acting, and they say it every single time you pass by. "Oh a Witcher." "Oh a Witcher". Yes you moron, I just passed by you 10 seconds ago, I'm still a Witcher. And god forbid there's more than one townsperson standing next to you. They'll all start saying their stock line at the same time over and over and it's a cacophony of annoyance.
(2) The characters actually quote Lord of the Rings to each other. Seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if they start quoting Monty Python in later chapters.
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Bastion
Oh my fuck this game is gorgeous.
I mean, the weapon options are interesting and the narration is brilliant, but the graphics are what really stand out. Everything I thought looked spectacular in Wakfu looks at least eight times better here. What you can do with high-quality sprites and a PC's resolution in this day and age is just breathtaking.
I don't actually like the gameplay, alas. Again, the weapon options are interesting, I like the way block and lock-on work, and the difficulty is nicely curved, but the controls suck. They're not so much unresponsive as ever so slightly laggy, and keyboard and mouse for something like this is just begging for discomfort. I wonder if I can play it with a gamepad.
Dragon's Dogma
For what it is, also very good looking. Big monsters are spectacular, character customization is very good and, unlike in most such games, results in characters who look in play much like they do in character creation. Still, everything looks kind of crap next to Bastion.
Fortunately, the gameplay has not stopped being really, really good. I've played most of the fighting classes in the course of leveling up my character, and it's amazing how different they play. I'd expect the DMC team to nail Assassin (and to a lesser extent Strider), which basically plays like Dante in an RPG. What I wouldn't have expected is that they nail the other styles of action game protagonist pretty well, too. Of course, I don't especially like playing War or Kratos, especially when Dante is available, so I'll go back to Assassin at the first opportunity.
The pawn system is more fun than it has any right to be. It's more gratifying than useful when someone uses your pawn, or when you're browsing a forum and see your pawn in a screenshot, but gratifying it remains. Pawn AI is surprisingly good, provided you train/drug them up right, and it actually matters.
Enemy AI is also surprisingly good, both at being decently smart (archers do a passable job staying away, most of the enemies time their attacks well) and at being distinctive. Each enemy type is as different because of how they fight as because of how they look, again very much more DMC than ARPG.
Also, it does have fast travel, it's just limited and locked behind some of the storyline quests. Now that I have it, even in limited form, any question I had about this being the best of the open world RPGs is gone.
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(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/44765065/Shin%20Megami%20Tensei-Strange%20Journey_08_20170.png)
Decided to try SMT Strange Journey. Just beat Morax. Some features I like so far:
- Automatically scanning demons so that I see a list of their strengths/weaknesses on screen during combat after fighting them a few times
- Saving demons in the Compendium so that there doesn't have to be any real penalty for experimenting with demon fusion
- No multiple-hour highschool plot intro to the game, seriously, I gave up on Personas 3 and 4 before they really started because that part was so boring
There's also no paralysis about how to build my main character, since stat growths seem to be completely out of my control. That might turn out frustrating if I get gimped hard enough, but customized growths are the kind of thing that would have me reaching for an FAQ, trying to figure out what I want my endgame stats to look like when I'm level 2. Right now I actually prefer not having to think about it.
I also liked fully completing my map for that first dungeon, although my only healing came from my Angel's Dia and so I took a lot of trips back to the previous heal station just because I didn't know how far away the next one was and I wanted to be cautious. Exploring might be more fun when I have some more sustain.
Oh yeah, so Morax owned me because I was rocking some Weak: Fire, and then I went back to the ship for upgrades and found an ever-so-convenient piece of Strong: Fire armor. So then I outslugged him with my sword and some healing from Angel while my other demons died to Maragi.
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Atelier Meruru:
It is a mainline Atelier game. There is a cute (very cute, actually) plucky heroine who makes things in her workshop and makes things blow up with bombs when searching for ingredients.
Meruru's combat system is a step above Totori's, which was 10 steps above Rorona's. The synthing is more intensive this time around as I find myself spending a great deal of time making stuff for the actual plot, which is cool. The game is less compelling than Totori because the character interactions don't have the pull that Totori and her sister Ceci did.
Currently in Year 1 Month 2. Population is verging on 10000, so I'm way ahead of the minimum schedule of 5k and accelerating nicely.
The game is pretty as all get-out, which is to be expected since Atelier character designs are generally gorgeous. The music is okay but not as enjoyable as Totori's was. Fortunately you can totally change the battle music to be all kinds of awesome vocal tracks via DLC. The combat has been decently challenging but two alchemists = things that would otherwise own your face off don't get turns, if you invest time/money in combat items and prepare appropriately.
I am dissapointed that they gave you Totori at such a low level. Her kicking massive amounts of all-powerful monster ass was her schtick in Atelier Totori... She cannonically murderized giant dragon monstrosities and ancient continent-ravaging demons. Then again she is only using Meruru's combat items and it can be assumed she's 'holding back' some to give her apprentice a better learning experience. Same problem exists with Mimi..
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PWI: Finished my 101 armor set. I am now as grossly incandescent as the very sun itself. And yes, I am compensating for something.
(http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/9372/101morai.jpg)
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Compensating for your shameful lack of a beard, clearly.
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Good man, Otter.
I believe stat growth for the main charcter is fixed, and depends entirely on the questions you answered at the beginning of the game.
You should probably stick with the same alignment for the whole team. Extra attacks get really useful, and there are always enough available monsters for each path, honestly. (Neutral sounds a bit more rough than the others though)
I don't suggest always answering in a certain way to make sure the main character always sticks with the same alignment. It's boring, and you can go from an all neutral team to an all lawful team pretty quickly via demon fusion anyway.
"They're not so much unresponsive as ever so slightly laggy, and keyboard and mouse for something like this is just begging for discomfort. I wonder if I can play it with a gamepad."
I found Bastion's gameplay excellent on the Xbox, with a gamepad, for what it's worth. Very crunchy with a machete and a shotgun.
Dragon's Dogma: Started. I'm liking this a lot. I expected a huge world similar to Fallout/Oblivion, but it's more of a smaller Zelda/Nier like world. I approve, this means that the game has level design! Unlike a lot of similar games, Dragon's Dogma is not really reaching for verisimilitude, it's trying to be a videogame first and foremost. There are secret places filled with treasure chests everywhere. I approve.
The main character is Yattaf, some giant woman. She plans to try all the classes and eventually become overpowered as hell, right now she's a mage.
The main pawn is Helmout the dwarf. Yattaf likes throwing him off cliffs.
I decided to go with only my main pawn and not use any other. Games always get too messy and boring when there are too many AI controlled allies running around. (and the scripted beginning of the game makes me believe this one isn't any different)
Having two characters instead of four means a notable difficulty jump though, so I'm doing a lot of sidequests. Not complaining, though.
Helmout doesn't ever shut up. So far, I like this enthusiasm. He's happy to be with Yattaf, and he wants to help her, even though she's way beyond his league and he knows it. It's as cute as embarassing.
I'm sure I'll eventually turn off every voice in the game at some point, just so he can shut the hell up.
Etrian Odyssey: In the third stratum, dying a lot, having to choose one extremely important choice!
It's funny how both sides are extremely similar. They're full of greedy people that only ever see the main team as useful pawns. That split path doesn't ask any meaningful questions to the team. It's "Blue haired asshole or blond haired asshole?"
The Nameless Game:
(http://i0d.3djuegos.com/juegos/3115/nanashi_no_game/fotos/avances/nanashi_no_game-534391.jpg)
If you don't complete this Dragon Quest 1 / Final Fantasy 1 clone within 7 days, YOU DIE IN THE REAL WORLD!
That's the background for a weird DS horror game.
The developers nailed the small RPG parts (the theme song is perfect), but definitely not the rest of the game. Survival horror games love having clunky controls (to make the main character feel powerless), but this is taking it way too far. At no point can you ever feel like a human being. You're a robot with tunnel vision who slooooowly turns around to escape running walking slowly crawling ghosts. The plot is fairly standard, and there are really only two genuinely good scares in all. Good gimmicks, bad game.
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Diablo 3: Reached Inferno on my DH and OHGODITHURTSWHATISGOINGON pretty much sums up the experience so far.
The general facetank spec on the squishiest class plan is starting to show serious faults, which is somewhat to be expected. The biggest problem so far has mostly come from the retardedness of having to deal with Invuln minions/Shielding type mobs which pretty much equates to: "Skip this set of mobs, or if you can't, be prepared to restart game or die 10 times in the process of killing them" Honestly, those two monster affixes are probably my biggest beef with the game as a whole, slightly annoying on lower levels since they mostly just equate to a "takes 4 times longer to kill while mobs fail around" whereas in inferno it changes to: "watch hopelessly as anything you do fails to do anything while this group of 4 mobs wails on you for 30% health a hit"
So yeah, it's mostly just a frustrating mechanic that does nothing but slow down the overall pace of the game (Oh hey look League of Legends used to have a similar thing where objectives could be made temporarily invulnerable and they took it out because that shit just wasn't fun to play with!!)
Incoming damage so far however is fine, it's pretty ridiculous for now, but hey, my gear generally sucks at this point for this difficulty level so honestly feels right. No worse then when you go into Hell on d2 for the first time and cry out as a quill rat just took out half your health. Apparently the Acts past Act 1 are like 10x's worse, but honestly I think the people who complain about that have never played d2 in an initial blind playthrough and dealt with nightmare/hell fire enchanted mobs or burning soul packs, which would literally oneshot you also if you did not damn near max out resists and have a huge healthpool. So yeah, totally looking forward to getting my ass handed to me in Act 2 if it's anything like what people say I will enjoy actually having to put work into keeping my 5 stacks of NV up.
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Trails in the Sky - So I started this. The writing/characters aren't really my cup of tea and the game spends a bit too much time on them (also, you can't speed up the text! At least it's faster than DQ9). Plot could be interesting, we'll see, but it's a slow starter. Combat hasn't done much to really distinguish itself yet but it's enjoyable enough fluff. I at least expect I will be able to maintain momentum in this unlike Lost Odyssey.
FE12 - Finished this. I got the bad ending because I derped and completely missed a village that ended up having an essential item for the good ending. Only village or treasure of note I missed in the entire game; kinda sucks. Oh well.
Anyway, this game reminds me a lot of Shadow Dragon. It has its ups (lack of silly sidequest requirements, fewer maps with out of the way villages past the earlygame, no more hidden-stat manaketes) and downs (worse map design otherwise, ending nonsense). Overall it probably balances out to be a better game but it's really not the improvment I was hoping for. Still fun enough of course. I did like seeing Shadow Dragon's good features again (animation skip button, enemy phase skip, dead PC inventories being saved, reclassing, weapon level stuff, lots of varied difficulty levels) and it was fun to be able to destroy the world with flyers even if I cringe at it from a game balance decision.
The game had some decent challenge midgame, the maps from Chapters 11 through 16 were pretty tough. The beginning and end were both pretty easy though. I assume the good ending chapters would step things up again.
Team notes, with kill counts:
Chris (80) - Oh look, an overpowered PC and it is yoouuuu. Self-insert silliness aside, Chris is extremely good. Mine was a pegknight because you can never have too many flyers.
Caeda (68) - Wing Spear is much less valuable in this game (still good), so she no longer challenges to be the MVP. But hey, she has 95% speed growth and is another capable flyer.
Catria (65) - You get one Elysian Whip in time for promotions (more if you want to hold off). Falconknights feel a little less statistically impressive than Dracos but they do have a higher speed cap, and E swords is way better than E axes due to the Lady Sword's existence (E-rank Silver Sword for women only). Anyway, Catria needed the least help with one of str/def at the time I promoted her so I made her the falcon. Not much to say, another great PC etc.
Palla (23, died in C12) - Borderline jeigan type with her monstrous start (B lances and 16 spd in Chapter 3, then only 30% speed growth). Still, her speed was quite high enough for Normal. Died right at the end of a tough chapter 12 (the map I found the highest in the game) but certainly excellent.
Minerva (30) - Starts very overlevelled with meh stats for her level but great for the time, maintains use well as a flyer with A in axes, so she can use the Hauteclaire, Hammer, Poleaxe, Brave Axe, etc. which nobody else on my team could because I was underwhelmed by the class circuit which included the axe classes in this game.
Luke (64) - Sword Cav/Myrmidon. It's a pretty good set to alternate between, he swung swords around, could get enough speed/move to be effective, and he gained some excellent Def so he was one of my main tanks. Couldn't fly while maintaining his weapon ranks but otherwise very good.
Maris (49) - The other sworduser, had the benefit of Lady Sword for when she hadn't hit B in them yet which was a nice boon. Defence was much lower though (good base, but 5% growth eww). She's not objectively a wonderful PC but she's workable and I got decent milage out of her, and she was a must-use because she looks like Nailah.
Cecile (18) - Original Lady Sword Cav/Myrmidon earlygame, died in C6 mostly because she had gained no defence ever. Oh well.
Marth (35) - I guess Marth is better than last game, but he's still basically a Mercenary who can't promote or change classes or gets a second weapon type. And his player phase action is limited by the fact he has to be constantly advancing towards the seize point (and sometimes villages), so some caution is needed to avoid him being underlevelled. Kinda scrubby again, just less so.
Linde (51) - Starts with Aura (strongest tome in the game) and Nosferatu which is great, and weapon weight no longer mattering combined with her great speed growth let her be a great offensive force AND tank in a pinch. Pretty solid outside her horrendous durability when Nosferatu isn't considered (see also: ballistas) and crappy move, especially late (mages don't get move on promotion which is dumb).
Malliesia (3) - Staff user. Can use Hammerne which nobody else can so a total no-brainer to use, and had far better staff rank than the other early staff users anyway. After promotion she could toss out forged Fires and Nosferatu-tank (although wasn't fast enough to double, so she wasn't very good at it), but mostly remained a staff user. This game does have some of the best staves ever past their crappy raw healing: infinite-ranged Physic, Warp/Rescue, Thief, Again, etc.
Katarina, Etzel - Filler staff users mostly, not much to say. Katarina could also kinda fight maybe.
Tiki - I found her harder to use in this game than in FESD, game more dominated than ever by high move and fewer manaketes for her to hunt after she joins, although at least she doesn't force Bantu use this time and she's still well above par for series manaketes.
Feena - Dancer. Lower-move than some but still great of course. Could actually attack/counter with some effectiveness if a spare Lady Sword was handy (E rank killed her offence otherwise) but you'd never use her for that on the player phase and her durability was too poor to rely on it much on the enemy phase.
Julian - Is a thief with crappy combat.
Rickard - Is a thief with crappier combat.
Sirius, Arran - Got some jeigan use.
Xane - Obviously worse than Feena (doesn't duplicate weapons, wastes exp) and I didn't feel like using both, though from past experience I know he is fine.
Game time was a bit under 17 hours, pretty short for me and FE. Would have been a bit longer with the good ending chapters, but still not a long game, which is fine. Game is a 5 or 6/10 depending on my mood, but it will certainly end up being replayed at some point because Fire Emblem.
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D3 Hell Mode - Up to Act 3. You know, I really didn't mind the always online thing with this game, EXCEPT when I get LAG playing BY MYSELF. And LOSE a battle I was winning because of it. Had to redo Belial 3 times because I kept lagging, and after the second time just restarted to connect to a different server that didn't lag. Bull. Shit.
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D3: My HC Monk died in Act 4 normal. Forgot about the hordes of shadow monsters that hit you at the opening of the act, and that they can actually do decent damage (unlike all the other shadow monsters in the entirety of normal), and thus failed to bring Mantra of Healing or the AoE Blind move to give myself a get-out-of-mobs-free card. Oh well. Still way more fun than playing Normal on softcare again.
My barb is in Act 2 NM, about to start the Zultan Kulle nonsense.
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FE12 - Got the bad ending due to collective failure. Pretty fun game, clearly the worst FE I've played but not awful. (Never played SD.) Palla was MVP.
SMB3 - Finally beat the fucking last minifortress in World 7 as well as the rest of the world. I like to randomly shriek while playing the game, usually after seeing giant cannons or fireballs spitting little white monster things. Since it's a game I didn't play as a child I don't remember it very well despite having played it once.
M&L3 - Between being able to go from inside Bowser and out and in again via pipes, the ability to make Bowser grow into GIGA BOWSER, and the ridiculous stunt attacks, this game is certainly the silliest RPG I've played in a long time. Its gameplay is fine, just feels like a series of minigames for the most part. Not sure how I feel about the game as an RPG, since everything fun about its gameplay is basically unrelated to the base combat. Good stuff though.
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I found Bastion's gameplay excellent on the Xbox, with a gamepad, for what it's worth. Very crunchy with a machete and a shotgun.
I've gotten... more used to it, but I'll probably see about hooking up a PS3 controller; the last time I tried that it was a pain in the ass, hopefully it's become easier since. At the end of the day, I just really hate keyboard and mouse for anything action-oriented other than an FPS.
Dragon's Dogma: Started. I'm liking this a lot. I expected a huge world similar to Fallout/Oblivion, but it's more of a smaller Zelda/Nier like world. I approve, this means that the game has level design! Unlike a lot of similar games, Dragon's Dogma is not really reaching for verisimilitude, it's trying to be a videogame first and foremost. There are secret places filled with treasure chests everywhere. I approve.
The world is quite a bit bigger than any of the Zeldas (except Wind Waker I guess, but "lots of empty water" isn't really the same thing). Still, I know what you mean. It's particularly noticeable when you start delving the actual dungeons. Instead of short, samey linear crawls with all of three backdrops (hello, Skyrim), each one shows some actual uniqueness and design. None of them are really standout, but they're solidly designed.
I decided to go with only my main pawn and not use any other. Games always get too messy and boring when there are too many AI controlled allies running around. (and the scripted beginning of the game makes me believe this one isn't any different)
I think you'd be pleasantly surprised. The partner AI in this game is the best I've seen - damning with faint praise, yes, but it really is worth a try. The opening is not a fair measure of how good it is in the maingame, because you have no control over what pawns you're running with or how they synergize.
The pawn trading metagame is also great fun if you have others to discuss the results with. It's the most (online) "multiplayer" interaction I've been sucked into in about a decade. Are you on 360 or PS3?
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The world is quite a bit bigger than any of the Zeldas (except Wind Waker I guess, but "lots of empty water" isn't really the same thing). Still, I know what you mean. It's particularly noticeable when you start delving the actual dungeons. Instead of short, samey linear crawls with all of three backdrops (hello, Skyrim), each one shows some actual uniqueness and design. None of them are really standout, but they're solidly designed.
Yes. I guess a large part of the game's budget went into the world design.
I really like the English coast setting. There's a lot of verticality, with well hidden secrets and cliffs you can use to instant kill enemies. (The best way to kill anyone in videogame) And it can get really grandiose!
I think you'd be pleasantly surprised. The partner AI in this game is the best I've seen - damning with faint praise, yes, but it really is worth a try. The opening is not a fair measure of how good it is in the maingame, because you have no control over what pawns you're running with or how they synergize.
The pawn trading metagame is also great fun if you have others to discuss the results with. It's the most (online) "multiplayer" interaction I've been sucked into in about a decade. Are you on 360 or PS3?
I've been pretty impressed by the pawn system, especially the way they can learn new things by being used by someone else. My pawn was decent enough as a fighter as long as I was here to support him, for all that he was pretty terrible as a mage/healer.
Still, as I was playing yesterday I kept thinking how much more fun I'd find the game alone. So I restarted and promptly threw Rook and my main pawn off cliffs. I know I'm missing a big part of the game, but honestly, I have no regrets.
- AI always makes me play worse. I had to try countless times to beat the lizardmen under the well the first time, around level 13. This time, I beat them all on the first try at level 8 with very few healing items.
- The mage class is still perfectly playable solo.
- I prefer to discover and learn things by myself instead of having my AI pawn say them to me. The first time my pawn said "What an incredible view", I was impressed by the game. But then I thought about it some more and realized this was more terrible than anything.
- Coming from Dark Souls/Demon's Souls/Risen, this isn't too hard.
Anyway, I made it back to where I was before. I've also found the overpowered grimoire from one quest, forged a copy, finished the sidequest by giving the fake book, and kept the grimoire for myself. Muhuhahahah.
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Liking cliffs/pits to kill enemies? Please say you have played Orcs must die, Fenrir.
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Nope.
Ok... I'll play it right after Front Mission 5? >_>
I've fonder memories of Double Dragon 2 than Super Mario Bros, because you could go out of your way to throw the first boss from the top of the building. Also, all these guys falling from the helicopter. Yessss.
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SRWZ2-2: Finally got off my lazy ass and downloaded a working ISO of this, only to find that my heart's set on playing FE over SRW, now that I've spent a few weeks reading up on FE13 info (which sounds way more interesting than FE11 or 12 on paper). Still plugging away slowly at this, up to Chapter 5 right now. Not much to say yet, except that most PCs joining with enough PP to buy SP Regen right off the bat due to Z2-1 carryover is pretty awesome - especially for early joiners like Duo and Quatre whom I won't be using permanently.
FE8: Figured I'd shake off the rust with the super easymode FE. Just for giggles, I'm running NM with just Ephraim and Seth right now, which might well be EASIER than a conventional team outside of the desert map and the Demon King. Eventually I plan on an Eirika HM run (which I've never done before) with a more normal-sized team.
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FE8: Figured I'd shake off the rust with the super easymode FE.
Hey, hey! FE8 is certainly not the hardest game in the series or anywhere close, but "super easymode" may be going overboard, especially considering FE9's smaller-
Just for giggles, I'm running NM with just Ephraim and Seth right now
Oh. Never mind. <.<
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Lollipop Chainsaw: I can't decide if this game is empowering to women or setting back the women's movement thirty years. I'll let mc decide that. All I know is that it is a blast to play. Still in the high school level, haven't had much time to play yet.
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It's Suda51. You not being sure of that is the entire point.
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Catherine: Ice block me harder bro
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Radiant Historia- Aht/Stocke pseudo soloish. Defeated the Mana Defenders and Alistel soldiers w/th Aht at L11. Only took 33 First Aids, 2 Poison Wings, 2 Sleep Wings and 6 Might Herbs >_> Aht was tinked for MDEF/HP/SPD. Once the soldiers were dealt with it was a game of Might Herb/Heal + Heal/Attack then once the Might Herbs ran out it was Heal/Chip. Fight was easier once one Mana Defender was gone as well.
Road blocked at Bodyguard but after much resetting and thinky think about in ways in which to approach the fight and finally some retrying with the set up which eventually won me the fight I finally won it w/th L12 Aht tinked for ATK/LCK (Red Dagger + Fang Charm + Rose Ring + Rabbit Foot) + support from Poison/Curse/Paralysis Wing/Power Down/Might Herbs. This was an all or nothing approach but it was quite epic when it finally paid off. Basically I was able to Change abuse to set up Aht for ten turns in a row and use Might Herb + nine turns of Attack, then amazingly Bodyguard was either unable to act because of paralysis on his turn or wasted other turns on his single hit attack, didn't abuse his triple attack or get the chance to use Offensive Shift at all until Aht had Changed abused herself to nine turns, then I used Turn Break for ten and did another Might Herbs + nine Attacks combo. Turns out Bodyguard was finished before those nine Attacks were up anyway but I'm not complaining =) Aht levels up to L13 and learns Greater Heal~
Poison/stall/turtle/heal alone wasn't enough for Bodyguard because it was outpaced by his speed/regen combo. I'm not quite sure what Curse does again either but I figured I might as well throw it into the fight as well.
As for Stocke L14/15 for another Rosch and Gladiator, L16 for Garland Had a few resets figuring out how to deal w/th Steel Lance and Warrior Spirit but didn't take too long/have any real issue with these fights on the whole. Again Poison Wings are bbfs~
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(http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/suplextrain2.gif)
Back to yer roots.
Playing my annual run of FF6. Breaking it in style. Picture courtesy of Elephantgun's LP.
wait is this actually posible in game? if it is FF6 would official sit at the top of my favorite RPG list then... :O
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Diablo III: I got compromised so kinda weary to start up playing again, would love to play with someone else though, lvl like 20 monk in act 2.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT: LOL nawh i don't play this anymore but will once mists/patch drops.
Tera Online: Thinking about trying out the demo...but eh.
THE REAL MEAT
Pokemon White: On hold since i left my DS with someone by accident! (and there for the 9 other DS games i was playing D:)
League of Legends: Fun game in my spare time away from actual rpgs, i play with others a lot so good way to keep in touch with em. Nijipotamus and True Final Boss on there(main/smurf)
Valkyrie Profile: REPLAY AT LAST, playing an undub on the psp....i must say the improvement to the script is awesome, and now that i am...actually smart enough to play this game it is at thousand times more fun than when i was a kid! SO DEPRESSING THOUGH
Breath of Fire III (psp remake): Just starting up.
Final Fantasy Tactics (psp remake): Just starting up.
Alice: The Madness Returns: Zomg can't wait to start it but i need a solid 4 hour block to start playing it hahah.
Kirby Return to Dreamland (Hard Mode): Need to start up hard mode...but kinda waiting for someone else to play with!
That is it for now, i figure that plate is big enough, i was already playing some 9 odd games on my DS anyway.
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Asura's Wrath: Just beat the first thing that would qualify as a boss, I guess? Hard to say in this game since its basically a huge Shonen Anime Mini-Series with Gameplay breaks...
...no, really, that's what it is. It sounds like an exaggeration until you get 2 random stills from scenes you just saw saying "Asura's Wrath" which basically are saying "If this was an actual Anime, there would be commercials here." Why do they have these? Probably to break up the movies if you want to watch the scenes separated or something.
Beyond that, game is interesting enough, trying to actually make a Cinematic Experience that can still be qualified as a game. I will say that so far, for a protagonist whose entire character is basically "I AM ANGRY AND WANT REVENGE!" ...Asura is far more sympathetic than Kratos. Granted, not being a murderous sociopath does wonders for that <_<
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wait is this actually posible in game? if it is FF6 would official sit at the top of my favorite RPG list then... :O
It has to do with not meeting certain characters. The Moogles that team up with Locke occupy the character slots later held by Celes, Sabin, Cyan and such.
[url]http://lparchive.org/Breaking-Final-Fantasy-VI/[url] has that and some more stuff.
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Medieval Fashion Dollhouse 3 -
So, SnowFire's male Wizard may have a bit of a crush. Sure, she's a little intimidating being higher level and all, but it's pretty clear that beneath her icy facade and hate-powered arrows, SnowFire's female Demon Hunter has a heart of gold ready to be melted. And unlike, say, Glen Veil's shameless hussy who wears Vanishing Dye on her clothes in a desperate cry for help, SF's demon hunter clearly has a keen sense of style. Her uncovered (Vanishing Dye'd) raven colored hair contrasts starkly with the white Winter Dye'd outfit, much as the demon hunter's dual nature features the classic clash between Hatred and Discipline. He's been working up his courage to approach her with some topical conversation that might lead to something more - you know, "hey, I hear you fight demon lords, I've done some of that as well, want to have coffee?" But there seems to be a problem. They're both on the same account. SF's Wizard can see her across the room at the Auction House, and briefly on the Switch Hero screen... but never seems able to join the same game as her! Are they cursed to remain apart forever, catching but glimpses in passing, like the movie LadyHawke which had that super-80s soundtrack?!?
Also, I have finally acquired a cache of the rarest dye for sale in game, Lovely Dye. I think only a merchant who normally spawns in Caldeum sells it, and it's normally a pain to enter Caldeum... but... when running Hell-Belial with NotMiki and Scar last night, the merchants all evacuated to the Hidden Camp, where the extremely pricy Lovely Dye was indeed for sale. Now, nothing can stop me from slaughtering the Lords of Hell dressed in a manly all Pink costume and getting an achivement, the true measure of a man's worth. (Belial himself was pretty badass yet fair as usual. We wiped 3 times to Form 3, then wiped to Form 2, then killed him. I could just, just barely take a hit from his Form 3 claw at full health.)
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Hey now, I totally got an armor upgrade that looked decent enough that I didn't vanishing dye it! :-(.
D3) beat inferno Act 1 a few days ago and tried act 2 for a little bit, decided it would be best to stay and farm act 1/play other characters more. dh has 30k health, ~250 give or take in each resist, 48% reduction in armor, mobs hit me for 53k if i screw up on a vault or something in Act 2, yeaaaaah.
Currently playing on my monk because I noticed it's possible to get something like 60% free dodge from skills alone or something and mantra of evasion has a rune that deals damage every time you dodge, this sounds cool and amusing to me.
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Gungnir
Despite everything on my plate at the moment, I took a few hours to actually pop this in my PSP on release day.
It is the new Dept Heaven game (chapter IX compared to Yggdra Union's II and Knights in the Nightmare's IV) and it is weird as Dept Heaven games tend to be. But to a notably less extreme extent. While I love both YU and KitN for going all-out and creating some of the most non-traditional RPGs in the genre, Gungnir stands out as using a lot more of the regular conventions of the SRPG genre.
I think this is actually to its benefit. While I may miss the batshit insane mechanics from other Dept Heaven games, I'm very pleased with how accessible Gungnir is right from the start. It's kind of the reason that I feel these conventions came to exist in the first place - they are intuitive. And Gungnir brings just enough convention-defying weirdness from YU and KitN to really help it stand out in important ways (especially compared to Sting's OTHER 'standard' SRPG, Hexyz Force).
The mechanic that instantly catches my attention is its use of "Party Turns". While speed is handled in the excellent CTB style, and enemies get turns in the same manner as say FFX characters, the player gets turns interspersed throughout the enemy's where ANY SINGLE PC CAN USE THE TURN. Not a large twist, but a significant one. Depending on which PC you use to take the turn and what action they perform entirely decides how soon your next turn will come, so the game rewards conservation of actions pretty heavily, which makes for an interesting dynamic.
The game also has, for lack of a more succinct explanation, a built-in Heart Cannon mechanic (a la Dis4) with it's Beat system. The game is balanced for you to passively combo-attack the everliving daylights out of everything with 2-3 PCs and this makes positioning even -more- important. Pretty fun when conservation of movement/actions is already such a big deal.
There are a few other mechanics that are fairly standard for the genre that are well-used including skill-learning through weapon-type use, a limit-break-esque summoning mechanic for only the main character, and base-capturing as a resource. But for the most part, the game is a uniquely Dept Heaven look at "Here's an SRPG, change one or two fundamentals and see what happens!" that really works for me. More Riviera and less Yggdra Union.
The plot and characters are pretty bog-standard, but it's got a decent translation by Atlus USA at least. Art is fantastic and overly stylized. Will probably continue to play this one despite having like 6 other games I need to finish (one of which is a Nippon-Ichi title, so you know Djinn likes it!).
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Marietta is not pleased that she gets kicked out of this game due to the total plot rewrite.
Status is AWSOME in Gungir, keep that in mind. Burn and Poison are like.... the best thing ever. Especially Burn, you can acquire this rod that inflicts burn in large AOE accurately, and just watch how fast the status drains enemy HP. It is always a good idea to have two mages in the team just to spam status.
Also, use FAQ to farm chests. The chests are random, and the chests with ultimate equips are even MORE random.
The game has three endings, you might want to keep the requirements in mind:
A' - Agree with Alessa with most of your choices and deploy her in ever battle that she is deploy-able.
A - Agree with Alessa but does not deploy her evyertime she is available.
B - Disagree with Alessa with most of your choices.
Finally, can someone stab Robertus in the face? PLEASE?
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Limbo - Blitzed this from start to finish. Beautiful game, and so glad the Humble Bundle included the OST... because I am never playing it ever again. Holy fuck, this game infuriated me. As amazing as it was, there were some moments that were just so mind-numbingly irritating that it's made me never want to play it again. It was totally worth playing through it, but.. yeah, only the once.
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Also, use FAQ to farm chests. The chests are random, and the chests with ultimate equips are even MORE random.
There are no FAQs on GFAQs so kind of hard.
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Absolute Victory Unlosing Ranger(or Unholsing Rager as my dyslexia(etc) sees his name).
OH MY what a game, I am laughing pretty hard while playing it and finding the battle system very interesting. VERY Nippon Ichi to me....but also slightly annoying(things cost WAY to much money for how difficult money is to obtain), and forgetting to save is the end, when you lose all your best items on the god damn tutorial map cause you accidentally skipped what on earth you were supposed to do. My Other gripe, and its just a personal pet peeve. The 3+ min cutscenes between each dungeon/during each dungeon -_- no offense NIS but I kinda want the play this game, I don't have time to sit though such constant long cutscenes no matter how AMAZINGLY BRILLIANT AND ENTERTAINING they are.
Battle System: Engaging Action
Music: Super Nostalgic and very Sentai Hero
Comedy(story): SHOCKINGLY Good, very moving and motivating. The Main Character is just totally awesome, and kinda like me, I need to be more like him though! Laughing Quite a bit too. VERY OBVIOUS she is the bizzaro earth Super Baby or something. Also Super Baby = best character so far, so cute and adorable while she defends like a boss vs Darkdeath Evilman.
Misc. The names are awessomeeeeeee.
Enjoying it so much so far i've put the other games on hold, but don't have to much patience.
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Mass Effect - Played through doing no side stuff, didn't recruit Garrus. Virmire was funny when Wrex didn't die and I wtfed hard. Then found out it was probably because it would have meant I would not have 2 companions later, so lol charismatic achievement get for not having any friends. 10/10 would do again. Final level was 36 and play time of 8 hours 20 mins.
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didn't recruit Garrus.
/dramatically drags record to a stop
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I was trying for a doing it wrong play through. Mission not successful since the game forced me to leave Wrex alive.
I am planning on doing a long frm play through when I get home where I try to get everyone killed. Do ME3 with like forced James and EDE for most of the game and the like.
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Trails in the Sky - Just started chapter 3.
Game continues to be good fluffy fun that overstays its welcome a tad. Overall I have quite a positive impression of it, though. For all that the characters/setting don't play to my biases really, they're reasonably well-written for what they are (except Agate, because "what he is" is terrible). Story-wise the game does the mystery thing well enough; the game has me trying to connect the various story hints the game has dropped. Sometimes some of the writing choices and character quirks can grate a bit but not nearly as bad as I was initially expecting; for the most part the characters feel real despite the evident (yet not dominant/pervasive) anime trope influence.
System-wise the game is pretty solid too, nothing exceptional but gets the job done with its weird quasi-materia system. I think the menu could have been used better to present it (e.g. out of battle spellcasting is a chore, and it would have been really great if the game made it obvious which skills you were adding by equipping any given orbment) but it's a neat enough idea. Generally speaking the game is on the easy side which makes it harder to appreciate but it has its moments and as far as "games with pretty interesting systems which are wasted on it being too easy" it fares better than Grandia 1-2 and Final Fantasy 7 which are the games I find myself comparing Trails to most. I do wish the PC differences were a bit more stark (particularly Joshua/Estelle since they are your core PCs, they are barely different) and I don't find myself using non-interrupt crafts much because their value as interrupts is too high. These flaws are of course related as non-interrupt crafts are totally different between PCs.
The game's biggest flaw is that it feels slower than it needs to be, though. It's a weird case in that, outside the opening (you could strip the prologue way down, it did not need to be 5-6 hours) and the fixed text speed (not as slow as Xenogears/DQ9, but still) I have a hard time pointing at things I'd remove from the game in this regard, because I look at most any given scene and realise it is adding to the characters or the world (which is certainly much more fleshed-out than the average world of its type). So ultimately this isn't a big complaint, beyond that it seems like it would be an immense chore to replay (does it even have sceneskip?).
Oh yeah and I was watching OoT and it made me want to play Zelda games before they decided they needed to be all puzzles and wasting your time, so I played some Zelda 2. Up to the third castle, this game is hard.
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I was trying for a doing it wrong play through. Mission not successful since the game forced me to leave Wrex alive.
I am planning on doing a long frm play through when I get home where I try to get everyone killed. Do ME3 with like forced James and EDE for most of the game and the like.
Well you have to keep at least a couple people alive in ME2 to survive, otherwise you can't transfer your save. So keep that in mind.
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Well, it's on my X-Box, so I'm assuming he'll be doing this stuff at home. ME looked like space opera, I approve. He bought us a copy and played them as a preview.
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Catherine: The plot went all "video games" on me
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Strange Journey: had some demoralizing resets in the new area. Went back to the old area and wound up fighting some sidequest boss in the first area, I guess? She used Charm on Gary Horses and he died. Decided to table this for the moment and try for something fluffier.
Radiant Historia: so I played this. Finished the game at around 180 nodes activated, then went back and finished about twenty more by exploring, then FAQ'd the rest for the sake of OCD. I think it's kinda silly that there was a huge sidequest centered around teaching Stocke, Aht, and Eruca new skills that I never even encountered (though I picked up tons of the pertinent quest items by accident). Did Aht seriously need traps more powerful than the ones I was already using all game? I answer no. Definitely would have been cool to have been adding that variety to my skillset throughout, though.
Probably nothing new to say about it from me if it's already hyped up around here as the best DS RPG. It seemed easy for some stretches, but I'd usually just skip every random in the next few dungeons and then I'd start having to take bosses seriously again -- plus, if I had seriously wanted a challenge, I didn't have to use Aht. And I wasn't overly concerned with whether it was exactly as hard as it needed to be because fighting was just flat-out fun anyway. Combo systems and the power to interrupt enemy turns are both incredible, ask your doctor about Grandia 3 for more information, and then you take that home and put it on a grid and baby you got a stew goin'.
Limbo: blitzed through this in a bit over two hours last night. Sort of underwhelmed by the puzzles. Atmosphere was great for the first half hour or so and then it completely disappeared? Cool? I dunno man, we're in the post-Portal and Braid world now, your 2-3 hour puzzle game trading on its unique style and presentation has to bring something sweet to the table or it ends up feeling sorta mediocre. It definitely looks and sounds good, though.
Bastion: this is the other thing I've installed from the latest Bundle so far. I played up to the point where you stop hunting for... whatever they were called and now you're hunting for shards, I guess. Speaking of unique style and presentation: this game has it. Was enjoying it already and then I unlocked the ability to make every enemy faster for bonus exp and now it's even cooler. I hope the rewards for first place in the challenge games aren't too important; some of them have been trivial to get (two pistols, shield) but others I can't even see myself bothering to come back for (hammer, machete; especially machete, I don't even want to think about working on that, all the little guys are running all over the place and you're trying to hit the ones off the stage with your machete toss and it's awful).
I'll probably be playing Bastion for a bit, but after that, I might just put off Strange Journey again and keep the fluff train rolling with some Bowser's Inside Story. I've also heard there's a Valkyrie Profile for the DS, but if it were any good I feel like I'd have heard something about it before now. If it is, though, let me know while my RPG marathon rampage is still in effect.
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Bastion: this is the other thing I've installed from the latest Bundle so far. I played up to the point where you stop hunting for... whatever they were called and now you're hunting for shards, I guess. Speaking of unique style and presentation: this game has it. Was enjoying it already and then I unlocked the ability to make every enemy faster for bonus exp and now it's even cooler. I hope the rewards for first place in the challenge games aren't too important; some of them have been trivial to get (two pistols, shield) but others I can't even see myself bothering to come back for (hammer, machete; especially machete, I don't even want to think about working on that, all the little guys are running all over the place and you're trying to hit the ones off the stage with your machete toss and it's awful).
I'll probably be playing Bastion for a bit, but after that, I might just put off Strange Journey again and keep the fluff train rolling with some Bowser's Inside Story. I've also heard there's a Valkyrie Profile for the DS, but if it were any good I feel like I'd have heard something about it before now. If it is, though, let me know while my RPG marathon rampage is still in effect.
A neat trick to the machete one the moment you start it get to the center of where they are spawning asap with some practice u can kill them all before they have a chance to run away then its just a bit of quick clean up...also the 3rd place item for many of the weapons are extremely important(though only if you like using that weapon)...goodlucky with the final weapon's one though...though the 3rd unlock item for it is 100% worth the frustration.... Also bastion includes a NewGame+ option so yeah...keep that in mind hahah (but it doesn't work exactly like you'd think). It has 2 very different endings as well.
It is one of the most unique and best platformer/action-adventure type games I've played, make sure to get the DLC if you want to learn more of The Stranger....some...neat surprises in there...
For a true challenge turn all the idols on...Japanese Super Ghosts and Ghouls HARD MODE...ENGAGE.
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VPDS isn't any good.
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Says the man who can't maintain himself from trying to get Ciato to play the game every time she appears.
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VPDS is so, so tedious if you're not playing a challenge game. Everything explodes when you touch it but it still takes forever to clear a map. I literally spent something like 20 minutes just walking from one corner of a stage to the other one time. It does have an utterly hilarious Seraphic Gate though.
(If you are playing a challenge then the levels still take a long time, but it's because enemies are legitimately threatening so it's more tolerable.)
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Well, to be fair, VPDS fights CAN go downhill fast...on turn 1.
By which I mean the entirety of VPDS fights basically come down to "Do you get out of Turn 1 with minimal damage?" No, really, that's the entirety of VPDS fights outside of ones with rescue requirements, because if you survived turn 1, you've likely divided the forces so chances of being swarmed by the initial wave is down and that's usually the brunt of the enemies.
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VPDS's biggest merit is being a case study on how egregiously bad design choices can turn in such a primitive system.
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I liked VPDS myself.
Lollipop Chainsaw: I somehow beat the farm stage on the first try without dying, beating Dad's score in the process. There is something rather satisfying about mowing over zombies in a combine while "You Spin Me Right Round" is playing.
Stage 4 was back to minigames-that-are-stupidly-hard-until-you-figure-out-the-trick-that-makes-them-easy. The roof area was glitched and there were no enemies, so I just walked around until a cutscene triggered. T-Pain/Baron Samedi mashup was easy.
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Strange Journey: had some demoralizing resets in the new area. Went back to the old area and wound up fighting some sidequest boss in the first area, I guess? She used Charm on Gary Horses and he died. Decided to table this for the moment and try for something fluffier.
Strange Journey isn't hard but it is definitely anti fluff.
Take things slowly, go back to the ship when you're low on resources. Mini/sidequest bosses are sometimes brutal, but if all else fails some are weak to ailments. (Like Sleep + Calm Death)
Oh yeah and I was watching OoT and it made me want to play Zelda games before they decided they needed to be all puzzles and wasting your time, so I played some Zelda 2. Up to the third castle, this game is hard.
Dark souls is wher Zelda would be now if it went into that opposite direction after Zelda 1/2.
(Eventually I'll stop talking about it every post, but not now)
Dragon's Dogma solo: Working for Aldous.
I've explored the entire world map, and killed so many things.
Class variety is much better than it appears at first! I haven't tried mystic knight or assassin, but every class but sorcerer feels definitely unique. And sorcerer makes up for this with this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbyE-0Cg4yI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbyE-0Cg4yI)
My new favourite but useless skill is Back Fire/Immolation. Set yourself on fire, then run around to set enemies on fire. I don't see any flaws with this plan.
Archery is MVP. "Why shoot one arrow, when I could shoot 6 arrows at the same time instead?" I know, right? In any case, cyclops don't like the idea at all.
Spoilers:
I saw the fitting conclusion to what I posted earlier:
I've also found the overpowered grimoire from one quest, forged a copy, finished the sidequest by giving the fake book, and kept the grimoire for myself.
I was fighting a gryphon, and the guy from this quest came back to help me by using the overpowered grimoire. It was like one of those very RPG moments where NPCs come to give you a hand in a difficult battle. Except nothing happened at all, and the guy just stood there confused. Hilarious.
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For what its worth, I'm a huge fan of VPDS, though I'm in the minority certainly. I actually thought I was the only one but apparently the Captain enjoyed it too. If nothing else, then objectively the Seraphic Gate is worth your time.
Alternately: Play Xenoblade Chronicles.
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Archery is MVP. "Why shoot one arrow, when I could shoot 6 arrows at the same time instead?" I know, right? In any case, cyclops don't like the idea at all.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/12/RobinHoodMeninTights_Poster.jpg/215px-RobinHoodMeninTights_Poster.jpg)
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Motherfucker. Beat me to it.
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Lollipop Chainsaw: Beaten. Managed to beat Dad's score on the first try at Stage 5 also. Instant death QTEs on Stage 6 were not appreciated, but when you're fighting a Giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Elvis you tend to be in a good mood anyway. Good game overall, not amazing but very enjoyable.
The good: Usage of music was outstanding. Great selection of songs, and even the ones that aren't so great are used appropriately. "Mickey" would get extremely annoying if it was the bgm for a stage. But used as a Mario Invincible Star powerup song? Perfect.
Dialogue was very clever, and the story is so batshit insane that you can't help but laugh. Action was varied enough that the zombie-killing doesn't get repetitive. Short game, but one that's enjoyable enough to replay.
The bad: Minigames. Not so much their use to break up the monotony of the maingame, which was fine. But they tended to be stupidly hard until you figured them out and required a completely different set of skills than the maingame.
The ugly: Misogyny. A boss that screams curse words at the heroine that become giant letters is funny. But when nearly every regular zombie in the game says "Bitch" instead of "Brains", it just becomes kind of sad. See the comments about last year's Catwoman content in Arkham City.
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For what its worth, I'm a huge fan of VPDS, though I'm in the minority certainly. I actually thought I was the only one but apparently the Captain enjoyed it too. If nothing else, then objectively the Seraphic Gate is worth your time.
Alternately: Play Xenoblade Chronicles.
I enjoyed it, or at least found it passably average.
WA:XF- Almost done with a very, very stretched out replay. Final chapter. Just almost OHKOed Weisheit (Acc Up and Attack Up Buff, Six Shooter, Command Critical for 1741 damage; he has 1900 HP).
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So I finished Bastion. Lots of fun. I pretty much just used my spear and shield. I was using the distillery bonuses that gave me double damage and some health back upon successful counters, so I did a lot of work with just the shield, and I liked that the spear ignored defense and had nice crits. Mortar obviously murders things towards endgame. My Q slot was usually just the decoy thing, which seemed a lot better than anything else I tried. I did end up getting first place in all the challenges; hammer and machete weren't as hard as I thought. Going through it again now with all the shrines activated; died once when I hit a nearby swarm of birds with a mortar and then they all blew up on top of me.
At a glance I can't tell that there's anything else I'm interested in from this Bundle, but even if there isn't, I feel like I got my ten bucks back on this one alone.
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FF5 - Just learned about Dragon Mountain. The dialogue of the original kind of sucks.
M&L3- Stuck on a Giga Bowser fight, the last one. This game is a little FAQbait for me if you don't want to take for fucking ever.
FFT- We recruited our friend who hasn't played FFT to do a four player run. We just beat Zeklaus Desert. The Ice Cream Pope hits bitches with lightning bolts.
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Harmony of Despair: Been playing this fairly often of late. Running a ton of C11 while Chimp chases madness (Two Muramasas+1). Been playing Julius a lot on C11/10, because I enjoy playing him and I have an easier time dodging with him than Soma. Also maxed Alucard and Julius. Soma is still missing a Val+1 (don't care that much) and a couple of Dracula souls.
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I see this is where all those avatars come from.
Is this better than Young Frankenstein? I didn't really... laugh during Young Frankenstein.
Dragon's Dogma: Slayed a dragon, saw the credits roll.
I'd talk more about the game but it seems that The True Dragon's Dogma starts here. Tons of shit happening, with the world in a way worse state than before.
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FFT WotL: OH GOD SO FUN...but So fucking slow as fuck. 30 but usually 15 fps speeds(cause I like using magic always and forever)... The amount of time for it takes to become my turn is fantastically slow it feels more like I am watching someone else play the game, I think I will stick to the disgaea series after all even though this game is the shit, I just....it feels so slow now, anything below 60 fps feels like molasses dripping from a bun. Over all feelsing: A+ game if not for how slow the battles are, the story is as interesting/moar interesting than I remember it being, multiplayer seems like it would be tons of fun, the time it takes to level up/just get through a battle + cut scene length is just too lengthy for the casual way i like to tackle sRPGs :/
So putting it on hold till i have the dedicated multitude of hours to play it, perhaps I will skim through a story summery and play the newer ones for the DS though.
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Got a hold of SRT A on the PSP and I could use some help. All I really need is someone or a link that has menu listings and skills, maybe even the item lists because while I can get by, knowing what I'm using might help!
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Hey Niji, I think there might be a patch to make War of the Lions less slow (ask Eternal in chat about it?). The original game is not that slow at all.
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They updated the iOS version to fix it, so it's not impossible.
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SRT-A
Things are happening!
I got up to stage 14 before I had to go to work. Things are going pretty well for me considering I am still lost dealing with the menus.
I mean, the skills that include numbers are helpful. I found strike, the guarding one, focus, and the HP restoration skills easily enough, but Alert is there somewhere, I just don't know where.
Amuro and Axel (at least I think that's Axel....) are the two units I am spending all my money on right now. I boosted both of their evasions as high as I could.
Uhm lets see...
Camille is good as usual. I use him a lot, Char (er I mean, not Char! shhh) joined up and he is good too. Miliardo, aka another Char clone just arrived on the map I am on currently, and his range is nice. Quatre is with him, but they don't seem to like him much. He's rocking custom Sandrock though. It looks so cute in chibi form!
The usual robots (Getter, and Mazinger) are still good. Just got the Getter upgrade too. You know I never use the other Getter modes. The dragon form I think it is, seems so much better, ah well!
OH! There's a robot, I am not familiar with, but he looks a LOT like the autobot Blaster. Yeah, and he's tanky, so he joins my squad based on that.
I think this is the first SRT game I have played that has Nadesico and G gundam in it too. Hahaha SHINING FINGAH!!!!!
just having fun trying everything out. The game threw me into a jam when I got stuck with 5 mechs that all give me a warning signal after they move around. I am not sure, what that refers too. Guess I picked a fun path!
and yes, I have gotten some random game overs because I was not sure what the objectives were!
Good times~
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WA3 - beaten, could've been better but the designers apparently didn't know what the fuck and the world map is egregious, egregious failure. As such I rate it about a 4/10. Best part was how mockable the villain cast was. Seriously Janus/Prophets, overcompensate harder.
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Started up
Gungnir: Holy crap this game is fun, very fast but very wierd, intriguing and interesting story that draws you into the characters and sexy sexy graphics. I am a big fan of cloaks/hats/hoods/crazy hair dos and donts so this plays to my desires well. Only 3 battles in so far but having a blast, seems the game has the potential to be very complex there is much moar for me to learn clearly. Starting off with 900s of hp is...nice and refreshing! everything already feels powerful!
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X: GOD they ruined this game imo, excited to play Vile mode for the story.
Phantom Brave PSP: Starting this up later tonight probably.
Also ahh so that was it, it always bothers me when ports are vastly under powered than originals(COUGH COUGH marvel vs capcom 3 on anything but dreamcast).
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Pokemon Conquest: I am playing as a girl because no boy would ever choose Eevee as his starter. So Oichi is the first person to join me with a pimp Jigglypuff. I decide to make my entire attacking army female and leave the men at home to do the shopping. This proves to be difficult as the only other female I've recruited is some old lady with a Cottonee.
Oh! I forgot to mention I attacked the harder water nation instead of the easier grass nation first. And won, because Jigglypuff is a fucking pimp. Doubleslapping the bitches down.
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Catherine: Ended up with True Cheaters ending, superior levels of swag. Freedom would also have been acceptable.
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Pokemon Conquest: I am playing as a girl because no boy would ever choose Eevee as his starter. So Oichi is the first person to join me with a pimp Jigglypuff. I decide to make my entire attacking army female and leave the men at home to do the shopping. This proves to be difficult as the only other female I've recruited is some old lady with a Cottonee.
Oh! I forgot to mention I attacked the harder water nation instead of the easier grass nation first. And won, because Jigglypuff is a fucking pimp. Doubleslapping the bitches down.
Boss.... In the original game though Green(blue) was to get eevee as his starter and you were to get clefairy as red.
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Figures, Gary always was a wanker.
Conquest: Recruited Ginchiyo. Yoshimoto's army was a bitch to fight until Ginchiyo's Shinx evolved. Eat AOE non-contact moves Mr. Poison Point/Jagged Edge army.
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Dragon's Dogma: Finished. 102 hours in 13 days... >_> Holidays!
The quality of the game depends on whether you're inclined to forgive/forget its sins. Never before have I seen a game this incredible and terrible at the same time. Developpers definitely focused on making combat even better and boss fights even more awe inspiring, instead of making escort quests good or something.
I'm OK with this! Especially since the good outweighs the bad (but trust me, there's a lot of bad) With a little tweaking this could have truly blown my mind, but I guess Capcom was forced to pull the plug at one point. 9/10.
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Pokemon Conquest: Finished getting the first few areas, now I can go get those Fire Trainers since I have Water Types to easily "talk" them into joining me *evil grin*
Asura's Wrath: Finished first playthrough, gotta get 3 more S Ranks to get the HIDDEN EPISODE to see the FRUE ENDING!!! Will make more in-depth comments after I do that.
Though, I will say that if the game came out like a year earlier, Asura probably would have been in UMvC3 <_<
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Asura's Wrath is what now?
Also... Eevees are awesome and Gary Oak could only have been improved by the addition of MOAR Eevee. Which is impressive because he's <Internet Meme>.
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Gref, you playing Civ 5 G+K? I'm really digging the implementation of religions this time. I truly feel like a leader with my ability to shape the religious views of the masses for my political benefit. "Your god will love you if you work 15% harder!" I tell them. "Also fuck more, I need workers!"
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I hadn't picked Civ 5 up yet, not on a real kick for it. Thinking of buying it for my bro that hits 4x way harder than I do though.
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Get him to play Endless Space. It's their first game and they deserve support.
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Asura's Wrath is what now?
Also... Eevees are awesome and Gary Oak could only have been improved by the addition of MOAR Eevee. Which is impressive because he's <Internet Meme>.
First off, Gary Oak DOES have an Eevee that actually beats Pikachu in the Anime! Dunno what happened from there because it was the end of Orange Island saga and sort of stopped watching into Johto because series got so formulaic by that point (...even by its standards) that...yeah...
Regarding Asura's Wrath, its basically a CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE!!! game where it pretends to be a Shonen anime, with some short Action sequences that are either Shooter style or "Beat things up with fists til they die", and QTEs...lots and lots of QTEs. But when you're a game that's mostly cutscenes, and you want people to DO THINGs, QTEs are kind of a necessary evil. As the name would imply, its about an God who is Angry. Its basically distilled Shonen Anime of the DBZ style...I'm not exaggerating either. Heck, Episode 17 may as well be a fight between a DBZ Sayajin, a Naruto Ninja, and a Bleach Arancar.
And when I say it pretends to be a Shonen Anime, I mean it goes the full length. Each Episode has credits (though no Opening Animation nonsense...just about the ONLY thing the game is missing!), a Cryptic Ending for a "TBC!" in the storyline arc, "NEXT TIME, ON ASURA'S WRATH!" between each chapter, and even COMMERCIAL BREAKS (...without the commercials, so its kind of silly, but yes, it exists.)
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Pokemon Conquest: I am playing as a girl because no boy would ever choose Eevee as his starter.
Bite me.
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Started up phantom brave... Lol so many secrets I didnt know a bout, i love replaying games as i get older/wiser for this reason, spent....6 hours unlocking all the owl classes ahahahaha RNG HATES THE SHIT OUT OF ME, get all the rare shit but not the owl dungeons (aka what i actually want)... took me....hmm 1 hour to lvl them on lvl 1 enemies to lvl 6 lol...they are super op :)
I forgot how much the remove limit makes me weep though :(
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Zelda stuff - I beat Zelda 2, which was pretty tough, then beat the first half of Zelda 1 in one sitting.
Trails in the Sky - Beat Chapter 3. The battle at the top of the Zeiss Tower was easily the hardest in the game so far, in that I actually came quite close to losing. Pretty neat. I wish its (rather cool) boss music didn't get overwritten by the unimpressive "you're in trouble!" music but oh well. Anyway, after that I fought a boss who had over triple the HP of any previous boss (this isn't actually that unreasonable given how Trails boss fights are typically designed, but bear with me). I can't think of too many RPGs which do this, and fewer still in which the boss in question is an evil penguin. I am glad to see at least one PC reacted appropriately.
Plotwise I probably liked chapter 3 the least since I am not terribly enamoured with any of the C3-featured PCs (oddly they're probably the weakest three gameplaywise too?), particularly not Agate as mentioned before. Still sets things up pretty nicely for C4, hopefully.
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Dragon's Dogma
About two thirds of the way through a New Game +.
I haven't done a New Game + in many years, and I'm sort of reminded of why, because this is silly. None of the enemies are upgraded, so it's a matter of slaughtering my way through trivial encounters while I build my fast travel network for this/possible future playthroughs.
I'll be glad to get back to the "postgame" (which is really more like a short World of Ruin than something like the Seraphic Gate; the frue ending is in "postgame," for instance), where the combat is as involving as the system deserves and fewer NPCs are speaking.
Although by the end I didn't mind the NPCs speaking. A few of them (Mason, Madeline, Mercedes... okay, only those whose names start with M) ended up being quite entertaining. Still, the game is at its best when you're climbing up the back of a giant monster to cut one of its heads off, not when you're talking to some schmuck.
As games are actually reviewed, this one is a 9/10. The best in its genre, fun to play, fun to explore, good-looking in all the ways that matter, with a story that reaches levels of non-terrible by the end (putting it, again, at least on par with anything else in its genre). If games were legitimately reviewed on a 1-10 scale it would be a 7.5 or 8, because there are real and significant flaws here, but they're no worse than those in, say, Skyrim.
Wild ARMs Alter Code F
I have a working PS2 again!
I decided to celebrate by playing this for a while, since my old PS2 broke when I went to do so. lol at Cecilia having more MP than it would cost to cast Fire every turn through her first five levels, and MP regenerating when you level. Also, is it my imagination or are the towns much smaller than in the original version of WA1?
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Wild ARMs Alter Code F
I have a working PS2 again!
I decided to celebrate by playing this for a while, since my old PS2 broke when I went to do so. lol at Cecilia having more MP than it would cost to cast Fire every turn through her first five levels, and MP regenerating when you level. Also, is it my imagination or are the towns much smaller than in the original version of WA1?
Most are. The graphical upgrade meant they didn't want to spend the money to fully render them.
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Wild ARMS 4 - the 4th Speedrun:
Yeah, I'm going through this again >_>. Aiming for something SDA level worthy for submission, so I've been grinding my gears to really churn out segments that have little to no flaws. Current segment: From Midway save of Palapatta Passage to beginning of Cerulean tunnel.
Aside from featuring super high encounter rates in one of the last rooms inside this stupid dungeon, there is a forced fight that requires a bunch of random factors to all line themselves up together, which is causing me endless amount of grief. There are 5 soldiers. The fastest way I know how to do this is as follows:
1) Tiny Flower Yulie, Material. Ideally no counters go off to save a few seconds
2) Jude Phantom Lines down the middle, kills one soldier
3) Enemy Incendiary goes, hits Raquel. Must trigger Red Zone
4) Raquel goes, kills 2 soldiers
5) Arnaud goes, boosted Fire gem to kill the last 2.
The problems are as follows:
1) Yulie must hit high variance on the enemies to be killed by Arnaud and Jude. She must deal somewhere between 2800 to 3000 at least.
2) Jude must hit high variance on Phantom Line. The lower Yulie deals, the higher he must hit.
3) Red Zone doesn't always trigger. To force it to occur more frequently, I have to downgrade Raquel's armor to her initial armor, not get a Class level and adjust her HP to 2000
4) Arnaud must hit high variance on his gem hit. He has to do *twice* to both soldiers.
On top of all the random encounters and silly crap such as jumping into the lava myself, I've spent well over 2 hours today. And then the last 20 minutes doing nothing but getting my menu speed top notch. I can now adjust all of that in 8 seconds >_>.
ON THE UPSIDE:
Current run is 7 minutes and 43 seconds faster. Can't complain about practice.
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Plotwise I probably liked chapter 3 the least since I am not terribly enamoured with any of the C3-featured PCs (oddly they're probably the weakest three gameplaywise too?), particularly not Agate as mentioned before. Still sets things up pretty nicely for C4, hopefully.
Damn rookie! Stop getting in the way Elf and let a real professional handle this. You're too close to the case. Go work anime high school security instead.
Anyway, sounds fair enough. I agree that the C3 characters are a bit weaker but not offensively so. Agate is unlikeable but I don't mind because your characters react about like I'd expect them to in such a situation. Agree that I can see not liking his rather bog standard "blargh I hate you but maybe have a heart of gold and let's get the bad guys" schtick. As for character balance... that also sounds right, although not to TOO huge a degree. Tita's durability is unsalvageable and gets the SPACE specialization and having area physicals is less impressive than having area spells, and Agate / Zane have cruddy Orbment graphs to stop them from getting high-level magic and have the wrong stat build for it anyway. While magic > physicals in a vacuum (hey the +15% Mag Orbment has no downsides, while the +15% Atk one hurts your defense... that's not fair...), there are some enemies that spoil magic, and physicals don't have the charge time. The problem is that it's not like the other characters have particularly incompetent physicals, so "best physicals" doesn't matter quite so much. Zane at least has game-best durability by a decent margin, which is something. I'd say the character balance is something like Olivier = Kloe = Joshua = Estelle > Schera > Agate = Zane >> Tita. But having a single one of Agate/Zane in the party is totally reasonable, you'll get reliable physicals for the few times it matters and they can take hits better than average.
Re your earlier comments, I basically agree except with considerably more enthusiasm for Trails in general. It's got lots of anime trope-tastic parts, which I consider to be mostly a drawback rather than a plus, but damn if the writing doesn't mostly pull it off anyway. (Okay the "hahaha let's have Schera torture the prisoners <3 <3 <3!" part in Chapter 1 fell flat for me, but that turned out to be the exception, not the rule.) But yeah, schoolgirl costumes are apparently the hottest things ever (causes even young toughts to admire the schoolgirls whipping out swords!), super-loyal maids, surprise drag costumes, hot springs, [redacted]... and yet the world still feels damn real, probably even more so than your average Suikoden, a reasonably high bar for comparison.
That and I pretty much only had to fight battles I wanted to, since the game gives you the tools to evade almost all the random battles if you want. It's much more fun to fight because I want to rather than because I have to.
Been meaning to post some spoilery thoughts on the ending, but might as well wait at this point anyway.
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Zelda OoT - Clearly best game ever made and that ever will be. Ran out of time to finish it and was doing Water Temple. Stopped on Dark Dickbag because I don't feel like learning to play and after a dungeon that's central gameplay element has been changing my shoes constantly I don't feel compelled to give 2 fucks.
10/10 best game ever.
VC2 - I am nearly done this, probs could have finished ages ago, but side stuffs and upgrading peeps and whatnot. Gotta get dat A Rank on all levels because not getting it while playing on easy is embarassing.
Dodges still suck and totally are capable of ruining a strategy given how tight CP is when aiming for A rank. At least that is what I thought until I realised it was only the early game that wanted me to do things like kill everyone in 2 turns with fuck all CP. End game jizzes CP all over your face like you are some kind of CP cake. Then you get like 4 turns to do stuff. I still enjoy getting to the end game special missions and trying to do them in 1 turn. Cause you know, Easy mode for games I don't give a real fuck about and then enjoying them is the new thing apparently.
Magic: Duel of the Planeswalkers 2013 - So new Magic game out. Challenge mode was fun but not a big fan of the last puzzle (Hurrr durrrrr win because the AI blocks stupidly). Really enjoyed the one with Artifact duplication though, that was neat. Only problem was it used cards that I think aren't part of the normal set, so the Info on them was incomplete and I missed the block where Living Weapon came out so that took a bit to realise what was going.
Haven't done Planeshift mode yet, but the Campaign so far is fun. lol at Encounters in it though. You can fight a deck full of basic land and pingers. Whatever the Red Prodigal Sorcerer is. gj AI attacking with them. They are not meant to be anything more than a punching bag obviously, but it is still funny watching a deck built around a single card not even using it right.
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So Grefter, are you abusing the fuck out of the 1 CP tank? Because you should be. Because Invincible-mobile-turret-with-super-tank-destroying-sniper-rifle-that-ocassionally-double-acts is too awesome to not use.
Atelier Meruru: Just started Year 4. Time FLIES in this game. Nearing the endgoal of 100K peeps, and have top-end gear now. The +50 HP armor is hard to argue with, as 50 HP matters a lot and ~10 def is a safe trade to make for that. MP is no longer an issue since I have lots and lots of MP restoration.
PC balance is good in this. The game isn't too hard (although the occasional boss will apply brutal rape via triple-turns/fullheal/buff/being fast). Non-alchemists actually have good damage over time, and super-moves are sweet and get used multiple times a boss battle.
Meruru: Main character and Alchemist. She hits things for decent damage most of the time since she has no skills and you don't want to use items on meager enemies. On bosses she is the cannon/healer/buffer/debuffer/whatever.
Keine: She heals and buffs. Her basic physical being an area sleep attack works okay for randoms. But the MT healing/revival thing is what makes her awesome to have late.
Lias: Damage rar. I don't use him much.
Esty: She is fast, has Quick, basic physical hits a large area, can lower enemy resistance to damage, and has a cheap move that makes enemy rare drops more likely (got Medicine Thread for the ultimate armors really early thanks to this).
Gino: ST damage and plenty of it. The whole "debuff boss while buffing himself" thing combined with the fact that he has a skill to increase his power when he faces bosses.... that works out pretty well for him! He has some self-buffing besides that too. A good boss fighter.
Mimi: Fast, and can Slow bosses to reduce their threat. This works out pretty well. Beyond that she has an ITD attack that hits very hard, and a lot of bosses like to have high defense so that works out.
Sterk: Great stats except for speed. Hits things really really hard and has a very high crit rate (50%). Doesn't do much outside of the good stats, but hey damaging tank never hurts. MT move is good for clearing randoms.
Totori: Duplicate. She can use items for free pretty much. While this isn't so awesome for damage due to the half-power thing, it is good enough and she can spam it. Duplicate gets the item double speed bonus too so her actual damage is better than you'd think just looking at one attack. She's solid.
Rorona: Bad HP and her items are weaker than Meruru's because of a default skill that speeds her up and reduces item power. On the other hand you can try to make her into a dodge tank if you want because she has a skill to significantly boost evasion. And if you have the items to spare they are pretty good.
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Yakuza 3: So many cutscenes
So many
On the other hand I got to hit someone with a bicycle
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Zelda OoT - Clearly best game ever made and that ever will be. Ran out of time to finish it and was doing Water Temple. Stopped on Dark Dickbag because I don't feel like learning to play and after a dungeon that's central gameplay element has been changing my shoes constantly I don't feel compelled to give 2 fucks.
Grefter u r doin it rong. s/b glitchin the heck out of the game and finishing the water temple in 30 secs. boss key skip and shizzle
10/10 best game ever.
s/b 11/10. no lies mang!
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Been practicing my fightan games. Some Skullgirls, which is still an amazing game to play, but horrible to watch. Mostly playing as Cerebella, who, along with Double, seems to be a decent push above everyone else in the game. Mostly playing SF4, where I've mained Cammy and only recently started using EX Cannon Strikes - although rarely as combos. (My play is kinda Chi-Rithy-esque, except notably much much much worse, as is expected.) Doesn't help that the person I practice against mains T. Hawk so it's.. an odd matchup, to say the least.
Also decided to start FE8 for no apparent reason. Decided I'm only going to grab everyone, have no deaths, and always use the lowest level party possible on each stage. I expect this to trainwreck horribly. Haven't reached a point where I've had a choice on who's in my party yet, but had a couple of resets to RNG screw or just sheer ignorance on my part. (Yes, Vanessa, you go stand in range of that archer.)
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Zelda OoT - Clearly best game ever made and that ever will be. Ran out of time to finish it and was doing Water Temple. Stopped on Dark Dickbag because I don't feel like learning to play and after a dungeon that's central gameplay element has been changing my shoes constantly I don't feel compelled to give 2 fucks.
Grefter u r doin it rong. s/b glitchin the heck out of the game and finishing the water temple in 30 secs. boss key skip and shizzle
10/10 best game ever.
s/b 11/10. no lies mang!
Its Grefter, he naturally auto-hates everything, so 10/10 is all OoT is going to get from him, and be glad!
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Water Temple is the level that hates you back, so Grefter should naturally love and respect it. This is perfect logic.
Sonic 4 Episode 2: Okay, that was what I wanted out of a new 2D Sonic. Surprisingly expansive for a game that's only got four zones (well, five counting Episode Metal, which was pretty neat if stupidly easy), and they do a good job of giving each act its own style that carries through to the gameplay, without resorting to stupidity like the temple from Episode 1. Copying half the zones from Sonic 2 was kinda lazy, but they do a good job not rehashing the actual layouts and gameplay. Mostly. (Oil Ocean Desert, I'm looking at you.) Bosses take a bit too long to kill, but they're nicely varied - maybe more so than in any other Sonic game.
The return of the Sonic 2 special stages is, of course, <3.
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FE8: Ephraim/Seth tag-team run finished. I had one gameover on 5x, when I got a little too greedy and tried to feed every single kill to Eph instead of just 90% of them. I also temporarily forgot that rescue existed and Orson can easily tank pretty much everything with his speed halved. <_< I also had two voluntary resets, one on C8 because Eph was getting RNG screwed beyond belief (seriously, two +1 HP only levels? With his growths? >_<) and one on C14 when Eph got berserked just when he had gotten in range to recruit Rennac.
Only other close call was on the final stage, where my initial plan to kill the Demon King was foiled when it turned out that Demon Light hits defense instead of res, even though its stats on Serenes Forest makes it look like a magical attack. Normally this would be a good thing with Eph, but we'll get to his stats in a minute. <_< In the end, my underlevelled Eirika had to dodge one of two 38% Shadowshots and Seth had to dodge a 28% Halberd from the Demon King's summoned flunkies (dual RN system means that this was actually safer than it sounds, thankfully).
The rest of the game was pretty much just two invincible murder machines strolling across the maps and one-rounding 99.9% of enemy grunts with Javelins/Iron Lances/Steel Swords (Seth only) and occasionally protecting a thief who I had deployed to open some chests or steal a stat booster. Midgame stages like Turning Traitor and Phantom Ship were actually much easier than they'd be on a more normal run because I didn't have any squishy project characters to protect, just two PCs who mocked every random enemy that got in their way.
Final PC stats:
Ephraim (1x Angelic Robe, 1x Dragonshield, 1x Talisman, 1x Body Ring, 1x Swiftsole used)
60 HP (capped)
27 Strength (capped)
26 Skill (capped)
24 Speed (capped)
25 Luck
18 Defense
20 Resistance
12 Con
Most of his stats were in line with his averages (http://fea.fewiki.net/fea.php?character=ephraim&game=8e), and his res was actually quite good even factoring in the stat booster, but his defense... ugh. Almost derailed me towards the end. Worst part is that he was literally one point away from surviving two hits of Demon Light, and he averages 20.8 def without a stat booster. Should've saved the first Dragonshield for him instead of using it on Seth, but I wasn't expecting him to be that far below average (>_<), especially since he actually got Metis' Tome, which would be enormously stupid in just about any other playthrough.
Seth (2x Angelic Robe, 1x Energy Ring, 2x Secret Book, 3x Speedwings, 1x Goddess Icon, 1x Talisman, 1x Body Ring)
59 HP
25 Strength (capped)
26 Skill (capped)
23 Speed
19 Luck
18 Defense
16 Resistance
13 Con
Those stats look really good on paper, but bear in mind that huge list of stat-boosters used on him. His level ups were actually pretty poor overall compared to what he's supposed (http://fea.fewiki.net/fea.php?character=seth&game=8e) to get, especially speed, but having only two PCs meant I could dump almost all the boosters on him and salvage his stats. Then again lategame NM is so pathetic he would've been useful even without all the drugs - there are seriously skeletons with only 15 attack on the last two stages. That's beyond pathetic.
Pretty enjoyable playthrough just for the novelty factor, as I've always held Seth back before to raise up other units before. It was fun to unleash him to his full potential for once, even if the RNG wasn't being very cooperative with me.
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FE8: Okay, explaining the challenge I'm doing a little more. There are three levels of promotion here - most characters start on the second level, and the standard pre-promotes are on the third level. The first level are the trainees: Ross, Amelia and Ewan. I'm taking the characters on the lowest level of promotion, then lowest in level. If it's tied, I choose which one(s) I take.
In the earlier stages, before leaving him behind, Seth was key to strategies, tanking without taking any damage. I've been trying to get Ross experience where possible too, in order to not have him be too far behind when he actually has to fight. (Odds are, him, Ewan and Amelia will be in my endgame party.)
So, now I get to grab Artur and Lute, but before that, the first people booted from the party would be Seth and Eirika, but Eirika's forced, so Gilliam's the one to go (and, with him, my second tank. Ouch.) First run, I was carefully tanking every now and then, and had a lucky run where Artur only took one hit, meaning he could fully heal with a Vulnerary. Past that, though, this stage was remarkably simple, and only really served to give Ross a couple of levels and give me the glory that is LUTE.
Chapter 5, and 4 units are booted from the party, meaning I have to choose one of Garcia, Franz, Colm and Gilliam to stay in the party, while the other three join Seth. I decide that mobility is a good thing, so take Franz with me. First try, play incredibly defensively and sit at the bottom. Once the bandits start appearing, I'm forced to push forwards quickly with Eirika and Vanessa on one side, and Lute, Artur and Franz on the other. Artur comes close to dying but manages to survive thanks to Natasha. Vanessa, on the other hand, gets completely surrounded and killed. Reset.
Played a little more aggressively this time, and sent Vanessa to the house in the bottom-right instead of Lute (since I realised it was there this time round). All going well until an archer shows up out of nowhere and takes out Vanessa. Reset.
MUCH more aggressive start this time. Lute, Artur and Vanessa take out one of the Bandits on the right before he can even move, the other dies to the counter from Artur next turn. Manage to rescue him before he can get killed and get Vanessa, who's carrying him, away from the archer that got her last time. Unfortunately, that archer, accompanied by a Soldier, turn towards Lute and take her out. Reset.
Again, making sure not to fall into the same mistakes as last time, I hide Artur away in a corner and have Vanessa carry Lute to safety after basically making the same opening as last time. This time, the enemies decide to swarm Ross, who eats an archer crit and falls. Reset.
Okay, change of plan this time. After taking out the Soldier on the left, I send Franz to the right, instead of having him help out Eirika and Neimi. Some bad luck, however, means the two bandits to the right are alive, and I suddenly have to change tactics a lot. And I survive the fatal turn from the last few runs! Yay! Only for Eirika to get hit by the Soldier guarding the house at the top and the Archer from before and die. Man, that Archer is really getting on my nerves. Reset.
Apparently the RNG sees fit to work in my favour at the start of this run, as only two attacks against my team connect in the first two turns. Franz hits dangerous life, but just about survives the first problematic turn, thanks to an Archer miss. (I think it would have failed to kill either way, though.) Practically fully heal the team (only Franz is missing some) and have Vanessa visit the house at the bottom, so I can start making my push up the stairs now. But, before that, Ross gets hit by all three of the enemies nearby - two Archers and an axe Soldier - and.. survives on 3! Hah! Ross escapes for healing while Eirika and Vanessa take out someone on the left. Everyone else takes out the Soldier, and sets up a decent position. But, no, of course! Artur's counter kills one of the Archers, allowing the other one to kill him. Reset!
I'm still thinking Franz is best for this stage, but it's here I'm tempted to change him. Nah, stick with Franz for now. He's awesome. Keeping that in mind, I decide to send him rushing in again, and he takes out two units with counters alone, surviving quite nicely. Think he just earned his place. A Soldier comes in to try and kill Eirika, since everyone on the right is out of reach, and Neimi misses, meaning I have to bring in Vanessa to kill him. Before I can do that, though, I have to ensure Eirika and Franz can kill the Archer here. They can, so Vanessa goes to clear the path for Franz... and misses twice. Ross has to go rescue her now, while Franz rescues Eirika to ensure she isn't killed by the two units. Neimi gets hit instead and survives on 1 HP, but the new Soldier from the left means this isn't just a simple clean up now. However, Franz, Ross and Lute manage to take out the new guy while Artur and Vanessa take out the other two, meaning Moulder can take Eirika and get Natasha to heal her while Neimi escapes to safety. The only concern now is Artur... who survives the attack on 4 and kill the Soldier responsible! Yay! Franz is sent to deal with the Archer up the left path while Eirika draws in the Soldiers/Bandits around Joshua. ..And I didn't realise Joshua would attack. And Neimi of all people! Man, I thought he didn't like fighting women. Bastard. Reset.
Well that was a quick run. That Archer from earlier came in and killed Neimi. Reset.
Arrrgh! That one was going so well! I then put everyone just barely above the stairs, except for Natasha, who I stuck right in front of Joshua. He walked to the very edge of his range to kill Franz! Reset #6!
Gone for a completely different approach this time. Had Franz go to the right to draw the enemies from that side, while everyone else defends on the left and Vanessa takes the southern house instantly. Neimi hits 2 HP at one point, Eirika 4, but this seems to be working. One of the Bandits manages to get in front of the house to the west, and I send Eirika there to do some damage to him, knowing Vanessa can rescue her. Eirika chooses the perfect time to crit, and the Bandit can't get there, haha. Joshua get! Finally! I am very, VERY glad I saved that house. Secret Book get. Shit. Accidentally sent the Slim Lance I was using back to the Supply Convoy. Welp, Javelin go! One Bandit closes in on Joshua, who dodges and kills him, but the other Bandit closes in on the north-west house. There's no way I'm saving that, especially since Vanessa can't quite reach it this turn, so I shrug and move on. Neimi takes a go at the Arena, wins quite comfortably. Joshua takes out four units through counters alone, taking only one hit in the process. Man, I love Myrmidons. Oh, and one was that Bandit! Cool! And that's it! Joshua goes in with the kill! Finally!
Next stage, I remove all the equipment from Orson, passing it to Kyle and Ephraim, then proceed to start smashing things with the three who still have weapons. This strategy works well until I make a mistake by pressing A one too many times and accidentally have Orson pick up Forde. I get him down against in the same turn, but that leaves him too open to attacks and he gets killed. Reset.
Next run opens pretty much the same way, and I end up on the path next to the throne room. Unfortunately, Kyle gets cut off from Orson, who's carrying most of the healing supplies, and falls. Reset.
Okay, that one barely even counted. I rushed in, didn't pay attention, and Forde got killed before I even got through 8 enemies. Reset.
Swept through the start, took out one of the mages from the other side of the wall at the start, and just absolutely blitzed through. Kyle gained a stupid amount of levels too. Whee~!
And that's enough for one day. Current levels on both sides are:
Seth - +1
Eirika - =8
Franz/Joshua - =7
Gilliam/Garcia/Colm - =5
Moulder/Neimi/Artur - =4
Lute - =3
Vanessa - =2
Natasha - =1
Ross - -8
Orson - +3 (as though this matters)
Kyle - =10
Ephraim/Forde - =8
(The symbols next to the levels are their level of promotion.)
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Sonic 4 Episode 2: Yeah, just finished this myself (not all Chaos Emeralds though). Game basically addressed the complaints of Episode 1 (eg the physics and what not), and then added in more interesting stage design, better bonus stages, and overall more interesting bosses. Though I wasn't a fan of Oil Desert's boss because it has a lot of "What did I get hit with?" moments, and the final boss was extremely tedious and took longer than it should.
The Metal Sonic related stuff, though, was generally great. It also improved upon the Sonic CD race with him in like everyway, so it actually is fun.
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Of course I used the 1 CP tank. I am positively baffled by whoever put together all these body types for tanks and all these different armaments when they are all completely beneath the lightest body type with the standard turret. But whatevs.
Doing aftergame stuff because it was a thing to do on a plane that fills time. Is okay so far.
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Pokemon Conquest: Okay, so "range" means range of movement, not attack range. That... explains a lot.
Steel arena can die in a fire. Actually that's not a bad idea, Charizard would be good there. Also, Tadakatsu *is* a Metagross.
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Yakuza 3: I know I pick up all of my one night stands at McDonalds, the game is very realistic.
SaGa 2 DS: FFL2 with documentation, I have entered the Twilight Ko Zone.
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Asura's Wrath: Finished, including all the DLC.
Ignoring the ethical concerns regarding it, I'll just say this about them:
True Ending is worth it. Its needed for actual closure, and no, its not a cliffhanger. Its a full genuine ending and the game treats it as such (it does have a silly "To be continued" instance in the end, but its just silly...if you ever see it, you'll know what I mean.) To be honest, though, why its necessary I don't know. I mean, yeah, it explains who one of the characters is, and gives more backstory for Asura and his family, but the game COULD have ended at Episode 18, without the "Alt Ending" that leads into the "True Ending" nonsense and it would have been a complete story.
BUt regardless, its a good ending to the game, and worth getting if you ever pick up the game. It also manages to CONVINCINGLY out-over-the-top Bayonetta. I can't really explain how, just trust me!
The Interlude DLC is NOT worth it. Its literally an Anime with QTEs, and it doesn't really do much. Its just action scenes to show what happened off screen. I'm not saying its stupid that it was DLC, more just I didn't find it worth it; it tells you nothing you couldn't figure out based on results of other chapters. For what its worth, these chapters definitely come off as After-thoughts, with a "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we showed this fight in some manner?"
The Street Fighter DLC is...fun and silly fanservice. Worth it if you're a fan of Street Fighter 4.
Overall thoughts on the game?
While I normally trash QTEs and what not, Asura's Wrath actually makes them work. Selling itself as an interactive anime rather than "Action game THAT'S A CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE!" like...oh...God of War does means that QTEs are actually justified and help with emersion to some degree...for all that the entire time, you're just watching for action. There is actual genuine gameplay segments (basic button mashing fight scenes, and shooter segments), which are fine in short bursts...which is all you get from them. Ok, there are some bosses (like, say, THE FUCKING ELEPHANTS) that definitely have this "ARGH HE WON'T DIE" feel to them, and overstay their welcome, but they're in the minority.
Story...its the kind of story that knows its not deep, knows its ridiculous, and knows its taking itself seriously...and somehow works. The basic story is just "Asura is Angry, he wants Revenge on being betrayed" and...basically just that. Doesn't pretend there's a deep underlying meaning here other than "Asura's Angry" Hence the name of the game! The game makes you think its going to pull a"Hey, Asura finds a strength NOT from rage!" but...no, that's not what it does. More like saying "Asura won't stop until he's convinced his Wrath is subsided." Kind of makes sense actually; if he's not ANGRY about anything, he has no reason to fight. Its more the angle of "What is his rage driven from, and why is he angry?" rather than "Is Strength from Rage TRUE strength?" The more noble his reasons for being angry, the better he is!
...I know I said it wasn't deep, but that's because the game is pretty damn blatant about that stuff. It doesn't try to hide it for you to analyze, just says "That's what it is, so shut up and watch Asura punch something really damned hard."
As far as the characters go...
Asura
Angry Dad is Angry, and wants his daughter back. He's a Dragon Ball Z character, in the grand scheme of things, except with better art and character design!
I know the two aren't identical, but Asura feels like what Kratos SHOULD have been. His rage is understandable, and his mission of vengeance is something you can sympathize with. Furthermore, we actually SEE Asura's relations with his family, other characters, etc. Rather than just implied "He loved his wife and daughter, but was too busy killing shit" like Kratos had (the only scene with Kratos' family we see in GoW1 involves his wife saying "Please, honey, stop this violence!"), and he doesn't feel like he's taking things too far, as the guys he fighting are, in fact, much bigger assholes than he is. In fact, while Asura is clearly a muscle-bound thick headed jerk, there's clearly instances of him being a good guy, and wants to be a good father, more just he doesn't know HOW to deal with it. I think the line that best sums him up as a father is:
"Her crying...what can I do to stop it? All I can think of is punching the guy who made her upset!"
Basically, he's just fun because he's like another take on the Incredible Hulk or something.
Mithra
Damsel in Distress Daughter of the protagonist, that's really all she is. Won't comment beyond that.
Durga
She dies in the 2nd episode, so there isn't much too her...but I guess I'll give her props for actually coming off as a supportive and loving wife in the flashback scenes, understanding Asura's point, while not actually feeling like a whipped fangirl or something.
Yasha
The only other character in the game besides Asura to have ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT, as to be expected since he's the token Shonen Rival of the main, and the game even calls him the "2nd Main Character." Asura's Power is all about being ANGRY, so what's Yasha's power? Being EMO!
...I'm actually kind of serious there. His Mantra is "Melancholy" after-all, so basically, the more depressed and sad he gets, the stronger he becomes? I really don't know how that works, but nonetheless, he was basically there to foil Asura. Won't get into details otherwise because SPOILARS!!!
Sergei
(http://fast1.onesite.com/capcom-unity.com/user/gregaman/blog_photos/07793b819cfb5d66aad55b18f306a70b.jpg?v=134550)
...that is all...
Augus
Best way to sum him up would be this instance:
"Oh, hey, I'm suppose to kill you...but you know, you WERE my pupil, and you are injured after taking down an ENTIRE MILITARY FLEET SINGLE HANDEDLY, and at your best, you'd probably be really strong...so we're going to rest in this hotspring and reminisce until you're at 100%. Oh yeah, I hired some maids in bikinis to bring us booze."
So yes, he loves Women, Alcohol, fighting and NOTHING ELSE.
Kalrow
Ugly Old Man whose all about STRATEGY...and then gets his ass kicked. I really wish I had more to say about this guy...
Wyzen
(http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkbE8vJ2tX82nbif6x8u142L-2PTTtYDcjySnffIt_LmDLd2_qWvAngrKG)
Really all you need to know about this guy.
Olga
Token female villain henchman; the cliche chosen for her is "loyal because she LOVES the villain and thus everything else is irrelevant, SO LONG AS SHE CAN BE WITH HIM!" She's a total bitch, and completely uninteresting.
Deus
I...guess he qualifies as an evil Space Pope, but I'm honestly not sure. I think he also kind of qualifies as a Well Intentioned Extremist since his goal is to rid the world of the BIG EVIL TENTACLE DEMON LIVING IN IT, but his methods are...ah...questionable to say the least. He also uses a Nunchaku.
Don't think anyone else is worth mentioning!
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Water Temple is the level that hates you back, so Grefter should naturally love and respect it. This is perfect logic.
Sonic 4 Episode 2: Okay, that was what I wanted out of a new 2D Sonic. Surprisingly expansive for a game that's only got four zones (well, five counting Episode Metal, which was pretty neat if stupidly easy), and they do a good job of giving each act its own style that carries through to the gameplay, without resorting to stupidity like the temple from Episode 1. Copying half the zones from Sonic 2 was kinda lazy, but they do a good job not rehashing the actual layouts and gameplay. Mostly. (Oil Ocean Desert, I'm looking at you.) Bosses take a bit too long to kill, but they're nicely varied - maybe more so than in any other Sonic game.
The return of the Sonic 2 special stages is, of course, <3.
Can you actually run continuously and beat a Level in Sonic 4 Episode 2? cause I could only run for about 2 secs before I had to ascend upward or do more than double jump over an obstacle -_-.
EDIT:
MEEPLE: that is the most beautifully written experience/review I have ever laid eyes on.
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Zelda OoT - Clearly best game ever made and that ever will be. Ran out of time to finish it and was doing Water Temple. Stopped on Dark Dickbag because I don't feel like learning to play and after a dungeon that's central gameplay element has been changing my shoes constantly I don't feel compelled to give 2 fucks.
Grefter u r doin it rong. s/b glitchin the heck out of the game and finishing the water temple in 30 secs. boss key skip and shizzle
10/10 best game ever.
s/b 11/10. no lies mang!
Its Grefter, he naturally auto-hates everything, so 10/10 is all OoT is going to get from him, and be glad!
Then greftar is not a frue oot fan and he makes puppies everywhere sadface :(.
Pokemon Conquest:
Picked this up, up to the last three sets of castles gyms. Game is different, but different good (I think). I just wish things like evos were a bit more obvious. Been running Gyarados for like the past 5 gyms and he's been pretty much rampaging them all pretty badly! Might just do some grindan to get more pokes though. Being saddled with Eevee/Jiggles late game is a pretty big drawback.
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Look just because I am able to look at OoT objectively unlike you fucking fanboys is no reason to be pissy about it. You are just jealous of my objectivity and ability to call out its problems and give it the 10/10 it deserves.
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Hatoful Boyfriend: I love the pigeons and they love me too
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(http://truemeaningoflife.com/images/hatoful02.jpg)
A game that lets you date the tsundere highschool pigeon of your dreams.
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A game where you are murdered by one of the love interests. I saw that, Richard.
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(http://truemeaningoflife.com/images/hatoful152.jpg)
Oh god, it just gets better and better.
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Penny Arcade Episode 1: I don't really like the comic that much. Very hit or miss. Probably the best videogame comic out there and that says absolutely nothing.
But both episodes were bundled together, and cheap.
I was a bit surprised by how funny (and offensive) this turned out! As far as humour goes, this is a much better effort than the next games of the studio (Deathspank) or stuff like Cthulhu saves the world. (I'm not saying it's at Barkley Shut up and Jam level though)
HP is fully restored after every fight, the game has a finite number of enemies, and a lot of battles are meant to be kinda hard (for RPG standards) There's no MP, but you're meant to use items.
This is all pretty good, unfortunately the battle system in itself is trashy. It's fast ATB, and fast ATB just kind of sucks. There's a bigger emphasis on colorful graphics than ease of use, and selecting an enemy takes more time than it should with this system.
You can have character X go to the item menu, time stops there. You try using some attack+ potion on character Y so Y can use some devastating attack and kill every enemy. Except inexplicably, at that point time isn't stopped anymore. So you use this attack+ potion on character Y, then have character Y select his uber move, but at that point you've left enough time to the enemy who uses a hit all attack malus grenade on everybody. Y then uses his uber attack and does 1 damage.
Good ideas, bad execution there.
This isn't really a dealbreaker anyway. I'm satisfied with the game, but I would have been angry paying this for 20 bucks. It's fun but only about 5 hours logn.
By the way, the menus are so slick I could lick them.
Dragon's Dogma: Blazing through the main story again using shiny teleport items, using stylish equipment instead of whatever has the most defense. I'd bombard the forum with PICTURES OF YATTAF (and dragons), but that would involve dwelving into those PS3 menus and using things like IE with a PS3.
Assassin had a broken solo skill, and I only got it after finishing this solo playthrough. Oh well.
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I have to ask: why always YATTAF?
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I assumed it's because YATTAF
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I asked Hatbot to name a character in a game (Icewind Dale IIRC)
Roll 6d26 -> 25, 1, 20, 20, 1, 6
The name's so great I kept it all those years.
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League of Legends: Fiora is pretty goddamn awesome. Dunno why, but she's just clicking well with me. Plus, dat ult!
Pokemon Conquest: Yep. It is fun and different. Working on Rock and Psychic kingdoms now. My main complaint is the same issue I had with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Pokemon games always get weirdly simplified outside of the main series. Multiple attacks and some slight menu changes to make it easier to move warriors around would be nice.
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Yakuza 3: I'd hate to be the guy who put a shotgun in the locker and lost the key.
I would like to be, and am, the guy who found the key.
SaGa 2 DS: I see buying Giant equipment is still the route to go if you want :effort:
...
:effort:
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Figured out how to get screenshots from the PS3.
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/26/1340753973-CapturedcranDragonsDogma_2.jpg)
Carrying a boar. (Note: I never harm boars)
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/26/1340753976-CapturedcranDragonsDogma_3.jpg)
BYE LOL.
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/26/1340754101-CapturedcranDragonsDogma_4.jpg)
x2
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/26/1340753962-CapturedcranDragonsDogma.jpg)
I need to throw something there
A+ game
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Trails in the Sky - Onwards through chapter 4. Gosh, would this game ever be difficult to replay, there is so much stuff you have to do which I weirdly don't begrudge the game because it is doing the small things right which are needed to support such a storytelling style (e.g. the whole tournament sequence). But I probably would begrudge it if I had to do it a second time. Oh well, that's not relevant fortunately. Game remains pretty solid.
Batman: Arkham Asylum - This game. This game is frustrating. I think they've done a really great job with atmosphere, and, well, just making the game feel like a Batman simulator (from my relatively limited knowledge of what it means to be Batman, mostly coming from the movies and to a lesser extent the Adam West TV show). The writing and voice acting for Joker is top-notch, in particular. Unfortunately, for 80% of the game, they apparently forgot how to make the actual gameplay fun. Kinda like GTA except the setting actually somewhat appeals to me instead of inspiring revulsion.
FF5 - Four Job Fiesta, beat Barrier Tower with Knight/Berserker/Ninja/Dragoon. Maybe I'll post more detailed notes at some point.
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Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC: It's... better? Definitively, but that isn't saying a lot, honestly.
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SaGa 2 DS: I never should have used love threads because they talk about love all the goddamned time make it stop, I should have bought all hate threads. Also Arena of the Dead is amusingly abusable for cash.
Hatoful Boyfriend: omgomgomgomgomgomg
SO HAWT also the plot is better than FF4
(http://i.imgur.com/xZh5M.png)
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Metal Gear Solid 2: Picked up the HD Collection because...shut up.
Anyway, finished the Tanker sequence...I think. Given what just happened in plot with the "Save now plz?" prompt, I can only assume that's the end of that part!
While I can't speak for the plot (which from all accounts, is a massive trainwreck of the most fucked up kinds?), the gameplay is a considerable improvement over the original thus far. I'd have to look at exactly WHAT I bitched about in MGS1, but this game seems to have addressed most of the original game's issues, and then added a few other things that, while not necessary, do compliment the game's style. Frankly, the ability to just aim your gun and shift to 1st Person View and back at will, and not be forced into it with specific guns (that also means you lose movement) alone is a huge deal.
Was going to complain about the lack of Crosshairs...until I held the Attack button down and saw there is a laser sight while you're aiming, so yeah <_<
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Last Window: The Secret of Cape West
Did you play Hotel Dusk? This is more Hotel Dusk. Same strengths (plot, characterization, sweet animated-pencil-drawings), same weaknesses (puzzles of fail - usually easy yet aggravating, or hard for a stupid reason rather than interestingly hard; cruddy 3D navigation of environment when not talking to people). Like Hotel Dusk, the criminal organization Nile is in the background, but Kyle is not on some bloody quest against them, and the main goal of the game is to discover the truth. Jewel thefts, insurance fraud, and extortion are all plenty interesting enough; it makes the murders that did occur stand-out more and have the proper resonance. (Even the Phoenix Wright games have the problem of the bodies piling up, and thus feeling a bit more jaded about death than you should. When someone dies in the Hotel Dusk-verse, it's a big deal.)
I'd argue that the plot is possibly a tad better than in Hotel Dusk, except Hotel Dusk paces itself better. You start illegally ransacking offices and finding out about things like the hack novelist's sordid secrets fairly early in Hotel Dusk, and then incongrously mix bowling mini-games in and the like even later, which is fine. For whatever reason, Last Window decides that you should spend the first 2/3 of the game being the ultimate apartment busybody, and then the last 1/3 digesting straight important plot where you finally do get to raid people's belongings and get guns shoved up against your back. Somewhat understandable in that ideally half the people you meet are red herring sideplots, and half are Involved In The Conspiracy somehow, so you have to meet people in normal contexts first so it'll be shocking when their secrets are revealed... but the game spends too dang long on the low-stakes interaction part. Oh, well.
Anyway. Kyle "Lazychu" Hyde gets himself fired for not bothering to do his Red Crown job and thus has nothing better to do than wander around his apartment investigating stuff. Cing's fetish for hotels continues (possibly because they have an easy template for each room?) as Kyle's apartment is in fact a converted hotel. And said hotel might have had a murder in it just before it was converted. HMMMM. Attempting to leave Cape West will result in Kyle shaking his head in disappointment, since going outside might expose him to that dangerous California winter sunlight. Better have non-awkward conversations like "Merry Christmas, I was wondering if we could chat about your deceased husband whom some thing you murdererd" instead. (Seriously, Cing, ditch your stupid 3D engine and just use single rendered scenes, which would make it easy for Kyle to have scenes outside the apartment. Or even cut out from the 3D engine and use simple drawings occasionally. Example: Kyle, Mila, Rachel, & Ed plan on having dinner at a nice restaurant while Mila is in town. But OH NO MELODRAMA Ed needs to go to the hospital! So let's cancel the dinner and just walk around the apartment with Mila some instead. And Ed promptly gets better afterward. Just let me go to my darn dinner of a single pre-rendered frame and pick people to chat with, 'k?)
I recommend ruthlessly FAQing anything that gets you mildly stuck since the puzzles (save 2 or 3 of 'em) are totally not what you should be playing the game for anyway. The plot could have used more Phoenix Wright interactive "pick the right answer" and "present some inventory item that isn't totally obvious" moments, but sadly most are pretty obvious, what with there usually only being 2 dialogue options and the inventory presents being rare + obvious + no penalty for failure. (At least in Hotel Dusk, you could get yourself a Game Over with stupid presents, like "check out this thing I stole from you." People are more blase about this in Cape West.)
It's a good thing the DS Lite is region-free. Ah, Nintendo, why did you fall from that path with the DSi... and why did Cing go bankrupt and only localize the game in Europe which presumably is more expensive than the States. Some things must ever remain mysteries, perhaps. Still, all told, Last Window is an excellent experience, I'd recommend it. (Although if you haven't played Hotel Dusk, probably best to start there, of course.)
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FF5 Four Job Fiesta - Knight/Berserker/Ninja/Dragoon: Finished world 2.
I figured I could post this in Laggy's thread, but there's no point competing with Laggy/Richard antics, so I will post it here instead.
World 1
I get Knight first. Knight is kinda overpowered at first. Hold down A, everything does. I kill Siren before she transforms, I kill Magissa before she summons Forza, and with the help of the Mithril Helm from Tycoon Castle, Garula's damage tinks.
So second is Berserker! Nooo! At first this seems fine since hey I get to look forward to Two Hands, probably the best support skill for a Berserker. Then I run into...
Liquid Flame (1 reset): I had no resets on bosses on Fiesta last year, so this is my first ever Fiesta reset. Anyway, Liquid Flame is a pain since he counters -everything-. The tornado form uses Magnet (lol whatever) but the other two forms use decent MT and ST damage respectively, and Liquid Flame's own turns are competent enough. With my only healing near-useless potions this is kinda tricky. Fortunately I realise after losing once that I am only 5 AP away from Two Hands. I figure Liquid Flame will be insanely tricky without it so I "grind" (fight 3 extra fights) to get it. Liquid Flame still proves tough for all the same reasons but with double the damage it's more manageable.
Karnak escape is easy-peasy, hold A for victory with Two Hands. Then I get Ninja. Yay, competence! Ninja isn't really better than Knight yet but I anticipate scrolls being really useful in the future.
Ancient Library goes off without a hitch, I am lucky and never get ambush-killed by Level 5 Death during the point where I am Level 15. (Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?) Ifrit is Liquid Flame who doesn't counter, i.e. a joke. He drops a Fire Scroll which I toss at Byblos making him much easier. Afterwards I get a snazzy ship and the ability to get more scrolls. I also hunt a rare drop for my Berserker, the Doom Scythe. Rare drops suck incidentally (1/16) but at least this one is from a common enemy.
Sandworm I toss scrolls at, it triggers counters but whatever, Sandworm sucks. Clay Claw gets facemelted by Thunder Scrolls. Adamantoise just isn't very scary in general. Sol Cannon gets destroyed by 2H Coral Swords and Thunder Scrolls. Ronka Ruins are probably the toughest dungeon in World 1 but still aren't very tough, Thunder Scrolls take care of Stone Mask swarms and hold A works well enough otherwise, making sure to target Lamias before they get a second turn. Archaeoavis has good Def at first which makes him resistant to hold A, but scrolls work. etc. Second hardest W1 boss isn't too hard.
Last class is Dragoon! Fuck, Dragoon is terrible, especially with Knight around, since it can't use Two Hands. Bad offence is bad. In W2 I actually spend most of Dragoon's time with Berserk set.
Purobulos I screw up and have a Berserker for. The optimal strategy here is to mute each bomb then kill it, probably. As is I tough it out by running a few of them out of MP, using two scrolls to soften them so their Self Destructs aren't scary. Titan I 3HKO thanks to high variance from my Berserker, while Chimera Brain isn't too scary against my high HP.
World 2
I beat Abductor and Gilgamesh without much trouble. Gilgamesh 2 is better certainly thanks to Jump but hardly anything unmanageable; I cheerfully waste the Hi-Potions I got from Sol Cannon knowing I'm about to be able to buy them, finally!
Gloceana randoms aren't impressive against hold-A, while the Moogle River eats it to Thunder Scrolls for the most part (except the wussier randoms who again bite it to physicals). I refuse to Phoenix Down Tyrannosaur, and he proves kinda badass since apparently Fire Scrolls trigger his (nasty) physical counters which I wasn't expecting. Still not bad, just means I waste some money. Moogle village is notable for the Dancing Dagger, which I give to my berserk Dragoon for a while.
Second Abductor is so bad.
Drakenvale! Drakenvale is when I realise the main downside of the Doom Axe - you can't unequip it mid-battle and it can sometimes fully heal the zombie dragons here (who have 4500 HP and are kinda badass). Fire Scrolls work well here, both for the high-evade eagles and the fire-weak everything else. I have my first reset here against the Golem fight as literally everything goes wrong (Doom Axe healing the Zombie Dragon twice as a highlight). Dragon Grass himself is a joke, scroll MT OHKOs everything and the boss does nothing but summon.
On Xezat's fleet, Gabbledegooks are big sacks of money and both Gilgamesh and Enkidu fear instant death and various other status tricks. Barrier Tower's tougher certainly, but most of the randoms aren't terribly impressive. I run into Red Dragons and they're quite another matter, but for the most part I have the offence needed to slug them down. Atomos I plan to put to sleep but of course Berserkers ruin everything, but the second PC Atomos kills is the Berserker so I'm largely able to carry through with my plan from there.
I make a stop at Moore and buy lots of Air Knives since there's some notable wind weaks coming up AND they are the best non-2H weapon in W2. On to Ghido's Cave, an utterly forgettable dungeon with no treasure, having two randoms who die to Air Knives and Fire Scrolls before doing anything respectively.
Moore Forest has jelly enemies who spoil everything I have somewhat, but the only have 50% evade so whatever they die well enough. Fire Scrolls help with killing the trees. Wyrms are the scary enemies here with their MT 25% attack and I have no clear counter for them, I just have to eat some damage sometimes and they make me keep my HP respectable.
Seal Guardians (1 reset): Perhaps unsurprisingly, the hardest boss in World 2. I'm a little worried about dealing with them so I decide to use a 1H Doom Scythe Berserker to try to ID them (roughly 10% odds per swing). Unfortunately I lose track of their HP once, eat MT Firaga and die. Try again, actually watch their HP and blitz them (Shuriken + 2H knight physical) if one ever takes 4800+ damage. Two of them do in fact die to instant death which makes me happy.
Exdeath's Castle is by far the toughest dungeon in the game so far. I miss having Hastega for any tough fight. First few floors aren't so bad with some Air Knife-weak enemies and frail mages (although notably the Reflect Mages can bounce the Doom Scythe's ID effect, how lame is that?). Around the sixth floor things get serious with Adamant Golems hitting surprisingly hard (when they hit), 2HKOing with their special moves, and Coeurls having Blaster (though only when alone). Then we get dragons! Yellows aren't so bad since diamond gear resists their arsenal, Reds are still pretty badass though. I get a Coral Ring from a Yellow! Yay! Then I forget to save and reset when I make a wrong turn thinking I will only be set back by one screen. Whoops, redo the dungeon, lose shiny Coral Ring. :(
I have one reset here, when I get attacked by Adamant Golems straight out of the lava. Eesh, lava tiles hurt. They make me waste lots of resources, fortunately I don't go in them often. I get Two Swords, finally, near the top of the dungeon. I also get the Twin Lance which is badass.
For the bosses... I beat up Carbuncle for fun. Not much to say, Hi-Potion in response to every spell he does, destroy him after his fourth turn. Gilgamesh similarly poses little threat, I just blast him with offence, including a Berserked Ninja doing nearly 3k damage per attack. Exdeath is trickier, of course... I have no Hastega or Shell or any of the other things which normally make me not respect him. I take a different approach here, with a berserked ninja and berserker along with an item-throwing shield knight in the back row and a ninja who throws things (Excalipoor, Kodachis, Shuriken). Both by non-berserkers have a Main Gauche. He uses Reverse Polarity so my entire team ends up in the back row but honestly that's fine, it makes his offence all the easier to control... physicals aren't a threat with back row and all the evasion, -agas are somewhat resisted thanks to Diamond gear and an Ice Shield. Earth Shaker is the one scary thing he nails me with and it's not really enough.
Onto World 3!
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Dragon's Dogma: Started this over the weekend. Running a fighter because bashing things to death has previously been more fun in games like this than maginuke, grabbed a mage pawn for heals while I eviscerate things.
Game is fun. Silly mix of good/bad/lolworthy on design front, but fun. Bad = menus, menus, so many menus! You have to hit two different buttons to get to different parts of your inventory and it always throws me off. Also major thumbs down for easily missable content. This is a glaringly bad design decision in any context outside of it hinging on clearly important player decisions. Last night I go to the inn in Gran Soren to do the Mercedes escort quest, figuring my level's high enough by this point to not die horribly, find it's mysteriously vanished. "Oh I'm sorry, player, you didn't know that quest was on a timer? Too bad. Also fuck you." Bad form, game.
There are so many little details that just make me laugh and go, "What?" The wildly inappropriate menu music, pawns talking over each other, pawns being amazed by rocks and stray twigs, how incredibly silly your silent protagonist looks for being silent any time anything happens in a cutscene, the incoherent jumble of an introductory sequence, the "Wait, what do you mean I can only switch my skills around by talking to this one NPC?" I'm assuming the story will always be a bad joke. But whatever, it's fun enough just tromping around the world killing stuff. I miss Dark Souls ninja flips, though.
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Oh man, you've seen nothing yet!
Escort quests are sometimes randomly generated, and most of the time give worthless stuff. Skip skip skip all of them. They're horrible. Yes, NPC with no weapons, stay right next to me while I'm fighting a chimera!
The best way to finish an escort quest is to run to the destination and to never stop fighting monsters ever. The NPC can't catch up, but he'll reappear right next to you at random intervals, then you'll outrun him again, etc. This means he often won't be hurt at all. Brilliant design there
The game also includes you escaping the duke's prison in a sidequest then going back to the duke like nothing happened. In fact you can't do anything else.
Terrible clipping, by the way. The black cat guy is always at his shop, you just need to wait like 5 seconds for him to appear sometimes.
Etc etc
Glad you're having fun anyway. Fighter and Mystic Knight are definitely the Dark Souls melee class. Daggers (the Strider's melee weapon) have longer attack animations but more hits (bigger chance to stun), they require much less finesse. The bow's great though, much better than Dark Souls'.
The strider class gives you a roll and a double jump for more mobility, but the roll isn't really amazing. It's the equivalent of the Dark Souls middle roll.
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I'm only bummed about the quest disappearing because it was Mercedes' and anything that involves more of that accent can't be all bad. And I guess that skeleton key with the curiously specific description is going to stay in my inventory for a while.
Somehow while listing game's quirks I neglected to mention aught aught aught aught aught. I button-mash through dialogue in this game (unless it's Mercedes talking), and I never do this. Also the fact that people are totally cool with you looting all their stuff right before their eyes, although I guess that's better than you doing it all unobserved and everyone psychically knowing you're a worse person for it anyway (hi Bethesda). Also the random spawn rates. What, game. Why do you do this to me. Far western region late at night, kill a swarm of goblins, walk five feet, encounter new swarm of goblins. Seriously not exaggerating here, it's absurd. "Victory!" *two seconds later* "'Tis a formidable foe! 'Tis more dangerous than a regular goblin blagh blagh blagh." And somehow the game is fun despite all this. I don't get it. It's a comedy of errors.
Anyway, went for a stroll in the country, found a giant rock dude napping peaceably and murdered the fuck out of him just because he was there and that's about how this game rolls. Met a dragon and died horribly (eight health bars?!) Ran around some more, said fuck it, grabbed my brother's NG++ sorcerer pawn and went back. Still almost died horribly, and to add insult to injury a horde of goblins spawned as the dragon was swooping around with a tiny sliver of health left (Capcom!) Oh well. At least I can move on now.
2x giants tricked into falling off cliffs so far. I hope to improve this number.
How do you even access the third tier classes? I've not switched out of fighter at all, but last I checked the only new options were the second tier ones. Probably a certain amount of levels in those and then the third set opens up? I was originally going to aim for Warrior, buuuut I think I like normal swords too much. The attack skills are amazingly useful. Do they transfer over to anything else?
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Trails in the Sky - Beat this. Level 38, 37 hours.
This game was pretty fun. It has its clear flaws which hold it back from greatness, but it's still an experience I found generally enjoyable throughout... it's not a short game and I didn't really have any trouble completing it. Its flaws are fairly forgivable; it doesn't screw anything up too badly, while being solid on several fronts (if never exceptional). If you're the kind of person who thinks Radiant Historia is the best JRPG in the past few years then Trails will probably be not too far behind; same basic situation. For me, it's still decent.
Writing-wise, it's an odd bird. The overarching plot is decent enough and is developped along fairly well. It does draw upon its anime roots frequently enough but rarely in a way that offends me, and I'm pretty easily offended by anime storytelling tropes. There are still some fuckups (Agate and Lorence both feel like different shades of anime "badass" which I detest) but generally things go along well enough. The game's story tends to revolve around mysteries... every chapter involves Estelle and Joshua solving at least one significant one, while steadily the overarching mysteries of the game builds up. It's not so far down this line to really merit comparisons to games which sell themselves on it, but it's a clear inspiritation and they do a good job with it.
Character-wise, the game lacks any real exceptional characters depth-wise, but thankfully both Estelle and Joshua are very solid and believable and have great interaction. Schera and Kloe are pretty good too. Olivier is just awesome, of course... while the somewhat creepy noble narcissist has been done, it's rarely been written this well (complete with the reactions of the other PCs to him). Agate is a bit of a misfire and Zane is generically forgettable. Tita is objectively memorable just failed to get an opinion out of me... which I suppose is good by child character standards! The villains are weaker because, sadly, the main villain is ultimately just mind controlled by a sequel-bait villain. Bo-ring! Too bad, I liked his charisma anyway. Amalthea I felt like the writers couldn't decide if they wanted her to be a menace or a joke (and I'd certainly have preferred the former which she was actually somewhat effective at). Lorence is sequel-bait cryptic-talking anime nonsense, though funnily enough I liked his relationship with his fellow soldiers, on a minor note.
NPC-wise, most of them are fine for their roles. Cassius is such a godmode Stu it's embarrassing, but at least it serves as a somewhat interesting motivation for Richard so maybe I'll forgive the writers for that. Also, Joshua has a bit of this problem as well... but (a) there's a good reason for this revealed at the end, and (b) his relationship with Estelle completely humanises him anyway.
Setting-wise, the game really does a great job. I'm usually "whatever" to setting hype for RPGs but Trails nails it pretty well. Travelling around Liberl, we get a good sense of each of its major regions and what makes them tick. The writing quality helps a lot here... sequences such as the academy sequence could easily have fallen flat but I thought the game brought it to life effectively and made it something I actually enjoyed a fair deal.
Gameplay-wise, it's an interesting mix. The game plays a bit like Grandia or Lunar with moving around the map, charging for some abilities (spells), and even cancelling (though cancelling is a bad joke unfortunately). This is at base a fairly enjoyable system, and the Xenosaga-like turn event slots and the ability for the player to interrupt the turn order to use S-crafts (limit breaks) puts a nice ripple on thing. It's marred by the inability to see the turn order past the next action for each combatant (so no doubles), and sometimes not even that far if there's a lot of enemies in the battle.
The game's orbment system reminds me a lot of materia... it doesn't quite afford the same level of customisation, but the customisation is more interesting since the combination of orbments you set also determines your spells. I think they could have cleaned up the orbment menu (so you don't have to scroll down to cast healing spells, and can see the spellbook more readily) but that's a fairly minor complaint. A more major complaint is that while the system design is good, the battle design is... not so much. The game is generally too easy (I never had a reset) and while the game comes up with some good designs for a few of its enemies, it rarely assembles them into interesting (let alone challenging) boss fights. The fact that the game's idea of a challenging, semi-plot fight is to have a boss who 3HKOs you with a limit break and 7HKOs you otherwise kinda indicates what the problem is there. Monsters in boxes present the closest thing to real challenge generally because they often have swarms of semi-competent enemies. That and the boss fight on Zeiss Tower which is the one time I felt threatened. The final boss might be decent on paper but oh so cheesable.
The game has a bunch of sidequests, but I don't see the point of caring about them when presumably they would just make an already easy game easier, and they would get in the way of my seeing how the story would unfold which I was actually enjoying. Such sidequests feel more suited for a replay, but as I've mentioned before I'm not sure how easily replayable the game is. The plot doesn't feel quite good enough to replay just for that and there are a lot of things that would get in the way of a gameplay replay. Maybe sometime in the distant future.
Visually the game looks nice enough. Maybe it is just the PSP screen compared to the DS or something but I did think everything looked nice and crisp. Music-wise, I generally failed to care about most of the tracks. They were nice but kind of in the background. A couple exceptions: I did really like Rescue Mission (the battle theme for the black-clad soldier boss fights and final dungeon randoms) and the final dungeon theme itself, so I really enjoyed the last two hours from an audio standpoint!
DL-wise I'd want to get a handle on exactly how long it takes spells to charge (The stat topic doesn't seem to say?). PCs probably range from solid Heavies (Estelle) to Lights (Tita) with the game's two rankable bosses being kinda bad and boring because Trails boss design.
Yesssss Simpsons reference in the ending, I knew there was a reason I liked XSeed.
6 or 7 out of 10 depending on collecting some thoughts and my mood. It's like a better version of Grandia 1-2, because unlike Grandia the Trails folks knew how to design a world and write. This helps a lot!
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El Cid: Some skills transfer to other classes, some don't. Look at the little icon below the skill, indicating which classes can use it.
Warriors don't have 1H sword at all though, they only have 2H weapons.
Both kinds of passive skills are universal I believe. But some are tied to weapons (Double jump only works with daggers for example)
I think you need to level some other vocations to unlock the third tier classes. After all, they're all a mix. (mystic knight is knight+mage, assassin is knight+strider, magick archer is mage+strider)
Warrior isn't really an improvement over the basic class, I'd actually say that it's the worst class in the game.
Dragon's Dogma: Beat the penultimate boss. There's a cool online element with him, but he's a pretty boring fight, so whatever. Game finished as far as I'm concerned.
I also did the sidequest where you bang the queen. This sidequest doesn't change at all if your main character is female! I wonder if I'd have still automatically rescued and slept with that shopkeeper, at endgame, with a male main character. I hope so!
Penny Arcade Episode 2: More of the same, some of the bad ironed out. Not a bad thing at all. I have actually laughed out loud, and this never happens. They're really nice little games, but I'm really glad we're out of this episodic gaming phase right now.
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Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness 3 - Finished this. It is really good. Zeboyd just keeps improving. This is kind of amazing. This is a game the DL in general should really check out, don't need to play the other PA games (but like Fen says above they are a bit of fun). Looks like there is going to be another one hopefully? I look forward to it.
It is probably the most Elfboy game I have seen. Just uses a lot of the modern twists on RPGs in an old style combat system, taking a best of both worlds approach. It is slick and intelligently put together with no frills and tons of options.
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It is probably the most Elfboy game I have seen.
You're scaring the Zenny core audience!
I'm probably getting it tomorrow. I actually want to know how this ends. Hopefully sales have picked up from Episode 2.
Anyway I just finished that one. While Ep 1 had no difficulty options, while Ep 2 had three, and the hardest one was still easier than Ep 1. There's that unlockable Insane mode, but you know, you need to finish the game and all.
Near the end I realized that, between both episodes, the battle system changed from ATB (Active Turn Based) to VNATB (Very Nice Active Turn Based). While it seems like nothing changed, now everything the player chooses has priority!
Let's say turns go that way:
Character A
Enemy X
Character B
A gets a turn and does whatever. Both X's and B's turns come up during A's attack animation. B acts before X anyway because he has priority.
What does it mean? It means that if you give those speed potions to your team and mash square, you get infinite turns. No drawbacks.
This solves the problem I talked earlier, but also adds some other ones. Like in FF9, character speed sometimes seems to matter less than attack animation length. (thankfully, it isn't agonisingly slow like FF9)
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Dark Holy Elf: Sounds mostly fair. For what it's worth, Trails does have difficulty levels.... AFTER YOU BEAT THE GAME. :( Yeah I'd have willingly cranked it up to Hard on a first runthrough myself since the game has Save Anywhere anyway. (I might yet replay it myself some day if I'm bored enough, but will wait a few years due to the issues you already noted.)
I think that if you're going to have a godmode Stu in your plot, Trails did it the right way, at least. Good guy godmode Stus inevitably sit around doing nothing for some inexplicable reason in your average JRPG plot, because they're sworn not to interfere, or because this should be the next generation of heros fight, or whatever. Bad guy Stus are just aggravating usually, and more common. Cassius was properly busy doing something (?) in the game, but not what you were doing, so he didn't clobber your plot while simultaneously avoiding the inexplicable inaction problem. Plus it was interesting with the game's POV from Estelle as she slowly found everybody else praising her father to the high heavens. I kind of buy that; many people take their parents for granted or don't have a good impression of what's normal and what isn't, so. And as you already pointed out, it made for an interesting motivation for Richard.
Also, one rankable boss certainly isn't boring! Mockable and terrible != boring, Light needs some scrubby bosses. Do agree it's a little odd that gameplay wise, they decided to undercut said boss. I'd have been perfectly fine with playing up competent menace, but I guess they went for "competent at planning and investigation, not particularly competent at fighting."
Not really a contradiction to anything you said, but I'll just add as my own 2 cents that the sheer amount of dialogue updating in Trails is incredible. Whenever you do anything, everybody updates their dialogue. You can run around and watch as people comment on how it's morning, then afternoon, the night; you can follow all the tiny subplots of the NPCs. It's pretty amazing.
Various plot comments I could make, but two in particular.
* The game trolls you with its name. I really liked the airports everywhere - lots of Final Fantasies have airships in them, yet inconsistently and only used as the doom fleet of the bad guys or something. Hey, airships are pretty damn handy for civilian use. Really helped the setting. That said, if you taunt the player with a name like "Trails in the Sky" and have airports everywhere, I"m assuming I'm going to get to fly around at some point in the game. Maybe even just as an aftergame thing. But nope. The two bits of flying you get to do are both as secret stowaways, not glorious sky captains.
* Joshua's plot twist at the end doesn't really fit the tone of the game? First off, I was assuming that Joshua had been *trained* by the assassins, but actually being one at such a young age is weird, JAPAN aside. But moving on, basically nobody dies in Trails. People get mind-screwed, and the party seems weirdly forgiving of some of the Sky Bandit antics (the Rolent raid was before they got mind controlled, and they damaged a mine and released monsters into it! What if Joshua & Estelle hadn't been around?! That's murder to steal a fancy gem, pretty low...), but nobody really dies - it seems you're just knocking out the special ops soldiers, and Richard runs a coup where he just locks up and blackmails anyone who gets in his way. This is all fine. But then in Joshua's backstory, he was killing "every day?" Sometimes more than one?! So like 700 bodies on him by age 12?! Even if this is an exaggeration, if Joshua had killed merely 50 people, that's pretty hardcore. This wasn't a grimdark world; there were plenty of resources to allocate to things like arson investigation, so mass murder in Erbonia should have raised some eyebrows.)
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Also, one rankable boss certainly isn't boring! Mockable and terrible != boring, Light needs some scrubby bosses. Do agree it's a little odd that gameplay wise, they decided to undercut said boss. I'd have been perfectly fine with playing up competent menace, but I guess they went for "competent at planning and investigation, not particularly competent at fighting."
Eh, spoilers to be safe even if not technically needed:
Plotwise, I know they made mention to that Amalthea was good at planning and bad at fighting. That's cool; it's very realistic and honestly I think we need more villains like that in RPGs. The problem is we don't actually see any evidence of this competent planning, at least in part 4?
Gameplay/DLwise, I don't think the other rankable boss is much better anyway. Hooray for interp splits on boss S-Craft use?
Honestly, I can't ever see myself having enough time to talk to all the NPCs 3+ times. Once is enough effort for me. As such it's something I have a hard time caring about. If you found some value in it, cool.
Definitely agree with your two extra points, though I hadn't actually considered either. Second in particular is a bit of a drag and makes me wonder what the tone of the sequel would be.
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Note to self: somehow get a Trails game clear save (I was midway through C1, so if I needed to restart that would not even be that big a deal) whenever I restart playing it.
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Find one somehow, somewhere (http://db.gamefaqs.com/portable/psp/save/the_legend_of_heroes_l.zip)
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Tales of Graces: Just beat Cedric.
Tales is a series (US market) that felt like it was spinning it's wheels to me. Yes, Abyss did a lot of good on the story front, and Vespiria was amazingly pretty and had great character work. But. The combat was pretty similiar in all the games, as was a lot of the presentation. Tales is as guilty as Dragon Quest in sitting on it's laurels and not changing up the formula. Graces did a couple of things that were long past due.
1. Combat tweaking. It replaces the TP system with a CC system. CC is pretty similiar to... well, CC stamina or SO3 fury. You can still do insane combos (CC rises throughout the game), but you can't sit there and just spam Azure Edge or Void Sword to lock down the final boss. Game rewards you with increased drops/EXP/gald for beating fights in a certain way. ToG also gives you a very good scan system that lets you see the HP/weakness of every enemy.
2. Synthing/sidequests. They are there, and you can get a lot of neat rewards from doing sidequests. I've enjoyed doing the sidequests. For the most part so far, it's been finding an easy to get item or synthing something. The game also doesn't punish you if you don't do these sidequests (Fuck off Xenosaga 2). The system has good documentation and is pushed on you. I dig.
3. Challenge level. You get several challenge options from the very beginning, and you can change these at any time in the game. When combined with the synthing system and sidequests, you can make the game exactly as hard or easy as you wish. This is something more RPGs need to do.
I like the title system too. Plotwise, I'm too early to say. The main theme seems to be "Take what you want and then pay for it." Asbel, like Luke and Yuri, is quite good.
Wallbridge and the wallbridge ruins were pretty bad on the dungeon design side, but that is a very tales failing. Oh. One thing that is awful beyond all reason is Pascal and the loli groping gimmick. Hey Japan, if you're going to have fanservice, make sure everyone involved looks to be 18. Not only is it offensive beyond belief, it adds nothing to the game. It is also bonus awful anime trope shit, which the game had avoided to some extent so far.
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Dragon's Dogma: Quest added--the Duchess Requests Your Presence for Clandestine Lesbian Activities.
Fenrir you didn't mention the most ridiculous part about this sequence. Not only does no one care if you come back after escaping, but no one cares while you're escaping. I was sneaking by the guard, thinking man there's no room here, he must see me, but he doesn't react...so I turn around, talk to him, he gives me the usual canned babble. I'd come right out of the corridor with the cells, there was no way I could be anything but an escaping prisoner. Hire better help, Dukie. Also please catapult Feste over the parapets, I don't think there's much question why you're going insane.
More from the What file: jumping around on rooftops in the capital, want to get to street level again but lazy so I just hop off and go splat. All pawns follow me down, everyone's at like 1/3 health now. This triggers someone's battle scripting and VA: "No! They have they advantage!" The cobblestones are winning. Also I was stuck playing offline for a bit this morning and the autogenerated pawns kept turning up with either creepy deep tranny voice (for women) or helium voice (for men). Had the regular voices when talking to them for recruitment, switched into horror mode for the background VAs. I have no idea what/why/how/just god make it stop.
And yeah, I'm pretty much not going to use a class that doesn't at least let me stick with my current weapons options/attack skills. Dragon's Maw is broken as fuck, you just turn into a human blender and everything that's not a scalable enemy just flat out dies.
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Tales of Graces:
Pascal is awesome and super is wrong. (Except about Wallbridge, fuck Wallbridge!)
I'm sitting somewhere at 70 hours for this game, and I'm only just now getting through Fendel to the Amarcian enclave. Decided to stop and max out a bunch of titles, go globe-hopping for sidequests, cook -everything-, and increase the shop levels of all the cities along the way to buy their Rare weapons so I could start Customizing them with Rise Shards.
Playing exclusively on Chaos mode, except for a few optional bosses that I'm way too underleveled for. Using Malik as my Main, with Sophie as my Secondary, and Cheria for some of the more interesting fights that require a smarter healer.
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Time to take up all of this page!
FF5 Four Job Fiesta - Knight/Berserker/Ninja/Dragoon: Complete!
World 3
Antlion is a putz. I put him to sleep with the Slumber Sword then throw stuff at him so I get his valuable Cottage.
Pyramid is annoying, but less so now that, for the first time, I realised that you can get the Brave Blade before coming here. A mix of scrolls and physicals takes care of things here well enough. Melusine gets put to sleep then Fire Scrolls tossed at her before she can barrier-change; with only three PCs, I have no Berserker who would screw this strategy up!
Lenna rejoins. I get the Holy Lance, Sasuke Katana, and Rune Axe as my first three weapons since I don't need Excalibur too badly due to having the Brave Blade. I then go to Mirage and get the Thief Knife (ends up not being useful), Mirage Vest, and four Hermes Sandals. Of course I also want my Assassin Dagger and Excalibur so I head to the Wind Shrine next.
Auto-Haste smash everything. Not much to say here. Wendigo is a stupid boss, I don't bother trying to slowly sleep-hax him and instead bludgeon him with ST each attack having roughly a 25% chance to connect. So he effectively he has 80k HP. I still never need to heal because dude, get some offence. In addition to the aforementioned two weapons, I pick up the Masamune since I can throw that. (None of the other weapons can be thrown.)
At this point I am faced with a decision. I can go beat the game now (possibly with a little cash grinding so I have more Fuma Shuriken, which are quite pricy). This is probably the objective right idea. There's little else of value to me in the various other quests available. But y'know what? Grinding (which is a possibility due to my current levels/fuma stock) is boring, so I decide I'd rather go seek out the Titan Axe to make my Berserker have MAXIMUM POWER, as well as a second Aegis Shield which helps a little in certain fights. The problem is, I need to do Fork Tower.
I send my Berserker and Ninja to the physical side, and the Knight and Dragoon to the magical. Obviously the physical half is a joke (it's possible I should have done it with one PC, even). Magic half has enemies who counter with horrifying things if I use physicals. Unfortunately they all get OHKOed by the 2H Brave Blade so no issue there. The problem is Omniscient.
Omniscient (1 reset): Setup is 2H Brave Blade Knight and Dual-wield Dragoon with two Mage Mashers. Okay so he counters everything I can do with Return. He has a whole lot of status weaknesses, but the only one I can exploit is Silence. Silence helps! Unfortunately my only way of inflicting it is the Mage Masher, which has about an 18% chance to land silence against his MEvade. Two of them means I have about a one third chance. Silence lasts long enough for one additional attack from the person who inflicted it, and of course two attacks from the other PC. So basically, I have to hope I inflict Silence first turn, and then at least every other turn thereafter. Omniscient has innate Protect/Shell so his durability is actually pretty solid (effective ~34k) so it takes six turns of Knight attacks (since Dragoon does almost nothing) followed by a finisher. So I need to silence him at least three times (turns 1, 3, and 5), probably more. In theory this should happen something like 5% of the time but it takes me way more than 20 tries (granted, most of those attempts are just silence failing turn 1 which takes just a few seconds). Kinda boring!
My one actual reset is because the first time, when I was going for the kill, he became unsilenced right before he died and used a L3 spell which was actually barely a OHKO, then his death counter Flare won him the fight. Kinda WTF and fluky given the tiny window he was unsilenced. (He only uses L3 spells at low HP.) Second time there was no such issue, though I equipped an elemental shield to go with my Diamond Helm just to be safe.
Getting the sub unlocks Istory Falls which was my actual goal. As mentioned, the prize here is the Titan Axe, along with a second Aegis Shield. Nothing else really matters and the dungeon is again easy. I bash Levithan's face in taking care not to hit him with Two Swords much because of the danger of doublecounters.
This takes us to the final dungeon! The first three areas are largely owned by my high-offence setup (Berserk Ninja, 2S Dragoon, 2H Berserker, 2H Knight) and holding down A, although tossing Fire Scrolls does prove a more efficient way to deal with the forest (not a big deal either way). Calofisteri is unimpressive although stalls things out a bit with her defence and draining. The caves are a bit scarier because Great Dragons have a MT 3HKO Earthquake counter to non-magic, so I take them out with high-powered Brave Sword hits. Achelons are also annoying due to defence, evade, and countering with Evil Eye sometimes (stone). Water Scrolls take them out, and Jump is also somewhat effective, though nothing is perfect really. Patiently waiting for the Knight or Berserker to hit them is also an option for counter avoidance. Finally, there is Apanda, who counters with both Protect and Drain to annoy me, but ultimately has no real chance.
Sky area is notable for evasive ninjas, who I deal with by hoping for luck and/or 2HKOing with Jump. At least they occasionally drop Fumas. The other enemy here is easy. In the castle, again, most enemies are easy, with the exception of the hard-hitting Iron Giant. They counter basic physicals in a nasty fashion, but not Jump or Water Scrolls, so using those is helpful, as is setting Image and other anti-physical tricks. For the bosses here, Catastrophe I blitz before he can finish his MT 2HKO of the party, Halicarnassus is a joke, and...
Twintania (1 reset): Okay so Twintania has two problems he presents. One is that he counters physicals with Tidal Wave (low MT 2HKO) one third of the time. The other is that, on his eighth turn (after a two-turn charge time), he uses Giga Flare which is 3000 MT and kills my party. Neither of these are an issue in normal gameplay due to Shell, and alone, neither of them would be a problem for my team. His other turns are pretty scrubby, but the counters prevent me from blitzing and stalling for too long is bad news. While I could possibly still pull this off with Fumas and Elixirs for speed I decide to try and hold onto those and try my other strategy: Death from the Assassin Dagger and Death Scythe, which has about a 30% chance of landing per swing.
I lose once because it just isn't my playthrough to get lucky with randomcasts in boss fights. Also, I didn't know this before, but Twintania goes up to psycho speed during his two turn charge time, so even by ninja only gets two shots with the Assassin Dagger though I was expecting more. The Berserker only gets one shot with the axe (I had unhasted him so that he didn't trigger to many counters). On the second attempt, I make some tweaks: ninja with equip axe and the Death Scythe, Dragoon with Assassin Dagger, kill the Berserker right away, and this enables me to see no counters and get at least four shots of Death in. This time, the fourth and final one connects.
Into the final area! King Behemoth rips me apart with counters and then I have a bad experience with a Crystal Dragon. Neither threatens to kill me but they do start burning my Phoenix Downs, which I really didn't stock up on enough before the final dungeon. So I grudgingly leave to stock up and come back (my levels are pretty low anyway). This proves a mistake because (a) I never fight another King Behemoth or Crystal Dragon, (b) all the other final dungeon enemies are wusses by comparison, (c) I hardly need any Phoenix Downs against the last two bosses as it turns out (one each). But eh, couldn't have known that.
I steal the Genji Shield from Gilgamesh which I don't care about (Aegis is better). Other randoms get taken out by various things, but I adopt a pretty defensive setup (Ninja with Image, Dragoon in back row using Jump, Berserker in back row using the long-range Thor's Hammer) which helps well enough. Against Necrophobe, I use the Magic Lamp twice so that Odin will be first out in the final battle (the attack summons it creates are weak as hell, but they're kinda competent against Necrophobe's four targets). He's easy enough to blast from there though I do need to watch out for his decent damage. Gilgamesh shows up, I try to get the Genji Armour which I would actually maybe care about, but fail.
So, the final battle! Team looks like this:
Krile: Ninja w/ Equip Shield, Sasuke Knife/Aegis Shield
Lenna: Knight w/ Two Hands, Brave Blade
Bartz: Berserker w/ Two Hands, Thor Hammer
Faris: Dragoon w/ Throw, Main Gauche/Aegis Shield
Only Lenna in front row, Hermes Sandals for everyone obviously.
Anyway, Exdeath is a little imposing since White Hole, if it hits, is annoying, and the first form has some really good damage when beaten up. Fortunately I get lucky and White Hole misses (two Aegis Shields means the odds of this are quite good, since stone immunity shuts the attack down). Other than that it is just a matter of stepping on the gas pedal once I think he's low on HP, so Fumas come out to play then. Don't really want to see Meteor, even though I'd survive it.
Neo Exdeath shows up. I immediately spam the Magic Lamp; Odin destroys the mage part, Golem sets up his physical wall. Shoat misses unfortunately, and the other two effects aren't too useful or notable. Then, I start attacking with the knight and tossing everything I am not using (Excalibur, Holy Lance, Rune Axe, etc.) at Neo Exdeath. I make a casual effort to blitz the Almagest part but I am not successful; fortunately it misses the only person it could OHKO so it's just a matter of using three Elixirs. I switch targets at this point to the Grand Cross part, and discover something hilarious. He has a three-turn charge time for Grand Cross above half health, and a two-turn charge time below half. I drop him below half health right before Grand Cross would go off and on his next turn he... starts charging again using the "better" charge time. *facepalm* He doesn't live to resolve that one. From there on I just try to balance out damage against the last two parts. I face another Almagest but again it's not a big deal, and thanks to far superior speed I'm able to easily take out the final target when the second to last falls (I generally go after whichever part I think is closest to getting the next turn towards the end).
And that, as they say, is that. Final levels ranged from 37 to 39.
Overview of jobs!
Knight: Second year in a row running Knight. Still very effective at what they do. Swords are powerful weapons (elements, status, and the raw power of Brave Blade), they have good durability, and Two Hands makes both them and many other fighter jobs better. You can even switch on a shield mid-battle with Two Hands, it is great. Guard/Cover is occasionally quite handy. On this playthrough I never used their other abilities, except for Equip Shield on my Ninja in the final battle.
Berserker: The legend. You can't direct their attacks, you can't stop them from triggering counters, and they're slow (though admittedly durable). Hooray! I was very lucky that I drew them alongside Knight, which doubles their damage at least. They have three things going for them: the Death Scythe is a nifty way to ID various things (including bosses), they cut through defence pretty nicely, and their Berserk ability is one of the few ways to significantly buff the offensive output of a Ninja (Great after you get Twin Lance in particular). Still terrible overall of course.
Ninja: Though they're fragile and Dual-Wield isn't as good as Two Hands on fiesta (no Freelancer to benefit from it, double counters suck sometimes), still MVP overall. Their melee damage was solid and didn't need a support ability (though Berserk could push it up if need be), but more to the point they have Throw, which greatly increased my team's ability to deal with multiple enemies, evasion, and exploit elemental weaknesses. Also while Dual-Wield isn't a great ability, it does save...
Dragoon: Well kinda. So Dragoon sucks, we know this. I mean I -guess- it's better than Berserker but ugh. Can't set Two Hands, spears are terrible outside the Holy Lance, and even Dual-Wield drives this problem home as there are no other good spears to dual-wield with, so Dragoon gets stuck with the Assassin Dagger and its lack of bonus to jump. (Yes, I'm aware Dragon Lances are a rare steal I can access with the Thief Knife. I don't care.) Basically, Dragoon is almost always setting either Throw or Dual-Wield and trying to be a crappy Ninja with better durability, much like how on my last Fiesta run Dragoon was always pretending to be a Time Mage. Whoopee. Only real plus is that Jump ignores evade (and row), so it's useful for that sometimes.
Fun fun. Obviously much harder than my last run since even though Ranger -> Ninja is a significant upgrade, going from the broken of Time Mage to the suck of Berserker is too big a hit. If I do it again I hope I don't get both Knight and Dragoon a third time. No mages is a bit of a drag but at least Throw offers some skillset options. Will do "hard mode" next time, I think.
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Wild ARMS 4: Speedrun -
Time for Krakken
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Dargon's Dogma: Last night I climbed up Lesbian Mountain and found a gang of lesbian thieves who only wear combat lingerie.
This game!
(Naturally I joined them.)
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Eevee vs. Nobunaga: Just got a Gallade and a Rhyperior despite only beating one map and...uh...not complaining!
Yeah, been laxing on this game, what about it?
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Eevee vs Nobunaga: beat the main story. Omg Nobunaga was only doing it because he loved Pokemon!
I tried to make eevee an espeon, but I guess my link percent wasn't high enough. So it ended up as a glaceon instead. Which was kind of lol at the dragon-themed final area. Final party was glaceon, wigglytuff, beartic, scrafty, luxray, charizard.
The AI in the game is pretty terribad. You can regularly beat enemies that are stronger than you because they are morons. Having said that, the variety of moves and such could make this an interesting competitive game over wifi.
I don't know what to make of the aftergame. It's rather bizarre and perhaps overly complicated.
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Penny Arcade Episode 3: Wow, Grefter was right. Grandia battle system, job system, HP restored after every fight, MP that starts at 0 and slowly builds up every battle, Items restored after every fight and upgradeable, special conditions, fixed encounters but you can grind in some arena. The DL-est game.
I'm glad Zeboyd has removed level up choices honestly. I prefer having to choose between upgrading weapons, armor, or items.
I'm playing on insane mode and every battle is overwhelming, unique and fun. Well, except the first boss. (I had to pray to the RNG god)
The main classes I'm going with are Cordswainer, Hobo, Slacker and Gentleman, but I use the Elemenstor and Crabomancer in tricky fights. I'm also upgrading the molotov cocktal a lot, neglecting armor and weapon upgrades.
The games have lost a lot of their charm compared to Episode 1/2 though, I blame the removal of the main character, and the crappy Zeboyd graphics. Character sprites are fine, but backgrounds and artwork always look horrible in those games. It actually looks like actual, good pixel art, pasted into Paint, and turned into a jpeg or a gif with the lowest compression method chosen. It just looks cheap and amateurish compared to... something like Black Sigil or actual Snes games.
Mass Effect 3: Started, but it really felt weird. Those faces, maybe? The lack of transition between both games? The boring action on Earth?
Whatever, I replayed Mass Effect 2 first.
Mass Effect 2: Vanguard, Insane mode. (I think videogames are trying to say something to me...)
I went Renegade first time through, and I'm going with Renegade again. Seriously, paragon might as well not exist.
I regret ever choosing something other than Vanguard in ME2. (it wasn't that good in ME1) It's a melee class in a gunz game, involves shotgun blasts at point blank, and somehow requires a lot of thought in a cover based shooter.
I want to sleep with Zaheed but it's just not possible. I'm setting my eyes on the lizard instead.
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Vanguard in ME3 is a wonderful thing. All I have is a pistol that fires shotgun shells and a bad attitude.
Put your sights on a target, charge straight in and hit like a goddamn extinction-level asteroid impact, detonate your barrier for extra damage, then turn around and kill the last guy with a fist full of biotic energy. While you hit charge to drop a new target (and refill your shields) Garrus fires off some victory shots while your Speesu Waifu sighs adoringly.
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Puzzle Agent 2
So if Last Window was more Hotel Dusk, Puzzle Agent 2 is more, uh, Puzzle Agent. Except of course that Puzzle Agent 1 just kind of stopped, so rather than be its own new story, PA2 decides to continue with PA1's story. Which is fine by me, since that means more Scoggins, Minnesota.
Anyway. Dialogue and story is still vastly amusing and utterly bizarre. More comedy-horror which is certainly unique enough (although mostly comedy). It's pretty much the perfect thing to play on a trip on a laptop, since it's not like the puzzles require fine control. PA2 is short (3-4 hours or so?), like PA1, but at least has something of an *ending* this time.
For those who haven't played PA1, I recommend it. It's not actually about the puzzles, it's about amusing animation & dialogue & Minnesota accents. And it's super-cheap.
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Lost Odyssey: My god this game is slow-going. I always play it for like 6 hours in a sitting, but it never feels like I've gotten any further in making a dent in it. Still on Disc 3. Shit Got Real. I almost care, except that story sequences are so spread out now that the lackluster exploration aspect has worn out its welcome. Unfortunately, the game seems to think that running around an enormous (albeit beautifully rendered) sewer dungeon is what I want to be doing.
Tolten finally joined my party. How the hell does he hit so hard when his stats are all lower than Seth's?
Sticking it out because the game seems to like torturing Cooke and Mack. Also, Jansen/Seth/Ming entertain me. And supposedly there are more Dream sequences. I think I could even mildly enjoy the main plot if it didn't take 2 hours between scenes to actually watch it.
Tales of Graces f: Beat Magic Carta on Hard. Shut out the computer. Only took 30 minutes. Rita Costume GET!
Those quotes are insufferably poorly localized.
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I am t rying to beat magic carta on hard right now. ;_____________________________________________;
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I'm playing on insane mode and every battle is overwhelming, unique and fun. Well, except the first boss. (I had to pray to the RNG god)
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.
Still really difficult, though. Took me awhile to figure that out and then I won the first time after I realized it.
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Order of Ecclesia - Played about an hour of this, got to the third boss, decided he was lame after trying a few times and quit. I may try Portrait of Ruin instead.
So instead I decided to play. . .
Endless Frontier - John Moses is my favorite character so far. Asking if Kaguya is in fact a prostitute seems like the most logical thing in the world.
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I may try Portrait of Ruin instead.
Clearly someone doesn't have enough "JOHNNATHON!" "CHARLOTTE!" in their lives...
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Normally I wouldn't want to be "that guy" and nitpick typos, but I am amused that you managed to misspell Jonathan in three different places. :P
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Its a name I've never been able to spell right, so shut up you smell :(
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Pokemon Conquest: Up to what I believe is the last gym. Game's pretty average overall I think. It's relatively short, which I guess is good depending on how you look at it.
FFV 4JF: Yeah I signed up for this as well. Rolled my first job as Monk. This should be interesting seeing as how I don't know FFV that well (only completed it once) and I don't know any of the tricks. Add this on to my list of projects, which will probably never be completed >_>.
Wild ARMS 4: Krakken insanity hour tonight. Trying to piece together something solid that works against him. Slumber Fog is the worst thing ever because I can never anticipate what will happen when he uses it. It's just a big ? ? ?. Getting closer to something solid though for a strat and I have a good idea of the things I'm looking for. Will probably begin official recording tomorrow.
NOTE TO SELF: I still owe RICHARD that FF8 challenge and G2 LLG
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Phantom Brave: Holy crap so i finally understand the mechanics of this game now, generally mechanics for games are over my head but i seem to have gotten a knack developed now, Marona = lvl 108, on story mode chapter A TOMODACHI AT LAST.
Having a total blast farming dungeons for that pesky hourglass now that I have my fleet of bottlemails to confine to it. And upgraded my owl ninja with prinny passives, hohoho confine in for 766 damage and exit for 1288, he can pretty much clear the field in his four turns.
I've turned marona into a Skull Mark icon whore, she has all the Vase,Can,Crystal spells and some random ones I found on titles and a fleet of buffs and some solid healing spells, though i generally keep her beefy with the Vase and spaming revive on my fragile characters >.> Poor bottlemails!
I've grown fond of making new characters with -30-100 in fire and + 30-50 in wind and ice.
Needless to say certain fights kick my butt but that is what ash is for.
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Having a total blast farming dungeons for that pesky hourglass now that I have my fleet of bottlemails to confine to it. And upgraded my owl ninja with prinny passives, hohoho confine in for 766 damage and exit for 1288, he can pretty much clear the field in his four turns.
Notably Blobs work better for this than Ninjas. They only have a 1-turn Remove. You can actually combine them with a Titlist's innate lv30 Big Bang and a Hell Corgi's removal explosion skill for more powerful bombing. If you've unlocked Archers, you can fuse one of them onto the Blob too and get the Swift Attack skill. This will make it so that you Summon->ExplodeAreaDamage->InstantTurnAttackDmg->RemovalAreaDamage all at once. You have literally turned your Blob into a Tactical Bomb.
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Djinn but slimes arnt cute owl ninjas with adorable hooty voices. Also thats madness i already run out of turns on dungeon bosses for all 16 of my summons and marona has to finish it :c though i tend to be fighting lvl 420 self titled gods.
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League of Legends: Wavering between awesome performances and absolutely terrible performances.
Pokemon Conquest: DS fixed, so eevee vs the world can resume.
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SaGa 2 DS: This is an extremely good DS remake and anyone who cares about FFL2 should play it.
All...2 of you.
Yakuza 3: I need to stop doing the sidequests since story stuff that isn't babysitting little kids is p. great if Kanda's stuff is any indication.
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Street Fighter 4: Got bored of playing Cammy, decided to play some random. Turns out, I can't hit-confirm or pull off any kind of chains/links, but I really enjoy playing as the characters who rely on them. (Cammy, Sakura, Ibuki..) Welp, guess I'm never being good at fighting games. :(
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Dragon's Dogma
Nearing the end of my first New Game +. I'm probably done with this soon, not for lack of interest - it remains stupidly addictive - but for lack of time. I've got work/reading/life/other games to do, in approximately that order. Brilliant game, awesome monsters, remarkable AI, best real-time RPG I've ever played, hilariously obvious flaws that any playtester in the world should have caught. What a weird mix.
Bastion
Got a controller to work!
Oh, it's nearly unplayable that way, at least with the controller I've got? What's up with the analogue stick only pointing eight directions like it's a d-pad in freaking 1995? Anyway I'm almost done, but I've had to go back to the mouse despite not liking that control scheme in general.
Everything about the presentation of this game is beautiful, and despite my bitching about the controls the gameplay is good, too.
Eternal Poison
Got my PS2 working, so it's finally time to play this!
Oh, it's reasonably hard? I almost lost the second battle by not paying attention.
Oh, maybe it was just the second battle, because I haven't come close to losing another since.
IIRC there's some serious Guide Dang It moments in this game, but w/e, it seems reasonably fun. If I want to get all of the things (all of them) I'll replay it someday. Unless there's one simple thing I need to do to avoid missing major content, in which case hopefully someone will tell me.
League of Legends
I don't think it's possible to make a game I'd be worse at than this. All the precision timing of a fighting game, all the click to target gameplay of an RTS, none of the strategic layer to make up for my poor mousework! Only playing because of friends, but at least it's attractive and they're skilled enough to carry my useless ass (against beginner bots). ^_~
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Re: Eternal Poison
The True Final Ending has some FAQ-it moments when it comes to beating certain bosses and capturing enough demons IIRC. Had a pretty awesome plot, so it's one of the times it was rarely worth it to me. The capturing mechanism in this game sucks.
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Tales of Graces: Just got the Magite-erm, Fendel research factory. I am maining Asbel, along with using Hubert every so often to mix things up.
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Eevee vs. Nobunaga: SO I went and took over the first of Nobunaga's castles, and I think its time to-...OOOH! THEATRHYTHM CAME OUT!
Dissidia Final Fantasy Super Chibi Rhythm Game Edition: Played the FF1-3 areas, then did one Chaos Shrine. Cute game and just a nice nostalgic trip and what not. Also, amusing how while all the songs in the gameplay parts are the original, they use various remixes for menus and such from the 13 games (like Setzer's theme is the "Character Select theme", the Highwind is for the "Select Mode" theme, "Rose of May" for Card Collections, etc.)
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Dragon's Dogma: Jailbreak! Look, Duchess, this probably isn't the best time to get it on--well, okay, if you insist. Man, this place. Start your escape and immediately get attacked. Why did we bother infiltrating in disguise again? Also the lower levels of the building--the Duke's own manse, mind you--are filled with a horde of bandits. Hire better help, man, seriously. How are you still alive?
Have been running a mystic knight for a while, is pretty groovy. Abyssal Anguish in particular is horrifically effective. Also said to hell with armor a while ago and been tooling around in the indecent stuff Madeleine sells pretty much just because if I can afford to be sexy then dammit I'm going to. I mean, everything dies fast enough that my defense doesn't matter a heckuva lot anymore (even a sensible suit of armor only gets me like a hundred extra defense anyway). My pawn gets the abyssal postgame armor my brother threw at her, because it seems a shame not to use the stuff and anyway she actually needs it (I have HP, she doesn't; I can dodge, she can't).
Pretty sure I'm overlevelled, mind (54, right before Ze Dragon), have been seeing pawns at my levels with better gear for about half the game. Can't remember the last time I died. Oh wait I can--cyclops right outside Heavenspeak tosses me off the mountain, I survive at 1 HP. "Dammit, now I have to climb all the way back up." *Cid turns around, face to face with a chimera* "...Oh, I don't. Okay."
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Yo, Bobbin. Add me at some point. =)
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Batman: Arkham Asylum - Beat this.
It's absolutely outstanding at being a Batman game, but only so-so at being a game. I'm not, to be fair, the game's target audience (Batman's decent but I'm not a huge fan and I certainly never followed the comics) but I still think the game really nailed what a game should feel like if you were to play as Batman. The way you fight enemies and your various means of defeating them are pretty much all straight out of Batman, and very faithful to his method of fighting in which nobody dies (somehow). The game's writing is pretty effective and basically feels like a significantly longer-than-average Batman movie (with six different villains getting in on the action, for all that there's no question that Joker is the main, and awesome, antagonist).
That said, the actual gameplay could have been a bit better. Stealth sections were fun enough but whether or not enemies spot you felt extremely clunky. Raw combat got better as the game went on and the game actually bothered to introduce interesting weapontypes (you can basically button-mash through any number of regular mooks) but was kinda bleh for a while. Exploring was never much fun at all, I don't enjoy pixel-hunting for the path through areas. The game was at its best when it mixed boss fights with mooks at the same time (pretty great idea honestly), unfortunately there are only really two bosses in the game (and that's counting the one that gets turned into a mook later). Oh well. Still enjoyed it more than I feared I would from the first couple hours, but I'd sooner replay Devil May Cry or God Hand or Bayonetta, as far as 3D action goes.
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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.
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Dragon's Dogma: Dragonforged panties acquired.
Of somewhat less note, godhood also acquired.
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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.
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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?
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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...
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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.
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Theatrhythm: Beat the main game! NOW ONTO ALL THE RANDOM STUFF LIKE RANKINGS AND GETTING SONGS AND MORE CHIBIS AND *is shot*
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Same as meeple! Just beat the main game :)
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Same as meeple! Just beat the main game :)
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Same as meeple! Just beat the main game :)
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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.
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Does anybody have Aerith yet? =)~
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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!
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I'm halfway to Vivi!
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<Tally-chu> :) :(
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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.
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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.
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Put in chibi-Locke for the Robs. Just got him. :)
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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.
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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.
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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 @_@
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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.
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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.
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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?"
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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
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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.
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Downloaded and played through the English version of HATOFUL BOYFRIEND. Mostly because it looked like such a glorious trainwreck that I'd have fun regardless of how bad it was.
...And I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the game is ridiculous, and it knows it's ridiculous, but y'know what? It's also pretty damn awesome. The standard endings are pure dumb cheese for the most part, with the odd "yes, we know nobody is taking this seriously" thrown in (LORD PUDI, GOD OF PUDDING)... and then you reach the endings for Shuu. And those are fucking crazy. And not in the "this is ridiculous" kind of way, but more a Higurashi-style, "Holy shit am I actually going to survive all of this?" kind of way. Then Anghel's ending, which is hilarious and batshit insane again.
Then the BBL ending, and holy crap I was not expecting this. This is the reason to play this. I was skipping through most of the text by this point (which makes getting the previous endings really easy!) and then suddenly jumped back when I noticed the textbox change colour. And.. the rest was seriously unexpected. Really well-written, outside of some translation issues, a solid story and some real character development. Definitely not what I was expecting from a VN about dating pigeons. :|
Also, the music is awesome. (Sample 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SoWQismC-M), Sample 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyRVlFzIWXw&feature=relmfu), Spoiler Sample (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roNGM9wJOnY&feature=related))
So yeah, I initially played this because it looked dumb as shit and I thought it would be funny. Now, I'd actually seriously recommend it to people. It's awesome.
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Dragon's Dogma: Optional superboss beat, in offline mode so it didn't take a week. He dropped a weapon for classes I've never used. Beat again for better loots. Dropped same weapon. Okay, we're done here.
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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.
(It was a rhetorical question, Cid. It's Capcom!)
Mass Effect 2: Re-finished.
This time Tali died... Honestly, I didn't really care that much. She's not bad or anything but she doesn't really fit with the rest of the crew.
I played with Zaeed in every mission (after playing with Mordin in every mission first time through) He's really the least important character in the game, but I liked his banter. Fun guy all around. He often agreed with my Shepard.
I went with a more sensible approach to conversations instead of just choosing the lower options all the time to get a ton of Renegade points. This is pretty cool, as it allowed me to see some things most players will probably never see (Shepard sometimes justified her Paragon actions for Renegade reasons, for example)
On the other hand, I didn't have enough points to choose the super duper Renegade or Paragon options. I would complain about this, but you know, this actually forces the player to make choices (Tali or Legion?) instead of just convincing everyone everytime by being incredibly nice/not nice. Probably not a bad thing.
DLC opinion didn't change much. Overlord and Shadow Broker are the best parts of ME2. Kasumi is allright. Arrival is shameful, a sign of the terrible things to come.
Mass Effect 3 (Vanguard, Insanity): Getting chased by slow reapers on the world map. Oh no! ME1 and 2 build reapers as huge uber 1337 enemies, and now I'm avoiding them easily to do some mining mini game. They have no control over the territories they've conquered, and it sounds like they're taking months to take over one planet. (Because it's the Earth, and the Earth isn't getting levelled in one second like Random Planet Number 287 because You The Player live on it)
When I got my ship back and talked to the new crew members, it seemed like two of them jumped on me to say "Hi. I"m a lesbian" and "Hi. I'm gay" so that Bioware could let me know they've really filled their quotas. Bioware, you were doing so fine with this, but you now have the subtelty of a sledgehammer.
I also got into a dudebro boxing friendly fight between the dudebro party member and my thin female Shepard. Shepard won because QTEs.
The ending can't be worse than all of this?
Fights are extra nice though. Shepard feels less like a tank and more like a human, enemies are more aggressive and use interesting strategies, and Charge is even better. I admit I kinda miss my shotgun.
I won't play the multiplayer forever, but so far it's decent. Not worth paying Xbox live Gold. (I got the PS3 version)
I'm actually really nervous about which party members will be playable. I'm assuming most of the ME2 cast is out, but they can't leave out Garrus, right? Right??
Spelunky: Finished the game once after about 220 deaths. Also conquered a spaceship and unlocked all the shortcuts.
Lots of things left to see.
The shopkeeper is Rob. Don't try interacting with him if you don't know what you're doing. Just... buy his things and quietly leave.
Actually, stealing shopkeepers and trying to get away with it is probably the best part of the game. I like stealing a jetpack, flying away, letting the shopkeeper jump around like a madman and getting empaled on spikes, then getting his shotgun from his bloody corpse.
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Fen, Garrus has probably the best scene in the entire game. It's entirely optional but you'll know when you get to it.
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FF Theatrythm: I've put together a team that has successfully killed three bosses in a single battle song.
Zidane - Ensures you handle the field song of the dark note, also has Sinewy Etude 1 and 2 for Str boosting the rest of the party.
Vivi - Doublecast + Fire/Blizzard/Thunder takes apart all of the non-boss monsters in a battle song pretty well.
Squall/Cloud/(and Zidane again) - Use Lionheart/Omnislash/Grand Lethal as soon as a boss pops up. The boss implodes. Also high Str on all three of them means they chew through non-boss monsters pretty fast. Vivi does the heavy lifting on those, but these guys defintaely chip in.
Sometimes they only get 2 bosses instead of 3. Gonna start futzing with the timing on summon sections, seeing if maybe skipping the summon will let me kill things faster on those songs.
Also, when I'm not playing chibi music games, I'm playing either Tales of Maj'Eyal(best roguelike I've ever played. If you liek them at all, play it), and the Quest For Glory series(thanks Gref!). In particular, just found out that the unofficial remake of QFG2 is compatable with carryover saves from QFG1, and will let you export into QFG3 just fine. I am very ^_^
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Fenrir: Er. It really isn't surprising that Shepard can beat Dudebro in a fight. ME2 plot stuff means Shep is established as being quite a bit stronger then their body should indicate.
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Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War- Been playing this, beat. There's something likable about the game, despite being a bit braindead and absolutely draining map design. So, characters because hey.
Sigurd- My Sigurd ended at like level 25 with something like 12 defense. He didn't even see any action in C5 because I wanted to get him some money again before finishing the map but anyway. So yeah, he fell off a bit late, but never bad.
Alec, Noishe- These are definitely the worst Red/Green Cavs in the series, unless they suck in FE2 I guess. They ended up both getting killed by Aira while Sigurd captured the flag, didn't bother me in the least.
Ardan- Exists.
Azel- Game doesn't give you a Wind tome fast enough to really get use out of him, I felt. You can get some milage if you really work for it but yeah. But hey, Minor Fala is good for some kids.
Lex- Missed the hero axe. He's still got some utility, mounted+canto and good at weakening stuff. Ended up killing him to prevent a pairing.
Ethlin- Never got her many levels. so uh mobile healer and not much else.
Cuan- He feels like the real jeigan here. It's quite a while before he gets appreciable experience, and aside from adventures with holy weapons he's not great at killing things. That I used him quite a bit for the first two chapters and only stopped because I was expressly trying to level up people (mostly lachesis) speaks to how little jeigandom matters in this game.
Fin- Lags a bit early, then gets hero lance and all is well. Then tries to run away with it, but this is the sort of game you FAQ the fuck out of so we steal it and put it to better use elsewhere.
Midayle- His growths are pretty bad. Hero bow is nice and all, but that's late, well after you'll have good opportunities to level him. Basically father bait for Aideen.
Dew- ugh.
Aideen- Is a healer. Is easy to toss a ranged staff on. What more do you want >.>
Aira- Murder machine. Sadly, this is completely irrelevant outside the arena because aside from the back half of C5 she'll never reasonably catch up to the action, mounted lord and all.
Diadora- Not bad really, AS of course is garbage but she's got the raw power to make that work to an extent. Of course you hardly get her long enough to say so.
Jamka- This guy. This reminded me of that time I took Rolf to Endgame and got the Double Bow. You point this guy at problems and they go away. Sadly, unlike Rolf he never gets any attack range except 2, so you can't have him clean out enemies, but good for problems. Admittedly, he ended up snagging the Leg Ring.
Holyn- Aira minus basically.
Lachesis- why yes let's put that Elite Ring on a healer oh dear she's promoted into an unstoppable killing machine. Second best unit of gen 1, and even then could easily have been number 1 with any holy weapon.
Beowulf- decided to suicide into Sigurd.
Levin Holsety- Because the game wasn't dead enough.
Sylvia- Needed that knight ring I didn't get. Or the Legs. Either way, FE4 map design really devalues dancers, which is a shame because they clearly had an idea they'd done this and tried to make up for it with 4 square dances.
Fury- More than any other character depends on how much money you want to spend. Power Ring, that Hero Lance Fin tried to steal, profit.
Tiltyu- Cool concept, can't compete with horsepremacy.
Claude- Good at what he does.
Briggid- Not quite as economical or available as Jamka, but same basic idea.
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Celice- Lagged behind the whole game, one of my last to promote (that whole seizing thing tend to get him behind the crowd, and he lacks the skill abuse that get most of the kids through the arena without trying). Suddenly came into his own in the final chapter. Sleep Loptians everywhere huh. oh wait sorry FUCK YOU EAT TYRFING.
Lana- Starts game with ranged healing. Yeah.
Lakche (Aira/Holyn)- It's like Aira, except she'll almost always be there in the thick of the action for the first couple chapters.
Skasahar- Not as good as his sister for various reasons. Still plenty capable of murder.
Oifey- useful enough in C6, afterwards trying to get the kids promoted took priority.
Delmud (Lachesis/Fin)- Probably the least useful kid, doesn't really get any weapons or skills to let him reliably kill things. Still, Charisma utility.
Lester (Aideen/Midayle)- Starts with that hero bow his dad needed thee chapters sooner. Takes a while to get rolling still, strength can be an issue, but promotion fixes him right up. That power ring he inherited helped of course.
Julia- Really good, surprisingly. Starts weak, but fills a niche no other character really does until the holy weapons come around. Benefits a lot if you put the Lightning tome on her as well, funny enough.
Fee (Fury/Levin)- gets for free all that inventory invested into her mom. Aside from joining in the middle of an axe swarm, basically unstoppable barring really stupid placement until the last chapter, where she struggled a lot with the enemy peg trio for some reason.
Arthur (Tiltyu/Azel)- quietly solid, didn't do a whole lot later but never useless.
Johan- Basically useless. Oh hey you get a hero axe right after he joins oh wait he's still worse than Lex in a vacuum and faces stiffer competition.
Shanan- So he starts right next to a boss with the Bargain ring as a drop. Maybe this is a sign. Yes. Falls behind as units start to outpace him (as in have horses) but still a reliable way to draw enemies and make them murdered.
Patty (Jamka/Briggid)- Since I didn't make her dad Holyn with ill-gotten Hero Swords, didn't bother much.
