The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: DragonKnight Zero on January 04, 2020, 04:43:25 AM
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I wasn't watching the clock (by design) but I was playing Mana Khemia when I heard fireworks so I suppose that's the game I had running at the start of the new year. This is a game where I find the first 90% very enjoyable and the last 10% feels sloggish. Being a replay, one would think the player would easily dominate but the game still found a way to troll me even when I was paying attention. Chapter 6 boss fight: Turn order shows Azulflare Mana and Renee right after. Renee was charging a Full Power Blade. Her HP is low enough that I go for a kill but don't quite make it. So of course, the mana casts Boost on her right before it goes off and she overkills Jess with 250 HP of damage on a max of 210. I still win because Renee goes down right after so no more status to rob me of turns. Still annoyed because I thought I was doing a good job of keeping Jess alive and healthy and the game goes "nope."
Game feels paced really well for my playstyle. I fight the occasional battle here and there but not that many and combined with required fights and job bounties, I earn enough AP to keep up with stat growth. New chapter starts can still feel put on pause because of a bunch of new recipes and doing a lot of digging into new synthesis but it's an enjoyable experience.
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Fire Emblem Three Houses: Cleared Crimson Flower. As it turns out, it's hard to argue with an axe to the face.
Less flippantly, I have... quite of words about the game for once, but gonna go Azure Moon and Verdant Wind before I spew verbiage on them.
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WILL: A Wonderful World
Mentioned this in my 2019 games recap, but just finished this up. It's pretty good! If you're up for a strictly narrative, reading-is-fun game of course, but eh, 1-developer project, it makes sense. Some wild crazy soap opera / telenovela twists in it, I enjoyed the ride, and I made it so that a cat would have a friend. https://kotaku.com/will-a-wonderful-world-the-kotaku-review-1834824840 is easier than me describing the general idea, although I'll say that unlike that review, I enjoyed the framing story of a girl and her dog.
The one disclaimer I'll add is that there is one particular plotline that is still a big NOPE involving a teacher / student relationship (but this teacher isn't, like, 22, which they are in FE Three Houses. And I still didn't date any students in that myself.). Also, to the extent there's a political slant... it's an LGBT-inclusive game with two separate gay relationships afoot if you want 'em to be at least, so that's cool. On the other hand, the hard-boiled Korean police drama side feels like it was written by a 13-year old fan of The Punisher / Rorschach / Dirty Harry, etc. at times, or maybe the kind of person who posts Thin Blue Line memes on Facebook. Most cops are useless tools of The System, other cops are on the take and act like video game bad guy mooks doing stupid shit, and only vigilante-style murder of the Bad Gangsters can save the day. Proud writing about how Back In The Day, it was no rules, we'd totally destroyed the gangs until TRAITORS and stupid RULES stopped us from torturing bad people. GRANTED the cop writing these letters is a biased narrator, and we also get biased narrators like serial killers who think they're awesome, so you can easily write it off as this person's prayers are to be a cop in a pulp detective story? I'll still mildly wag my finger.
There's a particular puzzle involving orange text that is entirely too cruel, IMO. Won't spoil it but it's kinda like Chrono Cross's music puzzle except more subtle. What's especially annoying is that it's immediately followed by another orange text puzzle that is much easier(think Radiant Historia's "remember where you first met Eruca" if the game didn't immediately clue you before you could feel clever), but with time pressure, that I panicked and attempted to mildly spoil myself on, but actually I'd have been fine figuring it out myself. Oh well.
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FF4 - final dungeon descent
Finally got around to setting aside enough time for the Lunar Subterrane descent. To my surprise, Rydia's MP was the most taxed. Got a number of Allemange encounters and double Blue Dragon encounters and pulled out Bahamut for those. Most other monsters don't warrant attack spells though I will use a Blizzaga on Red Dragons. With only one enemy that Osmose can crack magic defense on (unlike US version, Red Dragons have enough magic defense to make it tink for 1) and the game refusing to have it show up, I used a few Ethers before reaching the next save point. I had stolen around 10-15 extra from toadified Black Puddings so they get put to use here. Still took over an hour even with a more aggressive approach than I used my last time through. Rosa had about half her MP left at upon reaching the save point. Didn't use Blood lance unless it could hit weakness. Cecil chipped in some out of battle heals to even out out MP usage somewhat.
With a save reached, the rest of the dungeon was done in shorter playing sessions. Dominated the altar bosses. Had Rydia toss a Spiderweb to slow down Dark Bahamut's Flare assault, had Rosa Berserk Edge when she could spare a turn. Plague died with the death counter at 4, no problem. Lunarsuars were no problem with Slow and not using Fight on them. Everyone except Edge has undead or dragon resistance which he solved with Image. Kain jumps, Edge throws Hellwinds I had stocked up on for this, Cecil runs utility and throws Red Fangs, Rydia goes with Fire3 though Bahamut may have been better for MP cost/damage ration in spite of weakness. I messed up keeping their HP even so that they'd die at the same time but no one died.
Didn't really use the Ribbons since I decided dragon resistance on the Goldbands was more valuable to me. Masamune boss I decided that eating one magic counter was worth tossing a Spiderweb at it. Rydia does that first turn and her other turns are spent running utility. Edge images himself and drinks a bauccus wine on his next turn for berserk action. Between slowing it, berserk Edge, and Cecil and Kain pounding it, I win before it can cycle back around to double Tidal Wave.
Levels for Zeromus were in the 51-54 range. Rydia doesn't have Flare and Rosa doesn't have Holy, not that either would have done much good for the finale. I messed up the opening a bit having Kain jump. He's in slot 1 and Cecil is in slot 3 and when he came down, Zeromus was still invulnerable. Rosa Berserks Edge with her first turn. Rydia was intended to toss a Spiderweb on Zeromus but I did it too early and the first one whiffed. Cecil swaps his Ragnarok for the Avenger midfight. Next character tosses a Spiderweb and counter Flare rocks Cecil for about 3000, ouch. Was able to heal him enough before Big Bang though.
Despite the small messup of the opening moves, ended up making Zeromus look like a chump. All he got off was that one counter Flare, one Big Bang, and one Meteo before the trio of berserkers took him down. (i had Kain jump before deciding to use another Wine on himself. Soon after, Rosa has a free turn where she could have cast it on him, oh well) I had forgotten to retrieve the cleaver from the Big Chocobo before going into the final battle though it ended up not mattering. Rydia survived Big Bang so she spent the fight as an item bot (and one rod smack for about 180, hardly gamechanging). Meteo only hit Edge.
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Pokemon Sword- fin.
That shouldn't really have taken so long. I mean, it's still pokemon, and it's mostly pretty charming, the way they restructured the endgame is cool and I think they got the multiple 'rivals' thing way more right here than in XY.
But it feels short and like you're always either crawling uphill or just stomping all over everything? I dunno. Good use of music though, and Dynamax being used regularly throughout the game is a nice change from how Megas worked.
I ended up with a ridiculously unbalanced party, like I looked up where to get some members just to swap out EVEN MORE Fire types.
Cinderace- Solid, being pure Fire kinda works. Got a lot of milage out of Bounce? Kinda unspectacular.
Corviknight- kinda boring. Still good, gets Brave Bird at reasonable levels, great Dynamax anchor, but boring.
Toxtricity- late addition that ended up a bit underlevelled. Also learned later it had Plus and not its GOOD ability, but hey, something that actually hit SDef >.>
Dragapault- caught way above the rest of my team level, it's pretty powerful, honestly kinda annoyed it's first tier wasn't available earlier? Late-game "2 levels from last evo" catches lose something.
Wishiwashi- I mean with all those fire types... anyway so I didn't use one long enough to see how Schooling worked in gen 7, it's solid but unremarkable overall.
Chandelure- inherently cool, starts with new and improved Willowisp which is nice, only meaningful downside is not getting a proper fire move... but with its stats you can get away with Fire Spin for raw offense...
I dunno, feels better than Gen 7 for sure, better thought out execution of its new gameplay changes, but lacks... something. 7/10
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Let's talk about Three Houses some more.
Crimson Flower Maddening
Byleth: Falcon build. I recruited everyone so her skills were very diffuse and she suffers a bit in Advanced tier (Wyvern was not happening), but still solid of course.
Edelgard: Brigand -> Wyvern. Good lord Raging Storm 5 times per map is stupid as hell at the end, that singlehandedly ensured that this route's endgame is easier than AM's. Besides that, is a lord, is great.
Ferdinand: ASSASSIN. First time seriously using the class, it's... okay. Mobile for infantry (ignores terrain) but still infantry. It frees up a flying batallion. Built him as a dodge-tank and he was an effective one but no Alert Stance means he'd have been even better as a flier.
Hubert: Mage -> Paladin -> Dark Knight, Frozen Lance hype time. With Hubert's magic it OHKOs quite a lot of things, but his durability/enemy phase is terrible. Not having 3 range between going Paladin and getting the Arrow of Indra is also a downer.
Petra: Pegasus Knight/Brigand -> Wyvern. Turns out you can master both Death Blow and Darting Blow without delaying Advanced jobs much if you put in some effort and using the Knowledge Gem. Turns out that on Petra's already dumb stats, this is crazy good. Probably the #2 PC.
Dorothea: Standard Mage -> Warlock build, Thoron/Physic/Meteor all day every day, great as always.
Caspar: I wanted to keep using him so I made him a dancer. Caspar is not good guys.
Bernadetta: Pegasus -> Sniper -> Bow Knight. Honestly I'm... not sure how I feel about the Pegasus -> Sniper transition, trading mobility for power is surprisingly lateral (Sniper's stats are kinda bad). Was decent with mobile Vengeance/Curved Shot in tier 2 and as mobile Encloser against monsters at the end.
Mercedes: Standard Mage -> Bishop -> Gremory build with Thyrsus, same as previous playthrough, great as always.
Shamir: Got her ASAP so her stats are actually solid, then she gained speed every level for a while and actually got Hunter's Volley a couple chapters before the timeskip, did a bit of a crit build. Fell off at the end since her middling growths and Sniper's poor mobility on the last couple CF maps caught up with her.
Jeritza: Lateish pickup but a solid one. He's got good stats outside terrible charm, and can use magic though Heal is about the only thing I got much out of. I should have beelined for his budding talent which is Darting Blow, adding on to his already solid speed. He also learns Counterattack but it doesn't feel OP in player hands? Also I married him because I <3 people who need serious therapy apparently.
Linhardt: Filler healer who was my twelth.
Lorenz also saw some use early but got dropped; I made a point of building supports for him, Hanneman, and Manuela, in addition to the rest of my team.
Unlike AM I didn't really use the Retribution batallion, it was easier just to have Edelgard go murder any bolting mages and there aren't nearly as many of them anyway. Not having Rafail Gem makes a few bosses a bit rougher (mostly Indech and the Tailtean Plains duo) but mercifully the final boss has significantly less crit than AM's (and less almost everything else for that matter).
Okay good that's four playthroughs in the books I should probably play something els- Verdant Winds Maddening
Up to Chapter 12. I'll post more when I'm done but the highlight is Annette with almost-base Wyvern Str one-rounding the second Chapter 10 boss with an Iron Axe. *Nelson-laugh*
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I am shocked, *shocked*, that anyone in wyvern would dunk on him so hard.
Oh yeah I never did team breakdown for Crimson Flower.
Byleth - Enlightened One because I'm a dope and recruited everyone and left her there. It... exists. I guess.
Edelgard - Pegasus Knight -> Wyvern Rider -> Wyvern Lord. Turns out the game is secretly FE10 and wyverns are OP. Turns out Edie is also fast if you get her Darting Blow.
Ferdinand - A completely mystified bee ??? -> Wyvern Rider -> Wyvern Lord. Underperformed early and jumped around a bit before deciding he actually wanted to be useable and ended up pretty good. Went and got Armored Blow on him for reasons that I'm sure made sense to me at the time.
Dorothea - Mage -> Warlock -> Gremory. Random hates 4 move, news at 11. Gremory probably wasn't worth it normally but she decided she wanted Lysithea's magic growth so I was okay with not having Black Tomefaire.
Bernadetta - Archer -> Sniper. Existed and was generally okay. Strength was tempermental at times but never ended up as bad as Ferdie did early-mid.
Petra - Assassin. Went dodgetank with Sword Avoid +20, forgoing actually having a dancer in the process. It worked somewhat but of course it's less good against mages and gambits.
Ingrid - Pegasus Knight -> Falcon Knight. Was kind of bad on offense midgame but pulled up and was always dodgy and laughed at mages. Could also use Arrow of Indra decently enough.
Sylvain - Mage -> Warlock -> Dark Knight. Turns out he's actually okay at being a speed mage. Dark Knight was Random hate 4 move but considering how badly the final map pisses on cavalry I probably shouldn't have bothered.
Mercedes - Priest -> Bishop -> Gremory. Probably should have blown an Intermediate getting her into Mage but oh well.
Leonie - Cavalier -> Paladin -> Bow Knight. Why the fuck did I bring her into the final map again? At least she was durable and could bait fliers to their death.
Jeritza - Nice stats/skill levels, dude. Probably shouldn't have bothered bringing him to the final either though, it's full of stairs and burning floors and aaaaa why do we need to reinforce flyer supremacy this hard.
Mentions also go to Marianne (tried to use but ended up slower than Hanneman what the fuck), Hanneman (hey he's actually okay if you're willing to give him Thyrsus and keep him far away from literally anything), Lysithea, Hubert (midgame mage swarm wait Random didn't you say you hated 4 move YES WELL) and Annette (tried to use, somehow gained more two stat levels than Lysithea, a character designed to gain little else -but- two stat levels.)
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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night- finished.
Probably the most successful aspect of the game is the way in which it embraces itself while letting the audience realize what it's doing or not at their leisure. Castlevania was always deeply silly at its core, and Bloodstained is the same, but critically the silliness is always uncommented on. Portal kitties and punk rock demon chicks simply exist, and unless you do three menus deep in the glossary you'll never know if the game knows how weird that is or not (it does but isn't telling you, which you can tell because this is also a game where a measurable percentage of your stats are expected to come from eating sweets throughout the game.) If they didn't have an interesting story reason for a big game-long quest chain, then by god they were going to be memorable some other way. KILL THOSE MURDERERS DEAD.
Despite some clear technical issues (which may simply be Switch-related in some cases), this does feel smoother and more polished than most Castlevania games in many respects? Miriam feels more responsive and the choices between weapons more meaningful than Soma, who she's cribbing on most heavily, exploration seems a bit less clunky than SotN, and boss patterns feel more telegraphed but less predictable than most Castlevania, in a "I could probably have gotten good if I'd wanted" sorta way. Item spam was simpler, especially because Miriam is powered by trying new foods, but y'know. It's objectively good if the option exists.
That said while it's definitely a soundly made game and I like the way it handles its cheese, it's also not a game that leave much impression beyond the memes, which of course have faded out some six or whatever months on. Nothing it's doing wrong, just lacks an extra something something overall I guess? Probably partly related to having the big time out gap in the playthrough though. 7/10 either way.
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Fire Emblem Three Houses: Dance moves > the ability to turn into a stupid looking boss. (Cleared Azure Moon. Man do I not want to think how rude some of this would be on Maddening, game easy but it's not really because of the enemies for the most part. I'm sure someone's going to tell me that named generic guy with the HP-1 spell actually moves there for starters.)
Byleth - Tried a mage build, it's not great outside of Nosferatu dodgetanking but it was functional. Coinflipped between Gremory and Mortal Savant and went the latter.
Dimitri - Went swords and dodgetanking with him. Would've worked better on the enemy phase if I bothered to give him Alert Stance+ instead of Sword Avd +20 (less panicking because he gained HP for one) but there was still something funny about making him Lord of the Dance (except I didn't actually -use- dancer again) and the final having 0% hit on him forever.
Dedue - Actually gained speed at multiple points so I stuck with him. Too bad his charm is ass so he runs screaming from anything that can use an offensive gambit at that point and he only has offense on player phase. Having someone to punch out all of a mage boss's blood was nice though.
Felix - Had performance issues which were probably not helped by dithering and not training riding to get him into Bow Knight. Still had too much going for him to ultimately ditch.
Sylvain - hey it's time for flyer overload. btw Azure Moon is not a great route for flyer overload if you care about having batallions.
Mercedes - Yep. Was the one to steal Lysithea's magic growth this time around.
Ingrid - Decided it would be funny to go the opposite of her Crimson Flower performance, frontloaded on strength/magic but then didn't want to gain them for a while. The dodgetanking was still great of course.
Bernadetta - flyer overload time awww yeah. Amusingly ended up with the exact same strength as Felix. Bow Knight might have been the better choice for the route than a second Falcon Knight but I was kind of in a no horse mood after Crimson Flower.
Dorothea - Decided she wanted to be speedy this time around. Got the boots and stayed in Warlock.
Hilda - More flyer goodness. Annoyingly refused to gain speed for a time but wound up with high strength so I went with it and threw some speedwings because Freikugel is silly.
Lysithea - Actually got Dark Range +1 in time for the final two maps so I decided to put her in. Being able to murder certain enemies is nice, as is Warp. Everything else is less nice.
Seteth - Filler flyer, except because I am bad at the game lazy he was the only member of the flyer brigade to have an A rank in Authority.
Tried Cyril, Point-Blank Volley is nice but he's otherwise so very medium. Still better than trying to use Caspar good lord. Missed out on Annette's paralogue because I didn't realize it also required Annette/Gilbert C but I'm sure I lost nothing of value there.
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Random, too, has damned us all.
I will finish my report on Evade Bitch Dimitri when I finish my playthrough. Gave him +20 evade Battalion, evasion ring, and sword avoid +20. No Alert Stance + because I invested all of my time in Move +1. He is my tankiest character by far. Unlike Random, he is actually a Dancer.
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Dug up my old Mana Khemia postgame save and made some progress in the bonus dungeon. A task made more difficult since I was goofing around to see how far I could make it without Treasure Capes. (which is the easiest way to reach the bosses) Eventually got a lucky run where every random I do get caught by was escapable and got away without severe injury. One stretch left. The bosses have, strangely, been getting slightly easier since they don't have Darlvero's gimmick of healing for thousands every 4th turn as well as buffing their stats in the same move. The last one does very little damage (though gets lots of turns so the stun meter piles up). Except for Grand Cross which is overkill damage. Only to one so a Nectar and other healing patch up the victim. Or just waiting it out if it's Pamela.
I've had this game for over a year and only just realized revival can be used on the back row. Mind blown. Already checked a FAQ and noticed the last set of bosses down there won't be so easy. Three at once, may find myself making some of the higher end attack items to get through without Overrealm loops.
Beat a Secret Gangster while on one of my trips down in the bonus dungeon. Verdict; not worth the time. Unremarkable cash, I don't need the AP, and item drops are scrambled down there so those super randoms aren't guarding any unique or valuable drops. They have ????? HP so fractional damage and instant death don't work. They also have vastly inflated defenses to the point of being perfect. So the only way to do more than 1 damage a hit is criticals and poison ticks. On my team, only Vayne (had Glasses of Death for crit rate up) and Roxis (had Critical ++ from a Aqua Core that got passed up onto his weapon) could do meaningful direct damage. Pamela was MVP. Her poisoning skill did the bulk of the work. Since using a defensive assist allows the character swapped in to survive fatal attacks at 1 HP, I was able to outlast the punk. Took a while for the poison ticks to drop the Secret Gangster to 0, reapplying when it wears off and chipping in whatever damage I could. Surprisingly resilliant to stun but not immune, I stunned it once giving one chance to do meaningful direct damage. As I'm leaning on a mechanics exploit, the eventual victory felt hollow.
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Verdant Winds Maddening
Beat! Last map was interesting, the enemy stats were very high so it was a little better than I was expecting, but still the easiest final battle overall just because good lord that swamp is not helping you, guys. Behold my wyvern army and despair. Also Mr. Boss probably should have had more than 100 HP on this mode.
Byleth: Brigand -> Wyvern. Didn't do the full pegasus build because of chasing recruits around so no Darting Blow was a bit of a bummer in terms of doubles, but monster str + Axefaire shenanigans meant she had great killing potential anyway, ORKOed a murderhobo when nobody else could, also was the only person who could do meaningful damage to the emperor and not be OHKOed back.
Claude: Brigand -> Sniper -> Special Snowflake Wyvern. Also really good; got str-blessed and had his usual better speed. Didn't get him Alert Stance+ but did get him Move+1, so that was nice, he roamed around killing almost everything with some combination of Brave Bow, doubling for a KO, and Fallen Star, and of course the latter has a nice nifty effect. Felt like the overall MVP.
Hilda: Brigand+Pegasus -> Wyvern. Stacking the blow skill is good. Less strength than the above two but still got the job done very well in most situations. Bane in authority I guess, too bad this route hands you a broken C-rank batallion which is just perfect for someone with her high charm and iffy authority.
Leonie: Pegasus -> Sniper -> Bow Knight. Had loads of defence so could do some concrete tanking, especially with how hard she was to double. Bow Knight of course is the best ground class, and her Point-Blank Volley gives her another tool many of them lack, though of course just Brave Bow'ing or doubling things works fine in many cases too.
Lorenz: Mage -> Paladin -> Dark Knight. Same build I did with Hubert last run. Lorenz is a bit worse at it because he misses some OHKOs Hubert gets due to lower magic. As a Dark Knight he was kinda versatile but the bad faith list really holds him back.
Annette: Mage -> Wyvern. Also ran a magical combat art. Never returned to mage but hey, she was mobile and had a decent rally, and the Bolt Axe (no Arrow of Indra in this route), so it's something. Not a great PC, would have been better in Azure Moon where she gets a OHKO option with Dust.
Catherine: Pegasus -> Falconknight, with a return stop in Swordmaster in late Advanced tier. Swordmaster vs Pegasus is kinda interesting I guess, that's sad. She had pretty good offence and decent enough durability via evade (Alert Stance later) and not being doubled, but not exceptional in any regard.
Shamir: Sniper -> Bow Knight. After Sniper fell off late in CF I decided to do the Bow Knight version, and also snagged Reposition so she would have more utility. It all helped. Still solid with early Hunter's Volley. Definitely worse than Leonie but there's no shame in that.
Marianne: Warlock -> Mortal Savant. My only true mage. This party is probably the weakest I've ever used on Maddening due to only one non-dancer Physic user, Marianne was kinda essential but never totally excelled in part because she was speed-screwed so her durability went in the toilet. Still, Physic + Thoron + the magical sword combat arts add up.
Ignatz: The dancer. Before then he was a weird mage with Physic and good speed to double things but not much power, obviously was one of the weaker units or I wouldn't have made him a dancer.
Cyril: Brigand -> Wyvern. Stats are just worse than other wyverns... honestly kinda forever. Compared to Hilda he eventually passed her on speed but she has Darting Blow and he doesn't, whoops. Point-Blank Volley is a nice extra trick against enemy fliers (though needed some accuracy work because they ORKO him back, enemy fliers in Maddening are silly).
Knowing which units show up in the important (western) locations of Hunting by Daybreak definitely coloured who I used; Ignatz and Lorenz got used in large part because of this (and I was basically set on making one the dancer), while Raphael and Lysithea I could more easily leave by the wayside when they didn't turn out too well (though I did use both through much of part 1 and continued to use them as adjutants forever).
Going to take at least a bit of a 3H break now. Next up is Indivisible.
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Paper Mario- finished at last. So I played roughly half of this a few years ago and I don't... really remember most of it? And the first chapter or so when I picked it back up last week or so kept that up, but after that I do think they find their stride. Indeed, suddenly in C6 I kinda had a "ohhh hey okay this is the stuff they ramped up for PM2". Silly things like the doors in Bowser's Castle giving you quizes? Yes please.
Overall the main thing different between the two is how partners is handled and it's the biggest area where playing PM1 second makes it seem worse than it probably is. I guess if the "partner swap doesn't take a turn" badge had been available way sooner it would be an interesting tradeoff between the partners being full PCs, but as is it's just this finnicky aspect of the game that really slows everything down since a big chunk of the enemy design assumes you're using a specific partner. Not that Mario can't pick up the slack, but you have to kit him out pretty specifically to make that work.
But yeah, you can feel a lot of the irreverent silliness that is a good Mario RPG here, but it only breaks the surface occasionally. In spite of seeming a bit down on it I think IS gets the tone right in a way Alpha Dream usually didn't, or at least early 2000s IS did. We may never know what the fuck happened in Sticker Star. 7/10
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Fire Emblem Three Houses: Crimson Flower Maddening
Finished! The post-timeskip maps were something else in CF. If anyone is bored, I uploaded my run of the final map here:
https://youtu.be/CkdLKsi--08
(I know Djinn saw the first bit, and Elf & Ciato saw the last third or so.) A 3 & a half hour brutal slugfest. A few highlights:
* 1:30:25 - 9 ninja reinforcements arrive in one turn, with 3 casualties. Uh Sothis, time to turn back time and FAQ the rules on this one.
* 2:19:20 - SnowFire attempts to take on a super-buffed Altered Golem with range 1-4 who OHKOs most of my characters and doubles most of my characters. Thankfully Leonie's Bow Knight, despite being cavalry, can safely toss range 5 Curved Shot and Break Shot to soften things up (and both hit), then Bernie's 5-range Deadeye thankfully hit a 57 hit chance or so. (Granted, I could have used my final Meteor charge on this guy had it missed.)
* 2:49:00 - Another megabuffed Altered Golem sporting 20-30 crit on my characters, although thankfully not super-speed. I'll admit that I just YOLO it a bit here.
* 3:40:30 - I finally go in on the final boss.
Most valuable player of the run: Empire Armored Co., a D-rank Battalion available very early with the Impregnable Wall gambit, which is possibly the most busted gambit in the game. Throw it on a Cavalry user with Canto like Ferdinand or Leonie, and you can pull all sorts of nonsense where units attack, kill something, get Wall'd afterward, and the Wall-using unit just retreats to safety.
Will definitely wait for DLC wave 4 before starting Blue Lions, though… besides, maybe time to hack at Romancing Saga 3 a little.
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Maps that I took advantage of Cheater Casual Mode (ignoring C1/C7) where I won but with deaths:
* The Gautier Inheritance (C5): Gilbert somehow managed to aggro the entire goddamn map while I was foolishly healing him and he ran back and forth under the watchful eye of the archers. This mission is really not balanced for a massive mob of Maddening-stat'd enemies descending upon you at once if you want to avoid casualties.
* The Forgotten (Sylvain): Okay, I just would have not even attempted to greedily grab some of the treasure and been fine on Classic, but I sent Ferdinand on what would become a glorious suicide mission that got one of the thieves to 1 HP. Still didn't get the treasure, which I think was a Speedwing. Alas.
* Foreign Land & Foreign Sky (Petra / Bernadetta): I could maybe have avoided this death, but I was running a little low on Divine Pulse charges and this mission is incredibly long and grindy, so screw it I took safety. One of the Commanders charging the victory condition needed to die ASAP, so Petra charged into the middle of like 5 enemies and took her out, then Leonie Impregnable Wall'd Petra, then.. Leonie wasn't able to canto far enough back to safety. Your Casual Mode non-sacrifice is appreciated.
* The Secret Merchant (Anna & Jeritza): This paralogue is just dumb. Ninja reinforcement Bow Knights with 12 threat range on a tight map? WTF? Thanks to Anna's DLC coming out when I was already deep into CF, this was even "easier" than it should have been since she & Jeritza was recruited super-late and thus overlevel (Maddening XP curve comment goes here). Didn't care enough to bother doing this perfectly. (Fun fact: Only old saves made pre-DLC drop can recruit Jeritza "late", I guess..)
Maps I wiped on:
* Legend of the Lake, when done soonish after being available (Leonie / Linhardt): Enjoy super-speed swordmasters in Fog of War w/ Quick Riposte and super-range Wyvern Riders and night vision goggles Snipers and by the time my shattered remnant staggered up to the boss, surprise, he's a goddamn invulnerable supertank. I saved re-attempting this map as vengeance for absolute last, doing it in the final month of CF.. and it was still one of the most difficult paralogues, although no casualties this time now that I knew roughly where all the enemies were hiding. Massive HP, Renewal, and Quick Riposte on the boss is just sadistic.
General CF main-story-mission commentary:
* C13: I sent Leonie solo north to man the ballista, except for some sort of Persona shadow Leonie shows up with tons of friends to chase her into Acheron's reinforcements. She was cornered and totally 100% dead if I didn't win on turn 4, which I barely managed with some Warp usage. Had to let the treasure go, but I did murder Ignatz to steal his Brave Bow.
* C14: I did this map and the above one without any flyers. That wasn't smart! Impregnable Wall and Raging Storm activations were the only way this worked out. The city was a total deathtrap, I just waited a few turns at the start to clear out the initial wave of aggro'd units and Wyvern Riders, then moved through the fleet while attempting to not get owned by the Almyrans, which somehow worked thanks to Impregnable Wall. Claude has a zillion Poison Strike archers guarding his fort so approaching it is total death,Meteor + Raging Storm mooks + Smash Claude was how it had to go. Hilda lived at least!
* C15: You don't really need to defend the center at all past turn 2 or so. Spent all my time working through the right side where Flayn spawns. Seteth will eventually realize the jig's up and send his hidden troops charging forward for an easy win for him, but sadly he himself is still baitable and will ride off to do 2x1 damage to a Wall'd unit rather than stay put and win.
* C16: Could have been an FE6 map. Everybody is asleep until aggro'd and the obstructions you're supposed to turn off actually help you rather than hinder you by obstructing enemy movement. The start is a little exciting but that's it.
* C17: This is definitely a map where knowing WTF is going on from a test "screw around at the start while waiting 15 turns" helps. The Black Eagle Strike Force cowered in tower as the Blue Lions comitted mass suicide, then retreatred and called it a victory? Okay not really. I swept through the west side of the map hard and saved the east side for last, then killed the reinforcements commander after she spawned.
Maybe I'll chat about the story later.
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Also since this is the post-your-3H-team thread..
Golden Deer (Hard, 1st playthrough I did a few months ago)
Byleth: Merc-Hero-Enlightened One. (Yawn, yes. Hero's a waste, yes.)
Claude: Archer-Sniper-Barbarossa.
Hilda: Brigand-Warrior.
Lysithea: Mage-Warlock-Gremory.
Marianne: Priest-Bishop-Holy Knight. (Yes, Dark Knight is probably better offense and Bishop better support, but still, seems in flavor for Marianne.)
Ignatz: Archer-Sniper. (Hunter's Volley is extremely important so not too sorry about skipping Bow Knight. Also he got ludicrously Str-blessed compared to normal.)
Raphael: Armored Knight-Fortress Knight-War Master. (Had I known about Deathblow-premacy, Brigand rather than AK was probably the "right" call, but whatevs. Also note that the War Master promotion helps fix Raph's Speed from "miserable" to "sort of okay" with the minimum.)
The two characters who went mildly off the beaten path:
Lorenz: Cavalier-Paladin. Ended up doing a physical Lorenz build, although Frozen Lance off his Res was still pretty key to his performance. I didn't have Dark Knight unlocked until super-late, and losing Lancefaire when his growths had been modified toward the physical side didn't seem worth it, so I never switched. Oh well, could still pick between Frozen Lance & Brave Lance for mixed damage.
Leonie: Pegasus Knight - Falcon Knight, did a flying build for her. She had real problems with Str, but was fine otherwise.
The recruits:
Cyril: Brigand-Wyvern Rider-Wyvern Lord.
Flayn: Dancer. (I think she works well as one because her white magic isn't stuff you potentially want to spam every turn, like Physic, but rather is rare break-glass-in-case-of-emergency stuff like Rescue and Fortify.)
Ingrid: Pegasus Knight-Falcon Knight. (Accidentally had the weird stat boost she & Leonie get from the enemy class growths being super-good for Peg Knight / Cavalier.)
Annette: Mage-Warlock. (Also was benched for the final. The only late map she was legitimately useful for was Claude's Paralogue, mages in the desert etc.)
Crimson Flower:
Byleth: Pegasus Knight - Enlightened One - Falcon Knight.
Edelgard: Brigand-Warrior. Note that I used the DLC Shoes of the Wind for +2 Move on her, so she was more mobile than usual. (I'd planned on going Emperor even knowing its issues, part of why I gave her the Boots early, but holy wow it's still worse than Warrior. What went wrong, IS.)
Hubert: Mage-Warlock-Dark Knight.
Caspar: Brigand-Grappler-War Master. (Yeah, Caspar's stat build has problems - if Dedue is the Def-focused WM and Raphael the Str-focused, Caspar's the Spd-focused, eventually? Except his speed starts out bad and class mins fix the issue for the other two anyway. His passive genuinely is useful with Petra though at least.)
Linhardt: Priest-Bishop.
Dorothea: Mage-Warlock.
Ferdinand: Cavalier-Paladin. (I was training him to go to Bow Knight, and he coulda qualified for it, but then he unlocked Swift Strikes in Lances, and suddenly Lancefaire & Paladin was too good to give up. That said, support/chip Ferdie with Seal Speed & Curved Shot was still crucial, especially for monsters where Sealing their Speed lets Hubert double 'em and the like.)
Petra: Brigand-Assassin. (While Petra makes an excellent Assassin, she's also the only Flying talent in the Black Eagles, so forsaking that probably should have meant Peg Knight Bernie or something silly like that. Oh well, made it more exciting this way!)
Bernadetta: Archer-Sniper-Bow Knight-Sniper. (Yes, she was back to Sniper for the final 2 maps after I saw Elf & Random talking about how they hate cavalry and all they stand for. I really like Sniper anyway, Hunter's Volley is maybe the best combat art in the game.)
The recruits:
Sylvain: Cavalier-Dancer. (I like to have the off-house recruits be the Dancer myself, better to appreciate the natural state of all the house characters. Lack of supports less an issue, too.)
Lysithea: Mage-Warlock-Gremory.
Leonie: Cavalier-Paladin-Bow Knight. (Going her canon choice when outside house, of course.)
For Legend of the Lake, where Edel & Hubert are forcibly benched, Anna filled the extra slot. She levels as a Thief, so Assassin was pretty much the only choice, but Assassin is a good class, so I'm not really complaining.
Recruits were kinda picked for me - Lysithea has a support with Edelgard, Leonie has a Paralogue with Linhardt (and I didn't recruit Lin on my GD playthrough), and I hadn't done a super-fast early Sylvain recruit with Byleth-F before, so would give that a shot.
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Yeah, Caspar's stat build has problems - if Dedue is the Def-focused WM and Raphael the Str-focused, Caspar's the Spd-focused, eventually? Except his speed starts out bad and class mins fix the issue for the other two anyway.
/me looks at Raphael on his Verdant Wind playthrough.
/me laughs bitterly.
Gonna have so many words about these shameful idiots when this is through.
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I just wanted to point out that Dedue and Raphael have the same Str growth and Dedue starts with one more, so Dedue should actually have higher STR forever. But Raphael has 5 more HP growth and 10 more luck growth!!! (in exchange for lower speed, defense,and charm growth).
EDIT: SORRY GUYS I FORGOT RAPH HAS 5% MORE DEX TOO
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All I can say is thank god the Verdant Wind version of Hunting by Daybreak lets him hide in that goddamn corner because can you imagine living in a world where Raphael actually gains defense because I sure can't.
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Look he just can’t wear armor it keeps popping off, more defense just isn’t possible for softboy Raph.
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For all of Raphael's problems, at least he has a bit of a niche with his str/def. Caspar doesn't seem to have one, being unremarkable at best in those stats and every other. Like, in a comparison with Ferdinand, he loses HP/spd/def/cha and only wins str by 1 base / no growths, and nobody considers Ferdinand a stat god. Caspar also has to contend with a bane in authority (the other two units this is true of have waaay better stats).
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While I'll be happy to elaborate on my thoughts on the matter once I actually get around to rating the cast, I'm not really one care much for the distinction between someone who has no niche and someone who is bad at their niche. I might even bring myself to agree that on paper Raph is better than Caspar the shittier Edward on the basis of their early performance but that kind of stat spread just Does Not Work.
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Azure Moon Maddening -
Dimitri - Dancing Queen and evade tank. Went with Evasion Ring + Sword Avoid +20%, Brigid Hunters (20% evade Battalion), and tried to keep him and full HP at all times for an extra 20% evade. At endgame, with the full setup, he has 123 evade. Level ups are his worst enemy. When at full HP, very few enemies had more than 10 hit on him. One particularly memorable moment for me was on Dimitri’s paralogue where Dimitri dodged about 15 Boltings, one of which had 9% hit and would have killed him in one-hit, and the others had zero. I was levelling Sylvain in an earlygame class at the time to get a skill and I stuck him as a adjunct to Dimitri. Gaining 2 class experience per Bolting and other hits, Sylvain got like 100 class exp in that fight. Something to keep in mind for the future; evade tank is a great person to stick an adjunct you want getting class exp for. In in my first playthrough Dimitri was my MVP and general offensive world-crusher; this time he is the MVP through evading and Dancing and mobility, with Atrocity in his back pocket just in case, although I haven’t used it much since it drops his evade a bunch.
Oh, and he has 36 strength, 33 speed, and 56(!!!) charm. Not quite as offensively gifted as the previous playthrough but still very respectable. Ended up gunning for Move+1 pre-timeskip, since he can’t train from Chapter 13-18.
Dimitri ended up with 750 battles (!!!!!!) because of all the dumb, dumb tanking that he did.
Dedue - I ended up going with a Wyvern build for Dedue, despite his weakness in Flying. It ended up not being that bad to get the requirements, and I even dipped into C in Heavy Armor for Weight -3 and still had all of the requirements before Level 20. It’s really not very difficult to have people gun for Wyvern, even without favoring them, I have found. The weakness penalty is a bit overrated; it’s like 2x4.5 per training session, and another 4 for the auto-building? This build ended up being quite solid; at endgame, he Waits, Dedue has 52 protect and is actually able to credibly take physical hits, which is good because he’s doubled by everything that isn’t an Armor Knight. Brawlers in particular are a total joke for Dedue and quite challenging for other characters. His mobility means he is a flying tank, which is amazing, and he can run more easily from mages! He is slow as hell, although Wyvern Lord bases mean that he isn’t THAT slow. Great build for Dedue, would recommend.
Oh, and I ended up giving Dedue Defensive Tactics (half damage to Battalions) because his Battalion was running out so quickly with my strategy of having him stand in the front and tank. That’s the first time I’d ever used that skill, but keeping that +4 protect was really helpful in my tank strat.
SADLY Dedue perished on the last turn of the last battle due to my desperation just throwing people in the fray.
Byleth - Standard Wyvern Lord build, but she has Failnaught because reasons. Obviously solid. 46 Charm is solid and good.
Felix - Bow bitch, offensive MVP, and general killing machine with Brave Bow+. Should have gone for Death Blow, I think, but Hit+20 is useful too, especially at long range. Did a bunch of finagling with his Charm and gave him King of Lions. He has a respectable 38 Charm after the King of Lions +10 boost, which is pretty good, especially because he has the support with Dorothea with Meteor Linked attacks.
BOW BITCH became Dimitri’s husbando after Dedue died.
Ingrid - Wyvern Lord with Darting Blow and Repo and Alert Stance +. Ended up defense-blessed so she actually has over half of Dedue’s Protect at 33, but has 37 speed so she… usually isn’t doubled, even on Maddening. Magically tanky as well.
She married Ashe and became a knight.
Mercedes - Bishop, heal bot, super fucking slow and can’t take a hit to save her life, but Physic and Fortify goes a long way.
Annette - Crusher and Bolt Axe Wyvern Lord. Better than Elfboy’s version because Dust does a fuckton of damage, but still not an amazing PC. Wyvern Lord speed boost finally gives her the speed to consistently double Armor Knights. And yet, it’s almost certainly her best build, because her Faith list is trash and her Reason list is quite shaky. Ah well.
Lesbian lovers til the day we die~
Sylvain - 12th man. Ended up making him a Dark Knight with Physic and some utility. Should have gone in for Repo while Adjuncting Dimitri but oh well.
Dorothea - Thoron. Meteor. Physic. My queen. She has the Caduceus Staff for +1 range and is a Gremory.
Petra - Wyvern Lord with Death and Darting Blow and Alert Stance + and 43 fucking speed. The other offensive MVP. Squishy unless Alert Stance + is active.
lesbianz part 2~
Lysithea - 11th woman. Late recruit so it took forever to get her Warp, but she has high Magic and can fuck up an Armor Knight or Paladin. She’s a Gremory. Will sometimes grab Thyrsus from Marianne, especially now that Mari has a horse.
Marianne - Thyrsus + Dark Knight + Physic + Thoron + Silence. All-around useful and versatile. Died on the last turn of the final battle.
Thickets for dodge bitch and my flying Byleth made Hunting By Daybreak a lot easier than on VW Maddening; I was able to keep everyone alive, whereas on VW both Lorenz Hellman Gloucester and Ignatz ended up dying, even after I reset to try again. Chapter 14 was definitely quite challenging, harder than on VW due to lack of Claude. Gronder 2 was hilarious because again, camp out in those thickets, dancing queen, and watch as Claude has like 9 hit.
Enbarr 1… Ferdie’s Honeypie really knows how to fuck you up. Ballistas and siege tomes and Wyverns and flying Demonic Beasts and FUCK YOU FERDIE’S HONEYPIE. I had to honest-to-god reset on that map, mostly thanks to stupid ninja reinforcements ultimately but I was treading water anyway and had used DP multiple times already.
I didn’t reset on the final map, but ended up conceding two deaths because goddamn that map is hard and the reinforcements wore me down.
Ended up getting Dimitri and Marianne’s support for the first time (I had watched it on Youtube before, though). In a game with several serious and dour supports, this one really takes the cake. Both of them CW: suicide ideation discuss their passive desire for their own death and how survivor’s guilt has warped their life. Both of them ponder why they are alive while others have perished, and how they feel undeserving of life. Their entire A support is just… wow. Uh, yikes. I knew this was coming, having seen a lot of both character’s supports and WOW TWO CHARACTERS WITH EXTREME DEPRESSION HAVE A DEPRESSING SUPPORT? what a surprise, but still. All I will say is that I tried my hardest to avert that as a romantic ending. <_<
Of course, it makes me ponder the responsibility of game developers to include things like content warnings in their games for some content. I feel like this support is borderline on that front, but I don’t necessarily blame them for not having a warning, since I think it’s important to talk about these issues, at least without graphic detail. I think the game is better for having this support and putting these issues in the open.
Otherwise, it’s still AM, still emotional and draining and fabulous.
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Fire Emblem Three Houses - 1v1 me bro yeah easy to say when you're a boring pile of stats with a bunch of annoying but non-murderous abilities. (Verdant Wind cleared. I don't mind the final map exactly putting the horrible swamp aside (did we really need to make flyers even better intsys) but the boss is pretty zzz compared to Azure Moon's in literally all respects and probably cements AM's as my favorite on hard gameplaywise. The lategame galaxy brain starting positions on Verdant Wind don't really help much either. Plotwise... well. That's going to be in a seperate post.)
Anywho!
Byleth - Swordmaster, recruited everyone so wyvern wasn't going to happen but due to -slightly- better management on my part didn't struggle as much midgame as she did on Crimson Flower.
Claude - Archer -> Wyvern Rider -> Barbarossa. Remarkably average overall (by the extremely high standards of is good at bow and wyvern) but Failnaught is mildly ridiculous thanks to Falling Star. Not Aymr but what the fuck is?
Lorenz - I wanted to use him this time and he actually gained charm early so I made him the dancer and actually used the class this time. His offense was... functional for a time since I went mage route with him prior to that but he pretty much just danced. Would've been better at it if I bothered to get his Riding skill to A+ but eh.
Marianne - Mage -> Warlock -> Dark Knight. Oh so this is why Frozen Lance gets hype yeah that's pretty good i guess. Kind of an annoying route to get there since she's only neutral in Reason but I wasn't feeing the Paladin route on someone with her speed growth.
Leonie - Archer -> Sniper -> Bow Knight. Oh look that thing that people complain about with 40% str growth characters happened well good thing i have all these strength boosters that i'm not really using thank you gardening. Critfishing helped of course.
Hilda - Bandit/Peg Knight -> Wyvern. Resident dodge tank of the route, also wound up with the highest defense out of anyone of the route for what it mattered. Even putting aside the fact that I'm not all that convinced authority weakness is that big a deal in the grand scheme of things on someone you have from the start (okay sure if you go flyer route maybe, but Verdant Wind hands you a broken C rank flying battalion so lol) she felt like overall MVP of the playthrough.
Ferdie - Paladin -> Bow Knight very late. I felt bad about killing him on Azure Moon so I went and used him. I don't actually think much of Paladin as a class and Ferdie's stat line doesn't really help much but he gained enough strength that I was willing to meet him halfway and threw some speedboosters at him. He's... honestly an annoying poach for a variety of reasons and in all honesty Master class reqs being as... shockingly lax as they are helped him a bit.
Dorothea - Standard Warlock nonsense, as good as it was the last two times.
Petra - Wyvern nonsense. Obviously worse than Hilda due to not getting the double blow combo and no Freikugel but training in axes as an off-route poach plus the free D in flying makes getting in ez modo, why does anyone hype Cyril again?
Felix - Assassin. This was a bit aimless but DOORS existed and it was either him or Ignatz who had like 10 less strength (Ignatz was still okay...ish! Just yeah, Felix.)
Mercedes - Standard Gremory nonsense. Was a bit slow but had enough magic to pull off the occasional OHKO anyways.
Ingrid - Some stupid Pegasus Knight -> Swordmaster with a brief adjutant abuse stint in Mage once I finally decided on what I was doing -> Mortal Savant nonsense. Well she learns Physic and this does save on Levin Sword uses. That's... pretty much the entire reasoning behind why I did this. It did work obviously but I can't really pretend this was anything other than me being silly.
Lysithea also saw heavy use of course, most of it to see just how feasible it is for her to hit S+ in something (answer: requires slightly more work than what I put in but it did happen on the final map!), the points she has in her favor over the other power mages are worth considering and she does stack up well enough all things considered but she's still a power mage in the grand scheme of things and that's a pretty meh build. CASPAR also managed to succeed at beating up the Death Knight on Mercedes's paralogue despite my only doing so out of foppery and whim, making the bare minimum of effort, and being fully prepared to write it off again if it didn't work the first time and we are all very proud (Caspar still bad).
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I wasn't a big fan of either of VW's final maps; Shambala is windy and dull and sends enemies at you very slowly, and Nemesis is just kinda easy and boring for a final fight (I feel like it would have been okay for a normal fight, but a final boss? Nah). I would say this is a rare place where SS beats something to me (since Fort Merceus is also better on SS due to not having the extra reinforcements which kinda trivalize the map), but I forgot that it lacks Gronder 2. For all non-CF routes, I really don't like Hunting by Daybreak; arbitrarily punishes you for not using your in-house people, so CF lacking that really helps for me. Probably AM = CF > VW = SS for me gameplaywise. My favorite maps in the game are C17/C18 CF, C21/22 AM, and C17 AM/VW, with all of the Chapter 12s and SS"s final map coming in after that.
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Atelier Twilight Trilogy DX Box - I know this is coming so I never purchased the enhanced version on Vita. Now I can enjoy them on PS4.
Though, instead of the game itself. The limited box item and pre-order item somewhat impressed me.
It revealed that Flameu and Chrone live past the age of Twilight into the era afterward, and left behind records of days past.
Chrone then even outlived Flameu and left behind recordings of the music they listened in the Twilight days.
My eyes were a little wet when Chrone prepared seats for her friends during the recording despite there are no one to seat on them anymore, and speaking in her not robotic voice to Flameu, telling her that the earth has finally starting to come back to life.
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Oh yeah Hunting By Daybreak is a map that someone certainly believed should exist contrary to all reason but I can't say I loved the last two chapters of CF. Gronder and Embarr are good times though I'll agree.
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Dragon Quest 11- Playing a bit on and off; played with a small group today and got up to getting the 5th PC as a guest. It's decently entertaining but not groundbreaking by any means.
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Fire Emblem Three Houses: The Promised Effortpost or Why The Burning of the Kagatopia is a Moral Act
So this is going to be a lot of words and obviously a bit spoilerly.
As one could fairly guess I consider this game to be fantastic. It's not perfect, of course; while the game does have some fun maps I consider the map design to be on the weaker end overall, and while there's something refreshing about the more freeform approach to classes the shadow of wyvern looms a bit overly large and I think a bit more could be done with it in general. The weapon triangle is not a thing I particularly miss and the return of weapon durability, while not a thing I care for I can at least understand this time, and hey at least combat arts don't feel largely irrelevent this time. Weight mitigation however remains laughably self-defeating as a balance mechanism and really I'm not sure why they bothered. The sheer level of QoL is quite nice however rather annoyingly the UI is a step back.
Good thing the game actually has other things going for it then.
Three Houses is a game that wears its influences on its sleeve and talking about the game itself without talking about the two most notable things it draws from is not a thing I can actually do. The first of the two, of course, is Geneology of the Holy War. Like that game, the setting of Three Houses is one largely dominated by nobles descended from certain individuals and, by virtue of this heritage, are able to wield certain relics and with the blessing of the setting's dominant religious organization, the Church of Seiros, use this as a basis for governance. Unlike Geneology of the Holy War, Three Houses presents this as ultimately a negative thing and explores the darker elements of this premise to show how this is not only unjust but also unsustainable. There's also that whole disgusting blood reconstruction thing which probably wouldn't be out of place in Nazi Germany but let's not talk about the Dubstep Molemen right now. Plotwise, the two games also share an overall structure, however while Geneology of the Holy War is a largely straightforward story of good versus evil, Three Houses is about revolution, weighing ends against the means used to achieve them, and the merits and pitfalls of the ideologies the three main characters espouse.
The other primary influence is, of course, the modern Persona series (hereafter refered to as nuPersona), and while I'm not one to say that any game has actually been best served by adhering to its formula, Three Houses does actually try to make it work for the story it wants to tell rather than simply kludging the story to fit the formula (and Fire Emblem's traditional support system does help make this work better, since it's not tying almost everything to a dumb silent main). The playable cast of Three Houses is not what one would call neat and tidy, and underneath the game's cheery introduction to the Garreg Mach Officers Academy lies a student body suffering as a result of the world they live in. However, whereas the almost (okay in one case literally) messianic silent main of the nuPersona games is presented as an undeniably positive healing influence, the results of Byleth's interactions are more mixed depending on what route the player takes and in some rather notable cases are not sufficient to outweigh any other considerations some characters may have, potentially resulting in their bloody end. The game's titular three houses and their routes are also rather noticeably centered around similar themes as the ones the nuPersona games are (supposed to be, but that's a discussion for a different time) structured around, adjusted to fit the framework of the setting, which in turn shape the ideologies Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude espouse and their objections to the current status quo.
Dimitri's route, Azure Moon, centers itself around loss, the emotions that accompany it, and ultimately, coming to accept and finding the strength to live on. At first brush, this route appears to be the most "traditionally Fire Emblem" of the routes until the mask of the Flame Emperor comes off. Dimitri himself is first presented as kind but a bit stiff, a skilled fighter but abhors killing. However he suffers from severe survivor's guilt and depression as a result of the violent deaths of those closest to him, is prone to hallucinations, and his strong feelings of love and hate combined with his black-and-white view of the world result in him falling into a downward spiral, lashing out at those around him until he is finally forced to acknowledge the true cost of revenge and allow himself to act as a protector of the living rather someone seeking heads as tribute for the dead. Dimitri's actions are borne out of a sense of duty, the idea that those with power must protect those without and not trample on them. He recognizes the need for reform but balks at the idea of violent revolution and crushing others beneath the heel of progress as a means to achieve it, and believes that while peaceful discource is necessary to achieve a positive outcome that there are things that one ultimately cannot accept.
Claude's route, Verdant Wind, is centered around truth and the need for honest conversations with others. It's also the most... disconnected of the three, as befitting Claude's status as an outsider but it does call attention to the fact that the game's writing and plot, while basically the best a Fire Emblem game has been, is still more than a bit uneven at times. Claude is first presented as friendly but distrustful, fun but a manipulative schemer, and manipulative in a way that other characters who could be a called a bit manipulative aren't, someone with noble principles but uncomfortable with taking direct and overt action, instead basing his plans around how others choose to act. It's implied that this is a survival mechanism to shield himself from xenophobia, being the result of a mixed marriage. While he views the act of revolution as necessary, the one he seeks is one of hearts and minds. Due to his status as an outsider, he considers himself to be simply one voice and not an especially qualified one at that amongst the many and instead chooses to ask how things came to this and the game for its part does provide on this front although of course it's an even less relevent version of FFT's Lucavi hijack so eh, and leave the discussion of Fodlan's immediate future to individuals who he feels are more qualified while he spreads his vision of globalism elsewhere.
Lastly, Edelgard's route, Crimson Flower, is the one most directly concerned with the removal of corrupt forces and the weighing of ends against the means used to achieve them and to be perfectly honest the route I think is most hurt by the formula used (naturally this is similar to Persona 5, where I had the same complaint). Edelgard is, essentially, the driver of most of the game's plot, and of the three lords, the one who I have the most complicated feelings about. Edelgard is first presented as distant, constantly judging, more than slightly arrogant, and less than concerned for the safety of others. And underneath it all is someone who, like Dimitri, is one of the most traumatized characters in the series. The contrast and interaction between the two is great and I'm honestly sad that Crimson Flower doesn't do it quite as well as Azure Moon. Having been victim to the worst horrors of the prevailing social structure, Edelgard's belief is that the only moral solution is to remove it entirely and replace it with one less prone to committing crimes against humanity, and if the game can be said to actually take a stance on this issue, it is that regardless of route, the act of revolution itself always seems necessary. As you might guess of the the three options I agree with this one the most, although it is far from perfect. To achieve her ends, Edelgard initially allies with the Dubstep Molemen (like hell am I ever going to refer to them by either of their proper ingame names), the requisite Evil Group of Evil People doing Evil Things in Evil Ways that Fire Emblem is very so fond of and never gets newer. The question as to why is met with a simple answer, revolution is hard and she needs manpower, and since the principal target of her revolution is the Church of Seiros it's probably harder than normal to get popular support and the two are rather openly using each other rather than genuinely working together. In fact it's a bit despair-inducing for Edelgard, since not only are these people responsible for her PTSD, but it also closes off in her mind the hope of gaining more principled and genuine allies. In a way Edelgard is a walking embodiment of sunk-cost fallacy, her impatience to achieve change results in her making worse and less sympathetic decisions and it's only when Byleth defies her expectactions and sides with her that she realizes that she can in fact pull up and focus on actually accomplishing her goals.
Of course, each route has its blind spots that give rise to uncertainty and discomfort, and while they all result in a brighter future the player is made aware of the pitfalls each of the lords can fall into. And while they're made obvious enough on their own, the writers saw fit to make it even more obvious in the form of the Dubstep Molemen, who are less characters and more a plot device. The game doesn't actually care all that much about them (thank god) but there's still something annoying about the game's writing falling into the same sort of trap Fire Emblem (and nuPersona, and other series besides) keeps falling into. They are the unjustifyable means, the voices that contribute nothing except hatred, the unending cycle of harm. All they do is make life shitty for everyone and the only difference between how they're handled on each route is how openly they're guillotined.
The character work and the small touches are where the game really shines, however, and give the game a sense of personality that feels rare in general (the voice work, which was one of the biggest strengths of Echoes and is great here as well, also helps) as well as serving to inform certain aspects of the backstory, and while each of the three lords are focused on a certain ideology, the three houses focus (although not as completely) on a certain aspect of society. The Black Eagles largely focus on the nobility and their abuses, while the Blue Lions tend to focus on duty and fatalism. The Golden Deer, much like Claude, is somewhat more disconnected, being something of an overlap of the previous two, but perhaps that's the point. Of course it's not all darkness and trauma, and there are still moments of lighthearted silliness to remind us that yes, things can get better. But man, I've spewed enough verbiage on this (and spent enough time agonizing on how to spew it). tl;dr, game good, 10/10 would chainplay again.
Probably not immedately though, I do have other things I need to get back to.
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10/10 would read Random Consonant's post again.
EDIT: Incidentally, if you haven't read my Three Houses post in the Misc. Links topic re:Dimitri, I think you might find it an informative read.
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Indivisible - About 7-8 hours in. It's interesting, I'll mostly save thoughts for when I'm done (especially on anything related to writing). Initial impressions were very positive, oh yay a spin on VP. Then I felt the game was starting to get a bit sluggish and repetitive (some enemies feel like decently tanky and can never ever threaten you, this is not fun). Then I got an NPC who gave me a whole bunch of battle hints realized the battle system had a bit more depth than it had communicated to me (definitely a flaw the game has), so playing with the system (juggling to gain super meter faster and using that more) has definitely gotten more fun again. Odd trajectory, we'll see where it goes from here.
Mega Man 3 - I decided to replay this. I've done buster-only runs, but I decided I'd try something different; a run emphasizing a particular weapon. I decided to roll randomly for it and got Needle Cannon. Not a very exciting choice. I decided the rules of the run are as follows:
1. Use the chosen weapon as much as possible.
2. If out of ammo or the weapon is immuned, use a legal option that comes highest in the weapon order.
3. No intentionally wasting weapon energy to use another weapon sooner. Of course, I do have some freedom of choice; I can fight more enemies if I want to burn up a weapon faster, but I don't allow myself do so in a grindy way.
4. No energy tanks obviously, do I look like a casual
5. Use Rush as little as possible.
I rolled the entire order and got Needle > Snake > Magnet > Gemini > Hard > Top > Spark > Shadow. Buster is the last choice, of course (which meant that after the first stage is beaten it literally only got used against Break Man, who immunes everything else).
Most difficult parts of the run, in order encountered.
1. Bustering Needle Man. I'm out of practice and he's possibly the hardest boss to buster.
2. Defeating Shadow Man with Needle. It's like bustering Shadow, the other possible hardest boss to buster, except I can run out of Needle ammo, and if I do I have to use Snake which is horrible against him. Did you know that when Shadow Man slides, despite the fact he's travelling on the ground, that search snakes go right through him? arrgh
3. Air Man / Crash Man's stage. So Air Man isn't tooo bad to buster because he takes 2, but he only takes 1 damage from Needle! Shit. That makes him super-badass. If I run out of Needle I have to use Snake which as usual is even worse (also does 1). If I run out of THAT I can use Magnet, which he's weak to. Guess how I win. I then get my Needle ammo back and have to use it against Crash Man. It takes several tries of dying to Air until I'm out of Needle/Snake ammo and can use Magnet, beating him, then beating the rest of the stage and taking out Crash, usually with just 1 or 2 lives to try.
4. Heat Man with Needle is also legit, but not nearly as bad as the above. He takes 2 from Needle instead of 1 from the buster, which helps. (And I have bustered him before, certainly.)
5. Yellow Devil; Needle against him is the same as the buster, which is a bad time. Needs a few tries to get good.
6. Boss rush, entirely because Shadow Man again (Needle is mercifully weak to his own weapon). This time I end up winning by depleting my ammo for literally six of my weapons by fighting all the other bosses first then dying several times to Shadow himself. Eventually I reach weapon #6, Top Spin, and that's that.
7. Wily Machine isn't possible. Nope. I've never been able to buster him, and Needle is no different, and I invariably game over before I can run out of ammo, recharging all my weapons. Eventually I allow myself to skip Needle/Snake/Magnet and use Gemini/Hard to beat him, which is doable. Only time in this run I had to outright break the rules.
Other run highlights:
-Metal Man is immune to both Needle and Snake, which takes me directly to Magnet, Magnet vs Metal being one of the most hilarious (and fitting) weaknesses in the series.
-For possibly the first time ever, I get a game over against the final stage! Sure, mostly it's because I got there on my last life, but still, using Search Snake instead of Top Spin does make it much more of a real fight.
Weapon thoughts:
-Needle Cannon is literally the buster against randoms, everything takes the same damage near as I can tell. Bo-ring. It has an autofire option but that hardly matters, just saves you some finger exercise in few situations. Bosses are thus the main place where this departs from a buster run.
-Search Snake is the only other weapon which sees notable use. Snake is bad. It's slow, undamaging, and has a limited-use trajectory. Great. Well that certainly keeps me from deliberately trying to burn Needle ammo, which is a plus I guess?
-Magnet Missile got used against Hard when I ran out of Needle ammo (he's immune to Snake), against Metal (see above), some filler use in the boss rush (including wrecking Magnet himself). Overall use of course is too limited to comment on.
Suikoden 4 - Started this.
It's easy for me to remember first playthroughs of games. The first experience with something tends to stick. This is different. This is... the last playthrough of a game.
I realize that I've never actually felt this way about a game before. Sure, I've finished a game, and said, "welp, never playing that again". But never before have I started up a replay of a game, knowing it would be the last time I ever played it. After all, if I like a game enough to play it n times (for n>=2), there's always a chance I'll decide to play it an (n+1)th time, right? But Suikoden 4 is not a game I actually like that much. It's got a 63 on Metacritic and that's about what it deserves. It's a game that, despite the fact that I've always had a good reason to replay it (never got 108 stars before, it's part of a series I like), took me 15 years to get around to replaying. After this, planned 108 stars playthrough, I will have far less reason to replay it. Presumably it will take me much longer than 15 years to desire to replay it again, so much more that whatever the number is, I highly doubt I will live that long.
Mortality is sitting down to play a game knowing you will not do so again.
I fully expect this to be the deepest thought I have about the game.
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My first Tales game - Tales of Symphonia
Picked this up at a swap letting go of two games I don't play at all (one of which came with the PS2 and was still in the packaging). While Skies of Arcadia may be the crown jewel on the Gamecube, this one still has positive reception and, more importantly, was available to be found. Might as well experience some Tales firsthand. Not worrying about completion the first time through. Also heard that Tales games are full of missable and obscure stuff to drive completionists mad.
Only covering the first arc for now even though I'm farther along. It's a bit of a slow start for me. Part of it is the main plot being very simplistic Dragon Warrior flavored. Player faction has a clear goal and the antagonists act like card carrying villains. The other part is me not being very skilled at this kind of action RPG, my only previous translatable experience being Star Ocean 2. (Mana series skill not applicable here) This first part until a Really Big Plot Reveal ended up being grindy for me. Not blaming the game here. I used a lot more recovery items to progress to compensate for my lack of skill. This led into spending more to keep replacing them, which means I had less cash to buy gear upgrades. Which snowballs into even more grinding and dying in boss fights because of lower stats.
I managed to get the player controlled character KO'ed in the tutorial dungeon. Also died once to the first boss fight without a crutch character. Got a little more skilled there and started to get a hang of using the block button. It also took a while to get into a rythym of assigning special moves. Thinking of it in terms of a Smash character helps; the button inputs for specials are even the same. I did appreciate many quality of life features to the battle system that SO2 doesn't have. Being able to change specials in the middle of a fight is huge, not like SO2 where a fighter had only 3 attack options at any given moment. (regular attack, KM 1, or KM 2). Also found myself controlling fighters more than mages, a twist from my Star Ocean 2 experience.
Will have lots more to say over the course of multiple posts but this is a good stopping point for now.
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-For possibly the first time ever, I get a game over against the final stage! Sure, mostly it's because I got there on my last life, but still, using Search Snake instead of Top Spin does make it much more of a real fight.
Huh, I thought Snake was the only thing that worked. I know that's how I always killed it and never thought it was a super-easy fight or anything, although agree that Wily Machine is still harder.
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I hate 2020
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Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE# Encore: Boy that's a mouthful of a title, eh? Enjoying the game, never got very far in it back on the WiiU. In the interlude after Chapter 5, where we've just learned who is behind it all. Tbh I like the entire cast with the exception of Barry. Barry alone brings the average down harder than one character should, tho. And while Itsuki naturally suffers from Main Character Blandness Syndrome, I do like how much of a derp he is. It's cute~
The songs are generally fun, the costume options range from plain to neat to cool to "but why", which is also fun. I really should put Mr Perfect in his silly Microwavin' Apron more~
Dead Cells: Getting back into this for an action game, since I've completed everything there is to complete in 20XX. Playing on 1 Boss Cell active puts me on Hard mode, and it is appropriately Hard. Managed to reach the Cavern for the first time, and after getting through there(on my third entry to it), I fought The Giant.
....whooooooo boy is this guy nasty. If I want to keep playing this game on harder difficulties I need to learn to slow down and learn shield fighting better. While I do so love certain combos like Iceblast + Fireblast or Ice Bow + anything strong(ice is good, y'all)...they are not great on the bosses.
That is honestly the roughest thing about the game. The builds that are good for hallways are not good for bosses. But both are deadly as fuck and will kill you if you have a bad build! Still having fun for now tho, so gonna keep at it for my action game fix, at least for now.
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Barry for me crossed the line into "so bad he's good" territory. If he doesn't for you, then yeah, some average dragging is to be expected.
Suikoden 4
I just got Kika, so I'm like, halfway done or something? I dunno. Sailing was a nightmare to control at first, then eventually I got the hang of it and instead settled into boring treks along the water which take 10-20 minutes. Part of it's my fault for following recruitment guides which emphasise recruiting people ASAP even when doing so is grossly ineffecient (for instance, it's way easier to recruit the Nay/Na-Nal PCs after the Obel Ruins when the plot takes you to Nay anyway, but you can get them before, as I did. I regret everything).
Otherwise this isn't exactly a new observation but holy shit this game and its lack of dungeons. It's like they were almost done the game and realized they'd hardly made any, so to get the expected amount of combat in the game they jacked up the encounter rate on the seas and then put randoms in all sorts of bizarre places in and around towns that don't make sense (why are there random enemies in Na-Nal's town square? This seems like a serious problem for anyone who wants to go visit the mayor, but what do I know...).
Also lacking: boss fights, dialog (this game may actually end up with less lines than Suikoden 1), and setting work. In every other game in the series the motivations of the antagonists are well fleshed-out. In this one? Kooluk is invading because I dunno, conquest I guess? There's not even a single named Kooluk civilian or political figure to flesh this out, just a couple generals and some creepy arms merchant / baker. And somehow we know even less about Gaien, the nation we are nominally in the army of at the game's start. Great.
This game loses so many polish improvements Suikoden 2 and 3 introduced it's kinda sad: visible rune affinities, a detective, the ability to modify non-active PCs with your castle blacksmith/runemaster/shop, etc.
Not much to say about the actual gameplay itself other than to observe that Wind of Sleep is good in this game.
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In retrospect, Suikoden IV almost has the same feel as FFXIII, where you wonder if they spent a huge amount of development time learning and creating art assets in a new engine, then built the "game" part around a dozen disparate set pieces in the last six months.
(It certainly explains why they were able to assemble an entire other game out of unused "explaining the plot" material a year later.)
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I don't think that's really a fair comparison. I can't stress enough how S4 feels woefully short on environments (even the two dungeons it has both need to recycle screens repeatedly), which obviously isn't a problem FF13 has. Their battle design also unquestionably show vastly different amounts of time/effort. The only place I agree is with regards to story, which I agree both definitely have some parts which are clearly "we'll think of something later" and they never did. Or, to put it another way, Suikoden 4 has similar story woes as FF13, but these woes spread to the entire game instead (and that's why opinions on FF13 are highly variable and opinions on S4... are more uniform, shall we say).
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Oh, I was attributing that to FFXIII having much better artists designing much more elaborate levels.
FFXIII doens't so much have an amazing battle system to my mind as amazing gameplay balance. And if they had a few dedicated people on that during the "make an actual game" part of development, it's definitely something that could have been done without much investment from the other departments.
But that's kinda the general idea. FFXIII had a bunch of very talented people making great pieces of a game and no idea how to bring it together. Suikoden IV, like all Suikoden games, had a bunch of people making serviceable, average pieces of a game but, unlike all other Suikoden games, no idea how to bring it together.
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Tales of Symphonia memo:
Tales is not Atelier. One cannot bop enemies with a staff to gain some kind of initiative advantage. I was reflexively tapping the B button on the field for a long time out of muscle memory.
Interesting simulation of random battles on on the overworld. The enemies are visible but after moving around enough, game will decide that it's random battle time and send an enemy charging at the party at high speed. Long range mode still can outrun any enemy though it took me a very long time to find a guidepost. Though once I did, finding more came rather easy as I got a sense for their placement.
Game held my interest better upon reaching the second world (sorry, spoiler, there is a second world). Story has left the straightforward Dragon Warrior-esque quest with its clearly defined villains. The characters themselves have become more interesting. Gameplay progress is also faster. I feel I've gotten better at controlling my characters by now. Not walking into every attack as much anymore. Still go through quite a few items in boss fights but randoms drop more cash now so I'm not spending as long replacing them. Plot pacing feels better to me.
Not to say there weren't a few walls. One boss I thought I was stuck at since there wasn't any shops or inn accessible (or so I thought). After a few failed attempts where I controlled the healer, tried out fighter control and got a win with only 3 Life Bottles used. Another wall boss was solved much like the Lover fight from SO2, controlling one character to keep the main boss busy and letting the AI deal with the other two units. The final boss of disc 1 put up a fight but I won without anyone dying. This is when I really felt I'd gotten better at the game. Still think that I'll get shredded by a truly dangerous opponent but feel more confident about being able to handle required storyline fights.
A welcome to Tales moment: getting 3/4 of my party blown up by Indignation the first time an enemy casts it. Kind of gave up on that attempt. Won the rematch where the AI pulled everyone out of the effect area.
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Persona 5 Scramble-
The game is actually pretty fun. Has the good side of both ARPG and Musou.
And I can see they remembered Raidou games in how some of the bosses are done.
The risky mode also requires skills and more fund than I thought.
Though... just here is Mitsuru? Why is the Phantom Thieves solving shadow related crimes?
Where is she and whatis she doing with the tax payer money???
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I would kill for a Raidou game with production values
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Suikoden 4 - I beat this. The content I'd not seen before (Snowe's recruitment) was extremely underwhelming. I don't have too much else to add from my previous post about the game. There are some decent ideas mixed in there and the start is reasonably promising but none of the story ideas come to any remotely decent fruition.
Also Ramada is killed by Graham Cray in a lategame cutscene, but then he reappears to save Eleanor and is promptly killed by Graham Cray again, but then the epilogue tells us he survived. Cool story kupo.
Indivisible - I beat this as well. It was about 17-18 hours.
Gameplay: The game is part Valkyrie Profile combat, part platformer. The combat definitely brings its own spin to things compared to VP: instead of rounds, it's a bit more of an ATB-style affair where time freezes if you attack or an enemy attacks, but otherwise characters' gauges fill up (how fast depends on the character and the attack(s) they used last), giving them access to 1 to 5 (depending on the point of the game) attacks, VP-style. When you attack it's of course more beneficial to assemble combos because your super gauge fills faster and you do more damage that way, also some enemies have guards you need to break or only take damage while launched, etc. Characters themselves often play quite differently, to a greater degree than VP, which is cool. The game also mixes in timed blocking as a major mechanic, you will learn how to do this or you will die in some fights.
What's less cool is that the battle design itself feels very haphazard and poorly balanced. You have the ability to heal/revive the entire party but it takes the entire super gauge, which is a much lower cost early in the game (where the gauge is short and fills up quickly) than later. It often felt like they were a bit afraid to pressure the party later on so most fights end up extremely non-threatening, with rare spiky exceptions. I dunno, it's not the easiest system to balance properly I guess (goodness knows no VP has been perfect at this).
The platforming is... largely there, but not bad. Like, it's obviously not good enough to play the game for alone, but it can hold its own, especially in the fake final dungeon (this is obvious enough I don't mind calling it this) and the real final dungeon. You get lots of platforming tools as the game goes on and you are expected to use them. This is a place the game exceeds VP, certainly.
Writing: By and large the game isn't very good at this. Oh, there's some promise here and there, particularly with your first ally being someone who killed your father, but it pretty quickly descends into schlocky Saturday morning cartoon fare. You get setting that feels made up as the writers went along, goofy character interactions which are hit and miss on humour, and some of the weakest town NPCs I can recall in a game (which is a shame, because their artwork is great). I can't tell if they're a collection of in-jokes, or the results of discordant crowd-funding ideas, but either way that part of the game definitely fell flat.
Two points of praise here. One is Razmi, who shares a voice actor and more than a few character traits with Tharja, and is generally devilishly fun. The other is the final battle and the plot surrounding it, which is pretty much the best thing about the game, blending both some plot and gameplay notes, so let's talk about that.
To understand what makes this part of the game good, some background first. The main character, Ajna, is hot-headed and quick to employ violence as a solution to all problems, getting away with it because, well, she's extremely good at it. Eventually it comes to light that she is not actually a human but is a piece of the creator god, Kala, who created this world and now wishes to destroy it because it is an imperfect world (but, in usual RPG fashion was stopped and sealed by a previous generation of heroes). Though Ajna wants to protect the world, her violent and destructive ways cause problems and indeed contribute to Kala's unsealing. The last arc of the game involves Ajna trying to make amends for her behaviour and learn to be a better person.
The final battle is, of course, a showdown between Ajna and Kala. But it's not the big epic confrontation of plucky heroes versus evil god you're expecting. Instead, the game owns its message of what Ajna has learned, and the battle consists entirely of DEFENDING. Rather beautifully, the game puts its timed defence system to use, and your goal is to withstand Kala's attacks until she uses up all her energy. It's a tough, satisfying fight to win gameplaywise, and very neat and unique plotwise. Once it's over, you get a single "attack" option, and the "attack" is for Ajna to reach out her hand. Kala's desire for destruction is ultimately framed as a manifestation of her self-loathing (which was obliquely and cleverly hinted at before the end) that every world she created was one that was flawed due to people suffering, and in the ending, Ajna convinces her that perfection need not be the enemy of good and that this world, and life itself, is worth not giving up on.
It's really cool and much better than anything the game had led me to expect it was capable of. It pretty much singlehandedly turns the game from something I might otherwise have largely forgotten to something I'll probably always recall with at least some fondness.
Character notes:
There are a lot of them. I didn't get everyone, and some people I got much later than they're available. Ah well. I rotated PCs a lot, no reason not to.
Ajna: Hot-headed shonen main. Her attacks are... okay, but not exceptional, a few have frustratingly small hitboxes. Her down attacks output pretty strong damage though, as do her supers.
Dhar: Authoritarian toady, everyone rightly hates him even when he often has decent points. Can store power to unleash solid AoE attacks, and is bulky.
Razmi: As mentioned I enjoyed her a lot as a character. As a PC, she is both slow and frail, and some enemies randomly just absorb magic damage which fucks her over further. :( She can inflict slow at least.
Ginseng: Non-binary science nerd. They're a healer, which obviously has some use, though very frail. Bad early because you can heal just fine anyway then, but decent enough later.
Zebei: Doesn't trust the main character and is basically correct not to do so. Gameplaywise, he's an archer, he's aggressively okay, I used him some until I had lots of other more interesting options.
Kushi: Has a giant bird. Her big thing is riding the bird and doing ridiculous AoE damage (which also works well on aerial'd enemies to build gauge), which also sadly has huuge recoil time. Also she's very bulky. Used her quite a bit.
Qadira: At least in the main game her plot is dropped pretty hard? Didn't make much of an impression as a PC, beyond being durable, but I preferred Dhar.
Thorani: Hot mom. Has this complex mechanic where all her attacks create puddles and you can activate them to heal allies and do ITD damage to enemies (which is useful against a couple really tanky enemies). Ginseng is a better healer though Thorani isn't quite as frail at least. Also gets screwed over by magic absorption though.
Baozhai: Lesbian pirate. She has a big-damage AoE attack which also damages any allies in the AoE so have fun timing that? Ultimately I felt her AoEs weren't good enough to justify the trouble.
Nuna: Proud member of "team idiot". Her gameplay involves setting traps for the enemies and that's way too complicated/finnicky for me to bother with but I'm sure she's to some people's taste.
Yan: Much legs, no arms (or personality). I didn't use her too much.
Tungar: Some old warrior dude from some country or other which is barely mentioned. Puts in decent AoE work.
Phoebe: Giant amazon archer. Yes please. Basically never left my party once I got her, does big damage, spoils aerial and melee-immujne enemies, and is bulky.
Lanshi: Is a dog. This will probably fascinate some people. Didn't find very effective in my limited use.
Hunoch and Xiboch: Wakka, if Wakka had a twin brother who was a ghost and that ghost turned into a blitzball. ... yep, I sure did just write that. Anyway he can rack up huge damage with a full combo (think Jecht Shot, it's basically that), but you actually have to time hitting the ball back at enemies and the combo bonus will reset between ball hits if nobody attacks while you're doing it. Fun to time correctly and do big damage, but I switched him out so I could focus on other things.
Naga Rider: Is a campy superhero. His most notable thing is he does easy-peasy aerial combos solo, not much else to say about him.
Ren: Horny for everyone, Niles is that you? I didn't use him too much, nope not in the mood for a complicated traps-and-status PC gained this late.
Leilani: If she had a personality I missed it? I got her pretty late but she seems kinda OP in randoms, because one of her attacks pulls enemies together so literally everyone else can gang-beat all of them at once. Unremarkable against solos.
Kampan: Thief who robs the rich to feed the poor is a diehard supporter of an autocratic tyrant. Sadly I did the area you get her in last so I only had her for her own area and the final dungeon, and her own area has lots of enemies who punish melee attackers, which she is. Oops.
6/10 sounds right.
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Dragon Quest 11- Playing a bit on and off; played with a small group today and got up to getting the 5th PC as a guest. It's decently entertaining but not groundbreaking by any means.
Ayep, my final take is about this. It's super fun, breezy and has a ton of cool polish improvements over DQ11. I skipped most of the minigames; played in 2-d mode because it was much easier visually for me to handle. I finished the maingame in the mid 60's, entering the final area in act 3 at L77 (6 of those levels were from trying out the metal transformation pep up so yeah, not a lot of EXP gained otherwise). The fact that this game handles a lot of polish things so much better than Octopath blows my mind; everything from party switching to finding items to character balance is done better by the freaking DQ game. The game is a clear homage to the older games in the series without being a slave to them. I was in the mood for something breezy and enjoyable and this fit the bill.
Story and characters were pretty generic. I did like Jade's survivor guilt in act 1, but she has next to no dialog in act 2 and a lot of that is pretty pointless. The sisters had a decent dynamic and I definitely liked Sylvando and his father. But on the whole this game's writing was a step back from DQ8. I did play in 2-d which hurt the story, but this is not a game driven by plot. 7/10?
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Persona 5 Scramble-
Though... just here is Mitsuru? Why is the Phantom Thieves solving shadow related crimes?
Where is she and whatis she doing with the tax payer money???
Knowing nothing about the plot of P5 Scramble, and very little of P3... I wouldn't expect P3/P4 cameos any time soon. P3 cameos in P4 media is fine (P4 Arena, Persona Q, etc.) because it takes place only 2 years afterward. P5 takes place Some Unspecified Amount Of Time Later, so cameos of adult P3/4 characters means picking canon romantic pairings, or canon non-pairings, or canon "yeah I married someone you never heard of I met at college." Some fans hate hate hate this, so easier just to leave it in unspecified limbo forever so that everyone's ships can happily coexist like Schrodinger's cat. You can pick one or two characters who seem like certified bachelor-for-life types and bring 'em back (wasn't adult Akihiko in the Persona 3 anime?), but that's it.
Story and characters were pretty generic. I did like Jade's survivor guilt in act 1, but she has next to no dialog in act 2 and a lot of that is pretty pointless. The sisters had a decent dynamic and I definitely liked Sylvando and his father. But on the whole this game's writing was a step back from DQ8. I did play in 2-d which hurt the story, but this is not a game driven by plot. 7/10?
Yeah, Jade doesn't really have a ton of Act II plot. Also, I think I'll shuffle this off more to a "Japan" thing, but if Americans wrote the Act 2 plot she does have, there'd be a lot more comment on the superpowered evil side she gets in her later dialogue, team discussions, etc. But I guess "I have a super transformed mode now" is so dead common in Japanese media that the game can just shrug and say yep, it's there as a gameplay thing, and never make it a remote plot point. (If nothing else, bring it up in Act 3! "Whoa this is super weird why do I have a superpowered evil side despite not doing the plot reason for that.")
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Secret of Mana- mopped this up exactly one day later than I might have liked, but whatever.
Large segments of this are perfectly okay sequences of bars going up with some very good sprite work. Not quite as clean as Chrono Trigger, but also a lot more loose and physically expressive, it has a bit more cartoon physics rather than anime gag expressions if that makes any sense.
Unfortunately the bits that aren't that are just a chore. Some is just expected jank like "oh hey I don't have a stable world map to easily orient myself with, that's troublesome" or "oh I'm supposed to just walk around visiting places I've already been at this part, OR I can just ask my friend mr. faq." And of course the perils of hit boxes, stairs, and menus, but that's them trying something new and ambitious and only kinda making it work. I can live with that.
But jeez some of these boss designs and enemy difficulty jumps are needless. Also how the midgame dumps multiple giant equipment jumps on you, meaning even if the enemies weren't escalating you'd have a terrible death problem if you weren't looking up what order to do things.
Although I guess that's one way to make defense matter.
I dunno if I actually feel this way overall, but I think I can sum up some of this as... the Mana Beast may have cost the game a whole point by itself. 5/10
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My first Tales game: Beaten
Last stretch of the game went by the quickest. Partly because I wasn't constantly broke, partly because I've gotten better at defense. Did get stuck a few times and resorted to a walkthough (that damned wind plant dungeon). Did some of the more easily accessible sidequests though not any that require going into the final dungeon first. Levels were about 55-59 at the end of the game. Sheena lagged behind at 55, being dead at the end of boss fights tend to put her behind the EXP growth. Not too much thought into beating the final boss besides having enough stats and items to muscle thorough. Colette ending path. Am already replaying to go for a different ending path. Earlygame will probably go smoother now that my skill level has improved. Yes, I did enjoy the game overall and find it worth what I spent on it.
With 100% EXP sharing for out of battle characters, not a whole lot of incentive to rotate characters. Lloyd, Presea, Zelos, Raine was my go-to group for boss fights unless someone else is required or someone was unavailable. I did rotate out of habit and during dungeon treks (because cooking benefits all 8 members at once) though still feel there are large chasms in usefulness between the party members.
Various character thoughts: Will be commenting only on battle performance for now; will put other thoughts in a separate post, including unflattering nicknames for them.
Lloyd: The main character is the one I controlled most of the time. Good attack speed, movement speed, wide variety of useful techs. Good HP and defense really helped out since I took a lot of abuse. Only weak points are low max TP and gameworst Int. and the second mostly is immaterial at endgame. AI is competent with him if I had a higher priority character to control.
Colette: Good god, the AI isn't very good with her. Too apt to insist on trying to use angelic skills when there are enemies after her. and getting interrupted Low defense meant I didn't take her into boss fights unless it was required or she could snipe weakness. Mostly needed to control her directly if I don't want her doing something stupid. As the only party member with a stealing skill, I pulled her out quite a bit for randoms.
Genis: He stays busier than the mages in Star Ocean 2, a nice improvement. AI is also better at storing enemy weaknesses. Don't think I ever controlled him directly; AI does a good enough job with him. Attack magic is nice since enemies can't block it. Still, he suffers from Being a Mage in an Action RPG so I tend to leave him out against the harder bosses.
