 | | 155129 Posts in
6086 Topics by 1922
Members
- Latest Member: DanielHoward
| May 22, 2013, 08:04:19 PM |
|  |
 |
|  |
 | |  | | |
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - Dark Holy Elf
1
« on: Today at 05:42:02 PM »
Paper Mario - Five chapters are in the books. This game is a lot of fun! Almost certainly the best Mario RPG, it doesn't have the comic genius of M&L (particularly 3) but the gameplay is what the others games in the series wish they had, very tight. Manages to be just varied enough with the choice of partner and badges, is not terrible on challenge at base with some optional fights to ramp things up a bit, competely non-random damage makes combat feel very strategic, there's a lot to like here. Plus they elevated Raphael the Raven to some sort of minor deity. Also the writing's certainly not bad or anything, I will never say no to more RPG!Bowser antics.
Suikoden 2 - Finished Rockaxe, got 108 stars. Replay's almost done. Not much to say about the game that isn't well-known at this point, but I'll weigh in anyway when I'm finished.
2
« on: Today at 03:25:34 PM »
So you have to go through the forging screen 63 times for some maingame items, AND you may have to reload at points if it fails? Yeah I can't imagine what the problem with TO crafting is.
If you pair Chrom with Sully or Robin, then you have almost as much time to get them to S support before C11 (15 chapters if you do all paralogues) as you have to get Henry to S support before the game ends! I got the S with Sully myself and I play pretty quickly.
3
« on: Today at 03:19:07 PM »
Dark Souls
Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Good overall enemy design and a large number of methods (weapons, spells, etc.) to take them down.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: Game almost requires a FAQ, and could use more/more obvious recovery points.
Best plot/character trait: Nothing. Dark Souls is an all-time bottom tier game at this, to me.
Worst plot/character trait: Everything that goes on being underexplained, with special shoutout to the Fire Keeper murderer arc. A silent main, a total lack of characterisation, a total lack of direction to the plot.
Has this game aged well?: uh it's not even two years old...
Did the setting/world grab your attention?: No, the game tries to develop its setting through a boring "tell" at the start and then promptly fails to do anything with it thereafter. Lack of music really hurts the environments, too.
What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?: I think the unforgiving NES-style approach to things is pretty underused these days and would like to see more of it, even if it's sometimes questionable in the way it consumes time. That's a tight line to walk.
Dragon Quest 4
Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Decent challenge balance, game keeps you on your toes and also makes you care about resources.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: It's clunky in that old way, and in that DQ way. Boss design and character balance if you want more specific points.
Best plot/character trait: Yeah, the unusual story structure with the chapters.
Worst plot/character trait: Like most DQs, it spends way too much time on irrelevant arcs while barely developping its main plot.
Has this game aged well?: Not really, I have a hard time recommending it now.
Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not?: Like many old RPGs, its setting feels like an unconnected patchwork of towns and kingdoms, and falls flat to me.
What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?: In this genre, you can't have enough rotating-perspective games.
Wild ARMs XF
Best gameplay/mechanics trait: The job system. Duh. Loads of flexibility, loads of customisation, and a game that calls upon you to make use of it. Unlike some people I really like how the game expects you to change jobs to deal with challenges, instead of just letting you mash through everything with your fighter/cleric/wizard team like many such games.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: The game could really have used feedback on the quality of its more esoteric maps. Some are pretty great, but some really aren't, such as the swamp with the random 3h pillar and the first jelly blob fight, and end up wasting a lot of time.
Best plot/character trait: Villain cast. One of the best out there, and villain casts are very important to me, so yeah. Charlton, Edna, Katrina, Rupert, and Weisheit are all a lot of fun, particularly when they interact with each other.
Worst plot/character trait: Ragnar not only annoys me, but he talks way too much and he summons the one part of the villain cast that sucks.
Has this game aged well?: Decently, although no sceneskip hurts.
Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not?: I love this game's soundtrack, great battle themes are a weakness of mine and this game delivers in spades. Setting-wise, mm. It'd have worked better if we really had any idea about Elesius' neighbours, although Elesius itself was decently effective.
What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?: More SRPGs with good class systems which fight back decently: the most elf-approved thing ever pretty much.
4
« on: Today at 01:12:59 AM »
If the success rates are that high then TO crafting is less terrible than I had always heard. My remaining comments stand however.
5
« on: May 21, 2013, 01:34:53 AM »
Bear in mind that I dislike almost all crafting systems (it's just a question of how much), so take my thoughts here with a grain of salt.