Leaf- Not quite as good as Lachesis, but still solid. I had a better weapon loadout on him though, so he ended up with this kill-stacked Killer Bow and things went quite nicely.
Nanna (Lachesis/Fin)- Not very good, but healing and Charisma.
Fin- Good for when you need him in C7, generally weaker than Oifay otherwise.
Aless- Workhorse. As in I put 50 kills on the Mistoltin.
Leen (Sylvia/Claude)- Stats look more like dancers I'm used too, still has the same problem in that the game hates dancers due to horsepremacy.
Tinny (Tiltry/Azel)- See Arthur. Despite his getting a horse, they still saw about the same use because by that point in the game you have holy weapons.
Faval (Jamka/Briggid)- Struggled with hit, but reliably made things dead and had dodge enough.
(Hol)Sety (Fury/Levin)- Because the game wasn't easy enough.
Hannibal- Wait, you can use him in combat?
Corpul (Sylvia/Claude)- Who cares about levels, C10 pretty well forces you into sacrificing a character and he fixes that. Also I screwed up and had a scenario where I had to either kill Julia or let Julia kill Sety, so we used the thing twice in fact!
Altenna- Dragon-knightiest dragon knight to even dragon knight. OHKOs mages or dies trying. Ran into a few scenarios where she ended up guarding castles for some reason, worked well.
Anyway. Actually talking about the game, is an over-ambitious SNES game, needs remake with modernity and all the chapters cut into thirds. Or we can remake NES games and be overly stupid-faithful, that's good too.
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Tales of Graces: Finished the normal game. Fiddling with the future arc now.
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Final Fantasy: Theatrhythm –
I’ve been playing the hell out of this game for the past week and a half or so. Got it on preorder and got my preorder bonus stylus which I’ve been using to play the game. It’s better than the regular midget stylus the 3DS comes with.
I used primarily a team of Cloud/Tidus/Cecil/Lightning to beat the early part of the game which I thought was quite easy. The game ramps up pretty quickly once you get through the Basic levels though. I continued using that team to take on the Chaos Shrine, which is the place you can use to get new PCs. I fought a lot of the low level ones to get Rydia, Vivi, Ashe, and Locke. I definitely used Locke for his speediness and Vivi for his magic prowess, but it is abundantly clear that the main characters are better than the unlockables. I also unlocked Minwu and Cid but whocares/10, didn’t use either.
I then discover the mechanics for getting new characters and try to use it to try to get Snow. Each character you have to collect Shards to get, and I found a boss that dropped Snow’s Shard. The only problem was that that Shard was also blessed by Scar and had Kain, which naturally the game gave me first. I also got Sephiroth during this hilarious wheel spinning activity until eventually I got Snow.
But getting Kain was totally worth it because he starts1 HP! Owned by Jogurt. All is better now.
So anyway, I’ve been just working toward the hardest difficulty, which is uber-douchey, and catching Snow and others up. I also got Seifer, who has a quote of “I’m gonna tell ya ‘bout my ROMANTIC dream!” I love that quote so much. The quote section in general is very cute.
Overall it’s been a fun experience, even if I think they could have done aspects of the game better (better balance between the unlockables vs. the mains and made the unlocking less grindy) but it’s been a fun experience. I’ve overall liked most of the song choices aside from a couple, and I’ve grabbed a bit of the DLC. Cosmo Canyon is hard on Ultimate! ;_;
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Yeah, whoever they got making these crossover spinoffs needs to figure out grinding =/= fun. I should have more than two unlocked songs after 13 hours of play guys.
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Japan is all about teh grindan. Don't you know? I heard DQ is a popular game over there.
Grandia 2 LLG -
Right so RICHARD and I talked about doing this a couple of months back and it was on the back burner a bit. This is one of those projects I intended on doing but never really got around to. Until now.
Ground rules are pretty simple:
a) No use of stat boosters. You can sell them but not use them
b) Random encounters are forbidden unless...
c) If the boss/forced fight in question proves to be too difficult/impossible, I can fight as few monsters as possible to make the fight doable. We're not 100% sure about this, but it sort of a rule similar to NEB's LLG in PS4. So if a fight proves to be undoable, the challenge won't be "over" so to speak and we can still continue the game.
Everything else (magic twinkery, skill books, items) is all fair game. And with that it begins:
Dodox2 -
This is a forced fight on the way to the first dungeon. Nothing to report. Spam attack a few times.
Gargoylesx2 -
Another forced fight, this time up the tower. Their big move is Howl, which deals about 80 damage to Ryudo's 450 HP. I can't OHKO them, but careful reading of the turn gauge allows me to get a Tenseiken Cancel on one. Defending helps with the rest. Not hard at all.
DURHAM CAVE-
So there are lots of forced fights here when the gates shut. All the enemies fought below are forced essentially:
Crag Snakes - Have jokes for HP (280) and die to BURN in one shot. They have a lot of offense though. Also, POIZN which adds up and is annoying when the damage kicks in since it also slows you down on the turn gauge.
Frost Frogs - Scrub enemies. Weak to fire so BURN also one shots them. Nothing really remarkable about them otherwise.
Trilobyte - The "midboss"-like randoms. They have notably more HP (960) and take much more punishment than the above OHKO baits. Also, they inflict Sleep. Bad news? Yep. Luckily, there's a Sleep Charm so somebody can resist it. They are weak to fire too, which allows Burn to high 3HKO. One attack from Ryudo knocks them into 2HKO range essentially.
Minotaur- First official boss of the game! He's accompanied by 2 Trilobytes who can be pests by trying to sleep you. I get the entire team to focus fire on them first before moving on to the big cheese. Minotaur's main weakness is not having MT. As such, despite his double turning high damage, I am able to delay it by guarding with the right character. The big move is Tornado Horn, which does about 240 damage (2HKOs everyone but Ryudo) and it adds confuse, which is extra nasty. Guarding is really important for this as not to lose turns from the Confuse effect. He also has tons of HP (4200) and my offense is kinda inept, so I slowly chip him down and play defensively with items/guarding and edge out a win. I kinda get a feeling this is going to foreshadow a lot of problems later down the line.
Thoughts so far:
MVP - Millenia. Having the highest MAG is great for random smashing. Burns become OHKOs when she casts it, which greatly helps inside the Cave.
LVP - Roan. Has no damage and the Howl is pretty weak right now (80 damage to 280 from Millenia's Burn). I could pass the Chaos egg to Roan but since he has less HP and isn't that much faster, the loss in damage probably isn't worth it. His physical is even more worthless. Deals a whopping 19 damage from Critical when Ryudo hits about 100 >_>.
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Yeah, whoever they got making these crossover spinoffs needs to figure out grinding =/= fun. I should have more than two unlocked songs after 13 hours of play guys.
I know the idea is CAPTURE THE FF EXPERIENCE!!! and all that...
...except FF games scarcely have you grinding, so its kind of a dumb thing. And even the ones that do never have it to the extent of the crossover spin-offs (Duodecim being the worst about it. Dissidia was bad enough, but Duodecim also made Cash matter, took away storebought Diamond Rings, and the Duel Colosseum was more efficient way to farm rare items than 000 storyline)
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I'm just happy to have most of it done at this point; I'm going to grab the rest of the characters for giggles and then ???
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And then you can actually play the game for fun.
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Oh, I've been playing the game for fun for a long time. I just decided to challenge myself to make OPTIMAL STRATEGIES TO RECRUIT CHARACTERS I DON'T CARE ABOUT. Obviously a great use of my time.
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You just wanted to put hipster glasses on Yuna, admit it.
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Chrono Trigger DS
SPOILERS AWAIT
Beat the Lost Sanctum story finally, lol the bit of obvious trolling at the end with the statues was fun WISH I HAD USED A DIFFERENT PARTY though ugh >.>
Ayla now my most leveled character since she is always in my party...
The upgrades in Chrono Trigger DS are just...so boss and the bonus dungeon XP is just so godly compared to anything but black omen abuse(which is limited to x3)
Learned some new stuff about the mechanics and.....yeah need moar speed tabs.
At least satus immunity actually prevents lock now yay! A BIT TO LATE but at least the 10,000 xp monster is an easy 2-3 turn kill now instead of 10 mins of poking it with attack for 8-24.
Going to farm the black omen then unlock the final hidden story arc, I hear you need to be 90-99 in order to even have a hope of beating/getting to the final, last boss. But on the other hand Mdef Speed,Str,Evasion and HP/MP is maxed on most of my characters already so...we shall see...it will probably be a "trick" boss though so actual stats will mean jack shit.
THEN I GET TO PLAY IT ALL OVER <3
Grinding the Monster battle system in game right now for the special secret items that sound like they will be interesting to have equipped!
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Metal Gear Solid 2: JUst met MR. PRESIDENT! And then well...you know...
I do have to rage at this game for one little thing, and that's the stuff right after and before the Harrier. The Harrier fight was fine, a notable upgrade from the MGS1 equivalent "Fighter Aerial vehicle with Anti Air Missiles" fight, mostly because there was a lot less waiting, but then MGS2 being better at MGS1 at combat related things, shock, awe, etc.
But then we have a section where a slight mistep = Instant Death? Ugh, fuck that noise. Instant Death related bullshit should not be in a game like this, at least a section geared around it. Well, no, "don't trip bombs" is a completely fair thing because that's 100% your fault and the game is often good at warning you, and you'll maybe fail it once.
The "Snipe Bombs out" thing needs punting if only because you have to hit a MOBILE TARGET WITH A SHAKEY SNIPER RIFLE. Ok, the Mobile Target wouldn't be so bad if one slight mis-time = instant death. Was there really any reason to keep that in the game? It doesn't make the game any harder in anyway that adds enjoyment, just makes things more frustrating.
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Graces thoughts:
Polish is fairly good. There is a fairly notable jump in polish between Abyss and Vesperia, and another one between Vesperia and Graces. I would've liked the shuttle earlier in the game, but oh well.
Gameplay was fantastic. It can be as easy or as hard as you want- with IC, adjustable challenge, and controllable stat growth through titles, you can really craft the experience you want. Sidequests can sometimes be annoying, but the rewards are decent. You do not have to sidequest at all- game gives you enough titles- but it is nice if you are a completionist. CC system is a welcome change as noted, ToV's gameplay was definitely on the stale side. I loved the gameplay, I loved the sidequesting. Don't really feel a need to write a ton about it. I did notice the amount of travel time you spend wandering back and fourth. Dungeon design was a mix of pretty and absolutely wretched. Tales has long (Aquaveil!) had bad dungeons. Wallbridge and the Amarcian ruins were both amazingly bad for that. Special dishonor goes to the cocoon, which combines a vertical maze with boring puzzles.
The translation seemed a bit off at points to me, but it was mostly Magic Carta and some skits.
Plot and characters were hit and miss. I liked the majority of the cast. ToG almost exclusively focuses on the cast, which gives them a ton of time to develop. Asbel in particular was excellent both as a kid and as an adult. The plot wasn't especially ambitious. It is pretty standard geopolitical fare with a couple of points I liked. Plot stuff below.
Short version is that three countries are at war with each other. Richard wants to stop this. His rampage ends up uniting the three main countries together. Lambda mentions the need for a common enemy at one point, and that's exactly what he provided. I don't think any of the PC cast ever commented on that- the kindly king going nuts ended up averting a world war over resources. The three countries have very different governments and resources at hand, so the clashes even make some sense. Stratha is a oligarchy, Windor is a 'kingdom' with very little direct control given to the crown, and Fendel is a brutal dictatorship trying to deal with a bad hand being dealt to it. The only way they were going to be united is the Valkines getting zapped and that is what happened.
The first half of the game works for plot. Things get a little sketchy when you get the shuttle. ToG wanted the main villains (Richard and Lambda) to be sympathetic. For that to work, they had to use Emeraude to handle the villain duties in the second half. I didn't think it worked very well. There was also some eye rollingly bad NO THE HUMANS ARE THE DEMONS shit that was awful a decade and a half ago. Thankfully this was not on camera long.
I haven't finished F arc yet.
Cedric rivals or perhaps surpasses Galen of Farseer fame for doucheness. It's amazing how much he fucks things up in spite of limited camera time.
Asbel- Thought he was fantastic. He grows up during the game, literally and figuratively. He goes through several stages of development (Bratty kid->Knight->leader). It doesn't really feel rushed either. his conflict with Cheria and Hubert after growing up is very good as well. Asbel made some poor choices and he pays for it. He still has his funny moments later on- he may be an adult, but you can still see the goofy kid at a couple of points. (His skit with Cheria and Hubert after battle is great). Relationship with Cheria is quite good, then tails off after they reconcile during the Strahta arc. That holding pattern hurts Cheria a hell of a lot, see below.
Cheria- She is probably the weakest of the characters. She is stuck as a love interest and as the party mother. Boy, talk about unexciting roles. She has her moments with Asbel, but is largely relegated to being support.
Richard- Solid enough. He has every reason to be bitter and untrusting; Asbel really brings out the best of him as a character. Want to play more of the F arc before saying much, since he has a lot of camera time there.
Hubert- He doesn't really settle into the party until the Fendel arc. He spends most of the early adult arc furious at Asbel and his parents (With excellent reason in the latter case). He loves calling people out on keeping secrets and bullshit- he would've had a field day in TotA. He is right to suspect Pascal and Malik, but completely misreads their intentions. Game nailed just how screwed up his relationship was with Asbel which is a bonus. He is mostly played as comic relief, which is good with how seriously he takes himself.
Sophie- Sophie is Sophie. She appears, she develops as a person slowly over the game, she deals with her past being a blank slate. It isn't anything groundbreaking, but she's good enough for what she is.
Malik- He's fine as a static character, and is surprisingly funny. His past was a total copy and paste effort, but ah well.
Pascal- She was funny at points, but also loses massive points for the loli groping gimmick. She was there to provide some zaniness to the party, which was her strongest aspect. She also was kind of the Pascal ex machina at points in the plot, but it's not a big deal I suppose. Her big reveal was handled pretty well though.
Party chemistry was helped immensely by the camera time and it being a group of peers. There was no Yuri or Jade who really dominated things, and all the PC's bounce off each other fairly well.
My overall thoughts is that there is some very good character stuff mixed in with a lot of generic stuff. No idea what I'm rating it yet. I loved playing the game, and love a lot of the ideas they put in there. Maybe an 8 or a 9- very likely the best Tales game I've played.
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Fenrir: Er. It really isn't surprising that Shepard can beat Dudebro in a fight. ME2 plot stuff means Shep is established as being quite a bit stronger then their body should indicate.
In a fight, yes. In a regular boxing fights without any super lasers or super armor though? She's made out of paper compared to dudebro and doesn't even have any particular tricks.
ME3: Oh come on. Don't put a meaningless turret section like in every basic shooter.
I got Garrus. Still no particularly great scene but I'm never going to battle without him.
Multiplayer is the most evil skinner box I've seen, with all that randomness.
Fights are still pretty fun though, at least when things start getting serious and jolly cooperation starts being essential.
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Shep was rebuilt by Cerberus into the six-million-dollar Commander, not just back to normal specs. He's got cybernetic and genetic enhancements far beyond anyone else in the Alliance military. Might as well be wearing a red track suit.
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Ys II Chronicles: Finished. It was fun despite objectively having some pretty serious flaws from age.
Gameplay: Random-smashing is WAY easier in Ys II; it's called "run in diagonals." If you are running in a diagonal you are invincible, if you are going in a straight line the good ramming ship Adol will take damage. I loaded a game of Ys I to see if I just hadn't noticed this before, and nope, this strategy seems like it will get you killed in Ys I. As for bosses, mostly goddamnit it don't balance using subtractive Defense, damnit. If you play a Metroidvania game and run around underlevel with bad gear, you'll do cruddy damage and get 2HKOed by everything, but you can theoretically win. (And in fact the max lvl. 1 mode exists for this challenge.) If you are underlevel in Ys II there's a decent number of bosses you just tink off and it's time to go level some more. Third to last boss, Zeva, ended up particularly disappointing: I kept grinding trying to damage her at all, then realized I'd missed a new sword (which powers up your fireballs), then suddenly I was killing her too quickly with the extra levels + better gear. She'd have been a great fight otherwise. On the bright side, final boss was pretty awesome. Actually managed to die to him the first time despite Elixir, and was still a good fight on the second go 'round.
Map navigation has the giant asterisk that a few "doorways" are practically invisible and required a FAQ to be cued into investigating there. Ah old games.
Plot: Ys plot is so weird. It tries too hard. And it has some interesting elements yet mostly accidentally. Instead it wastes time on nonsensical explanations of the puzzle of the day, similar to my complaint about Metroid Fusion. I guess Zelda is the most comparable series here, and while Zelda plot is not generally hypable, it *usually* knows when to just not explain weird puzzle crap because it's a game. Look, having a goddess statue write on special paper that there's a special anti-illusion mirror hidden by the dark forces in the ice ridge is just weird. A Zelda game would just let you find the mirror, and then you could figure out that the door you can't get through must be an illusion, and then you can use the darn thing. Similarly, what is this nonsense about magically crafting this special lava zone as a (totally ineffective) moat against demons? Really, just have the ice & fire zones next to one another 'cuz, any explanation is worse that none. (Who knows, maybe Ys Origin will have something incredible.)
Flip side, it did have a few bits that were neat, and even awesome. I liked the Roo's Nest and the monster dialogue XSeed wrote. And the Campanile of Lane was appropriately dramatic. Wish more games knew when it was more dramatic to have no monsters. (Weird that the final final area also was monsterless, when they had a perfectly decent excuse for there to be more monsters there. And to abuse Time Stop some more.)
Adol being silent is still a bad idea, which shows most in his interaction with damsel in distress three (!) times, Lilia. What does Adol think about Lilia?! Who knows. It's hard for sparks to fly when it feels more like a one-sided infatuation. Still, I'd be fine with just having it stated that they're totes in love, in time for PLOT TWIST in the ending of it being... Adol & Feena?! Adol spent approximately 0 time with Feena, come on, she was only damsel in distress once, Lilia totally has you beat here. And the game never explained Feena's amnesia or WTF was going on in general with why the Goddesses lost power, but didn't really, but got captured or something. Ah well. More perplexing was the Ocaraina of Time esque "Sages" plotline, or in this case "Descendents of the Priests." Nobody fessed up to being Fact's descendent! Do we have enough? Not that the priests DO anything aside from hand you a Shield & a harmonica, there doesn't even seem to be any magical cheerleading ritual to enforce the mystic seal or some such, where missing a descendent of Fact might matter. Le sigh. Also I guess Ys wasn't destroyed 700 years ago, but just blasted off into the sky because that's what the cool islands do. Maybe more in Ys Origin, we'll see.
Music was awesome as expected. Personal nods for best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmE-ERWGq6E&feature=BFa&list=PL83781B8B76E9A29A Palace of Destruction (Lower levels of the Shrine, Ys I)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teWi23cvKMs&feature=BFa&list=PL83781B8B76E9A29A Dreaming (damn mirror maze)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYROVcW5lGY&feature=BFa&list=PL83781B8B76E9A29A Ruins of Moondoria (Shame it's such a small area, but best to start the game with a good track I guess)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT8jlrsOHx0&feature=BFa&list=PL83781B8B76E9A29A Ice Ridge of Noltia
Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSN): Whoa so Adol decides to travel the world with Dogi? Okay that explains the random comment from Goban in the Ys II ending about "Oh Gobi's waiting for you too!" I guess. Random thief who knocks down walls is bros with Adol, got it. I guess they want a rotation of anime girls each game for the player to wonder if this will be the one for Adol's wandering heart or something. Which it won't be, Mr. travelling silent heartbreaker.
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Ys needs as much of Dogi's wall breaking as Adol's drowning. Without it, Ys is incomplete.
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Final Fantasy Chibis - Completed Series Mode. Currently working on improving my Scores in Challenge Mode. So far I have two S ranks, Eternal Wind and Sunleth Waterscape (Vanille vibes yaay~) and quite a few A ranks. I also scored a perfect chain for Fight with Seymour and another battle stage though didn't make the S rank for them yet. My team is coming up for L30 average, I am using Lightning, Terra, Shantotto and Cloud ^_^ So far everyone has had a turn as leader apart from Shantotto. The one Dark Note I've unlocked kicks my ass. I've been getting my character shards from Rhythmia flags, every other 500 points. I have 3/8 for Vivi (yaay~) Cid (meh - but apparently I need him for a Libra based Farming team) and Ashe (=()
I enjoyed reading about your experiences and thoughts on the game Ciato!~
Game is definitely very fun and addictive I find. The nostalgia, chibis, RPG elements, etc make it playable even for somebody who is poor with rhythm/sound and hand/eye co-ordination =) Maxxing out my characters will help me do better on Expert and Dark Notes I hope :) Levelling and setting them up with different skills and abilities has seemed to help me do better on Normal already at least~
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Metal Gear Solid 2: Finished.
First off, let me just say the whole Naked Raiden thing was completely unnecessary. Look, I get it; you want a section of the game where he person is defenseless and you have to rely on actual sneaking around...but we didn't need to see Raiden's ass the entire time. Pretty sure the first one just had Snake with his shirt off, which I have to question why they went the extra mile.
Also, Final boss really needed to not have Burn status. The fight has enough going on as is (especially with the weird sword controls, though I did discover a few gimmicks that helped make the fight more bare-able...also worth noting only ONCE did I die by damage; the other 3-4 were accidentally running off the ledge, and pressing Dodge thus falling to my death...), there's no reason to force you to dodge like a moron to get rid of progressive damage. It stalls the fight, not so much makes it harder.
That said, gameplay was a dramatic step up from the original. There was more you can actually do, actual ways to use Guns to avoid combat rather than promote it (shoot with M9 -> Wait for them to fall asleep. Nice how you can hit any part of their body, and they'll be affected eventually), the actual combat didn't completely fail this game if it was forced (instead promoting you to avoid combat by making it clearly punishing), and boss fights definitely were better designed, as well as THE ABILITY TO AIM NORMALLY AND INTUITIVELY. Though, the gauntlet of enemies with Snake was...not well crafted; combat is improved, but not enough to suggest something like that. Also, I never used any of my C4 or mines or anything.
Plot...well...based on the first two games, I feel like anything before the last 2 hours in an MGS game is meaningless on plot. Its all red herrings, random action movie stuff, etc. until the last 2 hours where there's the CONSTANT VILLAIN RAMBLINGS that FINALLY tell you what the hell is actually going on. And based on that...well...
A. 30 Xanatos Pile Up much? I don't have to explain this
B. Did we REALLY need all the philosophical nonsense? Being philosophical doesn't make you game deeper if you're BLATANTLY TELLING WHAT THE PLAYER HAS TO THINK ABOUT. If you want to be philosophical, be subtle about it damn it! Especially since the game kind of answers its own philosophical questions in the epilogue with Snake's monologue.
C. Game is complicated for the sake of being complicated. Yes, we get it; the Not!Illuminati have actually been controlling everything, even stuff you didn't think they were, and there was only one unexpected factor in the mix. I know this is MGS standard for constant villainous reveals on top of other ones, but the concept here was simplistic enough that point A just comes off as meaningless. As soon as that organization was mentioned, it became blatantly obvious "They are behind everything, PERIOD."
D. The whole "This was based off Shadow Moses Island incident!" feels more like their way of saying "Oh shit, we're just rewriting the plot and events of the first game in a different setting aren't we? I know! We'll say its intentional!" Game gets points for a clever explanation, but I can't fathom that was all intended from the outset. Someone mid development must have recognized what they were actually doing, and rather than change it, they came up with an explanation to justify it.
Also, I think not playing MGS1 in its hay-day helps this game because it means the RAIDEN DISAPPOINTMENT FACTOR makes me not give 2 shits. Though from my understanding, that was entirely Konami's fault for how they promoted MGS2, showing nothing but scenes from the Tanker section of the game, implying "MORE SNAKE!" and then it actually being another character's game after what was effectively the demo. Raiden himself wasn't a bad protagonist, truth be told, as I'm sure most of the hate for him stems from "NOT SNAKE >:("
Oh, and kudos for the game having a sense of variety in the OST. While I won't say I LIKED the songs, at least this game knew that playing the same damn song in 5 different variants does not constitute as an OST. Seriously, as I probably mentioned before, MGS1's final boss theme (of sorts) sounding almost exactly the same as generic grunts just...kind of loses all meaning, and gets tiring. Nice to here at least different melodies.
So yeah, MGS3 is next, naturally, will probably start that up within a week or something.
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Flareon vs the World: Main game beat. Doing... not main game now? I don't honestly know anymore.
Either way, my general assessment is that it is pretty much like most Pokemon spin-offs. Neat concept that, done right, would be really awesome. Instead, subpar implementation really mars an enjoyable experience. (Could I have a Pokemon spin-off that lets my Pokemon have more than one attack just once?)
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Pokemon Conquest:
So this is absolutely awesome stuff. Pokemon + Feudal Japan is just so odd, but really entertaining. I like the basic premise of Monster-collecting and an SRPG, and it's even more fun when you Collect Warlords on top of the usual Pokemon.
The SRPG elements are really stripped down, though. Each Pokemon only gets one active ability, plus the OPB active ability of their Warrior (Trainer, but uses Telepathy instead of Pokeballs to control them). On the other hand, they all get 3 pretty interesting passive abilities, so positioning and party composition become where the majority of the strategizing comes into play, which I'm all about.
Evolution requirements are dumb, but fairly standard for Pokemon. The recruiting mechanism for Warriors is kinda annoying, but I dig the "Synchronizing" Rhythm game for how Warriors recruit new Pokemon.
One of the big draws for me, however, is the fact that you essentially get to recruit Gym Leaders in this game. It really makes team-building more fun when there are non-generics in Pokemon. At least for me, since I'm all about using the Story characters. The fact that they are all historical figures just makes it that much more fun.
The only thing that -really- annoys me about the Warlords (Gym Leaders/Historical Japanese Figures) is that over half of them aren't recruitable in the maingame. And two of them that -are- require a password or wi-fi connecting to recruit (not that this is -hard-, but I'd have preferred just getting them through a recruiting battle like the others).
As of roughly 55% of the way through the maingame, about to take on the first of Nobunaga's actual army, I have recruited all but 2 of the recruitable Warlords for the entire main story and evolved all of the ones (my main) who can evolve in the main story. This whole being-locked-out-of-catching-em-all is frustrating me to no end. Oh sure, I can catch a bunch of the Pokemon with my generics, but I want my kickass story characters.
Current Warlords: 16 - Jo (Female Main Rank II/Eevee-trainer), Oichi (Required, Normal/Dragon, Jigglypuff), Motonari (Password-unlocked, Grass), Motochika (Password-unlocked, Water), Ginchiyo (Thunder), Muneshige (Normal/Flying, Ginchiyo's husband), Yoshimoto (Bug/Steel), Yoshihiro (Fighting), Shingen (Required, Rock/Ground), Yukimura (Fire/Flying), Kunoichi (Dark/Ice), Kenshin (Required, Psychic/Fighting), Kanetsugu (Psychic), Aya (Ice/Ghost)
Warlords left I can get: 2 (Gracia and Magoichi)
Warlords left that I can only get in aftergame: 20
Literally more Postgame story characters than Maingame. ~aggravation~
The only available Water-using Warlord in the maingame is Password-only. Even in postgame, there's only one other. gg, Pokemon Conquest.
However, the game -does- give me easily-recruitable Aggrons, so...
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Chrono Trigger DS
HOLY BALLZ so decided to go ahead and beat lavos to unlock the dimensional vortex, firstly i must say they changed a lot of the script's contents... Everything is a lot more clear now.. Shocking the revelations really....really really shocking, all the new dialog on events with magus in your party is nice too.
Now I must play through multiple times to get all the endings so I can see how different the story is with this actually good translation.
(the translation/revised script is far superior to the PSX version btw).
Difficulty of bosses and enemies with a party in the late 60s to early 70s, If I didn't have access to infinite megalixers they would be ballz hard, but I do so....stupidly easy. I don't even have to try if I use Robo and his newest weapon.
Also 90% crit rate is dumb.
Farming infinite magic capsules before I challenge the final, final (super) boss. This boss is hella cheap so extremely difficult regardless of level. (it uses trick moves, and not to mention Curse, Etc so all your defensive gear except plates is fairly worthless. I won't spoil the plot though you will have to get the game yourself. It is worth every minute, though word of advice take a break from playing before you take on Lost Sanctum, Dimensional Vortex, and Arena. They are tedius if you've been playing story mode, but coming back in after a long break they are excruciatingly fun! (and a level up nearly every map change XD, an impressive feat in the 60s and 70s level range i hear 90-99 though takes many hours).
Far more fantastic than the previous incarnations, the new animated cut scenes added in addition to the ones from PSX version are pretty cool, the story is actually clearly connected to chrono cross once you finally understand who the entity is lol. (and no its not schala)
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Honestly, by the time I did everything to unlock it, I found the Dream Devourer no harder than most CT bosses. It's got tricks, and the raw stats are OP Lavos level, but you're just that damned powerful with all that aftergame gear.
Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy- Finally unlocked the last song and completed it, so I think I'm willing to call the game finished now. The core game has a couple niggling flaws (I'm convinced it sometimes just does not read slides correctly), but once you get up to the higher difficulties it's really easy to time with the music rather than the visuals and it gets very intense and fun. Mind, on Ultimate I question the physical ability to complete the BMS tracks, but anyway.
The game however shares the key flaw of Dissidia, which I just naturally compare it to in many ways; it's grindier than fuck. It's not as offensive, since you do at least start unlocking stuff just through normal play, but after a point there's a moment where you say "okay, I've been playing the game 15 hours, why have I only unlocked 2 new songs?" That said, I spent 27 or so hours getting the unlockable songs which is a bit just, but not soul-shattering. The characters are completely ridiculous, but seeing as this is a rhythm game and not a fighting game, they're just a cute extra (and honestly a way to challenge yourself as much as anything; they're weaker than the mains by quite a ways from what I can tell).
Anyway, not setting the world on fire, but worth picking up if you've got the 3DS anyway.
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Conquest: So apparently Guardian Charm breaks the game pretty hard. Send a single pokemon into battle with it and they get a massive stat boost. And they get a large amount of link% also for soloing the battle. You still need a team of pokemon for some of the capture the flag ones. Terrera is completely impossible to win with one pokemon.
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Wild ARMS 4 -
Kraken is dead. I ended settling. But since being any faster requires a back to back double crit along with holding a 4 man Joint Struggle, I just decided to skip it. Rest of the segment was good. Time for Hugo.
Devil Survivor 2 -
Up to the 3rd day. About to save some other dude. Killed more demons. Yep.
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FF13-2: Got back to this, CAPTAIN CRYPTIC IS FINISHED HELL YEAH!
And got the Lucky Coin in Serendipity.
...so I just have the Beastiary one left for "completely fucking stupid Fragments" and then I can actually get to doing more interesting things. Also got 3 more paradox endings...
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FF13-2: Got back to this, CAPTAIN CRYPTIC IS FINISHED HELL YEAH!
And got the Lucky Coin in Serendipity.
...so I just have the Beastiary one left for "completely fucking stupid Fragments" and then I can actually get to doing more interesting things. Also got 3 more paradox endings...
>wants to do interesting things
>playing something FF13-related
Motherfucker are you serious?
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Conquest: So apparently Guardian Charm breaks the game pretty hard. Send a single pokemon into battle with it and they get a massive stat boost. And they get a large amount of link% also for soloing the battle. You still need a team of pokemon for some of the capture the flag ones. Terrera is completely impossible to win with one pokemon.
Tell me more about where one gets this 'Guardian Charm'...
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FE9: Started doing the low-level run on this because I was too impatient on FE8, where bonus exp. resetting wasn't an option. About to start The Great Bridge, and I've just had to use bonus Exp. to change my party members for the first time. (Wanted Brom on the team, so pushed Ilyana up to the same level as him, letting me switch her out.) I'll do a proper breakdown once I complete this, but so far, MVPs throughout the game have been Lethe, Reyson, Jill and Tormod. Sothe has actually started getting kills again, thanks to the Stiletto. Only really annoying stages so far have been Day Breaks Pt. 4 and the stage with Shiharam, who nobody but Ike could really touch at all. Also recently started getting promotions - in order, I've had Ike, Volke, Rhys, Oscar and Tormod promote so far.
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Oh nice, I did a run extremely similar to this (major difference was no BExp) so I am certainly interested to read about this. I'm surprised Lethe is good, since for me, by the time I first used her (which was around your map) she was really quite weak; same with all the other prepromos. Also, interesting choice of hardest maps; I actually thought Day Breaks was one of the easiest sections of the game. Shiharam I also had no significant issue with (Sothe steals elixir, then apply unpromoted mage to the face) but of course, RNG is RNG so a slightly different party could make a big difference there. I think up to your point I found the hardest challenge to be Shiharam's map, though not the boss especially. I found wyverns a real pain with how squishy most of your army is.
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Are you doing much RNG manipulation or just winging it?
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I've done some very slight RNG stuff - basically, only on Bonus Exp levels, and only to the point that I want to get at least 4 stats up.
Also, for reference, this is on Hard Mode and I'm counting Laguz as double their level, since I think that accurately reflects their worth.
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Etrian Odyssey 3 - Up to second stratum boss. Got wiped when he did his big MT 2 turns in a row. Will account for that next time as a possibility. Should be fairly doable.
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Conquest: So apparently Guardian Charm breaks the game pretty hard. Send a single pokemon into battle with it and they get a massive stat boost. And they get a large amount of link% also for soloing the battle. You still need a team of pokemon for some of the capture the flag ones. Terrera is completely impossible to win with one pokemon.
Tell me more about where one gets this 'Guardian Charm'...
You buy it from the Cute Merchant that randomly appears inbetween months. It costs 10000 gold. Anything bought from the merchant carries over to all your scenarios (or until used, like a Fire Stone).
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I've done some very slight RNG stuff - basically, only on Bonus Exp levels, and only to the point that I want to get at least 4 stats up.
Also, for reference, this is on Hard Mode and I'm counting Laguz as double their level, since I think that accurately reflects their worth.
Ah, that makes sense. I treated them as Level+20, which is how the exp formula treats them (and probably closer to accurate for a while, since a Level 4 laguz is obviously stronger than a Level 8 beorc), but your method makes sense too, and yeah, would make Lethe really good.
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Dark Souls: Had the urging need to play again ever since I heard of the Prepare to Die edition. Which was actually about a month ago, but I'm lazy. Felt like playing as Bobstein, savior of the Soul Level 1s. Who prompty proceded to die a half-dozen times in the forest while I relearned things. Then despite being months out of practice I manage to finally beat Pharis. Granted last time I played was before the Patch so fighting Pharis then was without lock-on so eh. Got my swanky new hat though!
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Xenogears: Started playing this again, forgot like...everyone dies at the beginning, also having actually read various "bibles" now and playing the game....a lot of shit is making a lot more sense, also this game is much much much darker than I remember.
Chrono Cross: Lol only at the opening animation but soon the addictive play throughs!
RPGmakerVXace: Tooling around with this...might just start working on my game sooner than later ahahaha, in which case I probably won't play video games for some time.
League of Legends: Excitedly waiting for Zyra to juice. The Eve rework is horrendously powerful, the twitch rework is garbage(both still broken as hell regardless; in skilled hands of course). Almost out of Elo hell again squeee
Hyper Dimension Neptunia MK-2: Uhhh it states online that the game was made such that you don't need to play the first to get it. This is a complete and utter lie. Also this is the only game that has brazenly violated the "15 minute rule" and actually become incredibly fun to play after 2+ hours in(and only just then). Pretty much when you actually get new characters(NISA!!!! <3). The Meta jokes are hilarious but one seriously needs to play the first game first unfortunately as nearly all of them reference the first game /sigh. This game makes me want to pirate EVEN MOAR because the bad guys are SO COOL <3 idols. But it is somewhat playable for me without playing the first as I DO enjoy being thrust into the middle of a story with no explanations or details hahah, however this leads to a lot of the story and references leaving me bemused :(
Some game I can't remember the name of with stamps and seals and stamp magic: Super ultra fun to play, hella boring to watch apparently. And heavily memory/math pattern figure out play based. Which is boss awesome! So enjoying it quite a bit....also body switch gender bender!
Pokemon Conquest: I need to get this game, but sold out everywhere(why they only sending 1-2 copies per store per refill wave ARGGHH), including online unless you are willing to pay $20 more for it hahah. Online backorders are so back ordered since such small shipments that....you won't even get your copy most likely in the next few shipment waves -_-
Hopefully nintendo is catching wind this game might be more popular/well selling than the main game...lol
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Grandia 3 - Challenge run beaten.
Melc Crystals was truly monstrous, I had something like 6 resets. Just a real tough fight to stay on top of, it needs much better healing than what I had (a single PC with Alheal). The rest of Melc Ruins was also a pain, with several resets against Red Beasts (speedy bastards who do high 2HKO cancelling physical damage or MT fire 2HKO with Ba-Boom among a few other options) and Hyudras (who are insane without Lizard Slayer which makes them not too bad).
After that the game got way easier, disappointingly so. I had actively good luck against Violetta (also learned that she hates defence down a lot) and Emelious in terms of how all the turns went and neither gave me terribly large difficulty, and randoms, eh. Final dungeon was a bit better and certainly I was a bit nervous at points with Calibus and of course the dreaded hallway of Excise Omega + Last Keeper, but nothing too bad. I leaned increasingly heavily on physical setups of Slayer skills and Berserker to get things done, and it worked well enough. No resets for this entire stretch.
Fortunately Xorn put up a good fight to make up for this. One reset (plus another where uh I forgot to re-equip Alfina's magic, beating Xorn without healing is lolno) and the second fight was certainly tough with a skin-of-my-teeth ending featuring a dead Dahna and everyone else in the red. Dimension Gate phase was obviously extremely nasty because that hits way too hard, Death Knell could be bad if I couldn't get out of it. Darkness also fairly brutal. Despair wins the award for extra annoying attack on this playthrough, though. My strategy to make Xorn sane revolved around tying him up with berserker IP-damaging physicals (not that I really noticed any IP damage, gauge moves too fast) stunning him at the COM line. This works... reasonably well (not even close to a total lockdown but it prevented constant triple-turns... usually. If things went against me they still happened). However it falls apart ENTIRELY with Despair, as that dispels Flash/Shadow Warrior/Wow, AND seals off the effects of Berserker so yeah, you now fail forever at that strategy. Also of course kills off Life Up which lets Dahna get OHKOed. I basically had Dahna defending except when absolutely necessary during the second half of the battle because even if she wasn't getting OHKOed, it didn't take much else to push her over the edge and uh Xorn gets a lot more turns than my healer. Fun fight.
Compared to my previous playthrough (females only), this was certainly an easier challenge. Having four PCs just helps too much, and the restrictions weren't -that- harsh. However, it's interesting to note that both Melc Crystals and Xorn were harder for this playthrough. A lot of that is because both those fights benefit a lot from having more PCs who can toss out good MT healing at any point (Alheal isn't as good as Alhealer or Healing Gems, and only one PC had it). Some of it is also that the two-PC team suffers more against more enemies since they're harder to plan for (and can combo you in annoying ways), and most randoms (as well as Emelious, possibly the hardest boss for the two PCs) feature those.
If I did one thing different about this challenge I would probably allow egg fusion at a certain point; I didn't realise there was no non-fused egg in the game that could turn into Meteor Strike for instance. Same with Alhealer and Crackle Fang. I can accept no Absolute Zero or Crystal Wall (the ultimate water and earth spells), though kinda unfairly the two guys (who needed the help less and couldn't use magic nearly as well anyway) both got their ultimate spells, Heaven's Gate from plot and Astraea Zap from a random egg outside Raflid Town. Astraea Zap isn't that good anyway, Heaven's Gate was solid enough in its extremely limited fashion.
Wild Arms XF basic equipment - I'm up to 3-7, shit is getting real. Overall the differences between this and vanilla weren't too noticeable for a while, although the stretch of battles from the end of chapter 1 until 2-4 (oh god 2-4) were already pretty good and making them harder has predictable results; I had something like 4 resets on 2-4. Afterwards nothing too bad for a while (one reset on the Elesius escape) until Lefas Corner and its storebought +2 equips where I really fall behind. However, after one or two kinda decent battles, the game goes into easy mode until Alexia joins. Both those maps were a bit tougher than normal because she couldn't use her personal equipment making her quite bad. Then in 3-2 I hit Crestabelde which sells +3 equips and now I'm really behind, plenty of fights are quite nasty since, but particularly 3-5-A (Martial Guard defence of the Guardian Shrine) and now 3-7 (final Samille/El Jackson battle featuring power of TEAMWORK). I suspect things only get harder from here but maybe some Emulator bullshit will prove me wrong.
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Hyper Dimension Neptunia MK-2: Uhhh it states online that the game was made such that you don't need to play the first to get it. This is a complete and utter lie. Also this is the only game that has brazenly violated the "15 minute rule" and actually become incredibly fun to play after 2+ hours in(and only just then). Pretty much when you actually get new characters(NISA!!!! <3). The Meta jokes are hilarious but one seriously needs to play the first game first unfortunately as nearly all of them reference the first game /sigh. This game makes me want to pirate EVEN MOAR because the bad guys are SO COOL <3 idols. But it is somewhat playable for me without playing the first as I DO enjoy being thrust into the middle of a story with no explanations or details hahah, however this leads to a lot of the story and references leaving me bemused :(
Actually, Mk 2 sorta retcons most of what happens in the first game.
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Hyper Dimension Neptunia MK-2: Uhhh it states online that the game was made such that you don't need to play the first to get it. This is a complete and utter lie. Also this is the only game that has brazenly violated the "15 minute rule" and actually become incredibly fun to play after 2+ hours in(and only just then). Pretty much when you actually get new characters(NISA!!!! <3). The Meta jokes are hilarious but one seriously needs to play the first game first unfortunately as nearly all of them reference the first game /sigh. This game makes me want to pirate EVEN MOAR because the bad guys are SO COOL <3 idols. But it is somewhat playable for me without playing the first as I DO enjoy being thrust into the middle of a story with no explanations or details hahah, however this leads to a lot of the story and references leaving me bemused :(
Actually, Mk 2 sorta retcons most of what happens in the first game.
I have no idea whats going on, Who are Neptunia, Lastation, Lowee, and the xbox one? i have no character on them other than they have been being tentacle raped for 3+ years, i take it the last game had "bad end" ending regardless XD? I really want to know who they are I don't give two shits about the CPU canditates(this game feels like pilot canditate/for goddess imo). Nisa compa if is fun, let Nepgear die in eternal fire! This game too moe moe 10 year old girls.
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FF13-2: Got all 160 Fragments, watched extended ending. Did the Lightning DLC Episode, saw that ending. Beat Snow, then the guy after him. So really all that's left is beating Ultros/Typhon because I haven't done that yet, and I'll pretty much be finished with this game entirely. Huzzah or something.
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Grandia 2 LLG -
RICHARD pokes me and we continue our set trail into the great beyond. Oh yes, the pain has only just started.
Mareg:
Boss-Mareg is p.cool with his 2HKO Beast Fang Cut and 1.5x my speed. Still doesn't matter because he's all ST and there's only one of him. So whatever. He goes down, but not before KOing Ryudo once.
Valmar's Tongue:
This is the first real test (so to speak). There are four parts, with each part packing 2HKO damage to everyone but Mareg. None of the parts are particular fast (sans the tongue itself) and none of them are terribly durable. However, if you let them get an offensive turn going, they will rack up damage pretty quick. The right claw has a physical and a fan-shaped fire physical. The left claw has a fan shaped poison physical. The head can heal and has a tech called Eat'em Alive that does about 67% of a PC's HP (more to Roan, less to Mareg). Tongue can cast some debuffers, and has a couple of MT attacks (including Starving Tongue and Huge Leap).
RICHARD and I weren't sure of what it could do in the beginning, so I proposed we go straight for the jugular and aim for the tongue. Once it dies, everything else dies too. This turns out to be a good decision because both times I've had to fight it, it usually spends a good chunk of it's turns busy casting the almighty FREEZE. Given that nobody on the team is actively moving towards him, this is basically a free pass. The other factor working in my favour is that the other parts stop gaining CT when one part is acting. This helps to prevent any double turns and makes the damage much more manageable.
Mareg dumps all his SP asap and then proceeds to spend the rest of his turn item monkeying. Ryudo is the key member in this fight because of the Flamberge. It's an unlimited item cast BURN and it deals 350 damage each time. Neat stuff. Meanwhile, Millenia helps with Burn for about 320 damage a cast. The two of them go all offensive every turn, leaving Mareg and Roan to do the healing. Speaking of Roan, he is terrible. 2HKO'd by physicals and basically has no damage outside of Golden Hammer. But oh well, still sufficient. Eventually Tongue dies.
I had to redo the fight twice because Roan died last minute on the first fight and fighting the eyes at an even lower level than normal = arghle no.
Eyeball bats x4:
A foreshadowing of things to come. There are 4 of them. Each of them double turn and do 4HKO damage except on Roan who dies in 3 and Mareg who takes 5. Then they can also use Delta Burst when three of them are active for about 450 damage. In case you are wondering, this is OHKO territory on Roan and near OHKO on Ryudo and Elena. Nasty stuff. However, they do have one fatal exploitable weakness. Sleep.
RICHARD laughs at me when I go and buy the almighty SLEEP HARP. I get only two as a result, and the first fight results in almost absolute disaster as people start dying left and right and I am forced to revive people and have people consistently in yellow or red. Mareg still dumps all his SP, but this time, Ryudo and Roan are the damage dealers and Elena helps out with whatever support is possible. I burn all my revival at this point and upon finishing the fight, find out that this town does not sell the revival item (Yomi's Elixir). Welp.
I redo the fight again, this time getting Snooze (and maxing it) because the Eye of Valmar fight features these things again, and let's face it, I am not making out of that fight without this to control these things. By themselves they already cause a huge havoc. Can you imagine what happens once we add the eye there?
So anyway, this is the first skill upgrade we have (we've done the entire run so far without no coins invested anywhere). With Snooze maxed, this is a lot easier. Both Elena and Roan cast Snooze until 3 of the bats are asleep. Ryudo and Mareg do there thing with Mareg using physicals once he's out of SP. Doing this, I make it through the fight without anyone dying once.
EYE of Valmar is next. And you know he's going to cause endless resetting.
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Dark Souls: Had the urging need to play again ever since I heard of the Prepare to Die edition. Which was actually about a month ago, but I'm lazy. Felt like playing as Bobstein, savior of the Soul Level 1s. Who prompty proceded to die a half-dozen times in the forest while I relearned things. Then despite being months out of practice I manage to finally beat Pharis. Granted last time I played was before the Patch so fighting Pharis then was without lock-on so eh. Got my swanky new hat though!
Fudo are you actually doling a SL1 run? If so, I request deathcount.
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FF13-2: This got down to $20 so I finally picked it up. In the second time period now, where I can start becoming a Pokemon Master.
Also O_o at the amount of DLC. If I wanted to spend money on virtual crap, I'd play Perfect World.
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Perfect World: Spending money on virtual crap.
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A lot of the DLC is pointless anyway.
The costumes are exactly what you expect them to be, so you can see how they look in the DLC menu that should be enough.
The Weapons are NOT better than stuff already in the game, despite how they have names like "Genji Bow", more just alternatives, so I wouldn't bother there either.
Sazh and Lightning DLC do help some behind the scene stuff in plot, and Lightning stuff does add to the game's ending a little bit, I guess; Sazh's stuff is just there for "hey Sazh!"
The DLC fights...well, kind of neat for extra challenges, but not overly important. Outside of Snow's DLC; that sort of ties into the genuine plot, by wrapping up his arc in a tongue and cheek manner, but its not crucial or anything.
So...yeah, not getting any of them shouldn't hurt the game too much.
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Dark Souls: Had the urging need to play again ever since I heard of the Prepare to Die edition. Which was actually about a month ago, but I'm lazy. Felt like playing as Bobstein, savior of the Soul Level 1s. Who prompty proceded to die a half-dozen times in the forest while I relearned things. Then despite being months out of practice I manage to finally beat Pharis. Granted last time I played was before the Patch so fighting Pharis then was without lock-on so eh. Got my swanky new hat though!
Fudo are you actually doling a SL1 run? If so, I request deathcount.
Bobstein was originally going to be a SL1 run but I burned out while waiting for the Patch so I could target the Invisible d00ds. Though at the very least there's I think 5 deaths from that little playing I did recently.
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Grandia 2 LLG:
Eye of Valmar -
So yeah, this big guy gets an entire post. His fight took approximately an hour. I have like 4 eye witnesses to boot watching me slowly outslug it. First, skill set ups and the like. I'm going to list specifics because this is by far the hardest fight so far and tops some of the other crazy hard fights in other games. The entire fight constantly kept me on my toes, so that's pretty impressive. As a further note, 0 resets on the eye, which is of course, awesome.
Going into this fight, we have around 3.8k SC coins, and 1.5k MC coins (not counting the ones spent on Snooze). This is obviously not a lot, so RICHARD proposed the following which I agreed. For Skills, we improve on a few key skills and avoid investing any coins into techs. This results in 2 maxed HP Up skills (as discussed in chat, NEB notes that +800 HP is pretty beefy especially for LLG characters), maxed Item skill use (important AND cheap!) as well strength+30 and Agility+20. For Magic, the exact opposite; get as many spells as possible and avoid magic related skills. This gets us Burnflame (important), Diggin (important) and a few upgrades to some other spells (Heal, Stram).
Millenia equips the Chaos Egg with Burnflame (duh) and has HP Up/Agility Up as she is the most important person in the fight. Ryudo gets nothing. Roan gets HP Up as he is frail (and for whatever reason, the most commonly picked target during the fight) and Mareg gets Skilled Item Use and Strength Up. With all that set, we're ready.
The Eye really is a huge step up from the last Valmar boss, even on a normal game. In a LLG, aside from being a pest in adding status, he also has lots of GT damage and Crackle, which deals massive amounts of damage (500 or so). The HP Up characters can afford to take a hit, but Ryudo can't (610 HP max) and Mareg is 2HKO'd by it, so it is nasty. However, more nasty than that, the eyeball bats are back. With 4 of them attacking, they can easily lock down targets on the turn gauge and delta burst still exists. Crap.
The strat is as follows: Eyeball bats have to die ASAP. To do so, Sleep is used to put as many things out of commission at once. The success rate is decent, but the main Eye and the left tendril can't be slept. 5 Diggins also needs to be cast to prevent characters from being near KO'd by everything. Preferably, this can be done after a large majority of things are asleep, but it's not always possible. With Diggin up and sleep floating around, slowly Burnflame things and throw lots of bombs at targets to knock them out. Millenia uses Fallen Wings once and then a second time when she gets pissed, so that extra damage helped. Once 3 bats are out of the way, we gunned straight for the eye. On reflection, RICHARD suggests we probably need to take out one of the tendrils and I agree. The amount of status they fling out can make things go out of control and at one point, I have a confused Ryudo, SBE'd Roan and an asleep Mareg which was incredibly dangerous despite the reduced number of targets. Eventually, after a long slog, the left tendrils fall, leaving us with only the main eye and the right tendril. However, I'm also in bad shape, running low on MP and items. I spend multiple turns replenishing Ryudo and Millenia's MP for healing, sleep and damage. A final push with 3 bomb users drops it though and we are victorious with no deaths. Whew.
Levels at the end of this: 18, 18, 17, 19 (Ryudo, Millenia, Roan, Mareg). Yep, Claw is next with a 20 level disadvantage or so.
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Since in some form of irony that post about deaths got my prepare to die blood pumping a bit more.
Bobstein Deaths Chart The Yesterday or Two Days Ago Version.
Cleric Gang-Beating
Probably murdered again
Died again? Probably.
SURPRISE! Ent attack
Pharis Slash Frenzy
We'll start this count at 12! Because I know I died a bunch back in December or whenever.
Now for Today/Yesterday Deaths!
13: Getting greedy with the Stone Soldiers and Ents.
14: Capra Demon being a fatass stopped the dogs from running up the stairs until after he attacked and wiped out most of my stam.
15: Capra Demon and dogs being terrible assholes and not even letting me up to the stairs. Bye bye 4 humanity and 27k souls.
Random Notes of the Day
-Stone Soldiers are hilariously weak to blunt weapons. I was two-shotting them with the Reinforced Club+5 being two-handed. A lot faster than the minute long brawl with the Drake Sword.
-My first boss kill was the Moonlight Butterfly. Yayyyyyyy.
-Second was the Capra Demon. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
-Randomly placed my summon sign and got summoned for the Taurous Demon. TWICE! Still haven't beaten him in my game.
-Rescued Pyromancer, can make my hand all super-burning now!
-I Can actually retain fast roll with Elite Knight's Leggings.
Current Goals
-Get More Reinforced Clubs.
-Get better at Parrying.
-See how many Shields are better than Hollow Soldier's now.
-Farm stuff.
-Probably go laugh at Pinwheel.
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How can you skip Taurus Demon? I thought going past him was required to reach Undead Parish the first time.
Also greatclub is best. Nothing like smashing people with a weapon bigger than you are.
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Fire Emblem 9: Challenge has become somewhat brutal, actually. C26, the one with Bertram as the boss, starts off with army of enemies rushing the team. Since I generally set up defensively on stages without time limits (and most of the ones with!), I instantly did this again, but always had someone die - Shinon, Rhys, Boyd, Gatrie, Ulki, Muarim, Elincia, Kieran, Jill, Zihark and Makalov all died during this. Next try, I send forward a select few units, keep my mounted units at a short distance so they can go in, attack, and then flee, and leave the rest in a corner out of reach. However, as soon as the cavalry come in, they attack the mounted support unit and people die. Now? My current strategy is to solo the stage with Ike, basically. Rhys/Tormod have long-range spells, so they can pick off anyone who gets past Ike's range, and I can pick up a Silver Sword along the way to help with weapon charges. The main issue I have here is getting the party to survive and give Ike a weapon after he runs out of charges, which is how Muarim died on the last attempt.
Currently trying this as the easy challenge, with the harder one being...
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne: LLG! Yes I'm quite probably insane to try this. Just beat Specter, who actually took a few attempts, and have only done one optional fight so far (right at the start, where the first encounters in the game are, I took a detour for a treasure chest and fought the Will O' Wisp that appeared.) I'm keeping a -very- detailed log of things, but to summarise.. Main character is currently Lv 8, recruiting demons is incredibly difficult, I have a High Pixie, thanks to the Specter fight, Magatama purchases are based on whether I'll actually learn anything from them any time soon (bought Shiranui and not Iyomante because Shiranui gives Fire Breath at Lv 9, Iyomante doesn't give Sukunda until Lv 13), and I am absolutely dreading Matador.
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Congrats for the Eye of Valmar.
A pure Nocturne LLG has already been done before. (Matador at level 8. Ouch.)
Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgCmfxl3NNc
(We are inferior)
ME3, Insane Vanguard: Doing the geth stuff. There's not much more place left on the party screen, so I guess I have my total 6 characters. I'm... a bit disappointed. I loved ME2's cast. I definitely think this game is inferior now, though I can't really tell why. I know the ME2 Overlord music played during some ME3 mission that was so boring compared to Overlord that it felt like a disgrace. Like Hoshigami using the FFT track Apoplexy.
The final choice on Tuchanka was extremely hard, probably the hardest in a game so far. I know there will be no consequences in this game, but it doesn't really matter; they're easy to foresee. I'm impressed by the closure given to some topics started a few years ago in ME1.
It's amusing how easy insane mode has become with a vanguard. (I still die sometimes) Multiplayer on gold is substentially harder. This shows well the schizophrenia between the RPG singleplayer part of the game (RPG being the easiest videogame genre in general), and the multiplayer Gears of wars like mode.
I find multiplayer unlocks less bad as before, you just have to not want a single particular thing, and be happy with whatever you get. OR YOU WILL GO CRAZY.
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How can you skip Taurus Demon? I thought going past him was required to reach Undead Parish the first time.
Also greatclub is best. Nothing like smashing people with a weapon bigger than you are.
Master Key allows you to go down to Havel and backroute yourself into the Parish through Darkroot.
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Graces: F arc is done. Beat it at L80. Final boss was a massive pain in the ass, but it's done!
Some F arc/general plot thoughts:
Props for the game not using death as an easy escape. Even both final bosses live through the confrontation. The only characters who die are Cedric (executed by Richard) and Kurt.
I really liked f arc. Lambda of all people got fleshed out quite nicely, and Sophie also benefited from it as well. She grappled a lot with her own lack of mortality, which was a nice contrast to the otherwise lighthearted story arc. I loved Richard in the main party. He makes a great foil for Malik and bounces very well off Hubert too. Malik and Richard's trolling is fucking hilarious. Asbel is more or less relegated to the straight man for this arc. Hubert confessing to Pascal was *painful*, since you could tell that she totally got the gist of what he really meant. Nice scene though.
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RPG Maker VX Ace
Made 2 custom sprites(in game character generator is pretty good; really boss hairstyles lol!)
1 custom class
Quite a few skills and an animation tweak.
And tooled around with all the settings for awhile.
This game is gonna be sick.
Verdict on map editing: I HATE THIS SHIT OMG so tedius lol, nah its super fun but man i suck at setting up god damn battle events!
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Dark Souls, legacy of the SL1 Bobstein.
16: Backstabbed by Forest guy.
17. The Black Knight who guarded the Peculiar Doll didn't take kindly to my actions.
18. Skeleton shiskabob 1.
19. Cowardly necromancer ran from Divine Judgement. Right into trap. Skeleton shiskabob 2.
20. Did you know that the skeletons can parry/riposte? You do now! Shiskabob 3.
21. Titanite Demon gets all up in my face. Then my face is smeared across three rooms.
22. It's not the fall that kills you, it's the skeleton shiskabob at the bottom 4.
23. Titanite gets me by the skin of my teeth. My teeth and skin meanwhile end up reaching orbit.
24. Wheel Skeleton testing ground the first.
25. Black Knight SURPRISE! Sayonara 5 humanity and 30k souls.
26. Pinwheel. Wait what, how the fuck does anybody die to Pinwheel? Dammit this whole run must be another drug-addled fever-dream.
27. The only thing worse than a skeleton is one with a necromancer with three more skeletons nearby. Shiskabob 5.
28. Wheel skeleton roadkill 2.
-At this point Pinwheel dies and I get Father Mask, which was actually what I wanted. Since I actually got a Skull lantern from one of the Necromancers I decide to brave the Tomb of the Giants and rescue Rhea.
29. Vince and Nico are actually pretty big bastards when you have no health/stamina/armor/poise/stability.
30. Like, BIG bastards.
31. Huge even.
32. FUCKHUGE totally.
33. Make Mount Everest look like an ant.
34. I kindled the bonfire to 20 to deal with them.
35. And at this point it was also to deal with the four skeleton towers that took one life away.
36. And I still died--
37. --a lot to those two.
38. Finally I said screw it to light armor and threw on my Stone. I got close, very close...
39. AND DID IT! YAYYYYYYY RHEA! 39? Oh, dying to the bloody giant skeleton archer arrows of all the stupid things.
General Purpose Notes
-Fire Club rocks. Divine Club sucks. Magic club is in the middle. Dividing damage also makes the Divine and Magic clubs worse than the Club+5 against the basic skeletons somehow.
-Pyro Hand is at +10. Yayyyyyyyyy. Still less useful than fire club.
-Current armor is Father Mask/Black Leather/Elite Knight's Gauntlets/Stone Leggings. LOGIC!
-Havel still hurts even with the decent equipment.
-Got Gravelord because why not. Sword Dance is hilariously useless.
Current Goals
-Cry myself to sleep for dying to Pinwheel. Also pray the universe doesn't explode from the impossibility of it.
-Kill the Basin Hydra and rescue Dusk because I am a knight or something.
-Become a Sunbro.
-Farm up some Green Titanite for some more firey clubbin'.
-Kill Gaping Dragon I guess. Maybe Stray Demon if sense takes all leave of me.
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Mighty Switch Force - played through
Fairly entertaining, but a bit shorter than I expected. This is no doubt hand in hand with it being a time-attack style of game which I also didn't expect, and I'm not really a big fan of time attacks because I'm not very reflexy. That said I did replay until I beat the par times on incidents 1 through 14, at which point I got sick of doing it. Times for Incident 16 and Bonus 5 are 7:04.68 and 4:26.66 respectively.
Wario Land II VC - played through
Still great. Got 8:42 on the really final chapter which I think is fairly reasonable for not having remembered any of the tricks and playing on inferior 3ds controls. No idea what I had gotten down to back in the day when I cared about that sort of thing.
Essentially remembered where all the actually-hidden secret world entrances were, which is a mixed blessing. First played through without any doing any secret worlds because flowchartland is horrible, for all that in retrospect most of them lead to a game of the same length anyway (and consequently roughly the same amount of time banished to flowchartland).
Necromium - hit level cap
Hooray, level 33/33/33/33/33 warrior/warlock/druid/rogue/warrior avatar. At the advanced age of 666 necromium-years (I don't know how much that converts to in human years, but the only older character online currently is an 888-year old immortal, and there's a character the same level as I am which is only 25 necromium-years old... not that there are many people online these days (I'm hardly one to talk)).
Now I guess I can just let my character lapse at some point.
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26. Pinwheel. Wait what, how the fuck does anybody die to Pinwheel? Dammit this whole run must be another drug-addled fever-dream.
I've died to Pinwheel...once. (The only boss that's never killed me is Gaping Dragon. Well, and Priscilla because I don't fight her.)
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26. Pinwheel. Wait what, how the fuck does anybody die to Pinwheel? Dammit this whole run must be another drug-addled fever-dream.
I've died to Pinwheel...once. (The only boss that's never killed me is Gaping Dragon. Well, and Priscilla because I don't fight her.)
Heat death of the universe is that you o'er the horizon? The thing that absolutly pisses me off about the lose was because I had like eight Estus. I've literally gone into the fight with half health and no Estus and won. It's just this time he decides to fly high and summon out five clones before I even get a hit on him. My screen is so covered in Pinwheels I can't even see me.
Moving on....
Dark SOuls, revenge of the overly-long held shift key.
40. Phantoming. Havel decided that doing quintple damage was the in thing and took off 80% of my stamina and all of my life in one hit.
41. Phantoming. Havel again. This time one-shotting through full stone armor. I know being summoned boosts enemy stats but jeez what the hell this is completely boosted from last time I was being summoned.
42. Phantoming. Invader camping the walkyway with a spear. FUN*
43. Phantoming. Same jackass. Almost kill him this time. He only lives because he's eating on, I'm guessing, Divine Blessings to heal himself. A LOT OF THEM.
44. Giant rat chow. I was even in human form dammit...
I'm counting my deaths as a Phantom but not host deaths because they are wonderful marks of failure or something. I did manage to kill one invader though. And by me I mean the other guy with ballin' equipment who killed the invader while I distracted him. And then the host DCed or something.
General Notes
-Fire and Magic Reinforced Clubs are both at +4. Reinforced Club that's gonna be Lightning is at +10.
-Gaping Dragon is a lot faster than I remember.
-Trying to attack with the Spiked Shield without stats is kinda funny.
-Dusk rescued. Hydra only hit me once. Then I spent half an hour trying to kill its last head.
-Pyro hand at +15.
-Crown of Dusk, Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring and Pyro-hand+15 do good damage. And yet I still love my trusty club.
Current Goals
-Be stupid and fight the Stray Demon. Lose..... I'll say 13 humanity from being unable to recover the bloodstain. Maybe I'll instead do something smart and kindle a bunch of bonfires first.
-Go kill Sif because I am a monster.
-Fight zombie dragon for giggles.
-Backpath into Blighttown to fight Quelaag and Ceaseless Discharge.
-Hopefully be able to squeeze in killing the Gargoyles.
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Wild Arms XF
Up to Part 4 now. Part 3 was fairly rough... some notable battles which either drew resets or came close:
3-2-A: Clarissa and Alexia alone. This map is balanced for Alexia being able to one-shot most things but of course she couldn't for me so it was fairly easy to get overwhelmed by HP Down status from the dogs.
3-5-A: Martial Guard fight inside the Guardian Shrine. Lots of enemies with pretty decent stats. One of the usual tactics for dealing with physical swarms is Mesmerize but my evade is so low it doesn't work well. A couple resets, just mostly a matter of being careful and ensuring I'm not overwhelmed on any of multiple fronts, especially when the reinforcements appear.
3-6: First Samille/El Jackson fight in the past, the one with the Shut Out wall. This proves not as bad as I feared despite their damage; I have enough bodies. I dispel the wall and toss enemies back across to my dudes so they can beat them up.
3-7: Samille/El Jackson and the power of friendship. This one on the other hand is extremely nasty; the enemies have special defences to protect them from their weaknesses and many of them hit very hard. The two bosses + archer at the end are quite a nasty push; I end up going with Widespread Slow Down and Devastate to control them.
3-9: Status nightstalkers. Mostly deserves note for not being as bad as I expected, since this fight was hell for three people. Of course, status doesn't get any more effective against bad equipment. Would have been a much harder fight if the Royal Knights didn't hang back while I deal with the Nightstalkers, but oh well.
3-10: Asgard. This is tough, I get pretty badly wiped out the first time. Second time I use Widespread Remain and come in with more counters for Asgard such as an Extremist with Mesmerize (also successfully get Misery to land before half my party is wiped out, grr). Undead are not negligible by any means but between Exploit Weakness elements and Sanctify I have enough offence to mostly blow through them.
3-12: Unlike the previous Asgard fight this one sucks, why does he lose his support? The remaining golems are better but still not too hard to blow through with three people having Electrigger and two having wrenches.
3-13-A: Rewind fight gets a lot of my team wiped but I do successfully get Martial Mage Quickened Levin in range to Electrigger the Smoky Specimen, and make it out the rest of the way just barely. Spread Barrier's mean against my defences.
3-13-B: Weisheit is tough this time, no question, but I come ready with knowledge of how best to cheese his range, lots of aforementioned anti-golem tricks, and of course, my trump card of Widespread Remain. (Widespread Remains isn't perfect, since auto-revived PCs come back with 1 HP and an empty turn gauge, but it gets more effective the more enemies are dead, especially against a boss whose attacks come rarely such as this one.)
For classes, now that the final jobs have come out I have used a bit of High Cavalier (for the OC and for the raw HP, though the armour also helps more than usual... it boosts healing and I can use that with my non-godly magic stats), as well as Extremist (occasional evade tanking and Debilitate is nice) and of course Emulator (Electrigger and some Downhearted mostly, but in general the low MP consumption and Exploit Weakness are great). Still making extensive use of the elements of the first four jobs as well as Sacred Slayer, Strider, and Enigmancer, but nothing is new there. Using Grappler a bit more than I usually have in the past too just because the repositioning seems more valuable as my offence is more about formation arts than before (since otherwise fighters seriously struggle to hit).
Devil May Cry 4
Beaten chapter 4 (ice frog boss). I really miss Devil Trigger, why do the games keep taking this away? It may be the series' best idea. Anyway, fun enough combat besides that, I think enemy design may be the best it has been since DMC1? A bit early to say; the grunt enemy is quite bad unfortunately and right now I still fight too many of those, assuming that will change of course. Oh and the plot is taking itself kinda seriously which is lame. But yeah, I'm still enjoying it well enough.
I am also thinking of starting Shadow Hearts 3 again, been meaning to do it since beating SH2 again a few months ago and of course that game put me in the mood for the same gameplay with better battle design. I just haven't decided yet if I want to do a fairly normal playthrough or some sort of silly challenge. Fenrir, Snow, etc.: any ideas?
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SH3 challenge sounds good. You tried giving less emphasis to magic in the last replay you did, why not try that again? Alternatively, some elemental-alignment challenge, challenges limiting use of items (which break your resource management woes something fierce with the excess) and buffs (which bend bosses to their knees)... there's actually a bit of a dearth of options, but I probably need to be at home to concoct something more solid to begin with. SH3 feels like a game that would be tailor-made for something as convoluted and minutious as that VP challenge you did that may as well have been a piece of legislation. >_>
EDIT: No stock-busting challenge. Lady for eternal Bluelike.
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For what its worth, Devil Trigger pops up I think at the end of Chapter 5. I know before your next major boss, and earlier than DMC3 did. Its also ridiculously broken on offense in this game!
And I think the reason they keep taking it away is plot. DMC3 was called "Dante's Awakening", and in DMC4 you're playing with a whole new guy whose technically human (...with a possessed right arm.) I'm not saying this is necessarily a GOOD reason, just trying to play devils advocate or something.
For whatever its worth, if you replay early missions after DT is unlocked, you can still use DT in those missions.
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Theatrhythm - Trying to take down all the Ultimate songs without equips or abilities. I've completed FF2, FF9, FF11, and FF12 this way. Working on the others now.
FE10 - Eh, just did a playthrough. All glory to God-Aran, he who easily capped speed. Kieran is sadly really bad in the Endgame, but I used him because he's awesome. Also used a lesbian, but most of the hot chicks died. 13 deaths total because I'm not a purist.
Endless Frontier - Got some girl without boobs, which presumably will lead to hilarity(?). Need to play more.
FF8 without GF command - So far so good, just learned that Seifer has a romantic dream.
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Hrm. All of Fudo's Dark Souls talk is making me want to pick it back up and actually beat it.
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Hrm. All of Fudo's Dark Souls talk is making me want to pick it back up and actually beat it.
Praise be to the Reinforced Club.
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Well, I was going to do so, but I seem to have encountered an issue. My disk appears to be missing. May have to search a bit to find this.
Edit: Durr. Found it. Now to remember where I was.
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I am also thinking of starting Shadow Hearts 3 again, been meaning to do it since beating SH2 again a few months ago and of course that game put me in the mood for the same gameplay with better battle design. I just haven't decided yet if I want to do a fairly normal playthrough or some sort of silly challenge. Fenrir, Snow, etc.: any ideas?
I haven't played the game since its release, I can't remember what would make a challenge fit with those mechanics. Plain simple Shania solo sounds tempting but probably doesn't work well. (might as well have Yuri solo SH2 instead)
Maybe Always pick the lowest level character at the beginning of a dungeon + Give them elements?
Penny Arcade 3, Insane mode: Went back to an earlier save, grinded a bit (for cash mostly), then beat the game.
Too bad about that one drastic difficulty spike. Just like Santa in Cthulu's angels. Zeboyd has trouble balancing the harder difficulty modes.
The addition of the Grandia battle system was kind of a waste. You can't interrupt with a regular attack (until later with a particular class), and your interrupts have diminishing results over time. What doesn't help is that Moira, the speediest character who sounds like she was made to interrupt people, was even better as the item spamming girl.
The biggest advantage over regular FFX style CTB was that you could really tell the exact speed of anyone more easily. It is actually essential in insane mode.
I can't praise the gameplay and job system enough. There's a ton of depth here, and it's all streamlined to work well with a really short RPG. (Unequipped classes still leveling up)
I used mostly:
Gabe: Crabomancer + Dinosorcerer. Use Leer, and tank with a T-Rex if I'm feeling confident, or a stegosaurus if I'm not.
Jim: Apocalypt + Gentleman. Gentleman brings much needed healing and magic. Apocalypt is one of the best source of damage until lategame.
Moira: Slacker + Cordwainer. High speed, healing, item use.
Tycho: Gardenar + Hobo. Didn't really know what to do with him, so he ended up as the supporting guy.
Eventually I replaced Apocalypt and Slacker with Diva and Delusionist. I nearly never used Masochist (Too bad), Tube Samurai (I'm not wasting one turn for this) or Elemenstor (Boooring).
Mass Effect 3: Finished.
Yes, I can understand the complaints about the ending. It's actually the exact same ending as Deus Ex Human Revolution!
I did kind of like how Asimov-ish the plot got (Note: I actually haven't finished Foundation) but the lack of consequences for the rest of the game is a serious issue. I wanted to see Krogans go on war against the entire galaxy for getting betrayed again then getting exterminated. I wanted to feel that guilt! But no, happy ending for them too.
The game's kind of impressive, and is trying to be bold and ambitious, but the countless graphical glitches during cutscenes will make it seem extremely dated in a few years (moreso than the graphics) The game wants you to be immersed, like in a good movie (Batman 3!) but that's impossible.
The lategame also suffed from being too huge, the greatest strength of this game actually being the small talk.
Endgame gave some actually though battles for my overpowered Shepard. Namely the true final one with a reaper shooting on a battlefield while fighting brutes, banshees and a ton of general grunts. That was intense.
I still died more because the game fucked up and Charge didn't work for some reason (this happens constantly. The special powers sometimes feel as accurate as a Wii waggle, which is terrible for a power that restores all your shields), than because of honest mistakes.
Diablo 3: I'm a level 15 female witch doctor, and I'm invincible.
Plot is terrible.
The best part of the game is stacking as many Exp+ items on yourself as possible in co-op gameplay, to get levels faster than whoever you're playing with.
Spelunky: I think I'm done here. My goal was unlocking that strange door with the strange hat, but I just can't reliably kill an Anubis with no weapons. He is a god and I'm a shotgun-less adventurer. This is a severly mismatched fight, and I don't want to play 15 minutes to get there every time I want to try again.
I still beat the game!
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Don't expect it to last, Fenrir. The XP-up items are okay on Normal but just don't keep up later. +5 XP on monster kill is fine when it takes 5,000 XP to get to the next level, but +10 XP for monster kill when it costs 500,000 XP to get to the next level not so impressive. (On the bright side, the Ruby-in-a-helmet is percentage based if you want to grind faster.)
What's your b.net ID?
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If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you mind sticking that information in http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,6057.0.html as well? Always good to know who plays what for easy cross-referencing.
SaGa Frontier 2 - Cheating, as I'm not actually playing this myself, but guiding a friend through it. He just cleared the Water Tower with Richard. Picked up No Moment, Blade Spray, and Bear Crush in duels here.
UMvC3 - Dropped Ammy to pick up Doom (Hidden Missile), and then dropped Doom to pick up Trish (Peekaboo). Current team is Wright (Press the Witness)/Dante (Jam Session)/Trish (Peekaboo). Attorney May Cry team?
BBCS:EX - Got to play this with Meiousei a bit. Apparently the only character I remember how to play even REMOTELY well is Lambda.
I feel like I should be playing other things, too.
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the greatest strength of this game actually being the small talk.
I have found this to be true of every Bioware game I've played. Are people surprised at this point that they tend to fail on plot? Or were ME1&2 actually better about that?
Andy: I think Sen's Fortress was the next stop?
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Last Andy Dark Souls post I can be arsed to find.
Pft. PFT. A real man only needs ONE weapon and is totally willing to just aggro all 8 skeletons to kill the necro.
I'd rather just ignore Tomb of Giants forever, though. I've had one experience with it on my previous playthrough. I think I made it 10 feet before I decided I had entered hell and would run away screaming.
Then a giant skeleton killed me.
Now unto my.... glory... yeah... glory...
45. Wasps+Swamp=BULLSHIT!
46. Quelaag uses me as a butt post.
47. Quelaag uses me as a plate.
48. Quelaag, she slices, she dices!
49. Ceasless Discharged all over the place.
50! Chaos Ember suicide run.
51 Lava run, trying to get that other useless prize. Go the wrong way!
52. Lava run 2. Go the right way, just not allowed up on the little island for whatever dumbass reason.
53. Capra demon felt that being fair was impossible. Seriously, took out all my stamina and 90% of my life in one hit!
54. Worm jackass eats me. Did you know that pyro hands can actually tak durability damage? And when they get broken they lose all scaling? I DIDNT"!
55. Taurous demon decides that completely ignoring my shield is fair. Bye bye 60k souls and 5 humanity.
56. Crushed by a boulder while trying to grab Acid Cloud. I deserved it. Then I learned they weren't guarding Acid Cloud and I cried. What I was looking for was Poison Mist which I bought from Eingyi and wasted 10k souls on. CRY.
57. Dog chew toy.
58. Sif slice and dice special.
59. Sif slice and dice not-even-able-to-take-three-steps-in special.
New record for most amount of deaths in one session!
General Notes
-If I hadn't lost those souls Pyro Hand would be at Ascended+5. But right now I languish at +3.
-Chaos and Large Fire get. Will probably make a trip down to Vamos to get a Fire Reinforced Club+6.
-Nearly everything I can kill outside of Sen's is dead. Taruous Demon will be my second-to-last boss kill, Ash Lake Hydra is far too annoying a trip without the Lordvessal, and since I don't like randomly murdering NPCs I'm not doing the 4K.
-Joined Chaos Servant to get he pyromancy. On that note, did you know that Kirk is actually a Chaos Servant? COMEDY*!
-Didn't actually get the Gargoyle Tail Ax. My club literally three-shotted him.
-Maybe it's just being a greatshield user for...ever, but man does everything just love to destroy my stamina.
-Randomly had a bunch of enemies give me half souls.
-Reinforced Club+10 with Magic Weapon did over twice the damage of the Magic Reinforced Club+4
-I got eggheaded for fun and profit. Got rid of it for Sif though.
Current Goals
-Upgrade my Fire Reinforced Club
-Beat Sen's
-Get my Lightning Reinforced Club
-Beat Anor Londo
-Cry? That or have a panic attack.
-Probably get my pyro-hand to +5.
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Pokemon White
This game is fun.
I am 6 badges in and currently trying to evolve some of the random pokemon I have found.
Oh I got my first legendary too. that steel fighting pokemon guy. I nicknamed him Boshzilla.
I started out as grass. I am finding it a chore to find fire pokemon! I have two I think in my entire arsenal.
i think this is the first pokemon game that I have specifically given EVERY pokemon I captured a nickname.
Some of the pokemon I have enjoyed have been the electro-spider. I nicknamed him Goldbug.
My starter is ok, I was hoping for better, but he will do for the time being.
The water tadpole thing is good. He just fears grass types like a mofo!
The dog you get early on is my TM whore because he gets surf and strength!
Haven't found a fun Dark type to tote around yet.
Think my highest level pokemon is that Gurdurr guy at 38...
I'm not using any guides this time in a pokemon game which is a first so figuring out who needs what in order to evolve is tricky!
Having fun getting immersed in these damn games again...and I think I got my gf addicted too. I bought her Black and she is about in the same area as me. (she chose water and hr pokemon looks cooler than mine!) =(
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Indeed, it appears I was last at Sen's Fortress. I also remembered my build was apparently RAWR STR, rawr End, eh some Dex. I wield a Zweinhander. If I recall correctly, that is all I wield. I may screw around with other melee weapons, but I believe I have 100% forsaken ranged weapons and pyromancy for the entirety of the game.
Anyhow, through Sen's Fortress (although I didn't explore much). Scored about 10 deaths on the second axe bridge, because pendulums + lightning snake = obnoxious.
One shot Iron Golem.
Over to Anor Londo now. Made it into the Cathedral and died a couple times to accidentally falling or thinking it was safe to drop to the floor.
Just using a +10 Zweinhander because I'm not sure what to do with it. Armor is a mish mash that I can't recall away from the screen.
If I recall correctly, I think I have killed...
Asylum Demon
Bell Gargoyle
Capra Demon
Ceaseless Discharge
Chaos Witch Quelaag
Gaping Dragon
Iron Golem
Moonlight Butterfly
Pinwheel
Stray Demon
Taurus Demon
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You really don't need much else if you've got Zweihander +10, yeah.
And Fudo: magic weapons are totally worthless unless you're running a pure sorcerer and therefore have ass for all offensive stats but INT. And even then they're outclassed by the mage-oriented boss weapons. In other words, the blue titanite slab is the biggest troll move in the game. I died more trying to get that than to almost any individual boss.
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Are there any Ultra/Great Swords that have swing patterns half as amazing as the Zweinhander?
Dat R2.
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You really don't need much else if you've got Zweihander +10, yeah.
And Fudo: magic weapons are totally worthless unless you're running a pure sorcerer and therefore have ass for all offensive stats but INT. And even then they're outclassed by the mage-oriented boss weapons. In other words, the blue titanite slab is the biggest troll move in the game. I died more trying to get that than to almost any individual boss.
I need to get the Magic Reinforce trophy, which is why I'm still upgrading it despite being crap.
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Not especially El Cid. That is honestly the weakest point of ME1 was that it had less dialogue with the party (and is partly why everyone loves Garus and Wrex because they have the most).
Saints Row 3 - Most of the way through this. It is dumb fun as people wil have heard. I am starting to hate missions with picking people up and driving them places. My brothers are sick of me yelling "Get in The fucking car!" at my computer. They will just stand around getting shot at or while your car soaks up damage for ages and it is so aggravating that the hard part of a mission isn't the escape or picking up people, it is just getting them into any kind of vehicle.
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DARK SOULS!
60. Shiva got sick of my shit and pushed it in.
61. Silver Knight Sword through a pillar. That's a new one.
62. Silver Knight spear through a table. That's a dumb one.
63. Silver Knight spear somehow kills me when I'm behind him. Sense takes all leave.
64. Silver Knights swings for the fences.
65. Silver Knights blocks his back too well. Surprising because the shield is in front of him and not actually raised.
66. Ornstein and Smough(actually entirely Ornstein) kill me before I can even hit them once.
67. Ornstein's spear of death claims me again. At least I get a hit on him this time.
68. Manage to kill Ornstein this time, but I completely and utterly fuck up my positioning on Smough and get trapped in a corner.
69. Trapped in Smough's death zone.
70. Fell to my death in Painted World. One of those holes in a roof led to death instead of the floor below. LOGIC!
71. Royal Sentinel didn't take kindly to all my warpping.
72. Blue phantoming in the Undead Burg. Get dragon-head glitch pushed around off a ledge. Was actually funny.
73. Same invade as above. This time it's poor netcode that gets me.
74. Same person AGAIN. But I get the last laugh as I manage a good meaty hit and a Hollow Soldier finishes her off hahahahahaha!
15 deaths again. Giggity.
General Notes
-Grabbed the Dusk Grain Ring. It's awesome!
-Sen's and Anor Londa went disturbingly easy. Easiest time I've ever had.
-All those Silver Knight deaths? All from trying to farm a Silver Shield. When the damn thing finally drops I learn I don't have the Strength for it hahahahhaa....
-Pyro Hand at +5.
-Painted World also went easy. I believe this is setting me up for some horrific fall against New Londo and the Four Kings.
-I've been in every Covenant except Darkwraith at this point.
-Only managed to land the killing blow on one guilty target, self-death and Hollow Soldier took two others.
-Current and probably final armor load-out is Father Mask/Xanthous Overcoat/Smough Gauntlets/Smough Leggings.
Current Goals
-Get 10 Souvenirs of Reprisal so I can get the Miracle. 5 to go!
-Get 10 Eyes of Death so I can get the Miracle. 1 to go!
-Get 10 Sunlight Medals so I can get the Miracle. 5 to go!
-Get 30 Humanity so I can get the Pyromancy. 5 to go?
-Putz around dreading Four Kings.
-Farm Titanite Chunks so I can get my Lightning Reinforced Club to +5. Also get a Lightning Crossbow.
-Hopefully kill the Four Kings!
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What's your b.net ID?
If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you mind sticking that information in http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,6057.0.html as well? Always good to know who plays what for easy cross-referencing.
Diablo 3 isn't on my computer (I'm just borrowing an account) so I can't share.
(Xbox: Not paying for Gold. PS3: No multiplayer games. With the excepting ofLord of the Rings War in the North now (It sucks) Souls game don't count)
I have found this to be true of every Bioware game I've played. Are people surprised at this point that they tend to fail on plot? Or were ME1&2 actually better about that?
Yeah, agreed. What's different in ME3 is that conversations between NPCs you can hear while walking around are often more interesting than the usual conversations with the Normandy crew. (I blame the smaller, less interesting roster compared to ME2, for all that Dudebro surprised me)
Etrian Odyssey 3: Finished. This took a while. The game ending pretty much laughed at me. Turns out that there's an obscure Castlevania like FRUE ending with more bosses, but it's locked to me now because I didn't put the Holy Relic on the Magestic Pedestal while hopping on one leg before.
No strength to continue into post game after that (or do an extremely easy NG+)
Party:
Monk: Heals everything. Can't imagine going without him; Prince's healing looks laughable.
Gladiator: Does all the damage, and lowers defense. Felt overpowered, then I gave him one of those 200k gold weapons after a few Farmer only runs.
Arbalist: Straight up worse than the gladiator.... She's from the back row but who cares? She has some MT damage, but that's nothing compared to...
Zodiac: Very useful for those bosses with good defense, as expected. Subpar otherwise. He went from gamebest to near gameworst damage, but lategame he can use that very useful "No MP consumption on one row, at all" magic.
Wildling: Summon something -> Unsummon something >>> Randoms. He just isn't terribly useful for bosses past one point, but that beast can still take some extra hits.
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I am finding in EO3 that it is the first one that I am actually planning to retrain characters to use other skills and Combat Study is letting me plan to swap out characters as I move on. My solution to Monk VS Prince was to use both early on and I am going to put the Prince on the wayside once I am comfortable in the Monk's ability to do things I want him to unaided, will swap out my Arbalest for a Ninja/Zodiac for unlimited manaz and the Prince for a Gladiator. Well that is pretty much the long term plan anyway. Not sure at what point I will make the change over. I need to retrain sometime in general to reshift the focus of my Hoplite and maybe clean up some of the skill selection on the Buccaneer.
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Etrian Odyssey 3: Finished. This took a while. The game ending pretty much laughed at me. Turns out that there's an obscure Castlevania like FRUE ending with more bosses, but it's locked to me now because I didn't put the Holy Relic on the Magestic Pedestal while hopping on one leg before.
No strength to continue into post game after that (or do an extremely easy NG+)
The frue ending requires NG+ anyway from what I remember.
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Grandia 2 LLG -
Claws of Valmar:
Took a while to get there since there are a few dungeons and a lot of plot scenes to go through. Before the fight, preparations are as follows:
- Ryudo gets the Silver Freeze from the ARM WRESTLING mini-game. This is his strongest sword to date and can item-cast Freeze. He never had to use it, but I got it because Freeze is likely to help with Melfice. His armor is the Illusion Clothes (+5% evade) and the Mirage Earrings as his accessory (+15% evade).
- Millenia gets the Glass Slippers for +20 Act, again, from the ARM WRESTLING mini-game. Nothing else of note.
- Roan and Mareg get nothing special. Mareg gets a new weapon and Roan equips the POIZN knife although neither had to use their attacks ever during the fight.
For skills/magic:
- Diggin gets maxed. Holy Egg gains Magic Seal and Move Seal spells. Zapfire Chant gets invested to improve spell cast damage. A third HP Up gets invested into and maxed, so now three characters can run around with +800 HP. An additional level of Act is invested into so now it is at +30 (I think).
- Before entering the dungeon, I mass buy 20 Icefang stones and about 10 Holy Wound Salves and 10 Scroll of Alhealers.
Now as for the fight itself, the claws' support (left and right claw) have a couple of fatal weaknesses. The left claw can be silenced, and the right claw can be slept. Both claws can be Move Sealed. As such, Ryudo becomes the status whore and spends the first several turns shutting the support options down. The main part can cash Refresh to remove it, but he can only remove one claw's status. With the support crippled, they can only attack physically, which is slower (they have to move to hit you) and evadable (see Ryudo's set up). The main claw doesn't become that big of a threat. Avenging Claw is the move that needs to be defended or cancelled as it deals a lot of damage (about 800+ through 5 Diggins I estimate). It is however ST. It also has Inferno Breath which is fan fire in front of it. The key to keeping damage manageable is to spread out so that the fan/line attacks can't hit everyone at once. For offense, with Millenia getting a boost in Burnflame and the 20 Icefang Stones I bought, I can sling both for about 600/1000 damage each. The support at once point manages to cast Healer once or twice or the main body, so I had to spend a few turns more than normal. Overall, pretty manageable.
Team's levels now are: 20, 20, 21, 20 respectively for Ryudo, Elena, Mareg, Tio.
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Painted World explored. Woman with tail and scythe told me everyone there was friendly. My experience with the fire breathing toxic bastards disagrees. Still, she is sorta cute, so I spare her.
Avenge the Fire Keeper in a simultaneous deathblow.
Ornstein and Smough prove to be complete assholes, but Sunbro makes the save around attempt 6.
Wearing Zweinhander +10, Silver Knight Shield, Haval's set, Ring of Favor and Protection, and Haval's Ring.
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MGS3 HD: Started this. Not much else to say other than noticing already how much is changed (for better or worse) relative to previous games.
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I am finding in EO3 that it is the first one that I am actually planning to retrain characters to use other skills and Combat Study is letting me plan to swap out characters as I move on.
Yes. You have to know about it beforehand though (I didn't), since the description is badly translated and RPG instincts are going to tell you that no skill in the game would possibly give your benched characters 100% exp.
Dragon Age 2: Went into that game with an open mind.
Such terrible gameplay! There are tons of enemy reinforcements in almost every battle! Unlike Fire Emblem, about one half of the total enemy force is a reinforcement. Mostly archer appearing out of nowhere and sniping your ass. Insanity.
Combat itself is Baldur's Gate's... Except you can only control one character. Trying to have real control over more than one character is very unintuitive and imprecise. There are gambits but... They just don't work well here. FF12's gambits kinda worked because movement didn't have such a massive role in that game (and you had 3 characters instead of 4)
Oh and there's level scaling.
This is probably going to be the first time I chicken out of a high difficulty mode in an RPG. It's not necesseraly a totally brainless game, but player input is too unimportant for me to care.
Picture FFT, except you can only control one character from your team, the others have to rely on AI and gambits like "Run away when you're surrounded by 3 enemies". Does anyone would want to play a very hard mode of that game?
Plot, quest, skill and money are all handed well. (and ruined by gameplay) Money is actually what Dragon Age games do the best.
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Yeah I would honestly say straight up put it on Easy and just rush through the grindy gameplay. It is pretty easilly the worst Bioware game for gameplay unless you are absolutely adamant against point and click interfaces and are playing the console version.
Saints Row 3 - Finished. It is okay GTA clone. Less good than San Andreas, controls better than Vice City and is sure as shit more fun than GTA4. Floats generally around that same tier of play that Rockstar set which is better than the second one did on PC (controls bad).
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Have to ask as well. What version are you playing?
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PS3.
Controlling two or three party members in Console DAO was a bit of a chore but still manageable, I thought doing the same thing in DA2 wouldn't be this unpleasant...
Is the PC version still vastly better about that with DA2, or something? (Didn't really seem so)
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Plays like a standard isotropic RPG on PC. So I had no problem with multiple PCs.
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It also helps that on Normal the game is pretty much a cakewalk. I specifically didn't play DA2 replay on hard because I didn't trust myself to be able to do the fine level of control I thought I would need.
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Saints Row 3 - Finished. It is okay GTA clone. Less good than San Andreas, controls better than Vice City and is sure as shit more fun than GTA4. Floats generally around that same tier of play that Rockstar set which is better than the second one did on PC (controls bad).
As someone who is currently playing GTA:SA and recently finished SR3 I have to disagree simply based on how user-unfriendly SA is by comparison.
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Holy shit, my Internet doesn't suck anymore. It took six hours with a Verizon tech but I don't lose connection every ten minutes now. Thus: back to Diablo!
Finished Nightmare, almost to the Skeleton King in Hell. Finally triggered Matriarch's Bones! About damn time.
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GoC6 - This really is a Union series game instead of IF game. On top of that, this is a SRPG with no battle animation. Think SRW with the skip option on the whole time.
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Portal 2
Pretty awesome despite some niggling bits. But really, the niggles only stand out because the game must be compared with Portal. Wheatley & GlaDOS are a ton of fun, lots more quotable lines, although nothing as memetic as cake / companion cube as Zero Punctuation pointed out.
If I have a complaint with the game, it's the middle Cave Johnson section. See... despite the fact that it was a puzzle game, Portal succeeded entirely as a horror / thriller, too. You are trapped under the thumb of an insane AI, do something about it. It works! While I'm glad Portal 2 decided to mix things up and let you escape from GlaDOS once more after the first third, the logical place to go afterward is some kind of Half-Life 2 mashup with Chelle escaping to the rest of the world. Instead, thanks to BS Valve railroading, just walking out is inexplicably not an option. You are forcibly led to old Aperture, still in working order despite not having a godlike AI cleaning up, to solve more puzzles. GlaDOS says sarcastically "you must really, really love to test" after being resurrected; I guess she was right and Chelle was just pumped up for some more deadly testing. Okay you can maaaaaaaaaaybe argue that Chelle was searching for GlaDOS and somehow knew she'd been flown inside of old Aperture AND wanted to use her to displace Wheatley, but meh. I'm fine with the Chelle - GlaDOS teamup for sheer comedy value for all that it doesn't really work dramatically. "Have I lied to you? I mean, in this room?" does not really make for someone Chelle would run for to get an ally; just run away and if Wheatley manages to blow the facility up you'll probably be out of the blast radius since you do have a portal gun and all. Of course, with a silent protagonist, it'd have been hard to sell some new goal as an excuse to WANT to go to old Aperture; you can do "escape" pretty easily, but not "quest for potatOS." So yeah, part 2 & 3 work for gameplay & comedy, just not really for the srs bizness side of Portal.
A more minor complaint was that P2 definitely played up the cerebral puzzles over the time pressure puzzles, but whatever, the puzzles were still pretty good by & large.
Anybody w/ Steam Portal 2 not done the multiplayer maps yet? Ping me!
Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Niu, I'd argue that "monster-infested mine" is clearly more core to the Ys experience than your other options. Adol's only 1/3 in drowning and Dogi is 2/3 in wall-breaking, but the world seems to have quite a knack for combining mines & monsters. Also everybody giving Adol their treasured family heirlooms handed down throughout the generations because he's clearly the chosen one is also clearly a key feature of Ys games.
Anyway. Fun stuff! Good combat, which is the big draw - Ys I combat was just aggravating, and Ys II combat against randoms was trivially easy. It's fun to fight through the hordes. Also the plot has been rewritten into something actually sort of good, for a SNES traveling silent hero anointed with cool powers fighting evil type setup. Ys I & Ys II were, at best, something like the story of Jason in Greek myth - goddesses come down and hand him magic artifacts and guide his path all the time. That's still in Oath, a little (the big with Genos granting his power), but at least it feels like Adol is helping out because he wants to, not because destiny forced his hand. (The big with the exploding crystal ball in the intro novella was amusing too.) As usual the RPG elements are a little bit too powerful for my taste - it was not uncommon to run a dungeon and be viciously challenged by the enemies, which was fun & exciting, then get *eviscerated* by the boss. After gearing up & cleaning out the dungeon for goodies one more time, Adol steamrolls the random enemies he once feared greatly, and now the boss is suddenly far more manageable. Ah, subtractive defense. At least there's enough skill in the fight that you have to work to beat most of the bosses at a reasonable level, which is good; better super-difficult -> good fight rather then good fight-> lol on the level scale.
Spoilery plot comments:
I liked McGuire ending up being a vanilla bad ruler rather than some megalomaniac. Yeah high taxes are annoying but he's not exactly a monster. It's unclear exactly how much culpability he bears for the Genos Island thing, but I'll assume it was the Bishop's op which ended up bloodier than advertised. Speaking of which, the Bishop Nikolai & Sister Nell twist was pretty well done. I was really not expecting Nell to be Dularn but sure I buy it.
Adol handing the statues to Chester was usual video game BS. Adol you coward, he TOLD you what he's going to do with them. Much as you're friends with Dogi, you do not trade your friend's life for hundreds of innocents! I guess they didn't want to godmode Chester into beating Adol or something, which I respect, but I wish they could have figured out a different excuse for Chester to get the statues - trickery or something. Why are JRPGs so obsessed with this kind of twist, anyway. Damnit heroes, stop trading the ultimate destruction artifacts to get your significant other back.
Chester had no regrets, Elena?! WTF! If he hadn't died back on the island, we may have had to kill him for psychotic ill-directed mass murder. To his credit, he DID regret murdering most everyone in Valestein Castle in about the most foul way possible.
Oddly enough Oath in Felghana is one of the rare game plots that would translate decently into a movie. Games have far more time to develop setting & do meandering plots than movies, and the games with light plots tend to also be terrible plots to translate into movies. I could easily see a low budget fantasy epic basically run with a mildly simplified version of Oath's plot.
I randomly loaded up Ys 3 SNES ROM which I recall briefly trying and finding the game terrible. The game is still terrible, but some amusing differences. Adol talks! (Why the regression?!) It's Dogi who has his fortune told, and this time the fortune teller is helpful enough to say "Galbalan!!1!" rather than just clamming up. It's ELLENA not Elena (explains the pronunciation at least), Robert not Bob (sure), the villains are more plotless, and Chester's plan is dumber. Also the music sucks, amazing what the remixers did with it in Oath, making totally bland & pedestrian dungeon themes awesome.
And oh yes, let's not forget the obvious, the soundtrack is amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTeMaChKVg&feature=BFa&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnNgMaXapDM&feature=autoplay&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9eVKSZVD5o&feature=BFa&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKvJ_pjGmbc&feature=autoplay&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5
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Starting up FF13-2 and Ys 7 now. Yech at the art style to Ys 7. Ys I-III have been vanilla anime, nothing special but nothing off, while Ys 7 seems to be imitating 80s American cartoons a la Bluth. Also we're in !Africa but everyone is still lily white. I see.
FF13-2... I'm less concerned by time travel than usual because the gaping, gigantic, massive unresolved plot thread the characters inexplicably ignored in FF13 was WTF happened to Pulse, so maybe we can do something Xenosaga 3 Disc 1ish here. That said we seem to be looking the wrong way - I don't care about the future, I care about the past. You better hook me up with some resolution, Serah, I'm counting on you.
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Your eye for caring about Ys plot amuses and endears me in ways I didn't even think possible. It's so entertaining.
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Adol's only 1/3 in drowning and Dogi is 2/3 in wall-breaking
Impossible, I could not have miscalculated.
I am pretty sure Adol had drown in all games with the exception of Y's 3 and Mask of Sun.
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I feel the same way, but for people caring about FF13 plot or expecting resolution from a game that tells you to buy DLC to get plot resolution.
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Jo'ou - It is my punishment for shooting an albatross at a liberal arts college.
Niu - Yeah, no drowning in Oath / 3, which is weird because Adol arrives by boat & then takes a boat trip later. Ys II... I really can't recall any drowning, unless Adol got launched into a puddle when he landed in Ys at the start. (Since it's functionally the same as Ys I - Adol washes up in a new land, ready to take heirlooms and upgrade swords.)
Rob - I'm playing on the hope that the remaining set of Square-Enix writers who know their craft were let out of their prison cells to do at least some of the script of FF13-2 before being herded back in and forced to perform circus tricks for their rations.
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Fuck are you in for some disappointment. It is the most hollow, blatant cash grab since horse armor. Or SW Episode 3, whichever is more recent.
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FF13-2... I'm less concerned by time travel than usual because the gaping, gigantic, massive unresolved plot thread the characters inexplicably ignored in FF13 was WTF happened to Pulse, so maybe we can do something Xenosaga 3 Disc 1ish here. That said we seem to be looking the wrong way - I don't care about the future, I care about the past. You better hook me up with some resolution, Serah, I'm counting on you.
Believe it or not, FF13-2 very explicitly tells you what happened on Pulse before the game. I forget if its eluded to in the normal events of the game, but I do know one of the Paradox Endings spells out pretty much exactly what happened on Pulse. And no, Paradox Endings aren't DLC; they're just extra endings you get for basically replaying certain parts of the game with a certain skill equipped (one you get for literally finishing the main game), for the most part. Though this is less of an ending, more of a "narrative of events that already happened", but whatever.
If you're really curious and don't wanna bother with optional endings and such...
In short, people of Pulse got into a Civil War with one another, related to the whole Ragnarok and Cocoon incident. This led to the Fal'cie getting involved and basically branding them all l'Cie, and eventually, they all turned into Cie'th and well, you know how it goes. This also explains why Oerba is filled with Cie'th everywhere; its because pretty much all the citizens were turned into l'Cie who failed to fulfill their focus, as puppets for warring Fal'cie, and those that weren't transformed were slaughtered at the ends of the huge army of raging Cie'th.
It is NOT because the nature of Pulse murders everyone eventually, and humans are doomed to die like people were claiming for FF13. That is not supported in FF13, and FF13-2 just further confirms the claim is bollocks. Furthermore, FF13-2 shows that, if not for Caius, the people of Cocoon would have been perfectly fine in colonizing Pulse, and it states the Fal'cie and humans basically stopped dealing with one another entirely, and humans have become independent as a result, so the people of Cocoon were unlikely going to meet the same fate as the people of Pulse.
So yeah, its there. You have to look for it, granted, but its in the game and does clear up that much at least.
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Rob - I'm playing on the hope that the remaining set of Square-Enix writers who know their craft were let out of their prison cells to do at least some of the script of FF13-2 before being herded back in and forced to perform circus tricks for their rations.
Square having good writers is nothing but a delusion, because they all left.
Well, Kawazu can write, but that is a moot point.
*Niu goes back to be bitter about Fal'cie=Cactaur didn't make it into the 13-2 main game.
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That's not what I was referring to when I said you had to pay for plot resolution. more that whole Lightning thread that's supposedly a big motivator for the supposed main character we supposedly care about and then at the end it's "hey this doesn't get resolved. Give me more money and it might."
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I didn't care about Lightning, but I actually thought Serah was a genuinely likeable person, and was occasionally funny. So the ending we got was poignant enough for me. I feel like FF13-2 taking a step back and not trying to be so serious made it a lot more fun than most of the modern FFs. I think the only other light-hearted ones are like... FF9 and the Ivalice spin-offs. Since S-E writers fail at serious plot, I find myself greatly preferring the fun stuff like FFTA2. FF13-2 does a pretty good job of spinning a time-travel story without getting bogged down in the emo (despite Caius and Lightning trying their damnedest to ruin it).
Playing games~
Lost Odyssey: Last Disc! Slow game is slow! Cooke and Mack are getting less and less screentime so the game is invariably getting better! Doing some of the side dungeons that have decent rewards. Despite all my complaining, I just did Gongora's Magic Experimental Laboratory, and not only was it a quick dungeon with barely any random battles (2 total!), it ended with the most challenging boss fight since Disc 1 (fun!), a really good set of rewards, and some optional backstory fleshing out our main villain and his relationship to the main characters and their pasts. Doing it right for once, Lost Odyssey!
Now, if only the goddamn load times weren't so long...
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I don't care for her any more than I do anyone in that game except Sazh, but the fact remains it's presented as a major motivation. At times "omg lightning needs help somehow we must save her" is your only goal, vaguely defined as it is. Telling people they need to buy DLC to resolve the ostensible main character's motivation for doing things just boggles my mind.
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Painted World explored. Woman with tail and scythe told me everyone there was friendly. My experience with the fire breathing toxic bastards disagrees. Still, she is sorta cute, so I spare her.
Good man.
Replaying Fallout: New Vegas because it sounded more fun than any of the unplayed games I have sitting around. Mostly running the same build as last time because I am lame, otherwise mainly looking to: actually complete companion quests this time (did almost none before); see the other endings (except Legion because I hate them too much to even consider it, can't get past the absurdity of my female MC siding with a faction that sees her as a walking pair of ovaries, also did I mention I really hate the Legion); use explosives more because they were largely neglected last time. Anywho, mostly Freeside sidequest slog today. Recruited Arcade and immediately made him watch me get fucked by a robot. I love this game.
I still wish you could hand Vegas over to The King.
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Well that's the beauty of the Wild Card ending. Who's to say you don't?
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Grandia 2 LLG -
Crimson Tail x2-
Random boss on the reef. These things hit really hard. I ended up underestimating them originally, no thanks to RICHARD.
<Tide|EphisGrandia2plot> boss is right now
<Tide|EphisGrandia2plot> See
<Tide|EphisGrandia2plot> GIANT ENEMY CRAB
<@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> lol
<@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> like these guys are a threat
Anyway, Scissors Storm deals 980 damage or so to my 1400 HP party, and Phantom Echo deals about 500 LT and always adds -1 Defense on a clean hit. I get caught with one that hits everyone once, followed immediately by a Scissors Storm leading to instant death. They only have 9800 HP each though, which is key, since one Crimson Tail by itself is a bad joke. We conserve Icefang stones even though we have like 99 of them as it will be a while before we get another restock. Thankfully, we have other forms of adequate offense for the job. From Elena's Whirlwind Staff (about 550), Burnflame from Tio (around 600) to Mareg's physicals (about 600 as well). I lose Tio once and Elena once, but the rest of the fight goes downhill for the boss once I get one Crimson Tail out of the way. If I had treated them more seriously from the start, they probably wouldn't have died. Overall, pretty good.
Melfice -
Big upgrade point with all coins remaining at this point. I consult with RICHARD and our plan ends up being as thus:
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> Here's the plan:
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> SC:
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> Cancels to level 3
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> Work on getting SUPER ITAMS after that
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> MC:
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> Try to get reasonable levels in Cold and good heals
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> Heal is no longer worth it
[21:07] <@Richard-GrueWorldProblems> Whatever else you think you need
Unfortunately, Item Recovery costs a ton of coins, so I only invest up to level 3 for now. Act gets another level moving it to +40 ACT now. Tio, Mareg, Ryudo get their techs pumped up to Level 3 while Elena's sits at level 2. To open up Item Recovery, I invest in levels into Abandonment (+Evade) as well as Defensive (reduce IP damage on receiving damage) as well. For magic, Alhealer gets maxed 3/4 levels into Healer is invested. This is given to Elena. Cold is opened up on one of the eggs and given to Ryudo. Soul Egg starts with Healer and I upgrade that to levels 3/4 and pump up Cold to at least level 3 here as well.
For equips, Ryudo sticks with the Silver Freeze and has Bonds of Trust as his accessory. Elena has Bonds of Trust as well and the Glass Slippers. Tio has a +40% evasion set up. Mareg doesn't get anything notable for equips. Holy Egg is given to Elena, while Ryudo gets the Soul Egg and Tio gets the Chaos Egg. Mareg, doesn't really matter. For skills we have Ryudo with Skilled Item Use, Item Recover and Life Up. Elena has Life Up and Skilled Item Use. Mareg has Defensive and Strength. Tio gets Life Up, Zapfire Chant and Abandonment.
The battle strategy is simple. Debuff Melfice down, take out the Regenerator so it can't heal (or rebuff the parts) and ignore the Sword. In fact, the Sword helps out because once you cripple their move, Melfice ends up running on the spot for basic physicals, meaning he ends up wasting his turn. For offense, we stick with the 90+ Icefang Stones in my inventory and everyone throws those at Melfice and his different parts whenever the chance permits. For Freeze, Cold, Stram (Move/Act/Attack debuff), we have Ryudo and Tio. Elena has Diggin to help buff up defense. Mareg has nothing really, but it doesn't matter. With the debuffs stacking up rapidly, Melfice is eventually slowed and he ends up wasting a lot of turns attempting basic physicals. This in turn gives us lots of open opportunities to nuke him with items. Spread out to avoid taking collateral damage from GT spells and cancel out Demon Horde Slash when possible. Even with +5 Defense and some attack debuffs, it still deals 800+ damage to 1500 HP at most. So we cannot afford to give him many chances to actually hit us. Thankfully, with this strategy, he doesn't and after about half an hour, he falls.
Level after are 23/22/24/23 for Ryudo, Elena, Mareg and Tio respectively.
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I don't care for her any more than I do anyone in that game except Sazh, but the fact remains it's presented as a major motivation. At times "omg lightning needs help somehow we must save her" is your only goal, vaguely defined as it is. Telling people they need to buy DLC to resolve the ostensible main character's motivation for doing things just boggles my mind.
This is also discounting the two novels, which you'll have to buy if you want to find out how did Lightning end up working for Fal'cie=Etro in the first place, or how Snow became a L'cie again. Or many other stuff here and there.
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Dark Souls
75. Blue phantom, netcode.
76. Blue phantom, netcode the revenger.
77. White phantom, jackass black phantom.
Pretty much no playing on Bobstein today, only got a single ear, and no playing at all yesterday. New character rush has me all giddy. DIE CAPRA DEMON DIE! 480 DAMAGE STRAIGHT TO THE GRAVE HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!
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Figured out what to do with the Lordvessal. Killed a Zombie Dragon (in melee, bitches). Decided to head to New Londo because I wasn't sure what else to do at the moment (didn't want to try surprise doors in Anor Londo or Demon Ruins). Accidentally discovered the Four Kings (didn't think I'd be thrown straight into a fight with them). That is prolly 40K souls I won't see again.
Suffering from the problem of needing Haval's Ring for my equip load, but having the Ring of Favor and Protection equipped. Looks like I'll need different armor for the 4 Kings fight.
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Figured out what to do with the Lordvessal. Killed a Zombie Dragon (in melee, bitches). Decided to head to New Londo because I wasn't sure what else to do at the moment (didn't want to try surprise doors in Anor Londo or Demon Ruins). Accidentally discovered the Four Kings (didn't think I'd be thrown straight into a fight with them). That is prolly 40K souls I won't see again.
Suffering from the problem of needing Haval's Ring for my equip load, but having the Ring of Favor and Protection equipped. Looks like I'll need different armor for the 4 Kings fight.
Surprise doors are so very much less scary.
That ring situation traps a lot of people. At least until you find your one true love in the Dark Wood Grain Ring. Well, not like you can use it in the Abyss.
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See Fudo. I basically never ever take that ring off.
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Maybe I will go to other places then. 4 Kings seem kind of like jerks.
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I don't care for her any more than I do anyone in that game except Sazh, but the fact remains it's presented as a major motivation. At times "omg lightning needs help somehow we must save her" is your only goal, vaguely defined as it is. Telling people they need to buy DLC to resolve the ostensible main character's motivation for doing things just boggles my mind.
This is also discounting the two novels, which you'll have to buy if you want to find out how did Lightning end up working for Fal'cie=Etro in the first place, or how Snow became a L'cie again. Or many other stuff here and there.
<SquareEnix> I wonder why the Americans don't like our games/business practices? It is a MYSTARY.
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OMD: Finally finished Nightmare mode in anticipation of the sequel coming out today. (Everybody buy it! And play co-op with me and Super and Uno!) It was...shockingly simple, really. Run in the direction of the door that the orcs are busting through, lay down some arrow walls, a couple of paladins and a swinging mace, use thunderstorm to thin out the horde until you can afford to put maces everywhere (and ice for the ogres, of course). Four-skulled it on the first try.
I also started the Penny Arcade games because I had them lying around from a steam sale and the third one is supposed to be good. Episode 1's entertaining enough, and the battle system takes after Panzer Dragoon Saga which is a plus. Slow, though.
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I don't care for her any more than I do anyone in that game except Sazh, but the fact remains it's presented as a major motivation. At times "omg lightning needs help somehow we must save her" is your only goal, vaguely defined as it is. Telling people they need to buy DLC to resolve the ostensible main character's motivation for doing things just boggles my mind.
And you're just kind of wrong here. The game explicitly states WHY Serah, Noel and Lightning are doing what they are doing. The only additional plot you get from DLC is what happened to Sazh (which is ultimately meaningless. FF13-2 does actually outright state he's become a victim of paradoxes himself, if you do optional stuff. A cop-out, sure, but at least its an explanation. His DLC just clarifies exactly what events transpired with him.), and Lightning's PoV during the final battle, and all that does is clarify Lightning's exact fate (which is unchanged from the game's ending, but this explains why she's in that state.)
I SUPPOSE Snow's DLC tells us exactly what happens to him, but given the massive tongue-in-cheek nature of the DLC (Sazh's, despite being pure mini-game, is overall serious in tone), I wouldn't be surprised if they just say its Non-Canon or something.
Really, Lightning's DLC is just a massive teaser for FF13-3, not much else. The game is actually complete without her stuff...or any DLC...they're literally exactly what they're advertised as:
Bonus stuff for people who want to spend money on them.
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FF8 - Dramatic organ music played. NORG appeared. Garden turned into a flying ship. A platform raised like 100 feet in the air from the basement to the 3rd floor. The truth is, I don't really know what's going on anymore.
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I SUPPOSE Snow's DLC tells us exactly what happens to him, but given the massive tongue-in-cheek nature of the DLC (Sazh's, despite being pure mini-game, is overall serious in tone), I wouldn't be surprised if they just say its Non-Canon or something.
Just to let you know this part is canon.
Has to do with the fucked up remnant of what is left of Yuel wanting someone to help her.
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Playin' some games from the steam sale.
VVVVVV - lived up to the hype.
Super Meat Boy - did not.
Legend of Grimrock - not bad, but suffers from klunkiness.
Portal - Guys! The cake is a lie! (http://xkcd.com/606/)
Incidentally, browsing the Steam sale while studying for the bar exam is exactly as good an idea as doing your grocery shopping directly after being released from a cell where you had nothing but bread and water for a month.
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FF8 - Dramatic organ music played. NORG appeared. Garden turned into a flying ship. A platform raised like 100 feet in the air from the basement to the 3rd floor. The truth is, I don't really know what's going on anymore.
Its FF8. If you know what's going on after like Mid Disc 1, then there is something wrong with you.
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Maybe I will go to other places then. 4 Kings seem kind of like jerks.
They are. I also ran a melee tank first time through and my solution was: fully-kindled bonfire, full Havel's set, Havel's ring, cast Iron Flesh (cheap pyromancy buff) once in melee range, mash attack until everything is dead, heal when necessary. Worked reasonably well. Mobility doesn't matter a heckuva lot with a build like that, so lacking Havel's ring shouldn't be a deal breaker. As long as you're beefy enough to not get staggered, you can easily heal whenever you need to. Really, the point is just to kill the individual kings fast, whatever the cost.
Adding fire to weapon should help a lot. If you have to block anything, Crest Shield is probably the best bet since their attacks are part magic. There's also a summonable NPC just outside the boss room (supposedly you can only summon her if you also brought her to Moonlight Butterfly, but I can't verify this). Hang a right before the bridge and poke around near the big stone column. She is useless for offense and sometimes gets stuck killing ghosts outside the fog door, but anything that means the kings are swinging at someone else can only help you.
There's a lot of options. Just have to make sure you never have more than one on you at a time, or you're right fucked. Also hopefully you're taking the shortcut to the boss room (after the first two ghosts in New Londo, skip the stairs and jump down to the right of them, should land in the lower area). Skips most of the random combat on the way there.
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I did notice that the others show up if you take too much time. Kind of ruined any shot I had. haven't checked for the shortcut yet. Pretty much lost to them, then went and got dinner.
Speaking of, current stat build is something like End: 38, Str: 40, Dex: 18, and some odd remaining points into Vit because fuck it I am tired of dying when I get hit.
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You might as well keep pumping VIT. HP is more important than defense and most stats have diminishing returns after 40. 40 END is where your stamina maxes out, so that's a good thing to aim for. And yeah, they're on a timer. #2 shows up reasonably quick, but there's a large gap between #2 and #3 (I have played the game so goddamn much that I basically know where in the music they appear). Also, you can actually still damage the boss bar while they fade out. So keep swinging during the death animations!
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<SquareEnix> I wonder why the Americans don't like our games/business practices? It is a MYSTARY.
Basically the same reason we don't like the Star Wars prequels. A bunch of extraneous shit jammed in there for no reason to grab extra cash + a lack of vision they're trying to hide with references to shit we enjoyed in the past and a lot of CGI. And then when a bunch of negative feedback comes in, the person in charge attacks the audience's way of thinking for not liking it ("Star Wars is a movie for kids!" or "They approached the game with a western mindset where you have freedom.") Also "HOPE YOUR NAME IS HOPE YOU GIVE US HOPE" and "MOMS ARE TOUGH" is up there with "I DON'T LIKE SAND" so there's another similarity.
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Maybe I will go to other places then. 4 Kings seem kind of like jerks.
They're the second-last boss trophy for a reason. Or fourth if you count the super-optionals I guess.
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I need to be cursed to damage them, right? It was unclear so I threw on a Transient Curse quickly.
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I don't believe so, no.
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Nah. Transient curse is only necessary for killing the New Londo ghosts.
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Keep the four kings for the end yeah.
They can be beaten early if you know them well, but yes, they're jerks. Second hardest boss in the game for me.
Dragon Age 2: Still pressed on nightmare anyway because I just can't resist. Learnt to use and abuse the PC movement options. Encounter enemy -> Everybody backtracks to the last room -> Enemy can't summon other enemies out of nowhere there
Dragon Age 2 is brilliant.
Team is:
Yattaf: Double dagger rogue at first. Then I respecced that trash and gave her a bow.
Varric: User of some bow too.
Anders: Healer with some support magic.
Aveline: Tankiest tank in the world.
Aveline tanks while Yattaf shoots. I often control Varren and Anders to just make them flee, because both of them love nothing more than to run straight into enemy groups, even though their AI are actually set to "Don't run straight into enemy groups you morons".
Gambits are glitched or work strangely. I have Anders 1) Uses Heal if an ally has under 50% HP, 2) use Group Heal if an ally has under 50% HP.
The idea is that he's supposed to use Group Heal during the Heal cooldown time. But he never does it anway and I have to cast it manually.
I'm stuck against Ancient Rock Wraith. WTF Bioware? I don't even know what to say.
Edit: Ok I think I have a good strategy. Have Yattaf and Varric die right away. Control Anders while Aveline tank. Run away a lot, and do hilariously pathetic damage at a distance. Heal Aveline often, rely on MP regen for infinite healing. When the boss summons monsters, drink a lyrium potion, resurrect everybody with Anders, summon a lure and a dog with Yattaf, switch back to Anders and try to survive.
This went well this time, until Aveline glitched and just stayed in one place, not doing anything. I tried controlling her to make her stab the boss. In those 5 seconds or so, AI Anders ran up to the boss and took a critical hit to the face. 15 minutes wasted. GG Bioware.
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<SquareEnix> I wonder why the Americans don't like our games/business practices? It is a MYSTARY.
Basically the same reason we don't like the Star Wars prequels. A bunch of extraneous shit jammed in there for no reason to grab extra cash + a lack of vision they're trying to hide with references to shit we enjoyed in the past and a lot of CGI. And then when a bunch of negative feedback comes in, the person in charge attacks the audience's way of thinking for not liking it ("Star Wars is a movie for kids!" or "They approached the game with a western mindset where you have freedom.") Also "HOPE YOUR NAME IS HOPE YOU GIVE US HOPE" and "MOMS ARE TOUGH" is up there with "I DON'T LIKE SAND" so there's another similarity.
I feel dirty when I agree with Rob. Stop it.
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Don't worry, as long as you don't like Deus Ex I still have the fundamental lack of respect for you I give NEB and Meep.
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Ancient Rock Wraith is Bioware putting an WoW style raid boss into a game. it is just like end boss of slabs without the cc and some adds bro.
Sadly they don't actually follow up on it and hard mode versions of it are kind of terrible (especially as a Warrior, regen Stamina on kills. Get nothing to kill!).
You talking about it actually got me going on a replay I had going that was in Chapter 2. Remembered everything I love about the game and everything I dislike. Stuff you complain about is all spot on for the things I hate. All the ugh there.
Then there was Varric in everything and Aveline's character quest where she says "Its a nice night for an evening" while trying to get her mack on and I love her for it. 10/10 would use Aveline with a Warrior main on easy again.
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Don't worry, as long as you don't like Deus Ex I still have the fundamental lack of respect for you I give NEB and Meep.
Never played it, so I don't know... But if that's all it takes to make the world feel normal again, I'll be sure to disdain it out of principle.
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Endless Frontier - Fought a tiny child who rides a broom who came very close to game overing me. This game is really weird. I suppose I should take it more seriously than FF8.
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Don't worry, as long as you don't like Deus Ex I still have the fundamental lack of respect for you I give NEB and Meep.
Never played it, so I don't know... But if that's all it takes to make the world feel normal again, I'll be sure to disdain it out of principle.
It is a slow burning FPS with amazingly bad VA in foreign places. Like bad 90s anime bad. Also there is no anime tropes. Plus cyberpunk conspiracy theories. You would hate it.
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Dark Souls: I uhhhh, kinda got distracted doing other things and didn't fight the Four Kings. Also my inventory was getting so cluttered I said "SCREW IT" and just went with Frampt. If I wanna low-level invade I'll go Darkmoon.
78. Crow demon headpeck special.
79. Crow demon headpeck special the second.
80. Chaos Eater acid spit.
81. The Super-Titanite Demon suddenly has homing lightning.
82. Super-Titanite Demon feels that being hit in the chest by two Great Fireballs isn't a damageable thing. 70k souls lost to the ether. And yet it just doesn't matter anymore.
83. Bed of Chaos.
84. Bed of Chaos.
85. Bat-wing demon kills me after I do the drop after getting the Dragonslayer Greatbow.
General Notes
-Darkmoon, Gravelord and Chaos items gained.
-Thus that means with Bed of Chaos down Pyromancy trophy get.
-Almost no summons for Taurus Demon, so no Greater Lightning Spear yet.
-People need to stop trying to parry Haval.
-You can actually fall into Chaos-Eaters mouths.
-I almost want to let Siegmeyer try and handle all four on his own at one point.
-If the Lightning Spear miracle hits water it explodes and does AoE damage.
Current Goals
-Putz around.
-Farm Chaos eaters for Red Chunks maybe.
-Farm Royal Sentinels for Chunks maybe.
-Do Duke's Archives.
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Varric and Aveline were people I remember liking. Too bad about the rest of the cast.
One of the things I did like about the game (other than 2h warrior's awesome cleaving arcs) was the agency they gave your party members. They didn't all sit in one place; they moved around the city, and at certain times you'd see them doing shit together. It really makes them feel more realized as characters, which the game really needs. BW rolled with that same thing in ME3 and it gave us some of my favorite scenes.
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I picked up the rest of my stuff from the old place so I have my consoles and a tv back~
Star Ocean 3- Wow am I rusty at this. Ethereal Queen kept confusing/paralysing/freezing/petrifying me out. I forgot she even had paralyse. Heh. I need to get my act together before I get back to my NE/IE - NIC/NAAABA/NSSA/RC/MFO + AM/LIU or MO/NR file >___>
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Don't worry, as long as you don't like Deus Ex I still have the fundamental lack of respect for you I give NEB and Meep.
Never played it, so I don't know... But if that's all it takes to make the world feel normal again, I'll be sure to disdain it out of principle.
It is a slow burning FPS with amazingly bad VA in foreign places. Like bad 90s anime bad. Also there is no anime tropes. Plus cyberpunk conspiracy theories. You would hate it.
I like cyberpunk, but the rest of it does sound pretty anti-Djinn. Also, due to the prevalence of anime tropes in all media, I somehow doubt there's actually -zero- anime tropes.
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Don't worry, as long as you don't like Deus Ex I still have the fundamental lack of respect for you I give NEB and Meep.
Your shameless fangirling for Elfboy really knows no bounds.
Also, DE1, the one that was released in like 2000? It was a very good game, minus the ending.
EDIT: Just wanted to say I'm 100% behind most FF13 related plot bashing, even if I did like 13-2's ending a whole lot.
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Orcs Must Die! 2: Started, finished three stages in single-player before work. Killing Orcs: still fun. The early stages definitely have more to them in the way of layout and hazards than the original, but they're still much easier because you get to spend skulls on unlocking new gear this time around, which means I had my arrow wall/lightning ring combo going in stage 2. Bwahahaha. Haven't tried out the Sorceress or Endless mode yet.
The game chugs a bit on my system, which is weird because it seems to be using the exact same engine as the original, which runs perfectly. Ah well.
Penny Arcade: At the final boss of episode 1. I like how you can sidequest for +10 attack and then get a forced upgrade to your weapons that gives everybody +500 (or so) attack.
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Don't worry, as long as you don't like Deus Ex I still have the fundamental lack of respect for you I give NEB and Meep.
Never played it, so I don't know... But if that's all it takes to make the world feel normal again, I'll be sure to disdain it out of principle.
It is a slow burning FPS with amazingly bad VA in foreign places. Like bad 90s anime bad. Also there is no anime tropes. Plus cyberpunk conspiracy theories. You would hate it.
I like cyberpunk, but the rest of it does sound pretty anti-Djinn. Also, due to the prevalence of anime tropes in all media, I somehow doubt there's actually -zero- anime tropes.
Well, it's actually well-written with a plot that changes based on the player's decision and like zero made-up words for stupid shit so it's like the most anti-anime thing ever.
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Varric and Aveline were people I remember liking. Too bad about the rest of the cast.
One of the things I did like about the game (other than 2h warrior's awesome cleaving arcs) was the agency they gave your party members. They didn't all sit in one place; they moved around the city, and at certain times you'd see them doing shit together. It really makes them feel more realized as characters, which the game really needs. BW rolled with that same thing in ME3 and it gave us some of my favorite scenes.
This. It really is kind of silly. Bioware keeps doing specific things better and better. It just keeps screwing up other things worse and worse. <_<
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Varric and Aveline were people I remember liking. Too bad about the rest of the cast.
One of the things I did like about the game (other than 2h warrior's awesome cleaving arcs) was the agency they gave your party members. They didn't all sit in one place; they moved around the city, and at certain times you'd see them doing shit together. It really makes them feel more realized as characters, which the game really needs. BW rolled with that same thing in ME3 and it gave us some of my favorite scenes.
This. It really is kind of silly. Bioware keeps doing specific things better and better. It just keeps screwing up other things worse and worse. <_<
Almost all of ME3's problems can be traced back to the lead writer sequestering himself to write the ending because he was so worried about leaks and so he didn't get any feedback at all, hence how it's full of crazy implied shit like "all turians die of starvation because of you." It's very frustrating because he basically did the beginning and end by himself and they're the only parts that I don't like.
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Was that actually confirmed somewhere? I heard rumors about it, but wasn't sure. It'd explain a lot... and make me reconsider letting that guy lead a project again.
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Devil May Cry 4 - Been making more progress with this, controlling Dante now and have done six of his missions. Dante feels quite a bit more generally powerful/damaging than Nero which makes a lot of things a fair bit easier... I have gotten my first three A ranks in the game thanks to his ability to tear things up. The three I didn't were Echidna (Dante's big downside compared to Nero is being worse at aerial combat, sooo...), Blitzes (I don't think this warrants explanation), and Agnus (who got a significant upgrade). On the other hand, the fire and ice bosses were even wussier with Dante than with Nero and they weren't the world's best bosses with Nero.
Plot has gotten much better since gaining control of Dante too. Nobody's making him play a stupid board game, that's for sure.
It's a little jarring to lose Nero's unique quirks midgame but I still like it; I far prefer mixing up PCs like this to "well you can just use the other for replays lol". I was enjoying controlling Nero (even if the character is a goober) but it is fun to go back to Dante and his variable weapon options.
Wild Arms XF - Just beat final Chelle in part 4. Part 4 hasn't been as rough as I'd kinda expected... until this last fight which was a ridiculous step up. Both Stealth Stalkers and Chelle proper were really bitchy, I had to go back to Widespread Remain and it didn't help that my skillsets were suffering due to needing Detect. I also had no quick way to kill the Forsaken Mutants though fortunately I got lucky with sleep staying on them.
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Dante's Aerial Combat comes from Rebellion + Sword Master combo; he doesn't have much else outside of Pandora fun shenanigans.
With regards to Dante vs. Nero, Dante's a lot more user friendly out of the gate relative to Nero, who really needs to get a lot of those upgrades, to be used at maximum effectiveness, and understanding a lot of his gimmicks, like the Auto-Level 1 Triggers (which I still can't get the timing down for consistently!), and what not. Dante's more about knowing what weapon to use where, what styles to maximize effectiveness, etc. I wouldn't say Dante is better so much as Nero is more projecty, given Dante gets more significant upgrades in story (weapons), while Nero relies heavily on Proud Souls.
This is more significant on higher difficulties of course where both characters are more upgraded, and enemies fight back a lot harder, making you actually care about more advanced stuff. In Normal Mode, first playthrough? Yeah, I'd agree overall that Dante > Nero.
THAT SAID!!!
Theatrhythm: Princess Sarah get! All I have left is an emo, dickwad lefthanded bishie with a massively oversized phallic object left...oh, and Sephiroth, haven't gotten him either.
FF12ZIJS: BASCH LIVES!!!!! ...that is all.
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DON'T LISTEN TO ONDORE'S LIES!
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So, I said screw it and attempted 4 Kings again. As I was running out of flasks, I realized that I had acquired the Very Large Ember earlier, and my Zweinhander deserved to be +15. So I committed suicide by swapping the Abyss Walker ring with a Ring of Sacrifice. Upgraded my Zweinhander to +15, went back, and walked all over the 4 Kings.
Headed down to the Demon Ruins. Defeated the Demon Firesage without much effort (nice job reusing a boss for a 3rd time), died once against the Demon Centipede (did not expect him to hit so hard!), and have decided Lost Izalith is the worst area in the game. Died to the mage... summoning lava I guess? Died once on each side of Bed of Chaos. And met back up with Sunbro =(.
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I picked up the rest of my stuff from the old place so I have my consoles and a tv back~
Star Ocean 3- Wow am I rusty at this. Ethereal Queen kept confusing/paralysing/freezing/petrifying me out. I forgot she even had paralyse. Heh. I need to get my act together before I get back to my NE/IE - NIC/NAAABA/NSSA/RC/MFO + AM/LIU or MO/NR file >___>
Something does not make sense. if you are fighting, that means you already beat Lenneth. How is I.Quen going to pose any threat when she is much easier than Lenneth?
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Obviously, CT beat Lenneth a while back, saved, and hadn't played SO3 since. Now she's booted up this save file after a long time, and being out of practice, I. Queen is a genuine threat now.
Not really hard to understand. Any game that requires a modicum of twitch-based skills, that actually has something resembling difficulty (which I. Queen does have; just because she's a notable step down from Lenneth doesn't make her a complete joke) will have this effect on people, I fail to see why SO3 should be any different.
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Frankly it is easily possible to get out of practice with RPGs that -don't- require twitch skills (let alone those that do). Don't underestimate how much you internalise correct strategies, such as when you should heal and what things to be prepared for from enemies in the game. I've loaded up games after months of not playing them and lost to bosses I consider jokes.
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So, I said screw it and attempted 4 Kings again. As I was running out of flasks, I realized that I had acquired the Very Large Ember earlier, and my Zweinhander deserved to be +15. So I committed suicide by swapping the Abyss Walker ring with a Ring of Sacrifice. Upgraded my Zweinhander to +15, went back, and walked all over the 4 Kings.
You can warp back to a bonfire via Homeward Bone even if you've already passed the fog gate. There's actually almost no circumstances in which you can't (actual Four Kings fight is the only occasion I can think of. I've warped out of the final boss battle, even). Bed of Chaos is pretty much my least favorite boss in the game, for the record. There's just nothing fun about that fight.
FONV: Mexican zombie mechanic promoted to Mexican zombie cowboy. Also Boone backstory acquired. Presently in mortal fear of entering Vault 34.
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Shadow Hearts 3 -
So I settled on a challenge. I will use only two PCs (challenge starts once I got party choice, i.e. Alcatraz). There may be another light rule or two (Mind's Eye ban almost for sure), but that's basically it. My plan is to use Johnny and Shania although Johnny's SP might drive me mad in boss fights, we'll see. Most of the early dungeons force a PC anyway, so I will be using forced PC + Shania for those.
Anyway, the challenge begins in Alcatraz, as mentioned, using Shania + Mao. I initially keep Mao with her starting Capricorn stellar chart, but quickly switch out to the much smaller Cancer just to get Bright Rage, an M-radius spell which is the most important thing to have at this point. Once I meet Just Us Guys in the prison (oh, the tragedy; 20's America just wasn't ready for their brand of love), I mess with the Capricorn chart so it has one node for each element and start using that instead (it has a lot more nodes).
Anyway, Alcatraz has three randoms. All of them use both a physical attack and a magic attack of their element (which is generally the norm for randoms in this game). Chon Chons are frail and not terribly damaging, but appear in large numbers. Bright Rage off Mao's magic OHKOs them despite the fact that it hits an element strength, so of course anything Shania has also does the trick. Their own turns aren't too scary but they do add up. Byarkis fly, and require two hits to bring down, and their physicals add paralysis. The rate seems low but I still equip accessories to block it because it landing at a bad time could lead to a wipe. Womps are the star of the dungeon; they sometimes with enough stock to often double or combo immediately (and certainly get enough after being hit once or taking one action), and their magic is Red Nova which both blows up stock and hits weakness on Mao, falling just short of a 2HKO. Their physical sets Random Ring which can be frustrating; on their double (which I see often), they use both attacks. The other enemies prefer using their stock for combos. Ambushes are of course the most threatening and while they never lead to an immediate wipe (at least with paralysis immunity) they can certainly be a bit scary and I have to stay awake during them.
During this dungeon, Shania accrues enough Soul Energy to reach Level 3 Ta'tanka which unlocks Arc Rage and Arc Surge, along with Ebony Cluster, a L2 dark spell which hits aerial targets only. The Arc buffs are not ungodly overpowered with only two PCs, but they're useful for the upcoming boss fight. I also get lots of snaps of Womps (photograph + run, the best strategy) since they're needed for one of Shania's statues.
Ronwei
Ronwei is the first boss of the challenge, and is a large step up from the first full-party boss, Igornak, even on a normal playthrough, although certainly nothing compared to most of the later bosses in the game. He specialises in destroying stock and making Mao's life miserable.
He has two main attacks: a physical that destroys stock, and Red Nova, which destroys stock (and 2HKOs Mao). If he gets a double, he will use both Red Nova and another fire spell, Flame Mine, and the combination will off Mao in one round. At low HP, Ronwei picks up multitarget Seal (silence). All of his turns carry a quick hit property except for his somewhat laggy doubles, as is the norm for bosses in this game. Seal has an especially fast recharge time, but otherwise he doesn't go crazy with lapping me like I expect some later bosses to do.
Keeping Ronwei's stock under control is important since those fire spells reliably go after Mao. My own Red Nova (both PCs have it) can do this, as can Hard Hit if I actually have 50% stock gauge to play with (doesn't happen too often, the boss is very good at depleting it). Otherwise it's large a matter of watching HP... Shania is quite tanky but even she can drop. My initial run of offence involves Arc Surge, and then using L1 magic from both PCs, particularly Mao's Hail Dust; these do around 78 and 88 damage. Later in the fight as I run out of MP and Arc Surge wears off, I switch to Aqua Edge physicals from Shania as Mao heals, this ends up synergising well with the party being silenced since I don't need to bother healing it. It'd have been even better if I'd been able to have Mao toss in a casting of Rage, but I missed the stellar for this (have since picked it up).
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Frankly it is easily possible to get out of practice with RPGs that -don't- require twitch skills (let alone those that do). Don't underestimate how much you internalise correct strategies, such as when you should heal and what things to be prepared for from enemies in the game. I've loaded up games after months of not playing them and lost to bosses I consider jokes.
Difference is you can't get your twitch skills back by reading a TXT file.
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Clearly inferior then.
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Shadow Hearts 3: Roswell.
Roswell is a short little dungeon. Hilda joins, and brings with her the Virgo stellar chart. It's a little bigger than Capricorn, and is higher-levelled overall, and also has one node for each element already which is nice. The only major modification I make for it is to turn one of its umpteen utility nodes into a second healing node, but that's not a big deal here.
Roswell randoms are pretty unimpressive, they have quite bad damage. Sirius can be OHKOed and swarms, other two are bigger and rarer, but generally nothing causes huge problems. The enemies like to inflict ring abnormalities so Hilda's initial Pocket Watch is handy. But overall this dungeon is too short to be worth caring about and less impressive than Alcatraz. The boss is another matter.
Procyon (2 resets)
Owww. In a normal game I don't have too much respect for Procyon; he has low magic defence, is weak to Hilda's shiny new toy (Thorn Whip), and generally gets its face melted off by Arc Surge'd earth magic spam. Here is another matter; he is quite an upgrade from Ronwei for a party of two.
There are a few reasons for this. First of all, Procyon is a fair bit faster, so there are more doubleturns (even an occasional triple if the only surviving PC used a laggy attack... yeah, this is bad) even before counting his doubles. His stock starts higher and due to the speed it is higher to keep under control, so yeah, those doubles will happen. And finally, he has quite a bit more HP than Ronwei (over 50% more), and while my offence has gone up (weapon upgrade, Thorn Whip), so has the resource cost... so I'll need to stop to restore MP at least once. He's physically immune so free damage isn't an option.
Procyon's own skillset is fairly narrow; it's all physical (as you might expect). He has physicals which add either Reverse Ring or Tight Ring. On doubles he'll use a non-status physical along with Big Bang, which hits a small AoE (only ever comes up if neither PC attacks round 1) and inflicts paralysis only with decent damage. One reset is partly due to realising I need to put paralysis blockers back on both PCs. Hilda gets to keep her Pocket Watch; another would be nice (belts have no value in this battle) but isn't necessary. Like with Ronwei, Procyon's damage is capable of 2HKOing the forced PC (though this time it's due to Hilda's HP being bad rather than an elemental weakness), and this time doubles are pretty damn inevitable, sooo this is a problem.
Solution is to start with Shield on Hilda. Shield lets me eat doubles and not die, which is nice because doubles make Procyon lag, guaranteeing I have time to recover. I also use Arc Surge and then set to attacking. Thorn Whip does about 145, Entrance Rock Bump is even better at double that, but requires that both PCs get consecutive turns I fell comfortable attacking. Otherwise, priority is of course to keep healed and try to anticipate when the doubleturns are coming to know when it's an extra high priority. Thorn Whip and Entrance both drain Hilda's MP in three castings, so I need to, at some point, toss a Mana Seed (not storebought yet, I have two). Procyon doesn't attack stock like Ronwei does, so I'm certainly more free to use doubles and combos, but they are creatures of lag, so I do have to be a bit careful with them (and of course, they can't be used to do the same action twice). I mainly use them if I desperately need to do two things rather than just to do attacks weaker than the PC's optimum. Since the battle isn't exactly short, I frequently detransform Shania to save on her Sanity costs (when she's just using items anyway), but this does come at a notable hit to her speed and durability (Ta'tanka is often only 4HKOed, but unfused is always 3HKOed) so it's really a bit of a balancing game to try to be out of SP around when the fight ends, and no earlier.
Very much a touch-and-go battle, and there's plenty of stress with making rings late in the fight (as it only makes sense to try to go all out for the win rather than drag things out with the resource issues), but after one long attempt falls short by about 10-20 HP, I do win on the second "real" try.
Things should be easier as the next area doesn't feature a boss balanced for four PCs, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure the randoms start getting better soon. So we'll see!
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Dragon Age 2 definitely has some good. The smaller city setting, more personal setting, Varric stuff, general design... (after the senseless blood is turned off) I was pretty impressed the first time I went to Kirkwall and saw those statues.
It feels like most of the complaints against the game were superficial (I mostly heard about shit not being epic enough, dungeon reuse and combat being action oriented when it isn't), but the game is still generally mediocre because of the terrible battle system.
Another thing I haven't mentioned (only a problem on consoles); the faster pace and larger amount of fodder enemies in battle is actually a problem, because each decision you make feels like minuscule micromanagement with no dicernable impact. Most of the time you instead give general orders, just let these guys auto battle and hope for the best, maybe also move the healer away from the pack of 40 enemies because he can't do it on his own. Assassins are an incredible threat in this game, yet you never feel like having everybody target them (even on nightmare mode) because that'd take one minute of imprecise semi menu navigation. And the assassin would just disappear again in two seconds anyway and you'd have to redo the entire thing again.
You're never thinking about the best strategy, but about the best strategy that would not take too much time to use. This is terrible in a pure RPG.
It's like a videogame forcing you to watch a 2 minutes long scene everytime you want to use a broken skill!
(this was a random jab at FF8)
Similar but worse than Torment's battle system definitely.
By the way, didn't Anders have a 180 and go from sarcastic unthrustworthy fun guy to Emo Jesus? (he's the best healer, I can't not use him anyway)
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Anders did indeed flip his shit pretty crazy when he merged with the setting's equivalent of an angel and it turns out that pure Justice doesn't work so will in a world of injustice and in the head of a guy with a persecution complex (which is created due to being persecuted to be entirely fair to him). Anders is pretty open about the personality in Awakening being something of a facade (Speaking of Facade, that is a game you totes need to check out Fen).
There was some seriously superficial complaints about DA2 and some people just straight up not getting the story telling style (which baffles me), but dungeon reuse is a pretty real one. It isn't that you return to the same locations 3 times over a 5 year period. It is that they reuse the same assets over these dungeons time and time again. There is a carbon copy of the exact same set of caves in 3 different parts of the cities and at least 2 different zones outside the city. Some of these places may be reused on the same map. Occasionally they will wall off different parts or make you enter at different places, but they are the exact same map. It is an appealing solution to limited resources that I can understand perfectly well, but it stinks of having to cut corners to make a deadline. I don't think they set out to make a game like that, I think they ran out of time to make the game they wanted to so worked with what the had to.
That said, on my replay on ez bro mode, I like to think of it as Varric not really feeling the need to describe areas so much when you are straight up killing 40 bandits in a span of seconds.
Edit - Oh forgot to say the blood is hilarious. Blood splatter on character's teeth? TIME FOR SRS CUTSCENE. Also Enchantment?
Also really recommending putting down the difficulty, it cuts down on the shitty parts of the gameplay and lets you get to the good parts (Varric dialogue).
Elf, what Ring mode were you using?
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Using Normal. I don't think I'm good enough at timed hits to justify using Technical when one error = death. I also find SH3 technical rings much more challenging than SH2 but that might just be me.
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Orcs Must Die 2- I finished normal mode, and beat all but the last classic map. Game is much more consistent about challenge than OMD1. Guardians have been given the nerf stick, magic has gotten better.
Fun game. Looking forward to the netplay and getting better at the endless maps. There's a ton to do still, including nightmare mode and the Sorceress's path. VA was great, maps were fun, and a lot of orcs died. It's everything I wanted from a sequel.
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Using Normal. I don't think I'm good enough at timed hits to justify using Technical when one error = death. I also find SH3 technical rings much more challenging than SH2 but that might just be me.
If you didn't need to have so many equips to keep your party up and running, the ring slowdown accessories would be a really good investment there. I know I used them in both SH2 and 3 and they make a humongous difference in your precision timing. They even give a modest offense boost coming from stats, so it's not like they're a total waste in terms of twinking. Also, you're making me want to do a SH3 replay with a different challenge.
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Endless Frontier- More like "endless wave of random NPC bosses". Just fought Dorothy, who is a giant biatch. I'm mostly using a party of Hakin, Kaguya, Reiji, and Xiaomu.
I do like this game, but man, there was a child looking over my shoulder on the bus as I played it, and I felt embarrassed. <_<
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<3
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Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword: Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn: Caveman2Cosmos
I can run this semi-regularly now, because I sometimes have access to a PC that positively chortles at even the harshest system requirements a Civ 4 mod can throw at it.
It is so good. SO GODDAMN GOOD.
It's not perfect by any means. I'm tempted to say Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn is still the better overall package, since some of what C2C adds really is pure bloat, and the prehistoric era, while an amazing novelty, adds a lot of time without a lot of strategic import. The AI also seems to struggle worse than usual, although my first game of it they kept up through the Renaissance, which isn't bad.
On the other hand, it adds so much cool stuff.
I really like the rebalanced melee unit tree. Clubman > Spiked Clubman > Stone Axeman > Axeman is a nice smooth transition, where one tier down can fight, albeit at a disadvantage, against the next one up, so a tech or resource disadvantage doesn't mean "welp gonna die or use nothing but archers all day erry day, or probably both," which even in AND it generally does. Let's not even talk about the base game, where "has copper" is basically a prerequisite for "survives the classical era." The Stone Maceman/Maceman/Flailman branch seems like it should just upgrade into the Swordsman tree, since their hybrid "decent against cities, decent against melee, but loses to Swordsmen and Axemen respectively" shtick isn't all that, but it's nice to have a dedicated city attacker in the earlygame. Insofar as near the end of the stone age counts as earlygame in C2C. I also like the way they handle archers (smaller city/hill boosts, but same power as melee units of the same era), and again it helps to make strategic resources feel like a bonus rather than a requirement.
Early siege units (log ram, battering ram) and more variety in medieval siege units (siege towers! ^_^) are nice. So are the wider range of renaissance and industrial artillery pieces, but some of them need to be distinguished more than they are. There are two early industrial cannon that are basically identical except one has 2 more power. It's dumb.
Crime Rate is a fun addition and much better implemented here than in Fall From Heaven 2. In that it actually matters here. High crime rates lead to crime "buildings" appearing in your cities. These give various negative mods like maintenance penalties and unhappiness. Later technologies offer both new kinds of crime and new ways to fight it. It's a small thing but not an irrelevant one, whereas in FFH2 it was basically flavor text.
Most importantly, the current build of C2C has implemented Clockpunk, Steampunk and Dieselpunk! ^_^ Each is sort of a x.5 version of the era it becomes available in - Clockpunk's Da Vinci Tank is better than any other Renaissance unit but more expensive than and not as good as mid-Industrial units, and so on. I don't think they're worth the expense to get them, considering their relatively short shelf-life, but they're awesome.
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Anders did indeed flip his shit pretty crazy when he merged with the setting's equivalent of an angel and it turns out that pure Justice doesn't work so will in a world of injustice and in the head of a guy with a persecution complex (which is created due to being persecuted to be entirely fair to him). Anders is pretty open about the personality in Awakening being something of a facade (Speaking of Facade, that is a game you totes need to check out Fen).
:( Well. It does make sense. But did it have to happen?
(I've already played about Facade actually)
There was some seriously superficial complaints about DA2 and some people just straight up not getting the story telling style (which baffles me), but dungeon reuse is a pretty real one. It isn't that you return to the same locations 3 times over a 5 year period. It is that they reuse the same assets over these dungeons time and time again. There is a carbon copy of the exact same set of caves in 3 different parts of the cities and at least 2 different zones outside the city. Some of these places may be reused on the same map. Occasionally they will wall off different parts or make you enter at different places, but they are the exact same map. It is an appealing solution to limited resources that I can understand perfectly well, but it stinks of having to cut corners to make a deadline. I don't think they set out to make a game like that, I think they ran out of time to make the game they wanted to so worked with what the had to.
I've noticed in one year already how crazy dungeon reuse is in DA2. I think one time I went to the slums, opened a door and ended up in the exact same copy of the slums. It sucks having a game like this, but unless exploration is a critical part of the game (It isn't in DA2), I don't think it's that bad. It reeks of laziness but it doesn't really affect anything but verisimilitude.
(And it's an understandable move for niche studios with no money like Bioware and EA?)
Also really recommending putting down the difficulty, it cuts down on the shitty parts of the gameplay and lets you get to the good parts (Varric dialogue).
I really should, but I somehow always enjoy bashing my head against an RPG with bad gameplay (as long as it's not too horrible) more than sleepwalking through it.
(And I beat that terrible boss yesterday. Nothing is going to be more difficult, right? Right?)
Diablo 3: Finished, then finished Act 1 Nightmare.
This was quite a step up from Torchlight, Diablo 2, Titan Quest and the like. Lots of sensible but ambitious choices to change the clickfest gameplay.
The ability to respec anytime is a boon that adds so much variety to each class, and only hurts those few guys who love to do a melee wizard or something. (sorry you guys)
I like the auction house, it's like another game on top of the main game where you try to sell all your worthless loot at a high-but-affordable price to afford loot that fits your own class better.
Diablo 3 is the only game of its kind where you're never screwed by not getting that one good loot; there's a lesser focus on random chance and a higher focus on money management and working with the in game economy. (which isn't broken!!)
In short, Diablo 3 is is Tingle's Rosee Rupeeland 2 + a silly game where you kill hundreds of enemies.
My strategy for the late part of the game was summoning Gargantua, then summoning a giant disenboweled multiple times so it could vomit on enemies. This worked quite well. I also turned bosses into chickens.
Diablo is Xorn.
Oh and for all the FE fans, a Tier Ring Saga translation patch has been released. Tear Ring Saga is basically a lost FE game for the Playstation, and looks exactly like one.
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Final boss maybe. The boss of Act 2 probably will be stupidly hard on Nightmare if you do it solo, but is much easier with a party.
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The ability to respec anytime is a boon that adds so much variety to each class, and only hurts those few guys who love to do a melee wizard or something. (sorry you guys)
The only reason I could even TRY to run a melee wizard is because I could respec. And it's pretty awesome.
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A "melee wizard" in D3 has short range magic instead of melee attacks, and still jacked up intelligence because that's where all his damage comes from. So I'm not sure that really counts.
I was thinking about builds with a lot of strength / nearly no magic that use only regular physicals or strength dependant attacks, and is helped by the often powerful passive magical skills. Those can't exist in Diablo 3.
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Orcs Must die 2- The multiplayer is glorious. I played some games with Uno last night.
How it works- You get half the number of starting coins, 6 trap/weapon slots and you coop the maps. It requires some planning and matching up your traps (You don't want to have one person load up on nothing but magic as it's a waste of resources), but it's WORTH it. Having a second person makes fliers much easier to deal with, and it lessens the need to use guardians to sit on alternate paths to the rift. We finished up the last couple of act 1 maps on nightmare and beat the OMD1 finale on warmage.
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OMD2: finished another couple of maps solo. Flyers are showing up, which means I should probably grind for skulls until I can afford archer guardians, even though there's no real safe place to put them in the current map. Managing them with the lightning ring and blunderbuss isn't a real winning strategy.
Rain-Slick etc. etc.: Finished episode 2. Reasonably fun, kind of disappointing in that it's way easier than the first one – even on hard mode and not being especially good at timed blocks I was very rarely in danger of dying. They also front-load the character/skill growth hard; you start at 15, have a level cap of 30 and are into the low 20s by the end of the first dungeon, including unlocking each character's second special attack (you get three total). Story is a combination of steampunk, overwritten Lovecraft homage and gratuitious profanity and dick jokes...so basically what you'd expect from Tycho given free reign. You enjoy it or you don't, I mostly did. Actually cracked up at the stinger, which I somehow failed to see coming.
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Can't, Archer Guardian is a plot unlock. You are going to have to get by with ice magic and autobalista.
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Pokemon White - Completed!
This game is worse then most of the other drugs I use! The gf has told me that she feels neglected when i start playing this game...i bought her Black to occupy her time, dunno why she is even talking with me about it! All jokes aside, she had never played any of the pokemon games and I took a shot in the dark that she might enjoy it. While I have run through the game with relative ease and charted 90 hours worth of gaming invested...along with 470 pokemon caught...she has registered just under 60 hours and somewhere around 90 pokemon caught.
Slacker!
Shame I bought this game so late in its shelf life, I can't get any of the legendary pokemon from this game! ARGH!
I just finished transferring over all of my old pokemon from all my other games...man it sure did take awhile, but it sure as hell beat the previous methods Nintendo gave you to do this type of thing!
I have a boat load of legendaries I never use, so for the after game in this game I am using some of the ones I never touched before! While leveling and breeding some pokemon I am missing in my pokedex I am having fun with Darkrai, Dialga, and Lugio. The other spots are interchangeable!
Oh and I somehow caught the pokerus virus, so I have been spread that ish around to as many pokemon as I can!
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Shame I bought this game so late in its shelf life, I can't get any of the legendary pokemon from this game! ARGH!
And everyone needs to remember this when they piss and moan about DLC and preorder unlocks and fly Nintendo as some bastion of Respect For The Consumer in the industry.
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Dark Souls: Faith guy is now further than Bobstein. Four Kings are dead. I shudder in fear of trying them on Bobstein.
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Pokemon White - Completed!
This game is worse then most of the other drugs I use! The gf has told me that she feels neglected when i start playing this game...i bought her Black to occupy her time, dunno why she is even talking with me about it! All jokes aside, she had never played any of the pokemon games and I took a shot in the dark that she might enjoy it. While I have run through the game with relative ease and charted 90 hours worth of gaming invested...along with 470 pokemon caught...she has registered just under 60 hours and somewhere around 90 pokemon caught.
Slacker!
Shame I bought this game so late in its shelf life, I can't get any of the legendary pokemon from this game! ARGH!
I just finished transferring over all of my old pokemon from all my other games...man it sure did take awhile, but it sure as hell beat the previous methods Nintendo gave you to do this type of thing!
I have a boat load of legendaries I never use, so for the after game in this game I am using some of the ones I never touched before! While leveling and breeding some pokemon I am missing in my pokedex I am having fun with Darkrai, Dialga, and Lugio. The other spots are interchangeable!
Oh and I somehow caught the pokerus virus, so I have been spread that ish around to as many pokemon as I can!
Which ones can you not get? many of them are available on the pokemon-gl. And a few have yet to be released(in america) at all! ALSO most other countries get all the uber dream world starters and bonuses, North America has yet to get....any except first gen(and you had to basically pay 20$ for just one of them). However 2 legendaries on the way just before Black and White 2 Start (meloda and Genosect!)
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FF12ZIJS: Beat Leviathan stuff, beat Cluckatrice, and now I give up on the game.
...oh, its not the game's fault, or anything, but rather, the copy of the game just doesn't run. The loading times started off as an inconvenience, but now they're downright dreadful, sometimes spending 5 MINUTES just cancelling out of a menu screen. So unless I can get a better copy of the game or something, this replay isn't likely to be finished. Pity too...
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Grandia 2 LLG -
Lots of progress today. Back in Cyrum Kingdom for the second time. Still no actual wipes so far (so either we've played really well or Grandia 2 difficulty is even more epic than we thought), although HEART came the closest.
Leck Guarder + 2x Snow Leopards -
This is basically the same fight as the one in Durham Caves at the very beginning of the cave. Except, of course, his support is better. He's still all ST, moves slowly but packs a wallop when he hits. Very simple; take out the Snow Leopards first. This is done with whoever has Burnflame (Ryudo) along with some GT item cast pickups from Cyrum. Meanwhile, the remaining two buff up, and Stram/Cold Leck Guarder to drop his damage and speed. The battle can be further controlled with Sleep (are you starting to notice a trend?) and the Leopards can be silenced. Once both Leopards are gone, Leck Guarder himself is easy.
Naga Queen x2 -
The queens resists ice, which makes my primary method of offense non-usable. Thankfully, we do have a plan B. After last battle, Mareg picks up the INFERNO BATTLEAX. Normally not very impressive, but being able to Item cast and hit weakness for about 1250 damage is a pretty big deal. Ryudo helps with Burnflame and Elena with Whirlwind staff, but ultimately, this is really just staying defensive and letting Mareg do the work. The Naga Queens have one very deadly attack called Freezing Eye, which does LT 2HKO damage and always adds -2 Move and -2 Act. Thankfully they were not smart enough to spam it repeatedly. Tio is item girl and shifts her turns to either Elena or Mareg depending on whoever gets the biggest turn advantage from Bonds of Trust. I also Cold the Naga Queens (one to -4 and the other just to -2) to keep their turns and damage in check. Spread out to avoid getting absolutely massacred by their Ice AoE
Tio Clone -
RICHARD advises me to go pick up some of the store bought mushrooms, which are insanely cheap (50G for one). They are GT stat boosts, but hit +2 instead of +1. This is a pretty huge deal. I grab 99 Speed, and 50 of everything else. Now, Tio Clone is dangerous. Probably the second most dangerous opponent on this update. The big move to watch out for is Tornado. This move deals around 70-80% MT Wind damage. Combined with her fast speed and LT Lotus Flower, she can pick off someone pretty easy in the opening rounds. However, she suffers the same problem as Melfice. When slowed and her move is crippled, she's a sitting duck everytime she tries to physical. At one point, I catch her with 11 consecutive Icefang stones for about 11332 damage and her turn still wasn't over. After a long battle (but one that was under control after slowing her down), she falls.
Body of Valmar -
Scrub boss. Only deadly if he pulls you in with Gravity. However, that gives your item experts time to buff up and then immediately spread out. The opening round is the deadliest and can cause about 1300 damage (enough to put someone into 5% HP range). However, once you move of the range (and slow down the main body), the tentacles can't do anything and the Body has absolutely nothing worthy of note. Strangulation adds -1 to all stats, but who cares. Also, it's vulnerable to POIZN and the tentacles are vulnerable to sleep. So you can sleep them, buff up and then run away. Actual damage was done via Burnflame (Millenia) and Burnstrike (Mareg). Ryudo chips in with GRANDIA 2 PHYSICALS and Flamberge's BURN. Extremely pathetic battle.
Granas Knights x4 -
They hit like a freight train (60% damage or so through HP plus) but have two big flaws. One: All physical and absolutely owned by Freeze x5. Two: Vulnerable to Sleep. One gets a turn and kills Elena. I'll let you figure out how successful they were after that opening round.
Heart of Valmar -
This one's tough. Like really tough. Possibly harder than Melfice because Heart doesn't really go for physicals, but either techs or magic, which means he brings on the pain. First, Avari Slash is extremely deadly. It's like Tornado, only Heart is slower. This alone wouldn't be too much trouble. But the Heart's support (the left and right eye) can cast offensive magic, which is no laughing matter either (anywhere from 600-1000 damage), which means it can seal the killing blow or put me into KO range. I don't want to take the eyes out because that would take way too long. On the other hand, leaving them alone is not an option and I spend the first quarter of fight scrounging around after it gains momentum and puts me in bad shape. At one point, I had 3 characters in critical and one dead. I then tried Snooze and saw that the eyes were vulnerable to Sleep. Guess what happens next.
Ryudo and Elena go on sleep lock duty. Their entire role in the fight is to lock down the eyes. Elena dies early on and I couldn't afford wasting time to rebuff her, so I spent a Hero's Elixir to fully buff her back up. On free turns, Elena also throws Icefang stones at the heart. Tio spends pretty much all her turns doing nothing but Icefang stones on the main body. Mareg does whatever he can to help (heal/Stram/Freeze and what not) to help. In this way, once my team is buffed to +5 Speed and the main heart to -5, I am able to never see the turns from the eyes, allowing me to ignore them (outside of the occasional sleep cast). The Heart eventually gets debuffed to -5 Move as well and has difficulty connecting with any attack other than Avari Slash (now MUCH harder for him to pull off) or Aorta Pummel. Without his support and the means to surmount an offense on me, I burn through another 30 stones or so to take it down for good.
Egg Guardian -
Pro RICHARD tactics at work here. Mareg gets spoilered at the end of this segment, so we blow enough SC coins to power up his Cancel tech and Power tech to max level. You get these coins back anyway, so there's no risk. This means, he is quite powerful for the next few fights. Ryudo and Tio are set up for support, with Tio being a turn shifter and Ryudo being an evade/offensive support whore. Battle begins with buffing with mushrooms since everyone is close together. The Egg Guardian is supported by 4 bits which it can repeatedly respawn. Since they also kamikaze at will, it is pointless to try and take them out. I do however, find out they are susceptible to Move Block, so I cast that with Ryudo to take out their kamikaze move out of the picture. This just leaves them with evadable physicals, which are much easier to deal with.
The Egg Guardian has some magic, and a nasty physical tech, but spent most of his time here to cast pointless stuff like Runner or Refresh to remove Move Block (which I then recast to waste his turn). I slow him down, and then power up Mareg by Def Downing the enemies and boosting his attack. He proceeds to start dealing around 2700 to 3000 damage, which is *massive*. Tio spends turns basically shifting either to Mareg or using the remaining attack items. Fairly good luck here, not seeing the deadlier attacks, but also quite simple.
Valmar Fly x4 -
They got perfect'd. Shameful
Valmar Fly x2 + Valmar Young -
Valmar Young is also sleep susceptible BUT he has a higher resist rate and not effected as long by it. Simple strategy of buffing up Mareg so he can take out Valmar Young quickly. Ryudo and Elena spend turns casting Sleep to incapacitate random enemies so they don't all gets turns together. Ryudo also has burn to use as finishing blows and additional damage, while Elena has the Whirlwind Staff. Tio spends time either turn shifting or finding additional junk to toss at enemies.
Valmar Young x2 -
See above. Similar strategy applies, except less use of Sleep and just more offensive attacks in general. Buff up, slow enemies down, then proceed to smash them in.
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I slow him down, and then power up Mareg by Def Downing the enemies and boosting his attack. He proceeds to start dealing around 2700 to 3000 damage, which is *massive*.
That's how you know it's an LLG; roughly normal damage for the part of the game you're in looks huge.
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Pokemon White - Completed!
This game is worse then most of the other drugs I use! The gf has told me that she feels neglected when i start playing this game...i bought her Black to occupy her time, dunno why she is even talking with me about it! All jokes aside, she had never played any of the pokemon games and I took a shot in the dark that she might enjoy it. While I have run through the game with relative ease and charted 90 hours worth of gaming invested...along with 470 pokemon caught...she has registered just under 60 hours and somewhere around 90 pokemon caught.
Slacker!
Shame I bought this game so late in its shelf life, I can't get any of the legendary pokemon from this game! ARGH!
I just finished transferring over all of my old pokemon from all my other games...man it sure did take awhile, but it sure as hell beat the previous methods Nintendo gave you to do this type of thing!
I have a boat load of legendaries I never use, so for the after game in this game I am using some of the ones I never touched before! While leveling and breeding some pokemon I am missing in my pokedex I am having fun with Darkrai, Dialga, and Lugio. The other spots are interchangeable!