Kratos: His First Aid was what saved me from my incompetence when I was starting out. An automatic pick in boss fights since I needed all the healing I could get. AI doesn't use his attack spells (on default behavior anyways and I didn't learn that one could directly command allies to use spells until disc 2). Also tends to put a high priority on healing so it's important to keep enemies off him lest he get stuck in a heal loop. (which I saw quite a lot of in failed boss fights when he's the only one left) Good stat growth makes things even better.
Raine: Starting out, she exists to be a healing battery and is inferior in randoms so is often on the bench during that long stretch with 5 party members. The overall usefulness flips as her skillset expands and she becomes a vital member in boss fights. AI loves to waste MP on her support spells and using the reserve settings risks her not using a heal when I need it. If I am using her in a random, I'm often controlling her directly with the intent on staff bashing some enemies to build up her TP. Other main reason for her to be in randoms is when there are enemies that poison about. Arguably the most important party member despite my frustrations with her AI though I do find it important to keep a stock of gels to keep her casting.
Sheena: May be the most frustrating character to use. For the most part, she can only fight at point blank range. With her low HP and defense, she tends to die easily. Especially frustrating once she starts gaining summons since they require Overlimit to use. Which isn't going to happen much if she keeps dying. Possibly the least survivable character in a boss fight. (Genis is more fragile but stays in the back) So of course the game is mean and makes her required for a lot of tough boss fights. (grumble) I didn't get any titles for her until about Lv 33 which makes things worse.
Presea: AI seems to control her better than me. When I control her, I seem to get clobbered during the startup delay of most of her moves. Seems to be gamebest physical durability which is very valuable for my playstyle due to the amount of abuse I endure. Has a wide swing arc and a number of techs that hit on both sides so she's adept at occupying multiple enemies. Seems to have the best innate attack but lack of easily accessible Str boosting titles leads to others overtaking her in attack power.
Zelos: Joins soon after Kratos takes off because Plot and has the same skill selection. So I put him at the same high level of overall usefulness. I feel Zelos is a more useful party member because of his Personal EX skill. Free items have much higher utility than step regen in towns. If I'm in a town, there's going to be an inn around so Kratos' Personal is meh. I didn't learn many of his skills since I guess they require the higher level spells and I didn't start training magic until late.
Regal: Well, he's fun to use with him playing most like a fighting game character. Even if I suck with him. His attack speed leaves a bit to be desired and his healing isn't as good as Zelos' so he's prime benchwarmer material. While he doesn't have as long startup as Precis' normal attack, Presea smacks harder and Lloyd/Zelos hit faster so they're better at reducing enemy numbers quickly. AI is alright with him other than being unable to use Mirage, which is awesome and unique to Regal. Has potential to be incredible in the right hands but not mine. Didn't get any titles for him for even longer than Sheena, about Lv 37 which put him even farther behind.
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SaGa Scarlet Grace - Decided to start this up because it’s just been released for the Switch in December, and I heard good things about its combat. I started with Taria’s quest and I’ve just finished Chapter 2, where I defeated the Earth Serpent.
The gameplay is interesting, and primarily revolves around a shared pool of BP, which different moves use different amounts of it, and each turn, you regenerate it and get one more than the last turn, so your options open up as the fight goes on. The other core mechanic is called “Unite Attacks” which is, when someone dies, enemy or ally, a unite attack is performed if two people on the same side move in the turn order next to each other. It took me a little bit of time to adjust to the system, but you learn a few tricks. Don’t have an almost-dead ally between two enemies. If there are three enemies in a row in the turn order, either get an ally between them or do not kill the middle one! And generally maneuvering your turns to be between almost-dead enemies and offing them is one of the soundest strategies. Unite attacks reduce the cost of your moves on the next turn and do a bunch of free damage to a (random?) enemy.
The game encourages you to rotate between characters and generally have a bit of a stable of characters to draw from. If your characters die in battle, they lose an LP, and unlike in SaGa Frontier, you can’t just go to a normal Inn and pay a pittance of gold to regenerate it. Instead, you give up a valuable resource to heal LP most of the time. However, if you take the unit out of battles for two consecutive battles, you will regenerate 1 LP back. This means that having a few different units to sub in is a good idea, especially since the game is not particularly easy on the default difficulty. (I wouldn’t say it is unreasonably hard either, but generally pleasantly challenging.) I think I’ve recruited 15 or so characters so far; 10 that I use regularly as PCs, and 5 I use as quest monkeys (there are little quests in the game that you can do to give you stuff, kinda like FFT propositions.)
The game doesn’t have dungeons or anything, so you mostly just engage with enemies whenever you want. I generally try to fight some enemies in an area that I enter to get some stones. The stones are used to refine your weapons to higher level weapons. There are different types of weapons that have different niches, kinda like SaGa Frontier, but I have found that the skillsets grow very slowly relative to SF and in particular I have had the same magic skillset for a very long time with Taria. Incidentally, mages don’t seem very good at keeping up with the other characters thanks to the charge times of most of their moves. The only move I particularly like of Taria’s is Poison, and because it doesn’t always kick in, it’s not very reliable. But damn is it useful against big bosses when it does! Otherwise I find her skillset a bit lacking.
One of my issues with the gameplay is the lack of customizability outside of combat. Unlike SaGa Frontier, where you choose your skillsets and tinker with them over time and based on need, the game is very static for skillsets, and as I said before, you don’t get as many skills and there aren’t as many cool options. There is weapon forging, but it is a pretty boring mechanic. I feel like the best games for gameplay have both good in-battle and out-of-battle things to do, and this game really only has interesting in-battle stuff. Still, the gameplay is pretty fun and has kept me entertained, although the lack of growing skillsets has made the game feel a bit repetitive.
The game also has nice music, in the vein of the other SaGa games that I have played. Nothing as kickin’ as some of Romancing SaGa Minstrel Saga’s stuff, but overall the game is nice to listen to.
The game really fails to engage on axes outside of gameplay. The plot is extraordinarily boring; probably worse than most SNES RPGs and definitely worse than SaGa Frontier, which I don’t say lightly. I spent all of Chapter 1 chasing a Phoenix, with interspersed dialogue between the main character Taria, who is about as interesting as an average SaGa main, and Khan, who has about as much personality as Liza (so very little). There has been basically no other characters who have participated in the plot at all, and I think the character with the third most lines probably has about 20. The setting is really bland; there are no towns, and all of the different regions just blend together in this vague, unremarkable sludge. I contrast the game, again, to SaGa Frontier, which doesn’t have the best setting work of all time but at least its setpiece worlds each evoke a unique feel (Koorong feels like a seedy city, Manhattan feels like a rich person paradise, Devin is Sedona, Arizona, etc.). This game’s different regions just feel like variations on bland fantasy tropes. The game has no towns or interesting people to talk to, and most of the dialogue is dedicated to lore, as often as not unrelated to the events that are going on.
When I say I spent all of Chapter 1 chasing a Phoenix, what I mean is that I used the Phoenix feather, a Phoenix flew around the screen, and then I solved some JRPG problem, and then I repeated this about ten times. That was literally the plot. Amazing.
Anyway, I will finish Taria’s quest, but I don’t think I will play any of the other quests.
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SaGa Scarlet Grace - Got to the final boss, which apparently spams 2HKO MT damage with status attached. I tinkered around with some strategies with Protect / Deflect / healing, but the damage outpaced my healing because healing in this game is pretty bad. I looked online for strategies and the strategies largely boiled down to “have way more HP than I do, which requires 5-10 hours of extra grinding”. Exciting. So I guess I’m done? 4.5/10.
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Trails to Azure: Finished this over a series of Subway rides. Long story short - it's good. I plan to do a big breakdown about this game and it's themes along with the duology it creates with Zero. People have said that Crossbell arc is probably the best of the Trails games, and I'm inclined to agree. Part of this is also because I was more impressed by Azure than I was with Cold Steel 3, but also because Azure was created earlier and doesn't have the issues that Cold Steel 3 has despite being like 7 years younger, while still holding up pretty well. More on this later - I have a lot to say about this game.
Trails to Cold Steel 3: Completed. Final playtime was 104 hours. Overall, pretty game but I have more gripes about it than Azure. More about this later as well. Gathering all my thoughts and planning to write a breakdown. Already slowing doing a character breakdown in RPG Discussion forum.
FF7: Replaying this due to needing a new subway game and also because of the demo for the remake being released. I had more fun than I expected, but I think 8/10 is probably right for this game. One thing I never really thought much about but definitely agree with Super now is how strong Independent Materia are as a whole. There's a series of really good materia sets but HP Plus/Counter attack/Long Range are all extremely strong. Cover effectively shuts down enemy physicals and then there are stat boosts. The hidden stat gains on equipment is one of my biggest gripes as the effects are pretty notable once you start stacking. Command is great too, since it includes Mug/Deathblow/Double Cut and the extremely broken E. Skill - more on this in a bit. I used significantly less Magic materia and almost no Summon materia as a result. Just have some last bits to wrap up - namely Battle Square and Chocobo Breeding but I'm not in a rush for either. Gonna need another subway game now - I'm open to suggestions for the Vita.
More re: E.Skill - This materia is broken in very many ways. We already knew this. But just to name a few:
1) It obsoletes a bunch of materia (Flamethrower is basically Fire 2, Trine is basically Bolt 2 All, Big Guard is Time + Barrier just for shits and giggles)
2) It only costs one materia slot allowing you to do more complex set ups or use better equipment with limited slots
3) It doesn't need any AP, meaning a bunch of Zero growth weapons/armor are compatible with it without losing effectiveness
4) There are a bunch of unique effects on it that are very difficult to replicate (Aqualung) or impossible altogether (Death Sentence)
5) It completely obsoletes Ethers (most of the time) making your ability to sustain yourself nigh endless.
6) Not placement specific
The last one is double edged - it's flexible as you can slot it anywhere, as opposed to magic/support/summon depending on what you want to do with it...but that's mainly because it doesn't work with Support materia. At the same time, it's so strong it doesn't care about lack of Support Materia. The fact that a character built to be a fighter can wield E.Skill with no real disadvantage (White Wind > Cure as long as your HP is over 40% or so) speaks to it's strengths.
And yes I realize the irony of writing more about FF7 despite saying I have more to say on two Trails games. Shush.
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One thing to keep in mind about Enemy Skill is that it's somewhat balanced around the knowledge needed to use it. For instance, White Wind is somewhat unlikely to be found until late without a guide, and Big Guard is unlikely to be found without a guide at all. It's unquestionably overpowered if you know where to get all the relevant skills ASAP though.
Another oddly balanced skillset is Summon. From Choco-Mog to before you get Aqualung, and then again from Leviathan/Kjata/Bahamut onwards, Summon has a notable leg up on Enemy Skill (and Magic) as your most damaging MT attacks. However, they take a very long time to animate. So how "good" they are in practice depends a lot on how you feel about sitting through them.
I'm currently playing Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark and it is really good, highly recommended for anyone who likes FFT because this game sure is FFT, but with enough things re-imagined to be fresh and fun. I'm near the end and will say more when I'm done.
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One thing to keep in mind about Enemy Skill is that it's somewhat balanced around the knowledge needed to use it. For instance, White Wind is somewhat unlikely to be found until late without a guide, and Big Guard is unlikely to be found without a guide at all. It's unquestionably overpowered if you know where to get all the relevant skills ASAP though.
Oh 100% agreed. I was going to mention that in my post but somehow it got lost in the shuffle. E.Skill/Blue Magic has always been a little like that though FF7 is different in that Manipulate exists and some E.Skills are clearly Manipulate only (Big Guard being the main case). Of course, you're likely to pick up a couple of good E.Skills without trying and even if you don't have the whole list, it's still pretty damn good.
Another oddly balanced skillset is Summon. From Choco-Mog to before you get Aqualung, and then again from Leviathan/Kjata/Bahamut onwards, Summon has a notable leg up on Enemy Skill (and Magic) as your most damaging MT attacks. However, they take a very long time to animate. So how "good" they are in practice depends a lot on how you feel about sitting through them.
I have some mixed feelings on Summons as a whole. There's a time period when they are quite useful but somewhere around start of D2, they start tapering. I think that's about when you get Tier 3s and the support materia start getting more varied than just "All". One of the main issues with FF7 is that most of monsters have junk for HP and durability, so it doesn't take more than a jacked up Magic Trine/Tier 3 to eliminate groups. When Tier 3s start doing enough, summons start losing some of their value. KOTR and Bahamut Zero are great but those are late game and have lots of other competition at that point.
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Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
Finished this. Well, one of the endings at least. There's a Castlevania guide-dangit style better ending which I'll probably get too if it's not too grindy. Game took me 30 hours and I finished with levels in the mid 30's except Kyrie who was 40 (she is forced in story fights).
Anyway I really enjoyed this game. It's a great love letter to Final Fantasy Tactics. It's a CTB SRPG with a job system and both games feature relatively small squad, close quarters affairs (rarely more than 8 enemies, but they tend to act aggressively). The class system offers plenty of customization; you can set a secondary skillset, a reaction ability, and two other passives (replacing the support and movement slots from FFT). Additionally, as a slight twist from FFT, the passive system is such that you automatically use (without taking a slot) any passives you have learned from your current job, which adds a neat layer to which job you want to be in. Jobs don't have different stats, but they do have different equips, and different stat growths (which both matter more than FFT's and are, mercifully, actually visible to the player).
As such there isn't too much to say about this game's strengths because well, what FFT does well, this game largely does well also! I will say that I like the game's focus on buffs and debuffs; there's not much here like death or petrify or even Don't Act/Stop, but there are a lot of lesser status which make a big difference: root (don't move), cripple (no skills), silence, slow, blind. Host of options on the positive side too. They play a big role in battles as both sides make use of them, and in general the available skillsets are even more interesting than FFT's on average, since there are no duds like Basic Skill / Battle Skill / etc. The game also fixes some of FFT's most obvious flaws, such as letting you take back a move (unless you stand on a trap) and warning you about saving mid-dungeon (and even these barely exist), as well as making randoms optional.
One of the biggest changes is that FFT's "death countdown" system is replaced by an injury system: if a character falls in battle, you don't need to worry about them permanently dying (at least on the default setting), but they will sustain an injury. If you use an injured character in the next battle, they will take a 10% stat penalty and not recover from the injury; bench them and they'll recover. So it encourages using more than the minimum 6 characters (which is a positive, because building more people is fun!). At the same time the mechanic only truly matters as much as you want it to, because you can always just go fight trivial underlevelled randoms to heal people from injuries. Or turn the mechanic off entirely if you want; the game has a VERY robust set of options for adjusting difficulty in whole host of ways and this is one.
Another major change is that characters start with 0 MP and gain it over time, kinda like Tactics Ogre PSP, although the number is more predictable (10 per turn). This mostly serves to make fights a bit less rocket tag and makes you plan around future turns a bit more.
So what does it do worse gameplaywise? Well, its battlefields are a bit worse; you can't rotate them and they don't make use of multiple heights the way FFT does. The instant help isn't quite as robust (still good though). And some maps feel like they don't really have a strong identity compared to FFT's, which is probably a weird product of the fact that FFT fights can only use four enemy sprites per battle while FS is free to throw seven different enemy classes into one battle (but this makes the battles feel less distinct)? FS has way fewer memorable bosses too. Finally, the biggest change is that FS does away with charge times. While those are slightly complicated, I think they were a cool mechanic and I definitely miss them; I also miss the visible CT gauges so I could plan around the effects of Haste/Slow.
But overall the game is very competitive with FFT on pure gameplay. It's a game I'm already looking forward to replays where I translate other characters into FS mechanics, do challenge runs (all the usual ones seem possible!), and so forth. Great fun.
On non-gameplay, the game generally falls a bit short of FFT's level. The writing is serviceable but nothing really that exciting or worth playing a game for; it won't make you facepalm and I appreciate the diversity / older cast (the protagonist is a woman in her 30's, gasp), but it's also just not very memorable. The music, also, is serviceable, but rarely has the memorable, boisterous tracks of FFT. And the sprite work is definitely not on the level of FFT, though I do like some of the portrait art. Basically, nothing here that would recommend the game for someone who disliked FFT's core gameplay conceits, but they don't drop the ball either.
For me, though, this game is pretty great. Want to save room for replays to say for sure, but for now, 9/10 works.
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Summons I found to be pretty bad in practice yeah. Enemy Skill is good enough for MT damage and doesn't have the stat penalties/hideous animation times.
Dragon Quest 3- Finished. Team was Hero/Martial Artist/Cleric/Thief(into sage). Fun enough as always. It's pretty quick to breeze through; there are only five boss fights in the entire game and the first two are total jokes. Baramos was a total asshole. My martial artist had *terrible* HP so that was a problem there; she kept getting killed. I ended up winning the fight at L27 through use of Ironize to avoid his nasty as fuck breath fire turns and timely critical hits. Zoma was also dangerous, but less so than Baramos. Beat him at like L34 or so. HP build is totally the way to go; you get brutally punished by Baramos and Zoma if they can one round anyone.
Mario vs Rabbids: A total delight. I'm on 1-5 and enjoying it greatly. I love how maps feel truly 3-d; jumping does a great job with that.
I also bought Fell Mark since I saw Elf's recommendation. Just did the first battle. I adore how customizable the challenge is; I'm going to run on Veteran; I might turn off injuries since I prefer running a small team though. Graphics are not going to be up to FFT's level but that's to be expected; this game has a very indy feel and isn't a big budget release.
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Our vacation was cancelled due to Covid-19, so instead we have a week of gaming~
Super Mario Kart - I bought the year subscription to the Switch that gives you a bunch of NES/SNES titles, and I started with the class - SMK! I play only as Peach, so Bowser and Toad were my nemeses. I skipped to 100 cc, which was the right call because I smoked by Mushroom and Flower. I had a few tries on Star to get first place, and then opened up Special. Even on 100 cc, Special is terrifying and took me about 20-30 tries to get first place on in order to unlock 150 cc.
150 cc is hell. Mushroom wasn’t too bad, easier than 100 cc Special, but Flower was hell. I only got silver on Flower, in particular struggling with Mario Circuit 3, with all of the twists and turns and the AI that seems freakishly good at it. I decided that I was happy with that and tried out Special 150 cc. I never finished that; too much of a wuss. Ah well.
Super Mario Bros. 3 - Another old school game to occupy my time. World 1-4 are pretty breezy, even with a few tricky stages, but 5-7 were all pretty tough. A few epic stages included the doom fish, the sun, and the fire chomps. But overall, I didn’t think it was too bad and I thought maybe I had overrated its difficulty in my mind. But World 8…wow, I had forgotten how nasty World 8 is in this game compared to the other worlds. Between 8-1, 8-2, and the fortress, I probably had about ten game overs, while only having one before World 8. The tank and ship maps weren’t too bad and they disappear after one try, and Bowser’s castle was tricky but maybe took two more game overs before I finally beat it. Helped that I remembered how to kill Bowser.
Tales of Vesperia - Now here’s a new experience. I decided to pick up the definitive edition for the Switch, and so we begin. So far I’m about 10 hours in, and I just got Raven as my sixth PC.
The gameplay isn’t anything to write home about, very unremarkable and smashable to get to all of the other stuff. A couple of things of note: wow, the Solt and Peppor knockoffs are pretty hard bosses thanks to being solo fights, especially the one I just fought in Heliord. I’m not sure the game really understood how to scale solo fights compared to its regular fights, which makes the tutorial fights with the joke bosses harder than most of the game’s other fights so far, which is very funny! The only other boss I died to so far besides the third joke boss tutorial fight is the wolf, who laid ever loving hell on me, so I went back into town and stocked up on healing and revival items and explored the dungeon further (i somehow beelined to the boss in that dungeon). After that, he was still hard, but more manageable. Otherwise, I mostly just play as Yuri, smashing things with swords and techs and not bothering with more complex characters or whatever.
Gameplay’s not really what we are here for.
Yuri is an interesting character; he has some of the anti-hero trappings, but unlike some of the more edgy, rude antiheroes, he is actually nice to people who deserve it. I contrast the sweet relationship between Yuri and Estelle (even though he tries to disguise his feelings about… everyone?) with Ryudo/Elena, who I felt like had a much less nice and reciprocal relationship. You notice in his interactions with Estelle, Flynn, and even Karol that he struggles to express how much he cares about people, and he often deflects his feelings and actions by justifying them logically rather than admitting that he cares about people. He has a dry sense of humor, but he mostly reserves his malice for those who deserve it. In a few scenes, you notice him subtly running cover for Karol, letting him feel ‘cool’ even though Yuri seems to know about Karol’s insecurities. He and Rita also have excellent interplay thus far; I loved the scene where he approaches Rita, telling her that “Estelle’s a good person, unlike you and I, so don’t take advantage of her.” I think he sells himself short here. He obviously cares very deeply for the common man and wants to make the world a better place, but he is frustrated with the status quo and unlike Flynn, he is unable to continue with his dream of becoming a knight because he is disgusted with the system. Flynn gets under his skin because he knows that he has a point, that just dicking around and wasting his talents won’t help anyone but the handful of people he chooses to help.
Flynn… I haven’t seen that much of him yet, but he feels potentially interesting because of his ideological opposition to Yuri. He is Lawful Good in a world that puts lawful in opposition with good, and he struggles with this. In his first encounter, he lets go of the corrupt senator Ragou because he doesn’t have the definite proof needed to catch him, and Yuri is obviously contemptuous of this. Otherwise, he seems to serve a cause that is parallel, but not necessarily with or against Yuri and company. I like the idea of the ‘rival’ character being higher achieving and generally not primarily motivated by the main character, although obviously Yuri and Flynn have an influence on each other. Both of them grew up in the slums, and they are both influenced by it, although Yuri is much more proudly lower class and brazen whereas Flyyn tries to be a proper knight. While Yuri is proud of having 10,000 gald on his head and having, what was it, eighteen crimes to his name? He’s getting bored of listening to them all, Flynn tries to uphold the law and do what he thinks is right. It will be interesting to see what the game does with these two.
Yuri’s epic-tier sass, especially directed at the establishment, is just <3
Estelle is a generically decent female lead. I don’t have a lot to say about her, but I like that she really moves the plot with her actions and seems to have her own free will. She’s also a big nerd for history and culture and magic, which is thumbs up in my view. She has great chemistry with Yuri. One of the interesting things about their relationship is how Yuri largely defers to her in most decision making and is content to follow Estelle’s whims. Yuri feels like the main character but Estelle feels like an important plot driver. Rita is cute and funny, very savage and unrelenting and has great chemistry with Yuri, Karol, and Estelle. Karol is decent as well, although not quite as good as the others mentioned so far. I’m still waiting for all of the parts of his plot to come together. Raven just joined, but seems like a piece of shit who needs to be dunked on, so it’s a good thing he joined a party with Yuri and Rita, the sasslords. The newly added character, Patty, only existed for a few minutes and primarily existed to be horny for Yuri. Whatever floats your boat, little girl. (Although she’s 14 and 4’4”, which is excessively short. I’m pretty sure I was full height at 14. >_>)
Otherwise, the game’s plot is not too exciting, you move from place to place which is mostly an excuse for character interaction and a vehicle for gameplay. I don’t really expect the plot to be stellar, although I hope it does begin to pick up later? Right now it does feel like it’s falling a bit into the Dragon Quest mold of “go to town -> solve someone’s problem of the day -> repeat”, which feels relatively repetitive after a while. Definitely hoping for more Flynn/Estelle/Yuri interaction goodness, which has been the core of the game so far.
I like the dungeon design; they look nice and aren’t too long, both things I appreciate. Graphics and music are both fine but nothing worth writing home about. The game is pleasantly fine at everything, moving the needle in one direction on character work and the other on Tales gameplay. I’m having fun.
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Just started up Animal Crossing on the Switch. Brand new villager. Peaches. Green airport. Called Westside. On Day 2. If you want to join, my Switch is: 1798-2060-2520 OR my Dodo right now is: 3XSD2
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FFX - Replaying this, or more specifically, the PS4 HD version. It's neat, I appreciate the better graphics more than I expected to and I also appreciate that I can finally actually use the Expert Sphere Grid after having read about it for years. And of course I appreciate it because it's FFX, it's great.
The crazy idea for this playthrough is simple: whenever anyone reaches a junction (which happens for everyone upon their join), randomly choose what direction they go (besides back the way they came, unless necessary). Obviously routes blocked by locks which require keys I don't have yet are skipped. The one little exception I've made is that there is a path between Tidus's and Rikku's early grids which has five empty nodes in a row and I've chosen to ignore that because I feel like it would hamstring anyone who crossed it.
Up to Guadosalam now.
Tidus: Did a little circuit of Kimahri's grid and is now on Yuna's. He has random utility like Cheer / Extract Ability / the Nul spells and is otherwise pretty underwhelming due to a lack of offence or durability. I did get a lucky Sleepstrike weapon drop for him from Sinspawn Gui, so that's seen some use at least, especially against Basilisks.
Wakka: Started off on his own grid, and then moved onto Auron's. His only really notable skill is the Dark Attack he started with, but he has accuracy and power so he can at least reliably kill all the fliers and sprinters. Also his HP is crazy high. I bought the TKO (50% petrify) for him at Operation Mi'ihen which is great for petrifying 7000-HP Ochus near the Moonflow.
Lulu: Went into Yuna's grid and picked up the Nul spells. Then she ended up crossing back over into her own to pick up the -aras, which has been great. She got them later than normal but on the other hand she has a bit more utility and speed than she usually does. Reliably kills huge numbers of enemy types and beats on sleeping enemies. Probably the non-Summon MVP.
Yuna: Did a circuit of Kimahri's grid, picked up Dark Attack, Lancet, and the L1 black spells, then went into Rikku's for Steal/Use, where she is now. She has pretty good HP/speed and does a bit of everything as a result. Not to much to say about her past that. Summon is still a hell of a trump card against bosses and tough enemies.
Kimahri: Mucked around in his own grid then went into Lulu's, his most notable pickup was Blizzard and good magic to use it with. Is quite useful when that spell is relevant. He then ended up in Wakka's grid where he got Silence Attack, and has since moved into Auron's, so it's not quite clear what his long-term prospects are, but for now, Silence is good.
Auron: Pretty quickly found himself in Tidus's grid and at long last gave me Haste by Mushroom Rock, which is grand. Otherwise he has good power as usual and can still reliably kill his types of enemies, though it looks like he may fall just short in the Thunder Plains. Power Break is great against the two bosses he has faced so far.
Rikku: Just got, too early to say, beyond obviously looking like a worse version of Yuna at this point.
Highlight of the run so far was Chocobo Eater, which featured the first time in any FFX run I've made serious use of Guard (cover allies for a turn). Even after Power Break, Chocobo Eater could OHKO Lulu (and sometimes Tidus) with his called shot Fist of Fury. Why did Guard end up mattering? Because my strategy was to summon Valefor to do some nearly free damage, wait until Chocobo Eater charges his Fist of Fury, dismiss her (because Eater can't use Push the next turn), have Wakka Guard to protect Lulu/Yuna, take that hit, and then have my best damage-dealers finish the job of pushing Eater over and back.
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Tales of Symphonia replay goes well. Winning fights at better margins and less item use now that I mostly know what I'm doing. Even sold a few restoratives since I was hitting the cap on them. Then real life Pandemic strikes and I unplug the Gamecube to do my long delayed Clear Game stomp of Atelier Meruru. More on that later.
This post is my ToS character impressions post. Complete with unflattering nicknames. They're an interesting bunch overall. No one really stuck out as a home run but didn't feel there were any stinkers either. Spoilers ahead, though I intend to keep them minor or of the easily guessed sort.
Lloyd - "Hothead Laguna"
Lots of heart, not as much in the smarts department. Thus, he reminds me most of FF8's most likeable character. Though his dumbness seems to mostly be of the book smarts sort: the famous coffee scene (among others) shows he does have a capacity for craftiness and observation. His hot-headed tendency to charge in without thinking and pick fights irritated me at first. Not because of the personality so much but the likelihood it would lead to boss fights which I didn't want to have (since I sucked at combat for a while). His idealism starts out simple minded, "defeat the bad guys" variety. Spoilers: he gets better. Like WA3's Virginia, part of his development is transforming his ideals into something with a dose of emotional maturity (words, where are they?).
Cares about people without regard to race or religion, a definite plus. It's not really noticeable on the surface, but he does grow into someone I can picture people voluntarily choosing to follow on his quest. While I didn't notice at first, his color scheme is close to chapter 1 Delita. Ironically, it's a different character who more closely follows Delita's character path in FFT.
Colette - "Proto Flonne"
Having played Disgaea before this (even though ToS predates it), I got so many Flonne vibes that Colette might as well have been the template for Disgaea's angel trainee. It's both on a surface appearance level: white clothes, blond hair, blue eyes, angel motif, and on a personality level. Wanting to make friends with an assassin that's trying to kill her does seem like something Flonne would do. Both have kind-hearted personalities, are rather naive, and probably several other traits I'm forgetting at the moment.
Colette doesn't quite gel with me, which surprised me as I'm predisposed to like the cute, blond, kindhearted, female characters. It's not her outfit; unflattering as it is, plain is not a crime pandering with gratuitous exposed skin would put me off more. It's not her clumsiness, which I find entertaining at least, if not always endearing. It's not how clueless she can act; there are a number of entertaining skits and scenes where she jumps to a wrong conclusion. Maybe it's how she keeps thing locked up tighter than Tifa Lockheart. Anyone who has played through FF7 will know how well that turned out. Maybe it's that she comes off as a plot device more than a person. (and Lloyd treating her as a person first is one of his big positive traits)
Or it could be that I'm unconsciously comparing her to Flonne and finding her dull by comparison. More thoughts at another time if I ever get around to articulating them.
Genis - "less insufferable Leon"
I found myself mentally comparing him to Star Ocean 2's catboy. Being attack mages is the obvious comparison along with the very high intellect. Genis contrasts with Lloyd in that while Lloyd is book dumb but has a decent amount of world smarts, Genis is very book smart but very out of his element outside a classroom setting. His banter with Lloyd is entertaining and they feel like they're actually friends (cough, Cecil, Kain). While confident in his academic smarts, he doesn't come off as arrogant as Leon does towards people not as smart as him.
And just to feed the Leon connection more, Genis is the one that gets the cat-themed costume and not any of the females. There's also his intense crush on Presea, another similarity to Leon crushing on every female in the party. Genis at least keeps it to one. Though since one of the female PCs is his sister and another is a childhood friend who's already an item with Lloyd, so there's not many to begin with for him to act awkward around.
Kratos - "Fanfic bait"
He could also be called Auron mk2, seeing as his last name is Auron with one more letter. Assuming this would enable one to guess some of his reveals before they occur. I was contrasting him with Gafgarion, being the first one I thought of when mercenary was mentioned. So my train of thought was more along the lines of noticing he doesn't exhibit much, if any, of the characteristics of a money-grubbing mercenary. He's got the stoic exterior Squall wishes he had but doesn't seem to display any of the greed that often gets associated with mercenaries. Curious. Seems to be a favorite character for fanfic writers to explore because, well spoilers for a lot that he keeps concealed.
Holy crap, I think I'm going to split this post for my sanity, if nothing else.
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Tales of Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion -
In this edition, we see Flynn get promoted to knight captain, whereas Yuri decides to inflict vigilante justice onto a corrupt, scummy aristocrat and letting him die and fall into the bottom of a river. Such a succinct portrayal of their parallel paths toward building the future. These two work so well together because they are both right and both wrong and both driven and both prideful. I am continually eager to see what exactly the game is going to do with them.
The game continues to be a joy on the PC front; Yuri is very fascinating; after forming Brave Vesperia, he immediately defers to Karol for all things and even puts Repede as the second in command. He clearly has an issue with command structures, thus his inability to get along with the knights, but even more than that he does not want to be in charge of everything. Karol is embarrassed that Yuri calls him ‘boss’, but I don’t feel like it’s coming from a place of mockery, even though it seems absurd for an adult man to be taking orders from a little boy. I really like the repertoire these two are building and they have a lot of really good chemistry. I find Karol to have quite an interesting character, building up confidence and no longer being a coward. He is safe and more rational than Yuri, who is impulsive to a fault, but they work together really well.
Rita is hilarious and I love how she clearly has a crush on Estelle, even blushing when she talks about her. Rita’s first crush; how cute! Estelle is pretty good but I feel like she needs to be a bit more open with her goals and ambitions with the player; I will still wait and see with her a bit. She has great chemistry in all of the skits with Yuri and Rita and to a lesser extent Karol. Judith has yet to reveal her true goals, but she also adds to the skits and the plot with her sensibility and reason. Also, I like how Yuri refers to her as ‘eye candy’. Made me laugh to hear an RPG main be honest about thinking a girl was hot. Otherwise, I like her, but she’s not very deep yet. Raven is definitely less good; I feel like he could be anywhere from ineffective joke character to a really annoying character with a stupid serious story. Maybe he will be good, but I am skeptical. Patty seems like a really weird addition; pointless and tone-breaking, a complete joke character in a sea of joke/serious hybrids, which is a bit jarring.
Now, the game’s villains… hilariously bad. Everyone is baby-eating evil; Barbos wants to rule the world or something, Ragou likes kicking commoners and torturing children, and Cumore just wants to run gulags or something, because reasons. Duke seems like he’s a very nice guy; spouts off about the insignificance of life or something, and then sits around with his bishie silver hair and big sword. I’m sure he’s gonna be a really charmer. Oh, and Yeager, whose only personality trait is talking in a funny accent. Good grief.
The game seems to have gone a little off the rails at this point; the ghost ship seemed really pointless, and the desert seems pretty filler so far. I’m hoping there will be more Flynn and less filler soon. At least the skits are still good (unless they involve Patty, then they are just weird.)
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Mario vs Rabbids- World 3! The challenge missions have been a lot of fun, but the super secret ones are *evil*. Secret chapter 2-1 is a mobility gimmick mission which I got close to solving, may go back to it. 2-2 requires a level of firepower I don't have yet, I'll come back to that.
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Tales of Symphonia character impressions continued:
Raine - "Ruins freak"
Raine I had the hardest time coming up with a cheeky nickname for and I'm still not satisfied. It's a play on Flonne's love freak label and comes up often enough unlike her creepy Hojo-esque behavior of calling some non-humanoid NPCs specimens which is confined to skits, to my knowledge. In some ways it's a plus that she doesn't fit the profile of the conventional pure, docile, female healer stereotype. Raine's very no-nonsense like Alys Brangwim and often has the coolest head in a group filled with impulsive personalities. I considered "karma immune" because of how she faces no reprocussions for how she dope slaps Lloyd and Genis like Moe of the Three Stooges. (to be fair, the butt spank she gives Genis early on is the only time it happens all game)
To further distance her from the domestic healer archtype, Raine is awful at cooking. Her own brother calls it destructive. Being a teacher, I see parallels with Al-Revis' Vce Principal, who has a similar no-nonsense mentality with an infrequently seen caring side and cooking results compared to industrial waste. Raine's hiding a number of secrets. Not as many as Kratos but locked up almost as tightly. Some are learned late in the game; others remain a mystery.
Sheena - Less cool than a Touhou character
I hear that she's meant to be the most fanservicey character but didn't really notice for a while. Because I noticed she fights with ofuda but as a melee weapon, my train of thought was fixated on that detail. In Gensokyo, ofuda are projectile weapons so they'd at least provide an impression of being useful in combat. What's Sheena trying to do? Nick the enemy to death with paper cuts? (to be fair, real paper cuts hurt a lot relative to their size) There was also another train of thought in disbelief about how the character creators managed to combine two of FFTs most powerful classes into a combination so terrible at being either in combat.
OK, I exaggerate. Arguably the second worst assassin in RPGdom (Flonne being the worst), her ineptness at carrying out her initial stated purpose will later be incorporated into Flonne's first visit to the Netherworld. Easy as it is to mock her, I don't dislike her as a character. Mostly I remember her interactions with Lloyd and Zelos being a source of entertainment. And the first scene in the game that managed to strike me emotionally revolved around her. As for how she's reluctant to openly admit feelings towards Lloyd, Mimi from Atelier does it better, nyah.
Presea - The un-Rydia
Got a number of speculations on why she's in the game. One more cynical part of my brain suspects the creators were trying to fill some undocumented loli quotient. Another less disturbing theory is creating a contrast to Square's pattern of casting their child characters as mages. Presea contrasts with Rydia in pretty much every way. Rydia is a mage and can be knocked out by a sneeze. Presea is a pure melee character and takes hits very well, maybe cast best unless specifically building Lloyd/Kratos/Zelos for defenses and intentionally disregarding hers. Rydia is a child in an adult body. Presea is an adult (chronologically at least, arguably still a child mentally) in a child body. Rydia has no trouble expressing her emotions, be they sadness, anger, or happiness. Presea seems to default to stoic and deadpan and struggles to understand expressing emotions.
Somewhat undecided about how to feel about Presea. Does the game want me to find her cute or creepy? Maybe it's both.
Zelos - Butt-monkey
Lots of humorous scenes and skits are at his expense. Surprisingly helpful to the party for someone who appears to be lecherous and shallow. Somehow comes off as both a decent person and a pervy one at the same time. Still, far from the perception gained from DL writeups before having played the game. Zelos is more perceptive and knowledgeable than his surface behavior lets on.
Regal - Tales Batman
Comes off as thoughtful and introspective, when he's not wallowing in guilt. Didn't put me off though. Lloyd and Genis both feel remorse over something early in the game, Colette has already done a lot of feeling sorry for herself by the time Regal joins. Then there's Presea dealing with being left behind by time. And those are just the ones who display their feelings in the open; there are more who keep their regrets over past events and inner pain concealed. So one more character feeling ashamed of some part of their past didn't register on my radar by then. He seems to have a sense of remorse similar to Lunar's White Knight Leo upon finally accepting that he'd been working for the side that he would have opposed, had he known. It's the blue hair. The connection would be more obvious if he did dress up in a silly costume and fought evil under a assumed name. One of those he has a vendetta with already looks much like an even uglier Penguin.
His kick based fighting style heavily reminds me of a fighting game character. Can't come up with any specific names at the moment though I'm fairly certain kick-exclusive fighters exist. So I ended up mentally contrasting him with Balrog, in the absence of a closer match. He even controls most like a Smash character in a combat system that's already very Final Destination without the death pits.
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Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
Been playing this a bunch off DL recommendations. I just finished blowing up underwater blockages guarded by earthwyrms who use water magic but are also weak to water themselves, followed by a rude timed mission that doesn't let you grind or restore injuries (very unusual for the game).
Glad I held off a bit since it sounds like the upgrades since release have been good, like the adjustable difficulties and so on. Who knew that the developer of Black Sigil of all games would end up doing a 2-person passion project FFT clone. There's a few parts the budget definitely shows through - maps aren't rotatable, maps don't tend to have "interesting" terrain that would be tough to render, there's no physics system so arrows and bullets mysteriously travel through mountainsides - but hey, Fire Emblem shows that archers shooting through castle walls can be just fine and not really impact things TOO much. In retrospect, I wish their Kickstarter got more money - they spent it all on art, apparently, and even more art would have been rad. (Also. More names. I guess they wanted the Kickstarter names to come up more? But really, it's not hard to go down to Ye Olde Book Of Fantasy Nameth and grab 40 more entries.)
My random gameplay thought - this is maybe the best berserk status in any game I've played. (Perhaps FF5 Berserk comes close but that's partially due to bugs and weird edge cases like skipping Neo Exdeath.) Knight gets Berserk very early off the cheap Taunt ability, it's 100% accuracy, it comes from a range of 2. Berserk the enemy that drew the closest at the start of the fight, and force him to come even closer, and to walk into your Knight's Counterattack passive! As well as all the ranged pain the rest of your team will unleash. Send your Knight bravely into the backlines, berserk an enemy from 2 spaces away that's closer to another enemy, and watch them kill their friends. Berserk a physically strong enemy then run away and let the other enemies enjoy dealing with their crazed friend. Berserk mages and watch as devastating 100 damage spells become 5 damage thwacks. Berserk healers and put a cork in the aggressive healing that the game's AI will do. Hell, worst comes to worst, just get rid of a one-time status defense shield, hopefully have an Alchemystic (the psuedo Time Mage / Buff Mage) drop Haste on your Knight, then just Berserk them again before they can put the status defense shield back up. Your mother smelt of elderberries and your father was a hamster, etc. And, like other statuses, it wears off at the end of an afflicted character's turn, not the beginning, so if they live long enough to calm down... just rile 'em back up again!
The only thing that comes close is Gambler's Allure, which is 75% Charm from range 3, and is also pretty awesome. But Allure is a capstone, expensive skill you only get after mastering most of Gambler, so you don't get THAT long to use it before you've mastered Gambler and it's time to move on so you don't OCD waste job points. And if it fails, you can potentially be in deep. Sending a tanky Knight on a distraction mission into the center of the bad guys is a lot safer, even if they take some hits from the un-berserked friends.
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I mostly used Berserk from Gunner which does it at range 8 (less accurate of course, as it should be), and yeah it's good. Probably not my most used status in the game though, that honour just goes to plain ol' Root. You get it early, it's accurate and long range, and it often lets you just forget about that enemy for a couple turns while they take stupid actions like wasting their own item supply. Status is in a neat place in this game, there's loads of cool ways to use it to turn a fight without being of the "I win" variety (instant death, FF6 confuse, etc.).
Ranged weapons not having to worry about stuff in the way definitely feels like a conscious choice; coding simple "physics" for things getting in the way is easy, but it's also frustrating for the player since it's often quite opaque. In general, the devs new what FFT's pitfalls were and how to avoid them, and the "why the hell can't I shoot my crossbow from here" moments in FFT are enough to put most people off the weapon type entirely in my experience. Of course it's extra bad in FFT since you can't take back your move action to experiment.
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FFX - At the final dungeon with RNG sphere grid builds.
The game decided to make Wakka way better than everyone else. He has ~60 strength and Quick Hit and does about 5x the physical damage of the next best. Lulu's okay, she has Drain and decent magic, though no -agas or Flare or Doublecast which a mage wants by now. Tidus, Rikku, and Yuna all have Use, which gives them some baseline value, of course. (And Summon is stupid, Yuna getting even some strength means Bahamut is hitting for like 15k and I won't even mention the stronger aeons, but I mostly just use them for boss overkills and a few problem enemies.)
EDIT: One thing this playthrough really drives home is how useful so many FFX skills are, I definitely found myself missing several! Nobody has gotten Bio, Demi, the defensive breaks, or Slow, and to varying degrees I miss all of them. The defensive breaks in particular I can only replace with overdrives, Bio/Demi at least have use items (although the Demi item was quite limited until recently, and even now for some reason doesn't seem to work with Break Damage Limit?).
Got all the celestial weapons except Tidus (because apparently despite an hour and a half of effort I can not ride that chocobo), Rikku, and Wakka (too time-consuming). I may end up doing the aftergame with this team but if so I'll obviously relax the challenge rules.
Devil May Cry - Did a random replay of this on Normal. Not much to say, I'm really rusty and I settled for B ranks (except chapter 22 because I wasn't in the mood to redo Mundus 1 multiple times).
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Atelier Meruru: Clear Game conquest
In some ways, Clear Game is very boring. Battling requires no thought, just mash attack and bulldoze everything with endgame equipment. Don't really get much chance to use character specials since over 90% of enemies die too fast.
On the other hand, with all the time-saving upgrades as well as not needing to spend time upgrading equipment, it's far easier to finish up all those quests I ran out of time to do the first go-around. As well as put up a real fight with the optional superbosses.
Surprise, quite a bit of plot is gated behind a Clear Game. There's a dialogue change very early and then no differences from a plain new game until around halfway through. Mostly fills in some details that were vaguely hinted at before.
This time through, I managed to win against all three bosses that I failed to conquer before. One is the Clear Game exclusive battle, which I managed to pull off this time with smarter gear choices and some strong party healing items. The last two, I resorted to insane cheese tactics to triumph over. (to unlock their entries for the in-game Encyclopedia) Namely, Pepped Up Elixir.
Imagine Auto-Potion except it heals the whole party. The one I made also cures all negative status and revives. It's a strong full party HP restoration too. It goes off from any damage that puts Meruru below 99% HP. The sheer degree of brokenness is only kept in check by how fast the wholesale shop can restock them and the strain on my wallet.
With enough of these, Masked G turns from a battle which is lost in under two rounds to one which is like beating on a wall. Meruru also has an auto-revive accessory on so if an opponent can somehow KO her (either by knocking her to 0 HP with an obscenely powerful attack or somehow overwhelming all the healing), as long as the whole team isn't knocked out before her next turn, she'll pop back up for more action. Masked G seems to have some special shield that cuts all damage to about 5% of what it would normally do. Even defense ignoring damage. Also triple-acts and regens some HP per action.
Like I stated, beating on a wall. A wall that hits back with the force of a sledgehammer. And when my team had finally thrown out attack after attack and finally outraced his HP regen, victory still felt empty. I still prefer the loss outcome though, for plot reasons. (forgot to mention, only get one shot at this fight and no rematches without reloading an earlier save)
Eternity Goddess is the games biggest challenge without the DLC content. Even with my auto-Elixir of sheer brokenness, still took two attempts. I lost the first time when Meruru got overwhelmed by how fast the boss puts out damage and then it murdered the rest of the team before the auto-revive kicked in. Switched out Keina for Totori and managed to pull through on attempt #2.
Boss really loves its MT status hell. It has the trifecta of damage + poison, blind, curse and will use it a lot. Either that or another MT status hell is on an unlimited time card. 2 or 3 MT attacks in a row are fairly common. I came in with 40 uses of auto-Elixir and used 33 of them in the winning fight.
Even with cheese items, still took effort. Was often juggling keeping my companions MP up and trying to launch Lv3 item assaults. The race between my Elixir supply and the boss' HP was a close one. Had I run out, defeat would likely come quick between the boss' offensive power and status hell. It dropped a weapon with Diety Power, more a trophy than anything else though it's nice to finally learn what to combine for it.
With this, the combat side of Atelier Meruru lies conquered. Haven't quite mastered schedule balancing for 100% completion. I was almost 90 battles short as well as a few other of the more grindy and esoteric tasks. The last bit of game time I had, I used it at the cauldron to fish for new traits. I was going for the Alchemist ending but got Strongest Princess instead. Not a total disappointment though. Knowing I'll never have any reason to slog through Masked G again is a positive.
Still feel I have more to do with the game. Even though my setups are good enough to clear every fight the game has to offer, not totally satisfied with my equipment. Kind of want to redo some of my accessories. Several pieces feel like filler or deadweight and the way I distributed them feels awkward. I also have a better understanding of what traits can go on what gear so I don't get stuck with a Bunny Tail with Quality Lv1, Beast Repel, and nothing else.
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Tales of Vesperia - spoilers within! You have been warned.
Finished at 42 hours. Final boss wasn’t that bad; HP-1 Mystic Arte is surprisingly not that scary in this system, especially with a large supply of Treats which heal 30% of max HP to the whole party. I used one immediately after each Mystic Arte. Probably the overall hardest bosses were, in some order, the wolf from the second dungeon, the third tutorial fight with Adocor and Boccos, and I also died to the fight with Estelle as well as a few scattered other times, like some randoms flinging spells because I realized to gun for the damn spellcasters.
Gameplaywise, this game is a pretty big improvement over TotA, which is the only other game in the series that I’ve played.The combat feels a bit more fluid, and the combo system is a little less dull, but I also like the enemy design better than the macros/AI options much better. I also felt like the game gives you more options early; can always control all characters using items and can always free run, for all that the game still forces you to wait to switch characters for some reason. But because I could use items from the menu and always used Yuri anyway, it didn’t really matter. The gameplay is functional and playable but nothing greater.
One thing that the game does a really nice job with is the environments. From the forest of Kiev Moc to the caves of Weasand of Cados to Mt. Temza but especially the Releweise Hollow which looks so much like the Grand Canyon, from the shapes of the hills to the multiple layers of earth which represent different eras of geologic time. It really did feel like you were walking in something like the Grand Canyon and Estelle is explaining how the Grand Canyon was formed. I thought it was a super cool touch and I really loved it. The towns are also really nice and unique and each of them has their own unique piece of music. The game is truly good at developing atmosphere through its environments, which I greatly appreciated (especially after playing Scarlet Grace, which literally has no environments…).
Where the game really shines is in its character work, specifically in its PC cast. The star of the show and the most developed character is Yuri. The game poses some interesting questions with Yuri; does a single human being have a right to call themselves judge, jury, and executioner of justice? Flynn presents the case for why we have a legal system and laws, but the unjust evasion of those through corruption weakens his argument. While Yuri’s actions are justified to the particular individuals in which he exacts justice on, vigilante justice is both dangerous and taking the law into an individual’s hands and up to an individual’s judgment. Sodia decides to take the law into her hands by attacking Yuri, for whom she sees as above the law and corrupt because of Flynn. Was she wrong in seeing him as immune to the law, considering that he gets away with many crimes throughout the game? In the most extreme case, Duke takes the entire world into his own hands, deciding to eliminate humanity as a solution to a problem. Yuri realizes that doing things alone is not the way to go, especially after he is chewed out for it before the return to Zaphias, and he ultimately convinces Duke of the same.
What does law exist for? Is there a way to reform the world using legal means? Does killing an individual - without systemic change - do anything except cause another head to grow back? I think these are legitimate questions, and ones that the game asks you to consider. Ragou and Cumore’s deaths are visceral and feel good in the moment - but does that constitute real change? Flynn works as a foil to Yuri because of these questions; I like Flynn because the relationship between he and Yuri is reciprocal and based on mutual respect and trust, unlike many shounen rivalries. I actually feel like this is one of the best executions of a rivalry that I’ve seen.
Rita is thoroughly excellent; funny, science-y, bitchy, has a huge fucking crush on Estelle, and is a great PC. She’s not a deep character but she is quite fun. Estelle is a pretty typical, but well done, princess character who explores some of the themes about freedom and justice, but she’s not quite as compelling. Karol is the same; he is pretty damn corny, but I still like him. although I do enjoy his journey away from being cowardly. Props to the game for doing a good job with the skits involving these four, since they are around the longest and have good chemistry with each other. Judy is nothing special character wise but fits in the skits well.
Raven is… ahhhhhhhhh, kinda botched, sadly. He has a stint as a villain and then the game forgets it ever happened? He stabbed us in the back! Sold out our party! And we’re supposed to just laugh at his jokes and whining after that? Hell no! Fuck him! I just wanted to slap the shit out of him every time he spoke. Patty is profoundly uncompelling and a weird addition.
The villains... mostly range from cover your eyes bad (Alexei, Yeager) to dull (Barbos) to baby-eating evil (Cumore, Ragou, Zagi) to weird and racist (Clint, Tison, Nan). Duke is at least mildly sympathetic considering his motivation but still takes it too far. I liked the touch that he is spared and actually does turn from nihilism, as his lack of faith in humanity is proven false. I am glad he is not hanging out with humans in the ending though.
The ending is great. Flynn takes on his two husbands Ioder and Yuri, and Rita invents a flying machine to have sapphic tea parties with Estelle. The final boss hugs bunnies. What else do you need?
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Trails of Cold Steel 3: Extremely Cold Steel - Finished. I have words about the endgame plot and and few if any of them are kind but I think the biggest thing (or at least the thing I want to get out now instead of spending like four hours arranging words into coherence) is that perhaps Rean is not actually good at this whole protagonist thing.
Gameplay changes... eh, raw power got nerfed across the board but the stupid broken things that would've made it not matter are not only still there but they added more stupid broken things so lol, I'll probably effortpost ingame use later but the tl;dr is going to be that I sort of agree with Tide but at the same time I sort of don't. Divine Knight battles are still complete and utter trash but at least letting other people join in makes them go faster so uh congrats on beating CS2 there, I guess.
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Very interested in seeing where you saw the other PCs at. For the most part, I think the high tier PCs in CS3 are pretty well defined - it's more the lower tiers that are tougher to figure out. Truth be told, CS isn't a series where the worst PC is unusable - just often underwhelming and possesses a "but why"
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Definitely getting into Animal Crossing New Leaf; and while sheltering-in-place, I find myself hopping onto FF15 to complete missions and missions only. Good and quick payout.
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New games!
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - This game sure is Order of Eccelsia, down to having a female lead and everything. What can I say, this game is really good, basically an extension of OoE that I can play on a TV instead of the tiny ass DS screen, and there’s no boss as annoying as the crab. This might be my favorite Metroidvania ever? I will probably be able to tell you that when I finish. Right now I am laboring against Bloodless, who clearly has some sort of addiction to blood and weirds me out a bit, but it’s fine. The King of Speed was the hardest boss before her, though. Although, just getting through all of the stages in itself can be quite tricky; you do the save point dance every time you find one. :) The plot is very Castelvania; men yelling at people, characters acting in bizarre, irrational ways for no particularly good reason, such as keeping secrets for no really good reason, and all kinds of general silliness. I fought the plot fight already as well, although I off course game over’d there.
Atelier Ayesha - Playing on Hard Mode. So this is my first experience with the Atelier series, although I did play both Mana Khemia games before. The game is profoundly wholesome and pleasant and charming, although not too deep. I have long held a stereotype of the series in my mind as a girl-dominated cast of cute women, and honestly, that’s not wrong, although there is more diversity in the female cast than I expected. I am very fond of both Marion and Linca, from the way they dress to their interactions to their personalities to their PC forms. (I am playing the Switch version, so Marion joins early instead of being DLC). Ayesha herself is a classic ditzy female character who is scatterbrained but nice, so everyone likes her. I also like Ernie and his motherly finger wag.
One of the amusing things about the game is that most of the rest of the male characters are variations of stereotypes of men. Keithgriff thinks he is smarter than everyone else and spouts off cryptic bullshit to prove it. Ranun is a mooch and a layabout, and tries to use his charm to get by. Harry is rich and privileged and loves the sound of his own voice, but is secretly considered to be pretty stupid by most people around him. Kyle is a schmoozer who loves to hit on every woman in sight. Ayesha’s interactions with all four of these guys are cute and funny; she will often call them ‘unique’ or ‘very very… interesting’ in her polite, friendly girl way as the game leads us to think that these guys are kind of dopey.
I think it’s kind of funny to think about, because when feminists / game critics / whatever discuss gender issues in games, it is often focused on the limited scope of roles that women have traditionally been allowed to play in stories. I wouldn’t say Atelier Ayesha really breaks the mold in that regard; it’s not like it has any overtly trailblazing character work in general, but its male characters feel very stereotypical, like, if I were to write a satire about the different stereotypes of silly or annoying men, these are the kinds of characters I would write. I am not sure exactly what to think about this or if it was even intentional, but it’s an interesting thing that I’ve never really seen a game do before.
Hard Mode randoms are hard. I keep barely dragging ass through each dungeon, on the brink of death and running out of items to throw at the enemies before finding an exit. I am enjoying the combat system pretty well thus far; it is CTB, CTB is good times. Having fun thus far. Good music, pleasant graphics, just general breeziness (aside from the randoms and Keith's eminent punchability).
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Mario Rabbids: Finished. Great game, probably an 8/10. Very solid XCOM like with a lot of polish and fun options. MVP was Rabbid Luigi; most used team was Mario/Luigi/Rabbid Luigi. I subbed in Rabbid Mario at a few points; used the rest very sparingly. Writing was cute and didn't get in the way; the Rabbids are funny enough and you know what you're getting from a Mario game otherwise. Biggest drawbacks were rare graphical glitches and one of the early training maps that was glitched and I couldn't get to work right.
Game did a fantastic job with resource management; in particular you always had to make pretty careful choices about how to use power orbs throughout the game. I dig.
Boo to no PC Boswer/Rabbid Bowser. Don't know what's next, probably a replay.
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Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
Finished! Really fun game, especially with the additions patched in over time like an option to speed up the animations. Much like LFT, feeds a hunger for a proper FFT2. Some good fight design toward the end, albeit with some erratic difficulty levels. (Patrols for grinding / treasure chest opening, notably, can often be way tougher than the mission itself.) But the game has super-customizable difficulty settings, so whatever. (I played on Hard, which generally adds a single enemy per map, which is a tasteful and interesting way to increase difficulty. That and +1 accessory or so for many enemies, so mildly better stats or a few extra status resistances.) Also, I assume Elf meant for the bad ending, but I finished at a way higher level than L30 - L55-60 or so. Granted, level doesn't Really Matter due to the FF8-esque level-scaling, which is fine by me - go grab treasure chests and secrets and the like on patrols without accidentally making the rest of the game a stomp.
This is not really a criticism, but as a note / interesting difference, because the inter-class balance is so good, I didn't feel like I was in a hurry to unlock stuff? In FFT, in Chapter 1 and 2, there's a bit of a race up the tree to unlock the good shit. Mages want to get to Summoner or Time Mage or both, fighters want to get to Ninja or Samurai, there's various passives that will notably help along the way, etc. (And yes, Wizard is quietly OP in the early chapters, but shh, and besides you can run it as a secondary on other mage classes.) Since all the passives and classes in FS are valid, what's the rush? Sit around in the Squire equivalent or whatever other early class you like until you have it mastered so you'll have a strong secondary to set once you start to explore a little, along with a small stat boost. (And I never did bother with Peddler / Reaver / Duelist, too far away, can just go farm mastery bonuses down here instead.)
My builds:
Kyrie: Mercenary - (Unique) - Fellblade - Warmage - Gadgeteer - Plague Doctor - Gambler - Knight - Templar.
Focused on all the hybrid classes, basically, before running out of them and grabbing some tanks. Ran her unique Ancient Power skillset as secondary. Would run No Flank + Health Expert for safety or No Flank + Execute for a mix of safety & damage. Templar gets extremely good late-game with all the holy-weak demons. That said, she was probably most impressive while in Warmage, and switched back to Unique + Battle Magic for the volcano fight against George Soros & Boomerang Buddy - Warmage has some crazy damage off that skillset for just deleting people every single turn.
Reiner: Scoundrel - Gadgeteer - Gambler - Assassin - Gunner - Spymaster - Ranger.
Special ops flavor. Ran Scoundrel's Trickery as secondary, team Fleet of Foot early + Sneak Attack is quite dangerous, especially with a ranged weapon and Attack Expert. Both Dirty Hit & Arterial Cut were absolutely valid if a Sneak Attack couldn't be set up or against high-HP, Bleed vulnerable enemies.
Anadine: (Unique) - Mercenary - Knight - Templar -Plague Doctor - Gadgeteer - Ranger - Gunner.
The tank. Usually ran Chivalry secondary post-Knight and was a disruptor who spammed Taunt w/ Counterattack passive. Mid-to-late game Templar / Plague Doctor has the mighty Holy Mace, which offers convenient Dark immunity and Holy damage just when a bunch of demons start showing up. The Ranger/Gunner lategame flex might look weird, but Heavy Hit (1/3 current HP damage) off range-7 True Flight bow or a range-8 Gun is pretty useful against the various HP-sponges of late-game, and while I didn't run Dark Sword having Focused Rage for a "surprise you lose" on someone whose MP tends to pile up was pretty handy. Could theoretically also do a One For All setup, but eh, MP-less Heavy Hit was more reliable and didn't drain MP for a massive Focused Rage later.
Katja: Bounty Hunter - Assassin - Scoundrel - Gambler - Gunner.
Pretty well builds herself, super-speed, no defense whatsoever, and Mirage for safety. I did try out Dual Wield knives for a bit while in Scoundrel, and while she is super-speedy and a bit more damaging, it's just so damn unsafe. By endgame, she was back to where she started with a Bounty Hunter / Assassin setup and John Woo dual-guns and a 63% critical hit rate.
The Mages (Yates + 3 Generics):
The very generous spillover JP mildly discourages spreading out classes and encourages a bunch of people all incestuously doing the same class, as that class gets easier and faster to master every time somebody runs through it. Since there's only 6 base mage classes, all 4 of them mastered all of them causing them to blend together a bit - Mender / Wizard / Alchemystic / Plague Doctor / Druid / Sorcerer. Yates did Anatomist first and always had Legendary Healer equipped (best damn passive ability in the game?), the generic guy did Vessel, the Summoner equivalent; and the 2 generic ladies both did Princess. Fun fact: Vessel summons go right through Evade Magic, they're type "Special," screw you That One Guy on Nervander Pathway / George Soros 3. Of course, don't discount the Princesses, lots of Holy Weak enemies lategame and having an extra reviver for safety is always nice, although both those final classes really expect you to have mastered Sorcerer for Economy first of course due to the awful MP costs.
Didn't Use: Gau or Obligatory Late Joining Sekrit Character.
Gau looked cool for what he is, but eh, not my style. Late Joiner is whatever, too late to care and build now.
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Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - Beaten again. Did a Tales of Berseria-themed playthrough this time. One neat thing about the game is you can customize sprites to a pretty good degree, so I was able to craft their likenesses to my satisfaction.
Kyrie: Well she's forced, just did a vanilla Mercenary - Unique build for her, very much wasn't trying to make her a star of the playthrough. She had uh lots of HP!
Velvet: Mercenary - Reaver - Vampire. Sword classes but not knight, screw knights. Final build was Reaver with Vampire's skillset and the Atk Up Sword, she was something like 540 atk or something silly. Anyway Primal Blow pretty much has a peak Velvet animation, Vampire adds some magic damage and bleed and a 30-MP finisher so that's cool. Reaver with Attack Expert and Health Expert for the final build. Did 800 damage to the last human boss without a crit.
Rokurou: Scoundrel - Peddler - Assassin - Werewolf. Daggers, later two of them. I didn't use daggers much last playthrough, and I didn't use Peddler at all. It's not an especially fitting Rokurou class (I got it because it was on the way to Duelist, then ended up not bothering with Duelist much) but honestly I was quite impressed with it. Traps are finicky (not bad, since you can manipulate AI into hitting them), but Patented Rock for 100 AoE ITD ITE damage is great, as is haste and the healing. So he was a utility bot but did eventually get to dual-wield daggers for respectable offence, final build was Assassin with Peddler, Attack Expert and Item Potency.
Magilou: Wizard - Druid - Gambler - Sorcerer. Final build was Sorcerer with Elementalist secondary (for when one enemy in particular just needs to die), Mana Font and Initiative. Sorcerer's really good guys. Economy and Mana Font with 6 move let it be used turn 1 (so 0, really). Equip a statusblocker for counters and ruin enemies while they feebly waste turns in a losing effort to heal it off. Gotta watch out for Pounce, but fortunately the story fight with it is pretty easy.
Laphicet: Mender - Alchemystic. ... and that's about it really, a bit of Druid/Wizard for offence but ultimately he was very defensive. Final build was those two classes (Mender primary for Mana Font, obv) with Doublecast and ... Mind Expert? I probably could have done better than that, oh well, was too lazy to get Economy which would have been a better choice. His main jobs included Insight on Magilou, haste when Rokurou wasn't on that job, and lots of healing. Probably the one character who just felt like a worse version of a unit from my first playthrough (either Yates or my Princess, really), but served his role well.
Eizen: Scoundrel - Ranger - Gunner. Eizen punches things, but Fell Seal doesn't want him to punch things, so I had him steal his anime rival's weapon and be a proper pirate with a gun. Crossbow before then. Final build was Gunner with Ranger secondary and Attack Expert + Malice from Fellblade, which ups the accuracy of his many status attacks. 60% berserk/slow or 85% silence/cripple/root from range 8 are all good, and occasionally he gets the MP for a solid Sniper Shot though Gunner skills do interfere with that. Definitely turned fights sometimes.
Eleanor: Knight - Templar - uh Mercenary I guess since I wanted to master something else. Knight is by far the most fitting job for her due to spears, she basically used that secondary all game long whatever else I was doing. Defence Expert / Health Expert / Evade Attack, she did not die easily. Taunt + Evade Attack is great, and I optimized her defence over her attack by a lot so her Defensive Hit was actually pretty decent damage, though never what I primarily used her for. Did mean Templar wasn't wonderful synergy with the build, but oh well. Shoulda have Laphi buff her def but I never really thought to do that. Interesting and solid build (something FFT didn't really do well), probably could be even better.
As you may note I only had seven PCs, so a restriction on the run is that I only allowed myself one injury per fight max. Definitely a change from my first playthrough when I had a couple fights with 6-8! But I'm better at the game now so I definitely had fewer resets overall, the only fights I remember having multiple were saving Berserk Anadine, saving the bounty hunter (although that one was generally due to shenanigans involving water before I broke down and bought flippers), and the first fire temple fight with the stupid tank bug who pushes people into lava. The boss in the council chamber was a worry with his instant death but on the second try I was able to pile damage fast enough that he could only do it to one person.
Was again Level 30-something on most people at the end, using fewer PCs was offset by only doing one patrol (to get the Werewolf crest after looking up where it was).
Good times.
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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Bloodless was an absolute nightmare; I probably had 30 resets on her before finally beating her. The fight is well-designed and enjoyable; she layers and introduces new moves periodically, so the fight builds on itself. Moves that you thought were really nasty at first become blessings and nastier moves replace those previously believed to be nasty moves. I never really figured out how Blood Rain worked but on my winning run I just happened to dodge out of the way of it by being close to the edge of the screen. After her was the silliness of getting the water navigating ability, which eluded me despite killing the enemy that is supposed to drop it enough times to satisfy Genocidal Lindsay. Apparently it was just bad luck, but that was a pretty stupid and potentially FAQ-bait thing. Anyway, whatever, I got the water movement thingie and went to the Hidden Desert, which almost ended in my death via randoms but I barely survived. Alfred wasn’t too bad; only had one reset on him. I managed to get Aredabhar from a rare drop, which does mad damage. Kill every last one of them and all that. In honor of my obtainment of the best lance, I changed my color scheme to black and blue and made Miriam’s hair blonde.
Beat up the dopple-ganger after about five tries. That fight is pretty fun and definitely can be tricky, but I managed to find a decent rhythm and get in a bunch of hints on her. I always go back and save after boss fights on general principle, learning from my experience with VP2 Freeze after fighting Odin, but I was ominously asked the question “did you save at the save point?” by Elfboy after heading past the boss’s room. I learned why very quickly, as I died in the Inferno Cave, and then again. Finally, on the third try, I made it to the save point. Then I tried to clear out the map and failed a couple of times. Oh hell, I’ll go fight the boss instead. Honestly, I don’t remember his name, but he shoots laser beams. He wasn’t too bad; I beat him in about three or four tries. And now… I can invert gravity! Don’t do this outdoors kids.
Now I’m just trying to figure out what to do next.
Atelier Ayesha - Just recruited Juris, the token male. I just got the third flower petal on 11/11 of Year 2. I think I am doing things right and in a timely manner, but I’m not 100% sure. :) We’ll see I guess! i’m going to try to do all of the Linca’s quests to get her ending.
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Finished up three of the four ultimate Mario Rabbids missions; haven't done 4 yet but probably will soon. Surprisingly they're easier than the other hidden challenges. I used the standard Luigi/Rabbid Luigi team to handle them; Ultimate 1 especially is where the power of overwatch and Rabbid Luigi's draining shines through. 4 I will almost certainly want to bring one of the peaches just for Toad insurance.
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Rune Factory 4 Special(on the Switch): I loved RF4 and I hope this sells well for a faint hope of an RF5. It's got a few QoL improvements, such as Teleport spell always being bound to one button so you don't have to have it on a spell slot, and a better minimap that shows you where everyone is(that you can enlarge or shrink or even remove at the push of a button without having to go into any menus).
Playing on Hard, which is WAY harder than Normal. RF games do not fuck around in the slightest on higher difficulties. The problem as always is that most of your ability to survive is based on your equipment, which you have to forge. But the materials to forge better things, that let you survive current dungeons more easily, are found in later dungeons! More than a bit rough there.
What Hard really does well is makes you rely more on your monster pets. You can tame monsters in this by giving them presents when you fight them, and can in fact tame anything(even boss monsters, but only with certain items). Collect 30 pieces of Iron ore, which is very common, and just spam that at the monster you want until it works(and try not to die in the process). Monsters do often have drops they give you every day in your barn, which are good crafting materials. The obvious ones like the Wooly giving wool, the Buffamoo giving Milk and the Cluckatrice giving eggs are necessary if you want to cook(which you do), but there are less obvious ones like the Hercules Beetle giving Sturdy Horn every day, which is a high in demand weapon crafting material. But you can also take your monsters out to fight, and they gain stats based on both Level and their Friendship Level with you(which you improve by brushing them every day and giving gifts).
So naturally, while still playing on Hard, I went into Leon Karnak(an endgame dungeon) that you can only get into the first two screens of early, and recruited a Goblin Don. This took me like 12 tries of tossing 40+ items at him, and do note that he would kill me in one hit. But it was absolutely allowable without glitching anything! So this Goblin Don carried me through some dungeons I could NOT have survived on my own. Now that I'm in the back quarter of the game(though STILL pre-Leon Karnak) I'm using him less in favor of monsters that are current. And once I got access to Gold Ore, I could make equipment that let me mix it up with my monsters instead of hide behind them, though I still die WAY faster than they do and have to play very defensively.
For my own build, I have to raise my levels with every weapon type because of course I do. But Gloves are my favorite weapon by far, since when you stun or knock down an enemy you can pick them up and SLAM them which does hueg like xbox damage even on Hard mode. Like 5-6x my normal damage, and if it crits that goes up to 10-12x normal. Slams are Kinda Good. You can also do different ones, the big jumping powerbomb thing is the one mentioned here, but you can also do a Giant Swing that does much less damage but can smash them into other enemies, damaging both the one you hold and the ones you hit for like 2x normal damage~ And you keep swinging as long as you hold the button, though it does drain your RP(combo of MP and Stamina, everything uses it) rather quickly. Still good for mobs.
Healing magic is kept on a spell slot(or Rune Ability slot, they have physical moves too) to keep myself and my monsters alive, naturally, and I vary the other slots based on what I need at the time. In an awesome decision, you can actually use the physical specials for any given weapon with every weapon. They just do less damage and cost more RP for ones that aren't the matching weapon. I use the Longsword's Flash Strike skill for basically every weapon, it does multiple hits of solid damage and has AMAZING knockback, which is good for survival. Great to mash for a GET OFF ME option. There are also Songs you can equip as rune abilities which boost your monsters. Two of them last all day, so I use those at the start of a dungeon and then switch them off for combat skills!
I did have to turn it back to Normal Difficulty exactly once, and that was when entering the Forest of Beginnings, since you have to go in alone. No monsters and no NPC allies allowed. And it was before getting Gold Ore for better equips. I really do not think I could have done that on Hard, so I didn't even try.
Overall I am going to hype the hell out of this for anyone who likes Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley/etc type games. Has neat farming stuff, crafting stuff, monster taming and surprisingly competent ARPG combat. Do give it a try~
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Final Fantasy X - Adventures in the aftergame. This post turned out long and rambly but maybe some people will find it interesting!
Some background here; I've done the FFX aftergame once before, waaay back, with the basic NTSC version of course. My basic strategy was to throw aeons at all the superbosses. Turns out that if Yuna's stats are respectable (I'm talking like ~100 in the key ones here), there's very little that won't fall either to an Anima twinked out with every relevant ability (healing, draining, all the support magic, etc.) or the Magus Sisters. When I wasn't relying on them I mostly used Auto-Phoenix, an extremely cheesy ability that largely lets you laugh off singletarget attacks. Nemesis was still an engaging, tough fight, because he had the stats to outlast all this cheese until I executed a strategy involving Auto-Life, Auto-Phoenix, and summoning on turns where there's a non-zero chance he might use MT OHKO twice in a row.
But a decade and a half later, I'm playing the aftergame again because I finally have a version of the game where I can fight the Dark Aeons and Penance, nine bosses who weren't in the original version of the game. And in order to have a different experience than last time, I'm trying not to use aeons against the superbosses, or Auto-Phoenix at all.
After I beat the game, I relaxed the original rules of my challenge and started building everyone more intelligently. My first order of business was grabbing some celestials (Yuna's, Auron's, Kimahri's, and Lulu's) some capturing and the Omega Ruins, where I did a lot of levelling. The Ruins themselves are mostly a matter of keeping someone with First Strike in your frontline before each battle (else you might get ambushed by a Great Marlboro and eat horrific statusy death), and knowing the both of the dungeon's giant multi-status-hell enemies are vulnerable to Provoke. Oh and there are Demonoliths who literally have 100% MT petrify FFX why do you think this is a good idea. No status stops it, Stoneproof and/or aeons to the rescue, fortunately Yuna and Auron have the former from maingame armours. There are two bosses here, Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon. Ultima Weapon is a joke, less HP than Yunalesca unscaled are you kidding me. Omega Weapon was just as bad in the original version, here he has a million HP and needs to be taken seriously at least, but still isn't too bad.
Next, I do more monster capturing, enough to unlock the Dark Matters gained from capturing 5 of everything, which lets me craft a pseudo-celestial for Wakka: Break Damage Limit, Piercing (many superbosses have armour), Triple Overdrive, and One MP Cost. I also do a couple blitzball games to get him Attack Reels. Since Wakka has been consistently highest-stat characters since the end of the run this proves very helpful.
After that we get to the arena bosses! The first two sets, the area and species creations, are largely manageable at this point. Noteworthy fights include Marlboro Menace, who made me customize Confuseproof for everyone (and also cast Shell because his Bad Breath does magic damage); Fenrir, an evasive and super-fast asshole who again made me bring out confuseproof, and also Kimahri's Evade and Counter for stopping one of his attacks; Jumbo Flan, who is immune to physicals but can be defeated by a combination of Slow and refleced doublecasts, with Shell/Focus to survive his Ultima; Tanket, who quick hits like made below half health and also inflicts berserk, Sentinel from someone with Berserkproof (buffed with Protect/Cheer of course) goes a long way though; and Fafnir, whose quick-hit Triple attack (two physicals and an elemental breath all of which do 2HKO) made me reach for some combination of Protect, Auto-Life, and Nuls to stand against.
The next tier is quite a step up; it roughly includes the first four dark aeons and every original creation except Nemesis. From this point on I focus mainly on Yuna, Wakka, and Auron, levelling them via Overdrive->AP (customized onto Triple AP weapons dropped by One-Eye) on a few occasions as necessary, and feeding them stat spheres dropped by other arena bosses. I also craft all three an armour with Auto-Haste, Auto-Protect, and Def+20%, which requires some heavy bribing and more Fafnir-killing. As for the originals and early Dark Aeons themselves...
-Dark Valefor is the easiest of the bunch, though I end up raising my defence well into the 100-something range so that my highest-def character (Yuna at this point) can Sentinel to survive her physicals, which makes her easy (the overdrive is a OHKO, but whatever, Auto-Life exists).
-Earth Eater is imposing with his massive counters which OHKO me at this point, but I basically bruteforce through him after raising my strength some so at least I'm doing 99999 now.
-Greater Sphere counters almost everything with an Ultima which hits notably harder than the species creations who have it, so a bit more magic defence (One-Eye fortunately does double duty by dropping those, and is really easy) is in order to survive that.
-Shinryu is actually easy enough with that same level of magic defence; Wakka can survive his focused Shining. I buff him with Trio of 9999 and Cheer before killing off Tidus and Rikku so that Shinryu won't erase Wakka (Shinryu has unblockable 100% unrevivable petrify-shatter, but won't use it if only one person is alive), then attack while tanking his counters and making sure to heal with Trio'd potions before every turn Shinryu gets.
-Catastrophe doesn't attack very often though does some scary shit when he does (either loads of MT status or some heavy MT damage). None of it dispels though so this gameplay is super-vulnerable to Auto-Life.
-Th'uban has a counter which does solid physical damage and dispels, including Auto-Life. If your defence is real trash it MT OHKOs with no chance to revive, I remember thinking this was so cheap when I first fought him. But some modest defence boosting from fighting Tanket a few times makes this counter easily survivable. Otherwise his scariest move is Rainbow which does a bunch of status hell but none of it too reliably, so I mostly just hope it doesn't inflict confuse on all three at once. Going for a statusblocker armour is problematic because he dispels all the time, and I need Haste/Protect to deal with his counters and press my offence.
-Dark Ifrit, at my current stats, OHKOs with everything he does. He also counters with a physical. But he's all ST except for called shot overdrive and has no status tricks, and isn't super-fast, so whatever, get owned by Auto-Life scrub.
-Dark Ixion is tougher: same basic idea as Dark Ifrit, but he IS fast. My first plan is to try to tank some of what he does, but this proves a bad idea since his attacks add too much status (sleep, delay, breaks) to be worth it. So I end up dealing with this one with Auto-Life too, though it requires raising my speed via some Fenrir-killing. You then need to fight him a second time, but this form DOESN'T counter so is a joke?
-Dark Shiva is super-fast, quick hits, and might even doubleact her physical, I'm not sure. She can overwhelm Auto-Life strats with this very easily. Fortunately her HP/def aren't so hot, so a high-str (near 255 now) Wakka can take her out in two Attack Reels (Entrust an overdrive from someone else) before her bullshit can get started.
-Neslug is a puzzle of overcoming his insane regen + physical immunity, but it's a puzzle I'd solved on my first playthrough. Trio'd Gems are the answer, letting everyone deal 50k damage with fast recharge. Outside his regen phase he has some offence but nothing compared to some of the rest of this field.
-Last up, Ultima Buster. His Ultima is brutal; I need to get my magic defence to around 220 to survive it, and of course use Shell as well. Adding to the problems is he doubleacts and throws in a physical as well. I only have one PC who can survive that combination, so there's a lot of revival and recasting Shell.
Okay! That brings us to the tier of bosses who you really, really want some great stats for. Here's what I end up getting:
-255 Strength for Wakka so his Attack Reels does as much as possible. Auron ends up getting to 255 as well, Yuna a bit lower (220 or so) but she hits everything for 99999 unless she gets MP-busted anyway, so it's good enough.
-170 agility is the magic number to have the highest speed. More is "useful" for tiebreaks between PCs but PCs always win tiebreaks with enemies so who cares. As mentioned above I already got this to deal with the previous tier of foes.
-255 Defence; this is needed for Penance in particular and very helpful for some of the remaining dark aeons so I can actually survive some of what they do.
-About 220 magic defence as per above... ironically none of the remaining bosses really necessitate high magic defence anyway, they don't use magic and the biggest example tends to just OHKO anyway even at 255. Arguably the most important use of magic defence at this late stage is to survive the counters of Earth Eater and Greater Sphere more easily, and see below for what that matters!
-About 85-100 luck on both Yuna and Auron. This is super-helpful for actually hitting the remaining Dark Aeons; 86 appears to be the number which is required to always hit Penance's arms, the one fight where misses are deadly. Luck is much harder to get than other stats; you have to kill Earth Eater AND Greater Sphere [see above] since both Luck Spheres and the Fortune Spheres to activate them are rare (Attack Reels + Entrust to the rescue against their counters). Fortunately unlocking Nemesis gives you 10 Master Spheres which can be used on everything; luck spheres are by far the correct choice for them.
-Other stats don't really matter (well, you want 9999 HP but you can't not have it by now, realistically; more MP is helpful on people without One MP Cost, too) and the people who max out everything terrify me.
Also some dark aeons are heavy status users; I get everyone an armour with Stoneproof, Sleepproof, and either Darkproof or Slowproof.
So onto the bosses themselves!
Dark Bahamut - On his own turns he only uses physicals, until he charges up Megaflare which obviously you survive with Auto-Life. He counters every five attacks with Impulse which damages and inflicts MT petrify, slow (the slow ignores status immunity!), delay, and full break. This is monstrous! One way to cheese him out is to just slowly counterattack him to death yourself; counters don't trigger counters. Another way is to call aeons to block the Impulses. But cheese is boring. Block petrify and take the Impulses. The key is that you don't care about living after being hit by Impulse. The best time to trigger them is right before Megaflare; Auto-Life and you're back with all those horrible effects gone. Recast Haste/Protect as necessary, Sentinel with Auron (to reduce Protect casts and increase counters), win.
Dark Yojimbo - My first attempt involves sticking with the statusblocker armour. I cast Protect, Yojimbo uses Wakizashi and does over 11000 to everyone. Haha okay. Go back to the tanking armour! Otherwise Yojimbo has a ST petrify attack (doesn't shatter, heal with Soft), an attack which inflicts Full Break (Dispel to the rescue), and the aforementioned Wakizashi which I survive with Def+20%. He has an overdrive but it charges up way more slowly than the others (good thing, too, since it dispels auto-life... only an aeon lets you live, not that I see one). He's actually pretty easy now! Good thing to since I have to beat him five times. He drops a Ribbon armour for Yuna which is a nice upgrade for the remaining dark aeons.
Dark Anima - Status hell. Unblockable ST death, more petrify shattering, and Mega Graviton which does doom/slow/sleep/silence/blind/curse. Sleepproof + Stoneproof is key here, cast Haste if Slow is applied (only my Auron is vulnerable, which helps), revive otherwise. Her damage actually isn't too notable, just the status, so once that's survived she's not too bad. Auto-Life against the usual overdrive.
Nemesis - Oh okay he's not a dark aeon. Anyway he's still the only superboss who can MT OHKO on consecutive turns (in theory you can survive his Ultra Spark, it just needs over 30k HP, lol forget it). Having 170 agility is an absolute 100% must (well, I've done it without before, but that involved Auto-Phoenix and many aeons against all his possible back-to-back MT OHKO moves, which mercifully are predictable), but beyond that Auto-Life can handle his offence. Oh yeah and never attack him with anything but physicals or magic.
Dark Magus Sisters (together) - You can fight all three at once. This... might be the hardest fight in the game. On turn 1 the sisters act in sequence, with the third using Delta Attack, which does 600000 (yes) damage and dispels auto-life, get wrecked. You can't even block that with most aeons since the first two sisters will kill the aeon, leaving the third to Delta Attack your poor party. Only one aeon can stand against this... your own Magus Sisters! After that, you just have to survive three max-speed enemies all of whom have ST OHKOs, with some auto-life dispelling thrown in for good measure. Ugh. Maybe someday! Fortunately there's a way to fight them one at a time.
Dark Magus Sisters (alone) - Each sister uses Mega Graviton as their (fast-charging) Overdrive, the status hell move above, so statusblocker armours come out to play. Otherwise they each have a ST OHKO move (Cindy's kills your MP, Sandy's dispels auto-life). Keeping up haste when possible is useful, of course, as is Auto-Life except against Sandy (Cindy also dispels it, but with her survivable physical; I have Auron sentinel to draw it predictably and survive it, also draws Camisade's OHKO and MP bust). They're not too bad this way. Of note, Sandy and Mindy both have ludicrous evade due to luck, especially the latter whom I can only hit with Attack Reels. I guess the fight against all three at once might be the one place where maxing your luck is actually justified.
Penance - The final showdown.
Armour is the aforementioned Auto-Haste, Auto-Protect, Def+20%, and now I add Auto-Potion, selling off all my potions except X-Potions and bribing Valahas for 99 of those. Auto-Potion means I don't die to damage unless OHKOed. Ally overdrive mode for all.
Actually Penance is really quite cool. He's got two arms, they have 500000 HP and require about 86 luck to always hit. The arms do horrifying things; petrify-shatter, Mighty Guard (regen on a 12M HP boss is... a thing), Mega-Graviton status hell, dispelling physicals... ugh. So the solution is to not let them get turns. They act every 12 clockticks, with max speed you can Quick Hit five times before they act, so two PCs capable of doing that + one GRENADE from Wakka kills them. Easy right? ... nah, they come back after a certain amount of time dead. I never figured out what that time was, probably somewhere in the 10-20 clockticks range. For reference, with max speed and Haste, a normal turn is 4 clockticks, Quick Hit is 3, and Quick Pockets/equip switching is 1. Getting a turn after auto-reviving means you don't get credit for haste, and takes 9 clockticks, which is really bad!
