What Games are you Playing 2017?

[Fenrir]

I say play theough dungeons slowly and don't talk with garbage/boring confidants so that not having enough time isn't a problem

[Grefter]

We play Persona games for very different reasons.  I enjoy following someone else's spreadsheet like laundry list of things to do.  It is cathartic and leads me to seeing more and more perfect shoes.

Also I neglected to note another highlight.  This game is amazing at drawing old Japanese men like you would see in a Production IG or Satoshi Kon movie.

[Captain K]

Persona 5:  beat the first Palace.  There are either too many save rooms or not enough.  Died on literally the last enemy before a save room.  And yeah for an "intro" dungeon this is hella long.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Final Fantasy Dimensions - In which elves visit elves

Addendum to previous post; I'm Level 23 upon reaching Alfheim.

Anyway I try out Titan's cave but the enemies seem harder than those in the main plot, so I head for the Yggdrasil Cave instead. One annoying new enemy is the Red Soul, which can inflict curse on its own turns, halving my damage. I can heal that with a Sacred Candle buuut they often just use it again. It usually ends up easier just to run. Otherwise there are three enemies here weak to ice so Blizzara is go. One of them is a flan who immunes physicals. Tunnelers, the beefy enemies from Deist Cave, make a return, and are much more reasonable with -ara spells, though are still bulkier than average even now. Cait Siths and Pineapples are back from there as well, but die really easily. Magus is the most dangerous enemy here and the source of most of my resets since they almost always use reasonably damaging -ara spells and don't get OHKOed by MT, I also get ambushed by them several times.

When out of MP I run physicals here, they're kinda serviceable though not dominant like they were in the Mazewood; flans unfortunately wall them.

Green Keeper (2 resets) - Every turn he gets, he regens 140 HP. Sylph does somewhat more than this. He's weak to fire and Fira hits for around 600. On his own turn he uses either one or two physicals which each do a bit over 100 to the back row, I have around 600-700 HP. Legit enough pressure. He also counters magic around 50% of the time with Osmose, which only drains like 10-15 MP but it adds up.

The problem, though, is below half HP he casts Haste, raising his speed by 50%. Haste doesn't wear off. If I slow him to get rid of it, he'll counter with Haste (a pattern shamelessly stolen from Evrae; fortunately he doesn't counter until his limit range). Suddenly the regen is more potent as is the offence, it's easier to get overwhelmed and if I turtle behind Sylph his regen beats me out.

Winning strategy is to go Red Mage for the slightly better bulk while retaining good damage (isn't this always the case for bosses?) and use Slow at the start of the fight. Four Firas will knock him into limit range, so I use three then use an Ether and heal up with Sylph in preparation for the final push. At this point Slow wears off but no big, Haste will overwrite it anyway. I push through with Fira and spam that, getting in one Sylph and hoping for some luck with him not doubleacting. It's good enough.


Unfortunately there are two more Green Keeper fights to come in this chapter, and every one gets tougher than the last. The last one... *does some research* oh fuck. Well uh we'll see if this is the end of the legit solo run when we get there, I guess.

[Niu]

Persona 5 -  okay actually started because I wanted a break from Mass Effect.  Was trying to work out which Bro Ryuji was.  Then it turns out he is a moron and gives you toy guns, mess and fucked up metaphors.  Hey Sopko finally a Bro that is definitely me and not you.

Ryuji is not the Junpei/Hanamura position.
Morgana is closer to those two than Ryuji.
Though, it is Mishma who really fits the Junpei/Hanamura position in this game.

[Magic Fanatic]

So, my first playthrough, and I'm starting on perma-Merciless.
Dungeon 1: Had to leave like two or three times.  Beat the boss at level 8.
Dungeon 2: One shot cleared, though there was the forced eviction for a puzzle.  Ground two levels when I secured the infiltration path, though it still felt low.  Also picked up two lockpick chests on Calling Card day.  Boss beaten at L16.
Dungeon 3: Still on this one, but having the SP Adhesive 3 is helping a LOT.  Just secured the Infiltration Path, and am sitting at L21ish.  Wondering what I should do about the boss and when.

[Hunter Sopko]

Persona 5 -  okay actually started because I wanted a break from Mass Effect.  Was trying to work out which Bro Ryuji was.  Then it turns out he is a moron and gives you toy guns, mess and fucked up metaphors.  Hey Sopko finally a Bro that is definitely me and not you.

Ryuji is not the Junpei/Hanamura position.
Morgana is closer to those two than Ryuji.
Though, it is Mishma who really fits the Junpei/Hanamura position in this game.

Mishima is human garbage, so no. He's not Junpei/Hanamura. Ryuji is just those guys taken a step too far, which grates after a while. Honestly, it seems the whole cast are Quirks without the P4 cast's grounding normal behaviors to accompany them. They're all quirk all the time and it's kindof tiring. I still enjoy Morgana's antics though, and Queen is cool. I'm wondering how Oracle will turn out, since they could go either way. They run Fox's gimmick into the ground too hard.

As for you, Grefbro, you are Hierophant. Every meeting is a lesson about coffee. Star might be one of the more pointless links out of the 3 games, even though their link benefit is good. Death and Temperance are good so far. Ryuji's actually isn't bad since it deals with the parts of him that made him tolerable in the beginning. 

Anyway, I'm up to 9/6, 56 hours in. 4th dungeon was the first I could get through in one go, but it cost me all my Snuff Souls, Coffee, and Soda. Leveling Moon up as soon as I did means I'm way overleveled now (37 after the last batch of Mementos requests). Shiki-Ouji is goddamn broken. Unless there are a plethora of Nuke tossing enemies next dungeon, I don't see a reason to use anything else? Null Physical is just that good, and I have Bufu/Mabufu and Psi/Mapsi on him too, along with Double Fangs. I could maybe find a skill card to improve the physical offense, but it's all he needs.