Oh and I somehow caught the pokerus virus, so I have been spread that ish around to as many pokemon as I can!
Which ones can you not get? many of them are available on the pokemon-gl. And a few have yet to be released(in america) at all! ALSO most other countries get all the uber dream world starters and bonuses, North America has yet to get....any except first gen(and you had to basically pay 20$ for just one of them). However 2 legendaries on the way just before Black and White 2 Start (meloda and Genosect!)
First of all, what iIS this pokemon-gl you speak of!?
I got all the ones you can get normally in the game. I do not have Landorus or whatever his name is yet because I have to wait for my gf to capture her weather pokemon before I can go after him. Looking online, after him, it seems I am missing... Reshiram (for obvious not being in my game reasons), Kyurem, Keldeo, Meloetta, Genesect, and Victini.
Also, about this B2 W2 promotion. Do I have to buy the game in order to get those legendaries, or can I get them via mystery gift fashion?
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GL is the global link, i.e. online trading.
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Oh, GTS then...yeah, I need to have seen the legendaries in my pokedex before I can try and trade for them unfortunately.
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Theatrythm - SS ranked every series on Ultimate Score. Some of those songs were cast iron bitches, but for the most part is was less painful then I expected. Now to go SS rank all the extra/DLC songs(that I bought anyway) on Ultimate. And to try and find a dark note with Chaos in it. And maaaaybe to go try and fill out critical charts on songs. Maybe.
Quest for Glory 3 - So I find out it's nearly impossible to take a Fighter through this without becoming a Paladin before the endgame sequence. Dammit. Going to have to start over and be a JERK to EVERYONE just to avoid gaining enough honor to be a pally. Bleh. The fact that a lot of required actions gain you honor is unfortunate. Really prefered the QFG2 take on this, where becoming a paladin was something you really had to try for, instead of something you'd have to try just to avoid.
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Shadow Hearts 3: The Caribbean
First off, the randoms: (2 resets)
As I kinda remembered/expected, this dungeon is a big step up. I get a weapon upgrade for Hilda by choosing to do her interrogation scene, which helps some. I have party choice here, so I play around with combinations of Johnny/Shania/Hilda. After some experimentation, Johnny largely proves too fragile/undamaging so I settle on the other two.
Okerons are huge, needing something like 4-5 attacks to drop. Their attacks aren't too bad unless they double which of course they will at some point if not stock-broken. Seal's their main gimmick, and light magic does hit weakness on Shania. They're vulnerable to Grand Slam so I consider switching Hilda over to Curvy but without a Fruity Fibre this would take way too long so I decide against it. Besides, it would end up being a mistake anyway, because of the next enemy.
The most common foe is Heinz, which can be 2HKOed by various things. They're earth-weak and fly so they actually get OHKOed by Thorn Whip, very nice. They appear in large numbers (up to six), and have PETRIFY. Not good at all! Like FFX, physical attacks after being petrified kill you (not permanently, though). There's a Mirror Bracelet in a chest early in a dungeon which blocks it. Taking them out quickly with Thorn Whip or doubles helps a lot; one or two isn't too frightening because you can recover from petrify, but it can get ugly. Their doubles are nasty since they will air you then use Gale Rod.
The last enemy is the Bablovia, who are fragile (not hard to OHKO), cast Surge on themselves to try to double and make their damage mean, but otherwise kinda unimpressive. They use Hail Dust, and can also appear in large numbers.
I have two resets here until I get a handle on how to fight everything (and the mid-dungeon armour upgrade doesn't hurt). After that it's not too bad but the first attempts are quite ugly and involve a lot of running away and trying to figure out how to survive and counter each enemy type.
La Sirene (2 resets)
Now, see this? This is just embarrassing. La Sirene is of course balanced for one PC so is unaffected by this challenge. Before fighting the boss I remark that this will prboably be the easiest fight in the dungeon. I'm not even convinced it isn't, just... yeah, things don't go well!
La Sirene has 3-4HKO damage (4HKO in practice), physicals which inflict Fake Ring, Barrier (MDef buff), and Bright Oracle (3HKOs due to weakness). No recharge shenanigans (mostly), speed is averagish. Doubles involve a physical and spell.
First time I get owned by Fake Ring. How Fake Ring works is that it creates two hit areas, and there's no way to know which one is "correct", so it's kinda like a version of blind that works on ALL your moves in practice. Of course I repeatedly mis-guess on attempts to remove it/heal until I just die. Hooray! I've never been haxed by this in my first two playthroughs.
Second time I have a Pocket Watch so that path to loss is out. So instead this is what happens:
Shania is two hits away from death. I observe the stock gauge, and decide that, even with the damage I will deal with my current attack, the boss won't gain enough stock to use a double next turn, so I attack. The boss then proceeds to use Barrier! Which has a fast recharge time, causing her to go again. And then, using the stock gained from the Barrier-casting turn, has enough to Double, and does so, killing me. I must give the boss points for creativity there.
Third time pretty easy-peasy, Arc Rage than smash in the face, using Hard Hit whenever I'm suspicious of any nonsense happening and healing using Thera Seeds when required.
Next up is Las Vegas, complete with the last new PC. Shania is now Level 15, Hilda 13, others 12.
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Final boss maybe. The boss of Act 2 probably will be stupidly hard on Nightmare if you do it solo, but is much easier with a party.
Funny how a different build can make such a difference. I destroyed the Act 2 boss solo, not even getting hit. Decoy -> Pinpoint strikes -> Snipe his ass until the decoy is dead. Then I had to wait five seconds to use the Decoy again. This removed about half of his HPs each time so the fight was done under two or three minutes.
I didn't even need to summon the dog (I did it anyway, just like in every fight. <3 ) It also helped that this boss liked mimicking the Star Wars Kid for some reason, doing sweet pretend lightsaber moves in the air while I was shooting his face for 500 damage.
For all that the gameplay is still bad (I just saw 10 enemies appear in front of me out of nowhere at the same time, by the way), I really like the party dynamic here. The roles are even more exacerbated than before; Aveline is possibly the tankiest RPG character I've seen right now and does her best to appear as a threat to everybody. Anders pretty much can't do anything but heal. Yattaf deals more damage than Zophar's laser, and has a ton of tricks to ensure she doesn't get it. Varric is there for eye candy.
What I do in battle is picking up all the enemies that are not attacking Aveline, one by one. In short am playing Whack-a-mole: the RPG (With romance!!). Anything that attacks Aveline is pretty much worthless, because Aveline is just plain not getting killed. She even gets stronger the more enemies attack her. Girl is crazy.
Is defense (evasion) bugged or something? Yattaf has A TON but she always dies in five seconds if attacked by anything.
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I suppose I should post about other games too.
Devil May Cry 4 - Beat this! Two complaints with the last two stages:
(1) Okay, in chapter 6 there was this dice game. It was kinda annoying and random but it's amusing enough for a gimmick and sets up a great scene when Dante gets to the same place, which was pretty much the game designers winking at the player and saying "Yeah, we know that was probably kinda annoying". For some reason Chapter 19 then makes you do a much larger version of this board game. And even worse, if you die to a boss you have to redo it. I'm not opposed to dying to a boss making you do some of the stage over again, but when it's making you redo a game that could take half a dozen or more fights to clear (or zero!) that just feels pointlessly random.
(2) The very, very last "fight" was really stupid. For that matter I was a bit disappointed that the final boss was just an improved form of a previous boss. I am totally cool with those in general (and certainly this one was a fun fight in a vacuum) but I dunno, it's a little disappointing for a final opponent.
Anyway the game was good fun. Random design is second only to DMC1 I think; there's a few complete misfires (like those big wheel enemies whose name I am forgetting) but overall I was pretty happy with it. Blitzes felt underused (two in the entire game, plus a rare chance of more in the final board game?) but I assume they are primarily a hard mode thing. Boss design was solid enough too even if the frog was a bit too owned by a simple strategy, and having each PC take a run at both bosses really gives you a good feel for the advantages and disadvantages of each which was nice. The two-PC thing worked well in general, usual Elfboy rant about "goddamnit you guys make multiple PCs available in a game" applies and it is nice to see this game taking my rant to heart.
Aesthetically, it's certainly the most visually appealing game in the series yet! Next-gen system etc. Musically, "Shall Never Surrender" is an outstanding track and otherwise I don't have much opinion. Plot... serious plot is pretty darn stupid but Dante steals all sorts of scenes and when the humour is on, it is on (pre-Agnus fight hype etc.). Agnus was also quite amusing. Nero was an annoying walking trope of anime rage and Kyrie makes me long for DMC2 storytelling, the series finally gets sick of "everyone can kick ass" and makes a character who seems to be an homage to Shana.
So yeah, fun enough, will play again but am in no rush. 1 > 4 > 3 > 2.
Wild Arms XF - Nearly done my challenge playthrough now! Part 4 is finished. Three fights in particular were nasty.
-Final Chelle, since Stealth Stalkers are dicks as mentioned.
-Tormenta Triad 3rd fight, because 12 enemies all hitting my low defences adds up, and I need to act quickly to control the third brother with Rob Turn or they cut my army to ribbons (and Widespread Remain is useless with so many foes to clean up)
-Final Charlton since I refuse to play it like a sissy. Lots of Anchor Hook to kill the undead (and a little Sanctify), lots of Mystic Medicines and Berries, close in as soon as most of the undead are gone so he starts using Energy Drain instead of Black Corrosion.
It is certainly a challenging playthrough but I'm not having a huge number of resets... I know the game too well and my setups are good.
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We needed more homages to Shana in our lives obv.
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And yes, there are plenty of Blitzes on Hard Mode. Plenty of other scary things too *shakes fist at Fausts and Mephistos for good measure*
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*Flaunts LDK mode at console players*
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Orcs Must Die 2 - So hey, the campaign mode is a fair bit shorter this time. Don't really care though because all the changes to the game are pretty much amazing. Picking and choosing unlocks is awesome. Upgrading items is great and gives you longevity passed finishing the normal game and gives a reason to do Nightmare or just fuck around if you want. Game looks like it would be hella fun 2 player, I will try to rope one of the bros into this. Having a new character you can play as is also really great.
The campaign isn't just shorter, I am dead certain it is easier. Up until the forth last or so map I got 5 skulls on first try for most maps and only had to retry a couple of times on the ones I didn't. From there though, there was one map that felt like it really wants you to double team it (1 teleporter and it barely moves you anywhere and there is 4 doors worth of guys to juggle... Spent most of the time running around), think I got 4 stars on one of the other maps and a whole 1 star in the final map.
Brimstone is still broken as fuck.
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Gref: Mirror image is easier than it looks. The Kobolds on the north/south doors always run under the map; three or so archers facing each side will handle them. The big threat there are the Trolls- stick a Paladin on each staircase and they'll hold off the troll long enough for you to get there and thunder/fire his ass down. You create two killzones on the east/west sides with Archers holding the line.
I think the maps are harder myself- fliers are absolutely fucking obnoxious to take down without fire arrow archers- but you're stronger. You can run and grab thunderstorm right off the bat. That alone lets you control a wave of normal orcs very well. You can pick and choose what you want to spend skulls on which helps. Trinkets are also awesome. I really love all the changes to the system myself, especially the way they made Nightmare playable.
Been doing Nightmare multiplayer with Uno. second player helps *so* much, it isn't funny. I wouldn't be surprised if you get more enemies on multiplayer, but damn. Having a second player there is such a help.
Archers have surprised me with how fucking good they are on Nightmare. If you can find a protected spot, you use them. They are the only way to handle fliers since Autobalista fucking sucks (It takes a guardian spot?!) and the zapper trap is overpriced and hard to use.
Edit: Flipside, Paladins got nerfed hugely and aren't especially worth using. And Dwarves fucking suck. 900 for a slow, not especially durable guardian? Fuck that.
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Ys Origin - Played through as whatsername, the girl. Fantastic. Similar combat to Ys Oath, refined by designers who have a clear vision of what makes a viscerally enjoyable hack-and-slash-and-burn experience. Best improvement is to the 3 types of combat magic, especially the forward-charge-plus-brief-invulnerability move from Oath which is replaced by a stationary attack with slightly longer invulnerability that has a large vertical range and is an excellent anti-air attack.
There are games where entering a zone where all the enemies are overpowered and kill in a few hits, until you gain a couple levels and they become trivial, is a real drag. This is not one of those games. Getting your ass handed to you in the beginning of a level in Origin is a setup to sweet, sweet revenge mowing through hordes of baddies. So much fun.
Boss design is excellent, a slight step up from Oath. Moves tend to be clearly telegraphed, so once you learn them you can avoid them, unless as is often the case you're too busy dealing with the last attack to pay attention to the next one.
Music is good. Dungeon music is slightly weaker than Oath, but it more than makes up for it with uniformly excellent boss music, especially the major plot bosses.
Great game. Just started it on the second character Hugo, who is all pew pew pew instead of slashy and burny. There's a third character, too, who I haven't tried but apparently specializes in speed and close-range combat. Game like this, it's hard to see how that could go wrong.
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*Flaunts LDK mode at console players*
I see you've gotten over your PTSD of fighting 30 Angels at once?
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Dark Souls: Beat with Kiyone, I suppose. The game is a lot less clear about the actual choice at the end, I feel. Didn't really feel like I beat the game. Kind of want to replay as a different build, but should play other games.
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Grandia 2 LLG -
Core goes down after a 75 minute fight which featured round robin revival and lots and lots of pressure. Tongue and Eye rematches are also done. So only Heart and Butterfly space pope remains. War stories to come.
Dual Fists x2
These are Crimson Tails redux. They are purely ice elemental but otherwise have the same moves. Standard strategy of buffing up with mushrooms and slowing the enemies down. They are weak to Wind, so Elena's Whirlwind Staff had a ton of usage here. I pump up Ryudo's Tenseiken Slash with King's Pride and the Aura Armor. Along with a few +attack buffs and defense loss buffs, this deals around 1600-1800 damage a shot. After the team manages to spread out, their damage becomes quite manageable and the rest of the fight becomes smooth sailing.
Guardian x2
Naga Queens redux. Except they are all electric! Score. Their strongest attack is LT and adds -1 to all stats, so once again, staying spread out (aim for the four corners) is a good starting point after buffing up with more mushrooms. Similar strategy as the above works for the most part otherwise. These things are strong against most elements though, so they take longer to bring down and at one point, I actually just get Tio to chip in with physicals. Roan casts Burnflame/Burn and Ryudo Tenseikens whenever possible.
Valmar Magna x2
The team goes through a massive power upgrade before running up to Core. This battle is essentially a joke and I perfect this. Another perfect is scored on a similar mid boss fight.
Valmar Core
http://www.twitch.tv/tideruglia/b/327491556
The video really sums this up better than words. Extremely difficult as all 4 parts have enough offense and annoying stuff to kill you dead. I come really close to dying twice.
Ryudo is given a physical set up and is the only person with this set up. His key equips are the Granasabre (for more Flying Tenseikens), the Aura Armor and the King's Pride which bumps up his special move damage. Roan is set up to be a Mage, with Magic Esoterica, Two Chants and the Meteor Strike/BA-BOOM spells maxed. Elena is the item user with Skilled Item Use and Item Recover. Tio is given a mixed set up (fast secondary healer, some magic damage) and covers up various roles as needed due to her speed.
The battle itself is a long slugfest. Valmar Core has 50000 HP and all his moves solidly 2HKO outside of a few weak spells. He also has Vanish, which resets all stats to normal and Spellbinding Eye. However, his deadliest move is Day of Judgement which deals about 2000 damage to my party. At this point, my party has 2100+ in HP. Basically, anything that hits after will kill and I need to stay fully healed at all points. Not easy with 4 parts and attacks that are either GT, LT or MT.
At first, I debated on taking out the Middle head as it has Destruction Light, a powerful LT attack that deals about 1700 damage. However, after a while, RICHARD and NEB both suggest I should just gun for the Core as the heads all have lots of HP. Thus, Roan uses Meteor Strike and Ryudo uses Flying Tenseiken on the core basically on almost all their turns. I have them defend accordingly because getting hit twice usually results in someone dead. Meanwhile, Elena burns through feathers to shift turns to others and other utility items. Tio focuses on cancelling with Lotus Flower or healing the team. Everyone stays spread out, but despite my best efforts, I come very close to dying twice when 3 people get killed all at the same time. I burn through all my revival items and do eventually bring it down after a massive 75 minute slog, with plenty of thinking time between every move.
Millenia Clone -
Lol. Standard strategy of slowing down + speeding up applies. I use GRANDIA 2 PHYSICALS to conserve resources, although this ends up being not necessary
Tongue 2 -
Millenia dies once and I have no more revival after she is revived. Thankfully, I have lots of offense and I gun down the main part without much trouble. I boost everyone's speed with mushrooms (like usual) but don't bother really slowing down the main part. Instead, just a combination of powerful attacks (Flying Tenseiken/Meteor Strike) and staying defensive with Elena allows me to win this.
Eye 2 -
20,000 HP is easy to gun down and I set up Millenia and Ryudo to go full offense with Elena being support. The eyeball bats come CLOSE to killing Millenia, but Elena with items helps prevent what would be probably a reset and I proceed to drop more space rocks on our favourite little girl turned monster.
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Metal Gear Solid 3: Just shot an Old Man with a Sniper Rifle. Then ran through a mountain involving helicopters firing missiles at me. Then we got a scene that basically was there to remind us "yes, this is totally a homage to James Bond."
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Grandia 2 LLG -
Completed. Last two battles were terribly anti-climatic.
Heart of Valmar (Rematch) -
Spellbinding eye the main Heart stops all the other parts from moving. Three guesses as to what happens next! I scored a perfect here. Sad.
Zera -
Zera's fast, but he's alone with no support. Guess what that means. One Spellbinding Eye later and he's down to about 5% of his health. I do buff up with mushrooms and then Cold him so that when he recovers he will never see a turn.
And that as they say is that. Fun challenge if a bit annoying at times due to needing to constantly run. Otherwise, makes Grandia 2 far more interesting challenge wise.
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OMD2 rabble - In normal game I lived and breathed by paladins. Not to kill things but they are great at tying things up and are cheaper than setting up Barricades (which even after upgrading are still a huge money sink). Just got them regen and they were mostly good to go. Got a health upgrade because it was cheap and think they were good. Lightning Ring was mostly meat and potatoes and did most of the heavy lifting. Throw some paladins at stuff and alternate between Lightning Ring and Staff of Domination charged shots carried me through the first Act nearly.
After that Brimstone and Acid Walls did the heavy lifting backed by Paladin stalling/grouping and Archers. I second the opinion on Dwarves, used them until I got archers. Archers are cheaper and shit all over dwarves.
Fliers I don't really consider that much of a big deal on War Mage though, right up until the final 2 levels they are handily demolished by a chain lightning cast or two. For the last 2 levels you have to use the less efficient Ice, but you at least one shot them with that and with some aim you can get 2 or 3 a shot. Or Archers if you don't mind a couple going down every now and then (if there was any maps where fliers were a significant threat I would swap them to regen from fire arrows).
Now having fiddled with Endless mode, I am less convinced they are worth using for that at least on the first map because guy wave 27 they were pretty much just getting overwhelmed and slowly picked off by Earth Lords. Actually they are the one thing I haven't found an effective way to deal with. They are always manageable, but they aren't able to be trivialized like most of the other enemies with the right setup. Waves with them I know what I SHOULD be doing but the reality is that it is hard to actually do. Should freeze them or Dominate them while the chaff gets handled and just generally stop them beating my paladins' faces in. Once they split to Earth Elementals their damage seems to plummet. Fact is there is about 2 or 3 things I am trying to do (like fill in for dead paladins...) that it is a hard prospect to do.
Overall I like Trinkets, I think they add a neat dynamic to the gameplay, but they do make you focus more on one aspect than even Spell Weavers did (thank fuck those are gone by the way) because you lose the slot to have say a Zapper Turret or something to randomly handle fliers, you have that slot taken up with pocket heal or MP regen or whatever fits your style. On the other hand, not a problem in Multi right? Running theme is running theme.
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Paladins being weak to the big units (Trolls etc) I found to be a huge drawback. They are quite useable, but augh the nerf stick burns. Barracades worked better for me on the whole. I *think* the sorceress ends up better than the OMD1 main, but tar traps are so awesome that I am not 100% sure on that. I had serious problems with fliers until I actually unlocked Archer. They were tough again late too. Just a large improvement over the OMD1 version, which were mere annoyances. Multi is tight on traps too. You have six slots each (Including the weapon slot where the staff/gun go) so yeah. You end up with nomially more slots, but you have to balance what you are using. I second being glad weavers were gone. Such a clunky mechanic, it was vastly improved by being rolled into the trap upgrade system.
Earth lords are extremely dangerous; they always kill me in endless mode. They'll break up, run past your traps and then into the rift. Fire arrow archers can slaughter them, but you can't leave archers alone or Gnolls will slaughter them. I can deal with everything else, though cyclops are *SCARY* due to the range. I think the way to handle endless mode is coop. Having a second warmage around means one of you can just sit and watch the guardians, while the other is more aggressive with traps.
Oh yeah. Nightmare ditched the instant dumping you onto the map. You now have a go period at the start to place traps. Nightmare is still nuts for challenge and waves, just you have a little time to plan things out before the chaos starts.
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Conquest: Got my first Legendary, Terrakion for Keiji. About halfway through the scenarios. Working on getting perfect links for the scrub warriors now, since that's needed later for something.
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30 Angels are fine. Eight Mephistos, though? Fuck them.
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Dark Souls: Beat with Kiyone, I suppose. The game is a lot less clear about the actual choice at the end, I feel. Didn't really feel like I beat the game. Kind of want to replay as a different build, but should play other games.
I am assuming you chose the Link the Fire ending, because that is certainly the more vague of the two. Dark Souls hides its story pretty well, anyway.
FONV: Okay, Bethesda. I give up, you win. You want to make your games technically unplayable, I'll stop playing. (Playing the PS3 version this time. It suffers from the same problem that plagued PS3 Skyrim, except worse: the more things you do, the larger your save file gets, and the more the game lags. By the end of the maingame content, I cannot play for more than a couple minutes before the game grinds to a halt. I haven't even touched the expansions yet. Bethesda really is terrible at everything.)
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Noting that the game is made by Obsidian rather than Bethesda, those problems existed in the engine rather than Obsidian's kind of notorious spaghetti code.
So good stuff is Obsidian. Bad stuff is Bethesda. That is how we do this right?
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I am absolutely aware that it was developed by Obsidian and that this is why the writing is excellent (and the worldbuilding really is the best I've seen in a game), as opposed to the drivel that was in FO3.
So yeah. Not news, just kicked me from merely not wanting to play another of their games to actively warning people against doing that.
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Why would you play it on anything but a PC? You have nobody but yourself to blame.
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Uh I'd say it is also the fault of whoever decided to release it for the PS3 and then make it a buggy mess.
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Bethesda handled the QA, which should be all you need to know.
Still doesn't answer the question of why you would play it on not-PC because holy fuck do you miss out.
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I won't speak for El Cid in particular but there's a number of reasons people play things on the console instead of the PC (which is why console versions of games sell more unless PC comes out first) which are fairly self-evident. You can't blame the player for the fact that the team responsible for doing the console port can't do their jobs.
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It's a Gamebryo game. People should have learned this lesson with Oblivion, or even Fallout 3. And yes, console games do sell better. Star Wars Episode I made a bajillion dollars. I expect more out of El Cid. Even if the team makes an absolute perfect replica of the version on both PC and console, the PC version would be better because console hardware architecture doesn't allow for modding your game.
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Eh there is consumer beware and then there is consumer unable to hear about problems with an engine because OMG 10/10 BEST GAEM EVAR Y U HATING??!?!??!? talk which when Oblivion and FO3 came out that was all you ever would see.
Much like Dragon Age 1, I do think you should play these games on PC and not because of anything inherently wrong with games on consoles so much as things inherently wrong with these specific games on consoles. Bad engine is bad and poor optimisation is a bitch. Edit - Dragon Age isn't engine problems so much as controls are just a pile of WTF on a controller. Massively inhibits the gameplay.
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I'm not real fond of PC gaming. Prefer using a controller, extensive mouse/keyboard usage has begun to be physically uncomfortable, and if I'm going to sit on my ass for hours on end staring at a screen, I'd rather it be on my couch than at my desk. And I'm not moving my furniture around just for a game.
I find it hilarious (in the worst possible way) that Obsidian missed out on a huge bonus that was contingent upon Metacritic scores that they missed by one point, and the chief complaint lodged against the game was the bugs.
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So plug a game controller into a USB port (I have a wired 360 controller that exists for only that purpose) and plug your PC into your TV. I've got my TV set up as a second monitor so I can watch things that I have LEGIT PURCHASED DIGITALLY AND SHIT.
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Death Rally (Modern) - essentially finished
The progress bar is on 99%, but all that I'm aware of that's left is grinding fame for higher fame levels, and I feel I've done enough of that.
It's not as Death Rally as I was hoping, but it's still pretty Death Rally.
I seem to remember Death Rally falling off in difficulty as you progressed, but this version starts off fairly simplish and gets harder. I guess that's an improvement.
They took out instantly losing if you get lapped, which as far as I know was in the original to stop you from slumming your way through the difficult races and getting more money for sucking than you would get for doing well in the easy races, and instead you just don't have access to the difficult races at all to begin with. I tried to use the fact that you're allowed to get lapped now against the Adversary but that didn't work out too well.
They took out all the amusing descriptions (http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/death-rally/screenshots/gameShotId,392198/) of everything : (
Also the leaderboard (http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/death-rally/screenshots/gameShotId,392197/). Now only 'boss' NPCs have portraits, and there's essentially nothing to them (for all that them being on a leaderboard is not much to them anyway). There were a couple of recognisable NPC names, but none of them were boss NPCs. Duke wasn't included for anyone who cares about him.
Machineguns were made fairly scrubby and you now get to equip other primary weapons in addition to them, so you can put high-end weaponry on the weakest cars if you want (which is pretty nice in the races where everyone's using one of the weaker cars...).
The Adversary was a pretty horrible challenge - they're faster than your fastest possible cars outside of nitro use, and they have a huge defence. You essentially need to use one of the two fastest cars and hope to be lucky enough that enough Nitros turn up that you can keep up with them long enough to deal enough damage - of course most of the time you get Nitros but not any ammo, or ammo but no Nitros.
There are separate achievements for beating The Adversary and for killing The Adversary, but you get both of them for killing them - personally feels like actually beating The Adversary race-wise would be more difficult than killing them, but whatever.
Anyway, it was all good good fun. Good times.
The Ball - dropped the ball halfway through Teotl
Just not clicking with me.
Not a fan of slowly-punt-cubes-around-until-they-jam-into-holes-in-walls-at-odd-angles. Not a fan of the hammer being highly picky about whether it's going to hit something or have no effect. Not a fan of most of the story being attached to secrets.
I feel that if I want more ball&ruins action my time would be better served with replaying Metroid Prime.
Mario Kart 7 - Three-starred all of 50cc, three quarters of 100cc
It's pretty good fun, although it murders my hands.
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"Well, this developer will obviously fuck up the console port so I'd better go PC if I want something playable" isn't a thing I should really have to think about when buying games.
On the other hand, it's first-person shooting. Even bug-free, that shit's not made for controllers.
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Cid: Yeah. And yeah, Dark Souls does hide its plot incredibly well. It is kind of a shame. The world and plots are somewhat interesting! Just can't really figure anything out without incredibly deep digging.
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Shadow Hearts 3 challenge: Las Vegas
Some bookkeeping before this dungeon; I grab Johnny's Panoramic Lens. This is obviously helpful for wasting less time on snaps but also +2 to a few stats is nice. I also make a run at taking down the second Natan UMA, but since it 2HKOs Natan reliably and has very solid stats for the time I lose and decide it might as well wait until after Las Vegas (its only reward is the statue which reduces La Sirene's MP costs, not too important).
So anyway, Las Vegas itself features a bunch of fights against Petty Gangsters and Gangster Hoodlums, who appear in large numbers (typically 6) but aren't very dyrabke. They're weak to water and light in an effort to show off La Sirene, and indeed, after I power La Sirene's skills and stats up one level she can OHKO both of them with either Bright Rage or Hail Dust which is very nice. Johnny's not so fortunate, needs weakness to OHKO, but he can take out a group of the same type. Their own attacks are ring statuses, though the damage is decent.
At this point Ricardo joins, so Johnny comes out for him except to take snaps of a few enemies. Ricardo's stats are a bit better due to levels. He also joins with several excellent spells: Arc Cure, Red Bounce (the second medium-radius spell that hits ground enemies), and Gale Blast (finally a useful wind attack! The first was ST and only hits aired enemies... and earth-elemental enemies are almost inevitably ground-based).
Three new tougher enemies at this point, who take some effort to 2HKO (and are never OHKOed). The Ghoul makes a good target for my new Gale Blast, and otherwise is notable for having a ground attack, Rock Burst which will miss Shania if she is Thunderbird or La Sirene. The Automaton is the opposite, a wind-element enemy, but isn't too notable. Butchers must die first, they have Evil Shade which is a medium-range stock destroyer. They'll also cast Rage which makes anything have really nasty physicals.
This dungeon has nothing as evil as petrify so it's certainly easier than the last, and also the non-mafia enemies never swarm. Early in this dungeon I pick up the Petrify ring add-on which is very useful here, as all three enemies are vulnerable to it. I give it to Shania whose physicals 2HKO anyway, so I can open with that and hope to take out an enemy, and if it misses Ricardo can finish with Gale Blast, Bright Rage, or Rock Bumb anyway.
Malice Edna
Edna's another notable jump in durability from the last boss (again, over 50% more HP). Fortunately this time I can use physicals again, and do. Rage, Heat Edge Shania does just shy of 200 damage.
Edna mainly uses magic, Hail Dust and the non-elemental Black Hole. Like the previous bosses, Edna can 2HKO the forced PC (mostly due to Hail Dust hitting weakness, Black Hole falls just short but together they work). If she gets a Double she will use physical + Shock Max, another water spell, which one-rounds Ricardo but fortunately she'll hit Shania just as often (probably because the lead-in attack -isn't- water?). She occasionally uses Mental Breakdown, a MT status attack like Ronwei's poison. Mental Breakdown is a pretty nasty MP poison so if I'm attached to the character's MP it needs to be healed immediately. Fortunately, Mental Breakdown misses about half the time; unfortunately it has a fast recharge time. Lastly, Edna has Surge, which she'll use once when she falls below half HP; it lets her 2HKO Shania as well but goes away after a few turns.
Arc Cure is a huge help here, since if Edna spreads out her damage (and she often does), it can cancel two of her turns or even more. It means I rarely need to worry about Shania in particular; I just use Arc Cure whenever Ricardo gets attacked. Ricardo's also responsible for the initial Heat Edge, and will also use Rage on Shania if needed, Gale on Shania if he really lacks another useful action, and Red Nova if Edna's stock is getting too high.
Shania, meanwhile, is responsible for damage, which means lots of physical attacks (hard hitting if stock destruction seems useful). She'll also use Cure Plus on herself if her own HP falls very low (since it is notably more than Arc Cure), Arc Rage if it's needed, and Howling whenever either PC is running low on SP. I mostly use Ta'tanka for the offence and Howling, but La Sirene for Cure Plus and items (since it has the best overall non-offence stats).
Obviously MP restoration, status healing, and revival items are used as necessary.
It's an easier fight than Procyon for a couple reasons (mostly having free damage through physicals and Arc Cure) but still fairly tough; no shock there.
Levels were Ricardo 17/Shania 18 going into the fight, both are now one level higher. I go back and beat the Caribbean UMA now (which is very easy since it is just a worse version of Edna right down to being water element). Next up are the first round of Lovecraft trials and then the last dungeon of the first half.
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I find FPS gameplay much easier to deal with on a controller, personally. Anyway, the machines are in different rooms so that's that. My plan to develop x-ray vision has sadly not come to fruition yet.
Cid: Yeah. And yeah, Dark Souls does hide its plot incredibly well. It is kind of a shame. The world and plots are somewhat interesting! Just can't really figure anything out without incredibly deep digging.
Beyond the intro movie, the most significant blob of plot is basically your reward for beating the Four Kings before any of the other endgame bosses (there are two creepy snake dudes, you need to not give the Lordvessel to the one that's at Firelink Shrine). Otherwise it is almost entirely communicated through item descriptions.
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Yeah. Been reading up on plot summaries. Surprised by how much of the plot is delivered through item descrips.
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Endless Frontier - Done! Fun stuff.
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I had an old post with my thoughts on things in regards to Fenrir's thoughts. (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,5556.msg135380.html#msg135380) Granted with new out-of-game info from the developers and artbooks and stuff some theories get really worked apart. Plus the usual Dark Souls "no one is happy ever".
Dark Souls: Because Faith guy is synonymous with Luck at this point he's now become the designated weapon trophy guy. Yay? Gonna have to gank Priscilla though and grind up weapons. Joy.
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Fudo: I may have some spare shit you could have if you want to take the easy way out for weapon trophies. Couple maxed weapons that turned out to be surprisingly crappy, spare slab or two.
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I was planning on running the Faith guy through some NG+s anyway, so no thanks, but thanks for the offer.
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I prefer playing on a console because I prefer to spend time with a slightly inferior game that can be played immediately than with something that might require tweaking. (Vampire Bloodlines and Fallout 1/2 were worth it, but yeeesh)
Dragon Age 2:
Some people are trying to get revenge on me for killing their brother or something. I can't remember their face but I kill them and all their friends. Basically, this happens for 10 hours. Also some anti French commentary from Aveline in a game that doesn't take place on Earth? Stay classy, Bioware. (Apparently medieval alternate France is where all the superficial vapid girls are)
Then I get to slaughter an entire elf village because of an honest mistake? Woah.
I get to the final stretch of the game right after that -> !?!??
Well, I have to congratulate Bioware for provoking such a strong reponse from me. I'm planning to get an earlier save right before the battle, stock up on potions and backstab the guy whenever I get the chance.
I can probably do the final battle without Anderrs. I really haven't had much problems in this chapter from anyone but the mages, so if I side with the mages, there shouldn't be any problem right?
Has anyone else noticed how Anders has the same first name as the Norway killer? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Act 3 is definitely a step up from the other acts, but the recycled dungeons are really draining at this point. I didn't actually think I had seen everything in the game by the end of Act 1. I also don't know whyI, this super rich girl am going around killing everything? Just hire people to do your dirty work. And calm down. Maybe getting involved in real politics is better than just committing genocide everywhere.
Gameplaywise, I just did five digit damage. In a Dragon Age game. (Aveline's still doing about 40 average damage for the record)
El Shaddai: Completed.
Very nice style as expected, but I'm not sure I want to know what's the point of the plot.
Here is artwork for the archangels Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel:
http://images.wikia.com/elshaddai/images/f/f7/Archangels_render.png
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El Shaddai: Completed.
Very nice style as expected, but I'm not sure I want to know what's the point of the plot.
Here is artwork for the archangels Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel:
http://images.wikia.com/elshaddai/images/f/f7/Archangels_render.png
Oh man, they r so hot. Can't wait for them to crossover with Hatoful, bro.
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MGS3: So I shot some dude in the head with a tranq dart, then stole his clothes and shoved him in a locker.
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We warned you bro, the recycling is a bigger thing than it first seems.
Glad to see the spoilarz got a rise out of you. Also look forward to seeing how you found siding with the mages. When you are done there is some quick other spoilarz I want to back and forth about.
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Shadow Hearts 3 challenge: Wrapping up
disc 1 North America.
First off, I head to Arkham and do the first round of trials. Even with two PCs, two of the challenges are very easy (heck, one even "restricts" you to two PCs! Haha). The other two not so much.
Basic Beastology II's restriction is that you must not let any enemies get turns. The first two fights aren't so bad (the first is against three thugs from the Chelsea theatre, second against Prison Guards from Alcatraz) but the third is rough. Four mafia thugs who have ~170 HP and require two solid hits to go down. It's not really feasable until after Vegas and even then it's dicy. Basically the PCs get six actions max (first PC doubles, second D-Combos, first PC doubles again). Two of the enemies start grouped together, and the combo of Red Bounce and Bright Rage takes them out (hits both their weaknesses). The others are solo but again can die to combos. However, one mistake spells doom here, as does running out of MP midfight (which totally happens to me one on attempt.
Basic Beastology IV requires you kill a 35-HP boss who takes 1 damage from everything, but the last hit must have 30 hits. To make matters worse this boss is Ronwei which means your Stock is getting owned if you don't do it right away. Special skills (including Shania's) are banned here, so stellar magic is the only answer. Even after Vegas, the four highest-hit spells available (the two earth and wind spells) do only 5+7+8+9 = 29 hits between them, not enough! But wait! You get a bonus hit for knocking an aired enemy into the ground, and Gale Rod (the 7-hit wind spell) does in fact knock enemies down. So there's the thirtieth hit. Anyway, use two non-Shania PCs (Johnny and Ricardo for me), have the first PC use one of the high-hit spells, then unleash the aforementioned combo using a D-Combo followed by a Double, collect 15 silver points and a statue for Shania.
So now let's talk about Chichen Itza randoms. (1 reset)
Eliops are little pests. They don't do too much damage (4-5HKO) and can be OHKOed easily enough with Red Bounce or Shania physicals, but you can see up to four of them at once and if they get a second turn they will double for actually significant damage. They also use Fast Ring status which is a bit dickish and can help you screw up so that they see that second turn.
Jig Ruta are light mages who need two hits to go down. They're vulnerable to Instant Death and you get that as a ring status in this dungeon which could help, but I never actually get it to land. They use either Bright Oracle (kinda not too scary due to their crappy SAtk, despite hitting Shania weakness) or stock-breaking attacks which are much more annoying. They can also cast Arc Shield to make physicals less effective, although the only enemy that this makes particularly tankish is the Guanna.
Speaking of which, Guannas are big ol' bags of HP who immune most everything status-wise you'd like to hit them with. Their own turns aren't too scary, either relatively undamaging Red Bounce or a decently damaging (3HKO Johnny, 4HKO Shania) physical that inflicts Apathy, a relatively benign status that mostly prevents you from profitting from the long fights against them. Rage Shania just misses the 2HKO, so Johnny can chip in for the victory.
The scariest fights are probably against four Eliops and one Jig Ruta, which can definitely get out of control. Ambushes by anything are also potentially deadly.
Jeb Niglas (1 reset)
This challenge makes bosses feel very durable, and Jeb is yet another improvement in this regard. 350 more HP than the previous boss and only somewhat better PC offence (new belts and a few levels) means he takes even longer. Dunno how long this trend will continue!
Many of the same strategies that worked against Edna applied here. Johnny's Arc Cure, Rage, and Dark Edge (Jeb's light element) are still useful, as are Shania's smash-face (particularly Hard Hit), Red Nova, Howling, and Cure Plus. Johnny also may chip in Hard Hits or Red Novas if necessary. Evil Shade is an option over Red Nova, but "even laggier than Red Nova" isn't my cup of tea even though it does a lot more damage (though needlessly higher MP cost).
Jeb himself is kinda badass. He'll occasionally use Seal (which I don't have a blocker for), which is MT, quick recharge, ~50% accurate like Edna's status only a bit more dangerous. Fortunately it's seriously rare (never saw it more than once per very long fight) so whatever. More often he uses light magic (both a line attack and a circle attack), which is of course a good choice against Shania, solidly 3HKOing her. And borderline 2HKOing Johnny because the kid is fragile. He also uses an extremely damaging physical attack (solid 2HKO on Johnny and even 2HKOs untransformed Shania, though not transformed mercifully) which also removes stock because he's a jerk. Finally, once when his HP drops below half HP he'll cast Barrier which is a complete joke (reduces magic damage which I'm not using anyway by like 15, big deal); unfortunately the super-fast recharge means it's not much of a wasted turn. If he doubles, he'll almost certainly kill Johnny, or finish someone off and smash something else. He can mix a physical and light spell into his double, or two light spells, the second being the powerful Holy Pulse combo magic. This might well kill Shania in anything short of La Sirene but I never see it against anyone but Johnny.
Jeb's pretty clearly better than Edna in a few ways (in addition to what I've already noted, he also has more speed) and Johnny being 2HKOed by his magic is incredibly frustrating. So I drop his belt for a Blood Jewel, which gives +1 SDef and a cool added effect. Actually, this added effect is even cooler than I thought; it basically makes him immune to running out of SP as long as I nail a judgement ring whenever he does run out. I will definitely be buying a second at some point. Anyway, +1 SDef means Johnny is definitely not 2HKOed by magic, although throwing in a physical there obviously does it. So it's another game of "try to keep the non-Shania PC alive", using all the same tricks as the last battle, and trying to gauge appropriate time to use doubles and combos (though these are much rarer due to Jeb's stock attacks). The offence is certainly the scariest of any boss yet (that physical is mean) so it's a tricky fight, but ultimately doesn't really require many new strategies, just better applications of the ones I already know.
Next we get inferior random battle music and a boss which I can't use Shania against! ffff
EDIT: Forgot to say that my levels were 20 Shania / 18 Johnny against the boss.
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Dark Souls: Faith guy NG finished. Getting Priscilla's tail ended up relying on--of all the stupid things--Gravelord Sword Dance. Also went around sucking humanity and killing the blacksmiths for hammers and helmets. Giant's hammer is actually not bad. Weird. Since I saved Solaire I actually had his help against Gwyn where he was invaluable. Survived even. Sunlight Spear gotten damage is awesome, but uses is not. 5 uses for 2 slots? Remove either of those to make it viable jeez. Also that makes the Miracle trophy get. Only Fire and Rare Weapons left.
Should get to dealing with Bobstein sometime in the week.
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Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance- Finished. So, this game.
Plusses
- Disney elements mostly work. The world selection is odd at a glance but works well in the context of the game.
- Dream pokeymans are the cutest things. Rub tummy to power up!
- Also the way the ability system works re: dream pokeymans is neat. you can pretty much buy them skill points to unlock stuff (albeit with some minigames attached) and while the top high end stuff (Once More, Leaf Bracer, Salvation/Dark Firaga) is hard to get Unless you use those pokeyman cards to just instantly get guys who have most of those available from the start of course, useful things are widely available. How the game treats unlocking different things works well; deck skills you just get a single copy of, support skills you learn permanently, and stat boosts you get only while the Dream Eater is in your party.
- PC Riku best Riku
- Most of the game is spent making fun of Sora. This mostly pleases me because shut the fuck up already guys, not having Sora in the game is not some huge crime. Yeah casual fans of the series make me want to punch kittens.
Minuses
- The Hunchback world was a complete flop. Lame music, lame crossover, it makes the complete lack of non-essential NPCs in this game mind-numbingly obvious, the level layout has nothing distinctive or iconic, just an utter letdown.
- Drop system. I get why it's there, and I appreciate that they didn't just want to either repeat BbS and split the two stories entirely, or plot enforce every character switch (since they share inventory and dream pokeymans, being able to switch back at need is something you'll usually do), but the implementation leads to a lot of very stupid "oh you just don't have enough time to kill this boss, time to do something completely unrelated for 15 minutes". I think the kicker is the fact that certain things increase how fast the meter drops.
- The flowmotion thing (basically, if you dodge repeatedly or into walls or jump on railings, you enter a fast-move state you launch spinny attacks from) is an interesting idea but there's a critical issue in it replacing your normal control scheme. Once you enter flowmotion your command deck is disabled, and movement is completely different. It wouldn't be an issue except...
- Boss battle arenas are way too small. A lot of Kingdom Hearts comes down to "dodge, dodge, okay chance to heal, then attack!" With the arena size, it's easy to run into issues where you slam into a wall and, depending on what you were dodging, either run out of room, get hit, and die, or enter flowmotion, spend a few seconds exiting, can't do so safely and thus die. Or try to flowmotion away from battle and, because it's considerably less invincible than dodging, get pinged by a projectile and die.
Argh
So it's not too spoilery to say that this is really Riku's game, narratively. As such, it shouldn't be surprising that the endgame bosses are mostly his. At the end you get a 3 boss chain, followed by a save point and a two boss chain (also lots of plot obviously). The second boss in that chain is a complete motherfucker of a battle. It's clearly NOT supposed to be. Boss has two stages, which you may or may not switch between (gameplay mechanic related, not worth getting into). Each stage has two goddamned attacks, and they're ridiculously telegraphed. This should not be hard. Except the first (and possibly only) stage of the fight takes place as some weird midair battle bullshit, so the movement controls are slippery. It's possible to use this to your advantage, but his ridiculously telegraphed attacks also really hurt, and don't count as a regular combo so can easily kill you through any defensive setup aside from "don't let it goddamned hit you". And then you dodge it, run into a wall, and essentially die instantly after a 20 minute battle. I think this is the first time I have actually, seriously been angry at a KH game.
While the negative stuff went on a bit, it's mostly very situational issues that don't come up in 90% of the game. It's probably my least favorite of the four core titles, but not by a meaningful margin. Still 9/10 stuff.
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So if casual fans of KH are bad, what does that make serious fans? Unsedated adult circumcision? Or whatever this horror is?
(http://i.imgur.com/tkscM.jpg)
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I had an old post with my thoughts on things in regards to Fenrir's thoughts. (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,5556.msg135380.html#msg135380) Granted with new out-of-game info from the developers and artbooks and stuff some theories get really worked apart. Plus the usual Dark Souls "no one is happy ever".
Dark Souls: Because Faith guy is synonymous with Luck at this point he's now become the designated weapon trophy guy. Yay? Gonna have to gank Priscilla though and grind up weapons. Joy.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/localising-dark-souls
According to this interview, you're not supposed to fully understand what's going on. The guy who designed and wrote dark souls was trying to recreate the feeling of reading a fantasy novel, in english, when you don't really understand english.
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Rob you're talking to a crowd who spend several hundred dollars each year to fly, occasionally cross-continentally, to various cities just to hang out with internet people. Folks who make replica props from their favorite game and do silly poses aren't exactly going to register as wrong-headed here.
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I'd mock you but you do a good job of it yourself. It's like trying to make fun of a Juggalo.
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MGS3: Oh hey, I'm at end game, I'll totally finish it today!
*5+ Hours later*
...ok, no, I've been playing this too long. I know I'm right at the home stretch but fuck I need a break!
...yeah, MGS3 really needed to learn to stop in the end game. I'm not referring to the plot scenes or anything, more that the game doesn't seem to understand the difference between "excitement!" and "stretching things on far longer for the sake of just doing it."
Mostly referring to the Motorcycle sequence stuff. Ok, first one was cool, and a nice way to build up the action based feel for the fight against Enemies Super Weapon, and its a nice little "Go nuts" sequence. I'm totally fine with that...heck, I actually liked it!
The 2nd one though? Its not only twice as long, but completely unnecessary since you've already BEATEN the Super Weapon, and now its "Just give me a break game, this is getting tiring." The enemies aren't threatening, it's reached past the point of "Fun and stylish" and is now "monotonous" AND there's still stuff after that? Argh!
I know, MGS games don't know how to stop exposition...and I was prepared for THAT. But this isn't exposition, its just worthless gameplay padding.
...sorry, had to get that off my chest. I'll give a legitimate review for the game when I actually finish it, which should be tomorrow!
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Passive-aggressively mocking an entire community for hanging out and having fun with their friends. Keep it classy man.
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baiting dat trap. catching dem nerds.
Remember we are a catch and release community Rob, don't gut him.
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Kingdom Hearts has many of the same strengths that all JRPGs do - It's pretty, has creative character and monster designs, well-used music, and a good grasp of balance and progression. It also has "RIDE THAT WAVE OF DISNEY NOSTALGIA" and a "Budget". It's not surprising that there's a huge fan community for it. Shame about how juvenile the story ends up being, but juvenile isn't necessarily without its place, either. I feel like Rob always buying into the Internet-Advocated "Dark Gritty Man(Child)ly Way is the Only Way" of telling a story can't actually be how he feels, unless he just gets drunk all the time and has this lapse in judgment where he thinks it's funny. You can replace Rob with Zenny in there too and it's probably still appropriate. Or perhaps moreso, since I've actually met Zenny in person.
That said, I bought KH3D. Watched the opening. It's pretty. Keep doin' your job correctly, JRPGs.
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Come on Djinn. They aren't pigeons. They're swans!
A few games have evolved past having only juvenile stories for children and dark power fantasy stories for teenagers. (Both with Matrix action scenes) We can have higher standards than this.
We warned you bro, the recycling is a bigger thing than it first seems.
Glad to see the spoilarz got a rise out of you. Also look forward to seeing how you found siding with the mages. When you are done there is some quick other spoilarz I want to back and forth about.
Since every mage dies anyway (except Merril and Bethany in my game) and I get to kill the big mage huncho (What an idiot. I was doing five digit damage. He should have just let me take care of things), there doesn't seem to be much point for a split path (I assume Meredith goes crazy in the templar path too, since she has the idol. Though I Don't really see how she could justify that if you side with her all the way through)
For all intent and purpose I feel like I chose the standard SMT neutral path, except I had to kill Elf-Ethan-from-Lost too (a party member I had never used)
I assume the other spoilarz involves Meredith, since she mentioned someone I had never heard of before? (Or I think I've never heard of. Freaking game with its 60 characters you need to remember)
One question. Can you be a blood mage and join the templars with no consequences?
The final battle wasn't really that different from the rest. Things were more hectic but the usual Decoy/Snipe strategy worked. Nightmare difficulty in this game is the standard "Beginning is insanely tough, then it gets easier" Act 1 boss was the hardest because he had ranged damage and everybody has mediocre durability at that point. In retrospect it probably would have been easier with a lot more preparation (preparation=potions)
The storyline definitely paid off during the last part of the game, I loved the finale. I want to bash it for all the terrible decisions I've mentioned earlier (+ The marketing. "Press a button -> Something awesome happens" is on par with the giant enemy crab), but I can't say it wasn't interesting.
Oh, I have one Bioware specific complaint: During a conversation, I always press square to skip the voice acting when I've finished reading the subtitles; because I'm interested in what is being said but not by the delivery (because this game isn't LA Noire) But if a cutscene comes right after the last line of dialogue, it gets to be skipped at the same time. I've skipped a ton of cutscenes in ME and DA because of this.
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Well, if we actually are talking about Kingdom Hearts and not randomly insulting people for luls...
[21:50] <Hello-WeisheithedralWaddleDee> It's fun whenever it's not taking itself seriously.
[21:50] <CmdrKing> Genuinely touching stuff slips in when you just don't expect it. Or at least genuinely enough for me. Whatever that says.
[21:51] <CmdrKing> Mmm. I guess I mean... it takes itself so seriously it stops being serious? Dunno if that makes sense.
[21:51] <Hello-WeisheithedralWaddleDee> I like Disney worlds and just revelling in the complete insanity, but it's pretty much undefendable outside of schadenfreude/trainwreck value.
Pretty much where I am with the series. It's got all sorts of just flat out bad writing, but that's what makes it fun. And bad writing can still turn out good storytelling from time to time.
That said, good writing and/or compelling storytelling (and as I alluded to, I don't think they're necessarily the same thing) are pretty rare in every medium, so I see no need to single out video games here.
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*Reads CK's post......
O.o
CK, you do know that you can Drop anytime right? Not enough time for bosses? Immediatly drop and drop back. Why are you complaining on the same thing that people on gamefaqs are complaining about.
And wait... you die yo Ansem 1? You can't be serious right? I thought only my yaoi fangirl peers on twitter who are bad at video game in general are the only ones having trouble with him, when he can be easily destroyed by Dark Aura spamming.....
Though I was wondering, what bosses with tiny room you are referring too? As far as I remember, the bosses in this game are pretty sluggish in general and vulnerable to spamming, especially after mid game and not mention end game ones are literally sand bags. The blocking in this game didn't suck like KH2 either. I really don't know where the run into wall thing came from.
And odd to see you complain about flow motion being hard to maneuver. Most complain I heard is bout it being too broken. Which I can agree on.
It is fine if it is just a movement only thing, but allowing it to chain into attacks with prolonged invic frame is not..... which made the early game bosses easy as well, when they could have been the only reasonably difficult part of the game.
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Come on Djinn. They aren't pigeons. They're swans!
A few games have evolved past having only juvenile stories for children and dark power fantasy stories for teenagers. (Both with Matrix action scenes) We can have higher standards than this.
Not really... Even the best stuff like ME and DA are still pretty formulaic and play it pretty safe in terms of storytelling. Admittedly, there's some major progress in the right direction with gameplay/story integration and good dialogue-writing, but it all still falls flat of anything beyond genre writing.
Do not misconstrue this as "zOMG KH >>> ME!!!!!111one" or anything, but I'm kinda annoyed that there's this idea saturating the internet (at least in the areas I check regularly) that western genre writing is so much better than eastern genre writing. In general, they both have their problems, they are just different problems. And I tend to find that the eastern ones are blown out of proportion by (probably unintentionally) myopic westerners. In my experiences from Japan, the reverse happens too, though.
tl;dr: It's all Genre Fiction. Fuck genre fiction fans for making me hate myself.
And dude, Swans are totally the natural progression of where Hatoful Boyfriend is going. Hakuchoful Angel.
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You can drop at any time, yes, but it's still a poorly timed interruption of gameplay, even if you drop then immediately drop back. And honestly, I just assumed that the game had some safeguards against this; that you had to play a certain amount of time as the other PC to actually reset the drop gauge.
Yeah. his barrier rush does enough damage that, if you get caught in a corner, you die, no questioned asked. It's annoying as fuck because like I said, he's clearly supposed to be really, really easy; you dodge it by drifting at a slight angle. But it relates back to the small battlefield thing I talked about, it's too easy to end up against the (invisible on the play screen) edge of the map and get caught. I ran into the same problem with Sora's traverse town revisit, the boss rush, although at at least you could see most of the walls.
I guess flowmotion could be broken, but I just found myself stuck in flowmotion and unable to use my attack deck when I needed to. Perhaps a playstyle thing.
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In fairness, Djinn, regarding the "childish" thing?
Kingdom Hearts was originally intended to be a much more "Family friendly" experience, one that younger players could appreciate and get into. You know, similar to Pokemon in that regard?
Having Disney as your base not only is a very good base for this, it also does a good job at illustrating the intent behind it. Disney's Animated Movies are basically the icons for "Family Friendly Entertainment." They aren't kids movies, they're meant to be enjoyed by both the parents and children alike (albeit, on different levels.) Kingdom Hearts definitely felt like it was striving for that, at very least. Whether it succeeded or not is a different argument.
KH2, by comparison, feels a lot more traditional jRPG like. Its got more plot shenanigans, is "darker and grittier" (though not to the point that I think the game suffers by comparison, just more of a general tone shift), plot is more involved, etc. I'd get into examples, but I'm sure its just easy to see looking at the two games. As a result, by KH2, the series sort of lost its "family friendly" approach, and more geared itself towards a specific target audience, for better or worse. Though, at the same time, it is still very much "Disney", so some of that childish nature will always remain to some extent.
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KH2, by comparison, feels a lot more traditional jRPG like. Its got more plot shenanigans, is "darker and grittier" (though not to the point that I think the game suffers by comparison, just more of a general tone shift), plot is more involved, etc. I'd get into examples, but I'm sure its just easy to see looking at the two games. As a result, by KH2, the series sort of lost its "family friendly" approach, and more geared itself towards a specific target audience, for better or worse. Though, at the same time, it is still very much "Disney", so some of that childish nature will always remain to some extent.
That's what is so very very wrong with it, yes. They are taking a Disney character crossover game and trying to make it a SERIOUS ANIMU STORY about their ORIGINAL CHARACTERS DO NOT STEAL. And somehow I doubt it's casual fans who just want to tool around in recreations of settings of movies that they liked as a kid pushing for that. It's the "serious KH fans" who want to know about the resolution of the very important story and the bunch of idiots in zip-up bathrobes.
You want to fix the game? The main character's an avatar, you customize them, there's some explanation about how a bunch of bad guys are teaming up and what not, and you send the player out with Donald and Goofy to fix shit. You don't need to make this idiotic unrelated mythology to try and get people involved when you've got that much built-up nostalgia combined with visually-faithful recreations of major settings from classic movies people watched as kids. They're ALREADY invested by default. You have to work to get them to not give a shit.
If the KH team had made that DC game that came out a while ago, you wouldn't be teaming up with Batman to fight Bizarro Superman within ten minutes of start up. You'd do like an hour of stupid bullshit centered around three idiots who you've never heard of, and the plot would keep coming back to them over and over again even though all you want to do is hang out with the Goddamn Batman and punch spaceships until they explode. But the ORIGINAL CHARACTERS would need to show up over and over again and there would be a bunch of half-baked revelations about characters you don't care about because they aren't the Goddamn Batman. They aren't even Booster Gold. They aren't why you bought the game and they aren't why you played it.
Also, Djinn, DA and ME are your examples for best writing? Fuuuuuuuuck, son.
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You can drop at any time, yes, but it's still a poorly timed interruption of gameplay, even if you drop then immediately drop back. And honestly, I just assumed that the game had some safeguards against this; that you had to play a certain amount of time as the other PC to actually reset the drop gauge.
Yeah. his barrier rush does enough damage that, if you get caught in a corner, you die, no questioned asked. It's annoying as fuck because like I said, he's clearly supposed to be really, really easy; you dodge it by drifting at a slight angle. But it relates back to the small battlefield thing I talked about, it's too easy to end up against the (invisible on the play screen) edge of the map and get caught. I ran into the same problem with Sora's traverse town revisit, the boss rush, although at at least you could see most of the walls.
I guess flowmotion could be broken, but I just found myself stuck in flowmotion and unable to use my attack deck when I needed to. Perhaps a playstyle thing.
I see, that I can agree to.
I guess I didn't encounter problem like that in that I didn't rely on dodging commands as much, and actually use flowmotion a lot more for my dodging need. There is also the thing with Dark Guard being reliable, so I didn't dodge around as much as BBS wanted us to back then.
Though I highly recommend a more aggressive play style by the end game. DDD bosses does not have as much steel body frame and invinci frame compare to KH2, nor the revenge meter builds up as fast, thus effectively making offense your best defense.
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Consoles set up again, so continuing my FE9 challenge. I'm grinding for levels in a Fire Emblem game. I feel dirty. :(
(lolol 121 turns and counting)
Edit: Hunh? Miracle didn't kick in this time, so he died to an Adept Lightning. Soren's only Lv 10 after 127 turns. :(
(Earlier, he was on something like 14 and Adept Lightning was 9 per hit. Second hit did no damage so he survived. This time, he was on 18 and took 9 from each hit. wat.)
Edit2: OH FFS. Why do I keep trying to fight the Black Knight? >.<;;
This time, though, I got him down to 2 HP... and then missed. And died. Fuck. That is the third time I have died on him after 100+ turns. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.
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KH2, by comparison, feels a lot more traditional jRPG like. Its got more plot shenanigans, is "darker and grittier" (though not to the point that I think the game suffers by comparison, just more of a general tone shift), plot is more involved, etc. I'd get into examples, but I'm sure its just easy to see looking at the two games. As a result, by KH2, the series sort of lost its "family friendly" approach, and more geared itself towards a specific target audience, for better or worse. Though, at the same time, it is still very much "Disney", so some of that childish nature will always remain to some extent.
That's what is so very very wrong with it, yes. They are taking a Disney character crossover game and trying to make it a SERIOUS ANIMU STORY about their ORIGINAL CHARACTERS DO NOT STEAL. And somehow I doubt it's casual fans who just want to tool around in recreations of settings of movies that they liked as a kid pushing for that. It's the "serious KH fans" who want to know about the resolution of the very important story and the bunch of idiots in zip-up bathrobes.
KH1's tone changed immediately with its ending, and plus it was plenty dark like many other archetypal 'children' stories that pick up darker tones as narratives continue, like Watership Down or the Dark Crystal. It's pretty unfair arguing that KH2 shouldn't logically follow with a plotline that offers some answers to its predecessor.
You want to fix the game? The main character's an avatar, you customize them, there's some explanation about how a bunch of bad guys are teaming up and what not, and you send the player out with Donald and Goofy to fix shit. You don't need to make this idiotic unrelated mythology to try and get people involved when you've got that much built-up nostalgia combined with visually-faithful recreations of major settings from classic movies people watched as kids. They're ALREADY invested by default. You have to work to get them to not give a shit.
Sounds like KH's got you wrecked, and that's a horrible, horrible idea.
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Actually finished a stage on MMPU. Seriously. I did. 1:41A. My MM needs to slide.
Finished as many quests as I can finish in FF13, so I'm moving on. Revisited Mahabara a couple nights ago for farming of mark booty, but otherwise finished the quests over a week ago. Proceeding with plot as we speak.
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Consoles set up again, so continuing my FE9 challenge. I'm grinding for levels in a Fire Emblem game. I feel dirty. :(
(lolol 121 turns and counting)
Edit: Hunh? Miracle didn't kick in this time, so he died to an Adept Lightning. Soren's only Lv 10 after 127 turns. :(
(Earlier, he was on something like 14 and Adept Lightning was 9 per hit. Second hit did no damage so he survived. This time, he was on 18 and took 9 from each hit. wat.)
Edit2: OH FFS. Why do I keep trying to fight the Black Knight? >.<;;
This time, though, I got him down to 2 HP... and then missed. And died. Fuck. That is the third time I have died on him after 100+ turns. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.
Miracle only kicks in Luck% of the time, which is a relatively small minority at best. Don't count on it.
Man why the hell are you fighting the Black Knight. Especially after grinding. IIRC you actually have an overlevelled Ike but still ew, don't make the challenge harder if you don't have to. Plus you get a higher-levelled character for winning, unacceptable. (You should choose Naesala as your royal for the same reason.)
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Ah, fair enough. I apparently haven't played enough FE to remember skill stuff, heh. Thought Miracle was a guaranteed one.
Because I'm a completionist and really wanted to be able to do everything. :( And.. I was about to say I probably won't get to use either dragon anyway, but wow, Ena is a shitty level when she joins. ._.;;
Yeah, my Ike's 20/20 already - I would have totally beaten him that time if not for the 85% hit failing me on the most important shot. :(
That said, if there's any chance of me failing it this time round, I'm just gonna flee. :| The stage is actually pretty awkward too, since it relies on a few key crits/hits - thankfully, all on the first turn, so I can easily reset if Boyd/Mia/Zihark/Gatrie fail to land them.
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Metal Gear Solid 3: Finished!
First off, just gonna talk about the ending a bit in non-spoiler fashion. Yes, game is like 7 years old or whatever, still feel I shouldn't spoil! All I can say is the entire plot regarding "The Boss"? I didn't care for it. It tries to make you sympathetic and all, but it just succeeded in making her out to be more of a Mary Sue than she already was. Add in the usual talk about philosophies of enemies, war, etc. that can just be summed up as "War is hell, there are no good guys or bad guys", and it just came off as forced exposition.
The EVA twist...well, I knew there was something up, but what the exact twist wasn't obvious (its pretty obvious there's something off about her in her first scene), though how she fits in worked. I would say though that the game was setting up for some sort of interquel or something that requires China being a main player, but the Epilogue covered that up nicely. Also the whole "Snake/EVA" symbolism...I can't tell if that was meant to be blatant or just failed subtlety; could go either way, really.
My complaints about the end game continue somewhat. Having an Escort Mission with an unresponsive, slow moving character at the very end of the game? Seriously, that's a dick move and not fun. There was no excuse for that. Its like it exists purely to waste your ammo for the final boss fight (which I was surprised wasn't a pure CQC fight, given MGS1 and MGS2), and nothing more. Also, I'm not sure if its a glitch in the HD version, if this is normal, or if its because I always opened the menu right at the start to alter inventory, but the music that plays in the fight would only kick in halfway (first after she said "Only 3 minutes", then after she said "5 minutes")? It needed to play the entire fight, because...really, the silence adds nothing to the fight, given the drama built up for it!
Ok, all those complaints about endgame feeling like a lot of worthless gameplay padding (really needed to just go from Shagohod fight to Final Boss fight, Metal Gear Solid Exposition Nonsense not withstanding...asking MGS games to not have THOSE is like asking a DMC game to follow the laws of physics), and what not aside, despite what it may seem...I actually liked this game. Best of the series no doubt. Plot was more basic than MGS2's, while not being TOO basic, so it didn't seem like it was getting needlessly complicated of "XANATOS ROULETTE WARFARE!" to the point of being ridiculous, more just "There are bad guys, stop their plans without dying" and the Philosopher's Legacy in this case was really just a macguffin that people are fighting over. It all works well.
Add this to the game having a sense of camp, and sense of humor, and actually embracing that "this is a James Bond game", and it just works better. The whole fanboy ravings of Major Zero about Bond was just a nice self aware nod towards the game's nature, really. And no, don't pretend this game doesn't know its trying to be James Bond; the song "Snake Eater" is totally a James Bond Opening Credits theme, and you know it (not to mention the opening montage is very Bond-like...except without any naked women...so I guess nothing like a Bond montage!); that had to be intentional.
They captured the 60s setting nicely, between the constant movie references by Para-medic (and little nods to projections of the future, like "hey, you'll be able to watch these on your TVs in the future I bet! It'd be like having your own theater in your house!" "Yeah, like that'll ever happen!"), and even toned down your equipment. It did make sneaking a bit more annoying because no convenient map, though, game offsets this with making combat improved, so if you want to just kill everything and get it done with, you can. The game is also nice enough to NOT make all the Support Shield Guys that are infinite spawning like MGS2 did (seriously, fuck that.) At the same time, making Silencers actually wear off gave you a reason to actually think about your shots, while not being TOO limited on how many you got.
Though, fuck you civilians in this game. Mostly because areas they are in, its almost like they are literally every, have this massive alert sense, and always hit alarms. When trying to put the C3 down, I eventually said "fuck it" to sneaking around, and just killed everyone because the Maintenance dudes pretty much always saw me. And yes, I did use the Maintenance Outfit, and that didn't seem to do shit (well, it did make me think you couldn't use Weapons on that floor, because you can't use it with that outfit AND the game says "DON'T USE WEAPONS OR YOU'LL BLOW UP THE TANKER!" MGS1 had a room like that, so it wasn't unprecedented.)
Oh, and THANK YOU FOR GIVING SNAKE A FUCKING KNIFE. I seriously kept scratching my head at this in previous games. A knife is like a versatile, valuable tool in most situations really, especially for that, and its a good for, you know, stealth kills from avoiding being discovered (its silent, effective, and works at close range.) Plus has other uses not related to combat. Always felt weird that such a basic survival tool wasn't on Snake or Raiden in previous games. Just another example of improving combat in this game by letting close range stuff not be summed up as either "Choke guy" "throw them" or "Beat them up til they are stunned."
Game did feel like it had a lot of useless items. Chaff Grenades seemed pointless in this game for example. MGS1, I used it to get rid of cameras often. MGS2...not so much, easier to just shoot the cameras down and be done with them permanently. They are, however, useful for keeping flying drones off you, and it DOES completely fuck with the Metal Gear Ray fight. I naturally thought "hey, Chaffs stop electricity, maybe they're useful in this place!" but they didn't seem to do much. Smoke Grenades didn't seem too valuable too, and the Cardboard Box never actually got anything done this game. It felt like some of these items existed because "They were in previous MGS games." I suppose having useless items at your disposal is better than a game constantly relying on using gimmick sections like "LOTS OF MINES! DETECT THEM!" Ok, it has one of those sections, but you can SEE the mines if you're keen, and avoid them.
One thing I do have to snipe at is the Sorrow's "fight." Seriously, that was just stupid, un-fun and you just got through the annoying unarmed section of the game. Then having a basically instant death move at the end with a cryptic way around it (because its so easy to forget that option and the game does not give you a single hint towards it)...yeah. Oh, but its SO COOL BECAUSE ITS GOT AMBIANCE AND HORROR AND WHAT NOT! Yeah, fuck that, its unfun, drags, and like the most boring shit ever with some of the shakiest hit detection ever. It is completely forced, and accomplishes nothing. Trying to make you feel bad about Snake's kills? It failed, just made me frustrated because "I WANT THIS SECTION DONE WITH."
So yeah, good game, and easily the best in the series. Some of the convention changes like adding in a Food and Stamina system had me worried, but game does a good job making sure that's not an issue, and regening health naturally actually kind of works in a game like this, because you're encouraged to be patient anyway.
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Final Fantasy 8 - At times, this game feels like a war between a person who wanted to write a story with some interesting characters and a lot of people who just wanted a bizarre gongshow. This feels like the point where the battle has been decisively lost by the one sane man. Let's put the 17 year old in charge of a major military operation! Now I will disappear! Cid is a pretty embarrassingly incompetent character, which I'm not sure is intentional or not. FH and Balamb are both bizarre, terrible arcs with just running around doing stupid shit. At least Fujin and Raijin are decent bosses. And then... the legendary orphanage scene. A few things occur to me while I am watching this:
1. What the fuck is up with you Irvine? Why is there no real hint that you knew this all along?
2. Rinoa finishes her speech about how she feels like she doesn't fit it... time to talk about how everyone but Rinoa grew up in the same orphanage!
3. The GF, it took our memories, man. Ooookay...
4. In addition to featuring some very odd plot choices, the scene is entirely too long. When Irvine started monologuing at the end I just pressed X.
5. I generally think this would have made more sense with maybe just Squall and Seifer. Emphasize why they seem to have an anime rivalry or something.
So uh at least that's over! Now we are ramming two things which wish they were Saturn into each other. This on the other hand I enjoyed; subverts one of my least favorite tropes that the male lead will risk people's lives to save his girlfriend (even if Irvine disagrees!) and has some good writing. Maybe this is the last whimper of the good writer before they locked him in a cage for the entirety of the game. Less writing, more TIME KOMPRESSION. I can't wait!
This game is absurdly easy, btw. Randoms are so boring that I just turned on ENC-HALF forever.
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That's what is so very very wrong with it, yes. They are taking a Disney character crossover game and trying to make it a SERIOUS ANIMU STORY about their ORIGINAL CHARACTERS DO NOT STEAL. And somehow I doubt it's casual fans who just want to tool around in recreations of settings of movies that they liked as a kid pushing for that. It's the "serious KH fans" who want to know about the resolution of the very important story and the bunch of idiots in zip-up bathrobes.
You want to fix the game? The main character's an avatar, you customize them, there's some explanation about how a bunch of bad guys are teaming up and what not, and you send the player out with Donald and Goofy to fix shit. You don't need to make this idiotic unrelated mythology to try and get people involved when you've got that much built-up nostalgia combined with visually-faithful recreations of major settings from classic movies people watched as kids. They're ALREADY invested by default. You have to work to get them to not give a shit.
Also, Djinn, DA and ME are your examples for best writing? Fuuuuuuuuck, son.
Well, what are your examples for best writing?
And yeah, I agree that KH isn't really very good at being a "Disney crossover game". However, despite how much I liked Aladdin growing up, I don't think I'd play a straight-up Disney-only game. It's kind of a worn-out concept with worlds that I already feel don't mesh well with eachother. The only reason I think KH works with Disney at all is because they structure things such that the various Disney worlds rarely interact with -eachother- outside of the villains, and Donald/Goofy. And honestly, I don't think Donald/Goofy work that well in the various other worlds. Sora, and the rest of the "SERIOUS ANIMU CAST" at least have the benefit of being neutral characters as your vehicle for shuttling around the Disney Worlds. They don't clash as much because they don't bring preconceived notions/understandings of them along, unlike Donald and Goofy.
Apart from that, yeah, the plot is pretty dumb. It's almost an exaggeration of typical JRPG plots, where shit like Hearts and Anti-Hearts are such powerful forces that they feel the need to make them characters unto themselves (multiple different characters in fact!). It's kinda hilarious to me, and inventive at times in its craziness. So that's where I get my enjoyment out of it, but again, it's a juvenile setup, and I don't see any problem with kids/teens buying into it wholesale to enjoy what crazy mythos it has to offer. It's like how dumb the Mushroom Kingdom is. Still fun and creative though. Though the actual sequence-of-events-plotlines of the games themselves are a little too paint-by-numbers for my taste. If you're gonna have batshit crazy set pieces, I say just go all-out weird with it. Too much standard Hero's Journey in the Nobody-Heartless-Keybladeverse. Yeah, that's right, I think the problem with KH is that it isn't weird -enough-.
And... ugh, your solution is Silent Protagonist? I mean, KH protagonists aren't great, but at least in BbS, the protagonists were better-written and that helped the game a lot, so I don't think Silent is the answer. Just Not-Sora.
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I play gaems: FF4 TAY
Theory: Man in Black is actually Kain.
Hooded Man is also Kain.
Mysterious Girl? Also Kain.
Later on is Kain's chapter, in which Kain teams up with all three disguised Kains plus a mysterious newcomer, who will later be revealed to be Kain.
This has been vital information.
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Mysterious Girl? Also Kain.
...BAD IMAGE!
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I presume Rob's solution is not Silent Protagonist in the JRPG sense, but protagonist given dialogue options and choices that actually matter, in the WRPG manner.
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Meeple: Glad you enjoyed MGS3, as it is pretty solidly the best thing in the series. Kojima problems are as omnipresent as ever, but there's a much better ratio of fun ridiculous things to stupid ridiculous things. I found MGS4 a pretty major step down from this. Among other problems, it has the worst cutscene-to-game ratio I've ever seen.
I highly recommend checking out the LP, since there's a million little things you can do to screw with enemies and they're pretty good about highlighting them all. Boss fights at least. There's pretty much always a non-obvious way to dick them over if you're alert (drop BEES on Ocelot, feed poison frogs to the Fear, I think you can turn the hangar sprinklers on Volgin or something). Although probably my favorite option is ringing The End's hiding place with mines and then triggering his alert. The End can actually be cutscene-killed the first time you see him, but then you miss out on his boss fight.
Re: Eva, for the brief time you have her as a companion, you can enter the menu and scroll through her food/medical history just like Snake's. Go back far enough and everything she's eaten will be Chinese food. There are also some...interesting entries in her medical history (that's just rude, Volgin).
The music always started halfway through the final boss fight, yeah.
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Dark Souls: Faith guy NG finished. Getting Priscilla's tail ended up relying on--of all the stupid things--Gravelord Sword Dance. Also went around sucking humanity and killing the blacksmiths for hammers and helmets. Giant's hammer is actually not bad. Weird. Since I saved Solaire I actually had his help against Gwyn where he was invaluable. Survived even. Sunlight Spear gotten damage is awesome, but uses is not. 5 uses for 2 slots? Remove either of those to make it viable jeez. Also that makes the Miracle trophy get. Only Fire and Rare Weapons left.
Nah, the real strike against it is NG+ only and mutually exclusive with a unique weapon you need for a trophy. Even with limited charges, I find clerics badly need the extra damage.
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Dark Souls: Faith guy NG finished. Getting Priscilla's tail ended up relying on--of all the stupid things--Gravelord Sword Dance. Also went around sucking humanity and killing the blacksmiths for hammers and helmets. Giant's hammer is actually not bad. Weird. Since I saved Solaire I actually had his help against Gwyn where he was invaluable. Survived even. Sunlight Spear gotten damage is awesome, but uses is not. 5 uses for 2 slots? Remove either of those to make it viable jeez. Also that makes the Miracle trophy get. Only Fire and Rare Weapons left.
Nah, the real strike against it is NG+ only and mutually exclusive with a unique weapon you need for a trophy. Even with limited charges, I find clerics badly need the extra damage.
Ehhh, Great Lord Greatsword is no Northern Regalia and you need Sif's Soul for a third weapon anyway, so you're not losing some huge break of time or something that makes sense.
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That's what is so very very wrong with it, yes. They are taking a Disney character crossover game and trying to make it a SERIOUS ANIMU STORY about their ORIGINAL CHARACTERS DO NOT STEAL. And somehow I doubt it's casual fans who just want to tool around in recreations of settings of movies that they liked as a kid pushing for that. It's the "serious KH fans" who want to know about the resolution of the very important story and the bunch of idiots in zip-up bathrobes.
You want to fix the game? The main character's an avatar, you customize them, there's some explanation about how a bunch of bad guys are teaming up and what not, and you send the player out with Donald and Goofy to fix shit. You don't need to make this idiotic unrelated mythology to try and get people involved when you've got that much built-up nostalgia combined with visually-faithful recreations of major settings from classic movies people watched as kids. They're ALREADY invested by default. You have to work to get them to not give a shit.
Also, Djinn, DA and ME are your examples for best writing? Fuuuuuuuuck, son.
Well, what are your examples for best writing?
And yeah, I agree that KH isn't really very good at being a "Disney crossover game". However, despite how much I liked Aladdin growing up, I don't think I'd play a straight-up Disney-only game. It's kind of a worn-out concept with worlds that I already feel don't mesh well with eachother. The only reason I think KH works with Disney at all is because they structure things such that the various Disney worlds rarely interact with -eachother- outside of the villains, and Donald/Goofy. And honestly, I don't think Donald/Goofy work that well in the various other worlds. Sora, and the rest of the "SERIOUS ANIMU CAST" at least have the benefit of being neutral characters as your vehicle for shuttling around the Disney Worlds. They don't clash as much because they don't bring preconceived notions/understandings of them along, unlike Donald and Goofy.
Apart from that, yeah, the plot is pretty dumb. It's almost an exaggeration of typical JRPG plots, where shit like Hearts and Anti-Hearts are such powerful forces that they feel the need to make them characters unto themselves (multiple different characters in fact!). It's kinda hilarious to me, and inventive at times in its craziness. So that's where I get my enjoyment out of it, but again, it's a juvenile setup, and I don't see any problem with kids/teens buying into it wholesale to enjoy what crazy mythos it has to offer. It's like how dumb the Mushroom Kingdom is. Still fun and creative though. Though the actual sequence-of-events-plotlines of the games themselves are a little too paint-by-numbers for my taste. If you're gonna have batshit crazy set pieces, I say just go all-out weird with it. Too much standard Hero's Journey in the Nobody-Heartless-Keybladeverse. Yeah, that's right, I think the problem with KH is that it isn't weird -enough-.
And... ugh, your solution is Silent Protagonist? I mean, KH protagonists aren't great, but at least in BbS, the protagonists were better-written and that helped the game a lot, so I don't think Silent is the answer. Just Not-Sora.
PS:T is undoubtedly the best-written game I've ever played. It's the best-written game any of you have played, and probably ever will play. Also of note, FONV, Alpha Protocol, Arcanum, or pretty much anything by the BIS alums. BioWare can do dialogue pretty well sometimes but they don't even come close to my all-time best list.
And no, not silent protagonist, player avatar. Crono is a silent protagonist but not an avatar, the Courier is a player avatar but not silent. See, all that stupid bullshit with hearts and keyblades? Unnecessary. You can keep in the connective narrative, because that works as a servicable way to transit between sometimes-incompatible settings, but the retarded animu melodrama reads like terrible fan fiction about how all the characters from X show meet a new ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL who everything ends up revolving around rather than the characters from the original property people actually like. Anything more than a bare-bones protagonist for a game like this will likely fall into that category, so why not make it a customizable player avatar (along the lines of a Mii, to fit the cartoony aesthetic) for that extra bit of "Hey, cartoon me is running around Agrabah like I wanted to as a kid. Awesome."
But hey, Japan. These are the people who decided FF12 needed Vaan in it because their fans wouldn't buy a game that didn't have a ladyboy on the cover and who complained that they didn't know where to go in Fallout 3 of all things.
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I'm not really a fan of silent mains in any way, even if that's 'doesn't talk but is characterized by player choices', but I actually have to agree, it would work seriously well for KH. That said, I say that as someone who found KH2 fun to play, but have pretty much hated the series and fanbase (or at least most of what I've seen of it) and have no interest in Disney at all.
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FE9: Okay, fine, I took Ena. HAPPY?! :(
...After 269 turns of abusing the boss having free healing. Volke got enough Speed/Strength over the stage to be able to steal his Spear, and Gatrie tanked Brave Lance hits for a while after I gained some levels from range. Soren went from 20/1 to 20/16, and a few others gained solid levels. (Sothe, notably, got to Lv 18.) I also wanted more turns so that Soren could reach 20/20 or run out of charges, whichever came first, but Zihark got Adept twice, critical once and hit with all hits, despite having a 7% crit and a 67% hit. Welp.
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Deponia - finished
Middling, nonsensical at times, far shorter than I expected. Not worth the $16 it is currently let alone the $20 it would be normally.
The blurb is a horrible misrepresentation. As far as things go with it being a love story between Rufus and Goal, 95% of Goal's screentime she's incapacitated, and 95% of the remainder she doesn't have anything approaching feelings that way. Rufus isn't crotchety, he's completely up himself and not always amusing enough to balance it out. Goal doesn't just fall out of the sky, Rufus causes it. Rufus doesn't decide to take her back to her husband to help her out, he does it for a reward - and she's only engaged, not married, anyway. The only thing Rufus comes up with based on the fact that he looks like her fiancé is that he can get past a guard because of it, the diabolical scheme being referred to is forced on him by another character.
The trailer also spoils the last puzzle in the game, not that it's much of one.
Goal has all her memory stored on an 'implant' which can be easily ejected by other people (also rendering her unconscious). It's never explained why this is the case, what point this could possible have at all, only used to muck about with her. I'd like to know how she washes her face without killing herself. 'Goal' also seems somewhat of a poor choice of naming for a damsel in distress type character...
So, the Organon want to destroy Deponia, and they need Elysium to approve this - Elysium think that Deponia is uninhabited but there are rumours to the contrary, so confirming that one way or the other is why Goal was going to Deponia in the first place. But then you find out that Elysium is just a floating city attached to Deponia by a rail - and apparently close enough that it isn't out of the question that one person 'rowing' is enough effort to take a railcar from one side to the other. Why the heck would they ever approve it regardless?
The game suffers from the general adventure game malaise of having oodles to do in the first area but comparatively little to do in later areas. They either need to have less 'passing-through' areas so that more time can be devoted to later major areas, or they need to get you out of the first area quicker and have more passing-through areas.
The ending was abrupt and left things unresolved. Apparently there's already a sequel in the works. I expect it's going to turn out that Rufus and Goal's fiancé are related.
All that said it was fairly funny at times, and there wasn't too much in the way of obtuse puzzles. Will note that the maze puzzle was broken and impassable for me, but fortunately it was one of the ones that they allow to be skipped.
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PS:T is undoubtedly the best-written game I've ever played. It's the best-written game any of you have played, and probably ever will play. Also of note, FONV, Alpha Protocol, Arcanum, or pretty much anything by the BIS alums.
So we're saying that Chris Avellone is the best writer in video games.
I can dig it.
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Pretty much, though I also have mad respect for J.E. Sawyer.
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Kingdom Hearts Expect Mode: Been meaning to play this for a LOOONG time, and finally getting around to it! FF12ZIJS fell through, felt I need something to replay so here we go!
Just beat initial Traverse Town stuff. HOLY CRAP ENEMIES ACTUALLY DO DAMAGE IN THIS MODE!!
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If you care about things like beating optional fights, I'd honestly suggest doing deep Jungle before Colosseum. My experience has always been that Cloud and Cerberus are harder than Clayton.
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OMD2- At Twisted Halls on Nightmare with Uno. Desperately missing the Polymorph ring on Nightmare (My sorceress is at the start of nightmare mode), it handles those jerk Earth Lords so well. Thinking that Archers for fliers/wind for Gnolls will be the core of the strategy for the map.
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FF8 - So when I was fighting Edea 2 the game glitched and I couldn't see any of the text. Fortunately I was fighting an FF8 boss so it was just a minor inconvinence as long as I remembered where the Phoenix Downs were.
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Entirely too much P4A. Initial story modes beaten with everyone, full story mode beaten with Yosuke. Lost my first online match, decided to finish story modes and practice some before trying that again.
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Come on Djinn. They aren't pigeons. They're swans!
A few games have evolved past having only juvenile stories for children and dark power fantasy stories for teenagers. (Both with Matrix action scenes) We can have higher standards than this.
Not really... Even the best stuff like ME and DA are still pretty formulaic and play it pretty safe in terms of storytelling. Admittedly, there's some major progress in the right direction with gameplay/story integration and good dialogue-writing, but it all still falls flat of anything beyond genre writing.
Do not misconstrue this as "zOMG KH >>> ME!!!!!111one" or anything, but I'm kinda annoyed that there's this idea saturating the internet (at least in the areas I check regularly) that western genre writing is so much better than eastern genre writing. In general, they both have their problems, they are just different problems. And I tend to find that the eastern ones are blown out of proportion by (probably unintentionally) myopic westerners. In my experiences from Japan, the reverse happens too, though.
tl;dr: It's all Genre Fiction. Fuck genre fiction fans for making me hate myself.
And dude, Swans are totally the natural progression of where Hatoful Boyfriend is going. Hakuchoful Angel.
Recent Bioware games like DA and ME are good examples of power fantasies actually. You become the equivalent of the jedi (or a jedi) after the prologue, then you either become the last hope for humanity and the allegory of everything that's good or the ultimate badass. In both cases everyone wants to sleep with you because you're so good looking. DA2 tried to deviate from this slightly and got panned for that reason.
Writing in these games can sometimes good in spite of that, because RPGs are long and all the dialogue can't be about how cool you are and how bad the enemies are.
Good story stuff from a game everybody has played here = FFT. Also from the top of my head: Planescape Torment, Lost Odyssey's dreams, Bastion, Red Dead Redemption, Monkey Island, Suikoden (when it's not trying to be cute (except with dogs)), a bunch of indie games (these don't have to be neither long nor epic, which helps)
I'm fond of the minimalist style some games have chosen (Dark Souls, Nocturne) but I won't go trying to convince everybody it's good here.
Fez: 38 cubes.
Champollion was a genius
FF13: Wh'at is go'ing o'n
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DA2 got panned for having more blatantly recycled dungeons than Oblivion and ridiculous reinforcements in combat that come out of nowhere more than anything else. Also the ending because what the fuck.
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DA2 got panned for having more blatantly recycled dungeons than Oblivion and ridiculous reinforcements in combat that come out of nowhere more than anything else. Also the ending because what the fuck.
The combat thing gets harped on a lot these days, but when DA2 first came out it seemed like most people were praising the combat as a step up from DA:O.
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I distinctly remember a lot of people being disappointed by a second Blight not happening during the game and the lack of huge fights like the DAO finale.
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On the other hand, there was plenty of "oh, DA:O's trash fights were so repetitive and dull, DA2's are so much more fast paced and fun!"
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DA2 got panned for having more blatantly recycled dungeons than Oblivion and ridiculous reinforcements in combat that come out of nowhere more than anything else. Also the ending because what the fuck.
The combat thing gets harped on a lot these days, but when DA2 first came out it seemed like most people were praising the combat as a step up from DA:O.
The actual combat might be, but the encounters are a giant step down. Like Fen said, there's a lack of large set piece battles because the game relies so heavily on waves of reinforcements and like nothing else. Part of the reason Varric's quest is so much fun is that the fight IS a large setpiece battle rather than having a few mooks at a time show up in groups.
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FFT Priests SCC -
Going on and off on this. Notable battles...
Lenalia Plateau (1 Reset):
First attempt at this tries to fight Miluda without Holy. Delita unfortunately doesn't have enough JP to get anything really overpowered and no amount of job/ability set up gives him enough durability to last more than one round. Even with Shell/Protect, he dies way too quick. Once Delita is dead, my Priests with their staff whacks of 15 damage aren't outslugging Miluda with that much support. So, grind to level 10, Ramza has exactly enough MP for 1 Holy. Everyone covers Ramza and Delita becomes bait. Lock on Holy for 140+ damage to win
Dorter 2 (1 Reset):
I got a little confident regarding Gaf and Agrias along with 2 characters now being able to Holy nuke. Bad idea. I rush ahead with Holy but quickly find the enemy Wizards shredding down one of my Priests and severely damaging another. Arrows eventually kill the other and unfortunately, they were the ones with enough MP for revival. Crap. So okay, go back and instead fight defensively like most other Priest battles with guests. Slowly, I outslug myself a victory.
Zaland Fort City:
5 Move Agrias helps so much because she is able to quickly get into the battle. This battle (like Dorter 2) is all about guests. I quickly Holy off a Wizard, but in order to save Mustadio, I have to dig into my resource pool and heal him, which means I do not have enough MP afterwards to cast it. Protecting and Shelling my units along with Musty helps a lot, along with one of the Wizards getting killed that quickly. The knights are largely irrelevant since they are just so slow (and once they close in, it's easy to separate them with the wall so, only one knight is fighting 3 Priests) and the archers don't have enough damage under Protect. Agrias eventually goes around the wall and Stasis Swords everything that Musty doesn't shoot and kill. My priests manage to off a knight by outslugging him with Protect and Cure. Aw yeah.
Agrias has enough spillover JP to learn Magic Defense Up. LOOK OUT BARIUS HILL SUMMONERS.
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Generally speaking, I can buy both arguments re: DA/DA2 combat. DA2 combat does feel a lot faster and more pleasantly paced, while DA had better encounter design in general.
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*Reads up.*
News flash. Video game writing is bad. Up next, I say something self aggrandizing and potentially offensive! This is the news.
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Pokemon White - 612 lil bastards caught.
I am in breeding mode right now. Afterwards i will take some time and evolve the few pokemon that need to be happy in order to evolve. That's prolly my least favorite evolution method other then Feebas which this new gen game fixed.
Still contemplating EV training some choice pokemon too. Seems rather tedious for something I will never be able to use properly.
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*Reads up.*
News flash. Video game writing is bad. Up next, I say something self aggrandizing and potentially offensive! This is the news.
Speaking of which, I've really started FF13. I've begun skipping every cutscene shortly after Yuj has been introduced, then reading everything on the in game database. It is a weird but interesting experience. It feels like reading a weird wiki of Hunger Games or something, that neglects half the events but spends a lot of time rehashing the same things.
Has Grefter commented on Lightning's clothes? What is going on with her sheath? It looks ridiculously impractical and the back of her thighs must really hurt. (I usually never notice this kind of thing)
I'm finding battles pleasant enough so far. Chapter 1 and 2 were snoozefests, but from that point on I had to change strategies a lot to still get good ratings in battle.
Like (console) DA2, the game sacrifices player control and precision for a frantic pace. It's a hell of a lot better than DA2 about it, but I wish a compromise had been found.
Damage numbers have become purely masturbatory, as you get to see 5 different numbers appearing at the screen every second and can't possibly analyze them all. (you just end up watching HP bars go down instead)
Movement can have a pretty major role in battle, but you have next to no influence on it.
In Chrono Trigger you can see who Crono is going to hit with a Cyclone. In FF13 you can't see who Lightning is going to hit with Blitz.
Etc.
On paper you have to think about two things in battle: The paradigm of your team, and the individual choices of your main character.
But it seems that the game is trying everything to make these individual choices impractical. Itgives you a shiny and easy Auto battle instead, removing player choice even more.
I feel the game could have won a lot by allowing you to queue skills in advance; you wouldn't have to constantly make micro-decisions FAST FAST FAST about your character and could calmly focus on both parts of the battle system. (instead of just ignoring one)
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P4 Arena- finished story mode. Since I have not meaningfully learned to play this game, we're just going to talk plot.
In some parts the game does suffer just from formatting. I made the comment in chat that I was glad I didn't start with Yu, and here's why. The serious P4 cast spend a big chunk of their stories being toyed with due to the illusion. And Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko take a long time to puzzle out what's going on. Yu has the whole "fuck illusions, reach out to the truth" superpower going on, so that part of his story doesn't play out very much. Having that breather in there was very nice.
Anyway, despite how the cast, locals, and atmosphere are largely drawn from P4, this is really a followup to P3. Which is kinda odd since P3 already had a sequel game. Anyway, the P4 cast mostly retreads old ground and don't get to do much that's really interesting. There's thematic reasons for this, but it's still odd to play this and realize that it's mostly about Mitsuru and Aigis. From a plot perspective it kinda makes sense given how closely it follows P4 at least. It also holds true in characterization, which sits poorly with me. Maybe this is just me, but it feels so strange for the P4 cast to really suffer when confronted with their old issues, while the P3 cast just shrugs it off. I mean, in P3 characters just reach a certain point in the story and say to themselves "oh, wait, I gotta be a stronger person now!" and evolve their Persona and very little changes. Meanwhile the P4 cast, who're stuck with their initial persona, damn near cave when confronted with their hangups that they literally, physically confronted in the last game? I guess they were going for the fact that they've been isolated, or maybe highlighting that the P3 crew are older? But it still rings hollow.
The actual plot is good. The mystery and its solution make sense in the context of the game, Labrys as a character is pretty likable, and the callback to meeting Aigis in P3 got a sniffle out of me, which is always a good sign. In that sense, how the plot plays out, at least it is closer to P4 than 3.
Dunno how much I'm going to actually do the fighting game part of things.
HOLY SHIT 99.9999% ODDS OF NYARLATHOTEP SIGHTING! WHO ARE THE OTEHR DUDES IN THAT SHADOW OPS PICTURE?! That's gotta be junpei, and I think maybe Yukari, but those other guys are definitely not P3 characters. NEED DETAILS. IS MA-YA A SUEPRHERO?! INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!!!!
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I realised I never made a closing post for XF. Anyway I beat part 4, final boss was challenging but nothing unreasonable. Overall it was easier than I expected; it is like going through FFT at half normal levels; yes your stats are worse, but knowing the skill system well makes up for that.
Anyway, onto nastier challenges I am for some reason far wordier about:
Shadow Hearts 3: To South America!
Rio de Janeiro: notable for having the Warning Device, an accessory which eliminates ambushes and is completely essential to my sanity in this challenge as the randoms are only getting better.
Anyway, Machu Picchu is notable for a boss against which you can't use Shania. This is problematic since nobody else has her combination of damage and durability (only Frank even comes close, but Frank has bad speed and magic and I haven't used him in ages). Johnny is of course ready to go due to his level. For the second I choose Natan. Partly he is less underlevelled than some because I used him recently for the second UMA fight, but mostly he is wind innate, which means he resists one of the boss's attacks. Stats are fine overall too.
The randoms: (1 reset)
This reset comes entirely due to trying to use a Johnny/Natan party off the bat. It isn't very effective. I do eventually start using one but only once I've gotten a good handle on the randoms and have gained a level or two.
Anyway, this dungeon has FOUR different random enemies. Gasp.
Xi Dazuns are the swarming monster of the dungeon. They are tough enough to require Rock Burst to OHKO from Johnny or Natan which is bad since ST spell against swarm = no. Shania can get them with Bright Oracle or Red Bounce though. Their turns are mainly spent on a modest Gale Blast, but sometimes they'll cast Arc Surge and power up all the enemies' spells significantly.
Dicteos are the other kinda fragile enemy, but again, nothing short of Hail Solid (L2 ice) kills them from Johnny/Natan. This is better than relying on Rock Burst because it's a medium radius, but unfortunately it doesn't hit any ground-based enemies nearby (i.e. Xi Dazun; everything else in this dungeon flies). Their own turns are either an unimpressive Red Bounce or INSTANT DEATH fffff. Not 100% mercifully. Leo's Bear goes on one PC to help the odds. These guys are important to kill fast even so.
Xantaks are sturdier. They're tricky for non-Shania to 2HKO unboosted (again, needs Bright Oracle). Weak to light which fortunately is a great element anyway, so that helps. Their own turns are used for Paralysis (argh) and Evil Shade, medium-range stock breaking magic (argh). One of the highest priorities to kill.
Finally there is the Wariche, which has quite beastly HP (over double what Xantaks have). They're weak to wind, and their preferred actions are a SDef Down physical which is decently strong to start with and Rock Burst. After SDef Down spells can do loads of damage, from anyone. To make matters worse if they combo they will use both of those attacks in sequence, which of course does quite horrific damage, and can even hit flying Shania because the physical knocks the target down.
Anyway, this set of randoms is, as you can probably tell, a bit of a step up: a bit harder to kill, and their attacks are on average a bit more danagerous. The non-Shania parts which I attempt later are particularly tricky, and I increasingly start making use of strategies I haven't bothered with in the past, such as casting Surge more often (as it lets PCs OHKO groups of scrubs with a simple Bright Rage, and Shania can OHKO Xantaks with Bright Oracle). Arc Cure and watching HP definitely needs to happen more, too.
Kerufe (8 resets)
... ack.
Well let's talk about her attacks. Her first three turns are spent on Poison (twice), which inflicts the status MT twice at fast recharge time, and Gale, which boosts speed. Neither of these attacks are ever used again. The second use of Poison inflicts Deadly Poison, but this isn't really that big a deal... just heal the status and move on, it doesn't even deal damage unless it exists on a PC at the end of their turn. The fast recharge does mean that she gets off all three of these attacks before any PCs get a second turn, however, and she gains a lot of stock from it.
After that, she has four attacks. One is Gale Blast, which does 3HKO (maybe even 4HKO to Natan) wind magic to a line. Another is Pre-Ignition, a similar damage non-elemental attack (so 3HKO) to a large area (it gets two PCs sometimes, especially after revival or at the start of the battle). The last two attacks are physical and they are -nasty-. Solid 2HKO to both PCs. There's a normal physical, and one that inflicts Slow. Slow is pretty much terrible, it means around one third less turns. Between that and her quick recharge time it is incredibly easy to get overwhlmed.
If she gets a double, one of two things happen. One is Gale Blast into Pre-Ignition. Not so bad, doesn't kill anyone at full HP... though it can be awful if the party is in bad shape due to the AoE and retargetting possibilities. The other is a high angle physical into Air Shot, which is a combo magic spell. Screw elemental resistance, this easily OHKOs Natan, and Johnny gets overkilled. The only good part is if the physical kills and the second half of the attack retargets, the Air Shot misses since it can't hit ground-based targets. Overall these doubles are actually slightly less scary than Jeb's but only slightly.
Anyway, Slow makes this a hard battle. It can't be blocked or healed (it and Gale simply independently co-exist). The Gale phase is particularly nasty but mercifully it's only at the start of the battle... still, about 5 or 6 of my resets occur as a result of this phase directly. Of course, things are made harder still by a lack of Shania; my durability and damage both suffer significantly.
After some experimentation with magic builds I end up retreating to physicals as my main source of damage, because (a) Earth Edge never goes away and always boosts my damage by 120%, (b) Hard Hit destorys stock at no cost to my turns, and (c) the boss flies so Rock Burst is out short of combos, meaning the best magic attack a non-Hilda PC has against her is Rock Bump. Also, physicals can apply some useful status effects; I end up going with P-Defence Down because I have the L2 and it usually kicks in, adding a further boost to my damage. Another option is P-Attack Down which would have a more significant effect but is much rarer since I only have the L1; a tradeoff.
Arc Gale also proves crucial to my stratgy. With the boss getting so many turns, Arc Gale helps keep things under control a lot. Doubleturns still happen all over the place but a 30% speed boost does add up.
Johnny has both Arc Gale and Arc Cure, and uses those two a lot. He may also cast Rage on Natan or Earth Edge if needed. Natan is responsible for the offence with attacks and Hard Hits if Kerufe gets even half a stock bar, as keeping her from doubling is critical because if Natan drops I lose Earth Edge, and if either PC drops I lose Gale (though also Slow to be fair). Natan will also use Rage on himself if needed. Of course, both PCs chip in with various items: Thera Seed is notably better than Cure on one target, Thera Root even gets used rarely if Natan is on low health, one Magic Seed is needed for Johnny during the fight, and Pure Seeds are needed for Natan periodically. Johnny has a Blood Jewel so Sanity isn't a concern for him; as long as I make a ring he'll never lose a turn to berserk, although he does lose all his stock when this happens. When Johnny has nothing better to do, or the only PC injured is he himself, I have him defend to withstand pain and use his healing more efficiently with Arc Cure after Natan gets targetted.
Arc Gale and Johnny defending are the two main discoveries here which let me finally turn the corner, though lots of subtle changes are made to my approach throughout. Obviously the hardest fight yet, may be the hardest non-Lady boss on the challenge but we shall see.
Levels were 23 Johnny / 22 Natan.
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P4A: It is Arcsys so the tutorial consisted of a billion different defensive and combo moves you can use in X situation with X/Y button combinations and I immediately forgot all of it in favor of spamming special attacks. Oh well. I assumed I'd be focusing on Mitsuru because oh my god look at her, but all she has is charge moves and double quarter circle moves. Bleh. Labrys proved much easier to use, tore through arcade mode without too many problems. Haven't messed around much with story mode yet.
Why does the Japanese robogirl have a New Yawk accent.
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Because her name is Aaaiiiiiiiigis.
Dragon Age 2 - Finished my replay. I liked the story more than I remembered and I disliked the combat more than I remembered.
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I feel the game could have won a lot by allowing you to queue skills in advance; you wouldn't have to constantly make micro-decisions FAST FAST FAST about your character and could calmly focus on both parts of the battle system. (instead of just ignoring one)
You can queue skills in advance... You don't need to wait until your ATB bar is full to select skills.
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REplaying Atelier Iris Eternal Mana:
The original idea was to get the Edge Cast bow this time that I mised my first playthrough so I could nab every item! But I think I ruined that idea by giving the shopkeeper the wrong vacuum cleaner and locking myself out of her quests... Which would suck balls.
Thinking of redoing the stat topic on this game with Crystals taken into account. Which mostly serves to make Klein and Lita more tanky since they get 2 crystal slots instead of 1. It also makes everyone want to use customizable weapons. I think it would raise the fighter's damage since the logical crystal to use (Battle Lord Power x3) is +105 HP/Atk. I guess you could argue folks want Speed Up options and whatnot but everyone would want that ANYWAY so it wouldn't effect the averages (and more slots isn't good for this since one or two speed crystals makes speed differences completely meaningless).
Klein is pretty awesome, as usual. DAMAGE and utility in one good package. Lita is all about killing shit dead with Fast Attack and a few Double Attacks stacked on her already Double-Attacking Astral Claw. That can get a bit silly. I'm impressed with Delsus' Feint Shot since it cancels enemy attacks before they take place, including for MT moves that would whack him. Niiiice.
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P4A: Yay, a Persona 4 sequel! I had no idea that's what I was buying, but it's not a bad one. Cute story so far. I've only finished Brosuke's story mode. Fun BlazBlue-esque fighting game in there, too.
FF4-2: Beat Edge's story. Edge was pretty cool, actually. Too bad his Ninja buddies were obsequious piles of blandness. Still ended up being an above-average chapter of FF4-2. Which says more about FF4-2 than Edge's story... Also, the current "random PC jumps into the battle to rescue you" count is at 8. I have only finished 4 character chapters. This game... >.>;;
Tales of Graces: Slightly advanced the story! This game takes forever when you play with someone who works a different schedule than you... Sophie got blind or something. Also, Richard is probably the first Tales villain that's not horrible. He's actually pretty effective in the scene with Sophie. Better "Possessed Villain" than Kain, at least!
Lost Odyssey: lol, just kidding. I've turned it on like 4 times and got distracted by something else 4 times in last week.
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Gongora's boots have that effect on people.
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Radiant Historia - restarted file. Still have a 10:41 file, but don't know what to do with it. This one is ~2, lookin' for the informant, goin' to the Mines.
Final Fantasy Theatrhythm - finished all the series tracks though I admit I failed hard (Avg. B) with FFIII. Slow music is slow. Perhaps considering redoing them after I play in the chaos shrine much longer. Got my fourth or fifth dark note, didn't know the game had -achievements - still rocking the Light/Terra/Cloud/Squall party despite their sayings ending in lols. Mm, there's a song on Ultimate I was going to try from FF13, and then I tried it for 2 seconds and then I died so I said yeahlolmoving on, at least until I get expert with everything. Doesn't seem too hard.
Got trolled in Mario Party 9 by Waluigi. ): Made me sort of sad. In fact, I came in third! I need to pick less troll characters! Koopa is my bro though.
DDD Demo - fun fun fun. Well, I don't particularly like what I've seen of his pokémon-like animals, but it's not too far of a cry from 358/2 so learning curve is really short. Getting used to using shoulder buttons on a handheld again. Figures using your finger instead of stylus is best in this case, *nods* Not going to lie though, an 'ish misses Donald and Goofy. So with this, I have 29 more times to play this demo. Coo' beans.
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Long FE9 post incoming!
Finished my challenge run! (Which was, in case people missed it, to use the lowest level party on every stage, and to not allow any deaths. Laguz counted as 2x their level, to make up for the lack of promotion.)
Final stage was "Watch Ike/Ena solo things while everyone else survives" - it took me a few attempts to figure the left side of the stage was easier than the right, and I sent Ena (with a single Laguz Stone) off to the right, Ike went charging straight ahead, and everyone else went left. Once they were done there, they went to help out Ena (who could tank forever, even untransformed, but couldn't kill much) while Ike smashed things. I got to berserk Ashnard twice, failing the first time because I didn't think Ike really needed Elixirs. Turns out, he did. Second Ashnard-run, I was much better prepared, with Ike having Elixirs -and- my healers being much nearer.
Character analysis!
First things first, the levels don't mean a huge amount. I spent some time grinding near the end (I'll post turns for each stage at the end of the post) so most of the obscenely high levels are because of that.
Another thing to note is that I won't talk about anyone I didn't use for more than the stage they joined, although I will note how many kills they got in brackets. Those characters are:
Stefan, Devdan, Tanith, Calill, Largo, Tauroneo, Bastian, Naesala, Haar (1), Lucia (2), Geoffrey (4)
Lastly, I'll list levels, kills and the place in the kill totals. A ~ next to the position means they were tied for it.
Ike - 20/20, 199 kills (1st) - Look surprised, Ike is MVP. With the help of a few items near the end, Ike capped something like 5 stats (HP, Skl, Spd, Def, Res) and smashed things with Aether. The only things that could hurt him on the final stage were a couple of mages, although they tended to miss, dragons, Bryce and Ashnard. Dragons tended to get Aether'd, which meant they did 3 damage. Bryce died surprisingly easy on the second try. Ashnard was the only real threat.
Boyd - 20/4, 58 kills (3rd) - I've never been a huge fan of Boyd, but he wasn't bad here (as the kill count shows). High HP meant he could tank, although he was responsible for a LOT of resets, since he consistently died if any sword user reached him. Still, when he could hit things, they'd tend to die.
Oscar - 20/20, 46 kills (~6th) - My Oscar got pretty RNG-screwed, especially compared to the general blessing I got in this run. He generally didn't deal much damage, but doubled most enemies and was useful anyway because cavalry are fucking awesome.
Titania - 20/4, 38 kills (9th) - Early-game, Titania proved to be amazingly useful as usual by sitting around without a weapon - she gained an entire level before even getting to attack, which says a lot. Once she got to attack, she was relatively useful, although still a higher level than most, and once she left the party, she never rejoined it.
Rhys - 20/5, 3 kills (30th) (29th if you ignore Geoffrey) - I cannot begin to describe how useful healers were on this challenge. Rhys was my first promoted unit other than Ike and Volke, and for good reason. Also an absolute life-saver on the final stage where he had Purge and Physic.
Gatrie - 20/9, 35 kills (11th) - The kill count makes Gatrie look better than he was. Mostly just an iron wall, except he wasn't really great at that compared to other units. Most of the kills he did get were from hitting cats with Laguz Lance, while Soren sat behind him healing. Also almost all of those were on Moment of Fate.
Shinon - 20/10, 17 kills (21st) - Ugh. Shinon was Shinon. A few kills early on, pathetic stats once he rejoined, and I fed him experience on Twisted Tower so that I could guarantee I wouldn't have to use him for Repatriation. Ended up with half-decent stats, but that was only because I forced him to gain those extra levels at the end - he had good growths there, so would have been terrible for Repatriation otherwise.
Soren - 20/16, 52 kills (5th) - Soren took a lot of help at the start. So much feeding him experience, it almost made me question why I ever used him in previous runs. That said, once he neared promotion, he was amazing at killing, and after promoting, the ability to heal coming off that magic was absolutely invaluable.
Mia - 20/4, 43 kills (8th) - Myrmidons are goooooood. Especially when I give them Vantage/Adept. That's a really nice combination. That said, it did take a few forged weapons to make her really good, and in Repatriation, she was actually sat with 4 forged weapons (named Crumcrat, Snagrat, Smashface and Smashface II.) Still, reliable crit rate and amazingly good at evasion tanking, which is much more effective when she gets the first hit.
Ilyana - 20/20, 34 kills (12th) - See Soren, change the healing thing for extra damage. (She got insanely blessed on pretty much everything but Magic, which meant she got doubles more often than not.)
Mist - 20/5, 0 kills - Mist was.. surprisingly useless, actually. She saw most of her use as a pre-promote, and the cavalry thing upon promotion was completely redundant outside of possibly one stage?
Rolf - 20/5, 36 kills (10th) - Maybe I just had bad luck with archers on this run, but Rolf didn't achieve much either. He got off to an amazing start, hitting Lv 8 before Oscar, but then slowed down drastically, eventually reaching an endgame where he could barely deal damage to enemies.
Marcia - 20/5, 46 kills (~6th) - Marcia would have been terrible if not for flight being absolutely amazing. Extra points for Brave Lance smashing on the final stage, which saved me a few times.
Lethe - 20, 71 kills (2nd) - Outside of Ike, Lethe was MVP of the run. I wish I was joking with that. Early on, Lethe transforming on the first turn was incredibly useful, and she tore through enemies, taking no damage at all. Once mages became more common, she took a little more care to use, but could still devastate armies easily, and played well into my defensive strategies. Once I got the Demi Band, she was able to push through stages without having to worry about time restraints, but could still hold her own without it, unlike other Laguz. Amazing.
Mordecai - 11, 55 kills (4th) - Would have been almost as good as Lethe, if not for the fact that he takes so long to transform. Once the Demi Band came in, he became a whole lot better, but he was so reliant on it that it really hurt his worth. Still fantastic, but not quite what he could have been, I think.
Volke - 20/6, 13 kills (27th) - Volke was pretty terrible on this run, actually. I did get him to Lv 20 before promotion, which is nice, but he was mostly useless because I had a better thief available who was forced for every stage. (We'll get to that in a bit.)
Kieran - 20/3, 16 kills (~22nd) - Like Oscar, Kieran was incredibly underwhelming. Didn't double anything, was quite frail, and didn't deal a huge amount of damage. His biggest use was to run in with a Tomahawk, attack from range, and then run away again.
Nephenee - 20/5, 27 kills (15th) - Started off reaaaaally badly, but eventually came into her own. She was way too frail to get any use out of Wrath early on, but after promotion, she was able to take out a fair few units on her own. Something of a glass cannon, but a very good one, unlike Kieran.
Brom - 20/10, 24 kills (18th) - That kill count really under-sells Brom. That part where Gatrie failed at tanking? Brom didn't. To clarify just how awesome Brom's tanking was, he was only joined by Ike and Ena as characters who were able to take a dragon's attack on Twisted Tower.
Zihark - 20/7, 29 kills (14th) - See Mia, replace evasion with extra damage. (This is a losing trade.) Vantage/Adept is so good, it should be illegal.
Sothe - 20, 22 kills (19th) - I was really dreading having to use Sothe for this challenge. He's an awful character with slow experience gain, thanks to Blossom, but terrible stats if you remove it. And what happened? He was awesome. Early on, stealing was surprisingly useful, as I managed to grab a few free staves, Vulneraries and Elixirs. Later on, having a Stiletto made Sothe perfectly capable of grabbing kills here and there, and he was pretty integral to a few strategies. Barely hit Lv 20 on the final stage, but capped a few stats in the process!
Jill - 20/5, 26 kills (~16th) - Jill started off incredibly useful - flying is just that good. However, by the end, she'd lost any defensive use she'd had before, and didn't gain any particular offensive use to make up for it, basically making her into a slightly better version of Kieran. In other words, she acted as something of a Jeigan for me in this run.
Astrid - 20/5, 16 kills (~22nd) - See the last sentence above. Astrid started off being able to get some easy kills, and promoted earlier than most, thanks to Paragon. By the final stage, though, she was barely dealing 8 damage with a fucking Brave Bow. Very disappointing end for a character who started off so well.
Makalov - 20/5, 26 kills (~16th) - The fact that he tied Jill for kills makes him seem better than he was. He was, at the very least, better than Kieran in this run, but that doesn't make him good. He was worse than Oscar, who had a bad game, and most of his kills came either from a forged weapon or Sonic Sword vs. Generals/Knights.
Muarim - 11, 5 kills (28th) - Kills do not represent worth in any way. Muarim was an incredible tank, and was fantastic for as long as he held a Demi Band. Unfortunately, like Mordecai, his worth was very much tied to it, and stages with both of them (such as Repatriation) became incredibly awkward.
Tormod - 20/18, 32 kills (13th) - Probably the best mage in this run, Tormod had pretty horrible damage compared to Ilyana/Soren, but made up for it with the extra movement and MUCH higher speed, meaning he consistently doubled where the others were getting doubled.
Reyson - 20 - Didn't get used for a huge amount of stages because, for the few stages he was on, he was incredibly useful, and I made the most of having him, meaning he got a lot of experience. He completely mocked Twisted Tower, making the stage almost laughable.
Janaff - 12, 15 kills (25th) - Ehh. Worse of the two hawks, Janaff had better speed, but worse damage/durability, and that is an awful trade. Slightly more evasive, but not enough for me to care.
Ulki - 13, 19 kills (20th) - Extra durability goes a long way with Laguz. Could quite comfortably tank, and still doubled most things so the speed loss compared to Janaff was irrelevant.
Ranulf - 12, 14 kills (26th) - What can I say? Ranulf smashed things and smashed them well. Technically a better version of Lethe, but with MUCH less availability and transforming later meaning he prefers having the Demi Band. Ends up worse because he joins so late, and Laguz aren't as powerful at that stage.
Elincia - 5 - Barely used her. First stage with her, she was a damn liability who needed protecting. She only came back for the final stage, where the movement helped with healing Ike at the end, but she couldn't deal damage to anything.
Ena - 20, 16 kills (~22nd) - Premier tank. Only existed for a couple of stages, but was amazing for both of them. Easy to grind levels on, which meant she was insanely good during Repatriation, and I really don't think I could have beaten the stage without her there.
From best to worst:
Ike > Lethe > Ena > Mordecai/Brom > Mia > Boyd/Sothe > Tormod > Ulki/Reyson > Zihark > Rhys > Soren > Jill/Nephenee > Ranulf/Muarim > Makalov/Janaff > Marcia > Gatrie > Volke > Ilyana > Titania > Oscar/Mist/Astrid > Rolf > Elincia > Shinon > Kieran
Notable stages for number of turns:
Chapter 4: Roadside Battle: 83 turns
Chapter 17: Day Breaks: 85 turns
Chapter 25: Strange Lands: 61 turns
Chapter 26: Clash!: 42 turns
Chapter 27: Moment of Fate: 270 turns
Chapter 28: Twisted Tower: 1389 turns
Endgame: Repatriation: 18 turns
So, overall, fun challenge, saw some use from characters I've never really used before... Now to carry over the data to FE10!
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Grefter I need answers:
- DA2 templar path mystery
- Lightning's sheath: What is going on
I feel the game could have won a lot by allowing you to queue skills in advance; you wouldn't have to constantly make micro-decisions FAST FAST FAST about your character and could calmly focus on both parts of the battle system. (instead of just ignoring one)
You can queue skills in advance... You don't need to wait until your ATB bar is full to select skills.
I mean several turns in advance. being able to plan several turns in advance and being able to interrupt them with the use of an item or a technique would be cool, for example. As it is you can't even do anything after selecting an action until it's finished, or you'll cancel it.
I've reached Chapter 8, 18 hours in. I've also reached 999% combo thingamabob against one boss.
Game: We have all these different accessories. Perhaps you want 30% poison resistance, or 10% physical resistance?
Me: Either a power wristband, or a Magician's Mark, for every character.
Later.
Game: Congratulations, you have unlocked a new accessory slot. This could be the time to reconsider -
Me: SELL ALL THESE PHOENIX DOWNS AND BUY A TON MORE POWER WRISTBANDS
Somehow my appreciation of player characters varies through the game even though I don't watch any cutscene. (Cutscene skip is really painless in such a linear game by the way) Right now I don't like Lightning and Hope, the others are all right.
What can I say. It's weird. I really like this game right now, but I'm avoiding half of it. Like a porn version of Super Mario Bros 3 where I try my best to avoid all the porn.
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SPOILARZ Dunno about Blood Mage with Templars (might try that sometime). Meredith on the Templar path flips her shit after you kill Orsino yeah and orders the Templars to kill you. There is talk from Cullen about how they were going to arrest you because hey you harbored at least two Apostates and you just have so much influence in the city. Then it is pretty much the same as the other path.
Specifically what I wanted was your opinion on Orsino and the way he covered for and worked with Quentin (serial killer mage that kills urmom). In the Templar route he talks about how Quentin was going to be more fuel for the fire to cut into Mage quality of life etc etc. I had forgot how explicit that was outlined in the ending sequence though.
Lightning clearly just likes the feeling of tapping on dat ass.
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SPOILARZ Dunno about Blood Mage with Templars (might try that sometime). Meredith on the Templar path flips her shit after you kill Orsino yeah and orders the Templars to kill you. There is talk from Cullen about how they were going to arrest you because hey you harbored at least two Apostates and you just have so much influence in the city. Then it is pretty much the same as the other path.
Specifically what I wanted was your opinion on Orsino and the way he covered for and worked with Quentin (serial killer mage that kills urmom). In the Templar route he talks about how Quentin was going to be more fuel for the fire to cut into Mage quality of life etc etc. I had forgot how explicit that was outlined in the ending sequence though.
Lightning clearly just likes the feeling of tapping on dat ass.
Regardless of how you play it out the ending is pretty much unchanged and is based around making you look like a schmuck. Considering that there's a frame story involved Varric could have at least been like "and so we saved the day and then it was declared the first order of business was ADULT PARTYING" or something.
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Fenrir - I like the Auto Haste/Auto Brave/Auto Faith/ATB Advantage/First Strike (start with all ATB bars full) type accessories myself ;-)
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From my faceroll autobattle spam play through I can say if you sink some time into the side stuff you can get through almost everything spamming HP up and Str/Mag boosters (barring a couple of useful resistance bits on key fights, like Lightning resist for Odin I think or something). Still 5 star most fights and the ones that you don't will help you realise that the only reason you were bothering to get the 5 star rating was GOOD JOB SON YOU GET A GOLD STAR feedback as it has no actual impact whatsoever outside of a single trophy for the final boss.
Assassins Creed Revelations - Picked this back up finally. My opinion of it still hasn't really raised. It just feels rushed and cheap. Brotherhood did as well, but less so than this. The number of places on the map that you just get hung up on things is far far more prevalent than AC2 or Brotherhood. The Parkour gameplay hasn't suffered for the extra bullshit this bad since AC1. The things they added to the game either cut down on the parkour (hook is terrible and trivializes the most fun gameplay part to the series...) or just throws in extra busy work. Den Defense thankfully isn't the big offender here although it had potential to be so ALA San Andreas Turf Wars. The frequency is low enough that I got 1 before I could easily have made them a non-issue. The part that really feels like it is busy work is the notoriety system. It is cranked way the fuck up from what it was in AC2 and you just get it for doing more things. Buying shops out now increases your notoriety? So running around parkouring like a mofo and buying out shops and stuff means you have to fuck around with notoriety more often. It doesn't add anything to the game, just one more hoop to jump through (or ignore, which then why the fuck even have it?). Also in general, the economy in this game is way less broken. I have found myself having to fuck around to get time to pass to get money out to go buy more things. Previously this was a less arduous process. Not that it is a big deal, I might *SHOCK* have to progress the plot instead of fucking around. Fucking around is what this series does well though so making it a bit more grindy and a bigger time sink stinks of padding the game out, which is a real shame because Brotherhood worked so well in that while being actually about the same length as AC2 felt far more compact. You hit the ground running and get most of the same upgrades again in a quick flurry. In this one you like have most of them and they give you the mega snooze hook climby thing nearly right off the bat. So there isn't anywhere you can't climb to that you need to come back to. You are mostly just doing direct numerical upgrades when you actually upgrade rather than unlocking cool neat new little things here and there.
Finally bought the crossbow back and goddamn I should have skipped buying blacksmiths and monuments to get that forever ago. Broken as fuck still but it makes many things less bothersome.
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Persona 4 Arena: Sadly I have not actually had much time to play story mode, as Ashley has been busy.
Have completed a minimum of the first 20 challenges for every PC, with several having a few beyond that (I think I'm up to 26 or so for Naoto?). Some of these have been amazingly assholish to complete (some particularly easy ones gave me the hardest time, ala SLabrys' 15 I think? The jB, A, B, 2AB, C). Some were made a lot easier once Alex pointed out a trick to me (The first shot of Naoto's raid can be made by just holding the button!)
Not sure which character I'm most comfortable with naturally, as I've been just doing challenges until I get stuck (~10+ tries without notable success) and then moving to the next PC, repeating until I cleared at least 20 on everyone.
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Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time - We start off as a well dressed silent protagonist shopping with our "sister" who doesn't understand that undergarments go under your clothes. It's okay though, since we shortly find a shota unconscious in the woods. They make it clear that he's clearly a boy despite looking as girly as possible in the dialog. Probably girly voice too but Altus cuts the voice acting because LAZY. They bring back the multiple choice personality exam from Growlanser 3. I pick the "......" as much as possible to roleplay as Squall. Battles still remain objective based rather than just kill everything. However it's much harder than the rest of the series. My party consists of well dressed mute, wonderful shotaboy, and a muscular pretty boy named "Vallery". Man, no wonder Niu liked this game so much. I don't remember who his favorite character was but it's a yaoi party with these character designs. I haven't ran into the outrageously dressed female characters yet besides my fairy robot.
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Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time - We start off as a well dressed silent protagonist shopping with our "sister" who doesn't understand that undergarments go under your clothes. It's okay though, since we shortly find a shota unconscious in the woods. They make it clear that he's clearly a boy despite looking as girly as possible in the dialog. Probably girly voice too but Altus cuts the voice acting because LAZY. They bring back the multiple choice personality exam from Growlanser 3. I pick the "......" as much as possible to roleplay as Squall. Battles still remain objective based rather than just kill everything. However it's much harder than the rest of the series. My party consists of well dressed mute, wonderful shotaboy, and a muscular pretty boy named "Vallery". Man, no wonder Niu liked this game so much. I don't remember who his favorite character was but it's a yaoi party with these character designs. I haven't ran into the outrageously dressed female characters yet besides my fairy robot.
Diana Sivernale is my facorite, I had her as my avatar for a long time when GL4 originally came out. Shota boy Rems ranked third after Ordinale brothers. Love to the Imperial Guards.
And... before commenting on the main being well dressed, think his black lipstick deserves some comments first.
Also, the original route is FARFAR better then the newly added PSP version routes.
Try to avoid the PSP version routes by all cost by either not giving Pamela the docs she needs, or not saving Vester's henchwomen twins.
PSP version route is BADBADBAD.
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YS Origins: I start the game and pick Yunica as a character. She's basically a girl who goes berserk with an axe and has a lot of muscles, but precious few brain cells. So far, everything's great, but then the story kicks in.
The game takes place during the YS era. The narrative explains how YS was a paradice, but then got ravaged by demons. You know, the stuff that would have been interesting to see. The goddesses decided to lift a part of the land into the sky. The demons however gave pursuit. The winged demons just flew up and the rest built a tower that would reach the island. Now, while it's hard to shake of the flying demons, the problem with the tower could have been solved by moving the island a few miles sideways. The goddesses had another plan thopugh, they disappeared. The people from YS decided to send a search party down and Yunica is part of it.
Yunica mentions that she cannot use magic, but she still want to become a knight. She also wants to protect the goddesses with her life, just like her father did. Maybe becoming a bloody corpse was the common desire of young girls during the YS era. That or she didn't think trough what she actually said.
Anyway, the game proceeds with the search party being sent down, thereby refraining from showing anything about how life was during the YS era. They float down in some sort of shiny comet looking thing. The comet is struck by something and the search party is flung to random directions.
A mysterious girl with braids, who looks exactly like Yunica lands in a green field which turns out to be near a talking tree. Most of what's being said is useless, but the girls with braids does find out that the goddesses are in the big tower and that they went the voluntarily. Oh, and it turns out that the girl with braids who looks like Yunica actually is Yunica, who would have thought? She heads to the tower and I get the impression that this is where the game will take place. Not bad, in only 10-15 minutes of intro, the game managed to void about 90% of the point of taking place during the YS era.
In the entrance, there's tree people being harassed by six monsters. Yunica arrives to save the situation and the three guys decides that they will take care of half the monsters and Yunica the other half. Yunica does so, but then six more monsters arrive which she also takes care of.
The three guys she saved hatches some plan about gathering the rest of the search party. Yunica's plan however is to enter the tower and go rampage. She spouts out sometime about scouting and needing combat experience to be useful since she cannot use magic, never mind the fact that she singlehanded toke on six monsters simultaneously, something the three guys she's talking to, all of them which can use magic, considered themselves unable to. The leader among them for some reason gives in.
Anyway, the into is over, the gameplay begins and the game becomes great again.
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P4A: Haven't played a whole lot of this. Finished story modes for Labrys, Kanji, Akihiko, Chie in that order. Labrys's was pretty damn sad. Writing is very good, although seeing the same story multiple times from different perspectives gets old quickly.
As for the fighting engine itself, I'm not really digging the buttons. Light/Medium/Heavy/Drive seemed more intuitive for combos than Light/Heavy/Light Persona/Heavy Persona. I may change my opinion on this as I get more used to the system. I do like that they give you a lot more "super meter" to play around with.
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FF4-2: Finished Edge's Tale (pretty cool, though the extra elemental ninjas were unnecessary), Porom's Tale (managed to be 100% NOT about Porom! And Kain betrayed us again! The SHOCK!), and then Edward's Tale (Fucking Desert Fever again?! God I hate this game. Now I'm gonna have to go fight the Antlio- and what's this? No Antlion fight? Cool!)
Onward to more stupidity! So far the new characters are mostly better than the old cast. Luca, Ursula, Leonora, and Harley are actually pretty cool storywise (not that they have much competition outside of like... Palom?). Well.. Ceodore's bad, but hardly the worst offender.
That would go to our exciting villain cast of Mysterious Girl and KAIN. God dammit Kain, how do you manage to fail so fucking much? >:(
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[SCENE: A slightly cramped meeting room at Square-Enix, 2010. Motivational posters are along one wall, and a whiteboard with timelines - both fictional and game development related - is on the other.]
TAKASHI: Right. Glad you all could make it. So Yukio over here noticed that it'd be pretty goddamn dumb for an elementary school teacher & a savage hunter of the plains to know how to hack into a futuristic computer. Camera shifts to Yukio's smile. But luckily our heroes are friggin' time travellers so we've got pretty well infinite options for how to get past this, make sense, and have some good gameplay.
YUKIO: Yes, about that. I've been thinking, and aside from maybe changing Noel's design a little to fit his origin -
TAKASHI: Not now, Yukio. So there's going to be some obstacle, and our heroes are going to have to time travel to get past it and get their sweet computer records, and it's going to be awesome. To make this more interesting, you all have 10 seconds to figure out what the problem is, and I will just take the first solution someone yells out.
YUKIO: Uh... wait a second... I mean... is this a good idea? I...
ICHIRO: Okay, so there's like this PARADOX on a lock. They gotta go to the FUTURE where they touch a bunch of computers, then they come back, and BAM the lock is open.
TAKASHI: Sold, to the man in the business suit. Let's do it.
YUKIO: But wait! What about the secret computer data? That was the whole problem!
ICHIRO: Eh just have the evil AI show it to them. The other computers, just touch 'em and let 'em open up new areas 'cause.
TAKASHI: Another productive meeting! I knew it didn't take weeks of wrangling to make a plot or such nonsense. Efficiency, that's me.
YUKIO: (to self, while looking at his notes) We couldn't have them confer with, you know, a hacker from farther in the future who'd give them a chip & program since he thinks hacking hundred year old stuff is easy? And I thought the AI was supposed to get mad at them for knowing the "forbidden history!" Why would it tell them outright? Couldn't it at least lie, or make it harder to get around then touching panels? And while I'm at it -
Transmission abruptly cuts off to the sound of hissing static
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REplaying Atelier Iris Eternal Mana:
The original idea was to get the Edge Cast bow this time that I mised my first playthrough so I could nab every item! But I think I ruined that idea by giving the shopkeeper the wrong vacuum cleaner and locking myself out of her quests... Which would suck balls.
Thinking of redoing the stat topic on this game with Crystals taken into account. Which mostly serves to make Klein and Lita more tanky since they get 2 crystal slots instead of 1. It also makes everyone want to use customizable weapons. I think it would raise the fighter's damage since the logical crystal to use (Battle Lord Power x3) is +105 HP/Atk. I guess you could argue folks want Speed Up options and whatnot but everyone would want that ANYWAY so it wouldn't effect the averages (and more slots isn't good for this since one or two speed crystals makes speed differences completely meaningless).
Klein is pretty awesome, as usual. DAMAGE and utility in one good package. Lita is all about killing shit dead with Fast Attack and a few Double Attacks stacked on her already Double-Attacking Astral Claw. That can get a bit silly. I'm impressed with Delsus' Feint Shot since it cancels enemy attacks before they take place, including for MT moves that would whack him. Niiiice.
I've actually redone a good chunk of the numbers for the stat topic (not any considerations for crystals though; just correcting the really questionable numbers in the stat topic), but kind of stalled out after I got the damages due to lack of time.
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Shadow Hearts 3 challenge update: In which I spend 75% of the post talking about the boss fight.
Onwards to Vilcabamba, Incan stronghold famous for its teleporters and floating elevators.
First, I clear out the second set of Lovecraft trials at this point. The only particularly tough one involves a variety of enemies ending with Malice Edna, all with greatly improved offensive stats so that they hit harder than they originally did unscaled. To make matters worse you have Tight Ring and Fake Ring. The durability isn't too special though, but I do have to grind this out boss-style.
Anyway, Vilcabama randoms are a bit of a step down. Of course, it helps that I am using Shania again but they're a step down even accounting for that. They're not jokes; they have a bunch of tricks which can add up if given too many turns: stock breaking, plenty of sanity-lowering (both SP Lowering and Panic), and lowering your defence so subsequent physicals kick ass. But the enemies don't make individually strong impressions and I rarely formed specific strategies for them. About the only really noteworthy thing is that unlike in most places, if I let a fight drag sanity could be an issue due to the ways enemies have of attacking that. Of course part of this is I didn't bother with the Blood Jewel and was using the Small Jug. Once again, Warning Device means the worst possibility for random fights can't materialise.
Before the boss fight I cap out La Sirene's skills, giving her the all-important Resurrection. It is a huge boon. (Current Breath, an M-radius Level 3 dark spell, is also very useful for the randoms, though a bit costly.)
Killer and Daoros (3 resets)
This one's a toughie, because there's two of them. And while their HP is about half what you'd expect from a "normal" boss at this point (i.e. their combined HP is normal), all their other stats are just fine. Damage is also a bit lower (mostly Daoros's) but nowhere near half as low. So they've got a lot of offence together.
Killer first. Vice Needle is pain, 2HKO except to fused Shania and inflicts Chain. Chain means that any attack used after it does significantly boosted damage. The status ends when the target gets a turn, but doubleturns, doubles, and combos make this deadly. Vice Needle seems to hit a narrow line like Rock Burst, so it only rarely gets both PCs but it sucks when it does. He also has a pair of physical attacks which do slightly less damage (borderline 2HKO to Johnny, low 3HKO Shania) that inflict either P-Atk Down or S-Atk Down. Each status cripples your ability to use attacks of that type for five turns, and can't be blocked or healed (like Slow). Fortunately they don't affect anything but offence; healing and buffing is unchanged. Finally, he has Red Bounce, which is relatively weak... 4-5HKO.
Killer uses his stock craftily. Alone, he'll use a boring combo of Vice Needle -> Flame Mine (the fire combo magic previously used by Ronwei), which borderline OHKOs Shania and obviously kills Johnny. However, as long as Daoros is alive, his game plan is different: save for a D-Combo (double followed by a combo into an immediate Daoros turn). This uses two stock but is extremelyd dangerous, as it means a Vice Needle followed a Red Bounce (only slightly less damaging than his normal double) followed by a Hail Solid from Daoros which WILL be fatal even if the PC has lived this long. Even worse, Daoros may double itself on this comboed attack which means four consecutive enemy moves. These turns are very scary.
Daoros is Gilbert's summoned pet which assists Killer. Statistically it's a bit worse off than Killer, and seems less overtly dangerous. Its three attacks are Apathy (usual fast-recharge MT status attack, this one prevents stock gain, not too big a deal), a 3-4HKO physical attack, and Hail Solid, which does similar damage to Killer's Red Bounce (i.e. pretty weak). It only hits aired targets so he'll normally only use it after a Killer Red Bounce or after a High Angle physical attack from Daoros proper, but if Shania's in a flying form he may cast it on her. This is good as it is weaker than his physicals, so having Shania in a flying form is actually subtly helpful here.
If Daoros sounds like a wuss compared to Killer, don't be fooled, as he has a nasty, nasty trick: he counters any positive status effects. If you cast a buff (including Entrance or elemental edges), he gets a free turn and uses it to cast one of his own. It'll be an Arc buff on both him and Killer. If it's Surge, Rage, or Gale, you're in deep trouble, as ~50% more damage even from limited sources gets you overwhelmed easily. It can be handled by a full team (though probably isn't desirable), but against this team? Yeah, no, not happening. Guess my first reset's cause, win nothing.
At first I am a bit despairing about this fight: as mentioned, each alone isn't quite as good as a normal boss (though Killer's fairly close), but together? Yeesh. Add in buff spoiling and I'm in real trouble. Fortunately Daoros has a big weakness: he can be poisoned. And you get Poison 2 in this dungeon. So I put that on Shania and we have a way to survive this madness; after only a few turns Daoros will fall and we're left with Killer, who alone is respectable but still more manageable than Jeb Niglas or Kerufe.
Strategy is fairly straightforward as such. Johnny uses Arc Cure often, defending if Shania doesn't need help. Raise Up -> Arc Cure double is handy if Shania falls. Shania uses physicals to poison Daoros (two successful landings of the status mean Deadly Poison which is 33%), Hard Hitting if stock destroying is useful, and she casts Resurrection if Johnny falls (this happens often) or Cure Plus if big singletarget healing is in order. Priority is of course on poisoning Daoros and just staying alive past that.
Once it's down to Killer, then buffs can be cast safely again. This is good because my party's offence needs to respond to what Killer does, and which stats of mine he decides to destroy (Arc Rage vs. Arc Surge). Aqua Edge on Shania can help if her going physical is an option (and it is the best overall option). Killer does need to be taken seriously and killing his stock is pretty handy of course (though not as crucial as for some bosses). If Shania gets both her offences dropped it's annoying but hey it means Johnny has to shine sometime!
I actually lose this battle once with Daoros dead, because I forget to heal Shania's sanity and right as I notice this, figuring ("oh I'll have Johnny do it before she goes berserk next turn"), Killer decides it's time to one-round a New Yorker and yeah I lose. Good times.
Accessories for this fight include Blood Jewel on Johnny (as usual) primarily because I'm less attached to his stock (stock goes away when Berserk kicks in even if the Blood Jewel saves him) due to Shania needing hers for Hard Hits, the usual defensive accessories, and Oracle Earrings for +20% MP and an SDef boost as filler. Maybe apathy blocking would be more valuable but I dunno. I go into the fight with full stock and don't use it very often so it's largely a non-factor.
Levels were 26 for both.
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[SCENE: A slightly cramped meeting room at Square-Enix, 2010. Motivational posters are along one wall, and a whiteboard with timelines - both fictional and game development related - is on the other.]
TAKASHI: Right. Glad you all could make it. So Yukio over here noticed that it'd be pretty goddamn dumb for an elementary school teacher & a savage hunter of the plains to know how to hack into a futuristic computer. Camera shifts to Yukio's smile. But luckily our heroes are friggin' time travellers so we've got pretty well infinite options for how to get past this, make sense, and have some good gameplay.
YUKIO: Yes, about that. I've been thinking, and aside from maybe changing Noel's design a little to fit his origin -
TAKASHI: Not now, Yukio. So there's going to be some obstacle, and our heroes are going to have to time travel to get past it and get their sweet computer records, and it's going to be awesome. To make this more interesting, you all have 10 seconds to figure out what the problem is, and I will just take the first solution someone yells out.
YUKIO: Uh... wait a second... I mean... is this a good idea? I...
ICHIRO: Okay, so there's like this PARADOX on a lock. They gotta go to the FUTURE where they touch a bunch of computers, then they come back, and BAM the lock is open.
TAKASHI: Sold, to the man in the business suit. Let's do it.
YUKIO: But wait! What about the secret computer data? That was the whole problem!
ICHIRO: Eh just have the evil AI show it to them. The other computers, just touch 'em and let 'em open up new areas 'cause.
TAKASHI: Another productive meeting! I knew it didn't take weeks of wrangling to make a plot or such nonsense. Efficiency, that's me.
YUKIO: (to self, while looking at his notes) We couldn't have them confer with, you know, a hacker from farther in the future who'd give them a chip & program since he thinks hacking hundred year old stuff is easy? And I thought the AI was supposed to get mad at them for knowing the "forbidden history!" Why would it tell them outright? Couldn't it at least lie, or make it harder to get around then touching panels? And while I'm at it -
Transmission abruptly cuts off to the sound of hissing static
The post is flawed by default as it does not involve Toriyama.
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He's off to the side, trying to fuck a dog.
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YUKIO: (to self, while looking at his notes) We couldn't have them confer with, you know, a hacker from farther in the future who'd give them a chip & program since he thinks hacking hundred year old stuff is easy? And I thought the AI was supposed to get mad at them for knowing the "forbidden history!" Why would it tell them outright? Couldn't it at least lie, or make it harder to get around then touching panels? And while I'm at it -
You could argue that being AI, it limits its ability to do things such as lie. So they see truth, it answers truthfully. Nothing the AI said beforehand was a lie either. Maybe not a complete truth, as it left out specific details, but they didn't outright say one thing that wasn't outright false.
It just says "I am based off the assistant director, in attempt to mimic her as best as possible!" as an easy explanation for how Alyssa could be alive 200 years later. It left out we did have to kill all the originals to get this far, because they were deemed a threat, sure, but it didn't say anything that contradicted this.
So yeah, the "AI Lied" thing could be regarded as inconsistent with the AI's nature. The "You have learned the forbidden truth, you now must die" thing was a natural reaction.
That said, how they learned the "forbidden truth" was...kind of nonsensical, I agree. The one thing I could think of is the Proto Fal'cie set a trap for them, knowing the AI would not engage the duo unless they did something to spark defensive protocols or something, and "learn information forbidden to humans" is one way to get them to go "INTRUDER! RELEASE THE MONSTERS!" Yes, I am overthinking this, what about it?
...this isn't defending the sequence as you did hit on WHY its silly, I'm more just playing devil's advocate.
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As for the fighting engine itself, I'm not really digging the buttons. Light/Medium/Heavy/Drive seemed more intuitive for combos than Light/Heavy/Light Persona/Heavy Persona. I may change my opinion on this as I get more used to the system. I do like that they give you a lot more "super meter" to play around with.
On the other hand, I am very glad all the specials have such simplistic inputs. No full-circle moves! I have never, ever been able to execute those and am glad to see no one is dependent on them here. Every special move is a quarter circle input. As a result, there's really no character I immediately said, "Yeah, I can't use this PC," about. On the other hand, things can be a little too user-friendly: autocombos! And I thought "Mash square for win," had to be an exaggeration.
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YUKIO: (to self, while looking at his notes) We couldn't have them confer with, you know, a hacker from farther in the future who'd give them a chip & program since he thinks hacking hundred year old stuff is easy? And I thought the AI was supposed to get mad at them for knowing the "forbidden history!" Why would it tell them outright? Couldn't it at least lie, or make it harder to get around then touching panels? And while I'm at it -
You could argue that being AI, it limits its ability to do things such as lie. So they see truth, it answers truthfully. Nothing the AI said beforehand was a lie either. Maybe not a complete truth, as it left out specific details, but they didn't outright say one thing that wasn't outright false.
It just says "I am based off the assistant director, in attempt to mimic her as best as possible!" as an easy explanation for how Alyssa could be alive 200 years later. It left out we did have to kill all the originals to get this far, because they were deemed a threat, sure, but it didn't say anything that contradicted this.
So yeah, the "AI Lied" thing could be regarded as inconsistent with the AI's nature. The "You have learned the forbidden truth, you now must die" thing was a natural reaction.
That said, how they learned the "forbidden truth" was...kind of nonsensical, I agree. The one thing I could think of is the Proto Fal'cie set a trap for them, knowing the AI would not engage the duo unless they did something to spark defensive protocols or something, and "learn information forbidden to humans" is one way to get them to go "INTRUDER! RELEASE THE MONSTERS!" Yes, I am overthinking this, what about it?
...this isn't defending the sequence as you did hit on WHY its silly, I'm more just playing devil's advocate.
It was a paradox because anything that doesn't make sense is a paradox. That way Square's writers are finally free from the last vestiges of coherent storytelling. Look forward to every game they make being "chaos magic-driven" from now on.
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Pokemon White - Completed the pokdex...excluding those gawd damn timed event legendaries. My count is at 645 and it will prolly sit there until I find a way to get those five or six last pokemon. Ah well, onto a new game I guess.
Kingdom of Amalur - GF bought this. It's fun. Reminds me of Skyrim with a WoW type of feel to it. No jumping though! I made a thief type character that joined a thieving guild and started my life of thievery. Somewhere along the way I lost the main storyline, but ah well I will stumble across it eventually. But my gawd is everyone in this game corrupt or what. I usually feel bad about killing people in games, but no one in this game gives me that feeling of remorse. Quite literally everyone deserves to die. I plan to make sure that happens.
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FF8 - Completed. I died to Adel once because I was at below 1/3 max HP with everyone due to playing FF8 and she 3HKOed me with Ultima and died once to Ultimecia because I underestimated how quickly she would make my PCs disappear and she removed HP-J. The castle is pretty cool as always.
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Pokemon White - Completed the pokdex...excluding those gawd damn timed event legendaries. My count is at 645 and it will prolly sit there until I find a way to get those five or six last pokemon. Ah well, onto a new game I guess.
Wait... you seriously... 'caught em all'? I didn't think anyone did that anymore... How did you possibly have the time and inclination to do that? *is both genuinely impressed and mildly disgusted*
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Well, if he already had a completed pokedex from gen 3 or 4 (or more likely if he bothered, he did it in gen 3 then carried it over to gen 4) it's not that bad.
edit: correction, it's still pretty crazy, but it's way LESS crazy.
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Dark Souls: You'd think swinging around a Dragon's Tooth would be awesome, and it totally is.
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Civilization 4: All of the Subtitles (All of them!!!!!!!!)
So it turns out Caveman2Cosmos, though really fun, does have some serious problems even when your machine laughs at its requirements. In fact, with some of the ways they're twisting and folding the Civ 4 engine, system requirements may end up being the least of its problems.
Most importantly, the AI can't play it. They do fine from the Ancient Era on - well, by "fine" I mean "at least as well as normal Civ 4 AI, which is nothing like good" - but they fall drastically behind in the Prehistoric Era. I could sit on 100% espionage (and not steal techs, because, uh, I'd have nothing to steal) for 100 turns waiting for them to catch up.
Mildly important, and would be more so if the AI was a little better, after the sterling work C2C does balancing the Prehistoric-Ancient-Classical unit progression, it kind of falls apart in the Renaissance. The current release version has an artillery unit (the Ribauldequin) that is more powerful than any non-hero melee or gunpowder unit you can get at this point by 5 Power (20 vs 15), gets 75% vs. melee and 25% vs gunpowder. So you end up with armies of (historically shitty) cannons instead of troops.
Not important, but annoying - these fucking residential buildings. One of the team members got it into his head that "providing" (read forcing) a full suite of Sim City residential classes on each era would somehow improve gameplay. It, uh, doesn't. It also makes no sense. I have no idea what my "cities" are supposed to represent.
All of this applies to the latest release version (v25).
Thankfully, the SVN version fixes all of the above. Sort of. The AI knows how to research in the Prehistoric Era (Knowledge Inheritance and Elder Council - worth building! Who knew? :U ), the Ribauldequin line was completely rebalanced (gogo my feedback) and now is a natural progression toward Gatling Guns across the Renaissance and Industrial eras, and...
Well, those fucking residential buildings are still there, but now there are customizable build queues you can save and use for multiple cities, including stuff you can't build yet. This cuts turn time by well over half. So good.
League of Legends
I still don't understand why I don't hate this game. Aside from not being an MMORPG, it should be the perfect storm of things I dislike in a game.
But...
I can't even blame it on friends playing anymore. I've been playing it solo. I've been playing it with random fucking teammates. In fairness, with random teammates it's often every bit as horrible as it, by rights, should be. I had a game last night where two of my teammates decided to start counting down to surrender after one of them died the first time. While our team was up on kills.
Nunu main, Pantheon secondary. I've been learning to jungle with the latter, or at least to wander around the jungle until a chance appears to burst out and kill the fuck out of a really annoying champions like Wukong or Fiddlesticks. It's a blast, but I'm still better, or at least more reliable, with Nunu. I bought Pantheon to have an AD option for times when my team ends up AP-reliant, because the latter is suicide against certain champs, like Galio.
So I thought, anyway. In other news, nerf Galio. I hated him when I went against him as Nunu, but hey, Galio is supposed to tank AP. I still hate him when I go against him as Pantheon, and AD is supposed to be his weakness. By "weakness" I apparently mean he doesn't completely ignore an Ult, he just still wins solo fights and completely wrecks an entire team in team fights.
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Bobbin: I recommend, if possible, especially early on, to avoid maining a champion and instead try to get to the point where you can play all roles with a degree of competence. It helps your general play if you understand how each lane works, the various match-ups you see commonly, and how various champions work.
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Pokemon White - Completed the pokdex...excluding those gawd damn timed event legendaries. My count is at 645 and it will prolly sit there until I find a way to get those five or six last pokemon. Ah well, onto a new game I guess.
Wait... you seriously... 'caught em all'? I didn't think anyone did that anymore... How did you possibly have the time and inclination to do that? *is both genuinely impressed and mildly disgusted*
What Cmdr said.
I had kept up to date with all the pokemon games, so by the time I transferred everything I had caught from the previous games, by total collection skyrocketed. This game helped me collect some loose end pokemon that had escape my grasp...mainly because I played these game by myself for a long time and I have had another copy to trade with.
I also agree that catching them all is really crazy. I tell myself I won't do it again, and then a new game comes out and I transfer every gawd damn over again and start the process all over again.
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So do you keep transferring yourself an awesome starter through from Gen 1 ASAP and keep curb stomping the games with your level 99 Venusaur called LABLUEGRL?
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As someone with a 493 dex copy of Pearl who fully intends on getting a 649 dex Black 2 when it's out, online trading has made the whole collection process a million times more practical than it used to be. No longer do you need to buy 2-5 games and deal with all the pain in the ass stuff like Feebas/Milotic, you can just buy 1 cart, breed eggs for something rare and use GTS+message boards to slowly fill out all the empty gaps.
The event Pokemon are the only annoying ones, if you don't have the right stores nearby you'll likely have to trade for clones online, and from gen 4 onwards 99% of clones are created with cheating devices. I can live with this because there was no reliable way for me to get a 100% legit Celebi otherwise, ditto Keldeo/Meloetta/Genesect nowadays.
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L59 in Theatrhythm; completed all of Series mode on Normal, returning to it from Expert after playing Challenge Mode. Uhm. Also. S's songs on Ultimate Mode gives you 6K+ EXP? Awesome stuff. Now, I'm still slightly confused about attaching my Dark Notes to my profile card in order to 'swap' with other users. I expect this is widely performed once you gather all said items for one Dark Note -or- find a gracious enough user to fill in your missing spots.
I'm also beginning to find this street pass slightly creepy. I've met one specific Mii three times now, and have only left the house with my DS three times. I either live above said Mii man or they be creepin'.
My weakest spot in Theatrhythm is EMS just because I find it so eerily boring that I don't try. Mmm, also, I can't seem to get the hang of Saber's Edge on Ultimate because my hand tends to move across the screen too much for the angles. Only way to solve this is to plant my hands above the control buttons, but this also means that I have to play in a specific position. Blegh.
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Theatrhythm - I have unlocked all the characters except Seifer, Sarah, Sephiroth, and Kain, of which Sephiroth is the only one I terribly care about but I'm sure I will unlock everyone anyway. My primary team is Terra (leader), Lightning, Cloud, and Squall, which kills anywhere from 2 bosses on the highest-level notes to 6 on the lowest. If for some reason I need more agility for FMS I swap Cloud's abilities so he caps speed, but I find FMS easy so I typically don't bother with this. I have experimented with swapping out various PCs for Warrior of Light (who has no magic or limit, but does have Strength Up 3) and the results feel fairly neutral overall, varies by note. I also use Cid and Locke with Libra L3 and L2 respectively (along with Lightning who has L1) when opening up new notes so I have an idea of what I can get.
Once I have all the PCs I imagine I'll give Challenge Mode a spin. 21 hours so far.
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Bobbin: I recommend, if possible, especially early on, to avoid maining a champion and instead try to get to the point where you can play all roles with a degree of competence. It helps your general play if you understand how each lane works, the various match-ups you see commonly, and how various champions work.
I've experimented with a few different champions.
I feel like I've got a good grasp of the basics. When I go up against other level 12s in random PVP I've got a winning record and usually end up one of the top players on my team. Of course, then I see my level 30 friend move through the map like she's hitting the delete key on targets, so, uh... yeah. Still a lot to learn (and I doubt I'll ever be that good).
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You'd be surprised, honestly. Once you nail down the core mechanics (engaging, map awareness, farming, timing), you actually can become a pretty brutal force of nature.
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As someone with a 493 dex copy of Pearl who fully intends on getting a 649 dex Black 2 when it's out, online trading has made the whole collection process a million times more practical than it used to be. No longer do you need to buy 2-5 games and deal with all the pain in the ass stuff like Feebas/Milotic, you can just buy 1 cart, breed eggs for something rare and use GTS+message boards to slowly fill out all the empty gaps.
The event Pokemon are the only annoying ones, if you don't have the right stores nearby you'll likely have to trade for clones online, and from gen 4 onwards 99% of clones are created with cheating devices. I can live with this because there was no reliable way for me to get a 100% legit Celebi otherwise, ditto Keldeo/Meloetta/Genesect nowadays.
If you know a way to get those clones, let me know. Because I don't have the means or resources to do that myself! Please and thank you~
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SH3 duo sounds amazing.
From my faceroll autobattle spam play through I can say if you sink some time into the side stuff you can get through almost everything spamming HP up and Str/Mag boosters (barring a couple of useful resistance bits on key fights, like Lightning resist for Odin I think or something). Still 5 star most fights and the ones that you don't will help you realise that the only reason you were bothering to get the 5 star rating was GOOD JOB SON YOU GET A GOLD STAR feedback as it has no actual impact whatsoever outside of a single trophy for the final boss.
I actually sometimes have some trouble getting 5 rank stars. I got a 0 star rank recently
The FF13 ranking system is weird because, unlike Devil May Cry or something, you pretty much can't die if you ignore it. IF you just want to finish the game, it is Progress Quest; use one medic and you'll be able to beat every battle doing nothing (except event eidolon battles + that gatling motorcycle random) Ranking seriously doesn't even seem to matter in any way, yeah.
This is not good design at all, but it can be ignored very easily.
FF13's saying to me "Care about ranking, and skip every cutscene, and you'll have fun" just like Dragon Quest 8 said "I'm dead easy and my PCs take forever to progress. Go solo and you'll have fun though" and Pokemon "I was lying earlier. Don't catch them all. It would be terribly dull" (Scar you scare me)
If I easily find a way to make a game more enjoyable (even as far from the lead developer's VISION as possible), I'm going to consider it when judging the game. This applies to any media actually, and the best works obviously never need it. (Speaking of which, the Wire is worth the hype, and it's going to get harder and harder to watch a 4:3 TV series. Could be worth checking out now)
Diablo 3: Level 55 Witch Doctor; Still vomiting acid on people.
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I'd say there are quite a few RPGs which are easier than FF13 even if you ignore the rankings. Maybe even more than a few. (I have just been watching Grandia 2 and FF8 recently so maybe I am biased.) I think there are more battles than you think which I suspect would overwhelm a "always COM/MED/something" strategy although not if you also grind, of course (hi Grefter). Almost all are in Chapter 11-13 and I don't know how far you are, though.
I also don't think the game would have been helped by making rankings super-meaningful. (They matter for drop rates, that's about it.) All that would accomplish is make weak players of the game suffer even more while good players cruise. VP2 kinda did this (if you're doing better, you'll break more parts of enemies, causing you to get more skills... and do even better) and I think it was a bit of a misfire there.
That said if I agree with you that if I see a way to play a game that is fun and a way that isn't I am of course going to opt for fun. The "best" or easiest way to play Pokemon is to use a team of 1-2 and dominate with your overlevelled 'mons but that misses the whole point of the gameplay and is lame.
Theatrhymth - Unlocked all chibis except Kain. Which means I'm done with unlocking! Time for challenge mode.
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VP2 made it super frustrating to play because of that. The less good you are at the game (or the less you give a damn about it) the more you suffer. Not an experience I want to replicate.
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The answer to meaningless systems isn't necessarily to give them meaning, it could just be to gut the system and leave (that is drop rankings, what change is there overall?).
Also goddammit Fen, you made me bash on FF13 by accident when I had sworn to stop talking about it (hi elf).
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Well, games only have whatever meaning you give them anyway. Certainly I'll take "caring about rankings" over "getting all achievements" as far as completely pointless milestones go, since one actually measures how good I am at a game.
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Well, games only have whatever meaning you give them anyway. Certainly I'll take "caring about rankings" over "getting all achievements" as far as completely pointless milestones go, since one actually measures how good I am at a game.
To be fair, some Trophy/Achievement lists actually do that too. ::Looks at Wipeout HD::
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So, I decided to replay Phantasy Star 4--haven't played it in years, so I figured why not?
In general, the game's aged surprisingly well, largely due to a number of things I feel it does right--both from a game design perspective and a writing perspective. Still a 9/10 game to me, which puts it up there with WA4. However, I'll spare the gushing, and instead look over how this playthrough went, complete with character/dungeon/boss analysis.
-Chaz largely lagged behind for a large portion of the game. Poor guy missed out on sandworm EXP, which hurt, and money issues led to me skimping on armor at points. Add that to the fact that Airslash is his only MT aside from Zan(which...sucks massively outside of combos), and he's actually pretty terrible for dungeons, with his TP pool relegated to out-of-battle healing prior to acquiring Githu. Awesome as hell for bosses, though most everything not named Crosscut tends not to get time of day (High power, buffable, Skill, and high charges? Ow), with Dark Force 1 being a notable exception (Githu outdamaged it by about 40-50 or so). Lagged a good bit after Lashiec until the final, where Elsydeon and Pow-Shield itemcast leads to 500+ damage Crosscuts. Damn.
-Alys was, as you could expect, a Jeigan. Largely helped the party Not Die during the earlygame, and then kind of fell off. Didn't even get much use out of Death, given that she learned it right before Juza. Her offense fell off in terms of effectiveness rather quickly as well, which made her major contributions during bossfights amount to Shift, Saner, and Vortex use (post-Shift). Much more someone for clearing randoms than fighting bosses, though she showcases PS4 buffs quite well, and Rika picks up where she left off with Saner. Shift...less so until a good deal later. Leaves the party before she becomes too much of a drag, really, which is probably for the best.
-Hahn was the anti-Alys. Where Alys got worse over time, Hahn got a LOT better over that same time--and left before you could really wreck things with him. Was at his worst during the Bio-Plant, but destroyed most everything else. Consistent damage-dealer for most bosses, and was MVP against the sandworm. Randoms got Vol'd. Unless they were robots. Hahn does not like robots. Hahn really does not like robots.
-Gryz was...better than I gave him credit for, at least. Brose was an unreliable option, but an option nonetheless, against groups of robots. Crash, on the other hand, turned out to be reliable ID. I'm still not a fan of his setup, but it is functional, at least. Overall, however, he felt quite lackluster throughout. Didn't really stand out at any point.
-Rika...uh...hell. Aside from her low level being compensated for with good starting gear, she was easily MVP for the second half of the game. Sandworm kill got her literally seven levels. She filled her usual heal/support niche prior to Myst Vale. After getting the Silver Tusk, however, she became primary boss-slayer up until the final, just about; Every single boss from Zio onwards, with the exception of the Rainbow Rebellion Revolutionaries, is weak to Holy. Shift+Silver Tusk+Doubleslash spam gave her damage output similar to or better than Chaz up until Rykros--and it keeps her relevant in the final battle as well (400+ damage Doubleslashes? Yes please)
-The short segment of the game Demi was with you for was particularly suited to her abilities--two dungeons of robots, and two bossfights. Medic Power's a good panic button on top of that, and she gets good durability with her gear upgrades. She's...okayish for Ladea (Stasisbeam being what it is), but overall largely there for showing off androids before you get Wren. Pity, I'd have liked to see her diverge from Wren a little more at the end, too. By endgame, Phonomezer has a decent number of shots, but that's her only anti-boss offensive option--the rest is defensive on her part.
-Wren specializes in...well, being impossible to kill. No, really. He's immune to ID that isn't Spark, has far more HP than anyone else in the game, and has no fewer than twenty shots of full self-healing. When he's NOT regenerating what damage he takes out of combat, at that. His offense is...well, it's consistent. A bit anemic when it comes to the higher values, but consistently decent--Flare's a go-to for bosses and works for the entire game, but Burst Rocket doesn't get much higher and Positron Bolt only gets one shot, usually. He's definitely good against robots, though--Spark and Hyper Jammer are effective weapons there. Overall, he's more notable for not dying most of the time, though; even on my first playthrough, he was almost always the last to go.
-Raja is given a lot of crap in duels given his poor speed and lack of offense--which in-game, yeah. You're not looking to him to have anything resembling relevant offense barring one fight: Dark Force 1, where St. Fire is your first taste of 300+ damage unless you grind up to get Rayblade. But he's a support god in theory. In practice...he largely just amounts to a pool of easy healing so you can save TP on Rika for bossfight emergencies. Don't get me wrong, Blessing is fairly awesome support, as is Ataraxia, but he's not in enough fights that make that support count. Holyword only really applies on Piercers (and Zombies if you head to Reshel), so his skillset is...very, very wasted for the time you have him.
-Kyra, on the other hand, translates a lot better to the DL than her in-game performance would state. Having a second Hewn user is nice and all, but what she has doesn't translate too well to in-game; Telele and Bindwa are useless on bosses, and you have her for three. She's behind on damage despite having free MT from Slashers, and her Technique progression frankly sucks; by the time you get her, she's got Gifoi and Gra. Rune's basically been a step ahead of her as far as both Techniques and Skills go. She generally falters on offense, and especially against bosses, but has a few uses. First being using her as a between-battle heal-battery; between Res spells, her TP pool, and Medice being a generous pool of Nares spells, she can handle any single-target healing well enough. Second is abusing Warla, which isn't Blessing, but it's still Deban+. Other than that...her offense is really not good, and I have the feeling she may've been meant to have some better spells or join earlier. Ah well. Hewn's still good to have more of.
Dungeons:
Nothing was really competent until Tonoe Basement, where my lack of armor upgrades kind of caught up with me. So sue me, I was pressed for cash at that point and didn't want to grind. Similarly, ended up inadvertedly grinding in Bio-Plant less out of a want, and more of having to make several trips through because party members kept dying and I needed to get out. As for the rest:
Zio's Fort--3 trips. Saber-type enemies now have my undying hate for their flagrant abuse of Airslash.
Plate System--Ow. Even with Medic Power, I had to make two trips and still got to the end with only half my party alive.
Ladea Tower--Two trips. Didn't feel I could take on Gy-Laguiah on my first run after having expended so much TP and my use of Medic Power.
Nurvus--Two trips. TP was getting low, though I could've probably done it in one. See my bit on Zio for more.
Dezolis Wilderness/Hangar--LOL
Kuran--Raja made this an easy one-trip stop. Didn't run from many fights that weren't Command Ball/Floatmine groups.
Climatrol, Weapons Plant--One trip each. Burst Rocket was probably not worth the trip, and Star Drones are notably obnoxious.
Air Castle--This is where the difficulty steps up, a lot, and with this being the only dungeon with one, nevermind two recovery points, it shows. Frostsabers my most hated enemy still. Bastards. Chaos Sorcerers amusingly drop Moon Dews on occasion.
Garuberk Tower--Longer than any of the three "segments" of Air Castle, and with similarly annoying enemies. D-Elm-Lars and Radhins can both die in a fire--at least the latter are stupid enough to cast Shift on themselves and each other repeatedly rather than spam Forceflash. Oh, and Frostsabers are back.
Fort Vahal--Ultimate Wren weapon yay! Ultimate Wren skill yay! Ran the hell away from Vorpal Spheres. Last fight with robots in this game, really, and it was a bit of a step down from Garuberk, though that's not saying much.
