What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Yoshiken]

Consoles set up again, so continuing my FE9 challenge. I'm grinding for levels in a Fire Emblem game. I feel dirty.
(lolol 121 turns and counting)

Edit: Hunh? Miracle didn't kick in this time, so he died to an Adept Lightning. Soren's only Lv 10 after 127 turns.
(Earlier, he was on something like 14 and Adept Lightning was 9 per hit. Second hit did no damage so he survived. This time, he was on 18 and took 9 from each hit. wat.)

Edit2: OH FFS. Why do I keep trying to fight the Black Knight? >.<;;
This time, though, I got him down to 2 HP... and then missed. And died. Fuck. That is the third time I have died on him after 100+ turns. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

[Idun]

KH2, by comparison, feels a lot more traditional jRPG like.  Its got more plot shenanigans, is "darker and grittier" (though not to the point that I think the game suffers by comparison, just more of a general tone shift), plot is more involved, etc.    I'd get into examples, but I'm sure its just easy to see looking at the two games.  As a result, by KH2, the series sort of lost its "family friendly" approach, and more geared itself towards a specific target audience, for better or worse.  Though, at the same time, it is still very much "Disney", so some of that childish nature will always remain to some extent.

That's what is so very very wrong with it, yes.  They are taking a Disney character crossover game and trying to make it a SERIOUS ANIMU STORY about their ORIGINAL CHARACTERS DO NOT STEAL.  And somehow I doubt it's casual fans who just want to tool around in recreations of settings of movies that they liked as a kid pushing for that.  It's the "serious KH fans" who want to know about the resolution of the very important story and the bunch of idiots in zip-up bathrobes.

KH1's tone changed immediately with its ending, and plus it was plenty dark like many other archetypal 'children' stories that pick up darker tones as narratives continue, like Watership Down or the Dark Crystal. It's pretty unfair arguing that KH2 shouldn't logically follow with a plotline that offers some answers to its predecessor.

You want to fix the game?  The main character's an avatar, you customize them, there's some explanation about how a bunch of bad guys are teaming up and what not, and you send the player out with Donald and Goofy to fix shit.  You don't need to make this idiotic unrelated mythology to try and get people involved when you've got that much built-up nostalgia combined with visually-faithful recreations of major settings from classic movies people watched as kids.  They're ALREADY invested by default.  You have to work to get them to not give a shit.

Sounds like KH's got you wrecked, and that's a horrible, horrible idea.
-

Actually finished a stage on MMPU. Seriously. I did. 1:41A. My MM needs to slide.

Finished as many quests as I can finish in FF13, so I'm moving on. Revisited Mahabara a couple nights ago for farming of mark booty, but otherwise finished the quests over a week ago. Proceeding with plot as we speak.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Consoles set up again, so continuing my FE9 challenge. I'm grinding for levels in a Fire Emblem game. I feel dirty.
(lolol 121 turns and counting)

Edit: Hunh? Miracle didn't kick in this time, so he died to an Adept Lightning. Soren's only Lv 10 after 127 turns.
(Earlier, he was on something like 14 and Adept Lightning was 9 per hit. Second hit did no damage so he survived. This time, he was on 18 and took 9 from each hit. wat.)

Edit2: OH FFS. Why do I keep trying to fight the Black Knight? >.<;;
This time, though, I got him down to 2 HP... and then missed. And died. Fuck. That is the third time I have died on him after 100+ turns. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

Miracle only kicks in Luck% of the time, which is a relatively small minority at best. Don't count on it.

Man why the hell are you fighting the Black Knight. Especially after grinding. IIRC you actually have an overlevelled Ike but still ew, don't make the challenge harder if you don't have to. Plus you get a higher-levelled character for winning, unacceptable. (You should choose Naesala as your royal for the same reason.)

[Yoshiken]

Ah, fair enough. I apparently haven't played enough FE to remember skill stuff, heh. Thought Miracle was a guaranteed one.

Because I'm a completionist and really wanted to be able to do everything. And.. I was about to say I probably won't get to use either dragon anyway, but wow, Ena is a shitty level when she joins. ._.;;
Yeah, my Ike's 20/20 already - I would have totally beaten him that time if not for the 85% hit failing me on the most important shot.
That said, if there's any chance of me failing it this time round, I'm just gonna flee. :| The stage is actually pretty awkward too, since it relies on a few key crits/hits - thankfully, all on the first turn, so I can easily reset if Boyd/Mia/Zihark/Gatrie fail to land them.