Stats are up to 5/4/5/4/4. Just barely missed leveling Kindness up to 4 to start Hermit before coming shenanigans, but I have high hopes for the S-Link. I played... maybe until June FAQless? Since jumped onto the Spoiler-free FAQ train even though my schedule's way off sync.

[Shale]

Breath of the Wild: Cleared Vah Naboori, which has easily the toughest boss fight so far -- largely because I failed to bring any one-handed weapons, so I couldn't block its melee attacks and had to rely on dodging, which is really unreliable once it changes attack patterns. I only won through abuse of Daruk's Protection -- turn it off in the first phase, when dodging is easier, then reactivate it for the last phase and take advantage of the automatic stun when it activates.

Luckily, I shouldn't have to worry about a lack of one-handed weapons again, because my next stop after that was to finally make my way to the Master Sword. Not only is a great to have a reliable weapon in my inventory, but using it to dismantle Guardians is so sweet.

[Grefter]

Persona 5 - okay I figured two options were on the table, stat up too late and do the whole place again or power through on Easy.  I rolled back to before going in to palace to check shop options.  No SP healing for me yet, so I went with weapon for Ryuji and cheap armour for him and Ann.  A weapon might have been better.  First lockpock went to weapon for Morganna.  That went down pretty fine really.  Not fighting everything and not pushing Persona upgrading as much (still got everything from the first chunk of the dungeons, everything but the owl guy or up overall.  Generally stuff was fine except for trash Heavenly Punishers who could just opt to global My whole party with AoE if they wanted and were just a dice roll.

Ended up staying up even later and beating the boss as well.

[Laggy]

Generally stuff was fine except for trash Heavenly Punishers who could just opt to global My whole party with AoE if they wanted and were just a dice roll.

It's a counter at like below half HP. They're still harder than any boss in that dungeon.

Anyway I am playing this a lot, shock, it's good. I am incredibly sick of Ryuji though and he's the most infuriating party member (thank god Morgana is there to own him). Echoing Soppy's sentiment that the cast isn't as likable as P4, but those are some high standards to be held to, so it's not a damning statement. For Ryuji it's annoying since his social stuff is fine (actual development shown) but his general presence never improves beyond "hot-blooded dumbass who revels in being a dumbass." I just got Queen and she's great, looking forward to more of her.

First dungeon was hardest so far from sheer length. I did what Grefter did and restarted when I learned how tight the time squeeze is in this game, managed to one-day it after relenting and dropping the difficulty to Normal for randoms but honestly it was mostly having the knowledge of how to do the encounters. Second was a joke (enforced break helps) with a much better boss. Third is currently a joke and what I'm on at the moment. Though to be fair that's mainly because of unlocking Death rank 7 and buying those SP accessories, in particular making the protagonist a wrecking ball that now doesn't run out of gas (in an SMT game, stunning, I know).
 
If you are buying out SP drinks like I am, the vending machines that sell them are at the school courtyard, Shibuya Arcade, and Bathhouse. The accessories have made it a moot point though.

Pretty much agree with all social link comments so far, re: Moon being human garbage. I did not expect to end up liking Death but did. Morgana is way better than Teddie for mandatory mascot char. Navigating Tokyo is fun. On some level I am pretty bothered by how casually people seem to discuss prospects of student/teacher non-platonic relationships (srsly just gossiping about a girl possibly dating a teacher is kind of repulsive; note that this is ignoring getting into the actual plot which of course is its own thing) but that's about the most eyebrow-raising thing as far as social commentary goes. Temperance starts out really questionable for that reason as well but at least tries to vaguely address it directly.

I will probably play the game to death for the foreseeable future, 25 hours in (in practice more because I spent about 4 hours replaying through about 10ish of first-time content).

[Niu]

Persona 5 -  okay actually started because I wanted a break from Mass Effect.  Was trying to work out which Bro Ryuji was.  Then it turns out he is a moron and gives you toy guns, mess and fucked up metaphors.  Hey Sopko finally a Bro that is definitely me and not you.

Ryuji is not the Junpei/Hanamura position.
Morgana is closer to those two than Ryuji.
Though, it is Mishma who really fits the Junpei/Hanamura position in this game.

Mishima is human garbage, so no. He's not Junpei/Hanamura. Ryuji is just those guys taken a step too far, which grates after a while.

Junpei/Hanamura arch type fells under the "Is complexed/jelous/attached to MC because MC is just so much better than them" category.
Mishima is no different here. He just takes a step further in the wrong direction than Junpei did.
But on the topic of Mishima being human garbage... Save the comment till the end of his co-op.
I'd consider Mishima even better than Hanamura for one thing he did.

[Grefter]

Persona 5 - game just turned into hot garbage.

Started Heirophant.   Time skip happens.  Edgeworth lady in the future doesn't say "And how about caffeine?  You must have had someone to make you coffee and the ways of the bean to be a Phantom Thief."

I am fucking done. Fuck this bullshit game.

[Niu]

Persona 5 - game just turned into hot garbage.

Started Heirophant.   Time skip happens.  Edgeworth lady in the future doesn't say "And how about caffeine?  You must have had someone to make you coffee and the ways of the bean to be a Phantom Thief."

I am fucking done. Fuck this bullshit game.

Silly Grefter, it is the curry that you should be mad about. Who cares about coffee if you have curry.

[Captain K]

My Playstation 4 bricked this morning, so not only do I not get to play Persona 5 or Dark Souls 3, I'm also going to miss the entire new Overwatch event that starts today while it's in the shop.  FML

[Grefter]

Is just memes Niu.

Coffee and curry are life.

Edit - and like for real, I wear loafers and ankleless socks these days even. Other than the part where Sojiro lays more pipe than a sanitation worker the overlap is a bit weird.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Final Fantasy Dimensions - Ranger chapter end

I do the Cave of Convulsion at this point. Bone Dragons (bulky, fire weak, curse physicals) and Liliths (fire weak, coutner with petrify if not OHKOed, also use confuse) are back and still kind of a pain. Elf Toads sometimes counter with Toadsong, which does what it sounds like, but it's highly inaccurate. Speaking of inaccurate, they sometimes use Croak, a move I must have seen over 30 times and have never seen hit once. Hopefully my high level is reducing it or something.