Island Cave--Breather dungeon. Seth makes it a joke, all said and done; Deathspell Fract Oozes, Corrosion everything else, steal his Laconia Circlet and Cyber-Suit before Soldier's Temple.
Rykros--Both dungeons are the same, don't feel they warrant separate entries: Twinarms are as obnoxious as Sabers, what with Bladeshine. Gi-Le-Fargs are similarly obnoxious. Oh, and then there's Bloodsabers. Saber-type enemies, only with Vol as well. Joy.
The Edge--Didn't really stand out too much. Soldrfiends are as obnoxious as Twinarms, only they also have Vol, not much else stood out.
Bosses:
Igglanova: LOL
Sandworm: Not officially a boss, but it's worth putting on the list given the Guild sidequest and how it's one of two bossfights to give me a wipe in this run. Sandworm fight is brutal because he vastly outdamages your healing, and you have no real tricks to actually get around him, so it's largely a slugfest. Chaz and Gryz died. Rika got seven levels off of the experience. Had to use Wat as well as Shifted Vortex to deal most of the damage on it.
Juza: So glad he didn't spam Forceflash. Largely got beat down, though Shifted Vortex came into play so Alys could still do damage. This fight really depends on how much the AI likes you, since if it wants to, it'll spam Forceflash and rip your party a new one.
Gy-Laguiah: Barrier+Deban = lol. Single-target bosses in this game that aren't Sandworm aren't that competent.
Zio: Zio is a lot less good than I remember, though part of this was that his AI massively favored Hewn and Corrosion, and he didn't use Black Wave at all. Perhaps I got lucky there. Amusingly, Chaz got Githu right -after- this fight.
Dark Force 1: Dark Force is brutal if you don't take advantage of Raja's massive amount of healing and his insanely powerful Blessing spell. Otherwise, he's actually kind of mediocre. Githu and Giwat were my spells of choice there; Gigra was too expensive for what it did (though it's always entertaining to watch) and Githu outdamaged Shifted Crosscut by a good 40-50 points.
Xe-A-Thoul Trio: Ow. Oh god ow. I still have nightmares about those guys spamming Gizan. No resets, but I blew 3 Star Dews on their Gizan spam. I normally find that line of spells pathetic, but they make it...not suck. Their physicals and Giwat spells hurt like hell too. Bastards.
Lashiec: Where Zio was less good than I remember, Lashiec was a hell of a lot better than I remembered. Thunder Halberd, despite what the lying stat topic says, is physical. Lightning-elemental strong MT physical that 2HKOs everyone -through- Warla. Anothergate was the weaker attack. If it weren't for the fire weakness and that he uses Reinforce at a really low amount of HP, I'd say he's the most competent boss in the game bar none. As is? He's still in the running for it. Oh, and I used the last of my Star Dews up to the point on his fight.
Dark Force 2: Fun little trend. Three of the five hardest bosses in the game come at the end of the hardest dungeons. Anyway, I derped a bit and forgot that Pow-Shield casts Shift--if I didn't I could get Rika buffed sooner instead of waiting to buff Chaz so he can Crosscut better. Still a badass. Durable, Lightshower is like a magical Thunder Halberd, and Shadowbreath wrecks people like little else at this point in the game. And he -loves- to spam the former. Ended the fight with Rika and Kyra both dead, though the former was clocking around 400 with Doubleslash. And she gets a TON of it.
King Rappy: Never used Earthquake. Takes 300+ damage from Nafoi. LOL.
Dominator Trio: Takes 300+ damage from Tandle. Vulnerable to Hyper Jammer. LOL.
Dark Force 3: Easy dungeon, but he's up against a party of four and even nastier. Whatever his MTL stat is, it's clearly jacked up to insane levels given how much damage Corrosion does. Hilariously, Rika does terrible things to him with Shifted Doubleslash, especially with the Silver Tusk. Put my resources to the limit, though, and I think one or two of my party members were dead at the end.
De-Vars: De-Vars is simple. He hurts like hell if you don't know his trick (anything other than a basic physical prompts a counterattack Disrupt Arm). He's an absolute -joke- if you do. Beaten into submission with little effort.
Sa-Lews: And the other Rainbow Revolutionary managed to get the honors of the other wipe in the game--went before Wren could cast Barrier, used Tandle, vaporized Rika and Rune on the spot, knocked Wren down to 60 HP and Chaz down to 17 or so. Ow. Hell of a lot more competent in moveset than its Strength Tower counterpart, and it shows.
Profound Darkness: I'll be honest, I kind of had to cheese this fight. I did not have the resources to actually keep up Rika's healing, especially with the fact that Hatbot gave me Kyra, who...well, when someone's not good at offense in a bossfight and you're picking based on who can fight the insanely durable final boss...yeah. That aside, PD's big problem isn't offense output; with defenses up, Megid isn't much stronger than other GT attacks from previous bosses, and Phase 2's Lightshower is...unimpressive now that Wren takes 0.75x lightning damage. The real threat is that you're almost guaranteed to run out of resources unless you're overleveled--unless you splurged your now otherwise useless Meseta on Star Dews in Meese.
...in which case that plus Guard Rod will steal the show and trivialize PD.
Overall, definitely a fun game, and one that's aged quite well. ...now, the question stands if I should try playing the Hell Mode hack I've heard a bit about?
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Gref did you get Endless Space like I told you to?
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Thunder Halberd 2HKOing after Warla? You must be misremembering (unless you just looked at the number to Wren and ignored everyone else). It didn't 2HKO Kyra or Rika with just Deban on the LLG. (And wouldn't have 2HKOed Chaz or Rune either had I had Warla.)
I can't speculate on all your levels/gear, but given that Kyra was high enough level to have Warla, she must have at least 166 HP. If you had her starting equips swapping a slasher for a second shield (we'll say Psy, though Silver/Reflect would only drive this number higher), she'd have at least 144 Def, and Warla would up this by at least 49 to 193. Thunder Halberd has 228 power so this should do 35 damage, which is a 5HKO. Granted, random variance exists (IIRC it's +/-10% of the base) but even at max this will only be a low 3HKO. Alternatively, I suppose you might have kept a slasher on her, which is -21 Def and would get her borderline 3-4HKOed on average. The other PCs aren't as durable as her with two shields (especially if their levels are lower and I have no idea what those are) but are probably at worst comparable to her with one (except shieldless Rune obviously) so 2HKOs still strike me as very unlikely with Warla up.
Another Gate's the stronger attack to everyone but Wren regardless (and may well be stronger even to Wren depending on your levels/gear). It is magical and has more power; PC def is almost always higher than PC mdef since equipment adds way more to the former, so even a magic attack of equal power should be more damaging.
I honestly suspect you may just have forgotten to cast Warla somehow. That would... actually explain the numbers you are describing pretty nicely!
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Honestly, a "meaningless ranking" system (or alternatively, "rankings that provide minor, but not overly significant boosts", like DMC's handing you extra red orbs (something you can alternatively grind for) for better rankings) I find hardly a bad thing. The game gives you an actual measure for how good/bad you're doing things, and it gives you something else to strive for on replays and what not. Can it be frustrating? Sure, but its also entirely optional so that's something you could always stop.
I'm also gonna say that King Behemoths plowed through a Sentinel w/ Protect/Shell on in Chapter 11, so yeah, "Medic = Win" I can't agree with after a point. FF13 definitely has fights that require specific approaches, albeit most are back ended. To be fair, FF13's style of game overs promote experimentation and trying new things (or in King Behemoth's case, promoting "Don't fight them ASAP once they kick your ass" <.<)
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Orcs Must Die 2- Beat it on Nightmare in 1P with the sorceress. Did most of the classic levels on nightmare with her as well; I have zero interest in even attempting the finale 1P with her.
The Library was the hardest of the classic stages, sans the final. I ended up beating it by chokepointing at the very center of the stage. Had to get lucky and keep my archers alive, which meant more or less doing the first couple of waves solo while I built my defenses. Sorcesses's superior MP was a lifesaver there.
For story stages, Precipice was absolutely brutal on Nightmare. The sheer number of fliers the game throws at you means you have to use archers, and the game responds by throwing a fuck of a lot of Gnolls at you. Gnolls are the scariest enemy in the game (Earth Lords and Cyclops are a close second), since they will slaughter your guardians if you don't carefully take them out. Even better, the game will throw upwards of a half dozen of the fuckers on a wave, so no easy charming/polymorph ring spam to get past them. With the Polymorph ring getting a big time nerf, I am not sure which of the two characters are better. War Mage has way better traps, Sorceress has better weapons and the MP is a lifesaver on nightmare.
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Mario Kart 7 - finished as much as I intend to
Earlier, I had thought that the star ranking you got was based on the number of times you came first. Apparently it's far more nebulous than that, and consequently not worth caring about. That said, all up I got 15 3-star rankings, 10 2-star rankings, and 7 1-star rankings.
The coin requirements for new car pieces have gotten annoyingly high also, and it takes far too long to do a prix run for far too little coins, so I'm not too concerned that I haven't unlocked all coin-based things. The last setup I was running with was Mario/Cloud 9/Roller/Swoop.
It was disappointing to see in Kalamari Desert that they declared the train tunnel out of bounds and fished you out if you went in. It was more disappointing to see at one point that as I was gliding over a turn in a course (DK Pass, I think?) I was randomly considered out of bounds and fished out. What's the point, then.
Sword Of Hope 2 VC - played through
Quaint. Interface is a bit Shadowgatey.
Has non-retargeting attacks, which I know everyone loves. Hilariously the enemies can't retarget their attacks either. Shopping is fairly horrible and you don't get anywhere near enough information about equippables.
For a good deal of the game, attack magic is somewhat overpowered. This gets less so at the end and a couple other points.
The 'Empower' spell is fairly shatteringly broken - 50% boosts to all stats of all party members for 2 MP. Partly balanced out by Theo being ludicrously slow, and partly by I'm not sure how you're really supposed to deal with endgame enemies without using it (meanwhile if you do use it, then they become trivial, it makes that much difference). Most battles at endgame which aren't against 1-2 enemies are essentially the party attempting to raise Empower before Theo gets killed (which happens distressingly often considering he's the most durable character... enemy criticals and some enemy special attacks are enough to one-hit him anyway).
Taking Zakdos - he has the spell Atomize, which the first time I fought him one-hit killed the entire party, although they weren't on full HP. The second time, it managed to not kill Theo (but it did kill the others), so he got to put Empower up - the next time Zakdos hit him with Atomize, it did -2 damage-. It's crazy. Anyway, it was just a matter of reviving the other characters and empowering them, and Zakdos was helpless once they were.
Someone needs to stattopic it. I see there's already a stat topic for the first game (which isn't out on VC, bizarrely). Man, Theo looks a completely different type of character there (probably needed to be if he was the only party member).
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Eevee vs. Nobunaga: Looks like I have only 4 more places to conquer and I finish the main game! Yeah, finally got back to this, just gonna barrel through the main game at this point.
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Twil: IIRC the star ratings were based on the amount of time you spent in first. So basically it distinguishes between people who raced really well and people who just snuck into first at the end of each race.
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I actually sometimes have some trouble getting 5 rank stars. I got a 0 star rank recently
The FF13 ranking system is weird because, unlike Devil May Cry or something, you pretty much can't die if you ignore it. IF you just want to finish the game, it is Progress Quest; use one medic and you'll be able to beat every battle doing nothing (except event eidolon battles + that gatling motorcycle random) Ranking seriously doesn't even seem to matter in any way, yeah.
The supposed incentive to getting low stars with FF13 is increased chances of -sols (rite????). I remember that five-staring yielded more components early game, but I'm not sure of its effect anymore as I'm unwilling to remove increased item equips. Though if there's anything King Behemoth battles indicated, it -is- to beat your enemy as swiftly as possible, gimmick or not. The game is based upon gimmick anyway w/ its different role advantages and disadvantages + spamming 1-3 moves. I don't particularly have a problem.
Anyway, I'm one who doesn't really care about Achievements. If they give me something in-game, sure. Otherwise I don't network enough with other gamers to give two flips and balloon.
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Started Super Mario Brothers for the Wii. I like mini-Mario. I also like ice-Mario. I hate the desert stages - so boring.
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two flips and balloon
Songi birthday party?
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P4A:
Story Mode: I'm trying to finish Aigis's first part before student teaching starts. It's not that it's bad...I just really, really want to get to Mitsuru's story where I will die. A lot.
Other Parts: I'm training with Yosuke as my main. Them challenges aren't bad. I just got one of them that I was having problems with...in training mode. Now if I can replicate that anger into the challenge mode, I'll be almost done. I still need to practice the Confuse effect and see what I can combo into it. Once I get good enough, I will attempt to (fail) Ranked Mode. My goal is at least get to D.
Dissidia Duodecim: I got back into this again...I noticed I got a bit (sadly) better with Kuja and Lightning. As usual, I'll practice when I have more time in the future.
GW2: Less then a week away and I STILL don't know who will be my main...damnit! I know I'll make all 5 characters (Thief, Ranger, Mesmer, Guardian, Elementalist) but only 2 I know are set in stone for the actual characters: my thief and my elementalist.
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I'd say there are quite a few RPGs which are easier than FF13 even if you ignore the rankings. Maybe even more than a few. (I have just been watching Grandia 2 and FF8 recently so maybe I am biased.) I think there are more battles than you think which I suspect would overwhelm a "always COM/MED/something" strategy although not if you also grind, of course (hi Grefter). Almost all are in Chapter 11-13 and I don't know how far you are, though.
I was near the end of Chapter 9, I'm in Chapter 11 now. It got a bit harder, I think Com/med/??? probably wouldn't have been able to handle a few battles here. This paradigm still beats the first 20 hours of the game, aside from those few battles I've mentioned. (EIdolon battles + The token "You just got Sentinel, USE IT NOW" battle)
FF8 and Grandia 2 are easy, but they require at least basic RPG skills, and an understanding of their mechanics. In FF13 you can literally just think "Huh... So I'll put someone who can heal, and someone who can do damage, in my team. Sounds good" then steamroll most of the early and midgame with autobattle, without ever worrying about resources or when to heal or anything, picking upgrades on the shiny levelling trees at random.
Eidolon battles really are the other end of the spectrum, as they really do test your agressivity in game. They feel like the most proper boss battles in the game, for all that they're all timed and annoying and stuff. (As an aside, I hate that the game really likes to rearrange your party and automatically give you the worst possible paradigms in the world. Forcing a reset every time)
The supposed incentive to getting low stars with FF13 is increased chances of -sols (rite????). I remember that five-staring yielded more components early game, but I'm not sure of its effect anymore as I'm unwilling to remove increased item equips. Though if there's anything King Behemoth battles indicated, it -is- to beat your enemy as swiftly as possible, gimmick or not. The game is based upon gimmick anyway w/ its different role advantages and disadvantages + spamming 1-3 moves. I don't particularly have a problem.
Anyway, I'm one who doesn't really care about Achievements. If they give me something in-game, sure. Otherwise I don't network enough with other gamers to give two flips and balloon.
I don't care about achievements and never brag about games or anything, but getting 0 stars and 5 points instead is disheartening. The game looks at you and says ".....", showing his terrible disappointment.
And if you get fewer than five stars, those few stars you have left are smaller than they would be if you got 5 of them. I never got one star, and I don't want to. I imagine it would be the tiniest, most pathetic star in the world.
Now that I have party choice, I'm using Fang/Sazh/Vanille.
Vanille just plain rocks, as the rest of the game showed me.
Sazh begins every battle with HasteHasteHaste.
I hesitated between Fang and Snow, but another Sab > Another Rav and Fang has that "Don't fool yourself, you know I am cooler than the rest of the cast" smile in the menu.
Meanwhile Snow gets all his strength from his vest? I don't want a party member who's only motivated enough to do, say, half damage because he isn't wearing the latest Gucci. Fuck you, Snow. (I might still pick you up later)
Diablo 3: Level 60, inferno unlocked with the witch doctor. I get ridiculous damage but now everybody is an uber tank.
Lategame strategy involved summoning zombie bears on everything.
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Fenrir - There are some bosses, missions and boss like randoms which will also slap the player with a Doom counter after a certain amount of time has passed as an anti MED/SEN stalling measure as well. One of these is the boss at the end of Chapter 9 which in my experience is a road block for a lot of new players who go into the fight using the standard Light/Fang/Hope default team and run into trouble from playing too defensively, getting heal/revive locked, finding offence is going nowhere, etc and if they manage to survive long enough (considering Hope is not the best MED at the time and haha Hope HP vs a full on/full power Destructo - ironically offence via RAV spamming for max flinch/interruption, instead of defence via trying to pure heal/tank it is the best way of dealing with Destructo) running into the Doom counter which is the game's way of hitting you over the head and saying hey you taking too long, less defence, moar offence, needs moar SAB/SYN, less MED/SEN~
This isn't to say of course that a Light/Fang/Hope team in the hands of a good player can't defeat the boss effectively and efficiently without running into those issues/DOOM/well within the time limit (i.e less extensive time in SEN/MED decks, moar RAV chaining/flinching/staggering power ASAP with shorter bursts of healing/etc as required - and it certainly helps if the player is fully maxxed in all three roles for the crystarium stage at the time and has a levelled weapon for capatilising on Fang STR) but it's definitely easier/faster with an effective and efficient/well played Vanille/Sazh based team set up for Deprotect/Deshell/Imperil, Haste/Brave/Faith/En elements instead (and with Vanille also having a better healer for heals if/as required, Light/Vanille MED/MED boosted by Sazh Haste for rapid fire healing back to heal HPs and immediately switching back to a chaining/offence deck is smoooth~) I think :)
Here's a video peeps might be interested in (SPOILERS BEWARE!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiMC2iZ9s8k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0WH1L1MAnE&feature=plcp (Another interesting boss which might catch some unawares SPOILER! - I like the juggle/stagger based strategies for this one because they are effective ways to bypass the target's Metamorphis/Seraphic Ray limit/gimmick phase~)
Yaay Vanille~
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"A good player" being anyone who can read a text document, of course.
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Which applies to pretty much any RPG, J or W. Stop throwing a shitfit the minute FF13 is mentioned, it gets old.
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Stop pissing and moaning every time someone says something bad about the dying series whose rotting cock you cling to and I'll think about it.
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Stop trying to save face when you keep just coming off as a raving "OH GOD THIS GAME SUCKS!" comment. We get it, you hate the game. Move on with your life. You're not accomplishing anything. You aren't "exposing" the game or anything like that. All you're doing is pissing off everyone on this forum except for the select few who agree with you, and I wouldn't be shocked if they're getting annoyed of you constantly saying "this game sucks."
People like a game you don't; its called an opinion. Learn to deal with it, and let actual discussion about a game move on if they want it too. I could try and bash Persona 4 every chance I get given my opinion of the game is drastically lower than most every other person on the board, so why don't I? Because simply put, it accomplishes nothing. My opinion has been noted in the past, and I can simply MOVE ON with my life.
Its not that "everytime someone says something bad about the FF series." Its that you won't SHUT UP about every single entry after a point. I've seen plenty of hatred dealt at various entries in the series, mainstream or otherwise, but its never as much as you do it. There's a difference between "Every time" and "some asshole who never ceases an opportunity to slam a game every time its name is as much as mentioned."
Its not like its several people feuding, its literally JUST YOU. This isn't a "takes two to tango" thing, its one person trolling the fuck out of ANY discussion of a game, be it good (aka talking about the game's qualities), bad (talking about its negative points), or neutral (general gameplay discussion/help, like what CT was doing for Fenrir.) No matter, you never have anything CONSTRUCTIVE to say about the game, just "it sucks, you guys are stupid for liking it." At least Grefter's hatred towards the game had SOME constructive thought behind it, illustrating why he hated it. All you do is "Modern jRPGs suck, FF13 is the worst of them all, I'm going to slam it."
Here are your options now:
-Stop this shenanigans, and move on, only bringing it up if there's an actual point to it (like "The problem with FF13's plot is *insert actual constructive criticism here*" as opposed to "The problem with FF13's plot is that it was written by monkeys!")
-Ignore talk about FF13 and never bother speaking about it again; if you hate the game that much, don't talk about it
-Continue this shit and get the entire board against you to the point where someone takes genuine action and shuts you up against your will
-Leave the boards (or at least this topic) and don't return. If trolling the fuck out of people who actually want to discuss the game is the only reason your here, then simply leave.
(yes, I know I'm adding fuel to the fire, but it needs to be said because this is seriously going way too far. I simply cannot stand that one cannot so much as mention the name of the game in this topic without someone going with a "AHAHAHAHA that game sucks" comment)
EDIT: Might as well make this post have SOMETHING topical on the positive end of things:
Eevee vs. Nobunaga: Completed main game. Its cute and simple and all but...yeah, its TOO simple, and not something I can find myself investing anymore time into. 5/10 game overall. Sad, because its a game that they could have done so much more with, but kept it to the bare basics, and the "Samurai Warriors" gimmick was far more underplayed than it should have been.
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Or you could just skip his posts? They are pretty short yo. And back when it came out Rob was having the more constructive criticism of the game breaking down what he disliked. He just struggled with it less than me to outline specifically what he disliked. After a while it gets hard to have their conversations again.
Losing part of the community because they don't fit the consensus and are vocal about it is super super Internet. Let's not be those guys.
No one is pitching a giant bitch fit when someone says Chrono Cross sucks. We say that one a fair bit.
Anyway RPGs being able to be defeated easily with FAQs may be fairly universal but that doesn't mean it isn't worth talking about or maybe talking about other types of games that get around it.
CS:GO - oh my gods you guys the beta for this looks fucking awesome. They buffed the fire rate of the G3 and kept same damage. So fucking hot. AWP is still gonna dominate tourney play but dakdak is gonna be pub star weapon of choice I think. The new types of gren are really exciting. Fire ones are a bit overpriced for there duration but short term area denial in a gren is sexy as hell. Decoy grens are $200 a pop mndfuckery and worth every dollar if you can bankroll them.
So great you guys. So great.
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Criticism is one thing. Constant cheap shots and snide comments just start stupid arguments like this. You don't have to like FF, but at least have enough personal respect for people to not constantly pick fights.
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I'm definitely with Meeple and Super on this one. I don't want Rob to leave and I certainly don't expect him to change his opinion. But constant one-liners that do nothing but start fights whenever other people are discussing the game are lame. We get it, you don't like the game. Meeple doesn't like Persona 4, Super doesn't like MMXCM, I don't like Lufia 2, Ciato doesn't like Breath of Fire 2, etc. You know what? The difference is that all of us are adults and don't launch into tirades which are repetitive at best and include personal attacks on the game's fans at worst whenever the game is mentioned. And everyone is happier for it.
Chrono Cross is disliked by a far higher percentage of the DL than FF13 is, but gets a tiny fraction of posts dedicated to how much it sucks and its fans suck.
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Chrono Cross is disliked by a far higher percentage of the DL than FF13 is, but gets a tiny fraction of posts dedicated to how much it sucks and its fans suck.
Just gonna echo this as to why the Chrono Cross parallel fails.
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So the last five pages has had 4 posts from Rob even related to FF13 tangentially. 2 of them were pages ago bashing on bad lines and generic complaints of time travel plot. In the intervening time he has had an actual conversation with people about games with the discussion of KH actually rooted in him bashing on it.
Let me repeat the way this conversation went.
Fenrir mentions that FF13 feels pretty easy, there is a bit of discussion between some of us about the relative definition of easy in an RPG. Games NOT FF13 get mentioned by Fenrir as descriptions of things that people need to be actually "good" at RPGs at to autopilot through and FF13 just gives you autopilot. Then Rob says "A good player" being anyone who can read a text document, of course." WHICH IS APPLYING TO EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY THE NOT FF13 GAMES IN THIS DISCUSSION. Then Super jumps down his throat about bashing mindlessly on FF13. I sit here and go !?!?!??!?!?! while you guys form a fucking lynch mob because the guy that is known for speaking his mind, especially when he isn't "supposed" to, does that exact thing.
Rob comments very specifically (because you know, it is a short one sentence post) on a larger thing that he sees as a problem in RPGs and you guys arc up on him for shit he was talking about 5 fucking pages ago which in the intervening time he has in fact talked with people constructively about games you guys haven't played (but Fen has!) Noting that Fenrir is one of the people Rob is in a dialogue with in this thread right now.
Would you rather every time someone posts something about it he posts a giant treatise on that part of the game and why it specifically sucked? Because that is what it felt like I was doing and that was no fucking fun for anyone other than spectators.
And yeah so its cool with Chrono Cross because no one likes it. I am going to bold this because this is pretty fucking pertinent and I am baffled that I need to point this out. There is a tiny fraction of posts about it because no one is playing it right now and this is the what are you playing topic so no one is having discussions about how it feels to play and its high and low points. Discussion happening outside of a contextless void? What the fuck is up with that? This thread can be something other than people blogging about what they are playing. Not all of it is going to be positive discussion. You know what the counter side of this looks without Rob or I coming in to snipe at it? It looks like someone playing a game goes "Oh this part isn't so great" and then a sea of people going NOOOOO GAME IS GOOD Y U HATE?
Which is a whole other kind of Internet we don't want to be. I agree it is great that the DL does trend at a slightly more analytical indepth post on average than say Gamefaqs. That doesn't dismiss the fact that sometimes "FUCK THIS SHIT AND FUCK EVERYONE WHO WENT INTO MAKING THE FUCKING" is in fact part of the discourse and in fact actually has its place as a catalyst for discussion .
If you want the dialogue to reach a different point from "FUCK THIS SHIT AND FUCK EVERYONE WHO WENT INTO MAKING THE FUCKING" then instead of grabbing forks and pitchtorches maybe you could you know, bring the level of discourse up to where you want it to be? That is the actual good part of the DL. Not that we hold a high standard all the time, but if you want to there is that level of discourse to be had.
So RPGs these days are still fundamentally super FAQ friendly. How would you go about fixing that Rob? Would you like to see a more Action oriented direction for RPGs? Maybe some more randomised content? What is a design direction you would like to see?
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As someone who speedruns, I can tell you that just remembering the text, formulas and numbers doesn't really do anything for me >_>. It makes playing the game a whole lot easier sure, but I find much greater fun in applying all that stuff in the planning and then the execution. So yes, you can be "out of practice" due to execution elements or planning a challenge run and completely screwing up something beforehand. More importantly, too often there are random elements you can't plan around and then its a test of how good you are at thinking on the spot and what your intuition about a certain situation may be (see speedrun fight with Kraken. Fun times). Playing well often means making those split second decisions that determine the efficiency and ease of how battles end, which if you don't play the game for a while, is very easy to screw up.
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But that only applies in the context of "good" being fast, in a turn based system that doesn't necessarily apply (although it is an impressive skillset!). As someone who has watched people who are "good" at a game by virtue of having an encyclopedic knowledge of a game in a turn based system take a long time to take a turn mathing out the most effective thing to do, I consider that pretty compelling and interesting gameplay myself, but it isn't for everyone. That doesn't mean it is an avenue I will offhandedly dismiss as worthless and not worth investigating though either.
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This particular issue has made this topic less fun for me to partake in for a long time; as Super said it's a matter of respecting the people you interact with, not just some opinion on a silly game. I think that ignoring/ostracizing people who act like jerks is generally the best course of action, but it can be difficult to avoid the negativity if you want to read the topic fairly often.
As for the other side discussion, RPGs have always been a genre where knowledge is power. There are plenty of genres where reflexes, memorization, etc are the best ways to be good at the game. If you want to read a text file and make the game easier, then obviously that's fine, but don't be surprised when the game is easy. It depends on what you're looking for. If you want something that challenges other things then pure RPGs probably aren't for you, but some of us enjoy piecing together that knowledge without a FAQ. :p
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I kind of like FF13 and don't really mind this vitriol. I like the discussion.
Actually I've found that "Read FAQ" -> "Congrats you're a super player" applies to WRPGs far more than JRPGs because WRPGs tend to be filled with countless options you may not want to try, or be able to try (one or two of them being totally broken)
JRPGs have way more limited options and give you access to everything eventually. There's a good chance you might try everything; this forces most JRPGs companies to put some kind of better balance in there.
Clear Tranquill: Wow, Disney had Doom?
I really can't see how you can be walled by him and not by eidolons before, but I've always been playing really aggressively.
It looks like the game allows you to do amazing stuff (like in the second video), but it's too impenetrable in a lot of ways, so I don't see myself caring that much about mastering it. There's too much chaos on screen; when taking damage it's always hard to tell who's harmed who (and how), so something like using a sentinel effectively at the right time sounds like a massive headache to me.
The game does manage to be fun and challenging in a casual way.
My six default paradigms are:
(Fang/Vanille/Sazh)
Com/Rav/Syn: Every battle begins with this one, Hastehastehaste + damage
Sab/Sab/Com: Let's put 6 status effects on one boss in 10 seconds, guys
Com/Med/Rav: Healing
Sen/Med/Com: Healing except things are getting serious
Sen/Med/Syn: Healing except things are really getting serious, we don't even care about the combo jauge anymore
Com/Rav/Rav: The standard
They've all been fairly useful to me, though I should probably ditch a healing one.
I'm in Chapter 11, did about 15 missions, got stuck on the second sahagin one and moved on to the main plot, and got Vanille's eidolon (FINALLY)
The plains were a lot of fun, but what's with the map? Both the mini map and the menu map rotate with the player, and there are no cardinal directions anywhere. There's no way to fix this. I was disoriented all the time and had to go to the menu map about 3x more than I should have. TERRIBLE design in such a polished game. (Obviously irrelevent up until Chapter 11)
By the way, every environment is drop dead gorgeous, and every monster looks like a mess. There is no normal plain enemy to be found anywhere (look at what they've done to goblins), everything is overly stylized, making the game sometimes feel very artificial and lifeless. What a weird game.
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The thing is, under some game structures, FAQ isn't going to help that much. The trick is making sure the game has active decision making. SRPGs are easiest at this because of the various facets you need to manage, but I tend to think of it like board games. You need to make it so that decision making is dynamic and that you have to take risks at points.
Fenrir: Eh... kind of depends. It sort of falls back to my decision making statement earlier (re: SRPGs). wRPGs have a tendency to be a little more sensitive about execution/positioning/how you enter a fight. FAQs do tend to make them a little more breakable due to more/stronger options, but I guess it comes down to how much FAQing we're talking about.
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I liked Chrono Cross, therefore all of you are assbags.
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Conquest: I have a fully evolved Hideyoshi. Too bad he's banned in Ubers.
Perfect World: I made some of the strongest axes in the game. At least until next week when the next strongest weapon in the game is released.
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New Super Mario Bros 2: Completed World 1 in its entirety, with all the Star Coins obtained and the warp cannon located. Now I've got both World 2 and the Mushroom world unlocked... probably going to finish W2 first.
The level design is quite good so far, although kinda derivative of the original NSMB; I managed to find the secret exit in W1 Fortress purely on the basis that it reminded me of how to reach NSMB W1 Fortress' secret exit. Kinda disappointed they went back to only having 1 power-up stored on the touchscreen again, unlike NSMB Wii which copied SMB3's item inventory. That made the mushroom houses actually useful, whereas here they're basically just extra hard save points until you (presumably) unlock the save anytime function by beating the game. This also means no Hammer Bros-callback monster stages for items sadly. :(
Strangely they decided to bring back the Raccoon Leaf in the same game where they dumped so many of NSMB Wii's design cues, but I'll take it. The nostalgia power when I first got one was strong (whee flying~ ^_^). The nostalgia of having my fingers hurt from mashing B too much to fly was not so good, on the other hand, although I guess it serves as a natural disincentive to play for too long an extended period of time.
I'll reserve full judgment until I complete the game, but for now I'm not impressed by this whole "collect a million coins" theme that Nintendo is pushing as the theme of this game, sorta like how multiplayer was the theme of NSMB Wii. The latter worked out so way better in practice than on paper due to the sheer variety of ways in which you can screw up your fellow players, and how you can shift from cooperating to backstabbing in a blink of an eye, all in ways that were completely new to Mario gameplay while still fitting in with 2D Mario mechanics completely. Coin collection, by contrast, is just giving you another incentive to do something that you were going to do anyways, just with a whole bunch more ways to get large quantities of coins added in, usually without a whole lot of difficulty. It's like an RPG explicitly setting you out a goal to grind for a whole bunch of exp, then handing you a bunch of ways to grind more effectively; not exactly a clever twist on established gameplay premises.
Moreover, the massively inflationary aspect of all these new coins has real side-effects on the core platforming gameplay. One-ups are massively downgraded in value since you get so many lives just from coins (I have 61 already, at the end of World 1!), so there's much less motivation to perform any sort of risky platforming manuevers to grab a green mushroom. The overwhelming quantity of coins makes me care much less about any individual coin in a stage as well; with (seemingly) a couple hundred coins in every stage, I can't be bothered to grab every single one of them in any given point since there I'll just run into a buttload more in the next screen, and I can replay an easy stage as many times as I want to hit that one million mark, which I hear isn't even all that rewarding. Meanwhile, I do care about getting all the Star Coins since they are finite and permanently collected, so they provide an actual incentive to explore every stage thoroughly and not just farm something easy like 1-1; luckily, the level designers have been doing reasonably interesting things with Star Coin locations, considering it was just World 1.
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Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One - So I played a lot of this game over the weekend. Started a (mostly) new game and played it to the end - took about... 12ish hours to do on Normal with two people? It was a fun run, at least.
Gameplay - It's something of a halfway explorable stage-shooter and can go up to 4 Players at the same time, but if you're playing solo, you're given an AI companion to help with some of the co-op gimmicks and puzzles, like the Vac-U Mortar Toss and things like that. Sadly, with the exception of one weapon each, the characters are mostly carbon copies of each other.
Speaking of co-op gimmicks, this game has a good one! If you and an ally are using the same weapon and hitting the same enemy, not only do you get fire rate bonuses, but also damage bonuses on top of that. It works pretty well, in practice.
Of course, the most important thing about a Ratchet & Clank game is the weapons. Quite a few of them are pretty standard (pistol-like, grenade launcher-like, rocket launcher-like) and have an expected performance, but then you get to stuff like the Arc Lasher (electric whip that you can hold in place and it stuns enemies), the Critterstrike (weapon that turns enemies into critters, mostly pigs. Works on everything that isn't a boss - yes, even the mini-bosses with those big life bars can be transformed. It ignores lifebars), and the Frost Cannon (works on the same principle as the Critterstrike, but it makes everything OHKO-bait instead, kinda like Freeze status in SO3).
...I'm not sure what I can talk about to try to hype this game.
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I think Chrono Cross is a great game, if a poor sequel. If it's not a top five RPG for its generation, it isn't only because its generation was ridiculously rich in RPGs - I don't think Chrono Trigger is as good, but it has less competition so it easily hits top five.
There's not really much to say about it that hasn't been said, though.
Of course, the same could be said of Final Fantasy 13, but meh. I agree with about half of the ritualistic denunciation of it, find even the parts I agree with tedious to read repeatedly, and don't think it negatively impacts the thread to have them repeated. Better than most anywhere else, where such ritualistic denunciations await any JRPG by dint of their being JRPGs.
Terraria
Finally got people to play this with me. It remains fun and I remain bad at it. Our world is almost entirely Hallowed so we may abandon it for less blue-green pastures before giving the hardmode bosses another shot.
Civilization IV: All of the Subtitles
Balance tweaks good, build lists good, AI... still not so good. In my current game I have a score of 450 and the best of the AIs I've met is sitting on 150. :\
League of Legends
Had, if not my best game, my most interesting one. I was solo top Nunu, we had a Kog'maw and Lux on the bottom, Alistar mid and Malphite jungling (badly). Ashe and Master Yi top, Diana mid, Kayle and Miss Fortune bottom.
We fell behind by a kill and a tower. The kill was Lux's fault, the tower, mine and Malphite's - this was my first time solo top in PVP and I overextended, running out of MP and HP, while Malphite didn't seem to get that at some point the jungler needs to actually help in lanes, say, by ganking low health enemies. I suspect it was a case of him being new to jungling, not new in general, because later in the team fight phase he was quite good. I got an early Dragon, my team got an early Baron (but at the cost of a teamfight we got the worse of), we scored an Ace - but we were still trailing in kills and towers. It remained close, never more than two kills down, but at one point the enemy had super minions in all three lanes and our Lux player proposed a surrender.
We didn't take it.
Instead we took a second Ace while the enemy had the Baron buff, killed all the super minions, and, behind great play from our Kog'Maw, turned the tables. Kog'Maw ended up with 37 kills and more damage (980,000) than the rest of our team combined, almost as much as the entire enemy team. I ended up with one more death than kill, but had a lot of assists for my troubles.
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YS Origin: Beat Yunica's story. The gameplay was like Ark of Napishtim, but better. Generally, enemies and bosses are better designed. The controls makes it easier to attack ground bound enemies, but it's far harder to hit aerial ones.
Unfortunately, YS Origins stick to the formula of making levels matter way to much. I've encountered a late game boss, toke about 18 points of damage from an attack and eventually lost. Then I realized I'm only about 200 exp from a level up, re-fought the boss with one more level and now I'm only taking 13 or so points of damage. Also, as I progressed trough the game, bosses didn't seem to do more damage than before, instead they became harder to avoid. In other words, the game counters the player getting more and more HP by making bosses hit you more often instead of making them deal more damage. This meant that getting from level 45 to 46 late game had as much impact as getting from level 13 to level 14 did early game.
To be fair, I expect levels to have a huge impact in YS games. However, I'm not so found of the game relying on me getting hit a lot. I prefer systems where you can survive less hits, but in return it's easier to avoid damage. I found the first two bosses the most fun to fight for that reason.
That said, bosses are surprisingly well designed when it came to concept. Most of them did a good job to give me a lot to think off and there was plenty of strategy involved, not just reflexes. Most cannon fodder enemies leaves you with plenty to learn and that without breaking from a fast and furious hack and slash style.
I ended up using wind magic the most. Lightning seemed to situational and fire broke away from Yunica's style. Also, I found the greatsword inferior to the axe. The Phoenix is invaluable against some bosses though.
I also loved the blessings. It's like the game saying "here's all the cool stuff you will get!"
The story is bad. I don't expect a good story from an YS game, but this game toke a lot of potential and completely wasted them. It takes place during the fall of YS, but you don't get to even see YS. There are some good mysteries going on in the tower though, but they usually turn into disappointment as well.
Yunica looked promising at first, but the poor writing eventually got her. Her final confrontation with twin bandanna man ended up being a low point of the game despite the game setting it up as the opposite.
Fortunately, you can ignore the story for 95% of the game and just go with the fun gameplay.
I started playing as Hugo a bit, but I've decided to take a break from YS Origin and resume later.
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I think Chrono Cross is a great game, if a poor sequel. If it's not a top five RPG for its generation, it isn't only because its generation was ridiculously rich in RPGs - I don't think Chrono Trigger is as good, but it has less competition so it easily hits top five.
I find myself thinking the opposite of the PSX generation. It's aged very poorly on the whole. There are a lot of mechanical limitations (load times, tons of disks, lots of silly minigames, unskippable animations) that were unique to that generation. There was improvements on story and characters in the PSX era, but we didn't get actual coherent translations until the PS2 era.
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It invests too much effort into trying to make you feel bad about what happened in Chrono Trigger. Like spontaneously all humans are super-racist and science is bad so maybe you should have let the world die, huh? It's like the director realized he'd never be able to make anything that good but he was supposed to do a sequel to CT anyway, so he decided to try and frame up everything that happened totally differently.
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I find myself thinking the opposite of the PSX generation. It's aged very poorly on the whole. There are a lot of mechanical limitations (load times, tons of disks, lots of silly minigames, unskippable animations) that were unique to that generation. There was improvements on story and characters in the PSX era, but we didn't get actual coherent translations until the PS2 era.
Huh. Taking the two generations combined, I'm not sure I'd put even one PS2 RPG in a top 10, and certain I wouldn't in my top 5. I'm struggling to think of a PS2 game that would knock off Xenogears, Brigandine, Wild ARMs 2, Suikoden 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Vagrant Story, Valkyrie Profile or, yeah, Chrono Cross. Not coming up with anything.
What do you consider standout from the PS2 era? For me there's really only five PS2 RPGs that I consider really good: Wild ARMs 3 and 5, Final Fantasy 10 and 12 and Dragon Quest 8. Those five at least compete with the better PS1 games. Shadow Hearts 1 and 2 were pretty good, same with Legaia 2 and Suikoden 3. Suikoden 5, Star Ocean 3, Valkyrie Profile 2 and Stella Deus were all right, I guess. I'm probably forgetting something, but then, that means I found it forgettable.
Convenience boosts like skippable animations and cut scenes, single discs and shorter load times are nice, but I can't say they factor into my overall estimation of a game. Translation is the one area I agree with you about the jump from PS1 to PS2. None of that makes up for "the vision thing," which I just don't see in PS2 RPGs.
Wild ARMs was fantasy in the wild west with ancient space magic, Suikoden was gritty down-to-earth fantasy before George Martin made it the in thing, Final Fantasy 7 was dieselpunk dystopia, Legend of Dragoon was just bizarre (in an awesome way, for all its flaws), Xenogears was space fantasy done fascinating, Valkyrie Profile was structurally unique, Chrono Cross was crazily ambitious and vivid. Almost every game had a unique setting or at least a very unusual take on its setting. The stories were big and complicated and weird, and given room to spool out, without shitty voice acting to spoil them, or good but expensive voice acting to force them to be shortened.
With the exception of Final Fantasy 10 and 12, the PS2 RPGs feel ossified in comparison. When they did stretch outside the fantasy box they seemed to feel they had to justify it by being at least a quarter parody (Shadow Hearts) or all parody (and also shitty) (Disgaea).
Final Fantasy 12 should surpass this (gorgeous, deep, creative setting and some clever bits of storytelling), but doesn't because it seems embarrassed about being a story, or perhaps over budget. The balance of gameplay to story skews way too hard toward the former; if it had two or three times the cut scenes to tell its story I'd consider it far better.
I'll admit I don't have any logical reason to rank Final Fantasy 10 below the PS1 RPGs, though. It does almost all the same things and does them very well. Plenty of story (and better done story than a lot of its predecessors), unique setting, good pacing, excellent gameplay.
It invests too much effort into trying to make you feel bad about what happened in Chrono Trigger. Like spontaneously all humans are super-racist and science is bad so maybe you should have let the world die, huh? It's like the director realized he'd never be able to make anything that good but he was supposed to do a sequel to CT anyway, so he decided to try and frame up everything that happened totally differently.
Poor sequel? Absolutely.
But if the director thought he could never do anything as good as Chrono Trigger, I disagree with him. I think Chrono Cross is the better game of the two by a wide mrgin, so it being a shitty sequel to CT matters less to me. CC gets by on an ambitious story concept, a cool setting, gorgeous graphics (it still looks good today, which is absurd for a PS1 game), arguably the best music of any game, and arguably the best gameplay of any non-tactics RPG. The execution of the story was weak, and the large cast was an excuse to develop few to none of them, so it's hardly flawless. I just think it did a lot right, and what it did right it did better than almost anything else.
But then, I don't rate Chrono Trigger all that highly. It's the second-best SNES RPG by dint of there being one amazing, surpassingly good SNES RPG... and a bunch of fair to middling ones. CT is a good game, along with Lufia 2, and good is good enough for second place.
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I personally thought most series improved in the PS2, with the exception of Valkyrie Profile and Breath of Fire. Wild Arms 3-5 felt much stronger games than 1-2 (neither of which I much liked); Star Ocean 3 was a far better product than Star Ocean 2 (actually had some story worth caring about + a battle system which rewarded something besides button mashing); Grandia 2-3 are both significantly better than the too-easy, bad-port Grandia 1; Final Fantasy 10 blows away its predecessors; two great Suikodens are better than one (and I'll take Suiko3 over 2 myself). I haven't played Legaia 1 but it sounds like that series continues this trend. Then you have Shadow Hearts 2-3, Xenosaga 2, Dragon Quest 8, Mega Man X Command Mission, the Mana Khemia games, etc. It probably doesn't help that I thought both Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story were bad games, I suppose.
Of course I'm pretty gameplay focused, especially compared to you so this colours my opinions. I think for plot originality the fight is much better, although even then my favourite pure story game is probably Suikoden 5 (but the PSX has a few excellent contenders certainly, such as Xenogears and Suikoden 2). For gameplay not so much, most series improved pretty drastically even before bringing up the things Super mentions which I agree with (animation times, load times, and translation woes in particular). It's been almost a decade since I got my PS2 and it's still sitting out prominently in my living room, and even discarding non-RPGs I've been through several replays this year (FFX, Shadow Hearts 2, Grandia 3, Shadow Hearts 3), while the only PSX games I have bothered to play at all recently are FFT and Saga Frontier (the latter being a quirky game I didn't actually play until a couple years ago anyway).
So yeah, PS2's far and away my favourite RPG system, though the PSX at least makes a respectable second despite its quirks.
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Going on the discussion.. I'd say the PS2's better for me, but only marginally. I prefer PS1 mainstream (FF7-9 and BoF4 being the most notable examples) but I prefer the new series that have come up on the PS2 (Shadow Hearts, Persona 3/4, and MegaTen in general). That said, there's a lot of PS1 cult classics I've not played (VP being the one that comes to mind) so might be slightly flawed judgement.
FE10: Near the end of Part 1! Still doing the low-level run, which made the swamp stage kinda awkward - nobody was tanky enough to hold off the initial rush from the north except for Sothe, so I had to have almost everyone else head south, but then Sothe couldn't handle the attack, so I had to have Ilyana/Micaiah/Aran go north, with Aran only there to stop the mages getting hit. Eventually got Meg/Edward a few late kills and gave Rafiel a stupid amount of experience. Meg/Fiona are bloody awkward to use still, although Meg has apparently been MVP once. >_>; (That may have been because I decided to farm experience for a short while, though.)
Thankful to be near the end of this section, though. It becomes a lot easier to get things like Bonus Exp and good skills once I'm out of Part 1.
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When it comes to RPGs, it's worth noting that I'm not judging them so much on plot as on what I called vision. I much prefer a gorgeous mess to competently executed extruded fantasy product. Setting is incredibly important to me in JRPGs because it's the one area where, at their best, I consider them better than any other fantasy media in the world. Written fantasy sometimes goes in that direction, but rarely (and most of what has, has done so in the last ten years after the PS1 JRPGs got there), and no other visual fantasy has the combination of vision and budget to). A lot of what are widely considered the "better" PS2 JRPGs don't have secondary world settings - I'm thinking here of MegaTen and Shadow Hearts - and being "secret history" games rather than out-and-out secondary world fantasy easily docks them a point from me.
With that said I can see the case for Wild ARMs 3-5, because 3 and 5 are really damn good and I know the DL rates 4 highly as well. (Regardless of all its other plusses and minuses relative to other Wild ARMs games, I couldn't get past the replacement of puzzles with twitch challenges.) I preferred Grandia 1 to 2 (haven't played 3), but agree on Legaia. And on Final Fantasy for that matter. Tactics aside, the PS1 FF games don't rate all that highly for me. Suikoden 3 over 2, well, I don't agree, but from a gameplay focus it makes sense. Suikoden 2 is definitely held back by its gameplay, whereas Suikoden 3 is the only entry in the series where I'd call that a plus for it.
But Suikoden 5, really? I don't... understand how someone with a gameplay focus could even play it. It's one of the few JRPGs where the gameplay was so bad that I felt it actually took away from my enjoyment. I didn't feel it carried through on the promise of its story, either.
Besides, Suikoden 4 was on the PS2. That has to count as at least -2 points on a 1-10 scale for the system as a whole. ;)
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Convenience boosts like skippable animations and cut scenes, single discs and shorter load times are nice, but I can't say they factor into my overall estimation of a game. Translation is the one area I agree with you about the jump from PS1 to PS2. None of that makes up for "the vision thing," which I just don't see in PS2 RPGs.
This I disagree with. I wouldn't touch a lot of PSX RPG's (Including FF7, which I adore) nowadays due to those problems.The vision part... sure, I'll agree. Square in particular made a lot of unique games for the era, and other developers did as well. Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Saga Frontier, Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy 7, Brigandine, Parasite Eve, and even Valkyire Profile (ugh) were unique games that developed interesting settings. The PSX era was breaking away from the DQ1/FF1 style of gameplay and story and doing something different. I just don't think the writing was there. Even when the writing was there, the translations were so awful that it actively hurt the games. A lot of those really interesting games were unfinished.
Have you read the Esgares script for GE, by the way? *whips* go to Forsena and read it if not.
FFT/SO2/Brig/OB/Saga/Suiko2/FF7 vs PB/FM4/FM5/Suiko3/Pers4/TotA/SN
Yeah, I'm very evenly split. I will say, I played a lot of those PSX titles later for the RPGP (Xenogears, VP, VS) and they held up well enough. Though granted I hated VP anyway but. It's held up.
Edit: We don't talk about Suikoden 4.
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PSX RPGs definitely had scope. They are the huge games you wanted as a kid. Gameplay suffered too often, because it wasn't that important. Xenosaga and Skyrim are modern PSX RPGs.
PS2 RPGs just try to be good at what they do, have a tight focus and more streamlined gameplay. The worlds feel more limited, with fewer crazy secrets lurking.
Both can be equally innovative.
PSX RPGs = All you can eat restaurant, PS2 RPGs = Sushi restaurant
(PS2 wins)
Final Fantasy 5 Ancient Cave:
It's real.
Pros:
- Final Fantasy 5 Ancient Cave
- Treasure chests everywhere
- Bigger AP gains from monsters
- There's a 10 minutes countdown until the game stops, you get 5 minutes everytime you go down a floor. A sensible solution to prevent the player from grinding.
- You need to throw your FF5 habits out of the window.
Cons:
- The "ancient cave" part isn't really relevent, it's just a roguelike FF5. You don't get blue chests or anything.
- Translation patch is still lackluster
- The killer: Randoms are too easy, bosses are too hard.
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I tried to replay Xenogears on an emulator recently and literally couldn't force myself through it. Janky controls, masked load screens everywhere, no scene skip, translation occasionally bordering on nonsense. But Parasite Eve aged even more poorly than XG did. I don't know if it was hardware limitations or what, but the text speed and the "character model animates, then text scrolls, then next character does something" makes every scene take twice as long as it should. It's incredibly frustrating particularly when you can't change text speed.
It also doesn't help that PSX-era CG and polygonal models looks comically bad now, while 2D sprites held up comparatively well. It doesnt really do XG any favors to have these sprites that look great at a distance zoomed way in on because the polygon engine lets you do it, so they look like ass and really tear me out of the scene.
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If I had to pick between PS1 RPGs and PS2 RPGs I would probably choose....
Oh boy this is a tough one.
SNES!
>_>
No really, I find myself enjoying the PS2 games a tad more.
It's crazy because at first I wrote I liked the PS1 games more, easily...and then I looked at my collection and sifted through them.
I mean, I am glad that I don't have to CHOOSE ONLY ONE RPG console, because that would really take away from numerous classics in my collection.
But even in the PS1 days and more recently, the loading times never bothered me that much. I mean, I did use to have to sit my PS1 on its side just to play through FF7, but that gave the system some charm!
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Add me to list of people who prefer PS2 as an era to PS1. Ok, PS1 may have had more in terms of originality, but as far as I'm concerned, execution > concept.
Awesome ideas can be made painful if its executed poorly. Flipside, seemingly awful ideas can be made good with strong execution. This isn't just Video games, but really any media.
Also, Tactics Ogre being a PS1 RPG isn't fair. It was an SNES RPG originally that never made it to the states; the PS1 version is just a port that we did get. Kind of cheating truth be told. Branching from that, Tactics Ogre also has some of the worst gameplay in an SRPG I've ever seen (there's worse, but its best we not mention the worse ones); this doesn't include the PSP remake which is...well...a remake.
Counting in those Non-remake Ports leads to a lot of hole filled situations. Alter Code F, for example, is a legitimate full remake of a game, to the point where its essentially a whole new game that has the same characters and story, but when its basically a transferred port? Yeah.
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PS2 all the way. Soul Nomad alone probably outclasses anything from my PSX library in terms of how much enjoyment I got out of them. But honestly, I think both had some great games and quite a few of PSX's games hold up to this day (notably the sprite games more than the polygons... VP, Suiko2, FFT)
That said, it seems like the Wii is totally taking up all my time these days thanks to Xenoblade and The Last Story. Both excellent nonstandard JRPGs. XB has a definite MMO style to it, while TLS is more ARPG-like.
The Last Story: The control scheme is a little unintuitive, and the game requires more reflexes than your standard RPG, but it's fairly easy to pick up with how the game introduces the mechanics to you. The battles are quick-paced and if you suck, the game gives you the option to "Try Again With a Lower Difficulty". I haven't actually seen what "a Lower Difficulty" entails yet because I'm stubborn, but I imagine as I get further in, I'll appreciate knowing there's a "skip frustration" option.
The battle system is a weird combination of cover-based melee combat, aggro-whoring, field-effects-exploitation, cool-down-meter regulation, and issuing commands to your teammates. Also, you hit things with your sword or bow, while your allies do one of three things: hit things with their swords, cast spells, or heal. The neat thing about this is that it's only when you have all of these things going on at once that the interesting effects of the battle system come into play, so despite only directly controlling one character (most of the time), you have to rely on a lot of teamwork to complete battles.
I'm about 7 hours into the game, and there's definitely looking to be a few more systems coming down the line, but honestly it's already gotten pretty fun and complex.
Storywise, it's very coherent. The main characters are all one mercenary guild and by-and-large are reasonable, functional human beings and warriors. They've already spent some time diving into the backstories of a few of them and they are shaping up well. The main plot seems to be a pretty straightforward war with some political intrigue, with a romance plot between the two lead characters.
Oddly enough, the romance isn't bad. I'm not shocked by it or anything, but it certainly seems believable enough. The characters actually seem to like eachother and spend enough time together talking and flirting that it's not painful. The other mercenaries' reactions to it certainly help any of the cheesier parts.
First impressions: Overall, it's not going to rewrite the book on JRPGs or even change any hard anti-JRPG person's views, but it's certainly solid and has the usual strengths of genre without falling into many of its usual pitfalls. Being an ARPG, people who dislike the slow pace of turn-based JRPGs may enjoy it more.
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Gonna have to side with Super here. The PSX library, while containing some gems, hasn't aged that well at all, while the PS2 has the advantage of its gem titles not being outdated by improved technology or design yet.
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Started up the Last Story for about forty minutes last night. First impressions (realize that any of the configuration-issues also derives from nunchuck frustration):
Good voice acting. I enjoy beginning games en media res, re: Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy VII, XIII, etc. Controls are screwy. Duck/Hide is a bit frustrating given the narrow paths in the first cavern on the island. Story is standard Sakaguchi. Multiple teammates AI on-screen is pretty dope, like the low level of strategy involved but I can't fortell whether it'll become cumbersome or just straight novelty (re: run off and kill everything, leave everyone behind).
Dumbest thing about the game?
Auto-attack deals more damage.
Manual deals less damage.
PENALIZING THE GAMER FOR WANTING TO PLAY, mmmrrrr --- okey doke.
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Dumbest thing about the game?
Auto-attack deals more damage.
Manual deals less damage.
PENALIZING THE GAMER FOR WANTING TO PLAY, mmmrrrr --- okey doke.
Can you chain with auto-attack? Even if you can, seems like it would be harder to control, which is a benefit of Manual.
I haven't actually tried Auto yet, so I'm not actually sure.
Still kind of agree they should do the same damage anyway...
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Huh. Weird. I've been playing entirely on Auto (mostly because I got used to it while I was still learning the controls). It also seems like it would make it harder to control the cover-based part of the system with Manual attacking. With Auto, I find myself playing it more like a fast-paced SRPG, where positioning and how I time my skills/Bow usage to be my primary means of strategizing instead of what I assume is more like KH twitch-reflex gameplay. I also tend to use my mages and their combo field effects more than if I had to constantly be button-mashing to attack.
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DQ9: Started.
DQ4: Replaying this before bed. Taloon's arc, getting enough cash to get the tunnel built.
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Can you chain with auto-attack? Even if you can, seems like it would be harder to control, which is a benefit of Manual.
I haven't actually tried Auto yet, so I'm not actually sure.
Still kind of agree they should do the same damage anyway...
So far, Auto doesn't chain. There's a short lag in-between each attack as well, so the closest action to chaining is hitting one enemy, then barrel-rolling to another to attack. TLS seems to suggest allowing much of the AI to play for you, but it's pretty formulaic immediately: you protect the awesome mage, Seek and destroy LD enemies, engage in hand-to-hand combat or vice versa. If there's any difference function-wise for Manual v. Auto, it's that you don't have a failsafe computer-response for a surprise attack from an enemy in Manual. Though I've never tried Auto with his arrow gear, and perhaps that would make LD fights a bit easier.
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Persona 4 Arena - So I'm trying to main Elizabeth.
This will end well. (No it won't.)
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Persona 4 Arena - So I'm trying to main Elizabeth.
This will end well. (No it won't.)
Needs more Maziodyne spam.
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Seriously, LAZERS will see you through most of the time. Failing that, her autocombo does horrible things if you have the SP to complete it (and she has auto SP Up, soooo...) She'd be broken if she weren't so frail.
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So far, Auto doesn't chain. There's a short lag in-between each attack as well, so the closest action to chaining is hitting one enemy, then barrel-rolling to another to attack. TLS seems to suggest allowing much of the AI to play for you, but it's pretty formulaic immediately: you protect the awesome mage, Seek and destroy LD enemies, engage in hand-to-hand combat or vice versa. If there's any difference function-wise for Manual v. Auto, it's that you don't have a failsafe computer-response for a surprise attack from an enemy in Manual. Though I've never tried Auto with his arrow gear, and perhaps that would make LD fights a bit easier.
Well in Manual, if you chain attacks together, you get multipliers to damage, and they seem pretty significant, so that's the advantage to Manual I guess.
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FF13: Chapter 11 done.
As my AI partners get more options, they get dumber too. While Sazh has the good sense to still begin every battle with HASTEHASTEHASTE, he now likes to throw a Protect or a Shield or three instead of directly using damage buffs, even against really easy enemies (I bet this happens because the monster's data has a line about him having powerful attacks)
Let's say he fights Ifrit. Ifrit's data says "Uses powerful attacks" and "uses fire attacks", Sazh will start with Hastehastehaste, then he'll give fire protection + Protect to everyone. What would be way better would be him using a ton of buffs on Fang (more damage, ice damage, higher chance to stun), then doing the protection nonsense.
I could use him as the main character, but I feel more in control of the flow of battle using the one character who's doing all the damage; Fang. (And the way she uses elevators is great)
Conclusion: Stop having my performance rely on AI, games. It never works.
I haven't said anything about upgrading so far, because I nearly haven't done any.
I have to wonder why Square decided to streamline the hell out of this game and not do anything about upgrading? On one hand, towns are streamlined out of existence, on another hand, you have 167493 different upgrade items that each react differently to your 3574 different accessories and weapons, and you get no help whatsoever. This is probably the worst system since Legend of Mana. There are very few choices:
1) Writing the biggest Excel spreadsheet in existence.
2) Feeding all your upgrade items at random to your favourite accessory/weapon, losing tons of BP in the process but accepting it as a necessary evil.
3) Ignoring it entirely, hoping that at some point there's going to be a tutorial or a new menu option that's going to say "Its all right. I know how you feel. Here's how you should do upgrading"
4) Checking a faq and getting a headache
Diablo 3:
The super uber mega patch was released recently. They added infinite grind and boosted a ton of skills.
This is how every player reacted: "Meh, it's a desperate attemps to - OMG they boosted skill X by 50%!!! And the new grind is AWESOME"
Me included. I'm in Inferno Act 2, things are going relatively smoothly.
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You can chain attacks under Auto, too. You just have to work with your allies. Works well with Syrenne at least thanks to her Power Chain skill.
TLS: Rode a ship, fought a kitty, had a trial, then suddenly SPOOKY MANSION! Actually had fun.
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TO PSP: Chap 2 beaten! Apparently I went Neutral Path even though I intended to go Chaos because wasn't sure which decision went where! Actually, I kind of had an idea, but just went "whatever" and chose. I never saw Neutral path, so whatever (I've played Law and read the script for Chaos, so yeah.)
DMC1: Beat Mission 7, and then did the Secret Mission during the intermission. Frosts are cruel bastards.
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OMD2- Five starred every story/classic level on both challenge levels except for Finale. Fuck that level so much.
Also had a spare copy of defense grid which Shale is playing through (Play defense grid, it is awesome). Been playing some of the awakening levels to refresh myself on details.
Edit: Victoria 2, Cranbud?! You madman.
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Mario Kart 7 -
Keeping that in mind, I retried some circuits I had one-star rankings on. Using a faster car, I managed to improve two of them to two-star rankings, but no luck with the others. Oh well.
Windosill - played through
I'm not sure what I was expecting when I bought this (I don't even remember if I bought it on its own or if it came in a bundle of some kind), but I don't think that I would have expected it to be as ludicrously short as it is. Reasonably pretty though.
The Ship SP - played through
Not very entertaining. Not going to bother with the multiplayer. Wasn't confirmed whether Jimmy was Mr. X or not. The whole concept of the SP campaign of running deadly errands for people who are all going to die soon anyway annoys me.
Bob Came In Pieces - played through
Somewhat fun when the controls weren't playing up or just being naturally irritating. And when you weren't respawning inside props. Recommend Pikmin over this if you're into collecting spaceship parts, or Jupiter Lander if you're into controlling touchy spaceships. Not going to bother with the VR levels.
Audiosurf/Beat Hazard - venting
Why can't any music game get file browsers working properly Audiosurf links the vertical position of all folders to each other for god knows why so when you scroll inside a folder then go back to its parent you end up nowhere near where you came from and it listens to the mousewheel while the window isn't in focus and the cursor is nowhere near it meanwhile Beat Hazard has its mousewheel scrolling set up to be annoyingly slow and it hides access to the parent folder any time you go into a track because the people who wrote it are insane and it also supposedly requires you to index everything before you can use it which takes forever and then you go into folders and find that it didn't actually index everything anyway
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Serious Sam TFE HD:
so many skeletons
all the skeletons
TF2 Mann vs. Machine:
Teamwork in Team Fortress 2? what is this
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Dark Souls: Platinum get. Four Kings are their usual jackass selves and the only time faith-guy has ever actually lost a soul patch. Gwyn's parry abuse is just depressing. Gargoyles are lol. Someone actually invaded me for Quelaag but I was right outside the door so whatever. Mildred felt like running into a corner the whole fight though. Thanks maneater. Sif takes remarkably little damage from Sunlight Blade. Sen's pendulums change every game I swear. Iron Golem miraculously takes two lives out of me. I wanted to Poise him the first fight, the second fight I put on the wrong ring and lols were had. Didn't feel like dicking with the Archers so I just shot them. Met giant, Dark Soul get.
Final level was 143. Str/faith 50. VIT 30. END 40 and everything else various states of who cares.
Equipment
Reinforced Club Army
Greatshield of Artorias/Darkmoon Talisman
Child Mask/Paladin Armor/Black Knight Gauntlet/Paladin Legging
Flippy Ring/RoFaP
Sunlight Spear/Greater Lightning Spear/Lightning Spear/Sunlight Blade
The most indulgent thing is swing two Grants around I swear. Flipping around as Gwyn's pretty comedic took.
And now I feel the need to Prepare for.... something....
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Bearsona 4 Bearena: Started playing online as Teddie. Not doing too badly so far.
Lulz moment: I do the Kintoki Douji random item toss and get the floating parachute bomb. Opponent Labrys does her Shinryuuken-esque super which I block. I dash forward and throw her... right into the floating bomb. JUST AS PLANNED.
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Seriously, LAZERS will see you through most of the time. Failing that, her autocombo does horrible things if you have the SP to complete it (and she has auto SP Up, soooo...) She'd be broken if she weren't so frail.
Elizabeth honestly is a weak character.
Her normal's start up frame count and hit box is to be desired. Lacking good middles in general. Most of her combos aren't stable but situational, and effectively making the trick Mahasundyne based combos even trickier. Yet, her damage is not reliable without proper loops of Mahasundyne. The hit box of her counter is also pretty weird, which can out right missed.
To user her effectively takes a lot patience and chipping, which isn't really fun.
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FF13: Finished.
The final boss (Form 2 out of 3) was a bastard! I really would have liked to see more really challenging battles like this one during the whole game. I won with Fang/Vanille/Hope by poisoning his angelic ass twice. (Awesome)
A few issues made the fight less enjoyable than it should have been. There are two killer statuses to inflict on Oprhan (Slow and Poison), the others being pretty much worthless. Unfortunately, sabs just love to lower defense/magic defense
The other is accurate instant death in a game where MC death = game over... The 30% ID protection from the accessory being completely worthless. Hope's Veil, fortunately, was better.
Sazh sure gets outclassed by Hope lategame, by the way.
Originality in RPGs is great, and it's easy to forget when a well known game like FF tries to be different.
It's also easy to see something different and think it's deeper than it really is.
Like often, the execution needs a lot of work. It feels like too many different people worked on the game without communicating, or that there were changes of plans about the whole nature of the game too many times. When an aspect of the game almost manages greatness, another aspect of the game tries to undermine it.
Ultimately, the game does a bunch of terrible things (No cities + Linearity not being terrible things), but I can't say I didn't enjoy the ride.
On to hunt a hell of a lot more monsters, hoping I can do something with Fang/Vanille/Snow (because Sazh is worthless and I don't want Hope)
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Snow can get the defensive buffs which are the only ones you -really- need for a lot of the tougher fights, so you can probably make do there. Though personally I found part of the fun of the aftergame was switching people around as different fights will definitely call for different approaches.
Deprotect/Deshell are pretty huge (+89% damage boost) so I was quite happy the AI gave those a pretty high priority in general. If you're controlling one of your Saboteurs (and I'd suggest so in that fight certainly, don't think it rewards buff micromanagement) then you can force out either Slow or Poison. Two Sabs should land all the statuses you need quickly enough, both because they raise each other's hit rates slightly and because you can influence what the other does by landing the statuses she'll prioritise over the one you want.
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WA4 Speedrun - Back up to Etemananki again. Redid last segment cause I wasn't satisfied with the execution. I saved an extra 8 seconds as a result. Up by about 10 minutes and 24 seconds overall. Highly doubt I can cut the time down to sub 5 hours, but it will be interesting to see how all the new ideas pan out.
I got a chance to test my Guardian Chimera strat, and it kills him pretty quick when it works, which in theory should be pretty often. In practice, he prefers to troll me by walking back and forth instead of attacking OR kick my ass by spamming the 2HKO MT elemental summons because I decide not to use Slow Down. That asshole.
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Shadow Hearts 3 challenge continued
Next up is Aito Cave. Before going there I take care of a few odds and ends back in New York (South Pacific -> NYC -> South Pacific and not a step lost behind the villains, I am a pro traveller). Lenny-related hilarity nets Phone Call, my first L-radius attack. And a new lotto member has shown up in Times Square; her prize is Cure Plus, so now both PCs can fully heal single targets without expensive/rare items. Also Vilcabama has Ascetics' Earrings which mean more soul gain, hard to argue with keeping this on one PC at all times.
Anyway, the randoms: (1 reset)
They're a step up, which is good. They're the first enemies to cast L3 spells, which mostly matters for spell radius... the power actually isn't anything special.
Cabracan is the most notable. They cast magic (Red Gravity) only extremely rarely. Most often they will use physicals, which hurt quite a bit (3HKO Johnny 4HKO Shania). They start near a full stock gauge and a double involves two physicals, one adding Reverse Ring. They have well over 400 HP, a relatively beastly amount which I typically take down with two Raged Shania physicals and one helper move from Johnny. They have a weakness, though: they can be petrified, maybe around half the time, with Petrify 1. (Shania gets that; Johnny gets poison as it hits most things here, but I don't use his physical often.)
Charkmols are relatively fragile but still out of reach of Johnny OHKO. They sometimes cast Rock Javelin which hits a line (and unlike the previous earth spell, can't be avoided by flying), or Cure which isn't too big a deal as it maybe erases one Shania ST turn worth of damage, who cares. They like to use Random Ring which is annoying as hell though, although it's attached to a relatively unimpressive physical. They seem to know their own damage is unimpressive, as they always Combo instead of Double, and again start close to a full stock gauge.
Saskachilli has Bright Decide, which hits an unfused Shania quite hard and has a huge radius. They also will cast Arc Barrier which makes Johnny particularly unhappy. Thie physical is also extremely annoying, as it both destroys stock and inflicts Slow. Ugh. They are immune to all fatal/fully debilitating status and have a respectable 220 HP so there's no easy out with them, but the decent damage and stock breaking and slow makes them priority #1.
With a Small Jug, a Surged Current Breath can OHKO Saskachillis (and obviously gets the much more fragile Chakmols). Simply casting two successive dark spells is even more cost-efficient but doesn't have the same radius, unless I use Evil Shade which has a huge lag associated so no thanks. Entrance Evil Eye also works if I feel like beatsticking Johnny's MP instead of Shania's. It's not a big deal either way, I have more than enough MP restoring at this point. Otherwise, the usual array of Shania physicals, appropriate magic attacks, and appropriate offensive buffs deals with things. If things go south (and with enemy offence and ring status it certainly can), no need to be shy at falling back on healing and even occasionally Johnny defending as per the Kerufe fight strategy.
Ring status here is common enough that I use a Pocket Watch on Shania to assure that the person responsible for killing things does so reliably. She has that, a Small Jug, and a belt (bit of a defensive hit, but one she can afford). Johnny gets the utility accessories of Warning Device and Ascetic Earrings, as well as a headgear to not die as much.
Delget (4 resets)
He's a pain, but not as bad as the reset count makes him look.
Delget's most memorable gimmick is petrify. It's ~50%, MT, fast recharge like all other status effects (I now think it's about a 3x recharge time). Obviously if you are vulnerable to it, bad things happen. I guess it might be doable with only one Mirror Bracelet, but I bought a second for a reason and I'm not shy about using it. The nice thing is that this means Delget will waste some of his turns trying to stone me anyway. Unlike some previous bosses, there's no statute of limitations on the use of his status move... I get to see it all battle long and it's always a welcome sight, even if it doesn't actually waste much of his time.
His other moves are, as usual, a physical and a spell of his element. The spell, Rock Javelin, isn't too bad... it almost never hits two people and only 3HKOs. The physicals are the problem. Not only do they 2HKO anyone (La Sirene with Shield is the only way to avoid this), but one of his two physicals carries Fast Ring. It's a big enough annoyance that I end up restoring the status, which is a huge waste of time since you also need to heal or die after he uses it.
If he gets a Double, it's always physical + an earth spell (either Rock Javelin or combo magic), either one one-rounds anyone. Again La Sirene in shield can survive, but that's it.
First turn he gets below half HP he'll use Energy Charge. Next is a physical, time to die unless you're defending, or (yet again) La Sirene with Shield.
My resets pretty much all come from figuring out the battle and banging my head against a wall due to Fast Ring. Eventually I realise I should just throw Pocket Watches on both PCs. The last two accessory slots go towards a Blood Jewel and Ascetic's Earrings. This means I have no accessories boosting my offence or defence (besides the tiny boost from the statusblockers) but ultimately all this does is make the battle take a little longer and make Arc Cure a little less adequate, so the tradeoff is worth it.
Besides that, largely the usual. Rage and Air Edge on Shania, Hard Hit if he has more than half a stock gauge to stop that noise. Johnny can Vacuum or Hard Hit himself if necessary... doubles can disrupt buffs and lead to a clear path to defeat, especially if Shania dies since Johnny has no Resurrection and Delget can kill Shania even after a Raise Up + Arc Cure double (you can't use ST healing on a revived PC in a double, sadly). Arc Gale I use once if Johnny really has nothing better to do with his turn, Arc Shield a little more often (it lets Shania survive a few things she wouldn't otherwise, and means Johnny doesn't need to heal/defend after a Rock Javelin, though the physicals still 2HKO him). Johnny defending if he's somewhat beaten up remains a good strategy as attacks against him are largely wasted, and attacks against Shania allow me to more efficiently heal with Arc Cure. Howling if Shania runs low on Sanity, Blood Jewel takes care of Johnny on that front. It's a long fight so I need to use one Mana Root on each PC.
The only other consideration is Energy Charge, since it can of course lead to bad things. Fortunately it's pretty telgraphed, so I can have one PC defending, and the other PC (Shania of course, since she's the attacker) in Shield. Fortunately I discovered the pleasant way that shield does, in fact, just let her survive. Hooray!
Delget's also vulnerable to P-Attack Down 2, which I really should have used but I didn't think to check his immunities until after I beat him. It would help keep some of his damage under control... he'd almost certainly fail to 2HKO Shania and shielded Johnny, and possibly unshielded Johnny as well, under that status. Dunno how accurate it would have been, of course.
Levels were 30.
After he's dead, a bunch of new stuff shows up in Arkham. New lottery member, although at this point all remaining lottery members carry equips I don't care about as their top prizes, so I just grab a new Johnny-only belt, and try to care. I also get the final stellar chart in the game, which doesn't even have as many nodes as the Saggitarius I'm using so who cares.
Most interesting are the new set of Lovecraft battles, most interesting because of how hilariously ill-equipped I am to deal with most of them. There's:
-One that requires me to use the combo magic Air Shot, which is completely impossible with only two PCs.
-One that requires me to do a 70-hit combo. While this can be done with two PCs, the earliest I'll be able to do it is after acquiring Tirawa (or Natan's final gun fu).
-One that requires me to kill Delget before he gets three turns. Um I think he got about 50 a moment ago. This might also be doable post-Tirawa as well, though. Maybe.
Finally, there's one which bans stellars/items and sends me against Vilcabamba randoms with beefed HP and 1 starting stock gauge. This is actually not too bad, as Shania can still use all her spells, so she can heal (Cure Plus), revive (Resurrection), and heal her own MP (Mind Assault). Johnny can't do very much, but Phone Call does some decent damage and breaks enemy stock. He can't exactly spam it due to MP limits but one use per fight is certainly an option and helps. Otherwise I have him poison things with his physical and defend. Not too bad, and gets me the L3 light spell. I already have the L3 ice and wind spells from the previous dungeon, and will get the next three in the upcoming dungeon.
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Snow can get the defensive buffs which are the only ones you -really- need for a lot of the tougher fights, so you can probably make do there. Though personally I found part of the fun of the aftergame was switching people around as different fights will definitely call for different approaches.
Yeah, I've dropped the idea and am trying to switch parties according to each fight. I can't live without a Syn and exp costs for secondary roles are too outrageously high to bother with them on a normal playthrough. Since Lightning feels like the only truly useless character by now (Crappy main classes) I put all her exp into the sab tree. She still is the worst Sab by far, isn't even close from mastering the tree, and has 2900 HPs when everybody else has 10000+.
Deprotect/Deshell are pretty huge (+89% damage boost) so I was quite happy the AI gave those a pretty high priority in general. If you're controlling one of your Saboteurs (and I'd suggest so in that fight certainly, don't think it rewards buff micromanagement) then you can force out either Slow or Poison. Two Sabs should land all the statuses you need quickly enough, both because they raise each other's hit rates slightly and because you can influence what the other does by landing the statuses she'll prioritise over the one you want.
Yeah, I controlled Fang during the game to cast Slowx5. This wasn't a large issue, more of a small annoyance as nearly all my damage against the final comes from poizn. Deprotect/Deshell/Imperil having high priority are nice for the easy fights in the game, not for the hardest ones...
This was just a general "Freaking AI!!! *shakes fist*" comment.
Lots of empty space to cross in the aftergame. I've beaten most missions, can beat a lot more on paper (I just need to get to them...), but I have no idea how to deal with the last few ones (Gigantuar in particular) Killing Neochu and Zinitra was great. I still don't really know if I'm supposed to farm somewhere or something, and haven't really touched upgrading.
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I killed the final primarily with damage even the time I used a party which had poizn (not that poizn wasn't useful of course). The one time I really, really wanted to kill something with poison (the last mark) I just controlled Vanille myself, which given your strategy against the final I would probably have recommended there, too.
The game would have benefitted from in-battle leader switch or an ability to set priority for buffs/debuffs in the menu, though, for sure. (The latter's true of all games with AI, but most other forced-AI games, e.g. ARPGs, tend to have simplistic skillsets such that it doesn't come up as much for them. Not that I won't take FFXIII over any of those, of course.)
EDIT: I tend to agree that Lightning may be the weakest PC in the aftergame? Her main use comes from getting out attacks extremely quickly with certain setups (Attack: ATB Charge II and Faultsiphon combine such that she only uses up 60% of her gauge when attacking). Otherwise, her big main-game thing is doing both strength and magic well but if you're switching teams between fights anyway that niche is somewhat lost.
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Guild Wars 2 Headstart Day 1:
Servers were up at 9pm PDT exactly. I got the 4 names I wanted before I stuck to my Ranger and played like crazy. Around 6:30am, the log in servers went boom. Prior to that, the game was running pretty smoothly and there was few hiccups compared to what I had been experiencing in the stress tests. For until around 10am, the servers were just kaput. Given that EU was unable to log in earlier then that, it seems to be very worrisome. Eventually, it went up and my boyfriend and I played until it was time to leave.
Zones complete: 1
Story Mode: 4th part
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Serious Sam TFE HD: Beaten
screw skeletons
screw bulls
cannonballs cannonballs cannonballs cannonballs cannonballs
I love dem cannonballs
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I used Lightning/Fang/Vanille. Fang is a scary good syn for the aftergame. Other than that, didn't find the class to be too useful, though I couldn't live without my sab spam in the normal game. Fuck you 13-2 for taking that away from me.
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Sabs gain a new use in FF13-2 through Wound effects, though that only really comes up against optional DLC fights (Gilgamesh being by far the biggest offender of this bullshit; seriously, what a moronically designed fight), so the aspect is wasted.
As I've said, FF13-2 did 2 things flat out better than FF13 (Party Leader changing, and Party Leader =/= Game Over. Heck, putting in the former basically means there's no excuse for the lack of the latter, since now you have a mechanic that compensates), but everything else feels overall worse. The overall nerfs to Synergist and Saboteur combined with how often Commando/Ravager were the ideal classes on all 3 characters vs. Randoms...yeah, its an overall losing trade. The Monster system was a nice thing to try, but overall think I just preferred 6 genuine characters.
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NSMB2: Beaten. This includes the Star World and getting every Star Coin/Moon Coin/route. All that's left is to max out my lives for the last star and coin grind until I hit 1 million or get sick of the game.
The level design in this game is quite good, but it felt kinda short. NSMB Wii had the same number of worlds in it, but definately felt like a longer game to me. It's been a year since I played the latter so my memory's not totally reliable here, but I think the levels were longer overall in that. Between the length and the mission pack sequel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MissionPackSequel) nature I'd say it's probably not worth paying full price for unless you're a big Mario fan. 2D Mario platformers are my personal favorite videogames of all time so I don't regret the day 1 purchase at all, but the lack of ambition compared to the history of mainline Mario games is pretty noticable. Even NSMBWii as a pure single-player experience had more interesting power-ups added, at least (Penguin Suit! ^_^).
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I could never figure out when Orphan was going to use his MT HP-1 (after the first one), so I just used a very defensive setup for the entire fight. Hence poison being my main damage.
Fang/Hope/Vanille looks like the best team by far to me. Sazh is nice when you want a syn with some actual durability instead of Hope, and Snow's perfect if you just want a sitting sentinel for an entire fight (Using Fang as a sentinel is kind of a waste anyway)
Lightning is still very usable thanks to good stats, everybody else is already a com/rav, and she's not even the best at either, and she's a bad med.
I have only 5 missions left, 2 of which I can easily finish if I choose to waste 2 hours of my time. (Ardamantoise and 2x Raktajiva) I don't think I want to get into the griiiiiind for only 3 missions. I like the idea of going that far with a bad team that hasn't mastered any job and hasn't done any upgrading.
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I beat them all without grinding, but I definitely did do some upgrading.
It's not actually as intimidating as it looks. You know about how organic components raise the multiplier of subsequent components, but the inorganic ones lower it? (Inorganics tend to add much higher bonuses of course.) Because that's pretty much all you really need to know. There's min/maxing you can do involving the "best" components for any given equip, but the gap between best and worst isn't really all that large so whatever; it's mostly there to give OCD perfectionists something to write long FAQs about.
Most weapons with special abilities upgrade at tier 2, and accessories often get quite a lot more powerful (particularly damage-reducers like the Royal Belt, their reduction gets 10% better), so that might push you over the top for some of the tougher missions.
I did master a few primary roles, but only rather late and only because I decided to focus on some of them.
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Bearsona 4 Bearena: So many Kanji players... I hate that aerial leap of his, it's got great range and priority. Teddie's air-to-air isn't that hot so it's hard to counter. And once you're on the ground you eat 21-hit red corner combos. Also been running into the same Chie player a lot and the matches are really fun and nail-biting.
FF13-2: Don't think I ever posted my progress on this. Up to the part where I'm lost in time and space or something. Apparently I opened up all the hard gates first. After I opened up the others I was like oh this is way too easy I should have gone here first. Tidus Noel is specializing in defensive roles (Sentinel, Synergist, Medic) and Serah is Ravager/Saboteur/Commando. Don't really know what I'm doing with monsters. I picked three late-bloomers since I figured they'd be good in the long run, but I'm probably hurting myself in the short run. Using Nekton, Miniflan, Cait Sith.
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SH3 challenge log: Salt and murder
One last bit of housekeeping before going to Uyuni Salt Lake: there's an HP+20% accessory (Ashra's Earrings) where Delget was fought. This is kind of a big deal. At the start of Uyuni Salt Lake itself there's a new shop, and it has upgrades for both weapons -and- armour, unusually for the game. This helps a lot! But the enemies have responded in kinda.
Randoms (1 reset):
These guys are a pretty tough bunch. Harukigenias are the small enemy that swarms: fast with low HP. They're more annoying than most because their attacks destroy stock. Thanks guys. They'll also cast Entrance, but this is a complete waste of they cast it on each other as they have no attack magic. If they have allies of different species around, though, they'll target those instead.
Sulagi also doesn't use magic. They just toss respectable physicals around which can add either Apathy (no stock gain, not too bad), or Mental Breakdown (annoying resource tax). They take 2 attacks from Shania, 3 from Johnny to bring down, in general.
Ludiris has physicals which paralyse. This is bad. Very bad. They'll also use Rock Javelin after Entrance (but never otherwise). Entranced Rock Javelin is a 3HKO which is very solid for a random, and is very dangerous if it hits two people.
Finally there's the Ikcheon, a big sack of HP which is also the heavy hitter of the dungeon, with physicals that solidly 4HKO, as well as Hail Exceed, which does the same thing to a line. Flying Shania is immune to this one, though. Their physicals can add Accel Ring (generally worth a status heal). They die in two solid rounds of attacking (Rage Shania, two physicals, Red Bounce) but nothing less than that.
The enemies here and mostly immune to fatal status (only the Harukigenias are exceptions, they can be petrified, but Shania OHKOs them anyway, so Johnny gets Petrify 2 as he can't OHKO them until he gets Rock Javelin mid-dungeon). Fortunately they have a pretty big weakness, as they can all be paralysed, which is pretty much a fatal status (no action for 5 turns). Sadly I don't have Paralysis 2.. having this is pretty much a reward for staying up to date with Natan's UMA hunts, as it's from the UMA in Aito Cave. But Paralysis 1 suffices, and it's always welcome when it kicks in first try on an Ikcheon.
On the other end of things, paralysis can of course ruin my day as well, but accessory slots are pretty valuable. In the end I settle on Shania with a belt, Warning Device, and Small Jug to maximise her offence, while Johnny gets a paralysis blocker and Ashra's Earrings so he can take hits better. He also gets the Panoramic Lens at dungeon's start, followed by Ascetic's Earrings for soul gain once I have a handle on things.
Killer 2
First off, accessory changes: Johnny keeps Ashra's Earrings, gets Blood Jewel and Leonardo's Bear. Shania gets a belt, Leonardo's Bear, and Ascetic's Earrings.
So Killer is kinda the easiest boss since Malice Edna. DL bosses not as impressive as giant monsters.
First of all, his biggest gimmick is that his physicals add instant death. This is terrible so of course I buy an extra Leonardo's Bear and equip them on both PCs. His other attacks are Vice Needle, which makes its return and adds chain status, and Red Gravity, which has a big radius and kills your stock. But luckilly for me, thanks to Ashra's Earrings on Johnny, none of his attacks actually 2HKO anyone. This is hugely liberating. (I should note that according to the stat topic, he does have a 2HKO, but one HP booster and one Shania being Shania nullify this.)
Of course, his Doubles (and to a lesser extent doubleturns) are still evil. Vice Blade into Red Gravity, the chain bonus allows the whole combo to easily OHKO, and takes your stock too since he's a jerk. And I'm absolutely guaranteed to see one, since Killer 2 is the first boss who starts with 2 stock gauges (and for me he went before Shania). It's okay, as long as I'm at full HP when one hits, the surviving PC can resurrect easily enough. Since his damage is low, Johnny can revive Shania with a Talisman of Mercy, which restores 50/60% HP, enough to not die immediately.
However, of course I don't want to see much death anyway, as it gets rid of buffs. Rage and Aqua Edge on Shania are of course good ideas, Arc Gale helps get me more turns, and Arc Shield is a decent filler move since his physicals are close to 2HKO and do overwhelm Arc Cure. Heal with Arc Cure and Cure Plus as needed, Hard Hit whenever I get a sniff of a double coming in the near future, Blood Jewel takes care of Johnny SP while Shania periodically uses Howling for her own. Nothing really new here. Johnny does get more use than normal out of Vacuum, as Red Gravity spam leaves me unable to combo or even hard hit, so Vacuum both acts as a damageless Hard Hit while restoring Johnny's stock, not bad.
There are still a couple hairy points in the battle. The first is when, as soon as Killer drops below half HP, he casts Gale on himself. At this point I have to fight him very defensively, keeping all my buffs in place, healing often, and attacking only when hard hit outweighs other options. Fortunately, it wears off, and then I'm able to continue. The second trouble point is that towards the end, I miss a key ring and he decides to Vice Blade two people and suddenly I'm in a bad place. I fight for something like five minutes with him being at under 400 HP, trying to find an opening between all the forced heals/revives/vacuums. Not too big a deal, just kinda scary. Notably, unlike Delget, I am able to beat him before needing to restore either PC's MP.
Killer's also vulnerable to P-Attack Down, so of course I should have used that! Second boss in a row! I'm definitely looking up the next boss ahead of time, because I know what HE does at low HP. Spoiler: he's a dick.
Levels were 34.
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Shadow Hearts 3 - Well fuck yooouuuu! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA_zB6jdap8#t=7m24s)
This may be tricky.
Anyway I will also talk about other games.
Theatrhythm - So I unlocked Kain. Not because I was -trying-, mind. It just happened eventually. So that's all the characters. I'm also working through Ultimate right now. Probably going to give the game a rest... soonish, though I should finish Ultimate and try some stoic first, I think.
Devil May Cry - Replaying this on a NM fresh file, completed the first eight chapters. I have done the first five secret missions (3x Shadows is a bitch) and have managed to S rank every mission but the first two (I was too out of practice then, and the first mission legitimiately seems like one of the hardest to S rank unless you can get the orbs on the foyer statue which I can't). I love Shadows. They are so brilliant.
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Disney Epic Mickey - horrific camera and boring fetchquest hubworlds, the best
although if my renegade Mickey punches a reporter it will become instant GOTY
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Congrats Fenrir! =)
I have another shiiny video for the Fenrirs :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0bYTXbF9rA&feature=plcp
Should give the gist of the way Mission 62 works. Shows paradigm/equipment set ups at the end. Maxxed out stacked Witch's Bracelets are the way to go ~
I forgot if I/anybody else mentioned it earlier but you can set battle speed to slow in the Config menu if you want.
As for upgrading I usually just buy a full stock of Oils from Creature Comforts, stuff the chosen piece of equipment with them until it has the EXPx3 mod, then feed the equip with Super Conductors/Particle Accelerators/Ultracompact Reactors depending. I do this after I've exhausted the supply of organic materials like Oils in my inventory first :)
I had a lot of fun on my replay doing most of the missions at Stage 8 Crystarium and finishing the rest off at Stage 9 before the final boss using my Vanille/Hope/Lightning team and exploiting Vanille's Ally KO Power Surges weapon. An interesting way to get lots of damage even pre stagger without Stage 10 mass grinding/Tier 3 equipment maxxing (though I did actually have Tier 3 ultimate weapons because Vanille owns turtles~) Ally KO Power Surge also boosts healing/buff duration as well as offence so yeah it's niice~
For Admantortoise/Mission 63 you can use Vanille leader + summon + debuffs + Death spam if you want :) There's also Death Commando or Highwind smash but those are a bit more advanced.
If you do manage to beat Mission 62/complete the circle of Cieth stones then you can do this ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40gGBgUAvUM
Oh yeah final boss you can do that summon/poison thing in the above video, use the Elixir from Orphan's Cradle and then do it again. You can't be targeted while in Gestalt mode so Vanille just sits there in impunity and completely mocks ID/HP-1. Then for the final form of the boss Vanille's instant death works on it.
Fight the TURTLES! people! Doooooo it!~
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Shadow Hearts 3 - Well fuck yooouuuu! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA_zB6jdap8#t=7m24s)
This made me giggle in the bus on the way to work. I salute thee.
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SRPGs! Woo!
FE10 - Low level challenge run. Never realised how bad 1-F is without either Nailah or Burger King. Started off trying to be defensive and couldn't reach the thieves at all. Then sent Volug/Sothe forwards while keeping everyone else back, still couldn't reach the thieves and also died to the first wave of reinforcements at the start. Then decided to go offensive, which was going great... and then the disc stopped working. Oh ffs. :(
Suikoden Tactics - Started this instead! Yes, I know it's a step down. The NPCs have no eyes and this creeps me the fuck out. First thing I did, naturally, was find a recruitment guide. I am disappointed that this game does not have many characters, it only has more than any other non-Pokemon, non-Suikoden RPG. I am hoping the random quests with randomised results are not important for anything, or I may have to fly to Japan to punch someone.
Pokemon Conquest - So someone decided they wanted to make the perfect game for me, apparently. Fuck-tons of collections, Pokemon and SRPG. I am completely hooked. Just met Nobunaga for the first time, have already filled most of the cities and have found a few potential-100% links.
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Bearsona 4 Bearena: So many Kanji players... I hate that aerial leap of his, it's got great range and priority. Teddie's air-to-air isn't that hot so it's hard to counter. And once you're on the ground you eat 21-hit red corner combos.
THIS. Kanjis, so annoying. Furious action is usually an effective counter to the leaping move, but that may vary by PC (I use Mitsuru a lot, who hits a great arc with hers; closer-range FAs may whiff I guess? I haven't used Teddie enough to know). FA is probably my biggest problem in the game, though--I have a tendency to spam it whenever in a jam and burn through my own HP. Need to stop doing that. Yukiko = probably worst possible match against Kanji. That was always death. Try to Fire Amp = Kanji leaps across the room and bashes your face in. And she so needs Fire Amp to get anything done.
Teddie is one of the least-used characters, from what I've seen. Pretty sure Aigis is the least--out of a bit over a hundred matches, I've fought one Aigis. Shadow Labrys is almost as rare. Lots and lots of Yu/Kanji/Yosuke/Chie, which I guess makes sense given the initial story mode character pool.
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Dwarf Fortress: Masterwork Edition
Despite managing to lose a fortress to a massive (probably caused by the mod) show-stopping bug, I picked this up again a few days ago.
So far, so good, although it seems to love throwing warlock siege after warlock siege at me, more often than not setting the entire map on fire.
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I have been playing Earthbound lately, and since it has been a while I am approaching it with a lot more analytical a stance than I did as a kid. I also had been talking a lot about resource management, depth, and giving the player decisions so they kind of came together.
I realize it gets a lot easier from here on but up to Threed, where I currently am, I'm pretty impressed with how the game has been designed to make you manage your limited resources. It pretty much comes down to a few important decisions clearly made early on: inventory with very limited slots and no item stacking, no buyable PP restoration items, and giving Ness the game's strongest (and most expensive) attack spell, but also making him the only guy with healing PSI for a lot of the game.
Mostly, it's just the feeling I get from dungeons in contrast to most games. In most games these days, it's a question of how long it will take me to slog through whatever random encounters the game wants to waste my time on. EB manages to give some sense of tension and such to gameplay with virtually zero actual challenge by making me consider the use of finite resources rather than "I am going to have to spend X on consumables in the next town to refill my baggage train of potions." The very ablative nature actually kind of reminds me of MechWarrior 2, tbh. More importantly, it keeps me from yelling "why are you wasting my time?" whenever it has me fight a thing I have already fought, because the point is to bleed me, which many games seem to forget. Instead, randoms become some kind of cover fee where they are mostly pointless, but you have to spend X time on them to have enough XP that your numbers are big enough to not die in one hit to the boss or whatever.
So yeah, ablative gameplay. Lotta games forget about it, and that's a shame.
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Shadow Hearts 3: Garland Residence
Not much to collect this time. New lottery offers Cure All which I should probably go get but I was lazy. Cure Plus usually suffices anyway.
Garland Residence is a short dungeon but not a particularly easy one. 1 reset on the randoms.
The two common enemies here are Blupe and Ledope, the latter probably a mistranslation of Redpe, since they're blue and red versions of the same critter. Both have identical (crappy) HP, but Blupes have loads of MDef so they're actually hard to OHKO without a Shania physical. Reds go down to magic pretty easily on the other hand. Blupes will use Hail Exceed (ground spell, so floating Shania helps), ahd physicals which inflicts either Blind Ring (argh) or SP Lowering. Ledopes use Red Gravity for stock breaking, and physicals which inflict either Fickle Ring or Panic. So it's an attack on both Sanity and ring status in general. Their damage tends to hover around 5HKO region, pretty standard.
The third enemy is the Alyosh. They principally use Evil Servant, which does fairly laughable damage to Shania but decent to Johnny (similar to previous enemy damage). Their Blood Loss physical is the real threat, but fortunately they tend to use it almost entire in doubles (unfortunately they start in range to get a double right away often enough). Blood Loss halves target HP after the attack resolves. They never double with Blood Loss -first- as that would be competent, but the end result is that a double from them can do up to 300 damage and invariably leaves the target one hit from death if they survive.
The former swarms, the latter can show up in up to three as well, so to some extent this dungeon is an assault by numbers. Surge (or Entrance) gives Shania the punch to kill Blupes with magic (Ledopes die easily enough anyway). Blupes and Ledopes can be IDed (Johnny gets this), Alyoshes petrified (Shania gets this). Not a terribly bad dungeon once I have the enemies down but it certainly kills me first.
There's a Resurrection stellar in this dungeon. I make absolutely sure to get that, it's huge. Finally both PCs can revive each other effectively!
Tamaris (1 reset)
In many ways the overgrown baby is kind of a wuss by SH3 boss standards. Unfortunately he has one trick which makes him very, very much not a wuss at all on this challenge.
Tamaris mainly attacks with physicals and Bright Decide, which both do 3HKO damage to my beefier-than-normal PCs. He'll peridiocally throw out Panic (SP poison) off 3x-recoil. Panic isn't tooo bad, but on the refight I do equip accessories to block it as it is nice not to worry about. Also, as you'll see below, I don't want to rely on the Blood Jewel for once. If he doubles, then usually he uses a physical + Bright Decide, which again isn't fatal at full HP (though being even slightly below full is good enough... notably, Arc Cure does not restore enough to be at full). Once I see him use Bright Decide into Holy Pulse, which certainly IS fatal, on the other hand.
One of Tamaris' tricks is that he counters buffs, like Daoros. Fortunately the only buffs he uses are Shield and Barrier, in that order, and in alternation. These make him slightly tankier but it's really not worth caring about. The bigger concern is using them IS a boost to his stock gauge, but the good news is it resets the charge time for his next turn. (They're extremely fast actions so this is only rarely in my favour, and is definitely AGAINST my favour soon after he Doubles, so I avoid buffing then). If he had Rage/Surge/Gale on his buff list this would be a much nastier trick!
So anyway, I fight him a lot like I do Killer 2... same basic strategy of controlling stock applies, with the caveat about buffs as mentioned. And sure enough I get him down to below 25% HP.
The first turn Tamaris gets below 25% HP, he will use Spirit Ward. This erases one target from the battle. This is terrible. Endless 4D Pocket. The surviving PC simply has no chance... it's impossible to effectively survive against a boss who constantly 3-2s even if he only 3HKOs. I'm heal-locked until he Doubles at which point I die. I don't see any good way out of this.
The solution, of course, is to make sure Tamaris never gets a first turn below 25% HP. 950 HP isn't so big a range that I can't overcome it with the game's combo system.
Yes, I've mostly been ignoring the combo system in boss fights so far (a botched ring on one can be completely disastrous) except to craftily sneak in some turns in desperation sometimes (but the inability to use anything but direct offence which does NOT hard hit limits their utility). Here it's crucial though... I have to roll the dice when Tamaris nears red HP and kill him before he gets a turn.
It's actually not too bad. I level Ta'tanka's skills up to max for Rumble Roar (L3 dark spell off Shania's best offensive stats). All I have to do is make sure both Johnny and Shania are in Surge status for the final push. Shania doubles Rumble Roar into Current Breath, Johnny D-combos Hail Exceed into Evil Servant, then Shania combos again. This actually overshoots the required amount by a fair ways (around 300 HP), and I probably could have snuck in more with some crafty but risky use of Entrance (risky due to the counter it draws).
Only other real thing to note about this fight is that in order to make the final push, I do need to keep my stock high.... which isn't too bad, just avoid hard hitting with Shania right towards the end.
Tamaris' only status hole is Blood Loss, and I do use it on the first attempt. Blood Loss has a very low chance to half the target's HP, which sounds great until you realise it just will knock him into Spirit Ward territory when you least want this to happen. Winning run, I park that noise.
Levels were 36.
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Teddie is one of the least-used characters, from what I've seen. Pretty sure Aigis is the least--out of a bit over a hundred matches, I've fought one Aigis. Shadow Labrys is almost as rare. Lots and lots of Yu/Kanji/Yosuke/Chie, which I guess makes sense given the initial story mode character pool.
I'm up to 75 matches and not a single Mitsuru. Really. Only 1 Shadow Labrys also.
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Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten
Well I am surprised it took me so long to find out that Pleinair is actually the rabbit plush she holds and the "girl" is the "doll."
(though one could argue she is instead like kororo or koroko/puppetgirl trope)
Having a blast mindlessly power leveling to unlock classes, desco is definitely my mana whore <3
Currently at: 5-4; grinding on rank 8, 5-2.
Discovered a lot of new shops in the item world this time around...did NOT know you could buy save portraits for your DLC characters! SQUEEE now to save up the.....10billion hell to afford them XD
Discovered how amazing the gunner class is for leveling, never miss and always crit following one of their atks? Yes please, so easy to level my lvl 1 mages on rows of enemies now XD
Still trying to figure out how to expand my mana pyramid and Training gym. Assuming some RNG luck in the chara world.
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Teddie is one of the least-used characters, from what I've seen. Pretty sure Aigis is the least--out of a bit over a hundred matches, I've fought one Aigis. Shadow Labrys is almost as rare. Lots and lots of Yu/Kanji/Yosuke/Chie, which I guess makes sense given the initial story mode character pool.
I'm up to 75 matches and not a single Mitsuru. Really. Only 1 Shadow Labrys also.
This is surprising. Mitsuru, outside her strict timing on combos, is a pretty broken and starigthforward character.
She can be effective even just doing some basic poke poke poke.
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Niu you slacker, check the ToG topic.
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I'm mostly seeing Yu and Yosuke online.
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Ys 7:
Awesome game, highly recommended. Just plain fun. It's Secret of Mana if it was much, much faster paced and combo moves didn't involve a boring charge-up but rather just hitting a button + depleting a meter. And I like Secret of Mana anyway! Having AI characters almost never take damage is genius, it means your AI helpers are just that and you don't have to worry about micromanaging them, and the game can balance around you basically having 3 lifebars. Music was awesome as usual for Ys. And the plot & characters are actually worth a damn, which is something. Ys 7 goes a few places many other games don't and avoids a few uber-generic for Japan plot paths in favor of something that's ultimately still a bit flawed, but cool & flawed rather than yawn, so hey.
Anyway. Nitpicks. The good news is that level is far less a god stat than other Ys games. Flip side, while the game is far better than the earlier Yses on this, it still has the problem that random enemies are too easy and bosses are a tad hard. Oh sure, a few of the rando-Titanos are potentially challenging, and they're all FUN to fight, but you can play a tad on the lazy side and still have the HP-restore on level-up keep you in good health just fine. It'd have been nice if the game let you train up on how to fight the next nasty random baddie, then decide to swarm you with 4 of 'em at once and see how you handled it. Make things more intense. Of course there's Hard & Nightmare mode, but the bosses were balanced just fine as is, and not sure I want to pump them much more. On the boss note, I kind of appreciated the purity of Ys I / II / Oath boss fights where you must win on your own merits (or get a single extra level then roflstomp). Still, items make things far more sane, although I tried to defeat most bosses without use of 'em. (This stopped being practical in the back half of the game, but I tried to minimize it. Only battle that really exhausted my supply was the final sequence.) Also, I think the auto-targeting may have been a little TOO nice in the game. I wouldn't have minded watching my special moves not be aimed correctly and whiff more often, but there's definitely some lenient "let me point your character in the right direction," especially for the more close range moves.
Plot, eh. Weirdly enough harder to rant on since there are actual spoilers for Ys 7 unlike some of the earlier Ys works, but suffice to say I don't like the direction they took with their villains at the very end because we want to make everyone more sympathetic or something. But whatever, the villains are pretty awesome anyway, I just really wanted to kill them dead as murderous evil nutbags and not compliment them as noble opponents. Maybe I'll ramble more later. I still liked it, overall. Although damnit Japan silent heroes are not a good idea and you should stop doing them. (Adol talks in Ys3 SNES! Such a sad regression.)
My usual few random music links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCtQ79yp34s (regular boss theme)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zre2BjntVYA (Fantastic despair theme used in the back half of the game)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNEcBbzX2m4 (duel with Geis, the arena Titano, & plot battle with Mr. Spoiler)
Adol is 1/4 on drowning so far for me, just Ys 1. Niu you liar. (OTOH, Ys 7 also lacks an abandoned monster infested mine, cutting Adol's rate there down to 3/4. What?! Okay there's two mountain tunnels but they're short and not mines. Weird.)
Tactics Ogre PSP:
Oh god, the nightmare returns. But... I must face my foe. The one that vanquished me. Luckily it looks like insta perma-death is out and training is out, so that's something.
....and the game starts off with 3 autobattles followed by spreadsheet hero. Oh boy. I hire some reserves & equip them since I'm told battles require 10 people and that guests won't count, then have the game go lol trolled u on the 10 people thing. I wasted my money because we really meant 6 people. Charming. (Although preferable I suppose. I don't want to manage a lynch mob.)
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Snowfire, from what I can tell, the character limit thing?
Its 10 Characters for Plot fights, and 6 for Random Encounters.
And yeah, game is a bit cumbersome at first because they kept in the exact same "Auto Battle' intro the original had, then hurl a lot of menus at you. Once you get over that hurdle, things become far more fluid. A lot of the original game's nightmares won't actually return as a result.
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^^^
I assumed this was a Meep post at first.
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I have been playing Earthbound lately, and since it has been a while I am approaching it with a lot more analytical a stance than I did as a kid. I also had been talking a lot about resource management, depth, and giving the player decisions so they kind of came together.
I realize it gets a lot easier from here on but up to Threed, where I currently am, I'm pretty impressed with how the game has been designed to make you manage your limited resources. It pretty much comes down to a few important decisions clearly made early on: inventory with very limited slots and no item stacking, no buyable PP restoration items, and giving Ness the game's strongest (and most expensive) attack spell, but also making him the only guy with healing PSI for a lot of the game.
Mostly, it's just the feeling I get from dungeons in contrast to most games. In most games these days, it's a question of how long it will take me to slog through whatever random encounters the game wants to waste my time on. EB manages to give some sense of tension and such to gameplay with virtually zero actual challenge by making me consider the use of finite resources rather than "I am going to have to spend X on consumables in the next town to refill my baggage train of potions." The very ablative nature actually kind of reminds me of MechWarrior 2, tbh. More importantly, it keeps me from yelling "why are you wasting my time?" whenever it has me fight a thing I have already fought, because the point is to bleed me, which many games seem to forget. Instead, randoms become some kind of cover fee where they are mostly pointless, but you have to spend X time on them to have enough XP that your numbers are big enough to not die in one hit to the boss or whatever.
So yeah, ablative gameplay. Lotta games forget about it, and that's a shame.
Earlygame Earthbound is great yeah.
The big issue with this kind of gameplay (also seen in Dragon Quest) is that the game always becomes more boring as it goes on. MP is so scarce that spending it on anything but healing (attack spells, buffs, status, whatever) is almost always counterproductive, a risk too important to take. (there might be a hard boss at the end of the dungeon, you might need a ton of MPs)
Dungeons pretty much just become a level check as you only use healing and regular physical attacks against random monsters. The interesting item management also pretty much disappears as you get competent healing.
You can avoid all this in this kind of game (for a start, no healing spells), but I don't think I've ever seen it done in a game?
Diablo 3: Inferno Act 3. Haaaaard
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I actually found that, around Threed, I could manage to end fights a lot sooner and save my healing/items if I used my lower-level PSI, especially for Paula. It makes the game go so much faster and frankly, makes fights more manageable.
I'd probably cut the amount done by healing PSI in half and that would fix most problems, though.
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One thing you can do that helps is to separate the resources used for healing from offence. To some extent early Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy 1/2/4 do this through a black/white mage separation, although the white mage's skillset still tends to suffer. Phanasy Star 4 also made skills optimised for randoms (instant death, multitarget) which run off their own resources, and is definitely one of the more successful builds in that model.
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I just remembered PK Hack was a thing. I think I'm going to try changing the value of heals when I get home and see if I can't find a number I like. I am finally going to use it for its intended purpose, rather than putting the Gutsy Bat on the Kraken in the Sea of Eden like the guide said.
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Buffing and status is hugely important in dragon quest. I'm seriously feeling the lack of it in DQ4 on this current run; no Cristo/Brey and using the superscrub sisters instead hurts. Gah.
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The big issue with this kind of gameplay (also seen in Dragon Quest) is that the game always becomes more boring as it goes on. MP is so scarce that spending it on anything but healing (attack spells, buffs, status, whatever) is almost always counterproductive, a risk too important to take. (there might be a hard boss at the end of the dungeon, you might need a ton of MPs)
I'm going to have to disagree with this rather strongly. I just replayed Earthbound and I was using a lot of PP for offense. People watching me play the game could verify that this was in fact the case, as I did stream the entire thing.
Earthbound has a lot of Magic Butterfly areas scattered about (and once you know where they are, you can abuse the rooms), and later in the game you get plenty of PP healing through Brainfood Lunches (50 PP that also is 300 HP. Its full for Poo); resources stop being an issue in Earthbound after the early game truth be told. Only part that feels like you have to squander resources is Happy Happy Village and the area with guardian Diggers (a dungeon that is more maze like and longer as a result)
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I'd say that it's an issue in several other places. Lilliput Steps has you trying to keep a low-level Paula up, and Milky Well has enemies that use Shield, as well as other guys who can cast life up and spawn more dudes who can also cast life up. I also found the Department Store and Monotoli Building to be a test of resource management. It sort of stops being an issue later, as you said, when you reach Summers, since that coincides with getting Paula back and also getting both Poo and access to Brain Food Lunch and, to a lesser extent, Kraken Soup.
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It was more of a general statement at this kind of game, not at Earthbound in particular.
And it's obviously less of an issue if you know the game (like you knew Earthbound or Super knows DQ4) because you know what's ahead.
In EB you can own the bosses with rockets anyway (and healing items like pizzas?) and happily waste resources on randoms.
DQ4 is weird because AI. Even with full party control on the DS remake, I found that challenge mostly comes from the bosses, and wouldn't waste resources on randoms. DQ2's pretty much the only game in the series where I've felt like things like status were worthwhile, going blindly into the game.
(Agreed about PS4, but it goes so far the other way)
(By the way Gothic 4 is TERRIBLE so far)
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Shadow Hearts 3 -
Oh Malice Killer, you and your five different attacks that inflict eight added effects between them, you lovable jerk you.
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Tactics Ogre: I've fought a bunch of maps and had like no plot development. No wonder people never recommend doing Neutral path <_<
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I could have warned you bro, but that never stops you. Gothic 4 is what you get when you take the original studio from three games made with a semi coherent vision and then take their IP away from them. Someone else makes a game and kind of pretends it is related and it kind of sucks.
5 words from the end of that sentence I realized I am once again subconsciously talking about Fallout again.
Gothic 4 is different though in that no one likes it where Fallout 3 plenty of people like.
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Final Fantasy 5 Ancient Cave Hack
Started this up and got decently far. I managed to get Dancer early on and that gave me a way to heal MP which was nice although I have to watch out for undead. I also got a Sasuke knife and the Ninja job around the same time so Bartz's damage was beastly for a good bit. Ended up dieing because the game decides to have fork tower randoms be some of the first World 3 randoms that appeared and apparently it's a game over if everyone gets Encircled. Lame. I had started to get some of the really good late game stuff too.
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Persona 4 Kuma-ite: Over 100 matches now and still no Mitsuru. Teddie mirror matches are FABULOUS. Also ran into my first "cheater". Turns off his xbox when he loses. Sadly this doesn't credit you with a win even if it's after the KO.
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Good luck dude.
I could have warned you bro, but that never stops you. Gothic 4 is what you get when you take the original studio from three games made with a semi coherent vision and then take their IP away from them. Someone else makes a game and kind of pretends it is related and it kind of sucks.
5 words from the end of that sentence I realized I am once again subconsciously talking about Fallout again.
Gothic 4 is different though in that no one likes it where Fallout 3 plenty of people like.
I figured that hey, maybe, people didn't really give the Gothic 4 developers a fair chance because of all of this? I've actually heard a lot of people complain about Fallout New Vegas not being made by Bethesda, if you can believe it.
But no, Gothic 4 is something else. Melee combat is asinine ARPG brain dead button mashing without any style, substance, or flair. Ranged combat is Backpedal + shoot = WIN.
The build system in a game is pathetic! You can put points in the ranged tree to do like 20% more ranged damage, and once in a while get incredible skills like "Auto zoom in when targeting an enemy" There is nothing to look forward to.
Here's how the story goes. There's this evil king invading everything. Except he's not really a bad guy at heart, he's just being manipulated by the forces of darkness.
You're just a shepard in a peasant village, about to marry some girl (her face scares me A LOT BTW). Village gets razed by the army while you're away. You swear revenge.
First quest? Kill 5 rat moles.
The best part of the game is the exploration, but as you clearly go from an area to the next in a linear fashion it's fairly limited... The only thing left is the satisfaction of finding a treasure chest or two hidden in a corner.
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I dunno if they fixed the bugs but I creeped my brother out enough to get him to stop playing when I pointed out that one guy's facial hair wasn't moving when he talked.
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Final Fantasy 5 Ancient Cave Hack
Started this up and got decently far. I managed to get Dancer early on and that gave me a way to heal MP which was nice although I have to watch out for undead. I also got a Sasuke knife and the Ninja job around the same time so Bartz's damage was beastly for a good bit. Ended up dieing because the game decides to have fork tower randoms be some of the first World 3 randoms that appeared and apparently it's a game over if everyone gets Encircled. Lame. I had started to get some of the really good late game stuff too.
That is extremely poor design. The ancient cave works because youcan't really be jumped and in fact can jump a lot of randoms if you're careful.
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Welcome to dungeon crawlers. This is what they do.
Persona 1 - ez modo because I give no fucks. So there is a fixed RNG on a hard reset! People know exactly how to force Fool regardless of moon cycle. Sadly it doesn't work with items, so no cheap full MT healing Strong All Persona. It does mean you can actually use them though (good persona choice for Reiji/Chris early that isn't Lilim). I regret not remembering Janus has OP axe of OP for OK/Mark early on, but whatevs. About to do the Mana Castle and decided hey I am bored and this is portable why am i not grindan.
Now that I am not playing it while I am still super noob at RPG design analysis I have to begrudgingly respect the way they favour the main character over other characters. It isn't that he is innately better than others, but hotdamn if his Persona selection doesn't have an arseload more MT on stuff he is Best with. Mark is a good 10 levels behind. Experience skews even more in this fashion because of ez modo. One shotting everything with MT weakness hitting or just Megido makes for so much exp stealing.
I am enjoying this in spite of itself in different ways than P3. This is just the weird artifacts of age. You can tell a whole ton it is an early PSX RPG just from basic design stuff. It is clunky as fuck obviously, but shit like having to backtrack through the Subway 2 or 3 times (with upgraded enemies! So it is a legit dungeon again!). My favourite was that you can't fight Yogsothoth Jr in the Subway without a specific item. So you go to the place and get the item. It is like on the same screen as Subway. It serves no purpose other than checking to see if you read the plot dialogue. It is just weird.
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Orcs Must Die 2: Beat the DLC stages on Warmage for both characters. The new enemies are *incredibly* annoying. Both fire and water giants absolutely shred your guardians, and they are durable enough to run through your traps. Wind belt handles the little water enemies well; the Polymorph ring seems like the best bet against the giants.
I may try boom barrel dispensers against them. I'm getting my ass kicked on Traffic Jammed at Nightmare; too goddamn many enemies and not enough resources. I may have to use the money trap here and just load up on mana wells to handle that last wave. Seriously game, a half dozen fire lords? You assholes.
The west wing was really tough until I got smart and camped near the rifts. That way your ceiling traps will take out the fliers, and the extra range lets your archers not get slaughtered by fire giants.
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That is extremely poor design. The ancient cave works because youcan't really be jumped and in fact can jump a lot of randoms if you're careful.
To be fair, at that point you're almost guaranteed to have a Ninja or Thief who can get you out of a jam with Flee or Smoke and FF5's regular run isn't that bad. I just thought that if everyone got Encircled it would just kick me out of the fight instead.
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League of Legends: okay now I'm playing it. I think after four days of basically not doing anything else I've learned how not to suck.
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Cromage: There is no such thing as not sucking at LoL.
Speaking of, I should get back to playing that. Haven't had time during the week, though. =( Maybe I'll hit 30 (finally) this weekend.
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Dark Souls, Prepare to Die Edition: Because I had 40$ burning a hole in my pocket that would obviously be best spent to buy a game I'd already platinumed to get 3 hours of new content that takes 20 hours to get to all because I saw one 20 second cutscene.
My original goal was a rapier-riposte-maxstamina-triplestaminaregen--nohealth build. That turned into useless when I learned rapiers didn't stagger worth a damn and having no health was somehow detrimental to living. So now my health bar is barely bigger than my stamina bar and I am invincible. Skipped Taurous Demon. Butterfly took one life because I rolled into Beatrice's fat ass. Asylum/Capra/Gargoyles/Gaping all went down easy as usual. Stary also went down easy which gave me the sneaking suspicion hell was coming my way. That hell came in the form of naked spider-chicks as Quelaag made me lose 4 humanity and 30k souls through stunlocking. Not even counting the 5 I spent just summoning people because Rapier don't do damage. Iron Golem took two attempts, only because I got knocked off by the slightest of margins. Oranstein and Smough went swimmingly. Which means ~NEW CONTENT~ time!
~NEW CONTENT~SPOILERS FOR PEOPLE WHO CAAAAAAAAAAAARE!~
After finding a pendant that actually does something I get dragged by a toothy hand to a forestry cave. Naturally there's a boss door immediately after. The Sanctuary Guardian is a very tight fight. He has a tail weapon, so it takes me a couple of tries to get.... a whip. Yep. IT POISONS but it's still a whip and thus completely terrible. After I beat him/her/it I meet the first new NPC the Mushroom Queen Elizabeth. Dusk's in trouble again and it's up to Sir Artorias to save her! Too bad he's the second boss. Another very tight fight. Artorias is pretty fast(around Quelaag/Sif speed but less than Gwyn or Ornstein when he feels like zipping around like a crackhead) and he hits hard with a wide variety of moves for a physical boss. One attempt literally only fails because my weapon durability is grounded to broken, shitty rapiers. But I eventually prevail and am on to Oolacile Township. Thankfully the new enemies have no poise so rapiers actually do something, though the mages do 90% of my life a hit and can also poison. Also I die one time to a mimic. That was fun. Anyway, I go back to Artorias' arena and meet the mysterious Lord's Blade Ciaran who ~MYSTERIOUSLY~ dies through being riposted and drops some Lord's Blade Armor and the Gold and Dark Silver Tracers. The greatest comedy is that she wielded the Gold Tracer in the left hand... and it can't actually parry. Anyway, the Lord's Blade armor is fairly decent for weight, and it has poise. But the nerf to the flippy ring means it's not gonna be too useful for pvp. Speaking vaguely of pvp, I went human to fight a new NPC black phantom and got invaded. My parries wouldn't land at all despite being pretty damn clear that they did, so I died. Anyway I find another key and head over to meet Gough, who lets me access one of the bosses, and is also responsible for the cutscene that told me to buy the game again. Also some more painful excursions into the darker parts of Oolacile resulted in some hard humanities and fun times with Sif.
~NEW CONTENT~SPOILERS END!?!?!?!?~
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I dunno if they fixed the bugs but I creeped my brother out enough to get him to stop playing when I pointed out that one guy's facial hair wasn't moving when he talked.
Actually the most compelling argument to make me go back to that game.
Demon's Souls:
Replaying as a priest named Boris.
Miracles make a lot more sense in this game than in Dark Souls. In Dark Souls you basically have 5/10/15/20 potions and they get refilled at every checkpoint. In Demon's Souls you need to get your own herbs and they never get refilled; free healing makes a lot more sense here.
I've never really noticed it before (but it was probably integrated into my brain before), but each of the five areas you get access to at the beginning of the game gives a different kind of resource in huge amounts. If you're getting low on items (dying again and again against the armored spider, for example), you can get a lot back very easily even at the beginning of the game.
The castle gives HP healing items, the prison MP healing items, the mine stones for weapon upgrading, the shrine gives souls, and the valley of defilement gives you the middle finger. (surprising no one)
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Wild ARMS 4 Speedrun:
Getting walled by Etemananki. I can't do the jumps in one shot. Or if I do, Guardian Chimera trolls me forever. Reset count: 50 or something so not quite triple digits yet. But it's a shorter segment :|. Then again, far far more luck reliant on certain parts. Oh well, at least I can be content knowing this strat is superior to my last one!
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Shadow Hearts 3: To the Gate!
Lots of plot after the Tamaris fight, some of it pretty good. I was sceneskipping most of the game but have largely stopped now. I do like the scene right before the Malice Killer fight, which is good because I get several opportunities to watch it.
Malice Killer (2 resets)
Malice Killer is a pain. His attacks carry all sorts of added effects, with a particular emphasis on stock destruction. He's considerably improved over his human form just over a dungeon ago.
His physical attacks are 2HKO to Johnny (even with Ashra's Earrings), 3HKO to fused Shania, destroy a stock gauge, and add instant death. Leonardo's Bear is once again necessary to avoid getting ripped apart. He has another physical attack, Vice Blade, which is weaker (3HKO both), but is the first full multitarget enemy attack in the game, ALSO destroys stock, and inflicts Chain. This is pretty nasty as anyone struck after being hit by this before getting a turn can be killed. His third damaging attack is Red Crest, the only damage he deals which does not destroy stock, and instead inflicts Attack Down, making physical attacks suck for five turns. (There's no way to immune this.) It deals 3HKO damage and is large radius, so it can sometimes hit both PCs. Finally, his 3x recharge status attack is Seal.
If he Doubles, well, the good news is that he can't use Vice Blade. The first attack of a double is always Red Crest, and the second can either be a physical or Malice Dirge. Malice Dirge is basically a stronger, magical Vice Blade; it is full multitarget, destroys stock, and inflicts Chain. The real threat is that Red Crest may catch two people and be followed by Malice Dirge which is a lot of damage to both PCs. His Doubles aren't fatal to full HP characters provided they aren't yet Chained, except for the Red Crest -> physical against non-Ashra Earring Johnny.
First turn below half HP he uses Energy Charge, just like Delget. Defending to the rescue... Shield isn't enough to survive this time.
Killer's vulnerable to P-Attack Down, the third boss out of four this is the case for! It helps keep his physical damage under control which is nice. Unfortunately there's little reason to use physicals in this fight (which inflict the status) because he's constantly using P-Attack Down on my PCs and the massive stock destruction means that I can't afford to use Hard Hit (which costs half a stock gauge on the PC end).
The first attempt I try to go without silence immunity and this gets me destroyed, so I end up blocking both death and silence. I come close to winning the second time (one hit away, in fact!) before being caught by at non-full HP with a Red Crest/Malice Dirge double which kills both PCs.
I eventually settle on Johnny having the Blood Jewel instead of Ashra's Earrings. While this drops his HP and makes him a bit easier to kill, the difference is only slight (and only comes up for Red Crest/physical doubles, honestly). Meanwhile, having the Blood Jewel lets him go for Awaker, which drains his Sanity every three turns. But as long as I don't miss the Blood Jewel ring, this is acceptable, as it means I never actually lose turns to berserk. I lose stock but lol. Awaker is nice for the speed boost and for the Int boost, which makes Johnny's Arc Cure a bit more potent... from ~150 to ~185, which is actually a pretty big change in terms of keeping up with Malice Killer's damage.
Meanwhile, I run offence off of magic since Killer doesn't destroy that stat. Ice magic is the way to go, but the middle ice spell is out the window due to it only hitting aired targets. So it's either Hail Dust or Hail Exceed, and due to lower cost and less lag time I actually find myself favouring Hail Dust. Of course it's the only one Shania has anyway, and she does most of the attacking... after Surge, Hail Dust hits for about 200, or 500 if I can get off Entrance, which is certainly worth the effort if I can get away with it.
Despite the fact that his Doubles are no joke, I let Killer do them a lot. Without Hard Hits at my disposal, I'm forced to either use laggy Red Nova/Evil Shade (the former hits resistance, the latter is extra laggy and costly), or Vacuum which does no damage and is somewhat costly itself (as well as pushing me out of Awaker for a turn). While I still occasionally do these if nothing else prevents itself, and certainly will take a Hard Hit if both the boss and I have the stock, as it will also carry a chance for P-Attack Down. But in general I resign myself to not getting too paranoid about his stock as it slows down my offence far too much. This means I have to use Resurrection a bit more and rebuff, but it's not the end of the world. Of course, care needs to be taken that at least one PC is at full HP or his doubles can potentially wipe both PCs. The new improved Arc Cure is perfect for this.
Levels were 37.
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Disgaea 4, day 1 into post game....
Well baal 1 shots my whole base panel at lvl 3000 something....sooo......not beating him even remotely anytime soon, and he revives from death 4 times, auto counter attacks all attacks and deals upwards of 186K as i try to summon from the base panel....OH BOY THIS WILL BE SO FUCKING FUN, i look foreward to lvl 9999, he's gonna be a real threat this time....AND HE ISN'T EVEN THE HARDEST BOSS IN THIS GAME...
Oh man the nerd boners for this game.
Got most of my dlc characters unlocked...just grinding to high enough level to actually beat asagi....but first gotta get high enough to steal her unique item before she magic changes....this shall prove difficult with all the no entry panels.....perhaps i shall wait till the next play through when my magic range is high enough to kill the 2 fusion monsters before she can dual magichange...
Gig is....SO AWESOME, how easy he makes Ordeal 4 for farming is....awesome. Sadly his chara world is so grossly overpowered I don't think i will be able to boost him till i reincarnate him....seems i will be forever out 2 upgrades on him, well...till the next cycle at least XD
The medic and necromancer are super fun to boot, celestial host broken as fuck, but I may just reincarnate it as a empusa so i can have deathsheal, flying, heal strength increased per unit moved(~100% damage increase~). Though perhaps I should just make a custom reverse damage map for my healers so I can feel uber spaming a 3x3 tera heal for millions of damage....at level 450....and you know...make it possible to level them on their own haha. Kunoichi seems....dumb as shit, what a waste that DLC was, oh well at least she's a hottie.
Fuka Desco episode: not started yet.
Flashback episode saving for after I unlock asagi, zeta, petta, mid-boss.
cycle 2 - saving for after i max certain things on my dlc human and monster classes. As well as get valzy to a decent new cycle level.
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Epic Mickey: Renegade Mickey gets no upgrades ever but the game is so easy you don't care, should have broken my 100% Renegade to help all the Petes though
Wind Waker: Beat Forbidden Woods, oh wow this game is hilariously unstable emulating from Wii and I don't know what saving is so I beat it twice
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I've never really noticed it before (but it was probably integrated into my brain before), but each of the five areas you get access to at the beginning of the game gives a different kind of resource in huge amounts. If you're getting low on items (dying again and again against the armored spider, for example), you can get a lot back very easily even at the beginning of the game.
The castle gives HP healing items, the prison MP healing items, the mine stones for weapon upgrading, the shrine gives souls, and the valley of defilement gives you the middle finger. (surprising no one)
This actually bugged me when I played it because Stonefang was the last area I thoroughly explored and I was pure melee. So I spent 75% of the game wondering where the hell the upgrade materials were and why I had to fight everything with a basic +2/+3 weapon. I guess in retrospect it's pretty obvious they meant for you to tackle the various X-1's, then all the X-2's, instead of barreling through one area at a time in full.
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Cthulhu Saves the World: 90% done, recruited Dem, just need to tackle R'lyeh. Game is substantially easier than BoDVII (I played both on hard mode because duh) - after few level-ups you're rarely in danger of running out of MP in dungeons, and randoms aren't a constant threat to wipe you like they were in mid-to-endgame Breath of Death. They can wipe you, it's just not a save-after-every-fight thing. Also you can swap people out when they do run low on MP, which is kind of great. Standard randoms team is Cthulhu/Umi/October/X, where Umi and October spam full MT, Cthulhu whacks whatever's toughest, and the X either does backup healing (Dacre, Pawz) or ST (Dem, Ember, Sharpe).
Penny Arcade 3: Okay, Zeboyd. Listen. If you're going to make a class-based skill system, maybe give us some way to look at a class besides equipping it, going back into the equip menu and then looking at my character's current abilities. Because that's pretty terrible.
Fun game otherwise, just...oy. Every time I go to switch classes the interface puts up a big flashing sign about how bad it is.
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Shadow Hearts 3: The Gate, Part One
Into the final dungeon! Well, technically we started this with the Malice Killer fight, so the dungeon's already off to a good start. It doesn't let up from there. The randoms here are probably the toughest in the game; the only area I think really compares is the Caribbean. (2 resets on the randoms.) One thing that makes this area tough is ALL enemies start with enough stock to double or combo first turn. They don't always take it, which on the one hand is nice but on the other hand means I sometimes see a D-Combo if I leave one alive and untouched for a couple rounds.
Ispus are these little frog pests, and the dungeon's swarm enemy. Johnny can only one-shot them with Gale Blast if he goes Awaker (slightly problematic since Johnny only gets two turns of Awaker before I need to SP heal, so I have to use those wisely), Shania of course goes Thunderbird and can do the same. Up to six can appear at a time. Their base damage is 5HKOish, but their physicals add Sp-Def Down which pumps magic into 4HKO (theirs) or 3HKO (others') territory. Their Double is to use Sp-Def Down followed by Rock Javelin, which hurts. They can be instant deathed, which goes on Johnny's ring.
Larilari are only slightly more durable, but it's enough that Johnny can't one-shot them unless he uses Red Crest which is laggy and pricy. They'll use Hail Exceed (which Shania can avoid in a flying fusion) or Black Hole (non-elemental, Malice Edna's signature) as their magic. They can also cast Entrance to make an ally's spell a nasty bitchslap. Fortunately their allies aren't all too bright about using this properly. They'll combo with Black Hole as their use of stock.
Phobos is a big pain in the ass. Their magic isn't the big problem, and they only rarely use it (it's Gale Vortex, which misses non-flyers anyway). Their problem lies in their Blood Loss physical (strips away half the target's HP AFTER dealing damage). Remember Alyosh from Garland Residence? The mercy with them is they only ever used it at the end of a double or combo. Phobos is not so kind. They use their stock to Blood Loss and combo into something else, which can now easily kill. Three Phoboses alone is a tough fight, as their combo damage with each other ramps up very quickly. They have enough HP to need 2-3 attacks to drop, but are vulnerable to petrify, so that goes on Shania's ring.
Finally there's the Bokrug, the most durable enemy who generally needs 3 attacks. They'll cast Red Gravity which not only hits hard if your Sp-Def is lowered, but eats your stock. They'll also cast Cure, and seem to do it intelligently unlike Chakmols. Their physicals add Reverse Ring. That's their idea of a ring status this late? Pfft whatever, not even worth the trouble of healing.
Ispus and Phobos are definitely the more dangerous, and they're also the most common, so randoms are dicy for quite a while. Then we reach...
Malice Soaker (1 reset)
This friendly little tree root uses random battle music and doesn't get a special portrait, but don't be fooled, he's a boss, with the high offensive stats and fast recharge property we associate with SH3 bosses. You have to fight several in the second half of the dungeon, but I'll only cover the one you fight in the first half, as my levels are lower then.
First off, they're immune to magic, and, like Procyon, only use the damage type they're immune to (so they're pure mages). They have every Level 3 spell at their disposal, and these generally do high 3HKO damage, along with Ivy Bind, a wide-area magic spell that airs targets (it looks like earth, but it could easily be non-elemental as well... no way to tell with my party). Their final skill is Mental Breakdown, inflicting the 20% MP Poison. It's perfect accuracy as far as I can tell. I don't bother blocking this (it's not commonly used) and one Arc Heal will patch me up, although this is still a losing proposition on overall turns.
The real danger in this battle comes from how relentless the Malice Soaker is in attacking. A lot of its attacks will hit two people (it's a smaller than normal battlefield), and it gets a LOT of turns, with faster-than-Johnny speed and its rapid accrual of stock. If it doubles it may do any number of different things, but two spells that both hit both people really hurts. His favourite combos are Evil Servant into Bright Decide and Ivy Bind into Rock Javelin (will miss floating Shania). I need to be especially weary about turns and recharge times as a GT spell followed by a double of GT spells really, really hurts. He only rarely attacks stock, so I'm free to hard hit him in a rather paranoid fashion, and of course do so.
The main mercy of this battle is that Malice Soaker is kinda dumb, and will use Hail Exceed on flying Shania and Gale Vortex on Johnny quite willingly (both miss).
Otherwise the fight is mostly a lot of healing (and I do mean a lot). Johnny defends sometimes if he's hurt a bit and Shania isn't in hopes of Arc Cure, especially if the two are far enough apart that they can't be hit by GT (defending doesn't make you move). Johnny's Cure Plus is definitely showing its age now, as it doesn't nearly heal off two attacks; I should probably have grabbed Cure All after all. Shania's keeps up fine though. There is of course also a lot of Hard Hitting, casting Arc Rage regularly to up my damage, and Air Edge on Shania to make her hit harder. I don't use Awaker in this fight, because I fight it with my random-encounter equips by mistake. Twice. I do use La Sirene almost exclusively for Shania (except when I need Arc Rage or Howling) as it makes a big difference, especially with Bright Decide in the enemy arsenal.
I'm Level 39 for the first fight against a Malice Soaker. I'll be at least two levels higher for the rest.
Anyway, with him out of the way, a return to the save point is in order, followed immediately by someone I definitely DO change to my boss-fighting equips for.
Malice Gilbert (3 resets)
One of these three resets (the second, if you're curious) happens before I even get a turn. I roll badly on initiative, Gilbert goes first, and wipes out the party.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with this battle. Gilbert has two main gimmicks; one is attacking your sanity relentlessly (and look at him! If anyone could do that, it would be him). The other is doing metric craptons of GT/MT damage if he gets a Double off. He is the first of two bosses in the game who can wipe a full-HP party with a Double.
The good news is that, after the first turn, he usually doesn't (though usually, it must be emphasised, is not good enough). To understand why we need to take a look at those Doubles. One of them is Gathering into Deep Grudge. This is pretty lame. Deep Grudge inflicts Chain status and is borderline 2-3HKO, and hits a large radius. Due to the Double lag time, he won't be able to take advantage of chain, so all this is is a more damaging Vice Blade that has lag and eats a stock gauge. You're welcome to do this, Gilbert! I only see it once.
His other two Doubles both involve starting with Deep Grudge. One is Deep Grudge into Evil Crest. Evil Crest is dark damage, misses aired targets ('sup La Sirene), and makes your special attacks crap for five turns. This does enough damage to kill full-HP unfused PCs. The other is Deep Grudge into Malice Dirge. Malice Dirge is, as you may recall, full multitarget, stock-destroying, chain-inflicting madness. It's also stronger than Evil Crest and isn't resisted/immuned by Shania.
So what does this mean? If two PCs are grouped closely together, Deep Grudge -> Evil Crest will kill them unless Shania is flying (and survives the initial Deep Grudge) or the PCs are both at full HP and fused. If they're close together, Deep Grudge -> Malice Dirge is a trip to the game over screen. This means we have to avoid Doubles at an extremely high priority. It's almost impossible to avoid them -completely- due to various factors in the battle, but coming as close as possible is necessary.
Malice Gilbert's normal turns are spent on physicals which half the target's SP (this can be blocked with Will Power, but I don't) and do quite a lot of damage (usually 2HKO, may be only 3HKO against La Sirene though), Evil Crest (as mentioned, Shania can troll this), Panic (3x recharge 100% status, causes the target to lose Sanity 3 times as quickly), and Deep Grudge (as mentioned. Evil if he doubleturns someone after using this).
Accessory setup for the fight is Johnny with Ashra's Earrings, Blood Jewel, and a Flare Brooch. Why the Flare Brooch? Because with only the Blood Jewel, panicked Awaker loses 12 sanity a turn... more than the Blood Jewel restores unless I perfect its highly difficult ring, so it might not save me! Blocking panic would work, but the Flare Brooch also avoids this problem while giving me beefier stat boosts. Shania, meanwhile, gets Ascetic Earrings, a belt, and a Cosmic Bracelet for panic immunity, since I don't need someone losing 12 sanity a turn (or even 6, with a Flare Brooch, as there's no Blood Jewel to save her).
Beyond this, the fight proceeds normally enough, just with extra paranoia for stock destruction. On the first turn, I Double Vacuum + Hard Hit with Johnny, and in general, I'm not shy about using Doubles if necessary, despite the lag they cause and the problems that can cause down the line, since stock destruction is so important. Due to the Blood Jewel, Johnny is frequently without stock, so Red Nova works as a backup despite its lag (and ability to nearly tink if Johnny is hit with S-Atk Down); Shania occasionally has to do this too if she needs to Double, although it takes her into Ta'tanka so if I can shift back into La Sirene on the back half of the double (e.g. to heal/revive) I do so. Arc Rage is used in place of Rage as both PCs may wish to Hard Hit (and Johnny's physicals are actually good now). Light Edge ups Shania's damage until she dies (which I try to avoid); I never get a chance to cast it on Johnny. Howling is used when Shania's running low on sanity; it's essential to use when she's at 9 or below as at that point, one SP Lowering attack from Gilbert will knock her into the red. Healing and occasional MP healing is required as usual.
A rough fight, certainly. Perhaps the only good news is that there's no low-HP trick waiting, Gilbert stays the same the whole way through. They could have made him extra rough with a stretch of Gale or Surge in there.
Levels were 40.
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Devil May Cry - Beat this. Normal Mode replay (fresh obviously, NG+ Normal would be for pansies), did all the secret missions which I could never be bothered with before, and tried to get good rankings. Got at least A (including 18 S's) on every mission except the first, which is partly because it's actually one of the harder ones to get a high ranking on in a fresh file and partly because I was very rusty. In general I had quite a lot of trouble regaining my footing in the earlier missions, but after the fourth chapter (Phantom. Shadows. THREE SHADOWS AT ONCE OH GOD) it started going pretty smoothly, and I knocked out the second two thirds of the game in a few hours this weekend. Fun times, NM Mundus is such a wuss compared to HM though.
Will do Dante Must Die mode next time I pick up the game, dunno when that'll be. Hopefully before I get too rusty at the game again, but I'll take a break for now.
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This actually bugged me when I played it because Stonefang was the last area I thoroughly explored and I was pure melee. So I spent 75% of the game wondering where the hell the upgrade materials were and why I had to fight everything with a basic +2/+3 weapon. I guess in retrospect it's pretty obvious they meant for you to tackle the various X-1's, then all the X-2's, instead of barreling through one area at a time in full.
Wow, this must have been hell. This is like fighting skeletons over and over in Dark Souls and defeating Pinwheel before getting into the burg!
For better or worse, Demon's Souls has very particular RPG mechanics compared to Dark Souls and other RPgs. In just about every RPG, risk is always proportional to reward (the xp you get from killing an enemy is proportional to its strength) and you get rewards in a linear fashion.
Demon's Souls has each kind of reward locked to each kind of area; this can be abused and was certainly meant to be abused. (I like grinding Death in 4-2 to buy herbs) It also has the Valley of Defilement, an area with nearly no reward despite enormous risk.
Dark Souls removing most of this (because of its more linear nature) probably made it a better game but I liked how Demon's Souls experimented and subverted expectations.
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DQ4- Apparently if you speak with a French accent, you are an evil demon prince and the hardest fight in the game.
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Why is that statement (arguably) true about multiple RPGs.
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Tactics Ogre Remake: So I turned 2 of my generics into two new jobs because I like having a whole bunch of different sprites! Those two will probably not be used like ever again, because I discovered Heroes of the same job are just straight up better than Generics when I saw Cistina, in a random map I decided to use her, outdamage pretty notably the other Rune Fencer despite having a weaker weapon and no Warrior Ring. Yes, they're behind on skills, but they're not completely lacking in them, and they have most of the essentials to be workable, so I made the shift.
Oh yeah, and Vyce acted like a total moron and had the outcome you'd expect. Delita you are not, Vyce.
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TOPSP plot characters end up being a viable option due to the clear statistical superiority, so they can rock a normally levelled class. The skill issues are circumventable at least. It sucks that using them in their unique classes when they have them is such an exercise in patience, though, but :topsplevelgrowthdesign: applies.
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Wow, this must have been hell. This is like fighting skeletons over and over in Dark Souls and defeating Pinwheel before getting into the burg!
Welcome to my first hour or so of Dark Souls. (Sadly, could only make it to the first ladder in the Catacombs. Couldn't actually manage any real progress in the Catacombs)
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TOPSP plot characters end up being a viable option due to the clear statistical superiority, so they can rock a normally levelled class. The skill issues are circumventable at least. It sucks that using them in their unique classes when they have them is such an exercise in patience, though, but :topsplevelgrowthdesign: applies.
Characters like Cistina and Dievold join in Generic Classes anyway, so that's not an issue, provided you were raising those Classes (I was, though I can easily see not raising a Terror Knight), but yeah, characters like the White Knight whose name I would rather not screw up the spelling of are annoying in this regard.
Oddly, I actually am raising him now because he can sit back and cast healing, and is now level 10 (level 15 is the current standard) and can actually do stuff now. Not the norm though; not every character has the luxury of being able to sit back and be Make-Shift Healer at lower levels, sadly.
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Legasista
Terribly fun game, once I unlocked the feature to desgin your own custom character in it...wow this game is just amazing for an rpg dungeon crawler haha. Also randomly finding end game loot in the first few dungeons is interesting, the RNG is pretty facsinating in this game...And so is wandering around as a Cryomancer desgined as sailor neptune is pretty boss... Also....TITS
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Characters like Cistina and Dievold join in Generic Classes anyway, so that's not an issue, provided you were raising those Classes (I was, though I can easily see not raising a Terror Knight), but yeah, characters like the White Knight whose name I would rather not screw up the spelling of are annoying in this regard.
Oddly, I actually am raising him now because he can sit back and cast healing, and is now level 10 (level 15 is the current standard) and can actually do stuff now. Not the norm though; not every character has the luxury of being able to sit back and be Make-Shift Healer at lower levels, sadly.
True enough. Gildas and Myrdin kinda get the longer end of the stick as far as unique classes go due to the base niches of White Knights being -so damn good- and not getting in the way of raising (TOPSP healers kinda have it really easy on raising that way). I have absolutely no words for how it pans out for the likes of the C4 secret PCs, though. Even if one of them has such ridiculous bases+class stats that you can have her solo randoms no strings attached to raise levels.
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Who is Dievold?!
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Wow, this must have been hell. This is like fighting skeletons over and over in Dark Souls and defeating Pinwheel before getting into the burg!
Nah, it wasn't anywhere near that bad (probably it's due to playing Dark Souls first and knowing what to expect, but I found Demon's Souls vastly easier). I just dumped a ton of levels into strength to use heavy weapons (I got the flamberge reasonably early), since it doesn't matter all that much that your weapons are primitive if the enemies don't get a chance to stand up. Mostly I was just annoyed in principle at not being able to do much to improve my weapons. I mean, I thought that was grindy and FAQ-baity in Dark Souls, but Demon's Souls? Christ man, even after going through the mineral-rich region in full, I didn't even have enough rocks to get my best weapon up more than +7 or so (and then I got the Dragon Bone Smasher and everything else stopped mattering). I can't even imagine the stupid level of grinding required to max anything out.
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Dievold is Nybeth's son who joins only on Neutral route, Ciato. Also not that great of a PC, because he's slow for a unique PC and his starting class (Terror Knight) is both the slowest class in the game and not that great until it hits L20.
Special PC RT modifiers. Base RT will never change in this game, so these are really significant for people who go deep into the aftergame:
Ozma: -15
Ravness, Hobyrim: -12
Gildas, Folcurt: -10
Oliyva, Sherri, Lendl: -9
Cerya, Jeunan, Lanselot, Iuria, Cistina: -8
Canopus, Mirdyn, Ganpp, Denam: -7
Arycelle, Occione: -6
Warren, Vyce, Azelstan, Xapan, Catiua, Cressida, Deneb: -5
Voltare, Felicia, Rudlum: -4
Sara, Oelias: -3
Dievold, Donnalto, Phaesta, Bayin: -2
Ehlrig: -1
Tamuz: 0
Chamos: 1 (ahaha everyone laugh at the shitty semi-unique)
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I was more referring to "what was his name in the original, the one I actually played Neutral on" but that works. Debores the Terror Knight?
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Debordes (http://luct.tacticsogre.com/characters/debordes.html), apparantly.
Incidentally, since you aren't going to play Neutral on TOPSP I strongly recommend you read the script (http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/999440-tactics-ogre-let-us-cling-together/faqs/64298?page=11#section285) for the C4 Nybeth plot battle in Palace of the Dead. They made some... spectacluar changes to Oelias/Orias' backstory in this version.
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SC2: After quitting for almost a year, I did placement matches. My internet crashed during 2 of them and I ended up getting silver. Even though I went 3-2 overall, even though I crushed the diamond guy I faced.
I guess I'm just going to quit WoL for good and wait for the expansion.
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Wow, this must have been hell. This is like fighting skeletons over and over in Dark Souls and defeating Pinwheel before getting into the burg!
Welcome to my first hour or so of Dark Souls. (Sadly, could only make it to the first ladder in the Catacombs. Couldn't actually manage any real progress in the Catacombs)
I didn't notice the path to the burg either at first, but I gave up on skeletons a lot faster.
Wow, this must have been hell. This is like fighting skeletons over and over in Dark Souls and defeating Pinwheel before getting into the burg!
Nah, it wasn't anywhere near that bad (probably it's due to playing Dark Souls first and knowing what to expect, but I found Demon's Souls vastly easier). I just dumped a ton of levels into strength to use heavy weapons (I got the flamberge reasonably early), since it doesn't matter all that much that your weapons are primitive if the enemies don't get a chance to stand up. Mostly I was just annoyed in principle at not being able to do much to improve my weapons. I mean, I thought that was grindy and FAQ-baity in Dark Souls, but Demon's Souls? Christ man, even after going through the mineral-rich region in full, I didn't even have enough rocks to get my best weapon up more than +7 or so (and then I got the Dragon Bone Smasher and everything else stopped mattering). I can't even imagine the stupid level of grinding required to max anything out.
You only went to the second world near the end of the game, but you still got Pure White World tendency there?? (To get the Dragon Bone Smasher) You just checked a faq for a few specific things before playing?
I agree about materials in general, I didn't even notice Ed until near the end of the game. But materials aren't that hard to find on some upgrading paths (I maxed three weapons this playthrough without any farming), but are a pain on others (HOURS OF FARMING FOR ONE STONE apparently)
Anyway, my priest has finished the game. Like in Dark Souls, miracles aren't all that great: they're good utility but Demon's Souls is one of the last games where I would care about "utility". God's Wrath, the only damage miracle, is so terrible in this game I couldn't believe it. The useful ones were:
- Heal (heals HPs). Fairly standard, but healing is dirt cheap if you use that spell instead of herbs. This saves a bit of souls (unless you spend a ton of them into faith)
- Evacuate (Return to the hub world)
- Cure (heals status): hardly needed, but it removes a big part of the Valley of Defilement's danger.
- Second Chance (auto-revives with 50% HPs): Okay, this one's awesome. But it requires two slots, doesn't necessarily give you enough time to run away after its effect has been used, and doesn't do anything about falling from great heights.
Some points into Faith is a great help to any melee fighter, but miracles can't really be the center of your build in Demon's Souls. In short, I wasted about 30 points.
I restarted as a mage, and ran through 1-1, 3-1, and 4-1. Looks like magic's broken when you know the game well. I have kickass spells and 80 spices. 4-1 might be the first time I've ran through a stage and killed the boss with my body form the whole time. (= without dying once)
The game really feels like it ends too soon. (Not that it's too short) You get the tutorial stages (Beginning of the game and 1-1), the earlygame stages (1-2, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, 5-1), the midgame stages (1-3, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2, 5-2), then four gimmick bosses, a very short level and the (admittedly good) final boss. It doesn't feel like there's a proper endgame at all.
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Man, I always feel like the only person to ever talk enough to Crestfallen for him to point out that you should go up. I never even found the graveyard until I got the elevator working.
Also I'll hopefully have the other half of the new content done before the week's end. Things have been annoying here.
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You only went to the second world near the end of the game, but you still got Pure White World tendency there?? (To get the Dragon Bone Smasher) You just checked a faq for a few specific things before playing?
Dunno, man. I was mostly playing in online mode, so I can only presume some server event flipped world tendency for me (no longer a possibility now that the game's permanently offline, of course). I know this happened in 1-1 as well, because otherwise I wouldn't have spent all game running around in Miralda's clothes. I certainly did not make any special effort to manipulate world tendency, because I'm still not clear on how that's done apart from dying in body form (+black) and killing bosses in body form (+white).
I did kill the first two Stonefang bosses in body form, but I don't think that's quite enough for pure white (I killed an invader there too, if that helps any)? I killed most bosses in body form, really. Hell, the only one of the intermediate areas to even give me a death was 3-2 (couple falling deaths + FUCKING MANEATERS over and over again).
For the record I did try going to Stonefang very early but said Fuck It after a clown set me on fire.
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You only went to the second world near the end of the game, but you still got Pure White World tendency there?? (To get the Dragon Bone Smasher) You just checked a faq for a few specific things before playing?
For the record I did try going to Stonefang very early but said Fuck It after a clown set me on fire.
I said that too, but then I said fuck it to the dragon, octopus head monsters, skeletons, and suspended wooden planks in the valley of defilement, and came back to Stonefang.
I had forgotten entirely about White World Tendency events, but it sounds like you just got it on your own. It's pretty much impossible to get White World Tendency otherwise without doing ridiculously unintuitive stuff (suicide in the hub world after defeating any boss!), doing a lot of co-op, or just being enough of a badass to never die. (Which looks like it happened to you for trying Stonefang late. Usually people die over and over against the Armored Spider and Flamelurker)
You get a shift towards a whiter world tendency for killing bosses in any form, body or soul. You gets a shift towards a darker world tendency when you die in body form. So using ephemeral eye stones to get back to a body form will fuck up your worlds.
Deus Ex 1: The definitive, PS2 version!! Like 4 bucks on the PSN store now.
It feels older than Final Fantasy 1 on the NES.
I just did the tutorial. The stealth section was tough. I was throwing pots and flasks around the place to disctrat enemies, but no one noticed. The camouflage armor and thermal goggles that lasted all of 10 seconds each didn't help much either.
Machinegun robot at the end just got me down to around 8/400 health because I was trying in vain to use those TNT boxes against him.
I was then reunited with my "brother", who didn't mind me shooting him two times in the chest but got angry after three shots. Things didn't turn out well.... I'm not sure I'm ready for realistic mode just yet.
In any case I'll invest my knowledge in hacking, swimming and computers, and be an asshole. I know how to use the internet and the butterfly stroke, so I'm confident enough to look down on the plebe who can't even send an email or do a front crawl.
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PS2 version sucks, but whatevers, if it gets you playing DE I won't complain. Actually a pretty good build BTW. Swimming is better than it seems at first.
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Wind Waker: This game makes me feel nice and smrt, perfectly low IQ for me while Alex can play all the high IQ indie puzzle games or something.
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"Disgaea 4: A Speedrun Unforgotten.
Hour 1642, I think i might set the world record for fastest 100% completion of game!"
LOLOLOLOL
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EPIC KIRBY!!!: Beaten, got 75% done, not going to bother for 100%, since I played through every stage once and that's enough for me.
I think this is the worst Kirby Game I've ever played, honestly. It feels dumbed down to the point that it feels like its intended for pre-schoolers rather than just "younger audience." Kirby Games have always targetted children; that's obvious, but it felt like it was done in a way that was still fun for older players. This game? Not so much.
See, Kirby Games still have basic platform standards like the ability to die. This game? Oh, you get a worse medal! And since it follows Sonic Logic when you're hit, you can often get back a lot of what you lost if it wasn't near a pit (and unlike Sonic Games, you don't lost ALL your gems, so it doesn't feel like an actual consequence.)
Furthermore, game removed a lot of Kirby standards. Ok, so the Lasso is just a different way of handling inhaling; totally cool with that, and hey, I can aim where I through things! And the car is basically the replacement of Kirby's dash, also fair...
But Parachute is not a replacement for Kirby's flight, and there's no Slide. Oh, I can use Kirby's Down B from Smash whenever I want! Pity that doesn't make up for Kirby's lack of power copying, which is generally the highlight of the series.
Add in the fact that the game just LOOKS AND ACTS like a game made for a Nick Jr. Show, and you'll see what I mean. Yeah, I know the story sort of is meant to make fun of this, but rarely did it feel like an actual parody because the scenes weren't quite silly enough.
And then the vehicles...ok, those were alright...except for the Train. That was like the worst thing ever.
To the game's credit, the final level was neat only because "Oh right, we're playing a Kirby game!" and throws a lot of Kirby Fanservice at you at once. Nice that the game remembered this.
Honestly I get the feeling the game was made to be something Non-Kirby originally, and it even had an obvious Non-Kirby protagonist to use (Prince Puff, who is basically Blue Kirby w/ a Crown), then Nintendo went "wait, this won't sell...quick! Put our cutest non-Pokemon character at the front of the game!", and then the game became 10x more pink.
Ah well, I can already tell Return to Dream Land is a lot better just because its back to basics and capitalizing on what makes Kirby good, while also giving you 3 other characters to play with for maximum insanity.
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Shadow Hearts 3: The Gate, Part Two
There are two new enemies, both are durable with some new tricks. First is the Len, the boringly-named dark innate enemy in the dungeon. They can cast Arc Shield to slow my offensive progress a little, or Arc Surge to make everyone scarier, or they can use their boss-styled trick, Deadly Poison, which does no damage inflicts the status on everyone with a fast recharge time. Deadly Poison can add up fast so Arc Heal is called for. They also have hard-hit physicals because they're jerks and cast Evil Servant.
The other new enemy is the Janus. With 1366 HP they take a lot of punishment to go down. They also have a boss-style status move, Apathy, as well as the more usual Instant Death physicals, although they only rarely use them and they're fought alone, so eh, not that bad. They can cast Bright Decide or Black Hole because this is the endgame and non-elemental options are becoming all the rage apparently.
Both new enemies are vulnerable to Poison, and Poison 3 (which is 100% I believe) is obtained in this dungeon, so that helps!
I also fight three new Malice Soakers in this area, but since I'm level 41-42 instead of 39, they go much more easily. Also I realise that they're vulnerable to Apathy, which is hugely helpful, as it means that as long as I land it every five turns, they never gain stock ever. Yes, Apathy matters! About time they made a boss-like enemy vulnerable to it.
So this takes us to the final boss!
Lady
Level 43.
Okay, so, depending on how the turn order falls, different things might happen here. She starts with two stock and will use it. I have one PC go before her (Shania because the RNG is being weird), and decide the best thing to do is defend. She takes about 200, Johnny takes about 830. An auspicious start! Anyway, I'm kinda able to tread water for a while, trying to control her stock at all costs while dealing with two actions that can do loads of damage, reviving a lot, etc. Eventually I miss one ring and die horribly. Although I only have one reset, it doesn't feel like there's much I can do... way too easy to get into a heal/revive lock, extremely difficult to do much of anything, and way too much "one mistake = death" in what will be far the longest boss fight to date. Not to mention some resets will have to deal with Lady going first and wiping me out immediately. Not terribly in the mood for that.
So let's do something completely different.
At this point I do some sidequests, grabbing ultimate weapons for Johnny and Shania (except Shania's weapon, coming soon). I also head to Garvoy Valley, with of course the main goal of getting Tirawa. There's a few ways I think Tirawa will help a significant amount.
1) Non-elemental. Since Lady intelligently chooses her hex spells, I saw non-stop Hex Glare (light elemental) which does quite a bit to Shania, so it would be nice not to see that.
2) Shining Zephyr. It heals more than Arc Cure AND does damage. Easily my best healing spell outside MP costs (Full Bloom would be even better, but Hilda's too far behind at this point). This is the biggest advantage, probably.
3) Better stats. Boring, but hard to argue with... Tirawa's notably better than the other fusions at their respective strong points.
There's no comparable boost to Johnny (besides getting Ether Purge, and lol to that), so yeah, it feels like a worthwhile use of my time. Also a slight level push will reduce the odds of Lady-goes-first-nukes-everything. Always a plus.
Garvoy Valley:
Three enemies here. The swarm one, Tsui Zooi, is the dangerous one, for sure, as they have Instant Death. And there can be up to six at a time. Yeah, I equip the Crucifix from the Gate and a Leonardo's Bear to not have to put up with that. They also cast Arc Cure which is pretty significant healing so not leaving things half-dead while Tsui Zoois are around is important, and cast Rock Javelin. Their combos and doubles involve their two attacks in some sequence.
Ignis is a rare enemy whose element is completely obvious before you see its attack spell! (Which is Red Gravity, if you're curious. Stupid stock-destroying noise.) They use a boss-style Apathy status attack which is kind of a drag if the battle is going to last a while but generally isn't too bad.
Xukrus has loads of HP and no real status weaknesses to speak of. They use a boss-style multitarget Seal attack, but fortunately they're kinda punching bags past that, so an opening round Arc Rage followed by just beating on them works. Their Doubles involve Gathering -> Bright Decide which is pretty benign overall. I still try to stop them but it's a low priority compared to the other enemies.
Not much to say here. These enemies are quite damaging... probably a bit moreso than Gate enemies on average, but outside possible Instant Death whoring it's really not too bad. No resets either.
Oh and around 80-90% through the dungeon Shania gets the Dream Porter and what little remains gets absolutely carved in half, lol 2 free stock gauges per battle, goodbye everyone I hope you enjoy Gathering/Entrance followed by three more attacks each battle.
Tirawa
So Tirawa's big gimmick is that she is a boss (with all the benefits of boss recharge) fought by only Johnny and Shania. Oh noes.
Unlike my failing it up against La Sirene, I'm able to mostly coast here. Tirawa only uses two attacks: a 2-3HKO physical which also destroys stock, and Shining Zephyr, which is 4HKO magic and drains. Both are purely singletarget, which is a mercy since there's no worrying about when both PCs might be hit simultaneously. If Tirawa Doubles, she will do the only thing she can, which is use both of these. Combined, they don't kill, at least against the usual Ashra's Earrings Awaker Johnny and fused Shania, so seeing Doubles isn't too bad.
In general, as such, it's a reasonably easy fight by this challenge's standards... I'm sure they figured that a quick-hitting boss for two PCs would be enough. The draining does drag the fight out a bit past its listed HP score, and it's difficult to Hard Hit (thus necessitating laggy Red Novas) but otherwise it's completely uneventful until Tirawa hits low HP.
At this point she uses Sunlit Vale, which is terrifying, as it raises all of her stats. Now her physical is a strong 2HKO, the draining is a 3HKO, the Double kills, and her speed is extremely good. Durability's also improved but whatever, no offence happening during this phase aside from periodic hard hits. It's only five turns, just five turns of carefully watching an enemy who goes from being weaker than most bosses to significantly stronger (if still, mercifully, lacking any sort of crowd control). Defending more is also not a bad idea during this phase, of course.
After the buffs evaporate, Tirawa's HP has recovered from a quarter to nearly half, but it's easy enough to gear up and deal with the remaining offence at this point.
Levels were 45.
I level up every one of Tirawa's statues EXCEPT the new skills (as she starts with Shining Zephyr, the only one useful against Lady) to level 4, and head back to the Gate.
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PS2 version sucks, but whatevers, if it gets you playing DE I won't complain. Actually a pretty good build BTW. Swimming is better than it seems at first.
I guess those giant concrete walls weren't in the PC version. Them + loading times really are annoying, but I could handle Vampire Bloodlines loading times, so whatever.
Unlimited inventory in the PS2 version is probably blasphemous, but I rather like it. Human revolution had a really limited inventory; I could maybe have 3 guns at a time. I could replace one for another one, but then I wouldn't have much ammo + all that ammo I saved up for this gun would be wasted. I think limited inventory might make me try new things less, when it's trying to do the opposite.
Add pistols to my build. I like the lethal approach in this game, I love both my crossbow and my 10mm gun, and I've already started with one point in that anyway. I'm trying my best to avoid rising lockpicking instead, but it's hard. I might give in.
Swimming did indeed look like the one lovely worthless skill out of all of them. I can't really imagine there being that many sunken levels in the game.
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Three guns at a time makes sense to me. You ever tried to carry three guns at once in a fashion that leaves you able to do stuff?
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Ammo doesn't take up space in the original DE, so changing weapons isn't such a big deal. There is enough space to do things, but whatevs inventory Tetris isn't the high point of games. It really is load times and more cramped areas and shit that makes the console version bad.
There isn't a ton of underwater bits, but there is enough that a skill that cheap doesn't go that much astray. Like I am not saying maxing it out is a great idea for all builds (which I assume you will do), but a point or so has an appreciable effect and is very affordable.
I have of course done Master Swimming and Aqualung just to be able to stay underwater for 10+ minutes at a time.
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Unreal - up to Noork's Elbow
Not really holding my interest.
Enemies seem to have bizarrely high health, considering I'm playing on the easiest difficulty.
Mario's Picross VC - Played through, essentially
It's Picross.
Did the Time Trial mode a couple of times, but it's not really my cup of tea. Did the easy mode course after the main courses, which made it pretty boring.
Shortly after I was done with it...
Picross e - Completed easy/normal courses
...this version came out. Tsk.
The smaller puzzles were seeming to be taking far too much advantage of the coloured final result, and being more abstract than necessary as a result, but that doesn't seem to be happening as much in the larger puzzles thankfully.
I'm a bit unhappy about using the stylus on the larger puzzles (with correspondingly smaller grid boxes), but it's still probably better than using the face buttons.
Dillon's Rolling Western - two days into first attempt at town 6
Currently got three stars for the first four towns and two stars for the fifth town. Looks like I only just barely had enough to unlock (? I haven't actually failed to meet the requirements yet, so I'm not sure if that is what they're actually for) the sixth town - I don't know how I feel about having to go back to old towns to improve my score if I get locked out of the next town.
I'm mostly enjoying it anyway, although it is a bit aggravating at points.
To The Moon - played through
I feel that it lives up to its reputation. Really should have bought it directly ages ago rather than waiting for it to come out on Steam.
Noting that I had to disable DEP on it before it would run.
I feel that it had too much gameplay, in the sense that the block-flipping puzzles shouldn't have been necessary (especially since it was tracking your total moves but that never ended up being used for anything?). Controls were off, clicking on things which weren't right nearby often resulted in the characters walking past what you'd clicked on and not commencing interaction with it.
Pretty awesome/depressing all up.
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FF1 Mod of Balance- It's a fan mod that attempts to bring PSX/NES level challenge to Dawn of souls. I'm at Chaos.
