Messages

51

Discussion / Re: Rate the characters 2: RATE HARDER!

« on: August 29, 2010, 05:57:33 PM »

Final Fantasy IV
Cecil: 5/10. Good start, but becomes dull once he turns into a paladin.
Rosa: 3/10. To much damsel in distress for my taste and not very interesting. I don't recall her doing anything idiotic though which keeps her out of my hate induced scores.
Kain: 4/10. Drives the story forward and his struggle was somewhat interesting. I do however wish they had figured out something else than him loving Rosa, that element did nothing but make him pathetic and kills any possible sympathy one may have for him. Had he say been just as capable as Cecil, but Cecil received more recognition for the same effort and that made him feel envious, it would have been easier to emphasize with his situation. However, by not respecting that Rosa choose another man he had absolutely nothing going for him.
Cid: 5/10. Kinda likable for the screentime he had.
Rydia: 7/10. A bit like Cecil in that she has a good start, but becomes just there once her arc is over. I found her more likable and fun though.
Tellah: 6/10. Dies during his arc meaning he escapes the "just there" problem. Also stays dead. One bonus point for his famous line.
Edward: 4/10. Despite all the tragedy surrounding him, I found it hard to care. Him dispelling the heightened gravity with the power of music is just dumb. Had he died after that act I may have cared more.
Yang: 3/10. He's there. Also, congratulations to FF IV for making a "save the party by self-sacrifice" scene have the same emotional impact as a "let's shop from the grocery" scene.
Palom: 6/10. Feels relevant for all the time he spends in the party and then exits before he sinks into the "just there" hole. Also manages to have the only self sacrifice scene that had any impact on me. To bad his revival was anticlimactic, but no big deal.
Porom: 6/10. See Palom.
Edge: 5/10. Kinda fun at times, kinda annoying at times.
FuSoYa: 4/10. Uninteresting.

Milon: Abstain. Barely qualifies as a character.
Cagnazzo: Abstain. Despite him impersonating the king he still comes of as just a boss fight and not as a character.
Valvalis: See Milon.
Rubicante: 5/10. A decent effort at making a boss a character as well. Noble villain, but that's it though.
Golbez: 5/10. Could have been much better had Zemus not existed. He worked as a credible threat and him turning into a hand after a defeat was kind of cool. Him being controlled by Zemus and then having that control simple dispelled by FuSoYa is a kick in the balls though.
Zemus/Zeromus: 1/10. Should not have existed. His reveal just made the plot worse. Also, his hatred being so strong killing him just makes him more angry is just plain stupid.

BONUS!!!! - Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers
Chip: 4/10. The most "normal" one of the cast. Levelheaded characters can be just as fun and interesting as the quirky ones, but this is not the case here.
Dale: 6/10. More fun than Chip, but I never found him <i>that</i> funny.
Monterey Jack: 4/10. Very plain except for his cheese gimmick which is just that, a gimmick.
Gadget: 8/10. I remember her being capable and not much of a damsel in distress. Also likable and her nerdness wasn't overplayed to the point of irritation.
Zipper: 6/10. Likable and manages to express himself well without having a voice.

Fat Cat: 5/10. Pretty standard as a cartoon villain. I don't recall him having any gimmick that irritated me though, so that's always that.
Professor Nimnul: 5/10. Stock crazy scientist. Not fun or stylish or anything like that, but does his job to create problems for the Rescue Rangers to solve.

52

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: August 22, 2010, 10:08:10 PM »

Dragon Quest VIII: Beat it and got the normal ending.

I focused on hit-all skills with the hero and Yangus and that made random encounters much faster than usual. Even at the black citadel I could end about half of them in one round. Being over equipped due to alchemy (that's despite not getting the armors from the casino and not having Jessica actually equip the Gringham Whip) and having two strong monster teams also helped a lot. Marcello in particular dropped in two rounds after my monster teams were done. Bloaty didn't fare much better. Time for post game stuff.