The main new dangerous enemy is the Dark Mage, who has Sleep and lots of magic. Magic doesn't wake sleeping targets. When a Dark Mage has friends, they aren't so dangerous, but a pure Dark Mage fight is another matter.

Titan - Probably the easiest boss in the game so far. Titan uses damage, and isn't really that great at it. His big thing is his MT limit which is maybe kind of okay in a normal playthrough if you don't think to Slow him. (I Slow him.) He has high Def so magic is a must and he has no weaknesses besides wind (bow damage still bad) so I end up using three Ethers here, arguably a waste since I'm not going to actually use Titan any time soon. Oh well.


Yggdrasil: Dark Mages are back, and pairing them with Elementals (weaker mages) makes for a relatively dangerous formation. Black Widows inflict slow but are wusses otherwise. Wood Eaters inflict blind but are wusses otherwise (Silver Speces get used when I'm running a physical build). Stingers, who counter with HP-1, also make a reappearance; as usual, OHKO them.

Physical builds become much more palatable here with the Great Bow received during the dungeon; it lets me sit as a Warrior in the back row and still counter everyone for full damage. Plus it OHKOs Stingers. Magic builds are still more effective overall but physical works very well when I run out of MP, better than in many previous dungeons.


Green Keeper 2 (1 reset) - This one is fought at the start of the dungeon. Basically the same as the previous (and with the extra levels from Cave of Convulsion under my belt, his damage is definitely worse relatively), but he regens twice as much, 280-290. Ick. Strategy is largely the same as before; Protect and use Fira as a Red Mage, heal up and use an ether before knocking him into limit range. I also cast Protect at that point too so I can get him down without using Sylph; this proves enough to win.


Green Keeper 3 (~5 resets) - A bastard. He regens 430 HP a turn. In haste, he 4-3's my Fira casting, which does around 700. In other words, I only outpace him by about 130 damage every Fira, and that's nowhere near good enough since Osmose ensures I run out of MP and have to waste a valuable turn on a Dry Ether... or have to heal. I see no way for my current build to do it. So for the second time in the game I actively stop to grind a little.

This time, it's not a few stat points I'm after, but skills. I'm close to both HP+20% (Red Mage 3) and Int+20% (Black Mage 5). I get both, and set both in place of Sylph. This means I have to use Cura/Hi-Potions to heal, but that's okay. With Int+20% combined with the two extra levels I get, my damage is now closer to 900, so my margin for outpacing regen is far more significant. Once again, Protect, heal HP/MP while he's slowed before activating his limit, and then blast away with Firas. This time, with no risk of needing to heal HP at any point, I'm victorious.


Asmodai - Two plot fights first, one of which is solo Freyr who can't die. I actually do have to attack with him to advance the plot, not that this matters. Then the real thing.

Anyway, after the Green Keeper fights he's a bit of a breather, though not trivial by any means. He brings loads of status to the table; I respond by equipping to block confuse and poison. His skills include Forsaken (~20 MP damage and confuse), Caustic Spittle (damage + sap/slow/poison). Below a certain threshold he adds Cursed Miasma (paralyse) and Upheaval (earth magic). Slow is initially a big worry but proves not too bad; it lasts less than one (slowed) round, and since I keep Asmodai slowed constantly too, it's not that loog for him either. Similarly, paralysis sounds super-deadly (see my rants about Swordsmen earlier), but his version doesn't last as long (only two rounds or so), and the move which inflicts it is extremely inaccurate. Overall his offence is rather poor against my bulked-up overlevelled HP (though I am back to running Sylph instead of HP+20% now). Slow, Sylph when my HP falls below around 600, blast away with Fira. Eventually I realise that the Great Bow is damaging enough as a substitute to save MP (like half as much, but no charge times). Sadly I do waste a Dry Ether before figuring this out, and I'm not gonna redo all that plot just to correct this. Victory is mine on the first try. I'm Level 37. A total of 23 levels gained during one sub-chapter! Exp focusing is silly.

[Sierra]

So last time I posted here about actually playing something, it was starting Nier Automata, but it didn't really click with me at the time because I'd just played a game about killer robot future, and also I got distracted because--

Dark Souls 3: Show's over. The Ringed City, the second round of DLC for Dark Souls 3, is the last piece of Souls content we're going to get. So says Miyazaki, and I see no reason to disbelieve him--as good as DS3 was, it never felt as inspired as Bloodborne did, and it's very easy for me to believe that he'd be both creatively better off and more invested in establishing more original IPs than in continuing a series that's said its peace.

But The Ringed City is very good. That's pretty much in keeping with expansions to previous Fromsoft games, which usually add some of the best content they have.

The lore connections are cool, most of the new loot is fun to play with, and three out of the four new bosses are outstanding. The other one is hot trash, but I'll still call this a winning ratio. The optional boss is From finally doing a dragon boss right, and the last boss is pretty much the final word on what has traditionally been the kind of fight From always excelled most at: an impossibly badass fallen warrior in need of a mercy killing. I could gripe about the actual levels leaning too hard on a basic design tenet of "Make the player run a lot looking for hiding places from an unkillable sniper -> retread steps later to loot everything after finally finding a way to kill the sniper." I raged a lot about this when I first played it and do dock points for them reusing the idea too many times. But ultimately there's too much good here for me to feel like this ruins the experience. Of all the DS2 zones to explode and repurpose, I wouldn't have expected Earthen Peak. (But that's okay guys, you know why? Because it means they brought the fanservice clothes back.) Based on that, I kind of expected to see more overt landscape nods to past installments going forward, but I guess I can see why they didn't do that more--trying to cram in more environment types would likely lead to geographical incoherence. And the Ringed City already is exactly what it needs to be.