Penance himself 12M HP, acts every 9 clockticks (max speed without haste). For the first quarter of the battle he only uses Obliteration, an MT physical which has a base damage (against 255 def) of 23000. With Protect and Defence+20%, this is survivable. Once he loses quarter of his health, he switches to Immolation, which is ST, but 33% stronger, and inflicts Full Break and destroys MP. The key is that Cheer x4-5 lets me survive this as well. The Full Break can be dealt with using Dispel (sadly, a full-speed action; I discover to my disappointment that the Use variant, Purifying Salt, does NOT get rid of breaks). The MP damage at first is super-annoying, but eventually I lightbulb and realize that using Three Stars (MP cost = 0 for the party) is an option because with this strategy, I never actually die and lose the status. Dispel, incidentally, does not get rid of "secret statuses" including Cheer and MP-cost-zero. It also doesn't get rid of Auto-Life, which I cast just in case of emergencies.
The real problem is the arms keep coming back, and I keep having to kill them. Helping me out on offence is Wakka; he doesn't have luck or defence-ignoring to do good damage with his physicals, but Attack Reels does a number on the arms. Other PCs Entrust overdrives to him when he gets turns. Never use Attack Reels unless there's an arm present since they have lower defence and thus Attack Reels helps out more against them. Wakka's other turns are used on utility (Dispel, Quick Pockets to heal MP, Cheer, Auto-Life) or if he has nothing else to do, switching weapons to build overdrive faster. If the arms get turns, not only do they do horrible things, but in the later stages of the fight Penance can use Judgement Day on his own turn if both arms are alive, which is MT OHKO... Auto-Life lets me survive, but the lost time from the revival is hard to make up for.
On the winning run, I get into trouble early but then recover and mostly cruise until towards the end when the second arm comes back at a bad time, right before I'm able to kill the first, with Penance about to get a turn. For the first and only time in this run of the superbosses, I summon an aeon to take the resulting Judgement Day. My party returns and I kill off one arm, but an Attack Reels decides to go mostly for Penance and I'm not quite able to kill the second, which attack Wakka, petrifies him, and shatters him. I despair, this is NOT a fight where I can win with only 2/3 my normal clip of actions. But I'm so close, I focus all my efforts into doing as much damage to Penance as possible before the arms get another turn to start overwhelming me... and he falls. :)
Fun times. Game clock is at 91 hours now. In general the aftergame experience was enjoyable. The worst part is unquestionably monster capturing; getting 10 each of 102 enemies is a tall task, and running around in circles for the 8th, 9th, 10th copy of rare monsters like tonberries is not fun. Capturing alone probably took 10-15 hours of the 40-odd hour aftergame.
But the bosses are fun. Definitely a game you need to be willing to consult what the bosses do for the later ones because figuring out which statuses to block by brute force would be annoying, but past that the varied strategies and executing them is enjoyable. Even the "grind" aspects, besides monster capturing, are actually enjoyable enough because they're actually quite fast; the game is very much about grinding smarter, not harder (fighting the right superbosses as efficiently as possible, using the Overdrive->AP trick against Don Tonberry for levels, modifying Kottos's drops for Power/Mana/Speed Spheres, etc.) and no one part of this grind takes too long, unless you really want lots of luck, but part of the fun is figuring out you don't actually need that much.
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Atelier Ayesha - Spoilers within!!!
Finished and got Linca/Marion’s ending. Both Fortress, the first real boss fight when shit gets real, and the final were both quite challenging on Hard Mode, especially with my limited grasp of the synthesis system. I also noticed that I was probably fairly under-levelled, as evidenced by the speed in which i gained levels and the fact that every PC was like 4-5 levels higher than me on join…
For Fortress, I ended up trying to synth better healing items and got to level 30, so my characters had the super limit moves, and synthed some buff items to buff my fighters, and also added some HP and MP to my armor and made a fire resistant accessory. My team was Ayesha, Juris, and Marion for this boss because Juris put out more damage than Linca and debuffed his attack. I probably took 10 tries to finally beat him, and it was a very close call even so. I was a little lazy about synthing for most of the game and didn’t really take the time to understand the systems, but after Fortress I tried to take it a bit more seriously.
For the final boss, I ended up dying twice and just adapting my strategy to massively pile damage late. He had a move below half HP that reduces the effectiveness of items, which is your only healing, so that was a pretty dick move. I just saved my super moves and ACs and all for him to drop below half and just fucking piled damage into him until he died.
I also fought the Old Oath Dragon in the aftergame to get Linca’s ending; he seemed really tough until I looked up how to synth God’s Miracle Drug, which is MT revival and full healing and goes off two turns in a row. So the boss was easy after that lol!
For my PCs, I used combinations of Ayesha, Linca, Juris, and Marion for most of the game.
Ayesha - Made lots of bombs for clearing randoms, which I feel like vary in effectiveness throughout the game from WTF WOW to decent based on point in the game. Her healing is always vital, since she was my only healer / MP healer the whole game, and Concentration is a nice bonus in boss fights for speeding up her turns. Obviously a great PC. She ended up having lots and lots of HP.
Regina - Didn’t use her too much after the early game, but she was pretty good there.
Wilbell - First character I dropped due to being a jerk. She seemed decent though, although ran out of MP quickly when I used her.
Linca - I really like Linca for clearing out randoms thanks to Valkyrie Strike or whatever it was called. Full MT + Slow is pretty sweet, and it was quite powerful. She is reasonably tanky as well. Her other moves aren’t wonderful, but she is effective enough in boss fights, although probably worse than Juris.
Marion - She debuffs physical defense with her attacks which is cool, and one of her ACs involves piling extra MT damage into enemies, which is great for randoms and bosses alike. Her medium ranged attack is pretty effective.
Juris - Juris is quite useful; Attack debuff and Focus Soul for extra HP / self-healing are both pretty lit, and his ST damage is quite good, making him a good choice for the game’s very few bosses. Not as effective as Linca or Marion against randoms.
Keith - I used Keith for some of the time but I didn’t find him too effective; I know DKZ said that he can be pretty good if you know how to use his crazy MP intensive move but I never really had the patience to tinker with it, especially since I am not too fond of the character.
Odelia - Never tried.
Nio - Aftergame PC so take as you will, but she seemed cool enough, with some MT and some revival. Too bad I didn’t have her for any bosses before getting God’s Miracle Drug!
I generally enjoyed the cast, particularly Marion who is sensible and no nonsense, and Linca, who is a ‘robot’ swordgirl and is generally pretty funny. They are just the cutest lesbians. Ayesha is cheerful and friendly and ditzy and you can’t help but root for her. Juris is actually pretty likeable as well; he reminds me a bit of pre-timeskip Dimitri with his social awkwardness and odd mannerisms; he tries to relate to people but is rather poor at it. Ernie is a sweet mom figure. And hot damn is Regina into Ayesha.
Keith is obviously the game’s most jerkish character; he really starts on the wrong foot due to being mean to the sweet pumpkin Ayesha. Ultimately I understand him a bit better (actually he reminds me a bit of Duke from ToV) because he’s decided that humanity is no good and has created weapons for evil, but instead of being a villain he’s a PC. Interesting setup for sure. He’s not as bad as I initially thought but I can see why he’d get under people’s skin hard.
One character that I thought the game did some really interesting stuff with was Nio. I remember being immediately struck by how, unlike most Damsels in Distress, she expresses a personality beyond just being kidnapped, and she has ideas and feelings of her own. She is a free-spirited and happy young girl, trapped in a place she doesn’t understand, and trying her best to puzzle it out. Once she comes back, she feels…. left behind by the world. She has not aged in the four/five years that she’s been gone, so rather than a two year age gap between her and Ayesha, it’s instead six/seven. I think the game deals with this plot point with some deftness. She is happy to be back, but she wants to work extra hard to make up for lost time. She realizes that her sister is an adult now, and no longer needs her help organizing the workshop anymore, so she feels pointless and no longer needed and like a baby because all of her friends are four/five years older and she isn’t. I think it’s easy to understand why she feels the way she feels. Ayesha does smother her with concern, understandably after her four/five year disappearance, and Nio becomes frustrated because she just wants to go back to living a normal life. I also really liked the scene between Ayesha, Nio, and Keith where Nio tells Ayesha that Keith told her that “your sister will come for you soon” and he is embarrassed because he doesn’t like to be seen as nice. I also like that you can actually do things with her and have have normal interactions, reinforcing the fact that she is a normal person outside of her role as damsel.
Otherwise the cast is full of quirky, charming people and most of the characters are generally charming. In general, I really like the aftergame aspect, where you can explore the end of character’s journeys after the final boss.
I also really liked the anime style cut ins of the characters as well as the really good music. I think my favorite track is the one that played as the random music in the salt desert or maybe the one that played against Old Oath Dragon.
Probably gonna rate the game 7/10? Not certain.
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Final Fantasy X - Adventures in the aftergame.
Great read. Reminds me why I keep coming back to FFX's post game. The best part is usually the build up and trying to figure out ways to win while your party was still somewhat under powered, requiring the use of the game's plethora of options on deck. Your completion time for Penance was faster than mine back when I did it. I had a 123 hours I think in total, but that's also because I did some really grindy stuff such as farming Dark Yojimbo for 4-slot Ribbon armors and getting Luck to 200+. Also didn't use the minimalist set up with Def+20% and instead had like 23000-25000 HP for the last series of fights.
The one thing that is disappointing to me is how much the post game focused on max speed/strength quick hits. I remember Penance not being terrible because I could take down both arms relatively quickly, although his 12 million HP meant it took like 40 minutes before he finally died. I like how we stumbled upon similar strategies though - Quick Pockets and Three Stars made up the crux of my strategy late because it meant you can recover fast due to 1 CT and nil MP cost meant the MP busting didn't matter.
One thing that really surprised me is grabbing Kim's Ultimate weapon. Of all the FFX stuff I did (including mass grinding), Kim's Ult is the one I NEVER ever got. Despite multiple playthroughs. I usually just end up crafting one for him anyway and he ended up being my utility player late as a result.
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Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night - Fantastic game in every aspect gameplaywise, from the clever platforming tricks that you have to acquire to get through the game to the Invert mechanics being very cool, to some of the platforming tricks actually being useful against bosses (I love that Dimension Shift is useful against Dominque’s beam move, that is fabulous). The bosses are all different from each other, signal their HP thresholds and introduce new moves through them, and generally the bosses are the best bosses I’ve seen in a Metroidvania. The weapon variety is fun, the skillset macro set ups are convenient and nice for the player, and the moment-to-moment random encounter combat is stupendous. I mostly did a Aredhbar + fire spells (Riga Dohim + Riga Strorama) with Spear Expert, but sometimes I used a sword for extra swinging speed and occasionally I used the gun as well. Bloodless + Zangestu 2 + final boss are all great fights in particular.
For the final, I ended up caving on my policy to only use two items per boss fight and just chugged down every random food item I had accumulated throughout the game after losing like 20 times. Despite using all those items, I still lost like three or four more times! That final boss is epic as fuck.
The plot, lol, whatever Castlevania, you're drunk.
<3 this game. 9/10.
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@Tide:
Kimahri's ultimate weapon is actually relatively easy once you understand how (I speak as someone who initially bounced off getting it as "omg this seems impossible"), the butterflies don't move so it's just a matter of some rote memorization. I made only minimal use of its properties so maybe I shouldn't have bothered but it didn't actually take that long to get for what it's worth.
Quick Hits are a bit too centralizing because of the somewhat questionable decision to ramp up boss defences more and more (and start making them all immune to Armour/Mental Break, which many of the earlier superbosses aren't!). Quick Hits via celestial weapons ignore this, little else does. And QH is even nerfed in this version of the game compared to the original JP/NTSC versions! The stat system also ends up being unkind to magic (despite it being really good before you start stat-raising) - you don't really want to spend time farming BOTH strength and magic spheres, and magic is less desirable because if something has high mdef there's nothing you can do whereas if something has high defence you can use celestial weapon attacks.
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Games I've played this year (And end of last year)
Octopath Traveller
Dragon Quest 11
Dragon Quest 3 (replay)
Mario & Rabbids
Orcs Must Die 1/2 (Replays; OMD3 is coming out soonish)
Final Fantasy 1 (replay)
Octopath is the least favorite of the new games; it had really neat gameplay but some notable polish issues and the writing/plot was a strong negative. Rabbids is definitely the favorite of the new games. The side missions are so much fun and some are as unforgiving as any XCOM game. One thing I've grown to appreciate with older titles is that they're quick and cut down on the filler that's so ubiquitous in PSX and later titles. FF1 took me about 12 hours to get to the Temple of Fiends revisited; DQ3 was like 15-18 hours.(DQ3 definitely required a faq at points as I never remember where to go after the ship.)
The idea of say replaying Persona 4 sounds most unpleasant in spite of it being a really great game; whereas I can replay something as straightforward and mediocre as DQ3 at any time. e: I've made this observation re replaying games and games in general before I'm sure, but it is really hitting home considering I am playing more videogames now than I have in years.
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Wild Arms 2:
So I played this for the first time a few weeks back. I've owned it for a long time, but I didn't play it when it was new, and by the time I first tried it, I was so off-put by the translation that I literally shelved it for 8 years.
Having played it in 2020, I feel like that was a mistake. The translation is still absolutely atrocious, but I think, once I managed to decipher what was being said, WA2 might have the best narrative of all the Wild Arms games? It certainly has the most interesting villain. And each of the PC cast, though relatively underdeveloped by today's standards, are tied directly to game's central theme of how the ideal of "Heroism" can be destructive in a myriad of different ways. It is solid stuff. And Odessa's Watchmen-like plan is surprisingly underrepresented as far as villainous motivations go in video game tropes, which kinda surprises me.
The game is Djinn-bait all the way down (once we get past the translation). It has unique PC skillsets with unique learning methods for each PC; multiple types of summoning, transformation, and limit-break-type skills; instant in-battle party-swapping; a proper Blue Mage character; goofy anime antics; a disarmingly-poignant political plot; and surprisingly deep world-building (this game in particular is KEY to understanding how the WA franchise as a whole fits together and finally playing it was like getting a Rosetta Stone for the series).
The battles themselves were a slog, but nothing the magic of a speed-up key couldn't fix. Seriously, PSX-era games are basically impossible to play on native hardware due to the ridiculously slow pace (not even counting how slow the loading times are!). Tim and Lilka ended up my MVPs, despite neither being great for damaging things.
The game is pretty heavy-handed with its messages, but one thing that stood out in particular in this narrative was the NPC of Marina. Functionally, she just exists to be Ashley's girlfriend. But narratively, she serves as a huge contrast to the GAME as a whole. In a genre (medium) that is all about interacting with the world primarily through beating things up, Marina is a non-combatant and a 'normal person'. She is constantly worried about Ashley's well-being as he keeps signing up for what would basically be suicide missions for a non-protagonist (and really, Ashley basically dies a couple times but gets better because plot armor). She makes (entirely reasonable) objections to his actions, and they have (unsettlingly realistic) arguments like a military couple might have. It would be easy for a player (who wants to escape reality and just beat up silly monsters for fun) to dislike Marina, who is essentially an antithesis for this kind of escapist fun. But she's given a lot more depth than simply 'being a scold'. She apologizes (sometimes despite being right) for being overbearing or for overstepping her role in her and Ashley's fledgling relationship. She questions herself and her motives for chiding Ashley, and is generally a surprisingly true-to-life depiction of someone in her position. If Ashley himself wasn't so open and willing to listen to her concerns and fears, it would come off as almost abusive. But Ashley, over the course of the game, becomes more aware of how his headstrong desire to be a Hero is super-destructive, not only to himself, but to the people who care about him, and Marina's role in that development is key. And in turn, she manages to develop into a stronger person alongside him. I think if the translation had been better, these two might be the best-written couple in a JRPG ever?
I know that Marina gets a bad rap from a decent number of WA2 fans, and it definitely feels like she's the "Skylar White" (frpm Breaking Bad) of the game - she's 100% right most of the time, but because if anyone listened to her, there would be no conflict, she's essentially 'getting in the way' of the story's very existence, which tends to turn an audience against a lady. I genuinely like how they handle her, and have very little patience for the kind of fans that would write her off.
Other interesting narrative notes about the social politics of WA2 include: Brad Evans, the guy who was supposedly gay in the JP version (he wasn't, if anything, the US translation actually made his relationship to Billy Pilder MORE romantic-leaning). The translation muddies things a bit, but what's going on with Brad and Billy is that when the War Hero Brad Evans 'died', the War Hero's Best Friend took up his name to keep the spirit of the rebellion alive. So the playable "Brad Evans" is actually Billy, and the wheelchair-bound "Billy" is actually Brad (who was, completely-platonically, holding onto Billy's dogtags all this time and that's why the people who found him think his name is "Billy"). Now, this isn't to say that a gay reading of the two isn't possible, but it certainly isn't 'overt' or 'canon' like some have claimed. And honestly, while I'd LOVE for them to be a proper couple, the game doesn't go far enough for me to give it any credit for being progressive there.
In contrast, I am 100% on board for Kanon as a trans allegory. Perhaps it wasn't intentional, since most robot/android/cyborg characters all inherently have a *bit* of overlap with trans narratives, but Kanon's story is so much more focused on her identity that the allegory works much better than trying to read into the (relatively minor and less-focused-on) 'gay' relationship between Brad and Billy. So... yeah. I’m not prepared to see Kanon as anything but a trans metaphor at this point. She discards her old self, adopts a new name, changes her body, and everyone from random townsfolk to gods is like “dude, life would be so much easier if you just were normal like everybody else”. And you know what? Kanon says “fuck you” to all that noise. Kanon knows she has problems. Kanon knows she’s an outcast. Kanon knows there are people/deities that are never going to accept her. But Kanon also knows that she has friends that support her. Kanon knows she might not be like anybody else on this whole stupid planet, but she’s still all-in on being herself, no matter what form that takes. She could easily use some shortcut to go back to being “normal”… but would that make her happy? Would she really want that outcome? No. She wants to be herself, and now she has a support group that wants her to be herself, too. Kanon is Kanon. She is not her ancestor Anastasia. She is not her dead-name Aisha. She is the person she made herself to be, and no one can tell her to be otherwise, including the vaguely-omnipotent deity spirit of Muse that she has to confront in her penultimate character arc episode.
WA2 was a wild ride, and one of those games that I REALLY wish would get a re-translation. Or a Remake, but for some reason that honor was reserved for WA1. Bleh.
Speaking of Remakes!
FF7 Remake: It's real good, you guys. One of the best ARPG systems ever. The way this game handles battle pacing and party-switching is a masterclass in how I've always wanted an ARPG to play. Dear Tales and Star Ocean and Ys - just steal this game's battle flow, please?
I'm AAAAALLMOST done with the game, on the final dungeon. So I'll write up some story thoughts later, but I've noticed there's been no chatter from the DL about this game, which strikes me as odd. Are we all just trying to avoid giving spoilers?
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Speaking of Remakes!
FF7 Remake: It's real good, you guys. One of the best ARPG systems ever. The way this game handles battle pacing and party-switching is a masterclass in how I've always wanted an ARPG to play. Dear Tales and Star Ocean and Ys - just steal this game's battle flow, please?
I'm AAAAALLMOST done with the game, on the final dungeon. So I'll write up some story thoughts later, but I've noticed there's been no chatter from the DL about this game, which strikes me as odd. Are we all just trying to avoid giving spoilers?
Off the top of my head: Laggy, Tal, and VSM have played it, or are playing it, but none post in WGAYP regularly.
I'll get to it eventually. I'm still getting over the fact that it apparently doesn't suck; I was assuming it would! And a little bit miffed at the business model to split the game into three for more $$$ but I guess that's not the worst thing.
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I'm a little put off about FF7R after hearing about the apparent addition of some Kingdom-Hearts sounding plot elements, and I don't have a PS4!
Octopath Traveller: Completed C3s for Alfyn, Tressa, and Olberic. Alfyn's C3 feels a little off (although as consistently over-the-top drama as his C1 and C2). He showed some steel in the end of his C2 (drugging the villain with a smile on his face) but in C3 seems to be completely a softie always-trusting wide-eyed idealist. Gameplaywise, that boss was an absoulte terror, wholely unlike the Chapter 2 bosses that were more like HP blocks. There was a constant feeling of pressure and excitement that was missing from earlier parts of the game. I think I might have liked it if his C2 and C3 were flipped from a character devlelopment standpoint? [Wide eyed idealist -> Meets a brutal reality -> Comes to some terms with that -> ????
Tressa's C3 was terribly not exciting, with little chance for development or exploration of character beyond "Here's the backstory to that NPC from Chapter 1". It's unfortunate and capped by another HP block boss.
Olberic's C3 was a decent climax for him dealing with his issues, and felt more like the end of his character arc than the midpoint of it. He gets the answer he's been seeking since C1 and gets the confrontation with the central figure of his plot and backstory. I get the feeling his C4 would feel more like an epilogue since it feels like the character arc is completed. The boss fight and duel in C3 were both not terribly exciting gameplay affairs, which again felt more like enemy HP blocks you just carve through while healing when needed.
Off to do Therion's C3 next. I've liked him story for the most part (kinda stupid *reason* for going on the quest but the character dynamics and plot beats work).
Hopefully I'll get back to Primrose's C3 soon since the somewhat cookie-cutter revenge story is done really quite well so far and I'd be interested in seeing how it proceeds.
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@Tide:
Kimahri's ultimate weapon is actually relatively easy once you understand how (I speak as someone who initially bounced off getting it as "omg this seems impossible"), the butterflies don't move so it's just a matter of some rote memorization. I made only minimal use of its properties so maybe I shouldn't have bothered but it didn't actually take that long to get for what it's worth.
Quick Hits are a bit too centralizing because of the somewhat questionable decision to ramp up boss defences more and more (and start making them all immune to Armour/Mental Break, which many of the earlier superbosses aren't!). Quick Hits via celestial weapons ignore this, little else does. And QH is even nerfed in this version of the game compared to the original JP/NTSC versions! The stat system also ends up being unkind to magic (despite it being really good before you start stat-raising) - you don't really want to spend time farming BOTH strength and magic spheres, and magic is less desirable because if something has high mdef there's nothing you can do whereas if something has high defence you can use celestial weapon attacks.
It's funny because I think of all the Ults I think Kim's actually the least time consuming when you know what you're doing? It's either his or Yuna's. Tidus requires a certain modicum of luck, Auron/Lulu are set time sinks and Rikku's is pain if you don't have No Encounter. I remember there's a way to set it such that Wakka's can be gotten with just 40 Blitzball games if you do a reset of the league at a certain point but bleh, 40 BB games is still pretty ridiculous. I just never figured out how to properly navigate the area. Doesn't help that I don't think Kim's celestial isn't really great for him? It has the same properties as Tidus' but having a 3rd E&Cer seems really unnecessary. I prefer having One MP Cost and First Strike on a personalized weapon.
Magic's other problem is that there isn't a quick recovery akin to Quick Hit. Double cast sorta tries by dual acting and having no recovery lag, but doesn't quite match up. So if you compare damage output, physicals outpace them.
Speaking of FFX, I'm doing a quick replay. At Macalania Forest right now. I'm at a weird junction where Tidus and Yuna are lagging. Highlights of this playthrough so far include getting a 4-1 victory against the Goers and planning to create a new build for Kimahri. Realizing why my old Kim builds were bad has been an amusing experience.
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It's funny because I think of all the Ults I think Kim's actually the least time consuming when you know what you're doing? It's either his or Yuna's. Tidus requires a certain modicum of luck, Auron/Lulu are set time sinks and Rikku's is pain if you don't have No Encounter. I remember there's a way to set it such that Wakka's can be gotten with just 40 Blitzball games if you do a reset of the league at a certain point but bleh, 40 BB games is still pretty ridiculous. I just never figured out how to properly navigate the area. Doesn't help that I don't think Kim's celestial isn't really great for him? It has the same properties as Tidus' but having a 3rd E&Cer seems really unnecessary. I prefer having One MP Cost and First Strike on a personalized weapon.
Magic's other problem is that there isn't a quick recovery akin to Quick Hit. Double cast sorta tries by dual acting and having no recovery lag, but doesn't quite match up. So if you compare damage output, physicals outpace them.
Speaking of FFX, I'm doing a quick replay. At Macalania Forest right now. I'm at a weird junction where Tidus and Yuna are lagging. Highlights of this playthrough so far include getting a 4-1 victory against the Goers and planning to create a new build for Kimahri. Realizing why my old Kim builds were bad has been an amusing experience.
If magic could ignore defence and do 99999 then Doublecast would actually outpace Quick Hit in the International/PAL/HD version, because 2x99999 every 4 clockticks is better than 1x99999 every 3 clockticks. But you don't actually hit 99999 except against low MDef. Doublecast Ultima does almost identical damage over time as Quick Hits against Nemesis or Dark Yojimbo (around 2x70000 per 4 clockticks compared to 99999 per 3), but has horrible animation time. If you use Flare instead, it comes out a bit behind. And to be clear, these numbers are with Magic Booster, which means either your name is Lulu or you have to craft a Break Damage Limit Magic Booster weapon for anyone else.
I used Nemesis and Dark Yojimbo to be favourable to magic; almost all the other dark aeons and Penance have even more magic defence, so the comparison just gets worse. The one exception, interestingly, are the Dark Magus Sisters; Mindy in particular is an excellent target for magic because of her low magic defence (she takes over 80000 from each Ultima, or over 70000 from each Flare) combined with her skyhigh luck which makes attacks and skills impractical. But that's really a "only if you maxed magic for some reason" strategy. I just used Attack Reels.
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I had a lot of thoughts about FF7R but was gonna hold off until people actually finished playing it, since the current player pool is rather shallow. I may get off my ass and compile them later. It would likely be a megapost of shit because I have a lot of Feelings about vanilla FF7's story and remake's take on it.
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Okay, so FF7R.
I may do more indepth plot/scene analysis later but here is the general spoiler-tree tl;dr.
Gameplay
It's an ARPG, so just accept that going in. Movement and positioning are big here, as well as timing your abilities to not get hit-cancelled. However compared to other ARPGs I've played (which is a pretty shallow pool, SO2 and KH are the most prominent entries) it's a lot less button-mashy and strongly promotes switching control of the main PC as well as pausing the game frequently to use menu commands, so I will say it's the best take on ARPG I've seen so far. If you absolutely loathe it probably stay away (especially if you hate getting interrupted out of animations/casts), but if you've managed to play through other ARPGs before FF7R is worth your time. It also has plenty of teeth, which alone kinda earns it above FF7 in my book by virtue of actually trying to fight back. <.<
PCs feel unique in their identity and playstyle, and you have good reason to use all of them as a result to tailor to the fight at hand. They aren't terribly deep but the fact that it's optimal to swap through them keeps the flow mostly fresh. Magic is OP as long as you don't get hit out of your cast (high damage, weaknesses a big deal) and Bolt is still the bestest materia just so you know it's still FF7. Which hey means it still needs more effort to use than it did in vanilla.
The enemy design got a lot of love and I was pretty floored at the amount of work put in for randoms that some FF7 players probably wouldn't even remember the names of; very few get missed (although WARNING BOARD GOT ROBBED ;_;). Fights are generally well defined, although some encounters are annoyingly gimmicky to the point of being frustrating (dear god, don't play the game without Assess AKA Scan) but notably none of them actually -killed- me, just dragged a lot. The biggest stinker is that a bunch of boss fights have phase changes (almost always HP triggers) with no telegraphing that you're about to hit them in advance, and when these happen the game basically pauses and wipes out all current stagger, AND the effects of any damaging ability going out at the moment, including limits. This is dumb and I would've much rather they made it more obvious by using multiple HP bars or whatever.
UI kinda sucks ass. The weapon upgrade submenu and materia swapping are criminal in how slow and cumbersome they are in addition to how often you should be in them (a LOT), and it gets really bad when you have to do party swap sequences; there's actually cutscenes that lead straight to fights with PC swaps and I hope you notice that there's a prompt to hold down the menu button so that you actually can do pre-fight setup after the scene finishes, cause if you don't, hf going in with PCs that probably haven't had their gear updated for hours. THANKFULLY the game has a sane quick reset (reload back to start of encounter, or last save/autosave if you prefer) but these UI flaws could've frankly easily been addressed.
Oh and the god damn camera, holy fuck can we please zoom out farther than the seam of Cloud's billowy pants. The game is absolutely crammed to the gill with dungeon crawlers to an almost Dark Souls-esque feel (complete with kicking ladder shorcuts down!) which of course was right at home with me but may feel excessively filler for you depending on your mood of padding out every vanilla FF7 Midgar screen into a full sized often hour plus romp. The camera (TRUE TO DS FASHION) sours this a little by letting you see so little by default, but it does pan outwards depending on where you are so it's less egregious than it could be.
Some battle tips for those getting into it, if you want them (don't read if you prefer to learn the system through trial by fire, but these are pretty generic):
* As stated above, Assess everything, elemental weaknesses are big and very often fight gimmicks will be explained or at least partially explained in the bio blurb of enemies, especially on how to stagger them.
* The enemy AI very very heavily prioritizes targeting whoever you're currently controlling. However, once they've begun a cast/attack towards them, they'll always finish it, so swapping out after you've baited that out is effective.
* Getting hit out of casts/animations will consume the resources required for it, which is quite punishing, especially for higher tier spells which have notable cast times, and even limits aren't safe from being cancelled. So time your active abilities carefully.
* By default, party AI will just guard stuff and generally take cover whenever a fight calls for it. You can assume PCs not being controlled will reasonably stay alive, not do much damage, and not build up much ATB. Because of the aggro system and these factors it is very advantageous to swap to PCs that can freely go on the offense when windows of opportunity open for them, as it gets the most ATB built up. It's also good to get stuff rolling whenever possible, e.g. consume Barret's Overcharge when it's built up so he can start building another, as the AI won't use it.
* Somewhat counterintuitive to most ARPGs, dodging (specifically the X button dodge) is honestly not very effective against most attacks. The general rule of thumb is that you are supposed to guard against most things, and what you cannot guard - grabs/grapples/some spells - only THEN are you supposed to dodge those. Of course guarding is really boring (while not incorrect, as it accelerates ATB gain and is still better than getting hit) so switching PCs intelligently ends up being better in general. Just straight up running is often more effective than the actual dodge command too, so yeah, only hit the dodge on attacks that seem to specifically require it.
Story
The Nomura elements have been a bit overstated. The most annoyingly evident aesthetic are the ghosty bros (already revealed in the trailers as the Keepers of Fate, oh man that's subtle) which I could have done a lot less of or frankly without entirely. The ending does go off the rails but in a way that makes me tentatively okay with it because the intended direction is mostly presented upfront, rather than being a cryptic dumbass cliffhanger.
The actual character work and cutscenes are gorgeous, stay very true to the spirit of the original for the most part... I have plenty of quibbles but they don't tarnish the amazing amount of work and love that went into it. This, along with the visuals and music, are the strongest part of remake and is what made it worth playing through. This section is brief but the emphasis here is strong, since this is what most of the story and presentation uses. The polish is out of this world and I really appreciate it.
The sidequest formula can fuck off (it's the same tired 'go around town being the errands boy to BUILD UR REP' BS that triple A games have been choking on for a decade and on now) but the main story is strong and character work is great. They pretty much nail everyone in the main cast well (exceeeeept Barret, who is kinda 70% cringe but 30% really good. Picks up better as the game goes on which helps a lot.) The Avalanche crew gets lots of love and screentime and it absolutely is one of the best things early on to actually have meaningful interaction and background with them. The townsfolk/minor NPCs/slums/etc. are alright, decent fluff, though no particular sidequest or thread line really wowed me - the main thing is how much Midgar is brought to life simply from all of the background chatter - getting snippets of NPC chatter scrolling down as subtitles is a really really good touch and I wish every game did that, frankly, so I don't have strain to hear the flavor text.
Wall Market rules btw
Some points of criticism - they went overboard with painting Shinra as evil, when it really didn't need more emphasis. Shinra was already plenty evil and no one with any moral compass was gonna mistake vanilla FF7 as trying to paint them as sympathetic, so doing away with any grayness entirely is a bit offputting. The few additional plot twists that add to this are unnecessary, although they don't destroy the plot or pacing, just kind of weigh it down some. Unfortunately the biggest annoyance to me was the Sector 7 pillar sequence, which is supposed to be a high octane time-sensitive section where the crew is trying to rush desperately to stop it from happening, and its pacing is utterly ruined by several POV switches and dragged-out farewell scenes with Avalanche members that would make sense in a vacuum with their greater development but feels out of tone as presented. And the few spots where the game tries to point out rather ungracefully that hey, good people exist and work for Shinra too, are rather hamfisted and applied with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
But it must be said that all of these things I'm complaining about, while a little eye-rolley when it happens, comes with the backdrop that I came in with extremely high expectations and a little worry about the care given to vanilla FF7's story, which I have found myself more appreciative as time passes (its themes are arguably more relevant today than ever before!) and how it excelled in so many ways not obvious to me as a kid.
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All in all I sunk in 36 hours to finish it over the course of four days, so it obviously hooked me real good. Don't regret buying it, may consider waiting on the price to drop if you didn't like vanilla FF7 - the game's perfectly playable with no nostalgia factor, but you'll definitely miss out how much love was given to the details.
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Oh and the god damn camera, holy fuck ... The game is absolutely crammed to the gill with dungeon crawlers to an almost Dark Souls-esque feel (complete with kicking ladder shorcuts down!) ...
No mention taking to dodge roll and parry. Not giving the Dark Souls of Final Fantasy 7s its proper due.
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Fell Seal
Finished up the Deep Dungeon equivalent, the Ancient Path. First two maps & last map were cool, but the middle maps were kinda boring, at least the cowardly safe way I played 'em.
I definitely think that for physical characters, guns / bows are where you wanna be at endgame / postgame; there's lots of skills with (weapon range) as their range, and more generally, there just doesn't seem to be that big of a drop-off in power as there's "supposed" to be by late. You trade some damage for a LOT of safety and not needing to equip boots. The one exception is maybe whoever has Excalibur, since that weapon is very busted - holy elemental and permanent Renew. Stuck that on Kyrie w/ No Flank & Health Expert, she was ridiculously hard to kill and could safely walk wherever she wanted, meaning she could actually safely engage. (Note, this definitely isn't true in the early game, where using a crossbow on your scoundrel can easily cost half your damage compared to a dagger.)
Ori & the Will of the Wisps
Talked about it in chat before, but realize I didn't post it here. Finished, I really liked it! Also 100% item collect'd it after mildly FAQing the fetch quest line. Not surprising since I really liked the original Ori & the Blind Forest. The additions, like combat worth a damn and boss battles, are pretty neat. My main nitpicks - and they barely count as complaints at all -
* The marketing "cover" picture is a bit of a tease. You might think that the game is gonna have some Sonic & Tails thing with the new super-cute owl Ku, but spoilers, no, you only get to control her for one segment and that's it. I guess they weren't confident they could make the gameplay work, and it's not like controlling Ori all the time is a problem who is still a joy to maneuver. The other returning characters from the original are in an odd spot too - I'd be fine with plain leaving them behind for our New Adventure in a suspiciously similarly named area that has a similar problem to solve, but the game has them chase afterward With Concern, but then they never show up in time to do anything. If you're gonna include 'em, include 'em!
* This is mostly a side effect of "having more experience at Ori" but there's only one escape sequence in Will of the Wisps that really challenged me. The others were *cool*, sure, but also generous enough in their timing to not repeatedly murder you. This is probably for the best for new players of the series, but maybe a little disappointing for veterans? Oh well.
And oh yes, the soundtrack is great as usual. https://garethcoker.bandcamp.com/album/ori-and-the-will-of-the-wisps-original-soundtrack-recording / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NhwEQEercE to check it out, depending on if you prefer YouTube or Bandcamp.
Edit: FF7R without having played it: Isn't it great to hear nerds having opinions without enough context? Well, I watched a decent amount of Laggy's stream at least. On the Big Remake Plot Point (spoilers, but I suspect everyone knows there's a particular big Remake divergence): Doing a new continuity is totally fine. Go for it. Doing a new continuity *in setting* is weird and meta and steals too much of the focus. There are games that do this well, but it tends to make that the new focus of the game; Shinra's actions pale compared to in-universe enforcers of fate or whatever. Just... do a new continuity and skip the goddamn ghosts. If you absolutely must make it clear in setting what's going on, have some mako poisoned crazy person ranting that this is all wrong, what should really be happening is (plot of FF7o). Ah well.
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I dunno, everything I've seen suggests they're doing a way, way better job than Star Trek 2009 did. FFVIIR is still about the "new" cast, they're just being fucked with by a returning character. Some people are married to having in-continuity reboots, although given how this works this actually makes FFVII Remake a *sequel* which is a lot more interesting to start with.
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Some 12 years ago I did a very silly challenge run of Path of Radiance in which I only used the lowest levelled people at any time. It was pretty crazy. Well, the craziness is back! This time the game of choice is Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. Because what makes a challenge run more fun than dealing with bullshit ninja reinforcements?
The rules!
1. Only the lowest levelled PCs may be brought into any map. Tiebreak is for lowest Experience, naturally.
2. Every unit in the game must be recruited, and must be kept alive until the final chapter, so that there is no cheaping out of the system by conviniently killing Sophia. <_< The point of the game is to use everyone, or at least everyone who joins unpromoted.
3. Effort should be taken to even out levels as much as possible (so e.g. I can't just powerlevel Roy to cheese the earlygame).
4. No resources to boost up a unit's performance artificially, i.e. no stat boosters. I'll need to sell them for money anyway...
5. No unit may be promoted before Level 20. A Level 20 unpromoted and a Level 1 promoted unit are considered equal for level (since one turns into the other with a promotion item).
6. If a unit can not gain experience on a map (aside from 1 by being attacked, that doesn't count), they are exempt from deployment. In particular this applies to Merlinus, to unpromotable units who have reached Level 20, and to Fae when her weapon breaks.
I'm playing on Normal Mode, because I predict that FE6 HM would just be too much for this challenge (it's way harder than FE9 HM). I'm looking up reinforcements because I'm not above that. I allow myself periodic mid-map saves (usually about every 10 turns or so), but never for the purpose of trying low-odds plays, because I value my time more than I did 12 years ago, and this game's maps are significantly longer and more bullshit than FE9's anyway.
On with the show! I'm skipping the first five maps because you can use everyone for 'em, so they play basically as normal, just with effort to focus on lower-levelled people. So we begin with chapter 6. This update covers everything up to and including Chapter 18, which is about two thirds of the game.
The Trap (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Trap) (0 resets)
Roy, Bors, Wolt, Ellen, Dieck, Shanna, Chad, Lugh, Clarine, Rutger. Level 4-5.
Not really feeling the challenge here yet, of course, even if I'm missing a few good units. Perhaps the highlight is shenanigans involving Chad and Cathe. Chad gets the first two chests on the left and opens the door for Roy to recruit Sue. Meanwhile, when Cathe shows up and heads right, I first block her access to the first door (which just has enemies) then allow her to open the second... and the same turn that happens, I do a massive rescue chain along the central-north hallway to get Chad in range of her so I can steal her lockpicks next turn. I then black her escape south so Roy can recruit her while Chad loots the remaining treasure.
The Rebellion of Ostia (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Rebellion_of_Ostia) (2 resets)
Roy, Bors, Wolt, Ellen, Shanna, Chad, Clarine, Dorothy, Saul, Sue, Alan, Lott, Ward. Level 5-6. (Sue's a bit lower.)
This one is pretty rough and messy for the first few turns, but I don't have much specific to say about it. I mercifully don't encounter major issues in recruiting. Zealot does the boss's HP minus 1 with an armourslayer double, so that's handy.
The Reunion (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Reunion) (0 resets)
Roy, Wolt, Shanna, Chad, Clarine, Dorothy, Sue, Treck, Lance, Dieck, Lott, Ward. Level 5-7.
Fire Emblem maps with "Reunion" in the title tend to be terrifying. This one isn't so bad... once you know about the dickish reinforcements and come to terms with the fact that yes, bosses are gonna have psycho avoid in this game, even ones wearing 40 pounds of plate mail. Anyway, thanks to looking up the reinforcements I don't encounter too many major difficulties, and am even able to snag some key kills for my new Level 1 characters, Wendy and Lilina, and get all the treasure before Cath can ruin my day. The boss is a bit of a nightmare, a slow plodding affair involving Armourslayer Dieck and rescue-drop healer.
The Blazing Blade (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Blazing_Blade) (3 resets)
Roy, Chad, Clarine, Noah, Ellen, Saul, Rutger, Wendy, Oujay, Lilina. Level 5-8. Three resets.
Lots of figuring out which enemies randomly don't move. This map is dumb; I'm so glad later games show you this information. I lose to the boss once because I don't realize he's super fast and doubles with the Hand Axe, so we retreat to "have Lilina cast magic on him, rescue/drop" while he has his melee weapon equipped and win very slowly.
The Misty Isles (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Misty_Isles) (1 reset)
Roy, Saul, Bors, Wendy, Oujay, Wolt, Dorothy, Sue, Lugh, Alan, Noah, Ward, Shanna. Level 7-8.
Shin and Fir join, both are easy to level immediately which is nice. I only have one healer and need to split my forces to reach the relevant villages; the team of Ostians + Ward and Shanna goes to the south and has a bit of a struggle, but it's the other team that manages to incur a reset when some key misses result in me learning that unmounted archers just plain can't take hits. Boss is a pain (noticing a pattern), but due to low res and the fact that he starts with a melee weapon out (Hand Axe is his backup, he's a berserker with crit so we never want to see it) he can be slowly dealt with by having Lugh attack him, then rescue/drop.
I head to Echidna/Larum's route because it has a lower-level Gonzales, gotta use the lowest-levelled people obviously!
The Resistance Forces (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Resistance_Forces) (1 reset)
Roy, Ellen, Clarine, Lilina, Wendy, Wolt, Shin, Fir, Ward, Lott, Treck, Lance. Level ~8.
The one reset is from forgetting about the ballista despite the game hyping it right as the battle starts. Oops. Anyway otherwise the map is mostly easy after a decent start. There's a berserker who is a bit scary but can be baited with a dodgy sword-user then pelted from range. The boss is a nightmare, a Druid with Nosferatu who I struggle to overcome the draining of, naturally with way too much evade. Lance proves about the only person with the combination of offence (he doubles) and evade to make headway, and I win eventually.
The Hero of the Western Isles (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hero_of_the_Western_Isles) (3 resets)
Roy, Ellen, Saul, Rutger, Dieck, Bors, Barth, Gonzales, Alan, Sue, Dorothy, Chad. Level ~9.
Ugh this map. So for those of you who don't remember, you get Thea and Klein here. The big problem is they come with a bunch of friends and SOMETIMES they (the recruitable PCs, I mean) randomly don't move while their friends do, blocking your path to recruiting them. And if any of their allies die, you miss out on a promo item. You also miss out on a promo item if you fail to save even one village. I miss all three (village with sleep is the one I miss). >:( Anyway, my forces are dividied in three here to save as many villages as possible; Rutger and the archers head east, Dieck and the armours through the middle, and Roy/Alan/Larum/Gonzales go south. Larum helps a lot with letting Roy recruit Klein (who appears along Roy's route), Klein then heads back to help Dieck's crew (which definitely struggles a lot) and recruit Thea who heads that way, pincering them as they try to get through axedudes and archers. A little Alan-enabled rescuing helps get Larum to recruit Echidna, and the boss is like a non-draining version of the previous, which is certainly scary enough but Echidna takes him out no problem. We'll see how much I regret missing the three promotion items.
The True Enemy (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_True_Enemy) (2 resets)
Roy, Wolt, Lilina, Larum, Chad, Saul, Lott, Ward, Geese, Gonzales, Shanna, Thea, Clarine. Level ~9.
Geese, Gonzales, Clarine, and the pegasus knights flail away at the east, mostly trying vainly to kill a single sniper through a wall. Meanwhile Roy's crew heads through the murderhole alley, with Lilina putting in the most work of erasing them, though is squishy of course. Eventually I cut my way through a berserker (Chad and Lilina do the most work) and grab Raigh with Chad. And this is where the map gets hairy. See, Cath shows up in the north, definitely closer to the small crew. I block her exit to the south with Clarine and the pegasus knights, expecting Cath will go back north, but instead she just... sits at the south door. Which increases the time Roy needs to reach her. AND MEANWHILE, reinforcements are coming in from the south! Clarine needs to tank two turns of a berserker steel axe which can OHKO everyone in that group, which does have sub-50 hit on her to be fair, but yikes. (One reset due to it hitting.) As soon as Roy recruits Cath, the team can finally escape through the door she was blocking, with one flier grabbing Roy to get him back to the throne. Because OH YES, there's a 20 turn limit on this fight. Fortunately a rescue chain and Larum get Roy over to the boss lightning fast, to where Lilina has destroyed a much-hyped manakete boss who has mediocre res and is 1 range only, bad combo there. I even get all the treasure!
The Axe of Thunder (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Axe_of_Thunder) (0 resets)
Roy, Larum, Lugh, Cath, Shanna, Thea, Shin, Noah. Level ~10.
Mages are good in this game, continued. This is my first taste of life without healers. I don't really like it, but at least there are a bunch of elixirs in chests in this fight. Cath does a combination of raiding chests and stealing from thieves who raid them first, and ultimately secures most of the prizes, though a red gem does elude me. Noah, Shin, and Lugh are the combat stars. The boss is similar to Chapter 9's, a berserker with a melee default and Hand Axe backup, except his res is actually decent, so Lugh's win against him is very, very, very slow. Slow enough for Cath to grab a chest across the map I had figured I wouldn't have time for.
Oh yeah and Cath is, of course, a pain to level. She has 8 attack! Fortunately she's still easier to level than Sothe was in PoR, because enemy defence is much lower in this game, and she's super-accurate, so I just need to chip squishy targets for her to finish. I'm able to get her some decent exp here, surprisingly.
Rescue Mission (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Rescue_Mission) (1 reset)
Roy, Larum, Ellen, Cath, Alan, Lance, Rutger, Fir, Ward, Oujay, Barth, Wendy, Astohl, Treck. Level ~10.
After a series of maps I have less than nice things to say about, I will praise this one, it's cool! There are several nasty groups of cavaliers, headed by a Paladin with silver and backup up by one cavalier with killer, one with an axereaver, and a couple more randoms. The armour trio passes the Horseslayer around but nobody can stand against this group forever. I dig in on two fronts near the start of the fight, with the myrmidons and Alan/Lance/Roy taking the south while the Ostians, Ward, and Treck take the north. Miredy joins and is a godsend. I initially send her south but then I realise the north group will need her help with a reinforcement, especially since the south ended up with the horseslayer at the end of trading shenanigans. She ferries both the Horseslayer and Ellen across to the north, where a combination of Horseslayer trading, Ward's Halberd, and Larum let me deal with the paladin swarm. Meanwhile, the south faces its own trials in the form of another cavalier swarm while being pincered by a couple wyverns. Fortunately Alan/Lance tank and kill while the myrmidons do their own killing. A Horseslayer wyvern hanging out over the water poses some problems, but eventually I safely lure him to where I can beat him to death too. Finally, there's the boss, who fortunately gets no throne bonuses and thus isn't much of a problem, he's a wyvern so Oujay's wyrmslayer takes him out.
Arcadia (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Arcadia_(chapter)) (3 resets)
Roy, Larum, Cath, Dieck, Dorothy, Shin, Saul, Clarine, Bors, Gonzales, Geese. Level ~11.
Oh god this map. Desert, fog of war, a turn limit, and a duo of camp gay bandits who WILL kick your ass. And me without a flier. Also SOPHIA.
Anyone who says Wendy is as bad as Sophia has clearly never tried to level both. Where Wendy could reasonably survive a hit from most things and had an 80-hit Slim Lance to claim kills, Sophia joins with 2 AS, 1 defence, 15 HP (translation: dies to everything except unpromoted mages, and those have crit on her), along with such low skill/luck that, combined with her most accurate weapon being 70 hit, means she gets displayed hit rates that are around 50 on most things. But of course, I've gotta level her.
A small mercy is that Cecilia joins at the same time which gives me a much-appreciated extra healer (Clarine can only move one square), wyvern slayer, and general chipper of various other scary enemies. Highlights include the wyverns that attack near the start (dealt with by Wyrmslayer Dieck and Dorothy, though it needs a bit of dodge luck), the mercenaries and killing edge hero near the border of the oasis which ends a couple runs (the solution ends up being to get rescue-chain Bors forward who can kinda sorta tank but not well, and hope for some combination of his Killer Lance, Cecilia, and Shin to take the hero out). By this time the gay bandits have closed in and I realize I won't be able to outrun them, so it's a combination of trying to dodge-tank them (getting Dieck to a tree helps, but is imperfect), then blowing them up as hard as possible with Shin/Cecilia/Dorothy tagteam. I need luck to get through them but I do. And at this point I'm running out of time, so I charge Roy and some allies to the east, Shin/Cecilia again offensive stars against a second group of wyverns here. The boss has a Light Brand and way too much avoid, but Cecilia has WTA and decent damage, so she gets the nod. I ultimately make it with one turn to spare.
There are manaketes on this map; I don't fight them. They have crit, huge power, and are scary, but are passive. I'm able to get all the treasure except Silence and Warp, I keep missing high-end staves oh well. Not like I want my staff users to gain heavy exp at this point anyway...
The Infernal Element (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Infernal_Element) (0 resets)
Roy, Larum, Sophia, Lott, Thea, Sue, Chad, Astohl, Wendy, Clarine. Level ~11.
After the previous fight this one's a relative breather, no reinforcements or time limit. There's Bolting but that can be carefully kited (and baited when it's safe to do so). Lots of axedudes everywhere. I deliberately keep Astohl's level low so I'll have him for chapter 16, but Chad can go wild. This map takes way too long because it takes some crazy number of turns before the path to the boss actually opens up (and my attempts to have Thea ferry people fails because the druid with the boss is too scary, plus archer backup). But eventually it does open. That just leaves the boss himself who of course is a Binding Blade boss and thus a pain, Sue is my only person who can reasonably hit him and survive his surprisingly fast magical offence for an old dude.
The Dragon Girl (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dragon_Girl) (1 reset)
Roy, Larum, Lilina, Sophia, Raigh, Cath, Geese, Ward, Shanna, Treck, Ellen, Wolt. Level ~12.
This fight also isn't too bad, though harder than the previous. The reset is due to a valkyrie at the start who doubles a lot of my army and, due to my forgetting about Aircalibur's special property, ends up OHKOing Shanna and causing my reset. Past that, three prepromos join here (Igrene, Perceval, and Garret), and Igrene/Perceval bail me out of a lot of situations. Later in the fight cavaliers swarm like crazy but a combination of the prepromos and axedudes with Halberd (usually keeping Ward on a fort since he's rather fragile) let me cut through them reasonably, along with Treck who can take hits at least. The boss is kinda sad! Worse stats than generic L1 Paladins. Perceval takes off most of his health, and Geese finishes him (so I don't have to use him as quickly again). Decent opportunities to try for Sophia levels here (thank goodness for Larum), though she's still a pain.
Retaking the Capital (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Retaking_the_Capital) (2 resets)
C16. Roy, Sophia, Cath, Astohl, Bors, Barth, Wendy, Oujay, Noah, Fir, Dorothy, Saul, Fae. Level 12-13.
THIS MAP. Somehow the next one is worse.
Okay, so, first off, I'm glad I have two thieves. Astohl and the other Ostians go through the central entrance, with Astohl stealing a red gem from a thief. This group has no healer and burns through their healing kinda quickly, especially when a bishop near Narcian with Purge decides to feast on them. In a pinch, Saul can toss Physic. Meanwhile, the rest of the group heads up the eastern entrance, needing a couple tries to dispatch a surprisingly nasty killing edge merc backed up by a Bolting mage. Roy recruits Hugh but haggles him down to -3 stats because I need money, and I'm willing to deal with a scrub anima mage because at least they have a 95-hit weapon.
Fae makes her debut here, she proves useful because of her high res and ability to, after a few levels, instantly slay the two manaketes on this map (Cath steals a red gem from the second late in the map, after raiding the eastern chests). Sophia, meanwhile, finally starts to feel... not useful, but usable with her ranged damage (still inaccurate though) and ability to survive hits from enemies with non-overwhelming offence, and even ORKO armours reliably! Hooray! I'm able to plow exp into her to finally get her off the team for a while after this fight.
Next up is dealing with Douglas; Noah gets tapped to tank dodge-him, using an Elixir when he's hit once. Eventually he is hit a second time, but by this time he's bought enough time and can just flee toward the rest of the group. Fleeing back away from the group out the entrance isn't an option, because another Bolting mage has shown up there...
The Ostians get stuck at the door because there's a bunch of powerful enemies, including several mages, backed up by a Physic-user. Dorothy and Javelin users switch off damaging enemies through the door, periodically backed up by Physic or burning through their healing items. Reinforcements slow this further. Eventually the rest of the crew shows up and finally I'm able to safely open the door and take out the other enemies. This finally frees Astohl up to raid the west treasure room, after some help from Fae to kill off the snipers guarding it.
Final notes: Cath steals the Blue Gem and Delphi Shield from Narcian, and Miredy ferries all three gems, Hugh's Member Card, and the Silver Card to the secret shop. A few turns of breaking the wall later (during which I discover Zeiss will attack his sister through the wall), she recruits Zeiss and I stop by the shop and buy all the promotion items I can buy. After selling the gems I have over 45000, enough for nine with the silver card. I'll need more, but this should hold me until the next secret shop, I hope.
Narcian is tricky with his draining, but he gets no throne bonuses, and Wyrmslayer Oujay and Fae can both fight him without too much issue.
The Pinnacle of Light (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Pinnacle_of_Light) (4 resets)
Roy, Astohl, Bors, Barth, Alan, Noah, Shanna, Lott, Zeiss, Fae. Level ~13.
Hardest map so far. This is NOT a map you don't want to have a healer for.
So the map features arrows of light, which attack vertical lines doing 10 damage to anyone on them. Only certain lines can have arrows on them, which ones is a guide-dangit thing. Fortunately I use a guide. The arrows also appear non-random, as they're the same every time, and mercifully they don't strike on the initial stairwells you have to go up the first few turns.
Aside from that, the first problem is a Bolting sage who OHKOs by Shanna and isn't too far from it on anyone else so the early turns are very tricky as I try to take any damage on the player phase so I can rescue the person damaged if they're hit (at least Mr. Bolting doesn't double). Inevitably he scores some hits which burns some elixirs. On the winning run I get Fae to take the first two by charging her up the stairs quickly (after having learned the weird quirk that the mercenaries near the start don't move). Fae taking boltings proves a theme; there are two MORE Bolting mages, and Fae can bait them out from the second floor plaza. Yes this takes ten turns. Yes the rest of this fight is so long that she can.
Meanwhile, there are paladins with backup on each side, I move to take both out. The group with Douglas, Noah, Lott, Shanna, and Zeiss (with Delphi Shield) actually doesn't have too much trouble, the group with Alan, Roy, and the armours does, because nobody can stand against the paladin here long. Afterwards I slowly proceed around, baiting out enemies where I can and avoiding possible arrow paths to minimize the damage I take. Astohl steals a couple vulneraries on his route, which helps. Next up is a couple bishops with Purge, both mobile. I try to bait them forward to hit more vulnerable targets and then have my cavaliers rush in and kill them, but it's a bit tempremental as their AI feels a bit defensive, often sticking with slightly suboptimum targets if they stay further back. Getting damaged here sucks, but I do get both bishops down.
Finally, the worst part: the boss has Berserk. With his massive 20 magic, his hit rate with it is 100% on anyone with less than 8 res, which is almost everyone aside from Fae (whom he won't target with it). With no healer, I can't cure this status. I initially plan to get Douglas berserked and send him on a rampage through the enemies, but sadly the central Sage near the boss starts moving and goes to kill him, which I wasn't counting on. So much for that. Instead, I deliberately get my lower-offence characters berserked (Shanna, Roy, and later Barth) after taking some of their scarier weapons, and just tank their offence for a few turns. In Barth's case, since it's the last shot, I'm able to have Fae distract Barth for a few turns while the other slip through.
Finally, the last push. As soon as the boss uses his last berserk, all the remaining enemies, previously immobile, aggro. Roy's group, with the armours and Alan, actually has no trouble despite struggling with the paladin earlier, because they still have healing, while Douglas's group has run out, and has to run from the sniper, mage, and silver lance armour which is actually quite a nasty combination for everyone. Eventually, I'm able to kill isolate the mage a bit, allowing an injured Douglas to tank and counter the armour while I surround the sniper; Douglas does have to take a chance that an arrow might fall and finish him but fortunately this doens't happen. Meanwhile, the boss is a nightmare with his stupid high evade and high magical damage to my low-res team, but Fae and her 30+ res to the rescue again. She's down to five weapon uses after two maps!
I'm not looking forward to my next healer-less map. Hopefully there won't be any status staves next time it happens. (Narrator: There would be.)
At this point, we hit the routesplit. I end up on Sacae route, predictably, since it's based on total exp gained by the nomads vs the pegasus knights, and Shin starts at a lower level than Thea, so the nomads gain more exp if all are at about the same level.
The Bishop's Teachings (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bishop%27s_Teachings) (0 resets)
Roy, Astohl, Bors, Barth, Wendy, Larum, Lance, Rutger, Gonzales, Wolt, Dorothy, Ellen, Lugh, Zeiss. Level ~14.
Fog is back, I still hate it. The toughest part of this map is entirely optional, which is going along the north route through the forest, in a (vain) attempt to reach the northeast village with its Eclipse tome. There's a bunch of mages here who hit pretty hard, including a Bolting sage who fortunately misses a lot against my forested party. Rutger is the star here, since he can actually hit things, with Lugh being runner up, though nobody can take many hits if evade fails. Nomads later show up in this area, and Zeiss with the Delphi Shield is a champ against them because they have crit but low power, and love to attack fliers, so he can counter 'em with a javelin while Dorothy eventually gets to the ballista so she can finish them off from safety.
Meanwhile, the southern route is all about the TRIANGLE ATTACK! Yes, I had forgotten about this until now, but all three armours can surround an enemy and access 100 hit + 100 crit attacks, which is just great given the poor accuracy of lances. OHKO almost anything that they can surround, pretty great for Nomad Troopers in particular.
The boss is a paladin on a gate with silver + javelin. Fortunately, Lugh is able to withstand a counter from a javelin, and after he gains a point of speed from the first couple encounters, can even double! Larum and Ellen take care of the rest. I try to give the kill to someone less useful but no dice.
The Laws of Sacae (https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Laws_of_Sacae) (3 resets)
Roy, Astohl, Cath, Clarine, Lance, Treck, Wolt, Shin, Lilina, Raigh, Dieck, Lott, Shanna, Thea, Zeiss. Level ~15.
Nomads, as far as the eye can see. As mentioned earlier, they run shortbows, with low power but some crit. Troopers are similar, with better stats (doubling many slower PCs). There are a lot of them, and also some sworddudes, and it's very easy for them to overwhelm me. Few PCs can survive a crit and another attacker; Roy and Clarine can't be critted but are 2RKOed. The best bets are Shin (evasive with competent defence, especially on a forest, though can be crit), Treck (a bit tankier than Shin, but way less adept at counteirng) and my new hero Zeiss, who almost nulls them and can retaliate with the javelin.
Also on this map are some five elixirs and I resolve to steal them all because man I need all the healing I can get knowing that there will likely be more healerless maps. First turn, I bait out the sword users (the nearest nomad is immobile, very weird) with Shanna, then steal from one of them and kill both, using rescue to retreat as the nomads arrive. From there on is a hectic few turns of healing when necessary (Shin grabs the elixirs from the thief and camps out on a forest), cursing the Lancereaver and Killing Edge myrms, and trying to hold a line along the river around the starting area, which is constantly shifting because the nomad troopers CAN move over water, at the cost of most of their movement. It takes several tries just to survive the first few turns, as I learn things like "don't attack anyone too far from the starting point or the Druid with Physic will wake up and become an extremely annoying healer". Also there is so, so much rescuing.
Once that's done the rest of the fight isn't so bad, but is very, very slow. Periodically some wyverns fly in from the northeast; they tend to die to Wolt's Brave Bow, Raigh, Shin, etc. Lilina is basically the number one at killing power. Nomad reinforcements come in in various places, but never in the overwhelming numbers from the start. Upon approaching the boss (not sure on the trigger), reinforcements start coming from random huts in a ring around him, but having as many people as possible camp on them helps (and keeping the non-Zeiss fliers away from any unexposed huts). Definitely some places where I need to brave some ~8% fatal crits but not too many.
The boss is evasive of course, and murders everyone with his brave bow and brave sword. He starts with the bow out, so I fight him at melee and rescue the attacker, repeat. Lilina does most of the work.
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FF7R has two sides to the game: one is a well crafted remake with plenty of nods to the old game (I cannot overstate how great the enemy design is in the game) and the other......NOMURAAAAAAAAAAA. You'll know the NOMURAAAAAAA parts as soon as you see them. Some of it is not as bad as it was cringy. As far as an ARPG is concered, it's SquareEnix best one yet. It's not a button masher and it's not a facestomp easy time on Normal either. In fact, as I was playing this, I was also play Persona 5 Royal. On the hardest setting, Persona 5 Royal was still an easier game than Final Fantasy 7 Remake on Normal. FF7R has a NG+ Hard mode that gives bosses new AI and attacks, and you cannot use items or recover MP at benches. It's as hard as it sound. That means, yes, Final Fantasy is now harder than Shin Megami Tensei.
Persona 5 Royal is pretty much the same as the original version, with new content being frontloaded and backloaded in the first/last 5 hours of the game. Every single gameplay addition was designed to make the game easier while nothing introduced makes the game harder. Bosses were redesigned to encourage the usage of Baton Passes, which in the end makes fights easier since you can utilize strategy rather than brute force with levels, buffs, and broken personas. The boat palace boss is the worst because in the end it becomes a 1v1 duel where you can be stuck in a heal lock until you dodge one of his attacks. The new girl is cute but irrelevant for 90% of a 100 hour game and the guidance councilor I can't get his voice out of my head because HE IS FERDINAND VON AEGIR.
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100%-ed Atelier Meruru. For the first time ever, completed some of the grindier in-game accomplishments that give development points. And made it in time to build all the facilities and have it show up in the last in-game newsletter. Final level was about 61 for Meruru with the rest around there and the highest leveled outlier at 67. As an added bonus I believe I have a full Trait listing in my Extras library save for maybe one.
300 battles is a lot. I intentionally fought more than I usually do throughout the game and still ended up grinding out about 30 or so. I'd already defeated the hardest optional bosses so raising the battle count felt like unrewarding busywork. Never finished the cooking license before. Even consciously using food items in fights over just using Elixirs for all my healing needs, still didn't make it to 20 uses by the time all the optional fights were done. Fortunately, i had enough made that I could stand outside town, remove any equip that boosted HP and LP, put it back on, use food. Repeat until I reach 20 uses and no game time consumed.
Keina and Mimi worked out OK for the Eternity Goddess. Between Mimi and strong Meteors and Peacemakers, had enough offense to bring it down in a timely manner. Elixir that auto-activates if Meruru is below 50% HP was enough to stay in control of the fight. Boss dealt out a few KOs, one of which giave it back 3000 HP because of a passive that activates when it has a turn below a certain HP threshold. Keina has MT status curing if for some reason, the boss' Eternal Light aka status hell (on an unlimited time card) or some other attack didn't trigger an Elixir when her turn comes up. Otherwise she's buffing or curing to free up Meruru turns to launch Lv3 item offense. My auto-Elixirs also restore MP so generally had enough when turns come up.
I did fight the Masked G during the last months after starting building the last facilities. Left the auto-Elixirs in the container. He dropped the team even faster than the last time I tried to take him on without cheese tactics; I saw one turn between all three characters.
The scene where Meruru's father strongly objects to her becoming an alchemist happens in the first hour of the game unless the player is really slow. The scene where he discloses his reasons occurs in the last two months of a NG+ and has an additional prerequisite I won't reveal. I'd guessed the why beforehand (and the game's hints are quite strong before that point) but it was still a nice bit of closure for what little plot the game has. Also contributes a bit of worldbuilding that isn't on the Atelier wiki.
And since the PS3 is currently plugged in, dug out...
Atelier Ayesha - Clear Game conquest
My old save file had been sitting near the end of year 2 for months (real life time) as I was indecisive about what I wanted to do. Decided on enough activity to get into year 3 when I can finally start triggering some ending quests. Beat the Tank optional hunt, which I'd never done before. Shielding Ayesha from the MT nuke was my big strategy change that was enough to push my team to victory. I almost never used the Defend command before. It puts people in the same quadrant, which I tend to avoid doing because of area attacks and I usually spend my assist meter on offense. But since Ayesha going down usually leads to defeat, chose to risk the disadvantages.
21 game days later, have knocked off a bunch off ending flags and... I'm back to having next to nothing to do for 11 game months. Sigh. Am likely to start experimenting with creating different whetstones and dyes just because I've already made everything else at least once.
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Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark - I did a replay, this time with a Three Houses gurlz themed team.
Edelgard - Reaver / Templar. Attack Expert- Defense Expert- Counterattack. She was the resident party tank and attack buffer, and on turn 3 was able to get off a massive Holy attack via Templar. I gave her high mobility to get around the back of enemies. Generally a pretty good build, although not too creative or inspiring. Axe bitch, of course.
Dorothea - Went for Druid / Sorceror to capture her red mage nature combined with her ranged attacking. Economy / Double Cast / Mind Expert / Mana Font Countermagic. Sorcerer skillset + Doublecast status healing / regular healing / Bleed. She was really good, especially as the MP healing item got better over time. Probably the overall MVP due to utility and general high offense to multiple targets.
Petra - Assassin / Scoundrel - Evasion Up - Attack Up - Know Weakness - Dual Wield - Counterattack Most of the time she Dual Wielded Main Gauches and used some other equipment to get up to 50% evasion. Evasion is really good in Fell Seal because it actually evades pretty much everything except 100% attacks, which is really not many things in this game. late in the game she got teleport, which was amazing for backstabbing.
Bernadetta - Peddler / Ranger. Evasion Up. Bloodlust (lol, just fits plotwise). Countershot. She was almost pure utility. Don’t Move + Patented Usage + Sales Pitch = general pain in the ass. Turn 1 she always used Mana Stone on Dorothea. Late in the game she got teleport, which she used to tactically retreat from enemies.
Mercedes - Princess / Alchemystic with some Wizard and Mender mixed in earlier. Passive: Blessed One (her unique ability in 3H!), 15 MP at the start of the fight. Absorb MP. She started using Mass Haste + Mass Insight (MIND up) turn 1 and then just healing and Quicken after that. Great, useful, rarely took an offensive action.
Lysithea - Fellblade / Wizard. Malice. Mana Font. Evade Magic. Killing power + status whore, especially Sleep. Gave her very high Move for general mobility and Mana Font.
The replay went pretty well; I think I only game over’d once or twice. I did the Deep Dungeon equivalent after beating the final boss without too much difficulty, although a couple of the maps are pretty tough.
Great fun. I think I will try a harder difficulty next.
Ys VIII - I decided to start this up on a whim. The game is like… Suikoden (castle functionality and collecting people), Gilligan’s Island (shipwrecked but people seem cheerful anyway), FF7’s Fort Condor, a DMC/Souls combat system, Xenoblade-style world exploring, and massive leaning on extreme anime tropes for its characters. Laxia in particular is pretty damn tropey and it’s kinda annoying honestly. The fact that you can switch between PCs and it feels more RPG like than most of these action games is pretty sweet though.
It’s a pretty strange game and one I am not 100% sure how I feel about. I started on Normal but decided to beef up the difficulty after finding the first couple of hours too easy. I have been enjoying the game on Hard, though.
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MegaMan 11
I have played so much 20XX that the physics being different are fucking me up. So many deaths to reflexively trying to dash jump but oops there is no dash. The Gear system is actually pretty sweet and really provides the kind of oomph that MM was missing, though. Despite not clearing a single stage yet(trying to start with Block Man since...it feels the game was basically telling you to do that with the opening. Is there a better one?) I'm having more fun with this than I did with MM9 or 10. Or really any MM since 2, 3 and 5 back in The Day(or MHX Vile Mode and both ZX games, but that's a bit of a different critter).
Darkest Dungeon
Beat 3 bosses so far, and only had 3 character deaths. Only one of those to a boss, even. Lost one of my Vestals(ouch), my Occultist(also ouch) and one of my Plague Doctors(I have 2 more and they're better anyway). Added some community mods for extra classes but haven't really tried them out yet. Used the Cook once, but I don't really...get what she does? She's really fiddly.
Highwayman, Grave Robber, Vestal and Plague Doc are my fave classes so far, though I can't use them all at once since a tank is KINDA needed. Crusader makes the best tank imo, with Bulwark of Faith being a strong defense move and giving +24 light to help make your torches last longer. I try to run high light as much as possible, fuck the bonus rewards I don't want to get surprised and lose like 2 rounds trying to get everyone back in position.
Honestly Surprise Attacks are the thing I hate most about this game. When I surprise enemies it doesn't mess up their formation, while when enemies surprise me it does mess up mine, putting my frontliners in the back and vice versa. With what moves you can use dependant on where you are, I just really dislike that. It's worse than FE's Ninja Reinforcements imo. Especially because I have gotten surprised even at high light! I did recently find a trinket that gives -20% surprised chance, which I slap on my lowest speed unit in every venture now. But I dislike having to do equip juggling like that in general.
Still, I'm having a lot of fun. It's too bad I let the aesthetics of the game cause me to sleep on it for so long, though I still don't really dig them. The character quips are amusing though, and the feeling of leveling up my good units is Very Good. I am going to be DEVISTATED when my best Vestal/Highwayman/Plague Doc/Crusader die, though. Also fielding that team made "The Usual Suspects" pop up last time I left with them(for the most recent boss, the wacky prophet dude who hides behind benches). That was amusing, I wasn't expecting the game to track that.
I'll do some full on class thoughts later when I've used them all a bit more. Also wondering if the DLC classes are fun enough to justify picking that up. Shieldbreaker certainly looks great, though Musketeer being basically the exact same as Arbalest is lame.
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Your milage may vary, but I personally thought Block Man was quite a nasty boss (and not an easy stage, either). I feel like the one I personally found easiest was Tundra Man, who gives a good weapon to boot.
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Ah. Well, I finally got him! And yeah, naaaaaasty as a boss. Had to use 2 E Tanks since I could not figure out how to dodge form 2's attacks.
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FF7RE - I got my Wall Market and I am satisfied. The gameplay actually being good is a nice surprise. Though, I must say a couple of boss fight is a bit of drag. As in some boss phases are too short while some are too long, and it kinda feels uncomfortable as a whole.
The newly added plot though... I guess this is what happens when Kitase goes all out with his desire to alter the story with Nomura doing it along side him instead of stopping him. I am having this feeling that Kitase is going to unload everything he wanted to change but couldn't during the recompilation project, thanks to this remake is actually a sequel thus he no longer has to fear about the backlashes of retconning.
SD3 Trails of Mana - The game kept all the corny designs back in the old days, including those random explosions. I highly approve of this. The current SD team really loves to tell its audience that their game is old school and they have no intention to modernize it beyond superficial level.
Though, they really could include more Heores of Mana tie ins. Anise being just a super boss is somewhat disappointing. I mean, that's it? For everything she did in HoM, that's it?
Also, the difficulty drop in the end game is a bit jarring. Stupid ally AI is the only thing that's maintaining the difficulty. Bosses' big move being interruptible end up being a really bad design.
Persona 5 Scramble - Resume to do the after game and the highest difficulty. I really like this game, more so then the main game.
Doesn't have to do any co-op actually made the game's pacing a lot better. Able to go in and out of the dungeons with no restriction is even better! Really, Persona main games after 3 has this homework like tedium due to all the time schedules, but Scramble took it all out and everything became twice as fun.
The dungeons are bigger this time and some reasonably challenging platforming missions. Battle is even more fast paced and the grinding is easy. And still feel like a Megaten despite adopting a musou like gameplay. The no buff/debuff no life gets even more serious here. Since the musou like gameplay means higher frequency of enemy offense, but they are still equally damaging megaten style.
Also, due to the musou style, aka huge amount of grunts, it makes status ailment extremely powerful. Especially brainwash, and you we get to see army og enemy grunts killing one another. While sleep and fear can easily remove any difficulty from Futaba Defense missions.
The aesthetic also got a big improvement in both dungeon design at the music. Especially the Okinawa Jail and Osaka Jail that are absolutely superb. More evident Persona needs less of Meguro. All the new composers out performed him. Last Surprise, that bored me completely in P5 also got arranged into something amazing in Scramble.
Really, like Sakuraba needs to be banned of his bad thing, Meguro really needs to be forbid from composing in the Perona style ever again. Serious, when can Meguro do another DDS or Strange Journey style soundtrack?
The antagonists this time got a different theme this time. Instead of plain evil like P5, antagonists in Scramble are victims turned predators, and some of them well intended extremists. With 4 of them being relatable to individual protagonists on our side. And instead of needing help to fix their personal problems, they become the ones who try to help the antagonists to come out of their trauma. Especially so in the case of Haru and Makoto.
As for the new characters... Sophia is not much. Another AI leans human heart 101 that has been done too many times.
Zenkichi on the other hand is a combination of powerless single father scenario with an adult defeated by corrupted institution scenario. With his problem ultimately boils down that he misinterpreted his daughter's expectations of him. Thus leading me to have some bad taste with him getting Persona powers to bail it out of his difficulties. I'd rather see him confront his problems without relying super powers. But other than that, he is a pretty likable character.
Though, I must ask again. Where is Mitsuru and her Shadow Walker?
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Brig demo- completed this. It was quite good; gameplay changes are a lot of small changes. It's comparable as to the jump between regular Brig and GE; though that is pending me playing more of the demo and seeing things in action. The classes are the same, though it looks like the country leaders have all been reworked.
The transparency is nice, the combat's still fun and the free for all mode I am already looking forward to. Will definitely get.
One change I want to single out- you can send knights to train as a quest and get them some EXP. Not only that, the monsters you send with them get the EXP too. That is extremely useful.
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More FE6 notes in which I ramble far too much. The playthrough is done!
Battle in Bulgar (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap19A.htm) (7 resets)
Roy, Astohl, Cath, Raigh, Shanna, Ward, Geese, Gonzales, Oujay, Bors, Barth, Miredy, Noah, Fir, Larum. Level ~16.
No healer again, ack. Good thing I stole those elixirs. (I steal one more from the frontmost Nomad Trooper on this map, too.)
The initial part of the map isn't too bad; there are some nomads (including a trooper), but I know how to fight 'em by now; Miredy with the Delphi Shield takes out the ones in the west and a combined force led by Oujay's offence takes out the rest; the armours and Noah can also tank them reasonably. A bunch of wyverns show up during this; Gonzales hops on a forest to handle the ones in the west, and a combination of axemen, Wyrmslayer, and Raigh deals with the ones in the east. On turn 8 a bunch more nomads and wyverns reinforce, and being ready for this is key, but similar tactics apply. Also during this, I bait out the Sleep Staff user (mobile) from inside the city, pulling him southward. I try to get him to target Raigh who he's got unreliable accuracy on, and Geese ends up as an unrestorable victim as well.
The trickiest part of the fight comes on turn 12 onwards where the main door opens and a bunch of sword-users (including swordmasters with their crit), nomads, and mages stream out. I kite and retreat during this, but more nomads and wyverns show up as reinforcements during this process, which complicates matters! Eventually, the winning strategy proves to be to, after taking out the frontmost waves from the city (the former sleep staff sage with Raigh, a few myrms with my lance-users), to annihilate all the mages in the group with Bors and Barth and one other unit (whom I can rescue away using Noah or Shanna). Then, Bors and Barth can tank a nearly endless number of nomads and swordmasters. Miredy does pretty well too, but her defence isn't as good so the swordmasters are still quite scary to her. One of the myrms has a lancereaver and this is a pain, and a later one comes out from the city with an armourslayer, but by the time he can be a problem I've killed enough of the key dangerous units (the nomad trooper and both swordmasters) that other team members can safely swoop in. Bors and Barth hit Level 20!
Whew! Once that's done the inside of the city if routine and easy... until the boss. A 23-speed swordmaster with FE6 boss evade bonuses. *cries* Fortunately, Larum brought in some spare promotion items, and I promote Barth. Who can now null the boss's damage at melee range, and eventually takes him down with a Slim Lance (for maximum hit). Yes.
Reached Level 20: Barth (promoted), Bors, Zeiss
The Silver Wolf (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap20A.htm) (5 resets)
Roy, Cath, Sophia, Hugh, Fae, Alan, Dieck, Dorothy, Saul, Clarine, Ellen, Wendy, Thea. Level 16-17.
Even more than Laws of Sacae, the hardest part of this fight is the very start. Bolting mages. Mobile Bolting mages. Mobile Bolting mages on a fog map. Mobile Bolting mages on a fog map who are hidden in an unreachable courtyard so they're almost impossible to kill even once you figure out where they are. whyyyyy.
Okay so. There's a bunch of axe users who charge in immediately. Sword-users can bait them out of course, but uh Bolting combines with almost anything else to 2HKO my sword-users. The key, I realize, is that the two centremost squares that are just inside your starting room can be used to bait the axedudes while keeping just outside of turn 1 Bolting range (not that you can reasonably know this without trial and error or a detailed enemy map). I place two other bait units beside them who DO draw the Bolting mages forward. After drawing forward the axe-users and killing some with Killing Edges, I then charge forward on the next turn to wipe the remaining axe-users out.
Now, here's the key part. The Bolting mages 2HKO almost anyone. So how do you deal with that? Well, if you have a bait unit exactly 10 squares from their special snowflake hidden courtyard, the first bolting mage will go for your bait unit, and the second Bolting mage won't be able to get within 10 squares to follow up. Some trial and error teaches me that they'll go for Hugh (doing his max HP minus 1) as the bait unit, so he assumes that position. Cath can't advance yet, since she's OHKOed.
Oh yeah and during all this there's a Berserk Staff user from a DIFFERENT hidden courtyard, because of course there is. Fortunately I have Restore this time. Also for some reason he usually goes for Niime anyway, whom he usually misses.
I can, it turns out, kill the Bolting mages, because on turn 3 Dayan shows up to be recruited by Roy. I can trade him a Longbow and Dayan then 2RKOs the Bolting mage, who he can just reach. Of course there are OTHER unreachable mages who will Physic him! Of course. But I eventually learn that Niime can (with some luck) hit the Bolting sage with ECLIPSE (10-hit HP-1, actual hit goes a bit over 50 due to Niime's high skill against the mage's bad evade, plus WTA). Followup with Longbow, profit.
I have little to say about the rest of the map. There are some ballistas to worry about (on an indoor map, WTF) but since Bolting is gone by this point and they don't OHKO Cath or my one flier (who has the Delphi Shield of course) it's not a big deal; I even bait one of them away from his ballista. I grab all the treasure and the boss's Red Gem. Fae breaks her weapon on this map (reaching Level 19), including chipping down the boss for Alan to finish.
Reached Level 20: Alan, Dieck
Became unable to gain exp: Fae (Level 19, no weapon remaining)
The Bow of the Winds (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap20Ax.htm) (4 resets)
Roy, Cath, Chad, Astohl, Clarine, Rutger, Fir, Noah, Lance, Wolt, Lott, Thea, Sophia, Larum. Level ~17.
Another map where the worst part by far is the start. The game decides that some artificial challenge is in order, and what better way to do that than by separating your forces into three separate groups despite there being no plot justification for it? Don't do this, games.
One group in the northwest gets bumrushed by Nomads. For this job I tap Noah, Fir, and Larum; Noah can somewhat (but not indefinitely) tank Nomads at a bridge chokepoint and respond with a javelin, Fir can double them with her Wo Dao, and Larum adds to my offence when necessary. I'm even able to bait some nomads to cross the river and into Fir's waiting arms. While tricky this is not the problem.
The east contains the problems. There are three wyverns which may fly north or south, I eventually bait them to mostly flying north (where Wyrmslayer Rutger waits), except for one who charges with its javelin towards Wolt in the south. A wyvern lord near the centre and a nomad trooper in the south both head towards Wolt's group as well; Wolt and Lott combine to take the wyvern lord, but I have to be careful (and missing is uh bad). Then I run from the nomad. Into the range of berserk.
Oh yeah, did I mention that? There's a Druid mini-boss in the east with Berserk. So I have to kite that, as my only healer is Clarine, who is in the northeast (I do try to have Sophia, also in the northeast to bait out one use turn 1). But as I try to escape the Nomad, that's not an option, and Lott gets berserked. This proves surprisingly harmless since he ineffectively flails at Astohl. Killing the Nomad Trooper is the tricky part but I'm able to rejoin with the northern group and do it. I'm never able to safely Restore Lott, but it doesn't really matter in the end. Finally, the east group is able to join up with the Noah/Fir group in the west, where Thea is able to bait the sleep staff from a second druid mini-boss from a spot on the river due north of him and other units are able to safely bait over more Nomads.
The bosses? There are six, all with identical portraits (both to each other and to the one previous Sacaen boss in Chapter 18) because they're all Sacaen I guess? Kinda racist there FE6. Anyway three of them are Nomad Troopers who start with a bow out; I fight them at melee and rescue so they don't switch to their sword which has crit. They have hella evade but Rutger has loads of hit and is able to eventually bring him down. I seize with Roy at the start of the turn which brings out some reinforcements, I'm able to kill them all though. The second boss is a Druid; though they hit hard they have no crit and much less speed/avoid so are actually a fair bit easier. The second gate I seize is the one which ends the fight, thank you glorious RNG.
Reached Level 20: Clarine (promoted), Fir (promoted), Noah, Rutger
The Binding Blade (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap21.htm)
Roy, Astohl, Oujay, Wendy, Gonzales, Geese, Lott, Ward, Ellen, Saul, Dorothy, Sue, Shin, Shanna, Thea, Treck, Lugh, Hugh. Level 18-19.
Murdock's map! This map has a reputation of being pretty tough, and with good reason. But Murdock doesn't want you to know this one trick that will win it for you!
Actually I'm pretty lucky and get a fairly strong team for this map: two mages who can use Aircalibur (well Hugh unlocks it midfight but ehhh), three archers, and four axe-users. These aren't always positives, but with the enemy makeup here, it is. The map overwhelmingly consists of wyverns; I fight over 60 of 'em. As well as a dozen lance-using paladins. And not one of them uses an axereaver.
To the east, I send Shin, Sue, and Lugh, who between them can kill wyverns pretty good. Unshockingly they promote after not too much time. Treck, Lott, Ward, and the pegasus knights go with them, but they're much less effective. Nobody here can tank wyverns for that long (Treck comes closest), but the sheer offensive blitzing is good enough.
To the south, I send various other PCs. The only thing you really need to know is this. Gonzales can climb on peaks, which give +40 avoid. He gets a further +10 from WTA on lances, which basically everyone has. And then... hardly anything can hit him. So his job is to intercept almost any enemies. He doesn't reliably hit but he can distract like a champ. I let a few deliberately sneak past by baiting them with other units, but this is just so Gonzales doesn't get all the exp. He still gets a crapton, promoting and then reaching Level _10_ by the time the map ends. Otherwise, Dorothy snags some kills in this group, being an archer, as does Oujay, being generally good, and Wendy is decent enough at baiting and surviving some enemies who get past.