[Meeplelard]

Metal Gear Solid 3:  Finished!

First off, just gonna talk about the ending a bit in non-spoiler fashion.  Yes, game is like 7 years old or whatever, still feel I shouldn't spoil!  All I can say is the entire plot regarding "The Boss"?  I didn't care for it.  It tries to make you sympathetic and all, but it just succeeded in making her out to be more of a Mary Sue than she already was.  Add in the usual talk about philosophies of enemies, war, etc. that can just be summed up as "War is hell, there are no good guys or bad guys", and it just came off as forced exposition.

The EVA twist...well, I knew there was something up, but what the exact twist wasn't obvious (its pretty obvious there's something off about her in her first scene), though how she fits in worked.  I would say though that the game was setting up for some sort of interquel or something that requires China being a main player, but the Epilogue covered that up nicely.  Also the whole "Snake/EVA" symbolism...I can't tell if that was meant to be blatant or just failed subtlety; could go either way, really.


My complaints about the end game continue somewhat.  Having an Escort Mission with an unresponsive, slow moving character at the very end of the game?  Seriously, that's a dick move and not fun.  There was no excuse for that.  Its like it exists purely to waste your ammo for the final boss fight (which I was surprised wasn't a pure CQC fight, given MGS1 and MGS2), and nothing more.  Also, I'm not sure if its a glitch in the HD version, if this is normal, or if its because I always opened the menu right at the start to alter inventory, but the music that plays in the fight would only kick in halfway (first after she said "Only 3 minutes", then after she said "5 minutes")?  It needed to play the entire fight, because...really, the silence adds nothing to the fight, given the drama built up for it!


Ok, all those complaints about endgame feeling like a lot of worthless gameplay padding (really needed to just go from Shagohod fight to Final Boss fight, Metal Gear Solid Exposition Nonsense not withstanding...asking MGS games to not have THOSE is like asking a DMC game to follow the laws of physics), and what not aside, despite what it may seem...I actually liked this game.  Best of the series no doubt.  Plot was more basic than MGS2's, while not being TOO basic, so it didn't seem like it was getting needlessly complicated of "XANATOS ROULETTE WARFARE!" to the point of being ridiculous, more just "There are bad guys, stop their plans without dying" and the Philosopher's Legacy in this case was really just a macguffin that people are fighting over.  It all works well.

Add this to the game having a sense of camp, and sense of humor, and actually embracing that "this is a James Bond game", and it just works better.  The whole fanboy ravings of Major Zero about Bond was just a nice self aware nod towards the game's nature, really.  And no, don't pretend this game doesn't know its trying to be James Bond; the song "Snake Eater" is totally a James Bond Opening Credits theme, and you know it (not to mention the opening montage is very Bond-like...except without any naked women...so I guess nothing like a Bond montage!); that had to be intentional.

They captured the 60s setting nicely, between the constant movie references by Para-medic (and little nods to projections of the future, like "hey, you'll be able to watch these on your TVs in the future I bet!  It'd be like having your own theater in your house!" "Yeah, like that'll ever happen!"), and even toned down your equipment.  It did make sneaking a bit more annoying because no convenient map, though, game offsets this with making combat improved, so if you want to just kill everything and get it done with, you can.  The game is also nice enough to NOT make all the Support Shield Guys that are infinite spawning like MGS2 did (seriously, fuck that.)  At the same time, making Silencers actually wear off gave you a reason to actually think about your shots, while not being TOO limited on how many you got.
Though, fuck you civilians in this game.  Mostly because areas they are in, its almost like they are literally every, have this massive alert sense, and always hit alarms.  When trying to put the C3 down, I eventually said "fuck it" to sneaking around, and just killed everyone because the Maintenance dudes pretty much always saw me.  And yes, I did use the Maintenance Outfit, and that didn't seem to do shit (well, it did make me think you couldn't use Weapons on that floor, because you can't use it with that outfit AND the game says "DON'T USE WEAPONS OR YOU'LL BLOW UP THE TANKER!"  MGS1 had a room like that, so it wasn't unprecedented.) 