As for that dragon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRdMsdPPOr0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvok_DYfP5s

So much rage for the second one. Does that count? No, seriously, does that count? He was already dead! I guess it doesn't count, because I know that if the hit had killed me, the game wouldn't have called it a win.

(When From tallied up death rates for Dark Souls 2, they announced that the player failure rate for Fume Knight was something like 95%. I'd bet that Midir is higher, and having by now run this fight a helluva lot in co-op, I'm prepared to cite this as the #1 reason why: host trying to forcibly insert the lifeline exercise into Midir's anus. If you drop in and see that the host, or even another phantom, is constantly busy trying to stab the giant dragon in the ankles, I can almost guarantee that this attempt is a lost cause. Guys, no, this isn't Sinh, stop trying to fight him the same way. It's amazingly rare to draw a full party full of people who actually recognize the only thing you need to do here: hit him in the goddamn head you morons. I say this after being one of those morons for entirely too many futile attempts.)

If you play this, please make an effort to seek out the NPC sidequest. It's great, and drives home what probably should've been apparent a long time ago: Patches really is just Miyazaki's stand-in, isn't he? I guess we needed that one last kick in the ass for the road.

I'm also curious to know who people think the preachers are referring to in their neat little speeches. Mostly it sounds like the invading NPCs to me (though one of the others is almost definitely Sirris).

Fear not the dark, my friend. And let the feast begin.

~

Since this is pretty much the end of our series (of events), and insofar as I can tell the last time I'll have reason to post about personally playing Souls games, I figured I'd cap it by dumping a list of all the characters I ran through the game before I exhausted build ideas (not to mention save slots). It is strongly recommended that humans skip over the following content unless they are similarly obsessive about breaking Fromsoft games into tiny pieces. If there's one thing this listing makes blazingly apparent, it's that the reason I play Fromsoft games is different from the reason I replay Fromsoft games. The reason I play them is to explore the wreckage of amazingly detailed worlds and try on fabulous clothes. The reason I replay them is to build a better machine.

Roberta

Name Origin: Black Lagoon, Rosarita Cisneros. FARC guerilla, combat maid, killer robot from the future.
Build Type: Welcome to the CLUB.
Stats: 31 VIG, 6 ATT, 40 END, 40 VIT, 50 STR, 14 DEX, 8 INT, 9 FTH, 11 LCK
Melee Weapons: Butcher Knife (obsoleted) -> Smough's Great Hammer, Vordt's Great Hammer, Quakestone Hammer, Ledo's Great Hammer.
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Longbow (obsoleted) -> Millwood Greatbow.
Magic: No. 0 attunement slots.
FASHION SOULS: Dancer's set, sans helmet (I rarely wear anything in games that obscures my character's face). It's real armor but it's just so slightly girly. It works.
Rings: Havel's Ring (equip load+), Estus Ring (healing+), Chloranthy Ring (stamina regen+), Ring of Favor (equip load/HP/stamina+).
NG+?: No.

Combat Assessment: Highly satisfactory for an initial vanilla run. Butcher Knife was mained from the moment I picked it up until beating the game. Good power, reach, and excellent stagger potential for its speed. It got phased out for heavier weapons once I grinded to aftergame levels for the DLC, but I strongly recommend it as a user-friendly middleweight weapon for any new player. As for the clubs: they are not broke tier like they were in DS2, but they are still very good. There isn't really a single best out of those four. All have valuable quirks. Smough's probably ideal on paper, but I have a hard time using it because it takes up so much visual real estate. 7/10. Effective build, but I've made better.

Anastasia

Name Origin: Dark Souls 1, the Firelink Shrine fire keeper.
Build Type: Everything burns.
Stats: 27 VIG, 40 ATT, 17 END, 8 VIT, 12 STR, 18 DEX, 40 INT, 40 FTH, 7 LCK
Melee Weapons: Rapier (chaos), Witch's Locks, Demon's Scar.
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Pyromancy Flame, Black Bow of Pharis.
Magic: Yes. 6 attunement slots. Standard array: Great Chaos Fire Orb, Black Fire Orb, Flame Fan, Warmth. 99% of the time all you need is GCFO though. Anything else is novelty.
FASHION SOULS: Fire Keeper set w/the starting Pyromancer crown. One can't help but notice that Fire Keeper robes hug curves very suggestively in this game.
Rings: Sage Ring (casting speed+), Fire Clutch Ring (fire attacks+, physical defenses-), Great Swamp Ring (pyromancy power+), Witch's Ring (pyromancy power++).
NG+?: No.

Combat Assessment: OP. Unironically OP, broke-ass what-were-they-thinking good from the moment you pick up Great Chaos Fire Orb for the rest of the trip. It is literally the only thing you need to melt vanilla DS3. Few other options make the base game as much of a joke. 9/10. Only real issues are GCFO gets very expensive to spam & half the Ringed City bosses totally wall her damage. Objectively, I think there are some good arguments for sorcery being a stronger option, but I'm ranking this build higher for being the first I ran that felt like it completely dismantled the game in ways the game wasn't prepared to cope with.

Rosemund

Name Origin: Rosey was the party healbot in the D&D game I ran from 2013 to 2015. The name was originally lifted from Connie Willis' Doomsday Book.
Build Type: Shall we discuss miracles, then?
Stats: 27 VIG, 31 ATT, 35 END, 7 VIT, 15 STR, 14 DEX, 7 INT, 60 FTH, 13 LCK
Melee Weapons: Lucerne (lightning; obsoleted), Saint Bident (raw; obsoleted) -> Follower Saber (lightning), Rose of Ariandel.
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Cleric's Sacred Chime, Sacred Chime of Filianore, Longbow.
Magic: Yes. 5 attunement slots. Standard array: Great Heal, Sacred Oath, Sunlight Spear, Lightning Arrow
FASHION SOULS: Maiden set. A returning favorite from Dark Souls 1. I like white & gold designs.
Rings: Ring of Favor, Lightning Clutch Ring (lightning attacks+, physical defenses-), Morne's Ring (miracle power+), Ring of the Sun's First Born (miracle power++).
NG+?: Oh hell no.