The changes: EXP and Gil have been scaled down. Equipment prices are much higher, and there is much, much better gear in the stores to compensate. Some recovery items have gone up in price (Ethers have jumped from 50 gil to 1000 gil). There are now a dozen classes you can pick at the beginning, which range from pure fighters to pure mages. I ran with Master, Ninja, Priest, and Archmage. Enemies are generally stronger; notably so for Air/Fire/Water/Earth elementals.
The good: This mod fixed some things that absolutely had to be changed to give DoS enemies a chance. While he did cap temper spam at 2 castings per person, I found it to not be a notable limitation until Chaos. Enemies absolutely needed more durability and damage, which he gave them. Increasing the costs of ethers was such a no duh decision. Ribbons needed the nerf stick as well.
The bad: Okay. Here we go. That drop system? Everything drops something useful, including stat up items. The problem is that gil has been decreased so much that you are pretty reliant on getting lucky for drops early on for cash. Equipment is horrendously overpriced for the first third of the game or so. What makes it worse is that magic is still relatively cheap. The magic/physical balance is completely fucked until after you get the airship. Ethers are still insanely cheap for the value. Most of the game has your black mage spamming his best elemental damage, your white mage healing and your fighters taking on a secondary role. The pricing on gear gets better after the airship (More cash available for one, items take up less of your budget), but earl y on it's over the top. There wasn't much in the way of good challenge. Most of my resets have been from MT damage of doom, with a dash of status or two thrown into the mix. It's easier than FF1 PSX until the airship, where it gets steadily harder.
The ugly: Bosses. They are terrible until Tiamat's last form, which has no durability but can OHKO your fighters if you get unlucky. . Tiamat 2 was literally two resets until she didn't open up with her MT nuke. The guy who made the mod increased the range that spell damage can do. There's too goddamn much luck involved at points with evading magic and damage, and that gets old. Chaos is what pushed me from thinking it was a good attempt to bad fan hack range. He is close to unbeatable at my levels. I'm at L42 and OHKOed my entire team with Tsnaumi. What the fuck? Blink did absolutely nothing to slow down his physical either, it's either ITE or he has a lot of accuracy. Being completely unable to even slow down Chaos's HP or being unable to blitz him means you need more levels to just tank through his MT stuff. Scaling Chaos for doing side dungeons is a seriously poor choice, when the rest of the game clearly is not scaled for it.
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Penny Arcade 3: Finished everything (both endings, killed Molly, all classes to level 40). Pretty good game. Great variety and design on the enemies, good gameplay, entertaining writing. Wish things were set up to make class experimentation easier, but seeing your options is such a gigantic pain in the ass that I generally just coasted with whatever setup I had. Endgame relied on Tycho and Moira as buff and heal batteries while Jim debuffed and set up continuing damage (Bottled Rage plus Gardenar effects) and Gabe smashed. Very little can stand up to a Pain Eater/Power Up'd Devil Fist (although I did eat a reset on the Periphery fight because I dicked around too much with the second form and let the Gate build up damage).
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Wind Waker: Tingle is a fine example of an eviler, more capitalism fueled Snow
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Three guns at a time makes sense to me. You ever tried to carry three guns at once in a fashion that leaves you able to do stuff?
Deus Ex really isn't the kind of game that makes sense. And gameplay > Realism.
It doesn't matter anyway considering Grefter's previous point, ammo not weighing anything in the PC version anyway (Why did they change that in HR??) + the fact that you're actually limited to 4 guns in the PS2 version (+ a ton of grenades and every melee weapon)
Like I am not saying maxing it out is a great idea for all builds (which I assume you will do), but a point or so has an appreciable effect and is very affordable.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like most skills are like that. It just doesn't seem like master level is worth it, except for weapon skills? I've tried to go without one point in lockpicking but couldn't. Right now I just have 2 points in a bunch of skills, no skill having 3 points. (I'm going to master swimming ASAP anyway, yes)
I'm in 'ton hotel. Nice game so far, but I'm not crazy about it. You had to play it when it was released. I feel like Bloodlines, Alpha Protocol and Human Revolution have taken Deus Ex's ideas and went in much more interesting directions. (Now if only they could take the skippable bosses as well)
I also have an averse reaction to the 1998-2000 lifeless 3D N64ish look. Reminds me of Hybrid Heaven, Golden Eye, Vampire Redemption...
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I guess so? I don't really favour Environmental Training or Medicine at all, would consider Medicine an all or nothing skill (depending on whether you get Regeneration or Shielding for your chest slot. plz dont pick shielding). Lockpick and Electronics at 2 dots suffices, but there is enough skill points around to get 3 or 4 fairly easily.
Most people do focus on weapon skills fairly exclusively early on because they are damn good. Every point in them is generally fantastic (except for maybe Explosives). The jump in accuracy from Untrained to Trained is significant (speed boost for Heavy Weps is astounding). Trained to Advanced isn't huge for Low Tech, but if you fuck up stealth you will notice it (and if you are going to fuck up stealth you should be using the Charge Prod anyway since it gives huge margin for error). For Pistols it makes you accurate enough to handle yourself pretty well in a straight up firefight if you want to do one for some reason. Rifles, well rifles lets you shoot open doors with the sniper rifle (and makes assualt rifle pretty ridiculous). Heavy Weps it lets you be far more mobile. Advanced to Master on all weapons pretty much makes you a killing machine with near perfect accuracy on pistols, Low Tech you just do stupid amounts of damage (backed by the strongest weapon in the game....). Rifles is just downright stupid with 0 recoil on most guns and near perfect accuracy. Heavy Weps it lets you run at full speed with them. So you can do hit and fade guerilla strikes from vents with the Flamethrower which pretty much one shots everything in the game.
The dynamics from Heavy Weapons is the strangest and probably the one that rolls best on console, you can carry 4 weapons no matter how big they are. So Flamethrower, GEP, Plasma Rifle all entirely doable together where as in PC version you kind of restrict your other options while you build up to that point of downright broken. Mix it up with limited ammunition stock and probably having to leverage your way to the mid game off the strength of 10mm Pistol and Crossbow (and good stealth skills) it makes for a strangely shifting gameplay style. That said, Flamethrower is OP as fuck and your limited ammo does go a long way.
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TOPSP - Replaying this on the Chaos route. Good stuff.
(http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh292/atoth88/Tactics_Ogre/Chapter2/Ft_Bodo/image055.png)
I wish people said this to Kachua more often. (And the PSP version doesn't even give me this.)
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Theatrhythm - After about 51 hours I think I'm ready to declare myself done with the game. Notable accomplishments: recruiting all characters, clearing 99 dark notes, clearing all of Stoic Ultimate with S ranks. Most used characters where Lightning and Cloud overall, who are both really good (Cloud in particular is clearly the best character in the game) and personal favourites so yeah. Used lots of Squall, Terra, and Yuna as well.
Overall the game was pretty good fun. In theory I've always kinda liked rhythm games in principle, but (a) portable makes them way better, and (b) I am hugely biased towards this game's track selection. I guess a portable rhythm game all about 90's rock might be similarly appealing but no clue if one exists. The game also had some RPG elements (mostly relevant for chaos shrine) which I found neat to play around with, even if they're a bit unbalanced (FMS are too easy to care about, which ruins some characters like Tidus). It's almost certainly the best new game I've played this year but it hasn't really been a great year so far, no game has really blown me away and that includes this one, but it's good. (DMC4 or Portrait of Ruin is next best.) 8/10 I think. Will likely play again periodically at some point but for now it's time for a break.
SH3: Let's finish this off.
Lady (2 resets)
Level 46. Equipment is ultimate stuff, plus:
Shania: Flare Brooch, Thor's Belt, Crucifix
Johnny: Ashra's Earrings, Blood Jewel, Crucifix
Straightforward enough. Flare Brooch and Blood Jewel are to not worry about Sanity, Crucifixes render Ring Abnormality a non-issue, Thor's Belt boosts Shining Zephyr, and Ashra's Earrings are an HP boost which certainly does save my life on more than one occasion.
Lady works differently from most bosses. There are technically two targets, Lady and Malice Unbral. Lady's invicible to everything and although she gains stock, will never use it, while Malice Unbral has to be the target of all offence and stock control. Both get "turns" (and have different skillsets mechanically, though you have to memorise whose turns result in which moves, because animation-wise Lady does all the attacking), and although neither has quick hits, that's still two enemy turns every round, so it's higher offence than any previous boss. The one nice thing is that you no longer have to play the estimation game of when the boss' recharge rates will cause them to lap your PCs.
Lady's own turns are used for just two different actions under normal circumstances: Crimson Raid, which is just her basic physical (solid 2HKO), and Ring Abnormality, which inflicts Fast Ring and Reverse Ring on everyone. While these are non-random effects and hence not instantly fatal, they're still really bad as missing rings in this fight is terrible, hence the Crucifixes. Crimson Raid gets used the large majority of the time, as would be expected.
Malice Unbral has three different actions. One is Zeal Steal, which destroys one target's stock (without doing damage) and gives half that stock to Unbral. Unbral getting stock is really bad, but this being a turn spent not on offence is good. Unfortunately it has a faster than normal recharge time, unlike most everything else in this fight (Ring Abnormality might as well, not certain). So in theory, a chain of Zeal Steal, lap, combo is possible, but not likely unless both PCs acted just recently, especially given the speed boosts of my PCs' fusions. The remaining turns are used for area-of-effect attacks. Hex spells usually hit two PCs (the battlefield is tight, as for the Malice Soakers), while Camality Gaze hits everyone. Hex spells are only used if they will hit weakness, and solidly 3HKO against weakness (high 4HKO against Ashra's Earrings Awaker with ultimate gear). Calamity Gaze 3HKOs both (though not quite as strongly as Hex Glare against non-Tirawa Shania) and inflicts chain. Chain means the next Crimson Raid will be fatal.
If Malice Unbral builds up stock, you will eat a combo of Calamity Gaze into Malice Dirge (which destroys stock, as before, though that's the least of your worries). With my fusions, earrings, and ultimate armours, this combo is barely survivable at full HP. It is still not something to be seen if at all possible. a D-Combo will do over 800 damage and is obviously extremely fatal short of defending. The D-Combo can only reasonably be seen once, though.
Lady also uses a few other spells in specific circumstances. The battle's real gimmick lies in Lost Progress: if you use any buffs, Lady will counter by dispelling them. This move also has instant recharge so she gets another turn after, too. In theory this can be used to mess with turn order but I don't bother... I can't really afford to give Lady more turns. Also, the first turn below half HP, Lady will cast Entrance (fast recharge), leading to a fatal or near-fatal Calamity Gaze on the next Unbral turn. The first turn she gets below one quarter HP, a Cure which restores 10% HP comes, which just drags out the fight a bit. Finally, when Malice Unbral is defeated, Lady will cast Malice Dirge as a counter. This Malice Dirge is super-charged compared to the normal one. However, if anyone survives it, the battle is automatically won.
Anyway, this fight plays a bit differently from most. For starters, people dying is pretty much inevitable, so the focus needs to be one not having both die. This isn't as bad as in most fights as at least no buffs are lost. A Calamity Gaze followed by Crimson Raid is always fatal, for instance. Both PCs use Resurrection with immediate priority, of course. Otherwise, the two priorities are on healing and stock breaking. Hard Hit is of course the preferred method of stock breaking, but between Zeal Steal and Blood Jewel it isn't always possible, so Red Nova works if a bit laggy. For healing, Arc Cure and Shining Zephyr have to be used a LOT, as not being at full HP (or at least reasonably high on both) sets up possible paths to loss. Cure Plus and Thera Extracts also come out as well.
Shining Zephyr is absolutely huge in this fight. This can't really be emphasised enough. Very, very few turns can be dedicated to pure offence, and those won't have buffs. Shining Zephyr is not only reasonably damaging (over 200) but acts as a super Arc Cure, so priority is given to using it. This allows the battle to proceed at a reasonable clip. Since the battle is largely a waiting game of playing near-perfectly (a missed ring at a bad time can lead to a game over), having a healing spell which also deals over 200 damage is huge. I could have won this without the sidequests in theory, but it would have to be completely, 100% mistake-free for something close to an hour, so yeah. Here, the odd mistake is survivable... I do see one Double which I barely survive and am able to regroup from. However, many mistakes are potentially fatal, so yeah, the ability to speed up the battle helps.
MP restoration needs to be done now and then (Shining Zephyr is reasonably expensive) but I have a few Mana Extracts sitting around so it's not too big a deal. Sanity I actually never need to worry about, as Shania dies often enough and Resurrection brings it all back anyway.
The battle has nasty spots. The first is the opening turn. A D-Combo comes at the start of the battle and it's pretty hard to deal with. The possibility exists that Lady just goes first and I instantly lose, but isn't too likely... Johnny has more raw speed AND PCs have an advantage on first-turn initiative. As long as somebody goes first, the best strategy is actually just to defend rather than desperate stock-breaking... there's no risk of failure and all two stock get drawn out. Resurrection can follow.
The other nasty point is of course Entrance. Having the other PC Defend as I drop Lady below half HP helps... if time permits both PCs can defend, but the turn order needs to line up nicely for that.
Finally, I hilarioualy almost die to the final Malice Dirge because it is stronger than I expect. That would have been bad.
Not much to say about the fight past that! It is certainly one of the hardest on the challenge due to the low margin for error and of course it would have been insanely so had I not done anything optional. As is I had more trouble with Kerufe, probably, but that's about it.
Not much to say about the challenge overall. It made me learn a few things about the game.
-The Blood Jewel is terrific. At a cost of making you learn a new and marginally tricky ring, and taking stock away whenever it kicks in, it lets you completely ignore one PC's sanity. Hi Johnny. HI AWAKER.
-Fusions are really great. Especially after both PCs got them, I was able to keep my durability above where it "should" be with them and that made a big deal. There's also a nice speed boost. This challenge would have been notably harder with different PCs, particularly not using Shania (Johnny is kinda meh for a long time, although Blood Jewel negated one of his major disadvantages).
-Despite some similarities this game has some pretty sweet boss design. For the most part each subsequent one puts a new ripple on things and they are generally legitimately challenging which is great. I'm not sure what I think of the game's tendency to have status attacks which it rewards you greatly for using a guide and immuning but (especially the fatal stuff) but at least there are lots of unimmunable stuff as well (stat downs etc.).
-Randoms are much easier than bosses though not negligible. They're usually quite fun due to the system even if there's really little reason to wipe to them on a normal playthrough outside ambushes.
-Judgement ring is great. Definitely feels like a timed hit system for all levels of play due to the hit/strike thing, and all the statuses which mess with it (particularly pit fights) is good times.
Lots of fun.
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Tactics Ogre: Beat Heim, if barely!
Hanging Gardens? I entered, first fight enemies were level 22 to my 17 with much better gear and uh, yeah, winning that wasn't realistically happening seeing as it is a "Kill all enemies" mission. Guess I'm gonna have to grind a bit just to close the gap, because the current state is not looking good.
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I found the Hanging Gardens way easier than the boss fights at Barnicia or Heim, myself.
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You should look up the track list for Elite Beat Agents Elf. It isn't exclusively 90s rock, but it is pretty decent coverage.
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I played Elite Beat Agents for like 20 minutes years ago and don't remember being terribly enamoured with the music but someone else probably chose songs for me.
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Elite Beat Agents music is a bit too eclectic for its own good at times. It mixes stuff like generic nu rock and Queen and Rolling Stones and Destiny's Child. The songs do work in context, at least, but some choices are just kinda baffling. (Sk8r Boi? Seriously?)
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Heavy Rain: Had a borrowed copy of this sitting around for like a year, figured I might as well bash through it now since there's an opportunity to return the thing next weekend.
As a rule, I'm obliged to support experiments, even failed ones, but I can't say I'm much impressed by anything here. It really is Quick-Time Event: The Game. That's it! There's not much else one can say about the gameplay. It's reasonably forgiving, in that you don't always have to perfectly complete a sequence to make it through the scene--except when suddenly it isn't and you don't really know why and man why am I in an acid bath now, I didn't think I did that badly. When you have multiple options, it's not always clear what each one is going to do, which is frustrating (no, game, I didn't actually want to leave my partner to drown in the car while I swam away, goddammit). Every now and then one of your cues gets obscured by scenery, or it's hard to discern because your character's freaking out (an attempt to synergize plot and gameplay which I do not feel pays off constructively). It's just argh. I'd be more forgiving if it was in service of a decent story, but, well...
The developers obviously wanted the most detailed character models they could make, but the result is an effective demonstration that striving towards graphical realism doesn't automatically produce emotive and evocative characters. The adult character models generally look fine, but even then there's occasionally this slight jitteriness of movement to them that doesn't feel quite natural. And juvenile character models tend to come straight from Uncanny Valley, U.S.A.. Not to mention stuff like NPCs blindly walking into each other at the police station, which really pulls me out of the "Interactive Drama" box the game wants to play in and drops it right back into "Right, it's just another game with bad pathing."
Probably does not help that I'm considerably less than enamored of serial killer plots (that was by far my least favorite arc in L.A. Noire as well). The game's writing is never good enough to get around this. Profanity = gritty! Also Strong Female Characters. There is a female PC! Her first action is to get naked and take a shower, then have a nightmare about being assaulted by three masked dudes in her own apartment. She is regularly leered at by NPCs in almost all of her solo sequences. Nice work, writers! (I guess I should be fair and acknowledge that one of the male characters also starts the game by taking his clothes off...but somehow it doesn't feel as cheap there.)
The ending I got didn't make a whole pile of sense, either. Ethan gets to live happily ever after with his kid! Yay? I guess no one told the cops that he totally shot a dude in the head. Also apparently Jayden's a techno-ghost or something. What? I actually don't understand how the path I took to the ending could even remotely result in Ethan being free. "Yeah, the real killer was this private eye all along. We don't have any proof or anything because we killed him and his apartment blew up, but just take our word for it, it was him." Considering one of the only two people who can even vouch for that insubstantial a story happens to have been an extremely suspicious dude who was the police's main suspect and never bothered denying anything, it's really weird for everyone to be 100% convinced of the truth in the epilogue.
Maybe this would make more sense if the FBI guy had lived and put things together so that at least someone in a position of authority could've spoken up about the real story...but as it stands, I can't imagine Officer "Look, just let me beat a confession out of someone so I can clock out" Blake or Captain "You have to break a few skulls to make scrambled brains" Perry are gonna take the time to listen to anything that means they don't get to throw a triumphant press conference.
I will give it a little credit: the extended red herring actually fooled me. I'm kind of reminded of VP2, where for half the game you're too busy eyerolling about none of the characters noticing that SHE'S HRIST DAMMIT to even speculate whether anyone else in the cast might have their own secrets. Some of the VA cast does able work even if the writing usually doesn't deserve it (at the very least, Ethan's VA convincingly captures the visceral unpleasantness of cutting off your own goddamn finger). And they're actually very good about making tense moments feel tense with direction and audiovisual cues. Nothing that adds up to a commendable product, though. This just isn't a place gaming needs to go.
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Also Strong Female Characters. There is a female PC! Her first action is to get naked and take a shower, then have a nightmare about being assaulted by three masked dudes in her own apartment. She is regularly leered at by NPCs in almost all of her solo sequences. Nice work, writers!
I think my feminist senses just banged their heads against a wall until passing out from reading this.
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Bought a copy of Mother 2. Trying to play through it but it has this problem where if the console moves even slightly the game crashes and I have to restart. Frustrating.
I'm getting ready to fight Frank. Having to restart frequently makes the game really frustrating and I think I'll just download a rom after much more frustration. Turns out as far as Japanese study goes replaying RPGs in Japanese may be a great way to do it since I basically already know what people are saying. Also, given that I learned to read English in part thanks to these RPGs it just kind of makes sense. Plus I get to play Earthbound and call it studying.
Speaking of, at a store in the city, I bought boxes of SNES games that may or may not work. These things are kind of a lottery both because of that and because they only show you 12 of the 30 games you're getting. Incidentally, I now own a possibly-working copy of every SNES MMX game, a bunch of RPGs I may or may not care about, a possibly-working Super Mario RPG, and a possibly working FF6.
On top of that, I have a bunch of games that are complete ass. Like, just completely fucking awful. You think Breath of Fire sucks? FF4? Dragon Quest? Fuck you, these are worse. Turns out a lot of the games they weren't localizing is because they are fucking terrible. Of those that I've played so far, one is a shitty pachinko game, and the other is a VN game where you are a high school student and you need to box these guys in the boxing club but you don't actually control any of the fighting and it's just bad bad bad bad bad.
In related news, since I'm playing on a Super Famicom, does anyone have any idea on how I can stream these awful games for the amusement of the masses?
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Cid: I loved Heavy Rain, but yeah, ideally they'd have even more endings written for it. They have a pretty decent number already (like ~5 or so major ones IIRC?), but obviously some of them are a bit screwed up, and none of them really sell me on Ethan's relationship with the police. It seems to be either "shoot him on sight because that's what you do to suspects with their hands in the air right?!" or let him off totally. Needed to be more "rot in jail" versions, especially when Jayden dies as you apparently had him, and especially if you go through with the murder. For me, Jayden lived & Ethan didn't go through with the murder, so. Which brings up my only real complaint about the game... Okay, I respect the need to red herring you and give good indication to both the viewer & the police that Ethan is the killer, but. What the hell was Ethan doing with the origami?! He has way more of it than just the ones given to him in the letter. And for that matter his convenient blackouts right during hte kidnapping. Are we claiming that the killer magically knew he was going to have a blackout exactly at the right time? Oh well.
Madison is the most tacked-on of the 4 mains, no question. Oh well.
I abandoned my partner in the sinking car too, but when I realized I'd screwed up, I just paused & reset the PS3. Take that, autosave. That was BS enough it was worth circumventing. (Actually I tended to do that a lot, I don't take failure well. Stopped the store robbery, too.)
While the game is all Quick Time Events, it does things with QTEs no other game does, and figures out all sorts of interesting new things to do with 'em, so no complaints here as far as I'm concerned. It really did feel like an interactive movie thanks to well-done & innovative QTEs.
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Zenny: There is a thread regarding streaming, but to put a long story short:
- If the Super Famicom is connected to the TV, you'll need some sort of tuner. I'll probably get Pinnacle if you're not planning to do anything like recording since Hauppage is like $250 Canadian. Not sure if they sell those down in Japan, but there are probably equivalents. You may have to shop around.
- If you're playing by emulator, you can run a desktop capture program like ManyCam. May cause some lag though. As long as you don't care about that, it should be fine.
- If you know your computer stuff, install an internal tuner.
Right, games:
TOPSP - I'm trying to do some after-game stuff, namely getting equipment. If someone knows of a good way, let me know. Right now I am FAQing battles because TOPSP drops/recipes are the worst thing ever.
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FF1DoS Mod of Balance - did the Soul of Chaos dungeons, beat Chaos. I more or less agree with super with regards to what is good/bad/godawful about it. The hack didn't even change Chaos much, just boosted his attack a bunch and doubled his INT, which when combined with the changes to spell damage explains the mass OHKOings at levels one might otherwise consider sane. The shittiness of the optional dungeons is compounded by the schizophrenic level of challenge to boot. Just... ugh...
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Cthulhu Saves The World: Holy fuck did the challenge drop off a cliff at the end. Father Dagon is not especially challenging but when you first enter R'lyeh the enemies are reasonably dangerous, especially if you fight a bunch of Deep Knights with a heal-happy priest. Then you level up a few times and get innate Dark +50% and now Dark Slash overkills everything ever and the last two bosses die in like five rounds each, two of which are buffing turns. Cthulhu's Angels sometime soon, I guess.
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FF1DoS Mod of Balance - did the Soul of Chaos dungeons, beat Chaos. I more or less agree with super with regards to what is good/bad/godawful about it. The hack didn't even change Chaos much, just boosted his attack a bunch and doubled his INT, which when combined with the changes to spell damage explains the mass OHKOings at levels one might otherwise consider sane. The shittiness of the optional dungeons is compounded by the schizophrenic level of challenge to boot. Just... ugh...
What level did you beat Chaos at? I'm at L52 right now, still in the motherfucking Whisperwind cove. And Chaos's hit was massively jacked; he sliced right through Blink spam.
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Persona 4 Arena: I'm apparently maining Labrys.
Guild Wars 2: So yeah, I've been playing this too, I guess.
On the whole, I've been having quite a bit of fun. The action MMO move is pretty cool and the game does a lot of things very right. For example, the fact that I can pile in and murder mobs with other players and not be missing exp/loot is rocking. The quest system is enjoyable and really works well with the pile in gameplay and events. Events add variety to stuff to do when roaming around.
Skill variety is pretty cool and the weapon change makes it rocking.
That said, there are some things that really bug me. The game could really have used an actual tutorial of value. Engineer weapon kits REALLY need default auto-attacks (I can't imagine using them in PvP). Something about the interface is lacking. Camera hates life.
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I abandoned my partner in the sinking car too, but when I realized I'd screwed up, I just paused & reset the PS3. Take that, autosave.
I actually did this too. Usually I'd accept whatever happened, fair's fair, if I screwed up I'll live with the consequences. I'm pretty okay with the long-term effects of player actions turning out differently than expected (I actually wish more games could do this properly), but when it's not entirely clear what different buttons are going to make your character do immediately, that's too much bullshit for me to leave someone's fate to autosave. The only other time I employed the reset trick was when Madison jumped out the apartment window (in which case I really, really should've known better anyway).
Re: the police, Blake is just hilariously dumb. He's like a drunk terrier with a badge. Every single suspect you approach, "THIS IS THE ORIGAMI KILLER, PROBLEM SOLVED." And yeah, even the genuinely surprising reveal comes with its own caveats, mainly that some of the ways they maintained the lie are pretty artificial in retrospect: Ethan + origami, as noted (I'd actually forgotten this somehow!); deliberately omitting things your character does in the middle of an ongoing scene when Shelby kills Manfred (at least there would've been an excuse for this with Ethan and his blackouts); and that there's no reason at all for Ann Shepherd to whisper her son's name to Madison other than to keep the audience in the dark for a few more minutes. She was perfectly fine talking at normal volume for the rest of the conversation! That was otherwise a good scene, but having Madison look all shocked at the answer seems pretty silly in retrospect. She's never heard the name before! How could she be surprised about hearing it? It's annoying to see them force the lie like this when they were otherwise pretty good at it (basically anytime Shelby does something "helpful.")
I admit they were fairly inventive with the actual controller inputs. I would constantly mix up the "move right stick" and "move controller" messages, which bugged the hell out of me, but it's not like the icons aren't distinctly different, and I can't really get pissed at the game for me being incompetent. The thing is, even while I can understand why developers might want to employ QTEs, they've never felt to me adequate from the perspective of cinema or gameplay, and even a full-length game built around them hasn't managed to change that. And I love the idea of all these branching pathways, but it just doesn't gel in the ending (at least not the one I got).
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Sounds like you two are just FUCKIN' ASSHOLES.
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FF1DoS Mod of Balance - did the Soul of Chaos dungeons, beat Chaos. I more or less agree with super with regards to what is good/bad/godawful about it. The hack didn't even change Chaos much, just boosted his attack a bunch and doubled his INT, which when combined with the changes to spell damage explains the mass OHKOings at levels one might otherwise consider sane. The shittiness of the optional dungeons is compounded by the schizophrenic level of challenge to boot. Just... ugh...
That's what "old-school JRPG challenge is" mang. Time sinks in grinding for cash, time sinks in grinding for XP, random difficulty spikes requiring you to grind for XP again. Bosses didn't do things like "punish straightforward tactics," "used special fight mechanics" or anything, they just had really big numbers.
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There aren't really that many instances of forced grinding in old JRPGs. Mostly asshole Dragon Quest final bosses.
Deus Ex: Got my weapons back. I thought for a moment that I'd never find my modded autoaim autokill everything handgun, but there it was on the shelf (along with a few other mods!!)
It's cool to have different ways to finish objectives in this game. But honestly, who doesn't visit everything anyway? Like in Human Revolution, you often get goodies/ skill points / interesting stuff to see in every path, so you're compelled to do everything. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose?
Restricting yourself to one path actually feels like playing a challenge playthrough. It's nice when you know the game well; it puts you at a small disadvantage but allows you to blaze through it.
I doubt even 1 of Deus Ex's players out of 100 tried to do that on their first playthrough, and actually enjoyed it. (They'd get lost all the time too, backtracking without realizing it)
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Fenrir if you mean "went and explored the swimming tunnel alternate route in because maybe there are some potato chips there," then no, nobody did that.
That said I agree that the main base complex usually got a thorough investigation, especially in the 2nd half of the game. I usually felt that I only need to take one way "to" my objective, but once I got to the objective I'd explore it fully.
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Wind Waker: Beaten, this game makes OoT look like Super Meat Boy, but on the plus side I got to give Snow all my money. It's like S4 if Viki was a talking frog on a cloud except the boat doesn't control as awful.
LttP > LA > OoT > WW , I'm retro
God of War: In the desert temple, I don't actually need any buttons other than square, L1, and the analog sticks. Oh and R2 because for some reason they make you mash R2, nobody wants to mash R2.
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Fenrir if you mean "went and explored the swimming tunnel alternate route in because maybe there are some potato chips there," then no, nobody did that.
I dunno, this pretty accurately describes how I approached Human Revolution.
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I was there and gone like a thunderbolt. Bitch I'm a goddamn ghost. I got no time to poke around in sewers for candy bars.
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OMD2: Got to wave 44 in Wind up without a damage floor trap.That was pretty wtfy but fun.
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Wind Waker: Beaten, this game makes OoT look like Super Meat Boy, but on the plus side I got to give Snow all my money
<Nitori> I consider monetary abuse an avantgarde form of affection
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I finally got a 3DS, which means I got Theatrhythm. Still playing through the basic stages, which are annoyingly easy at this stage - going through games in order, and I just fully critical'd Terra's Theme.
Already cleared 3 Dark Notes and got 3 Indigo Shards as well as one Scarlet and one.. towards Cid, can't remember which it is. >.>;
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I was a one route guy in deus ex, but plenty of people I saw talk about the game said they explored everything.
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I explored everything in Deus Ex, but that is what I was used to doing after playing through the demo dozens of times prior to release.
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Dark Souls: Made a a new character so I could make an Enchanted+4 weapon without killing any bosses just to prove I could. Along the way blow-dart assholes in Blighttown respawned and cost me 11 humanity. Joy of joys.
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So interminable titanite farming with slugs and crystal golems? Fudo, I also go out of my way to break the game in half, but that's just masochism. Enchanted weapons aren't even that good! I mean, okay, for a starting PC I guess they're good, but they're still pretty squarely the worst kind of enhanced weapon.
I am positive blow-dart goons never respawn unless this was changed in the Prepare to Die edition. From what I've read poking around on the wiki, it does seem like there was a general patch implemented in that? Ninja ring nerfed, for one. Which is sad but pretty necessary. Random question about that, incidentally: at what point in the game does new content become accessible, and is any of it missable?
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Slug farming only took two trips, and while I normally end up drowned in Blue Titanite this time it took something like 25 trips(100 kills), not even including the ones that died during hydra attempts. Elementals have been nerfed too, and Raw and Crystal will still be worse always, not even counting Occult and Divine's specificness. Anyway, the Enchanted Claymore+4 has 400-some attack so it's all gravy.
They shouldn't. Even my first guy kills remained. But this one persistent asshole revived.
Flippy ring, Eagle Shield(95% phys wtf?), elementals on average have been nerfed.
New content is available once you place(PLACE, not get) the Lordvessal. It's fairly easy to miss(especially if you don't read item descriptions), but you can't lock yourself out of it.
real masochism is +15 normal before any boss
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Eagle Shield probably was slightly too good (I base this on the same standard as ninja ring--it basically replaces all other items of its type once I get it). Nerfing the physical reduction is a pretty weird way to fix this though, just because the thing looks like you're holding a damn wall in front of you. I can't say elemental weapons getting the nerfstick bothers me much. Anything that discourages darkwraiths from making low-level runs just so they can come back to Undead Parish and one-shot starting players with lightning katanas? Fine by me.
Also please tell me you haven't actually done that spoiler text.
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(Grats NEB)
Regarding Dark Souls: I like those nerfs. Fire and Lightning elements were too good, you could easily have a mage do extremely high damage with an elemental weapon with low requirements (A lightning club for example) Strength and dexterity always looked like lackluster stats.
Deus Ex: Guess I was wrong, I'm surprised by the few people who tried to be most efficient when playing Deus Ex for the first time.
It seems to me that the fun of the game lies more in exploration than anything else (exploration of the game world, and of the ramifications of the story. Stuff found on datapads and computers) Combat and stealth really aren't remarkable at all.
I'm well past the point where anything can be challenging even on realistic mode. I don't like using the word broken, but the regen aug is just plain broken. Every other aug is useless now. Well, I also use the one that lowers the cost of tevery other aug, and the Super Denton Bros super-speed super-jump, which cuts time and is fun to use. I've only raised those three augs so far, because the game doesn't really give a lot of opportunities to refill energy.
Super Denton Bros mode is great fun. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, I've managed to get into The Place Where I wasn't Supposed To Be, staring into the deep void that is the 2D background image. I imagine this is what the end of the world sounded like back when we thought the earth was flat.
Skills wise, I have level 4 swimming, level 3 gun/computers, level 2 hacking/lockpick, level 1 everything else.
I have rarely seen a game where the bad guys looked so incompetent. I'm just barging into their bases, triggering alarms that no one notices (this is no Goldeneye), blowing up everything they have, while they always seem to be one step behind. I'm travelling the city with superspeed, throwing around sofas, cutting their guards one by one with a lightsaber; no one ever notices anything. I'm supposed to be hunted and restless!
Worse than terrorists, and the majestic 12, the hardest enemies in the game by far are the ladder. I don't know how Denton uses a ladder, but this isn't the right way. Ladders have killed him about 15 times already.
I suspect Deadelus is Bob Page. Reasons: The magazine plot item with his face on the cover has been sitting on my menu screen for a long time now, while every other plot item has disappeared. I think it's a subtle way to remind you he exists. Human Revolution had Zhao Yun Ru as the exact same character as Maggie Show, so it might as well have Hugh Darrow as Bob Page too.
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It's a better twist than that.
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While elemental nefs are good for low-level PVP, they unfortunately get replaced with shit like this (http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/Fudozukushi/Dark%20Souls/2012-09-12_00002.jpg). Top of the guilty list with 60,000 sin.
not yet! and probably not period since ingward dropping the key is kinda buggy atm
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TO Remake: FINALLY up to the last map...which I seem to recall is actually 2 fights, but whatever. This final dungeon FINALLY has an end in sight. Yeah, if I ever replay this, I'm just going to agree that Heim is the last plot map <_<
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OMD2- Hit Wave 65+ on Endless mode. The floor teleporters are seriously freaking good. That, Zappers and the coin forge means you can last indefinitely. Wind is very good as well, as you are not killing anything with damage after wave 50 or so. I use the Sorceress for the Polymorph ring to deal with Mountain Trolls/Armored Ogres.
Mod of balance- Beat Chaos. He got crushed after I finished whisperwind cove (Shocking news, 15 levels helps!!). I really think it would have been an overall positive experience if the hacker had lowered weapon costs early, raised spell costs, and lowered Chaos's INT. As is, the game turns into Archmage splattering the world early, and Chaos being a straight up HP check. Blah. A shame.
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TO Remake: FINALLY up to the last map...which I seem to recall is actually 2 fights, but whatever. This final dungeon FINALLY has an end in sight. Yeah, if I ever replay this, I'm just going to agree that Heim is the last plot map <_<
Instead of starting a new file, it's often a better idea in TOr to just change all the PCs you want to use unlevelled classes and WORLD back to the beginning. All the enemy levels will be scaled back downwards, you get a chance to actually play with some of those lategame classes and recruit all the plot PCs from a different route while keeping access to your existing ones, plus they add a shortcut after the first Hanging Gardens map straight to the Andoras plot fight, which cuts out pretty much all the tedium.
I think there's also a shortcut in the Heim sequence, but I've never bothered to replay that so I can't confirm manually.
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Grandia 3: This Time With Sceneskip.
Not doing any kind of challenge or anything, just railroading to the best of my ability. I'm better just on account of paying attention to the battle system instead of just winging it like I did first playthrough. Setups are pretty much the same though, with liberal Galactic Bang for bosses and GT/MT goodness for randoms.
Game is tame early. Dragon Valley was still pretty nasty at times with the mounted lizards and the 3 Green Men fight. Yoat's temple and the boss fight there got to meet Fused Magic and die in a fire (I missed out on fusion magic before this and found the golems and boss fight very challenging my first time playing).
Excise Psis were of course the giant "Hope you've figured out this game by now!" but this time I actually had figured out the game and didn't wipe to any of them. I also used the Orb at various points up till them and it made life easier, as I didn't even pay attention to it last game till Melc Crystals.
I had forgotten how nasty the Vegas Jungle was. No restoration points anywhere but the entrance, and some REALLY nasty fights in the form of Alraunes, who can eat their allies and become bosses with like 300% speed and MT 2-3HKO and borderline ST OHKO. Not happy fun times when those things get going, so preventing them from eating allies is a must (kill them fast). There are a lot of these encounters however, which puts a crimp on resources considering there aren't restoration points. Damn Dirty Apes in the temple were annoying as hell a few times but judicious use of magic wiped them before they could get going with the fast and solid damage train. Found out that the otherwise Magic Immune Golems can be popped with Galactic Bang... It's doesn't OHKO them courtesy of that stupid Mdef but it does 2HKO them, which is all the doctor ordered. Well that and a bunch of MP restoration items since you really can't skimp against the damn Forest Guardians. 3 boss fights in a row with no restoration before or during, to top off a nasty dungeon set. Yar.
Melc Crystals were a lot easier this time. Seiba at the start of the fight followed by utter and complete stomping via the girls Galactic Banging while Yuki Absolute Zero'd and Ulf... did stuff. A. Lot. Easier. The dungeon itself was tame enough minus the fight against two Red Beasts, which got tricky, and a fight against a Hyudra I underestimated and had to use Yoat to bail out of.
Beginning of the floating continent Sumeria was tame. Randoms didn't threaten me and Violetta got Unama'd and died before she saw a single turn. Take THAT, bitch. Stretch up to La-Ilim did nothing but serve to give me a level and recharge my Orb. I think there was some kind of cutscene in there but sceneskip. La-Ilim didn't even justify the Orb usage since his Dragon died fast and then he joined it in hell very shortly thereafter while I cancelled him and his silly Skull. Emelious DID justify an Unama'ing, so after about 2 Galactic Bangs he got it and summarily died before he saw another turn. I think his sword was dangerous or something, but who knows? He should have known that you don't fuck with dolphins.
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Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition: And thus all was right with the world. (http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/Fudozukushi/Dark%20Souls/2012-09-13_00001.jpg) Manus will die later today/early tomorrow or my name isn't.
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Tactics Ogre- Bought this for the trip. Kachua is as pathetically clingy as I remember.
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Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition: And thus all was right with the world. (http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/Fudozukushi/Dark%20Souls/2012-09-13_00001.jpg) Manus will die later today/early tomorrow or my name isn't.
Is that a Taurus Demon OHKO I see? Also I could've sworn "YOU DEFEATED" got patched out of existence...
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Mario and Luigi 3 Bowser's Inside Story
Dear diary,
So today has been a really, really bad day. Princess Peach called a meeting to deal with a public health crisis and forgot to call me! Don't I live in this kingdom too? When I dropped in on her meeting to let her know that she'd wronged me, she had her lapdog plumber attack me! And as if that's not enough, she used some cowardly magic to weaken me so he'd beat my easily! Grrr... I bet she's been doing that every time I've fought Mario! It's the only way to explain my losses!
Anyway, after I was unceremoniously thrown out of her castle (for the crime of... showing up? Scaring some Toads? I'm still not sure), this merchant offered to sell me a mushroom which would give me the power to beat Mario. Now, I never should have trusted this guy, but I was angry, and weak. I figured if that royal brat and moustache man could cheat, then I could too! So I went back and challenged Mario again, and... I'm not exactly sure what happened next. Some voice in my head calling itself Chippy told me I ate everyone, but I'm not sure I believe that crock. It doesn't matter much anyway. What DOES matter is I lost my ability to breathe fire! I'm a lean, mean, fire-breathing machine, so this was absolutely unacceptable!
But ooh, what really gets me? That merchant who sold me the mushroom showed up again and said he had taken over my castle! I am so. blasted. SICK of people taking over my castle. Apparently my minions put up a pathetic fight in the castle's defence, which honestly sounds about right. (I need better minions.) The merchant (who is named Fawful and talks like a complete moron, by the way) showed me my captive minions on a TV he was carrying around, and said that he had prepared a crying room in my castle for me and my minions! A crying room! Who does he think he is? Powerful, muscular, and intelligent koopa kings don't cry, as we all know! Anyway, he ranted about having chortles and flew off. This guy is messed up. I don't think I've ever been barred from my own home from someone who is this much of a nutjob.
Anyway, around this time that weird voice in my head said that it had fixed my fire-breathing ability, and wouldn't you know it, the voice was right! First good thing that happened all day. But then! I offered to make him my new minion and he turned me down. I made sure to rescind the offer immediately, as I'd never live it down if word got out that anyone turned down an offer to be my minion. My street cred would be ruined.
So I breathed fire on a lot of idiots, and punched the ones that couldn't be lit on fire, and life was good. Fawful's minions are no match for me! I even discovered and rescued one of my sets of minions, the goomba squad! Now I can show enemies the true might of the Koopa Troop. Our secret weapon is for all the goombas to charge, and I light the goombas on fire as they do so for an unstoppable, firey assault! I am such a genius, sometimes I amaze myself!
I found a second group of my minions. These ones were too useless for anything related to combat or recon, a pack of grade-A morons. But they had managed to save a banzai bill launcher from my castle! We just needed a banzai bill to use as ammo. I sent them off to look for one but of course they didn't find one, the useless buffoons. I have to do everything myself! So I went looking, and I found a veggie garden. And in this veggie garden was a huge carrot, twice as big as me (which is very impressive, as you know). So I pulled the carrot out to use as a makeshift banzai bill. For some reason this pissed off a wiggler who was some sort of gardener. I don't really understand why, what does he see in some useless veggies? I was about to light the moron on fire, but then he said that he had a banzai bill, and he'd give it to me... as long as I showed "respect" for his weird lifestyle by eating the carrot I had pulled.
Now, I hate veggies, but I'm a reasonable koopa king. I honour my word. This guy wanted to trade my eating of this gross overgrown root for a banzai bill? Yeah, I could do that. So I ate the whole thing. It made me really sick; that "Chippy" voice says it had parasites, which sounds right. And after I had finished? Get this: the wiggler attacked me, prattling on about "how dare you pull out my veggies without permission and then eat them". Um, earth to idiot caterpillar! YOU were the one who insisted I eat the damn thing! And it nearly killed me! Fortunately after I introduced him to the unstoppable might of Bowser's fist, he remembered his deal and gave me my banzai bill.
So I got back to my cannon, and I fired it at my castle, planning to show Fawful who was boss. Now - and this is where shit gets weird - right before the banzai bill made impact, the castle jumped and avoided it! And then it flew through the air. And then it fell on me.
... I think I might be dead.
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Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition: And thus all was right with the world. (http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/Fudozukushi/Dark%20Souls/2012-09-13_00001.jpg) Manus will die later today/early tomorrow or my name isn't.
Is that a Taurus Demon OHKO I see? Also I could've sworn "YOU DEFEATED" got patched out of existence...
If the wiki's right(1,250 HP for it) it should be actually. That kill was phantoming(obviously) and I still did 1,500 damage with the plunge, so yeah. Probably gonna do it for REALZ with Power Within, and Red Tearstone Ring if I feel cheeky.
YOU DEFEATED was patched out. I patched it back in because it is the ULTIMATE of Dark Soulsness.
Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition:
~Super Duper New Content Spoilers~! love dat tilde
After far far too damn long I finally managed to ass myself into finishing off the DLC. First up is Black Dragon Kalameet who's a stupid asshole. He is painfully easy--especially for a DLC boss--but has the caveete of having a tail weapon and NEVER FUCKING DROPPING HIS TAIL. Seriously, he has three moves where he drops it, one of which is actually too short a time on the ground to actually hit it, and the other two moves he really, really hates using. I swear I spent an hour on the tail run because he just doesn't drop the damn thing ever.
The weapon is pretty damn awesome though. Greatsword with slightly less than BK Sword requirements, 480 pure physcial damage at +5(320 at base), is enchantable, and the two-hand heavy doesn't actually suck!
Anyway, over to Manus attempts today. After failing twice as MAXIMUM AROTRIAS I switch over to hobo-Ciaran. That.... doesn't work out either. So then I switch out for crazy-joe slipshoddy whatever. Anyway, Manus himself is very fast, pretty damn defensible, and brutally unrelenting. By the time you notice he's not attacking you you've already lost enough time not to heal. His attacks hit hard, so my first try with the Grass Crest Shield+10 ended up draining all my stamina. Despite having an actual healthbar, unlike YOU DEFEATED above, he still does a lot of damage. Especially when he does his grab, or busts out his best Street Fighter impression, or feels like summoning the hell that is his magic. But luckily I have some aces in the hole! The Oolacile mobs drop Large Titanite Shards with alarming frequency so I go and upgrade a Tower Shield to +10 and am now up to 80 Stability from 61! Now only most of my stamina is gone! There's also Power Within to let me do 500 damage a hit with my BKS+5, andsuper special super spoilary guest phantom Great Gray Wolf Sif to give you breathing room! Said phantom is also nigh immortal because holy shit 3,000 damage from a Manus attack only took maybe 1/5 a lifebar off. Said phantom isn't very damaging, but is a distraction which is priority one. So after a dozen failed tries, crazy-joe random finally emerges victorious! Before Power Within even ran out!
With the Father of the Abyss slain, Dusk is saved and I get some delicious Mushrooms for my trouble. Along with the most depressing cutscene ever. Yay.
~OH NOES THE NEW CONTENT ENDED~
Gonna go kill the remaining NPCs later at endgame, but other then that and farming, not much else to do other than chievies!
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Elfboy is Cersei now? I guess that changes up how I would cast Game of Thrones significantly now. Ciatos is a pretty good Robert Baratheon though.
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Mario and Luigi 3 Bowser's Inside Story
yessssssssssss
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EVERYTHING IS AWESOME
<3<3<3
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Mario and Luigi 3 Bowser's Inside Story
Whoa! It's like I stepped into RPGDL 2006.
<3 <3 <3
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RPGDL 2006 would be WA4 craze.
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Whatevs, the point is it's a year where people were still writing cute vignettes like this.
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Vignettes are timeless and bound only to our laziness~
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Bowser's Inside Story is pretty fucking hilarious.
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Bought Final Fantasy Dimensions for the iPhone. It is way overpriced, but whatevs. It is your basic FF1/FF4 storyline with FF5's job system. It looks and sounds like it was made with RPGmaker 2k. (And seriously... -buying- spells again?) The iPhone controls are clunky, but credit where credit is due, they gave you like 6 different control schemes to choose from and you can switch between them on the fly, so maybe they'll feel better as I get used to one control scheme. Auto-Battle from FF4 Complete is back and it is marvelous.
The writing is just kinda there, which makes it better than FF4/FF4-2 at least. And it seems to be at least -trying- something what with the two different sets of Crystal Warriors PoVs.
It actually seems like a pretty fun on-the-go FF experience, but I wish the music was better.
The game at least lends itself to stat topiccing, unlike FF5. All of the PCs are either Temps with set jobs or Main Crystal Warriors who can change jobs, but all of them started with innate job skills. So that's kind of cool.
Sol - starts with the Warrior innate, Counter
Nacht - starts with the Thief innate, Flee
Aigis - starts with Red Magic and Cover
Diana - starts with White Magic
Glaive - starts with the Monk innate, Focus
Alba - starts with Black Magic
Dusk - starts with White Magic
Sarah - starts with no skills, but comes equipped with a Whip, a Summoner-only weapon (at least for the first set of jobs)
Elga - Temp, is a Red Mage.
I might try to run them in their base classes just to get DL-legal info, but that doesn't seem like nearly as much fun as a Four Shirtless Monks party...
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Didn't they want like 30 bucks for that shit?
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It's 2.99 for Ch. 1, then 9.99 each for Ch. 2, 3, and 4. These chapters are each multiple chapters themselves from what little research I've done on finalfantasy wikia. The 'bundled' package is 28.99. The Prologue chapter is free (and notably doesn't contain any job changing... WTF? Terrible demo).
It is -not- an iphone game worth $30, no. With any luck, it'll actually drop in price to reasonable levels. Obvious naked cash grab is obvious~
The gameplay itself manages to be solid -in spite of- its nature as an abomination of capitalism, not -because- it's a SquareEnix game.
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FFVII- Playing the PC Rerelease of this on my laptop. Saved in dat guy's house before the Great Glacier. Running Cloud/Tifa/Red XIII. Teh bunnies are evading Cosmo Memory ;o Not all limits are ITE? ~
Maybe none of them are and I just thought so >_>
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Limits are only 255% accuracy. They can be theoretically evaded. EDIT: There are FF7 enemies with "evade #% of attacks regardless of accuracy" tags as well, so there's that.
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Limits can miss if you have Fury Status as well.
That said, Bunnies in Icicle Inn have a flat out 15% chance to evade any physical it seems, if I'm reading this right, which bypasses any accuracy concerns.
FF7 has a bunch of random factors in evasion and accuracy in any event. In fact, a character's own personal accuracy takes Evasion into account...as in, Mystile boosts the accuracy of the character its equipped it....because it already wasn't good enough.
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A record of the rule of an awe-inspiring Koopa King, part 2:
Dear diary,
Where did we leave off last time? Oh right, I had just been crushed by my castle.
I've always said that trying times will show us who is the bigger man. Turns out then when times get trying, I am the biggest man of all (as expected). I figured if my own castle was going to attack me, I would have to show it who was boss. I'm the master of the castle; it is not the master of me! The only solution was for me to grow to about twenty times my normal size and give it a pounding. Yes, it was time for my enemies to know the wrath of GIGA BOWSER.
Anyway, my castle was being commanded by some pink rhinoceros named Midbus. I think his name is supposed to be some sort of terrible pun but I refuse to think about it too hard. He tried to attack me by sending out swarms of shyguys in airships, but fire cleansed everything. I was a little concerned with how easy I was able to defeat my own minions, but I guess that's what happens when they lack the morale boost that only comes from working for me! Eventually I pounded the castle enough that it fell to the ground again.
Unfortunately around this time I returned to my normal size. This wouldn't be so bad except that it happened in about an instant and my centre of gravity didn't change as it happened, so I found myself floating in mid-air and fell to the ground. Ow. I knew the day had been going too well. I asked Chippy if he knew any way for me to return back to my more fitting, giant size, but he babbled something about it only being possible in dire situations. Well screw that! First thing I do after I get my castle back and using Fawful as a baseball bat is to get my minions to work on finding a way to make the transformation permanent.
So anyway, I stormed up to the gates of my castle. Midbus appeared on the battlements and babbled that now we could have a "fair" fight because I was my normal size again. His idea of a fair fight was apparently to fire a giant cannon at me from the safety of my own castle. But you know what? I'm such a badass, I caught the cannon ball (which was several times my size) and threw it back at him! Oh yeah, sometimes even I have a hard time wrapping my head around my own awesomeness. My castle took some pretty serious damage from the impact, but fortunately my minions worked quickly and bandaged all the structural damage up. I kinda wish I didn't mean that literally, but oh well.
I needed that taste of victory to put me in a good mood, because what followed next was absolutely horrible. When I got inside my castle, I found my minions prattling on and on about how great Fawful was. His perfect teeth, his delightful manner of speech, the height of fashion that is his swirly glasses... it seriously pissed me off! Fawful had also taken to redecorating the place, putting swirly glasses on all the images of me inside the castle! Stealing my castle, brainwashing my minions, messing with my perfectly-chosen decor... this jerk is going to pay!
Anyway, apparently Fawful has been putting on theatrical performances in my castle while planning the takeover of the Mushroom Kingdom (because, according to one of my brainwashed minions, "everyone needs to have a hobby"). I figured I would check out this theatre, but when I got there, there wasn't a seat in the house! I'm the Koopa King, first-class VIP, you can't do this to me in my own castle! Eventually after I made my complaints known, I finally found someone non-brainwashed enough to give me a seat. It was attached to a suspicious-looking mechanism but it was large and throne-like, so I figured at least someone here was showing me the respect I deserved.
But even that respect turned out to be a ruse! After Fawful appeared and gave an opening speech to thunderous applause (a speech which wouldn't have inspired even the most insipid of Toads were it not for the brainwashing), he had the chair I was sitting in catapult me onto the stage! He then put me in a cage with Midbus, prattling about how our battle "would unfold like an angry dip of many layers on the chips of wildest hopes". What. Just... what. Anyway, I had been looking forward to pounding that rhinoceros in the face, and wasn't going to back down from the opportunity.
After my inevitable victory, it was time to move on the main event: punching Fawful in the face and getting my castle back! But Fawful had prepared a victory feast for the winner, and it would be rude and uncultured of me to turn that down. And it was delicious! No veggies to be seen this time, just tender cuts of meat and decadent desserts as far as the eye could see! I ate my fill, but the chef boos insisted so politely I keep eating, that I just couldn't let them down! So I ate and I ate and I ate. I think... I gained a lot of weight, for some reason.
And then the floorboards cracked and I fell, getting stuck in the floor. And now I can't get myself out. This sucks.
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Final Fantasy Dimensions:
Actually still playing this! It really does feel like FF4-2 + FF5 Job system, but without all the stupid plot. Not that there isn't -more- FF4-2 stupid here. Not only are there level caps, there are JOB LEVEL caps by chapter. In Ch.1, all of the jobs have a level cap of 3 and no method for raising it until you beat the first chapter.
Not one to waste perfectly good Job exp, this meant that I couldn't focus on any Jobs and most of my characters ended up at Lv17 with 3 to 4 maxed jobs by chapter's end. Kinda lame when I was trying to specialize.
Come Ch.2, they give me 5 JP each, which can be used to raise a Job's level cap by 1 for each JP. So now I'm looking at a max of 8 for any -single- job, and then if I wanted to level any others, too bad. Kinda sucks. Hopefully more JP will be given out before the end of this chapter.
Still haven't gotten to play as the Dark Warriors since the beginning. The Light Warriors are so freakin' -boring-...
Current Team:
Sol (Warrior 5, Monk 3, RedMage 3)
He starts with Counter, which makes him the best physical fighter I've got (for other PCs to learn Counter, they need to either be -in- Warrior class, or get to Warrior Lv 5). He mastered Warrior 3 really fast, so I moved him to Monk, which also maxes out fast. So he spent the majority of his time in Red Mage, learning HP+20%. As a result, he ended up not being all that great for the majority of the chapter. Back to Warrior now, so he's pwning n00bz left and right now.
Aigis (RedMage 5, Warrior 3, Monk 3, WhiteMage1)
Starts with Red Magic, so I probably should have started him in a different class so he could have learned some passives to go along with his skillset. Anyway, he mastered Red Mage first and got HP+20%, then spent the rest of the time owning people as a Warrior or Monk with his innate Cover skill. MVP for Ch. 1.
Dusk (WhiteMage 5, Thief 3, Red Mage 3)
Starts with White Magic, so I made him a White Mage... great for MP early on! When I made him a Thief, he spent -way- too long learning things and had no MP. Steal was nice for keeping my Potion supply high, but otherwise Thief sucks and doesn't have enough MP to even use him as a backup Cure battery. Ended up in Red Mage for HP+20%, but his MP still hasn't recovered from Thief levelling. Possibly LVP?
Sarah (Summoner 5, BlackMage 3, Thief 3)
Except that Sarah is in the running for LVP. Built her as a Mage, but Magic is pointless for anything earlygame, Physicals own face and MP restoration is rare. Only really useful during boss fights, though it's notable that Sylph spam owns bosses hard in Ch. 1. (Too bad there's only like 3 bosses this early.)
Elgo (RIP)
Is the Temp Red Mage! Considering how much time my other PCs spent as Red Mages, Ch.1 feels like the Red Mage equivalent of a sausage fest. He -does- start out with Raise, Fira, Blizzara, and Thundara, so he was useful in boss fights and his MP reserves weren't bad so he made a good Cure battery. Doesn't gain Job Levels, though, so a little hampered in the customization department. Also made it so I was constantly switching equips around and there were never enough good Red Mage equips for everyone. He leaves at the end of Ch.1 to make way for the inevitable next "Fifth Party Member". Has a jaunty brown Red Mage's hat.
So... if anyone decides to play this game, learn from my cautionary tale: Don't start all the characters out in the Jobs that they seem designed for, it is not efficient since it means they won't learn any skills from their early level ups. Don't use Thief if you can help it, especially for your Mages, the speed isn't worth the MP hit. Sylph owns bosses. Team of 4 Warriors also probably owns everything, but you max out Warrior/Monk too quickly so stagger your team as best you can. Red Mage takes forever to max out, and it rewards you with HP+20%, so you should probably take most of your characters through it in Ch.1.
If I were to do it all over again more efficiently, it'd probably be something like:
Sol: RedMage->Monk->Warrior
Aigis: Thief->Warrior->RedMage->Monk
Dusk: Warrior->RedMage->WhiteMage
Sarah: Summoner->BlackMage->RedMage
Elgo: Constant RedMage hogging all your RedMage equips *shakes fist*
Starting with Ch. 2, you can actually raise the max J.Lvl, so there's a bit more flexibility on if you want to focus on one job or play with a whole bunch. I'll probably go back to the "DL-style" focus on one job here, depending on whether I get more JP or not.
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It's 2.99 for Ch. 1, then 9.99 each for Ch. 2, 3, and 4. These chapters are each multiple chapters themselves from what little research I've done on finalfantasy wikia. The 'bundled' package is 28.99. The Prologue chapter is free (and notably doesn't contain any job changing... WTF? Terrible demo).
It is -not- an iphone game worth $30, no. With any luck, it'll actually drop in price to reasonable levels. Obvious naked cash grab is obvious~
The gameplay itself manages to be solid -in spite of- its nature as an abomination of capitalism, not -because- it's a SquareEnix game.
The iPhone port of FF2 is still like $10 and FF2 is a game that only got made because the director was blackmailing the board of directors. That shit's never coming down in price.
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Wild ARMS 4 Speedrun - Finally past Enil after learning Genocide Edge right there and then. Must have 150+ resets or something silly. Anyway, onto the train now. Immediate problems:
- Arnaud is missing like 1000 EXPs because last run he took some kills from Raq. This means that I am short 10-13 points of MAG and it makes killing those Dreadnaughts with Hi-Breaks extremely unreliable. To make things worse, while Raq can solo the train more or less, I need Arnaud to be at level 25 at the end of this. This means that I have to get Arnaud the kill on those Dreadnaughts via Genocide Edge. When you combine the ID rate with the Counter needed on Tank Vehicle PLUS the fact that the move runs off HIT (...), you know this is going to suck really really fast.
Up 12 minutes now. TRIVIA - If I manage to reduce my time by another minute, I'll be 1 hour faster than when I first started running WA4. Talk about coming a long way.
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Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition: Splitting up updates into character-centric because it will be easy.
Gentleman Joe: The first guy. Did Lost Izalith stuff. Demon Firesage is a joke as usual, especially with the Greatshield of Artorias. Go back to the Daughter of Chaos to open the shortcut and realize what my TRUE GOAL now is, becoming the master of spider husbandry. So anyway I go through the shortcut, kill the maggot, head into Izalith to get the phantoms and Siegmeyer. Then realize I hadn't done the swamp part of his yet. Anyway Kirk dies, Chaos Fire Whip get. Head back out, save Sieggy in the swamp, go back to Firelink, back to the Aslyum, get the Old Witch's RIng for the first time ever. Anyway, back over to the Centipede demon, and it's my first time actually fighting the Centipede demon in melee though. Well, Solaire and me still kick his ass pretty bad. Izalith goes swimmingly--the very second Chaos Eater I ever kill n the PC drops a Red Titanite Slab which is awesome since the DLC is missing its Red Slab for some reason. Head over to Siegmeyer and... fail in saving him. URGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Well, first time seeing the Speckled Stoneplate ring then. Yay? Bed of Chaos dies but who cares so's Siegmeyer.
Go down to Ash Lake anyway to get Dragon Scales for the Obsidian Greatsword. Hydra's still a joke. Get the Dragon Covenant chievie too. Since I'm missing one dragon scale I head back to Vally of the Drakes to get it. Also to die a half-dozen times against the Drakes. After that display of patheticness I go and test out the Tracers since I actually have enough DEX for them now. They're spiffy. Anyway, Seethe is next, that'll go swell.
Ugly Joe: Enchanter Clarmore+4 without a boss dead guy. Just some Taurous Demon kills. 1,400 damage on one of them. :psyduck: Anyway, my vague plan is to let someone/anyone here make me suffer and pick what I should do. With vague this is my order otherwise.
-Go kill Pinwheel and get the Silver Serpant Ring for maximum comedy. Also join the Gravelord Servant.
-Kill Gargoyles and Quelaag to open up Sen's and farm for a Symbol of Avarice for SUPER-maximum comedy.
-Kill Taurous Demon in one hit.
-Try and Kill Capra Demon in one hit.
-Troll in Depths with Gravelord Servant.
Handsome Joe: WANTS A KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS!
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A record of the rule of an awe-inspiring Koopa King, part 3:
Dear diary,
Okay, I'm so mad right now. Really hopping mad. So it turns out that when that Chippy voice in my head told me I had eaten everyone, he may have been telling the truth. At the very least, apparently I inhaled Princess Peach. Which means... I had actually kidnapped her without knowing it! Yeah, I'm so awesome I can do that without even trying.
But that Fawful! That dirty little sneak! While I was trapped in the floorboards of my own castle, he snuck up on me and hit me with some sort of raygun which extracted Peach from me. And now that creep has kidnapped her! And as I've ranted before, nobody has the right do that except ME! I took some solace in the fact that he almost broke his back trying to carry her off (he ordered Midbus to help, but Midbus ignored him. See, Fawful? That's what your minions will do to you if you don't have Koopa King-level charisma).
Anyway, after that I found a fast-moving treadmill and I ran on it until I worked up a killer sweat and burned off all that fattening food from earlier. It was such an intense workout I literally caught fire! Armed with my freshly-honed muscles and the flames of determination, I set out to find Fawful and recover my princess. Sadly, all I found was a crate full of bob-ombs. They didn't take to my newfound elemental mastery well, and the next thing I knew I was flying halfway across the kingdom.
After I came to my senses, I found myself in some cave. I wandered until I stumbled upon more of my minions: a pack of Monty Moles I had previously tasked with digging their way into Toad Town as one of my many backup schemes to take over this stupid kingdom. Of course, they were incompetent and made no progress, so I had to push their drill myself until we collectively made it to the Toad Town sewers. I strode boldly forward...
... and got electrocuted by the town's security system. This sucks.
As I lay there helpless, I heard that fingers-on-a-chalkboard sound that is Fawful's hideous laughter. He was babbling about using Princess Peach to gain control of the tremendously powerful Dark Star. He disabled the security system in order to get it, so I was able to finally move on, but I was one step behind! But no matter: Peach, her castle, and this Dark Star will all be mine!
Eventually I made my way to the surface of Toad Town, but the way into Peach's castle was blocked by barriers of darkness so powerful that they didn't yield even to my fist! Now I want this Dark Star even more! I went looking around town for another way in, and that's when my day went from bad to worse. That's right, I stumbled upon none other than Mario (and, uh... green stache)! The plumbers didn't seem to want me to get the Dark Star, probably because they're jealous morons who wouldn't know a good leader if he punched them in the face.
It was a close fight, since Mario didn't have the cheaty power of cheating on his side this time. I feel like I actually prevailed despite being outnumbered, but then time rewound and I lost. I think I heard Mario say something about it being "the hardest fight in the game yet" but that doesn't make any sense and anyway it's hard to understand him with that ridiculous accent he has. Fortunately I have many weapons, and when my muscles fail me, I always have my brains. So I pretended to be unconscious and Mario and green stache discussed their next move: to track down three "sages" who might know how to overcome the dark barriers and reach Peach's castle. After some toad suggested that one of the sages lived in the nearby Dimble Woods, I got up and was off there faster than a bullet bill out of a freshly-oiled cannon. I'll be the one who gets to Peach's castle first!
To get to the woods I had to navigate past a lake, and although I came across some obstacles, I destroyed them by moving a sailboat with my sneezes. Yes, I never actually noticed this until now, but even my sneezes are so powerful and awesome they can get things done. I got past the obstacles, and rescued some more of my minions. Then I discovered an airship, so I figured to go with what was working, and sneezed on it too. It worked! The airship started up and flew into the sky!
And then it fell on... yeah, you get three guesses as to which peerless specimen of turtle royalty it fell on, and the first two don't count. It's just been that kind of week.
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I Am Alive- Bought this on Steam the other day. It is... kind of like if you made a game out of The Road, but with more action, because it's a video game, dumbass.
Made by Ubisoft, so it uses a lot of the Assassins Creed style free running, but with a twist: you have a stamina gauge that depletes as you climb, so just like an actual climber (as opposed to the Amazing Spider-Ezio) you have to actually plan your ascent before you begin, and if you dick around too much you will exhaust yourself and plunge to your death. So it's a challenge of pathfinding as much as anything, and then you have to memorize your route and execute. You can also consume water or whatevs to replenish your stamina somewhat, but like I said: this is a game based on The Road. That shit doesn't grow on trees.
This game is very brown and gray. Not in a Gears of War way, but like when they made the movie version of The Road with Viggo Mortensen, brown and gray. Society has collapsed, everything has gone to shit, and dust storms choke people to death while earthquakes collapse buildings. NPCs are wearing multiple layers of scrounged clothing and so on. It is an extremely dismal game world so far. The dust storms have an in-game effect, too: if you have to go out in one, and are at street level or just a little above it, it will drain your stamina and health, potentially becoming lethal. As a result, you dart from spot to spot high up, using the vantage to plan a route beforehand. Running about like a goon will only get you killed.
NPC behavior is quite interesting and a highlight of the game so far. Different NPCs have different types of behavior: some are just suspicious, defending their territory, and some see you as someone to kill and take things from. Those who are aggressive can sometimes be cowed by pulling your gun or backing up and not making sudden motions. When shit does go down, it tends to do so in a hurry. Guns are treated like guns in the Road Warrior: bullets are precious resources to be carefully husbanded, and threatening people with an empty gun can do wonders. And when you actually pull the trigger, they look the fuck out. In a fight with four men, two with guns and two with knives, I had to lure the first guy into range where I could open his neck with a surprise attack, then whirl around and shoot the second gunman. Both drop their guns, and if you don't pick them up, the two guys with knives will. Now, if you do everything right, you can simply point your gun at them and they'll start backing off, because you just shot two guys and they don't know HOW many more bullets you have left. On the other hand, if you get overzealous and make the deadman's click, bluffing with your gun becomes useless and they'll rush you. Knife fighting is an exhausting thing and trying to fight two people at once will usually get you killed unless you can somehow divide them up or ambush one. You can also use the environment to save bullets. I bluffed a guy into putting his hands up and getting on his knees before I kicked him off the edge of a roof, for instance. Saved me from using my only shot.
All in all I'm really enjoying it so far, and it was only 15 bucks. I am interested to see where the game goes from here.
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Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition.
Handsome Joe: Handsome Joe has a problem: he's just TOO damn handsome. This led to a lot of resentment during his fledgling years, so in order to best give himself a defense he became an accomplished pugilist. This also unfortunately gave him quite the temper in the manner of YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS RIP AND TEAR. So when he sees the Asylum Demon he can't help but get up close and personal. And I mean that literally because I punched a goddamn fatass demon in the ass for hours. So after we learn the only thing that smells worse than zombie is zombie with its arms in demon ass, we die a couple of times. Some were close, some weren't, but they were all stupid because punching away 813 HP two damage at a time is giving me Tales of the Abyss flashbacks. So, on my final run, I do good, get him down nice and low, three bars of health left, so around 188 HP which is not even a hundred more ass punches! And then I roll into the exit door.
Then I stare in disbelief for a minute or so. Or so.
After cursing the gods and adding baldness to my list of defining life traits, I go and bitch through the Asylum and get Estus, key, plunge attack, kill Asylum Demon and no shiny useless Demon Great Hammer for me.
I still don't know what madness set into me that I didn't stop playing when I arrived in Lordran, so I just kept going. Did the usual starter things. I managed to make it back across the New Londo Fire Keeper Soul death bridge of tiny only for a ghost to eat my face off. For comedy I take the Valley of Drakes path into Darkroot. Grab Red Tearstone Ring for comedy too. My first actual enemy kill ends up being a damn crystal lizard. THINGS~ But I finally make it up to Andre and get some sweet sweet Cestus. I quadruple my damage output! With 9 damage nothing can stop me hahahahahaha!
So after I get stopped by everything and their dog, I remember I'm a cleric and Heal comes in handy a lot. Also no-shield makes you much better at parrying then having a shield. It also makes you much better at dying horribly.
Gentleman Joe: Who once parried, and is now some freakish Four Knights build. Was in Seeth's jail, broke out, yadda. Got Channeler's Trident, got Avelyn through cheese method after dying five times. Rescued Sieglinde, and weep that she may never meet he father again this playthrough. Get far too many Blue Titanite Chunks off the golems. Head into caves, prove I'm a masochist by getting the Blue Titanite Slab despite already having the DLC one and that Ugly Joe will be getting the Enchanted Weapon chievie easy. Go and fight Seeth, and get the Moonlight Greatsword with ease. This is the Red Titanite Slab of this post as my victory is crushed by Seeth actually managing to kill me. Twice. On the third attempt I'm pissy so I just plaster his ass with Dusk Crown-Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring-Power Within-Ascended Pyro Hand+5 Great Fireballs and kill him in three hits.
Then I farm over 100 pieces of twinkling titanite. Get over 100k souls from clams. Bought out Logan's things, bought out Griggs, bought out Rhea, bouth out Ricket and get Magic Weapon chievie. Also realize Ingward has the last sorcery. But stuff from Patches. Head to Gough to buy some of his arrows. 650 is too damn much.
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-Try and Kill Capra Demon in one hit.
-Troll in Depths with Gravelord Servant.
Both of these things. Not that Gravelord Servant does much beyond invite people to come and kill you. Run seven goddamn characters through the game by now and only once have I ever seen Gravelord black phantoms. Some goon running NG++ or something summoned me and got hit with it in the Demon Ruins. Imagine the final set of stairs clogged up with a mob of souped-up capra demons that have like 6,000 hp and kill a level 75 PC in one hit. Yeah.
Good luck with the fist weapons, man. They kind of suck. Well, I guess the claw is decent.
~
Saint's Row III: My brother had this lying around so I figured I'd see exactly how crazy it is firsthand. There is DLC for this, no? Any of it worthwhile?
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SRIII: Jumping in front of cars for fun and profit. This is way funnier than it should be just because Havoc physics.
I really don't understand how anyone's still alive in this city.
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Sonic 4 Episode 1: All Chaos Emeralds get! Then did Splash Hill Zone Act 1 in under a minute. Doing it without Super Sonic seems...doable but you need to be precise at it. With Super Sonic? Amazing what a speed boost a dramatically improved jump can do for achieving this!
Currently going through stages again, finishing them as Super SOnic to get that achievement!
Tactics Ogre: Right, beat this a few days ago!
It is leagues ahead of the original game, no questions asked there, and it is fun, but...there's definitely a few things holding it back from being truly great, and thing is? Most of them were not necessarily bad conceptually, just the game needed to take like an extra month of development to hammer out the kinks. Felt like they finished the core product, made sure the game was playable, then released it, rather than going over it one last time to second guess "is this adequate the way it is?"
The level 1 Job thing for new jobs was the most obvious offender. The game at least gives you EXP for merely lasting the fight, so this isn't as bad as it could be, but it still offers little incentive to use New Jobs, basically saying "use these on Replays only!"
Also map designs could use work. To be fair, that was the original TO's problem, but TOr had the opportunity to change them, and instead decided to be "TRUE TO THE ORIGINAL!" and its still something you had to deal with as a result.
Oh and while I didn't find Crafting necessarily bad in TOr, the existence of fail rates was just dumb. The game doesn't auto-save, and you can Reload after failures immediately with no penalties. You waste enough time creating all the supplies from basic store-bought items, why make me spend an extra 30 seconds reloading the game and going through the crafting animation again?
Honestly, and this goes for any game I feel, any system that has a Fail Rate with an easy accessible Save Point really serves no purpose unless you're forcing the person to save beforehand (which would lead to a different problem arguably, so I'm not convinced that's necessarily better.) This isn't like banking on a 60% hit rate in hopes to get the upper-hand in battle. That's a legitimate Risk/Reward factor that could pay off or screw you over, and it's a genuine decision to make. Here, its just "Oh darn, I failed, time to reload and try again." Doubly so if the items being made aren't even game breaking, just marginal improvements over what you already have.
Anyway, decent game overall that could have been a lot better if they just hammered out the kinks. 6/10? 7/10? Unsure offhand. Again, dramatic improvement over the original.
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I said it before and I'll say it again: TOPSP's crafting system used pure tedium as its sole balancing measure, which is a questionable design decision in and out of itself. The byzantine clunkiness is deliberate from beginning to end.
EDIT: Although, honestly? If you start crafting from the get-go, the system -is- gamebreaking, at least for the first 60% of the game or so, as someone who used at least the storebought crafts from beginning to end. The game feels clearly scaled for no crafting usage, and the +1/+2 weaponry and armor alone have a gigantic effect on how powerful you are. I think TOPSP is a better game for balancing it towards the low end, at least.
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Balancing it without Crafting was a smart move, no doubt, and I do agree Crafting is tedious. I still maintain the Fail Rates have absolutely no purpose as the instant you recognize they can fail (be it by noticing the "Success Rate" indicator or seeing a failure first hand), you'd be saving before anything that has a care-worthy fail rate.
Really, any game with an Item Creation system should balance AWAY from it. Item Creation-type exists to reward those who explore it, not punish those who don't.
I guess crafting is just another fine example of how they needed to go over the game just one more time to polish it up. All the ideas are there, and I don't see anything conceptually wrong with how TO was presented, so its really all in the polish that's holding back the ideas (though, offhand, dunno how to balance Job Leveling with the "Level Up Jobs instead of Characters" thing. Possibly if New Jobs joined at levels based on the average level with some negative modifier (like Average Level -2). This would have not only make newer jobs join stronger, but give an incentive to raise a number of other jobs to let newer jobs join stronger out of the gate, but they'd also join "underleveled" to not immediately outclass newer jobs, but not dramatically so that they feel unusable for a bunch of maps.)
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Game really needed to ditch the mark/tag/whatever class item system they use for class change. That annoys me badly and it is a very correctable thing.
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Apparantly the crafting failure rates in the JP version of TOr were way, way, way higher than in the international release. So if you thought they were annoying as is...
Honestly, the whole system feels at times like it was forced on the dev team by executive meddling and the programmers decided to take their frustrations out on players.
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Really, any game with an Item Creation system should balance AWAY from it. Item Creation-type exists to reward those who explore it, not punish those who don't.
Unless of course that is the whole driving point of your game and then like for serious you guys, Atelier games can be pretty cool.
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Deus Ex - After multiple false starts since I bought it three years ago, I finally got past the first stage. If someone hasn't given a game a shot more than past the first couple hours, you should never take their opinion about it seriously, and this game is proof positive of that. Once I got through the godawful first stage, the game got good, quick. Actually having multiple options to get through levels is pretty sweet, and even though I only have 3 augments so far, how much I've been using my skills to avoid outright combat whenever possible has been fun as hell.
The game's plot is pretty good too so far, though a little dated (you mean the big agency I was working for at the start... ISN'T the bastion of justice the main character took it for? WHAAAAAAAAA). Still, it's managed to suck me in, in a good way.
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Really, any game with an Item Creation system should balance AWAY from it. Item Creation-type exists to reward those who explore it, not punish those who don't.
Unless of course that is the whole driving point of your game and then like for serious you guys, Atelier games can be pretty cool.
This is where I chime in and say that Mana Khemia games are only good instead of outright great because they make me spend so much time on IC. Honestly can't think of a game where I outright liked it, it's just not an especially intriguing mechanic compared to the actual strategy of battles, or the more thought-provoking yet much less time-consuming character building systems seen in everything from the FFT job system to Suikoden runes.
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Wild ARMS 4 Speedrun -
Oh boy. So I ranted about this last night in chat. Things keep getting better. On to the train now; as you probably know, the trick to getting through this quickly is via Genocide Edge. I have almost everything needed except for tiny problem. Arnaud needs to be at level 25 before fighting Balgaine. Otherwise, he gets outsped and doesn't get his second turn before Raq gets her first. You may be wondering why this matters. This is due to the way the damage lines up. With Jude/Arnaud getting 2 turns, they can do a combined 20k damage before Raq gets her turn and as a result, Raquel doesn't need that many Intrude activations to get the kill. But without Arnaud's second turn, damage drops by about 7k which is equal to 1.5x Raquel swings. So all of a sudden, it takes a bit longer and FP consumption goes up. Also, I want to keep his level up to pace because he needs the levels as a couple of bosses later require his MAG to take out.
This leaves me with 3 options. All of them deal with the battles on the first train:
1) Arnaud activates Genocide Edge in the second battle. Unfortunately due to his low HIT, it means he not only has to roll for the ID to trigger, he also has to roll just to hit the enemy. There's an alternative way around this by having Jude use MYSTIC HI BREAK to deal MT damage. In this way, Arnaud only needs to hit everyone with Genocide Edge instead of also needing ID to trigger (Yulie gets a follow up turn to kill the remaining enemies with Material if needed).
2) Raquel still triggers Genocide Edge, but now has to wait for ID to miss on a target. This gives Arnaud an opening to Jump and use Hi-Break on the remaining soldier.
3) Standard tactic, with Arnaud getting the kill on the third fight with a boosted Hi-Break hitting max power to kill both Dreadnaughts.
I thought scenario 1 was the most preferable. But the fact that scenario 2 and scenario 3 can be attempted in the same run means that I get two chances to get what I need. Oh yeah, on top of all this, I need to avoid random triggering of double techs cause they use time and still score a Hi-Counter on Tank Vehicle. Fuck me.
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TO crafting is stat-related. There are a couple oddities but most if it is straightforward "Raise Dex if you want better bows" etc.
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The Last Story- Horrible start. I guess I remember hearing that Mistwalker's first game entry was their best. Battle system is a bad mix of super pedestrian and headache inducing thanks to constant camera twirling. Any chance it improves?
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The battle system gets better. It is somewhat mindless at first. But fights later on require more planning and uses of terrain and other stuff.
But the camera does not gets better. And actually makes those fight that needs planning to be annoyn.
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A record of the rule of an awe-inspiring Koopa King, part 4:
Dear diary,
So last time, an airship fell on me, which by all rights should have resulted in my minions searching out Bowser Jr. to make him the new king.
But of course, as we have already learned, when Bowser is in a dire situation, he taps on a hidden reserve of power! Yes; fueled by a desire to get my revenge on Fawful and take the Dark Star that should rightfully be mine, I was again able to channel my boundless inner strength into becoming GIGA BOWSER. I showed that airship who was boss, beating it up good. It was such a satisfying display of power that even the return to normal size followed by a long fall (again) couldn't dampen my spirits.
Anyway, the airship settled on the ground as a goofy-looking tower which looked annoyingly like Mario (maybe it was my imagination). So I stormed in to give whoever was pilotting it a piece of my mind. Turned out my work was already done; the owner of the tower was a long-dead ghost. He had invented some machine he called the boo-ray which apparently could reveal ghostly things inside my body. For some reason I decided to play with the machine on myself for a while, turning it on and off as if compelled by some mysterious force. Eventually, my inexplicable behaviour paid off and Chippy informed me I had gained the ability to perform body slams! I tried out my new skills immediately and was suitably impressed with my newfound ability to smash through floors and activate various oversized switches mysteriously lying around the Mushroom Kingdom. I am so awesome.
At this point, I ran into a Toad who announced, "I see Mario and Luigi have already met the first sage and obtained his star cure!" WHAT. That's so unfair, I would totally have beaten them if I hadn't been crushed by a tower! Fortunately, the toad went on to say that the second one had been located, and it was in my very own castle! He referred to it as Bowser's Castle, third person, as if he wasn't even talking to me. He said that I had taken it from the sage and locked it in my vault. I was a bit confused but then I remembered that I totally mugged some loser for shiny treasure a while back. I guess I already met the second sage, and in my favourite way to meet people, too! I headed to my castle.
Upon reaching the castle, I discovered it was still acting as that horrible Fawful Theatre and swarming with brainwashed minions, but with both Fawful and Midbus away, there wasn't much resistance as I carved my way through a castle. I found my way to the VIP room which still had a feast laid out, and ate some more. This caused me to gain a lot of weight again, but this time I was able to quickly work it off with an array of rapidfire sit-ups, Bowser-style. So, back to exploring! Unfortunately, the path to the basement had been blocked off! So I explored around to find another way to the basement, and then I came across a giant statue of Fawful on the top balcony floor of my castle. SMASHY TIME!
But then I had an ingenious idea! The statue was actually located above the sealed-off entrance to the basement! So I made to push it over the ledge. A bunch of my brainwashed minions tried to stop me by pushing the statue back, but I'm such a badass that I overcame all of them at once, and pushed the statue and them over the ledge, smashing a path down to the basement and destroying the statue! Mwahaha, just another great moment in my awesome life!
So I headed into the basement, and eventually found my way to the vault. Some of my loyal minions had made it there ahead of me But then, right when I was about to open the safe which contained the star cure, a train burst into the room! ... yeah, I don't get it either. It was the Monty Moles from before! Those incompetent buffoons had drilled their tunnel into my vault instead of into Toad Town! ... or that's what I thought at first. But then I noticed that the front of the train was green and had giant swirly glasses on it and... oh god.
TRAITORS! Unlike my other minions the moles showed no signs of brainwashing; they had joined up with Fawful for money. I walked up to punch them in the face so damn hard...
... then I got ran over by a train. It pushed me along the tracks for several minutes. I tried my best to stop it but eventually it ran into a giant boulder at the end of the track and crushed me.
But man, at this point, death by crushing doesn't even bother me any more. Because we all know what happens next. Yes, GIGA BOWSER made his triumphant return, with this "Fawful Express" as his prime target! The train ran fullspeed away from me so I had to chase after it, before it travelled 100 "kilomoles" and made it over a rickety bridge and I, in my eagerness to exact my revenge on those traiterous scum, followed and fell to my doom. This was certainly my trickiest battle as Giga Bowser yet, but of course I prevailed, smashing those Monty Moles good!
And so, I returned to my castle, and reached my vault, and went to open the safe where the star cure is... and then realised that I've forgotten the combination! So I ordered Chippy to go into my memories and find it! Chippy acted like a pouty little bitch because I didn't ask "politely", so I had to (quietly) say pretty please like some child until he agreed to do it.
Guess there's nothing left to do but wait for that annoying voice in my head to get things done!
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Deus Ex: Weu cam to honkon. han painted chaina vely osentic
voice acting lol
also the game just handed me a 1 hit kill melee weapon. that doesnt take any patience like the prod does. lololololol.
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Rudra no Hihou: Yes! Just what this game needed! A completely anti-climactic ending! This game is totally getting 11 out of 10 stars!
Ugh, this game. I finished it. Great concepts abound, but the end result is terribly flawed. So far it's the worst of the dozen or so Square games from the SNES era that never got translated that I've played. Pretty much the inverse of my reaction to Bahamut Lagoon (where it felt like a game full of cool ideas, but these merely lacked polish/balance, as opposed to being boring/incomprehensible).
I think my list goes something like: LiveALive > Bahamut Lagoon >> Seiken 3 >>>> Rudra
Zettai Hero Project: I also beat this. Fuck this game's endboss, NIS. Cool ending, though.
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Defense Grid: Beat. Last stage went pretty smooth, really. Tooooooooons of fliers, they got a few cores at the end, but otherwise just load up guns at every chokepoint and watch the carnage. Good game, very solid system. Need to try some of the challenge modes.
Cthulhu Saves the World: Cthulhu's Angels, up to the volcano. The completely rebalanced party makes for a pretty nifty extra mode - glass cannons everywhere! Starting with October makes the first dungeon so so so much easier on Hard, though. Yay fireball. Loving the writing in this version, too. Mainline CStW kind of forgets to do more than pay lip service to its parody elements for a while, but when it's parodying itself things are much sharper. Evil Bridge is the highlight of the game thus far.
Darksiders: Okay, so Devil May Cry had a baby with the 3D Legend of Zelda games, and then God of War adopted it. Somehow this works. I think it has to do with the fact that instead of Navi following you around, it's Mark Hamill doing his Joker voice.
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You need to have two red missiles for the last couple of flier waves (Or a *lot* of cannon towers) to avoid losing cores on the finale. Try the DLC stages, those are fantastic.
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So I figured I should get some stuff to play on my Vita while I wait for P4 to come out. Purchases went like this.
Oh I will just grab like $60 worth of games that is about the price of a new game on the Vita but I will get old stuff.
You can buy money for your wallet in these portions 10, 20, 40, 80 or somethingmorethan80. So new games are $60 and you have to use two transactions to get $60. There is pretty much no decent reason for this. But I grabbed $80 because they set up those pins and I will knock them down. I grabbed Front Mission 3 because I have been meaning to play it, Vagrant Story because Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy 7 because of cultural touchstone shit, Wild Arms XF to appease dark (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=37) gods (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=17) (Which was pretty much where the extra $20 went). Then I was left going "well I want an RPG and the only shit really on here is FF, so I guess I should get something notFF7". Between PSP ports of 1 and 2, complete Collection of 4 and the PSX remakes you have pretty much anything from 1-9 to pick from (and off coarse I am buying FFXHD when it comes out).
So that left me in a quandary which to pick. Fuck FF1 and 2 to death with a pitchfork of course, 3's remake isn't out just yet I think, but is due soon, but I have that on DS and hate it. So 5,6, 8 or 9? Well we know 9 is out because I have ranted about that for a long time. 8 I still prefer the PC version for breaking it in half. 5 or 6? Well I thought about it for a while and it occurred to me that I just don't give any fucks about FF6 an longer. Not to mention FF5 is fun as hell and the yearly challenges that big parts of the DL takes part in always gets me thinking of giving it another spin.
So why don't I give fucks about FF6 any more? I guess it is this many years on that most of the big things it hits is done in FF7 as well. For a bunch of people (mostly those that played it on SNES) FF6 is this big huge game changer, but to the majority FF7 hit the same notes. So for referring back to FF7 is more useful for the broader discussion of JRPGs in gaming culture. They are both big story games that I have played enough to have killed the plot for, kind of modular PCs in battle with combat systems that are just a touch too slow for their own good. Not saying that anything FF6 did that FF7 did it better, FF7 just did it bigger. Bigger story, more modular PCs, much bigger cultural impact, way more bugs and of course a way slower combat system.
This wasn't about FF7 though, it was about FF5. What does the jump back to FF5 bring that I don't really like? The PSX script is a bit less fun than the GBA remake. Uh, not being able to cycle between people when turns synch up? That is about it. FF5 winner and purchase.
So here we go
FF5 - Even with the worse script the first hour of FF5 has a whole bunch of "This is a thing that actually happened" moments in it and it is pretty glorious. My favourite so far is talking around town to find out there is a dragon you can fly. You hear about it and talk to a guy who has seen it. There is a conversation that takes place right in his face about how this person in your party knows who owns the dragon and someone that used to ride it. They decide they will go to the mountain and get said dragon and ride it. After this the guy goes "I swear I totes saw a dragon you guys!". Its okay buddy, we believe you.
No challenge or anything, just normal play through.
Also also also, the quicksave that came on the PSX version is probably the most useless thing ever. You can save the game in a "Memo" file that will work as long as you don't turn off or reset the system. So I guess it is there just in case you lost your memory card or something and can quickly run to the shop and buy one? I was going to swear about how terrible a quicksave on a portable release that is until I remembered it was on the PSX version, not a specific PSP/Vita port from PSN. Then it just confused me even more.
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Well, the PS1 Quicksaves are mostly just to save you the ungodly slow loading times of regular saving on the PS1, I guess.
FF5 - Also playing this. I just finished World 1, decided to make Bartz into a jiggalo until I realized that I'd have to go through effort to twink Sword Dance. So I just have a Knight with Sing, a Ninja with Mystic Knight secondary, a Time Mage with Geomancer secondary, and a White Mage with Summon (never seen in FF before). Bartz was a Red Mage for a while.
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Well I thought about it for a while and it occurred to me that I just don't give any fucks about FF6 an longer.
You are bad and you should feel bad.
I'm mostly just kinda baffled by the implication that FF6 and FF7 have the same character build systems... I mean, I know Esper-learning gives the cast flexibility/sameness in the lategame to a certain degree, but to boil them both down to 'modular character systems' is pretty much spitting in the face of one of the main things that I liked about FF6 - that all the characters had something truly unique to their builds. (I -suppose- you could make an argument for similarity to FF7 here due to weapons/Limits, but the scope is so different that it's a stretch...)
In fairness, your reasons for liking FF5 more are perfectly valid, I'm just not sure where this "FF6=FF7 but older" argument is coming from.
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Like I said, FF7 took FF6 and made it bigger. FF6 had characters that are largely differentiated by equipment and at end game have some character specific skills that see very little use at all. FF7 does that for the entire game.
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Tales of Graces F- Adult Arc. Just got RIIICHARD back at the Barona Catacombs. I've been controlling Sophie since Cheria left but I'll probably give Richard a whirl soon. I've unlocked Evil difficulty but so far I kind of suck at it except with Cheria. I mained Cheria from as soon as she joined and I think I kind of have the hang of her A Arte trees so far =) l already have Thunder Surge~
For the Asbel/Hubert duo fight on Evil vs the soldiers I failed hard though >_> I also lost to Hubert after in the manor though I think maybe that was supposed to happen. I had to turn the difficulty down for the soldiers and later the Barona cards. I could have probably won after much resetting maybe but I was getting kind of tired~
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SRIII: Also starring Burt Reynolds as Burt Reynolds.
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I think my list goes something like: LiveALive > Bahamut Lagoon >> Seiken 3 >>>> Rudra
You are only one game left before completing all the Square's late SFC era stuff (Treasure Hunter G).
BTW, for Rudra, you play the game as it is or use the translation patch?
If you play with the patch, I truly truly pity you.
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I think my list goes something like: LiveALive > Bahamut Lagoon >> Seiken 3 >>>> Rudra
You are only one game left before completing all the Square's late SFC era stuff (Treasure Hunter G).
BTW, for Rudra, you play the game as it is or use the translation patch?
If you play with the patch, I truly truly pity you.
You do realize a second, far better translated patch came out at a later date, right?
That said, Djinn should play Treasure Hunter G for two reasons:
-Purple Haired Loli (I think?) Lesbian Wizards.
-Monkey that wields a Boomerang that is also your best Mage.
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Holy crap I play games?
Romancing SaGa 3 - #poorlifedecisions dictates I was up for a replay to hopelessly crush my opinion of this game. Ellen playthrough, currently running Harid/Nora and trolling for extra members. It's nice to replay this with at least cursory knowledge of talent lists, though. Just went through the Lance/Yamas road and started the Highwaymen quest. Pondering whether I get Paul early or not, may end up running him as a greatsword user now that I know his talent list is friendly for those techs.
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-Purple Haired Loli (I think?) Lesbian Wizards.
So close and yet so far, Japan.
Tactics Ogre: Starting this up again. Going to try to raise some stat-topic-legal PCs for some testing even if the game's mechanics are kinda psyduck.
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Tactics Ogre: Starting this up again. Going to try to raise some stat-topic-legal PCs for some testing even if the game's mechanics are kinda psyduck.
Yay! Do you need some help in any way?
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I'll let you know once I actually get to the end of this file and can start testing with clean PCs.
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League of Legends
Almost to greater runes! One more level to go before I get to play on an approximately level playing field. :P
XP systems in skill-based multiplayer games never stopped being a (stupid) thing.
That gripe aside the game remains fun. I've found I enjoy playing supports (support Nunu and Taric, to this point) most, although now that I'm a high enough level not to wipe on the wolves, jungling is starting to get fun as well.
The playerbase is every bit as bad as expected, though. Almost every solo queue has the person whose sole contribution to team chat is to say "mid." after they instalock their AP carry of choice. I can't complain too much, though, because I've won almost every solo queue game and lost almost every one I played with five friends. Probably because the best player in my usual group is deaf, the second-best doesn't own a microphone, and the fourth-best (after me) has personal reasons for not using one. -_-; It puts us at kind of a severe disadvantage against 5-man teams coordinating with voice chat.
Cthulhu Saves the World
Finished the Ultharian space ship.
Humor-wise, it feels like they had a kind of funny concept as encapsulated in the title, and then didn't feel the need to write actual jokes. Or at least funny ones. I've chuckled at some of the lines, mostly the quips from bookshelves and cabinets, but it's even more mildly humorous than Disgaea.
The gameplay is much better than the writing. I like the choices at each level-up and the mix of abilities on the characters, status effects seem to actually be useful, the combo system is interesting, randoms "running out" in each dungeon makes exploration fun, and the balance of faster clears getting more MP back is good.
I really only have two objections:
1. Is there any reason NOT to stand next to the mana replenishment point and choose Fight until all the randoms are dead? I haven't done this most dungeons, but I did do it in Dunwich because I came close to wiping (admittedly just before I got October; I probably could have pushed through afterwards). It seems like it's the obviously optimal choice for each dungeon and I'd like to believe there's a reason it isn't.
2. I get that this is an "old school tribute" type game and that terrible equipment UIs are a PC RPG staple, but did they REALLY have to make the shopping and equipment UI something that would have made me roll my eyes in 1995?
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Dungeons are usually short enough that, assuming you don't go in circles (disclaimer: CStW dungeon design is intended to cause going around in circles), you can clear a dungeon of treasure and complete it without fighting as many battles as it usually takes to 0 out the encounter meter. Put another way, the only real reason not to do so immediately before actually exploring a dungeon is to avoid grinding. Since the difference is generally about a level or so, it's not really that big a deal either way I don't think.
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-Purple Haired Loli (I think?) Lesbian Wizards.
So close and yet so far, Japan.
For what its worth, the "Loli?" thing was because I can't quite remember. It might just be that she's short, but I remember her at least being "young for an ancient wizard" and her clearly highly detailed yes, this is sarcasm 16 bit sprite gives the implication of her being underaged. Again, could just be faulty memory...
...not sure why I went out of my way to say this <_<;
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The Last Story: So our main character gets special magical can get into fights and revive everyone afterward powers from a mysterious Outsider entity, then meets a runaway girl who is secretly a princess*, and they're both orphans, and they run from some guards, have a romantic chat underneath a meteor shower, the princess remembers some song her mother taught her, the princess is going to be forced into a marriage against her will, and the princess has super magic powers she's been trained in despite living an uber-sheltered life in other ways. Occasionally in-between I kill hostile reptiles. Yes I am playing a JRPG, what.
* Okay technically daughter of a count, but since this random island apparently is super-influential since the rest of the Empire burned itself down and also has a magic superweapon, I'm sticking with princess.
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Tiny text to note sarcasm in that sentence is bad. I thought you said Vagina and made it tiny because you didn't want to highly visibly post about full frontal loli nudity.
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You mean that isn't what he said? I'm gonna choose to believe that that is what he said.
Deus Ex - Past Hong Kong, infiltrating the submarine dock. I have all the augments now and have given up all pretense of stealth after getting the dragon's tooth plus running and fully upgraded regen. Running + Regen + Power Recycler = lol. If only I chose cloak against robots instead of regular cloak, then I would just tear through the game. Oh well.
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Final Fantasy VII PC W7 - Mythril Mine
Finally came out over here last week
Cloud saves more like Strife saves am I right
SQUARE STOP MISPLACING MY SAVES at least they've only been disappearing temporarily
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A record of the rule of an awe-inspiring Koopa King, part 5:
Dear diary,
So last time, I was subjected to the cutting betrayal of my Monty Mole minions as they tried to run me over with a train, so I took the liberty of smashing the train in retribution. And finally, I was ready to open my safe with the second star cure, which would give me access to Princess Peach, the Dark Star, and my long-awaited chance to finally rule this entire kingdom like I so deserve. But I had forgotten the combination.
After some prodding by me and passive-aggressive bitching by Chippy, he was able to do something inside my head (I try not to think about it too hard) and I recalled the memory of the safe's combination lock. So I opened the safe, and found the star cure! At this point, my minions told me that I should look in the back of the safe because there must be something else there. And I guess for some reason I wouldn't be betrayed by completely different minions twice in one day.
Well, that was stupid of me.
As soon as I looked in to check, they shoved me into the safe and locked it. They said something about Fawful giving them extra rations for this. Like... really? I could understand money, power, or surgically added spikes to their shells, but extra rations? It has to be the brainwashing. I kept telling myself that as I sat in the safe for hours, in increasing agony from being crammed into a tight space. I was aware that they moved me during this time, but I wasn't sure where. I also got really hungry so I ate the star cure since it was the only food I had available.
Then, finally, I was aware that the safe was hurtling through the air. And it crashed... and fell open. And I tried to enjoy my newfound freedom except I was in too much pain to do it. I ordered Chippy to fix me up and with some bitching (though not as much as last time at least) he did it. AND as a side benefit I gained the ability to curl into a giant spiky ball and roll around destroying everything in sight! This was the second best news of the day.
The best was that I had, somehow, been moved to Peach's castle! So I rolled, smashing everything in sight, punching Fawful's various mechanical minions which populated the place, and ESPECIALLY smashing the statues of Peach which had been modified to look like Fawful (this was seriously creepy by the way). Eventually I found my way to my goal: Fawful, Midbus, and the Dark Star. Fawful used some ice ray on Fawful which turned him all cold and blue but Midbus ranted about making me feel the burning hot rage of his newfound blizzard powers. Dude, do you even listen to yourself, or are all minions of Fawful just as nonsensical as he is?
So needless to say I beat him up. And after I did, I cornered Fawful. He had attached himself to the Dark Star and was ranting about "I HAVE DARKNESS!" which seemed kinda creepy but nothing a firm, confident punch to the face couldn't solve. After detaching him from his precious Dark Star and defenestrating the loser, my victory was complete! The Dark Star was mine! But before I could grab it, it went straight down my throat, and promptly gave me this really terrible heartburn.
So right now what I am doing is breathing in the icy air that the unconscious Midbus is still exhaling. This is really gross but at least it makes the pain less bad; I just hope nobody sees me, especially not Mario. I hate to say it, but I have to rely on Chippy's help again...
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Final Fantasy Dimensions
(http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/final_fantasy_dimensions_4_605x.jpg)
Dragoon chapter, GO!
So... it felt like kind of a short chapter. And I only got to use my Temp Dragoon, Barbara for -one- of the dungeons. Kinda lame. Also, she was like 5 levels below me when she joined (I think I did too much grinding, but honestly, this game is so easy to grind in, I can't be blamed). She also speaks like Ayla for no discernible reason.
The game is actually doing a pretty decent job of revealing things slowly and hinting at future revelations... These revelations themselves aren't particularly -good-, but at least the game is trying.
Flashback scene reveals to us Barbara's late father was also a famous Dragoon leader, Abel! (3 guesses which FF4 sprite they recycled for him!) We also meet some of the Empire's other baddies - the Wind General Vata, some sort of Mechanical Construct named Argy, and Cid himself is kind of a fun head honcho for the Airship brigade.
Dungeon design is still pretty simplistic, as is befitting a portable game, and savepoints are commonplace. Randoms are challenging enough, throwing around decent damage and status already. And Autobattle is a boon for grinding once you get past the initial challenge of a new dungeon's opening randoms. Not enough boss fights though, and only one with a story character so far (and we don't even get to take him out, he escapes to fight again another day! To be fair, I'm kinda looking forward to fighting him again since he snagged a shard of Job Crystal in his exit!)
Overall, the game is a definite improvement over FF4-2, and feels kind of like it might have been intended as an "FF5-2" but then they realized that was a terrible idea and went ahead and made it its own game. I have to give credit where credit is due, this was a smart move.
The Light Warriors, while not deep, are at least starting show their archetypal personalities now. Sol = Hotheaded Angry Idiot, Aigis = Good Soldier/Ostensible Leader, Sarah = Mysteriously Omniscient Kindhearted Waif, Dusk = Prettyboy with an Agenda
The game does seem to be going out of its way to have brief interludes where the PCs talk to eachother, so it's not all bad.
Still a gameplay game and playing for story is a terrible idea, but at least the story is inoffensive? Still too expensive for what it is, though.
The game started handing out JP pretty regularly now at least. If I focus on one job, then at this rate I should be able to hit max JLv (20) with a single Job in one more influx of JP.
Levels:
Sol Lv 27 (Lv 7 Warrior)
Sarah Lv 27 (Lv 6 Summoner/Lv 5 Black Mage)
Aigis Lv 28 (Lv 7 Red Mage)
Dusk Lv 28 (Lv 7 White Mage)
Barbara Lv 23 (Dragoon)
Alas, time to leave behind my buff party and play with the Warriors of Darkness now. (Warriors of Darkness contains both of the characters whose personalities I actually enjoy, though, so no complaints really.)
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League of Legends
Two of the most frustrating games I've ever played, back to back.
In the first, the enemy team in Summoner's Rift was 4 AD carries and a tank... and all of one other player on my team bought armor. We ended up losing what should have been a laughably easy 5v5.
In the second, I was jungling Amumu and the top Darius - Darius, one of the best solotops in the game, especially at pre-30 - panicked at the idea of being 1v2, died twice and begged me to come lane with him. Figuring it would be better to try and salvage the lane, however suboptimal my setup was for that, I joined him. Turns out I was wrong (although two enemies killing me with 10 and 90 hp left respectively did not help). I figured this kid was summoner level 1. Nope, 17. Did he seriously never see a jungler in all that time? Weird.
Despite that unpleasantness, I hit level 20! Now to get enough IP to not be at a random disadvantage at the start of the game. Thanks MMOs.
XCOM Enemy Unknown Demo
Hahahahahahahaha!
This includes two missions, the tutorial and one real mission. The tutorial, in which the game dictates your moves, ends with 3/4 of your squaddies dead. I imagine it's a mix of trying too hard to show fans of the original how hardcore the new one is and getting new players used to the idea they can lose their troops and press on. What it ends up doing is approximating the feeling of helplessness and rage one gets from watching a Let's Play where the player really, really sucks.
The actual mission was a lot of fun, though. The control scheme is somewhat unusual (it feels like they borrowed some MMO/League/Diablo style hotkeys) but it works well. Being able to change the camera angle is a nice change from the original. So is the cover system, and the environmental system in general. Characters (human and alien alike) automatically take cover if moved next to it, and jump through windows and doors as part of their movement. It makes the battlefield feel dynamic and brings the optimal tactics feel more real.
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FF5 - Galuf is dead. Cute little mage get. I'm currently hacking through Ex-death's castle.
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Overall, the game is a definite improvement over FF4-2, and feels kind of like it might have been intended as an "FF5-2" but then they realized that was a terrible idea and went ahead and made it its own game. I have to give credit where credit is due, this was a smart move.
From what I've read, especially with the Dark/Light warriors thing, it was either that or FF3-2. Dark/Light Warriors for an FF3-2 is a given; won't have to go into detail about that.
For FF5, people who had World 1 origins vs. world 2 origins. Heck, World 2 gives a very "Dark World" vibe, and thinking on it, an FF5-0 might have been the original intent (eg game about Heroes vs. Enuo which led to World splitting into two.)
Either way...yeah, going to agree that making it an original game sounds like a smart move, since it allows for flexibility (though, a distant prequel like I mentioned for an "FF5-0" would work on grounds that being set 1000 years prior or whatever, it is related in universe only, and we know so little about that event that they could get away with just about anything.)
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Tactics Ogre:
So when the game does its usual throw a leader of level equal to the highest level in my party + followers 1 level beneath at me, I tend to roflstomp. Still low enough level I can get some +1 equipment without grinding up obscure drops and merely via some tedium, and archers stick arrows into the skull of my foes. The game even is nice enough to let me deploy 12 (!!!) people which is way too many if I was playing seriously but at least lets me deploy 2-3 dead weight characters to catch them up on level, which is something.
Then there's the Ozma battle at Krysaro (Why am I going to Krysaro? WTF are Dark Knights doing so far within "my" side of the map?) wherein I'm at a 5-7 level disadvantage and also the enemy has some pretty substantial numbers. Early attempts (sans Sherri) got nowhere fast, but adding Sherri and adopting a White Witch of Narnia style strategy of 24/7 stone statues (Petrifog is brutal, yes let's stone 2-3 Templars at a 100% chance) got me frustratingly close... careful archer sniping (since my archers are really the only ones doing any damage > 1) got 1 of their healers + a random templar swordmaster, the frontline Knights (who also have healing!) & Terror Knights were all turned to stone, Ozma was stoned, and distraction Canopus managed to snipe their damn Shackle Thunder mage with a carefully timed OHKO Slumber Shot. But. The one thing remaining other than Volaq on the enemy side... were the TEMPLAR ARCHERS. And the one surviving Templar cleric. And the enemy archers were the one thing I couldn't really handle - reasonably tough, even potentially dodgy, and going to ruthlessly 2HKO my wizard and/or cleric which will nuke their MP. Blargh.
Anyway, luckily enough the battles on the road to Barnica Castle don't cancel the Ozma event, so I was able to catch my dead weight up some. But I'm not gong to Barnica Castle since I suspect knowing TO that will likely timeout the event, so I guess it's grindchu time since more important than catching dead weight like Vyce up (okay, and making Jeunes die a bit slower, that 2-3 level disadvantage is still notable) will probably be getting my archers to lvl. 18. And then maybe I need to deploy freakin' 4 archers to beat Ozma & Volaq. We'll see.
TOPSP, your most interesting battle so far was the Nybbas battle, where I was merely at a 2-3 level disadvantage but he had endlessly reviving undead but I could have Canopus assassination as a backup victory plan. More battles like that, please! 5 level disadvantage is just frustrating, 0 level disadvantage is lol.
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Tales of Graces F- Just finished with the mini boss fight (Captain and Dragoons) at Warrior's Roost on Chaos. Really fun fight. By the time I reached the fifth fight in the arena the Eleth Bar was just about full so it filled to max then and Eleth Burst was triggered pretty much immediately at the start of the mini boss fight. Swift Pitch > Blessed Blades > Thunder Surge > Frozen Rain > Asterism Line > Asterism Line > Asterism Line + Hubert wreaking havoc on top wheeeee~
Team is currently Cheria L36/Hubert L34/Sophie L36/Asbel L36. Cheria I've been focusing on an A Arte build with, picked up the Battle Knives from Lhant early on for her and after doing Frederic's Hankerchief sidequest just before heading to Warrior's Roost I dualized with the item reward received from that so Cheria is now currently using a weapon called O/[_]/O/[_]- Seriously - and it's a skewer shishkebob weapon thing ;o Hubert just joined and will probably be focusing on A Artes for him as well but he's already L5d all his current titles and doesn't have any new ones yet >_> Sophie and Asbel are supposed to be my heal bot/support/tanks but the whole Asbel tank thing doesn't seem to be working out very well since I unlocked Chaos mode <_< Sophie does a better job of it with her whole dodge/evade/heal game. I tried out and ran both Cheria/Sophie/Asbel/Pascal and Cheria/Sophia/Asbel/Malik and even Cheria/Sophie/Pascal/Malik before Hubert joined. Pascal and Malik currently don't have any new skills/titles to work on though. I like Malik, he tends to stay his distance and keep out of trouble mostly. Pascal ughh ... it looks like she has potential but honestly she doesn't seem all that great currently, so far she's mostly just been dyin' a lot >_> I also haven't dualized any shards onto equipment or anything yet just some random crystals onto weapons like with Cheria's Knifa, mostly just been synthing cashables/food so far.
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Deus Ex (PS2): Finished.
In the final level I panicked because INFINITE ENEMIES + LIMITED RESOURCES + In game map doesn't make any sense. so I just went for the first ending I could see. Thankfully this was the one I'd have chosen anyway (the fusion one)
I think I've said nearly everything about this one? Turns out I liked the plot. Killing the true leader of the illuminaty was great too. (It's not really a spoiler) I like how the fake leader just said "Hey, that's not very nice" then went on with his life.
I'm starting to notice architectural strangeness in videogames more and more (Videogames like to have terrible stairs / never notice how terrible their stairs are); this game was hilarious on that front, especially since it's supposed to be set in a modern realistic setting. Who thought all those giant idea rooms were a good idea? My favourite part of the game was this inaccessible place in the Paris subway at the 7:10 mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZDTn-RV-z4&feature=BFa&list=PL8B3C5852853469DF (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZDTn-RV-z4&feature=BFa&list=PL8B3C5852853469DF)
WHO BUILT THIS?
Crash Bandicoot 1/2/3: Finished all of them, 100%
The changes this series went through reflect the switch to the Playstation 1 era pretty well!
Crash 1 is brutal. Traps, bottomless pits and falling platforms everywhere. In each level, you need to smash all the crates and not die once to get the super special gem at the end. The game just generally starts getting way harder than both Crash 2 and 3 at around the... fourth level? Among 30 or so? It looks completely unfair at first.
Crash 3 is the easiest in the series, and half of the levels are special stages. You get swimming levels, jetski levels, plane levels, plane-fly-through-rings levels, motorbike racing levels. Many different gameplay experiences!! (they're all very boring) For the first time in the series you get powerups after defeating bosses. Like a doublejump the game is not built around, or a bazooka with unlimited ammo.
Crash 2 is probably the best objectively, for all that I like 1 better. Less brutal than 1, with gentler physics, and without being completely unfocused like 3. Too bad about all the obscure stuff. You can't finish this one without a faq (or a lot of free time), unlike 1 and 3, which were both very satisfying in that regard.
Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2: Finished that one too.
In SMT games, you can't fuse monsters who have a higher levels than you. In Pokemon, you can't use a traded monster with a ridiculously high level to just destroy everything. There is no such check in here; Pandora's box is open. Most of the fun in the game actually lies in building a hilariously powerful party for the part of the game you're in and beating endgame monsters way too early.
One nice thing about this game is that you can use one very large monster who takes two spots (think Ogre Battle) They are uber. In the second or third "level" I had a giant green dragon who could have still been useful at endgame. Bosses just never stood a chance.
There are tons of monsters with tons of skillsets. It is Dragon Quest though, magic sucks. I just gave everybody either healing (eventually MT healing) or passive attack boosts.
Like in every Dragon quest game, plot is bad but not as bad as music.
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League of Legends
The difference Greater runes make is startling, and makes the level system even more annoying. As much as I'm happy to rag on FPSes that lock their multiplayer content behind a level system, at least they're usually restricting options, not stuff that's strictly better. Conceptually I am unwilling to forgive this "design" feature, it's just terrible.
And yet, I keep playing anyway, because the game itself remains fun, especially with friends.
Finally won an arranged 5v5, which was nice. My ability to keep the AD carry alive as Taric is through the roof thanks to my new runes, and we had a great jungler playing Maokai (first time I've seen him) who wrecked the enemy Lee Sin. My lane partner (Vayne) and I ended up with only a death apiece, and I managed to stay at single-digit CS, the true mark of a great support! ^_^
3v3d solo queue and despite yet another incompetent Darius (seriously, I used to be scared of this guy?) Shyvanna and my Taric rolled up a poorly chosen, frail enemy team (AD carry/AP carry/support vs. fighter/fighter/tank favors the latter pretty heavily on that map). First time I've ever led in kills in PVP, which was pretty cool. Tanky AP Taric is surprisingly viable, easily as good as the support version albeit for different circumstances.
I'll be glad when I and all the friends I regularly play with are 30, so I can pretend the meticulously balanced PVP isn't shackled to a ridiculous slow-burn "tutorial" phase that takes months to complete.
Shatter
Got this as part of the latest Humble Indie Bundle and forgot to mention it before. This isn't the one I wanted the most, but it turns out I still really like a good Breakout-style game. (What's the name for this subgenre, anyway?) I'm enjoying both the gameplay and the music a great deal, and the boss battles are quite creative. Not something I've seen done with this genre before and the game is better for it.
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Pft. Darius.
That is all.
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Look at me, my name is Andrew and I will be sarcastically dismissive of the last post made.
BOOM meta sarcasm bitches
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Been playing Freedom Force. Still a great game, and there's improved texture packs out there now. It's a damn enjoyable tribute to the Silver Age stuff, particularly Lee/Kirby, and also challenging in a not-bullshit way. Play it if you like good games. If you like good games but would rather the game feature Time Nazis instead of Radioactive Russians as villains, the sequel is also great.
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Disgaea 3: This game has 3 tutorials about the same thing
on the other hand, the first boss was amusing enough
btw listen to Rob and play Freedom Force
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I did, until the sound stopped working. Which wasn't so much of a problem until the text boxes stopped appearing.
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FFD:
Yay, I get to the play with the Dark Warriors. Mechanically, they are functionally the same as the Light Warriors, but the Dark Warriors have a shred of personality, so I like them more. It's only been one chapter, but they are already wearing their archetypes on their sleeves. Nacht's personality is "Silent", Diana is "Childhood friend who everyone loves", Glaive's is "Poor Sap who Never Wins", and Alba's is... "DeJap's version of Arche". Guess which one I like the most and win fabulous prizes.
Still, they also seem to have a braincell between them. They aren't immediately all best friends like the Light Warriors, but stick together because they actually come to the conclusion that 4 > 2 when fighting monsters. Not the most original, but I appreciate the hand waves towards logic. It feels like they -cared-, which I can appreciate.
Also, now that I'm further into the game, zOMG JOB SYSTEM is fun. It's literally the FF5 job system with more characters and a 5th party member temp that you cycle through each chapter. It's unsurprisingly fun. And after seeing the average length of the chapters, I'm actually a lot less angry at the ~$20 price tag. Being a proper new JRPG (that I haven't already played twice like most offerings in the app store) on my phone is pretty worthwhile when I consider that there's a lot more places where my phone is a more socially acceptable mobile gaming device than my 3DS/Vita. I finally decided on the control scheme that works best for me: the fixed directional pad gives me a lot more precision than the other two methods. Now that the controls are easier and the job system and chapter systems are more fleshed out, I'm actually pretty pleased with the game. It's shaping up much better than the Prologue indicated. I'm kinda sad that a lot of people will play the terrible Prologue and never actually get to the fun part of this game.
Current team:
Nacht (Warrior Lv 5, Thief Lv 5)
Alba (Black Mage Lv 7)
Diana (Red Mage 3, White Mage 5)
Glaive (Warrior Lv 5, Monk Lv 5)
Gramps (Ranger temp)
The eventual goal is for Nacht to master Thief, Alba Black Mage, Diana White Mage, and Glaive Monk. I gave my fighter-classes 5 levels of Warrior because Counter is stupid-good. They'll probably go back to Warrior again at some point to pick up extra Skill Slots. Similarly, Diana's playing around in Red Mage for HP+20% and eventually another Skill Slot. Alba is All-Black-Mage-All-The-Time until she masters it, then I'll probably have her play around in Summoner because it's the only other class with the INT to take advantage of it.
Thief is still terrible but since Nacht's innate skills built him as a Thief, I feel contractually obligated to try to use him as one. Notably though, the time spent in Warrior + Counter really mitigate a lot of the job's problems. He's durable enough that he doesn't die to a stiff breeze, and with Monk Glaive and a Ranger temp hanging around, he's actually free to Steal all the time and that helps me get the money/weapons for tricking out the rest of the party.
Being given 5 JP from the start REALLY made the Dark Warriors playthrough a lot more flexible than the Light Warriors, so props to the developers for figuring that out quickly!
Currently in the village of the Elves, climbing the World Tree Yggdrasil. Yah, there are Elves, Dwarves, and Moogles in this one. *shrug*
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I did, until the sound stopped working. Which wasn't so much of a problem until the text boxes stopped appearing.
Check the sound options? I had this happen the first time I changed the resolution and the sound had changed to "no driver."
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Where did the Kogoro avatar go? Oh well.
Double Dragon Neon: The one released two weeks ago.
The atmosphere, villain and cheesy soundtrack completely sold me on this game. I don't think I actually like any beat them up more than this? I don't know, I just don't want to play Scott Pilgrim, Streets of Rage 2 or Castle Crasher over this. Mechanically, there's a lot of variety, the slow and methodical pace help it from becoming too button mashy, and the dodge skills move it closer to God Hand than 2D beat them ups (It's nowhere near as good mechanically, but...) RPG elements help a terrible player like me finish the game.
(I totally wouldn't gush over the game like this without that soundtrack. A link http://virt.bandcamp.com/album/double-dragon-neon)
Vagrant Story: This game has aged badly, and I picked perhaps the worst challenge to play through it again!
I was just looking at those endless menus, noticed the sword limit breaks, the spear ones, the crossbow limit breaks... And the fist ones. I figured no one ever got them (completionists expected) since there's literally no point to using fists in this game. I pitied those forsaken fist only limit breaks and decided a FIST ONLY RUN.
The beginning was very tough, but then I got Raging Ache. Every enemy from then on has been very easy and just took a long time to kill. Healing is plentiful so there's no problem on that front.
I don't deny that punching bats is great. It is. But I think I'm going to stop now.
Demon's Souls: Finished the game with the mage, ran through NG+ in a few hours to get the remaning spells.
Magic is so overpowered, but less satisfying than melee. MP restoration is plentiful and cheap, but aggravating to use. Most advanced spells costs 20-100 MPs, regeneration items restore either 50 or 100. You need to like eating items all the damn time to enjoy this.
I OHKOed the Leechmonger on NG+ with Firestorm.
I'm tempted to try a thief luck-only run for the remaining trophies. (every ring, every special weapon, and a bunch of upgrading trophies) Looks nightmarish.
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A record of the rule of an awe-inspiring Koopa King, part 6 (and final):
Dear diary,
So last time I defeated Fawful and obtained the power of the Dark Star. By eating it. This may not have been that good an idea.
Eventually, Chippy did something to jar the Dark Star loose from inside of me, and I spat it out again. When I did, though, it took on the form of... oh hell no. It did not just do that. It took on the form of me! (Only not as attractive). And to make matters worse, he immediately grabs inhales the princess and runs off with her! Why does every two-bit villain think he can steal my gig? Anyway, this kingdom isn't big enough for two Bowsers, so I decided there was one more loser I needed to punch in the face. He ran outside the castle, and I headed out to follow him...
And as I did, I heard that annoying laugh again. Seems Fawful had recovered from his last punch to the face and wanted more. As I cornered him, though, he babbled something about SUPER PEACH'S CASTLE OF FAWFULIZATION. I turned around just in time to see Peach's castle come to life, grow giant Fawful eyes, arms, and legs, and fly over to crush me. Yeah, bring it, you dumb castle, we all know what happens when someone tries to crush Bowser by now!
Anyway the stupid giant robotic castle tried to summon black holes to suck me in, but I punched him the face as he summoned the second so it appeared behind him, and we had a duel, mano a mano. I have always wanted to do some serious damage to this castle and I love punching anything like looks like Fawful in the face, so this was pretty much killing two birds in one stone. Best of all, this fight occurred in sight of Toad Town where all the little twerps were running around like maniacs. I love my life, sometimes.
The castle defeated, I returned to my normal size and headed to search for either Fawful or the evil version of me, whichever got in range of my fist first. This turns out to be Fawful, back in the conference room where all this mess began. He's now wearing a stupid cape and binoculars attached to the top of his head, hunting for the rest of the Dark Star's power. As if I'd let him get his hands on that! Cornern calls me a fink-rat (that is so 2003) and says I keep appearing like an ugly rabbit from the hat of a magician who stinks (yeah whatever), but none of this keeps me from punching his face off in our long-awaited showdown!
After the battle, the twerp is reduced to a tiny little core of darkness (still has those stupid swirly glasses and still speaks like a moron, though). Right when I'm about to go finish him off, the evil me appears and promptly inhales him, then talks about how he's "finally complete". Well, that's not good. He runs off, so of course I have to follow him.
I finally corner him at the top of Peach's castle, where he promptly uses his evil powers to summon a hurricane of darkness surrounding us. Oh yeah! Perfect backdrop for a sweet final battle. Chippy says I can rely on him and for a moment I think I hear Mario and Green Stache agreeing, but that has to be my imagination. So the evil me and I drop the gloves and battle for supremacy of the kingdom and the Dark Star's power. He's certainly no joke, as he has dark versions of all my minions and many of my own moves, and worse the evil remnants of Fawful appear periodically and restore him. A fatal mistake on the party of that little evil twerp, though, as he's now small enough for me to vacuum up with my awesome inhaling powers! I'm only able to hold him in for a few moments, but every time he emerges he's more beaten up (my awesome immune system at work!) until finally he doesn't emerge at all, and the evil me keels over weakly. At that point, I know what I have to do.
I walk over to him and punch him in the face. And again. And again. And again. And one last time, so hard that the impostor damn well explodes. A bit of a waste to destroy the power that might have let me conquer the kingdom, but whatever, I still needed that, after how bad this week has been. And besides, I've learned I don't need any dark power to be awesome. After all, even without it, victory, and Princess Peach, are mine! Then, from inside me, I hear a voice...
"Fawful tried... Fawful gave the 110 percents... Fawful worked the overtime... Fawful was the team player... Fawful put in the hours... Fawful got the hands dirty... Here Fawful goes... The disappearing... Forever disappearing... WITH YOU!"
And an explosion rocks my gut so hard I'm forced to spew up what feels like every meal I've ever eaten (and that's a lot). And to my horror, out come Mario, Green Stache, some girly Pacman reject, and worst of all, dozens of Toads. Gross! I won't be able to keep solid food down for weeks after seeing that!
The princess and the Toads run off as those stupid plumbers try to hold me off. I took a few knicks and scratches but I definitely got the better of them this time, though! I think. I don't remember for sure though, and the next thing I remembered, I was back in my castle, being nursed back to health by my once-again loyal minions.
But you know what? Despite the fact that another plot to control the Kingdom failed, I'm okay with this. As lame as this week has been from a personal embarrassment and betrayal perspective, I got to get out a lot, gained a whole bunch of cool new powers, and got to show TWO different villains why nobody, but nobody, upstages the king of awesome. And I think I set new personal bests for face-punching and lighting-morons-on-fire, especially if castles animated by mad science count for extra.
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So because I hate myself.
WoW - I am doing this one zone. I went from watching a scene where a paladin's wife dies in childbirth and you watch him try to save her with healing spells. Nice nod to merging of gameplay and plot! Then the next quest I do has an Arrow to the knee joke in it. Whiplash.
Edit - And yeah VS first run through with fists is really wonky. If you get a bit of Strength they can go pretty okay because the Risk Breaks you get hit some fairly unique element combinations. It is a fairly weird play compared to a normal run though. Trying to go a magic based route is harder though IMO.
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Separate post for this because why not.
Mario and Luigi 3 - Beaten. About 19 hours, levels were around 29/31 or so.
The game is good fun and I would absolutely recommend playing it to almost anyone. At the same time I'd never call it a great game, since it kinda suffers from some of the same problems which plague all Mario RPGs (well, the three I've played anyway).
Writing-wise the game's not perfect. Mario and Luigi are silent which is a bit limiting; though they do manage to be amusing with their pantomime antics at points, generally their arcs are writing-light and more about gameplay. And many of the bit characters are not as effective as it feels like the writers want them to be (Dr. Toadley for an easy example). In fact, the writing generally falls flat unless at least one of Bowser or Fawful are on screen. Fortunately, Bowser's pretty much the main character and is on-screen a lot, and he is absolutely glorious. Fawful too. Starlow/Chippy is also surprisingly good, much snarkier than the exposition helper usually is. Oh and Midbus is fine but he is pretty much Fawful Jr. outside one glorious scene where he proves the worst minion ever. So despite some weak spots it ends up pretty damn overall good; the best Mario RPG at writing because it just isn't afraid to be completely crazy and just have a good time, revelling in its strongest characters.
Gameplaywise, well. It's certainly an improvement over the highly problematic M&L1, for a few reasons. One, the special attacks are way more fun this time (and Bowser gets his own set). Two, the gameplay is considerably more varied since sometimes you have Bowser, sometimes you have to mix it up between Bowser and the brothers, and of course sometimes you have GIGA BOWSER (in addition to the regular bros fights). Third, the game's way tougher, actually putting up a fight and making you stay awake, so learning to dodge things is more rewarding (even necessary in some cases). I actually had to reset a few times, most notably against midgame Bowser who was probably the hardest fight, but a few others here and there. I didn't actually have to reset against the final but it was a near thing and certainly a fun and fitting capstone to the game.
Of course, unfortunately, the core gameplay is still quite limited... only so much you can do when you only have two PCs (sometimes one) who both have basically no skillset beyond damage, and using more MP to do more damage, and items. The game's basically all about learning to dodge moves and it's a little hard for that to carry a game, certainly compared to what I personally expect out of RPGs. The aforementioned shakeups make this a lot more palatable than in the first game, but it's fundamentally just masking a problem.
The game has good music. I liked how there were two mixes for each area depending on if you were inside Bowser or not, and the final boss music is suitably epic, while the rest just tends to be... catchy.
Probably a 6/10? Doesn't really wonderfully on my metric of what a good RPG should be, but as far as "games that coast primarily on comedy" it is certainly one of the best, and it was absolutely an enjoyable little romp.
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Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story- Beat. So much better than M&L1. At like, everything. M&L1 had this bizarre idea that it was a platformer-rpg and couldn't go five mintues without adding a new mechanic to the platforming. The result was this amazingly slow little thing. This game had about as many cases of random tutorial for new mechanic, but they were split up between the Bros and Bowser so it's much less intrusive. Nevermind less mechanically clunky and the game uses it more for roadblocks than just randomly inserting platforming segments out of nowhere.
But more importantly where the first game just had a sort of surreal silliness and was kinda cute, this game just made Bowser the main character, Fawful the villain, and the rest of teh game wrote itself.
I think the best part of the game was actually the Giga Bowser segments. I suppose in part I'm just a sucker for random gameplay diversions in the vein of Suikoden War Battles, but more than that because there were just the four of them, they clearly put a lot of thought into making each one distinct and could play around with it.
So yeah, good stuff. 8/10 maybe? Hard to say, will have to think on it.
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Off topic, but it needs to be said:
Fenrir, I love your avatar. Marry me.
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<3
Oh right Gref, fists are probably meant for NG+.
I'd do a magic only run but it involves going into menus even more than playing with a different weapon for every kind of enemy.
Demon's Souls Thief Class, Luck Only, Get Everything:
Turns out luck is a terrible stat! So Yattaf is just a starting character who never levels up, but who -can- get a bonus herb/shard once in a while, which is a totally fair trade for having 402 HPs instead of like 1500 if I had raised vitality instead.
Main weapons:
- Dagger +10. Loving the speed and backstabs. Ripostes were fine in the beginning, but at this point, I'm OHKOed by the enemies I'd use them against. The risk is not worth the reward anymore.
- Crescent Falchion +3: For those rare cases where the dagger just doesn't have the right damage type.
- Sticky short bow +5: Surprisingly decent in practice, just not often usable on its own. I always carry a large supply of fire and holy arrows just in case. Very useful for kiting too.
- Starting shield +whatever: Whatever.
I haven't really changed much (not even my clothes), just upgraded my stuff and added a falchion to my arsenal.
Progress:
- Phalanx: Threw 10 molotov cocktails.
- Fool's Idol: Edward's strategy: Hid behind columns, ran quickly to stab one clone, went back to hiding, repeat.
- Tower Knight: Killed his support, dodged his massive but predictable attacks and poked at his feet for hours
- Adjudicator: Didn't dare to try killing the bird with a bow, applied the good old melee strategy instead
- Armor Spider: Got to mid range, alternated between shooting holy arrows and dodging his stuff.
- Old Hero: Dude is literally blind. I just shot him from afar with holy arrows and he took ages to react properly. By that point I had moved to the other side of the room.
- Leechmonger: Just shot the monstrosity on a ledge with fire arrows, avoided giant balls of leeches by rolling.
- Flamelurker: Pure skill. Well, he only has a 3HKO with a Ring of Fire Protection, so this fight never got that bad.
- BP Satsuki: OHKOing, durable bastard. Block, backstab, heal, repeat.
- Storm King: Just hid inside the broken house and blindly attacked everywhere until everybody else was dead. Giant spear thrown by a giant manta ray? OHKO.
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TOPSP: Okay, finally took down the Ozma fight. On one hand, meh to having a plot-related recruit with lines be in a lvl. 22 fight you're presumably supposed to do before a lvl. 17-18 fight, but on the bright side this injected some challenge back into the game. This was pretty intense. Going up to lvl. 18 archers, and grabbing a level on the distraction to make them slightly less squishy (lvl.16->17 for most, 15->16 for Jeunan and something like 11->14 for Vyse), really made the difference.
Damage: 4 archers + 1 Canopus. (Archers: Hobyrim, Arycelle, Sara, 1 generic from back when who was all skilled up.)
Hobyrim & Sara had Longbow +1s for ease in focus-fire + for killing the Templar mages, Arycelle & the generic had Composite Bow +1s for the sheer damage at a slight range cost. My archers would generally 4HKO-8HKO enemies, which means if I can throw enough firepower from all of 'em at the same target, it can fall reasonably fast before the healing comes in, especially with Tremendous Shot.
Ranting about wyrms and miasma: Sherri (Dark/Earth enchantress) + generic wizard (Dark).
I didn't level Witch so screw that, Sherri does the same stuff sans Golem nonsense as Enchantress. And... wow, Earth magic ain't bad. It can hit undead, and most importantly Petrifog / Duststorm is crazy with Spellstrike 2. 100% hit rates on absolutely everyone? Area petrification/slow? Yes please. None of them could break defense with damage but it didn't matter, they could reliably stone the entire front line as well as Ozma, and toss Slow around if given extra time. Most important key, if the stone wave ever broke up for long the front line of Templars would shred me to pieces. Unfortunately Sherri needs to be on the front lines to do this and Templar archers, once they get in range, massively 2HKO her. (Like 100 damage to 160 HP, 150 on a critical.)
Distraction + item boy: Denam, Ravness, Jeunan, Vyse. (Warrior, Valkyrie, Dragoon, Ranger)
The first three's task was to occupy the bridge and make sure de-stoned templars & Volaq couldn't break past my line. Otherwise, spam drug leafs on themselves to distract themselves from the horrible wounds being inflicted on them. While they can sort of break defense now, they have like a 12-20HKO with their mighty 5-15 damage. Attacking Volaq was just going to earn counters to heal off + healing from any other Templar... and eventually set Volaq up with enough TP for a finisher which is almost surely a OHKO. Deaths are really bad so I'll pass, thanks, Volaq will be throwing finishers at me anyway and is annoyingly slow/stone immune. Ravness could throw around some ranged healing too with her magic. Vyse was still behind on levels, and dual-dagger style for 1 damage a pop ain't going far. He stayed toward the back and didn't try the distraction as much.
Healing: Olivya (Cleric)
Not much to say here, aside from the fact that the bridge blockade was largely able to keep her out of harm's way. (She dies fast otherwise.) Item-healing is potentially more powerful but sometimes you need ranged heals and sometimes you need area heals.
I will say I had to chariot some of the fight, since things like "oh surprise critical Sherri is dead and her MP is gone" was rage-worthy enough to back up on. Same with letting myself time revival correctly. I tried not to Chariot away stuff like Archer Deflects or Paralysis stun, though I actually did undo the stun twice. I think I could have beaten the fight sans Chariot, but I'd want another level to finish things faster if so. But yeah, even after I nailed a few templars with careful sniping after stoning the knights + carefully timed finishing moves, poorly timed 3x unstonings + Volaq finisher + templar archers fully in play was enough to put me on my back feet fast. I still recovered, re-stoned, worked a few more characters down, and slowly triumphed, winning with honor which means killing all of Ozma's subordinates so there's nobody there pressuring her to stay with Dark Knights. Yupyup.
In general Alexander O. Smith's script is great, but I liked the Ozma recruitment scene as rather well written even for the game. The bit about "I will be your eyes, but perhaps you will show me the way" was even rather touching rather than maudlin. Bravo.
After that was all done, I decided I liked this whole challenge thing, and did the Occione sidequest basically down 2-3 characters via continuing to level Mirdyn (White Knight) / Vyse as well as tossing lvl. 1 crappy Ozma in. The Occione sidequest enemies are lvl. 20 or so, so about 2-3 levels higher... perfect! Those fights were fun, which I usually did with only 1 archer to spice the pot up some. Although okay, I will admit to deploying 3 archers to the final showdown with the necromancer and aimed at his head rather than honorably killing all the subordinates first as is my usual MO.
At this point, White Knight (which I've been keeping in the back to throw out heals) has finally started to be able to break defense, and I consider switching Ravness over from Valk to WK... except... I get a tiny offense/defense boost in exchange for a pretty notable speed drop (RT 86->94). With the exact same equipment. Yeah no. Valkyrie is still nothing special but tanky spear-user who can toss heals / Boons of Swiftness around ain't bad, and Rampart Aura / Velocity Shift aren't worth that kind of a slowdown.
Anyway, after Denam took a vacation to Exeter & Krysaro for no apparent reason after leading a "sneaky" force to Barnica (what WAS that mysterious blast on Exeter anyway? Doesn't seem to have had anything to do with Occione... did the Palace of the Dead blow up?), I was now nicely overleveled, which worked out anyway I guess since Barbas got to play comedy villain instead as Canopus practically solos him & his forces. Next battle, too bad the game didn't switch up its habits and make Lanselot T. in the next battle guaranteed to be your highest level +2 or something, as at lvl. 18 he's not really going to impress. Decent dialogue at least with Hobyrim & Ozma. Otherwise, I stuck the Dark Priest to sleep, quick-saved, then had Canopus perform a Slumber Shot to send her into the next world peacefully and quietly. The best I could do for the poor, slightly crazy one. Lanselot's reaction was pretty great, although I was a bit disappointed with Denam's back at Phidoch - come on, run with it, in this universe this was all part of the plan. Effective enough anyway I suppose.
(okay and then I reloaded the quicksave, but after the scene afterward... nobody should stick her in charge of anything.)
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Tales of Graces F- I think I'm endgame. Maybe. About to return to Fendel Mountain Pass. Team is L48~ AVG. My main team is usually Cheria/Sophie/Hubert/Malik w/th the occassional Asbel or Pascal in for Hubert. Currently though my team is Cheria/Hubert/Asbel/Malik which seems to be doing fine so far on the new random Nova enemies which have appeared on the field but we'll see how it goes for the next dungeons proper. Cheria just acquired Garden of Innocence at least which should help~
The story has picked up recently, been enjoying it, especially the skit interaction between Asbel, Cheria and Sophie =)
Brief break down of current character stats -
HP - Malik (3718) > Asbel (3171) > Hubert (3027) > Sophie (2988) > Cheria (2654) > Pascal (2302)
P.ATK - Sophie (501) > Hubert (458) > Cheria (349) > Pascal (343) > Malik (310) > Asbel (292)
C.ATK - Asbel (499) > Pascal (477) > Malik (450) > Cheria (319) > Sophie (299) > Hubert (279)
P.DEF - Sophie (460) > Asbel (454) > Pascal (409) > Hubert (375) > Cheria (369) > Malik (286)
C.DEF - Cheria (454) > Sophie (360) > Malik (341) > Asbel (327) > Hubert (324) > Pascal (237)
ACC - Hubert (518) > Cheria (430) > Asbel (327) > Malik (286) > Sophie (271) > Pascal (184)
EVA - Cheria (515) > Sophie (454) > Pascal (391) > Malik (352) > Asbel (307) Hubert (260)
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Darksiders: This game has no right to be good but it is. Combat is waaaaay shallower than DMC (very limited comboing, you can own everything with a simple powerup spell and one fist move), exploration is quite limited compared to Zelda, but combining the two into a single package creates a very enjoyable whole. Plus the style is so pure 90s that you have to laugh with it. To wit: War is animated in the hyper-muscled, huge-arms-and-hands Joe Madureira style. He wears giant metal gauntlets on his giant hands. One of your secondary weapons is an even gianter metal gauntlet that he wears over his regular giant gauntlet. They make sure to show this happening. It's spectacular.
And there's also Mark Hamill as Navi. Just wanted to remind people that that's a thing.
Anyway, just killed the spider boss, cruising around looking for stuff I can hookshot before heading to the Tower Of Dark Evil Darkness.
Orcs Must Die 2: Finished the Crunch. Wow. Game was pretty easy up to then, but I barely made it out of that one alive.
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Darksiders: This game has no right to be good but it is.
Truer words were never spoken. From what I've heard, 2 continues that so bad it's good flavor but does more to actually be good in terms of combat, mostly because Death is a more agile combatant than War.
Shatter
Probably because I'm playing in short bursts, I can't seem to beat the boss that plugs itself in.
League of Legends
Early on when I exclusively played Nunu, one of my friends told me I should get an AD for times when my solo queue teams were too heavily AP; I debated picking up Sivir but went for Pantheon instead. Sivir being free this week has convinced me I made the wrong choice.
Civilization V
Giving this another go because it came free with the XCOM preorder. So far my impression from playing it on a friend's system hasn't changed: it's gorgeous, but the gameplay is worse than Civ IV in almost every way and adds nothing to the mix. The Gods and Kings expansion does, so if I get to liking the base game I might pick it up.
Magic the Gathering
Played a Return to Ravnica prerelease.
I'm more used to draft than sealed, so even with a guildpak I felt like my card pool for the event itself was bad. Despite this, I took 3rd place with Izzet and came into possession of a truly ridiculous number of boosters.
Some of those I used for a draft, which I won handily going Red-Black. Rakdos the guild is very explosive and powerful in limited, and Rakdos the demon is an absurd bomb. He was my first pick both for the draft and of the rares arrayed as prizes, but sadly only came out once.
I can't tell if he will be a bomb in Standard, though. There's no question that he's powerful - a 6/6 flying trampler with a "drawback" that might as well not exist for these colors and an added effect that, while not likely to be important, certainly doesn't hurt. On the other hand, he has no defense against removal and little effect on the board the turn he drops.
Actually, I take that back. Many artifact creatures would be free the turn he drops. I wonder if there are enough playable ones for that to matter. Probably not, and with the Titans rotating I doubt there's anything more expensive than Rakdos himself worth running in a Red-Black aggro deck. In Modern, however, he's kind of intriguing. I'm curious if there's a deck to build around Rakdos accelerating out Darksteel Colossus or Eldrazi.
In Standard, though, his added effect is shrug-worthy, it's his body and fighting abilities that are notable. Right now the format is defined by midrange creatures, which puts some hurt on a RB weenie rush strategy. Rakdos gives the gonzo-aggro deck a control-style fat finisher who wins fights against midrange creatures, at a mana cost an aggro deck can support.
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Orcs Must Die 2: Finished the Crunch. Wow. Game was pretty easy up to then, but I barely made it out of that one alive.
Warmage or Nightmare? Warmage, you can just spam Archers near the rift to handle the fliers and use barracades/flame traps/tar traps on the ground to handle the rest.
Nightmare, you have to be much more protective of your archers (You get a fuckton of Giant types) but it can be done. It's one of the few maps where I recommend using Paladins on Nightmare, though you are very likely to lose a few from Gnolls. You'll want to get good at using the crossbow in general though. Stun on the crossbow is the best way to slow down waves of giants, and headshots restoring mana means you'll have enough MP to spam thunderstorm to handle crowds.
The fire and ice DLC pack has the hardest stage in the game by FAR (The west wing) though the crunch is up there for normal stages. There's just a ton going on and the only real chokepoint is by the rift.
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Deus Ex: I'm going to stab you in the face with a knife while you shoot me in the head with your assault rifle.
Because I'm trying to be stealthy
At least I got to blow up Anna, no one likes Anna.
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I'm more used to draft than sealed, so even with a guildpak I felt like my card pool for the event itself was bad. Despite this, I took 3rd place with Izzet and came into possession of a truly ridiculous number of boosters.
From last Saturday, I learned that Izzet are insane because Hypersonic Dragon is an absolutely brutal finisher and almost every rare is useful for them (unlike the others, where there are terrible rares - I opened Azor's Elocutors from my Azorius pack.)
I can't tell if he will be a bomb in Standard, though. There's no question that he's powerful - a 6/6 flying trampler with a "drawback" that might as well not exist for these colors and an added effect that, while not likely to be important, certainly doesn't hurt. On the other hand, he has no defense against removal and little effect on the board the turn he drops.
Actually, I take that back. Many artifact creatures would be free the turn he drops. I wonder if there are enough playable ones for that to matter. Probably not, and with the Titans rotating I doubt there's anything more expensive than Rakdos himself worth running in a Red-Black aggro deck. In Modern, however, he's kind of intriguing. I'm curious if there's a deck to build around Rakdos accelerating out Darksteel Colossus or Eldrazi.
In Standard, though, his added effect is shrug-worthy, it's his body and fighting abilities that are notable. Right now the format is defined by midrange creatures, which puts some hurt on a RB weenie rush strategy. Rakdos gives the gonzo-aggro deck a control-style fat finisher who wins fights against midrange creatures, at a mana cost an aggro deck can support.
Rakdos, in standard right now, is still going to be incredibly powerful. It does take the right kind of deck, but there's so little removal that hits him so he'll always have a board presence. (Ultimate Price, Tribute to Hunger, Tragic Slip, Dreadbore and Abrupt Decay are the big pieces of removal at the moment, and only one of those consistently hits him.)
That said, yes, he is clearly much weaker because the power level of artifact creatures has plummeted with Mirrodin's rotation out, and RB is basically going to be "Lots of Haste and Unleash" - still, with that deck, you're going to be getting the damage through regardless, and at that point, Rakdos is a 6/6 Flying Trampler for 4. The lower cost thing doesn't matter, because that is pure cost-effectiveness and can tear through an opponent without the answers (and, as I said earlier, there aren't a huge number of answers right now.)
This is why I am currently building UW Control. The only things that are killing my deck at this stage are Tribute to Hunger and Bonfire of the Damned, so 4 Witchbane Orb in the sideboard means I have no trouble beating pretty much everything in my local meta. Woo!
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Warmage. I ended up planting a ton of archers, yeah, but I hadn't upgraded them at all so it took a whole to set up and required a LOT of support.
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Upgrade Archers, you are going to be using them a lot. The Crunch can be unpleasant on Nightmare, as a single Cyclops can snipe your archers.
(Granted, Defense Grid and Endless mode have made me paranoid about flyers, but Archers are hands down the best guardian and almost always the best way to take out fliers and sappers.)
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Tales of Graces F - Chaos Polycarps. This boss ;DDD This boss. FFFFFF. this boss. Eventually after much trial and error with many attempts I found a working set up and won. The key was starting the fight with the Eleth bar near full to Eleth Burst pretty much straight away and wailing on the boss as much as possible right away for a head start on getting it through it's different phases. Cheria L49/Hubert L48 (A Heavy, all B Artes except Rolling Thunderbolt Off, Aggressive, Rarely)/Malik L48 (B Only, Aggressive, Rarely, all Mystic Artes Off) /Asbel L49 (B Heavy, Aggressive, Always) I also had the accessory with near death damage reduction on Cheria and the one w/th near death increased damage on Asbel. I had everyone with the Party Eleth growth up titles on. Actual winning fight went really smoothly with the boss being stunned/staggered/paralysed/locked most of the time, Asbel and Malik died near the end but this was the run where the team had not managed to eat all my Life Bottles/Elixirs so I used one on Asbel, soon after another Eleth Burst triggered and it was at L3 so I was able to Garden of Innocence which revived Malik while finishing the boss off at the same time, ending the fight in style =)
By the way anyone here know how the "Damage taken added to Attack" title works for Cheria? I kinda want to experiment with it~
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FF5 - So I have been enjoying this (Elfboy approved) replay a chunk. I have hated how much I had forgot stuff and the bad decisions it has lead to. Primarily I went back to Walz after getting to Kannak because "Oh shit I don't remember playing a piano there" and then had to walk back. Then got Summoner and went back to get Shiva. Then went oh yeah (Elfboy approved) Elf Cloak in there that I will want to get. I should go back when I get L5 death (to kill Harpy because Brave Knife). This lead me to be (not Elfboy approved) over leveled by accident. This put me out of synch of the level scale where (I find anyway) you hit 15 just in the Ancient Library and can pick it up easily. Now I really want that cloak so I am (not Elfboy approved) level grinding. I don't really want to do this, I was enjoying playing FF5 like a normal sane human being instead of like a Demi-Dune or something. What I am doing though is making sure I unsynchronize my party levels for the (Elfboy approved?) tactical advantage it gives of not everyone being hit by the same damned Level ? BLAH spell. Doing so by having Galuf (Hopefully Elfboy approved) solo gain about 3 levels to 20. Then he can die for our sins and I can get the Elfcloak with a Ribbon using Bare to bypass Moonflute that random Harpy cast.
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Conclave: Started this. Playing a Lumyn Beacon named CaptainK (original huh?).
Beacons sound really cool on paper, being able to attack two squares away, pushback skill, etc. However, they actually suck ass because their accuracy is shit. I'd estimate no better than a 33% chance to hit an enemy of the same level. It's really bad.
You need more Polearm skill to improve accuracy, but to do that you need to finish quests. Which requires you to hit enemies. Which requires Polearm skill...
Finally got to level three. I should also mention that status effects are way too common and powerful. Enemies cause bleeding/burning/poisoning constantly and your health drains rapidly.
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By the way anyone here know how the "Damage taken added to Attack" title works for Cheria? I kinda want to experiment with it~
Basically the damage you take from an attack is added to the next attack you do. It's pretty minor and not terribly worthwhile because of Damage/HP scales...
Except when you trigger Accel Mode right as Cheria takes SuperMassiveOverkillDamage from stacking extremely low defense with all the "Increase enemy damage" and "Enemy Crits are more severe" and such. Then you can OHKO the Rockagon by taking 99999999 damage in a single hit, tanking it via Accel Mode HP-1 protection, and then responding in kind.
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Conclave: soloed all available quests with a Nix True Bow. Because Pinning Shot and Running Shot are that damn good. Sadly this still leaves me one quest short of hitting level 6.
Mostly used the range 7 bows. Had to switch to Faelan Spark Bow for the undead octopus and the cult leader battles because I needed the extra damage more than the range. Stupid octopus is one of the few things strong enough to break free from Pinning Shot.
Had fewer deaths getting to end of game than Beacon had getting to level three. :P
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Conclave: soloed all available quests with a Nix True Bow. Because Pinning Shot and Running Shot are that damn good. Sadly this still leaves me one quest short of hitting level 6.
Mostly used the range 7 bows. Had to switch to Faelan Spark Bow for the undead octopus and the cult leader battles because I needed the extra damage more than the range. Stupid octopus is one of the few things strong enough to break free from Pinning Shot.
Had fewer deaths getting to end of game than Beacon had getting to level three. :P
Maybe I should've picked a different class...
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Been going through SMT3 again. NG+, so I've got broken to hell demons early on, but balancing that by taking the best stats ever - I'm at the Karma Temple with max Agility and about 23 Luck. Have gained nothing else, except for one or two random level-up bonuses.
Stopping this for now, though, because I want something new, so...
Magna Carta: Yeaaaaah. Not a terrible game, but this is in no way a good game. Played for about an hour, stopping now, and going to go and start something else instead. >.>;
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Front Mission 3 - Just started but I wanted people to know how much I appreciate having lots of characters to use for renaming the main. I am going to enjoy the adventures of Macho Man Randy Savage.
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I am going to enjoy the adventures of Macho Man Randy Savage.
<3
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It has been pretty good so far, I hear the voice in my head for all his lines.
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Conclave: Things we learned today - inflicting things that applies vulnerable actually lets Beacons hit things. Also that partnering up is a good way to avoid wreckings.
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It has been pretty good so far, I hear the voice in my head for all his lines.
Front Mission lacks a jump jet analog to complete the Macho Man image. We just had a mech drop an elbow in my BT campaign and it really tied everything together.
MACHO MADNESS! SKY'S THE LIMIT!
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It is because I am wild.
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Hey if you played FM4, there are jet packs. But it doesn't let you play as Macho Man Randy Savage. Or Mr. T for that matter.
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Don't the jets in FM4 just let you charge straight forward a long ways? Cause that's clearly the domain of Hacksaw Jim Duggan.
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Conclave: Things we learned today - inflicting things that applies vulnerable actually lets Beacons hit things. Also that partnering up is a good way to avoid wreckings.
Don't get used to it. Nothing like missing a dazed, staggered enemy with Valiant Strike to make you facepalm. On the other hand I think I missed a total of three attacks the whole playthrough of archer, and those were -5 attacks against adjacent enemies.
Trying a Mezoar Runecaster now. Seems pretty good so far, although some of the abilities are a bit redundant.
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New Super Mario Bros. 2 - Beaten about six of the worlds, though still have two missing secrets and a missing star coin in the worlds I have beaten.
The game is fairly clearly the worst of the three New Super Mario games, I think. It has an extremely recycled feel, with the exact same structure as the past two games, only one new powerup (and it's just an improved fireball), and even the same music as the previous games. Stage design is still solid enough (and star coins remain one of the few collectables I think are actually fun to locate) but I always think Mario is at its best when it's shaking things up a bit. Obviously I'm a big 2D Mario fan though, so finishing and 100%ing this game is inevitable.
Tactics Ogre - Chaos route, midway through chapter 3, raising people for stat topic purposes continues but I'm mostly just enjoying the replay, as this game is fun. I'm starting to wonder if daggers were a good choice for Denam, since they've fallen behind on damage especially compared to hammers... hopefully this is just a quirk of midgame equipment or something.
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Decided to play WA3 over SH3, and have just finished Chapter 1. I've been told that my assumptions for the characters are pretty damn accurate (which is to say that I currently like Clive, Maya and Janus is funny in a terrible villain kinda way, and it seems like Ginny will improve, Gallows will remain unimpressive and Jet is fucking annoying)
Biggest complaint about this game so far is the most stupid shit, but it is still fucking irritating having the characters running around the screen during combat. I mean.. You're using guns. Stop running up to your opponent and trying to shoot them from a few inches away. Better yet, stop running the fuck into each other. It's like SH2's battle screens, only it looks ridiculous.
So yeah, with that being my biggest complaint, obviously enjoying it at the moment. Nothing fantastic yet, but still lots of room for that to happen.
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SH3 is better =(. And *sniff* Gallows is my fav...
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WA3>SH3, damn it.
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And here I was going "Damn that is a scenario I wish I was stuck in to pick from two fun albeit flawed games to be playing for the first time."
TEH PANDAWOWs - So I level capped last week. Was geared enough by the time my guild went to raid and they needed a tenth and I had some hours to burn between sessions for work. So we killed the first boss and I got all excited at the fight because it is a dynamic one where you juggle three mobs around with tank swaps to control when they use big abilities and there is a lot of zone control in this fight. Especially dynamic on 10 man as there is 4 possible mobs that spawn each week where 25 get all four at once (so 25 man has more mob juggling). Whichever mob you are trying to get to use there big move each time has their secondary ability's damage reduce significantly so while juggling stuff you can periodically ignore or get some control of the zoning effects.
Best of all the guild got someone else to do the calling and he is better at it than I am. That is shard fight to call on so yay. I have missed some of the stuff in the fight there but doing that with a group of people is what I love in these games and it has been so long since I have done it that I start to forget.
That said I start to forget the other things that go with it. So what I am saying is I want to do dungeon runs in GW2 with Laggy.
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Biggest complaint about this game so far is the most stupid shit, but it is still fucking irritating having the characters running around the screen during combat. I mean.. You're using guns. Stop running up to your opponent and trying to shoot them from a few inches away. Better yet, stop running the fuck into each other. It's like SH2's battle screens, only it looks ridiculous.
This is actually something I liked about WA3. Everyone even behaves more or less in line with their personalities! Gallows and Jet chase monsters, Ginny blunders around seemingly at random, Clive hovers around her like a bodyguard because well someone has to. More fun to look at than everyone just standing in a line.
Also did I really just see Super say that WA3 is better than a thing which isn't WA3. What.
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I don't hate WA3! I'm just not a fan.
Fuck SH3. And fuck G3 because it exists.
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Super hates good games, nothing new to see here.
I used to be pretty firmly in the WA3>SH3 camp but the latter has aged better to me, as more gameplay-focused games tend to. Both are worth checking out, regardless.
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I don't hate WA3! I'm just not a fan.
Fuck SH3. And fuck G3 because it exists.
Well, 1 out of 3 isn't bad.
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I hate G3 less now that I've played both it and GX close to each other.
Now THAT, my friends, is a Really Fucking Bad Game.
Highest offense: Lack of save points. This is a major nuisance. Also sic'ing the final boss (who is a huge step up from the rest of the puny game) on you after grinding through 10 mind-numbingly boring randomly generated dungeon floors without a chance to restore MP/save/shop beforehand.
Brothers, there are more things that unite us than divide us. Let's all just agree that GX sucks and move on to better things. Like sticking needles in our eyes.
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If I can hate on G1 instead of GX I will get on this train.
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G1 hate train? I'm the driver, girls.
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See, my only experience with Grandia is the PS2 version of Grandia II.
I don't think I need to say anything else. :(
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(http://aroundthehorns.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/25941-hulk_hogan.jpg)
Brothers, there are more things that unite us than divide us. Let's all just agree that GX sucks and move on to better things. Like sticking needles in our eyes.
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The Hulkster has a sex tape out there, brother. And let me tell you this, man, I have two words to describe it to all those Hulkamaniacs out there, dude:
Multiple.
Hogasms.
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Tokyo Jungle:
(http://www.journaldugamer.com/files/2012/03/tokyo-jungle-sony-costumes-ps31-600x323.png)
I've managed to survive 50 years already as a beagle, but I don't know how small carnivores animals can survive that much longer without using them a few times and getting crazy high stats? It's all lions and cheetas and elephants after a point. How am I supposed to kill them all with a beagle?
I think I'm going to stick with herbivores for high scores. Fruits don't fight back.
It's basically an arcade game (Survive as much as you can, then try again from the start) with a ton of permanent stat bonuses and unlockable stuff to get. Including a little schoolgirl outfit for your pig.
Demon's Souls (Thief, Luck only, Get Everything):
Finished the game and got all those trophies. They're easy to get, except for the terrible pure bladestone which took me like 4 hours of farming. I usually don't do that, but come on, I had done -everything else- at this point!
Bosses:
- Penetrator: Freeing Biorr makes this battle a joke.
- Dirty Colossus: Strafe right and win.
- Astrea: She's even more bitter than usual if you don't talk to her!
- (BP) Garl Vinland: Get up to him to provoke him, rolling backwards, striking twice and running away, several times. Boring
- Red Dragon: A zillion arrows to the face
- Blue Dragon: A gazillion arrows to the face
- Maneater: Did you know that Maneaters do terrible damage? Like 150 max. Of course you're too busy being pushed off the ledge to notice.
- BP Scirvir: His short range fire blast is super fast and super deadly. The solution is to run him out of MPs by strafing. What a joke.
- BP Selen: She has terrible damage (3HKO), but she also has healing, and you have to deal with the swamp. Fortunately she gets super dumb below half HPs (literally walking away to heal), I could just backstab her a few more times.
- Old King Allant: I nearly won that fight the first time, so I just used a stone of ephemeral eyes to easily finish him the second time! Expect I died and made the game harder as a result. Nooo! So: I used another stone of ephemeral eyes? I make bad decisions. At one point near pure black tendency, I finally beat him. He's fairly manageable by staying at mid range and only attacking to counter a few specific moves ("Ultima" has a really long charge time and can be cancelled, "Sonic speed" always finishes right next to the player and has a long recovery time)
- Old King Doran: Fighting a superboss with starting stats goes about as well as you'd expect... Fortunately he's an idiot. Get him far enough from his comfort zone, and he'll slowly walk away. Keep him on the bad path by slashing his face a few thousand times.
- Dragon God: For all the hate Bed of Chaos gets, this fight is a hell of a lot worse. Granted, I guess you're not supposed to be OHKOed here.
Miralda+Mephistopheles quest: Unremarkable.
I only had Northern Regalia left to get 100% trophies. Unfortunately this involves beating NG+ Flamelurker with a starting character? Freaking Phalanx was hard enough. I just snapped and duplicated 396 Maiden in Black Souls, ate them all, got all my stats to 99999999 and stomped everything.
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Deus Ex: laputan machine
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GREF ARE YOU PLAYING XCOM CUZ IM TOTALLY PLAYING XCOM BRO!!!!!!
To repeat: XCOM.
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Pokemon Black: So with Black 2 coming out, decided to finish off the aftergame finally.
Cynthia I had to fight over and over again until I finally got a plan down to take out each one systematically...and it still required some luck. Evil fight.
Super E4...well, when I approached them first by accident I got curb stomped by the first! When I actually tried them seriously? Not too bad; just being intelligent about typing wins most of those fights.
Alder I won based on a few luck things, though in fairness, luck factors were all over the fight. For example, Volcarronon could OHKO Starmie wtih Bug Buzz post Overheat if random variance went his way. If didn't, Starmine nearly OHKOs in return, likely dies next turn and Reshiram (who can't be one shotted) finishes him off. The "Starmie gets OHKO'd" thing kicked in on the winning run, but Reshiram got a Critical Hit Fusion Flare to blast through his Quiver Dances anyway, so all is good. I of course say to myself "that would be so much easier if I had something with Rock damage!"
Final Team was Victini, Starmie, Crobat, Metagross, Darkrai, Reshiram. Darkrai was my MVP, not too shockingly.
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Nope, not out here yet. 2 more days. Dishonored comes out sooner, so I will spend a night playing that it seems. Then my older brother gets home after a couple of months away and we will probably be playing Borderlands 2 finally.
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Finished Darksiders. Game is what it is: cheesy 90s comics/heavy metal cover art pasted onto a DMC/Zelda/Portal hybrid. Somehow this works. Ending is pretty fun too.
Started the sequel. This one I have mixed feelings on. The combat? Worlds better. Death can move, which makes him play more like Dante or Ryu Hayabusa, and combos flow a lot better. The addition of random loot, Diablo-style, is odd but on the whole a positive - except for what it does to the exploration element. Because every chest now has some random assortment of gear, potions and cash, there's no tier of well-hidden treasure with guaranteed awesome rewards, like the epic weapon mods, abyssal armor, and health/wrath ups from the first game. Your reward for exploration is just another roll of the dice on the gear table. Also the first act is basically WOW, with every NPC a generic quest-giver. There isn't even an antagonist yet, which is a big drop from having Mark Hamill harassing War on command.
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Conclave: Soloed all quests with a Mezoar Runecaster. Which was largely easier than the True Bow. The True Bow survives by kiting constantly. The Runecaster is a fixed artillery unit - just stand there and blow stuff up. Having an ability (Stonesheath) that lets you tank better than the game's tank class is a little psyduck.
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FM3 - I haven't been playing this as much as I should. Macho Man Randy Savage gets all pissy at army recruits for guarding a military base during an emergency while stealing expensive military equipment. The. Proceeds to check his email and then destroys millions of dollars of military equipment and get interrogated. Then he checks his email and makes entirely unreasonable demands about finding his sister after refusing to tell them who he is. Then he checks his email and shouts at his dad who tells him to fuck off and gets him off stealing and destroying millions of dollars of military hardware Scott free. The. He checks his email and nepotism! Then he checks his email and observes military secrets and hijacks a Humvee to go follow the military secrets truck further into a secure email. Last I saw he was then checking his email.
My favourite part where he spent 45 minutes browsing the entire Internet and then bitches out his friend for not working hard enough.
Not sure if playing villain or not.
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Don't worry Gref. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT will save this brave hero. Maybe?
I wanted some obscure Snes RPG action yet I got bored with all of them (Silva Saga 2, Magna Braban, Burning Heroes, Dark Law. You don't know any of them)
I thought I was pretty much done with the Snes. Goodbye, slow pace, terrible humour, great sprites, and brain dead difficulty.
But then I checked Brandish 2: The Planet Buster. I think I'm 1/3 of the way through it?
For some reason i've become that guy who's come to like Brandish 2. What's happening? It's just like Brandish 1 (1/10 game, last time I checked) with a lot more polish but the same terrible concept.
There are two undoubtly great things about it:
- The planet buster. It is a sword... That busts planets.
- I am dual wielding shields and punching people with them. It is extremely effective.
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But Brandish isn't obscure enough. I have heard of it.
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Only because we ranted about it years ago. Like Drakkhen.
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Nintendo Power actually had an article about Brandish back in the 90s. I always remembered it as the weird-ass game that thought it was a good idea to rotate the screen instead of the PC for some reason.
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Boat finished, island entered, stats/weapons/armour upgraded. Still manualing Zael, currently not enjoying the amount of team members on the screen (boat primarily, very tight and had to jump over teammates). Not enjoying the saccharine scene music tracks. - The Last Story
No progress made on anything else. To be expected.