Oh, and THANK YOU FOR GIVING SNAKE A FUCKING KNIFE.  I seriously kept scratching my head at this in previous games.  A knife is like a versatile, valuable tool in most situations really, especially for that, and its a good for, you know, stealth kills from avoiding being discovered (its silent, effective, and works at close range.)  Plus has other uses not related to combat.  Always felt weird that such a basic survival tool wasn't on Snake or Raiden in previous games.  Just another example of improving combat in this game by letting close range stuff not be summed up as either "Choke guy" "throw them" or "Beat them up til they are stunned."

Game did feel like it had a lot of useless items.  Chaff Grenades seemed pointless in this game for example.  MGS1, I used it to get rid of cameras often.  MGS2...not so much, easier to just shoot the cameras down and be done with them permanently.  They are, however, useful for keeping flying drones off you, and it DOES completely fuck with the Metal Gear Ray fight.  I naturally thought "hey, Chaffs stop electricity, maybe they're useful in this place!" but they didn't seem to do much.  Smoke Grenades didn't seem too valuable too, and the Cardboard Box never actually got anything done this game.  It felt like some of these items existed because "They were in previous MGS games."  I suppose having useless items at your disposal is better than a game constantly relying on using gimmick sections like "LOTS OF MINES! DETECT THEM!"  Ok, it has one of those sections, but you can SEE the mines if you're keen, and avoid them.

One thing I do have to snipe at is the Sorrow's "fight."  Seriously, that was just stupid, un-fun and you just got through the annoying unarmed section of the game.  Then having a basically instant death move at the end with a cryptic way around it (because its so easy to forget that option and the game does not give you a single hint towards it)...yeah.  Oh, but its SO COOL BECAUSE ITS GOT AMBIANCE AND HORROR AND WHAT NOT!  Yeah, fuck that, its unfun, drags, and like the most boring shit ever with some of the shakiest hit detection ever.  It is completely forced, and accomplishes nothing.  Trying to make you feel bad about Snake's kills?  It failed, just made me frustrated because "I WANT THIS SECTION DONE WITH."

So yeah, good game, and easily the best in the series.  Some of the convention changes like adding in a Food and Stamina system had me worried, but game does a good job making sure that's not an issue, and regening health naturally actually kind of works in a game like this, because you're encouraged to be patient anyway.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Final Fantasy 8 - At times, this game feels like a war between a person who wanted to write a story with some interesting characters and a lot of people who just wanted a bizarre gongshow. This feels like the point where the battle has been decisively lost by the one sane man. Let's put the 17 year old in charge of a major military operation! Now I will disappear! Cid is a pretty embarrassingly incompetent character, which I'm not sure is intentional or not. FH and Balamb are both bizarre, terrible arcs with just running around doing stupid shit. At least Fujin and Raijin are decent bosses. And then... the legendary orphanage scene. A few things occur to me while I am watching this:

1. What the fuck is up with you Irvine? Why is there no real hint that you knew this all along?

2. Rinoa finishes her speech about how she feels like she doesn't fit it... time to talk about how everyone but Rinoa grew up in the same orphanage!

3. The GF, it took our memories, man. Ooookay...

4. In addition to featuring some very odd plot choices, the scene is entirely too long. When Irvine started monologuing at the end I just pressed X.

5. I generally think this would have made more sense with maybe just Squall and Seifer. Emphasize why they seem to have an anime rivalry or something.

So uh at least that's over! Now we are ramming two things which wish they were Saturn into each other. This on the other hand I enjoyed; subverts one of my least favorite tropes that the male lead will risk people's lives to save his girlfriend (even if Irvine disagrees!) and has some good writing. Maybe this is the last whimper of the good writer before they locked him in a cage for the entirety of the game. Less writing, more TIME KOMPRESSION. I can't wait!

This game is absurdly easy, btw. Randoms are so boring that I just turned on ENC-HALF forever.

[DjinnAndTonic]

That's what is so very very wrong with it, yes.  They are taking a Disney character crossover game and trying to make it a SERIOUS ANIMU STORY about their ORIGINAL CHARACTERS DO NOT STEAL.  And somehow I doubt it's casual fans who just want to tool around in recreations of settings of movies that they liked as a kid pushing for that.  It's the "serious KH fans" who want to know about the resolution of the very important story and the bunch of idiots in zip-up bathrobes. 