Combat Assessment: Poor. I've really struggled to make a miracle build viable in this game. Part of that is because my first impulse was to try to run it the way it worked in previous games. DS1: throw lightning spears, collect win. DS2: cast lightning buffs on a fast lightning weapon, cast Sacred Oath, pump nothing but FTH so your buffs last forever, you are now a human blender. DS3: ...? Neither of those options really work. Lightning Spears look pitifully weak (look weak, we'll come back to this), and stacking the miracle buffs on a raw weapon never got me the kind of numbers I'd grown used to. So what the hell are you supposed to do with your faith build in this game? I struggled to get this character through even the shittier bosses, and had to lean on summons a lot for anything remotely difficult. Having tons of healing is great, but what's the point when you can't functionally kill anything? I was inclined to conclude that the only value of miracles was utility casting for someone willing to make a minor investment in faith when they don't have anything else to do with their levels. I mean, she got marginally more competent when she picked up the Follower Saber/Rose of Ariandel (my earlier weapon choices were woefully misguided--I picked the Lucerne because it worked well in DS1, the Saint Bident because it scales with faith, but both are terrible weapons in this game). But those are DLC weapons and squarely in the column of too little too late. It wasn't until a week ago that someone pointed out that Lightning Spear miracles only deal maximal damage if you fire them at point blank range. So there it is: DS3 faith build is supposed to be a melee caster, which, yeah, is pretty much the most unintuitive approach I can conceive of for a caster build. But having now made good use of it, I have to revise earlier estimate of worst build ever, because Sunlight Spear/Lightning Stake are absolutely brutal if used effectively. Like best numbers I've got out of this game good. The flipside is that she's a complete glass cannon, but it's totally worth it for style, right? (Lightning always was the aesthetically superior choice for offensive magic.)

5/10 because now I can OHKO invaders. It's hard to argue against all that time she spent being completely inept, though.

Nanami

Name Origin: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Nanami Kiryuu. Quite possibly the dumbest character in existence. Chosen just because of the dual wields.
Build Type: DEX weapon buffer.
Stats: 27 VIG, 14 ATT, 40 END, 24 VIT, 20 STR, 50 DEX, 10 INT, 15 FTH, 9 LCK
Melee Weapons: Sellsword Twinblades (sharp), Dragonslayer Spear, Lothric Knight Long Spear (sharp), Crow Quills (sharp).
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Sorcerer's Staff (obsoleted) -> Priest's Chime, Black Bow of Pharis, Onislayer Greatbow.
Magic: Yes. 2 attunement slots. Standard array: Blessed Weapon, Force. (Before respec from INT support to FTH support: Magic Weapon, Chameleon.)
FASHION SOULS: Sunless set (Sirris' outfit). I think this is probably the prettiest armor that From has designed.
Rings: Lingering Dragoncrest Ring (buff duration+), Estus Ring, Chloranthy Ring, Ring of Favor.
NG+?: Yes.

Combat Assessment: Outstanding. I went into this thinking she'd transition from the Sellsword Twinblades, her starting weapon, to something more distinguished (because how often does your starting weapon actually stay your best option forever?) Like probably the ultra-weeb dual katanas or Ricard's Rapier or something. Wrong wrong wrong. Sellsword Twinblades bestsword twinblades. You effectively hit twice with each swing, it's fast and spammable, and it is 100% my style. I loved powerstancing in DS2 and was happy to see dual-wielding done right at least with some weapons in DS3. This was exactly how I wanted to play the game. 10/10. Objectively I'm prepared to concede that quality build is supreme in DS3, but damned if I had as much fun with that as I did with this one. (I respecced from sorcery buffs to miracle buffs just for style. It turned out to be a minor component either way.)

Iris

Name Origin: I just always liked the name. I've used it in every one of these games.
Build Type: Magical princess.
Stats: 27 VIG, 50 ATT, 15 END, 7 VIT, 13 STR, 18 DEX, 60 INT, 7 FTH, 12 LCK
Melee Weapons: Crystal Sage's Rapier.
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Court Sorcerer's Staff, Darkmoon Longbow.
Magic: Yes. 7 attunement slots. Standard array: Soul Stream, Crystal Soul Spear, Great Heavy Soul Arrow, Great Soul Arrow, Soul Greatsword, Homing Crystal Soulmass.
FASHION SOULS: Antiquated set w/Crown of Dusk. We are going full magical princess here, you guys.
Rings: Sage Ring, Magic Clutch Ring (magic attacks+, physical defenses-), Young Dragon Ring (sorcery power+), Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (sorcery power++).
NG+?: No.

Combat Assessment: Apparently people think sorcery sucks in this game? I don't understand why. Look at the bolded spell up there. It is not Crystal Soul Spear. If you are leaning on Crystal Soul Spear, you are doing it wrong. It costs way too much FP to be casually worth it even against bosses. GHSA is where it's at. It deals maybe 100-200 less damage for like a third the cost. You can and should spam this against absolutely everything. You will never run out firepower. So she may not have the raw stopping power of Great Chaos Fire Orb, but she also literally never needs to engage anything in melee combat. This is a fair trade. Also more dynamism in hitboxes (Soul Greatsword/White Dragon Breath/Pestilent Mercury good for cutting through mobs). 8/10. Maybe a little boring, but very effective.

Dame Fortune

Name Origin: Nothing special. Just Lady Luck.
Build Type: RNGesus. Pump Luck and ignore other offensive stats. How could this go wrong?
Stats: 27 VIG, 11 ATT, 40 END, 20 VIT, 11 STR, 20 DEX, 12 INT, 8 FTH, 60 LCK - 99 hollowing
Melee Weapons: Barbed Straight Sword (obsoleted) -> Anri's Straight Sword, Claw (poison), Painting Guardian's Curved Sword (blood), Dark Hand.
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Sorcerer's Staff, Black Bow of Pharis.
Magic: Yes. 1 attunement slot. It is reserved for Chameleon, because that is the best spell in the game.
FASHION SOULS: Thorns set (sans helmet). This is Kirk's armor from Dark Souls 1. It seemed appropriate for undead edgelord bleed build (for mechanical reasons, Fortune had to run at max hollowing all the time).
Rings: Untrue Dark Ring (maintain human appearance while hollow/phantom), Estus Ring, Chloranthy Ring, Ring of Favor.
NG+?: Fuck no.