53

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: August 13, 2010, 11:15:29 PM »

Dragon Quest VIII: Unlocked the casino and made about 600,000 coins while watching a few Mythbuster episodes. I got the Gringham Whip, Two Falcon Blades, a few Saint's Aches and a lot of Prayer Rings. I'll hold of the Liquid Metal armors for a while though. Some day I should try a no casino playtrough, but getting great gear is rather fun.

The Gringham Whip is the only major improvement for the moment. The hero has no points in Sword, so the Falcon Blade won't do that much even though it should help improve his single target damage. Angelo does have points spent into Sword, but the Falcon Blade is still not doing that much more damage than his other sword since the higher damage multiplier is a bit offset by the lower attack power. The Liquid Armors would have helped, but I'm holding them of. Being able to buy just about everything will come into play soon though.

54

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: August 10, 2010, 07:51:21 PM »

Dragon Quest VIII: Beat Dhouldmagus and Evil Jessica.

I had a lot of alchemy I wanted to try out before fighting Dhoulmagus. When I was done, I was over prepared for him and the fights became rather easy. I did get into one risky situation though which consisted of Dhoulmagus dispelling my buffs and then hitting both Jessica and Angelo twice with Intimidating Shout which made healing hard. Other than that, it was rather easy.

Also, Angelo was my best single target damage dealer which is probably a sign of something. Oh well, that will at least be fixed as soon as I get a good whip for Jessica.

I speed trough the Jessica-less part of the game with Holy protection and Padfoot. Fighting battles feels less rewarding if not all characters are there to get the exp.

55

Discussion / Re: Rank Characters based on In Game Use: Reboot!

« on: August 06, 2010, 10:19:16 PM »

Dragon Quest 8:
Guv: 8/10. Has good healing, single target damage and multi target damage. Also has Call Team to get out of tough random encounters at small cost. He won't be good at all available roles until maybe the end though and is slower than he wants to be. Also, while he has both power and flexibility, I never felt that he wrecks the challenge.
Yangus: 5/10. Good early on when there's almost no challenge and as the game goes on, everything he can do the other characters does better, except soaking up damage that is. He's also very slow. Still, I don't think he's that bad really, rather I think the other DQ 8 characters are rather powerful.
Jessica: 8/10. Great damage and Accelerate is very useful for almost no investment. She's rather frail though and tends to die if she's unlucky with enemy targeting.
Angelo: 7/10. Has good healing and can relatively easy replenish MP. Can also get decent damage. It takes time for him to get both an MP recover skill and decent damage though.
Charmles: DNR.

56

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: August 06, 2010, 09:49:31 PM »

Dragon Quest VIII: First went trough the world in an attempt at unlocking as many places as possible. I then realized that the first content I should unlock is the Argonia Bazaar since that will unlock the most alchemy recipes and did that. Dhoulmagus is going to wait though until I've done almost everything else I can do prior to fighting him.

57

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: August 03, 2010, 07:16:59 PM »

Dragon Quest VIII: Had the alchemy pot (and the horse who for some reason didn't resist) stolen, got it back and then did the quests that gets me a ship. Also cleared two arena ranks. I'm currently moving around and unlocking places for my Zoom spell.

Random encounters are really easy with my builds. Super Throw + Thin Air leaves very little alive. Yangus' Thin Air will eventually lose it's edge, but by then I should have other options. As has been noted, the hero lacks a good boss killer move. I think only Dhoulmagus will be a problem though and it shouldn't get worse than that I have to beat form 1, wipe, then beat form 2.

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General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: July 31, 2010, 07:00:42 PM »

Dragon Quest VIII: Cured the emo king from his emoness. Time to go to Pickham and lost my alchemist pot for a while.

The skills I'm going for is Boomerang then Courage for Hero, Fist then Scythe for Yangus, Whip then Staff for Jessica and Sword then Staff for Angelo. I haven't decided what to go for when I've completed those goals. In any case, it's working out nicely so far.

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General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: July 31, 2010, 12:52:11 AM »

Make sure you're using Seth and Duessel if you aren't already.