The reason TO's crafting system is one of the worst is the nature of the time consumed. If you do XF crafting, you can estimate roughly how much time it will take to gather the needed ingredients. Is it pointlessly time consuming, yes of course, but at least it's predictable. Want to craft in TO? You might succeed in making the item first try, then it's not too time-consuming. Or you might try to make it ten times and still not have it at the end. That feeling is pretty terrible. I think it's extra bad that you have to reset over it. Resets are what you try to avoid in games!
It's like farming rare drops (which is also lame), except at least that involves fighting battles (in the game's presumably rather fun base gameplay) and trying to be as efficient as possible about it. And doesn't involve resetting (unless you want to do it without e.g. gaining unwanted levels/etc.).
6
« on: May 19, 2013, 08:23:01 PM »
She's very fast in the PSX version. I had some tests in an old stat thread but I don't think they were ported over.
7
« on: May 19, 2013, 06:33:42 PM »
I'm fine with not giving her magic immunity, less fine with saying she's weak to magic while spinning which she is manifestly not! Taking her magical evade as equal to her physical evade feels like a good compromise.
Refight very obviously doesn't have the same spin mechanic so I don't know why you'd bring that up.
I think she's Godlike anyway but uh FF4 boss speed, it varies dramatically with which version of the game you're talking about so whatever @ how people want to take them.
8
« on: May 19, 2013, 04:56:50 PM »
Val for Godlike I guess. She is in Godlike! Has been since like 2006. Actually almost everyone in this division (save the Godlikes) are currently a division higher than they are listed.
9
« on: May 18, 2013, 05:10:03 PM »
I do list average PEvade/MEvade later in the thread for what it's worth. I'll go edit them into the Gilgamesh/Exdeath entries later.
10
« on: May 18, 2013, 04:15:37 PM »
VacWave itself (and all FF5 enemy physicals) are themselves highly inaccurate, to boot. And face a gaggle of ways to shut them down in-game (Golem's the biggest, but also Blink and its variants). I'm pretty much all for a "assume they miss first turn against anyone with remotely notable evade" view myself.
Also Gilgamesh has more HP than Exdeath (55k to his 32k, though he also dies after a certain number of turns, but that's not relevant if you need one of them to die NOW NOW NOW).
It should be noted that due to MEvade, the only Gilgamesh statuses above 67% (if you use that as your threshold) are sleep, blind, confuse, and level halving; the ones which would shut down Rika are less accurate. She can also scrounge out more MDef (possibly enough to lower everything below 67% and Frog below 50%, but headaches there) if she equips two shields, but that means no offence whatsoever.
edit: well confuse vs. psy equips is also pretty debatable, I'll leave that to individual judgement.
11
« on: May 17, 2013, 06:14:51 PM »
Ashera's attacks are ITE.
FF5 charm only causes basic physicals against self/allies UNLESS an attack was already cued, in which case it reverses that attack instead.
12
« on: May 16, 2013, 09:03:24 PM »
I'd say Sara's weakness to D.Hrt would translate to a dragon weakness rather than an ID weakness (which is already reflected if she fights, say, Arngrim). BoF1 has an instant death spell and it doesn't work on Sara. What's more, what boss is it that is immune to Jaffar's ID? A dragon... which doesn't exactly help any plotty/holistic arguments here, to my mind!
Anyway Jaffar's ID is half his crit rate. His crit rate taken literally against 10 luck should be 38%, so 19% ID. That should be good enough as he'll get in six attacks. Of course, this assumes you don't reduce FE crit further the way Dhyer does, and that you don't give Sara at the very least the gate/throne-bonus level resistance to Jaffar's ID (which also halves it). So he really needs a lot of calls in his favour here.
13
« on: May 16, 2013, 03:57:50 PM »
Surf and Hydro Pump are virtually identical on average damage, so no.
I'm pretty sure I do allow HMs as well.
14
« on: May 16, 2013, 03:33:26 PM »
You can, but the same caveat applies to subsequent uses of the move; they only pay off if you expect to live 3+ turns after.
Titania's base damage to Blastoise is about 36%. She goes first. If Blastoise uses Withdraw every turn, her damage will look like:
36%, 24%, 18%, 14%, 12%...
e.g. if he uses Withdraw twice then attacks three times, he gives Titania five attacks at 36+24+18x3 = 114% (fatal).