You want to fix the game?  The main character's an avatar, you customize them, there's some explanation about how a bunch of bad guys are teaming up and what not, and you send the player out with Donald and Goofy to fix shit.  You don't need to make this idiotic unrelated mythology to try and get people involved when you've got that much built-up nostalgia combined with visually-faithful recreations of major settings from classic movies people watched as kids.  They're ALREADY invested by default.  You have to work to get them to not give a shit.

Also, Djinn, DA and ME are your examples for best writing? Fuuuuuuuuck, son.

Well, what are your examples for best writing?

And yeah, I agree that KH isn't really very good at being a "Disney crossover game". However, despite how much I liked Aladdin growing up, I don't think I'd play a straight-up Disney-only game. It's kind of a worn-out concept with worlds that I already feel don't mesh well with eachother. The only reason I think KH works with Disney at all is because they structure things such that the various Disney worlds rarely interact with -eachother- outside of the villains, and Donald/Goofy. And honestly, I don't think Donald/Goofy work that well in the various other worlds. Sora, and the rest of the "SERIOUS ANIMU CAST" at least have the benefit of being neutral characters as your vehicle for shuttling around the Disney Worlds. They don't clash as much because they don't bring preconceived notions/understandings of them along, unlike Donald and Goofy.

Apart from that, yeah, the plot is pretty dumb. It's almost an exaggeration of typical JRPG plots, where shit like Hearts and Anti-Hearts are such powerful forces that they feel the need to make them characters unto themselves (multiple different characters in fact!). It's kinda hilarious to me, and inventive at times in its craziness.  So that's where I get my enjoyment out of it, but again, it's a juvenile setup, and I don't see any problem with kids/teens buying into it wholesale to enjoy what crazy mythos it has to offer. It's like how dumb the Mushroom Kingdom is. Still fun and creative though. Though the actual sequence-of-events-plotlines of the games themselves are a little too paint-by-numbers for my taste. If you're gonna have batshit crazy set pieces, I say just go all-out weird with it. Too much standard Hero's Journey in the Nobody-Heartless-Keybladeverse.  Yeah, that's right, I think the problem with KH is that it isn't weird -enough-.

And... ugh, your solution is Silent Protagonist? I mean, KH protagonists aren't great, but at least in BbS, the protagonists were better-written and that helped the game a lot, so I don't think Silent is the answer. Just Not-Sora.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I play gaems: FF4 TAY

Theory: Man in Black is actually Kain.

Hooded Man is also Kain.

Mysterious Girl? Also Kain.

Later on is Kain's chapter, in which Kain teams up with all three disguised Kains plus a mysterious newcomer, who will later be revealed to be Kain.

This has been vital information.

[Meeplelard]

Mysterious Girl? Also Kain.

...BAD IMAGE!

[Sierra]

I presume Rob's solution is not Silent Protagonist in the JRPG sense, but protagonist given dialogue options and choices that actually matter, in the WRPG manner.

~

Meeple: Glad you enjoyed MGS3, as it is pretty solidly the best thing in the series. Kojima problems are as omnipresent as ever, but there's a much better ratio of fun ridiculous things to stupid ridiculous things. I found MGS4 a pretty major step down from this. Among other problems, it has the worst cutscene-to-game ratio I've ever seen.

I highly recommend checking out the LP, since there's a million little things you can do to screw with enemies and they're pretty good about highlighting them all. Boss fights at least. There's pretty much always a non-obvious way to dick them over if you're alert (drop BEES on Ocelot, feed poison frogs to the Fear, I think you can turn the hangar sprinklers on Volgin or something). Although probably my favorite option is ringing The End's hiding place with mines and then triggering his alert. The End can actually be cutscene-killed the first time you see him, but then you miss out on his boss fight.

Re: Eva, for the brief time you have her as a companion, you can enter the menu and scroll through her food/medical history just like Snake's. Go back far enough and everything she's eaten will be Chinese food. There are also some...interesting entries in her medical history (that's just rude, Volgin).

The music always started halfway through the final boss fight, yeah.