Combat Assessment: Bad. This is probably the fault of my weapon choices. I know it's possible to make a competent bleed build in this game. People have done it! But usually they are doing it with the Warden Twinblades--which, in spite of all that luck, I never managed to get on this build (and would've been hesitant to use anyway, since it would just repeat Nanami's moveset). So in practice, that obscene luck score usually just went towards Anri's Straight Sword, because ASS is the only weapon that innately scales off of luck. It's a decent sword, considering her options. But you know what would've been more effective? Not dumping fifty levels on luck, as with every other build in this list. I even tried hollow-infusion weapons, and I might just as well have been running raw for all the boost I got with that. 3/10. She really wanted the last patch's buffs to poison/bleed weapons to exist last year when I ran her through everything non-Ringed City. And yes, I did have to have a ring slot dedicated at all times to not looking like a horrible zombie. Aesthetics are a moral imperative.

Kirika

Name Origin: Noir, Kirika "can murder you with anything" Yuumura, because this file was supposed to sweep up any weapons that didn't fit with anyone else.
Built Type: Quality. (The designation derives from Demon's Souls weapon upgrades. "Quality" weapons benefited from both Strength and Dexterity.) In practice, this turned out to mean Big Swords.
Stats: 27 VIG, 10 ATT, 40 END, 27 VIT, 40 STR, 40 DEX, 9 INT, 9 FTH, 7 LCK
Melee Weapons: Black Knight Sword, Wolf Knight's Greatsword, Murakumo (sharp), Dancer's Enchanted Swords, Washing Pole, Arstor's Spear.
Casting/ Ranged Weapons: Black Bow of Pharis, Onislayer Greatbow.
Magic: No. Starting ATT gets her 1 attunement slot, but she lacks the mental stats to use anything but Heal Aid (and she has better things to do with her FP than that).
FASHION SOULS: Black set (sans mask). It's severely swank light armor. This is Yuria's outfit (my brother dropped his NG+ copy since I've never actually fought her).
Rings: Havel's Ring, Estus Ring, Chloranthy Ring, Ring of Favor.
NG+?: Yes.

Combat Assessment: "Wrecking ball" basically sums it up once the BKS dropped (I was running Brigand Twindaggers before that, which is not I thing that I recommend humans doing). Ultra greatswords are slow and boring to me in this game, but ordinary greatswords are oustanding. BKS fast enough to get multiple hits in windows that would be problematic for heavier weapons, with only marginally less attack power. It's fantastic. Switch to Arty's when she's hitting abyssal enemies or just needs the moveset (the overhead slam's great for pancaking dudes). The rest of that list's just there for giggles. 9/10. Quality build is supreme in Dark Souls 3. I feel like there might've been a better balance to strike between VIT/VIG/STR/DEX, because she does feel a bit squishy, but there's a reason most people you see online are just facetanking everything with big honkin' swords.

Priscilla

Name Origin: Dark Souls 1, Crossbreed Priscilla. The optional boss that I never killed.
Build Type: Stealth mode utility caster. Daggers only.
Stats: 27 VIG, 30 ATT, 40 END, 16 VIT, 16 STR, 40 DEX, 15 INT, 15 FTH, 10 LCK
Melee Weapons: Dagger (sharp), Rotten Ghru Dagger (sharp), Tailbone Short Sword, Friede's Great Scythe.
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Sorcerer's Staff, Pyromancy Flame, Black Bow of Pharis, Avelyn, Repeating Crossbow.
Magic: Yes. 5 attunement slots. Standard array: Spook, Magic Weapon, Chameleon, Cast Light, Rapport.
FASHION SOULS: Painting Guardian set (sans hood). Worn for theme purposes, but I still love the metal Aladdin boots.
Rings: Aldrich's Sapphire (regain FP on crits), Estus Ring, Chloranthy Ring, Ring of Favor.
NG+?: No.

Combat Assessment: Surprisingly competent. Bosses are often a struggle when all you've got is a knife, because her usual tricks won't work, but some basic utility casting can be amazingly effective at dismantling the actual levels. Paired with Aldrich's Sapphire, Spook pays for itself: cast stealth spell -> run up behind enemy -> backstab to regain FP spent on spell (and probably OHKO enemy). Rapport is also stupidly good. A surprising number of the nastiest enemies are vulnerable to this (notably winged knights, and the giants in Ariandel). Sneak in, cast this to convert an enemy to your side, watch him kill his friends, then backstab him to get the FP back. Hilarious and efficient. This entire formula broke down in the Ringed City, though, and I finally had no choice but to resort to a real melee weapon (Friede's, the only good scythe in the game, and conveniently tailor-made for this build). And even in Ariandel I had to lean on the Avelyn an awful lot. Still, was a helluva run before that. 6/10 for exploration and entertainment value, points off for not being able to handle bosses like at all.

Desdemona

Name Origin: It was supposed to be Desdenova, from the Blue Oyster Cult song, but apparently my brain was somewhere else during chargen. And while you can respec your stats and appearance in Dark Souls 3, you are branded forever with your starting name.
Build Type: Hexer. A question was posed: is it possible to build a functional dark caster in Dark Souls 3. (Answer: only sort of.)
Stats: 27 VIG, 40 ATT, 13 END, 8 VIT, 12 STR, 12 DEX, 45 INT, 45 FTH, 7 LCK
Melee Weapons: Morning Star (chaos), Golden Ritual Spear
Casting/Ranged Weapons: Caitha's Chime, Izalith Staff, Short Bow.
Magic: Yes. 6 attunement slots. Standard array: Affinity, Great Soul Dregs, Dark Edge, Deep Protection, Dorhys' Gnawing, Lifehunt Scythe.
FASHION SOULS: Karla's set (ragged witch robes) w/Blindfold Mask. I actually don't like the latter aesthetically, but what am I gonna do, not optimize my damage output?
Rings: Sage Ring, Dark Clutch Ring (dark attacks+, physical defenses-), and situationally either both sorcery power+ rings or both miracle power+ rings.
NG+?: No.