The one time I did HM Phantom Ship I found it ludicrously easy, but I did have an RNG blessed, avoid-supported Lute who was basically immune to everything, and Ephraim wasn't far off. Seth is who I recall using to kill off the flyers in the back, though I barely remember them so I can't really offer more specific advice, unfortunately. Oh, and Neimi for the gargoyles. Don't sweat it if a healer dies here since you get L'Arachel this map anyway.

I don't have any RBG blessed character. Ephraim will die if he gets attacked by to many enemies and Lute can easily die if she's attacked twice without healing. Neimi can't kill that many gargoyles, most of them used close range weapons meaning she don't get to counter them. What I need is someone (more than one actually) who gets attacked by them and then kill them with counterattacks. Neimi is good at picking of single surviving enemies though. She could also have been good against the eyeballs, but three hits will kill her and their accuracy against her is 60 Fire Emblem %.

I did somehow overlook Duessel though. I don't know about Seth, at this point I have several units tougher and stronger than him. He may just have the right combination of strength and speed to serve as a meat-grinder though.

In any case, I don't feel like playing this game anymore. Thanks for the tips though, I'll probably pick it up again later.

60

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: July 30, 2010, 09:38:04 PM »

Fire Emblem 8: Got to the Phantom Ship.

Well, it's hard alright. It's not fun though. The strategy on this game relies on positioning and the Phantom Ship has tight quarters while spawning a crapload of fliers. I did figure out a strategy which could work though.

1) Memorize where the enemies spawn turn for turn.
2) Place a character who can kill them with his/her counterattack within the range of those spawns.

As it turns out, I don't have any characters who can perform task 2. Either their counter won't kill the fliers or they aren't durable enough to survive all attacks. Without a fast way of killing them, my frailer characters will be picked off. I could fix the problem by grinding in the ruins, but that really boring. Time to put this game on hold, probably permanently.

Dragon Quest VIII: Found and old file near Peregim Quay. That will do nicely since I find the part before Peregim Quay boring.

61

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: July 25, 2010, 06:48:57 PM »

Fire Emblem 8: Started it on the hardest difficulty which so far seems about as hard as the normal difficulty on Fire Emblem 7. Victims of war is rather tricky though.

Anyway, I've decided to pick Ephaim's route once I get the decision and this time around I'll use more strong characters and less of the swift ones.

62

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: July 07, 2010, 09:51:08 PM »

Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones: Beat it. I once beat the final battle with a character loss and decided to do the last two stages over again. The strategy for defeating final boss without a character loss was following: Eirika or Erpraim attack, the other one attacks and finally Myrrh attacks finishing the boss off. It was over the very first turn. I don't think I was overleveled, so I'd say the final boss was lacking in durability.

I choose mostly fast characters and I was rather lucky with their defense growth, so I never needed any of the high defense characters. This hurt my healers since I often ended up taking no damage at all from enemy attacks and the healers didn't have enough to heal to level up fast enough. Once my mages promoted and could use rods, I ditched my original healers.

The story of the game started out rather interesting, but became less and less interesting as the game went on. I didn't expect much though.

The two main character weren't very interesting. Mostly they were just dull with some occasional irritation sprinkled in. Eirika twice tried to give away a plot critical item to the enemy and once actually succeeded. Ephraim didn't do anything irritating by himself, but other characters just couldn't shut up about how awesome he is.

The enemies weren't much more interesting either. Valter was set up as a powerful and dangerous adversary, but came of as just a fool. Lyon had potential, but I think he needed more screentime in the present and less in flashbacks. Ephraim's route maybe improves that. Still, this is an improvement over the GBA Fire Emblem only called "Fire Emblem".

The game was fun to play though, so overall I enjoyed it. I didn't like the random stat growth though, even if that's done on purpose.