~

Dark Souls: Faith guy NG finished.  Getting Priscilla's tail ended up relying on--of all the stupid things--Gravelord Sword Dance.  Also went around sucking humanity and killing the blacksmiths for hammers and helmets.  Giant's hammer is actually not bad.  Weird.  Since I saved Solaire I actually had his help against Gwyn where he was invaluable.  Survived even.  Sunlight Spear gotten damage is awesome, but uses is not.  5 uses for 2 slots?  Remove either of those to make it viable jeez.  Also that makes the Miracle trophy get.  Only Fire and Rare Weapons left.

Nah, the real strike against it is NG+ only and mutually exclusive with a unique weapon you need for a trophy. Even with limited charges, I find clerics badly need the extra damage.

[Fudozukushi]

Dark Souls: Faith guy NG finished.  Getting Priscilla's tail ended up relying on--of all the stupid things--Gravelord Sword Dance.  Also went around sucking humanity and killing the blacksmiths for hammers and helmets.  Giant's hammer is actually not bad.  Weird.  Since I saved Solaire I actually had his help against Gwyn where he was invaluable.  Survived even.  Sunlight Spear gotten damage is awesome, but uses is not.  5 uses for 2 slots?  Remove either of those to make it viable jeez.  Also that makes the Miracle trophy get.  Only Fire and Rare Weapons left.

Nah, the real strike against it is NG+ only and mutually exclusive with a unique weapon you need for a trophy. Even with limited charges, I find clerics badly need the extra damage.

Ehhh, Great Lord Greatsword is no Northern Regalia and you need Sif's Soul for a third weapon anyway, so you're not losing some huge break of time or something that makes sense.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

That's what is so very very wrong with it, yes.  They are taking a Disney character crossover game and trying to make it a SERIOUS ANIMU STORY about their ORIGINAL CHARACTERS DO NOT STEAL.  And somehow I doubt it's casual fans who just want to tool around in recreations of settings of movies that they liked as a kid pushing for that.  It's the "serious KH fans" who want to know about the resolution of the very important story and the bunch of idiots in zip-up bathrobes. 

You want to fix the game?  The main character's an avatar, you customize them, there's some explanation about how a bunch of bad guys are teaming up and what not, and you send the player out with Donald and Goofy to fix shit.  You don't need to make this idiotic unrelated mythology to try and get people involved when you've got that much built-up nostalgia combined with visually-faithful recreations of major settings from classic movies people watched as kids.  They're ALREADY invested by default.  You have to work to get them to not give a shit.

Also, Djinn, DA and ME are your examples for best writing? Fuuuuuuuuck, son.

Well, what are your examples for best writing?

And yeah, I agree that KH isn't really very good at being a "Disney crossover game". However, despite how much I liked Aladdin growing up, I don't think I'd play a straight-up Disney-only game. It's kind of a worn-out concept with worlds that I already feel don't mesh well with eachother. The only reason I think KH works with Disney at all is because they structure things such that the various Disney worlds rarely interact with -eachother- outside of the villains, and Donald/Goofy. And honestly, I don't think Donald/Goofy work that well in the various other worlds. Sora, and the rest of the "SERIOUS ANIMU CAST" at least have the benefit of being neutral characters as your vehicle for shuttling around the Disney Worlds. They don't clash as much because they don't bring preconceived notions/understandings of them along, unlike Donald and Goofy.

Apart from that, yeah, the plot is pretty dumb. It's almost an exaggeration of typical JRPG plots, where shit like Hearts and Anti-Hearts are such powerful forces that they feel the need to make them characters unto themselves (multiple different characters in fact!). It's kinda hilarious to me, and inventive at times in its craziness.  So that's where I get my enjoyment out of it, but again, it's a juvenile setup, and I don't see any problem with kids/teens buying into it wholesale to enjoy what crazy mythos it has to offer. It's like how dumb the Mushroom Kingdom is. Still fun and creative though. Though the actual sequence-of-events-plotlines of the games themselves are a little too paint-by-numbers for my taste. If you're gonna have batshit crazy set pieces, I say just go all-out weird with it. Too much standard Hero's Journey in the Nobody-Heartless-Keybladeverse.  Yeah, that's right, I think the problem with KH is that it isn't weird -enough-.

And... ugh, your solution is Silent Protagonist? I mean, KH protagonists aren't great, but at least in BbS, the protagonists were better-written and that helped the game a lot, so I don't think Silent is the answer. Just Not-Sora.