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Personally, I'd say the reverse. Lay the saccharine music on harder; too many areas have some kind of Xenosaga I-esque "enjoy the ambient sounds of nothingness" which is boring. I'll take actual music over that, thanks.
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FF10: Just finished up the Kilika Forest, going to do puzzles in the temple now~
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Personally, I'd say the reverse. Lay the saccharine music on harder; too many areas have some kind of Xenosaga I-esque "enjoy the ambient sounds of nothingness" which is boring. I'll take actual music over that, thanks.
Regarding The Last Story? The saccharine tracks don't qualify as 'actual music' at all. Inundate the game with more bad music? Bad.
I don't see the comparison to XS1, but both games venture into the sci-fi realm, TLS obviously tending more towards the medieval.
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Both The Last Story and Xenosaga I frequently skip a background music track. (Just the sound of waves, or of birds, or of the hustle & bustle of a market, etc.)
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RE5: Played and finished, at least the main campaign. Since I got it in the package, will probably do the two DLC episodes just to get full money's worth of said package, etc.
The game ended up better than I expected. Part of this is not so much the anti-hype around as much as the demo is a very bad impression of the game. The earlier parts of the game are some of the worst stuff, because it throws in you a cramped area with too many enemies, one of whom is a boss and there's little way to actually effectively kill him. I know the Demo hands you a few weapons like a shotgun that the game doesn't have, but still, you're limited on ammo, healing, etc., and said boss can easily murder you, and you're still getting use to the controls.
The other part is the first chain saw enemy, aka an enemy with instant death who you need to take advantage of terrain to kill appropriately.
True, RE4 had moments like this, but game felt more balanced around them. The early enemy swarm? More open area, don't have a partner to worry about, had more time to actually get use to the controls, and there were more houses to run into and force said enemies into genuine chokepoints.
The other thing the demo had though was forced control scheme that was serious ass. First thing I did when I turned the game on was went to options and saw if I could change them. Thankfully, you can, and there's even a control scheme that mirrors RE4 (Or is "close enough" anyway), and that alone makes the game far smoother. It's also Control Scheme #1, yet the game defaults to control scheme #4...I think it's best we don't ask!
These things aside, game is playable and fun at times. Still notably worse than RE4, for a few reasons.
First off, inventory system. I pretty much agree with all the complaints; 18 spaces for 2 characters is not enough. Having to change on the fly wasn't as bad as I expected but yeah, times you want to experiment stuff, but you genuinely do not have the space too, so you just have to commit to two or three weapon types (in my case, I had Chris with Handgun, Magnum, and Shotgun. Sheva I handed Machine Guns, Rifle and Grenade Gun. I regret the latter because she NEVER USED IT and had a lot of useless ammo sitting around ._.). This also means the actual variety of areas is shot down. RE4, due to it's more lenient inventory, allowed for areas like Sniper Battles as an obvious example, or just lent to more interesting options for taking down opponents.
Next off, buddy system. This felt like a forced implementation for Co-op. I'll grant that Sheva is never really annoying as a character, but there are times where they force you to split up and do things that felt tedious, and then times where you're doing well then oh crap, buddy got hurt, run back to save them! It wasn't really an element that helped.
Game is also notably shorter. Which is a bad thing since the plot definitely tries to do a lot more. RE4 just played itself up as a B-movie or a satire...it's hard to say which, but the basic idea was "Leon vs. Not!Spain" and just rolled with it here. RE5 was clearly trying to build some finale between Chris and Wesker, and did it in about 10 hours instead of 20. This leads to plot points being introduced, then resolved in the next plot scene. Take the MASKED WOMAN for example. She shows up for one scene...then appears another scene and then you're finally like "ok, whose that." Next scene? Reveals who she is...and the same scene resolves the entire conflict with that character...this is also the first scene where Wesker and Chris interact. Look, I don't expect AMAZING PLOT from Resident Evil but this is vaguely insulting pacing.
Lastly, game has too many boss fights. RE4 showed that the system just doesn't lend itself well to boss fights, so the fact that it had so few came off as "ok, let's do something a little different" and worked in it's favor. RE5 has double the bosses, they're not better handled on average, and still highlight the game's system doesn't compliment them. It doesn't help that with the inventory issues, they had to rely on pure gimmick items that pop up only for that area.
It's still an alright game, but yeah, notable step down from RE4. The game has enough of what made RE4 good and a dramatic improvement over the earlier games (enough to make me actually stomach playing it, instead of throwing up at it!), but missed a lot of key things that made RE4 really shine. 6/10 game I guess overall?
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I would have called it about a 6, yeah. On the other hand I played a run through in split-screen multiplayer with my brother on my huge ass TV and I'd call that experience like an 8.
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FM3 - I haven't been playing this as much as I should. Macho Man Randy Savage gets all pissy at army recruits for guarding a military base during an emergency while stealing expensive military equipment. The. Proceeds to check his email and then destroys millions of dollars of military equipment and get interrogated. Then he checks his email and makes entirely unreasonable demands about finding his sister after refusing to tell them who he is. Then he checks his email and shouts at his dad who tells him to fuck off and gets him off stealing and destroying millions of dollars of military hardware Scott free. The. He checks his email and nepotism! Then he checks his email and observes military secrets and hijacks a Humvee to go follow the military secrets truck further into a secure email. Last I saw he was then checking his email.
My favourite part where he spent 45 minutes browsing the entire Internet and then bitches out his friend for not working hard enough.
Not sure if playing villain or not.
Just wait till you get to the part where he goes all human rights on your ass by checking his email and then later proceeds to hack into a website after checking his email. Macho Man Randy Savage is all about the extent of how far he can go breaking the law without actually getting arrested.
PS: I assume you are on Alisa route? If so, you'll also get a scene where he checks his email to discover a violent, insane and mentally unstable guy that tries to kill him. Then later on, a butler sacrifices himself and you get to read about it by peeking through someone else's email. Macho Man Randy Savage is not a pro-privacy type of guy.
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FM3 - Macho Man Randy Savage cannot punch helicopters 0/10... BUT HE CAN SHOOT THEM DOWN WITH SHOTGUNS 10/10 Yeah on Alisa route. I do like that after seeing about 3 or 4 different face sprites for her you get to see her blowjob face (not blood related).
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Call her Maeby.
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Nintendo Power actually had an article about Brandish back in the 90s. I always remembered it as the weird-ass game that thought it was a good idea to rotate the screen instead of the PC for some reason.
Mechanically it's just like a first person game. Combat turns out weird and not very satisfying as a result.
Though I guess Grimrock just took the same premise (Tile based 1st person action game) and made it good? I don't know, I haven't played it yet.
Also:
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/41/1350026547-tapisland.jpg)
Imagine this with screen rotations!
(I don't know how anyone could do proper mad scientist stuff in this laboratory)
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Brandish 2...
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/41/1350034577-untitled-1.jpg)
I never expected your NIGHTMARE FUEL DOORS!
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/41/1350034580-untitled-2.jpg)
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/41/1350034583-untitled-4.jpg)
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/41/1350034586-untitled-3.jpg)
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/41/1350034589-untitled-5.jpg)
O_O
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Brandish 2 - I read 2 of Fenrirs posts and already saw its blowjob face.
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Both The Last Story and Xenosaga I frequently skip a background music track. (Just the sound of waves, or of birds, or of the hustle & bustle of a market, etc.)
I'm sorry, do you mean just the OST? anyway, asking because I know people who mute and play something else momentarily.
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Since the release of the new XCOM I have:
Written about 1,000 words.
Played two games of League of Legends.
Left the house once.
Slept.
All of these things were mistakes.
XCOM Enemy Unknown
It's better than the original, which really ought to be enough said. Since time spent saying more is time not spent working so I can get back to it, it will have to be.
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Pokemon Black 2: I made the mistake of checking the shitty Gamefaqs Pokedex faq for abilities and got the wrong one for Lillipup, which I didn't discover until after beating gym 1. >_<
At least Pokesav exists, thankfully.
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Deus Ex: Between letting an AI eat my brain and crashing the whole internet, let's go with 20th century capitalism 2.0, what could go wrong?
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FFX - Just about to fight Chocobo Eater. I decided to mix around the sphere grids a bit, trying to make some varied characters without making the game way harder. Tidus is waiting to enter the middle of Auron's grid, Yuna is waiting for the middle of Tidus's, Lulu is heading to Rikku and Yuna's, Wakka is going to Rikku. Not sure abut Auron.
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PXZ - Finally started this after having it for a couple of day now.
Outside there is no more stupid enemy attack animation, NxC still feel superior for the moment.
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Picross e - Completed
One thing I originally considered an improvement in this game over Mario's Picross was it displayed the picture on the puzzle select screen after you'd solved it, but thinking on that further it feels like that isn't particularly good for replay of puzzles. Not that I was likely to replay any of them anyway, I guess.
Now to wait until Picross e 2 comes out over here.
Mario's Picross VC - Played a bunch of the Time Trial mode
Yeah last time I said that I didn't care much for the Time Trial mode. I'm not sure what I was thinking.
I've since played it enough that puzzles have started repeating, although I'm not sure if it gives you random puzzles generally or if it gives you all available puzzles in sequence first and then starts giving you random ones once the list is exhausted, so I don't know if there are (m)any which I haven't played yet.
My current best time is 4 minutes 40 seconds.
Picross e needed a mode where you get assigned random puzzles rather than needing to select them from a list (to fit with Picross e's style, the list would need to be available somewhere though). Hopefully that was brought back in e 2. (It would at least provide for less impact on replaying puzzles despite the images being displayed.)
Dinner Date - Sat through
I gifted my brother To The Moon on Steam, and he gifted me this in revenge/response. I went through it anyway to use as leverage to get him to play TTM but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet.
I didn't think much of Dinner Date which I'm sure surprises no-one. Julian being somewhat unlikeable didn't really help, and the interactivity, such as it was, did not evoke anything for me.
Dillon's Rolling Western - Beaten
Ended with 31 stars (levels 1-3 on 5, from having to go back and improve my scores to access levels 8-10, all other levels on 3 or 2). The game feels pretty much designed for you to necessarily get a low-mid level rank the first time through a level and have to come back later to get a better one, mostly because the starting money caps are released on level replaying and the original ones don't really give you much ability to upgrade/equip towers.
Having to replay through the daytime section of a day after failing is fairly aggravating - I understand that they need to give people a chance to set up differently, but if you don't want to set up differently you still have to redo everything. There should have been an option to restart from dusk.
Beating the game has unlocked a bonus level which requires you to have 5-starred every regular level to enter. Hahahano. Also a bonus level which requires you to have 100kD in reserve, which is less hilarious of a requirement (I currently have 77kD), but still not something I'm going to bother unlocking - I don't feel that grinding in this game is really going to be a particularly entertaining use of my time.
I also didn't care much for the dig attack, because I could rarely seem to time it properly.
All up, it was fun while I was winning.
Kirby Star Stacker VC - Beat all 'Round Clear' levels
I see no reason to bother with the other modes.
Fairly entertaining, except for some of the later maps in the Insane difficulty where the starting layout essentially requires you to get lucky in order to progress very far (the first couple of drops are fixed, sure, but they're not enough to give you breathing space on every starting layout, and DeDeDe's blocks are all randomised, which works against this on some of the 'towers of stars/bricks' layouts).
Also Insane 44? or whichever one it was where the gimmick was the that stage would just give you endless strings of double-bricks. Nothing like having a fairly well-cleared valley and 7/8 double-bricks plus DeDeDe's blocks later you have no breathing room at all, if you haven't already exhausted your room.
Final Fantasy VII PC W7 - Left the Forgotten City
It turns out that the times when you go to save and the 'Downloading saves' message comes and goes without the saves showing up, generally if you wait long enough the saves will eventually show up. 'Long enough' can extend to numerous minutes. This should not be a thing which happens.
I like how a 'Part 1 complete' "achievement" shows up during the watery FMV. Stay classy SE.
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Blitzball Fantasy X - Recruited a goalie and a defender, but Nimrook still exists to haunt my dreams. His contact is 100 gil a game? I think he doesn't understand market forces very well. I could use a better winger though. And I uh I guess we rode a giant plankton-eating elephant thing to visit some really creepy guy who dresses like a stripper and some girl washed up on the beach. Maybe she could convince Nimrook to join me...
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Terraria: Started a new game and named my character Charlotta. My current plan is to mostly stick to melee and magic. Also, I'm going to build a semi nice house. The reason for that is because I need to collect fallen stars and I need something to do while waiting for the night. The first goal is to get gold weapons and tools and silver armor. Silver armor is enough until I can get demonite armor. Currently I have copper armor and an iron sword though.
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Brandish 2: Finished.
My god did this game get evil later. You can get by with unbreakable weapons early on, but they quickly become obsolete in the midgame and you have to rely on breakable weapons with your limited resources! Grinding is impossible because of semi-Suikodenish exp, and regular enemies start getting crazier and crazier:
- First enemy in an area: Hurts a bunch. You need to rest after every fight to get to full HP/MP again. Resting restores HPs slowly, but you can't see around you; you may get attacked and take triple damage in the meantime.
- Second enemy in an area: Even with full HPs, the MC gets decimated. You have to abuse movement strategies to beat him (Roughly :go down one tile, hit him while he tries to catch up with you, start again. The game's reliance on tiles is a lifesaver)
- Third enemy in an area: Above strategy doesn't even work aymore, he does too much damage. You need to use an attack boosting status spell (they last 10 seconds) then use that movement stratey
- Fourth enemy in an area: Invincible.
- Fifth enemy in an area: Is a medusa. Don't get hit or you're dead.
To equip the awesome Planet Buster, you need to have the H4X Armor and the H4X shield equipped. After I got the Planet Buster and H4X armor (but not the shield), I noticed people started saying I had an awesome sword or something. I got really suspicious and loaded an earlier save: Yep, I had missed the shield, and couldn't get it back on my regular save. It's one of the only games where having multiple saves is srs bsnss and might actually help. (unlike in nearly every other game)
Don't get me started on the final boss.
Tokyo Jungle: Finished, still have half animals to unlock. I at least have access to wolves now. And robot dogs.
I didn't expect this kind of weird time travel plot out of the blue, and a competent great boss fight with that kind of battle system?
Also had a 100k+ score in survival (with a hedgehog)
Deus Ex Human Revolution: Incompetent arrogant Jensen walkthrough. He believes hacking is for losers like Pritchard, so he keeps it at level 1, and only uses it when necessary. He carries a 10mm gun and a shotgun. He tries to use a little stealth, but he usually gets spotted quickly. He also does eventually kill every enemy.
I did the first two missions. The hostages died because he was too busy checking air ducts in the Sariff building. Josie Thorpe did survive, because he immediately shot Zeke in the face after seeing him.
I've picked the super jump, fridge throwing and double takedown augs so far.
The game is much more fun this way. Compulsively reloading all the time in a ghost playthrough is terrible, and going Rambo doesn't really work in this game.
A pet peeve: Why did they make lethal takedowns so terrible? They make much more noise and give less xp than non lethal takedowns. Even in this playthrough, where I don't even care about xp, I've stopped using them. (non lethal takedown + headshot on the body is better)
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Pokemon Black 2: Sewers can bite me. Fast enemies that are higher level than your Pokemon, while still not being strong (HI ZUBAT!)? That's obnoxious just because it means you can't run effectively, nor use Repels effectively.
Trying to get Eevee now which is also obnoxious because Cottonee's are there, and they are a pain to fight due to loving Stun Spore, drain moves, and being fast (meaning NO RUNNING.)
I'm sure the game will pick up dramatically once I finish this. It just reaffirms the whole "Sewer dungeons are never good" thing.
Now stuff I played at Comic-Con (all of these are demos)!
DmC: Game does some odd control decisions, unsure if they're actually bad, or just a case of not use to them. Otherwise, seems like it'll be a decent enough entry in the game, once you get over the shock value of "Change everything!" in terms of aesthetics.
Darkstalkers Ressurection: Yay Darkstalkers getting the SF3SOE and MvCO treatment! EVERYONE SHOULD BUY THIS GAME WHEN IT COMES OUT TO RAISE THE CHANCES OF A DARKSTALKERS 4 BEING MADE! Reason? It has Hsieon-ko and BB Hood in it, that should hook at least some of you in!
For those wondering, it's DS2 (aka Nightwarriors), and Darkstalkers 3 (aka Vampire Savior...as in, not SP/VS2) with all the random features of SF3SOE and MvCO in one package, and allegedly Capcom taking into account all the feedback from MvCO. Which reminds me, need to at least humor that notion and tell them to put in a Character Select Cancellation feature, because seriously, there's no excuse for a Modern Fighter to lack that feature (or in this case, a modern release of a classic fighter.)
Playstation All Stars Battle Royale: It's Smash, except with traditional health gauges. Game doesn't pretend it's not a Smash Clone, so seems to be going more in the direction that it's trying to prove it's a WORTHY Smash Clone. Game doesn't totally embarrass itself, though the cast isn't the most interesting of things.
Injustice: Gods Among Us: Mortal Kombat style game with DC Characters and more conventional control scheme. Which is to say, you have a Light, Medium and Heavy, instead of the High/Low Punch/Kick nonsense, you block by holding Back (for 2D Fighters, this is a pretty big deal if you ask me), there's an "Ability" button which is just another name for "Special Power Up Mode" like Cyborg gets Regen or Superman becomes stronger, and you can hit things with the terrain. Also super attacks are done with one button. Game was interesting enough from the one time I played, but it's just a demo. It does have a good sense of style though (Batman's super, for example, involves tazing the guy in the neck, shoving something on them, back flipping OVER the Batmobile as it runs over his opponent.)
Marvel Heroes (aka Marvel MMO): I honestly didn't care about this game until I decided to go the Marvel Games panel, just to kill an hour. Then I saw Rocket Raccoon in the trailer, and decided to check the panel on this game happening right after this, because hey, why not kill another hour? And everyone who went to that panel gets to play the Closed Beta and give feedback directly, which was a nice surprise, and I might actually look into this game! So decided to play the demo.
Apparently, it's basically Diablo with Marvel Super Heroes. Then again, it is made (in part?) by the same guy who made Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, so that's to be expected. All I can say is that the Marvel Universe struggles as is surviving ONE Deadpool's antics...how is it going to survive thousands at the same time?
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge: The Wii U version of NG3 that claims to be bringnig back stuff the original version lacked! Well, the demo was kicking my ass, so at least it's hard. Game also had weapon variety I stumbled upon a little later, having the Lunar Staff at least, so there's that. Would have enjoyed the game a little more if it weren't for some asshole talking to the guy running the thing, basically whining about modern gaming and being the most pessimistic thing ever, and not letting me simply discuss stuff with the guy there (you know, talking to the guys at the booth tends to be fun for casual conversation.)
Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed: Take Diddy Kong Racing, but now you're changing vehicles mid stage based on lap and the laps change too, and it's with various Sega Characters. Also, a Nascar Driver as a guest character is in this because why not? Not much else to say about this; I played it to get a free Lanyard (SP?) so Mandy could have one to put her ticket on the day she went.
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I am playing so many XCOMs. How many XCOMs do you have Gref? Mine are learning about lasers.
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My brothers both have it as well as myself. This weekend was supposed to be Borderlands Weekend. Sunday afternoon and night until 1 in the morning ended up being the three of us taking turns at X-Com like we used to as kids.
I am kind of in love with the game, but have trouble looking at it objectively for so many reasons. I need to mull over it. I know it is good, I just need to define in what way it is good.
I really want to see more DLers give it a try just to have discussions about it. I think the biggest hang up we would have with it as a group is not being able to take back move options, but that comes with reaction fire to movement and the like. It wasn't so much an issue in the original because you had time units etcetc, but the way movement is handled in this it can be a pain to check line of fire and hit chance to make optimal movement decisions. Sadly the solution is to save scum...
To be entirely fair the game is very liberal with line of fire and shooting around cover and does it in such a way that it isn't like the enemy screws you with it or anything.
Also favourite moments are watching dudes kick down doors and bust through glass windows like Batman.
Chrysalids are still Chrysalids, slightly different but still shit your pants scary. We did a terror mission that was edge of your seat shit your pants scary (we retried after a TPK). It was only 6 aliens at the end and felt like it took like an hour to kill them. Good times. (NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF NORMAL MISSION LENGTH. Also in reality the mission probably only took 15 minutes. It was just tense as hell).
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New Super Mario Bros. 2 - Beat this, opened up Star World, and promptly beat that too. The last level of Star World was pretty great! I wish the game had me feeling that way more often. Otherwise my previous comments more or less apply. The game really doesn't do anything the previous two games didn't... anything at all, really. Quite unfortunate. Beyond that the game doesn't really do anything overtly wrong (except maybe taking another giant leap forward in devaluing lives, as I amassed over 600 of them) but still, 2D Mario has some high standards, and this game is almost certainly the weakest of them save Lost Levels, so that's a bit disappointing. Still an experience I enjoyed though! I missed a couple secrets (one in W3, one in W5) which I'll probably FAQ, do those levels (and grab their star coins... I have all the rest), and then call the game done.
It did make me want to replay the previous NSMB games (mostly Wii since I've already played DS twice) so that's something.
EDIT: Whoa, just realised I played a Mario RPG and Mario platformer back to back and enjoyed the RPG more. I never would have expected that given my past track record with each.
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Sounds like you might be Marioed out and now is the perfect time to start a tactics game about Aliens.
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No no, you played a BOWSER RPG then played a Mario platformer. Of course you liked the former more.
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That logic does indeed make perfect sense.
(We'll ignore that I'd take most Mario platformers over said Bowser RPG anyway.)
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Ys Origin: Hugo Hard finished. (Finished Yunica Normal earlier.) Fun stuff for all that I think I like Oath in Felghana combat better. It's too bad that the super-influential levels means that difficulty level is to some extent a matter of annoyance - rushing to a boss on a Normal is equivalent to grinding a little on Hard, and grinding some on Normal is equivalent to a bit of over-grinding on Hard. It's not good if your difficulty level is secretly a proxy for "test player's patience at grinding," for all that most of the bosses I didn't have to go hardcore grind mode on. (Also, as usual, it'd have been nicer if the regular enemies were a tad harder.)
I did like how they mixed up who lived and who died between routes, as well as the plot boss fights, for all that as usual Ys plot is a trainwreck. (The Black Pearl buried on the surface? I guess, but we find it in flying Ys later... also WTF Toal in the Hugo path. Dramatic and all sure but sense not it makes. Except as far as anime dark horse paint-by-numbers I guess.) Also, Hugo's line is "corrupted" or some crap?! Bah, that manages to make the Ys I villain even lamer since we could have assumed he was just power-hungry or something before. Well, equally as stupid as the idea that all descendents of the 6 priests are automatically do-gooder heroes I guess. Could make for an awkward conversation I suppose.
Hugo: Just so you know, Yunica, I think that due to my actions this game, my great x19 grandson might kill your great x19 granddaughter. But it's cool, your great x19 grandson will survive as a do-gooder thief or something.
Yunica: 'k.
On the bright side, the fact that Hugo persistently ignored the annoying clingy Miuscha was a minor saving grace. Hugo also got to play the SH Yuri role of mocking everyone who got in his way, so that wasn't bad either.
Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together: Complete. Well, finished, anyway, since there's other paths & sidequests & wtf did everyone in Port Omish just attack Denam & Canopus INCLUDING THE OCTOPI WHAT. Pretty fun, for all that the game absolutely has... idiosyncrasies. Crafting, leveling, FAQ-bait recruitment, and MP being the most obvious examples. Also probably gets my award for most improved remake ever that was an authentic remake rather than something totally new with the same name... largely due to Tactics Ogre PSX being unplayable and all, but TO PSP is authentically good while adhering to a lot of the original TO's ideas and plot.
Anyway, final sequence was at a pretty good challenge level via charging it immediately and skipping any further sidequests - I think you're supposed to be lvl. 22 when you start and lvl. 23 when you get to the end, but I did lvl. ~20 at the start and lvl. ~21 at the end, so the enemies could actually hurt me, but I could still hurt them too (as opposed to the super-underlevel Ozma recruitment side-mission where doing damage was a struggle). Luckily I'd been warned that the Hanging Gardens were huge and stocked up on items. The penultimate fight was fantastic and fun, and something I wish more tactical games did. Frue final was practically immune to physicals but when he's outnumbered 12 on 1, just throwing special moves at him still took him down reasonably fast. Who needs stupid Lombardia anyway, should have left it at the sanctum in the hopes that Diablo 3 logic would apply ("Take up your sword, warrior! This will restore your memory for true!").
I will say that it's too bad that the only way to really safely challenge yourself is to do sidequests out of order / charge the endgame. It's not too hard to intentionally stay at low level if you want in FFT - use new generics at worst - but you can't even really do that in TO, at least if you want to use the same class but at lower level. Not a super-huge fan of how challenging yourself with difficult fights dramatically ups your potential money spend, and just how stupidly awesome Field Alchemy is, but whatever.
Canopus gets MVP forever, act shocked. After that, anyone in the Archer class. After that, who cares distract the enemy and heal yourselves. Final party:
Denam - Warrior (sword & shield). Tanky, never was incapacitated, but not particularly damaging except when Rending Gale goes off.
Hobyrim & Arycelle - Archers. (And earlier, Sara + 2 generics as well, of course. If I wanted to cheese more I'd probably deploy 4 archers rather than 1-2.)
Ravness - Valkyrie, actually. White Knight didn't offer enough of a stat edge and was notably slower.
Sherri - Enchantress since Witch was lvl. 1 and I'd already leveled Wizard with a generic.
Canopus, Jeunan, Vyce, Mirdyn, Olivya, Ozma, Catiua - In their unique classes. Mirdyn was first on the chopping block if anything needed to be cut later on, White Knight was a total disappointment.
Divine Magic on non-Wizard/Witches (Knights, Valkyries, etc.) seems like an obvious slam-dunk. Even Ozma has some trouble breaking MDef despite her nutty stats, Ravness is pretty well guaranteed to do 1 damage with her spells, so I'll take some ranged healing instead, thanks.
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Anyway, time for plotty stuff based on a Law playthrough. SPOILERS as usual. Also willing to throw the game some slack since it's obviously trying to respect the SNES game, and sometimes you need to bend the plot to have an excuse for a battle (see: why did Mr. Noble Galgastani Knight fight you and die rather than just join up, or surrender, or something), and Matsuno is a cool guy. Still...
Denam after sticking Versalia on the throne for her thousand year reich:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2ev-3FfmadM/T_rcqgd-RkI/AAAAAAAABr8/pIlHwd7sgRo/s1600/huge-mistake.gif)
I was fine with Catiua early on, because it felt like she was just a pessimist about the prospects of the Walister and skeptical of steel solving all problems while still being loyal to her younger brother. If they'd come up with some kind of political reason for her actions in late Chapter 3 / early Chapter 4, that'd have been fine. Instead, the game seems to explicitly say that this is all Catiua's revenge against Denam for, in her mind, leaving her, thus how do YOU like it now. Plus there's a dab of "screw you adoptive dad you're not blood anyway and don't count" which makes her just awful. All this makes her fine as a villain! But bah, the game massively lets her off the hook if you spare her. I do not think she is going to make a very good Queen.
I found the dropping of the whole New Walister Alliance plotline in C3-C4 both understandable and realistic, if a bit of a missed opportunity, considering how C4 is largely the same across playthroughs. Sure, the NWA was founded in like 6 weeks or something by Vyce (ah video game plots), and thus we can assume it's got strong respect for its leadership, so if Vyce is sold that they have to work with Denam's old resistance, I can buy that they'd sign up. It just gets weirder when the anti-nobility movement ends up warring to stick Catiua on the throne if the plot goes that way. And then Vyce gets to be addressed as "Lord Bozeck" in the end. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Like I said, realistic considering how these movements normally go, but a bit of a shame.
It was interesting that the game lets Lanselot T. / Volaq / Balxephon off the hook and denies you a big final confrontation with them. This takes some bravery in the script writing, although this is partially Lans being a bit of an evil Gary Stu. Still, it seemed to fit with Lans being portrayed as cautious, although this leaves Hobyrim / Ozma's plotline massively hanging. But it also helps make it feel like a more realistic world, where you don't always get to do your destined revenge confrontations. That said...
..wtf was Lans T. doing here anyway? He encourages Brantyn to *not* rein in the rest of Valeria, which is a little weird since if he's the regent he should have retained at least nominal control elsewhere, but just to stay in Bakram lands. He brings along Brynhildr. But as pointed out, he makes the Dark Knights spend all their time looking for Mannaflora, Abuna Prancet, and Versalia. Theoretically Versalia could have done, uh, something involving Dorgalua's legacy. (Unlock the Chaos Gate? That seems unlikely, *Brantyn* was the one who presumably could have done it after Dorgalua left.) But as pointed out by Martym, they didn't need her anyway even if she could have helped; the stolen Xenobian sword was sufficient. Okay, so I take this to mean that Lans T. wasn't interested in Dorgalua's legacy after all, fine, that sounds sane (and is an interesting double cover - no, the real reason I'm here is the obvious one). So... was he just here to establish a government friendly to Lodis after the civil war faded? And he thought that Catiua was the best method of doing so, but Brantyn favored the Elhanama (sp?) puppet we never see? I guess. If you kill Catiua Lanselot calls her the only hope for peace in the isles before running off, so I guess the theory was that if Lodis plain conquered the isles and propped up Brantyn as a puppet, there'd be endless unrest or something. But expecting Catiua to be a compliant puppet, even given her behavior in late C3 / early C4, seems a lot to ask as well. Also, if you didn't want Dorgalua's legacy, don't bring the freakin' stolen sword here! Go stick it in the ultra-secure magical artifacts storage wing of Loslorien or something. And don't mislead your subordinates either.
On that note. Villain plots, forbidden dark power, pick 2, but I'm still a little confused on what exactly Andoras / Barbas / Martym / all the flunkies they convinced to work with them rather than Lans T. saw in the Chaos Gate. I don't see any indication they had any way to really control that power, or find some magic artifact, or anything. They just had a gate to Hell. Fantastic. You can go, uh, visit, and possibly get killed, or maybe turned into an Ogre. At least Dorgalua had a vaguely sane goal: see my dead family. Unless these 3 actually wanted to get turned into ravening monsters? That doesn't strike me as tremendously appealing even to a villain. You want to HARNESS the forbidden dark energies not be consumed by 'em and all.
For Lanselot H., it's kind of odd how much Denam seems touched by him in the ending, he's not really around Denam all that much. It's inspiring that a foreign war hero decided to help his cause, of course, despite the ulterior motive, but eh. Also, why does Denam act like he's dead in the ending? Warren is maybe dead, sure, but remember when you found Lans at that sanitarium? Helllllllllo?
I'd also like to nominate Regent Brantyn as the unsung hero of the game, at least assuming he was the "trusted lieutenant" left behind to unseal the Chaos Gate to let Dorgalua back in. HMM, crazy mission to hell to resurrect family from a megalomaniac who constructed a giant floating garden at tremendous expense, should I let him return? How about no.
Also, I'd like to point something out. Dorgalua reigned for 50 years of peace according to the opening movie, after conquering Valeria. Afterward, civil war raged for at least some time... 2 years, let's say. Let's say Dorgalua was crowned king at 25 - that's a pretty fast conquest and that's still pretty young to lead an army, but hey, Napoleon did it at a pretty young age too. Catiua is 19 as the game starts. That means Dorgalua had Catiua at 25+50+2-19 = ~58 years old. I see. (Also, Dorgalua would have been 75 when he hobbled off on his mad quest to Hell. I suppose fathers outliving their sons is pretty tragic, but at that age, assuming the Queen was remotely in the same age range, the Queen's death shouldn't have been all that shocking, at least.)
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(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb57887/ogrebattlesaga/images/d/d5/Dorgalua1.jpg)
Player.
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Sounds like you might be Marioed out and now is the perfect time to start a tactics game about Aliens.
Pearls before swine.
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Is new X-Com fundamentally still the same turn-based system, or did they do the RTS thing to it?
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Dark Souls: got impatient waiting for DLC, started up a new character to get ready for it (okay, a couple new characters). Did you know that they actually animated two-handed/charging/leaping/plunging attacks for shields? I did not actually know this until a Darkwraith encounter devolved in a dual-shield deathmatch. It was the dumbest thing and also the greatest thing to happen to me in PVP in this game (edges out the Darkwraith that gave me a full black knight set and the titanite/souls to max it out right after Taurus Demon, because--while awesome--that also made the game stupidly easy).
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Saint's Row 3: forgot to mention I finished this. So yeah, I finished this. It wasn't the most ridiculous thing I've ever played (because Bayonetta exists) but it certainly made an effort to be. Can you name another game that lets you go on a crime spree with Burt Reynolds and Hulk Hogan? I cannot. It went down pretty easy for being mindless nonsense. Also the endless checklists of things to do piqued my completionist impulses in order to overcome my natural resistance to media about glorying in criminal activities. So much so that before I'd done more than a chapter's worth of plot missions, I was dual-wielding submachinegunes that set people on fire and made cars explode and had infinite ammo. Which wasn't nearly as unfortunate as being immune to all types of damage except melee. Fun, but I don't need to play anything else like this for a long time.
I can't decide whether the side missions of consequence-free violence were some meta-commentary on GTA or not. One would assume not since this is a game that asks you to hijack a boat full of hookers stashed in storage containers, but then again, they did reference Idiocracy twice in trophy titles.
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It is a big budget AAA title cross platform getting a big marketting push Cid. What do you think?
In spite of that it is Turn Based. I have no idea who green lighted this and what they had to do to make it happen, but it makes me so very very happy. Best of all, it is really good! It probably sits in that highly lethal phase at the start of the game longer than the original, but I also think troop death is a touch less likely (also more meaningful to be fair). So take that as you will, but I do strongly suggest picking it up at release to show support for this kind of game if it interests you.
X-Com - So I was pleased at first with the reduced more abstract health pools and damage scales at first, but it does make combat at the start of the game highly lethal. Now that we have a bit of armour floating around see that taking damage in health provided by armour prevents you from having to go to hospital I like it even more. It does make Medkits weird as hell though. "Oh you got shot in the armour? Let me just spray this WD40 on you. Oh you got shot in the shoulder? Let me spray some WD40 on that as well."
I have also come to have a greater appreciation for using Snipers in Overwatch since you can plonk them on it, move your other guys in, if you spot enemies and they auto move then your sniper can take them out quite easily. Watching Floater corpses go flying because of this will not get old.
Also fun game for me is picking what the aliens are when we first meet them. Going 2 for 3 with picking Mutons and Chrysalids. Now with some distance on them, I kind of like Chrysalid design in this. They were scary in the base mission, but no where near as much so as in Terror Missions. Give them a pool of Civilians to work with and they can be terrifying, but in Base Missions they only have your units to work with, so correct application of cover and support brings them down just fine.
Mutons on the other hand hooooooly fuck you want to be invested in weapon upgrades before you encounter them. They soak bullet weapon damage like a sponge. They don't have a resistance like they did in the original, just huge health pools. Bumping up to Laser weapons will let you 2 shot them compared to the 3 or 4 shot kills we had first mission.
I was on the fence about using two snipers like my brother is preferring, but it works quite well. 2 Assault as well. Assaults are absolutely amazing at what they do. I feel my brothers personally could work a bit more on using Run and Gun more defensively to get into position, but whatever we are getting by. Bad habit to sit on cooldowns purely for offensive maneuvers when mixed with Lightning Reflexes can let you run them to defensive positions with impunity nearly. Sprint to a hiding place to scout and provide cover in one turn? Fantastic.
Even the talents I am putting a fair bit of thought into them. Some of them seemed no brainers at first, Sniper you want the one to pick enemy targets that your other units can see, you want the higher ground one etcetc by default. Now with a bit more use, being able to move and fire with a Sniper is pretty useful, but it relegates them to more defensive support role. Also 2 more Pistol damage would push your baseline pistol into the same damage range as the basic rifle. With that it makes a far more useful backup weapon (I think I am actually favoring this overall, but Snipers all well past that choice by now and brothers like the higher ground one, which IS a significant boost when it comes into play).
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Dota 2: Trying this out. I have never played a MOBA-style game before, so naturally I am amazing at this. <_< >_>
It seems pretty cool, but at the same time it seems like if you want to get any good at it you must play this game for your entire life and not play anything else ever. So I probably won't mess with it for very long.
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Do you have skeleton armor yet Gref? Makes the higher ground bonus even more useful.
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We do not have Batman armour. I want to give it to an Assault so they can jump through all the windows everywhere.
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The Assault trooper I use as a point man just developed psi powers.
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OGRE PLOT-
Lodis is not in one piece.
Factions here and there all have their own agenda.
From Lans T.'s point of view, despite he was given the mission to unlock Chaos Gate, he never found that to be a good idea. Partially Lans T.'s own fault too. He removed those who he does not want to be around from power, but those left in power are not too smart.
Catiua's only value is that she is Dorgalua's daughter. No matter which scenario you choose, none expects her to actually function as a queen. Her complete disregard of the nation's well being actually made her a even better puppet.
Lans T. kind of just want to let that matter on Chaos Gate slip by, while setting up Catiua as the new queen. And then the Island is good as Lodis's without making a big deal out of everything.
At least, having Lodis's full army storming down is not Lans T.'s ideal scenario. He does not want the matter to expand out of Loslorien's direct control.
Ozma will eventually confronts a similar situation. After all, she prefer the current system of Lodis that Lans T. had set up, but she certainly don't like how Lans T. kept that system going after she finds out how she does things. She has to put up with Lans T. to a certain degree if she wants to current system in Lodis to continue.
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Shocking everybody: X-com really looks like Western Fire Emblem. Turnbased SRPG gameplay, Permadeath, very low numbers to make the math easy, positioning mattering more than in an usual SRPG, fog of war, same RNG. Main difference being the inter-mission management
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That is the first description of X-Com that's actually made me want to try it. Talking about the new one, or the older ones here?
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New one, I don't know anything about the older ones.
Since it's -Western- Fire Emblem though, perfect-face anime characters are replaced with dudebros.
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As usual, your use of "western" is easily replaced with "better in every way."
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Rob, if I can have a simple request...
Please keep such statements to yourself. If you want to say something like "it's these details that make me prefer western games over eastern ones", then that's cool. Simply making blatant stabs at games in that manner though? Few actually find that amusing, and continually doing so will only annoy people.
That said...
Pokemon Black 2: Caught Eevee! Huzzah! Now to make it a Leafeon and-...
*sees both Razor Leaf and Grass Whistle will require move relearner*
...:(
I guess he can use Return/Strength, and some other move until then, but that's disappointing. Might change plans entirely and go with like Jolteon or Umbreon or something (already used Espeon in XD, so yeah, specifically avoiding that. Glaceon doesn't interest me, Flareon = lulz, and I chose Oshawott, so Vaporeon seems kind of redundant...that and I've used Vaporeon in the past plenty anyway.)
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Meeple, at this point just chill. Rob's comment was no different than the smart-assness that either myself, Grefter, or any number of other DLers would use.
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New one, I don't know anything about the older ones.
Since it's -Western- Fire Emblem though, perfect-face anime characters are replaced with dudebros.
Firaxis's hands were tied as soon as they licensed the Unreal engine. If it were used to render an attractive male human, someone at Epic Games might catch "teh gay." :P
Character designs aside, I think XCOM is better at everything it does in common with Fire Emblem. The one exception is weapon balance - unlike in FE, or the original X-Com, there isn't any. Each tier of weaponry is strictly better, rather than there being tradeoffs. It's surprising since so much of the game is based around making tough choices.
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I got the impression that X-Com was closer in most ways to Valkyria myself. Which fits in with my general feeling of "it looks good but I'm not sure I'd ever sit down and finish it" towards the game.
Although I gotta say, from what I've seen the majority of the game is fog-of-war, which is another major turnoff (and probably why the game is amazingly lethal)
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I got the impression that X-Com was closer in most ways to Valkyria myself. Which fits in with my general feeling of "it looks good but I'm not sure I'd ever sit down and finish it" towards the game.
The original X-Com is closer to Valkyria (or, well, vice versa), albeit its lethality is at and indeed above Fire Emblem levels. The new one, with its smaller squads and shorter engagement ranges, falls somewhere in between, although it's probably still fair to say it's closer to Valkyria than Fire Emblem.
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Hmm... a quick google search of XCOM art shows that it's not bad in a vacuum. I wish I could say it looked that good in-game, but the actual design concepts are solid. They even manage to design female characters that aren't horrible stereotypes or pinup dolls! The dudebros are still particularly ugly though. I think western game designers just have an innate aversion to men who aren't grotesque. There's probably some sort of subconscious projection going on. Or perhaps a fully-conscious choice to avoid criticism of wish-fulfillment? Not sure. At any rate, it's certainly a trade-off if we're comparing Western and Japanese art design choices. If Fire Emblem is the counterpoint to XCOM here, then I'd have to say that FE still definitely wins in the art department. They also tend to avoid cheesecake, have good proportioning, and have a pretty diverse cast (particularly in FE10), and actually manage to have some attractive male characters. Also, FE uses enough map abstraction that I can actually see what's going on, whereas XCOM lighting makes me want to punch babies. *shrugs* Really, in this case, by "Western", I mean "Worse in every way".
Still, I like this new XCOM more than most WRPGs.
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Edit phone posting is fun! randomly click done, post halfway through.
For what it is worth as much as I am loath to say it the comparison to FE does work to a degree for the original. It is one I have made is the past in that it is tactically deep with a very limited range of abilities (you are limited to movement, crouching and shooting). It is a game changer mid way through that you add an extra kind of movement part way through. Edit - Also not saying to go out and jump straight into the original. I love it, but you need to note that there is some strategic choices with base building, money management, research and engineering piled on top of the fun tactical missions and that can get in the way. This specifically is why I honestly straight up promote cheating for money and just doing whatever the fuck on that part of the game if you are playing it for the strategy. All that does is eliminate on part of the gameplay that is honestly easy and is mostly just jumping through hoops while enabling more options to both do more of and gives you more options on those missions.
It frustrates and doesn't surprise me that it took a comparison like that to get people interested. I was saying to Ciato that I really don't have the language to describe why the new one is so good because all I can do is describe it in terms of what is different and raw functionality. I don't have the distance to even describe core gameplay. I hate that I can tell you in depth everything wrong with a game a bunch of people end up liking but I can't tell you what a good one is doing right. Edit - Note: This is frustration at my inability to do things, not at others.
That said gods it is hard to get you guys to pay attention, how many years have I been describing SRPGs in terms of X-com or saying that it is one of if not the best game ever?
Also wat at Dudebros not being hella homo. Have you guys seen the Handle Bars these guys can be rocking? Just because they are big muscle dudes doesn't mean there isn't an aesthetic they can have that informs you on the fact that these guys are balls on your chin gay.
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That said gods it is hard to get you guys to pay attention, how many years have I been describing SRPGs in terms of X-com or saying that it is one of if not the best game ever?
In fairness, it has less to do with the FE comparison than the fact that a friend of mine here in Florida was playing it and I liked what I saw. So really, there was nothing you could have said to make me more or less interested in the game, Gref. Not sure about the rest of the DL crew, though.
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For what it is worth as much as I am loath to say it the comparison to FE does work to a degree for the original. It is one I have made is the past in that it is tactically deep with a very limited range of abilities (you are limited to movement, crouching and shooting). It is a game changer mid way through that you add an extra kind of movement part way through.
While I agree with this, Valkyria Chronicles is still a lot closer comparison than Fire Emblem for the original. Squad-based tactics game with a lot of emphasis placed on controlling lines of sight and effect to set up situations where your characters can attack but the enemy can't, limited range of abilities that are deep through combination. The biggest differences are 1. there's no meaningful strategic layer, 2. it's not as lethal, and 3. the broken strategy is Scouts instead of Psychics so the delay to get it is 0 battles.
If you play VC1 without scout-rushing maps the tactical elements are very much like a less lethal X-Com.
It frustrates and doesn't surprise me that it took a comparison like that to get people interested. I was saying to Ciato that I really don't have the language to describe why the new one is so good because all I can do is describe it in terms of what is different and raw functionality. I don't have the distance to even describe core gameplay. I hate that I can tell you in depth everything wrong with a game a bunch of people end up liking but I can't tell you what a good one is doing right. Edit - Note: This is frustration at my inability to do things, not at others.
In a case like XCOM it's hard not to describe it in terms of the original, because for people who played the original it defines so much of our expectations of a tactics game. It's like trying to describe a 4X game without referencing Civilization (or at least Alpha Centauri), or a T/RPG without referencing Final Fantasy Tactics. X-Com is the trope setter and (I'd say until the new one) the definitive example, so naturally our first instinct is to say how the new one is or isn't like it.
Now that the initial rush to play it EVERY AVAILABLE MOMENT is past I can take a shot at describing the new one without referencing the original, though.
I'm not going to bother repeating things you could get from a glance at the ad copy (it's a squad level tactics game with a strategic base management layer, and so on).
The tactical engine is fast without losing depth. Battles take about 45 minutes on average. The biggest reason they're compelling is that aside from turns taken advancing to contact every click has weight. A 4-on-4 firefight will leave somebody dead in one round, maybe 4 somebodies, maybe all on the same side. If that side is yours, you lost the mission and quite possibly the entire 30+ hour game. I never felt like I was powerless to determine which side suffered those casualties - RNG screw is possible, but at least on Normal and Classic it has to be extremely bad to keep you from mitigating it with good tactics.1
Everything in XCOM is geared toward forcing you to make hard, sometimes arbitrary choices. Do you build satellites now to keep panic down, knowing you'll lose more soldiers because you didn't invest in armor and weapons as quickly? Do you equip your soldiers for sustained survivability with medkids, protection against burst with nanoweave, offense with grenades or scopes, or risky but profitable and sometimes necessary live capture? Do you flank to ensure a kill but risk exposing your trooper to a flank attack from the enemy? Use explosives, potentially losing resources, to preserve the lives of your troops? Mass fire even if it means leaving cover? Fall back and try to lure the enemy into an overwatch trap? Or hope for a lucky shot or bad luck from the enemy, so you can keep the rest of your squad moving toward an objective?
In most games these would have obvious answers (and I suspect if some of the DL take a serious crack at the game they'll find they have right answers from a statistical perspective), but in play they are one interesting decision after another. The gold standard in (gamist) tabletop game design is "every turn, every action taken by every piece offers an interesting decision" and it applies to turn-based electronic games as well. XCOM Enemy Unknown doesn't quite hit that, but it comes as close as any game I've ever played.
1 The original X-Com ablated randomness with large squad sizes, which made it nearly impossible to get randomly screwed over - but it didn't offer that feeling of individual decisions being important. You had wiggle room, but the engine was wigglier in general and more things happened randomly.
Also wat at Dudebros not being hella homo. Have you guys seen the Handle Bars these guys can be rocking? Just because they are big muscle dudes doesn't mean there isn't an aesthetic they can have that informs you on the fact that these guys are balls on your chin gay.
Oh, it's not that the characters themselves can't be gay, or even gay stereotypes. It's that they are unlikely to make anyone write slash fiction about them. It takes a lot to make characters no one wants to write slash fiction about, but they do their damndest. ;)
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I'll take "How does Fozzy Bear masturbate?" for $100, Alex.
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That seems like a pretty limited topic category.
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Related note, I no longer have any interest in X-Com. Fire Emblem gameplay? Sign me out.
Same here. Pity, it was actually sounding interesting for a bit.
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So if it's like Fire Emblem, does that mean they spin their guns repeatedly and then deal massive damage? More importantly is there a dude with a beard who's awesome at the beginning but then becomes less awesome?
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It's not a very good comparison in anything more than the broadest strokes. If "turn-based game with permadeath where positioning is important" = Fire Emblem then FFT and Space Hulk both are too. It's not predicated on slot machine level ups, Rock Paper Scissors gameplay, punishing you for using characters that join at an appropriate level for your party, or any of the other terrible gems that characterize Fire Emblem.
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Gref: I have no idea why, but for some reason I'd gotten it into my head that Xcom was an RTS somehow. And the thought just...never dislodged. But frankly, comparing the game to something alot of folks already like is a good way to get attention for it. If you have trouble describing what you think a game does right, maybe work on starting from there and fine tuning as you make the comparison?
Cranbud: More like VC, huh? Hmm. Never quite clicked with that game, and your description is not something that sounds all that interesting to me. Well, I'll just look up a gameplay video if I get in a strategy game mood, I suppose.
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Like Rob says though, it isn't a great finer description of it.
VC also doesn't line up because so much of VC is in the real time aspect of your movement and firing. It is far more strict Turn Based than that.
So I am back to saying "It is good and you are good if you play it."
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Well, there WAS that XCOM that was a shooter. It was generic as fuck and got shelved I think.
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Enforcer was finished. Released on PS1 and I thiiiink X-Box maybe? You can get it on Steam for $2 and it is hilariously bad. I played it because it came in the X-Com pack.
I think it is worse than Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel was, but it was done so cheap and so half arsed that it is kind of endearing in its badness. If you picked up the X-Com pack it is worth the few hundred meg download to play the first few levels and then delete it forever.
It is set during the time of the first game and you play as a specially built alien killing robot who fights off wave after wave of spawning enemies as the aliens teleport in to cities and stuff.
While worse than Interceptor, it is far less frustrating to try to play. Interceptor I wish was so good, but was so bad (this was X-Com the space shooter ala X-Wing/Tie Fighter and came just on the tail end of Vs coming out), space shooter mixed with X-Com's macro level tactical gameplay? Like expanded out to Masters of Orion level like it was intended to as you go out mining for Elerium? That is an idea with legs. The implementation of the space combat was so bad though and that macro level tactical gameplay, most definitely not Masters of Orion.
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No, not enforcer. Some new XCOM game set in the 1960s where XCOM was a secret division of the CIA and you were it's top agent. Thankfully we got Enemy Unknown instead.
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Yeah, that was going to be the big revival of the series and then Grefter had the heads of 2K assassinated and replaced with robots.
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No, not enforcer. Some new XCOM game set in the 1960s where XCOM was a secret division of the CIA and you were it's top agent. Thankfully we got Enemy Unknown instead.
Actually, the XCOM in the 60s FPS is still coming out, at least in theory. It seems to be in development hell.
It eventually came out that Enemy Unknown was in development before that project, they just expected the FPS to have a shorter development cycle so it got announced sooner. According the the Enemy Unknown dev team they worked with the FPS team and traded quite a few ideas back and forth, so there will presumably be a storyline connection.
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I don't want it to come out. It is so very, very bland looking and not really an XCOM of any stripe.
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Oh that thing? That didn't look bad honestly. At this point it still wouldn't tarnish the series even though Enemy Unknown is good.
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Speaking of XCOM, my two assault troopers now have PSI armor to make it so they can actually mind control some bitches. Muton Elites going to town on everything.
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I still haven't played X-com. Looking at the similarities between FE and X-com sounded amusing in the context of the DL.
(It really was)
I'll probably play it later this year.
I'd argue that movement doesn't really matter that much in the likes of FFT and Disgaea actually, compared to FE. You can't use cover and protect your guys as effectively, which makes all the difference. (and there aren't terrain bonuses)
Deus Ex Human Revolution: Conversation battles are much better when you're actually trying to break the guy in front of you instead of winning. Chet Wagner is now even more of an empty shell than he was before!
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Tales of Graces F- Just defeated final RICHARD Chaos Mode, no dualizing w/th a Cheria/Hubert/Sophie/Malik team L60~ avg (Cheria was L61) Oh my god this is the FRUE experience.
Took numerous attempts to find a working set up and I finally had to bust out the damage reduction titles though (except for Cheria whom I kept Enlightened Healer/All Artes Beak Nova barriers on) I also discovered/remembered I could request heal/revives from Sophie in the Artes menu (yeah I've been playing most of the game without utilizing this even though I probably saw it in Tal's stream >__>) and spell time cast reductions from A Artes also worked with the right stick short cuts so I used Insight/Fleetfoot on my left stick and Indignation/Resurrection on my right. Still a cracker of a fight even with the damage reduction titles~
Hubert's Scarlet Salvo and Cheria's Indignation helped a lot in the fight especially when Indignation stun/staggered Richard for good damage since he's weak to B Artes.
Thanks Pyro, I'm looking forward to trying that out with Cheria's Accel/damage reflection =)
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Pokemon Fantasy X - Today I put a Morbol in a ball. Considering that he is like 20 times bigger than me and a fucking tentacle monster, I am very disturbed. Best to keep him away from my underaged girls.
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<Tidus> :(
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I'd argue that movement doesn't really matter that much in the likes of FFT and Disgaea actually, compared to FE. You can't use cover and protect your guys as effectively, which makes all the difference. (and there aren't terrain bonuses)
There's no cover in Fire Emblem? Just terrain bonuses. You can use indirect fire to shoot over walls while inside a hallway.
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I think he means that FE emphasizes positioning more, with the prominence of things like chokepoints and idyosincratic positioning situations, which certainly aren't one of the focuses in FFT. Can't say about Disgaea. The thing with shooting arrows through walls doesn't make any sense, I'll concede. >_>
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FFT not emphasizing position is more a function of map design than anything about its mechanics. If you look at the first fight in Dorter, it clearly CAN be important if they make the maps that way. In fact, since FFT has arcs and such, positioning could possibly be more important if you had, say, a map editor available.
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Resolved: When I play X-COM, I will name all my dudebros after Fire Emblem characters. Hopefully there'll be a mod out to replace their sprites with proper animu stylings... wait on second thought I will skip that mod (http://serenesforest.net/fe13/img/dlc0607_img.jpg).
(That said, I'm sure it'll be on sale for the Steam Holiday Sale, so I can wait. Steam baaaaaaaaaaacklog. Maybe DE:Human Revolution next, actually.)
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FFT not emphasizing position is more a function of map design than anything about its mechanics. If you look at the first fight in Dorter, it clearly CAN be important if they make the maps that way. In fact, since FFT has arcs and such, positioning could possibly be more important if you had, say, a map editor available.
I agree entirely with your statement. Still emphasizes different philosophies when it comes to the overall gameplay design. FFT has elements to emphasize terrain and positioning, but doesn't make it one of its cornerstones (rather, it's a situational but relevant element. It's all good). FE's terrain design is actually considerably simpler in comparison with FFT's underlying mechanics, but positioning and controlling movement flow is a crucial element of its gameplay compared to FFT. Different strokes, is all.
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Different strokes, is all.
Snow teaches everyone that on different people you should use a different handjob technique.
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A-fucking-men.
GREFTERING EDIT: Guess where the crude wordgame is, win absolutely nothing.
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I would totally play XCOM: Animu Princess edition. At least if they were wearing white dresses I could see where my fucking characters are.
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You can see where your dudes are because they have big blue boxes around them.
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Or because your entire squad's armor is day-glow orange and they have fire truck red Guile hair. Either way you'd still be confused because there aren't any obnoxious animal sidekicks or sexualized children.
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(http://i.imgur.com/q4XRu.jpg)
(http://www.dualshockers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-34-590x332.jpg)
So much orange there~
Also, I'm kinda offended that you think just because I like JRPGs that I in any way advocate either animal sidekicks or sexualized children. Trust me, I'm just as opposed to that shit as you are.
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That camera angle is amazingly terrible.
Also you can customise the colour of your dudes. Most of the press stuff out there is the default greens.
Our main Assault unit is called Move Biktch (because we can't type) and has a nickname of Bitch. She wears bright blue and hot pink.
Edit - Not justification of art style, just information about in game options and stuffs.
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Snow's right.
Mechanics don't matter if the map design doesn't care. Deus Ex could have become a 3D platformer but the level design never exploited this. So it isn't one.
FE is having your army march across a battlefield and covering all its weak points to make sure no one dies. Impenetrable tiles are everywhere, you can have two Oswins in the front protecting archers and mages behind. It also has the rescue command, which is needed on harder difficulties. It's a game about formation.
FFT is killing each enemy as efficiently as possible. It's not about formation.
Case in point nobody really cares about Worker 8 (hyperbole) because his defense doesn't matter as much as, say, Oswin's or Hector's.
Deus Ex HR: I had to check who that Manderley guy everybody was talking about was.
I just played Original Deus Ex, yet every Original Deus Ex reference is probably lost on me.
While the missions and level building are fun, the combat is still too boring. I just don't know how cover based shooters became the new sensation. One or two games like that would have been enough. I needed something with more meat.
Dark Souls: My new, 7th character, Miralda, turned hollow in the undead burg.
Not regular "turned hollow", but NPC "turned hollow". When one of your dearest friends attacks you on sight without saying a word because something corrupted him.
Rules of the challenge:
- Can't buy anything more than the Bottomless box
- Must try killing every NPC. Fleeing is allowed.
Weapon upgrades, miracles, covenants, magic, pyromancy, unlimited arrows, and Dark Wood Grain Ring are pretty much all out.
I'm right after Caora Demon. I'd have had challenge, but: Astoria's Straight Sword. That thing's dual handed R2 is beautiful.
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I didn't do much shooting in HR except in places like the hotel raid. Generally it was more of a first-person neck snapping simulator.
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Honestly, it's pretty difficult to make a game about defensive positioning and covering allies with only 5 PCs. Doable I'm sure, but it certainly occurs much less naturally.
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I would say the prevalence of melee classes in FFT, rather than party size, is the main culprit. 4-6 is kind of the standard group size for an XCOM/JA style game, and they pull it off.
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Some of it is the core systems as well. This X-COM game especially focuses on cover fire and support roles. FFT on the other hand has units largely functioning as their own entities once you have wound them up and let them go (there is definite party balance stuff with Zodiac comp and Faith levels etc), only really Healing and buffs impact the other characters and those are all on their own turns.
Not that this is a bad thing, we all agree FFT is pretty rad and LFT does gangbusters on making improvements on an already good game within those paradigms.
If FFT had more maps like TO I would say it covered off positioning and cover as well (to varying degrees of success).
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Notably, the few maps in TO where you have way less than the normal 10-12 units tend to not be about positioning much compared to normal TO. I definitely think party size is a factor. (Of course, compared with FFT, TO also has a larger durability spread... high-offence classes like mages and ninjas just aren't that fragile in FFT, so you don't really worry about protecting them. And the best way to protect them is with reaction abilities and evasion, not with tanks.)
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I am thinking more specifically of maps in TO that force choke points and have nearly functional parapets for archers to snipe from and maps where you are forces through choke points created by having to actually use Jump (!!!!!!) to get between platforms by traversing pillars or water (because no one in TO can swim unlike FFT). Party size and durability spread certainly promote it, but there is definitely maps that make it easier.
Even with maps like that it certainly wouldn't be a focus of FFT by any stretch of the imagination, I just might credit it for being there at all >_>. As is walls and cliffs outside of a few maps are solid barriers. The ones I can think of where they aren't they try to function like gauntlets more (that one with the big cliff parallel to your starting position springs to mind).
FFT will in fact be just fine without this kind of gameplay though.
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TO remake also has Rampart Aura, which lets your tanks block off large segments of the map in addition to the one tile that they physically occupy. Two Knights (or White Knights/Dragons/Lord/Knight Commander/etc.) with can use Rampart Aura to either create huge temporary perimeters or overlap at a choke point to create a completely unpenetrable barrier to keep your squishy units safe.
I should also mention that TO gameplay gets progressively more FFT-like in the postgame as your offense gets continuously better and better. Killing as many opponents before they get a chance to attack you is ultimately a far better defensive tactic than anything else once you get the damage output to manage it. After a while I barely even use healing magic for anything except levelling up augments on spare turns when the map is already under control (so the turn inefficiency doesn't matter).
Well, except in that one Divine General fight that has a half dozen Archers (including a boss with souped up stats) and three Urchin Bola lobbers starting off with a huge height advantage. That fight got rough.
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Is this where I comment how WA4 somehow manages to make positioning matter despite there being only 7 spaces and 4 characters? <3 WA4
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In my only experience with X-com (the new one anyways), it's a lot more than just cover-to-cover combat. It's more about flanking and using explosives to destroy the alien's cover to gain favorable shots. Shooting something with any sort of cover at most yields a 60% hitrate and my luck with the RNG that's about close to 0% you can get. Half-cover for your troops does absolutely nothing in dodging fire and full cover gets destroyed after 1-2 shots. Playing turtle style isn't going to cut it. I have to have one or two guys charge behind enemy lines and take out the most dangerous threat while praying they don't take critical attacks on the enemy turn. I have a high body count with only one or two majors (who were snipers than never get shot at ever.)
I'm pretty bad at the game. I got a gameover 4 months in when 8 countries had max panic levels and withdrawn. I didn't realize the absolute importance of constructing satellites at the beginning of each month and making sure you have enough uplink slots. I got fucked over with alien abduction missions constantly going after North America and Asia causing the panic levels to rise faster than I can lower them. It's the only difficult part of the beginning: I rushed the ability to capture aliens instead of building satellites and uplink facilities. On my restart, I got that established early and only lost South America to panic. Eventually the difficultly swings back over to ground missions when I had Mutons and Heavy Floaters appear all the time. I actually only encountered one cyberdisc and it got destroyed before it did anything. Were they suppose to be scary or something?
Overall I'm enjoying the game. I was put off on the old X-Com games because they required too much menu micromanagement and the UI looked awful.
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Alpha Protocol: Picked this up on the Steam daily special. Yay, more Obsidian games. Still in the tutorial breakout section, playing as a Recruit.
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Protip: Get the engineering "solve puzzles easier" upgrade immediately (then stop there, that branch kinda sucks). When I first played through AP, I literally spent 20 minutes stuck on hacking the computer in the intro mission with no save point that I could not freaking get the thing to work. Then I got the puzzle upgrade and suddenly it was trivial for most of the rest of the game.
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RosenKreuzStilette Freudenstachel, and I've been waiting years to post that name in this thread.
Game's bizarrely buggy - I expect bugs in a 1.00 release, but passwords sometimes not functioning properly and the game crashing when you try to Continue in the fortress seem like things that beta testing really should have caught - but it's a hell of a lot of fun when it actually works. Made it to the fortress refights before the game crashed on me a second time and I decided to do some housework instead.
Schwer's stage is more fantastic than I had hoped.
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I am enjoying the two games of X-Com I am playing immensely. Hot seat multiplayer wih brothers is up to the point Eph describes with Heavy Floaters and Mutons. We need to get Plasma upgrades to handle outgoing damage better.
What difficulty are you playing on Eph? I play fairly defensively and don't notice that level of losses (we load on character death to be fair, but we don't have to do it much.)
Do you get much use out of over watch? I pair that with run and gun to get a good defensive position then leapfrog around the map between defensive positions. I found being more aggressive pulls in more aliens quickly and presses you much harder. We don't use explosives much either (though may have to start because damn do heavy versions of units have a ton of hp).
Normal is rough but feels like you are close to a zero sum game with panic. It is controllable. I assume harder ones ramp that up to higher amounts. That said satellites are king for controlling it and the game does not let you know. It comes at a trade off of ability to gear your squad though and to advance building tech.
What I do want to know is if the aliens keep in step with your research and advancement if the plot or if you have to try and keep up (everyone I know seems to keep up...)
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I use overwatch pretty extensively, but part of that is that I use two snipers. A lot of the time it's a better move to stay put and use overwatch than waste a turn of not shooting finding a new position. For other classes it's a bit more limited in terms of how you can ambush, but a sniper with Teamsight can shoot a target at any range as long as SOMEONE can see it and they themselves can draw a line of fire.
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Dark Souls: My new, 7th character, Miralda, turned hollow in the undead burg.
Not regular "turned hollow", but NPC "turned hollow". When one of your dearest friends attacks you on sight without saying a word because something corrupted him.
Rules of the challenge:
- Can't buy anything more than the Bottomless box
- Must try killing every NPC. Fleeing is allowed.
I'd say you're crazy, but we already knew that.
I still pretty much never kill NPCs. I kill Petrus because he's a dick, but that's about it. I've only ever killed a merchant once (wanted the Uchigatana early, too lazy to wait for Shiva's shop) and immediately felt like a horrible person for doing so ("Little Yulia...") The ninja is safe from now on because of his ring (presumably) getting nerfed when the DLC hits, and I stopped having to kill Crestfallen when I noticed that not talking to him prevents him from going hollow. It's amazing how many NPCs this applies to. The chosen undead really is some kind of Typhoid Mary for going hollow.
In related news, I just killed NG+ Four Kings without taking damage. Sorcery: still broken as fuck even when you take no more levels during the second cycle.
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I'm playing on Normal difficulty. I use 1 Sniper, 1 Assault and 4 Supports. I don't find the Heavy class that good at all, and it's easy to capture Plasma Rifles that only Assaults and Supports can use. Overall I think Support is too good. 3 extra movement, one extra inventory slot, and smoke grenades are great. It costs too much to manufacture Heavy and Sniper Plasma equivalent and I haven't seen any aliens that carry them. I made one Alloy Cannon to make quick work of chryssalids and Beserkers. It was helpful to know that invading an alien base mission globally reduces panic and you can do it whenever you want.
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I found support to be kind of unremarkable. Extra inventory and medkits is nice, but it doesn't compare to assaults getting to sprint and attack and auto-evading the first reaction shot, or heavies being able to shoot twice/add a bonus to hit for your entire squad or snipers being able to fire twice in one turn from all the way across the map. And of course, regular rifles do less damage than every other type of gun, so they got that going against them.
How far are you through the game? Heavy plasma is carried by Mutons. I have a fuckton of them.
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Assault would be more appealing to use if I could get easier access to laser/plasma shotguns. Supports only shine with Deep pockets which is fairly late promotion. I'd deploy more Heavies if I actually encounter a Cyberdisc.
I'm about to hit the first alien base. I've been putting it off for a while to tech and use the reduction in global panic when I need it the most. Most of my ground operations consists of Mutons (they don't carry heavy plasma as far I can see), Beserkers, and sometimes Heavy Floaters.
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Maybe it's just Muton elites then. Either way, you can get them off dudes. Shotguns you are kind of on your own for, but I never really had trouble springing for two of them.
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So my game involved a direct rush to satellites and having ended up having to use them to stop some nations dropping from the union. Focussing on capturing live aliens also got me a supply of light plasma rifles, a 1k a month income, the ability to largely leapfrog Laser and because I stuck it out with basic weapons was able to afford jumping straight to skeleton armor. In July now and did the alien base curb stomping it with Plasma Sniper rifles, 2 Plasma rifle assaults, light Plasma rifle Support and an assault with an alloy cannon. The thing that holds me back most at this point is weapon fragments. Has been a weird game.
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Weapon Fragments are also what's holding me back. Sometimes you have to skip capturing aliens so you can have their exploding gun parts instead of the gun itself. There also be a huge group of low HP Mutons clustered where one rocket would kill them all but nooooo I have to kill them with bullets for the parts instead. Research over obvious tactical decisions. I'm a good commander.
Is it worth it to build new aircrafts or just throw stronger weapons on interceptors? I've been taking down large scout UFOs with Plasma Cannon interceptors. I can make Firestorms but one for each continent is so expensive. Can I just use multiple Interceptors for just one UFO too?
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RKS Freudenstreudel: Is pretty much what you'd expect from the sequel to a quality Mega Man clone, which is to say that it's more of the same but still fun. Stages in the latter half of the game were amazingly rude. I have no idea what the fuck was happening in the twins fight and just muscled through via energy tank spam. Also Quickman lasers ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. My only serious complaint is the inclusion of Mario swimming mechanics, though. Doesn't show up much, but man is it a pain when it does. I can't say the reuse of some music/art assets bothers me. Most of what's recycled is character-themed stuff anyway.
I still suck way too much to get anywhere with the alternate heroine. Incidentally, I missed a power-up somewhere. I assume it is hidden like Lilli's seek & destroy skill was in the first game. Anyone stumbled across this? Also, Kilga, I had no issues with bugs, so I have to assume the game disagrees with your computer/OS.
Schwer's menu portrait is the best thing.
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I know at least one Anonymous has also had issues with fortress crashing. There have also been several with password issues. I need to poke Letty and have him or TDOMMX send WOMI a note about it.
The Lilli Beat equivalent in this game is hidden in a regular stage, yes. Interestingly, this time around the alternate heroine can get there (Grolla's access was automatically blocked); from what I hear, there's an E-Tank waiting there for her instead.
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Weapon Fragments are also what's holding me back. Sometimes you have to skip capturing aliens so you can have their exploding gun parts instead of the gun itself. There also be a huge group of low HP Mutons clustered where one rocket would kill them all but nooooo I have to kill them with bullets for the parts instead. Research over obvious tactical decisions. I'm a good commander.
Is it worth it to build new aircrafts or just throw stronger weapons on interceptors? I've been taking down large scout UFOs with Plasma Cannon interceptors. I can make Firestorms but one for each continent is so expensive. Can I just use multiple Interceptors for just one UFO too?
You can throw multiple interceptors at a UFO, but only one at a time. You're going to need to build Firestorms eventually, though. Standard interceptors can only keep up with the more advanced UFO types for 5 or so seconds.
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Super Mario Galaxy 2: Mario, known video game icon, drives around a spaceship that is literally his head to expand offplanet drilling for more starship fuel
For this positive view of the 1% and environmental destruction I give this game a 10/10
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PXZ- This game is such a chore.... over 20 hours in and I am not even half way. The enemies takes longer and longer to kill, and no item abuse to speed things up like NxC. Really, outside there is no enemy attack animation, the whol experience is worse than NxC.
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Deus Ex - Complete. Endings are shit. I like the choices and the lead up, hate that none of them actually show you consequences of your actions. Hell, aside from the illuminati, none of them even explain how the whole nanovirus plague is getting cured. Shit, in the destroy Area 51 scenario that means that the virus probably isn't getting distributed at all and tons of people are dying but the game doesn't even cover it, just shows JC Dicksauce the Alcoholic running away from the facility. Awful endings to an otherwise pretty good game.
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Well, I don't think it's hard to guess how the Gray Death is cured in the merge ending. Even if X-51 didn't have a UC, you could probably issue a deactivation order to every plague nanite by thinking.
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Well in the sequel the answer is it isn't.
Invisible War everyone!
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I tried! The game hard-crashed on going to a new area, and you can maybe get it back via killing tasks from Windows Task Manager, but your screen goes all funny, and screw that.
The opening apartment room & elevator ride wasn't bad, I guess.
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Alpha Protocol: First two missions (intercept the arms dealer and infiltrate the weapons stockpile) went reasonably well. Bugging the airfield is a giant pain in the ass, though. Hi, all-seeing gatling-mounted watchtowers! How are you?
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I should post in this now that I'm playing some game variety again.
Ghost Trick: Yep. Just got the Defense Minister's daughter to call him and received the whole connected plot revelation. I'm enjoying the game since you can generally brute force the adventure game bits.
The biggest problem with the game, in my opinion, is the same thing that plagued Phoenix Wright: lack of fast forward/scene skip. You flub a Trick Time where you have to wait a few (or there is substantial dialogue) and it gets annoying to have to repeat it. Instant speed text would also be nice. Still, enjoyable and it plays well on an iPod.
ICO: Finally started this (PS3 remake). The floaty controls that worked decently in SotC are kind of causing me trouble here, as is the cruel and sometimes oddly positioned camera. Still, quite pretty and atmospheric. Pulling the princess along feels organic (and responds surprisingly realistically).
Deus Ex: For the Grefters. Finally found a fix to my processing speed issue.
Finished the first mission after a few flubs related to the kind of spotty lethality/KOality of weapons at times. A master of stealth I am not. Nor of cleverness, given I let big guy has my pistol to go shoot some bitches after I freed him.
Still, sort of getting a feel for the game as it goes.
Currently at Locking 1, Pistols 2, and enhanced melee damage.
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Been playing Mugen Souls. It's basically CompileHeart making their own Disgaea. So... it's kinda like a much faster, streamlined version of the game, with more fanservice and anime tropes. Basically, no one here will like it.
The plus side? It is localized by the NISA team, so it's still pretty funny in spite of everything CompileHeart tried to write. Shirogane is my favorite character, mostly because his victory cry is "Get offa my lawn!"
The only other character of note is Altis, who was once a demon, but got kicked out of the Netherworld because every time she tried to do something bad, she ended up massively helping people and was turned into an angel. She's actually the main driving force the story and works as a kind of inverted Seifer.
The actual battle system is pretty fun, with varied skillsets and a Hyperdimension Neptunia movement system. The field effect crystals add a nice layer of strategy to the various ways you can defeat battles. And there are Spaceship battles akin to Skies of Arcadia to break up the regular battles a bit for diversity.
Finished the first four worlds out of seven, so I assume I'm about half-way done with the game. Started doing the optional dungeons and they're a ton of fun, with even more varied battle conditions. Overall, I like the game and it's definitely CompileHeart's (and probably Idea Factory's IMO) best game to date. Not that this says much.
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Borderlands (1): Yeah I'm extremely late to the party on this. Playing as Brick, just reached New Haven. I punch people and explosions come out of my fists. Although for variety sometimes I punch people and they are immolated or their faces melt instead.
Pokemon Conquest: Unlocked the frue final scenario (or at least I think it is, you never quite know with this game). Nice changeup from the previous scenarios. There's a smidgen of challenge now that enemies are buying and equipping high-level shop items. Mind you, just a smidgen.
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Well, I don't think it's hard to guess how the Gray Death is cured in the merge ending. Even if X-51 didn't have a UC, you could probably issue a deactivation order to every plague nanite by thinking.
Hard to guess, no. Does that make it a good choice to omit this, or any of the other consequences for this action, from the ending? Nope.
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Final Fantasy VII PC W7 - Beaten.
29 out of 36 achievements (as long as it isn't in one of its moods where it mislays everything) (http://finalfantasyviipc.com/en/profile/Twilkitri), not that most of them really deserve the name. Only have the Omnislash achievement because of you automatically getting it for the last battle, I didn't waste my time getting it in the mainline.
Still pretty great in general.
Hopefully they'll give FFVIIIPC similar treatment, for all that I don't care too much for it.
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X-Com:
Decided to bring some Squadies and 2 SHIV in a downed UFO mission. Everyone was doing fine until I ran into a large Sectopod that wiped everyone except my Colonel Sniper. I had him retreat to the drop ship and abort. Not worth trying to solo it (it was the last thing on the UFO).
Now everything is either Elite Mutons, Sectoid Commanders, or Sectopods. I wonder if I just keep playing month after month they just have every enemy become a Sectopod or anything class alien above it. I should just end the game after I test all my Colonels for PSI testing. There's nothing left to research and I have well over 2k in cash.
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Dark Souls: DLC get! Immediate ohshitohshit *curbstomped by boss*. Just like old times. SO yeah, 13 VIT sorcerer, not really a winning option against Artorias. There was much death. I probably should've at least grabbed the Duke's Archives spells before making this run, but ffff Duke's Archives.
I stopped for the night immediately after discovering the Chasm of the Abyss by falling into it.
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Aria of Sorrow: Okay I'm pretty sure I don't need any abilities that aren't throw bone, throw cat, and +luck
I got this
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Don't forget your trusty gun.
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Deus Ex: The adventures of JC Rogue continue. For some reason people seem to think I'm a bit homicidal. I do not understand why. If terrorists did not want to be shot in the head and killed, they wouldn't shoot me in the head. I blame Tranqs for not dropping people fast enough.
Anyhow, I infiltrated a base using a door behind a soda machine. Unfortunately, I got lost and accidentally walked out the front, turning a peaceful (at least for the guards at the front door) infiltration into in a blood bath. Whoops. I then resolved a my second hostage situation of the day (with bullets but no innocent casualties) and blew up a microwave transmitter.
I then headed underground to hang with some mole people. Everyone in the mole people tunnel survived because there were too many innocents around to open fire.
Lucky them.
I'm now dicking around a... I don't even know what, but it has a helicopter, no innocent civilians, and Ambrosia I need to hunt down.
The body count is on the rise again.
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Dunno if it was in Aria but in Dawn of Sorrow you can throw zombie dogs and sit in a chair.
Pretty sure you need those to complete the game.
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Dark Souls: So apparently I chose exactly the wrong kind of character to run through the expansion. Holy shit what is wrong with Manus. What really bugs me about the fight is that the summon sign for *spoilers* is so difficult to see, but it's definitely not helping matters that the dude OHKOs me with area attacks and at least halves magic damage. It actually seems like all the bosses in the DLC do the latter (I guess they figured they'd make up for nothing resisting it in the base game).
Either that or they nerfed sorcery with the patch. Homing Soul Mass, at the very least, is proving utterly worthless against these bosses because it no longer multihits. I'm not sure what's going on with that, because it pretty clearly still multihits random mooks for about the expected damage, but bosses? Uh-uh. Struggles to break 200 damage. And this is with 50 INT/Dusk's Crown/Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring. What the fuck.
Anyway. This seems like a logistical impossibility right now barring maybe clearing the Duke's Archives to come back with Logan's spells and catalyst, and ffff Duke's Archives (I'm sick of the place, and doubly so for the Crystal Cave). I guess I will try with one of the (many, entirely too many) other PCs I've got sitting around.
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Devil Survivor 2:
Been playing this along side TOPSP. Anyway, I'm surprised there hasn't been much talk about this game because it's very good. The best thing about it are the missions are all varied. Most SRPGs just often have lots of Rout missions, but this one has plenty of objectives that integrates itself into the plot well enough. I've had about 5 resets now, so the game isn't a complete walk in the park. My biggest gripe is that cash is often strapped in-game. Since Demon Fusion is such an integral part of the gameplay, it sucks that it uses up a ton of cash if you're just trying to experiment with fusing. Some other thoughts so far:
- The PCs, despite not having any base skills, are all decently varied enough, which is pretty hard to do when you only have 4 stats and like 14 PCs. I think the game manages to do this by requiring certain stat thresholds to use learnt skills. Someone like Fumi might have ridiculously stupid high MAG, she can't use any Fire type attacks that effective because the fire boosting skills require a few points of strength.
- There's some duplication in stat builds, but its quite clear the game did this so that if a PC is perma-killed, you'll still have access to someone similar. So good for the designers to recognize this.
- Fate Levels are an interesting enough concept, and they're pretty important it looks like in the last chapter of the game (where I am!). You'll need to FAQ them if you want to try and get everyone to at least 4 minimum though (which seems to be a requirement for re-recruitment). Different enough from S.Links in that they don't always enhance Demon fusion, but rather the PCs directly. They also don't require a minimum amount of point before starting a S.Link event.
- PC MVP Listing...I've found myself sticking with the MAG based characters for a large portion of the game. Not so much physicals attacks are bad, but demons that resist physicals are a huge problem if you're entire game is focused it. MAG gives you some wiggle room since there are four elements you can play with. In general...
Fumi > Otome > Airi > Joe> Keita > Hinako = Daichi > Jungo > Everyone else.
Fumi/Otome have ridiculous MAG growth. The key difference between the two is that Fumi has more Speed/Mag, but Otome has more Defense/Strength. Guess which one is more important! Airi and Joe have similar stat builds (speedy MAG based character), but Joe has more focus on Speed. In fact, he's the fastest character in the game. As a result though, his attacks are weaker than the others, but still solid. Keita falls in the spectrum of speed being just good enough along with pretty high strength, so he's great for both multi-hit physicals and single hit physicals. Hinako/Daichi are mainly multi-hit attacks, while Jungo is the equivalent of Fumi only strength based, trading in a few points of speed for more defense. Everyone else's stats are either split 50/50 between Mag and Strength or are horribly balanced (hi Ronaldo).
- Bosses - so badass. I'm currently stuck on a level where there is a bonus fusion demon that packs Life Drain, which is unblockable/resistable and deals OHKO damage. Trying to figure out how to kill it while not getting killed by the other not as silly, but still pretty powerful bosses.
TOPSP - Replaying routes. Up to Chapter 3 Chaotic. Denam facestab people for profit.
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Dark Souls: So apparently I chose exactly the wrong kind of character to run through the expansion. Holy shit what is wrong with Manus. What really bugs me about the fight is that the summon sign for *spoilers* is so difficult to see, but it's definitely not helping matters that the dude OHKOs me with area attacks and at least halves magic damage. It actually seems like all the bosses in the DLC do the latter (I guess they figured they'd make up for nothing resisting it in the base game).
Either that or they nerfed sorcery with the patch. Homing Soul Mass, at the very least, is proving utterly worthless against these bosses because it no longer multihits. I'm not sure what's going on with that, because it pretty clearly still multihits random mooks for about the expected damage, but bosses? Uh-uh. Struggles to break 200 damage. And this is with 50 INT/Dusk's Crown/Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring. What the fuck.
Anyway. This seems like a logistical impossibility right now barring maybe clearing the Duke's Archives to come back with Logan's spells and catalyst, and ffff Duke's Archives (I'm sick of the place, and doubly so for the Crystal Cave). I guess I will try with one of the (many, entirely too many) other PCs I've got sitting around.
DLC bosses just have insane defense in general. Lightning weapons only do middling double-digit damage. The other ran through the DLC just fine with a high-end sorcery stuff. Or at least the first two bosses. The fact that Dark Souls is sitting in its case should be telling of something.
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Logging back in after god, I dunno, a year? Two? 'cause I wanna gush about XCOM. Unf. I've been stuck in FPS/over the shoulder-shooter hell for what feels like forever (with a brief foray into Rainbow Moon, an indie PS3 FFT clone that I thought was pretty good), nice to be playing a real game again.
Thanks for forcing it on the NEB and Ciato, Gref. My life is improved the more people I have to babble about it to. I ran into Ty (whazzee, Excal?) downtown yesterday and he was looking for a copy as well, having played a mission or two on their copy, so if your plan was to convert the DL Vancouver contingent, I think it's working.
I'm happier with the game than I have been with anything since at least FE10. Challenging, deep gameplay, mostly strong interface, lots of replay value. I finished a Normal game a few days ago, struggling through Classic right now. Strategy/base design in the harder modes is super unforgiving at first (half the funds, no officer training school to start, and it feels like the abductions come quicker).
I've got some complaints about the AI, it feels like the game could benefit from more active enemies, or more of a time limit in-mission. It feels like a super slow, overwatch reliant advance carries no real consequences -- enemies won't circle around to flank you because they don't activate until you find them, with the cutesy little double-take/run for cover routines they do (despite you rocketing in on a jet plane a maximum of, like, 200 meters away from where they are, often after having shot them down out of the sky), so you unless you fuck up and overreach in your advance you have a persistent massive tactical advantage, in that you're always already arrayed effectively in cover, etc.
Classic and Impossible apparently have slightly sharper and more aggressive AI, though I haven't seen much evidence of this yet, but I don't think it solves the initial problem of enemies not moving until you find them. Feels wrong, since the whole fog of war/Alien Activity paradigm sort of implies to me that there could be a Sectoid crouched behind any wall, waiting to take a pot-shot at you as you pass, or a whole troop of them moving through the city trying to flank you. And it feels like there should be more of a sense of urgency in getting in and taking control of the situation.
Terror missions are the obvious exception: the aliens are out there killing civilians, and you've gotta rush in to save as many as you can. Definitely the hardest and most rewarding (thrill of success-wise), I found, especially once you've got a posse of high ranked, well equipped badasses and most normal enemy deployments aren't much of a threat anymore.
Class balance feels pretty good -- I've come around on the Heavies, they're obviously the worst in a bunch of ways (slow, inaccurate, and the whole issue with explosives losing you resources), but early in the game it's nice to have a get out of jail free card -- pinned down by 4 Thin Men, no actions left but the Heavy? No problem, their corpses are now scattered across three city blocks. And paradoxically they get even better once rockets aren't an instant kill anymore, since you can use them to soften up whole squads of Mutons (reduced to 2 HP and no more cover) at once without losing the bodies and weapon fragments. Good way to level up squaddies too. And towards the end game they're definitely the best way to take down Sectopods. Still probably the class I go without most often (there's something delicious about 3 assault, 1 healbot support and 2 snipers), but I feel like they've got an important niche that they fill well.
Heard a bunch of complaints about character design, and I see the point -- it'd be nice to have at least a few different body-types for each gender, and there's a certain sameness to the features. Having the armour colour expansion helps; were it me I'd happily spend the $5 to get it (came free with launch but it's DLC afterwards), but I can understand that some people will be less happy about paying for what feels like a pretty basic function. Limited though it is, I really like the female character design. It's realistic without being unattractive, and the range of hair (though it feels limited) is actually about right for military. My army brat girlfriend was impressed, generally there's a range of options that no military in the world would ever let you get away with. And I guess it's not to everybody's taste, but for beefcake factor its hard to argue with a male soldier in Psy Armour. Sploosh. Seriously don't see complaints about lack of attractive men, type-preference caveats aside. And if you like your boys skinny and pretty an army simulator probably isn't the game to go looking for eye candy anyhow.
Stylistically, can I add that I really appreciate that the game doesn't skimp about how awful and creepy a lot of what XCOM does is? As overtly evil as the aliens are, I still end up feeling kinda gross and uncomfortable through the interrogation scenes. That's a win, in my book. I like games with conflicted moral messages, and I'm impressed that one as skimpy on the story content as this one manages it. And in a subject area that's prone to one dimensional jingoism at that.
Gush over, relurking.
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RE6: Chris' campaign completed!
The good? Well, mainly the controls. No tank controls, melee is it's own separate button is a lot smoother, no real hiccups here and there. Also, the plot keeps itself relatively sane by the series standards. In short? Chris failed mission a little while ago, suffers Post Tramatic Amnesia, Piers, aka a Red Shirt with a Name, tries to smack sense into him to become the LEGENDARY CHRIS REDFIELD again, and the two go to bust some terrorist Not!Zombies, and hopefully save the world from BOWs.
...I said it was sane by the series standards, didn't say it was actually GOOD. It just keeps things simple enough that it doesn't become it's own contradictory mess of "wait, why the fuck would Umbrella do this?" nonsense.
Also, if your partner is AI controlled, they are unkill-able near as I can tell, so unlike in RE5, dying is in fact primarily your fault (i say "primarily" because your partner could fail to resuscitate you)...they also seem to have limitless ammo. Downside is it seems you can't give them items but I think it's a winning trade off, since you only have to manage one inventory that's more forgiving than RE5's.
And you end up getting a decent variety of guns. At first, it seems like only Handgun + Machine Gun. Then they hand you a SHotgun, Rifle, and Grenade Launcher, which is enough to work with.
The bad? The emphasis on the gameplay in this campaign. It's a combination of dark areas with way too many enemies, a lot of snipers, to the point where you rarely get a chance to breathe. There's infinite spawning enemy points, and then the "enemies can mutate into STRONGER ENEMIES upon death" nonsense, and when you have limited ammo and the game is promoting "KILL EVERYTHING'...you get the idea. Also, cover shooter nonsense. THIS IS NOT FUN STOP MAKING ME DO IT :(
The ugly? The game pretending Chris Redfield has a personality. Don't really have to say much else!
Also started Jake's campaign! ...except I decided to play as Sherry Birkin because Hatbot said so (see, unlike Chris' campaign where it's "Guy who punches boulders" vs. "Red shirt with a name", here it's Troy Baker vs. Former 8 Year Old Girl Plot Device Turned Bad Ass Agent. It's actually a decision worth caring about!) Already can tell this is better as it's doing more than just SHOOT EVERYTHING IN SIGHT! Notably, one moment involves being able to sneak up on enemies and literally kick them off a bridge. Also hands you a magnum during the first boss fight.
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Hey! Cool, I am glad it got some bites up there. All I was really hoping to get out of it was some sanity checks on my own fanboyish response, so at least I have that. Well that and for them not to hate it so much as to hate me I guess.
Not really shocked that Tylor is down for it, he is always down for crazy shit I love.
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XCOM Enemy Unknown
So my Classic Ironman run taught me a couple of things.
First, Classic is a lot harder than Normal.
Second, Classic is a lot harder than Normal in ways that I'm not sure are especially fun.
Raising the enemy health (and possibly their accuracy, I'm not sure about that but it almost doesn't matter) has a kind of odd effect on battles, especially coupled with the more aggressive AI. Because the aliens can tank multiple shots and you can't, and because they have the advantage of numbers, they tend to be willing to risk flanking if they can get your squaddies. In order to prevent casualties you have to either try to engage at extreme long range, or kill the active aliens in one turn. As a result, if a high chance to hit shot you were relying on misses, it means someone is almost certainly going to die.
Now, that wouldn't be a problem in a multiplayer game or one like Civilization where the strategic layer is symmetrical. Indeed, it makes for a very smooth multiplayer experience. (It's a shame that the tactical engine is the only thing smooth about XCOM multiplayer, which boasts a woefully inadequate backend and network compared to the fan-made UFO 2000 it took inspiration from.)
In campaign play, however, every loss you take can snowball into a lost mission due to small squad sizes and panic. Losing an entire squad because of two missed 80% shots is not much fun, especially when the number of times that situation arises mean it will either happen eventually, or you'll get crazy lucky. It's lost some of that feel of "When my troops die it's because I screwed up."
I'm now playing Classic non-Iron Man, but I suspect I'd enjoy Normal Iron Man more. Better still would be Normal HP (and accuracy if that's changed) for the aliens, but Classic/Impossible AI. I imagine that if there is not yet A Mod For That, there shortly will be.
The advanced armors seem to change the look of the male characters more than it does the females (who do have a nice design from the outset). I agree that they have a very reasonable build in Psi Armor (although even then they're definitely more on the beefcake end of the good looking dudes scale than, say, Nathan Drake). Not sure what it is about the basic design that makes them look so Gears of Warhammer. Maybe just the contrast with the original, where X-Com squaddies male and female had basically the same build.
League of Legends
Apparently unlike the majority of players, I liked Twisted Treeline a lot. Hopefully I'll like the rework as well, but I don't understand why they didn't introduce it as a new 3v3 map rather than replacing the existing Treeline.
I've finally seen someone do well with Kha'zix! Still have yet to see Syndra or Rengar meaningfully contribute.
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See and here I was thinking the alternate choice of armour looks like Metal Armour from Fallout more than Gear or Warhammer.
I guess it is just the big shoulders on some of the suits either way.
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Dark Souls: Rescued Dusk wearing Dusk's outfit. Yes, this may have been part of the difficulty in the first place, and yes I'm one of those stubborn idiots who will only ever wear complete sets of armor and mainly the ones that look pretty, but you know I had to do it this way (it's also almost the only thing light enough for this character to wear without slowing down). Coming back with Crystal Soul Spear and Logan's catalyst did the trick. That and a +15 shield (Baldur's Shield, you are my new best friend), 4-5 levels in vitality, and Silver Pendant spam. Still took a couple tries. Dude is pretty clearly meant to be fought after goddamn everything else in the game. I'd like to say *spoilers* helped too, but he really didn't--Manus completely ignored him. I appreciate the moral support though.
So with that out of the way I naturally had to go do two final things:
A) Talk to Dusk, which would've been a nice moment if it weren't for the fact that the mid-speech ellipses are paired with a casual "Would this be of assistance to thee?" voiceclip. Kind of ruined the mood, hope they fix that at some point.
B) Kill my good buddy *spoilers*, just to see the new cutscene. Oh god. From Software, why do you make me do these things. I ran the fight pure melee just to feel like less of a horrible person. Beating Dark Souls boss as MELEE MAGE without taking a hit, I may have played this game more than is healthy.
DLC bosses just have insane defense in general. Lightning weapons only do middling double-digit damage. The other ran through the DLC just fine with a high-end sorcery stuff. Or at least the first two bosses. The fact that Dark Souls is sitting in its case should be telling of something.
I'm pretty sure Kalameet is the worst offender here. Extremely predictable boss, just takes forfuckingever to kill. I still died more times than I should have because the length of the fight allowed so much opportunity to back up against a wall without noticing it. OHSHITCAN'TROLL--*OHKO* I kinda suspect the design philosophy was in line with that which fueled the patch: "Oh, so you think you know how to break the game in half, huh? Well how about this little slice?!" Inflated boss defense, not really the way to go about that. It's not like the new bosses didn't have anything else going for them already.
Stupid boss durability in comparison with the base game is the only real problem I have with the expansion, though. The Royal Wood is an extremely nice looking area, and essentially being familiar territory is not really a problem. Actually, I appreciated this, on about the same level as, say, going back to Zeal for the first time in Chrono Trigger. The general melancholy air of the game is very effectively furthered by the new content (especially *spoilers'* new cutscene, which is just 100% IMMINENT TEARS).
Other random patch details:
-"YOU DEFEATED" seems to be back everywhere. It's amusing and all, but I'm not 100% sure why they patched it back in.
-They fixed miracle resonance! Only took the game being out a year for that to work right. I actually see the symbols everywhere now, instead of just that one random corridor in the catacombs.
-I now get this weird input delay when turning around with my shield in the blocking position sometimes. It's not consistent and when I try to recreate the effect deliberately to figure out what's causing it it never happens. It's almost got me killed a couple times and makes me want to punch someone.
-Yeah, Homing Soul Mass and Crystal Homing Soul Mass were heavily nerfed. Other spells seem the same, Crystal Soul Spear is still a good boss nuke, etc.
I am half-tempted to go beat up Artorias with Artorias's sword, but I suspect this would end in tragedy. (I actually did build a character specifically to run with the divine Greatsword of Artorias. It turned out pretty terrible, unsurprisingly since Dark Souls rewards specialization, and the fire zweihander I used before getting the greatsword wound up being better anyway.)
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League of Legends
While I still wish it was an addition rather than a replacement, the new Twisted Treeline is great fun. It has a sort of hybrid Classic-Dominion flavor due to the useful, if subtle, shrine buffs in the jungle. Going with GP/kill for holding one means that if both teams keep their shrines, more powerful items come out sooner, which helps keep the pace up. The new items (and the ones ported from Dominion) seem to generally be useful, although I ended up not taking any in the game I won.
Vilemaw, the new giant spider boss, is a Baron-grade opponent faced by a 3-man team highly unlikely to have Smite. I've seen teams wipe on it twice, only to be finished off and have it stolen by their opponents...
... thanks to Teemo.
You see, Teemo is completely OP on this map. You can't buy wards, and the Oracle's Elixir equivalent has a duration. These elements conspire to make his shrooms both more useful and more difficult to remove. I've spectated two games on it and played two, and the team with Teemo won every time. The only close game was the one in which there was a Teemo on both sides. I expect a patch to remove the shroom-vision on Treeline shortly, at which point the Swift Scout will go back to being merely dangerous and annoying like he is on other maps.
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Dark Souls: Rescued Dusk wearing Dusk's outfit. Yes, this may have been part of the difficulty in the first place, and yes I'm one of those stubborn idiots who will only ever wear complete sets of armor and mainly the ones that look pretty, but you know I had to do it this way (it's also almost the only thing light enough for this character to wear without slowing down). Coming back with Crystal Soul Spear and Logan's catalyst did the trick. That and a +15 shield (Baldur's Shield, you are my new best friend), 4-5 levels in vitality, and Silver Pendant spam. Still took a couple tries. Dude is pretty clearly meant to be fought after goddamn everything else in the game. I'd like to say *spoilers* helped too, but he really didn't--Manus completely ignored him. I appreciate the moral support though.
The Special Guest isn't that useful, but if you yourself back off for a good bit of time Manus will shift attention to SG. Helpful for Estus or Power Within.
B) Kill my good buddy *spoilers*, just to see the new cutscene. Oh god. From Software, why do you make me do these things. I ran the fight pure melee just to feel like less of a horrible person. Beating Dark Souls boss as MELEE MAGE without taking a hit, I may have played this game more than is healthy.
You are the monster.
DLC bosses just have insane defense in general. Lightning weapons only do middling double-digit damage. The other ran through the DLC just fine with a high-end sorcery stuff. Or at least the first two bosses. The fact that Dark Souls is sitting in its case should be telling of something.
I'm pretty sure Kalameet is the worst offender here. Extremely predictable boss, just takes forfuckingever to kill. I still died more times than I should have because the length of the fight allowed so much opportunity to back up against a wall without noticing it. OHSHITCAN'TROLL--*OHKO* I kinda suspect the design philosophy was in line with that which fueled the patch: "Oh, so you think you know how to break the game in half, huh? Well how about this little slice?!" Inflated boss defense, not really the way to go about that. It's not like the new bosses didn't have anything else going for them already.
It's the absolute worse when you go for his tail. Carving through that defense against something he never leaves vulnerable. Getting it was almost entirely the reason I went from "Rapiers ho!" to" I am the Four Knights!"
I am half-tempted to go beat up Artorias with Artorias's sword, but I suspect this would end in tragedy. (I actually did build a character specifically to run with the divine Greatsword of Artorias. It turned out pretty terrible, unsurprisingly since Dark Souls rewards specialization, and the fire zweihander I used before getting the greatsword wound up being better anyway.)
It is bad, but it'll set you up to use the Abyss Greatsword which is mediocre!
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I actually just ran through the expansion with a pure melee character and noticed a curious thing which probably explains why boss resists are so ridiculous: it makes normal weapons the best type for pretty much the first time in the game, because Dark Souls defense is subtractive and normal weapons are only getting hit by one type of defensive stat. They really wanted to steer people away from that lightning weapon addiction.
Also, the wood carvings are glorious.
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I actually just ran through the expansion with a pure melee character and noticed a curious thing which probably explains why boss resists are so ridiculous: it makes normal weapons the best type for pretty much the first time in the game, because Dark Souls defense is subtractive and normal weapons are only getting hit by one type of defensive stat. They really wanted to steer people away from that lightning weapon addiction.
Yeah, the difference between Lightning Rapier+5 and Black Knight Sword+5 was almost triple damage.
Also, the wood carvings are glorious.
VERY GOOD.
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X-Com - Finished. Had fun. Final mission is a little silly. Saved in last room on the off chance that a 16% chance to Mind Control an Ethereal for giggles would hit. It did and kept playing. Killed the big bad and the MCed Ethereal didn't despawn. TKed it with AoE psychic skills. This was silly, but hey achievements named after X-Men!
Otherwise, I have babbled about this game enough that it should be apparent that I like it. I think it has a few polish gaps but generally speaking it is great and a must buy as far as I am concerned. You won't see a Triple A Turn Based tactics game come around very often and the fact that it is so good bares repeating. So good you guys. Should totally think about getting it if you like tactics games or want to show you have good taste in games in general.
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Plants vs Zombies: About halfway through NG+. It's still very easy- it's not aimed at hardcore tower defense gamers outside of survival- but a fun enough timewaster.
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Sorry for the massive absence been dealing with these scabies mites since orlando(thanks for infecting me DLCON!and no that is not sarcasm I've gained inner peace though flesh eating mites of all things!) though they've only gotten "bad" in the past few weeks(indeed at first they were MEGA enjoyable for....certain reasons XD). Signs you may have them(if you've never had them before it can take up to 7 months but usually 8 weeks before you manifest any symptoms), itching around the ankles/wrists/hands/feet, that eventually spreads elsewhere, red BUMPS(a sign of an eating mite rather than a devouring mite(like chiggers, which would leave red indentations)) or slightly off color(leaning toward the pink/red hues depending on your skin color), extreme itchiness throughout the day, etc, clear bumps of very itchy skin filled with fluid on the hands or feet/between fingers toes, etc,etc. Figured I'd inform the DL of this in-case any of you are starting to feel any of these symptoms and what not.
I'll forgo the games I've been playing the past month or two in favor of the ones I am actively playing at the moment:
World of Warcraft - Mists of Pandaria: Omg monks are amazing and the new zones are insanely beautiful even on my crappy computer(a lovely 3-15 fps in them XD! ) but to just sit in them and enjoy the ambiance is quite fun. Leveling as a Panda monk has pretty much made me feel like a demi-god outside of pvp. Quite fun to beat things 10 levels over you as a healer hahah. Also bounce bounce bounce, nomnomnom.
Pokemon Black 2: Wow what amazing quality of life improvements, and not to mention cooler gyms and gym battles, a much more interesting rival than usually, little story things, N's Pokemon!!! and other goodies, hard mode, memory link, etc. No longer quite as easy to level, seems like I never encounter audinos this time around, but I am only leveling 3 pokemon right now so they have 4 levels on the trainers and negative 1 to +2 levels on the gym leaders pokemon(this would be -3 to -5 in hard mode with the gym leaders having 1 additional pokemon, different moves and different items). Progress and flow of the game seems much smoother than the first, though...the amount of tutorial like stuff is getting annoying, it would be nice if they'd stop making pokemon for new players ;D but I kid, the more the merrier...still have yet to meet someone under 20 that is into pokemon...perhaps nintendo should learn from this some more, and make that....pokemon prism 3D mmo we are all waiting for. Can't wait for the PWT and legendary teams trainer battles! LET ME SWEEP YOU with my LILLIGANT all fire/dragon/flying-type legendaries! Plenty of 3s and Rotational battles this time around including gyms with them(infact gyms with only them so you MUST play with/have at least 3 pokemon to prgoress through the game this time around!). Difficultly level medium to hard this time around instead of easy, Hard mode also greatly increases AI performance and move choice(no longer not full restoring their last pokemon at 1 hp when your last pokemon is also at 1 hp) MERCILESS. How to unlock hardmode, infared link with someone that has beaten the champion in Pokemon Black 2 (available only in black 2 it seems btw), several other version exclusive unlocks that aren't tradeable between but many things that are as well(white forest/black city, the regi-caves, et). Having a blast so far, excellent pokemon game, and non-addictive this time around so I don't feel compelled to play it 24/7.
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For the Rain-Slick Precipice players: the DLC dungeon went up yesterday. It's an interesting idea - you're knocked down to level 2 and have to run through a series of class-themed boss fights, gaining a flat two levels after each one (so your choice of classes doesn't affect EXP gain). You essentially run through the entire game's skill progression in one go.
There's one little issue where your items don't scale down to your new level so you can just cheese the first half of the area to death if you're so inclined, though.
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Pokemon Black 2: Got an Axew!!! ...but it's got Rivalry thus useless. SO I GET ANOTHER! ...also has Rivalry. FIND ANOTHER! MOLD BREAKER KICKS IN! ...ok, I want that one. Added Bonus? Lonely so it gets +Atk and doesn't lose speed, so that's decent Nature.
About to do Charge Stone Cave! TIME FOR RANDOM BLOCK PUSHING PUZZLES OF RANDOMNESS!
Also, I love all the little things they added from BW1, which was already probably the most polished game in the series. Free Space is something I just NOW realized how good it can be and am taking full advantage of it, the "Do you want to use another Repel y/n?" is a handy thing, the Habitat list in the Pokedex is nice for knowing what kind of things you'll be running into ahead of time without checking your entire Pokedex (as well as knowing whether you've seen everything an area has to offer), and of course, the Pokemon Selection is just a vast improvement over the predecessors is something that can't be stressed enough (has basically everything in the first two games + a bunch of older Gen Pokemon)
Current Team:
Dewott: Starter, also token Water type so I have a Surf user.
Umbreon: Token Tank. Also insures my team passes has it's quota of "cuteness" so i don't get hunted down by Ice Cream Popes.
Thundurus-T: Flier and Electric type! Yeah, I used Pokeradar, but I'm not using the Gen 4 Game Quirk so I'm being totally fair!!! though this will change in the after-game where I will totally abuse this for Dialga and Lugia wrecking stuff...at least >_> Despite being a Legendary, doesn't feel overpowered though I got it when things are starting to evolve, so the stat edge isn't as monstrous as it could have been. Also only recently learned Shock Wave, thus gaining a legitimate STAB (as in, something better than Thundershock)
Axew: Because why not? More seriously, while Lilligant was good and all, I think I like a Dragon type more than a Grass type, and while Lilligant is fully evolved, think Haxorus will pay off more in the long run. So yeah, taking the investment or something! I lose Sleep Powder in the deal, but I find myself mostly using that for catching Pokemon (which Thunderwave from Thundurus should be a passable substitute), and when trying to use it in battle, my luck has been attrocious with it (Things love to wake up after 1 turn ._.)
Growlithe: Because I never used one and it looks like it could be fun! Going at least until level 34 (or whenever Flamethrower is learned) until it I evolve it, might wait until level 45 when it gets Flare Blitz, depends how annoyed I get of it's unevolvedness (though Eviolite could help mitigate this)
Lucario: The game is finally nice enough to give you a Riolu early, and Lucario is awesome and one of my mains in Brawl so damn it, I'M GOING TO USE ONE!
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Super Mario Galaxy 2: So if you want to go get the final final star you have to put 9999 star bits in the otherwise useless bank toad, wtf Nintendo. At least getting the star ate most of the lives I got farming 9999 star bits.
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Growlanser: The Wayfarer of Time: Started this up. Art style is.... Growlanser art, and let's leave it at that. Classy things like "island blowing up from death fire" FMV intercut with scantily clad girl resting on the escape boat in a horizontal position. Uh huh. SPOILERS: The respected and wise father figure / guide who is to guide Our Destined Hero on his journey is slain. You're shocked, I'm sure. On the bright side this is a game that repeatedly lets me answer "...." to idiotic non-questions or hanging statements, so there's that.
Ys: The Oath in Felghana Hard Mode: Galbalan is still pretty dang tough. I've managed to make it to deadly ping pong (aka form 3) but said deadly ping pong is far more deadly than usual. Fun fight at least.
The Last Story: Killed me a vampire & some evil cultists who I could tell were evil and the kidnappers because they wore a hood in sidequesting action. Even FAQing the location of the sidequest, it was still pretty tricky to find one of the characters to talk to - well for the vampire at least. (For the cultists, once Zael sees a dude in hood, he's friggin' on the trail and the game won't even let you go back. That man is too obviously evil, he must die.) The brighter the light, the greater the shadow or something. Thanks for your fortune cookie wisdom, Narrator. (They should have just ditched the narrator entirely, he never says anything we can't figure out on our own.)
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Classy things like "island blowing up from death fire" FMV intercut with scantily clad girl resting on the escape boat in a horizontal position.
Urushihara in a nutshell.
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I don't see nearly enough mention to the hair conditioning propaganda for that to be Urushihara in a nutshell.
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Ghost Trick: Finished. Opinion remains about the same as when I started. Enjoyable little diversion. Puzzles could have used a little more oomph, but eh. Guessed the thrust of the final twist about Sissel 2 chapters before it happened, but they telegraphed it in a... fair... way.
Game really needed a skip text/fast forward option.
Deus Ex: Who would have thought betraying the UN would result in anything resembling challenge? Seriously, loss of ability to fatally headshot with silenced pistol has caused serious problems.
Decided to go bros before UN route. Since a certain cold blooded killer wouldn't stop interrupting me, I introduced her to a GEP to the face. Then I had to warn terrorists because my bro was too busy becoming deadish. Then I got arrested, but broke out. I got held up at a facility with my helicopter pilot, but a GEP into a crowded room later and I was free.
I ended up in China after that, where I stopped a Triad war and killed some bitches with a laser sword.
Game remains fun, although it sometimes leaves me scratching my head a bit on what I should do. I do see why people hype the freedom of choice aspect, and I must admit, murdering random NPCs is hilarious.
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Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward -
I can count on two hands the number of cock jokes I've heard so far. Also rabbit puns. This game is going places.
My only problem is there's not enough options to be an asshole. Way too many brute force puzzles too. Please throw more elementary math level skills please.
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Playing Borderlands 2 with the missus. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan I forgot how annoying clap-trap was. Zero is fun to use, I play him as a Sniper while my GF runs around as a Siren and lures baddies into my scope of doom! Wish I had a better rifle though. Ah well loot drops are random as all hell. I am sure something good will drop eventually. Just dealt that big bird boss and we are level 25. Games fun!
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Playing Borderlands 2 with the missus. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan I forgot how annoying clap-trap was. Zero is fun to use, I play him as a Sniper while my GF runs around as a Siren and lures baddies into my scope of doom! Wish I had a better rifle though. Ah well loot drops are random as all hell. I am sure something good will drop eventually. Just dealt that big bird boss and we are level 25. Games fun!
Good guns will never drop. Everything is duping.
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It's all Handsome Jack's fault! He never lets me get anything good!
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The Witcher 2 (Dark Mode, magic oriented character): Finished the Chapter 1 sidequests available, about to continue the plot.
I was slightly disappointed at first, I expected something more combat oriented. I mean, there's a "Die and we'll wipe your save" mode available. I never thought this would happen in a game with a "Time spent in combat/Time spent overall" ratio similar to Suikoden.
This is probably not a bad thing objectively, as the battle system just isn't that good. It looks terrific at first, but on a high difficulty where you can't just buttonmash, the flaws are pretty apparent.
Monsters aren't terribly agressive or threatening on their own, in fact you can pretty much mash A until they die without getting hit. They're only threatening as a group, because you can only attack one at once. So it's pretty much like an old beat'em'up in that regard (Streets of Rage, Final Fight), but you get a few more tools like traps.
Controls are unfortunately not tight enough. Changing between targets should be a big thing with this premise, but it's not precise at all. When I change a target I don't actually ever know who I'm going to target next. Targetting is a big thing too because Geralt can only hurt the enemy he is targeting - I already saw my sword go through enemies without them getting hurt.
The absolute worst part about the game are Geralt's normal attacks. Geralt has a bunch of normal attacks - and you never know which one he's going to use when you press A or X. It could be "Efficient Strike"! Or it could be "Useless Flamboyant Whirlpool Attack With A Terrible One Second Delay"! When you die in 2 or 3 hits and can't heal mid battle, this is a big thing.
A lot of all my attacks don't even hit because I don't know how much distance Geralt is going to travel with his next attack.
Plot, character, choice stuff are honestly pretty decent so far... I just can't really care about generic fantasy settings anymore. Geralt reminds me of Stocke from Radiata Stories; that intelligent character who doesn't really ever get angry or flaunt about how badass he is.
Yes, Rob = NEB. The main difference being that Geralt is a terrible drinker.
It's honestly a very good game, objectively. Just not really too exciting to me. It has QTEs.
Pokemon White 2: Don't trust others, it is still the same game. Remember, this series changes less than Dragon Quest.
Calling it now: The innovations in the next series of Pokemon games will be:
1) The removal of the "Want to use Surf Y/N??" message (You press A next to water and BAM, you surf)
2) A minigame where you put your pokemon in a Jersey Shore TV series
3) A plant/steel starter
Anyway I like it.
My team rocks:
(http://www.pokebip.com/pokemon/pokedex/images/gen5_general/552.png)
(http://www.pokebip.com/pokemon/pokedex/images/gen5_general/563.png)
(http://www.pokebip.com/pokemon/pokedex/images/gen5_general/521.png)
(http://www.pokebip.com/pokemon/pokedex/images/gen5_general/545.png)
(http://www.pokebip.com/pokemon/pokedex/images/gen5_general/637.png)
(http://www.pokebip.com/pokemon/pokedex/images/gen5_general/496.png) (Admittedly, the fire pig is way better but I've already used it last time)
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It's all Handsome Jack's fault! He never lets me get anything good!
All the torture, mutations and mutilations he inflicts are nothing on his gun monopoly.
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3) A plant/steel starter
Honestly? Day 1 buy.
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DS2 - Almost done. Just a few more battles to go as I understand it.
The hardest fight so far has to be the day 5 boss. Let's see if the final proves me wrong though. Still using mainly Fumi/Otome/Keita as my PCs. I've set up my MC with a demon that can act twice in one turn along with another that can get up to 6 range. 6 range, maxed out MAG demons spamming Holy Dance leads to fun times.
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Dark Souls- Started this as a Wanderer. Up to the first bonfire in Undead Burg. Had some fun tricking skeletons to fall off cliffs, cause otherwise fighting them was kind of a pain. Joined the Covenant cause why the fuck not. Physical build most likely, so mostly building up a base of stats at first before specializing. Probably will go Dex
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Dark Souls- Started this as a Wanderer. Up to the first bonfire in Undead Burg. Had some fun tricking skeletons to fall off cliffs, cause otherwise fighting them was kind of a pain. Joined the Covenant cause why the fuck not. Physical build most likely, so mostly building up a base of stats at first before specializing. Probably will go Dex
Enjoy the game.
Little tip about stats(read if you want):
Strength and dex are mostly helpful as requirement for weapons. Slightly more damage is a hell of a lot worse than more vitality/endurance.
Witcher 2: The first real boss was a Zelda boss who could kill me in one hit, with worse design and extra QTEs.
Just afterwards: Geralt (Main character) and Triss (Girlfriend) marvel about some elven statue. Some dudes come, wonder about breaking the statue in bits to build it again in the city and sell it then. They never actually threaten Geralt. Geralt kills them all. During the fight he falls into a pit that leads to an ancient elven bath (with roses) Geralt and Triss have sex because the place is extremely romantic. Then there's a joke about the noise they make during sex. Afterwards your best friend forever comes and breaks the wall of the ancient elven bath to help you. Triss and Geralt just don't seem to care about that wall like they cared about the statue before, because they never even mention it.
Camp.
Anyway for all its faults, the game really feels like what Dragon Age 1,2 and probably 3 should have been.
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::Nods::
Beat Taurus Demon. Took a few tries. Had my first FFFFF moment when one of the firebomb throwers on the roof jumped down while I was fighting the shield knights on the other side and back attacked me, knocked me into aggro range, got taken apart by the 4 of them. Lost about 6k souls and 4 humanity accumulated from going back and forth to Taurus. Bought the short bow, key, an extra scimitar and a repair powder before killing the merchant for the sweet, sweet katana. I realized I should have bought a spear, but oh well.
Kindled the bonfire since I had two humanity after Taurus. Got killed in an invasion travelling to Undead Parish. C'est la vie.
Undead Parish. Getting slightly annoyed at the tendency to suddenly whiff in the middle of a combo, even though no factors have changed. Or sudden wall hit, even though I didn't really start near a wall. Keep dying around the two crossbowmen/spearmen near the fatty at the start. Kept missing the last hit of the combo on either the last spearman or one of the crossbowmen and getting wailed on.
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Wild ARMs 4 - Speedrunning continues...
So Augst leaves behind a set of decisions I am trying to figure out right now, although I'm pretty sure as to what I'm going to do. The difference between using 2 lucky cards on his two forms versus just one seems to be a really minute difference as Arnaud can't OHKO Goldrake even with Exploit Weakness. I think its theoretically possible, but if I map out the actions, it tends to be slower AND riskier anyway. This is due to the formation of the Goldrake battle:
Empty
Goldrake Raquel
Empty
Empty Arnaud/Yulie
Jude
Goldrake's standard WA4 boss speed, which means he laps base speed Arnaud. If I want to set up for a OHKO, I think I need to have Detonation active, which means the turn order should be Jude -> Yulie -> Arnaud. This would then mean Tiny Flower Jude/Yulie, maxed out MAG set up for Arnaud. Goldrake will get 2 turns in between. So altogether, that's 5 actions. On the other hand standard strategy right now is just Arnaud -> Yulie with Arnaud using Jump, then Hi-Vortex and Yulie following up with Hi-Vortex/Vortex. That's 4 actions if we count Jump as an extra action. Based on the fact that an average action lasts about 4 seconds, I'll still be short 4 seconds. Might play around with it, but it doesn't seem like it's all that helpful.
So what does this mean? Well, since getting Arnaud that extra level now doesn't help him with anything, I'm thinking I'm going to just delay the Lucky Card until Jane Does to max out the amount of EXP I can get. This in turn means Jude equips Fighter Badge for Augst and Arnaud uses Tiny Flower. Jump, Assault Buster with no EXP boost. Second Augst features an EXP boost an alters the way the fight is set up.
If anyone has any insight I'm missing, poke me. Thinking I'm going to start practicing with my old route method here otherwise.
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RS3 - Picking up the pace. After getting my ass reamed by Alloces twice, I caved in and decided to finish the Maximus quest and manhandle Avnas instead. The Red Dragon they drop on you in the Divine Tower is tougher than anything else in that quest, let alone Maximus of the 4HKO physical damage and 8HKO ST lightning damage spam. He has good defenses, but he really wishes the support he summons wasn't vulnerable to ID (lololololol Day Break).
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Amusing so far. Really does feel like an updated Deus Ex with better graphics, which is a-OK by me. Also nice to see that Final Fantasy 27 is still a part of this dystopian future (or perhaps the CAUSE of it?!). Plot setup is certainly interesting enough as well, although why exactly the head of corporate security who has X zillion dollars worth of gear in his body needs to go klepto on every credit chip not nailed down is a little less clear. But hey, rewards for exploration & all. The 90s era conspiracy theories also feel a bit dated now, but also true to the original Deus Ex, so that's a push.
Random factoid: Jansen has life-granting punches, maybe. In the showdown with Zeke at the Milwaukee Junction factory, if you either let him go or else screw up the hostage dialogue, both he & Josie Thorpe end up shot outside. However if you immediately run over to Thorpe's body and perform a takedown on her, it works just fine, so presumably Jansen picks her up then punches her back from death into unconsciousness. Weirdly enough the cops get pissed at you for this impromptu CPR and kill Jansen shortly afterward, but still interesting. (Also odd that explicitly letting Zeke go right away gets him shot, but letting him go after a hostage dialogue lets him escape... I'd think that letting him go should let him live but no Thorpe bonus or something.)
Doing a standardy who-needs-combat build so far; I've got one nod to stealth in the radar upgrade (that + save scumming is enough), and the rest in conversation / hacking at the moment. Okay and Super Jansen Bros. jumping since jumping on people's heads is funny and it makes long jumps to out-of-the-way places a lot more sane. That said, while I like having an option to play non-lethally, playing non-lethally should be an interesting challenge. It should be much easier to shoot people dead than to carefully non-lethally take everyone out. Instead the game incentivizes a nonlethal playthrough via making the non-lethal takedowns way better than the lethal ones (See Fenrir's earlier comments - more XP? less noise? Just slit the guy's throat, no yelling, no nothing. Beating someone up quietly when they can yell / stamp their feet / etc. seems more likely to be noisy...) and handing out the silenced tranquilizer rifle at the beginning of the game. The only downside to tranqing / non-lethal takedowning everyone is that other guards can shake sleeping people awake, MGS style, but even that isn't a big deal... oh look someone coming over to examine their downed comrade, let me line up another shot. Considering that DE has gone for a psuedo-"realistic" level of damage (a shotgun at close range WILL kill you, it takes ~2 bodyshots to down someone and 1 headshot), I'd have liked it if HR was more like the original DE where going all non-lethal is more like a challenge playthrough. No BS tranq rifle, you must use the baton & mini-crossbow on everything, when these weapons have fairly notable downsides. Plus I see from the skill tree that DE has Alpha Protocol-esque invisibility as a later stealth option. WTF. Okay Deus Ex has Thermoptic Camo, but it's consumable and takes inventory space. Being able to spam invisibility -> takedowns if you wait enough is kind of unstoppable and not THAT fun, I already did that to most of Alpha Protocol. Will attempt to hold off on buying that skill tree just to make the stealth more interesting, we'll see how long I can wait.
Lastly, I do enjoy the ability to do missions out of order. "What the hell did you just do, Jansen?" "Found a transmitter in this home in Derelict Row I was raiding for some other reason. Decided to shut it down, figured why the hell not." 20 minutes later, instant Mission Complete + Ghost once I'm actually tasked with removing the transmitter...
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The original Deus Ex had Cloak as well, less available but it is still kind of an option.
But yeah KO guys instead of kill for easy mode seems to be a thing in stealth games these days. Dishonored does it as well. Kill dudes and the City gets shittier and there will be more guards and stuff. The only real downside is that takedowns take a second or two while you choke someone out and you need to put people on top of things so they don't get eaten alive by rats. DE equivalent is hiding dudes in vents.
It is weird because Thief was huge on the not killing thing, you know how it handled it? Game over if you killed too many (any at all on hard).
Not that I want everything to do that, it is just weird that none of the games since Thief 2 goes "this character doesn't kill. Don't kill people."
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Jumped right from Deus Ex to Human Revolution.
Beat the first mission. So far, gameplay is much better but if they failed at that after 10 years that would be ridiculous. There is actually a reason to be stealthy now! Miss out on bonus EXP? fuck that.
Writing has me less immediately engaged. Oh no people are AUGMENTING their BODIES and SOME PEOPLE care about THIS SORT OF THING.
I'm just waiting to be disappointed by the ending at this point to be honest.
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Deus Ex: Fuck Spider Bots. Seriously. Those goddamn maintenance bots are the most threatening enemy in the game. That said, I sank a boat then flew to Paris.
Also, Computers is ridiculously OP, especially given all you really need is one rank.
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But without 4 ranks in computers, HOW CAN YOU READ EVERY EMAIL, ANDREW?!?!
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Dark Souls, Dr. Jones visits Lordran edition: Because apparently I didn't hate myself enough already. I can only wear leather armor + Pharis' hat. No magic, no summons, normal weapons only, no shields because Indy does not truck with shields (this rule is much less of a problem thus far than I'd expected, but I have no idea how I'm going to deal with, say, hydras and DLC bosses). Found throwing weapons are okay but I can't buy any. My only non-whip means of weaponry is punching dudes (because Indy does spend a remarkable amount of time punching dudes) except when the game throws some gimmick at me that makes this functionally impossible or just prohibitively un-fun (stuck with starting weapon in the asylum, divine punching is allowed for catacombs/Nito only, bow allowed for Moonlight Butterfly because Indy does have a history of shooting dudes who like to show off just outside of melee range). Plan is to start with master key to allow access to the whip first thing, put levels in nothing other than Vit/End/Dex (Dark Souls does not have a Charisma or HAT stat), cap out at the usual SL75.
Deaths so far:
Whip retrieval deaths: 4. The worst of these was getting toxin'd on my way back and dying from it on the elevator to Firelink.
Shouldn't have tried running through the Valley of Drakes deaths: 1.
Taurus Demon deaths: 1. Rolled off the wall.
Bell Gargoyle deaths: 2. Rolled into fire breath x2. Their melee attacks are surprisingly easy to dodge, but the Cid has not learned to mind his surroundings.
Stupid stone giant deaths: 2. So it turns out Tranquil Walk of Peace is a death sentence when you can't block anything.
Next up should be trying to fight Capra Demon with no shield. Uhhhh, maybe I'll go beat up Pinwheel first instead.
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of No OSHA Compliance: Hat acquired, Sen's Fortress next. I tried to clear out New Londo to get the very large ember, but apparently Ingway doesn't actually give you the key until you have the Lordvessel (I've never tried going down there this early before). And no, I'm not killing him for it, so +10 will just have to do for a while. Deathcount!
Mysterious lack of deaths fighting Capra Demon with no shield: !!! (Wow I've played this game too much.)
Why am I climbing down Blighttown when I have the master key? deaths*: 1. Knocked off ledge by fatty troll.
Kiting failure deaths: 1. Lure knight to edge of cliff. Knight lands next to Indy instead of jumping off cliff. Knight stabs Indy in the face.
Skelemobbed deaths: 2. Somehow I still don't know how to dodge these guys.
Quelaag deaths: 1. So lava vomit isn't exactly the way Indy's used to women greeting him.
Rolled into a wall trying to dodge a black knight deaths: 1.
(*Because if there is a shiny item left unacquired, Indy must loot it. Because it belongs in a museum.)
Unrelated to this playthrough, but: running through Chasm of the Abyss as one of two summons, just outside the fog gate to Manus the other summon stops and whips out a bow. Aims down and starts shooting...something. Host and I stop, wondering what the hell he's doing. I see numbers at the edge of the screen, but nothing's down there, right? Just the boss room--oh. Welp.
A couple minutes of shooting later: YOU DEFEATED. So yeah, it's possible to kill the boss of the expansion without even entering his room. They, uh...should probably fix that.
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Tactics Ogre PSP chaos route replay - At the end. I was a bit lower-levelled this time because I barely doubled up on classes at all, so the final dungeon has been a bit harder, but it's definitely not too bad overall even so. Fun enough game, archers are still broken.
XCOM - Pretty cool game, though has some nagging flaws I'd love to see cleaned up. In general I find the game could really stand to give you more information... I dislike how you can neither take back move, nor tell which enemies will be in range (and at what hit rates) before you move, is probably the biggest thing. Not really a big fan of endless fog of war either... surprises have their place, but in general strategy games are better when you have more information. That said, the game does some really cool things on the character building front. I like the way classes level and give you a decision at each level in particular, it's simple and a great idea. I like that you have to raise more than a "minimum" number of characters because people can be injured/killed, and I like the dynamic permadeath adds to the game. Oh yeah, one other complaint is the game visually: it's too dark, and this makes it a little difficult to distinguish between my own soldiers at times. Maybe I can fix this by adjusting my TV or something.
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Devil Survivor 2: Done. 1 reset to the final boss. Total resets through the entire game was about 7. The last fight is a doozy. I mainly underestimated how long it was (PS: It was long) and my blitzing type set ups didn't really work by the time I reached the last stage. Also, 500+ damage worth of physical damage everywhere KOing more than one group at a time = bad. Did some grinding for cash, fused better demons, resorted skills and tried again. Still pretty close, but got the job done. Multi-hit skills (mainly dances) are just too good at inflict ST damage.
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Tactics Ogre PSP chaos route replay - At the end. I was a bit lower-levelled this time because I barely doubled up on classes at all, so the final dungeon has been a bit harder, but it's definitely not too bad overall even so. Fun enough game, archers are still broken.
XCOM - Pretty cool game, though has some nagging flaws I'd love to see cleaned up. In general I find the game could really stand to give you more information... I dislike how you can neither take back move, nor tell which enemies will be in range (and at what hit rates) before you move, is probably the biggest thing. Not really a big fan of endless fog of war either... surprises have their place, but in general strategy games are better when you have more information. That said, the game does some really cool things on the character building front. I like the way classes level and give you a decision at each level in particular, it's simple and a great idea. I like that you have to raise more than a "minimum" number of characters because people can be injured/killed, and I like the dynamic permadeath adds to the game. Oh yeah, one other complaint is the game visually: it's too dark, and this makes it a little difficult to distinguish between my own soldiers at times. Maybe I can fix this by adjusting my TV or something.
As usual, your first mistake is playing it on a console. Your second mistake is not using the gamma correction in the options menu.
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I went with the option I knew he would actually play when sending it to him. Better than the alternative.
That said yeah check the menu, should have some gamma correction in there.
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Are we not capable of discussing a game that was (I guess) made for a PC without having this same inane conversation?
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When we properly port a mouse driven interface without it feeling cljnk sometimes I guess?
Spec Ops: The Line - So this was good in the ways reviews said it was. $30 price point was about right for me. The last quarter or so of the game is probably a little overly tuned on the hard side, but the lets the game fuck with you with messages on the load screens and lets you look at the beautiful splash screens they made. There is like one every checkpoint and they are all pretty amazing once you get to the big climax where the game punches you in the gut.
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Resident Evil 4: Picked this up on last week's XBox sale and finally beat it (after owning it for years on PS2 but never getting around to actually playing the thing). I've never gotten more than fifteen minutes into an RE before quitting in disgust with the controls, but the genre change did wonders for this one - it's a great game. Entertaining B-horror nonsense plot, good shooting, and never a cakewalk. It's a shame the follow-ups apparently fell on their faces so hard they left a crater.
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FF5: Just replaying this on my phone to kill some time and to play an SNES game on my phone. It's as awesome a game as ever. Beat Shinryu on the jaunt to X-Death just because I happened to have a few Coral rings and lots of Dimension Magic.
Phantasy Star Universe: The wife bought this for me for like $5. It kind of reminds me of PS4 in the sense that the moves have similar names and the main character has an occupation like the PS4 Hunters and is mentored by a more experienced badass chick. Combat is 'meh' MMO/ARPG but the different types of weapons and abilities are neat.
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RE6: Jake's Campaign beaten!
...so about those QTE complaints and there being too many of them...I just have to say "Wait what?" There's a few of them, but their scattered about and fairly lenient and most are right near check points and it's obvious when they're going to occur.
Beyond that...it's bipolar. On one hand, less cover shooter nonsense than Chris' and it slows down at times, and has a sense of variety. On the otherhand, still too many J'Avo with Machine Guns making it hard to get anywhere without taking damage. Oh yeah, and death to those Regenerator Enemies that split into two when yo blow them up that simply never die. The last chapter was a pain just for that reason alone...go figure, the rest of the last chapter after that stupid section wasn't actually too bad...and hey, Jake can SUPLEX USTANAK!
I might replay this arc to see Jake's stuff because there seems to be more split gameplay segments with both sides doing things than Chris and Piers had, but dunno. For now, Leon S. Kennedy is next!
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Black 2: Started. Picked the girl because she has Princess Leia Star Puffs while the boy is apparently wearing a shag rug on his head. Picked Tepig as starter.
And then I made a movie that grossed 268.8 billion dollars. Take that Avengers.
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Brigandine
I really need to get Grand Edition. I am finally finding this game boring to replay even though it's one of my all-time favorites. I blame knowing there's a better version. :Y Did anyone ever find out of GE's multiplayer works over the internet if you use an emulator? I would certainly pick it up in that case.
Anyway, Norgard playthrough going about like my Norgard playthroughs always do. Grab the island from Esgares as soon as possible, advance against New Almekia as far as possible without widening the front, stomp poor Leonia since they end in the best chokepoint to attack multiple enemies from. Then sit there trying to get Esgares weak enough for a computer player to finish them so I get better, or at least different, knights, grow frustrated, and finish them (and shortly the game) myself.
Brangien felt like my MVP (all of the assassinations, all of them) but it was probably Vaynard. :P
League of Legends
Almost 30 (hit 27 tonight). I guess the lack of a third Quintessence is an issue but I don't feel like I'm at a meaningful mechanical disadvantage anymore.
I do however feel like I've hit a wall in terms of my improvement as a player. I have a good grasp of the game's tactics and can play jungle or support to a reasonable level of proficiency with many characters. But I can't last hit despite a fair amount of practice and I invariably lose my lane if I try to top, mid or AD Carry bot. Switching to smartcasting is probably the only way over that wall (since it's not like my reflexes are going to get magically better).
Nunu is still my favorite. I can take him top and only lose a little, take him jungle and either do well with a normal clear of do a cool quickdragon strategy with a support, or help my AD carry a lot as a support myself. I also like supporting as Taric, and jungling as Amumu and Cho'Gath. I own a bunch of others but they're the only ones I'm good at.
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I really need to get Grand Edition. I am finally finding this game boring to replay even though it's one of my all-time favorites. I blame knowing there's a better version. :Y Did anyone ever find out of GE's multiplayer works over the internet if you use an emulator? I would certainly pick it up in that case.
Multiplayer is a blast, even 1 player. You can do things like change alliances and give yourself as much time as you want. You don't have to worry about fighting the snake of chaos or Bulnoil either. You can either buy it legally (Good luck) or pirate it. There *is* an english patch for GE, but it only works for the first disk.
Anyway, Norgard playthrough going about like my Norgard playthroughs always do. Grab the island from Esgares as soon as possible, advance against New Almekia as far as possible without widening the front, stomp poor Leonia since they end in the best chokepoint to attack multiple enemies from. Then sit there trying to get Esgares weak enough for a computer player to finish them so I get better, or at least different, knights, grow frustrated, and finish them (and shortly the game) myself.
Brangien felt like my MVP (all of the assassinations, all of them) but it was probably Vaynard. :P
Brangien's the best archer in the game, and that's already a pretty powerful class. Not surprising she dominates. Vaynard's better than her but not by a massive margin, since he has some durability concerns in normal Brig (GE makes him resistant to fire which helps a fair bit).
I want to play OMD2, the new DLC looks fun. They brought back The Tower for Endless mode and finally gave the players a way to revive fallen Guardians.
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Deus Ex: Stayed a while in France, raided an old house, accidentally lost 15 minutes of progress by laser swording an explosive barrel, introduced Mr. Gunther to my old friend Mr. GEP, found some gold, met the Illuminati, raided Area 51, and now have to do something with computers, I think.
So, is XCOM really super superior on PC? Limited funds and some coupons meant I grabbed it used on PS3 at Gamestop yesterday (since I wanted and had coupons!)
Speaking of.
XCOM: Still in the tutorial. Saved some person who got abducted by Aliens. Getting a decent grasp on the game so far. I assume the tutorial can be skipped in future plays?
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Deus Ex: Stayed a while in France, raided an old house, accidentally lost 15 minutes of progress by laser swording an explosive barrel, introduced Mr. Gunther to my old friend Mr. GEP, found some gold, met the Illuminati, raided Area 51, and now have to do something with computers, I think.
So, is XCOM really super superior on PC? Limited funds and some coupons meant I grabbed it used on PS3 at Gamestop yesterday (since I wanted and had coupons!)
Speaking of.
XCOM: Still in the tutorial. Saved some person who got abducted by Aliens. Getting a decent grasp on the game so far. I assume the tutorial can be skipped in future plays?
Superior visually and in control scheme. Also, it's compatible with the Steam Workshop and there's a mod kit forthcoming.
The tutorial can be disabled in the options menu. I think the box is just labeled "skip tutorial."
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Mmm. Lame. Not sure I really feel its worth the effort of returning and the extra bucks given my finances at the moment. =(
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"Superior on PC" doesn't mean "craptastic on console" anyway, unless we're talking about an FPS.
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Or an RTS.
X Com Enemy Unknown was made with a controller in mind anyway, some PC players actually use a controller to play it.
No "Glorious PC Gaming Master Race" can apply here.
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Console will be fine. Better to play than to not.
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What the heck's wrong with FPS on a console? I played Half-Life 2/both Bioshocks/Human Revolution on console, never had any control or technical problems with any of them.
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Mouse control is superior.
I suppose the biggest disadvantage of console XCOM is I can't stream it as the DL takes on aliens.
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Well there is a reason that I only ever saw Aim Assist on a shooter once before we started getting tons of ports. Mouse control just allows for more quickly paced precise reactions. You can make shooters work on console, but they are a different beast there. It is no real surprise that people that cut their teeth on PC shooters don't like jumping to them and are dismissive of them (note reaction to the change will be less jarring if your FPS play dates back far enough to have played exclusively with keyboard.)
For reference, Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight was super carebear with its shooter elements what with it mostly being about lightsabers and force powers. That and Star Wars games that weren't flight sims aim for a wide audience.
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I seem to recall reading that the XCOM console and PC control schemes were generated independently of each other (luxury of a genre where mechanics transcend control scheme), so neither is a copy of the other -- both are the original intent.
Finished Classic (the "perfect game" that I need to feel good about a second playthrough), bashed my head against Impossible Ironman for a bit, but it might actually be beyond me at the moment. I get very sad whenever a little soldier dies, which means I'm very sad ALL THE GODDAMN TIME RIGHT NOW. So I'm putting it off for now. Might do a Classic Ironman to get used to the somewhat different decision making process. Or a straight Impossible to get used to the pain and sadness. Haven't decided.
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I honestly find the game a bit RNG even on Classic, but I will be doing a decent Classic run sometime when I am in the mood (speaking of carebear).
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Yeah, I think Impossible will be fine after the first third or so of the game (once hit rates climb above the 65-70% ceiling, and an enemy critical doesn't mean a dead squaddie and rolling panic), but for that first third I'll just need to come to terms with the fact that I can lose a team to bad luck even if I make no poor decisions, and that some countries will just poof away no matter what.
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Man, I remember the days of having to “mouselook” with a keyboard. That sucked too.
(Also: Graphic adventure games without a mouse. I SHAKE MY CANE AT YOU, WHIPPERSNAPPERS.)
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Lemmings without a mouse bro. Lemmings without a mouse.
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For reference, Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight was super carebear with its shooter elements what with it mostly being about lightsabers and force powers. That and Star Wars games that weren't flight sims aim for a wide audience.
Wait, you mean playing as the empire in unshielded deathtraps and working for Grand Admiral Thrawn wasn't meant for a wide audience? My world, it is crumbling.
Mind you later versions of that game had cheat options in the menu and the only penalty for using those was harshly scaling your score down. Save Emperor personally, still only a Lieutenant.
(Also: Graphic adventure games without a mouse. I SHAKE MY CANE AT YOU, WHIPPERSNAPPERS.)
That sounds like approximately the worst. I guess the hotkeys for SCUMM-style game at least make sense (L to Look, U to Use, etc), but even then just moving around.
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The absolute worst was one game where I couldn't get out of the first screen because a single tap of the keyboard moved the cursor so far that it was impossible to pixel-hunt - it would go right past the object I needed to click on.
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Lemmings without a mouse bro. Lemmings without a mouse.
OH MY GOD WHY
/me sobs at the flowing stream of deathly memories.
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I really need to get Grand Edition. I am finally finding this game boring to replay even though it's one of my all-time favorites. I blame knowing there's a better version. :Y Did anyone ever find out of GE's multiplayer works over the internet if you use an emulator? I would certainly pick it up in that case.
Multiplayer is a blast, even 1 player. You can do things like change alliances and give yourself as much time as you want. You don't have to worry about fighting the snake of chaos or Bulnoil either. You can either buy it legally (Good luck) or pirate it. There *is* an english patch for GE, but it only works for the first disk.
Well, AFAIK the only way to get it legally is on the Japanese PSN store*, which is more an expenditure of effort than money. If I was going to pirate it I would do that as well, I just wanted to know if it was worth said effort to do both.
The translation patch still only works for the first disc? Bummer.
Still, that sounds pretty fun. Setting everyone allied against me would only exacerbate the "game gets progressively easier" issues but it would definitely make it more of a challenge!
*Or on Ebay for hundreds of dollars. lol
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XCOM: This is ridiculously fun. Like. Stupidly so.
Current date, 4/11/2015
Things go well. Europe is having a bit of a fit. I am not quite sure how I will manage their panic. Trying to get some satellites in the air. May have excavated too much space too quickly. Funds low. Wondering why the world is funding us so poorly.
The Rogue's Squad. Base of operations: AMERICA. FUCK YEAH.
Lt. Rob "Kong" Delgado (Heavy)
Sgt. Ashley "Axle" Lefevre (Support)
Sgt. Reiska "Vandal" Hill (Assault)
Cpl. Sopko Gray (Support)
Sq. Ciato Campbell (Sniper)
Sq. Laggy Ghalib (Heavy)
Sq. Hatbot Evans (Heavy)
Sq. Djinn Amar (Sniper)
Stelas Weiss
Twil Gesperatto
Smashy Willis
Kilga Halvorsen
Former Members
Sgt. Scar "Zulu" Rodriguez (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Cold Sleep. 4/4/15. Wishes the Rogue's Squad carried Med Kits before this.
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"Zulu"??
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Better nickname than my sniper Pierre "Emo" Thomas.
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"Zulu"??
Nicknames are given after a certain number of kills, randomly hosed from a pool specific to your class. My guy's nickname was "Banzai" as an Assault. Had Chops as my other Assault trooper. There was also Garrote and Snake Eyes on the long rifles, Bulldozer on the HMG, and Whiskey, the support medic.
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Pretty sure they might be random from a pool associated to their home country.
Edit - actually easy to test. Was he from South Africa?
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I think "Zulu" is pulled from the NATO Phonetic alphabet. You know "Alpha Bravo Charlie Zero One Niner~" stuff. "Zulu" is Z, so it's probably a common nickname for any military guy with a first or last name starting with Z.
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Pretty sure they might be random from a pool associated to their home country.
Edit - actually easy to test. Was he from South Africa?
I'm like 99.9999% sure the pool is class-based and not nation-based. Banzai was German, Snake Eyes was British. Whiskey was American, though, that made sense.
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I really need to get Grand Edition. I am finally finding this game boring to replay even though it's one of my all-time favorites. I blame knowing there's a better version. :Y Did anyone ever find out of GE's multiplayer works over the internet if you use an emulator? I would certainly pick it up in that case.
Multiplayer is a blast, even 1 player. You can do things like change alliances and give yourself as much time as you want. You don't have to worry about fighting the snake of chaos or Bulnoil either. You can either buy it legally (Good luck) or pirate it. There *is* an english patch for GE, but it only works for the first disk.
Well, AFAIK the only way to get it legally is on the Japanese PSN store*, which is more an expenditure of effort than money. If I was going to pirate it I would do that as well, I just wanted to know if it was worth said effort to do both.
The translation patch still only works for the first disc? Bummer.
Still, that sounds pretty fun. Setting everyone allied against me would only exacerbate the "game gets progressively easier" issues but it would definitely make it more of a challenge!
*Or on Ebay for hundreds of dollars. lol
GE is a *massive* improvement over normal Brig. It's worth getting. You get a couple of fun fights at the end to test your uberteam of doom with, enemies have better AI and much better options (They can quest no normal/hard mode!) , there are more knights, monsters and classes have much better balance, etc. I bought a legal copy of GE back in like... 2004 so yeah. <_< Donno about how to get it now.
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Scar was from Mexico.
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Dark Souls- Got to the Blacksmith in Undead Parish. Getting a lot better at kiting, attack patterns and dodging. Getting to point where I could attack Armored Boar took way more attempts than actually fighting it (which was 2). Ended up near wearing out the Uchi and scimitar, so I switched to the Morningstar to bear the brunt of things temporarily, ended up really liking it.
Red Cape Knights were a challenging only until I got the Knight Shield, which didn't take long. Ended up having 2 humanity again when I hit the bonfire near the blacksmith, so I kindled it. But woo. Repaired, restocked arrows, upgraded Uchigatana +3, Morningstar +1, Knight Shield +1. Will probably wait to advance until I can buy a Pike. Anything else recommended at this point? I have 2 Titanite Shards left.
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I recommend Torchlight 2 or X-Com. I hear the new Pokemon is pretty good as well.
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Pokemon Black 2: Completed, main game anyway. Aftergame...let's just say I am throwing any sense of being fair out the window, and thus have shoved in two ubers that aren't in UNova in my team!
Final Team was Samurott, Umbreon, Lucario, Thundurus-T, Haxorus, Arcanine. Samurott was token water type, you basically always want one of those, Umbreon was really damned effective at tanking, feeling basically immortal, and Snarl made him excellent for crippling any specal reliant folks to allow Haxorus to swap in and set up on. Also gave him Toxic, because he's actually durable enough to make use of it. Haxorus, speaking of, existed mostly for Dragon Dance x2 -> Things die. Getting the turns to do that was sometimes tricky, but even when he couldn't, that's still 147 STAB Dragon Claw. Lucario was just good for multi-purpose damage hitting, and had Sword Dance though in hindsight he's not quite fast enough to make full use of it. Arcanine had Intimidate and will-o-wisp, thus completely maimed anything relying on Physicals, also had Flare Blitz for a big damage STAB, Wild Charge for type covering, and Outrage for something that didn't kill him; Shell Bell used to mitigate recoil some. Thundurus...fast, hits hard with electric attacks, the usual stuff. Also had T-Wave and Swagger for some status, and Fly because...uhh...convenience or something.
This is easily one of, if not the best, Pokemon game based off the main game thus far. The only flaw is that it's a little easy for bosses, but the average trainer is harder I find due to them generally being higher leveled than usual, and since there's so many Pokemon, the variety of things trainers use is interesting and hard to predict. Additionally, existence of Challenge Mode in Black 2 probably helps mitigate the difficulty thing, though pity you have to beat the game first, or at least find someone with a completed save to unlock it from the outset (which can be transferred to White 2 as well, for those who got that version...god knows why White 2 has an easy mode unlocked AFTER COMPLETING THE GAME, doesn't that defeat the purpose of Easy mode?). Worth noting that the E4 all use only 4 Pokemon instead of the usual 5, and gain an extra in Challenge Mode, which I found odd; champ was about what you'd expect for a Pokemon final boss.
Ok, a second flaw is that there's a GOD DAMNED SEWER DUNGEON. IN A POKEMON GAME! I don't have to say anything more; "Sewer Dungeon" should say everything about why that's a bad thing!
Otherwise, it is the most polished game in the series, taking everything BW1 had, and adding a few other small little features in further, as well as upping the actual options a lot by putting in a bunch of earlier gen Pokemon, and the options are rather interesting to boot (like, say, Riolu ridiculously early for example)...yet there's still no Abra or Geodude which is disappointing given their previous stapleness...ah well, either way, lot's of interesting options nonetheless.
Also, GAME HAS PLOT! BACKSTORY! ATTEMPT AT CHARACTERIZATION! Whether it does a good job with this or not is a different story, but at least it shows genuine forward effort in this regard! I know someone is going to trash the game for trying to have things like that in a Pokemon game and failing, but frankly, the game isn't deep enough to be offensive, so even subpar at everything listed above I'd say is superior to what the series offered before that...
...then again, I am now reminded of EXPAND THE LANDMASS! and...well...the entirety of Team Galactic, so maybe I have to reconsider...
I would say "skip BW1, just go for the sequels" if you haven't played Gen 5 yet, except the sequels act like you've played the previous game in terms of plot and make a bunch of nods to it (and BW1 is a good game in it's own right!), and POKEMON PLOT!!! is totally srs bsns and important stuff amirite?
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BW1 is totally worth playing if you are in to Pokemon at all just to see the game try to do plot for its target audience and then the way it drops the ball in the zaniest way possible.
Also it is the first time you are going to replicate that WTF DO ALL THESE THINGS DO feeling you had with RBY.
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Current date, 4/23/2015
It is a hard day to be a commander. =(
The Rogue's Squad. Base of operations: AMERICA. FUCK YEAH.
Lt. Rob "Kong" Delgado (Heavy)
Sgt. Ashley "Axle" Lefevre (Support)
Sgt. Reiska "Vandal" Hill (Assault)
Cpl. Sopko Gray (Support)
Sq. Djinn Amar (Sniper)
Twil Gesperatto
Smashy Willis
Kilga Halvorsen
Former Members
Rk. Stelas Weiss - Killed in Action. Operation Purple Mother. 4/X/15. Punched in the face by a zombie. This was shockingly fatal.
Sq. Ciato Campbell (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, caused by Hatbot failing to properly aim with a rocket.
Sq. Laggy Ghalib (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, caused by Hatbot failing to properly aim with a rocket.
Sq. Hatbot Evans (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, surprisingly not related to the rocket misfire incident.
Sgt. Scar "Zulu" Rodriguez (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Cold Sleep. 4/4/15. Wishes the Rogue's Squad carried Med Kits before this.
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To be honest, I am really really glad that the Geodude line isn't in any version of Unova, series history be damned. Sturdy Roggenrolas/Boldores/Gigaliths are kinda annoying to face as it is but rarely reach a high enough level for Explosion to show up in their movepools, thankfully. Those 50% of Geodudes/Gravellers/Golems that have Sturdy would be ridiculously dangerous, you'd absolutely need a strong multi-hit move like Bullet Seed to avoid constantly being detonated on by the #1 most common random in every cave.
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Red Cape Knights were a challenging only until I got the Knight Shield, which didn't take long. Ended up having 2 humanity again when I hit the bonfire near the blacksmith, so I kindled it. But woo. Repaired, restocked arrows, upgraded Uchigatana +3, Morningstar +1, Knight Shield +1. Will probably wait to advance until I can buy a Pike. Anything else recommended at this point? I have 2 Titanite Shards left.
If you've got the resources for it, maxing out a weapon (any weapon, whichever you like best) to +5 should be a big help. Andre sells shards if you wind up needing more. Also, the shiny item you'll find inside the church? Do not use it as a consumable item. (Stupid mistake I made first time playing the game. Made subsequent events way harder than they had to be.)
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Also, just fuck having the same damn monster be the most common random in six freaking games.
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Pretty sure they might be random from a pool associated to their home country.
Edit - actually easy to test. Was he from South Africa?
I'm like 99.9999% sure the pool is class-based and not nation-based. Banzai was German, Snake Eyes was British. Whiskey was American, though, that made sense.
I had a "zulu" from australia, myself. Sniper, just like andy's.
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Well that covers that off.
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Current date, 4/23/2015
It is a hard day to be a commander. =(
The Rogue's Squad. Base of operations: AMERICA. FUCK YEAH.
Cpt. Rob "Kong" Delgado (Heavy)
Lt. Sopko "Scarecrow" Gray (Support)
Sq. Smashy Willis (Sniper)
Cpl. Kilga Halvorsen (Heavy)
Uno Fujiwara
Pyro Meyer
VSM Godongwana
HY Robertson
Snowfire Johansen
Former Members
Sgt. Ashley "Axle" Lefevre (Support) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Stranger. Died heroically in the line of duty, tending Rob's wounds. Fucking smoke bombs not doing shit.
Sgt. Reiska "Vandal" Hill (Assault) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Stranger. Crit by a Muton, shot in the back by a grief stricken at the loss of Djinn Rob, and poisoned. Died like a MAN.
Cpl. Djinn Amar (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Stranger. Bravely sacrificed himself to try and save the rest of the squad. This did not go as planned.
Sq. Twil Gesperatto (Assault) - Killed in Action. Operation Crimson Pyre. Could not tank 4 aliens and a crit.
Rk. Stelas Weiss - Killed in Action. Operation Purple Mother. 4/X/15. Punched in the face by a zombie. This was shockingly fatal.
Sq. Ciato Campbell (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, caused by Hatbot failing to properly aim with a rocket.
Sq. Laggy Ghalib (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, caused by Hatbot failing to properly aim with a rocket.
Sq. Hatbot Evans (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, surprisingly not related to the rocket misfire incident.
Sgt. Scar "Zulu" Rodriguez (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Cold Sleep. 4/4/15. Wishes the Rogue's Squad carried Med Kits before this.
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Lufia: Curse Of The Sinistrals - played through
Fairly entertaining.
The non-Gades Sinistrals are kind of let-downs, sadly. I was expecting more buildings... and Amon's version doesn't count for all that he was amusing.
About halfway through I started grinding soul shards whenever the available prizes were extended. I think that may have resulted in my party being a tad overlevelled, considering Erim was doing single-digit damage later on (although that could feasibly be entirely normal), despite just using the upwards version of Soma Temple for the grinding, not anywhere with competent enemies. I still came close to losing to Daos a few times though - but that needs to also bring into consideration that I never really figured out how the Dual Blade was supposed to work.
Unfortunately, didn't get much use out of Dekar because I was using the lowest level people and he had that title which gives him full exp when inactive, so he never was. Of the rest, Guy is probably the character I liked using the least... think Artea would be next, although he had comparatively little playtime to be fair. Maxim was easily the most pleasant to use, Selan and Tia were both fine but a bit worse.
I don't understand the game acting like character switching could be done fluidly at all, half the time it wouldn't register. Worked fine if you used the stylus to do it, but you don't use the stylus for most things so you're not about to hold it the whole time while you're using the normal controls.
Things that annoy me: ENERGY WAVES
the absurdity of infiltrating Gratze Factory off the main palace corridor
minecart simon
The Mystic Stone Board was fairly dandy, but I was very unhappy with how you're left to rebuild it after leaving the Ancient Cave (meanwhile, it's perfectly happy to set your old equipment back up). I never ended up going there for non-storyline purposes so that I wouldn't have to deal with it because I was already sick of it after the storyline visits. The stone combining shop is pretty bad as well - any stones used in a combination which were on the board get taken off, so if you combine enough of them you get to rebuild the board again OH BOY
there is no excuse for this behaviour when you're combining an offboard stone into an onboard stone, and there is also no excuse for this behaviour when you're combining an onboard stone into another onboard stone given how the combination system works (assuming it doesn't have some sort of secret combinations I never fell over)
I was considering looking into the Ancient Cave afterwards but I didn't realise what I was doing and saved the new game plus save over my general save. Oh well. Yes I could go to the Ancient Cave right away but not with only one character, thanks.
Not planning on new game plussing any time soon. I hear that it does bad things to the plot anyway (although the standard ending is pretty annoying already anyway (with regards to parties, not lives)).
Professor Layton And The Miracle Mask - played through
Used a guide for puzzle 149 because I felt like it. Also missed one collection item which I looked up the location of rather than having to meander all over the place.
Did four of the hard-mode robot courses, can't be bothered doing any more. The standard courses were reasonably entertaining. The shopping minigame was also reasonably entertaining. The rabbit minigame was not so entertaining.
I didn't care much for the ruins chapter. Please do not bring it back for the next game L5.
Because I am GOOD at PATTERN RECOGNITION, I did not see disguised Descole coming at all despite it having been indicated a short while previously that he was going to be involved despite not having appeared all game.
The new interaction interface was surprising - when the game first started off, it looked like it was going to be horrible compared to being able to tap anywhere instantly, but it ended up working pretty well. Mostly because it indicates hotspots when you move over them - if this feature wasn't there and you still had to manually click everywhere, it would indeed be horrible. The indications don't make it too easy to find every hotspot on the screen either, slightly sadly. (And annoyingly, the helper for pointing out things you've missed this time only pops up to indicate that you have missed something somewhere on the screen, it doesn't show you where the thing in question is like before).
I guess I need to watch the movie sometime as I feel like I'm missing a little backstory.
The Misthallery password provided doesn't work with my copy of Last Specter - I think there's some EU/US chicanery at fault here since the game refers to it as Specter's Flute instead. Vaguely disappointing.
[EDIT]
Apparently you need to be using the same system for both games for the passwords to work, which is a tad annoying/unintuitive.
Cannot say that the unlockables were really that great, although I wasn't expecting them to be anyway.
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Twil: I didn't overlevel and the last part of the game was still really easy. I only used one character (usually Selan) and just gave him all the best mystic stones though.
Witcher 2 : Probably near the end of Chapter 2.
Yeah. Ok. The last hours have been ploughing great. Henselt was a interesting and ambigous character to follow. Dethmold really should have had another name though. We all had figured out he was a real motherplougher before he was even introduced.
It's interesting to see a game try to really feel like the middle ages. You can feel the dirt, the filth, the misogyny. Everybody getting drunk all the time to forget about their problems and because they have nothing else to do. In a way, the senseless sex and general immaturity in the game fits... While the main character Geralt doesn't, really, no matter how great he is. He's too much of a modern hero.
Gameplay's still disappointing. I don't even know how many tries the Draug took me, I eventually beat him with (Aard + Strong attack) x10.
Plough the arena, I can't even survive 10 rounds on normal mode. (And I've been playing the game on dark mode the whole time) The campfires (of all things) kill me everytime because I press A so Geralt jumps around like a moron towards the enemy and into a campfire. The camera not being good enough here.
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Sq. Laggy Ghalib (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, caused by Hatbot failing to properly aim with a rocket.
Sq. Hatbot Evans (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, surprisingly not related to the rocket misfire incident.
I like how Laggy gets killed by misfired rocket by Hatbot, but Hatbot manages to not get killed by his own misfired rocket. Just like TF2!
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Dark Souls- Spent some time grinding. Now equipped with a +5 Uchigatana and a +5 Morningstar. Redcapes were pretty generous with shards (and equipment! Yeesh, I think I got a whole set of their equipment, weapons and armor). Only thing I ended up throwing on was the Balder Helmet. Cause why not. Makes me look like a Monty Python character. Most armor is also at least +1. Got a lance on drop too, so that saved some souls. Leveled to 21 as well.
Only "progress" I made was taking on the knight guarding the Fire Keeper's Soul. Beat it first try. Maybe I'm getting better, maybe my equipment is carrying me. Who knows.
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Their shield is pretty great if you managed to get one. Crappy elemental resists, but excellent stability for its relatively light weight (higher stability = less stamina consumed when blocking attacks. Stability usually increases when shields are upgraded).
Also, you're not using the Drake Sword, so no worries about equipment doing the work for you.
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Current date, 6/5/2015
*coughs* All hail our new alien overlords, probably?
The Rogue's Squad. Base of operations: AMERICA. FUCK YEAH.
Cpl. Smashy Willis (Sniper)
Sq. HY Robertson (Heavy)
Uno Fujiwara
Pyro Meyer
VSM Godongwana
Former Members
Cpt. Rob "Kong" Delgado (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Bloody Vanguard. Failed assault on the Alien Stronghold. Far, far too many Mutons.
Lt. Sopko "Scarecrow" Gray (Support) - Killed in Action. Operation Bloody Vanguard. Failed assault on the Alien Stronghold. Far, far too many Mutons.
Lt. Grefter "Spike" Thompson (Assault) - Killed in Action. Operation Bloody Vanguard. Failed assault on the Alien Stronghold. Far, far too many Mutons.
Sq. Tonfa Jensen (Support) - Killed in Action. Operation Bloody Vanguard. Failed assault on the Alien Stronghold. Far, far too many Mutons.
Sq. CT Morrison (Assault) - Killed in Action. Operation Bloody Vanguard. Failed assault on the Alien Stronghold. Far, far too many Mutons.
Sq. Shale Bauer (Assault) - Killed in Action. Operation Bloody Vanguard. Failed assault on the Alien Stronghold. Far, far too many Mutons.
Cpl. Kilga Halvorsen (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Banished Prophet. Bled out after an unlucky shot.
Rk. Snowfire Johansen - Killed in Action. Operation Twisted Crown. Tall Man crits everywhere.
Rk. Alex Tariq - Killed in Action. Cars kill more people then aliens. Fact.
Rk. Jim Haddad - Killed in Action. Cars kill more people then aliens. Fact.
Sgt. Ashley "Axle" Lefevre (Support) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Stranger. Died heroically in the line of duty, tending Rob's wounds. Fucking smoke bombs not doing shit.
Sgt. Reiska "Vandal" Hill (Assault) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Stranger. Crit by a Muton, shot in the back by a grief stricken at the loss of Djinn Rob, and poisoned. Died like a MAN.
Cpl. Djinn Amar (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Stranger. Bravely sacrificed himself to try and save the rest of the squad. This did not go as planned.
Sq. Twil Gesperatto (Assault) - Killed in Action. Operation Crimson Pyre. Could not tank 4 aliens and a crit.
Rk. Stelas Weiss - Killed in Action. Operation Purple Mother. 4/X/15. Punched in the face by a zombie. This was shockingly fatal.
Sq. Ciato Campbell (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, caused by Hatbot failing to properly aim with a rocket.
Sq. Laggy Ghalib (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, caused by Hatbot failing to properly aim with a rocket.
Sq. Hatbot Evans (Heavy) - Killed in Action. Operation Driving Justice. 4/23/15. Killed by an exploding car, surprisingly not related to the rocket misfire incident.
Sgt. Scar "Zulu" Rodriguez (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Cold Sleep. 4/4/15. Wishes the Rogue's Squad carried Med Kits before this.
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Wild ARMS 4 Single Segment Test run -
So yeah, I had some time today and sat down, did a commentary + full single segment speedrun of the game. Beat it in 6:09:31. Faster than my first segmented run, which says more about how much more I've learned about the game since I started. May or may not do more work on it. Haven't decided, but at least I know partially what to expect.
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I am very sad that Kong didn't make Major.
Also, Toejam & Earl is now on PSN. With netplay. Jammin'.
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FF4: With my laptop done and TO not catching my interest, I've been replaying this. Just got all the temps back. I was going to use an all manly team (Yang/Edge/Kain/Cid) when I realized:
A: Kain is really, *really* bad at the end. His avenger setup is fantastic for the sealed cave and the land of summoned monsters, but it's his best source of damage at the end of the game. That's just messed up.
B: It's annoying to have to use potions to heal. So I booted Kain for Rosa. I'll have Edge throw Fumas for bosses and use magic/status on randoms, wee.
I spent this run pretty underleveled- I actually had to do a walk around for an extra fight to get Palom Fira for Milon- but it was fun enough. Zot was also easy. I just let Tellah die and had my fighters pound everything. Only thing that was a problem were the jelly randoms, and you can just run from those. Think I gained six levels for everyone on the team there. Claws are also dumb. The Catclaw is one of Edge's best weapons for damage until the third Katana shows up, which is right around the time of the moon. The thunderclaw also wrecked the giant of Babil, since almost every random is horribly weak to thunder there- he was outdamaging Excaliber Cecil pretty easily until Valvalis. Of course then Yang shows up and makes Edge look bad in everything but agility, but hey.
I used way more arrows than usual this run. Holy arrows are quite effective on Palom/Porom for Mount Ordeals, and they worked very well for Cecil in the sealed cave. I used Rosa and Rydia as fighters and found it to work pretty well until the land of summoned monsters, since elemental/silence arrow weakness was so common. I'm tempted to use Cid an Archer if I can get an Artemis bow- his STR is really high and Yang smashes weakness on machines with the thunderclaw anyway.
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RE4: Cleared Ada's modes. Both are neat, although Separate Ways is pretty darn easy. Played around with Mercenaries enough to unlock Ada and Hunk, but the mode gets annoying quick with how dependent on spawn and drop luck everything is.
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XCOM: This is ridiculously fun. Like. Stupidly so.
Current date, 4/11/2015
Things go well. Europe is having a bit of a fit. I am not quite sure how I will manage their panic. Trying to get some satellites in the air. May have excavated too much space too quickly. Funds low. Wondering why the world is funding us so poorly.
The Rogue's Squad. Base of operations: AMERICA. FUCK YEAH.
Lt. Rob "Kong" Delgado (Heavy)
Sgt. Ashley "Axle" Lefevre (Support)
Sgt. Reiska "Vandal" Hill (Assault)
Cpl. Sopko Gray (Support)
Sq. Ciato Campbell (Sniper)
Sq. Laggy Ghalib (Heavy)
Sq. Hatbot Evans (Heavy)
Sq. Djinn Amar (Sniper)
Stelas Weiss
Twil Gesperatto
Smashy Willis
Kilga Halvorsen
Former Members
Sgt. Scar "Zulu" Rodriguez (Sniper) - Killed in Action. Operation Cold Sleep. 4/4/15. Wishes the Rogue's Squad carried Med Kits before this.