That's really the meat of the fight, although it takes a while, especially Gonzales's group. And there's a 30 turn limit to worry about for this fight to unlock the side-chapter, and it definitely matters! Approaching the Shrine of Seals itself is relatively tricky; there are two tough manaketes (Oujay's Wyrmslayer does good, his high luck nulls their crit, Lugh helps) and big swarms of wyverns appear (8 a turn 3 turns in a row, plus another 5 led by Gale, who has a Spear) at this point, but again the same basic groups (including a now promoted Geese, who can do similar things to Gonzales) do their things, with Hugh promoting and also snagging some high-offence wyvern-killing of his own.
Meanwhile, Oujay, Lugh, Astohl, and Roy lead a charge around the far side of the Shrine, away from the wyverns, trying to reach the boss before the time limit. The shrine includes a sage with Bolting, so Lugh provides healing. Astohl also needs to steal the Knight Crest from Murdock (after Sue arrives to rescue him safely). Promoted Oujay can fight Murdock very safely with his Armourslayer, Murdock having a Tomahawk means the Armourslayer claims WTA, and Oujay's hit against him is actually... ~70! Pretty sure that's the highest hit I've seen against a boss so far. Roy seizes on turn 29.
Also in this map, I buy all the remaining promotion items I'll need, after having sold a bunch of superfluous stuff (obviously things like stat boosters and gems, but also higher-value items like blades, some reavers, the overkill-healing Recover staves, etc.) There are still two more I have yet to get, which are stolen from Zephiel and Brunnya.
This is the first map where I know there are several PCs I will never use again due to hitting decently high (like uh 3+) promoted levels. As it turns out I never end up using Barth again either, though.
Reached Level 20: Astohl, Dorothy, Geese, Gonzales, Hugh, Lugh, Oujay, Shanna, Shin, Sue. All promote except Astohl.
The Silencing Darkness (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap21x.htm) (4 resets)
Roy, Wendy, Lott, Ward, Thea, Wolt, Ellen, Lilina, Raigh, Larum. Level ~19.
I'm kinda embarrassed at the reset count here because this map is really not that hard. But it has darkness and I make multiple stupid mistakes.
The start is probably the hardest, as you're rushed by a hero, sniper, and two myrmidons from each side, some of whom have special weapons. After some experiments I decide the best thing to do is charge everyone to the left to take out the first group (which includes a brave sword hero who can puree most of my army and has good speed/evade, Lilina + Larum is a great combo against him though), then meet the group from the right as they come to me. After that I stay together as a group and move slowly around the map. Lilina and Raigh both promote quickly which gives me two more healers, which is nice.
A lot of enemies don't move, which makes the map mostly simpler than it probably should be. There are also a bunch of traps which either do 10 damage or, in the case of spikes, 10-YourDefence damage, which is largely laughable, except the one time I forget about them and the tiny bit they do makes the difference in killing me. >_<
There is treasure which randomly contains either elixirs or manaketes. I open four of the six chests total, one on the very final turn after killing the boss so I don't have to kill the manakete that pops out. Manaketes are kinda badass but I do have two mages which goes a long way. Lilina is definitely MVP in this fight.
The boss has Nosferatu, always a pain. Wendy with her Lilina support can dodge, double, and do decent damage, though it takes some luck with him missing of course. I deliberately hold Larum back a bit so she doesn't reach Level 20 and I can use her next map.
Reached Level 20: Everyone except Larum, i.e. Roy, Ellen, Lilina, Lott, Raigh, Thea, Ward, Wendy, Wolt. All except Lott promote, because I don't have the final Hero Crest yet... I'll get that next map.
The Neverending Dream (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap22.htm) (2 resets)
Roy, Chad, Cath, Dieck, Rutger, Shanna, Miredy, Zeiss, Lance, Noah, Treck, Sophia, Saul, Larum. Level ~20.
Most of the characters picked for this map are either Level 20 or Level 1 promoted with 0 exp (I have a lot of them, I use dicerolls to choose which ones get to join in). Within a few turns everyone is promoted except the thieves, Larum, Lott, and Saul. I decide to use my second-to-last Guiding Ring on Sophia rather than Saul because I really want a healer on each side. Sophia goes with the smaller group in the west, which includes Chad, Noah, Treck, Sue, and Rutger. They kite the Berserk Staff from the central Druid on turns 1-3 (no Restore on this side), then head up towards the treasure and the western switch.
Meanwhile, in the east, Miredy and Zeiss are fearsome, Saul can heal (including Berserk on the first three turns, then Sleep from a bishop reinforcement in the north later), Roy/Lance/Dieck/Shanna are all solid too. Miredy and Zeiss use swords to kill the Brave Axe Hero guarding the east switch. I don't really have any problems here. Cath grabs the treasure and then the whole group starts heading towards Zephiel's throne room.
One of the more frustrating sections of the map comes when Noah, Treck, and Sophia need to kill the Brave Sword Hero. Shouldn't be too bad, except a reinforcement Bishop shows up who can Physic him, and is so far away from any of my units at the time I decide not to hunt him down. So I have to abuse the fact that Physic isn't used until the hero falls below half health then get some luck actually hitting him, since he's pretty dodgy. With that done, I open the throne room on turn 26.
The throne room is by far the hardest part of the map. I'd mostly rolled it until now but things are serious. The second enemy phase after it's opened sees a bunch of ninja reinforcements from inside the room. The solution is to bait the heroes out the turn I open the door, finish them off on player phase and rescue people away to bait out the next closest enemies, which are the Druids. And from there, sweep in and kill the Druids, the Manaketes, the Sniper and Bishop, and the Hero and Berserk who showed up as the near reinforcements, while being wary of the Sniper and Bishop reinforcements heading down. Then kill them next turn and move as quickly as possible to COVER THE STAIRS (this makes so much sense, FE6) to prevent more reinforcements which arrive every 3 turns.
Zephiel. Oh dear. Well first off, Cath steals his Hero Crest and Lott uses it to promote, rescue her away. Then, actually killing Zephiel. He has 15 crit, which is non-zero on a lot of people, as well as high defencees, no weaknesses, lots of evade, etc., you know how this works. My best unit for the job turns out to be a Level 5 Dieck, who, with Shanna and Lott nearby for C supports, nulls the crit and manages decent accuracy (45% chance of doing 7 damage x2 with a Silver Sword). Zephiel meanwhile regens 7 a turn. I have Saul heal Dieck twice per turn since he's 2HKOed (Larum helps), rescue him with Lott/Shanna, repeat for a while. ALSO complicating matters during this is that 8 reinforcements enter the main doors at this point and I can't kill Zephiel before they reach me, so I have to deal with them without letting up on my Zephiel-killing strats or exposing the stairwells (Miredy and Zeiss are the most important for this). On the winning run I'm able to bait one of the groups towards Noah and Treck's group instead, who pick off the Sniper and Druid in turn through the walls before engaging with the Heroes.
Zephiel falls eventually. At 39 turns this is the longest fight in the game for me. I deliberately prevent Cath from reaching Level 20 so I can use her next map, and deliberately use Sue very little, because I know I'll want a good archer for Chapter 24.
Reached Level 20: Everyone except Cath, i.e. Chad, Lance (promoted), Larum, Miredy (promoted), Sophia (promoted), Saul, Treck (promoted).
The Ghost of Bern (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap23.htm) (11 resets)
Roy, Cath, Marcus, Zealot, Echidna, Garret, Klein, Fir, Alan, Bors, Ward, Lott, Wolt, Saul, Clarine, Hugh. Level 1 promoted, except Roy who is about 3.
One last tough map. It's not an easy map normally, but here the complication is as follows: Marcus, Zealot, Echidna, Garret, and Klein have joined. All of them (but especially Marcus/Zealot) have bad stats for their level. And I really, really want to get them some exp, because otherwise I'll have to use them in the next map as well, which only has 8 free deployment slots!
At the start of the map, I bait out some wyverns from both the north and the west. And then... the fun begins. There are three ballistas on this map, all are on islands I can't reach because I don't have a flier. Two have ridiculous range, one (that can only reach the east) has a minor crit rate. The long-range ones 2HKO Klein, Marcus, most mages... and a couple wyverns do move after them so if say Zealot is almost 2HKOed they can finish him off.
Key strategies include Ward and Lott rocking bows now to do some accurate chip on wyverns (Klein can KO lords with a Silver Bow once they do this, which is great), Bors rescuing Klein in a pinch, and Clarine acting as the best bait by standing on a forest where she has over 80 avoid but low enough defence that lots of wyverns go after her. In the east, Garret does his berserker thing and gets on a mountain to bait a spear-using wyvern lord.
All 11 resets are basically due to something going wrong at this point (the ballistas really make a mess of things), and I'd have had fewer if I wasn't trying so hard to get the prepromos some kills, but that's life.
The later stages of the map are largely easier. Sure, there's a lot of status staves, but both Clarine and Saul bring Restore. Most of the enemies actually near Brunnya don't move (at least until she runs out of Bolting) which makes them relatively easy to pick off, except that Brunnya has Bolting and that OHKOs some people, crits a few, and doubles a few more, any of these are terrible. But being mindful of that it's not too bad.
In other notes, Karel mostly just goes shopping (only thing he buys that ends up mattering is extra Light Brands) Cath steals a Blue Gem and the last Guiding Ring from Brunnya (which also gets her to Level 20), Saul finally promotes (that's everyone!) and Roy duels Brunnya because almost nobody else in my army can in a sane amount of time, Binding Blade to the rescue.
Reached Level 20: Cath
The Truth of the Legend (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap24.htm)
Roy, Fae (grr), Fir w/ Durandal, Bors w/ Maltet, Lott w/ Armads, Sue w/ Mulagir, Alan, Thea, Igrene, Saul. Level 1-2 promoted, except Roy who is about 5.
Well, here we go. Mission to level the prepromos was, as you see, a successful one. Fir, Bors, Alan, and Lott didn't get much exp on the last map so they carry over, but that's fine. This map is boring but easy, little more than a victory lap at this point.
Manaketes are kinda scary for my underlevelled people, they have 13-15 crit so unsupported PCs have to watch for that (it's a big problem for Lott in particular) and physical PCs who don't hit weakness on them do almost no damage. Roy meanwhile spends most of his time just seizing thrones. Almost all the heavy lifting in this chapter is done by Fir (who gains luck in her first level to null their crit, uses Wyrmslayer and Durandal) and Sue (ORKOs without triggering counters), with Alan a notable third (Wyrmslayer does good work, though doesn't ORKO) and Lott occasionally snagging finishers. Bors also just laughs at manaketes with his high luck and defence, and a legendary weapon of his own, but his job is to hold the back line so the reinforcements don't get to anyone squishy. Fae can't do anything in this map besides carry things, great design there.
Jahn is the worst boss in the game (1 range immobile and weak to the divine weapons).
Beyond the Darkness (https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap25.htm)
And Idunn isn't much better. Fir and Sue take out a manakete each, Roy 2HKOs with the Binding Blade (or would, but 6% crit kicks in and it's a OHKO), that's that.
Final levels obviously varied, Fir/Sue/Roy were all around 7 as the highest. Gonzales is still the highest overall at 10!
Character data, battles/kills/times died. Of course, kills are mostly proportional to how low a level someone started at. Note Gonzales at #1 for kills, entirely due to Chapter 21. Roy had the most battles of course, because he's in every fight, but because I didn't want him gaining much exp per fight a lot of what he did was chipping for others.
Gonzales 135/69/0
Lance 131/45/1
Lugh 106/45/0
Fir 87/45/1
Alan 118/43/2
Sue 104/43/0
Wolt 100/42/1
Roy 180/41/5
Shanna 110/41/2
Wendy 108/41/1
Ward 105/40/1
Sophia 79/40/0
Lott 115/39/0
Dieck 104/38/1
Dorothy 85/37/1
Lilina 79/37/1
Treck 99/35/0
Shin 85/35/1
Oujay 77/34/0
Rutger 93/33/1
Noah 118/31/1
Thea 52/27/1
Zeiss 97/26/1
Chad 86/26/1
Miredy 73/26/1
Barth 85/22/0
Geese 58/21/0
Raigh 54/21/2
Cath 54/20/1
Fae 52/18/1
Hugh 31/15/2
Astohl 70/8/1
Marcus 13/5/0
Klein 11/5/1
Zealot 9/5/4
Clarine 20/4/2
Garret 17/3/0
Igrene 10/3/0
Echidna 10/2/1
Douglas 12/1/0
Cecilia 11/1/0
Percival 6/1/0
Ellen 8/1/0
Dayan 7/1/0
Yodel 2/1/0
Karel 2/1/0
Saul 1/1/0
Larum 20/0/1
Niime 2/0/0
Chapter turn counts:
Chapter 1-8x: 9 9 13 9 11 16 14 25 21
Chapter 9-12x (Echidna route): 18 19 14 19 24
Chapter 13-14x: 24 24 32
Chapter 15-16x: 21 33 34
Chapter 17-20x (Sacae route): 20 32 20 18 26
Chapter 21-21x: 30 31
Chapter 22-25: 39 22 30 2
Ranks: B in Tactics, Funds, Combat. A in Survival, Exp, Power. Survival was a rule for the challenge and Exp/Power are basically "spread your exp more" which I was of course amazing at.
How happy I was to get each PC in my party: A star indicates a character who was at least somewhat RNG-screwed, I didn't track this religiously (and in particular don't actively remember any PCs being RNG-blessed, though I imagine both heroes were a bit, as well as Alan)
MVPs: Alan, Lugh, Sue, Lilina, Shin, Gonzales (chapter 21), Larum
Near-MVPs: Lance*, Clarine, Treck, Oujay, Miredy, Fae, Zeiss
Glad to have: Ellen, Dieck, Rutger, Saul, Noah, Fir
Siutational: Roy, Bors, Shanna*, Chad, Astohl, Wendy (when caught up), Barth, Gonzales (most maps), Geese, Raigh, Hugh
Ugh really: Wolt, Ward, Lott, Dorothy, Wendy (upon join) Thea, Cath*, Sophia (when caught up)
Dear god no: Sophia (first few maps)
General ranking by class (promotable characters only):
1t. Nomads: Bows are accurate and hit weakness on wyverns, and the nomads have speed to double with them, move to reach targets, and rescue. They're great.
1t. Wyverns: They fly, have high str, def, and skill (the latter really matters for lance-users in this game, since lances have lower hit than normal). Speed is respectable too. Luck and Res are the problem stats. Don't get to use them too often though.
3. Anima mages: They're squishy, but Fire is so, so good. 95 hit in this game is amazing, and it's range 2. Generally the best boss-killers and reliable against everything else.
4. Healers: Obviously Clarine is better than the rest. You really feel it when you don't have them because status gets common later in the game and their healing is much more efficient than items.
5. Paladins: They still have two weapons and move, hard to argue with that. What they can do with rescue is particularly useful. Stats vary from unremarkable to quite solid. Rarely made a dramatic difference though, the wy the classes above do.
6. Swordmasters/Heroes: They might as well be the same on this playthrough. Good speed/avoid (Dieck a bit less, but he got a bit RNG blessed), solid enough concrete durability, and swords having high accuracy ain't overkill in this playthrough, believe me. Not much utility beyond armourslaying and wyrmslaying but sometimes that's enough.
7. Pegasus Knights: Their stats were suspect on this playthrough (str for both, HP for Shanna and Luck for Thea) but they still have rescue/flight utility.
8. Dark mages: The most accurate spell being 70 hit makes them dramatically less useful than anima mages, and their stats are generally worse too. Sophia is of course a special class of awful for how underlevelled she is, but I'm not factoring that in here. Oh well, targeting res at range 2 is still good. Nosferatu is neat too.
9. Armour knights: The last three groups are situational. Sometimes armours just die due to being doubled and they're almost always kinda offensively inept and have bad move. And sometimes their defence is just amazing, especially against nomads.
10. Infantry axedudes: The ones with mountainwalk (Gonzales and promoted Geese) are really good in chapter 21!... but aside from that, they suffer from axes being just a horrible weapon type in this game. Not being able to reliably hit is terrible, most accurate weapon is 65 hit are you kidding me. Not like their stat builds inspire either.
11. Infantry archers: Somehow I have more contempt for this duo. To be clear, they're definitely useful when enemy wyverns are around, but otherwise? The comparison with nomads is just so sad, with less move, less speed, even less defence. Their stat build is just so often inadequate, and I end up setting up kills for them to keep them along because they're just so bad, defeating their advantage of chipping.
Pre-promos there's not much to say about. They're amazing when they join overlevelled (particular shout-outs to Zealot, Echidna, Cecilia, Perceval, Igrene, and Niime on their joining maps) and are mediocre to terrible when I was forced to use them again at the end.
-
Ys 8: The Lacrimosa of Dana - I’m near the end of Chapter 4, about 17 or 18 hours in.
Things I like:
1. The base gameplay is quite enjoyable. There are five different PCs (so far), plus an extra PC that you control separately, and all of the playable characters feels different from each other. I really like the PC diversity.
-Laxia is a speed character with short range but fast attacks (her dash forward attack is really powerful, the invincibility frames are quite generous on it). Because she is a speed character, she can dodge more quickly than some of the other characters directly from attack and can kite agains bosses effectively. I find her the overall best character of the five PCs due to her speed and the dash forward attack.
-Adol is a generic sword boy, not as fast the girls but not as slow as Sahad. I mostly use him to hit weakness on characters who are weak to slashing.
-Sahad is a slow bruiser with good AoE. I find him a little too slow to use in boss battles but he can be a good random clearer. I haven’t used him as much since I got Ricotta. Because of the way that the system works, I often end up switching to him in a boss fight when I am about to take a big hit because he has high HP and whoever you switch to is in the position that your old character was in (as a contrast to Trials of Mana, where when you switch the character is where they were located on the battlefield).
-Ricotta is more AoE focused than Laxia but has lower HP so she is easier to kill. She is a joy to play as, and I feel like CT would like using her. :)
-Hummel is a mixed ranged/melee character but also a total wanker so I don’t use him much. He seems decent though?
-Dana is a PC that you play separately as a solo character, and obviously you can’t compare her directly to the others (yet?) but she seems fun to play and quite good, fast and generally has strong skills. I’m not sure if I will ever get her in my party, but she seems very fun to play if so!
2. Cool boss and (sometimes) random design. The game’s random design is a bit hit and miss due to not really designing specific random encounters, but rather just putting enemies in certain areas in places, but sometimes the randoms hit a fun sweet spot. I found them too easy at first but after changing the game to Hard mode I found the randoms much more fun because they actually did damage to me and posed a real threat. The bosses are quite enjoyable on average.
(https://cdn.staticneo.com/ew/6/64/Rcf11.jpg)
This guy’s probably the single hardest boss I’ve fought so far? Also, sweet boss intros are sweet. The T-rex guy, the giant spider, the hippo, and the Dana boss Grazios.
3. The music. One of the first things I knew about Ys aside from seeing its random anime game covers on the shelf was its music, which has its own unique style distinct from most other RPGs. While I feel like the music is a bit contextless in the sense that it isn’t particularly evocative to a specific setting or theme, but it is pretty kickin’ rock music mixed with video game music which I am always up for. I enjoy most of the tracks well enough.
4. The game’s graphics are pretty nice. The game is obviously not top-of-the-line, but it is bright and colorful and the environments are nice to look at. I think some of the cave areas feel a little same-y, as do the grasslands, but it’s all nice enough. Not on the level of ToV for backgrounds, but pretty nice.
5. I really like the Bayonetta-esque mechanics around dodging; there is a pseudo Witch Time as well as a timed block which add some spice to the game. I like this game’s implementation of Witch Time better than Bayonetta because the amount of time it lasts seems much less variable than Bayonetta, which is desirable.
6. The game reminds me a lot of a Xenoblade with gameplay that doesn’t make me want to stab my eyeballs out with an ice pick. You do little quests and missions and you explore around big open spaces.
Things I don’t like:
1. The writing. Oh man oh man oh man. It has really terrible writing all around; bad plot, bad character work, bad setting work. And there is so much talking!
The game is set on a castaway island and you have to rescue people from the island and they come to your little village. It seems like something interesting could be made of this premise, but there really really isn’t. it is kind of like a really generic RPG town, except that there is only one in the game and there is no setting otherwise (yeah, yeah, I know there are other games, don’t care). My ‘favorite’ part is when there is a serial killer in your town, and when you catch him you learn that he is doing it because he is… ideologically evil. He believes that good people are oppressive toward the concept of evil and try to eliminate it whenever possible and that without evil in the world there can be no world or something. This is so lunatic batshit that I can’t even. This is like Flay motivation except this character is supposed to be taken seriously as an antagonist?
The rest of the plot, as it were, is mostly just a goofy set of excuses to fight monsters. BUT THERE IS SO MUCH TALKING! It has a looooot more plot than Bloodstained despite somehow being even more poorly written. It has campfire scenes for the characters to interact! But… I dislike pretty much the entire PC cast, so I just want them to end. The silent main is boring, Hummel is stupid and insufferable (I am too cool to tell the party anything even if I am stuck on a deserted island!!!), and….
The game is, sadly, steeped in its share of insidious misogyny and general disrespect for women.
Laxia places the role of the stereotypical hysterical heroine who gets super angry when she drops her towel in front of a man. She is generally portrayed as overly emotional, naive, and generally pretty unreasonable, although sometimes she is regarded unreasonable by the game when she is not being unreasonable (see below). She ends up finding a niche in the midgame where she uses her knowledge of archaeology to help the party. But of course, she obtained this knowledge by hanging out with her father. Women getting their skills from men seems to be a common thing in this setting, as both the blacksmith Kathleen and the tailor Alison are not members of their profession, but Kathleen’s father and Alison’s husband are and they have just acquired their skills from their male relatives. But don’t worry, the cook who puts hearts after every sentence didn’t acquire her skill in cooking from a man. Definitely not leaning hard in on stereotypes here. And Ricotta, the other female PC in the main party, is motivated by (gasp) being inspired by her father. Yep, yep, yep.
(There are a couple of minor female characters, Dina and Nia, who are not motivated by men. But… not too many.)
So let’s talk about Sahad. Sahad is a fisherman who is… in his 30’s somewhere? Anyway, he reminds me of older men I’ve encountered in various walks of life, who subtly disrespect women in a variety of ways. First of all, he addresses the women by cute little titles; he calls Laxia “lil lady” and Ricotta “squirt” whereas he calls Adol and Hummel by their names. This is something that is used to subtly demean women in the workforce and in other settings, even if it's not intended as such. Also, when Laxia expresses (understandable) concern about Hummel joining the party without stating his reason and purpose, he treats her like she is being a hysterical moron. The other thing I thought was very, uh, interesting is that when he is talking about someone to help him or assist in anything, from fighting to castaway village tasks, he only refers to the male PCs are ‘people he relies on’.
I had a bit of an argument with Jim about if a game had to address misogyny in a character, having established that they are a misogynist. I think that it depends on how sympathetic the character is; if Valter or Albedo is a misogynist, it’s because they are bad people and that’s what bad people do. If Sahad is supposed to be a misogynist, then it should 100% be addressed, or else I will be led to the conclusion that it’s the writers who are themselves misogynist, and that the character is not a critique of misogyny in games. Unsurprisingly, the game has not critiqued Sahad, which makes me think that the person who wrote the game considers his actions to be normal / correct, which is unsurprising considering its general opinion on women but still disappointing.
I actually think Sahad is at base more likeable than most of the other characters, so ruining him with insidious, unaddressed misogyny is such a damn shame.
The one thing in the game’s favor on this front thus far is Dana’s arc. Dana is a cool and badass female character and she is surrounded by other badass female characters. I’m not sure if this arc was written by someone who isn’t braindead or what, but the writing in this arc is of higher quality than in the rest of the game (not to say it is fabulous, but…). I am waiting to see how it all unfolds in order to judge the game, but there is some glimmers of potential in Dana’s arc.
2. I think the game is going to end up feeling a bit too long to sustain my complete interest, which is how I often feel about purely gameplay driven games, particularly action games. I feel like Bayonetta / DMC hit a sweet spot in terms of length for an action game (15-20 hours), and even with the added RPG elements, Ys 8 feels more like an action game than an RPG overall.
Overall, though, it’s been decently fun, although I’m not sure if I will play another game in the series.
Hollow Knight - Started this up and it has been capturing my interest much more than Ys 8. Will write more about later.
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Megaman 11
Beat all the robot masters, once I got the first two down it was pretty smooth from there. Wily stage 1 also complete, but that took me SO many tries(as did the usual pudding monster). Figured out his weakness weapon on the second try tho, so it was just a matter of learning when I could attack instead of figuring out how.
Kusogrande
Got 2nd place in my round 2 match, which gives me just BARELY enough points to go to round 3. Need to get 1st to move on to round 4, though. Let's hope it's a game that plays well to my biases. i burned pretty hard in SPISPOPD but Domino Man was both fun and not too rough for me, which was a wonderful change.
Shovel Knight: King of Cards
I love King Knight's platforming but did not love Joustus at all the first time I tried playing this. Still not a fan, but I have embraced the Cheater Lyfe and just keep stocked up on cheats from Chester to make sure I don't lose any unique cards. Fighting the other Knights is kind of amusing, since they really don't have any REASON to fight...but I guess that's what two Knights do when they encounter eachother in this setting. The unique bosses are great though, esp fighting the Trouple King(LONG MAY HIS STEM GROW!).
Mom Knight is of course the best character~
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Hollow Knight - Been playing this a bunch in the last few days. It is a Metroidvania, with a greater emphasis on the Metroid than the Castlevania overall, I feel. At first I was a bit confused about what I was doing, but after a while, I’ve really found myself enjoying the game. I have explored a few of the areas, including the Forgotten Crossroads, Fungal Wastes, and Greenpath, as well as most of the City of Tears. I’ve gotten the Mantis Claw and the dash ability, and I just beat the boss that give you downward floor breaking powers, which seems at least somewhat useful. I’ve been rotating between accessories, but I like the one that makes the nail longer, as well as the shell and the 2 temp ‘HP’ buffer thingie. Also, I got to six health finally and I got my weapon sharpened to be more powerful. Woo hoo!
Great game. Good mix of fun platforming, good boss design, and fun randoms. The mapping features are interesting; lenient enough not to be too onerous, but you still have to work for the map functionality, especially in the earlygame. And having to equip an accessory to see yourself on the map is just rude, lol. I sometimes unequip it for a boss but then regret it immediately afterwards. I beat up a fire spider before getting any of the upgrades and I died many times. Memories of Phantom~ I do like the accessory equipping system because it gives you plenty of options and things to do, but again doesn’t just let you change on the fly.
I think the most disappointing thing about the game so far is the lack of consistent music. It’s a shame, because Hornet is a beautiful song, but I wish the game’s soundtrack were a bit more present.
I am currently scaling the Crystal Peak. Just beat up the laser beaming boss that sits on the Rest point. How impolite of him.
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Trials of Mana - Beaten. I was above Level 63, game was just over 20 hours. Compared to the original, you gain levels faster especially early; I feel like I was about a dozen levels higher than I'm used to by the the fire/ice manastones and pretty much stayed there the rest of the way.
Good game! Surprisingly so even.
It's probably pointless to talk about this game without talking about the original Seiken Densetsu 3. SD3's an odd bird of a game; its detractors will correctly point out that its gameplay has a bunch of annoying flaws (chief amongst them: battles constantly stopping for spell animations, positioning being mostly pointless, evasion/criticals being bugged rendering some abilities pointless, needing to constantly replenish your items in the menu) and its plot is uh not very good. Yet it's a game I definitely have some fondness for, which largely comes from the fact that it's well-paced (with good replay value from the class system), it's got good music, and it's one of the prettiest games on the SNES particularly in enemy design.
What makes Trials of Mana such a successful remake is it manages to properly capture the strengths of the original while giving the battle system a massive makeover, and turns out the result is a lot of fun. Graphically, the game is something I've wanted for years: it takes the old 2D sprite style and recreates it faithfully with modern graphics (the town and dungeon layouts are clearly the same). Music's great, upgraded from the old SNES synth but still does a great job of evoking the different environments and boss fights.
The plot is the same as always, like word-for-word I'm pretty sure (except that characters talk in dungeons sometimes now). I like that Angela radiates this wonderful bitch energy and early on has some sarcastic/sassy comments when dealing with certain NPCs but otherwise you're not playing for this.
The gameplay is the seriously made over part of the game and it's certainly good fun. It's pretty standard ARPG fare. Compared to say Tales there's more emphasis on avoiding enemy attacks (ironic given how this was impossible in the original) and those are telegraphed more strongly than is usual for the genre (the AoE they will hit is visible before they strike). To make up for this, in tougher boss fights you can expected attacks to be absolutely littered over the battlefield giving you lots of things to avoid while finding openings to attack. Items remain powerful but running out of them is certainly a concern (you can only use 9 of each per battle) although less than it was in the original because boss durability has been scaled back generally (especially the final boss). Bosses can overpower you without needing to run out the item supply though, especially certain super moves which the game wants you to try to interrupt (though you can facetank some of those if needed). Utility spells like buffs and debuffs remain extremely useful for tilting things your way. Probably my biggest complaint about the gameplay is that the difficulty is a bit inconsistent, but there are worse flaws for a game to have.
My biggest non-gameplay complaint is that like so many current-gen games the load times are longer than I'd like, though even despite those it remains a fast-paced game, and hey there's sceneskip now.
Definitely a game worth checking out if you're remotely a fan of the original, or even if you're not but are in the mood for a solid ARPG and don't mind the fact that its writing is 25 years old (and wasn't great even then). For me it's probably at least reasonably comparable to the best Star Ocean games and that's a good place to be.
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Not gonna lie, Trails of Mana turning out to be legit kind of shocks me more than FF7R turning out to be legit. Sage/Tonfa/I were talking about it while watching it and turns out all SD3 needed to do was not turbojank the player for trying to interact with the game and someone actually realized that and fixed the worst problems without finding new and exciting ways to shit the bed? Madness to expect from a remake of a Square game.
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Yeah I basically agree of course. Like in theory the things needed to improve the game aren't surprising (most everyone agrees on what its gameplay flaws are, whether they like the game or not) although even then that was no guarantee they'd be fixed. And like you I'm kinda surprised Square Enix didn't fuck it up like some of their previous efforts to remake their own games in a redesigned 3D engine (FF3 and FF4).
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The thing about Trials is that we saw gameplay footage back when the game was first announced, and it was clear that the battle mechanics were completely revamped into something resembling a modern arpg. It was pretty clear that Square-Enix actually listened to the complaints about the previous Secret of Mana remake. That was no guarantee of quality, obviously (and I haven't played past the demo yet, so I can't speak to that myself yet), but at that point I already thought the devs were at least on the right track.
Pop'n Twinbee - Started this up on a whim, and was pleasantly surprised. A shoot'em-up game with an energy bar and an energy shield, and both can be recharged by drops? Plus a difficulty slider in the options menu? Holy crap, a rare shmup that I can play without savestates and not get my ass kicked! It was also a lot more newbie friendly than the NES Twinbee game, which I had tried out last fall; that game was probably easier than Gradius overall, but I still wasn't getting anywhere without savestates. The game has no mid-stage checkpoints from what I can tell, but is overall forgiving enough that you shouldn't need them, at least once you learn how the power-up system works to prioritize getting shields and options.
The in general is designed around the SNES's strengths and weaknesses as a system, which is to say it's fairly slow-paced for its genre but has lots of color and pretty sprite graphics. From what I can tell it's an outlier within the whole series for being made for a console originally rather than starting out in the arcades, but as a shmup novice I can really appreciate its design choices.
Zelda 1 - So as a kid, I got all the way to level 9, but got stuck there in the pre-internet days and lost interest in the game. Never got around to picking it up, and even if I could dig it out from my parent's home I'd imagine the battery's dead by now. Finally felt in the mood to go back to it a few days back, and I'm already paying for NSO so it's 'free'. Used the SP ROM to cut out on a ton of money grinding since my main interest was getting back to level 9 quickly.
At first I started playing blind, more out of laziness than anything. Went straight to level 1 and cleared it out in a few minutes. After that, I vaguely remembered level 2 being to the east, but I got lost and somehow managed to stumble on level 8 next of all dungeons, which has to be the most Zelda 1 thing to do ever.
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I definitely remember thinking Level 2 was tough to find (being not only quite far from the starting point but also requiring some surprising doubling back). I think I found Level 8 first as well. And definitely Level 3.
Trials of Mana - Some more notes.
Beat the aftergame (Level 71, game clock at 24 hours now). It was enjoyable enough. The hardest fight was definitely Angela's one-on-one duel; it has instant death and that's not even the hardest part of the fight; the boss could doublecast some large AoE moves which I had to be very careful to dodge at least partly because getting fully cuaght by both was a ORKO. Kevin also had a one-on-one duel but that boss's scary stuff is melee so much easier to deal with. The superboss had an easy first form then a legit second form which wore down my Angel Grail supply fast, too bad space rocks wore her down even faster once I finally learned to find the openings I needed.
Side note only big fans of the game will care about: I did Angela's optional fight first and the game played Strange Medicine. My mind immediately jumped to what music would be most approprite for Kevin and Riesz's fights, and I guessed either Obsession or Black Soup for Kevin and High-Tension Wire for Riesz. Which hedging my bets on Kevin made it easier I'm still amused to note I was spot on, so clearly the devs thought along the same lines as me.
In the maingame I think the boss I found hardest was either Tonfa's old idol Zehnoa (the furnace) or Xan Bie (fire benevedon) which is funny because I don't think either was remotely difficult in the original. Both definitely got the memo that the best way to be a difficult boss in this game is to throw lots of things at you at once. I also died twice to the harpy boss but that's because it was trial by fire for learning how to cancel boss super moves and hey Supersonic is MT OHKO if she gets it off on Hard. I didn't lose to Mispolm but I feel like mentioning that he got quite an upgrade, definitely in the upper half of benevedons now! Zable Fahr is still legit, Dragon Emperor was definitely a bit disappointing though (a rare time where I definitely think a boss probably could have used a bit more HP, even though I generally applaud the move towards faster fights in the remake).
Anyway, PC notes:
I chose my first class change based on personal preference and then for the second I just grabbed whichever promotion item the game tossed at me first. Fortunately I think I did well out of that random chance.
Angela: Dark/Dark (Magus). Compared to the original Angela starts a bit more slowly. She can't MT her spells, they have small AoEs until she's able to upgrade them. The upgrade system also means that elemental coverage is something she needs to work towards (in fact, I didn't even get wind damage for her until right before Land Umber's dungeon, which I deliberately left as my seventh benevedon). That said, the more the game goes on, the better she gets. The AoE damage does come with time and it's glorious. Being able to attack from long range is huge, unshockingly, and boss fights often boiled down into learning how to dodge some of their moves and learning their openings, and then punishing like mad when those showed up. By the end Angela feels like cheating, because Ancient Curse is ridiculous (long charge time, but you get a passive which makes you immune to being knocked out of it, then the damage does horrendous things) and she can stack so many damage-boosting passives. Eat your allies' HP, they don't need it.
Kevin: Light/Dark (Warrior Monk). Kevin's definitely a bit nerfed compared to the original, his physical damage is no longer that much better than Riesz's. Still, he seemed fine at it. He gets some skills that let him use class strikes more often, and since CSes are very potent that's cool. Monk gets singletarget healing which I don't find that special, but the multitarget which Warrior Monk picks up is quite nice; much better on action economy than using ST items (I should note that I ignored the black market, which still has MT healing as an option). Also later he gets a passives that lets his healing cure status and also makes his Leaf Sabre double as a damage buff.
Riesz: Dark/Dark (Fenrir Knight). Multitarget stat downs are still ridiculous. Stat downs wear off in this version of the game, but Fenrir Knight gets a passive which makes them permanent again, good times. Start any fight that looks to be difficult by using all three of her stat downs (they got rid of the glitched Speed Down), enjoy. Hexas/Lamia Naga still does some pretty nice damage, though sadly the AI is bad at using it because it covers an AoE centred on Riesz. Anyway Riesz has a reasonably competent physical game too, her CSes are really good (both the first two cover large AoEs, surprisingly so in the case of the L1). Late she even gets a trick to start spamming them more often like Kevin, namely she can charge them by spamming stat downs. Don't mind if I do~
As you can probably guess I went light Kevin because I wanted healing and dark Riesz because I wanted debuffs, Angela I mostly went dark because I was warned that the new skill tree system would make it difficult to take advantage of the light side's former dominance using elemental L2s. And also because my wife demanded Edelgard-style devil horns in the aftergame, and who am I to deny her?
Lots of fun, will definitely replay at some point. I definitely want to play the game without Angela and see how that changes things, even if the thought makes me kinda sad. :(
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Disco Elysium - Finished. It's very, very good! Check it out. Since it's a detective story, don't read anything about it, not even this post. Just go play it! Great writing, great fun.
Okay, I suppose I will talk a bit more. Disco Elysium really figures out how to do skill checks right. It understands that vanilla success is boring. Too much of old D&D based systems go something like "skill check for 'easy way' to detect a trap / lie / something, otherwise combat", which makes skill checks reward you with gameplay skip. Meh. In DE, having high skills give you more options, but they aren't always good ones, and some skill checks it's actually "better" to fail on or not attempt in the first place. Compare this with something like Mass Effect, where you don't even need to read the options or listen to the dialogue - if you have a Paragon / Renegade trigger, you will get a better outcome than the default options, so pick it every time. DE forces you to actually pay attention, that maybe your Logic check succeeding doesn't mean you should correct somebody for including a double negative, and your Drama check doesn't mean you should lie for the lulz. Anyway, in general, failure is interesting and still moves things forward, and when it isn't, there are various prods to let you try again until you get past something that is truly required. Plenty of story branches you will only see after failing at something - sorry Miss but FYI, I stuck a corpse in your fridge.
As an additional thing in the game's favor - the setting is great, and far too rare. It's an alternate world fantasy-ish 1980s, although the city of Revanchol itself feels more 1940s-50s in part due to being a bit frozen in time in-setting, a bit of a Havana Cuba effect. About the only series that comes close is Fallout, since its future is very 1950s-inspired. (Bioshock doesn't count here, too sci-fiy.) There's all sorts of interesting stuff going on in the "modern" era, do it more often games than yon average fantasy or yon average sci-fi setting. Ties a bit into the game's politics, but they also bothered to create a whole history of the world with change over time. Lots of generic settings out there are forever trapped in the "mode" they want to be, similar to Star Wars planets - here's King Arthur's Court, here's Ancient China, here's cybpepunkville, here's Steampunkland, and they never change even when they "should".
Anyway, I was a centrist sorry cop / good cop with an all mental build (5/5/1/1), worked pretty well. We'll see how a supercop physical build goes and if it'll be a comrade or a nationalist some day as well, there's clearly far more replayability than usual for a detective game - if nothing else, the order you talk to people and do quests IS relevant, people do react differently and problems will be different depending on what you know so far.
Not really willing to talk about the plot for fear of spoilers, but I guess I will mention one mild spoilery thing because it only requires knowing the initial setup, and is something that Isn't Actually True but just something SnowFire thought might be true: I was definitely assuming that Our Hero might have already solved the case, or discovered some Truth Too Terrible To Share, like that the symbol of peace holding things together was actually a murderer, or that he himself was the killer, or that everyone was doomed by some encroaching unstoppable threat. This was really depressing so they got black-out drunk, and unwittingly started down the same path to re-finding that Horrible Truth afterward. Nope. Although who knows, maybe a certain weird threat is related to the memory loss, but seems pretty clear that regardless of the investigation, Our Hero really did have a self-destructive streak a mile long at least and didn't do any useful investigation beforehand!
One final odd thing: the soundtrack, while fine, is... not very funky?! Weird call if your game has "Disco" in the title, but sure. (Disco is kinda dead in-setting is the excuse I guess?)
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Zelda 1: So after stumbling upon level 8, I decided to go left and see how far I could go blind. I managed to get the book, but took enough damage in the process to convince me not to go any further. At that point I decided to go look up maps online, and just blitz through until I got back to level 9 with a full inventory. I realize that by doing so I was kinda missing the point of Zelda 1 for a lot of people, but I wanted to get to level 9 while my interest was still strong. I remembered enough of the game between my vague childhood memories and some speedruns I've watched recently to have a truly blind experience, anyhow.
Once I beat the initial eight dungeons, I bought a fresh potion, went to the entrance of the final dungeon (which I still remembered clearly, it's a pretty memorable location), and attempted to go as far as I could while playing blind. I used NSO's rewind if a bomb didn't reveal a hidden path since the bomb count is so low, but otherwise avoided save states or rewind within the dungeon. My general strategy was to go down any stairs that I came across since I needed the Silver Arrows and wanted the Red Ring if possible, and otherwise avoid any unnecessary combat. I managed to get the Silver Arrows along the way, but didn't find the Red Ring. Eventually I stumbled upon the Patra room that I knew from watching speedruns was right before Ganon with ~5 hearts left and no more potion uses remaining. I did not expect to beat Ganon blind since I didn't even know his pattern at the time, so I saved and quitted from the dungeon, to buy another red potion before coming back.
Some thoughts on Level 9, as well as Zelda 1 in general:
- Level 9 is seriously huge compared to previous dungeons, no wonder I got stuck as a kid in the pre-internet age. The huge quantity of non-item stairs complicated navigation a lot, as well. If I were taking this more seriously I would've resorted to hand-drawing my own map, just to mark down all the stair connections since you don't see those on the in-game map.
- IMO the low bomb count (8, upgradable to 16) works well for combat purposes, but was low for finding hidden passageways. Not being to spam bombs freely makes Darknut rooms a lot more challenging and also kept midboss Dodongo encounters from being total fodder, the limits felt like they really made sense there. On the other hand, every bomb that you waste trying to find a secret passage but failing is really painful, especially in a large dungeon like level 9, hence the limited rewind use. The larger bomb counts of newer Zelda games would've made up for the lack of wall indicators in dungeons, since you know hidden paths can only be in the very center of a wall if they exist, but as it is you do wind up feeling that absence.
- Ganon's pattern is kinda neat once you understand it, but if you don't the fight winds up being kinda dumb and frustrating.
- In general, I think the greatest strength of Zelda 1 is the brisk pacing. The game goes by really quickly in segments where you know what you're doing, and even when you're stumped it doesn't take long to wander around trying stuff out. Neither the combat mechanics or the game's primitive puzzles are all that interesting in a vacuum, but moving quickly from room to room felt quite satisfying, while even wandering around blindly didn't feel tedious since I never got *completely* stumped at point in time. It helps that while the game can be admittedly obtuse at times, the actually mechanical difficulty never gets painful the way it does in many NES games, while still retaining enough challenge to feel engaging.
A lot has been said and written about how later Zelda games have gotten progressively more linear and guided up (up until the radical course change of ALBW and BOTW), but I suspect the reason Nintendo went in that direction is because they realized that the games were getting slower to navigate, especially after the jump to 3D. It's a lot more reasonable to expect a player to explore every nook and cranny of an overworld when you can go from one end of the map to the other in a few minutes without a fast travel mechanic.
Super Mario Maker 2
While I'm at it, I might as well write something about the game that spiked my interest in Zelda for the first time since ALBW's release back in 2014. I've played SMM2 on and off since it was released last year, but most of my favorite levels have been utilizing the Master Sword power-up added last December.
For self-explanatory reasons, Mario Maker will never have the extensive one-off stage features that Nintendo utilizes to keep things fresh in regular Mario games. The unfortunately consequence of this, though, is that it can make the easier levels really forgettable if they don't have some sort of theme or really clever design to them. Easy difficulty Endless mode in particular got tedious pretty quickly. That largely left puzzle levels, gimmicky levels, and high difficulty levels. The former two are hit-or-miss for me, and while I do enjoy the occasional challenge level so long as it doesn't hit Kaizo level, my hands start hurting after playing one of those for a while, which forces me to take a break. The various speedrun levels that clog up popular can be fun in moderate doses, but too many of them gets repetitive, plus they obviously don't amount to long play times.
The Master Sword mixed things up by encouraging level creators to make exploration heavy levels in Zelda-esque manner, which I wound up really enjoying. Link's moveset adds a ton of options for interacting with on/off switches, pow blocks, p switches, etc., while also making combat more engaging than the usual Mario level. The net result is a lot of lengthy, moderate difficulty levels that can keep me engaged without causing hand pains while offering an experience that obviously can't be obtained from any commercial Mario game. Or Zelda game, for that matter, although I now wish Nintendo would make a Zelda platformer that played like this. Incidentally, I also tried out Zelda 2 on Switch, but lost interest in it pretty quickly - its combat mechanics are much less interesting to me than SMM2 Link's.
(It has also resulted in some kaizo levels that are mind blowing to watch when a top-level player manages to complete them, like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ1BwBj3qbE) one by CarlSagan42, not that I'm crazy enough to ever attempt those myself.).
I briefly considered replaying ALTTP or ALBW or Cadence of Hyrule to follow-up on Zelda 1, but then I spotted OoT 3D going for really cheap on ebay and order it on a whim. Stay turned in a few weeks for my incredibly belated opinions on Zelda's jump to 3D, assuming I don't have to resort to ebay's money-back program.
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I played Zelda 1 fairly recently (to troll my daughter, who wanted to watch me play Zelda Breath of the Wild). I wondered if my childhood recollections about Level 9 were overblown from my age but no it's really that ridiculously huge and mazelike.
Cold Steel 3:
Completed Nightmare mode. What a waste of a massive amount of dialog.
Octopath Traveller:
Finished all the C3's except Primroses's. Olivia's, Cyrus', H'aanit, and Therion's really built up for a C4 in a way that is promising. I never could care too much about Tressa's story, Alfyn's story doesn't seem to have a clear narrative, and Olberic's character arc feels like it finished at the end of C3.
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In "fairness", a lot of those issues basically describe Cold Steel 2 as well. Someone needs to remind the designers that they are making an actual game writing-wise and not fanfiction.
I am Setsuna- Got the airship. Last boss did cause me several resets (some of the later ones because I wasn't really choosing good tech Spiritnite). More on the frustrating than fun side unlike the previous bosses. I can also guess with plot point made Ciato say that sometimes the game holds onto plot points for too long (Aeterna! It makes no sense on several levels that there has been no conversation about her).
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I dunno, "in fairness" at times it kind of felt like they always were "writing fanfiction" (for lack of a better term to describe it). See Sky FC with the mayor who just so happened to have a time controlling artifact in case he got caught doing crimes, whole underground complex under Grancel complete with ancient-yet-somehow still functional robots of various sizes, the introduction of the anime illuminati, and the treatment Cassius gets 95% of the time. Sure, the previous games had actual writing going for them at times, but it always felt pretty uneven overall. And this is without getting into all the stuff the series insists on leaving more or less completely unexplained after all this time, for all the presence the anime illuminati has had in the series it's still basically a space flea.
CS2 (well, and CS1's ending, good lord that was just garbage all around) going in the direction it did and CS3 doubling down on it is still dumb as hell though, and it's not helped by Rean being the least compelling series protagonist to begin with and somehow he keeps getting worse.
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Dhyer: The boss in the airship was one of the more challenging bosses in the game to my recollection, so no shame for having some trouble with it. I intentionally wasn't trying to build uber Spritnite or forge weapons or anything and things generally got easier afterward.
Trails talk: It's an aspect that's always been in the series, but it definitely seems to have unhealthily grown from game-to-game in general. Like, I get it, it's a game, we're gonna find excuses for Awesome People Having Awesome Battles, but the earlier Trails games remembered to at least have some sort of stakes. Cloud fighting Sephiroth for the fate of Planet, sure, Cloud fighting Sephiroth in some Dissidia simulator 1000 times, well, that's okay but don't expect much dramatic heft. At some point the anime battles became an end unto themselves rather than at least being vaguely related to Today's Plot.
This is kinda random but for whatever reason this reminded me a tad about the Zack Snyder DCU movies. Big dramatic showdowns! That are kinda empty and meaningless because the plot didn't set them up right! Plus, if they're gonna kill Superman, give him a damn movie off which would give the next movie a bit of an identity. Kinda similar to how CS3 shoulda chucked tons of returning characters and picked just a few to focus on.
Disco Elysium meets Trails: Since I talked a bit about DE above - so one of the things DE is known for is including politics rather heavily in the setting. The writers (aside from being bona-fide communists) were clearly were inspired/scarred a bit by their local history - Estonia whipsawed from a rebellion against the old tsarist Russian Empire and the war between the Whites & Reds, independence, being invaded by the Soviets who shot everyone, being invaded by the Nazis who shot everyone, being re-invaded and conquered by the Soviets who shot everyone, then got independence and went hardcore liberal EU free market friendly in response. Something similar happened to Revanchol in-setting, with a bit of a monarchists followed by a Paris Commune followed by military defeat and foreign occupation. Anyway, something interesting about DE is that it doesn't really have any moderate political options in the sense of, like, Greek philosopher moderate. There's no Third Way standard social liberal option, no vanilla conservative, no apathetic choice. The three vanilla options are communist, nationalist, capitalist, and if you attempt to say "none of the above" too much, you basically end up as a centrist. But. You're an active do nothing, everything is fine *crusader* - an aggressive moderate, that is, that makes it an active stance in favor of the status quo rather than a passive accepting one. It's also a bit rude to this standpoint, seeing at as a preening, intellectual vanity, feel better about yourself kind of thing - you get healing to Morale by saying I'm above it all, let everyone go according to their conscience, no need to have any flawed ideologies. It's kind of a refreshing change from Japanese stuff which often elevate neutrality to be Gooder than Good - certainly Trails of Cold Steel II was a weird and nonsensical example of this, where Our Heroes were allegedly some neutral peace-bringing force, "better" than both sides of the war. Shin Megami Tensei is usually an even worse offender of course, with Various Wacky Ideologies that want to mold the world in their image, and then neutrality to bring back good ol' perfect status quo. (Mind, I was still a centrist in Disco Elysium ANYWAY, I'm just glad they didn't pretend that I'd cracked the code and found true morality or something.)
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I agree that the blowsiness of Trails really started to become noticable in CS 2. CS 1 had a really sensible plot progression and worked effectively to keep tension ramped up. CS 2 exploded with supposed deadly robots running around everywhere, but the only impact they had was to kill a mayor who I'm not even sure they bothered to give a name to. The Infernal Castle certainly hammered home the anime battle-ness to a point that I wonder if they are just intending for this to be a hyper-parody. Unfortunately, that seems to be the direction the series is running.
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I agree that the blowsiness of Trails really started to become noticable in CS 2. CS 1 had a really sensible plot progression and worked effectively to keep tension ramped up. CS 2 exploded with supposed deadly robots running around everywhere, but the only impact they had was to kill a mayor who I'm not even sure they bothered to give a name to. The Infernal Castle certainly hammered home the anime battle-ness to a point that I wonder if they are just intending for this to be a hyper-parody. Unfortunately, that seems to be the direction the series is running.
It got worse, it got A LOT worse.
Dragging through Sen 3 and Sen 4 was like a torture to me. Old school anime problems just explodes in full scale on the writing.
They fucking seriously needs to stop on the whole "hahaha I know everything but I won't tell you." And on both sides, STOP please. (I felt suicidal when Roze did this to everyone, and my brain literally stopped for a few seconds when Grand Master did this to Vita.)
It feels horrible when you find out the whole plot was driven not by logic and reasonable developments, but because people are not explaining things properly.
Oh, and cut off the "sokomadeda!" and "sonohitsuyohanai!" I am going to scream if they pull out those bad anime sequence every again.
The script needs writing also needs a lot of work. The way the characters boasting each other is just embarrassing.
Oh, and there is STILL no proper explanation on what Project Phantasmal Flame is all about. It took 6 games and they still cannot sort this out.
Seriously, the only reason I am still playing this series is because I already came this far.
SD3 ToM - Second cycle done, and full tried out every characters in game thanks to class reset. Here are me 2 cents.
Angela - game MVP, she is just great with her overpowering fire power. Grad Divina is great at busting grunts. She just need to Saint Beam most of times and things die. If not, Double Spell well do the magic. Arch Mage is more boss focused, but we have Magus for that.
Rune Master outright sucks because all lv.3 spells are buyable this time. Instant Death is also less potent. The only worth of this class is to carry over the Unfair link passive to the next cycle.
Magus is the true boss killed. Loads all the Pain Magic passive and both Anise and Black Rabi dies within 30 secs to Ancient.
EDIT: Tried Angela against Anise in light class. She can one shot Anise as well and much faster. So Magus is useless too now.
Duran - The man who can one shot Anise. Sword Master is just ridiculously strong that Duelist is rendered useless, and light jobs is only worth it if you have no healer. Seriously, Sword Master's passive is just too STRAONG. Duran can have up to 65% crit rate in class 4 under Sword Master. And since can get a 70% damage boost in crit, landing crit becomes super important.
The weakness passive and saber magic passive combined with Sword Master's already huge selection of saber spells just made it even more ridiculous. Light saber being buyable also fixed his only flaw.
Then there is Cyclone Sword, which hits huge area and big damage. A properly buffed Duran with light saber just one shots Anise in her second form.
Kevin - The poor man who got nerfed. He lost his advantage from multi hits. His passive isn't as good as Duran. He has crit damage amplification like Duran, but has no passive to boost the rate of it occurring. He does have a functioning energy ball now, but still not as high as Duran's 60%, but using the Energy Ball on Duran is a very good idea.
But he does became a better healer as Warrior Monk due to the passive that combines Heal Light with Tinkle Rain.
Charwette - Dechi! She is the person who choose her class depends on who you do not have in the team. Or else just go with Evil Shaman.
First, Arch Bishop is pretty much trash now that Turn Undead got nerfed.
Sage is pretty much a nerfed Sword Master.
Necromancer is good with Black Curse, but Riesz has bigger debuff value with her magic.
So the only job that stands out is Evil Shaman, who has the most comprehensive auto state reduction passive, that stacks too.
Riesz - Best buffer/debuffer due to her passive that boosts buff and debuff value.
Star Lancer is her best job due to permanent MT buff and auto state up passives. But Marduke got nerfed, silence rarely hits now.
Fenrir is the debuff version of Star Lancer, but less effective because the auto state down passive went to Charlotte.
Other two jobs are just masters of none that's not worth it.
Hawkeye - Weakest character in game as he is status attack focused, and those are not very effective in game.
Yes, chibi status is a great grunts killer. But Angela kills grunts much faster by just bew! bew! with Saint Beam or Double Spell.
Yes, ninjatsu has debuff, but Charlotte and Riesz does it better.
Then the heavens crushes down now that max hp reduction does not hit bosses, so Hawkeye lost his best weapon.
He does have a crit damage kit in Wanderer, but like Kevin, not as good as Duran. His atk is lower too, so overall not as good.
He also has a less comprehensive auto state up/down kit in Wanderer/Night Blade. Which may is only useful if Charlotte and Riesz is not around.
In the end, his contribution usually comes from casting Energy Ball as Wanderer on Duran, or be a Ninja Master and let Duran use the weakness hitting passive.
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Fire Emblem Three Houses: Crimson Flower Bad-Bad run
Goal: Use characters in classes where they have at least one Weak skill. Cannot have a Strength in two top skills, but can be Strong in tertiary skill if applicable. Units strong in Authority are not permittied to train Authority, but can use battalions (I felt like this would be too harsh and have a lopsided effect that was not intended). Byleth is not Weak in anything, so he is going to do ARMOR KNIGHT cuz whatever I hate my life. I can use weapons that I am neutral in but not Strong in. I am playing on Hard rather than Maddening because I don’t think I have the insanity required to do this on Maddening.
M!Byleth
Armor Knight because fuck my life. I am a Soldier right now.
Edelgard
strength in swords, axes, reason, armor, auth
Weak in bows, faith
So far I’ve been working on bows with her, and I just got Close Counter. She has 23 strength and 13 speed and is generally a terror. She’s just finishing up Fighter and will move into Archer next. Probably will aim for Sniper -> Bow Knight long term. MVP obv
Hubert
strength in lance, bow, reason, auth
weak in axe, faith, flying
Hubert is Priest right now. The only Faith spell he gets is Nosferatu but you know it’s better than nothing. probably gonna aim for trickster/bishop/HK long term.
Dorothea
strength in sword, reason, faith
weak in flying, riding
Gonna go for Pegasus Knight / Wyvern Rider / Lord. Now that she has Tempest Lance, her damage is less ass. Peg Knight having only D requirement in Flying is great. I’m already there but trying to grab Reposition before moving on.
Bernie
strength in lance, bow, riding
weak in sword, axe, brawling, auth
The plan is Trickster because she has Physic, which I am pretty hard up for in this playthrough. Right now she’s a Thief, though, and is one of my best units because of 14 str/13 speed/Persecution Complex.
Caspar
strength in axe, brawling
weak in bow, reason, auth
He is following a similar trajectory to Edie except is way shittier because Caspar. Likely benched long term.
Lin
strength in reason, faith
weak in axe, brawling
5 str and 0 AS with iron axe? First PC dumped.
Petra
strength in sword, axe, bow, flying
weak in reason, faith
Petra is a Mage. Her magic was good enough to one-round armors with Sagittae on the last map, but unfortunately that is the highest rank Reason spell she gets. Gonna aim for Valkyrie / Warlock long term.
Mercedes
strength in bow, reason, faith
weak in sword, lance, axe, armor
peggie / wyvern?, haven’t recruited yet, may or may not use.
Ashe
strength in lance, axe, bow
weak in reason
Warlock long term (has physic). Just recruited and I'm working on reason and faith right now. Just backtracking with him as an adjunct while he's waiting for a skillset.
Sylvain
strength in lance, axe, riding, reason
weak in bow
bow bitch, haven’t recruited yet. will probably be better than caspar because caspar sucks.
Lysithea
strong in sword, reason, faith, auth
weak in lance, axe, armor
wyvern / peg?, haven’t recruited yet. May or may not use.
Shamir
strength in lance, bow
weak in faith
Just recruited, will probably go with War Cleric because her strength is pretty high. She has Physic too!
Yuri
strength in sword, bows, reason, faith, auth
weak in lance, axe, riding, flying
Working on Wyvern with him. We’ll see how tough it is with the double Weaknesses. He is very good so far; 15 str and 13 speed and decent defenses, especially res.
Balthus
strength in sword, axe, brawling, reason, faith, armor
weak in lance, bow, flying
Worse than Edie, better than Caspar at the same role. Not a particularly inspiring unit. Maybe Paladin could have been a better option?
Hapi
strength in axe, reason, riding, flying
weak in brawling, authority, armor
War Cleric (has Physic). She is still a Commoner because she would lose Physic until tier 3 otherwise! Probably mostly a heal bot because her strength is not so great. May or may not use her.
Felix/Ingrid/Leonie/Ferdinand don't have weaknesses, on in the case of Felix Authority doesn't count. Constance and Marianne have Armor as their only real option, Annette is bows but will be worse than the boys at it, and Raphael and Ignatz... well, kinda suck. And you don't want to recruit characters very late in this run so I will be limiting my recruits.
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Azure Moon Maddening - the return. The goal of this playthrough was to use a few of the staff/church characters I hadn't used much before, and also to try out the DLC classes.
Let's talk about the classes first.
Trickster: Although it can use magic, the halved uses means you're perhaps better off thinking of it as a physical class, but it lacks a -faire (Lucky Seven is a very poor replacement) so I guess it's moot. Anyway, Foul Play is great, as anyone who has played Cindered Shadows knows. But it does lose something since it's locked to a 5-move class without canto (in CS, you just leave the Fetters of Dromi on Yuri. Here, that shit is going to the dancer so fast). Overall I think it's the weakest new class, good though Foul Play is.
War Monk/Cleric: Finally, a use for Catherine's brawling skill! And in general, if you ever wanted to have female characters punch things. Compared to Grappler, it isn't quite as mobile (still 6 move, but only has mage-level terrain ignoring) and doesn't get Fierce Iron Fist, but it can heal and gets a great mastery ability in Brawl Avo +20, which stacks nicely with Fist Prowess's higher avoid boosts for a build in that direction. Still has melee infantry problems.
Dark Flier: The trend of fliers being broken continues. Warlock used to be the standard Advanced mage job; it has 4 move. Dark Flier has 7, flight, and canto. Wellll then. It also has a speed focus to a far greater degree than any other mage job, with a +4 speed mod (no other mage exceeds +1) and a speed growth boost, though the magic is a bit lower to compensate. It's not perfect, as you do lose out on Black Uses x2 and there's only one flying batallion which raises magic, so if you build multiple the extra ones will lose a bit of punch beyond just the lower magic.
Valkyrie: Horse mage. Only 6 move, but again, that still beats the hell out of 4. And they get Black/Dark Range +1. Yes, you read that right: there is finally an Advanced class that dark mages (except Hubert >:( ) can use which has a passive that actually benefits them. Anyway, expanded range is always great, this is basically the Bow Knight of mages, only available in Advanced tier. While I transitioned to Dark Knight (1 more move, 3 more damage, 1 less range), there's a case not to. And finally, like War Cleric it has a great mastery ability: Uncanny Blow grants a massive +30 hit on player phase.
Very disappointing that not one but both of the new mage classes are genderlocked. This definitely tilts things towards the female mages relatively. I'd also say the new classes are a particular boon to Lysithea (gets way better in Advanced tier than before) and Marianne (her riding/flying proficiencies matter more and being only neutral in Reason neutral hurts her less), while less of a boon to Dorothea (misses Black Uses x2 and is weak in both Riding/Flying) with the male mages obviously faring the worst. Mercedes and Annette fall somewhere in the middle, benefitting generically.
Overall, Dark Flier > Valkyrie > War Cleric > Trickster
Anyway, time to break down the units from this playthrough... mostly talking about one new build in particular.
Dimitri: Brigand -> Wyvern. No it's not hard to get him to this, while getting authority even. He's a hell of a good wyvern with that strength + Brave Axe option + good stats otherwise, basically Edelgard without Raging Storm. But wait, that's not all! I set him up with Battalion Vantage and Battalion Wrath this playthrough. How these skills work is that if you battalion is below 1/3 health, you get Vantage and Wrath, i.e. strike first on the enemy phase with +50 crit. Toss in Cichol Wyverns (+15 hit/crit), an adjutant, an Accuracy Ring, and a Killer Axe+, and Dimitri will strike first with near-100 hit and crit against anything that initiates on him. It's only range 1, you say? The Retribution gambit says differently, granting 5 turns of Distant Counter twice per battle. Now it's range infinite. This even works on Meteor/Bolting mages, which is absolutely cathartic on the final Azure Moon map (still had three Divine Pulse uses figuring out how to have my other PCs kite the range of the reinforcements properly though...). It's not perfect, because monsters + some fortress knights can survive the crit, and some attacks (staggering blows, ballistas, fire orbs, AM final's range-30 move) are uncounterable. Also those hit/crit numbers usually aren't quite 100, and either not kicking in can be bad! Both because enemies who actually attack might kill Dimitri (particularly fast mages) and because any damage he takes damages his already injured battalion, and if it retreats, you're fucked (the skills stop working). Dimitri's high evade from his personal does help here a bit admittedly. There's no way to partially heal battalions between fights either, sadly. I ended up settling with a setup of Battalion Vantage, Battalion Wrath, Axe Prowess, Death Blow, and Defensive Tactics, so the Cichol Wyverns could take 140 damage between reaching Vantage/Wrath territory before retreating. It was barely enough, they would have retreated in the final battle on the very turn I won.
Anyway, if it's not obvious, stupidly good PC. Is Battalion Wrath/Vantage better than Raging Storm? I dunno. It never matters since they don't compete. (And before you ask: no other PC gets both Battalion Vantage and Battalion Wrath, and one without the other ain't special.)
Byleth: Brigand -> War Cleric. Byleth brings the strength to punch things well, and solid speed so quadding is an option against slower things. Melt some monsters. Also had really high charm and since Dimitri was on a wyvern, she got the mighty King of Lions battalion and its silly gambit. Was quite good for a while though at the end, was definitely surpassed by a certain someone.
Catherine: Brigand -> War Cleric. Since she doesn't have charm, it made sense to prioritise her battalion for avoid instead (the good avoid battalions don't have offensive gambits, I used Gautier with Stride), and she was over 100 avoid which is nifty. So a dodge-tank who could punch things to death pretty well.
Alois: Brigand -> Grappler. You have to drop him back into Brigand when you get it which kinda sucks, and he does need it for long-term value. Obviously worse than Byleth and Catherine by a huge margin (even once he catches up, he's much slower and can't heal), until he got Fierce Iron Fist, which did give him a nice offensive push against things that are hard to double. Rally Str+Luck is okay.
Ashe: Brigand -> Sniper -> Bow Knight. Well y'know, left side of Reunion of Dawn and all that. Kinda his generic self, has thief utility and decent but not exceptional speed and iffy strength, so he's bad at killing things that don't fly but at least he can hit whatever he wants and offers good linked attacks.
Annette: Mage -> Dark Flier. Compared to Wyvern Annette, she loses a bit of power off her axe combat arts but gains her spells back and is faster, which is a winning trade. I won't even talk about infantry mage Annette. An okay mage (the spell list is still kinda bad although her relic does help) with Rally Str/Speed and flier-killing. Good authority lets her reach Nuvelle Fliers quickly which is nice.
Marianne: Mage -> Dark Flier. The only non-dancer Physic user on this run, she was obviously invaluable (same as last run, funnily enough). Didn't have as much raw power as my other mages (no +mag gambit, her Soulblade isn't as potent as Annette's Dust/Lightning Axe) but was speedy with great res.
Lysithea: Mage -> Valkyrie -> Dark Knight. Loads of power off her limited-use spells. Valkyrie does a lot for her as already mentioned, and it had the bonus of speeding her to both Move+1 and Dark Range+1, which was great. Those + Uncanny Blow + Fiendish Blow + Reason Prowess is a hell of a skill loadout. I barely used her Warp since she was too busy reliably killing things.
Hanneman: Mage -> Warlock -> Dark Knight. Oh dear, Hanneman has problems. First off, he misses out on Draw Back which other mages have, that's a notable loss. Then, he's stuck in Warlock in tier 3. He does get Meteor, but not until A+ Reason, unlike Dorothea who gets it at A (and in fact can quite possibly have it around the time he joins). And his speed/durability is awful. He's still a mage with Meteor/Thoron and his raw magic is just behind Lysithea, so he's not devoid of worth.
Manuela: Monk -> Trickster. Unlike Hanneman I did have her fall back to Monk for Mag+2/Draw Back, but this is because she has a harder time getting to Mage for Fiendish Blow, so not really a win. Anyway she ended up with no power at all but lots of utility: Draw Back, Warp (limited range), Foul Play. I laser-focused Reason for her (she's bad it) so she could get Bolting and thus give her some much needed link attack utility.
Seteth: Wyvern. He joins late enough that I felt I couldn't justify a backtrack for Death Blow. Anyway, he runs around and Swift Strikes things, though unless they're on a horse or very squishy he usually falls short of ORKO, so he likes friends who can chip things a bit first. Decent def but bad speed. He doesn't compare with the better student wyverns, but being on a wyvern with essentially a free brave weapon (lower power but higher hit) definitely gives one a decent baseline performance in this game.
Hapi: Mage -> Dancer. Hapi's kinda like Dorothea, with below-average-for-a-mage magic but a good spell list (Death, Physic, Banshee, late Warp... no Meteor though). I considered benching mine when she wasn't turning out well for stats, but hey, Dancer solves everything.
I definitely missed not having Pegasus Knight on this run, and only having one high-tier physical flier.
MVP was of course Dimitri, LVP was one of Alois/Hanneman/Manuela. Of note, I briefly tried to use Gilbert, who rewarded me with a 0-stat level, and even disregarding that is clearly... significantly worse than Alois, which is a very bad place to be indeed. Just in case there was any doubt who the worst PC in the game is.
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Crimson Flower Bad-Bad run - Just finished Chapter 16. Four fliers means that I did pretty well for myself, although obviously a lot of the characters were a bit understatted because of their role-reversal. The best units are generally those with good physical stats who don’t have to switch into magical roles - primarily Edelgard and Yuri. This didn’t save Caspar and Balthus from being cut from the team - both of those characters feel like they depend on Wyvern Rider’s general dominance to be viable, and that was against the rules! I ended up doing a lot of sub-100% rolls for classes, bought a few extra of Advanced Tier and Master Tier seals for extra dicerolls for the iffier units, and some resetting as well.
M!Byleth: He is very, very strength screwed - 22 strength at level 32, and with 4 move and terrain penalties and 18 speed so he can’t kill enemies worth a shit, he is easily LVP. The defense is nice for baiting, but can’t withstand magic punishment, nor high speed/strength enemies. Got plastered by Nader, which in theory is what he should be good at because that is literal job, but he took 80 damage. LOL, That assumes that this build is good at anything. Still has high charm when he actually reaches enemies, at least, so he can Gambit. The degree to which he is worse than mages as wyverns and Petra as a mage is baffling and embarrassing. I ended up giving him a gaudy glowing shield and Curved Shot so he can 3hko enemies from three squares away. :'(
Edelgard: Edelgard has been a Sniper for a good portion of this run - qualified for it around Level 22 (I’ve been generally going for B+ for A ranked units). I bought her a Brave Bow in Chapter 12 and ever since then she has been a force of unstoppable doom from Range 3. She got Hunter’s Volley around Chapter 14 and has been raising unholy hell from Range 4 instead :D. At Level 36 (lol), I finally qualified her for Bow Knight, so now she has ridiculous move. I think she has 43 strength right now. M-V-P.
Hubert: So my gothy little bitch channelled his inner Sothis freak and went to Bishop and then Holy Knight for Chapter 16. He wears black as Bishop/HK because of course he does. He mostly baits Armor Knights and steals their HP with Nosferatu. Otherwise, he is pretty damaging and can heal very well with Recover, although it’s a shame he doesn’t have a better Faith list; he only has 12 uses of offensive magic per battle now that I am in Holy Knight (It’s kinda funny - HK is not a given considering the low charges of Nos, even for a character who can’t use Reason spells! Kinda sad for HK’s general prospects as a PC.) Not a great PC, but he’s Hubert - I am obligated to use him on every CF run, and he was very useful early and always has utility.
Dorothea: Did Peg Knight ->Wyvern Rider -> Falcon Knight. Picking up Reposition + Darting Blow makes her pretty great, even with low power in Peg Knight (10 STR), and then the Wyvern Rider bases in STR and DEF made her overall stat build look much better. I ended up going over to Falcon Knight to use Arrow of Indra on Lancefaire, since the source of Arcane Crystals to forge Bolt Axes comes quite a bit after Arrow of Indra. She is a solid mixed unit - decent physicals backed up with a good magic attack and flier move for most of the game. One of the better characters in the party. Ended up qualifying for Falcon Knight at Level 31 - pretty low for my party. :)
Bernie: Ended up going for her as Dancer because it is objectively the worst choice imaginable. She has high evade and does Dancer Things.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYkQQfBUEAIm90X?format=jpg&name=large)
Look at that face.
Petra: Unlike Edie and Yuri, who were able to go into physical jobs, Petra was forced into a magic build, where she is bad in both reason and faith. Her magic lists are bad so she mastered most of them pretty quickly and then started working on Valkyrie, which she was able to access at Level 20 despite the weakness in Reason and qualified for Warlock a couple levels later, which gave her magic (I think she gained about 8 magic from three different promos). At first she was really really good, but she ended up getting a bit speed-screwed, so she wasn’t doubling as many enemies as time went on, which is a damn shame because her power growth was actually pretty good. I gave her Thyrsus to complement her role as primary mage, even though it does 10 damage. Ended up not using Warlock and vaulting to DK around Level 32 to increase her power.
Yuri: He is bad in Axes and Flying and Lances. So it was impossible to access to Wyvern Rider??? Well, no. Wyvern Rider has pretty lenient requirements - B in Axe and C in Flying is only 980 skill points to achieve, whereas A in one skill requires 1320 skill points. But there’s more! For Wyvern Rider, being 1 skill rank down gives a ~75% chance of success, whereas B+ in say, Bow for qualifying for Sniper gives you a ~65% to succeed. Even worse is when you are down 2 skill ranks. Wyvern Rider is about ~40%, whereas B in Bow does not allow you to qualify for Sniper unless you have really high luck (you have to have 30% to even try; most of my characters were sitting at 25-29%). I am going to throw some shade at Snowfire for docking points for Wyvern Rider access on someone who doesn't even have a relevant skill weakness because after looking at these numbers, it is trivial to qualify for, so much so that Yuri was actually the first character in my army to qualify to go into his Advanced Tier job! And boy howdy he is a damn good PC once he gets there. Great stat build; high str and speed and charm. First person to go to master tier as well, although I had to pass 50% test.
Hapi: Honestly she ended up being quite a hassle because she had to train Brawling and I couldn’t both make her a healer and a brawler. I made her a Brawler and made her an adjutant for most of the game. Ended up getting her to War Cleric, but honestly haven’t used her much because her strength is pretty low for a brawling class. I pull her out when the roster is at 12.
Mercedes: Recruited in Chapter 5. She’s pretty bad as a Fighter / Brigand at first, but she can duel down mages effectively with her stupid high Res and decent speed. After going to Wyvern Rider she is very solid, high res and that sweet strength minimum. She and Lysithea have fought over the Bolt Axe until this chapter, where I have made more :D
Lysithea: Also recruited in Chapter 5. Worse stats than Mercie except speed, but especially res and charm, and was quite bad early, but Mastermind means she learns things quickly, and she ended up grabbing B in Authority for Galtaea Peg Knights even though I was forbidden from training it, because she gains it quite quickly if you give her a battalion. Overall a bit worse than Mercie I think, even with that advantage, but still a decent unit once she gets out of the doldrums of her bad start. Passing 41% exam for Wyvern Rider helped!
Ashe: Recruited in Chapter 4. You know that stuff I chronicled in Yuri’s entry about A rank being a gigantic pain in in the ass to get for this run? Well… Ashe was hit pretty hard by this. Because Physic is so so so useful, I beelined for it as soon as I qualified for Mage, but that delayed his progress to Warlock even further. It was worth it, because Physic is just that damn good, but he got to Level 27 before getting to B+ in Reason to try to qualify for Warlock. The good news is that Ashe was blessed in speed and doubles most enemies, even though his damage before Warlock was sub-par. I just got him Dark Knight at level 34 but haven’t used it in battle yet. I know the last two maps aren’t super nice to Cavalry but probably still better than Warlock. Honestly, I really wish he could qualify for Gremory so I could give him White Magic uses x 2 for Physic.
Shamir: Recruited in Chapter 6. Same general trajectory as Hapi but higher strength means she can actually kill things (though not all things buy any means), which is a great boon. She is pretty evasive and has high HP so she tanks well, but low move and only mid-tier strength prevents her from being a fantastic unit. Physic is still fucking great, even with only three uses. I ended up qualifying her for Bishop at B in Chapter 15 since her luck meant that she had 31% chance to do it and I had some extra Advanced Seals. 3 magic is 3 magic!
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Caspar: Dumped in the trash because Caspar. It is really amazing that, even with a good physical build in the wings with his weakness, he still SUCKS. He doesn’t even come close to one-shotting enemies, doesn’t get damage support from Bow because Curved Shot, and didn’t last until Brave Bow which might allow him to one-round some enemies? I tried, but this character is just no good.
Balthus: Used longer than Caspar, but same problems of low speed remain, so I ended up dumping him too. As much as I wanted to have an ascended Fire Emblem bandit in my army.
Sylvain: Didn’t end up using him. Just stole his lance because I’m an asshole.
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M!Byleth: He is very, very strength screwed - 22 strength at level 32, and with 4 move and terrain penalties and 18 speed so he can’t kill enemies worth a shit, he is easily LVP. The defense is nice for baiting, but can’t withstand magic punishment, nor high speed/strength enemies. Got plastered by Nader, which in theory is what he should be good at because that is literal job, but he took 80 damage. LOL, That assumes that this build is good at anything. Still has high charm when he actually reaches enemies, at least, so he can Gambit. The degree to which he is worse than mages as wyverns and Petra as a mage is baffling and embarrassing. I ended up giving him a gaudy glowing shield and Curved Shot so he can 3hko enemies from three squares away
armor knights, a perpetual disappointment
So it was impossible to access to Wyvern Rider??? Well, no. Wyvern Rider has pretty lenient requirements - B in Axe and C in Flying is only 980 skill points to achieve, whereas A in one skill requires 1320 skill points. But there’s more! For Wyvern Rider, being 1 skill rank down gives a ~75% chance of success, whereas B+ in say, Bow for qualifying for Sniper gives you a ~65% to succeed. Even worse is when you are down 2 skill ranks. Wyvern Rider is about ~40%, whereas B in Bow does not allow you to qualify for Sniper unless you have really high luck (you have to have 30% to even try; most of my characters were sitting at 25-29%).
I still have no idea why they thought they needed to make wyvern rider reqs as lenient as they did or why anyone would argue that hitting it is geniunely difficult unless you were deliberately avoiding statue bonuses because as you point out it's absurd. Hmm yes let's give the best advanced tier class the easiest reqs to hit this is totes balanced, IntSys brain geniuses strike again.
e: Pokemon Sword - Also, right, I play games too. Started this, went with the Fire starter for the first time since... shit, Gen 3? I appreciate some things about it but honestly on the "otherwise, is Pokemon" scale there's nothing that I find myself latching onto so far, plus some of what they did add is kind of annoying. Yes game, I know I caught a Magikarp, you don't need to reinform me of this fact, please let me turn this off.
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armor knights, a perpetual disappointment
I decided Great Knight was too good for this playthrough, but it costs 3240 skill points and also sucks. Wyvern Lord is 300 less and infinitely better - LOL.
I still have no idea why they thought they needed to make wyvern rider reqs as lenient as they did or why anyone would argue that hitting it is geniunely difficult unless you were deliberately avoiding statue bonuses because as you point out it's absurd. Hmm yes let's give the best advanced tier class the easiest reqs to hit this is totes balanced, IntSys brain geniuses strike again.
Wyvern Rider really needed to be rethought in general. It has a speed base of 17 (14 base min + +3 mod), strength base of 21 (18 base min + 3 mod) AND deletes the only disadvantage that they have because you can Dismount anytime you want! And they have 7 move and skip terrain. It's just... amazingly poorly balanced. Even in this playthrough, where I had three mages running Wyvern Rider, those bases mean that they are pretty functional units anyway and can fly away once they attack! And characters with low speed like Raphael and Dedue can cheat by jumping speed in WR - I think Dedue gained like 6 when he promoted? And they are the easiest class to qualify to promote into. Just... why.
Anyway, I wrapped up the two last maps last night. Edie and Yuri co-MVPs, slaying bitches, Hubert murdered lots of Great Knights with their amazing 2 AS, M!Byleth baited some peggies on the last map (mostly because he fell behind due to TWO MOVE ON THE LAST MAP HA HA HA BLACK MATERIA) and then had to be Repositioned over the wall because a golem was coming to do 20x2 damage to him with probably 15-20 crit, evade twinked Bernie got Little Cultist / Rhea Bootlicker down to 3% hit with his Brave Axe, Wyvern Lord army did their thing, had lots of Physic for doom and gloom, and married a cute girl, saved her from dying at a young age, and opened up a bakery because dammit if you marry Lysithea, you should make her life wonderful because she deserves it. :) I see portliness in our future, but it's fine!
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In principle I kinda like the canto classes being more powerful on average because I like using them (making good use of the extra positioning options makes me feel like a better player, y'know?) but they definitely went too far with the wyvern line. Which is weird because I think they did a pretty decent job of balancing the cavalier line.
I also realized that with how common terrain is in FE3H, that I have basically no respect for classes that need to reach melee range to attack and don't have some way to mitigate terrain (or in paladin's case, make up for it by having 8 move before terrain is factored), which is armour knights, swordmasters (sorry Catherine, gtfo of that class ASAP you zealot), warriors, heroes, and war masters. At least mages ignore thickets.
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I think I mentioned it the other day, but looking at the requirements for WR it seems like at some point in development they might have had it as an Intermediate class. Which suggests they had some inkling of how good it was and did a fairly last minute balance thing with them. Not enough clearly, but holding it back a few levels is something I guess.
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In principle I kinda like the canto classes being more powerful on average because I like using them (making good use of the extra positioning options makes me feel like a better player, y'know?) but they definitely went too far with the wyvern line. Which is weird because I think they did a pretty decent job of balancing the cavalier line.
Yeah for all that I remain unenthusiastic about paladin in hindsight the mounted classes all have reasonable enough downsides so they don't -completely- shit on infantry like cavs did in 9, which just makes the op state of wyverns all the more baffling.
And yeah maybe I thought a little too much of swordmasters when comparing them to other classes, especially considering how often I felt pulled to assassin instead despite that class's own downsides and my poor opinion of locktouch, 5 move standard infantry movement with no bow perks just feels kind of bad, worse than 4 move mage movement at times as you point out. War Master at least gets 6 move out of that bunch but you have to train two melee weapon types to A which is questionable to begin with and one of those is axes so that literally could've been a wyvern instead so it doesn't really deserve respect regardless.
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Valkyria Chronicles 4- In Mission 4. It feels like a VC1 DLC rather than a new game which is a good thing as I adored VC1. It's still broken in some of the same ways (Orders way too strong) but the classes feel a little more balanced on the whole. Or at least Shocktrooper is better. Writing veers off into cringey anime stuff at times but by and large it's solid enough.
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Shining Force II- We have, at last, completed the task of 2009 CK.
So as a Fire Emblem remix I think this works better than the one SNES edition of FE I've played? FE4 has a lot of very strange problems mind, but on the whole ShF2 is a lot breezier and doesn't need as much save manipulation and grinding. Considering how mean ShF2 can be that sounds kinda weird! But because revival is a thing and relatively affordable it can reliably throw 2HKO grunts at you and make every encounter dangerous. That also means that playing around to power up a weaker unit can be a coin flip mind, but on the other hand it feels like this is a lot more deliberate a part of the design than in contemporary/GBA era FE games.
Unto itself... honestly the game settles for just shooting a LOT of plot and small twists at you to make up for each scene having about 5-10 lines of dialog. I mean, I could tell you things about the different Greater Devils, that's a bit weird to me. So it has a nice cheesy kinda of draw, which I like. It's nothing amazing but yeah, it's interesting to see the contrast with some of the other games of the era. I mean, Shining Force is perfectly happy to talk about devils, demons, hell, and damning things. I feel like if this had become a lost game and been translated in the early '00 it'd just have swearing, which... kinda works. It's neat.
Probably a 6/10 overall.
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Octopath Traveller: Finished with all C4's except for Alfyn and Tressa. The maingame is crumbling before the power of Patience and an even distribution of jobs (no prestige jobs). I've ended up making most sub-jobs the 'conjugate' character, so Merchant/Thief, Dancer/Cleric, Warrior/Hunter, Scholar/Healer. This probably isn't optimal but it's kind of fitting and works to keep all classes in combat. Healer's skillset is a little unimpressive? (The MT axes kill feeling like the worthwhile one).
Shining Force 2: Super Mode (enemy Atk is multiplied by 1.25x), trying to keep even levels.