Combat Assessment: Middling. Dorhys' Gnawing is supreme (if it bleeds, you can kill it), but this build gets totally walled by things that ignore both the status and dark attacks (notably Dragonslayer Armour and Darkeater Midir). And the rest of her skillset is really secondary to that. Great Soul Dregs is incredibly damaging, but by the time she got it, the only remaining bosses wall dark damage, so what why? Lifehunt Scythe is also surprisingly powerful if you're optimized for it, but that's putting her in melee range and that's somewhere she really shouldn't be. Having to shuffle rings is also a hassle (she can't be optimized for both sorcery and miracles simultaneously, so in practice I'm only ever using half of that spell list at a time). 5/10. It's a really different skillset and it's cool when it works, but it rarely feels very practical. Takes a long time to come together and just gets totally shut down by some specific enemies.

Juri

Name Origin: Street Fighter's resident evil Korean.
Build Type: Pugilism. Fucking. Souls.
Stats: 43 VIG, 6 ATT, 40 END, 11 VIT, 40 STR, 40 DEX, 9 INT, 9 FTH, 11 LCK
Melee Weapons: Caestus (refined), Demon's Fist, Crow Talons (sharp)
Ranged Weapons: N/A
Magic: No. 0 attunement slots.
FASHION SOULS: NAKED DRAGON. Running without armor was a mechanical necessity, really (you get almost nothing out of Flynn's Ring if you put on the barest amount of extra weight). I went dragon mode just because Dark Souls 3 underwear is super fugly.
Rings: Flynn's Ring (physical attacks+ in inverse proportion to present equip weight), Estus Ring, Chloranthy Ring, Ring of Favor.

Combat Assessment: People, don't do this to yourselves. It's not worth it. I wanted it to be worth it, because what's more badass than punching demons and dragons to death? It worked amazingly well in DS2. I could argue it's the optimal way to play that game. But not here. Arguably fist weapons have a couple advantages: speed and stagger potential once you've broken something's poise. But whatever value they might have is more than offset by a puzzling amount of wind-up time on your first punch + terrible range that's aggravated by powerfully unreliable hitboxes (you whiff so much with these weapons, even when it looks like you shouldn't). Also, Flynn's Ring. Flynn's Ring, what has become of you? You used to be so good. But in DS3, you get almost nothing out of it unless you're naked with just the one weapon equipped. And running naked really teaches you that armor is actually valuable for damage reduction in DS3. This was not true of its predecessors. But you see that 43 VIG up there? Juri needed it, oh good lord did she ever need the HP. Shit shit shit build, just painful to play. ...Is what I'd say before DLC times. Because the Crow Talons are actually decent. (Not good, but decent.) You have actual reach now. Some of the other problems are still there, but...The weapon art. The weapon art! I'm just gonna drop this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRb3z-53TiM

(No, I didn't specifically try to find an example set to Genesis, and I have no idea why you would accuse me of this.)

4/10, only raised that high for Raptor Flurry. It really is that bonkers, and it has not been patched. It's limited use, risky and highly situational since you're committed to the full attack string once it's started, but it's so good when you've got an opening.

~

So there you go, folks. That's pretty much the last year of non-FFXIV gaming for me, and a testament to what are surely exceptionally responsible habits of budgeting free time.

[Lord Ephraim]

Persona 5:

10/8

If I had to guess with the time I have left, I can only max one of Hierophant (Grefter) or Hanged Man (Rob).  Both don't really give much; guns suck for damage and coffee just gets outclassed by SP Adhesive 3.  I can't believe I missed Star for so long because I have a habit of skipping through phone convos. Jesus fuck shut up Ryuji.

Only the first palace required two trips due to resources.  The second Palace was a grinder but still managed to do it in a day.  Then the SP Adhesives 3 comes into play and one day Palace runs are easy.  Probably now that I have Temperance at rank 10, I might up the difficulty up to Hard and focus on two days for Palace runs.

If you're following the spoiler free daily guide, remember that you can boost your confidant exp once Fortune is rank 7.  I'm way ahead on Tower and Priestess at the cost of a lower Hierophant and Sun.  I think I overdid social stat grinding if I reached Knowledge rank 5 before October.  Rank 5 Knowledge is require for....Star, aka the most fucking boring co-op in the series.  Devil would be completely skippable (like what does security level even do?) if not for the nice Charm boosts and Beezlebub, the master of nulling everything except Almighty.

I will never get used to Igor's new voice.

[Grefter]

5 -  woop woop that's the sound of the police.   Woop woop that's the sound that I miss.

I forgot to complain bout Igor.  The opening sequences with him use the same model they use for his in the velvet room, so he talks with lip flaps moving, but his teeth just in a constant smile and It is an amaaaaaaaazing effect.  Creepy as fuck and the two little girls make it feel even more like the Red Room it is a spoof on and the new voice really fit it.  But then he just ends up talking like normal after that in the animated windows and it is boring.

[Hunter Sopko]

P5: Bah. Sudden Eph out of nowhere. Suddenly I have competition!

10/13. Can't say I didn't see that coming. Surprised they didn't immediately put 2 and 2 together, but it's still early after. Palace 5 boss has The Best attack.