Edit: Medibot's voice acting for Valter is spot on: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3316207

63

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: June 28, 2010, 06:47:10 PM »

Fire Emblem 8: Tana just joined. Then she proceeded to get great level ups. Then I got a character killed because I didn't keep the fact that enemies can also get two attacks of if they are fast enough (they rarely get two attacks unless I'm bringing the heavy armor guy) in mind.

The overall story is still looking good, but the writing not so much. Stop kissing Ephraim's ass, dammit, and give Eirika more braincells.

I must however congratulate the game for making a high percentage of the characters useful. I remember FE games usually having more use impaired characters.

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General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: June 27, 2010, 04:43:28 PM »

Fire Emblem Sacred Stones: Started it and played it to the point where I recruited Neimi and Colm.

I been killfeeding Eirika a lot, I think I overdid it actually. Doesn't matter though, I can always just stop. She was a bit unlucky with her strength growth, but has gotten more speed and defense than expected.

As for other characters, I think I use the strategy of "bring whoever I feel like" mostly. I think this Fire Emblem gives you plenty of side-quests, so I won't be too concerned with character optimization. Not that I think the game will be very difficult on Normal anyway.

I don't expect the story to be particular good, but so far it has done a good job of keeping a lot of interesting things going on simultaneously.

65

General Chat / Re: Puny Miscellaneous Links for Mortals: 2010

« on: June 25, 2010, 03:49:44 PM »

http://tasvideos.org/1555M.html
Tool-assisted madness. Beat Final fantasy V and VI with the same input. Not necessarily fun to watch, but an interesting idea nonetheless.

66

Discussion / Re: Rank Characters based on In Game Use: Reboot!

« on: May 21, 2010, 07:42:49 PM »

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete:
Alex Noah: 8/10. All around solid character. Great for both clearing out cannon fodder enemies and inflict damage on bosses. Most of his skills were held back by MP issues though which prevents him from being overpowered.
Luna: 6/10. Healer with a good MP pool. Lacks damage output.
Ramus: 3/10. Warm body and so on while it still counted.
Laike: DNR.
Nash Rumack: 6/10. Good for randoms, but really bad for bosses. He is faster than the fighters which is a big plus. His status can be useful, but the hard hitting enemies makes testing their accuracy way to risky for my taste.
Jessica De'Alkirk: 8/10. Healer with enough damage output to matter against randoms. As a rule, her contribution will lead to one more enemy killed in round 1 which means she significantly lowers her own MP expediency.
Mia Ausa: 7/10. Like Nash she's best for randoms, but her buffing makes her better against bosses. She also has a better selection of offensive spells. Unfortunately, she suffers from speed issues for a while.
Ghaleon: DNR.
Kyle: 7/10. Like Alex, but somewhat weaker. He has a worse skillset, but for 95% of the game it doesn't matter since fighters rarely need something else than attack and their respective single target move.
Tempest: 6/10. He plays similar to mages in terms that he area of effect nukes them and doesn't have a high single target damage move. For the dungeon he joins in he is really useful though since you don't have Mia. Also, combining his Flash Arrow with Nash's sleep makes really short work of cannon fodder enemies since Flash Arrow is physical and sleep makes physical attacks auto critical.

Anyway, about speed. Being faster than enemies is rarely a problem since they tend to be slow. However, you really want mages to be faster than fighters. Let's say that Alex has three attacks and only need two to kill an enemy after the mages nuked it. If the mages goes before Alex, he will kill one and then use his last attack on another enemy. However, if Alex is faster he will use all three attacks on the same enemy wasting one of the attacks. Chance is Kyle will also waste one attack and with two attacks to kill one enemy it makes one less killed. In my experience that extra enemy increases the damage you take by about 50% which has a very significant impact on Jessica's MP expedience and since enemies hits rather hard you at least quadruples the chance that one character will be knocked out.

67

Discussion / Re: Rate the characters 2: RATE HARDER!