The first battle on Super mode is a doozy. Enemy double-turns? Bye. From there things even out as long as you don't send people to the enemy and rely on formations to control how many enemy's can attack a single PC at a time. Enemy archers frustrate this quite a bit, so they have to be baited specifically if possible. Keeping even levels means modifying formations so that lower leveled PCs can swoop in for the kill. The enhanced enemy offense means most 'just send in the super-unit' strategies end in horrible death early on. Enemy units not being more durable means they die just as easily however. Although I may be biased by not having super-units due to spreading out exp. Except for Sarah the healer, who just catapults relative to everyone else courtesy of constantly getting exp while other units have to 'wait their turn'.
Kraken fight was a slap in the face (by tentacles, OHKOing things). Fortunately the kraken itself is still fairly fragile and it's offense (by being set ITD) wasn't buffed.
Taros was scarier but not by enough to matter, as spreading out units for him to target (while doing my best to avoid letting him get Bowie in any Bolts) was good enough.
Promotions are available but I'd prefer to wait till weapon upgrades justify it. At first (right after Taros) the only promotion-only weapons are swords and staves. Bowie has his own special sword about as powerful, and Slade's weapon is about as good. Kazin doesn't care about staves but needs to promote to prevent falling behind on damage if he promotes later and 'loses' levels for the purposes of learning spells. Most of Sarah's job is to heal and Promotion helps with that but not by too much so there isn't a need to promote quite yet. In fact the only other unit I really feel NEEDS to promote is Luke, whose offense without the much better Broadsword is just too low to effectively damage enemies, even with the Atk ring.
Chess battle should be fun.
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Chess battle should be fun.
Really what is even the point of a tactical rpg that doesn't have a chess battle?
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And what's the point of showing up to a chess battle with fewer than three queens? If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.
Final Fantasy 7R - Up to the plate drop.
Game is quite solid. It's not really a surprise at this point with other people's comments but it's way above what I was expecting from the game before its release. The gameplay is recognizable from FF13 (ATB, staggering) but with a bit more action/positioning elements (they still aren't huge compared to something like Trials of Mana though, the game really emphasizes what you do with your turns more than avoiding enemy attacks). And of course the ability to switch between your characters is both welcome and very useful, and since they play differently it really feels like you're still controlling a team unlike some ARPGs. I'm happy with this, it definitely feels like an evolution of FF7 rather than something totally different the way FF15 is.
Challenge is generally in a good place. I lose quite a few tougher fights once and almost never more as I'm able to idenfify my mistakes and learn from them. Losing just kicks you back to before the fight so you can monkey with your setup (just like FF13). Materia system is pretty darn similar to the original's, but that's good because that was always a solid part of the original game. And the characters themselves certainly feel more differentiated with greater stat differences and a bevy of unique abilities, to say nothing of the way their basic attacks (and thus fastest method of ATB gain) are different.
My chief complaints about the gameplay is that boss fights can take a bit too long sometimes (it's interesting playing this right after Trials of Mana, a remake which sped up its boss fights; FF7R slows them down). Interruption can be frustrating since you can lose the ATB investment you made. I'm fine with it for spells/abilities overall but getting a limit break interrupted suuucks and I wish that didn't happen, would feel truer to their ATB priority in original FF7 too. Oh yeah and you really should have just healed to full between fights, spamming potions and watching the animation for each is dumb. But... none of these complaints are huge, and overall this is a very solid gameplay game for sure.
On writing... abstaining on anything related to the wraiths for now (I'm not... terribly optimistic about them but we'll see), I really like the rest of what they're going for. Remarkably it does feel like FF7's original characters and concepts, only fleshed out, and that's a very good thing. The character work is good, the setting work is good, and the game's portrayal of an environmentally devastating mega-corporation as its primary antagonist is if anything even more timely now than it was in 1997. Not everything is perfect, but they're doing a good job, and I enjoy watching the game's scenes moment-to-moment. And of course, let's take a moment to hype the final arena match in Wall Market and the Honeybee Inn sequence, anyone who has seen those knows why.
Probably my biggest disappointment is with the music (or perhaps music direction), it's generally a bit of a blur which mostly seems to coast on sprinkling in moments of "hey I recognize that melody!" This is probably the only area I think the original has a clear leg-up.
Shantae and the Seven Sirens - This sure is a Shantae game.
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Ys 8 - Lacrimosa of Dana - Finished the regular ending at 37 hours. Interesting game. Its strength is in its core gameplay conceit and the differentiation between the playable characters. it has very enjoyable bosses on average and the switching mechanics are quite fluid and fun, and the gameplay is very fast-paced. I already talked about the character balance and it largely holds; I used a party of Dana, Laxia, and Ricotta and it was pretty good, especially because it covered all three element types.
My favorite part of the game was definitely the stuff involving Dana; Olga and Dana are two of the only characters who have legitimate chemistry, and they introduced a system where Dana can switch forms into the other weapon types, offering more coverage and decision-making to the process. Dana’s quest also has some really cool puzzles. I thought the Dana sections were a general strong bit of the game and had both cool gameplay elements, especially since Dana’s route doesn’t have the broken revival system which lends it a different feel than the rest of the game gameplaywise.
One thing I reflected on after beating the game is how much I liked the concept of having this Suikoden-style village where you collect people to do different functions, but I think too many of the characters in the village were not very interesting and mostly served the function of worshipping the main character in one way or another. it’s something that games with silent mains unfortunately gravitate toward, and few games are worse about it then this. Adol is chosen to be the only remaining survivor from the human race because he is the best human on Earth. Or something. Good grief.
I think the late stage plot is interesting but I was trying hard to fight off my general fatigue with the game writing-wise, with not as much success as I’d like. Dana is always a bright spot even after she joins the party, and the Great Tree of Evolution is kinda neat, but I think the present day plot just didn’t have enough to really captivate my interest, particularly with the cardboardness of the NPCs (they all have a personality trait or two, but that’s it) and the silent main. And Hummel, who feels like someone’s one-note Dungeons and Dragons character - I am a transporter! I like transporting! Sahad, Laxia, and Ricotta all have bright spots; Sahad is the character who I think has the most going for him but also has some problematic elements with his unaddressed benevolent sexism. Laxia is a likeable nerd at her best and a stereotypical female nag at her worst. And Ricotta is just generically likeable without having much good or bad going for her.
I think the game could have used to be about 75% as long; a lot of the midgame arcs feel like filler and the party often feels like it’s dealing with the same problems over and over again, and the writing quality is generally low, so it really did need less of it. It feels bloated by the desire to have a longer game, and it seems to often find excuses to burn more of your time. And sometimes the quest for items to use for synth is a bit tedious. I was playing on Hard mode and I generally needed a lot of healing, so take that as you will; it might be my own fault for not playing on the default my first time.
But I really liked the difficulty overall of the bosses, even if some of them were pretty brutal. I struggled a lot with the second of the four Wardens a lot, as well as the final boss. I think i used like 30 revival items against the final boss. I felt like the game’s boss design was not as strong before the four Wardens but after the mid-point, which is largely why the game felt like it was dragging, since the bosses are the reason to play the game, and there’s a lot of them!
Overall, I feel somewhat similarly about this game as I do about Tales of Vesperia; it is a decent game with one really big thing going for it that it doesn’t always perfectly execute, but it is an enjoyable game nonetheless. But one I did have to push myself into completing.
I realized I never posted a follow-up to Hollow Knight! Hollow Knight is great, nerds, play it.
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Valkyria Chronicles 4- It's VC1 even down to the same order and graphics system. As I adored VC1 this works for me!
I'm in Chapter 8, so about halfway through. The rebalancing of classes is nice; Scout still feels like the best but it's not as clear cut as VC1. Shocktroopers/Lancers/Grendiers have a lot of use. Engineers and Snipers are still pretty unimpressive though.
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Cosmic Star Heroine - Finished on Heroine or whatever it was called, clocked in at a little under 12 hours. The game’s art and graphics and music are all a big improvement over Cthulhu, which seems like a good starting point of comparison. Both the regular battle theme and the boss theme are both catchy and likeable tracks, and the dungeons look and feel nicer to play due to feeling like real environments instead of weird same-y dungeon design. I also really like the character art - Alyssa, Chahn, and Lauren are all three cool looking, and even the aliens and less attractive characters are fine.
The encounter style feels very Chrono Trigger-like except more consistently thoughtful in their design, and the bosses are often but not always good. The final boss was actually quite terrible! But the second-to-last boss was pretty good. The character skillsets are all a joy to play with and the game gives you lots of tools to tinker, and because each battle everything is reset, from HP to skills, every battle feels like a mini challenge of its own. However, my biggest complaint is that many of the strategies for the characters’ actions are the same for each PC and once you get their ‘thing’ set up, I found that you often did the same things in every battle. However, the game is short enough that it didn’t feel too repetitive, since your characters were constantly switching out and learning new tricks, and thus adjusting your strategies over time. I don’t think the game should have been significantly longer than it was, though, or else it would get dull.
I ended up using Alyssa, Chahn, Orson, and Psybe for the final boss; Alyssa had high damage and buffing, Chahn has her diverse skillset, Psybe had regen and buffing Hypers, and Orson just pumped damage into enemies every three turns. I also used Sue a lot before getting Orson; I really liked the way that Counter interacted with MT damage in this game. Lauren is also a reasonably cool PC for a while but I feel like the efficacy of status decreased over the course of the game because the status rates on moves doesn’t increase as fast as enemies defenses vs. status did. Did get much use out of Clarke or Zzorv, and Finn seemed outright bad. Arete was fine but not exceptional.
If I were to replay the game, I would probably play on Super Spy.
Plotwise, it is there. The game tries to have a more serious plot than CSTW and you know they should probably just stick with humor. It consumes so little of the time spent playing the game that it scarcely matters, unlike some games that make you spend hours reading their terrible dialogue and misogynist bullshit cough cough Ys 8 cough cough, and the character designs make me happy so I honestly don’t care much.
7/10. We’ll see what’s next~
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One thing CSH has going for it is constantly giving you new abilities and equipment to play around with.
Finished with Octopath Traveller. Did all the sidequests, including killing Galdera. Galdera 2 smoked me the first time and the second time I took more time to get people to even levels, use all my stat-up items, and set up my party just right to fight the two parts....
Then I got mixed up and assigned the 2 parties to the wrong parts. Still managed to swing a victory out. Apothecary's MT Items and Cleric's Saving Grace were the heroes of that fight. Ophilia and Primros brought in Full Enfeeblement (MT all stats down for 3 turns) assists which proved useful both for hitting harder and not taking as much damage. The double-hitting axe is great for handling the eye when the shields aren't up (8 shields down from one turn!). Merchant actually works well for form 2 because Hire Veteran is an MT 4 hit sword move, which nearly breaks two of the parts out of the gate (I had barely used it before that fight, and kind of regret it since getting access to multi-hit, say, daggers at little cost seems pretty good!). I've heard form 2 has Toxic Rainbow, and uh wow that would have been horrible.
Some of the epilogue sidequests for the NPCs you meet are revealing and insightful and help with building up the world as one where relationships exist between characters of different stories.
My favorite stories were Primrose, Ophilia, H'aanit, and Therion? Cyrus and Olberic were also good. Alfyn's and Tressa's felt a little too unfocused.
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Troubleshooter:
So Act 6 of the game is crazy difficult. I just beat 6-1 after like 4 tries and even on the easiest difficulty, this level is balls-to-the-walls hard. The goal of the level is to guard Kylie and Ryo, this random sword grunt who you fought like 20 stages ago. It doesn't seem like his skills have improved much, so he's incredibly fragile and basically fodder if you leave him open. My first attempt at this was to try to wait and see what would happen since the AI gets alerted once you step in to engage with Ryo. Ryo apparently decides he is too cool for school and goes Rambo apparently and attacks the melee boss. He proceeds to get destroyed by Retaliate because Retaliate is stupid good (guaranteed 100% crit if you block the attack, boss has high block rate) and gets one shot. Welp.
Second attempt. Okay, no choice here really. I have to engage with Ryo immediately or he'll commit seppuku on his first turn. I rush Kylie in to control him. I move him around to the back of a nearby truck, but still close so he can pick off weakened units. Big mistake here as the enemies seem to realize he's made of paper and the bunch of enemies that start near me all go after him. I have Heixing set up for a bunch of reaction attacks but every enemy here sans the tank enemies apparently has LIGHTNING REFLEXES as a skill and dodges all of them. This problem is further compounded by the fact that taking a reaction shot pushes back your next turn by 30 CT. So uh, I never get another turn and the mooks come in and kill Ryo.
Third attempt. I set up Kylie for more block so she can help with some tanking. Rush and save Ryo. Have Ray boost Heixing into Overcharge so he can use his Ult. Apparently the boss has huge dodge too. Well, shit. I vainly try to hit him at 3% with Heixing's Ult and miss completely. Aw yeah. Ryo runs the fuck away, but this time, despite having notable block, by the time Kylie takes her second turn, she's taken an assload of damage, and Heixing again is not seeing a turn due to all the reaction attacks. I try to retreat, but it's too late here and she dies to a stray hit from a melee dude.
Fourth attempt. I change class on Heixing because my reaction fire set up is working against me. Instead, I give him a bunch of new skills and turn him into a Sweeper. As the name implies, it specializes in mowing down groups. I also give Leton a ton of block so he can help manage the flow of enemies by tanking. For Ray, I also give her Spider Web grenades so she can also immobolize the enemies. With that, we're ready to go. Opening leg of the fight remains the same. One thing Ryo thankfully has is a skill called Impulse Fields, which is basically similar to Pokemon's Sturdy. As long as you have more than 50% HP, attacks that would kill you instead of 50% of their damage. This thankfully saves Ryo's ASS since I finally manage to get into a position with Heixing to land a few lucky hits and take the first boss' HP down, which grants him a free Ult. He uses it on Ryo, who then runs far the hell away. I charge up Heixing and blast the boss dead, because he's by far and away the biggest problem here. There's a second boss, but I'm better positioned to take care of it since I don't have to walk into an ambush as the level demands initially. Once he's dead, the enemy reinforcements spawn on the right and come barrelling down. A big difference I do here is instead of using Kylie's defense matrix for added Block and reaction fire (remember this is bad!), I call fourth my robot friends. One of them I build is a tank with 4k HP (a lot) and has a lot of damage reduction skills. I position this one up front with Leton so the enemies can't reach Heixing easily. I then blast the enemies repeatedly with Heixing's fan AoE attack. Once the second boss rolls in, I immobolize him, then position myself in a more advantageous way so he has to either hit Leton or my drone tank. Ray juices up Heixing again so I can Ult the 2nd boss. He auto-res and gains an instant turn due to his passives and burns his ult on my drone, which absorbs the damage because that's what its designed to do. With that, I mop him up with Heixing/Kylie's offense while Ray and Leton help distract and take out the remaining supports. This level was tough that even when there were only 3 enemies left, I was still extremely cautious.
And now I'm stuck on 6-2. Two attempts so far. The goal is to defend Giselle again an army of police units as well as 6 members of your team. Problem here is, my team is skilled up the wazoo so I can't actually kill much before they overrun me. My shots with Giselle and Heixing end up getting eaten up by either Block (Albus, Kylie, Leton) or damage nulling (Albus, Sion) or auto-res (Ray, Irene). Then just for shits and giggles of course, I gave Anne a bunch of recovery skills including auto-heal a nearby target so if I can't kill anything and she's nearby, she just heals them to full. My first attempt ended with me dying in the tower because they just swarmed me as I failed to put anyone down. 2nd attempt, Heixing moved too far in front and Albus got into melee range. Horrible, horrible things proceed to happen as he dies and I have 6 elite units + like 10 police units to deal with. I realize there is a simple way of dealing with this level by disabling equips or skills on my other PCs before starting, but that feels cheap. Will give this a couple of more shots, but holy cow was this nasty.
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Ocarina of Time 3D beaten. I got most of the items in the game, but not all; Biggoron's Sword, Ice Arrows, the fourth bottle, and Gold Skulltulas past ~54, most notably. Some very belated thoughts on this very historically important game:
-The game's pace is honestly pretty brisk if you know exactly where to go at all times, but it grinds to a halt if you ever decide to explore every nook and cranny of the game, either out of a desire to be thorough or just because you're lost and don't know where to go. I personally wound up using a guide for most of the game past the Great Deku Tree as a result, as I prioritized not wasting my time over the satisfaction of solving every single bit of the game on my own.
This isn't through any major design flaw of the game, mind you; it's just an inevitability when dealing with large maps without extremely powerful movement options. I do think Nintendo has been extremely conscious of this when designing 3D Zelda games, hence the constant use of assistant characters who can give you tips, and quite possibly the increased linearity of Zelda games up through Skyward Sword (though increased plot complexity is just as responsible for the latter, if not moreso).
-That said, Kokiri Forest deserves a lot of credit for being a carefully designed location to let players naturally learn how to control Link and use his various moves naturally, rather than making you go through a scripted tutorial. It follows in the footsteps of Peach's Castle from Mario 64 in this way. Deku Tree also deserves mention for its emphasis on verticality in both progression and puzzle solving, in a way that 2D games could not achieve. I could be wrong here, but this feels like an area where Shigeru Miyamoto put a lot of personal emphasis on designing. Meanwhile, later Zelda games where he took a backseat would go on to make their forced tutorials longer and longer, until BotW did a 180 in series direction.
-Compared to 2D iterations of Zelda, I thought that OoT's controls suffered from a lack of precision around the margins. The biggest offender was the context-sensitive A button, which frankly was overloaded on the amount of things it had to do, which lead to the occasional frustrating ambiguity. Pushing blocks vs climbing on them was a problem that came up throughout the game, while dismounting Epona vs speeding up vs (rarely) talking to an NPC took the longest time to resolve. This was never a major issue per se, and by 1998 standards I imagine the game's controls were amazing, but compared to something like ALTTP the relative imprecision is pretty noticable. The N64 just didn't have enough buttons to do everything Nintendo EAD needed players to do without making the occasional compromise.
-Enemy density is way lower than games like Zelda 1 or ALTTP, possibly due to N64 hardware limitations, and the Z-targetting (well, L-targetting on 3DS) system makes most enemies ignore you when locked on, so crowd control is almost never an issue. This meant that humanoid enemies that can block/parry your attacks (i.e. Stalfos, Lizalfos, Gerudo Guards, etc.) were just about the only things that really made me think about combat outside of bosses and mini-bosses. There's no random enemy that is as dangerous as a Lynel or Wizzrobe or Hinox, either, so as soon as I got a few bottles the game's difficulty largely flatlined. Iron Knuckles, a mini-boss, were just about the only enemies that hit hard enough to make me learn to dodge their attack patterns, but they are so slow that by the end of the game I beat the last two without taking a single hit.
-Having beaten every Zelda game prior to OoT expect for Zelda 2, I can definitively say that this is when the series really focused on making the majority of bosses into what are essentially puzzles, rather than just the occasional Arrghus here or there. Just about every boss here is designed around using the dungeon item to stun/expose them, then hit with a sword. This honestly makes sense when you remember that OoT lacks stuff like a dedicated jump or dodgeroll button that are staples on most 3D third person action games, in favor of assigning a bunch to the usual Zelda items. This leaves less options for the designers to create a good pure combat boss, so emphasizing the gimmicks does make sense on paper. This does wind up leaving a player's opinion of bosses completely dependent on how well you felt the gimmick was implemented, though.
-The most interesting puzzles, IMO, were the ones that implemented verticality in some way. The least interesting were the ones where you pushed blocks on a flat surface; they felt like slower, less interesting versions of stuff I've done a million times in 2D Zelda and Pokemon games.
-I feel like scope and spectacle are a big part of OoT's appeal to the masses, not to mention 3D Zelda in general (and arguably the entire third person action/action-adventure/action-hybrid-something genre). Oh, and immersion (something that many 'hardcore' gamers are obsessed with, in my experience), though that suffered from playing on an old 3DS where the stereoscopic 3D doesn't work properly anymore. A good example of this would be the castle collapse sequence near the end, which is trivially easy and has a timer that's practically irrelevant, but the whole sequence looks and feels cool, like you're in an interactive cutscene. The game is full of moments like this, like when you first step out onto Hyrule Field and see how large it is, or even the opening scene where Navi flies around Kokiri Forest in first person view, giving the player a good view of the game's 3D environments. I suspect that moments like these blew a lot of people's minds when they first experienced it as a kid, who would go on proclaim OoT as the greatest game of all time on various parts of the internet for the past two decades.
On balance, I'd say that OoT 3D is a good game in a genre that just... isn't one of my personal favorites. As someone who mainly grew up on 16-bit era games, I prefer the brisk pacing and tighter controls of 2D Zelda games over the grander spectacles and increased immersion of 3D Zeldas. It was still well worth the bargain basement price I paid for it, but I feel even more justified in my lack of interest in the 3D branch of the series now.
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hinode: To my knowledge, it's not merely "most" enemies that ignore you when locked on, it's all of them, barring stuff like projectiles already in flight. Thankfully Ocarina of Time is not really about the non-boss combat, because it certainly doesn't hold up.
Also, not sure if you played FF Adventure back in the day, but Adventures of Mana has some very strong Zelda I vibes in it if you haven't played it - hordes of kinda-dumb enemies in the dungeons that can crowd you out, smallish rooms, puzzles, etc. It's not really that close to the rest of the Mana series in gameplay, but might be of interest for Zelda I variants.
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A Hat in Time
Speaking of old games from the N64 - oddly enough, I never played Super Mario 64, nor Mario Odyssey. 3D Mario just wasn't really my cup of tea. I figure I should remedy that a little - A Hat in Time being a Mario 64 update for 2017 tastes. It's amusingly bonkers so far. Since there's slightly more plot than Mario 64 (not a hard feat), they evidently decided to run with Our Heroine being some cross between Bugs Bunny and Loki to explain why she's jumping on top of everyone, pushing people off construction girders, etc. I especially like how most of the potential enemies, at least in the first world, totally ignore you until you decide to ruin their day with unprovoked stomping or umbrella violence. Also, just like Mario 64, landing in lava sends you inexplicably hurling skyward with damage, rather than simply melting and catching on fire. Handy. (But who hooked up this town's water taps to a volcano?!)
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Trials of Mana - Playing as Hawkeye, Angela, and Kevin. Great game, gameplay improvements are bomb, graphics are nice, music is nice...
And then the game decided to not trigger a cutscene before the third to last boss and now I am stuck. :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( Just sent an email to Square-Enix about it and they said they are 'thoroughly investigating it'.
so I have decided to re-enter the KAGATOPIA. Chapters = 2. Kidnapped women = 3. Also wow Marty is a terrible PC. 0 starting speed with 15% growth. lol
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Shantae and the Seven Sirens - Beat.
Well the obvious comparison is Half-Genie Hero just because they have the same graphical style. Seven Sirens does a couple nice things compared to HGH. One is it goes back to being more of a Metroidvania-style environment, which is nice. And also, many of the movement powers are button activated instead of requiring a transformation animation, like Pirate's Curse pirate items, which makes the action much smoother. It's probably better-written overall too? It's not on the level of Pirate's Curse but there's one particularly good sequence (spoilers: Squid Baron is involved) and it's fine otherwise. There are actually new characters worth noting this time.
The downsides are that the boss design is easily the worst of the three games I care about (this + HGH + Pirate's Curse). Most of the sirens are challenging only in a puzzle of how to damage them; their attacks are typically few and not very dangerous. You also fight Risky a bunch, and she's... fine but basically copied/nerfed from her HGH appearance. The final boss continues the Shantae tradition of being a huge challenge spike, although her first form is probably the only actual good new boss design in the game.
Also the music is sadly quite a lot worse, they changed composers and the new one just isn't on the same level.
Healing in this game is ridiculous, you get just littered with healing items. I didn't use any sort of healing (aside from using the healing dance for its non-healing effects) until the final boss, and honestly it was still mostly pretty easy (there's a timed marathon of locked enemy rooms in the second to last dungeon which is pretty tough though). The final boss kinda spits on trying this though, super-durable and the second stage had a lot of stuff which seemed very difficult to avoid. (First stage is fun though.) So I let myself use the healing dance in that fight, which still made losing almost impossible despite its charge time (items don't have this so are even more broken).
6.5/10 or so? Whether this game or Half-Genie Hero is better is something that probably depends on what you're looking for in these games; they end up similar for me. Pirate's Curse is still pretty clearly the best one.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake - Beat this too.
I already covered a lot of my feelings in the previous post. The gameplay remained mostly solid up to the end. I rarely found myself playing the game just for it, but it was generally pretty enjoyable. Every boss felt like it had individual love put into it, which was nice. That said it didn't leave me precisely wanting more either; by the end I was quite happy to put the game down rather than diving into optional combat simulators and the likes. Contrast Trials of Mana where I was all in for a pure-gameplay aftergame.
Some of the fault lies in the game's pacing of course, which remains one of its notable weaknesses. Honestly I was okay with it for quite a while, but Chapter 13-15 are a major lull in the game (there's a random underground lab which doesn't actually matter for anything and features a poorly-designed boss fight [albeit easy, so it's harmless I guess?], then you have to chase some little monster through the sewers to settle some plot point involving one of the game's less effective new characters). Hojo's lab got expanded to a giant dungeon which I'm mixed on - I like that it's more characterization for Hojo and it was a good way to add some dungeon to the lategame, but it's a bit nonsensical that this is supposed to take up two floors of the Shinra building, also why on earth would we do things Hojo asks us c'mon. And the ending sequence is pretty dumb and certainly too long, but more on that later. By the end I was definitely ready for the game to be over.
I thought the ending sequence was pretty bad and fanficcy. Nonsensical anime duel between Cloud and Sephiroth, the wraiths turn into BIG GIANT WRAITH BOSS whom the game can't decide whether it's a threat or not, Zack's randomly alive I guess, blah blah blah we're fighting the fate of being an FF7 remake nope this is too navel-gazing for me, sorry. My general feeling is that Shinra is really good, Sephiroth is fine, and the wraith stuff is terrible. The game does a lot better when focusing on the former and since the ending isn't about them at all, welp.
It's hard to know what to think about this game writing-wise overall. On the one hand I have a lot of respect for FF7 and this game largely (aforementioned spoiler stuff aside) takes what's there and expands on it in a way I find very true to the original. I was really worried that this game wouldn't understand what made the original characters work but that's definitely not the case. The four PCs are basically all great (they were all good in the original IMO, Aeris/Aerith less so but she's also the most improved character by the improved produciton values IMO, we get a much stronger sense of who she is). At the same time I can't escape that part of why I like these characters is that I know they're building towards plot points that I'm already aware of, so I'm not sure what I'd think of some of them if I'd never played the original FF7! Odd situation. Red XIII is boring as hell (not much is new) but eh, he's pretty minor. I loved seeing more of Midgar, seeing more of how Shinra operates, and the look at the system they've created and the difficulty of dismantling it. It's as timely and ever and good stuff.
At the same time I'm not really that psyched for Part 2? Like there's a real risk it devolves further into Nomura nonsense and even if it doesn't it's going to look at a weaker part of FF7's narrative, and if they pad that the way they did this it could get frustrating. So like the first FF7R, it will definitely be a game I rely on the reactions of others first.
It's really hard to settle on a rating for this game. Somewhere in that 7 range, similar to where I have the original.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Crimson Flower Maddening. Doing a minimal-monastery run. I'm allowing myself to do one arena a month (if I choose). Recruiting is allowed, saint statues are allowed, specific quests (ones which open shops/shop functions, dancer, and the saint statues) are allowed, faculty training to get D flying (or armour/riding if I'd chosen) is allowed since there's no other way to get that, and I gave Edelgard a few gifts to ensure a C+ support.
I've done a lot of seminars as you might imagine. Perhaps the most unexpected difficulty is low professor rank which means I didn't get adjutants until chapter 8 and still only have one battle point. The game was a bit tougher than normal around chapter 3 (I didn't explore this chapter so I only had the starting three battalions), and to some extent around chapter 4-7 because I felt a bit underskilled and later underlevelled, but now that I've finally got the paralogues rolling things are getting easier again. We'll see how the lategame turns out.
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A Hat in Time
Finished this up, at least the main game without DLC (all 40 time pieces). It was quite enjoyable! Not too long either, just ~15 hours by Steam playtime. By law, all reviews of this game are required to use the word "charming", and... well, it IS charming and funny, so I'll join the bandwagon. But it's also very good at just... surprising the player. It mixes things up stage to stage; one moment you're doing Metal Gear Solid, the next might be a timed escape sequence, the next is delivering old mail. It usually doesn't get too hardcore with the platforming or the boss fights, but that's fine by me (and the DLC apparently has challenge versions of the missions if you do want to get destroyed).
If I had to complain, the 4th act is kinda weak comparatively. The 2nd and 3rd Acts are fiendishly creative and hilarious, and the 4th Act clearly wanted to be a change of pace where you just explore around at your own leisure through a peaceful Alpine floating mountains setting with no pressure except for tight parkour. Which would be fine, except that it's also huge and far too easy to get lost. The final mission of the 4th act was my least favorite in the game, too. Oh well, doesn't take away from how good the earlier work was.
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FE3H - Completed chapter 11. I ended up being hitting C lances and reason by my (required for CF) chapter 11 explore so I could recruit Lorenz, Ashe, and Leonie, and did the paralogues of the former two. I'd recruited Ingrid earlier so I could get Galatea Pegasus and Luin. I'm not actually using any recruits besides the wolves.
The wolves' paralogues were really tough when I first tried, them, I had a full game over to both. Once I unlocked advanced classes on most of my PCs they weren't so bad though (after doing some other paralogues like Seteth/Flayn and Alois/Shamir). Finally hit C+ professor rank from the student question in chapter 11, which means I finally have two battles per week if I want, too late for it to matter for part 1.
Also I did a random replay of Metroid Fusion.
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Trials of Mana - Ended up not being able to fix the problem by contacting Square-Enix, but thankfully I had a file at the ghost ship, which put me 5-6 hours back but at least I didn’t have to do the whole damn game again. Ended up going with Angela with Grand Diviner, Hawkeye with Nightblade, and Kevin with Fatal Fist. Skipped all of the cutscenes the second time, blitzed through dungeons, and cut three hours off of where the pace I was on the previous run before it pooped out.
Kevin as Fatal Fist is a crit-focused character. He has abilities which make crits stronger and allow them to inflict defense down, which is very cool. His limit is overpowered as fuck; pretty much clears randoms completely. Hawkeye’s Silence doesn’t seem very good in this game and the last dungeon was super dark themed, so Black Rain didn’t see much use. Honestly I feel like Ninja Master probably would have been a better choice TBH because of the MT stat downs, although the 30% instant death when inflicting a status was very cool for randoms. Lucent Beam + tore up the whole damn game and it was beautiful.
Overall, huge improvement on the original gameplaywise. Even if I still want to punch Kevin’s dad for inflicting trauma on his son. I might do a second run pretty soon with Angela/Riesz/Duran, or I might do the aftergame. Decisions~
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 - Currently in Chapter 9 which is a huge pain in the ass due to the weird way the map is structured. First reset I didn’t realize that the enemies could capture the exit point. Second reset was crits and third was because I didn’t realize Karin was in the range of an archer who could scale a mountain. Still working on this map.
Final Fantasy 5 4JF - I just got the third crystal for a normal run. So far I have Knight / Time Mage / Ranger. :) Threw Fire Rods at Byblos, died once to SIREN but that’s it so far.
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Valkyria Chronicles 4- I'm at chapter 12; this will not be finished before Brig gets out.
The Challenge mode unlocks after clearing The Legend of Runersia, or Main Mode. In a nutshell, it's a combination of sandbox mode and score attack mode. There isn't a story, but this mode comes with more freedom and elements of strategy. You begin the game with 10 Rune Knights of your choosing and one base. All ally and enemy units start at Level
Yes please.
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so I have decided to re-enter the KAGATOPIA. Chapters = 2. Kidnapped women = 3. Also wow Marty is a terrible PC. 0 starting speed with 15% growth. lol
Yeah even with stacking growth modifying scrolls and the fact that every non-HP stat caps at 20 the MARTY PARTY is pretty much something you do for meme value, not because it's an objectively good use of time because those bases were A Choice. Also I'm sorry.
Trials of Mana - Ayup. Did a Duran/Angela/Riesz playthrough. I too went Grand Diviner with Angela and lived the Lucent Beam+ life but was left wondering if I shouldn't have gone full Dark instead, Duran went Duelist and was basically my only source of wind damage via boosted Thunder Sabre for like 90% of the game because imagine being someone who puts points into luck on Angela (and then I saw CLASS FOUR and went oh maybe I should do that after all), Riesz was mostly there for buffing. Really my biggest complaint about the run is that Crystal Desert kind of sucks. Also I got hit by every instance of Moon Spiral I saw and got nearly destroyed by Dolan because I'm bad at the game (he said despite not really having trouble with anything else aside from the postgame Angela doppelganger fight, where I ate four wipes because I kept mistiming dodging out of doublecasts.)
Then I started another playthrough with Kevin/Hawkeye/Charlotte which I'm currently taking a small break from just before the Mana Sanctuary because leaving the VA on at all was a mistake. And because I apparently have a subconscious desire to make poor life decisions I decided to try Light Hawkeye so my offense against bosses is uh largely not good and not helped by my inability to remember to use dream reeds so I don't end up fighting them during the daytime but at least I'm still having fun with it so that counts for something. Game definitely feels like it deserves a 7/10
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so I have decided to re-enter the KAGATOPIA. Chapters = 2. Kidnapped women = 3. Also wow Marty is a terrible PC. 0 starting speed with 15% growth. lol
Yeah even with stacking growth modifying scrolls and the fact that every non-HP stat caps at 20 the MARTY PARTY is pretty much something you do for meme value, not because it's an objectively good use of time because those bases were A Choice. Also I'm sorry.
i'm sorry too. just encountered chapter 10 with like five ballistas and a tanky armor knight on a fortress
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Ateleir Ayesha - replay
madness journey
Finally said 'eff it and grinded out 9 months of wandering on the map to trigger an ending on a Clear Game playthrough. Wanted to log Juris but forgot how endings worked and unintentionally picked Keithgriff's instead. Not a total loss since I didn't have that one yet either and it seems to have filled in some gaps in the gallery so there's that. Ending Keithgriff is almost an entirely different character from early-game Keith; I'll leave it at that.
Was indecisive for a while before starting a new game entirely. My inventory was a mess on my Clear Game steamroll and I preferred starting over because of the way I'm wired. Didn't think I'd have anything of note to mention since other than not having touched the game in a while, it's familiar territory. The first two hours are really slow; this was one of the reasons for my initial hesitation. Going for a full Memory diary on this run. Some parts are a bit FAQ-bait but it's not too bad really. Anyhow, various thoughts now that I've been through the library for the first time.
- With playing on a console comes a reminder that the A/V connections on the TV are barely clinging to life. Fighting with the connections is something my subconscious seems to have blanked out.
- Replay bonus: Watch how spirit Nio gestures; it's consistent with what gets revealed later on.
- Did a bit of testing to satisfy my curiosity about something. It is possible to trigger the cutscene that starts the treasure contest after the window for the first one has passed. One does miss out on the first one that way and goodbye endings that depend on them.
- Wow, Ranum somehow manages to be even more airheaded about traveling than Ayesha. Considering she didn't plan out where to stay when setting out, that's a rather low bar to limbo under. I still get a laugh where she first assumes him to be a zombie.
- If you decide to go to the abandoned village without Linca despite plot pushing you to take her and my own tendency to choose allies based on who has the lowest Friendship, the "unwinnable" boss fight becomes optional.
- 'eff Watchmen. Especially 3 of them. I had people eating dirt, er wood (being in the library and that), in that battle and only Wilbell's Element Call saved the party from a wipe. Something I would have never learned from testing with Lv50 characters is that it has a minimum HP it will revive with. 25 HP if 25% max HP is lower than that. And this is a random on default difficulty. (on PS3 so no hard mode) The whole trip stretched my resources even with Ernie at the forest map earlier to supply me with some of the bombs I registered with him.
- Yummy Heal effects (recovers a percentage of max HP) also have a minimum HP restoration. Most relevant with Wilbell.
- Drinking game: Take a sip every time Keithgriff complains about something he can't stand or a pet peeve. Or don't, if you value your well-being.
Once the game got going, I felt engaged. May be a while before I plug in a different console.
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Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 - Just finished Chapter 13.
The game is interesting. It’s clearly a bridge game between the wildness that is Genealogy and the post-Kagatopia Fire Emblems. It has Rescue as a command and not just a staff, map size is more in control than Genealogy and feels more akin to modern FE, the modern concept of doubling appears (4 speed higher than the enemy!) whereas in Genealogy it’s only done with the Pursuit skill. I also like that Trading isn’t totally fucking annoying and stupid like in FE4 where you can only trade with your spouse or whatever, and the money system is also less borked than FE4 and resembles a regular money system (aside from the selling that you need to do to get money which I’ll talk about in a sec…)
There’s some neat ideas in here; I like the Fatigue mechanic because it motivates you to use the big ass roster (while still leaving some breathing room for death / benching the worst characters), and you have a supply of Stamina Potions just in case you really run into a bind, but so far I haven’t used any of them. I do like that Fatigue puts a bit of a damper on the otherwise pretty dominating Physic. The Capture mechanic is pretty clunky, on the other hand. In theory I think it’s an interesting idea, but in practice it feels a bit too much like FF8 Drawing in that you are doing something suboptimal in the present to achieve something for the future, but it’s a bit more interesting than that at least. Still a little dull and cumbersome, though, especially because selling all of these junky items is your only (?) source of income, which is annoying. Trade is actually more forgiving in this game than most of the other games in the series; you can Trade with multiple people on the same turn! Oh, and it has Attack Speed listed as a stat, which none of the games until RADIANT DAWN (!!!) brought back, which is cool.
The character balance is interesting; while there are some really bad units, I do feel like they have at least one good person in most of the major classes and didn’t make most of the cavs or fliers too OP, which some of the later games in the series are guilty of? I like the armor knight guy, and the archers don’t seem too bad at least, Tanya is very fast! Although the mages seem pretty good, especially horse girl with a brave tome. And Graftcalibur is a great weapon for little boy, especially useful against wyvern douchebags. And Leif, thanks to Light Brand, actually isn’t as bad as I feared, although he will never be an all-time great.
The first eight or so maps are relatively unmemorable, although I had a few resets on the map that Jeigan lady turns to stone due to some finnicky map design and some dumb mistakes, but I didn’t have too much trouble with much of the content. The other funny one was Macha duelling about 50 enemies while on a mountain in Chapter 7, including Shiva who is RIP dead, sorry buddy. She had 99 fatigue at the end of the map.
Chapter 9 is the first map that I really struggled with due to the weirdness of the units separated from the rest of the party; they could not hold out indefinitely, so after a couple failed attempts I ended up using Karin to bring over Dalsin the Armor Knight guy. After a couple of missteps and refining my strategy, I finally got it to work and then the map was very easy but quite long because you had to get all of the units to the exit before Leif. Not a good mechanic, sadly, even though I like the idea.
Chapter 10 I struggled with the beginning and dealing with the ballista, which haunt my dreams in this game in general. I think I had a few resets on the first few turns, partially because I really wanted to get that armor knight’s Flame Sword by Capturing him. Other than that, I got through the map without that much difficulty.
Chapter 11 was very annoying because of the inaccessible ballistas, Alfred’s general finnicky nature and not healing himself properly, and the fact that like five of my members, including my thief, were one or two shot by the ballista so they couldn’t move on in the map. And to top it off, the fucking boss and his goddamn thing where he can’t die and the game doesn’t tell you so I threw people at him with 99% chance and he countered them and stuff and GRAH. Oh well, this is what save states are for. I didn’t struggle much with 11x, especially when I realized that you can Physic Olwen when she is injured. LOL.
Chapter 12 is a boring fog map, but not too bad because it doesn’t hardcore ninja you. Don’t think I had any resets, although Sleep staff inflicting PERMANENT status is pretty damn excessive. No resets, though. Chapter 12x is really really fucking tedious and annoying and I hate it forever, too much dodging and thieving and losing weapons and fuck I hate that fucking Thief staff goddamnit. Probably my least favorite map in the game so far? But I got Pan and Tina and turned Lara into a Dancer with the power of FAQ so I’m good. (I let Ugly Guy die. The recruitment for him just seemed too damn annoying.) I missed Fortify which made me sad but I couldn’t really figure out how NOT to, so lol.
Chapter 13 was again a bit finnicky due to again a person holding off a fort as well as ballista that you can’t reach except with a flier who they one shot >_< so I just endured constant ballista swarm, which is annoying. I leaned a lot on Bolt Sword Alfred and Olwen to help eliminate a lot of the threats, so after a few resets I ended up winning. Also, Macha promoted and now she has 15 str and 20 speed which is dumb and great. She’s probably my best unit on raw stats, although other people have more move or OP weapons.
I'm definitely overall not very enamoured with the game's map design, and they seem to be getting more tedious and finnicky as I go further in. Ah well. Not like I expected too much different.
I’ve used a lot of people, but some of the better ones include Finn, Oshin, Halvan, Dagdan, Macha, Fergus, Karin, Asbel, Alfred, Olwen, Mareeta, as well as utility characters like Lara, Lithis, and obviously Safiya/Nanna. I tried using Robert because he looks like my husbando’s husband FERDINAND VON VESTRA but he sucks so I stopped. My love for Ferdinand only goes so far.
The plot is thoroughly mediocre; while Genealogy swings for the fences and mostly falls short of being a good writing game by virtue of not really developing its characters and mostly just throwing big ideas at the wall, Thracia 776 is very safe and unambitious and largely tells an unexciting, generic story of a boy reclaiming his homeland. One thing that the game is bad about is making its evil characters ridiculously evil. They kidnap children for child hunts, they laugh as they kill civilians, and they say to their subordinates “HA HA IF YOU DON’T DO WHAT I SAY I WILL KILLLL YOU”. The game’s villain cast has all of the subtlety of a jackhammer and it doesn’t make for compelling storytelling. Augustus seems like a proto-Soren; he brings up good points and emphasizes that the rich and powerful are not the only people that the Hero should be concerned with, and I think that’s beautiful. I’m really hoping he doesn’t heel-turn because it will annoy me. Everyone else is super bland.
The music is really bad. The art is really bad. You aren’t here for the aesthetics ok
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ninja. ballistas. what in the ever loving fuck was that
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Trials of Mana - Finished the Kevin/Charlotte/Hawkeye run, turns out hey, putting points in Luck for Fatal Fist Kevin is a good idea. Light Hawkeye continues to be the big loser of the remake but well someone had to be. High Cleric being able to overheal is cute but not really changing the fact that you're probably just there for boosted Holy Sabre.
Also seriously fuck Kevin's dad.
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i have encountered the man, the myth, the legend, the holy shit that guy has 10 threat range and 100% HP vantage and doubles with dire thunder even on enemy phase. well i won, by buffing a little boy and standing on a forest, but ahhhhh
also fuck that map. i hate this game
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Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 - Finished without doing 24x and did not get the staff that cures stone, so 5 of my characters got turned to stone. I put my crappiest characters in range so yeah fine. Otherwise, god, the final battle was so annoying, ended up resetting a bunch of times before perfecting the strategy; hurl status staves at the siege tome users and difficult to kill bosses, bait Stone with crappy characters, and organize and intercept ninja reinforcements. Honestly after the first couple turns it was manageable; just had to get past that initial stage of siege tomes that can one shot my dancer. :(
Ended up with a lot of dead people thanks to the last chapter - Asbel, Linoan, Nanna, and Tanya died on the final map thanks to siege tomes + stone, and Dagdan, Alba, Glade died on some annoying chapters that I just wanted to finish. Delmund and Hicks died on the chapter they joined, and I never recruited Shiva, Sara, Xavier, Homeros, Trude, or Evalye for the last time. My MVP and killer leader was Macha, although Finn is very useful on outdoor maps. I also really liked Fergus, Nanna, Mareeta, Oshin, Dean, and Dagdan before he kicked it. Leif also ended up quite good but it took him a damn long time to get there. Lara is a dancer and thus useful. Olwen and Alfred are both decent as well.
Maps I hate the most - Chapter 14x, Chapter 20, Chapter 22. Chapter 14x has the stupid Thief tome and the thieves who steal all of your stuff. Honestly, should have just gave up on getting treasure and Warp staved to win early. Chapter 20 has ninja ballistas; Chapter 22 just has Way Too Goddamn Many ballistas. Chapter 17A was also not very fun at all. I generally feel like the maps were okay until about halfway through the game and then decline into annoying and insufferable as the game went further in. The Capture mechanic also became more and more tiresome with its excessive inventory management. Any maps with status staves is pretty annoying, especially before Restore since status is permanent in this game.
The game is just very laborious and not very often all that fun. Its character work, while better than any other game Kaga previously wrote, is not all that compelling. Augustus is a decent proto-Soren and Leif does go through a bit of a character arc where he gasps makes mistakes. Olwen and Reinhardt and Saius all have glimmers of character work (even if Reinhardt’s is mostly being incredulous that his sister has free will, lol).The plot is very paint by numbers with a coat of excess grimdark for good measure.
So I have finished some form of every Fire Emblem, so time to rate them~ For fun I tried to separate the routes in 3H, as well as Revelation. If different versions of the game have the same ordinal ranking I didn’t bother separating them, except CF/ AM because I had a lot to say about both.
13. Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (1 playthrough)- Yeah sorry these lategame maps are just too much, along with the questionable writing, general Kaga tier woman respect, and ugliness.
12. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (1 playthrough) - Kinda like Thracia, it has broken gameplay and bad character balance and questionable map design (worse gameplay IMO thanks to the hideously long maps), but it has glimmers of good writing that the series later salvaged into something that didn’t suck after 20whatever years.
11. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (1 playthrough) - The most generic SRPG in existence, but at least it’s not too infuriating most of the time and has the reclassing mechanic. I can’t remember it very well and I didn’t play it that long ago, which is a bad sign. Its plot is the most generic.
10. Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem (1 playthrough) - Kinda like Shadow Dragon but slightly improved. Its plot is the most generic as well. Hardin’s turn could have been cool but instead it’s kinda stupid. It has enemy phase skip which is solid.
9. Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia (1 playthrough) - Gameplay’s wild and messy - sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating. I really like the voice acting and the art. I melted the first time I saw and heard Lucas. Alm and Celica are both interesting characters, although I feel like both are kind of botched by the end of the game, sadly. Plot is pretty bad. ’m not certain why they took a misogynist base of a game and decided to make it MORE misogynist but that’s a Decision That They Made. Berkut is ultimately a bad addition, and Rudolf is a pretty damn terrible character.
8. Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade(2 playthroughs) - This is basically tied with SoV but I kneejerked it above due to having more respect for its map design and gameplay decisions, in particular, FE6 doesn’t feature teleporting mages that can oneshot your magically fragile units. Plot is pretty bad but has Zephiel, who is at least interesting even if underwritten. Roy is pretty fucking insufferable.
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation(1 playthrough) - Unlike my attempt below to rate Silver Snow as a separate experience, this route is impossible to decouple from the other two, so I won’t attempt to do so, since you can’t play it your first time through anyway. Its plot makes no sense and is a raging dumpster fire, but it has some good supplemental supports and still has the Fates gameplay system which I really enjoy, even if the maps are wacky. Even with the problems I still enjoy it well enough, although I’m not exactly clamoring to replay it.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses Silver Snow(1 playthrough) - Map design is a bit hit and miss compared to Fates which I felt like had excellent map design, but it’s still less clunky than most of the older games and allows you to play around with the class system, which is very cool, especially as you delve into the game further. Hunting by Daybreak is an annoying map. It has some solid character work with Dorothea / Ferdinand, although it seems kind of strange that your characters turn into authoritarian toadies halfway through the game? Especially with Dorothea, who is massively anti-establishment. Edelgard is a very solid character, but her turn to villain felt a little undercooked ultimately, thanks to the game doing a poor job of building up to the confrontation and not dedicating many scenes to her after she turns. The game veers into Rhea being the final boss without much foreshadowing or much of the party really caring? So it seems like you were mostly fighting for, ultimately, your main character to be the next immortal god-pope of Fodlan? Very weird. Some major wasted potential here, but not a terrible experience overall. Puts a bit of a sour taste in my mouth ultimately even with the good work. Great music and character designs too.
7. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (3 playthroughs) - Gameplaywise, I feel like it’s the least robust of 7/8/9 due to map design being weaker and the overpowered units being too overpowered. Great setting work and decent plot, although lategame is a bit derailed by the presence of Ashnard. Some strange decisions with randomly removing items from shops chapter to chapter, and the game is a bit overall slower than 7/8. Ike is a character I like less as the years go on; he is really bad in RD but shows the signs of the Insufferably Beloved and Perfect Male Main even in the second half of 9. Kieran and Marcia are fucking hilarious, and Soren is a great character compared to those who came before him.
6. Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (4 playthroughs) - Worse plot than 9 by a lot, definitely a dumpster fire, but it has overall more compelling gameplay due to the lack of overdominant Canto users. I like 7/8’s battle cut-ins more than the ones in 9 as well. Matthew, Erk, and Serra bring some humor, and Lyn is a total badass even if she isn’t super deep.
5. Fire Emblem: Awakening (3 playthroughs) - The plot is once again a dumpster fire, and the map design is a bit worse than 7 for all that it is also less clunky with some of the weird, dysfunctional, winding maps. Ninja reinforcements are the pits. Chrom and Lucina are so loveable compared to previous FE lords, and the game is legit funny at times, moreso than any of the previous ones. Also, crit quotes / crit cut-ins are stylish as hell. It’s zany which works to its benefit much of the time but it is not good at being serious. Also, branching promotions are cool!
4. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (Eirika/Ephraim route) (5 playthroughs) - I didn’t bother separating out these two because they are pretty much the same. Eirika and Lyon are actually quite well-written characters despite the character assassination of Eirika that has been happening on the Internet since 2005 (a female character, subject to character assassination, surely you jest), and overall I like the maps better than 7 once you account for the fact that I haven’t played Normal mode in a thousand years. Humor is a bit weaker than FE7 but doesn’t map up for its advantages. Also, branching promotions are cool! Also, all hail Lyon, OG trauma boy.
Fire Emblem Three Houses: Verdant Wind (1 playthrough) - See SS writeup about gameplay stuff, although Gronder 2 is an excellent map. Plotwise the game benefits from having Claude, who is one of the most compelling main characters I’ve ever seen, as the ‘magnificent bastard’ main character. He has big dreams and big plans and isn’t afraid to use you and everyone around him to achieve those ideals. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a main character who is as brazenly manipulative as him, and allowing the lord to be a pretty big jerk is pretty awesome, even if he ultimately fills the ‘good guy main’ tropes. I think the game suffers a bit from a weak supporting cast; Lorenz is underutilized, Hilda is HILARIOUS but a little underused as a serious character, and Lysithea is interesting although doesn’t always have great chemistry with the other members of the Golden Deer. The rest are largely not worth caring about. The game coasts pretty hard on Claude to do its heavy lifting plotwise, and he mostly delivers. Minus points for the totally bizarre and out of nowhere final boss, one of the worst and most random final bosses in the whole series. I thought nothing could be worse than an Evil Ugly Guy reviving an evil dragon to smite us,but I think an Evil Ugly Guy reviving a zombie of some random dead dude has it beaten in the stupidity and anticlimax category (although GSS is a good track!). A sour end to an otherwise interesting, if flawed, game plotwise.
3. Fire Emblem: Fates (Conquest/Birthright) (3 playthroughs / 2 playthroughs) - Fates has my favorite gameplay in the series; it’s strategic and fun to play around with, and it got rid of the godawful weapon breaking mechanic that has plagued every game in the series since FE4 (of all things). Conquest has better map design and better supports, Birthright has way better villains due to having those characters that you support in Conquest be the villains :p. I really like both Xander, who is a flawed human being with a major hangup over familial obligations (which i can hardcore relate to) and Camilla, who has chosen to push her own trauma far back and replaces it with her own special brand of something between insanity and charm. Leo and Elise are solid as well, although not quite as interesting or messy as their older siblings. Azama is my favorite humor character in the game due to him just being such a jerk, but I also enjoyed Odin and Selena and Niles. Plot is a dumpster fire, as usual.
2. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (7 playthroughs) - Finally a game that I can praise the plot. I really liked both Micaiah and Elinicia’s paths in Radiant Dawn - both are well-done characters are both beautiful and emanate strength and compassion. Micaiah is put in a compromising situation and watching her navigate it is quite cool. Elincia is less compelling but overall well done anyway. Again, Kieran/Marcia are good characters, I like the villain cast and how many of them have different goals and ideologies, and I like the little plot twist at the end of Part 3. Other characters I liked include Tibarn, Naliah, and Sanaki, as well Soren and Skrimir. Ike’s path is pretty disappointing and has even more slobbering over him which is disgusting but it is what it is. Gameplay is interesting due to changing between parties; something I’ve always been pretty fond of. I think the map design and difficulty level in Normal are a step above the games before it, and above the games after it aside from Fates/Conquest. And the art is soooo beautiful! I love it! Titania / Lucia / Naliah / Heather / Sigrun / Tanith are all pretty fucking hot, and Volug is a dreamboat. It’s also the first game in the series to not have any stupid bullshit with its shops - you can just buy stuff at the fucking shop in between battles. Thank god!
Fire Emblem Three Houses: Azure Moon (2 playthroughs) - Gameplay stuff is the same as the previous entries, although I love AM’s final boss fight; I love how Hegemon is a mix between monster boss and regular boss, and more terrifying than either. :) Probably my overall favorite map in the game. Anyone who has been around me for the last year knows that I looove Azure Moon plotwise. It really leans into the cultural trauma story which I am oh-so-fond of, and Dimitri’s story of loss, madness, and redemption is something that hit me really hard. Felix and Sylvain are also both really well-written characters, and Mercedes is sneaky good at being a sly, feminine bitch while being an empathic and decent human being. You guys can go read my long ass posts about Dimitri, Sylvain, and Felix if you want. *waves hand toward Old Post*
1. Fire Emblem Three Houses: Crimson Flower (3 playthroughs) - What I really love about Crimson Flower is a few things; it has a female protagonist who is unique, interesting, traumatized, ambitious, morally grey, and just generally very well-written. She is multi-faceted and complex, which is so refreshing to see in a series full of generic do-gooders. Hubert is an excellent second character even though he is a pretty bad person, mostly because of his genuine devotion to the cause. Dorothea is excellent as well, especially for a secondary character *waves hand toward old post* Ferdinand, Bernadetta, and Petra are all very well done as well, and Lysithea, Manuela, and Hanneman all have some major energy with the Eagles characters. It is simultaneously somber (as more blood wets my feet, they grow heavier with each step) and triumphant (see my sig!). I love its final two maps, not necessarily for the gameplay (my favorite is still AM for that) but for the sheer emotion and evocativeness that both have. It is a lovely story of how Edelgard finds herself capable of love despite her trauma, despite her ambitions pushing aside her feelings, and despite her feelings of worthlessness. And goddamn her outfit is lit. And goddamn are Ferdinand and Hubert and Dorothea and Petra all gay as fuck.
My hands are hurting so I will stop writing now and go look at Edeleth fanart.
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Cosmic Star Heroine- Done!
So there's some weird ways you can feel the development troubles the game had. A lot of little things are tucked in out of the way corners that don't really draw attention to themselves or have much pointing to them, which is odd considering how much effort is spent nudging the player in other respects, and some things like the cutscenes feel like they were designed at an earlier point of development then added in at the end because they needed something that felt grand but didn't really have the time to invest in creating new assets. The way PCs are introduced then just kinda exist also feels at odds with the cast size, although they do have their little intro sections for the most part which gets the job done.
Probably the most successful aspect of the game is the PC design. It's not just that each one has a niche, each PC has a particular "loop" they can work with, where their skills synergize in unsual ways with each other and with their Hyper bars. You have some wiggle room within that, and some characters are simpler to work with players who just kinda wanna play their PSIV inspired jRPG, which I can dig. The midgame feels a bit overtuned at times, but this might also be because I was just using a "who I want" party as much as possible and it's entirely likely that checking the first fight or so in a dungeon, then swapping out for the correct PC would have sped all that up considerably.
Ultimately I kinda feel like this is more a proof of concept/learning game than a polished product overall? Once in a while the game has a very quirky vibe, like Alyssa's just a complete dork and Sue kinda being the best because he's so upfront and completely secure in himself, but they went with a more classic plot structure but didn't really invest in the rest of the world or cast enough for it to come together. But as a mechanical engine and learning some much more impressive environment building you can tell why it took them so much longer than they planned to get it out.
Also the music is actually pretty legit, a first for Zeboyd. So that's cool.
7/10 maybe? On the lower end of that but despite never getting super good I also never wanted to just set the game down for a minute and did find some sequences memorablish.
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Brigandine: Just finished Norzaleo's quest and united the world; still have to beat the final boss. I love that the game gives you a way to unite everything and then a chance to quest/fight as much as you want before beating the game. I'll try and beat the true final sometime today or tomorrow.
I'm using Rubino/Sylvia/Elena as my final squad. Archers are super busted; they have a really strong final bow and their final bow tech as Sniper is terrifyingly powerful. Rubino is more STR than AGI focused; he has a terrifying amount of offense once he promotes.
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Ni No Kuni 2: Beaten. The plot wasn't impressive but it had a serviceable concept (A prince flees his kingdom after a coup that takes place right before his coronation. He goes on to unite the world in peace and defeat an ancient Sealed Evil In a Can. He is joined by the American President). The characters were mostly underutilized due to the nature of the game hyper-focusing on the main character. The music and environments were generally good and worked well enough together. The ARPG part of it was a mess... oftentimes the best strategy was to just snipe things that could do significant damage to you from afar. But bosses, particularly the major setpiece bosses, tended to have gimmicks and abilities that were memorable.
Shining Resonance: Blame Ciato. It features a main character who acts like a beaten puppy being rescued from the evil empire's prison by the good kingdom. He's special because he has a superpowerful dragon inside of him that scares the *$&% out of him for some reason. He goes on to join the Good Kingdom (TM) in fighting off the Evil Empire (TM). The cast is fairly true-to-trope but endearing enough within that framework. The villainous cast gets cutscenes for all their actions, WA4/XF style, and it serves to characterize the Evil Empire (TM)'s princess who is cold-hearted and had Mysterious Motives (TM).
Combat in the game is a sub-par ARPG although it has a variety of systems that at least allow for exploring different characters' strong points. For example the Princess Knight is good at breaking things and tanking, the elven archer is good at healing and AoE ranged attacks, the main character is good at DPS and turning into a dragon and smashing things. Enemies have different phases and actions where they are more vulnerable to breaking so at least it isn't entirely brainless button mashing.
(And there's some kind of dating sim thrown into the game for some reason which why. The cutscenes that establish the cast's dynamics and characters are separate from this).
(I find myself reading about FE:3H after listening to some of it's music and wishing I had a switch)
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I wish you did too! Join us, join us~
Super Mario Bros. 2- Completed with Toad only. 5-1, 6-1, World 7 were all... an adventure, shall we say.
Super Mario World - Minimalist run through, just did one normal path with all of the castles and beat up Bowser. Not as good as 2/3 but still a fun time. Lives are definitely starting to become less valuable in this game compared to 2/3.
Tales of Berseria - Started this up yesterday. "What do Princessias symbolize, Velvet?" "Betrayal."
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Three Houses: Crimson Flower - Oh look another one of these runs. As mentioned, the goal was to play the game with less monastery / out-of-battle stuff generally. Played on Maddening NG.
What was ultimately different?
-Money is more of a problem, but less than I feared; you still get enough. I just had to sell a bunch of stuff later in the game. Also since explores are rare you get fewer opportunities to sell excess umbral stell and mithril (an excellent source of money).
-I finished a bit behind on skills, but thanks to seminars, again less than I feared. In particular, thanks to focusing my lategame seminars on Reason I was able to get Black Magic Range +1 on three people, though nobody except Jeritza got Move+1, and nobody got Alert Stance+, for other high-end skills.
-Byleth supports are basically not a thing. I reached B on about three people, one of whom I cheated with a bit (Edelgard to ensure I got on CF; this might not have been necessary but I wasn't taking chances).
-Not having battalions for chapter 3 is brutal and I might have made a mistake in not opting to explore that chapter even just for that.
-No faculty training or Byleth supports means recruiting people is much harder; you can get a few key ones but that's it. Also I basically had to rely on Enlightened One as Byleth's class. I thought seminars might make up for this but they really didn't.
-Limited to no adjutants is definitely a soft nerf to the party, not to mention support building, though I was still able to get all internal non-Byleth supports of my chosen 12 units to A. (on other playthroughs I've done 15+ though)
-Inability to do more than one battle per week in part 1 slows down progression midgame a bunch. Fortunately midgame is, aside from certain paralogues, relatively easy anyway.
-Did you know a bunch of forging is tied to professor rank? I'd never actually noticed. But it meant I couldn't forge Silver+ or Brave+ ever.
Let's talk about the party:
Byleth: Archer -> Pegasus Knight -> Enlightened One. None of her weapon ranks were very high (she reached B swords with like 2 maps left). I built bows a bit because Curved Shot is cool, lance/magic for recruits so might as well get Darting Blow, and finally just sat in a class with decent all-around stats and some magic. Nothing too notable.
Edelgard: Brigand -> Pegasus Knight -> Wyvern. I was a bit worried about this run so I decided not to mess around and did the classic OP Edelgard build, Darting Blow / Death Blow / wyvern nonsense, KO everything with doubles or Brave Axe or Raging Storm or Silver combat arts. MVP obviously.
Ferdinand: Dancer. And also dodge-tank. I didn't use him that much early on until he could slide into the dancer role, and the lack of tutoring meant he didn't reach Move+1 despite having cavalry talent. Even without a huge amount of investment he's very effective at what he does, I'm pretty convinced he's the best dancer for CF/SS runs now.
Bernadetta: Pegasus Knight -> Sniper -> Falconknight. The great mystery of the game is how to keep Bernie effective later on. She's great as a pegasus knight with bows and Vengeance, fell off during the sniper phase and never quite seemed to recover. I think I need to just find more ways to get her HP down really low and embrace that. I got Encloser too late for it to have much relevance, though it's nice of course.
Petra: Pegasus Knight -> Sniper -> Bow Knight. Well this should look similar to the above, though I decided to focus on bows more obviously. Useful as always, but I don't think this is one of Petra's better builds, just because it feels like it lacks power (bows, archer line, like of Death Blow). Snagging Brigand wasn't really practical on this run, probably, and she really does want that. Flier builds are best for her.
Linhardt: Mage -> Bishop. I had plans to get him to Dark Knight but they didn't actually happen, he failed his exam to get there in Chapter 17. Had the most limited combat of my mages, but was an effective healer, with Warp as a nice extra bonus for all that I didn't use it too often.
Dorothea: Mage -> Warlock -> Gremory. Power for move in that last phase, not sure if it's worth it + the extra faith investment. Infantry mages do fall behind more but at least Dorothea has a lot of tools to stay relevant at range. Most often had Caduceus.
Yuri: Mage -> Assassin -> Mortal Savant. Hell if I know what to do with Yuri, he's weird. Pretty good though, great stats out of the gate. He ended up a mage who preyed on midspeed enemies by doubling them (Levin Sword was his main tool during the Assassin phase) as well as slower enemy mages by pulling out physicals instead. MS actually gives up some stats, sadly, but he does get Silence and healing (no Physic sadly) so it's still a decent trade.
Balthus: Brigand -> War Monk -> War Master. Ehh this was pretty useless, I remain kinda unimpressed by War Master builds. Didn't have the speed to quad, I got Brawl Avo but he wasn't dodgy the way Catherine is again due to speed. He was okay midgame once he got Death Blow but before everyone else picked up brave weapons.
Constance: Mage -> Dark Flier. Her "default" build, it's pretty effective. No Thoron sadly, but Dark Flier is great and Bolting is great, and thanks to her mag growth and personal she hits incredibly hard and even has some doubling ability, so great offence. Naturally was the main wielder of Thyrsus, as such. Rescue's a nice added tool in her Faith list.
Hapi: Mage -> Valkyrie. I decided to just try leaving someone in Valk for endgame, it definitely works well! Having a base magic range of 4-5, potentially up to 7 with Thyrsus, is neat. She didn't usually ORKO (Hades sometimes managed it) but she could chip while fishing for crits (Death) or debuff move/speed from ridiculous range and good mobility, and had Physic. Lot to like there. Also gets Warp but it's super-late due to her being only neutral in Faith.
Jeritza: Just left him in his starting class. Good stats and a bunch of cool skills to make up for joining late, the usual.
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You can actually sell straight stuff from the Storehouse.
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Yeah in all honesty having done both Sniper Bernie and just leaving her in Pegasus Knight in Advanced I'm really not all that sold on Sniper being worth it for Bernie despite Hunter's Volley but Advanced is a really awkward tier for her in general with her talent list. It may just better to embrace the Brigand/Peg Knight combo and resign yourself to skill diffusion and risk not getting to an Advanced class in a timely fashion but that's not something I've actually tried yet (although I should try that when I get around to playing the game more again, kind of want to get back to/finish Pokemon Sword first but keep getting distracted from it/kind of hard to care), somewhat unintuitive, and probably not something you can get away with when doing that sort of playthrough.
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BrigSwitch: Rudo, get some better Knights. Or more knights period. >_< He's the best Knight in the game, but he has to be in order to justify the sad assed group of losers he's stuck with.
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Hollow Knight - Got an ending of this. It was good, certainly! I don't think it's quite on the level of my favourite Metroids or 'vanias but I'd put it above Shovel Knight or any Shantae and that's certainly pretty high praise from me. I particularly enjoy the system of how you essentially recover HP by fighting randoms well, it makes dungeon-crawling feel like it's in a very good place, one place this game absolutely competes for genre best (though I was slightly frustrated by doing one entire big earlygame area missing the mapguy. I don't like this genre as much without maps, it turns out. Hearing Cornifer's cheerful humming is the best sound in the game). I don't think the healing system works quite as well in boss fights because being forced to stand still hurts their flow, but oh well. Boss design itself's a bit inconsistent but overall good: I really liked the Watcher Knights (hardest fight I did imo) and Hornet, and the (first?) final boss is quite good too.
I may come back and try to get more endings but it will happen later. At 24 hours it's already pretty long for the genre so I'm ready to move on for now!
AI: The Somnium Files - Is wild. Really enjoy some of the moment-to-moment writing in this game, while gameplay is the easily worst of the Spike Chunsoft games which wasn't a high bar to start with. We'll see where the story goes. I'll be surprised if I end up liking this game as much as Virtue's Last Reward but I am pretty riveted anyway!
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AI the Somnium Files speculation, because these games make me want to record this:
Got the Iris and Mizuki ends, plus some dead ends. Current theory:
-someone or something can "possess" people, possibly via their sleep or dreams or... I dunno the specifics at all. I imagine the game will use another term for it but I'm calling it possession for now. Whatever this is can only possess one person at a time but can transfer to another person, possibly by touch (as seen by Aiba when Iris seems to touch Mayumi offscreen after Date is knocked out by a wok).
-I'm going to talk about the two main branches (from the Mizuki somnium) as the Iris route and the Mizuki route, depending on which character is more prominent. Every murder in the New Cyclops killings is done by this force. Physically, Renju killed Shoko, So killed Iris in the Iris route, Iris killed Renju in the Mizuki route, transferred to Mayumi who transferred to So who killed (or tried to kill, depending) Iris and and Ota.
-When we psync with someone currently possessed, the dreams are creepy as fuck and deal with killings. see: Iris's somnium in the Mizuki route, and So's somnium during the Iris route.
-Date is the original Cyclops killer. Pewter tries to spin a story that it was actually Falco but that doesn't fit with what we know of Falco, and doesn't explain why there would be a big government coverup if the killer were safely behind bars. However, it's possible Date was possessed for years, possibly his entire life until that point, which is why he doesn't remember anything. It's unclear of course how the possession moved on or why it has only started killing again six years later.
I strongly figure So factors into this as being a Bad Guy beyond just the times he's possessed. He has a connection to Iris and Hitomi but no idea what it is.
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Brigandine: The Legend of Runseria - I finished the game on Eliza’s path and ended up doing both endings. Took me a little over 15 hours. I played Normal mode.
Thoughts: The game really is faithful to the Brigandine formula. It has the Rune Knights, monsters, and Rune Area systems all unchanged from the original, with some little balance updates and added classes for monsters. The game has a fast-forward feature, which is a great addition to the game relative to the original since the first couple of turns are often spent just ‘setting up’ for combat. This definitely makes the game easier to play. The other quality of life thing that I really like is the faster animations, which was a bit of a problem with original Brigandine.
The game has much better music than the original. The character designs are hit and miss, but I liked most of the core characters on Eliza’s route for design, including Eliza herself, Darian, Kate, and Cain, and I think many of the game’s still shots are very nice in the watercolor / painter style. The game is obviously budget graphically but I think it manages to look interesting anyway, and the graphics don’t get in the way.
The plot is… pretty barebones and not that interesting, but it has some scattered interesting stuff occasionally. The game does a mild swerve at the end where you can choose to kill the Rune God or choose to kill the person fighting the Rune God, implying that the warmongering of all of the nations is caused by the Rune God’s desires.
The gameplay structure is very similar to original as well, with some of the early-mid game being pretty tough and the difficulty sliding toward the end. After struggling to take down the first three countries, I had a relatively easier time with the final two. Also, holy shit Rudo, Ginny, and Stella are all dicks to take down. But unlike original Brigandine, the game doesn’t end on an anti-climax; instead, we got two final boss fights! Gameplay spoilers abound.
Endorian/Aurora fight wasn’t too bad, managed to win it on the first try, but the Rune God was much tougher. He had six reinforcements rather than just one, and each of them reduced the damage to him by around 20%, so you couldn’t even fight him until you killed most of them, and he healed and summoned them back after five or six turns. The god firing beams at each other made it much more interesting than just a generic boss fight, kind of made you have to worry about positioning rather than just beating on the boss, and after three tries and tinkering around with my Rune Knights I won. I ended up using Eliza/Darian/Cain for the final boss because durability is king against him, and Mu’ah/Sugar just weren’t doing it on that front. Deployed lots of unicorns and dragons for the final fight, as well as high centaurs for the extra range since only a certain number of people could hit him at melee.
I’m definitely glad that they didn’t bloat the game’s length, which is a mistake I feel like many games trying to recreate SNES/PS1-era games do. 15 hours feels like a sweet spot for building your army, crushing with it for just long enough to have fun, and then start over as a new country. I’m probably going to tackle either Talia or Stella’s route next.
Probably 8.5-9/10.
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AI: The Somnium Files - More spoiler speculation.
I've gotten the Ota ending as well now, and perhaps most importantly saw the scene where Pewter admitted that the Psync machine could be used to swap consciousnesses, and learned about Manaka's death at the hands of Saito, and Hitomi's and Renju's role in that (as well as Hitomi's plan to blackmail So in the current day). This changes everything!
Okay, first off, "random possession" has been updated to The Villain (almost certainly Saito, and I'll refer to them as such for the rest of this post) is jumping bodies using the Psync prototype machine. This machine requires removing the eye of one of the participants, which is why Iris has no eye in the Iris ending where Date tried to use the prototype machine to save her... Date doesn't comment on it even though the player didn't see what happen, so my guess is he removed her eye so he could Psync with her out of desperation.
Saito has access to the prototype. He was in Shoko's body, swapped into Renju's then killed Shoko (i.e. Renju's consciousness). Then, in the Mizuki route, he swapped into Iris's body and killed Renju (i.e. Iris's consciousness). Date psyncs with Iris during this route and discovers memeories which are Saito's - the first Cyclops killings and memories of murdering animals as a child - because it's Saito's consciousness. Saito!Iris grabs the kitchen knife from Mayumi in the path that leads to (is Mayumi just spacing out here? Not really clear), steals the car from Ota herself, goes to So's manor to grab him somehow, swap with him, kill Iris... or is foiled in the attempt, leading to the Mizuki end where Saito!So is killed, ending the serial killings. We never see Iris wake up in this route, and if my theory is correct her body has So's consciousness now... weird!
Also, the obvious reason Pewter and Boss know about this body-swapping is that it has happened before. My guess is that Falco psynced with Saito and ended up swapping bodies with him, and Date is Saito's body with... Falco's concsiousness? It doesn't quite fit because Date has no memories at all, while Falco seems to have his own memories. So there's a part of the picture I don't understand.
Less speculation and more just remarking on stuff I've seen:
I really liked the Mizuki ending, and the Ota ending. I appreciate that the Mizuki ending gives the player a happy end instead of making it just another in a long train of bad ends en route to the true one. Both endings (and indeed many other things in the game) examine parent-child relationships in a way that feels very real and true to life, not really holding punches about the difficulties but also fills you with a warm fuzzy feeling about the love these people share. Good stuff. The character and voice work in this game is great.
Also, I'm still not a big fan of the game's gameplay but darned if playing as Mizuki and exploring Date's somnium wasn't the best use of it so far. I loved the game's use of the increasing-multiplier timesink at the end as Mizuki expressed her love for Date as a parent to make you commit to it.
Game's definitely been trending upwards since my previous post.
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Brig: Completed Rubino first, then Rudo, then Taila. Now about two thirds of the way through Tim's game. Taila's the worst of the leaders but it felt pretty easy after the horror show of Mana Selessia. I also cleared all the optional content at the end with Rudo.
Lots to say, need to do a big post on it soon.
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AI: The Somnium Files - annnd done!
Really enjoyable game. The writing, characters, and voice work are very solid, the mystery is a delight to untangle. The voice work is extra good because the game's core plot twist means that several actors essentially end up playing multiple characters. Allegra Clark going full hog scenery-chewing is amazing. At the end of the day my only major criticism is with the gameplay, it's usually much too trial and error (a few of the sequences are a bit better). Fortunately it rarely actually takes too long; I was usually happiest when it was over and could get back to my engaging visual novel.
I didn't think it would catch VLR for me but actually... maybe it did? I could go into the strengths and weaknesses of each game since there are definitely things each one does better but it's competitive and I'm very glad I played both.
Spoiler thoughts:
So yep I called most of the plot points correctly. That was pretty satisfying.
One thing I really appreciate is how smart the game is. After Saito!Boss and Date swap bodies, I was prepared to be all super-annoyed if the game actually let Saito walk out of there in service of its "bad ending". So of course, it doesn't. Similarly I also appreciated that Date figures out what has happened during that ending. Actually that ending is pretty great (I already mentioned Allegra Clark's work in it), even if the body count means it would never be a happy one.
The game kinda lets So off easy in the true end? I get that he's powerful and sometimes powerful people don't get their comeuppance, that is true and fair and I'm fine with it, but whoof. Yes, he may not actually be a serial killer, but he enabled and shielded one, and helped engineer the Kabasaki chemical plant explosion which must have had quite the body count itself. Fuck him. The one weird part in the ending is he actually admits his role in this.
I know Snowfire mentioned this in his post and I agree: the game's super-cheesy "action sequences" are a bit weird and out of sync with the rest of the game's tone. I don't hate them, as some of the humour does land, but I'm not a fan.
Final realization: Date is only comically horny when in Saito's body... due to Aiba supplying him with too much oxytocin? I think this writer might enjoy making horniness the subject of plot twists too much.
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Interesting reading your AI thoughts, Elf. Didn't want to reply earlier due to fear of accidental spoilage.
Speaking of voice actors... D. C. Douglas (#89) is such a villainous voice actor, it's funny / weird to hear him try to be your ol' pal friendly toward the end of the game. An amusing contrast.
For So seemingly getting away with it with merely losing his job, I think it's vanilla cynicism about holding Japanese politicians to account, for all that having your hired goons attack a police convoy and steal their stuff is pretty over-the-top. But if he didn't do that the plot wouldn't work, so I guess we just hand-wave it. The game is a little soft on Falco, too - I get that a secretive police department division that routinely violates civil liberties can basically do Whatever They Want (relevant?!), but the only character who really hold past-Falco to account on this is Saito bizarrely enough - he has a line along the lines of "Assassin sounds all nice and professional, but you're just a killer like me." Boss / Iris / Hitomi not caring is fine, but I'd expect, say, Ota or Mizuki to be a little less blase on this one.
My own personal initial theory when I played the game, if you're curious... I got on the "annihilation" route first before it locks you out, so my working assumption was that since all the non-Ota bodies had the eye removed, there was some sort of evil-Aiba out there doing the "possessing" - remove someone's eye and hop into the socket. And the big reveal would be whoever had a fake mechanical eye rather than a real one at the moment was the vessel of the AI-killer. The bit where Date goes down the suspect list, rules everyone out, and Boss tells Date to start from scratch was pretty good at hinting that the answer wasn't exactly any one person in Annihilation. It sounds like you did Iris route first, which has the useful bit of info that Iris is missing her eye as well which clearly has nothing to do with Aiba / the villain - so I can see why that theory wouldn't be compelling! I will say - did you buy all of Iris's crazy conspiracy theories in her route? I think that was a bit of fanservice toward Uchikowski's earlier games, but doing that route first would be interesting for "uh maybe this is real?".
As far as Mizuki's end... I forget whether it's So's consciousness or Saito's consciousness that would have been in Iris's body, but either way, based on Iris's end, they're not going to have a particularly long life outside the hospital considering the state of Iris's cancer.
It's a good game y'all, go play it!
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Yep.
On Falco's past: Yeah, I liked that Saito calls him on that and Date himself has a line in the epilogue indicating that he basically agrees. That said, I think it's a understandable (for both the player and other characters) to be lighter on him because the personality of Falco was all but killed six years ago, and the man who has lived as Date has generally tried to live as a good person. Although certainly Boss knew exactly what she was doing when she chose to just cover up that past and it doesn't make her come off as the most moral person in the world! The situation might be a bit different if we actually knew who any of Falco's victims were, too, or met any of their family, etc.
On Iris's route: yes, doing this first very much opens up the possibility that her suppositions are real! I didn't know. I think I was initially leaning towards them being real, just because it explains the Super Mysterious Assassin Squad (tbh I'm not sure the in-game explanation for them is that satisfying), but then in her somnium I began having doubts largely because of Aiba's arguments during it (although I still chose the "believe Iris" route of that somnium because it felt more in character... plus it was possible Aiba was part of the Wadjet conspiracy which Iris was afraid of!).
On Mizuki's end: It's So in Iris's body there; Saito is in So's and is killed during the showdown at So's mansion. Though... yes, good chance he was going to die shortly anyway. There's some irony in So's immense wealth not being able to save him because his new body doesn't have access to it.
Also I find it interesting that Saito doesn't really "win" on many/any routes? He's killed during the Resolution and Mizuki ends, and presumably captured and imprisoned in Annihilation. He's still at large on the other two (Iris and Ota), but his plans aren't unfolding as well as he'd like in those and it's an open possibility that Date will still catch him.
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Atelier Ayesha
Year 2 of the cute, blond, lead's quest to bring her sister home.
This time around, I made sure to be in Vierzeburg on the first day of year 2. There's an optional scene that takes place on that exact day in that town that I'd gotten before but missed in my clear game conquest. I made a rational guess and it turned out to correct. Ayesha falls asleep and a character approaches her while she's daydreaming. This time, I got Wilbell. Sleeptaling Ayesha tells Wilbell not to eat so many sweets or she'll get fat. A fluffy scene.
Felt like I got Juris kind of late even though month 14-15 of the game probably isn't that late. Got through salt desert a lot easier with him using his instakill skill on Red Skins.
Getting all the glowing flowers had me away from Vierzeburg for 4-5 months. Because after finding the minimum needed, entering the town triggeres a scene that advances the plot but also blocks off the remainder of the glowing flowers. Other than loss of access to the bazzar, not really a big deal. There's alchemy to be done and places to visit for memory points and scenes so was able to use the time productively. Game was mostly stingy with equipment drops and I resisted buying gear but got by (thanks to attack items). Somehow ran low on cash earlier than my first playthrough and came very close to broke a time or two resorting to selling off some excess materials for some purchases. Where am I spending my funds where I didn't before. (later found out - buying back a Glass Tiara set me back about 1600 and I bought and used some expensive raw materials. 250 each adds up fast in a game where the main sources of money are finite)
Being a replay, one would think I'd have no trouble at battles. The first real boss still caught me off guard. Part of it was that I was using Regina/Wilbell, who aren't that great at damaging it due to lots of fire elemental skills against a boss with high fire resistance. I knew it had a mean MT nuke but it still caught me in a weakened state. Ayesha and Wilbell went down and Regina was knocked low enough that a music change triggered. Never thought I'd see the day where Predicament RES (stats up when at low enough HP) may have made the difference between victory and defeat. Thanks to that and 12 HP regen per turn from a Phoenix Bracelet I had on Regina, she clung on until active Element call with one use left brought back Ayesha. That was a close one.
Didn't quite make it to where Nio disappeared to before year 3 ticked over. That will be for the next writeup.
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Brig LOR: Playing as Stella. She's fun.
The EXP tables have been pretty dramatically altered for Knights. It used to take 5000 EXP to get from 1-10; it seems to be about half that. The levels in general are a lot more centralized than Brig, where starting level was often king. It takes Castor (L8 Fighter) 1500-1700 EXP to reach class change which is a struggle.
Now, you have questing to quickly level up project knights. I think the last several levels have higher EXP requirements now, but that's okay.
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One thing I noticed is that you can no longer cheese it out by level really fast in first tier classes with second tier characters. Alas.
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There is an item that raises your class level by one (Enlightenment scroll) which has some obvious uses, but it's a rare drop only from only certain locations so you won't see more than one in a single game. The quest system could definitely use more transparency, but I like the changes to it. Ditching the random stat up/wounding quests and just making them pass/fail is much better in practice.
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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2161974395
(Robert, on reacting to being told a dog will be joining the party)
Beat it, sort of. It's a short, fun little game. The new characters definitely feel different and have notably different niches, which helps mix things up from CotM1. The asterisk is that I turned it down from Veteran to Casual on the final stage just to get a better sense of WTF is going on, because the final stage is pretty cruel on Veteran - knockback isn't so bad most of the game, but the final stage is where the game decides it's fun to have tanky knights throwing boomeranging axes while a giant cloud of locusts pursues you as you jump from platform to platform, with a hit likely knocking you into a pit. Stage 5 was pretty hard too, although I did beat it on Veteran albeit chewing through like 6 continues. The other asterisk is that there's multiple "episodes" similar to Ultimate Mode and Nightmare Mode in COTM1 where you get to play through the stages again, but I think there's new music and new enemy layouts and new areas to get to. So there's still new content there.
Also, while I hesitate to say anything about the threadbare NES plot (there was a tower... filled with demons. They called it... Demon's Tower.), so to the extent there is a plot, I half wonder if Inti Creates is just trolling Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. ROTN spoilers (you shouldn't really care, but COTM2 spoilers too): So Dominique, your spears & healing character, is the villain in Ritual of the Night. At the end of episode 1, she... sacrifices herself to save the party, and the narration is all Robert saying "I was wrong to not trust her for no reason!" and praising all the things she did to support the party. Kinda meta "haha you thought you knew what to expect gamers!" I guess. Well, it'll be an excuse to face possessed Dominique in Episode 2 I assume.
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Shining Resonance: Beaten. The game is a relatively by the numbers anime styled ARPG that is refined and given enough care to be likable. Also the cast beats things over the head with musical instruments made from the body of a dragon.