You can play with those numbers yourself, but basically Withdraw isn't helpful against faster 3HKOers ever.
edit: The documentation I've seen says Val is magic immune or close to it? I'm not sure what I think about that, but it means I certainly am not going to see her as weak to magic when that can't even be used against her in-game. Luca's using physicals here as far as I'm concerned.
15
« on: May 16, 2013, 03:20:10 PM »
Godlike:
Isolde (MK) vs Fou-Lu (BoF4): Fou-Lu falls a bit short against High Godlike mages.
Heat (DDS) vs Ryu (BoF3): Accesses both speed and lightning damage through dragon forms.
Profound Darkness (PS4) vs Lady (SH3): Too much HP.
Heavy:
Raquel Applegate (WA4) vs Demi (PS4): Demi is only slightly faster than Rapid Attacking Raquel, and as soon as she gets 25 FP it's over.
Valvalis (FF4) vs Luca Blight (S2): Hmm, this is close. I'll hold off until I see the Luca fight again this week. edit: Luca's durability and evade are both a bit better than I remembered (in particular S2 weapon growth is back-ended), so I think that tilts it his direction.
KOS-MOS (XSs) vs Chaz Ashley (PS4): Explode.
Middle:
Kahran Ramsus (XG) vs Peppita Rosetti (SO3): Pass.
Juan (S3) vs Hahn Mahlay (PS4): Uhh... hmm. Y'know these days I do let S3 block sleep after all, and Juan with that wins. I don't really -like- this since I think Waking Rune makes Juan more unique... but eh. Doesn't really seem fair to Juan to nerf him specifically. And besides, the Waking Rune still has uses if he desperately needs to OHKO some fast tanky staller? Maybe? Anyway. Against Hahn, Juan's unfuried damage is certainly good enough for a OHKO.
Agrias Oaks (FFT) vs Justin (G1): Slightly better in most ways.
Nina (BoF1) vs Alice Elliot (SH1): Sanity concerns.
Light:
Shabon (S3) vs Erk (FE7): I don't think she's frail enough to die to two Erk attacks. She is pretty frail though...
Jaffar (FE7) vs Sara (BoF1): Sara's physical is both ITE and ignores BoF1 counters.
Palom (FF4) vs Black Wizard (FF1): Black Wizard stuff isn't close to turn 1, and he has bad MDef.
Titania (FEs) vs Blastoise (PKMN): Both 3HKO each other, Titania is faster. Withdraw doesn't help. It causes Blastoise to take 2/3 damage, but he gives up a turn, so he's still 4HKOed and needs 4 turns to win.
16
« on: May 16, 2013, 02:11:01 AM »
FE7 HHM - Beat this (second time). 5 stars on everything except Exp which was 3 because Exp rank is kinda stupid, and I spent too much time midgame worrying about Funds instead. Oh well! Best PCs were Raven (slightly RNG-screwed, haha), Heath (RNG-blessed) and Priscilla (loads of evade, staff stuff), although Lucius deserves note for being Raven's A support and having the most kills because things liked to suicide on him though sometimes succeeded in killing him. My pegasus knights got pretty badly RNG-screwed (especially Fiora) which didn't stop them from being useful, just stopped them from dominating. Eliwood I benched because he's kinda bleh and wasn't turning out well, the highlight of the final chapter was feeding him kills with Durandal. Kills which saw him getting 4x-overkilled if he missed because he had 3 speed! (Good thing Durandal has hit.)
Good times. This game's shopping system sucks forever and there are a few other nagging polish issues (any time you can't deploy Merlinus is too much obnoxious inventory management) but otherwise I remember why I like it a lot, there's some great map design with secondary objectives and solid overall balance. Probably my second favourite FE though it's close! (Non-remake FEs made in the past decade so good.)
Paper Mario - Speaking of decadish-old IS games. Getting into this more. It's a bit of a slow starter (c'mon, needing an hour to unlock timed hits?) and the writing's a pale shadow of glorious glorious M&L3 but otherwise it's quite interesting with its non-random damage scale and simple but important choices. It's already obvious that the game lends itself more to challenges than normal playthroughs but it seems breezy enough for a legit first playthrough which is always how I prefer to do things anyway.
Suikoden 2 - I decided my army needs more squirrels. Most armies do.
edit: re typo correction, you mean for the BMG, Gref? If so then yes please. (If you mean for my posts in general, then uhhhh sure?)
17
« on: May 16, 2013, 12:58:48 AM »
Pretend crafting isn't in the game, life improves.