« on: May 02, 2010, 04:39:49 PM »

Crono Trigger

Crono - 5/10. Occasionally had something going for him (self sacrifice, his reaction when his mom disappeared in time), but is most of the time just a boring silent main.
Marle - 7/10. We've seen the rebellious princess before, but at least I felt she had something to rebel against as opposed to several other rebellious princesses who rebelled against logic. Between her tomboyish personality and her attitude of taking action, I rather liked her.
Lucca - 6/10. Somewhat cool, but during her scenes with Robo, she felt like Robo's foil. She doesn't have much else going for her.
Frog - 4/10. His accent didn't do much for me and I didn't find his plight interesting either.
Ayla - 4/10. She had a few minor things going for her, but none of them really did anything.
Robo - 6/10. Well known archetype, but enjoyable for the screentime he has.
Magus - 8/10. Stylish and I like that he never redeemed himself. His plan didn't seem to make much sense (let's challenge Lavos alone), but that suits his personality.

Ozzie - 4/10. Sometimes amusing, but no more than that.
Flea - 3/10. Him being a tranny did nothing for me.
Slash - 3/10. He's something to hit.
Azala - 4/10. Does get the job of being a temporary adversary done.
Schala - 4/10. Don't care much about her.
Queen Zeal - 5/10. She works as a power hungry fool, but lacked style and ultimately was little more than yet another temporary adversary.
Lavos - 7/10. Had a very effective scene of destruction and does a good job of gluing CT's story together. Somehow still didn't feel like that much of a threat, unlike say Sin.

68

Discussion / Re: Rate the characters 2: RATE HARDER!

« on: April 23, 2010, 06:33:44 PM »

Make up exam:

Ultros- 6/10. He was funny, but not that funny.

Classic game:

Tidus- 5/10. One problem with him is the general jackassery. Calling the adventure his story is the most notable example. Another problem is his "I'll think of something" attitude which didn't work for 90% of the game, but suddenly everyone went along with it for the endgame. On the other hand, while I didn't find Tidus himself enjoyable, he did make a lot of other things work.
Yuna- 5/10. It's nice that they go for a strong willed girl as female lead. However, the sheer stupidity with going along with the Seymour marriage doesn't do her any credit. Other events, although minor compared to accepting Seymour proposal, helps setting her up as a silly girl. For example, she apologized for Tidus misbehavior.
Wakka- 8/10. Generally well done. When he said something stupid, I wanted to punch him, not the writer. He had meaningful interaction with everyone except Kimarhi (who doesn't count) and the writer did a god job with nature vs nurture. Still, he lacks the extra that necessary to move into the realm of awesome.
Lulu- 5/10. She's sometimes cool, but not that much really. Mostly she's just generic.
Kimarhi- 3/10. Didn't seem very useful to the plot. He had a few good scenes, but they are way to diluted by him being forgettable 90% or more of the time.
Auron- 9/10. Cool, stylish and interacts meaningfully with the plot. Has snippets of other things going for him as well. What's there not to like?
Rikku- 8/10. Very likable and has great interaction. I think she was well done with being a cheerful person in nature thrown into a situation which is anything but cheerful.

Seymour- 4/10. I did not like the fact that you know he's a villain by just looking at him. Why not make him look like Dark Force then? Even so, I found him somewhat interesting before he revealed himself. His "then pretend you didn't hear that" line is awesome. However, as soon as the cat was out of the box he only got annoying. All his doing something evil and then promptly having his ass kicked made him feel like a roadblock rather than a credible threat. His motive didn't sell me either.
Sin/Jecht- 7/10. I have a hard time rating them as one character. While they technically are the same, Sin has gone trough many incarnations and has been the same regardless of who currently is him and as such has a longer history than Jecht. Sin does a great of being a massive destructive force and generally being what's wrong with Spira. Jecht I found less interesting, I didn't care much about his interactions with Tidus.
Yunalesca- 2/10. Bland and gets one minus point for atrocious style. I think her lack of screentime worked to favor here.
Mika- 2/10. The idea of having someone believe he's doing what's necessary, but in reality what he's doing is horrible wrong is a good idea on paper. I didn't like the execution however. Him calling Kelk Ronso "hardly useful" is too much of a kick a puppy type of dickery and makes him look like someone who does evil deeds with glee. Also, despite being the highest religious figurehead, he came of as the least relevant.
Braska- 3/10. He was rather bland. Also, why did you steer your daughter towards death?
Kinoc- 3/10. His only real purpose is to add to Auron's character. A good purpose, but he has nothing going for himself.