The central arc of the story ties a large mainland empire at war with a small island nation (the setting of the game of course). The intro of the game features a raid/rescue by the knight princess of the island kingdom, who rescues a young man (the main character of course) from the Empire's clutches. The young man barely has a personality at all, having been tortured for some time and oddly not that interested in being rescued. Cue an attempted rooftop escape and the introduction of a second female lead, a bow-using singing elf dressed as a diva. Cue the rescue being foiled by an armor-wearing dragon controlling princess of the Empire. And then the main character turns into a dragon and escapes with his new harem would-be rescuers.
The plot goes on like that for a while, hitting fairly ordinary beats of a plucky little country fighting against a larger empire and a secret plot to destroy the world by unleashing an ancient evil. Most of the plot around the world at large is superficial, but I'll give it credit for including it in a way that makes some degree of sense (the empire's political situation is discussed and a necessary underpinning for the conflict writ large). The main character gradually goes from a spineless vessel (literally, a vessel) to a tried-and-true hero, and the party develops an almost family-like bond over the game. I will give it props for developing its villain cast, since it eschews killing them off and you get a chance to see them have their own miniature character arcs over the course of the game. In that regard it reminds me of (but does not equal) Wild Arms XF.
The voice acting is also plentiful and rather good. Each character sounds the way you would expect for their personality, and it resulted in me liking the characters far, far more than I otherwise would have. Notably the enemy 'blood knight' type of character that normally is just a horrible waste of time becomes almost enrapturing sometimes because of the line delivery and voice acting. Some of these VAs knocked it out of the park. I dislike the main character's voice but they were going for a particular 'dead-souled' affect that changes over time to be more heroic, so I understand why it is that way.
The party's character interaction is mostly shallow but usually amusing. Which is good because the game is *chock full* of the main characters talking with each other, living with each other, and generally building up a rapport. There must be somewhere around a hundred little vignettes or 'skits' of the cast talking about their daily life in the city. While the character's aren't very deep, these interactions are amusing. For example, Kirika doesn't like carrots so other characters wonder why, when eating, they seem to get extra helpings of said food (Kirika abuses teleportation magic). As is typical with anime-styled storytelling this kind of thing is overdone but it can get a smile when you see this basic kind of joke run through the different characters and their varied reactions to it.
The game's ARPG combat is interesting in theory, having a system to encourage alternating regular attacks and special moves in various ways to either inflict damage or break an enemy. The customization systems at first seem promising... But because the systems are to some extent locked behind grinding it isn't as enjoyable as it could have been. For example the characters can change their 'tunings' which alters their stats and gives a different passive benefit, but these are essentially a second level stat and changing the tuning results in needing to grind for tuning levels or else the character stats are just abysmal. This is made worse by some of the tunings unlocking when you finally get a tuning up to level 30 (endgame). They unlock at level 1 and reset your stats to dirt. The other major customization system (Aspects) are effectively accessories locked behind an item creation system that requires some degree of grinding for enemy parts.
The difficulty can be ridiculously uneven. Randoms are usually harmless roadbumps until suddenly you are facing 4 'gunner' human enemies who do MT 3-4HKO that also inflicts a brutal confuse status, so blitz them or die***. And if you aren't quick enough on the draw the attack animation they use gives them super armor. Bosses are also uneven in difficulty in a way that doesn't match their 'plot power' too much. In the end, I ended up either controlling a gunner who had MT Knockdown (for randoms) or the best mage who could rez and do MT healing/buffing along with decent damage. Controlling her manually did a much faster job of keeping your party alive such that I felt I had to do it myself. A pity.
*** The game could lose a whole point for pulling the "2 guys will go off on their own to provide a distraction* bit where they have to fight enemies by themselves. In a game with no exp for non active party members. And the enemies are those $*$&%& gunners!
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Brigandine LoR: It’s shiny. I’ve beaten five of the six rulers and am working on wrapping up Eliza’s quest now. I’m enjoying the experience obviously! There's more polish and everything from questing to leveling has been tweaked, but the core mechanics are the same. You're trying to take over five other countries and defend your own borders while doing it. The changes under the hood are subtle but there; it feels like about the same jump from Brig to GE.
The AI is improved from GE. It is better about threat assessment and uses status much more effectively. I had a couple of resets early because of this. I would use standard tactics and Ivona (Bard line) would Curse Song Grados; Tim would follow up by using Dimension him across the map and completely screwing up my plan. It still has large flaws about damage distribution and unit placement, but it is a step in the right direction. The AI also understands how to use react, which it did not in previous versions. Placement is still critical. Making your attack line in a certain spot or way can make the difference between an easy win or a loss; that is unchanged. The biggest gap is that the AI still doesn't fully understand how to position units and attack in the right way. It still sends in High Centaurs ahead of meat shields, making them easy targets for sniping. It does the same for high movement units like Wyverns. It also sometimes makes poor calculations in terms of movement costs; it will not spend the extra turn or two and have all three enemy groups attack at once. You can really see this on mobility restricted maps with a lot of bridges; Tim’s western border with Taila and Rudo is a very good example of this.
The change in the quest system and EXP curve are big deals. More on that in a bit.
The rulers are better balanced than in Brig. The AI will use all the rulers and will get them leveled up; no longer do you have a situation where Lyonesse or Lance just sit there and do nothing most of the game. Even if they don't, Rubino and Taila are competent enough at base level. They're also all more durable as well. Even Taila has good base defense and a decent HP score. The rulers benefit from having more ranged options and status protection, they don't charge the line as much as they did in earlier versions of Brig and are harder to snipe. It still happens from time to time (Rudo especially) but it's less of a sure thing than in earlier versions. The AI is more aggressive on the whole as far as attacking and staying in battles. They don't usually retreat after losing a knight. It makes them more vulnerable to getting several knights wounded at once, but it also makes you have to work harder for victories and sometimes can cost you monsters. That aggressiveness is a net positive for the AI; it makes tough defensive fights even harder and that is where the majority of challenge lies in the mid and late game.
Questing is different. The stat up quests are gone and so are the wounded quests; each quest takes just a month. Each town has two to three areas to quest in, along with training grounds. Training grounds awards 100-300 EXP each session; it can't fail. The changes to the EXP and questing system dovetail with this. It's faster to level up. It takes slightly under 2096 EXP to get a L1 Knight to L10; it takes around 5000 to do it in Brig. The leveling seems to slow around L15 and by L20 it feels comparable to earlier Brig games. The AI on hard is very aggressive about sending low level knights and monsters out to the training grounds. It's rare outside of the early game that you will ever face a knight under L10, questing gives the AI a constant source of higher level monsters to throw at you. There are around 18 quest knights. I've found them to be utterly unremarkable. They either join massively under leveled or are just unremarkable across the board. A few like Malak or Matthias are really good? The rest are not great. Some of the Rune Knights have very specific join requirements; one only joins 9 seasons into the game and requires you send a Knight with 300 or more rune out questing.
Each area has four gear types you can get. There are three rarity tiers; an area tends to have one-two pieces of that gear on each tier. The chalice item are the monster level up items (Missing link, Champion Medal etc). Each area also only drops one of the three types of stat up potions. So, there is a point to questing in different areas if you want to see everything or want a specific piece of gear. I wish the game was more transparent about this and told you more about it, but it's a minor complaint in a game that does a pretty good job with mechanical transparency. Questing success for items/gear is tied to both unit level and character class. You aren't very likely to get really high level loot from a L2 Fighter; whereas a L30 Treasure Hunter stands a much better chance of pulling down rare gear.
Questing can get you some extremely powerful gear, but the fairly restrictive time limit on hard along with a constant need for higher level knights for border pushes limits the amount of it you can do in the normal game. The equipment system was also reworked. Each Knight and Monster has a weapon slot, an armor slot, a glove/helmet slot, and an accessory slot. There are light, medium, and heavy tiers of armor as well and you get a theming bonus for having gear of the same rarity tier equipped. There is a tremendous amount of gear and power available, but the sheer scope and number of items means it takes longer to get the high end gear. The super rares are powerful, but they're more just a really lucky bonus early on or something for doing some of the Mana Distortion fights. Timer is off once you unite the map, so you can send all 30+ knights questing every month until you're happy with your gear. Not really relevant for beating the game, more just if you want to see some of the shinies or really go after the optional fights.
The male and female knight lines were reworked pretty drastically. Gone are the days of branching mage paths; there only split paths are on male Knights (Swordsman/Knight and then Dark Knight/Paladin at the L20 promotion for Knight). Fighter, Berserker, Thief, Grappler, Mage, Cleric vs Assassin, Cleric, Mage, Bard, Lancer, Archer. I think the female classes are better, but that's mostly due to Wizard feeling pretty inferior to Witch and the sadness that is Grappler in this game. It's pretty well balanced, there are merits to each class line. Actual discussion of each class will be in another post, as this is already too damn long. Stat imbalance is kind of a thing in this game. Gilliam starts as a Cardinal.. with like 65 INT. Yeah. Meanwhile Kyle has over 100 INT as a Paladin. Ginny is a Berserker with 38 AGI which is hideous. It's sometimes used as a story device (Ginny is a drunk and past his prime). It did make me carefully check the knights stat pages before using them.
Monster changes. There were a bunch of balance tweaks. Fairie and Djinn lines have been replaced by Imps and Elementals. The only line removed entirely are Gryphons; they were merged with Rocs. Angels, Dragons, Devils, and Hydras all lost promotions or have promotions gated by rare quest items. Goblins were added and Mandrakes got a new promotion unlocked by a quest item. Costs were tweaked, skillsets were rebalanced. A strong theme in the design of this game is that the designers were trying to avoid classes that completely moot other classes, IE Angels no longer get Cure or Halo and they only get Heal after promoting to Archangels. There is generally a reason to try the different classes, even if they're not all on the same level of effectiveness. Angels and Dragons are still at the top of the food chain, but you have to work harder for it, and they aren't as strong as they used to be. The same applies to Knight classes- only one class in the game gets each Geno spell; only Witches get Meteor Doom and only Wizards get Solid.
Status is deadly in this game. The developers built an entire line (Mermaids) around this and arguably Giants as well; you have to work harder to get access to petrify and paralysis. It's a good design choice, as you could do hideous things to the game with Roc spam before. I'm guessing that's the reason as well that 5 of 6 leaders are status immune; they fully understand how dangerous it is. It's something that merits more discussion whenever I look at class balance.
The world map has been tweaked. It's enough to feel and handle differently than regular Brigandine, but not different enough to provide a drastically different playstyle. You'll have to defend 5~ borders at some point in the game and that will be the hardest thing you face in the normal game. I've found it best to just cycle through Knights even so often in your main attack group, to help with defense. Even with the rebalanced EXP system, I found it better to use really strong low level knights rather than quest them; the EXP questing I found best for secondary knights like Rakta or Leonore. They're good knights and you will need them some point during the game, but not immediately and they're not good enough at the start to justify using.
The aftergame is fun once, but I would much rather have a hard mode with unlimited time so you can sit back and watch the AI/see what they can do with more time. GE had this; one of the options in its story mode let you turn off the timer and just watch the fireworks. That dynamic experience and challenge is more interesting to me than any static final; it also lets you see how you handle it when a country comes knocking with some truly nasty setups after taking over the rest of the map after five years. The final boss is the same thing; it was fun once but after that it's just something in the way. It isn't just Brig where I tend to feel this way; XCOM2 is a great game but I am bored of the final fight by this point. The dynamic missions and quests are what's fresh after several playthroughs and that is what I truly enjoy.
The character art is great but the fanservice is way the hell over the top. The writing is there. There's a few scenes I've liked, but the overall plot isn't great and has some cringe attached as well. The translation is pretty stiff and there are definitely typos/grammar issues throughout, but that is to be expected for a game that got released the same day worldwide. One thing I liked in particular is that every single country has done awful things; no one is even close to remotely clean. Guimole has blackbirds, Norzaleo has occupation/exploitation of of Gustava, etc. I will say that Rudo is an unlikeable bastard, more so than any of the leaders in Brig. Zemeckis was painted as the nominal villain of the first game, but it's clear that he wasn't personally evil, just driven and ruthless. Rudo starts the game off by killing off his father and starting a religious war. Other charming things including executing prisoners and having a literal god complex to go along with psychological manipulation and general asshattery. I kept watching his scenes to see if he'd get any redeeming personality traits and nope, not really. A scene that struck home in a good way was Stella and Adieu talking about ego and sense of self was clever and there are other bits scattered throughout as said. I'm not playing this for the bits of story though, I'm playing it for the grand conquest and strategy.
I'm hoping for DLC (I will pay money for a Zemeckis or Dryst quest knight) and more content in general along with more modes. Even if I don't get that, it's been a fun ride and I'm glad that I got to play it.
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So enemies level up on Hard more? That's definitely cool to hear. Are that + the turn limit the main differences?
Brigandine 2 - Playing as Mirelva. I'm having a good time. The first Brigandine was always a game I respected but didn't find super-enjoyable to actually play; I'm pretty sure I spent more time just discussing it with Ciato/Super/Gourry than actually playing it myself. But y'know now we have fast forward and damage projections and a better interface and yep I'm down for this.
Fire Emblem Fates - Conquest - The town defence map remains one of the most brilliant in the series. Having a blast. Doing an all female units run which made chapter 7-8 a bit hairy due to the low numbers but now I've basically got a full team (have reached chapter 13) so it should be fine. I reclassed Corrin to Ninja (giving me a shuriken user and Locktouch, and ninja is just generally a good class) and Mozu to Archer (giving me a bow user).
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https://m.imgur.com/C3J8dqP
Elf: Sums up the differences in challenge. E: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1phCX__6IuomaEnioApz_db_ZNaA7xwPazKwJoHDqhIY/edit#gid=0 Best source of information I've found for Brig Switch so far; group effort from some of the people from Gamefaqs and other Brig communities.
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I Am Setsuna- Beat a few weeks ago. After the nasty boss before the airship, the boss then proceeded to after fail badly (the last bosses especially were a bad joke. Low HP, weak to Light, lacking all around). Game was interesting. I have a soft spot in that it tried to do a lot of similar things to the RPG I'm making in terms of some weird mechanics (although the ultimate moves having those random powerups is a little of programming for little reward; I have some similar stuff but it's more core mechanics), but it also goes to show you that a high level of complication only works with high levels of transparency. Obviously the development cycle was cut short on this game, so it's hard to say what would have actually been made clear (I'm going to assume that secret defense/mdef stats at the very least) and what would have still been a mystery.
Plot was a combo of potentially interesting points that weren't fully fleshed out and potentially interesting points that dragged on longer than you would ever expect. Unlike the two games that it's based off in some way, the world definitely wasn't not fully realized (why is it covered in snow? Just to make it easier to make the graphics) and were definite massive plot holes (the existence of your main character being a critical one). It the game was fully polished up, it could have been up to an 8/10, but some severe issues made my final score 5/10. Fun, fun duellers though (some of them are very thankful for the obscure methods to get rare drops).
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Brigandine: Legend of Runersia - Completed Stella's route.
Fun game, will definitely be replaying on other routes. People have already gone over the differences / QoL improvements between the original and this game (sounds like Grand Edition is responsible for a good share of those improvements, but I never played that), but they obviously help! I love having damage projections and the largely transparent mechanics. Only real downside to me is that the quest system is still a bit frustrating, I spend a bunch of time inputting commands to basically roll dice? Or there might be some method to the madness besides RNG which I don't understand. Still, it's a minor complaint.
My most used units were Stella (generally high stats + especially rune + Charm on someone tanky is neat for stealing monsters + post-promotion Dragon's Destruction is really good), Pluto (good out of the gate with Geno Flame), Ginny (good power/HP but bad accuracy and shaky rune, a bit jeigan-ish), Adieu (a better Ginny once he promotes), Ratka (archer with good rune), Sophie (enchantress with good rune), Umimaru (has a good breath attack which he has MP to use once but can spend turns to recharge it), and Lucia (sort of randomly ended up in one of my main attack squads, is kinda mediocre until she reached Royal Guard which is a shockingly good class). My final team was Stella, Adieu, and Ratka, because they had the highest rune stats pretty much (Sophie is similar but I was warned against using mage rune knights against the final because they die easily and losing a rune knight is devastating there).
My most used monster lines generally were Unicorns->Nightmares (healing, and debuffs are great due to being 100%) and Sea Serpents (because Mirelva starts with a bunch, and of course their bulk/power/breath is still good). Other monsters I found useful were High Centaur (hitting whatever the fuck you want is really good in this game), Phoenix (regen, Flame, healing, decent physical stats if needed), Siren (is only an okay Frost caster [55 rune for 3 shots] on land maps, but 100% range 4 charm is brutal if she has access to water), Archdemon (Dimension is great, rest of the package isn't too impressive as I got Meteor Doom too late to matter), Dragon (generally a bit worse sea serpents overall but you can customize their element), Elementals (kinda meh in tier 1, but tier 2 has some great targeting flexibility). I had a Lizardfolk which was unremarkable filler most of the game but I got Lizard Lord for the final battle and it kinda rules, two actions (and moves!) every turn? Hellhounds are neat for Double Move though the stats keep them from feeling super-awesome. Wyverns... well I did steal Gustava's Bahamut and that class is really good (what if Double Movement was on something with real stats?), but the tier before it is pretty shaky (my Level 18 Couatl wasn't really that great). Gremlins are mostly mediocre (Protect-bot at tier 1, then at tier 2 compared to even land Siren, they have fewer shots of attack magic and have HP of paper) but they get React and sometimes that's just bonkers, and at least their rune cost is reasonably low. Goblins, Golems, Giants, and Ghouls all kinda fall into various blocks of "filler if the rune cost is right" and nothing more. I didn't use Angels or Mandrakes enough to get a good sense but they both seem potentially interesting. They got rid of scorpions. :(
It's good, play it!
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Gremlins are a must have, you can do real bad things with react and Thunder gives them a strong attack spell to use if react doesn't work out. Rune Knights at high levels do really bad things with two turns and that's something you want to encourage. I'm still not sure who I consider the second best unit in Stella's path. There are several knights in the 7.5/10 range for varying reasons; it's the only country where there doesn't feel like a slam dunk best party or set of knights outside of the leader.
If you play Norzaleo, definitely use Elena. She starts with 70 STR instead of the usual 55-60 of Archers and has crazy good rune. Thousand Arrows running off her stats is something truly delightful to see.
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Atelier Ayesha: Keithgriff and Juris shredded the final boss. I had the MP on Keithgriff to go for a second Double Up sequence but the battle was over before it reached the 3rd and strongest blow again. Boss does have item power down effect on PS3 original but is used at maybe under 10% or even 5% so it didn't last very long after using it. Both the guys had an accessory with Fire Power (+15% Fire damage to every attack) though Skill Enhance 2 probably made the bigger difference. Ayesha did contribute some damage but that wasn't her focus.
Story stuff? "...and a spare cauldron. And the spare, spare cauldron." I get a laugh at all of Ayesha's spare cauldrons.
Kyle, on agreeing to sample and review some bread: "OK, I confirm and accept your feelings" Since the baker is the one who made the bread does that mean your accepting his feelings? Didn't know you swung that way Kyle. I am momentarily ignoring canon and how the baker has his eyes on someone else for the purpose of making bad jokes.
Been on a Disgaea kick and plinking away at my postgame file. So excuse to talk about my postgame party:
The core group I'm focusing on for the postgame contains a group of 7, each one specializing in a different weapon type. All of them are different class types for variety with an S in their weapon type.
Fist: Shinobi Has an Accelerator and movement increase for 11 move for mobility in the item world. Also plan on loading him up with Speed to turn into an evade tank.
Sword: Shogun 110% Attack aptitude and 30 skill points per tech use.
Spear: female Cosmic Hero The only other S in spears once the Shogun and Divine Majin have been allocated. Also spears don't get quite as high on raw damage.
Bow: Freischutz Obvious non-Majin choice who gains 30 skill points per tech use.
Gun: Space Marine 120% Hit aptitude and equal base Hit to a Divine Majin.
Axe: Divine Majin Could have gone swords but decided to channel that 120% Attack aptitude into axe techs for the really big damage numbers.
Staff: Galaxy Mage 5 transmigration cycles has neeted her every spell in the game. Even if she's not using most of them besides the offense spells.
The other 3 slots I rotate on a whim. There's Flonne, who I taught Star magic, the healing family, and the buffs. There's my Space Pirate, for stealing. There's an Angel Cadet who is being used as a durable caster and since she has only 1 Counter, doesn't counter things when I don't want her to. Gordon is sometimes in because 6 throw range. Haven't decided what I want to do with Thursday otherwise I'd use him more. Rest of the story characters are essentially benched besides Priere and Majorly, for those times I want their overwhelming power.
The other goal is a monster army. Want to have access to every monster skill in the game which means 1 of each in the highest tier of their class leveled up to at least 50. Dragons and great wyrms require 3 dragons and 5 great wyrms to access the full spread of their skillsets. Argus will be set up to be a template for an ultimate RES tank though of course I'm not going all the way on storing 186000 levels for true max stats. Hoggmesier and Maderas save me from raising two more monsters since they share skills with their equivalent monster classes.
When I have all this, a Hyperdrive, and all the rank 40+ weapons and items, I will consider my save complete and never touch Disgaea again most likely. Do not want to admit how much time I've sunk into this game.
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Brig- Finished challenge mode with Norzaleo. I didn't quite break 25k to get the last unlock, but I could load my last save and probably try and force it if I really cared. The mode was certainly challenging, but not always for the right reasons.
You really have to be aggressive about questing to gain more knights. The game (seemingly at random) assigns you new knights. Cool! I didn't know how random it was. I gained two that way and then got no new knights for most of the game. I had 12 knights up until I hit 35 castles. I had five-six borders to try and defend that entire time. Needless to say there were a lot of defensive battles where I was holding off enemy forces with just two knights. I don't know how much of this was bad luck and how much of this was intentional, but bleh.
I also dislike every unit being at L1. Starting level and class are hugely important in Brig, even with quicker leveling curve and EXP quests. Taking that out takes a lot of the uniqueness out of knights; it becomes a simple stat check to decide on which knights to use instead. Having to balance out high level and high potential units would make the starting selection much more interesting.
The stats have some issues with scaling as well. The Knight/Lancer units are poorly balanced in this version; they end up with crazy high STR but terrible AGI. In the base game, units like that are balanced by having pretty good base AGI to offset the bad growth. That balance is not in place in challenge mode. I had to use Rose. She had 20 more STR than she normally does, but 25 less AGI. It's a pretty questionable design choice.
Normal mode and challenge mode both need an option to play on hard with the timer off. It's much more enjoyable to see what the AI does with time; also makes the mid and lategame much more challenging when they have high level knights and monsters to throw at you. The solution challenge mode does is scaling up enemy level and monster level. It works... okay enough. It felt very rocket taggy to me. Also enemy powerups frequently benefit you, as you can steal their high level monsters pretty easily.
I also tried a second MS game and it was much easier. Rudo is so stupidly overpowered that him and Monica is more than enough to steamroll the entire game; there isn't a point to using a third knight. You are better off letting EXP focusing and using third knight for questing. I knew to recruit Veyta and how to expand and where. Gilliam is useful for this as his high level helps with questing and you desperately want at least one quest knight. I haven't finished this playthrough but I'm at the tipping point, Rudo is about to get his Overlord class and I have control over 25 castles.
I'm also trying a two knight playthrough with Norzaleo. Rules are pretty simple, can only use two knights to attack or defend. I'm trying to avoid having more than two knights in a single castle in the attack phase as it deters enemy attacks and makes it more likely you will go first in the attack phase. In some ways, it's easier than a normal playthrough. Two knights means your EXP focuses and you are using better knights on average. It also means you are questing more and thus have more chances at getting top end loot and quest knights. I made an effort to quest everyone up to L10 so I had a pile of promoted monsters to throw out when I had to expand. That helps a tremendous amount. The challenge is of that you are outnumbered in most every single fight, you have to build your team out smartly and blitz enemy forces before they wear you down.
I used Will, he is annoyingly obscure as recruiting him requires getting Ferrick wounded. Ferrick is the worst knight Norzaleo has and one of the worst knights in the game, so odds are pretty low you are going to be using him. If you know how to get Will, he can join up at the start of the third season. He is really damn strong and is the best Rogue in the game. Will doesn't have as a crazy high STR score as Tommy, but 88 STR at L15 is still good and the rest of his stats are outstanding. Pairings so far: Rubino & Will, Pick & Elena, Grados and Jiu(replaced with Elena).
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Quality of knights
Norzaleo>Guimoule>>Gustava>>Mirelva>Shinobi>>>Mana Saleesia
Yeah. I've been bouncing around where I rate the knights and I think this works for where each country falls. Norzaleo and Guimoule are the clear winners for best knights. They don't have a lot of scrubs and each have very powerful second in command types. Norzaleo's top end is better; Grados and Elena both have pretty good arguments for best Knight in the game who isn't a leader.
Gustava surprisingly takes third. They have a couple of appallingly bad knights in Coco and Gaspar, but the majority are competent. Ivona, Noll, Ginger, Sylvie, Scymerius are all good; Alsin is the only Champion unit worth using in the entire game. Mirelva's got a ton of solid knights, but they don't have a single knight besides Stella I'd call really good. They have a lot of above average knights, but no really overpowered second in command that the rest of the countries have. Tommy is probably the second best knight, and as good as he is... no. He's not on par with Kyle or Alsin or Mu'ah. Having a half dozen really solid knights is however quite useful.
Shinobi's got problems. It's got a bunch of low level knights and a bunch of bad knights. Their second best knight is Della and she joins two thirds of the way through the game. Sid is great and so is Medessa, but after that it gets thin. Surprisingly their project knights are really bad. I don't think a single of their units who starts below L10 is really worth using besides Taila. Taila's also the worst of the leaders; she is just unremarkable on everything until class change and then... eh. It's a Lyonesse remix with more durability at that point, which I'm not really impressed with. Shinobi may be clearly second to last, but they're still miles ahead of Rudo's pack of scrubs.
Ah, Mana Saleesia. I hope you like scrubby white aligned units, because they've got a lot of those! Titania and Aisha are both awful; bad stats and mediocre class line. That still puts them ahead of the Grapplers, who have a terrible class line and bad stats. Largo is at least tolerably bad; Cyrus is the worst knight in the game. He has high strength!... that he can't use because he has 40 AGI and terrible durability. Better hope he doesn't kick multiple enemies out of the way so he can be hit several times by enemy monster and explode! Oh, did I forget to mention that Grapplers second ability is completely garbage and they don't get a close range skill that's worth a damn until L20? Cyrus also leaves midway through the quest so you are screwed if for some insane reason you decided to use him. Allen's not as bad as Cyrus but he's not far off; terrible Rune and bad stats along with being low leveled. You have to use him because MS border problems. I actually dualed him over to Thief. He wasn't good at that due to having really low HP, but at least it gave him some use thanks to Draw Trick. Frederico has bad stats and leaves about two thirds of the way through the game. *punt* And I'm not even going to discuss Gilliam, who has gameworst Rune and INT. His MP is terrible too. His one redeeming feature is being able to quest. They even managed to screw up the Archer type. Katri's got miserable rune stats and bad AGI; she can't evade tank like the other archers until she promotes to Sniper. The slighter higher strength doesn't justify that.
The flipside is that Rudo's the best Knight in the game. Kyle is really scary thanks to the class and stats. Monica is amazing; starts as a Minstrel and has good stats across the board. Beyond that, Emma and Veyta are solid and Selena's fine for border duties. But you really have to go through some suffering with scrubs to use the powerhouses.
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Fire Emblem Fates Conquest - My first return to this since 3H came out. Played Hard Classic, used female PCs only (+ Jakob for chapters 2-3, since Corrin solo felt obnoxiously tricky), which also ends up meaning no child paralogues. Didn't want to let anyone die since I only had 13 PCs with no way to get more.
I was a little worried about the earlygame but ultimately it wasn't too bad. Tonics to ensure Corrin could ORKO faceless + getting Effie and Elise dealt with C7, C8 I beelined across the south lake to snag all the houses. Once C10 hit the playthrough felt fairly normal in terms of unit number, in fact I actually was at max deployment for a few maps midgame. I think I had the most resets in Chapter 25 (Ryoma's map) which is pure "I want to test myself" because my Corrin could in fact win the duel. Silence was super-useful in the final battle though so I'm glad I stuck it out for that.
Corrin (F, +Str, -Luck): Ninja build. I did this to have a unit with Locktouch and a combat unit with daggers but honestly it's just a really good build in general. Daggers are great, Master Ninja is a great class, poison allows a win against Ryoma if necessary. Generally one of my two or three best units at all points in the run.
Elise: Strategist. She was a quite speed-screwed so her offence wasn't as good as it could be, still had one good solid hit though. Lily's Poise (+Inspiration at the very end) is nice, mobile staff user is of course nice. She died on the last map because I forget that the Skadi Beam destroys the barriers, whoops. Only casualty ultimately.
Effie: General for Wary Fighter, then Kinshi Knight (via Mozu) for Quick Draw (the skill that we now call Death Blow), then Great Knight for mobility. Without Xander, Effie becomes that much more useful, as she plays the main physical wall role. She actually capped speed so I didn't need Wary Fighter until the last few maps, but boy is it useful when you're facing ninjas and swordmaster hell towards the end. OHKO on frail enemies was sometimes possible up to the end, which was nice. I probably should have bought a Brave Lance, in hindsight I had the spare money for it.
Mozu: Archer to Sniper. Easy enough change to give me a bow-user. Offensively pretty good (similar to Corrin, actually), though lacked the massive atk of Camilla/Effie/Charlotte. Defensively had solid enough stats aside from HP, so she could take one or two hits, but no 1-2 bow really limits the opportunities for good enemy phase play.
Nyx: Sorcerer. Had some offence at points but overall thoroughly mediocre since her offence was generally short of ORKO and her durability is trash. Periodically put in some good work when the numbers lined up right, though (the right side of chapter 13 being perhaps the most memorable such occasion).
Azura: Danced. I killed Shura for the first time, boots make her even better. Sorry Shura. :(
Camilla: Dipped in Berserker for Axefaire, back to Malig for Trample, back to Berserker for being a giant pile of stats. OHKOed ninjas and maids, ORKOed most everything else with bronze (needed a brave axe for Wary Fighter generals), was the key tank for Hans's room in C26, killed the final boss with a Brave Axe. I've deleted Savage Blow from her on some playthoughs but I kept it on this one and I really liked it, a lot of characters on my team had a much easier time completing ORKOs after that.
Beruka: Tanky and mobile and later on became fairly focused on Rally Defence. Offence and magic durability... not so much.
Selena: Hero for Sol than to Paladin via A+ with Peri for Elbow Room / Shelter / Defender and mobility. Her stat build was respectable but not dominant, she didn't usually ORKO but could hold her own in a variety of roles, held the only Kodachi.
Peri: Compared to Selena she was a bit less physically durable and accurate but had more offence mostly due to being faster + lances so got a few more ORKOs. Pretty similar overall though.
Charlotte: Berserker. Rally Strength was her utility move but she could also kill things dead with her great strength and speed. Camilla Jr. still pretty useful as it turns out.
Felicia: Strategist. Inspiration from shortly after she joins is pretty great. Obviously a bit unimpressive in combat due to joining late + not really being very good on stats, but 8 move, Inspiration, and a staff rank go a long way.
Flora: Left her in Maid. The worst of my three healers in every way but of course that didn't mean she wasn't useful. Arms Scroll'd her to S staves for Bifrost, which saved Mozu's life in the ending, irrelevant but happy?
Rescue, Freeze, Entrap, Silence, and to a lesser extent Enfeeble are all great options for dealing with things where I saw no other option, or in desperation.
Fun times! Next up is Three Houes: The Route That Shall Not Be Named
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Super Robot Wars T- https://twitter.com/CmdrKing/status/1291525597747908610?s=20
So... hm. I do like this better than any of the GBA games I played. Do I like it more than the non-sRPG Endless Frontier? Fascinating question. I think I have to say yes, but it's not a runaway race. T is a little more upfront with its themes and does a pretty good job of having the licensed shows back them up, but the salaryman angle is played in a slightly weird way that feels a bit at odd with everything. And while the original cast is good, it's definitely a step behind Haken and Kaguya. EF is a bit shorter which is good, they have a similar pacing issue where after a point stuff is just a little longer than it really needs to be because you've "solved" the fight but are waiting for it to finish playing out... but y'know, EF has some real problems with backtracking after a point that just don't exist in an sRPG and I think that and the particular selection of licensed stuff being things I'm familiar with either natively or from playing J is the extra edge.
(yes this is the only review I'm doing, because other than what I said on the twitter with pictures, it's... SRW and while T has some QoL features, at least one *unique to this game* until the next one comes out, it's still fundamentally SRW.)
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Orcs Must Die 3- Cleared on warmage; about halfway through Rift Lord (nightmare) now.
I really miss stunning flame wall and thunderstorm, damn it. It's fun as expected. I see why the developers were excited about it; the game engine uses stadia well.
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Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Silver Snow
Eighth playthrough, and now I've finally done all the routes on Maddening! God playing this route made me very mad. My initial impression of the route was that it was relatively incoherent, but on this go through I've increasingly come to see it as an unapologetic struggle for the status quo in which the player-allied characters spout lines which reflect their privelege and cluelessness about the social problems of Fodlan. And the ending... :vomit-emoji:
On the plus side the final battle was pretty enjoyable, outside of one trap. The game encourages you to seize a fort to stop reinforcements, but doing so both aggros every enemy on the map and causes the final boss to immediately use her range-8 FFT-summon-AoE move, lol. Don't listen to Seteth, kids. Once I didn't do that it was pretty enjoyable though, you have to take out a bunch of white beasts (including reinforcements which arrive every two turns) and a bunch of other enemies (many of whom have Miracle, so you have to plan for that...) and then take down the boss herself who is pretty much the best of the 3x3 dragon bosses which I already find pretty fun. Definitely want some archers for beast-hunting in this map!
The rest of the route is way easier by comparison, though it still lacks a lord character and you definitely feel that, they're all such good PCs. No OP lord battalion either.
Let's talk units.
Byleth: Soldier -> Pegasus Knight/Brigand -> Wyvern. With no lord, we ain't fuckin' around here, standard OP build that I've written about before. Probably the best unit overall for all that Petra ended up with slightly more kills.
Caspar: Myrmidon -> Brigand -> Dancer. Brigand was just for Death Blow but I ended up ditching it later anyway. Did the standard sword avoid build, he's obviously not as good at it as Ferdinand but he could still do some dodgetanking especially against axes in a pinch.
Dorothea: Monk -> Mage -> Assassin -> Mortal Savant. Giving up Dorothea's skillset in Advanced (especially Meteor) is definitely quite a sacrifice, but SS Reunion at Dawn is a thing and Dorothea being able to one-shot every enemy on the map with Hexblade is beautiful. The thing about magical combat art builds is they always fall off late (enemy HP+res grows faster than your damage), but Mortal Savant lets her reclaim all her skillset and be her usual versatile self. An interesting variation on the Warlock build.
Bernadetta: Soldier -> Pegasus Knight -> Paladin -> Falcon Knight. Overall this is probably the Bernadetta build I've been happiest with, though it lacks Encloser so maybe not. Basically optimizes Vengeance at every point in the game. Guard adjutants and Blessing help her safely drop to 1 HP, but being at 1 HP is pretty awkward later so she still was one of the weaker PCs down the stretch. Good Intermediate performance as always though.
Petra: Fighter -> Pegasus Knight/Brigand -> Wyvern. Hey everyone it's the best physical build in the game. I decided to make her the Alert Stance+ dodgetank if necessary which is maybe not perfect with only axe prowess but it was still really useful.
Felix: Myrmidon -> Archer/Brigand -> Sniper -> Bow Knight. With some Knowledge Gem shenanigans I decided to double-dip in Intermediate for him as well, one of five(!) PCs I managed it for. Hit+20 is nice for Bow Knight since it makes super-range shots more viable. Felix remains an outstanding archer with Heavy Draw and his Brave Bow+ put in loads of work later, not much could deal with a double/quad from that.
Mercedes: Monk -> Mage -> Bishop -> Gremory. I was lighter on healers this run than I often am, but Mercie says "check out four shots of Fortify". Some anti-synergy with Bernie but oh well. Usually had Thyrsus, she's solid.
Ingrid: Monk -> Mage/Pegasus Knight -> Dark Flier. A bit of meme build, I wouldn't call it optimum. That said if you've ever wanted to see a FE3H mage doubling most enemies on Maddening, here you go. Just don't expect her to 2HKO too many of them. She was mobile and had Physic, which are also nice.
Leonie: Pegasus Knight/Brigand -> Wyvern. It's the best build in the game part 3. While she could swing a mean axe I leaned her more towards bows, with Point-Blank Volley for smashing things at melee if she couldn't double and Inexhaustible for doubling/quadding at range.
Seteth: Brigand -> Paladin. A simple, "let's make his Swift Strikes as optimized as possible" build. Sucks for the first few maps but hey. Didn't have nearly the offensive versatility of the wyverns and exploded to magic (bad spd/res) but could output huge damage with Spear of Assal against hapless cavalry, sorry Jeritza.
Yuri: Fighter -> Brigand -> Sniper. I was going to make him a Bow Knight but his stats didn't really turn out well enough for it, so he got to sit in Sniper with Hunter's Volley hoping it would crit. The authority boon helped make up for all the time I spent wasting his riding training.
Seteth, Bernadetta, Ingrid, and Yuri all took turns on the bench as the low deployment slots of Silver Snow kicked my ass (did you know that until the final it's just VW deployment with Claude's slot removed? Lazy). Underlevelled Linhardt drew in on the exceedingly rare maps where I needed a 12th.
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Fire Emblem Sacred Stones: Eirika Hard.
This is my standard "There is a new FE game and I don't have the system for it so I'm going to play FE8."
I feel cheaty because I used the Arenas a bit in C4/C11(?). I had a bunch of resets (anytime I lost a character). Notable ones outside of just general carelessness were not remembering that gorgon eggs hatch.
I used a team of Eirika/Ephraim/Tana/Vanessa/Neimi/Colm/Gerik/Tethys/Natasha/Ross/Saleh (Lute got too little speed to use, and Saleh's CON made him quite decent. I used Seth where appropriate and Franz too. I leveled up Myrrh in the first map I got her, though I could have probably held off for harder maps. Funniest Myrrh moment was positioning her to see her dialog with Morva and Riev attacking her from range 1 because of other units taking up the range 2 spots. Crit for 0 damage and she pastes him on a counter. I tried to level up Natasha in C20 to get an S in Light but it didn't happen (she did end up 20/19 though between Bishop exp growth and staff xp). I fed Eirika the stat-up items and she was a reliable tank in both def and evasion. In retrospect I could have distributed the items more efficiently to create multiple tanks of different types. Tethys got the Mov+ Item and it worked well.
The most interesting map is Last Hope of course. Eirika/Ephraim support-tanked most of the southwest, since I forgot that's where most of the reinforcements come from. Myrrh (Fili Shield), Tethys, and Tana took some turns holding the line there too. The *variety* of enemies that come swarming there is impressive, and I wonder if I might have had an easier time setting up on the pillars with ranged weaponry and fighting that way. Neimi/Gerik/Ross held the north corridor pretty well, while Rennac/Colm finched the chests. I forgot how the map worked so I had L'Arachel and Innes doing some pointless moving around (and lighting up suspicious stairs and the spawn areas via Torch staff).
Some of the best maps have clear time pressure and the maps that don't have that clearly suffer for lack of motivation to get things done quickly. Last Hope, The gorgon egg map, and others were exciting and gave a sense of triumph when succeeding. The funniest moment of the run was despairing of Carlyle's crit rate before remembering how his weapon work and having Saleh basically just solo him effortlessly.
Definitely enjoyed playing Hard. I find myself only wanting the new FE game more though so maybe it wasn't a great solution to not being able to play that yet.
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Started FFX again but with some challenge restrictions to make it a little more interesting. Playing with Expert grid, which FYI, starts everyone near the center. This is most notable for Kimahri because it lets him dip into several starter skills that he normally wouldn't be able to access unless he commits to a certain path. I chose this grid as it allows more options on where to go on the grid. Also because I've played with the standard one many times.
So what restrictions are in this challenge? Basically, I wanted to try and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each character while simultaneously weakening certain commands that normally everyone agrees is a bit too OP. The rules for this challenge as such:
1) No Switching. This is the big one. Normally, across many different FFX challenges, you get party diversity and utility from being able to swap on your turn with another PC. This is done with no turn cost, which is pretty powerful. So now, I'm forcing myself to not allow in-battle switching. Whatever you take in is what you have to work with. This extends into forced formations by the way - so better keep everyone decently on the same pace!
2) OSG. So each char has to take their pre-determined builds (ie: Lulu as the team BM). The sole exception to this is Kimahri, mainly because Kimahri never has a determined role. To make up for the complete lack of a natural skillset, I've given him the use of "Item". Only Kimahri can use this. Kimahri can go anywhere on the grid but he can only use Red Spheres. So no Special spheres to pick up Quick Hit, no White Magic Spheres to pick up Hastega, etc. He CAN grab them, but he has to make his way over.
3) Use restriction - Since Use is pretty busted, I'm making it such that I cannot use items that have similar functions to another skill or spell unless that PC is already in the formation. To give an example: No Smoke Bombs if Wakka isn't in the party. No Chocobo Wing if Tidus is not in the party, etc. This reigns in it's function a bit without a flat out ban. Note that unique items (such as Grenades and ABPs) are still allowed. Yes, this includes stuff like Stamina Tonics, but you have to get them first.
4) Summon restriction - To prevent this being a Summon-fest, Summon is usable but only if Yuna is the last PC alive. If I wipe anywhere more than 3 times, this rule gets relaxed but this shouldn't be necessary. I'm only attaching the last part as insurance to make sure I finish the game
An extra soft rules:
- Escaping without Flee is frowned upon. While I haven't made this No Escape, I want to get as much AP as I can since I'm not repeatedly switching chars In and Out. This means a lack of AP around characters at certain points, since sometimes, a PC is just THAT bad for a certain area. Flee is an exception since it's an actual skill and makes everyone run away (so party spoils are at least shared, even if its nothing).
Customizing weapons is allowed but without being able to swap immediately after stealing, it makes you think twice now about just auto slapping Rikku in the front. She has some tools of course, but like everyone else, has their bad moments too. I suspect I won't be stealing as often as a regular game, which should actually help place a soft rule on customization.
And with that, on with the show!
Prologue - To Kilika
Nothing really interesting happens in the opening segments. The only fight of note here is Sin's Fin. You're forced to use Tidus/Yuna/Kim, which at first made me wonder how I was going to actually hit the stupid thing. Thankfully, Kim has LANCET. Ah yeah. At 70 damage a pop, this takes awhile but Sin's Fin is pretty docile since only his cronies act. And if you kill 2 instead of 3, he won't re-summon, so you're free to just wait and let the other two defend while Kim Lancets away. The second part of this fight is more interest. Tidus/Wakka take on another Sin part, only this one can actually hit you. The side pods can ram you for about 30-50 damage or so. Without healing, this gets tense, since Blender is unevadable and deals about 120. Blind him with Wakka, Cheer x5, then go to town. I managed to kill it without anyone dying although both chars were in yellow.
Kilika - Mi'hen
Also a whole lot of nothing. FFX is quite slow at the start. The main fight of note here are actually the randoms as the Sphere stadium gets attacked. This gets notably scary because the Sagahins can hit for 75 damage and Tidus STILL only has 520 HP. Wakka can't one shot, so I have to keep Tidus alive as long as I can as if I'm down to just Wakka before the home stretch, I'll probably die. Some clever use of Dark Attack and selecting the right targets to minimize hits helps me get through it. Of course, a little luck to prevent focus firing helps too. I get out with Tidus at about 75 HP. Auron's segment starts and neither Wakka or Tidus get healed. So Tidus manages to cast Haste on Auron, then dies immediately. Wakka has no MP left, so this is basically Auron carry. Thankfully, he has plenty of bulk and Power Break reigns the huge bird's offense in. It counters later on, so Power Breaking it early is important.
Mi'hen
The highroad takes a while to get through and this is really where the challenge starts. I bought Stunning Steel from O'aka and it helps tremendously here. At first, I was pretty certain Tidus would be complete deadweight since he doesn't take care of any enemy specialties as the wolf is easy to take down with Wakka if you give him an elemental ball. However, being able to add slow helps a *ton* against enemies you can't one shot. And this happens pretty often with the Elementals in the area, or the Dual Horns or the Armored enemy. I eventually found a team of Wakka/Tidus/Kimahri was the most balanced to take on the enemies in the entire area. I do give Auron, Lulu and Yuna some chances to participate in fights, but most of the travelling was done with the above team. One thing this challenge really points out is how critical Wakka is to the party. You can make up for every else's niche in some way, but there is no way to make up for Wakka's accuracy. He starts with a *base* of 25 so even if you send Kim his way, there's just no way anyone comes even close to being able to take down aerials. Here's how the formations are handled:
Wolf/Elemental/Flyer: Tidus and Wakka can immediately one shot their enemy niche. Kim is being built with a Black/White focus so he has access to nulls. Casting Nulls turn 1, then have Tidus wack it with Slow eventually gives me enough turns that even at 50 damage a poke, I win relatively effortlessly. To add insult to injury, Kim can Lancet to regain his MP.
Wolf/Dual Horn: One of the benefits of starting with the Expert grid is that Kim can grab Dark Attack on his way over to Yuna's side of the grid. This, along with his 78 MP means he's a better choice for the non-evasive bulky tanks that are susceptible to Darkness. Tidus wacks the wolf, then blind the Dual Horn. At this point, it doesn't really matter but if Tidus lands Slow, it's a complete laugh track all the way to the finish line.
Bomb x3: This requires a little more effort. So the bombs explode after 3 hits and have 850 HP. You need to do about 300 damage a hit to ensure they don't blow up on you and Tidus and Wakka fall a little short...unless you a) give them Ice type weapons. Wakka gets one for free and b) Cheer up 5 times for a 20% boost. This allows them to hit that 300 damage mark. But what about Kimhari? Turns out, on Yuna's side of the grid, there's also a Str+3 tucked in the back. Yuna starts in front of it and has no real reason to grab it initially. However, getting this allows Kim's physical to keep up for awhile so he hits this 300 damage figure pretty easily too. Then you know, he also has NulBlaze cause he wasn't helping out to begin with.
Flan/Dragon: Ah yes, the formation that would normally require Auron and Lulu...except you can work around it. The flan can be Silenced (maybe 70% of the time) but even if not, you can cast Nuls to ward it. The Dragon meanwhile, dies to a Kimahri physical because his weapons also have Piercing. Note that Kimahri needs the special Hunter's Sphere that has the +10% Strength bonus or the +3 from Yuna's side of the grid to do this.
Dual Horn x2: 2 Dark attackers means you can keep their damage mitigated for the most part. If Slow lands on one early, you can then focus on the other. For one of the formations I was worried about, this team actually wrecks them pretty bad.
More later. I'm up to around Thunder Plains and oh boy, does this area suck. 2 Near wipes - both due to ambushes. I should've bought the Sentry (Initiative for Auron) instead of the TKO (Stonetouch for Wakka) but shhh.
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More adventures in this twisted FFX challenge - at around the halfway point
Mushroom Rock Road - There are mainly two enemies of note here: Funguars and Garudas. Funguars have a sleep counter if you don't OHKO them. It's a 50/50 but given the fact that compositions without Yuna/Kim don't have healing I really don't want to risk it. There's a couple of ways to handle this: a) Wakka uses Sleep attack. It's not perfect but it gives you an extra roll at weakening it without triggering pollen. b) Tidus uses Cheer x3, then Kimahri will have enough power with the Heat Lance to one shot. It's possible Auron can do this as well, but Auron can't heal and without the proper elemental weapon, I didn't want to find out.
Garudas on the other hand are tanks with 4000 HP but always spawn alone. The best way to handle them involves using Dark Attack and then going to town. So Wakka/Kim rule here. As an insult to injury, Tidus can also Slow them, which then just makes them bigger, bulkier Dual horns. In case it wasn't clear, the best party around this area was Tidus/Wakka/Kim. Kim still has just enough power here with his +10% Strength lance to kill the armored enemies, thanks to +3 Strength from Yuna's. His dabble in Yuna's grid means he has nulblaze, allowing the entire team to just wall the elementals. Tidus/Wakka meanwhile have status to take out whatever else and handle their own niche enemies fine.
Sinspawn Gui - I spent a few battles before hand to catch up the other half of the team, because while Tidus/Wakka/Kim were the best random smashers, Lulu/Yuna/Auron are the best for this fight. Right off the bat, I already knew I had to bring one of Yuna or Kim. Yuna having just acquired Pray made her a better choice since this fight is a bit of an endurance fest. I had some concerns about Kim maybe not being able to keep up with the healing from the Demi casts to boot, so this made the choice clear. Between the rest, I chose Lulu for taking out the head (hits harder than Wakka and doesn't care about armor) while Auron's Power Break stops Gui from really doing a lot of damage with his punches. With that, the team was set. Open with Power Break, then Lulu eliminates the Head and Focuses up in between while Yuna keeps the team topped off with either Pray or Cure. I choose which one based on how much damage I've taken to conserve MP. Once the head is dead, I have Auron and Lulu eliminate the arms so I can do full damage for a couple of turns. Repeat for many rounds until he finally goes down. Once the head is gone, there wasn't much else Gui could do to hurt me - I just needed enough resources in the meantime to kill him.
Djose Highroad - The main enemy of issue here are the Basilisks. They're slow, but bulky with 2000 HP, can sometimes spawn in 2s and can petrify you. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. But on this challenge, the only people who can cure Petrify are Yuna and Kim. Of the two, ONLY Yuna has a Stoneproof armor at this point, so she's clearly the superior choice for this area. Funguars are still in this area too and while Kim can KO them with some cheers and a Fire weapon, so can Auron. So I end up running Tidus/Yuna/Auron for most of this area. This only leaves the bird (which is rare) and the bug as problem enemies. I save overdrives for them since they ignore evade.
Moonflow North Road - Ochus replace the Basilisk for "big bulky annoying enemy". Unfortunately for them, they are vulnerable to petrify so Wakka has an absolute field day here. Also, without the Basilisk, Kim becomes a decent choice here again, so I run Kim/Wakka/Auron for most of it. I kind of wish I had more Wakkas at this point since he owns pretty much all the randoms except for the elementals. Even Flans can be petrified, so he clearly has no real enemy issues. I just build the parties around him to build AP.
Extractor - No healing, but uh doesn't really matter. Lightning Weapon + Haste and a couple of Cheers lets Wakka deal 500 damage a hit on his own, which means the only thing it has to hurt me is the Aqua Shooter. Since it only deals like 150-200 damage and I have 1100 HP Plus, I am in no danger of dying.
Moonflow South Road - This area mainly serves as a intro-area for Rikku. Rikku starts off *really* bad under these challenge rules since she dies to like everything in a hit and there's nothing she's effective against right now. I try to grind her up but get more grief for trying so I eventually give up and just head to the Thunder Plains
Thunder Plains South - Two parts again because the two areas have distinct differences and different enemy spawns. Anyway, the first half of Thunder Plains is absolute hell. I get Ambushed twice and nearly die twice. Once being saved by Tidus' Hasting Wakka and getting TKO to proc Petrify on the dragon enemy. The second being that Tidus manages to just get an Overdrive, allowing a guaranteed hit to kill the eyeball bat because it confused Wakka and made him shatter himself. It gets significantly better once we hit Rin's but yeah, no party is perfect here. I run Tidus/Kim/Wakka again most of the time since it's the most balanced team that I can put. But really everyone has their strengths here. I try swapping Tidus for Auron but I found Auron's lack of opening speed leaves the lizard open to possibly petrifying me, which is all kinds of bad.
Thunder Plains North - On the other hand, once you get to the North part, things get much better. Why? GRENADES. This is the first time they are buyable and they are extremely potent here due to low enemy HP across many of the randoms. In fact, a single grenade is enough to kill the Eyeball bat and I think the Lizard too. Add in the fact that Rikku is faster, means all of a sudden, she's actually a reasonable choice. Wakka still rules though cause Iron Giants have a lot of HP and do a lot of damage. However, they can be petrified, so TKO is a go. I run Tidus/Rikku/Wakka for some time since Rikku eliminates enough enemies most of the time and fast enough that I can usually clean up without issue. It also lets me Haste up Wakka to speed up fishing for Petrify Procs. Tidus also has Provoke which sees its first use here, allowing me to divert damage away from Wakka while he works his magic. After a while, I run Wakka/Yuna/Lulu to grind up some AP. Mainly for Lulu as Kim and Yuna can interchange fairly easy although each have their advantage over the other.
Macalania - Auron/Rikku/Kim takes care of most everything. Rikku's Grenades are still effective here as even though they don't OHKO, they do enough damage to most enemies that a follow up poke from Kim takes it down. This includes the lizard and flyers as they have low enough HP that a follow up Lancet is a guaranteed kill. Speaking of Kim, he has both Nulls and Elemental magic so he handles all the magic enemies, along with stopping the damage from Chimeras pretty. I use Auron mainly for his damage against them. They can be petrified too, so I swap up formations to get AP for everyone once we get to save point to make sure everyone is caught up.
Spherimorph - Lulu/Yuna/Kim makes this a total joke. Kim and Lulu bring the damage. Kim and Yuna have healing and null spells. Full stop. Insert laugh track here.
I do a little grinding after to get Iceproof on Tidus and some spare throwing items. Restock up to 99 Grenades.
Crawler: Kim/Tidus/Auron. There are ways to take out Negator, but I figured recovering from a Mana Beam might be cumbersome. So instead, we just roll with Negator being out all the time. Due to the way the rules are set up, Kim was the obvious choice since Yuna is kinda ineffective without magic. It turns out Reflex really hoses Crawler badly and guess who just happened to pick it up as he was just around that part of sphere grid? So Tidus and Kim buff up Str/Def/Eva with their respective skills while Auron equips a Lightningstrike weapon and we roll a slow but certain victory. Turns out Crawler can be SLOWED as well so Stunning Steel eventually got proc. then it was beating up a punching bag.
Seymour 1: First fight that required some more pre-planning. Forced formation of Tidus/Yuna/Kim. The guards are a non-issue as Kim has Stone Breath and that basically eliminates them on the spot. From there, both Tidus and Yuna get their Talk buff, which results in Tidus doing ridiculous amounts of damage for this point in the game (like 2900 damage or something). However before that, I get Tidus to Haste himself and throw some Cheers so I can rushdown Anima. With 2 Nul casters,Seymour has issues really making damage stick. Plus I have the Ward and Proof armors on Tidus and Kim to buy even more time. Once Anima comes out, its the Tidus show. I watch him hit Anima for about 4000 damage a hit. Anima still gets a turn and I hope that it's not on Tidus. It isn't - so I just res with the other PC while Tidus continues hitting. He manages to score a crit and does like 7800 damage or something - so that worked! When Seymour returns to the field, I have Tidus use up his OD, basically one shotting him - exactly as planned.
Wendigo: Wakka/Lulu/Kim. Guards once again are a non-issue due to Stone breath. Once Wakka lands the first Sleep attack, it's over. Lulu Focuses up and Kim and her basically do the remaining damage, while Wakka proceeds to lock it down with Sleep Buster. There is some risk here if Wakka misses more than one Sleep attack and Wendigo kills Kim on his first turn, but for the most part, the chances of this are low so I didn't think too much on it.
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Dragon Quest 11 - Been playing this, beat Act 2 on Stronger Enemies. I... really don't have a whole lot to say about it, the QoL stuff makes the game pretty inoffensive on the whole (otherwise I don't think I would've bothered with the game ever) but it's not like anything really stands out about it. Other than Sylvando of course.
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Oh right, I still exist and sometimes I still play games.
Nioh 2: is more Nioh. Is good. Is a lot of game, like 4-5 months for me to play through base game + first DLC? I don't think it's gonna change the mind of anyone who wasn't into the first one, but probably an overall improvement in formula. It has a character generator, it has miko clothes, what more would I want?
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Wasteland 3: Oh right, this is why I'm actually posting. This is really good. I'm playing on Normal, because that's just what I do (and because Wasteland 2 actually gave me significant trouble, especially early on). Almost regretted that for a while because I was steamrolling for the first few missions, but the game is pushing back now so I will probably want to rethink my party setup and try some different things. Which is actually really easy to do because you can whip up new characters any time you want back at your HQ. I haven't tried this yet to confirm, but I'm assuming they'd start out at something like your party's average level (I base this on the fact that benched PCs clearly accrue equal XP to active party members).
So yes, good SRPG is good, blah blah blah, that's nice and all and is sound reason to play it, but it's not the principal reason I stayed up way too late last night. The game opens with a disclaimer to the extent of "Stories, themes, and ideas that originated early in development have in some cases been mirrored by current reality." Yeah, wow, you don't say, guys? Suffice it to say that the devs clearly had on their minds what has too often been on mine, which is, to quote FO:NV, "What makes nations, and what breaks them." It's been very good at compelling me to roleplay story events in a consistent manner. While it is obvious from the outset of the game that you're going to be working with bad people to survive, that doesn't mean every choice is going to be obvious or intuitive or easy.
Favorite moments so far:
-Recruiting feline party mascot by singing David Bowie at it.
-Author expy flips the desk. He is dual-wielding tommyguns. Dance music starts.
-This ghost of a dead nation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zdCAylTOiw, creeping in to underline the irony of freeing a slaver from a dictator's dungeon.
-Realization that the nicest person I've met so far is a 70-year-old, morbidly obese, Dracula-cosplaying former warlord.
If there's a fault, it's that the humor still veers too far into crassness for my tastes, but that's a minor issue. Very satisfying double-barreled gameplay/story brain sensation delivery device so far.
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FFX Challenge - Finished. The entire run was actually really fun since if often required some additional thinking on team composition as well as the strategy to use for each fight. SPOILER: The slower, steadier method often was the winner. Also highlighted for me how much more valuable certain abilities were.
Bikanel - Having Kim learn White Magic made him invaluable here, but Rikku is the real star, thanks to Al Bhed Potions (ABP) becoming available. MT 1000 Healing is quite a lot at this point in the game! For more enemies, the team of Tidus, Kim, and Auron was actually the best mixture. This is due to the fact that the birds in this area don't have high M.Def so Kim/Lu can actually Overkill them easily for bonus AP. Sandragoras, which were probably the scariest monsters due to 100% confse, I just launched with Auron's Shooting Star. Certain enemies however are better taken care of with Lulu - namely Sandworms and Zus. Both get destroyed by POIZN, so Bio was invaluable (Auron can Guard to keep both Lu and Tidus safe while waiting). Wakka, of course, still rules against pretty much every random formation. I just benched him so he wouldn't go way ahead on the Sphere Grid - this had the effect of making him weaker than I wanted for UNDEAD EVRAE. More of that below.
Home - Kim's Stone Breath owns everything, so planning out how you spent your Lancet draws helps a lot. Auron also has Shooting Star here to own the occasional monster. Some small things of note - Auron's grid at this point picks up a couple of Str+4s in rapid succession, so he's starting to deal *lots* more damage than everyone. One of these areas actually overlaps near where Tidus is, so I had him take a quick dip to pick up some additional strength so he's aiding a bit more as well. Most notable, ESG exchanges 4 of Auron's MP+20 for 4 Strength+4s. Kind of a good trade, most of the time.
No encounters on the airship. Not surprising since its a short segment.
Evrae - Due to it's Stone Gaze, I pretty much had to use Kim/Rikku/Tidus unless I want to risk it never hitting my healer. Nobody has a Stone Ward/Proof armor otherwise, so this was definitely the safest way to deal with him. Immediately pull back and let Cid do his 7200 damage, while Tidus buffs the entire team with Haste and Cheer. In the meantime, I have Kim cast up Protect and do some damage with spells. I Lancet after around the halfway point to keep his MP high. Once the Cheers were up and Cid has done his deal, I wait for a bit before moving back in, having Kim chip it down some more. When we move back in, Tidus attacks every turn possible. That extra strength really doing some good work here! Kim also attacks with the occasional black magic, but I usually had him and Rikku stay more defensive to cure off any status that comes by since it's by far and away the scariest thing in this fight (most damage can be shrugged off easily - especially with Protect up). I only had to deal with him Hasted for a few turns as Tidus had a Overdrive ready and I burn through the last 6000 or so of its HP with that and another spell from Kim. Saving the Mix was pretty ideal for Bevelle's aquatic portion.
Bevelle Ceremony - Easy. Just have to make sure that the tall robot isn't getting KO'd without some damage on it so it doesn't accidentally knock out any one I need too early.
Via Purifico - So for the first time I thought I'd need to summon due to Yuna being solo for the opening stretch of this dungeon. Then I found Kim before the first encounter, so so much for that. Kim is a pretty good first partner all things considered since his magic is strong enough for most things here, has some semblance of accuracy for the lizards and Lancet to keep his MP in stock. I do eventually get all 4 party members together even though you could just make a straight dash to the exit so I could loot a little more efficiently. Nothing really of note. Issaru kinda sucks on any regular playthrough where Yuna has some access to the Sphere Grid so yeah.
Bevelle Aqueducts - I bet most of you completely forgot this was even a thing, cause I sure did until I was going over all the boss fights in my head. Anyway, this is possibly the first time I had to do this fight legit due to the "No Items except Kim" clause. It's a good thing you normally just throw 2 P.Downs at him because his counters hurt...and he has Eraser. Oh boy. The small bit of good news is that his HP kind of sucks (16000 only) so it's just a matter of attacking when possible. For NEB - I'm not sure what causes him to do Eraser, because as long as the fight took, I never saw him use it a second time. However, his first move was Eraser so I feel like that part is scripted. The good news for me is that he removed Wakka because if it was anyone else, I might be screwed (removing Rikku kills my Healing, Tidus has the most damage). With the remaining 2, Tidus does the rest of the work while Rikku keeps him healthy. I secure the finish with an Overdrive again.
Natus - I get Yuna caught up on Sphere levels as well as Wakka since I avoided using both for awhile. Kim/Yuna/Tidus are forced into this fight so I don't have any choice on the matter. Luckily, this is also one of the stronger formations for the fight. Why? Because having both Kim and Yuna gives me 2 Healers. ESG allows Yuna access to Reflect which lets me cruise in the 2nd part of the fight. I still have to get there. That's the good news. The bad news is that outside of Tidus, no one really has much offense. He does get a Talk boost here, which helps immensely when your sole offense is from one person. I try Hasting up initially but the Mortibody is able to MT dispel, so I eventually drop it and just go straight to whacking Seymour. Double Nulcasting means I can stay ahead of the 1st phase relatively well and having Items means I can throw Reflect with Yuna and can still Heal up. Overall pretty basic - Standard might have made this harder since Yuna is farther away from Reflect. Of course, I could also have done it grindless and it would be a different story.
Calm Lands - I open up Monster Hunting with Tidus/Wakka/Rikku for the most part. It's effective against most formations sans the 2 Chimeras and the 2 Hydras. For that first, I need Kim or Yuna...usually Kim since he has some offense. For the 2nd, Auron/Yuna were usually a better choice. I keep Tidus in the team all the time due to Sonic Steel and access to flee. But Rikku having gained an Initiative weapon makes her a good choice to place upfront some of the time too, just to void Ambushes altogether.
Cavern of the Stolen Faith - Not much changes in formation line up. I use Tidus/Kim/Wakka mostly for balance. Yojimbo as a boss goes down without much of a fight. I then proceed to hire Yojimbo by literally throwing a good chunk of change of him. This will come back to haunt me come Mt. Gagazet. Capitalism, amirite?
Biran/Yenke: Are bad and should feel bad.
Mt. Gagazet: The climb up the mountain features utilizing a team of Tidus/Auron/Rikku for the entire journey. At this point, Auron has gained a massive amount of Strength and is doing enough to pretty much one shot the Grenades. I do one better and forge an E&C weapon on him. With access to Guard (and later Sentinel up the climb), this basically lets me troll the hell out of ST physicals, which is a lot of enemy attacks. Sure, there are a few enemies that don't use it, but they are few and far between and most everything else gets destroyed with this formation, allowing Rikku to stock up on some goods. The only things that possess some issue are the Imps, which only have a measly 800 HP. Hasting Rikku and dropping 3 Grenades usually works. The alternative is to just save an Overdrive and wreck them that way.
Wantz has good weapons for Yuna/Lulu/Rikku. The bad news is the combined cost is about 310,000 gil and Yojimbo took a good chunk. Since I need some levels on some other PCs AND I want the weapons just in case, I force myself to grind here.
Flux - On Standard, this might be a bit of an issue because many of the formations here have some holes. Going over what everyone brings to the table:
- Tidus: Has Haste. Less offense than Auron, less HP than Wakka. Awful MDef means Total Annihilation will probably still kill him after Shell.
- Wakka: Has almost nothing. Less offense than Tidus and less HP than Auron. Bad combo in general for this fight.
- Yuna: Revival! No offense unless other PCs die. This also means no reliable Aeon Shielding. Has extremely bad HP (thanks to ESG) so Cross Cleave will probably one shot. Might even after Protect?
- Lulu: Slow, has to worry about MP, but lots of damage and defenses. Almost has to be paired up with Kim due to the MP
- Rikku: ABP with Survivor is 2k MT healing with fast recharge. This is really really good. The downside is that she has no revival, and since one of Flux's combos is lol u ded, I can't bring her in reliably as the only healer. Offense varies depending on who is with her, but would prefer Lulu for the best due to the abundance of Fire Gems. Lack of focusing is an issue
- Auron: Has the best HP and best resourceless offense. Unfortunately is also extremely Slow. Will definitely survive Total Annihilation under Shell.
- Kimahri: Balanced on offense and defense, but offense isn't super strong (it's worse than Tidus, above Wakka and costs MP). Better HP than Yuna for defensive duties.
After that analysis, I settled for Auron/Kim/ and didn't know about the third. Since I didn't want to be relying on just 1 reviver, I threw Yuna in there. The beginning of the fight was actually scarier because once you figure out how to survive Total Annihilation, he starts going into a predictable pattern and it becomes easier to react to. By Shelling Auron/Kim, both can survive that and both have the HP and defense to eat a Cross Cleave as well. Still want them under Protect though. Yuna fares a little worse on Cross Cleave (must be under Protect) but can survive a Total Annihilation without Shell as long as she maintains high HP. The fight is a very slow slog since Auron is just so slow and Kim's offense is merely "okay". But with enough pokes from Kim and the occasional swing from Auron, the fight eventually ends. This fight is probably tougher in Standard since Auron has a much smaller offense advantage, but I assume it goes very much the same way as long as you can survive his big call-out attacks, just slower.
Gagazet caverns - We're getting into the stretch of the game where everyone is nearing the end of their grids...kinda. Lulu and Kim still have ways to go (Kim is special) as does Rikku. But for the most part, Wakka/Tidus/Auron are all sitting pretty now in their last segments. Most of the encounters here get owned by more E&C. There are a few that don't (eyeball bats) and for those...Wakka makes a good choice. Note that I don't say he's the best because ESG removed enough strength from Wakka such that he sits at the end of his grid at a paltry 43 or something - which sometimes isn't enough to kill late game eyeball bats. I forget if he had even gotten the last bits of strength here so I actually need Tidus with Sonic Steel to Haste him so he can go twice quickly and kill it. Tidus/Auron/Kim was otherwise my go to party with me saving overdrives primarily for the eyeball bats. Dark Flans in International apparently lost Auto-Regen so Armor Break into anything after tends to kill them quick.
Sanctuary Keeper - 1st reset of this challenge and it's because of underestimating Mana Breath. I figure for this team, my best bet was Auron/Yuna/Lulu. Kim doesn't have tier 3s so his offense is not very good. Wakka and Rikku don't bring much (lest you Mix 2 Wings and Trio the boss to death). This really only leaves Tidus as the other option and I figure that going magical was a better route than trying to kill it with physicals. While you can armor break it, it will counter with Protect to mitigate the damage. On the other hand, it won't stop you from mental breaking him. The issue though is that this boss is really tanky so I have to be careful with my MP on Lulu otherwise, I'd be a sitting duck. I could technically use a Black Magic Sphere to pick up Osmose, but decided to go true OSG here.
Anyway, the reset comes due to underestimating Mana Breath. Yuna was sitting around 1800 HP or something (again, note ESG removes a lot of HP from Yuna) and I was thinking after seeing that attack almost kill Lulu the first time, "Should I Shell Up?". I did have 2 Focuses under my belt so I figured I'd be able to survive it, if barely, at full health. lol 2000 damage OHKO her and I lose my reviver pretty early on this attempt that I knew I'd lose the following attrition war. The second time around, I don't take chances. I constantly keep Yuna and Lulu at full health as much as I can. With E&C, Auron can sometimes sneak in a few counter hits with Sentinel since I also didn't want to accidentally trigger a Tail Sweep. This helps reduce the amount of damage Lulu needs to output, as does Focusing up a few times before casting. I eventually beat it all the while juggling healing, counting attacks for tail sweep and curing random status from Photon Wings. Overall, very challenging even though I wasn't expecting it to be a complete pushover to start.
Zanarkand Road - Same enemies here as Gagazet cave pretty much. I run Tidus/Kim/Auron,
D.O.M.E - Tidus/Yuna/Auron or Tidus/Kim/Auron are both good parties as it deals with Defender Zs pretty easy and the two mechs have issues trying to damage the party between Auron Sentinel guarding and Kim being able to heal. I do eventually catch up party members after reaching the end, before the trials. At this point, Tidus/Wakka/Auron are done their grids. Lulu picks up Double Cast and Kim finally gets to tier 3s. Good thing too as the next couple of bosses kinda want it
Spectral Keeper - I run Yuna/Kim/Auron so I can control Berserk somewhat. I probably should've wiped here but ended up clearing it first try due to utter dumb luck. The strategy is simple: Keep everyone one space apart so Spectral Keeper can never hit the entire party. Auron lands a Mental Break early, and Kim deals with the bulk of the offense from tier 3s, although Auron helps out whenever his turn comes up. I dodge the first 2 glyph mines pretty easy, but then the next time he summons them, they instantly explode and kill Yuna and then Kim. I was pretty sure I'm screwed at this point since both healers are dead. Then he Zerks Auron (lol) and Auron proceeds to whack him upside the head for about 8k damage, finishing the fight. Whoops!
Yunalesca - All mage party is the team of choice due to Mind Blast. Kim/Yuna/Lulu deal with this fight about as well as can be. At one point I do almost screw myself over because I got too clever and casted Reflect on Kim so I have someone safe from the curative spells under zombie. Unfortunately, Kim got confused at a critical moment and I needed to control him. I was pretty sure I was screwed since I couldn't use items, my only recourse was to try and smack him with a physical. Luckily for me, Lulu does get like 11 Accuracy on ESG and that probably made it more likely than not I ended up knocking Kim back to his senses. The rest of fight is just being very careful about HP levels. I usually ignored healing and focused on just straight up nuking (especially with Lulu) so as to get through the fight quickly and with less randomness.
Sin Fins - Tidus/Auron/Kim takes over. The first time, I almost get owned by DELAY HAX. But Tidus recovers in time and I get Cid to pull away before any more damage is done. Negation makes Hastega a waste, so I just tended to Haste up Kim, and had him nuke from a distance. When Sin's Core appears, it doesn't fare much better and it goes down to a combo of Auron/Kim and the occasional Tidus attack.
Sin Damage Race - 2 Wipes to this fight (lol). I first tried Kim/Lulu/Tidus, thinking Hasting up and throwing spells at it quickly will be enough. Unfortunately, I forget it has status and I get promptly owned by that, when it hits Tidus and then he kills Kim. Oops. I swap teams to Yuna/Kim/Lulu, so I have two people who can recover from random status. Unfortunately, Yuna hasn't picked up Holy yet and most of her turns are tied to healing everyone since the attacks also 3-4HKO'd me (I don't have HP+30% armors...yet). And uh...I actually legit lose the damage race here because Lulu is just so slow and Kim also has to waste turns healing her MP periodically. I change parties back to physicals and roll, Tidus/Auron/Yuna. This time, Tidus manages to resist confusion that I don't have to worry about it and Hastega with the 2 physical attackers manage to kill it with a few turns to spare.
Inside Sin - I forge a E&C weapon for Tidus here as well (along with First Strike) because guess what all the big bad randoms inside Sin are vulnerable to? That's right, PROVOKE. Not only does Provoke work, but it also turns them to using evadable physicals, so Tidus with a E&C weapon and First strike here pretty much eliminates a ton of threats. These include: Gemini twins, Great Malboros, Barbarossa, and King Behemoths. I also learned that if you kill a King Behemoth with a counter attack under Provoke, it won't death counter with Meteor, so Tidus was by far away the best choice. For the other two slots, I kept Yuna and Kim. Yuna got a Stonestrike weapon, which at first seems useless. However, as it turns out, it has a lowish chance to hit Adamantoises so she ends up killing those whenever they pop up. Meanwhile, Kim has Petrify breath for the 3x eyeball formation, which is by far the worst formation since even a Hasted Wakka can't take them out effectively. They instead die to MT overdrives and as Auron was already at the end of his grid, I just picked someone else who can do the same. Along with Tidus having Energy Rain now, I just need to not fight them 3x in a row which doesn't happen during this run.
Seymour Omnis - Auron/Kim/Tidus. Tidus Hastes up the team, while Auron lands Armor Break. Then Tidus swaps to Double Edge and just Quick Hits like crazy. He does get off an Ultima which kills everyone but Auron, but at that point, it doesn't matter as Seymour rolls into Ice Element and Auron conveniently has an armor with Iceproof equipped.
BFA - 3 tries for this one. You're forced to use Tidus/Yuna/Auron. First couple of tries, I forged armors with Wards for Stone and Zombie on everyone. I also grabbed the 99 Stamina Tonics (as NEB advised) and made HP+40% for everyone. This ended up being not good enough as the status still does through and I lose basically once Yuna gets Zombie'd as I have no way of curing it. For the 3rd attempt, I ended up going out and grinding a little for the items to make proofs. This way, the random status doesn't own me anymore. However, I am worried about BFA's 2nd form first phase overdrive as I have no way for Yuna to survive it. Even with HP+40%, Yuna tops out at a measly 3120 HP due to ESG plot and that 1st phase OD deals like 5800 damage. I manipulate Tidus' Talks to get around it but then I rudely found out that Ultimate Jecht Shot does just about 3000 damage to Yuna. Since she got hit a little bit before hand, this means Yuna dies and its still not late enough into the fight that I can make it without healing.
On the winning run, I modify the armors a little but again. I managed to steal enough Blessed gems with Rikku to get Def+20%. Since I need Yuna to survive, I give her HP+50% along with the two proofs. This lets her hit 3400 for HP, which is much more comfortable margin. I give Def+20% for Auron because really, with only HP+30%, he was already hitting about 6k for HP. I also make One MP Cost weapons for all 3 so MP doesn't become an issue. Lastly, I give Tidus/Yuna damage+ modifiers on their weapons (Str/Mag) and a Sensor ability so I can keep track of BFA's HP.
The first form goes about as expected. I do learn from NEB that I can Slow the Padogas, so I cast Slowga until both are hit. Then I have Tidus Haste Up and Cheerx5 on everyone. Meanwhile, Yuna throws Regen and Protect on everyone as most of BFA's offense is physical. Regen allows me to heal even when it's not Yuna's turn and helps immensely for turn economy as I want Yuna to help with Holy here to blitz past the 1st phase of the second form. Auron uses Sentinel initially but as the battle goes underway, he does use Armor Break when Tidus can get turns after him and before the Padogas. This left Tidus unload a few Quick Hits for boosted damage, which helps speed things up. When the 2nd form come out, I do throw out Tidus' OD to quickly blitz past the 1st phase. I also use Talk once here to keep BFA placated so Yuna doesn't randomly die too early again. Once the second phase hits, Regen keeps me safe especially when the Delay sword hax starts coming out and I can't inbetween as Yuna's turn is pushed back. I do have to recast Regen at some point but sticking to the plan and having an additional Talk charge at the ready, I kill BFA on the 4th run with some room to spare thanks to Auron entrusting his OD to Tidus once the kill range is within sight.
Yu Yevon - I thought I was stalemated for a bit when it drained all of my MP. lol, shows how often I fight this guy >_>. Anyway, he eventually kills himself with Gravija so just be patient. Auron having a Poisonstrike weapon helped since it procing would speed things up.
And that's all the main game fights! If I figure out how to modify the challenge for post game and side content I will do so, but don't expect much for now.
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If there's a fault, it's that the humor still veers too far into crassness for my tastes, but that's a minor issue.
I feel obliged to retract this statement because everything in Denver was gold.
I fucked a robot just because I could and this actually served to help progress the plot.
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Wasteland 3: Game finished. Very good, much recommend.
DL types will probably prefer playing on a difficulty above Normal. I think the last boss didn't even successfully deal damage to a human party member on my first attempt (I ran it twice to see different ending choices). While I would say that enemies, in general, do remain dangerous at endgame for their capacity to murder your party members, their ability to live long enough to do that did not keep pace for me. I suspect most people in this group would appreciate a more challenging setting than the one I got.
However, while Wasteland 3 is a mechanically solid and fun SRPG, my recommendation stems at least as much from quality plot as it does from gameplay enjoyment. I do not think I would extend a similar recommendation for Wasteland 2, as it didn't similarly excel on this front. But Wasteland 3's principal thematic concern is one that videogames rarely trouble themselves with: how comfortable are you knowing that the resources which sustain your community come to you at the expense of someone else's liberty and livelihood?
A prologue synopsis: your group's headquarters got nuked at the end of Wasteland 2. While you had time to evacuate beforehand, you did not have time to save the citadel's stores of food, water, and medicine--supplies crucial to survival in a post-nuclear landscape and difficult to replace in a hurry for a displaced population. Enter a radio broadcast from someone calling himself "the Patriarch of Colorado." You've still got plenty of bodies and plenty of firepower. Deal with some minor security problems for him and he'll give you what you need to survive.
It is never in much doubt that the Patriarch is an authoritarian strongman ruler. It's in his goddamn name. But the catch is, this doesn't have to be your problem. You are perfectly free to do his dirty work, take what you need to save your friends and family, and go back home. Yes, someone somewhere might end up suffering, but this way at least it's no one close to you. You can live with that, right? (Unsurprising spoilers, I couldn't, but it took much longer for that to become clear than I thought it would.)
I'm going to spoiler text preeeeeetty much everything beyond that.
I am actually unsure when or how I could've pushed for revolution without Angela forcing the issue.
If I could have, I would've been inclined to push for pragmatism. The Patriarch's old, medical problems are starting to bring him down, we can probably count on him dying or falling from power in a few years anyway. Secure the lifeline now and move in to clean up afterward, right?
But I've concluded it would be against the entire spirit of the narrative conflict if that was offered as an option (and Angela would never fucking do it). If someone is asking you point blank how long you can tolerate tyranny, the correct answer to that question should not be "As long as it remains useful to me to do so." How much of other peoples' suffering is really acceptable? Are we still human if we can give a non-zero answer to that question?
And I genuinely do not know where I would've got off the train if someone hadn't put it to me so starkly. When it comes to Angela Deth saying "overthrow a dictator or shoot me," well the ending choice I made was probably the only one I personally could've made. But I played the party as gradually coming to grips with the cognitive dissonance of the situation, and I consider it greatly to the game's credit that this so consistently felt like the natural approach. Moving the goalposts is pernicious indeed.
I AM quite glad that the answer I increasingly wanted to find--just invite the rest of the Rangers up here after the revolution, dammit!--did turn out to be an option. But even then, it's no perfect "good" ending. You can save your home, you can save your people, you can save their spirit--but you cannot save all three of these things at the same time. What matters to you the most?
Incidentally, I would REALLY be curious to see how the joining Liberty ending plays out, for all that that's something I could never possibly do.
Good stuff, I'm impressed, etc.
But enough crunchy plot for now, crunchy gameplay stuff starts here. This was my final party (all custom PC names came from the randogenerator):
Rose (custom starting PC): Diplomifier and medic. Designated party leader. Took Small Arms for offense but had increasingly less time to actually shoot things as the game went on. Spent most of her lategame turns running all over the battlefield picking up KO'd allies. (While I do maintain that the game got much easier in the last third or so, that is a case of my damage outpacing enemy damage. It definitely was not a case of me nerfing their damage through armor. Lethality scales up more than armor for everyone.)
Ruger (custom starting PC): Melee brute, sidebar in Explosives and Animal Whisperer. You might think Explosives is the key item in this array, but it was a footnote. Mostly it was to defuse traps; I only occasionally found significant use for rockets and grenades. She did more damage cuttin' fools. Geez, let's try to actually list all the passive melee buffs she had: Raider Hater background (+10% damage to humans, which is a lot of this game), Sadomasochist quirk (+33% damage given and received), stag animal companion boosted by perks (+20% melee damage), cybernetic hand (+10% melee damage), exoskeletal armor (two pieces, I think this totaled 25% or 30%?) = let's call it 2.5x base damage on every melee attack she made. Which could be 2-4 a turn + oh hey special attack is charged up, AOE RADIAL BLAST now everything in her neighborhood is overkilled.
Melee is really good in this game, is what I'm getting at here.
Fang (custom recruit): Sniper. We know what snipers do. Obviously invaluable. Fixed machines and busted locks outside combat.
Hollywood (custom recruit): Brawler and stealthy scout. Despite what the game says, I found Brawling more effective early than later. She spent most of the midgame benched and only came back near the end because I could tell Jodie was likely going to leave the party in response to decisions I was making. Good for stunning people, party-worst damage output.
Lucia (plot companion): Dies to a sneeze. This is problematic for a frontliner, which is pretty much what she has to be since she majored in Small Arms. I stuck with her anyway because of important non-combat skills and she could at least pump out good damage before inevitably getting KO'd in turn 2. And thank fuck she didn't leave right before the last battle, I really wasn't entirely convinced I could count on her, but I'm guessing that keeping her as long as I did and completing her quest did the trick.
Pizepi (plot companion): I had to because green chick and because returning Wasteland 2 companion. Covered skills I didn't have satisfactorily filled elsewhere. Fortuitous timing + laser is not difficult, ze.
That's the official party. But Wasteland 3 really likes giving you goofy, AI-controlled followers. As far as I can tell, the animal followers in this list don't benefit from a party member's Animal Whisperer perks, but maybe they just didn't in my case because they got tagged to my party leader (who had no such skill ranks). But generally they don't contribute enough damage to carry you in a fight anyway. They're just there to add personality to your adventure. These were the ones I found:
Major Tomcat: Let us lament the unfortunate loss of our beloved and behatted feline party mascot. He died pointlessly in a battle that shouldn't have been fought against people who should've known better than to do what they were attempting. That's what happens sometimes when diplomacy breaks down. I could've reloaded, but Wasteland 3 generally encouraged me to live with the consequences of my actions, even unforeseen and unfortunate ones. So R.I.P., best friend in the whole world, you were missed. :'(
Polly: On the other hand, I didn't even notice when Polly died. What a jerk.
Cyborg Chickens!!!: I don't think I ever saw one of these survive a battle.
Party PAL: Is a discobot. Should've been more useful as a literal healbot, but a glitch with Jodie's HP meant that it just kept trying to heal the same missing ghost HP whenever she was around. Oy.
Random Soviet Security Robot Salvaged From the Wreckage of a Crashed Space Station: Actually shockingly effective at offense, but this is essentially a final mission pickup.