5/5/5/4/5. Can finally continue on Priestess (you need Rank 5 Charm to progress beyond 5). Curious to see how I'll end up finishing S-Links ranks given I haven't followed the guide much except to get the best responses and make sure I'm not missing Good end. Don't feel bad, Eph. I also hit 5's in Knowledge and Proficiency before October. The guide has you hitting 5's in a couple others before it too, IIRC. (If the security level is high enough, you cannot hide from/ambush enemies and they respawn. Often behind you, as what happened to me in the last leg of Palace 4). 

The retro games are amazing. Simply amazing.

Apparently there's no ceiling on the late fees for DVDs. There's a screenshot of someone running up a 43k yen tab. Ha.

[Tide]

So I've been on a Star Wars binge lately. Not quite sure what it is but I've managed to find a couple of fun mobile games for it.

Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes:
I like the core of this game. It's a squad building RPG game where you group 5 characters together and form a team. Most notably, it reminds me a lot about DL related concepts (like how important speed is, how team matches are almost always decided after the 1st two turns or so, etc) and there are lots of different characters to use. Speed is CTB, you can designate leaders, which give unique effects, etc. What I don't like about it is how much of a money sink it is. I'm don't mind paying for things I like playing, but I've definitely spent way more on this game than I like to admit. Still it's fun. Just getting up to near the max level now but still lots more stuff to do. Currently using a Rebel squad of Wedge/Biggs/STHan/Lando and Boba as my fifth. Thinking of replacing Lando with Qui Gon Jinn but we will see how well it does.

Star Wars Force Arena:
I'm not a huge fan of MOBA type games. But I picked this one up and...it's actually really fun. It feels like a real game and definitely one you can play for hours (as opposed to the other one, which is time locked by stamina). You play as either the Rebel faction or Empire and control a hero/leader.  The goal of the game is to destroy the other leader's shield generator. The generators are guarded by turrets and destroying a turret gives you a point. Matches are only 3 minutes long and if time is over and the shield generator has not been destroyed, then the person with more points wins. Each faction can summon a variety of different troops or support options that are specific to that faction but the amount and types you can summon are limited to your deck size, which is around 7 cards. Each leader also has a unique card specific to them. Overall, this makes the play experience under each leader quite different and adds a lot of replay value.

For example, Luke is a melee hero and he has a passive that lets him reflect projectile attacks as long as he is standing still. His unique allows him to call Obi-Wan who can use Mind Tricks to convert the opposing side's organic units. Compare this to say Han, who is a ranged leader, but instead has a 15% chance to score a critical hit (double damage) and can place mines around the field. His unique is to summon Chewie who will taunt and draw enemies to fire on him instead.

What I really like about this game can be boiled down to a few key points:
1) The matches are only 3-4 minutes (4 only if tied score at the end of 3 mins), making them very short so you can play a few matches here and there instead of needing to put a long term time commitment or needing to wait and "snipe" like in Galaxy of Heroes

2) Feels more like an actual game because it is not time gated. So you can play as many matches as you want.

3) Does not require any money to get any real sense of progress. And money you do spend gets you significantly more value.

4) Chat interaction is limited so unlike other MOBAs (say League of Legends), if you make a mistake or play badly or whatever, the only thing people can spam at you are messages or SW emojis that can be interpreted positively. Is that Angry Vader spam just this guy being angry or is he actually imitating Vader? You decide!

Highly recommend checking this one out if you like Star Wars and are looking for a mobile time waster. The ironic thing of course being that, despite this game being better than Heroes, I've still spent way more on the other game than this one just because this one can be enjoyed more without money . I am a bad person.

[VySaika]

P5: Enjoying it enough that I'm just planning to max all links on a replay and leaving some to flounder(Tower, Heirophant, Hanged Man, prolly Empress as well). Moon became less stupid after...well, the point I was at, actually! No longer want to punch him, just kinda want him to exist somewhere other than around me constantly. Priestess is my relationship link, Queen is best girl.

I...generally like the cast about as much as P4s? Skull is terrible in group scenes(someone taped the idiot ball to his ass or something I dunno) but I like him in his link events, but I also don't actually like Teddie outside of the bear puns so they cancel out there. Queen is great, Panther/Mona are fine, Fox's gimmick is funny so I don't mind it, and Oracle is possibly the most relatable character in anything I've ever played. And Noir(it's French for black) seems like she'll be fine too. Generally good cast with one low point, seems on the same level as P4 to me~

Beat the 5th palace, at the point where the Change Of Heart actually triggers afterwards(i forget the exact day). Been just leaving it on Normal becuase I don't hate myself enough to play SMT on hard. Had a couple game overs here and there, all absolutely my fault because I was zoning and forgot to do stuff like, oh, BUY THE NEW GEAR BEFORE DOING THE NEW DUNGEON....yeah, I wound up reloading my save from before dungeon 5 and redoing about 2 hours worth of dungeon crawling due to that one. Oops? I have also managed to get all three Auto-kajas on one persona now, which also has 2 flavors of MT damage + swift strike for just brutalizing randoms.

[Captain K]

Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes:

Yeah I played this a lot when it was new.  Dropped it because of the consistently terrible management.  They'd nerf heroes that didn't need nerfing and buff ones that were already good.  And since it takes so long to get a character leveled you're just screwed if they nerf a main part of your team.  Play Devil Breaker or Heroes Tactics if you like hero collection games but don't want to be fucked up the ass to play.

[Tide]

Well it is run by EA, so terribly managed isn't surprising. I like the core of the game though. I imagine I'd probably drop if it wasn't for that. I'm mostly sticking to the plug and play characters for now since they are more meta resistant and less likely to be directly affected by nerfs/buffs.

EDIT: I'll say play Force Arena if you like Star Wars; captures the feel better and less of a sink. If the DL had some sort of group there, I'd probably play it more. Interestingly, I did see a Snowfire on the leaderboard and thought for a moment that it was our user Snowfire. But then realized that Snowfire isn't really a SW geek, so I think its just an imposter.

[Niu]

Since people are getting there, I'll this important tip here:
DO NOT fight Casino's Shadow immediately after beating her Palace. Fight her on the last day.
You lose all free time if that month if you figure her early.