PS:T is undoubtedly the best-written game I've ever played.  It's the best-written game any of you have played, and probably ever will play.  Also of note, FONV, Alpha Protocol, Arcanum, or pretty much anything by the BIS alums.  BioWare can do dialogue pretty well sometimes but they don't even come close to my all-time best list.

And no, not silent protagonist, player avatar.  Crono is a silent protagonist but not an avatar, the Courier is a player avatar but not silent.  See, all that stupid bullshit with hearts and keyblades? Unnecessary.  You can keep in the connective narrative, because that works as a servicable way to transit between sometimes-incompatible settings, but the retarded animu melodrama reads like terrible fan fiction about how all the characters from X show meet a new ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL who everything ends up revolving around rather than the characters from the original property people actually like.  Anything more than a bare-bones protagonist for a game like this will likely fall into that category, so why not make it a customizable player avatar (along the lines of a Mii, to fit the cartoony aesthetic) for that extra bit of "Hey, cartoon me is running around Agrabah like I wanted to as a kid.  Awesome." 

But hey, Japan.  These are the people who decided FF12 needed Vaan in it because their fans wouldn't buy a game that didn't have a ladyboy on the cover and who complained that they didn't know where to go in Fallout 3 of all things.

[Yoshiken]

I'm not really a fan of silent mains in any way, even if that's 'doesn't talk but is characterized by player choices', but I actually have to agree, it would work seriously well for KH. That said, I say that as someone who found KH2 fun to play, but have pretty much hated the series and fanbase (or at least most of what I've seen of it) and have no interest in Disney at all.

----

FE9: Okay, fine, I took Ena. HAPPY?!
...After 269 turns of abusing the boss having free healing. Volke got enough Speed/Strength over the stage to be able to steal his Spear, and Gatrie tanked Brave Lance hits for a while after I gained some levels from range. Soren went from 20/1 to 20/16, and a few others gained solid levels. (Sothe, notably, got to Lv 18.) I also wanted more turns so that Soren could reach 20/20 or run out of charges, whichever came first, but Zihark got Adept twice, critical once and hit with all hits, despite having a 7% crit and a 67% hit. Welp.

[Twilkitri]

Deponia - finished

Middling, nonsensical at times, far shorter than I expected. Not worth the $16 it is currently let alone the $20 it would be normally.

The blurb is a horrible misrepresentation. As far as things go with it being a love story between Rufus and Goal, 95% of Goal's screentime she's incapacitated, and 95% of the remainder she doesn't have anything approaching feelings that way. Rufus isn't crotchety, he's completely up himself and not always amusing enough to balance it out. Goal doesn't just fall out of the sky, Rufus causes it. Rufus doesn't decide to take her back to her husband to help her out, he does it for a reward - and she's only engaged, not married, anyway. The only thing Rufus comes up with based on the fact that he looks like her fiancé is that he can get past a guard because of it, the diabolical scheme being referred to is forced on him by another character.

The trailer also spoils the last puzzle in the game, not that it's much of one.

Goal has all her memory stored on an 'implant' which can be easily ejected by other people (also rendering her unconscious). It's never explained why this is the case, what point this could possible have at all, only used to muck about with her. I'd like to know how she washes her face without killing herself. 'Goal' also seems somewhat of a poor choice of naming for a damsel in distress type character...

So, the Organon want to destroy Deponia, and they need Elysium to approve this - Elysium think that Deponia is uninhabited but there are rumours to the contrary, so confirming that one way or the other is why Goal was going to Deponia in the first place. But then you find out that Elysium is just a floating city attached to Deponia by a rail - and apparently close enough that it isn't out of the question that one person 'rowing' is enough effort to take a railcar from one side to the other. Why the heck would they ever approve it regardless?

The game suffers from the general adventure game malaise of having oodles to do in the first area but comparatively little to do in later areas. They either need to have less 'passing-through' areas so that more time can be devoted to later major areas, or they need to get you out of the first area quicker and have more passing-through areas.

The ending was abrupt and left things unresolved. Apparently there's already a sequel in the works. I expect it's going to turn out that Rufus and Goal's fiancé are related.

All that said it was fairly funny at times, and there wasn't too much in the way of obtuse puzzles. Will note that the maze puzzle was broken and impassable for me, but fortunately it was one of the ones that they allow to be skipped.