The Latinos are always the first to go.
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Tales of Graces F- Defeated Fodra Queen Chaos Mode on my no dualizing (weapon/armour/uber gems of broke) file at L73 with Cheria/Sophie/Asbel/Hubert (Hubert was L72) Took a few tries and I did end up synthing four paralysis - freeze resist charms though. These made the fight go much easier/smoother and I had a couple of close attempts, one where I got her down to 50'000~ HP before the winning fight. By the end I'd used up all seven of my Hourglasses, most of my Life Bottles and had made a dent in the Elixirs. Cheria/me was also dropping Time Stop - Nurse/Resurrections like no tommorow from Fodra's half HP/limits stage as well. Fun!~
I kind of worried at the end where it was getting slippery and Fodra Queen was spamming, with things like Dual the Sol and Aquarius Sphere and her other attacks basically downing people left, right and center but this time I was able to keep my head and get my last Hourglass up off Cheria's Blurter of Truths Title, heal/revive everybody up, Time Stop for offence after and basically finish her off from there. I was glad I had those Elixirs/etc remaining for the end stage of the fight though~
I had Sophie on Defensive/Always, Hubert on Balanced/Rarely, Asbel on B Heavy/Regular at the start of the fight and for the winning fight Sophie on Passive/Always for the rest of the fight, Hubert on A Heavy/Rarely, Asbel B Heavy/Rarely for her second stage, Hubert on B Heavy/Always, Asbel B Only/Always for her fourth stage and Hubert B Only - Scarlet Salvo spam and Asbel B Heavy for her final stage~
Now to treat my team with some of those uber broken Accel gems =) Thinking of Accel Heal/Accel Extend for Cheria, Accel Charge/Accel Extend for Hubert/Asbel and Accel Eleth/Accel Heal for Sophie though I might be switching Richard back in and will probably go Accel Charge/Accel Restore with him~
Also have to return and 999'999s the F Queen with the Cherias ^_^
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Witcher 2: Finished.
Broke my no Quen rule for the final boss (not the final final boss, who was easy), who seemed to be pretty much designed for Quen and unbeatable without it on Dark Mode.
This final boss reminded me of Dragon's Dogma's, except much, much, much worse and empty. I've trashed combat in this game enough, but I'll sum this up by saying that it is kind of like Secret of Mana compared to Zelda 20 years ago. All nice looking with RPG elements, but clunky as hell compared to its contemporary games.
I tried beating the optional superboss something like 30 times. Then I had a critical effect happen with Aard -> OHKO animation, before the bastard could summon any gargoyle. How climatic.
I'm really impressed by the story. It is all the political intrigue we except from SRPGs into a regular RPG, without any supernaturaly being/prized mc guffin ruining the plot. It's slow at the beginning and you're introduced to too many names in a short span, but this largely pays off in the amazing last chapter of the game (Because there are a lot of players in the political game, and you can't know who's going to be important to the plot)
Also, Rosche is a bro.
So there's apparently another entirely different side to the story (that's why the game kept talking me about this guy even though I did everything I could to have him killed and ignore him), but...
Back to Dark Souls: DLC!! Oh wait, it's very hidden very far into the game, breaking the unspoken rule that DLC should always be accessible easily in game. I'm continuing my challenge (Get the repair box then kill everybody on sight) except I won't kill everybody on sight in the DLC... At least at the beginning. I still need to get to the endgame first though...
Astoria's straight sword helped me for a while (Magic damage + Sexy two handed R2), but there was a lack of a strong alternative for magic enemies. I tried to put every other stat point into strength to handle one of those monster weapons, and there I had it: The Great Knight Halberd. I can't use a shield anymore, which changes the game significatively, but the damage makes up for it. I think I'm going to use it for the rest of the game.
Ceaseless Discharge and Moonlight Butterfly are dead.
(Cid, your challenge is great. I am still considering doing either fist only or whip only at one point)
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Chaos On Deponia - played through
It's worse than the original Deponia.
The core concept is that Goal's mind has been split onto three cartridges, one of which is the one in her head, and Rufus has a remote that he can swap use to swap the data on the working cartridge with the data on one of the other two. The individual cartridges are supposed to be pillars of Goal's personality/memory, but the memory part barely comes up and I can't really say that I recognise the individual personalities from normal Goal... but that would require that normal Goal had a personality, wouldn't it (re: her being incapacitated for 95% of the first game). In theory, this is fine enough for a concept, but I'm not really a fan of what they did with it, for all that Rufus doesn't really use it to demeaning advantage very much.
It still wasn't explained why Goal has her mind on a cartridge in the first place. There's actually another character in this game with their mind on a cartridge as well and it isn't explained for them either.
It was at least explained why Elysium might be fine with Deponia being destroyed. But then it gets all Dibuster. Supposedly, Elysium was built to evacuate a limited number of people from Deponia, yet somehow in the time since that was done no-one on Deponia remembers this, and while people on Elysium do remember the general concept they all think that no-one is currently living on Deponia. It still isn't explained why the Organon want to destroy Deponia though.
I don't remember the first game having any permanent violence, but this one has Rufus at least getting one person eaten by crabs and getting dolphins made into cat food. It's a bit disturbing.
So everyone likes metapuzzles right? How about one where you have to turn the game music down so that the background music doesn't get stuck in a character's head.
Also the game has a bonus where you collect puzzle pieces that form a "pin-up" of Goal, as if she doesn't have enough problems already. Counterbalanced by the fact that the pieces aren't labelled in-game and it doesn't actually tell you that they exist (supposedly it does in the manual, but of course the Steam version doesn't come with a manual), and that if you get them all it gives you the 'Cheater' achievement, which is just confusing.
I'm going to end up getting the third installment anyway : (
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Dark Souls- Took down the lightning demon near the blacksmith. Upgraded the Estus Flask to +2 (Cathedral and Londo Ruins souls). Basically left some souls behind after I grabbed the latter, due to ghost backstabbery, but a good tradeoff. And best to do it now, since I'm freeing the knight.
Beat Bell Gargoyle. Death Count was at 4. Andy clued me into the Lightning weakness, so I threw that on and pounded it, got lucky with its attack patterns and staggering. Other one just kept spewing fire, so I kept sprinting around the fire and hitting it until it died. Didn't even get hit by it that time. Bell has been rung. Grabbed a curse healing item and levelled.
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Tales of Graces F- Defeated Fodra Queen Chaos Mode on my no dualizing (weapon/armour/uber gems of broke) file at L73
Wowowow, Lv.73? You've got skills....
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Not surprising. ToG is in some ways more like a Star Ocean than a Tales, and CT played more SO3 than the rest of the DL combined.
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She may have played SO3 more than entire countries combined. I'm pretty sure she could solo Freya with Peppita at level 1.
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Final Fantasy X-2: Finished. About 16 hours total. Ugh.
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Pokemon Black 2: Latios get! That took more Ultra/Timer Balls (and a Great Ball and a few Dive Balls to make said Timer Balls more effective) than it really should have! At least he's not a runner...
Then the game hands you a Soul Dew right next to where you fought him. Which is to say HOLY SHIT THE SOUL DEW ISN'T PROMOTIONAL!?
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Dark Souls, Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? edition: Sen's Fortress through Anor Londo, also plundered New Londo for very large ember. No deaths to Anor Londo snipers! This was 100% dumb luck. Tried kicking him off the ledge, didn't budge him at all, got stabbed in the face. Tried leaping attack, got stabbed in the face. Tried healing, got shot in the back. At this point I retreat down the buttress in a panic and the knight falls off the building. Victory! Deathcount:
Rolled into boulder trying to escape mimic deaths: 1. Second try, I jump down the ladder next to the boulder stack. He follows me, but can't attack in such a tiny space. Success!
Whipping through a steel girder that hits back deaths: 1. Two-shotted by Iron Golem after entering the room. Came back and knocked him off the roof.
Fucking hate silver spear knights so much deaths: 1. Self-explanatory.
@%#$*& Ornstein and Smough deaths: 3. Getting stabbed in the butt through the fog door is never a good way to start this fight.
No, Lautrec, charge ahead of your allies! deaths: 1. Bastard rolled off the stairs, then I got maginuked.
Whips/fists are honestly pretty bad. I wouldn't hesitate to call them the worst weapon types in the game. The whip's one saving grace is at least you have decent range (I have to rely on leaping attacks to do notable damage to anything, though). Fists don't even have that. You can at least backstab people with them (can't with whips), which is hilarious, but nothing can salvage the damage. Even the dragon bone fist's A in strength doesn't get you very far off of that shitty base attack rating. I do like the claw, but mainly just because it's the claw.
Fenrir, good luck taking on the expansion without upgraded weapons. All the DLC bosses have stupidly high defensive stats, and I couldn't deal with the last one at all until I came back with top-tier weapons/magic. Black knight greataxe might be an improvement over the halberd if you can get your hands on one? All those weapons are pretty excellent, though.
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X-COM - Started this today. Caused panic in Australia by losing a mission there, and then they left the X-COM project! ;_; France doesn't love me either. Good stuff.
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Not surprising. ToG is in some ways more like a Star Ocean than a Tales, and CT played more SO3 than the rest of the DL combined.
Good to know that if I ever fall on my head and decide that it's time to pick up a new Tales game again that Tales of Graces is something to avoid.
Deus Ex HR: Progressing slowly. Still in Detroit for the first time. The plot just doesn't have me engaged enough to go through it with the fervor that I played Deus Ex. Sneaking around and hacking things is fun, though. After reading up a little bit on how to max out your EXP I decided I'll forego the Zenny thing (Immediately getting Social Enhancer, because when Zenny roleplays he likes to pretend he is eloquent and good at speaking and winning people over and oh god I am so alone) and go for the Hackmaster DoubleTakedown early build. If anything once I get good at the hacking minigame I imagine it'll be like putting a single point in Computers in DE.
Also, I keep getting distracted and aggro the police by throwing boxes at them.
Minecraft: Started up a new server, playing on creative because LEGOS. If anyone wants in (haha minecraft and this group who am I kidding) just hit me up for the server info.
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X-COM - Started this today. Caused panic in Australia by losing a mission there, and then they left the X-COM project! ;_; France doesn't love me either. Good stuff.
You must have failed very catastrophically or had pretty high panic there already. What I'm saying is that this is nobody's fault but your own.
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>_> Was I trying to imply otherwise? Yeah, I had just ignored Asia for another continent and then got a mission in Australia which I boned up! Could have reset, but the show must go on!
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I don't know if you were. I was just emphasizing that you should definitely feel bad about your failure. Australia is probably gone, now. Wiped clean.
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Seems reasonable. Sorry Grefter.
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Losing missions is pretty catastrophic yeah. It is okay Ciatos I always knew you didn't really care.
Ciatos and elves are not ones to load game though. Expect much death to follow.
So I bought an iPad yesterday, henceforth referred to as an iPaid.
FF Dimensions - Started. Square are on to my naming convention and don't like it. ANALFST is not allowed. I was bored and mashed accept on default names after that. It seems okay, especially after I deleted the next game. Still up in the air as to whether it is worth the $30 price tag it has in Aus for all episodes, but such is life.
Guardian Cross - This game sucked. Like sucked even for what it was. You get a set of cards and build decks and you fight monsters and get experience to level up your cards. You can merge cards and feed them things to help level them up and stuff. You can play a minigame to catch more cards.
Sounds okay right? Some generic CCG thing would be cool on iPaid. In fact I backed something on Kickstarter months ago (for a PC version...) that was just that. Except it isn't that. It is shit.
What we have is a Facebook game. Straight up a facebook game and a bad one at that. Battles are entirely automated, your deck bashed up against the opposition, no chance to change deck order or anything after you start, so you can't do the pokemon exploit weakness deliberately thing. You have energy. You pay to get more energy that day. There is special pay areas where you can catch special cards. So there is barely any game to it and what is there is held back behind a paywall.
The worst part is that it isn't even any good as far as Facebook games go. It is purely money sinks and watching bars go up and piled on Pay 2 Win.
FM3 - I am near the end of Alisa route. Just about to get Lan I think. Just found out that you can train up weapon skills people don't start with and for some reason decided to train Liu up in Machine Guns. Now that I am not tired and catching the bus I realise this is stupid. I never use Liu anyway and Lan gets Flame Throwers.
I am understanding why Tide approved so much of Macho Man Randy Savage as main though. This dude is a fucking mess. Flips tables when he is watching people killed in front of him. Completely emotionless 2 scenes later when talking about the possibility of other people being murdered. Gives no fucks about however much damage they have done in the name of their own survival. Straight up causing civil war in 2 of the three countries outside of Japan he has visited. Helps Rebel leader escape who has a claim to the throne in the DHZ.
A real piece of work.
I named his Wanzer MACHOMADNESS and it is all Red.
During that whole help Rebel Leader escape plot Miho proved to be pretty boss. Beat cop that organises prison breaks in mobile military bases, helps hack computers and setup viruses, gets away with it scott free. Doesn't afraid of anything.
Also bought Little Big Planet for the Vita when I was buying the iPaid, so that is a thing.
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Miho is the best thing about that route. She is made of win and <3
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Also, Toejam & Earl is now on PSN. With netplay. Jammin'.
Fantastic.
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Dark Souls- Explored through the Darkroot Garden. Grabbed a bunch of items, learned how to deal with those knights (Woo upgrading my Morningstar). Wandered up and tried my hand at Moonlight Butterfly. Death Count 4, but beat it. First three times I kept running out of healing. Ended up kindling the bonfire since I ended up getting a humanity on my way (ate one of the item ones, but probably worth it). Fourth time I was doing well and near full health when I misrolled on a seeking spell, ended up killing me outright which was >.> since I'd taken them before and never had that much damage, shield up or not. Fifth time I succeeded with no problems. It stopped going onto the door-side after the first time I started abusing the cover (on the next attempt, not during the fight). Dang.
Probably will head into Lower Undead Burg at this point... may try for the stuff at the bottom of Darkroot Basin though
EDIT: Kinda liked the music for the fight. Classicly ethereal spooky stuff. Good times.
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I heard that the Black Knight Great Axe was nerfed? I'll have to wait until the Kiln to get one anyway, I think I've run out of knights.
Whips and fists really do feel like joke weapons, since other weapon types are reasonably well balanced. (I' argue that the strength requirements make heavier weapons like large swords worse than the rest, but whips and fists are something else) I tried using the divine whip +10 for a while to beat enemies (Castlevania style) and it was terribly inferior to the occult club you find in Anor Londo, even downgraded to divine.
I don't even know why whips can't backstab? I guess the animation would look goofy and the devs didn't feel like doing a special animation for whip backstabs.
I'm not too worried about high defense enemies yet, the basic Black Knight Halberd is really something and I now have enough strength (34) to carry anything. The giant blacksmith's hammer is pretty good too, I bet it has Lightning Spear +5 level damage.
The biggest issue right now is only having an Estus Flask +0... Takes me four sips to get back to full health. This effectively cuts down my healing ressources in half and makes healing in battle trickier (Tapping the flask button after drinking makes you drink another time very fast, fortunately. It took me two playthroughs to discover that)
Fake Gwynevere, Gwyndolin, Pinwheel and Priscilla are dead. Four Kings are next because I want to piss off Kaathe.
Note: I stayed away from pyromancy and Quelana still appeared. Presumably because I killed Laurentius as soon as I saw him?
Fashion tip: Black sorceror boots + Painting Guardian Robe on a female character. Classy.
I'm back to only thinking about Dark Souls 24/7.
dark souls dark souls
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BKGA only ever has one chance at a drop outside the Kiln.
Quelana appearing without pyromancing it up is random but possible.
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Fenrir: dunno man, I used the axe for the first time ever after the patch and it was still quite badass. If they nerfed it, it must have been amazing before. Whips not only can't backstab, they can't parry or do plunging attacks either. They're real special. And I don't think there's any pattern to Quelana's appearance at all--I definitely have had her appear in runs where I didn't mess with magic at all.
Fourth time I was doing well and near full health when I misrolled on a seeking spell, ended up killing me outright which was >.> since I'd taken them before and never had that much damage, shield up or not.
You take extra damage if you fail a dodge and get hit mid-animation.
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Moonlight Butterfly track is one of the best in the game.
Also wussiest boss in the entire game.
>_>
<_<
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FM3 - I am understanding why Tide approved so much of Macho Man Randy Savage as main though. This dude is a fucking mess. Flips tables when he is watching people killed in front of him. Completely emotionless 2 scenes later when talking about the possibility of other people being murdered. Gives no fucks about however much damage they have done in the name of their own survival. Straight up causing civil war in 2 of the three countries outside of Japan he has visited. Helps Rebel leader escape who has a claim to the throne in the DHZ.
The best part is that, this is just kinda skimming the surface. There's also that one part where he is totally bitchy towards military authority when they treat Liu like shit. Because y'know, foreigners who incite trouble are totally the ones running the show. Did you get to the part where he bitches out at his dad for trying to be civil at controlling a military coup? Macho Man Randy Savage is all about causing wanton destruction including killing his fellow countrymen because that will totally maybe possibly allow them to capture evil super soldier dude who may or may not have the details regarding a nuke. Screw casualties, I have STREET JUSTICE.
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Finished Tactics Ogre PSP's chaos route. Pretty fun, slowed down a lot by all the stat topic work. Definitely gained a greater understanding of the game this time through. Archers more OP than I previously realised, kinda funny.
I also realised I don't like defeat all enemies battles that much in this game compared to bosses. In boss fights you constantly have to make decisions of what is worth going after, in defeat-all-enemies fights the decisions are usually pretty easy since you just take out the highest threats as quickly as possible (helps that high-threat enemies are usually pretty fragile... provided you can reach them. See above comments about archers being so powerful). Golems and Dragons are pretty good design if they're optional to kill, since they slow you down and get in their way and their offence, while not amazing, has to be considered. However, they're bad design in defeat-all-enemies maps since you just leave them for last or near-last and they become harmless but takes ages to bring down. Yawn. Defeat-all-enemies fights which are entirely humans are sometimes okay but can still tend to drag on too long, though.
XCOM: Near the end of this (I think?). Game's very good even if there's like half a dozen ways it could obviously be better. I'll save further comments until I'm actually done.
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Moonlight Butterfly track is one of the best in the game.
Also wussiest boss in the entire game.
>_>
<_<
Prolly. Now for the most annoying!
Explored a bit of Darkroot Basin. Killed that silver knight for the Grass Crest Shield. Beat my head on the knight in the tower near before I gave up. Had some fun baiting Crystal Giants into Hydra blasts. Turned back otherwise. Levelled a bit, now into Lower Undead Burg, about to fight Capra Demon... later.
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Miho is the best thing about that route. She is made of win and <3
It's true <3
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The black knight greataxe was indeed amazing before.
Oh man, good luck with the Four Kings with whips only. They were hard enough with a Black Knight Halberd. I had to perfect the attack pattern (sidestep to avoid the vertical/thrusting attacks, dodgeroll horizontal attacks, block long range magic, just get hit by the humanity stealing attack, run away from the big AoE stuff) I think I just have to accept I'm just pretty bad at this game, I only won this fight on the 6th try and I never win PvP fights.
Skelly was difficult too. Beating his support with only the Astoria Straight Sword +0 as a divine weapon? Hard. The small fodder dies in 3 two handed R2 attacks (but it's rolling all over the place and it can parry), while the big fodder... Well, you don't need to fight the big fodder. I just lured Skelly near the entrance and fought him there. On his own he's pretty much just like a single way weaker member of the four kings.
Every killable NPC is dead, aside from Sieglinde and Dusk. I'm the best hollow. No friendly character but Lautrec, the undead merchant, the giant blacksmith and Priscilla gave anything really useful.
I also hope I never ever get cursed in this game. That... would be bad.
Archive dragon for wussiest boss in the game. The only boss that never gets me nervous. Centipede is terrible too, but that fight is such a clusterfuck that you sometimes lose?
Summon Beatrice and Butterfly is the worst by far though.
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Also wussiest boss in the entire game.
I'm sorry, you guys must be talking about Gaping Dragon. Only boss that's never killed me.
(Admittedly Moonlight Butterfly is worse given NPC summons...but solo, no. At least he might make you heal a couple times.)
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X-COM: Just fought my first Sectoid Commander. All countries are now at 1 panic, except the three which are in a black hole. I am a bad person. Just got Double Tap with the Sniper. It is silly and hax.
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Also wussiest boss in the entire game.
I'm sorry, you guys must be talking about Gaping Dragon. Only boss that's never killed me.
(Admittedly Moonlight Butterfly is worse given NPC summons...but solo, no. At least he might make you heal a couple times.)
Eh. Gaping Dragon could kill you via bad camera if he was happy about flying. Had it happen to me.
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I think I just have to accept I'm just pretty bad at this game
could kill you via bad camera
A) Fenrir you clearly have some esteem issues if you think PVP is the only gauge of skill in a game and with all the things you have done in this game means you are bad.
B) What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Front Mission 3 - So the sisters that look nothing alike are actually SUPERMENS or something. Macho Man Randy Savage straight up watched the leader of a country die and flipped shit at a guy for shooting the Obvious Villain who Liu was best pals with. He also had been super pissy and yelling at Ryogo for going out to party in fucking Shanghai instead of staying in his prison cell and then is pissy at him for saving the day. Also was confused and pissy with Miho for also saving the day and telling him that Ryogo was gonna save their arses.
BUT HE TOTALLY SAVED EMMA FROM BEING KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION SO WE KNOW WHO WE SHOULD BE ROOTING FOR
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Double Tap's great, but I honestly think In The Zone is broadly better -- if nothing else it allows you to chain kill flyers and Chrysalids, synergizes very well with non-lethal rocket blasts (e.g. taking out groups of Mutons in two actions). But yeah, Colonel snipers are pretty much the best thing ever, regardless.
I'm about 3/4 of the way through my third playthrough (Classic/iron man), having decided the Impossible/Iron Man was too punitive. Kinda regretting that decision now, since the difficulty really falls away after the first month or two once you know what you're doing, and now I feel kinda like I'm coasting through the back half of the game. I'm thinking I'll do some variety of Impossible next, and then maybe a rigger playthrough -- mostly SHIVs, no primary weapon use from humans (so they'll be able to fire pistols and rockets, throw grenades, operate arc throwers, and be psychic for story purposes). Don't think it'll be super difficult, but should be fun, and will definitely be different. Maybe I won't get so weepy when my SHIVs die, but they're pretty cute so I probably will.
Still loving the game, obviously. Not sure if it's true on lower difficulties, but higher up it's clear that enemy units do move around through the fog of war (and may even be attracted to noises you make), which I wasn't sure of it first, and thought the game needed. So I guess that's good, but I really wish they did so a little more tactically -- I really feel like an element of the game/genre should be assymetrical information, where the aliens know more about where you are and than you do about them. As it is, the opposite is almost true, as you often have a vague sense of where the aliens are, and overwatch leapfrogging through the map will almost always lead to them blowing the first round of engagement blundering through your fire and then wasting their whole turn on the seeing you and taking cover routine. And aliens never overwatch before they've seen you, so even if you do stumble into them, you still get the remainder of your turn to attack and/or take cover. So there's a pretty significant structural advantage in your favour, and I feel like it should be the opposite.
The recent patch seems to have handled the frequent crashes I got on the PS3, which is nice. Runs pretty painlessly now.
Particularly since the sight-lines are a little screwy, I'm definitely with David on it being a shame you don't get to preview attack range as you move. One of the areas of poorer documentation is different weapon ranges (there's literally nothing in the game other than short/medium/long, and even now I'm not sure if Sniper Rifles actually have longer range than other weapons without Squadsight, or simply no penalties at range), so there'd be an opportunity there to implement a teaching tool for weapon choice too. Definitely the biggest narrow gameplay complaint I have.
On the numbers side of things, does anybody know how actual damage is calculated? Casual googling doesn't yield results. It seems like you basically do 50-100% of maximum weapon damage, then apply any modifiers, but is it my imagination or do you tend to do full damage more often at very high hit rates? Snipers in particular seem to overperform in this regard, and Heavies seem less reliable, but there's no real way to tell if that's a function of weapon type, aim score, my imagination... Would also believe something weird like it being related to crit rate, honestly, or that sniper reliability was a function of being out of enemy sight so often, or of attacking flanked/out of cover enemies (which could also be part of the crit hypothesis). But it would be nice to be able to account for this to crank down the RNGness of Impossible a bit. Fuckin' immortal sectoids.
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Definitely different weapon ranges other than the accuracy cut off (though that is definitely more noticeable with Shotgun vs Rifle). Not sure if it applies to things other than Pistol vs primary weapon, but you notice it heaps when using pistol when moving Snipers mid engagement (due to LoS issues). There is shots you can't take until you swap back to Sniper Rifle (which normally happens when you forget to swap back....) and I saw similar behaviour with my Rifle Assault when in need of reloading or when trying to plink something to Stun range. Didn't have it come up with Shotgun because that would be a rare situation and not with LMG because fuck Heavies.
No conclusive testing on damage rolls but my gut agrees with you. Snipers really feel like they hit the top end nearly all the time, especially at high level. Aim is a damned good stat if so then; giving you hit, crit and base damage. Scope for best item slot?
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Cool, so you've had situations where you had a legal shot with a rifle, but not a pistol? With Squadsight, my theory had been that all medium-range weapons have a range of exactly as far as a unit can see, so squadsight targets (which are by definition outside of the sniper's personal sight range) will always be outside of pistol range. Haven't seen a counterexample, as in, a squadsight shot I could take with a pistol, but I definitely don't check constantly. But if even medium-range weapons have slightly different max ranges, then it's clearly a little more complex than I'd thought. I haven't noticed much of a range cap on shotguns, mind you, other than the brutal penalties, and I do check between pistol and shotgun pretty regularly (though to be honest in Classic I mostly drop shotguns for plasma rifles asap, and only come back to Alloy Cannons once Sectopods and Muton Elites start cropping up regularly).
As a side note, I've fallen a little more in love with pistols each playthrough. The whole unlimited ammo/decent range thing can make them a very good option for Rapid Fire, and also makes a case for mid-game shotguns, and Gunslinger makes it much, much easier to take Squadsight, which... is a good thing, I think, no matter how tempting the alternative might sound. That and a ready supply of early game plasma pistols (if you're good at zapping Sectoids) makes a pretty good option for an early research push.
If aim controls damage reliability, yeah, the case for scope goes way up, and it's already plenty high. It would also make bum-rushing Sectoids in Impossible a little more appealing (since you really, really want to be killing them in one action), even without a flank, and would make the manoeuvring through cover game even more vital.
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Yeah points where Pistol couldn't take a shot but Rifle could. I wouldn't rule it out as a limitation built in pistols specifically though.
Spot on with the value of pistols. Gunslinger is my choice over the bonuses to higher ground for most of those reasons and it just makes Snipers far more flexible. It is a little shame you can't make the same argument for whatever it was on the same tier as Squad Sight. Just way too important.
Edit - Part of my wonders if Squad Sight wasn't the first tier Sniper skill at one point in development and was swapped with Headshot to make the first unlocks consistently something that is a clicky.
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Yeah, could just be a pistol thing. They definitely follow a few different rules (unlimited ammo, only one In The Zone shot, don't work with some clicky abilities etc), could very easily have a slightly different range/LOS calculation.
Spot on with the value of pistols. Gunslinger is my choice over the bonuses to higher ground for most of those reasons and it just makes Snipers far more flexible. It is a little shame you can't make the same argument for whatever it was on the same tier as Squad Sight. Just way too important.
I forget what it's called, but the alternative lets you move and shoot with a sniper rifle, at a 20% (I think) aim penalty. So it's great, but Gunslinger gives you a decent move-shoot option, without sacrificing the whole-map control of Squadsight.
Edit - Part of my wonders if Squad Sight wasn't the first tier Sniper skill at one point in development and was swapped with Headshot to make the first unlocks consistently something that is a clicky.
I might buy it, since Squadsight seems in some ways quite equivalent to rockets. On the other hand, its alternate ability leads to a pretty different paradigm of Sniper (moves around, mid-long range, probably meant to take the high ground and opportunity boosting skills with it), and the trees definitely seem built towards distinct subtypes (critboost/dodgetank Assault, mobile/Squadsight Sniper, massive damage/support-tank Heavy, healbot/smokebot Support) and Squadsight plus moveshoot would be pretty hax.
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Part of it is probably that I can't see move and shoot sniper as anything more than a shittier Assault honestly. Huge part is how short range the basic view distances are. Squadsight lets you reach across the map and snatch the life straight out of the most threatening guy around. Once you get Double Tap you can rip half a Sectopod's health off.
Incidentally, I find Double Tap much better than ITZ. ITZ is great when it is good, but that is normally situations I consider under control anyway. Double Tap is just flexible for taking out 2 targets or handling strong single targets. ITZ also leaves you at the whims of your clip size more than Double Tap does since Double Tap scales well with you controlling the flow of the battle (where ITZ completely changes it to be fair when it kicks in).
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I play a challenge probably about as difficult as Cid's, have played the game more, and still die around 5-10 more times though. I just can't help being reckless and impatient, and always forgetting about what I've learnt from my mistakes, every playthrough. (On the plus side, this makes everything more fun)
I got to the Kiln, andwent to the DLC area. Loving the farmers. Never expected farmers to be endgame enemies.
The guardian was a fun, very aggressive boss. Took me four tries? The black knight halberd kills him very quickly, but it needs to hit.
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Part of it is probably that I can't see move and shoot sniper as anything more than a shittier Assault honestly. Huge part is how short range the basic view distances are. Squadsight lets you reach across the map and snatch the life straight out of the most threatening guy around. Once you get Double Tap you can rip half a Sectopod's health off.
Yeah, I've definitely experimented with both, but increasingly found myself benching the move-shooters. Especially since it doesn't mesh well with either of the excellent colonel abilities.
Incidentally, I find Double Tap much better than ITZ. ITZ is great when it is good, but that is normally situations I consider under control anyway. Double Tap is just flexible for taking out 2 targets or handling strong single targets. ITZ also leaves you at the whims of your clip size more than Double Tap does since Double Tap scales well with you controlling the flow of the battle (where ITZ completely changes it to be fair when it kicks in).
Prolly comes down to playstyle, but I really value the multi-takedown potential. In endgame I'm usually running a 2-3 Assaults up front, supported by 1-2 supports and maybe a heavy, with 1-2 Snipers tailing. A single moderately lucky Assault or a well-placed Heavy can take down a Sectopod solo, so the thing that threatens me most often is two or more groups of enemies appearing at once. In that sort of pinch ITZ is almost always good for at least one free shot, (finishing a Berserker, a Heavy Floater, or a Sectopod), and if you're lucky or with the right enemies (Chrysalids, mostly) you can empty a clip *and* reload in a single turn. But if taking down Sectopods is more of a problem (with a more defensive squad, say, that can weather hordes of smaller enemies a bit better), I can definitely see the argument for Double Tap's higher damage.
Oh, another sidenote, for the in-defense-of-Heavies file? Bulletstorm is phenomenal with Ghost Armour -- take a shot, go dark, run into the middle of a group of enemies. Repeat as necessary, burn an extra charge of invisibility if you can spare it for a guaranteed massive crit. Can take a huge amount of pressure off of those awful protracted firefights with lategame posses of Muton Elites.
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Pokemon Black 2: Caught Kyurem! Got a Reshiram via GTS with -Attack, so whoo to that. Also caught Regirock. Registeel, YOU'RE NEXT!!!
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I play a challenge probably about as difficult as Cid's
Probably moreso, honestly. Even at the worst of times, I can at least muscle through things via CHUG CHUG CHUG.
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XCOM Enemy Unknown
I would argue that Double Tap is better on Normal (and I guess on Easy), worse on Classic and a wash on Impossible.
On Normal you normally don't have that many targets onscreen at a given time, so In The Zone tends to either equal Double Tap (if you can guarantee kills) or fall short of it (if you can't). And eliminating one or two aliens is all you ever really need - one survivor won't kill your guys if you're playing right.
On Classic you get much larger enemy formations in the lategame than you'd see on Normal. If you can soften them up to set up In The Zone your sniper will look like a god, and if you can't, you may well die even if you can Double Tap down one enemy because there are two many surviving aliens and they'll attack your position too aggressively.
On Impossible you straight-up can't weaken the more dangerous aliens enough to In The Zone them.
Speaking of, fuck Impossible. It's hard in a distinctly unfun way, and I don't have any real desire to keep trying it. Classic is borderline for me, coming close to having too much randomness. I think the next serious playthrough I do, I'll want to try one of the mods that puts Classic AI and Normal enemy health together.
League of Legends
I don't like what I'm hearing about the Season Three changes. So, since a friend had an invite, I tried...
Defense of the Ancients 2
Oh hells of no.
It's so clunky, ugly and hard.
Since I couldn't find a way to stop autoattacking without constantly moving it was literally, physically painful, leaving my wrist hurting for days.
The aesthetics are awful compared to LoL, dull and generic in that western fantasy way that's so aggressively boring.
No B to return to base. No camera lock. Losing gold on death.
Some of the hero/champion ability sets are neat and the bot AI is impressive.
In basically every way it reminds me of why I expected to hate League of Legends after playing the original DotA in Warcraft 3.
So, those Season 3 changes? Not looking so bad now.
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XCOM Enemy Unknown
I would argue that Double Tap is better on Normal (and I guess on Easy), worse on Classic and a wash on Impossible.
On Normal you normally don't have that many targets onscreen at a given time, so In The Zone tends to either equal Double Tap (if you can guarantee kills) or fall short of it (if you can't). And eliminating one or two aliens is all you ever really need - one survivor won't kill your guys if you're playing right.
On Classic you get much larger enemy formations in the lategame than you'd see on Normal. If you can soften them up to set up In The Zone your sniper will look like a god, and if you can't, you may well die even if you can Double Tap down one enemy because there are two many surviving aliens and they'll attack your position too aggressively.
On Impossible you straight-up can't weaken the more dangerous aliens enough to In The Zone them.
This sounds about right to me. I vaguely recall being more impressed with Double Tap on my normal playthrough (where because I really lagged with other weapon upgrades I was hella reliant on my Plasma snipers to dish out the big hurt), I've just spent so much time in Classic since that the memory's faded.
Speaking of, fuck Impossible. It's hard in a distinctly unfun way, and I don't have any real desire to keep trying it. Classic is borderline for me, coming close to having too much randomness. I think the next serious playthrough I do, I'll want to try one of the mods that puts Classic AI and Normal enemy health together.
Can't really comment on anything but the first act of Impossible, which I've now stumbled through I think three times before abandoning ship, but that was definitely my impression so far. Does it scale a little more effectively than Classic through mid- and end-game? Might end up being like FE10 hardmode, where I do it once and never, ever again.
(abandoned my last Impossible playthrough when on maybe mission 5 I had skin-of-my-teethed it down to two Sectoids on the other side of an office building, my whole troop alive, mvp rank-3 assault in their sight range pistol overwatched under full cover and smoke to hopefully draw one forward, she gets crit-killed through the cover, a recruit panics and shoots my sniper dead, rest of the squad panics, wipe. And don't get me wrong, it was fuckin' awesome, but I just can't bring myself to go back to the file, which now has no ranked soldiers and is about to lose a bunch of countries. Sigh.)
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El Cid: Yes.
Fuck Manus. I could beat him with about 4x more healing (Incidentally, I could use humanities, but I'm scared of using them getting owned by his aerial attack or something. Dark Souls items)
I'm pleased with the DLC, it's more of a game I love. The environments, bosses and NPCs are all higher quality than average Dark Souls. And the new whip is cool.
By the way, you're never supposed to see them but they exist: Pictures of Dark Souls NPCs without helmets
http://imgur.com/a/KpkQa#0
(Siegmeyer, Lautrec, Solaire, Oswald, Lady of the Darkling are great)
Edit: Aaaaand it's over. Manus, Gough, Chester, Final boss are all dead. I killed Dusk in the past, creating a time paradox and seomhow obliterating Elizabeth in the process. The only surviving people in the world are Female undead merchant, Ciaran (they got away), Anastacia and Ricard (they're safe behind bars), and Sieglinde (she didn't even appear)
That's just how hollows are. I kept the black knight halberd against pretty much everything once I got it. Fantastic weapon. I also kept the bag on my head.
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XCOM: Enemy Unknown- My first Colonel death, an Assault shot to death by the other, allegedly mind controlled, Assault. I think it was just jealousy, myself. Okafor the Drifter Sniper just keeps on racking up kills and awesomeness. Also, the Support character has the nickname 'Scarecrow'. I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with the guy who throws smoke bombs and sprays med kits at me to be called Scarecrow but whatever. Currently developing my Psionic powers. :)
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Scarecrow just killed two dudes with his mind. He is a gifted Psionics guy. I'm not sure how I feel about this either.
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<Dorothyatos> Can't sleep, Scarecrow'll eat me, can't sleep, Scarecrow'll eat me
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TH11: got a perfect (ignoring score) extra stage clear (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuz8wOKL2cU&hd=1). I'm shockingly bad at the main game now. Might work on that.
LoL: Lots of Riven. I'm finding top lane nice for solo queue due to its relative independence. Might buy Lee Sin or something next to diversify.
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Scarecrow just killed two dudes with his mind. He is a gifted Psionics guy. I'm not sure how I feel about this either.
Wait until he learns to turn his enemies into mindless thralls.
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I like how some soldiers cackle evilly while they tear apart aliens' minds.
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Yeah, it's pretty great. None of mine have but Elfboy's girl is a pro evil cackler.
Ran into my first Sectapod last night. I knew somewhat how to deal with him because I watched the game played before playing it, but he still scared the shit out of me. I think Suppression may have saved two people's lives. <_<
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Started a new game. Named a guy in honor of the late, great Theodore T. Doggbert (RIP). Coincidentally, the nickname he was given was "Walker."
WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT FUTURE EPISODES THAT I DO NOT?
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Started a new game. Named a guy in honor of the late, great Theodore T. Doggbert (RIP). Coincidentally, the nickname he was given was "Walker."
WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT FUTURE EPISODES THAT I DO NOT?
:psyduck:
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Dark Souls, wait why is Demon Firesage difficult now? edition: Yeah, Indy didn't fare too well in this fight. Not being able to block the magic bursts is horrible--you don't really have the space to maneuver behind him like you do with Stray Demon (also he jumps) so I pretty much had to resign myself to getting blasted all over the room. Actually burned through all ten of my estus flasks there. Blegh. Then Centipede Demon went down like a chump (only reason I had to heal was running across lava to the larger safe zone) and Seath was a zero-damage fight. Yawn. Deathcount!
Goddammit lock-on! deaths: 1. Maneuvered off a cliff fighting taurus demons. Deja vu!
Buffed channeler spear stab while leaping = OHKO deaths: 1. Holy shit, man.
Did a moonlight butterfly just fucking backstab me? deaths: 1. What the christ.
Looting failure (falllllling) deaths: 2. Hate the Crystal Cave so much.
Dex is at 40, whip is fully upgraded, so I have now hit maximum offensive capacity: 373 attack power. Not as terrible as I expected (but still worse than any other character I've run).
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373 damage is actually just about what I had with my Black Knight Halberd +0 and 40 strength. It's decent.
...Oh man. I don't know how you're going to handle the final boss with whips.
I have no money so I just play more Dark Souls:
Fist challenge.
Here is the roleplaying aspect: The main character is named Olga. She punches dragons.
Anyway, I choose the master key, play as usual in the tutorial area, then go down the elevator and through the forest to buy two Caestus from Andre, one for each arm. Only fist weapons are allowed (caestus, claws, dragon bone fist)
They are so awful!
You know a weapon is terrible when you upgrade it to +5 before Bell Gargoyle and it still does mediocre damage in that fight.
The Caestus skillset:
R1: Standard attack. Can combo. Much like any other weapon's R1, without damage or range.
R2: The "high" range, "high" damage, slow startup attack. Often required to do any relevent damage. Can combo into an even higher damage attack (!!) Spamming R2 kills a stone golem before he can attack. At least if he decides to use Tranquill Walk of Peace upon waking up. And if I time it correctly. ... It's something?
L1: Quick jab, does even less damage than R1. Useful to quickly stun an enemy during his attack, or to break guard.
L2: Parry. It can actually be very useful before the final boss! Yay! Armored Hollows? Black Knights? Infested barbarians? Freaking forest guardians? Parry can handle them all. There is nothing more satisfying than killing a dark knight at the beginning of the game by parrying his sword with your own fists.
With the 10k souls from the gargoyles, I've bought a seal from Andre, joined Alvina and eventually bought a claw from Shiva in Blight town, before getting to the depths. Unfortunately, I'll have to waste 5 points into dexterity before being able to use it...
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XCOM: So Mind Control is really freaking good. Makes the enemies (on Normal Mode, hopefully less on harder modes) stupid as fuck and they fire at their buddy. Scarecrow told them something about making them live nightmares, in true Jon Crane fashion.
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XCOM: So Mind Control is really freaking good. Makes the enemies (on Normal Mode, hopefully less on harder modes) stupid as fuck and they fire at their buddy. Scarecrow told them something about making them live nightmares, in true Jon Crane fashion.
No, this never stops being a thing.
A word of warning, though. On higher difficulties, XCOM squaddies will sometimes panic because a mind-controlled alien was killed, which makes using them as expendable scouts somewhat less appealing. (Panic cascades are, I suspect, the number one killer of XCOM squaddies on Classic.)
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Sounds dumb. <_< I'm not sure if it's just me, but it seems like people picked for a specialized team to fight supernatural beings wouldn't be stupidly panicky and shoot their own allies because an alien died that was being mind controlled. Feels like artificial difficulty to me.
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Hey Cranbud, out of curiosity, what didn't you like about the S3 changes? Haven't heard much since I'm on a LoL hiatus.
XCOM: Small update, because I didn't have a lot of time. With the Rogue's Squad in shambles, they managed to assemble a crack team of rookies (and a couple barely experienced members) to defend against an Alien Invasion. Amazingly, the mission was successful with no casualties, although India is on the verge of leaving XCOM.
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Hey Cranbud, out of curiosity, what didn't you like about the S3 changes? Haven't heard much since I'm on a LoL hiatus.
Based on what I've seen there's been an across-the-board weakening of tank items. Force of Nature was removed. There's only one item that is described as having "High End Magic Resistance" and that's the Mercurial Scimitar, an item that builds out of the B.F. Sword and seems very AD-targeted; my tanks of choice were AP and it doesn't look like they'll get a replacement. We also have the statement that "Armor and Magic Resistance is generally around 10 to 20% more expensive than before." Lich Bane, a common compromise offense/defense item for APs, has lost its Magic Resistance and is now just an offensive item.
And, well, that's the exact opposite of what I'd like to see. As it stands AP carries can burst down an offtank if their full burst hits. AD carries can kill anyone but a dedicated tank in two or three right clicks. And tanks, as it stand, have the most variety in item choices, whereas carries have the least.
I also really dislike the removal of traditional leashing because it seems like it will limit who can jungle, while their stated design goal is to expand the jungler rotation. Their other goal, reducing the pressure junglers can impose on the earlygame, is another thing I dislike, because my experience is that junglers can punish players who are over-aggressive, and I'm very cautious. I'll be sad to see a change that encourages laners to spend their time pushed to the enemy's side of the river.
By and large, many of the changes seem to go against the things I'm good at and enjoy (a long laning phase, cautious, measured play, lategame tanking) and in favor of things I'm bad at and don't enjoy (aggressive play, powerful burst, first-to-click-wins lategame fights).
More than my personal likes and dislikes, though, I feel like they "addressed" a complaint of low-Elo players, the so-called "bruiser meta," which I've never experienced even in Normals (still not level 30 yet), while leaving apparently untouched the "AD carry and four varieties of distraction/meatshield meta" that everyone who doesn't suck plays.
There are some neat changes, like the introduction of upgrades to the GP/10 items that don't take away their GP/10, and the introduction of a "support's lantern" to ease warding costs.
I'm hoping that the new jungle will have enough gold and XP to support a jungler + support pairing, possibly even the AD Carry going jungle sometimes, because that would do two things. Productively, it might break up the stagnant lane meta that exists, where it's always solotop, solomid, solojungle, dualbot and always bruiser, caster, bruiser or tank, support and carry slotting into those roles. Less productively, but to my amusement, it might make early ganks scarier and punish aggressive laners even more. ;)
But it remains to be seen if the new jungle can actually do that.
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373 damage is actually just about what I had with my Black Knight Halberd +0 and 40 strength. It's decent.
...Oh man. I don't know how you're going to handle the final boss with whips.
It's not like I ever relied on parries to win that fight anyway (because even after all this time playing the game, I cannot parry worth a damn). In short, the solution is CHUG CHUG CHUG.
With the 10k souls from the gargoyles, I've bought a seal from Andre, joined Alvina and eventually bought a claw from Shiva in Blight town, before getting to the depths. Unfortunately, I'll have to waste 5 points into dexterity before being able to use it...
The claw gets you...bleed damage!!! at least. Which is actually really nice for some big lugs like Anor Londo giant guards, but yeah, mostly irrelevant. I ran with a fire claw once as backup offense for a pyromancer and it was...okay as a backup weapon for a caster, but not what I'd call good. Probably still your best option, sadly. The dragon bone fist is outright horrible, probably the worst boss weapon not called Smough's Hammer (is it just me, or aren't there a lot of crummy boss weapons?)
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XCOM: Finished classic/ironman. Difficulty took a nose dive in the final quarter when 5 of my 7 core units turned out to be psychic. So there's a weird sort of RNG hiccough for you. Made the final dungeon even more trivial, though I had a few difficult moments in the Overseer battle (he's much scarier with two Sectopods in the hallways outside his room for backup, particularly when one blows a hole in the wall and draws him and his bodyguards into the fight early :P), and then one genuinely brutal terror mission immediately where I lost a couple mid-rank characters. But the second half was still unquestionably much much easier than the first. The final dungeon in particular is just disappointing, it barely seems to scale up from normal. Though I guess there's always the battleship if you want a similar experience except totally merciless.
Still not sure if I want to do Impossible on ironman, though, I just don't dig the very real chance that some bad luck could kill (another) several hours of play time. So I think I'll do normal, but forgo in-battle saves, a la non-10 Fire Emblem. Should be an okay balance. Since Slingshot seems on the horizon I might wait for it to come out before I tackle Impossible, though, and do that rigger playthrough first, pick up the Ain't No Cavalry Comin' trophy while I'm at it.
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TH11: got a perfect (ignoring score) extra stage clear (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuz8wOKL2cU&hd=1). I'm shockingly bad at the main game now. Might work on that.
:O
I'm particularly impressed by your Genetics of the Subconscious.
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Complete. Fun, a worthy successor to the original Deus Ex. I have some nitpicks but on the whole, it's solid. Played non-lethally focusing on stealth usually, but would usually go on killing sprees for fun then reload of course like I imagine many people do.
Since criticism is more interesting than praise, said nitpicks...
* Pacifist counts the tutorial mission? Where you only have a deadly weapon and you are the security chief and armed intruders are massacring your employees? Blargh. Pacifist is cool for the other missions where Jensen is playing a bit more aggressive and fighting more morally neutral foes, but meh, missed out on the Achievement thanks to not knowing this and only deciding to play non-lethally when it became a serious option.
* Same note as above - DE:HR strangely doesn't give you any stats to show how you dealt with your opposition. I'd at least like a simple death counter (other than 0 / not 0 from Pacifist). Alpha Protocol carefully details all your kills & takedowns & alarms & all after every mission; MGS games at least give you an end-of-game recap and a title based on your style; Iji has different dialogue between never-kill and mostly never kills and kills and psychotically wipes the map clean.
* Invisibility. In a game with stealth. For SEVEN SECONDS. Eat a candy bar, get 14 seconds. This is broke'd even for a straight combat run - eschew takedowns, and simply turn invisible and run next to guards and zap them with the stun gun or head shot 'em with a silenced pistol. (Certainly helped out in the save Malik mission.)
* Just like Mass Effect 2 decided to be a medium-range cover shooter too often when it could have been more, DE:HR decides to be a sneak-past-or-shoot guards patrolling set areas too often. The Malik mission was great - enemies are attacking everywhere, and you're under time pressure. This kind of mix-up can make for a great game, but DE:HR sticks to the patrolling guards too much. A good example: the Alice Garden Pods event. This had the potential to be totally badass AND interesting - raiding guards are coming for your location. You need to either GTFO and start stealthing it up against an alerted foe searching for your charge, or else set up some kind of defensive position and start picking off the attackers, possibly trying to avoid getting pinned in one place. Additionally, you have a civilian you're trying to protect, and there are other civilians scattered about. You can of course throw around explosives and shoot wildly and maybe get some "collateral damage" that isn't your problem, but if you feel like trying to be moral, you can do that as well. Of course none of this is what actually happened. Your charge magically disappears, all the civilians have either disappeared or are dead (WTF?! This is the Tai Yong Medical's own employees when they are on a super-tight deadline of 1 week of rush jobs!), and soldiers are patrolling set areas except for where you start and not particularly interested in coming for you and forcing you to make some desperate stand or escape or anything. You! Blew! It! It would have been friggin' great to see the enemy doom squad running one way while I give 'em the slip, OR to meet the enemy doom squad head-on in glorious combat, and instead we awkwardly got the "raid" team spread out on patrol of their occupied crash hotel. Which was still fine, to be sure, but it's the same friggin' gameplay I'd expect for the usual me-raiding-unsuspecting-them at this point. It's easy to make stealth tempting: have an air vent or hackable panel to get around the enemies. Make combat tempting or hard to avoid sometimes, too.
* The plot was fine and there was definitely some interesting characters, but the enemies are a tad underwhelming. The post-credits ending to DE:HR was surprisingly great, and part of that was hearing Bob Page's voice actor ham it up again. Page is a charismatic megalomaniac who was fun to hate in DE. DE:HR lacks a similar presence. Taggart, Sandoval, Reed, & Darrow are played for at least some sympathy. !Anna, !Gunther, & Southern bot aren't former colleagues and don't really have dialogue; they're just straight heavies you must fight. The closest DE:HR has is Zhao for scenery-chewing bad girls you want to settle up with, but she just doesn't have enough plot presence & screentime to qualify.
On the bright side...
* The ending ending was an amusing continuity nod! ANd included http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMzHzmdolRU , hehe.
* I have to say that the direction that the final act of the game went totally caught me off guard. Which was interesting, since conspiracy fiction is usually totally predictable for me.
* I'm not one of the whiners about the boss battles; I liked 'em. Mix things up, give me a challenge; if I have to fight the battle 10 times to defeat it, that's okay because I saved right outside the door. I guess people who are terrible at shooters didn't like they actually had to shoot for these, but you should have stuck the difficulty setting on Easy then. (Whining about the Alpha Protocol boss battles makes more sense, mostly because your skill build is super-important in AP, and the stealth skills are nearly worthless in boss battles there. But stealth isn't totally worthless in DE:HR boss battles, and there's really only one relevant straight-combat upgrade in Dermal Armor, so it's not like you can get stuck with a misbuilt character.)
* Replaying the game bloodily on hard difficulty going on killing sprees sounds pretty fun.
Growlanser: The Wayfarer of Time
Okay. So. In a ruined village, and - a shocking sight. An old colleague & ally, someone who was surely, 100% dead - killed by a massive blast that leveled an entire town - suddenly appears again. Alive. How does / can our silent-but-with-a-lot-of-player-input hero react? I, SnowFire, might propose the following as rational, dramatic possibilities, any or all of which at once make sense:
* Delirious happiness. It's a miracle! What was lost has been found. What was dead, is now alive. Give her a huge hug, break down in tears, and immediately set to throwing a party.
* Madness. Am I seeing things? Have I finally gone crazy? Does the world even make sense anymore? WHAT IS GOING ON? TELL ME! Break down in tears sobbing at the ground wondering WTF is going on and if anybody can explain anything.
* Paranoia. There's no way she could have escaped that blast. Unless she was IN on it. Maybe she knew in advance. Maybe the explosion was part of her plan, and she cruelly massacred all those other innocents. What's your excuse? How exactly do you claim to have survived the attack? Do you have any proof? Or... maybe she DID die, and you're some kind of imposter or doppleganger. Who are you?
The game's actual options, abridged:
* Greet her via touching her breasts?
No.
* Are you sure? You have the option again. Bury your face in her breasts!
...
...
...
Japan. Catering to pathetic shut-ins again. You are on notice.
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Growlanser: The Wayfarer of Time
* Greet her via touching her breasts?
Touch him on the penis. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTQnUTgLssI&feature=g-user-u)
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For LoL talk:
To be fair on the armor and mr cost effectiveness nerfs, they are also nerfing a lot of offensive items as well. Rabadons is getting a whole 20 ap and 5% taken away from it's passive, which is a ~15% nerf in it's effectiveness. Attack speed is getting nerfed across the board, so ad's will have less multiplicative scaling going on, and lifesteal is now not as easy as "Buy Vamp Scepter after bf sword/ie, facetank everything by lifestealing with auto's because you out sustain any non ad's dps" I would view it as more of balance change to have slightly less power coming from raw item stats and more from item special effects.
The Jungle changes I actually really like, right now in s2, an initial full clear is only worth ~350 gold, this is terrible and has turned the jungle into "pick someone with good ganks and doesn't mind stacking gp5, because otherwise you will have no income and be useless" This has led to Jungling basically being about who can camp a lane better, because clearing the jungle is a waste of time, especially since alot of mids like to jack wraiths since they're so easy to aoe down in a spell or two. Right now the current gameplay environment is if you push without a ward, you are basically guaranteed dead, because the jungler will totally make a beeline to your lane to kill you because a kill on you is worth more then an entire jungle clear for him. He can also do this after basically any camp because lol jungle creeps have no health and do no damages.
Contrast in season 3, an initial full clear is worth around ~550 gold that is a rather huge buff to jungler income, you can now have some of those lategame type champions who can jungle do it without feeling like they're gimping themselves through gold starvation. Initial clears for a lot of champs have been about the same time/hp wise, some champs do worse, but for everyone one of those there is a champ who cries for joy since they're kit is now no longer a drawback. (Fiddle loves the move of hp strength on big mobs and the fact he an actually buy items to be his true scary self of CAWCAWCAWCAW). I used to be a pretty avid jungler in Season 1 and when season 2 came around it just kind of turned into my least favorite role with how bad the goldflow became.
I don't think there's to much to worry about in the ganking department. Some junglers got hit a bit hard by the changes yeah, but that's mostly only if they do full clears, doing a quick red -> level 2 gank is still totally viable if a few seconds slower, and alot of people can actually make a choice to forgo ganking if your team is crazy and pushing every single lane up to the opponents tower, which is something that doesn't really happen in season 2, if you team does that, you basically end up sitting in some bush near one of the lanes and just kind of prey their jungler comes so you can countergank him or something. Either that or you end up doing some risky lower level tower dive where you juggle tower aggro, because a jungler that doesn't get kills/assists in season 2 is essentially gold starved.
Edit: I'm stupid, apparently early gold is actually around the same, it's the gold scaling as the game goes on that gets significantly better, whoops.
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Pokemon Black 2: Finished this earlier in the week, finally got unlazy enough to write something up on it.
Since the gen 5 starters are pretty lame and I've already used Samurott and Emboar in B1/W1, I decided to essentially roll my starter and breed an egg to trade over. I opted for Hippopotas, to build a team around some of Unova's juicy sand abusers.
Minor problem 1) For once, you can't trade in B2/W2 until after getting your first badge. <_< Luckily I had one team member I could catch at the beginning of the game (Lillipup), so I just had it plow through the game up through the first gym.
Minor problem 2) As mentioned previously, I made the mistake of consulting a gamefaqs Pokedex instead of something reliable like serebii at first and got the wrong ability on my Lillipup. >_< >_< Luckily Pokesav exists, so I could just trade it over to a flashcart and fix it that way instead of having to start over with a fresh one and grind it back up.
After that rough start, it was mostly smooth sailing through the game. Team members were as follows:
Stoutland (Return, Superpower, Crunch, Strength/Surf): Beat the first gym with only an Oran Berry for support, which was nice. In general its job was to provide neutrality for a team of mostly Ground and Steel types. Sand Rush isn't as valuable as it is on Excadrill since it's nowhere near as good a boss sweeper, but avoiding sand chip damage is pretty nice for this team in general, and it can beat almost anything save a Fighting type one-on-one under sand by 2HKOing and outspeeding. Superpower was a nice lategame pickup since I have multiple Ground types but no Fighting damage otherwise.
Hippowdon (Earthquake, Ice Fang, Yawn, Slack Off): Yeah, I have no shame and bred Slack Off onto my starter-replacement. >_> It was actually pretty important for baby Hippo, who seriously sucks at dealing damage and had to rely on Eviolite+Slack Off tanking to beat all but the scrubbiest (non-electric) random. Evolution was a bigger deal for it than anyone except maybe Excadrill, since big Hippo has enough attack to kill stuff without relying on sandstream chip damage. Ice Fang is weaker than Rock Slide but helps it take on physical dragons, like Drayden's Flygon. Yawn isn't terribly useful for catching stuff for obvious reasons, but is nice for setting up on bosses.
Magnezone (Thunderbolt, Flash Cannon, Flash, T-Wave): A steel type before the second gym is seriously borked, especially with Sonicboom to 2HKO just about everything in that time frame. I actually managed to get Modest on my very first Magnemite catch, too, which made its firepower even greater. Definately lives up to the internet hype as perhaps the single best in-game Pokemon in B2/W2, completely dominant aside from a phase mid-game where its STAB options are a bit underpowered. All-important on this particular team for covering my otherwise glaring Water weakness, especially now that they added a Water gym this time around. T-wave is great for catching stuff, Flash is mainly there for out of battle use plus lack of useful alternatives.
Excadrill (Earthquake, Iron Head, Rock Slide, Swords Dance): Drilbur phase was solid (and clearly better than baby Hippo) but not anything amazing. Excadrill, on the other hand, has 135 attack/88 speed, Steel resists, and a killer movepool. Throwing in Sand Rush on top of all this is downright unfair for in-game. One turn of setup is all it needs to sweep just about everything. Watching it outspeed stuff Drayden's Haxorus after a Dragon Dance was hilarious and ensured that I would 2HKO it first.
Sigilyph (Psychic, Air Slash, Energy Ball, Ice Beam): On the team for Magic Guard and for protection against Fighting and, to a lesser extent, Grass types. The offense is pretty nice as well, although Rock and Dark weaknesses are a bit of a bummer; it can't switch in safely versus Scrafty, for instance. I got a Life Orb from Pokemon Dream Radar just in time for the Elite Four, which is obviously wonderful with Magic Guard and gave it the power to ensure OHKOs on all of Grimsley's Pokemon besides Sturdy Sawk.
The last team member I'm planning on using is Sand Force Landorus, which sadly requires a trade. It comes at level 70 at base, so I'm not bringing it in until postgame because I still have some sense of shame.
I had one reset on this file, against Clay. That was in part due to not having a favorable type matchup against him, but mostly due to some incredible hax; he got a whopping 5 critical hits on my first attempt, and I didn't feel like itemspamming my way through THAT much bad luck. Second try, I won with zero KOs and zero healing items consumed. The rest of the gyms pretty much fell to simple type-matchups, save Drayden. Dragon Tail meant setup was out of the picture, but the speed boost on Excadrill/Stoutland made it go smoothly.
Excadrill had an easy time sweeping 3/4 of the E4, while Sigilyph crushed the Fighting guy. Champion took some more thought to face, since 5/6 of her Pokemon could hit Excadrill SE. Fortunately, Hippowdon had the HP to survive a Surf and Yawn her opening Hydreigon, which promptly fell asleep after KOing it. Excadrill then came in, Swords Danced on the sleeping dragon, and promptly swept her whole team with double attack and double speed. Yay for Sand Rush cheese.
Now for BW2's rather extensive postgame. Facing all the super-bosses in challenge mode with this particular team should be fun. I've got a Pokedex to complete as well; Gamefreak actually included some real, non-certificate rewards this time around, which might be the single biggest surprise in Pokemon history.
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Yawn isn't terribly useful for catching stuff for obvious reasons
:(
I have to ask: what reasons?
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Sandstream is generally counterproductive when tring to catch Pokemon. Especially rare ones.
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So tt's Sand Stream that's bad for catching Pokemon, not Yawn, which just happened to be on your Sandstreamer; I was pretty much confused probably for the same reasons Elfboy was, frankly.
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Perfect World: So, the new 20v20 PvP instance is rather fun. You should check it out Soppy.
The economy just crashed hard. Current economy was based around a farmable endgame material called Rapture Crystals. Which went for about 1.3m coins each. After doing the new instance for 2 hours last night, I had enough of the new material thingys to make 235 Rapture Crystals at a cost of 10k coins each. Things will pick back up when people figure out there are other things in the game to farm/merchant. But right now the level of crying on the PWI forums is epic.
Black 2: Beat all 8 gyms. Team is Emboar, Fraxure, Leavenny, Unfeazant, Azumarill, Zoroark. Surprisingly the three I keep in party for HM usage (Leav, Unfez, Azu) have been far more useful than the others. Way to surprise me Gamefreak. Also, Emboar sucks. Hard.
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373 damage is actually just about what I had with my Black Knight Halberd +0 and 40 strength. It's decent.
...Oh man. I don't know how you're going to handle the final boss with whips.
It's not like I ever relied on parries to win that fight anyway (because even after all this time playing the game, I cannot parry worth a damn). In short, the solution is CHUG CHUG CHUG.
With the 10k souls from the gargoyles, I've bought a seal from Andre, joined Alvina and eventually bought a claw from Shiva in Blight town, before getting to the depths. Unfortunately, I'll have to waste 5 points into dexterity before being able to use it...
The claw gets you...bleed damage!!! at least. Which is actually really nice for some big lugs like Anor Londo giant guards, but yeah, mostly irrelevant. I ran with a fire claw once as backup offense for a pyromancer and it was...okay as a backup weapon for a caster, but not what I'd call good. Probably still your best option, sadly. The dragon bone fist is outright horrible, probably the worst boss weapon not called Smough's Hammer (is it just me, or aren't there a lot of crummy boss weapons?)
The final still doesn't look easy with CHUG CHUG CHUG, unless you always use Iron Flesh and go to town. You're never really sure you can actually heal in that fight.
Bleed's actually pretty awesome (and satisfying) against the very few enemies vulnerable to it, so far! Damage is low enough that it matters, unlike in a normal game. (Something else that got better with my total lack of damage: the "This Is Sparta" kick)
The claw+X does much more damage than the caestus +X, so I've pretty much forgotten about the caestus entirely. It is a better left hand weapon than the claw (useful L1 versus terrible L1), but double claws are too stupid and ridiculous to not use (omg female Wolverine)
I'll still use the Dragon God Fist, because I've already put 20 points into strength. I do not think claws+15 would really be good enough against the DLC bosses anyway, compared to the Dragon God Fist with 50 strength.
I'll try the Dark Hand too!
By the way:
Taurus demon deaths: 0
Moonlight Butterfly deaths: 1
Bell Gargoyle deaths: 2
Capra demon deaths: 0
Gaping dragon deaths: 5
Quelaag deaths: 3
Capra Demon really isn't a problem anymore at this point, while Moonlight Butterfly and Gaping Dragon can still beat me in battles of attrition.
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X-COM: Enemy Unknown - Completed on Normal mode. May try Classic mode at some point, but gonna play some portable shit in the meantime. Like Suikoden Tierkreis~
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Ys Origin - Maybe this was -exactly- what I needed to play. Hack 'n slash action with shiny music and looks and fun boss fights and skills. Blowing shit up with remote mines is far more fun than it has any right to be. Also, jesus -fuck- Hugo is such a dick. I thought this wasn't even contractually allowed for protagonists in Ys games. Past that, the game's writing is really good at wasting a perfectly good idea and dumping ten billion adventure cliches on you (holy crap Miuscha why must you exist). But who cares when you're blowing shit up with a wand, two eyes, infinite bombs and a smarmy robe?
Oh yeah. Currently at the Guilty Flame, got my ass kicked by Toal. Hopefully I get another shiny toy to play with this time.
MIMIC GREFTER: Oh, so you're going to make me FAQ Mask locations pre-emptively, aren't you? I swear, I try to play nice to games, but they just beg otherwise.
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So, I beat XCOM a couple nights ago.
Fun game. I'm not madly in love with it like some people I know, but it's certainly good. It comes off to me as a mix of Fire Emblem (permadeath, low stat scales, high-stakes SRPG) and 4th-edition D&D (movement, actions, and cover mechanics), with some Civ/Syndicate/etc.-style macro-management thrown in for spice. Pretty interesting definitely.
One of my favourite things about the game was its class/ability system. I'm a pretty big fan of branching choices like this since they're often interesting to make, and because you get multiple people of each class you can easily explore all the choices and customise the type of character you want. Meanwhile, the game does a good job with its four classes; another game that proves you don't need two dozen of them, and that a small, tight number often works better. Really fun. If there was one thing I wish FE would pull straight from XCOM, no questions asked, it is something like this.
Combat's also generally quite fun. Your individual actions definitely matter because errors can very easily lead to troop death, and by and large you own your errors despite RNG being a factor. Troop death is probably about where it should be in terms of punishment; not so bad that one should instantly reset over every one, but still a big deal. I generally played the game like I would Fire Emblem, where I could reset a map but would not load an in-battle save. I ended up only resetting twice, both of which went badly against me and would have cost myself most of my well-built up troops later in the game... which I could recover from but it would have been an annoyingly time-consuming setback. In some ways I like the earlygame dynamic a little more where you don't lose all that unit progress, but it ends up not being a big deal. The best fix for this situation is to give the player periodic high-level joiners lategame like Fire Emb- oh, what's that, XCOM does this too? Excellent.
The management side of things works reasonably well too. I'm a bigger SRPG fan than I am large-scale strategy so this is definitely the side of things I'm less attached to, but they managed to make most of it transparent enough and not all that time-consuming, so it worked. The one complaint I have has to do with interceptors... the minigame where you shoot down UFOs is both kinda strange and also so rare it gets difficult to plan for and decide how much money you need to invest in it. I largely ignored it for the first half of the game, got burned a bit by this midgame, then invested a lot of money in it and... ended up feeling this was a total waste because despite hints you don't end up needing an awesome setup to shoot down the final mothership or anything like that. Not ultimately a big deal, though.
The game doesn't have much plot. Some of what is there is pretty good; I liked the personalities/philosophies of Dr. Vahlen and Dr. Shen. Some of what is there is not; the alien motivation fed to you in the final battle felt like a misfire of blathering. But overall there's just not very much of it, it is not why you play the game, that is fine. As far as stock settings favoured by the west go I will take "alien invasion" over "war simulator aginst terrorists" any day.
The game's biggest flaw has been talked about before, and I will do so again: you can't take back movements. I grill my favourite game of all time for this, and I will grill XCOM for it even more, because unlike in FFT it's often not obvious at all what you'll be able to do after moving. Strange things block line of sight sometimes, especially when elevation changes are involved. I didn't enjoy the game's start that much, and this has nothing to do with earlygame combat or mechanics - actually, I think I'd love those on a replay. It has everything to do with the game just plain being less fun until you figure out some of the rules for what blocks line of sight, and what counts as cover, and what counts as flanking, and there's no real good way to do this except trial and error (or reading a guide online I guess). It's not really a game where I enjoyed the learning curve as such, but fortunately one mostly gets past that. Just never 100% past.
The game's other major flaw has to do with the way enemies spawn, at least on Normal (I've heard Classic changes things a bit here?). Since they literally don't exist until you see them, a few oddities get introduced, such as (a) you don't want to move too far on your own phase once you've burned several of your own turns, as "seeing" a new enemy late in the round gives them chance to attack you before you can do anything about them. And (b) you can totally, utterly annihilate the game by inching forward slowly turn after turn... possibly with a bunch of the rest of your army on overwatch as you do it. This is pretty horrible and I don't do it because ew, gross. It's far from alone about this for SRPGs (many others get broken by a very slow progression in this style) so obviously this isn't a fatal flaw, just eh. Terror missions were some of my favourites just because this approach obviously wouldn't work.
And in general, I'm always favour of games giving you more information. XCOM gives you a fair bit (especially once I discovered the unit analysis window in battle), but there's a few places where it's lacking. Several armours have special properties like movement boosts which the game doesn't tell you (I only learned this after beating the game), and it would be great if you saw enemy hit rates against you so you could adjust your strategy. I'm also not an especially big fan of the "fog of war everywhere" approach but this entire paragraph is mostly just me talking about my personal biases.
Also game, please don't use a single button with no confirmation for "end turn". Thank goodness I only did this when it never actually burned me.
Random highlights of the playthrough:
-The first time I faced Sectopods, I faced three at once. This was so brutal. One of two non-reset battles where I lost a colonel because damn.
-Realising that I could one-round berserkers by shooting them with an assault, having them run towards the assault, and kill them with a reaction counter. This never got old. I doubt it ever shall.
-Discovering how broken Mind Control was. Not sure why it makes the enemies so stupid but I'll take it! Sadly I didn't get many chances to use this, but still!
-The final battle was pretty fun, once it decided to get serious (the first few rooms were admittedly very boring/easy). Someone (Ryan?) said that he thought it was worse than the battleship; I thought it was much better because (a) two sectopods at once, and (b) that final room is pretty glorious. I lost three people (one vs. the sectopods, two in the mind control room... both gunned down by my assault as it turned out) and had to tough the battle out with a 5-HP sniper as the volunteer, one support who was all out of tricks, and said aforementioned Assault, who ended up killing the last two Ethereals herself with some timely help from the others. Good times.
It's a fun game, certainly, but part of me really wants to see where a few iterative sequels of gameplay refinement might take it. What was it Fenrir said about FF13? Change a bunch of things about XCOM and you have a 10/10 game. That pretty much sums XCOM up perfectly to me; it's a good game, but one that has potential to be considerably better. I just hope those sequels happen instead of getting XCOM: the FPS or XCOM: the RTS.
No idea how to rate this at the moment, but it's in the 7-8 area. I could see replays (which I definitely intend) taking it up very solidly into 8 area, perhaps even higher, but it's hard to say for sure. Better than I was expecting honestly; this is the most I've enjoyed a western game since... gosh. At least since Civilisation II, which is like 13 years ago. And if we don't count Cthulhu Saves the World as western it's not even especially close.
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I guess even you can sometimes recognize a good game when you see it. Hub.
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FM3 - So I head back to the Glorious Land of Nippon and romg there is martial law declared and Macho Man Randy Savage's Dad has been declared leader of a coup! But secretly he isn't! Upon hearing that his homeland is being taken over by the military, his family and friends are under threat and his country is turning into a corrupt fascist dictatorship Macho Man Randy Savage has this to say "FUCK YOU DAD".
So I figured while I was playing some Torchlight 2 I would watch a no deaths run of Dark Souls to try and understand it and to see what it seems Fenrir has determined as what is required to be "good" at Dark Souls. This I could not find (thought there was supposed to be one floating around?), but what I did find was a wiki to wikiwalk through to still try and understand you guys.
I still don't get it. It is like Vagrant Story with more obtuse systems and a whole ton more dick punching and no direction through the city. Does not compute. I love Vagrant Story. I hate dick punching. I don't understand the joy you get from receiving dick punching, but please never change.
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XCOM: Crits happen. And cost me pretty much every ranked soldier I had left. I continue to manage to climb back, but a failed mission and increasing panic will likely spell the end of this run for me.
Should I be doing no resets on my first play? Nah.
Is it fun to do so? Yeah.
Rayman Origins: So I cam to this game in weird, roundabout way. Played Rayman Legends on a Wii U demo console. Thought it seemed cool. So downloaded Rayman Jungle Run on my iPod, and it was fun. So I bought this, and, shock, it is fun! Playing through with Ashley, because platformers with multiplayer and the ability to hit each other are best. Game is fun. Art design is amazing. Sound design is amazing. Sad I missed this for so long.
Rayman Jungle Run: Collected all the Lums in every level and beat all of the Land of the Livid Dead. Only the single run achievements remain, and I'm not sure I'm going to do those.
Scribblenauts Remix: Fun when it isn't crashing my iPod. A little too sandboxy for me, though. It sort of hits that Minecraft point for me. I see why people like it, but I can't see myself playing it for long.
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FM3 - So I head back to the Glorious Land of Nippon and romg there is martial law declared and Macho Man Randy Savage's Dad has been declared leader of a coup! But secretly he isn't! Upon hearing that his homeland is being taken over by the military, his family and friends are under threat and his country is turning into a corrupt fascist dictatorship Macho Man Randy Savage has this to say "FUCK YOU DAD".
Macho Man Randy Savage is putting his priorities in life man. Flipping off your old man > saving your countrymen from super soldiers.
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Plants vs Zombies: Third time through normal mode. Way more zombies now, it's a notable uptick. It's my second run through the game.
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The game's other major flaw has to do with the way enemies spawn, at least on Normal (I've heard Classic changes things a bit here?). Since they literally don't exist until you see them, a few oddities get introduced, such as (a) you don't want to move too far on your own phase once you've burned several of your own turns, as "seeing" a new enemy late in the round gives them chance to attack you before you can do anything about them. And (b) you can totally, utterly annihilate the game by inching forward slowly turn after turn... possibly with a bunch of the rest of your army on overwatch as you do it. This is pretty horrible and I don't do it because ew, gross. It's far from alone about this for SRPGs (many others get broken by a very slow progression in this style) so obviously this isn't a fatal flaw, just eh. Terror missions were some of my favourites just because this approach obviously wouldn't work.
The inch-forward technique is pretty much the only way to go on the harder difficulty modes. The major difference in Classic+, AI-wise, is that enemy units move around the map themselves, either wandering randomly or homing in on noise you might make (bursting through doors, breaking windows, and presumably also gun-fire? Weirdly, not actually sure about that.). So once you've engaged the first group of enemies on the map (hopefully getting the drop on them via overwatch), you often stay engaged as the rest of the map's forces come running. You've still got a bunch of advantages, if you're conservative about exposing yourself you'll always almost get the first round of fire against incoming aliens, but it's at least a little better than on Normal, I think.
-The final battle was pretty fun, once it decided to get serious (the first few rooms were admittedly very boring/easy). Someone (Ryan?) said that he thought it was worse than the battleship; I thought it was much better because (a) two sectopods at once, and (b) that final room is pretty glorious. I lost three people (one vs. the sectopods, two in the mind control room... both gunned down by my assault as it turned out) and had to tough the battle out with a 5-HP sniper as the volunteer, one support who was all out of tricks, and said aforementioned Assault, who ended up killing the last two Ethereals herself with some timely help from the others. Good times.
Two sectopods is definitely a good fight, especially since they've got good terrain for them. But the rest of the dungeon is pretty easy even on normal, and as far as I can tell change at all on harder difficulties, so the first two rooms become even more dull and trivial, and the end loses some of its shine. Particularly when you realize (as I did on my second playthrough) that the uber ethereal is load-bearing, and you can ignore its support entirely.
I think the battleship is somewhat random, so I'm sure experiences vary, and I didn't get it in my first playthrough at all, but in games 2 and 3 waves of Mutons supported by Sectopods made it a long, tough, fun map, probably the highlight of any of my playthroughs.
It's a fun game, certainly, but part of me really wants to see where a few iterative sequels of gameplay refinement might take it. What was it Fenrir said about FF13? Change a bunch of things about XCOM and you have a 10/10 game. That pretty much sums XCOM up perfectly to me; it's a good game, but one that has potential to be considerably better. I just hope those sequels happen instead of getting XCOM: the FPS or XCOM: the RTS.
Strongly agreed. I think that's a lot of why I'm so enamoured with the game, that there really seems like there really might be the strong foundation for a whole new SRPG franchise to obsess over. Fingers crossed.
My SHIV-only game is finally getting moving, though it took a couple months of game-time to get there. It'll be the dramatic story of how Major "Strings" saves the world with her posse of robot sidekicks. Who are very cute and eager to please, but painfully incompetent and surprisingly delicate. We'll see how it goes once she starts upgrading them.
I just realized that I'm really looking forward to the scene in the ending where a team-mate beckons frantically at the Volunteer as they flee. Shivs don't show up in some cut-scenes, but I hope they do in that one.
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Yeah, realising the uber ethereal was load-bearing would help of course. When I fought him he had the brains(/luck) to run for cover and let me deal with everyone else after his opening mind control.
Never saw more than one Sectopod at once in the battleship and Ciato drew the same enemy layout as me so I figured it was non-random, but who knows.
Oh yeah, also:
Mario Kart 7 - Getting into this a bunch again. Got 3 stars on all the courses, so now everyone I play online will know that I obsess over dumb accomplishments in games I get into I am awesome. Also beat all the Normal staff ghosts, but the expert records are hardcore badass, I can't even get within 5 seconds of most of them. Obviously I still have a long way to go to actually master this game, though who knows how long my current run of play will last.
Lost Odyssey: Decided on a whim to give this a try again, because even though it's mediocre it's an interesting enough kind of mediocre for me to want to see it through (or at least closer to through than I got). Currently mid disc 2. The last three hours (i.e. the only ones I've played this past half-year) kinda highlight the ups and downs of the game pretty well: dream sequences are excellently-written (rest of the writing is awkward but not bad, and the villains make me smile), battle design is pretty good (bosses very much have their unique quirks, and even randoms have theirs), between-battle setup is a bit dull and time-consuming, and the game is glacial. PSX-level start-of-battle load times, hour-long sequences with no battle and surprisingly little plot given there is no battle... it's the lost PSX Final Fantasy all right.
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Devil Survivor 2- Niu is the Brightest Star in the Sky.
So this game. By simple virtue of Joint Crack, this game is less irritating than the first Devil Survivor. But beyond that... y'know how in Evangelion the plot was this giant distraction to string together all the character bits and cause psychological breakdowns? Imagine a version where they took apart the main plot, made a reason for everything to exist, then put it back together without the character bits. Not to say the game doesn't have a likable cast, but it's not remotely the focus. And as such I'm not sure what to do with it. I mean, it's not bad for what it is, and the SMT logic works well in the context of Angels The Big Dipper attacking, but it lacks the heart that made Eva work.
Gameplay is alright. The game basically has to cheat to keep from getting horribly stomped at the end, although there are some enemy gimmicks that are just more effective for enemies than your team. It just can't compete with the raw power you have once things well and truly get rolling.
7/10 material. Not something that's going to stick with me, but good at what it is.
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RE6: Beat Leon's Route!
While it is the best route of the three, it highlights just what RE6 did wrong best at the same time, and is it was a game too ambitious for it's own good. Too many things put into the game, and they clearly didn't give enough time for the developers to really hammer out the kinks, as well as look at certain aspects and go "should this be in the game? Does this actually add anything to gameplay?" etc. Also some enemy designs feel poorly play-tested because...well...
Zombies grabbing you is an instant loss to 1 Health (out of 6), and sometimes there's no real way to prevent this. THEN on top of that, Zombies do gradual damage that you have to QTE out of. AND THEN there's an enemy that if they grab you, they do instant 1 Health damage ON TOP of the grabbing damage...so you can take 2 hits immediately, and if you have one health left, that's instant death, no chance for partner to save you. Also enemies with Instant Death moves are still stupid, as there are a few too many.
On the otherhand, I can safely say people whining about the game being too QTE heavy need to stuff it. Yes, they exist, but they are NOT all over the place and every five seconds like people claim. There are less in this game then there were in RE5 (relative to the lengths of each game anyway), and they're pretty forgiving. The only really bad one is the climbing related one found in the end of Leon and Jake's routes, because the controls are not the most responsive and feels like a waste of time (especially since Leon has to do it twice and the second time is REALLY lenient on the whole "fail and you die" thing, you will more likely spend a good 5 minutes on a section I think the devs wanted to take 30 seconds -_-)
I'll play Ada's story soon enough, but overall, "disappointing" is indeed the word that best sums up RE6. You can see the game has a lot of potential and could have been amazing, but well, if pushing the release date UP a month from it's original date should have been an indicator that the game was rushed. Remember, it was announced earlier this year, and sort of suddenly too.
Contrast that too...ohh...
DmC: Demo came out today, and just played this! This is...a pretty in-depth demo truth be told. It actually feels like a legitimate snippet from the game instead of an incomplete but playable part to give you an idea of what's in the game. Little changes make it better than the NYCC demo (which wasn't bad actually!), to boot.
So far? It seems like the game has genuine potential to be good, and unless enemy design REALLY drops the ball, it should prove itself a worthy addition to the series, once you get over the whole "Emo Goth Dante" design (mind you, his personality is similar to original Dante's...though, kind of more like a hybrid of Dante and Nero), it definitely has a Devil May Cry feel.
That said, the game also feels different. It's kind of like Bayonetta in the sense that it definitely gets what makes this kind of action game work, BUT also adds its own unique touch at the same time. "True but different to the rest of the series" is an accurate way to put it.
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I did say that about FF13. (too bad they went in the opposite direction to where they should have gone, in FF13-2)
FM3 - So I head back to the Glorious Land of Nippon and romg there is martial law declared and Macho Man Randy Savage's Dad has been declared leader of a coup! But secretly he isn't! Upon hearing that his homeland is being taken over by the military, his family and friends are under threat and his country is turning into a corrupt fascist dictatorship Macho Man Randy Savage has this to say "FUCK YOU DAD".
So I figured while I was playing some Torchlight 2 I would watch a no deaths run of Dark Souls to try and understand it and to see what it seems Fenrir has determined as what is required to be "good" at Dark Souls. This I could not find (thought there was supposed to be one floating around?), but what I did find was a wiki to wikiwalk through to still try and understand you guys.
I still don't get it. It is like Vagrant Story with more obtuse systems and a whole ton more dick punching and no direction through the city. Does not compute. I love Vagrant Story. I hate dick punching. I don't understand the joy you get from receiving dick punching, but please never change.
(Try to ignore my blatant LUST for Dark souls)
You can't really get Dark Souls by seeing a a no death run done by a pro, like you can't really get Super Mario Brothers by seing a tool assisted speedrun. Death is not necessarily a major point of the game, but danger and risk are, and it's something you can't really appreciate here. (It's about learning from your mistakes the first time too)
You don't need that much to be good at the game, mostly: learning how bosses attack and when/how to block/dodge and when to attack, taking things slowly, learning the environment. I'm only good at the third one.
There is a ton of stuff in this game, but it's all mostly easy to understand. There is no terribly obtuse system like blacksmithing in Vagrant Story/Legend of Mana/Unlimited Saga. You can forge your Axe+1 so it becomes an Axe+2. Then you can forge it so it becomes an Axe+3. On +5 and +10 you can add an element.
So basically: There are tons of weapons, try each to get a feel of how they handle. Put your stones and money into your favourite so it becomes better. Maybe make it fire elemental at +5.
Covenants all work under the same way: Do what they want you to do, and you'll get 2 or 3 items unique to that covenant.
The lack of direction and maps actually work here, because the level design delivers. Explore and you'll naturally make a mental image of the in game world in your head without effort. I can actually imagine the entire game world inside my head easily, and it's not something I can do (or even come close to) with any other 3d game. You get a large non linear world, with no need to check a map constantly. It is the exact opposite philosophy of GTA, Assassin's Creed or Metroid 1, where the areas are larger but not distinct and you absolutely need a map.(except Metroid 1 doesn't have a map) The game doesn't really have that many true dick moves. I count 2 kinds. (when the floor crumbles under your feet in Lost Izalith, + the first mimic/slime you encounter) Maybe Anor Londo archers.
(Dick moves are still great fun. Drakkhen rocks)
There aren't surprises or dick punches left for me in Dark Souls, but I still play it because there are tons of builds and different weapons that handle differently. For example your approach against any enemy can be very different with a regular sword (regular), or a 2h sword (high damage and range, slow as fuck), or a halberd (not hitting leaves you more vulnerable than other weapons), or fists (very low range), or a whip (slow with nearly no stunlocking power, but allright against multiple enemies IIRC)
Gameplay is better in Dark Souls because Vagrant Story is pretty much straight up RPG with QTEs, like Shadow Hearts or Legend of Dragoon. There aren't really any mechanical differences between fighting with a spear or your fists with Vagrant Story, because range largely doesn't matter. Dark Souls is a more active game where most encounters need to be treated in different ways and death is around every corner (death not being a source of frustration, since it's better integrated than in any other game), while in Vagrant Story you just run up, punch people and try not to get your RISK too high and never really die. There is no masochistic desire in me for wanting to play a difficult game like Dark Souls, just the same desire for something that requires constant attention you get from DMC or God Hand.
Oh god.
Anyway I beat Ornstein and Smough. My damage was terrible against Ornstein, but he's a human, he can bleed. The claw has terrible range and a slowish animation, so the only way I actually beat them was tanking with full Havel + Wolf Ring. I wish I could actually use huge armor for the entire game, but the walking animation is just too slow for me.
Bleed damage has actually been surprisingly invaluable. There's that fight, the asylum demon, drakes, capra demons, minotaurs, harpies... I don't really except bleed to carry on for much longer, so I've been pumping all my stat points into strength for the Dragon Fist Bone. At +4 and with 35 strength, it is still shit.
I also got the Dark Hand, which is useless as a weapon and awful as a shield. Yay! It's the only shield I have, but I haven't really used it seriously at any point yet. The biggest advantage it provides are:
1) Cool distorsion effects
2) My character looks like she's constantly mashing berries in her left hand.
I also just betrayed Shiva for the DWGR. Currently doing ninja flips in Velka's armor set and holding two claws.
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DE:HR
So after reading Snow's post I decided I was going to restart and do a pacifist run. On my first run though, so, you know, probably gonna give up midway through. Knowing more about the mechanics and being less paranoid about losing ghost means I caught up to where I was within a couple hours. Knowing the map layout ahead of time really helped me speed through areas taking down everyone. Also knowing that putting small boxes in the way will screw up guard pathing. Throwing a box down some stairs, putting a small box in the way so the soldiers climb up a separate set of stairs and then each of them getting taken down as they obliviously walk past me is more satisfying than it should be.
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I've been pumping all my stat points into strength for the Dragon Fist Bone. At +4 and with 35 strength, it is still shit.
I warned you! You may barely crack 300 attack power before you stop getting any damage bonuses from stats.
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Dark Souls: Capra Demon down, Death Count: 2. Almost beat it my first try. Like, one more tink-hit level almost. Then I got caught in a corner and rolled when I should have shielded. Uchi +5 OHKOed dogs if I hit them cleanly, so that helped. Into the depths, rescued Laurentis. Gathering souls for Pyromancy before moving on.
Persona 4: The Golden- Got this, started. So pretty~ Smoothed out the character models. Added detail to rest of graphics is noticable but not exactly next gen. Images and text are HD. New OP is colorful and trippy and is gorgeous on the Vita screen. Got the Solid Gold edition, though the travel case is disappointing since it's useless if you don't also use the faceplate. Just scratched the surface of the beginning. Chie's new voice is AWFUL. Like, not even P4A quality. They also throw the new NPC at you immediately, but nothing really important.
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316 damage at 40 strength, Cid. Fear.
317 at 41 strength!!
It does look like it deals more damage than a claw +15 with 40 dex. That's just how great a S is compared to an A. But its range is lower, its weight is way higher and there's no bleed. So yeah, probably not worth it. It is at least way better than a lightning claw (180 physical + 180 lightning damage)
The R2 might have the longest charge time of any weapon? It is awesome when you actually manage to pull it off, and can be used to instant kill just about anything right after a backstab.
Sif was plenty difficult without a decent shield. It was all invincibility frames abuse during ninja backflips.
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It is like VS in the same was X-Com is like Fire Emblem. (Two of us can play that game dear Fenrir <3).
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Growlanser: The Wayfarer of Time
Ocelot, you did it again! It's a thin line between "bold plot twist" and "lazy writing," and you are not really reassuring me you're on the right side of the divide, Mr. Script Writer.
Okay. So yet again, someone who was dead, d-e-a-d dead, in a setting that as best I can tell has zero casual magical resurrection and people who die stay dead, has shown up to briefly chat then run off without being particularly challenged on this fact. In my last post, the breast-groping, while pathetic, wasn't entirely horrible in that sure, part of the appeal of this type of character is the ability to have them do/say crazy shit just to see what happens, and more stupid options aren't a huge problem. The other complaint was that there wasn't really an option to have Our Hero respond with something approaching a proper response to our first zombie - insane happiness at a miracle, madness, or paranoia.
This time around, Miss Zombie shows up to chat, the party member who buried her seems to be blase about this and doesn't notice anything particularly wrong with this, she immediately runs off, and then the Growlanser stand-in-for-the-main fairy deadpan notes something along the lines of "Weird, according to master's memory, she's dead." This isn't some kind of interesting clue, like "huh Mary's wearing a ring with the same insignia as Florian, I wonder if there's some connection." This is severe reality-shattering impossibility, appropriate for sanity checks & Cloud style head-grabbing. Something is deeply WRONG for this to happen, there's clashing realities or memory modification or madness or (judging from the title) time travel or something. Even if Our Hero is happy to be wrong, his sanity should be ticking away! I can maybe explain his own silence via "Okay I can't let everyone else think I'm crazy, time to shut up and figure out what the hell later" but that isn't really sold as what's going on. Failing that, even if the plot is kept exactly the same, let me friggin' demand an explanation for WTF, or be astonished and happy at her survival, or something! What! The! Hell!
Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone
Sure I'll give anime Zelda II a shot. But wow, these characters are young. Similar to DQV Act I, this is going to feel like child abuse. Do not let your kids go to school have to fight deadly snakes & slimes & stuff! Yeesh.
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I raised awareness for X-Com and all I got from Gref was trolling?? I'm leaving the DL again.
Vagrant Story does actually have that dungeon dwelling adventure quality (with an emphasis to atmosphere) that you can also see in Dark Souls, that does make them very close in feel to me.
This might be why I've really been disappointed by VS recently. VS can't really hold in this regard to similar atmopsheric games; the enemies are never threatening, and the serious stone is in stark constrast with the buttpants, crazy hair, antagonist bishonen and block puzzles everywhere. Rosencrantz is talking. All I can notice is his gross pixel on his lip.
(Meanwhile the mechanics haven't gotten any better, especially since by now everybody rightfully hates QTEs and confusing crafting systems)
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Yeah that is really what I was thinking, except all the stuff you really seem to like do very little for me (Don't like DMC or the like in the first place, that + more punishing is not a thing that brings me joy).
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I also played the DmC demo. Combat feels like a solid step down from the heights of DMC/3/4 (obviously 2 is not a "height") but it's not bad by any stretch. doesn't have the same feel, not as technical, but still plays well and has the potential for fun positioning shenanigans if they choose to go down that path - you have a variant on the Devil Bringer in Dante's chain weapon, but you can use it to pull yourself to enemies or enemies to you by choice, which flows into being able to isolate enemies or escape from combat as a core mechanic. Potential downfall: there doesn't seem to be a way to lock on to a particular enemy. This isn't a problem in standard combat thus far, because the camera is reasonably friendly, but I want to be sure which enemy I'm pulling in.
What's really surprising is that the style is actually an asset. Dante's design is still not good, but the setting is a city that is trying to murder you down to the last cobblestone, and it works. The jerky motion, the way the floor pulls out from under you, the walls writing "CRUSH HIM" on themselves - it's effective in a totally different way from Dante eating pizza while murdering demons with billiard balls. I may actually buy this.
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Devil Survivor 2- Niu is the Brightest Star in the Sky.
Why are you comparing me with Polaris? I certainly don't look like "-.-"
Further more, why are you comparing this with Eva?
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It was my way of saying I got the Kingmaker Ending. Al Saiduq is such a you character.
And I'm comparing it to eva because the Septiontrones art and gimmicks remind me of Eva's Angels (for obvious reasons in the case of art).
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Polaris isn't the brightest star in the night sky (or even close); that's Sirius.
Now back to regularly-scheduled gaming-related nerddom.
Kid Icarus: Uprising - So I beat the game. That was weirdly, weirdly short... something like three and a half hours? Short enough to piss often even me who often extolls the virtues of short games. So I beat the final stage and the boss rush and the three-stage final boss and got my victory credits. At which point Tim Curry appeared and literally clawed them away. Excellent.
This game's pretty fun. Kinda half Star Fox, half Devil May Cry, weirdly does a decent job at both though I'm not sure what I think of the stylus part of the control scheme. Too easy at base but you can adjust difficulty to make up for this (though if you die the game lowers it a bit each time unless you restart the stage, which... eh, works. Kinda God Hand-ish.) The constant banter is pretty hilarious stuff on the whole, fourth-wall breaking everywhere and all the characters are pretty fun, even the bit villains.
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Elf, we are talking about Devil Survivor wise.
It was my way of saying I got the Kingmaker Ending. Al Saiduq is such a you character.
And I'm comparing it to eva because the Septiontrones art and gimmicks remind me of Eva's Angels (for obvious reasons in the case of art).
Oh, I see. But how misleading, Alcor is pretty dim you know.
But speaking in comparison of Eva, Al is really how Kaworu should be written. Appealing to people like without going over the top and actually makes enough sense while doing so.
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I figure the heavenly throne imparts shininess.
But yeah, I had honestly planned to go for the Restorer route but seeing the AO scenes made me think "nah, I like this guy". While he's clearly not human, it's also pretty clear that he's sincere in what he says and he tries to reign in some of the mistakes he makes in terms of unnerving people. And honestly in the context of how that universe works it really feels like the best ending, albeit I get why it's not in game mechanics terms.
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Kid Icarus: Uprising - So I beat the game. That was weirdly, weirdly short... something like three and a half hours? Short enough to piss often even me who often extolls the virtues of short games. So I beat the final stage and the boss rush and the three-stage final boss and got my victory credits. At which point Tim Curry appeared and literally clawed them away. Excellent.
I love that little troll move the game pulls. "Yes, you beat this short game...WAIT NO YOU DIDN'T HERE'S SOMEONE ELSE!" And the neat thing is the fake final stage actually does have a nice lead-in to said character introduction with Pit questioning Medusa and her response being suspicious.
Anyway...
FF4 Interlude: Short and brainless. THat's fine for gameplay though would have preferred some originality on enemy design rather than just recycle Mom Bomb but change it's name and palette, literally refighting Demon's Gate, a bunch of improved versions of generic randoms, and...ok, the Final Boss was kind of neat, at least first fight; 2nd fight was too basic outside of the opening scare attack.
Plotwise...ok, I know this is meant as a lead-in to FF4TAY, but this is a huge case of "nothing happened." It's just random monsters appearing, beating them up, then Tower of Bab-il looks weird, so investigate it! Answer can be summed up as "We don't know!" which if anything, implies the crew is a bunch of morons because sounds like they completely forget all this stuff happens for 17 years, then act surprised that another EVIL THREAT has arrived.
...then again, Cecil shows off more of his abusive husband ways to Rosa here.
Cecil: Ok, I'm going with Cid to the Underworld to investigate the Sealed Cave!"
Rosa: Count me in! Until death do us part and all that good stuff.
Cecil: No, Rosa! It's too dangerous even though you've dealt with far worse! By the way, I'm taking the 5 year old magic twins with me too.
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I figure the heavenly throne imparts shininess.
But yeah, I had honestly planned to go for the Restorer route but seeing the AO scenes made me think "nah, I like this guy". While he's clearly not human, it's also pretty clear that he's sincere in what he says and he tries to reign in some of the mistakes he makes in terms of unnerving people. And honestly in the context of how that universe works it really feels like the best ending, albeit I get why it's not in game mechanics terms.
I picked ronaldo's route because I'm very lazy with social links in these games, so I wouldn't get to recruit very many people after the split up, and I wanted ronaldo's crew the most.
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We must have very different playstyles, Otome's good but Joe and Airi were some of the worst performers I thought. Although I never paid much attention to maybe Ronaldo himself is good.
Granted, without SOCIAL LINK GO you very likely would have only gotten Daichi/Hinako/Jungo on that path, which is crummy since Daichi and Hinako want the exact same setup, while the other team involves Keita who can go fuck himself >.>
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Dark Souls, the many deaths of Indiana Jones edition: Lost Izalith -> Great Hollow -> Ariamis -> time travel. No deaths in Ariamis somehow! One of the small saving graces of the whip: it can be surprisingly good at staggering some enemies. I was able to stunlock harpies to death. I left the dragon zombie alone completely because I have no idea how you're supposed to fight those things in melee. Just grabbed his loot and ran. Also did not fight the boss because, well, I never do, and Indy does not hit girls (unless they vomit lava at him, or if there's a bar fight going on and look things got a little hectic okay?) Also, continuing to pump VIT/END to 40 because what the hell, game's still throwing souls at me, might as well use them. Deathcount!
Lead farming failure deaths: 1. Tried to aggro one darkwraith from the ghost house, got both. Flanking ensued, followed shortly by death. Titanite chunks are the only thing I've done any grinding for on this run (wanted +9 armor).
Fuck Bed of Chaos deaths: 2. Still my least favorite fight in the game.
That was 90% gravity deaths (Great Hollow): 1. Surprised there was only one, since this is the only time I've bothered trying to loot that place since I first played the game.
Forgot to switch rings before fighting Sanctuary Guardian deaths: 1. Then I beat him without needing to heal. Did not bother getting his tail. I would need to put levels into STR to use it and more importantly it's just not Indy style. (I am also not using the notched whip. Because it's even weaker than the standard whip, bleed is kind of useless on a slow weapon, not much left in the game is weak to it, not Indy style, etc.)
Artorias is a bastard deaths: 6. Buffed Artorias is the worst thing. I couldn't reliably interrupt the casting animation unless I was right on top of him when it started (needed three hits, whip attacks have long wind-up, and even when it worked I had a fraction of a second to spare). Just ugh.
Honestly not that worried about Manus. Find it pretty easy to dodge all his attacks by this point. If I soloed him on NG+ with a 16 VIT character then dammit, Indy can take him on NG. The #1 thing left in the game that does terrify me? Dog skeletons. I have no clue how to deal with this with neither a shield nor OHKO damage. So Tomb of the Giants is basically the last thing I'm doing.
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The enemies are never threatening
I would say thankfully! I hated the battle system but loved everything else. Threatening enemies would have been a horror for me playing VS.
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I figure the heavenly throne imparts shininess.
But yeah, I had honestly planned to go for the Restorer route but seeing the AO scenes made me think "nah, I like this guy". While he's clearly not human, it's also pretty clear that he's sincere in what he says and he tries to reign in some of the mistakes he makes in terms of unnerving people. And honestly in the context of how that universe works it really feels like the best ending, albeit I get why it's not in game mechanics terms.
The restorer route felt too much like SMT3's normal end that I really can't deem it worthy. You must be really really dense to tolerate a YHWH equivalent hanging above your head.
On the other hand, Al's ending happen to caught me in surprise, in a good way. Like.... what is going on here? SMT for the first time ever is giving us a deity that is not an ass??
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Cid: I beat them with the dragon bone fist by abusing nvincibility frame? Equip the DWGR (optional), roll towards the dog, attack, roll backwards. Couldn't see any other real way with fists only, except for mashing R1 and praying. (maybe good enough if you have 20 estus flasks)
I only have the DLC + Final boss left. The gravelord was interesting because the dragon bone fist's range is so low that you can't hit him at point blank range from the back, you need to face him. In fact, many times a combo only hits the enemy half the time because of the terrible range. Fist weapons!
But really, the game has been way easier now that
1) I don't have to put all points into strength and dex and can spend all of it in vit and end
2) I have an estus flask +6 and 20 flasks anytime. Sorry, nice spider lady and Anastacia, you are way more useful to me as delicious estus souls.
Pokemon White 2: Playing this daily to get more Join Avenue visitors. Not progressing through the game. Help.
Dhyer: Oh yes. But battles could have probably been good with a better system, and the game could have handled a higher difficulty as a result.
For example: L1 and R1 now switch equipped weapons (you can have 5 weapons equipped) while L2 and R2 control the camera. Weapon forging is friendlier and makes it easier to manipulate weapon affinities, but your resources aren't infinite; you kind of have to choose how many weapons you want to use (1 doesn't really cut it anymore) and which emphasis you want to put on each. Etc etc
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Pokemon White 2: Playing this daily to get more Join Avenue visitors. Not progressing through the game. Help.
Wait you mean there's more to the game besides Join Avenue? I did not know this.
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Honestly not that worried about Manus. Find it pretty easy to dodge all his attacks by this point. If I soloed him on NG+ with a 16 VIT character then dammit, Indy can take him on NG. The #1 thing left in the game that does terrify me? Dog skeletons. I have no clue how to deal with this with neither a shield nor OHKO damage. So Tomb of the Giants is basically the last thing I'm doing.
RUN. I'm not kidding, with some fancy footwork you can skip them all.
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Been wanting to do a challenge before playing Black 2, and still missing a few Pokemon for it. Asked around on Facebook with no result, so... could a few people fill in the last gaps in this team?
Current team is:
Grimer - Achoo!
- No Poison moves other than Sludge
- No Poison moves if evolved
- Max of one TM
Sandile - (Not sure on nickname yet)
- Only allowed to use Dark moves
- Can evolve once when all 4 moves are Dark
- Can evolve once after soloing a Gym
Snivy - Sir Collar
- Must switch in against every Fire-type
- Can evolve after defeating a Gym Leader Pokemon that Snivy is weak to (Must complete twice)
Looking to have stuff with evolution conditions, ideally, and a couple of different types. Also avoiding trading for stuff.
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Pokemon White 2: Playing this daily to get more Join Avenue visitors. Not progressing through the game. Help.
Go make a Pokemon Global Link account if you haven't, sync it with your cartridge, then login at Pokemon.com and change your Dream World settings to allow everyone to see you. Every day you'll get random visitors to your Dream World home looking for berries to water, and when you wake your Pokemon back up via Game Sync all of them will arrive at Join Avenue.
Come to think of it, this might not be the sort of help you were looking for... <_<
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Fire Emblem: New Mystery
- Started this. Hard mode, which seemed like a mistake at first, with the prologue chapters actually being tough, but the actual story chapters have been... Much easier, if bigger, so now I'm glad. Fighter MU. So far so good, at chapter 5. Hardest level so far was probably prologue... 6. Against Ogma. There was just no room to run - I had to restart a lot.
Also been playing some Pokemon. Thinking of training a couple pokes in case they ever release a Wii U game for random battles. (I know that the DS games have them, but I really enjoyed Battle Revolutions randoms for some reason)
Oh, here's a challenge for you if you wanted one.
Tynamo
- If Tynamo's health is in the red, he must choose to switch out (If possible)
- Must always have at least one physical move, one special move, and one "other' move. The last can be anything. (When possible)
- Can evolve after eating 5 different berry types in battle. Can evolve again after eating 9 different berry types in battle. (Types of berries - Cheri, Chesto, Pecha, Rawst, Aspear, Leppa, Oran, Persim, Lum, Sitrus
.)
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Hinode, you monster.
I've actually tried connecting to the internet but I can't with my connection. That might not be a bad thing, in retrospect.
What I don't understand is that I've 4 visitors / day while my girlfriend only has 3. I think the only thing I did way more than her is Pokewood. Anybody knows if this is related?
I'm going to try a blind FE12 no reset normal playthrough. We'll see how it goes. Jeigans/Oswins welcome. Most myrmidons/Ninos out.
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P4: THE GOLDEN- Beat Yukiko's Castle. A few gameplay changes. You now restart from the start of the floor if you die, and once you find the stairs, you can go off and explore the rest of the floor and get back to them by hitting Square. So some good streamlining there, unfortunately to balance they took out the save point at the top of the dungeon. Not too bad, since you just restart there if you die, but the loss of a savepoint is the loss of a savepoint for convenience, and you actually need to use a Goho-M if you want to return to the entrance. You also fight Chie on the second instead of the third floor. Avenger Knight the same.
Beat Lacy Unmentionables with Archangel and Double Fangs/Media. She's weak to ice now, didn't summon Prince until halfway. Prince is more durable, but ran away when his health was around half. Used Burn to Ashes earlier but not as much.
Story hasn't changed. Started the Aeon link, which... kinda reminds me of Elizabeth.
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Dark Souls, Dr. Jones chooses poorly edition: Done. No deaths for most of the remaining bosses (one notable exception). Manus is very easy to dodge by this point, though I still would've died from full combo/head-on spell impact if not for HP bloat (I kind of feel like I cheesed things out by pumping vitality to 40, but it's not like I was ever grinding for souls or anything. Didn't even use all of what the game gave me). Four Kings were honestly pretty laughable--stand right up against one and they only ever hit you with the handle of their sword. One estus flask for each of them, mash attack for win. Gwyn, uh...that was another story. Deathcount!
Miscellaneous looting deaths: 6. Got kind of careless and impatient while cleaning out some areas I'd just run through before.
Black knight death does not bode well for Gwyn deaths: 1.
Okay, I'll just run past them deaths: 1. Rolled off the bridge. (It worked every other time, though.)
Gwyn can't be that hard, can he? deaths: 9. The frustrating part was I'd almost nailed it on the first try. Needed like two more hits, then fucked up and blundered into a full combo. Then RAGE kicked in and almost every other attempt I died after landing one attack. Ultimately had to work in rolling light attacks, otherwise was just not killing him fast enough from just waiting for him to fail grab attempts so I could do leaping attacks. The worst part of this was the charging thrust attacks--everything else I could dodge just rolling backwards, but that would still hit me unless I rolled to the side and they're just too fast for me to react properly. Always threw me off.
Total deathcount: 56.
Duration of Dr. Jones' stay in Lordran: 21 hours, 21 minutes.
Death occurred on average every: 23 minutes.
Final level: 88.
Number one thing this run made apparent: From Software really did want absolutely everything to be evadable, assuming your timing is good enough. It's just, you know, penalty for failure is pretty high when you fuck it up. Also, the whip's two-handed heavy attack is just the worst thing. You might as well be walking around with a Kick Me sign taped to your face if you ever try to use it. Flubbing the input for a leaping attack and standing there like a goon mid-animation was one of the more frequent causes of injury and death.
So yeah, I've cleared Dark Souls without shields/magic/summons, using just leather armor and the whip. I think the show's over here, save maybe for co-op when my brother happens to be on. I should probably take the radical step of playing something new now--wait no I've got Toejam & Earl 1&2 on my PS3 right now.
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Grats.
I now only have the dragon, Manus and the lord of cinder left, but I'm not feeling it.
FE 12 No resets, Hard Mode:
I wanted to play this on Normal mode but it was all:
Welcome to baby's first Fire Emblem!
And I wanted to notice that characters could actually die and stuff. Also:
Hard Mode? More like lolmode. Except the prologue.
And I was CRUSHING the prologue.
The biggest problem by far is that on hard mode, reinforcements act on the same turn as they appear. (Terrible idea, by the way) I'm just really going to lose this in the worst possible way.
Anyway the prologue went nicely enough until the last two chapters where all hell broke lose and I lost 5 units. I'm going to get them back eventually, but I really don't like this foreshadowing, guys.
Yattaf, the female main character, is a cavalier with long brown hair and an eyepatch, also a complete stat monster. I'm counting on her to eventually solo the entire damn game while Marth stays in the kitchen.
I played the BS chapters ASAP and got totally spoiled about the second plot twist in the entire Fire Emblem series. (First one was what happens during the middle of FE4) It was executed poorly anyway. Just slit Marth's throat instead of talking, bad guy. I guarantee it's going to be more efficient.
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Walking Dead Episode 5- Holy living fuck. I can't believe I'm going to say this but...
that QTE was fucking brilliant.
There are a few points throughout the game where a QTE is "unwinnable," and no matter how fast you hit the button you won't succeed. As Lee gets weaker they become more common. I strangled The Stranger to death with my one remaining hand. The marker stayed a fraction of an inch from the end no matter how hard I tried to move it, while I have this guy pinned down and choke the life out of him and he struggles to get away. The cursor goes dim like the event is almost done, and I keep hammering on Q because I am so incredibly angry at this man that I just want to watch him gasping for air for another moment. The indicator is gone, but I'm still hitting the button because I hate this asshole. Other players, who let go, said the guy manages to come back when you let up and Clementine has to kill him to save you. I did not. Because I was so angry at him that hitting that button became a simulation of the kind of single-minded fury required to choke another person to death.
It is the best use of that mechanic that has ever been attempted, and it does it without calling any attention to it. Most players don't even realize there ARE multiple outcomes to that scene right away, because the game keeps the instructions to a minimum. Genius stuff.
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Kid Icarus Uprising: Still having a blast with this. I kinda get the feeling the combat's depth is a bit shallow compared to DMC but it's still a lot of fun. Replays will have to be the judge there... and to the game's credit, I'm pretty sure those will be coming at some point, so that's a plus! The game's sense of humour and style is just wonderful. Man there must be other action games that put the dialog mid-battle like this but I haven't seen it (probably only works if a game really doesn't it take itself seriously). Even if almost dying because I'm distracted by near-laughter is something I'm not sure how I feel about. I remain pretty amused at how effective most of the characters are, the latest one being Troy Baker as a superhero sun god gone evil. I guess Dark Pit's an exception but the main characters call him Pittoo so he ends up making me smile anyway.
Mario Kart 7 - I hate blue shells so damn much. They really put a damper on the fun of higher-end multiplayer. But otherwise still enjoying this of course.
Lost Odyssey - I beat disc 2. Recently this game has struck another one of my pet peeves: long streteches of dungeon with no save point. In two cases I went over an hour between them. Why does this game think this is acceptable? Argh. Anyway Tolten just saw Gongora laughing maniacally so he may be finally about to figure out that Gongora's not the nicest guy in the world. Mmm... maybe the heroes should prepare a neon sign proclaiming this just to be safe, though.
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Disgaea Infinite: It's a Visual Novel! Gameplay is nicely streamlined so that you can play through the scenarios multiple times quickly to figure out the solution, but won't auto-skip any dialog you haven't read yet. Very nice.
The storyline is cute, light-hearted, and generally makes me chuckle. The main trio still plays off eachother well, and Gordon and Jennifer are in fine form. Mao and Beryl also show up. The story fills in a lot of holes for what happens between Disgaea 1 and the sequels. Like "How Flonne became angel again." Pretty cool.
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Ys Origin - Just beat Jenocres after remembering I don't need to charge in order to pew pew losers with shiny eyes. Right now, I need to kill a bunch of random skeletons in Detonation Mode that take 6 damage from my shots, 6HKO me, swarm me in a pack of five and are pretty much faster than I am. Uh yeah I think I want to be a couple levels higher than this.
EDIT: Also, for all that the plot writing is a synchronized coreography of egregious failures, Hugo commands a few oddly entertaining lines. I'm fine with having my main character be an unrepenting asshole when everybody rags on him for being a dick (except Miuscha, but Miuscha is Rinoa-level useless and deserves all contemption she gets). That and he does have a point when he calls the goddesses idiots in -their faces- for playing into the retarded mystarious thing I need to doz tropes. His self-awareness over the whole thing borders on fourth-wall-breaking.
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Fire Emblem 12 No resets Hard Mode:
Freaking Palla died in Chapter 3.
And then Yubello, Ogma, Sirius, Julian all died in Chapter 4.
....
....
I think that's it? Good run! Normal mode maybe wasn't so bad!
Dark Souls: Finished the fist weapons only challenge.
I still have a lot of trouble avoiding Manus' uber combo, he's honestly the most difficult boss in the game for me as of right now.
The final boss was impossible to beat for me because I couldn't parry his hits. Remember, you need to block the first hit then parry the second to have an easy chance of parrying. Well, blocking one hit with the Dark hand flinches the character who's using it, so that plan goes right out of the window!
I instead went in wearing Full Havel. Turns out it's a fairly neat and really easy way to finish the game. I just withstood the first hit and parried the second, but I could have just mashed X and square in front of him with the same result . Poise rocks.
I should have probably gone with 40 dex and claws+15 , but the dragon bone fist w/41 strength was fun. I never went back to standard cestus after getting the claws, and the Dark hand is 100% worthless, even considering no other shield available.
SD Detective Blader: Great Nes graphics.
I guess this was a budget title, so the areas are small and to compensate, the game has the worst encounter rate this side of Black Sigil. Even Pokemon caves can't compare. Fortunately battles are quick (unlike Black Sigil) because they're all 1 on 1.
I am a normal detective dude but can transform into a super detective dude. As far as I know, this does nothing.
Could this be the NES L.A. Noire?? No. This is perhaps the least detective-ish game. Right in the intro you know that X is a badguy, probably the final boss, and that you need to kill him. Almost no detective work involved.
I just bought two bazookas and a sword for my single detective dude, who uses violence against everything.
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<3 <3 <3 Hugo xD xD xD
It's amazing what having a character who calls everyone else on their bullshit (and sprinkles in a fair amount of his own bullshit) can do for a game. Ys Origin is mostly a disaster in its "plot," but Hugo recognizing this at times really does make it fun anyway. (WTF, Goddesses. You're allegedly uber-powerful, but your constant reduction to damsels in distress implies you aren't actually, so don't go rogue in a stupid fashion.)
Jenocrates was a pretty cool fight. One of the easiest bosses in the game (especially as Hugo who just lollercoasters), but still recognizably a version of the fairly bland Ys I boss except not bland anymore.
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Sonic Generations 3DS- If this game is supposed to be better than its elder brother, I have even less faith in the sonic fandom than previous. I'm honestly tempted to say this game outright sucks, although that's probably unfair. No effort in anything (the first three Classic stages are just straight rips of genesis levels. Oh, but SHINY.), the 'Rival' battles are actually crummy races, only the first boss is really very interesting, it's two full zones shorter than the console version. They did quite wisely leave Modern mechanics almost entirely alone, albeit all stages are 2D, but otherwise it means those stages remind me of a better game in a good way at least. Oh, and the special stage shamelessly rips Sonic 2's (again) but actually turns it into something that makes sense. And also is how I play the game normally.
Yeah. I mean, Sonic Colors DS fell apart in the end but to that point it was a pretty decent game. This game wasn't even finished. Maybe 5/10? Maybe 4. C'mon sonic fanbase, you're better than praising this over the best sonic game ever made.*
*Sonic Fanbase not actually better than anything. Literally the worst.
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Shame too because if Sega allowed Generations 3DS to be what it was initially suppose to be, it sounds like it would have been great. Seems like it wasn't Dimps being incompetent and more everything surrounding the development that made the game the way it was. Ah well, good to know I made the right call in talking Mandy out of wanting that game!
RE6: Ada's Campaign beaten.
Ada's campaign is probably the best of the bunch. Barring some nuisance Instant Death moments (CHAIN SAW GUY!!!), and one moment in the first chapter, involving a rush of enemies that feels like it would have been fair if you had a typical partner System (Ada being solo means if she's put into "Near Dead" mode, chances are she's dead, since no one can resuscitate her), though the latter sounds like a patch is going to fix that, it seems like it hit on what RE6 should have been focusing on, more so than Leon's, and the brevity of the campaign helped stop chapters from feeling like they were overstaying their welcome.
Add in both a COMPETENT AND INTELLIGENT Protagonist (...yes, in an RE game) with a fun personality, and a story that actually does fill in the holes of everything else, and yeah. While I understand why this has to be unlocked given it's filled with spoilers all over the place for the other 3 campaigns...still hurts that you need to play all 3 Campaigns to get this because Chris' Campaign just sucks for the most part. The story is fun because it's mostly Ada just sort of giving the finger to every bad guy she comes across, and proving she's better than them, no matter how convoluted their plan is. Also first game where Ada is unquestionably a good guy (her philosophy is basically "Ok, Female Villain, you're trying to destroy the world, Male Villain...you're an asshole and a horrible human being, both of you need to die...like NOW"), as opposed to the "Helping Leon despite being Wesker employed for EVIL SPY WORK" putting her into that "Good...guy...?" territory.
Also, Ada pilots a Helicopter, uses it to blow stuff up AND THE HELICOPTER DOESN'T EXPLODE!!! Yes, that's right; Ada Wong has completely giving the finger to the rules of Resident Evil Helicopters. I think she just sort of WON THE ENTIRE SERIES right there.
Though yes, a patch apparently is coming out next month that will let Ada's campaign be available from the outset, and give her a partner (for multiplayer only?) that should help things, also address a few minor issues here and there.
Having played all the campaigns, I can safely say RE6 was like 6 months shy of being a great game. It has everything needed to be really good. Gameplay mechanics are fine, inventory isn't crippling the way RE5 was, controls aren't bad, story is...kind of ridiculous but in more of an "EMBRACE THE EPIC!" kind of way instead of being purposely convoluted for the sake of trying to be deeper than it is, and has at least some sense of camp in it (Leon has one liners!) The issue is...there's a lot of things that feel like they needed playtesting to hammer out details, better camera for superior draw distance stuff like that. There's a lot of little things that hold this game back, and just about all of them seem like they could have been easily addressed if the game had a longer development time.
And yes, I feel I can safely say development time of this game wasn't enough. RE5 came out in early 2009, and they were still working on things for the game illustrated by how DLC came out (not saying RE5 was unfinished, just DLC implies they weren't working on RE6), then combine with how there were 3 unique Resident Evil Games released between the two (Revelations, Mercenaries, and Operation Raccoon City), and at least one of them shows heavy implications of "Rushed, unplaytested, buggy game", and...yeah, I could go on, but everything about the game feels like "Fuck it, we need to get a big, instant success game out ASAP!" and instead of putting QA time into it, they just pushed it out. The fact that they pushed the release date from November to October further illustrates this.
So what am I saying? I guess that I would not be shocked if an RE6: Director's Cut is released or something, which ends up being "What RE6 was meant to be" and bangs out a lot of the issues. The game was too ambitious for the development time put into it.
Game isn't bad, mind you, but it really should have been a lot better. I feel like it contrast DmC a lot where the game definitely had the development time it needed. Allegedly? That game was finished months ago, and it could have been released a lot earlier, but rather than push release date up, they spent all the extra time fine tuning details...I feel like RE6 was the complete opposite in that regard.
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I was expecting someone to have commented about the Wii U by now, but I guess not.
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I'm not really interested until Rayman Legends comes out.
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DL doesn't early adopt consoles at a high rate in general.
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Given that you can usually get them at like 75% of the price before there are actually two games worth playing for them (as well as after they work out any hardware kinks, which seems increasingly important these days), I've never really understood why people would get consoles on launch.
Well unless it's secretly for a cheap Blu-Ray player or whatever.
Lost Odyssey - Stuff started happening. Hooray. Tolten may have finally figured out that his boss loyal adviser isn't the world's nicest human being. Not certain though. Also kids can steal trains out of stations with no effort, and I'm still waiting for Gongora's amazing outfit change.
Kid Icarus: Uprising - Silent villains are extra lame in a game with KIU's writing. 21 chapters beaten, fun fun~
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KIU - Bosses shouldn't be able to get up and attack after the "boss defeated!" animation, it's not fair! Also I played Hades' Inside Story, Pit went insane and started having conversations between himself and his own impersonations of various goddesses, and then I played Bomberman with the king of the underworld.
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Torchlight II: Made a...er...Outlander, I think they're called? Gunner type. I have a skill that lets me rapid-fire a flaming shotgun that was made for the explicit purpose of killing evil, axe-wielding bears. Clearly a 10/10 game.
Also one with a very fast leveling curve. 90 minutes in and I'm at level 14.
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Shale gets Torchlight 2 and instantly makes the build that I saw and have played 30 plus hours in. It is a good enough build. Give your pet some summoning skills to have some meat shields and you are good. My only regret very late game was investing in the dodge skill when I could have maxed elemental damage boosting and Venemous Hail. (Incidentally you are right Jim that thing hit crazy hard. It was worth using at 1 point with only 1 point in the poison damage buff).
Rember Strength lets you shoot harder. Also only downside I am noticing is that late game it is very frail and I get one shot a lot on the stretch to 100.
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Yeah, I've also tossed a point into the skill that randomly raises minions from the monsters you kill. I can definitely see what you mean about frailty - between STR for damage, DEX to meet weapon reqs and Focus for poison, HP is definitely getting the short end of the stick here.
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Some of it is other classes getting more survivability skills (and more passive ones). Younger bro played Engineer for example and they can spend charge on a barrier that pretty much doubled his already decent HP. Watched him walk in to boss fights and face tank hits to the barrier and not even need to recast it...
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minion raising is neat, but unfortunately you need to invest a lot of points in it to make it as effective as it is awesome. By the way, if you like spamming a combat skill like Rapid Fire, don't put too too many levels into it, because the casting cost starts to get unmanageable (p.s. skills or armor that has mana regen is a good idea if you can swing it). Also, just to make things clear since it's a little opaque, poison burst (which is awesome, by the way, but maybe not as necessary with shotguns as it is with pistols) and raise shadowling (I think) only work with weapon skills, so they won't proc off glaive toss, for example.
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Damn you Elfboy, you made me do this smoehow!
KIU: Ok, so that "Beat Chapter 23 on 5.0 Intensity with a club" shenanigans? It's done! Now I can rid myself of that Capricorn Club that is really good and fuse it into something I am much more comfortable with!
Also blew up 2 Hewdraw Heads in one attack, finally getting that achievement. Not sure how you're suppose to do that WITHOUT going to 0.0 intensity.
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I was expecting someone to have commented about the Wii U by now, but I guess not.
No more Nintendo consoles for me. If third-party developers aren't going to make (decent amounts of) good software for it, it doesn't matter how good the hardware is.
Still in love with Nintendo portable systems though!
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Devil Survivor- Fin. Somehow I got to the end of Day 6 and had only Amane and Yuzu paths open to me. If you know me you know which of those I found more appealing.
So I played about 2/3rds of this game near release, making it... god, almost three years ago. Going back to it after the sequel made it feel... primitive. Slow and irritating to run maps on, frustrating to set up characters in, demon selection seems prohibitively low and you're continually starved for cash; even buying one up to date demon will take two free battles, let alone if you're actually doing good fusions. And skill cracking is just terrible without Joint Crack.
It's too bad really. On paper it's the better game I think, they were very dedicated to the overall theme and the backstory is a bit less stock SMT. but the core mechanical issues are pretty in your face. 6/10.
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The launch line-up for the WiiU is horrible, for all that the console is amazing. Played it at a convention about a month ago and it was damn fun, the controller is awesome, and NintendoLand is great. Support actually looks solid for it, but still not enough (especially on launch) for me to even consider a standard price-tag, let alone the ridiculous launch one.
Final Fantasy XII: Finally did the final dungeon for completionist's sake. Blitzed through it because I'd been doing sidequests so was around Lv 95. >.>;
Pokemon Black 2: Starting this (finally!) because I have a Scramble Challenge team. Snivy is going to be so hideously overlevelled before it evolves, but that's cool because it'll still be MVP if the challenges are anything to go by.
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The launch line-up for the WiiU is horrible,
Actually, I'd argue the Launch Line Up for Wii U is better than most Launches. It has actual things I might almost care about; true, many are "superior versions of games on other consoles" like NG3:Razor's Edge, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2, but that's still way better than what the 3DS had (whose best launch game was...what? SSF4 3D? Yeah...); I mean, at least Wii U got another Mario game out of the deal, one that adds more than what NSMB2 added (That 5th player adds so much "Lost Friendship" potential)
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Nintendo definitely learned from the 3DS launch; note the Wii U launching with a full fledged Mario game, plus its tech demo titles in addition to the "see we have third party support" titles. The DL crowd just has narrow interests in game genres and a high threshold for killer apps. I don't think anyone will buy a system for less than four or five games nowadays in this crowd.
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Or an SRW.
The only decent third-party exclusive I'm aware of for the U is Bayonetta 2, which is a big deal to me but I don't know how many other people.
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There's probably a couple others, but that's the only one of significance I can think of. But the biggest problem a lot of gamers had with the wii is it missed out on all the multi-platform titles, so the Wii U is making a big show out of the gate of getting those games on board.
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I am not buying one after how badly Nintendo dropped the ball on the Wii and mine I have actually forgot where it is. I think it is gathering dust in a bag somewhere at home. Maybe.
Edit - This is speaking as the DLer that bought a 3DS and a Vita at the con this year, has 2 X-Boxes around the house and access to a PS3 and games primarilly on PC. Not to mention bought an iPad just a couple of weeks ago to try games on it.
I invest heavilly in gaming and not going to touch the Wii U until Nintendo show they are worth giving more of a shit about than the Gizmondo was.
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I am pretty sure the Wii U is not a front for the mafia.
Maybe 60%.
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If they maintain the general release practices they had on the Wii, they might never put another games on the system that I'll pick it up, no.
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Man, the Wii's still the best Nintendo home console released in the past two decades by most metrics, which... yeah I dunno if I like what that says either.
To some extent I feel it's probably inevitable-ish that I'll get a Wii U eventually - Nintendo just has way too many quality first-party titles that the only way I'd skip out on one of their systems is if a friend picks it up and I can borrow it down the line - but I absolutely feel in no rush whatsoever, especially with Fire Emblem jumping back to portables, it appears.
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I don't really play Mario platformers, so... yeaaah. The Wii averaged about one release a year I was playing. And would probably be less than that if not for Operation Rainfall. For its faults the GameCube was clearly getting everything nintendo could give it while they seemed pretty content to let the Wii sit as a barren wasteland for its last year until fans banded together to petition them basically for more games. So yeah, nintendo has to impress me to get my money on this one.
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Hotline Miami: Sounds like shit, looks like shit, hard as fuck, brilliant.
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You don't see me praising the GameCube or N64 to high heavens either. Difference being neither of this was a market leader for install base nor did I spend more than $60 on m GameCube. I gave Nintendo a chance to perform the one time in the last decade and a half they have had a real chance to do something outside the handheld market and they who the bed like they did when they were less relevant. So yeah I am not going out of my way to jump on board when they are pulling a Sega.
The fact that the Gizmondo was a mafia front makes it instantly more interesting than many Nintendo consoles.
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*shrugs* WiiU is likely to have my next scheduled dose of Mario RPGs, Kirby, and Smash Bros? That's probably enough. Even better if Xenoblade or The Last Story/MistWalker get more releases on it.
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I'm more likely to pick it up than I am a new Xbox/PS3, given how rapidly those were eclipsed by my PC last time (and hey, if I like to use a controller with a game I can plug the thing in now). The Wii is at least not a neutered PC with a lot of the functionality locked away.
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Assassin's Creed 3 - So I started this up. It introduced me to the worst mini game in the world. 9 Men's Morris is a carefully constructed stalemate simulator. Casual attempts to learn it can instantly turn into cock blocking stalemates at the drop of a hat. Think you are starting to win? Nope. Get an opponent down to 3 pieces and you have INSTANT COCKBLOCK MODE ENGAGED.
It is like someone thought the series need Noughts and Crosses but decided that it was too decisive a game to gamble with and they needed a way to make it so you can piss away half an hour on a Noughts and Crosses variant.
Edit - Just to clarify, this means that of the two open world roaming games set in the Frontier period, this has the inferior period relevant minigame. GUN does it better with cheating poker. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED KAITLYN.
Edit 2 - It is a solved game. Solved back in the 90s. Soooooo yeah if you don't know stuff you can easily be stuck fucking around against a computer AI opponent forever. Especially since AI seems to favour play to not lose over play to win even during the opening sequence.
Just boring as fuck.
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SD Detective Blade: Bought a chainsaw from Al Capone.
He also has a beam cannon but it costs 36750 $. The chainsaw will do.
Devil Survivor 2: Just beat the terrifying Budhe.
I'm not really feeling it. The plot is a lot less engaging than Devil Survivor 1's, mostly because 2 is just telling the same story with characters not taking anything as seriously. The music's unremarkable too.
Io's breasts = -_-
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Assassin's Creed 3 - So I started this up. It introduced me to the worst mini game in the world. 9 Men's Morris is a carefully constructed stalemate simulator. Casual attempts to learn it can instantly turn into cock blocking stalemates at the drop of a hat. Think you are starting to win? Nope. Get an opponent down to 3 pieces and you have INSTANT COCKBLOCK MODE ENGAGED.
It is like someone thought the series need Noughts and Crosses but decided that it was too decisive a game to gamble with and they needed a way to make it so you can piss away half an hour on a Noughts and Crosses variant.
Edit - Just to clarify, this means that of the two open world roaming games set in the Frontier period, this has the inferior period relevant minigame. GUN does it better with cheating poker. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED KAITLYN.
Edit 2 - It is a solved game. Solved back in the 90s. Soooooo yeah if you don't know stuff you can easily be stuck fucking around against a computer AI opponent forever. Especially since AI seems to favour play to not lose over play to win even during the opening sequence.
Just boring as fuck.
And the best part is beating it at your eventual home base is required for an achievement but sometimes it bugs out and doesn't give credit! JKAIGFOISAVFIAFVSAIF
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Honestly, on the whole, i think the Wii U's gimmick is a lot stronger then the Wii's was, which gives me some hope for the system. At the very least, it has the cute distinction of being able to play games while your SO watches TV?
I have some interest in picking it up, like I said, but think I'll hold off until Rayman Legends (or something else interesting) drops.
That's kind of been the issue for me lately. A lot of stuff has had god awful launch line-ups, and increased multi-platformness is not helping if you've already invested elsewhere. I think the 3DS is finally hitting the point that there are games on it I'd actually like? Vita has some stuff, but, unfortunately, it is all stuff I can already buy on the PS3. Wii U is in a similar spot, but shows some hope with a couple of exclusives.
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Fenrir- The plot does go in a different direction once you're past the first day or so, so it feels like a bit less of a retread at least. The music and character design however only get worse and the continual tonal dissonance must be intentional because it's pretty steady throughout. I still like the second game more, but because it's more enjoyable to sit and play due to improved mechanics, I wish you could take the first game and put it over top of this one's guts.
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Lost Odyssey: Making decent progress in this, even if I keep falling asleep (quite literally) while playing the game. :( Died once to Living Ice, only reset since that worm way back on disc 1. MT OHKO if you don't watch your GC... or just buff your MDef, which I did second time and he wasn't too bad.
Kid Icarus: Uprising - I beat this! Great game overall. Managed to keep the gameplay fresh and fun throughout. It's not a perfect game... in particular, only having one button is a bit limiting for the gameplay. It somewhat manages by tying the different types of attacks to how you happen to be moving at the time, and what you're locked onto (which you choose with the stylus), but it still means the game lacks, say, a jump button, and choosing special abilities in a heated fight is a bit awkward. Enemy design is pretty good, boss design is a little hit and miss... which is to say, I've been spoiled by Devil May Cry and it's not on that tier. Quite a few bosses just feel like they could have used more damage/durability since their core design is fun. Fortunately the bosses who "should" be good generally are, with one notable exception, especially later in the game.
Controls are other possible point of contention, it is a bit difficult to find a comfortable way to hold the 3DS for the game, but I adjusted to it well enough. I tended to switch back and forth between supporting the 3DS in my right hand between my fourth and fifth fingers (same hand that holds the stylus), or resting the 3DS on my knee. The former has the advantage of allowing you to sit in any position, the latter has the advantage of letting you hold the stylus in a way that doesn't obstruct the lower screen in any way (mostly useful if you want to see silly facial expressions, the gameplay survives fine). Neither's perfect but there you go.
The way the game handles difficulty is interesting. You can basically set it wherever you want on a scale from 0 to 9 (2 is the default, 0 is piss easy, is mega-hard) but each time you die it drops by 1, or halfway to 2, whichever is less (unless you restart the whole level), capping at the default 2. Once you get a sense of your own abilities and the difficulty scale you can put the slider to a pretty good place and it's good fun. I eventually settled on starting most levels around 6, though I usually died once or twice so it would be loewr by the time I finished. In Chapter 22 it dropped all the way to 2.2 because that chapter (a) has a lot of flying, which I tend to find a bit more difficult relatively due to less genre experience, and (b) has an unusually difficult boss. The final chapter was kinda disappoiting gameplaywise; you get a new "form" essentially (which you have to learn) and the fight is pretty easy.
The writing is of course a joy. Can't say enough good things about just throwing the dialog straight into the battle sequences, definitely helps the gameflow. Wouldn't work for every story, but since most of the dialog in the game comes not from Pit (though he gets his fair share, certainly), it works. I guess if you're bad at multitasking you might want to try to avoid combat if you really want to pay attention to the dialog, but I didn't have trouble finding a happy medium personally between paying attention to gameplay and to plot. Beyond that, as I've mentioned previously, the game does a great job of making most characters memorable, even relatively minor ones. Certainly the show-stealers are Palutena (Pit's patron deity and a pile of aloof snark and trolling), Hades (Satan, if he were played by Tim Curry), Viridi (prickly nature goddess who mocks Pit at every turn), and Pyrrhon (over-the-top ham in the tradition of Flay)... and the first three are probably the most important characters (along with Pit), which is nice!
The game does try to serious plot at points and... sometimes even does a decent job of it! I was pretty impressed that in chapters 18-22, the game made me care about the loss of first Palutena, then Pit. On the other hand, I'm a bit less impressed by the game making a push lategame to make Hades into a supervillain after he'd cooperated with you against more evil opponents, while pretty much letting Viridi the mass murderer off the hook entirely. The game does some pretty fun playing around with the moral relativism of the various deities' outlooks, I thought, although it doesn't ultimately follow through on this (unless you take a very dark view of the last three chapters' plot, I suppose!).
Music's good! Plenty of nice callbacks to the NES music, which probably only I care about, but as a standalone there's a lot to like there. Boss musics are rockin', some of the stage music is really good too, and I liked how the music synced up nicely with the on-rails shooter sections. Visuals are fine, less impressive certainly, but that's just the nature of comparing handhelds to non-handhelds. The visuals are certainly fine for what they are, and the artstyle for characters is certainly sharp. I didn't use the 3D much sadly because I only like 3DS 3D when I can hold the system very steady, and the game's control scheme makes that a bit harder. It's a shame because when I did use the 3D it suits the shooter sections very well, and does actually help with one section of the final boss fight nicely.
So yeah, very pleased with this game. 9/10, obviously not perfect but it does so much right. Not sure whether I rate it above Devil May Cry or not, but probably above every other 3D action game I've played. Just does a lot of things right, and a game I highly recommend anyone whose tastes go beyond RPGs and who owns a 3DS to check out.
Game took me about 12 hours to beat, but I'm nowhere near done with it. Replaying stages on higher intensities, and doing the achievement-esque "treasure hunts" still to come.
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Fenrir- The plot does go in a different direction once you're past the first day or so, so it feels like a bit less of a retread at least. The music and character design however only get worse and the continual tonal dissonance must be intentional because it's pretty steady throughout. I still like the second game more, but because it's more enjoyable to sit and play due to improved mechanics, I wish you could take the first game and put it over top of this one's guts.
I thought music is actually the part that DS2 completely surpassed DS1.
DS1's tracks although fitting, get boring really really quick. Especially the battle theme, which is a huge minus on my part.
I had a lot less of that problem in the second game.
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Rayman Origins: Ashley and I cleared it, including the Land of the Livid Dead.
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Such a brief review leaves out the agony of doing the same 15-second portion of a level again. and again. and again.
This is definitely one of those multiplayer games that makes you hate every other human being, or at least the one holding the other controller.
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Such a brief review leaves out the agony of doing the same 15-second portion of a level again. and again. and again.
This is definitely one of those multiplayer games that makes you hate every other human being, or at least the one holding the other controller.
So, it's a perfect game for couples.
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Get Little Big Planet, far less aggravating.
Assassin's Creed 3 - So now that I am not raging at shitty minigames (there was a second one...............................................................................................) and actually playing the game I am having fun. Colonial America is unfortunately about as boring a free running setting as I expected. Brown 2 story buildings are significantly less fun than like say Venice or Rome. Still combat stuff is slick now with some nice animations (good violence). They changed the controls, don't really like them. They are easier to use, but had spent 4 games getting used to what they did have, switching it is just jarring.
Not looking forward to swapping mains to Connor when Hatham is going to inevitably die (Not spoilers, is in all the press that not first dude is main character). Hatham is decidedly different from Altair and Ezio so much that I enjoy him and he is clearly experienced and in the thick of the conspiracy from the start. Not running around in a deep cowl at this point is a nice change. Pimpsassin in tricorn hat and long jacket? Fuck yes.
Edit - Oh and Benjamin Frankling rambling off his treatise on why MILFs are sexy was blergh. Ben Frankling infinitely less awesome supporting character than Leonardo Davinci
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LBP has terrible floaty controls. It's unplayable right after Rayman Origins.
Cmdr: I think we'd agree, but since I haven't played Devil Survivor 1 in a while I don't even notice any polish differences between the game.
Niu we just have opposite tastes here. DS1's regular battle theme is so catchy it nearly made the game for me and I never got tired of it. DS1's themes are overused but great, DS2's are completely unremarkable.
Space Detective Blader: Finished. It's... a cute game. But a worse Great Greed in every way. It's a solo wacky short turn based RPG, but slower and far less stupid.
Here is the radical final boss:
(http://nsa32.casimages.com/img/2012/12/01/12120103561361529.gif)
(I know, it's unreasonable to hold a game to such high standards)
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Haytham's arc concludes with a twist that I found legitimately surprising but not contrived. It was actually pretty impressive.
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Ys Origin - Hugo mode beaten! Holy -crap- his Burst is completely broken, why yes let us make you invincible for long enough to charge half the Boost Gauge so you can cheese the rest of the recovery with Force Shield and get into the Burst invinco loop again OH AND THE SHIELD DEALS DAMAGE ISN'T THIS SWEET - jesus. Now, to Yunica mode on Hard difficulty, because I was somewhat disappointed in the final. No resets? Really?
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Rayman Origins: The journey towards a Platinum trophy continues. Ashley and I will probably kill each other before this is over.
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition: Have this, but haven't played it much. Seems to do its job, though.
Saint's Row the Third: Yeah. This is... a thing. A fun thing. But mostly a thing.
Guild Wars 2: Slowly starting to play this again.
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Torchlight 2: Act II. Rather than restrain myself from pumping Rapid Fire, I've used all my equipment sockets to pump mana regen, so now I don't have to worry about emptying my reserves by spamming the thing. Works pretty well. I'm definitely fragile, though. The only thing that even approaches a defensive skill is Vault, and that's not really a fire-and-forget. Useful when the enemies crowd so thick that you can't actually find any ground to click on, but it doesn't do much to keep my alive while I'm standing my ground and shooting stuff.
Also I finally unlocked the spell salesman. That took a while.
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Little Inferno - So this game is fantastic. Doable in a single session. Not much of a game, more an interactive story (not a VN). Uplifting story about setting things on fire.
Very easy to see it is from the same guys that made World of Goo. World of Goo was fantastic as well. You should buy this and play it when you are in a bad mood or in a funk.
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Rainbow Silkroad:
So this is Dragon Quest except you don't get any experience or gold from enemies. What truly matters is the trading system, you just need to buy oil in x village and sell it in y village where you buy silk instead. This gets you $$, which gives you equipment, which gives you stats increases. I've created an excel file to keep track of all that, and I now have approximatively $$$$$$. Battles give you licence points which allow you to buy even more stuff.
Dungeons are just an equipment check with an even worse encounter rate than SD Detective Blader at times.
Sega All Star Racing Transformed: I know who each one of those racers are, except Daniela Patrick. Turns out she's the only actual existing human being in the game.
Anyway it is completely excellent and has largely surpassed Mario Kart. There's no nonsense like blue shells, and it's easier to pick up and play, faster paced, more mechanically satisfying, etc. And everything in the game can be played with split screen co-op.
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Never change.
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Wait until I talk about STED: Starfield of Memorable Relics next
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Fenrir bestest Fenrir.
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RE5: Picked this up for free with the month of PS Plus that came with my console. Glad I didn't pay money for it. Upside: I now know what it takes to make me drop down to normal difficulty on a reasonably skill-based action game: a load screen before the game over message. On a downloaded game, no less. Genius, Capcom.
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Front Mission 3 - in which Macho Man Randy Savage's daddy complex is explored. Upon seeing his father (WHO HE TOTALLY HATES YOU GUYS) sacrificing himself to save his troops' lives and to enable his country to win back its freedom from the oppressive military coup that took place has this to say.
"Why are you being so chivalrous? I feel like gagging!!!!"
Keep going until you bottom out Daddy Isao.
Oh Macho Man you are such a mess.
Edit - okay this was followed by a discussion on when to pull out and Isao talking about needing to see how mature Macho Man has become. Um if there is grass the. Play the field play ball? I don't know man I got uncomfortable with this joke pretty quickly. I did t expect the game to play along.
Edit 2 - "Stupid geezer!!! It's not gonna be my fault if you eat it!"
At least Macho Man won't be submissive without a fight.
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Front Mission 3 - in which Macho Man Randy Savage's daddy complex is explored. Upon seeing his father (WHO HE TOTALLY HATES YOU GUYS) sacrificing himself to save his troops' lives and to enable his country to win back its freedom from the oppressive military coup that took place has this to say.
"Why are you being so chivalrous? I feel like gagging!!!!"
Keep going until you bottom out Daddy Isao.
Oh Macho Man you are such a mess.
Mess doesn't even describe half of it. Too bad you aren't doing the other route where you get to see him get emotional about it. Macho Man Randy Savage insists his dad being the worst despite the fact that he's caused more damage around the different nations he's been on to while being a fugitive. But that's okay, because it's all to stop super evil mega ultra soldier dude from bombs. Leave this to teenagers guys, the military is too busy fixing up Macho Man Randy Savage's mess.
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I was so busy making jokes then creeping myself out that I forgot to mention the SUPERMENS that Isao Randy Savage was going to try to solo absolutely fly off the handle and do acrobatic fucking pirouettes to dodge rockets and punch robots in the taint. SUPERMENS are op as fuck in cutscenes.
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Final Fantasy 2:
Just started this because it is the last GBA game that I've yet to cross off my list (well, along with BoF2, but I'm playing that along with an LP). Might as well see where the SaGa series got its start!
So far, I have raided the rebel army's entire supply of potion. All one of them. Seriously, I am not feeling assured in the victory of these ill-prepared rebels. At least FF6's rebels had a Mecha-Castle.
Other stuff:
I'm am also searching for a copy of Eternal Frontier because people tell me it is something I would probably like and after seeing some of the art and hearing that it has a VP-like battle system, I'm inclined to agree. Somebody mail me a copy or something.
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Other stuff:
I'm also searching for a copy of Eternal Frontier because people tell me it is something I would probably like and after seeing some of the art and hearing that it has a VP-like battle system, I'm inclined to agree. Somebody mail me a copy or something.
You mean Endless Frontier? I can bring it on my DS flash card. I also have the second game on it, but it's in moonrunes.
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You mean Endless Frontier? I can bring it and we can be pirates (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dysG12QCdTA) together.
Assassin's Creed 3 - So I did a bit more. I still like Hatham. I am still kind of underwhelmed by freerunning in Boston. Brown and grey 2 story buildings are entirely inferior to running around the rooftops of the Grand Bazaar. It probably doesn't help that it runs kind of shitty with large crowds and if there is reflections, but there is fuck all graphics options to tweak. Sigh. Ports sometimes man.
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Infamous: I wanted to play something on this system, so I decided to give the pack-in games a spin. This is pretty fun. Not earth-shattering, but it's entertaining to zap people and lightning-parkour around the city, and there's enough variety in the game so far to keep things engaging. Going light-side because the evil power seems lame. (A constant stream of lightning? Like I can do by pressing the "shoot lightning" button over and over really fast? Yeah, that sounds worthwhile.)
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Star Ocean 4 - A fabulously fabulous elf joined my party and we fought a tentacle monster. It was love at first sight.
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Infamous: I wanted to play something on this system, so I decided to give the pack-in games a spin. This is pretty fun. Not earth-shattering, but it's entertaining to zap people and lightning-parkour around the city, and there's enough variety in the game so far to keep things engaging. Going light-side because the evil power seems lame. (A constant stream of lightning? Like I can do by pressing the "shoot lightning" button over and over really fast? Yeah, that sounds worthwhile.)
Both ultimate powers are pretty lame and impractical. At least Evil Cole gets to bust up things Emperor Palpatine style. It's the other skills you pick sides for. Evil is better due to cluster grenades and cluster rockets. Good side makes it easier to do the stunts though!
Loved inFamous for pretty much the reasons you stated. Competantly done, fun as all hell, makes it easy to zip around the city.
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Star Ocean 4 - A fabulously fabulous elf joined my party and we fought a tentacle monster. It was love at first sight.
You're like three hours in, right?
That's as good as SO4 ever gets. It's all downhill from here, and it gets pretty fucking low.
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Star Ocean 4 - A fabulously fabulous elf joined my party and we fought a tentacle monster. It was love at first sight.
You're like three hours in, right?
That's just the beginning of how good SO4 gets. It's all uphill from here, and it gets pretty fucking awesome.
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I know we're supposed to respect our Elders but it's really hard to do that when you keep saying retarded things like that.
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Star Ocean 4 - A fabulously fabulous elf joined my party and we fought a tentacle monster. It was love at first sight.
You're like three hours in, right?
That's just the beginning of how bipolar SO4 gets. It's all a sin curve from here, and it gets pretty inconsistent the entire way through!
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You are three hours in right? That is like the third hour of the game. It will only take less time to finish from here on out.
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Well however the game ends up, Grefter wins the prize for most accurate assessment of the situation.
Kid Icarus Uprising - Going through this again, partly for the sake of treasure hunts, but mostly randomly because it's fun. Halfway done. Random story thoughts on the replay: In hindsight, Pit/Palutena do come off as real jerks at point. Palutena decides to destroy the Lunar Sanctum because "eh, fuck Viridi" more or less, and we know how that turns out! In general most of the other characters are pretty unsubtle with their contempt for how P&P operate: go in, blow everything up, and claim moral superiority. There are several exchanges along the lines of "Viridi/Hades, you make weapons/start wars/kill those you dislike!" "What right do you have to criticise me? You do the same thing!" "Yeah, but we're just FIGHTING EVIL. TOTALLY different!" which rang hollow the first playthrough and do even moreso now. Again, I do wonder if the ending's sudden uber-demonisation of Hades isn't a bit of a dark reflection of this theme. I first though I might be giving the writers too much credit here, but the replay is thinking maybe not. On a less serious note, the game remains hilarious. You can turn off dialog on a replay if you want but I think that's a litmus test for if you're a bad person.
Lost Odyssey - Disc 4. I have to say, the Arthrosaurus defence arc was one of the more clever parts of the game. I actually through the first Arthrosaurus was one of the best fights since disc 1... then the game teaches you some tricks for them and makes you fight four more on a rather clever timed mission where you have to exploit their weakness to hold them all off. Nice. Otherwise I miss dream sequences. I think in most ways not related to them the game has gotten better on discs 3-4 but it's still problematic and the reduced number of dreams means the game might be worse overall. I suppose I could hunt down more of them with a FAQ (judging from spaces, there are plenty of optional ones), but I'm not sure what I think of anything that purposefully draws this game out at this point (plus I hate FAQing on a first playthrough).
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SO4 - So the first real dungeon was some citadel puzzle thing, and boy was it a doozy. A big sprawling puzzle map with corridors full of hard to avoid enemies.
Rob: 1
Captain K: 0
Meeple: Indeterminate
Grefter: 3/5
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For the record, you should keep score. +1 for Rob every time there's a bad section of game, +1 for Captain K every time there's a good section, and +1 for Meeple every time a section's quality differs from last.
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I assume I get a point every hour.
Also please please please either FAQ those dreams or read them on another file or read them in a FAQ. I know that isn't your style but they really are the best part of the game and I think the odds of you replaying LO is pretty much rock bottom (it is not replay friendly). To miss out on them because of the designers stupidity is not worth it. Do the writer that favour and get them in your brain however you can.
If I remember where you are up to you could have them all now. Which speaks volumes for how dull the last part is of you do FAQ the shit out of the game.
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Well, I just got one from reclaiming Numara! Wouldn't be shocked if that was the last, though. (Which if so means it's possible to complete the game without a single Sarah dream, but I guess that fits with her being a non-character.)
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Magic: The Gathering - Had a grab-bag draft yesterday with a mix of Innistrad, Dark Ascension, & M13 boosters randomly spread across the table. But let's back up a bit farther - the previous draft two weeks earlier was a Return to Ravnica draft where I created quite possibly the strongest deck I've ever 0-3'd with. It was Rakdos, and all 3 match losses were close 1-2 affairs, and my opponents had some good luck stabilizing. My deck was bombless but consistent at punishing slow draws, so to some extent I was willing to get rolled by good opponent draws.
This time? Utter destruction. I drafted Rakdos again - heavy Black this time but with a notable Red splash - and it had a crazy curve, was hard to block, had removal, and had some choice cards to put the game away. Of the 6 drafters, my deck was fast enough I got in games against all of the other 5. 10-0. I 2-0ed the entire table, and to be clear, these weren't pushover players (well maybe one was, but the rest were legit). Mwahaha. (On the evasion front, Tormented Soul, 2x Vampire Interloper, Highborn Ghoul, Kitesail, 3x Bloodhunter Bat. Dark Favor & Volcanic Strenth for some pump and really fast clocks. For removal, Tragic Slip, Fires of Undeath, Flames of the Firebrand, Farbolg Boneslinger. On the bomb front, Curse of Death's Hold. Toss in some random stuff to fill out the curve and be threats - 2x Torch Fiend, Liliana's Shade, Rotting Fensnake (scary with a Kitesail or Volcanic Strength or if the opponent thinks leaving 1 blocker back is safe against me!) - yeah, good stuff.)
Endless Space - I tried this during the Free Weekend on Steam. Succeeded in getting me to buy it - Master of Orion 2 with less micromanagement, cool. The space battle porn is excellent as well. I like it.
A bit rough around the edges still though - some whining:
* The "hangar" idea is neat, but there should be an option somewhere that says "if there is not an enemy fleet in orbit, auto-launch from the hangar," since that is what you want to do 100% of the time anyway.
* Being able to travel outside the gate connections between systems is cool! But... marginal, only comes up in a few scenarios at the moment. I was fully expecting Orion-esque bonus systems of the Endless home worlds to be only accessible via warp drive but protected by super-Guardians, but nope, you don't get to explore any new systems with warp drive. What. Isn't this like the entire point of the Pilgrims? (Also, with the default settings in my 2nd game but a Huge Galaxy, there were still only 2 giant "constellations" as best I can tell. Maybe I need to set the galaxy settings to "lots of constellations" to get Warp Drive to be worth more.)
* The endgame seems a bit half-baked, or at least optimized for multiplayer at the moment where you don't have time to smell the roses. No special "Mwahaha you have annihilated an empire" message, just a generic "some empire was destroyed somewhere" one? Come on, at least give me a SMAC-style "opposing leader in my personal torture chamber" image. Totally lame "you won" message at the end as well. If I'd know it'd be a boring "You won an expansion victory!" message, I'd have stopped playing spreadsheet hero 2 hours earlier and saved the cleanup of my fleets conquering the galaxy and just started my next game. At least give me some bad fanfic about how now that with the power of the Endless at my command, I will resculpt my home part of the galaxy to my very will blah blah blah blah.
* Apparently the Cravers got nerfed from their galaxy-conquering ways to play a little bit more standard than described earlier in this topic in the beta. +2 Fleet command limit rather than unlimited sounds way more sane, but nerfing their bonuses / penalties? Bah. I realize this is more balanced, but having huge strengths & weaknesses makes for more distinctive play.
Growlanser Wayfarer of Time - There's an existential threat to humanity loose, but everyone is fighting everyone instead. I'd really prefer if Our Hero was acting like a Dan Brown conspiracy type here, and everyone was treating him as crazy, rather than silently nodding as he busily participates in said wars. "Hey! We need to stop fighting and team up to defeat the invisible angel conspiracy! You gotta believe me!" (Okay I the player will take the excuse to fight a bunch of battles, but the characters could at least TRY to avoid them.) But then I've already whined about Our Hero's blase reaction to "'sup I'm back from the dead" so yeah. Also there is an extremely bland amnesiac samurai and a random fanservice catgirl I can use. Yeah whatever.
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Well, I just got one from reclaiming Numara! Wouldn't be shocked if that was the last, though. (Which if so means it's possible to complete the game without a single Sarah dream, but I guess that fits with her being a non-character.)
She has her own sidequest that paints her as a depressed shut-in who likes reading and fanficcing journaling.
FF2: ...and finished! Go go fast-forward button!
Actually, it's a fun little SaGa game. Its biggest problem is opaque mechanics with no proper documentation. When you finally look up how the game actually -works-, there's a lot of fun to be had. Just like every SaGa game I've played so far. The last fight with the Emperor was actually really fun and he seems like he'd make a cool Godlike if you took at "No grinding" levels for the main cast. Some of the Temps could be rankable too under those conditions. Looking it up, the PSP remake adds some unique weapons for each of the characters too, so they've got more differentiation than I thought. Still, they're more of a 'theoretically rankable' bunch than anything I'd like to see in CKDL (apart from possibly Emperor Mateus).
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#StillRanksCharactersAsIfTheDLWereStillAThing
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FF2: ... fun
This is one of the worst gaming opinions I've seen out of you.
I know how the game works, and indeed this knowledge does make the game better (which is to say: raises it above Hoshi), but the game is still awful and you deserve to be punted for comparing it the Saga game(s) which are actually good.
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eVEN neb THINKS YOU SUCK YOU SHOULD REALLY JUST QUIT WHILE YOU'RE BEHIND.
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FF2: ... fun
This is one of the worst gaming opinions I've seen out of you.
I know how the game works, and indeed this knowledge does make the game better (which is to say: raises it above Hoshi), but the game is still awful and you deserve to be punted for comparing it the Saga game(s) which are actually good.
In fairness, he's playing the GBA version which fixes some of FF2's problems, but yeah, going to overall agree that knowing how the game work more raises it's tolerance levels rather than making it actually good.
Comparing it to SaGa games is legit as it is blatantly the template that created those games. That doesn't necessarily mean it's good of course either, as the original Tactics Ogre led to the creation of FFT, but the original TO was pretty much shit (gameplay-wise) itself.
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I still have it rated as a 1, I just enjoyed figuring out how to break it. People are surprised that I like games with weird mechanics, still?
And I love you too, Zenny. Now stop using your mouth for -talking-, it's ruining the mood. ;)
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I still have it rated as a 1, I just enjoyed figuring out how to break it. People are surprised that I like games with weird mechanics, still?
Oh. Well, it appears we can still be friends after all. :)
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So after a long wait, Disgaea 4 is finally on sale for 20 bucks on Amazon. I just ordered it and soon my life will be its for molest for the foreseeable future.
~
Anyways, what have I been up to gaming-wise?
Been playing the hell out of Black Ops 2. No story mode, just online stuff for shits and giggles. Me and some friends have made mince meat out of search and destroy. We all suit up with assault shields and certain perks to mount of collective barrage of annoyance and wins alike. We won seven games in a row before we got bored and stopped playing. I know its a lost cause, but I am also trying to unlock every tag and emblem. Dunno why I even bother, some of the requirements are ridiculous!
On my PSP I started playing Breath of Fire 3 again, not sure why...just had an itch to replay it for some reason.
...
I forgot how many gawd damn mini-games this game throws at you. I just got past the desert, but I think I've plodded through 20 or so story related mini-games. Some of them were just mind-numbingly retarded. I dunno, the battles are fun....guess I broke the game. Ryu is super broken, and with chain form, you can equip him with heavy gear and still have him go before anything else (as long as Rei is in the front of the party that is.)
Gave Ryu every master that boosts his AP, because...it's all about that dragon form baby. Nothing else matters in fights. He's currently equipped to Bleu because she gives him AP, Power and Speed...not bad.
Nina is pretty bad in this game. None of her spells are that strong to begin with and she has piss poor HP and defense. Momo can't hit anything, I only used Peco to unlock some of the more time-consuming master abilities.
I rock the Rei, Ryu, Garr party most of the time. We wreck ish up~
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playing BoF 3 and doing it right
With no input from me? Amazing. Continue playing this way good sir. Continue.
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Still playing XCOM. Finished Classic/Rigger, one human plus Shivs. Early SHIVs are garbage, hover SHIVs are hax, SHIVs do not show up in cutscenes, so some of the later stuff with the Volunteer is a little bit odd.
Now playing Impossible. The first 6-10 maps are fuckin' brutal, but I'm actually warming up to it towards the mid-game. It's still hard, I wipe fairly often, and there are definitely times when RNG just fucks you for no reason -- not so much in hit rates, since those become manageable tactically and in prep, but more in how the enemies move pretty randomly, so you might just have six Mutons dropped on you in a pincer while you're already tangled up with a bunch of enemies. This would be fine if it was planned, but that it occurs more or less randomly (since there are basically always enough enemies somewhere on the map to overrun you) can be a bit annoying. I do like the bit of extra urgency that the slightly more difficult base management offers, too. Altogether it's gelling quite well now.
Also playing Slingshot, the DLC, which... well, the new missions are fun enough, though they suffer a bit from the final dungeon's predictability -- once you've wiped on them once, you know where the reinforcements are coming from and can plan accordingly.
Zhang, the special character, is definitely a little problematic. I'm not sure if his stats scale to Impossible, so he joins with literally double the HP of your ordinary squad (to be fair, he's over levelled, but still, 10HP vs 5 is huge), plus inflated hit and will stats. He's a Heavy, so that's some balance, but it makes the aim bonus pretty noticeable too (he's got 75 at Lieutenant, which I think is about 5 higher than average?). Throws off the curve of the game quite a bit, I definitely understand why some people are bummed by that.
I like the other content, though, the new armour, haircuts and helmets. So worth the $7, as far as I'm concerned, but definitely not a bargain at that price.
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FF8 - One GF, Single Character challenge
A RICHARD approved challenge. Ground rules as follows:
- Only one GF may be equipped at all times and one character alive at any point. Default is Squall, but since you have to split team a few times, there's no restriction here.
- No Bonus abilities on level up
- No replacing GF skills (so they can only learn what they will learn naturally)
- No Limit scumming (can't refresh turn repeatedly for limits)
- No rare card refining (can't start the game with 100 Triples and lulz through it).
That's around it for rules. Wipes/Highlights:
Wipe 1) Diablos hits me through a lucky Blind after casting Gravija immediately before. No chance to heal, dead.
Wipe 2) FF8 random enemies (Grendels) score a critical hit, bringing me down to about 200 HP from 500. Then proceeds to cast Thunder and kills me with 208 damage. Oops.
Wipe 3) Base level Irvine has 699 HP. Iron Clad 1's Beam Cannon deals 880+ and one shots. Good times
Wipe 4) I junction Irvine with HP and some defenses. Was doing okay, until I hit Iron Clad enough times for him to start exploding bits. Apparently, Beam Cannon is also a triggered action, so he double turn Beam Cannons me for 1700+ damage. Not expecting this, dead
Wipe 5) Oilboyles hit a high variance on Oil Shot and kill me before a fatal Renzokuken
Wipe 6) What do you mean NORG has SILENCE?
Wipe 7) So Carbuncle's offense is kinda terrible starting. His GF summon doesn't attack and he has no attack junctions. I insist on fighting with Carbuncle though because I want the AP and the restrictions means that I have to level up if I want to learn skills. I organize my items and put the Echo Screens in front and get rid of the GF command because NORG has Dispel. Once NORG appears, battle starts going downhill pretty fast. Getting pelted at by 3 enemies with magic adds up pretty quick. And since Carbuncle has no HP or Spr junction, I'm often locked into certain actions or wipe the next turn. This includes anything from getting rid of Silence, getting rid of Slow to actually healing myself. The only time I can attack is on a double turn from Haste. Eventually, he overwhelms me.
Wipe 8) What do you mean Iron Clad 2 also has Beam Cannon?
Wipe 9) Get petrified while learning for a way to block petrify. FF8 random wipe #2.
Wipe 10) My bud Grefter and I were just chilling. Then Seifer goes "Yoyoyo, time to own some lamers". We didn't take him seriously. Seifer did not like this and double turns me while I am Hasted with 2 Demon Slices, dealing 1200 damage. HP nowhere near that value because whatever, it's super Seifer.
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NOTE: Not taking Seifer seriously means not even bothering to cast Protect when well over half his offense is physical and knowing he can't dispel. The only thing Tide could have done to show less respect would be unequip his GF.
FM3 - I have come around to Macho Man's way of thinking. His dad is a fucking idiot and the world would be better off without him. He actually is all :( about having to arrest the leader of the military coup who kidnapped the president, held the capital hostage and was telling everyone it was Isao leading the coup. he was just trying to do good 4 the country :(:(:(:(. You know except it was heading up violent coup against the local population and instituting an authoritarian rule because he thought democracy wasn't working and that the people weren't fit to rule themselves. You know, a dictator.
Fuck head.
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A Virus Named TOM - played through
I like the aesthetic, but I don't care too much for the gameplay.
Especially the levels where the tiles are hidden unless they're connected. Especially especially levels with that mechanic plus you not having a persistent origin.
I ended up skipping a few levels in the last world. One of them was a large maze-type level that didn't involve any questionable mechanics, I'd just attempted it a number of times and wasn't having much luck. I think most of the rest of them were ones involving timing connections against instant-death tiles.
Unreal - played through
Not really a fan.