The Provost: Does this guy actually do stuff other than randomly spout Latin? I don't know, I only remembered to let him out of the freezer before the last mission.
Finally, I've mentioned Animal Whisperer a couple times above. This is a skill which lets you recruit random animals found wandering the world. The animal's bonded party member will get a passive stat buff (varies by animal type) and the animal will assist you in battle. Well, usually--sometimes followers just go whatevs and take a nap instead. I'm not completely sure why this is. My best guess is it's a proximity thing--whenever I could, I tended to trigger encounters with a sniper shot against an unsuspecting enemy*. Pets often napped through those battles. (*You cannot cheese boss fights this way.) Anyway, some of these were enormously helpful, especially once I got the skill perks. Some of the buffs are great and they generally have enough HP that you don't have to babysit them (you can rest assured I tried to heal animal friends when they got in trouble, but this was remarkably less common than human PCs dying). If AW sounds like a silly skill to invest in at the outset of the game, it really isn't, and it added a lot of fun to the game for me. I'd love to see someone do a novelty run where every party member has an animal follower and there's a whole zoo following the group around everywhere.
As for the animal types that I found:
- Cat: Let's set aside that it buffs your crit rate. That is obviously a very good benefit, but the important thing is that you have an attack cat that can fly all the way across the map and claw someone's face off.
- Chicken: Did way more damage than a chicken should be capable of doing for the brief time it survived. Which wasn't very long.
- Doe: Only kept one in the party to have a matching pair with the stag. Stealth isn't a very helpful buff.
- Dog: Combat speed (read: distance of map movement in battle) is a fantastic buff for a melee PC. Otherwise meh.
- Fox: Cute but not very useful. The buff is only valuable if you have Leadership and Animal Whisperer on the same PC. I didn't.
- Goat: Pretty good. Stubbornly durable, good damage. +Crit damage is always a welcome buff.
- Growler Pup: Dunno, I almost immediately ditched it for another stag. Stag OP.
- Honey Badger: I couldn't keep it, because only Jodie had rank 10 Animal Whisperer, so I can't comment on its offensive capabilities. However, I will note that it had 7,000 HP. Endgame party average was around 300.
- Pig: The HP buff is pretty minor. I let it run free in the cafeteria instead.
- Rabbit: Initiative is a fairly irrelevant stat to boost in this game. If you bring one along, it's for Monty Python jokes.
- Razorback: You would think wolverines would make excellent melee combatants, but mine just toodled around in the back row occasionally lobbing poison darts. Meh.
- Stag: MVP of the animal world. Passively gives a +20% melee damage buff to my already busted frontliner and dashes all over the map goring everyone for hundreds of damage multiple times a turn. Just insanely helpful.
- Waste Wolf: Hard to say because I couldn't tell what the Terror debuff does. It didn't contribute much damage for me, just howled at enemies.
Geez, that's a lot. And I didn't get the trophy for taming every animal, so that can't even be all of them! Sadly, I can't find a comprehensive list to tell me what I missed.
WORDS WORDS WORDS. (Remember when I did this on a regular basis?)
I'm done, game is good, play it.
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Tales of Vesperia - Played, beaten. Game's something of a janky mess and not nearly as much of an improvement over Symphonia as I might of liked but I still enjoyed it and hey at least it actually has writing in places so it gets to be above CS3/DQ11/Pokemon SWSH for games I've played this year. Ristelle is canon.
I guess it's time to move on to figuring out why birds fly.
Tales of Berseria - Ah, I see the main antagonist would like people to subscribe to his Youtube channel to learn about "rationality." Odd move for a theocrat.
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Disgaea postgame status report:
Priere and Majorly recruited
Baal beaen and Nemisis and Super Robo Suit stolen.
Prinny Balal not beaten.
Rank 39 human weapons: 7/7 Finally
Rank 40 human weapons: 0/7
Other trophy items not acquired: Hyperdrive and Priny Baal's gear Also 13 slot Champion Belt and Galactic muscle but those are of lesser importance.
Monster army: 20/24
19998 specialists: 6/8 Just missing Master (pointless in the postgame, SP is not an issue) and Teacher (argh, it would be more magic damage) Also have more than 10 300 power Statisticians for the highest possible EXP gain.
Atelier Ayesha postgame stuff -
Beat Wilbell's ending quest fight on the first attempt. Seems aiming for high quality on my attack items made a big difference. It has a particular gimmick that the GameFAQs guide doesn't mention so I was surprised I won on the first try at it. DragonScale Iron of doom crushes fights through extreme power but I hadn't made it at that point. Speaking of DragonScale Iron, made it with about 6 months left on the game calendar. Planned ahead so I could get it to 120 Quality with the desired effects for overpowering offense. That trembling sound is the game's combat difficulty shrinking to next to nothing (once I've duplicated a few). About 3 monsters in the game will live long enough to put up much of a fight, the rest get crushed in about 2-3 rounds.
And to think I stumbled upon the effect combination by accident in a previous playthrough. What's different from before is perfecting the quality for maximum damage bonus.
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Tales of Berseria - Ah, of course, god exists and is also a rationality youtuber. Everything makes sense, thanks, I hate it.
(Game good but I don't think I've seen a villain cast this determined to give me poisoning since... uh... Tales of Symphonia? Of course nearly the entire cast of that game tried to give me poisoning but still, yikes.)
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Pandemics made me go back to playing games, what is this shit
I went through two Fiesta playthroughs for FF5 (WHM/SUM/BST/DNC and BLM/SMN/RDM/DNC, latter being Reg50), the game was thoroughly smashed twice because mage classes in FF5 are just bonkers. Afterwards, I played through most of SRWT (stalled on map 50 because I got lazy and the map design in this game is just very uninspired) and went through the new Paper Mario and now am playing Brig. So, let's mull a bit on those last two.
Paper Mario The Origami King - This is everything Sticker Star wanted to be but lacked the heart to. The absence of XP, levels and numbered stats doesn't bother me in this game, honestly. The battle system against randoms is fun and interesting in a vaccuum, but later on I honestly wished it had some more tactical depth to it - its emphasis on getting the puzzles right for maximum efficiency is cool, but the crowd control options and the general modus operandi felt a bit one-dimensional in the lategame. Gimmicks like the Boo's invisibility, rewarding on-the-go memorization, and the papercut soldiers, which entail figuring out how they extend in the grid, were really cool and I wish there were more of those. This said, however, the emphasis on random battles CONSIDERABLY diminishes, and the game puts a nice emphasis on its incredible boss battles.
Without delving into details, the boss battles in Origami King are fucking -art-. Creatively design, full of personality and all of them working different grid gimmicks that require off-the-cusp adaptation and flexibility, they just felt like the crowning gameplay achievement in the game, and I can't say enough good things about them.
But honestly, the main draw for me is just how charming and well-written the game is. The writers really hit the jackpot with the surreal setting and bizarre implications of a paper world and the game has great pacing. Every location is memorable (Toad Town and its hub nature, Whispering Woods and the FUNKADELIC TREE ENSEMBLE, Scorching Sandpaper Desert and its stunning visuals and bizarrely cartesian structure, Snif City and the fascinating concept of glam decadence as enacted by the Mario World, FUCKING SHANGRI-SPA...), every arc finds new ways to be hilarious and fun, they finally stopped wasting Bowser as a character, the cast is very charming in spite of what the interviews regarding the game may tell you... yeah. When I was done, I honestly felt sad the game ended, because it's just such a loving, tightly knit little thing. TTYD orphans may never forgive the game for not being a full-on RPG, but this is an amazing game that deserves to be enjoyed on its own merits. The current Paper Mario series has gone into a pretty unique gameplay and writing place, and Origami King shows it's very much worth playing. Seriously, play it.
Brigandine: Legend of Runersia - Been playing for a week or so, this is fucking great. Running Guimoule right now, I'm almost done with the conquest part, only Shinobi Nation is left to rout (Dellia is a BITCH). Guimoule is a great starting point for a first playthrough, since the Rune Knight selection is really good (Eliza is very high-level and is a pile of good stats, while Accel, her ATK buff and Accel give her some utility on the side. Darian, Mu'ah and Kate are fucking incredible units with really strong stats and high level, Rose is a nice middle-ground character with surprising potential because Temple Knight hauls ass and the Royal Knight promotion is SURPRISINGLY versatile. Sugar is a solid project knight, as is Patricia, and Vayne is rather powerful, high-level Berserkers make for good offensive physical classes. Conrad is kinda middling in comparison, but perfectly functional, and he's a decent choice for a quest knight early on). Will post more coherent thoughts eventually when I'm not busy.
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Yay Brig! Glad you're enjoying it.
Also if you have a Switch, y'know what I'm going to recommend. It's been too long since I've nerded over FE with you.
I am also enjoying Tales of Rationality Youtubers. Also Tide battle logs. And Sierra SRPG recs.
I haven't been a huge game-playing mood of late (did finish Suikoden V replay), but I am playing FE3H again because the thought of having Silver Snow of my most recent playthrough was mildly traumatic.
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re Della: Gravity is your friend there. Gravity's not quite as amazing as Magic Down or Weakness for assassination, but it does an amazing job wrecking units like Dellia or Toby. Rose is pretty blah. It's mostly a question on if you want to wait it out for Royal Guard (which is excellent as you note). Emma/Carla/Scymarius/Ariana are much better.
Play Mana Saleesia next! :( No one else here besides me has played it. Happiness is Clean Military Rule OHKOing Kate or Della.
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Fire Emblem Warriors: A nice enough distraction.
On the whole I do think that so many game systems being there but not really necessary for regular play (unless maybe playing on Hard requires it I guess) is a little distracting? And the game definitely erased a few menus I did between maps because I didn't advance to the next map right away, which is a bummer. still, definitely some fun maps that really use the mix and match between run around and smashing things. I think I appreciated playing on easy where I could (mostly) accomplish objectives just with controlling one well buffed PC, but I do appreciate how the game lets you micromanage the team and fluidly swap control, so that's cool.
Not sure on a number. Maybe later.
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Tales of Berseria - Why do birds fly?
To ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD, then ground him for a literal eternity, apparently.
It's not a pleasant game to say the least, but it is one that I did enjoy in many respects, possibly enough to push it past the 8/10 barrier and into 9. Playing it on the heels of Vesperia was also kind of interesting but that's something of another topic.
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Children of Morta - A very fun rogue-lite dungeon crawler game. Kinda diablo-ish gameplay, I guess? The storytelling is all done by a narrator, but all the characters have a lot of personality anyway. I'm at the...has to be endgame rn, if there's something behind the boss I'm at I'll be shocked.
The seven characters you can play as are all fairly different and it's hard to call any of them actually worse than the others(except Mark) since there's been bosses and floors that even the ones I would normally consider the "best" deal worse with than...honestly even Mark. He just has a larger amount of situations he's not great in, really.
To break things down a bit, my character ratings(and please keep in mind the gap between 1st and 6th is very small)
1st - Lucy. Lucy is one of the two characters with long range damage and hers becomes much stronger than Linda's as you let it build up. The thing is, Lucy can't move while attacking! This is in fact a downside and the reason Lucy has some bosses she's just the wrooooong pick for. But the speed of her fireballs increases the longer you fire, and she starts spraying off more and more "sidewinders" which are little mini-fireballs that vaguely go where you're shooting and do less damage. They still inflict tiny amounts of hit stun though. And at the speed she fires...well. Lucy's two special attacks are her Tornado(which sucks in enemies and pins them down for a bit) and her Doppleganger(which is a decoy that enemies will attack instead of her). Both very strong! But the thing that puts her at the clear #1 spot is her passive which gives her little shields which null attacks. When capped out, that skill gives her 3 tiny shields which will nullify attacks that hit her, and if she hasn't been hit for 8 seconds she will regen 1 shield(up to 3, ofc).
Lucy's Rage mode does allow her to move while shooting for a bit...as her shots turn into a giant fuck off laser. It's not as damaging as you might think, but it is great for letting her escape.
2nd - Linda. The other ranged damage character, an archer to her little sister's mage. Act shocked, the ability to hit shit from across the screen is Good Actually. Linda can fire while moving, but it drains from her stamina bar(which will build back up as she either doesn't shoot or doesn't move for a bit). Her damage at base is better than Lucy's and she also gains more damage as she stands still and fires from a passive skill, but Lucy's will build up to higher levels as the speed goes. Linda's two skills are the Explosive Crescendo, an arrow that homes in on where some enemies are and creates an explosion, and Harmonic Slam, which stuns the enemies immediately around her for a second. Crescendo is very very good, since it can hit enemies you can't normally hit(hard corners, etc) and some area boom is great for thinning things out. Harmonic Slam...I dunno. When surrounded with Linda I typically hit the dodge button to create distance before I remember to welcome my enemies to the Jam.
Linda's Rage mode gives her infinite stamina for a short period and MASSIVELY increases her rate of fire. This is one of the strongest rage modes for sheer "Get. Out." factor. It's not as good as some others in hallways, but she'll make a boss ablate a third of their HP bar in record time with it.
3rd - John. So John is the patriarch of the Bergson family, and is the classic sword & board hero. He's slow, the only character who has only a single dodge bar, and his damage is on the low side. So why is he in at #3? Two reasons. First, that fucking shield. He can just raise the shield to block and it will stop most projectiles cold, and enemies that hit his shield in melee will take damage from the impact! He can still be hit by some attacks, and using the shield does drain his stamina(and you have to have your facing right! You block from the FRONT only.) but it's a strong mechanic. I was bad at it for awhile but once I put in the effort to get gud, John became a slowly advancing wall that would just smoosh enemies into the dirt. Second is his skill Heaven's Strike. This is the best button in the game, full stop. Hits multiple enemies, homes in on ones close to you, each sword has a bit of explosion damage around it, it's just the best crowd clearer in the game. Also can fire around hard corners because fuck you that's why. His other button is the Shield Slam(which replaces Heaven's Strike while you have the shield up!), which is basically just a better version of Linda's Harmonic Slam.
John's Rage mode doesn't really do much. Just makes him immune all damage for a few seconds and deal retaliation damage to any enemy that hits him while he's using it. Wait did I say not much I meant it's also the best Rage mode in the game.
4th - Kevin. Kevin is weird in that when he's the best option he is THE BEST OPTION and when he's not...well, he's squishy and also a melee character who uses knives so has a very short attack range. He's Linda's younger brother(and thus Lucy's older), and the little story arc he gets before you gain him as a playable character is great imo. So Kevin's whole deal is that instead of a stamina bar like Linda/Jon/Joey or a mana bar like Lucy/Apan, he has a momentum bar. As he attacks, his attacks get faster, and you can level up a passive skill to let him keep this going longer. He also has the highest crit rate and I believe bonus crit damage? Basically once he gets going he becomes a blender and the dungeon is now a juice bar. Buuuuut he's still short range and has no hard defenses like John or Lucy. He is the only character with three dodge bars, and that's good! But he still has to get back in there to do the killing. His buttons are Fan of Knives(whips throwing knives in every direction. Pretty okay) and Cloak of Shadows(enemies can't target him for a bit!). While in Cloak, he also learns two other skills: Execute(huge damage single swing with ID chance) and Shadow Dance(hits a bunch of enemies? I dunno it's not good).
Kevin's Rage mode sends his attack speed even higher and it seeeems like it also increases his crit rate further? The game just says "Sends Kevin into the Ultimate Frenzy!" which thanks real helpful game. Basically it makes Kevin even more Kevin-y.
5th - Joey. So to preface this, Joey is honestly better in most hallways than Kevin is. He has a hammer and everything looks like a nail, he has huge reach on his melee swings and is a giant sack of HP. That is basically the long and short of it. Most of his power comes from a couple passives he has. One gives him a damage boost on his next attack whenever he takes a hit. One increases his damage and move speed when low on hp. One increases his damage based on how many enemies are hit by his attack. You get the picture. His other big claim to fame is that his dodge deals damage to enemies and kinda pushes them. Joey is a big boy and he can move anything smaller than him whether it wants to move or not. Most things are smaller than him. Hit buttons are Smite(a hammer attack on the ground that damages enemies in front) and Whirlwind(spin2win except not much winning tbh it's pretty weak). Smite gets an upgrade to Divine Smite which when you hold the button before releasing it will send out a GIANT ENERGY WAVE on impact which is the second best button in the game after Heaven's Strike.
Joey's rage mode continues the Big Boy tactics and he now does contact damage to the enemies instead of the other way around. Another move that's good at clearing hallways.
???th - Apan. So I have no idea where she fits, to be quite frank. Apan has a staff that she swings and hits with this super weak fan of energy from...but it has some pushback which is nice, and covers the most area by far of any normal attack. Her Thunderclap button damages and slows enemies in a cone in front of her and she has a passive that gives her bonus damage to slowed enemies! But even with that her damage is the worst in the game by miles. But she can fight from a reasonably safe range, and her dodge also slows enemies near her when she does it, so she has good escapes. The biggest issue is that her second button, Magic Glyph, is...bad. She makes a big field on the ground that hits all enemies around her a bunch and she can't move while using it! And the damage is...much lower per hit than even her(already worst in the game, remember) basic physical. And it drains her mana super fast! I just don't know what to make of her. Playing Apan feels like an exercise in "Okay everything is under contr...NOTHING IS UNDER CONTROL!" until you somehow extricate yourself from whatever the fuck just happened and now you have everything under control again.
Apan's Rage mode gives her a big shield bar which takes hits instead of her HP for awhile. Which would be amazing if it didn't disappear fairly quickly even if it hasn't taken that many hits and if John's "literally invulnerable also I hurt YOU when you hit me instead" wasn't right there.
7th - Mark. Ooookay. So I love Mark, let's get that out of the way right here. He's a cool dude and deserves better than he got. He's the punch-dude, and he has some awesome passives so lets talk about what he has going for him first. His main deal is his Atman Barrier, a bar(what he has instead of Stamina/Mana) that fills up as he punches things and that gives him Armor. His armor gained from the barrier reduces damage he takes, based on the strength of the barrier(it is a skill to put levels in, etc) and taking hits will deplete the bar. You can keep it going fairly well by punching more often than you get punched. Also he gets another passive that increases his damage as his Atman Barrier gauge fills as well, which...until you get this going he's just god awful, I'm not gonna lie. He has 2 dodge bars like most characters, but gets a skill that lets him spend the second one while in the middle of the first to cancel his dodge into an area attack around him. Very strong move!
Okay, so all that said...why does he suck? Well, apparently punching dudes is very hard and not accurate at all. See, Mark has the worst attack reach(fair, he's punching) and makes up for it with the ability to dash in to hit enemies when he's close enough! But...you don't control the dashing. He'll target an enemy, which you can see as a red circle around the enemy he's currently homed in on, and when you attack he'll dash in and hit that enemy! And...how the game decides who is targeted is pure magic. And if your facing has gotten a bit weird, like say in the middle of a giant clusterfuck, Mark likes to not actually home in on any of the enemies that are slightly off to the sides and currently stabbing him but instead punch thin air. Every other character you can just hold down the attack button to go ham with and adjust your facing as needed. Even with Lucy you can change your angle of shots without stopping the barrage! But with Mark you have to let go of attack and reorient yourself. In the middle of melee. With the shortest reach character. He suffers from extreme jank, I'm sad to say.
Also his two buttons are...okay at best. Scourging Whip does negligible damage but pulls all enemies hit in and gathers them up in one spot, stunned, for a moment for Mark to wail on. Solid! But still janky since which enemies get caught in it is a frikkin' mystery sometimes. Also ones that just decide to immune stun for some reason, well they're now right in front of you and it may or may not have interrupted any attack animation they were in the middle of. Swirling Staff is the exact opposite. Instead of pulling enemies in, it knocks them away. Well, not the EXACT opposite, it still does negligible damage. Can't have the dude with 0 attack reach or range on his normal attacks having any reliable way to damage multiple enemies at once.
Mark's Rage mode...is my least favorite in the game. It turns his basic physical into the Punch of Concentration, which is a cone shaped area in front of him that is roughly the size of Apan's physical but much higher damage. Sounds good, yeah? Except that it's slower than his normal swings, he no longer moves at all or has the targeting circle, and being a cone it doesn't hit enemies that are approaching you from a slight angle well. And being Mark, he's gonna be in the middle of everything most of the time. It's...the opposite of Kevin. Kevin's Rage makes him More Kevin. Mark's makes him a different character for a bit.
Anyway, this has been my breakdown of the characters. I love the game and enjoy playing as all the characters(even Apan and Mark) and think the story is very well presented. Play it!
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Trails in the Sky 3rd: Up to Chapter 4. This is very good. I'm a sucker for a well-done vignette structuring, and both Tita and Kloe's doors were quite good. The bosses have been very solid for so far (not overly damaging, but with interesting enough variety/durability). Hopefully no more versions of the enemy that explodes enough being killed with a ~30% chance of inflicting ID because that was painful.
Cthulhu Saves the World- Beat this. Worst Zeborg game by far because it was basically BoD 7 remixed, but even worse on the endless trash mobs. The conceit of how the random battles basically becomes completely pointless because of this. Probably should have scaled back on the auto-healing after battle.
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Yay Brig! Glad you're enjoying it.
Also if you have a Switch, y'know what I'm going to recommend. It's been too long since I've nerded over FE with you.
Hey, guess what I just started!
Fire Emblem Three Houses - So yeah, it's been ages since I played a FE game and this honestly cannot stand. So, just started my first playthrough - Black Eagles, Hard Classic. Currently up to the battle in Chapter 3. The dating sim hub thingy felt unwieldy and annoying at first to me, especially given how I just came from Brig, which is just menus and gameplay all the time - exploration feels more and more undesirable in a RPG to me as I grow older, and I just want to go straight to the nitty-gritty. This said, once I unlocked fast travel and got used to the monastery's layout, I've gotten engrossed in the building involved during the sim part - it's a big part of making into your battle builds!
Right now, I have started supports with Petra/Edelgard, Dorothea/Edelgard, Ferdinand/Edelgard, Ferdinand/Hubert, Byleth/Petra, Byleth/Ferdinand and Byleth/Dorothea. Linhardt already got to Faith C, while Dory's up to C Reason/D Faith. Edelgard's at C Axes and almost C authority, so I'm building Heavy Armor/Lances/Flying for her right now. Byleth's just doing Sword/Faith/Authority stuff with whatever comes up at seminars. Hubert's doing Reason/Authority/some Lances, Sylvain and Ferdie are focusing on lances+riding, though maybe I should build them Axes at some point? Bernadetta's doing Lance and Bows, whatever girl. Currently, only Edel and Byleth have gotten beginner classes. Everybody else either needs to reach L5 or class mastery or both. I suspect Dorothea will get her class next, I want Fiendish Blow. Not sure where should I take the other kids, though. Wondering if I should bother with C Heavy Armor for everyone in order to get that -3 Weight, but maybe I'm overthinking it. Oh well, it's still C3. I already benched Caspar, because his build looks miserable.
Brigandine - Yeah, beat it with Guimoule. The final boss is a fairly decent take on what can make a fight against very few targets dangerous in the system, but it's ultimately very controllable and frankly not too exciting after the first time. The most compelling part about the game is the moment-to-moment conquest hubbub, and battles between squads are a lot more exciting than what the game can muster for boss fights. Will definitely give it replays, it's a great game for replays and has quite a lot to explore (I didn't even touch cross-classing in my first playthrough!), but it'll have to wait until I clear Three Houses at least once.
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Trails 3rd- Beat Ch 4. Used Anelace/Mueller then Tita/Agate for the 3rd/4th due to great weapon selection that made them obvious choice/Orbal Gear (which is nasty). Stacking magic boosting is nasty; with 2 of those +300? magic stats, Kevin did 11000 damage from his S-Break when no one else is really breaking 5000 and he's doing 4000 with spells anyways. Boss challenge seems to have fallen off somewhat, but maybe it's just that I bothered having a decent Orbment setup.
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That sounds about right, later bosses in 3rd are nasty on paper but the level of setup available even at that point is just plain nuts.
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Hades: So I have been binge playing this like there is no tomorrow lately. I've cleared at least twice with every weapon and just got the "ending" this morning. I cannot state enough how good this game is.
I don't actually have the brain to talk about it rn, but it is good. If you like action roguelites go play it!
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Mana Khemia: Finally beat the bonus dungeon after it's been sitting at 80% complete for ... it's been so long since I lasted posted about it I don't remember and not going to bother digging through old posts to find it at the moment.
First there's the matter of having enough of the useful items. The attack/magic buffs turned out to be the most important along with revival. Party healing is handy for emergency use as well as full HP heals. I made 15 Globes but didn't use any in my winning attempt. Did end up farming some ingredients but at least this is something done once and I'm not repeating steps every attempt. Oh, and made an additional 5 Treasure Capes.
Prior to descending, it's a good idea to set a useful rumor. I saved before doing this so I could experiment with different ones on each attempt. -10% SP consumption is nice though my winning attempt used the all stats +5 one. The descent isn't too bad in theory since there's a warp point that takes me most of the way. Things can still go wrong. If I hit too many enemies on the way down, even though I'm getting the first turn and running without getting hurt (thanks Nikki), night falls earlier than I'd like. Running into an enemy with ????? HP is worse. Can't run from them and waiting for them to kill my party takes so long, it's faster to reset. I allowed one encounter before nightfall, any more and it's warping out to reset the clock and try again.
That's the basic plan, dodge everything and get as far as possible before night falls. During nighttime, that's when I bust out the Treasure Capes to not be bothered by encounters. Takes 2-4 Treasure Capes depending on how far I got before. Still takes about a half-hour or so (counting retreats) to make it to the bottom for a crack at the boss battle there. This way, my team is at full HP/MP for the hardest fight in the game.
Anna and Muppy sit out for the battle. The other three mages are just so much more useful and since I'm planning on using Variable Strike, Anna's offensive assist doesn't synergize well with that. I also learn every Support SP Recovery and Support Speed skill for some added edge. Turns out multiple of the same type do stack; I never knew that. Vanye, Nikki, and Pamela go up first with Jess, Flay, and Roxis waiting in the back. Nikki is there mostly to get the first turn since Speed decides the initial turn order. but she also hits hard with her animal friends plus having MT knockback Vayne is also fast and has Overrealm and Jade Shift for more actions. I am prepared to use him as an item healer though he'll go on offense in Burst Mode. Pamela is mainly there to help tank the initial assault since 2 out of 3 opponents only have physical abilities. I'd like to set up low HP No Bullying but am not counting on it. Survival is more important and it's not always worth the risk of a close to full Burst gauge.
As for the other three, Jess heals and has Boost and Grand Ray for support if she somehow has a free turn where no one needs healing. Flay is there for Defense down on his offense assist and hitting weakness with his regular attack for Burst gauge building. Raiden Charge is nice to have and he has other skills for Burst mode offenses. Roxis is important for clearing enemy time cards and also because Chroma Drive is one of the best ways to build the Burst gauge. (the other being Variable Strike mostly though any skill which hits all three enemies and does many hits can also be useful for that)
The opposition: Three different bosses that have already appeared earlier in the descent. Except now it's all three at once. There's also a time pressure present because Darkalvero still has his Necroism gimmick. Take too long and he becomes essentially unkillable. Darkalvero absolutely must die first even if getting rid of Darkcrowley first (the only source of magical damage) would make survival easier. For added insult, Darkyula always opens with a triple-act. Combined with the other two, they can waste a healthy character from full to nothing. Hence, my choice of starters. Nikki and Vayne are both durable and Pamela laughs off all physicals.
I can't really gives a blow-by-blow account of the battle because there are so many moving parts to juggle. Keeping everyone alive, getting that Burst gauge up, getting the most mileage out of Burst Mode (timed skills refill the bar a bit based on hit count), is it an opportune time to use a knockback skill, using offensive buff items on the people doing the most damage, do I need someone available to tag someone out and therefore it's not safe to unleash Variable Strike. A lot of turn by turn judgment. I used the Switch command a few times even. There's no added battle benefit unlike what the offense and defense assists have but sometimes, having that turn right now was worth it. Mostly for Roxis when there are lots of enemy time cards piling up. Getting off Overrealm isn't a sure thing. If all three enemies have turns in between the charge time, Vayne could be killed or dizzied and therefore, it's probably not safe to use it.
I got lucky with the opening turn. Nikki used a buff item on someone, quickness activated, and she got another turn before the enemies could act. Cast Decoy Shield on Vayne for lack of anything more productive to do. It actually worked a few times, saving some damage. After some earlier failed attempts, it was quite gratifying to dogpile Darkalvero with Variable Strike, doing good damage and also building lots of Burst meter, often entering Burst mode right there. Risked extra timecard damage a time or two to fire off Chroma Drive instead of Purifying them. In these early turns, more offense is valuable. Darkalvero cooperated a bit by using Spark Blade on his 3rd turn. It has a charge time, delaying that crucial 4th turn where he starts with the Necroism nonsense. Succeeded in toppling him though two characters dropped almost right after. But with the time crunch gone, it's a simple matter to recover. I think a third fell at some point but spared a turn to use the MT revival item and everyone's in fighting shape again. Hey, this is the hardest battle of the game. If there's ever a time to use the highest tier items, this is it. Not that I really needed them since the major threat to winning is gone. Took out Darkcrowley next. Pamela could solo the physical only Darkyula at this point but I saw no reason to leave two people dead so mostly normal boss fighting strats to finish things.
Won the surprise battle after that. Yes, there's an immediate followup boss fight with no chance to recover. Given my playstyle, not an issue. Would really only catch someone who cuts it too close to disaster. OK, Pamela was still at 1 HP but whatever. It does have some new moves after its HP is low enough and also gains a gimmick where it will block most physicals. It's a dispellable buff though, much more fair than what came before.
And with that, the bonus dungeon is truly conquered. These two fights can be refought to farm stat boosting items as well as bonus dungeon exclusive gear but I don't plan to do so.
Link to the Past randomizer
I'm not going to get into my randomizer escapades here. Just felt like giving a shout out to its Retro mode for doing something the original game doesn't. Namely, money stays relevant for the whole game. When its 550 rupees to kill Vitreous with silver arrows, one is less likely to scoff at rupee drops/treasure.
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Just want to tell people this: Go play 13 Sentinel if you haven't! This thing is Game of Year material. And this one of those few games that can provide experience truly unique to a video game!
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I've been streaming 13 Sentinels. About 75% through the plot, after 9 or so 3-hour sessions. Just an astounding game.
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Buy the game Miki, buy the game. Give Vanilla Ware your money!
Kamiya went as far as defying orders from Atlus to get this game out. He needs to be rewarded. (Atlus ordered Kamiya to cut away 5 characters from the game. But Kamiya didn't listen and still made 13 character under the table.)
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13 Sentinels' story is pretty engaging and I love the unique chapter structure and how it plays around with chronology.
But the gameplay itself looks... dull-at-best? Super would probably like it, it reminds me of a lot of the things he raves about, but it just didn't do anything for me.
Maybe it gets better?
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The Tower Defense part?
It is a bit too easy is the problem.
Once you find out how to exploit the first generation and third generation, the game just become a easy walk over until you do the after game.
Though, just why there is a total of 9999 after game stages.
I mean, serious.
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Buy the game Miki, buy the game. Give Vanilla Ware your money!
Kamiya went as far as defying orders from Atlus to get this game out. He needs to be rewarded. (Atlus ordered Kamiya to cut away 5 characters from the game. But Kamiya didn't listen and still made 13 character under the table.)
I bought it. I meant I've been broadcasting it myself, not watching other people.
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Buy the game Miki, buy the game. Give Vanilla Ware your money!
Kamiya went as far as defying orders from Atlus to get this game out. He needs to be rewarded. (Atlus ordered Kamiya to cut away 5 characters from the game. But Kamiya didn't listen and still made 13 character under the table.)
I bought it. I meant I've been broadcasting it myself, not watching other people.
Ohhhh! You were streaming!? Link please!
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twitch.tv/notmiki
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Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Crimson Flower
Nothing special about this playthrough, its main purposes were to (a) ensure SS wasn't my most recent file, (b) watch a bunch of scenes/supports again to help with fic writing, and (c) try out a couple classes I had never used before. Spoilers for that last one, there's a reason I had never used them before.
Byleth: Pegasus Knight -> War Cleric. I half-hoped to do both Brigand and Pegasus Knight but Byleth's training being what it is, that didn't happen. Anyway, dodgy punchy build is effective enough. Felt less good than on my AM run but I'm not sure if I had worse stats or the CF map design is less friendly to it.
Edelgard: Brigand/Mercenary -> Warrior -> Wyvern Lord. Vantage/Wrath time! I figured I'd try this out. Compared to Battalion Vantage/Wrath, it requires mastering a pair of mediocre classes. Reaching low HP is easier than reaching low battalion health, but it's also more dangerous. So it's a weaker build overall but still valid and pretty satisfying. CF also has far fewer (uncounterable) siege weapons than other routes, which helps. The Crest of Flames bringing Edelgard out of Vantage/Wrath range is something you have to watch for, so she's not really optimum for this build... but you really need a lot of str to make it work (too easy for a Killer Axe+ crit to fail to KO if your str is much lower) so not too many people would be good for it... Felix or Raphael are interesting candidates? Anyway she's also Edelgard and could erase anything on player phase too, was MVP for every post-TS map except one paralogue.
Hubert: Mage -> Paladin. Frozen Lance all day every day. I decided to see what not going to Dark Knight was like, I'm... less happy with it but it does slightly maintain better OHKO potential, and Arrow of Indra+ helps make up for no magic.
Ferdinand: Brigand -> Paladin -> Great Knight. The first new class experiment! Great Knight is bad on this route, don't use it. Cavalry that dismounts to 4 move (every other endgame mounted class dismounts to 6 except Valkyrie) is incredibly hard to use on the last couple maps. Otherwise could kinda tank things and use Swift Strikes to kill squishier enemies.
Dorothea: Mage -> Dark Flier. She got mag-screwed and only had 23+2 at the end of the game. Did it matter? I mean, a little? Not really? She still had range 5 Thoron (6 if I grabbed Thyrsus), Meteor linked attacks, Physic, could 2HKO most things and go wherever she wanted, and just enough durability to bait things since Dark Flier actually gets speed. Dark Flier is good, it turns out.
Petra: Dancer. She looks like such a badass dodging everything. I don't have much to say, she's not quite as evasive as Dancer Ferdinand but she's not far, same basic idea that works well as always.
Felix: Brigand -> Hero -> Assassin. So uh, yeah. Hero. 5 move, whatever stats, Swordfaire is the worst -faire probably, especially before I got the Brave Sword. Felix was the worst of my main team, which is an impressive thing to say about Felix. I wasn't planning to go to assassin but I just couldn't deal with his shit any longer, so I went there after getting Defiant Str which I never ended up using anyway even though Assassin's a good fit for it.
Manuela: Pegasus Knight -> Assassin. I was planning to go Falcon but changed my mind with her, due to authority reasons. Basically she starts too far behind on authority so it was nice to just slap Supreme Armoured Co. (C rank, great stats for a mixed build) on her. Could double most things with Levin Sword and Assassin is actually cool with its Stealth and terrain ignoring. Darting Blow is neat. I think this build would be very nifty with both Darting and Fiendish Blow, but Manuela doesn't really have time for that... maybe Ingrid? Marianne, Dorothea, Lysithea? Something to try someday.
Lysithea: Mage -> Valkyrie -> Dark Knight. Solid, getting range and move and Uncanny Blow from Advanced is great. Luna's a nice trump card against a certain Vantage/drainsword boss and a couple others. She got magic-blessed as well so good times.
Shamir, Marianne (with Stride), and Jeritza were my filler 10th, 11th, and 12th as needed. Nothing unusual about their builds.
Kills: Marianne 4 /// Jeritza 10 /// Petra 50 /// Shamir 76 /// Manuela 82 /// Felix 83 /// Lysithea 100 /// Dorothea 105 /// Hubert 107 /// Ferdinand 113 /// Byleth 117 /// Edelgard 215
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Could double most things with Levin Sword and Assassin is actually cool with its Stealth and terrain ignoring. Darting Blow is neat. I think this build would be very nifty with both Darting and Fiendish Blow, but Manuela doesn't really have time for that... maybe Ingrid? Marianne, Dorothea, Lysithea? Something to try someday.
This is kinda what I ended up doing with Ingrid on my VW playthrough (ok, Mortal Savant instead of Assassin so had to rely on dodging/not getting gambit'd, but similar idea), it definitely has potential for a slightly off-the-wall non-hypothecial optimal person build and I feel like the biggest problem I had when doing it was that I didn't decide on it earlier
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Brigandine knight/country reviews. Been working on this on and off as I've played the game over the summer and fall. Will post as I have time. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1phCX__6IuomaEnioApz_db_ZNaA7xwPazKwJoHDqhIY/edit#gid=0 Stats are pulled from the Brigandine spreadsheet. It isn't perfect but gives you a pretty good thumbnail for relative stats.
I'd just like to say that male priests are *TRASH*. Who the hell thought that class line needed a nerf?
Country: Mirelva
Best Knight (not ruler): Tommy
Worst Knight: Viggo
Good: A lot of competent mid tier knights and a good starting location
Bad: No easy path of expansion; second in command isn't super impressive
Stella: 9- High stats, charm and starts off competent at everything. She doesn't have the crazy physical damage of Rudo or the super high INT of Rubino, but she's good at everything and starts off at L15 which is nice. I'd put her in the same area as Tim and Rubino for use. She's not quite as good as them at the very end, but she starts off much faster due to levels and having a Brigandine.
Adieu-7.5- High INT is useful; he laughs at status that wrecks say Ginny. He's a very solid unit who has pretty good Rune. That said he doesn't start as a Viking and it does take a bit of time to get him promoted. I'd peg him as the worst of the second in command types(Grados/Kyle/Darian/Ginger/Sid) due to the lack of overwhelming power at the start and not having a crazy endgame of someone like Sid.
Gallivard-6- Literally has the same stats as Adieu minus 30 rune, 6 levels lower. That means he's quite solid but nothing amazing. I'm not a big fan of Berserker due to the poor agility and no ranged options, but he's still worth using.
Ginny-7- Interesting knight. He has crazy high STR but no AGI or INT and bad Rune. He excels at both questing and defense; plant him on a castle and watch him tear through enemies. Don't use him like the AI does and charge him into the line though, he is really bad at hitting most enemies without Halo and his low INT means he is very vunerable to status and Dimension.
Lorzeno-2- Male priests are embarrassingly bad across the board in this game. They get literally one shot of Holy Word and one other spell and that's it. Cardinal is also the worst tier 3 class in the game to boot. Their INT/stat spread is garbage and they don't even get Halo or Divine Ray. Hard pass.
Lucia- 3.5- Unremarkable to bad stats all around; the rune is especially bad. As much as I love her promoted class, there are better options out there for Royal Guards. The only thing I can say for Lucia is that she's better than Lorzeno and that Temple Knight is at least competent.
Pluto- 7.5- Excellent INT and MP; he can do a ton of damage with Geno Flame right out the gate and is great at supporting Mirelva's fighters. Wizard is inferior to Witch in this game but it's still useful, mostly thanks to how useful Solid is.
Ratka-7.5- Below average STR for the class line, but amazing Rune and Snipers are great. Archers are easy to baby, just get them a Knight or high level monster kill and they're already at their tier 2 class. That said she still requires some effort to get going and the low STR is really annoying.
Robilio- 2.5- Barbarian is a really bad class. Robilio doesn't even have the high STR of Ginny or the INT of Gallivard or Adieu. You can use him but why bother with the fourth best Berserker Mirelva has?
Sherad-5- Thieves are trash until promotion and in the running for worst class in the game. Once he promotes he's fine, but that requires some effort; I docketed him 2 points for that.
Sophie-7. 148 Rune is *so* bad at the start. She's great once she gets rolling, but it takes biting the bullet and dragging her to fights at a low level or several months of questing. It's enough of a problem that it lowers her score.
Tommy-8.5- Rangers are great for hit and away tactics; you can use Draw Trick to start the fight and then have your ranger retreat to your line and let the AI crash into you. There is a reason why he is the only starting Ranger in the game; the line is crazy busted from L10 onward. He also has incredibly high STR for the class as noted above; 95 STR is average for an L30 Treasure Hunter. Draw Trick is ITE, hits three in a line and has the benefits of pulling the closest target (if possible) one square forward. Tommy pairs tremendously with someone with Power or Brave Song; IE Sophie or Pluto, just in case he wasn't already doing enough damage already. He doesn't have the same evasion as other Rangers and his Rune isn't good, but I don't care when he is so good at smashing things.
Umimaru-7. As good as the offense looks on paper, it is severely limited by MP concerns and not being able to move before using it. I think he's a better unit for defense due to the high defensive stats; he can take a tremendous beating on a castle tile. The unique knights in each country are really well balanced, surprisingly. I was expecting Umimaru to be like a ninja master and all about the crazy ranged offense, but that was more from what I got from Rangers.
Viggo-1.5- Monk line is really bad until Champion. Viggo's got bad rune stats and unremarkable physical stats. On top of that his weapons are a pain in the ass to get too and he competes with much better units for light armor. The hideously low MP is a problem too.
Yuki-6- Above average swordsman. Joins 7 seasons in which is a bit annoying. Yuki makes for pretty solid midgame fodder and is certainly an improvement over Lucia or or Robilio, even if he isn't amazing.
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13 Sentinels: I can't believe Vanillaware created a mystery VN with 13 perspective characters and time travel and the biggest plot hole is why does Gouto have his glasses in his sentinel cockpit?
13 Sentinels is a very good game.
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Atelier Meruru Endings ranking (by difficulty to acquire)
Been plinking away at my postgame save for the purpose of triggering some endings I haven't unlocked yet. Felt like writing about Meruru and rather than try to give highlights from my gameplay (everything that isn't an optional boss gets crushed) decided doing an endings ranking would be more fun. This is purely subjective and assumes the viewpoint of a player who knows what they're doing. Also making no distinction between whether playing from scratch or a Clear game in ranking the difficulty to unlock. I'm also not including any of the failure endings on this list.
From hardest to easiest to acquire -
Strongest Princess: Need to beat Masked G for this one. Without making special preparations, I get maybe one or two turns total before losing; his offense is that potent. Even with special preparation, he has innate 95% damage reduction so every hit dealt to him feels like scratch damage. He also regains HP on every action and triple-turns. Pretty much need to use the alchemy system to cheese him and it still takes awhile to wear him down. On top of winning the Masked G fignt, I believe there's an additional requirement of Keina reaching Lv50 and winning a battle with her in the party. Oh, and if the Miss Popular ending got flagged, all the work into beating Masked G is for naught.
Alchemist: One of the NG+ exclusive endings with a strong NG+ exclusive boss This boss is one of the most legit threatening opponents in the game. Simply making the strongest weapons and armor and items may not be enough. It will take some paying attention to which traits you add to your gear to have the firepower to win. Because this requires some degree of proficiency with the alchemy system, I consider this the next hardest ending to acquire.
Boy's Bath: Requires completing a quest line to the end, then revisiting a location you've been to before. Then there's nearly three months of events and synthesis at a minimum. Then there's a facility to build which takes another 30 days to trigger the ending. That's a lot a time to set aside. Also need a high alchemy level since the items to synthesize are Lv 50 items. So if your alchemy level is lagging, it's quite possible to not have enough time to grind it up and still finish the ending requirement.
Witch's Tea party: Because max Alchemy level takes a lot of time to reach. Also need to finish another sidequest but that one is more straightforward.
Castle Life: Yeah, I consider this difficult. Anyone's who is playing halfway decent can trigger Topsy-Turvy without intentionally trying so getting this one requires deliberately playing to not grow the kingdom population too fast.
Miss Popular: The other NG+ exclusive ending which requires seeing all the character scenes. This requires getting Friendship up to 80 for PCs and about 50 for NPCs. I don't consider this too hard and end up needing to go out of my way not to trigger this when going for a different ending. It's also not too unlikely to have one character lag behind on Friendship growth (or if RNG never generates Friendship requests for them) so I guess this one does take some effort.
A Rich Nation: This and the next two I feel are about equal in difficulty to acquire. This one has the most prerequisites so I used that as the deciding factor.
Finally, As Planned: The required synthesis to trigger this one is a Lv 48 item. Don't actually need to have that high an Alchemy level with the help of some traits to boost the success % of a synthesis though. There's a boss fight as part of the event chain but nothing harder than the required bosses for other endings above this.
Now Go Bravely: It doesn't take any special effort to lose to Masked G. Triggering the fight takes some effort (and I don't think the exact requirements to trigger the lizard invasion are documented anywhere) but less work than the other ending arcs. The required battles are also less demanding overall.
Topsy Turvy: Although it's very low on the priority list, other endings are at the ends of long event chains so it's simple to intentionally avoid triggering them
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13 Sentinels: beat. I'm not sure why I don't play more VNs. The ones I have I almost invariably like. Maybe I'm an easy mark, or maybe, since I've generally only hit the highest-profile of 'em I've only encountered the good stuff. 13 Sentinels is not strictly speaking a VN - I guess you'd say it's a combination of segments of RTS combat and light adventure game gameplay. But in spirit it's a VN through and through. The basic structure of the game is that the RTS segments are a final battle against a mechanical alien force called the Deimos, who are opposed by our protagonists: 13 teenage pilots, some of whom have time-travelled from other eras, of giant robots called sentinels. So that's where we know the plot ends up, but how, why, and to what end? The real meat of the game (and what you will spend far more time on) is the adventure game segments where you guide each character through the choices they can make in their daily life prior to the final battle. Here's where the game really impresses. 13 perspective characters is a lot. Now imagine a plot akin to what you had in Odin Sphere, where characters are constantly bouncing off one another, questions that arise in one character's story are answered in another, alliances form and shift, and story segments are not doled out in even remotely chronological order, and multiply that complexity by three or so. That's 13 Sentinels. It's brilliant. Critical to all that is the plot twists, of which there are many, abetted by the nonlinear storytelling. I streamed the whole thing, and eventually each stream would start with half an hour or more of pure speculation as to the plot, and on a regular basis words would come out of my mouth that formed sentences but were also so objectively absurd they'd make you laugh, even in context. Have I mentioned that the game somehow manages to be perfectly serious 90% of the time but is also neck-deep in blatant pop culture sci-fi references? It's quite something. I'd be remiss not to talk about the art. It's absolutely beautiful. Much more restrained color scheme than Vanillaware's standard fare, which helps set the tone for the more serious story, but the light effects are just on another level. The sunset in the distance, the sunlight shining into a dusty old wooden schoolbuilding with no interior light, it's just all great. The character art is also quite restrained considering Vanillaware's other games, but shines in giving each character a body language in line with their personality. I can't think of another videogame that's had more dedication to those subtle movements of arms and body. Music is good too - Hitoshi Sakamoto & co., occasionally channeling the GitS:SAC soundtrack, it seemed to me. It's a stellar game. Play it! Also there's Problematic (ymmv) Queer Romance, which I cannot even begin to discuss without getting deep into in spoiler territory but I appreciated a great deal.
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3 Houses: Picked up a Switch this September as a reward for a job change. I've beaten almost two campaigns (Azure Moon and Verdant Wind) - on C.21 of VW right now. For the most part, this game is really good. Cold Steel 3 was what I was looking forward to playing but 3 Houses wins the award for probably the best game of this year. It's close though since I also loved Azure but yeah, pretty glad I was finally able to sink my teeth into it!
I do have some minor nitpicks but they don't super detract away from the game. The main one will probably be familiar to everyone who has played 3H, is that you can't enjoy all the campaigns without starting the game from the very beginning. This means, while there are 3 campaigns (4 if you count Church route), you end up having to replay a bunch of earlier levels, where the enemies and levels aren't as creative or challenging. To give 3H some credit, I'm not sure with how the game is set up how you can set up a midpoint without ruining the immersion or character skill level customization. Both are kinda important for making 3H work. It is really the one glaring problem in 3H because IntSys has shown they know how to use midpoint checks before (see FE7 and FE8).
The other minor issues I've spoken about in Discord. For example: I'm also not a huge fan of cutting off recruitment halfway through the game. Normally in other FE entries, there's always an early game crutch (Jeigan) and a late game crutch in case you get really screwed. FE7 had Athos, FE9-10 gave you Laguz royals, Echoes gave you Mycen, etc. 3H really has no recourse here. It also has no real Jeigan. The closest we come to is Catherine and she's more of the Oswin/Nolan archetype versus a Marcus. To make up for this fact though, 3H does a lot of curb potential screwage. You have: Battalions that give extra stats, Class minimums for insurance on a certain stat's floor value, Combat abilities that allow you to make up Strength, Hit and even Attack Speed weaknesses (on player phase), accessory slot to provide a little more customization and benefits to units. I still would've preferred a more guarantee solution in the form of a unit, but what's there is adequate. Another example is that 3H doesn't tell you which skills are learnt from class mastery or skill proficiency. The slight good news is that class masteries aren't super important (although there are a few that are just very good to have in general). However, skill proficiencies is a different story as the magic list and combat art list for every unit is different. I have no idea if investing in say Lances for Sylvain fully is a better idea than fully investing in Axes until I run a playthrough to do both.
These minor blemish I think hold it back slightly for me, for all that 3H is very good and you should definitely play it if you have a Switch. As I spoke about in chat, it's basically Echoes++ with a lot of the bad stuff removed, leaving behind a very unique experience that plays more towards Neo/Modern FE.
Units and Thoughts (not ordered in tiers):
Top tier units: Byleth, Lords (haven't use Edelgard, but I doubt she isn't top tier), your Dancer unit
Pretty conservative Top tier list, but also not surprising. Byleth's versatility along with his/her overall growths make him/her always a great combat unit or support unit if yours gets screwed somewhat. Held back largely by a mediocre magic list and needing to use Exploration time to get WEXP. The latter is curbed on a New Game+ and if you ever want to see how broke that ends up being, definitely try it and get a good laugh. Between Dimitri and Claude, Dimitri has a stronger early game as his offense starting out is already notable. Has a weaker mid-game before the time skip unless you build him around specifically with Wyverns in mind. Late game, his offense shoots out of the roof. Immense strength and Atrocity is ridiculous. He's also pretty good defensively too as Royal Lineage gets upgraded to give him +20 Avoid at full health, letting you build some evade tanking on top of his decent Defense. Claude on the other hand has a weaker early game, stronger mid-game and probably the best T3 promotion between the lords. Flying + bows, along with his stat base means he's the most agile and mobile of the three and his offense isn't that much worse for the wear. Like Dimitri is very strong late game, although probably the weakest in this tier.
High tier units:
Lysithea: Probably the game's strongest mage. Pre-DLC, Lysithea is held back by having weaker choices for Tier 4. You'll have to do quite a bit more work to get her to Dark Knight, otherwise, you're probably defaulting to Gremory. Given the amount of power she has, she usually doesn't need the Double spell charges, although 2x Warp is nice. With DLC, that drawback goes away. Her defenses are pretty bad but she's an extremely strong glass cannon - especially once the +2 magic attack range accessory comes in.
Catherine: Her only real problem is that she's stuck in Swordsmaster, which is a bad class. You'll have to recruit her early, but as was discussed in chat, she's basically Nolan or Oswin. Someone who starts off strong, but you do need to put time into developing her and she can't one-woman carry you like a Marcus or Seth. Otherwise, instant access to a Hero's Relic (a strong one at that), actual growths and no real troubling banes make her damn good.
Felix: His strong bases + Raven-esque growths (55/55 on Str/Spd) make him a physical offense cannon. He tends to hit harder than Petra who is similar in terms of stat spread but his problem lies mainly in his proficiencies. Sword/Fisticuffs are kinda eeeeeeeeeh and an authority bane is bad. He doesn't mind Assassin that much but he's definitely more limited in where he tends to grow.
Mercedes: Probably the game's best healer due to having actual usable combat stats and Fortify as a reasonable time. Turning her into a Gremory gives you 4 shots of that which is a total lifesaver if you get in a bad spot. Her one kind of minor blemish is speed. It's more iffy than Lysithea's but even if it turns bad, you can just keep her at range due to her White Mag List.
Sylvain: Just...very versatile. He has 3 viable builds - all of which work at end game (Pal, Wyvern Lord, Dark Knight). In the early game, he has access to his legendary weapon ridiculously early and it kind of wrecks the damage curve if you are okay with blowing it's charges. His main problem is accuracy, but you can build him in many ways, which means you can slot him into a team easy. Plus he's basically free if you are playing as F.Byleth.
Petra: Felix with worse strength growth but better proficiencies. So her start is a bit worse, but she's definitely stronger at end game. Also has a lot of versatility, although it's mostly with the physical jobs. Dodge-tanking or a Wyvern Lord smashing flyer both work for her. Basically does anything on Player Phase due to her insane speed + access to Darting Blow if you so choose.
Hilda: Has a built in path to Wyvern Lord and is otherwise really strong. Instead of speed, Hilda's big growth number is in strength. However, she also has access to Darting Blow so if you want to make her have the possibility of doubling more stuff, it's also on the table. Also gets access to her legendary pretty early, which makes her just pure ball of power, capable of even OHKOing things pretty frequently. Authority bane kinda of sucks though.
Marianne: I waffle between the tiers here, but I think this is right with DLC. Marianne has both riding AND flying proficiency bonus, which means she can make great use out of the DLC classes. She likes both because one helps her ramp up her borderline speed and the other gives her Uncanny Blow was mastered, which she greatly appreciates as she's stuck with Blizzard for her base Reason spell. Both her magic lists are solid in general but no siege tomes is a bummer. Her budding talent in Lances is important since it lets her move into Pegasus Knight for Darting Blow to help with speed and later to Dark Knight to help with move. Both require a bit of investment, so she obviously likes the DLC classes more cause they are more readily available and can shore up those weaknesses just as well. Probably goes down a tier without the DLC since she'd require more effort then, but very solid.
Mid tier units:
Dedue: Strong start but mediocre finish. In the beginning, before enemy offense starts spiking and people get into their respective roles, Dedue's super high defense is very valuable and his damage is on par with everyone else. Later on, there are things that can break it and his slow speed means he's almost always doubled, so everything begins to look less impressive. Also, the last AM map is like 90% mages just to spite him or something.
Ashe: The opposite of Dedue. Starts off being pretty mediocre but when twinked in a certain way becomes very powerful and unique. A lot of the late AM maps are about positioning - where the enemies usually have some sort of terrain advantage or lots of siege weapons on deck. Ashe goes "lol whatever" with his 22 threat range bow snipes and knocks out those more fragile units in the back. Not a strategy that can be replicated in Maddening due to the extreme accuracy penalty that you suffer, but on Hard, a fully decked out Ashe has something like 237 Hit, making it a valid of taking out the map/unit disadvantages you end up facing.
Ingrid: Similar to Ashe. A little weak at the start, but her speed/res are a great so late game, becomes a valid FalcoKnight and proper magic tank. Which is good because not very many people fill that niche. Suffers slightly in the mid-game too when she doesn't have a really advanced class to tech up to, but its rather minor given this period isn't terribly long and FalcoKnight is one of the better intermediate jobs.
Cyril: It's the game's Aptitude project character, except Cyril is vastly different than them in that a) his bases while weak, are not god awful in the way Donnel/Mozu's are. b) This then comes with a trade off which is that he just doesn't end up as strong as them either. I later looked at his growth rates, and all aptitude really does is bump them into the averages of everyone else, so it's kinda misleading in how worthwhile of a project he is. The good news is, his skill proficiencies are solid and he tends to be a little above average once built up, so it's not like there's no pay off.
Constance: In some ways, very similar to Lysithea. Has a built in path to Dark Flier, which is probably the game's premier magic class. Her speed being a little weaker is made up for by having a magic set compatible with Black Tomefaire so she ends up hitting harder when both her and Lysithea are doubling. The downside here is that, Constance doesn't have a lot of branches to work to and if you're already building Lysithea as a flying mage death cannon, both of them end up fighting for the same resources (battalions, accessories, etc).
Dorthea: Maybe it's just me, but Dorthea always seems to grow weaker than the other mages. It doesn't matter too much because her spell list is just so strong. Psychic + Siege tome means she can stay safely in the back if yours ends up screwed on some combat stats. Probably weaker now with DLC compared to others because she has both banes in Riding and Flying and Valk + Dark Flier are both great classes. Doesn't mean she can grow into them but it takes more effort than the others.
Ferdinand: Is similar to Sylvain in that he's versatile with several different builds. This along with his personal, makes him the game's probable best dodge tank. He is weaker though in that he doesn't have a legendary weapon access like Sylvain does and his recruitment isn't free. In fact, you need to take Armor to C and while that's not completely worthless, going to Armor at C that early hamstrings Byleth's WEXP growth in other areas so it is still a notable tradeoff.
Leonie: Just a very solid growth spread. Like the other built-in pallies thus far, has some versatility in where you want to built her. Lack of a crest means you can't really use a legendary without committing suicide, but other than that, she works well on the frontlines.
Seteth: Late join, but is at least in a good class and his weapon proficiencies aren't in bad areas. Going to A spears gives him Swift Strikes, which a brave effect combat skill and fixes some other problems. Overall, he's a low effort filler. He won't go into other classes as easy, but he doesn't have to since he's arguably already in the game's best class line.
Low tier units:
Annette: What a terribly depressing magic list. She doesn't get anything notable like Psychic, Thoron or a Seige tome. She does have Wind and Cutting Gale is great, but that's about it. You can turn her into a Rally bot (gets +Speed and her own personal gives + Strength) or an magic axe wielding lady but that's a pretty sad route to end up going down.
Ignatz: All the archers specialize in something that's usually off kilter. For Ignatz, it's his extreme accuracy as his personal stacks with Archer's mastery for +40 Hit. Unfortunately, he lacks Deadeye, so he can't pull the same tricks as Ashe. Then on top of that, he's stuck on a route where you have Claude, the route's dedicated Archer who also flies. All this is just bad news for Ignatz' usability. The extreme accuracy comes in handy once or twice and he does have a stat breaker build unique to him, but the few times he shines are very minute.
Raphael: All you need to know about Raph is his growth spread, which includes 6 base speed +15% growth. He is completely saved by class minimums but he's tough to use just because so many things will eat into his HP and he ends up being way less durable as a frontliner than you'd like. To his credit, he at least hits decently but there's a lack of long term project here since you can easily build up another punch dude with actual speed by that point.
Manuela: Very weird. Her white spell list isn't all that amazing and having a reason bane means she's a mage with a magic list problem. On growths, she's basically Ingrid but magic focused. This tends to be a problem because there really isn't a good class for her to occupy. About the best plan you can hope for here is to build Manuela as an Assassin or Trickster and wield Levin Swords. Like Annette, this isn't exactly a great plan, but it's something. Having to work to build all those weapon levels...oof.
Hanneman: Most mages in 3H hover around the same spectrum for speed, with Lys being the fastest. Hanneman is probably on the other end as the slowest. Except he's notably slower compared to everyone else. He does get access to Thoron and Meteor, which is great but you have to work quite a bit of his WEXP to get there. His Magic also isn't as spec'd out like Constance. If it was, his type of build (single powerful hit ala Orochi in Fates) might be something but as is, he has problems when stacked against the others.
Shamir: Good early, pretty bad late. Shamir is solid early to mid-game filler before everyone gets going. However, there's a lack of long term game plan here so you definitely want to keep her around too long. She tends to get outclassed by the time the time skip is about to happen, but that does give her around 5-6 chapters +whatever paralogues you have to work her magic.
Alois: Shamir, trading in that good early-mid stint for being a potential project for later use if you're willing to reclass him and give him some skills. This is not terribly promising but does let you etch him into late game if you've had deaths or bad RN rolls on certain units.
Flayn: Her saving grace is her White Magic list is quite good (Rescue AND Fortify). The downside is she's pretty bad otherwise for combat. The stat spread is not great and she lacks levels in Reason. These things along with her delayed start make her similar to being a project since you need to feed her Reason WEXP, then regular EXP. She does join early enough that she can get out of the hole but that hole shouldn't be there in the first place.
Bottom tier units:
Lorenz: Dumpster fire man is also dumpster fire in terms of his build. He's set out to either be a tankier paladin or tankier mage, giving up some speed for some better defenses. This tends to lead to him being too slow to do much of anything and enemy offense shoots up much faster than his slightly higher than normal defenses. He probably actually works best if you treat him as a mage rather than a frontliner, but even, there's a lot of competition there and his magic list has issues. He does get a notable mention in that you need to do his paralogue to get his broken ass accessory so you'll probably recruit him regardless, but yikes.
Caspar: Just very mediocre in a non-inspirational build. All the dedicated fist guys tend to be slower but Caspar tends to be the faster. This doesn't really save him though because his strength is lower to make up for it and if you want to be a punch dude, you want to have more power so your first two hits count. Throw his bleh proficiencies on top and you got someone that becomes hard to justify using. Oh yeah AND an authority bane on top of that cause why not???
Gilbert: If his introduction as a guest doesn't make you sad with profound sadness, don't worry; Gilbert will disappoint you on official join. Inaccurate (like 50ish hit most of the time), very slow (lol 2 raw speed) and he's on a path where Dedue is already present at a time when Dedue is beginning to fall off on a pure defensive front. Even if you treat him as a new recruit and respec him, he joins 13 chapters later than everyone. I guess he deserves a mention for being the only person who will likely get to Great Knight and you need him to do an AM unique paralogue but holy crap he is bad. Is definitely the game's worst recruit by a notable margin.
That should be most of the characters. Big ones I'm missing are Edelgard and Hubert, but there are a few others. Will update when I finish the Black Eagles campaign.
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Already responded re Tide, but... 3H just isn't a very friendly game to latejoining structurally, so I'm happy they frontloaded all the recruitment. Gilbert being one of the worst characters in the game, and him being a late recruit (which is really just a midpoint recruit by the standards of other games!), is not a coincidence. (The other notable late recruit is better, but that's partially because he's just given some busted abilities.) For people who like building supports, it's also nice to get everyone sharing meals early, which late recruits interfere with.
Flayn: Her saving grace is her White Magic list is quite good (Rescue AND Fortify). The downside is she's pretty bad otherwise for combat. The stat spread is not great and she lacks levels in Reason. These things along with her delayed start make her similar to being a project since you need to feed her Reason WEXP, then regular EXP. She does join early enough that she can get out of the hole but that hole shouldn't be there in the first place.
If you're using Flayn at all, I don't even see the point of bothering much with Reason and trying to project her toward that. You're using her as almost a pure support, either as a Bishop or as a Dancer, and you don't want her ever entering combat short of an emergency (and then, Frozen Lance is free). I'm still not super enthusiastic with Flayn even ranked strictly among other supports because she misses Physic which rules in 3H, but there's certainly room for a pure healbot in most party comps, and White Uses x2 on Rescue does allow some cheesy plays. Most notably, if you're not using Canto units for whatever reason (War Masters, Mortal Savants, etc.) then Rescue can become pretty important to allow characters to move forward, kill something, then get Rescue'd back. I guess Dark Flier is an easier build for her than Dark Knight was post-DLC, but meh, offensive Flayn is so problematic I'm not even inclined to encourage bothering building it.
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Dragon Quest 11 - I beat a spider and sent some butterflies to a tree.
Gameplaywise this is pretty clearly the best Dragon Quest... I'm a bit mixed on entering turns when you get them instead of at the start, obscuring how rounds actually work, but it's fine. Everything else about the gameplay (the skill system, encounter design, item creation good lord) and QoL is significantly improved from 8 and 9. Writing's generally not very good, it's DQ doing DQ things but it definitely feels a step behind DQ8 to me so far, and DQ8 would already probably mostly put me to sleep for writing if I played it in 2020.
Belated replies:
@Tide: Enjoyed the unit rundown. I'd probably have Dorothea, Leonie, and Shamir a tier higher, and maybe Hilda/Sylvain lower (though they're near the border either way), but those are small quibbles. Some of this is just some specifics to Maddening, where Hilda/Sylvain's "pretty good" speed suffers a bit, Leonie's "really good" speed and Shamir's early Hunter's Volley get better, and accuracy becomes more of a concern making Meteor links really useful.
@Super: Most of that squares with my feelings too. I'm a bit surprised you're so high on Tommy; I can't speak to his long-term (I didn't get him more than a few levels) but his combat definitely didn't feel that amazing to me... I love the tactical positioning options so I can kinda see it, just didn't work out nearly as well for me. I lean towards Pluto as the second best knight there but mages are tough to compare with other units and I think it's a good fight between a number of people.
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Draw Trick is better the more you get to use it. He deals a ton of damage thanks to the high STR and it pairs up really well with anything that buffs attack. There are very, very good reasons why it's so damn hard to get a Ranger outside of Tommy. The game gives that class line gameworst STR growth for a reason; even a few points of STR makes a major difference for the damage output. Draw Trick also interplays very well with things like react, as you can use it 6~ times on average in a fight. It's the ultimate assassination tool in a game that is focused heavily on Rune Knight sniping. Have a high evade target or one with hit and away like an Assassin? Draw Trick's ITE and can pull them towards your line of angels/demons for murdering. I'll concede the thief mechanics are pretty useless, but every once in a while you can swipe a valuable item from the enemy.
Brig: It's the perfect game to play in the morning, as I can do one or two months in game before wandering off to work. Done various challenges including restricted summoning. The hardest one I've done to this point is the two knight challenge with MS. This challenge exacerbates MS's problems with really terrible knights and having a lot of borders to defend. I'm past the worst of it because I've I have only four borders to defend instead of five but it's still a struggle. Like every other challenge I've done to this point, MS is by far the hardest of the countries.
Teams:
Rudo/Veyta- As much as I love Monica+Rudo, I needed to use her for defense. I also got super lucky and got a Malefic staff (+20 INT) from the first month of questing. Rudo still OP and Veyta's quite good once he gets rolling.
Kyle/Selena- stationed them at Alternia as that castle gets attacked all the time. Selena hit Witch pretty quickly which means Meteor Doom spam! Yay. I'm about to lose her which is less yay, but I should be past the worst of the game's challenge by now.
Emma/Titania- Put them on the southern border with Guimoule. The castles there are easy to defend. Mostly just using Divine Ray spam to assassinate. Titania still isn't great, but she's at least tolerable to use. The gap between her and Reche or Jiu or Madessa is painful though.
Monica/Avril- Using them on the Norzaleo border. They've only been attacked once but they did fine, mostly because Ivona is dumb and poorly positioned herself via Curse Song. These four teams are all some shade of tolerable even if they're light on Rune. My last team is ugly. Katri would be wonderful to use, except that she has no Rune. Gilliam's never an option and Cyrus is a garbage fire. Allen has 189 Rune at L10 and bad stats so he's out. That pretty much leaves you one Knight, and that's Largo. IE Grappler time! *sob*
Largo/Frederico- THIS FUCKING DUMPSTER FIRE. I hate grapplers for a lot of reasons, but I had no one else remotely competent to fill in. I've held with them, but I keep burning through promoted monsters while holding with them. You just don't have enough Rune to to provide enough meatshields and magic users as both have terrible Rune. I've been using Aisha to generate monsters via questing to replace losses. Grapplers are *so* bad. Their counter attack pushing away enemy knights is a huge negative; it will knock away enemies from your kill box and expose your grappler to getting hit more often. Thankfully both are on the bench right now; Stella being knocked out has lessened the number of borders I need to defend. I think I'll have to use them a few more times as I clean up Gustava, and then I can retire the duo of sadness for good.
Once I wrap this up, I don't know what I'll do next. Maybe a worst knight playthrough? That'd be a lot of sad ass bishops and grapplers seeing action. Like seriously, here is what I rated as the worst knights in each country:
Worst knight in each country: Tim: Bishop, Grappler Rubino: Grappler, Bishop Eliza: Grappler, Bishop/Berserker, Rudo: Grappler, Cardinal/Fighter, Talia: Barbarian, Fighter Stella: Grappler, Barbarian/Bishop
Noticing a trend? Yeesh.
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Country: Guimoule
Best Knight (not ruler): Darian
Worst Knight: Faye
Good: Lots of above average knights and monsters
Bad: Eliza's a bit underwhelming
Avenir-2.5- What the hell is it with Bishops and terrible MP/Rune? One shot of Holy Word does not justify this garbage.
Cain-7- His stats are good, but... he's an L12 Knight. It's too average a class to get his score any higher, and he spends a long time as a knight before promoting. Don't expect him to carry a team like Grados or Darian or Sid.
Conrad- 3- I like Knights, but the stats that aren't INT are just ugly. The STR is quite bad and the AGI is a real problem; Conrad has trouble hitting anything with evasion. He doesn't even have skills like Berserkers do to offset the agility. He was one of the knights that had their score lowered the most from the first draft; he is so much less than the sum of his parts.
Darian-9- The STR is the real selling point; it's more on par with what you expect from Berserkers. I would prefer if he started at L20, but it's cool to have the choice of which path to take him down. Otherwise... yeah he hits like a truck that's on fire.
Diana-5- Rune/starting level is kind of bad. She's a middle of the road Rogue otherwise. I tend to use her more with other countries; the AI will always level her to L10 and even an average Rogue is better than a lot of other units.
Eliza- 8.5- I'm not really impressed. Eliza lacks the physical power of Rubino/Rudo/Tim; the ruler should be focused on damage and not support skills. She is better than Talia but worse than the rest of the leaders.
Faye-0.5- Gameworst Rune? Gross. Faye's fun in theory but 168 Rune is just not acceptable at L17. Also joins later into the quest for some insane reason. Also see my general complaints about Grapplers having really bad skills until Champion; the same applies here. If he was a Swordsman, Knight or Berserker with those stats I might consider it. Grappler's not worth that effort.*Punts Grapplers and male clerics to the nearest volcanco*
Kate-8.5- Good stats all around+good starting level. Rogue is a damn strong class as well.
Leanne-6.5- Decent low level sorceress type. Leanne doesn't have the same crazy payoff as Sugar/Leanne/Sophie but is usuable out of the box.
Marcosias- 5- See Jack. Basically the same thing.
Mu'ah-8.5- Dangerous offense and status. Solid's not as good as Meteor Doom but it can just wreck opposing leaders who don't bring enough status curing. Exablast is ST pain and Geno spells are as good as ever.
Patricia-6- Mind bogglingly bad start due to the Rune/level, but ends up pretty strong if you keep using her. Bard isn't a completely useless like some of the tier 1 classes, but it also isn't especially good either. Bards have no ability to get kills so it takes several seasons to get her rolling. It's a pretty painful drawback since you desparately want Cursed Song. Much as I love Brave Song, it isn't enough to carry the class on it's own.
Rose-4- STR is bad, but she at least has four rune area and starts with 200 Rune. I prefer that to Lucia. AGI is decent as well. Not a knight you generally want to use, though there is worse.
Sugar-7- Bad start like Patricia but she gets pretty strong if you suffer through the early levels. She has the benefits of leveling much faster than a Bard does.
Vayne-2.5- Berserker is at least a cut above Barbarian! But ugh. Stats aren't good and the Rune is painful.
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Gustava
Best Knight (not ruler): Ginger
Worst Knight: Finrall
Good: Great draw of knights, some really strong monsters at the start
Bad: No Brigandine means Tim is easier to knock out than other leaders. Lot of borders to guard from the start
Alsin-8.5- Grappler to Champion is possibly the biggest jump in quality in the game; it's that or Thief to Ranger. You finally get attacks that aren't trash; the stat growth is really good. Champion still has a few problems (Namely that their counter attack pushes enemies a tile back; this is a negative and not a positive) but they are quite good. It also just so happens that Alsin is the best of the Grapplers on stats and Rune on top of being the highest leveled Monk unit.
Coco-3- Tied with Finrall for gameworst Rune. Her INT's bad too. Divine Ray and Halo are at least really good spells so she has some use in combat, but gods above. I was going to give her a 2, but Halo dovetails very effectively with Ginger and getting early Meteor Doom, so she has some use. (Note that this is a higher score than I gave several of MS's knights. >____________<)
Finrall-1.5- He starts with 200 and has enough AGI that he can dodge well enough. The bad is being stuck in the worst class line in the game and having gameworst Rune. Who the hell thought Bishops were any good again?!
Gaspar-2.5- Standard crappy grappler. That said, Gaspar does beat Largo in every single stat (-_-) more or less by a decent margin, so he's a bit better. Of course you can just use Alsin in this quest and not bother with this loser.
Ginger- 9- Gamebest INT, high AGI (helps with dodging a lot), super high Rune, amazing class line? Yes please. Ginger is stupid powerful. She also starts at a decent level unlike most every other sorc in the game. Pair her with Coco, spam Halo and watch Meteor Doom wreck everything.
Hazarov-4- So much worse than Ginny in both stats and level. Still can be used but bleh.
Ivan-5- Average filler knight. Ivan's not worth going out of the way of using, but he has enough for him that you won't regret having to use him.
Iyona- 8- Her Rune is unspeakably bad and she's got some of the worst growth in the game. Do I care? No. She starts as a Minstrel and has some of the highest INT in the game. She is deadly with both her supporting Minstrels skills and Thunder; like with Monica she far outpunches her stat/level combo because of how strong her class is.
Jazz- 3.5- I love Assassins. I don't love sub 200 Rune that far into the game on what's going to be a filler/quest knight.
Noll-8.5- Crazy evasion and high STR for a Ranger; only real drawback is joining a few months into the quest. Pair him up with Inova and watch the carnage start.
Rensei-5.5- Bad stats besides INT for a swordsman, but still joins at L18 and swordmasters are extremely dangerous if you can get one. The appalling rune and late joining cost him a point, but there are much worse options out there.
Scymerius- 7.5- Amazing physical stats and good enough rune. Has the highest STR in the entire country unless she gets RNG screwed on STR. 3 Rune area is a bit of a drawback, but you be using her a lot as Gustava. Her and Sylvie are definitely a cut above the usual join when the country is defeated types as well, so you use them both a fair bit in other quests.
Sin-7.5- Availability's a problem (Like Della) but he is still damn strong. Physical durability isn't good, but the evade and magic barrier/sidestep skill really mitigate the worst of that. He's got crazy physical offense.
Sylvie-7.5- Solid Archer. She doesn't have the crazy Rune of Elena or Ratka, but her physical stats are good and she has more than enough Rune. Also starts at L9, which is a damn sight better than the average archer. I'd bump her up half a point if she started at L10, but no such luck.
Tim-9- Lack of a Brigandine hurts; his durability isn't quite as high as Rubino or Rudo's as well. That said he is excellent at all three stats, has high damage of both types. Of particular note is that he has both a free ranged physical and a strong ST physical that can be used after moving. Dimension is really dangerous off his INT; nothing like warping out Grados on the other side of the map so you can pick off his monsters at your leisure.
Looking forward to the patch in December whilst shaming people for not playing more Brig. Shame, shame, shame!
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To escape shame, I'll reply for the first time in... let's call it "a while..." and say I have, in fact, been playing Brig! And availing myself of your knight ratings as I do so.
First playthrough was Norzaleo on Medium, second, currently ongoing, is Mana Selesia on Hard. Despite bumping the difficulty up and agreeing with you on the quality of most individual knights, I haven't found the latter noticeably tougher.
Seems like a playstyle difference. I basically didn't quest until my borders were stable, which resulted, yes, in a lot of dead monsters, but also in faster stabilization, more XP, and perhaps most importantly, the AI constantly on the back foot.
The in-battle AI is improved from original Brig, but the strategic AI still seems to get completely shellshocked by constant aggression. I'm at the point where neither of the remaining nations (Norzaleo and Shinobi) can reach the other and during the whole campaign, I think the only time a city changed hands from one AI to another was a single Norzaleo attack on Gustava, prior to my having a border with Norzaleo. (The AI did drive also me back from one city where I had weaker defenders, and take one I had to cede to retreat to a chokepoint; I'm specifically talking about them fighting each other.)
I also used Selena and Gilliam extensively for attacks. Granted, I didn't know why Selena would be a lategame issue and was initially caught off guard, but in the long run it still seemed like the right choice to use her. The late and even midgame was already a steamroll; losing a little steam still left me with plenty of roll. Gilliam looks absolutely awful on paper, but I found him useful because he has so much HP for a mage. The AI loves to attack him when he's on the front line, but he's more or less unsnipeable (in the earlygame) and lives off his own Loopheal, which is % based rather than caring about his terrible INT.
Any word on what's supposed to be in the new patch?
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You get at two free months of questing even on hard mode; the AI will not attack even if you leave a town unguarded. I got in the habit of using that when playing as Esgares in Brig GE, because they had so many borders and you had to so carefully divvy up troops and resources to deal with all the attacks. IE: I hope you like getting attacked by Cai and Dryst separately in the second or third month! Better not have Paradoll anchoring your defenses. Towns tend to change more on hard mode. Just not when you are playing as MS. They're too centralized. It's the same thing in Brig when you play as Esgares. Beyond that MS just don't have a lot of knights to spare for questing. 15 knights=5 borders is exactly three knights per border. You get Jaden to help with that but still, only one to two float knights is pretty rough. The flipside is that MS border problems won't get any worse.
You can definitely break the AI with constant aggression. Attacking, then retreating to an easily defended town will chew through the AI's supply of monsters and get them gashed on other fronts. One very easy example is the Guimoule border town with Norzaleo and Shinobi. You can take that, completely screw over Guimoule's defenses by making them defend two extra castles, and constantly attack the nearby towns over and over, only to retreat the next month since there's no point in holding it.
New patch? New game mode I think. Beyond that there haven't been a lot said. Hopefully some more knights. It's possible they'll do some class rebalancing. Largely consider monster and class balance better than Brig, but there are some notable exceptions. The Brig website did an update a few weeks ago explaining the quest mechanics. Unsurprisingly the best match is by far the best way to quest if you're looking for rare gear. I knew as much just from casual testing, but glad to see it confirmed.
Gilliam can do that re tanking, but even really bad warrior knights get more milage out of that due to heavy armor and physical evasion. He also just doesn't benefit from experience like other knights. Every other class gets dramatically stronger through class level ups; the male cleric line does not. On top of that he's already at L20 and and has terrible rune. Using a knight with marginal utility that is already outclassed before you factor in levels up and skillset differences is a pass. It's the same reason why I briefly had Finrall with a decent score, then realized that the AGI tanking just isn't enough of a niche. Every single other knight in Gustava offers way more payoff.
That said Gilliam does offer pretty high value questing. 20% chance of nailing a tier 3 item in several spots is amazing. He also has a pretty damn high chance of getting things like the Eternal Hellfire (Dragon promotion item). Selena is an amazing knight and you are going to be using her all the time as MS, but I did dock her some points for leaving for a while.
Speaking of! Ratings for Mana Selessia.
Mana Selessia Theocracy
Best Knight (not ruler) Monica. Kyle is great but her+Rudo are better than most three knight squads.
Worst Knight: Cyrus. Dishonorable mention to Largo, Allen, Aisha, and Gilliam for being absolutely awful and somehow not in the running for worst knight here. MS Knights: Bad
Good: Rudo. Fucking. Marco. He's a pretty classic 10/10 PC. He's the best character from start to finish and no one really gets close. Lots of strong monsters at the start. Border situation only improves as the game goes on. Unlike Esgares, they can get quest knights.
Bad: Not starting with enough knights. Almost half of their starting knights are complete trash in combat. One of their two L20 knights is the worst combat knight in the game.
Aisha-3- Not terrible Rune but her other stats aren't great. Her class/level combo is pretty scrubby, though at least she has Halo.
Allen-2- Take Jack/Delgan and give him worse stats and worse Rune. You also have no time to baby knights in this path, you have to use everyone *immediately* for the entire game. You have 5 castles to defend and 14 knights at the start. He is a really bad mix of low level and low potential which is incredibly annoying. He's not Cyrus at least.
Avril-6.5- Stats aren't good for a swordsman, but you are starved for decent knights on this path so you are going to be using him all the time. Avril is the only physical knight who isn't Rudo in MS to have decent AGI.
Cyrus-0.5-Really good STR is nice! 40 AGI is not nice! His accuracy is low enough to be a real problem and he doesn't even have the tanking of Hazarov or Ginny going for him. Cyrus is trapped in one of the worst class lines in the game and has terrible non HP/STR stats. Also he leaves when Rudo promotes so *nelson laugh* if you actually use him and get him leveled so minus -0.5 for that. >_< Cyrus is the worst knight in the game, which says something considering how miserable a few of the other knights are.
Emma-7.5- She's not quite as good as Carla on rune or stats, but with this merry bad of losers you will be using her all the time. Really good AGI for a Temple Knight and Royal Guard is a lot of fun.
Frederico-5.5- Bad stats (Noticing a theme here with MS Knights?) and -1 for leaving when Cyrus leaves. That said he has weakness and magic down; that always has use. His Rune's pretty bad but 200 is at least tolerable on someone being used strictly for defense.
Gilliam-3.0-Gilliam is the worst combat knight in the game. Cardinal offers almost nothing and he has gameworst stats by a mile. I mean 65 INT at L20 is bad for a fighter line unit, let alone a mage. That said he is an A+ quester. The ability to reliably get high tier items (And you really, really really *REALLY* want some of those items) is extremely useful.
Jaden-3.5- I had him at 6/10 and then I realized I was curving him because he at least joins with 200 Rune and has okay stats. God MS knights suck (As do all clerics and grapplers). He's better than your average garbage priest due to bare competency but that's about it.
Katri-4- High STR is nice on an Archer and she is already promoted unlike every single other starting Archer. But 166 Rune is unacceptably bad on a knight of that level. She still has use due to the class but it's so painful due to the rune issues. Low AGI is a little annoying but that's mitigated by archer accuracy bonuses and Giga Shot.
Kyle-9- Worse Rune/STR than Grados, but better INT. Kyle is dangerous with physicals and magic and is going to anchor one of your teams the entire game.
Largo-2.5- Bad stats, bad Rune, bad class. Good MP is nice but gods, Grapplers already struggle with decent stats and he doesn't even have that.
Monica-9- Minstrels are fantastic. There are only two Minstrels in the game at the start for a reason and both are excellent for different reasons. Monica is average across the board for stats but she is there to support Rudo. Untainted Path+Brave Song results in hideous things happening to Knights; it gets even uglier when you throw in Curse Song.
Rudo-10- If you've used him or seen him in action, you know why. Gamebreaking offense and crazy durability from the start; he pairs wonderfully with Monica and does bad things to everyone in his way. Rudo is balanced around having mostly awful knights, but man. Rudo is so much fun to use.
Selena-7- Gamebest INT is nice and so is the sorceress line; leaving for part of the game and having near zero mana growth is not nice. She rejoins at the very end but oof. You aren't going to need her by then and you won't want to use her for the endgame after missing so much time.
Titania-4- Tolerable starting Rune and level/class. I'm not a huge fan of the Saint line but she makes for okay filler. It says everything about MS that there are so many knights worse than her under Rudo's control.
Veyta-7- Low INT and starting level isn't great, but he's the only non Rudo knight with high Rune. Wizard's a solid class line as well.
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No argument that Gilliam is worse than a halfway decent fighter-class knight! However, if your goal is to attack and mostly win on every front in every season (or every other season in areas with awkward chokepoints), his ability to lure the enemy into making bad decisions is good enough to make him useable. Better than the knights who are both terrible and low level, at least!
If the AI could handle aggression better, or if it were multiplayer, he would indeed be essentially unusable outside of questing.
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I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. That said!
Best Knight (not ruler): Grados? Elena? Depends if you prefer the crazy endgame or overpowered start.
Worst Knight: Ferrick, with Klaus hot on his heels.