I don't think SCCs work well in many games besides FFT, most other games don't give individual classes enough options and/or are too lengthy. Never really been tempted by FF5/XF/TO SCCs. (Fiesta/Hatbot runs can be cool though.)
18
« on: May 15, 2013, 04:32:10 AM »
Boon of Swiftness is about as weak as a haste spell can be (due to its short duration it grants less than 1 turn on average to its target) but it's still worth using because it funnels turns away from someone who can't do anything useful (on turns when no healing is needed) to someone who can. I still don't like it much because of its cost, which forces you to use better magic herbs than you would otherwise, but I'd have to compared to costs of various herbs before deciding if this is just me being irrational or not.
I did just fine on my first playthrough where my lone wizard died (finishers kill anti-physical enemies well enough) but yeah it's probably worth using one. Just ugh, hard to ignore how much worse they are than archers at almost everything.
19
« on: May 15, 2013, 01:48:36 AM »
Clerics pay off somewhat when you get Major Heal; that + Mother's Blessing can easily restore upwards of 300 HP total in a single turn. I actually found them one of the better classes because Archer and Knight crowd out so many other roles between them.
Plot PCs have randomly better stats, yes.
20
« on: May 14, 2013, 07:16:17 AM »
Heh, well, on the Jecht note... I believe an Auto-Potion (X-Potion) / Stoneproof / Zombieproof armour, coupled with a Counterattack / Magic Counter weapon and stats high enough stats to deal with Yu Pagoda Power Wave regen, would allow you to beat Jecht with the controller down (well, it wouldn't because FFX is CTB and you'd need to hit attack or defend every so often, but yeah, the point is, you can't lose). The time involved in making such a setup isn't even that high (mostly some monster catching), although of course you'd need considerable knowledge of where to obtain all these things.
Probably not the only game this is true for. Invinco setups in highly customisable games are often quite attainable.
21
« on: May 14, 2013, 06:58:53 AM »
Even at SS strike (oh god, 150 attacks, and since he can't counter anything this is going to take over 100 turns unless you got in a stupid number of attacks in E-1 and E-2) and max stats he still doesn't break the regen due to no doubling so he will need some sort of help. And even if he didn't, what would this prove? Strategies that defeat bosses with an hour of grinding are a dime a dozen in RPGs, it's like saying a foolproof way to beat ____ is to run around their dungeon for 5 hours before engaging the fight with the boss. It's true, but kinda silly to bring up. I guess the difference here is that you can do the grinding mid-battle but eh, not really large enough to even merit discussion in tiebreaks IMO.
And yeah, F4 is too early for Hastega most likely. Feels like F5 to me.
22
« on: May 14, 2013, 06:43:50 AM »
Um. Mew's Explosion better be seen as OHKOing Dheginsea. Ashera & Dheggy both have MT physicals which are hard to interp because their power goes up the closer you get to them in-game, but they can probably MT KO everyone if left alive for a turn (Yes, it's evasion-subject, but from earlier discussions, it doesn't sound like Saner should be hyped vs. things that aren't basic physicals.) Elincia can't really damage Dheginsea in-game (Stat topic claims her endgame Str in 25, +15 for Amiti, is 40 damage... not cutting it vs. Dheginsea of the 50 Def without both Ena AND a support), and I doubt Rika does much against that crazy DEF either. So it really does have to come down to Explosion OHKOing Dheggy. On th ebright side, with Dheginsea's all-defense no-HP build, a single shot of huge damage is indeed what the doctor ordered, so maybe. (And there's reason to tiebreak against Dheginsea when in doubt since Kurth is a free win over him in-game which makes him questionable in the DL.) Rika has a thunder elemental claw, which both in PS4 and FE10 provides a defence-piercing boost, so chances are Dheg fears that a lot. Also not sure how Kurth is providing a free win in-game, the DL stat topic has him at 48 atk = 4 damage with Ena's help and a C or B support, with bad hit, against his 30 regen. lol Kurth. At least hype Caineghis if you want to talk about why Dheg gets owned in-game. (with Ena does 21x2 damage at base, so him + Ena + a heron + someone else half-decent allows you to one-round).
23
« on: May 13, 2013, 01:26:43 AM »
Praising FF9 as the only challenging FF is pretty weird. It gets even weirder when you say the quarter of the game that is challenging is the first (I guess Gizamaluke's okay?). But eh, challenge debates.
FF9 is better for minigames than it is for plot or gameplay certainly. Obviously not what I play games for (minigames are fine, stuff like Mognet can burn) but it's there.