[Cmdr_King]

PS:T is undoubtedly the best-written game I've ever played.  It's the best-written game any of you have played, and probably ever will play.  Also of note, FONV, Alpha Protocol, Arcanum, or pretty much anything by the BIS alums.

So we're saying that Chris Avellone is the best writer in video games.

I can dig it.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Pretty much, though I also have mad respect for J.E. Sawyer.

[Meeplelard]

Kingdom Hearts Expect Mode: Been meaning to play this for a LOOONG time, and finally getting around to it!  FF12ZIJS fell through, felt I need something to replay so here we go!

Just beat initial Traverse Town stuff.  HOLY CRAP ENEMIES ACTUALLY DO DAMAGE IN THIS MODE!!

[Cmdr_King]

If you care about things like beating optional fights, I'd honestly suggest doing deep Jungle  before Colosseum.  My experience has always been that Cloud and Cerberus are harder than Clayton.

[superaielman]

OMD2- At Twisted Halls on Nightmare with Uno.  Desperately missing the Polymorph ring on Nightmare (My sorceress is at the start of nightmare mode), it handles those jerk Earth Lords so well.  Thinking that Archers for fliers/wind for Gnolls will be the core of the strategy for the map.

[Luther Lansfeld]

FF8 - So when I was fighting Edea 2 the game glitched and I couldn't see any of the text. Fortunately I was fighting an FF8 boss so it was just a minor inconvinence as long as I remembered where the Phoenix Downs were.

[VySaika]

Entirely too much P4A. Initial story modes beaten with everyone, full story mode beaten with Yosuke. Lost my first online match, decided to finish story modes and practice some before trying that again.

[Fenrir]

Come on Djinn. They aren't pigeons. They're swans!

A few games have evolved past having only juvenile stories for children and dark power fantasy stories for teenagers. (Both with Matrix action scenes) We can have higher standards than this.

Not really... Even the best stuff like ME and DA are still pretty formulaic and play it pretty safe in terms of storytelling. Admittedly, there's some major progress in the right direction with gameplay/story integration and good dialogue-writing, but it all still falls flat of anything beyond genre writing.

Do not misconstrue this as "zOMG KH >>> ME!!!!!111one" or anything, but I'm kinda annoyed that there's this idea saturating the internet (at least in the areas I check regularly) that western genre writing is so much better than eastern genre writing. In general, they both have their problems, they are just different problems. And I tend to find that the eastern ones are blown out of proportion by (probably unintentionally) myopic westerners. In my experiences from Japan, the reverse happens too, though.

tl;dr: It's all Genre Fiction. Fuck genre fiction fans for making me hate myself.

And dude, Swans are totally the natural progression of where Hatoful Boyfriend is going. Hakuchoful Angel.

Recent Bioware games like DA and ME are good examples of power fantasies actually. You become the equivalent of the jedi (or a jedi) after the prologue, then you either become the last hope for humanity and the allegory of everything that's good or the ultimate badass. In both cases everyone wants to sleep with you because you're so good looking. DA2 tried to deviate from this slightly and got panned for that reason.
Writing in these games can sometimes good in spite of that, because RPGs are long and all the dialogue can't be about how cool you are and how bad the enemies are.

Good story stuff from a game everybody has played here = FFT. Also from the top of my head: Planescape Torment, Lost Odyssey's dreams, Bastion, Red Dead Redemption, Monkey Island, Suikoden (when it's not trying to be cute (except with dogs)), a bunch of indie games (these don't have to be neither long nor epic, which helps)
I'm fond of the minimalist style some games have chosen (Dark Souls, Nocturne) but I won't go trying to convince everybody it's good here.


Fez: 38 cubes.
Champollion was a genius

FF13: Wh'at is go'ing o'n

[Anthony Edward Stark]

DA2 got panned for having more blatantly recycled dungeons than Oblivion and ridiculous reinforcements in combat that come out of nowhere more than anything else. Also the ending because what the fuck.

[Monkeyfinger]

DA2 got panned for having more blatantly recycled dungeons than Oblivion and ridiculous reinforcements in combat that come out of nowhere more than anything else. Also the ending because what the fuck.

The combat thing gets harped on a lot these days, but when DA2 first came out it seemed like most people were praising the combat as a step up from DA:O.

[Fenrir]

I distinctly remember a lot of people being disappointed by a second Blight not happening during the game and the lack of huge fights like the DAO finale.