69

Discussion / Re: Rate the characters 2: RATE HARDER!

« on: April 17, 2010, 06:05:15 AM »

Final Fantasy 6

Terra - 7/10. I could do without her "I want to love", but for most of the time I found her likable and she had some rather cool concepts.
Locke - 7/10. Likable, but misses some potential. I liked the scenes with Rachel in which you actually see her, but other scenes in which you don't see her, but Locke act a bit depressed due to what happened to her didn't do much for me. I found myself wishing for more situations like South Figaro where Locke is funny rather than serious.
Edgar - 6/10. He has a few good scenes, but that's it.
Sabin - 5/10. I found him rather bland for most of the time. Somewhat likable though.
Shadow - 4/10. I can't say I cared about him. His backstory is good, but it can't carry him. Often I found his dog more interesting than him.
Celes - 6/10. She does have a good number of meaningful scenes. I have a hard time actually liking her though and nothing about her really invoked much emotional response in me.
Gau - 4/10. Sometimes funny, other times annoying.
Cyan - 6/10. Did a good job with the depressing scene. I don't find tragedy sufficient to fill out a character though.
Setzer - 5/10. I have a hard time understanding his archetype. On the plus side, he does have a few good lines.
Mog - 4/10. A Mog. I think that covers most of it.
Strago - 5/10. Sometimes funny, but usually not.
Relm - 7/10. The most fun character and very likable. Unfortunately, also one of the least integral to the plot and lacks screentime which prevents a higher score.
Gogo - 3/10. Barely qualifies as a character.
Umaro - 3/10. Exists.
Banon - 4/10. Has only a few meaningful scenes and rapidly grows less and less significant until he stops existing at all. Feels more like a mission objective than a character.

Gestahl - 6/10. Nothing fancy about him (except maybe for his dog ears), but he worked for what he was.
Kefka - 8/10. It's nice with a villain who's for once just batshit insane instead of a personification of evil or some guy with a far-fetched justification. Also has a lot of style.
Leo - 6/10. He had one very good scene. Lacked screentime though.

70

Discussion / Re: Rate the characters again?

« on: April 12, 2010, 11:54:51 PM »

I'd rate, except I'm pretty much out of the loop when it comes to new games. I guess the answer is, yes, but only if I find a full time job soon.

71

General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: March 28, 2010, 02:30:27 PM »

FFX-2: Paine Edition? >_>

Nope, the prostitutes are properly dressed.

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General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: March 28, 2010, 11:51:11 AM »

Eien no Filena: Beaten it. I can't really recommend this game.

It starts out rather quirky with the main character being a cross dressing gladiator as well as having two prostitutes as party members. The skill system resembles that in SaGa games, you can equip up to three different weapons and the skills are tied to the weapons. You get access to healing skills by equipping a healing kit which takes up a weapon slot.

Unfortunately, the game goes nowhere. The skills are in theory flexible, but what really matters is how much damage they do and somewhat by how much they cost (weaker skills are more efficient in terms of Damage/TP). Multi-target skills are few and deal crap damage and since there's no magic system, anything that deals damage is dependent on the Attack stat. Skills that inflicts status misses more often than they hit and that's against enemies who are defeated with 1-2 hits anyway. Basically, the game managed to make battles even less strategic than most other 16-bit era games which is quite a feat. Actually, you do want to give the closest equivalent of a mage character long range skills (Crystal weapon skills) since she's going to be parked on the back row, but that's it as far as strategy goes.