There were some fun levels, Bluff Eversmoking comes to mind. More often it's just a slog though.
Flak Cannon is the best weapon.
Lume - played through
I like the aesthetic. I don't like the length or the type of puzzles. Overpriced.
Unreal: Return To Na Pali - played through
Wait, I though Na Pali was the island where Na Pali Haven was. You never go there in this (although you are sort of in the general vicinity of places related to Na Pali at points, probably).
Better than vanilla Unreal because it's shorter, but worse because the plot is worse. Such that it is.
I like how 'Bay keeps dropping supplies for you after the Prometheus levels are over (I guess this could be rationalised as them being dropped earlier and taking a long time to fall).
Dragon Quest IX - Storming Gittingham Palace
Pretty entertaining so far.
Complaints:
Luck-based quests (Critically pratfall twice! Kill two monsters with critical hits after they've become enraged!)
Number of active quests is capped, so I currently have some slots wasted on quests I don't have the capability to complete (Two quests which require enemies being sent to sleep when I have no real way of doing that currently, for a start (characters are likely to kill said enemies if I attempt to use sleep-applying staffs)). In theory I can cancel quests like that but I shouldn't have to.
Alchenomicon needs better filtering. I should be able to see a list of just things I haven't made yet. I should be able to select an item and bring up all recipes which involve it.
I should also be able to bring up a list of all monsters which are recorded as dropping a particular item, and all shops which sell it. Monsters which appear in more than two locations should also have all locations available somehow rather than just having 'Etc'.
I also dislike that there aren't any actual party members as far as I'm aware, only generics.
It's a bit disturbing that ability points have drastically dropped off in the 40+ levels.
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Little Inferno - This is the sole reason why gaming was invented.
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Wait, Little Inferno qualifies as a game? I was under the impression it was just a glorified VN.
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It is fantastic whatever it is. Just play it.
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Infamous: Beat the first boss, dropped the bridge in the Warrens. Dustmen are a pain in the ass, but after fighting them for a while Reapers are just kind of a joke. Three hits and they're dead! I never appreciated that before. Also, gliding is niiiiiiiice. Will probably take some time out from the new area to wrap up sidequests in the Neon now that I've taken care of the drawbridge.
(Also I blame the dinky four-page "manual" that comes with the two-game pack for my not realizing until this morning that recharging also heals you. That would've made endurance missions a lot friendlier.)
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Damn hobos. inFamous has a lot of neat tricks. Shoot something that retains electricity with your basic bolts and you can absorb off of it.
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Warrens boss isn't nearly as cool as Neon boss. Or have as sexy a voice
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Civilization IV: All of the Subtitles
With an injured hand/wrist I can't play real-time games, using a controller at all is a strain, and I'm not in the right mood to tackle a harder difficulty in XCOM, so it's back to this. What a terrible shame. How ever will I cope?
Caveman2Cosmos keeps getting bigger. Sometimes it even gets better! The interminable Housing building tree has been changed so it autobuilds with tech level and city size, which makes vastly more sense and is vastly easier to play. Sadly, I still can't get the game to load if I have Build Lists, so what could border on the downright convenient is instead just less inconvenient.
The balance has also improved. The AI is... less inept... and some of the more egregious outliers in terms of unit balance have been pruned. It still has a severe rich get richer problem, but if I couldn't cope with that I wouldn't be able to enjoy Civ, or Brigandine, or almost any strategy game really. Endgame is always going to be cleanup in these sorts of titles.
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Is civ4's modding scene as strong as it was a few years back? The one I was really into was fall from heaven, but the developer of that mod left
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A lot of people moved to doing stuff for 5, but there's still some projects going on in 4.
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Is civ4's modding scene as strong as it was a few years back? The one I was really into was fall from heaven, but the developer of that mod left
There's still a lot of ongoing modding.
Caveman2Cosmos, Realism Invictus and K-Mod are all still in ongoing development. (In C2C's case at least, the SVN updates multiple times per day.) Rise of Mankind A New Dawn recently started updating again, mostly under people who feel C2C has gone too far from the base game.
Dune Wars seems to be the most frequently updated non-historical mod at the moment. The most recently updated Fall From Heaven modmod is Master of Mana, which seems to have been on hiatus since January.
Overall I'd say the modding community is still very strong, but it's tended to cluster around a few large mods like C2C and RI, and it tends to favor widening and deepening the historical gameplay of Civ4 rather than porting that gameplay to other settings.
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Is Civ still dead easy to mod just by messing with text/graphics files? That was definitely a cool thing about Civ2.
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More or less.
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Infamous: Man, Kessler is a dick.
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FM3 - We need to have a talk. You need to stop doing things that give me fits when I put you down for a while and then pick you back up again. As soon as I do that you do something that gives me some kind of breakdown.
I am not going to abridge or paraphrase this at all. I straight up am copy pasting from a script
{The P-Gun J10, the new weapon, is trashed. Kuroi is standing outside of it.}
Kuroi: ...My ideals will not be stopped by the likes of you...
Kazuki: Kuroi you're not using your powers properly. This power's not
meant for conquest! It's meant to protect!
Kuroi: Corrupt politicians, careless citizens--they're not worth
protecting. They are the ones that bring down this nation!
Those with power must be the leaders of this country!
Mayer: That's just your opinion.
CUE GREFTER PITCHING A BITCH FIT RIGHT HERE.
Fuck. That is like letting Gamefaqs message boards script your game.
There is more after that, but it is after a scroll prompt, so my brain immediately went into full nerdrage mode and I had to turn my Vita off for a moment. Fucking fuck this game and for all the weirdest goddamned reasons.
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<Grefter> I don't make poor life decisions, the bad men who hurt me just spy on me while I'm sleeping :(
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Apparently they have goddamned time machines as well. Fuck those guys with a gardening fork.
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Grefter Life Simulator Little Inferno - Welp, beat it with all combos performed. Wonderful little whatever it is. Weird little experiment that plays a lot with emotions in a very strange way. Not sure if it hits quite the mark it wanted to, but it manages to be a very unique and bittersweet thing that was pretty much made for the likes of me or Grefter, come to think of it. It's all about the experience. Also, it pretty much lets you tinker with it the way you -want- to. It's oddly freeform for what it is, and I can't help but appreciate that. Heartwarming.
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Pokemon blue terrible play through:
Every so often it's nice just to play through one of the original pokemon games especially since it goes by so qucikly when played with the speed up options from Pokemon Stadium. The original games did a remarkably good job of making almost every pokemon viable, so I decided to see just how far the game can take it by using a team of mostly terrible pokemon. I just got to Vermillion and so far the team is Beedrill, Farfetch'd, Wigglytuff, and Drowzee. I'm aware that Drowzee/Hypno is far from the worst pokemon available, but it will be nice to have a crutch if necessary and it should be interesting to just how dominant psychic type is in gen 1 by using the worst one available. So far it's been fairly simple since Beedrill and Wigglytuff still have a stat advantage over most pokemon just by being fully evolved. Interestingly enough, Brock was harder than Misty because Brock apparently has a bunch of Full Heals he can use to cancel Beedrill's Poison Sting. He seriously used like 6 Full Heals between Geodude and Onyx before I was able to take them down. Misty was simple. My guys were a bit over leveled. Drowzee handled Staryu easily and Starmie was 2HKOed by Twineedle after one Leer.
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Interestingly enough, Brock was harder than Misty because Brock apparently has a bunch of Full Heals he can use to cancel Beedrill's Poison Sting. He seriously used like 6 Full Heals between Geodude and Onyx before I was able to take them down.
This is seriously the most wtf Pokemon thing I have learned in years and #rpgdl is a terrifying hell hole of wtf Pokemon facts.
I was going to make a joke about how this is worse than the time that Meeple taught me all the different ways that Sylph is broken between the billion FF4 variants, but I can't lie that much. Nothing is worse than FF4.
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FF8 - The RICHARD challenge. We're almost done. Sadly, RICHARD has yet to appear once and spectate.
Disc 3 Stuff - Nothing really exciting happens. Disc 2 is the hard part. I go and get the trade rule for cards to spread to Diff so I mass gather cards for items. During a section without Squall, I give his stuff to Irvine and level up Ifrit to 10 so he learns Ammo-RF. I Cactuar grind for AP with what I can though, the challenge's restrictions makes it such that any GF without Speed-J and later on Str-J/HP-J make this option tougher. Those things like to run, and they're fast. I also wipe like at least 10 times while grinding because 1000 needles hates me and sometimes the Cactuars like to gang rape me with this before I move. We're onto the last portion of Disc 3 now though.
Highlights:
- Wipe 11: So this is THE best wipe ever. 2 hand enemies. One draws Death from Squall, then casts Death on Squall. Insta-lose. Squall had like 27 spells or something ridiculous, so the chance of him drawing and casting that spell on me is 1/27*1/3 and then modified by spirit. This is a like a 1% chance of hitting, making this pretty funny.
- Wipe 12: I fight Jumbo Cactuar but he kills me with 10,000 Needles :(
- Wipe 13: I fight Jumbo Cactuar again, but he opens with 10,000 Needles this time after I open with Aura.
- Wipe 14: Bahamut apparently deals 1300 damage with his physical. At level 36, Squall has about 1700 HP. Did I mention Bahamut was fast? Blitzing strategy not very good when opposition resists said blitz.
No wipes on Abandon, but he was pretty funny too. The boss tries to Confuse me, which would be pretty bad, because Squall had Cerberus at the time which meant lots of strength and no defense. First time, I use a megalixir, which heals me of confusion. Second time, the confused AI chooses X Potion and proceeds to X Potion Abandon, OHKOing him.
Went and got Lionheart, which meant a whole bunch of things, including getting Tonberry as a GF. No wipes here. Then after Tonberry, I use Lv Up to pump up Adamantoise levels so they'll drop Adamantine (because lower level Adamantoise have shit drop rates for it). With Lionheart, I proceed to go back and fight Cactuar and promptly kick his ass in one move.
RICHARD, since you weren't around, it was decided by user Laggy (and the rest of chat) that we're going to give ULTIMA WEAPON a go. I smell wipes. Stay tuned.
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Nothing is worse than FF4.
Off the cuff: FF2. FF11. FF13. FF14.
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Nothing means nothing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWrlAmT4jyA)
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Devil Survivor 2:
Near the end of day 2. Just saved Asshole Kid.
Hinako is SMT trying to compete with Lost Odyssey regarding character design. (The character designer has a fetish for objects like ties casually resting on enormous breasts, by the way)
Every girl in this game is terrifying, Daichi is Milhouse Van Houten, and Asshole kid is an asshole. So at this point I'm pretty much just chilling with Joe 100% of the time, and avoiding eye contact with everybody else.
Rainbow Silkroad: Reached India. Game is a bitch even with SO MUCH MONEY. That's what happens when your only option in battle is attacking or using an item (and there only are 7 item slots). Either it's going to be easy or unfair.
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Hey, that was three days after I was born! Oh, the 80's, how I wish I had truly been able to witness your camp.
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Nothing means nothing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWrlAmT4jyA)
What is this I don't even
...where does he keep getting cream?
Things to add to Rob's list of "things worse than FF4":
Nothing means nothing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWrlAmT4jyA)
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Devil Survivor 2:
So at this point I'm pretty much just chilling with Joe 100% of the time, and avoiding eye contact with everybody else.
User Fenrir doing the right thing.
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Nothing means nothing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWrlAmT4jyA)
What is this I don't even
...where does he keep getting cream?
Things to add to Rob's list of "things worse than FF4":
Nothing means nothing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWrlAmT4jyA)
If I had the slightest iota of respect for you, it would be gone after you insulted the Macho Man. You have less shame than was granted to animals.
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Someone link him to an Ultimate Warrior rant. That'll help put things into perspective...maybe...
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Someone link him to an Ultimate Warrior rant. That'll help put things into perspective...maybe...
Constellation of Destructity Ultimate Warrior, or Queering doesn't make the world work Ultimate Warrior?
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Does it really matter? Mach Man is great because he is the Macho Man. Not because he is better than other wrestlers.
Also Djinn just hated on watching a musclebound coke head do some simple close-up magic tricks on national television while flexing and ranting at full steam.
This is proof of having no taste whatsoever. This man is multi talented in ways that most people wouldn't even dream of and you are all "worse than FF4".
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Not sure if it hits quite the mark it wanted to, but it manages to be a very unique and bittersweet thing that was pretty much made for the likes of me or Grefter, come to think of it.
Gref gave me a copy of this because I told him I was feeling down. So I played it. I see the message the game wants to convey, and it's a good message and the game delivers it well. But there's a (seemingly) unintended message about man-made climate change - and climate mitigation - that pervades the game, and is not resolved or really reckoned with in any satisfying manner, and is a complete downer, really.
Anyway, good game. Makes you think. Tugs on your heartstrings in expected and unexpected ways, and manages to pack an emotional punch even though it's not hard for you as a player to see how the game is blatantly manipulating you. Also the burning stuff is well done (pun intended) even if you're not a pyro.
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Does it really matter? Mach Man is great because he is the Macho Man. Not because he is better than other wrestlers.
Also Djinn just hated on watching a musclebound coke head do some simple close-up magic tricks on national television while flexing and ranting at full steam.
This is proof of having no taste whatsoever. This man is multi talented in ways that most people wouldn't even dream of and you are all "worse than FF4".
He wasn't some shitty animu man.
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FF4 is the dregs on the bottom of the cup when you're drinking and thinking "hey this is pretty good" and then you get to FF4 and you're like "SPEW! I just drank dregs!" Thankfully Macho Man Randy Savage is the cream that will rise to the top so you can encounter him long before FF4.
Also fuck Google. I try to look up Ultimate Warrior and I get fucking ponies: http://thunderfists1988.deviantart.com/art/My-Little-Ultimate-Warrior-323100834
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Does it really matter? Macho Man is great because he is the Macho Man. Not because he is better than other wrestlers.
Quoted again for Truth.
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Street Fighter x Mega Man: Beat it! Fun game.
Bustered all the "Robot Masters" though then used Weakness on the Boss Rush because they're way too hard to beat 8 in 3 lives...even with their weaknesses, I eventually said **** it and used an E-tank to get past the last one. Final Boss was good but has this issue of not having enough health aka he has only one form, so is mostly just a typical high end boss instead of the typical Gauntlet effect Wily has , and if you have E-tanks, you should be good.
Weapons range from good (C. Viper and Dhalsim's come to mind) to plain bad (WHY did they make Blanka's weapon effectively the Mega Ball with more annoying controls), so...typical spread there! Stage and Boss design are nothing short of great, however.
The game does have some problems though. There's a few bugs and oversights (like SONIC STYLE CRUSH DEATHS. Ok, Urien's Stage, I can see that being intended, because one part feels like it was made to catch people that way, but C. Viper's, there's no way I can buy that was intended), as well as some control hiccups. Sliding is sometimes unresponsive, and as a result, some bosses become harder than they really should as the "slide for quick get away" option from any impact attack becomes that much harder. Might be easier if I was playing on a controller, but I digress, it still just felt off.
REGARDLESS, the game is 100% free. basically a must for Megaman fans, and merely recommended for Street Fighter fans (gameplay > Fanservice etc.)
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Lost Odyssey - Beaten. Final levels were 48, final time around 43 hours or so. Probably about 8 hours of that is One Thousand Year of Dreams, aka the collection of short stories contained within Lost Odyssey that are far better than Lost Odyssey itself.
Hoo boy, this game. It's a strange one, and a bit frustrating. There's all sorts of hints of a great game but nothing of the sort ever materialises. Gameplay is kinda close though. The game has pretty good battle design overall; lots of battles have unique mechanics (specific gauges you need to watch for or victory conditions), and even without that the game tends to succeed here. Randoms can keep you on your toes, bosses are hit or miss but generally fine. GC is a neat idea (though better-balanced for randoms and shorter boss fights, since in long bosses it vanishes and just isn't worth bringing back). MT healing not being completely uber is good. There's a fair bit to like here. Unfortunately, there are some problems: both animations and especially battle load times are too long. And the skill system is pretty bad. You have mortals who can't be customised and immortals who just slowly learn everything, and how good that everything is varies a LOT by which skills you randomly stumble on. Slot+3 and Slot+5 are huge and you may or may not get them! Apparently there's a full element blocker skill which would be broken as shit and I am glad I missed that. So yeah, VP2 idiocy all over again here. I've realised that if you're going to have optional random optional gamebreaking crap like this you should at least make it not benefit the entire party at once (e.g. Gem Box isn't as dumb as Toughness).
I found discs 1 and 4 the hardest (though finding the element blocker would crush disc most of 4). I had resets against damn magical worm creature (game's hardest fight, only time I had more than one reset), the Numaran soldiers who enjoy intimidating children, the Arthrosaurus swarm (praised this design already, it's cool), Gongora's pet liches (due to badly misplaying the fight, but it is one with little room for error), and the Magic Infantry in the final dungeon (only random to wipe me, but a few came close at least). Final boss was kinda disappointing but not awful (helped that I was blocking petrify with everyone!). I had more trouble with the second to last boss who had both MT "OHKO all mages and 2HKO everyone else" (which fortunately he couldn't spam) and "ST damage equal to previous which goes off faster than items", but no resets on either.
Writing is... well. The dream sequences, as I've already alluded to, are certainly very good. They're well-written, they have good music, and even the visuals (the way letters or words appear, in particular) are effective in their simplicity. I didn't regret watching a single one of them that I can recall. The best moved me to the edge of tears. The game is purportedly about the lives of immortals who live for a thousand years, and the dream sequences give a great examination of this theme, and a hard look at mortality, immortality, happiness, what makes life worth living, and plenty more. This is very good. It also does a fair bit to develop the immortals (well not Sarah lulz) and it seems like the game could have done a great job of connecting these past experiences to their present ones.
Unfortunately the game does nothing of the sort. The present plot is a boring mess. Key to the game's story is the conflict between one immortal and the other four, but to the very end of the game we never learn the real motivations for why the immortals came to this world and what they were supposed to accomplish. All conflicts with the main villain fall completely flat as a result, and all the PC immortals are seriously hurt as characters by this. The mortals aren't exactly exciting characters themselves; Jansen is the best of them probably and even that's mostly comic. Scene direction and dialog is awkward as hell (stunningly so compared to the dreams), it's one of the worst games I've seen in this regard since games adopted the fully-animated, voice-acted style they have now. It's often difficult to put my finger on, but most scenes fall completely flat, and dialog often fails to convey motivations. One of the reasons Jansen is the most-liked character is because the scenes' awkwardness doesn't really hurt the character who is naturally awkward, kinda like how WA2's translation doesn't hurt Liz. But this doesn't say anything good about the game.
The game's worst failings, however, probably lie in its pacing and dungeon design. Dungeons suck, they're often reliant on "hope you avoid getting lost while you press every single switch in this area, then figure out where to go". That's no good to start with, but several of these dungeons have literally no save points. On multiple occasions I went over an hour between saving which I don't find acceptable. Even worse it makes me start running from fights because I just want to get off the game; I have a life to get back to, thanks. I can't think of a game whose gameplay I enjoyed (read: didn't dislike) as much as this one where I ran so much, because uuugh that dungeon design and lack of save points. What is this, a NES game? Only good thing is there are more "checkpoints" than there are save points at least so I didn't lose TWO HOURS when I got killed by the liches (at the end of probably the worst such dungeon). But that raises the question of why not just have save points?!? If you're not holding out on them to create some tension and send me back a lot when I lose (not that I have much patience for this these days, but at least I get it), then why?!? At least BoF5 and FF3, patron saints of bad save mechanics, allowed you to make a temp save if you needed a break!
Otherwise... well. It has an incredibly strong soundtrack (Uematsu's still got it) and is a very nice-looking game graphically... although marred a bit by its awful, awful costume design. Search for Grefter's or Dhyer's posts on the subject, I can't do them justice. The ending is epic for providing a whole new set of awful costumes for me to mock.
The game can stay at 4/10 probably. It is clearly better than FF9 (gameplay and cast don't suck), but clearly worse than Blue Dragon (holy skill system quality difference, Batman!) for two games that I find it most comparable to. I may be slightly underselling it, it certainly does enough things right to be worth notice, but damned if it isn't a frustrating experience. It hurts to think what this game could have been with a little modern polish and actual writing/scene direction.
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Look at me my name is Elf and my opinion is all accurate and valid nyeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh.
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FF8 - RICHARD approved challenge. The penultimate chapter.
Finished up Disc 3. Went to Disc 4. Lots of wipes along the way. Fun for everyone. Especially for Laggy. But Especially for RICHARD.
Wipe 15: I open up the Doorway to Deep Sea Reset Centre (c wat i did thar). About halfway through, random Tri-face back attack crit OHKOs me. Welp.
Wipe 16: I learn from my mistake and actually manage to make it down to the bottom. No Move Find though, so I can't use the Save Point. Selected Excerpts from chat:
[23:41:15] <%Laggy> doesn't he OPEN with light pillar.
[23:41:29] <+SageAcrin> yes under...some circumstances I forget.
[23:41:31] <+SageAcrin> <_>
[23:41:34] <%Laggy> <_<
[23:42:15] <@Elecman> I assume peerless is banned on this challenge, or at least some methods of getting it?
[23:42:20] <@Elecman> because lololol
[23:42:30] <%CmdrKing> I don't think there's any legal ways to get Heroes in this challenge. Well. I'm probably forgetting one or two you can get.
[23:42:38] <%CmdrKing> But Rare Card Refine is banned.
[23:42:39] <+Archmage> Man I dunno, I'm not sure what the terms of the challenge are. I'm not sure how else you would even survive a battle with Ultima with one PC.
[23:43:00] <+Tide|RICHARDapprovedwipes> ...
[23:43:02] <+Tide|RICHARDapprovedwipes> LULZ
[23:43:18] <%Laggy> lol
[23:43:19] <+Archmage> Wow.
[23:43:19] <+SageAcrin> yeah I think that is a 100% opener.
[23:43:21] <%Laggy> CALLED IT
[23:43:24] <@Elecman> Rare Card Refine ban does close some loopholes
[23:43:26] <+Tide|RICHARDapprovedwipes> <Laggy> :D
[23:43:28] <%Laggy> CALLED IT~~~
So yeah, opening with Triple = no very smart move.
Wipe 17: I make it down to the bottom, this time adjusting my HP so that I'm at critical. I quickly Hero up, then Renzo as many times as possible. No Lionheart and no kill. Two extra turns after the Hero wears off, I still can't kill him and he blasts me with Wipe Pillar.
Wipe 18: I run into a Behemoth who proceeds to maul me with an Assault horn crit. Ow.
Wipe 19: I go into Adel fight with Cerberus. Adel's first move is Meteor, which deals about 200 damage a hit. Cerberus has no HP-J, and my max HP is 1700. Good times!
Wipe 20: Apparently, Red Giant's PAUNCH ignores evade (or has perfect accuracy) and manages to catch me right when Protect wears off. So when I thought I could take an extra hit, I ended up not being able to. :(
Wipe 21: Gargantua is a whore. He casts up Berserk and then Slow and proceeds to triple turn me with a variety of shit while I slowly die as I am unable to heal.
Wipe 22: I get to Greiver in the Ulti fight. He blows away my HP-J, leaving me with 2820 HP. After Shell, Shockwave Pulsar deals 2830 damage. :(
Stay tuned for: The finale.
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I liked Red Faction: Guerilla because it was like GTA: Total Recall, and if you don't like total recall you have worse taste than Djinn and should probably sign over power of attorney to someone. When I picked up the Humble Bundle that had the sequel in it, I was excited. Instead of tooling around on the surface and smashing shit and occasionally doing missions but usually just mounting hit-and-run attacks on army bases and such, they made it some kind of Gears of War railroaded shooter? No wonder this game didn't sell.
I heard Metro 2033 was good, and I know for a fact Company of Heroes is, so at least it's not a total loss.
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Gref gave me a copy of this because I told him I was feeling down. So I played it. I see the message the game wants to convey, and it's a good message and the game delivers it well. But there's a (seemingly) unintended message about man-made climate change - and climate mitigation - that pervades the game, and is not resolved or really reckoned with in any satisfying manner, and is a complete downer, really.
I actually don't think that message was unintended, nor do I think the lack of resolution for it is accidental. Funny how it goes, really.
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AC2: Sweet, my climb up things simulator actually has things to do in it this time
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Blind among the flowers, nothing means nothing to me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nmcrJkP4s8)
Done.
EDIT: Subtlety is overrated.
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I liked Red Faction: Guerilla because it was like GTA: Total Recall, and if you don't like total recall you have worse taste than Djinn and should probably sign over power of attorney to someone. When I picked up the Humble Bundle that had the sequel in it, I was excited. Instead of tooling around on the surface and smashing shit and occasionally doing missions but usually just mounting hit-and-run attacks on army bases and such, they made it some kind of Gears of War railroaded shooter? No wonder this game didn't sell.
Yeah, they either didn't have the budget to make it an open world game or decided to pay kinda-sorta-homage to the earlier installments of the series (except without any thematic homage, so it's almost certainly a budget thing). But the previous game in the series was the most fun open world game ever made. With decision-making like that, it's hardly surprising that THQ is in the crapper. Even though the actual reason they're in the crapper seems to be that they thought a peripheral-requiring family game for the Wii would sell like gangbusters on the 360 and PS3, with all those family gamers who love to buy peripherals but were like, "The Wii? Sod that noise, I'm'a get me a platform famous for Grimdark McDarkington spess mahrine simulators that costs twice as much."
... Actually that's the same kind of decision making.
Anyway, picked up this unfortunate game in the Humble THQ Bundle as well, but haven't done more than poke at it. The people I share my Steam account with have been enjoying it, so it's not a waste of $5.
Planetside 2
It's free, TotalBiscuit did several pieces on it, and someone I knew played it, so what the hell. Sure, it's a modern FPS, but it's a PC exclusive in a SF setting, so maybe it won't suck.
Two weapons, a progression system and no pickups later...
... it actually doesn't suck!
I mean, I have no idea if the FPS mechanics are any good, because I'm not a good enough FPS player to tell that sort of thing. It's fun to charge a facility with a hundred other dudes and a couple dozen vehicles, at least. I've never seen another game deliver quite that experience, so it's novel if nothing else. I doubt I'll play it much because it's hard on my wrist, not my favored genre and not my favored implementation of the genre it is, but the feeling of being in an actual space army is unmatched.
Civilization 4: Subtitles Like Vriska (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449)
A couple of recent games show a serious uptick in the latest build. In one, I got stranded on an island and actually lost. In another, I was challenged all the way to late medieval before pulling ahead, and even in the industrial era managed to overbuild and get a Revolution large enough to be interesting to put down.
I also realized courtesy of the C2C forum that I was probably crippling the AI's planning by turning on the Mastery victory, so I'm going to give it a shot with that off and see if they can make actual plans instead of just stumbling along trying and usually failing to get the best score. The main thing I'd like to see them do, since they can kinda-sorta do it in the base game and do it very well with the K-Mod AI tweaks, is conquer each other instead of building up a vastly superior military force and then dicking around with it.
(I know I should turn Great Commanders off, because they're a huge advantage for the human player, but they're so fun. ;_;)
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Torchlight II: Oh come on now. First act near the town that was the setting of the first game but is now destroyed by one of the heroes from that game, second act in the desert, third act in the jungle? You're lucky your game is fun, Runic.
(Also, lifting from D2 is one thing, because these guys made D2. Stealing the Siegebreaker Beast/Siege Guardian from D3? Uncool.)
Infamous: Lightning Storm is shiiiiiiiiiny. And a total EXP farm when you whore it out for multiple-kill bonuses. Story seems to be going into some very odd territory, as Kessler is giving every indication of being Cole from the future, which makes it entirely possible his girlfriend is Evil Trish, which is not at all where I expected this game to go.
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If I had the slightest iota of respect for you, it would be gone after you insulted the Macho Man. You have less shame than was granted to animals.
No sense wasting all this good will~ (http://lpix.org/979819/likeabasch.gif)
Playing: FF12 IZJS
It's still probably my least favorite of the recent FFs, but the Job system at least makes it fun to mix and match party members instead of the "Learn EVERYTHING with EVERYONE!" strategy that vanilla FF12 naturally encouraged. For job assignment, I went with Hunter Vaan, White Mage Penelo, Machinist Balthier, Archer Fran, Time Mage Ashe, and Knight Basch.
The best part is all the shitty animu men. <3
Like a Basch.
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Pokemon Blue Terrible playthrough:
Moving right along in the game. It's still really easy. The entire team has been assembled: Onix, Beedrill, Wigglytuff, Farfetched, Hypno, and Seaking. If Bug actually had any worthwhile attacks, it would be a really good attacking type because of all the pokemon with Poison as a secondary type. As a result Beedrill has been doing decently with Twineedle. Onix is also fairly good despite his awful attack stat and he does quite well for himself with Dig and Rockslide. Right now I just beat Koga. Lt Surge got stopped easily be Onix, almost all of Erika's team is 4x weak to bug, and Koga was taken down easily by Onix and Hypno. The team has a lot of trouble with Psychic types because everyone except for Hypno and Seaking has terrible Special so Sabrina's gym could be more interesting.
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Tales of Graces F- This is the game that never ends~ Maybe the Zhonecage on Chaos isn't the best place to try mastering new mains >_> Tried out all of the characters for a while to help keep the game fresh while getting the rest of the mastery artes titles that I needed and decided Sophie (hands up if you're surprised) was going to be my secondary main after Cheria. Started off Zhonecage with Cheria, team Cheria/Sophie/Hubert/Richard (cosplayed by Asbel), first floor wasn't too bad and eventually managed to get the boss pretty much perma stunned most of the time. Second floor I switched to Sophie and oh god arrows of doom Vortex spamming fiends especially on Hubert's CDEF and Ffffffff Cedric 2.0 and random flames bursting from the floor while I'm trying to do the sidesteps <_< Near a half dozen resets so far~
One thing I'm noticing vs the boss is that I seem to be having a harder time building up CCs with Sophie (haven't been able to get it to max vs the boss so far) than I did/do with Cheria whom I seem able to build up to max CC quite easily with.
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Devil Survivor 2:
So at this point I'm pretty much just chilling with Joe 100% of the time, and avoiding eye contact with everybody else.
User Fenrir doing the right thing.
Yes.
Joe. Please don't be Lucifer or something.
Airi's joined my team. Small breasts. D size?
There was a "superboss that should be avoided" named something like Boris, in one battle. He's dead and I got Ziodyne from him. This goes very well with the very balanced Frans Doom (Frans Doom is the main character): 4 Strength, 5 Vitality, 4 Agility, 25 Magic.
Expecting no challenge anymore until Day 5.
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I'd recommend looking into some vit for him here and there so that when the anti-physical skills come along you'll be able to slap those on.
Airi honestly is probably the character that irritates me the most. It's like Colette in ToS, I want to like her there's some good material to work with but her main personality trait is taken to such amazing extremes it's just not tolerable anymore.
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Yeah I do intend to get some vit on Frans Doom at one point. Probably only after 40 mag. Some demons can white knight Frans Doom until then.
I sure hope I don't run into Baldur v2
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Frans Doom? No Yattaf? =(
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Yattaf is a female name, duh.
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Neither Hypno nor Wigglytuff strike me as terrible at all (if I ranked all the RBY pokemon by in-game I kinda expect they'd end up in top half, though not certain on Wiggly). Beedrill at least ends up bad. Also, surprised you're making an RBY terrible team without an entry from the amazing fighting type. You should totally use Hitmonchan or Machoke or something.
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Is Hypno even worse in-game than Mr. Mime by a considerable margin?
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I always felt Hypno was much better than Mr. Mime in gen 1; its special was significantly higher (115 vs 100), it had significantly better attack for damaging other Psychics (73 vs 45), it could sleep stuff, and it got Psychic by level so you didn't have to burn the OPG TM on it.
Mr. Mime really only has higher speed and Thunderbolt compatability in its favor, and there's so much competition for T-bolt I wouldn't credit it much for that.
Also Lickitung demands to be any terrible gen 1 team. 310 BST total! 55 attack! 60 special!!!
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Quite a bit better. Base special is 15 points higher, learns Psychic without a TM (at a reasonable level, learns Hypnosis, even has an okay physical (Headbutt off just below average attack) for killing other high-special psychics.
edit: hinode ninja
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Let the man play shitty pokemon as much as he wants. I am disappointed in the lack of Ekans as well you guys, but let him do his thing.
Real men do Team Rocket runs though.
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But but the DL is nothing if not a group of people who will overanalyse everything to do with RPGs, including your silly theme playthroughs!
Also, hinode, I'm impressed you can make Lickitung sound so bad without even mentioning his game-worst speed.
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I actually used Hypno a lot in-game back in RBY; it was a sleeper who could actually take hits from the legendary birds (unlike the grass and bug types) decently and didn't require a trade evo (unlike Gengar). It was also about the only sleeper who wouldn't die horribly against Mewtwo on the rare attempts I tried to catch it without a Master Ball.
115 special on a Psychic typing went a long way back then.
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6x Ditto team
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Wigglytuff was largely chosen because I wanted a second early member and it seemed like the worst of the bunch (Pidgey might have been as bad, but that would cause overlap with DUX). Part of the makeup was picking pokemon that could be picked up throughout the game so I didn't end up with a level 50 Beedrill steamrolling everything. Drowzee was actually the worst member of the team around the Vermillion/S.S. Anne/Rock Tunnel stage of the game and he doesn't feel particularly stronger than any of the other members of the team currently. However, he just learned Psychic so that could change. I think Hypno vs Mr. Mime is a bit of a wash since Mr. Mime gets Thunderbolt and has the better speed. I don't believe Ekans is catchable in Blue and even then he'd still have Glare/Wrap as a strategy which strikes me as tedious more than bad. I figured the fighting types could generally get by with their base stats and by using normal attacks if nothing else. Lickitung probably should have been on the team, but I forgot that he existed.
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I always felt Hypno was much better than Mr. Mime in gen 1; its special was significantly higher (115 vs 100), it had significantly better attack for damaging other Psychics (73 vs 45), it could sleep stuff, and it got Psychic by level so you didn't have to burn the OPG TM on it.
Mr. Mime really only has higher speed and Thunderbolt compatability in its favor, and there's so much competition for T-bolt I wouldn't credit it much for that.
Also Lickitung demands to be any terrible gen 1 team. 310 BST total! 55 attack! 60 special!!!
Okay, so my kneejerk was correct. Also what the christ Lickitung, it's like it murdered the Gamefreaks family tree Flareon couldn't off in gen 1.
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FF8 - RICHARD challenge completed. Wipe count continued:
Wipe 23: Griever draws Death from my Magic list and proceeds to cast it on me. Oops.
Wipe 24: UltiGriever2 double act physicals kill me dead before I can do anything after peerless wears off
Wipe 25: Shockwave Pulsar before I am able to GF Shield with Cerberus
Wipe 26: I finally make it frue Ultimecia, who blows away my Str-J as her second or third move. I GF Shield with Cerberus once against Apocalypse, but am unable to do so the second time it happens. Even Shelled, the attack deals more damage than I have HP
Wipe 27: Make it again to frue Ulti, this time with no offense coming in. Ulti doubles with Hell's Judgement into a base physical for the kill
Wipe 28: Make it to frue Ulti again with Cerberus, but this time, Ulti casts Holy after a couple of Hell's Judgement (where I decide to heal) and kills me with it.
Wipe 29: I get to frue Ulti and use my Hero ASAP. It wears off much faster than I imagine and I die again from a base physical.
The successful run featured a bit of strategizing between myself, CK and Vice President RICHARD. Per RICHARD's advice, I set the speed of the battle back to slowest instead of fastest. Next, I go back to using Brothers as a GF. I also load down Squall with a bunch of trash magic like Firaga, Scans and what not so that Ulti has more magic to random select and blow away instead of hitting more vital junctions. Due to the way the challenge is set up, each of the three main GFs all have some sort of weakness that can't be covered off. However, Brothers' was the easiest to mitigate this battle because Ultimecia rarely uses status and Griever only really does lethal status if you have it in your magic list. So, off I go and shuffle those out of the way onto someone who is already dead before coming into battle (this way they never appear as your allies are picked off). Brothers has an additional benefit in that he is the only GF that gives you enough breathing space to take a Shockwave Pulsar/Apocalypse even when HP-J is gone. With Defend and Shell up, you can effectively quarter magic damage, which is important to note. Lastly, I slap Holy onto Elem-Def because its the only spell that shows up across the entire chain. And with that off we go to...
SQUALL vs. ULTIMECIA
HEAVEN OR HELL
FINAL ROUND
LET'S ROCK
Ulti's first form dies to a 5 hit or more Renzo pretty easily. The important part here is setting up Haste, Shell and Aura and then killing off my allies so they don't get in the way of the challenge.
Griever's tough, and probably the hardest part here because the junction blowing starts and getting an unlucky draw can end an attempt right there. Same strategy applies as before, reapplying the positive status as necessary. Doom can be Elixir'd off, same with Meltdown. Pain can be Remedies. Again, without outright lethal status, Brothers' weakness is a bit easier to handle.
UltiGreiver1 rarely has junction blowing, but the magic power goes up and both Quake and Tornado deal around 2000 damage. She also has a double acting physical that can crit, so this can pile up damage quickly. No change in terms of the damage strategy, but staying relatively healed is always a priority (as the majority of my offense right now is from Aura).
UltiGreiver2...same as above, but has very little HP. She goes down pretty quick.
Frue Ultimecia appears and this time, I take the superior advice of user RICHARD instead of user Laggy and fully heal myself at all times (easily accomplished with X Potions or Elixirs). With Haste, I am able to occasionally get a double and use Renzokuken. I get lucky in that my second (or third) Renzo leads to a Lionheart, which kills. Then it's time for the dreaded SPEECH phase. I use the Hero here to effective gain ground. Ulti eventually draw Apocalypse and I do have to contend with it once. But with Shell and Spr-J (my HP-J was gone by this point), Ultimecia fails to kill me, and I heal myself, double and pretty much cruise to victory.
And that is the end of said challenge. Nevergiveup.jpeg.
GF Rankings:
Probably stuff you shouldn't be too surprised about but basically: Cerberus, Brothers and Carbuncle >>> everyone else. Only these three really have a self sustaining set of abilities, especially in the late game. Everyone else has some gaping problems as a standalone GF but some do get their moments. Rankings...
1. Brothers - Probably the best overall GF. HP, Strength and Spirit along with Defend makes them pretty competent. Defend scumming for example, becomes possible. You can also Defend against big damage (as mentioned above) that would otherwise be not survivable with the others. Having strength and HP means it's got good durability most of the time AND offense too. It's downside is that it's slow and status bait.
2. Carbuncle - Carbuncle is also pretty self sustaining. HP, Vitality and Magic. Doesn't look like much, but Carbuncle also has passive abilities that boost his effectiveness and one of them, is Auto-Reflect. He's also the first GF (other than Siren, but Siren) to get St-Def and will be the only one for a while that has offense (in Magic) too. His weakness towards the end is that his offense gradually gets worse and worse. And with someone constantly blowing at your magic stock, this becomes a bigger hassle then you might think.
3. Cerberus - Blitz cannon. I've had more wipes with Cerberus than with any other GF because he gives you this false sense of security. And then all of a sudden...RANDOM ATTACK THAT IS SOMEWHAT COMPETENT wipe. Both Cerberus and Carbuncle are AP sinks too, but good thing Cactuars are huntable almost right around the corner afterwards. His biggest problem towards the end is lack of durability whatsoever. But Speed and Auto Haste along with strength is just so good. At least he wipes the piss easy bosses without having it take too long.
4. Quezacolt - Honestly, Quezacolt is obsoleted by Carbuncle. But Card Mod is always good and gets you lots of good stuff early and late. He should also be decent in theory (has HP and Vit, also has Mag+ abilities for better offense) though.
5. Ifrit - Ifrit's the first guy with Strength, which is good in the opening stretches of the game. He's also needed for Lionheart because you can't get Pulse Ammo otherwise. And Lionheart became like a core of my strategy towards the end of Disc 3, so yeah sure.
6. Leviathan - He has Supt Mag RF, which is an important branch of magic containing Protect, Shell and most importantly? AURA. Auras were important late to prevent more wipes from wandering into fights at low HP.
7. Siren - Life Mag RF if nothing else. AND she can kill T-Rexaurs initially! So hey, that's something.
8. Diablos - Time Mag RF and St Mag RF are neat. Enc None too, although it takes way too long to get, but it's p.awesome once you do have it.
9. Tonberry - Tonberry had ONE purpose and one purpose only. He prevented me from needing to grind up to level 60 to encounter Adamantoise over level 30. Thanks to the Level up ability. If you think I am joking I am not. Literally dead serious here.
10t. Everyone else sans Doomtrain (so Shiva/Pandemona/Alexander/Bahamut/Eden/Cactuar) - These guys were all pretty much useless starting out. You either had more important things to invest in, or they got obsoleted pretty quickly, or they're just BAD standalone. Had no contributions whatsoever through the entire challenge).
NO RANK. Doomtrain - I was lazy and didn't bother getting 6 Malboro Tentacles. Doomtrain I imagine, probably falls inline with the rest of the people at 10t, but who knows. He might have had some auxiliary use that could propel him above Tonberry!
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He has the added bonus of being the most intriguing character in FF8. While everyone else exists only to be involved in some facet of Squall's stupid narrative, Doomtrain is free of any such entanglements. Instead we are free to ask things like "why can't I ride on the Doomtrain?" And "why does being hit with a train cause all these status effects?" And "when he talks does it sound like a steam whistle?"
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Infamous: Called it! Well, not Sasha, but the more important part. Game over, good ending. All dead drops found, all side missions done, 309/350 blast shards. Hopefully 2nd OGs gets here tomorrow, but if not I'll probably start the second one.
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Front Mission 3 - Okay instead of pissing me off this time it reduced me to laughter. Beat up Lukav in his totallynotXenogears mech with a beam cannon. HAHAHAHA YOU ARE THE FIRST TO HAVE TRIED ME THIS MUCH. Then there is a cutscene of missiles being launched and I am thinking "Oh nice one. Someone is finally going to call the fact that wars aren't fought nearly entirely on foot like this game so far has suggested even with mechs you can't beat an ICBM".
Oh how wrong I was.
Elisa says "Ohmigosh it is a cruise missile!" then Lukav says "Farewell ... Macho Man" and proceeds to run away on foot. THIS IS THE BEST PLAN EVER. Then in the explosions a tank inside some building drives away.
This is A) Not how you use cruise missiles B) should be massive overkill given that he fires off like 6 C) COMPLETELY FUCKING RIDICULOUS and D) Entirely ineffective as all it does is blow up a building and do no harm to the party. I am also not convinced they were actual cruise missiles.
Then the dialogue after it makes even less sense than usual with Liu shouting about how Macho Man is going to get himself killed and he needs to work with Liu and I don't even know what the fuck was supposed to be happening to get this reaction.
Edit - I forgot to say that is the actual dialogue. I know I swear a lot more than is necessary, but Ohmigosh is entirely inappropriate to someone launching 6 missiles at you.
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XCOM: Restarted this, since my previous playthrough was pretty FUBAR.
I decided to actually enable Ironman this time through since I was pretty much playing that way anyway.
Going decently and just passed through the first Terror mission. I'm lagging way behind on my objectives (capturing live aliens, etc) this time, instead focusing on getting some satellites into the air (for cash flow) and troop upgrades, then armor, followed by some improved weapons (already having trouble with that).
My main squad is ranking up well (two Captains!) Lost CT due to her panicking in her first mission out, but otherwise no casualties despite some bad maps (fuck indoor, multi-story maps).
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Got to Montreal. Still managing to get every Ghost and smooth operator bonus (unless there is a better silver tongue bonus available). Also, it's hard to say since there's no stats on it, but I'm pretty sure I'm still eligible for the Pacifist achievement. Game continues to be a better Deus Ex gameplay wise but much worse plot wise. I have gotten to the point where none of the augments seem immediately beneficial, but knowing that I have a few bosses coming up have opted to get a couple points in Dermal armor. It hasn't been difficult enough yet to require a radar boost or smart vision, though. Maybe if I wasn't save scumming the Ghost bonuses.
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Radar Boost and Smart Vision are not that useful at all. If you have a feel for the stealth system then they don't really give you much information you haven't already internalised.
Front Mission 3 - So the script keeps being mongo.
Kawada: Regroup at the connection bridge! Don't let them into Okinawa!
...Too bad we can't give much of a backup though.
Ryogo: Can't they settle down?
Pham: They're fighting the Imaginary Numbers! Of course they can't.
Ryogo: They gotta be more laid back! They can't win like this.
Mayer: You're a different story all together, Ryogo.
Ryogo = RICHARD continues to be facttruth proven by science.
MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAVE: How is the situation in Okinawa!?
Kawada: You must be MACHO MAN. The situation is terrible.
Even the game knows that Macho Man ruins everything.
Kawada: This is the civilian residential area of Ocean City.
Pham: What a fortress...
Kawada: MIDAS is on the lowest level.
MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE: Wait, MIDAS is buried directly under the city!?
Kawada: That is correct. MIDAS is set in the city's power source.
If it's removed incorrectly, the city will collapse into the sea.
That... that is not what buried means Macho Man. What is wrong with you?
Also nice Bane plot there Lukav. If only you had Bane Voice to go with it. "Ohmigosh its a cruise missile!" "And you think this gives you power over me?"
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<Grefter> This game makes me angry, confused, disillusioned and possibly slightly erotic.
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Radar Boost and Smart Vision are not that useful at all. If you have a feel for the stealth system then they don't really give you much information you haven't already internalised.
Yeah, didn't think so. Honestly at this point my best option is looking to be filling out silent running, my inventory size, and then wondering why I continue to try to DTD every enemy when in reality I already have all the augments I'd actually want. heck, it's not even worth filling out the hacking skills since I have 60 viruses each and maxed out stealth. And I'm only halfway through the game.
I guess they were balancing the game for stealth players who weren't taking down every enemy and weren't hacking every single panel. Still, it feels a little ridiculous that only halfway through the game there's no more Augments I actually want to build towards.
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Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow
- Finished. On Hard Mode. The difficulty was... It's tough to say. It picked up for damn sure. Ninja reinforcements are still the worst thing ever, though I actually feel like they worked really well in chapter 10X, as you KNEW they were coming and from where. Whole team was strong. Ended up using
- Marth
- My Unit
- Ogma
- Yumina
- Minerva
- Sirius
- Belf
- Jeorge
- Katarina
- Horace
- Palla
- Tried out a couple others, though they were dropped. Pretty much everyone here was solid, though they required varying amounts of help. Chapter 19 was absolutely ridiculous. Warp and Rescue helped a lot.
I dunno, I feel like the difficulty was good, if maybe a little on the hard side for my first playthrough, but it was satisfying. The in battle save points help a LOT.
Overall, good game. Better than Shadow Dragon for sure.
Also played and beat FF9 for the first time. Had an incredibly epic last boss fight against Necron, where Steiner ended up being the last one standing, condemned, then he entered Trance, got hit with Necron's HP-1 attack, and swung at him for 9999 for the kill. Reminds me of my similarly epic final fight against Sephiroth, where I ended up taking a non materia equipped Vincent into the fight, as I had to split my party into two to fight Jenova and had only been using three characters.
Barely did any sidequests, and felt fairly underleveled at 46, but it was a lot of fun.
I dunno if any of you guys saw this before, but I was looking for videos of my FF Hack on youtube, and found a guy doing a low level game of it! He's also done videos of Eviltype that are quite interesting. Beastly242.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Beastly242?feature=g-user-u Is his channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1n3h3xjKnI Is a link to his fight Vs. Poltergeist in my hack, which is his most recent video.
The video's aren't commentated, but he usually has good dialogue in the description.
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Started Infamous 2. Holy crap, the game has actual cutscenes now! And Cole doesn't sound like Christian Bale! Madness and insanity, I tells you.
Looking over the powers...man, good side sucks in this one, at least for inherent boosts.
Good gives you: A damage reduction when you hit civilians (killing civilians drops your karma, so this lets you build to higher karma levels faster); a minor energy recharge when you shoot somebody; and the ability to heal multiple civilians at once (what the hell why does that even matter)
Evil gives you: The ability to kill civilians for free XP; basic lightning that hits multiple enemies; and temporary infinite energy when you drain somebody.
Gee I wonder which one is better.
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I personally think recharge on hit is the best of those. Any time you're in a fight you might actually lose, you won't have anyone to drain.
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Agreed. It's actually sorta neat, I think, how they lead to different overall play styles. Good gets you a constant trickle of energy, but you have to be somewhat careful with your expensive powers, evil you run out of juice and need to recharge more often regardless (and you can be knocked off an enemy you're draining, so it can be tricky in tougher fights), but you get these bursts of unlimited power for hilarious mayhem.
Goes beyond just the inherent boosts, but I'd call it a wash until about halfway through the game, give or take, where you get the tier three powers on your basic attack. Good gives you a full-auto bolt, evil gives you a big burst. Really no comparing them, boltstream, the good power, is hax and meshes very well with the recharge. Good also gets a much, much better mobility ability.
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I may be filtering my impressions through my experience with the first game, where the recharge-on-hit was so tiny as to be useless, especially given how high your max energy is by the time you get the second tier of karma abilities (which is where you get it in inFamous 2). Plus it's not like cars/lamps/AC units were hard to find, even in major battleground (and they heal you, which is more important anyway given the enemies' hax accuracy)
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I found Good better than Evil in Infamous 2. Good's powers are better at killing human enemies, Evil powers are better at killing large monster enemies.
Why? For Good side, Ice Rockets. DEAR FUCKING LORD Ice Rockets. Instant OHKO to any human sized enemy- even freezes the freaking Ice Soldiers. So fucking useful. And they're reasonably effective against large enemies, just not nearly as good as...
Evil side- Napalm Grenades make taking down large monsters a snap. Not entirely sure if they do bonus damage or whathaveyou, but they definately do the most damage to large foes.
You tend to fight more human enemies than large ones, and for the final battle neither is really better than the other.
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Tales of Graces F- Zhonecage ... sixth floor? So new type of random enemy. It is called Bedwang. I am not kidding. Dunno if any other DLrs who played the game ever ran into it but I am kinda scared to go to sleep now =P
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I assure you that Djinn has run into Bedwang many times.
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DE:HR: lol montreal twist.
Weren't Daedalus, Icarus, and Morpheus supposed to be big deals because they were AI programs? Sooooo since DE:HR takes place 25 years earlier, and Eliza Cassan is an AI program, then....? Consistency! Additionally, there's no real subtlety to Picus at all. They could at least be less blatantly Bond Villany in their own internal memos. Last bitching point about the plot... at least in Deus Ex the handful of forced encounters were built up to. Navarre, Gunter, and Simons all played a role in the story other than shadowy merc before you had to fight them (or find ways to avoid fighting them). So far neither boss really has had that buildup, and it's starting to look like none of them will. Come on, game, you can do better than that. At least had I had to fight Eliza Cassan that would have been interesting. Nope she's just a tin can with a conscience have some shadowy noncharacter to fight instead.
2nd boss went down a lot smoother than the first thanks to two ranks in Typhoon. Didn't even go through a single stack of Typhoon ammo. I'm officially done carrying all these non-EMP lethal grenades around and clogging up my inventory. Apparently I won't need them.
When I got back to Detroit I found Wayne Haas waiting to shoot me, which is odd because I completed the mission the "good" way, without using the social enhancer to blackmail him. I did however replay the scene multiple times to see all the dialogue, so either I reloaded the wrong save way back when or the game's save files got messed up and flagged the wrong event. No big deal, though this makes me wonder if one of the times I killed someone and reloaded screwed up in a similar way locking me out of the Pacifist achievement. I hope not, that'd be some fucking bullshit.
In any case, I think I'm going to stop obsessively going for the ghost bonuses and maximizing my EXP because I can count on one hand the number of augments I actually want anymore, and all of them are a "well I'm not doing anything else with these points" kind of thing. Seriously not a game that needs to be grinded at all; no matter what playstyle you're going for a good 10-15 praxis points worth of augments are going to be totally useless. Oh well, something to keep in mind for replays.
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Zenny: Haas will always get pissy at you even if you were nice to him, which is fair enough, since getting fired for someone who was desperate enough to keep their job they shot kids before is probably a big blow. As for Eliza... yeah I dunno, I have to agree with Adam when he said "No, this is impossible, people would know." It is really not that hard to find out! (She needs maintenance, right? How the hell do you keep the janitor quiet? And her hologram generation can't actually touch people? Must make for awkward interviews...) The over-the-top Picus conspiracy BS is over-the-top conspiracy BS, so yes it makes no sense especially now that it's 10+ years after Deus Ex in real life and YouTube exists, but hey it's loyal to 90s conspiracy thinking. (If nothing else, Fox News proves that at worst, there would be several different highly polarized lying media outlets each of which told its adherents what they wanted to hear, but noooo the Iluminati need the One Big News Network everyone watches.) Also agree that Eliza's plot doesn't really jibe well with Deus Ex, but I'll give them something of a pass, it's clearly something they felt was obligatory to include for a Deus Ex game and they do try and work it in later, you'll see.
2nd boss was the toughest fight in the game for me, no Typhoon, just shotgun & paying careful attention to the water (WTF is water doing in the server room - oh wait to make the fight more sane, carry on). I do agree that as far as character build-up, I'd have far preferred an awesome boss fight against Eliza, but I'll take it, I guess. It's an interesting fight anyway on a gameplay level, but give us 2 boss fights then.
I found the improved radar quite useful myself and that was literally the first augment I bought. The default radar is good but I must have the best. Save-scumming or just playing carefully can certainly help overcome that, of course. And yeah, don't bother hacking everything just for the sake of hacking it & getting XP, I got that bug a little but realized it's not really needed too. (That said, seeing through walls at the cost of energy?! Tagging enemies to track them? lolno. Silent running isn't even that useful because it competes with invisibility. Not so much you need for the stealthy playthrough.)
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Ass Creed Bro: Excellent, assassin economic investing remains, the best part of the game. Now I can put all my money into horse stables when I can call a horse to me infinitely already
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XB: Doing some sidequests, trying to get used to the menu and controls (yeah, thanks for helping me find that Heart2Heart thing, Tide! IT WAS IN THE MENU, lulz).
FFTR: I didn't know you could SS stuff. Actually, I don't know much about the game or what to fucking do other than play the songs, but I decided to go with an entirely new troop: Onion Knight, Bartz (Bart? Barts?), Tidus and Cecil. You get an all-male bonus.
I see. So yeah, I've just been SSing shit.
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Xenoblade: 30 quests completed. Shulk & Reyn L16.
Shulk:
Slit Edge 2
Black Slash 3
Light Heal 3
Air Slash 2
Shadow Eye 2
Stream Edge 3
Reyn:
Hammer Beat 3
Wild Down 2
Guard Shift 2
War Swing 2
Sword Drive 2
Engage 2
Rage 2
Bone Upper 3
Aura Burst 2
Now @ the refugee camp. I like all of the carnal wreckage in this game, and I like the awesome fucking wreckage a couple mechons have been doing. Plot is interesting, to say the least. I have some guesses about what's going to happen. Good enough characters that have realistic responses to things. Not sure how "future" and "destiny" come in to play yet, except I'm just thinking it's a very Japanese thing to put in... Japanese game thing to put in. Anyway. Hmmm, really liking the game so far. Questing gets exhausting, but man that's a fast ass way to make money. Only 30 quests out of what, four hundred or so?
Fiora- liked her character despite plot twists and young adult female annoyances.
Shulk- smart guy, sort of enigmatic now, unusually not sharing enough with his prime partner Reyn.
Reyn- I like him. He is so sweet! I wish I had a cuddly, big man with pecks to fuckin' guard me all the time. Getting used to his current imbalance of awesomeness right now, though it's just L16 and Shulk's doing more damage at this moment.
Dunban- not really a fan, heroic dude that doesn't seem to add anything to the plot except the Monado. But he seems like an Uzuki kinda guy, so we'll see. Even during a certain plot scene, he was damaging mechon with a regular sword not dazed or toppled. WAT.
Captain: Aw. Poor guy.
Crew: Ouch.
Music is doing pretty well, especially since new environs pace out plots cenes pretty well. So far, no mammoth-sized area besides Gaur. Actually going to navigate that place a bit more cautiously since BIG APE MONKEY -- SURPRISE!!
Taking a break to put in some hours on FF13. So I've been gaming for six hours, hory shit.
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Not!GF bought me Borderlands 2 for Alvistide. So I've been playing that. The world seems put together a lot better than in 1. Less running around in big circles. It's like the jump from Vanilla/TBC to Wrath and onward in terms of objectives and their placement. Which is nice. Also, environments get some variety a lot earlier.
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Duke Nukem 1 - played through
Still fairly dandy.
Dr. Proton is a joke in episodes 1 and 2, especially 2 where you can shoot him from outside his room when he swings down and he can't get at you. Managed to die several times to him (and his room, technically) in episode 3 though.
A bit dismaying to get so few extra shot powerups in episode 3 (or at least not finding many) after they were so frontloaded in episode 2.
Dragon Quest IX - played through maingame, halting
Pretty enjoyable as I said previously.
16 hours into doing postgame things, I looked some things up and discovered just how bad some things can get. The most notable being when I looked up where to find Reckless Necklaces as there were a lot of things which are ultimately alchemised from them, only to find that outside the one given one they need to be randomly found in random chests. Others include finding out that the only 'Story' quests outside of 39 and 46 require DLC (I don't care whether it's free or not, didn't bother to check) (I don't even understand why 46 is considered a story quest anyway), and numerous references to needing to have sent your characters through multiple revocations for them to be able to handle various things (after 120 hours, my highest-levelled character is level 62. It's debatable whether I could stand grottoing long enough for one revocation, let alone multiple).
Also Stella is constantly whining currently about how I haven't had any game overs and it's getting on my goat. So I'm stopping bothering with it.
I didn't personally care too much for the job system (see earlier note about not having finished a single job yet after 120 hours), but I guess it's fine for those mad people that apparently play for 1000+ hours. Whatever.
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DQ9 drops are kind of weird, you go from needing a billion Reckless Necklaces to having way more than you'll ever need. The downloaded stuff is all available in one shot now so you should be able to hook up to wifi a single time and get everything.
Revocations aren't important in and of themselves (although you do get some nifty items the first time you revocate each class). You will want to swap jobs for extra points/inherent stats though.
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Not!GF bought me Borderlands 2 for Alvistide. So I've been playing that. The world seems put together a lot better than in 1. Less running around in big circles. It's like the jump from Vanilla/TBC to Wrath and onward in terms of objectives and their placement. Which is nice. Also, environments get some variety a lot earlier.
And in even more similarities you'll be getting a lot of face-time with your main villain.
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Every time I think that he's a pretty cool cat, though, I think to myself "but he'd be even awesomer if he was HALLOWEEN Jack." Then the last level could be his home on top of Manhattan Chase. When you walk in, the elevator would be broke, so he'd slide down a rope and then it would be GAME ON. He could rake you up and paralyze you and then he'd throw you into the fog, where you would catch your death.
Also? Handsome Jack has a diamond pet but it's not a dog. The fuck.
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Recoil time in Borderlands 2 is about the only thing I didn't like about it. Also, Siren. ): And you can port over your B1 profile to get those outfit changes, but no Siren face.
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Pokemon Blue Terrible Edition:
I've beaten all of the gym leaders and I'm about to enter Victory Road. Levels are around the 43-44 range. Sabrina was easier than expected. Her Alakazam will fall into a sort of reverse version of Lance's Dragonite AI trap. For those who aren't familiar with some of the silliness behind gen 1 Pokemon's AI, in the first gen if you sent out a Poison or Fighting type against Lance's Dragonite, it would spam Agility and Barrier endlessly because Agility and Barrier are psychic type despite being buffs and therefore would register as being "Super effective" despite not doing any damage. Similarly if you send out a psychic type against Sabrina's Alakazam, it will spam Recover repeatedly because Recover is the only move that isn't "not very effective" against other psychic types (I believe Sabrina's Alakazam's moveset is Psybeam, Reflect, Recover, Psywave). As a result Hypno was able to stall it and debuff it so another pokemon could get the kill. Blaine and Giovanni were fairly easy. Most water and ground types have an easy time against them even if they're terrible. Interestingly enough, Gary's Alakazam despite having a similar moveset to Sabrina's Alakazam will not fall in the same AI trap (I think he replaces Psywave with Psychic). He was perfectly happy to spam Psychic against my Hypno and was able to outslug him. Of course my other pokemon were able to pick up the slack, and Gary was still pretty easy since Rhyhorn, Exeggcute, and Growlithe all were defeated in a single attack.
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2nd Super Robot Wars OG (The sequel to Super Robot Wars OG2, and the ninth game in the OG saga): Clearly Banpresto is taking naming advice from the Police Squad! team now.
Anyway, finished C5 on Masaki's route. Game is a cakewalk thus far, in keeping with pretty much every other SRW ever. Shiiiiiiiiiiiny, though. And holy crap, Grungust Kai and Cybuster are beasts. After playing so much of the Z series I'd forgotten how great it was to have free attacks.
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DQ9 drops are kind of weird, you go from needing a billion Reckless Necklaces to having way more than you'll ever need. The downloaded stuff is all available in one shot now so you should be able to hook up to wifi a single time and get everything.
I can certainly agree to experiencing that with some of the early-game drops (magic beast hides/horns being the most obvious), but given that as I understand it the necklaces aren't dropped by anything, only found in chests, I'm finding it hard to see it apply.
Personally I don't care much for grottos - I was only doing them to pass the time while waiting for brighten rock harvests to respawn. The idea of having to do them for anything is an unhappy idea.
The fact that there were only two story quests actually included in the game (one of which may well be mis-marked as far as I'm aware) annoys me enough that I don't want to have to deal with finding out whether DQ9 works properly with 3DS wireless or not (regular DS doesn't understand the wireless encryption in use) (by all rights it's a late enough game that it should work, but I have had problems with some games (cannot remember which)). DQ9 quests tend to annoy me anyway, so I see no issue with using this as an excuse to disregard them.
Example:
Quest #034 - A Simple Task
Request: Get the 'Simple Simon' or 'Simple Simone' Accolade.
Solution: If your Hero Is Female, as a Ranger equip: Headsman's Axe, Minotaur Helm, Jaguarment, Gloomy Gloves, Steppe Steppers, and Agiliboots.
If your Hero is a male, then as a Priest equip: Sadistick, Dragon Shield, Hermetic Hat, Dark Robe, Heavy Handwear, Blue Jeans, Classy Clogs, and Utility Belt.
What.
VC Wario Land 3 - played through
Got all the treasures. Only got one picture piece, for novelty's sake - the golf minigame is horrible and I saw no reason to bother getting them all just to unlock another course.
I remembered that Wario started off depowered in this game, but I had forgotten the extent to which that was. Can't swim underwater at all, can't break blocks from beneath...
I'm not really a fan of the enemy graphical design. Especially when you make comparisons like the WL3 zombie (http://www.mariowiki.com/File:Zombiewl3.PNG) versus the WL2 Zombie (http://www.mariowiki.com/File:WL2_E_Zombie.PNG). Most of the enemies look overly simplistic in comparison with WL2 enemies. What the heck happened.
I feel that the game was a bit too railroady - some of the problems which only affected one or two levels should have been removed and existing problems used in their place. Sure, it's coming from a series which is essentially completely railroaded, but they've gone to the effort of setting up a system where each level is going to need to be played multiple times - just there's no point in actually replaying any level until the game tells you that something's changed enough that you can do something new there, rendering the system fairly pointless.
All up, it's fairly entertaining, but WL2 is far and away superior.
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Tales of Hearts: Beat this. Man, it's good that so few bosses have MAs, with 3 PCs and their OHKO tier damage it's pretty amazingly lethal already. Mixing more of them in would have been inviting disaster.
So yeah finishing the game got a lot more possible when I realized that golden circle cross thing was telling me where to go, not marking the seaport. I spent the whole game using like two moves, and yet it worked weirdly well. Imagine if I could read what moves did and play around with them freely.
8/10 I think? Probably the only tales game where I was actively murdering the shit out of randoms for most of the game, rather than largely avoiding them once I had my Arte grinding done. I'm not sure what it was doing right with them, but it worked.
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Example:
Quest #034 - A Simple Task
Request: Get the 'Simple Simon' or 'Simple Simone' Accolade.
Solution: If your Hero Is Female, as a Ranger equip: Headsman's Axe, Minotaur Helm, Jaguarment, Gloomy Gloves, Steppe Steppers, and Agiliboots.
If your Hero is a male, then as a Priest equip: Sadistick, Dragon Shield, Hermetic Hat, Dark Robe, Heavy Handwear, Blue Jeans, Classy Clogs, and Utility Belt.
Bad FAQ. To get the accolade you have to wear non-fashionable stuff like blue jeans, clogs, etc. Doesn't have to be those specific items. Although yes many of the quests are obnoxious.
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Pokemon terrible playthrough: Beaten! Levels were around 47-48 for everyone. It would have been harder if the AI was less dense. Aside from Bruno who's all around terrible, all of the Elite 4 did something stupid that trivialized the fight. Lorelai spammed Amnesia with Slowbro which allowed Beedrill to get up a bunch of Swords Dances and sweep her team. Agatha thought it would be a good idea to use Dream Eater on my fully awake Onix multiple times. Lance was of course baited into using Agility/Barrier indefinitely with my Beedrill and Gary spammed Recover and Withdraw with Alakazam and Blastoise respectively who otherwise could have given me some trouble.
So overall team thoughts:
Bedrill: Twineedle/Mega Drain/Swords Dance/Toxic
Probably MVP. Twineedle is just so good against so many different pokemon and it hits decently hard even if it's only hitting for neutral damage. Swords Dance sweeping is also an option and he made good use of Toxic and Mega Drain. He was also the fastest pokemon on the team.
Wigglytuff: Fire Blast/Blizzard/Thunderbolt/Body Slam
Very solid. I thought it was essentially a worse Clefable but after using him this play through the gap between them is much smaller than I thought. The HP is of course fantastic, but Body Slam was one of my best catch all options on offense and is probably stronger than Clefable's best offense. Of course Clefable makes much better use of the giant movepool options, but both are solid.
Farfetch'd: Fly/Slash/Swords Dance/Some filler move that I forgot.
LVP: Miserable stats and an awful movepool. His offense was dreadful until Fly and even then it wasn't much better. Slash helped a lot, but couldn't save him from being the worst.
Onix: Earthquake/Explosion/Strength/Rock Slide
Probably the second best after Beedrill and could have been the best if he was around as long as Beedrill. The defense is fantastic and he's practically immune to physical moves. There's something really awesome about seeing a Raticate's Hyper Fang only do 2 damage. The attack stat is bad, but his overall offense is still pretty good because Rock/Ground give such good coverage and have such powerful attacks that you get early.
Hypno: Psychic/Flash/Seismic Toss/Tri Attack
He was solid but didn't feel really gamebreaking compared to the other options. Psychic hits hard, but the intersection of pokemon that get OHKO'd by Psychic and only 2HKO'd by Wigglytuff's Body Slam or Onix's Earthquake is pretty small. His biggest niche was taking out fighting types and tanking against other psychics. He was just decent without standing out.
Seaking: Surf/Horn Attack/Ice Beam/ Waterfall
Had a really good attack stat, but nothing to use it with. Aside from that he was a very average water type who handles pokemon weak to Water or Ice and doesn't do much else.
I still have that Gen 1 Pokemon itch though so I'm thinking of doing another terrible playthrough this time on Pokemon Yellow since I think they touched up the AI a bit in that one. I'm planning on doing using a team of Pickachu/Paras/Zubat/Hitmonchan/Krabby/Ponyta. Any ideas or suggestions on how to make the team worse? I'm only using pokemon I can catch in game so sadly no Lickitung or Ekans this time. I'd also like to have at least on Surfer and one Flier and no more than 2 of the same type in the team.
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Mmm. Isn't Growlithe a bit worse than Ponyta? Fire's a bit gimpy in Gen 1 in general but I recall Ponyta having better speed and special, which is pretty big. Gramted Ponyta's available a bit earlier.
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It's hard to say. Rapidash ends up a bit faster, but Arcanine has better overall stats and both end up in the "Will outspeed most pokemon" group.
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Mm. In that case the better durability is probably more relevant yeah. Well, although if you have a bit of a level disadvantage you'll be more likely to run into its flaws, but I've never run RBY with full parties so hard to say.
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Pikachu has a decent argument to be the best electric in-game... oh wait, Yellow, never mind.
Both Growlithe and Ponyta are pretty bad, but Ponyta is probably worse. They have the same special, so it's Rapidash's 10 speed against Arcanine's better durability there. Both fail to learn any fire attack stronger than Ember except for the 5-use Fire Blast TM from Blaine*. Both have pretty good attack stats but nothing to use this with except Normal moves... and neither even learns Strength, so we're talking Bite/Stomp/etc. here unless you burn the Body Slam TM on one of them. The big difference, though, is evolution. Growlithe can evolve as soon as it gets a Fire Stone (around the 4th gym), and should because even though this prevents it from learning anything else, this gives it pretty boss stats for midgame. Ponyta doesn't evolve until Level 40. The main consideration Ponyta has is Fire Spin, so if you feel like trying your luck at a 70% lockdown move you may find Ponyta better.
*Actually, Growlithe does learn Flamethrower, if you don't evolve it... at Level 50. Yeaaah that is not worth it.
but Body Slam was one of my best catch all options on offense and is probably stronger than Clefable's best offense
It's marginally better, yeah, assuming we're not burning any TMs on either. They have the same attack, but Jigglypuff gets innate Body Slam while Clefable would instead use the slightly weaker Strength, although can learn Body Slam via the TM.
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Growlithe can use the Dig TM, which is infinitely more useful in-game than in multiplayer. Lots of competition for it, though.
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2nd OG- Is torn in between starting another cycle to complete all stages, or put it away for the moment to start on Ourai.
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FM3 - Finished so Merry Christmas Mister Sopko. I haven't got a clue what was going on in the last sequence of the game. Lukav was going to blow up Midas and then build his own country or something? So MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE literally tears the city apart and destroys a half a decade or so worth of infrastructure development. Then you kill Lukav but he isn't dead and some stupid cutscenes that looks like it comes from a Sci Fi movie about sharks where Lukav jump on to the boat and Emma wakes up out of a coma and saves them throu some completely unexplained way. She totes did it though you guys.
Gameplay in the last chunk is sloppy dribble poops. The most boring fights are ones against Imaginary Numbers because they always have the same configuration of mechs and always are a touch stronger than you are. Zzzzzzzz. The last level really hit home how much I dislike the spikes RNG of things like fist weapons and chance to hit each body part. First attempt at the final level walk forwards and then someone dies on enemy turn because they got body shot twice and 2 shot. I could have known in advance to equip the relevant defence skill, but fuck foreknowledge being necessary to not get gang banged in a fight.
Overall a game that has some fun ideas but has aged really poorly.
FF Dimensions - Just got to a camp where a Gypsy has captured a faerie in a bottle and wants to sell it to me for 1 million dollars but gives it away for free after I save their kid.
Keep it classy Japan.
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Year's almost over, wanted to see if I could remember everything I beat this year:
In reverse order because that's how backloggery lists it.
1. Beyond the Beyond (PS)
Played along with the LP, promptly gave up on playing fairly after about 2 hours, so this one is a completely gamesharked run. Game is significantly improved with no random encounters. Still the worst game ever. -1/10
2. Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance (3DS)
Yay! My first completed 3DS game! It's probably one of the best KH games, and KH Pokemon is p. cool. TWEWY cameos already give it like +2 out of 10 on their own. 6/10
3. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (NDS)
After over three years of trying to beat it, this boring mess of mixed feelings was completed. Oddly enough, it wasn't Orgy XIII that made this game bad. This was just an exercise in terrible pacing. All the pieces for a good game are here, but it's sorely lacking in anything to motivate me to actually play it. 3/10
4. Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded (NDS)
This one is just forgettable. It has the same cool additions to the Command Deck that BbS and 3D have, but it's so... unimportant. Just feels like a quick cash-in. 2/10
5. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PSP)
Feels like a shining gem in the wasteland of KH side games. The three different mains with their own playstyle combined with the command deck customization and the KH Monopoly minigame are just too much fun. Story is whatever, but Aqua is basically the only character in KH who has ever been competent so that's worth watching, particularly in the Disney Worlds. 8/10
6. Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls (GBA)
Specifically, I finally beat FF2 for the first time. Weird little game, SaGa-esque. Not really -fun-, but interesting from a research perspective, I suppose? 1/10 to 4/10 depending on how much I'm enjoying SaGa bullshit that day.
7. Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced (GBA)
Thieves break everything! This was my second run, and my first completed one. Breaking everything made it really enjoyable, but ugh the story is a mess. Marche is the bad guy, right? I can't tell. All I know is that he clearly hates the fact that his brother can walk. 4/10
8. Disgaea Infinite (PSP)
Not an RPG, but it's Disgaea, so I'll list it here anyway. Basically hilarious Disgaea fourth-wall-breaking humor without all those pesky SRPG maps getting in the way? Not really a -bad- thing, but I actually like Disgaea gameplay. Still, short and funny. 8/100
9. Lufia and the Fortress of Doom (SNES)
So I started a big attempt to finish all my SNES-era JRPGs that I'd never gotten around to finishing (or had never been translated) before SNES became any more obsolete. Lufia1 was the last one. I think I've played them all now. It's still got some charm to it despite being terrible, so 3/10.
10. Live a Live (SNES)
A beautiful pile of weird. Probably the objective best of the "untranslated Square JRPGs" just for how experimental it was and how much it succeeded despite clearly having no budget. 8/10
11. Riviera (GBA)
This one was just kinda sitting around unfinished for like 5 years. I think I beat the rest of it in like 4 hours. I really like the dialog/localization/setting aesthetics. The gameplay has that quirky Sting design going on and that's pretty cool in my book. Probably what inspired me to take on LaL. 9/10
12. Mugen Souls (PS3)
Compile Heart remakes Disgaea! It has all the trappings of Disgaea - angels and demons, disposable mascots, Tenpei music, Daisuke art, huge levels, bonus aftergame dungeons/PCs, generic recruitables and fourth-wall-breaking main PCs. Oh, and anime fanservice from hell. (That's the Compile Heart addition to the formula... -2 points). 8/10
13. Breath of Fire (GBA)
Another SNES game I hadn't played (yes, I played it on GBA, deal with it). It holds up as poorly as you'd think, but it had some cool mechanics and character designs? 3/10
14. Romancing SaGa 3 (SNES)
There's just something I unabashedly love about SaGa games. RS3 is basically proto-SaGa Frontier, and it has all the madness of SaGa Frontier that would fit on an SNES cart. Sorely needs a new translation or a remake. Seriously, why are all SaGa games so unfinished? 9/10 for favoritism, objectively more like a 5/10 for creativity and potential, but not really living up to it.
15. Seiken Densetsu 3 (SNES)
I feel like this is one of the more 'complete' Square SNES JRPGs. It does a lot of things that hadn't been done before (and still aren't done very often), and it even does a few of them well. Ring menu and ARPG battles are a cool mix, the various storypaths are also pretty interesting, though none feel fleshed out enough. Could probably be great with a remake! 7/10
16. Rudra no Hihou (SNES)
Ugh. I -really- wanted to like this game. I'd heard so much about it, but it's just a mess. There's some creative stuff going on with the multiple main characters and their parties coming together at the end, the make-your-own-spells system, and even the apocalyptic setting and strange dungeons were a great aesthetic. But it's all such a mess. Nothing is coherent, even with a good translation. And the balance issues and lack of differentiation among the parties is just kinda disappointing. The ending is also really bad. 4/10
17. Zettai Hero Project: Unlosing Ranger VS Darkdeath Evilman (PSP)
I'm not a huge fan of Roguelikes, but I am a huge fan of Nippon-Ichi. I feel like the "Reset to Lvl 1" feature was a bit of a mess, but the game is overall pretty fun. Grinding for the aftergame dungeons is not, however, and that's terrible. Engaging grinding mechanics is pretty much the one thing N1 games are required to have, dammit. Still, the best writing in a NISA game since Disgaea 1. 9/10
18. Radiant Historia (NDS)
I'm so glad I played this. 10/10
19. Radical Dreamers (SNES)
Huh, I hadn't realized I actually played -two- VNs based on an RPG series this year. Disgaea Infinite is by far the superior one. RD is kinda quirky and weird (+1) but related to CC (-3). 2/10
20. Final Fantasy IV The Complete Collection (PSP)
Oh god, FF4-2. I alternately love it for being so bad it's hilarious (We need oil to power our sails!) and hate it for being well... FF4 RPGmaker fanfiction. Also, there's a lot of terrible battle design decisions up until the last section where the game just stops talking and lets you dungeon crawl. Not a huge dungeon-crawler fan, but objectively it's pretty well done there. -2 for Everyone Being Kain. 3/10
21. Bahamut Lagoon (SNES)
I actually really love this concept and wish it would make a return: SRPG-style Maps with Turn-based Party Battles when engaging enemies. I can see the arguments that this slows the whole SRPG thing down, but it still intrigues me. Also, when burning forests is a major gameplay mechanic, I'm amused. Objectively, I'm also impressed that they managed to give so much personality to their enormous cast considering how little most of them have to do with the story (FE and CC could learn something). This is the game that started my kick of "Play ALL the SNES JRPGs!" 8/10
22. Trinity Universe (PS3)
Compile Heart at its least pervy. Unsurprisingly, it has the best writing in a Compile Heart game. It also has pretty good character chemistry and the jokes are generally hilarious. The crossover characters and the original characters all seem to feel like they really belong in the same world together (more than I can say for just about any other crossover game out there, despite being a huge fan of crossover games). Man, what a great visual novel this would be. Too bad about all that terrible gameplay mucking it up. It's Legend of Legaia with thousands of buttons to memorize in a randomly-spawned dungeon creator. Fun. 8/10 for story, but it ultimately earns a 5/10 for not being a visual novel.
23. Revelations: The Dragon Slayer (GBC)
This happened entirely on a whim when I was cleaning out an old hard drive that had a GBC emulator. It's Swords-and-Sorcery-themed SMT! It's actually pretty fun but GBC games have aged more poorly than just about anything else. 4/10
24. Yggdra Union (PSP)
I love the GBA version for all its weirdness, the PSP version is like that but better-balanced, better graphics, more characters, and more voice-acting. It's the definitive version, but I'm still not a big fan of bringing a PSP around with me so I probably would prefer the GBA version. Weird. 8/10
25. Advance Wars 2 (GBA)
Hey look, it's FE's sister series. Unsurprisingly, I love it, but it bothers me how unrankable the characters are! Whatever, at least it doesn't pretend to have a story. 7/10
26. Cthulhu Saves the World (Steam)
Hilarious, until there stops being a story half-way through. Well-balanced, interesting mechanics... until you realize there's no documentation for level-ups and skill trees. It sits in an odd place for me, but overall it's a great game. Would like to have seen it revamped with more story and better art. 7/10
27. Final Fantasy 13-2 (PS3)
This game. I'm still not a huge fan of 13, but I feel like 13-2 fixes all of the issues I had with the first one, and I genuinely like Serah. She's funny. Probably my favorite FF main since Terra. FF Pokemon is pretty cool. I had a whole team of colored chocobos. Also crazy time-travel plot is fun. I kinda hope FF continues to be -fun-. 7/10
28. Secret of Mana (SNES)
I had played the game many times, but this year marks my first completed run. All the treasures and max levels in everything! It's not a great game, but it's endearing. I wish I had played SD3 first because then I wouldn't have wasted time on this one, though. It does everything better. Everything. 4/10
29. Phantom Brave (PS2)
Powerlevelling to the max! Also beat all the new content on PB PSP, D2 PSP, and D1 PSP when I did this. It was a N1 kind of week. 10/10
30. Odin Sphere (PS2)
Gorgeous aesthetics, cool story, unique but repetitive gameplay. I love this game and wish there was some kind of co-op multiplayer for it. 9/10
31. Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (NDS)
Fun gameplay. Job options are exciting. Story is unabashedly non-existent but it instead goes for a bit of world-building flavor to keep things interesting. The FF12 cameos are pretty funny in this, too. Probably my personal favorite FFT game. 9/10
32. Saiyuki: Journey West (PS)
Speaking of FFT, this is basically a Goku-themed version of FFT. Overall amazing, though not on FFT's level. Still something that I wish more people here had played because I'd like to get an FFT fan's opinion. 6/10
...so 32 games overall eh? Not bad. I could possibly finish a few more (Pokemon Conquest, Lost Odyssey, FE11, and Tales of Graces are all sitting around near-finished) before the year ends, but I felt like writing a list -now-. Overall a good year, lots of 7+ games, but I also have a bunch of experimental and old games on the list dragging the average down. Average score: 5.97 (2 Tens, 5 Nines, 6 Eights, buncha middling stuff, 3 Twos, and Beyond the Beyond at -1)
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Devil Survivor 2: Killed the third day boss with Ronaldo.
I like difficult bosses in Devil Survivor 1/2. It always seems like you end these fights on your knees with no resources left whatsoever.
Frans dropped some Ziodyne on the physical part of the boss, Jungo berserked the magical one, Ricardo ???ed the invincible one. (Wait. What the hell, Roberto?)
Here are my thoughts about the new characters:
Fumi: No.
Jungo: Your hat is funny? Get in my team.
That red haired girl: Your hat is funny? Get in my team.
Romualdo: I'd care about your cause in another game. Go away.
The team is thus Frans/Joe/Jungo/Red haired girl.
This game might have the script with the largest amount of non-choices I've seen.
La Mulana (remake): Lost.
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And yet, utterly arbitrarily, a bunch of them matter for getting more Social Link power. Granted even if you fail at it you're perfectly able to hit Fate 4 with people you like.
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Yeah, I actually just figured that out and stopped being a jerk to everybody... (except Milhouse)
I'd have liked events raising fate levels by a fixed amount, and nothing else mattering. I'm tired of the dating sim parts of SMT.
Turns out the red haired girl is terrible. So now my team is Frans/Jungo (5 fate)/Joe (4 fate)/Makoto (3 fate). The nurse is allright too, but I don't like the way she's portrayed as SO OLD even though she's like 25? JRPGs. Having two non-mages in the team is far less of a problem than I thought.
Still a cool game. I'm forgetting about work and playing it non stop.
Frans reached 40 magic, and I'm now raising agility... Vitality really doesn't seem to matter that much since he can get Anti-Phys with 5 vit. He is completely overpowered. Jungo's almost as good but not quite, with Mow Down / Pierce / Marksmen.
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Theatrhythym: Enjoying it so far. Using WoL, Bartz, Zidane, Onion Knight. Seems like a game that's more fun to spectate than play because you can't watch all the little things happening when you're watching the notes.
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Yeah, I actually just figured that out and stopped being a jerk to everybody... (except Milhouse)
I'd have liked events raising fate levels by a fixed amount, and nothing else mattering. I'm tired of the dating sim parts of SMT.
Turns out the red haired girl is terrible. So now my team is Frans/Jungo (5 fate)/Joe (4 fate)/Makoto (3 fate). The nurse is allright too, but I don't like the way she's portrayed as SO OLD even though she's like 25? JRPGs. Having two non-mages in the team is far less of a problem than I thought.
Still a cool game. I'm forgetting about work and playing it non stop.
Frans reached 40 magic, and I'm now raising agility... Vitality really doesn't seem to matter that much since he can get Anti-Phys with 5 vit. He is completely overpowered. Jungo's almost as good but not quite, with Mow Down / Pierce / Marksmen.
You honestly want Repel Phys, just as a warning.
Airi suffers from terminal tsundere and is one of my least favorite characters in the game honestly. Keita is worse and that's about it.
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Pokemon Yellow Terrible Play through mark 2: This was a bit harder! Unfortunately now it's converged to the easy norm for now. It's amazing how much the RNG can make a pokmeon appear amazing or terrible. I reached the Nugget bridge and Paras was completely terrible; like really really bad. I needed to run back to the pokemon center after almost ever battle to heal him up so that he wouldn't die in the next battle. Eventually I fought one of the hikers on the route to Bill's house. Hikers up to this point were miserable because I had nothing that could really hurt them well. This hiker in particular had 3 Geodudes and a Machop. The Geodudes loved spamming Defense Curl so the battle took like 5 minutes with Pokemon Stadium's speed up feature. Right after I beat the Hiker the game froze up. The second time through, despite no real strategy or moveset changes, Paras did much better and I was able to make it through the Nugget Bridge and the following route much more quickly. Paras ended up handling Misty all by himself which was shocking.
A number of factors made the game much easier after Misty's gym. I got the Dig TM which Paras can learn which gives me an actually decent form of offense against Rock types which is nice. Additionally, Zubat evolved and Pikachu learned Thunderbolt which also helped the team. I decided to swap out Hitmonchan for Machoke because I needed a 4th pokemon to prevent the team from becoming too overleveled. I don't expect it to make too much of a difference. They have the exact same Base Stat Total. Machoke has a bit more durability whereas Hitmochan is faster and has a tiny bit more HP.
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Yeah, I actually just figured that out and stopped being a jerk to everybody... (except Milhouse)
I'd have liked events raising fate levels by a fixed amount, and nothing else mattering. I'm tired of the dating sim parts of SMT.
Turns out the red haired girl is terrible. So now my team is Frans/Jungo (5 fate)/Joe (4 fate)/Makoto (3 fate). The nurse is allright too, but I don't like the way she's portrayed as SO OLD even though she's like 25? JRPGs. Having two non-mages in the team is far less of a problem than I thought.
Still a cool game. I'm forgetting about work and playing it non stop.
Frans reached 40 magic, and I'm now raising agility... Vitality really doesn't seem to matter that much since he can get Anti-Phys with 5 vit. He is completely overpowered. Jungo's almost as good but not quite, with Mow Down / Pierce / Marksmen.
You honestly want Repel Phys, just as a warning.
Airi suffers from terminal tsundere and is one of my least favorite characters in the game honestly. Keita is worse and that's about it.
Haha, I love that comment.
With the passive skill that always gives one extra turn at agi 13, Frans doesn't really have much use for stat points other than vitality anyway.
I just saw someone's death on day 6, it was gruesome and completely threw me off guard.
This game twists the alignment system so that Law vs Chaos becomes Libertarianism vs Communist? There's a way bigger focus on the worst parts about liberalism though. (To be fair, that's easier to convey in an apocalyptic setting) It's kinda interesting, I liked what Strange Journey did with that a lot more though.
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I found both Roland and Yamato's camps completely unappealing and ended up going for the otherworldly being option. Which honestly I felt like was the best path in this game in terms of how it presented the overall alignment and consequences.
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Yeah, I actually just figured that out and stopped being a jerk to everybody... (except Milhouse)
I'd have liked events raising fate levels by a fixed amount, and nothing else mattering. I'm tired of the dating sim parts of SMT.
Turns out the red haired girl is terrible. So now my team is Frans/Jungo (5 fate)/Joe (4 fate)/Makoto (3 fate). The nurse is allright too, but I don't like the way she's portrayed as SO OLD even though she's like 25? JRPGs. Having two non-mages in the team is far less of a problem than I thought.
Still a cool game. I'm forgetting about work and playing it non stop.
Frans reached 40 magic, and I'm now raising agility... Vitality really doesn't seem to matter that much since he can get Anti-Phys with 5 vit. He is completely overpowered. Jungo's almost as good but not quite, with Mow Down / Pierce / Marksmen.
You honestly want Repel Phys, just as a warning.
Airi suffers from terminal tsundere and is one of my least favorite characters in the game honestly. Keita is worse and that's about it.
Haha, I love that comment.
With the passive skill that always gives one extra turn at agi 13, Frans doesn't really have much use for stat points other than vitality anyway.
I just saw someone's death on day 6, it was gruesome and completely threw me off guard.
This game twists the alignment system so that Law vs Chaos becomes Libertarianism vs Communist? There's a way bigger focus on the worst parts about liberalism though. (To be fair, that's easier to convey in an apocalyptic setting) It's kinda interesting, I liked what Strange Journey did with that a lot more though.
The endings make both paths look pretty awful.
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Crimson Shroud - played through
Cannot recommend this game.
I like the aesthetic in theory, but everything's too static. A scene will just have the character figurines in a single position for the whole scene, possibly with some different camera angles. I expected the figurines to be tapped about and so forth. This is only a minor complaint though, really.
At one point, you need to get a randomly-dropped item to proceed, which doesn't sound too bad if you don't know how encounter grinding works. Every room - outside of the first visit and any special events - always has a particular encounter (or doesn't have an encounter at all). The encounter always has the same enemy set and same special rules, if it has any (including the Ambush rule, which is particularly absurd considering that the party knows about all the repeat encounters and is given the option to try to avoid them). They also always have the same opening and closing flavour text, which makes retriggering encounters considerably mood-breaking when the party keeps making the same mistakes over and over, and so forth.
There's only one room which can have the enemy you need for the drop at this point (it is a Skeleton Mage), so if you don't get it you need to move to a different room (and sit through the flavour text for that room, again, and possibly deal with another encounter if you don't choose the obvious room) and then move back again.
Each encounter starts off with the same set of enemies, and the given encounter doesn't start off with any of the enemy you need to kill - it has a Skeleton and two Skeleton Archers. But it's fine because new enemies show up as old enemies are killed. But the possible replacement enemies are chosen from a separate set for each enemy position, and as far as I'm aware the set for the plain Skeleton only allows for more plain Skeletons and also Skeleton Knights, so if you just keep killing the enemy in the first position the number of replacements will run out and a Skeleton Mage will have never shown up.
(Similarly, later on there's an encounter with a Lich Lord and two skeletons of some type - if you keep killing the skeletons before killing the Lich Lord, skeleton reinfocements will keep showing up, while if you kill the Lich Lord while there's still replacement enemies remaining then a Lich will show up instead. This doesn't happen with huge enemies though (at least with archdemons, didn't try with minotaurs/etc) - there the position will just be left empty.)
So it's all very tedious. (Keep in mind that you don't actually get told in-game that you need to get a random drop from an enemy, let alone what enemy.)
(Also - I don't remember how long the battles in question were taking, but later battles against repeat encounters (and this is not a very long game) are 10-15 minutes per encounter.)
All descriptive text - including flavour text for items/locations, but more importantly including details of the effects of skills/magic - scrolls across the top of the screen an no yi ng ly sl ow ly. I was not able to find any way of speeding it up or displaying it in a more user-friendly manner. I ended up giving up on reading flavour text, because it was more annoying to read it than to go without.
I didn't care much for the ending. Supposedly there's a different ending if you new game plus it but I don't want to.
After the point at which you get teleported back to an old area, I went back to the room before the one you were teleported from to save and found myself slaughtered by the encounter there, after which I conducted several hours of grinding under the assumption that I was under-equipped. Then later the final boss is horribly underwhelming and I could probably have dealt with it with the equipment I had had previously. So I guess the encounter in question (which I was able to barely defeat with my upgraded equipment) was just random pseudo-superboss out of nowhere? Anyway don't go to that room after being teleported despite it being the obvious place to save, unless you want to.
The bonus dice system probably didn't have enough of an effect on battles to be worth it. They should have handed out more dice (at lower side counts, presumably) and let you carry more at once. Sure you could spend your time grinding up to 10 d20s, but then you've just got one shot at 200 bonus damage (or possibly 10 bonus damage) (assuming you can actually dump all of your bonus dice into damage at once - I never tried it). Nowhere near worth the effort.
Rolling dice does get a bit old, sadly. The 'tilt' system isn't useful at all either - either you get a small bonus die which is worthless which you could have easily gotten by comboing anyway, or you get a big bonus die which obliterates any chance you had of making your roll (assuming you can actually get big bonus dice out of the tilt system, anyway - I only ever got small dice).
Another note for anyone that decides to play for whatever reason - the Repose spells, which say they give off +10%/+20% MP regen, actually give off +25%/+50% like Frea's skills (at least Repose II gives off +50%, I never bothered with Repose because +10% would have been worthless).
McPixel - played through
Fairly entertaining, often dumb.
The elevator and Titanic stages were the most amusing ones I can remember offhand.
Haven't played any of the DLC yet.
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Ys Origin - Yunica Hard Mode playthrough, currently on the Bloody Blight. Phoenix Flame is so hilariously busted. Also, the fight against the fourth demon with Yunica is pretty much up there for me for most memorable fight in the game so far just because of how entertainingly out of control it can spiral, since there's a lot going on, a lot of targets to pin down (targets who HEAL) and the bastard learned his projectile attack patterns from ZUN. With Hugo, you just pewpewpew, abuse his egregious defensive cheese and lollerblade your way through, but Yunica has to -work- her ass off to keep the targets under control, and that's half the fun. Properly managing your MP gauge to keep Phoenix Flame always at the ready to KO the beast's parts is pretty much the difference between life and death, and no other fight in either Felghana or Origin made me feel -that- way in terms of resources for sure.
Plotwise, I'm pretty sure I officially like Ciato Yunica now, since she's written very balancedly. None of her character traits are overbearing, she doesn't indulge in excess overwriting, she just feels fairly organic. On the other hand, whenever Roy opens his goddamn mouth within sighting distance of Yunica, I bang my head on a wall until the bleeding stops. It's amazing how he manages to be about as useless as Miuscha, but in a completely different way. Ys writing.
Romancing SaGa 3 - Blew through the East Continent quests and currently testing Buné, who is a fucking mess. Four different forms with HP buffers and a continuously growing skillset and distinct stat sets (which fortunately don't make a lot of difference)! Messy initiative moves that bring her doubleacting at the top priority tally! An attack/defense buff that messes with my testing! It's like they saved all the insanity for her, considering how straight-forward Avnas, Alloces and Forneus are.
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2nd OGs: Stage 7. Irm is the destroyer of worlds. The only reason he's not soloing stages is because I have to feed kills to the Masokishin and *sadface* Ibis for secrets.
Dust: An Elysian Tale: Picked this up in the Xbox end-of-year sale. Fun Metroidvania-thing. Character designs look like they come from a furry comic, but the actual animation is really nice, the gameplay is fun and the writing is pretty sharp. By which I mean it drops Ghostbusters references into sidequests.
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Dust: An Elysian Tale: Picked this up in the Xbox end-of-year sale. Fun Metroidvania-thing. Character designs look like they come from a furry comic, but the actual animation is really nice, the gameplay is fun and the writing is pretty sharp. By which I mean it drops Ghostbusters references into sidequests.
So, it's like Blade Kitten if Blade Kitten wasn't a horrible monstrosity born from webcomic self-congratulatory masturbation?
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I do agree with Robertino's and Yamato's paths both being unappealing. Glad to see Ricardo's utopia is not seen in a positive light the whole game.
It almost seems like law and chaos should be switched? Thinking about it, I guess Rolando is more neutral than chaos.
Still, Yamato = Law = Crazy Ayn Rand world = Darwinism
while in Strange Journey for example, Chaos = Darwinism while Law = Everybody is equal (and brainwashed)
Snow: Romancing SaGa 3 boss stat topic?? (That'd be pretty great)
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Fenrir: I'm gathering data for the plot-relevant bosses and Djinn's done some mass scavenging on the mechanics so we can pull out a comprehensive stat topic eventually. IF anyone cares, I may do a later replay for data on the loser bosses (SAVE US FROM MAXIMUS OF THE 5HKO PHYSICAL AND STATUSABLE SUPPORT PLEASE). Scaling is going to be -even more- of a mess than it already is for the Abyss Guardians, though, because RS3 manages to be more sandboxy than SF by a considerable degree (it's absolutely hilarious how you could pretty much fight the Guardians in any order you wanted. Forneus at 400 HP for borderline Bluelike).
EDIT: You're probably going to multiply the boss HP scaling figures I'll apply to the topic by 2.5x and it will be GLORIOUS~
(Never leave again <3)
EDIT2: Did you know Buné's very first form immunes shot attacks? Yeah, me neither. Considering how you can 2HKO that phase -in-game- pretty handily...
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I care!!!!
Rank Boston (oh wait, no DL, right)
I would actually do an Unlimited Saga boss stat topic (if I had any reasonable way to get boss HP...)
I've fought bluelike Forneus once, because I wanted Black early. I remember the battle being pretty much "lol eat a tsunami"
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I did that before, too. So not worth it. And, if it's any consolation, I've yet to see an Abyss Guardian that doesn't at least skirt the Godlike border! (please ignore how Alloces curls himself into a ball in tears whenever the doctor asks him to point on the expository doll where the bad Arnaud touched him).
And I'll try replaying the game once again as soon as I'm finished with this data gathering. Come to think of it, there's a fucking car as a boss in that game, of course it's worth topiccing.
EDIT: Also, from a cursory glance, Boston will make Heavy because Tiger Break is hilariously busted and runs off 20 RS3 speed on him. No really, I think the only person whose damage it won't save is Snowman's, and it risks taking him out of the gutter -anyway- in spite of his egregious offense stat spread. It's the hardest tech to learn in the whole game for a reason, I guess. NOTHING explains why Harvest Moon is on that tier, though.
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DE: HR
Finished. I got cheated out of Pacifist, but whatever, as far as I'm concerned I beat the game without killing anyone. The stage design of the last area definitely shows signs of being rushed (particularly because it's so... short. Surprisingly so), though it was nice having enemies do something other than being patrolling guards. Granted, given how tedious that segment was compared to how fun I found the patrolling guards sections, I'm glad it didn't extend past this area.
Definitely a game I'd recommend, for all it's flaws. I'd say it's pretty handily better than the first Deus Ex, given that its gameplay is much more polished, and the biggest flaws are shared between the two games. I mentioned it in chat around when I beat it, but the series' writers need to wake up and realize that while not every story needs a definite ending, giving you a multiple-choice Ending and not showing the consequences of your choice makes the player feel fucking cheated. I'm pretty sure at least one of the endings basically said, "What does this choice mean for humanity? I guess we'll have to find out. ROLL CREDITS." No, fuck you, game.
Anyway, if you liked Deus Ex 1 and your computer can handle it, you should definitely pick up this game. The ending is just a glaring flaw on an otherwise fine product.
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butt zenny u r on the internet and if the last 5 minutes was not perfect you should be petitioning to delete the entire game from existence because it retroactively ruind all the games ever made by the company
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OMD2- Finished the DLC levels. The yeti pack is a notable upgrade in c hallenge- I can't fucking five skull chill caverns on nightmare without barricade abuse. Judging from the comments on the robot forums, the really hardcore players have the same issue. Fuck goblin sappers. They disable your traps and they come in massive swarms. You have to rely on guardians to have a prayer of finishing the level, which on Nightmare is pretty tough even with the revival trinket for guardians.
Had a lot of fun with the new weapons and monster types - though I wish The Tower had been a normal level in classic mode, rather than an endless mode stage.
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P4:G - Started played about 2 days and then passed out. Decided that it was too hard to play on the bus. Will probably be my nightly game though for the Sopbros.
POKEMANS: Scream Blacula Scream - Started. I am a girl. Not being able to run made me frustrated and just turn it off and listen to my Comics podcast on the bus more closely. Seriously Nintendo, cut that shit out.
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KH-triple D cups: I have learned how to masturbate Pokemon.
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(http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/pokemon-blue-version/1/14/Slowbro.gif)
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The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
1998 called, it wants me back and I'm happy to go. Aggressively traditional right down to the first dungeon being a sewer, but executed with a lot of style. The combat system seems interesting (although whether it's only superficially so or actually has depth and challenge remains to be seen) and the writing is top notch. Estelle is a delightful main and her interplay with Joshua is fun.
I'm curious how straight they're going to play the various tropes they've breadcrumbed so far, and how SRS BSNS the plot is going to get. So far they haven't averted anything but they might!
Current predictions:
Cassius will not get killed offscreen but will disappear; if they go SRS BSNS mode Estelle (and Joshua if he hasn't left) will catch up with him and he'll die saving them
Orbments will turn out to have some hideous environmental cost and that's why monsters attack them
Estelle and Joshua will end up the canon ship because Japan loves them some siscon
The Empire will invade on the Queen's birthday
The Orbment being sent for the Queen's birthday will somehow be made into a bomb
Joshua is some kind of male Barrier Maiden
Joshua will leave the party at some point because of his Dark Past but later rejoin
I don't particularly care whether they play these straight or not, but I'd rather they not go full on SRS BSNS mode with the whole thing because right now the character interplay is the best part of the writing, and it takes a past master to keep up silliness like Estelle's when shit gets real without making the character seem emotionally hollow.
Battle for Wesnoth
I should stop playing Survival maps without a Less Randomness mod.
League of Legends
Still playing left-handed (mousing left-handed, anyway), so I've yet to seriously PVP in S3, but melee AD casters have suddenly become so fun. I used to be terrible as Pantheon and now I can lead a (Int bots, but still, it's not like my teammates are any better/worse for it) game in kills with him. Ravenous Hydra is too fun, Black Cleaver even after the nerf is great.
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Just got back from Florida! I didn't play as much as...ok, not sure what is expected, but I didn't play that much!
PLaystation All-Stars Battle Royale: Beat the game with Kratos, Parapa, Radec, Fat Princess, Sweet Tooth and Sly Cooper. Why those? Because that's the order they appear in the game, figure easier to keep track of stuff that way...shut up about how the game PLAINLY LISTS your completion rate with these characters. Thoughts on each so far...
Kratos: Boring. They didn't even bother trying to make him balanced; he's got a bunch of iffy moves...then one ridiculously overpowered move that basically spam it -> win. HIs level 2 and 3 Supers are really good, his level 1 sucks and doesn't seem to have any reliable hit confirms. He's the exact kind of overpowered that is bad for a game like this:
Stupid easy to use and promotes using bad habits (eg spam one move -> win.) Why is said move so good?
Good range, faster than it should be, builds up good amount of gauge (aka the only way to kill things), massive knock back (making it combined with the range hard as hell to punish), AND TRACKS OPPONENT. The other moves aren't necessarily bad, but have obvious flaws and balance factors...the forward Square has none of those.
Parapa the Rapper: For a character you'd think would be gimmicky...he's actually a good beginner character for getting a hang of the game. Surprisingly basic, moves are straight forward, attacks are intuitive, etc. It's really no shock they made him the tutorial character. Also is one of those "have fun" characters as opposed to "look at me I'm bad ass" so you just get a better sense of having fun playing him.
Fat Princess: ...confusing. She's gimmicky but I can't figure out what her gimmick is! All I know is I've heard "CAKE, PLEASE!!!" too many times and it's kind of an awkward level 1...and I mean that in more than simply execution!
Sweet Tooth: Fire Breathing Clown with guns and a machete, whose level 3 is basically Truck-Mech with missiles, what's not to love? Ok, he's kind of awkward to use being slow, and moves don't combo too well, but his level 1 is just fun to watch when you hit it (He shoves a bomb on the person, sparta kicks them, they explode while aireborne; said explosion can kill others in splash damage thankfully.)
Radec: Long Range whore, as you'd expect from an FPS (?) character. Not much to say; he shoots things, they go flying, though his level 1 is kind of annoying because you have to aim it. Level 2 is nice and reliable though, so often just ends up being worth it to use that. Not exactly a fan of his fighting style overall though, for all that his Morph Ball -> Teleport back spam move is fun to abuse.
Sly Cooper: ...ok, now here's one I really liked. Sly's basic attacks are all straight forward and seem good, his specials are gimmicky but fun to muck with, and he's got status and such, but nothing that really leads to Level 1 Hit Confirms so they don't feel broken. His level 1 is summoning his big side kick thing (never played the game, so I don't know who this is), and is surprisingly reliable too. Level 2 is a power up style, which are often good, and lasts short enough time that he will only get 1 kill per opponent as by the time Respawning Immunity wears off, the super will have detracted. His Level 3 is all kinds of hax, and easy to get 6 kills (two per opponent) with...but then, it's a level 3; if it's not hax, then not worth using.
Game is fun, and actually a good Smash Rip Off, main flaw being the draw of characters. Sony's characters just aren't as intriguing as some companies though they at least had the sense to use a few 3rd partiers (even if Raiden and New!Dante are obvious "hey, promote our games coming out in 2013!", they still add some flavor.)
Medieval: Decided to download this because why not give it a shot? Also lets me appreciate one more character in the above game, and Sir Dan's design always brings a smile to me.
The gameplay is...dated. Camera is awful and sometimes goes spinning arbitrarily. It's a game that had some good ideas, but yeah, best way to put it is it's a 3D Action Game pre-Devil May Cry. To the game's credit, the humor is quite good, so worth playing for that.
Currently at the SIlent Village trying to figure out what to do with the Crucifix Cast and all that. Gotten all grails thus far, and beaten the Pumpkin King.
Lego Batman 2: This game came with the Vita. I've just beaten the section where you first get to use Superman.
Actual Voice Acting is funny compliment to this game, because Batman's completely serious, Joker...is the Joker, Robin's a fanboy, and Superman is sort of a subtle parody of himself. It works well, and I can see why they made the shift.
Gameplay...it's decent at first but then gets repetitive because it's "Find suit for Batman/Robin, use it to get through next section." they don't really introduce much new...
That is until you get to play as Superman and he's got a plethora of tricks neither character in any of their suits can do, and the game gets a lot better there. Looking forward to getting the other Super Heroes for that reason alone, because that feels like what will be the game's strength.
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The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (We Can't Hold All These Trainwrecks Either): Started, cleared up to stage 7 of
the Excellen and Mio Comedy Tour Masaki Route. The gross ineptitude of enemies before the game switches over to hard mode really can't be overstated. I mean they haven't been much better after the switchover either but at least they can scrape 5HKOs against a Rein Weissritter with no concrete durability investment when they manage to hit. Other than that shiny game is shiny.
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Fenrir: I'm gathering data for the plot-relevant bosses and Djinn's done some mass scavenging on the mechanics so we can pull out a comprehensive stat topic eventually. IF anyone cares, I may do a later replay for data on the loser bosses (SAVE US FROM MAXIMUS OF THE 5HKO PHYSICAL AND STATUSABLE SUPPORT PLEASE). Scaling is going to be -even more- of a mess than it already is for the Abyss Guardians, though, because RS3 manages to be more sandboxy than SF by a considerable degree (it's absolutely hilarious how you could pretty much fight the Guardians in any order you wanted. Forneus at 400 HP for borderline Bluelike).
EDIT: You're probably going to multiply the boss HP scaling figures I'll apply to the topic by 2.5x and it will be GLORIOUS~
(Never leave again <3)
EDIT2: Did you know Buné's very first form immunes shot attacks? Yeah, me neither. Considering how you can 2HKO that phase -in-game- pretty handily...
I want to say I have a RS3 hack calculator with all the mechanics and coding details down to the last bit due to following the RS3 hack community for decades. But I am too lazy to organize them for them to be any use....... Yeah, I'll just watch Djinn do his work.
On the other hand, Forneus at 400HP is perfectly doable with commander mode with the right set up. The problem is like every other SaGa game, you have to figure out what your equipment really do first.
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Just because it's -doable-, doesn't mean it's fun. >_> Granted, having enough fish scales helps mitigate a lot of what he can do, since that trivializes Maelstrom to a degree and makes Squall fail all day long (at 400 HP, the 100 or so MT is fucking scary. With SaGa healing being what it is, nothing else is all that dangerous). I think I beat him at 500 HP just by abusing Fishscales, come to think of it, because 20k HP just doesn't last you all that long even at that HP range as long as you have your skills up-to-date (stuff like Spiral Charge and Headwind get you places, and by that point, 30+ attack weapons are viable).
Also, if you could please at least translate the status and ID formula, I'd be elated, because that's one of the things that sorta elude me from looking at the equations.
EDIT:
Excellen and Mio Comedy Tour
<Trollpresto> HAHAHAHAHAHA I MADE SNOW BUY A PS3
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ID and status sure, I can pull those out. Gimme a day or two to salvage the equation.
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If you can actually tell us how the checks interact with status resistance, it'll be pretty much totes awesome, since this is what baffled me the most. The ID accuracy in particular surprised me, since, by a cursory reading of the formula, the ID moves available should be by all rights FAR LESS ACCURATE than they are pretty much across the board.
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P4 - Still solidly in the introduction, just got Yosuke his Persona. I am enjoying it more than I expected to (which was already pretty decent expectation). Then suddenly the TV has news anchors hitting on and drooling over young teen girls and I want to stab Japan in the face.
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Persona 4 and anime as fuck kinda walk hand in hand. You'll do a lot of stabbing.
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My kid is too good at rhythm games. Thirty minutes with Theatrhythm and he already is getting all-criticals on songs. I did manage to Perfect Chain a Dark Note though, so yay. First character unlocked is Cid, close to getting a couple more.
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And yet, I still can't seem to get an All Critical yet. I've gotten close but I tend to get a few stray Greats *shakes fist*
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My only All Criticals came when I did a few tracks on the lowest difficulty setting after putting 30 hours into the game.
Devil May Cry - Dante Must Die run. Griffon 1 was a real monster but he's dead now. Other bosses nasty but not as nasty. Randoms aren't so bad by comparison... yes, they Devil Trigger if you waste too much time but otherwise they seem no better than on Hard Mode. (Not that this is negligible, just nothing not seen before.) Shadows are still total badasses of course.
KIU - Knocking down treasure hunts mostly. I'm at something like 105/85/35 or so. Gold laurels on everything, beaten all stages on 5.0 intensity or about to.
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The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Game The Partner System): Stage 11 of the Comedy Tour route went and gone, pretty sure I have enough kills on the SRW Gaiden folks to get shinies later, now I have to only killfeed Ibis but I've got pffft what 30 more stages to get her 40 or so? e z bro.
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Devil Survivor 2: Didn't really expect that difficulty spike for the last day!
I joined the Anguished one because it was either that or Daichi (and I'm not following Daichi)
In the first battle of the last day, an overleveled Shiva stays behind the team for a few rounds then slowly proceeds to hunt/destroy it. I've actually managed to kill Shiva and finish the battle with only Frans and Al... This involved Frans spamming 40 mag Holy Dance with Chaos Wave.
Somehow I did this and then immediately lost to freaking Daichi? And then freaking Jungo was OHKOed by a Keita physical? What the hell.
I've built a broken super Frans to counter all this. Holy Dance, Ziodyne, Media, Anti Most, Repel Phys, Mana Surge, Revive. He's almost invincible. Al Saiduq is not quite there yet, but he's not bad either.
Anyway. All hell is supposed to break lose today, every PC is fighting each other. Yet all I see is characters saying "I love you all and understand your point of view. I'll try not to hurt you too much. No hard feelings okay?"
The worst Ragnarok.
Pokemon White 2: Still only 6 badges. But a level 21 join avenue!!
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All status alignment and stuff has to pass two checks before it can hit. Failing at either one results in a miss.
Both of type of check is to derive a specific value and play greater than or less than against something like a system internal dice (mod 100).
Also, there is no status resistance. It is either you are immune or you are not. The resistance you have in mind might be the status elemental defense value, which affects both damage and accuracy.
Common status, states down, Insanity:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value + user's will + (the skill or magic level/2) > (mod 100)
Fatal status (ID, petrify):
There are couple of exception to the rules, but don't ask me about it.
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value + user's will > (mod 100)
Percentage damage:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value + user's will + effective value > (mod 100)
Here is the link to effective value for each skill and magic system at each level.
http://kaerulabo.web.fc2.com/rs3/material/coukati_table.html
Undead Control, Fatal Mirror:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value > (mod 100)
Draining, LP damage, charm only has one check unlike above.
Draining:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/4]=< (mod 100)
LP Damage:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
Charm:
1. Technique's own accuracy + (user's charm-enemy charm)x2 > (mod 100)
If the enemy charm is higher than user's charm, the value in the parenthesis will default to zero.
Since I would rather die than try to explain how that internal dice work, here is the link to the actual accuracy when you play the derived value against the (mod 100)
http://kaerulabo.web.fc2.com/rs3/material/random_number.html
The left most row are the assumed value derived from the equation.
The center two rows are the actual accuracy when play the derived value against the (mod 100) by >
The right most two rows are the actual accuracy when play the derived value against the (mod 100) by =<
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Lament of Innocence: 3D platforming in fixed-camera perspective. Man, it's been a while since I played a PS2 game.
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Dark "Dorksiders" siders: Oh no, the Wind Waker boomerang, and I have exactly one less keyboard key to use this thing comfortably then I need.
The nickname comes from War's design which is the most tryhard thing ever, he doesn't deserve Liam O'Brien.
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The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (kekekeke volkruss rush): I got a manloli, who is weirdly competent, and an R-Blade Custom, which is predictably not competent.
And it's probably only the fifth worst unit I have right now, depending on how I feel about the AM Gunner. Oh well, at least the section of my team that matters is good.
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The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (kekekeke volkruss rush): I got a manloli, who is weirdly competent, and an R-Blade Custom, which is predictably not competent.
Raising Ing wouldn't hurt. His skill and evade are boss level, eventually learns psychic and can go up to level 9. He also has a +5% shooting damage Ace Bonus and his later mechs are all shooting oriented. He also have a couple mandatory deploy map.
Oh, and ignore the R-Blade Custom, the money you spent on it does not carry over to Ing's later mechs.
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X-Com: Enemy Within: Played and finished Normal mode.
Final Stage wasn't too bad outside of the final room where I really had no idea what to do. But slowly scaling the wall and finding out just how far I can go without activating enemies + well positioned Sniper with Double Tap got me through it.
Good game, but yeah, a lot of little glaring polish issues that hold it from being great. Just simple things like lacking a fail safe for accidentally overshooting your destination (game neither lets you take back a move, or has a "Do you want to move here?" option), and while I understand that's to avoid cheesing out "Can I hit enemies from here?", that's simply fixed by telling you viable targets AFTER the movement is confirmed (not so much doable with taking back moves via Cancel, but with an FFT style "Move here y/n?", it could easily work.) Swapping through soldiers before missions is a bit of a chore, and you can't cycle through their equips evenly too if you want to de-equip an inactive soldier with something else. A lot of these could easily be fixed with a patch too, I feel, but I get the feeling that isn't happening anytime soon.
Nonetheless, a good game. It's refreshing to see a game that doesn't try to mask it's lack of plot, and just plays it for what it is. There are aliens, you run the counter measure against them. All plot scenes are "We have discovered this, we need to make this, it is important, make it ASAP", and the characters are simply 2 Scientists and a Military dude using working together, and no forced DRAMATIZATION!!! of like "Peaceful method!" "No, we must eradicate them!" Doesn't even try to present a moral message to seriously either.
Instead, it focuses entirely on gameplay, which outside of the little polish nuances, I fail to see any real issues with. Game was good, and I don't deny impulsively buying it because it was on sale.
Stealth played another game but...let's give that it's own post!
But first...
Medievil: Mighty Sir Daniel Fortesque has beaten the Shadow Demons and is onto a large swamp with lots of instant death traps and OH GOD THIS LEVEL IS PAIN :(
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2nd OG: Also just got Ing. Starting with Continuous Action makes him one of the best people I've got, even though the R-Blade is not what you'd call special. It's good enough for killing grunts, though, which is what the CA skill and most of the early SR points are oriented toward, so he's useful enough. And he doesn't need a handpicked squadmate to let him move and attack in the same turn, so he's way better than Rio. The AM Gunner can go to hell.
I've had to restart one stage so far, when I fell one kill short of the 10 in two turns you need on stage 8's SR point. Otherwise it's been easy sailing. Got 130 combined kills for Masaki/Mio/Tutti/Precis, so I should be set for the extra attacks.
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Final Fantasy 4 The After Years: The other game I was stealth playing, finished this about a week ago! Thoughts?
...lets go quest by quest because I hate you all!
PROLOGUE:
Ok, this sets up Ceodore to have some potential as the character, the whole "I want to be me, not what people think me of because of my heritage!" Fair enough, Biggs and Wedge show some semblance of a character even! Then we go to Cecil who...is still a misogynistic asshole telling his Wife who has HELPED HIM NUMEROUS TIMES IN THE PAST to not fight, but then lets her anyway. Then we meet the villain, whose basically a scantily clad overpowered female!
Ok, right there, that shows a huge problem with the story. Nostlagia Chick covered this in her MIB2 review, and it's relevant here:
Replacing a big, intimidating villain in the first game with "Sexy Evil" is never a good idea, and pretty much setting yourself up for failure. Golbez resembled Darth Vader; that is a good thing because Darth Vader has all the aesthetic elements needed to be a good villain (and if we take Dissidia into account, the dude is 8'7 or something). Mysterious Girl is basically "evil Rydia"; it's a lazy design that tries to sell itself on taking a popular character, making her "sexy" and then WORF effect it's way through the first game's protagonist. I'll do a further parallel of Golbez vs. Mysterious Girl later, and why Golbez is just flat out better.
The game introduces it's basic elements here at least, and the 2nd boss at least tries, and randoms fail but prologue, forgive-able!
CEODORE'S CHAPTER!
So...remember the set up I mentioned for Ceodore's character in the prologue? Yeah, let's drop that entirely. Remember how I said Biggs and Wedge had a personality? Well, they die IMMEDIATELY. And we are introduced to...Hooded Man. So...we're barely in the first chapter, and already we have 2 mysterious ANONYMOUS figures. Look, I get it, you're trying to mask the fact that he's Kain, but at least give him a genuine pseudonym...or have Ceodore make one up if said character is too emo to do it. I mean, Shadow of FF6 had the whole tortured past, gave up his name, etc. thing but at least he adopted a name!
The plot here is trying to give us a "Ceodore is on the run" I guess, but really fails, because half of it is him getting back to Baron, wasting a lot of time in a stupid filler dungeon, etc. Speaking of which, Devil's Road is DUMB. Teleport Maze w/ gradual damage? Who thought that was a good idea? I know you want new dungeons, but teleport mazes are rarely fun dungeons, and adding a poison effect is ugh. TO IT'S CREDIT, game is nice enough to hand you a generic White Mage and Black Mage to give you a genuine party, so the attempt at gameplay is there...pity randoms are a cake walk, as are the bosses.
...then you lose the Black Mage and White Mage right after Baron Sewers, and are forced to do Myst Cave with just 2 PCs who can just Attack (well, Ceodore can cast White Magic.) So...way to dodge a bullet only to be hit by a knife right after, guys.
Oh, and the "Cecil is acting weird!" moment? Poorly displayed. Nothing about what Cecil does or says actually comes off as weird, especially if the Hooded Man is trying to pretend to be someone else and yeah, you get the idea. Also doesn't help that Cecil doesn't have a character to make "act weird" ...ok, I take that back, Cecil having a personality would have been a dead give away! Except he doesn't...
Challenge Dungeon is just kind of there, whatever, moving on.
Rydia
So they try to give us random backstory to fill in the 17 year gap, and fail because nothing interesting happens. Myst is back! K, whatever, nice to know...oh look, Rydia was there for Ceodore's birth! ...why is this important? Anyway, solo dungeon of meaningless and the Mysterious Girl showing off her VILLAIN SUENESS again, instantly owning the entire Feymarch because "SHE'S AWESOME DEAL WITH IT!" we get...Luca, and her two dolls. 4 person party, yay, general gameplayness!
Then we do the Sealed Cave...exactly as it was before...with scaled down enemies. Um, ok, fair enough...then Calca and Brina are removed from the team, and we have a full dungeon with Rydia and Luca, followed by a boss whose basically "Cagnazzo with a different element and OHKOs you if you don't act fast enough." Sorry, but...I can't find myself supporting Rydia's chapter at all; Sealed Cave was one of the more stretched out dungeons in FF4 and here is no different and the doors are as repetitive as always...
WHICH IS WHY THEY REDID ALL THAT WITH 5 MORE DEMON WALL BOSS FIGHTS IN THE CHALLENGE DUNGEON. This dungeon was stupid long, stupidly handled, and worse? They don't even give you Calca and Brina for it (rescuing them won't help because it technically happens BEFORE the event...oh yeah, moronic Rescue Trigger there, way to go back to NES standards of "tell you no hints" style there guys), so you're left with two slow characters, one a frail mage, no real healers (Rydia does have an Item cast at least), and limited resources. This is, hands down, the worst dungeon in the entire game.
Plotwise, it's a fine case of how...lazy the game is. See, rather than, say, put us in an original dungeon looking for one of the other 2 Dark Crystals, which FF4 never talked about, just sort hand waved as "Already stolen!", this game just says "fuck that, they're stolen again, so you never know of their whereabouts." Seriously, it was a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A NEW DUNGEON THAT FITS IN THE SETTING WITHOUT FEELING FORCED, instead you force a rehash of one of FF4's most stretched out dungeons with an overused gimmick.
OH, right, and then we meet the MAN IN BLACK! That's 3 characters with generic titles rather than nicknames or something to disguise themselves. And here, it's so easy to give him a fake name. It's silly when later in the game, after we know who this is, the game goes back to calling him "Man in Black" rather than him just getting a fake name (especially since his birth given name would be a way to hide his identity from those around him.)
Yang
Nostalgia Chick once said that Little Mermaid's biggest flaw as a story was that Ariel was the main character, when really, Triton should have been, and the movie should have been about him learning to let go, seeing as Triton is the one who actually grows and learns something while Ariel just ends up getting everything she wanted in the end while learning nothing. Fair enough...
Yang's story is the complete opposite. Ursula's got a character that could be actually interesting, in the whole "Train me dad, I'm strong see!" and Yang refusing too. The problem? Focuses on Yang's side of the story, which is uninteresting. Oh sure, by the end, we're suppose to believe that Yang learned that his daughter isn't weak, but that's not what the story actually presents. What it presents is Ursula learning what it really means to be strong, and Yang having a "Now that you understand, I feel no reason to hold back." So...yeah, this is totally Ursula growing, and Yang merely acknowledging it...meaning it should have been Ursula's story...but wait, Ursula wasn't in FF4, nor was she promoted as the main character the way Ceodore was, and no one would buy a story about a character they never heard of, so labelled it after Yang...then wanted to avoid false advertising so made it about Yang to follow through! Yeah, I made that up, but god if it doesn't feel like that's what happened.
Plotwise...they redid the Fabul scene of FF4, even with Leviathan attacking the ship. Oh, Edward makes a cameo, an extra random forest dungeon for backstory which should have been displayed throughout the story but instead is rushed in ONE DUNGEON, and what not. Also, Kain being bullshit. Manos the Hand of Fate was a silly laughable moment in FF4 to get a crystal lost, here it's
Gameplay wise, 5 FRONT ROW PHYSICAL PCs AWWW YEAH! ok, Ursula has ST healing...but god damn does it fail to be interesting.
Challenge Dungeon is a gauntlet; inoffensive but boring.
Palom
This is the black sheep of every quest in FF4TAY. Why?
For starters, Palom might as well be a new character. because add 17 years to a kid and he's going to act completely different. Palom is excellently represented in that way. He's got a fun personality, and seems to be the only one aware that he's stuck in a bad fanfic, and trying to make the most of it. Leonora...has a personality at least, but it's pretty much entirely "Has no Self esteem whatsoever, also has a crush on Palom." To be fair, that's more character than most of FF4's original cast...sadly...
A straight forward tower dungeon that is built around "Mages can deal with this easily" followed by Mithril Cave where it's "don't equip Silver or Iron Rings, you're good" and...ok, gameplay's a bit lacking because only 2 characters even if they have skillsets and such. The plot actually tries to be original relative to FF4, given Palom in Troia is not comparable to anything, Leonora is a new character, and it does the "reuse elements" idea RIGHT by finding new creative ways to use them, in this case "hey, let's use the Lodestone Cave against our enemies!" Bringing Back Dark Elf was completely dumb though. Also, continuity futz up; Lodestone Cave wasn't naturally magnetic, FF4 actually stated it was Dark Elf's spell that caused it, which Edward's Song dispelled. Whatever, this is all well and good...until the Mysterious Girl pops up.
This is a fine case of how the writers just wanted to make her seem like she's a step up from Golbez. Beats a bad guy Palom was having problems with (which is stupid because IT"S DARK ELF, but I digress), then threatens the team with just "inferior beings" as her entire personality. Reusing of the Petrify plot in a way that works, only "no wait, too strong for that, by the way, Leonora was that nameless NPC, yes we're forcing that shit, because we did it with Biggs and Wedge already!" So that's fine to force Palom to finally acknowledge someone other than himself, he does, BONDS OF FRIENDSHIP!
Mysterious Girl still wins and mocks. What's the point of having that big character arc if you're going to subvert it anyway by having the characters spectacularly fail, and in the blandest way possible (aka "lol I'm stronger fool.") See, Palom should have won the fight with Leonora, then Mysterious Girl comes back, seemingly unharmed and wins. This fits in nicely with the whole plot point later on, while not compromising Palom and Leonora's team work. It's just a prime example of "lazy shonen overpowered villain." Worst part is...game never gives a legitimate reason for her being so strong either, just says "she is, deal with it."
AND WITH THAT...
Edge
Edge's chapter is, simply put, a microcosm of FF4TAY as a whole.
It starts off with 4 individual character arcs, all of which are entirely pointless and do nothing for these bland characters, and the gameplay is worthless because you're using solo PC arcs, then you get Edge's stuff and the team reuinites and HOLY CRAP A FULL TEAM OF DIVERSE CHARACTERS! One that even resembles a general RPG team, despite all 5 being Ninjas, and the gameplay is good (or would be if fights weren't so easy.) Challenge Dungeon is kind of a pain because Chimera Brains exist; they act faster than anyone but Tsukinowa (who can't do anything significant to them), and have MT OHKO damage to all but Gekkou and maybe Edge...who they proceed to finish off. The entire dungeon is "do you draw a Chimera Brain?"
"But wait, Meeple, wasn't Edge's strategy for getting away from the Girl great!"
No, it wasn't; game plays it very straight and doesn't really play to the fact that Edge is a "shoot first, ask questions later." Oh sure, it says "hey, we got lucky, my plan worked!" but really, beforehand, it was a serious "if stay here, we die, if we jump off the tower, we have a very slight chance of living." The fact that a DEM was there didn't make it entertaining, when it clearly should have been. Really illustrates how incompetent the game's writing is, after Palom's quest (Mysterious Girl bullshit aside) showed a glimmer of hope.
Porom
So...let's start with a completely useless flashback dungeon involving doing the Kaipo Cave with Palom and Porom, telling us that...Palom is a total brat, and Porom keeps reprimanding him...stuff we knew from FF4. Shift some years forward, hey, Rydia joins, and Luca and Cid...don't join because screw you? So we could have easily had a full team for a dungeon but didn't, wonderful. Either way, this part at least gives us some adult Palom/Porom interaction, which is summed up as "Porom, cut Palom some slack, you're not his mother." He's quick to point this out and it's great, but Porom is just bland and "Oh, I'm sweet and innocent, isn't that nice?"
See, here's the thing; Palom felt like a new character as he should. Porom just felt like the same character with a new sprite, and the difference is now Palom's right because yes, Palom needs to lighten up, but he CAN'T lighten up if Porom's breathing down his neck about every little thing he does that isn't 100% Elder approved.
Ok, that off my chest, this adult sequence basically exists for that alone. Shift later on, we just hear the Mysterious Girl is attacking, GET KAIN TO HELP! You get Kain, he back stabs you later on, and the game pretends he's overpowered...yeah, this chapter is awful. OH BUT PC ELDER!!! ...for a plot fight.
...seriously, that's a huge tease. This chapter was just boring and dumb, and basically just "Mysidia's Mages are weaklings, no wonder they got beaten so badly by the red wings" in a nutshell. Then again, Fabul's Monks are no better. Worse yet? If the Elder died, things would have been fine...wait, FF4 world, Disney Deathed instead. And he didn't have an excuse to live either as he's Tellah's age, HE SHOULD HAVE DIED RIGHT THERE.
Edward
He's whining about things that he RESOLVED IN FF4, and worse yet, the interlude suggests he was over it as well. Great start there. Then we travel across the entire world with Edward, a useless character who basically exists for scan, and 3 guys who can only attack. So we get a full team, but the team is full of boring characters outside of Edward, wonderful.
This chapter tries to make Edward seem like a really smart man, but his plan basically consisted of some lucky guesses on his end, with no basis for proof. In between all that, Harley gets sick, he has to SOLO A SECTION OF THE GAME which is stupid; easy, but stupid. There's little excuse for force a soloing section in an RPG as often as FF4TAY does, let alone 2 full dungeon's worth, LET ALONE A DUNGEON WE LITERALLY DID 5 SECONDS EARLIER, and all for...reusing a really dumb plot device in FF4?
People hype Edward for his MASTER PLAN, but honestly, it's not half as interesting as people make it out to be. HE FOUND THE CARNELIAN SIGNET BECAUSE...uhh...SHUT UP HE'S SMART DON'T GUESS IT! That's basically the excuse they used. He had no real basis for it; Cecil didn't even say "please be sure to wait to open this!" I mean, what if Edward opened it on the spot? The only reason the plan fits is because the whole scenario reeks of "Idiot plot." Edward is only smart if we assume he's an idiot to begin with...
And the thing is...HE DOESN'T GET OVER HIS ANGST. Sure, this sequence makes it seem like he does, but then later on he's still whining about his failures. And I don't mean a "I failed Anna in the past, it pains me when I think about it, but I can't let it hold me back!" type thing; he actually goes "woe is me, I couldn't protect Anna, Cecil be strong for me :(" sometime after his arc. So yeah, no, Edward is bad; funny how people forget all this in favor of hyping some MASTERFUL PLAN that...well...next story covers that!
I'll give Edward's quest one thing: Actually acknowledging that under normal circumstances, Antlions are docile creatures and co-operative with Sand Rubies.
Oh yeah, Challenge dungeon was fine until you reach a room where Chocobos just steal everything without a warning. Fuck you game.
Kain
Random backstory that sort of contradicts the way Mt. Ordeals works in FF4, especially since it implied Kluya was gone but shut up, we need to let Kain fail at fighting his darkness! Nevermind that FF4 stated that failing on Mt. Ordeals = you die, and that many did this. Nope! Dark Kain just lets him live and runs wild. Great way to keep consistency guys!
Now, here's one thing I find hilarious about Kain's quest...it breaks the in-game continuity in itself and is obvious about it.
The events as we see it go as follows:
Kain gets Crystal from Mysidia, then heads to Baron. Cecil has already met with Edward. We learn Fabul and Damcyan still have Crystals left, so Kain hasn't gotten to Fabul yet, meaning Yang's quest hasn't happened yet. Fair enough...
...except that in Edward's quest, he comes across Yang on the boat. This happens before Edward goes to Baron (since that's his destination), but after Kain already attacked Fabul...but Kain hadn't attacked Fabul yet, because he reaches Baron first, which happened after Edward had already gotten there...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3xWNuZzw2c
Messing up details relative to FF4? Fine, I can let that slide (for all that I make a big deal about it, I'm not holding it too seriously against the game), but messing up continuity within the framework of the game itself is just Writing Failure 101. Unless they're trying to claim that Kain suddenly can travel through space and time to make him seem more awesome than he is.
BUT WE GO BACK TO CEODORE AND HOODED MAN!!! Oh boy, those two are...getting a little too close...and no real development ensues. Actually, they force a temporary solo arc long enough for me to get killed by an Ambush of 2 Medusas spamming Gradual Petrify. Yes, within the 5 minutes of solo time Hooded Man has, I still game overed in an SMT Style way. The dungeon was so clearly balanced around 2 PCs, they sort of forgot to balance maybe one room around Hooded Man to avoid this.
Edward's MASTER PLAN GOES OFF!!! People love to hype how brilliant it is...except for the slight detail that it FAILS MISERABLY. See, here's the thing; he kills a bunch of zombie soldiers, but Kain laughs it off, kicks Edward around, and takes the crystal anyway. Looking at the scene straight up, I saw a very obvious way Edward could have protected the Crystal outright...
MOVE THE CRYSTAL TO ANOTHER LOCATION. If you want to keep Rosa around as a trump card against Kain or something, fine, but why does Cid need to be there? Have him take the Crystal to Mythril or something; a place no one ever goes to. It's called a back up plan. And then there's the fact that what if Edward was wrong about the Carnelian Signet? What if the present Cecil gave him was harmless? His entire plan banked on an assumption.
This is exactly why I said what I said before: Edward is only a genius if you assume he and everyone else in the plot are a bunch of idiots. Problem is, the villains aren't idiots, because Kain found a way around Edward's MASTER PLAN and wins anyway.
People say this plan rivals Edgar's plan in Figaro castle, but no, it doesn't. Simple reason? Edgar's plan worked. Edgar got Terra away from Kefka successfully, saved his castle, and humiliated Kefka all at once. THAT is a successful plan. Edward took out a bunch of worthless zombie soldiers, but still lost his Crystal AND Rosa got kidnapped AGAIN in all of this. THIS IS WHAT WE CALL FAILING. I really get the feeling people wanted to believe Edward suddenly became a badass, to find some good in this, but in truth, the facts all line up:
Edward's plan only works in an idiot plot, and even assuming that, it still failed at it's primary goal rather spectacularly, and he lost something else (Rosa) on top of that...and he torched his own castle too.
Then we get the "Good Kain fights the Bad Kain and they fuse into a Super Kain!" moment. Plotwise, I hate this because seriously, you're reusing the Paladin arc for Kain and the development is so forced and all that. Gameplay wise, though, I approve simply because it means the Dragoon this game actually has a semblance of use instead of just being "Warm Body for that #5 slot." I still hate Kain, but now at least I can pretend he's a new plotless PC when that starts to matter.
...ok, that's off my chest. The gameplay of this arc is dull because "Auto Battle -> Win" applies since you're just using Ceodore/Hooded Man again. Cid joins for about 5 minutes...then Rosa for 5 seconds, and...over? Shit that is ba-...wait, those 2 stick around on the clear game...so you can leave Baron...that means in a poorly designed gameplay section, you do get a genuine team for the challenge dungeon, included Kain with an actual skillset? NOT COMPLAINING! Especially since it's one of the more benign challenge dungeons.
Ok, so the character arcs are done for the most part, and really, most of them are just bad. Poor gameplay for the most part with gimped teams sans a few exceptions, bad plot and writing and rehash moments and uh, yeah, the game is just kind of dreadful. Again, Edge's story is a microcosm for the game as a whole...which means the game actually starts getting better later, and well...here's where the game finally starts to shape up!
Golbez
PC Golbez is something I've been wanting in FF4 for a while, and have always toyed with him being the #5 character over Kain, being basically Black Magic version of Cecil with his own unique set of equips that compliment him. Golbez in this is...pretty much exactly that...and then some.
Anyway, PC Golbez being an interesting PC and FuSoYa being the partner means I can completely overlook the 2 PC thing. We have two strong characters who compliment each other well, and the area is surprisingly well balanced for them (they don't quite steam roll as much as you'd expect, but still a little on the easy side.) Even creates a unique enemy sprite for Duke Marlboros, what the hell? This arc actually deals with stuff that's vaguely interesting to the plot.
Golbez's arc feels like it remembers what FF4's theme was, that being redemption. It follows through with this greatly, as Golbez's entire characterization is trying to do good to make up for his FF4 failures, while knowing people won't accept him immediately because of that. Furthermore, Golbez's arc remembers another thing:
Golbez is ridiculously powerful, way more than anyone in FF4 sans maybe FuSoYa...who they also remember is super powerful. This is illustrated in how they beat the Mysterious Girl twice, rather convincingly, despite her cheating with the help of Asura and Leviathan. We finally have a character who punches holes in the Mysterious Girl's "Villain Sueness" and isn't just getting owned left and right. THen we redo FF4's final dungeon even though we did it backwards (with no randoms) and frankly, waste of time. Oh, right, they do still give some Villain Sueness by saying "Mysterious Girl beat Bahamut whose practically a god because shut up!" Then they bring back Zeromus and then FuSoYa and the Lunarians MAY have died!
This is the one time FF4TAY handled a potential fake death properly. Why? Because it leaves the fate of FuSoYa and Lunarians a complete mystery. End the game even states the outcome is unknown and Golbez needs to confirm it one way or another. That's fair, let the player decide what happened!
Golbez's chapter is by far the best of the character arcs. NO rehash of plotlines (Zeromus aside), gimped party is offset by both PCs being actually interesting, the usage of FF4 as genuine backstory is actually taken advantage of, and even being able to play some FF4 moments from Golbez's perspective is a nice change of pace. THIS is what FF4TAY should have been like; an original story and character arcs set in FF4's universe 17 years later that builds upon what FF4 set up, not just reusing all characters possible for the sake of it. Palom's quest is really the only one to actually understand this.
GATHERING
Ok, time for FF4's take on the World of Ruins. This is where gameplay finally kicks itself into full gear. Starts us off with a legitimate team...or would be but Golbez is just completely overpowered here. That's fine, he's suppose to be way stronger than everyone else (he single handedly took down Titan without breaking a sweat) Travelling the world recruiting allies who happen to be unconscious each time (to keep the team the same) at your own pace is fine. There are two things I am not fond of though:
-Recruiting Shiva and Ramuh is dumb. The method is vague, and very easy to screw it up accidentally. If you initiated an action and Rydia shouts out sometime after their name, you've lost them.
-The constant shifts to Cecil vs. the team. Not only is it hard to believe this is going on parallel to what Golbez and Co. are going through, time wise, it's just so slow paced. Sometimes it'd pan to basically saying the same thing but with a different character. Like first Ceodore would be all "Cecil, it's me, your son! You remember me, right?" then next scene will be the same thing but with Rosa doing that (replace son with wife of course) and OH LOOK CECIL/KAIN DUEL THAT ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING. Dumb stuff that slows the game down.
Fighting Cecil didn't do much for me. Then the CECIL INNER SPIRITUAL STUFF THAT AMOUNTS TO NOTHING is just a fine case of FF4 style plot depth trying but not really getting anything across.
THEN THE FINAL DUNGEON(S)! Ok, pure gameplay segments with some random plot interspersed with characters which are really kind of meaningless because the characters aren't well developed and fails the Bechadel test several times because girls can't shut up about how Palom is a pimp and all that. Actually, Rydia/Luca failed it earlier, when the two of them would either start talking about Luca's dad or Cid or something. Great way to write females guys!
Ok, let me make one thing clear:
While I appreciate a boss heavy dungeon, some originality would be nice. Just going "FF4 FANSERVICE WE COULDN'T FIT IN BEFORE!" I'm not fond of. I've fought Valvalis, Rubicante, etc. before, I know what they're capable of...just because you upped their stats doesn't make them better. Oh, hate for the Leviathan/Asura thing again, because seriously, permanently missable skills like that can kiss my ass.
MILD COMPLAINTS though because the game finally gives you full access to the cast, has enemies actually fighting back (and getting progressively harder), and interesting equipment starts popping up.
I saw both "Golbez lives" and "Golbez dies" moments, and well, here's an interesting thing:
Many people hyped the Golbez dies moment because "it's canon thanks to a novella!" and "the scene is on par with Crisis Core's ending for brilliance!"
Umm...what? Crisis Core's ending is one of the few times in a video game I almost started crying...and it got me even on subsequent viewings. It's a powerful, extremely well handled moment and kind of the entire point of the game. Golbez's death?
"Farewell brother, and thank you" "It is good that I can die protecting you, Cecil!" and that's it. Completely lacking in any sort of drama or sympathy.
MEANWHILE, Golbez lives is a far more...full scene. Rosa healing Golbez, aiding him in favor of Cecil actually makes sense for "Help Cecil recover" moment because "GOLBEZ IS THE BAD GUY WHY ARE YOU HELPING HIM!?", it actually resolves Ceodore's story that was literally dropped after the prologue (hence why Ceodore is a badly written character), and frankly, since Golbez's quest, the game seems to like making Golbez the actual main character, and if he lives, this continues through as the next few character scenes are about him. I know, he's not the main, but game treats him like one.
...yeah, no, Golbez lives is a way better scene (if still cheesy and silly) than Golbez dies. Hey, at least Cecil isn't totally useless...
...except yes he is. He's either a Ceodore with higher HP and worse everything else that matters (yes, Cecil has Cover, but Ceodore has Blink, Blink > Cover for physical defense), or he's a Kain that gets Lunar gear later on and otherwise worse. Doesn't help that Cecil has to rely on Swords when Ceodore and Kain can both use Lances for a sense of flexibility in weapons.
Anyway, not much to asy here other than Final Dungeon is actually good, way better than rest of the game, etc. and plot sucks. The villain is...Rudra No Hihou's villain but with moronic motives and a completely random "Thank you...", and his "WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?" moment is dumb. The Mysterious Girl twist is stupid as well because it's poorly explained and her heel face turn doesn't really make sense either, and is forced.
...er...yeah, I'm rambling and such now, so here, MY FINAL TEAM!!!
Ceodore: His only real flaw is lowish HP for an armored unit. Otherwise, he's decent secondary healer, passable speed, gets the essential White Magic spells for bosses (Blink and Haste notably; lack of slow hurts though), generally solid. Equipment draw is good and varied allowing to cover most bases well. I chose him also because, well, I explained why he > Cecil, and my other option was Kain...
Golbez: He strikes me as the best character in the game, though not necessarily MVP. Amazing equipment draw, Jeigan for a long time, and when others finally catch up, he's still a strong PC. Can run physical or magical builds, and a lot of good defensive gear for any sort of varied set up. He can even us Hammers, which makes him great for Omega.
Ursula: I was conflicted between her and Yang since my team was a bit lacking in HP, but ultimate,y I said "This game is a sequel, damn it, I'm going to at least make the cast LOOK LIKE ONE" and went with her for that reason. Fast physical damage dealer who can throw items in a pinch, gets the job done. There were times I would have preferred maybe someone else but then, she does have a Band with Ceodore for actual damage boost on bosses and some enemies so hey.
Palom: Best written character in the game, and I need a full fledged Black Mage for Stop and...Stop...a 2nd Flare user doesn't hurt of course! Why him over Rydia? Does "Best Written character in the game" not say anything to you!? To be fair, I can't think of a legitimate excuse to use him over Rydia gameplay wise outside of Band purposes, as Rydia strikes me as overall the same character just also gets Summon, though on hindsight, the only summon that seemed meaningful (especially once they get Agas/Quake) was Leviathan, which was basically MT Flare that ignored Reflect.
Porom: If I'm using Palom, might as well use Porom...that and while I did slam her before, at least she can say things besides other character's names unlike Rosa. Anyway, gets the job done as a WHite Mage, which is all I need of her. Heals, casts Slow, support spells, etc.
The one thing I didn't do in the final dungeon was kill Shinryu Nova Dragon. Why? Because opening move overkills my entire team. Yeah, gonna have to come back and fight him for...a weapon inferior to what Ultima Weapon gave me...-_-
OTHER CHARACTERS I CONSIDER USING OR MIGHT USE ON A REPLAY OF THE FINAL DUNGEONS!!!
Edge: Fast character who seems to cover a little bit of everything just well enough. Even has elemental swords and such good for specific pesky enemies. The item casts for Blink and Haste wouldn't hurt either.
Kain: ...ok, I might just not use him because fuck Kain, but realistically, he's good. He's Cecil losnig Lunar equips (kind of significant) in favor of Spears, and learning Haste and Blink. I think that's a winning trade, and Jump does let him ignore Row...I think. Honestly, the Lunar equips don't seem too relevant beyond Lunar Shield having a speed boost, and maybe Lunar Mail covering a few status Crystal Mail doesn't, since best way to handle scary physicals is Blink.
Rosa: Variation to Porom; Blessing I guess is ok but unreliable, but otherwise, yeah, you want a pure White Mage. Your options are Rosa, Porom or Leonora. Porom vs. Rosa is at least fair, Leonora is...worthless. Way less HP than both, doesn't get Holy at a reasonable level, BUT SHE GETS BLACK MAGIC!!! ...except she's likely to cap at Ara spells come end game. I get it, they wanted a project Tellah/FuSoYa character, but she has to get legitimate spells at legitimate levels for that to work.
Yang: Pretty much covered in Ursula; slower but more HP variation, in short, can't use female specifics which hurts a bit, though he does get a plot band with Edge which seems nice.
Edward: Gimmicky PC who can actually be decent at stuff, looks like he works if you want something different to muck around with.
Gekkou: Genuine Tank who isn't one dimensional and can do stuff. No, not really good, but way better than Cid and Luca, and can help give that extra HP push or something.
Anyway, pretty much agree with everyone that pre-Golbez arc stuff is pretty bad (Palom's arc possibly excepted), post-Golbez stuff when game turns the plot down significantly and the gameplay up a lot is way better. Better than FF4 just because of that 2nd half, but not exactly good because of that first half.
Oh, and lastly, WHY THE MYSTERIOUS GIRL IS AN AWFUL VILLAIN:
She's Golbez if he were a woman in a nighty. The whole "replace big intimidating villain with sexy one whose basically the same thing in terms of style, motives, etc." is a cheap way to dress up the same character as something else. Men In Black was a fine example of this:
Villain of the first movie was an ugly red neck trying to find a macguffin to take over/destroy the world, because he's really an alien. He was ruthless, intimidating, etc. He worked. In the 2nd movie, the villain was the exact same thing EXCEPT they changed it to look like a sexy lingerie model and adjusted her mannerisms as such, pretending it to be a different character. It's the cheap way to appeal to people to disguise the same character as something different.
Mysterious Girl is the same thing for Golbez really. Golbez was this big armored guy who the game hypes a lot, then he appears and lives up to his hype. The game does a good job in establishing him as a threatening bad guy, and he even has music that helps sell the scene, with the organs and it sounds all evil and gets the point across that "GOLBEZ IS IN CONTROL." The one time he's not in control is when Rydia pulls a fast one, and the music even stops there in favor of Battle with the Four Fiends. The game even had an explanation for his origins (and even retconned in a more in depth one!), and he even states his motives at one point (reaching the moon for ultimate power.) Also, HE HAS A NAME.
The Mysterious Girl doesn't have like any of that. Pops up, and Villain Sues her way through everything. The explanation we finally get for her, right before the final boss? Paper thin. The plot twist regarding how there's really a bunch of her? Poorly handled. The only time it's actually used is in Golbez's chapter where it is used to confirm that Golbez and FuSoYa are actually killing them, just there's more than one. It really comes off as an after thought. They wrote each story single handedly first going on with "she's the villain" then decided in Golbez's story "hey, what if there were a bunch of them, that would explain how she can be in so many places at once!" Oh, and her theme is so...generic. Yes, it sounds mysterious, but that's about it. Doesn't sound villainous or threatening, and makes the scenes more surreal. It lacks all the presence Golbez's theme has. It's just "Ok, villain needs a theme, give her one." When Golbez's theme plays, it's a huge contrast to the music surrounding it, and sells us on "Golbez is here, SHIT JUST GOT REAL!" I don't get that with Mysterious Girl's theme.
The other thing that made Golbez work was a sense of progress against him. Each time you fight him, your team does a little better. First time you meet, he beats you easily. Second time? He still wins, but not without your team at least doing some damage to him. Third time, your team wins (though he still cheats the crystal) but only because they got lucky, but still, a win is a win. The last time, your team genuinely overcomes him with FuSoYa's help.
Mysterious Girl, it's the same thing over and over again until Golbez's story. She appears, talks about inferior beings, curb stomps the team (usually with a summon), then walks away being evil. This is as lazy a villain as you can get. You basically write the same story for multiple chapters, dress it up to appear different and only so your villain can look awesome.
Mysterious Girl is, hands down, the worst sequel/prequel villains to me...except maybe DoC, but that game is best ignored! She's lazily written, overpowered just because "we said so, deal with it", and doesn't even have legitimate ties with any of the characters (Golbez being Cecil's brother was an asspull that accomplished nothing, but at least they tried to acknowledge the villain should have some connection to a character)...I remember hearing that in early spoilers that she's suppose to be some sort of "perfected clone of Rydia", and maybe that comes up if you have Rydia in your party, but that's an even bigger asspull, and the interlude didn't help solve that problem.
It's no surprise that as soon as Golbez enters the scene and starts showing that she can get her ass kicked the game gets better, because suddenly her role decreases a lot. I honestly think she's the worst part of the game.
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Mysterious Girl had some outstanding boss fights (Baron palace and the final showdown in particular) and two of the only new tracks in the game (I prefer the battle theme, but I'll take either over Golbez's theme which I can't get behind hype for at all). She is indeed worthless from a writing standpoint though.
I've never heard of anyone else screwing up the summon recruitments (I didn't know you could miss them if you had Rydia in your party) but I'll take your word for it, game is not well-coded enough to make me especially surprised. Beyond that I agree with most of your comments (though with about 2% of the caring level for the game's "plot". I think I stopped taking it seriously the moment I heard there were two Kains).
It's still better than the original.
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I think you wrote more than they had on the game's design document, which was almost certainly full of [FILL IN WHEN YOU GET A BETTER IDEA]
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I think you wrote more than they had on the game's design document, which was almost certainly full of [I LOVE KAIN <3 <3 <3]
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FF13 or How To Make A Script Using Editor's Digest Notes Verbatim - The writing is entertainingly bad so far. I love many of the ideas and concepts tried out, but it's just so obvious Toriyama just attended one Literature and Literary Devices 101 class and never read a single book in his entire life. Apparently I'm about to get gameplay too. Only took two hours!
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Dust: Finished. 100% clear, got all achievements except for getting four stars on all the challenge courses and putting poison ivy in a guy's underwear. The final area is kind of bullshit - platforming's okay, but the enemies alternate between auto-dodging your attacks and parrying them, which combined with the fact that you've got a ton of useless "allies" cluttering up the screen and making the enemies practically invisible makes it futile to try and fight the damn things properly. So you just spam the homing chain lightning attack, which, y'know, works, but is boring. The final boss has the same auto-parry thing, but being able to see what he's doing makes it a far more engaging fight.
Oh, I mentioned this a bit, but the game does its references very well. It's not remotely subtle about it, but they're fun - there are heroes from other XBL games locked up around the levels, and freeing them often involves something from their home games, e.g. a puzzle that break the screen down into nine non-contiguous segments you have to navigate to find the guy from Fez. Plus the Navi type is played by one of the Team Four Star cast.
Okay, back to ROBOTZ.
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Mysterious Girl had some outstanding boss fights (Baron palace and the final showdown in particular) and two of the only new tracks in the game (I prefer the battle theme, but I'll take either over Golbez's theme which I can't get behind hype for at all). She is indeed worthless from a writing standpoint though.
I've never heard of anyone else screwing up the summon recruitments (I didn't know you could miss them if you had Rydia in your party) but I'll take your word for it, game is not well-coded enough to make me especially surprised. Beyond that I agree with most of your comments (though with about 2% of the caring level for the game's "plot". I think I stopped taking it seriously the moment I heard there were two Kains).
It's still better than the original.
It's not so much Golbez theme hype (because the song isn;t that good) so much as it's usage and setting the tone way better than Mysterious Girl's theme, and there's definitely a much stronger sense of caring put into. Mysterious Girl's theme barely qualifies as music; it's just a repetitive instrument that sounds just shy of being a Christmas Carol. I don't get a sense of "The Mysterious Girl is here, shit gets real" despite what's going on whenever the song plays. The battle theme...found it notably inferior to FF4's other boss themes so yeah.
The bosses...really? The Baron Fight is completely forgettable, and I didn't even stumble upon the Broken For the Time Rydia/Rosa Band. I can't remember anything that stands out about that fight...or really the fight at all. Just kind of cruised through it with conventional methods and moved on.
The Final Showdown would be fine except for her opening attack is the biggest middle finger thing that completely futzes the fight up. I can see them giving her a strong opening, or some other move that completely stalls your opening set ups (like MT Status or MT Maelstrom to force everyone at low HP, etc.) but not something that is "Potentially OHKOs entire team if not on proper moon phase." And I don't mean "Avoid Pro-Black Magic", as I went in there on a neutral phase, and it still wrecked all but Golbez and Ceodore (which recovering from all that given her MT damage spam fast enough wasn't quite feasible.) It reminded me of Shinryu, but Shinryu is a super boss, so stunts like that are expected, this was a huge "screw you" moment. The rest of the fight was neat, just that opening move really sours the entire fight, as it's the laziest way to slow down your set up, which is the obvious reason why they did that. Also, forces Rydia on your team, which if you aren't using regularly, means you have a gimped PC for a legitimate fight. Can't really say I support that design decision (game gets away with it due to 5 PC party, granted, but still irks me.)
The 2nd form of the Final Boss did get me a reset because of the Moon Phase shenanigans, though I went in there on Neutral and it was fair; granted, it uses Meteor after you're likely to have Shell set up...
...which is something I didn't rant about, Moon Phases. This idea is poorly handled, and frankly, there is one very easy thing they could have done to keep it in effect but make it better:
Add in an All Neutral phase. The game literally doesn't let you play it normally, but forces one skillset standard to be neutered, and one skillset standard to be buffed. Doesn't really offer much for strategy as the basic premise is:
Randoms? Pro-Black Magic phase.
Bosses? Anti-Black Magic phase, since most are durability runs.
Summons, it's just Ramuh and Shiva. The way it works is after they hit a certain HP threshold, Rydia will call out their name, then everyone needs to stop acting for a bit, and the fight will end. If you hit them anytime after Rydia calls their name, they will go back to attacking you, and you have to win the fight in a conventional manner. This is easy to screw up accidentally if you don't know the HP threshold, since as I said, Rydia calls Shiva/Ramuh out while someone has an attack ready, the attack will go off and screw the entire thing up.
I wanna say it's so poorly coded that even a defensive action will provoke them, but I could be mis-remembering, so don't quote me on that. Still, game gives little indication of what to do, and little warning of it, so easy to casually miss.
Leviathan and Asura are unmissable if you have Rydia in your team though; after a certain HP threshold, the game will cause a plot end to the fight. Bahamut is similar if you have his conditions met as well. I think Ifrit, Titan and Odin are unmissable.
That reminds me further...
TWICE the game has a "Don't have x character? INSTANT GAME OVER!" with no warning about it. Only reason I let this slide is because there's a save point right near-bye both of them with a Party Editter spot, so it's a mild inconvenience but still dumb idea. Also this game has about as many plot fights as WA5 and they're all the same basic set up too.
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Playing TAY myself here, and while I agree with most meeple points, there's one thing I want to specifically touch on:
Oh, and the "Cecil is acting weird!" moment? Poorly displayed. Nothing about what Cecil does or says actually comes off as weird, especially if the Hooded Man is trying to pretend to be someone else and yeah, you get the idea. Also doesn't help that Cecil doesn't have a character to make "act weird" ...ok, I take that back, Cecil having a personality would have been a dead give away! Except he doesn't...
Cecil's line to Hooded Man is "If you're just some beggar, then leave", which...well, Cecil doesn't have much personality, but being generally kind is part of it. That's not something I'd think he'd say ever. Also, Hooded Man isn't covering his face at all, and presumably Cecil would know what Kain's face looks like. They're old comrades from pre-game FF4 times, and implied to be good friends during that period. Now, since Kain was in full kit for FF4 and cut ties with Baron after, it's fair to assume that only Cecil, Rosa and Cid would actually know his face. So Ceodore not having any idea who he is makes sense.
Anyway, not a major thing, and I agree the scene should have been handled better then it was, but yeah I very much disagree with your reasoning here.
Everything else....aside from the fact that I thought Rydia's challenge dungeon was fine, if boring(Bio > Everything. Really.), and Edge's pissed me off beyond reason(Can't Escape! from like half the things there. In a timed dungeon. alujLKSjhdlajdlkasjd), I pretty much agree with.
Well, not quite. I think Porom and Luca were handled quite a bit better then you seem to think. The big theme of TAY to me is largely: New Characters? Fairly interesting(twins and Golbez count as new). Old characters? Ball = DROPPED. Ceodore's really the only exception to that, falling in more with the Ball = Dropped crowd.
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The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (And Now For Something Completely Different): Endboss of the Comedy Tour Route was kind of a dick, acts twice and has a MAP weapon, I literally used Daunt out of paranoia. Wasn't too bad aside from that though. Then the game cut to a UOM chopping onions that's a thing sure. Then some other stuff happened and now I have a blueberry.
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Well, not quite. I think Porom and Luca were handled quite a bit better then you seem to think. The big theme of TAY to me is largely: New Characters? Fairly interesting(twins and Golbez count as new). Old characters? Ball = DROPPED. Ceodore's really the only exception to that, falling in more with the Ball = Dropped crowd.
I thought Edge did okay. He got the only good scenes in the entire game.
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Watching SNow run through ff13 for the first time. My opinion of it has lowered in some ways, though Snows snarkiness has endeared it to me in other ways. In particular, I'm more of a fan of Vanille now. She's just such a happy stoner while everyone around heirs busy being emo and caring about the plot. Yeah, I know it's an act, shut up. Also, Hope pilots a giant robot fora brief stint and is generally a happy otaku for those five minutes, which is the most endearing he's ever gonna get. Seriously, Hope, I hate you so much.
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FF13 AKA How I Stopped Worrying And Learned to Love
Stoner Grefter Lesbian Motorcycles Space Stallions PARADIGM SHIFT SPAM - VANILLE. IS. BIZARRO GREFTER. This game. This -game-.
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Paper Mario: Sticker Star - played through
For the most part, I found it very enjoyable.
I don't think that the world bosses were really designed very well, though. Actually I game-overed at least once against every world boss except the fifth. As far as I can tell, the game was intentionally set up to cause this (beyond the general idea of enemies trying to kill you).
Generally, the bosses all have a gimmick or weakness which you need a particular type of thing sticker to deal with/take advantage of. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the game, there is a sticker museum where you display stickers. So, if you're anything like me, the first copy of every thing sticker you get goes into the museum, and then if you want another copy you need to either go re-collect the thing, or you can purchase additional instances after you've found it the first time. But even if you aren't anything like me - you don't have anywhere near enough space in the album to carry around all the thing stickers you've picked up recently.
So you try the boss, and maybe you're lucky and one of the thing stickers you have on hand is relevant. And maybe you aren't, and you either have to try without them (feasible on some of the bosses, not so much on others - probably doable if you're a better player than I am), run away from the battle (normally possible) and then have to leave the level manually, or game-over and leave the level automatically.
The final kicks it up a notch by having multiple stages with different gimmicks, and bizarrely they disabled running from the battle here (you can run from all the other world bosses that I tried it on) and all the other bosses let you skip the boss introduction when you get back after running/game-overing, but they don't let you do it for the final, which is infuriating. I got to the last stage of the final on one attempt where I had gone through two stages without using their gimmick which I would go on to do in a later attempt, and couldn't finish it because I had run out of stickers which were usable against it. (The gimmick for the latter of the two stages actually didn't rely on a thing sticker for once! But my reflexes weren't good enough to kick it off after I'd realised it, before I had done enough damage to end the stage manually.)
Something else which infuriates me is some bosses being able to inflict crumpled status, which a) prevents you from doing anything (including blocking attacks) and b) causes you to take double damage. Why yes I would like to watch myself unavoidably lose before the status wears off.
Anyway, I ended up with 94/96 battle stickers and 60/64 thing stickers in the museum. I don't really have any inclination to go looking for the missing ones. Had two super flags unfurled (comet pieces and secret doors, a.k.a. the easy ones), also with no inclination to deal with the remaining ones (perfect-ing 230 more battles seems like something I certainly want to do).
I'll just note for anyone as dense as I am that some stores have a second billboard to the left/right of the displayed billboard. Sure, the L/R page buttons come up, but since you don't see more than one of them at a time I somehow never noticed until the shop in world 4.
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It's still 2012 so screw you, I'm posting here, I don't care if there's another topic! I refuse to acknowledge it until 12 AM Eastern!
Medievil: Beat the game, got all chalices (is it even beatable without that?), etc.
Game...has not aged well. I can tell why it might have been a bit of a sleeper hit in 1998, but it's just riddled with a lot of old 3D game problems. Platforming is poorly handled, game doesn't know how to stop having needless death pits (Why is there a pit when you're pushing the thing in a train? It serves no purpose other than to punish you for...getting screwed by the game's loose controls?), combat is basic and sometimes unreliable (anytime you have ranged attacks, you really get a complete lack of control over your aim; you rely on Auto Aim which is unreliable because of how slow projectiles go), and jumping is unresponsive. Worst of all is the game's camera, which is the most unstable thing in a game I've seen. I've seen bad cameras (Sonic Adventure 1 for example) but that's more awkward angles and can be worked around. This game, the camera will sometimes randomly just start spinning uncontrollably and makes the whole platforming issue a much worse thing, especally in areas where yo're navigating narrow pathes that lead to instant death pits.
Thankfully the way the game handles "Lives" makes those not as bad as they could be, and the game does have a large variety of things to use, but they don't help make up for the problems.
The game does have one thing going for it, and that's the writing. It's got a good sense of humor, and generally keeps that tongue-in-cheek nature the entire game. It recognizes it's a game not to be taken seriously, and doesn't take itself seriously, but at the same time, isn't blatantly beating you over the head with comedy so well played. Game's plot is also kind of neat, in that the simple concept of "Alleged Hero isn't actually a hero, but a huge failure and a coward, and now needs to go beat the villain the legends CLAIM he beat to restore any sort of dignity he has. By the way, said hero is a revived corpse with no mouth and one eye!" Hall of Heroes was some nice flavor as well.