Fenrir: I know the FE comment is tongue in cheek, but "deciding where you move" obviously creates a wealth of options not seen in FF9. (This is true for any SRPG.) RPGs can't be rated purely by your number of options but generally I'd say that pure, non-position-based RPGs which have a decent number of characters who will do nothing but attack (FF4, FF9) doesn't make for great game design.
24
« on: May 12, 2013, 10:17:32 PM »
As for FF9 discussion, I enjoyed reading into stuff a while back and found out that the guy who pretty much designed everything in FF9 made all but one decision - he wanted the combat to be the fastest in the series, and Sakaguchi suggested changing it to the slowest so that people could enjoy their nostalgia trip at a slower pace. Well that explains bloody Lost Odyssey, I guess.  And no other FF is nearly as slow as FF9. FF8 is the only one close and having just watched both again recently it's way faster. Its fighters are also insanely boring PCs as the Zidane discussion alludes to. So no, I won't be dropping the 9 from that sentence. Fire Emblem 7 - At the last map. Suikoden 2 - Just came back from the first visit to Matilda. Paper Mario - Started this randomly, still early. No timed hits make the early battles extremely bland, but I presume it gets better.
25
« on: May 12, 2013, 08:05:57 PM »
H/G:
Cecilia, Lucia, Deis, Celes, Seed
Lucia almost sweeps. I don't see Seed 2HKOing her as some others seem to. She can overwhelm Celes with physicals pretty well I think, even if some of them miss. Deis is the problematic one, since she's fast and durable (Deis1 here, since she's the forced PC) so she should survive long enough to get a second turn and fry Lucia.
Deis gets shut down by both Parasol and Silent Lake. Against Celes, the latter's status is just way, way too much more accurate, 150% Berserk should work pretty well regardless of how much Deis resists status, whereas coinflip Death isn't working turn 1 against game-best MBlock. So she only beats the pool champ! Deis2, idly, probably can beat Celes, but loses to Lucia, so gets the same record.
Cecilia's magic immunity beats Deis and Celes pretty well. Loses to the bosses.
Seed's Silent Lake deals with all the mage PCs, not Lucia though.
Lucia 3-1
Seed 3-1
Cecilia 2-2
Celes 1-3
Deis 1-3
Since Elc is probably a badass, that's Elc/Seed up, Celes/Deis down. Not sure if approve, but the realisation that Silent Lake's speed is breakneck does help Seed a fair deal, so eh.
M/H:
Lin, Haschel, Sonya, Kyra, Fiora
Ugh Lin headaches. Guess she can use that ID move twice a turn so it's 75%? Sure that lets her sweep here.
Kyra sweeps the pure fighters, but Lin/Haschel have ID. Assuming Lin's is turn 2 that gets Kyra, Haschel is... marginally faster, but only 3HKOs with his 25% ID. Still that's good enough, Kyra needs four turns to win (3HKO + either a heal or a buff).
Haschel... can block blind to stop Sonya from destroying him that way, but she's still much faster and 3HKOs first (her pdur is high enough to avoid dying to 2.5 Destroyer Mace hits). He can go dragoon on his second turn I guess, but Sonya just heals in response to that. Against Fiora, he's fast enough to avoid being doubled, but not accurate enough to hit two out of two times and triggers counters, so he gives Fiora four attacks. Thus he only beats Kyra.
Fiora vs. Sonya... hmm. No doubling of course. Sonya's going to blind Fiora.. may take a couple tries but Sonya has healing to erase any progress that Fiora does make. Sonya has enough pdur to survive a Killer Lance crit + non-crit so she should handle this fight pretty well from there even with counters.
Lin 4-0
Kyra 2-2
Sonya 2-2
Fiora 1-3
Haschel 1-3
Assuming a competent Debonair, it's Kyra up and Haschel down.
L/M:
Rena, Twaikin, Mullen, Zylo, Jean
Rena can block ID which neuters Jean, Twaikin sucks, Mullen sucks, Zylo sucks, what the flying fuck.
Jean IDs the rest, except Mullen. He probably beats Mullen anyway because he 2HKOs at worst and isn't 2HKOed or doubled.
Twaikin's physical tanking stops Zylo, and see above for how he does against Mullen.
Zylo on paper isn't the complete shit I remember him being, so he can beat Mullen.
Rena 4-0
Jean 3-1
Twaikin 2-2
Zylo 1-3
Mullen 0-4
Garet up and Jean up, Zylo and Mullen down.
|
| |  | |  |
 |
|  |
|
Show Posts