The plot starts out quite well and manages to do quite a good job with emotional scenes. However, soon the game slows down eclipsing with a "light the six magical lighthouses. Oh, and you already passes all of them on your way here, so this means backtracking, a lot" quest. Additional emotional scenes are blundered. Then at the end Necron's younger brother appears.

Random battles are ridiculously frequent and 80-90% of all boss fights are Black Devils who conveniently shares a sprite. You spend about half the game with just two party members. The latter could be due to this game being based on a manga or something. On the other hand, I doubt Filena in the manga stuffed the Sword of Filena into the backpack ten minutes after obtaining it due to finding a better sword in a store.

This is a shame really since the game easily could have been much better. Fewer, but tougher random encounters combined with skills with additional effects being more accurate would already have helped a lot. The writers did do a good job with the story at the beginning so there's no reason they couldn't have done a better job later unless following the manga somehow restricted them.

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General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: March 12, 2010, 11:04:37 PM »

Well, maybe. If she otherwise does a good job of covering up.

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General Chat / Re: Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

« on: March 12, 2010, 10:33:51 PM »

Eien no Filena: Started it and played a bit.

This game has you at near start play with a party consisting of on female gladiator pretending to be a man (why is she wearing a miniskirt?), two prostitutes and a writer. Unfortunately, the game decided to be realistic about prostitutes and writers usually not being great warrior and as a result, only one character had good stats.

The game takes some inspiration from Sa-Ga games in that each weapon type has it's own set of skills. There's less weapon types though and you learn skills by leveling up. The game also uses a ATB like system where skills has a charge up time as well.

Random encounters are a bit to frequent and they are rather durable. I'm however getting closer and closer to the point where TP replenishers becomes so cheap I can use the stronger skills with impunity. I'll see if combat gets any better then.

75

Discussion / Re: Rate the bad guys! (Spoilers, duh.)

« on: March 04, 2010, 02:09:32 PM »

Bosch: 4/10. He didn't work so well for me. Maybe it's because of the narrative describing the plot as a battle between friends which gave me unfulfilled expectations. Whatever's the case, the only purpose he seemed to serve was to make Ruy look awesome in comparison, which I suppose is something even though I think Ruy would have been awesome anyway.
Violet Zeno: 7/10. She manages to be a non-asshole who still ends up fighting you without resorting to a nonsensical motivation. Ruy pretty much piled up a lot of reasons for her to come after him and she acted out of what to her looked like regretful necessity.
Mebeth: 3/10. Why try dirty tricks, which can backfire something horrible, to goad Ruy into fighting an enemy he's already bound to fight? He isn't cool or serves to move the plot into a new direction or anything like that either.
Tantra: 2/10. Makes annoying noises. Tried to be scary, but killing a lot of rangers which Ruy has already proven perfectly capable of beating doesn't set him up as an intimidating enemy.
Geegagis & Deegon: DNR. I consider them being characters no more than I consider the cage plant which kidnaps Garnet in the beginning of Final Fantasy IX to be a character.
Deamoned: 3/10. Well, he does serve his purpose as something to fight.
Cupid: 3/10. Make sense, dammit! His inane ramblings aren't offensive though, just defeats any point he may have had.
Hortensia: 2/10. Thank you Lin for cutting her rambling short!
Jezuit: 3/10. Could have been cool. His attitude is quite different from the rest of the regents particular in that he doesn't think highly of the D-ratio system. Unfortunately, this trait isn't very meaningful when half of the regents seem fond of inane ramblings. It's like thinking different than crack addicts.
Vexacion: 4/10. I must give him a point of handling the matter gracefully. "We are enemies, so we fight" also makes far more sense than "we fight because of something about harmony or sin or whatever that's supposed to mean anything."
Elyon: 3/10. I get that he was unsure if opening the path to the sky was a good idea, but why is "can Ruy beat the crap out of the regents?" a good criteria? It doesn't help that he is just as inane as Hortensia and Cupid if not even more so.
Chetyre: 3/10. What does he need the sky for and why would letting mankind get some fresh air be incomparable with his goals?
Dover: DNR. Plotless after-game boss.