Good: Best draw of knights in the game, super easy expansion path, good mix of starting monsters
Bad: Rubino, Pick and Elena all start at low levels and take some work to get rolling.
Ariana- 5.5- Good Rune but the rest of her stats aren't amazing. She also faces a more competition than your average Temple Knight as Norzaleo has a ton of good PC's.
Brendan-4.5- Meh version of a standard Knight. He's an okay placeholder at the start of the game, but you can do better for knights as Norzaleo.
Elena-9- Crazy high stats+archer? Yes please. Starting at L5 slows her down a little but not that much. She also pairs up really well with Pick.
Ferrick- 1- Bad stats even for a grappler and starts at L6. Absolute trash.
Grados-9- Really excellent stats and starts as an L23 Paladin so he is ready to smash from the getgo. Grados can stymie enemy assaults on defense almost on his own at times and he is extremely effective on offense as well.
Jack-5- Decent filler Knight or swordsman. He starts with enough Rune to make using him tolerable, unlike say Allen.
Jiu-8.5- Crazy high INT and MP. Like Mu'ah her Rune is bad, but you don't care. She is there to smash things and babysit lower level knights.
Klaus-1.5- 56 starting INT? 260 Rune at L30? God. No. He's bad even by the standards of Bishops in this game. He can at least quest.
Leonora-7- INT and MP are a little low for her class line but she has fantastic Rune. One of the better knights who joins after you defeat a country. Low level doesn't really bother me on a mage as they get a lot of EXP quickly.
Maximillian-5- Notably better than Brendan but joins later; it amounts to the same thing. You are only using Maxi for filler in the midgame as he isn't good enough to use on a main attacking squad.
Pick-8- This rating is assuming you pair him with Elena. Pick's a glass cannon type; decent evasion doesn't save the terrible concrete durability. That said you are using him for the magic sniping; he starts with 92 INT and Thunder which allows him to flash fry foes. -1.5 if you don't pair him with Elena; he needs the MP regeneration to offset his low MP and his durability is always going to be a problem. But man. I had him pegged as like a 6.5 when I first started with this and he's up to 8. The offense is just so crazy and he levels quickly. Paralyze is great too; he has the INT to make it effective.
Rubino-9.5- He isn't !bluelance; Rubino fights much more like Vaynard than anyone else. He has excellent durability and damage of both types; he also can hang back and snipe things from a distance with front and his ranged physical. His AGI is a little lower than his other stats but that isn't a serious issue. He's the second best Knight in the game due to superior stats and high damage of both types; only one better is Rudo.
Schizler-6.5- More competent than I expected at first blush. He's got really high agility for a Paladin line, enough so that he doesn't have the same accuracy woes as most heavy armor types. Schizler is overshadowed both by fellow Paladin/Knight Grados and his daughter Elena, but he's very much a cut above the Ivan type of Knight.
Theodora-5- Theodora is.... okay. She's a pretty average Archer across the board with a low starting level. It's not enough, not in a country with Elena.
Will-8.5- Will is technically a quest knight. But! To get him you have to get Ferrick wounded in battle. It basically means you aren't going to see him unless you are playing as Norzaleo or don't mind getting him pretty late. Eh. In practice he feels like one of Norzaleo's knights.
That said! See all the gushing I did about Tommy? Remove a little of the STR and instead give him extremely high rune and good stats across the board. yeah. He's scary good; only drawback is that he is super obscure to get. I docked him half a point for that.
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Also: I am wrapping up my second playthrough of challenge mode. Did Gustava because Tim's fun.
It's an interesting concept but the execution is just poor across the board. Random events are not fun and I truly dislike everyone starting at L1. Starting level is too important to a knight's value and some of the classes (Thief, Cleric) aren't usuable until promotion. Stats aren't well balanced for starting at L1 as I noted in the last post I did about it. Hope you like the Ginny build because that's how 80% of fighters are built out! Rangers are screwed too due to low STR. I wish I could like it more but bleh. Scoring system's not something I enjoy either; it should reward more for beating the game quickly. Getting 25k score requires doing a bunch of questing instead of rushing down quickly.
I will say Romanov is delightful to use. An actual male priest that's good? Score. Of course I turned him into a Wizard because L1 clerics are not usable. Still, the thought's appreciated.
Country: Shinobi
Best Knight (not ruler): Sid
Worst Knight: Charlotte
Good: Sid and Dellah are great; super easy to turtle.
Bad: Talia isn't as good as the other leaders. Start with the lowest level knights in the game. Expansion's not easy.
Talia: 8.5- I think she's the worst of the leaders; bad start relative to the others and never gets the same offense that the other rulers get. The first two thirds of the game you are her for Halo spam. That's not good enough for a ruler. Holy Word is the only GT skill a ruler gets which is nice, but it's pretty late into the quest. The ST full healing's also neat in theory, but I've used it once and that was during the optional missions at the end of the game. Talia's about as good as a Cleric type can be in this game, but that's still not something I'm going to give a lot of credit towards.
Della-8- Joins late but is so damn good. I'm penalizing her for joining past the point of real challenge; she'd be a 9.5 if she was there at the start. Assassins have superb offense and good durability thanks to the evasion and she's probably the best one in the game.
Ann- 3.5- Love the class, don't love the bad starting Rune and joining several seasons in. She's not worth the effort but makes for decent filler.
Carla-8- Fantastic rune and good stats; she has killer AGI for a Temple Knight. She's the clear best Temple Knight (Poor Emma, always coming in second place).
Charlotte- 2.5- High STR/low AGI units need to be at a high level or have some other way to deal with the accuracy woes. Charlotte has neither of those. Rune Power's awful as well.
Delgan- 3- Joins several months in as a fighter. High STR is nice, but the rune isn't good and he joins at a low level. He makes an okay swordmaster or knight, but you're going to have better options.
Jose- 7- Pretty competent filler knight. He's an average Swordmaster who just happens to be the highest level knight Shinobi starts with.
Medessa-8.5- Excellent magical stats, high evasion and some of the best Rune in the game. Also starts with Paralyze. Take notes, every single other non Jiu cleric in the game.
Reche-8.5- Great stats but is a cleric and starts at L1. You are best off duelling her over to Mage or Bard and letting her wreck havoc that way. Lower MP than the average of those classes due to Cleric class is a drawback, but she's still your best bet for a Witch in this path. Still, she's quite good and is worth using regardless of the class.
Roe-4. Really bad Rune and below average INT for the Witch line. I've used her and I'm really not impressed, you are better off using Reche.
Shuna- 5- AGI is nice, but the STR is below average and she also has bad rune at the start. She's okay if you level her up, but I found the start to be really painful.
Sid- 9- Best male warrior in the game. Outstanding stats of all types; he clearly outperforms his ruler as a rune knight for the entire game. Only drawback is that he starts at a lower level than most second in command types.
Toby- 7- Interesting unit, like Umimaru/Pick/Sin Toby has a very unique feel and handles differently from other knights. The evasion's great and so is the ranged offense, but Toby's not great at melee offense and he doesn't get any killer skills from his L20 promotion. He's worth using but don't expect him to be gamebreaking.
Xion-3.5- Generic lancer who starts at L9. She's on par with Rose/Lucia; not really worth bothering with but she okay in a pinch.
Yura-5- Bad Rune stats which is unusual for an Archer; also doesn't have any outstanding physical stats. She also starts at a very low level. Bleh.
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Fire Emblem Three Houses: Mage playthrough
Mages are an interesting class line in FE3H, since they play quite differently from fighters. I did this playthrough, using entirely mages, to get a pure sense of how good they are. My kneejerk is that while mages may not be quite as good as the best physical units (i.e. fliers), they're still pretty darn good, so I wanted to see how they would do when they had to shoulder 100% of the combat burden.
The rules are straightforward:
1. Everyone must be a magic user. A magic user is someone who is either:
(a) in a class that can use magic. Commoner/Noble is included here. War Cleric/Monk is NOT considered a magic class, because its main selling point is Fistfaire, which would enable physical setups. Trickster is probably fine.
(b) in a "physical" class, but all weapon attacks they make are magical, either via a magic weapon (Levin Sword, etc.) or a magic combat art (Frozen Lance, etc.)
2. Skills which enhance specifically physical damage (i.e. Str+2, Death Blow) are banned. This probably isn't necessary, but it avoids silly loopholes like making Levin Sword-wielding Brigand in order to hit things with a brave weapon really hard as a Mortal Savant or Dark Knight later... not very magical!
3. As is my standard practice, I'm playing Maddening NG, no free DLC rewards, no grinding or extra battles aside from quests and paralogues.
Note that I am allowed to use physical weapons if in a magic class (it's a legitimate advantage of mage Edelgard or Sylvain that they can deal decent physical damage), and am allowed to use physical gambits (due to a limit on the number of magic battalions, this is kinda inevitable).
I'm playing with the DLC because that gives me two extra mages out of the gate, and some extra class options. I don't think this vastly changes the playthrough, just makes it more enjoyable.
I'm playing on Crimson Flower because (a) three student mages out of the gate, (b) Hubert is better than Flayn, (c) Edelgard is the best mage of the lords, and (d) I just like CF okay. However, the playthrough would work similarly on other routes, I'm sure.
Playthrough notes:
-In Chapter 1, I use Linhardt, Dorothea, and Hubert. Byleth and Edelgard are still physical units at this point. The map proceeds largely as normal. Being able to magically bombard Dedue to death is a big help! I do have to watch my offensive spell limits, and everyone occasionally pulls out a weapon.
-In Chapter 2, I recruit Sylvain, Constance, and Hapi, giving me a team of 8. I add Bernadetta for chip damage. I do the required seminar with Hanneman, because Reason is very important. Hubert gets Mire, Edelgard and Byleth still haven't reached D though. This chapter proceeds largely as normal and isn't difficult. Edelgard hits Level 5 and can unlock Monk.
-In Chapter 3, Byleth, Edelgard, and Sylvain reach D reason, so everyone is a mage in truth now. The map draws some divine pulse uses due to fog nonsense. However, I'm very appreciative of the fact that all my attacks ignore terrain evade bonuses. A straightforward map, everyone hits Level 5 and there's a mass migration to Monk. One annoyance is that there are relatively few +mag battalions; I hand them to the units with highest charm because their gambits are good, usually Dorothea and Hubert (Edelgard and Byleth have high charm too, but can actually benefit from +str).
-No problems with Chapter 4; with everyone's spell uses having doubled I can be very flexible in my strategy. I recruit Lysithea in this chapter, and use Marianne as Mission Assistance so I have a second Physic user.
-In Chapter 5, I build up the Cethleann and Macuil saint statues, and I do a pair of quest battles during one weekend, which is enough to get Edelgard to Level 10 with Draw Back and into Mage. The story map is perhaps the first that feels at all more difficult than normal, just because the Pass reinforcements can kill a large number of my team. Still, with three Physic users now (Marianne as mission assistance again, plus Dorothea), I have immense flexilbility healing. The boss poses no particular difficulties. Most of my units master Monk by this fight's end, but not everyone.
-In Chapter 6, I grab the Lance of Ruin at the start, and give it to Hubert. I also recruit Marianne (who backtracks to Monk immediately; Priest sucks) and Annette. Both participate in the story battle. I have five people with Physic now! Hubert and Dorothea handle the archer passageway easily, and ignoring the evade terrain in the west and northwest is very useful! No problems at all with this map. The last few mages I've had since the start master Monk here.
-In Chapter 7, I recruit Mercedes, completing my roster of student mages. I bench Sylvain (who isn't turning out well) and Annette. Gronder is quite tricky, mostly because of Ingrid and her pegasi. I realize I have no great answers for pegasi on my team: they have solid res and I have no bows. Lysithea's Luna, Edelgard's Smash, gambits, and magical combat arts are my most effective tools. Ingrid is a stat monster but I lure her beside one of her allies and gambit that one, then pick her off the next turn. Nothing else on the map is too bad, though Claude is noteworthy because he's a rare enemy I can't outrange (other archers can be hit at range 1, while those with 1-2 weapons like Hilda can be hit at range 3).
-In Chapter 8 comes a new set of battalions, very helpful! Empire Mages (+mag, huge gambit) and Seiros Archers (no mag penalty, good hit, good gambit) are the most notable new pickups, and Hanneman bringing a third D-rank magic battalion is also nice. I do Lorenz's paralogue for Thyrsus; a reasonably tough fight (I don't warpskip it) but my big gambits turn the tide; I mop up the map and even get both treasures, along with the real prize, Thyrsus! Gloucester Knights are great too. I also do Sylvain's paralogue. The low move is something I notice here, but once again, I'm still able to get all the rewards. Thyrsus gets passed around like a hot potato; it's great. Finally, the story map presents no difficulty. Turn 1 Stride gets me into the action, Physic reaches the villagers so they don't die. The Death Knight dies to a combination of a Dorothea's Resonant Flames (100 hit against his bad charm, and stuns all his allies as a bonus) and Lysithea's Dark Spikes, while Solon gets chipped from range with Thyrsus and the finished off, so no worries about his crit.
-In Chapter 9, I do Sothis's paralogue. Like Chapter 7 this also exposes a bit of a weakness of mages: they're bad at tanking bird and wolf attacks (only Edelgard and Byleth can tank the wolves, and a few others like Dorothea and Linhardt can tank the birds too). Some clever gambit use is needed to approach the three birds in the south, and to deal with the two that fly in from the northwest. I realize that I could have used a combination of Hapi's personal and the Impregnable Wall gambit to cheese part of this fight, but only realize that halfway through, and I didn't bring that battalion. I also do Flayn and Seteth's paralogue; with my ability to ignore desert and Thyrsus-trading to cheese the water sections in the west it's very easy, even if the assassins kill anyone but Edelgard and Byleth if they could ever reach them. Dorothea/Ingrid paralogue presents no problems. Hapi/Balthus paralogue is a bit tricky as I relearn all the nonsense reinforcements, but by this point Dorothea (northwest corner) and Edelgard (central area) are strong enough to solo significant groups of enemies. The story battle itself presents little difficulty as nobody is doubled, and nobody is OHKOed except Lysithea, and range supremacy + taking advantage of barrier breaks allows me to take relatively little damage, while Physic removes any doubt that I will save all the students.
This is a good point for thoughts on units so far, since we haven't yet hit Level 20 or picked up any A-rank skills (or, rather, this was true early in Chapter 9, at least). Pretty much everyone went Monk->Mage, except the later-joiners. I maybe should have made someone a magic combat art pegasus knight for move, but oh well. Most units have hit B in key skills, but not A, so the comments reflect that.
Edelgard: Got RNG-blessed on speed so just has... really good stats that aren't magic (armour knight certification helped), and even her magic is okay. Not being weighed down by Bolganone is fun. My best tank and very versatile with her combination of axes and reason spells; Luna is a nice pickup, too.
Byleth: Edelgard but with worse power/bulk (and speed, though that's RNG) and no Luna. Unlike Edelgard she doesn't feel that useful, though is the second person I tap if I need to bait a dangerous-looking physical formation.
Hubert: Mire is 3 range which is fast enough to not be doubled by many archers, very flexible. His Frozen Lance hits quite hard, especially with the Lance of Ruin in a pinch. Accuracy is something he needs (outside of Fire), he often uses the Accuracy Ring. My only unit who hasn't learned Heal, but has Rally Magic instead (more useful than normal, this playthrough!).
Dorothea: Thoron, Physic, Hexblade, and high charm to land magical gambits with are all good, as usual. She decided to get RNG-blessed on magic as well so is really good, pretty easily my best unit except Edelgard (who is different).
Linhardt: Also got very RNG-blessed in both magic and speed, which makes him more useful than normal! But since his charm is garbage I've largely stuck him with the Stride battalion, limiting his offence. Has had Physic since early, though, and is accurate, and will get Warp pretty soon.
Sylvain: Was supposed to play a tanking role with Black Magic Avoid, but he got defence-screwed so that didn't work as I'd like. Since he also got charm-screwed there wasn't much reason to keep using him over other mages, even though he had Physic... his magic is just too much lower.
Constance: Not too much to say about her, she hits hard (with either spells or Soulblade) but has few tricks. Rally Magic for a time, though I've since shuffled that out now that I have Heal and Ward to give her plenty to do when enemies aren't in range.
Hapi: Has 3 range, though unlike others she can't use it on enemy phase much because of what it does to her speed. Her stat build isn't too hot and I'd like a magical combat art but Death + Physic is a solid combo. She'll probably be my Dancer because of the riding boon, but I haven't decided for sure.
Lysithea: As usual, very versatile offensively: Luna is great against mages and pegasi, Seraphim against monsters, Dark Spikes against cavalry. Probably uses her magic combat art the least just because Dark Spikes hits about as hard anyway (for now). So far she's been pretty limited in what she can do if no enemy is in her range, but she's about to get Warp so that will change.
Marianne: Thoron for reach, Physic for healing, Frozen Lance for melee, a solid charm stat... plenty to like here, even if she's been playing catchup and won't have Fiendish Blow for a bit longer still.
Mercedes: I got her a bit later (like Marianne, I just got her to B support then rolled the dice on her asking me to join), so she's missing Draw Back, but she still has Physic and decent stats. Doesn't stand out at all and probably one of my weaker units as such (really wants HP+5 for her tanking role), but good enough to stay on the team.
I'm looking forward to Linhardt, Lysithea, and Constance picking up Warp/Rescue! This playthrough has definitely highlighted that Draw Back, while good, is not as good as Reposition, so I do want more positioning options.
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Plugged in the GameCube again and resumed my Tales of Symphonia completion file. The in-game Synopsis option actually helped for remembering just where the hell I was in the story. Being an action-RPG and not having touched it in over 6 months, I was prepared to get my ass handed to me at least once by a kung-fu summon spirit and its hurricane kicks, NG+ bonuses or not. Succeeded on first attempt, shockingly though the fight did suck a few items and one death. Gnome somehow went even better despite me still feeling out of practice. No deaths, no items used, 10.00 Grade so the game thinks I did well. I'm doing this file for 98% completion (that last 2% is too much of a hassle) and there are moments that I'd like to turn on auto for all 4 characters and let the game play itself. Think I'm getting old. AI isn't really up to it in tough bossfights though.
While I find Sheena OK as a character (about 5/10), good god she's awful as a fighter. Reach so short there's a decent chance of whiffing even right next to the enemy. Comparable to Noel of Star Ocean 2 which is not a compliment. Feels like I'm handicapping myself every time I use her and the game has a lot of fights where she's forced so urgh.
And feel like writing about some of my small quibbles about the game. One is not having full control over what ingredients to use during cooking. Gets annoying when trying to preserve ingredients for certain recipes that end up being used in others as add-ons that I can't turn off. The other is no in-gmae means of documenting the special Unison Attack combos. So it's either get lucky, experiment with every possible combo out of thousands, memorization, and/or use a FAQ. As this is a mechanic that sees use about once every 2-5 randoms and 1-2 times per boss fight, not that much room for experimentation. Also a minor inconvenience that there is no way to check the status of the Unison Attack bar outside of battle.
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Trials of Mana (original version) finished!
So this definitely shares a lot of DNA in both successes and issues with Secret of Mana, and where they overlap I think SoM actually comes out ahead? SoM has a bit less backtracking which helps its map issues stand out less, the sprite work is a bit clearer and more interesting, and I think the fixed party does make the difficulty in SoM feel a bit more even, particularly the early game while you're getting abilities in ToM. The main area ToM comes out ahead where they overlap is fewer "you can't hit the boss sorry" issues by a big margin.
Where they diverge though Trials wins like every single time. I can see liking ability/weapon grind but god damn is selecting a party and having the class upgrades just much more interesting (albeit jeez the promo item for tier three is handled not great.) Neither game has a good plot but that bit in the dead center of ToM where holy shit all the plots have collided is pretty cool. Insofar as either cares about characters all six PCs in ToM feel like they have SOMETHING, whereas Randy is a bit of a void and Popoi is... there 90% of the time. Purim of course would be better for not being straight but oh well.
Honestly what struck me towards the end of ToM is jeez, no wonder everyone loves the remake of it so much. You could be very faithful to the overall design conceits and plot and simply clean up the gameplay, tweak how some things are handled, and flesh out the plot and get something REALLY GOOD, whereas a faithful SoM remake is... just a bigger and cleaner version of SoM. I dunno that I'm invested enough in either of these to pick up the ToM remake, but I respect it sight unseen I think.
Anyway this version is a 6/10 I guess? That feels right.
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Final Fantasy Adventure- it was bothering me not having this collection knocked out so did this over the weekend.
Gosh, NES type sprites are helped quite a bit by the black and white format? It's quite a solid looking game. Also has that very old school thing where sometimes it'll just go extra hard on tragedy and stuff because it's drawing pretty heavily from short, punchy D&D adventure module type story telling and that has a way of translating decently well to 8-bit era game scripts.
That the game expects you to get very, very lost all the time is uh... well not surprising but also like hell I'm not deleting that with the advantages of modern technology. I've played a lot of more annoying games from taht general era though, weirdly. Still a 5/10 mind, but hey, better than I expected.
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Microsoft Solotaire collection
Go ahead and laugh, I play this. Well, played. Seems that since the last time I dipped into this, the periodic ads are now present in every game mode instead of just some of them. Ugh, yuck. That's enough to tip me over into quitting.
Tales of Smash Symphonia
Picked up a tagalong kid. In a shocking twist, said tagalong kid actually listens to the party's suggestion to not follow them into dangerous areas and is not useless. Give the test tube bastard child of the Penguin and the Joker a well deserved beating. An emotional scene (for me) soon follows and it's a part I don't look forward to on replays.
Another thing I don't look forward to, Proto-Flonne stating the obvious and standing around doing nothing. This is about the only way she annoys me; she's generally entertaining, sympathetic, or likeable otherwise.
Finish a dungeon with an aggravating escort mission. At least I don't need to worry about keeping the escortee alive. Dodged every encounter before the boss fight so happy about that. (I do fight one or two on purpose on the way out) The last of the summon spirits doesn't go so well, ended fight with Lloyd down. This is OK for me for the purposes of evening out EXP; I'm kind of odd that I prefer the main character to not be the highest leveled.
After this comes the most filler of filler dungeons. Capping off with a boss fight with someone with Samus' arm cannon but way less cool. I dared try to do this without Raine and while I succeeded, it was a messy win with negative Grade to show for it.
On to disc 2 and it starts with a surprise. A surprise by RPG standards anyways. Some good story stuff here which I enjoyed more than the last 3-4 dungeons leading up to it. Presea is my favorite PC because she takes care of what looks like another filler boss battle via cutscene instead. This is part of a long story stretch without any combat and I'm OK with it. Seems like I can only take so much Smash in a playing session.
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Brigandine
After I wrapped up my Mana Saleesia playthrough I was worried the game didn't have enough teeth to remain fun. Playing Guimoule dispelled my concerns. Constant aggression is a lot easier when 1) you have Rudo on your side and not against you and 2) you don't start the game bordering Norzaleo. I think I lost more fights in the two castles on the Guimoule/Norzaleo border than I did in my entire first two campaigns, and even the wins took real work.
The AI still can't handle aggression on the strategic map, but on the tactical level those were some very engaging fights.
Highlight: Conquered the Shinobi capital with Eliza's team, but at the cost of Sugar and Kate getting wounded. Rather than stop my attacks for an entire turn, I risked trying to solo the final Shinobi province with Eliza and managed to pull it off.
On the one hand, I do agree that Eliza feels less impactful than Rubino or, certainly, Rudo. On the other hand, she was the only knight I had who didn't seem to lose repeatedly and her team did almost all the conquering - 50% of Shinobi, 100% of Mirelva, 100% of Gustava, finishing off Mana Saleesia. Darian folded to status effects trying to lead a push into Norzaleo, got the Brigandine of Freedom, and then folded to warp. Muah and Cain got bloodied on the Norzaleo border, too, before being transferred to more productive areas. The rest muddled through against Mana Saleesia mostly by outlasting them and waiting for the AI to make poor summoning choices; even then I wasn't able to close the deal until Eliza's team got through Mirelva and attacked Rudo's final stronghold.
It feels like Guimoule has a bunch of "pretty good" knights, few who are terrible but none who dominate. Which isn't a great place to be when you get to pick 90% of your battles.
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I dealt with MS by: A: sticking Dark Knight Darian on Alternia (awful town that borders Guimoule/Gustava/Shinobi, you get constantly attacked there) and B: having the troops on my southern border constantly attack, take a castle and then retreat back the next month. MS can't afford to lose any knights at all and it's easy EXP for weak troops.
Not having Rudo/Kyle be a constant headache is the best part of playing as MS.
Darian getting hit with Dimension is bad luck, unless it's either Tim or that obnoxious Mana Blessed L10 demon Gustava starts with. That said I agree with the general critiques of Guimoule, they are my least favorite country to play as. I'm doing a playthrough of them right now.
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So I finally got around to finishing the main plot of Disgaea 5. Standard Disgaea fare, absolutely ridiculous numbers available early (though not early enough). This was a case where I picked up a file that I started five years ago, and I'd forgotten several of the plot beats until I looked them up. This particular game suffers a *lot* from the story being too long, kind of if a Tales game had its filler third of the game right in the 3/6-5/6 point.
Killia - Bog standard protagonist. Fists and Swords are both good, and getting a skill that lets him have some range on his skills with fists, while picking up a few single target nukes way later on. Gimmick: stress eating. Afraid of his anger issues. He doesn't have very much past, "I want revenge, gotta get stronger, gotta keep my evil side suppressed." Eventually it changes to "I accept my evil side, and I want to stop others from being hurt." He almost seemed like he'd be getting over Lieze, and then Void Dark brings her back for a happily ever after out of nowhere. Just a generally forgettable character.
Seraphina - She's the driving force of the game, and the main reason the heroes are able to do anything at all. She left home because she was protesting an arranged marriage to the main villain, and instead ran away to go assassinate him. I'm going to be completely honest. She gets a lot of my ire probably undeserved, because she's a fairly strong character in her own right. She just has the issues of me seeing her being a more tropey version of Rosalin from D2, and her character chapter not really doing much for her in terms of character growth, AND said chapter coming in a point where I was already suffering from story pacing fatigue. "Nooooo, I don't want to be poor!... Wait, I don't give a shit about that." She's all guns guns guns and damage, and a little bit of turn stun with charm on male units. She honestly makes it work, since being out of range of counters with her durability is a very, very good thing.
Red Magnus - This is a character that... I don't remember much of! Seeing as when I picked the game back up I was already in Chapter 8, the very next chapter was Red Magnus's character growth, and he didn't do very much after that, aside from saying "SUPER" as his verbal tic. Axes may be strong, but none of his moves felt like they had the power or range to really justify using any of them. He wound up staying in the Capture Squad after that.
Christo - Probably the best written character in the game. Starts out trying to manipulate the party into killing Void Dark for him. Over the course of the game, he has his preconceived beliefs constantly challenged, and while he's frustrating and often showing off his racism to demons, he DOES get to a point that he's willing to consider this little dysfunctional group his allies and, more importantly, his friends. In fact, his first real friends since he never really got to a point where he made attachments to anyone in Celestia. I do like the running joke that everyone already knows that Christo is an angel, but goes along with his bad attempts to masquerade as a demon. So in combat... Staves and Bows. He comes with a Bow, but I stuck a Staff on him and found I did fine between him learning the first three levels of Heal and his uniques.
Usalia - Hey, video game writers. Need an example of a well written child character? Here you go. With (or despite) the writing... Strength... Of this cast, she immediately improves the quality of any scene she's in, even more than Christo... Though I still say Christo is the better character. Starts out a monster that you have to feed curry to restore her to her normal form. Come to find out Majorita murdered her parents and she's at wits end because she can't eat her favorite food, and has to eat her most hated food to keep a curse at bay. Really a scared little girl under all the cute. Gets her power up once she realizes that yes, her parents really did love her after Marjorita attacked. She's the token Monster-class story PC, which means she can Magichange into a Fist. Combos really well with Killia.
Zeroken - Former member of the Lost. Jealous of Killia because he got to train under Goldion directly, but he gets better. Not very smart, but decently strong and very fast. He's written to be kind of... Softly blunt, just in a way that I like dealing with people. Unfortunately, due to training mostly the same way as Killia, he's built the same way, which means they're competing for weapons for a while. Zeroken is better with AoEs, but by the time you unlock the really good ones, you have enough AoEs that he somewhat falls short of the things you'd really like him to do. The last AoE he gets is a little awkward as well, though the range is pretty wide.
I feel like for in-game use, it's... Killia > Seraphina > Christo > Usalia > Zeroken > Red Magnus...
...For character writing: Christo >= Usalia > Zeroken > Killia > Red Magnus, with Seraphina going I don't know where under Usalia, because I have to admit I'm rating her unfairly.
Finished the game with a Sage at level 800 spamming Land Destroyer every turn to build up Bonus Gauge, then a L2000 Killia cleaning up the rest. Got the trophy for getting 50 One Time Bonuses on the same stage as killing the final boss.
Just starting to get into the Postgame now, and I already have Killia at 4K, and a Rabbit at 3.5K.
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Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory- I apparently put 19 hours into this. Also I think this is the only 2020 game I've played.
Anyway, missed 4 of the missions (out of uh... 354 or something), one for one of the Vanitas themes, one on Vector to the Heavens, and two on One-Winged Angel. The Vanitas mission is particularly demanding, as is Vector to the Heavens, and OWA is probably the third-hardest (13th Dilemma and Dark Domination being much meaner) song in the game to start with and has easily the hardest mission list on top of that, so no surprise there.
So, this is a Theatrhythm game. Like, openly, it's not called that and they've changed the presentation/terminology and mixed up the song types but in terms of how it handles unlocks, how it does scoring, it's from the same developer, it's really obviously a fourth entry in that series on top of being a Kingdom hearts game. *in that light*, it's... a smoother play experience in the actual songs themselves I think, the quirks adapting it to Kingdom hearts introduced make some things make more sense in actual play. It's also simplified in terms of party building, which I could see being a turnoff. The biggest thing is, unlocks are really, really slow to account for the story mode and missions. The missions themselves aren't meant to be hard, and are often a bit tedious, BUT they do add some spice in a few cases. But mostly you just have to unlock songs one by one, and you don't really have any control over the order of it, so in that way it's a lot slower than even the original Theatrhythm. Buuut "unlocking" also just means clearing once on any difficulty to add it to the free play mode, and the mid-game does let you unlock a whole bunch at once becase CoM and Days are both lumped in with KHII so you can unlock like 20 songs all at once once you actually clear out KH1.
... that's rambly. Anyways, I feel like this game for someone who's not a KH diehard would suffer a bit for the story mode existing, but once you can actually GET TO the full game you'd probably have fun with it if you liked Theatrhythm to start with.
Since I'm both of those it's still pretty good, but also it can just hate you sometimes. This does feel a bit behind Curtain Call for all that so... 7/10 but y'know I've played worse rhythm games in recent memory.
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Talking about Three Houses plot made me realize that I need to play Three Houses some more.
Three Houses - Since it's been literal months in 2020 I decided I wasn't ready to play Maddening yet so I decided to do No Flying Ever on Azure Moon (also because I missed Annette's paralogue last time TALK TO YOUR DAUGHTER GILBERT FFS ahem). This has also been the most restrained I've been on recruitment so far (this is also the first run I've done where I've elected to go without Thyrsus, for instance) and I've still managed to screw up on getting a non-consolation prize Byleth build because I am terrible at planning and have strange goals sometimes.
Team as of present (going into C12):
Byleth - Literally ran into this without a plan so just farting around to get Sacred Power for the time being, who knows, maybe I'll full stupid and ram her into Bow Knight for giggles but that'll probably fall short at the last minute.
Dimitri - Cavalier -> Paladin. Probably going to try the Battalion Vantage/Wrath combo and then curse my own stupidity when I replenish it by accident. Obviously with no wyvern on the table I didn't really feel like taking the plunge on a brigand detour for Death Blow. Speed was starting off a little worrisome but being ahead on his monstrous strength made it not matter as much and he managed to turn it around. HP could be a bit better but otherwise shaping up wonderfully.
Dedue - Brigand -> Warrior. Warrior is just so I'd have him in something by the time he comes back for the sake of doing it, he's definitely not turning out well enough for him to be anything other than adjutant bait at this point
Felix - Archer -> Sniper. Super glassy, 2 HP above class base and basically nothing else defensively. Speed's a bit low too. That said, 2nd highest strength behind Dimitri makes it really hard to care right now. Headed straight for Bow Knight of course.
Mercedes - Mage -> Warlock, the standard go to Gremory plan. Will probably monopolize Caduceus unless Dorotha needs to Thoron something a bit further off.
Ashe - Archer -> Sniper. Gained as much magic as he has strength and also has gained all of two points of charm, one of which was from a tea party. Yeah he's getting the bench soon.
Annette - Mage -> Warlock, somehow not only my fastest mage so far but one of my fastest non-Petra/Catherine people. Naturally this happened on the playthrough where I ban wyvern. I haven't used the boots yet but if this holds then BOLT AXE might actually be a plan anyways. Assuming I feel like having her hog the March Ring while I'm at it anyways.
Sylvain - Brigand -> Paladin. Thought it'd be funny to have Ingrid's str/speed growths at first but seemed to shrug and go eh effort and fall off some. Lance of Ruin still good though so we'll see if he can turn it around. Had toyed with the idea of eventual Dark Knight but since he gained all of two points of magic that plan obviously isn't happening now.
Ingrid - Brigand -> Paladin. Thought it'd be funny to have Sylvain's str/speed growths at first but then settled out to saying por que no los dos? Paid for it in defense, which actually needed some fixing because I'm not touching flying so no Alert Stance, but hey Death Blow means her player phase is closer to Dimitri's than anyone else's (except Felix as mentioned) even without Luin.
Ferdinand - Dancer because I like the guy and want to use him. Also not choosing to go the evade tank route with Dimitri means Ferdie gets the job by default.
Dorothea - Mage -> Warlock. One day I'll get a Dorothea with bad magic. But it is not this day. Will probably get the boots if Annette doesn't want to continue cooperating.
Bernadetta - Brigand -> Sniper. Mostly here in case I need to use Encloser on something post-timeskip (probably incredibly likely). Axe detour for Death Blow is painful but as has been mentioned getting good use out of Bernie is an eternal puzzle and the answers seem to occur arbitrarily and at random and getting better chip damage is at least something. Will also probably head for Bow Knight due to being here more for Encloser than actual offense.
Petra, Lysithea, and Marianne are around as filler in case I need to replace someone along with the usual Church suspects. Seteth is banned because I can't be assed to put in the effort to switch him to Paladin because of the riding weakness due to starting wyvern and Cyril is banned due to being Cyril.
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Note: With questing knights, they are hugely influenced based on when they join and the fact that LoR is a game that moves at a far faster pace than regular Brig. Even six seasons in you will have gotten a lot of EXP on your units and have less reason to replace them at that point. It isn't 100% to get these knights either; their first recruit date is just the first possible month to get them. LoR also has adjusted stats for knights in general. In LoF, it was pretty uncommon for high level knights to have good stats; usually the Alsace/Kiloph types were much more common than Bilcock types. In LoR the reverse is true (I am guessing as a way to balance the faster levels+dual classing nonsense in LoF). I am very underwhelmed with quest knights as a result.
Best Knight: Yuiri and it's not close.
Worst Knight: Anemone. She's as good as Ginger on paper but whoof to her join requirement.
Unless you are playing as MS or just need a warm body, you aren't going to get a ton of use out of the Knights here. I don't think any of them are a good as Cortina, though Yuiri isn't too far off.
Alejandro-5- Solid filler for when he joins. His STR is above average for the a Ranger, but it's not as good as Tommy or Noll's. Rune isn't great which is pretty discouraging; you'd better be Tommy or Ivona if you want to get a high rating with bad rune.
Amelia- 1- Good stats for a healer, but she's still a healer and not worth the effort to really level up as she joins several seasons in. Her starting rune is appallingly bad which sinks her.
Anemone- 0- Similiar to Rain in that the joining requirements render them useless. She doesn't join until "Quest after season 9 with a Rune Knight with 300+ Rune Power." If you have the ability to send Knight with 300 Rune questing, you have already won the game.
Augustus- 3- Really bad Rune but has a decent class and INT. Makes for okay filler in the midgame.
Ba Jera- 1- Only joins after Shinobi has fallen. Basically only one country has the ability going to be able to get her in a reasonable time (Guimoule) and they are not going to have spare knights if they're going after Talia early due to the extra borders. Statwise she's pretty good, but still inferior to Carla and Emma.
Ba'al- 3.5- Project knight with awful rune (144) at the start. Ba'al gets good later on but he is a very slow starter due to the Rune and taking a few months to join. Bad agility means you really want to turn him down the swordsman path. I've used him and he's good, but it's just not worth the effort you have to put in to catch him up.
Dyzenys- 1- Requires going down to three castles or less to recruit him. Not worth it. He's quite powerful but you are better off just advancing instead.
Hughes- 2- Thieves honor the OG scrub thieves from FF1; they are unusuably bad until promotion. By the time you get him to Ranger, you will be at or near L20 for knights on your main attack team and a good portion of the way into the game. He is likely the worst of the thieves on stat build/level too even ignoring that. *Flush*. He's a decent quester if you get him from another country as the AI will get him to L10 for you. Note that this rating is factoring in just how much I like Ranger and Treasure hunter; if you aren't fans of that class they flirt with Cyrustastic scores.
Lionel- 2- Unlike Hughes he has excellent rune, but the same problems apply with thieves being worthless and it taking too long to get him to Ranger. He also has less STR at L30 than Tommy has at L10 (and the same STR as Noll's starting level) which is just embarrassing.
Kara- 1. 138 starting Rune is beyond sad. I really like minstrels but this is unacceptable on a class that requires an an immense amount of effort to hit level 10. Her other stats are pretty meh too, in case she needed more problems.
Durius-0.5- Oh boy, it's the usual scrub Bishop who joins several seasons in! Of note here is that he has 10 less INT than Avenir and Lorzeno, neither of whom are any good.
Malek- 2.5- Ugh. He joins at a reasonable level for the time and while his class sucks, at least it's not at a low level. I'd rate him higher, but A: his rune is kind of bad and B: His stats are bad until you trigger his stat up quest. He's decent if you can get him to champion but odds are you won't unless you put him on a main attacking team.
Matthias- 6.5- Great quester and filler for the late game. Wizard's a solid class and he has Necro Rebirth as well. I'm much more inclined to forgive bad rune on a badass class rather than on the usual Bishop or Grappler.
Seth- 6- Good enough midgame filler. The fact that I give him a 6 and Malek a 2.5 shows how much I respect swordsmen vs how little I respect grapplers. Though Seth is better at STR/AGI anyway because well, Grapplers suck.
Shiane-1.5 - Joins at L8 as a Lancer six seasons into the game and is unremarkable across the board on stats. Nope.
Shu Fen- 3- Clerics are pretty bad. She has no ability to actually get kills until L10 or changing her class; it means you are stuck with the basic level 1 healer class for far too long. Dual classing her has some value but it still requires a lot of effort for a not amazing payoff. That said I was overjoyed when I got her as MS, as she was much better in combat than Gilliam or Cyrus or Allen and *punts MS*. The payoff late is nice if you use her, but bleh.
Tilda- 3- She's okay. She joins early enough to be useful in spite of the level and she can get kills from the start. Really bad Rune at the start hurts a fair bit and she's just not great on stats either. But a sorcercess does have use.
Yuiri-8- Joins as a useful class at a useful level and has pretty decent stats to boot. She's probably the second best Archer in the game behind Elena.
Tomas-6.5- Really good stats once he gets his quest stat boost; second best swordsman in the game behind Sid. He does join 7 seasons in which is annoying, but the payoff is excellent if you stick to it. Tomas joins at a high enough level that you can use him immediately, unlike Ba'al or Shu Fen. Not being able to reliably get him and getting him later really hurts his score; I'd probably give him an 8 if not for that.
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Celestian Tales 2 (Realms Beyond): Finished.
This isn't a good game. It has bugs, isn't too visually appealing, and the combat seems like a clunky continuation of the original's without much added. I still enjoyed playing it because I had really grown to like the cast and this game delivered more of them. With drama.
Lots of drama.
(Spoilers for the original game follow).
The game picks up where the last one left off, plus 9 years. The group has spent the intervening time effectively ruling Levant and the ~1/3rd of the realm that accompanies it. They've raised the young lady Levant in a happy home. The cast is scarred by the experiences they had (especially Lucienne and Camille) but they are pushing forward and fulfilling their dreams of making the Old North a better place. The cast dynamics really feel like they've become a family, with refreshing male/female friendships that don't force a layer of romance.
Then Very Bad Things Happen.
[The ruse behind little Alanna's birth is discovered by the subterfuge of Aria's nefarious family. Lady Sophia and Camille's brother Daniel are promptly executed by hanging, and everyone comes to view the main 6 heroes as villains responsible for the death of the realm's true hero Sevarin. They are stripped of their nobility and rendered commoners. They have to desperately struggle to find a place to go after losing the home they've had for a decade. Lucienne is furious at the now-dead Levants for making her betray her beloved uncle, and Camille is crushed by her brother's death and the realization the weight of 10 years of holding the secret. Aria is distraught over her (former) family's machinations, including the use of her beloved little sister as a seductress to get a crucial piece of evidence.
The group stays with Alanna and tries to find her a place to stay, but they can't make anything work and things get fraught as Lucienne starts demonstrating open hostility towards the girl, with nothing else to vent her anger at it. But Alanna has a spine of steel after having been raised by the band, and she keeps the band together through some timely words. The group eventually settles on a plan to take the long abandoned lands of Sophia's original family, using Alanna (who was held as innocent and allowed to retain her noble status). They start rebuilding, but there is a pretty big wound on the group, notably Lucienne is only around out of a sense of a sense of familiarity and a fear of walking away. The game's final arc involves defeating an ancient monster in the forest by getting together lords of the realm, effectively giving the chance for the group to do some real heroics even if they won't be as renowned for it. Ironically, this is the exact same heroics that Sevarin and Yliasse's father did before.
For all that I really enjoyed the story, the game's half-baked nature weigh it down painfully. The cast starts at level 40 and outside of one or two parts random enemies can be wiped out with a round of MT damage, Camille and Ylianna being ridiculously good at killing things (Camille got a massive bump up). The game had a good idea to split the cast a bunch (with good reasons specific to each PC given) but didn't capitalize on that with gameplay, as bosses and randoms get stomped into the ground. There are very few new locations (really those are just saner redesigns from Howl of the Ravager). The game gives you weapons and such by seeming random treasure pickups on the map. There is a half-baked crafting/cooking system that isn't easy to navigate, and the game has a VERY distracting glitch whenever scrolling the weapons menu using that crafting system. Menus are a little painful to navigate and even things like checking what different stats equipment gives you can be a pain. I'm not sure how that all went so wrong.
The game has a few points of challenging gameplay, notably the elven forest. And by 'challenging' I mean "Avoid randoms" as they are far harder than anywhere else and don't give great rewards. Not that the crafting system lets you use rewards that much anyways. There are a few bosses that are challenging, but 3 of them isn't enough. At least it has party-switching. Another bothersome thing is that the game doesn't last long or give you many new abilities to play with, and some of them are repeats of what the cast had from the last game.
The visuals aren't appealing, for all that the art style is unique like in the original. The music is sufficient but not impressive.
As a game it feels half-finished, and as a story it feels like a decent middle entry in a trilogy that will likely never be completed.
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Made progress in Symphonia, more than I'm posting here. Fetch quest portion up and I do mean that literally as the party is out to fetch plot items. One is particularly long. First, the party heads for the isolated elf village. This takes a while because in the process, they end up fetching a different item to enter said village. Once they're in, nope not done. That's just a step so they can enter a completely different area to find the desired plot item.
There's a neat bit of worldbuilding behind the scenes. Just why did the isolated elf village help the party? The game does answer that, though in a hidden scene later that's easy to not trigger. I would not have known about it without an outside source pointing it out.
The following dungeon is the most irritating one for me. Lots of steps especially to get all the treasure, annoying timing tasks, and plenty of encounters that are difficult to dodge. There's a boss fight too as well as a fairly tough optional one so the group is rather beat up by the time they're done. I do better than normal avoiding encounters only getting into 3-4 randoms overall.
Fairly smooth after that. Win an optional plot fight for the first time ever. Only one death and one Orange Gel used and high Grade so that was cool. Slippery ice puzzles are less fun. Lots of plot stuff. I got the special Zelos variant of a big reveal scene, a pleasant surprise as even though I was specifically aiming for him for Flaenor (and using a FAQ to do so), I forgot to do both of his sidequests that boost his affection before this point.
Flaenor is one of the parts I was looking forward to the most this playthrough. New content for me as I've never seen Zelos' scenes there (and by extension, the later ones). It does reveal more about him than surface appearances suggest. The other part I wanted to get to were costume titles that I couldn't get last playthrough. I now have all the formal wear titles and with some affection manipulation all but Genis has a swimwear title. (I'll get his on the 3rd playthrough which is necessary for a complete item collection) I'm not sure I'll complete the item list but I do plan to build a file where it's possible.
Costumes are amazingly fun to play with and goofing around with them does add enjoyment, especially on replay. It is admittedly a factor in what would get me to try another Tales game.
I do some fighting in the colloseum for glory and prizes. Mostly prizes. Presea conquers Beginner singles, a task only complicated by going for her Fragile Shield title so she was a low HP most of the time. Regal took the glory for Intermediate. I used an awkward set of moves that don't link very well so wasn't very successful at comboing but was enough. Zelos took out Advanced because I wanted the prize for the next dungeon. I did it at Lv 54 which is a lot lower than the FAQs suggest. As much as I like to joke around about sucking at the game, I guess that's a false claim. Understanding and manipulating the AI makes a big difference. (I've done it at Lv 52 but don't really get additional satisfaction from doing so; would rather have more HP/TP)
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https://brigandine.happinet-games.com/producerletter/15/?lang=en
Both the new monsters are quite good, but the big draw of this is the challenge settings. Yay infinite time!
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Three Houses - Finished No Flying Ever. Enbarr is a fun time filled with friends if you have less than 29 AS and can't take a hit (and sometimes even when you have more than 29 AS) which describes... way too much of what I had.
Dimitri - Of course who cares when you have noted strong boy just delete everything on enemy phase. Getting the setup was annoying since he ended up defense blessed (and getting battalion durability down isn't very compatable with his post-timeskip passive) and of course this does nothing against balistas/their cousins and you typically can't crit monsters when they have their armor up so there's a limit to how much I can really like this over the dodgetank build but seriously, fuck Bolting assholes.
Byleth - Went Bow Knight after all. Not very good without grabbing Death Blow but since she wound up one of my slowest units -anyways- it's not like she would've been in any danger of outperforming Bernie.
Felix - Or him. Maintained Dimitri-level strength so who needs Death Blow anyways right, speed picked up towards the end. Remained very frail, worst among the non-mages and borderline OHKO'd by the flame orb on Ch22 among other things.
Sylvain - Did not, in fact, turn it around. Actually would've benched except there's this funny thing with Enbarr where Dimitri and Byleth are forced on opposite ends of the map, so I wanted someone with Dimitri who actually could use a battalion with a Retribution gambit because fuck ranged units so it was either someone with a D-rank battalion on Ch21 (lol) or someone else who could use Indech Sword Fighters without hamstringing themselves. Was mostly useless outside of Swift Strikes/Lance of Ruin on PP (seriously don't do Paladin unless you can actually afford not to care) but eh.
Mercedes - Actually wound up the weakest mage offensively but who really cares at that point.
Annette - Didn't actually remain fastest mage, unsurprisingly, but still managed to tie Dorothea in at the end. Actually ran axe Annette for a bit, obviously not a good idea without a wyvern (and I forgot to use the boots at all) since the killer damage is melee (and vOmIT tIEr AcCUrAcY lol god dammit why did i read that series of threads this is why i don't tend to interact with the fanbase) and BOLT AXE is sad with its 15 Wt when you realize you could've spent that time getting Black Range +1 instead but since I had actually-kind-of-good Annette I wanted to do it for laughs.
Ingrid - Remained overall solid but never really exceptional, which of course has to mean she was the third unit of three I could trust to not totally choke and die when faced with more than one enemy.
Dorothea - Space rocks, physic, you know the drill.
Bernadetta - Wound up with 52 HP for some reason, also took the place of fastest non-Petra/Catherine PC so she could actually double things that weren't armored and not get doubled by things like wyvern lords, amazing. Managed to delete one of the husk's HP bars with relative safety and we are all very proud.
Ferdinand - Danced and sometimes dodgetanked. Had no offense but couldn't die obvously.
Petra - Assassin after a bit of messing around. Actually wound up pretty decent but with Dimitri being the center of attention this time around, well. Also all the horses. Can't forget the horses.
Catherine - Also Assassin after a lot of just using her as filler, basically the same as Petra.
Probably some route on Maddening next, see what the life there is like.
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Dragon Quest 11 - In Act 2, party size just got up to seven.
The game goes on. It's not bad but 100% a game I'd be happier with if it were half the length. I feel like in order for me to like a game this long, it has to have a good plot. DQ11... really does not. It really doesn't even try. And that's okay, to be clear, for a shorter game. As is, meh.
Gameplaywise it remains pretty fun, although the start of act 2 obviously slowed things down a bit; the game definitely does best when things like party switching are an option (also fewer AI-controlled PCs). Though I will give game credit for having some pretty solidly-designed battles for solo+guest here and there, particularly some of the arena fights and the first Spectral Sentinel (though I'd fall short of outright praise of them since the bosses wasting turns attacking your invincible allies definitely adds an RNG element to the fights).
Randoms are pretty enjoyable. Bosses I kinda felt like were lagging a bit; after Khalamari 2.0 (who was kinda terrifying, four actions and "shakes the deck" being MT damage + turn cancel is potentially sick) I found the bosses had settled into a nice routine of "it's Dragon Quest, I can keep everyone alive if I play right". But the last few bosses (particiularly Alizirin featuring the return of "shakes the deck" and Gyldigga) have really started amping up damage output in a big way, forcing me into intense juggling acts of managing buffs, debuffs, and the fact that certain allies may die / be stunned / etc. Still a bit RNG but enjoyable enough. I didn't realize how much design space was opened up by letting Dragon Quest be free of its addiction to dispel-happy bosses, it's great (the only dispel I can recall so far was on a ST move which usually KOed me anyway. The best form of dispel is death, it appears).
That said I'd obviously have more praise for a more interesting turn system or less RNG gameplay overall. Dragon Quest is never gonna be a favourite for me for gameplay (and don't get me started on menus or sound or writing; in particular I could talk about how the game seems aggressively conservative at times but this post is long enough already) but this one is definitely doing a decent job at the style of gameplay it goes for. This is what I wanted from DQ9.
Brigandine 2 - Mana Saleesia playthrough, getting near the end. I'll say more when I'm done.
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Maddening Classic, Edelgard and Hubert only run – Currently in Chapter 10.
Edelgard is a Wyvern Rider with Death Blow, Darting Blow, and very high strength. Hubert is a Dancer for the increased move with high Magic and Frozen Lance. Both are around level 24. Byleth is treated as a Convoy, like FE6 Merlinus if he could only take one hit ever.
Before I started, I identified some sticky points:
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 6, Chapter 9, Chapter 11.
-Chapter 1 Maddening is just a giga pain in the ass, and fewer units further compound this problem. I had a couple of false starts via making some strategic errors, but I ended up doing enough maneuvering and running away to win this fight. I did have one really good stroke of luck in Claude healing himself rather than going for the kill, which was especially hilarious because the heal did not save his life from the next attack.
-Chapter 2 I didn’t end up having any resets on, but I did have to move back and forth across the bridge a couple of times to lure enemies, and I skipped the treasure chest. Money won’t be a big deal on this run, I reasoned, so I didn’t go for it. I was right, incidentally.
-Chapter 6, as you might remember, is the map where Edelgard is missing and you have to either wipe out all of the other enemies or kill the Death Knight. So there are two options, but realistically, Hubert will not be able to kill all of the enemies himself, so killing the Death Knight it is! Hubert is Level 16, so no Paladin with Lancefaire. Sob. Because Lance of Ruin Frozen Lance is short of killing by a magic point or two (and Lance of Ruin Knightkneeler is lolno off of Hubert’s pathetic strength), I go with Killer Lance+ Frozen Lance crit shenanigans, which is obviously not a foolproof strategy. I decide to make him a Cavalier for the Canto and extra move. This takes a bit of tinkering with setup and experimenting. I end up discovering that if you open the door to DK’s room and don’t move in his range, he will not move. So I have to bait him. Great.
Thankfully, Hubert’s speed dismounted from Cavalier is just fast enough that the Death Knight does not double him and Hubert barely doesn’t die in one hit, so my not-very-foolproof strategy is to bait the Death Knight, hope he doesn’t crit, and then hope that Killer Lance+ Frozen Lance crits him. After three tries, I end up baiting the Death Knight and hoping for all to go right. Thankfully it worked on the first try and I didn’t have to do that stupid map again. I didn’t get any of the treasure because Byleth isn’t allowed to get treasure.
Next concern is Chapter 9, since dad likes to kill himself. I ended up not having any resets on this map because of a combination of Reposition, Gambit baiting monsters, Edelgard in Wyvern Rider, and Hubert having Recover to heal dad to prevent him from fucking everything up. I actually even got the Healing Staff! I haven’t gotten many treasure chests this playthrough so it was nice to snag something.
Chapter 11 is of course technically not part of the challenge since Edelgard and Hubert are not present. So I will be recruiting students in Chapter 11 and using them for just that map. Chapter 11 wouldn’t be very hard if I had Edie/Hubie so I'm not gonna sweat it.
We’ll see how the post-TS maps treat me. I’m really not sure.
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Three Houses - Crimson Flower Maddening, started Ch5.
I already see why this gets complaints even without the ninja reinforcement issues, enemy stat bloat is real and not a friend. It's far from the worst I've seen, of course, but the first three chapters in particular have some particularly harsh inverted difficulty curve energy. (Granted Ch3 is mostly because of FOG. Did you know vision range with a fresh torch is 7 squares? Because I sure do now, thanks archers.)
Ch1 just sucks, four characters who you can't field and miss out on exp and can't possibly make up for it on the forced auxillary battle in Ch2 because of Maddening's exp curve is gross on principle even before what Maddening does to the map itself, existant crit rates across the board is just gross.
Ch2 is somewhat better, but even without making things (probably) harder on myself than I needed to by forgetting I could unequip people baiting archers into range you still have four people with base stats so that's annoying all things considered. I don't think I actually reset on it though.
Ch3 is just terrible before the fog is removed and I'm sure my saying this is utterly shocking. Green units get buffed by Maddening too and it still somehow doesn't save them from being some of the worst green units ever no I'm not mad because one of them got crit twice on a 3% chance. I wind up unable to get Petra, Caspar, and Sylvain to Lv5 before the end which ends up being an annoyance in Ch4.
Ch4 is... honestly fine? Would've been better if I didn't split the team in a weird way and wasn't trying to baby people to get them into real classes and if SOME PEOPLE would actually bother to gain RES. Resets there pretty much due to bad plays.
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Three Houses Edelgard and Hubert only -
So Chapter 12 was relatively easy, but had some tricky parts. I give Edelgard Cichol Wyverns and Hubert Supreme Armored Company to up his durability and give him a good Gambit. Edie is a Wyvern Lord and Hubert is a Dancer. I ended up timing out the first part of the map, which causes peg knight reinforcements to appear. Because Edelgard is overleveled, she can one shot with Smash, and otherwise I used thicket + Dismount + Killer Axe to try to take them out with a crit. Otherwise there was some tricky stuff to maneuver around like reinforcements that I ended up avoiding at the beginning, but overall not too bad.
Chapter 13 was fast but pretty hard. I ended up using two shots of Aymr to get to and kill Judith on Turn 3 before the reinforcements appeared; I felt under a lot of pressure to beat the map quickly because there is just a lot of stuff going on and it’s hard to protect Hubert (and Byleth) from harm for very long because I don’t have the usual arsenal of people to take out the enemies. I decided to keep a save file after this map just in case using the two shots was too much to handle later.
Chapter 14 was tricky and I had several resets on it. My first approach was to try to take out the Bow Knights on the right coming from the ship, which was very challenging but I ended up fighting off the swarms of Wyverns + the Bow Knights with a few shots of DP. But then… the reinforcements from from the city pincered me; some came from the bottom and others came from the top, and I could not protect Byleth (or Hubert) long enough to pull out the victory and ended up having to reset. Then I tinkered around with killing Claude early (Turn 2 was my goal, since Turn 1 not too much happens). I realized that Stride is very helpful in this and only had to use two shots of Aymr to get to Claude and Killer Axe+ crit him. I had to tinker around a little with the setup but I ended up getting the victory.
Hubert turns into Dark Knight at this point. So that leaves me with one Aymr use for Seteth/Flayn’s map. Despite multiple DPs just to triggering reinforcements at the wrong time, I ended up not having any resets n this map. Hubert is very good at dealing with Armor Knights and using Frozen Lance to one-shot heroes, but otherwise is killed by almost everything. Edie is the workhorse of course, taking many many hits and dodging with Alert Stance+. Discovered that you can not trigger reinforcements in the map but going to the extreme left and was able to trigger them on my own terms rather than at a bad time. Alois firebombed most of his own allies at a certain point which was hilarious. I think we should participate in Internet Disc Horse and call Alois an evil person for this or something.
Anyway, Flayn ended up appearing much lower down that I am used to, in the centre rather than on the side. This is good because as her group sprinted to the defend point, I had time to catch them. I ended up piling my Gambits into the enemies there and using Hubert to bait the mages. I used my last shot of Aymr on an archer who was about to make it to the gate and then moved Edie on the other side of the battle to smite other enemies who are very annoying. The assassins were a big pain in the ass because I didn’t have Edie with Lances; if I hadn’t have won, I would have done a more anti-Assassin build since a lot of the enemies on the map are them.
The defend condition actually mattered with only two people!
I had zero DPs left for this map, but I won!
So next is Arianrhod. Honestly, this is the breather of Part 2; Rodrigue was easy to Brave Axe to death, and Felix died to a couple of Banshees + run away from Hubert. Lots of Armor Knights for Hubert to eat alive as well. I ended up grabbing eight Agarthium after saving up my Gambits to get them from the Golems. Easy peasy map TBH. I had a couple of DPs just tinkering with setup, but otherwise no issue. I didn’t send anyone to the right at all.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eo7shMrUwAQ6gKH?format=jpg)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eo7shMoUcAA7eG1?format=jpg)
Here’s the skill loadout. Yes, Edie has 50 strength. 29 more than Hubert. Amazing.
Last two maps coming up next. My Raging Storm supply is full again!
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Three Houses Edelgard and Hubert only - Finished. I must outwit even death.
Talitean Plains was a bit different than normal. Demonc Beasts are a bit troublesome on this playthrough because it’s much harder to gang up on them, and because these are immune to magic, Hubert can’t damage them. But! Hubert can Banshee them, preventing them from moving, which helped me control them for a couple of turns at least.
I ended up pulling back to the left near the beginning of the map and killing Mercedes and her peg knights first. Killing Mercie stops the tide of peg knights, which I didn’t actually know and is great. I had to do some maneuvering to make sure that Hubert was never hit by a single one or else he would die. Thankfully I was able to do that with the power of Evasion Ring and Alert Stance+. So I killed Mercedes and then went back to the right to kill Sylvain. All of the demonic beasts transformed in the time when I was dicking around, but Rhea didn’t appear. Dedue transformed as well. At this point, I did have to kill one of them. After offing Sylvain, Rhea appeared, and I was able to one-round her with the Brave Axe. I had to dance around the Golem and bait them a few times with Edelgard so they wouldn’t kill Byleth, who was now hiding in the extreme left corner.
I ended up using four Raging Storms to kill Demonic Beast Dedue, and then a couple of turns later killed Dimitri. I fished for the crit on him but didn’t get it, but thankfully he didn’t crit back, nor did he kill me. Hubert finished him off with Frozen Lance.
None of the Demonic Beasts in the upper half of the map were killed except Dedue, and I ended up also abandoning the two Golems. They are just all too big a pain in the neck to bother with.
Final map was a thing. On Turn 1 Edelgard baited the front four enemies with Alert Stance+, and then I killed them and moved onto the Golem. Unlike the Golems on the previous map which I was able to fuck around with and not kill, I had to take out a couple on this map. Thankfully they cannot go down stairs, so I was easily able to mess around with this Golem and kill him. And then there were peg knights. I had some trouble and tinkering with them but ended up beating them after a couple of DP. Probably the biggest difficulty was the area with the Golem at the top of the stairs after Gilbert (who I avoided killing to prevent peg knight spawn from the east/west parts). When you cross the wall, the reinforcements from the south appear. I ended up using one of my shots of Raging Storm here to kill two of them, and then Gambited the rest. Also, lol Holy Knights trying to move through the final map’s terrain.
After this, I killed the Golem, who was a pain in the ass with his like 40 crit after Rhea buffed him a bunch. Once he was felled, all that’s left id Rhea. Now, I need to kill her quickly or else Catherine/Gilbert/Ashe/Annette will be breathing down my throat, so I broke her one turn, Raging Storm x 4 the next, and prayed for crits and not being crit on the third turn. It worked and I won.
Woo hoo!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpArJxuUYAEfIws?format=jpg&name=large)
699 Battles :D
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Brigandine LoR - Mana Saleesia run done. I should definitely upgrade the difficulty because aside from the start things definitely weren't too tough. The start was definitely significantly trickier than my first playthrough, due to having 5 borders at first. Once I wiped out the pirates things got much smoother.
Plotwise you're playing as the villainous theocracy, complete with the cult of personality and re-education camps. That's certainly a thing.
Unit notes:
Rudo: Is busted. I guess it would be nice if his unpromoted form weren't 4 move + melee only but that's pretty standard for his type of knight. Otherwise, hits like a truck and has more mana pool at the start of the game than anyone else got, ever. Also 6 command area, wtf.
Emma: Super rated her well below #2 knight in the country and I don't even especially disagree, but tbh she felt like the only knight besides Rudo who isn't significantly flawed in some way - availability, being stuck with 3 command area, bad mana pool, etc. Nothing about her is bad, and she was rather clearly my second best knight at the end in both mana pool and general use.
Selena: Solid enough mage, then leaves.
Kyle: Good stats and pool out of the gate, drops off as his level advantage erodes. 3 command area is annoying. Still has a good case to be #2 knight in the country, earlygame performance matters a lot, especially on this route.
Monica: Buff and debuff after moving give her some nice flexibility, though 3 command range and average mana pool + slow in-practice levelling speed hurts.
Veyta: I didn't get him until I cleared out the pirates and could start questing without weakening my borders. Still worth using because he only needs to be better than the likes of Gilliam, and his mana pool gets good fast enough for this to be the case. He rarely actually did anything in fights, but he didn't need to.
Gilliam: Starting level is so important in this game, how bad can someone who joins at Level 20 be? About as bad as Gilliam, it turns out.
Other knights I used in respectable filler roles (i.e. they're well above the trashy level of the lower MS knights): Avril, Titania, Jaden, Katri, Frederico, Largo, Lorenzo. Lorenzo and Largo are still pretty bad, but it's all hands on deck. Katri was probably the best of this group (she'd actually be a good unit if her starting mana pool didn't suck), and is the only one who actually reached tier 3. God this country has way too many people with 3 command area.
I mostly used the same sorts of monsters as last time, but fittingly I used angels/seraphs much more (and demons hardly ever). They're solid, not much to say; Holy Word, Divine Ray, and Area Heal are all good in varying ways, even they come with a hefty pool cost.
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Tales of Berseria- Voring back and forth, forever.
So, this does some things that guarantee a certain score. 9/10.
But... hm. I do wonder now, how would I feel about other Tales games, and especially Vesperia? Like... in some ways ToB being a Tales game kinda clashes with what the story is doing. Skits feel like a crutch so the game can be more budget conscious, rather than something that makes sense in the overall structure of the game, ToB needs to lock you into where you're at for a huge chunk of the game which clashes with some of the sidequest structure, just small things like that which don't quite fit what it's doing. But on the other hand, that sense of focus is generally to it's advantage.
I think the main place it fumbles on its own terms, apart from some late game happenings with how the themes are done which I don't want to get into here, is how the battle system shakes out. It's just 100% momentum based and it creates a frustrating amount of dead time I feel like. Like, enemy ambused you? Welp you're not gonna die but also you're gonna eat up 2-3 minutes just fishing for a stun or status landing so you can actually start a proper combo and deal actual damage. And under neutral conditions it's fine but the game being so swingy is frustrating.
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Re Emma: You are correct that she doesn't have any noticeable flaws. She also doesn't have any noticeable strengths. 330 Rune is slightly above average but not great. Her stats are above average but not remarkable; she's a clear second to Carla in overall stats and loses out to Arianna in rune and Scymerius in STR. She's like Cain in that her value is capped by being stuck in mediocre second tier class. I say this as someone who used her all the way through the endgame and did all the optional fights with her. She's solid, but in any other country she would be treated as a secondary knight rather than one of the absolute best available.
MS knights: They are bad. They are really bad.
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Finished up playthrough #2 of Tales of Symphona and #3 is underway. Felt like jotting down some thoughts about the endgame stuff. Most of which I haven't done before.
Got my Last Fencer. This is one of those fights where I can't rely on the usual crutch of items so it's rough. Used a method I found in a FAQ to semi-cheese it, not sure if I could earn a win in a straight bout. The scene afterwards had me going "awww..." As contrived as the plot beats can get sometimes, this one avoided the trap of drama to be dramatic or characters acting artificially stupid so it worked.
Finished Devli's Arms quest and got my Empty Soul title. That last fight was won with an All-Divide, brute force, and enough items. A really long endurance match and my Grade suffered for it.
Beat Sword Dancer 3. Didn't take as long as I thought it would, which is welcome. Messed up my strategy the first time and wiped, won on next attempt. Colette got off Holy Judgment very early on both attempts which leads me to question if the game saves RNG states somehow in save files. Didn't need an All-Divide; lots of the right kinds of elemental defense kept damage manageable. So did Guard Plus on Lloyd since his job is to keep the boss away from the rest of the team which entails lots of blocking physicals.
Made a real attempt at the optional dungeon, after stocking up on cooking ingredients. I got to the bottom floor but didn't have enough Soulfire to be granted access to the last boss of the place. Opted to bail when the game provided the option. Not sure if I'll go back to beat it in playthrough #3. I like the game overall but not so much to deal with 80 fights in a sitting. Worst floor was one where I lost TP while in motion and it was a kill all enemies floor. Cooking right before entering a fight kept my team from fighting battles dry though it sure was annoying.
Got the coliseum titles for all 8 characters. Doing it with Genis was the very last thing I did before going to whomp the final boss. The first three fights (when I finally did succeed in winning, after many failures) were mostly won by bonking them with the kendema. Last two cooperated with leaving themselves open for spells. Colette was a tricky win but her melee damage is better so I could get her to the last fight mostly reliably though I don't have a reliable strategy for the last one.
As much as I enjoy saying I suck at the game, winning Advanced Singles with Genis isn't the sort of thing one can really fluke their way into. So I guess I have some skill after all.
Used Colette in the final boss to attempt stealing from form 2. Also because I'd grinded her up to 399 stealing attempts. Got Little Pickpocket title in the very last battle of the game. Nothing else to add; it's the final boss, therefore less deadly than the bonus bosses I beat.
I still feel the voice acting is well done overall, complementing the personalities the characters show in their actions and dialogue. Even the side cast and NPCs in voiced segments. The music, while it won't live up to the high quality of Xenogears or Atelier, manages to get stuck in my head anyways. I guess Namco has competent composers working for them. The only other Namco soundtrack I'm familiar with is Dragon Spirit and I happen to take a liking to that one as well. (had considered nomming a Dragon Spirit track for music tourney)
Playthrough #3 is underway. I was less than 10 Grade short of picking all the options I wanted in the Grade Shop. Cue groaning. I could retain cooking ability or figurine data but not both. Decided that completing Figurines was the more grindy task so went with that.
When I do complete playtrhough #3, I think I'm complete with the game and will set it down forever like Metroid Prime 2. There are some titles that I'm going to skip obtaining. They are;
All the cooking mastery titles - Assuming one cooks something after every fight, I estimate 1500 to 2000 battles minimum to master cooking with all 9 characters. Way too grindy, forget it. Especially since I didn't carry cooking skill over.
All the Lv 100 titles - Yeah no, I finished the last playthrough at 72-73 for everyone and that's having done pretty much everything.
Monster Book, Collector Book, and Figurine Book completion - Figurine book is too much pellet grinding. Collector Book takes a ton of money, an annoying minigame, and Lv 80 so I doubt I'll bother. I think i will finish the Monster Book but I'm not sure where to find Nova for the title at the very end of the game.
I hate Gels - I'm not so skilled at the game that I can get through without Gels whatsoever.
Combo Maniac - 100 hit combo? Um, I'll pass. I'm scrubby when it comes to putting together combos. Got to 77 hits and I feel I've hit my limit.
Midlife Crisis - I'm not very good at this minigame.
Strategist - Or this one. Was ready to give up but everything lined up and I got a win.
Gung-ho - Low leveling this doesn't seem fun to me
Berserker - Just don't feel like bothering playing most of the game on Hard or trying to grind it out later.
Chicken - 50 escapes isn't something I want to grind out either. Though in that alternate universe where I do grind pellets, could make progress on this at the same time.
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Three Houses - Beat Crimson Flower Maddening. Turns out it smooths out somewhat once people start getting into real classes and most of what went wrong was just self-inflicted overreach (well. there was also opening the Death Knight's door in Ch6 before I meant to. Well this is why I play on casual. That and Legend of the Lake god fuck that map on maddening also REMOVE FOG.) That said I'm not really a fan of it, I mostly just want enemies to be more interesting/scale better, not have the stretch when you're stuck with Commoner/Noble be more of a hellzone than it already is (and my stance on ninja reinforcements shouldn't surprise anyone).
Byleth - Falcon Knight. Kind of shafted a bit on strength and I'm not sure they gained more than two points of defense ever. Should've leaned into bow harder because Alert Stance+ wasn't happening but oh well. Didn't do much at the end other than take pot shots and slap Retribution on people because I am a dumbass of the highest order and only had two people with A in Authority.
Edelgard - Wyvern Lord. Meanwhile I'm not sure if she gained more than two points of luck ever. Yes I know luck but things have CRIT RATES and sometimes they don't actually die. Pretty much fantastic outside of that though.
Hubert - Mage -> Paladin -> Dark Knight. Wound up pretty bad at things that weren't magic and dex (in particular his speed was closer to what you'd expect from Hanneman than someone with a real growth). Fortunately(?) he was good enough in those areas to justify bringing him for Frozen Lance.
Ferdinand - Wyvern Lord. Not super wonderful on offense (though it was adequate) but having someone who can actually reliably dodge stuff on enemy phase is great of course.
Bernadetta - Pegasus Knight/Brigand combo -> Sniper. Frontloaded on strength early so I decided to play with Vengence for a bit. Also got to murder the Death Knight twice so that was fun. Had the predictable falloff in Advanced and picked up HV later than I would've liked but oh well.
Dorothea - A story in two parts:
Me, Ch4: well it's not like i can trust dorothea's magic growth that much so sure let's use the spirit dust now
Me, Ch14: oh it's mag blessed dorothea again welp NO MERCY FOR THE DAMNED let's make unreasonably huge meteors
Nothing too amazing in other stats (actually got shafted on charm for a while, which was uh interesting) but being able to get there on just the non-gardening boosters (not that I... really had gardening boosters for much of the game, unlike last time when I had more than I knew what to do with) was nice.
Petra - Wyvern Lord. Other dodgetanker. Not really a whole lot to say.
Mercedes - Bishop -> Gremory. Break glass in case of needing to use Fortify. Didn't feel like routing through Mage with her so her offense was Linhardt-level but sometimes you just want that extra +10 healing.
Ingrid - Falcon Knight. Filler, -also- only gained like two points of defense ever and didn't turn out great elsewhere and wasn't helped by not getting her Death Blow so I mostly just brought her along for an extra warm body to poke away at golem armor without having to blow more gambits than I needed to.
Leonie - Paladin -> Bow Knight *why did i route through paladin again augh* . Also wasn't helped by my unwillingness to pick up extra stuff for her. Oh well, at least she could kill fliers and not die to certain enemies that double everything.
Hanneman - Warlock. Hey with so many people not being able to survive contact with the enemy anyways his terrible speed doesn't *proceeds to outstat Hubert in everything except str/mag/dex* well okay then. Not sure what I would've done with that slot if Hell Man didn't volunteer to join.
Jeritza - Mainly baited axe/lance people as the need arose and sometimes used Stride on people.
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Yes, I play games. Just finished a couple more before the end of the year and will likely be the last ones to be completed for 2020.
Cold Steel 4 - I've already mentioned some thoughts in Discord. Overall, I think my sister put it the best: 'It answers most of the questions it makes the players ask, but the answers are pretty unsatisfactory'. Just a lot of build up but the resolution just feels empty. It's also like 20 hours too long (really the game should've started at like Act 1.3 instead of where it did) and the ending is such a cop out. Gameplay wise, it's probably the most broken CS has ever been, which is saying a *lot*. It's one saving grace is that I finally can get Rean and Towa to end up together. Yes, inject that shit into my veins.
Troubleshooter - This on the other hand. It took about 2.5 years before the development team completed the game and officially released it and that's about how long I played it for. 180 hours or so spread across 2.5 years, which isn't really that bad if you think about it! Gameplay is very good and I think most DL peeps will get a kick out of the skill system. The story is a bit all over the place, but you can place a coherent thread that links all the story missions together despite the translation being messy and it being very much told in bits and pieces. I recommended this before the beta was up and I'd still recommend it now. For $20, it's a huge steal and you don't have to sink like 400+ hours on it just to get a couple of highs like some cocaine addict. Probably would be GOTY for me (even if not released in 2020) but 3H exists, and 3H as it turns out, is also pretty good.
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Dragon Quest 11 - Beat this. Well, Act 2 anyway. As the game took over 68 hours, I'm definitely done. Hero was Level 59.
I'll mostly save the review for year-end stuff. For now, let's talk about some gameplay notes. I played on Stronger Enemies, which was definitely a good place for me.
Hero: Built him mostly with greatswords and luminary stuff. Anyway, probably the strongest Dragon Quest hero of the games I've played, gameplaywise. Just great AoE options throughout the game (Zap, Helochopter, QUADRASLASH what the fuck is that move), especially considering there's a class of enemies which pretty much only he does good damage to. In boss fights, he brought the best damage early (Cutting Edge was 2x off high atk) and Omniheal late.
Erik: Pretty good. Boomerangs were quite effective AoE for a while, and he has good speed, so yeah, good in randoms generally. In Act 2 this falls off, but after a certain point he ends up with the best ST damage (Divide + Fatal Flash off of dual-wielding), so he ends up more of a boss-fighter but that's fine.
Veronica: Twink her agility and watch her ruin all randoms' faces. In boss fights she had Sap but the poor durability did hurt.
Serena: Probably the LVP from the time party switching is a thing until the end of Act 1, although Kabuff does relentlessly troll some bosses. She's slow and doesn't offer much in randoms. Then she rejoins in Act 2 and is overpowered because now she has all of the offensive magic bullshit nonsense, so yeah let's twink her agility and have fun. Also Dualcast as a 20% chance to just COMPLETELY ruin randoms' days (hello there double Kacrack for ~500 damage). In boss fights she has at least adequate durability with shields and can only do literally fucking everything (heal, revive, most relevant buffs/debuffs).
Sylvando: Most of his weapon skillsets felt a bit underwhelming, so he's not great in randoms. In boss fights he offers Hustle Dance and Oomphle, with better durability than Serena or Rab (Hustle Dance is cheaper than Multiheal, but Sylv's own MP is so much lower to mostly make up the difference until you pull out MP-healing items). That's... basically all he does unlike those two, but it's enough.
Jade: She's okay at what she does but a bit one-dimensional, and not actually the best at what she does outside of one thing. She is pretty fast and usually has pretty good ST damage, with Vacuum Smash for group targeting meaning she was usually in randoms and could occasionally draw into boss fights. Still, there was better than her at both roles. The "one thing" is of course killing metal slimes dead, hello there 67% critical rate.
Rab: In Act 1, a better overall Serena due to higher HP, Sap, 100% revival, and a nice MT regen buff (no Kabuff though). In Act 2, he's now generally inferior to Serena in boss fights buuut honestly I just used both most of the time, Sap/Blunt/healing/Insulatle is still a nice set. He also gets better in randoms as Pearly Gates is nice MT. Has MP forever and is happy to share if others run out.
Spoiler Man: I dunno, he exists. At first I thought he'd outclass Serena because Kabuff off better stats and Magic Barrier, but then Serena comes back super-charged so nah, guess not. He's durable and can slot in for heals/buffs in a pinch while being able to absorb an extra hit or two in boss fights, offers basically nothing in randoms though.
In terms of bosses, I had the most trouble with Tentacular in Act 1, and then Alizarin and Gylddyga in Act 2. The final was pretty competent, the first form moreso than the second since it brought back every horrifying trick seen in the other Act 2 boss fights. The boss right before the final wins the award for most disappointing, total joke unless I missed something.
The game does have a weird penchant for giving you uncontrollable guests with infinite HP, and they have a weird effect on battles since every time an enemy targets them they essentially just wasted their turn. I will grant that a few of the fights involving one ended up pretty fun/interesting anyway (especially arena matches and then the Spectral Sentinel you face this way; actually all of that gang were pretty neat fights).
As you can probably tell I enjoyed the gameplay quite well, but there are limitations to how good the clunky randomised Dragon Quest turn-based combat can be. But the gameplay probably reminds me a fair bit of Phantasy Star 4 or Saga Frontier, rocket tag randoms which really reward you staying on top of them. If only DQ11 had the pacing of those games.
The writing... was mostly dull, occasionally incoherent, and occasionally weirdly conservative, none of these being a good look. I probably have more nice things to say about Grandia 3 on this front. I expect better in 2020, especially from a game of this scope and length.
5/10
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Magilou's magical adventures: Oops, all mages! We've hit the timeskip, having made up for my previous failure when I accidentally locked myself into the cultist route. This time, Sylvain turned out better so stayed on the team, while Linhardt turned out worse so didn't, and Dorothea is overpowered again and I am loving every second of it.
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FE3H mage playthrough has reached Chapter 17. 14 was pretty tough but still fairly manageable. Dorothea, Lysithea, and Constance all have Black/Dark Range+1, silly skill is silly.
Also did some small little playthroughs of random NES games: Mario 2, Mario 3, and Mega Man 4. Nothing really to say about the first two, they were fun. For MM4, I did a weapon-focused playthrough similar to the one I did for Mega Man 3 earlier this year (http://weapon-focused playthrough similar to the one I did for Mega Man 3 earlier this year). The order this time was Dust > Skull > Bright > Ring > Pharoah > Drill > Toad > Dive (for the two or three people reading this who actually remember all the MM4 weapons). One added mini-rule for this playthrough concerns Bright's weapon, Flash Stopper. This weapon freezes all enemies on the screen for a few seconds and lets you fire the buster during this time (so way better than Flash Man's weapon). Its main weakness is that all but one boss are completely unaffected by it. However, I could still technically use it and fire the buster against such bosses. I decided that this didn't count as "vulnerable to Bright" so I didn't end up eating all my Bright ammo for no reason against a boss while functionally being the same as bustering them.
Trouble spots:
-Bright Man stage and boss. It's a pretty tough stage (made worse by the fact that the totem enemies, who you encounter while traveling on a moving platform over spikes, are harder to kill with Dust than the buster), and a pretty tough boss (arguably the hardest one to buster), and Dust/Skull are both worse than the buster against him (because you can charge the buster).
-Ring Man stage and boss. Dust is kinda uniquely bad against the wall cannons in this stage, and horrible against the hippo mini-boss. That said the mercy is I run out and then Bright totally clowns all four mini-bosses of the stage. Ring Man himself is pretty competent with (effectively) the buster, though not as tough as Bright.
-Wily Stage 1 (the fifth stage overall) is pretty rough mostly because it takes me a while to get good enough at fighting the Mega Mettaur. Dust isn't even a bad weapon against him! (It deals 2, only the charged buster or Pharoah do 3) He's just kinda rough because his "jump on top of you" attack is very hard to avoid and does loads of damage. I win once I mostly either try to flee from him when he jumps or accept the hit rather than get struck by both the hit and the seismic.
-The boss rush, of course. Due to the way the weapon order works I pretty much have to buster (or worse) Drill Man and Wily himself, as well as use suboptimal weapons for at least a time against others, which definitely requires me to get good. The winning strategy:
1. Use Dust to kill Skull
2. Use Dust to kill Dive. Apparently, this is a secondary weakness for Dive (3 damage), as if Skull didn't have enough problems.
3. Use up remaining Dust/Skull ammo on Toad (who's a joke boss and free win), finishing with Ring.
4. Use Ring to kill Dust
5. Use Ring then Pharoah to kill Ring
6. The tricky part. The remaining tough bosses are Drill and Bright, neither is easy, and at this point I'm using weapons which are worse against them than the buster. Drill in particular is hopeless against them (which is a shame because it rules against Wily Machine, but inevitably I have to use it up). I make sure to fight Bright when I think I might run out of Drill ammo because the next weapon is Toad and that hits weakness on him. Otherwise I try to fight Drill, and on the winning run do in fact beat him with Pharoah + his own weapon. Oh yeah and at any point during this I can fight Pharoah since his weakness (Bright) is totally independent, and completely destroys him for a free heal.
7. Wily Machine. He's immune to both Toad and Dive (the only weapons I have at this point), so it's just a matter of bustering him without an E-Tank, which takes 3 tries.
Weapon thoughts:
-Dust Crusher is, overall, better than I gave it credit for. When it hits a target it splits into four smaller targets, but those often just damage the primary target too if it's still alive, making it a decent power weapon. The specifics depend on the enemy's hitbox; large enemies take all the hits and die quickly, thin ones don't. Quite good against a lot of things, its notable weaknesses were already noted in Bright and Ring's entries. Its big weakness is that only one can be on screen at once (the shrapnel counts towards this limit), so if you do need more than one hit, it's gonna take a while to wait to fire again. Still good at killing some enemies like hoppers (3 hits, but you always have time). Some need some good timing; the weapon works less well if an enemy is flying away from it, for instance (really just applies to those flying shield guys). Against bosses it's a trash weapon if it doesn't hit weakness; fortunately a fair number of bosses do take at least 2 from it.
-Skull Barrier is bad. Yeah, there's the odd place where it one-shots a weak enemy which tries to fly into you while you're platforming, that's definitely cool and valid in normal playthroughs. As an offensive weapon it is weak and requires you get close to things. Also the fact that any projectile coming close to you cancels it (and the projectile, to be fair) means you can lose it at inopportune times.
-Flash Stopper is completely overpowered, any time I got to use it in a stage it completely wrecks almost everything, most notably including the mini-bosses of Ring and Toad Man's stages. Useless against bosses (except poor Pharoah) but that's better than forcing me to use a weapon which is mostly ineffective.
-Ring Boomerang I didn't use too much but it's... bland and fine, short range but respectable power. Other weapons are used too rarely on this playthrough to comment on.
Because no weapon has as much ammo as Needle Cannon I did use the later weapons more than in my MM3 run, but still not that much.